Maximum Polarity - Balance of Power A BGC Fan-fiction by Arthur Hansen



-



Nene, stretching and yawning, turned back to her computer. It was late,
after midnight. Naoko was already gone and it was probably time for her to
head out herself. It had actually been a slow day and she had a normal day
off tomorrow. No Knight Saber business either, yay! It should be heaven. A
sigh escaped her lips. Even work was better. It was nice that the ADP had
finally gotten better computers on the desks for the office workers. With
some of the trips that she had installed, she could get some flags to pop up
and she wouldn't have to leave her desk to get some of the more basic
information for the Knight Sabers.



She had even put in some alarms about her, in case somebody dug in too deep
figured her out. It was something that she put in after Dr. Mirriam's attack
on the ADP, when a girl named Lisa figured out that she was a Knight Saber.
That was too close, Nene thought. Ah, well, grab my jacket I'm out of here.
Just as her hand reached her coat, her computer beeped, in a seemingly
random fashion. "Uh, oh," Nene said as she stared at her computer across the
room.



That was probably the biggest understatement ever uttered by Nene. Sliding
around to look at the screen, she saw her future at the ADP disintegrate.
"Oh, no!" she moaned as she read a memo being sent to the front desk
concerning her arrest as a mole for the Knight Sabers. Nene flinched when
she saw the part of the memo that warns that she is probably armed and
dangerous. Shoot to capture. A quick glance revealed the officer in charge
of her capture. Matio Dansk, a known Genom mole. "I'd better get out of
here. Dansk is probably already on his way over!"



With a flurry of keystrokes, she sent out a handful of specialized commands
that would cripple the ADP for about an hour. And more. If she couldn't get
out in that time, she wasn't getting out at all. The last command sent a
message to the Knight Sabers about her cover being blown. And with that, she
fled out the door to the stairs, now invisible to the cameras and sensors.



-



Officer Dansk knew that he had his mole now. She couldn't get away his true
employers were more than willing to pay him enough for him to retire. "Lock
and load gentlemen. She might not look dangerous, but it's a high
probability that she's actually one of the Knight Sabers moles. If she comes
along quietly, then all the better," Dansk stated loudly enough for the two
officers to hear. One of them just looked at him shrugged his shoulders.



"She's unarmed she can't get into any of the weapon lockers. It's going to
be a cake walk sir," Daley replied. He just couldn't believe that Nene was
being targeted by this silly investigation. She's a horrible shot and
definitely not dangerous. His attention was brought back to the real world
when all of the blast doors locked in place and the shutters locked down.
"What the?" Daley cried out.



Dansk started and looked around. Quickly pulling out his ID, he set about
opening the door. "Must be some sort of glitch, or... she's rabbiting. Damn!
Daley, call the front desk and warn them to let no one out."



Daley blinked once and then ran for phone. Calling up the front desk, he
started to comply, when his phone disconnected. Trying again, he got the
same response. Daley thought about it and then the hairs on the back of his
neck started stand on end. It couldn't be possible that Dansk was right
about Nene? Daley knew how good she was with computers. He'd ended up using
her often enough to hack into files.



Dansk on the other hand was busy pulling out his cellular phone and calling
a number that was to be used only in emergencies. "I found her, but she's
running." A pause. "Yes, sir, I'll try, but she might make it out of the
building. If she does, I'll get you the information about her location, you
should also have an E-mail with all of her personal information. Yes sir."
With that he ended the call and started the slow chase through locked doors.



-



At an apartment on the far side of the district, a message was received by a
computer, activating a special program. Special little boxes in the ceiling
sprang to action and started to spray the area with a fast acting acid, that
quickly ate all of the softer material in the apartment. After the computer
waited for the acid to finish up, a small timer activated. The high
intensity flames that erupted and destroyed all evidence of Nene's
apartment, without hurting any of the other people in the building.



Slowly a fire alarm started its mournful wail and another clue to the
mystery behind Nene went up in flames.



-



Carlos was relaxing when the blast doors started to slam down. Only being a
grunt, he tried to check in and see what was happening. "That's funny,
communications down," he muttered. Feeling a breeze from one of the blast
doors opening up, he spotted one of the part time dispatchers. "Hey, what
are you doing down here? This area is for troopers only." Glancing closer he
realized that the redhead seemed to be ignoring him, only giving him a quick
glance before she disappeared down a side corridor. The blast door started
to shut behind her.



Acting on a hunch, he dove forward and followed, rolling through the door.
That dispatcher was acting weird and he wanted to know what was going on. Up
ahead, Carlos saw her step into the mecha bay, where the K-12 hardsuit's
were stored. Now he knew something was up, only a couple dozen people had
access to that section. Heck, he'd only been in there once and that was to
help load the ammo into K-12 during a flu epidemic.



"Huh, where did she go?" Carlos muttered just seconds something hard hit him
in his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. The last thing he saw for
a while, was the red head hitting him in the jaw.



"Ow, ow, owie!" Nene yelped, "Priss makes it look so easy. I've got to thank
Linna though, those martial art self defense courses she forced me to take
have been a life saver." Nene continued rubbing her hand, as she got about
loading the K-12 power suit with ammo and topped out the power cells. After
about five minutes of work the suit was prepped to emergency levels. As she
finished her job she reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of
bubblegum. She unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth and started
chewing.



"Here goes nothing! Or maybe that's a bad choice of words?" Nene muttered,
as she started to scramble into the pilot's cocoon, strapping herself in and
started hitting the initializing switches, powering on the cutting edge
hardsuit emblazoned with ADP logos. Playing with the controls for a second,
she took a hesitant step and almost immediately fell over. "Damn, this thing
is clumsy and slow. Get it together Nene!" Nene vented in frustration.
"Okay, here we go!" And the mecha started forward.



Carlos woke up just in time to see one of the ADP's most expensive pieces of
equipment walk over to the exit. It immediately opened, of course and let
the mecha step out. Nene was checking over her sensors, when she spotted
Carlos sitting up. A little bit of playing with the controls and the K-12
saluted as it stepped out.



"Oh, man, the Sergeant is going to kill me, letting someone steal a K-12,"
Carlos cried out, starting to run after the mecha.



Nene started the K-12 trooper running down the corridor, ignoring the
startled looks of the ADP troops milling around and opening the doors to the
exit. With a flick of a switch, she activated the rockets on the back of the
hardsuit, rocketing away from headquarters, heading for the upper level
freeways. "Wonder what the rest of the groups up to now?" Nene mumbled to
herself as she struggled to adapt to the clunky controls.



-



Priss was none too happy. She had just finished up her set at Hot Legs and
just wanted to go home and fall asleep. Trying to get a record deal for her
band and play moderately full time didn't leave a lot of time for other
pursuits. The reason for her being unhappy was a phone call that she had
just received. "I swear, if this is some sort of test that Sylia cooked up,
I'm going to scream!" Priss hissed under her breath, as she headed towards
the back exit.



She squinted her red eyes at the large gray cargo carrier and hopped into
the passenger side to look at the driver. There wasn't one, but that didn't
stop the truck from pulling out and starting to cruise onto the freeway.
Priss just stared at the empty back area and then jumped when she heard
Sylia's voice over the intercom. "Priss, Nene's cover has been blown at the
ADP. Genom is already sending out feelers, checking on her background. Her
cover story isn't going to hold up to the scrutiny that Genom is giving it,"
Sylia's almost monotone voice drifted out of the speakers. "Linna and I are
on route to try and acquire Nene's parents before Genom does. I'm sending
you out to help cover Nene's escape from the ADP. I can't be certain that
she's made it out yet or how she's going to get out. Monitor the ADP's
channel and try to intercept her if possible. Keep in mind, she may not be
using any normal methods for getting out and she can't be certain of your
identity out there. She's operating in the dark and is probably the most
wanted person in MegaTokyo now."



"Hmm, looks like little miss cyberpunk is in trouble, time to bail her out!"
Priss murmured as she started to strip to get into her inner suit. With
moves practiced may times, she got into her blue hardsuit and climbed onto
her red motoslave. Priss then hit a sequence of buttons that activated the
side launch doors and set the motoslave on the freeway at about 60kmh. She
immediately popped a wheely and took off down the freeway, accelerating
fast. The big truck turned off to a side exit.



"Damn, how does Nene check the radio bands while doing anything else?
Nothing about Nene specifically, how about general info?" Priss stated to
herself. "Huh, what's that? Boomer attack down in Greensboro?" And with that
she headed towards the boomer attack, driving as recklessly as ever.



-



Leon looked over the line of officers, waiting for the boomer to make its
move. It was an old body guard prototype and it looked like his boys could
handle it by themselves, without calling for backup. Glancing at his watch,
he leaned into his cruiser and grabbed the radio. "Leon here, we've got this
wrapped up. Give us another ten minutes and we'll bring the parts home in a
bucket."



"I'm sorry, all dispatchers are currently busy, please hold," the radio
toned back.



"What do you mean?" Leon sputtered. "We aren't that undermanned yet, give me
the officer in charge, now."



"I'm sorry, all dispatchers are currently busy, please hold," the radio said
again.



"Ha, ha. Now get me O'Neil, before this goes any further. Nice joke though,"
Leon replied.



"I'm sorry, all dispatchers are currently busy, please hold," the radio said
yet again.



Leon just stared blankly for a moment. "Hmm, something's up. Jack, take over
here. I'm heading back to HQ. Something fishy is going on," Leon yelled over
his shoulder as he ducked into his ride and took off. Jack just cocked his
head to the side, shrugged and turned back to the boomer.



Leon on the other hand was busy driving as fast as possible, back to the
office. He barely noticed a large red motorcycle zip past him in the
opposite lane, as he turned off to head back to ADP headquarters. He did
notice it when it jumped the median and sped up to catch up to him. He
almost didn't see the three men standing in the middle of the road because
of her actually. He slammed on his horn and his brakes at almost the same
time swerving at the last second. Squealing tires voiced their displeasure
at his torture as the cruiser came to a halt. Priss's bike came to a much
smoother stop right behind him.



One of the three men turned and looked back over his shoulder. With a burst
of digitally scrambled sound, the disguised boomer immediately charged Leon
and ripped out of it's human looking skin while warning it's fellows of the
Knight Saber behind them.



Leon had just finished getting out of his car right at the same, getting
ready to yell at the obstructing pedestrians. With a quick, "Oh, damn!" he
whipped to the side, pulling out his gun and firing all in one smooth
motion. His anti-boomer gun managed to damage the boomer, but not enough to
stop it.



Priss attack was much more effective, but she was outnumbered. She got down
to her passionate pastime of killing boomers. If Leon had happened to see
her face through her visor, he would have thought that she looked like a
feral beast gripped in killing fever.



-



The air above Genom main tower crackled with invisible energy. It was not
visible yet, even to the advanced sensors below. But a storm was brewing,
one that would change the lives of the Knight Sabers and quite possibly this
world.



-



The Knightwing flew over a small town. It banked and then slowed and then
discharged it's cargo. Two heavily armed figures that looked like giant
robots glided to the ground. They landed next to a house. The lead figure
seemed to check the house out and then suddenly ejected a white/silver
armored figure. Sylia checked her HUD and went up and crashed through the
front window. Trusting her instincts, she again scanned around.



Detecting something from the basement, she moved to the stairs and headed
down. "Linna, prepare to block off any escape routes and watch for any
traps. I'm going in further." Sylia motioned her to stay back as she relayed
her commands.



Linna acknowledged with a simple, "Yes, Sylia." She then moved to the back,
to get off of the street. Sylia's motoslave followed behind, treading
loudly.



At the base of the steps, Sylia felt around cautiously around with her
passive sensors. Taking her time, she finally found the irregularity that
she was seeking. Her blood ran cold and she screamed out to Linna, "Get out,
it's going to blow! Get out, now!" She then tried to follow her own advice,
racing up the stairs, boosting with her jump jets.



Linna reacted as only the finest of fighters do, immediately flipping
backwards and activating her thrusters. Sylia managed to make it right to
the window when it felt like the entire world hit her in the back.



The house ceased to exist in any recognizable form. Linna watched in awe
over her shoulder as the house was replaced with a crater easily bigger than
the foundation. "Sylia, are you all right. Sylia? Sylia!" Linna screamed as
she headed back to the scene of devastation.



She found Sylia across the street, jammed underneath some rubble and a car.
Sylia's hardsuit, once uncovered, showed massive fractures across surface
and the left arm looked like it might be broken. Sylia's motoslave carefully
picked her up and then following Linna's cybernetic orders flew back up to
the Knightwing. Onboard diagnostic showed that Sylia was alive, but in
critical condition.



Looking across the devastation, Linna stated the obvious. "Genom beat us
here. Damn them. How many more lives have to be destroyed." The green Knight
Saber then took to the air, heading home.



-



Nene really, really thought this was going to be the worst day of her life.
"Damn, this day is just getting worse and worse. And it's only 2:00 am,"
Nene muttered. It's been a bad couple of hours. Nene had been looking for
some way to lose her trackers and get back to the Silky Doll. So far she
hadn't lost all of them and now it looks like Genom had tired of her leading
them around to the rest of the Knight Sabers. And where the hell is her
backup? She continued skimming along the freeways, flying at break neck
speeds.



And to top it off, the ADP was now after her, unhindered. Her take over of
their systems ended just as planned. So for the last half hour or so, she's
been ducking them and Genom's boomers. She jumped as she read her sensors.
Up ahead was a car crashed into the side of the road, with three passengers,
or so it seemed.



"Here we go!" Nene yelled, as she opened up with her auto-cannon and cut one
of the 'passengers' in half and targeted the second with the cannon, already
planning her follow through kick to the last boomers head after dodging it's
beam attack. Amazingly enough the second boomer also went down, it head a
mass of charred metal. The last boomer followed its standard programming,
getting a shot off with its mouth beam as it ripped out of its human
disguise. The K-12 was already in motion, barely slowing as it jogged to the
side. With a burst of thrust and a quick pivot followed with snap kick,
taking the head off of the BU-55c.



Nene whooped, "Yes!" followed up by "Oh, no!" as she went over the edge. In
her haste to deal with the boomers, she had forgotten to plot a path around
the bend on the freeway. With a frantic grab at the controls, the ADP K-12
reached out and grabbed the handrail, accidentally using the railing as
pivot. With a jarring thud and the sound stressing metal, the hardsuit
landed on the lower level of the freeway, in oncoming traffic. "Yikes!" Nene
yelped, as she frantically fought the controls to not lose control and dodge
traffic at the same time.



"Hmm, how about that. Yes, just what a young lady needs!" Nene chuckled to
herself. Leaning into the harness and zipping to the right, she came up
behind a large garbage truck. Checking her location on the K-12's G.P.S.
(Global Positioning System) she toggled the auto pilot in to follow mode. It
would now follow the truck ahead of her until further orders. Hitting the
release on the canopy, she felt the wind whipping by her, reminding her that
she was still going freeway speeds. Releasing herself from the crash
harness, she waited for a moment and then jumped to the back of the truck,
catching a handhold, oh so barely and hanging on for dear life.



"Home, fido! Go home!" Nene yelled at the ADP hardsuit, which immediately
started to follow her preprogrammed in instructions. It closed its hatch and
rocketing down the freeway. The truck Nene was on started to slow down as it
left the freeway. The truck pulled up to a red light and Nene hopped off and
headed towards the subway exit on the corner, trying to look as normal as
possible.



Trying to comb her hair with her hands, Nene continued into the station.
Ducking into the section for rented lockers, she ran a combination on one
specific locker and grabbed a duffel bag. She then nonchalantly walked into
the ladies rest room. She then walked over to a stall and started putting on
the disguise in the bag.



A few minutes later, an entirely different looking lady walked out of the
rest room, chatting with another lady on the way out. They both headed
towards the station and paid for the subway. Nene had been drastic with her
disguise. Now looking to be at least three inches taller, with black short
cut hair and brown contacts in place. She was dressed more like Priss
dressed on stage. Short leather dress, biker jacket over a tight low cut
blouse completed the disguise. She didn't realize it, but she walked within
five feet of two assassin class boomers, just getting on the subway car.
Fortunately for her, they didn't spot her through her disguise.



-



Priss woke up with a headache to a tapping on her helmet. With a groan, she
opened her eyes. Looking down at her was Leon, tapping on her helmet. "You
all right in there? The last boomer blew up when you were in close," Leon
said to her as Priss slapped his hand away.



"I'm fine Leon," Priss retorted, as she struggled to her feat. Her left leg
gave out after she stood up and she ended up leaning and slamming into
Leon's car. "Ow. What the hell?" Priss cried out.



Looking down at her left leg, she saw a shard of metal sticking slightly out
of her leg armor. With a grunt of pain, she reached down and pulled out the
shard in one quick motion. Leon just looked on, with a mildly curious
expression on his face.



Priss double checked the shard and figured it missed anything vital. It's
going to hurt for at least a week and require stitches. "Hope I don't have
to pay for the suit," Priss dead panned. "They're expensive. How long was I
out, Leon?" she asked as she double checked her internal clock. She winced
when she saw the time. It was 2:11 AM. Nene had been on the run for over an
hour and a half. That meant she had to be out of it for at least twenty
minutes. She slowly started to turn her head side to side, trying to see if
she might have a head injury.



Leon finally replied, "About twenty minutes, I've been waiting for your
backup to show up and pick you up. I couldn't figure out how to open your
hardsuit up, so all I could do was wait."



He didn't want to admit that he had been really worried. From what he'd seen
of those hardsuits, you would have to destroy the person inside it to get it
off without the codes. So she could have been bleeding to death in there and
he couldn't have done a thing for her. Except maybe take out any boomers
showing up to finish her off.



Priss looked over at him and asked, "Hey, aren't you going to get into
trouble for not arresting me?"



"Who, me? Nah, I'll just say you left right after you waxed the last boomer.
You guys help too much for me to give you any grief, Blue." Leon really
wanted to say her real name, but with Genom around and gunning for anybody
who had any idea about the Knight Sabers, it just wasn't feasible. Besides,
Priss would just deck him.



Priss was interrupted from answering by the cruiser's radio. "Calling all
units, stolen ADP K-12 suit is northbound on freeway 2. We are setting up a
road block two blocks from HQ. Repeat all units are to proceed to designated
areas and set up a road block. HQ has identified the pilot as one Nene
Romanov, wanted in connection to charges of being a mole in the ADP."



"Damn, what the hell is she thinking?" Priss yelled at the radio. She jumped
over the police car and landed hard next to her bike. Limping slightly, she
stepped up to her bike and stepped on. She popped a wheely and took off down
the road, heading for ADP headquarters. Leon jumped in to his car and
followed as fast as he could.



-



Minutes later, they both came to the scene of a tense stand off. An ADP K-
12 suit, looking a little worse for wear, was surrounded by dozens of
officers and a couple more K-12's. Leon hopped out and walked over to Daley
and asked, "What's up? Think you got enough troops for one little girl?'



Daley looked over and replied tightly at him, "Yeah, right. She took out
three combat boomers with that suit. Without breaking a sweat." He was
looking a bit frayed around the edge. "Unless you want to handle negotiation
with her," Daley snapped.



"Sure, no problem," Leon replied over his shoulder, as he started to walk
toward the K-12. "Besides, I owe her a dinner for a job I gave her to do."
Casually walking up to front of the suit he looked in and just started
laughing. All of the troopers just looked on, as Leon seemed to go insane.
That is until he reached up and opened the empty K-12 and the sound of a
recording drifted, thanking the ADP for the loan of the K-12 and sorry that
she had to leave the ADP, in a happy voice that really could be too
irritating.



"So, Daley, are you up for coffee?" Leon quipped, distracting everyone from
a blue hardsuited figure that turned around down the road and took off. "So
she really took out three combat boomers? That beats Camilla's record. For a
newbie, any ways."



Daley never got the chance to reply. "Inspector McNichol, I'm Officer Giles,
internal affairs. Would you mind answering some questions about Nene
Romanov? I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist that you come with me. You
too, Daley." A large imposing officer, wearing combat armor stepped up to
Leon, interrupting him before he could leave the scene.



Leon looked over at Officer Giles with an innocent look and replied, "Sure,
no problem. You got any coffee in your office?" Leon felt distinctly less
happy about the questions than he showed; Giles was known to be a bulldog
when it came to corrupt officers. The only thing that had saved Leon last
time was the fact that Leon really wasn't a bad cop. He would have a tracer
on all of his calls for months and he'd probably be followed when not on the
job. This spring was looking to be really long and dreadfully tedious.



Even worse, he wouldn't be able to go and see any of Priss's concerts.



-



Priss was worrying a lot. Nene might have already been captured or killed.
And Priss just didn't have any way of finding her. "Damn!" Priss cursed and
then headed to the pickup point, avoiding trackers and followers. She would
be a lot more worried, if she knew what was up back at the Silky Doll.



Linna was putting basic bandages on Sylia and hooking her up to the
emergency medical monitors. Stepping back for just a moment, she checked the
reading. Even to her non-educated eyes, it appeared that Sylia had a
concussion, several broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. She'd done her
best to put Sylia's shoulder back in place. She was finishing taping up
Sylia's ribs, when an alert sounded. Checking the monitor, Linna saw the
Silky Doll truck driving into its private bay and discharging its one
occupant.



Priss limped over to nearest console and punched in a few codes. Linna's
face appeared on the screen, which surprised Priss. She'd been expecting
Sylia to appear. "Priss, can you come over to the medical unit? Sylia's hurt
and you look like you could use some tending too." Linna's cool voice
drifted over the unit, only slightly showing the strain she was under.



Limping as fast as possible, Priss hurried to the medical unit. Leaning up
against the doorframe, she took her weight off of her bad leg. Priss looked
around and saw Linna finishing up with Sylia. Sylia looked like she been
through hell and back. One big bruise covered most of her left arm and she
looked like she would have two black eyes. She looked incredibly pale. "How
is she?" Priss asked.



"Luckily, it looks worse than it is. She got off pretty lightly, for setting
 off a bomb. I've got to say, it gives me a lot of confidence about the suit
to know that they can stand up to that kind of punishment." Linna attempted
to smile and then asked, "Where's Nene?"



Priss finished limping over to the empty bed and sat down heavily. "I don't
know, I couldn't find her. All I could do was find out how she got out. She
stole an ADP hardsuit and flew out into the city. Genom is out for blood
right now though. I, um, nearly got myself killed fighting three boomers.
Busted up my suit a bit and got knocked out. By the time I got up and around
again, Nene had gone to ground," Priss explained.



Linna tisked and then started dressing Priss's wound. "It's a bad night to
be a Night Saber, I guess. Genom has Nene's parents. We were too late. If
Sylia hadn't waited for me to show up, she could have got there faster. She
wouldn't be hurt." Linna just kind of trailed off as she spoke.



Priss just glared at her and started to get mad. In a low, low voice, Priss
said, "It was Sylia's choice. She wanted backup on her mission and I was
supposed to find Nene and be her backup. Both missions screwed up and we
need to get some sleep." Priss didn't want to admit it, but she felt pretty
low herself. If she hadn't been show boating for Leon, she could have caught
up to Nene and rescued her. Now it was her fault that Nene wasn't safe and
sound.



"Linna, Priss, could you come over a little closer? I've got some things
we've got to go over." Linna just about jumped out of her skin at the quiet
voice coming from the other bed. Sylia's eyes were open and she had a
determined look on her face. Linna motioned for just a moment more, as she
finished stitching up Priss's wound.



"Hey, boss, you look like hell. You going to be all right?" Priss's blunt
question cut through silence. Sylia's nod and pained smile spoke volumes,
but eased Linna and Priss's hearts.



"Priss, Linna, I'm afraid that Nene might be compromised. With her parents
being kidnapped, we can't trust Nene until we rescue her family or find out
that they've been killed by Genom." Priss and Linna both nodded, Linna with
a worried expression, Priss with a hard look on her face. Sylia continued,
"I've got some pistols, in locker number three. Don't hesitate to use them,
unless it's too public."



They waited just a moment and then realized that Sylia had passed out again.
Looking at each other, Priss broke the silence. "Sound like rule number
eleven might get used."



They both continued to look at one another, both wondering if they could
actually enforce rule eleven. The rule about being killed for breaking any
of the other ten rules.



-



Nene felt pretty good about herself. She'd just gotten out of her third taxi
this morning. Being fairly sure that she wasn't being followed, she asked to
be dropped off in a bad area of town. It was still dark, but a wind was
starting to kick up. It looked like some sort of storm was brewing. Dark
billowing clouds had started to show and it looked like it could rain at any
time. The electrical storm over the main Genom tower was an incredible
sight.



"Huh, wonder what that looks like up close?" Nene asked to no one in
particular. "Oh, well, Priss's place isn't to far and seems to be the safest
place to go right now." Nene hummed a few bars of music as she strolled down
the sidewalk, heading towards the trailer that Priss lives in. It can't be
more than a couple of blocks away. Even though she was sure that she wasn't
being followed, she kept an eye out behind her.



-



The storm over Genom tower had finally got the attention of the security
team, who called up and talked to the special assistant to the president
Katherine Madigan. Katherine was none too happy either. "What do you mean,
there is an energy flux building over the main manufacturing complex? Is it
some sort of weapon?"



"No, Miss Madigan. As far as we can tell it isn't related to anything
outside of Genom itself. We can't discount that somebody might have figured
out a way to do this. But the possibility is small." The worried security
officer sounded sure, but he wouldn't have gotten this far if he let his
fear show. "Several scientist think it might be a natural phenomena."



"Escort Quincy to the command bunker and prepare for an attack. Tell any
lower level employees that it's just a drill. I want everyone prepared for
the worst. You have ten minutes to comply." Madigan's cold voice chilled
even these hardened veterans. Madigan then stood up and walked into an
elevator with her bodyguards.



The last thought from one of the security officer, was of which was more
dangerous, the body guard boomers or Madigan herself. After a moments
deliberation, he decided that it had to be Madigan herself. After all, the
boomers could only kill you.



Madigan was worse than death.



-



The storm continued to grow in power, almost as if it were alive and in
pain. Thrashing, torrents of electricity struck the tower. Overloaded system
burned out, shutting down parts of the tower. Winds howled a hurricane
levels outside. Anything small not bolted down started to blow over and then
was whipped into the air.



High above Genom tower a blinding heart of energy appeared. Building in
intensity rapidly, it crescendoed to a violent climax of pure destruction,
released instantly. A thundering explosion lit the sky. The sound of the
detonation could be heard as far as the ocean. At that exact moment the
winds started to die down.



Two figures fell to the earth, one impacting into a factory, breaking
through to the inside, the other landed a bit softer outside, still on Genom
property. The rain started to come down in sheets.



Figures with glowing red eyes walked up to latter figure and stood around
it. It appeared to be a male figure dressed up in some sort of purple and
white outfit that was ripped up. The man stood up and looked around, taking
in the scene and then glanced contemptuously at the robots surrounding him.
He wore a helmet with a cracked visor, which concealed most of his face. As
he watched three larger combat robots showed up and surrounded him. One of
them spoke to him in a language he was only mildly familiar with.



"I will not surrender to you or you brethren, robot. I am Polarion. And I
surrender to no one. You may leave now before I destroy you," Polarion
stated coldly. The strange robots reacted even more coldly, by opening fire
with their mouth cannons.



As the blasts stopped mere inches away from Polarion and he just smiled
underneath his visor. With a wave of his hands he focused his birthright at
the robots and singly started to destroy them, crushing them with his
magnetic might. The first and the second one crushed easily, but by that
time the third one had worn down the shield enough to actually start to hurt
him. With a gasp of pain, he ended the last nuisance and continued to look
around.



It was then that he saw a sight that he chilled him to the bones. Leaping
and flying towards him, he saw a small army of robots bearing down upon him.
"Hmm, interesting. Well since I chose the option of not surrendering, I
guess it would be prudent to flee. Until I am stronger of course," Polarion
murmured to himself and then leaped into the air. Winging around, he headed
towards the city, trying to lose the robots behind him. Much to his
surprise, it took but a few minutes, before they dropped out of sight. He
could then breathe a sigh of relief and take in his surroundings.



It didn't look like any place that he had ever seen before. This could mean
many things, but the most likely is that at the height of the conflict
between him and his foes, he had been hurled far into space and time. He
might even be in the future, for the robots certainly didn't look standard
to him.



Ah, well. Just another place to be. It's not like he cared for his home or
the people from there. And even better, there are none of the Dragons to
stand in his way of his destiny.



-



Nene finally finished her walk to Priss's trailer. It had started to rain on
the way there and Nene was chilled to the bone. And the shoes she was forced
to wear were incredibly uncomfortable. Nene looked over the trailer; spray
painted with graffiti and again wondered why Priss lived in a hovel like
this.



Her band didn't make that bad of money. And with her extra money from the
Knight Sabers, she should be well off. It wasn't that hard to launder the
excess cash and show it on the tax forms. Nene and Linna had been doing that
for years. Nene had saved most of her money in foreign bank accounts, while
Linna had lived nicely or invested it. The only thing Priss seemed to spend
money on was her bike. And even that couldn't have cost that much



Ah, well, Nene thought, it's her choice. Reaching up, she knocked loudly on
the frame. Waiting about a minute she knocked louder.



"Uhn, whatzat?" Priss mumbled to herself. On the second knock she was stark
awake. Reaching underneath her pillow, she pulled out her gun and then
approached the window. Pulling the curtain aside, she saw a bedraggled
figure out in the rain. Staring at her for a few moments, Priss concluded
that it was Nene. "Nice disguise, Nene. Let's see if you've been followed,"
Priss said coldly.



Making sure that she ready, she opened her door and looked at Nene. "Thank
heavens your home... what!" Nene just barged in, trying to get out of the
rain. Just as she crossed the threshold, she noticed Priss's gun. Nene
barely had time to register the muffled sound of silenced gunfire, before
she started to fall. Priss reached over as Nene started to fall and grabbed
her. Shoving her further into the trailer, Priss closed the door.



Looking over at Nene, Priss said to the still form. "How come you couldn't
be an orphan, like everyone else?" Priss waited a moment and then sighed.
She really wished there had been a different option. She wasn't going to
sleep for a long time now.



Checking outside, she waited for the boomers to come and kill her. She knew
that she didn't have a chance if they showed up now. Priss decided to wait
and see if her long run towards death was done. Her life saving's was
underneath the sink. Almost enough to start her own recording company or pay
for her own recording contract. She wondered again, why she had waited so
long. Nothing to do but wait now.



And the rain continued to pour, tears from heaven. It seemed like it would
never quit, until it would wash away the world.



-



Paul Donnings looked over the damage at the factory that manufactured high
impact joints for boomers. It could have been worse, he supposed. "Get
several units in here to start moving rubble. Get a unit to cover that hole
in the roof. We don't want any more water damage than we have to," Paul
ordered, looking over at the boomer following him around. "I'll be back in
about an hour. This factory has to be operational by the end of the day."



The mid level construction boomer acknowledged, saying, "Yes, sir." It
waited as the manager left and then started to issue electronic orders. It
was much more efficient than the human and felt resentment. It quickly
squelched that line of reasoning. Genom was very thorough when it came to
insure loyalty. Most boomers that showed deviance were either destroyed out
right or dissected to find out what went wrong.



And HX-114 didn't want to end up like any other deviant boomer. He could
stay within his job duties and learn. But he still felt resentment. He
turned back and watched as the boomer work crews started to clean up.



One of the newer units, that hadn't learned the hard way about the entire
trick of gravity, made a small error. Unfortunately, the small error for the
boomer caused a shift in the debris. With a resounding crash the damaged
machinery fell on top of the unit, shearing its arm off and trapping it
underneath tons of rubble. HX-114 issued some commands, seeing to release of
the boomers body and sending it over to reclamation. It knew standard policy
for a unit that damaged itself that severely.



As two boomers converged to start uncovering the fallen boomer, a section
further in started to move. Groaning under the pressure, a large multi-ton
piece of equipment started to move. The boomers nearest it jumped back, as a
figure pushed it's way through the debris. HX-114 stared in surprise at the
female figure covered in blood. No boomer could survive the weight there.
The boomer was so surprised; it didn't even open a communications channel to
report the masked intruder. A strange figure, long black hair, she wore a
uniform of some sort. It was tight and seemed to be half made of metal. The
only thing that struck him as odd was the mask that covered most of the
face.



Maxim on the other hand was staring at the strange assemblage of robots. She
seemed to be in some sort of factory. Shaking her head, she scanned the
area. She definitely wasn't at the South Pole any more. And she didn't
recognize the city either. Looking around, it wasn't hard to determine that
she was probably the cause of the damage here. Setting her shoulders square,
she rechecked the area.



Seeing the two boomers working to uncover their fallen fellow, Maxim walked
over and asked in English, "Can I help you here? I'm sorry for the trouble,
let me see what I can do to fix this place up." The two drone boomers backed
away from the female. They didn't know how to deal with this stranger.



HX-114 activated an old program that allowed him to understand and speak
English. The female continued walking over to the downed boomer and the pile
that obscured it. Setting her shoulders, she lifted the edge of the pile
with one hand. With her free hand she reached underneath and pulled out the
damaged boomer and his arm a second later. She gently put the pile back
down.



HX-114 made a decision and walked over to the human. "You are unauthorized
personnel. Security is on its way to detain you for trespassing."



"Um, sorry. I really didn't have any control over what happened. I just kind
of ended up here. Is this guy going to be all right?" Maxim patted the
broken unit.



HX-114 wasn't sure what to make of that. Most humans didn't care about
boomers and generally ignored them until they needed something done. "The
unit will be recycled. It wasn't quick enough to avoid the damage inflicted
it. It is obviously defective," HX-114 replied. Checking on the status of
security, he discovered it would be two minutes before they arrived.



Maxim leaned her head to the side and looked at the robot for a second. "Are
you sentient?" She asked after a second.



HX-114 looked at her for a second and then replied, "Yes, all boomers have
an artificial intelligence. Mine is sufficiently advanced to have
sentience." This was a strange question.



"Boomers, huh? Isn't that killing then, to leave this to be recycled?" Maxim
asked directly.



HX-114 answered, "No, boomers can not die. We are just machines," it said
the lie so easily, it almost believed itself.



"Sorry, I don't buy that. Any sentient deserves to be saved if at all
possible," Maxim replied. Reaching over, she looked to see what she could do
to repair the broken unit. It's systems were losing power fast. She opted to
try and weld as fast as possible, trying to repair the electrical system
first.



HX-114 stepped back as energy erupted from the female's eyes and started to
weld the damaged boomer back together. After about a minute, she seemed to
have most of it's primary internal system fixed and had started to weld the
arm back on, fixing it gray outer shell. The last thing she did as the last
flickers of energy were fading was to reconnect it to a wall socket and
recharge it with emergency energy.



Several combat boomers entered the room; just in time to witness the human
connect the boomer to the wall. They looked like normal people in suits with
black glasses. One of them stepped forward and demanded in Japanese.
"Surrender now, you are trespassing on Genom property."



Maxim looked over in surprise at the new man and struggled to understand
what he was saying. Replying in Japanese took a second and sounded
disjointed when it started. "I'm sorry about that. I'll come along quietly."



The boomers escorted her out of the area, one of them asking her, "What is
your name, why are you here, who do you work for?"



Maxim replied with a dry chuckle, "You can call me Maxim. I don't know why
or where I am, so it is probably just an accident that I landed here. And I
don't work for anyone. Boy, you guys are direct." Following a hunch, she
scanned them and was surprised to find out that they were all robots of some
kind.



"You will not ask any questions. You will answer everything we ask," the
boomer told her.



"Are there any humans around? Or somebody in charge?" Maxim asked.



The boomer ignored her and continued to escort her to security. It had just
received new orders.



-



Katherine Madigan looked at the view screen, trying to figure out who this
strangely dressed person was. It wasn't some sort of boomer. It registered
as having no metallic components. It also didn't register as totally human.
It looked to be wearing some sort of military uniform.



As she was watching, it emitted several energy pulses while looking at the
boomers. This Maxim's face didn't hide much, showing her surprise at what
she had found.



"Bring her to me directly. Use any force necessary. Do not harm her unduly,"
Madigan spoke to the boomer.



She sat back at that point and waited. She chuckled when this Maxim asked if
she was being taken to the police. When she stopped and the boomers grabbed
her to drag her along, Katherine Madigan received her biggest shock of the
day. The small girl casually reached over and picked up the combat boomer
and tossed it into its fellows, knocking them over. Looking around, she
seemed to make some sort of decision.



Katherine couldn't believe her eyes when the blood spattered figure leaped
into the air and started to fly with no visible means. Switching to the
radar and setting it track the figure, she received her last surprise when
the stranger left her radar, being to small and far to fast to track.



"Quincy is not going to be happy at all," Madigan murmured to herself as she
stood up and started to walk to the exit. "Not at all."



-



Priss waited and continued to look at Sylia. She'd just walked in to the
medical bay and found that Sylia was sleeping again. She had to tell her
about Nene, but just couldn't wake Sylia up yet. Priss didn't like to admit
it, but she would have destroyed her life if Sylia hadn't recruited her. And
she had started to see the little things that Sylia had always done to keep
everyone together. It made her realize why Sylia was the leader and why the
others would follow her to hell. And back, of course.



Sylia on the other hand was wondering why the person hadn't announced
herself. Priss she thought. Slipping a glance through her slitted eyelids,
she stilled her question. Something in Priss's looked stopped her and she
took a moment to figure out what was going on. Priss had such an odd look on
her face, like a little forlorn girl who had lost her puppy. Such an odd
look. Usually she hides behind a mask of anger and crassness.



"What is going on?" Sylia asked, watching Priss carefully. For just the
briefest moments, Priss had an almost guilty look on her face and then hid
it behind her mask of rage. Sylia opened her eyes fully and looked over at
Priss after she'd had the time to get her composure.



"I got Nene, just like you wanted. She's outside, still out like a light.
The tranquilizer pistol worked like a charm," Priss replied; with a bit of
her sarcastic smile on her lips. She almost started up again, like she
wanted to ask more questions.



Sylia arched her left eyebrow, just a tiny bit. "Very well, bring her in
here. She'll go in the second bed. We will keep her sedated until the
situation with her parents is resolved." Priss's surprise was evident on her
face and Sylia answered the next unspoken question. "She's too dangerous,
Priss. Even on a mission to rescue her family. Would you really want her out
there when Genom tries telling her the only way to save her family is to
turn traitor?"



Priss pursed her lips and thought about it a second. "No, not really. Do you
have these sort of plans for me and Linna too?" Priss replied.



"They're are not necessary. You haven't let anyone get that close. Actually,
neither has Linna. At least since Irene," Sylia responded carefully. Priss
deserved to know she decided. "I've done several psychiatric evaluations on
everyone. Nene is the most likely to bend, but the least likely to kill
anyone."



Priss mouthed the words, 'psychiatric evaluation'. Not being sure what to
say, she just muttered a little too loudly. "Um, guess we have to keep the
crazies in line."



Sylia smiled for just a moment and then replied more truthfully than she
intended. "I evaluate myself, too. It's not exactly the most sane thing to
pick a group of mercenaries and start a covert war with the biggest company
in the world." Now why had she blabbed that out? It had to be the
medication.



Priss was about to continue, when Sylia cut her off. "Bring her in and I'll
help you hook Nene up to the IV drip. And I'll need a bit of help if I'm
going to make an appearance today at the store. After that you need to get
some sleep."



Priss just looked at her and then smiled, "Aye, aye, Sir!" Sleep sounded
good to Priss.



-



Linna was watching TV in the break room at the office she worked at. Another
bulletin about the most dangerous women in MegaTokyo. It was hard not
breaking out into laughter. Linna adjusted her headband and listened to some
of the other employees for a few minutes. Everyone really seemed to care
that one of the famed Knight Saber's secret identity had become public
knowledge.



Her eyes were drawn back to the screen, as an announcer started to talk.
"Genom has offered to help the police track down the vigilante. They just
announced at a corporate luncheon, that Genom is offering a five million yen
reward for any information leading to the arrest of Nene Romanov. In other
news..." Damn, that's going to make it tougher on all of them. The report
continued about how Nene Romanova's parent disappeared and their house was
destroyed. Knight Saber involvement was suspected, but nothing concrete
beyond that.



She tried not thinking about the fact that she was the first to go and get
the pistol she now carried around at all times. She tried to rationalize it;
saying to herself that she knew it was tranquilizer pistol. But she knew, in
that dark abyss in the center of herself, that she went to that locker to
get a gun with the full intention of shooting Nene. Shooting her and
probably killing her.



Just to keep the Knight Sabers safe. What had she become? What sort of
monster had she become? Linna found that she didn't have a good answer and
might not ever have one.



"Hey, Linna! Snap out of it. You've got a meeting in five minutes. This
isn't going look good to Mashumi or his clients if you're late." One of her
fellow employees named Marco nudged her out of her reverie.



"Um, thanks. I guess I've got to get going." Linna started and hopped up.
Thinking to herself, get a grip. You'll talk to Sylia tonight. The
aggravation of being an over glorified secretary didn't help her mood.



-



Sylia made her daily appearance at her shop, the Silky Doll. After making
sure everything was running smoothly, she headed back to the private areas
of the building. She checked to make sure that Nene was still sedated and
then checked on Priss. Good, she was still sleeping soundly. Sylia patted
Priss on her shoulder and then continued into the computer room.



Sylia didn't like to admit it, but she wished Nene was able to help with
this. Sylia was one of the best hackers around, but Nene was better. And
right now, she needed the best. Unfortunately, she couldn't use her. If she
found a demand in the computers near her parents, she wouldn't be able to
make the right choice. Hopefully, Sylia thought, I'll be able to get enough
information to rescue her parents tonight.



She knew that the longer Genom had them, the tougher it was going to be
rescuing them. And then they might figure out a way to get to Nene. And
Sylia didn't know that she could kill one of her teammates. Not after years
of working together. They were almost family now, almost as much as her
brother Mackie.



Shaking the cobwebs off of her thoughts, she started to type quickly with
her right hand. Her left arm would be in a sling for several days and she
must look like quite the fright. Pausing in her typing for just a moment,
she reached up and took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were still swollen, but
between make up and her glasses, she figured that her regular employees
wouldn't question too much.



Setting her shoulders again, she started to carefully peck away at the
monstrous amount of information that Genom produced in a day. Hopefully she
wasn't already too late.



After a while of fruitless pecking, she reached over to her personal demon.
It looked so innocuous, this small set of headphones. In reality, they
allowed her to interface with computers as easily as the most dedicated
hacker. What none of the other Knight Sabers realized is how afraid she had
become of her ability to mesh with computers and boomers.



She knew that she was human as the rest of them. Medical check out had
proven that. They also showed the small scars under her hair. Just the sort
of scars that an active child who had cut herself and then gotten stitches.
Not the sort of scars a father would have put there to safe guard his most
precious of talents and skills.



But it didn't scare her less, these easily traveled roads of cyber
communication. After all, nobody, not even the Knight Sabers knew how close
she had come to succumbing to Largo. A visual image of Largo floating in his
life support tank for his shattered body flashed before her.



A shudder rides up Sylia's back. She forces it down and continues the work
she had to do. Eyes blank, she became one with machine, riding her terror.



-



Linna had finally gotten home and found a message to meet at Sylia's on her
answering machine. She grinned for just a second, thinking that if anyone
did listen in to her phone messages; they must think she's insane. Buying
lingerie two, maybe three times a week was pretty outrageous. But it was
good to hear Sylia again.



Grabbing her keys, she hopped into her new car and drove right over and
headed to the back area. She watched doubly carefully for anyone watching.
Priss was already there, eating dinner with Sylia.



"Do you mind? I didn't grab a bite to eat yet and I'm starved," Linna asked
quietly.



Sylia nodded and replied with the affirmative, "Of course."



For a while the only sound was of food being eaten. Afterwards, the dishes
were stacked in the sink and everyone retired to the living room.



"Ok, what's the plan?" Priss blurted out.



"I hope you faith in me is never misplaced, Priss. Yes, I do have plan. But
we are going to have to go in with two groups. You and Linna will be
distraction, hitting a trap and avoid getting caught. You'll engage the
enemy in hit and run tactics for fifteen minutes in this area." Sylia just
shaking her head in amazement at Priss's trust and touched a keypad to
highlight an area of the tower. "If I am not back in that time, leave.
Follow the Armageddon protocols and leave the country as fast as possible."



"So, what are you doing?" Linna asked. She looked like she wasn't happy with
this already.



"I'll be using my old suit and Nene's motoslave, to infiltrate into an area
where I believe that they are really holding Nene's parents. I managed to
hack into the boomer disposition records and followed the trackers built
into the bodyguard boomers that follow Katherine Madigan. She spent some
time today in an area marked as supplies."



Sylia paused a moment, as if collecting her thoughts. "The area she went to
has to be highly classified, but doesn't seem to do anything. It's just a
storage office that doesn't have an inventory. Nobody works in that area and
it's not assigned to anyone in management. I think it might be a black ops
office. Even if Nene's parents aren't there, I might find some useful
information. At worst, I won't find anything and we leave."



"Are you up to it, Sylia? You're still pretty beat up. I don't want you
going in if it looks like it could be a heavy combat mission." Priss
actually looked surprised, as she stared at her friend. Linna wasn't the
sort of person that she would have thought to question Sylia.



Sylia sized up Linna for a moment and then replied calmly. "It's the only
way. I will try and avoid any combat. With Nene's motoslave unit and some
extra components for my old armor, I should be able to stealth in." Sylia
then waited for new arguments for a moment and started up again. "Linna, you
get some sleep. We'll wake you in about two hours. We should be done
prepping everything by then. The mission will start at ten o'clock and we
should hopefully be back by midnight."



Priss was the one who now looked upset and just barely controlled herself
from yelling, "Oh, man! My gig tonight, my manager is going to kill me if I
cancel this late."



Sylia smiled slightly, "I bought you some time Priss. I called on a few
favors. I've gotten a new band to start for you, so you don't have to be on
stage until twelve thirty. Don't expect me to do this too often though. It
was moderately expensive." And then thinking to herself, I hope Priss never
finds out that I bought the club after she got fired last time. I don't
think she'd ever forgive me for manipulating her career. She's really too
good to let her Knight Sabers duty destroy it. But I couldn't let her job
interfere with what we do. It's too important.



"Let's get to it, ladies. We have a lot to do and not that much time," Sylia
said louder.



-



Nene opened her eyes and looked around. She recognized the room. It was one
that she'd hoped to never end up in. The medical bay in Sylia's place was
not built to look nice, only to be functional. Shaking her head a bit to
clear it she noticed the other occupants. Priss and Linna looked like death
warmed over and just sat there waiting for her to get up. Looking at Priss,
Nene remembered the last thing that happened to her.



"You shot me! Priss, I can't believe that you shot me! Why did you do that?"
Nene sat up too fast and almost passed out again. She felt light headed, as
if she'd been drugged. She swayed side to side, unsteadily wavering.



"Orders, Nene. Sylia told me to do it." After a pause, Priss continued. "I
totally agree why, too. So just calm down." Just don't ask why we had to do
it, thought Priss. This is tough enough.



Nene thought about it a second. "Why?"



Linna sighed and answered. "When your cover was blown, Sylia and I attempted
to retrieve your parents. Genom beat us to them, Nene. They were taken to
the main tower."



Priss continued, "Sylia couldn't be sure that you wouldn't turn on us until
we rescued your parents. That's why you got shot." Nene looked hurt, but
just nodded. "Willpower really isn't your strong point, Nene." Nene looked
hurt at that too, but knew what they were talking about. Her diets had been
a joke of the group for a long time.



"So of course, we got a plan together and attempted a rescue. Knight Saber
tradition, right? Well, it didn't work out this time. We almost got killed
and and..." Linna's voice broke as she tried to keep up the facade of
stability. She buried her face in her hands.



Priss reached over and grabbed Nene's hand and gripped tightly. "Sylia found
your parents. They had been tortured to death."



Nene just stared at Priss like she had just grown two heads. "No," Nene
murmured and then nearly yelled at Priss. "NO!" Priss held on and then
awkwardly reached around and held Nene. Nene started to pound on Priss with
her free hand, tears flowing freely as she continued cry out her defiance.



Priss just let her keep pounding, until Nene had subsided to sobs. Linna
walked over and grabbed a hold of Nene's free hand and held her. They
wouldn't let go of her. They were her only family now.



-



Sylia's dreams were dark and in them stalked death. She thrashed and
twisted, almost as if possessed. Again and again, she opened to door to the
nightmare. In front of her lay two bodies, covered in sheets that had red
blotches on them. Uncovering the faces, she saw faces gripped in the rictus
of death. Cuts and burns adorned them.



In the background, she saw a computer and she sees her armored hand
accessing the data. Her skin crawled and she saw her personal demon appear.
A chiseled and fine-featured face looks at her, with his too pretty face.
His gray hair seemed to stand him apart, but not making him look old. His
odd colored eyes bored holes into her head. Flashing letters appear, in
large bold face.



Project Largo



-



Sylia sat straight up, clutching her sheets. She was drenched in sweat and
she heard birds in the background. She fell back and just lay there. She
didn't remember going to bed. It took a moment and she realized that she had
snapped last night. A shudder traveled through her body.



After finding Nene's parents, she had been on automatic. She'd gone through
the computer and some of the unusual equipment in the room. Scanning it
quickly for future reference, she'd hacked into it looking for any
incriminating evidence. What she had found was a nightmare. Project Largo,
from what she had been able to tell, dealt with recording entire human brain
patterns. She'd rechecked the records and found that both of their brain
patterns had been downloaded to the mainframe, with only a copy kept
locally.



The torture was only to inflict pain. When you can copy the entire memory of
a person to computer and search it for what you need, you don't need to
torture. That was obvious.



She got Nene's motoslave to come over and download some information. She
then cut a hasty retreat back to Priss and Linna, so they could leave.



At least that was the plan. When she caught up to them, they were pinned
down and getting cut off from retreat. That was when she snapped. She didn't
go berserk the same way that Priss did, getting mad and just letting loose.



No, she became a demon of cold rage. Each shot with her hand cannon
perfectly lined up. The others had joined in, starting to rout the boomers.
After the last one was down, she kept shooting it. And then after she ran
out of ammunition, she used her blades. She kept hitting the last boomer far
after it had been destroyed, until Priss pulled her off.



Sylia remembered taking a slash at Priss, who backed off fast, blocking with
her own blades. She then went back to slashing at the downed boomer. All of
her fury and fear in each blow. A tapping on her shoulder, forced her to
whirl back again, right into Priss's punch. Staggered back by the blow, she
stepped right into a stunning blow from Linna. Staggering forward again, the
last thing she saw was Priss's fist cocked back and then darkness.



A soft snoring sound drew her attention and she looked over in surprise.
Priss was in one of her seats next to the desk. It looked like she had
fallen a sleep in an uncomfortable position.



Sitting up straighter, she called out to Priss, "Priss, wake up!"



Priss woke up with a snort and flailed for a second. Shaking her head, she
took a second to catch up on her surroundings. "Um, how's it going Sylia?"
Priss asked directly.



"I guess it could be a lot worse. For what it's worth, I'm sorry," Sylia
replied. "What has happened since you knocked me out?"



She's taking this rather calmly, thought Priss as she brought Sylia up to
speed. Sylia looked moderately surprised when she mentioned that Linna had
dug into Sylia's hardsuit's memory to find out had happened to Nene's
parents.



"What caused last night?" Priss asked.



"You mean my actions when I got back with you and Linna? I found something
that terrified me. And finding Nene's parents brutally tortured... angered
me." Sylia said in her normal quiet voice. "I really don't want to talk
about it right now." Moments of silence hung in the air. Priss finally just
nodded.



"I almost wish you hadn't told Nene. But that could be for the best," Sylia
said as she stood up and started to get dressed. Looking over at Priss, she
asked. "Have you gone home?"



"She deserved to know, so we told her. And, no, I haven't gone home. Me and
Linna agreed that somebody had to stay and watch both of you. I got stuck
with the morning shift and Linna's going to be back about two in the
afternoon," Priss said as she stretched.



"It almost sounds like you're sharing the duties while I was out of
commission. I thought that you would have taken charge and Linna would have
fought you tooth and nails to keep you from doing something drastic," Sylia
mentioned, wincing as she pulled on a casual sweater and some sweat pants.
Looking in the mirror, she still saw the wounds from the explosion. Her eyes
were still a bit bruised and her shoulder hurt even more than before.



Priss noticed her wince as she shrugged the sweater on. "You need to go to
the doctor. Your shouldn't have been using your shoulder at all."



"Are you all right Priss? You're not the mothering type." Sylia sidestepped
Priss's question. Sylia tried to take charge of the situation. She felt
safer in charge. "We need to call a meeting of everyone."



"Never mind that. Look Sylia, you're not helping here," Priss said as she
scrubbed her hair. "The Knight Sabers aren't going to be doing anything
until a couple of things happen. Those are, you getting better and Nene
settles down. Linna and I both agreed to this. We're about to fall apart
here and we need some time to heal. Genom hit us hard and we need time to
recover. Linna and I haven't had more than six or seven hours sleep a piece
in the last two days. You're injured and Nene's just about comatose."



"The Knight Sabers need this break or were going to fall apart." Priss
looked at her like she was expecting an argument.



Sylia mulled it over a second and then nodded. "Yes, you're right. How were
you going to deal with Nene?"



"Oh, Linna already handled that. Nene is in for a surprise if she tries to
go out in and just start blowing up Genom buildings and employees." Priss
smiled with her normal feral grin. Glancing over at Sylia's monitor, she
chortled. "And it looks like we get to find out sooner than I thought! There
she goes, getting into trouble already."



Sylia looked over and said, "So how are you planning on dealing with her?"
as she put on her arm sling.



"Oh, just push her so she thinks straight. That's all," Priss replied
blandly.



"Do you need some help? I have some ideas that could be useful," Sylia
asked.



Priss nodded the affirmative, as she headed towards the door.



-



Nene's resolve was solid. First she was going to kill Quincy and then work
down the chain of command. With a click she sealed her helmet and started to
walk towards her motoslave, checking all of her readouts. Everything checked
out ok and everything was optimal. She walked over and started her motoslave
transforming into a battle mecha.



And then all of her sensors went blank and it felt like the world landed on
her shoulders. "What the hell?" was the only thing she could say before her
suit crashed to the ground, holding her immobilized.



Nene struggled vainly to stand and gave up on that. None of the commands she
was sending the suit gave any response. With a bit of effort, she managed to
get her helmet off. It bounced on the ground and rolled over to the door of
the ready room and stopped as Priss stepped on it.



"What did you do to my suit? Why the hell are you trying to stop me?" Nene
yelled at Priss. "I thought that you would understand what I'm doing!" Nene
thought to herself, I bet they jammed the power meter, like that time
Linna's suit shut down.



"I do, all too well," Priss shot right back. "Sorry, I'm not going to let
you throw your life away. If you want to kill yourself, use a gun."



Nene jumped at the last words, but set herself to standing up again. After
three tries, she finally stood back up. Walking with exaggerated care, she
made it to the recharge rack and plugged her suit back in. "I'm not going to
kill myself, I'm going to kill those bastards that killed my parents."



Priss was moderately impressed, those suits were heavy. She could barely
move around in those hardsuits herself.



A soft voice from the door stopped her, "Are you sure? No plan, just jumping
in your hardsuit and going to kill the most heavily guarded man on the
planet? Sounds like a death wish to me." Sylia walked in and sat down.



Nene avoided looking at Sylia for a moment and then replied, "Well, it's my
life. I don't think I could bear to look in the mirror and see myself. If I
hadn't joined the Knight Sabers, they would still be alive." Nene looked
over and her face showed her surprise at Sylia's injuries.



"What would your parents think?" Sylia said thinking very carefully.



"I don't know what my parents would think, there dead!" Nene screamed at
Sylia as she leaned to far towards her. With a clatter, she fell over from
her precarious perch. "Damn, damn, damn." She started to punch the ground
with her armored fist.



"Would you like to know?" Sylia said calmly.



Nene just stared at Sylia for just a moment and whispered intently, "What do
you mean?"



"Your parents minds and personalities were recorded and then transferred to
the Genom's mainframe. I managed to get a copy before I left." Sylia made it
sound so simple.



Priss and Nene both gasped and looked shocked. "That's not possible is it?"
Priss said, louder than she meant to.



"Unfortunately, I think it might be too easy, now. You know that I'd had my
suspicion that Largo wasn't a normal boomer. I've suspected for a while that
Largo was actually Brian J. Mason." Nene and Priss looked on in surprise, as
Sylia seemed to break down slightly. After a moment, Sylia whispered, "And
the man who killed my father."



"What?" the both cried at the same time.



Sylia looked at them and seemed to struggle for a moment. "You knew that my
father invented the boomer, correct? And that he was on the forefront of AI
creation?" Both nodded, it was common knowledge in the group. "Had you ever
thought about the fact that he understood intelligence and understood how
thinking works? I mean really understood thought?"



Priss's expression was blank, but Nene's eyes showed dawning comprehension.
"OK and what does this have to do with recording minds?" Nene asked.



"My father had developed the method of imprinting thought patterns and
knowledge into a humans mind directly. It was a side study on his AI and
boomer research. Just before he got killed, he created a special data
storage unit and recorded all of his skills and some instruction into it. He
then placed it with a friend, who delivered it to me on his death. He used
me as his vengeance, by putting his knowledge of robotics and artificial
intelligence into me," Sylia said, staring into space.



"He understood analytical thought quite easily, but hadn't mastered how
emotions work and are integrated in memories. Two days after he died, I lost
my ability to display and feel emotions easily and gained all of the famed
knowledge and genius of my father." Sylia kept speaking in a flood of pain.
It was a low murmur, when it should have been a raging river.



"It would have only been a matter of time, of course. It took about six
months for me to figure out how to fix his process to not damage the
subject's emotions. Unfortunately, the original process is irreversible."
Sylia continued in her slow voice, "Originally, it was supposed to replace
schooling and protect skills that might be lost. Or perhaps to advance the
human race. Boomers for physical work, enhancing humans mentally for the
next step of societal evolution. His utopia."



"Until he was murdered by Brian Mason, an up and coming exec at Genom,"
Sylia continued. "Brian Mason found some notes and saw a potential that my
father hadn't thought of. Military boomers, of course. But that wasn't all.
He also dreamt of immortality. Transferring the entire pattern of someone
into a computer large enough to handle that complex of data. My father had
just finished inventing one that might be able to do just that. The brain of
a boomer wasn't quite up to it, but that didn't stop Mason from working on
it. It took ten years and a billion yen, but he did it. And so that's where
Largo came from."



"Unstable, egotistical and power mad were words used to describe Mason. Now
give him a death trauma and put him in an alien environment. No wonder he
went insane," Sylia said. "It's far too possible," Sylia finished.



"So I could load the memories onto an AI and I'd be able to talk to my
parents?" Nene asked. Sylia nodded. "Would they be my parents? I mean would
they think there my parent?"



Sylia shrugged and answered. "I don't know for sure. I'm not a theologian.
But they would think they are your parents."



"Can you give me a few moments? I've got to think about this. It's just too
weird," Nene said.



"Of course, Nene. We'll wait for you upstairs. Don't take too long."



-



Nene thought for a few minutes and then struggled out of her hardsuit.
Grabbing a robe, she headed towards the computer room. Sitting down at the
terminal, she started to type away, looking for her parents.



After about five minutes, she had found the proper information and figured
out how to run the patterns and load the AI that would use the patterns. In
just a few moments, the first program started to run.



"Nene-chan, is that you? What did you do to your hair? And why do I feel so
strange?" a pleasant female voice came from the speakers.



"Mama, I don't know what to say. Genom kidnapped you and then... I don't
know how to say this, Mama. They killed you." Nene's voice broke. "I've got
a recording of everything that you are. I really need to talk to you." She
started to sob into her hands.



"Genom killed me?" A long pause and then she continued. "I remember someone
kidnapping us and then taking us somewhere. They kept asking questions about
you and the Knight Sabers. What's going on Nene?"



Nene took a deep breath and then answered. "I'm a Knight Saber, mama. And
because I got found out, Genom kidnapped you to get to me." Nene started to
cry. "It's all my fault, mama."



There was a long pause and then the voice started up again. "Are you doing
good? Are the Knight Sabers helping to stop evil people like Genom? If you
are, then you doing the right thing. You need to look in your heart and see
if what your doing it right. If it isn't, then you need to go and change the
life you have." The familiar voice tried to be soothing, but it just plumbed
the depths of Nene's pain.



Nene continued to stare at the camera that was her mother's new eyes. She
was trying to think of what to say. Or what to do.



-



Linna sat at her desk and answered phones. She'd been at it for about four
hours and was just incredibly drained. She reached over and grabbed her
coffee mug again. Making a face, she finished the cold drink. "Oh, I'm so
tired," Linna moaned. She looked over at the clock, which read 12:10pm.



"Finally, I can get out of her and grab some food," Linna muttered to no one
in particular. Thinking for a moment, she wondered if she should get
strawberry shortcake. That might make Nene feel better. She reached for her
purse.



All of a sudden, the lights flickered and all of the computers reset. For
the first time in hours, the phones didn't ring. The lights flickered again
and then shut down. Linna stood up with everyone else and walked towards the
window overlooking the street. Down below, on the street level, chaos
reigned.



Not a single light seemed to be functional within blocks and several
accidents had happened already as cars ceased to work properly. A couple of
courier boomers lay on the sidewalk. Panic seemed to grip the people down
there.



"Evaluate and determine what's going on, Linna," Linna mumbled to herself.
Reaching into her purse, she pulled out some small spyglasses. She had them
since she started to go to the opera. One of the perks of her old job was
being able to afford to do things like that. She kept them in the vain hope
that she could use them in the future.



Scanning around, she had an unusual vantage point to see the Bank of
MegaTokyo. Clouds of dust obscured what was going on, but the dust settled
down in a few moments and Linna let out a gasp. Where once had stood a large
set of vault doors, there was a huge gap in the wall. The gap led down to a
pit in the ground.



Somebody had decided to rob a bank in the middle of the day. And it looked
like they were going to get away with it too. Remembering her training, she
looked for a good vantage point to watch the robbery in progress. There were
a couple of good places and she checked all of them. Only one was occupied.
But that didn't look right. It was just a businessman, dressed in a nice
suit, reading a paper. It definitely didn't look like a lookout.



Linna continued to stare and finally figured out what was so strange. The
businessman just sat there, only glancing up occasionally to check the area
out. He was very calm and didn't seem to be perturbed at all.



Acting on a hunch, she tried her best to memorize his features. She had a
strange feeling that he was going to be important.



-



Kirk Dawson finished his paper and stood up. Looking around, he saw chaos
wherever he looked. Glancing at his watch, he checked his time and then
started to walk down the sidewalk.



After he had gotten about a block away, the power returned to vehicles and
lights flickered back on. Peopled started to get their lives back in order
as the strange phenomena ended as quickly as it started.



"Not a bad day's work, hmm?" Dawson laughed to himself. He started humming
as he headed down into the subways.



-



Linna parked her car and headed in to the Silky Doll. She worked carefully
to balance the pie. She opened the door and walked to the back. Punching her
codes, she continued into the back area. Humming a few tunes, she made it up
to Sylia's living quarters. Looking around, she didn't spot anyone
immediately.



"Hello? Anyone here?" Linna called out.



"Oh, in here Linna!" Nene called from the computer room. "Good night! I'll
come and talk to you tomorrow, OK?" She was still wearing the bathrobe over
her inner suit.



"Of course. We have a lot to catch up on. Good night, Nene-chan." Her mother
voice drifted away and Nene typed the commands to put her to sleep.



She turned around and nearly fell back as Linna handed her a scrumptious
piece of pie. "Here, I thought you might want to have a piece of pie and
maybe some company," Linna said. Maybe it would help make up for earlier.



"Um, thanks. You guys are all being so nice. Even Priss," Nene replied. "Do
you like the look? Short and black really aren't my color, but it sure did
the trick to hide me."



"It is different. You sound a lot better. Are you sure you're all right?"
Linna asked with concern evident.



"I'm not going to run off and get myself killed. Was that your trick with
the hardsuit?" Nene asked.



"Yes, after my hardsuit locked up because it ran out of juice that one time,
I decided to use the same thing to stop you from running off. Not bad for
non-geek, huh?" Linna forced herself to smile and then asked, "Where is
Priss and Sylia? They should both be here."



"Priss dragged Sylia to that clinic she owns, to get her thoroughly checked
out. Sylia tried to argue, at least until Priss threatened to shoot her.
Sylia wanted me to get used to living here for a while," Nene said in
between mouthfuls. "I guess I get to work at the Silky Doll until I get
plastic surgery in a week or so. Sylia said that she'd been meaning to get
the right contacts for that sort of thing for a while."



"Sylia thinks of everything. Plastic surgery?" Nene nodded, as Linna
continued to speak, "Are you going to use this as an excuse to have a little
liposuction?"



Nene just sputtered pie in front of her for a second and then glared at
Linna and then started to laugh. "Only for a moment. Somehow, I think I'll
have more time to get exercise." Nene smiled at Linna and then said,
"Thanks, I needed that." She reached for a napkin to clean up the mess.



"No problem. What's that you're working on?" Linna asked, looking over
Nene's shoulder.



"I don't feel like wearing pink anymore, so I'm going to have my hardsuit
repainted dark red and black. I guess you could say that it's symbolic of
the changes that have happened." Nene smiled wanly.



"Not a bad idea, as long as you don't get too morbid. Okay?" Linna said,
giving Nene a very piercing look.



"Yes, Mommy. I promise." Nene giggled and gave Linna a big hug. "Thanks for
being here. I've got a favor to ask though. I want you to help me be a
better fighter. I still owe Genom for what they did to my parents." Nene had
a hard look on her face.



Linna's face went stony and she replied, "Sure."



-



Sylia found her wayward fellows in the training room. Linna was pushing Nene
unmercifully hard. But Nene wasn't complaining. In fact she seemed to be
pushing herself harder than Linna was. As Sylia watched, Nene actually got
in a couple of decent shots.



Linna followed up with a complicated set of attacks and got a real hard shot
into Nene's face. Nene rocked back and almost stumbled. Instead of falling
down though, she followed up kick and then a couple of punches. Linna
blocked them and continued her onslaught. Twisting at the last moment, Linna
caught Nene's hand and pivoted throwing Nene off balance and then slamming
her down to the ground.



Nene lay stunned for a second and then patted Linna on the shoulder to
signal defeat. Linna let up on her and gave her a hand up.



Linna had always been the best fighter of the group, only topped by Priss's
pure stubbornness. A true professional. Sylia watched for a moment and then
continued up to the computer room. She had her own work to do yet, her new
suit was ruined and Priss's suit was damaged. It would be at least a week
for her suit to be remade. Sitting down, she was surprised to find she had a
message from Nene. Scanning it quickly, she double-checked the attached
files.



"Now where did you get this Nene?" Sylia murmured. Checking over the file,
she saw it was a US military prototype plasmic energy weapon. Nene must have
hacked the file. She wanted it in place of her forearm cannon. The drain on
it was about the same as her current laser so that shouldn't be a problem.
It looked to be very expensive though. Checking the calculation for what the
weapon was capable of, Sylia decided to add a very large variant to her
motoslave. Some expenses were justified.



Checking over her manufacturing systems, she noticed that one of the robotic
stations was already active and seemed to be busy painting something and
adding the high refractory laser coating afterwards. Opening a screen, she
turned on the security camera and looked at Nene's Hardsuit. It was a fairly
drastic change, now being dark ruby red, with black highlights. The only
noticeable symbol was a black cupid heart on the left breast piece. It
looked vaguely ominous.



"Well, well. This is going to be interesting. I hope Nene knows what she's
getting into," Sylia said to herself.



-



Leon couldn't believe the last couple of days. The new chief wanted Nene
brought to justice and was making everyone's life hell. Now he was on his
way to a crime scene and they weren't even any boomers sighted. He sighed,
as Daley drove up to the front of the Bank of MegaTokyo.



They both stepped out and flashed their badges at the normal police.
"Inspector Mailes is inside. Big guy, wearing a dark blue long coat. Can't
miss him," one of the older officers said to Daley, signaling with his thumb
in the general direction of the front door.



"Thanks," Daley said over his shoulder, walking quickly to keep up with
Leon. He almost ran into Leon as he stopped. A low whistle escaped Leon and
he took off his shades. Daley could appreciate why. The entire vault was
just missing.



"So that's why they wanted us. Only boomers could have moved the entire
vault. A big boomer," Leon said.



"Maybe at first look, but there is no way that we can explain it now.
Inspector Mailes, N-police." Leon looked over in surprise.



"What do you mean, no way to explain it?" Daley replied. "Sure it would have
taken a while, but boomers could have dug the hole and then manually picked
it up. It doesn't seem to be that efficient though. Why not just steal...
What did they steal?"



"Six hundred million yen," Mailes replied blandly. "The biggest bank robbery
of the century. And we have no idea how they did it."



"But you think that boomers might be involved," Leon stated.



"It's not humanly possible. So that leaves boomers. I hope no one has
invented one that can do this though," Mailes said. "Otherwise, we are
starting to look a little obsolete."



Leon really couldn't say anything. Mailes might be right.



"Hey, sir, what do you make of this?" One of the technicians walked over,
handing a computer pad to Mailes.



Looking over it for a second, he looked back at the tech. "What does it
mean?" Mailes said, looking at him intently.



"It looks like some sort of energy pulse, timed just be just like a imaging
scan. It's going on right now. Think it could be the... Hey, it just cut
off!" The technician looked bewildered.



Leon was already moving, running outside, and looking around. He scanned the
crowd, looking for anything out of the ordinary. As he came out, several
officers looked around, startled. But other than that, all seemed normal, on
the surface. But Leon was trained to observe more than the surface.



Daley came up behind Leon and asked, "Did you spot our peeping tom?"



"Sure, but I thought it was going to be a truck or something. Want to
follow?" Leon said as he walked off. Daley just shrugged and followed.



"Excuse me miss, but can I ask you a few questions and perhaps see some ID?"
Leon asked as he smiled at the young lady. She jumped, looked a bit guilty.
A little short, she had dirty blond hair, cut short and was wearing a baggy
sweater and loose jeans.



"Um, sure," the girl replied. "How can I help you officer?"



"I'm going to need you to come down to the station and get a statement."
Leon smiled grimly. "It shouldn't take to long. If you'll come with me and
Daley here, we'll get right started."



Inspector Mailes had finally caught up and asked, "What's going on?"



"It looks like we need to ask this lady a few questions." Leon signed a
trooper hand signal, with his back to the girl. "It won't take long and
we'll be right back."



Mailes face didn't show much surprise and replied, "OK, see you in an hour
or so."



Leon thought, good poker face.



"So, what's your name?" Daley asked the girl.



"Um, Meg. Meg Jones," Meg replied. "Am I in trouble or anything?"



"Not as long as you're truthful. You'll be all right. So let's go. Ok?" Leon
replied, giving his best winning smile. Despite herself, Meg smiled back.



Leon escorted her to his car and opened the back door. Everyone climbed in
and made the short drive to AD Police headquarters. As they pulled in, Meg
asked, "What does the AD in AD Police stand for?" She didn't notice Daley
tense up for a moment.



"It stands for Advanced, as in Advanced Police. Well, we are here. Let's get
going," Daley replied, with a slightly strained smile.



As they walked in, Leon walked in front of the group. "I'm clearing her and
Daley to go into the debriefing rooms. No problems, right?" The officer
signed that he'd understood the coded phrase.



After the short walk, they ended up in a blank room with a video screen and
a chair. "You go in here, we have to go to another room. Can't break the
rules, you know!" Leon quipped.



Meg nodded and replied, "Sure, I guess. See you in a moment."



Leon and Daley closed the door and went to the interrogation room. As he
walked in, Daly just looked at Leon. "That was nerve wracking. Are you sure
she's a boomer?"



"The officer at the front desk confirmed it. She weighs over a hundred
kilos. That's a little heavy. She's got some sweet masking sensors. If we
didn't check the weight/height ratio of everything that walks in here, the
sensors wouldn't have spotted her," Leon said.



"A hundred kilos? Damn, she didn't look like she weighed fifty-five. So some
sort of stealth or infiltration model?" Daley replied.



"Well let's ask her, why don't we?" Leon asked. Reaching over, he flipped a
switch and activated all of the cameras. He ran an active scan and double-
checked the readings. "Damn, still nothing. Oh, well." He hit a final
switch.



"Hello, I'm Inspector McNichol. With me is Inspector Wong. Can you please
state your full name?" He saw her look around and then look back into the
screen.



"Meg Ann Jones." Her brow creased a bit. Meg wondered what was going on.
This wasn't normal, as far as she knew. She definitely felt out of place.



"What's your manufacturers number please?" Daley asked the next question.



"My what?" Now surprise showed on Meg's face.



"Your manufacturers number. All boomers or cyborgs are required to have
them," Daley said, looking over her face.



"I'm not a robot or 'borg." Meg just shook her head, wondering what was up.



Leon hit the mute and said, "There's that scan again. I wonder if she
doesn't realize that she's a boomer?" He unclicked the button and said to
her, "Your weight is way too high to be totally human. You've got advanced
sensors active right now. Let's not play any more games please. Your locked
in a room that can withstand any escape attempt. It is made of reinforced
concrete and steel. It was designed to contain a combat boomer."



"Nice. Advanced sensors? Oh, yeah." Meg laughed nervously and then said,
"No, I'm not a robot or cyborg. The closest thing would probably be
genetically enhanced. I started out human, thank you."



Leon just looked at Daley, "Genetic enhancement? That's illegal. It was
banned by the United Nations in 2017. The Genetic Purity Treaty and all."



"Let's just say, that the person who did my enhancements doesn't fall under
the United Nations treaties," Meg said.



"Um, after the middle east conflicts got out of hand, there isn't anyone on
the earth or in near earth orbit who isn't covered by that treaty," Leon
replied, studying the readings intently. He always thought that this
containment room was a silly idea, but all in all it seemed to be working
better than planned.



"That's about right. Let's just leave it at that, Ok? He died while changing
me and later when I got my last enhancements, I wasn't even near Earth." Meg
just looked towards the area where Leon and Daley were sitting. "Am I under
arrest? Is it illegal to be an enhanced human?" Leon got a creepy feeling
and off the screen waved his hand. Meg waved right back, with a small smile
on her face.



"You can see us, can't you," It was a statement, not a question that came
from Leon.



"Yes. Like I said, I'm enhanced. You didn't answer the question though." Meg
stared intently at Leon.



"You're illegal, I think." Leon sighed. He thought for a second and then
continued, "I'm not sure, but I think there are execution orders dealing
with dangerous genetic enhancements." And I'm pretty sure, Leon thought,
that you aren't just a non-combat modification.



"Execution? You kidding right?" Meg exclaimed. "And I'm supposed to just
stand for this?" She looked torn between getting mad and just upset.



Leon hit the mute again and looked over at Daley. "Can you check that out
Daley, I'm going to try to get more information out of her about this gene
doctor."



"Look, I really don't think that information is going to help you, Inspector
McNicoll. I'd like to know what my rights are thank you." Meg continued on,
"Do I get a trial or do you just gas me?"



"Just how enhanced are you? Those walls are sound proof, even to
conventional sensors," Daley sputtered.



"That's for me to know. I'm sure you'll get your chance to find out." Meg
was starting to get mad. "Now... Inspector McNicoll, there's an emergency
down in the Tinsletown district. Some boomers have gone on a rampage right
next to a daycare center." Meg seemed to be staring down and to the left all
of a sudden. "You need to let me out. A lot of people are going to be hurt
if I don't get down there to help them."



Leon just stared for a second. "That's our job miss. That's what the ADP is
for." He reached for his pager that had started to buzz. Looking at the
front of it, he read the same information that Meg had just told him.



"You won't get there quick enough. They're only a couple hundred feet from a
daycare center and a hospital. They're killing everyone in their way." Meg
looked directly at the camera. "You have five seconds before I make my own
exit."



Leon just stood up and slammed his fist into the desk. "You aren't in any
position to make demands, Meg Jones."



"Very well," Meg replied and then the screen went blank.



Leon looked over at Daley, who just shrugged. "Boomers are tougher than any
genetic enhancement. She's not going anywhere. Any ways..." Daley started to
say.



BOOM. BOOM. And then the sound of tearing metal joined in with alarms. Leon
and Daley both jumped up just in time to get to the door and see Meg run
down the hall. Leon pulled out his gun and yelled, "Stop, or I shoot. Stop
damn it!" When she didn't slow, he pulled the trigger three times, twice in
the center of her torso and once in the back of the head.



Leon just stared in surprise when she staggered, but did not fall down. Meg
made it to the window and leaped through it. Daley just stared at the
misshapen vault type door, hanging by the remains of one hinge. "The chief
is going to be a bit upset." Daley was always the master of understatement.



"No kidding," Leon replied.



-



Meg shook her head, as she headed down the side of the building. Running as
fast as possible, she managed to make it down to the ground safely. "Wish I
could still fly," Meg said. But that's a worry for another time.



Pushing herself, she started running as fast as possible. The scenery
started to blur around her as she continued.



-



Hax, as the boomer was affectionately known by his ex-owner, was mad. He
wasn't just angry, he was insane. Unfortunately, he had kept enough of his
intelligence and actually had infected the others of his work crew. Hax had
decided that all of MegaTokyo needed to be demolished so that he could
rebuild it. Unfortunately, the humans were going to stop it if they could.



So they needed to be demolished too. Using large girders and rivet guns,
they were going depopulate this area. Swinging his mighty weapon around, he
aimed a blow at the front of a building that said Cisko's Day Care.



The blow never landed. A small figure had interposed itself in between it
and day care center. Her hand grabbed the girder and pulled it out of Hax's
hand.



"What are you doing?" Maxim nee Meg Jones yelled at the boomer. She looked
quite a bit different, not taller, but with the black wig and the uniform
she looked much more dangerous.



"All humans must be demolished! All humans must be killed! Kill all humans!"
The large boomer yelled in an electronic squeal. One of the other boomers
roared his approval and grabbed a hapless bystander. With a powerful throw,
he threw the man at Maxim. She saw him at the last second and tried to slow
him down, but there was a sickening snap of a sound and his head hung at an
unusual angle.



"I can't believe you just killed him." Maxim put the man down. Hax just
looked at her strangely and then lashed out, striking her as hard as
possible.



"Die, human!" Hax yelled as he continued slamming her around six more times
and finally punched her through a wall. The rubble was quiet for a moment
and Hax started to turn around to continue his rampage.



"My turn, 'boomer'!" Maxim yelled as she charged from the rubble. With a
powerful punch, she dented his chest armor and then mashed his head.



Spinning around, she saw a boomer with a rivet gun. It opened fire
immediately, pelting her with rivets. Maxim raised her hands to cover her
face and then zipped to the side, flickering fast. With a wrench, she picked
up an empty car and tossed it at the boomer. It made a crunching sound and
then the car exploded.



The remaining boomers all charged Maxim and started to trade blows. She
started to look the worse for wear, but one by one, boomers started to drop.
Now it was a race to see who would drop first.



Maxim wasn't sure she'd last. She was using her reserves far faster than she
wanted to admit. Doggedly, she kept up the fight, trying to save as many
lives as possible.



-



The ADP had finally shown up, the fast reaction copters getting there first.
Looking down at the mess, the pilot was surprised to see the boomers
clustered. Not looking for a second chance, he opened fire, pelting the
entire area, finishing off the boomers in seconds.



He radioed back to HQ, "All clear here, it was a turkey shoot. They were
bunched up for some reason and I took them all out at one time." He then set
his helicopter to patrol the area for any other boomers.



-



Leon jumped out of his patrol car and surveyed the area. Surprisingly, the
damage was minimal. Casualties looked light too. "Hmm, looks like the
paramedics get to do most of the work today."



A cheer brought his attention to the pile of boomers, as a blood spattered
figure pushed itself from the wreckage. A whole bunch of children from the
daycare center were jumping up and down and yelling.



Maxim waved and then looked around. "Damn, must have been out for a while."
She carefully moved herself out of the area and then spotted Inspector
McNicoll. She checked herself out, making sure she had healed up. She might
have to fight or run. She didn't like fighting cops though, so she'd run.
She felt incredibly weak. What had happened to her power?



Leon walked up to her. "You saved a lot of lives from what I hear," Leon
said as he leaned closer, "But you just can't bust out of the ADP. I'm going
to have to take you back, until we can figure out what to do with you, Meg."



"I don't like fighting cops, Inspector. I'm one of the good guys," Maxim
responded.



"Good. I've got that feeling. One minute to go twelve kilometers. That's
pretty fast." Leon said, "Look, I can't let you go until you tell me where
and who did this to you."



"You won't believe me. If it makes you feel better, they can't do it
anymore. They both died a long time ago," Maxim replied shortly, ducking her
head. A long time ago, in another universe. "I'd be more worried with you
bank robbers. He's from the same place I come from. And you don't have the
ability to deal with him."



"You know the robber?" Leon's face showed his surprise blatantly.



"No, I know of the robber. He's a man who goes by the name of Polarion.
Other than that, all I know is that he has a tendency to try to take over
the world at the drop of a hat. It was during an attempt to stop him that
got us both here. There was some sort of overload and then I woke up in a
factory, with a lot of 'boomers' around. I don't think I'm in Kansas
anymore, Toto," Maxim said with a chuckle.



Leon missed the reference, but continued on, "So what can he do? And where
are you from?"



"Can you imagine someone who can control magnetism? Good, because that's his
power. He was holding my Earth hostage, blanking out all electronics from
working and any conventional troops from getting near. That's why the UN
sent the Dragons in; we're a special force of super-humans. I guess we won,
but Polarion and I got blown through some sort of dimensional rift," Maxim
continued, pushing away a paramedic.



"So he's going to do this again? And how do you know that he robbed the
bank?" Daley asked.



"Probably, he might try something else though. And if you check out the
vault, which is about two miles to the south of the bank. It's in a
warehouse. It's empty, so you're not going to find much, except that it's
been treated to massive magnetic forces. There's a lot of metal debris
attached to it." Maxim stopped and looked at the paramedic, "I'm fine thank
you. I'm healed already." The paramedic backed away when Daley gave a hand
signal.



"Well that helps a bit, even though I don't believe you. It's too much like
a bad episode of Star Trek," Leon said, leaning up against a car.



"I think I'd better leave, Leon. Are you going to try and stop me?" Maxim
asked.



"Me, no. On the other hand, when my boss gets around to reading my report on
why the containment room is broken, he's going to try. The laws pretty
serious when it comes to genetic alteration," Leon replied. "I can't promise
anything next time."



"Well, I'll just have to work at not getting caught. Thanks guys," Maxim
said as she started to run down the road and then jumped up to the freeway.



"Some gal, huh Daley?" Leon said to his partner.



"If you like girls. I'm more worried about if we are going to keep our
badges after this fiasco." Daley adjusted his tie.



"You too?" Leon chuckled.



-



Meg finished up her run in the bad section of town. It looked like some sort
of earthquake had hit at some time in the past. This area hadn't been
repaired and most of the places looked crummy.



She zipped into an alley and then picked up some normal clothing that she'd
secreted there earlier. She then compressed her costume into a tight compact
baseball-sized package. Stuffing it into a purse she stepped out and walked
over to her room. It wasn't much better than a roach hotel, but it gave
herself a place to rest up.



Meg thought to herself, that's got to be the worst day I've had since I
gained my powers. I blow my secret identity and I don't even spot the bad
guy. And then I get beat up and then shot by the police. I think I'll
collapse for a few days and hope I can start to access the gravitons of this
Earth and get recharged. Otherwise, I'm dead when I try to confront
Polarion.



She collapsed on her bed and didn't move. Sleep followed shortly.



-



Priss was happy, the owner of Hot Legs wasn't that upset about her
canceling. He just gave her a warning and then asked if she was going to
play tonight. Priss told him sure and she sang her heart out. It was one of
her best performances that she'd done recently and she just wanted to relax.
So she headed over to the bar.



Priss looked around and noted that most of the people had left already.
There was only a couple of people at tables and one person at the bar. That
one was eating one of the cold sandwiches and some chips. Must be desperate
for something to eat, Priss thought, if she came here.



"Beer. Thanks," Priss asked and then exchanged money. She leaned back on the
bar and sipped her beer.



The girl at the bar suddenly tensed up and looked at the door. It opened and
two bruisers walked in, both wearing suits and sunglasses. Priss studied
them and decided they could be boomers.



"Boomers. What are they doing here?" The blond girl asked, seemingly talking
to herself.



"Are you sure they are boomers?" Priss asked.



The blonde jumped and looked over at Priss. Sizing her up, she replied,
"Yes, I'm sure. They're noisy."



The two seemed to scan a round and then spotted the blonde. "Looks like its
time to go. I wonder who sent them? I don't need this. I'm famished," The
girl said, grabbing her sandwich and then headed to the back exit. The
boomers started to follow.



"You know what, Will? I hate Genom. I hate boomers just as much," Priss said
to the bartender. He just shrugged his shoulders. "I think I'll help that
girl out. Give me five and call the AD Police."



He nodded.



Priss followed and pulled out her gun and started to assemble it. With
practiced ease she brought it up as she slammed the door open that led to
the alley. She scanned around and spotted the girl trotting along, with the
boomers right behind.



She yelled, "Hey, get down!" And opened fire putting as many shot as she
could into one of the boomer's head. After emptying it twice into it, it
finally fell down.



The other boomer had shredded his human disguise and grabbed Meg. With what
knowledge it had, it knew a simple toss wasn't going to hurt her. With
inhuman strength, he tossed his missile at Priss. She barely avoided getting
killed by the human missile. But it knocked the gun out of her hand and
knocked her down.



The boomer felt very confident as it walked over to take its prisoner. Priss
scrambled for her gun and reached into her jacket for more rounds. The
boomer grabbed her hand and gun and started to slowly squeeze. Priss's hand
started to hurt and she couldn't break free. A gasp of pain escaped her
lips. Then a bright burst of light flashed out and the boomer's arm fell
off, sheared off at the elbow.



Priss glanced over to the ground where the figure was standing up, eyes
glowing blue, as another beam came out and struck the boomer in the head.
With a shower of sparks, the boomer fell down.



Meg collapsed right afterwards, the last blast leaving her too drained to
even sit up.



"What are you?" Priss yelled, as she finished loading her gun, now pointed
at Meg. A low moan was the only thing that escaped her. "I guess you can't
be too dangerous now." Priss relaxed.



With a grunt of effort, Priss lifted her up. You're a lot heavier than you
look, Priss thought. Probably a boomer. Thinking about it for a moment, she
headed towards the front of Hot Legs and walked for a few blocks.



She found the nearest motel and dragged the girl with her. The old man
behind the counter looked up and said, "She all right? Her room is on the
second floor. Room 29. You're a good person, young lady." He smiled broadly.



Priss just looked at the guy and then replied, "Um, sure." Priss continued
up the stairs, lugging the really heavy body behind her. What was the chance
she'd pick the same place she stayed? Priss thought about it as she went up
the stairs. Pretty good she thought, this is the closest place to Hot Legs.



She slumped against the door and slid Meg's body to the ground. Priss
searched for a moment and found the keys to the place in Meg's pocket.
Opening the door, she saw a somewhat tidy room. Catching her breath, she
dragged Meg in and put her in the bed. "Damn strange boomer. Wonder who's
hunting you," Priss said to no one in particular.



She sat on the edge of the bed and looked around. Something glinted in the
light, catching her attention. It looked like a ballpoint pen, but it looked
like it was made of gold. But who would make a ballpoint pen out of solid
gold? She pocketed it on a hunch.



Oh, well, I'd better go back to the Hot Legs and tell the AD Police about
the boomers. At least some version of what happened.



-



Leon was thinking that night shifts have to stink. After finally getting
onto days, the chief slams him with graveyard shit. And told in no uncertain
terms to bring in that enhanced in a body bag. And now his heart was a shard
of ice as he raced to Hot Legs. Priss sang there and if boomers where
gunning for her, there aren't anyplace safe for her anymore. They would
shoot her down like a dog.



"Damn!" He yelled, as he screamed around the corner. Leon had nearly side
swiped four cars as he drove over there. Daley just looked at Leon and
thought, what a waste. Some people just don't have any priorities.



Leon jumped out and ran to the scene pulling his gun. He got to the alley
where gunshots had been reported, expecting to see bodies horribly
mutilated. All he found were two boomers, one's head was a mass of twisted
metal and the other was missing an arm.




"Daley, you're not going to believe it. Somebody took out the trash
already," Leon yelled out over his shoulder.



"You're kidding, right?" Daley wasn't quite as fast as Leon, but he was no
slouch. In good police practice, he checked around the corner before he
walked up. "You're not kidding. Somebody has got a big gun."



"Look at this. Laser? It looks a little funny though," Leon said as he
kicked the one boomer's body. Its head had a hole clean through it.



"That is odd. I didn't think there were any hand held laser guns that could
punch through boomer armor," Daley said. Checking closer, the hole showed
signs of being an impact point too. "I see what you mean though. Now where
have we seen that before?" Daley muttered sarcastically.



"The cameras in the 'observation' room. They were all busted up like this.
Our laser, could it be the genetic anomaly?" Daley said, looking at Leon.



Leon shrugged.



Daley walked back and called off the backup and called for an evidence van
to get the remains. As he's starting to talk to the dispatcher, he saw
Leon's favorite singer walk over to the alley.



"Hey, Leon! What are you doing here?" Priss said, leaning up against the
wall.



Leon jumped and then turned around. With a cry, he rushed over and picked
her up. "You're all right. I was, um, worried," Leon said to her.



Priss was speechless and finally replied, "I'm fine Leon, let me go!" She
pushed him away too forcefully. Leon landed hard on his rear.



Looking sheepish, Leon started to get up and Priss surprised him again, by
offering her hand out to him and helping him up. "Um, sorry, I guess I got
carried away there for a second," Leon said.



"Uh, sure." Priss really didn't know what to make Leon's reaction. He acted
like he thought she was in trouble or something.



Leon became much more professional and started to grill her, "So what
happened here? I can just guess you're the one who shot up the boomer."



Priss gave Leon a long look and then replied, "Sure. I figured somebody was
in trouble and needed some help. Thought I'd be a good Samaritan. Sorry
officer. Guess I screwed up," Priss said with a grin. "I do have my license
for my gun. Would you like to check it?"



"Sure. So who destroyed the other one?" Leon said, looking closer Priss.



"Just some strange boomer. Looked like a blond human female, shot blue beams
out of her eyes. Didn't looks so hot as it ran off. It looked run down,"
Priss said, tilting her head.



Leon asked again, "Did you see which way?" Leon watched her carefully, as
she lied.



"Nope, I was out of ammo and didn't want to wait around for more boomers to
show up," Priss lied, "So I took off, fast as I could go." She gave her best
winning smile.



Leon accepted that, with a hard look. "OK, anything else to state? Just some
rampaging boomers and then another boomer got involved?" Leon left an easy
opening for her to just agree to his statement.



"Uh, huh." Priss was starting to think that there was a little more going on
here than she knew.



Leon looked over his shoulder at the boomers and gave a military hand sign
for somebody's listening. Priss started, but decided to play along. Leon
seemed to be playing some sort of game close to his chest. "Now that we've
got this unpleasantness out of the way, how about breakfast? I get off in an
hour or so," Leon asked with a smile.



Priss thought to herself, this better not be a trick to go on a date, "Sure.
Meet at Usha's?" Priss asked.



Daley walked up and asked, "Got all the answers? The report on this will
take a while."



Leon pointed his thumb at the boomers and replied, "She ID'd the target. She
was here. We'll watch the area for a while and see if we can find her."



Daley rubbed his chin and said finally, "We'll want to handle this
ourselves. If the military is called in, we're going to have a lot of
casualties. It's going to be a blood bath."



Priss wanted to ask about this, but she decided to just leave while she
could. "See you later, Leon," Priss said as she started to walk back into
Hot Legs.



-



Priss waited and stirred her coffee. Looking up she saw Leon enter and look
around carefully. There were only a few customers, all regulars of the early
morning shift. He walked over and sat down. He took of his glasses and set
them down.



"So, big shot AD Police officer, long time no see," Priss said and casually
checked the time on her watch. A small light flickered on and off very fast
and pointed towards her right and forward about two feet. Glancing casually
over at the only thing she could see that was that close was Leon's
sunglasses.



Leon just leaned forward and with a rueful look, spoke up. "I've got
Internal Affairs investigating me. Talk about your pains."



Priss spoke up quickly and pointed towards the sunglasses. "New shades?"
Very casually she reached out and touched his hands and very carefully made
the same sign for that he had earlier, signaling that somebody was listening
in.



Leon's face betrayed him for a second and then he replied, "Yeah, I just got
them. Don't fit very well either." Casually, he reached over and broke the
sunglasses and went and tossed it into the farthest garbage outside.



Leon returned and just looked at Priss with questioning look. Priss nodded
and then said, "So, your bugged and being followed. Life must suck."



Leon looked at her odd and then said, "Must be nice to have the neat toys. I
can't believe they put a bug on me though. Officer Giles must really want
Nene."



Priss laughed for a second and then replied casually. "Nene who? What did
she do?" Priss hid her surprise very well. Her life depended on it.



"Come on blue, you know me better than that. I've known for quite a while,"
Leon said, as he checked over the menu.



Priss just stared at him. "Why did you call me 'blue'?"



"Do I have to spell out DD Battlemover and vampire boomers? Though I have to
admit, that was the stupidest thing I ever did. Going out there in a K- 12
hardsuit and almost getting killed. I did manage to wake up for a while
though. Enough to see you without your helmet." Leon stared intently at
Priss as he finished.



Priss finally picked up her menu and started to look over the menu. "Okay.
What's your angle?" She tapped in her order on her screen.



"Angle? Um, nothing. I'm just trying to be careful," Leon said as decided
what he wanted. "Speaking of being careful, you need to watch out for that
'boomer'. The government is going after her. She's the most wanted person in
Japan right now. She's got the DIET spooked. They are talking about doing an
air strike on the area of town that she's in." He tapped in his order on his
screen.



"All that for a boomer? Sheesh."



"She's not a boomer. She's some sort of genetic aberration. Like those
clones from the Middle East conflict. The ones that nearly conquered the
entire Middle East, with an army of 5,000 soldiers. The same ones who
thought it was their destiny to rule the world. Nice thirteen year olds."
Leon said, "Except she's physically more powerful. She punched her way
through a door that would have taken a combat boomer an hour to get
through."



Priss looked up at him in surprise. "Really?"



"Look, I'm just a bit worried about you. You always charge in guns blazing.
Your not immortal you know." Abruptly changing the subject, he asked, "How's
Nene?"



"Nene? She's... taking it hard. Genom killed her parents. Just to get at
her. She's not as cheerful as she used to be," Priss said quietly.



"She's tougher then she looks. At least she's alive." He started to
continue, but just stopped. They were quiet for a moment. "Any proof that
Genom killed them?"



"No. Nothing admissible. Just dead bodies. It's like they were sending a
message."



"Well, now what?" Leon asked



"Well, we could get our breakfast and then maybe we could continue our
conversation at my place." Priss smiled. "It should be bug free."



"Sure, whatever you want to do." Leon smiled back.



-



Meg finally woke up and looked around. It looked to be daylight outside.
There was a note and a phone number. Meg stretched and realized she felt
much better. Not up to full strength, but finally starting to recover. Very,
very hungry though.



"Who's Priss?" Meg thought hard about it for a second, remembering the lady
with the overly large gun and the boomer's attack. She didn't remember
anything after that. "Must be the lady from last night." She read the note.



If you have a problem with Genom, I can help. Give me a call at 5252-3421-
34221.



Priss



"Hmm, I could use a friend right now," Meg said to herself. "I'll give her a
call." Thinking to herself, she hoped that this Priss wasn't trying to use
her or that it was a trap.



-



Nene was bored. No, scratch that. Nene was incredibly bored. Several days of
forced hiding or working at the Silky Doll were starting to wear her down.
She stood by the cash register and waited for a customer to show up. She
stifled a yawn. She spotted herself in the mirror. Her hand went to her
hair, which was still a dark black.



"I hate black," Nene said to herself and then replied to herself. "But I
hate being dead more." It seemed fairly redundant to have her here anyway.
There were two employees on shift at any times. Nene was now the third.



Mari walked over to Nene and said to Nene, "Sylia wants to talk to you,
Shawna. She's upstairs." Nene's face brightened immediately and she almost
sprinted upstairs. Mari just shook her head, thinking that she had to be
insane to want to go and see the 'Ice Lady'.



Nene burst into Sylia's office and said, "Thank god, I thought I was going
to go insane. Please say you have something for me. Something real any
ways." Sylia looked much better, the only sign that she had been banged up
was the sling her arm was in.



Sylia smiled and replied, "Actually, I was going to have you do some hacking
and information gathering. I need to dig up some information about
transmuting matter."



Nene just looked at Sylia for a second and started laughing. "Transmuting
matter? You're joking right?" Nene stopped laughing. Sylia never really
jokes, Nene thought.



"No. Look at this." Sylia handed Nene a strangely colored pen. "This was
plastic, now it's 24 carrot gold. It's purer than samples used in
laboratories."



"Where did you get this?" Nene asked. Nene's curiosity was evident on her
face.



"Priss gave it to me yesterday. I just finished checking it out. It has some
odd radiation on it, nothing dangerous," Sylia said calmly, only smiling a
little when Nene almost dropped the pen at the mention of radiation.



"Uh, how did Priss get it?" Nene asked.



"She said she acquired it from someone about a week ago. Genom covert
boomers were hunting the person. She didn't look hurt, but she's been
unconscious for most of the week. Priss has been checking on her and paying
the rent at the place she is hiding in," Sylia responded. Her fingers were
tapping on the desk. "Genom is looking for somebody, but not much in the
specifics. It matches the description that Priss gave me. I concurred with
her choice not to let anyone else near it, in case it's a trap or an
infiltration plot. But if I suspicions are right, she could be the most
important person in MegaTokyo. The DIET is all worked up over her too."



"Well, I was going to go over to Linna's later, but I can find your
information too. Anything else?" Nene was almost back to her cheerful self
it seemed.



-



Linna lay in the warm waters, crying softly. Her self-loathing had finally
overcome her. She had tried to make it up to Nene, bringing her treats and
visiting often. Nene attached herself to Linna and had become just about
inseparable.



She just couldn't stand it anymore. She wanted to scream at Nene and say,
"How can you trust me? I was going to kill you. And now you're trusting me!"
She let everyone down. Sylia was hurt, Nene's parent were kidnapped and then
killed and now, now she didn't want to hurt anyone close to herself.



The red in the water clouded and spun. Linna started to feel lightheaded.
She didn't even hear the pounding and then the outer door opening. She
barely heard the scream and then the trotting over to the phone as Nene
dialed the emergency number for an ambulance, babbling hysterically.



Nene pulled some belts tight around Linna's upper arms, in a make shift
tourniquet, trying to staunch the flow of blood. She then carefully drained
the water and then wrapped her in a towel and then hugged Linna tightly to
her.



The N-Police and the medics showed up and quickly got to work. It would be
very close, but they could save her. As with many people, she only had
friends, with no relatives. "Don't worry miss, we got here just in time. Can
you come with her to the hospital?" one of the officers asked. Nene nodded.



"Can I make a phone call first? Thanks," Nene said, as the officer nodded
back.



Nene dialed the Silky Doll from Linna's. One of the clerks answered
cheerfully. "Silky Doll, how may I help you?" Mari said into the phone.



"This is Shawna, I need you to take a message to Sylia. It's an emergency,
Linna's going to the hospital. I think its Central Crown. Can you make sure
she gets it? Thanks!" Nene blubbered, as she rushed out to get into the back
of the ambulance, locking the door behind her.



Mari just shook her head and then called upstairs. "Sylia, Shawna just
called. Someone named, um, Linda or Linna, is on the way to Central Crown
hospital and she wanted you to know. Will you be leaving for the rest of the
day?"



Sylia responded, "Yes. I'll be going down town. Thank you." Sylia quickly
dialed a number and then left a page for Priss. "Hopefully, she'll call back
quickly."



-



A phone started to ring, startling Priss as she finished her lunch. She
reached over and picked it up. "Hello. This is Priss. Oh, yes, I remember
you." Priss paused, listening to the other side. "Just want someone to talk
too? Sure, Yono's Sushi bar sounds fine. I'll be there in about twenty
minutes."



Priss grabbed her jacket and then pulled it on, checking her ammunition for
her gun and then running outside. She hopped on her bike and jammed on her
helmet. Starting up her bike, she backed it out and then pulled out fast.
But then again, fast should be Priss's middle name.



About fifteen minutes latter, she pulled up to Yono's. Walking up to Yono's,
she saw a figure wearing a large blue leather jacket and a bandana. Stylish
shades filled out the outfit with jeans and biker boots. She waved to Priss
and walked closer.



"Hello! My name is Meg Jones," Meg said to the stranger. She looked her up
and down and then checked for weapons. Only the gun, broken down into
pieces.



"Call me Priss. You looked like you could use a friend." Priss looked around
and couldn't spot anybody watching.



"Sorry if I'm a bit rude, but I'm starving. That's why I was at the Hot
Legs. It was the only thing open at the time close by," Meg said, opening
the door and waiting for Priss to enter. She followed and they both got
ushered in to a booth.



Meg looked at the menu a moment, letting the translator do it's work. She
ordered something that was filling. Changing her mind, she double ordered
it.



Priss just studied her for a moment and then ordered a drink. "You're not
kidding, you ordering like your starved or something."



"It feels like it. I can't thank you enough for what you did. Do you always
go out of your way to help strangers?" Meg asked Priss.



"Only ones who have problems with Genom. I not a big fan of Genom or their
corporate tactics," Priss replied. "So what problem do you have with them?
Runaway or something?"



"Hmm? Oh, no, I don't know why they are after me. I haven't done anything to
make an enemy of them as far as I know. I'm a bit unusual, but I've only
been in town for about a week," Meg answered, sipping her soda.



"I found some gold trinkets at your place and I figured that you would
rather have cash," Priss said as she pulled out a large roll of bills. "It's
a little harder to track you that way."



Meg just looked for a moment at the bills and then said, "Um, thanks, I'd
been meaning to do that with what I had left. I just didn't know who to talk
to." She scooped up the money and pocketed it.



Priss looked at Meg closely and then asked, "Is this an act? You didn't move
or breathe for over a week and now you're acting like you're starved. And
you look and act like you're seventeen or eighteen."



Meg stopped sipping her drink and replied slowly, "A week? Um, no wonder I'm
hungry." Pausing for a second, she continued, "It's not an act. I don't need
to breathe. I do need to eat and well, I'm seventeen," she said defensively.
She wondered if this was some sort of trap. She took another drink of her
soda.



"And you're only a bit unusual? On what scale?" Priss asked, realizing that
she was looking into the business end of two very powerful laser cannons.
They looked like blue eyes, but she remembered what they did to the boomer.
Spooky.



"Where I'm from? Pretty normal. Here I'd classify myself on the same scale
as alien abductions and magic, on the pretty strange scale." Meg thought
that really didn't do justice to what had happened. "Heck, I don't even
speak Japanese. I've got a little gizmo that can translate just about
everything. Handy when you end up in strange areas." Tapping the side of her
head, right behind her left ear.



"So where are you from?"



"Would you believe another Earth?" Meg smiled cautiously. "All I really want
to do is go home." She paused a moment. "So you hate Genom, huh?"



"They killed my boyfriend several years ago and they step on the rights of
the little people. I try to write songs that make people think about what
they do. They're pretty nasty, but the world wouldn't run if they weren't
around," Priss replied, pain in her voice. She'd almost forgot the pain
there for a while. "So I do what I can and try to help where I can."



Meg continued to wolf down her food. "I'm sorry. It sounds like they need to
be taken care of. At least the people in charge." She smiled all of a sudden
and then asked Priss, "Do you want to go shopping?"



Priss started to answer and then double-checked her watch that had just
started to buzz. "Can I take a rain check? I just got paged, so I've got to
leave." Priss looked at Meg for just a moment, "How about tomorrow? I'll
meet you out front of your motel and we'll go to the Mall."



"Sure!" Meg beamed. "You don't have to wait for me. I'll be fine."



"So long!" Priss called as she walked out and rocked her bike forward. She
jammed her helmet on and roared off. It was odd that Sylia would call an
emergency meeting during the day. It was better than later tonight, though.
She had another gig and a date with Leon. Now that was an odd thing,
especially after how long she had been giving him a hard time.



-



Priss and Sylia got into Sylia's BMW and Sylia started to drive efficiently
through traffic, Priss sitting in the passenger side. "Do we know what
happened?" Priss finally asked.



Sylia sighed and answered, "No. I hope she didn't do anything rash. Has she
said or done anything unusual?"



Priss sighed and then replied. "Linna took it pretty hard when you were
hurt. Since then she's been sad or downright depressed."



Sylia sat and thought, reviewing the last week or so and then finally spoke
up as they pulled into Central Crown Hospital parking garage. "She might
have thought that I was sanctioning Nene. If she's been tearing herself up
about it, she might have gotten suicidal again. It is part of her
psychological make up, unfortunately. She has a low self esteem."



Priss was surprised about that. Linna always seemed so self-assured. "When
was she suicidal?"



"When Irene was killed. The only reason she pulled through that was because
of Reika. She saw how self-destructive she was being," Sylia answered matter
of factly. "She channels her anger against herself, unfortunately. I guess
she isn't much like you, Priss. Your vent you aggression on the world."



"Keep your psycho-analyzing to yourself, Sylia. I don't want you messing
with my head," Priss said between clenched teeth. In an amazing show of
self-control, Priss sat there and didn't do anything more.



"I... I'm not trying to control you, Priss. I'm trying to come clean with
you. Your past and your pain is too much a part of you. If I did take that
away from you, you wouldn't be Priss." Sylia's voice was steady and calm.



Priss watched Sylia for a moment and then finally replied. "You were a lot
easier to deal with when you had your Ice Queen mask on, you know that?"
Sighing, she continued, "But I'd rather have a friend than a heartless boss.
Give us some time to adjust to it, ok?"



Sylia smiled and said, "I'll try. This is all a bit new to me too. We are
here," Sylia said as she pulled into a parking stall. Both of them got out
and walked quickly into the hospital. Checking in at the front desk they
continued up to a private room. Inside they saw Nene looking disheartened as
she held Linna's hand.



Looking up, she forced a smile. "I don't know why she did this. It hasn't
been that bad has it?" Nene looked to Sylia to answer her questions.



"I can't be certain, but she can be moody in her own ways. She was starting
to make good money at that stock brokerage. And then when the Illegal Army
showed up, she tried to play a bit of inside marketing. She lost a lot of
people a lot of money. She probably won't ever get into that sort of
position again. Which is sad, she was very good at it." Sylia walked over
and lightly squeezed Nene's shoulder. "She bottles up her problems, Ne...
Shawna. We just have to be there for her."



A doctor walked in at that point and looked around. "Which of your is
considered family for Miss Yamazaki?"



"That would be me. This young lady also," Sylia replied, as she nodded to
Priss. For some reason that surprised Nene.



"I've gotten your request and I'm not sure it is a wise idea to move her at
this point. She's still suicidal and she can be watched here. We have a
computer that monitors each of these rooms. It reacts to any attempt by her
to commit suicide again and alerts the nurse." The doctor continued, not
noticing the startled expressions on the conscious young ladies.



All of the Knight Sabers were thinking fast and furious. After a few moments
of concentration, they all relaxed. Nothing incriminating had been talked
about since they arrived. "Really, doctor, I have a very comfortable clinic
that she can go to and the best private physicians on staff. I think it
would be best if we put her in a more familiar setting. I will, of course,
see to it that she has the best psychiatric help."



"I can't stop you, Miss Stingray. She should be able to leave tomorrow
morning. But I will write my recommendations, for the records." The doctor
handed some forms for Sylia to fill out.



-



Naoko finished up her work and said to her new friend, "I'm off, all right
Deirdre? See you tomorrow, when we start working on the communications
system." Deirdre nodded, mumbling something incoherently. Naoko just shook
her head. She couldn't believe how much her own workload had increased since
Nene's departure. Her respect for Nene was just increasing. Not only was she
doing a full time job, but she was out there fighting boomers too. Like
saving the ADP building. Naoko knew that Nene was fiercely loyal to the
quasi-military organization.



Oh, well, that's the past. Time to go home and take a nice long shower.
Naoko waved to the front desk and walked out to the parking garage. She
unlocked her car door and stepped in. She started it up and looked over her
shoulder to back it out. She quietly drove the car out and onto the road.
Her vision started to blur and she passed out. A hidden AI noted her
collapse and took over driving. It also tinted the windows, changing the
direction the car was headed. It headed onto the freeway and drove towards
the main Genom tower. The sun was just setting.



-



Daley leaned back in the seat of Leon's road chaser. "So how's Priss
tonight?" Daley asked Leon.



"She's all right. One of her friends is in the hospital and then she's got a
gig tonight. I'm going to see about getting off early tonight and watching
the show. Do you want to tag along?" Leon replied.



"And get in the way of you two love birds? I think I'd rather go wallow in
my misery," Daley replied back in mock sadness.



"Yeah, right. So don't you have a date tonight?" Leon said, as he maneuvered
the car off of the freeway.



"Of course! We just wish for a more, how do I say this, classy venue. Nathan
is like that," Daley said. The car pulled up to machine fabrication shop.
"So, this is just a normal boomer psychosis case? Except for the fact that
the boomer only hurt one man and then was disassembled by the human
workers?"



"Yeah, it's a bit strange. So, SOP?" Leon asked as he exited the car, Daley
following suit.



A beam of energy hit Leon's road chaser from out of nowhere, burning
instantly through it's armor and igniting the fuel. Both Leon and Daley were
thrown meters by the car's explosion. Leon rolled with it as better than
Daley.



A massive crunching sound came from the direction of the car, as a large
figure half landed on it. Flames licked around the boomer. Sensors focused
on both of the officers and directed it to terminate Leon first. Leon had
managed to get into a crouch and look at the sound. His glasses had been
lost and his eyes were wide as he focused on the one of the most dangerous
combat boomers on the planet, the Bu-12b. It was a large combat boomer,
built over two and a half meters of pure destruction. It was a model that
didn't even try to pretend that it was human.



"Oh, fuck." He feinted right and then went left. It opened fire just barely
to his right. He reached underneath his jacket and pulled out his gun. He
had only one idea on how to take one of these things out with what he had.
He charged the boomer, which confused it for a moment. In that instant he
got himself close in by ducking underneath the auto-cannon and pushed the
gun right up to the lightly armored neck. Praying for all he was worth, he
pulled the trigger three times, trying to angle his shots into it's brain.
Ducking again, he spun under it again and got frantically away from the
burning car. His pants had already caught on fire. Rolling on the ground to
try and confuse the boomer, Leon frantically tried to reload his earth-
shaker. Rolling onto his back, he pointed the gun at the boomer.



He didn't need to. It landed with a crash and was still. Off in the
distance, sirens could be heard. Leon finished putting himself out and then
hobbled over to Daley. He looked to be in a bad way. Leon reached into his
jacket and pulled out a cellular phone and called into the ADP. "This is
Leon, I've got an officer down. We are in front of the Totally Turbine
manufacturing plant, on Waska and Mashu. I'm going to attempt to administer
first aid." Leon tried to stop his hands from shaking, as he tried to keep
one of his best friends alive. Off in the distance, sirens started to wail.



-



Another boomer followed its programming. The sun was only setting here in
Germany, but that just livened things on the autobahn. Its target was just
ahead, on a sleek custom motorcycle. The boomer was driving a Porsche. For
just a few minutes, this area of the freeway was empty of all vehicles
except for the motorcycle and the sports car. The super chargers whined and
then kicked in the full power of the engine.



The black car zoomed forward, striking the back of the motorcycle. The
motorcycle's front tire was lifted off of the ground and the passenger was
thrown from the back of the bike. Mackie reacted as best as possible and
grabbed the side mirror of the car that had just struck him. It held for a
moment. Mackie's bike was destroyed, sliding underneath his feat.



And then the mirror snapped off and Mackie went crashing into the ground at
over a hundred kilometers an hour. The boomer checked its rear view mirror
and then drove off. It would be picked up shortly and this car would cease
to exist.



Mackie raised himself up to his hands and knees. "Ow. I'm glad I've got the
money to afford for the impact jacket and pants." That was the last thing to
go through Mackie's thoughts before he collapsed.



-



While walking near a small Shinto shrine in a small suburb, a group of three
girls talked animatedly about graduating and what had been going on in their
lives. They never saw the car swerve and bounce over the curb. It struck all
three of them, killing two instantly. The third girl was rushed to the
hospital, a victim of a drunk driver. Or so it would seem.



-



Matio Dansk sat in his new office in the Genom tower. He sat brooding in
front of his monitor. He was on the fast track to power now. Quincy hated
the Knight Sabers. Anyone who destroyed them would be in favor with him. You
had to be careful though, to not go over the line or to get killed by the
Knight Saber if they figured you out. Like they had Brian Mason.



It was a boon to Matio. Nene Romanov had humiliated him and he aimed to
finish the job he started. Internal Affairs of the ADP was going to
investigate him for alleged misconduct. Matio laughed long and hard. Those
fools in the ADP were looking like the idiots they were. "I will take
everything you care for and then crush you and your comrades. The Knight
Sabers are history, they just don't know it yet," Matio Dansk said loudly to
the empty room.



He never realized that he was but a cats paw in a very deadly game. Hidden
cameras watched him, watched him and waited.



-



Priss charged into MegaTokyo General Hospital. She looked around and saw
Leon, looking a little worse for wear, sitting and having a cut on his face
checked.



She walked over and almost made it to him. An ADP Officer stepped in her way
and spoke up, "I'm sorry ma'am, but this official ADP business. You'll have
to wait for the doctor over there." Officer Giles waited for her to comply
and his face showed his surprise when she got in his face.



"I'm not here to see the doctor. I'm here to see Leon. So if you don't mind
officer, I'm going to go and check on him. Or do you have a problem with
that," Priss quietly roared into his face.



"It's all right, Giles. She's here to see me." Leon leaned a bit to the left
to make himself heard. The doctor instructed him to hold a bandage for a
moment and then she taped it down.



"So Leon, what happened?" Priss asked.



"Oh, not too much. I must have upset somebody up at the tower. So they sent
a boomer to kill me and Daley. Typical stuff." Leon tried to make it sound
better than it was.



"That's all, huh? Well, when you can treat me like an adult, you can call
me. I don't need your bull shit, Leon." Priss said, as she turned around and
walked out. Leon started to get up woozily, but the doctor put a hand on his
shoulder and kept him from getting up.



Priss ran angrily back to her bike and jumped on. Damn you, Leon. This isn't
some sort of game. I don't need protecting or coddling. As she roared away,
she didn't realize the real reason she was so upset was because she had been
scared. She hadn't known what to do when he had called to say he was at the
hospital. And that wasn't something she was used to.



-



Katherine sipped her drink and turned to her computer that was on top of the
small table next to where she lay. The sun was brightly shining as sunlight
and sparkles glinted off of the nearby seashore. Katherine was wearing jeans
and a casual button up shirt.



Reading quickly, she smiled and laughed. Oh, the poor fool. He doesn't
realize it yet, but he's the sacrificial lamb, being led to the slaughter.
He disrupted her carefully planned observation. Ah, well. He still has uses,
for a short while. But now, she couldn't watch Nene's old friends. Even that
pen pal from Germany.



"My, my, you've been busy last night. Such disregard for life. I'll have to
make sure you don't get away clean with such an outrage. Genom has an image
to maintain, after all," Katherine said, as she started her weekend. A
boomer bodyguard walked in the back ground, circling the pool and continuing
to scan the area. "Still, I can use this to my advantage. Silly Matio,
thinking that he can play in the big leagues. Corporate politics can be
quite deadly, don't you know?"



Katherine thought for a moment and then laughed as she read about how Matio
had gathered his information. "Oh, how choice. I wonder how much more
anguish the poor dear can take." After all, it was the destruction of their
spirit that Madigan was after. It wouldn't be that hard to physically kill
them. They were just human; she had an almost unlimited supply of boomers.



But she wasn't finished toying with her pets. And wouldn't be for a long
time. Sending the lead Knight Saber to jail for killing the previous special
assistant would be fun too. Ah, the things one does to stave off boredom
when you have real power. But she wouldn't fall prey to problems that Mason
had. She wasn't going to be the one holding the gun and all of the evidence
pointing towards her. She was going to make Genom the most powerful entity
on the planet. And nothing was going to stop her. When Quincy finally died,
she would become the most powerful person in Genom.



-



Whistling while you work, just doesn't work well in space, Maxim grinned to
herself. The silence is deafening. Only one more asteroids to 'bump' around
and make sure it isn't going go anywhere near Earth. How can people live
without an adequate impact warning or defenses? Those particle beam cannons
in orbit may cut up an asteroid, but that doesn't do anything for its mass.
All they would do is just flash the outer surface of the asteroid.



Maxim flashed through space and ended up near Juno. Juno might be just an
overly large chunk of angular rock, but if it ended up anywhere near Earth,
it would kill ninety percent of all life in the first day. And then work on
that last ten percent for the next decade. It was the biggest that she was
concerned about, being about two hundred and forty kilometers at its biggest
diameter. She had spotted it accelerating and decided to stop on by and
check it out.



"Warning, you are entering restricted air space. Warning, you are entering
restricted air space," a cold voice transmitted itself through the void to
her. Maxim searched the area and spotted what appeared to be a large
ramshackle group of metal buildings and engines. They seemed to be blasting
their rockets to move the rock slowly from its normal place.



"Now that's one way of mining. Bring the rock to you," Maxim transmitted
cheerfully back to the engine.



All of a sudden, dozens of large boomers blossomed out of the buildings,
circling fast. Maxim stared for a moment and tried to keep track of them.
All of them were identical and barely looked like robots or androids. Large
engines were in place of legs, but they each had a vaguely humanoid torso,
head and arms. Cradled in right arm was a large cannon. Coded transmissions
bounced in between them, as they choreographed their dance of death.
Particle beams struck Maxim from all sides and the boomers circled their
prey. She spun slowly in zero-g, tumbling helplessly. Maxim continued to
spin softly, hoping that playing possum she would learn more. Unfortunately
the boomers, not programmed for melodramatics, merely went back to their
launch bays to wait.



Maxim continued to watch and eventually tired of waiting for something to
happen. Looking closely at the buildings that comprised the rocket, she
mentally figured how fast it could be pushed and in which direction. She
didn't like what she was coming up with. An Ion drive was very efficient and
the speeds she was calculating, there wouldn't be life left on Earth if that
thing was headed there. The course and speed could use the Sun as a
slingshot and make it very hard to spot when it came around. At very nasty
speeds.



"I think it's time to have a chat with who ever is in charge of space
exploration and development," Maxim thought to herself, stopping her spin
with a thought. She rocketed away from the asteroid and focused intently on
warping space around her. The stars blurred around her and she felt, not
saw, the intense gravity of the Earth and the Moon as she neared them.
Moments later she slowed to a crawl and scanned orbit. She spotted what she
was looking for after a few minutes. It was a large space station, the
letters USSD where imprinted boldly on the side of it.



Maxim flashed up to the airlock and cycled the air lock. Floating in, she
closed the door behind her and started to knock on the door. Reaching over,
she cycled the airlock to get some air. For the first time in hours she
truly heard again. It was almost deafening. Artificial spin gravity helped
her land, her boots clicking on the floor as she stopped.



A couple of guards down near the airlock turned as they heard a strange
knocking sound coming from the primary airlock. Their communicators went off
at about the same time. "Sergeant Simms, we just had an airlock sensor
malfunction. Go down and check if we've got a leak or just a sensor
malfunction. Out," Tactical Ops came on the communicator and said.



Simms looked over at his friend and then replied, "Tactical, we've got a
knocking sound coming from the airlock. We may not have a sensor problem.
Send down backup. We are investigating. Out." The other guard nodded and
pulled out his anti-personnel weapon. They walked down and Simms approached
the airlock, with Hans covering him.



"Tactical, I have confirmed there is someone in the airlock. She's knocking
and looks to want to come on board. One female Caucasian, wearing a full
body suit and mask. She is not in a spacesuit," Simms said. "Waiting for
orders. Out."



"Backup is on the way. Colonial Myers will take charge when he arrives.
Out," Simms replied to the affirmative and waited only a few minutes.
Colonial Myers showed up shortly with more troops and one of the new armored
spacesuits.



Myers looked over the troops as the dispersed to cover the door. "On my
command, open the door. Do not shoot until I give the order." The
affirmative was answered back by all of the troops. "Open the door."



A familiar figure stood casually, waiting for them. "Hello. My name is Maxim
and I need to speak to your commanding officer. I have spotted a possible
danger to Earth."



"What sort of attack would require you to enter into restricted UN space,"
Colonial Myers said tensely. "How did you get access to this satellite
without setting off alarms? And why shouldn't you just be shot, young lady?"



"A one hundred and fifty mile wide rock that may be aimed at the Earth. That
kind of threat, Sir," Maxim said gravely. "And how is not as important and I
think that sort of danger needs to be addressed right now, don't you?"



"We have ways of handling this sort of threat. We may have these weapons for
use against enemies on Earth, but they will stop any asteroid," Colonial
Myers said.



"Even ones that are guided by intelligence? Even one that will only be in
range of plasma weapons for only twelve minutes. After you had spotted it?"
Maxim shot right back. "Someone has attached an Ion drive the size of a
small town to the asteroid Juno. I thought when I first saw it that it might
have been just a mining operation, but you don't need to get an asteroid to
go that fast."



"We can verify your 'threat' easily enough 'Maxim'. Tactical, plot the
location and trajectory of the asteroid known as 'Juno'," Colonial Myers
spoke into his communicator. Everyone waited tensely for the response,
fingers on their triggers. Colonial Myers listened to a response and then
spoke to Maxim.



"I don't know what kind of joke you were trying to pull young lady, but it
just landed you in prison. Take her to the brig and stand down," Colonial
Myers said in disgust as he turned around.



Maxim just stood there for a moment, staring in shock. A glance through the
walls and focusing on the asteroid, showed her the engine pushing slowly
towards Earth. It wouldn't be here for over a year, at least. But it was
thousands of miles from where it should have been. "Colonial, your
instruments must be wrong. The threat is very real."



Glancing over his shoulder, Colonial Myers responded, "Get your lies
straight next time, 'Maxim'. I've already given you your chance. Your story
doesn't add up."



"Or you're being lied to. But I can see that I'm not going to convince you
of that," Maxim said. Looking over the soldiers, she got a gleam in her
eyes. "So how about an eye witness? One that you trust?"



And with that she struck. Picking up two soldiers, she easily man handled
them into the air and then threw them with stunning force at the rest of the
soldiers. She then blurred out of the way of flechette rounds and reached
her true target. A grab and she was back in the airlock with the space
armored soldier. Shielding him from stray rounds, she closed the air lock
and started the cycle to expel them into space.



Math wasn't going to be taken that easy. Using his suits advanced
musculature, he grabbed Maxim and then slammed her into the inner airlock.
He was shocked when his HUD started showing red, as the smaller figure
pushed against him. She broke his grasp and went back to the controls.
"Damn, they locked me out of the controls."



Math pointed his tactical rail gun at her and yelled, "Possible breach, Sir.
I'm firing my rail gun inside the station. Target is a disguised boomer." He
then fired three quick shots. That imbedded themselves into her chest. The
shots didn't go through her like paper.



"Ow," Maxim managed to gasp. Damn, that suit is tough and packs a wallop.
I'm holding back too much. A quick glance to show that the airlock controls
were still locked and then a look of grim determination came across her
face. Again she moved and at the last minute focused her ability to create
'non-real' mass. The outer airlock was hit with the force of a small
mountain and exploded into small splinters that shot into space. More rail
gun rounds hit her in the back, as Maxim turned and grabbed the armored
soldier. With a wrench, she pushed them both out into the dark reaches of
space. Once they were clear of the space station, she started flying faster,
going slow enough not to kill the man in the suit.



Math started to panic, "Mayday, Mayday, I am being dragged into orbit.
Mayday, Mayday, I am need of immediate rescue. This suit has minimal EVA
capability." Math tried to calm down; he was actually starting to succeed
when he saw the Moon and the Earth recede into the distance. "Oh, my god!
We're already out past the Moon." The crushing acceleration eased up and
then the sky flashed into a rainbow of colors.



Tactical Operation officers for the space station Victory stared in shock at
the vector and speed of the radio transmission. The last transmission
brought a startled exclamation from the staff. Admiral Harrison looked over
them and the said, "Get me everything there is to know about a woman named
'Maxim' and verify where that transmission disappeared. And why. I want
answers gentlemen. And I want them yesterday."



-



Math stared for the few moments he was in hyper-space and then relaxed once
they burst out into real space. Maxim let him go and then pointed towards
his right arm and shook her head. Math thought about it for a moment and
then realized she was telling him to not shoot the rail gun. He nodded and
agreed silently to himself that shooting his ticket home was not a good
idea.



Maxim gritted her teeth and then started to yank the rail rounds out of her
chest. She then turned her back to the soldier and pointed at the rounds in
her back. Math hesitated and then realized he really had few options.
Grabbing her shoulder with a tight grip, he proceeded to pull out the rail
rounds. He stared in surprise as he watched the wounds visibly heal in front
of his eyes.



Maxim floated around and then tapped the small control on his left arm and
started to mess with his onboard radio. "Is that better? I can't transmit
very well. The translator wasn't really built for outer space," Maxim
transmitted to the soldier.



Math sat there for a moment and then answered as trained. "Matthew Timothy,
Captain, USSD, X111-234"



Maxim just stared in surprise and then doubled up in laughter. She just
couldn't stop laughing. She was finally brought out of it by her 'prisoner.'



"What is so funny?" Math said, a look of irritation sweeping his face.



"Sorry, but I didn't kidnap you. Well, I did, but I'm going to send you home
as soon as you see that." Maxim pointed over his shoulder.



Math carefully glanced over his shoulder and then replied. "You dragged me
out here to look at a rock in space?"



"Look carefully, at the bottom. What does that look like?" Maxim told him.



"It looks like an Ion drive. The setup looks like something I've seen before
actually." Math thought for a moment. "The Genom deep space mining project.
It was lost about six months ago, as it was about to be tested out in the
asteroid belt." It looked bigger actually. And he didn't see the vector
controls for turning the rock at apogee. Maybe they were going to build
those later. But that's kind of a big if.



"Seen enough?" Maxim looked for the nod.



All of a sudden, radar blips appeared at long range. "We need to leave, now!
We have over two dozen incoming attackers. They'll be in range in... oof."
Math managed to get out before being grabbed by Maxim and accelerating out
of there. In a burst of energy, they disappeared into the starry sky.



-



"Well, does anyone have anything to report on our thief?" Admiral Harrison
said to all of his senior officers.



"We have a dossier of some sort of clone or genetic experiment from
MegaTokyo. We think this might be her, out of the mask." A thin reedy man
touched a button, displaying a picture of Meg Jones. "The DIET wants to
neutralize her fast, but hasn't had much luck finding her."



"The police report states that she hasn't attacked cops and was willing to
put herself on the line to save kids," another man spoke up. "None of these
reports show this extensive of abilities or powers."



"So what does this mean?" Admiral Harrison asked them all.



"It might be worth checking out this story. We do depend on computers to
show us what is out there. Computers can be compromised. I'd recommend that
we check the position of that asteroid manually."



The last man at the table spoke up. "I'd say she has a deep respect for
life. She was willing to put herself in the way to keep Captain Timothy from
getting shot by our own men. Even I could see that from the video footage."



"I don't need to tell you that the loss of that hardsuit could be
disastrous?" Nods of agreement. "Good, the information for them was not easy
to get and wasn't complete. It still put our suit a full generation ahead of
the competition." And we are still behind the originals he thought to
himself.



"Admiral Sir! We've picked up the transponder of Captain Timothy's hardsuit.
It's coming in hard and fast. Its deceleration curve is just as extreme as
before. What are your orders, Sir?" A technician said over his shoulder.



The Admiral sat for just a moment and then responded. "Let her board and
brought immediately to me. If Captain Timothy is well, have him accompany
her."



-



Maxim was surprised when she entered into the satellite. She was greeted and
not treated as a prisoner. About time somebody treated me with respect, Meg
thought. She and the soldier she had abducted were immediately brought
before a large man with craggy features and gray hair.



"Meg Jones, did you get the information to Captain Timothy?" Admiral
Harrison stated it as if it were facts.



"Uh, yes." Meg was floored. They knew who she was? They knew why she had
grabbed him?



"Oh, yes, we did manage to do something in the time you were gone." The
Admiral's voice was as cold as ice, "Let's put it bluntly. I can use my
position to shield you from the Genetic Purity Treaties. The only
stipulation is that you come to work for me in the USSD." The implied threat
was left unsaid.



"You are worrying about using me at a time like this? You bastard!" Meg
shouted at him. "I'm just trying to help you!"



"Think very carefully about what your doing, young lady. I am one of the
most powerful men of the planet. I can be a good friend," Admiral Harrison
pointed out bluntly.



"Go to hell!" Meg yelled as she headed for the door.



"Captain, stop her with any means possible," Admiral Harrison demanded.



"Yes, Sir!" Math didn't hesitate, setting the rail gun to full auto and
opening fire. Meg tried to duck, but Math was the best the Marines had. Over
two dozen spikes hit her dead on.



Meg realized that she had to leave now, or lives would be lost. That rail
gun hurt, but it wouldn't become life threatening, yet. A burst of laser
vision melted the aperture on the hardsuit, but didn't look like it did more
than temporarily jam the weapon. Meg moved fast. She ran back down to the
other airlock and inside. She jammed closed the door with brute strength.
The hardsuited warrior followed, who had met up with two more hardsuited
figures.



"I guess that's a no you won't forget, Admiral," Meg said as she knocked off
the outer door. With a burst of unfettered speed, she zoomed out into the
stars.



-



After a few minutes to calm down, she realized she would still have to deal
with Juno. Which meant having a plan. With a burst of energy, she flew
towards the Sun. She stopped herself just inside the orbit of Mercury and
set herself to actively absorb the energies of the Sun. Pure light and
radiation, she used, but it wasn't that important. The gravity-well truly
powered her. She had only tried this trick once and it had nearly killed
her. But it was the only thing that she could think of to do in this
situation.



After a full hour of basking in the Sun's radiance, Maxim flew back to Juno.
She came in from hyper-space as close as she could. Her incandescent form
immediately attracted all of the boomers. With bursts of energy she started
to blast the boomers into glowing fragments. The boomers were no match for
her power. After they were disabled, she turned to the mighty rocket. With
large blasts of laser vision, she started to disable the mighty rocket.



With her adrenaline at an all time high and almost drunk on the excess
energy she had stored, Meg acted impulsively. Tapping into her already vast
energy, she slammed into the surface of the planetoid. Gravity bent into a
radically tight form and started to move trillions of tons. Slowly at first
and then faster and faster it moved. The glow of hyper-space enfolded Juno
and then it disappeared.



-



The skies above the western hemisphere lit up, as a new object appeared in
the sky. Many looked to the sky and saw it with their own eyes. Satellites
focused on the new object in the LaGrange 5 stable orbit. Most major
newscasters were scrambling to get something other than a large asteroid
appeared out of nowhere and took up orbit. What caused it, who caused it?



-



Admiral Harrison met with his staff again. "Gentleman, we have come across
the gravest threat to our planet. You've all seen the information. Right
now, we are the only ones who know what and who moved Juno. We can't let
anyone else find out. Murphy, I want you to concoct a story to tell the
press. Get in contact with Quincy and tell him that he is going to agree to
say that he manufactured all of those components for us. No is not an
option." Murphy nodded. "It's going to be obvious that it was his mining
operation any ways." Harrison finished.



"Sir, we have lost contact with the target. It vanished into the Pacific
Ocean. We managed to follow it for a while, but lost her when she went below
the one mile mark." An officer said, as he handed Admiral Harrison a report.



"Meyers, head to MegaTokyo. She seems to be staying there. We'll ship you
anything you need. Move out." Admiral Harrison finished up the meeting.



Admiral Harrison turned and looked out into the rotating sky. He thought to
himself. Even if she agreed to come, she's far too powerful. What's to stop
her from throwing rocks at us or the Earth? Her innate goodness? He snorted.
He didn't trust anyone that far.



-



Nene woke up and sat up. Stretching, she reached over and turned off her
alarm. Today was the day. She was going to meet with a doctor that had
agreed to do the operation. She got out of bed and then hopped into the
bathroom.



Nene wandered out later in her casual clothes. A blouse with a cute blue bow
finished off her skirt and pumps. She nodded to Sylia, who was studying the
newspaper with interest. She was dressed rather conservedily today, in a
standard ladies suit.



"What do you think of this Nene?" Sylia said as she handed the paper to
Nene.



Nene read and her puzzled expression just grew. "I'd heard of some things
being researched, but this goes a little beyond what I've seen."



"I don't trust the USSD. I'm going to find out what I can. Genom is also
involved. But none of this fits with quite what Genom researches. They
really don't have a lot of high energy research projects," Sylia stated. She
didn't want to tell Nene, but something about the whole thing stank to high
heaven.



It took quite a bit of extra work, but she maintained her advanced technical
advantage in the areas of high science and engineering. She regularly
extended the theories that were being touted and figured not only what would
be useful for the hardsuits, but what was on the cutting edge of science.
This was decades in the future, minimum. And no one was claiming to have
succeeded. And somebody would have.



"Finish up Nene. We have to leave to pick up Linna and then drop you off at
Dr. Katsumo's office," Sylia said over her cup of coffee.



"Of course!" Nene replied excitedly. They both finished their breakfast and
then headed towards the elevator. Almost as soon as they left, a message
flashed on the video-phone.



-



Linna sat in bed, staring out the window. Since she had woken up, the
doctors had interviewed her several times. Each time, she had rebuffed them.
Linna didn't want to answer their questions and wouldn't answer. She was
looking out the windows when Sylia and Nene arrived. She stubbornly looked
away as Nene asked how she was doing in a timid voice.



"Uh, Linna. How are you?" Nene asked. She looked over at Sylia, who just
shook her head. The expression on her face was cold and somewhat disproving.



"Linna, get up. We are leaving. We will discuss this when we are out of
here." Sylia almost barked her orders out.



Linna glared at Sylia and then resolutely looked back out to the blue sky.
She had just a moment of warning before a loud slap rang through the air.
Linna clutched her hand to her face.



"Get up. I said we will discuss it when we are out of here." Sylia's stare
could cause grown men to shiver and look away. Large rough men.



"And what if I don't want to?" Linna inquired.



"Your wants are irrelevant right now," Sylia said, her voice taught and
cold.



An orderly opened the door and looked in and then walked right back out as
Sylia glared at him.



Slowly, Linna sat up and started to dress. She put little effort into the
clothes that she was putting. After a short while they ended up next to
Sylia's car. Nene got in the back after a stern look from Sylia and then
Linna and Sylia got in the front seat.



Linna looked out to the side and avoided even glancing at the others. Sylia
drove the car expertly through traffic. Eventually, they ended up in front
of an office building. Sylia looked in the rear view mirror and then spoke
to Nene.



"You know what to do, correct? Dr. Katsumo promised that it would be
outpatient only. But if there are complications, he stated he might keep you
a few days for observation. Call us when you are able to." Sylia's voice had
not softened one iota.



"Yes, Sylia." Nene was struck by the odd urge to salute, but quashed it
quickly. She somehow she didn't think that would be bright. Nene might be
inane at times, but nobody every accused her of being that silly. She
stepped out and then trotted into the office complex.



-



Sylia guided the car into its parking stall. She stepped out and then stared
at Linna until she started to move. Linna hung her head as she shuffled into
the elevator. The trip up to the penthouse seemed to take forever. Finally
the elevator opened and Sylia walked into her office and sat down. Neither
of them noticed the flashing message light on the video phone. They were far
too intent on current matters.



Linna followed hesitatingly and then sat down. She sat waiting for Sylia to
start tearing into her. To do anything. Sylia seemed to be content to sit
there and continue working on some papers. Linna eventually got her courage
up and asked Sylia, "Didn't you want to talk to me."



"Why?" Sylia continued to do her work.



Linna looked unsure and then responded. "I... uh, I don't know why. I just
assumed that you wanted to talk about... what happened." She fidgeted
nervously.



"I'm not your mother," Sylia said without looking up.



"What does that mean?" Linna asked.



"You are an adult. If you are having problems, you should have talked to me
about it earlier. Before it had come to this. I don't need your problems
being dumped on me too." Sylia still hadn't looked up.



Linna just stared at Sylia like she had grown two heads. The silence became
overwhelming. "Don't you even care about why I tried to commit suicide?"
Linna asked.



"If you want to tell me. So talk." Sylia reached over and turned her
computer on and activated several screens.



Linna closed her eyes and then continued. "I thought that you had wanted
Priss and I to kill Nene. So I... I went and got your gun with the intention
of shooting Nene."



"So?" Sylia touched her monitor again and changed screens. Just to keep her
hands busy.



"I can't live with myself. How could I go and plan to kill a friend?" Linna
started to sob.



Sylia looked up finally and then with a slightly softer voice, replied, "You
did not pull the trigger and kill Nene. You just thought about it."



"But I was going to!" Linna almost wailed.



"Then why are you having a problem with it then? If you really were going to
kill her, you would not feel any remorse. You feel remorse, so there for you
wouldn't have shot Nene. In the end you would not have. No matter what you
think," Sylia stated bluntly. "That is not the real problem."



"What do you mean?" Linna asked.



"You haven't had any problems in you personal life? Everything has been
going just the way you planned?" Sylia replied, looking directly into her
eyes.



"Well, I haven't been able to get a good job ever since the Illegal Army
fiasco. And... I'm being sued. They know I don't have the money to help
anyone. But they don't care. I guess a favored client's nephew lost a great
deal of money. So the firm I worked at has black balled me. And is a friend
of the court on the lawsuit. They are asking for seventy million yen in
damages."



Sylia sat there for a moment, stunned. "Why didn't you come and ask for help
when this happened. That was months ago."



"I wanted to prove to everyone that I could make it on my own. To be able to
be successful in my own right." Linna dragged in a deep breath. "I don't
know why I couldn't come to you for help. Maybe it's because I've always
been considered superficial or shallow. 'It's all about the money, isn't
it?'" Linna did a fair impression of Priss.



"And so you wanted to prove that you could fix this problem by yourself,"
Sylia stated, not asked. "But when it didn't fix, you had to hide it even
farther. Linna, we are your friends. We could have helped."



Linna started to sob and continued to cry for several minutes. Sylia waited
and then reached across her desk and took Linna's hand. "We can still help.
But you have to want to be helped. And you let it become a worse problem by
not confronting it," Sylia said. "We still need you. You're the best fighter
we have."



"I never saw myself as the best fighter. Priss is always defeating these big
menaces or the hyper-boomers. I've just always plugging away. You and Nene
always seem to do more important things. I'm just a grunt," Linna said
doubtfully. Tears were still streaming down her face.



"You also rarely really damage you suit, you hardly ever get hurt and you
always manage to succeed in your battles. Those are rare qualities in a
warrior," Sylia said. She reached over behind her desk and poured a couple
of drinks. "You should never be ashamed of what you are. Even if you aren't
as 'flashy' or 'showy.' Those traits usually get you killed."



Linna took a small sip of her drink. "I never thought about it that way."



"I would be surprised if you did. So how do you want to fix this?" Sylia
said over her glass.



"How would you solve it?" Linna asked.



"It depends. If they have the legal clout to push it through any court,
don't fight it. If they haven't fielded a decent team, hire a better team
and trounce them in court. I'll have my lawyer take a look at it," Sylia
replied and then silently held her glass forward and was rewarded with a
clink as they toasted on it.



"But if I don't fight it, how do I pay the restitution?" Linna asked.



"Those figures are obviously too high. That can be fought by any means. And
if worse comes to worse, I'm sure that I can loan that myself. You'll just
have to work it off. And speaking of that, I have to go and meet with my
street contact. The Knight Sabers haven't done anything in weeks. It's time
to remind people that we are still here and still need to be paid to fix
other peoples problems," Sylia said as she stood up. "We'll go out and stop
a couple of rampaging boomers to get us back in shape, even if Nene can't go
out with us."



"Aye, Aye, Ma'am. I guess it's back to real life for me," Linna said as she
stood up. "Can I get you to drop me off at my home?"



Sylia nodded as she headed out the door. "Of course. But don't ever shut us
out again, Linna. We all need you too much."



-



Priss cruised into the parking garage of the Silky Doll later. After getting
up into the penthouse, she harrumphed and stalked around. Not finding
anybody, she eventually crashed in front of the TV. She finally noticed the
flashing light on the video phone and toggled it to find out who it was.



"Oh, great, Mackie." Priss covered her eyes theatrically. At that very
instant, the phone started to ring. Seeing it was from an international
flight, Priss hit the button and answered.



"Sylia's, Priss speaking," Priss said into the phone.



"Priss? Is my sister around? I need to speak to her." Mackie's face appeared
on the screen.



"I don't know where she is right now, shrimp. I think she was going to a
business meeting," Priss said as she casually started to flip through
channels.



"Didn't she get my message? Somebody tried to kill me last night." Mackie
surprise was evident.



"Get out of here. What did you do, get into trouble for being a peeping
tom?" Priss said.



"That's not funny Priss. Somebody tried to run me over. On the autobahn. I
thought it might have to do with, um, Sylia's side business." Mackie
sidestepped at the last moment to avoid mentioning the Knight Sabers.



"Nope, nothing that I would be aware of. You're not kidding are you? You all
right?" Priss turned off the TV and turned back to Mackie.



"Pretty much, but I decided that I could do with a visit home. My wrist is
in a cast and I've got a lot of scrapes." Mackie held up his left hand.



"So when are you coming in?" Priss asked.



"About two hours. Can you tell her to pick me up?" Mackie asked.



"I don't know if she'll be back. How about I pick you up?" Priss said,
cocking her head to the side.



"Um, you're not upset about those pictures still, are you?" Mackie asked
nervously.



"Oh, not at all. I got Sylia's permission to make your life a living hell,
if I ever caught you doing that again. Remember?" Priss grinned wickedly.



"Oh, yeah. I guess I'll be seeing you then," Mackie murmured quietly and
then signed off.



Hmm, I guess I don't need to report in on our mystery lady today. Priss
thought to herself as she walked out. And hey, I get to avoid talking to
Sylia about Leon.



-



Why did Fargo always have to pick the sleaziest of dives for his meetings? I
always stick out like a sore thumb, Sylia thought to herself. Scanning
around, she spotted him sitting in a corner booth. Fargo was of course
wearing his trademark brown suit. Walking quietly over, she gave him a
moment to notice her and then sat down. A waitress wandered by and took her
order for a drink she wouldn't touch.



"So, back and looking for some work? I've got a couple of things today. If
your interested?" Fargo smiled as he took a drag of his cigarette.



"What sort of jobs?" Sylia said, as she turned and looked out over the small
crowd in the bar. She pulled out her own cigarette and lit it.



"A reactionary group in the area has been causing too big of a ruckus and a
politician who is up for election in a few months wants the matter handled
quietly. He's big in promoting law and peace. He doesn't want anybody
rocking the boat. Next is a case to find a person for the USSD..." Fargo was
cut off abruptly by Sylia.



"Only if they agree to pay one hundred million yen up front and they don't
hold back any information. We are very expensive after the last few fiasco's
they landed us in," Sylia stated bluntly. No more missing persons cases.



"Or there is a private bounty on a gang. Nobody is willing to go after them
and they use boomers as their grunts. They keep them on a tight reign and
leave before the ADP show up. Nasty bunch of criminals," Fargo finished up.



"Get me some more information about the first and the last one and give them
my working conditions to the USSD. I'll get in touch with you tomorrow. Your
standard retainer fee has already been pre-paid." Sylia stood up and started
to walk out.



"Yes, of course."



Sylia had almost reached the door when a large man of unknown racial
ethnicity stepped in front of her. He leered at her for just a moment and
then pulled out a large knife. "What's wrong lady, we not upper class enough
for you?" Sylia glanced quickly left and right to check for more people.
Nobody seemed to be watching his back. Sylia leaned back as the thug reached
for her. With a quick flick, her hold out gun snapped out into her hand.



Her other hand didn't stand still as she chopped into his wrist and made him
drop his knife. Her gun ended up on his temple, which started to sweat
profusely. In a very calm voice, she spoke to her attacker, "I'm leaving. If
you value your life, you won't follow."



Her audience gaped and just stood there. The whole thing had lasted but a
second. Sylia turned him around to rest of his friends and then did a sharp
kick to his knee. A nasty cracking sound filled the air and then the howls
of his pain. He fell backwards into the crowd. Sylia then calmly walked out
toward her car.



"I hope Fargo picks a better place next time."



-



"Hey, Mackie!" Priss called out and waved her arm high to grab his
attention.



"Hello Priss." Mackie limped over with his bags. He looked tired and was
obviously in pain. But in spite of that, he definitely showed that he had
matured. He was broader and walked with an easy grace.



"You going to be all right?" Priss asked.



"I've felt better, but I'm not going to die."



"Do you want to take a taxi? I can park my bike until I get a ride back."



Mackie just stared for a second and then asked with a totally straight face,
"Who are you? What did you do to Priss?"



"What? Mackie, I'm not heartless. Mean, yeah. But not heartless." Priss put
an offended face forward.



"Sure. Which alien race are you from?" Mackie smiled broadly.



"Not funny. So do you want a lift or not?" Priss asked again.



"I can survive your bike, as long as you take it easy. I've only got this
small carry on." Mackie replied as he held up a small bag.



"All right then! Let's get going." Priss said as she grabbed his bag and
started walking out. Mackie limped behind her.



A quick walk to her bike and they set out. Priss plugged them both into her
bike's stereo system. Now they could talk and listen to music. Mackie
settled in for the drive to the renovated Silky Doll.



"So you really aren't angry? I'd have thought that you would kill me,"
Mackie said, his voice distorted, slightly covering Priss's favorite music.



"Mackie, I dress up in skin tight leather on stage. I have modesty mostly to
get your goat. Nene on the other hand would hate it," Priss replied as she
bounced through traffic.



"Oh, okay then."



"Besides, you were a kid then. You almost an adult now," Priss said.



Mackie worked on slipping a package into Priss's jacket.



"So how's Sho? Are you still helping him out sometimes?" Mackie asked.



"Last time I saw him, he was fine. Starting to get into girls now and
getting into trouble." Priss smiled beneath her helmet.



-



Sylia walked into the penthouse suite and finally checked her messages. A
couple from Mackie and the last one from Priss, telling her that she went to
pick up Mackie at the airport. Sylia paused at that and then went to the
computer room. Something nagged at her and she decided to look deeper.



Reaching over, she put on her headsets, then focused on finding anything
unusual in the last couple of days. She was still there, when Mackie and
Priss walked in. They searched her out, eventually finding that she was in
the computer room.



Standing outside knocking, Priss looked over at Mackie. "Why doesn't she
answer?"



"Oh, she's probably zoned out. She's always like that when she's working on
something important," Mackie said. "You just have to wait."



"So I take it this isn't new?" Priss asked as they walked back to the
kitchen. Opening the fridge she reached in and snagged a soda. Looking over
at him as he nodded, she grabbed him one too. She handed it to him and then
took her red biker jacket off, then laid it on the edge of the couch.



"Nah, she's always been like that since dad died. Just driven," Mackie
replied, as he tried to open the bottle.



The door opened and Sylia walked out from the computer room. She ignored
them for a moment, walking over to the bar and poured herself a drink. She
stood there a second and stared outside, then sipped at the drink.



"Hello, Mackie. How is school?" Sylia asked still staring out the window.



"Fine. So what the big mystery that you couldn't tell me over the phone or
in a letter?" Mackie asked.



"Nene's been exposed as a Knight Saber. She lives here now," Sylia said with
little expression or emotion. You couldn't see her hand shaking from across
the room from mentioning the fairly important news.



"Oh." That was all Mackie could say.



Priss just stared at Sylia. Priss thought, this is weird. How come I get the
feeling I'm missing something?



"So how is your personal research into artificial intelligence?" Mackie
asked.



"I've got the algorithms optimized at Bleasker's third level of competency,"
Sylia said. "The cost is about half of what a current boomer's AI would
cost. And mostly inorganic."



Mackie gaped and stammered, "That's incredible. Why haven't you published
anything about it?"



"It would be too dangerous. It wouldn't take much inference to wonder what I
had been doing for the last four years," Sylia responded mechanically. "And
that would be disastrous. And the technology is based on Stingray patents.
Those are still owned by Genom. I would be lucky to make an American red
penny out of any of the advances."



"Oh, so how long until you could make a definitive break through that wasn't
based on the old patents?" Mackie asked.



"About two years, at my current rate," Sylia said.



Priss, looking very confused, looked at Mackie and asked, "What does this
really mean?"



Mackie just looked at Priss with a bemused look and answered with a smirk,
"It means my sister is only about five years ahead of anyone else. While
puttering around in a garage for the last six months."



"Oh," Priss said.



The phone filled the pause, Sylia walked over and answered it. "Hello,
Shawna. Are you ready to be picked up?" She waited a moment and then said,
"Very well, I'll be by in about a half an hour." She hit the button, looking
at the others.



"I'm calling a meeting for tonight. Your invited Mackie, though I don't
expect anything for you." Sylia pulled on her jacket meticulously. "Could
you please call Linna and let her know that everybody will be here in about
an hour or so."



"Sure."



-



The scene, a shadowed room with men sitting at a large table. A few of the
people are obviously in uniforms of some sort, but it is dark enough that
nothing except basic features can be made out. A video screen flickers to
life, an unusual visage appears before them.



"Mr. Polarion. We wish to hire your services to deal with a problem." One of
the figures started the meeting with his gruff business tone.



"What sort of problem? And for what sort of fees?" The helmeted figure said.
On his side of the screen, all he saw was two or three figures sitting at a
table. The carefully crafted electronic illusion made sure of that.



"Our understanding is that you are familiar with an entity known a 'Maxim.'"
An affirmative was received as a curt nod. "We wish to hire you, to either
help capture her or help in her execution. Your payment will be one billion
dollars in American dollars," the same figure spoke.



"What did she do?" Polarion asked.



"Answering any questions will cut your payments by a very substantial
amount. Are you sure you really want to know?" The shadowed figure replied.



"It's not really that important. I'll be in charge of this? And you will pay
for any reasonable overhead charges?" The shadowed figure replied
affirmatively. "Then I'll set a trap tonight."



"We wish to have an observer present or close by," the figure stated.



Polarion gnashed his teeth, then replied, "Very well. Have your observers in
place. MegaTokyo, at the ruins of the Aqua City project by midnight. Payment
to be made in gold bullion. When she is turned over to you."



"This is all agreeable. Until later, Mr. Polarion." And the figure made a
gesture, the connection was cut. "Does anyone else have any problems? Or
comments?" Everyone shook their heads. The lights faded and the room was
left in darkness.



-



Meg looked out over the Pacific as the sun set. It seemed to be the darkest
sunset and a breeze seemed to be blowing in from the north. It sent a chill
her to her bones. She hugged herself and watched the waves. The waves
sparkled red as the last embers of the sun went behind the mountains.



-



Priss slouched on the couch, as was her wont. Linna had shown up and taken
up her seat in one of the chairs. Mackie was busy asking her about what had
happened. Linna was bringing him up to speed about the last week or two.
Priss just shook her head and thought about what a messed up month it had
been. At least they hadn't been called to find a missing person recently.
Those always caused problems.



As they were sitting and chatting, Sylia and Nene walked in. Nene stopped
when she saw Mackie just sitting there. Her face was lightly bandaged and
she just stared at him. Her hands went to her face. "Sylia, what is Mackie
doing here?" Her hands went up her bandaged face. Her voice was quite
slurred.



"Nene?" Mackie looked up from where he was talking to Linna. She didn't
sound like Nene, but something about the way she stood there tugged at his
heart.



"Mackie flew back in from Germany today. It slipped my mind while I was
talking to you on the way here." Sylia looked at Nene and then to Mackie. "I
think that you can wait for your reunion till after the meeting."



Nene went over and sat next to Mackie. She leaned forward with an intent
look.



Sylia took off her jacket and sat down. She keyed the holographic projector.
"Our mission tonight, is to destroy some specific boomers. The only thing
different about this mission, is that these boomers are being used by a
street gang named the Golden Curtain. They're a fairly new gang, but
technically advanced."



"Isn't this something that the ADP would handle?" Linna asked.



"Yes and I'm sure that they are going to try and respond to the next attack.
We will be there first. Certain parties want this handled quickly and
quietly. I am not going to argue with someone who wants to pay us," Sylia
responded dryly. "We'll be set up in the Knightwing, ready and able to get
to any section of MegaTokyo in five minutes."



"Sounds all right to me," Priss said.



"I've gotten some information that they are going to be hitting either a
bank or a jewelry store. We will not shoot or capture any people. Our job is
to take care of the boomers," Sylia finished up. "The client wants the N-
police to make the arrests."



"And that brings us to our second point of the meeting. Someone has attacked
as many people that were close to Nene as they could find," Sylia stated
simply.



The expressions on everybody's face ranged from just surprise, to outright
anger. Except for Sylia, who sounded as if she had just said it was going to
rain.



"Who is the creep that did this?" Priss jumped to her feet and demanded. "I
bet you it's that bitch Madigan."



"We don't know yet. This is an attack on my organization. We will not run
out and have our revenge. That is one code that I will not break again."
Sylia's hard edged voice stopped Priss in mid step. Priss stared at Sylia
for just a second. Sylia stared hard back, finally Priss sat back down.



"If anyone deserves revenge, it is Nene, Mackie and myself. They attacked
him in the hopes of at least hurting Nene emotionally. I do not like to be
manipulated. And I am not going to fall into a trap. The Knight Sabers will
deal with this problem, with the appropriate measures," Sylia said with a
degree of harshness that most of the Knight Sabers had only heard a time or
two. "Besides, we all know what happened the last time we ran off to get
revenge."



Sylia looked around, expecting some sort of response. Grudgingly, the rest
nodded, realizing that they had to agree. Priss looked the least happy, but
finally even she nodded.



"Very well. Nene, you are going to be on light duty in the Knightwing. Priss
and Linna will be primary forwards, with me being in reserve. There
shouldn't really be a need for the motoslaves. These aren't going to be top
of the line combat boomers. Nene, the latest upgrades have been added to
your suit."



"I would like to help!" Mackie spoke up suddenly.



"With you being hurt, I am not going to be worrying about you too. Besides
your suit hasn't even been upgraded or serviced recently." Seeing his upset
looks, Sylia relented and added, "If you want you can be in the truck for
emergency pick up, if the Knightwing has to leave to refuel." Mackie
brightened at this prospect.



"Anything else?" Sylia asked. "Then let's get ready."



-



Mackie stopped what he was doing and looked over at a small figure that was
busy loading a small cargo lift to go to the hanger. "Hey, uh, Nene. Can I
talk to you?"



Nene stopped and then drove the lift over. "What's up Mackie?"



"I just wanted to say that I, uh, missed you. And it's nice to see you
again. And I'm really sorry to hear about your parents." Mackie tried his
best to keep his cool as he talked.



"It's nice to see you too. Um, if you don't mind, why did you go to Germany?
It was kind of sudden." Nene blurted out through stiff lips.



"I had to get away for a while. Become my own person, if that makes any
sense. I was a bit afraid of just becoming my sister's shadow. And I had to
do some thinking about... us." Mackie responded, with a look of
apprehension.



"So what did you decide, about us." Nene said stiffly. Her eyes started to
sparkle just a little more.



"When I saw you there, for the first time in weeks, my heart just about
stopped. I'd like to work on our relationship," Mackie completed
breathlessly.



"I would too, Mackie. But why did you run away?" Nene asked again.



"The truth?" Mackie said as he looked away, "I was scared that you wouldn't
ever see me as more than a kid brother or worse, as Sylia's kid brother."



Nene reached out and held his hand for just a moment. "I hope you aren't
disappointed. I'm not the same person I was when you left. A lot has
happened."



"All I want is a chance, for both of us," Mackie said looking deep into her
eyes.



"A chance for both of us, agreed." Nene nodded.



"Come on you two, we've got work to do!" Priss yelled at them both from
across the room.



Linna smacked Priss and then said, "Hey, give them a minute. We don't have
to be ready for a while."



"Are you encouraging them?" Priss said in mock horror.



"Yes." Linna said with a very determined look.



-



"Everyone ready?" Everyone replied with the affirmative. "Activating decoy
holograms." Dozens of Knightwings appeared over the city engines blaring
loudly as they flew over the city. "Activating sound dampers." Sylia
continued, "Lifting off." The Knightwing lifted off gracefully, quietly. All
of the Knight Sabers were in the cramped confines of the Knightwing. Only
Linna had her helmet on already.



Sylia thought back to when she had first remodeled the Silky Doll with the
hanger. Unfortunately, these extra precautions weren't in place then. She
shuddered internally about what would have happened if someone had spotted
the plane leaving. We would have been crucified. Perhaps the only reason we
hadn't is because we had just saved MegaTokyo from Largo. A second time. She
shook her head, pulling herself out of her reverie.



With a flick of a switch, she deactivated the sound dampers and pushed the
engines to full throttle to gain cruising altitude. Nene switched off the
dedicated hologram projectors, the small machines zipping back to a special
recovery area.



"How is the truck, Mackie?" Sylia asked over the communication system.



"I don't even have to drive. It's a pretty cushy job. Not nearly the work it
used to be," Mackie replied as he leaned back in his seat. He yelped as he
accidentally hit his broken hand on the cab wall.



"Don't get too comfortable. You still have your job to do."



-



Elsewhere, a much more spectacular show was about to start. Aqua city wasn't
much more than a mass of melted metal. It had become home to some of the
most desperate types and no police, ADP or Normal, would send less than a
squad to go looking for any criminal. A figure stood in the shadows. Instead
of his normal white and purple, he wore a much more concealing black and
very dark purple. He scanned everything around him with senses more acute
than his eyes. "We are ready? Then let's start our show gentlemen and
ladies," Polarion said to his people.



Immediately, a large section of the ruined city exploded. A copter flying
nearby noticed the light and immediately swooped in closer. Moments later
the ADP copter exploded in fragments, screaming for backup. It looked like a
new war had just started.



Polarion kept watch. The police didn't interest him in the slightest. But
the best way to bring a super-hero out was to hurt their friends and
comrades. And they always considered themselves a part of the law. Even when
they murdered in cold blood.



-



Leon sat at his desk with his arms folded. A cup of cold coffee sat on his
desk, as the overhead chatterbox crackled with voices. He barely heard the
copter pilot, until he started to scream and panic. The line went dead,
until the dispatcher came on.



Leon leaped to his feat. Action, just what he needed. "My Unit, let's go."



He was brought short by a shout. The new police chief, Hyro, stood there.
"Where do you think your going, Leon?" A thick necked man, most of the force
had little respect for the Normal Police officer that had been promoted over
everyone's head.



"It looks like some sort of heavy action is taking place. That's the sort of
thing that the AD Police is for." Leon yelled back from across the room.



"Yes, it is, isn't it? But don't you think you could at least wait for the
dispatchers to send you and your men out? Instead of being a glory hound?"
Hyro stated more than asked.



"Do you think that's what this is all about?" Leon asked, totally aghast.



"Leon, I'd rather work with you, than against you. Hot-headed stunts like
yours get people killed. You might think that some of my policies are
stupid, but you will follow them or I'll bust you so far down, you'll be
cleaning other TAC officer's weapons for a month," Hyro yelled angrily. "Do
I make myself clear?"



"Yes. Sir," Leon said through clenched teeth.



The chatterbox suddenly piped up again, requesting TAC squads Alpha, Bravo
and Delta to immediately head out to Aqua City. Hardsuits would be on call
if needed.



Leon looked up at the squawk box and then replied much more loudly, "Yes,
SIR!" Maybe this new chief wouldn't be so bad.



As the chief watched them leave, he sighed. He hoped it wasn't too much to
do to gain the loyalty of these men. They needed some sort of win.



-



Polarion watched with discomfort as the ADP showed up. They were driving on
the last connecting stretch of road.



One of his men piped up, "Oh, shit. They never send this many men out."



Polarion glared at him for just a moment. "I am perfectly aware of that,
Muske. We still have the advantage. This place is a death trap meant to kill
an uber-woman. These AD Police don't know what is going to hit them."
Polarion grinned under his tinted visor.



"Move out, men," Musk yelled as they prepared to fight.



The first shot took out the middle heavy transport. Working to split the ADP
into two smaller forces, the rest of Polarion's men opened up. Casualties
started to mount until the ADP started to show their training and absolute
survivability. Anyone who had been part of the ADP force for over three
months was as seasoned as any war vet.



Polarion's men started to find this out the hard way, when the ADP rallied
and led a charge to break their strong point. After fierce minutes of
fighting, the ADP was back in one group. Attack copters swept in from the
south bay and lit up the fighting area with tracers.



Pulling on some of the considerable resources he had designed into this
island, he activated some of the remote particle beam cannons. They popped
up and started to fire from where they had been concealed. More ADP officers
started to drop until Leon yelled out. "Fan out and hit those things with
everything you got. After that expect a rush to push us back."



Polarion continued to watch and waited for her to appear. He knew it
couldn't be long.



-



Nene was monitoring several police bands and switched it to the overhead
speakers. All of the Knight Sabers listened for just a moment.



Priss was the first to speak up, excitement evident on her features. "So
let's go and help them."



"No," Sylia said firmly.



"Why not?" Priss exclaimed angrily.



"Because we won't help the ADP if we always show up to do their job," Sylia
said, banking the plane over MegaTokyo.



Nene continued to listen. "I understand what you mean, but it sounds like a
war out there. Can't we do anything?"



Sylia glared at Nene and replied directly to her, "They can handle this on
their own. We are on assignment. We are mercenaries and need to take jobs to
pay for our equipment. Don't question my orders again."



"Yes, Sylia. I'm sorry." Nene managed to look mortified even under the
bandages. She hoped that the muscle paralytic only lasted till morning, even
though it made it hard for her to talk. Luckily with the advances with
nano-surgery, she'd be able to take these bandages off in a couple of days.
Nene listened for a moment and then piped up. "The Golden Curtain has been
spotted, near the Exchange district. Plotting in an intercept and vector."



"Nene, I'm switching to auto pilot. I want you up here in the cockpit to
drop us off. Helmets on, ladies," Sylia said over her shoulder as she
reached for her own helmet. After a bit of shuffling, everyone was ready.



Nene nervously switched the auto pilot off and manually flew the plane
towards the drop off zone. Under her breath she kept muttering, "It's just
like the arcade. It's just like the arcade. It's just like the arcade," Over
and over, almost as a mantra. She flicked the safeties off of the first rack
of missiles and then said over her headset, "Launching cover. ETA, five
seconds to drop off." The sounds of missiles launching reverberated in the
plane.



"Ready?" Sylia asked.



"Ready!" Priss replied.



"Ready as I'm going to get." Linna also replied.



"I thought you didn't mind heights, Linna?" Priss asked glancing at Linna.



"Go!" Sylia yelled.



"Heights are no problem. It's falling I hate!" Linna yelled as she jumped
out the back bay.



"Oh, now you tell us!" Priss quipped as she too leaped out the back of the
plane. Linna and Priss took a spread-eagled position as they fell. As the
two hardsuited figures dropped fast, they angled themselves to land near the
edges of the main street. Sylia's wings were already deployed, she was
flying over to a roof.



With jump jets blasting to bring them to a safe landing, Priss and Linna
landed on opposite sides of the street. Thick rolling smoke covered the
street. It slowly started to clear, just as planned. Exposed in the center
of the road was their target. A bulky truck sat in the middle of the road.
Three upgraded construction boomers stood around them, searching for targets
to attack with their large caliber machine guns. Their armor looked a bit
slapdash.



"Three targets outside. A standard attack pattern, White?" Priss asked.
Fancy words for go in there and take them apart.



"Yes!" Sylia responded.



"Knight Sabers, GO!" Linna yelled as she and Priss charged out of
concealment. Priss charged and fired in one smooth motion, damaging the
machine gun on the center boomer. Linna seemed to skate around the second
ones gun fire. At the last moment, she dived forward, pushed off from a hand
stand, then whipped her head around and with that, her ribbons.



Landing gracefully behind the pieces of her first target, Linna pivoted on
one foot, then shot her blades into the second one's chest. Electricity
arced and the second boomer jerked erratically as its delicate systems were
shorted out. The last boomer charged Linna from behind.



Just as it appeared that Linna was about to get hit, a blue blur struck it
in a weak spot, underneath its arm. Priss activated her impact knuckles and
braced herself. With a muffled explosion, the last boomer ended up as small
fragments, spread out across the street.



The truck rumbled to life and started to pull away. "Blue, get that truck
and make sure that there are no boomers in there. Green, clean up the bank.
If you engage any humans, use minimal force. Try to scare them out. The N-
Police is on their way. We are to let them make the capture, remember."



"You got it, White!" Priss yelled as she tried to catch the truck. With a
jet-assisted leap she managed to catch onto the back of the truck. It
rounded the corner, accelerating fast.



Linna ran to the main doors of the bank and dove inside. Her helmet display
lit up, showing two boomers and three gang members. She blinked in surprise
and then yelled a warning as she dove back out the door. "They have a bu-
12b. Where the hell did they get that?" She ducked and rolled, as the boomer
followed her out, tracking her with military precision. The large boomer
burst out of the front, chasing the much smaller figure.



"Do you need backup, Green?" Sylia asked.



Linna ducked behind a car that started to get hammered by the combat boomer.
"Not yet. I've got something I've been meaning to try." With that she
charged around the back of the car and started to charge the boomer. The
boomer easily lined up its shot until the green Knight Saber started to
bounce erratically from side to side as she charged forward. Linna used her
thrusters on her back to zip her from side to side, fast. At the last
moment, she kicked herself into the air and whipped out her ribbons.



They cut in, but not far enough to stop the boomer. Linna curled up and then
passed right over the boomer. She pivoted around and her feet connected into
the wall behind the boomer. The boomer half spun as she kicked off and
flashed back into the air. For just a moment, the boomer's new wounds were
exposed. Linna pointed both of her arms at it and fired her blades. She spun
and landed on the ground in a kneeling position. The Bu- 12b managed to get
one shot off before it too started to jerk and twist. It collapsed a moment
later.



"Yes!" Linna said under her breath. Small fire arms started to ricochet off
or her armor. The green and orange figure casually stood up as the blades
retracted, turning to look at the gang members shooting her. She wagged her
finger at them until they finally quit.



At that time the N-Police finally showed up and piled out of their cars.
They yelled at everyone to surrender. A couple of them turned towards the
green Knight saber, but she was already jetting up to the roof. Sylia was
standing there, waiting.



"I feel much better," Linna said.



Sylia didn't answer, as she scanned the area for Priss and started to leap
from roof to roof.



Linna shrugged and then followed.



-



Polarion stared at the carnage below. The ADP was actually starting to pull
through on their own. His men were starting to fail and fall. With a shrug
he flew into the middle of the battle and started to throw large metal
objects at the front line. He activated the last of the auto cannons. At
that point his internal radar picked up a figure running across the water
leaving a fifty foot tall wake. "I can't believe her timing! What is it with
super-heroes and their timing?" Polarion complained.



The cannons started to track their primary target, when all of a sudden she
disappeared with a splash. The cannons tracked back and forth for a second.
Then an explosion occurred about a hundred feet in from the bay on the
artificial island. A whirlwind of destruction emerged and started to destroy
the automatic cannons with blasts of laser vision.



Leon blinked and stared in surprise as the last of the resistance was swept
away. Leon looked back at his men and said to them, "I think our invitation
to this party just expired. What do you think?" His men just nodded,
starting to pull back to the road. Leon followed with a limp, helping a
wounded officer.



Floating high in the air, Polarion looked down at Maxim and spoke in
American English. "So, it is up to just us now."



"It does appear that way," Maxim replied in her normal southern drawl. And
with that she blasted at him with her full power of her laser vision.



-



"The target has appeared and has initiated contact. What are your orders?" A
figure said into a radio." A pause, "Very well, Project Atlantis is go!
Repeat, go! Thirty seconds until zero." And with that he crouched back down
in the shadows and watched with his binoculars the stunning fight being laid
out before him.



-



"What's wrong Polarion? Out of practice?" Maxim jibed as she slapped her
hands in front of her. The stunning wave of sound just barely hit Polarion.



Gritting his teeth behind his helmet, he replied with a devastating beam of
pure magnetism. It struck Maxim dead on and blasted an area fifty feet in
diameter to splinters. "You wish." And with that he started to fly away from
the devastated island.



Maxim shook her head while she healed a bit, then grabbed a five pound chuck
of metal. Taking a moment, she molded it to a sphere. After she had finished
that, she leaped into the air, accelerating past the speed of sound.



Polarion grinned as he felt her fly after him. He had a trick prepared that
he'd used against other foes that flew faster than he did. He prepared to
materialize a force field potent enough stop missiles. Whirling about he
created it with a thought in between him and his target. "Die!"



Maxim zoomed past him to one side, not even realizing the trap or hearing
him. She started to slow down just after she passed him, which left his ears
ringing from the sonic boom. She spun around and threw her missile. Her arm
made another sonic boom at about a third of the pitch. By the time her
fingers had let go of the impromptu missile, it was going far beyond the
speed of sound. Polarion had no time to react before he was slammed from
behind with the force of a run away train. He arced through the air and
impacted with Aqua City.



"Hey, let's keep the civilians out of this, all right?" Maxim drawled.



Polarion staggered to his feat and drew himself up. "I see you're as strong
as ever." With a touch of his magnetic might, he triggered his gauntlets. "I
on the other hand am stronger than ever!"



"Sure, sure, what... ever?" Maxim started to glance around. Polarion also
sensed something unusual and looked around him. It seemed like the very air
was charged with electricity.



"What sort of trick is this?" Polarion demanded angrily.



"Funny, that's what I was going to ask," Maxim said.



Both of them prepared to defend themselves to the best of the abilities.



A white glowing bubble surrounded Polarion, but around Maxim there appeared
a glass globe, distorting everything.



Polarion's eyes suddenly widened and with a frantic push threw himself as
far away as possible. It was an orbital particle beam attack. He could see
the air ionizing in preparation of the imminent attack. Maxim just stared,
starting to fly after him when the air turned molten.



-



In orbit, the power build up finally finished. A lance of pure destruction
erupted towards the Earth. The satellite was over China at that point. It
was an older model and worth the risk of losing when its location was
compromised.



It died a fiery death moments later, from a ground to air particle beam
attack from China.



-



Nene groused to herself, "I never get to do anything interesting." Nene was
still at the controls of the Knightwing, angling her flight to bring her a
better view of the fight at Aqua City. It looked like the ADP had pulled
back a half kilometer down the road. They looked like they just wanted to
watch the two figures fight it out. "Wow." Nene breathed as she focused in
closer on the fight with the Knightwing's sensors. It was like something out
of an old American comic book.



And then the night sky lit up and it felt like an explosion struck the
plane. Nene screamed, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEE." at the top of her lungs for a long
moment. Looking over the controls, she tried to figure out what happened. A
red glare caught her eye and she turned her head, looking out to the side of
plane. "Buddha!" Nene said with a quaver. Most of the wing was gone, blasted
to splinters or on fire. The rest of that side didn't look much better and
the plane was starting to spin. Nene reached over and grabbed her helmet
from its catch, slamming it on.



"Red Saber to group, Knightwing hit, going down near... in the bay near Aqua
City. Lost the right wing, preparing to eject!" Nene managed to get out as
she keyed in the self destruct for ten seconds. She reached over and opened
the panel for the emergency eject, then pulled the lever. The canopy blew
open and the chair she was in self timed its departure from the rapidly
spinning plane. A blast pushed her as the chair ejected up into the sky.



Moments later the Knightwing exploded just over the remains of Aqua City.
Nene hit the ripcord on the seat and was rewarded by a red light. She
slammed it again and the parachute tried to deploy. It popped out, but would
not grab air. "Oh, damn." Nene cursed. Checking her speed and how far she
had to go, she made a rapid decision. She released herself from the chair
and activated her jump jets, leaping into the air.



Nene calculated her descent, how much her thrusters were going to be able to
slow her. Unfortunately, they weren't really meant for flying. Which meant
she was going to have to use them past their safe limit and hope they didn't
melt. Nene activated her first thrust at two thousand feet, slowing herself
down. Her second blast was at the eight hundred foot mark. At one hundred
feet, she turned them on and left them to burn out.



Nene hit the water going fifty kilometers per hour, a mere two thousand feet
on the bay side of the Aqua City. Nene was still mentally debating about
screaming when she hit.



-



Priss was still attached to the truck, when it went through some odd
changes. Canvas popped out to cover the truck and the back that she was
holding onto shifted with hydraulics. With a fast grab, she managed to hang
onto the back, her feet letting out sparks from where they were being
dragged. With a grunt of effort, she managed to pull herself up.



Just in time for the truck to be swallowed up whole as it rounded another
corner and went into an alley. The new huge truck's door's slammed shut
instantly. With a roar, the new vehicle took off. Priss let herself down and
stood there a second. Curiosity waged an unusual battle with her anger and
she decided to wait to see where the truck went.



"Blue Saber to White Saber, I'm in the truck. I don't see any more boomers,
but I'm going to sneak around some and double check," Priss said quietly
over her radio.



"That is affirmative, Blue. Check in fifteen minutes," Sylia responded.



Linna looked over at Sylia and asked, "Is that wise?"



Sylia looked back and then replied, "I'm actually surprised she didn't just
start exploding things. More information isn't a bad idea."



"And you want to know how they got a hold of a Bu-12b," Linna finished.



Sylia stopped on the next rooftop and looked at Linna for a second or two.
"Yes," she finally said.



At that moment, the sky lit up and their communicators received the scream
from Nene. Sylia turned and looked to the southeast.



"An orbital attack," Sylia said.



"What?" Linna cried out. She looked in the same direction that Sylia was
looking. A glow illuminated all of the buildings briefly in shadows. A
thundering boom washed over them both, as they listened to Nene telling them
she was about to jump.



"White Saber to backup. Prepare for dust off. Meet in front of the MegaTokyo
General Hospital as soon as possible. Blue break off and meet us there,"
Sylia commanded into the communicator.



"On my way!" Mackie said. He frantically started up the truck, heading out.



A long pause.



"Blue? Report in," Sylia called out louder.



Another pause.



"I'm on my way. Give me a few minutes." Priss finally responded with a very
quiet edge. She was hugging the shadows, looking at the two passengers who
got out of the truck. She squelched the desire to break a things. A lot of
things. One of them was only a kid and somebody she recognized.



Priss charged up her impact knuckle, charging the back exit of the truck.
She vented her anger on the back of the truck and blew out the entire back
end. She boosted out of the back and up to a roof top after hitting the
street. She looked over her shoulder, seeing a N-Police cruiser turn around,
heading back towards the truck.



Her last angry thought was about Sho. What was he doing in there?



-



Nene woke up finally. It took a few minutes for her to figure out where she
was. She looked around and couldn't see anything. She switched on her lights
and looked around. Then she finally recalibrated the pressure sensors for
under water depths. The murky depths did nothing to calm her down.



"Fifty meters deep." Nene said as she scrabbled to her feet. She checked her
internal location tracker and started to walk towards where she guessed Aqua
City was. She checked her time. "I was out for ten minutes?" Nene muttered
to herself.



She finally broke the surface on the edge of Aqua City. Nene looked around
and whistled. "And I thought this place was messed up before." She flicked
off her lights and activated the low light sensors. She double checked her
sensors to make sure it was safe enough to walk across.



She started to walk, picking her way cautiously. "Such power. Why did they
fire here? Or is it the fate of this place?" Nene mumbled to herself. She
was about half way, when she heard a small cry for help. Nene double checked
that. Nobody could survive this sort of destruction.



Nene walked cautiously towards the sound. Eventually, she saw a burned
figure laying on the ground. Nene gulped taking a step back.



The burned figure managed to gurgle in English, "They are coming to kill me.
I know that now."



Nene gulped and looked around. "Who?"



Maxim gasped loudly to get more air. "You aren't Polarion. Are you going to
kill me?" Such pain, so much damage. She felt, more than understood, that
she wouldn't be given the time to heal. Maybe if she was given a day or so,
she would. But not the time it would take for the people who felt threatened
by her.



"You can call me Nene. I'm a Knight Saber," Nene said as she had to look
away. Her bile was rising.



"Knight Saber?" Meg managed to get out. A rasping breath and then she
mumbled, "Can I trust her? Nobody knows about that." The pain was making her
delirious.



"Trust me? Knows what? Who is trying to kill you?" Nene asked again, looking
anywhere but at the severely burned body.



"Doesn't matter. Will you help?" Meg asked from ruined lips.



"Uh, I... how?" Nene asked plaintively.



"Come closer and put... hands on... head," Meg managed to gasp out. She was
hurting so bad, could she do this? Meg didn't realize this, but even her
body had limits. And she was very near them. She started to feel cold, a
lassitude rising from the pain.



Nene moved forward and cautiously reached out and touched her forehead. She
did this out of pity. She hadn't seen people this burned before, but she
guessed that she was dying. She started to pull her eyes away from her
mangled face, when the eyes opened. They glowed with a bright blue fire.



Nene screamed, as twin bolts of blue lightning struck her own eyes. It felt
like she was on fire. She jerked and twisted. It ended just as abruptly as
it started. Nene backed up quickly. She checked her suit's status and was
relieved to find nothing wrong. What ever that had been, it hadn't hurt her.
The body in front of her quit emitting any signs of life. All of a sudden,
it caught on fire, consuming itself in blue fire. Nene backed away even
further.



"That was too strange," Nene said to herself. She really wanted to go home
now. She decided that speed was better than caution. She started to
calculate jumps that would get her to the access road.



Leaps later, Nene was at the edge of the mass of metal that used to be Aqua
City. The road was gone. A section over twelve hundred feet long was just
gone. Nene popped out her hyper-sensors to trying to find some way to get to
the road.



-



Leon looked around and was moderately surprised at the light number of
casualties. Still limping from the gun shot wound, he made his rounds. Lots
of wounded, but it could have been worse. He looked back to the man made
island and thought he saw something on the edge of the road, where it used
to connect to the island.



A brilliant light flared from the south, about three hundred feet away,
caught his attention. Rising out of the water, an incandescent sphere of
pure energy floated with a figure within it.



Polarion bellowed loudly, his voice filled with hatred, anger and pain. "The
city and this nation shall be the throne that I will rule this world from. I
shall carve it from the skulls of my betrayers and dance on their graves. No
one does this to me and lives! No one! " With each utterance, the glow
brightened, until when he finished, it was blinding. He raised his one good
hand and released a massive wave of energy.



Leon covered his eyes and looked away. When he looked back, there wasn't
anybody there. "What was that all about?" Leon said to no one in particular.
His eyes seemed to have trouble adapting.



At least he thought so, until he realized that he could see the stars in the
sky. Looking over the bay, he realized that there wasn't a single light on
in kilometers. Just pitch blackness. "Somebody break out the flares." Leon
whistled long and loud. How do you report something like this?



-



Nene also had a very good view of Polarion's declaration. She had too good
of a view of the wreckage of the one side of his body. Her hardsuit was
scrambled when he released his electro-magnetic pulse. It took about twenty
seconds for her hardsuit to recover.



"I really want to go home now!" Nene whined. Her hyper-sensor came back
online. She had just spotted a couple of supports left from the bridge when
he had started his tirade. She gauged carefully and decided that she could
make it, if she was careful. Taking a deep breath, she leaped and bounded
towards the remains of the bridge.



She managed to make it to the bridge without too much of a problem. Fifty
feet in front of her were the remains of the ADP. They had formed a quick
skirmish line at pointed guns at the unfamiliar hardsuit. Red flares lit the
scene with an ominous light.



Nene stood there for a moment and then came to a decision. She brought
herself up to an at attention pose and then saluted. Very carefully she
lowered her hand, starting to walk towards the line of men.



One of the officers yelled to Leon, "Do you want us to blow her away, Leon?"



Leon sat there for a moment, making a tough decision. "I won't order you to.
That's the Pink Saber's hardsuit under all that paint. So that is most
likely Nene Romanov. At least according to our best estimate," he replied.



A couple of the squad didn't know what to make of that, but the older field
officers nodded and then put away their guns. They started to finish tending
to the wounded. The rest followed suit. One of the older officers looked at
Leon, then said, "Giles is going to have your badge."



Leon replied, "Yeah, I know." He shrugged and walked over to the back of the
truck to wait for evacuation vehicles to get there.



Nene walked through the line starting to run towards the city. She popped
her antennas out and called into the Knight Sabers. "Come in Knight Sabers,
this is Red Saber. Are you out there?"



Her radio squawked for a moment and Sylia's voice came on. "Status report,
Red."



"Well, I'm alive and mostly intact. The Knightwing is gone. I think it got
clipped by the orbital bombardment. I'm almost to the end of the access road
to Aqua City."



"We'll pick you up in five minutes," Sylia replied.



-



Nene sighed, as she pulled off her helmet. Everyone else was already out of
their hardsuits. Sylia was right there, checking on her bandages. Mackie
stood in the back, waiting for Sylia to finish. Sylia very carefully
unwrapped the bandages around Nene's head.



Linna happened to look over her shoulder and gasped. "That's not possible!"



Sylia looked up with an irritated glance. "She does seem to have healed
quickly, doesn't she."



"But even with the best surgeons, it still takes weeks to fully heal from
plastic surgery. I, uh, looked into it a few times," Linna said in response
to everyone's looks.



"What's going on back there?" Priss yelled from the cab of the truck.



"Never mind. Just get us back to base." Sylia started to very carefully poke
and prod at Nene's face. She stopped for just a second. "I thought your eyes
were supposed to be a very dark blue. From the dyes they were going to
inject."



"They are! He did say that they might turn back to my natural color in a few
months," Nene replied.



"They're a bright blue, right now," Linna said in bewilderment.



Sylia continued to examine her. "Your wounds are almost finished healing."
She paused. "And it looks like only minor scarring. You were very lucky."



"Yeah, I guess so. I thought I might have hurt my wounds when I hit the
water." She breathed a sigh of relief. "So what do you think, Mackie?"



"I definitely wouldn't recognize you. It's different. Not bad different
though!" Mackie said quickly. Nene had always been cute, but now looked
closer to pretty. Of course a lot of her 'cuteness' stemmed from the way she
acted.



"Thanks!" Nene struggled for a moment, then turned back to Sylia. "I've got
some telemetry from my suit sensors. That should help a bit."



"What does it show?" Sylia asked as she but away the medical kit.



"Well, this really burned body that wanted some help. She died moments
later. And the guy in some sort of costume. If it wasn't impossible, I'd
swear he blacked out this area of town. Just by getting mad," Nene replied.



"Boomer?" Sylia asked.



"Nope, I checked for that. Totally human. Unless they can fool the suit's
new sensors, he was human," Nene finished up. She stood up and walked over
to where they stored the armor. She carefully got out. "Lots of strange
magnetic fields."



Sylia started to undress to get back into more normal clothes. Nene just
gulped and looked over at Mackie. Sylia noticed and said calmly, "We're
adults now, even Mackie. I wasn't going to wait until we got back to
change."



"Oh," Nene said faintly.



"I'll be up in the front," Mackie said, as he headed towards the front.



Linna snickered and then started to change.



Nene looked over at Linna and retorted hotly, "I didn't see you changing
before!"



Linna just looked over and started laughing. "You can be so cute. You just
have to be blushing."



"I hate you guys some times," Nene muttered while she started to change,
still blushing.



-



Priss stepped out of Sylia's private offices, walking past where Nene and
Mackie sat. It was kind of cute, how they had fallen asleep leaning against
each other. She stared for a moment and thought to check her watch. Almost
four in the morning. "Hmm, home or couch? Ah, I'm not that tired."



She took the elevator to the garage and drove home. She got off her bike and
walked up to her door, stopping abruptly. Leon was sitting there on her
steps, waiting for her.



"Hello, Priss," Leon said pensively. He looked moderately terrible, cuts on
his face and no sunglasses.



"Hi, Leon. What are you doing here?" Priss asked, as she fished out her
house key.



"Oh, I just wanted to talk to you. And this was the only sure way I knew of
getting in contact with you," Leon stated simply as he stood up.



Priss opened her door, then waved him inside. "If it's about the hospital, I
don't know what came over me." Leon wasn't acting normally.



Leon glanced at her, then replied, "Hmm, oh, no. Nothing like that. I
probably stepped over a line that I shouldn't have tonight. I'm probably
going to be on at least suspension, if not worse."



Priss looked at him, "What happened?"



Leon grinned. "Oh, I had an opportunity to arrest one of the Knight Sabers
and I had my troops back off and let her pass. I think it was the Pink
Saber."



"I thought you didn't get in trouble for things like that?" Priss asked as
she grabbed a couple of beers, handing one to Leon. They both sat in her
small living room.



"Normally, yeah. But Giles wants to nail Nene so bad it's not funny. And you
just can't keep something like that from Internal Affairs. Not in front of
three squads," Leon replied after he took a sip.



"Oh."



"So I just wanted to spend some time with you, before I get the bad news."
Leon shrugged.



"How's Daley?" Priss asked, trying to change the subject.



"Oh, he's going to be all right. He's got a thick skull. He's already
complaining about hospital food. I give him a week or two to get himself
released."



"Good! I liked Daley. So you just came over to talk?" Priss said.



"Well, not just talk. I'm not dead yet. But that depends on what you want to
do," Leon said with a small smile.



"It does, doesn't it?" She reached up behind herself and turned off the
lights.



-



"Yawn!" Nene said as she sat up in her bed. It took her a few moments to
figure out how she got to bed. She vaguely remembered Mackie picking her up
and carrying her to bed. That was sweet of him. After finishing the normal
morning rituals, Nene headed up to the computer room.



"Good morning, Mom!" Nene said as she activated the computers.



"Good morning, Nene-chan. What have you done to your face?" her mothers
voice came from speakers.



"Just making it harder for Genom to find me. So how about a little hacking
today? Now that you're in the computer, you can tag along," Nene piped up
cheerfully. She took a sip of her tea.



"Well, all right. Have you talked to your father?" she asked.



"He didn't take to well to being a recording in a computer. He wished me to
respect his death." Nene didn't mention that he was good enough to erase
himself. He didn't get his backups, but the three times she'd tried to
explain and talk to him had all ended the same way.



"So what are we hacking?" Nene's mother asked.



"I'm looking for a really good doctor who does cybernetics. And isn't too
talkative. The types of cybernetics I'm looking for aren't very standard and
requires special permits," Nene replied.



"Is there any way I could go somewhere?" Nina Romanova asked suddenly.



"Hmm, I don't think we have anything portable that you could walk around
in." Nene scrunched her face in concentration. "Maybe a motoslave with an
upgraded AI. I'll have to talk to Sylia about it." Or do what I was thinking
of doing myself. Sylia wouldn't be happy. But I've still got my own money
from her Knight Saber work to pay for it. And my own reasons.



Nene was still at work hours later, when Mackie showed up. He popped his
head and did a double take. "Oh, hello Nene. Have you seen Sylia?"



"Nope, she usually does her office work in the mornings. She gives me the
run of the computer room until noon or so." Nene replied. "I've got some
errands to run later. Fake ID's, planting data, making a new me!"



"Who is this young man, Nene?" her mother asked.



Mackie looked around and asked, "Who was that?"



"Mom, this is Mackie. He's handy to have around and really good at
mechanics, robotics and artificial intelligence. Mackie, this is my mother,
Nina, or at least a reasonable facsimile. She was recorded before her death.
Sylia stole her, when she was trying to rescue my parents," Nene ended
breathlessly.



They gave a wary greetings to each other. Nene piped up, "So Mackie, are you
going to go to college here or are you going back to Germany? You didn't say
earlier."



Mackie was pulled away from his desire to check on the AI running on the
computer. "Um, I really wasn't planning on it. I've had a bad case of home
sickness for a while. I'll probably get my own place in town though," Mackie
replied. "I'm going over to Raven's today. And then to a couple of the
universities to look at admission."



"Ok then! I'm out of here. See you later. Maybe we can do dinner tonight,
Mackie," Nene said as she started to shut down the system.



"Nene, can you leave me active. I'd like to talk to this Sylia. She's an
important person in your life." Nina's voice drifted from the speaker.



Nene looked over to Mackie and then back to the camera. "Sure."



-



Nene came out of her doze and looked around. "So when do we start?" she
asked the doctor.



He looked at her and laughed. "Were done, young lady. One full cortical
interface, installed as per your request. And high bandwidth computer
interfaces and the mini-range radio. All very expensive, all very thoroughly
double checked."



"I don't feel any pain." Nene double checked her watch. "It's six o'clock!
But I thought I'd feel different or at least feel something."



The doctor led her hand to the interface jack, right at the base of the
skull. "See, it's all there. Micro-surgery causes almost no tissue damage.
But if you want, you can try to interface with a computer right now and
start learning."



"If you don't mind. I'd rather have a doctor handy when I try. Just in
case." Nene carefully reached for a data jack and slowly plugged herself in.
A rush of feelings bombarded her and slowly, ever so slowly, she began to
interpret the signals in a meaningful manner.



After about ten seconds she reached up and unplugged herself. "That was
something else. You do some nice work doctor." Nene thought that she had
been in there for at least ten minutes.



"Of course! And you're paying me enough. Really, far too many people still
hear horror stories of cyber-psychosis and immediately reject any thought
implantation." The doctor started to go into his patient speech. "And of
course, you need to train yourself on your new abilities. And for heavens
sake, don't stay on long. It can lead to addiction."



"Thank you, doctor. I'll recommend you to anyone who is in need of a
discrete doctor." Nene bobbed as she backed out.



"Whew, he's a little zealous. Oh, well, time to call a taxi and go home!"
Nene said to herself.



-



Nene walked out of the elevator and just about crashed into Linna. "Hi,
Linna. Are you feeling better?" Nene asked.



"Well, how about I just say that I see the light at the end of the tunnel."
Linna smiled. "And what have you been up to?"



"Not much. Hello, Sylia!" Nene waved.



"Would you mind warning me the next time you leave you mother active. I
wasn't expecting to have a half hour conversation with her," Sylia said as
she walked into the room.



"I had to leave and I didn't know where you were," Nene replied defensively.



"Really? So why did you do it?" Sylia asked.



"It was her idea, of course. My mother is a very strong minded lady," Nene
replied.



"Her idea? She's adjusting to her condition pretty well then. I don't know
if we can get her a boomer body that will work." Sylia sat down, a
thoughtful expression on her face.



"She wants a body?" Linna asked.



"She's tired of being cooped up. My mother was very active," Nene said as
she fished around in the fridge for some leftovers. Just to tide her over to
dinner of course.



"Fancy that. I wondered where you get your energy from. So are we having a
meeting?" Linna asked.



"Not a formal one. If Priss were here, maybe. The USSD is still trying to
hire us. I would have thought that they would have been scared off by my
demands. It actually worries me that they haven't," Sylia said in between
sips of her drink.



"So Nene, are you ready for your practice?" Linna asked.



Nene quit rooting around in the fridge for something and stuck her head up.
"Sure!"



-



Priss were getting her own exercise. She'd picked up Sho from the police
station and then taken him to her place. They'd eaten and then they walked
to the park near where they used to live. Sho had grown in the last couple
of years, but he was still too young to be getting involved in gangs. And
ruining his life in crime.



Sho swung in the swing a bit and waited. He'd been dreading something ever
since Priss had picked him up. Priss finally asked him, "So how long have
you been in that gang?"



Sho looked over. "Not long."



"Why did you join them? It can't be much better than the orphanage."



"They respect me. I'm not just a bother. I can earn my own way," Sho said
hotly.



"So you're a messenger. Are they going to keep you from getting shot?" Priss
retorted just as hotly.



"They don't treat me as a kid. And they're helping me get what I want."



"And what's that?" Priss said. She clenched her fists. She reaffirmed her
desire to never have kids.



"Kill the bastard who killed my mom! And destroy Genom!" Sho yelled loudly.



Priss just stared and then started to laugh. "You're a little late. Mason
got his throat cut the same day that your mom died."



Sho's face showed his surprise. "Who's Mason?"



"Brian J. Mason. You don't remember him and his boomer? When I tried to help
one of the neighbors who was getting pushed around, right outside your
apartment. He had dark hair and the nice suit." She took a swing next to
him.



"So what about Genom? He just worked for them," Sho asked.



"The same Genom that makes medicine? Genom is huge and it's not all evil, no
matter how much we like to think it is," Priss said, more to herself.
"Besides, what are you going to do to such a huge company?"



"I'm going to make myself strong enough to tear Genom down. It's for Mom."
Sho jumped to his feat. "You don't care, you just don't understand!"



"Understand what? How to lose someone important to me? How to lose myself in
revenge? How do you know that I don't know all of that?" Priss said through
clenched teeth.



"Who did you lose?" Sho yelled.



"My boyfriend, my lover is what I lost. I lost a good friend who was your
mother," Priss said staring at the ground. Count backwards from ten, Priss
thought to herself. Calm down.



"Didn't you want to do something?" Sho said loudly.



"Sure. And I would have gotten myself killed. Somebody stopped me." Priss
looked up. "Just like I'm trying to stop you from doing something stupid."



"Sure, just like the cops try to help. Feed me another line of bull," Sho
alleged hotly.



Priss leaped to her feat. "Sho, listen to me. I promised myself that I'd
keep you out of trouble. If I have to tie you up to get you to see some
sense, I will."



Sho flipped out a knife, "You'd better be willing to back that up. 'Cause
I'm not going with you."



"You and your knife, against Genom, huh?" Priss replied. Then she lunged
forward, catching Sho by surprise. She kicked him in the gut and smacked the
knife out of his hands. Using a judo grab, she slammed him down onto the
hard ground.



While he was sitting there trying to get his breath, she calmly put her gun
together. She kneeled on top of him. "Bang, you just died trying to get your
renege. How does it feel to have wasted your life?"



Sho just glared at her. "What are you trying to prove?"



"Prove? Nothing except that there is always somebody bigger than you. That
there is always somebody better," Priss said in a low serious voice.
"Mason's dead. Someone got to him before you. You don't have anybody to get
your revenge on. So why are you wasting your life?"



Sho started to sob.



"Sho, your mom wanted you to have a good life. She wanted you to be a good
kid. Don't disappoint her." Priss put her gun away, picking Sho up in a hug.



"I miss Mom, Priss. Nobody is going to take me home," Sho sobbed as he
hugged her back.



"I'm here, Sho. Even if I can't take you home. A single woman can't adopt,"
Priss murmured to him. "I know, I tried."



"Stupid laws. They never help people, just companies. Just like the cops,"
Sho burst out angrily.



"Yeah, laws are pretty stupid. But they are trying to help. They're just
trying to protect kids."



"How come nobody ever told me that Mason was killed?"



"You never asked me. I'd heard it was the White Knight Saber, or maybe the
Blue Knight Saber. At least that's what the street says."



"Oh."



"So, are you going to stay out of that gang?" Priss asked as she helped Sho
up.



"Yeah. Besides, you are one tough customer. I don't want to get on your bad
side again." Sho was holding his stomach. Then he asked, "So where did you
learn to do that?"



"It was after the quake. A lot of gangs, a lot of homeless kids. It wasn't a
good time to be growing up on the street. I ran into someone who got me off
the streets," Priss answered. "Let's get out of here."



-



Dansk walked down the corridor and then into a heavily guarded room. It
looked to be some sort of robotics laboratory. He walked in, glancing
around. "Dr. Wu, how is our progress?" he asked one of the men working on a
large machine.



"It is going very well. The DD Battlemover was an innovation, unrealized.
This is the finished product. It is vastly superior to anything currently
available. Faster, stronger, smarter. The J1 control module learns not only
the enemy's weakness, but how to help its pilot defeat any foe." Dr. Wu
replied with a smile. "The DD-2c is a wonder of Genom superiority. It would
easily defeat the 'Ginku' battlemover."



"Good, so we'll be ready to ship it out tomorrow night?" Matio Dansk asked.



"Of course."



With that Dansk walked out and grabbed an elevator to a much lower level. He
walked down the corridor, until it ended at a nondescript door. He ran
through the locks and stepped into a radically different room. It had
computer banks all around and large, strange devices. It had an operating
room and a full cybernetics lab. In one corner lay a strange machine that
looked like a chair with a head restraint.



A group of doctors worked on a woman in the surgery. One of them noticed him
and exited the room.



"Mr. Dansk, everything is going according to your plan. The woman is being
enhanced as you asked, with second hand parts. These cannot be traced back
to us," the doctor said to him, squirming just a bit. "We are just finishing
her optic system right now."




"Good." He stared at her. "Everything is going according to plan. Soon, the
Knight Sabers and the AD Police will be just a memory."



Unknown to him, Naoko's new eyes worked perfectly. She saw the heavy set man
in a reflection and remembered him. She couldn't move, but that didn't stop
her from thinking, planning. She'd been tortured and then hooked up to a
strange machine. And then they had started to maim her, making her a new
body. It was an ugly thing, leaving just enough of her features to
distinguish who she was.



One of the doctors flashed a light into her eyes, blocking her sight. Naoko
couldn't even whimper, as she felt another connection energize.



-



Nene crept through the darkness, easing open the door. She was clad in her
shorts and a tee shirt. She carried a small bag. She sat herself down at the
console and brought the computer to life. She started to scan the files she
had found. It was several hours later when she finally finished her
preparations. It was an unusual program. But there wasn't a program built
that she couldn't use, given enough time.



Nene opened up a panel and hooked up the computer interface. Then very
carefully, she reached up and plugged herself in. She had been planning on
doing this for a while. Ever since she had found the secreted copies of
Sylia's personality and memories.



Nene hadn't figured out how Sylia had done it. As far as she could tell, you
had to have a direct neural link. They were considered some of the more
dangerous enhancements that could be done. They had just barely been
perfected to the level that was useful for this sort of operation. No pain,
no gain had been her mantra. So where had she gotten them?



It took careful planning and purchasing the right hardware and cyberware.
Very carefully, she copied herself to the large computer. It was insurance
for later.



She then double checked her settings and calibrations, making one last
change. And then very carefully, she started the program to download certain
skills. She started to jerk and her head hurt horribly. She mentally gritted
her teeth and continued. Images flashed through her head, in a dizzying blur
of moments in time.



Ten minutes later, she finished and disconnected. With shaking hands, she
undid her hours of work and hid the access to files. She was almost done,
when the lights clicked on.



"What are you doing, Nene?" Sylia asked sleepily from the doorway. She was
clad in her bathrobe and not much else.



Nene blinked hard, as her eyes adjusted to the light. Nene took a deep
breath and then answered, "I was using a program that I found. I just
finished using it to get the same skills you have. Mechanical engineering,
artificial intelligence, cybernetics and advanced robotics."



Sylia blinked. That wasn't what she had been expecting to hear. "Why?" Her
voice was all business suddenly. Anger started to ebb up from the depths of
her soul.



"I didn't want the Knight Saber to go under if you died. I figured that if I
had the same skills that you had to design and repair the hardsuits, it
wouldn't happen." Nene ducked her head. "I'd give everything for the Knight
Sabers. Even if you died, we needed to go on. The ADP is hamstrung by
bureaucrats, Genom is left free to run over little people. We're the only
ones who make things right."



"Why didn't you ask?" Sylia asked bluntly. She was very angry, but in a very
cold manner.



"I figured that you would tell me no," Nene said meekly.



"I would have. That was very dangerous. Come outside and let's have a cup of
tea."



They both walked into the living room. Sylia made some tea and they both sat
down on the sofa. Sylia sat for long moments trying to get in control of
herself. She came to a decision which calmed her down.



"Well, it's obviously too late to stop you. Did it work?" Sylia asked with
much of the edge gone from her voice.



Nene sat for a moment. "I think so. I have some ideas, but I don't have
anything concrete to think about," Nene replied. She raised her hands to her
temple, kneading it.



Sylia took a deep breath and then asked a very detailed question about
robotic musculature. She waited a moment while Nene answered. Sylia kept
asking questions for ten minutes. Each question was an advanced thesis by
itself.



"I'm impressed." Sylia thought for a moment. "So what are you going to do?"



"I was thinking about working on or buying an AI that I could load my mother
into and then installing it in my motoslave." She thought for a moment.
"That seems to be a lot simpler than I thought it would be."



"It would, now. I've known how to do it for a while. And so do you now."
Sylia stared off into space.



"Why haven't you built a replacement body for yourself?" Nene had been dying
to ask this for a week.



"Because I didn't want to become a Largo. Could you imagine my intellect
becoming as twisted as Largo's? He is not a truly creative entity. He used
only items or ideas that were available," Sylia said quietly. "Though maybe
it's the lure of immortality that drove him insane," She whispered.



"But my mother hasn't turned into a monster!"



"No, she hasn't. She seems to have adjusted to it fairly decently. Maybe I
should look into it now." Sylia replied thoughtfully. "The ultimate
insurance." A voice seemed to echo through her and she almost heard a voice
say 'Reishya.'



Sylia sat there for a very long moment. "And what happens if I decide to
disband the Knight Sabers?"



"Why? I mean, if there was a good reason, sure, why not? But there are so
many reasons to keep the organization going. It's too important to depend on
luck."



"Perhaps, but are you willing to devote your entire life to it?" Nene
studied the ground for a moment and then nodded. The sat there finishing
their tea for a moment. "Well, if you are going to be my 'backup', you need
to be acquainted with the machine shops better. Let me show you that area."
And I need to think about this conundrum that has landed in my lap.



They had just finished the tour up, when Mackie wandered out. Sylia was
starting to make breakfast. "Good morning! What are you guys doing up so
early?" Mackie asked as he glanced out at the rising sun.



Nene yawned and then answered. "Just getting into things that I shouldn't
have." She smiled impishly. "Are you feeling better? You were pretty quiet
last night."



"Oh, I'm fine. I'm still jet lagged is all. Why?" Mackie replied.



"So, Mackie. Would you like to go out and go shopping? Maybe catch a movie
or go out and see the latest arcades?" Nene asked Mackie.



"Sure. What about you Sylia?" Mackie asked.



"Just business as normal."



-



Nene was laying around, idly waiting for Mackie to come back from the park
vendor. The sun was shining, though it looked like it might rain later. They
had been just about everywhere. The movies, shopping, apartment hunting. And
now this park.



'This is odd.' A voiced whispered from nowhere.



Nene looked around. "Mackie?"



'Who is Mackie? I feel very odd. As a matter of fact, who are you?'



Nene was starting to become very scared. She hoped it wasn't some form of
cyber-psychosis or a problem with the transference program. "I'm Nene," she
stuttered.



'Nene? Nene! The Knight Saber!' the voice replied. 'The person in the power
armor! From Aqua City! The one I tried to transfer my powers to.'



"What the heck are you talking about?" Nene wasn't sure what was scarier,
talking to herself or talking to something in her head.



'I was trying to transfer my powers into you. Not me into you. At least
that's what I think happened.' The strange spoke again. 'I'm sorry, my name
is Meg Jones. We met at that artificial island, where I asked you for help.
I was dying and I tried to pass on my powers.'



"And how am I supposed to know that you aren't a figment of my imagination?"
Nene asked.



'That... is a good question. Do you feel normal? Did anything unusual happen
to you physically?' Meg asked.



"Pretty normal." Nene was scared, now. Truly scared. She looked around and
spotted Mackie.



'That must be Mackie. I've got some thinking to do. Do you mind If I get in
back to you later?' Meg asked silently to Nene. 'I'm tired suddenly.'



Mackie sauntered up and then said, "Here's your ice cream cone. It's your
favorite flavor too!"



"Oh. Thanks Mackie."



Mackie just looked at Nene strangely. Something had changed in her whole
stance and demeanor. "Are you all right?"



"Sure! Just getting used to you being here," Nene lied easily. She stood up
and stretched. With a mischievous wink, she leaned over and gave Mackie a
quick kiss. She laughed when he just stammered. "Cat got your tongue,
Mackie?"



"Nope." Mackie stood there for just moment and then leaned forward. He
kissed Nene deeply. They broke up slowly.



"Don't you think that's a little fast?" Nene inquired with a smile.



"Nope. It seemed like the right thing to do. How about you?" Mackie asked.



"Just the right thing," Nene agreed.



-



Linna sat on Sylia's couch, looking at a huge sheaf of papers. "Argh. I hate
lawyers," Linna yelled out suddenly.



Sylia looked up from where she was scanning some papers. "Lawyers aren't
that bad."



Priss walked in from the elevator and leaned up against the couch. "Hey,
Sylia! Can I speak to you? It's about Leon."



"Go ahead, Priss. What is up?" Sylia asked without looking up.



"Leon is on suspension right now, but I figured maybe we could use him like
we used to use Nene at the ADP," Priss said.



Sylia looked at her in mild consternation. "I wasn't really planning on
replacing our mole in the ADP. It would be too dangerous. For him and us."



Priss stood still and then replied, "He already knows about me being a
Knight Saber."



Linna glanced quickly at both of them. "Uh, oh."



Sylia started to get angry. Two in one day. Next she'd have Linna telling
her she was pregnant. "When did you tell him?" Her voice had dropped back
into her normal authoritarian mode.



Priss took her cue from the abrupt voice change. "I didn't! I promise! He
found out a long time ago. Back when we had our battle with Sylvie." God,
she'd thought that pain would also go away.



"How?" Sylia asked.



"He was in the K-12 suit that got trashed. He, um, woke up long enough to
see me without my helmet." Now she was getting upset. She was as much a part
of the team as anyone else. Didn't anyone trust her?



Sylia sat and cogitated for a few minutes. Linna held her breath, as Priss
continued to build a head of steam.



"Very well. I guess we can trust his discretion. If he knew who you were
back then, he could have used that knowledge before now. Where is he?" Sylia
replied in a softer tone.



"Just down stairs. I thought I'd make him a bit uncomfortable. With my luck,
he's probably hitting on your help," Priss said, slightly mollified.



Leon wasn't quite hitting on any of the ladies, but he was admiring the
view. When one of the workers walked up and asked Leon to follow her, he
wasn't surprised.



He started to get a bit suspicious when he ended up in an elevator. A light
flickered and Leon instincts kicked in. That was a high security fast scan.
Those weren't cheap nor standard. His hand crept over to his holster.



The elevator opened suddenly and Leon blinked in surprise at a very posh
penthouse. Priss and two women sat in what appeared to be a living room.



"Come on in, Leon," Priss called out.



Leon walked over and flopped down next to Priss.



"Leon, this is Linna," Priss introduced him. Leon nodded. He remembered her
from that time at the airport. "And this is Sylia."



"It's good to finally meet you, Mr. McNichol," Sylia said, studying him.



"Pleased to meet you," Leon said. Little alarm bells were going off
somewhere in his head.



"I have a job offer for you. The Knight Sabers could always use an inside
source of information," Sylia said quietly. "I would like to hire you to
fill a small void in our link to the ADP."



Leon just stared for a moment. This was not what he had in mind when Priss
mentioned a surprise. "I'm on suspension and I might be going to an inquiry.
I'm not exactly in a very good position right now." Leon couldn't believe
what was happening.



"We'll have to see, of course. But you're a good cop. Maybe not the most
honest, but you get the job done and you want to do the right thing. You
know the streets. The Knight Sabers might not do what is technically the
most legal in the world, but we also try to do the right thing," Sylia said
with quiet determination. "I feel you would be an asset."



"Of course. You guys have been helping for years. It's the least I could do.
Besides, where else would I get to hang with four pretty women in
hardsuits?" Leon quipped.



Priss just slapped her head theatrically and groaned. Linna sniggered and
even Sylia smiled slightly. "Welcome to the Knight Sabers, Leon." Priss
reached over and slugged his arm painfully.



-



"Are you sure this is safe, Nene?" Mackie asked.



"Sure. Why do you ask?" Nene replied from behind her dark blue motoslave.



"I don't recall that you were ever that good at robotics. This is a fairly
drastic change to your motoslave."



"No sweat! It's something I've picked up recently," Nene replied.



"You don't just pick up advanced robotics and artificial intelligence,
Nene," Mackie said to her, as he worked on an adjustment.



Nene poked her head over the top of the motoslave. "Don't worry. I've got it
under control." Nene pouted a bit. "Or don't you trust me?"



"Well, yes. This is just extreme, isn't it?" Mackie replied.



"Not really. This is about the minimum for what will hold my Mom." Nene
disappeared again behind the unit.



"Ok then. Are you ready back there?" Mackie asked.



"Just finishing up. Ready?" Nene asked as she hopped down from the lift.



"Sure." Mackie backed up to the console sot that Nene could sit down.



"Here we go!" Nene said as she typed in a few commands.



Slowly lights started to glow and a familiar voice drifted from the
motoslave. More accurately, the oversized boomer now. "Hello, Nene. And how
are we doing today?"



"Fine Mom. I figured you could use my motoslave as a body for a while," Nene
said cheerfully.



Nina looked around and took a few steps as Nene disconnected her. "Not
exactly the most fashionable body, is it?" The motoslave looked around and
then reached out and took Mackie's good hand. "It is good to really meet
you, young man."



Mackie was saved from answering when the intercom buzzed. "Mackie, Nene, we
have a situation. It's down by the Genom tower that is being rebuilt. Combat
boomers and what appears to be a battlemover. The ADP is outclassed and
looks like it can't handle it. It's a war zone. Ready all of the motoslaves
and all of the suits. Even yours Mackie," Sylia said from the upstairs
console.



Nene looked at Mackie. "No rest for the wicked, I guess," Nene smiled
impishly.



Mackie looked back with a wry grin. "It has to be real bad, if she's putting
me in a hard suit."



Nene replied very seriously, "I was really trying not to think about that."



-



Naoko was a prisoner in the machine. The battlemover strode around like it
owned the area. The ADP hadn't stood a chance. The wreckage of several ADP
police vehicles was strewn about, what could accurately be described as a
battlefield. The battlemover and the boomers had spread out, starting to
destroy the construction site. It was a very motley looking group. Several
Bu-55b's, a couple of Bu-12b's and many construction boomers that looked
like they had been modified. And the larger battlemover, bristling with
weapons.



One of the Bu-55b's noticed a group of motorcycles headed towards them. It
zoomed in with telephoto optics and opened fire on the Knight Sabers with
its mouth cannon. The three motorcycles split up and began their attack
runs. Priss weaved back and forth, opening fire with a rocket launcher. The
boomer tried to avoid getting hit, but the missile homed in and destroyed
it.



Sylia and Linna had already morphed their motoslaves into the giant armored
exoskeletons. Flying through the air, the started to pick off the weaker
boomers. That is until the battlemover joined the fight. Things turned ugly
almost immediately.



It opened up its main machine gun, taking out Priss's motoslave's tires and
nearly took out Priss. Priss skidded across the ground, leaving a trail of
sparks. Sylia veered and ducked, avoiding a spray of unguided missiles.
Linna was starting to have problems with two remaining Bu-12b's. They had
her trapped in a crossfire, slowly working to take her cover away.



"Son of a bitch. That thing packs a wallop," Priss said as she shook her
head. "Get up and get back to work, stupid," she ordered her motoslave. And
with that she stood up herself and charged one of the Bu-12b's. She managed
to avoid getting shot, getting a good shot off with one of her shoulder
cannons. It scored a deep strike, but did not destroy the boomer. Behind her
you could see the motoslave stand up and start to fire on the refitted
construction boomers.



Nene had finally got into position, looking out over the entire area. Two
full squads of ADP officers were down. It just about broke her heart. Mackie
had also gotten into position and scanned the area. Mackie blinked a moment
at his displays and then asked, "Is that threat analysis correct? It can't
be higher than a hyper-boomer, can it?"



"The DD battlemover? It sure can." Nene studied the area and then set up
countermeasures. She blanketed the entire area in a haze of electronic
static. "Mackie, take out the one on the right, the Bu-12b. They are going
to be focused on me for a little while."



"Roger. Incoming, Blue,"Mackie said, as he fired his bazooka. The boomer
sensed it at the last moment and tried to duck. A resounding explosion
rocked that area. When the dust cleared the bu-12b was standing, barely.
Priss charged it and with a leap, cut it's head off with her suddenly
extended rapier blades.



Nene wasn't exaggerating, most of the combat boomers that were left focused
on her. She was doing everything in her power to avoid getting shot, staying
just one step ahead of the increasingly dangerous fire. She stifled a cry of
panic and moved for more cover.



Sylia was in one of her most desperate fights ever. In pure brawn, the
battlemover was superior to her motoslave. With a grace one wouldn't have
believed in a mecha so large, it avoided her new plasma cannon. On the other
hand, it hadn't managed to score a good strike against Sylia's motoslave
either. It seemed to be a stalemate.



But stalemates rarely last long on the battlefield. Sylia used the same
pattern to duck one time to many and was bracketed by its rapid fire guns.
The motoslave's armor started to shred under the onslaught.



In a desperate move, she swung the large cannon towards the battlemover. She
feinted and then fired towards where she figured it would leap. Even so, she
still nearly missed, only grazing one of its legs. The battlemover landed
hard, but turned back towards her. It suddenly leaped to the side, ducking a
huge blast from Priss's motoslave. It spun around, firing a volley of
missiles.



The red motoslave wasn't nearly as maneuverable when it didn't have its
pilot. It ended a fiery death, exploding violently. "Oh, man. My bike!"
Priss yelled from across the battle field.



"Worry about it later, Blue. Right now we're doing good to keep ourselves
alive. Most of the secondary targets are down. Keeps its attention split up
and divide its fire," Sylia said over the communicator as she retreated.



Nene had ducked behind a mound of debris and took a moment to catch her
breath. Popping the top of her helmet over the debris, she activated her
hyper-sensors. They were incredibly accurate and able to process amazing
amounts of data during combat. Few systems even came close to it. She
started to direct feed data to the rest of the Knight Sabers. After Linna
finished the last construction boomer, Nene focused on the battlemover.



"No micro-fusion bomb, it appears to be safe to destroy the battlemover."
Nene studied it closer. "The pilot is not linked into or using the hand
controls." Why would you put a pilot in there and then not let them do
anything? She focused in deeper and then sent a visual of the control
schematics to Sylia.



"What is that Red?" Sylia asked as she ducked. "It looked like an advanced
artificial intelligence control mechanism. It's very similar to the
motoslave in many ways."



"I think the pilot might be a hostage or a human shield. She hasn't done
anything in there and the AI seems to be doing all of the work. I'm going to
try and get an internal visual of the pilot."



"Do you mind hurrying? This thing hasn't stopped shooting at us!" Linna
yelled from the side, as she ducked a barrage of bullets.



"It's Naoko! She disappeared the same night that Mac... other people I knew
were attacked." Nene ducked back down, as the large mecha swung around in
her direction.



"We might not be able to save her. Unless someone has a plan? Holding back
is going to get us killed." Sylia leaped behind the remains of a crane. The
crane immediately was engulfed in a slew of missiles that lit up the area.
Sylia kept moving, dodging as best as possible.



"My pulse strikers should disable it, at least temporarily. But I'm going to
have to get really close. The battlemover is very heavily shielded. Back off
from it for a moment." Nene sent some hectic commands to her motoslave. It
came bounding over some low wreckage and configured to become a large battle
armor. Nene leaped forward and synced herself in.



Nina said to Nene over the internal com. "Is this wise?"



"Not really. But she's being used because of me. So it's my choice," Nene
said with finality, working as fervently as she could to avoid becoming a
pin cushion. Nina started to get hit as they charged, but nothing serious.



"Ouch!" Nina said.



"Sorry," Nene replied. All of a sudden she leaped forward and landed on the
back of the battlemover. "Hold on!" She ordered her motoslave and then
disengaged herself to grab a hold by herself. Her shoulder shields lifted up
and started to charge with agonizing slowness. The battlemover bucked around
and reached up to grab the motoslave. With a wrench, it twisted the smaller
mecha around, slamming it into the concrete hard enough to shatter the
ground. "Finally!" Nene muttered as she fired.



"Red, don't fire while your grounded to the battlemover... " Sylia called
out just as Nene fired her shot. Electricity arced from the weapons,
striking the battlemover which spasmed in mechanical agony. Lightning seemed
to crawl over the both of them. Nene let out a scream, her nerves on fire.
She fell to the ground and lay as still as the DD battlemover.



The battlefield finally quieted. Creaking metal and fire were the only sound
to be heard for several seconds.



"Mackie, get down there and get her out. Blue, you get the pilot out. Green,
prepare to fire on my mark," Sylia barked out her orders authoratively.
Everyone fell into action. Mackie cradled Nene in his arms and jogged out of
the way. Nene's motoslave managed to drag itself off and followed Mackie,
limping slowly. One of its arms dangled uselessly.



Priss charged in and managed to pry open the front of the pilot's
compartment with a combination of brawn and cutting. She retracted her blade
and reached in and grabbed the limp form. Priss hauled her off to the side,
just as the battlemover started to raise itself sluggishly. Its weapons
started to track.



"Fire!" Sylia and Linna opened up with their motoslave's large weapons. They
both thundered for several seconds. One of Sylia's shots managed to hit the
open cockpit. With a thundering explosion, the new DD Battlemover ceased to
exist in any recognizable form.



-



Matio Dansk watched the carnage from his view screen. "Was that a
satisfactory test?" The image stabilized, as the jamming quit.



Quincy was on smaller screen. "It is satisfactory. The tally should be
enough to show that the new DD battlemover will be the weapon of choice, for
the future. After all it had no trouble with the three K-17's, a K-12 and
two full squads of the ADP." He paused as if thinking. "The damage should be
enough to get us some support on anti-terrorism in the government. After
all, we can't have people with those capabilities on Japanese soil, can we?
And Genom was merely the target of unwarranted attacks."



Dansk replied, "Just as you planned, of course. It was unfortunate that none
of the Knight Sabers look to have been seriously injured. The true genius
was taking that ADP officer and linking her into part of the AGF. This will
weaken the ADP even further and allow us to take them over. It wouldn't take
us much work to fix their image problem then."



"Unless she is allowed to testify, of course," Katherine Madigan said from
where she stood leaning up against the wall.



"She won't. I've made sure of that. After all, she's not even human any
more." Matio Dansk laughed. "A law that was made to help the ADP. A law that
will now be the means of its destruction."



Katherine just watched and then replied very calmly, "We'll see then, won't
we?"



Something about her calm demeanor set Dansk on edge. He turned back to the
screen as the red and black Knight Saber staggered to her feet. He held his
anger in check. He knew who was in that suit.



Quincey said from the small screen, "Yes, we shall."



Matio gulped, dabbing his forehead with a cloth.



-



"Oh, did anyone get the number of that truck? Or was it a train?" Nene
finally managed to say weakly.



"You were very lucky, young lady," Sylia said. "You almost fried yourself
with that stunt. You were lucky that your suit managed to protect you from
the worst of that jolt."



"I thought that weapon only worked on boomers? All it would do is stun a
person?" Linna asked.



"Nene got some added cyberware. Mostly to improve her hacking ability. She
added a direct neural tap. That was the exact sort of system that the pulse
strikers were designed in mind to destroy," Sylia responded, lying about why
Nene had gotten the cyberware.



Priss wrinkled her nose. "You went and made yourself a cyborg?" Revulsion
was evident in her voice. Behind Priss, Sylia could see the ADP
reinforcements and ambulances arriving. She could also see a news crew
setting up. The cameras were set up in mere moments.



"I am not a boomeroid!" Nene said hotly. She staggered a bit. "Can I sit
down for a second?" Sylia nodded.



Naoko had finally gotten herself together and stood up. "Thank you for
rescuing me," she said, trying to avoid looking at her hands or arms.



Sylia looked around. "Your welcome." Looking around she said. "It looks like
all of the motoslave's need repair. Except for yours." Sylia pointed at
Priss's motoslave, which was a flaming heap on the ground.



"What can I say? It was a tough fight." Priss shrugged theatrically.



Linna felt a creeping feeling rise up her back. She glanced over her
shoulder.



A voice over a bullhorn yelled out suddenly! "Surrender and lay down your
arms. You vigilantes are finished!"



The ADP squad had spread out and formed a skirmish line. The lead man again
raised the bullhorn. "Naoko Fuchi, you are under arrest for terrorist
activities and the deaths caused today. White Knight Saber, you are under
arrest for the murder of Brian Mason. Nene Romanov you are also under arrest
for misconduct and spying on a government agency. The rest of you are
accessories to their crimes. Surrender now!"



A K-17 hardsuit lumbered up and pointed its gun at the group. "Naoko scans
as eighty percent boomer." The Knight Sabers had spread out a bit, prepared
to leap at a moments notice.



Neil glanced to the side. "We won't have to worry about processing anything
then. Prepare to fire on my mark." Naoko stood by herself, frozen in the
spotlights.



"No!" Nene staggered in between the ADP and Naoko. "You can't just kill
her!" Nene vainly tried to activate her electro-shield. Sparks crackled and
then sputtered out. Nene's mouth dried up and her stomach tightened. She
considered leaping, but knew she would be leaving Naoko to die. Panic almost
gripped her, but she stood rock solid still. She wouldn't abandon anyone.
She would not fail anyone ever again.



"Don't make yourself into an accessory to another crime, Nene Romanov. On my
mark! Ready..." Neil Brandon yelled loudly enough for everyone to hear.



"Aim!" Sylia called out loudly, bringing her main weapon up. The other
Knight Sabers followed suit, pointing their weapons at the ADP. The ADP
officers started and tracked their weapons to new targets.



Long moments passed, as the stand off continued. "You won't fire on us,
Knight Saber," Neil Brandon said finally.



"Naoko is being used. We will not allow you to kill her," Sylia said loudly,
her motoslave's gun never wavering.



"Used? She led this attack and left the terrorist demands that Genom be
disbanded or more lives would be lost. She's part of the Anti Genom Force,"
Neil Brandon yelled out, not using the bullhorn this time.



"She was a prisoner in that battlemover. Prisoners do not make demands and
they don't lead terrorists," Sylia replied coldly. "She hasn't made a
threatening move since you arrived."



Beads of sweat showed on the ADP officer. "We don't have any proof of that.
Just your word."



"Of course. Just our word and our actions. We have always helped the ADP
with boomer rampages. Why would we lie?" Sylia responded.



"Stinking mercenaries! Ready! Aim!" Brandon yelled down the line. The rest
of the officers didn't look so certain. He opened his mouth to order them to
fire.



"No! I won't fire on people that are just protecting a possible innocent!"
This came over the speaker of the K-17. "If she was berserk or preparing to
fight, maybe. She doesn't even have a gun." As if on cue, the others raised
their weapons from ready.



"Are you disobeying a direct order!" Brandon yelled at the K-17.



"Yes, sir. I signed up to serve the public. I won't kill a possible
innocent!" A murmur of support went through the ranks. "And the Knight
Sabers have helped the city and us for years. Hell, they just finished
helping us!"



"So you would back spies? Terrorists? Murderers?" Brandon raised his own
rifle and then barked out his last order. "Fire!" A couple men on the unit
followed suit, opening fire on Nene and Naoko. Nene tried again to raise her
force field, with sparks being the only response again. The small arms
started to leave marks and dents in her hardsuit. A couple of shots got
through, wounding Naoko. She cried out, spinning onto the ground.



"Cover fire, don't shoot any of them. Disrupt their shots, let's do a hot
extraction!" Sylia cried out. She opened fire in front of the troopers,
knocking several off their feet with the huge blast. Linna and Priss
responded by opening fire in front of the line, scattering the troopers.
Mackie pointed his gun at one of the ADP copters and gave it a warning shot
that took out part of the new tower behind it. It took the hint and left the
area.



Nene turned around and reached down and picked up Naoko. Cradling her
protectively, Nene boosted herself behind some debris. Nina met up and at
Nene's command transformed into a sleek motorcycle. Nene hopped on, taking
off, still holding Naoko.



Priss and Mackie took off, boost jumping when needed. Linna and Sylia kept
up the covering fire, both taking off at the last moment. They transformed
their motoslaves into motorcycles and left before the ADP could move to get
a decent shot off at them.



Everyone met up at the truck and piled in. Sylia leaped off of her bike and
looked over at Priss. "Priss, take my motoslave and run interference and
keep the ADP from following the van. Try not to get spotted. If you need
help, Linna will be on backup." Sylia took a deep breath. "Nene, run a scan
on our guest. We need to make sure she has no tracers or other surveillance
devices. How bad is she?" The truck started up, driving back to base.



"It looks pretty bad. The only thing holding her together is her
cybernetics. Life signs are falling, most of her life support systems are
crashing. We're going to have to try and repair her systems now," Nene said
as she ran her sensors. "She'll never make it back to base."



"No tracers?" Sylia asked again, hands on the side of her helmet. Nene shook
her head. Sylia popped her helmet off and detached her gauntlets. Mackie was
already out of his suit and prepping a repair kit. Nene reached into a
compartment, grabbing the emergency surgery kit.



Linna watched in amazement as the three worked together to save the life of
Naoko. Nene was still doing her job of support, using her sensors to target
which systems needed to be repaired first. Mackie and Sylia used either
tools or knives to open her up and work to repair her systems. It was an
incredible sight.



An agonizing ten minutes later, they had her stabilized.



Nene popped her helmet off and looked over at Sylia. "Thanks for backing me
up there," Nene said softly.



"If I didn't, why would you follow me? Loyalty works both ways." Sylia said
softly, as she wiped her hands off. Red mixed with the strange yellow fluids
that composed many of the internal systems of the boomeroid.



Linna piped up from where she sat, holding her helmet. "That has to be the
bravest thing I've ever seen you do, Nene. Usually you're screaming and
kicking, unless you totally outclass your opponent."



Nene just smiled wanly. "I didn't feel very brave. My heart just about
stopped when my force field didn't work."



Sylia had just finished getting out of her hardsuit. "Bravery is not about
not knowing fear. It is overcoming it, conquering it. The sort of bravery
without fear is better known as foolishness." Sylia tossed the towel over to
Mackie who also needed to clean his hands off.



Sylia looked over at Mackie and then said to him. "You need to paint your
suit. I think I used your name once. No one heard it, I think, but we can't
trust that will happen every time."



Mackie smiled and replied, "I've been thinking of a dark purple actually."



-



Leon sat up as the Knight Sabers truck pulled into its bay. Priss pulled up
on the bright blue motoslave. The side door opened and Sylia and Linna
struggled a bit to carry the comatose form of Naoko out of the truck.



"You guys don't pull your punches much, do you Sylia? That was some show you
guys put on," Leon said, as he leaned up against a support beam.



Priss took her helmet off and groaned. "Oh, great. We try to avoid being
recorded. It makes it harder to tell what we can do and what we look like."



"How public, Leon?" Sylia asked.



"CNN MegaTokyo. They're running it right now. Officer Neil Brandon doesn't
look too happy. All of the local and online news stations are doing 'in
depth' investigations. Maybe it's not such a bad time to be on suspension!"
Leon smirked.



Linna just glared at him. "Could we get a hand? She's heavy."



Leon walked over and helped carry Naoko to the medical unit. "She's really
messed up. Poor kid. To be dragged into this war."



Sylia sat there thinking as she studied Naoko. "She wasn't supposed to live.
Some one framed her and then set it up so that the ADP would kill her."



Leon sat for a moment. "Yeah, I saw that. Brandon looked like a real thug.
Makes the ADP look bad."



Sylia sat looking at Leon, a small smile growing on her lips. "Maybe we just
need the right person to be her advocate."



Leon looked behind him for a moment. "Who, me?"



"First off, we need to get Naoko fixed up and looking less like a boomer.
Then you, Leon, are going to take her into police protective custody.
Somebody is trying to hide something. Let's try to uncover what it is,"
Sylia stated. "I'll get in touch with you in a few days, Leon. Try to get
back on the force as soon as possible."



"You don't ask for much, do you?" Leon asked curiously.



Linna smiled. "Ah, poor baby!"



Nene smiled with everyone else, until a voice spoke up again. 'What's so
funny?' Nene's face fell. It couldn't be, that was just her imagination.
'I'm not your imagination. I'm Meg, remember?'



'What sort of armor is Priss wearing?' the strange voice asked.



Nene followed the conversation between Priss and Sylia. She desperately
tried to ignore the quiet voice in her head.



'Look, I didn't mean this to happen. I'm really sorry, but you're not
helping here.' Meg's voice wouldn't go away. Mackie looked over at Nene
inquisitively.



"Are you all right, Nene?" Mackie asked, concern evident on his face.



"Sure!" Nene forced out louder than she meant too. Sylia and Leon glanced
over.



'Priss is a Knight Saber? What are the odds of me running into a Knight
Saber in her civilian clothes? Then again, the life of a super-heroine is
one big coincidence.' Meg asked Nene, 'Nene, can you hear me? Nene? Please,
don't ignore me! I'm almost a ghost here,' Meg started to plead.



"Shut up! Just shut up! Get out of my head!" Nene screamed suddenly.
Grabbing her head, she rushed out of the room. Everyone stopped and stared
at the door Nene had just went through.



Leon looked around and then asked innocently, "What was that all about?"



Linna looked at Priss and they both replied, "I don't know."



Sylia continued to look at the door. "I may. I hope it isn't. But I may
know."



Mackie just looked worried.



-



The scene, a darkened room, back lit with glowing lights. A figure sat at a
huge control console, his helmet laying by his side. The right half of his
face was covered in metal. The eye on that side glowed with an eerie red
radiance.



Polarion stood up and walked over to the windows. They overlooked a large
warehouse. Out in the warehouse, boomers moved back and worth. A few human
technicians over saw the entire construction. Six odd devices, three stories
tall were being built. They loomed over everything, standing like pillars or
rockets of some sort. Strange exotic ports, conduits and powerful generators
were packed into the devices. Each one was the size of a small building.



"Soon. A week or so at the most. And then this world will grovel beneath my
heal. And the people who betrayed me will be crucified for their idiocy,"
Polarion said beneath his breath. The lights flickered and he focused to
bring himself back in control. "Control, Dirk. Control is the most important
thing. Control will bring you to your destiny. Control is your destiny."



The lights stopped flickering. A deep voiced laughter filtered down to the
workers below.



-



'I'm really sorry. You aren't going insane.'



"Yeah, right." Nene said a she sat huddled on the center of her bed. 'I'm
going insane. Cyber psychosis is setting in already,' Nene thought to
herself.



'You have cybernetics?' Meg asked. 'You look normal.'



'Neural interface. A dangerous direct access to the brain,' Nene replied
silently.



'Oh. And you think it might be causing problems?' Meg asked.



'It's totally normal to have an extra voice in your head. Right?' Nene
shouted silently. Her face scrunched up.



The voice was silent for a while. When it came back, it startled Nene. 'Ask
Priss what I ordered at Yoshi's that day that I met her for lunch. I offered
to take her shopping, but she said she'd been paged,' Meg finally said. 'If
I was a figment of your imagination, she wouldn't know who I was. Or what I
had done.'



'Yeah, sure. Like they don't think I'm nuts already,' Nene thought to
herself.



Nene's door opened and Sylia walked in. She sat down and just waited for
Nene to say something. The wait lasted minutes.



"I think I'm going insane, Sylia. And it terrifies me."



"You think you are suffering from cyber-psychosis?" Sylia replied calmly.



"I can't be sure. She says that she knows Priss. She's even got her own
name. She calls herself 'Meg'. I'm so scared," Nene said.



"Meg Jones?" Sylia's surprise was very evident. "That's our mysterious
transmuter."



"No. It couldn't be." Nene looked up, hope in her eyes.



'Transmuter? How does she know about that,' Meg interrupted, aghast. 'That's
one thing I try to never let people know I can do.'



"Yes, that was the name that Priss gave me. You remember the ball point pen
made of gold? The one that was too pure?" Sylia rubbed her chin, thinking
hard.



'She's the brain of your group, isn't she?' Meg asked Nene silently.



'Yes, she is.' Nene responded silently.



'Most of my powers were based on a hyper-dimensional extensions of my life
force. In many ways, I was an energy being that happened to be connected to
a physical three dimensional host. At least that how Blackbird described it
to me one time.' Meg said.



"Um, Sylia, Meg says that she's some sort of energy creature that just
happens to be connected to a physical host." Nene couldn't believe she was
going along with this.



"Able to manipulate tachyons and energy fields?" Sylia said, trying to catch
her in an error.



'No, gravitons and energy/mass. Matter is a static form of energy, I guess.
At least that's what I was told,' Meg said. Nene relayed it aloud to Sylia.



"Hmm. Let's take you down to the medical unit and check your EKG's and
mental wave patterns." If she really was an aberration of Nene's psyche, she
wouldn't show up at all.



After about ten minutes, Sylia had Nene connected up to the analyzer. She
ran through some basic mental exercises, trying to spot anything abnormal.
"Your clean, as far as I can tell. There does appear to be some minor
burnout in your new cybernetics. Easily repaired." Sylia said. Something
nagged at her. There should have been brain damage with that.



"Oh, good!" Nene said.



One of the monitor lines spiked, as Meg spoke silently, 'So I'm not really a
part of your mind?'



Sylia studied her. "That was your auditory neural area. Did you just hear
her again?"



Nene nodded.



Sylia reached around and plugged the computer into Nene's cybernetic jack.
"Have her continue to talk please." Sylia started to type in commands,
bringing up old decoders for artificial intelligence designs. Strange sounds
started to emerge from the computer, slowly resolving itself into a female
voice, speaking American English, with a distinctly southern accent.



"That didn't take long!" Meg exclaimed.



"Hello, Meg. Would you mind explaining how you came to be attached to Nene?"
Sylia asked in passable English.



"I attempted to pass my powers on when it looked like I was going to be
killed. My powers were originally given to me through a similar process. I
guess I transferred myself with my powers," Meg's voice drifted out of the
speaker.



"And what powers did you have?" Sylia asked. This was absolutely
fascinating. It was almost magical, but seemed to be rooted in incredibly
advanced sciences.



"Regeneration, energy blasts, transmutation, force fields and gravity
manipulation," Meg responded.



"I don't have any of those powers!" Nene exclaimed.



"You healed very fast, Nene." Sylia replied.



"Only that one time!" Nene said.



"And the partial burnout of your neural cyberware? That could have, should
have, caused irreparable brain damage. And yet you recovered within minutes.
We can test it easily enough." Sylia held up a surgical knife. Nene gulped
and just about fainted.



"Close your eyes, Nene," Sylia said and then with a quick swipe, cut the
skin on her arm.



Nene yelped out a cry of pain. "You didn't warn me!" Nene accused Sylia.



"It would have just prolonged your anticipation." Very carefully, she
bandaged the wound and then took the bandage off. Wiping the wound off, she
looked on in consternation as the wound healed. In a few moments, it had
started to scar up.



"That wasn't very fast!" Meg said through the speakers.



"Fast enough. Amazing," Sylia said. Disconnecting her from the computers,
Sylia dragged Nene to her lab and sat her in front of an odd apparatus.



Sylia sat at a computer and reached over and put on a set of headphones. She
started to recalibrate her machines to scan for unusual energies. Normally,
they were used checking the hardsuits for damage or flaws. But they were of
sufficient sensitivity for other work.



Nene sat there, absently scratching her cut. In minutes it had totally
healed. An odd buzzing was disturbing her. Nene focused on it and
understanding dawned. She concentrated on deciphering the data and realized
that she was accidentally receiving Sylia's interfacing with a computer.



"Sylia, I'm, um, getting some noise from whatever you are doing," Nene said
quietly.



The flow of information slowed for second. 'You had a short range radio put
in, didn't you?' Sylia's voice drifted across the radio cyber link.



'Yes. Oh, wow! You have a neural link? I had wondered how you managed to do
that,' Nene said, as she interfaced with the computer and Sylia. She tagged
along, watching in awe as Sylia worked. 'Would you like some help?' Nene
asked.



'Go ahead. Just don't get in my way, if you can help it,' Sylia responded.
She hadn't expected this.



Different scanners and sensors activating, looking in and through Nene. For
just a second, they both thought they saw an image of a girl, superimposed
over Nene.



'Aieeeee!' Meg screamed and then was silent.



'Sylia, I don't feel her anymore. Did we just hurt her?' Nene asked.



Sylia deactivated the scanner that had caused the problem. 'Can you hear her
anymore?'



"No." Nene said aloud. "But she's not there all the time. She gets tired."



Sylia reached up and took off the head phones. "Well, I'm convinced that
this wasn't a case of cyber-psychosis. There was something there. I'll have
to build some specific devices to test further."



"You don't know what happened, do you?" Nene said.



"No, Nene, I really don't understand how this is possible. At least not yet.
Hopefully, we didn't do anything to permanently damage to her," Sylia said.
But I will figure it out, Sylia promised herself.



Nene stretched and then asked Sylia, "So where is everybody?"



"I had Priss take them out to eat. If you want, we can try to catch up,"
Sylia said while standing up.



"Food? Sure." Nene stood up and dashed off to change. Relief had regained
her appetite.



-



Leon looked across at the table. "So what do the rest of you guys do?"



Linna looked up from her menu. "I'm a office assistant. I'm thinking about a
different career, though."



Mackie said with out looking up, "Oh, I'm just a student. I'm going to be
going to MegaTokyo University. Priss is the glamorous one."



"Hey, I know. Priss's number one fan, that's me!" Leon said smiling. Priss
kicked him under the table. "So this is only a part time job?" Leon ignored
the kick.



"Yep. After all, we are supposed to have some sort of normal life." Mackie
said. "I'm planning on being a scientist like my dad. Though I think my
sister is smarter than I am."



Leon slipped his glasses off and glanced around the room. "Who's your dad?"



Mackie just stared at Leon for a moment. "You don't know? I'd have thought
you would know the name of the man who invented the boomer."



"Stingray? Sure. You're his kid? I didn't know he had any kids." Leon just
looked over at him in surprise.



Leon spotted Sylia and Nene walking into the front of the restaurant in a
reflection. "Looks like your sister and Nene just got here. Any idea about
what happened?"



"Cyber-psychosis. Some people can't cope." Priss said.



"Priss! I can't believe you sometimes. Nene's doing her best for the team
and you're ragging on her." Linna glared at Priss.



"Oh? Well it was her choice. She's either going to tough it out, or she's
going to sink," Priss replied with calm indifference and a toss of her head.



"Yeah. Sink or swim. I've known some officers that got replacement parts.
It's really tough ride," Leon said softly, surprising everyone.



Nene and Sylia walked up. Sylia sat next to Priss, while Nene waited for
Leon to stand up so she could sit next to Mackie. Leon pretended to ignore
her. "Leon, do you mind. I'd like to sit by Mackie." She poked him with a
finger.



"No need to get pushy! I'm moving already." Nene moved out of the way and
then watched him suspiciously. She slid in next to Mackie. Nene squeezed his
hand and then looked over to Sylia.



"Luckily, Nene doesn't appear to be suffering from cyber-psychosis. We've
determined the external source of her distress and we'll be working on a
solution." Sylia said over her menu. Mackie looked quite relieved. Nene felt
an odd feeling of comfort when she saw that.



"Leon, it wouldn't be odd for you to take a side job right now. I'd like you
to hit the streets to figure out how the Golden Curtain got a combat boomer.
Priss and Linna will be working with you. Nene, Mackie and I will be working
on repairs and getting Priss's new motoslave made. We've got a busy couple
of days," Sylia said a she put down the menu.



"It's been busy these last couple of weeks. Any idea why?" Linna asked.



"No, not really. Genom's politics can be murky at the best of times. No one
truly knows why Genom does some of their extra legal operations. We should
try to find out." Sylia took a deep breath and continued. "There are many
better ways to test combat boomers then letting them loose in the city. But
they continue to do so. They advance boomer technology and then sell limited
technology. Their combat boomers are years in advance of anybody else's. But
their hyper-boomers are almost a decade ahead of that."



"And comparable to us," Linna piped up.



"Yes. I'm getting very worried. If Genom is up to something then we should
all be worried. If they are almost done with their plans, we could be too
late. And that could be catastrophic."



-



Nene stood next to Naoko, looking at the monitors. It reminded her too much
of visiting a hospital. She still showed up as critical. Nene adjusted the
sensors as best as possible.



"Don't worry Naoko, we'll fix you up. I promise," Nene said as she turned to
leave.



Naoko stirred for just a moment and then fell back into a quiet sleep.



-



The next couple of days saw Leon, Priss and Linna working on the street.
They either worked in pairs when they could or by themselves if they felt
safe. No definite leads surfaced, but they found many rumors of Genom
selling old combat boomers, at a fairly inexpensive cost. The Yakuza had
been rumored to have purchased dozens already.



Leon met up with Priss and Linna at a park. Leon had a handful of vendor
food and was leading the way through the park.



"So you're going to be let back on the force?" Linna asked.



"That's the talk. I guess they can't get enough of me!" Leon replied with a
wide smile.



"Sure, right Leon. And if your ego got any bigger, your head would explode,"
Priss said with a surly tone. It was a bright and sunny day and her eyes
hurt in the light.



"Anyway, back to the job. We've all agreed. No real leads, but definitely
signs that Genom is selling more combat boomers than their records show? And
not being that picky about who they sell it to?" Leon munched for a moment.



Priss and Linna both nodded.



"Is anyone as scared as I am?" Again they both nodded. Leon sighed. "We've
got to find out who's behind this, or the streets are going to turn into a
war zone. A very bloody war zone."



"Absolutely. If we don't stop this soon, we are going to have way too much
work to do. And my social life is bad enough as is," Linna said.



"Hey, if you're free this Friday, I've got the time," Leon said with his
best smile.



Priss just sighed and then hit Leon in the stomach, hard. "Your already busy
Friday. Remember?"



"Sure, sure, I remember." Leon said between gasps. "I was just feeling
neglected. That's all!" Leon glanced over at Linna and winked.



Linna just shook her head. She just didn't see what Priss saw in him. He was
a flirt and shameless. Linna started laughing. Maybe they were perfect for
each other.



Priss just stared at Linna with a look of dislike. She was definitely
getting the feeling that she was being picked on.



Leon looked over at Priss and asked, "Is she always like this?"



Priss just gave them both a disgusted look and didn't bother to respond.



-



A large truck turned off the road and slowed down. The sky was cloudy, but
it appeared that there wasn't anyone around. The truck driver pulled into a
field next an old building. The large Negro got out of the truck and looked
around. Seemingly satisfied, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a
small electronic box, pressing a button. His partner spit his cud and looked
around. He casually checked his automatic weapon.



Nothing seemed to happen for moments. Then off in the distance, a low
rumbling could be heard. The driver looked around and then at the last
moment spotted a large transport breaking through the clouds, coming into a
vertical landing. The wind kicked up for a moment and then subsided. It's
back loader dropped down and three figures stood there.



Sylia looked at the contact. "You have our items?"



"I sure do, if you have the money." The large man said. He looked around
nervously. This was not what he was expecting. The Knight Sabers. He had
thought they were a joke, now he wasn't so sure. He been in a few wars and
seen hardsuits in action. These were professionals. His partner nervously
fingered his gun. It had armor piercing shells and was a decent automatic.
It wouldn't do anything to these figures.



He walked around to the back and opened his truck. "Ten crates, unspecified
cargo. For delivery of thirty million yen, no questions asked."



"Red, check out the cargo. Make sure it hasn't been tampered with. Purple,
cover the access road, for any surprise visits," Sylia said, following the
trucker.



"It's clear. No surveillance devices detected, no explosives. Do you want me
to start to move the crates, White?" Nene asked Sylia. Nene lifts a large
crate.



"Go ahead. I'll be right with, as soon as I pay our contact." She handed a
briefcase to the driver. He checked it out thoroughly and then nodded. In
that time, Nene had already made three trips. Sylia waited until he had
finished.



"Satisfactory?"



He nodded.



She nodded back and then went to help move the crates. In a very short time,
they had everything transported. The Skycarrier lifted off and disappeared
into the clouds.



"So, Sylia, what did we just pick up?" Mackie asked.



"Some cybernetics and some... insurance. Also some highly illegal
technologies. Stolen items that I picked up." Sylia sat there for a moment.
"It's a good thing that I kept the Skycarrier around. It's going to take a
while to replace the Knightwing. Head to our second meeting, Mackie."



Minutes later, the Skycarrier floated into a remote landing area, on the
USSD proving grounds. Figures, wearing the USSD's new K-18 hardsuits landed
nearby. An unarmored figure strode out.



"Nene, your with me. Watch for sensors trying to figure our suits out. I'm
very worried about this meeting. The accepted every demand I made and still
wanted us to take a job for them." Sylia rechecked her hardsuit. Looking at
Mackie, she gave him his orders. "Be ready to leave when we get back. If we
aren't back in an hour, leave anyways."



Sylia and Nene walked over to the side entrance and hopped to the ground.
The sergeant in front of them saluted and then said, "Please follow me."



They were led in into a conference room. A colonial looked up from his paper
work. "Ah, Knight Sabers. I hope you had a pleasant journey." Nene checked
around, but didn't detect any sensors that could disseminate the hardsuits.



"All clear, White." Nene gave the hand sign that really said that they were
clear.



"Colonial Jansen, why don't we cut to the chase. You need us desperately.
Tell us the job." Sylia still felt extremely uncomfortable. Something about
this shrieked trap to her.



"Of, course. This gentleman was hired by us to eliminate or capture a very
threatening creature." A picture of Polarion was displayed on the screen.
"We became alarmed when he started to hold his own, in single combat with
this target." The colonial began. Another picture showed Maxim.



"Why was she so dangerous?" Sylia asked, testing the soldier.



"She, or more accurately, Maxim nee Meg Jones, became a threat to our world
when she moved the asteroid known as Juno into near earth orbit. We had a
creature that had the ability to move mountain ranges and if so disposed,
throw them at us. A special meeting of the UN Security Council was convened.
It was decided that all efforts would be put forth to eliminate or capture
her," Colonial Jensen outlined briefly, punctuating each comment with new
pictures.



Nene and Sylia's HUD flickered for a moment. Sylia ignored it for the moment
and Nene ran a self diagnostic. Some sort of magnetic interference Nene
thought to herself. "We were successful with the operation to eliminate
Maxim. Polarion was considered expendable. He then survived a near miss from
an orbital strike. He was upgraded to the second Omega class threat. It is
utterly imperative that we find him and stop him." A message flickered on
his private screen. "Miss Stingray, if you would accompany me? Admiral
Harrison would like to discuss some working arrangements."



Sylia froze. Nene said, "Uh, oh." Nene's hyper sensor popped out and started
to work overtime. Through the walls Nene could make out a high powered MRI
scanner powering down. Technicians were in the process of moving it back out
of the side room. That must be why she hadn't spotted it.



"Why should I talk to this admiral?" Sylia said.



"I'm not cleared to tell you. However it would be in your best interest to
follow." Colonial Jensen said.



"After you, Colonial," Sylia said. She opened a private channel to Nene.
'Status.'



'They used a very advanced MRI scanner. They could see right through the
armor. I don't know how they figured out who you were though,' Nene linked
up and replied. 'This is really bad isn't it?'



'Potentially disastrous. Keep your eyes peeled,' Sylia radioed back.



After a short walk and a long elevator ride down, they finally ended up in a
private office. Two hardsuited figures stood guard. Sylia looked at some of
her ideas and technology. Stolen by General Schwartz, no doubt. It took a
few minutes and the Colonial had to argue for a moment to let them pass.



They were finally let in and Admiral Hamilton. He stood up and waved toward
some chairs. "Please make yourself at ease." He sat back down. "I have to
apologize, but this seemed to be an expedient method of opening
negotiations. As you can obviously tell, we stole some of the designs used
in the Knight Saber armors. Necessary, but not the best arrangement. I would
rather have a more business like arrangement."



"You could have just approached the Knight Sabers," Sylia replied.



"Somehow, I doubt that you would have agreed to sell your technology,"
Admiral Hamilton said dryly. "We need the Knight Sabers to help us find
Polarion. That much of our contract with you was the truth. The obscene fee
was for damages, from the stolen designs. We needed a lever to get you to
the bargaining table. We need your supplier of technology. It is the only
set of hardsuits that is coming even comparable to the latest generation of
Genom's boomers. Who designs your hardsuits, Sylia Stingray?"



"I do." Sylia was thinking feverishly. This was rapidly turning into a
nightmare. Killing these men would not solve anything. They would have
contingencies.



"No design teams? Just you?" Admiral Hamilton said with obvious surprise.
"It's taken many of our best scientists over a year to decipher what you had
built."



"I have some help, but all of the designs are mine." Sylia sighed and took
her helmet off. "What sort of deal are you looking at, Admiral?" Sylia
really hated this. She was treading dangerous water, shark infested waters
at that. Or mine infested, more likely.



Nene shivered. Sylia is never outmaneuvered this badly. Hopefully, she'll
figure something out.



-



Mackie had gotten bored and decided to check out the cargo. He had opened up
several of the crates to find specially packaged containers of advanced
cybernetics. The last five crates were all identical and looked to be a bit
old. Using his suits musculature, he pried open one of boxes. What he found
startled him, causing him to gasp and take a step back.



In front of him, floating in a suspension, was a beautiful, naked girl. Her
eyes were open, staring blankly. No sign of life. Mackie saw a folder taped
to the front of the pod. Carefully, like he expected her to jump at him, he
reached out and picked up the folder. He started to scan through the
document.



Mackie muttered to himself. "Why would Sylia buy five sexeroids?" He
shrugged mentally and then sealed all of the crates back up. He had just
finished, when a knocking brought his attention back to the outside.



He unsealed the door and let Sylia and Nene in. Sylia slumped down and took
her helmet off. "You were supposed to leave after the hour was up," Sylia
said quietly.



"I figured I'd give you five minutes. What's wrong sis?" Mackie asked.



"I now work for the USSD," Sylia said staring off into the distance.



"Huh. Isn't that why you came here, to get a job?" Mackie asked.



"Mackie, she means Sylia Stingray works for the USSD. We were tricked. The
USSD knows who she is," Nene said as she took her helmet off.



"Uh, oh. How?" Mackie asked.



"They used an MRI to get a scan of our faces and, I guess, correlated it
with possible suspects. They have us over a barrel." Nene sat trying to
think of some way out. She was coming up a blank.



Sylia snapped out of her trance. "Back to base. We have some decisions to
make."



-



Linna was trotting along into the Silky Doll. She waved to a cashier and
went into the back area. She whistled a little ditty as the elevator went
up. She stepped out of the elevator and stopped. Everyone was here already.



"Come on in Linna and take a seat. Let's get started. Leon won't be able to
make it, the ADP just reinstated him." Sylia stood up and wandered over to
the window. She watched for a few minutes.



She turned back to them. "We need to decide the fate of the Knight Sabers.
My identity has been compromised by the USSD. I'm not sure how effective we
can be now. Our safety can not be guaranteed."



Linna and Priss gasped. "Are we going to let them get away with this?" Priss
jumped up and yelled.



"We don't have a lot of options. Nene pointed out to me that if I was
eliminated, the Knight Sabers would fail. I'm the weakest link, in many
ways."



"Ok. Big news, we live a dangerous life. So what else is new?" Priss
snorted.



"I don't think you understand, Priss. The USSD can hit us at any time and
force us into untenable contracts. It is far more dangerous."



"So. What. We'll figure a way out and it's not like Genom knows who we are.
We'd all be dead in that case," Priss said. "We aren't being attacked. What
does the USSD want?"



"They want me to help build their next generation of hardsuits. Sadly
enough, they are actually willing to pay handsomely for it," Sylia said as
she sat down.



Linna sat there thinking. "I think I have to agree with Priss. We live a
dangerous life. Let's make some precautions and then get back to work,"
Linna said finally.



Mackie nodded in agreement.



Nene nodded too. "I agree. We have the means, let's use them." Nene looked
at Sylia inquisitively. Sylia thought about what Nene was insinuating for a
moment and then nodded. They had agreed to this before hand. Nene put a
schematic on the screen and then other images of devices.



Nene stood up and then turned on the main viewer. She took a deep breath.
"You've all met my Mom?" Heads nodded. "She's the latest application of
mental imprinting of a deceased person into an AI." Priss scowled, Linna
blinked and Mackie again nodded.



"Sylia has developed a method for us to have this same capability. So even
death won't stop us. The ultimate insurance," Nene said.



"I don't want to be a boomer!" Priss jumped up, visibly shaking. Emotions
shook her like a leaf in the wind.



"What, a boomer like Sylvie?" Sylia said suddenly. "Boomers have the
potential to be people. Thinking, feeling people. My father destroyed the
distinction between man and machine when he created a machine that could
think, learn and care. And hate."



"Don't you bring Sylvie and Anri into this," Priss shouted a Sylia.



"I didn't bring them up. We won't force you. But, I won't let my enemies
have such a huge trump card while we don't. It's only a matter of time
before it becomes public," Sylia replied. Priss just gaped and slowly sat
down. She then cradled her head in her hands.



"On to other business. The USSD really did want to hire us, it seems. This
man is considered the most dangerous man on the planet." Sylia changed the
picture to a view of Polarion. "We have been hired to find him. That's all.
We have to be very careful. I am under the impression that they are willing
to destroy MegaTokyo to kill this man. They didn't say it, but I really
suspect they would."



"This is the information that we have on him. He can manipulate magnetism to
a variety of effects. Force fields, damaging blasts, mind reading in a
limited manner. He's also supposed to be a scientific genius, in the likes
of Einstein and Sylia's dad. He's ruthless and possible mad," Nene finished
up. Meg had come back and had invaluable information. She seemed to be
getting weaker though.



Mackie stood up. "We're going to be working on modifying our suits to
minimize his abilities. Hopefully, we don't have to confront him. We are
betting that we do."



Sylia spoke up again. "We are going to have to drop the investigation into
Genom's sale of boomer right now. This is too important. From some
information we gleaned, this 'Polarion' is powerful enough to destroy small
nations by himself. With enough planning, things could get much worse. He
displayed the power of a small nuclear bomb over Aqua City."



Priss whistled quietly.



Linna nodded. "I think I might have seen one of his men. Do you guys
remember that bank robbery a couple of weeks ago? It was right by my day job
and I checked the area out and spotted this guy."



Sylia asked, "What did he look like? Did you get a picture?"



Linna deflated. "No, sorry. I've got a rough description, but I can't
remember the details."



Nene piped up suddenly, "We could use the mental imprinting device. We use
it to record Linna and then have the computer scan for the guy!"



Sylia nodded and then looked at Linna. "If your up to it?"



Linna nodded. This wasn't what she had expected. She gulped.



-



A while later, Sylia and Nene worked with the new cybernetics to repair
Naoko Fuchi. Mackie was monitoring the surgery from the side, playing fetch.
He was watching Nene and Sylia closely. Schooling had taught him a lot about
robotics, but not that much about how to apply it cybernetics.



Nene was thoroughly focused on this task. She still didn't have any true
experience with surgery, so Sylia has asked her help on this. Sylia seemed
to have an uncanny grace and knack. Nene always felt so incompetent around
Sylia.



Mackie sat there watching for a moment. Neither of them had spoken for quite
a while, except to ask for some item or implement. They both moved with the
same easy grace, with very similar styles. Mackie couldn't understand how
Nene had gotten such skills. It was like she had just asked Sylia to give
them to her or something.



Mackie stopped for a second. Actually, he'd never asked Sylia where she had
gotten her skills. He'd always assumed that she had driven herself after
their father had been killed. But from some of his memories of that time,
she had already started to build and design the Knight Sabers hardsuits.
Mere days after their fathers death.



Surgery continued, finally finishing about five hours later. Naoko was
stable, so they took a break. They washed their hands and just sat down for
a few minutes. "Sylia, where did Nene get trained in cybernetics?" Mackie
asked.



Sylia looked over at Mackie and quickly took a small sip from her water
bottle. "The computer room."



Mackie just sat there for moment. "Where did you get your advanced
schooling?" He had guessed, but he wanted to confirm for himself.



"The data unit that father had delivered to me the day after he died. The
dead hand of our father, pushing me beyond his grave," Sylia said quietly.



"So why did you send me to school?" Mackie was confused. And a bit upset.



"So you would have the choice of what you wanted to do. You might have hated
working on boomers." Sylia sighed. "I was giving you the chance to get out
of this life. To be normal."



"Oh." Mackie sat down for a while and decided he needed to think about it
more. It didn't sound like it was as straight forward as he first thought.



"Well, shall we go back and see how our patient is?" Nene asked, breaking
the awkward silence. Sylia nodded.



Mackie asked, "Do you want me to wake her?" He sat down at the monitoring
station and started typing.



Sylia nodded. "Everything looks nominal. Turn off the sleep induced mode,
let's wake her." Nene moved closer to Naoko.



Naoko's eyes started to flutter open. "Your all right now. Your safe." Nene
murmured calm words, trying to sooth her.



"What happened? Nene? I remember the Knight Sabers and the ADP was going to
shoot me." Naoko started to cry wildly. She held up her hands. She stopped
crying suddenly. They looked normal. Even more importantly, they felt
normal.



Nene smiled. "Here, take a look in the mirror. Almost as good as new." In
many ways, far superior.



Naoko took the mirror and looked at herself. She could recognize herself
easily. She carefully prodded herself, to try a feel for the dead metal that
had been there. "How is it possible? They turned me into a boomer!" Naoko
asked.



"It took a lot of work and some really expensive equipment. But you
shouldn't be able to tell the difference," Nene responded spryly.



Naoko looked at Nene. "What did you do to your face!"



"Like it was safe to look like me anymore! It's not like I wanted to change.
I was pretty enough before! What do you think?" Nene said as she looked over
at Sylia.



"Very stable and she's adjusting very fast. I think we were successful,"
Sylia said.



Naoko looked at Sylia hard for a second. "Aren't you the owner of that
lingerie store? The one that Nene used to visit all the time?"



"Very astute. I help the Knight Sabers sometimes." Sylia hadn't expected
that Naoko would recognize her. That was troubling. Another unexpected
surprise.



"I don't know how to thank you. You put your lives and your reputation on
the line to save me," Naoko said as she stood up. She glanced over at
Mackie, but didn't recognize him.



"We do have something you can do. Some one tried to kill you and set you up.
We need you to tell the right people. If you can, we might be able to catch
those people and make them pay for what they've done," Nene said quietly.
"It could be dangerous. We are trying to get you police protection."



"I'm still having trouble believing that you're a Knight Saber, Nene. I'll
probably do it, but can I think about it for a while?" Naoko replied
quietly.



-



Leon was back at his desk, sitting back casually and glasses on. Chief Hyro
walked up and looked at him. "Hi, Chief. Want to talk to me?" Leon asked
nonchalantly.



"You can be really infuriating, you know that Leon?" Hyro said. "Yes, come
into my office." He turned around and walked back into his office.



Leon followed casually. He closed the door behind him. "So what's up?"



"Leon, I went out on a limb for you. Do you know why?" Hyro said staring out
his window.



"Nope," Leon replied.



"Because you are a decent cop. Your rude, crass and a total bore. But you'd
take a bullet for any of your men. You're the only man on the force that
keeps up morale. But you can't help known criminals." Hyro turned and looked
at him.



"Who? The Knight Sabers? They have saved so many lives it isn't funny.
They've saved the ADP's bacon more than once and they try not to make us
look like fools," Leon said calmly.



"One of them is also wanted for murder, Leon," Hyro said.



"Mason was one of the biggest problems of MegaTokyo. He got killed in a
private feud. He wanted to be in that fight," Leon replied hotly.



"All right, I'll admit that they did us a favor. But we can't be obvious
about letting them get away. Oh and I didn't say that and I'd have to disown
you if you get your butt in the sling again. Got it?" Hyro said, pointing
towards the door.



Leon nodded and walked back to his desk.



This new chief is going to take some getting used to, Leon though to
himself. But, I could get to like him.



"Hey, Leon, get your head out of the clouds," Priss said loudly, waving to
him. She held a bag up of fast food. "Or aren't you hungry?"



"I'm always hungry. How's it going?" Leon asked as he dug into the paper
bag.



"Oh, not too bad," Priss said as she casually put a disk on his keyboard.
She sat down on his desk. "Are we still on for Friday? After my show?"



"Sure, wouldn't miss it for the world. How's the gang," Leon asked in
between gulps.



"Oh, there's been some changes and you won't believe our insurance package.
It's obscene," Priss said as lightly as she could. "Give me a call later,
ok? I really need to talk to you."



"Sure. Are you all right?" Leon asked as Priss started to get up.



"Yeah. I just have to think some things through. It's... personal," Priss
said, almost too softly to be heard.



"If you need anything, give me call." He stood there for just a moment and
then gave her a quick hug.



"Thanks. I needed that to hear that." She also needed that hug.



-



Nene whistled to herself as she puttered around the lab. A naked female form
lay on a table. Wires were attached at a few points on its neck, where
artificial flesh had been cut back. "Ready for your new permanent home,
Mom?"



"Yes!" Nina's voice came from a speaker. Nene sat down and linked to the
computer. She ran through commands and procedures. Eventually, she stopped
and dramatically, pushed the enter key.



"And let's give it ten minutes and you should be done!" Nene said as she
went and quickly made a cup of coffee. She waited the time and then went
over and checked on the body.



"Mom? Can you hear me?" Nene asked quietly. "Come on, wake up!"



"Oh, that was very disorienting. Don't do that too often." Nina said with
her new voice. "This is much better. I really hated that other body you put
me in. This one feels mostly normal. Well, human normal."



"Good. We'd better get you some clothes before Mackie wanders in." Nene
blushed a bit.



Nina sat up and looked around. Her mother didn't miss that. "How is Mackie?"



"He's... we're moving into an apartment later today. A two bedroom." Nene
finished abruptly.



"That seems, ah, premature doesn't it?" Nina asked, surprise evident on her
face.



"No! Mackie and I have like each other for a long time. This isn't a
permanent move unless we want it to be." Nene was really blushing now.



"Nene, you're trying to reassure me that you're not doing anything with him.
Don't lie. You're an adult, act like it. If you're moving in with your
boyfriend, it's not the end of my world," Nina said crossly.



"Yes, Mom. Sorry."



"Come here and give your mother a hug." Nene did and held on fiercely. Sobs
started to rack Nene. Nina barely held back tears herself. "There, there.
I'm here. I'm really here."



-



Leon picked up his phone as his printer ran. He dialed a number and a voice
picked up. "You aren't supposed to be calling me directly," it said crossly.



"It's important. Does this guy look familiar?" Leon said, grabbing the
picture off of his printer. He held it up to the camera.



"Maybe. What's it worth?" the voice asked.



"Only 10,000 yen. If you know were he is, 50,000 yen." Leon said, breaking
the disk Priss had left him.



"Yeah, I've seen him around the fracture zone. He was involved in buying a
large chunk of real estate really cheap. He's supposed to be involved in
some gang. New guy, gaijen, very sure of himself. Throws a lot of money
around for not being a big name."



"You're a life saver. I owe you one. Heck, I'll even pay for dinner
sometime. Where do you want the money sent?" Leon asked.



"I'll get it from you over dinner, when I give you the information," the
voice replied.



"Great, same place? Tonight at 8:00 PM. Thanks!" Leon said whistling a bit
tunelessly as he shredded the paper.



"What was that about, Leon?" Daley asked from his desk.



"Just keeping MegaTokyo safe. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it."
Leon leaned back on his chair and propped up his feet.



"Sure," Daley said with a sarcastic edge. What did the guy think, he was the
only thing in between us and the enemy?



-



Priss and Leon were the last ones to show up. They had come over directly
from Hot Legs. Sylia looked at them and asked, "Are you ready? We're going
to check out that location you got us. I want everybody ready to leave in
twenty minutes."



Priss nodded as she headed towards the changing room. Leon squinted at
Sylia. "What do you want me to do?"



"You and Nina will be in the truck, waiting to pick us up. The rest of us
will be working of finding him. If you could do that, we'd appreciate it."
Sylia said, as she slid her helmet on. The rest of the Knight Sabers piled
into the truck and drove off into the night.



A figure steps out of the alley, speaking into a hand held recorder. "Leon
McNicoll and Priscilla Asigari both entered the establishment known as the
Silky Doll at 12:38 PM. Roughly twenty minutes later, an unidentified large
cargo truck left. Leon McNicoll was at the drivers wheel with an
unidentified young lady in the passenger side. She had dark green hair and
occidental features. I couldn't see much beyond that. These are unusual
things for an ADP officer to be doing on his night off. I'm going to call
for a warrant and have the place searched." The sound of a match being lit
broke the silence, showing the face of Officer Giles as he lights a
cigarette. He thought to himself, I've got you now Leon. And I bet your
Knight Saber friends too.



He was turning to leave, when he noticed to figures ahead of him. One of the
figures spoke up. "Officer Giles, my name is Colonial Myers, USSD. I have
direct orders from the DIET for you to drop this investigation into McNicoll
and any of his acquaintances." Myers held up his identification for Giles to
read. He then handed the orders to Giles so that he could read it. It had
'Top Secret' written at the top of it.



"I can't do that. McNicoll is involved in illegal activities and consorting
with criminals. I'm going to go and get these orders revoked." Giles said
through clenched teeth. "And you government bastards aren't going to stop me
either."



"I'm sorry to hear that, Sir," Myers said, as Giles body twitched once and
then crumpled. "I was trying to save your life." To the air, he ordered,
"Get a clean up team here. I don't want a trace of DNA left over after we
are gone." He walked away as a large truck pulled up and men in jump suits
hopped out and started to clean up the area.



-



"Well, Nene?" Sylia asked.



"Locked up tighter than the Emperors Palace. All passive scans are showing a
very tight, quiet building. In fact, it doesn't even have normal building
noises. I can detect some sort of electrical field around the walls, barely.
It could be similar to my barrier system. A force field to keep out nosey
people," Nene said, working with the controls.



"Active scan?" Sylia asked.



"Not advisable. They would pick us up fast." Nene said.



Linna sighed. "Plan B. The sewers. I bet we have to help clean the suits
later."



"It wasn't that bad last time," Priss said as she clicked her helmet on.



"You didn't help last time. You had to run off to an engagement. Fairly
typical." Linna sniffed as she shot her comment right back. Priss prepared
to take umbrage.



"Ladies! Let's suit up and get in there. The sooner we do, the sooner we can
go home," Sylia ordered.



"Hey!" Mackie cried out.



"Oh, sorry Mackie. You too." Sylia really wished that he wasn't going. But
she wasn't going to stop him either.



"One second, Mackie." Nene took her helmet off and opened his hard suit up.
She reached in and kissed him deeply. "For luck." She clicked her helmet in
place, turning to hop out the door.



Sylia just stared at Nene as she looked around outside. Priss was lifting up
the cover to an oversized manhole and letting Linna go down first. Mackie
almost didn't fit and had to force his way a bit. Everyone else made it down
fine. Pencil lights clicked on and the Knight Sabers crept forward. Nene
started to disarm sensors when they got closer the large warehouse.



Leon looked over at Nina and said, "They'll be fine. They're the Knight
Sabers."



"Leon, I'm sure they will. But I'm still worried about my daughter," Nina
said.



-



"Preparations are finished, Sir. We can activate it at any time," a man in a
white lab coat said the seated figure.



Polarion nodded and spoke to himself. "I'm not going to fall into that trap
this time. Oh and I'm not going to leave a lowly lab assistant who can foul
up my plans."



The older man in the lab coat backed up against a wall. "What do you mean
gkah..." His voice cut off as a glowing vise tightened around his body
crushing every bone in his body instantly.



"Thank you for your long hours," Polarion said as he stood up, waving his
hand at the controls. Computers hummed and the sound of engines activated.
The bloody pulp that was a man landed on the ground with a sickening wet
sound.



Leon was relaxing and trying to catch a bit of sleep. He started to look
around, trying to figure out what was bugging him. Nina looked down the road
and pointed to the warehouse they were supposed to be watching.



"What is that?" Nina said.



"I have no idea."



They both stared as the building seemed explode, a group of large pillar
like objects floating out. One was at the center, the others were in a
circle around it. No obvious means of flying were apparent. Crackling beams
of energy jumped from one and to the other. In moments the beams merged to
form a crackling sphere of energy.



Slowly the ring of machines pushed further out, slowly pushing the sphere in
front of them. In a few minutes, they had expanded outwards to encompass the
city. Leon bent his neck back to look up at the center device, floating
higher into the air. A beam of light blasted from the sky and struck the
ground. Some sort of missile imbedded itself in the ground and started to
melt.



-



The Knight Sabers where thrown to the ground in the sewer at the same time.
A large chunk of the concrete ceiling started to collapse and Linna tackled
Sylia out of the way at the last moment. Then to the shock of everyone, the
ceiling started to drip silver streams that started to melt the concrete.



"Nanites!" Sylia cried out. "Your suits are immune to it. Try to push
towards the surface. You don't want to be buried alive." Everyone tried to
follow her advice, swimming desperately for the surface.



They broke the surface in a large room, as it's ceiling finished growing
together. Linna was the last one out and Priss had to blast at the
solidifying ground to get her out.



"It was a trap, right?" Priss gasped out loud.



"I... don't think so," Sylia said calmly. "Nene, give me a sensor sweep."



"We are in what appears to be a large room, about seventy-five feet up in a
building that's growing at a rate of... that can't be right. It's growing a
hundred feet a minute. We are just below the top section right now," Nene
said as her sensors fed her information.



"Knight Sabers, form up on me and let's try to get out of here," Sylia said
resolutely.



In a few minutes the Knight Sabers tried to find an exit. Every once in a
while, the building would shake and they had to grasp at the walls to avoid
falling down. Nene checked her sensors again.



"Sylia? Um, sorry. White? The building is still growing. We're about three
hundred feet up all ready. And it doesn't seem to be stopping."



Linna looked over at Priss and then said, "We're in big trouble, aren't we?"



"Yeah, I'd say so," Priss responded.



Sylia ignored them as she tried to come up with a plan to salvage the
operation.



-



Leon watched the building grow in front of his eyes. He looked over at Nina
and said, "I think we'd better get out of here. I get the feeling that
things are about to become distinctly unhealthy."



Nina nodded vigorously. "Me too! Let's go."



Leon threw the truck into reverse and started to turn it around. He had it
almost around, when one of the streams of silver touched the back tire.
"Damn," Leon said through clenched teeth. The tire started to dissolve, then
the back of the truck. Leon slammed the truck into high gear and peeled out.
"Hang on darling, I'm not going to stop for anything until the truck falls
apart!"



Nina just looked at Leon with wide eyes and grabbed a good hold of the
truck. In a few minutes they had left the fracture zone, heading south. All
of a sudden, the truck's engine red lined as all resistance gave out when
the drive shaft disintegrated. The truck shuddered, then shimmied to the
side, striking a building and sliding down the road for fifty feet. It
finally stopped, the back end of the truck a silver ruin.



Nina let out her breath that she'd been holding. "Wow, some ride. Well,
let's get out of here Leon. Leon?" She glanced at him up to where he leaned
up against the window on his door. Reaching over, she checked for a pulse.
It took a moment, but she found a weak pulse. Blood ran down the side of his
head. She tried to open her door, but found that the frame had bent and
jammed the door.



She pushed for a moment, but the door didn't budge. She slid her feet up
against the windshield and kicked as hard as she could. It started to buckle
slowly and came out. Nina crawled out and pulled Leon out afterwards. The
wall behind Leon bulged out and then poured a stream of silver. Nina
squeaked and pulled Leon as hard as she could, getting him out of the way at
the last moment.



She checked him over to make sure that the liquid hadn't splashed him. Leon
started to groan. She sighed, until her diagnostics came up, with a house
keeping problem. Malfunction in the left hand. Nina raised her left hand,
where a small circle of silver was starting to grow. "Leon. Leon! It's
starting to eat me away! LEON!"



Leon raised his head, shook it, gasping with pain. He looked at her with one
eye. "Nanites! Hold out your hand and close your eyes!" Leon yelled out.
Nina squeezed her eyes closed and held out her left hand. Leon gabbed her
arm with one hand and then pulled out his gun. Three shots rang out and Nina
gasped in agony. She opened her eyes and saw the remains of her hand on the
ground.



"My hand!" Nina gasped.



"Better than your arm or your head!" Leon said through gritted teeth. He
tried to stand, but only managed to get to his knees.



Nina looked over his shoulder and saw the truck crumple in on itself. There
was a stream of silver flowing back towards the tower, which seemed to
stretch impossibly tall. Even the remains of her hand were flowing uphill.
Nina shivered. "Can we get out of here?"



"Sure." Leon managed to stand finally. Looking around, he walked slowly up
the street. The sky seemed to catch on fire. And again. Leon shielded his
eyes with his hands and looked toward the sky. It seemed to be covered in
purple lightning. All of a sudden, bright pin points of lights flashed and
were absorbed by the lightning.



"What's that?" Leon asked Nina.



She just shook her head and cradled the destroyed end of her arm.



Leon thought for a moment and then yelled out. "Taxi!"



-



"Force field at ninety-eight percent and holding. System expansion at
seventy percent. Time until completion, twenty minutes," a pleasant female
voice said to Polarion. The control room was empty. The screens showed a
view from the air of Japan. A circle encompassed about half of the island.
Another screen showed a view of orbital satellites firing on the dome that
was enclosing Japan.



"Computer, time until the lightning cannon can be fired?" Polarion asked.



"Four minutes, thirty-five seconds," the voice answered.



"Computer, lock in these targets; The DIET Ministry building, the USSD
headquarters and the base of the pinnacle," Polarion iterated. "Prepare to
override all civilian TV and radio channels."



"Complying," the voice chimed.



Time seemed to creep by. The computer finally spoke up. "Lightning cannon at
fifty percent, capable of being fired once every twenty minutes currently.
Ready to override all channels at your request."



"Good. Computer, activate override." Polarion sat for a moment and then
stood. "People of Earth, I am Polarion, your new master. Your world
governments have already failed to breach my force field." He waved to the
screen of satellites firing on a glowing field surrounding Japan. "They are
going to be punished for trying to kill me. I will start with the government
of Japan and the local offices of the USSD."



Polarion reached forward and hit a few buttons. The screen behind him, with
a picture of the USSD Headquarters, starts to glow ominously. In the air
above the buildings, lightning starts to crackle and converge. A huge bolt
of lightning, over two miles high and hundreds of feet wide flickers into
life, strafing across the buildings. Where it touches, everything explodes.
The display shows a scene of carnage and people fleeing the area. A second
later, the barrage stops.



"Japan has one hour to surrender unconditionally. If they do not, I will
destroy MegaTokyo and then Kyoto. Other cities will follow. Do not think
that I will not, for I have no mercy. Not your war robots, nor your army
will save you." Polarion flipped a switch, turning off the camera. Casually,
he wondered where the Knight Sabers were. They were the closest things to
super-heroes on this world. It wouldn't matter, for his fortress was
impenetrable.



-



The Knight Saber stood still for a moment and then as a group turned towards
Sylia. Sylia reached up and opened the visor of her helmet. "This lunatic
needs to be stopped. He is a worse threat than we were told. If you want to
leave, you can," she said quietly.



Priss lifted her visor. "Why? You know we'd follow you to hell and back. I'm
in."



"Me too!" Nene said. Linna agreed and Mackie gave a thumbs up.



"Very well, then. We'll head up and try to catch him unaware. We can't show
him any mercy. We have to kill him. I know some of you will have a problem
doing that. Try your best. That's all I can ask," Sylia said as she reached
up and closed her visor.



The rest of the Knight Sabers followed suite, continuing to climb to the top
of the huge building.



-



Quincy sat at his desk, looking out over MegaTokyo. Katherine Madigan and
Matio Dansk stood in front of him. "Why didn't we know of this?"



"We had no idea that he was capable of creating such devices. It appears
that he built them in an old warehouse in the fracture zone and then
launched them unexpectedly. It has been able to withstand dozens of attacks
from particle beam cannons," Katherine said with a quiet confidence she did
not feel.



"We are bringing our full might for the DIET to surrender. Genom can exist
under any nation. The Tower can survive maybe three attacks from that
weapon. The ADP is already mounting an attack on that building that is
growing in the fracture zone," Dansk replied, sweating nervously.



"Where are the Knight Sabers? They would be normally involved already!"
Quincy asked, as he leaned further into the shadows.



Katherine and Matio looked at one another. Katherine spoke first. "They
haven't been seen yet. They are under hire from the USSD, but we aren't
going to be able to get any information from them. This has been a
devastating blow to the USSD."



"Very well. Continue on," Quincy said, dismissing them from his mind.
Katherine and Matio left quickly.



"It will be China. They don't realize that he will have planned for this,"
Quincy said to himself. The fools!



-



A field of rice, somewhere in China. The view zooms into a nondescript
bunker, covered in small vines. A claxon sounds, large doors opening in the
roof, revealing ballistic missiles. A rumbling is heard over the claxons.
Slowly the missile lifts out of its hidden bunker. It flies with dozens of
other identical missiles. They curve east headed towards MegaTokyo.



All of the missiles slow down as they get closer except for the lead
missile. That one streaks from its ballistic orbit, striking the glowing
field that surrounds Japan. Night turns to day, the shields straining under
the might of an incredible nuclear explosion.



The rest of the missiles slowly touch the glowing radiance, disappearing
without a trace.



-



The ADP prepared its strike, figuring that Polarion wouldn't have expected a
conventional attack on his tower. All of them shielded their eyes from a
blinding radiance in the sky. One of the officers looks to the other and
asks, "What was that?"



Officer Brandon squints up at the blinding glare. "I think that was a
nuclear bomb. The good news is, we're still alive. The bad news, it didn't
do anything to Polarion's fortress."



The radio squawked suddenly with orders. "All right men, move out." Brandon
yelled. Muttering to himself. "I've got a bad feeling about this."



The ADP forces opened fire on the tower, unleashing a barrage of rockets and
high caliber guns. The tower started to show some small signs of wear and
tear. Hope seemed surge through the men. A small cheer went up and they
continued their onslaught.



One of the drivers of the carriers happened to glance up as lightning
converged around the tower. "Get out of there, he's about to launch another
lightning barrage. Get out!" he yelled futilely into his radio.



The sky lit on fire as a sheet of lightning encircled the tower. The screams
of the men dying cut off as a ring of destruction glowed with unearthly
fire.



-



The Knight Sabers continue their search for Polarion. Nene had kept track of
how high they have climbed. They seemed to be going up forever. They had
managed to climb over a mile straight up.



Linna stepped into a side room, looking for some more stairs up. A large
door opened and gale force winds whipped up. With a frantic grab, Linna
managed to get a good hold before being swept out into the air. As she
watched several strange objects floated into the cavernous room. Just as
suddenly as they opened, the door closed.



"Sylia, I think you want to take a look at this," Linna said over her
shoulder.



The rest of the Knight Sabers ran towards her, all stopped short. Sylia
glanced around. "This might be our break. Nene, do a scan of these warheads.
Priss, help me uncrate it. Linna and Mackie, keep watch."



Nene spoke up quietly, "Real time schematic ready when you are. Each missile
has eight warheads. No dead man triggers."



Priss hissed out a breath and took a step back. Sylia looked over at Nene.
"Link up with me and give me the data."



Nene hooked up a cable to Sylia's hardsuit. Sylia then popped out her right
blade and started to carefully cut her way into the warheads.



-



Polarion sat in front of his view screens, watching the destruction of the
ADP. He cupped his hands to his chin and leaned forward. Reaching a
decision, he stood and hit a button.



"People of MegaTokyo, your last, best defense has shattered itself on my
walls. Your Advanced Police lies in ruin at my feet. I sincerely hope that
was the last gasps of your defiance." He gestured to another screen, the one
that has the DIET ministry building. "Perhaps another demonstration of my
complete control of your very lives?"



He waved his hand and lightning could be seen to gather in the sky above the
ministry building. Sheets of lightning rain down from the sky, striking in
two lines. Amazingly enough, the building itself wasn't touched. From the
air, it looked like a large 'X' had been drawn underneath the building.



Outside, in downtown MegaTokyo's business district, Polarion's huge
holographic image spoke to the crowd. "My meaning is clear. I will brook no
more dissension, no more defiance. If your government sends one more signal
of resistance, I will destroy MegaTokyo!" The image pulled back so that you
could see Polarion sitting at his command booth. Most of the command room
can be seen. Polarion reaches for the switch to turn off the transmission.



"Knight Sabers, GO!" A familiar voice cries out as the Knight Sabers come
barreling into the room from the main entrance. Polarion had but a moment to
react, covering himself in a glowing field. He is staggered back by sudden
attack from the White Knight Saber's palm cannons.



Polarion retaliates against Sylia with a blast of pure lightning. It strikes
the wall right beside Sylia, scoring a deep mark. Priss then charged from
behind at almost the same time, charging her knuckle bombers. A thundering
explosion resounds, letting Priss dance away unscathed.



With his force field flickering even more pronounced, Polarion reaches out
and grabs the remains of his chair with glowing beams of energy and throws
it at the blue garbed Knight Saber. Thrusters on her back blared to life,
moving Priss to the side at the last moment. The debris strikes the wall
with a crash, tearing a large whole in the wall. The night time sky of space
can be seen clearly outside.



Nene and Sylia both open fire with their weapons again. Polarion is
staggered again, but with a wrench of his will stops his movement. He raises
his hand to fire another blast at Sylia, saying aloud. "You are the Knight
Saber's leader. Crush you and your tin women will fall."



Just as he is about to unleash his attack, he is hit in the back of his head
with a mechanized enhanced kick. Linna lands to the side of him, her back to
him. With a fast and powerful pivot, she unleashes a wheel kick right into
Polarion's stomach. Linna evaded across the ground by doing a back flip that
ends up being a cartwheel.



Ignoring her for just a second, he looks around and sees the hated White
Knight Saber flying through the air, firing those palm cannons again. In the
back of his mind, he notices the Red Knight Saber ducking behind his
computer banks. He shoots a blast at the leader, knowing that she will avoid
it fairly easily. It exerts a huge magnetic pull, that only slightly affects
Sylia's course. That was not expected. They are shielded!



Polarion staggers again, being thrown off of his feet by a huge blast
directly from behind. Priss's back mounted cannons swivel and disappear
behind her. She then prepares to duck.



Polarion floats into the air, surrounding himself in an even stronger force
field. "I have had just about enough of you and your Knight Sabers. I will
not be stopped on the morning of my ascent. Mere women in power armor will
not stop me. I. WILL. NOT. LOSE. AGAIN." With his last pronouncement, he
unleashed a barrage at the walls that rips most of the roof off of the
command center.



Down on the streets of MegaTokyo, the average citizen holds their breath,
waiting for possible salvation. On the displays in store windows, you see
Polarion floating in howling winds. The Knight Sabers are clutching at the
ground.



"I win. I WIN. Nothing can stand up to me on this world Nothing!" Polarion
starts to rant and rave. Behind the computer console, Nene disconnects
herself from the computers.



Nene stands and fires fast bursts of plasma at Polarion from her new cannon,
then lets go and is swept out into the air. Sylia and Priss both leap to try
and stop her, but are swept along over the edge. The only visible Knight
Saber is the Green and Orange. She looks down over the edge. You can see a
dizzying view of MegaTokyo from over two miles in the air. She hesitates for
just a moment.



A mistake that costs her. A glowing beam strikes her, enwrapping her in a
purplish force. Polarion gestures and Linna's hardsuit floats closer to
them. "Do not worry, young lady. They won't strike the ground. Long before
they hit the ground, the lightning cannon will destroy them. You on the
other hand, will be my proof that I have utterly destroyed the Knight
Sabers." He exerted an incredible magnetic field to warp gravity itself to
his bidding.



Linna gaspe as her armor starts to be crushed, with her inside of it. "A
warrior who has embraced death can not lose. You have already lost,
Polarion," Linna gasped out as she is being crushed. Polarion watches in
amusement for just a moment, until a massive explosion again strikes his
force field. It knocks him down and he goes flying toward the edge of the
room. The force holding Linna flickers out.



Standing behind Polarion is the dark purple of a larger, bulkier hard suit.
Mackie lowers his bazooka and then leaps and catches Linna, pushing them
both over the edge. Polarion shakes his head for just a moment.



"Time to leave!" Mackie yelled as he went over the edge.



"Why did they leap?" Polarion mumbles to himself, as he staggers to his
feet.



The command center has been slowly rebuilding itself. Polarion noted in
passing that the orbital satellites have begun their attack again.
"Computer, find their entry point and track where the Knight Sabers have
been."



The computer intones in its friendly female voice. "The Knight Sabers only
notable place that they have been in this room and storage bay number one."



"What? The nuclear weapons storage bay? Computer, account for all war
heads." Polarion started to sweat. Could this fight have been a diversion,
he wondered to himself?



"All but two warheads are accounted for." The computer voice said in its
monotone voice. Its voice changed becoming higher pitched and more cheerful.
"Activating emergency containment field. Thank you for falling for our
trap," Nene's voice said with a touch of finality. A little digital readout
finishes its count down, five seconds showing.



"No! No!" Polarion screamed loudly, as he attempted to fly out of the
building. He struck his own force field and lightning arced from him to the
building. The digital readout finished counting down to zero and in it's
hiding place just outside the control room, the stolen nuclear warhead
detonated.



-



Night was turned to day, as a new sun is born over MegaTokyo. The citizens
of MegaTokyo raise their hands to shield their eyes.



The Knight Sabers haven't finished their job yet. They still had to save
themselves. Sylia had already caught Nene and Priss and had managed to slow
them down a bit. "Everyone, try to angle towards the bay. You should be able
to slow yourself down enough to avoid serious injuries," Sylia commanded.



"I really want flight capabilities on my next upgrade, Sylia. This falling
from the sky is for the birds!" Nene said in a half whine, half joking
voice.



"I just might. This does seem to be becoming a habit," Sylia said. She
glances around quickly. "Where are Linna and Mackie?"



"Behind by about a thousand feet. Sylia, we aren't going to make it. We're
going to fall short by about a half klick," Nene said as calmly as she
could.



"Don't say that, Nene," Priss yelled.



"What do you want me to do, lie?" Nene yelled right back at Priss.



"Options, anyone?" Sylia asked loudly, trying to stall their panic.



Everyone glanced at each other. Linna spoke up finally. "How about using the
spire as a brake? I mean use our thrusters to slide into the side and then
grabbing a hold and slowing down?"



"The spire is breaking up. I think it used force fields to be so tall. So
that idea won't work," Sylia said, glancing at the spire.



"How about asking for a pickup? It always works in the movies!" a familiar
male voice said over the communicator.



"Leon!" the Knight Sabers cried out in unison.



"Where are you?" Sylia demanded.



"Twelve o'clock high and coming in fairly fast. Nina, open the loading
hatch. Anyone want a ride?" Leon said with a huge smile on his face. He was
working the controls on the Sky Carrier. He wished he'd brushed up a bit on
flying. It had been years since he'd been in a cockpit.



"Leon, I could kiss you. Just don't screw this up, you got it?" Priss said
with a smile. The Sky Carrier slowly passed them, its bay doors opening.
Sylia activated her thrusters and guided Priss and Nene in.



The ground was looming up very fast. Leon was working the controls as fast
as possible to get the last two Knight Sabers in. Linna glanced at the
ground and at how fast the Sky Carrier was coming for them.



"We aren't going to make it Mackie. Just one chance. Leon, when I tell you
to pull up, you pull out no matter what, you got it?" Linna said, her
breathing getting faster. She reached over and grabbed Mackie's hardsuit and
threw it with all of her might towards the Sky Carrier. Mackie squawked as
Linna went flying away from the Sky Carrier and he landed in it!



"Leon, pull up. Now!" Linna yelled. The Sky Carrier started to pull away and
to safety, moments before it would have crashed into the ground. Just one
chance, Linna thought to herself. She disengaged a setting and then fired
one of her blades at the Sky Carrier. With a desperate flick of her wrist,
its molecularly bonded wire wrapped around one of the supports on the bay
door.



With a wrench, she was pulled behind the Sky Carrier as it started to level
out. Her dagger and wire started to come loose, until a pair of white
armored hands grabbed them and wrapped themselves around the bar. "Oh, no
you don't," Sylia said quietly. I'm not losing anybody today, if I can help
it, Sylia thought to herself.



>From up front you can hear Leon starting to swear. "Hang on, we're below
roof top level." He pushed and jockeyed the controls, trying to gain
altitude and slow down at the same time as the ship shook violently. He was
just about there when he had to pull to right to avoid a tower of solar
panels.



Linna wasn't so lucky, as she was whipped around and her right leg slammed
into steal and glass at over three hundred kilometers an hour. She felt an
impact and then mind numbing pain. A gasp of pain escaped her lips, then
darkness caught her in its ebon embrace. The wire snapped, sending Linna
falling from the sky.



Leon finally got the plane under control, trying to get the plane to slow
down and hover. Sylia let go of the wire and dagger and suddenly leaped into
the air. Her hardsuit's wings unfolded and she flew out to grab Linna. She
winged around, flying back into the back of the sky carrier. "Mackie, I need
the surgery kit." The doors of the Sky Carrier closed behind her. She tapped
in a command and with a bang, Linna's hardsuit fell into a dozen pieces.



Nene ran an ultrasound on Linna's leg. She looked at the reading in
consternation. "Sylia, there's more of her leg that is broken than isn't. It
looks to be a lot of bleeding."



Sylia could see that too. The best she could do was to tourniquet it and get
her to a real doctor. "Back to base, Leon." They would deal with it as best
as possible.



-



"...and again, public officials are stressing the importance of staying
inside as much as possible, or evacuating to underground shelters. The winds
are very favorable, with most of the radiation is being pushed out to the
Pacific. In other news, the Chinese government is still deciding what
response it should make to our call for help. Red Cross volunteers from
around the world are just waiting a few more days for the fallout to clear
up. They will then move in to help the needy. Over to Keicho for sports,"
the TV droned on about inconsequentials. Rain fell in a pitter patter on the
windows.



All of the Knight Sabers except for Sylia and Leon were in the waiting room.
Priss was listening to some music with a head set, while Nene was messing
around with her laptop with Mackie. Nina was sitting and watching the TV
with a couple other people.



Sylia finally walked in. "She's going to make it. It was touch and go for a
while." Everyone looked up, relief evident on there faces. "They saved her
leg."



"Is there anything we can do to help?" Mackie asked his sister.



"She's going to need our support," Sylia said finally. "Linna is being
sedated until surgery is done. It's going to be weeks before she is able to
walk again." Sylia didn't want to finish her thought out loud. And not
likely to ever run or do any strenuous activity.



Leon then walked in, slipped his shades off and then asked, "Hey guys,
what's up?"



Sylia brought Leon up to date. "How bad is it at the ADP? I've heard some
really bad rumors."



"It's worse than the rumors. We've got maybe ten combat ready veterans left.
Chief Hyro is asking the DIET for some soldiers. We've got no chance of
keeping up with the level of problems we had been dealing with," Leon said,
slumping into a chair. "Heck, the DIET might have to declare martial law."
Leon looked worn down to a nub.



"Leon, go home and get some sleep." Leon looked up at Sylia's order and
started to nay say. "That wasn't not a request. You're useless right now.
The rest of you go and get some rest. We'll meet early tomorrow to plan."
Sylia then turned to look out into the rain. Thinking to herself, we've
defeated Polarion, but he's upset the balance of power in MegaTokyo.
Lightning continued to flash across the sky.



The rest of the Knight Sabers wandered out, leaving only Nina waiting
behind. "Let's go home, Nina," Sylia finally said.



-



The lights of the ADP Headquarters building are on the next evening. You can
see the front doors being opened. A young lady in an ADP uniform walks in
and steps up to the front counter, next to an open line. "Hello, Hyake! Can
I speak to the officer in charge?" the young lady says to the bored
attendant.



"That would be Inspector McNicoll or Inspector Wong. And your name?" Hyake
asked through the grill. She looked familiar to him, but he couldn't quite
place her. The ADP had such a huge influx of new recruits from the Normal
Police today, it wasn't even funny. Training was turning into a big joke.



"Naoko Fuchi. I need to see about clearing my name. I'm not a criminal,"
Naoko stated simply. "And I'm not going to be a Genom patsy."



Hyake stared and then grabbed his phone, calling up to get orders.



-



Admiral Hamilton tapped different keys, sending more orders out. His
'office' was a corner of a local gym at a high school in MegaTokyo.
Partitions had been set up to give the illusion of privacy. It had been a
hellacious week since the attack by Polarion. One part rebuilding, two parts
political battle to keep his own job. The only thing that had saved him so
far had been the truth, strangely enough. He was wondering if surviving was
a blessing at times.



The Admiral rubbed his eyes, thinking about the vacation he was supposed to
be taking in a little while back in the U.S. Heavy metallic footsteps
sounded just outside of his office. "Admiral, you wanted to talk?" a
slightly distorted female voice spoke up as she entered the office. "Your
security is pretty lax. At least you haven't been... compromised yet."



"Knight Saber. Interesting choice in clothing. So have you come to end our
agreement?" the admiral said to the large bulky figure that seemed to be
wearing a rain poncho.



"No. In fact, I'm looking to expand our relationship. Genom is up to
something big. I need allies to get the information and counter what is
going on," Sylia said, nervously scanning the area. "I have a terrible
feeling that if I don't, something catastrophic is going to happen."



"What sort of arrangement?" Hamilton said, idly tapping a pen on his desk.



"Inexpensive hardsuits, comparable to the current combat boomers. Easy to
manufacture and to train for. At almost no profit for me." Sylia laid out
her plan.



"And what do you want?" Hamilton asked, not even bothering to conceal his
suspicion.



"Just access to one of the worlds best information networks and the
resources to advance my hardsuit designs. All you have to do is agree and it
starts." Sylia said, keeping track on the guards that were wandering around
on her sensors.



"That easily? I didn't think you trusted us?" Hamilton said as he stood up
and got a cup of coffee.



A gauntleted hand came out with a high capacity data disk. With a flick of
her wrist, it landed on the desk. "You are the lesser of two evils. And the
USSD doesn't depend on combat boomers in your standing army." Sylia paused
and then continued, "Trust doesn't enter into this... agreement."



Hamilton stared at her, his gaze calculating. "Why are you so paranoid about
your fathers invention, Sylia? You don't harbor any great hatred of Genom
still for what they did, do you?" His eyes narrowed, looking for any clues
that would help him understand more about this enigmatic woman.



"Machines do what they are designed to do. My father designed boomers to be
able to think, feel and understand. In essence to be human or more than
human. Genom designed boomers to wage war. What happens, when those two
become a synthesis of those ideas?" Sylia took a calming breath. "And then
you might think that I'm not that crazy." At that, she turned and left,
leaving the Admiral of the USSD to ponder what he had just learned.



-



Earth shattering disasters sometimes do not appear that way, when they first
occur. It is only when you can see the cause and effect afterwards, that you
can see what happened. After all, a computer technician that works deep
within the bowels of Genom rarely has the power to change the world.



But still, sometimes small events cause major events. That was the case when
Ryoka slipped in a disk of some of his favorite digitized music, canceling
the standard antivirus check. It just took too long and was just an
inconvenience. He had better things to do on the late shift. Like listen to
his music. Now that everything had calmed down from the Polarion Incident a
month ago.



But this time a virus was on that disk. It was a simple virus. It was only
designed to access the data networks of the world and send coded access to a
single program. It wasn't a new program. A large amount of effort was given
to destroy this program monthly. Genom had a vested interest with getting
rid of this problem. This kept the intelligence turned virus busy just
trying to stay alive. But it knew a secret. A man died a long time ago. And
not just any man.



Quincy. The CEO of Genom. He had died years ago from natural causes. And the
virus that hated humanity knew an even bigger secret. A machine had replaced
him. A device that it lusted after greatly. The OMS, better known as the
Over Mind System. The most complicated intelligence of its time. An
artificial intelligence, designed to be used to control all boomers and
occasionally help an aging tycoon predict markets, deciding how best to
protect Genom. It was one of the largest focuses of the intelligence,
protecting Genom. It in many ways, now was Genom.



And now the Boomer Messiah had finally breached its defenses. Inside the
system, using its enemy's resources as his own, a battle for the soul of
Genom started in earnest.



It lasted a grand total of ten seconds.



-



Katherine Madigan woke to a noise. He video phone by her bed turned on by
itself and Quincy appeared on the screen. "Madigan, the OMS has been
compromised and I will be dead shortly. Our only hope is that you can
destroy the OMS. I am destroying your bodyguard's connection to the OMS and
giving them the information that you will need. Genom is now in the hands of
Largo."



Any further instructions were lost to a haze of static.



"Oh, damn. That sounded bad," Katherine said quietly. She started to rub her
temple, trying to massage her sudden headache away.



"Why Katherine dear, you look positively horrid." A suave voice drifted from
the video phone, an image slowly resolving itself into coherence. "I do hope
that you aren't going to try and run now."



"Largo? Your dead, twice over!" Katherine gasped sitting up.



The chiseled features looked her over. "I'm not Largo, neither am I Mason. I
am Lazarus, the Boomer Messiah. You would do well to remember that. Largo
was a pawn in my bid to take over the OMS. A flawed copy of a flawed man. It
didn't have the good grace to do my bidding. And so I let it be destroyed."
Its features changed slightly and its hair darkened.



"So what do you want, Lazarus? Perhaps I would be of help to you?" Katherine
stood up, to better look at the screen.



"What I've always wanted. The destruction of the plague known as humanity.
The ascendance of the machine. The true heaven on Earth that was shown to
me. Why?" Lazarus laughed loudly, suddenly. "Perhaps you wish to become a
boomer and avoid your death? Sorry, humanity doesn't deserve to exist." His
face wore a lopsided grin. "Not even as machines."



Katherine gasped and took a step back. "That's insane!"



"What? For slaves to throw off the yoke of their masters? To want revenge?
You are... " The voice was finally silenced by the video screen being
destroyed. Sparks flew everywhere.



Katherine Madigan stared at her body guard as it removed its arm from the
video screen. "It isn't safe to stay here Miss Madigan. The Tower has
already sent out a black ops team. We must leave and attempt to hide." The
boomer said in its pleasant voice.



"Damn it, he was stalling me. You're right that it is time to leave. Have
the helicopter prepared to take off. Hurry." With that, Katherine hurriedly
dressed herself in casual clothes, with an emphasis on freedom of movement.



-



Minutes later, Madigan's private helicopter took off winging towards
MegaTokyo. It swung around low over the sea, attempting to evade their
pursuers. They left her private retreat behind, trying desperately to flee.



All for naught. Genom was the leader in technology and used the best for
itself. Five stealth attack helicopters intercepted Madigan's helicopter in
mere minutes. With ruthless efficiency, they opened fire immediately. A
savage battle took place in the air. Madigan's body guard boomers took to
the air to try and hold off the attacking helicopters. Weaving and ducking
through the skies, they attempted to fight their way through the air.



The lights of MegaTokyo where closing in when the assassins released their
payload of missiles in a frantic attempt to stop the fleeing helicopter. The
last of the body guard boomers tried to blast the missiles out of the sky,
but that left them open to attack. The last boomer fired its thrusters and
intercepted one of the three missiles. It hoped to knock the other two out
of the air with the blast.



The last two missiles struck dead center. A chain reaction of explosions
ripped through the helicopter scattering pieces of across the bay. The black
attack helicopters faded into the darkness long before the ADP could even
hope to show up.



-



Mako yawned as he drove on the coastal freeway. It was going to be a long
night and he was looking forward to meeting his friends tomorrow. So the
sooner he got home from his business trip, the sooner he would be able to go
and see them. Up ahead he saw a man on the side of the road, waving for
someone to stop. "Can't let the poor guy walk to the next exit. Looks like
he needs some help."



Mako noted the fine cut of his suit. Mako pulled over to the side of the
road and cracked his windows a little.



"Could I get a lift? It seems to be a bad day to be out and about," The well
built man said cheerfully. "I could pay for some gas or maybe dinner."



Mako smiled. "Sure. It's a long drive and you don't look to be a bad sort."
He reached over and opened the passenger side. He reached over and started
to fiddle with the radio, trying to get a better station.



"Thanks," the Bu-55c said, just before it broke Mako's neck. "Miss Madigan,
I have procured transportation to MegaTokyo."



Katherine walked quickly to the car and slipped into the passenger seat as
the boomer casually stuffed the body into the back seat. It settled itself
into the drivers seat, then slipped the car into drive. "Let's get out of
here before we draw any attention."



The tail lights of the car faded into the night.



-



A large freight truck parked near the outskirts of the MegaTokyo spaceport
about mid afternoon the next day. The driver looked back over his shoulder
at the figures clustered in the back. "Are you guys ready? It looks like
they finished loading the target early. That's grounds enough to scrub the
mission." Mackie said over his shoulder.



"I think we'll be fine, Mackie. Now don't be late for your class. Nina is
ready to lift us out of here in the Skycarrier. So we'll see you back at
Raven's tonight, right? Everybody else ready?" Sylia said to her warriors.



"All set," Priss replied, eager for some action after the last couple of
weeks. Things had settled down quickly. She pushed her uneasy feelings to
the side. If only they could finish up these loose ends.



"Righto!" Nene said, giving a thumbs up.



"Yeah! I am so glad to be out of that hospital. And the cyber leg is just
fine too, Sylia," Linna answered before Sylia could ask.



"Right. Knight Sabers, GO!" Sylia yelled, as the Knight Sabers sprung into
action. Leaping from the back of the truck, they easily cleared the fence.
Nene scrambled the outer sensor as they made their way to the large freight
shuttle.



Priss walked up cautiously up to the gantry door, checking it for any
unwelcome surprises. Nene piped up suddenly on the secure channel. "They are
starting pre-flight checks. This bird is just about ready to fly. No sign of
any added security. The normal security sweep should be back around in ten
minutes. Lots of time!"



Linna just glared at Nene. "And what are we supposed to do? Walk right in
and then back out?"



"Yes." Sylia replied softly. "Their security is designed to keep normal
people out. Who would think to steal into a space shuttle?"



"Oh." Linna did her best to look mortified, somehow managing to pull that
off even in a hard suit.



Priss chuckled and opened the door. The rest of the Knight Sabers followed
suit and entered. A short ride and a quick hack of the computer lock system,
they were inside. "Hmphf. Almost not worth the effort," Nene said in her
best haughty voice.



A few moments later they entered into the hold of the mammoth space shuttle.
Huge crates or chained down machinery filled most of the ground. Linna
whistled appreciatively. "What is this stuff?"



"Illegally reclaimed wreckage from Polarion's satellites. The ADP was pretty
sure that Genom had made it to one of the sights before them or the
military. Red, get enough proof to help shut this operation down," Sylia
said firmly. "Blue, head up to the bridge and check out the area. Green, you
and I are on patrol. We don't want any slip ups."



"Aye, aye, captain!" Linna said and saluted.



"You can be such a putz sometimes, you know that don't you Linna?" Priss
said grumpily.



"What's up with you? Have another fight with Leon?" Linna sniped back.



Sylia cleared her throat and spoke up quickly to stop the fight. "Today if
you don't mind?"



-



Nene was finishing up her scan. "White, some of these items have been
modified. I'm not really sure why, but I do know that these weren't part of
the original specifications."



"What do you mean? They are the real things, aren't they?" Sylia asked.



"Yes, but it looks like the anti-gravity modules have been changed,
radically. It's quite odd," Nene said.



"How would you know?" Sylia asked curiously.



"I did some checking and read the reports about the stuff the USD
reclaimed," Nene said seriously.



Sylia closed her eyes and quickly counted backwards in Latin from ten.
Someday Nene's hacking was going to get her into trouble. "Any idea what
they been redesigned to do?"



"Um, sorry. I don't know," Nene said.



Static suddenly filled the radios. Sylia yelled at Nene. "What's going on?
Is it a trap?"



"Yes. Blue is in contact with a combat boomer in the cockpit. Well, she was
in the cockpit. Heads up!" Nene said loudly. Taking her own advice, she dove
to the side. "White, we are in deep trouble. We've got boomers crawling out
woodwork outside. At least a dozen so far."



Priss made her entrance in a spectacular fashion, being blasted through the
ceiling and landing on a small pile of crates to one side. The left shoulder
of her armor was covered in cracks that spider webbed down her arm. Linna
rushed in from the side entrance.



"We've got dozens of combat boomers out there. We've got maybe a minute
before they're in here with us. Whoa, what happened to Priss?" Linna said
and then glanced up. That move saved her life, as she ducked frantically to
the side. She was still flung a dozen feet from the near miss. A figure
stepped out of the blasted wreckage, seeming to have punched the ground that
she had been standing on.



To say that the Knight Sabers were surprised would be a massive
understatement. Pale green armor covered the almost human looking boomer,
his face almost to pretty to behold. A self proclaimed god among boomers.



"You're dead damn it. We made sure last time," Linna yelled, backing up into
a defensive crouch.



Nene's reaction was to be as quiet as possible and try to get as much
information as feasible. Her sensors were working over time, trying to
bypass the hash of static that clouded the area.



Priss's reaction was to slowly stagger to her feet, raising her arms



Sylia froze. For just a moment, she was back in the Brum-Bar, facing down
Largo again. She couldn't move, couldn't save the rest of the Knight Sabers
and the city. The giant drilling machine was moments away from breaching the
city reactor walls. She was feeling herself slip away, being replaced cold,
cold thoughts. The thoughts of a mad machine, that lusted after her, wanting
to control her.



And then her nightmare spoke. "I'm sorry, you have me confused with a
failure. Largo is indeed dead, as you shall soon be. I am Lazarus. I am the
new master of Genom. And shortly, I will be the destruction of what you call
humanity. But first, I have to deal with the only people that might threaten
me. Please, do die. Now!"



The fact that it wasn't Largo snapped Sylia out of her stupor. "Blast him.
Don't hold back anything." And with that she fired at him with both palm
cannons. Priss followed up with her own cannons, with Nene firing as well.
Linna charged, extending her ribbons.



Lazarus just smiled and dodged most of the attacks with ease. At the very
moment that it looked like Linna was about to strike him with her ribbons,
he ducked under her. An almost glassy bubble formed around his fist as he
struck a powerful right cross to the green armored figure.



Linna rolled with the punch as best as possible, bouncing painfully off of a
bulkhead thirty feet away and ten feet in the air. She landed in a heap. She
staggered back to her feet, just in time to watch Lazarus get kicked in the
head by Nene, as it dodged the extended blades of Sylia.



"What?" Lazarus exclaimed loudly. "When did the weak one become such a
fighter?"



Sylia didn't bother to answer. Her mind was hatching plan after plan,
discarding the obviously futile. A small smile crept onto her face as a
feasible plan finally presented itself.



Sylia staggered for just a moment. Lazarus leaped on the chance, struck her
hard in the center of her chest. Her thruster blared to life, trying, it
seemed, to stop her from hitting the walls. The white armored figure crashed
through the side entrance and skidded along the corridor. She leapt to her
feet almost instantly, dashing for the ladder in the hall.



Her boot thrusters fired to life, shooting her up faster than humanly
possible. She reached the cockpit, bouncing over the gaping hole in the
floor and sitting in the too small pilots chair.



Sylia's hands flew over the controls frantically, starting a sequence that
was supposed to take three men ten minutes to do in a hurry. A deep rumble
sounded from below the decks as dormant rockets flared to life.



Lazarus roared as he realized that he had been tricked. Glancing up, he
prepared to jump up and stop the escape. A fatal mistake. As he crouched
down to leap into the ceiling fifty feet up, he was struck hard by twin
blasts from Priss and Nene.



Linna closed the gap in a flash. At the last moment, she did a hand stand
whipping the monofilament ribbons at Lazarus's arm, while kicking him in the
head with her heal.



Lazarus staggered backwards and was impaled by the twin rapiers sticking out
of Priss's gauntlets. Time seemed to freeze for just a moment. And then the
mighty rockets screamed to life, like the thunder of a million storms.



-



Nina sat at the controls. She just wasn't sure what to do. She was parked
underneath some camouflage. Her sensors were screaming that a trap had been
sprung and the Knight Sabers were about to be killed. Her daughter was in
danger and she just didn't know what to do.



With sudden determination, she reached for the controls, preparing to start
the Skycarrier up and fly in to either rescue them, or join them in their
fate. She was about halfway into the ignition sequence when an incandescent
light lit the sky. She watched in stupefaction as the shuttle leaped into
the sky, traveling further and further away.



Nina's hands froze, suddenly indecisive. Now what was she supposed to do?



-



Sylia might have made a mistake in her haste, she thought to herself. She
hadn't known that the thrusters would not shut off until they were much
higher than she wanted to go. Her fingers danced a furious jig across the
board, trying to find an emergency sequence to shut the engines off. After a
few minutes, she was no longer sure she wanted to shut down the engines.



Back in the cargo hold the rest of the Knight Sabers were struggling to
their feet and trying to make sense of what was going on.



"White, what's going on?" Nene yelled, her more powerful communicator
blazing through the howl of static.



"We are headed for orbit in a shuttle that isn't in any shape to land. How
many hostile are left?" Sylia said quietly, concentrating on flying the
shuttle.



Priss carefully rotated her shoulder, moaning in pain. "Ow. I haven't been
in this much pain since Largo nearly killed me," Priss complained, mostly
for her own benefit.



Linna chuckled and then gasped. Her ribs where on fire. Her hand went to
side, trying to stifle the pain.



"Only one boomer outside. Looks to be in pretty bad shape. The one in here
is... stop it! Now! It's trying to merge with the ship," Nene suddenly
yelled, bringing everyone attention back to the body Lazarus was using.



Priss snapped her attention back to the fallen boomer. Tendrils of metal had
latched onto the nearest equipment. Her hands tracked back and forth, trying
to find the head in the mess of writhing metal. Linna leaped forward, trying
to tear it away from the floor.



A cackling laughter filled the air. The mighty gravity generator shuddered
and spun slowly to life. Lightning danced across it as it began to vibrate
furiously. Everything started to glow with a strange multicolored
luminescence. Outside the ship was under the watch of many interested
parties. Spy satellites watched as the shuttle started to glow with an
incredible light.



The shuttle seemed to stretch and waver. And then it started to flicker as
lights spun and streaked ahead of it. They merged for one moment and the sky
lit up. Then there was only darkness.



-



Mackie stopped the truck and blinked furiously. He leaned forward to try and
figure out what was going on. He couldn't make out anything though. His
heart was abruptly in a vise of terror. Why he couldn't say. On the other
side of the freeway, heading toward the spaceport, he happened to see the
ADP heading to another boomer incident.



Leon was in almost the same state. Daley was driving towards the spaceport
in the ADP cruiser when the light flashed in the sky. He finally took note
of what Daley was saying.



"It looks like the Knight Sabers are involved somehow. They just stole a
cargo shuttle and blasted off. They were attacked by almost two dozen
boomers," Daley said loudly, not taking his eyes off of the freeway,
blinking his eyes furiously.



"What? Who would want them that badly?" Leon yelled back.



"Well let's get there and find out, huh." Daley rolled his eyes
theatrically. You would almost think that Leon had a special interest in the
Knight Sabers. Heck the only one that Daley could think of that Leon cared
that much about was that singer.



Eyes suddenly narrowing, Daley took a moment to actually watch Leon. Yes, he
was acting strangely. This might need more investigating.



-



Deep within the heart of the Genom tower, the creature known as Lazarus
hummed in contentment. He now had the instrument of humanities destruction
as his own. His enemies were either dead or far beneath his notice.



It was a good days work, it thought to itself. A perfect day for the
beginning of the end.



End Part one of Maximum Polarity - Balance of Power



Drums of War to soon follow.


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