=Operative A=
                   Caged


    Nursing the stump of his right arm, the Operative staggered away from
Tokyo Tower, having been spared a particularly nasty death by the sudden
attack on Kain by what he realized had to have been an artificial Jurai
Energy Generator. When the energy from that thing had struck Kain, he'd
dropped the Operative and had gone after whatever the source had been.
But the Operative was wounded, so much so that he didn't even think to
put his mask on as he staggered down the street. Fortunately, his long,
luxuriant dark auburn hair hung in a dark auburn curtain around his face,
hiding it from passerbies.
    Soon, however, the severity of his wound caught up with him and he
collapsed on the sidewalk, twitching for a moment before he finally lost
consciousness.
    A concerned man went to help him and soon discovered his secret.
    "A rat!" He gasped as he stumbled back from the Operative in horror.
    Several people milled around the rather unusual form lying there, a
couple suggested shooting it, others thought it should be sent to a lab.
    "Sell it to the freak show." One suggested.
    Since that idea involved them getting money for the effort, they
decided to go along with it.
    "No," a little boy told them, rushing to stand in front of the rodentine
form, like a knight guarding a damsel. "This is an alian being. We have to
heal him and send him home."
    "Stand aside, little boy." a stocky old man said, as he brushed the
child aside and picked up the Operative's twitching form.
    "NO!" The boy shouted as they carried the unconscious Operative off.
"You can't do that to him! You're all a bunch of meanies!!"
    No one paid him any attention.

    The boy went to the freak show with his mother that Saturday. He had
been begging her to take him all weak long. He hadn't told her that the
reason was that he wanted to see the rodentine creature who he had tried
to keep out of there. His mother loved him very dearly, but she never
would have taken him if she'd known why he wanted to go.
    By the time the boy did go to see him, the Operative was very sick.
His wounds had been treated and there were coarse stitches on his muzzle
where Kain had torn it, but the treatment had not been the best and it was
infected. Fleas crawled around on his fur which was matted, some areas on
his body were bald, the fur having been scratched away, his usually
muscular, though not muscle-bound form was gangly from malnutrition and his
eyes were filled with pain and despair.
    The boy began to cry. "I'll help you." He told the Operative. "I
promise."
    The Operative smiled, very very slightly, and for a moment, a glint of
hope shone in his eyes, then it was gone again.

    That night, the little boy snuck out his bedroom window and ran to the
freak show with a bunch of tools he hoped he could use to free the Operative.
    He stood at the cage door, trying to pry it open with several of the
tools, determinedly, before finally giving up and slumping down next to the
cage.
    The Operative whimpered, pitiful and dragged himself over to the
door.
    The boy petted his muzzle, gently. To some, this might have been a sign
that the boy, too, was beginning to see the Operative as nothing more than an
animal, but the Operative was too hurt to turn down a comforting touch and he
knew this was all it was. Knowing he could trust the boy, he spat out the
Galaxy Police communicator he'd hidden under his tongue and spoke weakly.
"Get in touch with the Commander," he said, barely audibly. "Tell him
where I am."
    "Is he a giant rat like you?" the boy asked.
    The Operative coughed. "No..." he said, losing consciousness. "he's
a..." he blacked out before he could finish.
    The little boy ran home through the rain, which had started quite
suddenly, carrying the communicator in his determined fist.

    The little boy's mother placed a bowl of oatmeal on the table.
    "Next time you sneak out," she scolded, "I suggest you close the
window."
    The boy looked down at the floor.
    "You went to see that *thing* again, didn't you?"


 * SLMR 2.1a * "Since when did they become your parents?" ... Ryoko