(continued from part 1)
The Pink Pagoda, Sapporo. Tuesday, September 2, 2036. 8:51 PM
Estelle touched Priss' arm and whispered, "Five minutes until
showtime, baby," into her ear.
Priss gave a thumbs-up and returned her attention to the phone
and its too-small screen. "Yeah, so, it's a dive. It's not like
I was expecting much else after the first few places Rick booked
us into." She looked sidewise to the long, elaborately tacky bar
that ran the length of the main room. Rick stood at the
Plexiglas-and-pink neon monstrosity, downing a local beer and
chatting up a gaggle of underage groupies. Priss briefly
imagined the tortures she would put him through in repayment for
this trip.
"Well, why don't you just call the tour a loss and come home?"
Linna's voice was weak and tinny as her sympathetic face peered
out of the credit-card sized screen on the phone.
"Coupla' reasons. One, we've got contracts with 'no-show'
penalties; if I pull the plug on this traveling circus, we end
up owing money to everyone we stiffed." She snorted. "And
two... I hate to admit it, but Rick and everyone were right.
Since we started the tour, our online soundrom sales have doubled
or even tripled in every city we've hit."
"Well, that's great!"
Priss nodded. "Better yet, the sales have been *staying* up
after we leave town, which means..."
Linna jumped in. "Which means you're still getting *new* people
buying your music, even after you're not there to play!"
She grinned and made a "gun" with her hand. "Bingo. It looks
like we're getting the word of mouth we need."
"That is *so* great. Everyone's going to be so glad to hear
about this, you know." Linna's obvious happiness and enthusiasm
was contagious, even over a long-distance line, and Priss found
her mood lightening a bit.
But not that much. "Don't go jinxing it, Linna! Let's see how
we're doing at the midpoint, okay?"
The head on the tiny screen nodded in agreement. "Okay, it's
your call, Priss." Linna's tone grew softer. "You know we all
miss you, right?"
"Yeah." Priss' lips quirked into a small, but definite, smile.
"I know. Wish I were back there, too."
"So do we." Even through the too-small screen, Priss could see
the emotion in Linna's eyes, and realized once again that while
the Replicants were her friends, the Sabers were *family*. She
felt an unaccustomed upwelling of emotion at the thought, and
rode it for a moment before reluctantly reining it in.
"Oh, and before I forget, your motorcycling buddy's shown up
again."
"Huh?" Priss yanked her attention back to the phone. "What was
that?"
"That boomeroid that you raced almost a month ago. It's back."
Priss shook her head. "I've been thinking about that, Linna, and
I think someone's putting out a line of bullshit about this whole
thing. I mean, he didn't act like any boomeroid that we've ever
met. He didn't *feel* like a boomeroid to me, do you know what I
mean?"
Linna shrugged. "That's as may be. All I know is what I hear.
And for now, they're calling him a boomeroid."
There was a tap on her shoulder, and Priss turned. Roy was
there. "Oi, getcher ass onna stage, Priss, it's showtime."
"Right, right," she said, and pushed him towards the rest of the
band. "I'll be right there." She turned back to the phone.
"Linna, I..."
The dancer gave a laugh. "I heard, Priss. Go, get on stage and
give 'em hell, okay?"
Priss smiled. "Thanks, Linna. I'll do that. But I'm gonna get
back to you on this boomeroid business. There's something very
wrong going on here." She paused. "Take care, and tell
everyone... ah, hell, tell 'em all I love 'em and miss 'em,
okay?"
Linna's eyes twinkled. "Even Leon?"
A grin spread across Priss' face. "Nah, I think I'll do that
myself," she said, and Linna laughed again. "G'bye, Linna, talk
to you soon."
"'Bye, Priss. Kick some ass tonight. Even if it is a dive."
"You bet," she said, and ended the call.
* * *
Wednesday, September 10, 2036. 11:25 PM
"Let me just make sure the pickups are in place, and then we'll
start, okay?" Leon asked, bustling around the pen-sized sensors
mounted on their gimbaled support arm. The other officers on his
side of the room stepped forward to help. "No, no, I've got it."
As Leon made sure the spring-and-hinge apparatus was securely
clamped to the table, Daley grimaced. "C'mon, Leon-chan, just
sit down. The damned thing is fine, okay? Let me just give my
testimony and get it over with." He shifted uneasily in the hard
metal chair and resisted the urge to rub the bruise along his
jaw.
Leon frowned, then gave up on the camera mount. Pulling out the
chair next to it, he seated himself on the opposite side of the
table from Daley. "I just want to make sure we have everything
recorded properly. Okay," he pulled his chair in, and turned to
the officers who stood in the shadows behind him. "Gentlemen,
are you ready? Good. Let's go." Looking at Daley, he began.
"Your name please, for the record?"
Daley suppressed the impulse to roll his eyes. "Daley Wong."
"Job and place of employment?"
"Inspector, AD Police."
Leon paused for a moment, then continued. "Can you tell me in
your own words what transpired at or about 9 PM on the night of
Wednesday, September 10, 2036?"
Daley drew a deep breath. "Okay, well, I was driving in for the
late shift I'd elected to take that night, when Dispatch made a
general announcement. A terrorist group that objected GENOM's
alleged use of third-world slave labor had called ADP and
announced that it was going to stage a 'protest' by releasing a
combat boomer in the Ota ward."
"The so-called 'Coalition for Free Workers'?" Leon offered.
"Yeah, that's what Dispatch said they'd called themselves,"
Daley sniffed. "Anyway, I was passing through Ota at the time
and responded to the call. The Morita Federal Housing Complex is
fairly central to the ward, and wasn't far from where I was at
the time, so I drove there, parked and waited for some kind of
alert. I spent about 20 minutes listening to Dispatch and our
forces deploying around the ward."
"Then?"
"Then Dispatch announced that the boomer had been sighted, at the
Morikami Federal Apartments, about half a kilometer from where I
was. I headed right over there. I was the first on the scene,
not counting the FireBees. I didn't see the boomer anywhere,
though. What I did see was a woman and a pair of kids, just
entering the plaza."
"Then what happened?"
Daley's lips quirked into a self-deprecating smile. "Well, it
was about then that I got my car shot out from under me."
* * *
Daley gingerly got to his feet. *Damn, I hurt everywhere,* he
thought. He felt a trickle on his forehead, touched it, and
brought back his fingertips bloody. *Oh, great.* He looked
around for the mother and children, but couldn't spot them
between the smoke and his own blurred vision. *If I hadn't
gotten out to chase them away, I'd've never been outside of the
blast radius. I was damned lucky.*
He glanced back at the remains of his car, now a flaming hulk
emitting huge, billowing clouds of black smoke that seemed
content to cling to the ground rather than rise up between the
towers of the apartment buildings surrounding him. They stank of
petroleum and burning rubber. The woman and her children were
nowhere to be seen, but the smoke could easily be hiding them.
Overhead, he could hear the rotors of the FireBees as they buzzed
the plaza. He couldn't expect any immediate help from the tiny
one-man helicopters. After the slaughters that occurred when the
first 55-Cs reached the street in 2032, FireBees' pilots were
forbidden to enter direct combat with anything other than
construction or mannequin boomers. And what hit him was
definitely the weapon of a 55-C.
He reached for his gun and didn't find it. He risked a glance
down at his belt and his head spun; unable to maintain his
balance, he toppled over, scraping his hands on the pavement when
he tried to catch himself. *Damn,* he thought. *I'm not going
to be rescuing anyone like this. I hope they got away.* His
sight dimmed, and when it returned, he found himself sprawled out
on the ground.
He heard the crunch of heavy footsteps nearby through the
thickening smoke, accompanied by a tell-tale ratcheting clank.
*Oh, shit,* Daley thought. *I'm going to die without ever having
gotten Leon-chan into bed.* Overhead, the noise of the FireBees
grew inexplicably louder.
"<Sutandu sutiilu, laadi!>" The voice echoed around him, louder
than the rotors, clipped and pitched as from a cheap PA system.
Daley shook his head in confusion, immediately regretting it as a
stab of pain flashed behind and above his eyes. It was English;
Leon was far more fluent in the language, but if he could have
concentrated past his pounding, spinning head, Daley might have
puzzled it out. As it was, he had no idea what was being said.
The next thing he knew, the concrete under him turned white, and
he felt himself being lifted. His stomach, until now quiescent,
rebelled at the sudden change and threatened to empty itself; he
could taste bile already at the back of his throat. It almost
distracted him from the strange surface on which he lay: it
looked like blocks of white stone, sculpted and fit together in
some complex, curving surface, but it was warm and felt almost...
almost alive.
The surface jerked again, and once more his sight dimmed. When
it returned, he almost cried out. Smooth leather gloves gripped
either side of his head, and staring into his eyes were a pair of
black goggles set into a gleaming grey helmet. Black goggles lit
from within by a constant play of lines and shapes of colored
light. Black goggles that hid much of the face of their wearer
and gave him an alien, almost insectlike cast.
"Well, well. You're pretty lucky, Officer. Mostly you're just
shaken up, although you do have a couple minor lacerations and,
hmmm, you look like you have a serious concussion," said the
boomeroid, "but we can take care of all that later. At the
moment, though, we have a wild bot on our hands."
Daley murmured vague sounds of agreement while studying the
boomeroid as best he could, given his condition. As the man
gently laid him against some kind of support, Daley noticed
through his daze that the mysterious blotch on the helmet -- long
the subject of low-key debate in the squad room -- was in fact
the olive-branch-and-map symbol of the United Nations. *How
strange,* he thought absently. "The woman and her kids?" he
mumbled.
The boomeroid nodded approvingly. "Safe for now."
"Good," Daley whispered, and his sight grew blurry for a moment.
"I hope you don't mind if I take out this warbot for you,
Officer, um..." the boomeroid glanced down to one hand where,
inexplicably, Daley's ID was held, "um, excuse me, Inspector
Wong." As he continued speaking, the boomeroid reached over and
returned the ID to the inside pocket of Daley's tattered jacket.
"I mean, I know you guys on ADP can handle this easily, but,
well, to tell the truth, I need the practice."
"Oh, no, no problem, go right ahead, feel free," Daley murmured
in disbelief and confusion as his head continued to swim and
spin. *It's strange,* Daley thought vaguely, *but I was
expecting him to be taller and bulkier... Nice build, though...
I wonder if he's got a cute butt...* Distantly, he noted that
the Harley-Davidson patch on the leather jacket had been replaced
by a palm-sized shield insignia with the romanji letters "LT" on
it.
"Thank you very much for the permission, Inspector," the
boomeroid replied in exquisitely formal mode. "I prefer to work
with the full cooperation of local law enforcement, so I'm very
glad that you're so underst... oh, shit. Excuse me, please."
As the helmeted man turned his attention elsewhere, Daley
reflected absently that it was rare to encounter anyone so polite
these days, least of all a potentially insane boomeroid. And
just where did that meter-wide ball of worked white stone blocks
come from, and how was it floating over the boomeroid's hand?
Oh, no, never mind, it was flying off now.
Daley managed to focus clearly enough to realize that he had
somehow gotten to the roof of a building. The various apartment
towers loomed overhead, so this had to be one of the smaller
administrative offices that flanked them. He took a deep breath
and twisted himself around, driving down the dizziness and pain.
He was leaning against the low retaining wall that ran around the
edge of the building's roof. The boomeroid stood, one foot on
the parapet, looking down into the plaza below and working his
empty hands as if he were operating machinery or, perhaps, a
marionette.
"You know, Inspector, you and I are just two bricks in the wall
that separates civilization from rampant crime and complete
social breakdown," the boomeroid noted conversationally. "It's
quite a heavy burden to bear, wouldn't you agree?"
Daley just stared.
Every once in a while the helmeted man flinched and grunted, and
Daley slowly realized that every grunt came a split-second after
the sound of a weapon from below. "You know," the boomeroid said
between grunts, "GENOM makes damnably tough warbots."
"Their boomeroids... are impressive, too," Daley managed to gasp
out. He hoped his tone was as flip as he'd intended.
"Really? I haven't met one of those yet. They really that
tough?"
*Riiiight,* Daley thought, and allowed himself to sink back to
his original sitting position. *I wonder if it's just my
concussion, or have things just gotten a little more surreal than
I was expecting?* Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the
boomeroid glance at him and shrug, then return to whatever the
hell it was he was doing. *Yup, he *does* have a cute butt...*
Daley thought irrelevantly as his eyesight began to dim once
more.
He must have blacked out again, because he jerked to alertness
when the boomeroid started yelling in English. This time, he
could concentrate enough -- barely -- to make out the words, but
they seemed like nonsense. "<Hah! Gotcha!>" the boomeroid cried
out, jumping onto the retaining wall and shaking a fist in the
general direction of the plaza. "<If you don't eat your meat,
you can't have any pudding! And you're going to have to eat your
meat *and* your vegetables to beat *me*, you sorry junkheap!
Take that!>" And from below and behind him, Daley heard a sudden
sharp *crunch*, followed by a dull crash, followed by silence.
Daley levered himself up and peered over the retaining wall in
time to see what looked like a dome of white stone blocks simply
vanish, leaving behind a frightened woman and two children. A
short distance away lay the inert remains of a 55-C boomer;
between his difficulty focusing and his odd position, Daley could
make out no details except that it was prone and still.
The boomeroid waved and called out, "Please accept my apologies
for the inconvenience and the fright, madam, but it was necessary
for your safety. You'll probably want to return home and make
yourself some tea. And maybe some hot chocolate for the
children. Yes, that's right. Have a good evening." Then he
turned to Daley and said, "Ah, yes, Inspector Wong, let's do
something about that concussion. <System, I'm alive. Play.>"
A minute later, Daley, dirtied, bloodied and clothes torn, stood
on the rooftop and marveled at how *well* he felt. "Who *are*
you?" he said to the man whom he was beginning to suspect was
something more than just a boomeroid.
"<Song off,>" the other said absently, then looked at him. Daley
could see the evidence of some exertion in the sheen of
perspiration on the visible parts of his face -- far more than
could be accounted for by the man's relatively restrained
movements. "Ah, well, that's the 64,000-yen question isn't it?
I'm not terribly willing to say. Let me just note that," and his
voice grew strangely pitched and accented, "some call me...
Loon?"
"Well, Loon-san," Daley began as he searched his pockets for his
handcuffs, "I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."
"Loon" drew himself up and suddenly seemed to gain a dignified
presence that belied his earlier behavior. "May I ask why?"
Daley stood his ground and tried to stare eye-to-eye with those
featureless goggles. "Because you are suspected of being a rogue
boomeroid with enhancement/replacement in excess of the 70%
limit."
A few moments of silence passed, then the helmeted man began to
snicker. The snickers turned into chuckles, and then the
chuckles became full-fledged belly laughter. "<'Oy vey,'>" he
finally said between snorts, "<'have *you* got the wrong
verevolf!'>" Finally, he regained control over himself and
spread his arms. "Sorry to disappoint you, Inspector, but you're
looking at 100% California natural, all organic. Not a smidge of
cyber. Where on earth did you get the idea I was 'borged?"
"Well, GENOM claims..."
"GENOM!" Loon's laughter ceased abruptly. "GENOM knows about me
already?"
Daley blinked. "They've been insisting we find you since early
July, because you're valuable property."
"Shit." Loon put a hand to his helmet and began pacing in small
circles. "Shit, shit, shit. How could they possibly have known
so soon after I arrived? I mean, I didn't even start doing the
vig thing until what, ten days ago?" He shook his head and
turned back to face Daley. "I'm sorry, Inspector, but I can't go
with you. By the time you confirm that I'm free of cyber, GENOM
will have come up with some other spurious but legally solid
reason to claim me as their property. I will not give myself
into their hands."
Daley nodded slowly. "I think I understand. But I have my duty
to perform and my orders to follow. If you won't come
voluntarily, I'm going to have to place you under arrest."
Loon sighed. "I'm sorry it has to come to this, Inspector, but I
can't let you do that."
* * *
"And then?" Leon asked.
Daley grimaced. "And then he decked me." He unconsciously
touched the bruise on his jaw and flinched at the pain. "I
didn't even see him move. Then he runs off and jumps off the
roof. I hear a motorcycle revving, and by the time I get back
up, the only thing I can see of him is his back as he's riding
off."
"Did you get a license number?"
Daley favored Leon with a Look. "Leon, I was on the roof of a
three-story building, and he was halfway down the block already.
I was lucky to even make out that it was *him*."
Leon leaned back and said nothing.
Daley leaned across the table and looked into Leon's eyes, a
pleading expression on his face. "Leon-chan, believe me, I
wasn't hallucinating."
One corner of Leon's mouth twitched up. "Oh, I know you weren't,
Daley. We've already interviewed the woman and her kids. They
all agree that one moment they were face-to-face with the boomer,
and then the next, poof, they were inside a dome of what looked
like white stone blocks. Except they were warm and felt soft and
springy, like plastic." He paused a moment. "They said that for
a while they could hear the boomer trying to break through the
dome. Every couple seconds there'd be a dull thump, and the
inside wall would bulge a little, then smooth back out."
"You must be kidding."
Leon shook his head. "Nope. Anyway, when the dome went away,
the boomer was dead. They also saw the boomeroid on the roof and
had a conversation with it that was pretty much the same as you
overheard. We also have building security camera footage of both
the floating stone ball *and* this Loon character bouncing and
somersaulting his way down to the street. No, Daley, you weren't
hallucinating."
Daley slumped in his chair. "That's a relief."
"So... any idea how you got up there?"
"Not a clue."
"One of the kids says a white stone column with a giant hand on
the end of it grew out of the ground under you and carried you."
He stared at Leon. "You're not bullshitting me, are you?"
"Nope."
"What did the FireBees see?"
"Huh?"
"I heard FireBees overhead right before I ended up on that roof."
Leon shook his head. "The FireBees didn't get there until all
the fun was over."
"That's impossible. I heard the rotors..." Daley shook his
head. "Never mind. What happened to the boomer?"
"Well, the lab boys are still looking it over, but the executive
summary is that it was crushed." Leon was fiddling with his
sunglasses and did not look up at his partner.
"Crushed?"
Leon nodded. "Like a, um, well, like a giant hand had grabbed it
and squeezed." He made a gesture evocative of a small explosion
or a balloon popping. "Well, I'd say that concludes this
interview," he added, then reached over and shut off the
recording pickups.
He nodded to the other officers who had silently witnessed the
testimony. "Gentlemen." The officers each returned the nod and
filed out. One gave Daley a thumbs-up; another clasped his
shoulder for a moment and offered words of encouragement.
When they had all left, a thoughtful look drew across Daley's
face. "Leon-chan, I don't know what conclusions you're coming
to, but I don't think we're dealing with something as simple as a
runaway boomeroid here."
Leon pushed back his chair and stood, saying, "I think you're
right." He glanced left and right, as if expecting someone to be
on either side of him. "You know I was already suspicious of
this whole assignment." Daley nodded slowly. "This just
confirms a few things I was thinking." Leon walked around the
table and sat on the corner near his partner.
"I'm all ears," the latter said.
"Okay. This does not leave this room, and it does not go into
any official record. But despite what GENOM says and whatever
this guy 'Loon' is, I don't buy the claim that he's GENOM
property. He's something else entirely, and I think they're
basically trying to steal or kidnap him." His face grew dark.
"And they're making us into accomplices."
Daley nodded. "The UN symbol on the helmet clinches it for me --
he's theirs. If he belonged to GENOM and were going to wear an
emblem, it'd be their trademark. No doubt about it." He paused
and thought for a moment. "And he talked like he was used to
working around cops. 'I like having cooperation from local law
enforcement.' That sounds like someone with national or even
international jurisdiction."
Leon shook his head, still glowering. "This still doesn't make
any sense. If this guy's a UN operative, why isn't he holed up
in some UN or USSD facility? Why hasn't he just gone back to
his headquarters or home base? Why hasn't he left Japan, or even
just MegaTokyo?" He growled angrily.
"Why hasn't the UN stepped in to take him out of GENOM's
clutches?" Daley offered, wearily ticking questions off on his
fingers. "Why haven't they contacted *us*? Is he on some kind
of undercover assignment? If so, why is he being so public
recently? Why is GENOM going along with our theory that he's a
boomeroid if he isn't? No, strike that, I know the answer to
*that* one. And if he's *not* a boomeroid, how does he do all
those things that made us *think* he was one?"
"And what do Ohara and IDEC have to do with everything or
anything? Too many questions, Daley," said Leon, offering his
partner a hand up out of his chair. "Too many damned questions
and not enough answers."
Daley sighed. "I'm getting the feeling that the answers are
going to add up to something so strange that we're not even going
to recognize it when we see it."
* * *
Thursday, September 11, 2036. 9:00 AM
Ring.
"Ohara here."
"I see from my sources at the AD Police that our visitor had a
run-in with a boomer last night."
"Yes. We deployed the 55-Cs in an effort to capture him. One
was to be a lure, and the other was to effect the capture while
the visitor was distracted." Pause. "We did not anticipate his
ability to... engage the boomer from a distance."
"Yes. Fascinating. I trust you had the sense to deploy some
kind of reconnaissance or sensor package?"
"We did."
"I want the raw data immediately, and an analysis as soon as you
have it."
"Certainly."
"Oh, and shall you be needing further boomers? We have several
dozen which have grown... inconvenient. Various models. You may
have them if you can make use of them."
"What's the catch, Madigan?"
"Ah, well. Most have serial numbers too similar to those of
other boomers employed recently by 'terrorists' in Europe and
North America. Entirely coincidence, of course, but you know how
these things can be blown out of proportion. And some have...
attitude problems."
"Uh-huh."
"So. How many will you be taking, Ohara-san?"
* * *
Thursday, September 11, 2036. 10:39 AM
Sylia did not allow the "End of Recording" dialog to blink more
than once before touching the "OK" box on the screen. Inspector
Wong's account of the previous night's activities caused her
concern. This "Loon" was a new, unknown variable in the
carefully balanced dance of forces and influences that defined
the hidden underlayers of MegaTokyo. However indirectly, however
shakily, a multisided agreement that was somewhat more than a
cease-fire and considerably less than a truce had evolved over
the past few years. Now this new player threatened to shake
everyone from their comfortable seats on the sidelines.
Her thoughts troubled and chaotic, Sylia tapped one impeccably
manicured nail against the icon that read, "Boomer Autopsy,
10/9/36". As she followed the report and began understanding the
implications, she found herself -- for the first time in years --
fearing the approach of the unknown.
* * *
Room 2413, The Okayama Marriott. Thursday, September 11, 2036.
3:09 PM
"Okay, Nene, thanks for calling. 'Bye."
Priss hung up the v-phone and stepped to the sliding glass door
that led to the balcony. It was far too hot and muggy to
actually go out there, so she contented herself with standing
with her nose to the glass and looking out across the beautiful
mountainous terrain to the north. In the distance, she thought
she could just make out the famous temple through the late summer
haze, and there seemed to be a glint of water near it; a lake,
perhaps, or maybe just a mirage from the heat.
Priss rested her head against the warm glass and closed her eyes.
It was no good trying to distract herself. *Face facts, girl,
you're worried,* she told herself. *This "Loon" character may
not be a threat to the Sabers, but he's doing just the kind of
thing that's going to bring GENOM down on him, hard. And
anything that involves GENOM eventually involves the Sabers.*
She kicked the metal frame of the door. *And you won't be there
to help when it does, dammit.*
* * *
Friday, September 26, 2036. 9:17 AM
Still buttoning her uniform jacket, Nene raced around the corner,
the centrifugal force of her turn threatening to tear away the
slice of jelly-coated toast dangling from her lips. She hurdled
an intern bent over to refresh the paper supply of a photocopier
and dodged between a pair of K-12S pilots, nearly knocking their
Styrofoam coffee cups from their hands.
She dashed into the conference room and yanked the toast from her
mouth, almost spattering herself with flying preserves. "Let me
see! Let me see!" she insisted breathlessly.
Daley, lounging in one of the less-decrepit seats, chuckled. "So
good of you to join us, Nene."
"Hey, give me a break," Nene retorted indignantly. "I overslept,
traffic was bad, and anyway I only just got Leon's message."
"Well, now that you're here, close the door and take a seat,"
Leon said absently. He stood at one end of the conference table,
near the built-in computer that controlled the room's multimedia
functions. He held a datarom in his right hand and tapped it
gently against his left.
Nene, one hand feeding the toast into her mouth and the other
finishing the task of buttoning her jacket, shut the door with
her foot. It latched shut noisily, and she flinched. Seeking
out a chair, she mumbled a greeting to Fuko, Daley and the other
officers present as she dropped heavily into the seat. She
swallowed with an audible gulp and then grinned brightly.
"Please, continue," she said cheerfully, prompting a chorus of
chuckles from the others in the room.
A smirking Leon stepped to the front of the room, in front of the
large display that took up one entire wall. "Ladies and
gentlemen, the reason that I've called you all together this
morning is because together we make up the ad hoc team assembled
to investigate and apprehend the so-called military boomeroid."
He held up the datarom. "Thanks to one Fujisawa Naomi, shop
owner and apparently a professional paranoid, I hold in my hand
the first video recording of the mysterious 'Loon'." To the
murmur this prompted, he smiled and continued. "Other than Daley
and myself, no one else has seen this clip, which is about three
minutes long. Let me warn you. What you're about to see, well,
it's hard to believe. But it matches the few eyewitness
accounts, and, well..." Nene was surprised to see that Leon was
actually at a loss for words.
"Shut up and slot it, Leon," Daley offered wryly.
Leon chuckled and put on a lopsided grin, his self-assuredness
seeming to flow back into him. "Right. Just remember that for
now, what you're about to see doesn't go beyond this room." With
a calculated flourish, he twirled the cartridge through his
fingers and slid it into the terminal at the end of the table.
Picking up the remote from its cradle on the side of the unit,
Leon aimed it at the wall behind himself and pressed a button,
then stepped aside.
The window shutters automatically closed. The immense screen
flickered and exploded into a shower of black and white "snow".
After a second of this, an image snapped into place -- a parking
lot lit by several tall street lamps. The view was that of a
roof-mounted camera, canted slightly on the diagonal. The full-
color image's quality wasn't bad -- a little grainy, but hardly
the blocky pixellation that a less-expensive surveillance system
would have displayed. A timestamp with blurring tenths of
seconds hovered, subdued white, in the lower right corner -- just
before midnight, less than 10 hours previous.
The clip had barely begun when a pair of 55-Cs dropped down from
above the field of view and landed in the empty lot; the asphalt
buckled and cracked from the force of the impact. Nene silently
noted that their tactical commlinks obviously weren't being
jammed, as one was clearly in sentry mode while the other fired
toward the lower right corner of the screen with its mouth
cannon. An identical answering blast impacted upon its armor
almost immediately, driving the cyberdroid across the parking lot
without actually damaging it.
Behind them, on the side of a building bordering the far end of
the parking lot, a computerized banner advertisement flickered
and went dead for a moment. Then it blazed back to life, its
endless loop of sales pitches replaced with an unmoving string of
zeroes, silent testimony to either boomer-caused damage or a
coincidental system crash.
A flicker of movement at the right edge of the screen resolved
itself into the shape of a man running into the empty lot. Two
glowing, almost crystalline oblongs floated in midair slightly
before him, flanking the man at arm's length as he entered the
camera's field of view. They were angled in toward the man,
making him the point of a surreal "V".
Even with the rear angle on him, the helmet he wore was
unmistakable: it was the boomeroid who called himself "Loon".
The purpose of the crystalline forms became obvious a moment
later, as the sentry boomer opened its mouth and delivered its
own blast. One of the glowing shapes swiftly pivoted around its
outer end and batted away the beam, reflecting it like a
mirror back at the cyberdroid who'd fired it. As before, the
returning attack drove the boomer back without seriously damaging
it.
"Loon" came to a halt and held out a hand. A pinpoint flare of
light appeared in the air a foot above his palm and expanded into
mirror-finished sphere perhaps 35 centimeters across. The
reflective ball hung there motionless. Then he made a curious
motion with his right hand, as if he were pulling back on a rope
and then letting go. The ball hurtled at the closer of the
boomers.
Its impact was impressive -- the boomer was lifted off its feet
and carried two or three meters before landing on its back. A
cavernous dent was left in its chest plate, its edges rippling
and crawling as the cyberdroid's self-repair systems set to work.
Meanwhile, the sphere had rebounded and struck the second on the
leg, apparently damaging one of its knees; the sentry boomer was
spun around by the force of the blow and seemed to be favoring
one leg as it regained its balance.
Inexplicably, at the moment of impact each boomer was momentarily
outlined by nimbus of white light, and a glowing number briefly
appeared floating over its head, ruddy and robust and bright
enough to cast shadows: "500" over the first boomer, "100" over
the second. On the electronic banner behind them, the line of
zeroes vanished and were replaced by the number "600".
The silver ball hurtled back at its originator, only to be sent
flying away by another pivoting oblong. It ricocheted wildly
across and even off the screen, careening off the adjacent
buildings, the lampposts, the ground and even a few parked cars
without apparent damage to any of these. Each point of impact
glowed for a moment, washed with a clean white light, and
manifested a number in lambent red: 100, 200, 250, and more.
The numerals on the banner blurred with each hit, and the number
there grew to four digits, then five.
For their parts, the boomers seemed momentarily confused by this
turn of events. Nene supposed that their tactical 'ware had been
churning through excess cycles trying to evaluate this new weapon
and its threat potential. The sentry boomer spun unsteadily in
place as it tried to track and target the speeding, unpredictable
ball, loosing futile laser blasts a moment too early or late to
hit it.
"Loon" immediately took advantage of the cyberdroids'
distraction. Crystal oblongs still floating serenely to either
side of him, he sprang into a wild sprint that would have taken
him face-to-face with the sentry boomer had he not launched
himself into a flying kick at the last moment. The broad sweep
of his booted foot intersected the boomer's face, and even at
this resolution and angle it was possible to see the spray of
delicate optics and electronics leading and trailing the blow as
it swept past. Almost immediately, it was followed by the second
boot which dealt another hammerstrike to the damaged face.
The boomer reflexively grabbed at him, and was parried by a
flashing sweep of crystal. "Loon", spinning like a top, rolled
through the air past the sentry. Upon reaching the ground, he
flowed through a handstand and into a long, arcing somersault
that took him over and behind the downed boomer as it clambered
to its feet. His right arm whipped out in a precisely-aimed blow
that left the boomer's left arm hanging limply at the elbow.
Behind her, Nene heard someone whisper, "Good tactics. He's
limiting their mobility and using one as a shield against the
other."
On the screen, the silver ball had finally escaped from its wild
series of rebounds and now seemed to be homing in a bullet-
straight line for the wounded boomer. After a moment's
hesitation, the cyberdroid chose to ignore "Loon", instead
letting loose a fusillade of beam attacks in an attempt at point
defense.
One beam missed and struck its partner, bowling the blinded
boomer over and scorching its pectoral armor.
One salvo hit the silver sphere head on; instead of being
destroyed, though, the ball bounced upward, as though it had
struck a solid obstacle. The boomer ceased fire and paused,
evaluating this new behavior, as its companion shakily returned
to its feet. The mirrored sphere vanished off the top edge of
the screen.
At the far end of the parking lot, the electronic banner paused
its wild enumeration at "87,950".
During this, "Loon" had not been idle. He had been busily
engaged in a series of mostly ineffectual blows to the boomer's
back and upper arms, but had stepped back when the rain of laser
cannon fire began. As the silver ball rebounded away, he stepped
in close again and was caught by surprise when the boomer's arm
snaked back and grabbed the front of his jacket.
The boomer yanked him overhead and slammed him down against the
pavement twice, then threw him across the parking lot, almost out
of the camera's field of view. The playback was silent, but Nene
and the others could almost hear the tearing metal and shattering
glass as "Loon" smashed into a car, staving in the passenger door
completely and setting the automobile rocking side-to-side.
"Well, that's it for the boomeroid," Lt. Vong muttered from
behind Nene. Leon, his face awash in light from the screen,
smiled enigmatically.
"No, look!" Fuko exclaimed.
As the car's motion damped down, a pair of booted feet kicked the
remains of the door out of the way and hooked their heels against
the lower edge of the opening. They pulled, and "Loon" slid out
of the ruined vehicle.
"Dear god," someone -- Nene wasn't sure who -- whispered. "He
survived *that*?"
"Loon" levered himself to his feet and stood, swaying, for a
moment. It was hard to tell, given the size and quality of image
on the screen, but he seemed to have a thin layer of dust coating
him; he visibly shook himself, and it scattered away in a
sparkling cascade.
In the lower half of the screen, the more intact of the two
boomers had moved to cover its companion as their self-repair
systems dealt with their most recent damage. It stood with its
back partly to the ruined car; a fatal mistake.
"Loon" dropped his arms into a position that was vaguely
reminiscent of a gunfighter readying to fastdraw. The comparison
must have occurred to him as well as the audience watching, for
he flicked away the edges of an imaginary duster and settled into
a low slouch. Then his right hand snapped up and made the
strange "pulling" gesture three times in rapid succession.
A second silver sphere formed and shot away from him, followed by
a third, and then a fourth. Behind, the electronic banner
flashed three times and proclaimed, "MULTIBALL!" Then he
launched himself after them.
At top edge of the screen, the original ball finally reappeared,
plummeting downward.
What followed was a whirlwind of light and movement that as often
as not was reduced to a blur by the video system that had
recorded it. "Loon" sped through and around his boomer opponents
even as the metallic spheres ricocheted to all points of the
compass. Every time a ball came back to him, one of the crystal
oblongs flung it away again, and every object a ball struck shone
white and evinced a floating, glowing number in the hundreds.
The only exceptions were the boomers, who displayed values that
soon mounted into the thousands. A crazy-quilt of shadows played
and shifted across the parking lot as the lights burst into life
and faded moments later. The banner ad had ceased to display a
clear number; it was a blur of spinning digits.
"Loon" himself never was far from the two cyberdroids, and Nene
and the others watched incredulously as he engaged them in the
midst of the storm of silver balls. Gloved fists and booted feet
drove their way into joints and seams as if their owner had
studied boomer physiology to pick out their weakest points -- and
perhaps he had. Attempts at counterattacks as often as not
seemed to simply slide off of him, and few of those that actually
struck seemed to harm him. One or two blows staggered him, and
more than once he was knocked back several yards, but compared to
the initial slams and throw he had taken, these were nothing.
No single blow -- from either sphere, boot or fist -- seemed
absolutely crippling to the boomers, but the accumulating total
was clearly telling upon them. A bare minute after "Loon" had
dragged himself out of the wreckage of the car, both boomers were
effectively crippled. Each had had knee and ankle joints
pummeled into mangled junk. One was missing a leg entirely; the
other one had a shattered arm that hung limply, fluids and sparks
spraying weakly from the elbow. They no longer used the sentry-
and-combatant tactic with which they had begun this battle; they
now knelt back-to-back, supporting each other and trying to lash
out at the boomeroid without knocking themselves over.
While the storm of attacks from boomeroid and silver spheres had
taxed the boomers' self-repair systems to their maximum, they
were still working. As "Loon" danced away after a rain of
punches, the more intact of the cyberdroids staggered to its
feet. This seemed to delight the boomeroid, who paused in his
constant motion to crouch and make a "come here" gesture with
both hands at the now-erect boomer.
It turned and tried to flee.
Every fighter eventually makes a mistake -- it is all but a law
of nature, and has proven the downfall of many a soldier and
police officer. Nene gasped as, at two minutes and forty-seven
seconds into the recording, "Loon" made his critical, perhaps
deadly, mistake. He had chased the stumbling boomer around the
parking lot, toying with it and teasing it into describing a
great arc as overhead, metallic silver balls bounced from wall to
wall and never approached ground. Pounding with foot and fist
into slowly-crumpling and -tearing Abotex, "Loon" had herded it
around to and past its starting point. And as he passed the
second, still-crippled boomer, he left his back open for a moment
too long. Seeing the opportunity, the damaged cyberdroid opened
its chest plates and mustered enough power to fire a point-blank
heat cannon blast into Loon's spine.
It splashed like a fire hose against a brick wall.
A susurrus of shocked whispers broke out in the briefing room at
the sight, and someone behind Nene let out a low whistle.
Six inches from grey leather, the faintly-visible beam
splattered, its deadly radiance reflected in all directions but
toward its target and forming a glowing hemisphere of red-orange
centered upon his back. The backwash caught the damaged boomer
by surprise; the still-powerful energies liquefied the asphalt
below its knees even as it seared and scorched the cyberdroid's
armor. The boomer clumsily hauled itself backwards and cycled
the shutters over its optics several times.
Then four silver balls struck it simultaneously from four
directions. Its damaged torso armor collapsed under the impact,
and then its chest imploded. The four balls collided in its
shattered chest cavity before exploding back out to continue
their paths. White light suffused the boomer's body, and over
its head the English word "<TILT!>" flared into life. Then the
glow and the letters faded away, and the boomer's lifeless body
toppled over to lie motionless on the asphalt.
The electronic banner flashed "X5 MULTIPLIER!!!"
And a scant ten feet away, "Loon" pummeled the remaining Bu55-C
combat boomer into collapse with only his gloved hands.
In less than three minutes, he had taken two cyberdroids, each
easily equal to a light tank in combat, and had reduced both to
scrap.
As the recording wound down, "Loon" stood over the bodies of his
opponents, his chest heaving visibly. The silver balls appeared
to have vanished.
After a few moments, his breathing returned to normal. He looked
down at the boomers and thumbed his nose at them, then looked up
and around, as if searching the windows of the overlooking
buildings. His gaze fell upon the security camera, and he waved
enthusiastically. Then he spun on his heel and loped off
unevenly to vanish into the shadows. The banner ad flickered,
and returned to its endless stream of pitches and come-ons. And
the boomers lay in slowly spreading pools of liquid.
The screen dissolved into static.
There was silence in the briefing room for almost a minute. From
where he leaned against the wall, Leon snorted and asked, "Do you
want to see it again?" At the mass exhalation of affirmatives,
he pressed "play" once more.
As the second playing ended, Nene shook her head. This time
she'd noted that "Loon", far from being miraculously unscathed
after the battle, was in fact favoring one side as he ran off.
Somehow, that seemed to humanize him for her -- he wasn't some
kind of unstoppable combat machine, after all. But that didn't
mean that what she'd seen was any less remarkable.
Leon gestured with the remote control, and the screen shut down.
The window shutters reopened, allowing shafts of golden morning
light back into the room. The occupants were dazzled for a
moment; when their eyesight had returned, Leon stood before the
now-black screen.
"A few points," he began without preamble. "Daley and I have
come to the conclusion that GENOM is lying when they say this
guy's a boomeroid and he's theirs."
"We think he might be the result of some secret UN boomer-
killer project," Daley interjected. "It would explain a lot of
the unanswered questions we have about him."
"And GENOM feels rather deservedly threatened by the existence of
equipment or a process that allows a single human to turn boomers
into so much recyclables," Leon continued. "They want him, and
they want him with as little fanfare as possible."
"Probably to see if there's a weakness to exploit or use as a
counter," Daley appended.
Leon nodded. "Now, what we don't know. We don't know how he
does it. We don't know, really, what it is that he does,
exactly. Probably no one other than our hypothetical UN project
knows. All we know is what we've seen. He's demonstrated
something that all the experts we've talked to say is impossible --
a 'force field', however unreliable it appears. He's far
faster and more agile than an unaugmented human. He shrugs off
the kind of damage that would put some of our best into the
hospital for weeks; hell, that would wreck a K-12S. He seems to
be able to produce physical objects out of thin air. He can also
heal injuries with a touch."
Daley raised a finger. "I can attest to that last one from
personal experience."
"He claims to have no cybernetic implants at all, and found the
suggestion that he did quite amusing." Leon paused, looked down,
and frowned. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, cupping his hand
around his mouth.
"So," Fuko asked, "where do we go from here?"
Daley nodded to himself as Leon looked up. "Well, that's the
quandary. *If* this 'Loon' is telling the truth about his
nature, then we have no jurisdiction over him. We need to find
that out for sure. If we can confirm that, maybe we can come up
with some way to catch GENOM red-handed at some dirty work."
"In the mean time," Daley added, "we continue in our current
tasks. Anything we can uncover to ascertain the truth of either
his claim or GENOM's will help us with the eventual disposition
of this case."
Leon resumed. "As usual, before you go I just want to re-
emphasize: no discussion of this case in the squad room or
around the water cooler or whatever. It's a fact of life around
here that GENOM and other organizations have their connections,
channels and yes, even spies in the ADP. If necessary, take your
conversations completely out of the building." Leon paused
momentarily, and Nene had the distinct, uncomfortable impression
he was avoiding her eyes and looking everywhere -- anywhere --
else in the room. "In addition, commit as little as possible on
this case to your computers. Keep memos to a minimum, hand-write
any you absolutely must send, and shred those you receive. We
can't keep everything completely secret, but we can at least
*hinder* the flow of information out of the department. Everyone
got that?"
There was a general mumble of agreement, and Leon grinned. "Okay
then, people, you're dismissed."
As the other officers filed out of the conference room, Nene hung
back with Leon and Daley. Something about the way Leon had
talked about spies in the ADP worried her. *Maybe I should just
ask him outright what he suspects,* she thought, but when the
room was finally empty and she was face to face with the
inspector, her will deserted her. "Um... that stuff with the
flying balls was really weird," she found herself inanely
chattering.
Leon raised an eyebrow. "Yeah," he replied.
"How do you think he does it?"
"I don't know."
>From where he sat, Daley grinned and added sotto voce, "What
makes him so good?"
Nene looked over at him. "Huh?"
Daley's grin grew larger. "Well, it's obvious that he's a
pinball wizard. And that there has to be a twist."
"I don't get it," she pouted. She returned her gaze to Leon, who
was favoring his partner with an odd look.
"I don't, either," he rumbled.
Daley chuckled. "Never mind, you two. Just an old song that all
this reminded me of."
"Riiight," Leon and Nene both intoned together.
* * *
Monday, October 27, 2036. 11:21 PM
The moon was almost my only light as I ghosted my way down the
alley toward the larger, better-lit road. Just at its first
quarter, it wasn't really enough illumination for unaided eyes;
through my goggles' night vision system, though, it bathed the
warehouses to either side of me in a soft-edged glow. The chill
breeze that swirled dry leaves and loose paper around my feet
testified in its whisper of a voice that the long summer of 2036
was well and truly over, and that autumn would be merely a brief
harbinger of winter to come.
My last encounter with boomers, just about a month prior, was a
lot closer than I liked to think about. I barely ended the fight
under my own power. If it hadn't been for the fact that the
pinballs from "Pinball Wizard" are semiautonomous, I'd probably
have ended up either dead or in some high security hospital ward.
I'd been thoroughly pissed at myself for over a week because I'd
made exactly the same mistake I had committed with the builderbot
in the dance club -- I'd gotten overconfident and got in too
close too soon without taking precautions, and I let myself get
creamed. And it also didn't help that the damn warbots
regenerated a lot of their damage.
As a result, I'd found myself drawing on the node under the city
for a little extra oomph. I originally didn't want to tap it at
all -- what happened during my attempt to rescue Delandra from
her kidnappers had made me *very* wary of trying to supercharge
my metatalent by chugging down raw mana. But the node was so
damn large, and the mana was so pervasive throughout the city,
that it was hard to resist. I figured I'd learned my lesson
about restraint, though. Besides, the node was big enough that
there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to suck it
down whole the way I did the little one near that Hardornan keep.
I'd probably explode if I tried. Not that what happened to me in
the keep was much better, but that's another story.
One thing that surprised me in the wake of the last two battles
was that I was still undercover. I do my share of egosurfing on
the Tapestry back home, looking for my appearances in the news
and opinion weavesheets. When I did the same here, expecting to
find a classic vig's "Who is he?" coverage, there was nothing.
Absolutely nothing. Oh, I found stories on the bot attacks, but
my part in their resolution was conveniently missing. For
whatever reasons it had, ADP (or someone else) was keeping my
existence under wraps. That both intrigued and worried me.
Finding out that GENOM knew about and was actively looking for me
was a shock. Learning that threw me into a 24-hour fit of
paranoid re-evaluation of my tactics and security measures. In
my misplaced confidence, I'd frequently gone out in full duty
uniform without a second thought about it; I immediately stopped
that practice. Even almost two and a half years out, I found
myself slipping into habits and behaviors that, while harmless at
home, put me at a serious risk here. I made a conscious effort
to avoid going out in public in helmet and leathers unless I
absolutely needed to. I wore my polykev every day, though --
just in case. Wash'n'wear body armor is *so* convenient...
However, there was no disputing that I was still needed, so I
kept an ear open for alerts on the ADP band radio I'd built for
myself at work. (Actually, I had two -- the tabletop model that
I kept in my apartment, and the piggyback circuit I installed in
my helmet radio to decrypt ADP broadcasts while I was out and
about. No use responding to a call if I couldn't coordinate with
or work around the local police once I got there, right?)
In the mean time, I risked two more attempts at opening a gate.
Major rogue boomer incidents that required high-firepower
responses -- the kind of incident that would require *me* or the
Knights -- had averaged about two or so weeks apart at their most
frequent. I bet on those averages and tried to open a gate the
day after I took out those two warbots, and then again about
three weeks later. For the first, I tried Peter Gabriel's
"Solsbury Hill", hoping the repetition of "I've come to take you
home" would prove to be the key. Unfortunately, it didn't. The
second was the Who's "Going Mobile" (also with frequent
references to "going home"), but it crapped out, too. And of
course, both songs burnt me out again. Bleagh.
In between the two tries, I finally got a chance to see the
Knight Sabers in action.
On the night of October tenth I'd heard the call go out on the
ADP band about a trio of boomers loose in Tinsel City. I'd just
come out of burnout, so I hopped on my bike and tried to get to
the scene fast enough to do some good. I was almost there when
the voice of the informative Inspector Wong crackled across the
airwaves to announce that the Knight Sabers had been spotted on
their way; he ordered ADP forces to fall back lest they get
caught in the crossfire. I could see I probably wasn't going to
be needed this time, but it was the opportunity to gather a
little intel. After a quick stop in one of MegaTokyo's
ubiquitous 24-hour convenience stores, I found myself a perch
overlooking the battle zone.
"<System, access song 'Kodachrome'. System, play.>" With the
helmet not in combat mode, I needed to use the longer command
syntax. But since I wasn't in a critical situation, it didn't
matter. I was looking down at a broad avenue, along the middle
of which a very energetic fight was progressing. As Paul Simon
began to sing, the fully-automatic Nikon camera materialized in
my hands, its long, heavy telephoto lens threatening to seesaw it
out of my grasp.
With one eye on the street, I popped open the back of the camera
body and discarded the roll of 35 mm film I found inside; it was
a useless virtual object unless I could process and print it
before the song was over. Not bloody likely. Instead, I dropped
in one of the rolls I'd picked up on my way, and shut the
case. Thank god digitals hadn't yet completely supplanted old-
fashioned film here. There was a whirring as the camera
automatically loaded, and a shuttersnap when it advanced to the
first frame. I brought it up and started snapping pictures.
The first thing I noticed now that my attention was on the fight
below was that the Blue Knight was missing. For some reason, I
felt vaguely disappointed at this. The remaining three Knights
at first seemed about evenly matched with the three warbots they
faced. As they engaged the enemy, I did a tactical eval on them,
supplementing what little intel I'd eked out of the few photos
and recordings I'd seen. Lady Olive was clearly the best of the
three in combat, definitely a Warriors-level fighter. But Lady
White wasn't far behind her. Lady Pink demonstrated that she was
competent, but she obviously preferred a rear-echelon support
role of some sort.
On a hunch, I had my computer run a wideband scan and picked up
several unusual radio signals. A couple sounded like encrypted
communications -- whether voice or data, I wasn't sure. (I was
regretting never getting around to putting in that extra volatile
memory as I'd planned, since it meant I couldn't record and study
the transmissions later. Ah well.) Another set of signals were
clearly some kind of electronic countermeasures. I had noticed
that these three boomers were far less well-coordinated than the
pair I'd confronted, acting as individuals rather than a team,
and I attributed that to Pink's efforts. I could see that it
made a real difference in the robots' tactics and performance.
And they did need it, without Blue there. With Pink engaging the
opposition as little as she could, Olive and White were hard-
pressed to manage three opponents. As good as they were, they
had to put more effort into defense than into offense, until
after long minutes they managed to take down one of the bots.
After that, though, it was a slaughter. Without the need to
watch their backs against a third opponent, they each took on a
boomer and killed it in seconds.
As the Knights departed and the ADP moved in, I rewound the film.
I popped it out just before the song ended and the camera
vanished. I'd get it developed shortly -- maybe Lisa could
recommend a good photo lab, even if she did prefer digital
cameras.
While I waited for the streets to clear of police before heading
home, I considered what I had just seen. Against an equal number
of boomers, the current roster of Knight Sabers could handle
themselves, but any more and they might be in trouble. In such a
case, they just might appreciate a hand.
Which leads me to the night of October 27, 2036.
About two and a half weeks after the fight I'd watched, almost
precisely on the dot by my hypothetical "schedule", there was
another boomer incident. And, as was also usual, it happened at
night. This time, ADP reported five boomers of the ubiquitous
55-C model rampaging in a loose formation through a warehouse
district on the bayfront. I was almost disappointed that it
wasn't *four* warbots -- it would have made such a lovely,
predictable pattern. Ah, well.
When I heard the alert I burst out of my apartment with my jacket
still unclasped and my helmet in my hand. I practically bowled
over Lisa, who was just leaving of her apartment, too. I burbled
an apology and ran for the fire stairs -- I could take those a
flight at a time and be in the basement far faster than the
elevator could get me there. A few minutes later, I was on the
road.
Like the last time, the Knights arrived before I did. After
slipping through the ADP lines, I stashed my cycle in an alleyway
near the action. Rather than leap into the middle of things, I
found myself a vantage point from which to watch the battle. I
wanted to see what was happening before I involved myself. In
the unlikely event that they didn't need my help, I wasn't going
to step in and look like a glory hound.
By the time I got a glance at the action, they were already hip-
deep in the fight. They had the support of some kind of well-
armed robots -- three of them, of varying sizes, from the metal-
skeleton-and-open-motive-machinery school of design (as opposed
to boomers' rather organic smoothness), and which for some reason
seemed to have large pneumatic tires as shoulder blades. Or
maybe wings.
Have I mentioned that I don't yet quite understand all the
aesthetics of machine design in MegaTokyo?
And there was something about the candy-apple red fairings and
cowlings that covered parts of the bots that tugged
unsuccessfully at my memory.
Anyway.
I couldn't spot Pink right away, which made me think for a moment
that the Knights were rapidly losing members. Then a flash of
color caught my eye and I realized that she was actually *inside*
the largest of the open-frame bots, wearing it like an
exoskeleton. Or maybe riding it from the inside, since it was
taking potshots at the boomers while she was busy doing something
else -- probably ECM, if I was right about her role in the
Knights. "<And by the way, which one's Pink?>" I murmured to
myself in a moment of amusement.
The Knights' bots -- including the one housing Lady Pink -- were
all carrying what looked like small artillery pieces modified for
use as longarms by giants. If those automatons had actually been
able to shoot at the boomers, the battle might have been over
quickly. Unfortunately the skeletal robots were limiting their
contribution to laying down suppression and covering fire. I
supposed that it was to keep the boomers from engaging their jump
jets and leapfrogging their organic opposition into a hammer-and-
anvil. As a result, most of their shots ended up blowing holes
and gouges and clouds of cement dust out the cinderblock walls
that constrained the action. I had to duck a couple of slugs
that ricocheted into the alley where I lurked.
You see, the battle had erupted on a one-lane access road between
two rows of warehouses. It was a perfect bottleneck, forcing
the fight into a narrow front line. Pink was hanging back with
the support bots, which made sense if she was their electronic
warfare expert. This put Olive and White alone going hand-to-
hand against the boomers. Although those big guns were doing
their best to blow up the walls on either side of them, the melee
was stuck -- for the moment -- in a channel no more than 10 feet
across. White and Olive ended up cheek-and-jowl with the enemy.
So even if the support robots weren't needed to keep the fight
two-dimensional, they would have been deprived of most of their
possible targets by the Knights blocking their shots. This kept
the presence of what should have been decisive extra forces from
doing anything more than barely evening out the odds.
I don't like even odds. They mean the good guys lose half the
time. One reason the Warriors are as successful as we are is
that in any given opportunity, we will field far more force that
is far nastier than the enemy is prepared to deal with. We don't
fight just to win. We fight to crush the enemy utterly. We
fight to overwhelm and destroy.
I planned on helping the Knights not just win, but overwhelm and
destroy.
I made sure the chin strap on my helmet was snug, and windmilled
each arm once to ensure that my jacket wasn't binding them. One
quick fan kick with each leg made certain I had maximum freedom
of movement there, too. I tapped my breastbone firmly and felt
the polykev stiffen into familiar rock hardness under my
fingertips. Pulling my gloves from where I'd tucked them into my
belt, I drew them onto my hands, flexing my fingers and making
sure the polykev plates were seated properly over my knuckles. I
popped up my headlamps. Then I reached up and rotated the
external speaker housings on my helmet to their "active"
position. After all, if I were going to be making an entrance, I
was going to make it with *style*.
"<System. Combat mode on.>" I grinned for a moment as I
wondered what the Knights would make of me and my unexpected aid.
Then I stepped to the mouth of the alleyway and whispered to
myself, "<It's showtime.>"
END OF CHAPTER FOUR
------------------------------------
This work of fiction is copyright (C) 1999, Robert M. Schroeck.
Bubblegum Crisis and the characters thereof are copyright and
a trademark of Artmic Inc. and Youmex Inc., and are used
without permission.
Douglas "Looney Toons" Sangnoir is a trademark of Robert M.
Schroeck.
"The Warriors" is a jointly-held trademark of The Warriors Group.
Excerpts from "The Wall" by Pink Floyd, copyright (C) 1979 by
Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Inc.
Lyric from "Have a Cigar" by Pink Floyd, copyright (C) 1975 by
Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Inc.
Lyrics from "Pinball Wizard" by The Who, copyright (C) 1969, 1993
by Fabulous Music Ltd.
The above are quoted in this fiction without permission under the
"fair use" provisions of international copyright law.
Many thanks to my prereaders on this chapter: The Apprentice,
Kathleen Avins, Joseph Avins, Paul Arezina, Nathan Baxter, Delany
Brittain, Barry Cadwgan, Andrew Carr, and Helen Imre. Additional
prereaders for future chapters welcome.
C&C gratefully accepted.
===============================================================================
Robert M. Schroeck || "When in trouble or in doubt,
rms@eclipse.net || Run in circles, scream and shout."
http://www.eclipse.net/~rms || I have no mouse and I must scream.
===============================================================================