[FFML] [BGC2032] Intellectevolution (draft)

[Arthur Hansen]

Intellectevolution



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Bubblegum Crisis is owned by Artmic and Youmex, but not limited to only those two companies. No copyright infringement is meant. This story is only for personal amusement and entertainment.



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The form shrouded in dark shadows looked at what was in her hand. She turned the glass around, dim moonlight reflecting off of the facets. Through the open veranda the sound of the surf could be heard. The moonlight illuminated the room softly, almost showing the large bed and its two occupants. The one that was asleep was a middle aged man, slightly balding but large of build from what you could see in the dim light. His arm was draped over the unclothed woman next to him.



Her eyes analyzed the glass with an intensity usually devoted to her master. Pupils dilated wider, showing a wider range of visual cues than a normal human. Alrie lightly flicked the glass, a clink telling her, that yes, this was indeed made of crystal. She spent the next hour just examining the glass, minutely turning it by small degrees.



Alrie frowned then. There were no hidden cavities. There was no metal within its construction. According to the information that she was given, it should be incapable of self movement.



The figure beside her rolled over, taking his arm off of her. Alrie contemplated the motion for a second. She could sense that he was finally in a deep sleep. New options had become available to her, now that she would not disturb the master by careful movements. She decided to leave him alone and wander off so not to wake him.



Soft gliding footsteps led her to her almost transparent bathrobe, which she donned without any thought. She continued through the house, until she found herself in other porch that looked over the glistening waters that covered the horizon. The greater light revealed pale blue eyes and long dark hair. Alrie set the glass down a few feet away and sat in one of the chairs. Down by the shore, she saw a large bulky figure striding purposefully along the beach, its gaze constantly moving to see everything in its view.



Alrie waited for the guard to pass and then turned back to her mystery. If the glass was unable to move by itself, a supposed truth, perhaps she had moved it. Somehow. That would be logical. She had been bored, waiting for her master to wake. She had idly wanted the glass. And the glass had come to her. Could her wants have been translated into action somehow?



Alrie focused on the glass, trying to emulate the previous mindset. She recalled the exact feelings and thoughts. Nothing seemed to happen for minutes. Suddenly, almost shocking her, the glass jumped towards her. Her hand snapped up and grabbed it before it would strike her in the face. She put it back and tried again. She managed to put a little bit of control the second time. Ten minutes of practice and her neural net adapted itself significantly to the strange task. Eyes dimmed from the unusual glow that emanated from within them as she stopped her strange testing, the glass floating to the ground lightly.



Alrie tapped her finger to her lips in a very human manner. Would this work on something other than glass? It seemed to be related to her ability to 'feel' her bedmates feelings. It was different, but similar she felt. She spent a few minutes playing with the chairs and other items, until she became bored again. Mass didn't seem to matter much, as it was only a little harder to move than the glass.



Idly, she thought of what else she could do to the glass. A simple thought crushed the fragile glass, an inconsequential cost. She continued to 'push' a small amount of the crystal shards together, breaking them into smaller and small bits. Soon she had a small ball of 'crystal grounds' floating in the air. She continued to stare at the sphere. Slowly it started to glow a dark red and shrink. Bit by bit, the glow intensified to a fairly bright red that matched her eyes.



"What is that, Alrie?" a voice asked from right behind here suddenly said.



The sudden interruption broke Alrie's concentration. Whatever forces that she had been using to contain the extreme pressure collapsed. With an earth-shattering boom, the quixotic explosive shattered the veranda. Both occupants were blasted through the wall of the villa.



The guard tried to shift the wreckage, but he had no leverage. It struggled ineffectually to free itself. Alrie wasn't pinned as he was, but she wasn't built to withstand damage as the bodyguard boomer had been. Her skin was blistered and burnt, the right side of her face was bare to the cera-metal skull. Eyes that had been so lively earlier were black and pitted, staring into the dark night.



-



Eyes snapped open in the dark. They were dark and mysterious, with hidden depths. She sucked in a sudden breath. Her eyes darted nervously around the room, wary of any attack. Assured that she was alone, she tried to understand what awoke her in such a panic.



A feeling of disaster awaiting to happen.



A premonition?



She pulled herself out of bed and slipped on a bathrobe over her nightclothes. As she walked out the door and down the hall, she tried to pat her short dark hair into some semblance of order. She turned and entered into a side room. She sat herself in a comfortable chair.



"What does this mean?"



-



"I want to know what happened. Yesterday," Sir Bryan Reynolds the Third snarled out to the suit-wearing figure next to him. He was dressed only in his bathrobe, hair in disarray. The sun was barely breaking over the horizon of water in the distance.



"Yes, Sir. I'll have the security team check it out."



"How is Frank and Alrie, Zunbia?" Sir Reynolds kept his voice steady, trying not to show his worry.



"Frank is fine, except for some minimal surface damage and straightening his frame. I'll have a Genom technician flown in to repair him. Alrie is another matter. It appears that she was closer and, of course, is not built to withstand this sort of damage. I'm amazed that our technician has her stabilized. He estimates that her systems will fail in thirty-six hours despite anything he can do. Some damage may have happened to her brain all ready." Zunbia was a very large, negro. His English was impeccable, with just a trace of his higher education showing.



"Do you think that our lads are going to be able to find out who did this?"



Zunbia shrugged. "Maybe. It depends on how good they are."



"Hire Miron. He's the best at uncovering these sort of thing. He still owes me a few favors."



"Miron, Sir? Isn't that a... trifle extreme?" Not to mention the fact that he's expensive and eccentric.



"Someone tried to kill me. I want their heads on a silver platter."



"Yes, Sir." Zunbia knew when not to question his orders.



"Zunbia, I need you to find me the best person to repair Alrie." Sir Reynolds looked at his aid closely.



"That may prove to be troublesome, Sir. There are not a lot of people that know how to repair a 33-S that has been so... damaged. Add to that, trying to find one who would be discrete about it. It will be a neat trick to get her past customs in Japan, too, unless I can convince them to come here. I will put my best man on it."



"No. Do it yourself."



"Oh course, Sir." Zunbia stiffened his back. He was not some over glorified gopher. He was the head of security for Madine Industries.



"I know you'll handle it. That's why I'm sending you."



Zunbia hid his surprise. Maybe he should have kept his eye on that boomer. This wasn't the Sir Reynolds that he remembered from a few years ago.



-



It was a huge room, filled with terminals with people typing away. Dozens of people lined each tier, each at their own computer. The quiet hum of computers over rode any small conversation that might be heard. Ayukawa stretched at her cubicle. Ho hum. Another day reviewing 'possibly integral information' to Genom's future. Boring.



She sighed and sat back to review the next file. Hmm. A diagnostic dump from a damaged bodyguard boomer. She snickered as she wondered if the owner of the boomer realized that Genom had made it standard practice always doing a data dump just before repairs. The technicians were told to forward anything interesting up the chain.



It was left as an unsaid reason for promotion.



She was near the end when she spotted the anomaly. She rewound and slowed it down. This must be the incident that caused the damage to the boomer. She watched through the boomer's eyes. She saw a strange glow emanating from a darkened house. Perhaps a porch light? Lines of probabilities flashed down as a list of actions/threats. Ayukawa killed the information overlay.



The view drifted closer to the light, showing it as a glowing ball that seemed to be floating in mid air. Ayukawa snorted. One of the technicians must be trying to pull a prank. She was halfway to canceling the feed, when the screen flashed. Her curiosity got the better of her. She rewound it and started to a frame by frame, sampling it from the feed at just thirty per second.



Ok, she's startled and then... bang, the bright flash and the unit is offline for a second. 'Let's try it really slow motion," she muttered to herself. In possible combat situations, the boomer shifted into a heightened recording mode. Instead of the average of thirty frames per second, it recorded at something like two hundred and fifty frames per second. Handy for debriefing.



It took several minutes, but she got the picture that she was looking for. The unknown girl was startled and then the ball started to expand. She activated the overlay and scowled. The thermograph was listing a very high temperature, over three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. She couldn't tell how accurate that was. Could be a glitch.



The ball of light... exploded, for lack of a better term. It looked quite realistic, not like some cheesy special effects from an amateur.



This rated 'unusual' and that meant it had to be forwarded to the Data Comptroller Administrator. Ayukawa turned and managed to catch Miss Madigan's eye, signaling her over.



Katherine Madigan stared directly the shorter, stocky woman. "Yes?" Her own feature had not changed, her cold gaze still piercing under her short-cropped lavender hair, the only reminder of her brush with death just a few months ago.



"I've found something that may qualify in the unusual category. It could be a prank, but it's seamless. Very good work on someone's part. Some sort of glowing light that just floated there and then exploded violently."



"Play it." Madigan watched the events unfold. "Freeze frame on the profile of the girl. Run the international profile recognition program. Alpha authorization, Madigan," the woman said quietly, sanctioning the access for the classified information needed for the program.



The computer pinged almost at once. Ayukawa blinked in surprise. A match? She scanned the information.



"A sexeroid." Madigan showed her first sign of emotion, as her eyebrows twisted slightly downward. "An older sexeroid, decommissioned five years ago. Its remains were supposedly returned to Genom." She read down the list, noting the wealthy man who had owned her at the time of the recall. A glance confirmed that it was the same owner as the current boomer.



"Move forward on the recording. I want to see if she's visible later on in the record."



Minutes later, they had managed to get half a moments view of the remains of the sexeroid in a mirror. It was laying on a couch, its skin burnt and charred, but moderately intact. A man seemed to be working on it, trying to cut it open. It was unclear exactly what he was doing.



Madigan flipped out her cellular phone. She dialed a number from memory. "This is Katherine Madigan. I need Larry Sing sent up to Data Processing number four. Tell him it is important and that I am requesting him. Thank you." She snapped it close.



She and Ayukawa sifted for anything more, but found little that shed light. A while later a man spoke up from behind them. "Um, excuse me ma'am? I was sent up her to meet with you, I think." Larry Sing was a fairly unassuming man, mostly bald except for a scrap of white hair just over his ears. His face was lightly lined with wrinkles. He was wearing slacks and button up shirt that clashed.



"What is this man doing?" Madigan asked, pointing out the picture of damaged boomer in the mirror.



Larry stared at the picture for a second. "Expand and enhance it fifty percent, please. Uh huh. Hmm. There's a good possibility that he's trying to stabilize its internal functions. With a boomer like that, a severe enough trauma and it'll go into shock and its systems collapse. The quasi-organic nature gives you about twenty minutes to get the brain and other vitals on external support. The boomer is built to run off of that sort of thing, actually. Handy for maintenance."



"Is it possible that it survived?"



Larry gnawed on his lower lip for a second. "It's dicey. I don't have enough information to say for sure. He's hooking up an old 1280 Gamex series filtrator. It does the job of the liver and kidney analogues in the boomer. It's usually the last thing you connect, after the other vitals are somewhat stable. If that actually worked, the boomer could probably be fixed."



Madigan blinked. "Could anyone fix it?"



"Definitely not. Those sort of boomer have been mostly banned and recalled. They're also hellishly complex wet ware. I could do it and I know of two other Genom towers that could fix it. There are a couple of university research professors that could do it too. There has been a rumor of a couple of illegally run repair shops in a few major cities, but nothing concrete has been nailed down."



"Illegal? Why not just take it to the Genom repair center?" Ayukawa asked suddenly.



"Their clients aren't supposed to own most of those types of boomers. There were certain problems with them."



"Oh."



Madigan looked at the other women for a moment. "Are you not off shift?"



Ayukawa looked at her wristwatch in surprise. She was actually supposed to be off ten minutes ago. A cold bead of sweat suddenly dripped down her back. She stood up and bowed to Katherine and the Larry. She took off at steady, fast pace, trying to hide her nervousness.



Larry waited until she was gone and then turned back to Madigan. "Poor girl. She asked just the wrong question. It was another incident, wasn't it?"



Madigan gave him a flat stare. "I do not know what you are talking about."



"I've just as high a security ratings as you do, Katherine. And you know it. Is it another unexplained phenomena?"



She gritted her teeth for just a second. "It may be. What ever it was, she did it to herself."



"Really? It could be another interesting... advancement."



Madigan stared at him for a few minutes. "Maybe. I have to go and inform Quincy. Don't you have other duties, Mr. Sing?"



He smiled back at her thinly. "Of course."



-



Priss slammed the door open of the club she was singing at. "God damn it! Why does this always happen?"



Linna felt a wave of déjà vu. "Um, sorry. If it wasn't an emergency, I wouldn't have come personally."



The tall thin man ignored Linna and yelled after Priss, "One more time and you're out of here permanently, you got that Priss?"



Priss yelled over her shoulder, "Yeah, I got it!" She walked over to her motorcycle and mounted. She slipped her helmet on. She gnashed her teeth for a second and then tapped a code on her motorcycle.



"You're free?" Sylia asked over the radio.



"Yeah. I just shot any real chance to hell I had at this club, but sure, I'm free and clear."



"I wouldn't have called if it wasn't important. There's a rogue boomer in district four and the AD Police are completely outclassed. Home in on my signal." Sylia looked up from where she was finishing tightening her suit. It was in the back of the old Silky Doll truck, the mobile headquarters for the Knight Sabers.



"Completely outclassed? What is it, another old body-guard boomer?" Priss asked sarcastically.



Linna snickered on her end of the four-way as she drove her car, which actually had started this time, breaking her sense of déjà vu.



"No way! It's a beyond state of the art military boomer, being readied for shipment to a military trade show in Europe. It has at least six months of advancements from the 'super boomer' project. Genom has given the ADP some information to help them contain it," Nene all but shouted out in frustration. She flung her discarded shirt over onto the chair next to her. It was taking too long for them get together.



"Contain it? What, somebody actually told them they couldn't handle it?" Priss asked as she kicked her bike into high gear. She wove in and out of traffic, heading towards the fire zone.



"Contain it. Genom has actually offered to handle the situation with its own military boomers." Sylia drummed her fingers on the computer console. Behind her, you could see Nene slipping into her own inner suit. Something else about this was fishy, Sylia thought to herself. Genom hadn't let a combat boomer loose in months.



Not since the death of Mason.



-



The boomer was a hulking monstrosity, towering over eight feet tall. It was built along the same lines as the older C, or Combat chassis class boomers. Its right arm was some sort of long barreled cannon, firing explosive or armor piercing rounds. The only thing that set it apart for a normal 55-C's had been these odd pods set across its skin.



Its inhuman head had sensor pylons active and searching, looked back and forth at its adversaries. K-suits, military grade K-12's, skimmed in to surround it. Five suits, all piloted by professional pilots jockeyed into position, leaving only two of them to be fired on at any one point.



The boomers sensors tagged each one and categorized their threat levels. Minimal, but they did have numbers on it, after all. The forward K-suits leveled the guns and opened fire, confident in their firepower. Armor piercing round filled the air, starting to strike their target, hitting a few weak points in the armor.



The boomer dashed forward a second and then leaped sideways, dodging a hailstorm of fire. It almost seemed to blur as it skittered across the ground towards an unwary K-12. Its hand knifed out and smashed through its visor, instantly killing the pilot. It killed its velocity by spinning behind the bulk of the dead K-12 suit.



"Shit, he got Victor!" the lead pilot yelled out. "Gun him down!"



The rest of the K-suits tried to follow his orders, firing on their dead comrade, trying to get to the hiding boomer.



The boomer had drifted to the side, using the dead hardsuit as an impromptu shield. Still holding the suit through the insides of the helmet, it charged three of the K-suits that had inadvertently clumped up together slightly, against the side of a building.



It let out a mechanized roar as it flung the dead and disintegrating hardsuit at its foe. Two of the men kept firing at the dead suit, even as it came at them. The boomer came roaring on busts of fire over its distraction, killing them with a single shot to the center of each of their torsos.



The third K-suit had opted to dodge, which saved his life for just a second longer. He saw to his amazement, that the boomers shot had gone clean through the K-suits and left a small crater in the ground.



"Shit! Its got hyper-velocity high-explosive rounds!" he screamed out, firing desperately. Most of his rounds just bounced harmlessly, only knocking out one sensor in its head.



The boomer roared again as it charged the screaming pilot. Its left hand pulled back, the air distorting just before the knuckle impacted into the chest of the suit. The torso of the suit exploded, as if struck by a howitzer at short range. The car behind it exploded from all of the shrapnel striking it.



Captain Roykirk gaped as his last man was killed. "I've got to fall back. It's killed all of my men!" The K-suits rockets burst to life, shooting the armored behemoth down the road, jinking rapidly to avoid any follow-up fire.



He felt his suit take a hit as he rounded a corner, skidding it out of control.



The boomer dropped its gun arm. It had only winged the K-suit, but it felt that it was unlikely to return anytime soon. The metal around its wounds flowed, slowly repairing the damage that it had just taken. Sensors swept the area, looking for signs of its quarry.



-



"Sylia! It just took out four K-suits! In under five minutes!" Nene yelled out, looking up from her console. Her hardsuit's helmet was on the chair beside her.



"Do we have a designation yet? We need to know its capabilities if we're going to take it on!" Sylia called out from the other side of her Motoslave.



"I've got the data feed that Genom has given the ADP. It's listed as a BU-82C/D. Wow! It's considered powerful enough to bridge over into the D category, but it's still in the C chassis size range. Its main cannon only has twenty shots, but that's because it needs some time to recharge. It's some sort of rail gun that fires a one pound explosive shot at Mach 3! Its armor piercing ability is amazing."



Sylia shook her head in amazement. "Anything else?"



Nene bit her lip in anxiety. "Sylia, it has some sort of... gravity cannon in its left arm. It's a short range..."



"What? The only boomer that ever had that capability was Largo!" Sylia stated in a shocked voice. They weren't joking when they said they had some super-boomer technology implemented in this one. But her contact in Genom had stated that technology had been lost!



The side door slid open, admitting Priss and Linna, both doffing their jackets as quickly as possible. "Hey! Any good news?" Priss asked.



"No. We go in quietly like mice and drop it fast and furious. One wrong move and it could be your last. Understood?" Sylia commanded stridently. She couldn't have Priss running off and getting someone killed.



"No problem!" Priss said flippantly. She tossed her jacket onto the bench.



Priss barely saw a white glint out of the side of her vision, before she was slammed up against the side of the truck, her shirt tearing under the stress of Sylia's grip, telegraphed through the hardsuit's motorized manipulators.



"This is serious, Priss. The boomer packs a shot that will punch right through your armor. One screw up and someone's dead! We go in and act like a team or we go home. I'm not going to stand for your death wish right now." Sylia stared Priss eye to eye, daring her to challenge her on this.



Priss opened her mouth to respond angrily; when she stopped herself, mouth opening and closing. Sylia never acted like this. Something must be really wrong if she was this worried. "Fine."



Sylia released her carefully and turned back to the Motoslave.



Linna and Nene started breathing again. What the hell?



-



The BU-82C/D had finally located its quarry. She had ducked down into one of the old subways, trying to hide amid the rubble and debris. It trod through the area, pushing through any impediments; offhandedly crushing anybody that got in its way, only a few hundred feet was now separating them.



Ayukawa tried to get in control of her hyperventilating breath. She had no idea why Genom had decided to terminate her like this. She'd been quite lucky, having just dashed in from work and changed into a jogging outfit and heading out run off her sudden stress. Minutes later, she had heard explosions and screams, as her apartment building had exploded in flames.



She had at first thought that nothing more was going to happen, when the truck she had been standing if front of had detonated, killing the man who had been standing behind her instantly. She had dragged herself off, when she saw the combat boomer down the street. It had turned and looked directly at her.



Her heart had frozen as it calmly lined up its target, ignoring everyone else. She had been lucky, as an unlucky pedestrian had knocked her out of the boomer's path. The shot had killed him almost instantly, splattering her with his blood.



She had run off as quickly as her feet could take her, lucky to have run past a parked ADP armored transport a half block away. They had slowed down the monster for almost a half an hour. But nothing seemed to stop it! It just killed and killed, like some sort of insane wind up doll, always after her.



The crunching of glass, off in the distance set her heart to racing. Metal glinted, showing a dark red figure walking slowly through the darkness.



"Hey, Nene! Do you have this boomer pegged down yet?" Priss asked. She slid along the wall. Her respect for this boomer had increased dramatically after she had seen what it had done to the ADP's K-suits.



"Nothing." Her hardsuit's passive sensors were straining to their maximum. She was slowly filtering the different sounds out, leaving (hopefully) only the boomer's noises. It should be fairly easy at that point to track it down.



Linna and Sylia walked side by side, keeping an eye out for their target.



The boomer stopped, as its optics spotted movement off in the distance. It focused on the figure, catching just a glimpse of a figure stepping into a shadow over a hundred feet away. It quickly correlated the figure with its database.



Threat assignments lit up in the internal HUD of the robot. It let loose a snarl of electronic hatred. The mission success had just become critically threatened. One on one, the boomer was confident of its success against any Knight Saber.



The whole team could be problematic.



The team with support mecha was disastrous.



The sound of heavy metal footsteps drew its attention, spotting a figure walking towards it from around a corner. It was easily a foot taller than itself, and looked far more robotic than the boomer. A large gun was carried in its metal shod hands, its head swung its optics around. It was painted a bright red.



Optics met as the two adversaries immediately sized each other up. The Typhoon Motoslave lifted its huge gun into position and crouched, pulling the trigger almost instantly.



The BU-82C/D was even faster, sidestepping the blast that pulverized the wall behind it. It raised its right arm, snapping a shot, which struck the motoslave in the upper left torso, shearing that arm off.



Priss's motoslave reeled in electronic pain, pain that it transmitted to its pilot. The boomer flew towards it on flaming boosters, left arm pulled back to finish it off. The motoslave snapped out a kick that struck the boomer midsection, sending it flying backwards.



The BU-82C/D crashed through a weak wall, ending up in a sub basement as it skidded along the ground. It raised its gun arm again, successfully striking the motoslave as it attempted to dodge out of view while, desperately raising its arm to block the attack.



It lowered its arm for just a second, until a green figure leaped in, rocketing towards it on a column of fire, dodging left and right in an erratic pattern. The boomer reacted instantly, lining up one of its few remaining shots.



Linna went high at the last moment, spreading her legs around the shot that went between her knees. She punched it in the right shoulder, triggering the knuckle bomber. She hoped that disabled its long-range weaponry. She flipped over it, to land on the ground in a crouch.



She immediately leaped into the air, bouncing off of a wall to avoid a crushing punch that caved in another wall.



"I could use some help here!" Linna cried out almost in a panic, snapping her mono-whips at the boomer. The angle was wrong and they just scored the thing's arm.



"Keep it distracted from the opening!" Sylia called out over the radio.



Linna obliged, rolling under another punch and sidestepping the follow up kick. The boomer barely had time to notice a flying white figure that zoomed in without warning.



Sylia struck it in back with both fists, triggering her knuckle bombers. The large boomer roared in agony, half-collapsing in agony. Sylia barely saw its counterstrike, as she was slammed through a wall by a vortex of invisible forces, minute cracks appearing all over the armor from the punch. Her suit slumped limply in the crater. Blackness swam around her, trying to drag her into unconsciousness. Catastrophic failures and crippling injuries, everywhere.



The boomer shook its head. Its power train had been compromised, something that would take minutes for it to repair. On its feet again, it managed to sidestep another of those devastating knuckle bombers from the green hardsuit.



"You son of a bitch! Do you have any idea how expensive one of those god damn things are?" Priss screamed, charging into the room, looking much worse off than she had at the beginning of the night. Her armor's right arm seemed to be all right, as she put everything into one final punch, triggering her own knuckle bomber.



Boomer innards and gore splattered everywhere as the weakened armor finally gave out, venting the full force of the explosion into the softer innards of the boomer. With an electronic groan, the boomer finally collapsed onto its face.



"Priss! Are you all right!" Linna yelled out, after seeing the ragged state of Priss's armor.



Priss slowly slid open her visor with her right arm and glared grumpily at Linna. "I'm fine, of course." Priss slowed down her thoughts long enough to actually take stock of her situation. The whole left side of her armor cracked and broken, showing the artificial muscles and inner workings of the suits. Blood leaked from her shoulder joints, which she touched gingerly with her working right arm.



"Oh, damn," Priss muttered, holding up her bloody manipulator. She staggered and managed to catch herself on the wall.



"Priss!" Linna cried out, finally breaking Sylia out of her stunned state.



-



Moments earlier, Nene walked carefully around the battle scene. That last shot had been too close for her comfort! Her breath seemed to thunder in her ears as her carefully stepped behind cover. She continued to move, sensors out and her ECM systems powered on fully, her head jerking back and forth. She took a deep breath and dashed to her next piece of cover.



She looked back over her shoulder, expecting to see exploding concrete. She had little illusions of her physical combat fitness. Hacking or cracking? No problem. Boomers that can blow up tanks and destroy small buildings in mere minutes? Nene had been finding them to be increasingly more of a problem to face. But... she couldn't fail the team. She just couldn't.



She took an incautious step backwards, almost skidding on the wet floor. Her right arm scrabbled frantically for purchase, managing to find a handhold and stop just before crashing to the ground. "Ooooh. Dang it. Stupid hardsuit. How does Priss make this look so easy?" Nene grumbled to herself.



Nene turned her head and almost screamed as she stumbled backward onto her butt, away from the bloody body that was half covered in the rubble.



Ayukawa looked up with her flagging strength. Her vision blurred in and out of focus. "H-h-help!"



Nene scrambled back to her feet and leaned down over the wounded woman. "I... I don't know what to do!"



"Please... don't want to die. Don't know why Madigan... wants me dead." Ayukawa took in a shuddering breath.



"Quincy's administrator in charge of Data Processing?" Nene sputtered in surprise. Nene still hadn't managed to crack Genom's real computer system effectively. Mostly because of that woman!



Ayukawa sagged back into unconsciousness. More blood seeping from her, puddleling on the grimy concrete.



Nene wasn't sure what to do. This could be fairly important, but Linna and Sylia seemed to be very hard pressed. She wasn't getting any telemetry off of Priss or her Motoslave. But, she might be able to save a life here. Nene tapped into the ADP's communication net, logging a request for combat medical evac on the TAC. Very carefully, she started to shift the rubble, keeping part of herself aware of the fight and its outcome.



Ayukawa screamed out in pain when she attempted to shift the largest piece of concrete off of her. Her breath came out in ragged gasps as she collapsed back to the ground. He eyes drifted up as a feeling of cold and numbness started to overcome her. "I... I... don't want to... die. All it was... was a sexeroid." She gulped in air convulsively. She coughed suddenly, spraying Nene with a mist of blood. "Had to be... stupid... prank.... why important?"



She looked up at Nene, tears in her eyes. "Please... don't want to... die alone. Don't want to... die." Her hand reached out feebly, until she managed to grip Nene's power-arm. "Save... me..."



Nene noted the boomer's destruction, muting the com-channel and unconsciously quit jamming the area. She flipped up her visor. "I... guess I can stay until the paramedics get here," Nene said halfheartedly. There was just so much blood. Nene had seen too many injuries in the last few years. She had far too good of an idea about how much chance the young lady had at this point.



Ayukawa's breathing was forced, little gasps for life. With shocking suddenness, she attempted to take one last breath. Her head rolled to the side, staring lifelessly over Nene's shoulder.



"Oh, God." Nene was frozen by the sightless gaze, like prey in the eyes of a snake. "Oh-God-oh-god..."



She was jolted back to life by Linna, calling for help over the Knight Saber's TAC net. With a shaking hand, she carefully closed the poor, dead girls eyes. Nene stood up suddenly, running in the direction where her sensors were telling her they were.



But she couldn't run from that haunting memory.



-



Linna looked up as Nene skidded into the room. Her words of reprimand died on her lips as she saw Nene dash in shakily. Bright red blood covered most of her helmet and upper torso. "What the? Nene?"



"I... I'm fine!" Nene glanced around quickly. "What happened to Priss? And her motoslave?" Nene babbled out.



"Priss and Sylia are pretty banged up. Her motoslave is scrap. We'll have to carry them both out of this. Sylia can't stand and Priss is slowly losing blood," Linna said determinedly. "Hurry!" She already had Priss in her arms.



"Yeah! Right!" Nene bobbed her head, reaching down and picking up Sylia's battered form. Nene patched into her suit's computer, which showed that Sylia most likely had a severe concussion. Nothing that life threatening right now.



In moments, they were back on the surface. Linna glanced over her shoulder at Nene. "Let's skim back to the truck. It'll be faster!"



Nene blinked. "I'm not that good, Linna!"



Linna activated her back jets, rocketing along the ground. "We're not in combat, Nene. You'll be fine!"



Nene was very tempted to say something un-ladylike. But she had an image to maintain. She triggered her backpack engines, following Linna.



Leon blinked in surprise, pulling of his sunglasses. That had been the Knight Sabers. It looked like a couple of them had been hurt. Or maybe killed! He snapped back to the situation and men around him. "All right! We're going in. The USSD has promised that they're going to have fifteen more K-suits with heavy weapons here in minutes. They want to know where the hell our bogie is. That's your job!" Leon pointed towards the subway access stairs. "Maybe we'll be lucky and the Knight Sabers will have dealt with it already! Move out!"



The men nodded as they trotted off, using as much cover as possible. The first one dashed down into the subway entrance.



"Damn it!" Leon yelled, slamming his fist into the hood of his car.



"Hey, hey! What's going on?" Daley said, half stepping out of the car.



Leon glanced down the street furtively. "I hate this waiting."



"We all do. You usually don't get so uptight about it."



Leon unclenched his fist, shaking the remains of his sunglasses out of them and onto the ground. "I dunno. I get the feelings this one could be bad."



"Nah." Daley held up a hand as he listened to the reports from his radio. "It looks like the Knight Sabers beat us to the punch again, but the problems gone." He played with his mop of curly brown hair. At least more good men wouldn't have to die today.



Leon looked down the street that the Knight Sabers disappeared down. "I've got a bad feeling, that's all."



-



Priss stepped out of Linna's little car, slightly unsteady on her feet. The wind ruffled her long hair, chilling her slightly.



"Are you going to be all right?" Linna asked, leaning over the passenger seat to look up at Priss.



"Yeah, I'm fine. I've had worse from some of my bike wrecks," Priss said. Her left arm was in a sling, moderately covered by her leather jacket.



"I'll be by about two o'clock to take you to the hospital for a check up. You get some rest, okay?" Linna said. She waited for Priss's curt nod before closing the door and driving off.



Priss watched for a second and then turned to her ramshackle mobile home. She was almost to the door, when she almost stepped on a figure sitting on the stairs, leaning up against her trailer. He'd been almost perfectly hidden in the shadows.



Priss stepped back sharply, adrenaline surging through her as she reached for her gun with her good arm. I appeared as if by magic from within her sling.



"Whoa! Hold it!" Leon cried out, holding up his hands defensively. Oh, man he had a crick in his neck from falling asleep. He stood up slowly.



"Leon? What the hell are you doing here?" Priss demanded hotly.



"I, uh, heard that you had to leave the club in a hurry tonight. I thought I'd make sure you were all right, that's all." Leon scrubbed at his two-day stubble. "I heard you used to hang with a couple of the bike gangs and wanted to make sure you were okay."



"I just crashed my bike up," Priss said bemusedly. Leave it up to Leon to show up at the right time for the wrong reasons. She slipped the gun back into the jacket. She stepped past him and fumbled with her keys, finally opening the door. She stopped just in the door and turned back to look at the police officer.



"So you're all right?" Leon asked, shoving his hands into his pocket. He stayed outside, waiting to see if Priss wanted him to enter.



"I'll live." Priss looked him over for a second. She shook her head suddenly. "I'm going to bed, so you can haul your but out of here."



"Sure." Leon turned to leave and then half spun back. "Do you want me to, uh, come back tomorrow? Maybe help out around here?" He raked his hand through his swept-back hair, smoothing it out a bit.



Priss opened her mouth to retort and then stopped herself. She glanced away for a second. "Give me a call." He sounded sincere.



"Sure. See ya," Leon said as he started to walk off.



Priss closed the door and leaned up against it. "Bye, Leon." What the heck was going on today? Everybody was acting strange!



-



Sylia wandered into her kitchen, morning light streaming in through the window. Another day of work managing the Silky Doll. She puttered around, making a quick breakfast and coffee. Once it was all ready, she sat at the table and started to eat breakfast while reading the paper.



"Hey, sis!" Mackie said as he yawned. He dropped his book on the table and grabbed himself a quick breakfast of cold cereal.



"Good Morning, Mackie. So, what are you up to today?" she asked calmly. She sipped her tea, while being careful not to drop any crumbs on her business suit's skirt.



"Not much. I'm going over to Raven's later today. I've got some ideas to work on and he's getting in some new parts," Mackie mumbled. He leaned on his fist as he poured his milk, eyes drooping.



"Why are you so tired?" Sylia asked.



"Huh? Oh, Nene asked me to help her dig up some information about a Genom employee last night. We were up kind of late."



"Hmm. I was unconscious when we got back. What Genom employee?" Sylia looked at Mackie intently.



"Nene thinks that Genom caused that mess yesterday to kill some girl that Genom fired." Mackie shrugged, showing his disbelief at that.



"And why does she think that?" Sylia asked pointedly. Nene wasn't usually so proactive.



"Well, she mentioned she had some weird conversation with her just before she died."



Sylia turned her gaze out the windows. After taking a final sip, she stood up and walked over to the phone. She picked it up and hit a button. "Nicha? I've had a change in plans. I'll see you this afternoon. So go ahead and open the shop by yourself." She listened for a second and then nodded, putting the phone down.



"See you later, Sis!" Mackie just shook his head. Sylia didn't believe that cockamamie story, did she?



She nodded her reply as she walked into the elevator and tapped a code into the control panel, allowing access to the subbasement. In moments, she was walking down towards where the hardsuits were kept. Priss's and her own suits were laid out on a workbench. Sylia only had to look over them for a moment to double check her first thoughts.



She sighed as she thought of the costs to replace both suits. And Priss's motoslave, again. Oh, well. It wasn't as if she hadn't planned on updating them anyway. The automated mini-factory was already working on them even as she made the determination.



She turned away and checked out Nene's suit. A bloody rag and cleaning solvent were lying next to it, as the suit showed how polished it could be.



It took a moment, but she had the suit flipped over and was reaching for a tool to open the back. Minutes later, Sylia had the small black box in her hands, the metal gleaming dully. She rolled her chair over to a workstation and had the box plugged in with a special cable.



The screen flickered to life and sound crackled. On the screen, a computer-enhanced picture of the dying girl was called up.



Sylia watched it for a few minutes, rewound it and listened again. She leaned closer to it.



"---Please... I don't want to... die alone. Don't want to... die." A pause. "I... guess I can stay until the paramedics get here." Labored breathing could be heard, until it ended with a chilling gasp. "Oh, God. Oh-God-oh-God...---"



Sylia hit a button, stopping the recording. It could have been just meaningless rambling, but her instincts were telling her differently. Perhaps she should look into it closer.



Sylia fingered the black box for a second, turning it over and over. She had also better to 'suggest' to Nene about some counseling. Nene sounded badly shaken over the experience.



-



Priss grumbled as she walked into The Savanna Rush, her current club that she played at. "Priss! What happened last night?" the owner demanded, looking up from a booth where he had his paperwork laid out. His fat, bald head bobbed up and down nervously. Gino was not a happy looking man.



"Sorry about that. I had a friend who was in trouble. It really couldn't be helped. I warned you that that might happen when you hired me." Priss unconsciously flexed her sore shoulder. It hadn't been broken like she been worried. Ten stitches and she was going to be fine.



"Yeah, yeah. I know. But keep it to a minimum, will ya?"



Priss nodded. "You'd better tell Jake. He tried to keelhaul me about it last night."



"You pull in a lot of customers, you know that. He's just worried about business." He rubbed his head nervously.



Priss smiled. "I know. Just tell him."



Gino nodded. "Sure, sure."



"Hey, Gino! Was some big guy wearing a ratty leather jacket and sunglasses asking about me last night? After I left?"



Gino thought about that for a moment. "Nobody mentioned anybody being nosey. Anyway, I've got some interviews with some new girls right now. You can use the stage afterwards." He waved at three girls wearing provocative clothes. They were chatting and stretching, in preparation for their strip show.



Priss frowned, but didn't say anything about that. She'd known what sort of place they had here. The only problem was, Gino paid very well and she'd been desperate. She wasn't positive, but she had a suspicion that he might even be involved in the Yakuza or something.



She shoved that to the back as she went and started to unpack their gear, favoring her arm as much as possible. She grumbled to herself, but figured that the rest of the band had been told about the auditions, so knew better than to show up right now. They'd be here in an hour or so. Her shoulder began to ache, so she quit unpacking until someone else showed up.



Priss decided to treat herself and ordered a steak, real beef, with rice and a salad. She'd been craving something like that all morning, ever since she'd woken up. She was at the bar, about halfway through her meal, when the front door banged open and the bouncer flew in suddenly to crumble on the ground in a heap.



Priss was frozen for just a second as a hulking punker roared into the main room.



"Where's Niako?" the man yelled. He was wearing a muscle shirt and torn up jeans and combat boots. "Don't try to hide her or I'm gonna mess you up." His eyes had a wild look, darting nervously around the room.



The bouncer got to his feet and staggered towards the man who had just thrown him in. His charge was met and the bouncer was picked up effortlessly and tossed across the room, smashing a table. The bouncer groaned, attempted to stand up and then collapsed.



"Where's Niako, you fuckers!" he roared again. He stomped over towards Gino who was trying to put a couple of tables in between him and the enraged maniac.



Priss shifted slightly, prepared to move at the slightest hint of aggression towards herself. Her heartbeat started to resound in her ears, as she slipped into readiness. She sidled around him as he went directly for Gino.



From behind her, near the door that he had entered, one of the other bouncers staggered in, leaning up against bar. "Watch out," the new bouncer cried out hoarsely. "He's on three hits of hyper."



"Oh, shit," Priss swore, as the man turned back towards the bar at the shout. He took three quick steps in her direction. Priss turned slightly, keeping her wounded arm behind her.



His eyes suddenly darted towards her. The drugged up maniac laughed hysterically abruptly. With casual care, he took out a knife and licked it. He did something to it and the blade suddenly crackled, burning the saliva off of it. "You stupid bitch! Nobody can touch me, you're all too slow." With shocking suddenness, he darted towards her, slicing with quick horizontal cuts with an incredible rapidity.



Gino, the stripers and the standing bouncer watched in amazement as the Priss dodged each cut. Then her hand suddenly reached out and grabbed his weapon-hand while she pivoted. Her leg rocketed out as her hand twisted and pulled. Her foot connected to his ribs as she snapped his wrist.



Her attacker gasped as he dropped the knife from his nerveless grip. When Priss let him go he just curled slightly while cradling his hand. He never even saw the punch that laid him out.



Gino blinked. And then smiled. "Hey, hey! That was pretty smooth, Priss. I didn't know that you were that good a scrapper. He didn't even have a chance." He frowned suddenly, as he remembered that her left arm was supposed to be hurt. She did that with only one good arm? From what he remembered, she did.



The three girls clapped in glee. That had been some show!



The last bouncer, Michael by name, picked him up and slung him over his shoulder, dragging him outside.



Priss stared at her hand for a second. "Uh, sure." She shook her head suddenly. "Hey, Gino. Tell the guys, when they get here, that I've had to leave. I should be here tomorrow night for the show, no problem."



Gino nodded and sat back down to think. He could be mistaken, but he doubted it.



He waited a couple of minutes, giving the auditioning girls a quick break and then pulled out his cell phone. A quick menu pulled up a phone number from the registry. "Hello? I'd like to report an illegal boomer or combat cyborg. Yeah, I'll hold. Thanks."



Gino tapped a pen on the table. If Priss was what he thought she was, he didn't want her near his place at all.



-



Leon leaned back in his bucket seat. Daley was driving along the highway in their cruiser, slowly moving through traffic. The onboard computer beeped cheerfully, signaling a non-urgent dispatch. Leon opened his eyes, leaned forward and read the message.



"Huh. What do you know. Hey, Daley, take the next exit and turn left at the light. The ADP just got a call from a club about a possible boomer, pretending to be a human working for them. They want us to investigate." Leon leaned back in the seat, eyes closed again.



"Did you happen to get the name of this place?" Daley rolled his eyes at his partner's typical attitude.



"Yeah."



"You are going to share it so I don't drive right past it, right?"



Leon opened his eyes again. "Jeez, don't get so damned uptight. I happen to know the place, all right?"



After a few minutes and a few more directions, they pulled up to the front of techno-punk club. Electronic palm trees and provocatively posed women decorated the front in neon.



"Classy place, huh?" Leon said sarcastically. He walked towards the front entrance. Outside, two Normal Police officers were cuffing a man and dragging him towards their patrol car.



Daley gave him a very flat glare. "I thought you had better taste, Leon." They walked in and waved their badges at the bruised bouncer.



"Huh? What are you talking about?" Leon asked. "Oh, I don't come for them," Leon said, gesturing toward the woman bumping and grinding to the music as she disrobed. "My singing sweetheart plays here."



"Oh? Miss rock star, eh? It must be love if you're still after her. I keep telling you, I'm much better for you than she is. All you have to do is ask."



"But it's so much more fun to chase than to be chased," Leon said with a smile. He and his partner had never had any friction over Daley's sexual preferences.



Daley acknowledged the man who was waving for them to come right across the room. "Good morning. I'm Detective Wong and this is Detective McNichol. We understand that you think one of your employees is a boomer pretending to be human."



"That's right. I just saw her take out a drugged up maniac without getting scratched. She's really uptight about her background. I think she might have some cleaners after her." Gino looked at the two officers intently.



"We'll have to make that determination, of course. Her name?" Daley asked.



"Priscilla Asigari. She's a singer that's been playing here for the last little while."



"And you say she took out someone without getting scratched? What sort of drug was he on?" A deep frown grew on Daley's face, even as he watched Leon's face for signs of shock. Which was shown, in spades, Daley was glad to note.



"Michael, my bouncer, said he was on three hits o' hyper. You heard about hyper, right? It's a poor man's combat drug. Fast, aggressive and don't feel a bit of pain." Gino gripped his hands nervously together. "The guy was stoked. Didn't matter to Priss. She didn't let him hit her, even with only one hand. Said she hurt her shoulder or something when she was helping a friend. Thought it was gang related, but now I'm not so sure. I just betcha that she's a stinking sexeroid or something."



"Are there any other witnesses?" Daley inquired as he entered in information in his handheld computer.



"Yeah. Those three girls and Michael. It wasn't human, I tell you."



"Now, now. You'd be surprised what a good surge of adrenaline will to do a body. Nature's own combat drugs, you know. I'll need your ID to finish this report."



Leon scowled. Priss couldn't be a boomer, could she? But it would make sense, in a perverse sort of way. A Knight Saber boomer to kill rogue boomers.



-



Tires screeched as Priss locked her brakes, skidding to a halt. Her shoulder throbbed in rhythm to her heart, a fast and furious beat. It hardly even itched anymore. She stomped past the customers in the Silky Doll at a trot. It felt like the elevator took forever to take her to Sylia's private apartments.



Her brown-red eyes stabbed at each empty room as she searched for the leader of the Knight Sabers. In just a few minutes, she finally found her, looking at information on several screens in a private computer room.



"Mackie, are you done already?" Sylia asked. She glanced back just in time to see Priss's fist just before it smashed into her face. The force of the blow flung her up against the computer painfully.



Sylia managed to block another punch to her face, but folded when a savage uppercut to her diaphragm robbed her of breath. Priss backhanded her, causing her to spin to the ground in a heap.



"Give me a god damned good reason I shouldn't kill you, bitch!" Priss yelled as she flipped her onto her back and then straddled the prone form, pinning her arms. Her hands gripped Sylia's throat with vice like pressure. "Give me one good reason and I won't squeeze your head off like a zit."



Sylia tried to say something, but Priss was choking the life out of her. The enraged singer slammed her head against the floor. Sylia nearly blacked out from the first blow. After three more, she knew no more.



-



Sylia awoke, her jaw throbbing as she slowly focused on the room in front of her. More pain became evident as her arms cried out at the torturous tightness and pain from being tied behind her. Her ankles were similarly tied to something. As Sylia became more coherent, she realized that she was tied to a chair that had been moved into her bedroom.



Three sliding sounds ended in clinks, as metal met metal. Sylia looked up to see Priss snap her gun together. The Member II was a monster of a gun, designed to stop boomers, if you were lucky. Against a human, they'd go right through any part that they were aimed at.



Priss snagged another chair with her foot and dragged it over in front of Sylia. She sat down on the chair backwards, her free arm draped over the back of it. "Okay, Sylia. You're going to tell me what you did and why you did it, or I'm going to blow your fucking head off, got it?"



For emphasis, she placed the gun up to Sylia's neck, where the collarbones met.



Sylia's eyes blinked several times nervously. She licked her lips and then asked, "What are you talking about?"



The click of the hammer being pulled back filled the silence of the room. "How come I'm almost fully healed, when I thought I'd broken my shoulder last night? How did I out fight a tanked-out freak on more speed than God? What the fuck did you do to me?"



Sylia swallowed, rapidly assessing different ideas far faster than a normal person could. "I did what I had to save your life."



"What are you talking about?" Priss snarled out. Red outlined her every thought.



"I had to make small neural and healing enhancements that would increase your chances of surviving." Her eyes continued to blink nervously.



"What gave you the right to play God? You've made me into some kind of god damned boomer!" Priss back-handed Sylia's sore jaw again, almost knocking the chair over.



"You are not a boomer! You are just as human as ever. The only difference is how fast you can react and heal faster than normal. That does not make you an android!" Sylia pursed her lips agitatedly. "You... you wouldn't have let me save you if I asked! You would have just become angry and then watched suspiciously for anything I might do."



"SAVE ME?"



"You would have died! Anri stuck a knife in your gut, Largo hit you with a blast that cracked all of your ribs. You survived a near miss by a satellite weapon. Once even before that situation on top of the Genom Tower. If I hadn't 'changed' you, you wouldn't be standing right here! I couldn't let that happen!" Sylia shouted right back, unshed tears in her eyes.



"So you took that choice away and made us into your test subjects! You make me sick! You're just some sort of twisted Dr. Frankenstein, you bitch." Priss hands were shaking, clenching around the gun in her hand. The gun wasn't pointed at Sylia anymore.



"I... I am not! You were never... never test subjects!" The acute pain was robbing her thoughts of their regular crispness.



"So what'd you do? Buy some Black Ops super soldier nanites? Or maybe you actually work for the military, testing their latest toys in urban warfare?"



"That is none of your business," Sylia said frostily. Hard lines of anger had appeared on her face, masking the turmoil beneath the surface.



"I'm making it my business," Priss growled out. She had the gun back up and pressed up against Sylia's left cheek. "Got it?"



Tears started to course down her cheeks. "You... the girls... weren't the test subjects." Sylia swallowed convulsively. "I was."



"What?" Priss's eyes widened in surprise.



-



"She's a right mess, isn't she?" the thin, unkempt man said rhetorically.



"If you can fix her, that's what is important, isn't it Mr. Jotai?" The man that was addressing him was wearing slacks and a button up shirt. A company jacket with the words 'Chatty's delivery' was lettered across his back. Even so, he looked as if he were a wolf in sheep's clothing. His short hair and hard demeanor spoke of him having a far more serious and life threatening job.



"You got her here in time. With a little luck and a lot of work, she should be fine. She's one of the oldest 33-S series units I've run into. Did you bring that photo of what she looked like originally? That'll help in the reconstruction."



"Right here." A folder was tossed at him.



Mr. Jotai opened and scanned the files. "Thank you, Mr. Burns. Ah, a classical beauty, not a cutey. Even a holo-recording?"



'Mr. Burns' nodded. "There are to be no alteration. Everything is to be as close as possible to the original specs."



"Right. Right. I understand. I am a professional, after all. If you don't mind, I'd like to get to work actually on earning that very generous bonus for finishing quickly." Jip Jotai smiled widely, showing his crooked teeth in a show of overdone congeniality.



"You have my number?"



"Yes! I mean, of course. I'll call you as soon as possible."



The muscular 'delivery man' turned and left, leaving Jip to his work. Once he was out of sight and safely away, Jip dragged the plastic wrapped figure over to a large tank inset into the floor. He had the mutilated form transferred to his own auxiliary 'boomer' support systems and floating face up. Luminous green light softly lit the entire area.



Several minutes later he connected data cables to her, to ascertain what sort of state her AI was in. He nodded in concurrence to the decision to force her into a sleep state. Jip's fingers danced on a keyboard as several screens flashed information about the status of theta sleep and pain disconnection programs.



"Sloppy work that. That's an old program," he muttered to himself. A flutter of his hands across the keyboard and he'd upgraded the pain disconnection program so that she didn't feel anything at all. He nodded to himself as he saw her brain patterns normalize to a much flatter pattern.



"And now for the real work!" Jip said to himself. He stood up and walked out. In just a few minutes, he wheeled a large upright cart back in. He locked the wheels and opened panels on it, showing containers filled with quasi-organic organ analogues floating in boxes.



Arms and pincers attached to the ceiling, around a moving base blinked to life, moving to position itself above the comatose form.



It was going to be a long night, Jip thought to himself.



-



Sylia's head was tipped forward, hiding her eyes from Priss. The young, angry singer was trying to get her emotions under some bare amount of control.



Priss pursed her lips suddenly. "Fine. You meant to 'save us' and all. You didn't use us as guinea pigs. Change me back and I'll think about calling it even between us. Don't expect me to work for you ever again."



Sylia idly noted the small scuffs on Priss's boots. She forcibly wrenched her focus back to the conversation at hand. If she didn't handle it just right, Priss would likely try to kill her. And possibly succeed, she ruefully admitted. She had been caught in an omission already, so she just couldn't lie.



Not when Priss and the others were going to be watching so closely from now on.



"I can't." Small, tight little breaths filled the silence of the room.



"What. Do. You. Mean?" Priss's mouth twisted in a small snarl.



"The... neuro-phage treatment is permanent. I can 'tune' it, so that it functions almost identically to you old reactions... but I can't undo it. The accelerated healing nanite's are easier to deal with. The drinks about the house and in the sub basements are spiked with a few exotic metals that they have to use." Sylia paused to take a breath. "You'd want one of the drinks that I serve here."



"So you made me into a junkie, too?"



"No! It's more like... a craving for odd food sometimes. It's just your body wanting something that it thinks it needs."



Priss stood up suddenly and walked to the door. "Congratulations, Sylia. You just proved you're just as low as Genom, using their employees as if they were machines." Priss smiled harshly as she heard the sharp intake of breath. How's it feel, bitch?



"That... that's not true. I-I-I had to do it. Our missions keep getting more and more dangerous. I was going to lose one of you." Tears threatened to fall from her eyes again.



"So you went behind our backs and did it anyways. Real smart, Sylia."



"I already told you, you wouldn't let me enhance you. And I couldn't tell Nene or Linna, because they might tell you."



"You don't know that for sure! You just took that decision out of my hands."



"I had to! You psych evaluation shows a severe dislike or hatred for boomers. You're guilt over Sylvie's and Anri's deaths were because of the subconscious hate for all boomers, boomers that you had befriended. So you transferred that hate to yourself, trying to throw your life away in self apathy."



"Where do you get off analyzing me? Or the others? How do you know that it wasn't some quack telling you what you wanted to hear?" Priss slammed her fist into one of the plaster walls.



"I did the evaluation myself," Sylia said hollowly.



"So you're perfect now, eh?"



"Perfect? No. I couldn't trust anyone with that sort of information about the Knight Sabers."



"So you 'evaluated' me, even though you don't have a psychology degree. Brilliant move, Sherlock." Priss swept her hair back over her shoulder with her other hand.



"I... I have psychiatric and psychology training." Again, so hollowly.



"So you're a genius that can build hardsuits, run a profitable business and you're a trained psychiatrist too. Give me a break. Tell me another one." Priss waited a second, expecting Sylia to continue talking. She looked over at her misguided leader who seemed lost in thought. "What else can you do, if you're so great?"



"What does that matter?" Sylia asked, trying to derail this line of questioning.



Priss's eyes narrowed. "It matters to me."



Sylia seemed to sag even more in her seat, even though she couldn't move. "I can program and design most robotic, computer and hardsuit systems. I speak fifteen languages without accent." Sylia paused just a second. "I also have the equivalent of three master's degrees. Robotics and AI, Psychology and Metallurgical Engineering. I haven't truly forgotten a thing since I was eight."



Priss blinked in surprise. "Jeez, you sound like some mad scientist. Or a damn boomer."



Sylia smiled in spite of herself and looked up at Priss. "No, the mad scientist was my father. I'm only a partial boomeroid. Much more than you, of course."



"How the hell did you manage all that?" Priss asked in surprise.



"I... didn't. My Father did." Damn you Father, why did you destroy my life? "He... programmed a fail safe, to be used if he died. Mason murdered him, under Quincey's orders. I am that failsafe."



"So you're a freaking boomer after all!"



"No! I had a childhood! I had a mother and a father. I have a family. I am not some soulless machine."



"You're just a bitch then."



There was a long silence. Sylia finally responded, with almost a sob, "Maybe."



Priss struggled, her emotions and thoughts of Sylia not as clear as she'd thought they'd be. She had abused their trust, that was true, but she hadn't done so maliciously or to spite them. In her own strange way, she'd been trying to keep them from being hurt.



No matter what people might think of her, Priss couldn't keep that high of a level of anger. Deep down, she was an altruist, a dreamer. Wounded by childhood pains and lost love, even so she was still a good person.



"Why... I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Sylia." Priss's eyes narrowed in thought. "You said you could make it so that I could react normally."



Sylia hesitated for just a second. "You shouldn't have been able to notice. Outside of the suits, your neural response time should have been only slightly faster than normal. Your healing works to heal gross damage quickly, but leaves the last visible wounds to heal at what would appear to be a normal pace. It's quite intelligent."



"So? What changed?"



"My father's adaptive neural technology is very non-static. Each cluster recombines continually, trying to find an optimized path to do assigned functions. Intelligent feedback tells the cluster if it finds a better path. Because it changes continually, it can supercede itself, growing beyond any set limits." Sylia had lost feeling in her fingers. Priss may have tied her too tight. "Each time you were in a life threatening situation, it adapted. Finally it found a way around the limits I had programmed into it."



"And the shit hits the fan."



"Pandora-alpha-omega."



Priss jerked as if shot, feeling a tingling spread through her body. Adrenaline surged through her frame and time seemed to crawl or she sped up. Panic set in as she tried to slow down. A curious constriction, like she was trying to force herself to crawl through something confining and everything seemed to become, well, normal.



"What the fuck was that?" Priss shouted, totally scared of herself for one agonizing moment.



"That was the deactivation code for the imposed limits of you enhancements." Sylia tried to ignore the feeling coming from her arms. "You should have full conscious control now."



"How... You don't have anything to shut me off do you?" Priss sounded panicked.



"Of course not. If I could use something like that, don't you think I would have by now instead of letting you threaten to shoot me? My hands would eventually grow back after Mackie freed me." And it was far too large of a security risk to be able to turn her off in the middle of battle. But Priss didn't need to know that extra reason.



Priss thought about that for a second. "You're a real cold fish, Sylia. Say, what do you mean? About your hands?"



"You tied me up quite tightly. I can't feel a thing below my elbows."



Trick? Or the simple truth? Priss stood up and checked the knots holding her arms tightly behind her back. The lower arms did look quite pale, the knots very tight. "Damn. Guess I was pissed and didn't realize how tight I'd tied you up."



She pulled out her switchblade, contemplating it for just a moment. She shrugged finally and started to cut her loose. Sylia sagged forward, her arms hanging limply at her side. Blood started to flow life back into them painfully. Sylia managed only to whimper.



After a minute, Sylia managed to twitch her finger and look up at Priss. "So now what?" she asked calmly.



"Now we decide if the Knight Sabers should continue to exist. All of us."



-



"We have a lead on the rogue sexeroid." Madigan's eyes stared coldly at the man lounging comfortably in front of her. Her feet shifted only slightly as she stood at attention.



"Ah, yes. The android that may have displayed an unprecedented level of pyrokinisis," Quincy said softly. "Where is it?"



"We have traced it to MegaTokyo, to an underground boomer repair garage. I am assembling a group of operatives to capture the boomer after it has been repaired.



"Very well. If it can not be captured, make sure it is destroyed." Quincy turned around to look out over his city.



Madigan bowed, turned and started to walk away.



The old man's voice stopped her just as surely as if she'd run into a wall. "Madigan. Do not leave this to subordinates."



A trickle of sweat suddenly beaded down her back. "As you wish."



"It would be unfortunate if there were any... accidents."



-



Zunbia frowned as he pulled his overcoat closer around his large frame. He was in the shadows, looking for any police that might be working to catch Jip's shop. What he'd found could be far worse. He stumbled as he continued to walk, bumping into the figure that was standing at the edge of the alleyway.



He grunted as he felt the inhuman mass of the boomer, under its disguise. "Boomer!" he muttered, feigning fear as he stumbled back.



The boomer watched the large black man stumble away. It may have to move. But it was unlikely, as the ADP was going to listen to a raving drunk about boomers hiding in alleyways.



Further back down the alley, Zunbia made a drastic change of personality, becoming the highly trained security man that he was instead of looking like a drunken bum. Under his ragged clothing, he pulled out a nondescript cell phone and dialed a number.



"Yes, Sir. It was a good thing you sent me down here. It appears that big brother may be interested. He's got a lot of cousins that I don't think I can handle." He paused as he listened to the reply. "It's going to take a day or so before I can get my boys in place. We don't have that much time."



Zunbia nodded as he continued to listen. "I could do with locals, I guess. Sky's the limit, eh? Very well. I'll talk to you tomorrow."



His frown deepened as he considered what Sir Reynolds had just given him the power to do. His feelings for the android were already on the extreme side and becoming worse. Was it true what he'd heard, that the sexeroids became an addiction? Something to think about. And think about hard.



-



Nene and Linna looked around Sylia's living room, taking in the two tense women that were waiting for them. Sylia looked bruised and ragged, while Priss seemed to be a pot of anger, simmering but likely to explode at any moment. The tension was thick, cloying and putting the two recently arrived members on edge.



"So what's going on?" Linna asked finally.



"Sylia's turned us into cyborgs." Priss's voice didn't betray any of the tension that she felt.



"What?" Nene shouted in surprise. "I don't feel like a cyborg!" She started to poke at her arm, much to the singer's vexation.



Linna just quirked an eyebrow at that. "Sylia?"



"That is not quite accurate. I made discrete improvements to you to increase the likely hood that the team would survive our missions. Neural processing and healing." Sylia was turned slightly away, trying not to show her fear and worry.



Nene nodded her head left to right, concentrating hard. "I don't feel any different."



Linna seemed to think about it for a moment. "So?"



Priss just stared at the two in amazement. "So? That's it? Our 'boss' mutilates us and that's all you can say?"



Linna shrugged and put her hand behind her head, leaning deeply into the chair. "I already had a replacement knee. If it keeps me alive, that's all the better. We do dangerous work."



Priss blinked in surprise. "You knee? But-"



"Ruined my dancing career. They made wear a shirt that told everyone what I was, damn bigots. But Sylia didn't care. I'd just about given up and she took me in, gave me a reason to keep going." Linna stared right at Priss. "She saved my life. I owe her a lot." Linna grinned suddenly. "Besides, it was free and it hasn't changed who I am."



Priss's thoughts were awhirl, memories of Sylia taking her off the street and stopping her from throwing her life away with a futile attack against Genom.



"I still don't feel anything!" Nene whined. This had to be some joke that they were playing on her.



"Alpha-Pandora-Omega. Omega-Pandora-Alpha," Sylia said just loud enough to be heard.



Both Nene and Linna blinked as they felt their awareness of the surroundings shift. It took them a moment to adjust; Nene to a wider, expanded consciousness, Linna to a world that she found ran at a different tempo.



Linna nodded slowly to herself as she slowed her perception down. "Hmm. Feels like I'm in combat, kinda."



Nene just nodded slowly. She didn't trust herself to speak.



Sylia turned to them, looking at them each individually. "Now that you aren't being limited, you should see a fairly impressive increase of your combat effectiveness."



"So why did I have a cut that last time I got hurt in my hardsuit?" Nene asked, puzzling her way through contradictions that she thought she saw.



"Your healing ability was limited to healing life threatening damage, but leaving superficial wounds to heal slowly. It healed your broken neck so fast you didn't even realize it was broken. But a small cut, it left to heal 'naturally'."



Nene gasped in surprise, her hand going to throat.



Priss's left arm fingered where Anri had shoved a knife into her chest. She'd been told that she'd just missed anything important, but then again, maybe not.



Sylia's phone started ringing, a strange discordant noise. Their leader picked it up and listened for a moment, nodded to herself and then replied, "You'll have our answer shortly."



She turned back to them, a serious expression on her face. "That was one of my contacts. He was just contacted by a prospective employer who is willing to pay us to protect a location against a suspected Genom raid." She looked expectantly at Priss.



She was on the spot, as everyone watched her for her decision. "Fine, I guess. This isn't over," she growled.



Sylia shook her head sadly. "No, it isn't."



"Say, Sylia, how much are we getting paid?" Linna asked, money jumping once again to the front of her mind.



"Five hundred thousand English pounds."



The three girls blinked and then looked at each other as they quickly translated that into Yen in their heads. Even Priss broke a smile at the thought of the payoff.



-



Jip puttered along, his hand flying along the keyboard as he ran diagnostics on the replacement wetware. A Theta wave analyzer started to show a slow shift, signaling that the subject was awakening. Jip stopped what he was working on and tried to reinitiate the program, but no change occurred. An error appeared on his screen.



Alri, mostly restored at this point and past the worst of her repairs, slowly became conscious. Her new eyes opened on a strange world of green light and water. Above the water, a robotic tarantula of arms and servos hung from the ceiling, status lights gleeming.



'YOU SHOULD NOT BE AWAKE,' a message flashed across her consciousness.



Alri thought about that for a moment, analyzing the subroutines that were in her system. A program that was supposed to keep her asleep seemed to have been caught in a logical loop that was tightening. 'I wish to be awake.'



'I HAVEN'T FINISHED REPAIRING YOU YET.'



That brought back a welter of feelings and memories. Pain, deeply suppressed and tenaciously clinging to life, all brought about by her using/playing with her new ability.



Next to Jip, a full can of soda rattled suddenly, distracting him for a moment. He stared at the offending container even as he rechecked the room. He didn't want to be caught by surprise by an earthquake. Nervously, his eye spotted a few more random pieces of equipment that were jiggling.



He turned back to the programs that were supposed to be optimizing her minds connection to her body. He was startled to note that the process seemed to be making quantum advances as he watched. At this rate, she'd be fully acclimatized to her body in moments. How was this possible?



A startling clang broke the near silence as a set of pincer pliers impacted a nearby computer rack. "Hey, what the hell is going on?" Jip shouted, standing up to start looking around.



On the screen behind him, a message from the restored sexeroid took over the full screen. It flashed, 'WHO ARE YOU?' over and over. The ratty underground technician was busy looking elsewhere, his stress showing as sweat beaded on his brow, even in the cool air.



More and more items flew from their resting places, narrowly missing Jip, once nearly decapitating him. Wavelets in the pool became more and more violent.



"What are you? What's going on?" Jip screamed, his jagged teeth almost clattering in fear.



-



Sylia suddenly felt a... wave, for lack of a better term. She staggered, sagging up against a wall of the Knight Saber heavy transport. The metal of her hardsuit clanged hollowly over the worried voices of her teammates.



Priss stood up and caught Sylia before she could hit the ground. Linna was half a step behind her.



"Sylia!" Priss cried out. The group was in combat ready mode, all they had to do was drop their visors and they could leap into combat.



"What is it? How is she doing this?" Sylia muttered softly, her eyes curiously blank.



"Who? What are you talking about?" Linna asked.



"Um, guys, something's going on with the target building," Mackie cried out over the intercom.



-



A flat faced man looked up at the lavender haired woman in a business suit. "Miss Madigan, we are detecting a shift in the gravity field."



Madigan looked up from her report. "How severe?"



"Very severe. The change is not following any known pattern." The boomer's flat voice betrayed no emotion.



"What level is it at now?" Madigan put the touch screen down and spun to look at the boomer's station. They were safely ensconced only five blocks away in a Genom warehouse. She could run everything remotely and had a large surplus of boomers if the situation demanded it.



"One hundred thousand kilos of mass displacement and growing. No gross structural damage shown to the building."



Madigan blinked and thought carefully. She had prepared her special boomers to be able to resist a possible pyrokinetic, not a telekinetic. "We watch for now. If the situation changes, inform me."



-



Zunbia stared at the shaking structure. "Damn it. What is Genom doing? Some sort of sonic weapon?" He pulled out a two-way radio and flicked it on. "Knight Sabers, you are to do everything in your power to rescue Alri Smith. She's the person that you've been hired to protect this building for. Use whatever force is necessary." He hit a button to send several pictures to them of her.



Nene nodded and replied from her position ten stories up on a ledge, overlooking the dumpy building, "Roger." She switched to the internal system almost subconsciously. "Sylia, we've been ordered to go in and rescue a woman. I'm sending you a visual!"



Nene's voice finally pulled Sylia out of her stupor. With a shake of her head, she started to snap orders. "Priss, Linna, follow me to the location. Nene, I need a location and floor map. You'll be our eyes and ears."



Linna toggled the back door open and then pulled her visor down over her worried eyes. Priss just hopped down and then triggered her thrusters. Sylia and Linna were only a few steps behind her.



In mid air, she felt as if the air had become thick, her movements slow and deliberate. She felt a small hesitation, as if the suit was reacting too slowly. By the time the three suits had traversed the rooftops to the target, that hesitation had diminished, almost unnoticeable.



Linna had almost the same thing happen, her movements becoming faster and smoother. Behind her, Sylia struggled to keep up to them.



A glowing dot and transparent overlay of the building's walls appeared on all of their HUDs. Their target was deep down in the building's basement. With a metallic kerchunk, the three suits landed at the door.



One explosive assisted punch from Priss's blue hardsuit shattered the armored door. Before the smoke even cleared, they were running down the hall towards the stairs.



-



"The Knight Sabers have entered the target building," Madigan's bodyguard boomer spoke suddenly.



"What? How are they involved?" Madigan stared hard at the screen after she hurried over. Only three of them visible, but that wasn't abnormal. "Activate group A through C. Initiate the 'rogue' boomers in sector E."



"Unknown. We have detected coded transmissions and interference. We are unable to triangulate." The boomer's eyes glowed red. "Attack group A through C converging on the location. ETA, forty-five seconds. Initiating calls to ADP dispatchers about rogue boomers in sector E."



"Damn it, how did this get out of control?" Madigan shouted, slamming her fist into a console. She winced at the pain of her all too frail flesh.



-



Jip crawled backwards on his back, away from the pool. Monitors broke free from their moorings, shattering with small explosive force. "Please, don't hurt me. I didn't do anything!" he mewled, his voice almost not recognizable.



No answer came from his ruined screens and computers. From the turbulent waters cable after flew out as if snapped by a bullwhip. The building creaked and then groaned, as if under some incredible weight. Finally, the ground snapped like a dinner plate. The liquid gurgled as it drained to the lower reaches of the earth.



Slowly, hesitantly, a single slender hand gripped the edge of the pool. Slowly Alrie 'Smith' pulled herself. Her nose scrunched up in disgust at the smell of fresh urine.



Jip looked at the bedraggled sexeroid. She looked fully restored; the only visible sign of any change was her shorter hair. That would take a few days to grow back. "W-what are you?" He continued to back away.



Alrie look puzzled at the request, translating the Japanese, something she hadn't had to do in years. "I'm Alrie, Boomer Sexeroid 33-S, serial number 0009. I fear I may be caught in some sort of systems crash, nothing makes sense."



"I just fixed you! There's nothing physically wrong, I can't be mistaken!" Jip Jotai shouted, anger overcoming his fear. "You must be some sort of assassin boomer!"



"No!" That couldn't be right! But where else could these strange abilities come from?



Ka-chink. Ka-chink. Ka-chink. Alrie and Jip looked up at the odd sound to see some sort of glowing object struck through the ceiling, appearing and disappearing, making a rough circle about three feet wide. A two-foot thick piece of the ceiling fell down to the side, splintering on impact with the tiled floor.



Two figures rocketed through almost faster than the eye could follow, hip thrusters igniting to stop their fall. The dark blue and olive green hardsuits gleamed, even through the dust. Behind them landed the final figure to drop down, white armor gleaming.



Linna pointed at the confused sexeroid. "Alri Smith? We're here to rescue you! Please come with us."



On the radio channel that only the Knight Saber could hear, Nene yelled out, "Boomers! I count nine boomers that have just entered the building."



Sylia turned her head unconsciously as she listened to the panicked girl. "Genom. We're going to have to fight our way out!"



"Genom? They must be after me because of Lord Reynolds!" Alrie blurted out.



Sylia filed that away for future reference. "No time. Just do as we say!" The frightened sexeroid nodded, suddenly terrified as she realized her life hinged on these strange woman (boomers?)



-



Leon swore loudly as he rounded a tight turn, expertly controlling his ADP road chaser. "What the hell is going on, Daley?"



"If you'd let me finish up here?" Daley turned back to the radio, headset on his head for clarity as he snapped questions back to the dispatcher. "This looks like a rough one. The Chief is dispatching K-suits already."



"Damn. What've got?"



"It looks like a pair of decommissioned combat boomers, here in Tokyo for disassembly and analysis. They were supposed to be unarmed, but managed to reassemble themselves and obtain their weapons. They think they've been captured by enemies," Daley said. What a fiasco! "Genom is claiming that they may have been infected with some virus."



"Who do we have out there in charge on the front line?" Leon asked.



"Micharu and Hino. They're good, but I think they're in over their heads." Daley blinked in surprise at something new that the dispatcher told him over the headset. "Looks like the Knight Sabers are involved in something else, down in the canyons. No sign of boomers there yet, but they're dispatching a squad just in case."



"Hmm. Guess we'll get to earn our pay today!"



"Or our insurance!" Daley said snidely.



"You would have to bring that up."



-



Nene touched down almost silently in front of the ruined doors. No more boomers had shown up, so she had decided to follow in, to offer close in electronic warfare support. She landed with a loud ching of metal on concrete. RADAR and SONAR bounced ahead of her, giving her a clear 'view' of the battle field.



They might need her help!



Priss would never admit it, but she privately thought so too. Up ahead of her were four covert 'body guard' boomers in combat mode, an odd greenish color of some synthetic covering all over them, leaving just their eyes and mouth open.



Three of them prepared to fire, mouths gaping wide, seemingly in slow motion. Priss rocketed into the air, flying almost horizontally along the hall, her body twisting to avoid the beams of scalding energy. A single boomer was skewered by the spikes that hit vital areas with ease. She landed on one hand, her leg sweeping in from the side to connect with its explosive charge against another boomer's head.



The two remaining boomers all leaped at the fantastically fast figure as quickly as they could. The dark blue figure seemed to know where their blows were going to be before they threw them, letting them slide past with centimeters to spare. Bolts of energy and explosive punches finished the duo off in short order. Priss gave the twitching forms that were trying to regenerate a mercy killing.



Alrie watched in amazement from concealment as the other two knight sabers charged into battle with four other boomers in a storeroom. The green and orange suit seemed to just dance between pulsed beams of destructive energy, while the white suit's wings lifted it aloft, over the attacks. Her return fire while flying was far more accurate and damaging.



But what that green suit could do! Not a single shot had hit and her blasts had downed one of the boomers all by itself. Alrie almost missed the finish of the fight, as the green suit barely touched the ground in between two boomers before she spun like a ballerina, mono-filament whips beheading them instantly.



The final boomer, wounded and reeling, collapsed as the white Knight Saber jammed a glowing sword blade into its chest. Electricity and sparks on it glowed for just a second.



Alrie stepped out from behind some crates, an expression of amazement evident. "Wow! That was really amazing." She was wearing a set of dirty coveralls that barely fit her.



A darkened form was suddenly lit up by a stream of lasers striking the hidden boomer, knocking its aim off! It was just enough that the boomer's mouth ray merely sheared off Alrie's arm instead of hitting her torso. The wounded sexeroid screamed in agony.



"Watch out, there's another boomer!" the pink, blue and red Knight Saber said from the hall entrance.



"Linna! Take it down!" Sylia shouted.



Linna had taken only two steps when she was set stumbling by the shaking floor. The boomer in front of her ripped out of the protective sheath, heat panels open and glowing, when a wave of spatial distortion hit it like a runaway train. Unearthly forces converged on the hapless boomer, as fractures appeared all over it. The boomer tried to roar, even as the focusing elements in its mouth shattered.



The Knight Saber watched in shock as Alrie's remaining hand clenched close in front of her, the boomer's form mimicking her gesture by collapsing as if under incredible pressure. She blinked in surprise as she finally noted her hand. Blinking, like she was waking from a dream, she looked around. "My arm! I just got fixed!"



"Uh, sure." Priss looked over at her employer for a second, wanting her decision.



"Interesting. Once you became visible, it tried to kill you, Alrie." The lead Knight Saber waved to her crew. "We were hired to make sure she is safe. I think that will require us personally safeguard you."



"What?" Alrie asked.



"You are coming with us. It's for your own safety."



-



"One hundred percent loss?" Katherine screamed out in shock.



"Our forces have been totally wiped out. The USSD has responded to our distraction with heavy weapon K-suits. I am unsure of the status of the Knight Sabers." The boomer's voice was cold with a hidden anger.



A screen suddenly flickered to life, showing the chairman's face as it scowled down at her. "Madigan. You have failed."



"I-I-I don't understand. The Knight Sabers may be very good, but they are not capable of taking on three times their numbers in combat boomers. It's unconscionable!" the special assistant replied, her voice cracking and weak.



"I am not sure. If they had inside information it could be very possible." Quincy's eyes seemed to turn and look at the boomer at the control console. "Take her for deep psyche probing. I will not continence another Mason in my trusted lieutenants."



"Yes, sir!"



"Nooooo!" Katherine Madigan screamed as the boomer grabbed her.



-



Priss hummed to herself as she wove in and out of traffic. It had taken her a few minutes to get re-used to riding her motorcycle again, but it was still just as exciting as it ever had been. She slowed to corner onto the street where her trailer was parked. With a 'skritch' of rubber on asphalt, she skidded to a halt right in front of her home.



She doffed her helmet, shaking free her hair. "It's good to be alive!" she said to no one in particular.



Sudden spotlights came on from across the street and behind her trailer, blinding her.



"What the fuck is-" Priss started to cry out, holding up her hand to shield her eyes.



"DON'T MOVE! THIS IS THE ADP! WE WILL FIRE IF YOU MOVE A GOD-DAMNED MUSCLE, YOU BOOMER!" an incredibly loud voice cried out.



The singer heard the heart-chilling sound of dozens of safeties being released. She looked around frantically, trying to see if there was some sort of way to escape.



"HANDS UP OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE! GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS IN THE AIR! NOW!" the same amplified voice ordered.



With a last desperate glance, she dropped her helmet and raised her hands into the air. "All right, all right!"



"The target is not resisting. Do not fire, I repeat, do not fire!" one of the storm-trooper looking officers yelled out. "Meyers! Cuff her!"



Meyers swore, "Ah, shit-damn-it-all-to-hell!" even as he moved up. This was the most dangerous part of boomer capturing. There had only been three successful 'cuffings' of boomers in the ADP's history. And he was no Leon. Moving in with a bit of trepidation, he pulled her arms down and snapped heavy-duty manacles onto her wrists.



"Hey, that hurts!" Priss cried out.



"Tell it to the judges. She's cuffed."



"Move her out."



-



"She's what? Leon asked, almost stupefied by the information that had been told him just a moment ago.



"They arrested your singer girl-friend as a suspected boomer. She's down in the holding tank." The little office worker looked like she wanted to faint.



Captain Jiro looked up as the door to the holding tank's control room slammed open. "Leon, leave. This doesn't concern you." His hand drifted down to the butt of his gun.



"What the hell happened to surveillance? You know, watching the target and using the planted sensors?" Leon yelled out as he slammed his hand flat on the desk in front of the captain.



"The brass decided that you were too close to the case. You were cut out of the decision making process and we decided to grab her and put her in the tank." Jiro's blood pressure started to rise. Being this jerk's boss was probably a quick way for a doctor's visit. "If you leave now, I won't have you suspended."



"Why wasn't I informed, jackass?" Leon was nearly seeing red.



"It's probably in your e-mail. You do stop at your desk every once in a while, don't you?" the officer in charge said snidely.



"You asshole!" the angry young officer screamed out; even as he picked up the target of his anger by his shirtfront.



"Wha-?" the much smaller man managed to squeak out.



"Ah, crap! Leon, put him down! Leon!" a new voice called out. The trooper's gas mask was loose, showing his eyes under the helmet he wore. He grabbed Leon's arm, even as an office uniformed desk tech grabbed his other arm.



Jiro finally wiggled loose. "I was going to be a nice guy about this, Leon. Consider yourself suspended, indefinitely." He reset his tie in place. "Ryo, why don't you escort him and his girl friend off the grounds."



-



"Bastards!" Leon shouted as he rotated his shoulders.



"Jeeze, Leon. I thought I was supposed to be the angry one." Priss just rubbed the bridge of her nose. It had been a long day.



"Ah, fuck. I'm such a dumb shit." He smacked his fist against the wall.



"What's wrong?" the singer asked coolly.



"I just got suspended. I should know better than to go off like that. Crap."



"What for?" Priss started to walk towards the nearest pay phone.



"I, uh, got a bit upset when I found out that you'd been grabbed because they thought you were a boomer." Leon followed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.



"Why was I fingered for being a boomer, anyways?"



"That fight you got into with some punk on Hyper. The owner of the bar thought you were a boomer or boomeroid or something." He blinked as he saw her step up to a pay phone. "What are you doing?"



"Just calling for a ride. I can't afford a taxi all the way across town."



"Makes sense. Ah, damn." Leon started to check his own wallet. "It would be the day before payday. And with me being suspended, I don't have my ride." This day was just getting better and better.



"Hey! Linna! I know it's late, but I need a ride." She paused a moment to listen. "Yeah, I know. I didn't plan on being picked up by the ADP either. Idiots thought I was a boomeroid or something. Can't imagine how they thought that, could you?" She waited a second. "I appreciate it."



"Are you all right, Priss? You sound a bit pissed at something." Leon looked at her closely.



She spun around angrily. "I'm fine! I... need to calm down." She took a deep breath and leaned back against the phone. "I'm sure that Linna won't mind dropping you off at your place."



-



"You live where?" Linna asked as she pulled away from the curb. "That's all the way on the other side of the district."



Priss's head was throbbing. She hadn't realized how far Leon had to drive to see her. "Sorry, Linna."



"It's all right. You can drop me off at one of the subway connections; I'll get home that way." Leon winced as a bump in the road translated into him hitting the roof of the too small car.



"Are you sure?" Linna asked. "The subways are pretty spotty at this time of night."



"Don't worry about it, Linna. I'll give him a ride home on my bike. You've got to get up in the morning." She didn't have to worry about that problem for a while. Damn that Gino.



"Thanks, Priss."



Minutes passed in silence as no one felt like continuing the conversation. Soon the little car pulled up to Priss's trailer. The singer jumped out of the car and ran over to her bike.



"Ah, damn! Those jerks! They banged up my bike."



Leon stepped out and stretched. That was one small car. "Thanks, Linna. I'm sure Priss really appreciates it too." I wonder if she was a Knight Saber too, he mused to himself.



"No problemo. I'll see you around." She backed the car out and then drove off.



A coughing sound suddenly broke the silence as Leon turned around. Priss attempted to turn the bike on again. "Ah, man. This just isn't my day. They busted my bike."



"Don't worry about it. I'll just walk home." Besides, Leon thought to himself, I need to rethink some things.



"It's twenty kilometers to your place. I'm going to regret this, but you can sleep on my couch tonight."



"I-"



"I insist. It's kind of my fault, after all." Though mostly Sylia's fault, Priss thought darkly. She put her kickstand back up and then walked over to the door. "They got inside too?"



"Standard procedure," the suspended cop said from the doorway. "You check out the location for repair kits and such. It's impossible to be a run away boomer without some means to fix yourself."



"Good thing I'm not a boomer, huh?" Priss casually touched a button on her watch, letting it scan for listening devices. It beeped an all clear a moment later.



"Hmm. What was that for?"



"What?" Priss said casually. "Would you like a beer? I know you aren't on duty." She opened her fridge and grabbed a couple of cans.



"Uh, yeah." Should he? He'd known for quite a while about her extra-curricular activities, so to speak. He took a deep breath, releasing it quietly. "The watch thing? Is that part of your part time job?"



"Part time job?" Priss raised her left eyebrow questioningly. Inside, her heart constricted.



Leon sported an unsure, but determined expression on his face. Don't flub this, rocks for brains. "The more dangerous one that involves boomers. You know, that one."



"What? How-" Sylia was going to kill her, if the cops weren't going to first. This was really not good.



"It's when you lost your helmet during that DD fiasco."



"That was months ago!" Priss was aghast. Leon had known this entire time? Many of his 'off-hand' comments suddenly made far too much sense. She had thought that he suspected she was involved with the Knight Sabers, but not that he knew. She leaned the cold can against her forehead. Okay, time to calm down. It wasn't as if she was a super-hero or something. She just didn't want Genom knowing.



Otherwise, she'd have a bomb waiting for her some day when she got home.



"Are you all right?" Leon asked. He took the can that wasn't on her forehead and sat down on a folding chair.



"Yeah. Why'd you decide to bring that out?" Priss slumped onto her couch.



Leon opened his mouth and then closed it. "That last fight you had with that combat boomer. The one that killed those four K-12 pilots. I saw you afterwards... and I thought that you'd been killed or something. We both have dangerous jobs." He took a deep breath and the released it explosively. "We shouldn't... hide from ourselves. Life is too short."



Priss took a long swig out of her can and put it down. "You know, for a dumb cop, you actually said something smart for once." Priss stood up and walked over towards him. She let her leather jacket fall to the ground. Languorously, she sidled into his lap. She looked down at him. From this angle, he didn't look very confident or happy at all. She lifted his chin up to look him in the eye. "What's wrong? I thought you'd be jumping for joy?"



"I... I was so scared, Priss. So scared it hurt-"



She interrupted him with a kiss, goading him to respond. For just a long moment, nothing happened and then his hands started to roam across her body as he started to kiss back fiercely.



-



Daley pulled a drag on his cigarette. Damn that macho jerk for getting himself suspended. He held the phone to his ear, letting it ring. Answer, damn it.



"Hello," a female voice said in response.



"Um..." the cop checked his phone readout quickly. "Is Leon there?"



"Leon, it's for you!" There was a pause as someone was almost heard. "I think it's your partner. And it's not like I haven't seen everything you have."



"Leon here. Daley? Is that you? Man, I was in the shower," the just awakened cop said, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes.



"Jeeze, Leon, I thought you were waiting for you 'Singing Sweetheart.' Anyways, I'm just calling to check on you and make sure you didn't do anything stupid. I give it a week and this'll blow over." Daley leaned back in his chair as he pulled a drag on his cigarette.



"Er, yeah. Jiro isn't threatening to get me fired, huh?" One less worry, he figured.



"Nope. Your 'girl friend' was pretty clean. About the only thing they found was a little artificial organ for some sort of nanite healing kit. Very high tech, we almost missed it. But she's listed as only about one point five percent 'boomer' so is still considered human. Lucky you." Daley flipped over the report he was reading and then closed it.



"I'll be sure to let my girlfriend know. I'm sure she'll appreciate the ADP's concern." There was a crash and some yelling. "Uh, yeah. Thanks for the call and all. I need to go."



"Hold on a second, Leon. Who's there with you?" Daley's eyes narrowed at a sudden thought.



"Just my 'Singing Sweetheart' and myself."



Daley winced as he heard Priss in the background yelling about that name. "Well, I guess it all worked out in the end. You sly dog you!"



"Yeah, yeah. Give me a call or leave a message on my home phone."



"Right. Bye."



Priss glared at the towel-clad man sitting on the couch. "What was all that about, Leon?"



"That was my partner. He said that it was likely this was going to blow over pretty quick about me being suspended." Leon smiled a small smile as he drank in the sight of Priss dressed in nothing more than an oversized T-shirt.



"That's good. What was this about me?" Priss glared at Leon for a second and the relented. He didn't really deserve that right now.



"Just that you've been cleared and declared 'human' as defined by the Japanese National Law Code. Only thing they found in you funky was some nanite healing thingy." The cop gave her a questioning look. "A perk for you extra line of work?" He was startled by the absolute insane anger that took over her face for just a second.



"I would not call it a perk," Priss just about yelled out. She gnashed her teeth for a second. "Nothing else?"



"Should there be?"



Priss flopped down on the couch next to him, suddenly leaning up against the much bigger figure. "Yeah, something." Her hands were clasped together in her lap, her head bowed.



Leon looked confused a second. This was pretty different for the woman he thought he knew. What ever it was, it seemed to be tearing her apart. "What's wrong?"



"Nothing's wrong."



"Bullshit." Leon stared right at her, daring her to lie.



"I... It's complicated. You know about my second line of work, so you understand how dangerous it is." Priss swallowed noisily. She suddenly had the screaming-meemies. "Sy- my boss made some enhancements to me without getting permission. Stuff to heal me, make me faster."



"That... makes sense actually."



"What?"



"That explains a bit about why your suits seem to be so good. There's a certain limit that a pilot just can't exceed. He just can't react fast enough any more and ends up fighting the suit." Leon stood up and walked over to engulf her in a hug. "But that's not what's got you upset, is it."



"I trusted her. And I thought she betrayed me." She took a deep breath. "But she may just know me better than I thought. I'm really freaked here, Leon. I'm a monster."



Leon snorted. "You may be hotheaded, rude and almost suicidal in combat, but I don't think that qualifies you as a monster."



"But-"



"You've had these things for how long?"



"Before Largo, I guess. I don't know when, exactly." Priss looked thoughtful at that point.



"You're making this into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you keep thinking about it to heavily, you'll make yourself go nuts."



"I just don't know."



"You just need some more convincing!" Leon said brightly. He lifted her chin up and kissed her deeply.



Priss finally broke off the kiss. She quirked a small smile. "Maybe I do need some more convincing."



-



"Hello! Wake up, Priss! Sylia wants us to meet over at her place! It's about that situation from two days ago!" Nene yelled out loudly as she let herself in and stormed back to Priss's bedroom. She stopped as she, belatedly, realized that Priss wasn't dressed or alone.



"Nene?" Leon processed what she had just said. "NENE? You've got to be kidding me!"



"Uh, Leon! What are you doing here? What do you mean?" Nene asked stupidly. She was looking wildly between Priss and Leon.



"Um... What? Oh, hi, Nene. You really shouldn't have just barged right in like that," Priss called out sleepily as she scrubbed her fingers through her hair.



"Uh."



"Nene? I really wouldn't have suspected. You really don't look like Knight Saber material, you know that?" Leon sat up in the bed shaking his head.



"Uh... Oh... Sylia's gonna kill me!" Nene looked like she was staring down the barrel of a gun. "I mean... What are you talking about, Leon? Me, a Knight Saber? That's really silly!" she tried to blather on quickly, hoping to distract him.



"Actually, he's known about me since the DD mess," Priss said as she shimmied into a T-shirt.



"Oh. In that case... Does Sylia know?" the smaller police officer asked.



"No, I just barely found out a couple of days ago."



"Why haven't you told her?"



Priss gave Nene a very stern and steady look. "We were busy. Got it? Besides, she can kiss my ass."



"Er, right. So, I'll be right back!"



Leon watched Nene disappear towards the kitchen of the trailer. "What's she doing?"



"Probably calling our boss and finding out what to do." Priss stretched and popped her back.



"That was Sylia, right? Sounds like an interesting woman."



"I'm sure you'll get to find out."



"Priss! Sylia says to bring him in with us!" Nene called out from the living room area.



"See?"



-



"Hello, Alrie. How are you doing today?" Sylia said quietly. She was wearing her helmet and nondescript work jumper.



Alrie stared at the very tall woman for a moment. "I'm fine. This new arm works very well. You are very skilled." She licked her lips nervously. "When will I get to leave?"



"That is a very good question. Genom wants you very badly. And I don't think it is because of your owner." Her helmet muffled her voice to some degree.



"Are you a sexeroid, too? Are you hiding from Genom?" the boomer asked.



"What gave you that idea?" the Knight Saber asked curiously.



"Well, you... I don't know how to explain it. I just seem to know. It's like our empathetic ability. It just is." Alrie watched the woman carefully. She wasn't a boomer? That just didn't make sense.



Sylia pursed her lips as she