-- Listar MIME Decryption --------------

Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the 
chapter.




           DRUNKARD'S WALK II:  ROBOT'S RULES OF ORDER

                      by Robert M. Schroeck

     

3:  Robot Season!  Doc Season!  Robot Season!  Doc Season!


Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou 
ever act according to them.  First know that thy principles are 
just, and then be thou inflexible in the path of them. 
-- Akhenaton (c. 1375 BCE)

Prudence consists in knowing how to recognize the nature of the 
difficulties and how to choose the least bad as good.  
-- Machiavelli


Sunday, July 20, 2036.  11:15 PM.

As the monitors flickered and displayed "End of Recording", Lisa 
leaned back from the desktop, yawned and stretched.  The 
surprisingly pleasant tension in her muscles was punctuated by 
small pops as various joints cracked.  *I'm really sorry I had to 
cancel out on Doug,* Lisa thought, *but no matter how much I 
wanted to go dancing, I wouldn't have missed this for the world.*  
Thinking of her neighbor returned certain disturbing questions to 
the front of her mind, though.  *Not now,* she told herself 
firmly.  *Later.  Later I'll do a little more... investigating.*

As she laced her fingers together behind her neck, she took a 
deep breath and stared blankly at the system in front of her:  a 
hydra of a multimedia computer, sporting five separate monitors: 
four large ones mounted just at eye level and a smaller one 
partially sunk into the desktop and flanked by speakers.  Lacking 
only a Net connection, it had all the other standard peripherals, 
plus one more decidedly *un*standard one:  a driveslot for a 
broadcast grade digital video cartridge.  

Several such cartridges were stacked on the desktop, each 
labeled in Sylia's obsessively neat hand:  "12 March 2032", "7 
September 2032" and others.  Inserted into the driveslot was a 
cartridge marked "21 December 2033".  

"Each of our hardsuits has a mission recorder connected to its 
sensors," Sylia had said when she'd handed the cartridges to Lisa 
some hours ago.  "After every job we do, Mackie or Nene 
synchronizes the four recorders' tracks and transfers them to a 
standard broadcast cartridge using our proprietary format.  We 
can then replay the mission from all four viewpoints, making it 
easier to study it and analyze our performance."  Sylia had 
smiled at that point, more to herself than at Lisa.  "You'll find 
that many of the earlier cartridges do not contain complete 
records.  The first generations of our hardsuits -- and their 
sensors -- were not as sturdy as our current ones."

As the four simultaneous video tracks had played out on the upper 
four monitors, a complex master control panel had appeared on the 
fifth, touch-sensitive, screen.  Lisa had quickly realized that 
Sylia hadn't told her half of what was on the datacarts.  In 
addition to basic audio and video tracks from each hardsuit, 
there were dozens of other datastreams available.  Most of them 
were from Nene's hardsuit, although a fair number came from 
Sylia's.  The suits' video feeds could be swapped not only into 
the ghostly green of light-amplification, but on through several 
additional spectra.  And all the data -- video, audio and digital 
-- could be fed through a stunning array of analysis wares.  It 
was incredible.

It was also far more than she expected that she'd ever need.  
Still, Lisa took the time to learn the basics of the system's 
idiosyncratic interface, just in case.  Realistically, she 
realized she didn't need anything more than play, rewind and fast 
forward at the moment, but it couldn't hurt to be a bit more 
proficient than that...

Once she had been satisfied that she could handle the interface, 
Lisa had spent hours playing and replaying the recordings from 
Dr. Yoshida's siege of the AD Police headquarters.  She'd long 
known all the publicly-available details of the event, in 
addition to her own experiences, but watching it unfold from four 
other viewpoints gave her a new perspective on the frantic battle 
to save the building and its occupants.  After a while, she 
stopped manipulating the recording and simply watched, raptly 
shifting her attention from monitor to monitor.  

Now, hours later, her eyes felt dry and itchy from the unblinking 
attention she'd paid to the recordings.  She unlaced her fingers 
and propped her elbows on the tabletop, rubbing her eyes with the 
heels of her hands.

"You," came a voice from behind her, "look like you should call 
it a night."

Lisa yawned once more as she swiveled her chair around to see 
Linna grinning as she leaned casually against the doorframe.  She 
was dressed in a set of designer sweatclothes, gold trimmed in 
white, that screamed "upscale casual".  Her hair was held back 
with a matching gold headband, and she wore white canvas deck 
shoes.

"How do you guys *do* it?" Lisa mumbled through her yawn.  "I'm 
completely wiped just from *watching* one of your missions!"

Linna snorted.  "Adrenaline helps a lot.  Trust me."  She 
unlimbered herself and after flipping a stray lock of dark hair 
out of her eyes sauntered over to the computer.  "December '33?"
she said as she glanced at the slotted cartridge.  "Starting with 
what you know?"

A sheepish grin crept across Lisa's face as the younger woman 
shrugged.  "Why not?  Besides, it's also the mission that I know 
the most about from *other* sources."

"No big surprise there," Linna chuckled.

Lisa suppressed a nervous giggle.  "Anyway, since I have an 
outside baseline of sorts for that mission, I can get an idea of 
not just what the hardsuit records hold, but more importantly, 
what they're lacking.  That way I know what I have to fill in 
when I do my side."

Linna nodded, her eyes half-shut in thought.  "That's a very 
professional approach."

"I may be a bit of a ditz sometimes and I may occasionally act a 
little like a rabid fangirl, Linna, but that doesn't mean I'm not 
a professional in my own right."  Lisa popped the cartridge from 
the driveslot and returned it to the top of the pile of other 
datacarts.  Then she focused all her attention on carefully 
arranging the stack into a neat and orderly column of black 
plastic.

"Gomen, Lisa, I didn't mean to imply any of that.  It's just, 
well, I've never seen you... well..."  Linna seemed at an 
uncharacteristic loss for words.

Glancing up briefly, Lisa flashed her a grin.  "I know.  You 
first met me when I was stalking you guys, and after that, only 
when we went clubbing together.  You've never seen me acting like 
a responsible journalist before."

"Yes, that's it."  Linna seemed relieved that Lisa had come out 
and said it.  "And you know, that's something I think you'd 
better be aware of.  I think Sylia believes she's taking a big 
chance on you.  Nene vouches for you, of course.  But Sylia's not 
absolutely certain yet.  And while Priss *likes* you, she doesn't 
*trust* you, not completely, not yet."

"What about you, Linna?" Lisa murmured without looking up.

Linna sighed.  "I like to think we're friends, Lisa.  I've known 
you for a couple of years now, thanks to Nene.  But between your 
school and my job, we've never seen each other all that 
frequently, and never outside of a... well, a kind of party 
setting.  You're bound to surprise me, you realize -- if you look 
at it right, I hardly know anything about you at all."  Linna 
stepped over to Lisa's side, and twisted herself so that she was 
looking into the smaller woman's downturned face.  "For all I 
know, you're an axe-wielding serial killer who's been keeping the 
heads of her murdered lovers in her freezer since high school!"  
She grinned in a manner that she hoped was infectious.

"Damn," Lisa whispered tonelessly.  "You found out.  Now I'll 
have to kill you, too."

"Wha...?"  At the sight of the crazed look that suddenly entered 
Lisa's eyes, Linna involuntarily drew back.  With her contorted 
position, though, she lost her balance and stumbled backwards.  
She barely managed to catch herself on the edge of the desk as 
Lisa slowly lifted her grim gaze to follow her.

For a moment, the two women stared at each other, then Lisa's 
lips twitched, and she burst out in laughter.  Reaching over, she 
tapped Linna's nose with her forefinger.  "Gotcha!"

"You... you..." Linna breathed.

Lisa laughed again.  "I guess Nene never told you I did a little 
drama in college, huh?"  Another peal of laughter filled her, and 
to her delight it flushed away the day's weariness.  She sighed 
happily.  "Thanks, Linna.  I really needed that."

Linna had straightened up, and now wore an expression that 
hovered between outrage and anguished giddiness.  "You know I'm 
going to get you for that, don't you?"

"Probably," Lisa smirked.  She stretched her arms out above her 
head and spun her chair about.  "Wow.  *Now* I'm awake again.  
Aaah!" she cried as Linna yanked her from the seat.

"C'mon, Axe-murderer-chan," the dancer said, "Let's get some tea 
and *keep* you awake for your trip home."  As she dragged Lisa 
out of room, she continued.  "I came by earlier this evening 
because Nene asked me if I could give you a tour of the 
facilities, but you were already hard at work.  If I know Sylia, 
she handed you the mission records and sat you down there first 
thing."

Lisa nodded as she tried to keep up with Linna.  The dancer's 
grip on her wrist was strong and unyielding -- the only choice 
Lisa had was to scamper behind her.  "That's it, exactly.  Then 
again, that's gonna be my 'duty station' most of the time.  Gotta 
learn how to use it, after all."

Linna nodded.  "Makes sense.  *But* that doesn't mean you have to 
be glued to it.  It's too late now to show you the rest of the 
place today, unfortunately, but I came by anyway just to make 
sure you stopped at a reasonable hour."  She dragged Lisa around 
the corner and into a small galley kitchen which, as it turned 
out, possessed a "breakfast bar"-style counter opening on the 
hardsuit maintenance bay.  Linna's mien shifted from energetic 
into an almost motherly mode as she sat Lisa on a stool.  She 
quickly and efficiently brewed two cups of tea and set one in 
Lisa's hands. 

Sipping her tea and savoring the heat radiating into her palms, 
Lisa nodded toward a large, shadowy shape in the half-lit bay.  
"That's Mackie's battlesuit over there, isn't it?  It's hard to 
make out in the darkness, but I kinda recognize the shape."

Linna nodded as she blew across the top of her cup.  "Yeah.  It's 
out of commission for the moment, because he was working on it 
when he was last home and didn't finish up before his break was 
over."  She took a tentative sip.  "By the way, it was nice of 
you to go out on those dates with him last year."

"Well, I really did it as a favor to Nene."  Lisa set her cup 
down on the counter and propped her head up on her fist.  The 
moist, hot scent of the tea drifted up into her nostrils, and she 
inhaled deeply, feeling the pleasant warmth entering her throat 
and lungs.  "He's nice enough, I guess, just a little... um... I 
dunno, twitchy.  And every once in a while his eyes just kinda 
glazed over, like he was undressing me in his head."

Linna snickered.  "Count yourself lucky it was just there."

"Huh?"

"It's a long story," Linna replied with a dismissive gesture.  
"I'll tell you later.  Or you can ask Nene, okay?"

"Sure, I guess..."  Lisa picked up her tea and took another sip.
"Anyway, I think two dates was enough.  Besides, Nene's got this 
thing for him, I think, and even if I did really like him, I 
wouldn't want to poach."

Linna turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised in a doubtful 
look.  "Nene and Mackie?"

"You didn't know?  I guess she tells me things that she doesn't 
tell you."  Lisa shot a smug glance over at the dancer, who 
harrumphed and returned to her tea.  "Look at it from her point 
of view.  He's cute, kinda, he's a techhead like her, he's 21 and 
he's rich.  Any way you cut it, he'd make a good catch, you 
know?"  

Linna's only response was a snort.

At this hour, the Sabers' base was mostly silent, save for the 
faint hum of the few perpetually-running systems.  Lisa closed 
her eyes and savored the stillness, only to find it broken by the 
rattle of a doorknob.  

"Who left the lights on in..." began a gruff voice, and Lisa 
snapped her eyes open to see an old man, small and slight, 
dressed in faded grey mechanic's coveralls.  He was vaguely 
familiar, his shock of white hair raising faint memories in the 
back of her mind.  "Oh, good evening, Linna, I didn't know you 
were down here," he said as he made his way around the worktables 
and scattered equipment.  His gait was spry and confident, to 
Lisa's surprise -- he looked old enough that she'd expected him 
to take slow, cautious steps.  Instead, he moved like a much 
younger man.

Stepping into the galley, he continued, "I was just closing up 
for the night, thinking I was the last one here."  He glanced 
over at Lisa, giving her a warm, welcoming look.  "Ah, you must 
be Vanette-san.  Sylia told me this morning that she'd added you 
to the 'staff', and that you'd be in the records room today."  

"Lisa," Linna said as she put her tea cup down, "this is Doctor 
Raven, our primary hardsuit technician -- along with Sylia -- 
since Mackie's been in Germany."  She gave Raven a warm smile.  
"You're up late tonight, old man."

"Watch your mouth, young lady."  The exchange was playful, almost 
practiced, and Lisa immediately got a sense of the depth of 
friendship that the two shared.  Raven made a perfunctory bow to 
Lisa.  "It's a pleasure to meet you.  It's been a while since we 
had any new blood in the organization."

Lisa returned the bow.  "I hope I can live up to the reputation 
of its members," she replied with a smile.

He chuckled warmly.  "If Sylia recruited you, it was for a very 
good reason.  I'm sure you'll do fine."  Tugging the cuff of his 
overalls, he exposed an antique analog wristwatch, and made an 
elaborate production of consulting it.  "Well, well.  As Linna-
san there was so kind to inform me, it is indeed late.  I do 
believe I will be going home and to my bed.  If you ladies would 
be so kind as to shut down and lock up behind you, I'd appreciate 
it.  Good night."  He ended with a bow that was little more than 
a friendly nod, which both women returned, and exited.

As he walked through the bay and out the far door, Lisa spotted 
the legend on the back of Raven's coveralls.  Eyebrows raised, 
she waited until the old man had left the room, then looked over 
at Linna and asked, "'Nobel Prize for Science'?"

Linna shrugged.  "He won't tell anyone if it's a joke or not.  
I'll tell you this, though -- no one named 'Raven' ever received 
a Nobel Prize in any category according to every encyclopedia 
*I've* checked.  Then again, Nene claims his records have the 
earmarks of a very good alternate ID."

"Really?  She went looking?"

A snort.  "After an afternoon of Raven dodging her questions a 
couple years ago.  She swore she was going to get some answers 
and got that 'hacker's gleam' in her eyes.  But she came back 
empty handed."

"Huh."  *Now that's a thought,* Lisa mused.  *I wonder if I could 
get Nene to dig up a little info on Doug.  I'll have to ask her 
tomorrow.*  She drank the last of her tea, stood, and placed the 
cup in the kitchenette's sink.  "Well, I'm for sleep.  You?"

Linna nodded.  "Yeah.  You want a ride home?" she asked as she 
dropped her cup in the basin as well.

"Sure."  Together they made their way out, shutting off lights 
behind them.  "So," Lisa continued as they disappeared down the 
hall, "how did *you* get involved with the Sabers?"

"That's a..." Linna started.

"...long story!" both voices echoed in unison and laughter as a 
distant door rattled open, and then thudded closed.  And at last, 
the Knight Sabers' facilities behind Raven's Garage lay in the 
silent dark.

                              * * *

Monday, July 21, 2036, 4:26 PM.

I was a little disappointed that Lisa cancelled out on me this 
past weekend, but to tell the truth, it prodded me to take a shot 
at what I was *supposed* to be doing, namely finding a way home.  
So I spent Friday night and all of Saturday alternately working 
on the bike and running queries on the songbase in my helmet.  
Back when I'd found the song that opened the gate out of 
Velgarth, I'd dumped all my previous searches and tags because I 
didn't need them any more.  Or so I thought.  Idiot me.  Kat has 
told me time and time again that my overconfidence and my
impulsiveness are the two traits that have caused and will cause 
me the most trouble.  But do I listen to the licensed therapist 
on the team?  Of course not.  

So I spent half of the sweltering weekend sitting in my un-air-
conditioned workshop and trading off between deciphering the 
special characteristics of a ceramic turbine housing and running 
endless queries for songs that mention "home", "travel", 
"worlds", and what have you.  Every time I got sick of doing one 
task, I swapped off to the other.  Surprisingly, I got a fair 
amount accomplished.

On the motorcycle front, I got a handle on the properties and 
behavior of the ceramic that they used in cycle engines around 
here.  Knowing these let me begin designing the custom engine I 
wanted to make.  On the getting home side, I managed to whittle 
down my extracts to a list of just under 150 "promising" songs, 
after excluding those which already activated my metagift for 
other effects.  That was about as far as I could get without 
screening the lyrics of each one individually.  Even then, my gut 
reaction wasn't going to be anything close to 100% accurate.  I 
was going to have to try each one.  Even the ones whose lyrics, 
frankly, scared me.

So, Sunday morning found me back at a certain alley near the 
steel taffy-pull that used to be the Tokyo Tower.  After making 
sure I had no unwelcome observers -- I could do without another 
dozen gangbangers, crunchies or not -- I tried to locate as best 
I could the spot where I'd arrived.  

Such precision probably wasn't necessary.  Back at the Collegium, 
when I was researching my first attempt to jump out of a 
universe, I'd discovered a cache of theoretical works on magic 
that no one there seemed to know even existed.  While nothing in 
them specifically applied to inter-universal travel, some of 
their axioms, properly extrapolated, seemed to indicate that a so-
called "weak point" would be fairly large, both physically and 
temporally.  It was entirely possible that the one via which I 
arrived was as big as or bigger than MegaTokyo.  Then again, 
Haven's "weak point" was restricted to the grove in the 
Companions' Field.  I decided to play it safe and get as close to 
my original ground zero as possible.

So there I was, straddling a piece of yellow police tape in a 
trash-littered alley.  At least it was nice and sunny this time.  
"System.  File 'Prospects MegaTokyo'.  Display," I told the 
helmet computer, and the list popped up on the HUD.  I took a 
moment to scroll through it, then picked a likely candidate.  
"System.  'Homeward Bound'.  Play," I muttered into the mike, and 
tried to focus on going home.

No dice.  I felt my metagift activate, but fifteen seconds in, I 
shut Simon and Garfunkel off.  There'd been no visible effect, 
but I'd felt my personal reserves of energy sucked out of me -- 
the attempt to punch through to another universe had taken every 
joule my body had had stored.  It had drained me completely, 
leaving me drooping and all but gasping for breath.  My limbs 
hung heavily; it was almost too much effort to stand up straight.  
As I leaned against the graffiti-covered wall and wheezed, I 
could feel a numbness inside... inside my chest, inside my head, 
inside my soul?  If you don't have the gift, you can't understand 
where and how I felt it, but the empty hole where it had been 
told me that once again my metagift had overloaded from the 
effort and temporarily shut itself down.

Scratch the first song of the 150.  Damn.  And I couldn't even 
eliminate it from consideration in the next universe I landed in, 
if it wasn't home.  *Something* had happened, as evidenced by my 
fatigue; if it had been a null song, I'd've still been fresh as a 
daisy.

Anyway, I limped back to my apartment and sacked out until this 
morning, then went off to work with several million other 
sarariman.  Upon reaching my workstation, I sat down, unlocked 
the security cabinets, and pulled out the breadboard design I was 
working on.

Among other things, Ganbare Electronics made radios.  Police 
radios, to be precise.  They had a contract with some division of 
the Tokyo Police Department that goes by the codename of "AD".  I
didn't know what their gig is, but I guessed that it'd be 
antiterrorist, since they seemed to have heavier weaponry than 
the rest of the force, from what little I'd heard, and they 
needed radios with frequency-hopping and serious encryption.

Well, serious for this here-and-now.  The local state-of-the-rat 
isn't bad, but then again, they've never had to deal with 
electropaths and the occasional meta who can digitize himself 
with a thought.  I'd considered offering them the UN's SQUID42 
algorithm, but it'd take forever for them to get it analyzed, let 
alone tested and certified.  Not to mention that they'd ask me 
some questions that I couldn't answer meaningfully without 
sounding like an utter lunatic.  So scratch *that* idea.

Instead, I added SQUID42 as a carefully-disguised little hardware 
hack in the encryption chip I was helping develop.  I might not 
have been able to get it officially approved, but that didn't 
mean I wouldn't help those cops out.  Supporting local law 
enforcement *is* one of my duties, after all.

One nice benefit of the job was that I had access to a midsize 
nanofac.  We used it for prototyping new components -- CAD up a 
new chip design, feed it to the fac, and in about an hour I could 
breadboard it in and test it.  Made development *very* fast -- 
when you could design and implement a chip in a week, everything 
got easier.  (It was also very good at making certain ceramic 
motorcycle engine parts quickly.  Heh.)

I liked it.  I was planning on acquiring one of these little toys 
and bringing it home with me when I left.  This was a technology 
that's *much* better than we have back on homeline, barring the 
existence of some talented tinkerer somewhere.  We get a lot of 
that -- the UN has a warehouse of incredibly advanced tech that 
we've either confiscated or accepted from donors.  Excepting the 
odd alien device or magical artifact, this tech almost always 
comes from the minds of various isolated geniuses who've made 
incredible intuitive leaps thanks to metaboosts to their 
intelligence.  Unfortunately, it's often so advanced that it's 
pretty much unusable and unreproduceable -- *so* beyond anything 
understood by current science that it is practically magic.

Thinking of that reminded me of one reason to be thankful that I 
was burnt out for a little while.  It allowed me to indulge 
myself in creative hardware design without worrying I might 
accidentally enchant the damn thing.  One of the several 
drawbacks of my metagift, it plagued me throughout my short 
civilian career and in all the engineering I did for the 
Warriors.  This even with my world's relatively low mana level.  

Here, with that godawful huge node under my feet, I had to be 
doubly careful, or else Ganbare's production department might 
find their radios weren't working up to the prototypes' test 
specs.  I'd already had to scrap a couple breadboards and start 
over.  That I could kitbash carefree for a whole day was a real 
boost.  It almost made up for my failure to open a gate.

                              * * *

Tuesday, July 22, 2036.  10:54 AM.

Dr. Daniel Ohara made sure the door to his office was closed and 
locked, then sat down heavily behind his desk.  Sliding the 
fingers of his right hand under his glasses, he rubbed his eyes 
and the bridge of his nose.  Under his fingertips, he felt the 
muscles of his right eyelid twitch.  *Damn that bitch,* he 
thought wearily.  *Ms. High-and-Mighty Kate Madigan of Nigh-Unto-
God-GENOM who wouldn't know real science if it bit her on her 
cosmetically-enhanced butt.  What gives her the right to jerk 
*my* company around like this?*

But he knew the answer to that, and he hated it.  GENOM had 
invested heavily in IDEC, had paid for his time, his staff and 
his equipment, and if they wanted to yank its highly-paid and 
highly-skilled people off their research projects and send them 
running around MegaTokyo like a team of semicompetent field 
techs, well, they got it.  Ohara had known a decade ago that 
going to GENOM for venture capital was making a proverbial deal 
with the devil.  When GENOM took over IDEC after seven years of 
zero results, it had only been further hammered home -- *his* 
company, *his* baby, taken away from him and handed to that 
purple-haired pencil-pusher.  Oh, he was still CEO and Chief of 
Research and Development on paper, but IDEC now operated out of 
the Tower, and Madigan and her flunkies had made all the business 
*and* scientific decisions for three years now.

His stomach bubbled angrily and he felt the familiar, annoying 
pressure well up at the base of his throat.  *Damn acid-blocker
never works when I see her.*  He growled wordlessly as he rifled 
through a desk drawer for the prescription bottle, then gave up 
when it failed to come immediately to hand.  Instead, he stared 
balefully at the neat, elegant portfolio on the desk before him.

"You're very lucky," Madigan had said to him not half an hour 
ago.  "Most research subsidiaries with a ten-year record of 
failure and zero profit would have been folded back into GENOM by 
now.  But Mr. Quincy has a special interest in your work and in 
the InterDimensional Explorations Corporation.  He has great 
faith in your ability to deliver."

"Then why are you keeping us from doing just that?" he'd shouted 
at her.  It had been two hours since the meeting had begun, and 
he'd already used up his admittedly-limited supply of propriety 
and tact.  She hadn't reacted at all, except to offer a small, 
infuriating smile -- that of a parent tolerating the pointless 
tantrum of a child.

"Oh, but you have.  You did something of which no one else in the 
Tower would have been capable.  You detected a... I believe the 
terminology you use is, a 'wave-function interpenetration'?"  
She'd favored him with another smile, this one cold and 
predatory.  "Mr. Quincy was most interested in that report, 
Doctor.  He has been waiting for this since we agreed to back 
IDEC.  I myself have had standing orders waiting on this event 
for as long as I've worked with Mr. Quincy."  Reaching into her 
briefcase, she'd withdrawn a black leather folder and handed it 
to him.  

"What's this?" he had grunted.

"Useful information.  Discovering that... someone... had come 
through that 'interpenetration' was a definite bonus for you, 
Doctor.  We want you to find that someone.  And in that portfolio 
is everything that the AD Police has gathered on our 'visitor'."

"I won't ask how you got this."

"Good."  She snapped her briefcase shut.  "GENOM wants this 
visitor found.  You and your people are best equipped to handle 
the more exotic aspects of this search.  If I understand them 
properly, by your own theories he should be slightly out of tune 
with this world, in such a way that is detectable by your 
equipment, correct?"

"Yes," he'd grudgingly admitted.  "But probably not at any great 
range."

She shrugged.  "How you manage it does not matter to GENOM.  
Simply find him."

"And if I refuse?"

She'd looked him directly in the eyes.  Her gaze was disturbing:  
cold, matter-of-fact, simple.  "If you refuse, GENOM completely 
absorbs IDEC, takes your research, and assigns the task and the 
equipment to our own people.  And we blacklist you and your 
staff in the scientific community.  Not the optimal route, but 
one we *will* take if you force us to.  Do you understand?"

"Yes, damn it," he'd snarled, fiercely enough that Madigan's 
boomer bodyguards had snapped their attention directly to him.

She put on that cold smile one more time.  "Very good.  We will 
encourage the ADPolice to continue their investigation, and keep 
you up to date on their progress in order that you might make use 
of their results.  Once you locate the visitor, we will provide 
you with boomer forces in order to 'acquire' him.  Once that is 
accomplished, you may then return to your researches."  As she 
stood and slid her briefcase under one arm, she added, "GENOM may 
even be grateful enough to return ownership of IDEC to you, 
Doctor."

And that had been that.  She and her boomer bodyguards had 
departed without another word, and Dr. Ohara had been left with 
his orders and without any hope.

As the minutes ticked past, he stared at the folder carefully 
positioned in the precise center of his desktop.  The bold block 
letters of the GENOM trademark were embossed in gold-leaf on the 
lower right corner of the black leather cover.  Then he sighed.  
Reluctantly, unwillingly, Daniel Ohara picked it up, flipped it 
open, and began to read.

                              * * *

Tuesday, July 22, 2036.  11:15 AM.

Leon picked up the manila folder, flipped it open, and began to 
read.  He hummed to himself as he perused the abstract, then 
paged through the detail sheets.  Nearby, a Styrofoam cup of 
coffee slowly steamed, forgotten.

"So?" Daley asked, one eyebrow raised inquisitively.

"Well, this certainly supports my conclusion," he replied without 
looking up.  "Whatever the hell IDEC is, it is *not* a simple 
cell system maintenance firm."

"Right.  They also have *nothing* at all to do with GENOM's 
boomer manufacturing division, or any of the GENOM subsidiaries 
doing boomeroid research.  According to both their PR and the 
independent info I could scrape up, they're an advanced physics 
research laboratory."

Leon nodded.  "Yeah, I checked up on Dr. Ohara and as much of his 
team as I could identify.  He's a world-class physicist, used to 
be an academic, specializing in..." he scrabbled for another 
folder and opened it "...'grand unified theory and quantum 
probability research'.  This guy's got a list of awards and 
patents as long as my arm.  He's also the president and CEO of 
IDEC."  He tapped his fingertip on the printout and looked up at 
his partner.  "What's GENOM doing putting an upper-management 
egghead like him on a job that a security goon could do in his 
sleep?"

Daley lifted his eyes to the ceiling and spread his hands in a 
despairing gesture.  "This just gets crazier by the minute."

"There's something more going on here than we're supposed to 
see," Leon murmured, half to himself.  "And the jewels?"  He 
closed the folder and gave Daley an intent look that the 
detective found all too familiar.  It was the look that Daley had 
privately dubbed "The Pit Bull", the one Leon wore when he had a 
goal and simply would not give up on it.  He'd worn that look 
during more than a few cases in the past, and he always got it 
around that rock'n'roll singer he'd been pursuing for the last 
few years.  It meant dogged determination, and usually it meant 
success.  But to Daley, it inevitably meant only one thing:  more 
overtime than he really wanted to put in.  He suppressed a sigh.  

"I got the report back this morning.  They don't match anything 
in any of the last year's insurance claims."

"So they're not stolen, at least not recently.  Anything else?"

Daley nodded.  "Yeah.  According to Taddeusz, they're Western in 
origin, and probably very old, on the order of a couple 
centuries, minimum.  Practically museum pieces.  He says they're 
faceted with a cut that hasn't been used for hundreds of years, 
and they show signs of antique European tools and methods rather 
than modern ones."

Leon rolled his eyes.  "Of course they do.  So let's add this up 
and see what we come out with.  We have a military martial artist 
boomeroid in biker garb who leaps down off a building and trashes 
a dozen Outriders..."

"And then makes a 110 call right afterwards so they can get 
medical attention," Daley interjected.

"Right," Leon nodded, "and he's carrying antique gems which he 
sells to a Tinsel City jeweler.  Then GENOM sends one of the 
world's foremost research physicists after him in the guise of a 
celphone repairman."  He reached for his coffee.  "What else?"

Daley smirked.  "Then the boomeroid disappears.  Very 
thoroughly."

"Right."  Leon gestured with the cup of coffee, almost slopping 
it on himself.  "So, what does that add up to?"

Daley sighed.  "A most irrational number."

Leon sipped his coffee morosely.  "Not that it really matters any 
more."

"What do you mean?"  Daley pulled up a nearby chair and sat on it 
backwards, his arms folded over the top of the backrest.

"With the boomeroid out of sight for so long, finding him has 
dropped off the priority list," Leon replied.  "The Chief warned 
me this morning that we're going to have to close the case at the 
end of the week if we don't get any more leads."

"Even with the outstanding assault and battery charges?"

Leon slumped further in his seat.  "The assumption will be made 
that the boomeroid is over 70% artificial based on what the 
Outriders said it could do, and is thus legally an out-of-control 
machine..."

"...which can't be held responsible for its actions, or 
prosecuted for crimes."  Daley shook his head in disgust.  "Damn.  
It's not like there's a more pressing case that we have to cover.  
And this was turning out to be one of the most interesting 
investigations I've worked on, you know."

"Don't give up on it yet," a female voice drifted across the 
desk, and both men looked up.  Fuko MacNamara stood there, with 
Nene Romanova at her side.  Nene giggled at the stricken looks on 
the faces of the two men.  

*Nene's got to be, what, 25 or 26 now,* Daley thought.  *How does 
she manage to still act and sound like a schoolgirl after five 
years in ADP?*

"What was that?" Leon managed to stammer.

"Don't give up on your boomeroid case," Fuko repeated with a hint 
of a smile.  "I'd heard that the chief was going to force to you 
close the case, so I thought I'd come over and ask if there were 
anything I could do to help you keep it open.  On my way over I 
ran into Nene here."  She indicated her red-headed companion, who 
was bouncing on her toes with barely-suppressed energy.  "She had 
some interesting news.  Tell'em, Nene."

Nene leaned forward conspiratorially and planted her folded arms 
at the edge of the desk.  The others clustered around her as she 
began to speak quietly but excitedly.  "Well, you didn't hear 
this from me, but I just happened to be cycling through the voice 
circuits as part of a *perfectly routine* maintenance test..."

"We get the picture, Nene," Daley interrupted with a tolerant 
grin.

Nene stifled another giggle.  "Okay, well, I'm doing my 
*testing*, when what do I stumble across but a call to the Chief 
from Councilman Tomino."

Leon grunted.  "Tomino's one of GENOM's lapdogs.  What was he 
doing, pressuring the Chief to take us off the boomeroid case 
right away?"

"No!"  Nene eyes widened.  "The exact opposite!  He was telling 
the Chief that finding the boomeroid was a maximum priority, that 
the AD Police had to *duty* to track it down as fast as possible.  
That the longer it's out there on the streets, the more of a 
danger it is to ordinary citizens."

"Shit," Leon hissed.  He looked over the desk at Daley.  "What 
the *hell* is going on?  GENOM *wants* us to find it?"

Daley shook his head.  "They're probably using us to flush it 
out, and maybe even take it down, before their people move in to 
handle the cleanup.  We're catspaws again, as usual."

"I hate being used," Leon growled.

"Then don't let them use you," Fuko said.  "Surely you can make 
this work to your advantage, can't you?"
 
Leon gnawed on his knuckle as he thought about this, and nodded 
after a moment.  "Yeah.  I think might I see a way or two to turn 
this around."  He looked up.  "One other thing, Nene, what's the 
word on the new radios?  We put in the requisition two months 
ago."

Nene pursed her lips.  "According to what I've heard, Ganbare is 
putting together the field prototypes right now, and they should 
be in the department's hands in a couple of weeks."

He nodded as Daley looked on in puzzlement.  "Nene, I want two of 
those prototypes, as soon as they come in.  Can you work a little 
of your magic and make sure I get them?"

Nene stood and folded her arms.  "I don't know, that'll be real 
tough -- a lot of the top brass want first crack at them.  What's 
in it for me?" she added with a sly look.

A slow, knowing grin spread across Leon's face.  "How does a 
'frequent binger' discount card to your favorite ice cream place 
sound?"

Nene's eyes grew huge as her mouth made a silent "O".  Finally, 
she nodded without saying a word, then turned and walked off.

Fuko laughed.  "I'll take that as my cue to go.  Look, you two, 
let me know if there's anything I can do to help, okay?  I feel 
like I have an interest in the case, too, you know.  Ja."  She 
gave a little wave and left.

After Fuko departed, Leon continued to gaze off into space, 
nodding and rubbing his chin absently.  Daley waved a hand in 
front of his eyes until Leon started and looked up at him.

"You've got some kind of plan, don't you," Daley said.  It wasn't 
a question.

"The beginnings of one."  Leon's eyes flickered over to the 
Chief's office door, which was closed.  "I don't like being used, 
Daley.  So I'm going to try and use them right back.  Fuko's 
right.  If they want so badly for us to investigate this, that 
gives *us* a little leverage for once.  The catch is where to 
apply it, and how."

Daley nodded, and decided to change the subject.  "You know, Leon-
chan, I've always wondered.  Just *where* do you come up with all 
those coupons and premiums that you use to bribe Nene?"

Leon chuckled.  "Didn't I ever tell you?  My cousin Barry is a
franchisee for that chain and owns all its MegaTokyo shops.  He 
not only lets me have fistfuls of coupons, sometimes he'll set up 
special promotions just so I have something to wave under Nene's 
nose.  Like a certain 'frequent binger' card."

"Leon-chan," Daley said, shaking a finger at his partner, "you 
are evil."

Leon's only response was a grin.

                              * * *

Tuesday, July 22, 2036.  1:05 PM.

Katherine Madigan hung up the videophone and nodded to herself.  
The AD Police were not going to abandon the case, not now.  She 
made a mental note to reward GENOM's loyal servants in the city 
council.

She opened a PIM window on her desktop and marked the task as 
"complete".  Now there existed two different avenues of 
investigation into the visitor, even if Ohara's was partially 
dependent on the ADP.  Redundancy in everything -- that was the 
key to minimizing risk on efforts such as these.

She glanced over at the folder that lay open on her blotter.  
Reproductions of the police sketches topped the sheaf of papers, 
and she stared for a moment at the goggled, helmeted visage, then 
reached out and closed the folder.  She let her fingertips linger 
for a moment, savoring the smooth texture of the cool leather as 
she mused on the next steps to take.

*Up to now, Mr. Quincy has been satisfied with my verbal reports 
and abstracts on this project,* she thought, *but it won't be 
long before it will be time to present him with the complete 
written report.  He will inevitably want all of the information 
in front of him for evaluation as it enters its final stages.  
I'm not ready for that yet, though; I'll to have to wait until 
there is some progress on either of the investigations.*

She palmed the sensor on the high-security drawer of her desk.  
It opened, and she deposited the folder in it.  Then she returned 
her attention to her PIM's window, scrolling through the agenda 
for the rest of the day.

*Ah, yes, that's right.  The Marathon starts tonight,* she 
realized with a private smile.  *I'd best make sure my DVR is 
properly programmed.  We all have our little vices, after all.*  
She opened another window on her desktop, this time to access the 
entertainment system in her Tower apartment.

                              * * *

Tuesday, July 22, 2036.  3:51 PM.

There was a rumble of an engine, and Doc Raven looked up from the 
call he was taking on his antique voice-only phone.  Priss had 
pulled into the garage on her cycle.  As she shut down the engine 
and dropped the kickstand, Raven returned to his call.  "You're 
lucky, son.  Those injectors are practically custom-made, very 
hard to get.  But I just happen to have a dozen in stock.  How 
many do you want?"  

Priss pulled off her helmet and slung it over the taillight.  

"The *whole dozen*?"  Raven sputtered a moment in surprise, then 
covered it with a cough.  "Well, young man, I think I can offer 
you a quantity discount.  250,000 yen for the set."  

Priss swung her leg over the bike and strode into the garage.  
"Hey, Pops," she murmured half-heartedly as she passed Raven 
without a glance.

Concerned, Raven watched her as she stalked towards the back 
rooms holding the Sabers' facilities, and didn't offer his 
habitual rejoinder.  An indignant squawk from the telephone 
handset reclaimed his attention.  "What?  Yes, that *is* the 
quantity discount," he growled, irritated.

                              * * *

Some minutes later, Priss and Sylia sat across from each other 
at a small table in the kitchenette off the maintenance bay.  
Sylia was dressed in tight-fitting coveralls made of a thin white 
plastic.  A pair of heavy gloves lay neatly to her side, still 
dripping slightly from their anti-nanite rinse.  

Priss had found Sylia at the nanotank, retrieving mysteriously 
sculpted pieces of dark blue plastic from its sluggish, sludge-
brown depths.  "We need to talk," Priss had told her, trying to 
ignore the sharp, unpleasant tang of the nanobath.

Each woman had a cup of coffee before her:  Sylia's creamed to a 
deep beige, Priss' black with a flock of torn sugar packets 
huddled about its base.  As Sylia delicately overblended her 
coffee with a wooden stirring rod she asked, "What was it that 
you wanted to speak to me about, Priss?"

Priss stared down at her coffee, seemingly lost in the wisps of 
steam rising from its dark, shining surface.  "The Replicants are 
going on the road," she finally said, surprising herself with the 
casual, conversational way in which it came out.

Sylia raised her cup to her lips and took a long sip before 
responding.  "Ah."

"The bookings aren't all in yet, but it looks like we might be on 
the road in ten or twelve weeks."

Sylia pursed her lips and considered this.  "You will be wanting 
a leave of absence from the Sabers for the duration of the tour, 
then?"

Priss nodded.  "Yeah.  Three or four months, depending on what 
gigs we get."  She peered at Sylia.  "You're not upset by this?"

Raising an eyebrow, Sylia replied, "Upset?  Not at all.  I have 
long anticipated this request, Priss.  In fact, I'm surprised it 
took so long in coming.  I was starting to get worried."  Priss 
was astonished to realize that Sylia was almost *smirking* at her 
-- Sylia!

"You... were... getting *worried*?"  Priss didn't react well to 
confusion.

Sylia nodded.  "I take *everything* into account, Priss.  When I 
brought you into the Sabers, it was with the anticipation that 
the Replicants would eventually go on tour, during which time I 
would lose your services, at least temporarily.  I had originally 
estimated that such a tour was likely to take place some time in 
2035 based on, among other factors, the talent of the band as a 
whole and the enthusiasm of your fan base.  Your brush with idol 
singing in 2034 aside, I was concerned when you showed no sign of 
moving beyond MegaTokyo's club scene.  I'm glad to see that I 
wasn't completely wrong in my projections."

"You... you..."

Sylia smiled warmly at Priss, which disconcerted the singer even 
more.  "Any future paying jobs that require all four of us, I 
will do my best to schedule around your availability, Priss.  Our 
operations this year have made more than enough profit to keep us 
going even if that means having no work at all during your tour."

"But..."

"Moreover, boomer incidents have been at an all-time low for the 
last few months.  Of those, almost all have been construction or 
mannequin models easily handled by the AD Police; it's been a 
long time since there was a boomer threat requiring Knight Saber 
intervention."  Sylia's eyes twinkled as she lifted her coffee to 
her lips once more.  "In fact, if conditions continue to hold 
steady, I don't think there'd be a better time for you to go on 
tour."

Priss simply stared at her.  Then she began slowly shaking her 
head.  "You know, I was actually *paranoid* about how you would 
take this.  I've been agonizing about it for more than a week! 
And here you are, telling me you've planned for it all along."  
She gave a low, throaty chuckle as the stress finally drained 
from her.  "Damn, Sylia.  Is there anything you don't have 
figured out ahead of time?"

Sylia stood and turned to rinse her coffee cup out in the 
kitchenette's sink.  "Why, certainly.  I've *never* been able to 
anticipate Linna's taste in men."

Priss' laughter was cut short when she spilled her remaining 
coffee in her lap.

                              * * *

Tuesday, July 22, 2036.  4:37 PM.

*Well, at least I finally have a desk.*  Lisa tweaked the various 
knobs and levers on the decades-old chair until it was marginally 
comfortable to sit in, then surveyed her new domain.  She'd been 
working for the 16 Tokyo Day Times almost a month, and they had 
only now managed to find a place for her in the office.  

*Not that I really needed it, what with being "on assignment" 
almost all the time.  Who'd've thought a human interest beat 
would keep me on the run so much?*  She looked around at the 
erstwhile "city room" in which she had finally scraped out her 
little corner of real estate.  Although the '16 Times' was housed 
in a post-quake building, all of the furniture seemed to be of 
turn of the century vintage.  The various computers and data 
terminals employed by the dozens of bustling employees looked 
just about as old.  The city room, despite its large size, felt 
cramped; between the employees, the shelving units loaded with 
binders and books, and the huge piles of paper stacked 
haphazardly on the tiny desks, it seemed overfull and 
claustrophobic.  To top it off, the place smelled of mildew, 
rancid coffee and old tobacco.

Lisa glanced left and right at her neighbors, both hard at work 
on their terminals.  One was obsessively writing and re-writing 
an article with a muttering intensity that was beginning to 
frighten her.  The other was manipulating a layout grid and the 
news objects on it so feverishly that she appeared to be playing 
some bizarre form of Tetris.  Neither had greeted her when she'd 
been shown to her desk, and neither spared her a whit of 
attention now.

She sighed softly and carefully placed her digital camera on one 
corner of the desktop.  Then Lisa pulled her palmtop from her 
pocket and opened it up in front of her.  It beeped as the screen 
flashed to life.  She had a few free minutes before the end of 
the day, and she decided that it was time to focus her thoughts 
on the mysterious, disturbing, immensely intriguing -- *and 
rather cute, admit it, girl* -- Mr. Douglas Sangnoir.

Opening a pad page, she began to type, a few fitful words at a 
time, as one by one questions and observations about Doug came to 
mind:

        1.  Medieval clothes in his wardrobe.
        2.  Biker outfit.  What does "LT" mean?
        3.  Helmet with stereo?  Why?

*I suppose it could be that he just likes to listen to music 
while riding motorcycles, but that doesn't explain the speakers.  
Or the of-a-piece goggles.  Or the microphone.  Maybe it's a 
built-in celphone?*

        4.  White leotard.  What is that stuff?

She'd probably never get another opportunity, but she desperately 
wanted a chance to examine that bodysuit.  No source she'd 
consulted -- not even Sylia, for god's sake -- could identify a 
fabric with those properties.  Lisa closed her eyes and indulged 
herself with a few moments' speculation about how to test the 
limits of the mystery cloth.

"Ah, working on a story, Vanette-san?  Very good, very good!"

Startled, Lisa snapped her eyes open to find her editor standing 
over her.   "Kiyoshi-san!" she stammered.  "Uh, yes sir, I..."  

Kiyoshi Akira was a large, loud man who seemed to be powered 
entirely by caffeine and enthusiasm.  As he pushed his glasses up 
his oversized nose with one hand, he clapped Lisa on the back 
with the other.  "Good, good.  Glad to see you're fitting in with 
your coworkers here, Lisa-chan."  Cringing inside at his untoward 
familiarity with her, Lisa recovered from the blow and gave quick 
sidelong glances at both of her neighbors; neither seemed to 
acknowledge Kiyoshi's extremely obvious presence.  

"We'll have to get you a proper terminal next," the editor 
continued, "that little handheld is good for the field but not at 
all enough for the office.  I'll put in the requisition 
immediately."  He spun and strode off across the floor.  "Keep up 
the good work!" he shouted as vanished into the mass of humanity 
on the other side of the room.

Lisa released a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.  
Then she closed the file on Doug.  *I think I'd better wait until 
I get home tonight to finish this.*

                              * * *

Three hours later, the air conditioner moaned as it bathed the 
room in a faint stream of chilled air.  Lisa swallowed a forkful 
of tabouli, then laid the foil takeout plate down on the small 
table that served her as a nightstand.  After spreading some 
hummus on a piece of pita and popping it into her mouth, she 
picked up and booted her palmtop.

She sat cross-legged on her futon with the tiny computer in front 
of her, perched on her shins between her knees.  Beyond it, her 
television bathed the room with a blue-tinged glow.  "Tonight," 
an anonymous announcer proclaimed over an elaborately over-
animated CGI logo, "the Anime Network begins its five-day Sailor 
Moon marathon, all the way from Sailor V to Sailor Moon ZZ!"  
Next to her set, a stack of vid cartridges stood precariously 
atop her DVR.  

*Investigating mysterious neighbors is all well and good, but a 
girl's got to have her priorities,* Lisa thought, and chuckled to 
herself.  As she turned her attention back to the palmtop, the 
announcer continued to natter on:  "Up first, the classic 
American live action version of the Sailor Moon story from 2000!  
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Ariana Richards, Lacey Chabert and Geena 
Davis as Queen Beryl..."

Lisa tuned out the announcer as she concentrated on continuing 
the task of listing Doug's... peculiarities.  She scanned through 
the short list she'd written a few hours earlier at work, then 
began to type again, slowly and hesitantly.

        5.  Ghost for girlfriend???
        6.  Other worlds?????!!!

Those two were the most disturbing details she'd acquired, and if 
she hadn't been there to witness them herself, she would have 
never believed them.  Was Doug an alien?  Was his girlfriend?  
Why the hell did there have to be a girlfriend, damn it?  And 
were all the stories he'd told her about his friends and his old 
job lies, then?

Lisa realized that finding out the whole truth behind Doug's 
background was beyond her current abilities.  She could check on 
some of what he had told her, but not all of it.  Sighing, she 
looked up at her TV.  On the screen, she saw an 18-year-old 
Kirsten Dunst in a truly awful odango-and-ponytail wig sitting 
helplessly at an antique personal computer as a CGI mooncat 
lectured her.  *But...* she realized, *there *is* someone who can 
-- and I was going to ask her yesterday.*

Carefully laying her palmtop to one side, Lisa scrambled off the 
futon and over to her phone.  She hit the first speed-dial 
button.  Two rings later, it was picked up.

"Moshi-moshi?" said the person on the other end in a bright, 
perky voice.

Lisa smiled winningly at her friend's image on the screen.  "Hi, 
Nene-chan!  I've got a favor I want to ask of you."

                              * * *

Friday, July 25, 2036.  10:41 PM.

So I'd figured, I've been in town a month, and I've just totally 
geeked out.  It's like I'd reverted to my one year of being a 
professional engineer, back in 1985 -- you know, all work and no 
play makes Jack a dork.  Yeah, so I was building a motorcycle.  
Depending on how you look at it, that's just a great big model 
kit, or another kind of engineering.  Sure, I now had something 
that actually looked like a custom ceramic turbine engine 
starting to form on my workbench, but that really wasn't what I 
wanted at that moment.

I needed to do something different.  Something physical. 

Something musical.

Besides, I wanted to harvest the local crop.  I'd picked up a 
miniature digital audiorecorder from a "spy shop" in Tinsel City 
the week before.  It was intended for surveillance and bugging 
conversations and the like, and came with a disguised pickup.  I 
planned on carrying it and filling its 6-hour capacity with as 
much of the local music as I could.  Then, when I got home, I'd 
take those songs from which I got that "could be something here" 
feeling and transfer them to my helmet's storage.  So not only 
would I get to have a good time, I might get a few extra 
metapowers out of it, to boot.  A big win situation, as far as I 
was concerned.  But I needed to find good music and good clubs.

So a couple days earlier, I'd finally cornered Lisa.  I caught 
her just as she was unlocking her apartment door; I was just 
going out as she was going in.  I'd been a little surprised to 
see her at all.  She'd been putting in a *lot* of overtime the 
last few weeks or so, judging from how little I'd seen her.  And 
to tell the truth, she looked a little haggard, but the work must 
have been exciting, because her eyes glittered with an almost 
manic energy and she seemed to be happy.

It didn't take much convincing to get her to commit to a round of 
clubhopping that Friday night, not after reminding her how she'd 
cancelled out on me the week before.  I told her what I was 
looking for -- all current stuff, no oldies -- and I wouldn't 
mind it being danceable.  Which is how we ended up at this place 
called Hot Legs.  

It was the fourth club Lisa had led me to that night in a series 
of dirty little holes with small dance floors and passable J-Pop 
and J-Rock garage bands that did almost nothing for my 
metatalent.  Lisa seemed to be growing in energy as we made our 
way from one dingy club to another, though, and this new one, 
well, when we got to the door she was practically exploding.

"This is a great place!" she effervesced at me.  "Some of my 
friends and I come here all the time.  And a friend is in one of 
the bands that usually headlines here -- they're playing tonight, 
too, see?"

She pointed at the poster by the door:  "Priss and the 
Replicants".  I raised an eyebrow and wondered whether the band 
name was a tribute to a local version of "Blade Runner" or just a 
weird coincidence.  I decided to look into it if I got the 
chance. 

There was a hell of a line out in front of the place, which was a 
good sign.  The bouncer was one of those 2-meter walls of meat 
that don't seem to find any employment other than grunting at 
clubgoers.  I looked him up and down and did a tactical just for
practice.  He was just a crunchy.  I could take him with my eyes 
closed.

I was starting to pick up Lisa's energy.  As we stood in the 
line, I heard the dull thump of the beat through the concrete and 
flesh that still blocked us from going inside.  Just the rhythm, 
nothing more.  It was familiar, and I found myself singing to 
Lisa:

        "<Come dancing
        Come on, sister, have yourself a ball
        Don't be afraid to come dancing
        It's only natural.>"

"Huh?" replied Lisa as I grabbed her hand and spun her around in 
place.  When I let go, she wobbled dizzily, blushing, as she 
tried to get her swinging purse under control.  She probably had 
her camera in there, judging from the size.

I chuckled.  "Never mind.  A song from before your time."  A few 
minutes after that we got inside, and I made sure the recorder 
was running.

>From the front door, I thought that Hot Legs looked like another 
dive -- a little hole-in-the-ground club occupying an industrial 
basement in a dingy neighborhood.  Damn, but I was wrong.  
Inside, it was huge -- the club must have filled a major part of 
the building.  It was at least two stories to the ceiling -- a 
wide mezzanine ran around three-quarters of the circumference of 
the place.  A fair-sized bar and grill, judging from the tables 
of people eating and drinking both Japanese and Western fare.  An 
entire mirrored wall overlooking the dance floor made the already 
large space look even bigger.  But the most impressive part of 
the club was the low stage that spanned one entire end of the 
dance floor -- a stage hosting a live band and one hell of a 
holographic fog-and-light show.

And the band was *good*.  The lead singer in particular caught 
both my eye and my ear.  A tall, leggy blonde in a little red and 
black leather halter-and-miniskirt outfit, she was belting out 
her song with a raw emotion and power that would have made Patti 
Smith proud.  She was wailing something about mad machines that 
I didn't quite catch, but that didn't matter -- I was entranced 
just by the sound of her.  Her voice was something like a cross 
between Pat Benatar and Judith Clairaide from Gossamer Axe.  She 
had the edge.  And she had the gift.  The audience was in the 
palm of her hand.

"That's Priss," Lisa shouted to me over the music.

"It is?" I shouted back.  

"Yeah!  That friend of mine that I told you about outside?  Nene 
and Linna, some of my other friends, they ought to be around 
here somewhere -- I'll find them when the set ends and introduce 
you to them, okay?"

"Yeah, sounds great," I replied absently while keeping my focus 
on the stage.  My metagift was waking up.  I could feel it nosing 
about drowsily, looking for a familiar song to latch onto, then 
sitting stock-still when it "heard" the Replicants' music.  That 
was enough to make me take notice -- as if I hadn't already 
realized that there was something about this Priss and her band 
that I ought to pay attention to.

They ended the "mad machine" song with a flourish and the crowd 
roared.  The lights came down and the band vacated the stage -- 
apparently it was the end of the set -- but the crowd kept 
roaring.  Then the lighters and matches and laser pointers came 
out, and the rhythmic stomping and clapping began.  I looked 
around, and I saw that Lisa had joined in.  This band had a hell 
of a local following, and if that little sample I'd heard was any 
indication, it was well deserved.

A minute or two later, the lights came back up.  The rhythmic 
stomp/clap collapsed into general applause and yelling as the 
band returned to their instruments.  Last of all, the blonde 
returned, and stepped back up to the unexpectedly antique-looking 
microphone and stand.

"Thank you, MegaTokyo!"  Her speaking voice was surprisingly 
sweet but throaty, sexy with a knowing edge.  She knew how to use 
it, but before she'd learned what to say, she'd probably been 
able to hold crowds spellbound just with the sound of it.  "Do 
you want to hear more?"

"Yes!" Lisa and the crowd screamed.

"I can't hear you!" she prompted, and I chuckled.  Does *every* 
band use the same old gag?

"Yes!"  The lasers illuminating the fog behind Priss rippled with 
the force of the crowd's reply.

She gave the audience a sly smile and softly said, "I still can't 
hear you."

The resulting "Yes!" shook the entire building.

"Well, then," she began as the drummer and the lead and bass 
guitarists behind her launched into what must have been a 
familiar opening melody, because the crowd erupted again.  "Well, 
then," she repeated, "we'll just have to oblige with one last 
number.  But be careful when we're done, people, be careful when 
you go home, take care as you leave and bundle up, because... 
Tonight is a hurricane!"

The crowed exploded into screams of approval and delight as she 
stepped back and the band launched into the song.  This was 
clearly an old favorite, maybe even the Replicants' signature 
tune.  And my metagift sat up and paid attention when she started 
to sing.

        "I kept rushing down the storm's highway,
        Searching for the whereabouts of an interrupted dream,
        The bitter illusions and all of the lies
        Flying at my back.
        Big city, lonely heart to heart,
        All of us are love's stray children.
        Big city, tears run day by day
        Rocked only by restless thoughts.

        Tonight is a hurricane!
        In you there's a hurricane!
        Wanting to say 'I'm loving you'.
        Tonight is a hurricane!
        Feel the hurricane!
        A seemingly honest touch,
        Give me touch!"

I found myself unconsciously translating the lyrics into English 
and Valdemaran as I stood there, enraptured.  In the back of my 
mind, in the depths of my soul, my metagift was doing the 
metaphorical equivalent of jumping up and down and screaming "I 
want it!"  There was no doubt.  This was going right into 
permanent storage when I got home.  This one song had made the 
entire evening worth it.

And I would be coming back to this club tomorrow night to listen 
the Replicants' entire act from beginning to almost its end.

As they played, the Replicants whipped the audience into an utter 
frenzy.  Behind them, the fog and holosystem went wild, spinning 
through geometric shapes, the classic "light tunnel", images of 
streets speeding by, and smears and streaks and swirls of flame-
colored light.  Somehow, random as it sounds, it all seemed to 
tie in together, flowing with the song in some subtly 
choreographed manner.  I wanted to congratulate their lighting 
tech -- he certainly knew what he was doing.

Priss and the Replicants ended the song with a thunderous close. 
The crowd roared its approval as the band vanished from the 
stage.  Lisa turned to me.  "Aren't they great?" she enthused as 
the house lights came up.

I nodded wordlessly, trying to make a guess at what would happen 
the next time that I'd hear that song.  The first time that I 
listen to a song, it never does anything.  It's only after my 
subconscious and my metagift have both had a chance to muse on it 
that it has a chance to trigger some effect.  I already knew this 
"Hurricane" song was going to give me a metapower.  The question 
was just exactly what, if not the obvious, it would be.

I realized Lisa was still talking to me as the crowd dispersed 
and the DJ on the other end of the club spun up some dance tunes.  
"I'm sorry, what?"  The DJ or the wiring was lousy -- some slow,
irregular secondary beat was just barely audible over the 
unfamiliar tune he was playing.

Lisa gave me a quick disgusted look.  "I said, is this the first 
time you've heard the Replicants?  No one does retrothrash like 
they do."

I raised an eyebrow.  "Retrothrash?  Is that what they call it?  
Let me tell you something, Lisa.  That was *definitely* retro -- 
very 1980's, trust me.  But thrash?  Not even close.  Believe me, 
I know thrash and that wasn't anything like it."  Then without 
really thinking about it, I murmured to myself, "<Everybody's 
talking 'bout the new sound, funny, but it's still rock and roll 
to me.>"

She just shrugged and eyeballed the crowd, so I gave up.  Okay, I 
know.  Not everyone is as obsessive-compulsive about music as I 
am.  But then again, I have a good reason.

That damn irregular beat was beginning to annoy me.  I turned to 
Lisa to comment on it, but before I could say a word, I found 
myself grabbing her and rolling.  "Down!" I shouted after we were 
already in motion.  Between my initial intent to speak and the 
actual execution, my danger sense had gone off bigtime, and my 
reflexes had taken over.

The wall right next to where we had been standing exploded, and a 
blue bot stepped through the hole.

Shattered concrete showered around us, but by that time I was 
already shielding Lisa with my body, and my field deflected most 
of it, arranging the debris in a typically unlikely set of 
perfect concentric circles with us at the center.  We were 
unharmed.  Others weren't so lucky -- four or five people were 
already down and bleeding from flying masonry, and as I looked up 
in horror the bot growled and mauled another two.

Nearby clubgoers were screaming "Buma! Buma!" and I could hear a 
mass exodus begin.  With a noncombatant to watch over, bugging 
out is *always* the better part of valor, so I scooped Lisa up 
and onto my shoulder and ran for the door.

Lisa, sweet child that she is, thrashed and kicked and insisted 
on being put down as I shouldered my way ahead of the rest of the 
clubgoers.  I ignored her.  From her movements, I gathered that 
she was also craning her neck and peering around as I carried her 
out of the club -- probably looking for her friends to make sure 
they were okay.  

In the distance I could hear sirens and explosions, and I 
wondered aloud just what the hell was going on.  Around us, the 
panicked clubgoers streamed into the night.

>From over my shoulder, Lisa shouted, "It's a rampaging boomer!"

We were half a block from Hot Legs and safely out of danger, in 
my opinion.  I stopped short and swung Lisa off my shoulder.  She 
yelped in surprise.

"Shit," I swore.  "What are the odds we'd be so close to a 
malfunctioning bot that decided to run amok?"

"Pretty good, actually," Lisa answered, a scowl marring her face.  
"Don't you ever read the news?"

"You mean this happens on a regular basis?" I asked 
incredulously.  As she opened her mouth, I held up a hand.  "No, 
forget I asked.  I'm new to town, remember?  Look, stay here -- 
you should be safe."

"Where are you going?"

"There were some people injured in the club.  I've gotta make 
sure they got out okay."

"You've got to be kidding!  That boomer is probably still in 
there!"

I shrugged.  "I'll just keep out of its way."

She stared at me, disbelief plastered over her face.  "You're 
crazy!"

As I turned and started running back to Hot Legs, I called over 
my shoulder, "You only just noticed?"  And as I ran I sang to 
myself, "<You may be right, I may be crazy, but it just may be a 
lunatic you're looking for...>"

Lisa was in fact right.  About the bot, not about me.  Well, 
about me, too, but...  Anyway.  When I got back to the club, the 
bot was still there.  It was, as I'd suspected, a construction 
model.  On our way to Hot Legs, we'd passed a new building going 
up a couple blocks away; it had probably come from there.  It was 
far from the only bot that had been working at the site, and I 
wondered whether it had freaked out all by its lonesome, or in a 
pack.  

By the time I got there, the club had been completely emptied 
save for the bot and a couple of mangled corpses.  Only a few 
pools and trails of blood indicated where the injured but alive 
had been.  Everyone who could had already evacuated.  That left 
just me and it.

If it hadn't killed anyone, I might have left it alone, but I 
doubt it.  You don't let an out-of-control machine just wander on 
its merry way.  I was going to have to take it out.

I found, to my surprise, that I was looking forward to this.  It 
had been months since the last combat I'd been in (the twelve
crunchies who attacked me when I arrived here hardly counted).  I 
hadn't realized just how much I'd missed the excitement.  I felt 
energized, and somehow more alive than I had just a few minutes 
ago, at the prospect of actually facing a threat that needed 
stopping.  I'd forgotten just how good that felt to drop back 
into persona -- I hadn't been "Looney Toons" in a long time.  Not 
since Delandra got kidnapped by that Hardornan mage.

And what made it sweeter was that it couldn't have been more of a 
challenge had I been naked.  I was in sneakers, jeans and a T-
shirt.  While I had the songs in the minicorder, I wasn't about 
to use them.  Mainly because I wouldn't be able to hear the damn 
thing's little speaker from my pocket, not over the usual racket 
of combat.  But also because they were all unknowns, even that 
"Hurricane" song.  Last thing I needed right now was a backfire.

So that was the way it was going to be.  No polykev armor.  No 
helmet.  No music.  Just me, my field, my speed, and my skill.

Against a quarter ton of out-of-control bot.

Should be about even.

Then I remembered I also wouldn't be wearing my gloves with the 
polykev knuckle plates.  

Oops.  

I'd just have to make sure I hit only the soft spots on the bot's 
body.

Yeah, right.

                              * * *

As Lisa watched Doug run back towards Hot Legs, indignation 
washed over her.  *How dare he tell me to stay here when he's 
heading back there!*  Then indignation gave way to inspiration.  
She began to dig in her purse as she thought, *Hey, I'm a 
reporter, right?  I'll get in there and take some action shots of 
the boomer!  *That* will get me off the human interest stories 
for sure!*  

Pulling her camera out of her purse, Lisa turned and followed her 
neighbor into danger.

                              * * *

It took a moment for the bot to notice me, during which I did a 
tactical eval.  Man-sized.  Reasonably humanoid in design.  Not 
heavily armored, but covered all over.  Joints protected, but not 
perfectly.  Physical strength estimated at probably low meta 
level.  My initial estimate of its agility/reaction time put it 
in the high end of human normal, but that left me well in the 
advantage anyway.  Intelligence?  Probably minimal.  Sensory 
equipment, I remembered from my reading when I first got here, 
was human-level sight, sound and touch.  Even if it had radar, 
well, my field tended to route microwave pulses around me, making 
my radar profile very small.

By the time it roared at me, I had something approaching a plan.  

Adrenaline flowed, and I combat-hyped.  The room took on a 
reddish tinge as my perceptions and reflexes sped up to their 
full level, catapulting me out of normal time and into combat 
time.  The bot's quick, efficient motions slowed down to below 
human-average; in comparison to where I was now, it was lubed 
with molasses and powered by snails.  This two-bit bot didn't 
have a chance.

I rushed up to the thing and got in its face before it could 
react to me further, and started in on trying to overload its 
little botbrain.  "Okay, buddy, what's the story?" I demanded of 
it in Japanese.  I was betting that by default these things had 
some basic reflexes to obey humans.  I hoped that enough remained 
of those presumed default behaviors that I could confuse it.  

It didn't appreciate my violation of its personal space.  It took 
a wild swipe at me, which I dodged without much difficulty.  Its 
hands were coated with blood and concrete dust and gave off a 
strange coppery-limey smell.

I put my face up to what I assumed was its ear and shouted, 
"Vandalism, trespassing, assault and battery, murder!  You know 
what you'll get for this?"  I slid backwards out of its reach and 
gave it a stern look.  "Thirty days!" I switched to English and 
began to count on my fingers, "<Hath September, April, June and 
Montana!>"  

The bot charged -- it moved surprisingly fast on its feet for 
something so bulky, a lot faster than me.  It threw a hamfisted 
punch which my field caught and redirected even as I tried to 
duck.  My field's not very flashy when it comes to fisticuffs -- 
it's when it has to handle projectiles and energy weapons that it 
gets a bit on the spectacular side -- so all that happened was 
that the punch slid off to my left, as if the bot had tripped or 
overextended itself.

Anyway, I popped back up and started screaming in the bot's face.  
"<All the rest have cold weather, except in the summer, which 
isn't often!>"  I sprang rearwards and rolled over onto my back 
with a twist that spun me once around on one shoulder, breakdance 
style.  As the bot jumped in to grab me, I pushed myself up into 
to a one-armed handstand and channeled my angular momentum 
into a powerful one-two spinkick that landed both feet hard into  
its side, right above what passed for its hip.

The impact knocked the bot sideways across the dance floor and 
into the mirrored wall.  The glass shattered into a spiderweb of 
cracks for ten or fifteen feet on all sides, and some of the 
shards showered down around the bot.  As I flipped back onto my 
feet, it levered itself out of the broken glass and drywall.  It 
didn't look happy.

I was starting to move again when the bot picked up a table and 
threw it at me; I somersaulted over it, hooting and laughing like 
Daffy Duck.  I turned the somersault into a cartwheel that 
brought me almost back within arm's length of the thing.  Then it 
hit me with a thrown chair that made it through my field.  My 
lungs emptied with a whoosh as the wooden back broke against my 
chest, knocking me off my feet and flat on my back.  As I tried 
to catch my breath, it raced at me.  I barely managed to roll out 
of the way when it slammed a punch into the floor where my head 
had been.

I kept rolling back onto my feet while the bot was busy pulling 
its arm out of the floorboards, and tried to hammer at the base 
of its skull with both hands clasped together.  Nice try -- it 
would have knocked out most humanoid biologicals, but the bot was 
made of sterner stuff.  It roared again, and with the crack of 
breaking wood backfisted me in the chest with the hand it had put 
into the floor.  I went flying, the breath driven out of me.

I think I blacked out for a moment because the next thing I knew, 
I was behind the bar, along with a fair amount of the bar itself.  
I shook my head to clear it, then crawled to take a look through 
the hole I'd apparently made in the bar's plywood front.  *That* 
was a mistake.  I felt a sharp pain in my lower left side, and 
the grate of bone on bone, and knew I'd broken at least one rib.  
I took a long, careful breath, and was relieved to feel no 
bubbling nor deep pain in my chest.  My lungs hadn't been 
punctured.  Cool.  I could deal with that.

Through the hole, I could see the bot begin to tear apart tables 
and rip up the dance floor.  Apparently it had written me off.  
Terribly careless of it, but understandable.  That last blow 
would have killed or incapacitated most humanoids, but then 
again, *I'm* made of sterner stuff, too.  *Well, so much for Plan 
A,* I thought, and took a few moments to recover while I watched 
the bot and re-evaluated my tactical.

In terms of reflexes and rate of attack, I was two, maybe three 
times faster than it was and a lot more precise, but not counting 
my adrenaline-driven bursts of speed it could outrun me easily.  
And it was tough enough that I couldn't simply dance around and 
punch it into collapse, not without my gloves.  I'd more likely 
pound my hands into hamburger against its armor first.  It was at 
times like these that I envied Silverbolt her metallic skin, 
Broot his stone fists, or Kat her many tiny can-openers.  Okay, 
so I couldn't just wear it down.  I was going to try something 
else.

Something warm trickled across my forehead, and I wiped at it.  
Looking at my hand, I saw it was blood, and now that I thought of 
it, yes, I was bleeding in several places, in addition to having 
one or more broken ribs.  And that gave me an idea.

Ignoring the pain, I slid quietly back from the hole and took a 
look at what was back here.  I found a mid-sized knife used to 
cut various fruit for the drinks, and stuck it through my belt.  
There was the requisite bartender's baseball bat -- an aluminum 
one -- within arm's reach, and a pushbroom a couple feet away.  
And...  Yes.  Just where I thought they'd be.

I spent a moment focusing my will and my awareness, and banished 
the pain of my broken ribs to a cul-de-sac in a remote suburb of 
my conscious mind.  Then I grabbed the baseball bat and threw it 
out onto the dance floor.

As the bot reacted to the clatter and turned to find the source 
of the noise, I jumped to my feet and grabbed the broom.  A 
little thin, but it'd serve.  I raised the broom and slammed one 
side of its head down on the edge of the bar.  It spun like a 
propeller, obligingly unscrewing itself and clattering to the 
floor.  Then I tossed the stick out onto the floor after the bat.

And finally, from where they had fallen off their shelf under the 
bar, I took the last part of my plan.  With a grin, I stepped 
back out onto the dance floor, juggling my weapons of choice, as 
the bot figured out where I really was.

                              * * *

Camera at the ready, Lisa snuck back into Hot Legs.  In the 
distance, sirens continued to wail, but none seemed to be heading 
towards the club.  *The AD Police must have their hands full,* 
she thought.  *Where are the Knight Sabers?*  She slid along the 
wall, trusting to the shadows cast by the mezzanine to keep her 
out of sight.  Risking a glance towards the dance floor, she saw 
no sign of Doug.  The boomer was easy to spot, though, as it was 
systematically smashing tables and chairs against the floor.  

Frightened but determined, Lisa crept over to the stairs that led 
to the upper level.  When the boomer turned its back to her to 
take another table, she dashed up the stairs. 

As she maneuvered herself into a position that left most of the 
dance floor visible to her, she heard three clattering noises, 
one after another, then footsteps.  Settling into her perch, she 
looked down to see a bloodied Doug stepping onto the dance floor 
from behind the partially demolished bar.  A broad grin on his 
face, he was... juggling three glass bottles of ketchup?

Lisa blinked.  Unbelieving, she raised her camera and looked 
again through its telephoto lens.  He was indeed juggling ketchup 
bottles.  On the floor near him were a broomstick and a baseball 
bat, and he had a knife stuck in his belt.  With these he was 
going to take on an enraged boomer?  The look on Doug's face 
frightened her.  His grin was manic, the smile of a madman about 
to unleash some incomprehensible insanity upon the world.  But 
his eyes were cold and angry.  

Then, as if she didn't already feel as though she were in the 
twilight zone, Doug began to sing, in a strong, clear tenor 
voice:

        "<All the world was gay,
        Swinging on its way,
        Things were looking brighter day by day.>"

The boomer gave an inarticulate cry and rushed at him.  Doug 
stood there, singing and smiling until the cyberdroid was almost 
on him, then stepped aside like a matador nimbly evading a bull.  
The rosette of orbiting bottles never wavered, never faltered.

Twenty feet past him, the boomer skidded to a halt and howled its 
rage.

        "<Nothing ever wrong,
        Life was just a song,
        'Til that Looney Tunes came along!
        Ooooh...>"

He stretched the note out, gargling a laughable vibrato as he 
sustained it.  In the mezzanine, Lisa's eyes popped wide open as 
a small epiphany hit her.  *<Looney Tunes>?  Could that be what 
"LT" stands for?*

Below her, the boomer crouched and launched itself at him, arcing 
through the air with arms spread, in an attempt to overbear him.  
Doug dropped to the ground, allowing the ketchup bottles to fall 
into his arms.  The boomer soared helplessly past and crashed 
inelegantly to the floor.  To Lisa's amazement, Doug never missed 
a note even as he returned to his feet with an acrobat's flip.  
Lisa blinked at his catlike agility, then remembered why she had 
returned and began snapping pictures.

        "<I'm going cuckoo, woo-woo!
        Here comes the choo-choo, woo-woo!
        I'm so gooney, looney-tuney,
        Touched in the head.
        Please pass the ketchup,
        I think I'll go to bed.>"

As the boomer lifted itself from the floor, Doug launched one of 
the ketchup bottles into a long, high arc that reached its 
zenith above the mezzanine.  The other two he tossed, one after 
the other, above his head.  Time seemed to slow down as Lisa 
watched the bottles travel their courses with dramatic 
inevitability.

As the third bottle left his hand, Doug scooped up the broomstick 
and snapped it over his knee.  It broke with a sharp crack, 
fracturing on a neat diagonal into two sharpened points.  He 
transferred both halves into his left hand, and without looking 
reached up for a falling bottle with his right.  In a single 
smooth motion he grabbed it out of the air and slung it in a flat 
trajectory right at the boomer's face, then brought his hand back 
up.  The third bottle dropped into his palm with a slap.  

        "<Am I the screwball, woo-woo!
        Throw me the eight ball, woo-woo!>"

The boomer swept out a hand to bat away the bottle heading 
towards its face, only to have the glass shatter against its 
palm.  At the same time, Doug hurled the last bottle on a path 
that would take it centimeters over the boomer.  Just above and 
in front of the cyberdroid's head, it and the first bottle 
collided with a surprisingly dull cracking sound.

        "<Once I knew a thing or two,
        Now I'm a buckaroo,
        Hinky dinky parley woo-woo!>"

Then Doug, well, *blurred* was the only word Lisa could think of, 
exploding into a whirlwind of motion around the boomer as ketchup 
splattered over its eyes.  While the boomer cycled their 
protective shutters to clear the red goo away, Doug flickered 
around it, stabbing and thrusting with the two pieces of 
broomstick as if they were knives.  The boomer swung blindly 
at him, but none of the blows struck home.

The staccato crack of shattering wood echoed through the club 
once, then twice, as Doug whirled around the boomer.  With an 
oddly graceful spin, he danced away from the cyberdroid, 
revealing to Lisa's telephoto lens shards of splintered wood 
wedged into its right knee and left elbow.  "Gotcha," Doug said 
softly as he momentarily paused.

Doug dropped the remains of the broomstick and picked up the 
baseball bat.  An audible grinding noise could be heard as the 
boomer tried to flex its immobilized limbs.  He circled the 
cyberdroid, which growled and lunged for him.  It nearly 
overbalanced when its knee refused to bend properly, and only 
barely regained its equilibrium.  

Doug had sidestepped the clumsy blow, and for a moment stared at 
the boomer as slivers of wood began to work their way out of its 
semi-paralyzed joints.  There was no mock-madness or unseemly 
hilarity in his face now, Lisa realized; just the silent gaze of 
the executioner who pities his client.  Blood slowly dripping 
from his scalp painted his face with red-brown stripes, adding to 
the stark eeriness of the moment.

Then, its arm almost restored to full motion, the boomer tried to 
leap at him with a one-legged hop.  Doug raised the baseball bat. 

As Lisa watched in horrified fascination, Doug methodically 
battered his way through the construction boomer's minimal armor 
while dodging its increasingly-fluid attacks.  Then he dropped 
the bat and drew the knife from his belt.  Whirling once again 
into blurred motion, he stabbed it into the rents in the 
cyberdroid's carapace.  Driving the blade in deeply, he twisted 
and wiggled it as he almost magically avoided the boomer's 
flailing arms.  

Yellow fluid squirted from the wounds as the boomer tried vainly 
to strike him.  With each stab and cut it seemed to grow weaker, 
and as Doug continued to slice up its insides it let out a long, 
keening howl unlike anything Lisa had ever heard before.  All the 
while she could hear Doug muttering to himself; she wasn't sure, 
but it sounded like, "if I ever find out who's responsible for 
letting something like this run loose..."

Finally, he must have severed some of its motor or balance 
control circuits, for the boomer froze with a mechanical sigh, 
then toppled forward onto its face.  The resulting crash echoed 
loudly in the empty club, and Lisa winced involuntarily.  

When she reopened her eyes, Doug had picked up the baseball bat 
again.  With it he rolled the boomer over onto its back.  It lay 
twitching in a slowly spreading pool of yellow nutrient fluid 
touched in places with the red tinge of ketchup.  Bringing the 
bat up above his head, he looked down at the boomer and darkly 
uttered a short, cryptic sentence:  "Okay, tinman -- sing 
'Daisy'."

Then he brought the baseball bat down on the boomer's head, again 
and again and again.

                              * * *

It had taken the Sabers and the AD Police long minutes to take 
care of the rest of the construction boomers that had run wild 
through the neighborhood.  All that was left was the one which 
had attacked Hot Legs.  As Sylia and the others mopped up 
outside, Priss stalked into the club, a white-hot rage burning in 
her chest at a boomer's violation of *her* special sanctuary.

She took the stairs down into Hot Legs in one jump, using just 
enough jet to soften her landing into inaudibility so as not to 
alert the boomer to her presence.  The club was strangely silent, 
save for the slow, regular thud of metal against yielding metal.  
This was not what she had been expecting.  Her anger banked for 
the moment by both an uncharacteristic surge of caution and her 
growing curiosity, Priss carefully rounded the corner past the 
coatcheck room and paused to look out on the dance floor.  

The sight was so bizarre that she momentarily froze, her breath 
catching in her throat.  A blond man was bludgeoning the blood-
covered remains of a boomer with a bent and dented mass of metal 
that could only be identified as a baseball bat by the rubber-
wrapped handgrip still intact in his fists.  He stood with his 
back to her, but he was reflected a thousand fragmentary times in 
the shattered mirrors on the wall beyond him.

Confused, her habitual anger growing once more, Priss stepped 
onto the dance floor.  She took up a braced, spread-legged stance 
in case of trouble.  But as she raised her arm and began to shout 
at him, the man must have spotted the reflection of her movement 
in the crazy-quilt of mirrors on the wall.  Bat still in hand, he 
flickered in place, coming to face her without seeming to move.  
He stared at her for a moment.  Then he spoke.

"Shit."

Before she could react, he threw the bat away and ran at her.  
She tried to bring her railgun to bear on him, but he was almost 
too fast, impossibly fast -- 20, 30, 40 KPH gibbered the 
targeting computer in the second it took him to cross the few 
yards between them.  

Priss fired a salvo of railgun spikes.  One went wild, missing 
him by feet.  The other two should have hit him.  The first 
seemed to curve around his body, bending and flexing snakelike 
with the path it followed.  The second exploded into a shower of 
luminescent threads that whipped around him only to reassemble 
themselves into an intact spike.  Continuing on their original 
trajectories, both of the glowing blue needles buried themselves 
three-quarters of their length into the floor.

No other choice left, Priss braced for the impact.  But a mere 
two yards before he would have hit her, the man -- if it was in 
truth a man -- dropped to the floor and slid on his back between 
her widely-spaced feet.  For a split second, Priss stared dumbly 
at the spikes embedded in the slick wooden surface before 
spinning to see him race up the stairs and out of the club.

"Hey, you!  Stop!" she shouted as she sprinted to the stairwell 
and fired her jumpjets.

                              * * *

When the adrenaline rush wore off, I was in serious pain.  I was 
pretty sure that I'd worsened my broken ribs, and every muscle 
ached.  The sudden appearance of the woman in powered armor -- 
and there was no doubt it was a woman, not with that surface 
sculpting -- surprised the hell out of me.  The fact that both 
she and the bot had similar color schemes suggested to me that it 
might not have been a random construction bot as I'd thought, but 
maybe the bottom half of a master-servant relationship.  

Well, I really hadn't been in any condition to take on a new, 
fresh opponent who was clearly pissed because I trashed her 
minion.  So I took the only reasonable action -- I ran.  Thank 
god my field had handled the ordnance she'd lobbed at me.  It 
looked like her battlesuit had some kind of big gauss needler 
mounted in the right arm; if one of those bolts had hit me, 
I'd've been neatly skewered -- dead meat.

Anyway, I ran through a lot of twisty alleys and got maybe six 
blocks away before the rush left me and I was forced to walk.  
Damn.  I hadn't had a fight that rough since...  well, in a long 
time.  Years.

A block west of where I ended up, near that construction site, 
the authorities had set up triage and first aid.  Without my 
helmet, I couldn't do anything about my condition, so I limped 
over to the ambulances.  I let the paramedics bandage my ribs and 
my various cuts and scrapes, but I refused to go to the hospital.  
While they treated me, I pulled out the microcorder and confirmed 
that it was still in working order -- a minor miracle, that.  

After they finished with me, I went looking for Lisa.

                              * * *

By the time Priss reached street level, the blond man was nowhere 
to be seen.  Frustrated, she prowled back and forth in front of 
the club and growled -- there were just too many ways he could 
have gone in the maze of alleys that made up this industrial 
neighborhood.  She looked at the frozen display on her hardsuit's 
targeting grid and swore.  At one point as he'd run towards her, 
he'd hit nearly 50 kph.  "Fucking boomeroid!" she muttered to 
herself.  "Whose toy are you?"

Turning around, she made her way back into Hot Legs and made sure 
the boomer on the dance floor was dead by firing several railgun 
spikes through its flattened and cracked skull.

While Priss was preoccupied, Lisa snuck down from the mezzanine 
and up the stairs to the club's main doors.  Priss was very 
obviously frustrated right now, and Lisa knew better than to 
bother Priss when she was frustrated.  Especially not a Priss in 
her hardsuit.  Besides, the last thing Lisa wanted was to be 
asked questions about her presence or about Doug.  

Doug.  If she'd had her palmtop with her, she'd've added several 
new questions to her list.  Doug had moved like nothing human 
should have -- agile and acrobatic enough to perhaps equal Linna 
in her hardsuit.  Able to take out a construction boomer with a 
baseball bat, a knife, a broomstick and some ketchup.  And that 
was impossible, unless...  

Unless Doug were a near-equal to a boomer.

Unless Doug were a boomeroid.

A chill down her spine punctuated her deductions.  Boomeroids 
went crazy and turned into killing machines.  Everyone knew that.  
That was why cybernetic replacement had been all but outlawed.

But even if he were a boomeroid, that still didn't explain 
everything else -- it just made it worse, more confusing.  His 
secret talk of different worlds, that could be written off as the 
onset of boomeroid madness.  Lisa shivered as she remembered his 
manic grin and cold eyes during the fight with the boomer.  But 
what about the woman who had vanished into thin air?  *She* 
certainly wasn't a typical symptom of a boomeroid going insane, 
and the woman found nothing strange at all in what Doug said to 
her.

Discarding the possibility that she herself had gone insane and 
merely imagined the disappearing woman, Lisa could reach only one 
conclusion.  *No, whatever, whoever Doug is, he's not a 
boomeroid.  Or not *just* a boomeroid.*  For a moment, she 
considered talking to Nene and the other Sabers about him, then 
dismissed the idea.  *Doug's been a friend to me.  He trusts me.  
I can't betray that trust, unless I know for sure that he's 
dangerous.  So I'll keep secret what I know.  For now.*  The 
image of Priss in her hardsuit stalking onto the dance floor at 
Hot Legs rose unbidden in her mind.  *And that includes 
protecting him from the Sabers,* she appended silently after a 
moment's thought.  *For now.*

Another thought occurred to her.  *And I'm getting my wish, 
aren't I?  Another adventure.  If I blow his cover, even if it's 
just to the Sabers, that might end.  I don't want it to end.*

*I hope they'll forgive me.*

"Lisa!"  A distant yell woke her from her musings.  She whipped 
her head left and right, looking for its source.  "Hey, Lisa!"  
Behind her.  She spun around to see Doug, half a block away, 
running towards her at a merely human rate.  It was a stilted 
motion that suggested he was trying to move his torso as little
as possible.  Forcing down her doubts, she gave him a broad smile 
as he reached her side.  "So there you are," he said.  Lisa 
noticed that he wasn't at all out of breath after that run, nor 
did he seem to realize he should have been.  "I was starting to 
get worried about you."

"I'm okay," she replied.  "I was worried about *you*."  She 
examined him closely.  His various wounds had been professionally 
treated, and through the rips and rents in his T-shirt she saw 
the signs of a large bandage wrapped around his chest.  "What 
happened to you?"

He shrugged, and winced.  "When I got back to the club, all the 
injured had been evacuated already.  So I turned around to get 
the hell out of there before the bot noticed me, tripped, and 
smashed through a table.  Cut myself in a couple of places and 
got a big bruise on my side."  He chuckled as they began to walk 
side-by-side down the street.  "I'll be just fine in a day or 
so."

*Yeah, right,* Lisa thought smugly.  "'Boomer'," she said out 
loud.  

"Huh?"

"We don't call them 'bots', here.  We call them 'boomers'.  If 
you want to fit in better, you really should talk like the 
locals."  

She hazarded a glance across at him.  His brow, cleaned of 
bloodstains, was furrowed in thought.  *I wish I could just ask 
him,* she mused.  *But I learned my lesson with Nene and the 
others.  I don't want to panic him or chase him away.  Or worse, 
make him think I'm a threat.*

Slowly he nodded.  "You're right, of course."  He looked over at 
her and grinned.  "Thanks for the pointer."

"No problem.  After all, you've come from quite a long ways away; 
you probably need more than few more tips on fitting in, no 
matter how good your Japanese is."  She slipped her arm through 
his, and was surprised by how comfortable it felt doing so.  *No 
matter what he is, he still needs a friend, at least for the 
moment.  So I'll be that friend as long as he needs me.  Or as 
long as he's trustworthy.*  "So, do you want to call it a night?  
Or do you want to hit another club?"  She grinned impishly at 
him.

Doug snorted.  "I've had enough excitement for one day, thank you 
very much.  I think right now I'd rather go home and get into 
bed."

"Would you like a little company?"  Astonished at her own 
boldness, Lisa laid the side of her head against his shoulder for 
the briefest of moments, then looked up at his face.  She was 
gratified to see an expression of shock and surprise flicker 
across it before being replaced by a friendly smile.

"I appreciate the offer, Lisa-chan," he said quietly, "but I 
don't think I'm up to anything more than groaning in pain for a 
while."

"Oh.  Maybe some other time, then..."  Inside, she railed to 
herself, *What the hell am I *doing*?  Doug's covered with blood, 
he may be an insane boomeroid, *and* he's got a girlfriend 
already.  Why am I *flirting* with him?*

"Maybe," he replied neutrally.

As they made their way to the subway stop in comfortable silence, 
Lisa tried to understand the sudden, wild impulse that had taken 
her.  *Dear god,* she realized, *this whole night, the music, the 
boomer, the danger, everything -- I should be in shock, shaking 
with leftover terror, but I'm not.  God help me, I'm turned on by 
the excitement.*  She unconsciously snuggled up to Doug, not 
seeing the look of discomfort and distress that momentarily 
played across his features.  *And he's at the center of it.*

                              * * *

Saturday, July 26, 2036.  2:21 AM.

After making sure Lisa was unharmed and seeing to it that she 
went to bed, I retired to my apartment.  As I dug my helmet out 
of the wardrobe, I pondered Lisa's sudden affectionate behavior 
on the trip home from Hot Legs.  It was quite a bit out of 
character for her, and I didn't know exactly what to make of it.

While I tried to think through that issue, I keyed in ELO's "I'm 
Alive" and healed up from the night's fun.  It's all well and 
good to go beating up the bad guys, but if you can't repair all 
your damage afterwards it gets to be a drag.  Do you know how 
hard it is to sleep with broken ribs?  It's not fun, let me tell 
you.  So I took care of mine as soon as I could.

I wasn't too badly off.  As the pleasant warmth of the healing 
effect flooded my body, my cuts and scrapes closed over and 
vanished almost immediately.  It took my ribs another 30 seconds 
or so to snap painlessly into place and fuse back together -- a 
really bizarre sensation if you're not used to it.  

What was more unusual was that I was healing up at double speed 
or more.  The song wasn't even a quarter done when I felt the 
feedback which indicated that everything that could be fixed was.  
It was probably a side-effect of the node under the city; I 
suspected any traditional mages who tried to cast around here 
would find their spells going wild until they could correct for 
the extremely high mana.  Anyway, I shut down the song and began 
peeling bandages off, starting with the chest wrapping.  Then I 
jumped into the shower to get the blood and grime off.

Unfortunately, the answer to the new Lisa dilemma was not as 
easily taken care of as my wounds, so in my grand tradition, I 
decided to think about something else.  That something else was 
bot -- no, excuse me, "boomer" -- rampages.

By this time, I'd gotten around to subscribing to the local 
dataweave provider's basic service, so I had access to this here-
and-now's rather sparse version of the Tapestry, specifically 
electronic archives of the city's major newspapers.  (They called 
it "the Net" here, which I felt was very appropriate -- thin 
lines of communication surrounding big holes in coverage.  I was 
tempted to do some whispering into an ear or two about the 
Distributed Global Index architecture.)

Between the excitement and ELO, I was too buzzed to sleep yet.  
So I spent the next couple hours going through them and related 
reference threads, looking for anything and everything I could 
find about boomers running amok.

I was appalled -- no, *utterly sickened* -- at what I found.

In Pampalona, Spain, they have a tradition they call the Running 
of the Bulls.  Apparently in MegaTokyo they have something 
much like it -- the Rampaging of the Bots.  They're very similar, 
except in MegaTokyo the human participation isn't voluntary, and 
the casualty rate is only marginally lower. 

I could not believe that this actually happened not just once or 
twice, but on such a regular basis that they had formed a special 
police division to handle the problem.  Well, at least now I knew 
what the "AD" Police did.  

What kind of asshole actually *sells* bots that faulty?  And 
keeps on selling them in the face of such comprehensive 
evidence of catastrophic design faults?  I'd bet that Nader 
wasn't just spinning in his grave over this, but actually 
drilling out the end of his casket.

I mean, really.  I could design a better bot brain in my sleep.  
My first reaction was, haven't these people ever heard of the 
Asimov-Tsung Behavioral Protocols?  As it turned out, no.  A 
little light reading later revealed that Asimov never entered the 
cybernetics field in this world, and was in fact famous here 
solely as a remarkably prolific author of science and science 
fiction books.  And there was no record of Tsung anywhere.  

Still, how hard can it be to come up with the idea of putting a 
goddamned governor on any system that, like a bot brain, operates 
on positive feedback?  You have to be an idiot or criminally 
negligent to fail to do so, especially on dangerous equipment 
deployed in the public sector.

Jeez.  It was like GENOM's marketing slogan for bots was, "Kill 
all you want; we'll make more."

Not that the government response was any more intelligent.  The 
AD Police were chronically underfunded, understaffed and 
underequipped.  The fatality rate was staggering.  The Warriors 
are paramilitary -- we have our own powered infantry to support 
meta-based operations.  If we had a fraction of the casualty rate 
among our people that these "AD" Police had among theirs, first 
thing we'd do would be take them off the front lines until they 
had proper equipment.  Then there would be a groundswell of 
outrage, with *us* at the forefront, aimed at the Security 
Council and the Committee.  Here?  The city council gives out 
commendations and pats on the head, and cuts the budget yet 
again.  It was infuriating, enraging!  I *so* wanted to knock 
some heads together!

Following threads from *that* material led me to something that 
got me so mad I nearly busted my foot kicking a wall:  the legal 
status of cyborgs, at least in Japan.

The 70% boomeroid law was barbarism, pure and simple.  I'm no 
expert -- I leave that to the team's legal attache -- but I can 
read.  This law was so broadly written that a glass eye or a 
wooden pegleg qualified their owners for "boomeroid" status; in 
fact, it was so vague in parts that there was a fair chance that 
wearing glasses could classify you as a "boomeroid", because they 
were an "artificial enhancement" of your "existing physical 
attributes".  The same with plastic surgery.

I thought about all the cyborgs and intelligent bots and 
emancipated AIs I'd known and worked with over the years, and 
wondered just how this law had passed here, and why.  It seemed 
to me that someone had to have a vested interest in seeing to it 
that a good-sized fraction of the population were potentially 
considered property instead of people.

And that led me right back to GENOM.  I'd pegged it on my first 
night here, I was certain -- GENOM wanted something more than 
just simple, massive market share.  Like I said, scratch a 
monopoly and find a conspiracy.  GENOM wanted control.

I was sure of it.

At least the city and its people had their defenders.  I 
discovered this when I came across an unexplained reference to 
something called the "Knight Sabers", and followed a footnote 
thread.  It seems that the woman in blue armor whom I'd seen this 
evening was one of them.  They were a band of mercs who regularly 
did pro bono boomer fighting, taking down the far-too-frequent 
rogue combat models that the "AD" Police couldn't completely 
handle.  So Lady Blue wasn't the criminal mastermind I'd thought 
she was -- she was almost certainly hunting down the bot I'd 
killed.  I suppose I must have given her a surprise or two...

For a while I was confused by how little press these Knight 
Sabers got.  Back home their activities would've been covered at 
least on page 3, but here, they got little filler articles wedged 
in under the "lifestyle" stories towards the back of the paper.  
At least I was confused until I saw who owned the papers and the 
on-line archive.  You get three guesses, and the first two don't 
count.

Anyway, I did some digging on the good lady knights, even 
retrieved a little video footage of them.  Nice.  Definitely well-
trained, well-led professionals.  It's always good to see someone 
else who takes as much pride in their work as the Warriors do.

Unless they were playing at obfuscation, they were just normals 
in powered armor, but that powered armor was clearly in advance 
of just about anything else on the planet.  I mean, every other 
battlesuit that I'd seen or read about here had been a huge thing 
that reminded me of the old walkertanks from the French-Indochina 
Conflict of the 1960s -- big piles of motorized battleship armor 
that were more driven than worn, and clumsily at that.  

The Knights had these sleek, slender, form-fitting suits that 
were clearly tougher and more powerful than the local state-of-
the-art.  In fact they reminded me of some of the more advanced 
battlesuits from homeline.  This, if I had GENOM figured right, 
probably made them a double target -- for being both an obstacle 
and more advanced than GENOM's technology.  The Knights had been 
at it for half a decade or more, though, so I didn't think GENOM 
was likely to take them down any time soon.

I didn't have a clue why their armor had high heels, though.  
Tits I could almost understand.  Heels that would make a 
fetishist drool, no.

Anyway, I'll admit I was relieved by the existence of the Knight 
Sabers.  It meant it I didn't have to get involved.  The city 
already had its own protectors; they didn't need me.

With that comforting thought still foremost on my mind, I 
collapsed on my bed.

                              * * *

Saturday, July 26, 2036.  9:00 AM.

"I'm glad everyone finally made it to this 8 AM meeting," Sylia 
said, nodding towards Priss, who grumbled inarticulately from her 
sprawled position on the couch.  Lisa sniggered, earning her a 
glare from the drowsy singer.

They were ensconced in the large, comfortable lounge that served 
as the Sabers' briefing room.  Next door to the records room with 
which Lisa had grown so familiar, it boasted a duplicate of that 
room's hydra-headed multimedia system, paired with a lesser but 
Net-aware computer.  Lisa and Nene sat together at the wide 
console, turned slightly to see Sylia, who paced at the front of 
the room.  Behind her, a large flatscreen display hung upon the 
wall.  Linna occupied a nearby armchair, her legs crossed and her 
hands clasped over her knee.

Sylia continued.  "I'd like to say that last night for the most 
part was a textbook operation for us.  Between our actions and 
the ADP, it took less than 15 minutes to take down the vast 
majority of the boomers.  Nene?"

The redhead nodded.  "As far as AD Police technicians have been 
able to tell, this was a simple case of overworking a team of 
construction boomers.  The operational logs that ADP retrieved 
from the boomers show round-the-clock usage with no down time or 
maintenance for at least six weeks.  There's nothing more 
sinister here than a greedy and impatient contractor, and ADP 
will be arresting and charging him some time this morning."

Sylia returned the nod.  "That being covered, we now come to the 
one anomaly in last night's operation.  I know you've all heard 
about it.  Lisa, if you'll play the clip?"

"Hai!" Lisa responded, and clicked the "okay" button on the lower 
screen.  A monitor above her and the wall display both flickered 
in unison.  A rapidly-incrementing timestamp appeared over the 
image of one humanoid figure bludgeoning another.

"Increase magnification times two," Sylia said tonelessly.

Lisa complied, and the image blurred and resolved into a tighter, 
larger view of the figures.  She intently watched the entire 
encounter between Doug and Priss replayed from Priss' 
perspective.  Her eyes widened as for the first time she saw the 
way in which Priss' railgun spikes had missed Doug, then realized 
from the murmurs behind her that the others were reacting 
similarly.

*Wow,* Lisa thought. *How did he do that?*  Then another thought 
occurred to her as she watched the large screen and realized that 
Doug was clearly recognizable.  *I can't ever introduce him to 
any of them now -- and after talking so much about him to Nene 
and Linna.  With his face on that recording, they'll know that I 
knew who he was.  Aw, hell.  What am I going to do?*

When it was over, there was silence for a moment.  "What *was* 
that?" Linna finally asked.  

"Was that boomer *bleeding*?" Nene added.

"Nah," Priss mumbled.  "'S ketchup.  Broken bottles on the floor, 
glass all over."

"How did he do that with the railgun spikes?"  Linna shook her 
head.  "How can something like that even be possible?"

"He didn't do nothing," Priss answered.  "He wasn't even paying 
attention.  It just... happened.  On its own, I think."

"Weird."  Linna shook her head.  "Maybe some kind of fast-acting 
fusion nanites in the air around him?  But why bother putting the 
spikes back the way they were after making them harmless?"

"I have no answers for you, Linna," Sylia replied.  "All I can 
tell you is what I have determined is *not* the case.  Lisa, 
please run the recording again, this time in infrared.  Be 
prepared to pause it on my mark." 

Lisa nodded, set the filter and replayed the sequence.

"Freeze," Sylia snapped, and walked up to the wall display.  "Due 
to the relatively low resolution of Priss' IR sensors, the data 
we have here is crude, but there is enough to draw some 
conclusions.  We can immediately rule out any kind of nanotech 
when it comes to his defense against Priss' railgun.  Nanites 
give off heat -- in many cases it is their only waste product.  
If a cloud of nanites did surround this individual, we would see 
it in infrared, obscuring the form of his body."  She gestured 
widely, encompassing the blobby, brightly-colored, but still 
clearly humanoid figure.  "We don't.  Therefore, they are not 
there."  

She continued to stare at the image.  "Moreover, I spent several 
hours last night and this morning analyzing the spikes, which 
Priss was so kind as to bring back with her.  There is no 
evidence of nanomanipulation.  No evidence of any kind of 
alteration whatsoever."

Sylia seemed to rouse herself, and turned back to her audience.
"Furthermore, I believe we can eliminate the possibility that 
this... person... is some new kind of boomer.  The heat pattern 
he's radiating is clearly similar to that of a human being, 
rather than a cyberdroid."

*Well, that's a relief,* Lisa thought.

"However," Sylia continued, "we cannot with any certainty say 
that he *is* a human being, despite his appearance.  Even 
allowing for the low resolution of this image, his organ 
signature is noticeably off here and here," she pointed at 
several bright spots in the torso of the figure, "and of course 
there is the remarkable running speed he demonstrated, as well as 
his implied combat ability.  He may be a boomeroid, though any 
known cybernetic replacements necessary for such performance 
should have shown up on IR.  I'm afraid that a definite 
determination will have to wait until Nene can scan him."

"That's assuming we ever see him again," Linna interjected.

Sylia nodded.  "True.  In any case, seeing as how he took no 
offensive action against Priss, even after her attack, and in 
fact fled quickly and directly..."

"You ain't kidding," Priss muttered under her breath.

"...and since, whether or not it was his intention, he assisted 
us by downing the last boomer of the pack, I am for the moment 
designating him as a neutral target, not to be attacked if we 
encounter him in the future.  And perhaps to be approached if 
conditions favor it."

The other Sabers nodded as Sylia looked around the room at them.
Lisa strove to appear relaxed and interested, but inside she was 
quivering with suppressed tension; her stomach roiled with fear.  
Should Sylia ask if she knew anything about Doug, Lisa knew she 
couldn't lie to her.  Her only hope was to look as ignorant as 
possible.

*Maybe if I can somehow get Doug and the Sabers to meet and talk, 
I can get myself out of this.*

                              * * *

Saturday, July 26, 2036.  3:12 PM.

"Hand me that set of calipers, will you, Lisa?  No, no... close, 
but no cigar.  The calipers, not the hemostat."

I took a break from the work I was doing on the engine.  Now this 
was one project that I had no problems with accidentally 
enchanting; in fact I was counting on it happening.  I had a 
couple dozen tools and widgets spread out on a cloth on the 
workbench, next to the partially-assembled turbine and a second 
cloth on which rested other parts, including the fully-assembled 
compressor fan set, a dozen outrageously expensive fuel injectors 
and a heat exchanger/intercooler of my own design.  Lisa was 
seated on the other end of the bench top from the engine, banging 
her heels against the cabinet under her perch.  I spent a few 
minutes teaching her which tools were which, to save myself some 
aggravation while she was here.

My god, but the girl was a clothes horse of the first water.  
Today's outfit was a pair of designer denim shorts midway between 
daisy dukes and culottes in length, a blouse of what looked like 
white silk, and brand-new sky-blue Nikes with little white ankle 
socks.  In the month or so that I'd known Lisa, I had yet to see 
her in any kind of "dress-down" mode -- no torn jeans,
sweatclothes or the like.  I was coming to the conclusion that
she was simply incapable of dressing full-bore casual.

Me, I was in jeans and T-shirt again, but my fashion statement
for the day was the pair of lint-free white cotton gloves I wore 
to keep my skin oil off the turbine blades.

"Soooo," she said casually, banging her Nikes against the cabinet 
again.  "I heard on the radio that one of the Knight Sabers was 
seen at Hot Legs last night after the boomer chased everyone out.  
Did you see her?"  She stretched her right leg out for a moment, 
holding it horizontal and pointing her toe, then relaxed and let 
it swing back down to drum hollowly against the cabinet.  At the 
same time, her finger idly traced the heart carved into the 
countertop.

"Huh," I grunted as I checked the diameter of the turbine shaft 
in preparation for fitting the blades to the hub.  Those 
nanobuilt engine parts had incredibly small tolerances, and I was 
paranoid about screwing the whole thing up by having specified 
the wrong size by an angstrom or two.  "I thought I saw a woman 
in some kind of blue outfit as I was leaving, but I was still a 
little dazed from hurting myself.  I thought she was a cop.  
Could that have been this Knight Saber?"

"Maybe.  So, you've heard of them?"

I shrugged and picked up a turbine blade.  As I ran my cotton-
covered fingers across its seemingly frictionless monomolecular 
sides I said, "Yeah, but just what you see in the news outside 
of MegaTokyo.  Four righteous babes in armor that looks like it 
shouldn't stop a BB, let alone a particle beam.  I'm half-
inclined to agree with the folks who think they're just a big 
publicity stunt intended to bring the tourists to town."

"Oh, no!" Lisa suddenly got very vehement.  "They're the real 
thing!  I know -- I met them when they helped rescue the ADP 
headquarters from a terrorist boomer attack almost four years 
ago.  I was trapped in the bulding and they saved my life!"

"Really?" I said as I test-fit the blade in the hub.

"Uh-huh!"  Lisa shook her head vigorously, catching my eye with 
the motion.  "I was on one of the top floors to see my uncle when 
the terrorists shut everything down and all the blast doors 
closed.  Right after that, the pink Saber got into the main 
computer room and saw me on one of the monitors.  She talked to 
me over the PA system and guided me down to where the rest of the 
Sabers could get me out of the building, opening up doors and 
stuff for me on the way."

"Huh."  The blade fit neatly into the hub, locking perfectly into 
place, which meant the others were going to be spot-on, too.  
Gotta love this nanomade stuff -- get one right, and they're all 
perfect.  "So, like, does this mean you know these Knight 
Sabers?"  Pick up the next blade, slide it into the hub, snap it 
into place.

"Well," she said, stretching out the word as I slid a third blade 
in and snapped it into position.  "I saw them fight boomers once 
or twice after that, and I got to talk to them for a couple 
minutes one time."

"Yeah?"  Pick up blade, slide, snap.

"Uh-huh.  You know they're mercenaries, right?"  Pick up blade.  
"But they don't charge for their boomer work, you know?"  Slide.  
"They said they had a duty to the people of MegaTokyo and their 
safety that was more important than personal gain..."

Clatter.

As I leaned down to pick up the dropped blade, I whispered, "A 
duty?"

"Uh-huh.  A, um, 'sacred duty', I think they said.  A 
responsibility.  They're very honorable women, you know?  I think 
they're the kind of people you could trust if you really needed 
to.  I know that if I ever needed help, and I could find them, 
I'd go right to the Knight Sabers," she concluded, almost 
proudly.  Lisa began banging the cabinet with her heels again as 
she leaned back and clasped her hands behind her neck.

A duty.  Damn.  

Mechanically, I examined the turbine blade and checked it for 
damage.  It wasn't likely -- the entire blade was a single 
molecule, after all, and couldn't chip or crack -- but I did it 
anyway.  

Almost as if that were some kind of signal, Lisa jumped down off 
the bench.  "Oh, well, I've got to be going.  Let me know 
tomorrow how all this stuff," she waved at the hub and blade 
assembly, "worked out, okay?"  She patted me on the cheek and I 
woke up a little.

"Oh, right.  Sure, Lisa, no problem!"  I put the blade back down 
on the cloth-covered benchtop and reached out a hand to tousle 
her hair.  I gave her a lopsided grin that was purely cosmetic, 
because inside jagged emotions were ripping through me, their 
razor edges eviscerating my once-numb complacency.

When the door clicked behind her, I stepped over and locked it.  
Then I turned and sunk down to the floor, my back against the 
door, and there I sat, cursing Lisa's turn of phrase, and cursing 
myself.  *Damn.*

Honor and duty.  Duty and honor.

*Damn it all.*

I should have known it was too easy.  But I'd been deluding 
myself, and not very well.  It only took Lisa's random comment to 
bring it all back, to remind me of something I'd been trying to 
not think of.  Something I had had to force myself not to think 
of with my dismissal of my own responsibility upon discovering 
the existence of the Knight Sabers.

I had been shirking.

I had tried to forget that I had a duty.  I had tried to forget 
that when I received my commission all those years ago, I had 
taken vows, vows that bound me no matter what world I was in.  
Defend those who had no defenders.  Protect those who would be 
exploited and oppressed, or who suffered the worst losses of 
unjust war.  Champion basic human rights, and take down those who 
would deny them to others.  Enact justice upon those who would 
wage war.  Make and keep the peace.

I had not shirked in Valdemar.  But here, here I had been passive 
and unconcerned.  Lives had been lost last night that I could 
have saved, had I chosen to be ready.  Had I bothered to discover 
what kind of destruction raged through this city on a regular 
basis.  My willful ignorance had had a cost far too heavy for my 
conscience to bear.  I could no longer let myself drift along, 
unconcerned for the city in which I dwelt.

And having realized that, I felt a weight that I hadn't known I'd 
been bearing lift from me.  My mood changed for the better, with 
a sudden, abrupt transition that surprised and delighted me.  For 
the first time in weeks, I felt like... like *me*.  Angst wasn't 
my thing, though I could be grim when needed.  I was the Loon, 
Looney Toons of the Warriors, and I couldn't believe I had 
forgotten that what I did best was have fun while doing what I 
did best.  All the worrying and planning was necessary, but they 
had almost taken me over, entrapping me and wrapping me in their 
suffocating stasis -- they had stopped being tools and had become 
my life.  

No more.  Even as I laughed out loud with astonished joy, I 
marveled at the delicious paradox -- in remembering my duty, I 
had regained my freedom.  Compared to this, the moments 
during the fight with the bot were nothing.

So I have weird epiphanies.  Sue me.

In any case, I saw my path made clear.  

It was time to act.

END OF CHAPTER THREE

------------------------------------

This work of fiction is copyright (C) 1999, Robert M. Schroeck.

Bubblegum Crisis and the characters thereof are copyright and 
a trademark of Artmic Inc. and Youmex Inc., and are used 
without permission.  

Douglas "Looney Toons" Sangnoir is a trademark of Robert M. 
Schroeck.  

"The Warriors" is a jointly-held trademark of The Warriors Group.

Lyrics from "Come Dancing" by the Kinks, copyright (C) 1983 by 
Ray Davies/The Kinks.

Lyrics from "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me" and "You May Be 
Right" by Billy Joel, copyright (C) 1980 by Impulsive Music and 
April Music.

Original Japanese lyrics from "Konya wa Hurricane" by Aran 
Tomoko, copyright (C) 1987 by Artmic, Inc. & Youmex, Inc.

New English translation of "Konya wa Hurricane" by Helen Imre, 
copyright (C) 1998, Helen Imre.  Used by permission.

Lyrics from untitled "Looney Tunes" song (authorship unknown, 
possibly by Carl Stalling) and dialog featured in the Warner 
Brothers animated cartoon "Hare-Um Scare-Um", copyright (C) 1939, 
Warner Brothers.

Many thanks to my prereaders on this chapter:  Kathleen Avins, 
Joseph Avins, Barry Cadwgan, Andrew Carr and Helen Imre.  
Additional prereaders for future chapters welcome.

C&C gratefully accepted.




-- Listar MIME Decryption --------------


===============================================================================
Robert M. Schroeck          || "When in trouble or in doubt,
rms@eclipse.net             ||     Run in circles, scream and shout."
http://www.eclipse.net/~rms || I have no mouse and I must scream.
===============================================================================