SkyKnight Productions
Proudly Presents
A NonTechnical Film

MegaTokyo 2035
The Knight Sabers

"The Bubblegum Zone - Episode #9"

Copyright (c) 1995 Bert Van Vliet

"Who the hell IS this guy?!" Leon muttered to himself in exasperation. Irritably slapping the thin file-folder in front of him closed, he leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his eyes wearily. He drank the last of his coffee, grimacing at the foul taste of the now-cold liquid. Almost against his will, his eyes dropped back to the folder on the desk, and the few meager scraps of information it held. Despite diligent searching, it was all he was able to find on Nene's boyfriend.

He sighed, leaning back and running it all through his mind again, and again coming up against a brick wall. He had a description, age, apparent address, apparent employer, and some academic records. That was it. The traffic department had a license and a couple of vehicles registered for him, but that hadn't given Leon any leads either; except for a speeding ticket for a motorcycle incident, he was clean. The guy was a complete unknown, with no immediately apparent ties to anyone or anything, and Leon found himself becoming more and more irritated about the lack of information the more he thought about it.

The other peculiarity was that none of the existing records were older than three years; it was as if he had no past at all. Since there was no way that average people could just erase all possible records of themselves, Leon found himself looking at the unpleasant possibility that Nene's boyfriend was either a government agent, or else a member of a very powerful criminal organization.

Bullshit, he told himself irritably. The man didn't have the right feel, the right.... mannerisms to be a crook. Despite the fact that he appeared to have undergone some kind of personality change, Leon was willing to bet his badge that the guy wasn't a criminal...well, not a mobster, anyway. That still left open the option that he was a covert agent of some kind, however.

Leon sat back, rubbing a hand over his face again tiredly. The question now, was what was he going to do next?

THE NEXT DAY.....

Kate Madigan walked thoughtfully through the gigantic oaken portal to Quincy's lofty office, paging through a lengthy file nestled in a tan-coloured folder. From behind the vast expanse of his desk, the white-haired CEO watched her approach, his face impassive. At length, she reached his desk, and looked up, meeting his gaze levelly.

"We have a problem, sir," she began, taking a last glance at the file folder, and then handing it across the desk to the craggy-faced corporate ruler. "Dr. Yoshida is becoming too unstable to employ for much longer, I'm afraid."

"Oh?" Quincy rumbled. "Who has made this determination?"

"Almost everyone being forced to work in the same production facility with him," Madigan returned with a trace of dryness. "The man apparently refuses to confer with anyone lesser than a manager, hardly eats, hardly sleeps, and spends all his time creating 'perfect boomers' for 'proving himself'. He has completed the work on our new combat models, and they are indeed superb, but his 'independent' designs are a joke now." She sighed. "The Doberman he managed to get hold of and modify is useless now except for ground combat. It can't fly because its armour is too heavy, and it lacks the power for a sustained fight. We may be able to use it as a training target for our other combat models, but that's it. The Knight Sabers wouldn't even have to fight it; it's too slow to present a serious threat."

"Hmmmm," Quincy rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"The technicians are all convinced that he's completely crazy," she added, "and they won't work with him at all anymore, even under threat of termination of their employment." Madigan had herself briefly visited the facility where they'd hidden the crazed boomer designer after the death of the HeadHunter, and she'd been a little shocked, and very definitely uneasy at what she'd found.

She shuddered mentally, recalling what she'd seen: a tall, emaciated-looking man with shaggy reddish-brown hair, and with skin drawn so tightly over his frame now that he almost looked like a mummified corpse. His face had a perpetual rictus-grin on it, and all the fat there might have been on his body once was gone now; his clothes hung on him like rags on a rail fence. His once-brown eyes were now bloodshot, and appeared to glow all on their own. He seemed to be hardly aware of anything going on around him, and was continually muttering "They'll pay!" and "My genius can overcome anything!" to himself while scribbling formulas and sketches on whatever paper he had handy. Madigan hadn't needed to take another look to know that the man's mind, while being questionable before, was very definitely in decline now.

"That is indeed unfortunate," Quincy's voice rumbled. Madigan gave her attention back to him as he continued, tossing the file folder onto his desk. "Dr. Yoshida was a useful employee; it will be a great loss to us when he retires." A slow smile spread across Quincy's face as he looked at his violet-haired second-in-command. "We must be sure that he gets the full benefits package when he leaves."

"Sir?" she asked, confused. They couldn't risk just 'retiring' Yoshida by taking him off of work; the man was a wanted criminal. Even though he'd been presumed dead, having him suddenly turn up alive would raise awkward questions, and all Yoshida had to do was mention some of the details of what he'd been working on, and GENOM would suddenly have all kinds of problems again.

"Why, Dr. Yoshida will soon be leaving our employ," Quincy explained with a dark smile. "We wouldn't want him complaining about being unfairly treated, so we shall arrange an adequate, shall we say, compensation for his services." A rumbling chuckle rolled through the office, giving a chill to anyone outside the office who happened to overhear it.

THE NEXT DAY....

"You're sure you want to go through with this?" Priss asked again. Her red-brown eyes were worried, despite an almost Herculean effort to keep her feelings hidden. Bert sighed in irritation as he shrugged into the bulky telemetry suit. Behind Priss, he could see Sylia programming some parameters into the testing computer as Sylvie watched from where she was leaning against the wall. Nene and Linna were both absent due to work obligations.

The telemetry suit, the main component of the virtual reality testing room Sylia had constructed, was basically a very bulky undergarment softsuit, with some plastic armour plating in places. The entire ensemble was meant to approximate the physical feel of wearing a real hardsuit. There were sensor webs all throughout the suit that monitored the wearer's movements and responses, and fed the information to the sophisticated computer that ran the simulator. The computer took the data, and matched the simulator responses with it to provide an adequate response to someone's actions, such as registering a boomer as being killed.

The link was two-way, however; the suit could also provide some stimuli to the wearer, letting the wearer feel if he or she had been hit by weapons. The armour plates had vibrational devices inside of them that gave the suit occupant a brief physical nudge when the computer deemed them as being physically hit. It also had some electrodes that could give the wearer an actual, very low powered, electrical shock to simulate being hit with energy weapons. It was the electrical feedback aspect of the suit that had set him off the last time; it had tripped the automatic 'all-out attack' mode that had been plaguing him since his kidnapping ordeal, and he'd gone berserk briefly, destroying all his simulator opponents, and then the replicas of his friends.

"Look," he finally said to Priss, fastening up the last few closures on the suit. "I appreciate the concern, but quit nagging will you? I'm nervous enough as it is." That was no less than the truth; memories of what had happened the last time danced at the edges of his memory, prodding him with needle-like poignancy. He shrugged them off almost angrily; that had been a little over two weeks ago, and things had changed since then. Reaching out, he picked up the helmet that accompanied the suit, and tucked it under his arm. "It's just a simulator," he told her. "There's no real danger, and besides, we need to know if I've improved or not. This is the only way."

"Well, I still don't think...," she started to retort when Sylia's voice drifted over her shoulder, ending the conversation.

"The simulator is ready, Bert," she told him quietly. "You can start anytime." He sighed, and looked over at Priss, giving her a quick, reassuring smile. He tucked the helmet under his arm as he clumped over to the door to the simulator room. He fumbled around with the door handle, finally managed to get the door open, and stepped through.

It took another minute to find the cables inside the room that were used for limited flight simulation; setting the helmet on the floor, he worked at getting them attached to the suit. He swore under his breath to himself as he worked at latching the stubborn connections together; his real hardsuit was less hassle than this was! At last, he made the final connections. Stooping, he picked up the telemetry suit helmet, and settled it into place.

"Okay, Sylia," he reported over the helmet comm, straightening up and stretching. "I'm ready; let 'er rip."

Bert took a deep breath, and tried to hold down the crawling nervousness in his guts as his entire field of sight suddenly lit up, looking briefly like a static-filled television screen, and gradually resolved into a large, crisply-detailed, seemingly deserted, warehouse district. He looked down at himself, and saw brightly polished, silver-and-blue armour plating. He raised a gauntlet-clad hand up to in front of his face and flexed it; it looked and felt like he was wearing his real suit. He shook his head, marveling at the sophistication of the simulator briefly; damn, but it felt and looked real! The imaging system combined with the feedback sensors was fantastic in its approximation of the real thing.

SkyKnight shoved the thought to the back of his mind, and powered up his systems. Positive status readouts flickered across his helmet viewscreen as he moved towards the center of the warehouse area, keeping a wary eye out for trouble.

With mechanical snarls, a pair of C-55 boomers suddenly shot towards him on flaring thrusters, lashing out with crackling plasma beams. SkyKnight ducked smoothly under the assault, dropping into a sideways shoulder roll as the biomechanoids blasted past him. He rolled back up to his feet as his swordblades snapped into extension, turning to face the way the boomers had just taken. The boomers banked around in mid-air, and dove back towards him; the warehouse district soon reverberated with howls and explosions as Knight Saber and boomer battled for supremacy.

"Level Seven now," Sylia reported quietly, tabbing a console switch before leaning back in her chair. Through the viewing window, she could see Bert ducking, weaving and periodically attacking his virtual adversaries, the bulky telemetry suit apparently not impeding his movements to any great extent. On a large, central viewscreen, the computer displayed a rendered image of what was actually happening from the computer's viewpoint: A silver-and-blue hardsuit was systematically dismantling every C-55 boomer that came within reach of it. Behind her, flanking her seat, Priss and Sylvie watched wordlessly, faint traces of worry on their faces as the program began to approach the point that had driven Bert over the edge the last time.

"Computer, boost difficulty to Level Eight, and initiate random factors," Sylia ordered the machine. It whirred for a moment, then flashed a question on the screen:

Sylia hesitated for a moment, her gaze lifting to the red-haired young man in the room beyond. She sighed, looking anguished for a moment, then the look disappeared, her smooth face becoming emotionless..

"Full assault," she replied flatly. Behind her, Priss sucked in a sharp breath, and her fingers dug into the back of Sylia's chair as her hands clenched in worry. The three women watched the viewscreen as a sudden horde of blue C-55 combat boomers charged towards the lone silver suit.

SkyKnight ducked under a whistling claw swipe, at the same time sweeping his own swordblade through the boomer's midsection, gutting it and taking it out of the fight. Using the momentum of the strike to continue his motion, he drove his armoured fist into the guts of the next boomer along, pulling the triggers on his particle lasers at the same time; the boomer flew apart in a flare of energy and spinning armour shards. Still moving smoothly, SkyKnight dropped and rolled over on his left shoulder, coming to his feet again as a scorching volley of spitting, blue-white plasma bolts carved divots from the asphalt where he'd been standing a scant second before.

The silver-blue battlesuit shot backwards on howling jets, spraying a covering fire of red laser bursts to cover his supposed withdrawal. The half-dozen or so C-55's left snarled again, and all six leaped into the air to pursue him. As they all became airborne, SkyKnight's backwards motion suddenly reversed, and he blasted forwards, the scream from his suddenly stressed-out flight system sounding like a jetplane going into a power dive.

As the silver-clad Knight Saber swept through the surprised boomers, there was a pair of closely-linked, electric-sounding snap-hisses; two huge, glowing blue arcs were carved through the air as both of his arm-mounted lightsabers activated. A second or two later, four of the six remaining boomers dropped to the pavement, in several, widely differing locations. As the remaining two boomers tried to re-orient themselves to deal with the sudden reversal, a loud series of crack-bangs sounded. Several sharp, driving impacts pounded them from behind, and a moment later, the boomers burst apart in a messy spray of armour parts and oily liquids.

SkyKnight dropped to the pavement again with a clank, breathing heavily. As he landed, the railgun bolt launcher on his left shoulder folded back into its rest position. Bert wished he could wipe the sweat off of his face; it had been a grueling workout so far, but he had a sneaking hunch he wasn't done yet. While Sylia hadn't been taking it easy on him, she also hadn't tried to set him off with the same set of circumstances as the last time. Not yet, anyway.

To his immense relief, he wasn't having to exert the same desperate, ironclad control on himself that he'd had to the last time he'd been in the simulator. It was definitely easier this time; he hadn't had any sudden flashbacks, at least, not yet, and he felt...relaxed. He pondered that for a moment, trying to figure that one out. Even though he knew he was in a simulation, he'd never, ever been relaxed about being in a fight of any kind before, real or imaginary. Something stirred uneasily at the back of his mind at the discovery, but he couldn't define what it was.

It dawned on him suddenly that things had been quiet for a few minutes now. That was not good; quiet was as boring as hell right now. A slight grin crept across his face.

"Hey, Sylia!" he called into the helmet comm. "Don't tell me you're done already?! That wasn't even a decent warm-up!!"

"He's starting to sound like you," Sylvie remarked, a faint smirk on her face as she looked over at her friend. "You're corrupting him."

"Oh, go to hell," Priss muttered distractedly, although a faint smile was tugging at the corners of her lips at Sylvie's observation. Bert had sounded okay, and he'd certainly performed well so far, but she had this nagging feeling that something was not...quite..right. She'd seen Bert fight before, several times, and there was something about his style now that she couldn't quite pin down, something unsettling, but also something she couldn't identify.

Sylia didn't acknowledge either of them as she leaned forwards and hit another button on the console, the faintest trace of a frown on her face.

"You stupid, moronic, jackass," Bert swore under his breath at himself, ducking under a point-blank cannon blast from the hulking B-12 Assault Boomer in front of him. "You just had to go and open your goddamn mouth, didn't you?!" He skipped sideways from another fiery salvo, edging just a few scant inches closer to the biomechanical war machine. A second or two later, a blazing, blue-white energy blade scythed through the air in a roundhouse slash, and the boomer collapsed into two smoking heaps. SkyKnight started to turn around to check if he had any more opponents, when the numbing shocks of a series of direct hits from weapons fire hurled him sideways to land in a heap, near the smoldering remains of the boomer he'd just killed.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit, damnit," he snarled to himself as he stiffly rolled over on the ground, just barely avoiding another round of cannon fire into the pavement where he'd been laying. The two B-12s that had caught him by surprise stomped closer, getting a better vantage point from which to shoot at him. The left-most boomer was suddenly rendered headless by a shattering volley of red-white laser bolts that seared upwards from the prone hardsuit, and the right-hand one instantly dodged aside, narrowly avoiding a similar fate.

SkyKnight rolled to his feet, gasping for breath, and still swearing at himself. He should have kept his mouth shut, he noted to himself; Sylia had kicked up the difficulty level again, and now he was getting royally pounded. Even though he couldn't really get hurt, given the level of realism in the simulator, he was responding as if he was in actual danger, and he was now sore from several clumsy acrobatic evasion attempts, and once from accidentally diving headfirst into a wall he hadn't realized was there. Thankfully, however, he found he was still not having too many problems maintaining control of himself. His biggest problem at the moment was fatigue.

The B-12 ended his self-assessment by lumbering forwards again, and opening fire with its micro-missile launchers; a hailstorm of small, high-explosive warheads swept towards him. SkyKnight vaulted high into the air in a parabolic arc with a brief assist from his jets. As he came down, he knocked the B-12 staggering backwards with a laser shot; a split second later, as he landed next to the stumbling boomer, a blue-white plasma blade again sizzled through the air. The swordstroke ended at the boomer's cranial casing, and it dropped heavily to the ground.

"Okay, I surrender, Sylia," Bert panted into the helmet comm, staggering a step backwards as his lightsaber snuffed out again. His preferred weapon, the lightsaber he'd devised was the best hand-to-hand weapon available, capable of cutting through almost anything. The only drawback, of course, was that you had to get close to your assailant to use it effectively. He used it a lot more often in the simulator than he did in real life, mostly because it was safer; there was no risk of accidental amputation in here. Despite the range drawback and personal risk involved, it was a good weapon, and a perfect 'ace-in-the-hole' at times. As he quietly admired his creation, it suddenly hit him that the simulation hadn't ended yet.

"Uh, Sylia?" he called again. "What are you doing? I think that's enough, don't you?"

"Sylia?" Priss echoed the statement from the comm speaker. "What are you doing? He's had enough now, he said." She looked from the viewing window to Sylia, who was still seated in her chair. Sylia looked back at her calmly, a calm that was tinged with faint traces of regret.

"I'm sorry, Priss," Sylia sighed. "But there's one last test we have to try."

Priss stared at her for a moment, then looked back at the viewscreen; a silver-blue hardsuit was looking around uneasily, nervous apprehension in every movement he made. Sylvie remained quiet, also watching the screen, her face unreadable.

"You're not really going to do that to him again, are you?" Priss asked her friend, and sometimes leader. There was an overtone of entreaty in her question that didn't need explanation. "He's stayed in control up until now; we really don't need to push him any further." Sylia sighed again wearily, running a hand through her blue-black hair. A brief flicker of anguish again washed across her face.

"I don't like it either," she replied flatly. "But I don't have a choice: we have to know for sure." Her hand reached towards the control panel once more.

SkyKnight walked warily through the now seemingly deserted warehouse district, his stomach feeling like tightly-strung piano wires, and his mind skittering around in nervous dread of what he was sure was coming. He'd realized after a few moments why Sylia hadn't ended the simulation yet: she wanted to see how he'd react to having the rest of the Knight Sabers around him in a fight. So far, it had all been solo action, which wasn't a good enough indicator of his competency. She needed to know if he was going to be able to distinguish friend from foe in a heavy fight.

In the back of his mind, there was also the nagging fear of just how she was going to conduct that particular test.

The silver-clad hardsuit rounded a corner, still searching for some indication of what was coming, but found none. It was almost as if the computer had taken pity on him, but he knew that wasn't the case; it was merely waiting for the right opportunity.

Another couple of minutes slowly inched by, with SkyKnight restlessly pacing around the warehouses, beginning to get irritated. As he paced, his sensor display lit up with a set of signals indicating someone, or something, was nearby. Swallowing nervously, he turned and moved cautiously in the direction the readings had come from.

As he walked, a red-pink hardsuit came into view, several metres distant. The hardsuit was carefully scanning the surrounding area, with all the sensor antennae from its backpack extended and deployed. For a brief moment, Bert wished this was the real thing, and not some computer-generated mockup; it was doubtful that Nene would be in her suit anytime soon.

"Hi there!" the Nene simulacrum waved cheerily. "No boomers detected yet, sorry." Just as Bert was about to respond, three blue-armoured C-55s sprang up from the surrounding darkness, and all of them converged on the isolated hardsuit; she screamed in fear, and tried to shoot one of the marauders while avoiding the other two. The attempt failed miserably; Nene was grabbed by two of them, and the third's mouth snapped open to target her with a plasma cannon.

SkyKnight blasted forwards instinctively on snarling thrusters, time seeming to slow down as his mind suddenly began working with an icy cold clarity. Before the third boomer could fire, it was tackled sideways by the hurtling hardsuit, and the two hit the pavement with a bang. The boomer tried to blast him at point blank range with its plasma gun, but SkyKnight grabbed its face with a gauntlet-clad hand, and ruthlessly squeezed; the boomer's head casing burst apart in a shower of oily liquid, parts and sparks.

Leaping to his feet, SkyKnight spun towards the two remaining boomers and Nene, his swordblades snapping out. As he turned, one of the boomers holding Nene suddenly picked her up bodily as she struggled to get loose, and then hurled her hardsuit at him as if she'd been weightless. SkyKnight instantly stepped back and to the side, and grabbed the red-pink hardsuit as it flew past him, spinning her around, absorbing the momentum of her uncontrolled flight and setting her gently on the ground.

"T-t-thanks," she stammered, staggering slightly. Suddenly, she clapped one hand to her visor, while pointing over his shoulder. "Oh no, look out!!"

Moving smoothly, he shoved Nene to the ground, leaping sideways in the opposite direction, as a jagged, crackling blue-white bolt of electrical energy sizzled through the air. It was so real-looking, Bert was willing to swear he could smell ozone in the air. The uncomfortable proximity of the shot also started him sweating, and murky memories began to claw at the barriers he'd managed to wall them off behind.

SkyKnight dove sideways again, trying to hold onto his control and avoid getting hit. This, then, was what Sylia had been holding in reserve; she wanted to know how he'd respond to possible electrical attacks. He ducked another electrical blast, still trying to scrape together enough presence of mind to return fire; at the moment, most of his attention was being held by keeping the flashbacks at bay, and avoiding getting hit. Something in the back of his mind was screaming at him, telling him to just flee and avoid the pain that was sure to come; his guts had locked solid at the thought of being hit electrically again.

"It's not real, damnit. It's not real," he muttered to himself repeatedly, trying to convince his subconscious to shut up and leave him alone. It didn't work; the fear scrabbling at his defenses continued to eat into his self-control.

"Leave him alone!!!" the Nene-simulacrum suddenly shrieked, firing her arm laser at the boomers. Instantly, they switched aim from him to her; searingly hot blue-white streams of electrical energy slashed through the air towards her.

"NO!" SkyKnight yelled, reflex again taking over. In the back of his mind, a voice howled that it wasn't real, that it was a trick, but it was too late; he threw himself into the path of the energy streams, knocking the red-pink hardsuit aside.

"AAARRRGH!!!" The hoarse yell was torn from him by the brutal, agonizing slam of the electrical current. Every muscle in his body spasmed again, partly from the actual shocks provided by the simulator, and partly from the memories triggered by it. SkyKnight doubled over, staggering helplessly, clutching at his head, as a red tide began to rise, drowning his sight in a crimson miasma....

"Sylia!!! For God's sakes that's enough!!! Leave him ALONE!!!" Priss snarled, her gaze whipping from the blue-black haired woman to the twitching, doubled-over, red-haired young man in the simulator room beyond.

"I can't, Priss," Sylia replied quietly, her own face tortured-looking as she looked away from the screen. "I know it looks cruel, but we have got to know for..."

"Yeah, yeah, you've said that a dozen times already!" Priss cut her off furiously with a slashing hand gesture. There was a helpless fury flashing in her red-brown eyes as she kept looking from Sylia and then back through the window to the still-spasming Bert, hands clenched into fists at her sides. "How the hell is he supposed to get better if you keep trying to break him, though?! Hasn't he already been through the blasted wringer enough times to allow for some friggin' sympathy once in a while?!"

"Priss, I'm not doing this to try and break him!!" Sylia snapped, traces of hurt appearing in her eyes, quickly concealed. "This is hurting me as much as anyone else, but are you willing to risk your safety, or anyone else's, just because you feel sorry for him?"

"He wasn't ready to get back in his suit!" Priss shot back, glaring. "You shouldn't have asked him, goddamnit!!! It's partly his bloody misguided sense of honour and duty that made him try it; he probably wouldn't have if you hadn't asked him to!!" Sylia opened her mouth to reply when Sylvie's quiet voice cut through the argument.

"He's getting up," was all she said. The gazes of the arguing women snapped to the viewing window, then down to the computer screen.

On the monitor, a violently shaking and shuddering silver-blue hardsuit was straightening up, bracing itself against the electrical streams that still were washing over it.

"I...will...not...snap!" Bert snarled defiantly, eyes squeezed shut, teeth clenched. Sweat poured down his face as he fought to force himself upright, overriding the convulsions that were wracking him at the moment through force of will. The strain was horrendous, however; his guts felt like they were going to burst. Red flashes crackled and snapped through his sight, carrying brief images of a smirking, blond-haired man, and other, associated images from when he'd been tortured, with them. It was in the past, now, he told himself again; he'd survived, and would continue to survive. He had to; there was too much at stake to just give in.

SkyKnight tried to take a deep breath and hold it, but the pain and convulsions tearing into him, and the fight to keep from dropping over the edge into overdrive, made that impossible; he was gasping for air as if he'd just finished the Ironman Triathlon in record time. Darkness flickered at the edges of his vision, and he realized he had to end this...ordeal... quickly, or else he was going to either lose it again, or pass out.

Bracing himself, SkyKnight forced himself into an upright stance facing the boomers. In the back of his mind, the whirling storm of incandescent rage and memories continued clawing at his rapidly-failing ramparts of control. Another shudder wracked him anew, and he hazily realized that his first priority was stopping the electrical currents from hitting him; that should give him a little bit of breathing space.

Twin cylindrical handgrips snapped into his hands from their arm-guard slots, and with synchronized snap-hisses, two blue-white lightsaber blades sizzled into being, and were whipped up, directly into the path of the electrical beams the boomers were blasting him with. The result was more than he'd hoped for; the plasma blades blocked most if not all of the electrical current by deflecting the energy off to the sides, resulting in an immediate release from the pain he'd been suffering. There was a lingering trace of it, but the minute the energy had been blocked, it had disappeared and was more like a vague recollection. The retreat of the torment also allowed him to slam the lid on the memories and anger that had been raging at him, and to get his breath back.

The boomers snarled at him again, seeing their prey beginning to recover, and they split up, trying to flank him and attack him from two sides. As they moved, the electrical beams cut off, and SkyKnight erupted into blindingly swift action.

The silver hardsuit shot sideways, towards the left-most boomer, moving quickly and running hard. As the boomers fired at him again, he dove forwards, arms outstretched in front of him, and pulled a forward, somersaulting roll that brought him to his feet right in front of the one offending boomer. An almost casual, full-powered backhand from SkyKnight removed its head, and the biomechanoid collapsed into a scrap heap. The silver-clad Knight Saber immediately did a back-handspring, avoiding the wild volley of plasma beams and lightning bolts that the remaining boomer shot at him. He backflipped twice more, instinctively staying just ahead of the searching fire that sought him out hungrily.

SkyKnight suddenly dove sideways instead of backflipping again, and the C-55's attacks missed harmlessly by a very wide margin. The boomer never got a chance to correct its aim; A blazing volley of four, coruscating particle-laser beams wiped it from existence, turning it into a cloud of spinning armour shards, vaporized liquids, and carbonized circuitry. With a thundering blast, the beams also half-vaporized the wall of the building behind it.

As the lingering echoes of the final fusillade faded, SkyKnight straightened up, his weapons systems shutting down. A grim smile flickered over his face inside the helmet; he looked down at his gauntleted hands, and flexed them a couple of times.

"Checkmate. Game and match," he quietly said out loud. The warehouse district suddenly dissolved into a multi-coloured field of static, and then darkness.

Bert shoved the door of the simulator room open, wearily stripping off the VR helmet at the same time. He was the picture of almost total exhaustion; his shoulders were slumping, and his head was hanging. Every so often he lurched a bit as he walked.

Cool air rushed in and gently caressed his sweaty face, offering a modicum of relief as he peeled off the helmet. He swiped a sleeve across his forehead, and then began undoing the closures on the telemetry suit as he walked across the room towards the changeroom. Damn it, he was so tired, everything hurt...

"ANSWER ME, GODDAMNIT!!!" Priss' voice blasted in his eardrums, making him jump in surprise. He'd been so worn-out, and anxious to get out of the suit that he hadn't heard the volley of concerned questions that had barraged him when he'd come out of the simulator room.

Blinking slightly bloodshot greenish-brown eyes, he lifted his head and looked into her worried face. Sylvie was hovering anxiously behind her, her eyes also reflecting her concern. He couldn't see Sylia, but he was too tired to think straight, and didn't look for her.

"Pardon me?" Bert croaked. His mouth was dry as hell; he needed a drink in the worst way, but he managed to get some moisture into his mouth long enough to speak. "What was the question?"

"I said 'Are you okay?'," Priss repeated, swapping a glance with Sylvie. Bert nodded vaguely, pushing past them absently and continuing on to the changeroom.

"I'm fine," he replied tiredly over his shoulder, "I just need to use the washroom for a bit, first." He shoved the door open and stepped in, closing it behind him and locking it. Weaving a bit now, he went over to the nearby lockers and managed to get out of the telemetry suit finally, sighing in relief at how much easier it became to move around.

As he started to fish some clean clothes and other things out of the locker, a sudden tremor shook him. Wheeling around, he sprang for the nearest available garbage can, and proceeded to throw up violently in it. The racking heaves persisted for a few moments, than died off. Bert shakily wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand, and waited for a moment or two, still coughing occasionally. Nothing else happened, so he turned to the sink, and rinsed out the foul taste that had been left in his mouth by throwing up, and took a long drink of water. He stepped back over to the lockers with a weary sigh, and dug a bar of soap, bottle of shampoo, and some towels from the top shelf.

The hot shower helped to revive his flagging energy just a bit, and he felt almost normal again once he'd dried himself off and thrown on a clean tracksuit. He still felt a little out of it, however, so he splashed some cold water on his face. It helped a little, but he realized he was going to have to get to bed soon, or risk collapsing.

Bert sighed again, and made his way to the changeroom exit. Unlocking the door, he opened it and stepped out into the short corridor joining it to the testing control room. As he did so he could hear Priss fuming angrily about something.

"What the hell is taking him so long?!" she grumbled. "He should have been out of there by now."

"Priss," Sylvie's voice replied. "Relax. He's fine, really; you heard the shower. He's just getting cleaned up. You can stop wearing a groove into the flooring; he'll be out soon." Bert started moving closer to the main room.

"Oh, sure," Priss snorted. "He's perfectly okay...horseshit! You saw what the hell he looked like coming out of there, and that didn't look to me like he was fine. He didn't even realize we were speaking to him until I yelled almost in his ear! The stupid bastard's probably passed out on the floor right now."

"Thanks for the concern," Bert remarked dryly, stepping into the room, "but the stupid bastard is quite upright at the moment." Priss spun around, flushing bright red as anger, worry, and relief vied for dominance in her expression. Anger won, easily.

"It's about friggin' time you came out," she snarled, stepping right up to him. Angry red-brown eyes stared hotly into his. "You could have at least said something before vanishing into the changeroom; it would have made waiting just a little easier," she fumed. Bert stood quietly during the scolding, his gaze flickering from Priss, to Sylvie, to Sylia.

Sylvie looked relieved to see him, but at the same time there was a question implicit in her eyes that he knew he was going to have to answer shortly. Sylia also looked relieved, but she was trying to suppress rampant guilt at the same time over what she'd put him through. As for Priss... he knew exactly what her feelings were right now.

"Thanks for the concern," he replied wearily, cutting Priss off before she could speak any more. "I appreciate it, really, but I'm fine. Now if you'll pardon me for a moment..." He carefully reached out and gently took Priss by the shoulders, moving her out of his way. Stepping past her, he walked over to Sylia. She was watching him intently, her concern and other feelings hidden behind an impassive mask.

"So what's the verdict?" he asked simply when he reached her chair. She looked up at him for a moment thoughtfully, then reached out and hit a switch on the computer console. A small monitor screen lit up, and two lines on a graph appeared, a green one and a red one. The red one was slightly higher than the green one, but it maintained a nearly identical shape, except for a brief spike near the end.

"You're now officially at Level Eight," Sylia replied quietly, her face concealing her inner disquiet. "You did extremely well overall, with an increase in combat efficiency to 82%."

"That's not what I meant," Bert replied, dismissing the information with an irritable gesture. "I meant am I in, or not?" He waited as Sylia looked away, her gaze becoming briefly filled with agonized indecision. He raised a hand to brush his hair out of his eyes, and noticed it was trembling suddenly. Oh hell, part of his mind noted, not now! Please, not now!! He carefully lowered his hand again, clenching it into a fist, and trying to will himself to stop shaking; he could feel faint twitches spreading to the rest of his muscles.

"I guess you are," Sylia sighed, looking back at him after a long moment of silence. Priss sucked in a sharp breath, and divided an unhappy glare between him and Sylia. Sylia ignored the look and continued. "You've demonstrated that, for now, at least, you can hold onto your self-control. I think that makes it safe to take you along." Bert's face relaxed, and a relieved smile began to spread across his face.

"As backup, ONLY," Sylia added firmly, stopping the smile in its tracks. "We'll have to wait and see about the fully active duty status." Bert's expression turned sour, but he fought down the urge to protest; Sylia was right in not returning him to full duty yet, and whining about it wouldn't change her mind, so he might as well get used to it.

"Okay, fine," he nodded. "It's a deal." There was a sudden ringing in his ears, and he blinked, looking around to find the source. As he did, both Priss and Sylvie let out a startled exclamation of some kind, and the two women jumped forwards, grabbing him as his knees buckled. Sylia looked startled, and started to get out of her chair, surprise turning to concern. Bert shook his head dazedly as the ringing turned to a loud roar of some kind.

"What's wrong?!" Priss asked worriedly. "What is it?!" She and Sylvie were holding him upright by main strength; Bert's legs wouldn't support him any longer.

"Not...sure.." he replied distantly, blinking and shaking his seemingly fog-filled head again. It felt like he was seeing everything through an infinitely long tunnel. "Tired..I...guess.."

There was a loud, rolling, rumble, almost like an ocean was crashing down on him; black waves of unconsciousness washed over his sight, and the room vanished.

A blue and white ADP patrol car pulled to a halt on the laneway in front of the small, two-story brown house, gravel scrunching noisily under its tires. The gull-wing driver's door swung upwards, the rush of air-conditioned air from the interior of the car dissipating the faint cloud of dust that the stopping car had raised. A pair of booted feet swung out of the car to the ground, being followed a moment later by a tall, blue-clad, brown-haired man with an ADP badge hanging on his jacket.

Leon looked around at the area surrounding the house, noting all the trees and shrubs that ran riot all over the place. He fished in a pocket, and pulled out his sunglasses, donning them out of force of habit. He didn't really need them, though; the setting sun was sinking behind the trees, casting a sullen red light over everything. He had to look around quick; before long it would become too dark to snoop further.

Leon walked slowly over to the small, somehow rustic-looking house, slowly looking around. There was a cool breeze wafting through the leaves of the trees, providing a quiet background rustle that was oddly soothing, and there was a hint of freshness to the air that was lacking in the downtown core of MegaTokyo. As he walked along, Leon felt himself relaxing despite himself, stress vanishing into the pastoral surroundings like water being soaked up by a sponge.

As he came up to the house, Leon's gaze sharpened as he noticed that a couple of second-story windows were boarded up, and the front door was practically in the same condition. Strange, he noted to himself. The house didn't look like anyone had been living in it for some time, which struck him as odd; if Nene's boyfriend wasn't living at his listed address, then where was he staying?

Moving cautiously, he eased up to the front door, and looked around again uneasily. He couldn't see anything, and he turned back to the door. The door had been crudely boarded shut, and then a padlock had been placed on it. However, judging from the marks and gouges on the door, someone had forced their way in very recently; the lock was snapped off, and the boards had been loosely put back. Leon started to see if the door would open, then stopped, hesitating. He really didn't have the authority to go any further as he had no proof that Bert was involved in anything shady, just suspicions. Suspicions that were getting stronger the more anomalies he encountered, however. If he entered the man's house, even though it looked like it had already been broken into, technically speaking, he'd be trespassing. After a moment, curiosity and investigative instincts won. Leon carefully pulled a board out of the way, and stepped over the others as he shoved the door open.

The first thing to greet the tall inspector was a dusty-looking suit of steel, medieval plate armour. Leon's eyes widened a bit at that; that suit was a fairly impressive piece of work, and was probably worth several thousand yen. The coating of dust on it confirmed that no one had been living in the house for a while. He quickly swept through the rest of the rooms, not quite sure what he was searching for. As he searched, he noted that some of the rooms looked like they'd been searched; chairs were overturned, bookshelves rooted through, and tables moved. The bedrooms looked like a whirlwind had passed through, with blankets and clothes spread everywhere. The entire upper floor had been ransacked and overturned, with the first floor being apparently ignored.

Leon finally concluded that he wasn't going to find anything useful, and he made his way back out the front door, puzzling over the questions his quick look at the interior of the house had raised. Not only had the house been unoccupied for some time, but evidently someone thought there was something valuable inside.

None of the electronic components, a TV, VCR, and some other weird devices had been moved, the dust alone was an indication of that, but everything else looked as if someone had thoroughly searched through everything. Very, very strange, he reflected. He shut the door behind him, and quickly placed the boards back the way he'd found them. Casting a quick glance at the rapidly darkening sky, Leon pulled off his glasses and decided to take one last quick look around the exterior of the house.

The blades of grass whispered under his feet as he tramped around the house, sending a searching gaze into the surrounding bushes, trees, and lengthening shadows. He moved out a short distance into the forested area behind the house, still looking around. After a few moments, he gave up in disgust; it was rapidly becoming too dark to see, and he really didn't expect to find anything anyway. With a disgusted snort, he spun around and started to walk back to his car.

As his boot swept through the grass, it caught something and kicked it briefly free of the concealing ground foliage. Whatever it was, it was small, and glinted with a metallic sheen as it fell back into the grass. Leon stopped in his tracks, and bent down to find it, whatever it had been.

He pulled a small, clear plastic bag from a pocket, putting it over his hand like an improvised glove. After a moment's searching, he found what he'd kicked, and a couple of other objects like it hidden in the grass nearby: a small, metallic cylinder of some description, open at one end. He had an immediate suspicion of what they were, but it was too dark now to see any other details. Leon stood up again, peeling off the bag and turning it inside out so that it contained his finds, and stuffed the bag back into his pocket.

Moving rapidly, he strode around the house to the front driveway, and climbed into his car, closing the door. As the door swung down, he tabbed the switch for the interior lights; a dim yellow glow sprang up from the recessed lamps. Fishing in his pocket, he brought out the bag with the cylindrical objects, and held them up to the light. He sucked in an apprehensive breath as the appearance of the objects confirmed what he'd suspected.

The cylinders were almost three inches long, with one end open, and crimp marks showing around the open end. The other end of the tube was sealed, with a rimmed end, and a small, depressed circle in the exact center of the end. The brass colour of the cylinder body left no doubt as to what the cylinders were: rifle cartridge casings. Military-type weapons, too, if he was any judge of weapons and ammunition. Offhand, they looked like they might be 7.62 mm ammunition, probably higher.

The hand holding the bagged casings dropped back to the arm of his seat as Leon stared blankly out the car window, shutting off the interior lights at the same time. Just what the hell was going on around here?!

THE NEXT DAY....

Bert jerked bolt upright in bed, the flannel blanket draped across him falling away. Bleary greenish-brown eyes stared around at the momentarily unfamiliar-looking surroundings: a plain but richly-finished dresser, covered with a white cloth, and a couple of easy chairs over by a fairly large window with closed blinds. A vase containing some colourful flowers sat on the dresser, providing a homey touch. Other than a couple of non-descript pictures, the kind just added to break up the monotony of bare walls rather than for actual content, there was nothing else in the room. After a moment or two of dazed confusion, he finally recognized the room as Sylia's guest room.

"Aw, bloody hell," he muttered to himself, as he remembered the final results of his testing earlier. Despite a massive effort not to, he'd folded like an accordion and passed out from the strain and exertion. That, and the fact that lately he'd been driving himself to perform on substantially less sleep than most people required. He flopped back into the pillows after a moment, as his body let him know exactly what it thought of the situation: it wasn't happy with him.

Every single muscle he owned felt stiff and sore, almost like Linna had flogged him through one of her workouts. His mouth tasted utterly foul, and he desperately needed a drink of water on top of that. There was a dull, gritty ache around his eyes, and a steady but subdued throbbing pulsed at his temples. As he lay there contemplating how lousy he felt, he drifted into a light doze again. After an indeterminate period of time, his eyes snapped open, and he sat up again, finally becoming fully alert.

Wincing at the twinges from his stiff muscles, he got off the bed, and went into the small adjoining washroom. A long drink of water, and a quick wash cleared the last clouds from his mind, and he stretched cautiously, trying to decide what was next on his agenda.

He peered into the mirror at himself, noting absently that he needed a shave; the beginnings of a reddish stubble was appearing on his face, making him look a little meaner than he normally felt upon first awakening. He sighed, scrubbing a hand along his jaw as he scowled at his scruffy reflection, whiskers rasping coarsely. His stomach rumbled, and he concluded that breakfast was the first thing on his list.

Turning away from the mirror, he left the bathroom and the bedroom, stepping out into a short hallway that connected the guest rooms with the main living room. He stealthily moved down the hallway, and took a quick look around the living room; no one was in sight, so he started drifting carefully towards the door to the apartment.

"I just made some tea," Sylia's voice called from the kitchen, stopping him in his escape attempt. "There's dinner, too, if you're hungry," her voice added a moment later. Dinner? What happened to breakfast?! his mind asked. His stomach answered for him: it didn't care, just as long as it was food.

He looked out the window at the city, and saw blackness peppered with twinkling neon lights. The clock on the wall, unnoticed until now, read 7:30 PM. He stood confused for a moment, until he realized that he'd apparently been out a lot longer than just the night after his combat testing. Damn. His stomach growled at him again, and he sighed in resignation. Turning around, he went into Sylia's kitchen.

She was sitting at the small dinner table, her meal already partly finished, and a cup of steaming tea sitting by her elbow. A folded up newspaper sat on the edge of the table. Across from her, a second plate with another generous portion of food had been set up, and a large mug of tea called enticingly to him from where it sat on the table, next to the plate.

"Trying to sneak out again, were you?" Sylia asked, a faint smile on her face as she shook her head. "That's not very polite, you know." Bert flushed guiltily as he sat down, his mouth beginning to water at the smells coming from the plate of food. It smelled fantastic, and looked good, too. His internal combustion engine rumbled once more, and Sylia smiled again at him.

"I didn't want to wake anyone up," he tried explaining, flushing again. "I thought it was early in the morning." Sylia shook her head.

"Sorry, but you've been asleep for about twenty-three hours," Sylia informed him, her expression hardening slightly. "We'll discuss just how hard you've been pushing yourself later. For now, eat something before you expire." Bert reddened again, and he didn't reply for a few more moments as he worked his way through the meal. It was a fish and rice dish of some kind, and it tasted as good as it smelled. It also made him acutely aware of how limited his own culinary talents were; he'd been living on canned and microwaveable stuff for too long, he reflected. He could make a few things that were pretty good, but by and large his dishes were pretty basic, not at all like this was; it had that added touch that made it seem extra tasty, and somehow ...comforting...like a home-cooked meal from when he'd been much younger.

The food quickly vanished, and he sat back with a contented sigh, taking a long, appreciative pull at his mug of tea. Sylia watched him thoughtfully the whole time, finishing her meal also, a faint smile on her face.

"Ahhh...Thanks," Bert told her after draining the last of his drink, sighing deeply and relaxing. "That was fantastic; you're a great cook."

"Why, thank you," she replied, blushing modestly. A slightly awkward silence fell for a few moments.

"If it's not a stupid question," Bert asked hesitantly, "Why'd you move me here? There is an infirmary room at Raven's; you didn't have to put yourself out on my account."

"I figured it would be more comfortable for you, and it made it easier to keep an eye on you," she replied smoothly. Too smoothly; Bert peered closer at her, noting what he'd been too tired before to really notice.

"And you felt guilty for running me through the wringer," Bert quietly added, "and you felt you had to apologize or make up for it somehow." Sylia flushed a bright red, and looked horribly embarrassed for a moment. After a second or two, she regained control of herself.

"That's a possibility," she admitted with just a trace of coolness. Bert shook his head smiling ruefully.

"I'm not carrying any grudges," he told her simply. "Yes, it was hell; I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I enjoyed it, but that doesn't change the fact that you had to do it. Hell, if you hadn't suggested it, I'd been thinking of trying it again just to see how I was."

"You're being awfully...calm and forgiving about this," Sylia quietly noted, faint traces of guilt still lurking in the backs of her eyes. Bert tried shrugging nonchalantly, but it came off as looking vaguely irritated.

"I've changed a bit," he replied, a quick memory of a quote flashing through his mind, something about being forged in the flames of adversity.... He shrugged the memory away, and continued speaking.

"Before? Yes, I'd probably have been pissed off and snarling for days about it." He sat staring off into space absently as he talked, and Sylia watched as a parade of memory-linked emotions flashed across his face. "After everything I've been through now, though, I've realized that there are some things it just doesn't pay to get steamed over. Evaluating my performance is one of them; I've been fighting myself for weeks now, and there's no way you could describe my views on the subject as impartial. That means that, unfortunately, it becomes someone else's responsibility to make that particular call."

He looked over at her, greenish-brown eyes showing a combination of sympathy and respect. "I don't envy you your job," he told her quietly. "I don't think I could do it myself, not without being a complete wreck and recluse afterwards." He looked away again. "So since I'm not carrying any ill-will, maybe you could relent a bit and forgive yourself. Besides, it's done now, and I'm still all right." Oh really? a sardonic voice at the back of his mind noted. If you're all right, then how come you still act like almost everyone's a potential enemy? Bert stuffed the unwelcome observation back into the dark corner of his mind that it had emerged from; the last thing he need now was his subconscious producing nagging, gloomy remarks.

As he sat quietly, staring into space and brooding, Sylia refilled their tea cups, giving him a quietly searching look. She didn't say anything, though, and they sat quietly together, sipping at their drinks. After a few minutes, Sylia sighed and set her cup down, her expression becoming slightly stern.

"I think we need to discuss just how far you were pushing yourself before last night," she told him quietly. "I think you overextended yourself for no good reason, and I don't want you to repeat that. Luckily, last night was only a test; you'd have been severely at risk if it had been a real mission, and I can't allow that. Am I making myself clear?"

"Perfectly," Bert sighed, a scowl flickering across his face. "I understand your concern, but I'm not going to apologize for what I did; you may think it wasn't necessary, but I sure as hell did."

"And just what was so important that you were jeopardizing your own health?" Sylia asked, although she had a faint inkling of what his reply was going to be. His next words confirmed her suspicions.

"Nene's safety," he replied quietly. "That, and being able to giver her some peace of mind if she.....when she gets back on the team."

"Care to explain that?" she asked quietly. Bert's gaze turned distant, and slightly pained-looking.

"Nene hasn't been taking her...near miss very well," he started awkwardly. Sylia nodded, understanding perfectly, and he continued. "I know what she's going through, because I went through it myself, back when those USSD Dobermans jumped me." He paused, taking a drink. Setting his mug back down, he continued. "I was able to get over it, partly because of my 'heroic ideals', I guess you could say, and partly because ...because of my friends being there. Well, Nene doesn't have my heroic ideals, and..." He paused, staring into space, trying to collect his thoughts, as Sylia waited patiently.

"Nene has never had the same drive, or fire, if you prefer, about our work as the Knight Sabers as you, Priss, or even Linna has. I always," he flushed suddenly, almost guiltily. "I always thought she...didn't take things seriously enough at times; I know I didn't myself for a while, but..." He stopped speaking, floundering in a complex quagmire of emotions that he was trying to give voice to. He loved Nene, more than anything else, but at times her apparent innocence about the world in general seemed like a liability. He'd never said anything, to anyone about it before, mostly because he wasn't really the one who had any right to comment, being a hopeless idealist at times himself.

"But I'm not sure if she can get over nearly getting killed by Hollister," he said, swallowing against the sudden pain in his throat; Nene just had to get better...she had to! "I've tried everything I can to help," he told Sylia in a low tone, "but...but I wanted..want to do more than just 'be there for her', damnit. I've got to help her somehow...and that's when I came up with those defense upgrades for her hardsuit."

"The force field system?" Sylia asked quietly, sympathy evident in her eyes. Bert nodded tiredly.

"It will work, but only for limited time periods," he told her. "There isn't a suit powerplant available that can power it for more than a few minutes before the entire suit shuts down entirely. "I've devised a sensor program to link into her control systems; if the sensors detect something capable of penetrating the normal armouring of the suit, then the field comes up, briefly, just long enough to divert the attack." He hesitated, then sighed. "Unfortunately, if someone were to fire a heavy projectile, such as a DU round, with enough velocity, the kinetic energy in the object would likely break through the barrier anyway. I tried to design around that, but I can't. For the size and frame of suit we use, that's going to be the limit of any force field defenses: limited power and duration, and we'll still be vulnerable to very high-velocity projectiles." A very faint smile appeared on his face. "That gives us an excellent incentive to not get hit."

"The incentive not to get hit has always been excellent," Sylia noted dryly. "Why do you think this will help Nene?" Bert took another swig from his mug.

"I'm hoping it will provide a measure of comfort..a...a 'security blanket', if you will, that will help her in getting her confidence back," he replied simply. "She doesn't have the advantage of being the scarred and world-weary war-horse that I am now," he noted, with just a trace of resentful bitterness. "I don't think that there's much that would really bother me now, with the exception of losing any of you." He looked up at Sylia, a complex whirlwind of emotion swirling in his eyes. "I don't mean to say that I've become callous," he assured her, "it's just that...with everything I've been through, now, I've got a breadth of perception not available to most people, and I guess that lets me be a lot more equable about a lot of things now; I can take a lot more in stride. Nene doesn't have that advantage, and if she ever does develop it, I hope she never has to go through what I had to."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room as he finally quit speaking. Sylia took a sip from her now cold tea, pondering his explanation. She could see he'd told her the complete truth; some of his observations about Nene had been almost too painful for him to say, but he'd forced it out anyway. She could see one minor point he'd missed, however.

"I can understand your feelings," she told him quietly. "But you're never going to be able to protect her completely. I think if you try too hard, you'll smother her. She has to be allowed to grow on her own."

"I know that," he replied miserably, shoulders slumping. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it."

Bert took a large slurp from his mug of tea as he stepped past the end of his kitchen counter while simultaneously trying to juggle a slice of toast spread with Cheese Whiz, and a well-worn novel. Just as he made it almost all the way to the coffee table, the phone rang, startling him. Stuffing the last bit of toast into his mouth, he took another quick sip of tea to wash it down, and dove for the phone, dropping the novel onto the floor and almost tripping over it. He snatched the receiver from it's cradle.

"Hewwow? Mmfgh!" He tried swallowing the lump of toast that had suddenly become stuck in his throat, and doubled over coughing for a moment. After sounding like a dying automobile with choke problems for a minute or so, he finally cleared his air passages enough to speak.

"Hello?" he wheezed into the mouthpiece, still clearing his throat. The last few crumbs grudgingly surrendered, and went down his gullet finally.

"You didn't go and get sick, did you?" Nene's voice asked suspiciously. "I heard about your collapse the other night; I'm not happy with you, mister." Bert grinned wryly to himself; in some ways at least, Nene was still the same. Now if only the rest of her personality would recover...

"No, nothing like that," he hastened to assure her. "You just caught me in the middle of eating something, and I discovered I couldn't eat as fast as I thought I could."

"Humph," she muttered by way of reply. "Okay then; are you still meeting me for dinner after work?"

"But of course, M'Lady!" he exclaimed. "I keep my promises; you should know that by now."

"Okay then; I'll see you at 8:00 PM then," she replied, sounding a shade more cheerful. "What are you going to be doing today?"

"Getting a little exercise," he replied, straight-faced, taking a swig from his cup.

Vibrant, energetic dance music reverberated throughout the spacious room, as a black-haired and blue-eyed young woman in a blue-green spandex aerobics outfit seemed to float across the floorboards. Her dancing was a seemingly never-ending whirl of leaps, twirls and artistic pirouettes that carried her effortlessly across the floor space of the room, with her never seeming to actually alight on any spot on the floor for very long. The dance patterns she was using were simple and clean, but elegant at the same time, immediately entrancing to the eye. The entire performance was spellbinding, her every movement a rejoicing in the freedom of the dance.

With an echoing snap, the cassette player came to the end of the tape, and Linna finished her routine with a grand flourish, seeming to become firmly rooted to the ground again as gravity re-asserted itself. With an exhausted, but contented, sigh, she walked over to the small table in the corner of the room. Picking up a towel from where it hung precariously on the edge of the table, she mopped off her streaming face, looping the towel around her neck afterwards.

Picking up the water bottle from the table, she took a long draught, enjoying the feeling of delicious coolness as it spread through her moisture-starved tissues. She took another drink after the first one had been given time to settle, humming quietly to herself.

She absently gazed out the large bay window as she hummed, one hand sweeping her hair back under her headband automatically in an unconscious gesture. Things were going pretty good at the moment; her job was fantastic, nothing catastrophic had happened lately, and she felt great. What more could anyone ask for?

Originally, when she'd started her new job, she'd been worried that her duties as the chief choreographer wouldn't allow her any time to do any dancing herself. She'd soon had that worry put to rest; a lot of the other dancers reacted more favourably to someone who led by example, which had suited Linna just fine. She was now regularly leading the various dancers through their paces in a class-style fashion. It had immediately prompted a lot of the dancers to work harder to try and keep up to her, and she couldn't get rid of a faint trace of smugness over the fact that she'd been able to run most of the more seasoned company veterans into the ground during the first week of training. A couple of whiners had quit over it, but they hadn't been missed by anyone.

She sighed again, a feeling of contentment filling her. For the first time in a while, she felt happy and fulfilled at her job, which hadn't been something she'd been able to say very often before. Sure, playing with stocks and bonds had been fun, for a while, but there'd always been something missing, some feeling that she wasn't doing everything she was capable of. Now she was, and she felt great.

Smiling to herself, she glanced at the clock. She sighed as she realized she had a couple of hours to kill yet. Shrugging mentally, she turned around to leave the room, and stopped in her tracks, her smile fading slightly. Standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest, was a familiar tall, broad-shouldered figure with red hair. Greenish-brown eyes met hers from across a room that suddenly seemed to be too small to Linna.

"Hello, Linna," Bert greeted her quietly. He was wearing a black track suit and running shoes, and was leaning casually in the doorway, almost completely filling it. Linna's nerves began jangling as she realized she was going to have to squeeze past him, if he didn't move, in order to leave the room. "That was a great dance routine," he complimented her. "You looked fantastic."

"Um, thanks," she said uncertainly, slowly walking over towards him, her unease growing with every step closer that she took. She finally stopped, short of him by about fifteen feet, even though the distance was not much of a comfort, or a defense. "Could you move out of the way, please?" she requested politely. "I've got to go get cleaned up."

"What, don't you have time to talk to friends anymore?" he asked, a slightly wounded expression appearing. "We used to chat all the time, before. Remember?"

"Of course I remember!" She flushed guiltily at his words. Before the torture ordeal that had altered him, they'd always talked for a while after workouts, on whatever came to mind, ranging from personal problems to just silly things to pass the time.

Since his kidnapping, though, she'd hardly seen him. For a while he'd been more or less hiding from everybody; however, once he'd come out of being reclusive, and it had become apparent just how serious his problems were, she'd started avoiding him. She was honest enough to admit to herself that at least part of it was fear; ever since that night at Sylia's when he'd almost turned on her, she'd been uneasy around him, fearful of another outburst, fearing for her own safety.

"Look," she told him, "We can talk some other time. Right now I've got..."

"Nothing," he interrupted in a flat voice, the banter gone from his tone. "Priss, Anri, and Sylvie aren't due in here for Priss' rehab session for another two hours, at least. I checked. That means you're just marking time right now." He straightened up, and began walking towards her, his arms dropping to his sides. "What's the real reason you don't want to talk to me, Linna? I think I deserve an answer." Something screamed warnings in the back of Linna's mind, and she tensed, backing up a step as he advanced on her.

"Bert, stop it," she pleaded. "You're... I....this isn't the time or the place to discuss this..."

"I think it's the perfect time," he replied, his intent gaze seeming to bore into her. "There's no one else here at the moment, so that means we won't have eavesdroppers. I want to know the real reason you don't want to stand and talk to me." He advanced closer, narrowing the gap between the two of them to about six feet. "I want to know the real reason someone I considered a friend has been treating me like I've got the plague suddenly. Well? I'm waiting."

Linna backed up another step as he stepped closer, bringing the distance between them to less than a couple of feet. She could almost feel a driven intensity radiating from him, and it immediately sparked a flashback of what he'd looked like that one night a few weeks back when he'd flipped out. She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her mouth.

"Bert, please don't be like this," she said, not quite meeting his gaze. "I have got some stuff I have to do. Now would you please move out of the way?"

"Make me," he said calmly, folding his arms over his chest again, staring down at her. Linna couldn't believe what she'd heard.

"Pardon?!" she asked, dumbfounded. "What did you just say?!"

"I said make me move," he replied evenly. "The only way you're getting out of this room is by either knocking me out, or talking to me first. I want to know why you've been hiding from me."

"I haven't been hiding..." she started to weakly protest, but he cut her off angrily.

"BULLSHIT!!" he snapped suddenly, furiously, making a slashing, negatory gesture with his right hand. "I...." He never got a chance to finish the sentence.

Linna's mind, with her nerves already stretched tight from his behaviour and menacing demeanor, interpreted the gesture as a prelude to an attack of some kind, an impression strengthened by her fear of his behaviour lately. The response was almost instantaneous; she struck out, hard, not sparing the force she put into her strike, trying to put him down as quickly as possible so she could get away.

Bert's head was snapped back on his neck by a lightning-fast uppercut. He staggered backwards, and a split-second later, he was knocked back again by a spinning kick that connected with pit of his stomach. He flew backwards through the air as if kicked by a wild horse, and bounced, hard, off the wooden floorboards with a dull thud and a strangled grunt. There was a loud crack as his head impacted with the floor, and his body flopped in a limp heap as he slid to a stop.

Linna stood in a ready stance, gasping for air, partly from fright, and partly from the sudden exertion. She watched the slack form warily for a moment; there was no movement at all. She waited a moment more, trembling a little as the adrenaline wore off, and started moving cautiously around him towards the door; he still didn't stir, and a faint edge of concern finally intruded on her thoughts. She stopped, and waited; several minutes passed, and there was still no movement from the prone, red-haired individual.

It suddenly hit Linna that he hadn't been going to attack at all. As she mentally reviewed what had happened just before she'd clobbered him, she realized that he hadn't been attacking; his stance had been angry, yes, but he'd been totally out of the right posture for attacking someone. She also realized that, if he'd been going to hit her, he'd have been primed and ready for a counter-move from her; the ease with which she'd nailed him indicated that he'd been wide open and unprepared.

"Oh no!!" she gasped, the colour draining from her face as she realized she'd been the one who'd gone over the edge this time. For all her worry and concern over his stability, she'd hit first. Concern nudged the fear in her mind, and after a brief moment's hesitation, she ran over to Bert, kneeling next to him. She took a deep breath, and reached out and tentatively grasped his arm.

Nothing happened.

Releasing her breath in a shaky sigh, Linna rolled him over so that she could see his face. He was very definitely out cold; a large, angry-looking bruise was on the left side of his jaw and face, and there was a thin trickle of blood coming from the corner of his mouth. Sudden fear prompted her to check his pulse, and she sighed in relief to find that it appeared to be steady; the blows she'd hit him with could seriously injure almost anyone. The fact that he was in good shape might have helped to spare him somewhat from serious damage, but there was no way to tell for sure until he woke up.

Linna stood, and dashed over to where she'd left her gym bag. Rummaging around in it, she found another, smaller towel, and proceeded to dampen it with some water from her water bottle. As she sprinted back to where he lay, she scooped up her other towel, which had fallen on the floor when she'd knocked him out. She folded the larger towel into a small, pillow-like bundle, and placed it under his head. Taking the dampened towel, she gently sponged off his face, wiping the blood away. At the touch of the cool cloth, he stirred and muttered something. Linna swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth, and gently wiped at his face once more.

Bert's eyes opened, a vaguely stunned and unfocussed look in them. His gaze swung over to her, and she watched as a sudden wave of pain washed through over him; he immediately doubled up around his sore guts, a strangled groan coming from him, as he flopped over onto his side.

"Bert?" she queried tentatively. She hesitantly reached out and touched his shoulder; he twitched a bit, but remained curled up. "Bert? Are you okay?" she asked timidly. Now THERE'S a stupid question! part of her mind noted dryly. Hardly anyone would be 'okay' after having her slug them the way she'd just hit him.

"Why don't you just finish the job and put me out of my misery?" He hissed painfully, sounding like he was speaking through clenched teeth. "If not, just leave me alone and I'll crawl off in a few...hours. Maybe." His voice trailed off into another strangled groan.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, but firmly, "but you could have just asked me to talk to you."

"I tried, damnit!" he half-snarled, turning towards her and almost sitting up, then flopping back to the floor with a groan. "But if you won't answer your goddamn phone, then how the hell am I supposed to ask?! I've been trying for a friggin' week now; don't you check your goddamn phone messages?!" He finally sat up, sweat popping out of his brow at the effort it took to keep from collapsing again. There was a whirling mix of pain, anger and confusion in his eyes as he looked at her. The tight, strained expression on his face indicated just how much he was feeling her strikes at the moment.

"Bert," she sighed, "I've been working almost twelve to fourteen hours a day lately, and today was the first day I've had off for a little over a week; up until today, I've been giving Priss her sessions on my lunch breaks. As for the phone, I haven't even looked at it for days; I didn't feel like doing anything or going anywhere, so I covered it up and ignored it. I didn't have any important appointments coming, so I figured it was safe to ignore."

"Well that's just perfect," he replied, wincing and gingerly feeling his jaw. "So how the hell are your friends supposed to contact you then?" He winced again, and quit poking his jaw, and went back to holding his stomach. God damn it, it bloody hurt!! His neck wasn't much better; it had already stiffened up from having his head snapped back on it. "You were never in the building at the same time I was, although I guess it was by accident, considering what you just told me, and I didn't want to pass on messages with anyone else. Just what was the reason for going into effective hiding?"

"I wanted to be by myself," she said simply. "You, of all people, should know what that feels like; you certainly go off on your own to sit and think often enough, or at least you used to."

"Okay, true enough," he conceded grudgingly. Another flicker of pain flashed across his face. "So why the hell did you try to kill me?"

"Why the hell did you come barging in here like a thunderstorm?" Linna countered evenly. "Your method of approach was, shall we say, less than diplomatic?"

"I had tried being reasonable," he growled back, cautiously feeling the back of his head; his probing fingers found a very large, egg-shaped lump that was extremely tender, and he quickly jerked his hand away, wincing. "However, to me, it didn't look like you wanted to be reasonable, so I opted for a different approach, and decided to try cornering you."

"Well, don't ever try it again!" she told him, suddenly angry. "I don't enjoy being scared half to death, thank you very much!"

"All right, so I was a little pushy. That's hardly a justification for damn near taking my head off!"

"You scared me, you stupid asshole!" she flared. "I thought you'd gotten angry and gone off the deep end again, and the way you were acting certainly didn't contradict that impression! I was scared, and you pushed me too hard, you jerk!"

"I'd noticed that," he remarked dryly, cautiously feeling his jaw again. For a moment, he sounded like his old self. "Mind telling me just why you were so scared of me? You should know by now that I'd never do anything to hurt my friends." Linna sighed, looking uncomfortable.

"I did know that, once," she replied quietly, getting off her knees to sit cross-legged next to him on the floor. He seemed to be completely in control of himself; his posture was relaxed, and she wasn't getting any hostile or tense feelings from him anymore. "But..." She hesitated, not sure of what to say next without hurting him.

"Go ahead, say it," he said, suddenly sounding old and tired. "It's probably nothing I haven't already thought myself." There was a sudden pain in his eyes that had nothing to do with his recent injuries.

"I know you've always said that you'd never hurt your friends," she said slowly, not looking at him. "But...that night at Sylia's when you turned on me...the look on your face, it wasn't... it wasn't you," she finished in a rush. "I literally couldn't recognize you for a moment, because there was so much anger or hate, I don't know which, in your expression. It was like looking at an entirely different person, and it scared me," she finished simply. "I think I've been scared of you ever since; I just wasn't sure what you were capable of anymore." Bert nodded wordlessly, looking away at the flooring, suddenly looking drawn and old.

She looked at him, a quiet apology in her bright blue eyes. "I'm sorry, but that's the plain truth, and when we found out just what you were capable of in the simulator, it didn't make me any less scared; Level Ten is beyond my ability right now, and I was afraid of getting hurt if I was around you when...if you lost control. I wouldn't have been able to stop you, and I guess that just added to things."

"At least you didn't have to walk around afraid of what you might end up doing to other people," he rasped, clearing his throat angrily, and scrubbing a sleeve across his eyes. Linna reached out and gave his arm a sympathetic squeeze, noting that there didn't appear to be a reflex response to his being touched this time. Maybe he was getting better.

"I know it wasn't easy for you, either," she told him. "And I was honestly going to check with you about continuing our practice sessions when you felt up to it, but I didn't think that you were ready yet. The way you barreled in here this afternoon, stomping around like a renegade boomer, didn't help that perception." A long interval of silence stretched between them for a moment. Linna watched him sit there, quietly going over her words, some of the strain lines in his face seeming to become etched just a little bit deeper. After a while, he sighed and looked over at her.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "It wasn't my intent to scare you; I just thought I might be able to get some answers if I was more direct."

"Your directness was bloody intimidating," she told him a trifle tartly. "Next time, just ask first."

"Oh, rest assured, I won't try anything like that again," he assured her, wincing. He looked over at her, trying to conceal his feelings behind an impassive mask. "So where do we go from here?" he inquired. "If you want me to leave, I will, and ...I'll...understand." There was a bit of a catch in his voice, and Linna could see the faint hope that he hadn't irreparably harmed their friendship lurking in the backs of his eyes.

"You don't have to leave," she told him quietly. "I think we can iron out what to do next."

"Thank you," he replied just as quietly. Linna gave him a quick smile, then became businesslike, standing up and looking down at him.

"The first thing we need to do is to get you moving again," she told him. "You're going to feel it a lot worse if you just sit there feeling sorry for yourself."

"What I'm feeling is a great deal of pain, thank you very much," he grumbled back, recognizing immediately her switch to instructor mode. "Sorrow has nothing to do with it." That wasn't entirely true: he was definitely VERY sorry he'd screwed up on his interpretation of her behaviour, especially since the results of his actions had not been pleasant.

"Well get up, get moving, and get your mind off of it," she told him. "Believe me, it'll make things seem a bit better."

"If you say so," he sighed. Gritting his teeth, he carefully got to his knees, then tried to stand up and straighten the rest of the way. Linna stepped closer to him, and grabbed his arm, helping him. She felt a brief tension flash through him, and then disappear. After a period of strangled noises, and subdued, under-his-breath swearing, Bert made it to a mostly upright position again. Next, Linna made him walk around a bit again to try and loosen up his agonized gut muscles. After a few minutes of very crabbed-looking movement, he seemed to be moving a bit easier, and she picked up the pace a bit. After almost an hour, she had him more or less fully mobile again, although he was sweating from the effort it was taking at times to keep from doubling over in pain.

"Okay," he finally sighed. "That's enough; I've walked around this room enough times to do it blindfolded now. Can we move on to something a little more technical?"

"Technical? Like what?" she asked, frowning slightly.

"Well...," he hesitated for a moment. She waited, and he continued. "Could you try teaching me a bit more martial arts?" he asked quietly, looking at her uncertainly. "I know you said I was hopeless at it before, and just showed me some of the basics, but could we try it again? If nothing else, I don't think some of the discipline would do me any harm."

Linna stood silently for a moment, vaguely uneasy over his request. She wasn't entirely sure teaching him how to be a better combatant was a good idea, especially since he seemed to have developed a certain amount of natural attack aptitude since his kidnapping. She wrestled with her own inner fears for a few moments, and made her choice.

"All right," she sighed finally, looking up at him. "We'll try it out for a bit and see how you do. I want you to keep in mind, though, that this is for self defense only. Got that?" He nodded, and bowed slightly; his stomach at the moment wouldn't allow him to move much further.

"I will keep your words firmly in mind," he assured her soberly. There was a sudden glimmer of amusement in the backs of his eyes as he added, "Sensei."

"No!! I don't wanna go in there!" Priss moaned, flailing around and trying to get away from Sylvie and Anri as they herded her towards to front entrance to the non-descript brown brick building where the exercise facilities and archery ranges were located. "I can't take it anymore!! Just shoot me now, goddamnit!!"

"Priss, for God's sake shut up and quit bitching!" Sylvie finally said, exasperated almost beyond endurance. She grimly held onto her friend's arm, and kept steering her towards the entry door. "You have to go through with this if you ever want your leg to be fully healed and back to normal! Now shut up and get in there!!"

"Look on the bright side, Priss," Anri added, helping Sylvie hustle the brown-haired woman through the doors. "After another couple of weeks, you'll be free."

"I don't want to wait," Priss snapped. "I'm sick of being goddamn tortured by a sadistic aerobics instructor while my 'friend