[BGC][Xover][FanFic] Drunkard's Walk II -- Chapter 10

[Bob Schroeck]

Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the
chapter.




DRUNKARD'S WALK II: ROBOT'S RULES OF ORDER

by Robert M. Schroeck



10: I Can See Where This Moron Is Going To Give Me Trouble

The attempt to justify an evil deed has perhaps more pernicious
consequences than the evil deed itself. The justification of a
past crime is the planting and cultivation of future crimes.
-- Eric Hoffer

A man, even the best, who accustoms his spirit to cruelty and
finally makes, from that which he detests, a law. And from that
habit becomes hard and almost unrecognisable. -- Goethe


Monday, February 2, 2037. 12:25 PM

Katherine Madigan stepped into her apartment and quietly closed
the front door. Turning, she fell back against it and stayed
there, eyes closed and face lifted, as she struggled to calm
herself.

*How could he possibly know that? Those were no guesses, no
intuitions. That was unequivocal, certain knowledge.* She
closed her eyes and resisted the urge to bite her lip. *Could
the Chairman actually *know* the Visitor? *How* could the
Chairman know the Visitor?*

Hunger had struck her like a hammer blow the moment she had
exited Quincy's office, but her emotional state was so uncertain
that she chose not to take her lunch in the executive dining
room. Unable to fully control her reactions, she'd have flagged
herself in minutes as a target for every climber and shark in the
GENOM power structure. She'd need the private time that eating
in her own apartment would afford her to regain the composure
that was a vital necessity in her position.

Pushing up off the door, Katherine resolutely drove herself
through the foyer and into her living room. She slipped off her
jacket and draped it carefully over the back of one of the two
chairs that stood, unused, at the chest-height counter that
divided the kitchen from the living room, then slipped into the
kitchen proper. Opening her refrigerator, then the freezer, she
surveyed her options.

Her stomach growled, and she laughed at the sound in spite of
herself. The very act lightened her mood enough that the task of
feeding herself no longer seemed quite the onerous chore it had a
few moments earlier. Smiling wryly, Katherine withdrew a single-
serving package of frozen vegetable lasagna -- a GENOM brand, of
course -- and slipped it into the microwave.

Eight minutes later she drew it out again. Triggered by the
rising heat of the food, the colorful wrapping had sublimated
entirely and the memory plastic tray had unfolded itself into a
reasonable facsimile of a china dish, leaving her with a
perfectly presented, if still somewhat prefabricated-looking,
entree. Katherine set the plate on a serving tray next to a cup
of tea and a small bowl of salad and dressing that she had
prepared while waiting.

A few moments later, the tray sat atop the walnut and crystal
coffee table in her living room, and Katherine was perched on the
edge of the couch that paralleled it. Kicking her shoes off,
she reached down to pick at her lunch while pondering the
questions that disturbed her.

It had been a long time since Catholic school, but old habits --
especially those which Father Knecht had ingrained in her -- died
hard. They had served her well in her climb upwards through the
world of business, too. Katherine closed her eyes and forced
herself to calm, and focused her mind back into the paths of
logic and reason so beloved of her Jesuit instructors. Slowly,
carefully, occasionally punctuated by bites of lunch, she
mentally built a logic tree in the manner she had been taught
years before with pen, paper and raps on the knuckles with an
archaic wooden ruler.

As usual, the familiar practice of boiling down the source of her
anxiety into a flowchart of logical questions and conditions did
wonders for her emotional state. Even without real answers,
Katherine found her tension easing, if not yet vanishing.

Next, though, came the hard part: follow out all the possible
results of the flowchart and plan for them. The first step there
was to prune the tree based on what information she had at hand,
or could reasonably infer. She savored the tangy salad dressing
coating a cherry tomato as she considered a question that, if not
the base of the logic diagram, resided close to it.

*Does Mr. Quincy make use of intelligence sources external to
GENOM?* she wondered. If there were someone reporting to him
outside of GENOM's nominal chain of command, it might explain his
information. She considered this.

*Obviously, there are no line items in GENOM's public budget for
that kind of thing. On the other hand, there are no black
budgets that are unaccounted for,* she thought. Despite her
position, she didn't know the details of most of GENOM's black
projects. But she *did* know the patterns of money flow within
the mega-corporation. With that information, she could tell
*where* black projects unknown to her were located, though not
what they pursued. And no black projects were currently under
Mr. Quincy's direct overview.

*Therefore,* she concluded, *if he's got outside sources, he's
not paying for them out of a GENOM budget.* Which left paying
out of his own pocket -- a possibility which not only made
matters far more delicate, but far more dangerous for her. To
find out for sure if he were doing so, she'd have to spy on the
Chairman. Very carefully.

Because if he were paying for a private intelligence system, it
was very unlikely that it stopped at the lobby of the Tower.

Katherine turned that conclusion around and around in her mind
while eroding the remains of the lasagna a tiny forkful at a
time. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, she was forced
to assume that this was the case. With that in mind, she
traversed the logic tree one last time, discarding null branches
and leaves, pruning it down to a final set of conclusions.

As she finished the last of her salad, she quickly categorized
her results on the spectrum of "impossible" to "certain", keeping
in mind that the Visitor's very existence had irrevocably mutated
the criteria by which she could ever make such judgments. The
final step was to divide the more likely conclusions into those
about which she could do something and those she couldn't, and
prioritizing the former.

As she had hoped, the exercise had not only calmed her, it
reduced the seemingly insurmountable chaos of the situation into
several discrete paths of cause, effect and possible action, any
of which she was more than capable of handling without a second
thought. She took a deep breath of relief and sipped her tea.

In her mind's eye, the possible paths spread out before her.
Ignoring for the moment several more likely results, she paused
to consider the implications of one conclusion that, however
improbable, she could not dismiss as impossible. *I cannot
easily believe that Mr. Quincy could himself be a Visitor,* she
thought, scowling. *But where there is one, there can be two.*
Then, with a guilty start, she realized that there had already
been a second. *How could I forget ... Her? Mr. Quincy would
make... three.*

"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times, ah,
Kate, three times is direct enemy action," Father Knecht had once
told her while recounting his parts in the various wars that had
taken place in the late 20th century. And if anyone had known
the signature of enemy action, the former mercenary, now turned
priest and teacher, had.

*And if it has happened three times, then there's unlimited
potential for it to *keep* happening,* she realized. *I need to
talk to Ohara about this. Which means I cannot seize IDEC.
Yet.*

Mr. Quincy as a Visitor... and maybe as an enemy? Madigan
considered this new wrinkle. Not entirely justified, but another
possibility that had to be considered. She needed more data to
properly decide that issue. *And the only way I will get it is
to bring this Sangnoir to him,* she realized. *And make sure I
learn whatever it is that the Chairman wants from him.*

*But after that, what then?* With a start, she realized that she
was not foreseeing the personal and professional advantages which
she could gain with that information. Instead, she was
anticipating ... a decision on the course of her life. *What
then, indeed?*

* * *

Monday, February 2, 2037. 1:51 PM

In the weeks since Sony-Virgin had first offered a contract to
the Replicants, Priss had made a concerted effort to keep the
matter at arm's length. "Play it cool," she'd repeatedly told
the other members of the band, "and they'll give us everything we
want." And she did her best to follow her own advice, if only to
keep her own anxiety and restlessness from overwhelming her.
The fact that Sylia's lawyers had handled the majority of the
subsequent problems and negotiations had also helped insulate her
from an overload of stress that might have otherwise driven her
out into the streets looking for a tangible release.

Now, though, it was all over. At a sumptuous luncheon paid for
by Sony-Virgin, the record company's lawyers and Sylia's lawyers
both declared the contract satisfactory, and the Replicants had
signed.

*All that's left is to tell Sylia that I'm moving to Osaka at the
end of the month,* Priss mused as she punched in the access code
that opened the Silky Doll's back entrance from the cold, wind-
swept parking deck.

A few minutes later, after seeing that Sylia wasn't on duty in
the shop, Priss stood in the elevator to the sub-basements,
restlessly shifting her weight back and forth from one foot to
the other in her impatience for the door to slide open. She
ignored the tinny string orchestra wafting faintly from the
speaker above her until her practiced ear caught a familiar
passage that demanded her full attention. Her restless energy
faded away.

"Someone needs to talk to Sylia about her sense of humor," Priss
muttered a few seconds later. She was torn between outrage and
outrageous laughter; drifting out of the sound system was "Konya
wa Hurricane" -- as languidly interpreted by a computer-
synthesized orchestra of 200 heavily-medicated violinists.
Smirking in spite of herself, Priss began to suspect that Sylia
had already heard the news she'd come to share. She debated the
benefits and drawbacks of strangling her friend rather than
thanking her for her help.

She was saved from having to make a decision by an electronic
chime and the whispery rumble of the elevator doors opening.

Priss's steps echoed slightly as she made her way down the long
hallway, glancing through the doorways she passed even though she
was reasonably certain where she would find Sylia. *Sure
enough,* she thought, smirking again, as she came upon the open
door at the end of the hall. *Right where I figured.* She
knocked once on the door post. "Yo," she added as she stepped
into the room.

"Congratulations, Priss," Sylia said without looking up from her
worktable. She wore a set of flip-down magnifying lenses
attached to a headband, and was intently studying a molecular
circuit block. Surrounding her on the table top were an
assortment of parts, from weapons subsystems to cowlings and
fairings. Several of the latter were mirror-polished steel;
reflected in them Priss could see the faint smile that on Sylia
was the equivalent of a broad grin on anyone else.

"Don't your lawyers believe in client privilege?" the singer
asked goodnaturedly.

Sylia set down the circuit and turned on her stool to face her.
She flipped up the magnifier, still wearing that just-barely-
there smile. "Of course they do. I know nothing about your
deal. Just that it's closed. You *did* sign in public, you
know." She tilted her head quizzically. "I take it this means
you *will* be moving to Osaka?"

Priss nodded. "In about three weeks. They're setting up
temporary apartments for us now, and we'll look for permanent
places once we're there. And they're picking up the moving
costs, too." A corner of her mouth flickered up in a partial
smile. "That's one thing I definitely have those lawyers to
thank for. I'd've never thought of getting the record company to
pay for the move. I really owe you, Sylia."

Sylia gave a delicate, feminine snort. "You owe me nothing,
Priss. You're family. Your success and happiness is repayment
enough for me."

"You really mean that, don't you?" Priss slid over to lean on
the workbench, and Sylia turned to follow her. "Huh."

"Why should that surprise you?" Sylia turned and picked the
circuit block again, holding it in her palm and studying it.
"Over the years, we four have been through trials that have
welded us into a single unit, closer even than sisters."

Without thinking about it, Priss folded her hand around Sylia's.
The block within was warm to the touch. "I'm glad to hear that,
Sylia, because I've felt that way, too." She released her
friend's hand. "Still, I repay my debts. You can count on it."

"If you insist," Sylia replied indulgently, after a moment's
hesitation.

"I insist," Priss stressed, smiling. Then she cocked her head at
the component-laden table. "So, what mad scientist-style trouble
are you getting yourself into this time?"

Sylia raised her eyebrows at that, then snapped the magnifiers
back down before allowing herself another brief smile. "I'm
preparing for our next meeting with the Loon."

"And it's not diplomacy you're expecting to use, huh?" Priss
picked up one of the parts closest to her and turned it over in
her hands. It was shaped like a glider's wing, with an aperture
at the narrow end and a hardpoint mount near the wide one. A
handgrip-sized D-ring was attached to the underside of the narrow
end of the "wing". The whole arrangement was coated with
refractory hardsuit cerametal in a familiar shade of blue. "I
recognize this..." she said. "This is one of those over-the-
shoulder spike shooter things you worked up for me a couple of
years ago."

"Yes," Sylia murmured as she selected a probe from a tool tray
and inserted it into the circuit block. "It is."

Priss carefully laid the weapon part back down on the workbench
and glanced around the dimly-lit room. "Planning on having me
blow a plate-sized hole through him and his magic armor?"

Sylia didn't look up. "If we need to."

In the darkness, other benches held suggestive shadowy shapes.
"You giving us all power-ups?"

"As quickly as I can, yes."

Priss thought about this for a few seconds, then nodded slightly
to herself. "Cool."

* * *

16 Tokyo Day Times. Monday, February 2, 2037. 2:01 PM

"Vanette!" came the gravelly shout across the city room, and
Lisa's head snapped up from where she had hunkered down behind
her monitor. "Visitor for you!"

Half-standing out of her seat, Lisa craned her neck left and
right, looking for the source of the yell through the bustle and
traffic circulating around her. It took a few moments, but she
finally spotted Lafcadio Nguyen, one of the graphic designers,
waving lazily to her from his workstation almost diagonally
opposite her. His salt-and-pepper ponytail swung in casual
counterpoint to his hand. Next to him was...

*Leon?*

Trying to digest this development, she stood up completely and
waved back until Leon spotted her. He nodded soberly to her and
removed his trademark shades, then began the delicate process of
navigating his way across the bustling room. After threading a
careful path through the thronging swarm, he stood looming over
her. "Vanette-san," he said formally but noncomittally.

"Inspector McNichol," she replied cautiously. She wasn't
surprised to see that the obsessive-compulsive drones sitting on
either side of her showed no sign at all that they'd noticed
Leon.

"Is there somewhere we can speak privately?" he asked in a lower
voice.

Lisa's eyebrows shot up. Then she bit her lip as she thought.
"Maybe, yeah," she replied after a moment or two. She motioned
to the door of the city room with her head. "Follow me." She
opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out her camera, then led
Leon out into the hallway that connected the city room to the
rest of the 16 Times' offices.

"This your first time here?" she asked conversationally as she
peered into the various rooms and offices they passed.

"Yeah," Leon grunted. "I don't normally have much use for
reporters." As Lisa began to turn to him, eyebrows raised, he
hastily added, "Present company excepted, of course."

"Nice save," she muttered.

"Well, you're in a happy mood," Leon said softly.

Lisa glanced over her shoulder at him and shrugged sheepishly.
"Sorry. There's a rumor going around the city room about
possible layoffs and it's got everyone on edge."

He nodded. "Yeah, I can understand that. No problem."

"Thanks," Lisa replied. "Ah, here we are!" Grabbing Leon by the
hand, she dragged him into an unoccupied conference room. As
soon as they were in, she toed the door shut and released him.
"So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Leon glanced around at the prematurely-aged and peeling paint,
and the decrepit table and chairs. "You're sure we're private
here?"

"Private enough." Lisa resisted the urge to snap at him. "What
did you want to talk to me about? It must be pretty important
for you to come all the way down here." She dropped into the
"boss" seat at the end of the table and watched him expectantly.

Leon frowned for a moment, then took a seat himself. Putting
both elbows on the table, he clasped his hands together in front
of his face. "First, Lisa, this is off the record, and *not*
official police business. Yet. Okay?"

"Okay," she said slowly, confused.

"Okay." He nodded and leaned forward. "What happened between
the Loon and the Sabers yesterday after they carried him off?"

A spike of panic shot through Lisa's chest, and she only barely
kept herself from leaping out of the chair. "H... how should I
know?" she stammered, eyes wide.

"Spare me the innocent act, Lisa-chan." He slid his chair closer
to her. "I know who the Sabers are. *All* of them. I've known
for years. And I know that you're working with them in some
capacity. And if you weren't with them when they brought the
Loon back to their base yesterday, then you've certainly talked
to Nene about it."

Lisa closed her eyes and sighed. "If you know so much, why don't
you ask Nene yourself? You wouldn't've had to leave ADP
headquarters for that."

Another frown creased Leon's brow. "We had a bit of a...
disagreement, and she's not talking to me."

"Huh." Lisa mulled that over. "She's mad at me, too. I had an
argument with her last night."

Leon raised an eyebrow. "It wouldn't happen to have been over
the nature of boomers, would it?"

"What? No, nothing like that." Lisa peered at him curiously.
"The nature of boomers?"

He nodded. "Someone apparently called her a murderer for killing
boomers, and she didn't take it well."

Lisa took a long, deep breath. *In for a penny...* "It was...
the Loon. He only found out yesterday that boomers aren't just
machines." She bit her lip. "He... got angry. He called the
Sabers 'slavecatchers' and murderers."

Leon let out a low whistle. "He's not completely wrong, either."

Lisa nodded. "He was most angry at the fact that he'd been
helping them do it, out of ignorance. He took off right after
that."

"I can't say I blame him." Leon leaned back in his chair and
shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather coat. "You ever
have a day when you look at what you do, and you realize it all
seems so *wrong*?"

Lisa looked at the camera in her hands. "Yeah. I've had days
like that."

"I wonder what the world he comes from is like," Leon continued.
"Must be a paradise."

Lisa shook her head. "No, not really. Better than ours in a lot
of ways, but worse in a few."

Leon stared at her. "And how would *you* know that?"

She smiled mysteriously. "He let me live there for fifty years
one evening."

"He *what*?"

"It's a long story, Leon," Lisa said with a laugh.

"Then tell it to me over dinner." The expression on his face was
open and inquiring, with none of the playful leering or mock
lechery that Lisa would have expected to accompany the request.
She considered it for a moment.

Then she nodded. "Sure. I know this place near the University
where we can talk."

* * *

Monday, February 2, 2037. 9:12 PM

*Maybe a date wasn't the best way to de-stress after yesterday
after all,* Linna thought sourly as she fumbled through the keys
on the ring. The shadows hiding the door didn't help. *I
should've replaced that damned bulb weeks ago.*

"Having trouble there?" The tall, masculine shape was
silhouetted by the same distant streetlight that cast such dark
shadows over the door. She paused for a moment to admire the
sleek lines that Julian's body displayed even in his winter coat,
but then shivered as a cold wind whipped between them.

"A little." She stepped back away from the door and quickly
located the key she wanted. "Not much, though," she added,
flashing a smile at her date. Stepping back into the shadows,
she unlocked the door, and the two of them stepped inside the
darkened building.

As she closed and locked the door behind them, his voice drifted
to her, bolstered with echoes. "So this is what you're into.
Usually the second date doesn't end in a pitch-black warehouse in
the middle of the night."

"Baka," Linna murmured fondly. "I just have to find the light
switch. I keep meaning to have it moved closer to the door; this
wasn't the entrance the original owners used." She groped
through the darkness and ran into Julian, then giggled as he
grabbed and kissed her.

"Fresh!" she shrieked and slapped at him playfully. Squirming
out of his grip, she slid along the wall until her fingertips
found the bank of switches for which she'd been searching.
*Moment of truth time, girl,* she thought. *Now comes the test.
Will he understand or not?* If he didn't, there wouldn't be a
point in seeing him any more. Linna hoped he would understand;
she *liked* Julian.

"Okay, get ready," she called out, and flipped the switches.

It always seemed somehow anticlimactic, how quietly the lights
came on. Even after four years, she kept wanting there to be
the loud, heavy "ka-chunk!" noises of huge breakers being thrown.
Instead, there was simply the faint hum of the fluorescent
lights. "Tada!"

Blinking as his eyes adjusted to change in illumination, Julian
took in the sight before him with a delighted smile. "Holy...
are these all *yours*?" His blond ponytail whipped from side to
side in response to the swiveling of his head.

Nodding, Linna returned the smile. "These are my babies." *Not
bad for someone who only had a clunker econobox five years ago,
eh?*

Before them stood Linna's pride and joy -- her collection of
automobiles. She smiled as her eyes caressed their familiar
lines, from the antique creation of chrome and cedar and brass
at one end, to the sleek modern shapes at the other. It was a
small collection, she'd be the first to admit. Six working
automobiles and one... one other. Even at her "official" level
of wealth, which was considerable, she'd be hard-pressed to
afford this much garage space even here on the outskirts of
MegaTokyo. Any larger and the collection would raise
uncomfortable questions about the *real* size of her income...
and draw unwelcome attention that might reveal the hidden
equipment stockpile Sylia maintained in the building's secret
subbasement.

Julian was not quite dashing from car to car, an almost childlike
wonder on his face. "They're gorgeous," he murmured as his
fingers hovered above the Delorean's door handle, as if he
worried his touch would pop the stainless steel like a soap
bubble.

Linna chuckled. "Go ahead, you can sit in her."

Julian grinned broadly and hesitated no longer; a yank and the
gull-wing opened upward. He slid in. "Oh, right," came his
muffled voice from within the car. "American."

Linna laughed and bent down to look in at him. "Enjoying
yourself?" *So far, so good,* she thought. *Just like most of
the others, too...* she warned herself.

"Hell, yeah!" Julian ran his hands over the dashboard and
breathed deeply, then forced himself to step out of the vehicle.
"Is that what I think it is?" he whispered, gazing at the chrome
and cedar form near the far end of the row, next to a gleaming
black Corvette Stingray.

Linna nodded as they walked slowly, almost reverently, over to
the vehicle. "They only made four of them, and this is the last
surviving roadworthy one. I bought it from the estate of an
Englishman who used to hire it out for charity events. He'd
helped maintain and drive it during the filming, and acquired it
a few years later. And yes," she added as Julian opened his
mouth, "the wings really do extend. And no, she doesn't fly."

Her date nodded slowly. "It was one of my favorite movies when I
was a kid."

She smiled broadly. "Mine, too. Now I get to drive her.
Occasionally," she added after a moment's reflection.

"Does it... you know, make the noises?"

Linna chuckled. "No... Unfortunately, that was movie magic, too.
She's a lot deeper in the throat in real life; there's a Ford V6
under that hood. She needs it, too -- she weighs almost 2
tonnes."

"Sugoi," Julian whispered. Then his eyes fell on the last
vehicle in the row. Unlike the others, it was far from mint
condition: a large black rear-engine sports car, so heavily
modified that most of its original beauty was gone, hidden by
skin that looked almost like armor. It was up on blocks, its
rims bare and damaged; the body was crumpled and scorched. "That
looks almost like it might have been a classic Griffin once,"
Julian opined, "but someone's butchered it horribly."

"Uh-huh," Linna murmured, preoccupied by avoiding old, bad
memories.

"Are you getting it restored?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm leaving it like it is."

Julian frowned. "Why?"

Linna stepped in close to the crushed and burnt vehicle. She
reached forth a tentative hand and laid it on the rippled metal
of a fender. "It's... a trophy, I guess you'd call it." She
pursed her lips for a moment. "Yes. A trophy." She didn't miss
a disgusted expression flit across his face, and suppressed a
sigh.

*He doesn't know its history, of course,* Linna reminded herself.
*The history and the emotion. Even with the interface web and
cybercore yanked out long ago, it still feels menacing to me.
There's a burning hate there, still lurking in that dead hunk of
metal, and I'm not going to be the one to bring it back to life.*
She turned her back on the Griffin, returned her attention to the
car with a far happier history, and shook her head.

*And she's ... joyful.* Almost reverently, Linna caressed the
cedar boat deck that encompassed the car's leather seats. Her
fingers slid soundlessly over the gleaming varnish. *A little
regretful that she's not getting out as often as she used to, but
happy to be loved and cared for still.*

She snorted at herself. *There I go again, anthropomorphizing
them. What's it called again? Right. "The pathetic fallacy."*
Then a chill ran through her, as Sangnoir's accusing words from
the day before echoed again in her mind. *But it's not a fallacy
with boomers, is it?* Staring blankly across the rich red wood
before her, Linna chewed anxiously on her lower lip.

*If I can believe, really believe, that a car can hate or be
happy, can be a "person", then how can I *not* believe any less
of a boomer?* she thought. *But to make that leap is
frightening. There's something atavistic about the fear, some
dread of that which is almost but not quite human.* Absently
she retrieved a chamois from the back seat of the car and began
to polish its brasswork. *It was and is easy to think of Sylvie
and Anri as people, even after we knew they were sexaroids. Was
it because they were *so* close to human that they were no longer
frightening? It's a strange, fuzzy line we draw.*

"Linna? Oi, Linna!"

Linna started, surprised by Julian's firm grip on her shoulder.
"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry, Julian, what was that?"

Her date studied her closely. "You were completely spaced out
over that car, Linna." He peered into her eyes. "You okay?"

She grinned and playfully flapped the chamois in his face,
forcing him to jump back. "I'm fine, Julian, just thinking
about... things, that's all." She tossed the sheet of soft
leather into the back seat again. "So, you were saying?"

Julian caught his reflection in the gleaming black finish of the
nearby Corvette, and preened for a moment. "I was just wondering
what you're doing with a guy's hobby."

Linna felt the familiar sinking feeling in her gut. "A guy's
hobby," she replied flatly.

He smoothed his hair, then smiled back over his shoulder at her.
"Yeah, sure." He straightened up. "You're not the type of woman
that I'd associate with keeping and fixing up a car collection
like this."

*Oh, well,* Linna despaired. *I'd half-expected that he was too
good to believe.* "And what type is that?" she asked, an
anticipatory chill creeping into her voice.

Julian didn't notice the change in her tone in time.

* * *

*Is *every* available guy in MegaTokyo secretly a sexist jerk?*
Linna fumed silently, bending over to almost touch her nose to
the leg she held raised, straight and firm, to the barre. The
mirrored wall reflected the motion without comment or criticism.
She held her breath for a ten-count, then released it slowly,
trying for the hundredth time in the last hour to let her
irritation and anger escape her body with the exhaled air.

It still didn't work.

"Damn."

Linna straightened and turned around, keeping her rolling foot
upon the barre, until she stood with her left leg stretched out
almost horizontal behind her. Slowly she bent over to lay her
palms flat against the gleaming, varnished wood of the floor. It
was comfortably warm to the touch, which didn't surprise her --
she'd paid more than enough money to have radiant heating
installed when she'd bought the place and turned this room into
her combination salle/studio two years ago.

Her left leg rose from the barre, followed by her right, as Linna
gracefully lifted into a handstand. She held herself there for a
few moments, her back arched and her feet overhanging her head by
10 or 15 centimeters, before drawing a deep breath. Then she
flexed her arms and launched herself into back flip.

The flip turned into two, then three, as she hurtled toward the
far wall. She'd never make a fourth, but she kept going,
springing once more from her hands and drawing up her legs in a
manner that would have thrown her into an uncontrolled, possibly
dangerous, tumble on flat ground -- but which instead set her up
perfectly to land on the wall, her feet flat against the smooth,
unadorned wood.

She seemed to hang there for a moment before launching herself
horizontally and falling into a rapid series of forward rolls
back towards the wall and barre where she had started. Before
she could collide with the mirror, though, she redirected her
momentum with an almost feline twist of her torso; instead of
another roll, she popped upright, sliding into a combination kick-
double punch targeted at her reflection. Then she froze.

She held the final stance for a moment, serious gaze meeting
serious gaze through the barrier of silvered glass. In her
mind's eye, it wasn't herself that she faced, but a pony-tailed
figure with broad shoulders, a too-easy smile, and attitudes out
of 18th-century Nihon. Then she grinned, bowed to her
reflection, and ritually clapped once.

*So much for Julian,* she thought, and raised her hand to waggle
her fingers through an excessively-kawaii "bai-bai" wave. *And
with a move stolen from the Loon, to boot, yet!* Linna nodded in
satisfaction as she turned from the mirror. *That proves you
don't have to be superhuman to do some of what he does.* A
muscle twinged in her side and she grimaced. *Just willing to
push yourself to mind-bogglingly stupid extremes.*

Rubbing her back just above her right hip to sooth the insistent
ache, Linna picked up her towel from where she'd slung it over
the barre. She draped it around her neck and padded out of the
studio towards the bath. *A nice long soak sounds good right
now.*

On her way to the furo, though, she found herself pausing at the
sliding doors to her patio. While not as large or as high above
the city as Sylia's place, Linna's home was still a penthouse,
too, and as such commanded a striking view of MegaTokyo. She
found herself staring out through the chill glass at a skyline
that was mostly obscured by the reflection of her den.

*Is the Loon right?* she mused, shifting her focus between her
reflection and the city lights leaking through it. *Would I be
as prejudiced in my way as Julian is in his if I were to insist
that most boomers are just machines?* Her gut told her that if
she didn't know the answer to that question now, she would soon.
*There was no "just machine" about most of the boomers I've run
into. "Just machines" can't be cruel and can't love, and I've
seen boomers do both. The question is... were they exceptional?
Or *average*?*

The Sabers by definition rarely encountered an "ordinary" boomer.
It was remotely possible that they *were* what the Loon had
accused them of being -- an execution squad for boomer lunatics
and escapees from slavery. Linna frowned at the thought, a
thought which had forced its way to the front of her mind too
many times over the last 24 hours. She shook her head and
watched as her faintly-limned counterpart in the glass imitated
her. *Perhaps... perhaps until I know for sure, I should err on
the side of caution.*

* * *

Monday, February 2, 2037. 9:30 PM

"...and I'm *still* finding little bits of information about his
home world drifting up out of my subconscious at the *oddest*
moments!" Lisa grimaced and then slid the last bit of her pita
into her mouth.

The door to Eriko's clattered open again, and just as he had done
every other time since they'd arrived, Leon automatically glanced
up over Lisa's head to survey the customer or customers entering
or leaving. Unlike the other times, though, he paled and shrunk
down into his seat a little. "Uh-oh," he muttered.

Lisa halted in mid-sentence. "What?" she asked, and gaped at
him. The skin between her shoulder blades began to itch and she
suppressed a desperate urge to turn around. Then a hand fell on
her shoulder and she almost yelped in surprise.

"Oi, Lisa," Priss said calmly. "Tired of me already, Leon?" The
tone of her voice was dangerous, but Lisa looked up to see the
singer surreptitiously wink at her.

"It's business, Priss," Leon declared as he sat up straight once
more. Lisa almost giggled at what looked like the beginnings of
a typical Leon-Priss game of pseudo-macho oneupmanship, but she
resisted the impulse when she realized that there was something
new and different in the emotional undercurrents between the two.

When Priss' hand squeezed her shoulder lightly, she looked up at
the singer. "Beat it, kid," Priss murmured, but it sounded more
like a request than an order. Lisa glanced from Priss to Leon
and estimated the tension between the pair.

"Sure," she said with a brief nod, and Priss squeezed her
shoulder again. Gathering up her camera, coat and gloves, she
slid out of the booth. Priss stepped aside to let her pass, but
Lisa caught the older woman by the arm and pulled her close.
"Don't you *dare* break his heart!" she hissed into Priss' ear,
only to be answered by rolling eyes. "I mean it!" she added as
she pulled on her coat. "Leon, remember to tell me what I owe
you for dinner when I see you next, okay?"

"Sure, Lisa," he grunted, still watching Priss carefully.

Still concerned, Lisa bowed formally to the pair. "Good evening
to you both," she offered, then turned and made her way out of
the diner.

* * *

Leon and Priss silently watched Lisa exit to the street before
turning their attention back to each other.

"Priss, I..." Leon began, almost apologetically.

"Oh, can it, Leon," Priss interjected, one corner of her mouth
twitching as if eager to leap into a smile. "I know you weren't
doing anything vaguely romantic with Lisa." Leon let out a
breath, and the momentary flash of palpable relief on his face
was enough to shatter Priss's mask. She grinned broadly at him.
"I'm flattered that you were worried about what I might think,
though."

"It's just that..." he began again, but Priss reached over the
table and lay her still-gloved fingers across his lips.

"No," she said. "You don't have to say anything."

She drew back her hand slowly. "But..." he managed to get out
before her fingers returned.

"I said, 'no.'" She gave him a feral smile. "Understand?"

"Ye..." The fingers were back before he finished the word.

"I see I'm going to have to get remedial on your ass, loverboy.
Shut. Up. Nod if you've got it now."

Leon nodded once, the movement of his head carrying her
fingertips up and down with it.

She drew her hand back slowly, the look in her eye *daring* him
to say something more. He didn't. "Good." She pulled her
gloves off and stuffed them in the pockets of her jacket as he
watched her silently, all the time holding his eyes with hers.
"Now, I have something to tell you."

Priss almost chuckled at the look in Leon's eyes, but caught
herself in time. "Leon," she said, taking his hands, "I'm moving
to Osaka."

He stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending. "What?"

"I... *we*, the Replicants, we finally got that recording
contract we've been working for. Sony-Virgin. But the only
studios they've got available are in Osaka."

Leon looked completely and utterly poleaxed, and suddenly Priss
found nothing funny about it any more. "Osaka?" he repeated.

She nodded. "I know how hard it is to keep up a long-distance
relationship, so if you want to..." Her voice caught in her
throat unexpectedly; somehow it was much harder to say than she'd
thought it'd be. "If you want to..."

"Break up?" he rumbled, and she nodded again, curtly. "Hell,
no!"

Priss felt the release of a pressure in her chest that she hadn't
even noticed before. "No?" She released his hands and folded
her arms on the table before her.

"No. How long are you going to be in Osaka?"

"At least a year." Priss frowned. "Maybe two."

Leon nodded, more to himself than to her. "Well, I've got a
friend on Osaka's SWAT team who tells me that they can always use
another good field officer. He's been trying to get me to hire
on with him for years."

Priss lost control of her expression and gaped openly. "You're
kidding! What about your seniority? Your pension?"

Leon snorted. "What pension? If I relied on my ADP retirement
benefits, I'd be living in a two-by-three rathole eating crackers
during my declining years. But I've been investing almost since
I joined the force, Priss. And Linna's been helping me the last
couple years, so I'm doing really well. I'm not gonna be rich
when I retire, but I'll be comfortable. And that doesn't depend
on me keeping my job." He paused, then chuckled. "As for my
seniority in the ADP... well, seniority just means *I'm* the one
who has to deal with boomer conspiracies and superheroes from
other dimensions. I don't know about you, but a guy can get
tired of that."

"But..." Priss began grasping at straws. "What about Daley?"

Leon shrugged. "He'll just have to get a *real* boyfriend." He
narrowed his eyes. "You know, I could get the impression that
you don't really want me to come with you." But he grinned to
let her know he wasn't entirely serious.

"No, no!" she protested. "I just ... I didn't want you to screw
up your career just to follow me around."

He shook his head with a gentle smile. "I won't be screwing up
my career, trust me. Besides... dammit, Priss, you know how I
feel about you. I *don't* want to be separated from you for a
year or more. I want us to be together." He suddenly looked
concerned. "That is, if *you* want us to be together, too."

"Baka," she murmured fondly and, reaching across the table,
bopped him lightly on the top of the head with the back of her
hand. "Of course I want us to be together." The relieved look
on his face warmed her heart.

"Well then," he said slowly, "why don't we make the arrangement a
bit more formal?"

"Huh?" *This can't be what it sounds like,* she thought. "What
d'you mean?"

He shook his head. "This isn't exactly the way I saw it
happening, but, well, maybe this is the right time. Priss, we've
been seeing each other in one way or another for almost five
years..."

"You're not counting that first night in front of that burger
place, are you?"

"Shut up, I'm trying to be romantic here." Leon recomposed his
face. "We've meant something to each other for while now, even
if we've had a hard time admitting exactly what that something
was. I want to make it formal."

"Leon, you don't mean..."

He took a deep breath and interrupted her. "Priss, will you
marry me?"

Priss stopped short and stared at him.

For a very long moment, she did not move at all, and Leon began
to worry.

Then she leaned back, looked at the ceiling of the diner, and
pursed her lips. After a minute or so of this, she turned her
eyes back on him.

"You bet your ass, Leon."

* * *

Monday, February 2, 2037. 10:39 PM

A phone rings, is answered. "Moshi-moshi?"

"Lisa, it's Nene."

Cautiously, "Hi."

"Are you going to tell Sylia?"

A pause. "There's nothing I need to tell her, Nene."

A sigh. "Then I will. Good night, Lisa."

"Good night, Nene."

"I... I'm really sorry about this, Lisa."

Dryly, "I'm sure you are."

Another sigh. "G'night."

"Yes. Good night."

Click.

* * *

Monday, February 2, 2037. 11:51 PM

Based on recommendations from my Tapestry readings, I rented and
watched several films while I holed up. One of them stays with
me to this day -- a movie called "Mystery Men." Very, very
strange film. It was like looking at Homeline through a funhouse
mirror.

Worse yet, I think I may've worked with some of those guys...

Anyway, when I wasn't watching old movies, I was brooding. The
topic was what to do about the boomers. As you can probably
imagine, I was less than happy with the Three, now that I knew
the mission they'd set me on. I mean, it was one thing to try
and liberate humans. But boomers... I mean, I couldn't just
defend them from the Knight Sabers and the ADP and then let them
go free. With what little I'd managed to read over the months,
it was clear that they had both software *and* hardware blocks
controlling their behavior. Even assuming I could calm a rogue
boomer down and spirit it away to some sanctuary, it'd *still* be
enslaved. I needed to find a way to shatter those blocks
permanently without harming the boomer.

That meant I needed more information on boomer brain design than
I could get from the public dataweaves. And *that* meant a
serious hacking run, at the very least. From a public terminal.
Not a good thing.

I had begun to regret jumping ship from Ganbare. I really could
have made use of the company's technical resources about then. I
wondered for a while if I'd over-reacted on that front, but
decided that I hadn't. Not with the redoubtable Inspector Wong
and his sidekick Shadesman literally on my doorstep. Not to
mention that McNichol character who was seriously jonesing for my
incarceration. No. My freedom was not a fair trade for the
information that I needed. Not when the freedom of thousands,
no, *millions* rested on my slumping shoulders.

And there was one other thing to do. In a couple of days, after
I finished recovering from my encounter with the Three, I would
have to pay a call on IDEC.

* * *

Tuesday, February 3, 2037. 12:11 PM

"Whose budget is lunch coming out of today?" Hiroe asked as she
opened the menu and studied the choices.

"Mine," replied Illya. "Four work days it is since last a lunch
I covered, so only fair it is."

Tony sniffed. "It certainly is. I paid for last Friday *and*
yesterday." He rattled his menu indignantly.

"Oh, suck it up, Tony," Hiroe muttered. "If you're so upset,
I'll take tomorrow and this coming Friday, and Illya can cover
Thursday." She nodded at her blond coworker.

"Sure, is okay with me," the big man responded affably. The menu
lay at his elbow, unopened. "Now, Hiroe, about your email..."

"Right," Tony jumped in. "You can't be serious, can you?"

She shrugged. "Why not? Twice the Senshi were able to defeat
a planetary government or its equivalent -- the Dark Kingdom and
the Black Moon. And that was before they became a de facto
government themselves. And if our visiting senshi comes from the
era of Crystal Tokyo, there is not only the entire corps of the
Sailor Senshi -- Inners, Outers, Sailor Stars and god knows what
else the anime doesn't mention -- but the combined armed forces
of Crystal Tokyo, to boot."

"Yes, yes," Tony replied impatiently. "If GENOM goes after her,
it'll be biting off far more than it can chew. That's still
assuming she's the real deal. I still don't fully buy that, mind
you."

Illya leaned forward, propped his chin in his ham-sized hands,
and gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling. "She has by now been
rescued, I would think. Weeks it has been since she appeared.
If here she still were, more of her should we have seen."

"Oh, I hope not." Hiroe was surprised at the plaintive tone in
her voice.

Tony shook his head in disgust. "I simply cannot believe you
seriously think we should try to emigrate to Crystal Tokyo and
ask for asylum."

"Well, between Daniel's increasingly erratic behavior on the one
side and the tender mercies of GENOM on the other, do you have a
better idea how to survive jumping ship from IDEC?" Hiroe
snapped her mouth shut and studied her menu further.

* * *

Tuesday, February 3, 2037. 6:35 PM

As Nene stepped through the doors of the Silky Doll, she frowned
at her watch. She'd been saddled with some last-minute overtime,
forcing her to stay at work an hour longer than she'd planned.
That had been an hour longer than was good for her peace of mind.

When she saw that Sylia wasn't manning the register, Nene knew
where she'd find the older woman. After a round of token
browsing to allay possible suspicion, the redhead slipped out of
the store and made her way to the back entrance of Ladys633, and
from there to the private elevator. As Nene had expected, Sylia
was in the shop at the far end of the sub-basement.

As always, a melange of odors assaulted her nose as she entered
the shop -- oils, metals, smoke, and sweat, all blending and
combining over the years into a distinctive scent that would
always mean "Knight Sabers" to her. For once the room was
brightly lit, revealing a half-dozen projects in various stages
of completion on as many tables and workbenches. To one side,
Nene idly noted a mockup of Priss' current hardsuit bearing the
wing-shaped heavy-duty railguns which had come in so handy some
years earlier, and which had not been used since. On the nearer
of the two guns, an access panel hung loosely open on a single
screw, revealing the wire-wrapped linear accelerator within. A
pair of color-coded cables dribbled out of the opening; the
brightly-hued plastic and metal connectors at their ends looked
empty and incomplete.

On another table nearby, another mockup -- this one of Linna's
suit -- lay prone. Articulated panels shaped almost like
butterfly wings spread open from its front, revealing a set of
lenses not unlike those of a boomer's heat cannon.

It took Nene a moment to tear her eyes away from the two hardsuit
facsimiles and their modifications to spy Sylia hunched over the
largest workbench in the room. It appeared that she was working
on something that might have resembled a large model airplane,
had it had anything like a fuselage between its two broad wings.
Instead, there were a turbofan engine and several boxy modules of
unexplained provenance.

As Nene stepped closer, entranced by the creation on the bench,
she realized that Sylia was not hunched over it hard at work, as
she had thought. Instead, Sylia's arms were folded atop the
engine, pillowing her head. Her breathing was slow and regular,
Nene noted with some relief after a spike of irrational fear shot
through her. She gently nudged the sleeping woman's shoulder.

"Sylia?" she called softly. "Sylia, wake up."

An aggrieved mumble was the only response. Nene shoved more
firmly. "Sylia?" she repeated, louder this time.

"G'way, Henners'n," Sylia murmured in a little girl's tones.
"Don' wan' go t'school, gotta buil' mecha..."

Nene blinked.

Then she scowled. She grabbed Sylia's shoulder and shook her
roughly. "Sylia! Wake *up*!"

Nene wasn't sure whether it was the shove or the shout that did
it, but Sylia started and sat bolt upright, blinking and
confused. "Nene?" she asked after a moment. "What... How did
you... Oh. I fell asleep."

Nene nodded vigorously, suppressing a shudder at how haggard she
looked. "Like a rock." A beat, then, "Who's Hennerson? You
said his name when I tried to wake you up."

Sylia's eyebrows shot up almost into her hairline. "That's
'Henderson'," she corrected sharply. "My family's butler for
many years. He raised Mackie and myself after..." She trailed
off without finishing the sentence, and Nene nodded.

"What's wrong, Sylia?" she asked, changing the subject rapidly to
escape an apparent sensitive spot. "I know you're not a morning
person, but this is ridiculous."

"I have been..." Sylia paused to yawn. "I have been hard at
work preparing for our next encounter with the Loon. We *will*
be more than ready to face that... that... creature!" she spat.

Nene's eyes grew wide at Sylia's uncharacteristic vehemence.
"Riiight. You know, Sylia, you *can* work yourself too hard.
Why don't you call it an evening and get in a few extra hours of
sleep? You're only human, after all." She laid her hand gently
on her friend's shoulder. "Just how long have you been working
down here, anyway?"

"Since Sunday night," Sylia replied sharply, and brushed Nene's
hand from her shoulder.

"Continuously?"

"Yes, Nene, continuously," Sylia growled. "I've pushed myself as
hard and even harder before. I don't need you to nursemaid me."
She turned to fix the younger woman with an annoyed and irritated
expression that was completely out of Nene's experience with her.
"Would I be correct in assuming that there was a reason for your
visit *other* than interfering in my development schedule?"

Nene stared at her in shock for a moment before remembering why
she had come. "Oh, right. I found where the Loon, I mean,
Colonel Sangnoir lives. Or lived, rather. I think he's gone to
ground, because... well, he's not living there now."

"Good, good," Sylia said, nodding absently as she ran a finger
along the dull grey cerametal wing on the table before her.
"Even if he has abandoned his home, we can learn a lot there."
She gave the redhead a dark, approving look. "Excellent work,
Nene. Excellent. Your ADP experience is finally bearing fruit,
I see."

Nene ignored that cryptic comment and took a deep breath.
"There's something else, Sylia."

Sylia raised an eyebrow. "There is?"

Nene nodded. "Sangnoir was living in the apartment across the
hall from Lisa."

The eyebrow went higher. "Indeed?"

Closing her eyes for a moment, Nene tried to make her peace with
what she was about to do. *I'm really sorry, Lisa, but I have
to.* "Yeah. And I think she's known all along who he was. From
the very beginning, maybe."

A familiar, faint smile appeared on Sylia's lips. "Very good.
Very, very good."

"Huh?" Nene wanted to wring her hands, but forced herself to
slide them into the pockets of her skirt. "Um, so what are you
going to do about Lisa?"

The smile stayed there on the older woman's lips, which unnerved
Nene. "Nothing at all, Nene."

"Why not?" Nene's hands grabbed and twisted the fabric of her
skirt pockets.

"It would be a poor way to reward her for finally and
conclusively proving her loyalty to the Sabers." Sylia turned
her attention back to the collection of components on the table
in front of her, picking up a logic probe and considering it
carefully.

Behind Sylia's back, Nene worked her mouth soundlessly for
several seconds before leaning forward to peer at the other
woman. "I beg your pardon?"

Sylia sighed and laid the probe back down on the bench top. Then
she turned back to face the younger woman. "If she *had*
informed me that her neighbor was the Loon, I would have been
obliged to take certain... steps against Lisa."

Nene's eyes grew wide. "What? Sylia, you can't *mean* that!"

Sylia shook her head firmly. "I mean exactly that. If she
couldn't be trusted to keep her knowledge about Colonel Sangnoir
a secret, then she couldn't be trusted to keep what she knows
about us a secret, either."

"But... but that's not the *same*, Sylia!"

"If she would betray him, she could betray us. It's that
simple." Sylia looked at Nene sharply. "I'd hoped you'd grown
out of these childish beliefs by now. You disappoint me."

Nene stared back, something in her heart slowly breaking.

* * *

Hot Legs. Tuesday, February 3, 2037. 10:03 PM

"Great set, guys." Priss slapped shoulders left and right as she
slipped backstage with the other Replicants. Behind them, the
crowd howled approval even as the club DJ brought his custom
soundrom mix back on-line.

"Yeah," grunted Roy as he unslung his guitar. "If we'se not
countin' th' assholes in th' audience who thinks we'se traitors
fer signing a contract an' movin' out o' the city."

"Let'em think what they want, baby," Estelle crooned, "we're
headed for the *top*!"

Priss laughed her agreement and held up a hand for Estelle to
high-five. Despite the narrow confines of the backstage hall,
they slapped their hands together and cheered. It was hard not
to be jubilant, even if the hardcore snobs had decided that the
Reps had sold out. *Ah, Estelle's right. Fuck'em,* Priss
sneered to herself.

Then she spotted a pale and forlorn-looking Nene, still in her
wrinkled ADP uniform, standing next to the dressing room door.
She turned back to her band mates. "Guys, I've got some business
to take care of, but I'll be back in time for the next set."

* * *

The coffee house was a block away from Hot Legs and, like the
club, nestled in the basement of an otherwise industrial
building. Although little announced its presence to the world,
it still received generous custom, both from club-goers on their
way to or from Hot Legs, and from those turned away by the club's
bouncers.

Still, a Tuesday night was far from busy, even with the
Replicants playing down the street, and Priss and Nene were able
to slide into a dimly-lit booth well in the back of the
establishment, and just far enough from other customers to avoid
being overheard. After placing their orders, Nene then quickly
sketched out the basics of her earlier encounter with Sylia.

"I don't understand it," she moaned upon completing the summary.
"What does she want from me?" The waitress had returned with
their order several paragraphs earlier, and now Nene looked down
at her hot chocolate and slowly rotated the cup on the table with
one finger hooked through the handle.

Priss slowly sipped her Irish coffee. A flick of the tongue
before she lowered the mug removed a telltale whipped cream
mustache that would not only have been undignified, but might set
Nene giggling and derailed the conversation. She placed the mug
down on the synthewood table top. "Nene, you're a cop," she
began carefully, "for... How long has it been, now?"

"Six, seven years." She shrugged. "Why?"

"You've never been a beat cop."

"Of course not! Don't be silly. I'm a tech."

Priss picked up her mug and took another sip, relishing the bite
of the whiskey. "But you talk with the ones who go out on
patrols. I *know* you talk to Leon a lot."

"Yeah," Nene allowed. "I do."

Priss stared at the melting glob of whipped cream under her nose.
"Now, this probably doesn't apply to ADP as much as it does to
the N-Police, but... Do you know what they say about snitches?"

Nene nodded, a blank look on her face. "Uh-huh -- 'No one trusts
a snitch, not even the people who pay him.'" Her eyes snapped
wide for a moment, and then she glared at Priss. "I'm *not* a
snitch!"

"Didn't say you were." Priss took another, long sip. "But
that's what you wanted Lisa to be."

"Nuh-uh! I wanted her to tell us something she should have!"

Priss shook her head. "Nope. If she'd told us, she'd've been a
snitch. And no one -- not the people they tell on, and not the
people they tell -- likes snitches. Because you can't trust'em.
Don't matter *why* they say they're doin' it -- high moral
principles or a way to make a fast yen. If they did it once,
they'll do it twice, and you never know when *you're* going to be
the one they tell on next."

"But we're..." Nene snapped her mouth shut, and Priss smiled
ferally.

"I know who we are, Nene. We're the good guys, right? Well, to
someone like Mister Gai Salariman over there," she gestured
randomly over her shoulder with a thumb, "we're a band of
dangerous cut-throats, a street gang with military weapons. To
GENOM we're saboteurs, and maybe industrial spies. To the ADP,
we've been allies, kind of, but now they're not sure about us any
more."

"Whose side are you on, anyway?" Nene blurted indignantly.

Priss fixed her with a sharp look, and the redhead wilted. "I'm
on *our* side. But we aren't automatically the 'good guys' to
everyone. 'Colonel S' sure as hell doesn't trust us, at least
not after Sunday night." Priss found herself slipping into a
growl and stopped it. "Look. *If* Lisa knew him, she'd have to
be a piss-poor friend to tell someone he didn't trust about him.
And what kind of friend would that make her? Would *you* want to
hang around with her if you never knew whether or not she'd sell
you out to GENOM?"

Nene was staring at her hot chocolate again, her hands clasped
around the mug. "No," she whispered.

"When I ran with my gang," Priss continued, "before... before
'us', all we *had* was trust. Anyone we couldn't trust was..."
She coughed. "They were, um, kicked out of the gang."

Nene rolled her eyes. "I'm *not* a kid, Priss, and I've *seen*
your juvie record. And your gang's. A couple of guys who ratted
on you turned up dead." A shudder ran through her body, belying
the attempt at the practiced sang-froid of an experienced
officer.

"Yeah," Priss said quietly. "Yeah." She swirled her Irish
coffee and watched the last of the whipped cream turn into pale
spirals against the now-mocha liquid. "Tell me, Nene, is
Sangnoir a good guy or a bad guy?"

Nene opened her mouth, then thought about it. "Ummm..."

Priss nodded. "Right. 'Ummm.' Look, Nene, I know I'm not the
best person to be telling you this. But you're like the little
sister I never had and..." She broke off, and chuckled
throatily. "Damn, it seems like I've been saying things like
that to everybody but Leon these days." At the sight of Nene's
raised eyebrows, Priss laughed out loud, then reached out to tap
the tip of the redhead's nose with her fingertip. Green eyes
crossed for a moment. "You're a good kid, Nene, a sweet kid.
And despite what you might think, you haven't lost your
innocence, not entirely. No matter what I've said or might say
any other time, I like you like that." She drew back her hand.
"But you gotta learn, the world doesn't run on absolutes.
*Everyone's* a good guy in their own heads. Us, ADP, Sangnoir.
The gang I used to run with and the gangs we fought. Even Quincy
and Largo, damn them. We're all doing what we think is the only
right thing to do. *No one* gets up one morning and says, 'I
think I'll be a bad guy today'."

"Like heck they don't," Nene muttered.

"I'm serious, Nene. When you understand that every crook and
creep and asshole *knows* he's the hero in the story of his life,
when you really accept deep inside that it's possible for other
people to be completely and one hundred percent convinced that
they're acting right and moral and still do things that'll make
you puke, *then* you'll understand why Lisa acts like Lisa, and
why Sylia said what she did." Priss raised the mug and slurped
down the last of her coffee.

Nene sat back and slumped in her seat, an imminent pout
threatening to burst onto her face. But her eyes were
thoughtful. Resentful, full of hurt, maybe even a bit
despairing... but thoughtful. "When did you get to be such a
philosopher, Priss?" she asked softly.

Priss stared into her friend's... no, her *sister's* pained eyes
and sighed. "I'm an artist. It comes with the turf." She
reached across the table and took Nene's hand. "Come on. I've
got another set to play, and I want you there."

Slowly, hesitantly, Nene smiled and squeezed Priss' hand.

As the two of them stood and made their way to the door, Priss
gave her companion a mischievous sidelong glance. "By the way,
Nene, have you ever wanted to be a bridesmaid?"

"Nani?"

* * *

Tuesday, February 3, 2037. 10:39 PM

A phone rings, is answered. "Moshi-moshi?"

"Good evening, Fargo."

"Good evening, Sylia. What can I do for you this fine night?"

"I have a job for some of your specialists."

* * *

Wednesday, February 4, 2037. 9:47 AM

It was easy enough to learn where IDEC's offices were. They were
listed in the MegaTokyo Tapestry (excuse me, "Net") directory and
on the Yellow Pages, after all. It didn't surprise me at all
that they were physically *in* the Cone, and getting the suite
number was trivially easy.

The hard part was actually getting in.

It may come as a shock, but GENOM wasn't popular. Like most of
the Western nations during the previous century, it was seen as
predatory and imperialistic, and there were certain peoples who
preferred not to be absorbed into the GENOM way of life. Such
peoples tended to object strenuously, in a traditional and time-
honored fashion: terrorism. As a result, GENOM's lobbies the
world over were somewhat less inviting than the usual corporate
ground floor.

In particular, the home Cone was especially secure. No solitary
rent-a-cop behind a desk here, nosiree. Instead, we had the
Berlin Wall as interpreted via modern art.

Let's start at the "street front". First off, it was several
stories up, reachable only by the private spiral road that wound
around the outside of the Cone. A broad, deep staircase of pale
stone a dozen meters deep and at least three high separated the
front door from the road and the commuter drop-offs; its risers
were just high and deep enough to to break the stride of anyone
trying to charge up to the entrance at a speed faster than a
brisk walk. The entrance itself sat back another three or four
meters from the top of the stairs, inset into the building
proper. Its "plate glass" windows and doors were actually made
from aluminum oxynitride sheets thicker than any I'd ever seen
before. Broad slots and rails along and around them pointed to
some variety of blast shutters. The entry looked like a typical
commercial building's weather "airlock", except it was obvious
that this one locked rather more securely than the norm -- the
first defensive choke point.

And it didn't stop there. A low, broad wall, richly golden/brass
in color, spanned the room from one side to the other, and the
only ways through it were several narrow, stylized gates that I
surmised doubled as both employee verification and weapons
sensors -- the second defensive choke point. These were manned
by an over-large staff of beefy, broad-shouldered men and
elegant, too-beautiful women, all wearing subdued but stylish
"GENOM Security" uniforms. They all moved too smoothly to be
human, and had artificial smiles and a cold deadness in their
eyes. I didn't have to drop into magesight to paste a mental
"boomer" label on the forehead of each one.

Behind that low wall was an unobstructed walk to bank upon bank
of elevators. But in front of it... You couldn't navigate a
straight line through the front lobby for all the "artwork" in
it. There were a large number of rather bland, unremarkable
stone and concrete sculptures that I was certain were actually
intended as barricades. Scattered among them were floor-to-
ceiling aluminum oxynitride slabs, etched and decorated with the
corporate emblem and assorted product logos. The slabs were
staggered front-to-back, but stretched in an unbroken line from
left to right across the floor. It only took me a moment to
realize that they were a very cleverly deployed barrier in their
own right. They wouldn't stop something like an explosion, but
someone running in the door and spraying the lobby with gunfire
wouldn't hit much at all. And they'd force any kind of invaders
to go through several narrow, easily targeted avenues before
they could reach the middle of the room. It made for a third
defensive choke point.

Overhead, among the huge crystal chandelier and all the hanging
lights, were many small but obvious fire sprinklers. At least
twice as many as the local building code required, in fact. Ten
to one at least half of them were fakes, rigged to spray a
variety of chemical agents ranging from incapacitating to lethal,
depending on the situation.

It's what *I'd've* done.

At this point, I think pointing out all the surveillance cameras
and hidden weapons turrets in the lobby would be redundant. But
trust me, they were there in abundance. Plus the strategically-
placed mirrors lining the side walls -- in just the right places
to bounce lasers around and through the barricades in a
complementary webwork that would turn the entire lobby into a
deathtrap.

It was an incredible, if subtle, display of an overweening siege
mentality on the part of the megacorp. As the Warriors' security
specialist, I found myself admiring the full-bore gonzo paranoia
of their architect. Not to mention their interior decorator. It
also made me wonder if the White Knight's crusade were actually
having some real effect on GENOM's corporate culture after all.

Now, you may be asking yourself, how did I manage to figure all
of this out?

Simple.

I took the tour.

GENOM's PR department provides an extensive and leisurely guided
tour of several of the Tower's less sensitive, "public" areas.
Every half hour between 10 AM and 4:30 PM, a tour group of
anywhere between 15 and 30 visitors, escorted by a guide and two
boomer guards, departed from a kiosk located on the left side of
the lobby. I walked in on Tuesday morning, in my then-current
disguise of denims, black hair and mustache, one carefully-
measured minute after the day's first group departed. I bought a
ticket for the next tour, and was then able to loiter in the
lobby for almost half an hour without anyone deciding I was an
"undesirable".

I got more out of that half hour than I got out of the tour that
followed, I'll tell you that.

And what I got out of it was that there was no earthly way I
could sneak into the Tower without being detected.

So I used an unearthly way.

Wednesday morning, right on the cusp of the end of rush hour. I
took a bus to the Tower (it was a GENOM transit line, of course),
sitting in the very back row. I was wearing my full duty
uniform, but over it I had on a long winter coat that Lisa had
nagged me into buying a couple of months earlier. I was still
black-haired and mustachioed. And I carried my helmet in a small
backpack.

I made sure to sit in the very back seat, and tried to look as
hostile as possible to anyone who thought to join me there.
Fortunately, I'd timed the ride right, and there were just enough
other riders to keep me from standing out, but not so many that I
had to share my seat.

As we pulled up to the stop on GENOM Drive right across from the
main entrance, I unzipped the backpack, and pulled out my helmet.
When most of the other passengers got up (just incidentally
hiding me from the driver's mirror), I put it on and keyed in a
song code I'd looked up the night before.

"<There is no political solution
To our troubled evolution.
Have no faith in constitution;
There is no bloody revolution.>"

Then I rolled off the seat, through the side of the bus and onto
the sidewalk, where a small horde of tardy or flextimed office
workers rushed right through me, unseeing, as I stood in the
greying slush.

"<We are spirits in the material world.
We are spirits in the material world.
We are spirits in the material world...>"

Pausing only to make sure my chin strap was securely fastened, I
followed them into the mouth of the beast.

"<Our so-called leaders speak,
With words they try to jail you.
They subjugate the meek
But it's the rhetoric of failure.>"

Non-corp is one of those metagifts that still give the
metabiologists absolute fits. Mainly because when it's in use,
all you can measure is the absence of measurements. No mass, no
surface boundary, no air current changes, no radar trace, no
sonar echo, no nothing. It's even worse (as far as they're
concerned) when you're invisible, too, like I was at that moment.
The scientists get very frustrated when they have to rely upon
your word of honor that you're even in the lab at all and not
just phoning in your side of the research...

Still, you can't deny that it has its uses. It also has its
weaknesses, of course -- a force field would still stop me cold,
I'm completely tactile to most other non-corporeal beings, and
anyone with magesight could tell I was there, invisible or not.
In fact, I'd glow like a beacon to any reasonably alert mage
until I went corp again. But the odds that anyone in either
category would be found in the GENOM lobby struck me as
ludicrously small.

And I was right. I breezed through from doors to elevators in a
straight line that ignored all the barriers in place. Oddly, one
of the boomer guards almost seemed to sense me, turning and
searching as I skipped merrily past him, still carrying the empty
backpack. Fortunately, his sense of me remained just "almost",
and he quickly gave up. But for future reference I added the
incident to my mental list of "Why They're Not Just Machines".

I'm not sure why, but for a long time in the late 80s and early
90s, it seemed like almost everyone in the Warriors had some
variety of non-corp. It got to the point where the Fleet Street
papers were calling us the "Flow-Through Squad." These days,
though, Kat and Hexe are the only full-time non-corps on the
team. And they both have a trick that I *really* want to learn --
they can pick up objects and even fight hand-to-hand while non-
corporeal. Something about selective activation/deactivation of
the effect. I don't know... I can't seem to muster that kind of
fine control, and honestly, I can't figure out why the solid
parts of their bodies don't fall off the non-solid parts. But
I'll keep working at it -- it's too cool a trick *not* to have.

Anyway.

I killed the song as I reached the edge of a crowd waiting for an
elevator. I could "climb" upwards while non-corp (my local
horizontal being entirely arbitrary), but it's slow, hard work
and the song would have run out long before I reached the 17th
floor. This would be a Bad Thing. If I could learn Kat and
Hexe's little trick... ah, well.

Non-corp in an elevator wouldn't do for the same reason; I'd have
work even harder to keep up with a fast-moving car, and if the
song ended while I was interpenetrating members of a crowd, the
results would be... unpretty. (One of the reasons the
metabiologists are so hot to dupe non-corp was because of its
weapons potential. All you'd need would be a delivery system, a
non-corp system, and a large solid mass -- a big box of dirt or
rocks would do nicely. Let it loose, it arrives at its target
undetectably, positions itself inside some solid object or in the
ground, and shuts itself off. Boom. *Big* boom.)

So I had to be solid and visible between the lobby and IDEC. Not
safe, but necessary. So I slid in at the back of one of the
waiting crowds, right against a wall, made sure I wasn't partly
inside a wall or a salaryman, then yanked my helmet off at the
same time as I hit the "song off" code. I popped back into the
material world. I forced myself to take a slow, casual glance
around me as I slid the helmet back into the backpack and zipped
it up. As far as I could tell, no one in the small mob had
noticed my sudden appearance.

There was a musical sting not unlike the old Microsoft "Tada!"
clip, and the elevator doors opened. The crowd swarmed in, me
with them. My position left me right in front of the doors when
I turned around in the car. Around me, assorted voices were
murmuring "Five, please," "Second floor," "Twentieth" and so on;
all the buttons on the elevator's control panel were slowly
lighting up. I was starting to get a bit impatient at the
thought of all those stops.

There's a trick -- not a trick, really, more of an undocumented
feature -- that you can use on most brands of elevators. Hit the
button for the floor you want simultaneously with the "close
doors" button. The car doors will shut immediately, and the car
becomes an express to the floor you chose.

With a little shrug I did exactly that -- jabbing a forefinger
simultaneously into "17" and "close doors". And damned if GENOM
brand elevators didn't support the old trick! The doors slammed
shut, again with a little "tada!" chime, and the car took off.
Blessed be backwards compatibility. We shot past all the lower
floors to the growing discontent of many of the car's occupants.

A minute or so later, the car began to decelerate, and a chorus
of sighs and other sounds of relief went up around me. Yet
another little "tada!" and the door opened up on the 17th floor.
I stepped out amid grumbles of complaint and dissatisfaction.

As the door slid shut behind me, I glanced around. Pretty much a
stock elevator area. To the left was a short wall with two
forgettable paintings and a couch. To the right was a hallway to
the rest of the floor. In front of me was a glass wall; a door
was set into it (predictably), somewhat offset to the right, and
"IDEC" in stylized letters had been etched over most of the left
side. Through it I could see a receptionist seated a large
semicircular desk and reading a magazine. A pair of large wood-
toned doors loomed to the right of her.

I didn't go in right away. I spent several long, excrutiating
minutes remembering in every disturbing detail the shredded
corpses of those two poor kids, lying open-eyed on the gaily-
colored floor of Bunko's lobby, glass fragments and their own
blood pooling all around them. I opened up the grate and stoked
the anger that I'd banked three nights earlier, stoked it and fed
it and stoked it some more. I wanted more than anger coursing
through my veins. I wanted wrath. I wanted righteous outrage at
the people who'd made that happen, who'd threatened hundreds and
killed two. I wanted pure fury.

I got it. With ease. And interest.

I stripped off my coat, tossed it on one of the couches, pulled
my helmet from the bag, and drew it down carefully over my head.

And then, as I keyed in the code for "Lightning's Hand", I
stepped through IDEC's front door.

* * *

"And that's it," Ohara concluded, folding his hands on the
table top before him. "That's why we're here this morning -- in
the Tower instead of tossed out on the street. I've already
given her *all* our information, and Madigan, for her part, has
not fired us." He suppressed a twitch; this had been the last
thing he'd expected. So of course, the Law of Maximum Irony had
to kick in... Now he had to come up with a way to keep everyone
out of the office, out of the Tower, tomorrow. It was the only
way they'd survive the day.

A moment of utter silence filled the room after his
pronouncement.

"Let me get this straight," Hiroe finally said. "We're not
chasing the Visitor any more, we're not getting merged into
GENOM, *and* we're now acting as consultants for Madigan?"

"Yes," Ohara replied blandly.

Hiroe turned to the others. "If you ask me," she said, "I'm
willing to put off our mass resignation until we see how this
shakes out."

"Mass resignation?" Ohara murmured.

"Agreed. Something strange going on here is," Illya opined,
frowning. "Madigan an angle has, but it is... what?" He shook
his head. "Friend Daniel, I am by this baffled. Grateful my job
to keep, but baffled."

"Excuse me," Ohara continued softly. "*What* mass resignation?"

"That makes two of us." Tony's fingertips gently massaged his
closed eyes. "This is some kind of ploy by her, I agree. But
damned if I can't figure out how she stands to profit by it.
Or what she even gets out of it."

"*What...* Oh, the hell with it." Giving up on getting an
explanation at the moment, Ohara simply shrugged. "What she
gets," he continued, "is our data. She..."

He was cut off by a fist wreathed in seething, flowing lightning
that shattered the room's wooden door, spraying charred and
smoldering flinders across the table.

* * *

I turned around and pulled the door shut behind me. It had a
shiny brass plate wrapped around the edge at hand-level with a
lock embedded in it. Once the latch caught, I laid my hand over
the whole mechanism and fused it into a solid mass with a burst
of electricity. As I turned around, I flung a tiny line of power
into the office's security system. It took only a moment's
thought to put the various hidden cameras into a loop that
repeated the last innocuous image they'd captured instead of
relaying a live view to whoever or whatever monitored them.
Another flicker of thought isolated the suite's fire and intruder
alarms from the rest of the Cone's grid. Both tricks would last
only a few minutes, but that was all I figured that I'd need.
Lastly, a tiny surge burned out the junction box connecting
IDEC's phones to the outside world.

I'd accomplished all this before I had gotten halfway from the
door to the receptionist's desk. Not bad. I'd been concerned
that I would run into something I wouldn't have been able to
crack, and I'd've had to abort.

I stepped up to the desk. "May I help you?" the receptionist
asked as she laid down her magazine and looked up at me. Then
her eyes widened in apparent recognition.

I smiled broadly at her and nodded. "Yes. The Loon for Dr.
Daniel Ohara." She worked her mouth silently for a moment as one
hand fumbled under the desk. My line of control in the security
system revealed a now-useless panic button there. "No, never
mind, I'll just announce myself." I raised my hand and released
the lightning at the double doors. As their electronic lock
shorted out and they exploded inward, she shrieked and ducked
behind her desk. I could feel the rapid, impotent pulses in the
alarm system as she frantically hammered at the button.

I charged up into full defense mode and stepped through the
doors. Not surprisingly, I found myself in a long, straight
hallway. I began walking down it, sparks snapping and popping
around me, occasionally grounding out into the carpet and leaving
long, smoking scorches. Several heads popped out of doors on
either side of the hall, gaped at me, and popped back in to the
sound of vigorous slams; as I strode determinedly along I heard
murmurs from behind them, and shrugged as I checked the
nameplates on each. If they didn't want to bother with me, I
wouldn't bother with them. They weren't my target after all.

I was at the end of the hall where it made a left-hand turn, when
I found Ohara's office. Of course. I kicked the door in without
preamble.

It was empty.

There was a rustle of movement behind me, and I whirled on it. I
shot out a hand automatically and found myself pinning a
terrified office lady to a wall by her neck. I reined in the
sparks along that arm before I burned her.

She was tiny and delicate and my hand spanned her neck
practically without touching her. I almost lost my focus when I
saw the shrieking, fear-born madness that loomed in her eyes, but
I remembered those two kids, and I held on to my purpose. But
dear god, she was little more than a teenager herself...

I let my eyes start to glow, bright enough to be seen through the
goggles. I knew it would blind me while I did it, but I wanted
the extra intimidation factor. "Ohara," I ground out, careful
to exert no pressure on her slender throat. "Where is he?"

She began to cry, and I felt like a complete heel. "Where is
Ohara, please?" I repeated, more gently.

"In a meeting. The conference room," she squeaked out around her
tears. "Down the hall on the right."

I released her, stepped back, and after a moment's thought,
released the glow in my eyes and bowed deeply. "My deepest
thanks, miss. And my apologies for frightening you." I held the
bow, sparks crackling and snapping up and down my body, and heard
more than saw her hesitate then return the bow with one of her
own. It was brief and cursory, followed immediately by the sound
her running feet along the carpeted floor. I straightened in
time to see her vanish into the lobby.

I stalked down to the closed door with the plaque that read
"Conference A". I ran my gloved fingertips over the sign, the
sparks singeing tiny craters in the plastic. Then I drew back my
arm, gathered a bolt into my fist, and struck the door.

It blowed up real good.

* * *

"Is *everybody* happy?" bellowed the glowing, crackling blue
shape that strode through the smoke as the four of them leapt
from their seats. "I know *I'm* awfully delighted to be here
today, let me tell you. Just to be invited is a big honor...
Oh, silly me, I *wasn't* invited. I just dropped in! <I just
dropped in to see what condition my condition was in...>" he
suddenly sang.

The shape resolved itself into the unmistakable figure of the
Visitor, wrapped in sizzling, arcing electricity. As Hiroe
slid around the table to keep it between herself and him, the
Visitor swiveled his head left and right to eye each one of them.
Instinctively, they pressed themselves against the wall on the
far side of the table.

"But enough about me," he continued. "Who's our next lucky
contestant, Don Pardo?" His voice dropped half an octave as one
spark-webbed hand rose to point an accusing finger. "Well, Loon,
he's a multi-degreed pioneer in the field of interdimensional
physics, a corporate flunky *and* a murderer of children! Daniel
Ohara, come on down! You're the next contestant on 'Your Life Is
Worth Shit'!"

* * *

I checked the timer in my HUD. A minute fifty left on the song.
I'd been making good time. I cupped my right hand and let the
lightning flow down into it.

"I have not murdered any children," Ohara said calmly. He didn't
cower. He stood straight, his posture saying nothing of either
bravado or fear, and much about accepting that which is.

I wanted him to cower, dammit.

His employees didn't cower, either. Oh, they were afraid --
they'd've had to have been fools or insane not to be -- but they
didn't cower. The huge blond mountain of a man looked like he
was memorizing me from head to toe. The fat one with a ponytail
never let his eyes rest on anything for more than a moment; he
was looking at me, the walls, the fragments of the door,
everything, taking it all in, adding it all up. And the woman
glared at me icily, her expression promising pain and
retribution.

Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, Ohara's eyes raked across me,
paused on the seething ball of electrons in my hand, then moved
on, evaluating, studying, sifting. Weighing me dispassionately.
He was being a scientist to the last.

"Two children died in the little trap you set for me on Sunday,"
I said softly. The lightning I held in my grasp surged and
crackled, and ran little trailers up and down my arm in its
eagerness to find release. "Two innocents died in a hail of
gunfire from one of your boomers, killed by you as surely as by
your own hand."

"Two..." Ohara whispered, swallowed, then tried again as
uncertainty finally flickered in his eyes. "Two children died?
There was nothing in the news..."

I nodded. "I knelt by their shredded bodies, my boots and my
knees soaked in their blood." I clenched my hand into a fist,
the lightning arrested there hissing in protest as it was
squeezed out to play across my gloved knuckles and around my
wrist. "Your fault, Ohara. Your crime." I glanced at the
display. One minute ten left. "And your punishment."

Ohara stepped forward, ignoring the shrill objections of the
other three. He put himself almost face-to-face with me. "My
crime?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," I answered. "Your crime. Your guilt. Your
responsibility."

To my surprise, he nodded thoughtfully. Then, to my utter shock,
he dropped to his knees before me, and lifted his chin as though
baring his throat to a blade. His eyes were closed -- simply,
calmly, not clenched in the anticipation of pain. "Do it, then."

* * *

"Daniel, no!" Hiroe cried and tried to lunge forward, but a grip
like iron descended upon her shoulder and held her in place. She
looked up to see Illya glance at her and shake his head
infinitesimally. Even as Tony grew still at her side, she turned
back to the tableau that had formed.

The Visitor had frozen in place. Only the sparks that danced
across his body and the writhing snake of Saint Elmo's Fire
clasped in his hand moved. Too much of his face was hidden, by
the helmet, by the goggles, but Hiroe wondered if that weren't an
expression of shock or surprise betrayed by the sudden slackness
she could see.

"Do it," Ohara repeated softly.

The raised fist twitched once in its roiling cloud of
electricity, then twice. Then the blue glow guttered like a wind-
blown candle and vanished.

"Dear god," the Visitor whispered in tones of shock and disgust.
"What am I doing?" He backed up a step, hand still raised, and
shook his head infinitesimally. "I can't. Not this way."

For a moment more he stood and stared at them as they stared
back, a frozen diorama of aborted violence. Then he turned and
dashed from the conference room, his passage so swift that his
wake caught up and swirled the smallest of the still-smoking
fragments of the door.

For a moment, Hiroe, Tony and Illya shared a look between
themselves, then chased after him.

* * *

"He went *poof!*" Sindra said for the tenth time. She sat stock-
still behind her desk in the lobby, eyes wide and slightly out of
focus. One of the office ladies stood behind her and held her
shoulders while murmuring reassuringly in her ear. The sharp
tang of ozone still drifted faintly through the air around them.

*She's in shock,* Hiroe thought. *And who of us *isn't*?*
"'Poof'?" she repeated aloud.

Slowly, Sindra nodded. "He kicked the doors open, grabbed a coat
and a bag from the couch out by the elevators, and then he
disappeared." She made a gesture with her hands that might have
been a tiny explosion, or maybe a soap bubble bursting.
"*Poof!*" She turned her glazed eyes up to meet Hiroe's gaze.
"People don't go poof! Boomers don't go poof! Why did he go
poof?" she asked plaintively.

"Sindra's gone bye-bye, Egon," Tony murmured behind her.

"Shut up, Tony," Hiroe snarled. "This is no time for stupid
movie quotes. We were *assaulted,* in case you hadn't noticed.
By a homicidal extradimensional. In the heart of the Tower,
yet." With a surprisingly gentle touch, she brushed Sindra's
ink-black bangs out of her eyes. "She's had a very traumatic
experience, Tony, and your humor is simply not appropriate right
now."

Before Tony could reply, Daniel's quiet voice drifted in from the
elevator banks. "Now what do we have here?"

"Call a doctor," Hiroe said to the OL with her hands on Sindra's
shoulders, then turned to see Daniel step back into IDEC's lobby,
holding a small scrap of paper. Grains of shattered safety glass
crunched beneath his feet.

"What is it, friend Daniel?" asked Illya from where he studied
the security system control panel. In one hand he held a small
blob of fused plastic and metal that had once been a key player
in the dance of electrons therein.

Behind his glasses, a bemused expression slipped into Ohara's
eyes. "It's a receipt from a video store in, hmmm, looks like it
might be Ota ward. A Mr. E. J. Fudd rented several videoroms on
Monday night."

"Why does that name sound familiar?" Hiroe asked as she joined
him.

"You don't think..." Tony began.

Ohara slowly frowned as he slipped the scrap of paper into his
breast pocket. "I believe I'll look into this myself." He
turned to head back to his office, then stopped. "Wait," he
added. "Two more things. One, we handle this completely in-
house. Tower security is not to be 'bothered' with this matter.
If they ask, we had one of our internal systems tests go a little
haywire, nothing more. And two, as of right now, we're shutting
down for the rest of the week. I think we could all use a little
time off after today's... excitement, don't you? Anyone
reporting to work before Monday will get sacked." Ohara looked
slowly around the room to see almost everyone nodding. "If
Madigan makes a fuss about it, I'll deal with her." *There,* he
thought. *That will get them all safely out of the way.* He
glanced around the lobby once more. "Carry on."

* * *

Wednesday, February 4, 2037. 5:47 PM

I couldn't do it.

I was prepared for everything but a man who would agree with me
and offer himself up for death.

I expected him to justify, to rationalize, to explain it all away
as necessary. I never expected to see the shock of realization
in his eyes, followed by the moment of evaluation as he weighed
one fact against the other, and then the final acceptance that it
was, indeed, just.

Damn it all, why couldn't he have been what I expected him to be?

I was ashamed.

I had chosen to exact vengeance for two children who, yes, had
died, but had had their lives returned to them. Who possibly did
not even know that their lives had ever been interrupted. Who
had not asked me to exact vengeance on their behalf. I had
decided to play judge, jury and executioner, on my own.

But I am a soldier, not an executioner. I had forgotten that. I
had been playing the vigilante too long. I had started to
believe that I *was* justice.

Then I watched a man judge himself, and find himself guilty,
because of my accusations and anger.

And I felt shame.

I thought of the damage I'd caused, and the terror in the eyes of
that poor girl in the hallway, and the calm resignation on
Ohara's face, and I realized that I had no righteous anger. All
I had was anger, and it was aimed at the wrong person.

So I ran.

And I hid.

Only three days earlier I had told Lady White that vengeance
wasn't healthy. I should have listened to my own preaching.

God, how had I come to this?

I've had two low spots in my life. The first was when Arcanum,
the sadistic bastard, took my best childhood friend, warped his
mind with the Servant Factor virus, then borged him into a
killing machine aimed right at me -- and anyone else in my
vicinity. And I had had to kill Jack, because nothing else would
stop him, and because the other Warriors were all facing down
their own customized assassins.

The second was when I realized I'd almost done the same thing to
myself, in the name of "Justice".

* * *

I'm not sure how many hours I sat, curled into a ball between the
end of the bed and the micro-kitchenette of my new apartment. I
do know that the sun had gone down and the narrow slice of sky
visible through my window had gone from industrial grey-blue to
light-polluted black. I wasn't sure when, exactly; I'd had my
face buried in the bedclothes, breathing in their musty scent,
all the way through sunset. I probably would have stayed there
until dawn, at least, had there not been a knock at the door.
More or less on autopilot, I got up and opened it.

Daniel Ohara, Ph.D., Etc., resplendent in a black cashmere
overcoat and a maroon scarf, stood in the hall, his hand raised
for a new round of knocking.

We stared at each other for a while. I realized some seconds
after we'd started that I'd never changed out of my duty uniform,
I'd only thrown my helmet on the bed. I'm not sure which of us
was the more surprised.

Probably me, because he got his voice back first. "Ah, you..."
and at this he glanced at a slip of paper in his hand. He began
again. "'Elmer J. Fudd,' I presume?" he asked, addressing me by
the name I'd used on the lease and a couple of other pieces of
paperwork.

*Geeze,* I remember thinking. *Am I *so* rusty at coming up with
cover identities that he could track me down this fast?* Then I
quickly and silently debated the virtues of running versus
staying. Staying won, but only because I was emotionally drained
and weighed down by a kind of fatalistic apathy. I sighed. "You
got me dead to rights, Doc. I am Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I
own a mansion and a yacht."

Ohara, bless his morally-deficient little soul, actually boggled,
which managed to cheer me up a little. There's nothing like
freaking the mundanes to improve one's mood. "I beg your
pardon?" he said.

Feeling perverse, I kept going. "So, are you going to shoot me
now or wait until you get home?"

"What?"

I studied him for a moment. Outside my window, the continuous
low rumble of traffic noise was punctuated by a long honk on
someone's horn. "You don't get out much, do you?"

Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, Ohara blinked several times in
rapid succession. "I'm not going to shoot you at all. May I
please come in?"

I shrugged and opened the door wider while sliding to one side.
Ohara stepped in and gave the room an assessing look that would
have ended with a turned-up nose on a lot of people. Him, he
just had this expression that said, "I'm too urbane to express my
distaste at your accommodations."

I shut the door, then crossed the room to flop on my bed. The
springs made a noise like half a dozen baby frogs. "So," I
drawled. "How did you find me?"

He held out the slip of paper, which I took from him. "You
dropped this on your way out of our offices." It was the receipt
from my recent videorom rental. Oh joy. "It wasn't hard to get
your address from the store's records."

"<'Oh, drat these computers. They're so naughty and so complex,
I could pinch them!'>" I muttered. "If I weren't so habitually
honest, I might have avoided this. Lovely."

Ohara, meanwhile, was turning around slowly and surveying the
vast expanses of my great estate. He took in the entire room in
a second or two, then asked, "This is where you live?"

"For the moment," I growled. "It *was* my emergency bolthole."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Really?"

"Really. I pissed off the Knight Sabers, so I hid."

That got me *both* eyebrows. "I was under the impression that
you were... allied with them."

"Yeah," I said. "So was I."

"Um-hmmm."

I didn't elaborate, and Ohara didn't pursue. He glanced around
the room once more, then settled himself into the one dilapidated
chair that came with the place.

"Tell me, Elmer..." he began quietly.

"Doug."

"What?"

"My name is Douglas Q. Sangnoir." *In for a penny...* "'Elmer
J. Fudd' was just an alias."

He nodded solemnly. "Of course." He was silent for a moment,
then pursed his lips and launched into what clearly had been
bothering him. "Two children died at the amusement palace?"

"Yeah," I said, sliding back on the bed and leaning against the
wall. The baby frogs complained. "But they got better," I added
as a stricken look washed across his face.

"They... got better?"

I sighed. The more times I explained this, the less credible it
sounded, even to me. "A few minutes after one of your boomers
cut them into shreds with a machine gun, I made a deal with
some... Beings who could restore them. Are you a religious man,
Dr. Ohara?"

He shook his head. "Not particularly."

I shrugged. "You probably should be. Let's just say, then, that
they were very powerful creatures, and the lives of mere humans
are like threads to them, to be spun out, cut short, and
sometimes, very rarely, to be tied back together. In exchange
for a service from me, they agreed to re-tie the children's
severed threads."

Ohara studied me dispassionately for a long time. Finally, he
said, "If I'd heard that from anyone else, I'd say they were
insane. But I've seen enough of what you can do that I'm
inclined to believe you."

I grinned at him for a moment. "You could always ask the Knight
Sabers to confirm the story; they saw the children's bodies
before, and handed them off -- alive -- to the ADP afterwards."

"Thank you, no," he said with a grimace. "What was the service
you agreed to?"

"Ah," I sighed, growing serious again. "That's what pissed off
the Knight Sabers. And to be completely honest," I continued,
eyeing him cautiously, "I don't think I ought to tell anyone who
works for GENOM, either."

Another raised eyebrow behind the glasses. "Because it might
piss GENOM off, too?"

I nodded. "At the very least."

"Well, then," he said, "I'd love to hear it, because I,
personally, would not mind seeing someone piss GENOM off."

Now it was my turn. "Huh?"

He gave me a dry, tight little smile. "Let me tell you the story
of a man, an academic, with a crazy idea he knew could work. He
had a good business plan, but he needed some venture capital to
kick off the company he wanted to found. So he went to the
corporation that had funded so much of his research at the
university where he taught. GENOM." He grimaced. "GENOM knew a
potential windfall when they saw it. And they were sufficiently
oriented toward the long view to not worry about a few years of
zero or negative profits while the academic turned his idea into
a reality. So they gave him lots of money, and let him have a
long leash."

Ohara settled into his seat. Pulling off his glasses, he rubbed
his eyes as he continued. "But the process took longer to
develop than he expected. And GENOM turned out to be less
patient than it had seemed. They called in their marker."

"And they absorbed your company," I said, frowning.

He nodded and put his glasses back on. "Oh, they left me in
charge, but mostly as a figurehead. I lead the research, but I
don't really run things on the business side any more. Madigan
does." A sour look crawled onto his face.

"Madigan?"

His distaste was obvious. "Katherine Madigan. She's the right-
hand-drone to GENOM's chairman, Quincy. A jack-of-all-corporate-
trades who answers only to him. Madigan doles out the funding
and occasionally gives us our orders. And one of those orders
was to capture you." He scowled. "Damned purple-haired bitch."

"Purple hair? Really?" I asked, and he nodded. "Is it natural?"

Ohara shrugged. "I have no idea. I'm not close enough to her to
find out, and God willing, I never will be." He cleared his
through a couple of times. "Would you happen to have anything to
drink?"

"Sure." I leaned over to the mini-fridge and pulled out a can of
Yebisu. I tossed it to him; he caught it handily, popped the
top, and took a long pull.

"Aahhh, I needed that. God, I haven't had a beer since I was an
undergrad. Anyway, anything that sticks a pin in GENOM's
corporate rear is fine by me. As long as I don't get caught in
the aftermath, that is."

I pulled out a beer for myself. I don't normally drink, but I'd
been under a lot of pressure that week. "So," I said as I popped
the top, "that's a nice story and a nice sentiment, but it still
doesn't change the fact that you're out to capture me. How do I
know that you don't have a crack team of labtroopers surrounding
this building even as we speak?" I took a long swig and savored
the flavor of the hops.

He snorted over his can. "*That* order got rescinded last night,
so you don't have anything to fear from IDEC any more. Now we're
just acting as consultants to Madigan. I guess she decided we
were too incompetent after Sunday's debacle." He frowned again.
"I lost a good employee over that. He resigned because he felt
he couldn't continue to be associated with IDEC with the way we
were going."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I murmured. "Not surprised, but
sorry."

He was silent for a moment, staring down into the opening on the
top of his can of beer. Then his eyes widened behind the
glasses. He looked up at me. "Do you have any kind of technical
background?"

"Yeah," I ventured cautiously. "A degree in cybernetic
engineering. One year of formal employment in that field,
followed by 13 years as a semi-formal tech expert for the
paramilitary team that employs me, back home. I'm handy hacking
both software and hardware, and I've got enough background to
work in half a dozen other technical disciplines. Why?"

"And can you recreate the technologies of your homeworld with the
materials and equipment here?"

"Yeah, some of them. Why?" I repeated.

"Can you explain the workings and theoretical underpinnings of
those technologies, too?"

"Yeah, of course. Why?" I tried again, a little more firmly.

"And are you in need of, um, call it 'living expenses'?"

"Sure. Why do you want to know?"

He smiled for the first time. It was a nasty smile, but the
nasty wasn't aimed at me. "I just thought of a way to thumb my
nose at Madigan without her realizing it." He leaned forward in
his seat. "Come to work for IDEC, Mr. Sangnoir," he said
earnestly.

I stared at him for a moment.

Then I burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry," I managed to get out a few minutes later. "But are
you serious? Me, work for the people who've been hounding me and
who have inflicted gods know how much death, injury and property
damage on the city in an attempt to catch me? Are you *nuts*?"

Ohara spread his hands and fixed me with a serious expression.
"Look at it this way. We want to study you, and learn something
of the technologies you use. You need an income and a somewhat
sturdier cover identity. Plus, whatever your mysterious mission
is, won't having access to GENOM resources make it easier? I'm
certain it would appeal to your senses of irony and justice,
too." He lowered his hands and grew serious. "As for our
pursuit of you, well, that wasn't entirely our choice, as I told
you, and it's over and done with. And we did try to do
everything in our power to prevent harm to innocents."

"Yeah, that's what you say now," I countered. *Still,* I thought
as Ohara waited patiently, *where better to hack into GENOM's
systems than from *inside*... and where better to watch the ones
who were chasing me, than from among them?* "Conditions," I said
suddenly. "I'm not following any dress code. I reserve the
right to walk out at any time. I'm not living in the Cone. And
you quit it with the fucking boomers, okay?"

Pursing his lips in thought, Ohara nodded slowly. "Agreed.
Just... don't wear that costume of yours to the office; you'll
panic the other employees."

I raised an eyebrow. "And what are you going to tell them?
After all, I didn't make exactly the best impression today."

He shrugged. "You'll just be the new tech replacing Davis, the
man who resigned. Which is the truth, after all. As long as you
stay out of that helmet, I doubt anyone will recognize you." He
thought for a moment. "I suppose I'll have to tell my senior
staff the full story, though."

"Uh-huh. They wouldn't happen to have been the folks you were
meeting with when I barged in on you this morning, would they?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." He waved it off. "They're flexible.
They'll deal." He frowned in thought for a moment. "What are
your salary requirements?"

I shook my head. "We'll talk about that after I see what you
have to work with, and what you want from me. The more I have to
build from scratch, the more you'll have to shell out."

Ohara nodded again. "Fair enough." He stood and held out a
hand. "Then we have a deal?"

I rose and shook his hand. "We have a deal."

"Excellent."

We ended the shake. "So," I said, "I'll come in first thing
tomorrow morning, then?"

Ohara suddenly blanched. "Tomorrow," he said softly. "Oh, god,
I forgot about tomorrow..." He buried his face in one hand.

My suspicions aroused, and my danger sense began to whisper to
me. "What about tomorrow?"

He looked up at me, a pained, shameful look upon his face. "We
have a... complication."

I stared at him unblinkingly. "A complication."

"Yes," he said softly. "You've got to understand, Sunday night I
thought I was finished, that Madigan was going to take IDEC, and
that I wasn't likely to live out the week. GENOM's involuntary
retirements tend to be somewhat... terminal."

I suddenly realized where he was going. "You did something
stupid and defiant, didn't you?" Maybe I could get to like this
guy. Maybe.

He nodded slowly. "I gave a lot of money to an old associate to
unleash an obscenely powerful combat boomer on the Tower some
time tomorrow. I don't know when, and I don't know how. I
didn't want to know. I didn't expect to *need* to know." He
collapsed back into the chair. "You did me one favor with your
'visit' this morning, Sangnoir -- you gave me an excuse to shut
down IDEC and keep all my people out of the Tower until after the
attack."

I clenched my teeth and counted to ten in English, then French,
then Japanese, and finally in Valdemaran. *Maybe I can make the
damned thing my first "rescue".*

"Okay," I finally said. "I'll take care of your little revenge
trip, Ohara. But I'm getting overtime *and* hazard pay, you got
that?"


END OF CHAPTER TEN

------------------------------------

This work of fiction is copyright (C) 2001, Robert M. Schroeck.

Many thanks to Ed Becerra, who suggested and/or contributed
certain passages in this chapter.

Special thanks to David Johnston, who on November 24, 1999 posted
a message in alt.fan.bgcrisis about Linna's (canon!) car hobby,
which was the first I'd ever heard of it.

Bubblegum Crisis, and the settings and the characters thereof are
copyright by and trademarks of Artmic Inc. and Youmex Inc., and
are used without permission.

"Douglas Q. Sangnoir," "Looney Toons", "The Loon" and any
representations thereof are copyright by and trademarks of Robert
M. Schroeck.

"The Warriors", "Warriors' World", "Warriors International" and
"Warriors Alpha" are all jointly-held trademarks of The Warriors
Group.

Arcanum and any representations thereof, and the "Servant Factor
virus," are all copyright by and trademarks of Helen Imre and
John L. Freiler.

Lyrics from "Spirits In The Material World" recorded by The
Police, written by Sting, copyright (C) 1981 by EMI Music
Publishing Ltd./Magnetic Music (BMI).

Lyrics from "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition
Was In)" recorded by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, written
by Mickey Newbury, copyright (C) 1968 by Acuff-Rose (BMI).

The above are quoted in this fiction without permission under the
"fair use" provisions of international copyright law.

For a full explanation of the references and hidden tidbits in
this story, see the Drunkard's Walk II Concordance at:

http://www.eclipse.net/~rms/dw2conc.html

Other chapters of this story can be found at:

http://www.eclipse.net/~rms/dwmain.html

The Drunkard's Walk discussion forums are open for those who wish
to trade thoughts and comments with other readers, as well as
with the author:

http://pub21.ezboard.com/bdrunkardswalkforums

Many thanks to my prereaders on this chapter: Joseph Avins,
Kathleen Avins, Nathan Baxter, Ed Becerra, Berg Oswell, Delany
Brittain, Barry Cadwgan, Andrew Carr, Kevin Cody, Helen Imre,
Eric James, and Startide Rising.

C&C gratefully accepted.