A portly, moon-faced man with brown hair, glasses and a bright, cheery disposition swept into the ArrisTech development labs, white lab coat flapping, mimicking his excitement. Flinging exuberant greetings to the other scientists present, Dr. Haynes walked over to the examination table sitting in the middle of the room. Lying on the table was a blue humanoid form, a boomer. This boomer, however, had none of the terrifying aspects of the blue C-55 series; it was only about five-feet-eight, and had a normal looking physique. There were no weapons visible in it at all.

"Dr. Haynes," another scientist working next to the table greeted him. "You're looking chipper today." Haynes grinned, a cheerful infectious grin.

"Why shouldn't I be?" he inquired. "We received the necessary funding and research data from Zone today, and we can get Adama up and running in a month or so if we can iron the final bugs out of the AI. When that happens, we'll be able to dispel the stereotype of boomers as killers using Adama as the role-model."

"This is important to you, isn't it?" the other scientist asked, gazing at Haynes thoughtfully, who nodded enthusiastically.

"Dr. Stingray never intended for his creations to become the ultimate war weapons; they were supposed to be friends to people to help them in their lives, whatever they were doing. Unfortunately, he died before we could complete the AI work, and the boomers were produced using the lesser AI version. That's why they've been such a problem: for anything other than pure combat and killing, their programming becomes unstable, unable to hold together. In some of the older models, it wasn't a problem, but all of the newer ones seem to have had that quirk."

"When will we be testing the AI prototype?"

"In about a week. We've got to assemble the pieces and test them out first before we try putting them in Adama's body."

"I sure hope nothing goes wrong," the scientist remarked, turning back to his work.

The main door to the lab slid open to admit a tall, gaunt man with blond hair and a saturnine expression, wearing a brown suit with a white lab coat over it. Brown eyes directed a piercing gaze around the lab at the fevered activity, betraying no hint of what their owner felt. Haynes turned around, and a welcoming smile lit up his face.

"Yuri!" he exclaimed. "It's good to see you again! Come over here and tell me what you think...."

"For God's sake, that's not how you hold the damn thing!" Bert sighed. He reached out and gently straightened Priss' left arm out, pushing down on her shoulder at the same time with his other hand. He nudged her feet a bit with his, correcting her stance. "Tighten your grip there, or it's going to fly loose when you release the string."

"Are you done yet?!" Priss asked, beginning to sound exasperated. Her right arm was beginning to shake from where she was holding the string of the longbow she was using back at full draw. Bert nodded dubiously, and stepped back and slightly behind her. Priss sighed in relief, sighted down the arrow, and released the nock she was holding. With a low thrum, the string slapped the arm-guard on her sleeve as the arrow whistled down the range, ricocheting off the target frame. The arrow turned some neat-looking spins in the air, and clattered to the floor. Bert sighed again, placing a hand over his eyes.

"You're flinching when you release," he told her patiently. "Draw another arrow for a sec." Priss complied, and he stepped closer, correcting her stance again.

"Okay, we're going to try something," he told her. He stepped right next to her, their bodies touching, matching her stance as his left arm reached out and steadied her left arm with his. She suddenly grinned to herself.

"Hey, this is kinda cozy," she remarked. "You do this with all your students?" Bert turned beet red, jerking away from her for a moment.

"Stop that," he growled irritably, stepping back up to her, although not quite as close as before, and again steadied the arm holding the bow. "All right, release the arrow," he directed, tightening his grip on her left arm. There was a low twang and a thump, and the arrow quivered from where it was stuck into the red circle, just outside the gold bullseye.

"Better," he approved, stepping back from her, still flushing self-consciously. "When you release the arrow you can't let the bow arm wave around, or else you'll never hit close to the target." She nodded, shaking her right arm out, and decided to call it a day.

"That's enough for now, thanks," she told him. "I'd better quit before my arm falls off."

"True enough," he grinned. "When I was starting out, I overdid it a few times and I couldn't lift my arms for hours the next morning. Don't forget to unstring the bow." Priss sighed irritably, and did as she was told. She placed the bow in the empty slot on the rack at the end of the range, and hung the arrow quiver next to it. Peeling off the arm-guard over her sleeve, she chucked it into the nearby equipment box. She'd expressed an interest in learning archery for a change of pace, and he'd enthusiastically agreed. His teaching manner needed a bit of polish, however; he was slightly impatient at times, but she put it down to the fact that he couldn't shoot a few arrows himself right now.

It had been two weeks since they'd had the final blowout battle with the Illegal Army, and he was still in rough shape from having his ribs broken, again, along with the other injuries he'd sustained; having a battlesuit weighing several hundred pounds land on you from a fall of several stories was not a picnic, not by anyone's measurements. He had tried to draw his usual longbow, but the 50-lb. draw had put too much strain on the mostly healed muscles and bones, doubling him over in immediate pain; it appeared there were limits to just how fast modern medicine could cure some injuries. It was obviously pissing him off completely that he was unable to do a lot of what he wanted to do because of his tentative condition. Priss had already completely recovered from her injuries except for some fading bruises.

"So when does this place open to the public?" she asked, looking around at the mostly finished archery range. There was still the odd pile of boards around here and there, and in some places, the light fixtures were hanging by bundled wires. It looks a lot like the shop, she noted to herself with a grin: a mess. Despite the rough appearance, most of the facilities were ready to use.

"Not for a few weeks yet," he replied, flinging an old blanket over the bow rack to keep dust off of things. "I can't finish up some of the other rooms yet, for obvious reasons."

"Mmm," she regarded him thoughtfully, sweeping her brown hair back over her shoulders. "Why don't you hire someone to finish it up for you?"

"Because this is my project, and I'm going to do it myself," he told her. "I don't need help."

"Have it your way. God, you're stubborn."

"Thanks," he replied dryly. "That makes two of us." He held the door open for her as they left, closing it behind them and locking it. They walked down the corridor to the entry foyer of the building. As they walked, Bert looked over at her.

"While we're on the subject of projects," he asked. "Whatever happened to that pro debut tryout you mentioned a while back?"

"I ditched the producer," she replied. "I'm gonna write some new stuff and try again with a different company."

"What happened to the old one?" he asked curiously. Her expression became annoyed.

"If you must know, the bastard was constantly trying to get a date with me, and dropping all kinds of hints about what we could do afterwards."

"Sounds like Leon," Bert quipped. Priss ignored him.

"The final straw was when we got to actually recording. The asshole didn't have the guts to try my singing on a stand-alone record, he was going to put me on with some other singer. Not only that, he wasn't even going to use my lyrics," she fumed. Her red-brown eyes were almost spitting sparks at the memories. Bert was briefly glad that it wasn't him she was pissed off at, and wondered if the producer was still able to walk upright. Priss continued to catalogue the wrongs that had been done to her.

"The absolutely final straw was the stupid outfit he wanted me to wear; there's no goddamn way on this earth I'm gonna be caught dead in some sappy, frilly dress with ruffles. What the hell did he think I was, a goddamn schoolgirl?!" She stalked along beside Bert, teeth clenched. He had a sudden picture of her in a dress like the one she'd described, and suppressed the grin he felt forming. However, a moment later he lost the battle with his sense of humour to keep from passing some kind of comment.

"Well, I can understand why someone might want to date you," he said. "You're a very attractive woman."

"Thanks," Priss said, flushing slightly. She seemed flustered by his comment for some reason. Bert grinned, and got ready to run.

"I don't know why the dress would get you upset, though," he added. "I think you'd look cute in ruffles." He took off, sprinting for the exit a split second before Priss took a swing at him.

"Cute?! CUTE?!?!" she yelled. "I'll show you cute, you jackass!!! Come back here, you coward!!" Priss took off after him as he made it out the door into the street.

She caught him about fifty feet away from the door.

White light washed through the room in a fluorescent spray, illuminating the wild tangle of parts and machines that was the basement tech shop. Dropping his hat and jacket on a peg sticking out from the wall, Bert walked over to the worktable sitting at the far end of the room. A restless, irritated expression flashed across his face as he walked over, as if he was debating something internally and was unable to answer whatever the question was.

Light gleamed off of polished silver-and-blue armour plating as he drew closer to the table, and he gazed down at his newly repaired hardsuit with a somewhat self-congratulatory smile. Despite the discomfort entailed by work of any kind at the moment, he'd succeeded in rebuilding his own armour suit in the time since the Illegal Army ruckus.

The other hardsuits had required minor repairs compared to his; eighty-five percent of his hard armour plating had been ruined completely, he'd lost yet two more modular weapons, his flight system had been smashed into scrap, and only one each of his four laser cannons and two lightsabers had survived intact. The control and power systems had gotten toasted a bit, but had been still operational. By contrast, only some armour plate patching and circuit repairs in the rest of the team's suits had been required. During the week, he'd also ignored the sly comments from everyone else about the sizes of his repair bills. All right, so he was a little hard on equipment; there was no need to make a federal case out of it!

There was one slight improvement he'd made that hadn't been on the schedule, however. Sylia was still debugging the new control software and systems, so the next set of upgraded hardsuits were still a while away. Bert hadn't wanted to wait, as usual, to try out at least one of the improvements this time around, so he'd incorporated it into his repairs.

His armour plating, while it looked the same, was now, he hoped, almost 200% stronger than his initial designs. Instead of a complex metallurgical alloy covered with his polymer coating, the base material for the hardsuit armour was now a ceramic-metal composite material, similar to what was used by the space materials industry in rocket engines and spacecraft hulls. Called 'ceramel', it was fantastically light, and far, far stronger than conventional metal alloys. It also had the added benefit of excellent heat resistance. He was hoping that the resistance would translate into greater protection from energy weapons, which had been the only shortfall of his old formulations. The polymer coat had gone on top, of course, further enhancing the plating strength.

The other benefit to the lighter armour, was a commensurate strength increase. By lightening the load that the suit musculature had to actuate, more power became available for raw combat strength, all without building in the new actuators. The new actuators were a major overhaul job, which was why he'd postponed it, reluctantly leaving that modification to be implemented in the next group of suits.

He stood next to his suit for a while, lost in thought as several undefinable expressions sped across his face. After a few minutes, he sighed as he took a quick glance at the clock, then ducked into a side room, changing to his hardsuit undergarment. Coming back into the shop, he tilted the suit off the table, and opened it up. The suit whirred and whipped into place around him after he stepped into it, snugly encasing him in hi-tech armour.

He grabbed his helmet and settled it into place as he walked across the shop to a cabinet. Positive status reports flickered through his helmet viewscreen as he walked. The red helmet eyeslot burned brightly as the sensors came on-line.

Reaching into the cabinet, he pulled out his flat battery packs, latching them into place in their hip mounts. After a moment's hesitation, he slapped one of his variable-load chemical launchers into his left shoulder mount, and yet another battery pack into the right shoulder mount. He hesitated again for a moment, half turned back as if changing his mind, then turned again, irritably jerked the door open, and clanked out into the hallway. Darkness cloaked the cluttered room again as the lights flicked off behind him.

Wind whistled shrilly past his extended flight wings as SkyKnight soared through the depths of the nighttime sky over MegaTokyo. Dim starlight glinted from above him, as stray light from the sprawling metropolis below illumined his silver-clad form. He wasn't worried about being spotted; the altitude he was at was much too high for visual sightings.

As he flew along, he idly reflected that it was like he was in a whole other world at the moment. Up above, the stars pierced the canopy of the skies, while below the city appeared to be wreathed in a softly-glowing mist, riddled with a multitude of glowing points of light. Some of the buildings were tall enough that they seemed to float on phosphorescent, ephemeral clouds, almost like separate islands. It was a strangely beautiful, breath-taking sight. The analytical part of his mind noted that it was light reflecting from the smog that cloaked the city that created the effect, which kind of destroyed the whimsical mood he'd briefly enjoyed.

Bert sighed; a vague, undefinable depression had been dogging him lately, and he was finding that not even flying around, his usual cure, was working this time. He supposed it stemmed partly from his inability to do anything lately; recovering from his injuries from the Illegal Army fight seemed to be taking longer than recuperating had taken in the past, due to the seriousness of the injuries. He hadn't fully recovered yet, and wasn't even supposed to be using his suit, not that it had stopped him from taking it out.

The other reason for the depression was less easy to define. Lately he'd been feeling irritable and restless for no good reason, and the fact that he couldn't figure out why was irritating him even more. He felt let-down and used-up.

SkyKnight banked through the air, veering off into a new direction as he meandered along, his mind spinning its wheels, trying to find the source of his gloom. He wasn't having any success, and he finally gave up in frustration. He swore at himself under his breath, wishing he could turn off the part of his subconscious that seemed to like nagging him with vague worries all the time. There were days when he wished he could just banish his emotions entirely. He soared onwards, as a dark cloudbank on the far horizon rumbled sullenly with the promise of a coming storm.

The guard looked up briefly from his newspaper as thunder grumbled ominously, audible through the building over the hum of the banks of security monitors in front of him. Giving brief thanks that he wasn't at the front gate watch station, the guard returned to his newspaper, propping his feet up on the console. Unnoticed, the monitors began to shut themselves off, turning blank one at a time in rapid succession.

A thundering explosion racketed through the halls, closely followed by agonized screams, shouts, and the intermittent bark of small-caliber gunfire. Startled inmates of the MegaTokyo Detention Centre looked up from their various activities and discussions at the unusual sounds. A few began to get hopeful looks, as the sudden prospect of a jailbreak loomed large in their thoughts.

A massive boomer loomed large in the end of the hallway to the cell block, destroying immediately whatever budding hopes the convicts may have entertained. Around twelve feet tall, the boomer was a misshapen, malformed hulk that sported a patchwork colour scheme, two massive shoulder cannons, and wickedly curved claws on its left arm. A hemispherical helmet canopy concealed the boomer's face, but an evil red glow was pulsing from within the semi-opaque dome.

As the boomer slowly stomped down the corridor, the serrated blades on its arm dripped crimson onto the floor tiles, and a slaughterhouse smell drifted from it. Even the most hardened crooks shrank back against the far walls of their cells, as far away as possible from the hostile biomechanoid, praying that the boomer wasn't after them. The boomer went approximately three-fourths of the way down the hall, and stopped at a particular cell, turning to face the door and ripping it free with casual strength.

Inside the cell, a tall, thin man with reddish-brown hair, brown eyes, and an angular face looked up from the tattered notebook he was scribbling in with a pencil. Other pages, covered with technical notes and what looked like boomer design sketches littered the floor around the cot he was sitting on. There was a slightly crazed look in his eyes, and a self-satisfied grin on his face as he looked up from his notebook. The grin vanished as he realized what was standing in the doorway to his cell; he'd remained oblivious to the noises, absorbed completely in his 'work'.

"Dr. Miriam Yoshida," a strangely distorted voice rumbled from the boomer. "I require your unique talents for a job."

SkyKnight jerked in surprise as a massive explosion flared on the nighttime skyline, off to the west of his position. The blast noise from the detonation was audible even from his location of a couple of miles away. As he watched, a towering column of black smoke, blacker even than the approaching stormfront, billowed into the sky, lit from below by the angry red and orange flames that were engulfing a large fenced-in complex. Holeeeee shit! he observed to himself; it looked like somebody's power generator had just overloaded and blew itself into orbit.

Jet turbines shrieked exultantly as he swooped around and shot towards the disaster site. He flicked on his helmet communications array as he zipped towards the conflagration, tuning into the ADPolice wavelengths. He discovered that there was no need to alert them; judging by the screaming of the dispatchers, they were already well aware of what had happened, and were sending all available units as well as the fire department. He was probably going to get there just ahead of the cops.

A booming thunderclap pierced the night air, and lightning began to dance through the clouds as he zoomed through the air, creating flickering silver flashes as the light reflected from his hardsuit.

"Well, well, well," the distorted voice rumbled, echoing the thunder that cracked overhead. A vast amusement was evident in the deep voice. Dr. Yoshida wondered what was going on; from the boomer's stance, it was looking up into the sky, but he couldn't see anything. The fact that the boomer had a tight grip on his shoulder and neck, preventing him from looking around, was part of the problem.

"What is it?" he asked testily. "What's going on?" Behind them, the former detention facility blazed like a torch, slowly crumbling into a charred ruin. Sirens wailed in the distance.

"There's an old friend coming," the boomer chuckled. "Unfortunately, we don't have the time to welcome him properly." The boomer's hand released Yoshida's shoulder for a moment.

"Do not look around, or you will die, immediately and in great pain," the boomer warned in a cold voice. Yoshida stood stock still, obeying the boomer. While he still had an arrogant look on his face, he was less than confident about his current predicament.

As he waited, he heard something sliding, like a visor on a helmet opening. A shattering blast of sound almost burst his eardrums, driving him to his knees in pain, as the glow of the fires was momentarily washed out by several brilliant flares of greenish-white light. There was another sliding noise, and a click, and the boomer hauled him off the pavement. Dr. Miriam Yoshida was unceremoniously dragged by the scruff of the neck into the cloaking darkness beyond the raging fires.

"Aw hell, not again!!!" SkyKnight burst out, as a crackling swarm of greenish-white energy bolts blasted through the thickening air towards him. He couldn't even see what the hell had fired at him, but it had evidently seen him, despite the range. The approaching barrage was enough proof of that.

In the split seconds before the fusillade arrived, SkyKnight realized he was going to get hit at least once; the way the bolts had been spaced out, he was going to get hit by one while dodging another. He flipped himself sideways in a looping roll combined with an outward moving spiral, trying to get clear of the energy bolts, but failed. As he'd feared, he was nailed square in the chest by one of the beams and thrown backwards through the air, despite the forward thrust of his flight pack. As he reeled helplessly through the air, spots flashing in his vision, two more bolts slammed into him, knocking him into a descending arc through the air as gravity won the contest with his propulsion system.

Bert fought to regain control of his fall, at the same time trying hard to retain his grip on consciousness as red waves washed across his vision; those last two shots had really, really hurt. His flight system sullenly responded to his frantic commands, slowing his precipitous fall, and aiming towards a deserted back alley. Jets roared defiantly, and his speed decreased to the point where he merely passed out from the impact as he hit the pavement with a deafening bang. Silence cloaked the alley as the echoes from the crash faded.

Lightning flashed through the skies again. The swollen clouds above opened up, and the promised rain began to fall, drenching the sprawling city below in greyish sheets of water. Rainwater trickled off the polished silver suit as it lay in a crumpled heap on the asphalt, washing some of the burn marks off of its plating.

"What the hell happened here?!" Leon demanded. "It looks like a goddamn war zone!" Daley shrugged, pulling his coat around tighter in futile attempt to keep the drenching rain out, watching the detention facility burn from the police perimeter lines that had been set up. Inside the perimeter, red lights strobed in a contest with the light from the grudgingly dying fires as the fire department hosed the inferno down. The rain was a godsend at the moment for the fire department, but it was making life miserable for the ADP officers who had to secure the area.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he replied, shivering as a chill hit him. "We won't really know until we can get the forensics guys to look through the rubble."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Leon muttered. He irritably yanked off his sunglasses, stuffing them in a soggy pocket. Wiping a hand across his streaming face, he glanced over at his partner. "Did the injuries that killed the perimeter guards look familiar to you, too?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Daley admitted. Both men lapsed into gloomy, contemplative silence as they watched the burning detention facility. The flames were finally beginning to die out.

Clanking, uneven footsteps in the night, coming from behind them, made them whirl around in surprise. Leon's revolver leaped into his hand as he scanned the darkness beyond the police lights. As he watched, a staggering silver-and-blue clad figure stumbled into the light. A faint red glow was visible at eye level.

"At ease!! Relax!! Hold your fire!!" Leon hollered to the few eager rookies who started sighting their assault rifles on the approaching shape. "Nobody shoots unless I give the order! Keep them under control for a few moments," he directed Daley, before hopping over the cordon tape, and splashing across the wet pavement to where SkyKnight had stopped, waiting. He stuffed his revolver back into its holster as he walked.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," SkyKnight observed as Leon approached. Leon snorted at the remark, but didn't try to come up with a witty reply. He examined the rain-slick silver hardsuit, and noticed that SkyKnight was not in good shape. Burn marks scored his torso armour, and the right shoulder of his suit was dented and mangled looking. From the way SkyKnight was favouring that arm, it was either broken, or very badly injured at least.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asked the silver-garbed Knight Saber.

"Something decided it doesn't like me," SkyKnight replied. Leon could hear the suppressed pain in his voice as he tried to appear flippant. "I was flying by when the building blew, and when I came over to check it out, I got shot down. So much for 'fly the friendly skies'."

"Shot down?!?!" Leon repeated, stunned. "Shot down by what?!"

"A boomer, I presume," SkyKnight replied, shifting around in obvious discomfort. "That is unless they've started handing out portable particle beam cannons to the general public." Leon didn't reply, but turned the new information around in his mind. The presence of a boomer explained a few things, and he didn't like the feeling he was beginning to get.

"So what happened here?" SkyKnight queried.

"This was a detention facility," Leon told him. "Something killed the guards, shut down the security system, then blasted the building. We won't know for quite some time if anyone was broken out; there's not much left to work with."

"I'd noticed that," SkyKnight noted dryly. "How were the guards killed?

"Massive gut wounds."

"Oh bloody hell," SkyKnight muttered.

"You can say that again," Leon agreed. "As if things weren't bad enough."

"What's that supposed to mean?" SkyKnight inquired, cocking his head curiously. Leon, however, didn't reply immediately, but stood looking troubled.

"Sorry," Leon replied finally, "but that's a police matter. There's only so far that I can bend the rules and make allowances for you. I got in shit from the chief the last time for letting you go; he doesn't like vigilantes, and was ready to make a public example of you when I brought you in. He ranted and raved about that one for about an hour. Hell, he was even going to try and pin the murder on you."

"It's so nice to be liked," SkyKnight observed dryly. "Thanks anyway, Inspector. Take care." He turned and walked off into the darkness, leaving Leon to stare after him. Leon turned around, returning to the taped-off perimeter as, off in the darkness, jets whined and gradually dwindled into the distance.

The door to the tech shop banged open as SkyKnight lurched through, stumbling sideways and almost demolishing a nearby workbench. Tortured gasping echoed from his helmet as he grabbed the table with his left arm for some support. The gambit failed, and he toppled to the floor with a loud clang, unfortunately landing on his injured right shoulder. Pained swearing seared the air, as he rolled over and crawled to where he could lean against the wall. Water dripped from his suit as he crawled, leaving wet, smeared trails on the floor.

Bert flopped against the wall, panting and sweating. He didn't know how seriously he was banged up this time, but it had taken everything he had in order to get home. The nerve endings in his right arm were screaming bloody murder, and his ribs ached from where most of the energy shots had hit his suit. He was almost afraid to look down and see if he was bleeding or not; those blasts had really packed an impressive wallop.

As he sat there, trying to force himself to try getting up and out of his suit, the door to the shop opened, and Sylia stalked in, closely followed by Nene. Both women were obviously angry with him; the glares they directed in his direction could have burned holes in battleship armour.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Sylia demanded, brown eyes pinning him to the spot with a furious glance. Nene didn't say anything, she just glared at him.

"Nighttime," he quipped, as he shot a quick glance at the clock. Uh-oh....it was three in the morning. He suddenly noticed that Sylia had a bathrobe wrapped around herself, and Nene was slightly rumpled looking, as if she'd just gotten up. He groaned to himself as he rather belatedly remembered that she'd been going to drop by his place, which explained her presence now; she'd probably been snoozing on the couch, hoping he was coming back before too long. Oh bloody marvelous, he sighed to himself, realizing that the two women had gotten up with the express purpose of giving him shit in mind.

"Don't get smart with me, mister!" Sylia snapped angrily. "We had a deal that you'd...." Her voice trailed off as she took a really good look at him, and her expression became even more unpleasant as she noted the blast marks on his torso armour. Nene had also noticed his burned and battered condition, and was giving him an equally hot look.

"Get out of your suit," Sylia ordered flatly. "Then I want you to get to the infirmary so we can look you over. If you're not down there in ten minutes, then we come back for you with a can opener and a crowbar." She swept out of the tech shop, Nene trailing her. Neither of them looked back.

"Why me?!" SkyKnight asked imploringly, looking at the ceiling. "I really didn't need any more problems tonight!" No reply was forthcoming, so he rolled over preparatory to getting to his feet, and began the slow, painful process of getting out of his suit.

"For a stupid bastard who won't listen to me, you're in disgustingly good shape," Sylia told him, pitching the small medical scanner onto a side table. "Except for the dislocated shoulder, you didn't get more than a few bruises. You're damn lucky; you could have caused more damage to your ribs, and they're not whole yet." Her brown eyes flashed angry sparks as she glared at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I had noticed that," he hissed back between clenched teeth. "Have we got any painkillers around?"

"No," she replied heartlessly. "I think you should sit there and suffer anyway. We had a deal covering your flight excursions, and you just broke it, buster. There had better be one damn fine explanation for that, and for your present condition."

"There is," he assured her, pale-faced and sweating. "But could we please get my shoulder fixed first?"

Nene walked him back down to his basement apartment, making sure he didn't keel over on the way. She was still angry with him, and had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since he'd gotten back. She hadn't spoken to him, and his attempts at conversation had been stonewalled. It wasn't helping him feel any better; in fact, it was threatening to amplify the depression he'd been trying to fight off. They came to the door of his apartment, which Nene opened for him. She hesitated briefly, then followed him in. Bert flopped on the couch, wincing as his tender shoulder complained, and Nene sat down next to him, a little apart, turning to face him.

"Would you mind telling me what you were thinking of tonight?" she asked quietly, finally breaking the oppressive silence. "Your explanation to Sylia didn't mention why you just up and left suddenly; in fact, it was artfully vague on that topic."

"I just needed to get out for a while. That's all there was to it. I didn't go out trying to find a fight, or something heroic to do, I just wanted to fly around a bit and clear my head." Nene stood, and started walking towards the door. Bert stared after her in surprise.

"Nene?! What..what's wrong?! What did I say?!" he asked, confused. She turned to look back at him.

"If you're not going to confide in me," she told him. "Then there's not much point in my staying, is there?" There was more than a trace of hurt in her green eyes.

"Please don't say things like that," he pleaded. "I love you, damnit, and I...I...I need you. Please don't leave." She came slowly back, sitting down next to him again.

"Then talk to me," she told him simply. "There's been something eating at you ever since our last job. I didn't say anything before because I thought you trusted me enough to tell me what it was on your own. Evidently, I was wrong."

"No! I do trust you! Completely! Totally! It's just that.....I....how can I tell someone what's bothering me when I don't even know myself?!" he burst out plaintively. Nene blinked in surprise.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she queried.

"It means exactly what it says," he told her. There was a weary and confused look in his eyes. "I've been trying for days now to figure out why I feel..... depressed is the word, I guess, although that's not quite right either. I... I just don't know!! I thought flying around would clear my head enough to be able to figure out what was wrong, but it didn't, and then all hell broke loose." He closed his eyes for a moment, leaning back into the couch and covering his face with his hands, sighing miserably. After a moment or two he sat up again and looked at her.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," he said quietly. "Believe me, it was the farthest thought from my mind. I'm just not the greatest at dealing with my own feelings, and I feel guilty unloading my problems on other people. I thought I could handle my emotional baggage myself this time around, and that's why I didn't say anything. I'm sorry."

"You should be," she told him sternly, then relaxed, leaning over and gently hugging him. "I wish you'd quit being so self-contained sometimes," she sighed. "Part of a relationship is telling the other person about your problems. You've gotten a lot better, but there's times I could strangle you." She shot him an exasperated glance. "Tonight is a prime example. There's nothing dishonourable, or whatever, in confiding in your friends, you know." Bert hugged her back, drawing some comfort from the contact.

"I know, honestly," he told her. "But it's still difficult breaking a habit of several years."

"No!" she exclaimed dryly. "I'd never have guessed!" She grinned and wrapped him up in another hug as he did the same, and they sat like that for a few minutes. Bert glanced over at the clock: 4:23 AM. He sighed.

"I'm sorry I ruined your night, anyway," he said. "I didn't mean to be out that late."

"No problem," she replied. "Tomorrow...oops, I mean today's when I'm on the later shift, so sleeping in isn't a problem."

"Okay. I'll go get a blanket, and then you can have my room. I'll bunk on the couch here."

"Wouldn't you be more comfortable in the bedroom with me?"

"Nene!!"

"Oh come off it," she told him irritably. "You can be so stuffy at times, you know? I meant sleeping only, you jerk. There's nothing wrong with that." Bert turned bright red, then regained control of himself. He shook his head.

"I don't think you want to be in the same area I am during the night," he replied. "I'm not sleeping the best at the moment; the shockwaves from my tossing and turning might keep you awake." Nene looked concerned.

"Still having those nightmares?" she inquired, reaching up and brushing his hair out of his eyes, then running her hand down his cheek. He nodded stiffly, not replying. "Maybe you should see a doctor about it," she suggested. "This is getting serious, if it's keeping you up now."

"Oh, right," he snorted. "I can picture it now: I walk into a shrink's office and say 'I'm having nightmares about a psychopathic boomer that almost killed me and my friends.' After they stop laughing, they'd probably lock me up in a rubber room. Besides, I can't really risk something like getting a psych analysis. I can't lie convincingly enough to fool anyone, so I'd probably blow our cover sooner or later. No, I'm afraid I'm just going to have to put up with it for a while."

"How much longer is 'a while'?! It's been almost half a year now!"

"I can't help what my subconscious does," he retorted irritably. "It won't listen to me."

"Now you know what we feel like," she deadpanned. Bert slapped a hand over his eyes, sighing and gritting his teeth as Nene grinned saucily at him. While he was recovering his composure, she vanished into the bedroom, emerging a minute later with a pillow and a blanket. She stuck the pillow behind him, then sat down on the couch next to him, snuggling closer as she draped the blanket around the two of them. Bert looked at her quizzically, even though it was pretty obvious what her intent was.

"Maybe if I keep you company you'll be able to sleep better," she explained, stretching up and giving him a quick kiss. He didn't contradict her, kissing her back and wrapping an arm around her. Leaning back, he closed his eyes and sought the sleep that had been eluding him lately, drawing some peace of mind from Nene's warm presence.

"Soon," the deep voice rumbled. "Soon we will be able to proceed with the final phase of our plan, and then we will both have what we want." The hulking shape of the boomer shifted slightly, the wall it was leaning against creaking ominously. Cracks appeared in the plaster, but the wall held firm.

"Excellent," an older, gravelly voice replied from the shadows behind a desk. "We've put enough money and effort into this project; it's about time we got some results."

"You knew it would take a long time. This is not the kind of operation that can be implemented overnight, especially without access to the resources you once had."

"And you know why that has to be," the old man's voice snapped. "We don't want to attract attention to our actions; this must be completely covert until we are ready."

"I am fully aware of what the reasons are. Do not presume to lecture me," the boomer replied coldly. A brief silence fell, as tension between the two figures became palpable briefly. At length, the seated, shadow-cloaked figure spoke again.

"What about McLaren and Yoshida?"

"McLaren is a rat in a maze," the boomer stated flatly. "He thinks he can escape when his tenure is over, but he is mistaken; I know everything he has tried to do and will attempt to do; I have absolute control over him. When we are finished, his usefulness will be at an end." The statement was made with a chilling finality that made the skin crawl. "For the moment, Yoshida's megalomania makes him useful to us; he is cooperating fully to the best of his abilities, believing it will get him the power and influence he craves." A derisive chuckle escaped the malformed biomechanoid, echoed by an equally amused one from the desk.

"How much longer will we have to wait?" the disembodied voice asked.

"One week. Then the final component we require will be fully assembled. There may be some interference from a third party, but nothing insurmountable."

Bert stirred and shifted on the couch, half turning over sleepily, not quite awake yet. He hauled himself upright to a sitting position on the couch, running a hand through his already hopelessly snarled thatch of red hair. He scrubbed a sleeve across his eyes, making a sour face at the foul way his mouth tasted. If he didn't know better, he could almost swear that someone had stuffed old gym socks into his mouth during the night.

Sighing he got to his feet, letting the blanket drop to the floor, not noticing or caring, and walked across the living room, heading for the bathroom. Because it was (for him) equivalent to early morning, his mind wasn't fully cognizant of a very important detail that he'd missed. He opened the bathroom door and stepped in.

"BERRRRRT!!!!" an outraged shriek blasted the air. Split seconds later, red-faced and now COMPLETELY awake, he dove back out the bathroom door. However, he wasn't fast enough to avoid the washcloth, soap bar, scrub brush and assorted plastic bottles that clobbered him in the back of the head on the way out. He slammed the door behind him, and plastered himself up against the wall as the last of the missiles stopped clattering on the floor, panting.

He wiped a hand across his sweaty face, mentally kicking himself for not noticing that Nene had already gotten up before him, and for not hearing the shower running before opening the door and stepping in. He'd had a brief flash of wet long red hair, angry green eyes, and a curvaceous water-and-soap slicked figure, before her angry shout had snapped him completely awake. He clamped a tight grip on himself before he could get carried away by the euphoria the memory produced; he was in enough trouble as it was already.

Sighing in combined resignation and regret, he quickly whipped up a pot of tea, and started some bacon and eggs cooking while she finished showering. After several more minutes she emerged from the bathroom, having gotten dried off and dressed. Since it was a working day, she was wearing her form-fitting ADP uniform, minus the jacket. She gave him a very hot glare as she came over to the table where he was setting up the plates.

"Uh, hi!" he grinned weakly, trying unsuccessfully to look innocent. "Breakfast is ready."

"Are you awake now?" she retorted acidly.

"Oh definitely," he assured her, wincing and rubbing the back of his head. "Your technique is flawless, if painful."

"You asked for it, you perverted creep! You get upset when I suggest we share the bed for the night, then you walk in and gape at me in the shower! You're just lucky I didn't have anything heavier to throw!"

"I didn't gape!"

"You sure did! You probably tripped over your jaw on the way out; that, or the drool on the floor." Bert turned bright crimson, right to the roots of his hair. He quickly dished up breakfast, and buried himself in his coffee mug to hide his discomfort. They ate silently for a few minutes.

"So, uh, what are you doing today?" he asked tentatively. She looked over at him, and again he turned bright red. His guilty conscience was really needling him; every time he looked at her, his mind kept replaying the brief flash of her in the shower.

"Getting locks put on the bathroom door," she shot back sarcastically.

"Look, I'm sorry," he told her, blushing yet again. "Honest! I didn't mean to walk in on you, I'm just not really alert first thing in the morning."

"No kidding! I'd never have guessed!"

"Aw come on, Nene! It was an honest mistake! I'm really, really, really sorry! Honest!"

"Okay, suppose I accept that," she glared at him. "Then why are you turning beet red whenever you look at me?"

"Uh, I, err, um..." he stammered. How did he manage to get himself into these things?!

"I thought so," she said, sitting back and folding her arms across her chest, giving him another glare.

"Well what do you want me to do about it?!" he protested defensively. "I'm only human! I can't just selectively erase parts of my memory!!" She didn't reply, glaring at him and sipping her tea. Bert sighed mentally, and gave up. She was mad at him, and that was all there was to it. Based on previous experience with her temper, he knew it would probably be most of the day before she got over being steamed at him. He quietly gathered up the dishes, carrying them over to the sink. Giving them a squirt of detergent, he started the hot water running. Nene carried her teacup over, still sipping from it as he started washing the dishes by hand. He did have a dishwasher, but the activity was helping him to relax, a little.

The rather guilty, uncomfortable silence stretched for a few moments as he tried to figure out some way of extracting himself from his current predicament. After a few moments, he sighed, settling on 'honesty is the best policy'. He dropped the dishes into the drying rack, as he cast a sidelong glance towards Nene. She was sipping her tea, not looking at him.

"You don't have anything to be embarrassed about," he told her, a trifle bluntly. "You have a marvelous figure." Nene choked and spluttered in surprise on her tea, green eyes bugging out as she turned the colour of her hair. Bert desperately suppressed the grin that he felt forming on his face, as he rescued the cup before it hit the floor, tossing it into the dishwater. After a few more moments of gasping, she recovered her breath. Her face was still a bright pink colour.

"You...you..." she sputtered. She was obviously struggling to find words for the situation, but none were forthcoming.

Mentally preparing himself for a backlash, he stepped forwards, leaning down, tilting her chin up with his hand and kissing her softly on the lips.

"You're cute when you're mad, too," he told her. She stared back at him, still wide-eyed and red-faced, completely flustered beyond any hope of an immediate recovery. He grinned at her, and gave her a sweeping, courtly bow. Turning around, he quickly finished up the dishes, stacking them in the drying rack. As he turned away from the sink, he was startled by Nene placing her arms around his neck. He looked down into her emerald green eyes, seeing at last a faint flicker of humour.

"If you ever mention this to anyone else, I'm going to strangle you on the spot," she warned him. An eyebrow twitched upwards as he grinned.

"Would I do something like...mmff?" Nene shut him up quite effectively by pulling him down and kissing him, and he gladly wrapped his arms around her, returning the kiss.

"Mind if I ask a favour?" Bert queried as he pulled his pickup truck to a halt in front of the ADP building. Nene undid the seatbelt as she looked over at him.

"I can try. What did you want?" she asked.

"Could you get me a copy of all the files related to those strange killings over the last few weeks, and the explosion last night? I've got a hunch they're connected somehow, and I'd like to check into it myself; I'm getting sick of being shot at."

"I'm sorry," she sighed, "but I can't. Sylia guessed that you'd want to look into it, but I'm not supposed to give you any information until you're completely healed."

"Bloody hell," Bert muttered disgustedly, looking suddenly sour. "You talked to Sylia this morning?" She nodded. "When?"

"While you were in the bathroom. She was looking for me specifically, so I forgot to mention it."

"And what did our Imperious Leader want?"

"Bert!" Nene exclaimed, shocked. "How can you say that about Sylia?! I thought..."

"Nene," Bert interrupted quietly, "Sylia is a very good friend, one whom I both respect and admire. At times she's almost like an older sister to me, but at the same time, I'm getting a little sick of always being treated like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I admit that I'm not entirely blameless in a lot of the situations, but at the same time, I think it's time she quit ragging on me whenever something happens. I've paid several times over, and in currency I don't care to think about, for my own actions. I'm not being rebellious or anything like that when I do something, it's just part of my nature to be my own person, and Sylia is going to have to fully realize that one of these days." Nene was silent for a moment, looking troubled. Bert leaned across the seat and kissed her, drawing back afterwards.

"You'd better get going," he said. "You don't want to be late."

"Are you going to be all right?" she asked, looking over at him. He nodded. She suddenly threw her arms around him in a hug, kissing him again. After a moment she drew back.

"I'll see you tonight, then," she said, gathering up her handbag.

"I shall wait with bated breath for the blessings of thy radiant presence," he grinned. She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. They exchanged a fond smile as she got out, closing the door. Bert watched her walk up the steps to the front door, waving briefly as she paused at the top. She waved back, vanishing into the concrete and glass structure housing the ADP. His face became contemplative as he shifted the truck into gear and drove off. Within minutes, the red truck had vanished up one of the main highways of the city.

From the front lobby, Nene watched the truck disappear, trying to pin down the source of her sudden unease.

Gravel scrunched under the tires as the Chevy S-10 pickup ground to a halt in front of a two-story brown house on the city's outskirts. Bert clambered out, wincing as his ribs and shoulder briefly complained. Walking across the nearly overgrown walkway to the front door, he unlocked it and stepped inside.

Dropping his hat and jacket on the hollow, armoured sentinel standing inside the door, he peeled off his sneakers and chucked them into the hall closet. Casting a quick glance around the house foyer, he strode into the living room. After rummaging around in the cabinet underneath his stereo, he found the CD he was looking for, and loaded it into the CD player disc slot, pressing the 'Play' button. The soothing strains of classical music began to waft through the room as he walked over to the couch, flopping lengthwise on it to stare at the ceiling, brooding.

From past experience, he knew that Sylia was probably waiting right now at the shop to continue lecturing him for the previous night. However, she was in for a surprise this time: he wasn't going to give her the opportunity. He knew his own patterns better than she did, so he was going to do exactly the opposite of his predicted reactions for a while; since she expected him to try and get back to his suit to fix it, he wouldn't. It was time to get their seemingly endless feud over supposed solo actions cleared up.

He had nothing but respect and admiration for Sylia; it wasn't everyone who had the guts and intelligence to set up and keep running something like the Knight Sabers. He knew that a lot of her problem was anxiety over the fact that she felt responsible for everyone on the team, and for getting them into the kind of double life that they now led. She seemed to be forgetting the fact that everyone involved had walked in with their eyes open, fully knowing what could happen. However, she was taking some of her command duties just a little too seriously, he figured. Hurting her was the last thing on his mind, but he'd finally become fed up with always being in the doghouse. To all things, there must be an end, somewhere along the line.

He sat up on the couch, stretching and yawning. Sighing, he stood up and walked over to his bookshelf. He smirked at the books for a moment, before reaching out and pulling on the spine of one of the books labeled 'Popular Mechanics'. The bookshelf retracted into the wall, opening the doorway to his private lab in the basement. The entry way sealed behind him as he climbed down the stairs.

Bright fluorescent bulbs flicked on at his entry, and the computer console at the far end of the small workshop activated at the same time, lights flickering across the console board. He cast a practiced glance around; everything looked exactly like he'd left it. He wasn't overly worried though; the security here was second only to Sylia's.

Walking across the shop, he stopped in front of the combination hardsuit bay and worktable he'd designed; one of these days he'd have to put one in Sylia's shop, since it made a lot of things much easier to work on. On the worktable lay an uncompleted hardsuit frame, looking like hi-tech spaghetti on metal sticks; wires and myomer bundles covered the exoskeleton frame, micro-hydraulic tubing intertwined with them. The occasional microprocessor chip peeked out of the tangle, like someone lost in the jungle trying to get out. Bert gazed thoughtfully at the work-in-progress, then at the bin containing the assorted dark blue and black armour plating parts that had yet to be added. Time enough for that later.

Grinning to himself, he turned away to the computer, easing himself into the padded office chair sitting in front of it. He flicked a glance across the board, then hit the 'System Enable' button. Circuitry hummed, a series of startup lights flashed, and the large screen flashed into life. Large blue letters scrolled across the screen:

The screen blinked, waiting patiently for a response. Bert cleared his throat.

"With power comes responsibility," he spoke aloud. He paused, a sly smile coming to his face. "Trust me, I know what I'm doing," he concluded. The console hummed for a moment.

Bert grinned crookedly to himself as a brief, animated picture of his SkyKnight suit saluted on the screen and disappeared. Sighing, he cracked his knuckles, and started clattering away on the keyboard, calling up his CAD program. Schematics and plans began to flash across the screen under his intent gaze. Across the lab, his phone rang, several times, but he ignored it.

Sylia hung up the phone in exasperation, brown eyes flashing irritation briefly, and resumed pacing the untidy shop. Her state of mind was not pleasant, alternating between frustration and anger. The frustration stemmed from the fact that Bert was nowhere to be found. He wasn't in his apartment, the shop, or his other place. At least, if he was, he wasn't answering the phone. The anger was partly left over from the night before over his going AWOL; the remainder was a little harder to find a source for.

She glanced irritably at the clock again, unconsciously running a hand through her hair in her agitation. Damn it, where the hell was he?! Normally he'd have been in before her, already working at patching the damaged armour of his hardsuit. Since he'd already dropped Nene off at work, as was usual for the nights she stayed over, he should have been back almost two hours ago. She briefly considered phoning Nene at work again; the red-haired girl had been uneasy-sounding over the phone, like she knew something she wasn't telling. She dismissed the idea after a couple more moments as unproductive.

Sylia waited another half an hour, pacing furiously, before reluctantly concluding that he wasn't coming into the shop for some reason. A small, nagging voice in the back of her mind pointed out the possibility that she might be the reason, but she ignored it. She finally left the shop, slamming the door behind her.

Bert leaned back in his chair, swiveling it sideways to prop his feet up on the toolbox sitting nearby. After taking a swig of tea from his mug, he set it back in a precariously balanced location on the console, then folded his arms behind his head as he waited. The computer flashed status reports as it worked. Finally, the messages he'd been waiting for flashed up:

"We have a winner!" he declared with a grin. He quickly scanned through the reams of data with a sifter program he'd devised, downloading all the pertinent files he was after. He then carefully made sure he'd left no traces behind, and severed the connection. He began to read through the data files, hunting for some kind of clue that would tell him just what had been going on lately.

Nene stared at the small flashing flag in the corner of her computer screen, casting a quick, furtive glance around the office. It was coffee break time, so there weren't many people in the office. She quickly called up the file attached to the flag, and read through the small attached report.

Sighing, placing her head in her hands and rubbing her temples, she closed down the file, and sat staring blankly at the computer screen. There was only one computer she knew of named 'The Falcon 4', and her watchdog program had just detected it briefly accessing the ADP databases. It had managed the task of bypassing all the security codes with astonishing ease. Not nearly as quickly as she could have managed it, but still fairly fast.

"I taught him too well, it seems," she muttered disgustedly. She'd given Bert some pointers on computers and programming because he'd expressed an interest in becoming a better programmer, mostly so he could tailor the hardsuit programs a little. Evidently, his interests had expanded to include hacking. She weighed her response options, then picked up the phone, activating the video conferencing function and dialing a number.

Bert was scanning through about the fifth report when his computer beeped, being echoed by the phone ringing. A small side screen lit up with a glowing message:

Bert frowned at the display, then his face cleared as he realized who it probably was. "Affirmative," he told the computer, swiveling his chair to face the small side monitor and activating the telephone speakers. As he'd expected, Nene's red-haired, green-eyed visage appeared in his monitor screen. She did not look impressed with him.

"Greetings, M'Lady!" he greeted her with a wide grin. "To what dost I owe the pleasure of beholding thy beautiful countenance this early in the day?"

"Don't bother with the flattery," she told him, flushing slightly anyway. "I want to know just what you think you're doing?"

"Sitting here looking at the girl of my dreams," he quipped, smiling. She flushed again.

"Will you be serious?!" she hissed, glancing around and leaning closer to the screen. "What were you doing in the Investigations database?! I told you that you couldn't look into those cases! Sylia's orders!"

"Sorry," he disagreed. "You said that Sylia told you not to GIVE me the information, and you didn't. I got it for myself, instead. Unless she specifically said 'No he can't have the information at all', then so far I haven't done anything wrong."

"Oh, I suppose hacking into the police database is legal now?" she asked sarcastically. "You know that Sylia meant you were to stay out of it entirely for now!"

"Did she actually say that?"

"Well, no, not exactly," Nene admitted. "She just said 'don't give him any of the police files', basically."

"Then what's the problem? You followed your orders," Bert shrugged. "Nobody else detected my entry, so why get worked up over it?"

"It's police business, you jerk! Let Leon handle it!"

"Oh right," he snorted. "Look Nene, Leon's a good officer and investigator but he's had this case for at least a couple of months now, with no results. I've been attacked two times now in events related to these cases, and a third attack has striking similarities to the other two. Last night he said something that made me believe there's a lot more to this than just some killer boomer running loose. He wouldn't say specifically what it was, but he was worried over whatever it was. I'd say that makes it worth my while to look into things. Besides, it'll give me something to read while I'm trying to finish healing up."

"You promise you won't go bombing around in your suit till you've healed?" she asked plaintively. He nodded.

"I promise I'll stay on the ground for now," he reassured her. "It's going to take me some time to sort through all the information, so I'm not going to just fly around looking for trouble. Besides, I'd have to fix a few things on my suit first."

"That reminds me: Sylia is looking all over for you, and she's not happy."

"Into everyone's life, some rain must fall."

"Bert, please! Just call her before she gets really steamed at you!"

"Don't worry, I'll get in touch with her before too much longer."

"You'd better," Nene sighed. "She sounded really upset."

"How about I take you to dinner after work?" he asked, ignoring her last remark. Sylia's being upset was to be expected. She sighed resignedly.

"Okay," she replied finally. "Where do I meet you?"

"I'll pick you up at work," he replied. "Take care."

"You too." The screen went dark as she hung up. Bert shut down his own screen and phone connection, thoughtfully gazing back at the main monitor. After a moment, he closed the files down for a while. Standing up, he stretched lazily, and gave the shutdown command to his computer. It obediently went to sleep behind him as he turned to walk over to his workbench. After a quick glance at the wall clock, he started sorting through the assorted piles of armour plate, and began the long task of attaching it to the hardsuit frame on the table.

Two days later, he decided it was time to have it out with Sylia. According to Nene, she was by now almost spitting nails at her inability to connect with him. Nene hadn't told Sylia what he was doing, or what he had said, but she was caught between conflicting loyalties over his actions, and it was making her miserable. Wanting to spare her any further discomfort, Bert had assured her that he would indeed talk to Sylia today.

He shifted gears, and the engine of the dark blue motorcycle beneath him rumbled, slowing down as he pulled up to the entrance to the underground garage of Sylia's building. He grinned briefly to himself; he'd put together this particular bike based on some suggestions from Priss, and some technical ideas from Dr. Raven. It wasn't quite the superfast racing bike that Priss had, but it did have its advantages. He'd been using it to get around town on lately, knowing that Sylia would be looking for a red pickup truck, not a blue motorbike with silver stripes.

The doors screeched and clattered open after he punched in an entry code on the access keypad. He guided the quietly purring cycle through them, and into a vacant parking space. Putting the kickstand down, he shut off the engine as the doors closed. The engine noise faded into the echoing space of the garage as he peeled off the dark blue helmet he was wearing, propping it up on the gas tank in front of him. With a resigned sigh, he swung his leg over, dismounting, and shucked off his jacket, leaving it draped across the seat as he walked across the garage to the elevator doors. They rolled open for him, and he stepped inside. As the doors rolled shut, he sighed again, gathering his reserves for the coming confrontation.

Sylia looked up from her morning paper and coffee as a familiar figure with tousled red hair and greenish brown eyes suddenly appeared in the doorway to her kitchen. Her reasonably calm mood was suddenly swept away by anger at seeing him, finally. With all the checking around she'd done, there was no way he could have not known she was looking for him.

"Morning, Sylia," he greeted her calmly, crossing over to the table she was sitting at. Before she could reply, he poured himself a cup of coffee, lacing it with generous helpings of sugar and cream, and sat down across from her. Taking a sip, he looked over and met her rather angry gaze; there was nothing but complete innocence in his look. "I understand you wanted to see me about something?" he inquired.

Sylia's temperature rose a few degrees; it was bad enough that she hadn't been able to find him at all, anywhere, but the insouciant manner he was handling it with now was the final straw.

"You could say that," she replied tightly, brown eyes flashing. "Let's start with the day after you broke our deal regarding your flight trips. Why weren't you in the shop like you normally are?"

"Because I didn't feel like listening to you give me shit yet again for a perceived wrong," he said bluntly.

"You didn't....." her voice trailed off as she stared at him, stunned.

"That's right," he confirmed, slurping from his mug. "I knew that you'd be in there because that's where I usually start my days, and I knew I'd have to endure another lecture on the perils of taking solo runs, or on sailing off without telling anyone, or whatever you felt like blasting me about. I don't really care anymore; I'm tired of always being in the doghouse because you think I've violated some unwritten house rule."

"There is a reason for some of these rules, damn it! I'm not doing it because I ENJOY giving you shit!!" she flared. She couldn't quite believe that he was talking to her this way.

"I know that," he replied. "Believe me, I have nothing but respect and admiration for you Sylia. You have more brains and intestinal fortitude than I've got in keeping the Sabers running, and it's a thankless job at times. I understand the need for some of the rules that you've set up, but at the same time I've noticed a bit of a double standard."

"What double standard?!"

"I don't see you laying down any extra rules for the conduct of the rest of the team," he replied simply. "I've got a list of things a mile long that I can't do without clearing it with you first; nobody else does. You're not constantly checking on Nene, for example, and she does 'recreational hacking'. Linna almost never gets any scrutiny, but considering the information we get, she could quite easily play around with the stock market a little to make extra money. Priss, out of anyone else in the group, is more of a loose cannon than I am at times, but you're not constantly watching her movements, are you?"

"There is a slight difference in all of those cases," Sylia retorted angrily. "Nobody else has this burning need to be charging around the city in a goddamn powered armour suit helping the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed in a grand, bloody heroic manner!"

"We've hashed that particular subject out before," he reminded her. "I don't. The other night when I was shot down, I originally didn't go out with heroing in mind. I went flying to try to clear my mind so I could resolve some personal problems, sort of like the way people go for a walk. I just happened to be in the area when the explosion occurred, and when I decided to go help out, I got shot down. That was just me being in the wrong place at the right time. I didn't plan for it to happen." He fell silent for a moment, taking another gulp from his mug. "I do admit that in some of the instances I've been a major cause of the problem; in the others, what happened was beyond my control. Nevertheless, I still got yelled at because of it, and I'm sick of it. You need to relax a bit."

"I need to relax?! I need to RELAX?!?! Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

"It means this," he replied calmly, undisturbed by her angry outburst. "I think you're taking some of your duties as leader just a little too seriously. You can't control absolutely everything that happens, and I think you should quit trying. Take me for example: when I started out as the greenhorn of the group, I admit I needed a lot of guidance and watching. However, it's been quite some time now, and I've been through a lot. Nothing I do now is done without thinking it through first, even if it does look crazy at first glance. However, the level of control you've tried to exert on me has gone up, not down." He drained his cup, and looked over at her, his face totally serious.

"I'm not the greenhorn any longer, Sylia," he stated quietly. "I've got the scars, mental and physical, to prove it. I have never done, nor will I ever do, anything that will compromise the Knight Sabers; you have my word on that. However, I think it's time for you to decide if you trust me enough to let me operate as a full member, instead of like someone on parole." He sighed, stood up, and carried his mug over to the sink, quickly washing it out and dropping it in the drying rack. He turned back to Sylia. Her expression was difficult to read; anger, confusion, and the occasional flash of hurt appeared in the mix.

"I'm sorry if being frank has hurt you in any way," he told her. "Believe me, it was the last thing on my mind, but we can't go on like we were anymore; it's time you also realized that." He hesitated for a moment. "I'll be at my house," he told her quietly. "I'll await your reply there."

Sylia silently watched him go, her coffee growing cold as she tried to sort out her thoughts.

"You really upset Sylia," Nene told him that night. "She was in a really foul mood all day."

"I know she's upset," Bert sighed wearily. "Damn it, I didn't like having to tell her exactly what I thought, especially that way, but it had to be said." He scrubbed a hand across his face, looking old and tired for a moment as he stared out the kitchen window at the back of the house. "Do you think I'm being unreasonable?" he asked her finally. Nene looked troubled, biting her lower lip, and not meeting his gaze. He reached across the table and clasped one of her hands, giving it a brief squeeze.

"I'm not trying to get you caught in the middle," he said gently. "That's the last thing I'd want to do to you or Sylia." She looked up at him and sighed.

"No, I don't think you're being unreasonable. I just wish you could have found a gentler way to tell her."

"I tried to think of one," he replied. "Honestly. But I couldn't. I finally decided being straightforward about it was the best way; I just couldn't sit still on it any longer." He stood up, looking briefly at the clock.

"Well, you've got work tomorrow, so I'd better drive you home," he told her.

"No," Nene replied quietly but firmly, standing up and looking up into his face. "I'm staying here tonight; right now you look like you could use a friend." Her green eyes were completely serious; her mind was obviously made up. Bert grinned faintly.

"Well, I know better than to try and argue with you when you use that tone of voice," he remarked. She stepped closer, reached up, and pulled him down towards her.

"You've got some brains, at least," she told him before their lips met.

That bloody arrogant asshole! Sylia fumed, stalking across her living room. She sat down hard in an armchair, taking an angry slurp from her teacup. How dare he tell her that she was being unreasonable! He had one hell of a lot of nerve telling her that she should relax and quit trying to control everything, especially the way he was always trying to take responsibility for absolutely everything that happened around him! She sat drinking her tea, her memory rewinding and replaying his words constantly. She resisted the urge to fling her now empty cup across the room.

She sat back in her chair, placing the cup on the coffee table and running a hand through her hair. Her brown eyes cast a roving glance around the room as her mind churned chaotically. She was not trying to control everything! She just liked to know what was going on so that she didn't get a rude shock whenever something happened, especially where he was concerned.

And that's not control? a quietly nagging voice in the back of her mind asked. Monitoring someone so that you always know what they're doing? Information is a kind of power by itself, it reminded her, and information on someone's whereabouts and activities may not be direct control, but it is still control after a fashion.

"No!" she protested aloud. "I'm not trying to control anybody!"

Are you sure? her conscience asked. He IS the only one you keep tabs on constantly. You're just mad because someone has actually disagreed with you, finally. Up until now, no one has questioned your authority. Somebody finally has, and despite the fact that they are mostly right, you're unwilling to listen because it's offended your pride.

"No!" Sylia denied again faintly, an anguished expression on her face. She sat silently, staring out the window at the setting sun as her conscience continued to prod her remorselessly.

Dr. Richard McLaren wiped the sweat from his brow with a trembling hand. He was pale-faced, and his face was covered with the grey-white stubble of a few days' growth of beard. He entered the final calculations into the small computer sitting in front of him, and hit the return key. He sat back, wiping his forehead again; the living conditions weren't the best at the moment, and he felt like he was coming down with something. The computer began to hum as it churned through the data.

He glanced furtively around the dark, gloomy laboratory. A few feet away from him, a tall, gaunt man with red hair in a white lab coat was gleefully putting the finishing touches on the weapons systems encased in a massive boomer body that was lying on the concrete slab serving as an operating table. The massive body was a collection of synthetic muscle fibers, wires, cables and circuitry at the moment; they weren't quite ready to add the armour plating.

Occasionally, insane-sounding laughter drifted from Dr. Yoshida. The man completely unnerved McLaren; he was completely consumed with the desires for power and revenge, and not necessarily in that order. He seemed oblivious to the fact that their strange employer was a menace to them. McLaren didn't doubt for an instant that they were going to be killed at the first convenient opportunity. He had to get away!

Booming footsteps echoed in the cavernous room, and a red blot appeared in the darkness, gradually resolving into the domed head, followed by the body, of the malformed boomer that had 'hired' them. McLaren quickly suppressed all thoughts of escape for the time being.

"Gentlemen," the deep, grating voice growled. "We ARE on schedule, I presume?"

THREE DAYS LATER....

Bert sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of his face as he stared at the computer screen in front of him. An uneasy feeling of imminent Armageddon gnawed at him as he stared at the summary he'd finally managed to piece together out of the police files. It did not look good.

Of the sixty-three murders that had occurred, over half had been research scientists working for separate companies. However, digging through some databases had revealed the fact that ALL of the scientists had been part of the team that had been developing the 'revolutionary' new boomer AI. The development had been spearheaded by Zone corporation, one of the contenders for the top position in the corporate world after GENOM's reversal of fortunes. The small companies had been sub-contracted to work on various aspects of the AI, and had apparently just completed their parts of the work, when their scientists had been killed. It was almost as if the killer had known that they were finished, and then eliminated them to prevent anyone else knowing. In a way, the killer was herding the AI development along a path of his choosing; by killing off the researchers as they advanced, it was making sure that no one else would get the technology. That, of course, led to the conclusion that the killer was waiting until the final version of the AI was finished. When it was, then it could strike, taking the AI as it made sure that it was the only one left who knew its secrets.

At all of the locations that the scientists had been murdered at, equipment was missing. With more hacking and searching, he'd discovered that the missing equipment pieces, individually, didn't amount to much. However, when combined they provided a very-well equipped boomer development center. Whatever had killed the scientists now had an operational production lab.

When he added in the fact that Dr. Richard McLaren, one of the world's more notorious boomer designers, had been broken out of jail by the supposed killer, he got a very sick feeling that someone was trying to develop a new combat boomer using the new AI. He dismissed the possibility that the boomer was going to be built with the stripped parts from other boomers at some of the crime scenes; someone who'd gone to all this trouble wouldn't be likely to use secondhand parts.

There was only one real puzzle left: what had happened at the detention centre? There was no doubt that the killer was the same one; autopsy reports on the outside guards had confirmed that much, at least. But why had it destroyed an entire prison complex and roughly four hundred inmates? On a sudden hunch, he called up the file containing the roster of inmates for the detention centre, and started the computer searching for names with boomer-related records. Pictures of the former prisoners began flickering across the screen.

He stood up as the computer whirred away, walking over to the coffeepot on the hotplate on a side shelf. He poured himself a cup, dumping in the usual sugar and cream portions, and carefully walked back to the computer console, trying not to spill his coffee. Sitting down, he swiveled his chair to face the screen again. After several minutes more, the computer found the one record from the prison files that had a boomer-related charge attached; a picture of an arrogantly grinning man with a thin, angular face and red hair appeared in the screen. The colour drained from his face as he stared at the photograph.

"Oh my God," Bert said out loud, stunned, almost dropping his mug. "Not him!!"

Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the large bay windows of the apartment, casting searching fingers of golden light through the room. A dry, stained coffee cup sat on the coffee table in front of an empty armchair. Unopened mail sat next to it, the pile of letters looking somehow forlorn and abandoned. The telephone began to ring urgently, but no one answered it.

"Come on! Come on!" Bert fumed. "Somebody answer the goddamn phone!!" The line continued to buzz, but no one answered. "Shit!!" he swore, slamming the receiver down. His mind raced for a moment, then he picked up the phone again, dialing for the ADPolice building.

"Hello, ADPolice," the receptionist's voice answered.

"Nene Romanova's desk, please," he requested. Nauseating hold music began playing as he sat waiting, fingers unconsciously drumming the tabletop in a nervous staccato rhythm. The passing seconds seemed to bang on his nerves like counterweights in a hammermill. At last a familiar voice answered.

"Hello, this is Nene," her cheery voice answered.

"Nene! This is Bert," he replied, deflating in relief at finally getting someone. "Have you talked to Sylia today?"

"N-no," she answered slowly, her voice sounding suddenly uncertain. "A couple of days ago was the last time I spoke to her. Why?"

"I think I've figured out what was going on with those killings," he told her. He quickly filled her in on the main points, concluding with "...and I can't get ahold of Sylia. I'm almost positive that the next targets will be whoever is doing the final development work, but I don't know where that is; I couldn't find out anything about it. I thought she might know something."

"What do you think happened to her?"

"I don't know," he admitted, pacing back and forth as far as the phone cord would allow. "I realize I was blunt with her, but I didn't think that I'd drive her into hiding. Damn it, I need her advice and expertise on this; she knows loads more about boomer development than I do."

"I can try phoning her from this end," Nene offered. Bert thought it over for a moment.

"Here's what I'll do," he told her. "I'll anonymously e-mail you my summary file that I've made up, and I'll send a copy to Sylia's computer at the same time. You pass the copy I give you off to Leon, and then try to get ahold of her. I'll keep trying from my end."

"Sounds good," she replied. "I'll have to wait on handing it off to Leon though. He's out right now."

"He's probably at the target range," Bert commented sourly.

"Actually, he's out investigating one of the smaller research companies in relation to this case," she told him, sounding a little miffed at his comment.

"Which one?" Bert demanded, his stomach suddenly clenching in anxiety.

"ArrisTech Labs."

Dr. Yuri looked down at the sprawled, bullet-riddled and bloody body of Dr. Haynes with a small, contemptuous smile on his lean face. Lifting his gaze to the prize beyond the dead researcher, he stepped across the pooling blood carefully. Behind him, at the door to the lab, the five C-55 boomers who had executed all of the lab staff stood stoically, not indicating anything as red eyes glowed behind their sunglasses.

"Ah, Haynes," he muttered to himself. "You should have been worried more about the present, rather than the future. Now you're history, I'm afraid." He walked over to the table, gazing almost lovingly at the assembled AI sitting on the table. It had a roughly ovoid shape, looking like someone had stirred silicon chips and wiring into a mold before casting it into its current shape. Next to it lay a small humanoid boomer body, what was to have become Adama.

"Now you have a different destiny," Yuri told it. He gently placed the biomechanical construct into the padded case he'd brought for it, and locked it. Turning around, he gestured his boomer assassins out the door ahead of him, following them a moment later without a backwards glance.

Flashing red lights strobed through the evening air over MegaTokyo as the ever-present ADP one-man patrol helicopters flitted through the air on their assigned routes. The pilots swept the sprawling cityscape below with intent gazes, alert for trouble of any description.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!! With low-pitched drone, something big and dark flashed out of the night, blasting past the startled chopper pilots, flicking them with the stinging edges of its backwash as it vanished into the night beyond. Although the object was traveling at an insanely fast airspeed, there was almost no noise to its flight, just the shriek of the air it displaced as it flew. They had a brief glimpse of something glowing blue, shiny metallic plating, and large...large...wings?!?!

"What the hell was that?!" the one pilot burst out.

"How the hell should I know?!" his partner replied, exasperated. "Whatever it was isn't showing up on our radar."

"Should we call it in?"

"And say what? That we saw a big flying object with wings that doesn't show on radar? Get real, willya? They'd laugh us out of the squadroom."

Streetlights outside the ArrisTech building cast a faint illumination on a large black van that sat waiting patiently by the curbside. The front door to the building opened, and five big men wearing sunglasses and carrying assault rifles fanned out from the doorway, making sure that there were no observers. A tall man with blond hair, carrying a small case followed them out, and began walking towards the van.

"I see you have something that belongs to me," a deep, grating voice rumbled from the blackness of the night. A huge shape loomed in an alleyway across from the van, a faint red glow visible. "I appreciate your saving me the trouble of fetching it for myself." Yuri didn't even glance at the alleyway; his attention was riveted on the small case he was carrying.

"Kill him," he directed his guards, waving an arm negligently towards the alley. The five boomers sprang towards the alley, dropping the rifles and shedding their skins and clothing as they did so.

"What's the hurry, Leon?!" Daley asked, grabbing the dashboard as his partner screeched the car around a corner at breakneck speed. "It's a laboratory building; it's not going to get away!"

"I found out a while ago from some of my sources that some of those murders have been research project related," Leon told him, stomping on the accelerator and shifting gears, swerving around the legally driving motorists. "This ArrisTech place is doing something related to those research projects, so I figured it was worth a look."

"Okay, but why are we risking a collision to investigate a lab?"

"Because an alarm just went out that someone is having a war there right now."

"Cut across Fifth Avenue here," Daley directed. "It's faster."

Dr. Yuri crumpled to the pavement, a final look of surprise frozen on his face as his body slid limply off of the serrated blades of the hulking boomer. Blood dripped from the claws for a moment, then they retracted into the boomer's arm with a metallic screech.

"'As he was ambitious, I slew him'", the boomer's cold voice briefly eulogized the dead scientist. The killer biomechanoid gave a sinister chuckle, and turned around, striding across the churned up asphalt to where a small case lay on the ground. Around it, the smoking remains of five C-55 boomers lay splattered all over the pavement.

"And to the victor belongs the spoils," it gloated as it scooped up the small case. It turned away, back towards the alleyway it had emerged from.

Tires squealed behind it, and blazing red-and-blue lights flooded the scene as an ADP squad car skidded to a halt. As the boomer started to turn, Leon McNichol jumped out of the car, hauling a large-bore rifle out of the backseat of the car, aiming it at the malformed hulk.

"ADPolice!" he declared. "Hold it right there and don't move!"

The boomer's right arm, taken from a B-12 combat boomer, turned slightly. There was a shattering roar coupled with an orange flash; the squad car blew up in a fantastic blossom of snarling flames and spinning scrap. Leon was flung backwards by the blast, and he landed in a bloody heap on the sidewalk. Daley, who had also stepped out of the car, was also tossed down the street by the explosion; he smashed into a wall and fell limply to the pavement.

"How the mighty hath fallen," the boomer chuckled, stepping forwards. Leon stirred and tried to get up as the boomer's gun arm swung over to target him.

The lights went out all over the street, blanketing the area in total darkness, lit only by the burning wreckage, and the evil red glow of the boomer's domed head.

"What is this?!" the murderous boomer demanded, turning around, presumably looking around. Leon sagged back onto the pavement limply as he finally passed out.

"Excuse me," a deep, resonant, almost electronic-sounding voice echoed from the darkness, seemingly coming from all over. The boomer spun around, searching, and found nothing.

"WHAT?!" it demanded, puncturing the darkness beyond with a quick fusillade from its arm cannon. It missed whatever it had briefly seen.

"Ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?" the voice asked. The night suddenly came alive behind and to the right of the boomer as something big and black loomed out of the shadows. Something made a flapping noise in the darkness, and there was a brief glimpse of something glowing bright blue as the dark shape flashed past the boomer, smashing it to the pavement. The boomer flipped itself back up to its feet immediately, as agile as a cat, but its attacker had seemingly vanished again. The boomer maintained a clenched grip on its trophy.

"I commend you," it rumbled, backing towards the alley as its torso swiveled so that it could look around. "Not many people can evade my detection systems."

"I'd say I was flattered, but I'd be lying." There was another shadowy motion as something blurred through the darkness, and again the boomer bounced into the pavement.

"Do not anger me further, whoever you are," the boomer snarled ominously, rolling upright. "You will not like the consequences."

"Big talk from a walking junkpile!" A low whooshing noise accompanied the motion this time, and the boomer was smashed back into the brick wall of the alleyway. This time however, the boomer was prepared for the tactic. As the shape shot past it after striking the boomer, one of the boomer's shoulder-mounted cannons swung around, tracking the estimated path of its foe. A thundering crash pierced the air, and an orange-red flaming blast lit the cloaking darkness.

"YEAARRRGH!!" The agonized yell was torn from the shadowy shape as the shot nailed it square in the back. It dropped to the pavement on its face with a loud clang, striking sparks from the road surface as it skidded for a few feet. The boomer didn't wait to find out what its assailant was, but fled into the darkness of the alley as the figure stirred.

"Ow, goddamnit, ouch!" a deep, modulated voice groaned. "Somebody call a chiropractor! Argh! ow! ow! OW!!" Metallic sounding clanking sounded as the shape rolled over and shakily swayed to its feet. A long, billowing cape swirled around it as it stood, concealing its body. The cape flapped as the dark figure suddenly ran over to where Leon was bleeding on the pavement. A blue light flashed from the head of the figure as it knelt next to the fallen officer. A line of light swept the man, evidently scanning him.

"Shit! McNichol, don't you dare die on me you bastard!!" The shadowy shape scooped Leon up from the pavement, then suddenly turned, remembering. It quickly glided across the pavement towards where Daley was stirring. Daley was semi-conscious, trying to sit up. He didn't look like he'd caught as much of the blast as Leon had; he was bloody, yes, but not nearly as much as Leon was. There was another flash of blue light, and a blue line swept across Daley.

"Sorry, Daley," the voice told him. "You're not as badly hurt; you'll live until the ambulances get here. Besides, I can only carry one at a time safely." There was a whoosh, and a flapping noise that dwindled into the sky.

The streetlights began to flicker on suddenly, bathing the blasted and body-littered street with feeble rays of light as the first of the emergency response vehicles began to arrive.

People sitting in the Emergency Waiting Room of the Sonada Memorial Hospital stared in shock and fear as the doors were kicked open by a bulky, armoured figure with a cape, carrying a bloody body in its arms. The intruder was obviously a battlesuit of some kind, tall, with dark blue and black armour plating. The torso, arms, and legs of the suit were black, with the arms and legs ending in midnight-blue boots and gauntlets. The helmet of the suit was also dark blue, with a faintly-glowing blue horizontal eyeslot in its faceplate. Two antennae protruded from the sides, but they'd been molded into the helmet so that they swept up and back, looking like pointed ears. The suit's armour plating looked moderately heavy, but streamlined at the same time. A long billowing cape of some vaguely metallic material flapped behind it, attached at the shoulder plates. Other than suspicious bulges in the gauntlet arm-guards, the suit didn't look like it was heavily armed. Its appearance, however was definitely frightening, implying a somehow dark and predatory look. Frightened whispers swept the line of patients as it stalked past them.

The dark hardsuit grabbed a stretcher from where it sat by the wall, and gently lowered the unconscious, blood-soaked form it was carrying into it. Blood stained the entire front of the suit as it straightened up again, almost obscuring the stylized silver bat emblazoned on its chestplate. Also visible around the midsection of the torso armour was what looked like a belt made out of small squarish silver packs. The suit quickly wheeled the stretcher over to the desk where a bored nurse was filling out forms. Incredibly, she hadn't looked up once, or noticed the sudden silence in the room.

"Excuse me, this man needs a doctor, " a deep, electronically modulated voice said. The nurse still didn't look up.

"Take a form, fill it out, and get in line," she said with the bored tone of someone who has repeated something several times to several different people.

"HE NEEDS A DOCTOR NOW, GODDAMNIT!!! NOT LATER!!!" the suit bellowed at full volume. The nurse shrieked in terror as she realized what was yelling at her, and fell over backwards out of her chair in a crash, sending papers flying in a white blizzard of bureaucracy. A doctor wearing a surgical gown, mask, and hat came charging out of a hallway at the noise.

"What the hell is the meaning of this?!" he demanded. "Who the hell are you?! This is a hospital, if you don't mind!!"

"This man needs surgery immediately," the suit replied calmly. "He's got severe internal bleeding, five broken ribs, some serious burns, and some shrapnel damage from a car explosion."

"Nurse!" the doctor snapped. "Get this man prepped for surgery!!" The white-faced and shaken nurse took the stretcher containing the comatose ADP officer up the hallway, vanishing into a side room.

"Thanks, Doc," the suit replied quietly.

"Get the hell out of my hospital," the doctor snarled. "I don't need you spreading more death and destruction around here; I have enough work as it is!" With that, the surgeon ran back up the hallway to the operating room.

For a moment, the armoured figure stared after him, then turned and quietly left, cape swirling around it. It walked down the row of silent patients, stepped out into the night, and was swallowed up by the darkness.

The dark hardsuit shot through the evening skies like a giant bird of prey. Wings spanning a little over ten feet were spread out from its shoulders, providing most of the lift as it zoomed along. The wings were rigid, with lengthwise spines providing a firm support structure; overall, they looked vaguely like bat wings. The only noises audible as it flew were a low-pitched thrumming noise, and the whoosh of the slipstream it created as it flew.

It banked suddenly, veering into a graceful, downwards spiral. Anyone looking up into the sky might have briefly seen it silhouetted against the watery moon that was peeping through the tattered clouds scattered across the sky. Below the airborne shape, a small house surrounded by trees came into view.

The suit circled lower still, taking its time. At last it came to within a few feet of the ground, and its feet swung forwards and down towards the approaching turf. There was a quiet but heavy thump as the shadowy figure landed, wings still outspread. The rigid spines running the length of the wings suddenly disappeared with an electric hum, and a metallic snickering noise sounded as what looked like two telescoping metal rods began to retract into the shoulders of the suit. The rods were attached to the leading edges of the 'wings', and as they retracted, the wings collapsed back into a billowing cape, falling down to trail behind the black and blue battlesuit. The suit sighed, and started to walk towards the back door, cape swirling around it. Stepping up to the back door, it played with the lock for a moment, and then stepped through into the kitchen. It suddenly stopped short in surprise.

"Batman, I presume?" Sylia Stingray said from where she was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. A resigned expression was on her face, but a faint smirk was twitching at her lips nonetheless. The suit sighed again, and reached up for its helmet. The helmet came off with a metallic clacking noise, revealing sweaty red hair and greenish-brown eyes.

"I can explain," Bert started to say, but she cut him off.

"Go and get cleaned up first," she told him, glancing at the dried blood covering his chest armour, but not indicating anything. "We need to talk."

Bert came down from the shower, flicking his still-damp hair out of his eyes. He took a quick look around the house, and found Sylia had moved out to the living room. He poured himself a cup of tea, giving it its usual booster shots of milk and sugar, and carried it out to the living room to join her. He sat down on the couch across from her, examining her.

Sylia looked preoccupied with something, and as he looked closer, he noted she also looked tired. Her hair was slightly awry-looking, and there were the traces of black smudges under her eyes, like she hadn't slept. Her gaze was unfocused, as if she was looking at something he couldn't see. Whatever she was looking at, she didn't like it; there was a faint hint of some kind of internal anguish that he could see in her eyes. He waited quietly for a moment, sipping at his tea.

"I don't quite know how to start," Sylia finally said. She was still staring off into space, as if not looking at him would somehow help her to concentrate better. "I..." she stopped speaking taking a sip from her cup. Her eyes briefly met his, then quickly glanced away. Bert frowned to himself; Sylia had never been reluctant to look him in the eye before.

"I spent a lot of time thinking about what you said a few days ago," she told him finally. She sounded like the words were being dragged out of her. "It wasn't easy; it took me a while to figure out just why what you said upset me as much as it did." She held up a hand as he opened his mouth to speak. "Let me finish first, please. I...I may not be able to say this later, I ..." She took another gulp of coffee, almost as if she was suddenly dry-mouthed, or something. Bert remained quiet, but was becoming concerned; he'd never seen Sylia this...this...this disturbed over something before. Sylia took a deep breath.

"After you left, I confess I didn't think much about what you said at all; I was more angry than anything else. I...I realized, though after a while, that a lot of what you'd said was true." A faintly wry smile appeared briefly. "No one likes to be told that they are wrong, and I'm no exception it seems; for a long time I was upset over that one." She took another swallow from her cup, draining it, and placed it on the coffee table. "For a while, I think hate wouldn't be too far from what I felt; I felt like you'd questioned my authority, something nobody's done before. I just couldn't handle it for a while, but I managed to get over that. I did finally, reluctantly, realize that I was a little obsessed with control, especially over you because you almost always seemed to screw things up, creating headaches for me." She looked over at him, meeting his concerned gaze with a troubled one of her own. "I didn't realize it at first, but I think I resented the fact that you came sailing into my...our lives and disrupted what had been a smoothly running operation. I was wrong, in more ways than one, and I'm sorry." She looked away again, staring at her coffee cup, suddenly looking lost and alone.

Bert came to a sudden decision; he stood up, placing his own cup on the table, and walked over to Sylia. He gently pulled her to her feet, and enfolded her in a hug. Sylia stiffened momentarily, then relaxed, hesitantly hugging him back. She'd never been the outwardly demonstrative type, always having a cool reserve about her that seemed to discourage actual contact, but he decided that, in this instance at least, she needed it.

"You don't have to be sorry for having feelings," he told her, squeezing her gently again. "Everybody has them. Everybody makes mistakes, too. I should know, having made enough of my own to last two people the rest of their lives. You're a beautiful, smart woman, and I don't think you should sit there castigating yourself because you've just discovered that you're human, with the same weaknesses like the rest of us." He released her, and stepped back slightly. Sylia did also, wiping a quick hand across her eyes and regaining her composure.

"Thank you," she said. She sat down again in the armchair behind her as he whipped the cups into the kitchen for a quick refill. He came back out, handing her cup back. She took it with a quiet 'thank you', and silently drank for a few moments. Bert sat back on the couch again, slurping at his drink. After a moment, he looked over at her again.

"So where do we go from here?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," she sighed. "I'll try to stop yelling at you quite so much..."

"I'm in trouble, then," he remarked blandly. "Old habits die hard." Sylia's face flashed irritation for a moment.

"Do you mind?!" she asked acidly. "And I guess we can remove most or all of the restrictions on your flight excursions," she continued, "but the rest we'll have to play it as it goes." She took another sip of her coffee. "I would appreciate it, however, if you would still let me know when you're stepping out. That way at least we can organize a rescue if something major goes wrong."

"I don't think anything will, but yes, I can do that much at least."

"Thank you." Sylia sat silently for a moment. "I guess we should discuss now what you were up to tonight." She looked him over. "You had blood all over that new suit of yours, but it doesn't seem to be yours."

"It was Leon's."

"What?!" Sylia was shocked, to say the least. "How..?!"

"Let's go down to my lab," Bert told her. "It'll be easier if you take a look at a couple of things first." He placed his cup on the table, and Sylia placed hers next to it. Rising, Bert walked over to the bookshelf and pulled the trigger book to open the door to the basement. Sylia rolled her eyes at that as she followed him through.

"That is such a clich‚, it's not even funny, you know," she told him. He shrugged.

"I like it, and that's what's important," he replied. "I don't exactly have hordes of visitors passing through, so I'm not too worried about having someone discover my lab."

Sylia looked around at his workshop as she walked in behind him. In some ways, it wasn't too different from the tech shop back at her building. The clutter was slightly neater-looking in that it was organized into piles, instead of randomly spread around. As for the rest of the shop, gadgets and partially assembled gizmos were everywhere. The Batman hardsuit was laying on a complicated-looking worktable, and a large computer console and monitor sat at the far end of the room. The console flashed at their approach.

"Pardon me for a moment," Bert said. He started the computer running, giving it his authorization code. Sylia shook her head, sighing at his choice of password. The computer greeted him, then sat waiting. Bert cast a sidelong, thoughtful glance at her, then turned to the computer.

"Computer, initiate authorization for secondary user."

Bert gestured wordlessly towards the computer, and Sylia stepped forward.

"This is Sylia Stingray," she told the mammoth machine. It hummed for a couple more moments, then flashed a new message.

Sylia stared at the monitor incredulously, then looked at Bert, who by now had a huge grin on his face.

"You didn't, did you?" she asked, half hoping he'd deny it. His grin widened as he tried to look innocent.

"Didn't what?" he politely inquired.

"You didn't really give this thing your personality, did you?"

"Some of it," he conceded.

"Oh good Lord!!" she sighed, slapping a hand over her face.

"It's not an AI though," he told her. "I didn't want to accidentally create HAL 9000 and have the computer saying 'Good morning, Dave' at some time in the future, so I just programmed in some personality emulation stuff."

"HAL 9000? What's that?"

"Long story. I'll loan you the movie sometime."

"I can hardly wait," she said dryly. Bert grinned. Leaning forward, he punched a few keys and called up the files he'd been working on. Standing up, he offered her his chair.

"You can page through these files," he told her. "That will explain most of the background on what I've been doing lately. When you're done that, I'll try and explain just what happened tonight. Meanwhile, I'll go get us another drink." He vanished up the stairs as Sylia sat down and started reading.

"...and after the boomer disappeared, I airlifted Leon to the hospital; that's where the blood came from. After that, I came back here, and you know what happened then." Bert finished his story and leaned against the worktable behind him, folding his arms across his chest. Sylia looked up at him thoughtfully from her chair.

"You've been busy," she remarked dryly. He grinned and bowed courteously.

"I try hard," he said, spreading his hands in a deprecatory manner. She snorted.

"I'll buy that; I can personally attest to just how trying you are," she told him.

"Thanks," he replied blandly, not rising to the bait. Sylia looked past him to where the Batman suit lay on the worktable, standing up and walking over to it. Bert followed her. She gave it an appraising glance, then looked at him.

"You've changed a few things from the last set of specs I saw," she noted.

"I had to," he sighed. "I took a closer look at what I was after, and the old designs were under-powered; there was no way I could fit all the ECM gear into a normal hardsuit frame."

"What are its exact capabilities?"

"Well, in terms of firepower, it's nowhere near as heavily armed as SkyKnight. Those bulges on the arm guards are a pair of railguns with fifteen shots apiece. I have a backup laser emitter hidden in the chest symbol; it's a little more powerful than a plasma gun, but not by much. Other than a swordblade in the right arm, that's it for weapons." Sylia looked dubious.

"That's taking a big chance," she remarked. "You could have some problems if you get into a fight."

"Yes, but the whole design concept behind this suit is stealth, not firepower."

"Stealth? From you? That would be a novel change," she remarked dryly.

"Har har har, very funny. This suit is a covert operations model, built mainly for surveillance and espionage, Sylia; it's not meant to be taken into an intense firefight. I used it tonight because it was all I could get to quickly."

"What else does it have?"

"Well, it's got the new actuators and armour plating, so in terms of physical defenses and strength, it's the same as SkyKnight, maybe a little stronger. Where it really shines is in the electronics department. It's got a separate onboard computer that runs the sensor stealth systems and ECM automatically, meaning the pilot doesn't have to devote his (or her) attention to the task of remaining undetected. The pilot can supervise the computer if desired, but it's not necessary. It also has a satellite telecommunications uplink, so I can access computers by modem when out in the field. Add to that a set of computer interface cables in the left gauntlet, and the codebreaking software Nene devised, and you have the perfect spy suit. It can't be detected, and it can access almost any information system. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it's invisible to radar, too. The coating on the armour helps to take care of that." He grinned proudly at the black and blue armour. "I've already built a lot of the new features into Nene's new hardsuit. She'll really be able to hum with this stuff."

"We'll have to call her Batgirl, then," Sylia remarked blandly.

"Good God no!!" Bert said in a strangled tone, glancing at her in horror. "Don't do that!! She'd kill me!!"

"Awwwww," Sylia commiserated with a wicked smile. "You mean there's actually something that SkyKnight is afraid of?" she queried, an amused twinkle in her eyes.

"Yes!" Bert nodded emphatically. "Hell hath no fury like that of an upset girlfriend!"

The door crashed open into the room, and the hulking, multicoloured boomer barged through it. It its left hand a small metallic carrying case was tightly clenched. The red glow from its helmet canopy faintly illuminated the darkness cloaking the room and its other occupant, a solitary figure behind a desk.

"You're late," the disembodied voice from the desk stated flatly. "I thought you said there wouldn't be any problems?" The boomer clanked over to the desk, dropping the case to the desktop with a loud bang.

"I was unavoidably detained while conducting our business transaction," the boomer replied coldly.

"Detained?"

"I had to deal with an ADP cruiser that showed up. I believe the officer used to be Inspector McNichol." The cold, detached way the boomer made the statement left no doubt as to what his fate had been.

"Ah, some good news at last." There was a brief pause. "Even dealing with them shouldn't have delayed you that much, however."

"There was a second interloper," the boomer paused. "It was a hardsuit of some description."

"A hardsuit?! What did it look like?"

"Unknown."

"What do you mean, 'Unknown'?!?! Didn't you take a look at it?!"

"Retrieving the AI intact was the higher priority; I did not care to waste more time in determining the suit's identity."

"You're avoiding the question. Why don't you know what it looks like?" The figure behind the desk leaned forward interestedly.

"Because someone has built a hardsuit that can remain undetected by my sensors," the boomer replied flatly. Its claws snapped in and out of their housings a couple of times; the boomer didn't particularly care to remember those details. "It attacked from the shadows, and managed to stay hidden."

"This is not good news," the shadowy figure remarked. "Who could have built it?"

"I have my suspicions," the boomer replied, "but it does not matter. Whoever it was wasn't able to stop me then, and when we have completed this project, he will be even less of a problem."

Bert came out of his kitchen, carrying a tray with another two cups of tea and a couple of sandwiches on it, to find Sylia staring at the television with a shocked and horrified expression. She'd turned it on while he was puttering in the kitchen to check on the news, and she'd evidently heard something she hadn't liked. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, and as he watched the shocked look became replaced by grief, something he'd definitely never seen Sylia display before. Concerned, he dropped the tray to the coffee table and quickly went over to her, sitting next to her.

"Sylia?" he asked hesitantly. "What is it? What's wrong?" She turned a pain-filled glance on him.

"That lab you were at tonight...I...There was just a news bulletin on it. I knew one of the researchers killed inside," she said quietly, although Bert could see the effort it was taking for her to keep from breaking down. "His name was Dr. Haynes; he was one of my father's assistants, years ago. I...he...he was always like an uncle to me, especially after my father died; he was one of the best friends our family had.

He was going to carry on my father's work, developing boomers into what they were meant to really be, and now he's dead." She looked away, eyes suddenly wet with tears. Bert reached over and hugged her again; she cried quietly for a few minutes before composing herself, drawing her usual cool exterior back into place like a mask. Bert handed her a clean handkerchief as she pulled away from him, and she wiped her face with it.

"Thank you," she said quietly. She sat staring sadly into space. Bert snagged one of the tea cups and handed it to her, and she sipped at it mechanically.

"What else did the news bulletin say?" he asked quietly. She looked over at him.

"Not much," she replied. "There was no mention of the AI, but it was probably stolen. I don't know who else could have taken it though; the only other scientist I know of who was actively after it was my father's other assistant, and Dr. Yuri was found dead just outside the building; he'd been run through by something."

"Yuri's already dead?!" he burst out before he could stop himself. "That's not supposed to happen!! I..oh shit." He abruptly shut up, turning red as Sylia stared at him. Sudden understanding dawned in her face, understanding that was tinged with anger.

"You mean to tell me," she said tightly, "that you already knew that Dr. Haynes was going to get killed? And you didn't say anything?!" The cup she was holding started to shake slightly as she fought to hang on to her composure. Bert looked stricken.

"I...I didn't know for sure, at the time," he replied awkwardly, looking away. "I...I knew what could possibly happen, but lately things have not matched up with my 'advanced knowledge', and I...I figured that events were finally pulling away from what I knew. I didn't know if Haynes was working on the AI, and I didn't know where he was working anyway." He spread his hands helplessly, a pained look on his face. "You told me it would be better to just leave things alone and not try to act on what I knew of the possible future, so I did. I'm sorry."

"You're not the only one," she sighed, her momentary anger vanishing. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be blaming you. You did try."

"Thanks, I think," he said glumly, grabbing his mug and taking a large slurp. "I'm kind of relieved about one thing, actually, despite the circumstances."

"What's that?"

"Given what's happened, I can safely say I don't know anything about the future anymore." He sighed, suddenly looking like a huge burden had been lifted from him. "I hope you never have to know in advance that something terrible is going to happen, and you can't intervene. It's a horrendous strain having to curb yourself because of it."

"I suppose I never really thought of that," she admitted, then looked at him curiously. "Why didn't you mention it before?"

"Because it made everyone uncomfortable," he said simply. "No one, not even you, was ever comfortable discussing it, so I kept my mouth shut. It wasn't easy, but I did it." Silence descended on the room, broken only by the carefree weather announcer on the television predicting beautiful weather for the next few days. Bert passed Sylia one of the sandwiches, which she wordlessly took. They ate in silence for a few moments, his mind turning around all the recent events. Something Sylia had said suddenly clicked.

"You said Yuri had been 'run through'?" he queried. She nodded. "Oh great," he sighed. "That means that the boomer I encountered tonight was after the AI as well. It sounds like Yuri got there first, but wasn't able to get away."

"It sounds likely," she agreed. "But we're still no closer to figuring out who that boomer belongs to."

"Then I guess we start looking."

"No rest for the weary, it seems," she sighed. She finished her snack and stood up, gathering her purse from a nearby chair. Bert quickly whipped the dishes into the kitchen, adding them to the growing collection in the sink. He grabbed his hat and jacket from the hallway, holding the door open for Sylia, and following her outside.

TWO DAYS LATER....

"Well now, if it isn't the Terror of the Tokyo Stock Exchange," Bert grinned as Linna stepped through the door to his basement apartment. She half-smiled back, but he could see that she wasn't really thrilled with his joke for some reason.

"Busy right now?" she asked, looking around his room. At the moment it resembled an area in the wake of a tornado. Books were strewn everywhere, and his coffee table was covered with blueprints.

"Not really," he replied, flicking his unruly hair out of his eyes. "I'm just researching some stuff I had some ideas on for future suits."

"Oh Lord, not again!" she sighed. "Don't you have anything else to do?!"

"What did you want?" he asked, ignoring her question. He was getting a little tired of hearing that question from everyone. He enjoyed designing stuff and building it; it was good stress relief, and helped to take his mind off of things. Now if he could just get everyone to stop nagging him about it ....

"Feel up to a workout session?" she asked.

"A workout session?!" he repeated in surprise. "What brought this on?! We haven't had a go-around for months now." Once Linna had started her new job, their usual training sessions together had ceased because she hadn't felt that she could afford to take the time off. To be honest, he'd missed them a lot, partly because it gave him a chance to chat with her; outside of their Knight Saber work and the occasional get-together, he didn't see her much.

"I feel like it right now," she evaded. "I can't sit around all day staring at a computer screen, watching market reports." Bert's eyebrows hit his hairline in surprise; that was the first time that he'd ever heard her suggest that she might be dissatisfied with her new job. Mentally, he shrugged. He closed the book he was holding with a snap, and tossed it onto the couch.

"Okay, you're on," he said, standing up. A relieved smile appeared on her face.

"Great! I'll meet you in the exercise room."

Bert watched her leave, a puzzled frown forming. Something was bothering her, that much he could tell; she was normally more cheery and outgoing. Oh well, maybe he'd be able to get her to talk about it. He ducked into his bedroom to get changed.

Linna bounced twice on her back on the mat, sliding to a halt at the far wall. Rolling over and up to her knees, she shoved her short black hair back under her headband from where it had come unstuck. Her blue eyes flashed angrily at the impudently grinning red-haired figure at the far end of the room.

"You don't have to do it so bloody hard!!" she snapped. "I'd like to be able to walk away from this afterwards!"

"You know how to stop me from doing it," Bert replied, still grinning. Linna gritted her teeth, and surged to her feet. She advanced towards him, in a ready stance; he was standing still, looking cheerful, and wide open. He had 'target' written all over him.

Leaping forwards in a flashing forward somersault, she tried to nail him with her feet. Almost casually, he leaned sideways, grabbed her ankles, and used her own momentum to send her sailing down to the other end of the room. Linna bounced again, beginning to become just a little annoyed. She must have been more out of practice than she'd figured; she hadn't been able to lay a hand on him yet, and she was just itching to wipe that grin off his face. She crawled back to her feet. Bert grinned again wickedly.

"I think I know part of your problem," he stated. "You're spending too much time polishing chairs with your behind. Either that, or you're too used to pushing just paper now."

"Shut up and fight," she snapped, lunging forward again. Again, he flipped her through the air. On the first bounce she snapped to her feet and launched herself at him in a low tackle, which he sidestepped.

"Pitiful," he sighed mournfully, shaking his head. "You should spend less time counting your money, and more time working out. I saw that one coming a mile away."

"When I want a lifestyle critique, I'll ask for one," she retorted, blue eyes narrowing angrily. Evidently, he'd still been practicing somehow, and it had given him an edge in their current match, an edge she was getting sick of having rubbed in her face.

"One lump, or two?" he inquired politely, smirking as she got set to try again. This time however, Linna appeared to have regained her old form. Bert wasn't quite sure how she did it, but there was a blur of motion, and then the air rushed out of his lungs as his back impacted with the mat at the end of his sudden trajectory.

"Now that's more like it," he remarked, as he started to get to his feet. "I ... Hey!!! Wait a sec..." He didn't get a chance to finish; Linna had moved in close again. Using some kind of spinning throw, she jerked him into another arcing flight through the air. Caught unprepared, he wasn't able to roll with it. There was a sickening, audible crunch from his right shoulder as he tried to catch himself, and he flopped to the mat with a strangled yell as his arm folded amid shrieking pain.

"Oh God, I'm sorry!!" Linna cried, dropping to her knees next to him. She helped him to a sitting position, an extremely mortified expression on her face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that, honest!!"

"That's funny," he wheezed back, trying to clear the spots out of his vision. "It looked pretty purposeful to me." God, did it hurt!! His shoulder felt dislocated, which probably meant a trip to the hospital to get it re-aligned. Great, he groaned to himself; identical injuries to the exact same place twice in as many weeks. A new record!, part of his mind dryly noted.

"Well it's your own bloody fault," she snapped. "If you hadn't been rubbing my face in the fact that I'm a little out of practice I wouldn't have gotten mad and thrown you before you were ready." She helped him to his feet.

"You usually have a better sense of humour about these kinds of things," he observed, sweating from the effort it was taking to walk without jarring his arm. It felt like thousands of needles were being stuck into the nerves. He looked down at her as she steered him towards the door. She didn't reply, and she wouldn't meet his gaze, but kept herding him out of the room, closing the door behind them.

After they returned from the hospital, Bert figured it was time to find out just what was bugging Linna. He invited her down to his room for something to drink, an invitation she accepted readily enough. However, as he was whipping up a batch of hot chocolate, she paced his living room area, obviously agitated about something. Her expression was gloomy, and she seemed to be miles away. Finally, he called a halt, intercepting her on the return trip of one of her circuits around the room.

"Okay," Bert told her, gently forcing her down onto his couch, hands on her shoulders. He sat down next to her; she still wouldn't meet his gaze. "What's wrong?" he asked her directly. "I'd like to know why you're wearing holes in my carpeting, and why your sense of humour seems to have packed up and left. This has to be the first time I've ever seen you glum about anything." He reached out, and tilted her chin up so he could look her in the eyes. "What's wrong?" he repeated.

"Nothing," she replied unconvincingly, trying to look away.

"Linna," he said gently, "I think we've known each other long enough by now to drop the horseshit. Something is obviously bugging you, and I want to help. Please tell me what's up." Silence stretched for a few moments. She sighed, and sagged back into the couch, looking at him.

"I'm just not happy with life in general, I guess," she admitted.

"Can you be a little more specific?"

"Well, my new job is okay, but at the same time something's missing. It's not.... not as satisfying, I guess." She brooded for a moment as he went over and poured two mugs of hot chocolate. Dropping some marshmallows into the drinks, he handed her one of the mugs, and then sat down across from her.

"Was your old job satisfying?" he asked. She sipped at her drink.

"I guess it was, for a while, but I... I don't know. I mean, I enjoyed the working out, but teaching aerobics doesn't really go anywhere, and neither is this job. I mean, for a while it was fun watching the money roll in, but now it's... routine, I guess, I don't know for sure. All I know for sure is that I don't want to spend the rest of my life at it."

"What are you doing outside of work?"

"What do you mean, 'outside of work'?"

"I mean, we haven't been Knight Sabering for quite some time, and I haven't seen you around with the others lately, so what have you been doing with yourself?"

"Nothing," she admitted.

"Why?" he asked simply. She thought for a few moments as he watched, sipping at his own drink.

"I don't know. I....I just don't know. Mind your own business!" she suddenly snapped peevishly.

"May I make a somewhat personal observation?"

"Go ahead."

"I think your problem is a combination of boredom and loneliness."

"Pardon me?!"

"You're bored with your job," he stated quietly, "partly because you're finally realizing that hordes of money isn't getting you what you want out of life. Part of what you want, I've noticed, is a boyfriend, but you haven't had much luck in that department, and that's where the loneliness comes in, right?" He waited as an uncomfortable silence fell.

"You're not entirely wrong," she said slowly, stiffly. She didn't normally discuss personal feelings, and it was a strange feeling in itself. "I always thought that being rich would solve everything, but it hasn't. I've got everything I thought I'd ever need, but something's still missing." She looked at him suddenly. "I really envy you and Nene at times; you've got a solid relationship there, although there were times I wondered what you were up to. I've never been able to even get to the first stage of a relationship. It always falls apart on me after the first couple of dates."

"Are you trying too hard, perhaps?" he asked quietly. "It takes time to find the right person; I was extremely lucky that it was Nene. You might be rushing things by trying to force a relationship through financial success. That will only attract guys who are after your money, and you deserve better than that. Maybe if you back off from it a bit, and quit looking so hard, you'll get better results."

"But I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life!" she protested. He sighed, dropped his mug onto the coffee table and reaching over, gave her a brotherly hug.

"You won't have to worry about that," he assured her. "You're smart and you're beautiful; it'll only be a matter of time before a decent guy turns up. Just quit pursuing it so relentlessly and relax. Like I said, it takes time."

"Easy for you to say," she said petulantly. "You and Nene are bonkers over each other."

"True enough," he admitted, flushing slightly. "It took us a while to get to the point where we were both comfortable with it, though. I mean, I'm still not perfect at telling her everything that's bothering me, and I've always been a fairly private person, so sometimes telling her my feelings is really difficult for me." He paused, then smiled ruefully. "We still have our bumpy spots at times, mostly over my heroic aspirations, but other than that we get along pretty good."

"I'd noticed," she said, looking away gloomily. She knew he was trying to help, but hearing about how he and Nene were doing wasn't cheering her up. Bert stared at her thoughtfully for a moment.

"May I make a suggestion?" he asked gently. Her gaze swung back to him.

"I guess so," she replied. Bert took a deep breath, hoping what he was about to suggest didn't drive her away completely.

"How about another career change?"

"To what?" she asked, frowning at him. "All I know how to do is aerobics and financial work."

"There is one other thing I know you can do," he said quietly, hesitating again. "Dancing."

"What?! Dancing?!" Linna repeated, shocked. She suddenly turned angry. "How can you just casually suggest something like that?! Do you know why I gave it up?! How hard it was to...to..." She choked back the tears that the memory of her failed stage audition of years ago brought. She knew she'd been better than a lot of the girls who'd tried out, but that hadn't cut any ice with the directors making the decisions. They'd picked mostly girls who'd fit the 'glamorous' category: blond, blue-eyed and stacked. It had been a painful experience, one she didn't ever want to repeat.

"Yes, I know," he admitted calmly. "And I also know that you've never been happy