Many, many thanks go to Slacker for helping me refine this fic.

All chapters are availible on my page: http://templar.anifics.com/

Disclaimer: The characters in this work of fan fiction belong to their
original creators, and are not used for the purpose of monetary gain.

Saber's Destiny
By Andrew Wilson

Chapter 5: Deus ex Machina

"Welcome, ladies," Largo's image called to the Knight Sabers. "I'm so
glad that you came here, it saves me the trouble of hunting you down
once my takeover of the city is complete."

"We've killed you twice before," Sylia stated as she raised her arm. "We
will do it again." She shot once and blew the boomer head/holographic
projector to pieces before Largo could reply.

"Twice?" Morgan asked.

"Largo was Brian Mason," Sylia explained.

"Is this another copy?" Linna asked.

"Mason?" Reika mused over the tac net. "Isn't he the one that-?"

"Yes," Sylia interrupted, "he is the one that arranged for your sister's
death."

"And why is he still around?" Reika asked in a cold voice.

"Because he made a backup of his consciousness and memories," Morgan
explained. "But that couldn't be done without serious personality
degradation."

"It drove him insane," Sylia stated.

"Shit!" Linna spat. "How many times do we have to kill this bastard?"

"Morgan," Sylia turned to the black and purple hardsuit. "How long will
it take to put up the rest of the shock mines if you do them yourself?"

"Ten minutes," Morgan immediately replied.

"Get on it, I'll send Mackie out to help.  Linna, Reika, start looking
around.  If you see any cameras, microphones, or any other observation
devices, destroy them."

*******

Leon McNichol paced up and down the line of roadblocks that made up the
police perimeter around the Genom tower.  Whatever had happened inside,
it was worrisome.  The ADP was the only police unit left in the area,
the regular and highway patrol units having been replaced by recently
mobilized military units.  Cars and motorcycles were being replaced by
tanks and APCs.  Even the ADP portion of the line was smaller, since the
normal response teams had been pulled back.  All that remained were four
mechanized units, nearly half the Advanced Division Police force.

"Any word on the airborne units?" Leon asked.

Daley Wong shook his head. "Not since the attempted insertion at
sunset.  We can't even see what shot them down."

"Survivors?"

Daley remained silent, which was all the information Leon needed.  After
his own unit had been relieved, Daley had stayed at the site as Leon's
unofficial second.  The rest of the unit had no objections, since most
of them remembered what happened when those two put their heads
together.

"So what next?" Daley asked.

Leon sighed. "We wait.  Nothing much we can do at this point."

"Leon!" called a communications tech. "Something's coming in from HQ!"

Leon and Daley jogged over to the communication's van.  Leon verified
the call's security, then picked up the handset.

"This is McNichol."

Chief Todo's voice came over the line with it's usual annoyance. "All
ADP units have been ordered to stand down."

"What!" Leon exclaimed.

"Apparently," the chief continued, "there was some breakout inside, and
they sealed the building.  The Chairman personally came on the air and
informed the brass about it.  The army's already moving out."

"What about the aerial unit?" Leon growled.

"Something about them being in restricted airspace, and having been
warned off."

"You have got to be kidding.  Is the tape real?"

Todo grunted. "According to our techs, yes."

"Right," Leon said, "we're returning to base, but I want to be on the
record as saying this is a bad idea."

"No kidding," the chief replied. "And I said that the ADP units are to
stand down.  Take down the roadblocks."

"Yes, sir," Leon growled.

"Oh, and Leon," the chief continued. "Your team's response time has been
a little slow.  Take the time to run a few drills.  Since the area
around the Genom tower was evacuated, and will stay empty a couple more
days at the least..."

Leon smiled. "I gotcha, boss.  McNichol out."

Daley smiled as well, since he had been listening in on the whole
conversation. "We have that transmission from the tower?"

The tech nodded. "We received it while the commander was talking with
the chief."

Leon clapped Daley on the shoulder. "You work on that tape, I want to
know everything about it in an hour.  Until then, I have some 'drills'
to run."

*******

"Where now?" Morgan asked.  She had just completed placing the shock
mines, and now a web of the hand-sized disks covered each entrance. 
Anything that didn't have the proper transponder would find itself
suffering from electrical overload.  The disks could also be manually
activated from the command post.

Sylia glanced at the trailer.  Nene was out of her hardsuit and walking
around on shaky legs, obviously still trying to recover from the jolt to
her system.  Without her hardsuit, the shock might have been fatal. 
Sylia had already repaired the suit's probe, and had run a diagnostic on
the systems.  Everything was ready to go.  Sylia waited until the other
team members were nearby before distributing orders.

"We're splitting up," Sylia instructed. "Nene, you and Mackie stay here,
I want you to try to get back into Genom's systems.  You know what I
want you to look for."

"Right," Nene said in a tired voice as she donned her hardsuit.

"Morgan, stay with them.  Use discretion while defending the area."

"Discretion?" Morgan asked.

"If it's human, be careful.  If it's a boomer, destroy it."

"Right."

Sylia turned to the last two.  Reika was out of he mech and talking to
Linna. "You two are coming with me."

"Where?" Kou, Reika's pilot, asked.

"The living quarters, then the executive offices."

"The offices?" Reika asked. "You don't really expect-"

"I expect to find corpses," Sylia replied in a tense voice. "But we have
to check.  As for Quincy, I expect to find him dead."

Reika climbed into her mech and closed the hatch. "Lock and load," she
said over a loudspeaker.

*******

"Commander," the communications tech sighed, "we've looked over the
recording three times.  What are you trying to find?"

Leon tapped a few commands on the video playback to enlarge the image of
Quincy's face. "We're looking for evidence that this is really him.  I
got a report a while back that for sensitive encounters, he likes to use
remote controlled androids."

"So how do we tell?" Daley asked.  He had gone though the recording
twice himself before calling Leon in.

"I have no clue," Leon replied in all honesty.

*******

Morgan was grumbling as she escorted a group of refugees out of the
tower.  She had left her motoroid at the base camp in its independent
operation mode.  She didn't like leaving that much firepower in the
hands of a computer, but Sylia had been the one to write the AI
algorithms, so Morgan would have to trust her boss.  This was the third
group of twenty refugees, and each one had looked more haggard than the
last.  The few that had actually been able to tell the Knight Sabers
about their experiences had related horror stories about new types of
cyberdroids, along with the more powerful production models.

As with the two previous groups, she was able to lead the refugees out
of the Genom gates.  She had noticed on her first trip that most of the
police and army units were gone.  Only a single mechanized ADP unit was
left, though they had called in some backup to deal with the refugees.

Morgan was about to head back to base when a loud screech came from down
the hall.  She spun in time to see another group of refugees racing
towards the gate, a group of boomers on their tails.

"Shit," she spat. "Base, what's going on?"

"They started running," Mackie replied. "We tried to send your motoroid
after them, but we just got attacked and we need all our firepower for
defense."

Many, many curses ran through Morgan's mind.  None were strong enough
for the situation.  There was only one thing she could do in the
situation.

"Right.  Keep the others from repeating this mistake.  I'll try to keep
these Darwin candidates alive." (1)

Morgan fired her jump jets.  The boost sent her flying over the heads of
the fleeing mob and towards the marching cyberdroids.  The boomers were
standard 55-C models, and Morgan considered it odd that they weren't
opening up with their mouth cannons.

No matter, there were only four of them.  The first one Morgan took out
with a burst from her cannon.  As the headless corpse dropped to the
ground, the other three seemed to take notice, but not before a quartet
of rail gun needles turned the second's head into a pincushion.

Morgan hit the ground in a tumble to avoid the barrage of energy bolts
the two remaining boomers were sending her way.  They were staggering
their shots, so that one was firing while the other's weapon was cooling
and charging.  This didn't give her much of a chance to fire back.  It
was a good thing that there weren't more of them....

*Speak of the devil.* Eight more were marching down the corridor.

"Mackie," she growled into her radio, "where's Volcano?"

"We're a little busy now," Mackie replied. "Nene's trying to break into
the system, and the motoroids are holding the line.  You'll have to get
back here on your own."

"Thanks a lot," Morgan cursed.  The new boomers were firing, and she was
doing all she could to keep out of the way of the blasts.  Her suit was
able to take a single direct hit, maybe two, but she would be hit by
many more than that if she tried to fire with any accuracy.  Switching
modes on her cannon to full auto would be effective, but the shots would
be little more than spitballs against their armor.

No other way to look at it, she was sunk.

At least the refugees got out.

*Of course, they're the reason I'm in trouble.*

The term 'last run' and it's implications was going through Morgan's
mind as nine of the boomers were blown to pieces by several streams of
directed fire.  Morgan blasted the last one in the head before turning
to regard her saviors.

"Combat boomers attacking civilians is a clear violation of several
different laws," Leon said from within his K-13. "We had no choice but
to secure the area and eliminate any further offenses."

"I never though I'd be glad to see you," Morgan commented. "Formulating
your report already?"

Leon's suit sketched a salute. "Any time."

"There are more of them inside."

Morgan could almost hear Leon's smirk as the cop turned to his squad.
"You heard the lady, lots of unfriendlies up ahead.  Lock and load,
people.  Let's show them how real cops kick ass." (2)

*******

Elsewhere, unaware of the reinforcements she was now receiving, Sylia
and Linna rode down one of the large, twisting corridors of the
executive wing.  Reika was right behind them, cruising along in her
mech.

"It's too quiet," Linna commented.

"Don't say things like that," Reika cautioned.

"Oh, come on," Linna replied. "You don't really believe those
superstitions, do you?  I just wish something would happen!"

All three vehicles screeched to a halt a moment after the words left
Linna's mouth.  Ahead, half hidden in the darkness, were at least a
score of small objects.

"What the hell are those?" Reika asked.

"Trouble," Sylia replied as she dismounted the Typhoon-2.

The shapes were small, low to the ground, and possessed an almost feral
air.  As one, they curled into balls and began rolling towards the
intruders.

"Look out!" Reika shouted as she triggered her gattling guns.  Shells
normally designed to punch through heavy armor blasted the balls into
scrap metal.  The rolling tide was too fast, however, and closed with
the group before more than a quarter of them were destroyed.

Sylia ducked as one of the balls unfolded into a black, cat-like shape. 
She wasted no time in blasting it, though it took several shots before
she was able to connect.

There were too many of them to use her cannons.  Instead, she extended
her high-frequency sabers and started cutting into the shapes around
her.  Linna had adopted a similar tactic with her mono-cutters.  Reika's
mech, on the other hand, had extended a quartet of tentacles, one each
from the gaps between leg joints.  Each strike sent a 'cat' flying, and
a few of the hits simply destroyed the boomers, or whatever they were.

It was over quickly, and Sylia saw that their attackers were, indeed,
boomers.  Small mechanical felines with molecular edged claws (as
several gashes in her armor could attest to) and camouflage coating.

Sylia regarded the GD-43 for a moment. "Who gave you the schematics to
the knuckle bombers?"

Linna idly scratched the back of her head (an odd gesture since she was
still in armor). "Um, I kinda described some of the things my suit can
do.  Sorry, Sylia."

Sylia looked at Linna, then at the mech, then back at Linna.
"Interesting application of the technology.  I expect a cut of the
profits."

Reika snorted over the radio. "Sure, if they make it to the production
stage.  They seem a little redundant for anti-personnel defenses."

Sylia righted her motoroid, noted that the machine received its fair
share of scratches, and resumed her trip down the halls.

*******

Nene was swimming in sweat.  At least, that's what it felt like. 
Whoever had set up the computer protocols was good, real good.  But she
was better.

At least, that's what she told herself.

Sylia's instructions had been specific, and Nene was already accessing
the secured server.  This was the one that contained all the boomer
plans, along with information from the R&D labs.  It had no connections
to the outside world, and was only accessible from a select number of
terminals.  Undoubtedly, that was one of the reasons Sylia chose this
location for a staging area.

The humidity in Nene's suit increased again as she barely defused a
feedback trap before it went off.  She had been careless the first time
in, and the burns along her right arm were a reminder of the price of
failure.

But, if she pulled this off...

********

Sylia looked coldly at what was left of Quincy's office.

"Any way we can verify this?" Reika asked.

Sylia shook her head. "But this does prove that it wasn't an android."

Linna was outside in the hall with Kou, desperately trying to not be
sick.

Reika absently twirled her pistol in one hand. "Not that I'll be
shedding any tears, but this is a bit harsh, even for this bastard."

Sylia nodded. "I'd suggest a synapse map to see if it's really him-"

"But you're not sure if you would be able to find enough synapses to
make a match."

"Correct.  Besides, it's been at least a day, from what I can tell. 
There wouldn't be anything useful left."

The office was red.  Not from a new paintjob, but from the blood sprayed
all over the ceiling, floor, and walls.  The occasional chunk of flesh
or bone was visible.  Most of the remains, though, were concentrated
near the desk.  Piles of entrails surrounded the headless shell of a
combat boomer.  On top of the cyberdroid's chassis sat a human head. 
The dead eyes of Quincy Rosenkroitz stared back at the Knight Saber's
leader in accusation.

Sylia finally stepped out of the room with Reika right behind her.
"Obviously, he was one of Largo's main targets."

"How can you be so calm about this?" Linna asked as she secured her
helmet.  A discolored puddle several feet down the corridor told Sylia
why Linna had her helmet off.

"Let's go," Sylia instructed. "There's another group of people trapped a
few corridors back.  We'll get them out on the way back to base."

*******

Dimly, in her peripheral vision, Nene spotted Mackie firing his
recoilless rifle at a Doberman.  Nene's Hurricane and Morgan's Volcano
were busy blasting a pair of 'monster' models (her name for the thing
McLaren helped build).  At each entryway, the shock mines were frying
three quarters of the boomers that approached.  But the remaining ones
were tougher, and could resist the power surge.  They were also more
dangerous.

"Come on," Nene squeaked to herself, "work!"

*******

The last pocket of human life was exactly where Sylia said it would be. 
The crowd of fifty slowed them down considerably.  Reika had point,
while Sylia brought up the rear and Linna was walking 'slack'- pacing up
and down the line so she could support either point.  Their motoroids
were in exo-mode at the moment, and they held the large impact cannon in
their hands.

"I'm picking up a large energy signature," Reika warned.

"I have it," Sylia said. "Attempting to localize."

"Don't bother," Linna commented as she pointed her cannon down a side
corridor.

Sylia rushed up and saw a large shape approaching at a run.  The few
remaining corridor lights seemed to reflect off a polished surface, but
the silhouette was unfamiliar.

Linna's cannon barked, and a heavy slug hit the floor in front of the
figure.  The small explosion from the shell blinded the Knight Sabers
for an instant, but when he smoke cleared the thing was still
approaching.

"I got it," Linna said,

Sylia nodded as she and Reika continued guiding the civilians down the
halls.

"Godspeed," Linna whispered.

*******

Nene let out a cheer as the last firewall parted.  She was in!  Now all
she had to do was find the specific files.  She hadn't even needed
Mackie's extra processor power.  Which was good, considering he was in
the middle of a firefight.

Mackie tried to keep his hands from shaking as he fitted another
speedloader to his cannon.  Things were not looking good.  Nene's
motoroid was little more than scrap, and more boomers were swarming into
the room past the ruined shock mines.  Volcano was still active, but its
supply of rockets was gone, and there was no time to reload.

Where was Sylia?  Or Morgan, for that matter?  Where was everyone?

There was nothing coming over the radio.  No one was left, that's the
only explanation.  He and Nene were trapped.  They would die here.

*No!* Mackie surprised himself with his own ferocity. *I won't let her
die!*

Mackie slammed the magazine into place and lifted his cannon.  His suit
was tough, and powerful.  He should know, he designed it.  Mackie took
aim at the boomers coming in though the exit hall.

Before he could pull the trigger though, the boomers were annihilated by
something from further down the hall.

"Someone call for the calvary?" Morgan asked.

*******

Linna charged in using the Hurricane's thrusters and kept a steady
stream of shells firing at the target.  As the shape resolved itself,
she could tell it was a new type of boomer.  Mirror-bright armor
shrugged off the explosive shells as powerful legs propelled the blocky
frame forward.  Claw-tipped arms were attached to a barrel torso, which
was topped by a bullet-shaped head.  On an odd note were the enormous
saw blades set in the shoulders, and another pair on the back of the
hands.

*Diamond edged buzz-saws,* Linna thought to herself, *just what I
needed.*

Her projectiles were having no effect on the boomer, so Linna closed
in.  She bolted past the boomer, tossing her impact cannon into its arms
at the same time.  The thing stared dumbly at the gun in it's hands for
a second before the cannon's power supply overloaded, filling the
corridor with a shrapnel-filled fireball.

The boomer stepped out of the flames and smoke unharmed. "Nice trick,"
it said in a voice like tearing metal.

Linna dropped into a defensive stance as the thing charged again.  A
simple Judo throw, enhanced by the hardsuit and motoroid, sent the
boomer flying over her hip and into the wall, which created a nice dent.

This time, the boomer approached in a more cautious fashion.  Linna
couldn't maneuver well due to the motoroid, and at the same time the
boomer definitely didn't look like it was built for mobility.  The
opponents circled each other so far as the hallway allowed.  The boomer
broke the staring match by charging in and swinging its arm blades. 
Linna ducked under the first slice and planted an uppercut to the
machine's chest.  Next she thrust her arms up and out, throwing the
boomer's hands (and weapons) away from its body.  In the brief opening,
she managed to get a pair of blows in.  However, they did nothing more
than put a few miniscule scratches on the mirrored armor.

"Damn," Linna spat as the boomer's hands came down fast and trapped her
arms.  The boomer then slammed her into the wall, then held her by the
motoroid's shoulder.

"Payback time," it hissed.  The blade on its free hand began to spin,
which filled the air with a sharp whine.  Sparks flew as it cut into the
motoroid's head.  Linna's HUD went dead as the sensors and power
connections were destroyed, and the internal diagnostics reported a
progressive failure in the head and neck, which was moving down. 
Thinking quickly, she hit the emergency release switch and winced as a
set of explosive bolts severed the spinal connection between the hips
and chest of the exo-suit.  Now in two separate pieces, the low half
(with Linna in it) dropped free.  Linna jumped back, and almost got
clipped as the boomer dropped the mangled upper half of the motoroid. 
Making a perfect landing from her tumble, Linna turned back to the
boomer and smiled.

"Let's dance," she told it.

Though its metal face was incapable of expression, Linna could have
sworn that the thing smiled at her before it again raised its saws and
charged.

This time, Linna met the charge with one of her own.  After timing the
swings of the chrome arms, she leapt toward the boomer and fired her
thrusters.  She caught the cyberdroid in the face with a kick, which
knocked it back just enough to give Linna an opening to hit its face
with her knuckle bomber.

There was a dent, nothing more.

"What the hell are you made of?" Linna asked in exasperation.

"Titanium crystal matrix," the boomer ground out.

Linna gave a start. "I didn't expect you to answer."

The boomer shrugged. "If you underestimate me, you will not fight all
out.  I wish a true test of my capabilities, not mindless slaughter of
weaklings."

"Too bad you're on the wrong side," Linna said with a nod.

"I was created to serve master Largo, and that I shall do for as long as
I am online."

The pleasantries finished, both combatants resumed their stances.  Linna
began slowly moving in, preparing both her knuckle bomber and her
cutters.  The boomer was a tough one, and wouldn't be taken down all at
once, or with conventional tactics.

Linna gave a mental sigh.  This was gonna suck.

The boomer changed the pattern of its swings, not leaving any opening
this time.  Linna didn't need one.  She rushed in, keeping low to the
ground.  At the last second, she broke to the left and swung her right
fist.  The knuckle bomber discharged into the housing for the boomer's
right arm-blade, and sent the shattered pieces of the blade flying away.

She wasn't finished, though.  Performing a twirl that any acrobat on a
trapeze would be jealous of, she swung around the arm, constantly
shifting her grip to accommodate the changing position of her body. 
After a final loop around the shoulder and under the armpit, she threw
herself away from the boomer and at the same time stopped her cutters
from spooling out.  The mono-wire ribbons pulled tight against the
mirrored alloy and caused the boomer to stumble for a moment.

That moment was all Linna needed.  She gave the ribbons a final tug,
causing them to dig into and then through the metal.  The boomer's arm
fell to the ground in eight neatly sliced chunks.

As Linna began to retract the cutters, the boomer's left arm shot out
and grabbed the ribbons.  The cyberdroid gave a sharp tug, which pulled
Linna towards it while cutting several deep gouges in its hand.

"Impressive," the boomer stated, "I didn't think that-"

Linna didn't let the thing finish its speech.  Instead she drove her
fist into the open 'mouth,' though the exposed speaker, and got a good
grip on a set of structural framework, and ripped the innards out of the
boomer's head.

The grip on her cutters slackened, and Linna rolled away.  When she
examined the debris in her hands, though, she couldn't find anything
relating to a CPU.  All that had been in the boomer's head had been a
speaker and a set of optical and auditory sensors.  She spun back to the
headless machine in time to see a panel slide open on the chest,
revealing another 'face.'

"You have got to be kidding," Linna sighed.

The boomer gave a wordless snarl as it charged in.  Linna leapt over its
first assault and performed another twirl, this time neatly severing the
boomer's arm at its shoulder.  A well-placed knuckle bomb produced a
crack in the already stressed armor.  By this time the head- and armless
boomer was thrashing around like a bucking bronco, and Linna had to keep
a good grip on it to keep from being thrown off when it hit the walls.

A pair of Sylia's special fusion grenades stuffed into the main chassis
fused the inner components of the boomer, effectively killing it.

Linna forced herself not to collapse from exhaustion.  Instead she
repeated the demolitions process on the remains of the motoroid, as
standard operating procedure required.  Once that was complete, she
headed down the hallway her friends had disappeared down at a nice,
brisk stagger.

*******

By the time Linna stumbled into the factory, everyone was getting ready
to go.  Sylia and Nene were guiding people into the trailer.  Mackie,
under Reika's supervision, was replacing a pair of coffin-sized
canisters in the bottom of the GD-43.  Finally, Morgan was struggling
with the Volcano's missile racks.

"Did I miss anything?" Linna asked when she was closer to the group.

Reika rushed over and grabbed her friend in a fierce embrace.  Though
the hardsuit made it uncomfortable, neither complained.

"I thought you were dead," Reika whispered.

"I'm not the martyr type," Linna replied with a laugh.

"Good to have you back," Sylia commented. "Load up, you and Nene will be
riding in the trailer."

"We're leaving?  What about Largo?"

"He's being taken care of," Sylia replied.  Linna swore that she heard
the smirk in Sylia's voice.

Nene was making a few adjustments to a device that had taken up the most
room in the trailer.  It was a large cube, two meters on each side, and
was sitting in the exact center of the factory.

"What's that?" Linna asked.

"Don't worry about it," Sylia replied, "just get aboard."

Twenty minutes later, the Knight Sabers and their friends (including a
full police escort) were out of the building.

"Another two kilometers," Sylia ordered, "just for safety."

"What do you mean?" Leon asked.

"We left a bomb back there," Nene said.

Leon, and the rest of the ADP squad, stopped moving. "A what?"

"A limited radius EMP device," Sylia answered, "not a bomb.  It has a
blast radius of just over a kilometer, which should be enough to take
care of all the computers in Genom, especially Largo."

"What about their data?" Morgan asked.

"They have backups, or they should," Sylia replied.

******

They had left behind a great number of booby traps, so it took Largo
nearly an hour to get an observer in the destroyed factory.  Once
inside, he only saw debris, and the cube.

*What, no fight?* the insane personality asked as the probe moved closer
to the box. *That's not how it's supposed to work.  They're supposed to
be here for my ascension, just before I kill them.  What's this, a
timer?  Ten seconds?  Do they really think a bomb can hurt the systems
where I reside?*

Just above the digital counter, there was a small note. "Checkmate,
asshole."

*******

>From a distance, it seemed anti-climatic.  There was a slight ripple in
the air- what Sylia referred to as the containment field- then all the
lights near the Genom tower went out.  The Knight Sabers watched from
atop their trailer as the ADP, some distance away, arranged for
relocation of the newly homeless Genom employees.

"Is this it, then?" Morgan asked.  Like the others, she had her helmet
off and was enjoying the sight breeze in the air.  Even Reika, the
unofficial Knight Saber, was enjoying the view.

"No," Sylia replied. "But Genoms cyberdroid production and
experimentation is over."

"No more combat boomers?" Nene asked.

"No," Morgan answered for Sylia, "there will be more.  But none sent on
a rampage through the city as a test of their capabilities.  We'll still
have to deal with the odd madman, like Doctor Whathisname."

Nene giggled. "Miriam.  With a name like that, no wonder the guy went
crazy."

"What now?" Linna asked after they had stopped laughing.

Sylia held out her hand. "Nene, the files."

Nene handed over a small optical disk, which Sylia plugged into a
palm-sized reader.  After a few seconds of scanning, the Knight Saber's
leader smiled.

"Perfect."

"What is it?" Reika asked.

"Proof that all patents for cyberdroid technology were my father's, not
Genom's.  He never signed any agreement about his inventions being Genom
property, and the company was so desperate for his abilities that they
agreed.  The patents were part of his will, but Mason had managed to
hide the evidence by then."

"What's that mean?" Nene asked.

Linna caught on. "It means that every boomer made by Genom was using
patented technology, which they did not have permission to use."

Sylia nodded. "Exactly."

Morgan laughed. "You'll own the company by the time this is finished."

Sylia simply smiled. 

*******

Kathryn Madigan stood in front of the gravestone, ignoring the light
rain that had chased away casual observers.  The droplets plastered her
violet locks to her scalp, but she took no notice.

The engraving was simple, just a name, birth year, and death year. 
Somehow, even that seemed too much, yet at the same time it was missing
something.  Madigan took out a small laser pen, specially programmed by
Nene.  A few seconds later, the desired pattern was achieved.

Turning away, Madigan moved back to the waiting car.  The door opened
automatically, and Madigan slid into the passenger seat.

"Back to the office, Madam President?"  The driver asked.

"Don't start that," Madigan replied, "'Madam CEO.'"

Both women shared a laugh.

"How are the new designs coming?" Madigan asked.

"In three months, the first runs of exo-suits will be ready for
shipment."

"I'll bet the investors will be happy with that news." Madigan paused.
"Two years of peace," she mused. "Do you like R&D, Sylia?"

Sylia Stingray smiled as she pulled her car onto the highway. "It's
better than working at a lingerie store.  Besides, if I didn't like it,
I would do something different."

"I think we're the only company where the owner doesn't have the highest
position."

"I've said it before, you're better at corporate business and politics
than I am."

"Because you don't hold back what you think," Madigan shot back as into
the Genom parking garage. "Can you imagine what would happen if a person
with as little tact as you were running the place?"  The two women
shared another laugh as the car was parked and they exited.

Sylia's tone sobered. "I assume you heard about McLaren."

Madigan nodded. "Got off on a technicality.  Since the boomer didn't
have any built in weapons systems, his lawyers argued that he had no
knowledge of its purpose as a combat model.  As if something with those
specs would be used for construction."

"He's back with Gulf and Bradley."

"I hadn't heard that part.  You suppose they'll try to improve on that
model?"

"If they do, the Knight Sabers may have to go international."

Madigan smiled. "Of course.  And I know you've been secretly upgrading
the suits every now and then."

"Of course.  And since the four of us meet regularly outside of any
other business, no one suspects."

"The best place to hide something is in plain sight."

"Of course.  Just like the companies are always three steps ahead of
what they release."

"Considering the latest exo-suit designs, I'm almost frightened to think
of what our hardsuits can do now."

*******

At the cemetery, a gravestone stood silent, not knowing what part the
ashes below served in history.

"Quincy Rosenkroitz
"1958-2033"

"Judged by a higher court than we
"--The Knight Sabers"

End Saber's Destiny

Notes:
1: related to the Darwin Awards (though in use before they came
around).  To pull a Darwin is to remove yourself from the human gene
pool though gross stupidity.
2: I've been waiting for so long to use that line.


Also, a bonus for my loyal readers out there (all three of you).  Book 3
of Hero's Journey (I just can't get away from that fic ^_^) will be
posted to my website (link above) within a few days.  Enjoy.

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