Bubblegum Collision

  A Bubblegum Crisis fanfiction by Douglas A. Reeves

Part Six of Six - Dead End!

     Four o'clock A.M.  Citizens of Megatokyo woke, startled from their
sleep by the sounds of motorcycles tearing through the streets at incredible
speed.  Those who were already awake could see the Knight Sabers ride,
and any who saw it would never forget.
     Memories flashed through their minds as the Genom Tower came
into view.  Twice before they had been here, and they had fought to of the
most pitched battles of their time together.  This would be the last time.
     "There it is," Nene breathed, the hatred quite clear in her voice. 
"Straight ahead."
     "I'll get the door," Priss answered as the monolithic building grew
rapidly larger before them.  "Get ready for a fight."
     "I've been ready for a long time," Christine said coolly.  "Let's do
it."
     Racing ahead of the others, Priss opened the distance, then suddenly
transformed her motoslave to flight mode.  Setting it down on the street,
she raised its hefty cannon and pointed it straight at the Tower's main
entrance.  Three times the muzzle flashed, each shot propelling Priss
backwards about two feet.  The door never had a chance.  The first shot
caved it in, and the two that followed blew it down.  Screaming past the
outer defenses, the four Knight Sabers entered the hornet's nest.
     "Set up a perimeter," Priss ordered, having become the group's
leader by default.  "We've got to watch each other's backs."
     "We're on it," Linna replied, checking the door they had just come
through.  "They haven't followed us in yet... I wonder why?"
     "They don't have any heavy artillery out there," Nene answered. 
"They're sending for it, but by the time it gets there we'll be further
inside."
     "Great," Priss appraised, looking both ways down the corridor. 
"Which way, Nene?"
     "Left," she answered calmly.
     "All right, let's move.  Linna, Chris, guard the rear.  We'll have to
leave the motoslaves behind... they'd never fit in some of these hallways."
     Christine nodded, and they began to cautiously move down the
hallway.  Priss's mind was racing, trying to remember all the things Sylia
had taught her.  "Someday I may not be there to lead you," she had said,
"so I'm going to teach you."  Priss had been reluctant to learn, secretly
wondering if she was up to the task, but there was no time to wonder now. 
She was the leader, and she would lead.
     "Nene, you picking up anything?" she asked.
     "Not yet," was the response.
     "This is too damn quiet.  I don't like it.," Priss grumbled.
     "Maybe we actually surprised them," Linna suggested hopefully.
     "And maybe not.  Best to assume we didn't," Christine countered.
     "Agreed, Christine.  If we did, it'll be a pleasant surprise." Priss
concluded.
     Reaching the end of the hall, they found a hefty steel door with an
electronic lock.  "Nene?" asked Priss.
     Nene hesitated a second, then held up her hand.  The door slid open
to reveal another corridor.  "All too easy."
     Priss shook her head, "Amazing."  She could not help but admire
how much Nene had grown as a member of the team.  There had once been
a time when she would almost have advocated removing her, but she had
since become indispensible.  "So far, so good."
     "Wait," Nene interrupted, and for a long second there was silence. 
"They're on to us.  They're trying to jam me, but there are definitely four
boomers coming down this hallway."
     A second later, she was proved right.  Four of the new 34-CX class
cyberdroids were running down the corridor straight at them.  Priss fired
one of her precious armor-piercing rounds into the first, and it exploded. 
Stepping back, she was about to take aim again when she realized there
was no time.
     "I've got the second one," Christine called, firing the first of her
three energy webs.  The target stepped right into the net, which tossed it
backwards several yards and immobilized it, and two quick shots of the
disc cannon shattered its head.
     Linna was already charging the third.  Sensing that she wanted to
fight at close range, it extended its knife and pulled back to strike.  At the
last second, Linna feinted to the left, then rolled right, bringing both of her
whips across the boomer's body.  Sparks flew as they sliced through its
armor, and it crashed to the floor in a heap.
     One boomer remained, and it was headed straight for Nene.  "Time
to see if this works," she though, issuing a mental command to the suit. 
Suddenly, the cyberdroid came to a screeching halt, both hands clasping its
head.  Falling to its knees, it made an easy target for her arm laser.
     "What the hell was that?" Priss shouted.
     "A new system Sylia added.  It seems to scramble the boomers'
artificial synapses.  Uses a lot of power, though."
     "Still nice," Christine said appreciatively.  "That should make this a
lot easier, anyway."
     "More coming," Nene warned.  "I suggest we go up."
     "Easy enough," Priss said.  "Stand back."  Raising the motoslave's
gun again, she fired a single shot through the ceiling.  It blew up, raining
down on them in chunks of metal and plastic, and they proceeded upwards.
     "Looks like there's less security on this level," nene estimated.  "Go
right."
     "Right it is," Priss said, and they ran down the hall.  At the end was
another heavy door with a keypad lock, which Nene easily passed.  In the
room beyond, several men in lab coats were working on an arm design for
a boomer.  Christine put a disc through the testing station's power suppy,
and with a flurry of sparks it shut down.
     "Everybody out!" Priss yelled.  "We're taking this place apart!"
     The scientists needed no encouragement.  One of them started to run
of with a box, but when Linna pointed her gun arm in his direction he
dropped it and ran.  Linna then vaporized the box.
     "Destroy everything," Priss ordred.
     "With pleasure," Christine responded, physically smashing
computers and equipment with her armored hands.  Nene and Linna, not
having to worry about ammunition, did most of the damage with their arm
lasers.  It took less than two minutes to demolish the entire room.
     "The vault?" Linna asked, pointing to an even heavier door beyond.
     "That's a physical lock," Nene said.
     "Not a problem," Priss answered, putting a shell through the door. 
The locking mechanism shattered, and Christine opened it.
     "Data tapes," she said upon looking inside.
     "Trash them."  It took less than a minute.
     "Where now, Nene?" inquired Priss.
     "The building has three computer cores.  The primary and two
backups.  We should probably take out all three."
     "All right, show us the way."
                  * * * * * * * * *
     "Damn!" the security officer looked at his screen in shock. 
Someone was literally smashing their way through the building's lower
floors, and now they were headed for the primary computer core.  For a
second, he thought about calling upstairs and sounding an alert, but then he
decided to just get the hell out.
                  * * * * * * * * *
     Priss could not believe how easily this was happening.  The vaunted
Genom Tower was ridiculously underdefended,s he thought.  They had
already destroyed two of the building's main computer cores, and they were
on the way to the third now.  Running through another long, winding
corridor, she asked Nene for a status report.
     "Four squads of boomers are mobilized on our level, but we should
be able to evade them pretty easily.  I don't think they realize we can track
them."
     "Great," she responded.  "We need every advantage we can get."
     "Coming up on the core now," Nene said, taking an angry pleasure
in the destruction.  "Here it is."  Once again she worked her magic on the
door, which obediently opened to reveal a large chamber with a cone-shaped computer console in the center.  A single shot from Priss's arm
cannon was all it took, and the computer exploded in a flash of flame.  As
burning debris rained in the room, the fire systems triggered and began to
fill the room with fire-suppressant gas.  "Let's go," Priss prodded, ushering
the others out before the gas began to choke off the oxygen supply.  Cloing
the door behind her as they left, she said, "Primary mission accomplished."
     "All right!" Christine said, her grin apparent in her voice.  "What's
the secondary mission?"
     "Property damage.  Lots of it."  Was Priss's response.
     "Now there's a battle plan I can go for," Christine responded
excitedly.
     "Let's rock," Priss agreed.  It was an appropriate statement... she's
just gotten the inspiration for a new song, and it was running through her
mind as they blasted their way through Genom's headquarters.
                  * * * * * * * * *
     "Main defenses are on alert now," Nene warned.
     "Took them long enough," Priss answered.
     "No kidding," Linna agreed.
     "Two squads of boomers coming up on us... one to the left and one
to the right.  I read four boomers each."
     "Let's go meet the ones on the right.  Better than fighting both at
once," Priss ordered.
     "Time to test out some of Sylia's work," Linna commented,
checking her suit's status.
     They met the boomers coming around a corner.  Surprising them,
Priss managed to take one down with her arm cannon before they had even
turned to fight.  Nene engaged her scrambler on the second, and it fell flat.
     A red light flashed on the inside of Linna's helmet, reading the
word, "THREAT".  Instinctively she leapt, just as one of the boomers
began to fire its heavy machine gun at her.  Twisting in the air, she
extended her new weapon -- electrically charged blades -- from the heels of
her boots.  Using her momentum to drive a devastating kick to the
boomer's head, she was rewarded with a show of fireworks as the
machine's internal systems overloaded.  Retracting the blades, she jumped
clear just as it exploded.
     "I LIKE it!" Christine chimed in as she used the second of her
energy webs to ensnare the final boomer.  A small blade deployed from her
left gauntlets, and with a backhanded swipe she neatly severed its head.  "I
like that, too."
     "Here come the other four," Nene reminded.
     "Let's take them on.  We seem to have the firepower advantage
now," Priss spoke with confidence, growing into her leadership.
     "All right!" Christine answered with a grin.
                  * * * * * * * * *
     As the second set of boomers lay in a pile of twisted and scarred
metal before them, the Kngith Sabers found themselves having to supress
the temptation to relax.  "There's still a lot of ground to cover," Priss said.
     "The floors above are the executive offices," Nene informed.  "Lot's
of things to hit, but the security will be very tight."
     "Let's get on it," Priss said, indicating a set of stairs.
     "Going up the normal way?" Linna asked.
     "Trying to conserve ammo." Priss explained, kicking open the door
to the stairwell.  "Watch yourselves, this is the perfect place for an
ambush."
     "I'm not picking up anything," Nene reassured as they entered.  As
before, Linna and Chris took the rear guard, with Priss leading the way and
Nene in the middle.  Two floors up, Priss said, "Here," and they entered
another corridor.
     "Offices, like you said," Priss confirmed Nene's earlier evaluation.
     "Not much alive up here, but there is a lot of automated security,"
Nene pointed down the hall.  "Watch for lasers hidden in the walls."
     "Can you scramble them?" Priss asked.
     "Some of them... they're everywhere."  As if to emphasize her point,
she raised her arm cannon and vaporized something that looked like a
smoke detector.  "That one was pointed at you, Priss."
     Priss nodded, "Be careful everyone."
     "This is going to be slow work; we might want to consider fanning
out a bit," Linna suggested.
     "I don't know..."
     "Numbers aren't going to be of much use to us against these
things... in fact, they'll be slower to react to individual targets."
     "Good point," Priss acknowledged.  "Stay in contact, though."
     "Will do."
     Watching the others start off ni different directions, Priss began to
slowly proceed down the corridor of her choice.  Staying close to the wall,
she looked for hidden weapons.  Not seeing any, she slipped into a set of
offices.
     "Bingo!" she thought as she looked at some of the nameplates. 
Methodically searching each office for papers, she deliberately dragged out
certain files then put a flechette into each computer.  "I wonder where their
network server is?"
                  * * * * * * * * *
     Linna smiled as she destroyed yet another of the annoying laser
devices.  Slipping around the corner, she saw a heavy steel door and
thought, "This is odd... must be something important."  She took a turn at
the lock , but was unable to get anything out of it, and she was pretty sure
that it would repel laser blasts.  Priming the Knuckle bomber, she punched
the door, and it gave way with a satisifying crash.
     Cautiously making her way inside, she flipped on the lights.  The
THREAT light flashed on again, and she rolled backwards just as four
hidden lasers fired at the spot she had just vacated.  Quickly destroying
each of the weapons before it could fire again, she looked around.
     "Ah... a power generator," she thought, smiling.  "And here's the
cutoff.
     "Checing the switch for traps first, she satisfied herself that it was
safe and then flipped it.
                  * * * * * * * * *
     "What the hell..." Christine said as all the lights suddenly went out.
     "I hit the power cutoff," Linna replied.
     "Lasers are now off," Nene informed after a second.
     "Good work, Linna," Priss communicated.
     "All right," Christine thought, setting her low-light gear in the
helmet and moving on down the hall.  Almost immediately she had decided
to follow Nene... the young one had seemed rather purposeful in her choice
of route once they had parted company.  Almost as if she knew
something...
                  * * * * * * * * *
     Nene smiled to herself as she passed yet another keypad lock. 
"Good thing these locks have their own power source, or I might never
open them," she thought.  Her sensors had detected a couple of lifesigns in
this direction, and from checking the computer map she had downloaded
she thought she knew who one of those might be.
     "Now Nene," she asked herself, "What will you do if you're right?"
     Truthfully, she could not answer that question.  She felt compelled
to check this out, though, and she decided that she would wait until she got
there to figure that out.  Between checking for new security systems and
her own thoughts, she was too preoccupied to notice that Christine was
following her.
     Finding another stairway, she proceeded upward to the highest level
of the Tower.  Images raced through her mind as she remembered the
battles which had taken place just above where she now stood; battles
whose outcomes would pale by comparison to what she was about to do.
     She found herself faced with yet another electronic lock, one that
was far, far more complex than any she had ever seen before.  Letting all
her other thoughts drift away, she entered an almost mechanical state,
cryptographic sequences flowing through her mind as the hardsuit fed her
data.  It took almost a full minute, but eventually she reached the solution. 
Her soul thrilled at the challenge, and as the mammoth door opened her
heart began to beat rapidly.  Inside was a cavernous room, the center of
which contained a single, very large desk.
     Startled, the man at the desk whirled around to face her.  Her
thoughts froze for an instant as she recognized him - and she had been
right!  "QUINCY!" she shouted, the hatred swelling in her and hardening
her voice like steel.
     The man in the chair laughed, quickly regaining his composure. 
"Do you really think I would be caught here when you came?" a familiar
voice boomed through the room.  "Surely you've seen enough of my
doubles not to be so easily deceived."
     Quincy's image flickered on a screen behind the desk, looming large
over the room.  Raising her arm cannon, she shattered the screen with a
single shot.
     "My scanners say you're flesh and blood, Quincy.  It is time to
answer for your crimes."
     Quincy recoiled, falling out of his chair.  Backing away from her, he
said, "You wouldn't... I know you wouldn't, Nene Romanova."  As he
spoke her name, his voice took on an alluring tone, and for a moment she
wavered.  "You're AD Police, and you can't kill me!"
     Nene froze, caught for a second in the trap of his voice.  After an
instant, though, the anger and hatred rose up within her again, and her
voice hardened to ice.
     "You'd be surprised," she said, and Quincy shivered when he heard
it.  He began to crawl backwards, looking for any place to hide, and finding
none.
     "Where are all your boomer guards, Quincy?" Nene asked her
scanners telling her that there were none in the room.  Quincy only
retreated further.  "It ends.  Now."  That said, Nene took aim with her arm
laser.
                  * * * * * * * * *
     "Hell!" Christine swore when she heard Nene shout Quincy's name. 
"Lord, grant me the speed to stop her!" Christine was not a religious
person, but her words carried the vehemence of a prayer... and perhaps they
were.  Using her jump unit to propel herself up the stairs, she sprinted
around the corner at the top and burst through the door just in time to see
Nene take aim at the man.  Realizing she didn't have time to reason with
her, she fired her last energy web.
     Totally absorbed in the sight of the broken Quincy grovelling before
her, Nene was caught of guard.  The energy web struck, throwing her
across the r oom and pinning her to the wall.
     "CHRISTINE!" she screamed, the feelings of betrayal and shock
causing her to tremble,"YOU -"
     Christine cut her off.  "I'm sorry, Nene... but I can't let you do
that."
     Removing her helmet, she walked over to Quincy.  "Do you
remember me?" she asked.
     Quincy just sat there on the floor in shock, not moving or making a
sound.
     "I'll take that as a no," Christine said.  "My name is Christine
Starblade.  I used to be called Christine Stevenson, but those days are over. 
Does THAT name ring a bell?"
     Quincy nodded, some hope rising within him that this one might
spare him... her voice at least seemed gentle enough.
     "You hired me once..."
     "Y-yes," Quincy stammered, not remembering her at all, but just
agreeing with her in the hope that she might let him live.  On the other side
of the room, Nene watched in disbelief, certain that they had been betrayed.
     "...and then you tried to kill me," she finished, her voice growing
cold.  Quincy felt his heart shatter, all his hope crushed to the ground. 
Christine dropped her helmet and raised her right arm to point at him. 
"You've hurt a lot of people, you bastard.  It's time for payback."
     The expression on her face like stone, she fired a single dis from her
arm.  It slahed through Quincy's shoulder, blood spurting out onto the floor. 
He gaped, the pain too shocking to even allow him a scream.  "That was
for me," Christine narrated.
     "This," she continued, putting another disc through his left wrist,
shattering the bone and slashing the artery, "is for Nene."  Nene gasped at
the cruelty of the assault, but her anger made it a pleasant sight.
     "This is for Sylia." Another disc, this time through the back,
slashing through his right lung.  Quincy coughed, blood spurting from his
mouth.  He tried to look as though he was dying, but he knew that if they
left now he could still survive... if only he could convince them...
     Christine lowered her cannon, and Quincy thought it might actually
have worked.  She pressed a hidden button on the gauntlet, and the disc
magazine opened.  Slowly, carefully, she removed a single blade from the
clip, then snapped the magazine closed.  Deliberately, she slipped the
weapon between her middle and fourth fingers, positioned so as not to cut
her.  A vicious smile crossed her face, then faded as she steeled herself to
what she was going to do.  The room seemed frozen n time, and what was
only three seconds seemed as an hour to all who were present.  Suddenly,
she swung her arm back and slashed across his throat with the disc, tearing
it open.  "That was for James, you bastard!" she screamed, blood trailing
from her right hand as she pulled it away.
     Quincy choked and gasped, his larynx shattered by the blow.  For
several seconds, he writhed, gasping for breath, and then he lay still. 
Pressing a button on her left gauntlet, Christine released Nene from the
energy web and went over to her, dropping the disc by Quincy's body.
     "Is he - ?" Nene asked, then shuddered as her sensors answered the
question before she could finish it.  "You-?"
     "Killed him?  Christine finsished the sentence.  "Yes.  May his
blood be the last I ever shed."
     "You stopped me... why?"
     "You'll understand, eventually."  Reaching out, Christine hugged
Nene, or at least did as best she could with both of them in hardsuits. 
There they stood for several minutes until Priss and Linna found them.
     "What happened here?" Priss asked, seeing the blood everywhere,
then went over to look at the body.  "The real one?"
     "Christine nodded, "He must have been here to oversee the attacks
on us."
     "I guess he didn't expect us to strike back," Linna frowned.
     "He didn't expect us to live that long... or at least not enough of us,
anyway."
     "So it's over, then," Linna sighed.
     "Perhaps.  The monster has lost its head," Christine said softly, "but
who can say if a new one will take its place?"
     "If it does, we will be ready." Priss resolved.  "One more thing to
do.  Nene, the honor is yours."  With that, the youngest Knight Saber
pointed her arm laser at the floor by Quincy's lifeless body.  The beam
flitted around in an odd pattern, leaving a familiar burn scar in the floor.
     As if on cue, dawn broke across Megatokyo, flooding the room with
light through the panoramic windows.  The Knight Sabers, victorious, were
the heralds of a new day.

***************
END PART SIX
***************

Epilogue -
     It was one of the most beautiful days MegaTokyo had ever seen. 
The smog was almost non-existant, and the sky was clearer than it had been
in years.  Sylia awoke that day, and smiled at the first thing she saw. 
Clustered around her bead were the assembled Knight Sabers - Priss, Linna,
Nene, Mackie, and Christine.  Even Priss was smiling, and they all looked
a little different, but the biggest change was Nene.
     Sitting there in her AD Police uniform, she looked hapy again; still,
she was not the same as she had been before.  She looked a little older,
perhaps just more mature.  The old light shone in her eyes again, but it
seemed tempered by something, as if her innnocence had grown into
something more substantial.
     Christine looked different, too.  A sad smile graced her face, and
while it was apparent that she was not over all her pain (and probably
never would be), she had let go of her anger at last.  Sylia felt a swell of
pride for both of them.
     Seeng her gaze shift from one to the other, Christine smiled at
Nene, who returned the gesture.  This, more than anything, lifted Sylia's
heart into the clouds.
     They spent several hours talking about the things that had been - the
destruction of Sylia's home and business had been a loss, but not an
insurmountable one.  The final battle with Genom, and the death of Quincy,
weighted heavily in their thoughts.  For the first time, they had hope of a
peaceful future.  They all agreed that they must be vigilant, though, lest
another evil rise greater than the first.
     Genom's fall had been phenomenal indeed.  Nene had downloaded
information regarding corruption through every layer of the company and
the government, including ties to the AD Police.  Over one hundred
executives and politicians had gone to jail, and Nene had earned her
promotion to Captain.  The Knight Sabers, while officially illegal, were
regarded as public heroes.  Their secret identities revealed, they had been
concerned about legal action against them, but the public outcry protected
them in the end.
     Probably the strongest statement on their behalf had been the end of
the boomer crimes.  The leviathan was dead, and it no longer lashed out at
those around it.  For the first time in over a decade, the citizens of
Megatokyo were free.
     Christine Stevenson had resurfaced several days later, her role as a
Knight Saber already revealed.  She asked that the things she had given
way remain with their recipients, as she no longer desired them.  The
remnants of Genom were forced to make restitution for her home, and that
was all she desired.
     Finally, Priss had seen some changes, too.  Her new song, "Dead
Ends" had become an instant hit, and she had been offered several record
contracts.  In the end, though, she and Linna had decided to form their own
label, and it looked to be a wildly successful endeavor.  In the three days
after the song's release, she had already made enough money to buy a new
home.
     The final piece of news was not good.  The falling debris had
damaged Sylia's spine, and she would likely never walk again.  Still, she
argued, it was a small loss compared to what they had gained.  Priss would
be the field leader of the Knight Sabers, should they ever need to go into
action again, and she had proven quite capable.  As with Christine, her
home and business had been paid for by the auction of the remnants of
Genom, so she would be busy re-establishing the shop.
     The Knight Sabers live on, but their role has changed.  Once the last
spark of hope in Megatokyo, now they are the guardians of its flame.

END.

06 Sept. 1996, 22:03