Continued from previous message

believed he could, there was no way he could rescue the Operative.

    The boy quietly pushed open his bedroom window as his mother slept
in her room down the hall.  He dropped the bag of tools he'd taken from his
father's workshop out the window, wincing as they clanked ouside.  He paused
for a moment, listening for his mother's voice or footsteps, then, hearing
neither, he climbed out, catching his ankle as he went and falling into a
flowering bush.
    "Darn it." He said, quietly.
    He stood up and picked up the bag of tools.  Then, holding the bag
tightly, so he wouldn't make too much noise, he ran as fast as he could to
the freak show.
    The show was locked up for the night, but the gates were made to stop
adult intruders, particularly those from left-wing activist groups, and
since the designer hadn't anticipated the existence of determined youths,
the boy was able to crawl under the fence.  The mud on the ground from that
evening's rainstorm made it even simpler and had the added benefit of giving
the boy an unexpected camouflage, though this was something that totally
failed to register in the child's minds.  He ran through the grounds until
at last he came to the Operative's cage.
    A sign "See the hideous rat-man" stood nearby.
    "Not after tonight," the boy kicked the sign, violently.  Trying to
kick it down, and stubbing his foot instead.
    "Ouch." He complained.

                        -page 3-

                        =Operative A=
                           "Caged!"

    He went over to the cage door and took a crowbar out of his bag.  He'd
seen people in movies open all kinds of doors with them, surely it would
work.
    However, his small body, as determined as he was, didn't have the
strength neccessary to use the crowbar, or any of the other tools, as he
quickly discovered.  Finally, overwhelmed by defeat, the boy slumped down
next to the cage, looking in at the creature who was dying within.
    The Operative whimpered, pitifully, and dragged himself over to the
door.  Each movement seemed to inflict horrible pain on the creature and
by the time he got to the door, he passed out.  After several minutes, the
Operative regained consciousness.  What remained of his mind registered the
boy's continued presence and he was comforted it by it.
    The boy reached into the cage and 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.  He needed it,
too.  The pain and despair of his loneliness served only to exaccerbate the
damage the illness and malnutrition were inflicting upon his rodentine form.
The worst day had been when the students from the same class he'd been in
only a few days earlier had come.  The same students who had befriended him
and had, in a couple cases, cheated off him, had jeered him and boggled at
him, though he had to be fair, in class he'd been disguised as a human, so
they had believed him to be one of them.  All the crowds acted pretty much
the same way, but coming from people who had once called him their friend
made it more painful.

    But this child was different.  He'd made a promise to save him and had
at least *tried* to keep that promise.  He had returned and had tried to
get the door open, but he'd been too small.  Despite the lack of success on
the boy's part, the boy's determination and perserverance gave the Operative
a great deal of confidence in the child, who was now his only friend.
Knowing he could trust the boy, he spat out something he'd been hiding under
his tongue.  The boy didn't recognize the device, of course, having never even
heard of the Galaxy Police, nevermind the tools they used.
    "What is this?" The boy wondered, aloud, as he took the deviced.
    "Its a communicator," the Operative replied, speaking for the first
time in days, his voice had an impending death rattle in it and it was
clear that the creature wasn't going to survive too much longer, especially
not in the kinds of conditions he was in now.
    "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 stood up, turned to leave, and walked right into one
of the freak show's security guards.
    The guard picked him up by the collar and carried him off.  The boy had
sudden visions of being thrown into a cage and he squirmed a bit.  The guard
carried him to the gate and help him up to the sign.
    "What does that say?"

                        -page 4-

                        =Operative A=
                           "Caged!"

    "Ummm...  open one p.m.  to 6 p.m."
    "Right.  Its three a.m.  right now.  In other words, we're closed.  Now,
run along and come back tomorrow."

    The boy ran all the way home, his heart pounding.

    The Operative felt the spray of icy cold water the following morning,
but his body was too worn down from sickness and despair to react to it.
He lie motionless, on the floor of the cage, his hair stuck to his muzzle,
which, thanks to the the water pressure against the wound, he reopened and
was bleeding, again.
    "This the creature you were telling me about?"  A white haired man asked
    Yoshido Hirimi nodded.  "This is the one."  He opened the cage and went
inside.  Crouching by the Operative, he held up his cybernetic arm.
    "I don't have much use for ratfur," the man said, "but the arm would
certainly be useful to me.  Inform me when this...*thing* dies and I'll
come back for it."
    "But, surely you can see the benefits in this body...  sight, smell,
hearing..."
    "Doesn't seem to have done *it* much good."  the stranger noted.  "No,
just the arm."
    As the man walked off, Yoshido Hirimi turned and kicked the Operative in
the ribcage.  He heard some of the Operative's ribs break, but the Operative
was so far gone that he didn't react to it.  "You're a worthless piece of
garbage, rat."  He told him.  "If you weren't raking in so much money, I'd
shoot you and give him your arm now."
    If the Operative were still capable of coherent thought at that moment,
he probably would've thought: "I wish you would."

    "I got a call today at work."  The boy's mother told him as she put
the groceries away.  "You were trespassing at that freak show last night."
    The boy bowed his head.  "I have to save him, mommy.  Those men are
killing him."
    "Honey," his mother told him, "there's nothing we can do about that.  They
own that creature and since he's not human."
    "He may not be human, but he is intelligent."
    "Honey..."
    The boy showed her a picture he'd taken of the Operative when he'd
first seen him, before he'd been stripped of both his uniform and his
dignity.  The image was of a wounded but proud figure, hair glistening in
the late morning sunlight, eyes agleam with purpose, a body that could and
did challenge criminals no one else would touch.  All of this was wrapped up
in a slightly torn but recognizable uniform.
    "If he's not intelligent, then how did he become a cop?"  He asked as he
ran to his room, leaving the picture behind.
    Left alone in the kitchen of her and her son's home, a woman stared at
a picture with rage swelling in her heart.

    Nagaka hated the Operative.  Ever since he'd arrived at the show, Hirimi
had devoted all his attention to him, though it was impossible to tell,
given the rodentine creature's steadily worsening condition.  Until then,
Hirimi had focused on Nagaka, who'd been his pet freak for as long as
Nagaka could remember.

                            -page 5-

Continued to next message

 * SLMR 2.1a * "I will pay you back!!"  ...Lady Achika to Kain