The calm of the evening shoppers in the downtown shopping mall was shattered by the blast of gunfire. Security guards dropped as hot streams of lead slashed the air and killed or seriously wounded them. Six, heavily armed bandits wearing ski masks burst from the 5th National Bank, armed with assault rifles, and at least one portable rocket launcher. They sprinted down the marble-finished tiles of the mall, dragging bags of money, as terrified civilians dodged and ran for cover. The six desperadoes burst out of the front doors to the plaza, and found themselves confronted by a semicircle of police cars, blocking their exit with strobe lights blazing. Off to the side, from behind his car, a plainclothes officer raised a megaphone to his mouth.

"This is the ADPolice!" blared from the megaphone. "Throw down your weapons, and put your hands up!" The answer was not what they had anticipated; one robber whipped the rocket launcher up and fired it at the police vehicles; the cops dove for cover as the rocket flashed towards them. There was a sudden hissing roar, and a flash of red and blue streaked out of the sky, intercepting the missile before it could reach the unfortunate cops. There was a snarling explosion, and a cloud of black smoke laced with angry orange flames blossomed out from the blast's center. A figure dropped out of the cloud, to land on the pavement between the cops and the crooks. Both sides stared at the strange invader of their dispute, and several jaws hit the ground in disbelief.

The strange interloper was an armoured figure, a sleek combat hardsuit. Its armour plating was mostly a metallic, sky-blue colour, and was very streamlined-looking. The helmet, also blue, had a featureless mirrored visor, and looked like a modified motorcycle helmet. Two small antenna wings stuck up from roughly where the ears would be. A red cape of some vaguely metallic-looking material was attached to the shoulders, hanging down its back, and it also had red armoured boots. No weapons were immediately apparent, although there were some suspicious bulges on the forearms of the suit that hinted at concealed gadgets. What really raised eyebrows was the fact that the suit had, emblazoned on its front chestplate, an inverted, irregular red-bordered pentagon with a yellow center and a stylized red "S" in the middle. An identical symbol was also displayed on the cape, in the approximate center of the suit's back.

The suit began walking calmly towards the crooks. Panicked, they started firing at the approaching red-caped figure. Bullets whined harmlessly off of it, and it quietly reached out and snatched the guns out of their hands by the barrels. Cops and robbers watched in stunned disbelief as the armour suit bent the guns into interesting, artistic-looking shapes, and then threw them clattering onto the pavement. The crooks stood paralyzed, afraid to even try running. The flashing police lights glinted in the helmet visor of the suit as it turned to look at them one last time. A resonant, mellow-sounding electronically modified voice came from the helmet.

"The next time you boys want to make a withdrawal, get an account first," it said. A high pitched whine began, and the blue hardsuit shot skyward, cape flapping, propelled by boot-mounted jets. The red-and-blue shape dwindled into the sunny afternoon sky as the dumbfounded police quickly grabbed the dazed crooks, handcuffing them.

Behind his squad car, Leon McNichol looked from the apprehended criminals to the silent sky above, lowering his megaphone and sighing.

"That's what I love about this town," he muttered to himself. "It's never dull."

"Somebody has an overactive imagination," Leon told Daley as they came through the front door to the ADP office. Red-haired and green-eyed (and cute, too!) Nene Romanova looked up from her desk as they entered. Another stack of the seemingly endless paperwork that filled the ADP offices had landed on her desk, and right now any conversation was welcome as a way to get away from the work.

"Hi Leon!" she greeted him. "Who's got an overactive imagination?" Leon veered over to her desk, while Daley went to his desk to start filling out the inevitable report.

"This guy," Leon replied. He pulled a photo from his jacket pocket and showed it to her. "We got the picture from the security cameras; he helped foil a bank heist yesterday, and he's shown up at several other crime scenes. We don't mind the help, much, but we still have to try and find this guy." Nene found herself looking at a picture of a sleek blue and red hardsuit sporting a red cape, with an "S" on its chest.

"Why on earth does it look that way?" she asked, frowning. The design looked familiar, for some odd, unexplainable reason.

"I told you the guy's strange," Leon said. "We checked around, and that design and symbol matches, get this, the 'Superman' costume."

"Superman?!" she repeated disbelievingly. Leon nodded.

"Superman," he confirmed. "He was a comic book superhero who flew around saving people all the time and fighting various bad guys. The ultimate good guy, really. Whoever built that suit there has kept pretty close to the character concept. It flies, has super-strength, and appears to be pretty damn tough; it intercepted a rocket meant for us, and didn't get a scratch. It doesn't appear to have weapons, though." Nene looked from Leon back at the picture, an uneasy suspicion forming. She'd have to show this to Sylia.

"When did this guy first show up?" she asked Leon.

"About three weeks ago," Leon answered absently, mind elsewhere.

"What are you going to do?" she queried. He shrugged carelessly.

"There's not a lot we can do, really. We can't exactly pull him over and ask for ID. We'll just have to wait and see what happens." He chuckled suddenly.

"What's so funny?"

"If the comic company that has the Superman stuff trademarked finds out he's using that symbol, he might find himself with a lawsuit on his hands."

"But they can't really catch him, and they don't know who he is, so what good would that do?"

"That's what's so funny about it." Leon grinned and walked off, shaking his head bemusedly. Nene stuffed the photo in a pocket, and turned back to her paperwork, part of her mind thoughtfully going over Leon's words. Yes, she definitely had to tell Sylia about this.

Sylia Stingray dropped the photo to the coffee table in front of her. Incredulity was evident in her brown eyes as she stared from the photo to Nene.

"Is this supposed to be someone's idea of a joke?!" she asked. Who in their right mind would run around in an unarmed hardsuit using a ridiculous-looking colour scheme? And with a cape, to boot! Nene shrugged.

"Whoever it is, he's serious, despite the loony appearance. He's stopped twenty-five armed robberies in the last three weeks by himself. In one case, the police found the crooks tied up with about twenty feet of bent-up aluminum railing from a storefront. They had to get a guy with a hacksaw to cut them loose so they could arrest them. He never says too much, just the occasional smart remark, and whoosh!, he's gone."

"Somebody reads way too many comic books."

"That's sort of what Leon said."

"What are they going to do?"

"Not much. He's not harming anyone, and they can't really get him anyway." Sylia sighed, and sat back, thinking. She suddenly stiffened in apparent shock, sitting bolt upright again.

"How long ago did this guy show up?!" she demanded. Nene looked surprised.

"About three weeks," she answered, puzzled.

"How long has Bert been on his 'vacation'?"

"A little over a month, now." Nene's eyes widened. "You don't think he ... I mean, he wouldn't ... would he?"

"A mysterious caped hero charging around the city, and you don't think that fits his personality?" Sylia asked pointedly. "You know better than anybody about his hero hang-up."

"So how is he doing it then, if it is him? He hasn't been back here since he left, and I've never seen anything remotely like that hardsuit before, so where is he keeping it?"

"I think I know of a possibility," she replied mysteriously. "Let's just keep it a secret for now." Nene sighed resignedly. There were times when Sylia seemed to know what everyone else was doing, even when they themselves didn't know at the time.

"So what are we going to do?" she asked. Sylia's face broke into a sly smile.

"First, call Priss up. She's not busy right now ...." Sylia began laying out her plan in detail.

TWO DAYS LATER ....

The red-caped hardsuit landed neatly, dropping the last bankrobber to the asphalt in front of the ADP squad cars. The robber floundered around on the pavement, trying to get away from the hardsuit; the crook was swathed with what looked like about a hundred yards of electrical wiring from somewhere, and he looked like some strange kind of caterpillar as he writhed. The assembled police officers had the vaguely ill look of men who have just had their safe, normal universe suddenly upended by the appearance of something bizarre.

"Special delivery," the suit announced to the cops. "One erring citizen who's seen the light."

"For God's sake arrest me!! Please!!!" the trussed-up felon pleaded to the cops, still flopping around. "I'll confess!!! Just keep him away from me!!"

What sounded suspiciously like a chuckle escaped the azure armoured figure. Spinning around, with a dramatic flourish of its cape, the suit took a couple of running steps and launched itself into the air.

"Up, up, and awaaaaay!" they heard, as with a hissing roar and flap of its cape, the hardsuit shot away into the evening sky. From a nearby building, four shadowy figures also took to the air and followed the caped figure.

A couple of miles from the scene of the strange arrest, the blue hardsuit dropped to a rooftop. Once on the rooftop decking, the suit suddenly doubled over, staggering around drunkenly, and howling laughter could be heard. The suit sagged helplessly against the side of a rooftop solar collector, laughing so hard it was having problems breathing. At length, it regained control of itself, straightened up, and began walking across the roof, towards a door. As it walked, its gauntleted hands began moving towards its helmet.

"Excuse me, but we'd like a word with you," a woman's voice said. The suit whirled, and then took a step backwards in evident surprise. Four hardsuits, white, blue, green, and red-pink stood in a loose semi-circle on the roof, looking back at it.

"Ohhhhhhh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! OH SHIT!!!" the electronically modulated voice said, sounding very unhappy. The blue suit with the cape backed up a further step as the white hardsuit stepped forward. The blue suit was taller than the Knight Sabers, and looked stronger. From its reaction to their appearance, though, one got the impression that the Knight Sabers were fire-breathing dragons compared to it.

"Good," the white suit said calmly. "You obviously know who we are, right?" The silver-visored suit nodded jerkily. It had to clear its throat a couple of times before speaking.

"You're the Knight Sabers," it said in a sick-sounding voice.

"That's right," Sylia confirmed. "And we're not impressed when some other hardsuited upstart starts flitting around our city, especially someone dressed like you are. Just what are you doing here?"

"Sightseeing." The other three hardsuits advanced menacingly at its reply. There was a faint clank as the red-caped suit backed into the wall behind it.

"We're going to need a better answer than that," Sylia informed him.

Recessed launchers of some kind sprang up on the azure suit's forearms. As they came level, there was a tremendous thunderclap accompanied by a blinding, absolutely dazzling, flash of white light. As the Knight Sabers tried to clear their suddenly speckled and spotty vision, the whine of the strange suit's flight system announced that it was leaving.

"Damage report!" Sylia snapped. "Who's hurt?!"

"No one," Linna replied. "Whatever it was, that weapon was non-offensive in nature."

"It sure as hell offended me!" Priss retorted, shaking her head dazedly. "My ears are still ringing!"

"Let's go after him, but I want him unharmed. No weapons," Sylia ordered. Everyone acknowledged her, and the Knight Sabers sprang into the air. The chase was on.

The red-caped suit flew towards a towering, unfinished skyscraper. As it flew, its arms reached back and grabbed the edges of the cape fabric. With a faint hum, the cape edges became stuck to the suit arms, and the rest of the cape billowed out and developed stiff spines. The suit arms moved forward again, and the whole cape became a hang-glider like apparatus. Its jets fell silent, and the suit glided quietly into the building infrastructure. The gliding wasn't perfect, but it did get the suit a fair distance inside the building before it had to put its feet down, landing neatly. The cape collapsed into cloth-like folds again as the suit helmet swung nervously back and forth, searching for something. Finding nothing, it sighed in relief, and relaxed, shoulders slumping.

"We've got him!!" A blue, red-striped hardsuit shot out of the darkness, tackling the red-caped figure from behind at knee level. At the same time, a green hardsuit tackled it in the chest from the opposite direction. The Superman suit folded like an accordion under the assault, and all three clanged to the floor in a flailing tangle of arms and legs. They rolled over and over on the floor, the blue suit trying frantically to get loose, and the two Knight Sabers trying to hold on.

With a surging heave, the blue suit threw them off. Leaping to its feet, it began sprinting for the outer edge of the building again. As it ran, a pink hardsuit leg was thrust in its path from behind a beam. Unable to avoid it, the running suit tripped over the leg and went crashing headfirst into another metal beam. There was a loud, ringing clang, and the suit dropped again to the floor as Nene began walking towards it. The blue-and-red suit rolled over clumsily, shaking its head dazedly, trying to get its bearings and get away. It settled for awkwardly scrabbling away on hands and knees from Nene; it couldn't quite get to its feet yet. It stopped when it found itself looking at a pair of white armoured legs. Looking up, it found itself being studied by the blue visor of Sylia's suit.

"Not so fast," Sylia said. "You're going to answer my questions now." The blue suit threw itself sideways, rolling up to its knees. A high-pitched whine erupted, and it shot past her on screaming jets, striking sparks from the flooring as it was literally dragged along the floor before it made it out of the building, into the night again. Sylia watched him go, smiling to herself. Priss, Linna and Nene walked up to her.

"Sylia, why the hell are we doing it this way?" Priss inquired. "Why don't we just shoot the bastard first, and then ask the questions?"

"It's more fun this way," Sylia replied. "Fun for me, that is. Come on, we don't want to lose him." She activated her own flight pack and flashed into the night after the blue suit. The remaining Knight Sabers looked at each other, shrugged, and then followed.

The red cape rustled quietly as the blue and red hardsuit tried stealthily sneaking down an alleyway near a relatively deserted housing area, avoiding the nearby garbage cans. Its helmet was swiveling constantly, making sure there was no one around. It stepped out from the wall, preparing to sprint across the open space in front of it.

"GOTCHA!!!" Priss crowed exuberantly as she plowed into it from behind. The azure hardsuit hit the pavement face-first with a clanging bang. Priss tried getting the suit in a hammerlock to hold it still, but to her surprise, she found she couldn't even budge the arm of the suit. The suit was almost completely ignoring her wrestling attempts as it stood up, tossing her off. She couldn't believe it; the only hardsuit stronger than hers was SkyKnight's, although Sylia's suit was a very close second. No one else to date had made a suit of comparable size that could surpass hers in the strength department.

"I really hate to have to do this to you," she heard the electronic voice say. "Sorry."

The suit suddenly lunged forward, grabbing her and spinning her helplessly up into the air with some kind of fancy judo move. There was a loud echoing clatter as she landed in the garbage cans, and the lights went out momentarily as the blue suit thumped a full garbage can over her head, covering her in smelly debris. The odour of rancid fish, and other, equally fragrant aromas assailed her. Wavering between rage and nausea, Priss floundered out of the garbage, teeth clenched. The red-caped suit was gone, however.

The Superman suit sagged back against the wall, audibly gasping for breath as the three hardsuits stalked slowly towards it. It had tried every trick in the book, and a few that weren't, to escape the Sabers. None had even come close to working. When it straightened up, it was knocked down again as Nene and Linna both tackled it like pro football linebackers. It finally seemed to give up as they jumped on it, going limp and letting them haul it upright to face Sylia, who assumed a commanding stance, facing the colourful suit with her arms crossed over her chest.

As she was about to speak, footsteps sounded from behind her. Turning she saw Priss come striding out of the darkness. Her normally blue suit was stained different colours, and garbage of all descriptions clung to it, from candy wrappers to coffee grounds. A unique (interesting?) fragrance filled the air around her, and her general posture indicated she was pissed off. Sylia tried hard not to laugh at her appearance; she had to appear serious for a few more minutes at least. Nene and Linna were also trying to suppress snickers. The caped suit seemed to shrink away slightly as Priss stood, hands clenching and unclenching, obviously glaring at it. Sylia turned her attention back to the strange suit.

"Okay, buster," she said, trying to sound threatening. "I want some answers, and I want them now."

"Do I have a choice?" he asked with a sigh.

"No," she told him flatly. "For starters, who the hell are you?" She waited.

The silence seemed to stretch endlessly for a moment, then the suit reached a hand up to its visor, flipping it up. The Knight Sabers found themselves looking into the familiar greenish-brown-eyed and red-haired face of Bert Van Vliet, alias SkyKnight. He was red-faced and extremely sheepish looking. Sylia sighed, slapping a gauntleted hand to her visor.

"I knew it," she declared. "I just knew it had to be you. Who else would be this idiotic?!" She was interrupted by Priss leaping forward onto Bert, knocking him over.

"You sickening bastard!!!!" she shouted as she grabbed him. "I'm gonna kill you!!!" Priss grabbed his neck and started pounding his helmeted head on the pavement while trying to strangle him at the same time. Sylia finally burst out laughing as Nene and Linna tried to drag Priss off of him.

"That was supposed to be a vacation?" Nene asked Bert as he pulled his sweater over his head. "Running around the city playing superhero?" She was not impressed, standing frowning at him with her arms crossed. She'd already changed back to her normal pink blouse with blue skirt and jacket, and he was clad, as usual, in jeans and a sweater.

They were back in Sylia's building, in Bert's basement apartment. He was due for a 'debriefing' as Sylia called it, a 'shit session' as he called it, and 'a goddamn deep shit session' as Priss was calling it. Bert had postponed the lectures slightly by pleading the need to get showered and changed first, and had been given an hour. Nene had followed him down to his room, berating him all the way. He sighed.

"I did spend the first week-and-a-half relaxing, honestly," he told her. "Unfortunately, after that I got kind of bored, and I missed flying around in my hardsuit. I couldn't really come back and get the SkyKnight suit ...."

"Not that Sylia would have let you," Nene interjected. He ignored the interruption.

"So I designed the Superman-type suit and used that. I didn't think ...."

"Nothing new, there," Nene remarked wickedly. He flushed, but continued speaking with an effort.

"I didn't think any harm would come of it. I didn't really think it was a solo operation, because it didn't have any connection with the Knight Sabers."

"Except that you used some of our hardsuit stuff to make it."

"The designs, yes I did. The materials, no I didn't." She looked at him, puzzled.

"Well then where did you build it, and with what?" He sighed again.

"About a year ago, I used some of my savings to buy some property on the outskirts of the city. I put a house with a basement lab in the exact center of the place. I figured it would be a good place to do some of my experimenting without accidentally nuking Sylia's lab." She nodded in agreement; one of his chemical experiments had backfired stupendously once, making the lab smell like dead skunks for two weeks. Sylia had not been happy, using words Nene hadn't even thought she knew about on Bert, putting even Priss' normal angry swearing to shame. It had been something of a shock, since Sylia was normally cool, calm and collected. Hearing her swearing like a longshoreman was like suddenly finding poisonous snakes in your sock drawer.

"So you built it there?" she asked. He nodded.

"Most of it," he replied. "There were a couple of things I had fabricated here earlier, using my own supplies."

"Where'd you get the materials?"

"I bought them," he replied simply. She stared at him; the hardsuits were hideously expensive pieces of equipment. Even a low estimate started at a few hundred thousand yen. "I told you before I'd saved a lot," he said defensively as she stared at him. "What's the point of being filthy rich if you don't use it? I've had the materials and components lying around for months, but I never got a chance to use them. Like I said, I was bored when I built the suit." Nene rolled her eyes upwards in exasperation.

Bert walked over to the counter and poured a couple of mugs of tea. He had a few minutes before he had to go upstairs, and he needed all the caffeine he could get right now. Nene picked up the other mug as he began slurping on his. A faint smile suddenly appeared.

"It's nice to have you back, anyway," she told him.

"It's nice to be back," he said, looking over at her. "I really missed you, you know," he added quietly. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. She plunked her mug on the counter before wrapping her arms around him. After a couple of moments, they separated a little.

"I missed you, too," she said, looking coyly up at him. "Although I don't think Priss is very happy about your return right now." He winced.

"That would be an understatement," he observed. "Maybe I should get a bulletproof vest before going upstairs." Nene giggled, then finished off her tea. Sighing, he finished his own drink and set the mug on the counter. Arm-in-arm, they marched out the door, heading upstairs.

"You have a damn funny idea of what constitutes a vacation," Sylia informed him. "I thought you said you needed some time off because you were feeling burned-out?"

"I was, at the time," he replied. "And I did just take it easy, for a while. Unfortunately, I got bored, so I built the suit. Believe it or not, I had one hell of a ball flying around in that suit, and to me it was a kind of vacation. I was able to fly around saving people and helping the cops. No mega-destructive weapons, no boomers, no evil corporate plans. It was just really, really fun and relaxing good old-fashioned superhero stuff." He sighed, lost for a moment in nostalgia. He was jerked out of it by Priss clobbering him with a pillow. She was still just a tad upset with him; a faint trace of old coffee and fish head smells still clung to her, despite her efforts to get rid of it.

"Old-fashioned superheroes didn't go around throwing people into the garbage!" she snarled. Bert sighed.

"I said I was sorry," he told her, tossing the pillow back to the couch. "How many times do you want me to apologize?!" She glared at him, not the least bit mollified.

"I'm going to get you for that if it's the last thing I ever do!" she shot back. Evidently, she was not in a forgiving mood. Linna suppressed giggles, pulling her face straight as Priss glared stonily in her direction. Nene had already laughed herself silly while downstairs, and was able to remain mostly expressionless. What looked suspiciously like a smile was tugging at Sylia's mouth, but she remained cool, turning back to continue the lecture.

"What's even dumber than your running around dressed like that," she told him, "is the fact that your suit had no offensive weapons whatsoever. Just what were you planning on doing if you did meet a boomer?" He shrugged nonchalantly.

"Beat it into a pile of scrap, I guess."

"Right," she said dubiously. "And just how were you going to do that?"

"Strength, mostly. The Superman hardsuit is about one-and-a-half times stronger than the SkyKnight suit." Sylia stared at him, then began to turn slightly red. Bert began to look a shade nervous as Sylia's expression turned stormy.

"You used the new experimental actuator designs, didn't you?" she queried in a deceptively mild tone. He nodded reluctantly, swallowing nervously.

"What other experimental gimmicks are in that thing?" she asked, still in a mild tone.

"Umm, well, you see I, uh ...." he faltered. He swallowed twice, took a deep breath, scraping his rapidly departing courage together, and plowed on. "I also put in that new anti-missile ECM stuff, the StarBurst flare system, the new armour plating, and the glider cape." Sylia sighed, a long, slow exhalation that seemed to carry traces of fire and brimstone with it. She glared at Bert.

"In that list you just mentioned," she said ominously, "I believe that for two of those items I said 'more testing first', did I not?" He nodded weakly.

"But you used them anyway." He nodded again, looking sick.

"They worked," he protested feebly, then shut up as she glared at him again.

"So they worked. Big deal!! You'd have had a hell of a time explaining what the hell happened if they hadn't, wouldn't you?!?" she demanded, seething. Sylia held on to her temper, avoiding a blowup, with a superhuman effort. It wasn't the first time he'd used experimental devices in hardsuits that she didn't feel were ready, but she wished he would quit finding ways to make each instance more infuriating than the last.

"Does this mean you're going to be putting a cape on SkyKnight?" Linna asked curiously; they'd seen how his glider cape idea had functioned. Bert shook his head.

"I can't," he replied. "The SkyKnight armour is just too heavy to glide. It's jets, or nothing. I did like swashbuckling around in a cape, though."

"That explains the Batman armour," Sylia remarked. Bert turned absolutely white as he stared at Sylia.

"Batman?" Nene asked. "His suit was Superman, wasn't it?" Sylia glanced at her, then back at Bert.

"Do you want to tell her, or shall I?" she asked him. Bert looked like he'd been slugged in the wind, but he did give Nene an answer.

"Okay, so I did design another superhero suit. Is that a crime?!" he asked plaintively. Nene slapped a hand over her face despairingly, shaking her head in disbelief.

"How did you know that, Sylia?" Priss asked, glancing at Bert with a disgusted 'it figures' look.

"Our knight-errant here forgot to take his designs off of the main computer," Sylia told her. "I found them both there, Batman and Superman, but there weren't many details on the Superman one."

"So you knew it was me before you went after me tonight?" Bert inquired in sudden suspicion.

"I did," Sylia replied. "I didn't tell anyone else though." A wicked smile spread across her face.

"Well then why the hell did you do it that way?! I almost had a heart attack when you braced me on the rooftop the first time!!"

"That was the idea," she smirked. "I thought it might teach you a lesson to get the pants scared off of you." Bert groaned, putting his face in his hands. "Besides," she added suddenly, "I got one hell of a kick out of doing it that way."

"You're starting to sound just like him," Nene told her accusingly. Sylia smiled back innocently, not replying.

"So now what happens?" Bert asked, having regained his composure to a small degree. Sylia looked over at him, again turning cool and businesslike.

"Since your vacation is now officially over, we're going to put some of your creative energy to work again, this time on something that's not going to irritate me."

"I wouldn't bet too heavily on that aspect," Priss cracked. She was ignored.

"And just what would that be?" Bert inquired, sighing.

"First, you're going to upgrade the new suits I'm building with the new actuators. I want it done by Thursday."

"Thursday?!?" he blurted. "But it's only Monday now!! I can't do it that quickly!! I ....."

"If you can build your own hardsuit to play with in one week," she stated, unperturbed by his interruption, "then I don't think upgrading the new ones will be a great problem for you." He stared at her helplessly, unable to think of any reply. She smiled back at him, a vaguely smug look flickering across her face as she pulled out a lengthy list. "This is what else needs to be done," she told him. "I don't think it will take you too long to finish." Bert read the list, stomach sinking; there was about two weeks' worth of work listed, with completion dates added in.

"Oh Lord," he muttered to himself. "Why me?!"

"Face it," Sylia told him blandly. "You're just too good at what you do." He glanced at her sourly, but didn't reply as everyone else grinned.

TWO WEEKS LATER ....

Click!

"ARRRRRRRRGH!!!"

With an agonized yowl, Bert flipped over fast, grabbing his pillow and plastering it over his face as laser-like shafts of white light stabbed at his eyeballs, brutally dragging him awake. After a few moments of tortured flopping, he cautiously lowered the pillow, and squinted towards the door of his room. His smoldering, bleary-eyed gaze spoke eloquently of what he intended to do to the person who'd flicked on the lights. Leaning against the doorjamb, red-brown eyes glinting in fiendish amusement, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, Priss was observing his sluggish reanimation with undisguised glee. She was dressed, as usual, in her motorcycle outfit, and her helmet was tucked under one arm.

"Good morning! Time to get up!" she declared, grinning evilly.

"Nene told you about that light switch trick, didn't she?" he asked, seething.

"She might have mentioned something about it," Priss admitted, smirking.

"Of course you know," he informed her ominously, "this means war."

"Oh, I'm really shaking!" she retorted with a grin. "Quit griping and get up."

"Why? What time is it?"

"Eight in the morning," she replied. Bert rolled over, wrapping the blankets and the pillow back around him.

"Go away," came his muffled voice. "I'm hibernating. Come back in a week." Priss sighed, shaking her head.

"If you don't come out of there," she told him, "I have a nice cold bucket of water handy." Greenish-brown eyes appeared in the folds of the blanket, glinting menacingly.

"You'd better not do it," he growled back. "Don't forget, I know where you live!" Unimpressed, she reached around the doorframe and hefted something that sloshed noisily, although he couldn't see what it was. With a sigh he unrolled himself, and sat up in the snarled disarray of his bed, draped in a tangle of blankets and sheets.

"All right, all right, I'm up," he announced sourly. "But I'm not doing anything until you're out of the doorway." She snorted.

"No need to be modest," she cracked. "I've seen you without clothes enough times when patching you back together to know what you look like." She ducked the pillow that came flying her way with a grin, and retreated to his living room to wait for him.

Bert slurped noisily at his mug of tea while Priss paced back and forth irritably. He was in a somewhat irritated frame of mind himself; he was a lousy morning person, and his rude awakening had not improved his disposition any. He swallowed the last few pieces of toast and washed it down with the last mouthful of tea. Priss stopped pacing long enough to look at him.

"Are you done yet?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm done," he replied. "Now would you please tell me what the hell you had to drag me out of bed for?"

"It's Tuesday," she replied obliquely. He wasn't impressed.

"So what?! That's hardly a justification for ruining my eyes and waking me up! After all the shit I've had to do over the last two weeks, I think I'm entitled to sleep in for a change!" He was gradually becoming more and more like a cantankerous bear as the morning progressed; two weeks of non-stop upgrades to the new hardsuit models, vehicle repairs, and any other work Sylia had been able to think of, had almost completely exhausted him. The more rational part of his mind chided him for being miserable about something that really was his own fault, but he'd had a lot of practice at ignoring that part of his mind. It would be a shame to break that habit now.

"Well it's your own goddamn fault," she shot back, sounding exactly like his conscience. "You're the one who went playing Superman all over town. Even you should know better by now than to go flying around town solo, especially when you know you're going to get caught."

"So sue me!! I decided to have fun for a change, not parade around in a goddamn war machine bristling with weapons of total destruction. I hardly think that it should sentence me to twenty years of hard labour just because I did something for enjoyment." She looked at him, raising an eyebrow. She hadn't expected the conversation to take off in this direction.

"Is that what you think of us now? As war machines?"

"I don't know what else to think, lately," he replied. "I spend a lot of my time designing better and more efficient ways to kill things. That sounds like a war machine to me." He turned away, staring bitterly at the rows of books in his bookshelves, not really seeing them. Priss came over to him and put a hand on his shoulder; his shoulder muscles felt tight as bowstrings to her.

"You're still upset about what happened a few months ago," she said quietly, her tone implying a question to be answered. Approximately three months ago had been when he'd been forced to watch helplessly as a former enemy who'd turned ally was eviscerated by a vicious killer boomer. Bert had fought the boomer immediately afterwards, almost berserk with rage and the drive for revenge. The HeadHunter had been supposedly destroyed in a gas explosion during the fight, but not even trace remains had been found. Bert had been sunk in grief and guilt over his role in Lt. Rutherford's death, and had come within an ace of leaving the Sabers completely as a result. Priss had been able to talk him out of it, and had thought the matter closed. Obviously, he didn't think so.

"I'd have to be made out of stone not to be," he answered. "She's dead, and it's largely my fault." His time off had not helped in resolving his feelings on the matter.

"I thought we'd been over that before," she responded patiently, turning him around to look her in the eye. "You did everything you could at the time. There was no way for you to stop the boomer at that moment, not with half your suit systems out. If you'd tried to, that would have probably been you spilling your blood and your guts out onto the pavement, not her. She knew the risks involved, and she still chose to help you, to help us, out. I think she'd be one of the first ones to tell you to quit the bullshit and get on with things."

"You don't think it's my fault?" he queried. "Well it is. Ever since I've arrived here, all I've done is build weapons and hardsuits, originally because I had these grand ideas of heroic knights defending the public good and stopping evil all over the city. What happened? I've contributed to the problem, instead of solving it. Every goddamn asshole with a laboratory and machine shop has been building his own weapons to try and outperform mine. I haven't done a goddamn useful thing. All I've done is escalated the arms race." There was an abiding bitterness in his eyes as Priss looked at him.

"That would have happened even without you," she told him. "Come on, you know that much is true, at least. GENOM was developing weapons long before you ever came on the scene. And what's this bullshit about not having done anything useful?" she queried. "You saved Sylvie, and Anri, and several other people. You've saved our lives a couple of times and, despite what you may think, I think you have helped make things a little better. Improving the world is not going to be a miraculous overnight process." She looked him over thoughtfully. "That's why you built those superhero suits, isn't it?"

"Pardon? You lost me there."

"You built those superhero suits because, for a while at least, you wanted to believe that it was possible to do these things instantly, like it seems to work in the comics a lot of times. Right?" He sighed, eyes getting a faraway look for a moment.

"I suppose that was part of it," he admitted. "The other part was that Superman and Batman seem to get along quite well without weapons, and I can't seem to do anything at all that doesn't require guns or swords."

"What's with this sudden weapon hang-up?"

"I'm afraid at times that I'm becoming just a little too quick on the draw."

"You're worried about becoming used to the constant fighting, you mean." He nodded.

"I don't want to start becoming careless, or perhaps I should say nonchalant, about it. If that happens, I become little better than a combat boomer in terms of conscience."

"You worry too much," she told him. "About a lot of things that you really shouldn't. You're going to work yourself into a breakdown if you keep this up. I know you pretty well, I think, and I think that you're never going to become callous about this, so don't worry. I've been at it a bit longer than you have, and I'm still whole. Well, mostly whole," she amended. "I do occasionally wonder what we're doing with ourselves, but nowhere nearly as often as you seem to brood on the subject. Lighten up for once, will you?"

"Sorry," he said, partly apologetic. "I'm never in the best of moods first thing in the morning."

"I'd noticed," she replied with a wry smile. He grinned sheepishly in return, then returned to his original topic.

"You were going to tell me why you woke me up," he suggested.

"You said you'd help me move some stuff around my place, remember?" He frowned, trying to remember. He did recall some vague promise to help her clean up her place. A sudden related thought made him grin evilly.

"What's so amusing?" she asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"If you're cleaning the place up, I guess the mess finally escalated to the 'fire hazard' category. Or was that the 'disaster area' classification?" He sprinted from his room before Priss could take a swing at him.

"Thanks for the help, I think," Priss said as she sank down next to where he was sprawled on her newly discovered couch; it had been under a ground cover of CD's, papers, laundry, and several other unidentified items. "I don't think all the smart remarks were needed, though," she added. Bert merely grinned; as they'd progressed through her trailer/apartment, he'd made wisecracks about getting teams of archaeologists in to catalogue her stuff, or about having discovered new lifeforms in other areas. It had irritated her no end, which of course was why he'd done it.

"Why the sudden drive to clean up?" he inquired. She shrugged uncomfortably.

"I just felt like it," she replied defensively. "I can't stay the same way all my life, and cleaning things up here seemed like a good start." He considered that for a moment or two, then looked at her thoughtfully.

"So you've decided to try for that pro singing debut you mentioned?" If she'd decided to start being a little neater, he figured she must have decided to try and advance her singing career, since both indicated an attempt at a lifestyle change. She nodded, suddenly shy about talking about it for some reason. He gently put an arm around her shoulders; she stiffened at first, then relaxed. "I wish you the best of luck," he told her seriously, giving her a brotherly-type hug. "If you don't mind a somewhat biased opinion, I think it's about time. You're a damn good singer, and I'd hate to see you spend the rest of your life singing in bars and becoming disillusioned because of it." She looked at him gratefully, and gave him a hug back.

"Thanks," she replied. "I'm really nervous about it, actually."

"Don't worry, you'll do fine. For somebody with the temper of a devil from time to time, you sing like an angel." Priss wasn't quite sure how to respond to the somewhat backhanded compliment, so she let it pass. Bert released her and stood up, gently pulling her up with him.

"Come on," he said with a smile. "Let's go get some dinner. I'm buying."

"Sounds good to me," she replied with grin as they left.

Somewhere across town, yellow shafts of light stabbed through subterranean blackness. The dim shape of a black-haired, blue eyed man in work clothes and a yellow hard-hat moved forward in the humid, inky darkness. John Harama, a city maintenance engineer, walked through the blackness, wishing he could turn off his sense of smell. God, he hated when his turn at this particular duty came up! Why couldn't they have put the damn electrical junction boxes and transformers above ground, instead of running the lines and the boxes through the same tunnels as the sewers?! It always smelled awful, and every so often you picked up some kind of exotic bug that could make you sicker than hell for weeks.

He grumbled to himself about the unfair vicissitudes of life as he splashed along. He wished the two maintenance boomers following just behind him were capable of working unsupervised, but alas, such was not the case. He had to destroy his sinuses just to make sure the damn mechanoids didn't short circuit half the city while they repaired whatever had caused the fault in the electrical grid. He sighed to himself; boomers had their uses, but in a lot of ways they were more trouble than they were worth. He quickly checked his map again; it should be just around the corner.

He blinked in surprise as his probing flashlight beam located the small side tunnel leading to the metal cabinet that was supposed to have been covering the massive fuses and capacitors needed to route power through this area. Sparks were spitting in the blackness where the cabinet was, and from what he could see in the dim lighting, it didn't look like any transformer explosion he'd ever heard about before; it looked more like something had torn it apart. He gestured to one of the construction boomers.

"You there," he directed it. "Go in there and see what the damage is."

"Yes sir," the nasal-sounding mechanical voice replied. The boomer set down the large toolbox it was carrying, and splashed through the muck, walking up the side tunnel. There was a sudden protesting squawk, and a strange, almost metallic, tearing sound. The boomer dropped flat to the concrete, not moving. A goddamn malfunction of some kind, he thought disgustedly to himself. What a time for that to happen! He sent the other boomer in, and exactly the same thing happened; a strange noise sounded, and then the boomer dropped like a stone. He frowned to himself; odd that they'd both just malfunction like that. Maybe they'd hit a live wire? Sighing in resignation, he started to step forward carefully, his hand reaching for his walkie-talkie to report in.

Something stirred in the darkness ahead. As he started to raise his flashlight for a better look, that something struck him a numbing blow to the stomach. He doubled over gasping in shock, then sudden agony, flashlight and radio clattering to the floor. A burning pain worse than anything he'd ever felt before burst from his stomach area, flooding his vision with spots and bringing tears to his eyes. He sagged helplessly against the tunnel wall, a sudden sickening feeling assailing him with the pain; his pain-numbed stomach felt wet and sticky. As he raised his shaking hand towards his eyes, the faint glow of his dropped flashlight revealed a slick, red wetness on his hands: his blood.

"Oh my God, no! Please!!" he whimpered before he collapsed facedown on the concrete.

A red stream trickled down the slightly sloped tunnel to merge with the sewage stream, as strange slithering sounds echoed in the tunnel.

Inspector Leon McNichol watched grim-faced as white-coated ambulance attendants carried a body bag on a stretcher out of the entry tunnel to one of MegaTokyo's myriad underground sewer tunnels. The attendants looked like they wanted to throw up, and he couldn't really blame them. A maintenance worker had been killed in one of the more gruesome methods he'd seen in his years of police work. The man had literally had his guts churned up inside of him by some kind of knife or other edged weapon, and the sight coupled with the awful smells down there were enough to turn even the toughest man's stomach. The victim had been in considerable agony at the time of death, judging from the frozen expression on his face. Because boomers were involved somehow, the ADP had been called in. It had quickly become apparent that this was not a 'normal' boomer crime.

What had made this case strange, aside from the sadistic method used to kill the worker, was the condition of the boomers he'd been working with. The one had been speared through the chest by something, then its left leg and arm had been removed, almost like the killer was after parts. The second boomer was missing a large chunk of its torso. It had not removed by tools, though; it looked more like it had been dissolved somehow. Weird. There was definitely something strange going on, but he couldn't even begin to guess at what that was. Sighing to himself, he brought his mind back to bear on the task at hand.

"Hey!" he shouted to an officer at the perimeter. "Find me the forensics guys!"

"Thanks for the dinner," Priss said. "It was delicious."

"No problem," Bert replied, leaning back in his seat and grinning at her. "Consider it repayment for putting up with my sense of humour."

"Sorry," she told him deadpan. "That's gonna take more than just one dinner." He chuckled, taking a swig from his glass of pop. Priss was working her way through a bottle of beer. Finding themselves at loose ends after dinner, they'd dropped by the nightclub where Priss usually sang to relax for a while. It was usually a quiet place, except during performances of course, and it wasn't a bad place to relax. At the moment, the bar was mostly deserted with only a handful of people scattered around.

"So what are you planning on doing with yourself?" she suddenly asked. He blinked in surprise.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he replied. "I do a lot of stuff. Especially lately," he added dryly.

"I meant outside of the shop end of things. You spend all your time on building things and designing gadgets, but I really think you should think seriously about getting some kind of an outside job. It might help you to relax if you've got something else to concentrate on."

"Sorry, but I don't think there's much out there that I'd be qualified for at the moment. Besides, working for somebody from nine-to-five doesn't really appeal to me anymore."

"I didn't mean a completely regular job. What about part time? You've definitely got enough technical know-how to be a technician somewhere. You can't spend the rest of your life doing make-work projects in Sylia's basement." He sighed irritably.

"I already realized that," he told her. "But getting a regular job would interfere with our extra-curricular activities, and I don't want that."

"Bullshit," she snorted. "In the first place, Nene's been balancing the two for a long time now with no major problems."

"Yeah, but only because she can hack into the ADP computers and write her own ticket," he interrupted. She ignored him, and continued.

"In the second, in case you hadn't noticed, we haven't done anything boomer related, or anything else, for almost two-and-a-half months now."

"Don't remind me," he replied sourly. She stared at him.

"I thought you were the one worried about becoming too violent; now you're telling me you're upset because you haven't been able to get into a fight?!"

"I know it sounds hypocritical," he said defensively. "But I enjoy getting out in the suit and flying around, and I admit I get a kick out of the brawling. I can't help it; I just like the feelings I get from bombing around in the suit."

"You mean you like parading around impressively playing the hero," she corrected, sardonic amusement evident on her face. He flushed.

"All right, if you want to put it that way, fine. I do. That wasn't a crime the last time I looked." Priss sighed, rolling her eyes.

"You're impossible," she told him.

"You're not the first person to have told me that," he grinned.

ONE WEEK LATER ....

"Damnit, I'm going bloody stir-crazy!!" Bert fumed, pacing back and forth. Sylia watched him from her chair, sipping at a cup of tea.

"Well what do you want me to do?" she asked in a somewhat irritated tone. "Go out and find you some boomers to pound on? Never mind, don't even think about asking it!" she warned as he swung around towards her with a hopeful look. His face settled back into a disgusted expression, and he resumed pacing as Sylia watched him.

The main reason for his agitation was fairly simple. They were almost approaching three months without any jobs as the Knight Sabers, and except for his brief fling earlier in his Superman suit, he hadn't been able to use his hardsuit at all. Despite his concerns over becoming a war machine, he genuinely enjoyed flying around in his armour as SkyKnight, and he enjoyed the rough-and-tumble of a good fight from time to time. He supposed it classed as an addiction, since it felt like he was going into withdrawal from not being able to use his armour.

The reason for the lack of boomer activity was also fairly simple: GENOM was no longer the main driving force it had once been. The corporation had suffered some stunning setbacks in the last few months, completely unexpectedly. The first shock had been a massive lawsuit filed by Gulf & Bradley, claiming breach of contract in their joint uprated boomer project. GENOM had immediately filed a counter-suit, and the two companies were dueling it out in the courts at great expense. Next, GENOM had lost the exclusive rights to producing boomers, and several small companies had stepped in and started churning out cheap labour boomers, undercutting their profits.

The final blow had been huge, albeit mysterious, financial losses. It was a sure bet that the losses were directly related to GENOM's secret development projects, but solid proof was lacking. Topping everything else off, Quincy had effectively vanished, and there was no word on just who was running the huge conglomerate at the moment. Given time, GENOM would probably recover to a top position again, but at the moment it was on the ropes. The money problems had, probably, slashed whatever funding was going to boomer development, meaning that there were less and less combat-oriented boomers out there to stop. Having less boomers to save the public from was driving Bert slowly crazy.

"Maybe you need something else to occupy your time with," Sylia suggested. He slapped a hand to his forehead.

"Please," he said in a pained tone. "Don't you get on the bandwagon too!"

"What on earth are you talking about?" she asked, puzzled.

"Priss was asking me when I plan to get a real job, Linna's been bugging me about it, and even Nene made some remark about giving my hobbies a rest."

"It's not a bad idea, really," she commented judiciously. "I've always thought you spent too much time playing with the hardsuits, and now that things are quieting down, there's not as much need for it." Bert sat down in the chair across from her, a look of strained patience crossing his face.

"Look," he said. "I don't need, or really want, a 'real job' working for someone else right now. If the Saber business does pick up, then it would be a problem. The other thing is that I really don't need the money. Ever since I got here I've been gradually saving up what we made from the Knight Sabers, and making some investments. I now have a very comfortable and steady outside income set up, with enough spare to indulge my occasional wilder whims."

"I'd noticed that," she remarked dryly. "But being affluent doesn't necessarily make you happier; you need something else to do or you're going to become incredibly bored, and probably resentful of the situation."

"What do you suggest then, O wise and enlightened one?" She ignored his sarcasm, and thought for a moment.

"Since you don't want to work for someone else, why not open your own business of some kind?" she asked. "After all, you are a pretty good technician and engineer. It may take a while to get customers, but it would be better than lurking in the shop and basement all the time."

"Yes, but most of my technical expertise is in areas the average citizen doesn't even know about," he reminded her.

"I didn't mean you should open a hardsuit shop, you twit!" she retorted irritably. "I meant something like a computer or electronics store. That's a relatively harmless front, much like my store downstairs."

"That brings into play the state of my identification," he pointed out. "How much probing would my records take before they discover I wasn't really here two to three years ago?"

"You worry too much," she told him.

"I know, but I can't help it a lot of the time." They sat silently for a few minutes, Sylia sipping her tea as Bert brooded on his concerns. He suddenly looked over at her.

"There is another option that might preserve my sanity," he suggested hesitantly. Sylia looked at him narrowly; from his expression, he knew already that she wasn't going to like what he was about to suggest.

"What is it?" she asked flatly, although she had an idea what it was.

"How about letting me ....."

"No!"

"I haven't finished yet!!!" he protested.

"You don't need to!" she shot back. "You are not taking your suit out and going looking for trouble!"

"I wasn't going to go looking for trouble! I just wanted to fly around in it for a while every so often!"

"If you want to fly, then buy yourself a goddamn plane!!" she almost shouted, clearly becoming exasperated. She masterfully regained control of herself again before she could lose it completely.

"Sylia," he pleaded. "I'm serious. I'm going nuts not being able to get out occasionally. Blame it on my 'heroic ideals' if you want, but I seriously think I'm going to snap if I can't get up there in the suit and soar around occasionally, and a plane just doesn't cut it." He fell silent. She looked at him, face twisting in annoyance and resignation.

"You'd still try and do it anyway if I said no, wouldn't you?" she queried. Bert sat there for a moment, his face a study in agonized indecision, then heaved a long, regretful sigh.

"Probably," he admitted reluctantly. "I'm sorry to have to disappoint you." While his own sense of honour didn't like him breaking his word not to take solo runs, he knew himself well enough to know that he wouldn't be able to hold off much longer from taking his suit for a spin; he honestly felt like he was going nuts from not being able to use his hardsuit for flying around. Sylia sighed herself, leaning her head back with her eyes closed for a few moments while he waited. At length, she straightened up and looked at him.

"I'm not going to give you carte blanche to just sail off anytime you feel like it," she informed him, holding up a hand to forestall any reply he'd been about to make. "Here are my conditions: First, I'll let you try it out twice per week, and you can pick which two nights. Second, you damn well report to me personally BEFORE you go out; I don't want you suddenly going missing. I also want you checking back in with me when you return. Third, you're limited to one hour of flight time, so don't even think of flitting around town playing 'heroic knight'. If you're any later than one hour, you'd better have an ironclad reason for it, or you're grounded again. Finally, I don't want you going looking for trouble, understand?" She paused, waiting expectantly.

"Only one hour?" he protested. Sylia's expression turned stony. "Nevermind! One hour is fine!" he added quickly, before she could change her mind.

"Did you understand about the 'not looking for trouble' part?" she asked sternly. He sighed.

"Yes, I understood," he replied. "Why is it everyone thinks I go looking for fights?!" he complained suddenly. "All right, I admit I enjoy the action most of the time, despite my moral musings on the topic, but I don't go out of my way to get into trouble."

"You don't go out of your way to avoid it, either," she replied pointedly. He flushed bright red, embarrassed. "So then, do we have a deal?" she asked. He nodded, a faint grin beginning to appear.

"It's a deal," he confirmed. "Want a signature or something?" She shook her head.

"Your word is good enough, for right now, anyway." She jumped as he almost dove off the couch towards the door, obviously in a hurry. "Hey! Where are you going?!" she called after him in surprise.

"To use up my first hour!" he called back over his shoulder as the door swung shut behind him.

"Please be careful," she sighed to the empty space he'd just left.

SkyKnight blasted across the skyline of MegaTokyo, wings deployed and flight jets screaming like banshees. Anyone watching would have thought he was drunk; his flight was anything but straight, combining barrel rolls, wild spins, and every other possible aerial acrobatic there was that was normally only seen in old barnstorming shows. There was an unbridled exhilaration evident in the way he was flying, a carefree 'what-the-hell' attitude that would make normal airplane pilots turn pale if asked to fly the same way. After several minutes of wild maneuvering he did level off, and he coasted along in a straight line for a few minutes, savouring the freedom of soaring over the city.

Bert grinned to himself as he flew easily along, reveling in being airborne again. He'd become addicted to the thrill of powered suit flight ever since he'd first tried it, and finally being able to get up in the air again had eased some of the stress he'd been feeling lately.

As he roared along, part of his mind wandered over the discussions he'd had with his friends lately. He knew they were right, however much he might hate to admit it; he did have to find something else to do with his time. The only problem was that he'd gotten so used to a sort of free-wheeling schedule where he set his own times and rules, that he didn't figure he'd last long in a regular job anymore. To top that off, he'd been out of the so-called 'regular' working world for so long, he wasn't too sure just what his actual qualifications as an engineer were anymore. In the back of his mind, Sylia's suggestion that he form his own business was turning around. It certainly had attractive elements, but he wanted to consider it a while longer first. He irritably pulled his mind back to enjoying his flight time, since he had about thirty-five minutes left.

Skimming low over the rooftops, he began leisurely weaving through the solar arrays that peppered the building roofs. As he was weaving along, the scream of someone in absolute agony pierced the night air. Old reflexes took over; SkyKnight immediately whipped around and shot earthward, towards the direction the scream had come from. I don't have to look for trouble, he thought wryly to himself. It managed to find him all the time by itself.

As he descended, another, fainter yell pealed out, and he boosted himself to a higher speed. Whipping into the alley the screams had come from, he cut out his jets and came to a skidding, running halt as his feet hit the ground and his wings snapped closed. At the far end of the alley, faint, fading moaning was coming from an open area that the street opened onto. He pounded towards it, emerging into small plaza that was in front of yet another building under construction; with all the cheap labour boomers that had appeared, the construction industry was flourishing. There wasn't a section of MegaTokyo at the moment that didn't have some kind of restoration or building project going on.

SkyKnight rapidly scanned the area, then found the man who had screamed. He spun away, trying to hold his guts down before they could rebel and spew out whatever they contained; the man was beyond help, especially with his guts torn open like they were. Whatever had killed him had done it in a slow and excruciating manner; there were drag marks on the ground from where the man had been trying to get away, and some of the splatter marks around the body suggested the killer had been herding the dying man around by kicking him. The scene spoke of a cold ruthlessness that was sickening to think about.

Bert cranked his sensors to their highest sensitivity, and began trying to find out if there was anything else in the area that might have done this. He'd arrived very quickly, so there was an outside chance that the killer, whatever it was, was still in the area. Flickering readouts sped past his vision; no heat traces, no tracks, no electromagnetic signals, nothing. Absolutely nothing to indicate anything else had ever been here. He made a mental note to upgrade his sensors sometime so he could investigate things more effectively. He turned his sensors back to passive detection mode, and prepared to leave; he could hear approaching ADP sirens, and didn't need or want complications.

The searing green energy bolt that crackled from the shadows caught him completely by surprise, hurling him backwards into the wall. His hardsuit chest armour became uncomfortably warm, but no serious damage resulted. SkyKnight shoved himself off the wall, reflexes becoming primed for the next attack. When it came though, he was still anything but ready for it.

He stared in horrified shock as several massive steel girders came catapulting out of the darkness. He was unsuccessful in dodging them all, and two crashing impacts from a pair of the beams sent black curtains of unconsciousness sweeping across his vision. His last, flickering thought was that he should have listened to Sylia.

The sleek blue ADP pursuit squad car screeched to a halt just short of the taped-off boundaries of the crime scene. The gull-wing driver's door flipped up, and Leon McNichol piled out of the car. He stuck his mirrored sunglasses over his eyes, checked his revolver in its holster, and walked calmly over to the perimeter. A nervous ADP trooper in body armour with an assault rifle lifted the cordon tape for him as he walked through. Leon started looking around the scene, when his attention was grabbed by Daley's hail.

"Hey Leon! Over here!" Leon walked over to his where his partner was standing, noting that there was a K-12 lurking in the background as he did so. Just what the hell was going on?! Armour suits were hardly necessary for a murder scene, boomer related or not.

"What's going on?" Leon asked as he came up to Daley.

"Another murder," Daley replied. "Just like that maintenance engineer last week, and the couple since then."

"Okay, but why the K-12?" Leon asked, looking again at the suit. Daley pointed wordlessly towards what Leon had taken for a pile of scrap, and Leon walked over to get a better look. As he moved closer, he realized it was actually an untidy pile of massive steel beams that had been piled there. His glance sharpened as he noticed that something must have thrown the beams, since there were gouge marks from impacts on the wall behind the pile, and one beam had even gone through the bricks. Something very strong had been chucking those girders around, but why?

"Over to the right," Daley called. Leon shrugged to himself and moved over. As he did so, a crumpled silver-and-blue hardsuit became visible, pinned under two of the girders. There was no movement from the suit, and its chest armour looked to be crushed in. SkyKnight's helmet eyeslot was glowing feebly, but there were no other signs of life from the suit.

"Holy shit!" Leon swore in surprise. He spun around, beckoning Daley over.

"Did he have anything to do with the murder?" Leon demanded as Daley walked up to him. Daley shook his head.

"Nope. For one thing, there's no trace of the victim's blood anywhere on him; the forensics guys already took a quick look. There was also a witness, amazingly enough, and he said SkyKnight showed up after the fact. We've already got the witness down at the station; he was scared shitless about what happened here."

"What did happen?"

"Well, SkyKnight apparently showed up in response to the victim screaming, and he got royally creamed as a result."

"I'd noticed that," Leon commented dryly, looking at the downed suit.

Bert gradually clawed his way back to consciousness through a smothering blanket of darkness, and no small amount of pain. As he woke up, his foggy senses informed him that he was flat on his back, his chest hurt abominably, he had a blinding headache, and there was a crushing weight on him that was making breathing difficult. What the hell had happened? He'd answered his instincts in responding to someone screaming, and then .....

He tried to sit bolt upright as the full memory of the attack flashed back, but failed; there were two heavy steel beams laying across his body, making it impossible to stand up, or even squirm around right now. Damn. He ran a quick status check on his suit systems, trying hard not to panic at being immobilized; it had to be one of the more unsettling feelings it was possible to have. The results scrolled across his helmet screen.

The suit armour had nearly been breached by the combination of the energy blast, and the impact of the metal beams. His chest armour was now just barely holding everything together, and had saved him from being killed. The problem was that it had also been crushed in to the point where another couple of inches or so more, and he wouldn't have been able to breathe at all with the armour collapsed. His skin crawled at that realization, but he shoved the fear aside, concentrating on the rest of the damage report.

The rest of the suit was relatively undamaged, and his power reserves were more than adequate to get him home again, if he could get loose. A second thought made him glance at the suit chronometer readout, and his stomach plummeted as he realized he was an hour overdue back at Sylia's building. She's gonna kill me, he thought despairingly to himself.

"So what do we do with him, then?" a voice intruded on his private worries. He frowned, glancing at his suit displays. As he watched, a red-haired man in street clothes walked into his field of vision, accompanied by a tall man with brown hair and wearing mirror sunglasses, also in street clothes: Leon and Daley. Great, he thought to himself sourly. Cops. Just what he needed right now.

"We haul him out of there, and then take him downtown, I guess. We have to follow procedures, you know."

Leon, Bert fumed silently to himself, sometimes you're so law-abiding, it's disgusting. After all the help he'd given the ADP over the years, Leon still wanted to haul him into the station. Marvelous, he thought disgustedly. That does it, I'm leaving!

He began carefully bringing his suit back to full power; he was going to have to really boost the suit musculature to get loose from this predicament. These beams were really heavy, meaning whatever had thrown them was stronger than he was. Not a very pleasing realization. He shifted himself, mentally crossed his fingers, and began shoving on the beam across his chest with all his might, levering it up and away from him. The pile of steel pinning him down began to shift.

"Hey! He's still alive!" somebody shouted, as he gritted his teeth and pushed harder, ignoring the flaring pain from his chest, and the whining of the suit systems as they began to feel stressed from the massive weight. After a few interminable moments, he finally succeeded in shoving the beam across his chest over to the side, and let it crash heavily to the ground. Another few seconds of painful straining, and his legs were free.

As he staggered upright, he realized that, individually at least, the beams hadn't been too heavy for him to lift. What had really been holding him down was the weight of the half-dozen or so other beams laying across the ends of the ones that had been pinning him. Altogether he estimated there was about six tons of steel sitting there. Ouch. He drew in a careful breath, mentally trying to gauge how badly he was hurt. Other than sharp chest pains as he breathed, he figured he was in good enough shape to get away and back to HQ.

A massive, mechanical hand dropped onto his shoulder from behind, and his suit computer informed him that there was a large battlesuit behind him, an ADP K-12. Damn it, he thought, mind racing. Now what was he going to do? He didn't feel up to a tussle with a police suit at the moment, overlooking the fact that he wouldn't fight the ADP to begin with. Leon walked around in front of him as he stood there contemplating his next move.

"Are you coming quietly?" Leon asked.

"Why? Are you arresting me?" SkyKnight countered. Leon looked troubled, mulling something over.

"Not really," he said finally. "You're in the clear as far as this murder investigation goes, and I really don't have the inclination to try to arrest you for parading around with illegal hardware. It's saved our asses enough times to allow a little leniency here and there. Besides, you look like you've had enough problems for one night." A faint smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, and he waved the K-12 off. It clanked off to its transport truck as SkyKnight looked back at Leon, sheepishly admitting to himself that he might have been wrong about him.

"Thanks," he said. "I appreciate it."

"No problem," Leon replied. "You'd better get going, though. The press will be here before long, and I know you're camera shy." He had that right, Bert thought fervently. Getting his picture splashed in the paper would really piss Sylia off, moreso than she probably was right now. He turned to leave, then swung back for a moment.

"One last question," he told Leon. "You said 'investigation', which implies that there's been more than one murder like this, right?" Leon nodded.

"This makes the fourth in the last week," Leon replied, then his gaze hardened. "Don't even think about it," he warned. "Leave this to the police, or I bloody well will throw you in jail next time."

"Trust me," SkyKnight replied. He saluted Leon, and shot into the air on his jet system.

"Why doesn't that reassure me?" Leon muttered to himself as he watch the silver figure dwindle into the night.

Nothing travels faster than bad news, a fact Bert was reminded of as he limped into the hardsuit storage room. He hadn't even made it in the door before a furious Sylia, and an equally mad, but also worried Nene, grabbed him, demanding to know what he'd been doing, and if he was all right. He managed to fend them off long enough to get out of his suit, but then it was game over. An incautious prod by Sylia in his chest region doubled him over gasping in pain, and the two women literally dragged him, protesting all the way, down to the infirmary.

"And you wondered why I wouldn't let you out in your suit!" Sylia snarled at him as she carefully prodded the massive black bruise on his chest; it felt spongy in spots, indicating cracked or broken ribs. "You jackass! It thought you said you didn't go looking for trouble?!"

"Ouch! Damn it!!" he responded, wincing and trying not to yell. "How the hell was I .... OW! .... supposed to know I was going to get clobbered with steel two-by-fours?!" He really wished she'd quit poking him in the ribs; it was painful enough already.

"What happened, anyway?" Nene demanded. "I was just leaving work when the report came in over the radio that there was a downed silver armour suit at a murder scene."

"Somebody screamed, I dropped down to take a look, and something dropped half of a building on me. I ....YEOW!! Enough already!" he pleaded with Sylia. She stood back and looked at him, mixed frustration and worry flashing across her face.

"You're going to have to get to a hospital this time," she told him seriously. "You have at least two broken ribs, and I don't want to risk complications. Nene can take you over." He sat up carefully, wincing and slowly pulling his shirt back on. His ribs certainly felt broken, and it was making movement of any kind difficult.

"Fine," he replied. "I can pass this off as a shop accident without too much trouble." She nodded.

"I'm going to examine your suit while you're gone, and have a look at your flight recorder. We'll decide just what we're going to do with you when you get back."

"Great. Just great," he muttered to himself as Nene steered him out the door.

"Are you okay now?" Nene asked, hovering nervously by his side as he sank into Sylia's couch. Her green eyes were concerned, a concern mirrored in Sylia's brown eyes as she handed him a mug of tea. He nodded, suppressing a grimace at the stab of pain from his taped-up ribs; he'd had three broken ones and one cracked. He'd managed to endure the lecture from the doctor on unsafe work habits, such as working alone with heavy equipment, with a straight face as the doctor had re-aligned everything and bound it up to heal. He'd briefly wondered just what the good doctor would have said if he knew the real reasons for his busted ribs.

"I'm fine, other than the fact that I can't bend over and it hurts every so often," he replied. "However, I'm not really complaining. I'm more upset over the fact that I can't do anything for a few days."

"Can't do anything?"

"Yep. I can't lift anything, move around a lot, or even breathe hard for at least four days, preferably a week. The doc was very insistent about that." He sighed resignedly. "I'm just upset that I can't fix my suit up right now."

"Just what makes you think I was going to let you just carry on like nothing had happened?" Sylia inquired, folding her arms across her chest. "Your first night out, against my better judgment, and you manage to get almost killed by what has to be a boomer of some kind. Even though you didn't see it, from what you said, and from what I got from your flight recorder, it almost has to be a boomer of some description; nothing else could just casually pitch steel girders around like twigs."

"Yeah, but not even C-55s are that strong, normally," he pointed out. "So that means we've got a new type running loose. A homicidal new type." Sylia nodded.

"It looks that way," she agreed, frowning. "Unfortunately, I don't know of anyone right now who is trying to develop combat boomers. Even GENOM has quit that for the time being, apparently."

"Is anyone working on anything boomer related?" Bert asked.

"Zone corporation and OmniCorp are collaborating on developing a new AI for boomers, one that is supposed to make them smarter, and bring them to a more human level of behaviour and mannerisms. Other than that, no real boomer development is happening right now."

"A new AI?" Bert repeated, scowling. "I don't like the sound of that." Sylia looked at him in surprise, raising an eyebrow.

"Why not?" she inquired. "I think a lot of the fear people have about boomers will disappear if they can be made 'friendlier'. My father never intended for them to become war machines, you know." A faint flicker of some deep emotion flashed over her face at the mention of her father, but it was too quick to identify.

"I've got nothing against boomers specifically," he said slowly. "However, if the rumours are true, the HeadHunter was a 'next generation' AI, and that thing was a goddamn flippin' psychopath. How do we know that this new AI won't cause the same problems?"

"For one thing, the boomers that will be utilizing it are not being made with the purpose of killing other people," she replied. "I wouldn't worry; the scientists working on this project are not war-mongers."

"I sure hope you're right," he said, sighing and leaning back in the couch. Nene sat down next to him, and carefully shifted closer to him, mindful of his ribs. Sylia sat down across from them.

"Let's get back to our original topic," she suggested mildly. "What makes you think I'm going to let you back out there once you've healed up? I think you've just demonstrated why I didn't want anyone out by themselves." Bert winced at the twinges shifting around on the couch produced as he considered an answer.

"Mostly because if there's a killer boomer loose out there, I've got to find it," he told her.

"Why? So you can get your chest caved-in again? I don't think so. Besides, we're a team, remember? Maybe you should wait until everybody can get in on this."

"We can't just let it run loose!" he protested. "It'll keep on killing people, for one thing. For another, if this thing is more powerful than C-55s, the ADP is just going to get slaughtered when, or if, they find it."

"You didn't do so hot yourself," Nene observed tartly. Her opinion was that he was just anxious to get back out so he could go charging around heroically. "In fact, I'd say you got your butt kicked pretty good, Mr. Invincible-knight-in-shining-armour!"

"All right, so I was a little rusty," he growled at her. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Sylia's," she replied firmly. "I don't want you getting yourself killed just trying to prove how noble or heroic you are." He muttered something under his breath disgustedly, and slouched back.

"Traitor," he mumbled disconsolately, taking a slurp from his mug. A quick grin flickered across Nene's face, then disappeared.

"It's a question of how effective it would be," Sylia explained patiently. "Ignoring the fact that I don't want you soaring around by yourself for the moment, it isn't very effective to just randomly fly around looking for it, and hoping you'll run into it. Let the ADP investigate for a while and see if they can come up with a pattern to this thing's activities. Then we'll think about hunting it down." Bert sighed again irritably.

"You're the boss," he replied sourly. It was hard to argue with her logic, but that didn't mean he had to be happy about giving in. A faint smile appeared on Sylia's face.

"How nice of you to finally remember," she observed blandly.

ONE WEEK LATER ....

SkyKnight clanked into the hardsuit room, stripping off his helmet as he went. Sylia looked up from the computer console she was sitting at, some of the tension lines in her face easing slightly. She hadn't been thrilled with the idea of Bert going for another joyride in his suit, especially given what had happened the last time, however he'd promised not to respond to any incidents this time, and she'd taken him at his word. This time, at least, things had gone off without any problems.

"So how was it?" she asked. He swept his recalcitrant red hair out of his eyes and grinned at her.

"Fantastic," he sighed blissfully. "I wish I could travel like that all the time. Nothing can even come close to the thrill of high flying. You really should try it yourself some time." None of the other Knight Saber suits had the flight power his did. In his original designs, he'd purposefully built a souped-up and scaled down dual-turbine jet engine into his suit for the added flight power it provided. Since then, he'd modified things a little, and was up to the flight speeds and capabilities of small jetplanes for short time periods. Sylia shook her head.

"I'm happy traveling a little more conventionally," she noted. "Besides, I wouldn't fly with you I'm afraid, not after hearing the horror stories about your driving and piloting." She didn't mention the fact that she hadn't enjoyed the one brief flight she had taken with him; rocketing through a dark subway tunnel at just under sonic speeds had been upsetting, to put it mildly. "I'd like my nerves to remain the way they are, thank you very much!" she finished. Bert looked wounded, assuming a hurt expression.

"I'm shocked that you'd believe such slander!" he declared in an aggrieved tone. "I ..."

"Spare me the theatrics, please," Sylia suggested dryly. "You and I both know it's an act anyway. For somebody whose ideal vehicle is a turbo-charged jet engine with wings, I don't think you can stand there and truthfully claim not to be a speed freak." He grinned sheepishly; Sylia had not been impressed when he'd built the WarHorse jet cycle, as he called it. She'd been even less impressed at his taking it for a test drive, disturbing half of MegaTokyo in the process.

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he observed, stepping over to his suit storage bay, and starting the release mechanisms. He climbed out of his armour with the fluid ease of long practice, and vanished into the adjoining changeroom. He came out again a few moments later, clad in a blue-gray tracksuit.

"You're always trying," she remarked, a faint smile playing about her mouth. Bert mimed pulling a knife out of his back.

"The things I have to put up with around here," he lamented. "These constant, unfounded accusations and remarks reflecting on my integrity and ..." He ducked the notepad Sylia pitched in his general direction, and shut up. He picked up the pad from where it had sprawled on the floor, and handed it back to her with an innocent look. She shook her head ruefully, sighing.

"You really are a pain in the ass sometimes, you know that?" she asked.

"Part of the job description," he deadpanned, then changed the subject. "Did you consider my request of the other day?" She nodded.

"I've found a place I think will suit what you were after, and I've made the arrangements on your behalf. You can start building there anytime."

"Thanks. I really appreciate it."

"I just hope it works, and keeps you out of trouble," she commented. "Speaking of trouble," she added, glancing meaningfully at him, "that reminds me of something else."

"And that is?" he prompted curiously.

"I'm going away for about a month, and while I'm away, the building is getting a facelift, so to speak. While the construction is going on, you won't be able to get into your usual apartment and the shop. I'm sorry to inconvenience you, but I don't want anyone getting curious about the basement levels, so they'll be closed off." He nodded.

"No problem," he assured her. "I've got my little 'home away from home' set up that I can live in for a while; I just have to move a few things from the basement to tide me over, and I can lock the rest up." He frowned suddenly. "What's so much trouble about that?"

"That's not the trouble I was referring to. I was referring to just what you are going to do while I'm away."

"Do? What do you mean?" he asked innocently. She wasn't fooled.

"You know exactly what I mean," she accused, spearing him with an irritated glance. "I'm not dumb enough to believe you can stay out of your suit for a month, or keep your nose out of trouble, either. So just what do I do with you, then?"

"I think I can restrain myself enough to keep to our twice per week agreement," he replied.

"I'll take your word for it, then. I'm assuming you have space in your private shop set up for hardsuit storage?" He nodded; he'd had it set up when he'd first built the place, and had been keeping the Superman suit there. That particular hardsuit was now stored elsewhere in Sylia's building in a secure room. It was unlikely he'd ever be using it again, which was a bit of a shame; it had been an absolute blast running around town in it.

"All right then," Sylia said. "You have my permission to move SkyKnight there for now. SkyKnight ONLY," she added warningly.

"Of course," he replied, just a shade too quickly. "What else would I use?"

"You aren't cut out for being sneaky," Sylia told him flatly. "I know about the new designs for the Batman armour you've been bouncing around lately. I don't want to come back and find that you've gone off the deep end, built another superhero suit, and been swashbuckling around town in it. Am I making myself clear?"

"Perfectly," he sighed regretfully. "Pity. They were such nice designs, too." She ignored him, so he changed the subject again.

"You're off to visit Mackie in Germany, I presume," he inquired. Mackie had gone off to one of the technical universities there to hone his engineering and technical expertise. Sylia nodded.

"Partly," she said mysteriously. "Plus I have a few things of my own I want to do. You're not the only one who needs time off now and again, although I do mean taking the time off to relax, not using it to get me mad."

"I was relaxing," he protested, a huge grin spreading across his face. "Vacations are meant to have fun on, and I WAS having fun. Besides," he grinned wickedly. "I'm used to having you mad at me. I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Get out," she said disgustedly. "Go bother somebody else for a while, please!" He chuckled and bowed to her.

"Your wish is my command, O Glorious and Beautiful Leader," he stated extravagantly, ducking out the door before she could find something other than a notepad to throw at him.

"Okay, what have we got?" Leon asked Daley, slugging back the remainder of his coffee, trying hard not to spit it back across the room. The coffee tasted lousy at the moment, partly because it had been made almost triple strength in an attempt to keep everybody awake; Leon, and almost everybody else, was on the tail end of a double shift and was gradually losing the fight to stay awake. Everyone looked disheveled, with messy hair and bags under their eyes. With everything that had been happening lately, sleep had become a very short, and very precious, commodity.

"Not much," Daley replied, hauling his head off of his hands. He'd almost drifted into sleep, elbows on the desk, supporting his arms. They were the only things keeping him from folding completely into his desk and dozing off. "We've had twelve killings so far, all with identical methods; all were killed by massive internal bleeding, caused by someone, or something, ramming a very big knife into them and churning it around. That's the only common factor, there's no other links between the victims." Leon sighed, scrubbing a hand across his face wearily.

"Run the list by me again," he requested. "Maybe we'll see something we missed." It was unlikely, he figured, but it was all his plodding mind could think of at the moment. Daley nodded, and fished out the list and handed it over. Leon focused his bleary sight on the page, the black letters seeming to swim for a moment on the white page. God was he tired!

Of the victims, seven had been scientists, and the other five appeared to be people who'd been in the wrong places at the wrong times. There was no pattern at all to the murders, but there were plenty of strange quirks.

The first quirk was boomer related. The construction boomers who'd been killed with the maintenance engineer weeks earlier had had parts removed, and there had been similar circumstances in all of the other cases. In each one, anywhere from one to several boomers had been killed also, and had been missing some parts. It was the last five killings that had Leon worried; the boomers that had been stripped were all C-55 combat boomers. In each case, the boomers had been used as guards, and they had been stripped almost to the endoskeleton frame for parts, including the weapons. From the fight indications, each boomer had been dead in seconds, which meant whatever had killed them was one hell of a lot faster and meaner. The second quirk was about the dead scientists.

All of the scientists who had been killed had been working on boomer research, but nothing even remotely resembling combat boomers. Only GENOM had worked on that type of development, and the scientists had been working for some of the other small companies that had sprung up when GENOM's fortunes had been reversed. Whatever had killed them had taken the time to destroy all of their research material, and stolen some assorted equipment. The companies involved could not, or would not, identify what equipment had been stolen. That was severely hampering the investigation, of course. There had to be something common to the projects the scientists had been working on that would give an idea of what was going on.

Throughout the whole investigation, the questions of what was doing the killing, and why remained unanswered. One incoherent witness to one of the murders, the one SkyKnight had briefly made an appearance at, had only seen a large and bulky shape which had blended into the shadows and disappeared. That was the only description they had; none of the various security systems present at some of the crimes had been able to capture an image of the killer, either. It was as if the killer had somehow shut them off just before committing the murders. Leon's mind began to wander as he started to nod off. The phone shrilled suddenly, jerking him awake, and he grabbed the receiver.

"Hello? Yeah, it's me. What?! You're sure? Hang on, we'll be down in a few minutes." He hung up, grabbing his coat and forcing his protesting body to its feet.

"What's up?" Daley queried, also forcing himself upright. Leon looked vaguely concerned.

"Another murder," he replied. "The only catch this time is that there's a dead, stripped, B-12 combat boomer at the scene, and there wasn't even a long fight. Apparently, the B-12 was wasted within minutes." Daley whistled in surprise as he followed Leon out the door.

"That does not sound good," he observed.

"No kidding. We haven't had any good news for weeks now," Leon replied sourly as they left.

THREE WEEKS LATER ....

Nene sat disconsolately in front of her home computer, not really paying attention to what it was doing. Her emerald green eyes had a far-away depressed look as she stared around at her small apartment. The computer whirred mindlessly on, quietly working at cracking the protection codes to the database she was trying to access. A knock at the door pulled her out of her gloomy thoughts, and she got up to answer the door, tossing her glasses next to the console. Sighing, she walked over and opened the door.

"Hiya Beautiful!" Bert greeted her with a grin, handing her a bouquet of flowers. Her face lightened up immediately, and a smile wreathed her face as she stood back and let him into her apartment. She placed the flowers in a handy vase on a nearby table as he closed the door, and turned around to face him.

"So, what brings you to ..... mmff!" She was cut off from speaking further as she found herself being gathered up in a passionate embrace and kissed. After an initial moment of shock, she relaxed and enjoyed the moment, which stretched into several moments. After a few more moments, they separated, and she looked up at him, eyes somewhat bemused looking. He grinned slyly back at her, his own eyes twinkling merrily.

"That was some greeting!" she told him, still a little breathless. "What's the occasion?"

"No really special occasion," he replied, steering her over to the couch and sitting down with her. "Other than the fact that I'm in love with you." He grinned fondly at her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she relaxed against him, sighing.

"Besides," he suddenly added. "I'm in a marvelous mood today, and you looked like you could use something to cheer you up. What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing specifically," she said moodily, her momentary cheer disappearing. Bert rolled his eyes, sighing in exasperation. He reached over and gently tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him. Greenish-brown eyes met emerald green ones.

"Look," he told her seriously. "You get all upset when I don't confide in you, so stop borrowing my habits. Why are you walking around looking like you've just lost your best friend?"

"Because I have lost my friends," she replied gloomily. Bert's left eyebrow hit his hairline as he looked down at her in surprise.

"What on earth are you talking about?!" he inquired. She sighed again disconsolately.

"The Knight Sabers are breaking up," she declared morosely. "Linna and Priss are getting wrapped up in other things, and don't even want to think about the Sabers right now. Sylia's vanished, and nobody seems to care." She looked at him suddenly. "You've also been kind of busy lately, and I haven't seen you around that much, either. Why not? What's been so important lately?" He raised his hands defensively.

"Whoa! Hang on a second!" he said, putting a hand to his forehead. "One thing at a time, please." He paused for a second to organize his thoughts.

"Okay," he said. "Let's take that list in reverse order. First, I haven't been around as much lately because I've been slowly working at getting my latest project set up for opening in a few more weeks. That has taken a lot of my time lately, and I'm sorry I haven't been able to get by more often. Second, Sylia is in Germany right now, or Europe, somewhere, and she is coming back; she just needed some time off. As a matter of fact, I think I sent you a message about where she was."

"I didn't get it," she informed him. "What have you been working on that's so important?"

"I decided to open my own business," he replied. "Partly because I got tired of everyone nagging me to find something else to do with my time."

"I didn't nag!" she protested, flushing. "All I did was suggest that you could find other things to do than upgrade hardsuits."

"Yeah, but you only suggested it about ten times a day for a while there," he countered dryly. "Anyhow, I finally decided opening my own business was the best option. Sylia found me a site where I could build what I was after and made all the legal arrangements, and so forth. Most of the construction is done now, and I'm finishing up the rest by myself; I'm enjoying the work, and I don't really need help."

"What IS this business of yours?" she asked. He grinned.

"It's a combination of things," he replied. "It's kind of hard to lump it under one heading, but let's call it a shooting club. There'll be an archery range on the ground floor, and some stuff upstairs. It's something I know a fair bit about, and can work at and still enjoy. I'm still planning some of the other things that will be available."

"Are you going to be able to make anything of it?" Nene asked. He nodded.

"I did some advance checking, and I've already got a list of people who want to get memberships for the target ranges, and a lot who want to learn archery. Strangely enough, there aren't that many clubs of this kind in the city, despite the interest out there." He shrugged, then looked at her. "That's what has been keeping me occupied. That, and the fact that I'm living sort of outside the city at the moment; while Sylia's building is being fixed I can't get in there." She nodded in agreement, having seen all the construction going on at the place.

"Now then, what's this about the Knight Sabers breaking up?" he asked her. "I hardly think that will happen."

"Oh yeah?" she retorted. "Priss is worried about anything happening to her before her debut, and won't do anything else at all, and Linna is spending every waking moment watching the stock market so she can get rich. They didn't even want to try getting these armoured bank robbers who've popped up lately; Linna said there's 'no profit' in getting them, and Priss doesn't want to get hurt. That means we've lost two of the team, and they don't even seem to miss the Knight Sabers."

"Nene," he said gently, giving her a hug. "People do change; expecting them to stay the same way, or in the same job, doing the same thing for the rest of their lives is a little unrealistic. Priss and Linna are just re-arranging their lives right now, but that doesn't mean that they've given up on the Sabers. If we didn't try something new occasionally, or try to improve our lives, we'd very quickly become unhappy with life in general. I don't think you're being very fair in expecting everybody to remain the same."

"Maybe you're right," she admitted grudgingly. He laughed, and hugged her again.

"Maybe this will make you feel better," he announced, leaning over and kissing her once more. She didn't argue with him, and she did feel a bit better afterwards. They sat silently for a few more minutes, enjoying each other's company while the computer whirred away in the background on her desk.

"What was that comment about bank robbers?" he suddenly asked. "I hadn't heard about them."

"Don't you watch the news? About a week ago a group of illegal military combat suits robbed the Glory Bank. They escaped with a few million in cash and gold bullion, and they wrecked a few of the ADP vehicles in the process."

"Military combat suits, huh?" he repeated thoughtfully. "Were they big and blocky-looking robotic types with dome-shaped heads? Missile launchers and rotary Gatling cannons?"

"That's them," she confirmed. "You did see the news, then?" He shook his head.

"No, but I've heard rumours of these guys before. They pack some serious hardware, and they're a topnotch group of military mercenaries. I think they call themselves 'The Illegal Army', or something like that."

"Where'd you learn that?"

"I read a lot," he evaded. "I saw them mentioned in some newspaper a while back." She accepted that, and they sat again quietly for a while.

"Has there been any progress on that other case yet?" Bert suddenly asked.

"Which other case?"

"The one related to the murder scene where I got buried under steel beams by some boomer."

"None," Nene replied, shaking her head. "Leon hasn't been able to come up with anything yet, partly because he's been run ragged on other cases lately. As for the killings, some of them seem to be related, but there's no real pattern to be found yet." Nene looked at him, a mischievous smile flickering across her face. "Sorry, but there's no opportunity to play 'heroic knight' just yet."

"I wasn't worried about that," he replied distractedly. "I just hate loose ends, and a homicidal boomer is a loose end as far as I'm concerned."

"Remember," Nene warned. "Sylia said no flying around looking for it by yourself, and you gave your word."

"Relax," he soothed. "I said I wouldn't go looking for the boomer, or whatever it is, on my own, and I meant it." That much was true, at least. Nene eyed him with an expression of extreme skepticism.

"You want me to believe that, don't you?" she asked. Bert grinned innocently down at her, and gave her a gentle squeeze.

"Trust me," he assured her. "I know what I'm doing."

"Oh my God," Nene groaned. "Now I know we're in trouble!"

Bert tossed his hat and jacket into the chair by the door as he closed it. Whistling cheerily, he flipped off his sneakers and padded across the living room to the kitchen. Opening the fridge, he poured himself a glass of iced tea and chucked in a couple of ice cubes. Returning to the living room, he hit the 'play' button on his CD player, and soon thunderous fanfares and symphonic waves of sound reverberated through the room. He flopped onto the couch and relaxed with a contented sigh.

The rest of the evening had gone pretty well. Taking Nene out to dinner had gotten her off of brooding on the future of the Knight Sabers and cheered her up enormously. He'd enjoyed it too, especially since he hadn't seen her much, not with all the things he'd been trying to do at the same time lately. After dinner, they'd sat and talked about miscellaneous stuff for a while, avoiding any references to anything serious, and then decided to call it a night. Bert had dropped her off at her apartment and then, after a protracted goodnight kiss, gone back to his place. With a reluctant sigh, he dragged his mind off of the pleasant memories to consider what to do next.

Nene's news about the bank robberies had started an uncomfortable suspicion crawling around in the back of his mind; he had a hunch that the robberies were related to the new AI development Sylia had told him about, but he lacked proof. At the same time, he also was getting the feeling that the recent spate of murders were also somehow related to the AI project, especially since about half of the victims seemed to be involved in boomer-related work. Again, however, he lacked proof. All he had was a bag of airy theories and hunches that weren't going to get him anywhere. He shelved the second problem for later consideration.

The most straightforward option to consider regarding the first problem, was confronting the combat suits at their next robbery. It was also, of course, the most dangerous choice; not even in his wildest imaginings did he believe he could take out five heavy assault mobile military suits by himself. They were battle-hardened veterans of a far harsher school than he'd seen, for one thing. For another, they functioned as an extremely well-coordinated unit. That, coupled with the numerical odds, meant that he'd get slaughtered in a firefight.

He mused over how to approach the problem for a while, slowly lowering the liquid level in his glass. Frontal assault was a foolhardy option, no matter how noble or heroic he might feel. Almost three years with the Knight Sabers had hammered some realities into his chivalric ideals, finally. Dead heroes can't do much, and he had far too much to live for to want to get done in for trying the classic medieval knight's approach to a problem: plow in headfirst.

In the back of his mind, a voice was reminding him that he'd promised Sylia he wouldn't get into trouble. Once again, he ignored it. This was something the ADP couldn't handle on their own, and people were going to get hurt or killed if he didn't intervene somehow.

As he sat turning the problem around and examining the angles, the answer came to him. It was crazy, but he figured it just might work. A wide grin spread across his face as his greenish-brown eyes lit up, and he sprang off the couch, sprinting for his basement workshop. He had a lot to do, but the night was still young.

Momentarily forgotten, his CD player unconcernedly played, ironically enough, 'The Sabre Dance' to the empty room.

ONE WEEK LATER ....

"Leon, you're crazy!!" Daley shouted as Leon clambered into the K-17 armour suit in the back of the ADP transport truck. He grabbed a handrail on the truck wall as the truck swerved around a corner, still speeding towards the latest bank robbery, and continued to try and talk his partner out of his lunacy. "You haven't got a hope in hell of beating those suits in that thing! These are serious military suits! You won't stand a chance!"

The K-17 was the latest version of the old ADP K-12, which had finally been retired. The K-17, however, was even more of a cheap tin can than the K-12 had been. It was lighter, which meant it wasn't as physically strong, had no flight capability whatsoever, and even had less offensive weaponry. The politicians, in responding to the fickle cries of the public, had decided that the ADP could live with less heavy equipment and replaced the K-12 Armoured Trooper with the less powerful, and less costly, K-17 mechanized suit. Even though he knew he had a very poor chance of winning, Leon was still going to challenge the military suits when he arrived at the scene of their current robbery.

"I have to do it!" Leon snapped, as the torso sections of the suit whined closed and locked with hydraulic clacks and snaps. "These bastards have to know they can't just walk all over the ADP whenever they feel like it. Besides, our reputation is at stake here! I'm not going to roll over and just let them walk away without a fight!" The helmet canopy snapping down sealed off further talk as the truck screeched to a halt.

"I bet it's our last supper," Nene remarked gloomily as she surveyed the room. A vast feast lay spread on a table, with five places set up in an elegant display of silverware and china. Linna and Priss were also a little nonplused at the fancy setting; when they'd shown up at Sylia's temporary apartment for dinner, they hadn't expected this scale of grandeur. Nene had been contacted by Sylia, who'd obviously returned from Europe, and been told to get everyone to drop by for dinner. Nene had called everyone up, and they'd assumed it was to be a casual dinner. The way the dinner was laid out, though, seemed more appropriate to eating at a fancy place like the St. Regis Hotel.

As they stood wondering what to make of the setup, Sylia walked in. She was dressed in a white blouse with a dark jacket and skirt, cool and sophisticated-looking, as always. As she came into the room, her smile of greeting slipped slightly as she noticed that they were one person short. She cocked an eyebrow quizzically at Nene.

"Where's Bert?" she inquired. Nene looked apologetic.

"I'm sorry, Sylia," she said. "But I just couldn't get him on the phone at all. He's not at home, and I couldn't find him anywhere else." She sighed, a sigh which was echoed by Sylia.

"Some things just never change," Sylia observed wryly.

"I'm sure he's not getting into trouble," Nene hastened to assure her.

"Wanna bet?" Priss asked sardonically, rolling her eyes.

ADPolice troopers yelled and dove for cover as several missiles spiraled towards them from the bulky combat suits standing in front of the Tokyo 3rd National bank. Leon gritted his teeth inside his K-17 suit and waited for the shattering explosions to come. They never came.

Just as the missiles were a scant few feet from the doomed police, a screaming flurry of crimson energy bolts flashed from the darkness up the street. All of the missiles exploded in flowers of smoke and flames before they could hit any of the ADP vehicles or personnel. For a moment, complete silence swept the street as everyone's gaze swung to look up the street in the direction where the blasts had come from. Nobody was visible, but there was a strange, swirling cloud of white smoke that was filling the street completely.

As everyone watched, the dense cloud of white mist rolled eerily down the street, cloaking the landscape in drifting strands of whiteness. The mist wasn't thick enough to blanket sight totally, but it was enough to look extremely unnerving. The sudden appearance it had made was also strange. Several cops started muttering uneasily to each other, as Leon and the renegade combat suits looked around incredulously at the drifting fog.

As they looked, a hollow, echoing laugh began to drift through the air with the fog. It was an eerie, hair-raising laugh that went on and on, mocking the listeners and making them uneasy at the same time; just listening to it made Leon's skin crawl. The red-domed combat suit suddenly stepped towards the direction from which the fog had come.

"Who's there?!" it shouted in an amplified voice. "What the hell is this?!" The laughter continued. The rotary cannon in the suit's left hand roared, strafing the dense fog bank beyond with probing blasts . Heavy bullets slashed the air, smashing into buildings and shattering windows.

As the echoes from the fusillade died off, a large, dark shape loomed in the fog. The shape was somewhat distorted by the strange lighting effects the fog was producing, but it was very definitely a man-like shape in silhouette. The dark shape appeared to be wearing a wide black hat, and a voluminous black cloak which billowed around it. No face was visible. The eerie laughter could now be heard coming directly from the figure.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" the shade asked in a deep, rolling voice. "The Shadow knows!" This time, all of the military suits fired, shredding the fog bank with furious streams of steel-jacketed bullets and missiles. Explosions lit the fog bank with orange flashes. The figure laughed on, unaffected, and began walking purposefully forward. The red-helmeted suit stomped forward to meet it.

The figure flickered and wavered, almost like a film projector image, and then there was a sudden blur of movement; a cloaked figure flashed across the space separating the two to bodycheck the combat suit backwards, flying to land at the feet of the other suits with a loud clang. As everyone stared, the dark shape reached up and whipped off the hat and cloak, sending them fluttering to the side. Dim light flashed off of brightly polished silver armour.

"Unfortunately," SkyKnight's normal, electronically modulated voice said, "the Shadow couldn't make it tonight, so I'm filling in for him." There was a definite undertone of amusement in his voice. He's crazy!, Leon thought to himself, and not for the first time, either.

"You son of a .... KILL HIM!!!!!" the downed red suit bellowed in rage.

"Now that we've solved that problem," Sylia remarked dryly. "I think it's time we discussed our next job." Nene flushed slightly as Sylia shot an amused glance at her; she'd blurted out her fears that the Knight Sabers were breaking up, and they had been neatly laid to rest by Sylia. She was now a little embarrassed at getting carried away by her emotions, but she was also deeply glad that the Sabers were staying together. She turned her attention back to what Sylia was saying.

"Our client this time out is Zone Corporation," Sylia told them. "They want us to guard a research project of theirs."

"Zone Corporation?" Linna repeated, puzzled. "What could they have that's so important?"

"They're working on a new boomer AI that's intended to make them more human-like in behaviour, and somebody has started stealing the parts. The people doing the actual stealing are a mercenary team known as 'The Illegal Army', a very high-priced group."

"The Illegal Army?" Nene echoed faintly, colour draining from her face as a sudden horrible suspicion struck her. No, he wouldn't have! He couldn't have!! Sylia glanced at Nene, and her gaze became alert.

"What is it?" she demanded. "Why do you look like that?!" Nene swallowed nervously.

"Bert already knew who they were," she answered.

"You don't mean he's already gone after them!" Priss exclaimed. "He'll get slaughtered!"

SkyKnight parried the slashing swordblade of the red suit, and somersaulted forward with a jet thruster assist, avoiding the missile strike that scored the asphalt where he'd been standing only seconds before. Landing on his feet and twisting sideways to dodge a point-blank cannon shot, he blasted the grey combat suit in front of him with a scorching red particle-laser bolt; the suit flew backwards with a loud crash and lay smoking for a moment, before rolling awkwardly over and clattering to its feet. SkyKnight flipped backwards on his jets, landing neatly about twenty feet away from the Army suits.

These guys are good, Bert noted breathlessly, gasping for air. They seemed to always know where each of the other members of their group were, which had foiled his attempts to get them to shoot each other in crossfires. Adding to the problem was the fact that their hardware was some of the best he'd ever seem; he was almost certain that some of their weapons were far more advanced than the usual military weapons. Obviously, someone was supplying them with very advanced, very illegal stuff. Surprise, surprise, he thought sourly to himself.

He hadn't been going to engage the Illegal Army at all, originally. He'd wanted to see if he could get them to chase him, sparing the cops any injuries, and then lose them somewhere over the city. That way, even though it meant letting them get away with the robbery, it meant nobody got hurt.

Even the most meticulous plans were subject to chance, however, and chance had walked up and kicked him in the face; Leon, filled with righteous indignation, had attacked the lead suit, and gotten trashed almost instantly. The red suit had been going to finish him off, and SkyKnight had been forced to physically intervene.

Prior to Leon screwing his plans up, he'd been working at dodging around, and trying to determine which armour suit was carrying the stolen AI technology. He'd started firing his lasers, managing to distract the suits long enough for the ADP to get Leon out of there, and now it was down to SkyKnight versus The Illegal Army. So much for planning, he though sourly to himself; he hadn't wanted a full-blown firefight, but he was stuck in one anyway. As he watched, his opponents regrouped. The lead suit, the red one, turned towards SkyKnight.

"You're not bad, boy," a gravelly bass voice came from the suit. Bert clenched his teeth; sure, he was younger than they probably were, but he wasn't that young! "But you'd better surrender before you get hurt. There's nothing to be gained by fighting us any further."

"Spare me the bullshit, old man," SkyKnight shot back insultingly. "I don't surrender to anybody, especially thugs like you." Evidently, the warsuits didn't care for his remarks, as a snarling missile storm leaped from their launchers and flashed towards him. SkyKnight decided it was time to get really serious, and get away from this shindig. If he didn't do it soon, it was only a matter of time before they would eventually succeed in blasting him.

As SkyKnight shot straight up into the air, his right shoulder weapon snapped up, and spat a series of objects at the renegade suits. As the suits spun out of the way of the supposed attack, the objects detonated with a series of blinding flashes and stunning thunderclaps. The blasts were close enough that the concussions momentarily disoriented them. The missile strike they'd fired at him harmlessly blasted large holes in the pavement beneath him.

The rotary magazine on his launcher spun around to the next chamber, and again it spat projectiles. This time, however, two metal cylinders clanked to the pavement and burst, releasing dense, choking clouds of sooty black smoke that soon covered the entire streetscape with an impenetrable shroud to unaided sight. Shouts of surprise volleyed from the smoke cloud as SkyKnight plunged into the swirling cloud.

From the shadows of an alley, not too far from the fight, a bulky shadow moved. The hulking, misshapen figure watched the explosions and flashes of energy that were backlighting the swirling smoke for a moment. Something metallic made snapping noises for a minute or so, then the figure turned away from the battle. Within seconds, the alleyway was deserted again.

A blazing blue blade of energy carved a swath through the smoke cloud, then disappeared. There was the sound of several heavy objects hitting the ground, accompanied by an outraged shout. SkyKnight suddenly plunged out of the smoke cloud, carrying what looked like a small metal briefcase of some description. As he ran, his wings snapped into extension on his shoulders, and with the roar of powerful jets, he shot upwards into the night sky. Below him, five very angry heavy assault suits charged out of the cloud, ignoring the still present ADP, and their puny weapons fire, completely. Two of the armour suits had what looked like shredded cargo containers on their backs.

"After him!!!!" the red suit screamed. "Don't let him get away!!!"

Bert kept a wary eye on his suit displays as he skimmed the rooftops of MegaTokyo; he didn't think he'd lost the Illegal Army just yet. He grinned briefly, congratulating himself on getting away without a scratch. It had worked, mostly; he'd been able to get the AI component off of them without major damage to either the police, or the surrounding real estate. The only question now was, just what was he supposed to do with the component?

As he considered that particular problem, five heavy armour suits suddenly erupted from the roof of the building in front of him, shattering the night sky with cannon fire. SkyKnight dodged aside in shock, avoiding the deadly volley, but crashed into a nearby roof and skidded to a clattering halt as a result. As he rolled over and got to his feet, his heavily-armed foes landed on the roof, fanning out and surrounding him. This is not good, he told himself, beginning to feel a little trapped as he looked around. Somehow they'd managed to get ahead of him to ambush him. Great, just great.

"Hand over that component, NOW!" the lead suit snarled. SkyKnight shrugged, and tossed the case towards the red suit. As the suit reached up to grab the case, a sizzling pair of crimson laser bolts blasted the case into flying pieces. Anything the case had been carrying dropped to the rooftop in a smoking slag heap. There was a moment of awful silence, one in which the helmet optics of all of the renegade war suits swung over to regard SkyKnight. There was a palpable air of menace in those unseen gazes.

"You didn't really think I was just going to let you have it back without any problems, did you?" SkyKnight asked politely.

"So what are we going to do, Sylia?" Nene asked worriedly as Sylia hung up the phone. She'd decided to try calling Bert once more before declaring him AWOL, giving him one last chance, but he hadn't been home. She looked at Nene, traces of exasperation evident on her face.

"It's too late tonight to try and find him," she said quietly, looking at the clock. It read 11:45 p.m. "Tomorrow's Saturday, so we'll all go over to his place in the morning and see just what the hell is going on. I'm sure he'll have a good explanation."

"They usually are good," Linna agreed dryly. "Whether or not they're believable is the problem, most of the time." Priss snickered.

"I just hope he's all right," Nene muttered to herself.

SkyKnight painfully doubled over as the grey combat suit standing in front of him drove a metal-clad arm into his guts. His hardsuit creaked ominously under the impact as his breath deserted him, but the armour structure remained intact. As he sucked some air back into his tortured lungs, the two warsuits holding his arms hauled him upright again. Slightly behind the grey suit beating on him, the leader's red suit was standing watching with its arms crossed across its chest. His view of the suit suddenly jolted crazily as a backhanded blow to the helmet wrenched his head sideways, causing a fresh spike of pain to erupt from his neck as it twisted.

Bert shook his head, trying to clear it long enough to formulate some kind of escape plan. Another crashing impact jolted the world, sweeping red sparks across his vision. You moronic jackass, he briefly berated himself, you just couldn't leave it alone, could you?! You just had to play knight-errant again! After his blasting of the briefcase containing the component, the Army suits had decided that a rather drawn-out revenge would be fitting; they'd grabbed him as he tried to escape, and were now beating on him, mobster-style.

He wasn't sure how much more of a pounding he could take; their suits easily had the same physical strength as he did, and they packed quite a punch, no pun intended. They were also holding onto him with no problems, despite several tries to get loose. Yet another numbing strike to his stomach doubled him over, and a sweeping kick upwards to his chest knocked him back upright again with the crunch of armour plating being crushed. Panic began to claw at the edges of SkyKnight's mind as he gasped for air.

"I warned you about what would happen, boy," the deep-voiced suit said conversationally. "Too bad you didn't listen. You've cost us a lot tonight, and now you're going to foot the bill." SkyKnight jerked under another pair of punches, fighting to remain awake under the onslaught. His armour was battered and dented now, and beginning to show some cracks in places.

One chance, Bert hazily thought, I've got one more chance at this. As the grey combat suit in front of him drew its arm back for another blow, SkyKnight grabbed the arms of the suits holding him, and kicked out with his feet, using his captors as supports. Like he'd hoped, the suit in front of him grabbed his feet. Now!!

"Afterburners!!!!" SkyKnight barked harshly. His suit battlecomputer reacted instantly to the emergency vocal command, and his boot-mounted solid fuel booster rockets fired, without the usual ignition countdown.

There was a brutal, wrenching slam as he was catapulted backwards across the roof on a twenty-foot pillar of incandescent flames, dragging one of his captors with him and tearing loose from the other one. The grey warsuit that had been standing in front of him and holding his feet, briefly, was flopping around in absolute agony on the roof like a beached fish. There was a huge melted hole in the chestplate of the suit where his rocket exhaust had struck squarely, and hoarse screaming could be heard coming from the downed suit. Bert had a momentary flash of sympathy and regret. It didn't last long, since they had been trying to kill him, after all.

SkyKnight shot over the edge of the roof, still dragging one of the grey suits. As he worked at shaking it loose, the remaining warsuits began charging forward, aiming their weapons. SkyKnight kicked in his jets to assist his still roaring rocket thrusters, and immediately the added thrust began spinning him and his clinging foe like a pinwheel. The violent whirling tore the grey suit loose finally, and SkyKnight flashed into the darkness above in a fiery gyre as bullets and missiles shrieked through the air after him. The silver-and-blue hardsuit vanished into the night, leaving behind four VERY upset mercenaries.

Some time later, SkyKnight staggered into his darkened secondary home on the outskirts of MegaTokyo. There was no danger of being seen. In the first place, there were no other residences in visual range, and his house was screened by thick stands of trees. In the second place, he always used his flight mufflers to come and go, so no one would hear anything out of the ordinary to arouse suspicion. The only oversight on his part had been in not having some kind of secret, outdoor entry to his workshop. Oh well, nobody's perfect, he thought wryly to himself.

Closing and locking the door, he unsteadily thumped through the house to the living room. He really wanted to sit down for a few moments before trying to get out of his suit; he was bone-tired and in considerable pain from the drubbing he'd received. Hopefully, it was all just bruises.

Entering the living room, he sank carefully onto his couch, faint creaks from the frame protesting the extra weight of his suit. With a grateful sigh, he leaned back, pausing long enough to remove his shoulder-mounted railgun and chemical launcher, dropping them to the carpeted floor with muffled clanks. Then, he reached over to his left arm guard, and popped open a small, recessed panel; he extracted a small object, closed the panel, and examined the object for a moment.

The item in question was a rectangular wafer of some kind, about six inches long, by four inches wide, and about a half-inch thick. The wafer appeared to be clear acrylic plastic, with four 'rods' imbedded in the center, and strange circuitry was visible on the embedded pieces. The rods almost looked like small fuses of some kind. The ends of the wafer were covered with metallic caps, presumably where the thing would get hooked into whatever it was intended to be used in.

A faint grin appeared behind Bert's helmet visor as he examined the AI component. As far as the Illegal Army knew, the component was dead. However, early in his retreat, he'd removed the component from the case, almost dropping it in mid-flight, and hidden it in his armour while closing the case back up. He'd figured he could bluff them into thinking it destroyed, and then leave before anything happened, all the while actually carrying the real component away. Everything had worked according to plan. Almost. Well, okay, maybe not EXACTLY according to plan. Aw hell, he was bloody lucky to be sitting there!

A sudden wave of weariness made him yawn, and he foggily realized he wasn't going to make it down to his shop to get out of his suit. Yawning again, he carefully tucked the AI piece into a drawer on the coffee table, hiding it under some old National Geographic magazines. Shutting down his armour power, he sat back on the couch and let sleep finally catch up to him. Loud snoring soon reverberated from SkyKnight's helmet as the red glow from the eyeslot faded, and the silver-and-blue hardsuit sagged limply onto its side on the couch.

THE NEXT DAY ....

"Nice place," Priss observed as Sylia parked the van next to the red pickup truck sitting in front of Bert's house. The 'place' in question was a small, two story, wood-paneled, two-toned brown house. Even though it was of fairly new construction, the house had a weathered, rustic look to it. The trees, and unbridled growth all over the place of the grass and vine creepers added to the effect, and made the entire place look like it had been transplanted right out of some rural landscape. A cool breeze rustled the leaves, providing a soothing background noise. Everyone climbed out of the van, and began walking towards the front door.

"Why doesn't he cut the grass?" Linna asked, forging through a small meadow. The grass was slowly overpowering the walkway to the front door.

"Because he likes it this way," Nene defended him. "It looks nicer with all the greenery."

"It is kind of relaxing-looking around here," Priss agreed, looking around again at the vegetation. "Maybe we should take vacations here, too."

"If you don't mind," Sylia said acidly. "We're not here to sightsee, remember?"

The four women trooped up to the door, but no one answered the doorbell, or the loud knocks they pounded the door with. Sylia reached into her purse and fished around for a moment. She came up with some kind of lockpicking device, which she proceeded to open the door with. The door swung open, and they walked inside.

"Why am I not surprised?" Priss remarked, looking at the polished suit of medieval plate armour standing just inside the small front foyer of the house. The effect was marred somewhat by the wide-brimmed hat sitting at a cock-eyed angle on the helmet, and the jacket hung on the suit's shield. Linna rolled her eyes in agreement. Everyone dropped their own coats on the hapless hollow knight, and spread out to search the house. It was a fairly cozy place, neat, but at the same time with a homey, 'lived-in' feel. The rooms were well lit by daylight from the large windows, offering panoramic views of the outside trees.

Priss frowned suddenly; she could