Metal glinted coldly under the harsh glare from the overhead floodlights, reflecting the beams into crevices all over the vast, cavernous room. The subdued hum of electronics was everywhere, as several men in workmanlike uniforms bustled around complicated banks of monitors and computer panels. A few of the men crawled around on a large platform that was supported by squat, powerful-looking hydraulic cylinders, ministering to the large, armoured shape that occupied the lift. Here and there one of the technicians passed a scanner over open armour plating, nodding in satisfaction at the readings before closing and sealing the access panel. The chest of the large mech was sitting open, revealing an oblong cavity inside.

Only one figure in the room was not participating in the fevered activity. Tall with straw-blond hair, the grey-suited figure stood quietly in the shadows by a computer console. Arms folded across his chest, Ethan Hollister watched his men work, his icy blue eyes cool and intent, missing nothing. Occasionally, his gaze flicked to the platform, and a faint, self-satisfied smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Thick metal doors slid open at the far end of the room, and four men wearing dark blue body armour and white helmets with opaque visors trooped through, dragging somebody with them. The motion and sounds of their approach drew Hollister's attention, and an unpleasant smile cracked the calm facade he usually cultivated. Soon, a plan he'd been working at for a very long time would finally come to completion.

Afterwards, he would have some scores to settle.

The lead guard saluted as the group came up to him. Hollister's eyes traveled to their prisoner, and again an unpleasant smile appeared as he looked at the captive. It had taken a lot of trouble to acquire her, and even more trouble to hold her; she'd already tried to escape twice, and had injured several of his men during the attempts, permanently crippling a couple of them.

The seemingly groggy captive the guards held was a fairly young-looking woman, wearing a grimy, snugly-fitting khaki uniform with short sleeves. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was blindfolded. Her hands had been shackled behind her back, and her arms were bound to her body with metallic-looking straps. She was very attractive-looking, despite the dirt and bruises, and she had a figure most men would kill for the privilege of merely being near. Hollister wasn't most men.

"Put it in," he said tersely, jerking his head towards the mech. At his words, the captive suddenly came alive.

"NO!!" she screamed, surging upright, and wrenching free of their grasp. "Let me go!!!" A well-aimed kick connected with the groin of one of her guards, and the man dropped into a groaning heap. When one of her escorts attempted to grab her, she spun and head-butted him, cracking the bridge of his nose with her forehead. He staggered away clutching at his nose, tears of pain streaming from his eyes as she strained at the bonds holding her; they began to creak ominously.

Her desperate escape attempt ended almost as quickly as it had begun; the guard standing behind her dashed forward and pulled what looked like a short club from his belt, slamming her across the back of the head with it. A loud electrical crackle sizzled through the air, and blue sparks raced all over the young woman's body; she convulsed helplessly before dropping limply to the floor.

At a curt, impatient gesture from Hollister, the remaining guards picked her up again, and started dragging her towards the hydraulic platform. Despite the charge from the stun weapon, she still tried to put up resistance.

"No! Please!" her voice carried to Hollister, sounding choked and desperate. "Please, just let me go!! I haven't..."

"Shut up, bitch." The terse command from one of guards was accented by the flat crack of a slap across her face. "Ow! Shit!!" was heard a moment later as he flipped stinging fingers numbed by the slap, and a couple of snickers came from the other guards.

Hollister remained aloof, the only indication of his interest in the proceedings being the glint of ambition in his eyes. He watched coldly as the guards hauled the crying woman up to the mech, removed her restraints, and then manhandled her into the concave cavity in the chest of the machine.

"No!! NOOOO!!!!" The despairing, agonized wail overrode every other noise in the room for a moment, causing a few technicians elsewhere in the room to exchange uncomfortable, uneasy glances. Loud, metallic snaps and clacks came from the machine, and the guards stepped back. Choked sobbing drifted from the machine.

"The sexaroid is secure, sir," the lead trooper reported. At his boss's curt nod, they descended from the platform, collected their still-groaning and writhing compatriot, and left. A triumphant smile spread across Hollister's face as he turned to a white-faced technician nearby.

"Prepare the sexaroid for the preliminary testing," he instructed, "and inform me when it's complete." The technician nodded, swallowing uneasily, and reached out to key in several commands to his computer.

Hollister turned and strode from the room, leaving behind the heartrending sobs coming from the large mech.

"NO! Absolutely not!" Priss said flatly, her hands on her hips. Her entire face bore a look of grim resolve as she glared down at the current source of her displeasure: someone's body, clad in grease-splotched blue jeans and an equally stained sweater. The majority of the upper half of the person was underneath a large machine, and shielded from the immediate effects of her glower.

"But why not?" Bert's voice replied, reverberating eerily from among the metal parts of the device he was working on. "You did admit that it was fun the last time."

"Motorcycling is safer!" she retorted vehemently. Irritated sparks flashed in her eyes as she looked disgustedly from what she could see of his body, to the machine above him. I should've known. The resigned thought briefly registered in the back of her mind as she looked at the vaguely familiar shape. The colour wasn't the same anymore, but the overall configuration of the large gadget left no doubt as to what she was looking at: the WarHorse.

Now predominantly dark blue trimmed with silver flames, the high-speed jet cycle had undergone a few changes, and not all of them merely cosmetic. It was a bit longer than it had been the last time she'd seen it, and the wings had been spread a little wider for greater lift.

The yawning turbine intake had been replaced by several streamlined air vents, built into the nose of the hull. By far the most noticeable change was the fact that the flying machine now mounted visible weaponry. Six, one-shot torpedo tubes jutted threateningly from its snout, and twin laser cannons were mounted on the top of the front faring, just in front of the vehicle's windshield. Even with the armament, it still looked like a souped-up jet-engine with wings and a seat attached.

"Drag-racing highway patrol cruisers is safer?" came the dry reply. A grunt of effort came from under the bulky flying machine as he started worming his way out from under it. "At least I don't have to worry about losing my license on this thing."

"Nobody in their right mind would give you a license for that thing!" she shot back, nettled. "And at least the ground's a lot closer!" Remembered nausea assailed her as she recalled how she'd been duped into accepting a ride on its maiden flight. It had been an utterly wild experience, frightening and exhilarating in terms of speed, and the cheerfully reckless abandon of its pilot. Normally, she didn't mind speed thrills, but this was a bit different.

The problem was that the somewhat comforting knowledge that the ground was right below her was absent when soaring around on the supercharged jetbike. The high velocity and high altitude the jetbike used meant that the slightest mechanical difficulty, or piloting mistake, had the potential to turn whoever was riding the sky-cycle into something resembling a squashed can of tomato paste; there wouldn't be time to jump off and use hardsuit flight systems to escape if they hit something. She shuddered, and quickly forced her mind away from the subject.

Bert finally succeeded in crawling out from under the WarHorse, and stood up, shaking his head in amusement, smiling wryly. A few oily smudges marred his nose and face, and his hair was a sweaty, tangled mess.

"I can't see much difference between falling from a few hundred feet up, or falling off and skidding on your face along the pavement," he noted mildly. "Both would probably hurt."

"I'm not going up on it, and that's final," Priss declared flatly, slashing her hand through the air in a negative gesture. "I mean it, Bert." She looked levelly into his eyes, and saw regretful acknowledgment appear in them.

"Okay," he sighed, giving up. "It wasn't going to be right away anyway; Sylia wants to discuss some other modifications first."

"Considering the way she reacted when you first built the damn thing, I'm surprised she let you work on it again."

"She suggested it, actually," Bert grinned. "I guess with Sylvie running the store, she's had more time to look at some of the projects she's wanted to do for a while." He patted the slick metal hull of the jetbike. "She even gave me some improvements to try on this baby here; I think if it works out, she's going to allow it to be used on some missions." A sly grin appeared. "In fact, I think Sylia was considering a motoroid-convertible version."

"Oh my God," the attractive singer groaned, slapping a hand over her face as she looked heavenward. "No way. Never. Uh-uh. I'm sticking with my old motoroid and I don't give a damn what's been improved, thank you very much!!"

"You're taking all the fun out of this!" he protested, artfully looking hurt. She didn't buy it, and didn't reply. Seeing he wasn't going to get a rise out of her, he grinned slyly again, and gave up. Glancing at the battered clock hanging on the wall, he snatched up a relatively clean rag and carried it over to the can of hand-cleaner sitting on the cluttered counter by the sink. Scooping up some of the soapy-feeling cleaner, he started scrubbing his hands clean.

As he worked at some of the more persistent stains, he glanced over at Priss out of the corner of his eye. Seeing that he'd given up on baiting her, she'd leaned against the wall and was apparently lost in thought. Her red-brown eyes were gazing absently at nothing, and her lips were pursed slightly as if she was contemplating something not to her liking. His gaze ran appreciatively over her, quietly enjoying the look of her in her usual form-fitting red and black leather bike suit. Flushing slightly, he returned his attention to cleaning his hands; now wasn't the time to start having amorous thoughts.

"Finished?" Priss's voice asked him.

"Yup, that was it for the day," he sighed, stretching and yawning hugely as he turned towards her. He grinned at her and tossed the hand-rag into a nearby bin as she walked up to him. "Feel like going to dinner?"

"Sure," she agreed readily, then grinned herself. "You buying?"

"Looks like it," he replied dryly. "I didn't get fleeced by another speeding ticket." That wisecrack earned him an irritated glance; he'd warned her about the speed trap the THP had set up along the Bayshore highway, but she'd forgotten, and had been nabbed doing well over 60 kilometers per hour over the limit. Since then, he'd been getting in sly digs at her when he could; watching her fume was kind of fun, if risky.

"Just go and get cleaned up," she told him, putting a hand on his chest and shoving him back as he started to lean closer to her. "I'm not going out with someone who looks like they just fell into an oil pit." He chuckled, and bowed slightly.

"Your wish is my command," he proclaimed with a smirk. "I'll be back in about twenty minutes, unless you want to wait in the apartment?" He glanced quizzically at her.

"I'll wait here," she told him. "Go on, go get cleaned up." He nodded and left. "Smartass," she mumbled under her breath as the door closed behind him. After a moment, her irritation crumbled and disintegrated; she just couldn't stay pissed off at him for very long either, not over something that minor. Given how close they'd become, she knew it was just an obscure way of him expressing his feelings for her.

Priss idly strolled around the shop, humming some of her songs to herself as she sorted through some pleasant memories, just letting herself relax. As she wandered around, looking at the scattered clutter, she found herself standing in front of the WarHorse again. She scowled at the jetbike, seriously considering kicking the damn thing; she hadn't told anyone, but she was positive that her ride on it had given her an almost pathological fear of flying at high altitudes in anything other than an airplane. She'd even had a nightmare about falling off of it, and had woken up drenched in sweat.

A sudden thought struck her, and a slow, wicked grin spread across her face as she looked at the blue flying machine. Casting a furtive glance at the door to the shop, she quickly hunted around for the can of silver paint he'd used to paint the jetbike's trim. She carefully pried open the can, then found a small brush.

Kneeling next to the big machine, she judiciously applied a few strokes approximately where the machine's gas tank should be, then gazed critically at her work. Nodding in satisfaction, she finished the additions, then quickly touched up the other side of the gas tank as well.

Grinning in smug triumph, she sealed the can again, cleaning the brush and putting it back. After taking a brief glance at herself to make sure there were no telltale paint flecks on her clothes, she gave her handiwork another smirk. Deciding that she did need to get cleaned up a bit now, she left the shop, heading for Bert's apartment; it was the closest, and it would keep him from coming back until after the paint had dried.

As the door closed behind her, the shop lights glistened wetly on the WarHorse's new lettering:

Paper rustled quietly as Hollister shuffled through the file folder on the cluttered desk in front of him. He skimmed over page after page, until his expression turned to one of resigned disgust as the data he sought continued to elude him. He closed the folder, shoving it aside, and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

After a moment, he stood and walked over to a small side-cabinet, opening it and pulling out a bottle filled with an amber liquid. Pouring a glassful, and adding some ice, he carried the liquor back to his desk and sat down. Kicking off his shoes, he propped his feet up on the corner of the huge oak desk he was sitting behind, and sat sipping his drink while he stared with a dark brooding look into space.

"I'd heard that rank hath its privileges," a voice remarked dryly from the doorway, "but I didn't realize that you'd taken it quite so much to heart." A cold gaze snapped up to where the voice had come from, then thawed slightly.

"If you've got it, why not use it?" Hollister shrugged, waving the man at the door in. "Care for some brandy?"

"I've my own poison, thanks," the gaunt, elderly man replied as he tiredly shuffled across the carpeted office, sinking with a grateful sigh into the leather armchair across the desk from Hollister. He dug into the capacious pockets of the slightly-rumpled lab coat he wore, and came up with a pipe.

"At least I'll still have my lungs with this," Hollister noted, raising his glass slightly. At the same time, he reached out and pressed the switch on the strategically located air freshener nearby. It began to whir quietly as he leaned back into his chair and took another swig. Doc gave the device a slightly amused smile as he stuck the pipe in his mouth.

"I wouldn't worry about lung cancer, Ethan," he mumbled around the stem of his pipe as he fished tobacco out of another pocket and started packing the pipe with it. "Diseases can't get someone who was born to be hung." Sly mirth flickered in his expression for a moment.

"Pardon?" The ice was back in Hollister's eyes, and Doc sighed to himself. The man had no sense of humour about some things. That was one of the things that made it so difficult trying to deal with him; his emotional armour was tight and nearly impenetrable, making it impossible to get a feel for how he'd react to something. His years in the espionage world also meant that you could never be sure what his personality really was like.

"What I meant," Doc explained carefully as he struck a match, and began stoking his pipe into life, "was that for someone who gets himself involved in as many dangerous business operations as you do, cancer should be the last worry on your mind. Besides, you know they've got excellent treatments for that sort of thing now."

"Humph." The blond man didn't reply, and sat nursing his drink for a few moments in silence as blue clouds of smoke began to fill the airspace around the old scientist.

Puffing contentedly on his baseburner, Doc glanced around at the comfortably furnished office, taking in the rich finish of the wood paneling on the walls, the mahogany bookshelves, the thick, soft carpeting...the entire place reeked of luxury. It was a curious anomaly, since Hollister normally didn't seem to concern himself with creature comforts. Maybe he'd decided to start using some of the vast wealth he'd been accumulating. After a while, Hollister sighed and sat up, dropping his feet back to the floor while setting his empty glass aside.

"Was there anything in particular you needed?" he asked the billowing smoke cloud across the desk from him.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, there was. This came in for you; I picked it up on my way over." Paper crackled and rustled, then a long white envelope appeared in the haze, extending towards the desk. Hollister irritably snatched it out of the proffering hand, and tore it open.

"You're welcome," Doc noted dryly, watching as the grey-suited man extracted some folded pages and began scanning them intently. The slow smile that appeared on Hollister's face made him turn cold with dread for an instant.

"Perfect," the blond man stated, tucking the pages neatly into the file folder he'd been reading earlier.

"Mind if I ask what that was?"

"Just confirmation of a hunch I had," he waved the matter aside with his hand. "I'll be able to follow up on it now without any problems. Now then, how's the synchronization testing going?"

"Slowly," Doc replied with a sigh. "We can't rush this; we've only got the one sexaroid, and replacing her would be a real pain. It has to go perfectly the first time we try for the full linkage, or we'll kill her. Getting back on Genaros in the near future to appropriate another one is out of the question right now."

The old scientist carefully kept his voice and expression neutral as he spoke; normally, his work didn't bother him all that much, but this time it was different. While he didn't think of sexaroids as anything but a different type of boomer, it took a conscious effort to ignore the sobbing coming from the prototype battlemover. Not even gagging her had helped, and it was beginning to wear on his nerves. He must be getting old if the simulacrum of a tearful young woman could get to him.

That, or else it was the fact that his heart really wasn't in this project. Or in the whole operation, for that matter.

"We've got time," Hollister's voice sounded unusually relaxed. "And I've got some other projects to work on in the meantime." He patted the file folder near his elbow almost lovingly.

"Like what?"

"I'm glad you asked," Hollister smirked. "It's like this...."

"He's healed, physically at least," the doctor told Madigan. "Mentally, well... he's still got a few rough spots."

"Explain," Kate Madigan ordered crisply. The striking GENOM executive was wearing her usual dark business suit, her lavender hair hanging neatly, swept back over her shoulders. "What 'rough spots'?"

"Well, he tends to stammer a bit," the doctor shrugged. "And he's developed a nervous twitch. He seems inordinately fearful of something as well; we've never quite been able to determine of what, but he's constantly checking over his shoulder."

"But he is fit to release?" she asked, glancing through the thick observation window. Inside the sealed medical room, a black-haired man lay tossing and turning restlessly on a bed, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. It had been approximately two months since they'd run Stryker through the Deep Psychology Scanner in an effort to find out who his employer was. They'd finally gotten an answer, but had nearly ruined the man's mind in doing so.

"If you mean in terms of physical condition, yes, he is fit to release," the doctor said guardedly. "His mental condition is still undetermined; I would recommend that he be kept here under observation for a few more days at least."

"Rest assured he will be watched," Madigan assured him, hiding a smirk. "I will send someone around to collect him later. Please see to it that he is properly clothed and discharged. Furthermore, I want all of his medical records sent to me." The physician bowed, hiding his unease at her orders, and she turned and left the medical wing of the Tower, walking briskly.

Several minutes later, she stood outside the massive doors that led to Quincy's lofty office, fuming at the delay as Quincy's secretary went through the formality of notifying him of her arrival. When she got the affirmative, respectful nod from the secretary, Madigan swung open one door slightly and stepped inside, casting a coolly measuring glance around the office, but didn't see anything unusual.

Closing the door behind herself, Madigan strode across the room towards the elderly-seeming Chairman, her high-heeled shoes clicking loudly on the hardwood flooring.

"Yes?" the craggy-faced old man rumbled as she came up to his desk. Icy blue eyes glinted at her from under shaggy white eyebrows. "What did you have to report?"

"Stryker will soon be released," Madigan replied. "I have arranged for him to be given his instructions by his escorts before he leaves the Tower."

"Ah," Quincy leaned back in his chair, leaning his elbows on the armrests and steepling his fingers in front of him. "And you have made the proper arrangements for when he contacts this Hollister fellow?"

"Yes sir," she nodded. "He will be under surveillance at all times, and a pair of C-55E boomers will be following him to apprehend Hollister when the contact is made."

"You seem positive of success," Quincy noted.

"He will not get away," Madigan stated flatly, unable to keep her expression from souring slightly. "I have assigned some of our best operatives to the case. Hollister will not escape us, and then we will have all the answers we need from him."

"Do not allow personal feelings to influence you on this matter, Madigan," Quincy warned, his expression turning flinty. "What happened between the two of you is in the past; this is the present. If you cannot be objective in your decision making, then I shall assign the operation to someone who can be."

"I won't allow my personal feelings to interfere with the performance of my duties, sir," she replied stiffly, her posture rigid. Quincy's eyes bored into hers for a moment, as if searching her soul for sincerity. After a moment, he relaxed and nodded slightly.

"Very well. Keep me informed."

Madigan turned away from the old man and walked rapidly across the room to the doors, opened them, and left the room, closing them behind her. Once she was safely out of the Chairman's sight, she let the internal fury that had been seething under her calm exterior boil over, distorting her face with a mask of rage for a moment.

Some unidentified, unfortunate clerical worker happened to be passing by when her brief transformation occurred, and he immediately evacuated the area lest her wrath fall on him. Watching the man flee in terror restored her equilibrium, and her expression cleared. Adjusting her jacket and smoothing her blouse out, Madigan headed for her own office.

She had a lot to do, and limited time to accomplish it in.

THE NEXT DAY....

"Hey, has anyone seen the Chief?!" Leon McNichol yelled across the hubbub of activity stewing in the ADP offices. His question went unanswered as everyone else concentrated on trying to complete their workload before quitting time.

Sighing disgustedly, the tall inspector started weaving his way through the desks, deftly avoiding tripping on power cords and the like. You can never find anyone when you really need them, can you?! he fumed to himself. Damn it, the Chief had known that he'd had some things to discuss with her, so why had she disappeared?!

As he stalked along, a familiar blaze of colour in the sea of blue uniforms off to his right drew his attention. Smiling slightly, Leon veered over to where Nene was absently poring over what looked like some old investigative reports. The young red-haired woman was completely absorbed in her task, and didn't even notice as his shadow fell across her reading material. Even clearing his throat didn't alert her to his presence.

Leon watched her for a moment, but she remained oblivious, slowly turning pages with one hand, the other hand lifting a cup of coffee to her lips occasionally. Sighing again, the brown-haired inspector put his hands on the desk and leaned down, until his head was level with hers.

"Nene, have you seen..." he started to say, but didn't get any further, as the young red-head jumped in extreme surprise, giving a small shriek and inadvertently splashing the remainder of her cup of coffee straight into his face.

"Oh God!! I'm sorry Leon!!" Nene blurted, frantically hunting around for something to mop up the mess with. "I didn't see you there!!" Finding some napkins, she quickly blotted up the coffee that was threatening to stain the scattered paperwork on her desk.

For one long moment, Leon stood there listening to the strangled snickers coming from other desks nearby, reflecting on how Fate just seemed to have it in for him at times. He had begun to wipe the back of his hand across his dripping face when he was quietly presented with a napkin by a sheepish-looking Nene.

"Ummm....sorry about that," she apologized quietly. "You startled me."

"I'd noticed," Leon assured her dryly, taking the offered napkin and sponging off his face. "What was so riveting that you didn't hear anything?"

"The Chief gave me some reports to check over," she replied, sighing. "I'm trying to get them done as quickly as possible, and I guess I just lost track of everything."

"Speaking of the Chief, do you know where she is?"

"No idea, Leon. She got a call, then just took off. If she told anyone where she was going, I haven't heard about it. Was there something you needed help with?" Bright green eyes looked at him curiously.

"It's not that important, and I'd better let you get back to your reports; I know how much you enjoy reading them," Leon replied blandly. Nene rolled her eyes as he grinned and moved off, his expression returning to a more serious demeanor as he made for his desk at the other end of the offices. Sitting down, he looked at the pile of reports in his inbox, and sighed disgustedly.

The tall inspector's gaze drifted across the offices again to where Nene was sitting as he leaned back in his chair, trying to nerve himself to tackle the workload. In the back of his mind, he'd noticed that she'd apparently recovered from her problems of a few weeks ago and pulled herself together. The despondent air that had clung to her was gone now, and she looked back to normal again. At the same time, it was as if she'd aged a bit, becoming a bit more serious and not quite as bubbly and cheerful as she had been in the past. No, aged wasn't quite the right term ... matured, that was it.

Surprised, Leon examined that perception more closely, and found it to be true. She seemed more mature and self-assured now; before he'd always thought of her as a kid, but that label didn't seem to fit her anymore. Evidently something positive had come out of her supposed boyfriend troubles.

Leon scowled blackly at his desktop at that thought. Boyfriend troubles...he still hadn't been able to confirm his initial suspicions about her boyfriend. His records appeared spotless, and his current business, a recreational facility of all things, seemed to be a legitimate enterprise. Originally, he'd gotten a membership at the place in order to do some covert snooping around, but now he was finding out that he actually enjoyed dropping by to unwind at the end of a long day.

It was a grudgingly made admission, and even more difficult to make since the real reason for his disgruntlement was that he hadn't found anything even slightly suspicious at the place. His earlier supposition that the tall red-headed man was involved in some kind of shady operation was rapidly withering and dying without proof, and he couldn't escape the feeling that someone was laughing up their sleeve at him.

"Damn it, what are you hiding?!" Leon muttered to himself. He knew something wasn't right about that guy; he could feel it, and he hadn't survived this long on the force by ignoring his hunches. After a moment he gave up in disgust, forcing himself to concentrate on something else. It was better to wait, observe, and see if time brought him anything he could use.

"Taking a rest break already?" Priss taunted, an evil grin on her face. "Boy, you are out of shape!" She folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the mirrored wall of the exercise room.

"Why don't you give it a rest?!" Linna snapped peevishly, wiping a hand across her streaming forehead. "I told you already that all the smartass remarks weren't necessary." Sighing, she straightened up from her crouched-over position, wincing as her right leg throbbed a bit below the knee. The black-haired young woman was wearing her usual blue spandex dance outfit with pink leg warmers and a short T-shirt over the top, and an irritated expression.

"Hey, now you know how I felt when you were browbeating me into a recovery," her friend grinned.

"There is one major difference," Linna gritted, going through some warm-up stretches again. "I haven't been bitching about my injury the entire time I've been trying to recondition it!"

"True," Priss admitted easily. "But you didn't think you were going to get off scot-free, did you?"

"Hope springs eternal," Linna retorted dryly. "I'd thought you were improving in that regard." She braced herself with one hand on the railing running the length of the room, and began a second set of limbering-up exercises.

Priss watched, wincing. There was no way she could do some of those stretches; she just wasn't flexible enough. Of course, she hadn't been training most of her life for a career in dance, either. Her physical condition was good enough for her chosen singing career, and she was quite happy with that.

"So how long until you're back dancing?"

"Another couple of days, and I can get back into some easy routines," came the distracted reply. "I don't want to rush it; the bone's healed, but the muscles are still a little shaky."

"I know what that's like," Priss returned wryly. "At least in your case, the muscles weren't the main culprit."

"No, but when you've got to stay flat on your back for nearly three weeks, you lose a lot of conditioning," Linna shrugged. What had originally been a straightforward broken bone had developed complications that had required some minor surgery, and the ultimatum that she could not put weight on her leg for any reason whatsoever for at least two weeks longer than originally estimated. "I think that was the worst part: having to stay bedridden for all that time."

"I know," Priss grinned evilly again. "All of us had to put up with your lousy temper while you were stuck there, remember?"

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry." Linna flushed, looking away. "I just can't stand being inactive; I've got to move, or I go nuts." As if verifying her statement, she stepped out onto the mats in the center of the room and started a couple of simple leaps and twirls.

"Got any moves you can do without becoming airborne?" Priss asked pointedly as Linna got set to try another leap. "I'm supposed to make sure you don't bugger yourself up, and you're supposed to be taking it easy and not jumping around yet." Linna shot her a dirty look, but kept her feet on the mat as she worked on a few dance steps. Priss resumed watching from where she was comfortably leaning against the wall, and after about ten minutes, a sweating Linna came to a halt.

"You can join in anytime," she noted between deep breaths. "A little exercise wouldn't kill you."

"No, but trying to do what you're doing might," Priss snorted. "I get enough exercise other times, so don't worry about me."

"Oh, I'll just bet you do," the black-haired dancer's tone was loaded with implication. The sly grin on her face left no doubts as to what she was referring to, either. "How is Bert, by the way?"

"Oh, he's fine," Priss replied offhandedly, feeling her cheeks warm up just a bit. "Why?"

"Except for the days when he's running this place, I don't see him that much. I figured you get to see a lot more of him." Linna's grin widened just a bit, but Priss ignored the bait. By now she'd gotten used to the chaffing, and was able to control herself pretty well with regards to that particular subject. She was a lot more comfortable about things, although she still felt a bit awkward around Nene. Which reminded her....

"How's Nene doing?" The change of subject sobered her friend instantly.

"She's a lot better," Linna reported seriously. "She's still feeling a little hurt, but at least she's going out now. We've been cruising the malls occasionally to do some shopping, sometimes with one of her friends from work."

"Naoko?" Linna nodded in reply. "My condolences," Priss said dryly. She'd heard about how talkative Naoko could be, mostly from Bert. A quick grin sped across Linna's face.

"She's not all that bad," the trim dancer briefly defended the ADP officer. "At least she was concerned enough about Nene to privately ask me if I knew whether everything was okay or not."

"So she could report back to the gossip-mongers most likely," Priss snorted, then smiled ruefully. "Sorry. I'm glad Nene's feeling better, I felt ... feel kinda ... uncomfortable around her at the moment, so I haven't seen her much."

"Afraid she hates you?"

"It's not a question of fear," Priss shot back defensively. "I'm going out with the guy she dated for nearly three years...how would you feel in that situation?! Damn it, she's still a friend, I hope, and I don't want to ... to seem like I'm rubbing it in or something. She's been through enough as it is."

"Well you can't avoid her forever," Linna sighed. "Especially not when we're working. Maybe you should try talking to her a bit more often; that might thaw some of the ice."

"I can't think of a way to do it that won't sound contrived," the brown-haired singer replied glumly, kicking at the mat as she stared down at it. "We never really hung out together that often, not outside the Sabers anyway, and it's going to look phony if I start trying now."

"I've got an idea," Linna stated, a slow smile spreading across her face. "It'll get everyone together actually, and it won't sound contrived in the slightest."

"Tell me," Sylia sighed, glancing up from the blueprints displayed on the LCD screen her desktop contained; silvery schematics glowed brightly on the black screen. "Do you know what the term 'over-design' means?"

"Yeah," Bert replied, puzzled. "Usually it means taking the worst-case scenario into account, and designing enough extra capacity into a system to be able to handle something worse than the worst case. Why?" He picked up his mug from where it was perched on the corner of the desk and took a swig of coffee.

"Because you've taken that concept and liberally applied it to your hardsuit," Sylia informed him. "Almost excessively so in some cases." She glanced down at the schematics again, shaking her head. "For example, you've got enough sensor packages in here to nearly rival Nene's hardsuit. Is that really necessary?"

"I like being able to see things," he retorted defensively. "What is this, an audit?!"

"Of sorts," she nodded, brushing some stray hair out of her eyes. "Up until recently, I haven't had the time to pay attention to the suit designs as much as I would have liked to." That, and the fact that until her injured shoulder had completely healed from their last mission, her uncle had flatly refused to let her work at all. Overprotective hadn't even begun to describe the way he'd fussed over her ever since that last outing. She quickly shook off the mild irritation that nudged at her at the memory; she wasn't a child anymore, and she wished he'd remember that occasionally.

"Now that I've got the time," she continued, "I've been working on some redesign concepts. However," she shook her head again, "I suppose I should have kept a closer eye on what you were up to, regardless of how busy I was."

"I'd like to point out that you did say I was free to modify my suit when improvements came along."

"Yes, but I didn't expect you to turn your suit into that much of a weapons platform," she pointed out. "Defensive upgrades are all well and good, but is it really necessary to be carrying quite so much ordnance?"

"GENOM certainly thinks so," he replied stiffly. "Those new A-12s are easily equal or superior to me in firepower, especially because of those Gatling cannons they're carrying."

"But we're not GENOM, and we're not trying to match them one-on-one," she parried. "We're a team. And mobility can count for a lot more than raw firepower."

"You're not seriously suggesting I take some of my stuff out of my suit, are you?!" Bert stared at her incredulously.

"Not all of it, no," she sighed. "But scaling back some things wouldn't kill you. You're not supposed to be a one-man army, you know. You're fast approaching the point where your suit just will not be able to handle the energy demands from all of the weaponry systems you're trying to mount."

"But..." his voice trailed off as his mind fought to come up with logical arguments for leaving his suit the way it was. Most of the reasons he could come up with weren't based on any fact other than the one that he felt unarmed at the idea of trimming his weapons down.

"There's also a practical reason for downsizing your hardware," Sylia informed him. Pausing, she took a sip from her own glass of orange juice nearby. "What are you going to do if you have a power failure?"

"Panic."

"That's one option, I suppose," Sylia's lips quirked in a faint smile. "I meant more that in your case in particular, if your motive systems lose power, you're going to be a sitting duck. Our suits can still move fairly easily if they have power problems. You, on the other hand, will find yourself carrying almost two-hundred pounds of bulky armour. You may be in good shape, but not that good, my friend. Your suit needs to lose some weight."

"I'm trying to find some lighter alloys and other materials," he told her, "but I'm having problems finding ones that can take the pounding . And I haven't had a power failure except after getting really chewed up in a fight," he pointed out.

"Your hardsuit is a linked set of complex mechanical, electrical, and electronic systems; failures will happen at some point in time," Sylia said sternly. "I'm sorry if it offends your engineering ego for someone to say that about one of your creations, but it's the plain truth."

"I'm not totally blind to the possibility of system failure due to normal, non-combat functioning," Bert gritted, his teeth clenched and fires flashing in his eyes. "And this isn't about my 'engineering ego'. I've gotten used to that suit, and the way I fight in it. My combat style uses the fact that it's bulky and armed to the bloody teeth; if I have to change styles now, I'm going to run into problems in a fight. It takes time to adapt to different equipment, time we can't afford right now, especially not with our recent job offers and the increased number of boomer incidents lately."

Sylia sat back in her chair, reluctantly conceding his point. He did indeed tailor his fighting style to his hardsuit construction; despite Linna's sometimes intense tutelage, his combat technique was still basically armoured, no-holds-barred brawling. By and large his offensive strategy was based on over-powering whatever he encountered with weapons or raw strength. In a way, it was an ironic situation to find herself in: arguing the need for less weaponry with someone who originally had been worried that he was carrying too much firepower

He was also right about the time factor; with boomer rampages maintaining a steady flow, they couldn't afford the time it would take for someone to relearn how to fight in a different suit. And with several recent lucrative job offers under consideration, she was reluctant to have anyone at less than their best.

"All right," she sighed. "We don't have to strip everything out, but I do have some suggestions I'd like you to at least consider."

"Okay," he grumbled, his mouth twitching irritably into a grimace. "I'll take a look at them. Don't expect miracles though."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she replied dryly. She considered him thoughtfully for a moment. His gaze lifted to meet hers, and trepidation filled his face as she continued to silently study him.

"Uh, Sylia? Why are you looking at me like that?" he finally asked, fidgeting nervously.

"I'm trying to decide if you can take more bad news."

"Why not?" He threw up his hands in resignation. "Give it to me now; that way I can stew about it and get it over with."

"I think it's time we also called a stop to your constant upgrading of the suits," she informed him quietly. "Piecemeal upgrading of the armour whenever the latest innovation comes along is just asking for something to malfunction when we can't afford it." She held up a hand, forestalling him before he could protest. "I know you're doing it because you think it's your responsibility to make sure we have the best protection possible, but it isn't. The final responsibility for the suit designs is mine, not yours."

"But..."

"I appreciate the concern," she told him, trying to soften the blow a bit with a smile. "Really I do, but you're also unintentionally complicating things for me when I try working on the suits myself." She sighed, and shifted around a bit in her chair. "I was doing a systems check the other day on Linna's suit, for example, and I found some circuits I couldn't identify at first. It wasn't until I checked in your sets of blueprints that I found out you'd modified the controls on her knuckle-bomber systems. I shouldn't have to double-check everything to make sure I know what's been done to the systems, and I particularly shouldn't have to look for changes outside the master documentation records."

A slightly injured silence fell over the office as Sylia picked up her glass and took another sip of juice. She watched Bert over the rim of her glass for a moment, noting his expression. He was trying to maintain an expressionless mask, but there were vague traces of confused hurt flickering in his eyes, and one hand was tightly clamped on the armrest of his chair.

"It's not that you've done anything wrong," she gently assured him, setting her glass down. "I suppose I'm partly to blame myself; I was too busy at other things to give my full attention to the suits. I don't want you to stop inventing things when you get ideas, I just need to have the final say in what gets added to the hardsuits." She sighed again. "And besides, we literally can't afford constant upgrades; we don't have unlimited capital at our disposal, no matter what it might seem like. All right?"

"Fine," he ground out reluctantly after several long moments. "I'll stop with the upgrades." Sylia could hear his disgruntlement despite his effort to mask it, but let it pass without comment. She knew how much he genuinely enjoyed puttering with the suits, but it was time to start exercising some of her command authority in order to bring the technology race back under control. At least that way, she'd have a better idea of what was going on.

"I will still want your input on some new suit designs I'm considering," she told him. "But they won't need to be built for some time yet." She noted that his expression thawed a bit at her words; no matter what his current mood might be, the mention of new designs was enough to get his mind off of whatever was annoying him. The technophile in him wouldn't let him stay grouchy for long.

"Okay, okay," Bert sighed. His hardheaded practicality wouldn't let him entertain a grudge, especially not when he could see the sense in her arguments. Well, if she didn't want him upgrading the suits, maybe he could play with the motoroids...

Reaching out, Sylia tapped a finger on the viewscreen in front of her, startling him from his reverie and drawing his attention to the new schematics that had flashed onto the screen.

"Now about these motoroid systems here...."

Then again, he sighed to himself as he looked at the plans and listened to his boss, maybe not.

THREE DAYS LATER ....

"I want results," Madigan icily informed the person at the other end of the line. "Not excuses. You led us to believe that you could contact Hollister again. That is the only reason you are still breathing. Don't force us to re-evaluate what there is of your position."

"But I told you already," Stryker's voice whined in her ear, "I can't force him to respond to messages left at the contact points. Even if he does become interested, there's no guarantee it'll be him personally."

"Think of a way to persuade him to check it out himself," she ordered tersely, her grip tightening angrily on the telephone receiver. "You claimed to know something of his business dealings; use that knowledge to flush him out. And I suggest you do it soon...our patience is wearing thin."

Madigan slammed the receiver down disgustedly, cutting off the fixer's sniveling reply. The doctor had been right about his mental condition; the man had turned into a groveling coward. Of course, if she'd been patient, they could have waited until Stryker had recovered a bit more first...

Kate irritably sloughed that thought off with an irritated toss of her head, the motion sending a wave rippling through her long lavender hair. They couldn't afford to wait; Hollister was a serious threat, one that had to be stomped on at the earliest possible opportunity. She knew only too well what the arrogant bastard was capable of. The Chairman might know the facts of what had happened, but he'd never met Hollister, never had to deal with the smug, condescending...

The loud crack of something snapping jerked her from the haze of churning fury she'd been unconsciously sinking into. Glancing down at her hands, she found that they, as well as her desktop, were covered in dark blue ink. Luckily, no reports had been underneath the luckless fountain pen she'd been holding, or else they'd have been ruined.

Growling at herself for her loss of control, she grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on her desk and tried to wipe off her hands, pitching the ruined pen into the wastebasket. Reaching over to the phone, she tabbed the intercom button and ordered her executive assistant to get somebody into her office to clean up the mess, and to forward a memo to the procurement department about buying cheap pens.

Rising slowly from her seat, careful not to touch her clothes or anything else, she walked across her office to the small private washroom adjoining it, and spent several minutes cleaning herself up. Her normally calm features looking like a thundercloud, she stalked back to her desk and sat down behind it, noting that the mess had disappeared and a fresh pen had been placed in the center of the desk.

After a few more moments, she managed to restore her composure somewhat. Such a loss of control was unforgivable, and she resolved to prevent it from happening again. In the privacy of her office it could at least be concealed; if it happened when she was in the Chairman's office, such a serious loss of face would undermine her position with him. So far, he hadn't indicated that he was displeased with her, but he very rarely let even his closest subordinates know the entire truth of their position...until it was too late.

The coldly beautiful exec leaned back in her chair, brooding. She was positive that her position was secure; she'd proven beyond any doubt that she was loyal to the company, and Quincy in particular. But there was still enough flexibility for someone in the command hierarchy to supersede her, or at least equal her. And the last thing she wanted was a rival.

The surest way to make certain of her future was to show Quincy some quick results on the Hollister affair. Although she literally saw red whenever she thought of the blond creep, if she could deal with it with something like her old efficiency, the Chairman's misgivings might be silenced.

With a grim smile, she reached out and picked up the phone again.

"Watch the power feed to the linkages," Doc directed, checking some of the figures jotted down on the notepad he held in one hand. "If the fluctuation goes over 2%, shut the damn thing down immediately; we can't risk burned circuits."

"Understood," the youthful technician replied, nodding. Doc divided one last glance between his notepad and the control readouts, then moved down the walkway, giving some last-minute instructions to the rest of the scattered techs at their posts. With the preparations finished, he carefully climbed down the short metal ladder to the ground level of the room; his agility wasn't the greatest anymore, and his bones ached enough some days without having to add broken ones to the effects of old age.

With a weary sigh, he stuffed his notebook into a voluminous front pocket on his rumpled lab coat, and began walking towards the central focus of the two-tiered room: the large hydraulic platform supporting the recumbent form of their new battlemover model. His mouth tightened slightly in distaste as he drew closer to the vast heap of wiring, actuators, and red-grey armour plating. As he approached, a muffled and choked sobbing noise slowly became audible.

Damn, but I hate this project. The thought briefly surfaced in his mind before he could stuff it back into hiding. He couldn't afford regrets, not now. He'd gone too far to ever hope there was a way out.

His face wooden, the elderly scientist climbed the steps leading up to the platform, and walked around the perimeter, coming to the cavity in the chest of the war machine. Armour plating and internal mechanisms jutted towards the ceiling, poised to snap closed over the hole in the machine's body. The muffled sobbing came intermittently from the interior of the large machine, where the body of a young woman being held down by metallic straps could be seen.

Doc stared soberly into the interior of the battlemover, watching wordlessly as the young woman strained periodically at her bonds, trying to escape the inevitable. Ever since she'd been captured, she hadn't ceased her attempts to escape, and they had become even more frantic since she'd learned what was planned for her. It hadn't done her any good.

The old man sighed and pulled his pipe out of a pocket, stuffing it full of tobacco and lighting it. Hollister didn't like him smoking around his pet projects, but Hollister be damned; he needed something to try and soothe what was feeling more and more like second thoughts. A bit of smoke wouldn't melt any circuits.

Leaning against the railing, Doc puffed quietly away as he stared at the sexaroid imprisoned inside the battlemover. It certainly looked human, although maybe just a little too perfect in terms of fullness of figure. There was no outward sign that it was anything but what it looked like: a very attractive young woman.

He knew from his own work however that underneath its skin was a lightweight composite skeleton, myomer musculature, and several biotechnological systems that very closely approximated the operations of the analogous organs in the human body. In fact, the systems incorporated into a sexaroid probably represented the future of prosthetics for human patients with diseases or damaged major organs. They were, after all, organic in nature. The 33-S series in particular required human blood for general operation, and repair of serious injuries to their systems. It shouldn't be a great extension to design similar ....

Doc irritably yanked his mind off that line of inquiry; there was very little chance he'd ever be able to return to his old life of cybernetic and biotechnological research, no matter how much the possibilities excited him. Dwelling on it would only depress him further with lost opportunities.

All right, so it was a machine. Then why the hell was hearing some machine sobbing in a pretty good approximation of utter despair unsettling him so much?! He chewed contemplatively on his pipestem as his eyes roved unseeingly over the open mechanism in front of him.

The problem was that the emotional responses he'd seen from the 33-S boomers he'd encountered lately had thrown doubt on the idea that they were 'just a machine'. Well ... in his mind anyway. His associate didn't appear to have any doubts on the subject. To him, the 33-S was an expensive wind-up toy with some useful features.

Doc had run into some pretty sophisticated AI technology in his time, but none of it had ever come close to approximating the reactions he'd seen from the sexaroids. They responded exactly the way a normal human woman might respond if thrust into the same situations, even down to the point of having hysterics. One that he'd encountered had even showed the symptoms of the severe trauma normally exhibited by rape victims, and no emotional emulation software he'd ever seen had been that good. The old scientist suddenly found himself wondering uneasily if there was perhaps more to the equation than had first appeared.

There were personality overlays of course; GENOM had perfected a process for scanning someone's brain patterns and duplicating them in a boomer's AI and body. Although that particular little innovation was kept under tight secrecy, it was common knowledge to some people, and guessed at by others. Could that be how the sexaroids were made to be more human-like than standard boomers? And what had happened to the original subjects that had been scanned?

The old scientist re-packed and re-lit his pipe, adding to the blue-grey haze that was slowly expanding out from where he was leaning. Whoever the original subjects had been, it was doubtful that any 33-S using such a template was still the same as the original person, mentally speaking; they'd have been exposed to a much different environment, and it was a person's experiences that shaped their personality. The sexaroids were self-aware, and were undoubtedly affected the same way by whatever they'd endured.

There was the possibility that they weren't merely personality templates. Doc uneasily recalled some vague reference he'd come across once, indicating that there was a biotechnological method for duplicating the human brain and nervous system, with all memories and experiences intact. The only drawbacks were that when the process was completed, the original human body was dead, and there were no guarantees that the new boomer wouldn't be insane as a result of the process. A highly illegal field of endeavor, it had been abandoned early on...supposedly. 33-S series boomers did have a mostly organic brain, supplemented by microchips and circuitry. It wasn't impossible then that ...

Doc snorted to himself, chiding his imagination for getting carried away. Considering the rather carnal reasons that the sexaroids had originally been created, he doubted that anybody would utilize a process that expensive just for the purpose of producing some cheap thrills. He sighed, causing a large plume of blue smoke to roll forth. All that thought and analysis, and he still couldn't say why he was unsettled.

"Doesn't really matter," he muttered aloud, partly to himself, and partly to the helpless occupant of the battlemover a few feet away. "We're both trapped by circumstances."

"You always talk to yourself, Doc?" Hollister's voice inquired coolly from somewhere outside the smoke cloud around the old scientist. Only long practice kept him from jumping in startlement.

"It's the best way to get an agreeable opinion," Doc replied calmly, smirking around his pipestem as Hollister came into view, pipesmoke curling around him. The old scientist's mind raced as he studied the cold visage of the blond man. Had he really overheard what he'd said? Did he suspect anything? Damn it, he was getting old if he was going to start musing out loud!

"True, I suppose." Hollister's chuckle had a slight edge to it. "So what are you doing up here?"

"Monitoring the system checks," Doc shrugged. "Somebody has to nursemaid the techs if they get in over their heads." For the thousandth time, he wished Hollister wasn't so damn hard to read. "No problems so far."

"Good," the blue-suited man replied with unmistakable satisfaction. "How about the GD-45? Will it be ready on time?"

"Yep." Doc nodded, sucking on his pipe and finding that it had gone out. "By the end of next week you should be able to go on your little hunting expedition."

Priss pulled away from him slightly, breathing heavily. Looking up into his face, she brushed a gloved hand across his forehead, sweeping his hair back out of his eyes.

"That was some kiss," she noted breathily. "Your day go that well?" With her free hand, she reached up and pulled off the blond wig she was still wearing, tossing it in the general direction of the table and stand where it normally sat; a soft thump, followed by the sounds of various bottles and other paraphernalia falling over indicated success of a sort. The attractive singer was still clad in her revealing leather stage costume, having just completed another concert set; the cheering and applause from the enthusiastic audience had finally died off, allowing relative quiet to return to the backstage rooms. She placed her arms around her lover again, holding him close as she waited for a reply.

"It wasn't the greatest day I've had," Bert admitted with a sigh, his gaze briefly flicking around her dressing room before coming back to her. It had become something of a ritual for them since they'd started going out together: after a performance, they'd meet backstage and go into her dressing room for a quick - or not so quick in some cases - kiss. "I had to spend all morning fixing one of the floor tracks for the archery targets; some inept jackass put an arrow into the track itself and buggered up the retraction mechanism. How the hell could someone miss the target that badly?!" he fumed.

"You poor baby," Priss commiserated, hugging him a bit tighter and kissing him in consolation. His arms tightened around her in return as he responded in kind, and the room was silent for a few moments. "Not everyone has your exalted skill at archery, you know," she reminded him when they parted finally. "And accidents happen. Do you know who did it?"

"No," he growled disgustedly. "If I had, I'd have made them help me fix the damn thing."

"That's probably why they didn't tell you when it happened." A wry smile quirked at one corner of her mouth. "You should see the look on your face right now; 'pissed-off' doesn't even begin to describe it."

"Sorry." He tried to smooth his expression out, and achieved moderate success.

"That's a little better," she approved, reaching up and patting his cheek gently. "You've only mentioned the morning; what happened this afternoon?"

"I had to spend several hours dismantling parts of my suit," he replied sourly.

"But I thought you liked working on your suit?" Priss asked, frowning.

"Not when I have to strip stuff off of the damn thing."

"Strip off?" she repeated. "As in 'take out'?"

"And the lady wins the prize," he sighed. "Yup, I had to take a few things out and scale back a bit on my weapons. Sylia doesn't think I need all the hardware I've been carrying."

"What the hell?! Since when did Sylia start thinking we have too much hardware?!"

"Since she's had the time to check over the designs. I'm also supposed to stop upgrading everyone's suit whenever I feel like it, so she can keep track of what's been added and when." He grimaced sourly. "I suppose I can see her point, but I still hate taking stuff out of my suit; now I feel like I'm undressed or something."

"Undressed, huh?" she murmured with a lazy smile, raising an eyebrow suggestively as she trailed her fingers lightly down the side of his face and neck. He flushed and pulled away slightly, not seeing Priss's grin.

"So what did you have to take out?" she asked.

"Nothing too major, I guess. Some sensor packages I really didn't need, and my solid fuel boosters mainly. The armour plating needed to be trimmed down a bit; I guess I'd gone a bit overboard with the thickness in some places, and I had more than I needed."

"If it wasn't anything major, then why are you standing there looking like you've been robbed?" she queried him, raising an eyebrow quizzically.

"Because I didn't need to do it," he snapped peevishly. "I've never had anything malfunction yet, and I prefer to be equipped for every possibility. So what if my armour is heavier than everyone else's?! I..." He caught himself before he could start ranting, and sighed deeply again. "Sorry; didn't mean to snap."

"That's okay," the brown-haired singer assured him, recognizing the traces of a bruised ego when she saw one. "I understand." Somewhat, her mind added silently. She didn't understand the more esoteric suit workings herself, and didn't really want to. She knew enough to keep her suit systems up and running during a fight, and as long as they worked perfectly while she pounded on boomers, she was happy. Her lover, on the other hand, wasn't as carefree; he put a lot of effort into the suits, especially his own. It had become an extension of himself rather than a piece of equipment, and in some convoluted and obscure way she could tell that he felt that the order to revamp his suit equated with a personal criticism of some kind.

She sighed to herself as she looked at him; holding him the way she was, she could feel the slightly angry tension that was still riding him. If he was going to be any kind of bearable company tonight she needed to get his mind off his supposed problems. Well, there was one way that had worked in the past...

Priss slid one hand up his back to the back of his neck, and pulled him down towards her as she stretched up and kissed him. Her lips melted into his as his arms pulled her a bit closer. As she held him in a passionate embrace, she slowly felt the tension leak out of him. A faint, triumphant smile tugged at the corners of her lips for a moment before she devoted her full attention to him again. After a few long, very enjoyable moments, she pulled back to catch her breath.

"That...was...fantastic," he rasped. She noted with satisfaction that he looked a little glassy-eyed as he tried to get his own breath back. After a moment he succeeded, and smiled down at her. "You really are beautiful."

"I know," she admitted deadpan. "It's one of my many charms." She grinned impishly at him as he laughed.

"Modest, too," he noted lightly, giving her a gentle squeeze. "I think you've been spending too much time around me."

"That's a possibility," she conceded blandly. "Want me to stay away?"

"Never!" She found herself seized in a tight hug again as she was soundly kissed.

"I'd better get changed," she told him, glancing at the wall clock. "We're not going to have a chance to get dinner if we don't get out of here soon."

"Okay, okay," he sighed, reluctantly releasing her and stepping back. "I'll wait outside."

"Lipstick first," she reminded him with a grin. He flushed, and irritably wiped off his mouth with a handkerchief he pulled out of his pocket. "We'll have to see if we can't find a colour that looks good on you," she teased him. "That way you won't have to worry about wiping it off when ..."

"Just never mind," he warned her. She chuckled and patted his cheek roguishly before turning towards her makeup table.

"You know," Priss glanced slyly over her shoulder at him as she pulled off her gloves. "I can't understand why you've never taken me up on my suggestion that you help me change." She smirked as he blushed uncomfortably; in some ways he hadn't changed, and she hoped he never did. He wouldn't be nearly as much fun to tease if that happened.

"There's a time and a place for everything," he told her, coming up behind her and putting his arms around her. As she tilted her head back to look at him, he kissed her softly on the lips. "And this definitely isn't the place for something like that. I'll meet you outside." Giving her one last light, lingering kiss, he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

"Spoilsport," she muttered, then smiled to herself and started changing her clothes.

Nene sighed in relief as she shambled wearily through the door to her apartment, pitching her purse carelessly across the small foyer of her cubbyhole to land on the couch. Closing the door behind her, she shrugged off her uniform jacket while trying to step out of her boots at the same time, nearly ending up in a heap on the floor as her balance wavered. Grabbing at the wall to remain upright, she finally got her jacket off and hung it up. Sighing again, she padded towards the couch, flopping on it lengthwise as she loosened her uniform tie.

She stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, letting the silence of her surroundings soak into her and replace the tension from the long shift she'd just completed. There were days she genuinely enjoyed her job, and then there were days when she could quite cheerfully shoot half of her co-workers, today being a prime example. She was positive that she'd gone through several reams of paper just to complete reports that others hadn't seen fit to finish off. Given her own neat-and-tidy tendencies, having to clean up someone else's mess grated on her, especially when it was due to laziness on their part. The fact that it had done nothing but add to her own workload had stretched her normally cheerful demeanor to the breaking point; if she hadn't gotten off work when she had, she was positive that she'd have snapped.

Nene stretched luxuriantly on the couch for a moment, weighing her options for the night. First on the list was a nice long, hot bath. She'd worry about keeping busy after that. Standing up, she walked over to her bathroom, closing the door behind her.

An hour or so later found her comfortably snuggled on her couch in her favourite fuzzy bathrobe with a mug of hot chocolate keeping her company as she drowsily watched TV. Her mind wasn't really on the newscast that was showing though, instead just aimlessly wandering from thought to unrelated thought. The notion briefly surfaced that maybe she should do something other than just sit there, but she couldn't even summon up the ambition to move right now.

Part of the problem was lingering depression. Even though it had been a little more than two months now that she'd broken up with Bert, she still found herself longing for some way to patch things back together with him. It wasn't until they'd stopped seeing each other that she'd realized just how lonely she was. Linna and Naoko's efforts to keep her active and entertained had certainly helped keep her from totally collapsing emotionally, but it couldn't replace the sudden hole that had been left by nearly three years of being together. She felt it more at night than any other time.

Nene took a gulp of her hot chocolate, trying to alleviate the sudden soreness of her throat as tears stung the edges of her eyes. The ache was still there, even though she tried not to think about it, the dull pain from what felt like a portion of herself being ripped away. She couldn't really blame it on anyone other than herself, no matter how much she might have wanted to; the root causes of their breakup had been born out of misunderstanding and hurt.

She flushed guiltily as she remembered some of her thoughts and actions at the time, and spent a moment or so mentally lashing herself for acting so irresponsibly. The damage had already been done however, so it was a pointless exercise. If she wanted to move on, she was going to have to put it behind her, and at least try and forgive herself.

With a sigh the red-haired young woman stood up from the couch, hitting the switch on the remote control to turn off her TV. Silence fell over the small apartment as she shuffled into the kitchenette and rinsed out her mug, leaving it sitting in the sink. Flicking off the lights, she yawned and went off to bed.

FOUR DAYS LATER ....

A knock on the door distracted Bert's attention from the novel he'd been intently reading, and he closed the book with a slightly irritated sigh. Setting it aside, he pulled off his reading glasses, tossing them on top of the book as he stood up. Massaging the bridge of his nose, he walked across the room to his apartment door, opening it as another knock sounded.

"Hi!" Linna greeted him brightly, dropping her hand as the door swung inwards. "Got a minute?"

"Sure, come on in," he replied, smiling. "Want a cup of coffee or something?" he asked as he stepped back.

"That'd be fantastic." She gave him a grateful smile as she shut the door. "It was a long day today, and I could sure use a boost from something hot." He noted that she was wearing a track suit over her spandex exercise outfit, and had a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. As always, her hair was tucked neatly under a brightly coloured headband.

"Make yourself comfortable then, and I'll get the coffee," he told her, turning and walking over to his kitchen area. A few minutes later, he set a steaming mug in front of her on the coffee table, placing the sugar and cream within easy reach. Taking a swig from his own mug, he carefully sat back down in his chair.

"Oh, this is heavenly!" Linna sighed blissfully, taking a slow, appreciative draught of her drink. "We were so busy today, I didn't even have time for lunch."

"Another show coming up?"

"No, half the people at work are down with the flu or something," Linna made a face. "That means everybody's got to fill in here and there for someone else; I got shanghaied into helping move props around all morning, and then in the afternoon I had to grind everyone through the practice routines."

"You look like you survived," Bert commented mildly, stifling a grin. Linna snorted.

"I wasn't doing the full routines myself," she informed him. "They're too complicated for my leg to take yet, and the doctor threatened to break my other leg for me if I tried anything even remotely like that yet...."

"Sounds familiar," he muttered to himself.

"...so I basically spent all afternoon watching everyone else," she finished, sighing and taking another drink.

"Isn't that what choreographers are supposed to do though?" he asked. "I mean, I thought you had to watch everyone to make sure they're in the right spots and so forth."

"That is a large part of what I do," Linna admitted. "But I still like to go through the routines with the rest of the dancers at least once; if I can do them, then they can't say that I don't know what I'm asking them to do." She gave him an impish grin, then sighed and looked sour. "But until the doctor says it's okay, I can't do anything except simple warm-up routines."

"I still don't see why you're complaining," he noted with a sly grin. "At least you got some fun out of barking commands at your trainees." Linna shot him a glance that spoke volumes about her tolerance for smart remarks at the moment, and his grin widened.

"So what brings you down to the catacombs?" he queried, deciding a subject change might be the wiser course. "If you're looking for Priss, she's not due back from her rehearsal for a while yet."

"No, I saw her yesterday," Linna shook her head. "I had a favour to ask of you."

"Shoot." He took another slurp from his mug, watching her over the rim.

"Can we borrow your kitchen next week?"

"My kitchen?!" Bert echoed, his eyebrows hitting his hairline in surprise. "What for?!"

"Well..." Linna hesitated. "Will you swear to keep absolutely quiet about this?"

"Linna!" Bert looked wounded. "You should know by now that I can keep my mouth shut about some things. What's going on that's got to be so secret?"

"We're giving Sylia a surprise birthday party next week," Linna told him. "And it won't be a surprise if you walk around until then with that idiot grin plastered all over your face," she added crossly.

"Sorry," Bert pulled his face straight. "So you want to make a cake down here and then take it up?"

"We're going to make the whole dinner down here," Linna corrected him. "Your apartment is out of the way, so Sylia shouldn't see any of our comings and goings while we're getting everything ready. We'll pick up the ingredients ourselves, and then whip everything together."

"Just a second...who's 'we'?" Bert asked, a sudden alarm bell ringing in the back of his mind as visions of something exploding in his apartment flared up.

"Priss, myself, Nene, and maybe Anri and Sylvie," Linna told him, unknowingly confirming a part of the suspicions that his sudden dread had been based on. "Why?"

Bert floundered in a mental quandary for a few seconds as he tried to frame a reply. Of the group of people she'd just mentioned, the inclusion of one person in particular worried him the most: Priss. Since they'd started their relationship, he'd learned at least one thing about her that he'd never really considered before: her skills in the kitchen weren't the greatest.

He supposed it was partly that she'd never had the opportunity to really learn how to do more than simple cooking. During his stint at university, he'd had ample opportunity to test his culinary skills, learned from watching his mom, and had achieved moderate success. Maybe it hadn't always been picture-perfect, but it had been edible at least. Priss hadn't had those kinds of opportunities, and as a result was limited to easily prepared foods. If it came from a can or was microwaveable, she could handle it.

A slight wave of guilt went through him at that thought; it wasn't Priss's fault, after all, and she did try hard....but it was the occasional results of the trying that gave him the jitters. He knew now a part of the reason why she ate out at fast food joints so often: less of a mess to clean up afterwards, and no risk of something exploding while heating. Of course, to be fair, her trailer really didn't have enough space for a real kitchen....

"Hello? Earth to Bert?" Linna's voice intruded on his thoughts. "Are you still with me?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah," he shook his head slightly, mildly irritated at himself for letting his mind wander.

"So why did you want to know who's going to be in on this?" Linna asked again. "Afraid something might happen?"

"Well...yes, frankly," he said uncomfortably, squirming in his chair. "I'm not really worried about you or Nene, but I don't even know if Anri or Sylvie has been near a kitchen before, and Priss sometimes has a few...difficulties... with cooking."

"I promise I'll keep an eye on them," Linna assured him. "If they make a mess, I'll make sure that it gets cleaned up."

"Well..." he hesitated for a long moment, then heaved a deep sigh. "All right, I guess you can use the kitchen," he told her. "Just don't blow anything up, okay?"

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing," she told him with an angelic smile, then collapsed into helpless giggling.

Somehow, that didn't exactly reassure him.

The late night hum of activity in the ADP offices was muted as everyone quietly worked on their assignments. For some of the officers, it provided a welcome break from the hectic daytime grind; boomer incidents never seemed to happen at three o'clock in the morning, and the paperwork somehow didn't seem quite as pressing.

Nene stifled a yawn as she saved the file she was working on, then logged out of the ADP database. She stretched wearily as she glanced at the wall clock, heaving a sigh as it told her she still had another three hours to go before her shift ended. Three hours...and she'd already completed her assigned workload. She could ask around and see if anyone needed help with anything, but she didn't really feel like it at the moment.

The slender red head looked around the office, stifling another yawn. She really hated shift changes; while she could adjust to working night shifts after a couple of days, the transition period always made her feel tired and worn out. However, there wasn't much she could do about it; she didn't have the luxury of being able to pick when she could work.

After a few minutes of contemplative staring at her patiently waiting terminal, Nene decided to do some poking around in the records databases. One of her Knight Saber duties was to keep Sylia appraised of any interesting tidbits of information that might pass through the ADP's hands, but lately she hadn't had the time or the opportunity to fulfill those particular duties.

The youthful hacker cast a furtive glance around the office again; it was quiet enough at the moment that nobody would likely notice what databases she was accessing. The last thing she needed right now was to answer awkward questions about why she was in data files that she really didn't have the proper clearance to access.

Satisfied that nobody was about to come over to her desk, she quickly accessed the occurrences files, skimming through them and looking for anything that might be either interesting, or out of the ordinary. All of the boomer incident reports were unremarkable, and there didn't appear to be any GENOM-related investigations going on. All in all, an utterly fruitless effort.

Nene sighed disgustedly, irritably blowing a forelock of hair out of her eyes as she stared at her computer screen. What else was there to search? She'd covered the usual databases she investigated for Sylia, and she hadn't been given any other instructions.

She hummed tunelessly to herself for a moment as she considered her options. Her file-sifting hadn't taken nearly as long as she'd have liked it to, and she still had almost two hours before quitting time. Reaching up, she loosened her tie a bit, and then hunched over her keyboard. A minute or two of clattering keys later, and she'd accessed yet another database.

Nene flipped through file after file in rapid succession, checking for anything curious. She didn't normally check the MegaTokyo Spaceport Authority files, but there was the chance that GENOM might be routing some of their 'research material' out to Genaros, where they could experiment without fear of intervention. Genaros was pretty much owned by the corporate conglomerate after all...

A file flicked past her view, and she stopped, her curiosity piqued as she saw the word 'kidnapping' go flashing past. Scrolling back in the list, she found the file again and started reading it. The details were extremely sketchy, but it appeared that a group of armed men had grabbed a female station worker and escaped with her in a stolen cargo shuttle. That was it; no identity on the armed men, and no identity on the kidnap victim.

Nene frowned as she stared at the file, her every investigative instinct telling her that something was wrong with that report. Stolen space vehicles were big news, but not even a whisper of a theft from the space station had hit the local networks. The only way that could happen was if somebody very powerful was squelching any evidence that anything had happened. The question was, why? Why would someone want to conceal the theft?

The frown creasing the young woman's brow deepened as green eyes stared intently at the file, as if trying to will an answer to appear. The last time a space vehicle incident had occurred on Genaros, it had turned out to be a shuttle carrying illegal armaments, the D.D. Battlemover in particular. There were no indications in the file that the shuttle had been anything but empty, however.

Nene chewed contemplatively on her lower lip as she again slowly scanned through the file. She found it very odd that the kidnapping victim wasn't identified in the report beyond a physical description; it was almost like whoever was writing the report didn't care about one woman being snatched from her duties. Nene's eyes widened as she abruptly remembered the other after-effects of the Orca's crash landing: the spate of 'vampire murders' that had stirred the city into a near panic. What if the woman who'd been snatched wasn't a normal human?

Mind racing, Nene looked furtively around the office again. Nobody appeared to be about to come over to her area, so she turned back to her terminal, and carefully started accessing the personnel files for the space facility. There was the chance that the woman who'd been kidnapped was a sexaroid, and if that was the case, then there were several reasons for keeping it quiet. The first and likely foremost reason would be that GENOM wouldn't want the word out that there still were sexaroids around and that they were, ahem, utilizing them in some of their operations. The second reason would be to prevent a city-wide panic at the news of a renegade boomer being loose, especially one that might require human blood to stay alive.

The third possibility was that if the kidnapped woman was a sexaroid, she might possess the necessary hardware for superweapon linkage. There was only one organization she could think of that had revealed open interest in exploiting that aspect of their physiology: Hollister's shadowy group.

Nene shivered slightly as she worked at sidling unnoticed into the Genaros databases, her mind flitting back briefly to the research data Sylia had shown the rest of them before they'd gone out after Hollister. The inhumanity of the re-created battlemover was appalling, and the threat it posed even more so. If they'd managed to acquire a 'pilot', then it was likely that they had a working prototype ready for testing.

The red-haired hacker quickly wiped some sweat from where it was trickling down her forehead as she soothed a watchdog program into believing that she had perfect right to be accessing the files she was opening. The sentinel became quiescent again, and then she was in.

Breathing a shaky sigh of relief, Nene called up the shift duty rosters for the massive space station as she glanced at the clock on the wall: forty-five minutes until she was off-shift. With luck, nothing that required her attention would happen in that time. Mentally crossing her fingers, she began skimming the long lists of names, concentrating on the dates surrounding the kidnapping.

However, even with such a narrow scope, the list remained huge. The young ADP officer could feel time sliding through her fingers like sand as she tried to identify anyone who might have suddenly dropped out of the duty rotation. It was just too much data to try and analyze in a hurry, and she reluctantly conceded defeat...for the moment.

Nene cast a quick glance around as she swiftly downloaded a copy of the files she was interested in; once she'd figured out who the person was that had been kidnapped, it would be relatively easy to get back into Genaros's personnel files and get a copy of her file. Hopefully, the victim's background file would explain why someone had taken an interest in her.

The disk containing her copy of the data files popped briskly from her terminal's drive bay, and she scooped it up and pocketed it. After another rapid check to make sure her file tampering hadn't been detected, the red-haired hacker eased her way out of the systems she'd infiltrated, and then severed her connection to the network.

Heaving a silent sigh of relief, Nene mopped a sleeve across her forehead, leaning back in her chair. She rubbed at her eyes as a wave of weariness swept over her. Despite what many people claimed about hacking, it required some real hard work in order to accomplish, especially to get into the databases she'd just cracked into. The effort and the lateness of her shift almost guaranteed that she was going to sleep like a log when she got home....

"Hey, Nene, going to work a double shift or something?" Naoko's voice intruded on her yawning and stretching. Surprised, she looked up at her brown haired friend, who held out her jacket for her with a grin. "The shift ended about six minutes ago," Naoko added.

"I'm coming!! Just a second!!" The lassitude that had been settling over her quickly evaporated as she jumped up and fished her handbag out from the depths of her desk drawers. Tucking it between her knees, she shrugged into her jacket, at the same time shutting down and turning off her computer. The screen flicked off as the two young women left the office area.

Sylia strolled slowly down the line of storefronts of the massive shopping mall, feigning interest in the window displays of jewelry and the latest fashions. Her own clothing was impeccable, easily equal to or better than some of the so-called 'latest fashions', but her mind was far from such trivial concerns as she walked along, her handbag tucked under one arm.

Annoyance flickered across her face as she glanced around the teeming throng of people crowding the mall. She'd been checking out shops for nearly forty minutes now, and if he didn't show up soon....

"Looking for anything in particular?" A man's voice inquired from behind her, the tone low and confidential. Sylia didn't look behind her, and managed to keep from starting in surprise.

"Don't sneak up on me like that," she replied coolly, adding, "And you're late."

"Sorry, couldn't be helped," he replied, moving up into step beside her. "I had to make sure I wasn't being tailed." She accepted that; one of the reasons he kept changing their meeting places around was his fear of being watched or tailed. Her gaze slanted sideways to take a quick look at him as they walked.

The man was fairly tall and well-built, with blue eyes set in a square-jawed face under messy blond hair. An aura of tough capability seemed to surround him, and he was watching the crowd around them with unceasing vigilance. Sylia was faintly surprised to note that Fargo had actually worn a clean, unwrinkled suit for once, and didn't seem to have a miasma of cigarette smoke and beer odours following him around. He didn't look entirely out of place walking along with her, and she realized that was partly why he'd cleaned up; to remain inconspicuous.

"So," Sylia finally said, again glancing sideways at him as they walked. "Any news?"

"Not really," Fargo replied, his gaze flicking over to someone a few yards away who was reading a newspaper. After a moment, his roving eyes moved on, evaluating everything. Sylia could tell he was wary of something, and wondered if he wasn't becoming a little too paranoid; in his line of work, suspecting everyone kept one cautious, but too much suspicion could cause paralysis. "Still no indications that anyone has taken an undue interest in your friend. My people haven't picked up on anyone tailing him, and they've been watching him around the clock whenever he's not in your building."

"They are keeping out of sight, correct?" Sylia asked, a trifle sharply. "He's edgy enough now that he'd shoot first and talk later."

"They're professionals, Sylia," Fargo said patiently. "They don't make those kind of mistakes." He paused. "Why, has he said anything?"

"No, and I don't think he would now," Sylia answered quietly. "If he thought, even for an instant, that someone following him worked for Hollister, I think he'd likely go hunting them with a gun."

"Just what is his interest in this friend of yours?" Fargo inquired. "Hollister doesn't normally concern himself with civilians, only those in positions of corporate or scientific importance." There was cool curiosity in his eyes as he glanced at her. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"That's really none of your concern. We both have our secrets."

"But if it's something that might get my people killed, I have a right to know, Sylia," Fargo insisted. Inwardly, Sylia sighed; he'd found the only argument that he really could use with her in justifying why he should know more about what was going on. After weighing her options, she decided on an edited version of the truth.

"Hollister captured and interrogated him a while back," she said, lowering her voice to where he could just barely hear her. "He managed to escape before he cracked, and destroyed one of Hollister's bases in the process." Fargo whistled silently at her synopsis.

"I can see why you've wanted surveillance on your friend then," he noted soberly. "Hollister doesn't take any setback well; he's likely still livid over losing a base." Sylia nodded slightly.

"That was my assessment as well," she replied. "And there was an attempt to recapture him a few weeks ago, so you can see why I'm being cautious."

"I take it then that you haven't told him you're having him watched."

"I can't," Sylia replied simply. "He was a while recovering from the torture Hollister put him through, and I'm still not fully certain that he is over it. I don't want to add possible paranoia to his mental hang-ups." Fargo was silent for a moment or two as they strolled along, brooding.

"Your 'friend' is a member of your team then." He said it as a calm statement of fact, rather than a question.

"What makes you say that?" Sylia's voice turned a trifle cooler at his observation. An almost-smile twitched at Fargo's mouth at the tone of her voice.

"I'm not stupid, Sylia," he told her quietly. "The fact that 'SkyKnight' wasn't acting like himself a few weeks ago coupled with this mysterious friend of yours who managed to survive a torture session with a sadistic manipulator leads to a fairly secure conclusion that they're one and the same person. People don't change that much overnight, unless something drastic has happened to them."

"You're entitled to your own opinions," she replied neutrally.

"I'm not about to tell anyone," Fargo sounded a trifle hurt, but she ignored it.

"Let me know when something else comes up," she told him, glancing at him one last time. "See you later." With that, she turned and walked off into the crowd.

Fargo watched her graceful, elegantly-dressed figure vanish into the crowd and sighed wistfully to himself before vanishing into the press of people himself.

The heavy, wood-paneled door swung open, admitting Madigan to her apartment in the GENOM executive complex. She swung the door closed behind herself, locking it, and then allowed herself a slow sigh of relief. For once, a long day had come to a relatively uneventful close.

The lavender-haired executive slipped off her shoes, and then padded across the foyer of her apartment to the main living area, luxuriating in the feel of the plush carpeting against her aching feet. Whoever had invented high-heeled shoes had obviously never had to wear them for extended periods of time, she mused idly. With all the operations she had to oversee during the regular course of her duties, her feet were usually killing her by the end of the day.

She supposed she didn't really have to personally check on some of the matters requiring her attention, but she'd found it easier. When she was confronting someone in person, she'd found that they were less likely to try lying or concealing things from her. If they were attempting a deception of some kind, they were nervous enough when talking to her that she was almost always able to find them out. A useful trait for someone involved in corporate internal security.

Kate set her slim briefcase down on the coffee table situated next to one of the overstuffed couches scattered around the spacious room . Opening it, she extracted a small cellular phone. Flipping it open and hitting a few keys, she programmed it to forward all except critically important calls to her electronic voice mail before placing the small handset over in its charging receptacle on a side table. She didn't really want to be bothered tonight by some of the incompetent twits under her. It was amazing how minor inconsequentialities could suddenly become huge disasters in the eyes of some managers...disasters that, naturally, she was expected to solve.

With an effort, Kate forced the accumulated annoyances of the day from her mind, and walked over to the large bay window of the apartment that overlooked the southeastern portion of the city. Gazing out at the panoramic view, the lavender-haired woman tried to relax. Inevitably though, her mind turned restlessly to considering one of the most pressing problems that had been dogging her lately: how to locate and shut down Ethan Hollister.

All of her pieces were in place; unfortunately, she couldn't seem to locate her adversary. She'd known he was well-connected, but it had never really occurred to her just how well-connected he was. He seemed to have invisible strings to almost all of the interests she'd investigated, and some of those interests were becoming obstructions in her search. She needed leverage, but didn't have any.

That left pinning most of her hopes of locating Hollister on the former fixer, Stryker. An involuntary sneer pulled at the corner of her lips at that thought; the man was a sniveling cur. All of his claims of being able to find her nemesis hadn't produced results. According to his 'guardians', he was spending a lot of time skulking around bars, and knowing what she did of Hollister, Madigan highly doubted that any of his operatives would be frequenting seedy watering holes.

A mental image of a smirking blond man flashed in her mind's eye, and her eyes narrowed angrily as memory took over...

The door to her office swung open as she sat carefully going over the report on the day's test results. Scowling in irritation at the interruption, Kate looked up at the intruder. Her scowl deepened at the sight of the blond-haired man lounging insolently in her doorway. Tall, and wearing a light blue-grey suit, he directed an appraising glance around her office. Finally his gaze came to rest on her, and the faintest trace of a sly smile pulled at his face.

"Ms. Madigan," Ethan Hollister greeted her cordially. "And how are you this afternoon?"

"I'm busy," came the wintry reply. "And I don't appreciate people barging into my office whenever they feel like it, especially independent 'contractors'. What is it?"

"I had something I wanted to discuss with you," he shrugged carelessly, stepping into her office and closing the door behind himself after taking a quick glance down the hallway. "And it's not like you've been easy to get hold of."

"Make it quick then," Madigan closed the report folder in front of her. "I've got a lot to do."

"Still trying to impress the bigshots, huh?" Shaking his head disbelievingly, he strolled across her office and stood gazing out at the buildings across the street. "Hoping to get promoted back to Japan?"

"What I want is none of your business," she told him flatly. Standing up, she smoothed out her skirt and turned to face him, her face hard. "You said you had something to discuss. State it, or get the hell out."

"Or you'll do what?" His face suddenly had a taunting grin on it as he glanced at her. "A junior executive, and a woman at that, complaining about me? They'd laugh you out of the boardroom." Kate glared stonily at him but didn't reply. Even though it thoroughly galled her to admit it, the smug bastard was right; he'd ingratiated himself too well with the board of directors to be threatened by her. He grinned mockingly again, as if divining her thoughts, then turned back to the window, becoming sober again.

"Europe has many opportunities at the moment," he said after a minute, gesturing at the street. "And it's opportunity that I wanted to talk to you about."

"I'm listening," she replied shortly.

"It's been interesting to see this particular aspect of boomer technology develop," he observed, almost idly. "But it's unfortunate that your company can't develop some of the more promising applications."

"I can't discuss classified information with you," she said frostily. "Please leave." He chuckled.

"Your determination is admirable," he complimented her, a crooked smile appearing. "It's almost on a par with your beauty."

"Pardon?!" The utter incongruity of the compliment caught her flat-footed. "I.what did you.what's that supposed to mean?" She retreated a step as Hollister stepped closer, uncomfortably close. His ice-blue eyes bored intently into hers.

"It means exactly what it says," he replied, his voice smooth. "You're attractive and you're no fool, either." Madigan was unable to look away as he continued speaking. "You're extremely thorough, and you've got the knack for isolating and identifying problems. You've got a keen intellect, and when you combine those with your looks, you've got great potential. My organization can use someone like you; you've got ability that's never going to get used here." Fear of something nameless surged through her at the look in his eyes; even though his mouth was smiling, his eyes were as cold as ice fields. She found that she couldn't look away as he stepped right up to her.

"Come with me," his voice was low and hypnotic. "I need you."

"I ... I can't ." she started to deny him, when he leaned forward the last few inches separating them and kissed her on the mouth. A moment later, and she felt his hands on her body. Her hands clenched into fists as she tried shoving him away from her, a muffled noise of protest escaping her.

One of his hands slid from her waist, moving upwards, and she felt him touch her breasts as his other hand started sliding around her back, pulling her closer to him. Anger exploded amidst the confusion and fear in her mind, clearing the paralysis that had gripped her. A sudden surge of strength allowed her to shove him backwards, and for good measure, she rammed a knee at his groin. Hollister swore, staggering backwards and allowing Kate the opportunity to sprint for her desk. Jerking open the top drawer, she grabbed at the gun she kept there. Hollister straightened up as she leveled the slim automatic at him.

"Going to shoot me, Kate?" he asked conversationally. His demeanor was unruffled, and except for a slight wince when he started walking towards her, he didn't appear to have been hurt by her attack. Another taunting grin flashed across his face. "Go ahead then; pull the trigger."

"Just who the hell do you think you are?!" she spat, her voice thick with rage, her hands shaking as she pointed the gun at him. "How DARE you touch me like that!! I don't care who you are, NOBODY uses me like that!!!"

"Oh please, spare me the speech." Hollister's tone was bored as he continued to walk towards her. If you're so offended, just shoot me." Madigan's teeth clenched, and her eyes narrowed in fury as her finger began to squeeze the trigger.

She wasn't entirely sure what happened next, but there was a numbing impact of some kind on her body. The gun dropped from nerveless fingers as fire seemed to race through her, but she couldn't even scream because somehow Hollister had one of his hands clamped around her throat. She could barely move as numbing pain washed through her, and dimly she wondered what he'd hit her with; out of the corner of her eye, she saw him slip some kind of weapon into his pocket.

"That wasn't very nice, Kate." The grin on Hollister's face seemed more like a snarl baring his fangs. He shoved her back against her desk, his hand still tightly gripping her neck; sparks began to flash in front of her eyes as she struggled to draw adequate breath. "It's a pity you didn't take me up on my offer; I could've offered you a lot more than you'll ever get out of GENOM's pissy little operations." His grin slid back into insolence as he reached up with his free hand and caressed the face of the terrified executive. "And you'll never know what you missed." He jerked her close, and kissed her on the mouth again before roughly shoving her away.

The shove collapsed Kate into her office chair, where she sat gasping hoarsely for breath as her strength slowly returned. Bitter fury burned in her eyes as she watched Hollister calmly straighten his tie, and start walking across the room towards the door.

"You ... you son of a bitch!!" she rasped, forcing herself to her feet. She wasn't entirely recovered however, and stood swaying, her hands braced on her desktop. He flashed her an amused smile.

"I'd wait another five minutes or so before I'd try walking," he advised her as he opened the door and tipped her a derisive salute. "See you around, Katie."

"BASTARD!!!" The door closed behind him, neatly stopping the paperweight she'd hurled at him. It banged loudly on the door, then dropped to the carpeting. Madigan took a step, intending to pursue him, but her legs folded, pitching her to the floor. She pounded a fist impotently against the carpet as angry tears began leaking out of her eyes.

Madigan's teeth clenched as she stared out the window, memory relentlessly replaying the humiliating events of several years ago. The lavender haired woman turned sharply away from the massive glass pane, stalking over to the ornate liquor cabinet by the wall; maybe a drink would help her relax and forget the past for a while. Nothing else was, that was for damn sure.

Opening the cabinet, she pulled out a crystalline decanter and a glass. She poured the glass half full of an amber liquid, hesitated, then topped it off to three-quarters before adding some ice cubes and placing the decanter back in its usual place. Taking a measured sip from her glass, she walked over to one of the large couches scattered around the spacious apartment and slowly sat down, sinking into the soft cushions with a weary sigh.

Kate glanced around at her surroundings again as she slowly sipped her drink. GENOM maintained a wing of very lavish luxury living suites for most of its higher executives within the Tower compound.

The official reason the suites were provided was that it was to provide a measure of convenience for the company's executives, offering them a place close to their work. While somewhat true, the real reason for the apartment complex being provided was security; the execs could enjoy a measure of safety from anyone who might have a grudge against them or the corporation, and the corporation found it easier to monitor its employees by keeping them close.

A cynical smile twisted Madigan's face at that thought; as the director of GENOM's internal affairs and security, she knew better than anyone what the corporation did to maintain its affairs. If someone proved to be a security risk, it was much easier and quieter to remove them while they were on GENOM property than off of it.

Sighing, Madigan drained her glass, setting it over on a nearby endtable. She glanced moodily around at the apartment again. It was sumptuously furnished of course, but all the apartments were. A few knick-knacks and such that she'd acquired here and there were the only things to indicate ownership of the residence, and she suddenly found herself confronted with a strange thought: was this all there was to her life?

It was a strange, unsettling thought, and one she'd never entertained before. Her devotion to GENOM, Quincy in particular, had always been absolute. But despite all those years of loyalty, all she really had was a few personal belongings that could easily be packed up. If something happened to her, there wouldn't be much to clean up for whoever got the apartment next. It was strange to suddenly find herself questioning her career; she'd never had any doubts before, about anything she'd done.

Madigan growled irritably at herself, putting the melancholy mood that had descended on her down to her frustration over the Hollister affair. Once she'd proven to Quincy that she could efficiently eliminate that problem, she'd feel like her old self again. She entertained herself with ideas on how she was going to kill the smug bastard as the sun slowly set over the city beyond her apartment window, casting orange-gold rays over the city.

"Doc, there ought to be pollution bylaws against that bloody thing," Hollister informed the old scientist, his expression sour. Across the desk from him, the shaggy grey-haired old man continued to puff contentedly on his pipe, shifting around in his chair to a more comfortable position. "Can't you find something to put in it that doesn't stink so bloody much?"

"We all have our vices," Doc's voice replied from the grey-blue haze surrounding the old scientist. "Besides, we've had this discussion before; I'm too old to change now, and I've got no intention of trying."

"You won't go into withdrawal if you douse it for half-an-hour," Hollister groused, shifting the whirring air freshener on his desk around, and positioning it so that it was more in the center of the desk. He wasn't sure if it helped to shield him from the unpleasant smoke and its accompanying aroma, but it made him feel a bit better.

"Well, if you'd tell me why I'm here, you could get me out of your office a lot quicker," Doc noted dryly. "Especially since you want me nursemaiding that project of yours so damn closely all the time."

"I need to know when is the earliest you could have the D.D. ready," came the reply. "Not for full operation," Hollister added, raising a placating hand to forestall the protest Doc opened his mouth to make. "What I need is a quick test run of some sort; one of our clients has been very vocal lately." The blond man's expression soured a bit further. "He's demanding some kind of proof that we can actually deliver what we say we're going to." There was a long contemplative silence as the gaunt scientist across the desk from him knocked the ash from his pipe bowl into a nearby ashtray, and re-packed it with fresh tobacco.

"I suppose we could try a limited duration activation," Doc said dubiously, sticking the pipestem between his teeth as he fumbled for a match in one of his pockets. Finding it, he struck it alight and pressed the flame to the bowl of his pipe. "Nothing elaborate, mind you," he added, stoking his meerschaum into pungent life again. "Just some basic walking around, maybe some limited weapons fire. The control interface is still acting flaky for some reason, but we're working on it."

"That should be sufficient," the blond man replied, cocking his head with a coldly curious glance. "What's the problem though? I thought you said the hardware linkage was perfect?"

"We haven't gone for the full fusion between the sexaroid and the combat systems yet," Doc replied, exhaling a cloud of bluish smoke. "At the moment, I can't guarantee that it will work. The 'soft' contacts we're using right now for testing are sufficient for our purposes, but I think the biggest problem is that she's fighting the computer control."

"She's fighting it?" Hollister's eyebrow twitched up in mild annoyance and surprise. "How?"

"I don't know exactly how," Doc replied irritably. "We may have her body imprisoned, but I'll wager that her mind isn't; she hasn't given up on attempting to get loose even now. I'd hazard the guess that her independence of thought is what's allowing her to resist the outside control."

"It's a machine, Doc, not a person," Hollister returned, his lips thinning in annoyance. "It's got a sophisticated program, not a mind. Find a way to circumvent the program, and you don't have a problem anymore."

"Well we can't do it until we directly link her to the D.D.," Doc shrugged, again managing to successfully hide his own inner revulsion; he couldn't wait until this project was finished so he could get the hell away from it. The doubts nagging at him lately over his work weren't getting any easier to live with. "And that won't happen for a few more weeks yet. If you really think you need to have that thing up and running, we can manage it for a short time period, but there's no guarantee that the sexaroid can't gain control of the systems if we can't control her."

"Understood," Hollister nodded crisply. "Have it ready for a test run in about two days."

"If by 'test run', you mean that you intend to take that contraption into the field, forget it," Doc told the blond man flatly. "I won't be a party to it. That thing is an accident waiting to explode at this point, and taking it into an uncontrolled environment is only going to make it worse."

"Your objections have been noted," Hollister replied equally flatly. "However, we've got some production schedules to keep here as far as that battlemover is concerned, and time is running out. I don't give a goddamn if you've got to hot-wire the damn thing with a car battery and jumper cables, but I'm taking it out into the field in two days." Hollister smiled thinly, cocking an eyebrow. "Of course, if you don't like my decisions, you can always resign."

"I'll choose when I want to get shot in the back on my own, thanks," Doc snapped angrily, rising from the chair, his eyebrows drawing together in a scowl. "Don't say I didn't warn you when the time comes." With that, the old scientist spun around and stalked out of the office, jamming his pipestem between clenched teeth.

TWO DAYS LATER.....

Pale fluorescent lights threw a soft glow over the pale blue walls and white tiled floor of the small room, humming in a quiet counterpoint to the whirring of the air conditioning coming from recessed ceiling vents. Comfortably padded furniture was stuffed into the room, making it seem even smaller than it actually was. The only clear path through the furniture was the open stretch of flooring between the doors at opposite ends of the room.

"I hate this," Bert grumbled, slouching down on a padded bench, his arms folded defiantly across his chest. "I really, really hate this." His long legs stuck almost halfway across the small waiting room as he glowered resentfully at the floor.

"You say that every time we have to do this," Priss observed. The brown-haired singer was sprawled indolently on the bench across the room from him, both sock feet propped up on the armrest. Her arms were folded behind her head, and she was staring at the ceiling to pass the time. Her head turned slightly to regard him. "It's not all that bad."

"And given the number of times you've racked yourself up, I'd say you probably need a checkup once in a while," Linna added, an innocent smile on her face. She was seated in the chair in the corner, thumbing through a magazine from the stack on the nearby table.

"I have never liked checkups or going to the doctor..." Bert started to reply.

"Sounds familiar," Linna interjected, giving Priss a sly glance. Priss ignored the remark.

"...and I like the idea of a regular physical exam even less," the tall red-head finished, scowling. "I know why it's necessary, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Besides, I hate having to get stuck with all those damn needles; what the hell does he need so many blood samples for?" He shivered slightly; he'd always hated needles of any description.

"The intrepid SkyKnight," Priss grinned evilly. "Fights boomers at the drop of a hat, but runs from a doctor with a needle." Her grin widened at the dirty look he shot her, but he resumed scowling at the floor and didn't reply to her jibe. Priss grinned again, but the grin slipped a bit when the door at the far end of the room opened, and Anri stuck her head around the doorjamb.

"You're next, Priss," the young woman announced with a smile. She was wearing a light blue nurse's uniform, and her dark green hair was neatly swept back over her shoulders. A sly smile flickered across her face as Priss gave a deep sigh, and hauled herself to her feet with a martyred expression; Anri giggled a bit at her expression, putting a hand over her mouth.

"Oh come on; it's not all that bad," Bert remarked mildly, smiling innocently as the brown-haired singer gave him a warning glance before sighing again and shuffling reluctantly through the door Anri was holding open. After she'd entered the room beyond, the door swung closed with a click. Silence dropped over the waiting room for a moment.

"I hate waiting," Bert muttered. Shifting around, he flopped lengthwise on the padded bench with a loud thud.

"Gee, I'd never have guessed," Linna remarked dryly. He decided not to dignify her observation with a response, and settled himself more comfortably on the bench. A companionable quiet settled over the room for a few minutes, broken occasionally by the whisper of a page turning in the magazine Linna was reading through.

The sound of running footsteps echoing in the hallway outside the waiting room interrupted the silence. The tall red-head sat up as the rapidly approaching footsteps turned into the sounds of shoes skidding on floor tiles outside the door. The doorknob rattled, and then the door burst open, admitting a breathless Nene. The slender red-head's hair was in total disarray, and her jacket was askew, as if she'd thrown it on while running out the door or something.

"I'msosorryI'mlate!" she blurted, gasping for air as she banged the door shut and sagged against it. "Butmyscooter hadproblemsandIcouldn't..." Linna blinked as she looked up, then squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, trying to interpret what the young woman's rapid and nearly unintelligible words were trying to say.

"Whoa! Nene, slow down!!" Bert stood up, raising his hands in a placating manner. "I can't understand a word you're saying; now have a seat over here and take a deep breath or two." He waited while she did exactly that, then sat down opposite her. "Now then: slowly."

"I said I'm sorry I'm late," the young ADP officer began, still gulping a bit as she tried to catch her breath. "I would've been here sooner, but my scooter was having problems, and I had to get a cab over here. Then it got stuck in traffic about three blocks away, and I had to run the rest of the way."

"You're not really late," Bert reassured her. "Everyone's been going in one at a time, so you haven't missed anything."

"That's a relief," Nene sighed, slumping against the backrest of the bench she was on and letting her head droop back as she closed her eyes.

"Hey, at least you got some exercise out of it," Linna remarked impishly, grinning when Nene opened her eyes and sat up long enough to stick out her tongue at her friend. It was at that point that the door leading deeper into the medical facility opened, and Anri again stepped into the doorway.

"Next!" she said cheerily. "It's your turn, Linna!"

The trim dancer tensed a bit, then gave a quick shake of her head and stood, tossing her magazine onto the table as she sighed. Part of her apprehension, despite the fact that she knew she was in perfect health, stemmed from anxiety over her leg; the doctor was going to be giving her the verdict on whether or not she could resume her usual athletic activities. She marched resolutely towards Anri, who stepped back with an encouraging smile as Linna stepped into the next room.

The door swung shut behind the two women, leaving Nene and Bert alone in a suddenly awkward-seeming silence.

Tendrils of clammy fog wrapped murky grey tentacles around the waterfront warehouse district, shrouding everything in chilly gloom. The thick mist seemed to muffle everything, from the pale light being emitted by the battered lamp posts, to the sounds of footfalls on the asphalt. The darkness of early evening didn't help the slightly menacing feel to the air of the seedy district.

A shadowy form took shape in the fog as it approached one of the apparently derelict warehouses, gradually resolving into a slightly stocky-looking man of average height with short black hair. The collar of his black jacket was pulled up around his neck in an obvious attempt to ward off the chill of the night air, and nervous hazel-coloured eyes roved constantly, vainly trying to see through the mist. Both hands were rammed deep into his coat pockets, and his entire posture was tense.

The lone figure slowed as the bulk of the building that was his destination loomed abruptly out of the fog like a ghostly apparition. He glanced furtively around again, a muscle spasming agitatedly in his cheek, then shivered and began walking towards the door of the warehouse. Pulling his hands from his pockets, he reached out and then paused, one hand on the doorlatch, as some sixth sense warned him he wasn't alone.

"You're late, Stryker," a disembodied voice floated from the mist behind him. "I don't like to be kept waiting." The black-haired fixer whirled sharply towards where the voice had apparently originated from, one hand half-reaching for the shoulder holster inside his jacket.

"Pull a weapon on me, and you won't live long enough to be able to regret it," the voice promised icily. The fog seemed to swirl ominously around the tall figure that appeared a few feet away from Stryker. Steely blue eyes glinted with dire promise as the dark figure stepped closer, turning into a tall blond man wearing a trenchcoat. Stryker swallowed nervously, and dropped his hands to his sides. The nervous twitch in his cheek intensified.

"You said you had some information I needed," Hollister said flatly. "Well? I'm waiting, and I've never been accused of having patience."

"Contact has been confirmed." The woman's voice came over the shielded communications link, echoing through the control room. Madigan leaned over the shoulder of the male technician at the console, her expression neutral. Two of the screens in front of her showed identical displays of two men, dimly seen in the shrouding fog. "The target has arrived."

"Have the boomers detected anything else out there?" she asked, glancing again at the visual transmission that Stryker's 'escorts' of the last two weeks were relaying to the Tower.

"Negative," came the reply, as the console operator looked up at her. "It looks like he came by himself. The scans picked up a handgun of some kind, but that is all they detected."

Fierce elation swept through the lavender-haired woman. I've got you now, you bastard! She carefully kept her expression neutral as she stared at the monitors, her gaze focused on Hollister.

"Shall I order the boomers to attack?" the young man at the console asked hesitantly, glancing up at her.

"They are to apprehend him only," Madigan replied crisply, squaring her shoulders and standing a bit straighter. "We don't want him hurt...not permanently anyway." He nodded, and reached over to the console, tabbing some switches and issuing the order.

Madigan watched the view on the monitors began to shift as the boomers began to advance on their quarry, a feeling of intense anticipation and satisfaction spreading through her.

"Three energy signatures detected," a white lab-coated technician reported, his face eerily lit by the computer console he was monitoring. Next to him, three other similarly attired young men monitored other console boards, occasionally adjusting a dial, or typing a command into a keypad. "Tentative ID: Two C-55 class combat boomers, and one 33-C class, probably coordinating the combat models." The technician who had spoken looked over at a shadowed corner, where a faint smoky haze was drifting through the dimly lit chamber. "Shall I deploy, sir?"

"Not yet," Doc's voice replied amidst another rolling plume of smoke. "Hollister will signal when he wants intervention. Until then, we wait." The tech nodded and returned to monitoring his station as the red glow of embers in a pipe bowl briefly lit the old scientist's lined and wrinkled face.

Doc exhaled yet another cloud of smoke as he looked around the cramped and dark operations room. Built into the back of a modified tractor trailer transport, it was the perfect nerve center for directing a small field operation...but Doc was heartily wishing that he wasn't involved in this particular one.

The gaunt old man drew deeply on his pipe again, but the tobacco smoke didn't help to choke off the uneasy feeling creeping through his mind. No matter how much Hollister thought was at stake, taking their revamped Battlemover out into the field like this for a 'test' was like lighting the fuse on wet dynamite; you knew it was going to go off, but didn't have a clue as to when that would happen. It was bad enough he couldn't silence the nagging voice of conscience over his actions in creating the war machine, but if that thing went ballistic in the middle of the city...

"Control efficiency at eighty-seven percent," one of the other technicians reported, breaking into his rather morbid thoughts of out-of-control rampages through the city. "Status still green; no fluctuations."

Sighing to himself, Doc stepped forward and began watching the data readouts more closely, over the shoulders of the technicians.

"So, umm....how've you been lately?" Bert finally asked as the silence in the small waiting room seemed to become smothering. Even though it had only been a few minutes since Linna had entered the exam room, the sudden gap of utter quiet between Nene and himself had made it seem like several hours.

It was the first time they'd been alone in the same room since that night in the doughnut shop, when he'd had to tell her he was going out with Priss. Oh sure, they'd talked since then, but other people had acted as a buffer, and with that defense gone, he suddenly felt awkward. Judging from the faintly uncomfortable expression on Nene's face, and the way she wasn't quite meeting his gaze, she was having similar a similar problem.

After what seemed like an eternity, the slender, green-eyed young woman stirred and looked at him.

"Okay, I guess," she replied, giving him a wan smile. "Just tired; work's been piling up lately, and it's hard keeping up to it all some days." Bert nodded sympathetically, noting for the first time the faint smudges under her eyes, signs of inadequate sleep.

"Paperwork, and more paperwork, huh?" he asked. At her tired nod, a faint smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, and he sighed, chuckling a little.

"What's so funny?" Nene demanded with a hint of indignation, her eyes narrowing. "You wouldn't be chuckling if you had to sift through all the reports I do!"

"I wasn't laughing at you, honest," he quickly replied contritely. "I was just reflecting on how wrong we were about the future, that's all." He chuckled again, the wry smile reappearing.

"Pardon?" Nene promptly looked confused. "What do you mean by wrong about the future?"

"You've always had computers around, right?" At her confused nod, he grinned. "Nene, I grew up in an era that didn't have everything computerized to the extent that things are now. I got to see the first personal computers appear, and got to watch as they evolved." He sighed nostalgically. "The Commodore PET, the Vic-20, the Commodore 64...all hideously obsolete now, but for their time, they were fantastic machines, and most people couldn't wait to get one." Another wry grin appeared. "I never had one myself, but I was always using them at school, mostly for games, I'm embarrassed to admit. Anyhow, then the computers became faster and had more storage capacity and so forth...."

"What does all that have to do with all the paperwork I have to do?" the red-haired young woman across from him demanded impatiently, although part of her was very interested in what he was saying. She'd always taken computers for granted; she wouldn't be able to function without one. Bert grinned again as he explained.

"The point is that at that time, one of the predictions made was that we'd see actual 'paperwork' disappear from the office. The development of the word processor was a godsend; everything was going to be put into the computer, and you'd never have a cluttered desktop again!" He made a grandiose sweeping gesture, as if clearing off a desk, and then snorted derisively. "It never happened back then, and it sure hasn't happened yet from what I can see," he summarized. "If anything, there's even more paperwork to fill out and shuffle around from department to department...something I think you could readily attest to."

"Oh yes," Nene agreed ruefully. "I only wish all the reports were on the computer...it would be so much simpler!"

"You're not alone in that wish," he grinned whimsically. "I think it's a plot to stay in business by all the pulp and paper companies myself." Nene giggled a bit, then leaned forward, her expression becoming interested.

"So what were those computers like?" she queried.

"Slow," he replied his gaze going nostalgic for a moment. "Although I never really realized it until years later. At the time, they were great machines, but when you look at what we use now, and what kept us happy back then, it's hard to believe that we got by with only a cassette tapedeck for data storage and maybe 64 kilobytes of memory..."

Hollister turned as two hulking shapes flanking a third, smaller one loomed out of the mist-shrouded night behind him. Glowing red eyes stared balefully at him as the two combat boomers came to a halt mere feet away from him at a gesture from the third figure. The apparent leader of the group was a woman with long hair; he couldn't really note any other details partly because she was standing in the shadow from one of her cohorts.

"Ethan Hollister," a melodious voice came from the third figure, "I must ask that you accompany us; there is someone who wishes to discuss certain business matters with you."

"I suppose this explains why you had to meet me in person," the blond man remarked in a casual-seeming manner, but the icy glance he gave Stryker over his shoulder was much more eloquent, promising dire retribution.

"I d-didn't have a choice," the fixer whined, cringing back against the warehouse behind him. "You d-don't know what they did t-to me..."

"Ethan Hollister," the mechanical rumble of one of the boomer's voices interrupted Stryker's faltering voice, repeating its leader's order. "You will come with us now."

"Or else what?" Hollister's voice was calm and matter-of-fact as he folded his arms across his chest. He sounded like he was discussing the weather, not standing a few feet away from an armed biomechanoid. "Given the trouble Stryker went through to get me out in the open, I highly doubt you did it just to kill me if I refuse to cooperate." His head cocked sideways as he looked at the trio of boomers with cold curiosity.

"You will come with us willingly, or you will be forced to accompany us," the female boomer replied glacially, giving an impatient shake of its head, causing a flash of auburn hair to glint in the dim light. Its comrades took a menacing step closer.

"I don't think so," Hollister replied coolly. "Doc? NOW."

"Power source detected!" the man at the console in front of Madigan reported, alarm surging through his voice. "Range, one hundred meters from target and closing."

"Identify it," Madigan snapped, her grip on the back of the technician's chair becoming white-knuckled as the tension level in the room rose drastically. "Why didn't we pick it up sooner?"

"Unable to identify at this time, combat machine not in the databanks," came the terse reply. "Humanoid robot type, estimated mass of ten to twenty tons. Further readings impossible because of the target's ECM. Searching alternate databases for tentative ID..."

"We didn't detect it earlier because I believe it was powered down or in a standby mode," one of the other techs interjected. "It's very heavily shielded."

"Have the boomers secure Hollister and retreat," Madigan snapped. "They're not..."

"Target firing!"

"Particle beam of some description....!"

"Missile spread fired!! Tracking multiple warheads...!"

Madigan stared helplessly at the control monitors as the warehouse area, and her plan, went up in a shattering snarl of flame and explosions in the time it took to blink.

Hollister coughed explosively, waving an arm through the smoke-choked air in front of him in a vain attempt to clear the air enough to be able to see what was going on. All around him, the sound of flames crackling merrily rose into the night, and a few metres away, another deafening roar of weapons fire sounded.

"Damn it, Doc, wasn't that a little excessive?!" the blond man muttered under his breath. "I could've lived without having to duck those bloody missiles, thank you very much."

"Don't blame me," Doc's voice crackled back dryly, coming through the transmitter earpiece he was wearing. "Blame your marvelous combat machine; the AI was the one that decided a missile spread was necessary. Better probability of a kill, after all."

"Yeah, but I wanted it to kill the boomers, not me!" Hollister snapped irritably.

"I did warn you that it wasn't totally ready yet," came the mild reply. "And you're the one who wanted to wait and see what they'd sent after you before attacking." Hollister didn't bother replying, his face stony as he turned towards the warehouse a few yards away. A black-haired man was slumped against the wall, clutching at his leg and moaning in pain.

Straightening his tie a bit, Hollister walked over to Stryker; the fixer had caught a stray shot from one of the boomers during the initial frenzy of the firefight that had erupted, and the blast had burned a deep wound into his leg just above the knee. From the way he was shaking, it was likely he'd be going into shock in a few minutes, if he hadn't already.

"Now then," Hollister's icy voice penetrated the fixer's pain-filled world, forcing him to look up at the blond man standing over him. A gun appeared in Hollister's grasp, and a crisp metallic click announced that it had just been cocked. "Who paid you to set me up?"

Behind the two men, a red and gray robot lumbered out of the fog and smoke-riddled darkness, fragments of a boomer trailing from the talons of its hands. It came to a halt twenty metres or so from them and then stood silently, ominously, awaiting its next order.

"What the hell do you mean, you don't know?! Do you honestly think I'm going to believe that load of bullshit?!" Hollister's voice cracked loudly, audible even from where the mech was standing.

As if his voice had been a catalyst, the D.D. twitched sharply, and a tremor ran through its frame. Orange-lit eyes flared brightly in the darkness.

"Hmmmm." The old physician looked at the long printout sheet attached to the clipboard he was holding, peering occasionally over his glasses at Bert as if looking at some kind of unbelievable lab specimen. It was beginning to make the tall red-head just a bit nervous. "Very interesting. Hmmmm." The old man frowned at the printout as he moved to the next page, one eyebrow lifting in a quizzical manner, and again he gave Bert an unreadable glance.

"Umm, look, could you just give me the verdict, Doc?" Bert asked, unable to keep from fidgeting uneasily from where he sat on the exam table. "You're making me nervous doing that."

"I'm still trying to figure out just what the verdict is," the elderly physician replied absently, rubbing contemplatively at his mustache with a finger. "Your physiology never ceases to amaze me sometimes."

"Uh, thanks, I think," Bert answered cautiously. "Just what does that mean?"

"Oh, just that you're in remarkable shape considering everything you've been through," the old man waved a hand vaguely at him as he continued reading the printout. "Nothing to worry about."

Bert fell silent and continued to watch the old medic as he read the printout, puffing thoughtfully into his mustache every once in a while. Despite the advances in medical science and scanning technology that had been made in the last few decades, the Knight Sabers' physician insisted on doing some things, like routine physicals, the old-fashioned way. Bert had asked about that once, and gotten a long-winded and detailed reply that essentially meant that technology couldn't substitute for experience.

At the moment, the way the old man was scrutinizing every page was beginning to make Bert wonder if he'd come down with some exotic condition. At least the physical part of the exam was over; he hated needles. Given the number of times he'd been injured, he hadn't thought seeing his own blood would be a problem; however, having to sit and watch as his blood squirted into a bottle was extremely unsettling for some reason. He suppressed a shudder, and tried to resume waiting semi-patiently.

"Here you go, Bert," Anri's voice pulled him out of his worried preoccupation as he sat there. He glanced at the young woman as she carried a glass of water to him, noting absently that she looked quite attractive in her light blue uniform. There was a sense of poise and self-assurance to her that had been lacking only a few short months before. Her job as a medical assistant to the old doctor had certainly helped her self-assurance ... even if her bedside manner did at times remind him of a blend of Sylia and the irascible old medic a few feet away.

"Thanks, Anri," he smiled gratefully at her as he accepted the glass, thirstily draining it. Handing it back, he sighed contentedly. "That was exactly what I needed."

"You don't have any reason to be nervous," she tried consoling him as she set the glass aside. "We're not going to have to take any more samples or anything."

"That's not why I'm nervous," he replied, nodding towards the doctor and his printout. "Normally it doesn't take this long to get the healthy verdict."

"That's because you were healthy the last time we did this," the old doctor interjected, sighing as he folded up the printout and stuffed it into a file folder. He walked over to where his reluctant, and suddenly white-faced patient was seated.

"Oh, don't look like that, it's not that bad," the old man waved a hand irritably at him. "You're suffering from slightly elevated blood pressure. Nothing serious yet, but we can take a few steps to deal with it before it becomes a problem."

"Oh? And just what steps are those?" Bert replied warily. Somehow he'd known it was going to be bad news.

"Hmmm....well, your blood tests don't show anything really out of the ordinary," the doctor noted, "so part of your problem is likely stress. That being the case, you need to relax more."

"I'm sure Priss could help you with that," Anri remarked sweetly, an innocent smile on her face. Bert turned bright crimson, and the green-haired young woman had to turn away, stifling a giggle behind her hand.

"The second thing is to watch your diet," the doctor continued, apparently oblivious to the red-head's sudden discomfiture. "Your blood cholesterol level would be happily at home in some fried chicken or burger joint. Start getting better meals and cook at home for a change; I'll have Anri give you some dietary suggestions that I'll draw up for you."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Bert conceded, getting himself back under control. Changing his eating habits wasn't a huge problem. Convincing Priss to stop going to so many burger places was going to be the real challenge...

"I'm not done yet," the white-haired old man grinned slyly. "This is going to be hard for you, but the third thing you're going to have to do is cut back on tea and coffee, a lot. What's your usual daily consumption?"

"My usual consumption?" Bert scratched his jaw as he frowned contemplatively. "Well, I usually only drink tea, and I'd say I probably go through anywhere from about sixteen to twenty cups a day. Mugs of it, I mean." The old doctor blinked in surprise, and Bert was aware suddenly that Anri was staring at him with a slightly stunned expression.

"What?" he asked defensively, looking at her. "Why are you staring at me like that?" Anri started and recovered herself, smoothing out her expression.

"Well, I'd heard that you liked tea," she tried explaining, "I just didn't know you liked it quite that much."

"It calms me down," he replied, shrugging. "I find a hot drink has a soothing effect."

"I hate to break it to you," the old doctor interrupted dryly, "but it's a stimulant, not a relaxant, and it's a stimulant you've got to cut back on; part of your problem is that you've developed a genuine caffeine dependency. Starting right now, I don't want you having more than four or five, at most six, cups per day."

Bert's jaw dropped as he stared at the old man with a horrified expression.

Shadows seemed to slither through the flickering red glow coming from the bank of control panels arranged along the side of the tight, narrow cockpit. As the lights on the readouts changed and pulsated, the darkness in the cramped space seemed to move malevolently, like a viper waiting for the right opportunity to strike from among the bundled wires and circuitry conduits. The air in the enclosed space was hot and stuffy, almost unbearably so, and tinged with a faint odour of ozone.

Pained, raspy breathing came from the slumped figure of a woman in the center of the cockpit, occasionally laced with what sounded like a racking sob. Her head hung slackly, long blonde hair falling forward to conceal her face. Occasionally, she pulled despairingly at the metal restraints that kept her held tightly to the control 'chair' she'd been forced into, although calling it a chair was an extreme misnomer. It was more like a narrow bicycle seat with arm and leg rests, and it hadn't been designed with the comfort of the occupant in mind.

Another choked sob escaped the woman as she again strained at the shackles, to no avail. She threw her head back despairingly as she stared at the ceiling of the D.D.'s cockpit, resisting the urge to start screaming; she knew that if she started, she'd never be able to stop this time. A tear trickled down one cheek, leaving its own track among the many others that streaked her face.

She'd long since lost any track of time; there was only the interminable horror of being imprisoned here, unable to move. She was still sane, but didn't know why; losing her mind would've been a relief, a way to avoid having to deal with the horror of what had been done to her, the horror of being shunted to the back of her consciousness whenever the Battlemover's computer took control of her...

A tremor shook her, and she had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from screaming hysterically again; she'd screamed for several minutes the first time the computer had relinquished control over her body during the initial testing. Being used like a puppet had sparked unbelievable horror, and nearly unbearable despair.

Her skin crawled as she remembered the sensations; it had been like being tightly bound and gagged before being sealed in a coffin with a small opening in the lid. She'd been able to see and hear everything that had happened, but had been utterly unable to do anything, even scream. She bit her lip again, tasting blood this time as she shivered violently.

Despite all that she'd endured, somehow she'd been able to hold onto some small shred of defiance, some faint, fading spar of hope that she'd be able to get free. That faint hope was all that had allowed her to resist having her mind wiped; she'd felt the D.D.'s software trying to erase her 'programming' several times, and she'd managed to fight it off each time...so far. It was becoming more of a struggle each time though, and she didn't know how much longer she could manage it.

Her memories and sense of self were all she had left; she was not 'just a machine' as she'd heard some of her captors state. She'd had her own wants and desires before being captured, just as anyone else had. She could feel emotions, just like any other human. Unfortunately, the 'humans' didn't look at it that way...she was just a somewhat more sophisticated boomer to them.

She swallowed painfully against a dry throat; the nutrient delivery system they'd connected her to kept the biological portions of her systems alive, but didn't alleviate the physical symptoms of things like thirst. In its own way, it was a different level to the torture of her imprisonment. For just a moment, she longingly remembered the feel of drinking a cool glass of water...what seemed like eons ago.

"What the hell do you mean, you don't know?! Do you honestly think I'm going to believe that load of bullshit?!" the angry voice spat over the cockpit audio systems, interrupting her all-too-brief reverie.

Her head snapped up as her eyes narrowed in recognition of the voice, distorted as it was. For a brief moment, she again heard the cold voice as it icily commanded her imprisonment. She didn't know what he looked like, since they'd always kept her blindfolded, but she knew he was called Hollister.

Fury suddenly erupted as she realized that the prime motivator in her capture and imprisonment was nearby. It was his fault she was trapped inside the battlemover now, wired to its weapons and sensor systems against her will.

All she'd ever wanted was to be treated like a normal human woman, even entertaining dreams of being able to escape Genaros and hide somewhere on Earth; she'd heard rumours that others had been able to successfully do that. Hollister had gone beyond the casual callousness that marked the way in which GENOM used them, and ruined any immediate hope of a future of any kind for her.

She ground her teeth in helpless fury as she glared at the main viewscreen in front of her. Two thermal signatures identified two men standing several metres away, next to a warehouse. Her captor was within reach of retribution...and she couldn't do anything about it.

Or could she?

The young woman examined that thought with something akin to revulsion; she was sitting inside an impressive war machine, and she was nominally in control of the Battlemover's systems at the moment. The thought of willingly interfacing with the D.D.'s systems was distressing though; she wanted to be human, and had bitterly fought the attempts to turn her into merely another mechanical component of the battlemover.

She could feel the tenuous connection she had with the 'mech. It felt like a dull headache most of the time, through which the occasional piece of data from the Battlemover's systems invaded her mind. Most of the time she was able to block it out, thanks in part to the fact that they hadn't fully linked her to the machine yet. She'd never tried to utilize it herself; she didn't want to admit that she could.

She wrestled with herself for a few seconds, noting the bitter irony of the moment; in order to have a chance to save herself, she'd have to embrace the machine she violently hated. There was the slim chance she could escape if she killed Hollister, escape beyond the immediate range of their control equipment and try to find help. Overlooking the fact that a fully-armed battlemover loose in the city likely would attract military attention, it was really all she had left to try. It was doubtful they'd be taking the large war machine out of their base again for quite some time.

She gritted her teeth, braced herself, and then tentatively probed with her mind at the link she could feel with the 'mech. A deathly chill raced through her as her body suddenly seemed to warp and twist, becoming a small mountain of metal...NO!!! With an effort, she resisted losing herself in the D.D.'s sensor and data networks; it was a terrifying disorientation to suddenly feel like she'd left her body behind, and it took her several moments to become accustomed to it.

A grim smile played across her face as the cockpit lights began to brighten.

"Uh-oh, this is not good," one of the technicians muttered, tapping at a couple of keys on his board. On the viewscreen in front of him, a green status bar turned bright amber, and began shrinking. "We've got a problem in the control systems," he announced to the other occupants of the cramped trailer as he frantically flipped switches and hammered commands into his keyboard, trying to halt the decline of the readout. "Efficiency just dropped to forty-five percent, and it's still falling."

"What?! Why?!" Doc stepped over to behind the technician, taking in the data displayed in a sweeping glance. "That shouldn't be happening; the linkage reads as stable."

"I can't explain it, sir," the tech replied, shrugging in a combination of frustration and helplessness. "We're losing responsiveness from the weapons and actuator systems, and I can't isolate a source for the disruption; all the battlemover systems appear to be functioning normally."

"Except that they won't listen to us at the moment!" Doc snapped curtly. Leaning down, the gaunt old scientist half-shoved the technician out of the way, and quickly tabbed a few buttons. The readout changed, and lines of data began scrolling past the screen. Doc watched intently, trying to determine the cause of the fault in the data stream.

"We have movement!!" another panicky technician yelled. "The battlemover is moving towards Mr. Hollister's location!! It's..it's arming its weapons!!"

"Now why the hell would it..." Doc's voice trailed off, and his eyes widened as the realization abruptly hit him. Spinning around, he lunged for the communications headset he'd set aside. He jammed it on over his head, activating the microphone in the process.

"Ethan!! Ethan?! Get the hell out of there now!!" he ordered tersely. "Forget Stryker and run, unless you want a really personal demonstration of the Battlemover's weaponry!!"

"What?" Hollister demanded irritably, lowering the gun he'd been holding on a cringing fixer. He tapped the concealed earpiece with his free hand, scowling and wincing as it squealed into his ear. Static crackled, and he heard Doc repeat his message, the static garbling the words.

"Get.......Run!! The.......getting...to fire!!"

"I didn't copy that," Hollister replied impatiently. "What did...you...say?" Heavy, clanging footsteps crunching on the asphalt ground made him trail off as he turned around.

Burning orange eyes glared down at the startled man as the massive red and gray armoured battlemover loomed over him. Hollister gaped up at the robot, momentarily too shocked to move. The talons of the huge 'mech flexed menacingly, as if anticipating slowly crushing the pale human in front of it in its claws. At the same time, a tremor ran through the machine, as if someone had just jabbed it with something.

"Doc," Hollister began backing away, dimly aware that Stryker was trying to crawl away behind him. "Talk to me: what the hell is going on?!" An unfamiliar feeling gripped him as he stared at the weapon he'd created. Fear began gleefully romping through his mind, turning his mouth dry and making his pulse pound harder.

"The sexaroid's taken control of the battlemover," came the terse, staticky reply. "Now run damnit!!!"

Hollister backed off another step, and then another, his feet starting to pick up speed. As he moved, the head of the humanoid war machine swiveled to track him. A noise reminiscent of a mechanical snarl rumbled from the machine as a large minigun popped into place on its left shoulder.

Hollister bolted, stumbling and dropping to his knees for an instant as his gun went skittering away on the pavement as he tripped over what was left of the red-haired boomer that had been leading the trio trying to apprehend him. The blond man lunged back to his feet, then dove sideways as the minigun opened up with an ear-piercing scream. Flame belched from the gun muzzle as high-velocity projectiles shrieked through the air, churning a spray of pulverized brick and asphalt chips into the air. Hollister rolled desperately along the ground, scrambling to keep ahead of the searching fire.

"The override isn't working, sir!!" the harried and sweating tech reported as he pounded desperately at a keyboard. "I can't get the D.D. to accept the input; I think the sexaroid's blocking the link!"

"Oh, thank you so much for that enlightening news," Doc snapped sarcastically, mind racing. Over the comm channel, he could still hear the snarling scream of weapons fire, and on the viewscreen in front of him, the picture of a desperately dodging blond-haired man surrounded by smoke and explosions flickered and wavered. Luckily for Hollister, the invisible struggle for control of the Battlemover's systems was adversely affecting the machine's targeting of its weapons. Ambivalent feelings swirled through the old scientist's mind, momentarily paralyzing him as he stared at the monitors.

Hollister was as good as dead in a matter of a few more seconds unless he did something drastic...and there really was only one more option to re-establish control of the wayward battlemover. While no one would particularly mourn Hollister's passing, even among his own organization, Doc couldn't let him get killed, no matter how much better the world would likely be for it. For one thing, he needed to find a way to free himself of his influence before that could happen; even in death, Hollister would still be able to ruin what was left of his life...

The old scientist reluctantly reached out to another control panel and typed in an access code, then a series of authorization codes. He closed his eyes as he hit the 'enable' button, then turned away from the monitors, running a hand tiredly over his seamed and wrinkled face.

"And may God have mercy on your soul...and mine," the old man muttered.

Behind him, a message was displayed in brilliant green letters on one of the display screens: FULL SYNCHRONIZATION AUTHORIZED.

Sylia closed the file folder she'd been rifling through as a quiet knock sounded at the door of her apartment and glanced at the clock, frowning a little at the lateness of the hour. Now who could that be? Setting the folder on the coffee table, she stood and walked over to the door.

Nene was stifling a massive yawn behind a hand as the door swung open, and she quickly dropped her hand with an embarrassed grin as Sylia's gaze met hers.

"Hi, Sylia. Is it okay if I come in for a few minutes?" she asked.

"Certainly," Sylia nodded, stepping back from the door. "It's a bit late for social calls though, wouldn't you say?"

"I'm sorry," Nene apologized, kicking off her shoes. "I found something at work the other day I thought you'd be interested in, and my computer didn't get through with it until tonight. I figured dropping it off after our medical exams were finished was the best way to get it to you." The young red-head pulled a datadisc from a pocket as she followed Sylia over to the couches and easy chairs, and handed it to her boss.

"What is it?" Sylia asked, turning the disk over in her fingers, giving Nene a quizzical glance.

"I found it in the some databases a few days ago," Nene replied, sitting down and valiantly trying to resist another yawn. "You said to keep an eye out for anything unusual, so I was looking around a bit..."

"Would you like a cup of coffee, perhaps?" Sylia interrupted her gently. "Before you keel over?"

"Yes, please," Nene grinned a bit ruefully. "Sorry...it was a long day today."

"You can keep talking while I get it for you," Sylia told her. "Where were you looking around?"

"Well, first I checked all the usual ADP files, and then I started sifting the boomer incidents, but I didn't find anything. So I started looking through the newsgroups and things like that," Nene told her, settling into the couch to get more comfortable as Sylia walked into the kitchen. "It took me a while, but I found out that there was a kidnapping a few weeks ago that never made it into the news networks."

"A kidnapping is hardly something we need to worry about," Sylia's voice noted. The sounds of liquid gurgling into a cup drifted from the kitchen. "The police do have their own investigators for that sort of thing, you know." Footsteps heralded her return, and she handed Nene a steaming cup of coffee before sitting down across from her.

"The police don't know about this one, Sylia," Nene said quietly, taking a cautious sip. "It happened on Genaros."

"Go on." Sylia's expression was suddenly taut with apprehension, and Nene had the impression that she'd already made the obvious connection in her mind and was waiting for verification.

"A woman was kidnapped from the station's personnel a few weeks ago," Nene elaborated quietly. "They got onto the station somehow, grabbed her, and escaped in a stolen shuttle. It was all very quickly hushed up; not even the spaceport authority knows about it." She paused and took a quick sip of her drink. "I downloaded the duty roster for the station and tried to figure out who'd been grabbed, since the kidnap victim wouldn't be in the shift rotation anymore, and I figured out who it was last night. Then I tried to find her personnel file in Genaros's databanks."

"Nene," Sylia's voice sounded a bit pained as she massaged the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger, her eyes squeezed shut, "didn't I tell you to let me know before you start hacking into those kinds of high-security files? We can't afford you getting caught at that, and you know that."

"But you said I was supposed to keep an eye out for anything unusual," Nene replied loftily. "I was just doing what you told me to do." She took another drink from her cup, managing to look cute, charming, and innocent all in the same instant.

"When I said 'anything unusual', I meant within the ADP itself," Sylia replied, her tone becoming a bit irritated as she glared at the young red-head. "I did NOT mean that to include hacking into military-grade systems just because you were bored."

"Sylia!" Nene's expression managed to include just the right amount of outraged dignity, enough to offset the faintly guilty flush that touched her cheeks. "I was just being thorough!"

"We'll discuss being 'thorough' later," Sylia promised her grimly, "thoroughly." Nene winced a little at that, but didn't reply.

"Did you manage to find the file you were looking for?" Sylia asked her after a moment or so of silence. Nene nodded.

"It's all on the disk," she replied quietly. "I didn't read all of it, just enough to confirm why she'd been grabbed."

"She was a 33-S boomer," Sylia's tone of voice made it a statement of fact, not a question. Nene nodded wordlessly, and Sylia sighed.

"And that means that Hollister must have a working prototype," Sylia's jaw tightened as she considered that implication. "We're going to have to do something about that before long."

"If we can," Nene mumbled glumly, more to herself than anyone else as she stared into her coffee cup.

Sweat poured down her face as she forced the battlemover to wheel, keeping its weapons tracking after the fleeing man visible on the monitors. The brutal strain of single-handedly controlling the massive 'mech while trying to fight off the attempts of its creators to regain control was rapidly depleting her, making it even more difficult to control the machine. She only had at most a few more minutes before they succeeded in subduing her again.

She gritted her teeth, clenching a hand into a fist; the 'mech translated the thought accompanying the action into a taloned lunge at Hollister. The D.D. shook with the jolt of its arm crunching into the asphalt, bare inches behind the blond-haired man as he dove aside clumsily. She could hear him shouting something, but whatever he was trying to say wasn't important. All she wanted was the satisfaction of rending him limb from limb...slowly. A grating, scraping noise sounded in the cockpit as the mech pulled its arm free of the pavement.

A hum of a different pitch than that of the usual operation of the Battlemover's systems penetrated her awareness, and she frowned momentarily, trying to determine through her link with the war machine what was going on. She was unable to get any kind of idea from the machine as to what was happening, so it was something of a shock when the metal shackles on her wrists and ankles retracted with a snap into their housings.

She stared disbelievingly for a moment, thrown into confusion by the sudden reversal. The sudden shooting agony of cramped muscles as she tried moving convinced her that it was real, that she could indeed move again. But...why had they released her?! For a moment, that concern was forgotten as she briefly reveled in the joy of the freedom of movement.

Her enjoyment was short-lived however; with a hissing snap, cables shot towards her from the sides and floor of the cockpit. Heavy manacles snapped closed around her legs below the knees; at the same time, thick metal cuffs seized her wrists. She stared numbly at the new restraints, watching with mounting horror as rows of LED lights mounted in them began to flicker and brighten.

"NOOOO!!!!!" The despairing scream was wrenched from the depths of her being as she felt a metal collar snap around her throat from behind, nearly choking her. At the same time, the last linkage restraint locked closed around her waist. She fought in futility against what was happening, crying in anguish.

A choked scream of protest was the last sound she had the opportunity to utter; with a crunch that she felt throughout her entire body, the interface probes from the control collar embedded themselves in her spinal column at the base of her skull. Liquid pain coursed through her for a moment, then disappeared in a wave of white light.

Silence returned to the cockpit of the battlemover, as flickering lights played over the deathly still form of the woman. White light glowed coldly from her eye sockets as she sat there, her face frozen in a soundless, terrified scream.

Hollister's hands were shaking as he wiped sweat and dust from his face. Blood from some cut somewhere streaked one hand as he lowered it, gasping and panting for breath. His clothes were torn, and he was dimly aware of one pant leg becoming glued to him with a wet, sticky warmth. He'd ripped a wicked gash into one leg with some debris during a frantic dive to avoid the Battlemover's thrusting talons. Or was it the Battlemover's claws that had nicked him? He couldn't remember...all of his recollections of the last few minutes were a jumbled, chaotic blur.

Barely ten feet from him, the D.D. was standing at rigid attention, where not thirty seconds before it had been trying to kill him. He watched it warily for a full five minutes, weaving and swaying with fatigue, before he began to believe that it was back under control. Wincing, he turned and limped towards the warehouse, still unable to keep from glancing back at the battlemover, just in case.

The unmistakable smell of death mingled with the lingering traces of smoke from the brief assault as he neared the warehouse. Sprawled in a gory mess was what was left of Stryker; the fixer had been unable to get out of the way of one of the volleys of minigun fire from the battlemover. There wasn't much left of the warehouse wall behind the unfortunate fixer, either.

The blond man spat a vicious epithet as his teeth clenched, his face contorting in a fury born of several sources. His hands were still shaking as he picked up his pistol from where it lay on the pavement nearby, and he clenched the butt of the gun tightly, trying to regain control of himself. With another snarled curse, he emptied the gun into Stryker's corpse, deriving some small amount of satisfaction from watching the hail of bullets further shred the mutilated body.

Trembling violently, he turned and limped off into what was left of the night.

"It's just not fair," Bert grumbled as he stuffed his coat into the closet next to the door and kicked off his shoes. "Why is it always me? It's just not fair." Scowling to himself, he padded across the carpeted living room, heading for the kitchen.

"Oh come off it," Priss retorted, exasperation showing plainly on her face as she removed her own jacket and chucked it into a nearby armchair. "It's not the end of the world just because you've got to cut back on a few cups of tea!" Sweeping her hair back over her shoulders, she followed him over to the kitchen area, and leaned on the counter as she watched him.

"Easy for you to say," he snorted, banging a pair of mugs down on the counter. "Did you want anything to drink?" he inquired, briefly remembering at least a trace of etiquette. She shook her head.

"No thanks, and you're supposed to be laying off that stuff, remember?" she asked pointedly.

"I'll start tomorrow," he growled irritably. "A condemned man gets a last meal, so why can't I have a last drink?" Priss sighed, rolling her eyes heavenward as he poured tea into his mug, added milk and sugar, and then stuck the mug in the microwave, pressing some buttons. The microwave beeped and then began humming energetically as he waited, arms folded across his chest.

"At least you weren't given a bottle of vitamins, told to get more exercise and more rest," Priss observed, her expression souring a bit as she propped her chin on her hand. "I got treated like I was some ten year-old kid who forgot to clean behind her ears or something. Don't you even think about any kind of a wisecrack," she warned him tartly, pointing a finger at him as she saw the beginnings of a slow grin seep through his disgruntlement.

"Who, me?" he asked mildly. "Wouldn't dream of it." The microwave beeped again, cheerily announcing that it was done, and Bert turned towards it while still trying to keep a straight face.

"Polish your halo," Priss told him dryly as he removed his now-steaming mug. "You just can't look innocent for very long."

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he replied, grinning openly as he took a cautious sip of his drink.

"Watch me," she grinned back. She straightened up from the counter as he walked around the end of it, and followed him over to the couch, settling in next to him once he'd sat down. They sat together quietly as he slowly emptied his mug, then set the mug aside with a sigh.

"Feel better now?" Priss asked brightly, grinning at the look she received in reply.

"I just know I'm going to hate tomorrow," Bert grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face. "Somehow, I just know it."

"Well, I know I'd hate it if I had to listen you whine and gripe about it all day," she observed dryly, reaching over and brushing his hair out of his eyes. "Good thing I'll be at a practice most of the day tomorrow, wouldn't you say?"

"Coward," he muttered, then sighed and leaned back on the couch. "I can't really say much either; I've got a long day planned myself."

"Doing what?"

"Let's see now," he mused, ticking off the items in his list on his fingers. "Sylia wants some stuff on the suits overhauled, I owe Doctor Raven..."

"Who, Pops?" Priss interjected.

"Doctor!" he retorted immediately, sounding exactly like the crusty old man for a moment. They swapped a smirk before he continued his list. "I owe him some work time at the garage, I've got to put some new targets in at the range, and then I said I'd take a look at Nene's scooter for her."

"Nene's scooter?" Priss frowned. "What's wrong with it?"

"It died," Bert shrugged. "She couldn't be any more specific than that. She can't afford to take it to a garage at the moment, so I said I'd take a look at it. If it's too complicated I'll just haul it down to Raven's and get him to fix it. She's going to be at work all afternoon, if that's what was worrying you."

"I wasn't worried about that," Priss dismissed the idea with an impatient shake of her head. "Are you?" Red-brown eyes gazed at him questioningly.

"I guess not," he replied after a moment or two of silence. "We chatted a bit while everyone else was in the exam room. We're...she's...I don't feel as uncomfortable around her as I did before," he said slowly. "But..." He stared off into space, trying to find the words to define what exactly he'd felt. "It ...still felt ... awkward," he finally said, "although that doesn't quite describe it either. I just..." He gestured helplessly, frustrated at his sudden inability to find the right words.

"Hey, don't knock yourself out over it, I understand," Priss tried soothing him, placing a hand on his arm. "Just don't try to force it. It'll happen, but that's going to take a lot more time than a just a month or two."

"Mmhmm," he muttered gloomily, staring dejectedly at the coffee table and his empty mug. She decided to drop the subject, and wordlessly snuggled a bit closer to him. He gave her a melancholy smile, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. They sat like that for a while, each lost in their own private thoughts.

"No fluctuations in the control circuits," one of the disheveled technicians reported, wiping a hand through sweat-matted hair. "There hasn't even been a twitch since the full synchronization took effect."

"Bring it back then," Doc directed crisply. "Let's pack it up and get out of here before the authorities show up."

"Affirmative," the tech replied, looking relieved as he reached out and tabbed a few buttons. "The D.D. is on its way back now."

"Fine," Doc grunted, turning away as he fumbled in his pockets for his pipe. A wave of utter weariness washed through him as he searched, but it was more depletion of the spirit than physical fatigue. He'd known that enabling the full synchronization had been the only way to stop the sexaroid and the D.D., but he still felt like somebody who'd been forced to pull the lever of a gallows trapdoor on someone he knew.

His pockets came up empty except for matches, unfortunately. The old scientist scowled blackly at a nearby monitor, and then remembered that he'd dropped his pipe in the initial frenzy of activity when the D.D. had started going rogue. He had just started to squint at the floor of the trailer in an attempt to find it when he heard the electronic locks on the entry door disengage as someone punched in an access code.

Everyone looked up in time to see a bloody and battered Hollister lurch through the door. An expression of unreasoning fury was frozen on the blond man's face. His eyes were shining with rage, and his teeth were clenched in what was almost a snarl. The blood streaming down the right side of his face only added to his shocking visage.

"Ethan, are you..." Doc started to speak, then trailed off as he realized Hollister wasn't listening to him. Instead, his gaze was fixed on the suddenly white-faced technicians at their control consoles. In a sudden flash of insight, Doc knew what was going to happen next.

"Ethan, NO!" The old scientist threw himself at the bloodied man, grabbing for his wrist as the handgun clenched in Hollister's fist started to come up. The younger man was stronger, however, and the gun continued to rise as the techs frantically scattered, hiding behind whatever was available in the cramped confines of the trailer.

"Ethan! Stop this!!" Doc gritted, trying vainly to stop the implacable leveling of the pistol. "Goddamn it, it was a technical fault!! You're not going to solve anything by shooting my tech staff! Ethan!! For God's sake, STOP!!!!!!"

The shout reverberated through the trailer, and finally seemed to penetrate Hollister's consciousness. The frenzied look in his eyes faded slightly, and a small semblance of reason returned to his expression. Doc didn't like the direction the reasoning was going, however.

"Decided to get rid of me, Doc?" Hollister's ice-blue gaze bored into the old scientist, and his voice was low and menacing. "Thought you could get me with an equipment malfunction? Or did one of your technicians decide they needed a new boss?"

"Ethan, quit being ridiculous," Doc snapped back, trying to ignore the sudden cold feeling in the pit of his stomach at the look Hollister was giving him. The elderly scientist kept a firm grip on Hollister's wrist. "I warned you that your goddamn tinkertoy wasn't ready for full-blown field testing, but you didn't listen; maybe next time you won't be so goddamn cocksure that you're right. If you absolutely have to blame someone for that thing malfunctioning, then fine: blame me. But if you're going to shoot me because I made a mistake, then you might as well shoot yourself at the same time for not listening to my advice. That's the mistake that led to all this." With that, the old man released his clenched grip on Hollister's gun arm, and stepped back.

For one infinitely long moment, Hollister and Doc stared at each other. Doc's face was outwardly inscrutable. Inwardly however, he was less than sanguine about his chances of walking away from this; he'd known Hollister possessed a bad temper at times, but he'd never seen the man in a homicidal rage before. Clearly, the near-brush with death had pushed him almost over the edge.

Hollister's face was a study in suspicion, hostility, and slowly fading rage as he glared at the old scientist. After a couple of moments, his expression slowly resumed its usual aloof cast. There was a muffled, collective sigh of relief from the back end of the trailer as he straightened, and carefully replaced his pistol in its accustomed shoulder holster.

Doc quietly released his own pent-up breath as the blond man became somewhat more like his usual self; he hadn't even realized he'd been holding it until the cowering techs at the far end of the trailer had released theirs in a quiet gasp.

Hollister swayed a bit and put a hand against the wall to steady himself. His gaze swept the length of the trailer for a moment, and then returned to Doc.

"Retrieve the battlemover, and then let's get back to the base," he directed shortly. "I've had enough excitement for one night."

THE NEXT DAY...

"Not much left of that poor bastard, is there?" Leon remarked, gingerly stepping around the pools of sticky gore staining the asphalt. A few feet away, some rather nauseated forensics specialists were carefully scooping what was left of the unfortunate victim into a body bag to be take away for analysis, and hopefully eventual identification. "Was he carrying any kind of ID?"

"Not that we've found," Daley replied absently, devoting most of his attention to the same task that Leon was. "He was carrying what used to be a handgun...before it had several rounds of high-velocity ammunition shoved through it. If he had a wallet or anything like that, we'll probably have to strain his remains to find it."

"Great," Leon grunted. "I don't suppose we've had any leads as to what did this?"

"Something with big guns, and bigger feet," Daley joked. Leon shot him a sour glance; other than the corpse and the boomer wreckage strewn across the warehouse loading yard the only other physical evidence at the scene were several squarish 'footprints' that had been crushed into the concrete and asphalt of the compound. They were almost certainly from a very big mechanized suit...the pattern they were laid out in indicated a humanoid-style manner of walking.

The only question was, what had it been? Leon was fairly familiar with most of the modern military boomer and 'mech specs - in his line of work, it paid to know what the capabilities of possible enemies could be - but nothing he'd seen matched the preliminary assessment they'd arrived at, given the evidence available. A ten to fifteen ton humanoid-shaped 'mech, sporting energy and projectile weapons? No such thing existed...officially at least. There were always rumours, of course. Whisperings about experimental guns, stories of prototype superweapons run amok...

Leon froze as his memory abruptly grabbed him, relentlessly dragging him back in time. For a split second, a huge shape loomed over him, and he saw again red and gray armour plating, with weapons jutting from various locations...just before a crushing impact had staved in the armour of his K-12 battlesuit, breaking his ribs and very nearly killing him.

"Leon? Hey, Leon!" Daley's hand shaking his shoulder alerted him to the fact that he'd stopped dead in his tracks when the memory had grabbed him. His partner's expression was one of puzzled concern. "Hey, you feeling all right? You just stopped and went pale."

"Daley, have we still got the old case file on that SDPC shuttle crash a couple of years back?" Leon asked, glancing again at the squarish depressions in the pavement nearby. "You know, the one with that stolen battlemover aboard."

"Probably, but it's likely in the archives by now," Daley replied with a shrug. "And there wasn't much to it anyway...we got closed out of the investigation, remember?"

"Yeah, but we did get some rough dimensions and specs on that thing from the wreckage the Knight Sabers left behind when they took it out, right?" Daley snorted.

"You mean before the various governmental agencies seized it and started bickering over who had salvage rights on the carcass?" Daley asked dryly. "Yeah, I think we managed to get some pictures and rough measurements that didn't get impounded and taken away. Why?"

"Just a hunch," Leon replied absently, as he resumed walking, his partner following. "Given what we've got here, I'd say we might be looking at something built on the same scale as that battlemover was."

"But we haven't got anyone to tie this one to, Leon," Daley reminded him. "The last time it was an executive getting ambitious; we had somewhere to start." The red-haired inspector shrugged, his gesture taking in the debris-strewn warehouse area. "The only thing we know for sure this time is that it didn't come from Genaros."

Leon grunted noncommittally, and Daley rolled his eyes heavenward; Leon had apparently already decided what his course of action was going to be, and not even dynamite was going to change his mind. His partner's dogged determination on an investigation was a definite asset most of the time, but it sure didn't make reasoning with him easy.

The two ADP inspectors finally reached the shredded remains of what had once been two C-55 combat boomers. A third boomer lay nearby, evidently a 33-C, if the feminine contours were any indication. A piece of tarpaulin had been flung over what was left of the body, concealing most of it; the 33-C class boomers looked human enough that seeing one dismembered tended to upset people.

"Well? What have we got?" Leon asked the forensics technician who was kneeling on the pavement, carefully probing the wreckage with gloved hands.

"Exactly what it looks like," the man replied distractedly. "Dead boomers. One appears to have been physically torn to pieces, and the other one was hit with several bursts from some kind of high-yield energy weapon; I'll have to get this debris back to the lab before I can give you a complete analysis. I haven't found any trace of the serial numbers or ID transponders yet, and somehow, I don't think I will."

"Damn it," Leon muttered under his breath as he looked around again at the wreckage.

"What did you expect, Leon?" Daley asked wryly. "GENOM factory labels with warranty stickers?"

"Yeah, well, hope springs eternal," Leon returned, a grudging smirk appearing. "You never know; we might luck out for a change someday." He glanced over at the shrouded wreckage of the third boomer. "Guess we should take a look at that one; they're a restricted model, so we might have more success in tracking down its owners."

Leaving the technician to his sifting, Leon walked over to where the destroyed boomer lay sprawled in biomechanical death, Daley trailing him as he made some notes for later follow-up on a notepad. Crouching next to the corpse, Leon reached out and grasped a corner of the tarp, peeling it away from the wreckage.

What he saw when its features were revealed turned his face grey, and tore a startled curse from him. Daley glanced up from his notepad at his partner in surprise, but the question died on his lips as his gaze followed Leon's mutely pointing hand.

Glazed aquamarine-coloured eyes stared sightlessly at the sky, set in a face that was now alabaster-pale. A wealth of long red hair was spread on the pavement in a grotesque mockery of the body sprawled in death, stuck to the asphalt in drying pools of blood-coloured nutrient fluids. The expression frozen on the features of the biomechanoid corpse was one of surprise.

"No, it can't be!" Daley turned as pale as Leon, glancing disbelievingly at his fellow officer. "That isn't..." His voice trailed off as he stared again at the familiar visage the dead boomer was wearing.

"Chief Ichinohei?" Leon's voice suddenly sounded weary and utterly drained. "I'd have to say it is." Colour flooded back to his face as his jaw clenched, and he stood abruptly, giving the tarp an angry snap that re-covered the dead boomer. "Damn it, just what the hell is going ON around here?!?!" Spinning on his heel, he jabbed a finger at a nearby forensics technician. "You! Get that goddamn equipment over here!"

Bert irritably sponged motor oil from his face with a rag as he glared at the small motor scooter standing next to him. The scooter sat innocently, unaffected by the smoldering glance he was giving it as muddy-looking oil dribbled from disconnected lubricant hoses into the pan he'd placed beneath it. Once he was certain he'd gotten the worst of the oil off his face, he reached over and picked up the oil filter from where it had fallen to the pavement, using the rag to mop up some of the waste oil that had drained from it. He grimly inspected it for a moment, then pitched it into a nearby garbage can.

The tall red-head sighed to himself as he levered himself up off his knees, and stood stretching for a few moments. As he'd promised Nene, he'd stopped by the apartment complex where she lived to take a look at her scooter. Unfortunately, a quick look at the scooter had confirmed that it was going to need an overhaul, one that couldn't be done in a parking lot.

That, of course, had made it necessary to haul it down to Raven's garage; Doc Raven had all the tools and equipment he was likely to need. At least that part of the afternoon had been straightforward, though; since starting, he'd been fighting the blasted machine every step of the way. Almost all of the parts on it that could possibly have required some kind of adjustment had turned out to have needed it. As the crowning touch, absolutely everything on the scooter that contained fluid of some kind had seen fit to spray it all over him, which had elicited some loud and colourful comments.

Bert sighed again as he watched the last of the oil drain from the scooter, and began hunting around for the replacement filter he'd selected. He was going to have to make sure he gave Nene a schedule for getting her scooter some regular maintenance. It was no wonder the poor machine had quit on her...

"So how's it going?" Doctor Raven's voice inquired dryly from behind him as he rummaged through a toolbox in search of the right wrench. "Run out of curse words yet?" Bert looked a trifle embarrassed as he looked up at the crusty old mechanic.

"Sorry about that, Doctor," he apologized with a rueful grin. "I tend to forget to keep my temper under control when I'm trying to fix something."

"It's nothing I haven't heard before," Doc Raven replied gruffly, just the faintest trace of a smile pulling at his face. "When you get to my age, you've heard most of the really good ones anyway; it's refreshing to hear some inventive swearing once in a while." The old man looked at the mostly-reassembled scooter. "You pretty much done with that?"

"I just need to get this on it," Bert held up the oil filter, "pour in a couple litres of oil, and that'll be it."

"Good," Raven replied. "The parts for the rest of that contraption you wanted put together have arrived, and I can't do it all myself." He cocked an eyebrow curiously. "Does Sylia know about this little project of yours?"

"Why should she?" Bert asked. "It's not like I'm putting anything new or experimental into a suit this time."

"No, but she does like to be kept informed about what you're doing," Raven noted dryly. "Which is something I can certainly sympathize with in your case; I'm amazed she hasn't already developed gray hair from having to deal with you sometimes."

"This is perfectly harmless," Bert waved the question away. "She won't mind."

"It's your funeral if it turns out that she does mind," Raven snorted, shaking his head. "Hurry up with that scooter then, and I'll help you finish putting it together." With that, the old mechanic turned and stomped back to the other end of the garage vehicle bays, muttering under his breath.

Bert grinned to himself, then began cheerily humming "Hurricane" as he turned back to Nene's scooter.

"I trust you have an explanation for last night's fiasco?" The question sounded mild enough, but the dire overtones in Quincy's voice were unmistakable. The craggy-faced CEO of GENOM sat impassively behind his desk, his hands folded in his lap, and waited for a reply.

Madigan stood ramrod straight in front of the desk, unable to dispel the cold, queasy feeling churning in her gut as she tried to match the Chairman's emotionless demeanor. The operation to capture Hollister had been an utter disaster, and the only positive thing in the whole mess was the fact that there was no confirmable corporate tie to the operation.

"I made an error in judgment," she admitted stoically. "I did not anticipate Hollister having military-grade hardware as backup."

"While that may indeed have been short-sighted, that was not what I was referring to," Quincy sloughed the admission off with a gesture. "There will undoubtedly be another time to deal with Mr. Hollister, and the loss of two combat boomers is inconsequential." Quincy's eyes narrowed, and a steely glint appeared in them. "I am, however, less than pleased that the boomer you selected to guide last night's operation was one of the few humanoid simulacrums with which we have managed to infiltrate the ADPolice, and the only one capable of directing them where we wish them to go. Now, not only do we no longer have that control, but the entire police force is aware that they've been infiltrated. We will be fortunate if the almost assured purge of the police departments leaves us any covert operatives at all."

Madigan was unable to keep from turning pale as she listened to the old man; there was no mistaking the anger behind the calm-seeming words, and she sought for some way to quell the storm she sensed was coming. Unfortunately, her options were exceedingly limited. However, she wasn't about to start making excuses, despite her precarious position. Quincy regarded excuses as contemptible, and trying to hide behind something like that would be the surest way to get herself exiled to some corporate backwater.

"I selected that particular boomer because it had the most advanced sensory and communication hardware," Madigan replied stoically, shouldering the blame with something akin to fatalistic resignation. "It also possessed the most advanced adaptive tactical software and AI that we have developed to date. I felt it would be the best choice for dealing with Hollister, since it could react more readily to an unexpected situation should communications become unreliable."

"You should have more carefully weighed the possible outcomes," Quincy rumbled ominously. "If you had, you would have realized that the possibility of losing our ADP plant was more deleterious to us than that of temporarily losing track of a minor player in international intrigue. You allowed your personal feelings to influence your decision," Quincy's statement had the flat crack of final judgment behind it, and Madigan winced inwardly.

"I acted according to what I thought was best for the company," Madigan replied through suddenly stiff lips, staring straight ahead. "I made as impartial a decision as I could, given the circumstances."

"Perhaps you did," Quincy cocked his head as he looked at her coldly, like a scientist examining an exotic specimen of some kind. "However, I am not fully convinced of that at the moment. You may leave now," Quincy dismissed her abruptly. "I will expect your full report on this incident on my desk by this afternoon. I will decide what duties you will resume after I have read it." Madigan bowed mechanically and turned and left, her face wooden.

Quincy swiveled his chair towards the bay window of his office as the door closed behind the chastened executive and scowled blackly, glaring out through the thick glass as the oblivious city below continued on about its business.

Nene sat staring blankly at her video terminal, watching data scroll past on the screen but not really comprehending what she was doing. Luckily, she'd performed this particular job enough times that she could do it automatically without having to devote a lot of thought to the task. That was a definite asset, since she was still in something of a state of shock over the revelation that the former Chief Inspector of the ADPolice had been a boomer.

The news had hit the staff of the ADPolice like a bombshell, throwing most people into a state of stunned confusion. There were several people who were just sitting at their desks, unable to function as they tried to figure out just what the implications were going to be. Several others had abruptly decided that they didn't feel well, and taken the remainder of the day off as a result. Nene didn't have that particular option available, but luckily her shift was nearly over for the day...another few minutes, and she'd be able to go home and hopefully relax.

Relax. Her lips twisted into a rueful and slightly bitter smile at that thought; given the implications of the day's events, she doubted she'd be able to relax as much as she'd like to. The first thing she was going to have to do when she got home was notify Sylia of what had happened; the phony ADP chief was something the leader of the Knight Sabers needed to know about, and right now, Nene was too paranoid to either try sneaking in a call to Sylia from the station or to find an isolated phone booth somewhere. How did she know there weren't other GENOM plants around the station watching? Could they have figured out...?

The young red-headed woman quickly strangled off the unwelcome and slightly hysterical thoughts before they could cause any kind of emotional paralysis. She could fall to pieces after she got home, not before. One thought, however, did keep resurfacing, despite her attempts to keep it suppressed: just how well would her own cover records hold up in the intensive internal investigation that was sure to descend on the ADP?

And what would she do if they found out she was one of the Knight Sabers?

TWO DAYS LATER...

Bert's eyes snapped open as something suddenly roused him from what had been a rather pleasant dream. He lay still for a moment as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light of the bedroom, listening intently. He didn't hear anything out of the ordinary, so he glanced over at the alarm clock.

As he'd half-suspected, the alarm was due to go off in another ten minutes, and somehow his mind had been keeping track of the time and woken him up. It was a knack he'd found useful from time to time, and it had occasionally saved him from being late to various appointments. Reaching out carefully, he switched off the alarm.

Priss shifted in bed next to him, murmuring something inaudible in her sleep. One of her arms was around his waist, and her grip on him tightened possessively as he tried sliding out of her grasp to get out of bed. Her breathing indicated that she was still sound asleep, and he didn't want to wake her up; Priss could best be described as a surly riser in the mornings, and he'd learned fairly quickly that letting her sleep in was the wisest course. The threatened shooting of his alarm clock one morning had convinced him of that.

Besides, waking her up now would spoil what he had planned.

He considered his problem for a moment, then hit upon a solution. Carefully, he peeled back the blankets from around her shoulders, pulling the edges down to about her waist. Then he waited patiently.

As he'd figured, after a few moments of her skin being exposed to the cool air of the room, Priss shivered slightly. Her hands fumbled for the blankets, found them, and then yanked them firmly up to around her chin as she rolled over and snuggled deeper into the warmth of the bed. After a moment, her breathing again evened out into that of someone sleeping deeply.

Bert grinned to himself and carefully eased himself out of the bed. Silently, he located his clothes and pulled them on. Padding quietly across the carpeting to the door, he paused for a moment, listening intently as he glanced back at the bed. Priss slumbered on, still oblivious to everything else. He quietly slid the door open a crack, then slipped through, gently closing it behind him.

Several quick strides carried him across the apartment to where his coat and hat had been flung the night before. He slapped on the hat, and shoved an arm through a sleeve as he scooped his running shoes off the floor with his other hand. When he had everything on and was finally ready to leave, he quietly eased his way out of the apartment and ghosted down the hallway towards the stairs to the lower levels, an anticipatory grin spreading across his face.

Priss rolled over in the bed, squinting blearily at the clock on the small table next to the bed. She had to blink her eyes a few times, and scrub at them a bit with one hand before they grudgingly focused on the LED display: 8:37 AM. She sighed in disgust, and rolled over, flouncing around in the blankets in an attempt to get comfortable so that she could drop back into the warm, comforting cradle of sleep.

It didn't work.

The brown-haired woman lay there for a while, staring resignedly at the ceiling. She hadn't thought that being able to sleep in on this day, of all days, would be too much to ask, but evidently it was. She sighed again, then fought her way free of the entangling blankets; somehow, she'd managed to almost cocoon herself in them. Standing up, she stretched luxuriantly, running her hands through her hair, which had become a hopelessly snarled mess during the night.

She was dimly aware of the fact that her lover hadn't been in bed when she'd woken up, but she was used to him being up before her. She didn't know why he bothered, really; he hated getting up early almost as much as she did. He was likely in the kitchen nursing a cup of tea, and sulking over the fact that one or two cups in the morning was all he was allowed at the moment. A small smile played about her lips as she imagined him grousing about that. Stifling another yawn, she hunted around for some clothes.

Priss padded barefoot out to the kitchen area as she pulled on one of Bert's old sweaters. He wasn't there, however. It didn't look like the kitchen had been used at all, in fact, and that in itself was strange. If there was one meal he absolutely never missed, it was breakfast.

She frowned to herself as she looked around at the apartment, absently scratching her head. No sign of Bert, and no note explaining where he'd gone. She scowled suddenly; if he'd forgotten that she had today off and had gone to work as a result, then he was in deep shit. They weren't able to get very many opportunities to spend an entire day together, and she'd been looking forward to it. If he'd forgotten, she was going to kick his ass up between his ears for him as a reminder. Feeling somewhat better for having promised herself that, Priss headed off to the bathroom.

A long, soothing hot shower restored her equilibrium somewhat, and left her feeling refreshed. As she toweled her hair dry and then combed it, she considered her options for the day. She could pick up some breakfast on the way down to the archery range, or wait until she'd located him, and then make him pay for a meal somewhere as reparation for being absent-minded. She grinned to herself and decided on the latter option...it was the more fun alternative, after all.

She hummed a few bars of music to herself as she pulled on her clothes, a sleeveless red bike jumpsuit with white stripes running up the outside seams of the legs and a short blue leather vest to go over top. After some scrounging around the apartment, she found where she'd pitched her elbow pads - better safe than sorry, after all - and pulled them on. Scooping up her gloves from where they'd been dropped, she left the apartment and headed off to the lower garage levels.

An extremely outraged howl came from the depths of the building's basement a few short minutes later.

Sylia turned a page of the morning newspaper, her brown eyes thoughtfully scanning the paragraphs of text as she sipped a cup of tea. After several minutes of quiet reading, she closed the paper, folding it and setting it aside as she gazed out the bay window of her apartment at the teeming city beyond.

The dark-haired woman reveled in the peace and quiet of the morning for a few moments, picking up her teacup and walking over to the window. Sylia was dressed fairly casually, wearing slacks and a faded-looking blouse instead of her usual neat businesslike attire. With Sylvie to look after the bulk of running the store, she'd been able to relax a bit and concentrate on her own Knight Saber-related research and study, and that didn't require dressing to the nines every day.

The peace and tranquillity of the morning was irrevocably shattered by somebody abruptly hammering on the door to her apartment. Sylia jumped, startled, and then sighed to herself; she should've known it wouldn't last.

"SYLIAAA!!!" Priss's voice howled from the other side of the door. "SOME BASTARD STOLE MY MOTORCYCLE FROM THE GARAGE!!!"

A frown furrowed Sylia's brow as she quickly set her cup aside, striding rapidly to the door of her apartment, even as a second fusillade of raucous knocking battered at the heavy panel. Unlocking it, she pulled open the door just as Priss was raising a fist to pound the door again.

To say Priss looked upset would have been like calling GENOM Tower merely 'big'; it would've been an understatement of almost epic proportions. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were almost glowing with rage. Her hair was in disarray, and she was breathing heavily, as if she'd run up all of the stairs to get to the penthouse level. Sylia took another look at Priss and decided that she was certainly furious enough to have done just that. She was faintly amazed that the singer wasn't breathing fire and brimstone.

"Call the cops, Sylia," Priss said shortly, in a somewhat more normal tone of voice as she shoved her way past Sylia into the apartment. "Your bloody basement got robbed...!!" Sylia quickly headed her off before she could explode again.

"Good morning to you too, Priss. Would you care to join me in a cup of tea?"

Priss ignored her, continuing her rant. "They took my bike. I can't find the damn thing ANYWHERE, and I KNOW where I parked it yesterday!!" Her voice started to rise again, and Sylia sighed to herself. So much for the quiet morning.

"That's impossible, Priss," she told the younger woman calmly. "The minute anyone tries to force the doors, they would set off all kinds of alarms. Are you sure it's missing?"

"YES I'M SURE!!!" Priss bellowed, rounding angrily on Sylia, then caught herself. "Sorry," she apologized a moment later through gritted teeth, taking a couple of deep breaths. "I searched the entire garage from end to end first..."

Probably more in the hope that she was going to find a culprit to strangle, Sylia mused to herself as she listened, managing to keep her expression gravely serious.

"....and I even looked under all the friggin' tarps, but it's not there. It's gone. And that means somebody stole the damn thing, regardless of your alarms."

"Well, there's an easy way to check that," Sylia noted. "We'll check the surveillance camera footage."

"You have cameras in the basement?"

"Of course," Sylia replied simply, shrugging as if it should have been obvious. "Some of the vehicles down there are expensive, not to mention the fact that if somebody were to get into the basement, they might stumble onto something they weren't supposed to." She turned, beckoning to the other woman. "Let's go take a look at the video footage."

It was a fairly quiet elevator ride as the two women descended to the lower levels of the building. Sylia maintained her aura of calm, meanwhile watching Priss continue to do a slow burn while mentally plotting elaborate revenge on whatever thief had absconded with her bike.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," Priss managed to say after a couple more minutes. "I shouldn't have done that; it's not your fault my bike went missing."

"That's all right," Sylia replied mildly, glancing over at her. "I can understand how you'd be upset at such a discovery." Priss grunted by way of reply, and sank back into uncommunicative ire.

The elevator bell chimed softly, and the doors rolled open. Sylia led the way down the hallway to a door locked with an electronic keypad. Punching in an access code, she opened the door and entered the room, flicking on the light switch. Priss followed her in as the lights came on, bathing the room with pale fluorescent light.

The entire far wall of the room was filled with video screens, and a desk console sat in front of the banks of monitors. Each monitor showed a flickering picture of some location somewhere in the building, from the storefront of the 'Silky Doll' to the rooftop solar panels. There were even a couple of cameras evidently devoted to watching the alleyways across the street from the building. Sylia seated herself in the chair behind the desk, and tabbed a few keys on the console. A central screen blacked out, then came up with an on-screen menu.

"Where exactly did you leave your bike last night?" Sylia asked, looking up at Priss.

"What? Oh, uh...the parking spaces near the basement stairs," Priss replied, overcoming her astonishment at the huge array of monitors. It was somehow eerie to know she'd been watched and recorded by emotionless cameras anytime she'd been around the building.

"All right, that would be camera A-23 then," Sylia said, pressing another switch. "What time did you park it?"

"I think it was around nine o'clock," Priss squinted at the screen as she tried remembering. "I didn't really look at the time."

"We'll start from there and move back if we have to," Sylia replied. The central screen lit up with a picture of several parking spaces, some empty and some occupied by vehicles, near a metal-clad doorway set in a cement wall. A flashing digital time readout glowed in the lower corner of the screen and then began rolling at high speed, the minutes and seconds expanding into hours.

The two women watched wordlessly as images flickered by, moving in oddly comic high-speed jerkiness. They watched as a red motorbike striped with blue, and white pulled into a partially empty slot between two vans; a dark blue motorcycle was parked at the back of the space, right next to the wall. A woman climbed off the bike, pulling off her helmet and tossing her head to settle her hair back into place. She hooked the helmet over the handlebars, unzipped her jacket, and then left the garage, exiting through the metal door to the stairs.

The next few hours blurred past in a high-speed spooling of the tape, taking a few minutes at the most. The vehicles in the garage remained unmolested during that time, and Priss began to fidget irritably. Her arms were tightly folded across her chest as if she was trying to contain an eruption of some kind, and the fingers of one hand began tapping impatiently on her arm. Well, she fumed to herself, this idea certainly wasn't...

"There," Sylia's voice caught her attention, and her gaze snapped to the screen in time to see what looked like a cube van backing up to position itself near the parking space where Priss's bike was. As the two women watched, a man wearing a dark coat walked around from the far side of the van and opened the back door, extending a loading ramp from the van to the garage floor. Then he walked over to the red motorcycle, shoved it off of its kickstand, and began pushing the machine towards the back of the van.

"Can you magnify that?" Priss asked, squinting balefully at the screen as the man began shoving her bike up the loading ramp into the van. "I can't make out who it is."

"Certainly," Sylia touched another button, and the screen zoomed in on the culprit.

Priss's jaw dropped as she recognized a certain red-haired individual with whom she had good reason to be very familiar.

"Well," Sylia remarked mildly into the sudden flabbergasted silence of the room, "it would seem that somebody did take your bike. Was it scheduled for some maintenance perhaps?"

"I'm...I...he's..." Priss was unable to reply coherently, and remained staring in stunned disbelief as the image of Bert shoved her bike into the back of the van, and disappeared inside the vehicle with it for a few moments. Then he hopped out of the van, raised the ramp, and closed the van doors.

Disbelief began to give way to outrage as the van moved out of the viewing field of the camera. Just what the hell did he think he was doing?! What possible reason could he have had for taking her bike?! He should've known better than to just take off with it, and she grimly promised herself that she was going to educate him in that fact. Very thoroughly.

Sylia watched Priss's emotional metamorphosis without comment, wondering at the same time if she should maybe call Anri and have the young woman standing by with her medical supplies. As she considered that, a flicker of motion on one of the other active monitors caught her eye: a tall man in a dark coat was walking down a basement hallway, pulling off a hat as he went and revealing an unmistakable thatch of red hair. She started to speak, but the loud bang of the door to the room announced that Priss had already noticed the video feed, and was on her way to wring some answers out of her lover.

After another couple of moments of thoughtful consideration, Sylia switched off the viewing screens, turned out the lights, and left the room, making sure the door locked behind her. Then the leader of the Knight Sabers returned to her apartment for another cup of tea.

There were some things, after all, that went above and beyond the call of duty as leader of the Knight Sabers, and this was very definitely one of them.

Bert let the door to the corridor swing closed behind him as he began shucking his jacket, tossing it over the arm of a nearby chair, along with his hat. A very self-satisfied grin wreathed his face as he glanced at the door to the bedroom, deciding that it was time to wake the sleeping beauty up so that they could get on with the day's plans. He'd started to raise his voice to call out towards the bedroom, when the door to the apartment slammed open with a bang somehow reminiscent of the crack of doom.

Startled, the tall red head turned slightly, and found himself confronted by a very angry-looking Priss. The narrow-eyed glare she was giving him could've melted hardsuit armourplate at ten paces, and her teeth were clenched in an apparent effort to keep from blowing up entirely. Even her hair seemed to crackle angrily.

"Uh, hi, Priss," Bert started cautiously. "You're up early this morning..."

"You!!" Priss spat, stabbing a finger at him as he stared at her in surprise. Her mouth worked for a moment before she was able to continue speaking. "Where the hell did you go this morning? And where's my goddamn motorcycle!?"

"Uh, Priss, now wait a second...Look, really, I can explain..." Bert backed away from her as she advanced, eyes glittering, and her hands flexing ominously. The attractive, but irate rock singer obviously wasn't listening to his attempts to explain.

"WHAT did you DO with my BIKE, you BASTARD?!?!" she snarled again as she lunged for him, hands outstretched and evidently aimed for his throat.

The tall red-head adroitly ducked and dodged aside, not wanting to get strangled before he had a chance to explain. Priss was unable to stop her forward momentum in time and hit the back of the couch, almost diving over it into the cushions on the other side. Bert took advantage of her momentary predicament, and fled out the door into the hallway. After a split second of decision, he began running hard for the stairs at the far end of the hallway that led down to the vehicle garage on the next basement level.

"Come back here, you cowardly slime!!" The enraged howl that followed after him gave wings to his feet, especially as he heard the sounds of pursuit. At the moment, he doubted that she was going to give him a chance to explain.

"Note to self," he panted under his breath to himself as he hit the door to the stairs, slamming it open as he sprinted through and began leaping down the stairs three at a time. "Next time, don't plan surprises for Priss that involve her motorcycle." He'd known that she put a lot of value on her bike, but he hadn't quite counted on her reaction to its temporary disappearance being this extreme. If he survived, he was going to make damn sure he remembered that fact for future reference. If he survived...

He finally reached the bottom step, and half-fell, half-lunged through the door into the vehicle garage as the sounds of pursuing feet clattered down the stairs after him. Dire retribution wasn't far behind.

"I am going to strangle him. Very, very slowly," Priss growled under her breath as she wrenched open the door to the sub-basement garage and stalked through. She cast a burning gaze around the cavernous, dimly-lit expanse of the basement, but didn't see anything except vehicles. There were some non-descript cars, a few cube vans and trucks, and the tractor trailer that occasionally served as a mobile HQ on Knight Saber missions all sitting innocently in the darkness, but nothing else.

She couldn't hear anything either; except for the echoing footsteps her boots were making on the concrete floor, there was no other noise. Since Bert had been running from her only moments before, presumably for his life, that meant he'd hidden somewhere nearby.

A smug, predatory grin crept across her face as she began cautiously moving down one row of vehicles, and she flexed her hands in anticipation of wrapping them around his neck. She was going to take great pleasure in getting some answers out of him when she found him. Priss walked further along the row of vehicle bays, her intent gaze probing into the shadows around the trucks, under the cars, behind the motorcycles...

She stopped abruptly. Motorcycles? There'd only been one bike down here before...that had been what had sent her storming off to Sylia saying her bike had been stolen. Turning slowly, she walked over to the bike that had not been there earlier: a sleek, but powerful-looking machine, painted red with white and blue stripes. It was, of course, obviously a bike built for racing.

Priss ran a hand along the gas tank, her eyes hungrily devouring the lines of the racing cycle. It looked almost exactly like her old bike, but there were a few differences evident, mostly around the engine from what she could see. The bike's shocks were a bit heavier as well, evidently built for withstanding extra stress. The whole machine gleamed with the luster of newness, even in the dim lighting of the garage.

Longing to ride the bike suddenly assailed her, and she again caressed the motorcycle's gas tank. As she did so, she finally noticed the red bow that was sitting at the top corner of the bike's faring. As she stared at it, a rather embarrassing realization came over her. Her cheeks crimsoned as she looked around the garage again.

"Okay, Bert," she called into the echoing basement, trying her best to sound reasonable. "You can come out now." She didn't receive a reply, and sighed audibly. "Look, I'm sorry I flipped out on you," she tried. "Would you please get out here?"

"You don't have your gun, do you?" came the wary reply, echoing eerily in the darkness.

"Oh, just get out here!" Priss retorted. "I promise I won't shoot you or anything."

"Can I have that in writing?"

"Bert! Quit cowering in the shadows and get out here!" Priss said, exasperated. "I said I'm sorry!" Movement in the darkness resolved into Bert's familiar form, moving slowly towards her. There was a wary look in his eyes as he came up to her.

"Why didn't you say anything about this earlier?" she asked simply, jerking a thumb at the new bike, then placing her hands on her hips as she looked up at him questioningly.

"I tried," he replied dryly. "You weren't listening." Priss flushed, then glared at him.

"I meant, why didn't you tell me what you were doing BEFORE you kidnapped my bike?!" she snapped peevishly. "I came down to go for a ride this morning, and it was missing. Can you blame me for being pissed off? I thought somebody had stolen the damn thing!!"

"Well you weren't supposed to get up before noon!" he retorted defensively. "You've never gotten up early on any other day, so I was hoping that I'd be back with the new bike before you were finally awake. And it's a little difficult to make something a surprise if you ask about it beforehand!!"

"Well you still could've...aw hell, never mind," Priss threw her hands in the air exasperatedly. "There's no point in arguing about it now."

"You feeling all right?" he queried, a look of concern crossing his face. "That actually sounded like reason."

Priss gave him a flat stare that spoke eloquently of painful retribution for the remark. He grinned boyishly at her, then gestured towards the new bike.

"Well, now that you're not going to kill me..."

"Make more smartass remarks like that last one, and I might," Priss muttered, not quite under her breath. He pretended not to hear her, and kept talking.

"...would you like to take a closer look at your new baby over there?" She nodded, and turned back to the bike as he walked around to the other side of it.

"You've probably already noticed that it's got some similarities to your old bike," Bert noted, waving at the tachometer, speedometer, and other instrumentation nestled behind the faring shell. "Doc Raven figured you wouldn't want to have to get used to the feel of a new bike, so we stuck as closely as possible to the original design for the frame and the like, but we did have to change a few things here and there to get everything to fit."

"What exactly did you add?" Priss asked, eyeing him suspiciously as she suddenly remembered his propensity for adding all kinds of 'nifty' (and in her mind, unnecessary) gadgets to whatever he happened to build. If it had just been Pops that had worked on the bike, she wouldn't have had any reservations; Doc Raven always stuck to the specs for something. Bert grinned at her again, evidently divining the path her thoughts were taking.

"Nothing exotic," he soothed. "The engine took up some extra space with the enhancements Doctor Raven added to it, and we had to beef up the suspension a bit. As for the brakes..."

"How much extra power has it got?" Priss interrupted him, unable to keep a faintly hungry look from showing.

"Oh, only about twenty percent," he replied blandly, grinning as Priss sucked in a sharp breath, again running a hand down the bike's gas tank. "Not only that, but we managed to get about fifteen percent better fuel economy than the last one could achieve."

"All right!!" There was no concealing the eagerness in her eyes now; she definitely couldn't wait to get the bike out on the highway.

"We also improved the braking efficiency," he put in, "since you'll undoubtedly have to stop at the radar traps you'll be running through."

"Now look here, you," Priss growled, her gaze narrowing as she pointed a finger at him. "That is not fair..."

"Mind you, I guess if you use this, you won't get stopped quite as often, will you?" he added, reaching down beside the bike and pulling a motorcycle helmet from somewhere that she couldn't see. It looked like her usual bike helmet, except that the visor was darkly tinted.

"I don't see how wearing a helmet is going to keep the cops off my ass," she stated, annoyed.

"Put it on and see," Bert directed, proffering it with a barely concealed Cheshire cat-like grin. "You might be surprised."

Priss sighed, her expression becoming that of someone about to be martyred as she reached out and took the helmet from him. She held the helmet in one hand for a moment as she swept her hair back over her shoulders, then carefully slid it onto her head. Nothing happened immediately; the helmet felt like any other motorcycle helmet, and the dark tint to the visor was making it hard to see anything in the gloom of the garage.

"Well?" she demanded sourly. "I can't see anything; the damn visor's too dark."

"How about now?" he asked, reaching out and pressing a switch concealed somewhere on the motorcycle's instrument panel.

Priss's field of vision was filled with a faint green luminescence, and she found that she could see most of the vehicles in the garage when she looked around, unhindered by the cloaking shadows that normally filled the basement garage. Along the bottom of the visor display was a small readout labeled "RADAR"; the indicator bar wasn't flashing, though.

"Well?" Bert's voice prodded her, and she glanced over to see that he was sporting a very smug and self-satisfied grin. "What do you think?"

"I think you're enjoying this entirely too much," Priss responded dryly. "You put radar detectors on my bike and a heads-up display in my helmet?"

"And the lady wins the prize," Bert's grin got wider. "I figured you might appreciate advance warning of impending traffic fines."

"I can still decide to get you back for this morning, buster, so don't push your luck," Priss threatened him. Bert chuckled, and then walked around the bike to stand in front of her as she pulled off her helmet.

"So," he started, reaching out and gently brushing some stray hairs out of her face, "can I assume that you like the bike?"

"I'll reserve judgment on that score until I've ridden it," Priss replied loftily, but she was unable to keep a wry smile from appearing a moment later. "Oh all right, I like it. Happy now?"

"Oh, moderately," he said blandly. "There's one other thing that's supposed to go with it, though."

"What's that?" Priss looked around. "You forgot the detachable weapon pods?" Bert laughed out loud at that, then quickly got himself back under control.

"I know better than to give you something to try hunting boomers with," he grinned crookedly at her. "No, it's something a bit simpler, not to mention safer, than that," he told her. "Hold still for a moment."

"Hold still? What...?" Priss's voice cut off as he leaned down and gave her a very passionate kiss on the lips while at the same time gathering her closer in his arms. Her own arms slid around him after a moment, and the garage became very silent for a few minutes.

"Happy birthday, Priss," he told her warmly as they finally separated for a breath or two. "Thought I'd forgotten, didn't you?"

"The thought had occurred to me," she admitted reluctantly, then gave him a mock-angry glare. "But you'd better not surprise me the same way the next time; I'm still not certain if I've forgiven you for that yet."

"Guess I'll have to work on that then," he noted lightly, quickly kissing her again before she could respond.

Failure. The mere thought of the word brought the bitter taste of bile to Kate Madigan's mouth. The fact that it had been orchestrated, however indirectly, by Hollister's hands only made the thought of it even more sour than it already was. Burning rage boiled up from the dark recesses of her soul where she normally kept it hidden, again threatening to overwhelm her self-control. She fought it off with an effort.

Madigan spun angrily away from the window of her apartment, again pacing what had become her cage for the last few days. Frustration, worry, anger, and the occasional splash of panic frothed with malicious glee in her mind as she stalked her spacious apartment, mentally clawing the walls. The silence from Quincy's office in the days since the disastrous capture operation had been oppressive; he hadn't even acknowledged receipt of her report on the affair.

The thought of having incurred his displeasure or, even more disconcerting, his wrath, was almost more than she could stand. There was a myriad of ways he could punish her perceived incompetence, and contemplating any of the possibilities didn't exactly contribute to peace of mind.

She'd spent almost every moment since submitting her report going over her actions and mentally lashing herself for perceived lapses in judgment, taking a break from that every so often to worry about whether or not she'd just managed to eliminate her career with the company. If she had, Kate had no illusions about what would likely happen; she knew too much to just be let go. She'd in all likelihood end up as a statistic in GENOM's records somewhere as the unfortunate victim of a boomer or equipment malfunction.

She shivered again, remembering the utterly cold gaze the Chairman had been favouring her with as he'd taken her to task for her actions. There hadn't been a hint of mercy, or even leniency, in his eyes. It had been the flat, chilling look one customarily associated with sharks.

By itself, Quincy's displeasure with her actions would have been bad enough, but in this particular case, by now there were undoubtedly rumours buzzing through the corporation about her fate. Everyone who'd been in the control room with her knew what had happened; she had no doubts that the story would get out, and her failure would become magnified beyond reality in the process.

If the operation had succeeded, that would've been the end of it. Because it had failed, there were going to be all kinds of ambitious sycophants coming out of the woodwork in an attempt to curry favour with Quincy. With her temporarily out of the picture, they'd be trying to make up for lost ground. She hadn't made any friends in her climb to become Quincy's second-in-command, and they'd all be trying their level best to oust her completely.

Kate ran her hands through disheveled-looking hair in an unconscious gesture of nervousness that had become an unfortunate habit lately. Her hair matched the rest of her appearance, though: the normally immaculate executive had dark circles under her eyes from a combination of stress and inadequate sleep, and her clothes were wrinkled, without their usual starched, neat appearance. She hadn't been sleeping well lately, and was so driven to distraction that her usual habits had all but disintegrated.

It was rarely when Madigan found herself unable to think of a course of action to pursue, but she found herself in that situation now. Being effectively suspended had cut off her usual resources, which meant trying to find Hollister and undo some of the damage that had been done was out of the question. She couldn't investigate by herself, either; she didn't really have a network of her own contacts. Before, she'd always relied on GENOM's reputation for helping her to 'persuade' people that assisting her was in their own best interests. The final blow was that given her current predicament, the few allies she had within the corporation itself would not risk their own positions to help her.

It was an extremely frustrating position to find herself in. She was totally powerless, and she was finding out just how unpleasant it really was. The thought briefly flitted across her mind that she now probably had an idea of what the average person felt like. Kate didn't particularly care for that bit of enlightenment.

With a loud sigh, she resumed agitatedly pacing her apartment. There had to be something she could do, some option she'd missed...

Leon took a noisy slurp of coffee from the styrofoam cup he was holding, staring broodingly across the office. It was abnormally quiet, even for a late afternoon shift. Everyone in the office was going about their duties as usual, but without much in the way of conversation. The routine boomer calls they normally had to deal with seemed to have evaporated, adding to the deathly quiet. It reminded him all to much of the calm before a storm, and he didn't like it.

Leon scowled at the file folder on his desktop as he took another slug of coffee. He'd finished his rather meagre report on the boomer incident on the MegaTokyo docks, but it had still left more questions unanswered than it had solved, and it also was leaving a very foul taste in his mouth. The ADP hadn't had much luck in terms of public relations over the years, and the news that a covert boomer from some organization had infiltrated ranks, particularly the senior ranks, wasn't going to make things any better. It hadn't hit the media networks yet, but it was only a matter of time before a leak was sprung somewhere.

The tall inspector's gaze lifted to the vacant office across the open expanse of the Investigation Division, and the armed officer standing in front of the door, which had been sealed with yellow barrier tape. The Chief Inspector's office had been closed off within an hour of the news reaching the upper brass of the department, and some special investigators from Internal Affairs had already sifted the office for any possible clues they could find.

All kinds of rumours were circulating about what had been found, but Leon didn't think they'd found anything; he'd seen the faces of the departing investigators, and they'd had the frustrated look of men who'd been thwarted in something.

He doubted they were going to find much, either; anyone in the upper echelons of command who'd had any connection whatsoever with the late Chief's appointment were doing their best to distance themselves from the affair. He'd already personally encountered the stonewalling going on when he'd tried to satisfy his own investigative instincts for his report, although he had his own ideas on just who had been pulling the strings for the appointment. Any proof of corporate complicity remained as ephemeral as ever, unfortunately.

"Inspector Leon McNichol?" A shadow falling across his desk accompanied the voice, drawing him away from his ruminations. Leon squinted up at the newcomer, an older, medium-height man with a shock of receding sandy brown hair that was turning grey at the temples, and a graying goatee. He was dressed nondescriptly, a trenchcoat over a light-coloured business suit. A clear and direct gaze met his, and Leon had a sudden sense of the drive behind that gaze. This man was someone to be reckoned with...whoever he was.

"That's me," Leon replied, rising from his chair. "What can I do for you?"

"My name's Aramaki," the man introduced himself, extending a hand. "I'm with Internal Affairs, and currently acting as interim Chief Inspector of the ADP."

"What?!" Leon's froze, his hand freezing a few inches from the other man's as he stared at Aramaki. "What did you say?!"

"I said I'm the acting Chief Inspector...for the moment," Aramaki added, almost as an afterthought. A rueful grin appeared a moment later. "Actually, I was also quite happily retired until yesterday, but I got dragooned into the job."

"Uh, yeah, right." Leon recovered enough to follow through on shaking hands with Aramaki, and then his natural suspicious tendencies began to kick in. "I didn't think they could force someone out of retirement," he noted.

"Some of us never really leave the public service," Aramaki replied cryptically, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "However, I didn't particularly mind being drafted in this particular case. If you don't mind an outside observer's opinion, I'd say you've got problems."

"Thanks a lot," Leon replied, dryness and disgust mixing in his voice. "Mind telling me something I didn't already know?"

"They aren't totally unresolvable problems," Aramaki replied, "but it will depend in large part on assembling the right people to help you."

"Help ME? Help me wha...?" Leon backed off a step, his expression becoming alarmed as he waved a hand in a negative gesture. "Oh nonono...oh no you don't. No. No way. Never. I am not..."

"You're one of the most senior officers left on the force, Leon," Aramaki remarked mildly. "If it weren't for your unfortunate habit of sticking your foot into your mouth along with whatever bureaucratic condiments happen to be handy, you'd probably already have a higher rank than you do now. Your record is solid, and you've got good instincts. I need those now, not excuses; I can't single-handedly rebuild the ADP. I need good men to help with that rebuilding."

"I'm not cut out for..."

"You're a good cop," Aramaki continued to speak in a calm, level tone, overriding Leon's attempts at refusal. "You've proven time and again that you're not willing to stand idly by and let the ADP go to hell, and you've also proven that you're more than just some timeserver. You're one of the few who gives a damn about what goes on out there, and has fought to change that for the better. Are you telling me that all that was a lie? Are you willing to just walk away from everything you've dedicated your life to just because you're afraid of a little more responsibility?"

"Damn you," Leon swore at Aramaki, but without much rancor behind it. "Damn you all to hell." He'd just been neatly skewered with his sense of duty, and he didn't like it. Knowing the old man was more or less right didn't make it any easier to handle. "You goddamn manipulative, conniving, old..." he started to splutter, needing a sudden outlet for his frustration.

"May I take that as acceptance, then?" Aramaki asked blandly, only his eyes showing sly amusement.

"Yes, damn you," Leon eyed Aramaki sourly. "What did you want me to do?"

"Nothing yet; we're still screening the staff of the ADP at this point," Aramaki told him. "By the end of the week we'll have identified any other infiltrators that might be in the force. When we're done, I want you to draw on your knowledge of your co-workers and pick about three or four other officers, anyone with solid instincts and experience. Try and get a range of skills at the same time, though."

"I'll give it some thought," Leon promised. "Anything else?"

"Possibly," Aramaki gave Leon a thoughtful glance before continuing. "I'm sure you have some of your own street contacts from your years on the force," the old man told him, "so I'd like you to check with ones you can trust, and see if you can find any good hackers."

"Hackers?" Leon frowned. "What do you need hackers for?"

"Hacking, naturally," Aramaki smiled, then his expression soured. "We've found some encrypted files stored in the ADP databases, and we think they were put there by the late Chief Inspector. We can't touch a lot of them; whatever was used is just too good for our technicians to break at the moment. We're stumped, frankly, and while I'd prefer to keep this internal, we're having problems finding anyone who can do it."

"I think I might know someone who could help," Leon said after a moment of contemplation. "Let me talk to her about it first, though, before you start getting your hopes up too high."

TWO DAYS LATER....

"Look, I promise you, nothing will happen, okay?" Linna repeated for what felt like the thousandth time. "I'll keep a very close eye on everyone, so just stop worrying and beat it so I can get everything ready, okay?!" She valiantly resisted the urge to claw her hair in frustration.

"I just wanted to know what you're planning on cooking, that's all," Bert replied in a wounded tone, glancing at the collection of food-filled shopping bags that had been crammed onto all of the available counter space in his small kitchenette.

"Dinner!" she snapped testily. "What are you trying to do, gauge the explosive potential of the ingredients or something?!" Her eyes narrowed dangerously as he gave a guilty start. "Why you....get out!! You're just going to be in the way!!"

"Look, Linna, I didn't mean..."

"Out. NOW," Linna told him shortly. "Or else I'll see to it that everything YOU get tonight will be laced with enough wasabi to melt your hardsuit."

"All right, all right, no need to be nasty about it," he grumbled.

"Don't you have to go and distract Sylia for a couple of hours?" Linna asked pointedly as she rummaged around in one of the bags. "Concentrate on that, and stop worrying so much."

"I'm going, I'm going," he sighed, turning and heading for the door. "Just don't let your 'assistants' ruin my kitchen."

"Oh, come on; what could possibly go wrong?" Linna said, looking at him with an absolutely innocent expression on her face. She grinned to herself as he left, roughly slamming the door in a wordless response to her question, not even bothering to look back.

Quincy sighed inwardly as he steepled his fingers in front of his impassive face, his elbows balanced on the arms of his chair as he leaned back in it. Across the desk from him, some minor executive droned on about the benefits that would accrue to GENOM if the company were to fund a development project that he'd come up with. He didn't often have to listen to pitches from the various business analysts employed by the corporation, but some of it was unavoidable, especially for certain kinds of projects.

Although Quincy's disconcerting glower never wavered from the bureaucratic drone in front of him, his mind was elsewhere. It certainly didn't need to be present for this particular proposal; fifteen minutes into the presentation, Quincy had been able to see it was a non-viable enterprise.

In a way, it was depressing. Very few of the executives within the corporation took the long view, planning for the future. Almost ninety percent of the proposals that passed over Quincy's desk did not have the corporation's well-being in mind, just the well-being of the originator of the documents. They were always poorly planned, and left the company open to excessive risk. That was unacceptable.

There were some executives who were able to put the good of the company above their own, and keep their greed in check. They were rare, but they could be found in many of the company's lower echelons. Madigan had been one such executive that he'd had great hopes for; she was cool, efficient, very perceptive, and ruthless. At the same time, she was one of the few who weren't trying to either oust him, or take advantage of her position in order to skim a few hundred thousand yen here and there. Yes, he'd had great hopes for Madigan...it was a shame that she'd been unable to put aside her personal prejudices in the Hollister matter.

He was fairly certain she wouldn't make that particular mistake again. He was sure of that after watching her stew in her own juices in the days since he'd suspended her from her usual duties. Remaining silent and refusing to give her any kind of indication as to her fate had worked far better than any kind of formal and official reprimand could have. He knew her psyche almost better than she did. Given her knowledge of how Quincy operated, he knew she'd slowly sink into a mire of self-recriminations and fear, dreading the inevitable reprisal that always seemed to follow failures.

Quincy almost smiled. It had worked exactly as he'd known it would. When he finally deigned to summon her before him again, she'd be very eager to please him, seeking some way to redeem her performance in that botched capture attempt. It had been interesting watching her pace her cage, testing the limits of the restrictions imposed on her. He'd even managed to find out who she considered her 'allies' in the company. Her faith in at least two lower executives was misplaced, but she'd eventually find that out for herself.

Patience was the key, the craggy-faced CEO mused to himself. If you waited long enough, eventually an opening would appear in an opponent's defenses, and then they were yours. He'd seen it demonstrated time and time again in the cutthroat world of the corporate boardroom, and in the day-to-day operations of the company. Someday, perhaps, Madigan would realize it as well.

That was one of the reasons he hadn't particularly worried about Hollister: the man was a gnat, albeit an annoying one. Sooner or later, his arrogance in assuming he was untouchable because he operated a 'shadow corporation' beyond the law would prove his undoing. There were already intimations that he'd suffered some setbacks, and that meant that somewhere, someone had been careless. Eventually, he'd make one careless mistake too many.

It was the same rationale he'd been using for the problem of the Knight Sabers. Sooner or later, one of their number would make a misstep of some kind, and then he'd have a lever to root them out. Although it had appeared at times that he'd been actively trying to eradicate them, the truth of the matter was that he didn't particularly care what they did. They couldn't harm him, and their occasional foray into GENOM's purview didn't harm the company's profit margins in the slightest.

Besides, they provided a convenient foil for boomer control, and for the occasional test of newer models. They inadvertently provided realistic testing conditions without straining any departmental budgets, and if one of the mercenaries should become wounded or killed as a result, so much the better.

After all, he lost nothing by waiting; he had all the time in the world.

"Okay, Anri," Linna directed, "you stir that bowl there until it's thoroughly mixed, and then we can add it to the other stuff in this casserole pan. It'll need to bake in the oven for about an hour or so."

"All right," Anri replied cheerily, attacking the indicated bowl with a wooden spoon, intent on thrashing the contents into submission. She was proving to be a quick study as far as culinary pursuits went, and had managed to do fairly well with the recipe she was working on. There'd been a couple of slip-ups, but since the floor was tiled, they didn't have to worry about the spilled soy sauce leaving any stains. Well...nothing that wouldn't fade anyway...eventually.

Linna devoted a few minutes attention to the soup she was preparing, sniffing the fragrances beginning to waft from the pot, stirring it for a minute and taking a quick taste to see if any more spices were needed. She'd just started to put the lid back on the pot when she heard the clatter of metal implements in the kitchen sink, and a startled curse from Priss. Almost like a guided missile, a partially peeled potato seemed to leap over her shoulder from behind, landing with a loud splash in the soup pot.

Linna stood for a long moment, mentally counting to ten, before reaching into the pot with her spoon and fishing out the errant potato. Turning around, the spud resting in the bowl of the spoon, she looked at the crimson-faced woman who was standing guiltily by the sink with a paring knife in one hand.

"You know, Priss," she remarked mildly, "it would probably go a lot easier if you'd hold onto them while you're trying to peel them."

Crimson laser bolts tore through the inky blackness of space as asteroids careened madly around the gyrating space fighter. One shot splashed against the ship's shields, depleting their energy reserve, while the remainder of the salvo spiraled harmlessly off into the void. A crackling blue bolt of energy blasted back in return, and a bizarre, organic-looking shape disintegrated into clouds of pixels.

Bert wrenched at the joystick built into the Wing Commander XII game console, slamming home the lever for his ship's afterburners and sending his Rapier medium attack fighter into a crazily looping spin through the asteroid field, trying to shake two of his pursuers. The computer-controlled ships grimly stayed on his tail, pounding at his shields with their weapons.

Sweat trickled down his brow as he tried to devote his full attention to the game, but it wasn't entirely successful. Normally he didn't find this particular videogame as difficult as he was finding it right now, but part of his mind wasn't able to stop speculating on what was going on back in his apartment. Any time a digital explosion came from the game's speakers, he winced as the sudden image of his microwave bursting into flames, or a pot erupting on the stove intruded, destroying his concentration momentarily. He knew Linna had promised to keep things under control, but still...

Nene carefully eased the oven door closed with a sigh of relief, and set the timer for an hour. As long as nobody stomped around, the cake would be ready for the final touch after baking: chocolate icing. She hummed cheerily to herself as she checked the saucepan of melting chocolate on the stove, then began looking around for the rest of her ingredients.

One bowl was missing though, and she frowned to herself as she looked around. Before starting on the cake, she'd laid everything out neatly on the counter nearby...once she'd had enough room to do it. She wished Bert had built a bigger kitchen; it would've solved a lot of the problems they'd encountered.

"Hey, has anyone seen where I put the bowl of icing sugar?" Nene asked, as bowls and pots clattered elsewhere in the tiny kitchen. "I know I set it down somewhere around here...." There was a loud bang, as if something had been dropped, and the air was suddenly filled with a choking, sifting cloud of white. The air suddenly tasted incredibly sweet.

"I think I found it," Priss's voice wheezed in reply, as everyone in the room broke into spluttering fits of coughing and sneezing.

Bert glanced at the wall clock as he mopped sweat from his face, panting for breath. Damn it, still nearly two hours before he was supposed to get back to Sylia's building to help set up for the surprise party. Frustrated at the snail's pace with which the day seemed to be progressing, he went back to pounding on the punching bag, as if it was somehow to blame.

He worked out and practiced for what seemed like ages. While some of it would have undoubtedly have been more useful with a sparring partner, he still went through the routines, trying to find at least momentary inner peace in the exercise. He finally staggered to a halt, leaning against the wall as he wiped streaming sweat from his face. Chest heaving, he shoved himself upright from the wall, stretched a bit, and then glanced at the wall clock.

One hour and thirty-five minutes to go.

Bert slapped a hand over his face, and collapsed with a groan, falling over backwards to lie sprawled out on the mats. He decided to just stay there and stare at the ceiling for a while.

"It's just not fair," Priss grumbled to herself, a disgusted expression on her face as she stirred a large bowl of fruit punch, the spoon splashing occasionally as some of her dissatisfaction spilled over into her actions. "Why do these things always happen to me?!"

Across the room from her, the final food preparations were feverishly going on in the kitchen. Nene was artfully arranging some cherries on the top of a rich-looking chocolate cake, Anri was carefully transferring some of the main dishes to serving platters and covering them up, and Linna was moving the platters onto a small wheeled serving cart.

Priss, on the other hand, was stirring the punch bowl, which had been placed on the coffee table of the living room...far away from everyone else. After the icing sugar incident, Linna had suggested with what diplomacy she could still muster that perhaps Priss would find it easier working on something simple. With that remark, the rock singer had found herself relocated to the living room.

Heaving another disgusted sigh, she propped her chin on one hand, her elbow balanced on her knee, as her other hand and arm continued to mechanically stir the punch.

"We'll be back in a few minutes, Priss," Linna called over to her. "Then you can give us a hand setting up the last few bits, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Priss replied sullenly, watching as the food-laden cart was whisked out of the room by the other three women. She gave the bowl of punch an inimical glance, then decided to taste it to see how it was doing.

She grimaced at the taste. It tasted like...well...like mixed fruit juices. It didn't seem to have any zip to it, and in her opinion, it needed a little something to liven it up. She pondered that idea for a moment or so, and then a slow grin began to spread across her face.

Glancing quickly at the door to the apartment, she stood up and stealthily crept over to the kitchen. Opening a certain cupboard under the sink, she rummaged around in it, various bottles of assorted substances clanking and rattling as she moved them aside to peer at their labels. Nope, not that one; that was drain cleaner. That one was spare dish soap... Finally, she came up with the one she'd been looking for, hidden at the far back corner.

Grinning in triumph now, she closed the door and quickly returned to the punch bowl. Cracking the seal on the bottle, she poured a quick splash of its contents into the punch, stirred for a moment, and then tasted it. After a judicious glance at the bottle, she gave the punch another splash of the bottle's contents, then re-capped the bottle and set it aside. After another stir and taste, Priss permitted herself a satisfied smile. Humming in quiet satisfaction, she resumed stirring the concoction.

The door to the apartment was nudged open as Anri backed through, carefully pulling the now-empty serving cart with her. She gave Priss a quick smile as she trundled the cart over to the remaining food platters on the counter.

"Want to give me a hand with these, Priss?" she asked, pausing as she started to pick up a tray. "Linna said we can take the punch up after everything else is set up...it's ready, right?"

"Yup, it's ready," Priss replied, unable to suppress a grin. "I think you'll like it when you try it." She helped Anri load the cart again, and they left with it, closing the door behind them.

Linna walked into the apartment, ticking items off the list in her hand. Everything was almost ready; the final decorations were being put up, and the food had all been transferred to Sylia's apartment. All that remained were a couple of minor items...

She glanced over at the coffee table as she came to the 'drinks' category on her list, and her brow furrowed slightly as she noted the bottle sitting next to the large bowl of fruit punch. Walking over, she picked it up and read the label. After a rueful shake of her head, a sly smile crossed her face as she glanced from the bottle to the punch bowl, and she used the stirring spoon to take a quick taste from it.

She frowned again; it certainly didn't taste like there had been anything added to it yet. Spiking the punch a bit wouldn't really hurt anyone...and Sylia really needed to unwind a bit anyway. With a shrug, she uncapped the bottle, and then poured a stiff shot into the punch bowl, stirring it around. Screwing the cap back on the bottle, she set it back down on the table before walking over to the counter. Carefully picking up the final tray, the one with the chocolate cake on it, she gingerly carried it from the room.

It was time.

Bert very slowly and carefully shrugged into his coat, checking over the inventory of his pockets in the process to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Access card, couple of smoke bombs, keys, breath mints...everything appeared to be there. He settled his hat on his head and, taking a deep breath, turned, and walked out of his small, second-floor office.

He moved with a very deliberate and measured stride as he walked, purposefully refusing to hurry. Given the anxiety attacks he'd suffered all afternoon, he knew that if he tried hurrying, he'd likely end up running at full speed back to Sylia's building. He'd kept telling himself repeatedly that nothing disastrous had happened, but his subconscious had steadfastly refused to believe him.

The tall red-head made a quick inspection tour of the ground floor of the building, checking to ensure that all the doors were locked, before heading for the main foyer and the exit. He stepped outside, letting the electronically-controlled locks secure the door behind him.

Bert reached up and adjusted his hatbrim as he stood on the front steps of his recreational facility, letting his eyes drift up and down the street; nothing seemed amiss, and he briefly wondered if he wasn't getting paranoid after all. Lately, he hadn't been able to escape the feeling that he was being watched, and it was slowly starting to get to him. With an irritated shrug of his shoulders, he cast the thought from his mind, and began walking up the street towards the bus stop.

Linna cast a critical eye over the feverish, last minute arrangements that were going on in Sylia's living room, making sure that everything was going to be complete more-or-less in time. All of the food had been laid out on a slightly relocated dining room table, except for the dishes were being kept warm in the kitchen. Anri and Priss had managed to string up some paper streamers, and were in the process of hanging up a large sign over the table.

Linna had experienced a brief wave of anxiety over that; Priss had been so accident-prone in the kitchen that she'd had visions of the table flipping over or something equally disastrous. However, the two were doing all right, so she decided to leave them be. That left Nene to be checked on, and the red-headed ADP officer was downstairs at the moment, hopefully retrieving the punch bowl.

As if summoned by that thought, Nene opened the door to Sylia's apartment and began carefully edging the serving cart through the door, trying not to disturb the contents of the brimming punch bowl on the cart.

"One bowl of fruit punch," Nene declared. "Where do you want it, Linna?"

"Put it on that table over there," Linna directed, pointing to a small, sturdy side-table draped with a white cloth. "Oh, and don't forget to put out some cups as well."

"Okay!" Nene replied cheerily, gingerly trundling the cart towards the indicated destination. "Is there any ice to go with it? It's not very cold anymore."

"Freezer compartment of the refrigerator," Linna replied. "I borrowed Bert's ice cube trays to make sure we had enough." Nene nodded in acknowledgment. Linna watched her progress long enough to determine whether or not she'd be able to transfer the punch bowl without incident before going over to see if Priss and Anri needed any help in applying the finishing touches to the decorations.

Nene glanced over her shoulder as she positioned the punch bowl on the table, and was unable to stifle a somewhat naughty-sounding giggle once she'd confirmed that Linna was out of hearing range. A wide grin kept trying to break through her attempts to keep a straight face, and she hastily moved into the kitchen, partly to get the cups, and partly to prevent anyone from witnessing her mirth. After a few moments of helpless laughter, during which she kept a hand clamped over her mouth while hanging onto the counter, she was able to regain her composure.

Ice cubes crackled as the warm air of the kitchen assailed them when she dumped them into a large bowl. Grabbing a stack of styrofoam cups, she carried the bowl of ice and the cups out to where the punch bowl was sitting, dropping a few of the ice chunks into the punch and setting the remainder down next to the bowl. Nene then realized that they didn't have anything to serve the drinks with and went back into Sylia's kitchen, ransacking the cutlery and utensil drawers until she found a ladle.

When she returned, she used the ladle to take another quick sip of the punch. It tasted all right, but she still couldn't really tell that she'd added anything to it. She'd certainly added enough from the bottle downstairs to be able to taste something, at least. With a shrug, she set the ladle on the table, and decided to go back into the kitchen to check on the food that was being kept warm.

Another giggle escaped her as she turned to that task. It was going to be a fun party; maybe they'd even be able to get Sylia to loosen up after a glass or two of the punch.

Sylia sighed in heartfelt relief as she stepped through the door of her apartment, closing it behind her. For a moment, she plastered herself against the door, leaning on it with her head back, as if afraid someone was going to try and pry it open. She stood like that for a moment or so, letting the peace and solitude of her penthouse apartment soak into her.

She couldn't believe what a day it had been: one long delay or disaster after another. First the computers down in the data control room had started acting up by misplacing files and shuffling them around until it had been nearly impossible to find what she'd been after. After an hour of hair-pulling frustration, she'd managed to locate the offending corrupted file that had been causing the problems; another two hours had been needed to repair the damage.

Then Bert had shown up with the armload of technical schematics that she'd given him the day before, and an armload of questions to go with them. Getting him straightened out on what she'd wanted done to the hardsuits had taken an hour and a half. She was convinced he hadn't gotten enough sleep, since she'd had to explain herself several times. It had gotten to the point where she'd have strangled him on the spot if he'd said "I'm sorry, could you explain this part again?" or "But what about this...?" just one more time.

No sooner had she kicked him out, intent on barricading the door behind him, then Sylvie had called up from the Silky Doll, requesting some assistance. Sylia had arrived to find Sylvie nearly buried under boxes of lingerie that had mistakenly been delivered weeks ahead of schedule. Nearly two hours of wrangling over the phone with her distributor, and then several minutes of alternately threatening and pleading with the truck driver had sent the boxes back to where they'd come from; apparently there'd been a computer error that had caused the problem.

By the time that little crisis had been resolved, it had turned out to be closing time. Sylia had helped Sylvie close up the shop and bid her good night, intending to spend the rest of the evening alone in an attempt to unwind. She'd been edgy during the entire elevator ride to the penthouse level, half-expecting the elevator to break down; it would certainly have been in keeping with the rest of her day.

Sighing wearily, Sylia slipped off her shoes and loosened the scarf at the throat of her blouse, stretching luxuriantly and yawning. Quietly reveling in the solitude, she stepped out into her darkened living room.

"SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!"

The loud chorus of yells was accompanied by a flashbulb-bright flare of light, catching her completely unprepared. Sylia staggered back a step or two, blinking and rubbing at watering eyes as she tried to see what was going on.

Several grinning faces looked back at her when she could finally see again. Priss, Linna, Nene, Anri, and Bert all had insufferably smug looks on their faces, and Sylia had a sudden flash of premonition, accompanied by a sinking feeling of certainty about the reason her day had turned into such a nightmare. A quick glance around her apartment confirmed her suspicion: brightly coloured streamers hung around the room, and a very large 'Happy Birthday!' sign hung over the dining room table at the far end of the room, which was spread with covered platters of food, as well as plates and cutlery.

As Sylia tried to mentally adjust to what was going on, there was a soft knock at the apartment door behind her. Still a little dazed, she turned and went to the door, opening it.

"Surprise!" Sylvie sang out, an impish smile on her face. She hadn't quite changed her clothes from earlier in the day, opting only to get rid of the wig and glasses that normally hid her characteristic features. For one brief moment, Sylia was tempted to slam the door; judging by the sly twinkle in the brown-haired woman's eyes, she'd been in on the plot as well.

"Come in," Sylia sighed, closing the door after her latest guest had entered. "You knew what was going on, didn't you?" she accused, glaring just a little.

"Some of it," Sylvie cheerfully admitted. "I just had to keep you busy downstairs." She smiled again, and took Sylia's arm. "Now come on, you don't want to keep everyone else waiting." She gently steered the Knight Sabers' leader back into the living room, where everyone else was patiently standing around.

If anything, the expressions on the faces of her friends had become more smug while she'd been away briefly. She looked around at them, exasperation at the various little deceptions they'd all obviously connived to put over on her warring with wry appreciation of the way it had been pulled off. She'd quite neatly been outmaneuvered.

An unaccustomed feeling of warmth swept over her as she stood there. She normally tried to keep her feelings at arm's length, especially any that might indicate emotional attachment to anyone; given some of the decisions she was confronted with as leader of the Knight Sabers, she couldn't afford to allow personal feelings to influence her judgment. It had meant that she'd been perceived as cold and uncaring at times, but she'd had to do it. How else was she supposed to be able to order her friends and comrades into dangerous situations, ones that could very well end up killing them?

As she looked around at everyone again, she quietly admitted to herself that they'd all become somewhat more than friends: they'd become family. A small voice at the back of her mind nagged her with the thought that allowing herself to become emotionally involved with people she was going to have to use was a weakness, but she quashed it. Some things just couldn't be changed; she should have seen from the beginning that the shared experiences that they'd gone through as the Knight Sabers would pull everyone closer together, but she hadn't. Looking back, she found that she was rather pleased at that particular oversight.

Finally, she smiled openly, shaking her head ruefully.

"I should have known you were up to something," she declared, looking around at everyone. "Somehow, I just should have known."

"That's why we were very careful to make sure we kept you busy," Linna grinned impishly. "We didn't want to give you time to figure anything out, and you probably would've if we'd given you time to get settled and think straight."

"Come on, let's eat!" Nene interrupted plaintively. "The food's getting cold!"

There were a few scattered chuckles from the group, but that didn't stop everyone from starting to drift towards the dinner table. As Sylia looked for some indication of where she was going to sit, Bert materialized at her side, a towel draped over one arm in an attempt to look like a waiter as he pulled out a chair for her at the head of the table with a bow and a flourish. Sylia cocked an eyebrow at him, but sat down without comment.

"I'd show you the wine list," he noted with a straight face as she settled into her seat, "but we're not that sophisticated; we've only got one kind. However, we can offer you a glass of fruit punch later, should you desire it."

"That would be fine," Sylia replied with a laugh. He bowed again, and vanished into the kitchen. A moment or two later, they heard a cork popping, and liquid being poured. Bert re-entered the room, balancing a tray of wineglasses on one hand. As he walked back to the table, he gave Linna an evil grin as she nervously eyed the way he was carrying the tray. She was sitting next to Sylia, and in the direct line of fire in the event that the tray slipped.

With another flourish, he set the tray on a free corner of the dinner table. Ignoring the covert sighs of relief from nearby, he began passing out the glasses, giving the first one to Sylia. He then whisked the tray back to the kitchen, and moved to take his place at the dinner table.

"I think we've got one thing we need to do before we start eating," he noted, still standing up, as everyone showed signs of starting to make advances in the direction of the food. "Everybody ready? Okay, on three..."

Sylia tried not to wince visibly as everyone sang 'Happy Birthday' to her. Given the way some people were carrying the tune, she was glad they'd opted to do it before dinner.

Linna sank into the couch with a sigh of relief, happy that the dinner was over with. Despite all her worrying, it had all gone smoothly; the food had been excellent, and nobody had mentioned the minor mishaps in Bert's kitchen. More importantly, there hadn't been any dinner table accidents.

She took another sip from her glass of punch, letting herself relax even further. She hadn't realized how stressed-out she'd been from trying to get Sylia's birthday party arranged; now that it was over, she was definitely feeling a bit light-headed, even giddy. The punch was affecting her more than it should've, she thought. She made a mental note to delegate some of the planning to somebody else next year.

Across the room from her, Nene and Anri were talking quietly together, occasionally breaking into fits of giggling. From the sounds of it, the two women were discussing some of the antics they'd witnessed in their respective jobs.

Sylvie sat nearby, listening with a smile, drinking occasionally from her glass. She and Priss swapped comments occasionally, but didn't contribute very much to the conversations themselves. That was Priss, though; she never said much, even in large groups of friends. Although she'd never admit it out loud, Linna knew she was deriving her enjoyment merely from the company. Sylvie was much the same way, although not nearly quite as gruff about it as Priss could be.

Sylia was sitting quietly in her usual armchair, sipping at another glass of punch with an expression best described as amused resignation. She'd been that way for about the last ten minutes, ever since being informed that her birthday present was being brought up from its hiding place. Given the grin she'd seen Bert trying to hide as he'd left, Sylia had evidently formed her own opinion on what the present was likely to be, and was expecting the worst.

The leader of the Knight Sabers had definitely relaxed during the evening though. She'd been smiling throughout dinner, and had even joked with them a few times. For once, the usual shields of calm reserve seemed to have dropped. Linna was privately rather pleased at that accomplishment; she'd thought Sylia was just a bit too stuck up to have fun occasionally, and wasn't unhappy to be proven wrong in that regard.

"Hey, Linna," Priss's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Where'd you hide the present? He should've found it by now, right?"

"I gave him exact directions," Linna assured her. "There's no way he can miss it."

As if confirming her statement, there was a thud at the door to the apartment. They could hear someone fumbling with the latch for a moment, and then it clicked open. Bert shoved the door open awkwardly with one arm, using the other to maintain a secure grip on a large box.

"Gee, thanks so much for somebody helping with the door," he remarked sarcastically as he finally squeezed his way through. "It's not like I needed a hand or anything."

"What are you complaining about?" Priss asked him bluntly, as Nene and Anri applauded in the background, giggling. "You're in, aren't you?" She grinned at him as he favoured her with a sour glance.

"Just bring it over here, Bert," Linna headed them off before they started one of their almost habitual smart remark exchanges. She still couldn't quite figure out how they managed to get along together in private without strangling each other, given the way they seemed to need to keep trying to verbally 'one-up' each other in public. "Sylia's been waiting long enough for it."

"It's safe to open, I presume?" Sylia queried, eyeing the large, brightly-wrapped box with slight trepidation. "After the day you put me through, I wouldn't put it past any of you not to have booby-trapped the box somehow."

"It's perfectly safe," Bert assured her with a grin that wasn't quite angelic enough to be called innocent-looking as he placed the box on the end of the coffee table in front of her. "Trust me."

"That's it; call the bomb squad!" Sylia half-rose from her chair, as if to dive for cover somewhere. Suppressed snickers came from around the room while Bert artfully managed to look hurt.

"It's okay, Sylia," Linna soothed her. "We didn't put anything in there other than your present. Go ahead and open it."

Sylia gave her a patently skeptical glance before sighing and moving forwards in her chair to within reach of the box. She took another glance around at her friends before reaching for the bow on top of the box; six utterly innocent expressions looked back at her as everyone waited. She took a deep breath and undid the bow, pulling the ribbons away before tearing the wrapping paper off and exposing the cardboard of the box.

It proved to be sealed with duct tape, and it took her a few minutes of struggle to get rid of that. She muttered some choice comments to herself during that process, and gave Bert more than one withering glance; she knew who would've suggested that little innovation. Judging by the sly glint in his eyes when she looked at him, the bastard knew that she knew, and was enjoying her struggle with it. Nobody seemed to know where a knife or pair of scissors could be found when she inquired about it.

Finally, she succeeded in getting into the box itself, and found herself looking at a box full of what looked like styrofoam popcorn. Rolling her eyes towards the ceiling, Sylia dug into the packing, groping through the styrofoam as she tried to find whatever it was that they'd hidden inside on her while ignoring the subdued sniggering that was coming from some quarters of the room.

Her fingers encountered something cool and metallic at the bottom of the box. It was fairly heavy, as she discovered when she tried lifting it with one hand, and it was an unusual shape, making one-handed handling an awkward proposition. Frowning in puzzlement, she dipped her other hand into the styrofoam to assist in lifting whatever it was free of the box and packing. Styrofoam pieces cascaded from the sides of the box, like the foam from something surfacing from the depths of the ocean as she pulled it from the cocooning packing.

Polished black and dark blue metal flashed under the lights of the room, and Sylia found herself holding what looked like a very detailed scale model of the KnightWing. Almost three feet or so long, it was perfect in almost every detail, even down to the texture of the hull plating. As she turned it around in her hands, mystified, she noted that she could faintly see a small figure through the semi-opaque cockpit canopy, seated in the pilot's chair.

Intrigued, she started to examine the nose of the replica aircraft, pressing around the canopy with her fingertips to see if it opened. As she probed, there was a click from a cleverly-concealed button on the underside of the cockpit, and an electronically recorded voice spoke up a moment later.

"Knight Sabers, Go!"

Sylia sat motionless for a moment, holding the mini-KnightWing, not quite sure that she'd heard correctly. The strangled snickering coming from everyone else convinced her that she had indeed heard her own voice giving her usual command on an outing to the rest of the team. The plastic cockpit canopy flipped up at that moment, and Sylia's bemused gaze came to rest on a miniature figure of a red and grey hardsuit. A very distinctive red and grey hardsuit, crafted in painstaking detail, seated at the controls of the plane.

A sudden hunch about what she was holding prompted her to shift the replica jetplane in her hands as she began examining the aft fuselage of the plane. As she'd half expected, some probing revealed a concealed button that caused the top portion of the fuselage above the wings to split in half and swing open.

Sylia was unable to keep from smiling as she had her hunch confirmed: the interior of the plane had several small passenger seats, and a duplicate of each of the Knight Sabers' hardsuits was seated in each one. There was even a hardsuit figure based on some of the early designs she'd been considering for a suit for Anri: pale blue with white shoulder patches sporting the red cross usually denoting medical personnel.

"This isn't what I think it is, is it?" she finally asked mildly, looking around at her friends.

"We wanted to get you something original," Linna explained with an open grin. "You've already got lots of other stuff, so we wanted it to be something you couldn't normally get. It took some discussion..."

"Arguing," Priss interjected, correcting her with a wry grin. "Everyone had their own ideas of what we ought to be doing."

"...but we finally settled on..."

"Knight Saber action figures with a KnightWing carrying case!" everyone else chorused enthusiastically, each of them trying to finish the sentence before anyone else could. Sylia began to laugh softly, shaking her head.

"Thank you very much, all of you," she told them with a fond smile. "I don't think I could have asked for something more unique than this." She looked at the mini-KnightWing again, and suddenly cocked an eyebrow curiously.

"Why does SkyKnight's suit have white on it now?" she asked Bert. "You aren't planning another suit change are you?"

"White?" Bert repeated with a frown. "I didn't paint it white...are you sure you're looking at the right one?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Sylia replied, peering closer. "It's the fourth seat in the row here. Blue, silver, and....white..." Her voice trailed off suddenly, and incredibly, Sylia began to snicker. It quickly escalated into outright helpless laughter as she set the KnightWing model carefully on the coffee table, then collapsed into her chair. Everyone stared speechlessly at the normally reserved leader of the Knight Sabers, who was now sprawled in utter hilarity, laughing and gasping for breath at the same time.

"What's so funny?" Priss stood up and walked over to the table, closely followed by Sylvie. Nene, Anri and Linna also crowded around the table, nearly shoving Bert out of the way as everyone tried to see what had sent Sylia into near-hysterical laughter. By craning his neck, he was able to look over Linna's shoulder, but he couldn't see the hardsuit figures or the KnightWing model.

"There's the hardsuits," he heard Nene say. "Mine's there, Priss's is that one... hey, what's that white stuff on Bert's suit?"

"Is that what I think it is?" Priss asked disbelievingly.

"Is WHAT what you think it is?!" Bert demanded loudly. "I'd like to see for myself, if you don't mind!"

"It is!!" Nene's voice squealed girlishly. "Somebody put bandages on his suit!!"

It was at that point that Priss and Linna promptly emulated Sylia, dropping helplessly to the couch and laughing their heads off. Nene and Anri suddenly couldn't stop giggling, and even Sylvie had to turn away from the coffee table, covering her mouth with a hand. From the way her shoulders were shaking, though, it wasn't going to be long before she burst out laughing as well.

Bert finally managed to get close enough to the coffee table to take a look at the object of everyone's merriment. What were they talking about? He hadn't put any... That thought was never completed as his gaze came to rest on the small replica of his hardsuit. Sure enough, somebody had taken the time to painstakingly wrap and tie off small white bandages around the torso and one arm of the silver hardsuit figure. Bert closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath as he fought against conflicting desires, trying unsuccessfully to shut out the laughter of his friends.

"All right," he asked levelly, trying to strangle off the grudging amusement that was slowly worming its way into his expression. "Who's the smartass?"

He never did get an answer; everyone else was laughing too hard.

It took a while for relative calm to return to the room. Every time somebody looked at the replica KnightWing, they kept seeing the bandaged silver hardsuit in their mind's eye, and that was enough to reduce them to exhausted giggling again. Sylia finally regained enough control of her composure to set her present over on a side table, out of the immediate view of everyone else. She struggled to maintain a straight face as she walked back to her chair, but it wasn't a very successful effort.

Bert had taken refuge in the kitchen, where he was salving his somewhat wounded pride with the remainder of the chocolate cake they'd enjoyed earlier for dessert. Sylia shuddered slightly at that; everyone else was still stuffed from the huge dinner, and was contenting themselves with more glasses of punch. The thought of eating anything else right now was almost too distressing to handle.

Sylia sank back into her chair with a grateful sigh. It had been a long, tiring day for her, and sitting down was an immense relief. At the same time, she felt too keyed-up to sleep. Nearly laughing her head off earlier had helped contribute to that; she still felt light-headed, and was finding it hard not to giggle at everything and anything.

"I know what we're mish...missing," Nene's voice suddenly piped up. "We need some music...what good's a party without hic! music?"

"Yeah, why not?" Priss seconded. "We oughta have some rockin' tunes somewhere." She sat up in the couch and tried to set her cup on the coffee table. She missed on the first couple of attempts, and had to scowl in concentration before she was able to connect.

"I'll get the music," Linna stated, shoving herself off the couch. "I had some CDs over by Sylia's stereo system." She walked across the room, moving with great deliberation, as if deciding where to put each step. She began to sort through the stack of CDs, squinting at the labels.

"Why don't we have a karaoke contest?" Nene asked as Linna searched the disc collection. "It'd be a lot more fun than just listening to some songs."

"That's a great idea!" It took Sylia a moment to realize that it had been Anri who'd blurted out the enthusiastic agreement; normally, the green-haired women was one of the shyer people she'd met. "Um...what do we need to do?" Anri asked a moment later, belatedly remembering that she had never done anything like that before.

"Pick a song and sing along with it. S' easy," Nene waved a hand magnanimously. "I've done it hundreds of times."

"Yeah, badly," Priss snickered derisively, picking up her cup and then nearly spilling her drink on herself. "If you can't hit the notes, couldn't you at least scare them as they go by?"

Nene loftily ignored that remark.

"Okay," Linna called over. "What do you wanna hear first?"

"Let me see what ones you've got," Anri told her, standing up and walking over.

"I'm going to get some more ice for the punch," Sylvie stated. "It's starting to get a bit warm."

"Top comarpent...coparm...top section of the fridge," Sylia told her. "Can't miss them." Sylvie nodded as she walked across the living room and stepped into the kitchen.

Bert was washing off the plate he'd used for the remainder of the cake as she entered. She gave him a friendly grin as he looked up to see who it was, and he sighed and gave her a rueful one in return.

"Are they done killing themselves laughing out there?" he asked as she paused for a moment.

"For now," she replied, a smile quirking at her lips as she struggled not to start laughing again herself. "I'm sure we can start again though, if you'd like," she added innocently.

"I'll pass, thanks," he told her dryly. "What's up, anyway?"

"I'm getting some ice for the drinks; the punch is getting kind of lukewarm."

"Plastic bowl in the freezer section there," he directed her. "Can't miss it."

"Thanks." Sylvie started to turn unsteadily towards the fridge, and swayed on her feet as she tried moving towards it. Bert caught her as she stumbled and fell, and he suddenly found himself holding her in his arms.

"The gallant knight erratic saves the lady fair from a horrible date," Sylvie declared, giggling and hiccuping as she looped an arm around his neck and started using that as leverage while she tried to get unsteady feet back under her. "I feel a little funny," she confided to him as she pulled herself upright, her body pressing against his.

"Actually, you feel pretty good to me," he replied, then stood there with a somewhat stunned expression as his mind caught up with what his mouth had just said.

He suddenly became acutely aware of the fact that he was holding her quite close, and immediately flushed bright red as he tried to think of a way to talk his way out of this one. His muscles seemed to have locked up because of his mental floundering, and he couldn't seem to get enough co-ordination together to push her away. Priss was going to kill him... and he suddenly experienced a surge of panic over the thought that she might accidentally walk in at any minute.

"I think that's one of the nicest things anyone's said to me in a while," Sylvie smiled warmly up at him, then reached out and patted his cheek naughtily, "but I won't tell Priss you made a pass at me... if you're nice to me." She pushed herself away from him, winked, hiccuped, and walked over to the fridge. Pulling open the door to the freezer compartment, she peered into it, then pulled out a bowl that rattled with the ice cubes inside it. Closing the door, she gave the dumbfounded redhead another wink, and walked back into the living room, swaying just a bit.

Bert turned and began quietly thumping his head against the cupboard doors.

It took him about ten minutes more to regain his composure enough to where he felt he could venture back into the living room; he didn't want to start turning red the minute Sylvie looked at him. He was still more than a little rattled by her flirtatious behaviour. She didn't often turn on the charm like that, but when she did...he shoved the thought out of his mind.

As the tall redhead made his way back into the living room, he could see that something was up. Nene and Linna were over at Sylia's stereo system, apparently adjusting something, and Anri had disappeared. Sylvie was sitting down on the couch, her back to him, sifting through a pile of CDs that had been untidily jumbled on the coffee table. Priss was sprawled lazily on another couch, snickering loudly about something, and Sylia was sipping her drink with a bemused expression.

He made a slight detour as he rejoined the group, pouring himself another glass of punch and carrying it carefully as he made his way over to where Priss was lounging.

"Came out of hiding, huh?" she observed with a crooked smile as he shoved her feet off the end of the couch, and sat down next to her.

"I wasn't hiding," he retorted defensively. "Everyone knew exactly where I was all the time." Priss laughed, then sat up and leaned closer to him.

"Come on," she teased him, poking him in the side with a finger, "you thought it was funny, too; admit it."

"You did it, didn't you?" he accused, glaring at her suspiciously. "You're the one who put those bandages on that figure of my suit, aren't you?!" Priss burst out laughing again.

"You wish!!" she chortled. "Do you think I'd be trying to hide it if I did?!"

"Hmph," Bert grunted, deciding that settling into uncommunicative silence was probably the best defense right now. Priss was right though; if she'd done it, she'd have been crowing about it, not denying it. He took a healthy swig from his glass, and kept trying to figure out who the culprit was.

"Awwwww, you poor baby," Priss mock-commiserated, grinning. "Are we picking on you?" Sylvie chuckled, but he steadfastly ignored them both and continued his brooding contemplation.

"You have to admit it was rather appropriate," Sylia put in from where she was sitting, along with what sounded suspiciously like a giggle. "I mean, you do seem to need bandages more often than most people." He opted not to reply to her observation, either.

Nene sang out "We're ready!" from over by the stereo system. She skipped back over to where she'd been sitting, and dropped into another chair, bouncing on the cushions. Her usual cheery bounce seemed to have been magnified, and he noted that she looked a bit flushed.

He'd just started to take another swig of his drink when the unmistakable opening chords of "Konya wa Hurricane" blared from the stereo speakers. As the opening bars of music played, a woman wearing a reasonable facsimile of a blond wig came sashaying out of the side corridor leading to Sylia's guest rooms, her every movement a fairly close imitation of Priss's usual behaviour during a performance.

Bert just about dropped his drink when he realized it was Anri. The usually shy and reserved green-haired young woman had slapped on a phony wig made out of leftover yellow streamers from the party decorations, and it suddenly dawned on him what the music was playing for. The panicked thought crossed his mind that if he quickly made tracks for the kitchen, he might be able to take refuge there until the karaoke portion of the evening was over.

"Oh no you don't!" Priss latched onto his arm, evidently reading his mind. "If I've got to sit through this, then you do too, buster." The way she grabbed him just about dumped what was left of his drink onto the floor.

"Waitasec...something's still mishing," Nene declared over the music, frowning as she looked at Anri. "You shtill don't look quite like Prish," she noted. "We've ...you've..." She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts as Linna hit the 'pause' button on the stereo. "You've got too mush coshtume," she finally judged, squinting at the karaoke wannabe.

"Okay, I can fix that," Anri replied cheerily. "Back in a sec." She disappeared down the side hall again, and a moment later she called out, "Okay, Linna, you can start the music again!"

Bert hadn't really been paying attention to what was going on, concentrating instead on trying to find some way to elude Priss's grasp so that he could retreat to the kitchen. There was no way he could sneak out of the apartment; the door was in plain sight of everyone, for one thing. Part of his anxiety stemmed from the fact that vocal musical talent was not common among the Knight Saber's membership.

He also knew it was only a matter of time before somebody came up with the bright idea that he should try singing something, and he really didn't need the hassle or embarrassment. When the music began pounding from the speakers again, he knew it was too late; he'd lost any chance there might've been to escape. He immediately took a huge gulp from his glass, as if drowning himself with punch was an option to avoid what he now knew was coming.

As before, Anri strutted onto the 'stage' in time to the music...and Bert promptly choked on his drink, slapping a hand over his mouth to keep from spraying fruit juice across the room while at the same time turning a bright red colour. Sylvie looked from Anri to him, and burst out laughing while he fought to get his breath back.

Anri had taken Nene's comparison of her attire to Priss's concert garb very literally, and had reduced the square yardage of her 'costume' by removing her blouse, revealing certain items of feminine apparel usually reserved for display in more ... intimate environments. She was now clad even more scantily than Priss usually was during a concert performance, and she launched into a spirited karaoke rendition of "Konya Wa Hurricane" without any trace of hesitation or self-consciousness.

Bert just sat on the couch, his breath recovered, with one hand clamped over his eyes, ignoring the laughter of the women around him.

THE NEXT DAY....

Sylia stifled an agonized scream as a crashing peal of sound stabbed into her brain, intensifying the nauseating wave of pain that was crashing around and rebounding inside her skull. She rolled over in bed, tightly clenching her pillow around her head in an effort to block out the noise of the ringing telephone. Unfortunately, it continued its persistent clamour, and she was forced to abandon her pillow and crawl over to the bedside table where the phone was. Blessed silence returned to the room as she picked up the receiver.

"Yes?" she croaked into the mouthpiece, rolling over onto her back with the phone, one hand clamped to her forehead as if to keep her throbbing brain inside where it belonged. "Who is it?"

"HELLO, SYLIA," a voice boomed cheerily in her ear, the sound waves nearly blasting her eardrums out. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY DEAR."

"Uncle Toshiro, my birthday was yesterday," Sylia replied, her voice barely above a whisper, "and could you please stop shouting? My head feels like it's going to explode." She kept her eyes tightly squeezed shut, trying steadfastly to ignore her physical woes through sheer willpower. It failed miserably.

"I know that," her uncle replied, his voice mercifully lowering a few decibels. " And I heard about your surprise party from my assistant, so I presumed you were busy last night. But what do you mean by 'stop shouting'? I'm speaking quite normally."

"You sound like you're using a megaphone to talk into the phone," she informed him.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked, his tone becoming concerned. "You don't sound too good."

"I'm fine, really," she tried reassuring him. "It's just a headache; I'll be fine in a few hours. All I need is some more sleep."

"I'll be right over," came the reply. "Just stay in bed and hang on."

"No! I'm fine! I don't..!" Sylia started to protest, almost sitting up in sudden consternation, but the line went dead. She flopped limply back into bed with a strangled groan as her stomach lurched warningly.

She gritted her teeth against the throbbing that re-erupted inside her head, and fumbled around for the cold compress she'd been using earlier. She finally found it snarled in the blankets, where it had fallen when she'd rolled over. Pressing it against her forehead, she tried to draw some relief from it and get her strength back.

"Man, you look awful," came the greeting as Linna limped through the front doors of the theatre where her dancers practiced during the week. "Did you get hit by a bus or something?"

"Very funny, Ken," Linna shot the slender, black-haired young man a withering, narrow-eyed look. "Don't you have to get ready for practice?" Ken was one of the male leads in the company's current production. He was moderately talented, but he had a tendency to think he was better than he actually was, and that meant he tended to slack off during a practice session. He also thought of himself as funny...and right now, Linna wasn't in a mood to appreciate good humour, let alone bad jokes about her appearance.

"Okay, I'm going. Sheesh, what a grouch," Ken grinned at her, not intimidated by her glare in the slightest. Hefting his duffel bag, he disappeared into back of the building. Linna glared evilly after him, promising herself that she'd make him sweat a bit more than usual today.

She suppressed a grimace as her headache pounded dully against her temples, compounded by an angry twinge from her lower back, reminding her that she was going to have to watch it today. Flippant remarks aside, she felt like she'd been hit by a bus. She wasn't going to be able to goad her trainees into action by demonstrating how 'easy' everything was, not today anyway.

She couldn't decide if her first mistake had been spiking the punch, or drinking it after knowing it had been spiked. Either way, she knew she'd overdone it the instant she'd awakened: her head had felt like steel spikes were being driven into her cranium, and her stomach had seemed to be doing a marvelous impression of something churning in a blender at high speed. Topping all of that off, her back felt like she'd been knifed by someone when she hadn't been looking.

Several minutes of being gloriously, messily sick in the bathroom hadn't served to improve her disposition any. Not even the massive dose of painkillers she'd taken for the headache had helped; she could still feel it pounding away at the walls of her mind.

Breakfast had been out of the question; she'd almost had to return to pray to the porcelain god at the thought of food of any kind. She'd finally settled on having a cup of coffee, and had sat trying to remember just what had happened at Sylia's birthday party. The last clear memory she had was of setting up the stereo for the karaoke performances.

The trim dancer shook her head. She dimly recalled attempting to show her friends some simple dance moves, and that had degenerated into people collapsing in helpless laughter at some of the attempts to follow her instructions. Then, for some reason, she'd been using the back of Sylia's couch for a balance beam; falling off of the couch had likely been how her back had gotten the wrenched feeling it was complaining about now. Of course, if the couch hadn't suddenly rocked sideways from the wrestling match that had erupted at the far end...

Linna shook off the hazy recollections and hurried towards the women's changerooms. She could try and figure out later what had happened; maybe somebody else had a clearer memory.

Leon moved through the ADP offices, his eyes roving across the rows of desks and cubicles as he deftly sidestepped the occasional frenzied data analyst running by with a stack of tape cartridges or stack of reports. Some things never changed; regardless of the situation the ADP seemed to be in, there were always people running around with data that needed to be fed to the computers. Leon was privately willing to bet that they even kept track of departmental coffee consumption with the damn things.

"Did you want a copy of the form to fill out for that?" a young woman with long brown hair, glasses, and a mischievous grin looked up from her terminal as he walked by. Leon started, realizing he must've inadvertently made his last observation aloud. "I can get you one if you'd like," she offered.

"No, that's quite all right," Leon hastily assured her. "I've got plenty of reports of my own, thanks." She laughed as he quickly made for his desk before she could produce any kind of extra paperwork for him; he wasn't entirely sure that she'd been joking.

He sighed in relief as he reached his desk, running a hand through his hair. A quick glance at his inbox and phone told him that he was free to keep plugging away at his current investigation. Since his chat with Aramaki, it had seemed as if some of the department's workload had been diverted, allowing him the time to pursue the matter they'd talked about. He didn't have any proof, but Leon had suspicious tendencies.

A blaze of red off in the distance attracted his attention as he started to sit down, and he looked up to see Nene making her way to her desk. That the usually vibrant redhead was feeling a bit under the weather was obvious: she looked pale, and was squinting a little, as if the lights were too bright. The greetings and quips she was exchanging with her friends and co-workers seemed to be forced and half-hearted at best, and she seemed to be staying upright only through willpower. The brown-haired inspector regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, then stood up again and walked over to her desk.

"Morning, Nene," he greeted her as he came up to her. "Got a few minutes?"

"What? Oh... hi Leon," she replied, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders as she looked up at him. "What was that?"

"I asked if you've got a few minutes," Leon told her, looking her over. Now that he was closer to her, he could see that she definitely looked a bit green. "Why don't we go down to the cafeteria while we talk? You look like you could use a cup of coffee or something first."

"Thanks," she smiled wanly, "but I've got a lot of paperwork to catch up on, so I don't..."

"I'm paying," he added. "I'll even throw in a piece of cake if you want."

"Uh, just coffee is fine," Nene replied hastily, turning even greener. "I'm really not hungry right now."

"Okay then; shall we go?" Leon knew she had to be feeling ill if she'd turned down free dessert. She nodded, and the two of them made their way down to the cafeteria.

Nene sat down at a table while he got the coffee, and he noted that she'd picked out a table that was at the back of the room, where the light was a bit dimmer. Considering what he wanted to ask her, a secluded spot wasn't entirely inappropriate. He didn't want anyone overhearing what he was going to be telling her, since it wasn't widespread knowledge in the ADP forces. And he most definitely didn't want any more rumours circulating than were doing so already. However, he doubted that privacy was the real reason behind Nene's table selection; he'd noticed that she'd seemed to be squinting a bit back in the offices.

Leon carried two cups of coffee over to her table, and handed her one of them, sliding into the seat across from her. She thanked him, and took a cautious sip from her mug. They sat silently for a few moments as Leon considered how to best phrase his question.

"I really hope this isn't another attempt to get me out on a date," Nene remarked as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Nene!" he managed to look hurt. "How can you say that about me?"

"Well you did try, once," she reminded him. "And since your fishing trips to the secretarial pool haven't been very successful, I'd been wondering if you were going to try again." She suddenly grinned impishly, losing some of her pallor at the same time. "See? Your reputation precedes you now."

Damn it, Leon swore mentally, flushing slightly and taking a quick gulp of coffee to hide his discomfiture, swearing silently again as he burned his mouth. He still didn't know how he'd gotten a womanizing reputation...okay, maybe there'd been a few flirtatious remarks here and there with some of the cute women in the office, but nothing that should've resulted in that kind of talk going around the office.

"I'd never try something as devious as cornering you in the cafeteria and bribing you with a coffee," he assured her, forcing a grin onto his face. "This is strictly a business question."

"What do you want to know?" Nene took another draught of coffee, sighing a little as the caffeine seemed to alleviate whatever was bothering her.

"Just how good with a computer are you?" Leon asked the question casually enough, but was somewhat surprised at the wariness that flashed across Nene's features as she lowered her mug.

"I get by," she replied carefully. "I'm pretty familiar with all the systems here, and I can get my work done on them without a problem."

"That's not quite what I meant," Leon took a quick glance around the cafeteria to make sure nobody was nearby. "I wanted to know how good a hacker you are."

"What makes you think I'm a hacker?" Nene managed to get just the right tone that would've indicated pique with anyone else. Her facial expression didn't quite make it though; there was definitely wariness in her eyes now. "I'm just good at searching databases, that's all."

"Including restricted-access ones?" Leon suggested mildly. "Come on, Nene; I don't know how you do it, but you've been able to get info nobody else has been able to get in the past, and I don't think you did that just by searching a database. Not a public one, anyway."

There was a long silence as Nene stared at her coffee cup, refusing to meet his gaze. She'd always thought she'd been fairly careful to disguise her real abilities with computers, and she'd thought that she'd succeeded. Leon's questions threw doubt on that opinion though. Somebody had noticed.

"Why?" She kept the question short and direct. Leon glanced around the cafeteria again, almost as if expecting people to be lurking under the tables taking notes, then leaned forward slowly.

"If I tell you, you've got to promise to keep it quiet, okay?" At Nene's affirmative nod, he glanced around again, then continued to speak in a low, conspiratorial tone of voice. "I'm working on part of the investigation into our phony Chief Inspector," he told her, "and we've uncovered some files of some kind that are encrypted." The tall inspector almost grinned when he saw the spark of curiosity ignite in Nene's eyes. He'd figured that might intrigue her.

Curiosity had to be one of Nene's drives; she was always asking questions about ongoing investigations, trying to find out what was going on. At times it was almost like she was keeping her own dossiers on cases. "We've tried to decode them," he continued, "but we're not having much luck."

"So what does that have to do with me?" Nene inquired.

"We want to keep this investigation quiet," Leon replied, "and for that, we need to keep it internal. If we have to bring in outside talent, there's no way it'll remain quiet for long." His gaze met hers directly. "I'm sure you can appreciate just why we need skilled people. That's why I asked: we need your kind of expertise." Nene's gaze dropped, and she appeared to be trying to reconcile something internally.

There was another long silence. Leon took another drink from his cup, watching and waiting. Nene stared at the tabletop, her fingers nervously spinning her coffee cup on its saucer, unconsciously chewing her lower lip as she thought. The look on her face was hard to read; Leon was sure he saw agonized indecision at least once. After another couple of minutes of quiet, he decided to play his last card.

"There would be a pay raise to go with this," he mentioned, trying to sound offhand and casual. The lopsided smirk that appeared on Nene's face indicated that he hadn't been entirely successful.

"Attempted bribery of a police officer's a serious offense," the slender red-head noted lightly. "I'm shocked that you'd even consider such a thing."

"If I'd mentioned it first, it wouldn't have been bribery, would it?" Leon asked blandly. "Let's just say I forgot to mention it earlier."

"Uh-huh," Nene said dryly. "And if you hadn't mentioned it, and I'd accepted your 'job offer', would I still have gotten the raise? Somehow, I don't think so."

"You're too young to be so cynical," Leon grinned at her.

"Really? Fat lot you know then," Nene's rejoinder was unusually sharp, and he blinked in surprise, thrown for a moment by the sudden rancor in her tone. It was gone a moment later, swiftly enough that he wasn't even sure it had been there in the first place. "I'll think about it," she told him, standing up. "I've really got to get back to work; my desk's probably buried under reports by now."

Leon watched her walk away, his gaze thoughtful. Generally he was a pretty good judge of character and reactions, but Nene had proved harder to evaluate than he'd originally supposed. He could tell she was intrigued by what he'd told her, but that was it; he couldn't say whether she'd accept or not. He suddenly realized that she'd also managed to evade his original question on just how good her computer skills were.

The tall inspector sighed and shifted in his seat, stretching his legs out under the table. The brief chat with Nene had also accentuated a difference he'd noticed in her lately, namely that she wasn't the bright-eyed, bouncy teenager he'd somehow always taken her for. There was obviously a sharp intellect behind those green eyes, and when combined with the poise and greater self-assurance that she seemed to have now, she became a mature young woman. He idly wondered if any of her co-workers had noticed that particular change as well.

A shadow fell across the table, and Leon looked up to see Aramaki standing there.

"Well?" the older man prompted. "What did she say?"

"We'll have to wait," he responded. "Let's give her some time to think it over first."

"Are you happy now?!" Sylia snapped peevishly as her uncle squinted at the readout on a thermometer. "I told you I was fine!!"

"Right," her uncle replied dryly. "Then why were you laying in bed with an ice pack slapped on your forehead? Was it some new skin care treatment somebody neglected to tell me about?" He snorted into his moustache at his own joke. Sylia gave him a dirty look.

"I'm perfectly able, and more than old enough to be able to look after myself," she told him frostily. "You don't have to come running over just because I'm a little under the weather." Her uncle laughed out loud at that.

"I fail to see what's so amusing," Sylia informed the old man, glaring a little.

"Sylia," the old medic said conversationally, sitting on the side of the bed and taking her hand, "I'm going to tell you the exact same thing my father told me years ago when I informed him I didn't need looking after any longer." Sly mirth twinkled in his old brown eyes for a moment. "Then maybe you'll understand why us old folks act the way we do sometimes."

"And what is this earth-shaking piece of wisdom?" Sylia asked sourly.

"It doesn't matter how old you get, or how big you grow; to me, you're still just a kid," she was informed. The old man leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. "And I'm afraid, my dear, that the exact same principle applies to you. You may be older now, and running your own ... enterprises, but to me, most of the time, you're still the wide-eyed little girl I remember from all those years ago." There was no mistaking the fond regard in his gaze as he looked at her.

"Uncle Toshiro, please," Sylia flushed a bit, suddenly uncomfortable for some reason. "Let's not be maudlin about things."

"Oh my," her uncle grinned slyly at her as he released her hand, "have I managed to crack the Imperial reserve? What a pity."

"You really are impossible sometimes," Sylia told him, frustrated at being unable to come up with any kind of a decent comeback.

"Runs in the family," he shot back with a smile, unfazed. Sighing, the elderly doctor stood up from the bed and stretched, wincing as something in his back creaked and popped ominously. He walked over to the bedside table, where a small black doctor's bag was precariously perched near the edge. He scooped up some of the scattered bottles that he'd taken out of it earlier, and began to re-pack his bag.

"Now then," he said, turning back towards Sylia, who was still silently fuming on the bed, her arms crossed almost defiantly across her chest. "Were you going to be doing any more partying this week? If you are, I'd recommend that you don't overindulge quite as much as you did this time; while I'm relieved that you finally unwound enough to have some fun, I doubt you'd enjoy being hung over again."

"What do you mean, 'hung over'?" Sylia gave him a strange look. "Was that...I was...?"

"Exactly," her uncle nodded as the light dawned in her face. "I'm surprised that you didn't recognize the symptoms."

"It's not exactly a condition I get into very often, uncle," Sylia replied faintly. Her lips tightened as she finally realized that the punch following dinner had to have been spiked. She began considering the list of likely culprits, her eyes narrowing in concentration.

"Now don't go getting angry at your friends," the old man admonished, wagging a finger at her. "As far as I'm concerned, they did you a favour."

"Did me a favour?!" Sylia couldn't quite believe what she was hearing.

"You've been under a great deal of stress, especially lately," he explained. "All of you have, actually, and there are limits to just how much stress people can take before burning out or developing severe health problems. I'd been going to suggest a few days off to try unwinding, but evidently you've managed to beat me to it." He suddenly grinned, his face creasing with even more wrinkles, and a wicked-seeming glint entered his eyes. "I'm just sorry I missed it."

"Oh really? Why would that be? And how would you know what happened anyway?" Sylia asked, an ominous tone coming into her voice.

"Anri arrived at my office just after I'd called you," her uncle told her. "She looked a bit green, and after some prodding, she told me about some of the antics that went on at your place last night. After hearing about it all, I gave her the day off to recover a bit more; you all had a boisterous night from the sound of things." He grinned at her again. "I never knew that you'd taken up table dancing in your spare time; I'd liked to have seen that."

Sylia just stared in dawning consternation at her uncle, struck speechless.

"Come ON, Bert," Priss tried cajoling him. "You're not going to die, and your head isn't going to fall off; just get up, take some aspirin, and you'll feel fine."

"Go. Away." The muffled, barely audible croak came from the disheveled pile of blankets curled up in misery in the middle of the bed. "And stop shouting. Let me expire in peace."

Priss gave a frustrated snort, tossing her head impatiently to flip her hair back over her shoulders...and immediately regretted the move as her brain stabbed her with a flash of dull pain. She grabbed the bedroom doorjamb to steady herself, taking several deep breaths while the pounding in her head subsided; evidently, the dose of painkillers she'd taken hadn't quite kicked in yet.

"Look," she tried reasoning with him again. "You'll feel a lot better if you get up and move around a bit. It's better to get your mind off how lousy you feel, and concentrate on something else." She knew how he felt though; she'd given some serious thought herself to staying in bed all day. However, she'd been hung over a time or two before, and was evidently better able to deal with it than Bert.

"You're not the one with the migraine pulverizing your synapses," came the rejoinder.

"It's just a hangover for God's sake!" Priss burst out in exasperation. "It's not going to kill you!"

"Hangover? What are you talking about? I didn't..." his voice trailed off for a moment, and an ominous quiet fell for a second. The blankets shifted slightly, and a pair of bloodshot greenish-brown eyes appeared in one of the folds, glaring at her. "Tell me you didn't do what I think you did."

"Me? I don't know what you're talking about ," Priss tried her best to look charming and innocent. It failed miserably.

"You spiked the punch!! Why the hell didn't you at least WARN me about that?!" he accused, his voice rising. He cringed back into the pile of blankets with a groan as his headache apparently decided to remind him of its presence.

"Oh come on, I didn't put that much in it," Priss tried defending herself, "and I couldn't really say anything to you with everyone else in the room without giving it away, now could I?"

"I'm going to get you for this," he threatened feebly. "I'm going to come over there and throw up all over you." Priss nearly fell over laughing at that.

"Oh yeah? How?" she snickered derisively. "Going to just levitate across the room?"

"I'm gathering my strength. Give me a few days, and I'll be able to make it over there."

"Would you quit lying there feeling sorry for yourself?" she requested with as much politeness as she could muster. "Just get up, get yourself cleaned up, and we'll get going."

"Oh, I'm SO sorry," Bert's voice dripped sarcastic insincerity. "Was I keeping you from something? How thoughtless of me. It's not like I'm sick or anything..."

"I know I'M getting sick of listening to you," Priss retorted. "Somehow, I don't think noble and heroic knights let something minor like a hangover keep them down in the mornings." Bert didn't bother to respond to that observation, being too preoccupied with his internal misery, and she sighed to herself. Crossing her arms, she leaned against the doorjamb and surveyed the motionless mound of bedding for a couple of minutes.

"I don't know why you're being so surly about this," she spoke aloud suddenly. "You were certainly having enough fun last night."

"You call being attacked by two women attempting to tie you up having fun? You damn near killed me when you and Sylvie tackled me into the couch."

"Well you were the one who started singing old romantic ballads," Priss pointed out. "Those aren't exactly party songs, you know." She didn't bother to add that she hadn't understood a word of them, since he'd been singing in English.

"Oh my God," came faintly from the blanket heap. "I was singing?" There was a faintly wistful plea in the tone of his voice, begging her to deny the question.

"Yep," Priss confirmed, a grin spreading across her face. "You weren't half-bad either ...I've heard you when you've sounded a LOT worse than last night." She gave him a speculative look as he groaned. "You know, if we could teach you to play the guitar you could almost stand in for a couple of the guys in the band when they can't make a performance."

"Oh Lord, somebody shoot me," he whined, rolling over and pulling the blankets around himself again.

Priss looked heavenwards in exasperation, trying to figure out what would be motivation enough to get him out of bed; they did have a few things to do. If she couldn't get him at least upright then they'd never get anywhere. As she considered her options, an idea occurred to her. It was a bit cruel, but at least it would get him out of bed.

Turning, she walked back out to the kitchen and started searching for a large container. Finding a jug that would suit her purposes, she ran it full of cold water. Picking it up, she carried it back into the bedroom. A moment later, an agonized, spluttering bellow rang through the small apartment, right on the heels of a loud splash.

"AAAARGH!!!! PRISS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Sylvie closed the door to the apartment she shared with Anri with an immense sigh of relief, reaching up and pulling off the dark wig and pair of glasses she customarily wore during the day. Tossing them carelessly onto a small table, she ran her fingers through her natural hair, shaking her head to fluff it out a bit. Kicking off the high-heeled shoes she'd been wearing, she sighed again in heartfelt relief at the softness of the carpeting under her aching feet.

Padding across the small entry foyer, Sylvie made her way to the living room and flopped lengthwise on the couch. Wriggling around, she stretched a bit and made herself comfortable, propping her feet up on the arm of the couch and wiggling her toes in delight at having them free and unconfined. It was too bad she couldn't work in Sylia's store wearing her motorcycle boots; they were a lot more comfortable. She grinned to herself as she pictured the faces of some of the store's customers when confronted by a salesclerk in biking leathers and boots.

She lay like that for a while, just relaxing as her mind went back over some of the day's events, mentally making note of store concerns that she might have to look into the next day. She supposed tending the store wasn't a bad way to spend her day. It allowed her to repay Sylia for all the help she'd given her and Anri, and it also gave her a chance to develop better social skills while making a bit of spending money at the same time. She felt a lot surer of herself in public now, and she was extremely happy about that.

The sound of the bedroom door creaking open down the hall made her sit up and look around in puzzlement. As she did, Anri shuffled into the living room, rubbing blearily at her eyes as she yawned. There were wrinkles and creases in her clothes, and her hair was in disarray.

"Anri?" Sylvie asked disbelievingly, "Why are you home so early?" Anri jumped a bit, startled by the unexpected question.

"What? Oh, hi Sylvie," Anri smiled weakly at her friend and roommate, detouring over to the couch. "Doctor Toshiro sent me home because I didn't feel well this morning. I spent most of it sleeping, so I feel a lot better now."

"Really?" Sylvie asked dryly. "You don't look like you feel better to me. Here, sit down and I'll make some coffee or something." The tall brown-haired woman jumped off the couch, and gently guided Anri to a seat on the cushions before bustling off into the small kitchen adjoining the living room. After a few minutes she returned with two cups of coffee and handed one to Anri before sitting down next to her. They sat for a while and sipped at their drinks until Anri set hers over on an endtable next to the couch, and glanced hesitantly at Sylvie.

"Um, Sylvie, can I ask you something?" Sylvie nodded, watching Anri over the rim of her cup. Anri fidgeted a bit, then blurted out her question. "Did...did I do anything strange last night?"

"Strange?" Sylvie echoed, the sudden ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. "Why? Is something wrong?"

"Well," Anri hesitated again. "I...uh...I can't really remember parts of last night," she said uncomfortably. "I can remember having dinner, listening to some music, and I seem to recall some dancing going on, but there's...gaps." She spread her hands helplessly, a beseeching look on her face. "And when I woke up this morning I had tape and yellow crepe paper stuck in my hair. I tried explaining it all to Doctor Toshiro this morning, but I couldn't. Then he started chuckling, and he said I'd better take the day off." The young green-haired woman frowned a bit. "He also said something about not partying so hard the next time. What did he mean? What next time?" Sylvie laughed softly as she set aside her own cup.

"You were more than a bit drunk last night, Anri," Sylvie told her gently, "that's all; we all were it seems."

"Drunk?!" Anri went wide-eyed. "But how?! I didn't even finish the glass of wine that we had with dinner!"

"I saw Priss a bit earlier in the day," Sylvie told her. "She told me that she'd spiked the punch before it got brought up to the apartment. That's why everyone started acting a bit strange last night." She laughed softly again. "Bert wasn't too happy with her about that, apparently; he was refusing to get out of bed this morning because he felt sick, and he was threatening to get her back. She didn't look too worried, though."

"But why'd she do it in the first place?" Anri wanted to know.

"She figured everyone needed to relax a bit, and could use some help," Sylvie explained, then grinned. "And I think everyone was certainly having fun last night, although whether they knew it or not at the time is a good question."

"Fun?" Anri echoed, making a grimace of displeasure. "What's so fun about feeling sick later on? And how can it be fun if you can't remember what you did at the time?"

"I don't know," Sylvie admitted candidly, grinning. "I asked Priss the same thing, but I never did get an answer. She mumbled something about never claiming that it made sense in the first place, and changed the subject." Anri grinned back, then sobered.

"Okay then...what did I do?" Anri repeated her earlier question, but appeared to be bracing herself for the worst this time. Sylvie told her about her karaoke performance, and Anri flushed bright red for a few moments. She began to laugh as Sylvie elaborated on some of the reactions her 'costume' had engendered.

"Poor Bert," she giggled, "it just wasn't his night, was it?"

"Don't worry," Sylvie told her dryly, "he'd lost a fair number of his hang-ups by later in the evening; when Linna started a card game that somehow turned into strip poker, he wasn't even flinching." Anri laughed even harder at that.

"Did he lose anything?" she asked when she'd regained control of herself.

"I've got his sweater," Sylvie grinned. "I'm going to wear it around later in the week and see if he's got the nerve to try and get it back."

"That's mean, Sylvie," Anri admonished, then spoiled the effect by breaking up into another fit of giggles. "Can I watch when you do?"

"Certainly," Sylvie smiled, a wicked glint coming into her eyes. "The more the merrier."

Sylia sat at a console in the data control room, aimlessly drumming a pen on a notepad as she stared contemplatively into space, frowning a little. She hadn't had much luck trying to concentrate on her work for some reason. She'd certainly recovered enough from her indisposition of the morning to be able to focus again, but it eluded her, staying just out of reach. It was mildly annoying, actually.

There was a restless, anxious feeling building in her, and she didn't like the premonitions she was getting from it. She supposed some of the reports she was getting from Fargo might be a contributing factor, but there was no single source for her anxiety, and that galled her. She'd never been overly bothered by amorphous, ephemeral worries before, so why had it started to affect her now?

A tentative knock on the door attracted her attention, and she swiveled her chair towards the door as it eased open a bit, and a familiar face peeked around the corner.

"Um, Sylia? Can I talk to you for a few minutes?" Nene's eyes were full of uncertainty, and her entire demeanor was agitated. Evidently, something was wrong, Sylia noted to herself.

"Certainly," Sylia gave her a welcoming smile. "I'm not busy at the moment." She set her pad and pen aside and logged herself out of the computer system as the younger woman opened the door fully and stepped into the room. "Pull up a chair," Sylia suggested as the young red-head looked around, "I presume you just came from work, so you must be tired."

Nene nodded, and dragged a chair from another console across the floor. Sylia tried not to wince at the squeal the legs scraping on the floor tiles produced and gave Nene her full attention as she sank into her chair with a grateful sigh. Sylia waited patiently, folding her hands in her lap as Nene fidgeted in her chair for a few moments, looking at the floor and biting her lip as if deciding how to broach whatever the subject was that she wanted to discuss. She finally sighed and lifted a troubled, green-eyed gaze to meet Sylia's.

"I had a sort of strange conversation at work today," she told Sylia, then hesitated for an instant again, "and I'm not really sure what I should do now."

"Tell me what happened," Sylia replied simply. "We'll decide what to do after that."

Nene took a deep breath and proceeded to outline her somewhat clandestine talk with Leon in the cafeteria. Sylia listened intently, trying to read Nene's emotional state at the same time. It was obvious that she was a bit disturbed by the turn of events, but there was something else there as well, almost like growing defiance, although defiance of what Sylia couldn't tell.

"I told him I'd think about it," Nene finished, "and I haven't been able to think of anything else since then."

"Do you know why he suddenly asked you?" Sylia asked directly.

"Well, I haven't been showing off, if that's what you mean," Nene replied slowly. "I've always been pretty careful at work not to give too much away...but I guess he noticed anyway." She paused a moment to think that over. "He might've asked because I have bugged him about the occasional case a time or two," she said dubiously, "but I don't see how he could've drawn a conclusion about my computer ability based on that."

"Well, he only has suspicion to go on so far, from what you've told me," Sylia mused. "The question now, is what do you intend to do? Are you going to accept the offer?" She looked at Nene with a clear and direct gaze, her brown eyes totally serious. Nene flushed a bit and looked away, as if caught at something.

"I don't know," she replied honestly. "I mean, I like the job I have now, but..." she squirmed in her chair a bit.

"But you're bored," Sylia supplied, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Yes! No! I mean...I don't know," Nene repeated helplessly, floundering around as she tried to justify herself. "It's okay at times, but at others it's really frustrating." She gave Sylia an imploring look. "I'm not going anywhere though, Sylia; I'm not doing anything except filing someone else's reports, and occasionally getting drafted for traffic duty." She made a face at that, remembering some very long shifts of handing out tickets. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life stuck in the support staff."

"Then why don't you try it out?" Sylia suggested. Nene suddenly looked stricken.

"Because I don't want to jeopardize what I do for the Knight Sabers," she replied, wringing her hands together agitatedly. "I like what we do as the Knight Sabers, and I can still get information for us where I am now a lot easier than if I move up to somewhere where I'm more visible. It's easier to hide my hacking when I'm in a large group of people than if I get into a small specialized department."

"Nene," Sylia said gently, "you don't have to subjugate your career aspirations to the demands of the group. You're free to advance however you wish; I'm not going to tell you how to direct your life." She smiled. "I'd actually be a bit worried if you weren't interested in Leon's offer; you've always been a bit ambitious where the ADP is concerned."

"Really?" Nene's eyes brightened, and she appeared relieved. "You don't mind? I mean, I felt sort of guilty for thinking about it..."

"I don't mind," the leader of the Knight Sabers assured her. "I think it's a good opportunity for you, and I know you well enough to know that you'll be careful not to give yourself away." She paused for a moment, regarding Nene thoughtfully. "Actually," she continued, "you might be in a better position to get access to critical information if you take this new position; nobody would question you about accessing it if you're supposed to be investigating something. You'd still have to be careful, though," she added as an afterthought.

"Oh, I will be!" Nene was suddenly bubbling with enthusiasm. "Thanks, Sylia!" Nene giggled, then, suddenly sober, cried, "Oh, I'm late!" as she glanced at her wristwatch.

"Late? After last night, you're going out again already?" Sylia's abused stomach flopped again, and she shuddered mentally at the thought.

"Well, yeah," Nene replied, a little confused at Sylia's reaction. "Linna and Anri and Sylvie and I are taking Priss out to dinner to celebrate her birthday. Want to come along?"

"No, thank you," Sylia replied with a sickly smile. "Just remember not to get too carried away," she admonished as they stood up together.

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing," Nene deadpanned, then giggled again at the look of consternation that appeared on Sylia's face at her choice of words. "I'll be careful," she promised before turning and almost skipping cheerily from the room.

"God, how I hate when people say that to me!" Sylia muttered to herself, shaking her head.

THE NEXT NIGHT....

The night hung inky-black curtains of dampness across the sprawling city. In several locations, faintly glowing streetlights and signs tried to pierce the murky fog that was cloaking the city in darkness, without notable success. Cars moved cautiously through the streets and highways, carefully navigating the tangled thoroughfares as their drivers tried to get home without mishaps. The thick night air seemed to muffle sound itself, and the normally boisterous city was muted, as if it was waiting for something to happen. It was an unsettling night, full of semi-palpable menace.

A crimson beam tore through the darkness, briefly casting harsh shadows over the dark side street; a blue combat boomer collapsed into a smoking heap as its chest was blown out through its back in a spray of nutrient fluids and armour shards. A silver-and-blue garbed hardsuit advanced towards the smoking remains, its helmet swiveling around as the suit carefully probed the darkness for any new foes. Finding none, it sighed, partly in relief, and partly in annoyance; he'd been hoping that there would still be a couple of boomers to thump.

"SkyKnight to Saber Prime," Bert radioed. "I've just mopped up the last one; I think that accounts for them all."

"Good work," Sylia Stingray's voice replied over the helmet communications channel. "Any problems?"

"Not at this end," SkyKnight replied, looking around again. "It's awfully quiet out here, though. I.... hello? Hello?!" SkyKnight reached up and tapped the antenna wings on his helmet irritably, as the signal from Sylia suddenly disintegrated into loud, squealing static. "Sylia? Anybody there?!" he tried again, switching to the backup frequency; no response. Static hissed malevolently at him from that channel as well. Bert frowned at his helmet display as his suit computer declared every system fully operational. If everything was fully operational, then why had his communicator just died?

Uneasy suspicions began crawling around his mind as he stood there, still trying to re-establish communications and running systems checks; he'd never had an equipment malfunction before, not as immediate and as total as this one seemed to be. At least, one system had never just suddenly quit functioning without warning.

The surrounding darkness suddenly felt oppressive and menacing as he realized he was momentarily isolated from his friends. Common sense abruptly re-asserted itself, banishing the momentary flash of fear he'd felt; the smart thing to do would be to get back to the rest of the team right now, before anything happened.

SkyKnight stepped forwards, his flight wings snapping into extension on his back. The whine of jet turbines being brought to full power began to pulse through the air. As he ran through a last, quick preflight check, something clanged in the darkness behind him.

As the silver-and-blue Knight Saber started to spin around, a long, snake-like metal tentacle flashed out of the darkness, and wrapped itself around his armoured neck. A second tentacle followed it at almost the same time, wrapping around the legs of the startled hardsuit at knee level. SkyKnight was easily jerked off of his feet by the tentacles to hang suspended in mid-air, in front of a large, dark grey mech. The mech was a four-legged robot, with a large cannon assembly hanging from the front. As SkyKnight struggled to free himself, the cannon began lining up on him, and an ominous blue glow began to form in the gaping maw of the gun.

"SkyKnight!! Do you read me?! SkyKnight!! Damn it!!" Sylia swore in frustration, angrily shutting off the squealing channel, spinning around towards Nene's red and pink armour suit. The sensor antennae built into the slender red-headed girl's suit were all extended, and the suit was humming audibly with the effort and energy it was putting into scanning for SkyKnight. As Sylia turned, the familiar blue and green shapes of Priss and Linna came into range, dusting themselves off from the brief scuffle that had just ended.

"It's no good, Sylia," Nene reported before Sylia could ask. "I can't get any kind of signal at all. There's some kind of a massive jamming field around; it just kicked in, and it's blocking out everything. I can barely detect our own hardsuit transponders, and we're standing right next to each other."

"Do you know which direction he was broadcasting from?" Priss queried, stepping forward and taking a quick look around again. She needn't have bothered; the mangled, smoking remains of the ten C-55E boomers they'd fought earlier weren't going anywhere, and there was nothing else out there to see except the night. Nene nodded.

"He was transmitting from northwest of here, a kilometer or so out," she replied. "I can't really be sure if he's moved or not since then, though."

"Well then let's get the hell going!! What are we waiting for?!" Priss snapped. With that, her jump jets propelled her off into the darkness.

"Priss!" Sylia tried calling her back for a moment, but it was a useless attempt; the blue hardsuit was already far ahead of them. "Come on!" Sylia ordered. "Let's not get split up any further than we are now!" It looks like it's going to be one of those nights, Sylia sighed to herself. Why could nothing ever work out simply, without all the extra hassles, anymore?!

The three remaining Knight Sabers sprang into the air on quietly hissing jets, and sped off into the darkness after Priss.

"Damn you, you godforsaken bastard!" SkyKnight snarled under his breath, thrashing around again and trying to pry loose the slowly constricting coil around his upper torso and neck. It was no good; he couldn't get any leverage at all to use his hardsuit strength to get free. Using his jets was also out of the question; the mech had far too much mass to budge.

The tentacles gripping him seemed to be covered with some kind of high-tensile steel compound, and the actuators were fantastically strong, putting some serious pressure on his suit; it was getting hard to breathe as the cable around his neck began crushing the armour. He couldn't even begin to get it pried loose from his throat. He also couldn't figure out just what the strange mech holding him was after; despite having armed its weapons, it hadn't tried to kill him outright. Not yet, anyway.

As he vainly wrenched at the clinging cables again, SkyKnight suddenly realized that the mech holding him looked vaguely familiar. It was very large, with four segmented legs. The body looked reminiscent of a futuristic space fighter, except that there was no transparent cockpit canopy, just a swiveling sensor pod mounted on the front. All in all, the mech looked like a giant crustacean. It took a minute or two, but he finally recognized it: The GD-42?! Impossible! Damn it, what the hell was going on here?!

"SkyKnight to Saber Prime!!" Bert tried transmitting again. "I need some help now, damnit!!" There was no response to his frantic entreaty; static snarled menacingly at him from the helmet comm.

Beginning to panic now, SkyKnight deployed his right-hand lightsaber grip, preparatory to slashing through the cables. As the handgrip extended, though, whoever was piloting the mech noticed the action, and took steps to prevent its prey escaping.

"AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGHHH!!" With a brutally wrenching jolt, the two tentacles snapped the silver hardsuit between them into a taut, stretched-out position parallel to the ground. At the same time, one of the mech's legs swept out and up in a devastating kick, slamming into the silver Knight Saber's spine, and bending him backwards around it as the tentacles maintained a tight hold on him.

White light flared agonizingly in Bert's vision, and his breath deserted him. Stunned and gasping, he was unable to do anything to lessen the impacts that followed. The mech released his upper torso, and proceeded to use the grip it had on his legs to flick him through a nearby brick wall, twice, in different locations, like someone cracking a whip. Loud clangs and crunching noises sounded in his ears as the numbing collisions with the wall battered him into semi-consciousness. Sparks flickered through his sight, and darkness began edging his perceptions; his suit hadn't been breached, but the physical shock alone was deadly enough to cause serious harm.

There was another clang as the mech dropped the silver Knight Saber to the pavement for a moment. He flopped around on the ground awkwardly, gasping and coughing, fighting to get his wind back. Had he been able to think clearly, SkyKnight could have used the opportunity to escape, but he was too groggy from the pummeling he'd received to even try.

As he automatically tried to roll over and get up, one of the metallic tentacles slithered down again, and wrapped itself around his arms and upper body, tightly pinning his arms to his sides. The tail end of the tentacle again encircled his armoured neck and applied a tight choke-hold. The second tentacle entwined itself around his legs.

Its prey thus securely restrained, the greyish mech lifted the battered silver hardsuit up, and carried it off into the darkness.

"Whatever it was, it must have taken Bert with it," Linna noted quietly. Her helmet swiveled around as she looked around at the crumbled masonry near where a dead C-55E lay splattered across the pavement. Huge holes were in a nearby wall, but it was obvious that they had been made by physical impacts. Large fragments lay scattered all over, but there was no sign of a firefight; whatever had grabbed SkyKnight had managed to do it without creating a disturbance, and that by itself was disconcerting.

"He was definitely here," Priss declared. "Look at this!" She pointed, and Sylia followed the direction she was indicating; silver paint had been scraped off onto the stone of some of the masonry and brickwork.

"Damn it," Sylia muttered to herself as worry intensified. She hoped he was all right, but couldn't shake the feeling that they'd better locate him, and fast. She glanced skywards for a moment. "Sylvie?" she radioed the distant KnightWing. "Anything on your end?"

"Negative," came the reply. "I can barely see your transponders on the scopes, and Bert just isn't showing up at all."

"Roger that. Keep scanning." Sylia sighed, stifling the urge to swear. Why did everything always have to be difficult?!

"Sylia!" Nene called, beckoning with a hand. She was standing out and away from the damaged building, her posture indicating that she was looking at the ground. Sylia, flanked by Priss and Linna sprinted over. Nene indicated a large, vaguely greasy-looking stain on the pavement where something had eaten into the concrete.

"That stuff matches one of the chemical compounds from that shoulder gun of his," Nene explained. "If it's a steady leak and it lasts, we can probably track him with it."

"Do it," Sylia ordered. "We've got to find him. Fast."

"You open his goddamn helmet!! I'm not touching that thing until I'm bloody sure it's safe!!"

"He's trussed up like a turkey, you spineless dipshit! He can't do anything to you!"

"If you're so friggin' sure, YOU open it then!!"

Bert opened his eyes, wincing as sharp pains lanced into his head from where his neck had been wrenched around. The view in his helmet viewscreen was upside-down, and after a moment, he realized that whoever his captors were, they'd hung him up by the heels. He'd have to get loose quick, and then get the hell out of wherever it was that he now found himself.

As SkyKnight started to squirm, the horizon in his helmet screen flipped right side up, and sudden crushing pressure on his suit immobilized him. He realized that the mech was still holding him captive, and the voices that he'd heard must have come from down on the ground. He had started to try to over-power the tentacles gripping him, when the end wrapped around his neck and helmet suddenly squeezed and twisted, as if the mech was trying to pry his head off.

"I'd suggest you quit trying to escape," one of the voices he'd heard earlier commented. "You'd save yourself a lot of pain if you do. Are you gonna behave now?"

"S-s-screw y-yourself, y-you asshole," SkyKnight gritted, trying desperately to get enough air as the pain from his abused neck began to mount in intensity and his hardsuit began to creak ominously from the stress. Damn it, if only he could just get enough slack to get a hand free...

"I'll take that as a yes, then," the voice replied. SkyKnight's stomach seemed to flip briefly as the mech whipped him downward, slamming him roughly into the ground. The cable arms twisted around, and he found himself forced into a kneeling position on the asphalt, still securely bound by the steel cables. The mech quit trying to use his head like a champagne cork, and he sighed in relief to himself as the pain and discomfort receded. He looked around, finally interested in just who his captors were.

Two men in dark blue or black clothes, wearing light helmets with semi-opaque faceplates that made identification impossible, stood several feet away, near a large, nondescript transport truck. It looked like they were in an old abandoned warehouse somewhere, but there were plenty of derelict buildings in MegaTokyo, so that didn't give him any helpful information. A grimy set of fluorescent light fixtures provided sickly illumination from nearby, and a battery-powered lamp glowed cheerily by the truck. One man held a large rifle-like device, and the other held a small gadget that looked like a portable scanner. The man with the scanner was pointing it at him, frowning at the readings.

"This damn thing is useless," the scanner wielder spat, stuffing the offending device into a belt pouch. "I can't get a useful thing out of it; we'd get more by looking at him visually." The rifle-carrier shrugged.

"We're supposed to wait anyway," he replied. "Relax; he's not going anywhere."

"Confident, aren't you?" SkyKnight put in. The two men looked at him briefly, then ignored him. That, in a way, was worse than being captured.

Bert ran a quick system check of his suit as he sat there helplessly; it helped keep worry at bay, and he wasn't sure just how badly he'd been worked over anyway. His body said that it had indeed been a severe beating; he ached all over.

His stomach plummeted as a glaring red message flashed onto his viewscreen. The rough treatment had damaged the heat sink system that provided all of the cooling for his suit systems; he now had maybe thirty-five percent of the cooling capacity needed for trouble-free operation. That his shoulder-mounted weapons had been wrenched from their mounts had only added to the internalized damage. He now ran the risk of overheating and blowing out his suit powerplant if he tried anything beyond just fleeing.

Bert began to sweat as he realized that whatever he tried now was going to have to work the first time; the likelihood his powerplant blowing wouldn't allow any second chances. And it stood a good chance of failure anyway; he couldn't avoid using any weaponry to get away, and his weapons systems were by far the hottest parts of the hardsuit.

SkyKnight tentatively tensed himself to see how attentive the robot was. Very attentive, he noted a moment later, wincing as the cables tightened, then loosened in a silent warning. Shit! Bert swore mentally. In all the tight spots he'd been in during his career, this one looked the most hopeless, and it was a little hard not to panic. He swore at himself several times, in scorchingly unflattering terms for getting caught with his guard down in the first place. Damn it, one would almost think that by now, given everything that had happened in the past, he'd keep a warier eye out for trouble, especially since he knew that there were people gunning for the Knight Sabers.

As he sat there stewing over his predicament, slow and steady footsteps sounded out in the darkness beyond the warehouse door, drawing nearer, and there was the dull thud of someone extremely heavy shadowing the lighter footsteps. Two people, then. SkyKnight tried once more to see if he could get a hand free, and resisted the impulse to cry out in combined frustration and anger as the mech's tentacles again tightened slightly.

A light-coloured shape appeared in the darkness, gradually resolving into a tall, well-built man in a grey suit with blond hair and steely-blue eyes. Immediately behind him walked a bulky, blue-armoured C-55 boomer, evidently acting as a bodyguard. SkyKnight recognized Hollister immediately; his muscles tensed and he tried to break free once more, the sudden urge to physically dismember his nemesis taking over.

SkyKnight managed to suppress an enraged shout, as the tentacles binding him tightened yet again. Red waves of pain swam through his sight, and after a moment of infuriated thrashing, the silver Knight Saber relaxed again, wanting to cry and howl in fury at being held helpless. A noise suspiciously like a snarl did escape his bound form, though, and he glared at Hollister, the man who'd once sat smirking and joking while he'd been writhing in total agony.

That, combined with everything that had happened when the rest of the Knight Sabers had gone after him, made SkyKnight want to kill the grey-suited man as slowly and as excruciatingly as possible. He wanted Hollister to suffer as greatly as everyone he'd injured had.

Caution suddenly cut through the veil of anger running rampant through his mind, as the sudden strangeness of the way he'd been captured struck him. It had been very smoothly and quietly accomplished, as if his captors didn't want the rest of the Knight Sabers involved. A vague, amorphous suspicion of what was going to happen began to form in the back of his mind, and cold, clammy tendrils of fear ran down his backbone.

"Excellently done, gentlemen," Hollister's suave, cool voice complimented the two guards standing nearby. The grey-suited man ran an appraising gaze over the silver hardsuit. "We've acquired exactly what we were after, with no problems and no fuss."

"Thank you, sir," they chorused. Hollister didn't acknowledge them further, but walked over to stand a few feet away from the restrained SkyKnight, the blue boomer shadowing him.

"Mind telling me what this is all about?" SkyKnight asked, trying to sound like he didn't know what was going on.

"Don't play innocent," Hollister advised coolly. "I think you know exactly what this is about. You're one of the Knight Sabers, SkyKnight I believe is the sobriquet you use, and I believe I have some unfinished business with you."

"I still don't know what you're talking about. I'd remember meeting scum like you if I'd....AAARGGH!!" SkyKnight's voice cut off, turning into a pained yell as the mech tried turning his spine into a pretzel, bending him over backwards. The pressure eased, and the tentacles forced him again to a kneeling position. Hollister had an amused smirk on his face, and Bert's gauntleted hands clenched in helpless fury as the smug bastard shook his head.

"Let me tell you a story," Hollister began in a folksy manner. He pulled up a nearby crate and sat down. "Here's the condensed version: A few months ago, my partners and I acquired some sexaroids for a project we were working on. At the same time, we ran into someone who'd been helping them, but we couldn't identify him. A short while later, he escaped, helping the sexaroids to escape at the same time, and in the process he destroyed one of our temporary operating locations. Some time after that, my partners and I found ourselves confronted by the Knight Sabers, whom we'd never inconvenienced in any way whatsoever. They trashed yet another of our operating locations, and I found myself wondering just why they'd taken an interest in our little business." Hollister paused, looking thoughtful. SkyKnight remained silent, sudden dread of what was coming gnawing at his guts.

"I checked back on the history of the Knight Sabers, what there was of it," Hollister continued, "and found out that they'd been involved with a sexaroid-related incident before: that D.D. Battlemover fiasco that SDPC botched big-time. The coincidence was a little too neat for my tastes; further checking revealed that no remains of the battlemover pilot had ever been found. That, of course, led to the conclusion that one of the sexaroids we'd acquired had been the one involved with the battlemover, which explained why the Knight Sabers intervened: they evidently considered her their property for some reason. However, since we were very secretive in how we acquired the 'roid, there was no way for them to have known it was us," Hollister paused, staring intently at the now rigid silver suit. "No way, that is, unless one of them had been involved earlier. Since their membership at the time was four women and one man, it wasn't a great leap of logic to conclude that the red-haired irritant we'd dealt with before must be SkyKnight."

"You're smoking drugs, buddy," SkyKnight said, managing to briefly ignore the sudden dryness in his mouth and the tight feeling in his guts that had appeared as he'd listened to Hollister. "I don't know anybody with red hair." Oh God, somebody had finally figured out who he was, or thought they had.

"Go ahead, keep bluffing," Hollister said smoothly. "I know that when we pry that helmet off you, we're going to find a red-haired pain-in-the-ass inside that suit, and then we can really get down to business."

"You went to all this trouble just to find out who I am?" SkyKnight stalled, mentally bracing himself for some kind of action. He couldn't just sit there and let them expose him; his mind raced frantically, trying to find something to try.

"Not quite," the blond-haired man replied. "We were interested in your suit technology, and this was just icing on the cake, really. If I'm right, and I know I am, then we're going to get a great deal of satisfaction out of wringing what you know out of you. This time I'll be able to do it properly, and you're going to sing like a canary when I'm done."

"You're out of luck, then. I can't carry a tune in a bucket."

"Fine. Make stupid jokes," Hollister sighed. "You won't be laughing much longer, I promise you." With that, the grey suited man stepped forwards, his hands reaching towards SkyKnight's visor. SkyKnight jerked his head away, and tried yet again to get free, but the cables entwining him squeezed him into immobility. The pressure was so great he could barely breathe, even with his armour's protection. Hollister's mouth twitched in an almost-smile at his effort.

"You can't get away," he informed Bert. "Just accept it." His hands grasped the red-eyeslotted visor, and tried to open it. Hollister frowned as it remained stubbornly closed. He stepped closer to the imprisoned hardsuit, braced himself, and reefed on SkyKnight's helmet again, pulling up on the visor with one hand, shoving down on the suit with the other. Other than bending Bert's head back, he couldn't budge the helmet.

"Open that damn visor," Hollister ordered flatly, stepping back as an irritated expression at being thwarted appeared. "Open it now, or we'll tear it off."

"Screw yourself, jackass," SkyKnight retorted defiantly. He gave quick thanks that he'd managed to talk Sylia into adding locks to the helmet visors. Trying to find out who was inside their hardsuits was a favourite pre-occupation of a lot of their enemies, and sealing the visors partially eliminated that risk. Now the hardsuit helmets could only be opened by the suit's wearer, or another Knight Saber with the proper access codes.

"Fine, be obstinate," Hollister snapped. He made a curt gesture to the boomer nearby. "We'll just rip it off, then." The towering biomechanoid clanked forwards, red eyes flaring balefully.

"No!! Goddamn it, NO!!" SkyKnight started thrashing again, ignoring the pain that began to build as the mech tried to control him. The boomer would probably break his neck trying to pull off the helmet while he was helpless, armour or no armour. It was do-or-die time, Bert realized; this was his last chance to try to escape. Gritting his teeth, he threw full power to all his suit systems, then gave the emergency overdrive command to his suit computer.

Instantly, power hummed and crackled through the suit's myomeric musculature, temporarily tripling its output. The interior of his hardsuit quickly became uncomfortably warm, almost hot, as his powerplant began to overheat from the sudden demand. Bert threw everything he had into one last heave; the tentacle holding his arms at his sides sheared with a protesting metallic shriek and a flurry of sparks. A blue-white energy blade sizzled into existence split seconds later as SkyKnight slashed off the end of the other cable binding his legs.

A tremendous clang resounded in his ears as he was thrown backwards, past the grey mech towering over him, by a driving uppercut from the C-55.

The silver Knight Saber rolled, twisting desperately to his feet as the C-55 charged him, intent on finishing him off. Four crackling red energy beams blasted through the air, and bisected the biomechanoid, dropping it instantly into a smoking heap. SkyKnight quickly dodged a leg swipe from the mech, and began sprinting for what he thought was the exit, ignoring everything else except the need to escape certain disaster. As he ran, Bert was prayed fervently that his suit would hold out just a little bit longer.

It didn't.

There was a sudden power surge from his malfunctioning systems, and the suit actuators burned out along with most of the other essential systems. SkyKnight staggered, tripped, and fell heavily to the floor with a ringing bang as the suit suddenly became dead weight on his limbs; he saw stars briefly as his faceplate smacked into the concrete flooring. Without the suit motive systems, he was left wearing nearly two-hundred pounds of armour plating and circuitry that had to be moved manually. Given time, he could still move, but time was a luxury he didn't have.

"Well, well, well," Hollister's voice said contemplatively from somewhere behind him. "Technical difficulties? That's too bad." There was a grunt of effort, and he felt himself being turned over to lie on his back, staring up at the rafter-laced ceiling overhead. A smirking Hollister towered over him, the grey mech looming even larger behind him. The smirk disappeared when Hollister, bending over, again tried to open his visor, and found it still sealed shut.

"Stubborn, aren't you?" he observed. Sighing, he straightened up, turning towards the armed men standing nearby; they'd been caught by surprise by the sudden flurry of events, and hadn't had a chance to move. "We'll have to improvise; get me one of the demolition charges, with a timer."

Inside his suit, Bert began to really sweat, as fear began shredding his mind.

"Sylia!!!" Priss hissed angrily. "What the hell are we waiting for?! We've got to get him out of there now!" She pulled back from the shattered windowframe she'd been peering through; through the aperture, the Knight Sabers could see a silver-clad form laying on the floor, with a large mech standing menacingly over him. They'd arrived in time to see his last-ditch escape attempt, and were now in a quandary over how to proceed.

"Shut up and let me think!!" Sylia shot back tightly as her mind raced. "We can't just charge in with our guns blazing."

"They're gonna either kill him or find out who he is, damnit!!"

"I know that!!" Sylia snarled, rounding angrily on Priss' blue hardsuit. "But we've got to have some kind of a plan first!"

"Think fast, then," Nene's voice cut in, a slight quaver evident in it. "They've just put something on his suit that my sensors say is a bomb."

Sylia swore softly to herself, feeling time steal away from her like sand through her fingers. Part of her did want to just charge in like Priss wanted to, but a blind charge wouldn't help SkyKnight; they had to have some kind of plan....

"Sylia, what do you want us to do?" The note of urgency in Linna's question drove the fear and concern from her mind, leaving a fatalistic resignation in its place. So much for not blindly charging in.

"All right," Sylia said crisply, "this is how we're going to play this: Linna.."

"This is what's called a 'shaped charge'," Hollister explained, as he bent down and placed a flat, black, rectangular object on SkyKnight's chest armour. The device stuck immediately, as if being held in place by some kind of adhesive. By tilting his head, Bert could see a digital LED readout on the end of the gadget. The timer started running as he watched.

"Marvelous invention," Hollister proclaimed, stepping back. "A shaped charge directs most, if not all, of its force into one blast in one direction, sparing the surroundings any damage. It's directed at your chest right now, by the way."

"Great," SkyKnight croaked through a now thoroughly dry mouth. Somebody help me, please! a terrified voice pleaded in the back of his mind. I really don't want to die, especially not like this!

"Of course," the blond-haired man suggested casually, "you could just open your helmet for us, and then we could shut it off, sparing you a very unpleasant death; I don't really know if the blast will penetrate your armour plating, but the physical shock from the concussion will turn your vital organs into thick jelly. I don't imagine that feels very nice, although it could be an interesting experiment," Hollister smirked.

SkyKnight wavered for a moment, almost surrendering as the prospect of his imminent demise loomed very large and ugly in his mind. He wanted to live, desperately so, but he didn't really believe Hollister was telling the truth. At the same time, however, he didn't want to go through another torture session, which was what would undoubtedly happen. He also couldn't betray his friends; if they got a positive ID on him, then there was a very real possibility of someone tracking down the rest of the Knight Sabers based on that information.

"Go to hell," SkyKnight replied wearily, letting his helmeted head drop back to lie on the floor. "You're not getting anything from me, you bastard."

"Suit yourself," Hollister shrugged carelessly. "We can ID the remains, then." Turning, he walked away, out of his field of vision.

"Damn it, somebody help me..." Bert whispered to himself as he imagined the timer on the bomb spinning mercilessly, counting down the seconds until he met with oblivion. It couldn't end like this! At least getting killed in a fight with a boomer had some vestiges of dignity to it. Anything had to be preferable to sweating the last five....four minutes of his life away because some sadistic bastard wanted him to crack.

It was more than his own life on the line though, and that was about the only thought that was keeping him from giving in as the dwindling numbers on the bomb timer flickered away. If it was time for him to cash in, he could at least make sure that the Knight Sabers didn't go down with him.

"You don't have much time left, you know," Hollister's voice mocked from somewhere off to his left.

A faint flicker of anger suddenly burned in the back of his mind, igniting a few coals of stubborn defiance; all right, even if the explosives did kill him, at least he'd still be trying to move when the bomb went off. He wasn't going to just lie there and let the smart-mouthed bastard spout off.

Bert swallowed against a dry mouth again as he tried moving his dead suit, but couldn't get the leverage necessary to roll over to a crawling position; his suit was just too bulky and awkward when unpowered to be easily moved.

Maybe he could get a hand up to the bomb and remove it instead? Gritting his teeth, SkyKnight worked at moving his arm while sweat poured down his face. With agonizing slowness, the silver-armoured arm began to lift and bend as he clumsily moved a hand towards the device on his chest.

"NOW!!!" The sharp command echoed in the cavernous warehouse unexpectedly, startling him.

Two streaks of colour, white and green, flashed over top of him, propelled by hissing thrusters as they whipped through his sight. A moment later, the thunder of gunfire, and the hissing and crackling of laser beams filled the air. There were several explosions, and a choked scream that subsided into an agonized moaning.

"Son of a bitch!!" he heard Hollister's voice suddenly howl over the din. "Get them damn it!!"

The roar of heavier weapons fire suddenly drowned out all other noise; evidently, the mech had joined the fray, as flashes of blue energy began lancing through the increasingly smoke-clouded warehouse.

"Shit!!" Bert snarled out loud as he tried desperately again to move. He was a sitting duck out in the open like he was, and the bomb timer was still running. He had two minutes left before things got messy, for him anyway. His fumbling gauntlet was unable to detach the explosive sitting on him though; it was stuck tight. Damn.

That left trying to get away as his only real option; with a grunting heave that sent screaming waves of pain racing through his muscles, he managed to roll over and flop onto his stomach as the raucous clamour of battle continued to racket around him.

Panting for breath, the silver Knight Saber began to laboriously try and crawl towards where he thought the warehouse exit was. Dimly the thought crossed his mind that he had a rough idea of what Atlas must have felt like while carrying the sky on his shoulders. Damn it, he could really use some help here...!!

"Hang on, we're here," a familiar voice came to his ears, as he felt somebody clamp a solid grip on his suit and lift him up. After what seemed like an eternity, Priss succeeded in carting his dead weight around the corner of the doorway, out of sight and out of the warehouse into the loading yard beyond. With a heave, the blue-hardsuited woman flipped him around so that he was sitting propped against the wall. "That good enough, Nene?"

"Yup, now just give me a sec...I've got to get a look at it," Nene replied, as her red-pink suit knelt in front of him. Reaching out, she gingerly examined the explosive stuck on the silver hardsuit as her suit sensors hummed, scanning intently.

"I have never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life," SkyKnight told the two of them feelingly, as an intense wave of relief spread through him. It died quickly when Nene swore, something the young red-head didn't normally do.

"I can't defuse it in time, Priss!" Nene called over her shoulder, sounding vaguely like she was going to panic right there; he couldn't really blame her, since he felt the same way. "It's a shielded electronic mechanism, and I can't jam it. Even if I could get it open, I'd need a lot more time to defuse it than we've got!" Bert glanced down at the device, dreading what he was going to see.

Sixty seconds to go.

Sylia flipped through the air again, boosting herself into the rafters of the warehouse as streamers of cannon fire from the grey mech below lashed out at her hurtling shape. Gritting her teeth, she flipped around in mid-air, hitting a roofbeam feet-first, bending her legs to absorb the shock. Without losing any momentum, she immediately launched herself into another flying dive to another section of the warehouse as heavy slugs tore through the air she'd briefly occupied.

Sweat streamed down her face as she twisted and dodged through the smoky air. Her suit wasn't really designed with these kinds of acrobatics in mind, but staying in constant motion was about the only way to avoid getting nailed by that mech down there. It was incredibly fast on its feet, and with its weapons. Its combat ability was nothing to sneer at either; while tracking Sylia and trying to shoot her down, it was also keeping Linna busy with its secondary weapons systems. Somehow they had to disable it, even just temporarily...

Her mind racing, Sylia banked sharply on her flight pack, ducking behind yet another roofbeam as a crackling blue energy beam seared the air just behind her.

The flashing green shape of Linna's green hardsuit vaulted and somersaulted end over end across the warehouse floor, evading the coiling and snapping metal tentacles that were lashing out in an effort to snare her. She wasn't having a much easier time than Sylia was in staying out of harm's way, especially since the mech was using weaponry designed to foil her one advantage: mobility. If she got snagged by those tentacles, it was game over for her.

Panting for breath, the green-armoured Knight Saber bought herself a few seconds by diving behind a support pillar, rolling smoothly to her feet. She used those precious seconds to examine her foe while catching her breath, trying to see if she could isolate some weaknesses of the mech's design to exploit.

Her brief respite ended as the mech stepped around the pillar, snapping its tentacles towards her again while blasting another fusillade at her leader off in the distance.

"It's no good!" Priss grunted as she staggered backwards from SkyKnight. "I can't get a decent grip on the damn thing, and it's stuck tight. Shit!!" The blue hardsuit dropped to her knees beside him as she again pried at the bomb casing on his chest armour. "We've got to get it off him!!" Her voice sounded like she was on the verge of total panic. "Nene?! Can't you do anything?!"

"No!" came the agonized response as the red-pink hardsuit stood wringing gauntleted hands. "Burning out the timer is all that's left, and I didn't think I'd need the EMP cannon tonight!!"

"Well we've got to try something else!!" the blue hardsuit declared frantically, wrenching again at the black device. "Shit, it's gonna kill him!!"

"Shoot it off," Bert said wearily, dropping his head back against the wall. A kind of sorrowing resignation filled him as he sat there. There'd been a few things he'd liked to have had time to do....

"What?!" Priss and Nene exclaimed in perfect sync. "You're nuts!" Priss snapped. "That'll just ..."

"I'm screwed either way!!" SkyKnight snarled back. "If you don't try, it sure as hell will go off, and I'll be just as goddamn dead anyway!! SHOOT IT!!" The LED readout in the device on his chest clicked down with implacable finality. Fifteen seconds...fourteen....thirteen...

"Priss, for God's sake!" he pleaded. The blue hardsuited woman reluctantly raised her arm, placing the muzzle of her arm-cannon close to the side of the explosive casing as the weapon's capacitors began to whine urgently.

Six...five...four...

"Wait!" Nene suddenly shrieked. "Shoot the timing device!"

There was a brilliant, actinic flare of orange-red light.

"Sylia! I've got an idea!" Linna's voice crackled in her ears as she ducked yet another blast of gunfire from her mechanical assailant. Her own return fire glanced harmlessly off the slick grey armour of the mech as she shot upwards in another twisting flip through the hazy air.

"I'm listening," she panted into the comm channel. "But make it quick; we're going to have to retreat soon. I can't keep this up much longer."

"Can you get a shot at that thing's sensor pod on top?"

"Maybe," Sylia replied warily, watching as Linna backflipped a few times to get out of reach of the mech. Another laser blast tore through the air towards her, again forcing the white hardsuit to dodge aside behind a support beam. "It's not going to be easy to do, though."

"I'd noticed," came the dry reply, "but I need to get closer to that thing; under it, in fact."

"Under it?" Sylia rapidly analyzed the idea with cool precision. "You think it's got a soft underbelly?"

"That, or at least no weaponry that can get me while I'm under there," Linna agreed. "Everything on that thing is designed to attack to the front or the sides; I don't think they thought of somebody getting underneath it. I might be able to cripple it enough for us to get out of here without having to fight a running battle." The green hardsuited dancer ducked and gracefully spun away from another whipping tentacle. "If you shoot the sensors, that might give me enough of an opening to get in there."

"Okay, get ready then," Sylia replied tersely. "On the count of three..."

Linna tensed, licking her lips nervously as she kept just out of reach of the mech's writhing appendages. Even though her idea sounded reasonable, she was not nearly as sure about it as she'd have liked to be. Unfortunately, extended contemplation was a very distant luxury at the moment.

"One," Sylia's voice counted over the comm. Linna shook herself mentally, taking a deep breath as she cleared her mind. In her mind's eye, she rehearsed what she was about to attempt. It had to be perfect the first time; the war machine looming over her wouldn't allow room for error.

"Two." Linna skipped back another couple of steps as a steely tentacle lashed through the air again, and then poised herself to spring.

"THREE!" Sylia's voice cracked over the channel. As Linna surged forwards, she caught a glimpse of a white hardsuit erupting out of the smoky rafters overhead, dropping downwards in a spiraling power dive, twisting around streams of laser and projectile fire. That was all she had time to see, as she shot forwards on her jets, using their thrust in place of the normal run that would accompany her next move.

As she'd anticipated, the mech speared a pair of tentacles towards her; sweat broke out on her brow as she used her jet-generated momentum to vault forwards over the snapping cables into a handspring off the warehouse floor. The world whirled crazily as the athletic Knight Saber continued her forward cartwheeling, each flip avoiding the mech's grasp with mere centimeters to spare. Above her, she could hear the thunder of laser cannons, but couldn't tell whose they were.

An armour clad leg suddenly swept out towards her in a sideways swipe, and a wave of icy shock swept through the hardsuited dancer's mind; she hadn't expected it to do that! Reflexes and conditioning took over immediately after that initial shock; with utter coolness the green hardsuited woman vaulted forwards again as the leg sped towards her. Timing it perfectly, she somersaulted through the air over it, even briefly placing her hands on the metal appendage for a pivot point as it passed under her.

Panting hoarsely, Linna rolled to her feet, and then realized she'd made it; above her was a vast expanse of machinery and armour plating, supported by four crab-like legs. Whatever was piloting the mech seemed to realize that it now had a real threat to deal with, and began dancing the machine around, trying to get her out from underneath it. She almost snorted in amusement; given the complexity of some of the dance routines she choreographed and performed, keeping pace with a lumbering mechanical hulk was absurdly easy.

"Sylia, I made it!" she radioed, all the while keeping under her bizarre dance partner as it clanked around urgently. If it wasn't for the fact that a misstep might kill her, it might even have been fun. "I'm going to see if I can take it out from here."

"Finally!" Sylia rasped in reply, gulping in huge breaths as she shot backwards into the rafters again on her flight pack. Orange-red streamers of energy sliced through the air from her gauntlet cannons, laying down a cover fire for her retreat. "That thing almost had me a couple of times." She shot sideways abruptly, avoiding the raking beams the mech fired back at her.

"You okay?!" her friend's voice came back immediately.

"Scorched, but fine," the leader of the Knight Sabers assured her. "Just hurry up down there; my power reserves are nearly shot, and I don't know how much longer I can last." She took a quick glance at her once-white hardsuit; burn marks and scrapes from near-misses marked most of its surface. Well, diving in headfirst had seemed like a good idea at the time...

Sylia winced as an incautious movement rubbed her armour against the shallow gash on her left hip. An armour-piercing slug had torn through her armour plating, grazing her. Since she had to pay attention to what her foe was doing, she hadn't been able to check on how serious it was. At least it didn't feel like it was bleeding...

"Okay, Sylia!" Priss's voice blared over the comm frequency suddenly. "We're clear and we got rid of the bomb!"

"How is he....?" Sylia hated herself for doubting, but it had to be said.

"He's alive, but I won't vouch for his mental condition," Priss replied, a faint touch of dryness in her tone. "He's a bit .... shaken up right now. We've called Sylvie, so the KnightWing should be here shortly."

"Make sure she doesn't bring the plane within range of that mech," Sylia warned sharply.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," Sylvie's voice cut in, adding a moment later, "Trust me."

Sylia wasn't sure whether to laugh or start panicking.

"Right about .... there!" Linna jumped upwards, driving her knuckle bomber into the underbelly of the mech, aiming for what looked like some kind of control conduit. The metal plating covering the machine's innards blew apart in a very satisfying manner from the impact of the weapon, revealing the interior machinery as she dropped back to the pavement, again resuming her dangerous waltz with the combat machine as its movements became more frenzied in trying to oust her from such an advantageous position.

The green-hardsuited woman examined the exposed wires, circuitry, and other unidentifiable gadgets as she almost absently kept pace with the mech. She wasn't an engineer, but it looked like this particular conduit ran from a control center to one of the legs. If she could cripple the mech by damaging its motive systems, they'd have a much easier chance of getting away. Well, time to get at it then.

Gritting her teeth, she sprang upwards again, leading with her knuckle bomber, energy crackling from the weapon's discharge ports as she ramped up the power feed to it. Her hardsuit arm sank into the mech up to the elbow as the resulting explosion churned deep into the delicate machinery inside, and she quickly yanked her arm back out, dropping to the pavement and bracing herself for any reaction from the mech.

The reaction she got was not what she'd been expecting; the mech stopped dead in its tracks, and she could hear rumbling from within the big robot. The green-armoured Knight Saber noted that the body of the machine was trembling occasionally, in accompaniment to muffled thuds from within. It didn't take her long to realize that she'd set off a series of some kind of sympathetic detonations within its systems. A slow grin spread across her face as she admired her handiwork.

"I don't know what you did, but good job," Sylia's voice crackled from her helmet speakers. "Let's get out of here; we've already got Bert."

"Just a second," Linna replied, glancing upwards again at the mech's undercarriage. "I want to add some insurance, and since it's being kind enough to hold still...."

Monomolecular ribbons slid with a sibilant hissing from their earpiece housings on her helmet; she'd gotten sick of having her neck wrenched by opponents who managed to get hold of them, so she'd insisted that Sylia make them retractable. Linna spun into motion, whipping the suddenly charged ribbons around in a deadly arc, striking out at one of the mech's legs behind the knee, where the armouring appeared almost non-existent.

The whistling ribbons sliced easily through the back of the joint; a split second later, it sheared in a shower of sparks and smoke before an explosion wrecked it entirely. The green-suited Knight Saber shot out from under the mech on her flight jets as the big machine began to topple over sideways.

As the mech crashed to the ground, it tried a last burst of cannon fire at its fleeing assailant; Linna winced as a few of the shots whizzed by in uncomfortably close proximity, but made it out the door of the warehouse into the friendly embrace of the night. Darkness quickly swallowed the fleeing green hardsuit.

"The GD-45 is critically damaged, sir," the technician at the monitors said uncertainly, looking up from his seat at the figure leaning over him. Hollister's face was cast into sharp relief by the flickering light from the bank of control panels and viewscreens in the back of the small van. Combined with the baleful expression on his face, it gave him the appearance of some demonic apparition.

"How badly damaged?" The quiet question carried an edge of steel to it, but the glare that accompanied the inquiry was directed at the viewscreen displaying a picture of the downed mech.

"There's no chance that we can salvage it before the ADPolice arrives," the technician replied reluctantly, watching his boss nervously. "If the transport truck hadn't been destroyed, we might have been able to do it, but...." he waved a hand helplessly. With the mech unable to move under its own power, the only way to get it anywhere was by tractor trailer transport. The warehouse firefight had been brought to the attention of the ADP however, and there was no chance at all that they could get another truck before the police arrived.

"Fine." Hollister's voice was chillingly cold. "Give me the data you collected during the fight." He pocketed the small floptical disk that the technician handed him, then stared for a moment at the monitors again. Flashing red letters ran across the bottom of the viewscreen showing the mech, giving a detailed rundown of what systems had sustained damage. The blond man's jaw clenched briefly.

"Give Team Two the go-ahead for their op," he directed the technician. "We're cutting our losses here." With that, he reached towards the console, and keyed in a code combination on a small panel. The panel flipped up, revealing a large button.

"But sir!" the technician protested, wide-eyed and stammering as he looked from Hollister's outstretched hand up to its owner. "We haven't recovered the pilot yet! He's..."

"He's fired; we can't afford incompetence on these operations," Hollister cut the man's protest off in an icy voice, and pressed the switch.

The image signal from the warehouse dissolved into snarling static.

"Everyone's aboard; let's get out of here!" Sylia ordered as the KnightWing's loading ramp snapped closed behind Linna as she scrambled into the main cabin.

"Roger!" Sylvie's acknowledgment was followed by a sharp rise in g-forces as the plane arrowed almost straight up, climbing for the high atmosphere. Linna was forced to grab wildly for a handhold to keep from being flung to the back of the cabin, and even Sylia had to make a hasty grab for something to keep from being dumped unceremoniously out of her chair.

"Sorry about that," Sylvie's apology was about a second ahead of the intended reprimand. "The ADP choppers just entered the area, and I didn't think we should stick around to get identified."

"Okay," Sylia sighed, pulling off her helmet, taking immediate relief from the delicious coolness of the cabin air on her face. "Just try and give us a little more warning the next time, all right?" She swiped a gauntlet across her forehead, pushing her sweat-soaked hair back out of her eyes, glancing down the cabin as she did so.

A very beaten-up silver hardsuit was lashed down at the back of the cabin. It was covered in gouges and cracks, and a large sooty-looking burn mark covered most of the chest armour. Nene's red-pink suit was kneeling next to the damaged silver armour, and she was carefully scanning it to assess the total damage. The suit's former occupant was seated a few feet away, his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands.

A blanket had been draped across Bert's shaking shoulders, partly to ward off the chill from being clad only in a softsuit, and partly in an effort to relieve shock. Priss was sitting next to him, her helmet off and her expression concerned. As Sylia looked over at them, the young singer's gaze lifted to meet hers. She glanced sideways, then back, and shrugged slightly.

Sylia stood up, and carefully made her way back to the pair. Swiveling one of the KnightWing's seats around, the white-hardsuited woman sat down across from Bert, exchanging another concerned glance with Priss.

"What happened?" she asked quietly, her glance shifting between the two.

"The bomb wasn't nearly as powerful as we thought," Priss replied equally quietly. "There was just enough of a charge inside it to scare someone with a big flash, but there was no way it would have caused any damage at all; it wouldn't even have cracked glass." Anger flickered in her eyes as she scowled suddenly. "The sick bastard was probably hoping he'd crack under the threat of dying."

"That's the way he operates; he enjoys seeing people suffer," Bert's voice mumbled as Sylia opened her mouth to respond. "He gets his kicks out of watching people squirm." The tall red-head hadn't moved, and still had his head in his hands. "I don't suppose anyone was kind enough to shoot said sick bastard for me while they were down there?"

"We didn't really get much of a chance," Sylia replied. "We were too busy trying to avoid the mech."

"And I didn't see him, or I would have," Priss added, flames leaping in her eyes again. "You can count on that; I owe the sonofabitch a couple myself."

"Great." Bert huddled deeper into the blanket. Sylia glanced at Priss, and took a deep breath.

"Bert?" she asked gently, "can you tell us what happened after we lost radio contact with you?" She watched, concerned, as he heaved a sigh and sat up, dropping his hands. Haunted greenish-brown eyes met hers, and she noted how haggard he looked now; it was almost like he'd aged years in the last hour or so. After the briefest of hesitations, Priss slid an arm around him, trying to offer some support.

"I got the shit beaten out of me," he replied succinctly. "I didn't even get the chance to fire back. The mech just grabbed me and that was it."

"I can sure believe that," Priss muttered, shuddering in remembered pain at the results of her own ill-fated combat mech encounter.

"When I woke up again, I was in that warehouse, hanging like a side of beef," Bert continued hollowly. "I...I couldn't do a damn thing, and my suit was buggered up enough that anything I tried was going to likely fry my systems on the spot. Then Hollister showed up." An expression of uttermost hate appeared, and for a second his eyes seemed to glow with their own inner fire. "There he was, right in front of me, and I couldn't do anything about it!" His teeth were clenched, and his entire body had gone as taut as a coiled spring as he recounted the events.

Sylia stifled the immediate urge to shove herself backwards in her seat to get away from him. "And then what happened?" the white hardsuited woman asked quietly. As abruptly as the flash of rage had appeared, it vanished, being replaced by another haunted, almost terrified look. Priss sucked in a sharp breath at the swiftness of his mood swing, and the unexpected direction it had taken.

"Bert?!" Sylia was shocked by the sudden change as well. "What's wrong? What is it?!" Bert looked over at her, and Sylia could see bone-deep fear at the backs of his eyes.

"He's figured out who I am," came the strained reply.

Pale, sickly light washed down from the moon overhead, illuminating the wispy tendrils of fog hanging in the air. The dark shape of a building loomed large in the ethereal setting, an island of shadow surrounded by streamers of light. Not even a stray breeze rustled the leaves of the surrounding forested area, and the night air was hushed.

The droning roar of engines shattered the quiet of the night as two black streamlined shapes shot overhead. The smaller and sleeker aircraft remained airborne, skimming the treetops as it pulled tight circles around the house while the larger of the two dropped towards the ground, coming to rest in the small clearing next to the house..

Sliding doors clanked open, and a stream of lightly-armoured, black-clad men was disgorged from the helicopter that had landed. Ducking low to keep away from the chopper's still-churning rotors, the squad of men rushed towards the darkened house. As they neared it, two pairs of men split off from the main group and vanished around either side of the house in a flanking maneuver, weapons at the ready. The main group dropped into a defensive stance, coming to a halt about twenty feet from the back verandah of the house.

"All clear," a voice crackled over a radio frequency. "No vehicles. Nobody here."

"Roger. Proceed," a nasal voice crackled back. One of the shadowy figures gestured, and one of the figures ran towards the back door of the house. Kneeling at the door, the man tinkered with the lock for a few tense moments, then waved a signal to the waiting group as the door swung open. With another rush, the swarm of black clad men were across the deck behind the house, and in through the door.

Once inside, they fanned out throughout the house in pairs. Dust swirled and eddied around them as they overturned furniture and rooted through cupboards and closets. Ten minutes later they regrouped in the main living room of the modestly-furnished house. A couple of them even flopped on the couch in disgust, while some of their comrades searched the room further.

"Nothing. Absolutely squat," one of them spat, swearing as he turned away from the large brick fireplace at the end of the room. "Just what the hell did he think we were going to find here?! Allergies?!" The man sneezed violently as he inhaled some of the dust his cohorts had kicked up.

"Shut up!" the leader of the group snarled. The shadowy figure turned to another man holding a compact scanning device. "Well?"

"Behind there." The scanner operator pointed. "The bookshelf."

Multiple blazes of laser energy speared through the gloom of the room, blasting the indicated furniture into flaming splinters laced with fluttering pages of paper. Behind the resulting charred heap of debris stood a large steel slab, the faint seam running around its perimeter the only indication of the fact that it was a door.

"Get that garbage out of the way, and bring in the plasma torches," the squad commander ordered. "And tell them we've found it."

The pitch black darkness of the basement room was broken by the baleful flash of a red light that began strobing urgently in the control panel it was mounted in. Circuitry and long-dormant relays hummed with renewed life as the program driving them began to respond to the circumstances that had activated it. A single viewscreen flickered fitfully as it lit up, bathing the cluttered room with eerie luminescence.

Lines of code scrolled across the monitor as algorithms churned through the system's central processor, finally arriving at a decision. Power was routed to the transmitter arrays, and two pre-arranged, coded signals were sent. One signal was beamed to a far-distant telecommunications array connected to another computer system.

The second signal was directed to the first floor of the house above.

"I can't cut this goddamn thing any faster!" hissed the man kneeling in front of the steel wall. "Whatever the alloy is, it's too tough to just carve through it!" With that, the man flipped down the protective visor he was wearing, and returned to his work. Blue light flared again as he applied the energy beam of his cutting apparatus to the doorway, lengthening the jagged rip he'd already put into the metal. Roughly one-third of the doorway had been cut through.

"Shit!" The leader spun on his heel and stalked away, fuming. Time was marching on, and they had to get clear of the area in, at most, another forty-five minutes. The next routine police chopper was scheduled to fly by in that time, and the only way to avoid discovery was to shoot it down. That in turn would bring the regular police running, and likely the ADP as well. Damn it, they had to hurry...!!

A steely, rasping noise from the darkness of the next room caught his attention. Eyes narrowing, he made a hand signal to some of his men as he advanced cautiously towards the room. Firearms were readied, and a pair of the armoured men moved in front of the one operating the cutting gear as their leader stealthily advanced.

He stopped at the doorway, peering carefully into the room. Well, IR wasn't picking up anything... Reaching up, the mercenary fiddled with a control knob on the side of his helmet, tuning his visor to a different imaging method.

Something moved in the gloom in front of him, and even as his weapon came up, metal glittered coldly in the semi-darkness. There was a solid, wet-sounding 'thunk' as approximately four feet of edged steel drove through the unfortunate man's chest, puncturing his body armour easily. He was dead before he hit the floor, sliding off the long blade that had impaled him.

Gunfire and energy beams lanced through the room, turning it into an inferno of destruction.

The muted rumble and throb of the KnightWing's engines as it drove for home was the only noise inside the cabin as a slightly scorched-looking data disk slid from a console slot. Reaching out, Nene quietly plucked the disk from the slot and sat, absently turning it over in her fingers for a moment. The young red-head reached up and irritably brushed aside a stray lock of hair that had decided to drop into her eyes as she looked up at her silent leader standing nearby.

Sylia was still staring at the now-blank viewscreen, a pensive frown creasing her brow, her armoured arms folded across her chest. Despite her vaguely worried expression, there was an aura of intense concentration around her. She hadn't moved during the entire viewing of Bert's flight recorder data, focusing totally on what it had contained.

Nene's glance slid sideways to where her green and blue battlesuited teammates were standing, also in uneasy silence. Both Linna and Priss looked slightly pale from what they'd seen and heard, and were unsure of whether or not they should say anything. Their gazes met hers briefly, and she could see the same unease she was experiencing mirrored in their eyes.

Everyone's gaze returned to Sylia, although Nene noted out of the corner of her eye that Priss kept glancing down the cabin to where Bert was hunched over in a seat. The hardsuited rock singer kept fidgeting slightly, and biting her lip every time she looked at him, her expression uncertain and uneasy.

"Sylia?" Nene finally spoke up, the silence suddenly seeming to grate abrasively on her nerves. "What are we going to do?" Sylia blinked, and seemed to come back to them from somewhere infinitely distant. Taking a deep breath, she looked around at the rest of the team.

"Nothing," she replied calmly. "We wait."

"Nothing?!" Priss exploded. "Whaddaya mean, 'nothing'?!?! The bastard's figured out who he is! We can't just sit still! Damn it, he's sure to try and get him when he's not in his armour now!"

"Hollister has come to a conclusion based on coincidental facts," Sylia replied evenly. "He doesn't have concrete proof that his theory is correct; carrying on as if everything were normal is the best option since it won't provide further grounds for suspicion."

"But shouldn't Bert at least lay low for a few days?" Linna asked. "If Hollister has figured out who he is...."

"To the best of my knowledge, Hollister hasn't located Bert in his civilian life," Sylia stated. "Until that happens, the best way of handling this is to carry on normally. If he does know where Bert works during the day, a sudden disappearance will only confirm his suspicions."

"Oh, so you're gonna use him as bait then?!" Priss retorted savagely.

"What would you have me do, Priss?!" Sylia snapped, finally revealing some traces of strain. "Hunt down Hollister's organization and destroy them? Fine....do you know where they are?! How many men there are? What kind of ordnance they're carrying? Well?!" She glared hotly at the younger woman. "I'd like nothing better than to put them out of business, but we can't right now, so just get used to the idea. You're not the only person here that's concerned about him, thank you very much!"

"Sorry," Priss apologized grudgingly, smoothing out her stormy expression. "I didn't mean it that way..."

"If you're quite finished discussing me behind my back," Bert's sardonic voice floated over to them, "do I get a say in this?"

"Of course you do," Sylia replied simply as she turned around to face him. He stood up as she walked over to him, keeping the blanket wrapped snugly around himself. "This concerns you more than anyone," she added, looking critically at him as she waited for some kind of response. His eyes met hers for a brief instant; she could see the internal strain he was under mirrored in them.

"I don't think Hollister knows my 'normal' identity either," he said slowly. "If he did, he wouldn't have tried what he attempted tonight." He paused, taking a deep breath as he fought to retain a calm appearance. "Based on that assumption, I don't think I should just vanish either, not right now at least."

"But what if he does know?!" Priss asked, shoving herself in next to Sylia. "Damn it, I ..." She suddenly flushed bright red, right to her hairline as she realized what she'd been about to say out loud. "I ... just don't want anything happening to you," she trailed off, mumbling.

"I don't either," he replied. "Especially since I know what would happen." He barely controlled the shudder that rippled through him as his hands clenched. After a moment, the seizure passed, and he became relaxed again. "But would you go into hiding if you were in my place?"

Priss was silent for a long moment, as conflicting desires warred within her. The tough, fighter part of her was opposed to the hiding idea; it wanted to go and hunt down Hollister and blow the bastard away with extreme prejudice, not cower somewhere hoping to stay unnoticed. On the other hand was the selfish urge to tell him yes, she would go into hiding; she loved him and didn't want to either lose him, or have to watch him go through more psychological problems if he were caught and interrogated again. Her shoulders slumped finally.

"No," she admitted painfully. "I wouldn't." Bert gave her a tired smile and sank back into his seat, rubbing at his eyes wearily as the long night started to catch up with him. The shrill scream of an alarm from the communications console brought him leaping back out of his seat in startlement, and he had to make a quick grab to keep from losing his blanket.

"The intruder alarm?!" Linna winced, clapping her hands over her ears as she backed away from the source of the awful noise. "Now what's happening?!" Sylia sprinted to the console, throwing herself into the seat next to Nene. She quickly punched a few keys, then frowned slightly.

"It's not coming from my building," she told them as she hit another button. "It's being relayed from..outside the city." With those words, a map of the city flashed onto the screen, showing a red blip located in one of the richer suburbs of MegaTokyo. The location was fairly isolated, and bordered on what looked like a park or wildlife preserve.

"Shit!" Priss exclaimed. "Isn't that Bert's house?!"

"Burglars?" Linna queried, then caught sight of Bert's ashen grey face. "I take it that means no?"

"The only security system at my place that's directly wired to Sylia's system is the one for my basement lab," he told her, sounding like he wanted to be sick. "Casual burglars wouldn't set it off, because they wouldn't be able to even find the entrance. That alarm means that somebody's trying to break into it."

"What exactly are you keeping there?" Sylia asked, her head swinging around to pin him with an intent gaze.

"Some odds and ends of junk, my computer, and," he hesitated, then sighed, looking even more dolorous, "and there's a hardsuit there as well."

"This is not good," Nene murmured in the tense silence that followed his statement. She didn't need to elaborate further; their hardsuit technology was what gave them the edge over their foes. If someone else were to get hold of it.

"Sylvie!!" Sylia tabbed the intercom switch. "We need to change course for the outskirts of the city, right now!"

"We can't," Sylvie's voice filtered back. "We've got just enough fuel to get home; if I have to go too far off-course now, we'll be walking. Chasing after that mech tonight cost us a lot of fuel." Bert staggered backwards and dropped into a convenient seat, his expression numb.

"How fast can you refuel?" Sylia asked, shooting him a swift glance.

"Fifteen minutes," their pilot replied promptly. "Half that if I can get some help with the hoses."

"You've got it," Sylia promised, motioning to Priss and Linna, then jerking a thumb towards the KnightWing's cockpit. "How long until we land?"

"About five minutes."

"Roger that." Sylia cut off the intercom, started to turn towards Bert, then paused to look at Nene. The young hacker was sitting quietly in her seat, watching her former boyfriend with a mixed expression of worry and concern. When she noticed Sylia's scrutiny, her expression shifted, becoming calm and businesslike.

"How badly is his suit damaged?" Sylia queried. Nene grimaced, and keyed up the results of her analysis on the screen.

"It's not good, Sylia," she replied, understating the data that was scrolling by on the screen. "Most of the control circuits burned out from power surges when his powerplant overheated, and some of the myomers in the musculature were also damaged." She shook her head. "It's got stress cracks in the frame from the pounding it took, too. It won't be operational anytime soon if that's what you meant."

"Damn it," Sylia swore softly, then sighed as she looked over at Bert, who'd quietly been listening, his face as expressionless as stone. "I'm afraid you'll have to stay back at HQ," she told him. "With your suit out of it, I'm not going to risk you getting yourself killed."

"I'm going," he retorted, his voice flat. "This is my problem as well as yours. Besides, I do have a suit."

"Oh really?" Sylia's eyebrow quirked upwards, and her tone turned a few degrees colder. "And just where did you get a second suit?" If he'd gone and built himself a new one, against her express orders...

"It's my older one," he shrugged. "It may not be up to our current standards, but it's better than nothing." Bert cocked his head at her curiously. "What's the fuss? We've always kept our old suits for emergency backups, right?" Sylia looked uncomfortable.

"Normally I wouldn't object," she said slowly, "but if these are Hollister's men again, taking old technology against them might not be the best idea under the circumstances." Bert shrugged again.

"It's armour," he replied. "So it's a little clunkier than current tech; at least it'll keep my hide intact." A wry smile suddenly pulled briefly at his mouth at that remark. "And besides, you'll need me to get past the security safeguards on my lab, assuming they haven't been breached." He looked at her, his expression quietly imploring. "Sylia, please...I've got to go along on this one."

"All right," Sylia reluctantly relented, sighing. "Just don't go charging off by yourself, okay?"

The blood-smeared merc slumped against the wall, his breath rasping hoarsely as he tried to hold his submachinegun steady with one hand. Blood dripped steadily from his other arm, which hung limp and lifeless at his side, owing to the vicious slash across his bicep. His gaze never left the doorway to the room, where a pile of what looked like crumpled metal plates lay in an untidy jumble. A foot or so away from an outflung metal gauntlet lay a bloody sword.

Shaking uncontrollably, the wounded man slid down against the wall to a sitting position. A few feet away from him, the other survivors of the carnage that had taken place worked at the unpleasant task of cleaning up the bodies; the order had come from Hollister that no identifiable remains were to be left behind. A sudden resounding crash made everybody start and look around wildly, expecting another attack.

"Okay! I'm through!" A jagged, man-sized hole gaped in the steel door they'd found before all hell had broken loose; the cut piece falling inwards was what had startled the surviving mercenaries. The torch wielder stepped back from the hole, snuffing out the plasma torch he'd been using, and began packing up his tools; he'd managed to keep working during the bloody fray that had erupted, although he'd almost gotten skewered a couple of times.

"Search the basement, and take what you can carry," came the crisp command over their helmet radios. "And make it fast; you've got ten minutes before the next police patrol gets here."

Stifling the screams that wanted to come from the jarring of his mangled arm, the injured mercenary struggled back to his feet, tottering over to the hole and taking up a guard position next to it. His comrades glanced at each other, and then began carefully entering the dark hole one at a time, weapons readied.

Unnoticed by anyone, a metallic gauntlet flexed and curled a few times, before the arm it was attached to started slowly sliding across the floor towards the nearby sword hilt. The ravaged pile of armour plates shifted slightly, and coldly glowing blue eyes lit up inside the helmet.

Long black hoses snaked across the hangar floor, vibrating as jet fuel was rapidly pumped through them into the sleek plane. A dark green hardsuit stood poised next to the pump control panel on the wall, and a blue hardsuit stood underneath the jet, assisting a red armoured suit in holding the fuel hose as it twitched and jerked from the high-pressure fuel surging through it. Out of the way of the hurried fueling, Sylia's white hardsuited figure paced impatiently back and forth. Her visor was up, and she kept turning to glance down a dimly lit side corridor.

Running footsteps clanged hollowly on the flooring, and Sylia spun towards the noise. A moment later Nene's red-pink suit sprinted into view from the far end of the corridor. Sylia waited impatiently as the hardsuited young woman charged up to her, trying to adjust a shoulder-mounted projector of some kind as she did so.

"Okay, I'm ready, Sylia," Nene reported breathlessly as she skidded to a stop in front of the Knight Sabers' leader. She shifted her armoured shoulders, reaching up and again adjusting the compact EMP cannon sitting on her shoulder. After not having had it available when it would have been useful, she'd decided that carrying it along 'just in case' might not be a bad idea. "It still feels weird carrying that thing up there, though."

"Well, that can't be helped right now," Sylia replied, then glanced irritably down the corridor again. "Where is he?! We're almost ready to leave!"

"Well, he was already in his old suit when I left the equipment room," Nene said hesitantly. "He said he had to get something else though, but he wouldn't say what."

"Marvelous," Sylia sighed disgustedly, throwing up her hands and pacing again. Clangs and whirring noises from the KnightWing announced that Priss and Linna had started disconnecting the fueling hoses. "If he's not back in the next two minutes, I'm going to..."

An explosive blast of air whipped down the hallway, carrying with it the loud whine of engines of some kind. The droning intensified to deafening levels, and dust began to swirl through the air as even more displaced air rushed from the corridor, approaching the force of a small gale as a long aerodynamic shape floated into the main hangar from the side corridor. Coloured dark blue and silver, the winged torpedo-like vehicle was hovering on downward-directed exhaust streams, exactly like a Harrier jumpjet. The WarHorse didn't stop, but shot over the stationary KnightWing, out into the darkness.

Sylia swore to herself and opened a comm channel to the silver hardsuit as she sprinted for the loading ramp of the KnightWing, reaching up and slamming her helmet visor closed. "SkyKnight!!! What the hell do you think you're doing?! Don't you dare outpace us on the way there, do you understand me?!"

Hydraulic cylinders closed the entry ramp behind her, sealing the sleek plane shut. Jet engines howled, and the KnightWing shot down the short runway at the end of the hangar, abruptly springing upwards and vanishing into the night sky.

"Come on!!! MOVE it!!!" snapped a voice. "We've only got about four or five minutes left!!"

"You try carrying this goddamn thing then!!" one of the men carrying what looked like a blue-black suit of armour wheezed back irritably. "It's not exactly light!" He swore again as he tripped on the long cape that was attached somehow to the suit's shoulders, nearly dropping his end of the load.

"Damn it, pull that stinkin' thing out of the way!!" he snarled aloud. "I don't need any more back problems than I've got already!!" He panted for breath, sweat dripping down his face and splashing onto the inside of his helmet visor as he and one of the other soldiers awkwardly manhandled the armour suit up the stairs. Damn thing felt like it weighed over two hundred pounds, and some stupid jackass just had to go and put a cape on it...! Finally the two mercenaries managed to lug the heavy suit into the wrecked living room of the house.

"Okay, we're up," one of them reported in relief. "We should be out in another couple of minutes."

"Was there anything else down there?" a new voice inquired over their helmet radios.

"We didn't have time to really check, Mr. Hollister," the interim squad leader replied, motioning to the suit-bearers to get out of the room. "There was some computer equipment, but nothing else readily transportable."

"Fine. Get back here on the double," Hollister's voice suddenly had a touch of eager anticipation in it. "And make sure you handle that suit carefully."

"Roger that," the lead mercenary replied, watching as the suit was carried out of the room, towards the back of the house. "We're...." his voice died off as a metallic grinding noise came from somewhere behind him. He turned slowly, unwilling to find out just what had made the noise.

His fears were confirmed as he finished turning; the suit of plate armour that had attacked them when they'd found the hidden basement had re-animated itself, and was slowly climbing to its feet. Burn marks and bullet holes had turned the once-silvery steel plating into something resembling a scorched sieve, but evidently it hadn't been enough damage to permanently stop the thing. Weaving unsteadily, the suit of armour began a slow, plodding march towards the remaining mercenaries. The long swordblade it held glittered with dire promise.

"Out!!! Everybody, GET OUT!!! NOW!!!" It was hard to tell who the panicked shout came from, but everyone in the room swarmed for the doorway at the same time, resulting in a traffic jam of struggling men. One finally managed to squeeze through, and began sprinting for the back door with every ounce of speed he could get. The pile of struggling soldiers behind him fell through a moment later, just as a whistling swordblade slashed through the air, cutting deep into the doorframe and wall above them.

All semblance of dignity forgotten, the terrified mercenaries dove for whatever exit they could find, abandoning their weapons and hurdling the kitchen counters or scrabbling frantically along the floor. One man dove headfirst through a window, bare inches ahead of the swordstroke that turned the countertop he'd briefly knelt on into kindling wood.

The last of the thoroughly demoralized mercenaries burst out of the house, pursued by the clanking, lumbering armoured shape. As the mechanical knight shoved its way through the back door, two men near door of the waiting transport helicopter opened fire, covering the disorderly retreat, and the two men staggering under the burden of the hardsuit they were carrying.

Bullets whined and ricocheted off the animated armour, but its forward march didn't falter as it began bearing down on the slowest of the escapees, the men carrying the purloined suit. The sword it carried seemed to flicker hungrily in the night as the blade came up and back, poised for another swing as soon as it was within reach. One of the fleeing mercenaries ran back and started assisting the two men as they tried hurrying across the uneven ground.

The two riflemen backed towards the helicopter, firing steadily as the last of their comrades stuffed the armour through the door, and then scrambled onto the chopper. Rotor blades churned the air as they dove onto the chopper themselves, slamming the doors closed.

The dark helicopter lifted ponderously into the air, away from the implacably advancing suit of medieval armour. A moment later, its faster escort swooped around to flank it, and the two helicopters climbed higher, disappearing into the ragged, moon-lit clouds above.

For a long moment, the robotic knight they'd left behind seemed to be staring fixedly at the sky after them. With a creaking movement, the battered suit of armour dropped its sword to the ground point-first, and crossed its gauntleted hands on the pommel as it waited for a new opponent.

Wind whistled shrilly past two flying shapes as they sped towards the outlying districts of MegaTokyo, moonlight glinting off of their metallic surfaces. The KnightWing and the WarHorse were traveling at fantastic speeds through the night sky, but to Bert it seemed as if they were crawling along the ground at an agonizingly slow pace. He was positive he could sense their unidentified opponents slipping from their grasp.

"Sensors are picking up two contacts, moving away from us," Nene's voice reported over the comm channel. "It's hard to say from this distance, but I think they're attack helicopters."

"Don't even think about speeding ahead to try and engage them," Sylia's voice crackled in SkyKnight's ears even as his gauntlets began tightening on the handlebars of his jetbike. "If those are the same kind of attack choppers that Hollister had at his base the last time, you wouldn't stand a chance in an air battle."

"But I might be able to stop them from getting away..." Bert started to reply, but Sylia wasn't about to buy it.

"You might also get yourself killed," she retorted shortly. "We didn't go to all that trouble earlier tonight just to have you go and get yourself blown out of the air!"

"But Sylia!" he protested, glancing at the dwindling blips on his helmet viewscreen. At the moment, he was being piped the information from the KnightWing's sensor suites, since the WarHorse didn't mount that kind of long-range sensor gear. His fingers twitched again on the throttle and weaponry switches. "I've got to stop them!!! If they've gotten anything from my house...."

"Then we'll have suffered a minor setback," she replied quietly. "It can't be helped now; what's done is done, and ..."

"A MINOR SETBACK?!" SkyKnight threw a disbelieving glance at the barely visible, midnight black jet below and slightly ahead of him, as if Sylia could somehow receive the effect of his incredulous look. "How the hell can you say that?! I..."

"That is an order, SkyKnight," the calm, steely reply cut him off in mid-sentence. "The KnightWing is not a high-performance jet fighter; you might be able to catch them, but we can't. We're sticking together, and I expect you to respect that order. Clear?" The channel went dead before he had a chance to reply.

Swearing savagely to himself, SkyKnight watched helplessly as the blips on his display screen slowly faded and vanished entirely.

The remainder of the flight passed in stony silence. In the back of Bert's mind was a smoldering resentment at Sylia's rather peremptory order that he stay put. Damn it, he could have stopped them!! His jetbike was far faster than conventional air vehicles, and a lot more maneuverable. It would've been a snap to shoot them down..

He again stifled the panic that threatened to erupt at the thought of Hollister gaining even some of their hardsuit technology. He could already do enough damage with what he'd created himself; the thought of having someone as ruthless as him being able to supply the highest bidder with superior combat suits was even more frightening. How could Sylia call this a minor setback?!

Chilling fear knifed into the confused turmoil his thoughts had turned into. Hollister, one of his worst nightmares had re-entered the picture, and in such a way that he'd been powerless to do anything about it. The operation to capture him had been almost contemptuously easy to accomplish, and had left him feeling scared, vulnerable, and exposed. He found himself suddenly doubting if he was even all that safe in his 'normal', everyday life, and squelched that particular line of thought before it spiraled off into paranoia.

Trailing wisps of cloud rushed past him as he and the KnightWing broke through a cloudbank. Below them was spread the outskirts of the slumbering city, scattered houses of varying sizes in the midst of large stands of trees. In the moonlight, it looked like the landscape of a shadowy dream world, but he knew he wasn't dreaming; what he was likely to find was all too real.

Impatience finally took over. SkyKnight guided his jetcycle towards the earth in a power dive, the souped-up engines screaming exultantly as he angled for one particular house that was even darker than the surrounding neighbourhood. He pulled up into a low skim over the treetops as the house zipped closer.

"Bert!" Sylia's voice over his helmet speakers reprimanded him almost immediately. "I said not to go charging in by yourself!"

"There's nobody there anymore," he retorted irritably. "They got away, remember?" He bit off the sentence before his tone could turn any more acidic. After a moment, he regained a small measure of his equilibrium and continued speaking in a more reasonable tone of voice. "It's my house, Sylia; I've got to find out what happened. We're not picking up anything from there anymore, so it's a safe bet that they're gone."

"And what if they've left booby traps?!" his boss demanded. "Ones primed to get anybody who comes rushing in after they've left?"

"I don't think they had the time to do anything that elaborate, Sylia," SkyKnight replied wearily. "They likely wanted to just hit and run.they would not have had that much equipment with them, or the time to set it all up." Strained silence fell over the channel, and he could just picture Sylia's face at the moment: not happy.

The hurtling jet cycle broke over the edge of the sea of trees surrounding the isolated house, and dropped sharply towards the ground as he cut the forward thrust back. Jets whined as exhaust flattened the grass, stopping the flying machine and its armoured rider a few feet above the ground. Slowly, the WarHorse began coasting towards the darkened house.

SkyKnight's redly glowing eyeslot swept the nighttime scene before him, but both his sensors and the ones built into his jetbike found nothing. Above him, a roaring whine began to grow louder as the KnightWing caught up to him, banking overhead and starting its landing cycle. The silver Knight Saber debated with himself for a moment, and then landed his flying machine, killing the engines as it settled down on its landing gear. After casting a glance back at the lowering jetplane, SkyKnight swung off his mechanical steed, and began marching towards the house.

A humanoid shape became visible in the moonlit darkness as he neared the structure, and he slowed for a moment as he ran a more detailed scan of the shape. It registered as a metal hulk, with some trace electrical activity, but not enough to indicate functioning circuitry of any kind.

SkyKnight adjusted the telescopic capability his visor provided, and the blurred outline of the robotic figure seemed to move closer, resolving into what looked like a suit of medieval armour. Bert recognized the battered shape, and a grim smile briefly played across his face; at least part of his automatic safeguards appeared to have worked. The question was, how well?

The silver-garbed hardsuit reached the stationary knight, and stopped in front of it. Now that he was close enough, he could see the myriad holes and burn marks that had scored and perforated the entire surface of the once silvery steel. Faint smoke trails were still rising from some of the holes, and the unmistakable odour of burnt circuitry reached his nose, even through the filters in his helmet.

The robotic knight he'd built as a protector for his house didn't respond to his presence though, and even as he scanned it, the last flickers of power that had been buried deep within the wrecked automaton died completely. Reaching out, the silver Knight Saber gently grasped the hilt of the sword that the armour had been holding, and pulled it away. Moonlight flashed on the sword as he held it up, tilting it so that he could see the blade fully. A dark stain was on part of the blade's edge, and another grim smile crossed his face.

"What the hell is that?!" Linna's voice coming out of the darkness behind him startled him. He whirled, and very nearly lashed out with the long blade he held. After a confused second or two, he lowered the sword, sighing.

"Please don't do that to me," he told the green-hardsuited woman. "I've had a bad enough night as it is." He really needed to get some rest soon; this night felt like it was turning into one of the longest he'd ever endured and with everything that had happened, he could feel his grip on his self-control slipping slightly. A moment later, the hardsuits of the rest of his teammates appeared from the blackness of the night.

"So what is that?" Sylia's voice echoed Linna's question. Her helmet tilted as she looked at the dead robot standing nearby.

"That was my last line of defense," SkyKnight replied wearily. "I don't know how effective it was tonight, though."

"That suit of armour you had standing in the front hall was a boomer?" Priss asked disbelievingly. "Why the hell didn't you ever tell us?!"

"It wasn't a boomer," he snapped shortly. "It was a robot, a very simple automaton with one directive: protect the basement lab. If anyone found the lab, it was supposed to have activated and driven them off. Otherwise it was just a harmless hallway decoration."

"Just drive them off?" Sylia queried.

"If they were just lucky burglars, yes," he replied. "However, it was also programmed to respond forcefully to armed intruders. Judging by its appearance, I'd lay odds that Hollister lost some men tonight." A mild satisfaction spread through him at that thought, and a distant part of his mind was repulsed by it. He ignored the internal conflict, and sighed as he glanced at the shot-up automaton. "I guess we'll have to take it with us when we leave; it'll raise too many awkward questions if the cops find a dead combat robot lying around."

SkyKnight stepped up to the robot, and hoisted it over his shoulder, still gripping the sword he'd taken from it with his other hand. Without a word, he vanished into the darkness, in the direction his teammates had come from. The Knight Sabers waited tensely for him, the wind hissing quietly in the trees and grass.

After a few short minutes, the heavy crunch of his stride heralded his return. Moonlight flickered off the silver-clad Saber as he strode past his waiting comrades, and began walking towards the house again. At Sylia's gesture, the team fanned out and followed him.

Flickering light illuminated the room as SkyKnight pushed the switch. Ominous sizzling could be heard coming from the shattered light fixture in the ceiling, and the glow from the remaining intact bulb was fitful at best. He stepped into the room, followed by Priss's blue-armoured form.

"Holy shit," Priss's voice sounded awed as she stared around at the room. "That must've been one hell of a fight." SkyKnight didn't reply, but crunched across the debris-strewn carpeting towards the jagged hole that had been cut into the wall. Nene and Linna shoved into the room past Priss to see what she was talking about, and a low whistle came from Linna.

There were blast marks from bullets and beam weapons on almost every inch of the walls, although most of the fire seemed to have been directed at the far end of the room; there wasn't a doorframe anymore, just a ragged semi-circular hole. Dying wisps of smoke trailed upwards from heaps of debris that might have once been furniture.

"Anything, Nene?" Sylia's modulated voice drifted through the door behind them. A moment later, her white suit stood framed in the hacked-up doorway to what had been the kitchen.

"What? Uh, no, Sylia," Nene replied, once she'd recovered her voice and glanced at her scanning readouts. "We're the only ones here. No foreign devices, either." She glanced around the ruined room again, her mind reeling as she remembered what it had once looked like.

"Bert?" Priss's quiet voice broke into the blackness of his thoughts as he stood in front of the melted hole leading to the basement, his gauntleted hands clenching and unclenching. She stepped up to him, hesitantly placing a hand on his armoured shoulder. "You okay?"

"Not....really," he replied after a moment, still staring fixedly at the black hole in the wall. His mind was weltering in a complex mire of emotions, none of them easily categorized at the moment. Seeing the ruin of what he'd considered his sanctum from the rest of the world had left him feeling violated somehow, exposed. Adding to the mental anguish was the pained sense of loss; he'd really put a lot of himself into this house, and now it was wrecked beyond any hope of being rebuilt. "I...can't really.... I ...."

"I understand," she quietly assured him, giving his shoulder a squeeze. "We can talk later, if you want."

"Thanks." A part of his mind was quietly grateful to her as she stepped back, allowing him a measure of privacy at the moment. He needed time to sort out his thoughts, but time was a luxury he couldn't afford right now. SkyKnight tried shoving the confused mass of feelings to the back of his mind in order to concentrate on the task at hand; it didn't help much. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forwards, into the hole leading to what he'd once considered his inner sanctum.

The stairs creaked under his armoured weight, the sound unnaturally loud in the deathly silence of the house. As he started to step through the door at the bottom, the stairs creaked again, announcing that somebody was following him. Sylia, he figured. SkyKnight flipped the switch by the door, flooding the basement lab with pale white light.

As he'd feared, the light illuminated a shambles. Parts were strewn all over the floor, knocked down from the worktables along the walls. The bookshelves that had held technical schematics had been overturned, although it looked like the blueprints themselves were still there. At the far end of the room the massive computer, the one he'd named the 'Falcon' because of its speed, was dark except for a blinking red light on one panel. The main display screens gaped at him sightlessly, the glass from their shattered tubes littering the floor.

The sight that sent a pained shock to the core of his being, even beyond the ache of having his home wrecked, was the empty hydraulic worktable positioned in the center of the room. Bert stood there for a moment, his eyes closed as he tried willing reality to change, praying that his eyes were merely playing tricks on him. It didn't help; the hardsuit was gone. Someone else now had a sample of some of the Knight Saber technology to examine. A sick feeling swept him at the thought of what Hollister could do with that kind of technology in his hands.

The silver battlesuit walked wearily over to the mainframe computer and pulled a convenient metal crate to in front of the machine. He sat down, ignoring the ominous creaking noise it made as the sides of the empty crate slowly started to buckle.

Placing his armoured elbows on the damaged console, the silver Knight Saber slumped over, burying his faceplate in his hands. An aching sense of loss coupled with guilt worked relentlessly on him as he sat there, the turmoil threatening to drag him down into despair.

"Bert, it wasn't your fault this happened," Sylia's quiet voice knifed into his private hell, startling him; he'd been so self-absorbed, he'd forgotten she'd followed him down.

"Isn't it?" he shot back bitterly, dropping his hands and sitting up. "I was so sure that nobody would ever find this place that I never thought twice about keeping a hardsuit here. Well, now we know what thought accomplished, don't we?" He slammed a gauntleted fist onto a side console in fury; it shattered, throwing sparks and fragments of metal or plastic everywhere. "I should never have built this goddamn place, or at least never stored anything here."

"Someone else obtaining at least some of our technology was inevitable," Sylia told him calmly. "It was only a matter of time before GENOM or someone else acquired it through one means or another; they've had ample opportunity to scan our suits in the past," she reminded him.

"Yeah, but that's not the same as having a real working prototype to reverse-engineer!" he snapped. "Just how the hell can you stand there and be so calm about this?!"

"Because I've been planning for it from the start," she replied simply. "Secrets don't remain secret forever, especially not when they attract the attention of certain people with the right connections. Our technology has evolved since you built that suit, and not all that I've developed was in it."

"You can say what you want, Sylia," Bert replied wearily, "but it's still my fault. I was so cocksure that it could never happen, and it happened." He suddenly started to laugh, but there was no humour in it; Sylia could hear seething bitterness and just a trace of wildness in it.

"I think we'd better get you home," the leader of the Sabers told him, the nagging thought that he might be losing his self-control again crossing her mind. "You need rest."

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad," the silver hardsuit declared, sweeping an arm at the devastation in the room around him.

"Pardon?!" Sylia muted her helmet speakers, and opened up the backup comm channel. "Priss, I think you'd better get down here; I may need some help getting him out of here."

"Gotcha; be there in a second," Priss's voice crackled back.

"Greek mythology," SkyKnight elaborated, still chuckling mirthlessly. "The Greek gods had a tendency to punish hubris by stripping the offending person of everything he held to be important; it almost always seemed to end in insanity and death for the offender."

"All right, that's enough," Sylia told him flatly. "It's done and finished with now; quit being morbid about it. We all make mistakes." Priss's helmet poked around the doorframe to the room, and the rest of her body followed a moment later as she entered the room, walking over to where the white and silver hardsuits were.

"Thought you needed help dragging me out?" Bert's modulated voice asked, his helmet cocking to glance at the new arrival. "I haven't gone off the deep end, yet at least." He sighed, and turned to the board in front of him, hitting a couple of keys. "I can't leave just yet; I've got to check a couple of things first."

"We don't have that much time," his boss told him as the sole remaining computer screen grudgingly lit up with a password prompt. Ominous crackling noises came from the large computer as it powered up, and wisps of smoke began to curl from somewhere inside the computer's casing.

"I just need five minutes at most." He didn't turn around as he started inputting commands into the computer. "Please, just wait outside for me; I won't be that long."

"Five minutes; then we're dragging you if we have to," Sylia warned him. She beckoned to the still-silent Priss, and the two women left. Priss paused for a moment at the door, but reluctantly followed Sylia.

Bert never noticed them leave, most of his attention focused on the computer in front of him. A quick check revealed that the computer files hadn't been accessed, for which he gave brief thanks; there was enough research material for a small library on hardsuit construction contained in those data files. It took another quick moment to open a network connection between the Falcon and Sylia's mainframe off in the city. Two minutes later, and the Falcon had dumped all of its data into her computer in an unused directory, wiping itself clean of all data in the process. Bert shut down the link and the computer and stood up. He had to force himself to his feet by placing his hands on the console for leverage; physical weariness coupled with emotional turmoil was dragging at him like an anchor.

Turning around, he stared around at the scattered technical manuals and blueprints, wrestling with himself for a moment. They weren't really important, since he had complete duplicate sets back at Sylia's lab, but it went against the grain to just leave them there. There wasn't really an alternative though; gathering them all up was impossible. Sighing, the silver-clad Knight Saber walked to the doorway, then paused, looking back for one last time at the room.

His hands clenched into fists a moment later, and a tremor shook the silver battlesuit. Capacitors began to whine, overlaid with the electrical humming of a power buildup. SkyKnight leveled his arm at the computer he'd so painstakingly put together, and a flaming bolt of red-white laser energy tore into the depths of the machine. Circuits melted and burned as choking smoke began to fill the room. More shafts of blazing energy stabbed out at the room, blasting holes into the concrete walls, and igniting anything even slightly flammable. Flames danced gleefully around the room, luridly lighting the destruction.

Above him, the entire house began to shake.

"Damn it, what the hell does he think he's doing in there?!" Priss fumed, her blue-hardsuited figure pacing angrily back and forth at the end of the KnightWing's entry ramp. "The goddamn place was trashed; there's nothing left to check on!!"

"He's deleting all his computer files, I believe," Sylia informed her calmly. "It's safer that way." She understood Priss's pacing and swearing were reflexive, masking deep concern and worry over Bert; she was sharing some of the same anxieties.

"Safer?" Linna's voice asked. A faint sheen of green armour plating in the darkness marked where she was leaning against the landing gear of the plane. Sylia nodded.

"There's no way we can hide what happened here tonight," she said simply. "The ADP will likely be investigating what will no doubt be reported as a boomer rampage. The less there is for them to find, the better."

"Well, it's been five minutes," Priss declared. "I'm going ba....." Her statement was abruptly abbreviated by the house blowing apart in an expanding cloud of roaring flames laced with debris.

"BERT!!!" It was hard to tell who shrieked first, Nene or Priss, but Priss was definitely the first to start charging towards the house, just as a second explosion shattered the night, hurling defiant flames skywards. Nene's red-pink hardsuit streaked after the blue-hardsuited woman, her sensor antennae spread and scanning full-blast.

"Priss!! Nene!!! Wait a minute!!" Sylia called after them, then swore disgustedly under her breath. "Saber Prime to SkyKnight, come in please," she tried radioing. A quiet hissing from her receivers was the only reply she got. "Come on," she gestured to Linna. "We'd better get down there; the channel is open, but he's not responding." Her suit wings folded out from their rest positions, and she lifted into the air, heading towards the burning house.

"What do you think caused the explosion?" Linna's voice queried over the comm channel.

"Probably Bert," Sylia sighed back. Her eyes intently watched her hardsuit viewscreen as she zoomed closer to the flaming ruin. "The only real way to make sure that the ADP doesn't find anything when they get here is to destroy the house and everything in it."

"But why didn't you say anything about it earlier?" Linna asked.

"How do you tell someone that they have to destroy their own home?" Sylia replied helplessly. "If I'd told him that he had to, he'd likely have been unable to do it; he had to realize what had to be done for himself. I just hope he's not still inside."

As the white and green hardsuits flew even closer to the conflagration, a rolling plume of flame erupted in the approximate center of the inferno, disgorging a flying silver shape that arced through the air in a graceful parabola, before landing on the grass several meters from the house.

Flames roared angrily behind him, matching the rumblings of seething rage that were stirring in the back of his mind. Bert gritted his teeth and forced himself to walk away from the burning structure behind him; a dull ache pounded at his temples as he walked, a headache brought on by the stresses and events of the night, and compounded by his current emotional misery.

SkyKnight's visor tilted towards the sky, and his gauntleted hands clenched into fists as he fought to contain his emotions. Smoke and ash drifted across his field of vision as he stood there, reminding him of what he was losing, and of what he had already lost tonight. With a snarled curse, the silver hardsuit blasted recklessly into the air. He had to get away from there before he totally snapped, and standing there listening to his house burn wasn't helping any.

Within seconds of his becoming airborne, proximity alerts flashed brightly on his helmet viewscreen. SkyKnight started to veer away, but he was moving too fast to break off from the imminent collision.

"Oh. Shit," was all he had time to say before a hurtling blue hardsuit crashed headlong into him in midair with a sound reminiscent of a car crash. More warning lights flashed mockingly in his viewscreen as SkyKnight tried using his own maneuvering thrusters to stop the crazily spinning barrel roll his flight trajectory had so abruptly become. He could hear Priss doing an eloquent job of cursing, and an instant later, a red-and-pink hardsuit smacked into the tangle.

The three entangled hardsuits crashed unceremoniously to the ground a moment later, ploughing furrows through the sod as they came to a halt. For a moment, everything was very still.

"Oh way to go Nene!" Priss snapped, pulling herself out of the pile of armoured forms and standing up. "Can't you watch where you're going?!"

"Hey!! You're the one who pulled the sudden stop with no warning!!" Nene shot back defiantly, standing up herself and folding her arms defensively across her chest. "Do you drive your bike like that all the time? No wonder it's always being fixed!!"

"Leave my bike out of this! It's not my fault there was a mid-air obstacle in the goddamn way!!"

Bert lay silently on the ground, staring stolidly at the image of the night sky in his suit viewscreen as he listened to the two women wrangle. They seemed to have completely forgotten him for the moment, which was somewhat ironic, given that they'd likely been rushing towards the burning house to see if he'd gotten out or not. Under other circumstances, it would almost have been amusing.

SkyKnight gathered together enough ambition and energy to move, and shoved himself up to his hands and knees. The movement from him reminded the two women of their earlier concern.

"Hold it right there, buster!" they chorused, then stopped in confusion, looking at each other for a moment. SkyKnight regained his feet, and wordlessly began walking towards where he'd landed his jetcycle.

"Hey, just a minute, you!!" Priss's voice was backed up by an armoured hand grabbing his shoulder, forcing him to turn around. "Just what the hell was the big idea here?! We thought you'd blown yourself up or something!!"

"Yeah!" Nene chimed in. "Couldn't you have at least warned us what you were going to do?"

"Look, I didn't have time to give everyone a play-by-play announcement," Bert replied flatly, frustration and weariness eating into him. "I'm sorry if I worried you, but this was the only way to make sure there's no evidence of anything funny. Now IF the two of you don't mind, I've had enough bullshit for one night, and I'd LIKE to get the hell out of here!!" With that, the silver-blue hardsuit spun on its heel, jerking out of Priss's grasp and stalking away, leaving behind two somewhat shocked teammates. After about ten steps, his suit flight wings snapped up, and he hurtled off towards where he'd left the WarHorse.

"He's .... not himself, I guess," Nene awkwardly observed a moment later, wanting to break the silence somehow.

"Gee, thanks for pointing that out!" Priss retorted sarcastically, then sighed and placed a hand on her visor. "I'm sorry, Nene; I didn't mean that....I just..."

"I understand," she replied, suddenly sounding tired herself. "It's...."

"If the two of you don't mind," Sylia's voice over the comm channel interrupted them. "I'd like to get out of here before the police arrive." The two hardsuit-clad women activated their flight systems, lofting into the air towards where the KnightWing waited, its engines thrumming impatiently.

Nene yawned as she stuffed her softsuit into her locker, a huge jaw-cracking yawn that only seemed to magnify the lethargy seeping through her. This had to be the longest night mission they'd ever been on, and having it added onto what had been a long work day for her hadn't helped. Sighing wearily, she closed the locker and started fastening her jacket. Footsteps sounded in the confines of the room, sounding slow and somehow reluctant.

"Um, Nene?" Priss's voice called out, sounding uncertain. "Got a moment?"

"I guess," the young red-head called back, sighing again as she tried to stifle the ambivalent feelings that filled her whenever she saw Priss. "What did you want?"

"I think we need to talk," the brown-haired singer answered, stepping around the end of the lockers, her expression sober and unusually serious.

THE NEXT DAY....

Leon sat brooding at his desk, a computer printout spread on the desktop in front of him. His expression was sour, as if he was somehow dissatisfied with the contents of the printout. He gave the document another thorough reading, then snorted in disgust. He started to crumple the offending piece of paper into a wad, then stopped. With a sigh, he smoothed out the piece of paper as well as he could, and added it to the contents of a file folder that he pulled from the back of one of his desk drawers. He returned the folder to its drawer, and slammed it shut.

"Gas line rupture. Yeah, right, and Quincy's a benevolent philanthropist," he muttered to himself. With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on a corner of the desk. Office decorum be damned; he liked to be comfortable when trying to think something through.

The tall inspector scratched absently at his hair, then reached over to his desk to pick up a steaming cup of black coffee. Sipping carefully at it, he let his mind sift the pile of information he had managed to acquire. As evidence usually went, he didn't have much that was concrete. It was all very thin circumstantial evidence, rounded out by some questionable assumptions on his part.

What he had was someone with no verifiable past living in MegaTokyo, who seemed to have some pretty good resources to draw on from somewhere, and that someone was starting to be at the center of some strange goings-on. Leon scowled at his coffee before taking another sip.

It had started innocently enough, he supposed. Because of his years as a cop, he tended to think the worst of certain situations. Checking out Nene's 'boyfriend' when she'd come down with a series of injuries had seemed logical at the time; he'd seen what the results of abusive relationships could be. The only thing that particular line of inquiry had turned up was that nobody knew anything about him, officially or otherwise.

That had intrigued Leon's investigative instincts; nobody could be that clean. But as he'd probed deeper, he'd only encountered more questions. Rifle cartridges in the grass, of a kind used by a mercenary team beaten to within almost an inch of their lives by what had to be somebody in a hardsuit, near a house that hadn't been lived in for weeks, owned by somebody with no discernible means of support....none of it added up.

Adding to the intrigue was the fact that the site of a lot of the strange events he'd been trying to piece together had gone up in a massive fireball the night before, leaving almost nothing behind. The official report had listed a ruptured gas line as the cause of the explosion and resulting fire that had decimated the isolated structure, but hadn't answered some of the questions that Leon found himself left with, like what had ruptured the line if nobody was living there?

And why had there been a sub-basement to the building, one that wasn't included in the blueprints for the building permit that was on file? Leon sighed. The one thing that was for sure was that he still didn't have anything solid enough to form a conclusion. And it was annoying him to no end.

The phone rang, its digital racket reminding him that he did have other, more immediate concerns to pay attention to. Reluctantly, Leon pulled his feet off the desk and sat up, pulling his chair in a bit closer to the desk as the phone repeated its urgent-sounding call. He reached out and picked up the receiver, clearing his throat and mentally bracing himself.

"ADP Inspection Division, Leon McNichol speaking," he identified himself. "What can I do for you?"

"Hi Leon, it's Nene," a familiar voice replied. "Is that 'job offer' you mentioned the other day still open?"

"Hi Nene," Leon replied, feeling a somewhat self-satisfied smile spread across his face as he glanced quickly around the office to make sure that nobody was within easy eavesdropping distance. "Can I take that to mean that you're interested?"

"I'm interested," she confirmed crisply, "but before I agree to anything I want a formal, written description of what my duties are going to involve, and what the pay scale is going to be. Can you arrange that?"

Leon pulled the phone receiver away from his ear for a minute and stared at it disbelievingly, as if it was some strange alien device. It had certainly sounded like Nene, but he'd never heard her being that...direct before; he had to forcibly remind himself again that there was definitely a sharp intellect behind those green eyes. He'd seen it several times, but somehow Nene always managed to deflect closer scrutiny from herself that might define just how smart she was. He gave his head a quick shake, as if clearing it, and put the receiver back to his ear.

"I think I can probably manage that," he said cautiously. "I'm a bit hurt that you don't trust my word, though."

"Oh, I trust you, Leon," she hastened to assure him - Leon wished he could tell if she was being sincere or merely humouring him - "but I don't particularly trust whoever asked you to make that offer in the first place."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, Leon," there was no mistaking the dryness in her voice this time. "You wouldn't be suddenly making covert offers and taking that much responsibility for something as important as you say it is without authority from somebody higher-up. You're just not like that. Since they didn't put you in charge of the ADP, that means that whoever is running the show right now is the one who to put you up to it. And since he didn't come forward himself and ask, I'm just a bit suspicious. Blame it on being a cop," she deadpanned.

"Well, it'll probably take me a day to get the paperwork you want put together," Leon told her. "You're on shift again tomorrow afternoon?"

"That's right," she confirmed. "Since you wanted this kept quiet, did you want me to meet you in the cafeteria again?"

"I'll let you know when you get in," Leon replied. "I'm not so sure the cafeteria would be a good place for something like that."

"Okay! See you tomorrow then," Nene abruptly reverted to her usual cheery-sounding self. "Bye!"

Leon slowly hung up the phone, his mind trying to sort out the implications of the conversation he'd just had. Nene had been almost forceful in her directness about the matter, as if she wasn't going to put up with any bureaucratic maneuvering. The terms of acceptance that she'd laid out neatly framed Aramaki's proposal into something more tangible than the vague description he'd given her. Tangible enough to be used as a lever, should something go wrong.

A slow grin began to seep across Leon's face as he thought that over, and a faint hint of admiration began to creep into his thinking. Aramaki hadn't really given him anything concrete to work with, and had been deliberately mysterious about just what the limits were to what he was trying to get Leon to set up. The only answer he'd ever been able to get was that it was all for the benefit of the ADPolice. If that really was the case, and Aramaki wanted his decryption expert on his little operation, he was going to have to come clean, on that end of things at least. The old man was going to hate that; the brown-haired inspector somehow doubted that Aramaki liked being pinned down.

Leon's grin widened as he stood up to go in search of Aramaki; he just had to see what the old man's expression was going to be when he heard what Nene wanted.

"Ethan, you've lost your mind," Doc stated. The old scientist's face was lined with stress and fatigue. "You can't just expect me to drop everything to work on your latest preoccupation," he waved a hand at the far end of the lab where a handful of technicians were running diagnostic scans over a dark blue and black suit of armour that lay on a work table. "You wanted this Battlemover project finished off, and it's consuming all my time. I haven't got the technical staff to spare for anything else, and Morisato isn't nearly competent enough yet to be handed that project to allow me to work on this one."

"Doc, you're missing the point," Hollister replied patiently. "That battle armour over there is far beyond anything the military's got; put a squad of troops in suits like that, and you've got a small army that can take on boomers with a pretty good chance of success." The blond man was unable to take his eyes off the armour at the far end of the room; a cold, hungry fire was almost glowing in his gaze. "And we can mass-produce them cheaper and faster than any battlemover we could ever come up with. Just think of the potential!"

"I have," Doc replied shortly. In his mind's eye he could just see the potential ...for death and destruction. "But I've also thought about our contractual obligations as well. Do you really want to lose billions of yen and anger the people we've got contracts with? They're not going to be happy to hear that you scotched one project because you became obsessed with something else."

"We'll make the deadline," Hollister waved the old scientist's concerns away irritably. "You worry too much."

"Perhaps," Doc mumbled, sticking his pipestem in his mouth and fumbling in his pockets for his tobacco and matches. "But at least I'm still being objective enough to worry about anything." Hollister's glance finally swung towards him, and there was no friendliness in his gaze.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" he asked coldly. Doc met his gaze without flinching - something he was later rather proud of - and took his pipe from his mouth.

"Exactly what it says," Doc told him flatly. "You've been borderline driven about finding this 'Van Vliet' character for weeks. That, and trying to prove that he's somehow connected to the Knight Sabers. Why? Because he had the temerity to actually dare to defy the great Ethan Hollister and..."

"You're forgetting the installation they destroyed," Hollister interrupted frostily, his eyes narrowing as his lips compressed into a thin, bitter line. "Not to mention the number they did on the GD-45 last night."

"You pressed the destruct button on the GD-45, Ethan, not them," Doc reminded him. "Even if the ADP had impounded it, you could've used your contacts to get the mech back before it got returned to the States." The gaunt old scientist jammed his pipe back into his mouth, and packed it full of tobacco while Hollister fumed. Striking a match, he began to stoke the pipe into smoky life.

"You've been irrational over the topic of this guy for weeks now," Doc continued addressing his original point, speaking through the blue haze beginning to gather around him. "Shooting somebody for a mistaken sighting report hasn't exactly helped that impression."

"I can't afford incompetence," Hollister said coldly, "not in a field operative. He served as an example to the rest."

"Oh, I'm sure of that," Doc replied sarcastically. "An example to them to keep their mouths shut, maybe...I doubt it's going to do much to improve their morale."

"It will encourage them to make certain of their information. Their morale is unimportant in this game."

"Fine, have it your way," Doc was suddenly sick of the whole discussion. "But I'm telling you now that I'm not going to take any of my people off the battlemover project. If you want to dissect that suit for study, you're either going to have to do it yourself or find yourself some extra scientists somewhere." With that, the old scientist whirled and stalked out of the room, trailing a cloud of blue pipesmoke, his lab coat flapping in agitation.

Hollister turned back to watching the technicians work on the hardsuit, a cold smile on his face as he crossed his arms across his chest.

THE NEXT DAY....

"I didn't think they were using this wing anymore," Nene commented, glancing around a bit nervously as she walked along the empty corridor with Leon. All around them, vacant offices hollowly echoed their footsteps. Dust lay in a faint layer over the few sticks of furniture that were left in a few of the rooms, proof that this particular section of the ADP building didn't have tenants most of the time. Nene shivered slightly and hugged herself as if suddenly feeling a chill. "It's really creepy in here."

"They've only just finished renovating out here," Leon replied, glancing over at her. "With some of the re-structuring that went on here after that, every bloody department in the building wants the nice, new offices for themselves, and they haven't been able to move any staff out here because of the wrangling."

"But why'd this guy have to locate his office out here?" Nene prodded. "It's not like there aren't other offices available."

"Probably for the same reason we're meeting him in private now," Leon grinned. "So that nobody has anything to gossip about. He can come and go out here without anyone really noticing. For now, at least."

"We know he's up here already, Leon," Nene assured him dryly. "Naoko's been cooking up conspiracy theories in an attempt to figure out what he's doing."

"Great," Leon grimaced sourly. "I'm going to have to ask her to stop that; morale's bad enough at the moment without adding wild rumours to the mix."

"Oh, come on, Leon," Nene giggled. "You know Naoko; do you really think she could come up with something anybody'd actually believe? She just likes to talk...a lot."

"You know something? I'd noticed that myself sometimes," Leon replied with a straight face. He'd been cornered by Naoko a time or two in the past, and had been hard-pressed to get a word in edgewise. Once she started in on a topic, there was no stopping her.

The two police officers reached the end of the hallway and stopped before a wood-paneled door with a frosted glass pane set into it. There was a bracket screwed to the door just below the window for holding a nameplate, but it was empty. The only indication that the office might be occupied was the fact that the lights appeared to be on. Leon knocked briefly, then turned the knob and opened the door, waving Nene through first as he held the door open.

Nene stepped through the doorway, unconsciously straightening her uniform jacket, even though she didn't really need any adjustment; her uniform was as neat and immaculate as it could possibly be. She'd made sure of that, especially since she was going to be meeting somebody for what amounted to a job interview.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Romanova," the man seated behind the large central desk greeted her, standing up as she approached the desk. He was of average height, wearing a light-coloured suit, and had greying hair and a goatee. His smile was welcoming enough, but Nene could sense the intense scrutiny she was undergoing, masked by his bland gaze.

"Good afternoon, sir," she replied, giving him a formal bow. Behind her, Leon took another glance down the hall before closing the door. The faintest touch of a frown was on his expression as he walked over to the desk as well. Without asking, Leon re-positioned one of the guest chairs more to his liking and sat down with a sigh.

"By all means, make yourself at home," the old man said dryly, an eyebrow twitching upwards as he glanced at the younger inspector.

"Thanks, I just did," Leon grinned, settling himself a bit deeper into the chair and stretching his legs out. Aramaki rolled his eyes toward the ceiling for a moment, then returned his attention to Nene, who was standing there looking a bit nonplused.

"Please, have a seat, Ms. Romanova," he told her, the faintest trace of smile brushing across his face, "and don't worry about Inspector McNichol; he's been trying to irritate me for days now."

"Uh, thanks," Nene recovered herself and sat in the other chair, taking a quick glance around the office. It looked like any other executive office, although the lack of anything on the bookshelves made it seem a bit more spartan than most. Other than the desk and chairs, there was a coffee machine on a table in a corner, and a laptop computer on the desk.

"Now then, Ms. Romanova," Aramaki rubbed his chin as he gazed thoughtfully at her - Nene immediately assumed her most guileless and innocent expression - "Inspector McNichol tells me that you're interested in helping me solve a little problem I've encountered."

"I am, sir, provided you're willing to provide the assurances I requested," Nene replied quietly, but firmly. Inwardly, she felt like she was trembling, but she kept her nervousness concealed, meeting his cool look with one of her own.

"Please, call me Aramaki," he held up a hand, wincing a little. "Being called 'sir' makes me feel older than I am."

"I can't do that, sir; that would be disrespect to a senior officer," Nene replied. Besides, calling him 'sir' was also a defense of sorts; it kept her from dropping her guard too much.

"I'll make it an order then," Aramaki smiled. "Rank hath it's privileges, and all that."

"Whatever you say, sir."

Aramaki glanced at Leon, but realized he wasn't going to get anything helpful from him: the tall inspector had an amused grin on his face, and was obviously enjoying watching from the sidelines. Aramaki sighed internally, and resigned himself to being called 'sir' for the duration of the interview.

"With respect to these assurances you mentioned," Aramaki returned to the point of the conversation, "I can provide them, but that also changes the question a bit. If I provide them, can you prove that you can provide the expertise I'm looking for?"

"What exactly are you looking for, sir?" Nene asked, neatly deflecting the question. "Inspector McNichol said you were looking for a decryption expert."

"That's one way of describing it," Aramaki acknowledged with a smile. "I believe the other, more derogatory term usually associated with the job is 'hacker'. It's quite simple, Ms. Romanova: I need somebody who can crack top-level encryption codes on some database files we've found. Once that's been accomplished, I have in mind some security implementations I'd like to put in place in the ADP's computer system to block some of the holes some people have been getting through."

"Which 'we' are you referring to, sir?" Nene inquired. "I didn't see any mention of encrypted files in the report filed by the Internal Affairs investigators."

"How did ...?" Aramaki's eyebrows lifted for a moment in surprise before he could catch himself; that report hadn't been filed officially yet. Only certain people had access to it, and even that was restricted.

"I did my research thoroughly, sir," Nene replied calmly, only a faint trace of smugness touching her expression. "Inspector McNichol's explanation of what the job was about was rather vague, but he did give me an idea of where I should look to see if there was any corroborating evidence."

"And did you find any?" Aramaki glanced at Leon, who was still sitting there with an amused grin as he watched the two of them fence. Aramaki snorted to himself, and returned his attention to the young red-head across from him.

"Some," Nene admitted. "But I found more questions than I did answers, actually."

"Such as?"

"Who are you, really?" Nene asked bluntly. "I checked the ADP personnel records thoroughly, and there's nobody with your name anywhere in them, either past or present. I also couldn't find any kind of notice of appointment in the city's records, so that means if they did appoint you, then it wasn't a regular session of the legislature. So I was left wondering just who you are and what it is that you're trying to do here."

There was a long silence in the office for a moment as Aramaki sat motionless, his intent gaze boring into her. Nene met it as levelly as she could, her hands clenched in her lap. She briefly hoped that she wasn't visibly shaking; right now she was so nervous that she was having problems resisting the urge to flee the room.

She wasn't normally confrontational, preferring to work unseen in the background, but she'd come to the conclusion that she was going to have to start being a bit more forceful if she wanted to get anywhere within the ADP. She certainly didn't want to spend the rest of her life being one of the general support staff; she wanted to do something that had more meaning to it than shuffling someone else's paperwork.

"Well, now," Aramaki finally spoke, his words dropping into the stillness like pebbles thrown into a pond, "you have been doing your research, haven't you?" A slow smile began to seep across his face, and Nene began to breathe a bit easier.

She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Leon wasn't relaxing; he was sitting a bit straighter in his chair, and the grin he'd been sporting earlier was gone. Nene hoped he wasn't about to pull his gun, or something equally rash.

"I'd like to be able to tell you more than I have," Aramaki spoke again, his expression sobering, "but the plain truth of the matter is that I cannot. All I can say is that a great deal of what I've done in the past was for security and safety of the public. In no way am I trying to undermine the ADP with what I'm doing now. If anything, I will hopefully be able to leave the ADP in capable hands, and leave it better able to serve the public in the role it's required in. I give you my word of honour on that, and I'm asking you to trust me."

"And just what do you see the role of the ADP as being?" Leon asked brusquely, his expression almost combative as he locked gazes with the old man. Nene started at the harsh interruption.

"Exactly what it should be," Aramaki replied, unruffled. "The role of the ADP is to protect the public from boomer-related depredations, and to investigate the causes of such problems to prevent re-occurrences. Investigations, I might add, that should ideally be conducted without pressure from certain parties with vested interests in the proceedings."

"And you're going to help us do that, right?" Leon's voice and expression were patently skeptical.

"I'm certainly going to try," Aramaki told him candidly, "and I've usually experienced success in the majority of my endeavours." After a moment or two more, Leon nodded slowly and relaxed, sitting back in his chair.

"All right, I guess I believe you," he stated, eyeing Nene as she sighed in relief, not quite as quietly as she'd hoped to.

"And you, Ms. Romanova?" Aramaki asked her directly. "Are you also willing to give me the benefit of the doubt for now?" At the red-head's nod, he seemed to relax a little himself.

"Well then," Aramaki smiled, "it would seem that all we need now is for you to take a look at this." He extracted a slim sheaf of paper from a file folder and handed it across the desk to Nene. She accepted it, and began to rapidly read through what it contained.

The document outlined, by and large, exactly what Aramaki had said it would: decryption of some presumably sensitive files as well as assisting in the implementation of tighter security protocols for the ADP's computer systems. She was rather intrigued by the line that read along the lines of 'conducting investigations into the probable causes of past intrusions'; that sounded like a license to snoop around to her, and she wondered what Aramaki was hoping she'd find if and when she did. She continued reading until she reached the section regarding salary, and just about choked when she did.

"Is this correct?!" she asked incredulously, eyes wide as she lifted them from the page.

"Too much?" Aramaki asked blandly. "I can certainly cut it back if you'd like..."

"No! No, this is fine!!" Nene hastily assured him, glancing again at the page as if afraid that the text was going to change suddenly on her. "It's just...I didn't expect it to be quite that ... generous." It was at least twice what she made now - officially speaking - and was generally unheard of for anyone in the lower ranks.

"If you want skilled people, you have to be prepared to pay for them," Aramaki noted. "I'd like to point out that there is a two to three week probationary period involved. If you can prove in that time period that you can provide the skill set Inspector McNichol claims you can, your pay will be upgraded to what's stipulated on that agreement you're holding."

"I understand," Nene nodded, managing to suppress her elation. Two to three weeks? She could likely crack those encryption codes in two to three days ...unless, of course, they were more sophisticated than they'd appeared to be in her initial check. Part of her mind cautioned her about getting overeager, reminding her that she did still have to be careful, and she carefully throttled back her surge of glee. "I'll try my best, sir."

"Based on the glowing reports I've had about you, I don't doubt it," Aramaki smiled cryptically. "Now then, if everything's satisfactory, would you mind signing and returning that form you're holding?"

"Certainly, sir," Nene replied, looking around for a pen. Aramaki proffered one; she accepted it with a thank-you, and quickly scrawled her signature on the bottom of the contract pages she held. She handed the pen back to the old man along with the signed piece of paper.

"For now, you'll still be at your old desk, I'm afraid," Aramaki told her apologetically. "I haven't been able to nail down final office space arrangements yet, mostly because there's a lineup for the departments that want to move into this area now that it's been renovated. I only managed to get my office in here by pulling a few strings. I can't do that for an entire department, however. I should be able to get you your own office space in a couple of days."

"I guess that's okay, sir," Nene replied dubiously, "but..."

"I'll make the arrangements with your usual supervisor to redistribute your work to other people so that you can work on what we discussed," Aramaki told her, neatly anticipating what she'd been about to say. "I will be informing her that you've been transferred to provide some assistance and support to an investigation that Inspector McNichol is conducting. I trust I don't need to emphasize the need for discretion?" At her affirmative nod he smiled again. "Good. I believe that concludes our meeting for the day, then. You can finish your shift off as usual today, and start on your new duties tomorrow."

"Thank you, sir," Nene replied, standing up and bowing formally to him again. "I'm looking forward to working with you, and I hope I'll be able to fulfill your expectations." She turned to leave as Leon sighed and reluctantly hauled himself out of his chair, standing up himself.

"You can check back with me in a couple of hours, Inspector," Aramaki told him as Leon started to follow Nene towards the office door. "I'll have some things I'll want you to look into then."

"Whatever you say...sir," Leon replied, grinning at the sour look Aramaki gave him at the appellation. Giving the old man a somewhat flippant bow, Leon followed Nene out of the office and closed the door behind himself.

Nene was silent as he sauntered down the hallway after her. He glanced at her as they reached the elevator and waited, noting that her expression was thoughtful and far-away. Nene didn't say anything until they were in the elevator. After the doors had closed, she turned to Leon.

"What did you think, Leon?" she asked, looking up at him. "You didn't say a lot during the interview."

"I didn't have to," Leon grinned, sweeping some hair out of his eyes with a hand. "I wasn't the one being interviewed. Why?"

"Well," Nene said slowly, "I believe what Mr. Aramaki told me about wanting to help out the ADP, but didn't you get the feeling there was something he was holding back?"

"What makes you say that?" Leon frowned as he mentally reviewed what Aramaki had said, but didn't find anything to arouse suspicion.

"Oh, just an impression," Nene waved away the question with a sigh. "It's nothing."

Aramaki sat staring broodingly into space, tapping the fingers of one hand on his desktop absently. Periodically he glanced towards the closed office door, scratching his goatee meditatively. After several minutes, he reached over to the laptop computer sitting patiently nearby, and tabbed a couple of keys. The screen began to flash lines of text at him, illuminating his face and making him appear even more wrinkled than he was.

Aramaki sat silently, his arms crossed as he leaned back in his chair as he read the contents of the computer's report, occasionally nodding to himself as if making mental notes. The sound of even, unhurried footsteps coming down the hallway towards his office caught his attention. Reaching out, he pressed another key on the computer, halting the machine and blanking the screen, and waited.

The door opened almost noiselessly, and a woman entered the room. She was fairly tall, with an athletic build, and moved with a somehow predatory grace. She had straight black hair, cut in a neatly businesslike style to just above her collar, and mirrored sunglasses concealed her eyes. Her hands were stuck in the pockets of the trenchcoat she was wearing over a black, form-fitting bodysuit, and one pocket bulked suspiciously.

"You're late," Aramaki said flatly, raising an eyebrow. "You were supposed to have checked in twenty minutes ago."

"I had to shake a tail," she shrugged. "He was better than I expected."

"You're slipping," Aramaki noted. "It never used to take you that long."

"You said we weren't supposed to leave any bodies laying around," she replied, walking over to the desk and leaning on the corner. "And it wouldn't have been a good idea to just off him in public, now would it?" She reached up and pulled off her sunglasses, revealing violet-coloured eyes as a faint smirk tugged at her mouth.

"No, it wouldn't," the old man's voice was dry. "Did you find out anything?"

"Your new hacker is clean," she replied. "She might've tweaked her records a few years ago to meet the age requirement to get into the ADP, but I found about six or seven other people who did the same thing."

"That's minor," Aramaki waved that aside, "I was looking for something a bit more serious than that."

"She's clean," the woman repeated. "She's got a former boyfriend who's managed to arouse the suspicions of Inspector McNichol for some reason, but as far as I could find out from my own investigations, he's clean too." She shrugged. "The guy owns a recreational club on the eastern side of the city, and seems to be fairly well-off. Nothing criminal that I could find though."

"Inspector McNichol is sometimes a little over-zealous," Aramaki sighed.

"No kidding," she snorted. "I can check the guy out a little more thoroughly if you want, but for now I think it's a dead end." She pulled a large, folded envelope from the pocket of her coat, and tossed it onto the desk, along with a compact disc case. "There's my report, if you really want to bore yourself with the details."

"Thank you," Aramaki replied. "I'll let you know if I've got anything else for you to take care of."

"No problem; things are pretty quiet right now anyway," she replied, putting her sunglasses back on. "I kind of enjoyed the chance to get out; beats the hell out of sitting around."

"Don't enjoy the peace and quiet too much," Aramaki said wryly. "I've often found that the calm spots are usually just the lull before the storm."

FOUR DAYS LATER....

"Hey, you'd better lay off that," Priss warned him, firmly but gently. "You don't want your coordination screwed up when we leave; you are riding your bike, remember?" Her red-brown eyes were concerned as she looked at him. Reaching out, she slid the glass he'd been drinking from out of his grasp. "Besides, I thought you didn't like booze?" Around them, the subdued conversations from nearby tables of people hummed quietly, creating an odd harmony with the music coming from the nightclub dance floor.

"I don't," Bert replied, slouching back in his chair and rubbing wearily at the bridge of his nose. "But you said I should relax, and having a drink was about the only way I could think of." He stared moodily at the three empty glasses sitting on the table, his consumption of the last hour.

Priss watched him as he sat there, trying to conceal her unease; she'd rooted him out from his apartment earlier in the evening, declaring that he needed to relax and get out and do something for change. He'd been a bundle of frayed nerves ever since the night of that disastrous boomer hunt, and hadn't gone anywhere that hadn't been absolutely necessary.

She'd stayed away from him for a while, respecting his need for some privacy, but it had quickly become evident that solitude wasn't what he needed. He'd sunk into a dark gloom, and seemed to have lost interest in everything. He hadn't been hiding; she'd been able to find him without problems whenever she'd needed to, but ... the energy, the drive he'd once possessed had evaporated. It was as if he'd given up.

Dinner had loosened him up a bit, and she'd been able to keep the small talk going, although it didn't escape her notice that he was carefully avoiding any questions that might have given her an insight into his true state of mind at the moment. Not good.

It was when he'd ordered three stiff drinks of rye and coke that concern had turned into something just short of alarm; even though he'd loosened up in the time that they'd been together, he'd never drank with apparent intent to get plastered. She briefly hoped the alcohol had enough of a hold on him to at least enable her to get some answers out of him.

"Bert." He looked up, his eyes meeting hers at the quiet tone of entreaty in her voice. "We've got to talk." She watched as a rueful smile tugged briefly at the corners of his lips.

"I'd figured that was part of the reason behind this," he told her, waving at the night club around them. "Guess my intuition isn't totally gone yet." He sighed, and ran a hand over his face wearily. "What did you want to discuss?"

"I was kind of hoping you'd tell me," she replied. "You haven't been yourself lately, so what's bugging you?"

"Oh, my worst nightmare dropping back into my life might have something to do with that," he noted sardonically. "That, and the fact that my stupidity allowed the goddamn bastard to get..." He stopped, grinding his teeth together as anger coupled with fear threatened to break through his control. He reached for one of the glasses his drinks had come in, and swallowed the mouthful of water that had been left by the ice cubes melting.

"I know about that part," Priss told him quietly, watching him as he fought to calm down. She gazed searchingly into his eyes. "But I can tell there's more to it than that this time." She waited, her eyes never leaving his face, her expression serious. "What is it?"

There was a long silence as he sat absently twirling his glass around on the tabletop. Priss opened her mouth to speak again, but his sigh interrupted what she'd been going to say.

"I feel....old," he finally said. "That's about the only way I can explain it."

"Old?!" Priss couldn't quite keep a disbelieving laugh from escaping. She quickly suppressed the reaction as irritation flickered in his face. "Bert, you're not that old," she told him. "I mean, you're only..." She had to stop and do some quick mental arithmetic.

"In 'real' time, physically, I'm around twenty-nine at the moment," he told her, a touch of dryness in his tone. "If you look at it on paper though, I'm supposed to be sixty-five or sixty-six by now." His face tightened a bit. "And there's been days where I feel like I am that age, especially lately."

"So what does that mean? You're going to ask Sylia for a pension now or something?" she tried joking. "Come on, you aren't sixty-five, and you're not over the hill just because you're approaching thirty. Lighten up a bit, will you?"

"So here I am, older but no wiser," he continued wearily, gazing absently into space. "And just what have I managed to accomplish in all that time?" He answered his own question before she could answer. "Nothing. Not a damn thing. We plug a hole in the dike, and three more break out. We mop the slime off the streets, and it oozes back from the sewers dirtier than ever." Frustration flashed across his face, tinged with what looked almost like fury, and then vanished again behind the tired mask. "So I've found myself wondering if there's any point to it anymore."

"There is no quick fix for the world's problems," she told him simply. "You should know by now that it takes time before things change."

"I don't even know anymore if it can be changed," he replied blackly.

"Bullshit," Priss said succinctly. "If you didn't believe it, then why would you keep trying? Because you DO think you can make a difference, and you're too goddamn stubborn to just give up." She glared fiercely at him. "I know you well enough to be able to say that as a certainty, and don't you dare contradict me."

"I..." Bert seemed to be searching for the right words, but after a moment he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "I just don't know anymore, Priss," he told her, his voice low and weary-sounding. "All I know is that it's becoming more and more of an effort to put the suit on. I really don't know what I'm doing anymore, or why I'm doing it, and I'm tired." A crooked, half-hearted smirk appeared. "Unfortunately, I don't dare relax, not anymore."

"Have you thought about taking some time off?" Priss asked. "I mean really take some time off. Go to some holiday resort for a week or something, just get away from," she waved a hand vaguely at the club around them, "the city, and all of this." She received a derisive snort in reply.

"With Hollister snooping around? I wouldn't be able to relax, and I'd probably start searching under the bushes to make sure I wasn't being watched. Besides," he sighed again, "there's just too much to do right now. I can't leave Sylia holding the bag, not with all the work that still has to be done."

"You have one hell of an overdeveloped sense of responsibility," Priss informed him tartly. "Sylia wouldn't mind if you took some time off; have you even ever asked her about it? Hell, she'd probably insist that you get lost for a while, especially given what you've just told me."

"And that's why I'm not going to tell her yet," he replied mildly. Priss threw up her hands in exasperation.

"You really are the limit sometimes," she told him flatly. "You've got to be the only person I know who'd condemn themselves to mental burnout just because you don't want to inconvenience someone else. You are allowed to think about yourself from time to time, you know!" Bert merely smiled in reply.

"All right, we can discuss this back at your place," Priss decided. "Maybe you'll be more willing to listen to reason there."

"I doubt it, but you're certainly welcome to try," he deadpanned. Priss rolled her eyes, and did a slow mental count to ten before she succumbed to the urge to strangle him. He could be so infuriatingly intractable that sometimes she felt like she'd have had more success talking to a rock.

"I've got to use the ladies' room first," Priss told him as she stood up. "It shouldn't take me long."

"Okay; I'll wait here," he replied, pulling his coat from where it was hanging over the back of his chair and shrugging into it. He sat back down as she moved off into the crowd, heading for the restrooms. Leaning back in his chair, he aimlessly drummed the fingers of one hand on the tabletop, watching the crowd blankly, not really seeing them.

As he sat there waiting, two men in dark blue suits materialized next to his table. One was about six-foot-four, with black hair and dark glasses and a very muscular build. Bert felt his nerves tighten in trepidation; generally, anyone with that kind of an appearance was a concealed boomer. They all had that look that said 'enforcer'.

The smaller of the pair was about five-foot nine, with straight black hair and hazel eyes. Bert's eyes picked out the slight bulge of a shoulder holster under the man's left arm as the man pulled out a chair and sat down across from him. A cold quiet seemed to suddenly settle through him, not quite dispelling the slight buzz he was feeling from the drinks he'd consumed earlier.

"I'll be done with this table in a minute buddy," he told the seated individual. "You can have it then." Stall them, part of his mind warned. Try and keep them off balance; you're not up to any kind of a confrontation right now.

"I think we both know that I'm not interested in the table, Mr. Van Vliet," the man replied coolly.

"Have we met?" the red-headed Knight Saber inquired politely, trying to keep his expression bland. "I don't remember seeing you around here before."

"Not personally, no," the blue-suited man replied with a cold smile. "But I believe you are acquainted with my employer. He's most anxious to renew your acquaintance." Bert knew immediately what he was talking about, and quickly slammed the lid on the stream of memories and the accompanying rage that started to flash back; if ever he needed to think clearly, it was now. He began to regret giving in to the urge to try using alcohol as an escape; he still felt a little fuzzy, and he was fairly certain that his coordination was off just enough to preclude any kind of a fight.

"I'm sorry," Bert shook his head regretfully, "but I still don't know what you're talking about. I haven't gone anywhere or met anyone in months."

"Mr. Van Vliet," the man sighed, sighing melodramatically, "please don't make this any harder than it has to be. It really would be in your own best interests for you to come with me."

"Sorry, I don't go anywhere with people I don't know. And not only do I not know you, but I don't wish to know you. Or this 'employer' of yours that you say I know."

"Naturally, I'm shocked at your refusal," the man shrugged carelessly, "but then again most people don't know what's good for them." The smile vanished. "However, you WILL be coming with me."

"Sorry, I've got some other engagements."

"You have no choice," he was informed.

Across the crowded nightclub dining area, a man clad in non-descript dark clothing set his glass down, nodded congenially to the bartender, and walked over to the bank of pay vid-phones near the door. He was of medium height and weight, with no really striking characteristics to identify him to a casual observer. He blended perfectly with the crowd as he maneuvered through them, somehow remaining unaffected by the press of people.

He passed another similarly-attired man as he reached the phone consoles, and made a brief, almost invisible hand signal. The second man nodded, then moved into the crowd himself. Feeding some coins into the vidphone slot, the first man deftly keyed in a number sequence, spoke briefly into the phone receiver, and then hung up, turning and moving back into the crowd.

The vidphone continued to stare blankly after him as he left.

Priss carefully elbowed her way through the densely-packed throng of people near the bar, trying to get back to her table and Bert. She growled under her breath, swearing at some of the more drunken club patrons as they lurched into her. She supposed it made a certain amount of sense putting the restrooms close to the bar itself, especially since many of the clientele probably needed a toilet to be close by at times. At the same time, it made it hell trying to get to and from the washrooms when on more legitimate business.

Shoving past another bleary-eyed boozer, she started to make her way out into the less-crowded dining area when a voice called her name out over the thrum of conversation in the bar.

"Priss! Long time no see!"

"Oh no, not now," the brown-haired singer muttered despairingly to herself. "Why me?" Sighing inwardly, she turned towards the voice and its owner.

"Something you want, Leon?" she asked, bracing herself for yet another dinner date proposal.

"Just to talk," Leon replied easily, moving closer to her, a drink of some kind in one hand. "I haven't seen you in ages."

"That was the idea," Priss informed him dryly. Leon flashed her a charming grin, letting the implications of that remark slide by.

"So, had dinner yet?" he inquired. "If not I'd be happy to oblige; I know a cozy little place down the street..."

"I've already eaten," Priss interrupted the winning speech and smile routine, her eyes narrowing in annoyance. Nope, Leon hadn't changed a bit. "And I don't date cops."

"Why not?" Leon artfully assumed a wounded look. "Hey, we're human too, you know!"

"That's debatable, and the answer is still 'no'." She managed to hold onto her patience with a supreme effort; why did he keep persisting in trying to pick her up when she'd made it manifestly clear that she wasn't interested in him?! "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to my table." Turning, the red-brown eyed woman started to walk away from him.

"Well how about ..." Leon started to say, when she spun around towards him again, finally fed up.

"Look," she said flatly, stabbing a finger at him. "I'm not interested in going out with you, clear? I'm already seeing someone, so just get lost; go try and pick up one of the secretaries at the ADP offices or something. Just leave me alone right now, okay?" Fuming, she pivoted away from him again. As an afterthought, she half-turned and added, "And quit trying to get backstage at Hot Legs as well." With that, she stalked off into the crowd, deciding to take a more roundabout route back to her table; she didn't really want Leon to follow her and see Bert sitting there. The tall inspector was nosy enough as it was, and she didn't need him getting any new notions to look into.

She snapped out of her preoccupation as it dawned on her that the crowd surrounding the table where she and Bert had been sitting had thinned out remarkably; before it had been a bit of a squeeze to get through. Now, almost everyone was avoiding the very tall and muscular-looking man standing implacably in front of the table. The big man was standing behind a much smaller man, who was seated and facing Bert.

Priss's eyes narrowed as her combat senses began to tingle; she could almost feel the tension oozing from the air around the table. Bert's expression as he looked at the man across from him was icily cold, almost analytical in its detachment, and she recognized that expression: evidently, he'd just been threatened with something.

Her glance darted left and right as Priss began sneaking a hand towards her left armpit, where the reassuring weight of her anti-boomer gun nudged her ribs under her jacket. So far, it looked like no one else had noticed the impending explosion at the table. Now if she could just take out that big jerk, then the little weasel in the suit shouldn't be a huge problem.

Her hand grasped the pistol butt, concealed by the flap of her jacket as she stepped sideways so that the hulking enforcer wasn't quite blocking her line of sight to Bert any longer. As she moved, his eyes lifted to meet hers. The chill look in the back of his greenish-brown eyes sent a shiver down her spine. She suppressed the unease it had produced and tried to signal to him that she was going to try and take out the larger of the pair from behind.

Frustrated, she watched as he shifted in his chair, and then moved his gaze from her to the man across the table from him. A sudden premonition nudged the back of her mind, the whisper of intuition erupting into a scream of certainty as the tall red-head smiled disarmingly at the duo across from him.

All hell broke loose as Priss wrenched her gun from its holster...just a bit too late.

Bright, multicoloured lines snaked across the flat surface of the monitor in front of her as Sylia leaned forward, thoughtfully examining the schematics. A small 3-D hologram of a feminine-contoured hardsuit rotated above its desktop emitter off to her left, the area of its circuitry being examined highlighted a bright yellow. Sylia tapped a finger on the desktop for a moment as her gaze traced some of the circuit paths, then she tabbed a few keys on another console. The screen display shifted slightly to match the changes she'd entered, and she allowed herself a faintly satisfied smile as she took a sip from her nearby cup of coffee.

An urgent, high-pitched warble interrupted her concentration, and she sighed. Setting the cup aside, she picked up the phone.

"We've got trouble, Sylia," Fargo's voice said without preamble. "Hollister's men have located your friend."

"You really think you're going to get away with a kidnapping? In a place as public as this?"

"Of course," the suit smiled coldly. "My colleague here will go on a 'crazed rampage', which will prompt a mass panic; no one will notice us leaving in the confusion." Bert's face tightened further; as bloody-minded as it was, that ploy had a fair chance of success. Hell, better than fair; with people screaming and panicking all over the place, nobody would notice two men in the bedlam, even if the one was holding a gun on the other.

"I don't suppose I could talk you out of this?" Greenish-brown eyes flicked to the disguised boomer standing behind the suit's chair, then dropped to the boomer's master. About four feet between himself and the suit, and about seven feet to get to the boomer. The catch was that he'd have to stand up first, and he was stuck sitting down behind a table. Not a very tactically sound position. His mind raced, trying to find some way to deal with the situation.

"I'm afraid not." The man smiled thinly. "Mr. Hollister was most insistent that you accompany me, and since you're not willing to do so of your own volition..." he sighed mock-regretfully, spreading his hands in a shrug. "It's a shame really; we'd hoped that you'd listen to reason. For example, it would be unfortunate if the lovely young lady we saw you dining with earlier should happen to become one of the casualties of the evening."

"Touch her in any way whatsoever, and I promise you that you will wish you were dead." The tall red-head's voice was abruptly flat and glacially cold. "And that is not an idle threat."

"Well now, it seems we've found a way to appeal to your sense of reason." The weasel-faced man's voice was suddenly oily with satisfaction, and he appeared unfazed by the threat. "Coming with us would spare her an unfortunate and untimely demise."

"Don't push me." Bert's voice sounded tight and strained, even to his own ears. "Just get up, walk away, and forget you ever saw anything. This is your last warning."

"Although it's strange," the man across from him mused, a taunting smirk on his face. "We were told to look for you with a young red-headed woman, and she certainly was no redhead." He shrugged carelessly. "Ah well, I'll have to make certain that information is updated."

Bert didn't reply. His gaze was utterly devoid of any emotion, and his face looked like it had been carved from stone. Fear swept like a cold breeze through his mind as he sat there; it was one thing to be sitting on the bulls-eye of a target himself, and quite another to have two of his friends there with him. He'd been praying that Hollister's operatives wouldn't somehow connect Nene or anyone else with him, but time had caught up with him on that score it seemed. They knew.

And that meant there was really only one option available to him if he wanted to get out of this.

The ice running through him thawed slightly at his calm acceptance of what he had to do, and his mind began to race faster in a frenzy of rapid planning.

As he sat there, trying to frame some kind of a reply to put his antagonist off-guard, movement in the crowd beyond the concealed boomer attracted his attention; he looked up, right into Priss's eyes as she walked back towards their table. She slowed down when she saw the two men at the table confronting him, and her eyes widened as she apparently realized what was going on. Her hand started to creep towards the armpit of her jacket, where she customarily carried her concealed anti-boomer pistol. She was still about ten feet behind the boomer, far enough away that it and its master hadn't noticed her...yet.

"All right, I've made my decision," Bert suddenly announced, shifting in his seat slightly with a sigh. Behind the boomer, Priss tried to make some kind of a signal to him, but his concentration was focused on the boomer and the man seated across the table from him.

"And that is?" There was a smug, self-assured smile on the suit's face; he was positive that he'd mentally crushed his quarry's resistance.

"Go to hell," Bert replied almost pleasantly. Underneath the table, he straightened his leg with a violent snap of motion, shoving hard on one of its legs and propelling the table away from him. The table slammed into the chest of the seated man across from him with enough force to knock him and his chair over backwards. There was a loud crack as his head impacted with the floor, but having put him out of the picture for a moment at least, Bert's attention was focused on the boomer.

As he sprang to his feet, the boomer's clothes and skin tightened and split apart like rotten rags as it shed its disguise, revealing blue armour plating and synthetic musculature. The few people nearby who'd finally noticed what was going on screamed and began trying to get away, stumbling and falling over one another.

The boomer wasn't focusing on the crowd though, only on the foolish human who'd initiated combat. Its AI and sensors scanned the human, trying to determine if he posed a threat; it had been ordered not to seriously harm this particular person, just subdue him if necessary. A small energy source was detected, and the biomechanoid's threat analysis routines spent a precious moment trying to identify it.

To Bert, it seemed as if the fleeting seconds had lengthened into hours; he felt like he was moving in horribly slow motion as he pulled two thin, rectangular cartridges from an inner pocket of his coat, and spun them at the boomer. The killer machine caught the devices out of midair in a blur of motion, and crushed them in an armoured hand.

Instantly, there was a muffled bang, and dense white smoke billowed outwards in a thick cloud, concealing the boomer and everything around it for about ten feet. Bert hadn't been hoping for that to happen in quite that manner, but it was good enough; moving instinctively, he stepped around the table, and towards the boomer as he slid his last ace out of its concealed shoulder holster.

A dark, hulking shape loomed in the swirling, eddying smoke, and something flashed brightly in the darkness, accompanied by the unmistakable hiss of an energy beam. Gritting his teeth, the tall red-head took one final step as he swung his arm through the air in a sideways slash, pressing a button on the cylindrical device he held. An electrical crackle sizzled through the smoky air, closely followed by the unmistakable sounds of armour plating and circuitry vaporizing as a long blue energy blade seared through them with a loud, pulsating hum.

The boomer gave an unearthly mechanical howl, overlaid with the squeal of disintegrating circuitry as it crashed heavily to the floor, disappearing into the smoke. The pall of whitish vapour would begin to thin out in about five minutes though, and Bert took a quick glance around, trying to decide which would be the best way to try to escape and get the hell out of the club. He started to depress the deactivation switch on his lightsaber hilt -the blade was still glowing and humming eagerly, marking his location for anyone with a gun who might be watching-when he felt something small and hard rammed into the small of his back from behind.

"Move, and Hollister can interrogate your remains for all I care," snarled the voice of the suited agent who'd been trying to intimidate him earlier. Evidently, shoving him over with the table hadn't knocked him out. "Now drop that...weapon, whatever it is." Bert hesitated, mentally weighing his chances of trying a quick sidestep and backwards slash with his beam saber.

"Drop it, or your girlfriend's going to be available again," the man stated flatly. There was a crisp metallic snick as he cocked his gun. "I can't miss you at this range, but you never know: she might get hit with a stray shot in all this smoke."

"All right, all right...I'm dropping it," Bert replied, swallowing and trying to control frantically jumping nerves. His mind was screaming in overdrive, trying desperately to find a way out of his predicament, without much success. His foe had too much of an advantage in standing behind him; he had to outmaneuver him somehow.

The humming energy blade snuffed out with another hiss-snap, and the hilt clattered to the floor of the nightclub, skittering off along the floor as he dropped it. Bert tensed himself, gritting his teeth for whatever was coming next.

"Start walking, slowly," the man with the gun directed. "There's an emergency exit straight ahead and off to your left. Head towards it."

Bert took a step forwards, then abruptly sprang forwards and to his right, attempting to get out of line with the man's gun as he started to turn. Hollister's man swore, but before he could attempt a reprisal, two flat reports cracked the air of the deserted nightclub. The bullets tore into the unsuspecting agent in a wicked crossfire, and he died on his feet before even knowing what had happened. Unfortunately his last, convulsive movement triggered his own, already-cocked pistol.

The tall red-head gave a strangled yell as the deceased agent's gun coughed hoarsely, spitting its deadly projectile squarely into his back. Red waves of light washed through his sight as the pain from the impact drove the breath from his lungs. He staggered, stumbling over an overturned chair in the smoke and falling to the floor. A dull, sodden thud from behind him announced the fact that his former opponent had also fallen to the floor.

Bert sucked in a shuddering gasp of air as he began trying to crawl away; given everything that had happened, the cops were going to be all over the place in minutes. He didn't know who'd helped him out by shooting Hollister's agent, but he wasn't complaining...much.

A fumbling hand found the lightsaber hilt he'd dropped and he quickly stuffed it into a coat pocket. As he began trying to get to his hands and knees, he heard stealthy footsteps cautiously approaching.

"Bert?! Where are you, damn it!?!" Priss's voice hissed urgently, stopping him as he started to reach for his weapon again.

"Over here," he called, trying to stand up. He failed as angry throbbing erupted from where he'd been hit in the back. "I'm having problems standing at the moment. I...I think I might be shot." There was a curious lack of alarm at that thought, and part of his mind tried dispassionately to analyze the reason for that.

"We've got to get out of here!" A black shape in the thinning haze resolved into the brown-haired rock singer. She took a quick glance around as she stuffed her pistol back into its concealed holster beneath her jacket, then stepped over next to him.

His next attempt at getting to his feet was as unsuccessful as his earlier one. Bending over and grabbing his arm, Priss quickly hauled him to his feet, ignoring the strangled groan it elicited from him. "We've got to get out of here; the ADP is gonna be combing this entire neighbourhood!! Come on!!" She didn't wait for a response of any kind, but quickly shoved him along in front of her as she made for the fire exits of the club.

Daley looked down at the neatly bisected C-55 model combat boomer on the floor of the club's dining area, and at the scattered and smashed furniture around it. If the biomechanoids had emotions, then it was a sure bet that this one had died surprised. Based on the sketchy eyewitness accounts, it had been standing at a table behind someone, burst out of its human disguise, and then disappeared in an explosion of some kind.

The explosion hadn't been what had killed the boomer though; the lab technicians hadn't found any evidence of the kind of high-explosives necessary to accomplish that. They had, however, found small casing fragments from a less powerful device, a smoke bomb presumably.

That still left unexplained what had happened to the boomer. There were VERY few things that could neatly slice a boomer in half like that, and all of them required powered armour to be able to use. In fact, the dead biomechanoid resembled the remains of a casualty of an attack by the Knight Sabers; in the briefings that usually followed boomer incidents, this type of damage had been seen repeatedly at incidents where the Knight Sabers had beaten the ADP to the punch.

And that still didn't explain the bullet-riddled body a few feet away, hidden under a tablecloth.

He made a few entries in his notebook as he glanced around the club again, watching the forensics experts comb the place for any other clues there might be. It wasn't likely they'd find anything though; given the furor that had erupted when the boomer had started to run amok, any other evidence there might have been had probably been destroyed.

"Anything yet, Daley?" Leon's voice interrupted his thoughts, and the red-haired inspector looked up.

"Nope," he replied. "I think the best leads we've got are the boomer here, and that corpse over there. Anything on him?"

"No." Leon ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. "He was carrying a phony ID, one of the best I've ever seen, and we haven't gotten a match on him out of the computers yet." He held up a clear plastic bag; inside was a slim automatic handgun, fitted with an oversized silencer. "The gun he was carrying isn't a registered one; no serial numbers on it anywhere. It's been fired at least once, so I've notified the hospitals to alert us if they get anyone requiring treatment for a gunshot wound."

"Think it was a hit of some kind?"

"It's possible," Leon admitted. "But you don't generally bring a combat boomer along if you want to quietly take somebody out."

Daley nodded, then looked down at the boomer again. "So what do you think happened here?" he queried. "I heard that you were in the club when this happened."

Leon didn't reply for a moment as he stared down at the dead boomer, mentally reviewing the chaos that had erupted not five minutes after he'd finished talking to Priss. He'd been facing the back of the bar, nursing a drink and some slightly bruised feelings when people had started to scream. There'd been a couple of crashes and bangs as he'd turned around, just in time to see a huge smoke cloud billow out, almost on the other side of the club.

There'd been too much smoke to see what was going on, but several people had started screaming "BOOMER!!!" at the top of their lungs as they pushed and fought in the packed mob that was suddenly swarming away from the smoke cloud. Leon had drawn his pistol and attempted to get closer to where the alleged boomer was, but the mass of people trying to escape had kept him from advancing.

Then he'd heard a sound he recognized instantly, even over the noise of the panicky people: an electrical snap-hiss noise, followed by a pulsating hum. He remembered looking up in shock, craning his head over the heads of the people blocking his way, just in time to see a brightly-glowing spar of blue energy carving a swath through the smoky haze, the light from the weapon backlighting the figure of the roughly man-like shape wielding it. Unfortunately, the smoke had still been too thick to make out any recognizable features.

Leon had doubled his efforts to try and get over to the other side of the club, but to no avail; people were still blindly trying to flee, and he couldn't stem the tide of that may people. He had very nearly been shoved over and trampled a couple of times.

Swearing foully at his luck, the tall inspector had been forced to flow out the door with the crowd, and had fumed impatiently outside until the flood of people had thinned enough for him to force his way back inside. By the time he got back in though, the boomer was dead, and a dead man lay on the floor with a silenced handgun in his hand. Whoever had been responsible for downing them had been long gone.

Even though he knew the ADP had probably already been alerted, Leon had quickly found a vidphone and called the incident in, requesting every forensics specialist he could get his hands on in addition to the usual investigative team; this hadn't been a typical boomer incident, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

What disturbed him the most as he mulled it over was that weapon he'd seen briefly in the smoke cloud. He'd only ever seen anything like it in action once before: when SkyKnight had been dueling a monster of a green boomer with it. Both the silver hardsuited mercenary and the boomer had been hacking at each other with energy blades of some kind, and they'd looked and sounded exactly like what he'd seen tonight. The thought that someone had developed a portable beam saber model that didn't require powered armour to use was unsettling. If it became widely available, there was no telling how it would get used.

There was also an uncanny coincidence gnawing at him, mainly the fact that Priss and her boyfriend had been in the same club as the boomer. He hadn't told the brown-haired singer when he'd tried talking to her, but he'd already seen who she'd been having dinner with: a certain tall, red-headed man with a suspiciously clean background.

At the moment, it seemed like just another strange coincidence, but Leon was getting tired of running into all these 'coincidences' lately. Something just didn't add up somewhere.

"I didn't see anything beyond what we got from the other witnesses," he told Daley. "I'm as much in the dark as you are."

"They're leaving," Priss reported quietly, pulling back from the corner of the alleyway. she'd been peeping around. She glanced back at the dark shapes huddled in the shadows of the alley. The faint light from the street glinted off of the chrome and steel shapes of two motorcycles, but seemed to be absorbed by the third figure; it was as if there was a black hole sucking all the illumination in the alley into itself. "Bert?"

"I heard," came the weary-sounding reply. "How long until you think we can get out of here?"

"About five to ten minutes," the brown-haired singer replied, walking back down the alley to where he was slumped against the wall. "How bad is it?"

"I'll live," Bert replied shortly. "I've had worse." He tried taking a deep breath, but gave up a moment later, wincing. "Damn it, I must be getting old," he muttered, not quite to himself. "I used to be able to handle pain."

Priss shook her head as she looked at him. He was nestled in the shadows of the alley, so it wasn't entirely possible to read his expression in the gloom, but his posture indicated he was in more pain than he was willing to let on.

"Kevlar lining or not, you still took a bullet in the back," she reminded him. She'd been worried that he was bleeding when she'd hauled him out of the club, but he'd reassured her once he'd been able to get his breath back. At least now she knew why he always favoured that black coat he wore: it was bulletproof.

"I didn't have much choice at the time," he replied dryly. "I'm not faster than speeding bullets yet. Thanks for shooting him, by the way." He shifted and winced.

"I didn't shoot him," she informed him quietly. "Somebody else did." Bert was silent for a moment, digesting that piece of information.

"Did you see who did it?" he queried, looking over at her. She shook her head.

"Nope. I'd be willing to bet that whoever did it was a pro, though," she replied. "It was that quick."

"I suppose it's not impossible that they were after that guy to begin with," he said slowly, turning the thought around in his mind. "But why wouldn't they get him before he got into the club?"

"Maybe they didn't have a chance?" Priss suggested, shrugging. "I'm no expert, but if they use a lot of cloak-and-dagger tactics it wouldn't be hard to keep out of sight for a while. Who cares? The asshole's out of our hair now, and that's the important thing."

"I guess so," Bert sighed, dropping the subject. "Let's see if the cops have left yet." He shoved himself off the wall.

Priss's gaze narrowed as she watched him. Something wasn't quite right; she could sense something was just a little off from his movement; it was too stiff and awkward. As he squared his shoulders with another sigh, it hit her.

He was favouring his right side, and he'd said that he'd been shot in the left side of his back.

"Okay, where else did you get shot?" she demanded, gritting her teeth in exasperation as she stepped over to him, turning him slightly to face the dim illumination coming from the street by placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I didn't get shot anywhere else," he protested, trying to fend off her hands as she pulled aside the flap of his coat. "Damn it, Priss, can't we just get the hell out of here?!" She ignored him, and continued to gingerly poke at him, peering at his side as she looked for anything that might indicate he was bleeding. "I said I'm fine....AAARRGHHMphhh!!!!!!!!!" His pained exclamation as her fingers brushed a spot halfway between his hip and shoulder was cut off as she quickly slapped a hand over his mouth, glancing warily at the alleyway mouth.

"Not so damn loud!!" she hissed under her breath. "The cops might still be there to hear you!"

"Then quit poking my goddamn side!!" he hissed back, pulling her hand away from his mouth.

"Oh, so you're not hurt there, huh?" she observed sarcastically, lips thinning in annoyance, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. She could now see that a ragged hole had been burned through the back of his coat on that side, and had a rough idea of what might have caused it.

"It was fine until you shoved on it." He glared back, his left hand now clamped over the spot. His breathing was rapid and shallow, as if he was afraid breathing deeply would aggravate whatever the injury was. Priss shook her head again, and stealthily glided back to the alley entrance for another peek around the corner.

"Okay, the cops are gone," she announced, coming back to him as he slumped against his bike. "Can you ride, or should I call Sylia and have her come pick us up?"

"Yes, I can ride, thank you very much, and I definitely don't want Sylia knowing about this. I'll be fine in the morning."

"Bullshit," came the succinct reply. "Maybe you can ride your bike, but you won't be fine in the morning; I'll bet you dinner tomorrow night on that one. And Sylia already knows something's happened, so you're going to have to face the music anyway."

"What, did she suddenly become psychic in the last 24 hours?" he asked sourly. "I hadn't planned on telling her about what happened until tomorrow morning; I'm too bloody tired right now to be able to stand a lecture."

"When you threw those smoke bombs, I hit my alarm callbeep," she replied simply, holding up her wrist to show him what looked like a sophisticated digital watch. "I thought we might need some armoured backup. After I got you out, I sent a second signal as an all-clear, but she's going to be waiting for an explanation when we get back to your place."

"Oh, just marvelous," he growled. He'd never particularly liked the idea of the watch-transmitters Sylia had given each member of the team, mostly because he hated pagers and anything remotely resembling them. In addition, he'd always figured that if he was in enough trouble that required Knight Saber backup, it would never arrive in time to save him from whatever he was facing. He carefully turned to his bike, unhooking the helmet from the handlebars as he pulled off his hat. "Let's get going and get this over with then."

Priss watched his back for a moment, a frown creasing her brow.

"It looks like a burn from an energy weapon, probably a plasma beam," Anri reported, swabbing carefully at the angry-looking red mark on Bert's side with an antiseptic pad, slowly removing crusted bits of burned shirt material. "It's not too serious, so I guess that boomer must have just grazed him with it."

"Graze or not, it DOES still hurt," Bert gritted between clenched teeth, his hands maintaining a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the examination table he was seated on. "So could you PLEASE stop poking it?!"

"I have to make sure it's clean," Anri replied primly, unfazed by the dark, sidelong look he was giving her. "Otherwise, it could become infected." She resumed her ministrations as he winced, grinding his teeth together. "It will hurt a lot worse than it does now if that happens," she told him.

"Well how about some more local anesthetic then?!" he demanded, flinching away from her touch. "At least that way it won't feel like you're peeling my hide off inch by inch!"

"Would you please just shut up?" Anri requested, giving him a firm, but not totally unsympathetic glance. "You're only making this harder on yourself by squirming around. I'd be done a lot sooner if you'd hold still and keep quiet. Now just relax; it won't take much longer. Just relax..." Her voice had taken on a low, soothing-sounding quality, and he found himself relaxing despite himself. Maybe it was psychological, but it did suddenly seem to hurt less.

Sylia observed them quietly from across the infirmary room, her arms folded across her chest, and a pensive frown on her face as she watched Anri working on him. Priss fidgeted impatiently beside her, shifting around on the countertop that she'd perched on, and Sylia's glance flicked sideways briefly. Priss had given her the majority of the details on what had happened at the nightclub, but Sylia could tell that there was something still bothering her. She shrugged mentally; Priss would talk about it when she was ready, and not before.

"So what do we do now?" Priss suddenly asked her, keeping her voice low. "About those goons of Hollister's, I mean."

"I'm not entirely sure," Sylia admitted calmly, keeping her own voice down as she looked over at her friend. "Laying low and keeping out of sight for a few days would probably be the wisest course, but knowing Bert the way I do, I somehow doubt that he'll be amenable to that solution. Do you think you might be able to talk him into it?"

"Did Hell freeze over when I wasn't looking?" Priss asked wryly. "I wasn't having much luck talking to him earlier in the evening, so I don't think he's going to be any more reasonable right now."

"Oh? What were you trying to get him to do?" Sylia cocked an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Just slow down a bit, that's all," Priss replied evasively. "I think he's been working too hard lately." Sylia nodded and accepted that, then resumed watching as Anri began applying an ointment of some kind to Bert's side.

"We're going to have to try something to convince him to keep a lower profile, however," Sylia noted after a moment or two of silence. "If Hollister's agents found him once, they can do it again. And help, from whatever quarter, may not be so close as it was the last time." Priss shot Sylia a quick glance. It was the neutral expression on Sylia's face more than anything else that told her there was something else going on.

"You sound like you know something about that," she observed, carefully watching Sylia for any sign of a reaction.

Sylia was silent as she considered the best way to answer the implicit question. After a moment, she looked over at Priss, her brown eyes calm and serious.

"I've been having him kept under surveillance," she admitted quietly, "I thought it would be a wise precaution in the event that Hollister did manage to locate him."

"Surveillance? You mean as in being followed everywhere?" At Sylia's nod, Priss felt her internal temperature begin to rise. "And just when did you plan to let us in on the secret? How much did you..." She felt herself flush slightly at the thought that somebody had been watching her and Bert when they'd been...involved. "Just how much did your spies tell you?" she asked tightly, managing to get herself under control.

"They weren't reporting in hourly, Priss," Sylia tried reassuring her. "The only time I was to receive a report was if any of Hollister's agents were detected; I made it absolutely clear that your personal lives were not to be interfered with. Whatever the two of you did in private remained strictly private."

"Well I'd still have liked it better if you'd told us about that beforehand," Priss groused, leaning back against the wall and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Are you sure that you would really prefer to know about it?" Sylia asked simply. "Think about it, Priss: you were able to go about your usual life without worrying. Well, without worrying as much, perhaps," Sylia amended. "How well could you have functioned knowing that there were people following you as protectors? You'd have become paranoid in no time, simply because the knowledge would keep you thinking of the fact that Hollister's men were after you. I doubt you'd be able to enjoy any kind of life under those conditions."

"Hmph," Priss grunted. "I still think it was pretty low not to tell us about it."

"We all have to make decisions about certain things at some point in time," Sylia replied obliquely. "And there will always be ones made that do not please everyone."

"In other words, 'quit bitching and get over it' ?"

"I wouldn't have put it in quite those words," Sylia said blandly, a small smile appearing, "but the sentiment is essentially correct." The two women fell silent as they turned back to watching Anri bandaging the side of their red-haired comrade. After a couple of minutes, Anri stepped back from him with a satisfied look.

"There; all finished," she proclaimed. "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Easy for you to say," Bert replied, wincing a little as he tried sitting up a bit straighter and cautiously easing himself off of the table. "You weren't the one with the burn."

"Dodge faster next time then," Anri told him dryly. Bert's only reply to that piece of advice was a dark look that made her giggle. With a sigh that somehow seemed to imply that he was unfairly being put upon, Bert scooped a clean shirt from another nearby exam table and pulled it on.

"Now I want you to take it easy for the next few days," Anri told him firmly. "And I do mean 'take it easy', understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, feigning meekness before grinning at her. "Come on, Anri; you know I don't go out of my way to get into trouble."

"Maybe not," Sylia couldn't resist interjecting dryly, "but it still seems to happen just the same." A strangled snort came from Priss at the remark, and he could hear Anri stifling laughter as well.

"Thanks a lot," Bert glared at Sylia.

"Anytime," she replied, unfazed.

"If that goddamned incompetent bungler wasn't already dead, I'd sure as hell correct that oversight!!" Hollister spat, angrily slapping a computer printout onto his desktop. "Why am I surrounded by people who can't follow simple orders!? All they had to do was grab him!!" The blond man took a gulp from a nearby glass of liquor, still fuming. "Damn it, I almost had the bastard!! AGAIN!!!!" His grip whitened on the glass tumbler he was holding, but he resisted the urge to fling it at the far wall.

Doc sat quietly in the chair across the desk from him, puffing wordlessly on his pipe, refusing to comment. The old scientist knew better than to point out that Hollister had personally selected which agents had been handed certain assignments; given Hollister's moods lately, Doc didn't want to get shot for something that trivial. Right now, Hollister didn't want reminders of his own involvement, especially in matters that weren't going according to his plans. Doc still would've been happier if Hollister's usual sidearm hadn't been sitting at the far corner of the desk. Even though it was holstered, the gun seemed to breathe menace into the atmosphere just with its presence.

"Well?!" Hollister's sour voice jerked the old scientist out of his uneasy contemplation. "Don't you have anything to say?!"

"I have nothing to do with your intelligence-gathering activities, Ethan," Doc reminded him mildly. "I'm not going to comment on something I know nothing about. Besides," he shrugged bony shoulders, "you don't listen to me when I do know what I'm talking about, so why say anything anymore?"

"You still harping on that?" Hollister's glare was flat, cold, and unfriendly.

"You said in the past that you valued my opinion," Doc blew a smoke ring into the air and watched it billow away from him. In a way, it seemed a lot like his life; despite often strenuous effort on his part, things just seemed to drift away from him and dissipate. "Lately, that sentiment has seemed a bit false. We also originally agreed that I was to have jurisdiction over the tech development of whatever projects came along, including final say on what was going to be done." He drew on his pipe and exhaled another bluish cloud of smoke. "You've been ignoring that agreement and riding roughshod over everyone, even to the point of bullying two of my better technicians into working on that damned suit you found. My opinions count for very little anymore, it seems."

"I can't help it if you can't see the potential of what I'm trying to do."

"And just what are you trying to do, Ethan?" Doc snapped. "Your motives were never very clear to begin with, but lately you've become fixated on certain subjects, and it's affecting your ability to judge things objectively. Everyone else can see it; why can't you?! Because you're too goddamned stubborn to listen to anyone else, that's why," Doc answered his own question, cutting Hollister off as he opened his mouth to reply. "It always has to be your way; you're always right. Well, maybe you were in the past, but lately..."

"I get the picture," Hollister grated.

"Maybe you think you do," Doc countered flatly, "but I don't think so; just by looking at your face I can tell you're thinking 'The old bastard's imagining things'. You've got hostile disbelief written all over you right now. Well, I'm not going to sit here and waste my breath anymore." The old scientist stood slowly, placing a hand on the desk to steady himself. "I'll be working on the Battlemover project if you decide to actually listen to what I'm saying and need to find me."

"Fine." Hollister watched the old man slowly make his way out of the office, trailing wisps of blue pipesmoke. "Goddamn old goat," he muttered to himself after the door had closed behind the old scientist. "I don't know what I'm doing? I'll show you exactly what I'm doing. You, and everyone else." His eyes became as cold as chips of dry ice.

THE NEXT DAY...

"Interesting." Madigan leaned back in her chair, her expression thoughtful as she absently tapped a finger on the datadisc sitting in front of her on her desk. "No leads on the target of the attempted operation?"

"None," came the reply. "He disappeared in the crowd somehow after taking out the boomer." The speaker was a non-descript man wearing a light grey or blue suit, with a shock of sandy brown hair graying at the temples. Mirrored sunglasses were tucked into the breast pocket of his jacket, and his hands were stuffed carelessly into his pants pockets. Despite the seeming insouciance, his gaze was alert and attentive as he made his report to Madigan.

"You said that the boomer was dispatched with an energy weapon," Kate noted. "Did you see the device in operation?"

"No," the man replied simply. "Unfortunately, I got knocked over by the initial rush of the crowd and just barely avoided being trampled. I made the energy weapon observation based on the damage inflicted on the boomer; there was a lot of scorching and melting of the boomer's armour, more that would be caused by a conventional type of hand-weapon."

"And the man who was killed?"

"An agent for a third party," the man replied. "He was caught in a crossfire from opposite ends of the building, and we're still trying to determine who pulled that one off."

"Have you identified which third party the dead agent worked for?" Madigan inquired, although a part of her knew who he'd likely been employed by.

"I put all of the details I was able to discover in my report," the man replied, smoothly avoiding directly answering the question; he'd heard rumours of how Madigan tended to react when a certain name was mentioned, and he didn't want any firsthand demonstrations. "We don't have any hard evidence linking him to anyone as of yet."

"Very well," Kate accepted the deflection. "Continue your surveillance and report back as usual."

"Yes, ma'am," the man bowed, then turned and left her office. Kate sat silently for a moment, before picking up the datadisc from her desk, and sliding it into a slot in the front face of the desk. A moment later, her desktop lit up with a display of the report it contained. Kate read through it carefully, trying to make sense of the facts it contained. The entire affair smelled of Hollister, but there were evidently some other unknown forces at work.

With the paranoia and associated covert surveillance that was rampant in the espionage world, there should have been at least some indication of who had killed Hollister's agent. That there wasn't seemed to indicate either a total newcomer to the field with exceptionally skilled operatives, or else someone who was good enough to remain undetected by all of the other assorted corporate and government agencies working out there. Neither thought was particularly reassuring to contemplate for any length of time.

Ka