Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot
Chapter 3

	$Ah, fun.  Let's destroy something.


An ocean of brightly dressed people seemingly stretched from one side of the
downtown street to the other as the mass of commuters hurried across the
road, emerged or entered buildings, accosted street vendors, darted in
between cars and massive transport trucks, or moved quickly in what appeared
to be giant circles.

Whereas the ground was dominated by the living, the massive buildings that
were built so close together commanded the skies by seeming to stretch all
the way to the heavens. They hemmed the populous in as though the streets

	$population?

were nothing more than an enormous maze designed for the gods to watch the
indigenous population of Zanibat, the largest city on Delabar, scurry around
like giant colony of lab rats.

	$Like a giant

"Gee, there's seems to be an awful lot of people still alive for a place
that Zeiram was supposed to be hanging out," Kei said.

	$Well, it's wrong, but I say stuff like that all the time, so...  Your
call.

"This is odd," Yuri admitted to Kei as she narrowly avoided being trampled
by a small herd of commuters that were frantically scurrying about.
Apparently

	$Small herd?  I thought it was big?

getting to work at the last minute was a habit indigenous to the population
of Zanibat, if not the entire planet.

	<snip>

"Damn!" Iria's shout was loud enough to be heard over the din of the city,
causing several people to look her way (though not bothering to do more than
slow down. They did have 'places to go'). "This is the only lead we had."

Seeing Iria's temper began to fray, Kei took it upon herself to comfort her

	$begin to fray

mentor, much like the bounty hunter had done with her when she was younger.
"He could still be here. And if he's not, well, this is Zeiram we're talking
about. It's impossible for him to lay low for long."

"We're the best troubleshooters the 3WA's got," Yuri bragged. "We'll dig up
something on him."

Bob spoke up. "Get me direct access to a computer terminal that's hooked up
to an interplanetary database, and I can begin a real search."

"Yes. That is the first thing we should do." Iria felt herself calming down.
She should have known better than to expect Zeiram to simply be rampaging
down the streets, making himself an open target for the three of them to
take out before dinnertime. But she had wanted him dead this instant. Every
minute of the trip to Delabar, which had only taken a day, made her hatred
of Zeiram increase. Upon seeing the static-filled image from the station's
camera of Zeiram, Iria had picked up the same impression Kei had: this was
the exact same monster that she had killed before. Working from Kei's
assumption had been a driving force before viewing the tape, but now that
feeling had tripled as Iria felt the suspicions satisfied within herself.

	$That last sentance is a bit odd, there.

She had failed to get any sleep, though with her current emotional state
there was no chance of her combat abilities being hindered by that. She was
a better fighter now than she had been all those years ago, but managing to
kill Zeiram had been as much a matter of luck as skill. Besides, there was
no telling if her adversary had gotten more powerful over the years as well.

Too much was unknown. They needed to find Zeiram and the mystery behind his
resurrection. "What's the nearest public access building?" she asked Bob.

Power ran through a neural net, accessing systems that Bob thought of in
terms of actual memory rather than electronically stored pieces of data.
"The Benjamin Dover Library is located only a couple of blocks southeast of
here.

	$Ben Dover Library?

It's open to the public, so we'll be allowed to hook up to an off planet net
and get all of the information we need."

"Let's go," Iria forced her way through the teeming throngs of people. They
would be back on Zeiram's trail in a matter of moments. The library was only
two blocks away, after all.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"How could it possibly take over half an hour to walk lousy two blocks?"
Iria grumbled.

	$Kei: You're the one that wanted to window shop on the way!

Kei shrugged. "I think it was because we were fighting the flow of traffic
instead of going with it. It would have taken us even longer if things
hadn't died off at the end."

	$I guess if everything died off, they've already found Zeiram.

"Probably the end of the morning rush around here," Yuri said as they stared
at the Benjamin Dover Library.

The library stood in stark contrast to the other megalithic structures that
were the norm for the capital city of Delabar. Whereas most of the other
buildings were sixty plus stories high, the library was no more than ten,
though constructed of the same material, decorated in the same style, and
adorned in the same dull slate-gray tones as the other buildings. It was
squat, its base taking up three times the space that the other buildings
did. It appeared as though it could have at one time been among its taller
brethren save for the fact one of the gods had compacted it with a giant
sledgehammer.

"It looks like they don't take their literature as seriously as they do
their other businesses," Yuri stated blandly as she compared it to the other
structures. The other buildings still had many people going in and out of
their doors. The library had nary a soul to do either. At least it meant
they could probably get a computer link right away/

	$away.

The trio of women entered and were surprised to see that the interior
contrasted sharply with the outside. Bland and indifferent without, the
inside was a menagerie of bright colors, from blazing red carpeting to
banana
yellow walls that would make one believe that if they peeled the plaster
away

	$You went from one believe... to if they...  I'm not sure, not being
familiar with that style of writing, but is that a plurality error?

a white fruit would be found underneath.

"Reminds me of your apartment," Yuri commented to Kei.

Through two sets of transparent doors, the women entered the lobby and saw
an obese man sleeping upright in a one of the comfortable chairs lining the
entryway. He was dressed in an outfit that identified him as a security
guard who was currently securing as much sleep as he could. Beyond him was a
long, semi-circular desk that stretched nearly the entire length of the
lobby. To the right and left were the entrance and exits to the library
proper. A mechanical laser marker and pass system to count the number of
people that entered the library was next to them. Behind and above the desk,
in large red lettering, was the word, 'Greetings.'

	$Saving them the effort of saying it themselves, naturally.  Methinks these
be efficient people.

There was but one person manning the massive front desk. A single, blonde
woman that was young and wore a business suit that looked more suited for a

	$Hmm, maybe: A young blonde woman in a business suit that looked more
suited for a boardroom than a receptionist sat by herself, doing her nails.

boardroom than a receptionist. Kei noted the girl was far more attractive
than the squirrelish types she had become familiar with in the few libraries
she had been in during her life. Curiously, it was almost always older and
more shrewish women that were the norm at most places; an odd universal
constant whose reasons escaped Kei.

	$She'd understand later in life, when her tenure with the 3WA was up and
she was forced to find other employment to support herself.  Sadly, she'd
never been able to find a husband to do it for her.

The librarian, Janet Nagumo, turned her attention from her pile of paperwork
and looked the three newcomers over. The assessment was cursory and concise:
two bimbos wearing little more than overly large bikinis with sidearms
strapped to their hips and a third, older woman that was shorter than the
others and less bimbo looking. She bore a distinctive mole on her left cheek
and wore a worn-looking brown cloak that hid her torso from sight, but
allowed the white and black body armor that covered her legs to show
clearly. She even had a pair of high-tech goggles resting on the top of her
head, completing the macho, ready for action look. Janet hated women like
this; they reminded her of her old job.

	$What, annoyingly cute sidekick?

The receptionist's open reaction was to raise an eyebrow at the trio. "I
think you're in the wrong place, ladies. Babes and Bullets is two blocks
farther down. All we have here are books that have lots of words in them,
not pictures."

"Ha, ha," Kei retorted dryly. "Are you usually this courteous to people that
come here looking for information?"

"Most people don't come here armed if they're looking for information." As
Janet watched the trio carefully, a vague sense of unease began to take
root. There was something about the two bimbos that seemed familiar to her.

Time was wasting. Yuri said, "We need access to your computers."

	$Awkward.  Redo.

"I doubt if they'll do you any good. There's no voice activation system so
you need to be able to spell to use them."

Kei suppressed the urge to pistol whip the girl, no matter how badly she
deserved it. "Look, we're troubleshooters with the 3WA."

"And I used to be an accountant with them before coming to my senses and
quitting," Janet retorted. "That doesn't give you the right to come barging
in here arm..." her voice trailed off as her eyes widened and she gasped.
"Oh, crap! You're the Lovely Angels, I mean Dirty Pair, aren't you?"

	$Interesting correction.

Two faces began twitching.

"You look a whole lot older than I thought you'd be."

The faces twitched far more violently.

 "Look, you worthless numbers cruncher," Yuri growled in irritation, "we're
here on an official assignment and have the authority to go around armed."

"So shut up and let us through," Kei snapped.

"I want to see that authorization in writing." Janet held out her hand.

"It's an emergency situation and lives are at stake so we don't have to,"
Yuri said, crossing her arms, content that she had the upper hand.

	$Yuri: So there. Nya!

Janet's scowl increased. "I don't see an emergency. Toby! Wake up!"

The security guard awoke with a snort. He looked around and tried to
reorient himself to the world around him.

Once Janet was convinced he had, she continued. "These women are illegally
armed. I want you to escort them out."

Toby looked the women over, assessed the situation, and reacted accordingly.

"They don't look armed to me." He sat back in the chair and closed his eyes
again.

	$Bright boy.  Far too intelligent for his current job.

"Spineless bubblebutt," Janet mumbled under her breath.

"Now you'll let us in." The way Kei said it let Janet know it was a
statement, not a question.

Regardless, Janet crossed her arms defiantly. "No. I know you two. You're
going to blow the place up and leave me without a job, and maybe without a
life too."

	$K&Y: That can be arranged.

This was the part Yuri hated the most; their undeserved reputations. "We do
not destroy everything and everyone around us!"

Janet shot to her feet and began wagging her finger at Yuri. "Yes, you do.
Part of my job was to help manage all of the payments to the grievances that
were filed against you for the damage you inflicted on the galaxy at large.
That was one of the reasons I quit. You guys were personally responsible for
making me work around the clock!"

	$But they're not guys.

"Are you sure it wasn't your pitbull like demeanor that failed to endear
yourself to your coworkers which drove you away?" Yuri said with a sly smile
as she leaned forward and over the desk.

Janet leaned forward in answer, unwilling to back down. "Do you remember
three years ago how your budget was slashed and your salaries cut back?"

"Of course." Yuri had been forced to cancel a vacation with her then
boyfriend due to the twenty-five percent pay cut.

"Those were based on my recommendations."

It was Yuri's turn to suppress pistol whipping the woman, no matter how much
better it would have made her feel.

	$Geez, all that training and experience and they still don't know how to
use a pistol properly.  It's for shooting things, not clubbing!

While the two women traded deadly looks with one another, Kei wandered over
to the entryway to the main floor of the library. Examining the laser marker
and pass system next to it, she noticed a small metal box protruding from
the device. It was easy to see that was where library members could slide a
passcard through to shut down the field and walk through to be counted. It
also seemed to route the primary supply for the machine as well. Getting a
solid grip on it, Kei gave a powerful tug. A glance over her shoulder showed
Yuri still locked in a test of wills with the librarian. Kei spit into her
hand, gripped the box even tighter, braced her foot against it, and pulled
hard.

Yuri and Janet broke off eye contact at the sound of bolts being forced from
the housings. They turned to see a box of metal and protruding wires being
casually tossed in the air by a wickedly smirking Kei. She repeated the
gesture a couple of times before tossing it to Janet, who reflexively nabbed
it out of mid-air.

"Aww, that piece fell off and now the system seems to be broken." Kei said
with a remarkable amount of wide-eyed innocence.

"I guess we can go on in then." Yuri gave Janet a 'we got you' grin as Kei
and Iria proceeded to enter the library proper.

Just as the trio passed by the now burned out entryway, a trembling Janet,
determined to get one last shot in, shouted, "Hey, Kei! Remember how
Sergeant Bastian said the reason he broke up with you was because he felt
your relationship was going nowhere and emotionally his needs weren't being
satisfied?"

Kei answered, "Hell, yeah. We went out for almost six months and I really
liked hi... hey! How did you know about that?!"

Janet shook her head sadly. "I was afraid of that. He must have forgot to
mention that the sex with me was ten times better too."

	$better, too.

 As a final gesture of contempt, she stuck her tongue out at Kei.

	$Kei: Oh, I see now, I should have guessed.  He'd been looking for a girl
that didn't mind buggery, and I guess he finally found one.  Slut.

It took all of Iria and Yuri's strength to restrain the redhead from
storming back and twisting Janet into a human pretzel. Unsalted, of course.

	$But the salt makes it hurt more.

Once Kei was calmed down enough for the other women to escort her further
into the library and out of sight, Janet slammed the ruined piece of metal
into the desktop. She turned to relieve her irritation at the nearest
available target.

Taped to the chair, written in a barely legible scrawl was a note. It said:
"Emergency root canal. Won't be back for a few days. Places to go. Toby."

	$And thus, he lives.

At last, Janet's shoulders slumped in defeat and the librarian began hitting
her head into the desk top. She should have known better. Now she was
learning the lesson so many others had already discovered.

Nowhere was far enough away to be safe from the Dirty Pair.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I wish I had your people skills."

"Oh, be quiet," Kei snapped back at Iria.

	$Actually, I thought she rather did.

A smile crept across Iria's features despite her fiercest attempts at hiding
it. Watching Kei in action had been amusing. Still, she was uncertain if she
would have dealt with the situation any better than troubleshooters had.

	$the troubleshooters

The librarian had been a royal pain from the moment they had entered the
building, though the history she had shared with Kei and Yuri went a long
way to explaining it. Had those comments been directed at her, Iria probably
would have pistol whipped the mouthy little bitch.

Once inside the main floor of the library the trio looked about the room in
wonder. Numerous shelves stuffed full of written books formed aisles tens of
meters long in every direction away from the front. There were at least
hundreds of thousands, if not a million books within the building if every
floor held the same.

The trio moved to an open area in what they assumed was the center of the
building. Looking up they could see the sunlight pouring through the
skylight ten floors up. Open stairways led upward to each level that was
surrounded by what appeared to be blackened wrought iron railings that would
have been more appropriate for an outdoor balcony than the interior of a
modern building.

	$I'll lay odds that someone will end up impaled on those a la a John Woo
film.

Kei appraised the upper floors. She didn't like railings. It seemed every
time she ended up in a shoot-out with people and there were railings nearby,
at least several of them ended up plunging over the side after being shot
and would die in excessively flamboyant fashion. It was like something out
of a cheesy low budget action thriller. Maybe that was what her life had
become, save there was no good looking guy waiting for her at the end of the
movie. And the outcome was looking increasingly bleak with each progressive
year.

	$movie, and the

The unusual melancholy that threatened her backed off when Yuri let out a
low whistle. "Take a look at all of these books. I can't believe they
haven't converted them all to disks. Can you imagine how much space they
would save?"

A voice drifted from behind a section of shelves. "That is because of
specific instructions left by the founder of the library, Mr. Benjamin
Dover."

	$Not a guy you'd want to meet in jail.

The speaker wheeled into view from the set of library shelves it had been
returning books to. All three of the women recognized the model of robot by
sight: an AR-10 Manservant Droid. Built low to the ground and having the
general shape of a garbage can, the robots only came as high as Iria's
chest, the smallest of the women present. There were movable plates on the
outside that opened to allow a multitude of slender utility arms to emerge
from the main body of the robot. Each limb possessed a different tool that
had a specific function. They were a versatile item that had a limited
amount of popularity on the open market about five years ago due to their
low cost. But since then they had lost what favor they had to newer, more
efficient, and less twitchy models that were being manufactured.

	$Not to mention that no one really wanted to be reminded of R2D2 everywhere
they went.

"Blech. Don't they have real people here to work the place?" Kei never cared
much for robots doing other people's jobs. Part of that was because so many
of the darn things had tried to kill her in the past, though she supposed
that was a bit biased since far more human beings had tried to kill her than
robots. And most of the time the robots were acting under orders from other
people. Still, she preferred dealing with human beings rather than machines.
Flesh and blood were far more unpredictable and interesting than a robot
that only performed whatever functions it was programmed to do.

	$Clearly, she's never had to deal with my computer.

"There are a handful of security guards, maintenance personal, and human
librarians to deal with certain tasks," the robot explained. "But the
majority of work is handled by myself and fellow siblings of the AR series.
There are over a hundred of us to deal with the maintenance of books and
other materials in the library, as per Mr. Benjamin Dover instructions. He
felt we would be more efficient in upkeeping the physical written material
within the building than humans would. I am proud to say that during the
five year tenure here not one page has even been accidentally creased by
myself or any other siblings of my series."

	$According to instructions, however...  Add to that that the library
appears to see about one person per year, and I doubt the robots run around
randomly picking up books.

"What was that you were saying about Mr. Dover wanting so many real books
here?" Yuri asked. She could not recall the last time she had seen such in
incredible sum of written material in one place, except for the forms'
center in 3WA headquarters. That building was at least three times as large
and packed to the top. Nowadays only collectors, primitive cultures, or
traditionalists tended to use or even want written books. Most people found
electronic information more convenient. Yuri admitted that was the way
things had to be, but she still had a weakness for paying the extra money
for a real book now and then, especially for her favorites: harlequin
romance novels. Kei had always criticized them as 'corny smut that was
better used to wipe your ass with than read,' but Kei was tasteless, so Yuri
understood and accepted the completely invalid criticism.

	$As opposed to Yuri's bad taste.  Always considered myself tasteless as
well.

The robot 'cleared' his throat, similar to how Bob usually did to gain the
others' attention. "Mr. Benjamin Dover was one of the wealthiest men on the
planet, making his fortune from brokering information. When he was towards
the end of his life, he decided he wanted a suppository of information
that -"

	$Ah, I see you did it on purpose.

"Wait a minute!" Iria interrupted. "What was that again?"

The robot began repeating what it had previously said. "I said that when he
was towards the end of his life, he decided he wanted a suppository of-"

"Hold on," Iria interrupted again. "Do you mean 'repository'?"

The robot processed the information. "Yes. That was it. Sorry about that.
Programming glitch."

	$Un hunh.

"I'll say. I think I could do without an information supplement of that
kind," Kei giggled.

"Continue," Yuri ordered.

The robot picked up where it had left off. "As I was saying, he decided to
create a suppository of information that would benefit everyone. However, he
was afraid that there might be some sort of cataclysm that would wipe our
ability to employ technology, or somehow eliminate access to the information
net. For without the ability to build upon the knowledge of others, the
centuries of advancement of civilization could possibly be lost within a
generation. So he created hard copies of the information that would more
commonly be stored on datadisks. Before you is the greatest suppository of
books -"

Kei began giggling. "Hey, Yuri. Why not try their War and Peace enema? I
hear it's long, but satisfying, just the way you like it."

	$Some things you don't want your friends running around telling others.

"Did I say something humorous?" the robot asked.

"Just continue." Yuri shot Kei a warning glare that seemed to not affect her
partner in the least.

The robot did as it was ordered. "Before you is the greatest suppository of
books in this section of the galaxy. Mr. Benjamin Dover invested the
majority of his billions into the library. It took over a hundred people ten
years to track down all of these original books and another three years to
restore them to their high quality. Nowhere is there a collection that is as
comprehensive or as vast as this. If I was capable of pride, I would be
proud to announce that the library is scheduled to be classified as one of
the modern wonders of Delabar."

	$Oooh, ahhh...

"Ha, ha! I can see it now!" Kei interrupted, barely able to speak between
laughs. "Come to Delabar and see the Ben Dover Book Suppository, where
you'll leave sore but smarter. WAHAHA!"

	$Heh heh.

Yuri's face turned red in fury at the childish behavior. Before she could
say a word, Iria gave a curt, "Knock it off." Much to Yuri's surprise, Kei
did so instantly, even going so far as to say she was sorry and placed her
hands behind her back in shame. A sincerely contrite Kei was not something
Yuri had seen all that often even after a decade of being partners. In a
way, it was disturbing to see her acting so docile. But not so much that
Yuri failed to wonder if she could do the same thing. She'd have to get Iria
to give her some pointers.

	$Iria: Well, first you have to turn her into your willing but still feisty
slave for a few years, then...

This time it was Iria who took charge. "Not to be rude, but you do have
computers here linked to off-planet information nets, right?"

The robot almost seemed reluctant to admit it. "Yes. There are banks located
on levels five, seven, and ten. But I must recommend you check out a book.
It's not often you can have access to so many reading possibilities, and
there is little that is as enjoyable as holding a real book."

"Have you ever read one?" Kei asked.

"No," the robot answered.

"Then how would you know if they're enjoyable or not?"

The robot was silent for a moment. Then it began to utter a continuous
string of, "I... I... I..." By the time it had hit the twentieth one in
rapid succession, it began jiggling and smoke poured out of its top.

	$Execute operator now error.

"Kei, you moron," Yuri chided. "You've got it stuck in a paradox loop. You
know how twitchy AR-10's can be."

"But it's a legitimate question," Kei pleaded.

There was a loud squawk by the robot as flames shot out of the round groove
the swiveling top was attached to. Like a rocket at blast off, the head
suddenly shot up and into the air and going almost as high as the sixth
level before losing its velocity and falling back down, nearly landing on
Iria in the process. It bounced once before coming to a stop on the floor.

"It's not my fault," Kei said.

	$I've heard that one before.

"Yes, it is," Iria and Yuri said simultaneously.

The sounds of people roused by the noise reached the ears of the trio.
"Let's get out of here before we're blamed for this one," Kei said as she
made for the nearest stairway.

"But you ARE responsible for it," Iria protested as Yuri shot past her too.
She watched as the two girls ran up the stairs and disappeared on the fifth
level.

Bob suddenly came to life on Iria's wrist. "Are you going to stick around
and explain things?"

	$No, she just doesn't like to go up like normal people.

"Of course not." Iria pulled a small object from a pocket on her weapons
belt. She held it straight up in the air, aiming for the underside of the
sixth level that was next to the stairway Kei and Yuri had just ascended.
She pushed a button on the side and a small spike with a wire thin cable
attached to it shot out from the top, traveling upward until burying itself
in the metal that composed the ceiling of the fifth level. A second button
on the cable climber was pushed and Iria ascended the wire, pulled by the
small but incredibly powerful motor inside the device.

Upon reaching the appropriate level, she hit a button that released some
slack in the line and allowed her to arc above the railing and land on the
fifth floor itself.

"Most people would have simply walked up the stairs," Bob pointed out.

"It's a good thing I'm not like most people then." Iria grinned as she
retracted the line and hurried to catch up to her companions.

By the time she arrived they had already sat down next to a terminal: Yuri
at the keyboard while Kei was seated in a second chair next to her.

"Allow me," Iria said. Yuri deferred to her and got up so that Iria could
sit next to the keyboard, despite the fact she was not going to be the using
it. Yuri pulled up a third chair while Iria plugged Bob into the system.

"Now we wait." Iria kicked back in her chair, Kei and Yuri following suit.

	$The lazy woman's way of hacking.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Unknown to the trio of women, shortly after Bob first accessed the system
and began entering his queries, a certain program flared to life in response
to the keywords in the questions. Information was gathered, and a decision
was made in less than a second. A multitude of programs became active
simultaneously. A security camera pivoted away from the shelves it was
pointed at to where the trio were seated. Visual images of the women were
captured and their pictures were sent out to another, far larger and faster
set of computers located in a building within several miles of the library.
Almost instantly more signals were sent across the planet until a match was
made at the spaceport with the identities of women and their ship. More
information was gathered as off-planet databases were accessed. Theories
were extrapolated and were given to the individuals that had activated the
program in the first place. A decision was agreed upon less than a minute
later, and a message was sent.

The entire process took less than four minutes.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Alan Wierzbaski hurried past the seemingly endless series of identical

	$Interesting name.  I'm probably missing something there.

cubicles until he arrived at the one designated as his, differentiated from
its fellow cubicles only by the number engraved on the slot next to the
opening to it. Megashorne and Valoxy would not even allow their workers'
names to be assigned to their workspace. 'Individuality negatively affects
work performance', or so it was stated in one of the endless sea of memos
that were circulated to the workers every day.

	$Ah, but sunlight is proven to help effeciency.  And it's cheap, too.

Alan tossed his trenchcoat, then his briefcase on one of the few open spaces
on his desk and plopped himself down in his chair with an audible thump. The
cubical was cramped with barely enough room for him to work, but at least he
could partially stretch out his legs if he pushed the back of the wheeled
chair flush with the desktop next to his computer. And he could definitely,
one hundred percent plop. He had enough room for that, and when all was said
and done, wasn't that all a working man needed to make him happy?

	$Well, that and beer.

At least the day wasn't turning out as bad as Alan had feared it would. He
had managed to avoid detection by his supervisor (an important man; his
cubical was four inches wider and *Gasp* six inches longer than any of the
other worker ants under his command), despite being fifteen minutes late.
'Tardiness Breeds Inefficiency' or so it was stated on one of the other
memos that had been sent to him at some point.

A head popped up from around the corner of his cubical. "You're late," the
man announced.

Alan gave a sad shake in the newcomer's direction. "My dear Conroy, how many
times must I explain it to you? It's like cheating. If they don't catch you,
then you weren't late."

"Only because I punched in on time for you," Conroy waved the extra card
before Alan's face. "One of these days this little scheme of yours is going
to fail when they see you're punched in but not actually present."

Alan smiled. "In the two years we've been doing this have we ever been
caught?"

Conroy seemed to relent a little. "No."

"And I've covered for your lard ass too, I might add."

"Okay, okay," Conroy finally relaxed. "Just be careful and don't cut it so
close next time."

Shrugging, Alan said, "Couldn't be helped. I managed to pick up a, shall we
say, companion that elected to spend the night with me. She was very
reluctant to let me go when she awoke this morning." He unleashed a wolfish
grin.

Conroy made no effort to hide his jealousy. "I don't know how you manage to
pick up so many women. Good looking ones too."

	$<skip ahead, then return> He's a secret agent, of course he gets laid
often.  It's in the contract.

Alan ran a hand through tousled hair. "I'm more slick than you can possibly
imagine. I've got moves that have to be seen to be believed."

"Thank god I'm not a woman and have to put up with that crap," Conroy
chuckled. "Just don't be late again." He went back to his cubical, allowing
Alan a chance to begin his workday.

"System on," Alan said as sound bafflers activated to deaden the noise
coming from his cubical, (a possible distraction to other workers, as was
stated in a memo...) and his computer turned on. He picked up a wire that
was connected to the back of the computer and inserted the plug on the end
of it into the headjack implanted in the back of his neck. With a direct
hookup from his technologically altered brain to the computer, work would be
more efficient.

	$If that's the case, why don't they just grow vat brains and use them?

That he had a headjack was one of the primary reasons he had been hired at
Megashorne and Valoxy in the first place.

"You have mail," the seductive female voice of his computer whispered in his
mind. He had programmed it himself. They hadn't regulated the computers'
audio systems. Not yet, though it was probably only a matter of time. Some
day it too would undoubtedly meet the same fate every other sign of
individuality had thus far.

"Show me," he said aloud, though it was unnecessary since he was
broadcasting directly from his mind to the interface of the computer.

There was no return address on the message; just an anonymous letter with an
attached datafile with it. Alan wasn't stupid enough to open a strange file
directly into his mind. Instead, he mentally opened the letter as he prepped
his mail program to delete the datafile.

The letter was simple, containing only one sentence.

"It's time for the chimney sweep to dust."

	$Only if the groundhog sees his shadow.

The reaction was instantaneous, almost mechanical in nature. He downloaded
the datafile into his mind. As he did so, he opened his briefcase and
brought out another data plug. He removed his own, processing the
information downloaded in his mind while at the same time inserting the
other dataplug and activating the independent program attached to it. All
traces of the mail were completely erased from the system. He removed the
dataplug and closed his briefcase. Getting out of his chair, he turned off
his system and exited the cubical.

Conroy caught sight of Alan as he passed by the cubical. As quickly as
possible without doing himself damage, he removed his own headjack and stuck
his head out of the entryway. "Where are you going?" Conroy said as loud as
he stared at Alan's rapidly disappearing form.

"I'm sick. Places to go," Alan said without bothering to look over his
shoulder at his best friend.

There was no one in the halls as Alan made his way to the elevator. Within
moments a car came up, devoid of any occupants. That was good. He had no
desire to explain to anyone else why he was leaving work early.

	$Although he wouldn't mind whacking some of the other cubical drones he was
forced to spend time with.

The elevator sped downward, and Alan resisted the urge to tap his foot in
impatience. There wasn't much time. The library was only two blocks away,
and with the majority of the morning rush traffic gone, it would take him
only several minutes to make his way there. After that, he would have to
move even more quickly. They could only be stalled for so long before losing
patience and trying a different building. Tracking them would be next to
impossible then since he would be out of contact with the local master
computer.

During the time spent plummeting groundward, Alan began mentally planning
the stages of his impromptu assignment, going over all of the information
that had been dumped into his mind. Schematics of the library and its
defenses were provided. Intelligence on the targets was sorted through. Two
3WA agents and an outer rim bounty hunter; difficult prey under the best of
conditions and these were some of the worst. The only thing Alan had going
for him was perhaps the most critical factor of all: surprise. That would
have to be enough.

	$Although I doubt it.

As the car came to rest at the bottom he emerged quickly, moving as fast as
he could without attracting undue attention. Once outside, he flagged down a
taxi, making certain it was driven by a robot instead of a human. Alan was
going to have to prepare himself in the cab, and a person would ask too many
questions.

	$Nice weather we're having, isn't it?  How about them Yankees?  Blah blah
meaningless drivel blah?

The robot gave a pleasant, generic greeting that Alan ignored and asked him
for his destination. Giving it in a rough voice, he sat in the backseat and
took off his trenchcoat as the car left the curb and pulled out into the
thick, but moving, flow of traffic.

It was time to prepare for the mission. The business suit was discarded,
leaving a skin-tight, slick-surfaced body suit with several holsters and a
belt of various pouches on his frame. From his suitcase he pushed aside a
secret compartment (undetectable to even advanced sensors) and pulled out
the handful of weapons placed within the small compartment.

	$Don't need 'the small compartment.'

A laser pistol with two extra magazines found its way to the holster
strapped under his arm. Strapped to his wrist was a necro-lash and its
spring loaded housing. A stiletto, just a simple piece of metal, unlike the
rest of the

	$Delete the coma after metal.

equipment, went into a sheath concealed in the calf of the body suit. A
multi-optics head band that would enable him to see anything from vast

	$Head band should probably be one word.

distances to scanning in the infra-red or ultra-violet was tucked into the
inside pocket of his trenchcoat, the device would attract too much attention
if he wore it outside now.

Then came the more exotic equipment he had requisitioned the last time he
had been with the people that were really paying his salary. Several very
special circuit boards that could adapt to any standardized computer system
were placed within a small pouch on the waist. Those would potentially prove
very useful in his plan. And last was a very special surprise, a weapon of
last resort should the need arise. It was an experimental unit that his
superiors had been reluctant to allow him to possess, but he had convinced
them of the need and assured them that it would be best if they allowed the
device to be field tested under real combat conditions before it was mass
produced. Hopefully the situation wouldn't come to that, and he would take
care of the women with either his initial or primary back-up plan. But as
his instructors had hammered painfully into his mind and body, you could
never have too many failsafes, just too few.

By the time the cab pulled up to the library another three and a half
minutes had passed. Alan emerged dressed in his trenchcoat. It was pulled
tight across his frame and stopped short of his ankles. As tight as it was
it would

	$Why so tight?

make him suspicious, but he had no real choice. He had to be ready for
combat in an instant, and his orders were clear that everything else,
including blowing his cover, was secondary to eliminating the three primary
targets. He had no restrictions when it came to succeeding in the mission.

Alan entered the building. According to the library's database there would
be a receptionist and security guard in the entryway. A laser pass system
would allow access to the library proper. Alan already had an automatic pass
under an assumed name from visiting the library on a couple of occasions
when he was first assigned to the local branch of Megashorne and Valoxy. It
hadn't been the only one. He had visited every building in a three block
radius in order to get a layout of the area and formulate possible avenues
of escape. It was what he had been trained to do.

	$Hmm, your sentances are getting a little choppy.

Instead he found a note where the security guard should have been, the pass
system damaged, and the receptionist with her head lying on top of the desk.
She didn't even look at him as she simply ushered him forward with a wave. A
bizarre situation that put him on edge, but things were going his way. He
had been prepared to kill the receptionist and guard, then seal the front
doors to the building should the need arise. This made things easier. He
prayed it would remain that way.

	$Bah, kill her anyway.  It'd be a favor.

Through row upon row of shelves he passed by, noting how few patrons were
here at this time of day as he began searching for something in particular.
According to his internal chronometer it had been seventeen minutes and
twenty-three seconds since the trio of women first logged onto the system.
They would be getting impatient by now, but should still be in the same
location. If they could not be detained for a full half hour before
abandoning the building, then computer ops were not doing their job and it
would not be Alan's fault if he failed in his mission. Besides, he needed to
gain additional support. He would not underestimate his opposition. They had
to be eliminated.

Within another twenty seconds Alan spotted what he was looking for. He
approached the security guard with a questioning gaze, making certain to
give a friendly smile. A smile always put others at ease.

"Can I help you sir?" The guard beat Alan to his own question.

"Certainly," Alan said with a relieved look on his face. He made certain his
back was between the nearest security camera and the guard. Alan moved
close, then placed his hand under his jacket and whipped out his gun, using
a subtle motion that should not have drawn attention to anyone, even if they
were staring right at the monitor of the camera.

Quickly, Alan spoke before the guard could start babbling or try to take
control of the situation. Alan needed to keep him quiet and off-guard.

	$Heh, keep the guard off-guard.

He spoke in a low, menacing voice that was little more than a whisper, yet
allowed every word he said to be heard perfectly. "Listen to be carefully.
Ask me no questions or I'll kill you right now. If you obey my every command
without hesitation I'll let you live. Defy me in any way and you die. Now
nod your head if you understand me."

Naked terror in his face, the guard barley managed to do so.

"Good. First relax. No harm will come to you unless you bring it on
yourself, and you  don't look like the self-destructive type." Alan employed
a soothing

	$Two spaces between you and don't.

tone to ease the guard's nerves somewhat. Once the guard seemed to relax
slightly, Alan placed the gun in his pocket, obviously keeping it trained on
the guard. "Next you will lead me to the control center located on the
ground floor. I know where it is so do not try to take anything other than a
direct course to there. Once we arrive you will gain me entry and enter the
room ahead of me. If someone asks who I am, tell them I am your cousin from
Latiyon and you are showing me where you work. Any attempts to betray or
delay me in any way and I'll kill you and everyone in this building. Now we
go."

	$Well, he'll at least _try_ to kill everyone in the building.

The guard started to open his mouth, and was met with a, "Ask me a question
and I'll kill you. Now go and walk as quick as you can without running. That
was your only warning."

The guard, trying his best to keep from screaming out in terror and making
an dash for freedom that would only get him killed, led the way to the
control center. They left the main interior of the building and went down a
long 'Authorized Personnel Only' area of the library. They encountered no
other people as they walked down the yellow corridor, eventually arriving
outside a centimeters thick metal door that was labeled 'Control Room.'
There was a slot for a pass card located next to it, embedded in the wall.

"You will enter first. I will be right behind you," Alan softly intoned,
trying not to look at the security camera outside the door and wonder if the
guards inside were watching.

Hands shaking, the security guard barely managed to pull out his pass card
and enter it in the slot. There was an audible double beep that reminded
Alan of the sound his computer made when it first came on. A green light
flashed on the unit and the door slid soundlessly to the side. The guard
entered the room, Alan moving right behind him.

The two guards inside, each with a cup of some black liquid substance in
their hands, looked up in surprise at their visitors. The older of the two
spoke, "Hey, Eb'an. What are you-"

No further words left her mouth as Alan, who had remained directly behind
Eb'an so the others in the room wouldn't see him clearly, moved to the side,
gun out of the pocket and raised in their direction. In the span of less
than two heartbeats crimson bolts flashed and sped true, hitting both of the
sitting guards in the head. The older one bent forward and slumped to the
table top with an audible thump, while the other guard fell sideways and
crashed to the floor. His cup broke, the sound producing a muffled *tink* as
the ceramic shattered on the metal floor.

Eb'an gave a gasp as he spun in horror, confronting Alan. His eyes widened
even more as he saw the barrel of the laser pistol pointed at his face. "But
you said you wouldn't kill me," he blabbered, even as he lost control of his
bladder and a wet spot formed in the crotch of his mahogany pants.

A half dozen responses formed in Alan's mind to Eb'an's statement. Rather
than saying any of them, he fired. The shot caught Eb'an squarely in the
temple, sending his body falling backward. His instructors had been quite
thorough in their training about that. If you intend to kill a man, kill him
quickly. There was nothing to be gained in toying or speaking to them
unnecessarily.

	$Well, you look cooler.

 Hesitation of any kind only gave the target or one of their allies the
opportunity to save themselves or delay you in some way so that you failed
in your mission. That was unacceptable.

Alan put another shot in each of the guards' heads before closing the door
behind him and moving to the primary computer in the room. His information
had been specific about the capabilities of the system and the passwords
involved in accessing it. With time wasting, he simply shot off the metal
plate to the interior of the machine and pulled out several of the circuit
boards, replacing them with the ones he carried. He turned on the system,
disabled all of the internal alarms and exterior communication, save at the
computers that the women were using. He then went to the robot command
protocols and typed in a new set of instruction.

	$instructions.

That was where his new circuit boards would be most useful, disabling all of
the fail-safe devices in the robots' design and instantly allowing them to
operate with the new set of commands Alan entered. He slaved the robots to a
small keypad he carried with him. Typing a brief command in the keypad, he
found his order accepted. All was in readiness.

He looked at the security cameras on the fifth floor of the building. All
three of his targets were still present and in the exact same position he
had expected them to be in. Satisfied that the second step of his plan was
now in place, and that he still had time to get to his targets, he exited
them room, closing the door behind him and blasting the control pad. It was
suspicious, but not as condemning as someone finding three dead bodies in
the room.

Moving with the fluid grace of an animal stalking its prey, Alan went to a
back set of stairs that lay well out of sight of his targets and rushed up
to their floor. The entire layout of the level still resided in the datafile
in his mind and the quickest path that would afford him the most concealment
was plotted. Pulling out the multi-optics band from its pocket, he placed it
on the top of his head and then removed his trenchcoat and proceeded to
stuff it in an open place high on one of the shelves. Leaving it on would be
a risk, the long garment possibly catching on something and slowing him down
for an instant at the worst possible moment. An instants was the unit of
time where

	$An instant

life and death resided.

Alan was still in the processes of tucking the garment out of sight when an
elderly  woman rounded the far end of the shelves about ten feet away. A
soft

	$elderly woman

gasp escaped her lips as her eyes fell upon the gun in Alan's holster.

The reaction was instantaneous. Alan brought his arm up and hit a button on
the side of the housing unit attached to his wrist. There was a soft,
whirring sound as the necro-lash ripped through the air, little more than a
white blur. It was not energized as it wrapped itself around the woman's
throat and bit deep, preventing her from managing even the soft whisper of a
gasp. Had it been powered up, it would have lopped the woman's head off as
easily as a molecular blade, but there would have been an accompanying crack
and the distinctive odor of ozone had Alan employed that function. Instead,
with the metal cord around the unfortunate stranger's throat, he jerked
hard, snapping her neck before she could do more than bring her hands up in
to her throat in a half-completed, futile gesture of trying to remove the
lash from her neck.

Leaving the cord around her neck, he dragged the body towards him and as out
of sight as possible between the rows of shelves. A quick look into the main
aisle showed no one present to have witnessed the killing.

Now it was more a matter of time than ever. Even as deserted as the library
was at this time of day and as far to the back as Alan was on this floor,
someone would stumble upon the dead woman soon enough and alert the
remaining staff. He had to move fast.

Silently, he maneuvered between the long rows of shelves, moving as quickly
as he dared as he drew nearer the to the targets. Luck was with him as he

	$extra the.

encountered no one else and drew into position several meters away from the
women, hidden behind another, smaller row of shelves that were common in
this section, interlaced between the handful of computer banks present. All
three had their backs to him. He identified each in turn: Iria, the bounty
hunter was sitting at the computer itself, the troubleshooters, Kei and
Yuri, standing to the side in obvious agitation. Their attention was
completely riveted to the computer screen, just as Alan had hoped. There had
been a few distractions along the way, but overall the plan had held
together. Within minutes his job would be completed and he would depart,
hopefully without further incident. Then he could hear about his handiwork
on the evening news as he waited to receive his bonus for the successful
completion of his mission.

The laser pistol cleared its holster as Alan placed his finger on the
trigger and brought the gun up in a firing position.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"This is completely ridiculous!" The stress in Bob's usually sedate voice
was clear to anyone within ten meters.

"I can't believe how long it's taking either," Yuri muttered under her
breath.

	$28k modem, eh?  I can dig it.

Kei no longer felt like complaining, instead her eyes become half-lidded as
she considered trying to catch a nap while Bob continued trying to download
information. The same information he had tried to get at for the last
twenty-five minutes or so. Iria just sat there, irritated and wanting to
kick the screen in.

Iria noticed the state Kei was in. "Wake up!" The command was sharp, much
sharper than Iria had intended. Rather then apologize, she allowed her
irritation to get the better of her and continued. "You can't be that tired.
It hasn't even been a half hour."

Kei, awake, said, "You always said you get sleep where you can find it,
since you never know when you might not get it later."

"I never said that," Iria replied crisply.

"Um, well, someone did." Kei scratched her head as she tried to remember who
it was hat always used to tell her that.

	$that

Iria went back to staring at the screen.

It had started out easily enough. Bob immediately logged onto the computer
and accessed planetary sources to discover any information on the registry
of Zeiram's transport spaceship, as well as any updates on Zeiram, the space
station, or anything else that seemed peculiar or unusual in this section of
space. For the first several minutes, things had gone well with Bob getting
no useful information from the planetary resources. It was when he had tried
to communicate off-planet that things had slowed to a standstill. At first,
it was nearly impossible to get an off-planet link. When they eventually got
one, it had given information at an incredibly slow rate. And just as it
seemed they might get some possible news on the ship's registry, they had
lost their link. It had taken over ten minutes to reestablish it.

	$Heh, only this time, there really is a sadistic bastard on the other end
doing it.

"What's keeping it this time?" Iria muttered to Bob.

"Now they're saying sunspot activity is preventing a decent off-planet
transmission," Bob said.

	$Hah!  That's one my ISP has never used...

 "But I've never had one slow down things to this degree. If they were
decade old systems that might be one thing, but this stuff is current
hardware. There's no way it should be taking this long."

Just as Iria was about to add a comment the screen flashed blue and text
began scrolling at a rate too fast for the naked eye to follow. "It's about
time," Iria muttered as she waited for Bob to stop the screen for their
benefit should he come across anything useful.

Even Kei sat up and took notice. "Let's see. There we go. That's Intergal's
ships systems. Now let's execute a search for the number and, HEY!"

A collective moan went up from the three women and Bob as the screen went
dead black once again. There was nothing at all upon it, not even a cursor.

"Now what's the problem?" Iria asked.

"Lost the link again. And not just the off-planet one, but the link to the
planetary network as well. I've never had anything like this happen before.
Maybe a system crashed somewhere or they're suffering from some sort of
virus," he explained, as much anger evident in his voice as the others.

	$Reboot.  That is, kick it again.

"I say we give it one more shot, then go to another terminal elsewhere,"
Yuri said. "If that doesn't work we'll go elsewhere on the planet and see if
we can have better luck with a link up there."

"Good idea," Kei agreed, though she would have been happy to leave now and
never set foot in the stupid building ever again. And she sure as hell
wasn't going to check out any books.

Iria's eyes bored into the screen as she scowled at it in anger. This was
one of the reasons she preferred allowing Bob to deal with computer. She
couldn't threaten, cajole, or convince the blasted things to work, unlike
people. Machines either did what they were supposed to do or they didn't,
and unless you really understood the systems, there wasn't much a person
could do about it.

She remained staring at the black screen, trying to will it to work. She was
concentrating so much at it that, with the way the lights overhead shone off
the plastic, she could see everything reflected in.

	$everything that it reflected

Herself, Kei to the right, Yuri to the left. The man directly behind them,
coming from around the shelves and leveling a gun at them.

Decades of battle-honed reflexes took over as Iria lunged out of her chair
and to the left, tackling Kei while at the same time lashing out with her
right foot lash out and kicking Yuri squarely to the right, the blow hurling
the dark-haired agent to the side and behind a nearby computer desk. The
momentum built up in the tackle hurled both Kei and Iria towards a row of
shelves, one that they would not reach even with the force Iria had hit her
companion with. There was the sound of a computer screen shattering, even as
the two went backwards and Iria twisted in mid-grasp, placing her body
between Kei and the gunman. The sounds of laser blasts filled the air. There
was a loud whine next to Iria and she felt the armor above her elbow heat up
slightly.

Upon hitting the ground, a blast of air surged from Kei's lungs. Between
Iria's tackle and the unexpectedly hard landing the redhead was left gasping

	$Hmm, I'm not sure, but maybe, landing, the redhead

for breath. Without a moment to catch it, let alone try to resist, Kei found
Iria's arms go from merely tackling her to wrapping themselves around her
waist. Iria forced the two of them to spin across the hard floor,
'steamrollering' as several more laser blasts impacted with the floor where
they had just been. The black and white tiles buckled from the blasts,
giving off a shattering echo as small pieces flew all around. One hurled
sliver of metal caught Kei across the cheek, the nick drawing a tiny trickle
of blood as the sliver continued through and lodged in the spine of one of
the nearby books.

	$Better a book spine than a people spine.

And then the duo were behind the shelves, temporally out of the line of fire
from the shooter. Iria had given the shelves a cursory evaluation before and
judged them to be composed of a sturdy metal and hoped that it and the books
that sat on them were powerful enough to stop whatever pistol the gunman was
using.

In less than a heartbeat Iria drew a pistol from her belt holster, opting to
leave her other hand free rather than drawing a second weapon. There were no
immediate following shots, so Iria spared a glance at where she had felt the
her armor heat up. There was the telltale scoring of where a laser blast had
hit it. Judging by the mark, the armor had partially deflected and absorbed
the shot that would otherwise have made a deep, painful gash in her left
arm, probably knocking it out of action. She'd need to repair the damage
later.

	$Armor bondo, for the hunter on the go.

A hand fell on Iria's shoulder as Kei sat up and tired gasping out a query.
The bounty hunter guessed what the question was. Iria afforded a glance over
her shoulder to see that Yuri had already gone into a squatting position
behind the computer desk with laser pistol drawn, not yet daring to poke her
head from around the side.

Shouting out loudly so Yuri could hear, Iria said, "Gunner in our six! Laser
pistol and I couldn't tell its make. Don't know if he has anything else!"

>From behind the shelves, Alan mentally threw in a curse as he tried to come

	$Don't need the >

up with a new plan of attack. The bounty hunter had not only somehow
perceived his attack from behind, but had managed to shove both of the other
targets to safety. The sneak attack had yielded him nothing, save perhaps
one of the shots hitting the rolling women. And even then he doubted it was
debilitating. Even worse, the targets were now separated, making it that
much easier to flank him. His situation had gone from ideal to horrendous
within less than five seconds. Outmaneuvering them for the kill was going to
be difficult.

Outmaneuvering! Of course. He had nearly forgotten his back up plan. He
pulled out the mini-computer from its pouch. His fingers moved deftly across
the tiny keypad, doing it by touch as he kept his ears and eyes peeled for
the sounds of the opposition. In the first several moments he heard the
gasping sounds of someone trying to catch their breath. The gasping
disappeared as he finished entering the last command. Reinforcements were on
their way, but it might take them time to move into position. He had to move
now before the women caught him in a crossfire.

Not daring to look around the corner, he gazed at the opposite end of the
shelves from which he had attacked. There was another row across the aisle
and slightly forward of where he was that would completely hide him from
their line of vision, and would afford him a better angle of attack, and
perhaps a bit of surprise if they didn't see him change his position.

Taking a chance that even if the women were looking they would not react
fast enough, Alan ran on the balls of his feet as fast as he could and
leaped across the distance between the rows. He only chanced one look in
mid-air in the direction of the women undercover as he hung in high in the
air, completely vulnerable to attack. No shots arced towards him, nor were
there cries of alarm. As his body went behind the shelves and out of sight,
he tucked into a ball, rolled across the ground and came up into a crouch,
gun ready. A self-appreciating smile formed on his face. That had been
perfectly executed, just as his instructors had taught him during his
extensive training several years ago. He hadn't seen any of the women
looking around the corner, and the soft padding in his suit had muffled the
run and landing so that there was a good chance they were unaware of his
change of position. But it wouldn't last long if he was guessing correctly,
but it should be for long enough.

	$It wouldn't last... , but it should last long enough.

Deciding to gain even more ground, he darted across a second aisle away from
the others. Again he was convinced he hadn't been seen. Going to the far end
of the shelves he was now located behind, Alan glanced around the corner,
gun brought up to bare. What he saw made him smile.


The trio of women kept their heads low as they tried to organize themselves
and come up with a plan. In spite of what Alan had believed, both Yuri and
Iria had heard the sounds of him running, but neither was able to identify
what the sound exactly was and just knew that he was 'up to something'. By
the time they dared catch a quick glance, Alan was already out of sight in
his new position.

Now that Iria had a chance to think, she came to the same conclusion Alan
had. The advantage was now on her side. Given that no one else had fired on
them since the appearance of the gunman, Iria surmised he was most likely
alone. If she was correct, he was outnumbered, most likely outgunned, and
was about to be outflanked. The only thing she thought they had to be
cautious about was that he didn't manage to take one of them out with some
form of suicide attack or from just plain luck.

Not wanting to risk being overheard, Iria made a series of hand signals
indicating what she had planned. It was simple, and took only moment for the
troubleshooters to understand.

"Let me go," Kei whispered. She loathed the idea of being left behind to
give cover fire with Yuri while Iria risked her life by running forward to
get a better firing position on the shooter, hoping to either kill him or
force him from his cover so that either she or Yuri would get him.

Iria whispered back, "I present a smaller profile and my armor will protect
me from any glancing shots."

	$Direct shots, too, apparently.

"I still think I should go," Kei insisted.

"You're also a better shot than me. I trust you to keep his head down while
I'm out in the open."

"Well, there is that," Kei reluctantly admitted. Not that Iria was a bad
shot, unless her marksmanship had slipped over the last few years, but Kei
was still one of the most accurate shooters the 3WA had.

	$Is Yuri better?

Iria patted Kei's shoulder affectionately. "Then it's settled. Keep his head
down and get ready to pop him when I flush him out."

Reluctantly, Kei assented. Yuri nodded to let them know she was ready. Kei
went to the far end of the shelves and around them, partially abandoning her
cover so that she would have a slightly better angle at hitting their
mysterious assailant. Kei would cover the section closest to Iria; the most
likely place that the gunman would fire from. There was an increased risk
involved for Kei to even partially reveal herself, but there was no way she
would allow this creep to come close to injuring mentor. She'd sooner let

	$her mentor

herself be shot than allow that to happen.

<snip>

"NOOO!" Iria shouted at the top of her lungs as she felt a fear that might
have been more powerful than anything else in her life. There wasn't time to
properly aim, so instead she settled for shooting in the man's direction and
snapped off several quick shots, praying they would be enough to throw off
his aim off.

	$Off his aim or his aim off, it's up to you, but you do need to pick _one_.

The first blast struck the shelves about a foot above the Alan's head.
Sparks were thrown up from the laser impacting against the metal, and fell
on some of the books. A second caught the middle of the laser pistol,
hitting right above the trigger. The rest went wild, not coming close to the
man.

Finding himself unexpectedly under fire, Alan darted back under cover rather
than risk a shot at Kei. Hoping the move would buy him a few moments, he
examined the condition of his gun. Melted metal and open wiring told him all
he needed to. With a snarl he tossed the useless weapon aside and activated
his necro-lash, this time charging it up. He considered employing the
experimental weapon, but quickly pushed it from his mind as he found himself
reluctant to use 'test' it in the field now. It would be better to rely upon

	$to test it in the

something he was familiar with than to risk it all with something he was
uncertain would even work.


Yuri was confused. For some odd reason Iria had broken off her run and fired
several shots in another direction, unmindful of the fact her true target
was supposed to be in front of her. She began to wonder if there really was
a second opponent when one of the AR-10 robots rolled up the aisle and
stopped right next to where she was crouched behind the desk.

"Go away!" Yuri hissed. "We're in the middle of a firefight! I'll check a
book out later." She returned her attention to Iria and tried figuring out
exactly what was going on.

The robot remained where it was and stated in clipped tones. "You have a
book that is three years overdue. The late fee for that is death."

	$Nah, a robot wouldn't have the sense of humor.

The words registered with Yuri just in time as she saw a blur come from out
of the corner of her vision. She ducked and the robot's shock arm, a device
used to eliminate rodents and other vermin,

	$loiterers and such,

 struck the back of the desk right where Yuri's head had been. Judging by
the small shower of sparks kicked up by the contact and the sharp smell of
ozone, the dark-haired woman judged the shock arm to be somewhere near its
maximum power, perfectly able to crispy fry her. Ordinarily, civilian
production models of robots were programmed to be incapable of harming a
human being, even a glitchy AR-10.

	$Rewrite that sentance.

Still, it would be Yuri's luck to find the one that was programmed to
believe books were more important that people's lives.

	$than

Yuri stopped wondering what was wrong with the robot as a second arm shot
forward from its concealed housing inside the main body. Yuri forcefully
threw herself on her back as a whirring, cutting blade arced to where her
face had been but a moment before. Now prone on her back, Yuri was finally
able to bring her gun up as she fired five times at point blank range into
the AR-10. The first three hit it in the main body, blasting through the
metal and melting both circuits and wiring within. The remaining two hit its
inverted bowl-shaped head, destroying half of the rounded top.

"Geez, Yuri. What did you say to that one?" Kei called out from her position
behind the shelves once more. Iria had saved her life, but was now out of
her sight. Kei was worried about her and would have charged forth of it
hadn't been for the robot's unexpected attack on her partner.

"I didn't say anything! It thought I had an overdue book and tried to kill
me!" Yuri shouted at the top of her lungs.

"Wow. I guess they take their literature pretty seriously around here." Kei
whistled, impressed. Maybe she should get a library card for here after all.

Yuri again shouted, "What I want to know is if this is the only one or, KEI,
LOOK OUT!"

Kei threw herself to the side as a shock arm hit the shelves, nearly
striking her. Again sparks flew up, this time catching onto several books
that were resting right below the impact point and causing the pages to
start to combust.

	$Start burning sounds better.

 Kei reacted instantly as she gave a hard kick to the top of the robot. Its
balancers unable to compensate for the sudden force, the robot fell
backward, bearing a strong resemblance to a kicked over trash can. The
imagery was reinforced as Kei pumped multiple blasts into its body, the
insides of the robot spilling out onto the floor from the huge chunks of its
exterior that the redhead blasted out of it.

"This is why I hate robots," Kei spat.

"I think we can now safely assume it's not a glitch and that someone's
reprogrammed them." Yuri saw two more of the machines dart from a position
farther down the aisle and wheel their way towards her and Kei's position.

Another one came at them from the side and forced Kei to open fire. She was
beginning to get worried. Not so much for herself, but for Iria, who was now
on her own. True, the bounty hunter had done all right operating alone for
years, but that did nothing to assuage Kei's fears. If anything happened to
Iria while she was dealing with a pack of rolling garbage cans, she was
never going to forgive herself.

	$I'd imagine Iria would be holding a grudge as well.

Making herself flat against yet another row of shelves, Iria took her eyes
off where she thought the gunman had darted to see what Kei and Yuri were
shooting at. It took only a moment to figure out what was going on as she
saw another robot reduced to expensive debris under the women's concentrated
fire. Returning her attention to her former opponent, Iria made a mental
note to shoot any of the AR-10's that tried to get close to her.

The gunman was the one behind the robots sudden spree; of that Iria was
certain. Hopefully, killing him would end their rampage. If not, then the
repair bill for the library was going to be even more substantial than it
already was. But there were more important thing to be concerned about than
money, like her continued health.

Slowly, Iria began to creep closer to where she thought the man had
disappeared. She was no more than a couple of meters to the adjacent aisle
when she detected the scent of ozone in the air. There was a soft whirring
noise that sounded familiar, but that Iria was unable to identify. It was
right on the tip of her tongue, but still it wouldn't come to her. That was
annoying, she hated it when a memory was tantalizingly out of reach. The
noise did have the effect of causing her adrenaline to rush. Instinctively,
she ducked just as a white blur surrounded by a luminescent azure glow
whipped over her head and through the shelves she was behind as easily as
cutting through water. Six centimeters lower and it would have done the same
to the top of her head. And then it came to her.

"I've got it: a necro-lash."

	$Been watching Johnny Mnemonic?

Iria was greatly relieved that she had finally managed to remember what the
weapon accompanying the sound was.

	$She'd been afraid she was going senile.

She was not so relieved when the severed portion of the shelves landed on
top of her.

Alan was quick to take the advantage. He kept the lash back, prepared to use
it again as he ran forward to see the results of his handiwork. He was
rewarded by the sight of Iria lying there, prone on her back with the
shelves pinning her down, covering a third of her body. Her gun lying next
to her just within reach.

Iria spotted and recovered the sidearm just in time to see the necro-lash
descend towards her. She fired upward, luck as much as skill playing a role
as she hit the lash in mid-swing, deflecting it wide so that it spun
backward and made a diagonal slash across another section of shelves and
causing it to fall to the ground.

	$Hmm, last sentance could use work.

Unable to bring his own weapon into play for a moment, Alan found the pistol
suddenly aimed in his direction. Rather than retreating he did the
unsuspected and went on the attack. Narrowly avoiding a shot that nearly
parted his hair on top, he jumped in the air and landed upon the section of
shelves on top of Iria. Her armor partially absorbed the impact, jarring her
rather than winding her but making a second crimson bolt go wide. She didn't
get a third shot as Alan kicked the gun out of her hand, sending it flying
several meters away. However the kick, administered from the top of an
uneven surface that was balanced on top of another uneven, and moving
surface (namely Iria), caused Alan to pinwheel his arms in an effort to stay
upright,

	$Don't need (namely Iria)

the lash curling dangerously about through the air. It was a futile gesture,
as he went tumbling from the top of the shelves and to the floor, nearly
severing his own arm with the necro-lash.

Unable to extricate herself from the shelving, Iria wasted no further time
as she went to her belt and tried pulling out the nearest weapon she had
which could combat the necro-lash. She was rewarded when hands fell on the
handle. But when she tried to pull it out, she felt resistance and
discovered it too was partially pinned by the shelves. From where she lay
she could see her opponent recovering his balance and turning towards her.
He leaped back several feet so that he could get the distance necessary to
utilize his necro-lash properly. Using all of her strength, Iria managed to
pull the weapon out just as her opponent's weapon descended towards her
unprotected head.

There was a play of light as the necro-lash met a long, whip-like coil of
metal spikes, the two weapons becoming entangled with one another. Alan
tried to draw back his weapon but they were lashed together too well.
Unwilling to abandon his next to last offensive weapon, he maximized the
retraction on the housing unit and drew back with all of his strength,
determined to rip Iria's bizarre weapon out of her grasp if nothing else.
The strain caused Iria to grimace as her arm was pulled taunt by the force
used against her. For a moment it appeared the handle would slip out of her
grasp, but instead she held on until, rather than her weapon coming free,
she did as Alan's strength succeeded where hers alone had not and he pulled
her out from under the shelves.

A tactical error, he realized. Luckily, by hitting the extension on the
necro-lash he had the slack to disentangle his weapon. Still laying on her
back, Iria reacted by grabbing a tiny rod, barely twice the size of a coffee
stirrer, attached to her shoulder armor and throwing it at her opponent.
Just as it left her hand two smaller pieces sprung out from the top and
formed a tiny propeller, spinning around and stabilizing its flight as it
headed toward its intended target.

	$Gotta get me some of those for Christmas.

Alan recognized the particularly nasty device as a 'Boom Cutter.' Its
specially treated propellers would burrow into an object, working its way to
the insides a moment before exploding. He barely got his head out of the way
in time as it whizzed past, the wake from its passage tickling the tiny
hairs along his ear. The sound of the propellers digging into the ceiling
tile lasted only a moment before an explosion detonated the ceiling nearly
above him, pelting him with debris and forcing him to cover his head.

The pieces were still falling when Iria used her free hand to dig a small
oval device from her belt, an open flame lit on the top. Alan's eyes widened
as he recognized the fire grenade. There was no time to dodge, so instead he
swung at it with his necro-lash, catching it in midair and severing it in
half.

Flames burst forth in a balloon-like explosion. The premature detonation
halved the strength of the blast, forcing both warriors to covered their

	$cover

faces as they allowed the force of the explosion to blow them backward and
take them out of the miniature firestorm rather than be consumed by it.

Stunned for but a moment, Alan lay on his back, out of Iria's sight, and
assessed the damage from the blast. He had been closer and taken the worst
of it, at least bruising some ribs if not breaking them outright. Moreover
he lacked the armor Iria wore, meaning she was almost certainly in better
shape than him, as well as obviously being better armed. There had been no
mention in the woman's dossier of bring a walking arsenal.

	$Pretty incomplete dossier.

The sound of something crackling at his wrist caught his attention. His guts
knotted deep as he looked down to see that the housing unit for the
necro-lash had been cracked open, either from explosion of landing. A quick
check showed the weapon useless. Cursing in silence he hit the manual
release of the weapon and let fall to the ground. He was down to only one
offensive weapon left; just a standard stiletto.

	$Sometimes the simplest is the best.

Now he had a choice. There was a chance he could escape. Then he could
report what had happened and hope to be left in the field despite his
failure. It was possible; his employers despised wasting any resource. And
even if he was demoted it would only mean a paycut and no chance of ever
advancing again unless he fell into favor with a superior who would elevate
him to a field operative once again.

But no. Pride prohibited him from accepting failure as an option. Win or
lose, he would gamble with his life and hope his skills were enough to pull
him through. Either that or get extremely lucky, though he had always been
of

	$and should replace though

the opinion luck was one of his many skills. It was time to put that theory
to the ultimate test.

Smoke filled the air and the room became hotter as the incendiary device had
done its work too well despite being muted. All too combustible books had
caught on fire all around and it was spreading, becoming a miniature
inferno.

	$That's a bit awkward.  Reword to avoid the second 'all'.

The configuration of the battlefield had changed, more in his favor than
Iria's. It might be enough to allow him to complete his mission. It had to
be.

It was time to risk using the prototype. In theory, activating it should be
no problem for it had worked in the testing facilities. But that had been
under ideal conditions, and one of the suspected drawbacks of the device was
that it wasn't very durable. After being hammered in the explosion and with
all of the other combat it had seen in the last couple of minutes (an
eternity, to Alan's perceptions), it would take a minor miracle for the
devise to still be operational.

	$device

It took Alan a moment to come to the realization that all of his fears were
pointless. Either the device would work or it wouldn't. Hesitation
forgotten, he retrieved the circular object from its pouch on his belt and
placed it on the ground. Satisfied it was stable, he activated it.

Complete darkness sprang into being in a thirty foot radius.

	$Much like the AD&D spell.

It had worked! The darkness field would absorb all visible light both within
and without its field of effect. Artificial or natural, nothing would be
seen as long as the field was active. However the same did not apply to the
non-visible spectrums.

Alan dropped his multi-optics headband over his eyes. Instead of being
rewarded with a view of a red tinted world, there was nothing but blackness.
This time a curse did escape his lips. How stupid he was to not have checked
the optics headband out before activating the unit. It had probably been
damaged in the explosion as well. Now he was blind. He was as helpless as
his opponents.

At least until he remembered to switch the headband on.

	$Heh, cute.

The world came into focus as he switched the band to infra-red. That was a
bad sign. He was starting to forget his training and panic. A deep calming
breath relaxed him. Now he had to move quickly. The 'blackout' would last
only a couple of minutes at most due to the small size of the portable unit
and the tremendous amount of power it used. A pity once turned on there
wasn't enough charge left to turn it off and back on. Another drawback to
the unit, but it was up to the weapons development division to work through
the limitations of the item. All Alan had to do was use the toys they made.

Silently, he pulled his stiletto from his boot and crept forward, fighting
back the hiss of pain his ribs urged him to make. He saw Iria instantly. She
was just turning away as she gave her back to him, then remained motionless
in the dark, the long whip with the sharp metal pieces along its length
still in her hand. Alan thought perhaps she was trying to locate him by
sound, but it wouldn't work. There was the crackling of fires from all
around, debris still raining down from the earlier explosion, and even the
sounds of lasers being shot and robots exploding coming from where Kei and
Yuri were. Iria had no hope of hearing him until the stiletto buried itself
in her.

	$Or glanced off her armor.

Alan's mind turned to the other targets as he drew closer. He had a
suspicion they were still outside the blackout field, judging by the sounds
of robots being reduced to spare parts. After dispatching Iria, he would
have to pat her down and see if she had another decent weapon. If nothing
else, he thought he knew where her sidearm had fallen. He was confident he
could recover it before the field collapsed. Then he could use his optics to
sight in Yuri and Kei and shoot them from the safety of the darkness. Both
of the troublesome troubleshooters would be dead before they knew what had
happened.

Mentally he planned his attack. The armor was far from all encompassing. It
would be a simple matter to drive the knife through Iria's unprotected neck
from behind. All he had to do was remain quiet and it would be over in a
matter of seconds.

He approached within an arm's length of the target and drew back his arm. He
was surprised that he felt a pang of remorse about killing Iria from behind
instead of in a frontal assault. His training was supposed to have driven
such useless concepts as honor from his conscience. Dreams of his bonus and
a promotion quickly dispelled the remorse, and he would kill her quick. That
would assuage his conscience. It would all be over in one strike

	$strike.  And that's true.

It took Alan a moment to understand just how true that statement was as Iria
snapped her wrist. The whip with the metal pieces straightened out and
locked together, instantly becoming a seamless sword of metal that she
raised as she pivoted on her heel and brought it unerringly up to Alan's
neck. His eyes widened in shock for one brief moment as he saw Iria's face,
suddenly remembering one very important, and fatal, fact he had forgotten in
the heat of the moment.

The goggles that had been resting on Iria's head, the ones with the
infra-red lenses of their own, were now strapped across her face.

The sword sliced through Alan's neck as easily as it had through air. His
head went flying as his body went limp and fell to the ground, the knife
falling from his lifeless grasp.

Iria released her held in breath. It was over, just as she had planned. When
everything went dark her first instinct had been to drop her goggles over
her eyes. Instantly she was able to see everything, including the gunman
holding the stiletto in his hand. Iria decided to save some trouble and
pretended not to see him, allowing him to become overconfident and draw
close so that she could kill him in one stroke.

Iria looked down contemptuously at the body. Her voice was as cold as a
vacuum as she spat, "That's for trying to kill Kei, you bastard."

	$Technically, a vacuum isn't cold.  Maybe ice would be better?

They were the first words spoken since the fight began and the last. Iria
turned from the blood pooling beneath the corpse and ran back to where she
heard her comrades continued fire. Through her own infra-red vision she saw
Kei and Yuri had maneuvered back to back and were blasting away at the
remaining robots. Actually, it appeared to be more of a moping up operation
as there were only three left. The poor rolling hunks of metal couldn't even
get close to their targets due to the number of their fellow robots that
were already piled up in front of the Dirty Pair.

	$Taking out the trashcans.

Iria waited until the last of the robots had fallen before shouting out,
"Don't shoot! It's me coming out of this dark stuff!"

The duo kept their pistols pointed in the voice's direction until they saw
Iria walk out from the field of darkness, which disappeared several seconds
after she emerged from it.

"The shooter?" Kei asked.

"Dead," Iria confirmed

"Too bad you didn't take him alive," Yuri said. "It would have been useful
interrogating him so we might have some idea of what just happened here."

Iria grimaced slightly. Yuri was correct. Capturing him alive should have
been a priority and she could have done it if the gunman had been reduced to
using a knife to try and stab her. She had let her emotions get away from
her in decapitating the man, but she had trouble feeling guilty about it. If
Iria had been even a second later Kei would have most likely been dead. The
bounty hunter was surprised at the rage she still felt, even with their
assailant dead.

"Like a mother defending its cub," Iria mused.

"What was that?" Yuri asked.

"Nothing," Iria quickly said as she moved closer to Kei. Masking it as best
she could, looked Kei over for any injuries, knowing well enough that
showing too much concern about her health would only serve to embarrass the
redhead.

	$Which would be fun in its own right.

"They must have bought these things wholesale." Kei kicked one of the fallen
robots hard. She turned to Yuri. "I nailed eighteen of them."

"I got sixteen," Yuri sighed.

"That means I win. You owe me dinner" Give gave Yuri a 'V for victory' sign
that was only matched by the wide grin that accompanied it.

"I never agreed to that!" Yuri shouted back.

"Um, guys," Iria interrupted.

"What?" Kei asked as she shot Yuri a glare that promised the discussion was
not over.

"This entire floor seems to be on fire." Iria pointed in the direction that
she had come from. The whole area was covered in flames that were not only
spreading across the floor, but moved up through the hole in the ceiling
that Iria had created with her Boom Cutter, and were now setting the above
level on fire as well. Perhaps using an incendiary grenade had not been an
idea choice of weapon after all.

"Why hasn't the fire prevention system kicked on yet?" Kei asked.

Yuri pointed at the robots. "I think they were the fire prevention system. I
saw extinguishing foam kick up from a couple I blasted."

"That's just great!," Kei snapped as she gazed upon her handiwork with less
admiration that before. Their extensive firefight with the robots had ended
up setting everything behind them on fire as well. "I think we've learned
all we can from here." Kei quickly mentioned

	$Indeed, I doubt anything else will ever be learned from there.

"I agree," Iria said, feeling the temperature rise to uncomfortable levels.

"The stairs we came up were from back there, right?" Kei asked as she
pointed at a living wall of flames.

"Afraid so," Yuri said. "And the nearest ones to those were a good way in
that direction." She pointed at the section that Iria had just come from,
which was also engulfed in flames, a pyromaniac's delight.

"Told you we should have brought jet backpacks," Kei said.

"How was I to know we'd end up trapped in a burning building?!" Yuri waved
her hands in the air emphatically. No way was she letting Kei stick her with
this one.

Oddly, Kei did not seem that concerned. "Well, we can still make our way to
the open area in the middle of the floor." She pointed in one of the few
directions where there were only a handful of growing fires.

"We're five floors up!" Yuri protested. "What are we going to use to break
our fall, your boobs?"

"Don't get snappy at me just because I have the nicer chest," Kei shot back.
"And anyway, it's Iria that's going to save us."

Yuri looked at Iria. "I don't see how. Her chest is smaller than mine."

	$Can't seem to get breasts off her mind.

"Hey!" the bounty hunter snapped. She might have been quite satisfied with
the way she was built, but was as defensive as the next woman when it came
to her appearance being insulted.

Kei sighed. "She has a cable climber with her. She never goes anywhere
without it. She'll just lower us down herself."

"That'll work." Iria nodded in agreement to the plan. The trio raced through
the ever increasing veil of smoke, coughing hard, as they made their way to
the edge of the railing and looked over the side.

"All clear." Iria shot her miniature cable climber into the ceiling as she
had before and prepared to jump over the railing. "Who goes first?"

Yuri looked back at the flames that were drawing closer. It was amazing how
easily books seemed to catch on fire. Another good reason to convert
everything to datafiles. "I don't know as there's going to be enough time to
go up and down twice."

"Yeah," Kei agreed as she began coughing. "Just take us down together. We
don't weigh that much."

"Riiight," Iria slowly said as the girls grasped onto her. Tensing up, Iria
pushed the cable climber's pull to maximum as the trio jumped over the edge
of the railing and to the ground below.

The descent went without incident and they gently sat down on the ground
floor. Kei and Yuri detached themselves from Iria. The bounty hunter
remained were she was, arm still raised high in the air.

"What's wrong?" Kei asked, concern in her voice.

"Just trying to get my arm back in its socket." Iria grimaced as the duo
shot her a pair of dirty looks. "Relax. It's a joke." Not much of one
though. Kei and Yuri were definitely heavier than they looked, not that Iria
would breathe a word of that with the evil stares she was getting. As
skilled as she was, there was such a thing as tempting fate.

	$She'd wait until later to get her revenge.

Kei's gaze softened first as she was unable to retain her anger. "Do you
think they're going to be able to save the building?"

"Surely at least the lower floors," Yuri said, filled with hope, though she
was no expert in fire prevention. Causing them yes, stopping them, not
quite. "Fire likes burning upward, right? So there's a chance it won't all
burn down. As long as the main floor stays intact."

"Umm, Yuri?" Kei said.

"Yes?"

"Did that first robot we ran into say how many of them ran this joint?"

"It said somewhere over a hundred, as I recall. Why do you..." Yuri trailed
off as the question was answered for her.

A series of AR-10s, at least fifty, began emerging from the shelves all
around, mechanical arms at the ready. Within moments the women found
themselves completely surrounded.

"Oh hell." Yuri just gave up as Iria handed both her and Kei incendiary
grenades.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

"I don't think they're going to give us a library card now no matter how
nice we ask."

	$What library?

"Shut up, Kei," Yuri said, fretting over yet another mark that would be set
against them as she stood outside and watched the fire consume the remnants
of the Benjamin Dover Library, which would only be a modern wonder of
Delabar if they had a fascination with overly large piles of kindling.

	$It's a cultural thing.

"At least that number crunching bitch is out a job," Kei said with a smile.
Curiously, that fact made Yuri feel better too. It served the girl right for
having their salaries cut.

"We'd better leave before the authorities get here and start asking
questions we don't want to answer," Iria said. After fighting off another
wave of robots (and incidentally making certain the building was history by
starting a huge fire on the first floor) they had searched until they were
sure no one else was left in the building. It hadn't taken long as it might
have, considering everyone had cleared out when the first firefight broke
out. Imagine that.

	$Scaredy cats.

Fire fighting units had been the first ones on the scene and made certain
the fire didn't spread to any other buildings. Or to be more specific any
buildings other than the two next to the library that were now also burning.
Apparently Zanibat needed to improve their building codes if that was all it
took to set their downtown district ablaze, Yuri noted.

	$They'd probably be blamed for that, too.

The sounds of sirens indicated law enforcement officials were about to
arrive, and Iria had no desire to stay with them the next several days for
questioning. Zeiram still had to be located and killed, and thus far the
trip to Delabar had only wasted time and raised more questions.

"I don't feel like explaining to headquarters what we're doing out here yet
either," Yuri and Kei agreed as the three singe-covered women attempted to

	$Soot covered or singed.

surreptitiously leave the area.

Once satisfied they had avoided any casual identification, the trio relaxed.
Yuri was the first to speak up. "Who do you think it was that attacked us?"

"No one I recognized," Iria admitted. She had been the only one to get a
decent look at their opponent.

"We've got a lot of people out for our hide." Kei kicked at a soft drink can
someone had discarded on the street.

"But how did he find us?" Yuri asked. "It's not like anyone knew we were
heading here. There's no way he came from off planet. Even if he found out
who we were the instant we landed, there wasn't enough time."

"Definitely a professional too," Iria commented. There weren't that many
people that could put up a fight with her like he had.

"Too many professional killers have been popping up lately," Kei said in
frustration, recalling the ambush she had fallen for during her first visit
on the space station. "Only one to take us on. Not the best odds in the
world, especially with our reputations. Makes you wonder if he was working
alone or if he was the only guy around good enough to try to kill us. Also
makes you wonder if this is connected to Zeiram or not." Kei looked in the
direction of Iria's wrist. "Got any ideas, Bob?"

"Maybe," Bob admitted. "I think I have an idea, but I need to access
planetary information."

"I don't know," Yuri said slowly. "Remember what happened the last time we
tried that."

"I do. This time I'm going to be more careful. It doesn't need to be
anything sophisticated. Just get me to a download to a current information
site."

Having no better ideas, the trio agreed. They entered a nearby store that
offered current, local information services, paid a small fee, and inserted
Bob into the system. Within a moment he stated in a voice that told them his
suspicions were confirmed, "I just checked the current weather reports.
There is no noticeable sunspot activity today."

"So what?" Kei asked, confused at first, but then recalling what Bob had
been saying right before the ambush. "Oh, I get it. Someone managed to
control the information we were getting at the library."

A pallor cast over Yuri's features. "That isn't good. That means not only
was this guy not working alone, but something big is maneuvering things.
That was a public facility. The ability to interfere with its access as
quickly as they did is next to impossible."

	$Unless Ben Dover is the one behind it!  I see!  He built the library so
that the remains of this decandent civilization can rebuild even better
after Zeiram has destroyed it and moved on!

"Don't forget, there's also how they were able to locate and sic that thug
on us so quickly," Iria pointed out.

"I may have been partially to blame for that." Bob admitted reluctantly. "I
did a widespread search for anything relating to Zeiram, the DX-11000 space
station, attacks on any local planets, and that mysterious ship's registry.
Anyone monitoring for any of those keywords would have located our position
in a heartbeat. I should have been more cautious."

	$Bad Bob.

"It could have happened to anyone," Kei said in an attempt to assuage his
wounded pride. "And since this is the nearest inhabited world to the
station, they could have been keeping a real close eye for any potential
survivors or witnesses and had everything in place to silence them. Hey!
What if they're tracking us again?" Kei looked at Bob again.

If Bob had a head, he would have shaken it. "Give me some credit. I do learn
from my mistakes. I made sure to be subtle this time, using a fake
electronic ID and just asking for a general download. There shouldn't be any
way for them to track us right now. And next time I'll be on guard for any
potential interference and see if I can backtrack it down to its source. If
they try to stop us a second time they'll be in for a rude surprise. I'll
probably get more conclusive information from them instead of the search."

Iria shook her head at the implications. "But still, it means whoever it is
we're dealing with has considerable resources on this planet if they tracked
us, electronically prevented us from getting the information we needed, and
had at least one person stationed here waiting to silence us before we could
tell anyone what's happened."

Yuri was grateful for the help. Usually she was the one who had to think
things out like that. "Now we have a choice. Do we stick around and see if
we can uncover what's going on or keep trying to find Zeiram? And do we tell
our superiors about what's really happening out here, or do we still keep a
tight lid on it? I'm leaning towards sticking around and letting the 3WA in
on this, but I'm going to leave it up to you guys."

"If we bring in the 3WA, it might cause whoever's behind this to go to
ground. We might never find out what's going on," Kei pointed out.

"Or it might them to get real desperate," Iria added. "They had one guy
willing to destroy a building to get to us and kill whoever else got in his
way.

	$Well, I think that while he was willing to kill whoever, destroying the
building had been their idea.

If we up the ante, they might as well. As long as we keep this small, they
might feel the same way too."

"Oh, that never happens," Kei assured her. Lord knew she had enough
experience in such situations. Escalating conflict was practically her and
Yuri's middle names.

Iria shrugged. "At the very least, I agree with Yuri about staying here and
looking for clues. We'll have to be extra cautious since poking our noses
around is probably going to alert the opposition. But we don't have much
choice. It's not like we have anywhere else to go."

A loud beeping came from Kei and Yuri's communicators. The two looked at
each other in confusion, then answered the signal.

Their tiny viewscreens popped on to show a picture of Muhgi in the cockpit
of the Lovely Angel. He was waving his paws in the air emphatically as he
gave a low series of growls and hisses.

"Damn it, Kei!" Yuri hissed. "I told you to clean out his litter box before
we left. If he crapped on my bed again, I'm going to kill you myself and
save our friends some trouble."

	$Cute.

"But I did," Kei insisted. She turned and addressed the viewscreen. "This
isn't about your litter box, is it, Muhgi?"

Muhgi shook his head and pushed several buttons on the communications
console. A moment later, an audio signal was sent to the communicators as a
light, female voice began singing:

%~ Fly me to the moon ~%
%~ and let me play among the stars ~%
%~ Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars ~%

Kei and Yuri looked at each other, then back at the tiny screen. Yuri said,
"Well, the song is nice, Muhgi, but I really don't think we have time to
listen to something as overplayed as that."

"Besides, I have at least eight different versions of it on 'The Best of
Ayanami' soundtrack I own.

	$All of them in a perfect deadpan, if light and musical, voice.

 All you have to do if you want to hear it is ask," Kei said.

Muhgi shook his head furiously and fiddled with the controls. The music
abruptly stopped as a much more authoritative voice said. "-telling you we
can't seem to get any response from the mining operation on Asteroid K12.
Patrol 54, do a swing by there when you do your rounds. It's probably just a
communications breakdown again, but we agreed to help keep an eye out on
them."

"Do you want us to head straight out there or complete our rounds by sector
81?" a different voice asked.

The first voice replied, "Complete your rounds first. One missed check in is
not an emergency. Besides, there's been reports of smugglers going through
sec 81. The chief wants to make sure it is just a rumor. He's been taking
some heat from the world council over them. And if you encounter any, make
sure you call for back up. I don't want any hotshots trying to bite off more
than they can chew. Especially from you two."

"But, sir. We can handle a group of penny-ante smugglers-" came a protest
that went unfinished as Muhgi turned the tape he had recorded off.

"You've been monitoring the inter-planetary police bands. Good boy, Muhgi.
Extra chow for you when we get back to the ship," Kei promised. She'd even
make certain to clean his litter box out this time, which she would have
done in the first place if they had had more time.

	$Hmm, who's bed got used instead?  Muhgi is smart enough to know who was
responsible for it.

"It might be just a communications breakdown," Yuri said. She was trying to
keep the others from putting too much hope into the potential lead, even
knowing all the while that she would fail.

Iria settled things as she broke out into a quick run. "Let's go! We have to
get moving if we want to get there before Zeiram leaves."

Yuri sighed as Kei shouted "Wait for me," and tried to catch up to Iria
without giving the raven-haired troubleshooter so much as a backward glance.
Between what had happened with the space station and the library, there
could no longer be any doubts. It had spelled out things beyond a shadow of
a doubt.

It had turned into another one of 'those' missions again.

"I'm almost getting too old for this," Yuri sighed as she shouted at Kei to
wait up because of her bad leg.

	$She beat her to the ship last time.



	$Well, the casualty count continues to rise.  Nice work, although there
seemed to be a little more awkwardness than usual.  Looking forward to the
next chapter.



  Kichigai

  ICQ# 37606443
  http://come.to/Kichigai




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