-- 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
4: Be Vewy Quiet, I'm Hunting Wobots
It is a fatal error to enter any war without the will to win it.
-- Gen. Douglas MacArthur
The power of an untrained magician can be a truly frightening
thing. Since the magician doesn't know that certain things are
impossible even with magic, there is no reason for him or her to
hesitate to attempt them. -- Chris Davies, "Bubblegum Chakram"
Saturday, July 26, 2036. 10:31 PM.
"So," Nene said, looking out over the city.
"So?" Lisa's eyebrows flickered up, then down.
It was the end of another frantic night out on the town, a little
early for once, but Nene had insisted. The two had returned to
the redhead's apartment ("Clean for once, see?" she'd gloated),
where Nene had retrieved a bottle of cola and some plastic cups.
A few minutes later, they were on the roof, sprawled in a pair of
decrepit plastic chaises longues and sipping soda. "So?" Lisa
repeated, savoring her cola and watching the lights of vehicles
spiraling up GENOM tower.
"So I did some digging into this Sangnoir person," Nene replied.
"The guy's your next-door neighbor, Lisa-chan. What are you
getting into now?"
Lisa shrugged without looking at her friend. "Oh, I'm just
checking. He's told me a lot of wild stories about his past and
I wanted to see if any of them were true." Her tone was
elaborately casual.
"Stories like what?" Nene tipped her cup up and drained it, then
refilled.
"Like how he lived in England, and worked for the government
there -- he never did say just which government, either. Huh."
"Well, I don't think I can answer that for you, Lisa." Nene
shook her cup gently, swirling the dark, bubbling contents into
the dimple of a tiny whirlpool for a moment. "At least not in
the way you want."
"Huh?" Lisa looked directly at Nene, who was pursing her lips
and staring off at the distant skyline.
"Your friend Sangnoir's records are probably fake," she said
finally. "The work's pretty darned good. There's even a little
paper support for it -- the right few files in the right few
agencies, in case anyone wanted to run the usual checks, but
nothing more than that. It might actually have fooled me if I
hadn't been actively looking for anything out of the ordinary."
She turned and gave Lisa a pleading look. "Please tell me you're
not neck-deep in something out of your control, Lisa. This guy
Sangnoir is either a spook or a criminal."
"Or maybe he's someone who wants a little privacy, like Dr.
Raven," Lisa offered.
Nene blushed and cleared her throat. "Doc Raven's a special
case," she said.
Lisa set her soda down on the roof next to her chaise and reached
out a hand to touch Nene's shoulder. "So is Doug. I was just
curious. And I'm not going to take it any further than this.
Trust me -- I know what I'm doing, Nene-chan." *I hope.*
"Famous last words, Lisa."
"It's not like we both haven't said our share of them," Lisa
responded. "But I think... hell, things have been going well for
everyone for a while now, and I really believe that's not going
to change."
Nene considered this. "I hope you're right."
They sat together in silence for several minutes, listening to
the faint traffic noises and watching the lights in the distance.
A weak ghost of a breeze brought the scent of seawater out of the
east.
"You know, there's something I've always wanted to try," said
Nene. "Maybe it'll help."
"What's that?"
Nene stood, raised her arms to the sky, and screamed out, "Good
god, what else could go right?" She sat down and grinned. "It
always seems to work the other way, so I figured, what the hey?"
* * *
Sunday, July 27, 2036. 8:03 AM.
Given the evidence at hand, I had to conclude that the vast
majority of bot attacks were intentionally staged. Far too many
coincided with other crimes or "terrorist actions". Far too many
were too well-organized or well-coordinated. And far too many
"terrorist organizations" had claimed credit for the various
attacks. There had been no less than twenty-five such groups
from all over the political spectrum. They appeared in the wake
of a rampage, announced their responsibility and their reasons,
and then vanished like mist, most of them leaving behind no trace
of their existence prior to or after the attack.
Some were no doubt opportunists. Some few were probably "legit",
as far as terrorist organizations go. However, for my own
tactical purposes, I had to assume that there was a single entity
behind most if not all bot rampages. This hypothetical entity --
be it corporate or individual -- either manufactured or
manipulated the scapegoat groups as a smokescreen. The entity,
if it had any brains (collective or otherwise), would also be
gathering intelligence on all its bot operations, particularly
against such regular opponents as the "AD" Police and those
Knight Sabers mercenaries. I saw evidence of this in the rapid
upgrade of bots encountered by the Knights from 2032 to 2034, a
period during which the mercenaries appeared to have become
specific targets of the entity. Only apparently-coincidental
upgrades of the mercs' own equipment prevented them from being
smeared bigtime, from what I could see in the public record.
If I were going to engage this hypothetical foe, I needed to keep
it off-balance. I had to assume that it had large resources,
especially analytical ones, so it behooved me to let it have as
little consistent data on me as possible. My initial rules of
engagement became: Keep a low profile when not actually
fighting. Enter and depart combat quickly and efficiently.
Don't approach a fight from the same direction every time.
Minimize accumulated data by taking down the opposition as fast
as possible. Sow misinformation and confusion where I could.
And never use the same song/power twice.
I knew I was going to regret the necessity of that last one.
"Lightning's Hand" alone would be of immense utility in shutting
down bots and defending against the charged particle beams some
of the combat models appeared to wield. But repetition brought
with it the risk of countermeasures. I couldn't afford to be
predictable.
Of course I knew that battlefield conditions would inevitably
force the violation of one or more of these rules. In
particular, saving noncombatants came first in every case, even
if it meant exposing myself to analysis and possible retaliation.
In such situations, I would just have to improvise. But before
that, I needed two things.
I needed to get my cycle finished, for one. I had songs that I
could use for transport to and from battle, but most such had
side-effects that were either personally inconvenient or allowed
me to be tracked. So I needed the physical wheels working. I
wondered if I might be able to kitbash a stealth suite for the
bike at work. And maybe an autopilot; that would come in handy,
too.
Work was where I would get the second thing I needed: a radio
capable of receiving and decoding "AD" Police transmissions. If
I was going to fight, I needed to know where to go.
* * *
Monday, July 28, 2036. 12:37 PM.
Lisa fumbled the keyboard of her new terminal into her lap.
Poised in the center of her desk, in front of the large,
terminally-dim monitor was her palmtop; an editor window took up
all of its far-brighter screen and displayed her copious but
terse notes. Slowly, carefully, while trying to ignore the
entire city room, she began to compose an article from them.
*Like I really care about the fifth annual GENOM flower show,*
Lisa thought, suppressing a sigh. *But like Daddy always said,
you don't always get the stories you want. Still, why can't I
get anything exciting, like...*
"Takano, Muklewicz!" Kiyoshi shouted out over the din of the
office. "Get your asses out to Timex City! I need a follow-up
story on that twister or whatever it was that touched down in the
Fault Region yesterday -- get out there and get me at least 25
paragraphs and three good images for tonight's edition!"
*Like that,* she concluded after a moment. *Even if no one was
hurt and all it destroyed were a few abandoned buildings, it's
still a more exciting story than a flower show.* She suppressed
another sigh. *Of course, the one absolutely perfect story I did
stumble onto this weekend I can't do anything about. Not without
Doug or the Sabers figuring out that I know more than I was
letting on.*
A fierce determination welled up in her. *I think it's time I
talked to Sylia about setting up some good press for the Sabers.*
* * *
Tuesday, July 29, 2036. 7:48 PM.
The shop was packed to the rafters with kitsch. Daley and the
two officers with him could barely move through the narrow aisles
for fear of dislodging some decaying cardboard box or threadbare
display tray from its precarious perch. Still, they'd navigated
their way to the narrow counter at the back of the tiny shop, and
had conducted the interview in response to the phone call they'd
received.
The elderly Chinese woman who ran the shop spoke very little
Japanese, but was very helpful -- with a lot of patience and a
scratch pad full of kanji. But he reached a point where his
repeated gentle inquiries only resulted in bursts of rapid-fire
Chinese, followed by the old woman pulling a folded sheet of
paper out from behind the counter.
Daley took it from her, unfolded it, and stared into the goggled
visage of Fuko's sketch. It was the flyer they'd distributed to
the local merchants after the boomeroid's one attack. "Him," the
old woman croaked out in heavily-accented Nihongo. "He come in,
two hour ago, he buy four."
"Four what, okusama?" Daley asked. The woman replied with a
smattering of unintelligible sounds that might have been
Japanese. Daley shook his head. "What did he buy?"
The old woman grunted, then leaned down to pull a tray out of the
grimy glass case that served as her counter. She dropped the
cheap wood-and-velveteen container in front of him. "He buy
four," she repeated as Daley stared in confusion. The tray held
a dozen identical enameled pins of a rabbit from an American
cartoon.
* * *
Friday, August 1, 2036. 9:15 PM.
The death toll from the boomer rampage that night had been 27.
Dozens of others had been wounded. As it turned out, there had
been four fatalities as a result of the one bot's attack on the
club. Besides the two corpses I'd spotted when I'd gone back in,
one person died in the triage tent before I got there, and
another succumbed a day later in the hospital.
I went to their funerals. I needed to.
Herman Liu. Age 22.
He had been an architecture student, and his father had already
lined up his "in" with a big, prestigious firm. He'd loved
skiing, music, and a young woman named Danielle. A mass of
fratboys, fidgeting uncomfortably and their heads bowed, stood in
silence at the end of the service to offer a farewell salute to
their comrade.
Yelena Brzezinski. She'd been 25.
A singer and dancer who'd just received her first big break by
getting cast in a production on MegaTokyo's equivalent of
Broadway. It was a revival of a musical that I'd never heard of,
first produced twenty years earlier in 2016. She'd gone to the
Replicants concert with her boyfriend to celebrate getting the
part. The boyfriend was in the hospital, in serious condition
but expected to make it.
Cho Jeung-An. 29 years old.
A quiet, friendly "office lady" who had dozens of mourners packed
into a small chapel. Almost all of them credited her with some
key insight or advice that changed their lives for the better.
Many of the men there bemoaned the fact that they'd overlooked
her for so long. She'd been the only child of a couple so grief-
stricken that they seemed ready to follow their daughter to the
next world.
Kazuko Hardy. Barely 16.
She'd sneaked into Hot Legs to see the concert -- her friends
testified how much she'd loved retrothrash in general and the
Replicants in particular. A hundred or more sobbing classmates,
looking a veritable army in their school uniforms, mobbed the
church where they held the service. Her mother, already a widow,
was heartbroken at the loss of her daughter. Her younger
siblings clung to their mother, confused and afraid.
At each service, I left a token: a little enamel-and-metal pin
in the form of Bugs Bunny, one of four I'd bought for that
purpose early Monday evening. I left the pin in the coffin, or
pressed it into the hand of a grieving parent. It was a secret
promise between the dead and me: my promise of retribution for
their loss and atonement for my inaction. At his best and
brightest the Rabbit had never sought conflict, but never
hesitated to visit revenge upon those who deserved it. It was my
pledge to the dead that *I* would visit revenge on those who
deserved it.
* * *
The rest of my week wasn't as dark as I'm sure it sounds from
that, but it *was* busy. I did throw myself into my work,
putting in a lot of overtime to get the radio prototypes in shape
and ready to go to my unwitting future allies in the "AD" Police.
Late at night, when I was the only one in the shop, I'd also
nanofac the final few custom parts I needed to get the cycle up
and running. I was pushing myself hard.
But I knew I had to balance myself -- like I said, I'm not the
grim and gritty type. Swearing revenge is one thing -- living
for it is another. I would avenge them, yes. But I wouldn't let
that goal consume me. The last thing I wanted to was to go down
the same road that Psyche did in his final months with the
Warriors. It was weird, though. I didn't normally have this
tendency to get angsty and obsessed. Maybe this whole dark,
gothicky city and world were starting to get to me.
* * *
Saturday, August 2, 2036. 9:02 PM.
Leon stowed the bag of burgers and fries in the leather saddle
bag that hung from the back of his motorcycle's seat. The coffee
he stashed in the cup holder. His helmet and gloves on, he
pulled
out of the fast food joint's parking lot. He'd put in a long day
of overtime at the office, and while he wasn't about to stop
thinking about matters at hand, he needed to get out and about.
Priss was too busy prepping for her tour to have the patience to
hang with him tonight, so it looked like he was on his own. He
snorted to himself. *At least she's got something to do now,
what with the rehearsing and all. With the way boomer crime
dropped in the last year or so, I was afraid she'd end up going
stir crazy.*
He thought back to the photos he'd seen of the boomer found on
the dance floor at Hot Legs. A witness had spotted the blue
Saber in the club's vicinity; it wasn't hard to guess what had
happened. He could only wonder, though, at what had compelled
Priss to savage the cyberdroid so. He shook his head, smiling
wryly to himself. *And this is the woman I've been chasing for
four years.*
As he raced down the coastal highway, the summer night's air --
still warm and humid from a bright, hot day -- turned into a cool
wash flowing over his body and under his helmet. He drew and
released a long sigh, savoring the cooling touch of the moving
air as it rushed in and out of his chest and throat. One of the
last things he'd done before leaving HQ was read the final
reports for that debacle with the construction boomers.
*I really didn't need to see those updated casualty figures,*
Leon thought as he weaved through the light traffic. *Just
knowing nearly 30 died is enough for me, thank you. At least
we're not doing funeral surveillance for deaths by boomer
violence -- I'd've hated to have had to wade through all the
reports that would've generated.*
A few minutes later, he reached his destination: a small pier
that overlooked what little remained of Aqua City. The moon was
three-quarters full, and shed enough light to pick out the
twisted organic forms that still extended above the surface of
the water, abstract metallic sculptures that silently attested to
the violent death of the abandoned "city of the future". Despite
its history and its ruined state, there was a certain stark
beauty here that drew him back time after time. That, and the
memories it held for him -- meeting Priss, fighting alongside the
Sabers for the first time, and rescuing Cynthia, the little girl
who had turned out to be a boomer.
He shut off the bike and swung down the kickstand, then dug out
the greasy paper bag. Leon unwrapped the first of his
cheeseburgers and after taking a bite, balanced it on the fuel
tank. He wrestled his coffee free of the cup holder and popped
its lid. Wisps of vapor rose from the dark contents. Blowing
across its steaming surface, he ventured a tentative sip. As the
scalding, bitter liquid slid down his throat, he mused on the
latest development in the boomeroid case.
*Why four Bugs Bunny pins?* Leon pondered as he took another bite
of his burger. *One I could discount as random, a whim. But
there's meaning in four. The question is, what meaning?*
He put the coffee back in the cup holder and leaned forward,
propping his arms on the handlebars of the motorcycle. Beneath
his feet, the water lapped at the pier's pilings, making lazy
slapping noises. *Okay, given: there is a significance to him
buying four pins. He's not going to wear four pins. So the four
corresponds to something important to him. Figure *that* out,
and why Bugs Bunny, and then we'll have the first line on a psych
profile. Maybe.*
A contemplative look appeared upon his face. *Four. Four. Four
seasons, four weeks to a month, four phases of the moon. Four on
the floor. Four suits of cards. The four horsemen of the
Apocalypse. Four stages of anesthesia. Four calling birds.* He
took another bite. *Four elements of drama -- no, wait, that's
five elements. Four points on the compass. Wind's four
quarters, and the four Western alchemical elements. Four zones
in GENOM tower.* He paused, coffee in one hand, burger in the
other. Now there was a possibility, since the boomeroid was
almost certainly an escaped GENOM project. But what would it
mean?
Leon shook his head. *This is useless.* He brought his cup to
his lips and stopped there, savoring the sharp, earthy scent of
the coffee before drinking again. *I'm not going to figure
anything out by looking for random sets of fours. We're just
going to have to wait for the next time the boomeroid appears.
He *will* appear again. I can feel it in my gut.* He sipped
again. *And this time we'll be ready for him.*
* * *
Friday, August 8, 2036. 8:23 PM
"...and I don't care how hot it is, Lisa-chan, I don't want you
sitting right in front of the air conditioner. You'll catch a
chill, and you know how hard it is for you to shake off a cold
once you get one!"
Lisa bowed her head, ostensibly to look closer at the papers
scattered before her, but really it was to hide the rolling of
her eyes. "'Ka-chan! I'm 21 years old, I can take care of
myself, you know." As she ruffled the sheets in front of her,
Lisa realized what she was risking and hastily stuffed them into
a manila folder. Even if the small size and poor resolution of
the phone's screen made it unlikely that they were even legible,
there was no point in taking chances; the last thing Lisa needed
was for her mother to spot her photos and notes on the Sabers and
start asking questions. It was bad enough that her mother had
noticed the wristwatch/beeper Sylia had given her as part of her
"membership package"; Lisa had only barely deflected her mother's
inquiries about it. If she thought her little girl were in
danger, Mayumi Vanette would pursue the matter with the tenacity
of a pit bull and the common sense of a toy poodle.
"I don't care how old you are, Lisa, you're never too old to look
after yourself properly," her mother primly reiterated. "I don't
want to hear you complaining that you caught a chill in the
middle of summer because you didn't have enough sense to sit away
from the air conditioner."
Lisa gave an exasperated sigh, then drew a breath in preparation
for engaging her mother in verbal battle. Before she could
deliver her first sally, though, there was a restrained pounding
at her door. At the thought of the conflict averted, Lisa gave a
relieved smile. "Look, 'Ka-chan, there's someone at the door,
I've gotta go talk to you later love you bye!" she rattled off
quickly and punched the "call over" button before her mother
could reply. She shoved the folder under the pillow of her
futon, then leapt to the door.
"Hey there," said Doug as she pulled it open.
"Oh, hi!" She favored him with a bright, broad smile. "Come on
in!"
"Thanks!" After she closed the door behind him, Lisa turned to
see Doug giving a look around her apartment. "You unpacked a few
more things, I see." His eyes settled on the wall where she'd
hung a few of her mementos, and he stepped over to it. Lisa
glanced down and confirmed that he was in stocking feet, not his
shoes. "What's all this? Wow."
"Just a few memories and accomplishments."
He studied the photos and certificates, and in the center her
diploma from the University of Kobe. "Wow," he repeated. "I'm
impressed. You were a threat on all fronts, weren't you?" He
gave her an appraising look. "Honors student *and* star athlete?
Although I suppose I should have guessed that you were a
gymnast." He returned his gaze to the wall and ran a finger
along the edge of a frame that held a photo of a preteen Lisa
poised on a balance beam.
She shrugged. "Only until through junior high. When I reached
high school, I got caught up in the school paper and stopped
competing."
He snorted. "Why am I not surprised?"
"My mother was horribly disappointed," Lisa continued with a
grin. "She always saw me as the next Tara Niederhaus."
"Who?"
"Oh, come on, you remember. 'Tenacious Tara,' the wonder girl of
the 2012 games? Canadian, won 6 gold medals?"
Doug looked utterly blank for a split second more, then smiled
and said, "Oh, yeah, right -- her. For a moment I was mixing her
up with Kerri Strug."
"Not even close." *Well, there's one more test he's flunked.*
Tara had parlayed her Olympic fame into a far more profitable
film and vid career that had spanned three continents over the
last two and half decades. It should have been impossible to
have grown up in the civilized world without knowing about her.
But Doug had never heard of her before a few minutes ago -- Lisa
was sure of it. Very suspicious for someone who claimed to have
been raised in Los Angeles. *Where are you from, really, Doug?*
"Anyway..." she continued with a dismissive wave at the wall of
memorabilia. "What brings you over tonight? What's up?"
"Oh, right!" He waggled his eyebrows at her and gave a lopsided
grin. "How would you like to go for a ride, little girl?" he
asked with a mock leer.
"What...?" she began, then comprehension struck. "The
motorcycle! You've finished it?"
Doug shrugged. "Everything except the paint job. It looks like
shit, but the engine purrs like a kitten. I was just going to
take it out on a test ride and wanted to know if you'd like to
come along."
"I'd love to!" Lisa replied, then her smile collapsed. "But I
can't. I've got some... work I have to do." She gave a quick
sidelong glance at the pillow under which the folder sat, and
grimaced. "I really shouldn't put it off."
"If you're sure..."
She grabbed Doug's arm in both hands and started tugging. "No,
I'm not, which is why you'd better get going -- you might tempt
me too much!"
He laughed and let her drag him to the door, then waited with a
smile for her to open it. Chuckling, Doug tapped her on the nose
with his fingertip and said, "Just remember, you turned down this
opportunity. Who knows what dangerous neighborhood we might have
broken down in together?"
Lisa rolled her eyes, but was unable to suppress a spurt of
giggles. "Get out of here, you baka." She shoved him, still
chortling, through the door and shut it behind him.
Through the door, faintly, she heard him say, "I'll take that as
a no." Lisa fell back against the door and laughed.
* * *
Friday, August 8, 2036. 9:00 PM
I suppose it was better for my ego that Lisa didn't come along on
the test ride. I stalled out twice in the first mile and had to
readjust the fuel system with the allen wrench that I'd brought
along with me. The turbine which had hummed along nicely both on
my workbench and in neutral gear once installed in the cycle's
frame coughed and wheezed under a real load. At least until I
got the fuel flow right -- after that, it ran like a dream, just
like I'd promised Lisa. Who cared that the frame was still
dented in places and primarily finished in redlead primercoat?
It may have looked like shit, but that was just temporary.
Anyway, after my engine trouble was taken care of, I headed
southeast toward the harbor. There was a superhighway that ran
all along the waterfront edge of the city before merging into a
beltway at either end. Oddly, it tended to get only light use,
and this Friday night it was almost deserted. I suppose the fact
that it went through some very bad areas had something to do with
this, but I wasn't concerned. I was too busy paying attention to
the bike's performance, and putting its various subsystems
through their paces.
Without the proper test equipment, I really couldn't measure the
turbine's power output, but my best calculations suggested that I
was getting something between 450 and 500 HP from the powerplant.
Factor in the bike's overall low weight and my other custom
innovations, and it should give me a top speed of at least 325
kph. Maybe more -- I'd cobbled some floating magnetic bearings
together from memory and I wasn't sure how much of an advantage
they were really going to give me. But it didn't matter. The
bike was likely to be right on the edge of what a normal could
handle. Maybe beyond.
One thing I needed to test in future rides was the bike's
response to different fuels. I fully intended to take the
motorcycle with me when I left this universe, and to that end,
I'd designed the turbine and the fuel system to be as adaptable
as possible. At that moment I was running on this here-and-now's
standard gasoline formulation, but theoretically the turbine
could handle grain alcohol, aviation fuel, even propane and
natural gas -- anything liquid or gaseous that I could inject
into the combustion chamber and burn. Hell, with the
monomolecular blades and chamber, it could probably handle a
LOX/LOH mix. Not that I'd try it. I'm nuts, but not *that*
nuts.
Anyway, I'd built several different tanks for different fuels,
which were designed to be hot-swappable, using standard fittings.
And as I had just demonstrated, I could tune the fuel system with
an allen wrench at a couple key points. With all this and some
luck, I could keep rolling anywhere as long as there was at least
enough technology to build a still.
Now if only I could have gotten my hands on any Anson GravMaster-
series product, I would have been ecstatic. But as far as I
could tell, they just didn't have gravity control in this here-
and-now. And while I'm pretty good at hacking gravtech gear, I
can't build it from scratch -- I don't have the background or the
training. Or the necessary parts. So for the moment, I was
ground-bound.
I didn't mind, though. Flight would have been nice, but it was
really just icing. The bike was fast enough. It would serve.
It would more than serve. Between my legs, the frame thrummed,
vibrating on some low sub-harmonic of the turbine's rotation as
picked up by the suspension, probably. It felt like a gentle
massage transmitted up my spine. Instead of the familiar growl
that I remembered from my old bike, this cycle had a whine like a
jet engine starting up... which, in a way, it was. Maybe if I
put some airfoils on it...
Naaaaah.
As I pulled onto the coastal highway northbound, I turned my
thoughts to another matter that had recently occurred to me -- a
fundamental contradiction in my plans for which I had no ready
resolution. I was setting myself up to contribute to the defense
of MegaTokyo's population. But I also had an obligation to find
my way back home. The problem was that almost every failed
attempt at a gate would burn out my primary metagift for at least
two days. Now, I could take out an industrial bot without
resorting to a song, but I was pretty sure I'd need everything I
had to do in one of those combat models I'd read about. So what
happened if I was burnt out and I had to fight a fully-equipped
warbot?
How would I balance trying as often as possible to get home with
the unpredictable demands of the duty I must fulfill in
MegaTokyo?
I drove up and down the coastal highway for an hour trying to
think that one through. The salt-and-iodine tang of the ocean
was surprisingly refreshing -- I was actually expecting something
far more polluted and unpleasant, and to come across fresh sea
air was a delight. I was very glad that I wasn't wearing my
uniform leathers, as the cool air coming in off the water was a
welcome relief after the heat of the last few weeks.
Unfortunately, I spent so much time enjoying the cool air that I
didn't come up with a good answer to my dilemma.
Sea air has always given me an appetite, and this night had been
no exception. Back in Ota, I pulled off the coastal highway and
found a little all-night burger joint. There I grabbed a bite to
eat before deciding to head back home, my problems still
unsolved.
A couple blocks away, I was stopped at a traffic light when
another cycle pulled up. As little electric cars and the odd gas-
guzzler sped by in front of us, I took a slow, casual look at the
bike and its rider. The motorcycle was a recent model, all
streamlined fairings and huge wheels. Definitely a high-ticket
bike, especially with that candy-apple red satin finish on every
non-chromed surface. It was an expensive-looking and well-
maintained motorcycle; I wasn't yet familiar with all the makes
and models out there, but I thought perhaps it might have been
custom, or at least heavily customized.
Perched on that fancy cycle was a long, lean woman whose slender
build immediately reminded me of Maggie, sending a pang of
homesickness shooting through me for a moment. Long brown hair
streamed out from under her helmet, just reaching the shoulders
of her tight leather jacket. The sodium-vapor streetlight
overhead cast pinkish-red highlights through her hair, highlights
that were echoed in the odd reddish color of the eyes behind the
plexy plate of the helmet that turned to give me and my bike the
once-over.
I immediately had her pegged. Some spoiled rich girl slumming on
her fancy motorcycle. (Like I'm one to talk. The day I turned
21, my trust fund had eight digits in its balance -- before the
decimal point. But despite that, I like to think that I've done
something *real* with my life -- unlike most of the other Beverly
Hills Babies I grew up with.) Anyway, it could have been worse.
She could have been done up in an oh-so-kawaii pink jumpsuit and
matching "Hello Kitty" helmet. Instead, her helmet and her red-
brown leathers looked like they had actually seen some real use.
Miss Rich-Bitch chuckled, and revved the engine of her bike.
"That's an ugly piece of shit you've got there." She was almost
shouting to be heard over our engines, but the arrogant sarcasm
in her voice was clearly audible.
I shrugged in response as the cross traffic's light went to
yellow. "It's a fast piece of shit."
She snorted -- I could tell it more from the movement of her head
and the flaring of her nostrils behind the plexy than from any
sound -- and inclined her head towards the road ahead. "Prove
it," she said, and revved the engine again. The light turned
green and she was off.
I was right behind her.
I was thinking I'd finish this quickly, try not to gloat too much
about humiliating her, and head home. Done in 15 minutes or
less.
It didn't work out that way.
For a couple blocks we drifted along at the speed limit, and I
wondered what this was supposed to prove. Then she suddenly
veered left and took an on-ramp that I hadn't seen for all the
shadows cloaking it. I was a second or two behind her as we
raced up and onto an elevated stretch of the coastal highway.
The moment she hit the traffic lane, she gunned her bike. With a
roar she accelerated, almost popping a wheelie before she shot
down the road at a speed that surprised me. This wasn't going to
be as easy as I thought.
During my long driveabout on the coast highway, I had been less
concerned with speed than with simply trying out all the bike's
systems. I don't think I'd gone much over 100 kph at any point
all evening. So even though I had designed and built both the
engine and the transmission, I was caught by surprise and nearly
thrown off the bike when I savagely twisted the accelerator. The
turbine howled and bucked in response to the sudden burst of
fuel. The entire frame shuddered, and I heard a loose bolt or
two drop off onto the asphalt in an arpeggio of fading pings and
dings. Beneath my butt, the leather-wrapped seat shook and
shifted. I rocketed after my nameless adversary.
>From the way she was tossing her head as I closed with her, she
must have thought she'd won easily. This was confirmed for me by
the absolutely perfect double-take she executed as I pulled up
next to her and waved jauntily. Then, after making sure I was
securely seated this time, I opened the throttle just a little
more.
I was rewarded with a banshee howl from the turbine and enough
acceleration to take my breath away for a moment. I couldn't
help but think of the songs that let me fly, and the times that
Hexe had caught me up in her winds and carried me along with her.
The cool night air roared by me, chilling me through the thin Taz
T-shirt I had on. Behind me, I heard a roar of outrage from my
companion's cycle, and I allowed myself a smile.
A few moments later, we were neck-and-neck again. I hazarded a
glance at the speedometer -- we were doing around 210 kph. I
remember thinking that we were damned lucky that the coastal
highway was all but deserted at that hour of night as we banked
into a turn that hugged the shore; the centrifugal force shoved
me down into my seat and threatened to tear me sideways from the
bike even as my knee all but scraped the asphalt. Halfway into
the turn, I opened the throttle another couple notches.
This time she was anticipating me; I didn't gain any advantage on
her at all. As we shot over 250 kph, the hum of her turbine was
still in a comfortable middle register, which meant that her
pretty motorcycle was one serious custom street machine -- most
production models would have been at or over their maximum speed
by now, but we were both still just cruising. As we entered a
straightaway, I looked at her and grinned when she flicked her
eyes over at me. She gave me a return grin and the finger. Then
the pitch of her bike's turbine shot up as she took the lead once
more. Of course I accelerated to catch up with her again.
That's the way it went for another twenty minutes, along the
entire length of the coastal highway, until we were roaring along
next to each other at over 325 kph. We were going fast enough
that the wind in our faces felt less like air and more like
molasses, a near-solid opposing us and trying to push us back; it
had stopped being a cool breeze and had turned into a cold bath,
even with the warm, moist night we had.
I'd have to say we were pretty evenly matched. She had the
advantage of familiarity with her home turf, plus a skill at
controlling her bike that was -- I admit it -- greater than mine.
I had the advantage of metahuman reflexes and the light
amplification system in my goggles. It evened out. One thing
was for sure -- I certainly had underestimated her. Whoever she
was, she wasn't just some little rich girl playing at being the
big bad biker chick. She rode, and she rode *mean*.
Of course, to add insult to injury, our bikes were pretty even,
too. I can't speculate on what her motorcycle's performance came
from, but I must admit that I was disappointed that I simply
couldn't blow her away with speed. We both topped out at around
360 kph, and neither of us could get a real advantage over the
other. It was galling and exhilarating both. Galling that the
first biker I'd come across on my first night out had a crotch
rocket and skills to equal my own. Exhilarating that I could
test myself against someone so good without having to spend
months finding them.
We were so closely-matched that I suspect we'd still be racing
against each other if we hadn't come upon the accident. We were
on another bit of straightaway, well between exits, and I spotted
a pulsing, blinking glow up ahead. It took a couple seconds for
me to figure out that I was seeing a turn signal light on a
stationary car. I shouted for my companion's attention and
pointed it out to her; she knew what I had in mind and nodded,
already beginning to slow down.
We had dropped to about 30 kph, maybe a hundred meters away, when
we saw the fire and the boomer. The blaze was already burning
briskly around and over the hood; it looked ready to spread and
maybe worse -- a pool of liquid was spreading out from under the
rear end of the car. The boomer was pounding its fists on the
car's roof; it looked like a builderbot like the one from the
club. Its carapace was scored and dented, probably from the
initial accident.
As we simultaneously pulled to a halt, I spotted one other detail
-- a human arm hanging limply out of the driver's window.
"There's someone still in that car," I shouted over the engines
to my companion.
"Get'em out," she replied as she rocked her bike up on its
kickstand, "I'll take care of the boomer."
"You'll what?" I took my eyes off the boomer for the first time
and noticed that she had pulled out one of the largest damn
revolvers I had ever seen, and was in the process of checking the
three artillery-sized cartridges in its cylinder. When I
recovered my wits a moment later, I yelled, "For shame, Doc!
Shooting robots with an elephant gun!"
"What?" she called back without looking up.
"Never mind! You shoot, I'll rescue. Cool. You ready?"
She snapped the cylinder into place and brought it to bear in
both hands. At the same time, she rose slightly from her cycle
to straddle the bike in that wide-legged stance that I'd seen
more than enough professional gunmen use. Sighting down the
barrel, she shouted, "Go!"
Now, like I've said, I've never really kept a secret identity
before, but I wasn't keen on blowing my cover at the moment.
Especially not with my intended campaign about to start. So I
dashed over there as fast as I could justify for a normal, which,
fortunately, was still pretty fast. I heard a thunderous "bang!"
as I reached the driver's door. He -- no, she -- was the only
one in the car, fortunately enough. I took a quick look to see
if I were about to become a target for the bot.
I wasn't. My companion's first shot hadn't killed it, but she
had wounded it and drawn its attention. It was limping towards
the motorcycles, and she drew another bead on it. I hoped that
if she missed, she didn't miss by much, since I and the driver
were almost directly in the line of fire. I would probably
survive the shot, but I doubted the driver could.
I had another problem -- the car had spun around and was crushed
up against a guard rail, crumpling the driver's door just enough
to make it impossible to open. Thankful that I was wearing my
gloves, I spent several precious seconds punching the remains of
the door window into glass beads. I had to cut the safety straps
with my pocketknife, and as I dragged the driver through the
window, my nameless friend finally took her second shot. I
gathered up the driver in my arms and -- the hell with secret
identities -- ran like the dickens back to the bikes.
I don't think my companion noticed, thankfully. Her second shot
had dropped the bot, and she was busy putting her third through
its head as I whipped past her. At the same time, the fire
finally met the expanding pool, and the entire auto was engulfed
in flame. If that didn't bring an emergency squad soon, nothing
would. I'd've called for one myself, but that would have
entailed all kinds of nasty questions about why I was on an
"official" frequency...
As soon as I laid the driver down on the pavement near the
cycles, I surreptitiously keyed "I'm Alive" into the helmet
computer. I probably wouldn't be able to keep it going long
enough to bring her to full health before my racing partner got
close enough to see the healing in progress, but I didn't want to
anyway -- perfect health after such an accident? Too many
questions. I just wanted to take the edge off her injuries --
bring her out of critical condition and into serious.
Well, to make a long story short, an MHP car showed up in a few
minutes, then another two, then a fire truck and an ambulance not
long after that. The cops never noticed the fact that my brand-
new cycle lacked any kind of license plates or registration,
mainly because they were busy hassling my companion over her
pistol. Apparently she had papers for it, though, so they gave
up about the time the EMTs were pulling out with the driver.
I got away with a fairly minimal questioning, since she and her
baby howitzer were the center of all attention. Much to my
annoyance, my little talk with the police, not to mention the
dangerous looks in the eyes of a couple of the other cops, kept
me from getting too close to the girl's roadside interrogation.
I'd hoped to overhear a little about her and her taste in
firearms... Anyway, about the time the firefighters finished
with the car, the two of us were getting back on our bikes.
"The cops said the boomer came from a construction site nearby."
She tugged her helmet back down over her head. She'd pulled it
off earlier so the cops could compare her face to her photo ID.
"They think the driver spotted it on the road, mistook it for a
person and crashed trying to avoid hitting it."
"Charming. Here's hoping the driver recovers quickly."
She nodded as she fastened her chin strap. "The ambulance guy I
talked to said she's in a lot better shape than you'd expect
after an accident like that."
"Really? That's good. Hell of a lot better than being burnt to
a crisp."
"Uh-huh. Too bad we never got to finish our race, though." She
kicked her bike into life. "You're the first real challenge I've
had in a long time." She peered suspiciously at me. "That's no
ordinary motorcycle."
"Yeah, like you're riding the showroom special yourself," I
snorted. "I'm an engineer -- building this bike's been a bit of
hobby for me."
"I know a guy like that," she replied.
"I take it he made your bike?"
"He helped."
"Uh-huh. Well, maybe we can race again, soon?"
"I don't think so -- next week I'm going out of town for a couple
months."
"Oh, well."
I could see her smile behind her faceplate. "Look for me on the
streets at the end of Fall. We'll have a rematch then. Loser
buys the beer."
I chuckled and nodded. "Deal. If I'm still in town myself."
She gave me a mock salute, revved her turbine and peeled out,
noisily and showily.
For my part, I made my way back home at a more legal speed.
After locking my bike in my workshop and taking a groaning,
overheated elevator up to my floor, I made my way to my humid
little one-room apartment and collapsed.
A lot of things about me are metahuman, but my endurance isn't
one of them. I can pace an Olympic athlete if I have to, and
sometimes outlast him, but I do tire -- faster if I use my
metagift. And between the adrenaline and healing the driver,
god, was I tired after that evening. All things considered, I
was more than ready for the next bot that came my way, but if one
had somehow shown up in my apartment in those next few hours,
I'd've probably slept right through it.
* * *
Saturday, August 9, 2036. 12:17 PM
"So, there we are," Priss paused to take a bite out of her
sandwich and continued as she chewed, "in the middle of the coast
road. I'm taking shots at the boomer with the Earthshaker Leon
gave me for my birthday last year, while the guy is standing
there in the line of fire, a foot from the flames and punching
away the window in the car door. Doesn't even flinch."
"Mou..." Nene exclaimed around a spoonful of double mocha ripple.
Linna rolled her eyes. "So he was cool and level-headed in a
crisis situation. So what?" The three of them were in Raven's
Garage, waiting on Sylia's arrival for another round of weekend
training. Nene was perched on a workbench at the back of the
garage, and Linna sat daintily on a nearby stool. Priss slouched
between them, her back propped against the edge of the
countertop.
She shrugged while taking another bite. "There's cool, and then
there's *cool*. This guy was frosty, like he was used to it.
Like he was used to working under fire. I dunno, maybe he was in
the military somewhere. It was just one of the odd things about
him."
Linna and Nene traded glances. "One of them?" Linna inquired.
"And the others were?"
"Well," Priss took a moment to swallow a mouthful of well-chewed
hoagie. "I mentioned that I ran into him while I was out getting
one last ride on my motoslave before the tour, right? Well, I
didn't mention that he and I were racing."
"Priss!" Nene was shocked. "Our motoslaves can do over 350 kph!
That's not fair to anyone!"
Priss fixed Nene with a sharp glare. "Nene-chan, the guy was
keeping up with me. This little shitpile-looking bike -- it was
a 20-year-old Mitsubishi, for god's sake -- and he was pacing a
motoslave all the way." She tore another ragged bite off the
sandwich with her teeth. "I want to get a look at that bike,"
she mumbled through the food.
Linna shrugged. "So, somebody else can build a hot bike to match
Sylia and Mackie's designs. It was bound to happen sooner or
later."
"Hmmm. Maybe," she grunted. "It was just, you know, on top of
everything else, it's got me a little, uh, oh I dunno..." She
chewed thoughtfully.
"Was that it?" Nene leaned forward. "Just the motorcycle and
the way he handled himself?"
Priss stopped chewing for a moment. "Well, there was one other
thing, but it's just, well, it's a little thing. He was wearing
this funky helmet, like I'd never seen before."
Nene snapped to attention, her spoon halted midway between the
ice cream and her mouth. "A funky helmet? What did it look
like?"
"Um, well, I never did get a great look at it, even when we were
up close, but it sorta like," and she gestured, sandwich in one
hand, "had these round things on each side, and a little antenna,
and these dark goggles, which was odd for nighttime."
Nene dropped her ice cream and looked around herself. Her eyes
alighted on pad of work order forms and a nearby pen; she grabbed
them up and began drawing on the ruled paper.
"Nene?" Linna inquired.
A few pen strokes later and Nene held up a crude sketch: a
dome-like shape with a square opening behind which were a rough
black mass that could be seen as goggles. An indistinct blotch
was centered above the opening. On either side of the shape were
half circles, and from one a long curved line stretched upward.
"Is this what it looked like?"
Priss grabbed the pad and gave it a brief look. "You'll never be
an artist, Nene."
"Priss!"
The singer sighed. "Yeah, that's him. How'd you know?"
Nene's eyes grew very wide and her expression serious. "It's no
wonder he was so calm in a crisis. That's the military boomeroid
ADP's been looking for since the end of June."
Priss stared at the pad. "Shit."
* * *
Saturday, August 30, 2036. 11:51 PM
"Oh god oh god oh god..."
Hiroshi Kardos dashed around the mass of open pipes and conduits
and fell back against the wall of the building. As he tried to
control his gasping breath he flattened himself against the
concrete; under his fingers he could feel the fossilized grain of
the long-gone wooden forms used to cast the walls that made up
this little dead-end alley. Random fits of dank steam spurted
from the pipes, making the humid night even more oppressive, and
the ground beneath his feet was muddy from drippage. The vertigo
caused by too much cheap sake made his head spin, and he could
feel his bladder growing inconveniently full.
*I shoulda never threw those bricks at that fuckin' boomer.* His
thoughts were barely coherent through the alcoholic haze. *But I
thought it was turned off!* A tiny sober portion of his mind
reminded him that even off-duty construction boomers no more get
turned off than humans do, and he cursed himself for not
listening to that sober voice.
*It won't find me here,* Hiroshi optimistically thought, *it
didn't see me make that turn, it won't come after me, it'll get
confused and go away.* The chase he'd led the boomer on had
wended through the plazas and alleys surrounding half a dozen
federal apartment buildings across a fair length of the Ota ward,
but it hadn't given up. The cyberdroid had been doggedly
persistent, though seemingly in no hurry.
Several minutes passed, and Hiroshi began to breathe more easily.
*I lost it,* he thought. *It shoulda found me by now.* He
slumped down against the wall and began to softly laugh in
relief. His laughter ended in a fit of coughing that threatened
to turn into a spasm of vomiting, but he held it back and
straightened up. "Geeze," he muttered aloud at the pressure in
his groin, "I gotta go find a pisser."
Shaking his head at his good fortune, he stepped out from behind
the pipes to spy the boomer standing patiently at the end of the
alley. For the first time, he noticed that it held a brick in
one hand.
"Oh god...." It was a long, drawn-out sound that trailed off
slowly as Hiroshi realized his fate. "I'm going to die..."
Hiroshi's entire attention was focused upon the boomer that
started slowly walking towards him, and he failed to hear the
soft voice murmur above him, "<Saturday night's all right.
Play.>" But he did notice the leather-clad stranger who dropped
down out of nowhere to stand between him and death.
"Bets?" the stranger said, smiling back over his shoulder at
Hiroshi, and clenched his fists. As Hiroshi shook his spinning
head in disbelief, beams of golden light squeezed out like clay
between the stranger's fingers and formed themselves into the
shapes of blades.
* * *
Sunday, August 31, 2036. 2:05 AM
"We can't identify the specific weapon," Daley said, "but Kardos-
san claims the man who rescued him was using switchblades and
butterfly knives. Dozens of them."
Leon slid his sunglasses into his shirt pocket. "That certainly
ties in nicely with the shape the boomer was left in. I don't
think I've ever seen *that* many punctures and cuts in *anything*
before." He shook his head. "And through Abotex, too. Damn.
Either the guy is strong or the knives had monomolecular edges."
"Most likely both," Daley offered, and held up an evidence bag
holding a brick. "Check this out."
Leon took the bag and held it up at eye level. As it twisted
back and forth slightly in his grip, a flash of streetlamp shone
intermittently through a hole punched through the brick at an
oblique angle. It was shaped like a flattened diamond. Leon
raised an eyebrow. "That looks like a blade puncture similar to
the others."
Daley nodded. "That's what Kardos says it is."
Leon shook his head. "I'm not going to dispute him. There are
twenty or thirty exactly like it in the concrete wall behind
where we found the boomer."
Daley gave a low whistle.
Leon nodded. "I'm having casts made, just in case we need to
make a comparison."
"Good idea."
"Inspectors!" As the pair turned towards the call, Sergeant Fuko
MacNamara came running up, a sketch pad under her arm.
"Inspectors," she repeated as she opened the pad and began
flipping through it, "You're going to want to see this." Finding
the right page, she held it out to the two men. "This is the guy
who rescued Kardos."
Leon and Daley stared silently at the familiar goggled and
helmeted head.
"Our boomeroid is back in the ass-kicking business," Fuko said.
* * *
Monday, September 1, 2036. 9:35 AM
Nene glanced around furtively, then squirted the compressed data
files across the encrypted link. "He's also the guy that Priss
raced a few weeks ago," she whispered into her headset.
"I see." Sylia's voice in her earphones was typically
restrained. "Does ADP consider him a threat at this time?"
"Well... we have standing orders to arrest and detain him. A
GENOM subsidiary says he's an experimental boomeroid and needs to
be captured and returned to them. But they also say that at
worst, he's a low-level threat -- he's been loose since the end
of June and he hasn't killed anyone."
"Hmmm. Curious." Nene could almost hear Sylia think. "Nene,
until further notice, keep a watch for incidents involving this
boomeroid. Relay copies of any material on him to our files.
Until he becomes an active threat, we'll not worry about him."
"Hai!" Nene replied, and closed the link.
* * *
Monday, September 1, 2036. 9:51 AM
Ring.
"Ohara here."
"Your visitor is back."
"He is?"
"Last night. A courier will be bringing you copies of the ADP's
latest entries on him. I think you will find them...
interesting."
"Will I."
"You will also be receiving a shipment at precisely 1 PM today.
At Chairman Quincy's orders, I am placing two model 55-C boomers
at your disposal for use in the acquisition of the target."
"Oh joy."
"Sarcasm does not become you, Doctor Ohara. Remember that GENOM
holds the fate of IDEC in its hand."
"You remember, Ms. Madigan, that should GENOM exercise that hand,
you will not get results nearly as good as you would otherwise."
"One way or another, Doctor, GENOM *will* get results. That's
all that matters in the end. Good day."
* * *
Monday, September 1, 2036. 11:23 AM
Daniel Ohara took a long look at everyone gathered in IDEC's
conference room. "Before we go any further, I just want to thank
you all once again for coming to this emergency meeting. Given
the pressures our... benefactors," he spat out the word, "can
bring to bear on us, it's heartening to see that the upper-level
personnel are staying the course instead of resigning. Not that
I'd blame anyone if they did," he added. "Remember that we are
now embarking on a course of at the best dubious legality. And
it stands a fair chance of seriously upsetting GENOM. Anyone
here who feels uncomfortable with that is free to leave, with no
prejudice. If at some future time IDEC becomes free of GENOM,
you'll be welcomed back with open arms."
He glanced around the table, taking stock of the serious,
determined faces looking back at him, and felt heartened. They
were good people, all of them. Real scientists, each and every
one of them, and as disgusted as he that GENOM's plots had
interfered in their personal searches for Truth. He smiled and
snorted. *Idealists, all of us. Working for GENOM. Who'd've
thought it?*
"Just to make sure we're clear on everything, let's go over our
parts in the new, *temporary*, reorganization," he said, and
there was a chorus of assent from around the table, accompanied
by bobbing heads. "We'll be dividing into four groups: Target
Study, Acquisition, Research, and Control. Tony?"
Tony Nakamura nodded and looked at his notepad. He was a heavy-
set man, nattily dressed with his long hair in a neat ponytail.
"I'll be heading Target Study. My staff and I will split between
data acquisition on and analysis of the Visitor. We'll start
with the material GENOM provides us, but we'll also be deployed
at any attempt to acquire or simply encounter the Visitor. We
already know that he has some variety of superhuman abilities --
in fact he may not be human at all -- that he may possess unknown
technologies, and that he has some kind of combat experience and
training. We will attempt to analyze his abilities, equipment
and tactics, cooperating with Research on the first two and
Acquisition on the latter." He looked up from the pad. "We're
also in charge of any computer modeling of the Visitor, and the
... um ... retrieval of data from outside sources."
"Trying to crack GENOM *and* ADP's networks," Hiroe Miyama
moaned. "We're not just asking for trouble, we're walking up and
*begging* for it." She was a handsome woman in her forties, with
graying hair and casually dressed.
"Hiroe, please," Daniel said. "If you have second thoughts, you
can still back out of this."
"No, no," she replied. "I'll head Research, as I promised. To
summarize our role, we'll be doing pure research on any data
acquired by Target Study and other sources. Where they'll be
concerned with the 'what' and the 'when', we'll be focusing on
the 'how' and the 'why'. We're looking for the principles behind
anything unusual he or his equipment can do. If there turn out
to be no revelations there, well then, we have a cushy job.
Although we want to learn things that can help us 'acquire' the
Visitor, our goal ultimately is to get something useful out of
him that we can then use to offset any losses inflicted on us by
GENOM."
Tony snorted. "Useful! You mean marketable."
Hiroe smiled sweetly at him. "Yes. Marketable."
"Children..." Daniel warned, but with a smile, then turned to the
next department head at the table. "Illya?"
Illya Vaysberg was a blond mountain of a man, resembling an
American professional wrestler more than a world-class physicist.
His blue eyes sparkled as he nodded enthusiastically. "Yah! I
and my people, we are Acquisition. How we acquire Visitor, I do
not know. But we will find a way! We must rely upon Target
Study to obtain data before a plan we can make." He smirked at
the others. "At very least, we can go up to Visitor and say,
'Hey, Person-From-Another-Universe-San, can you please with us
come?' and hope that 'yes' he answers."
Hiroe rolled her eyes as Tony chuckled.
Daniel allowed himself a smile and nodded. "Very good. And I
will be Control. My role is to act as arbitrator between the
other groups, determine overall strategy, enact any plans and
dispatch teams as necessary. I also have final authority over
any actions IDEC takes on this matter." He paused and drew a
deep breath. "I will also be acting as a buffer between GENOM
and the rest of IDEC, and as sacrificial lamb to Madigan and
Quincy if needed." Over the uproar that erupted he shouted, "No,
hear me out. There's no need for anyone's career outside of mine
to suffer if we fail. We probably won't be that lucky, but I can
try."
There was a momentary silence before Ohara cleared his throat and
continued. "Next, there is the matter of the boomers that GENOM
is shipping to us, and what to do with them."
Tony held up a forefinger. "Avram thinks he can reprogram their
behavioral protocols. He wants to add Asimov's 'Three Laws of
Robotics' to the boomers' OS as priority directives; he claims it
will make them safer to use." There were noises of agreement
from around the table, and Ohara nodded.
"Tell him to go ahead and try. If it works, then we'll proceed
with our first plan."
"Which is?" asked Hiroe.
"Well, one data point does not a trend make. But the Visitor
showed his face last night to protect some drunken slob from a
rampaging boomer. We'll just deploy a 'rogue' boomer of our own
in the same neighborhood and see if he comes out of his hole."
Ohara allowed himself the briefest of smiles at the poleaxed
looks upon the faces of his staff.
* * *
Monday, September 1, 2036. 7:42 PM
"So, this means the Sabers will still be able to follow ADP
transmissions, right?" Lisa folded her clothes neatly and put
them in the gym bag she'd brought.
"Right!" Nene said brightly. "I could have just brought Sylia an
encryption chip from one of the test units to analyze, but I
wanted to crack the new algorithm myself. It was a pain and a
half! I don't know who came up with it, but it's not what's in
the official spec."
"So, the programmer did a crappy job on it?" Linna asked from
around the end of the locker bank. The sound of running water
floated over to the two younger women.
Nene shook her head vigorously. "No, it's better than anything
I've ever seen before. It's weird, the only thing it looks like
is an old UN crypto system from fifty years ago. And if I
hadn't stumbled on *that* by accident during a Net search, I'd
still be hacking away." She sighed. "It shrugged off every
cracker tool I threw at it! And even with the UN code in front
of me, it took me two and half days before I got my 'aha!'
moment."
Lisa nodded knowingly as she pulled her bathing suit from a
different compartment of her gym bag. "So that's what you were
doing all last weekend -- another hacking run."
Nene smiled sheepishly. "Well, yeah." She began donning her
suit.
Linna stepped back into sight and began stripping. "Well, what
do you expect from Little Miss Cyberpunk?"
"Hey!"
"At least we're getting her to relax now, right, Lisa?" Linna
gave a conspiratorial wink, and Lisa snickered.
"There are definitely some benefits to having a rich friend," the
blonde responded.
"It *is* nice of Sylia to let us use her pool, isn't it?" Nene
said as she tugged her black maillot up above her breasts. Rows
of tiny chrome "buttons" studded the suit and formed a downward-
pointing triangle between the neckline and the waist. "What with
how *hideous* it's been -- all rain and humidity and heat in the
30s."
Before Lisa could reply, Linna laughed. "You ask me, it's really
just another way for her to hold a Sabers meeting without it
looking like she's calling them almost every other day." She
turned around in front of the changing room's full-length mirror,
examining her figure and the lime-green bikini in which it was
clad. Not surprisingly, she also wore a matching headband.
"Hey, that's not entirely fair," Lisa objected. "We haven't had
a formal meeting in a couple weeks." Like Nene, Lisa was in a
black one-piece suit, but instead of chrome buttons, lines of
various fluorescent colors trimmed and highlighted her maillot.
She looked down her front and traced the piping, checking to see
if it were starting to come off. It was one of her older bathing
suits, after all...
"No, just a half-dozen cases of 'Thank you for coming by for tea,
or videos, or swimming, and while you're here...'," Linna
grumbled. "I swear, with Priss out of town, it's almost like
Sylia's turned into a micromanager." She frowned. "A subtle
one, but a micromanager nonetheless."
"Or she's gotten horribly overprotective," Nene added. She stood
and tried to crowd Linna away from the mirror. "My turn, Miss
Narcissist!" Linna chuckled and stuck her tongue out at her for
a moment before turning to put her clothing in a locker. Lisa
giggled at the exchange. Nene spent a moment adjusting the lines
of her suit before continuing. "Of course, she's got a right to
be overprotective, what with that military boomeroid running
around out there."
Lisa looked up from where she had been examining the magenta trim
around her left leg. "Military boomeroid?"
"Uh-huh!" Nene abandoned the mirror and plopped herself on the
bench next to Lisa. "ADP's been looking for him since he first
showed up about two months ago."
"That's news to me." Lisa frowned. "Why haven't I heard
anything about it before now? I *know* nothing about a military
boomeroid's gone through the city room at the '16 Times'."
Nene chewed her lip for a moment before answering. "Well, ADP's
not going out of its way to publicize it. And the boomeroid's
not been doing all that much. The first we heard of it was at
the end of July when it beat up a bunch of Outriders, then a
shopkeeper spotted it a few weeks later. And it rescued a guy
from a construction boomer last night." Nene paused. "Oh, and
you didn't hear this officially, but it had a motorcycle race
with Priss about three weeks ago."
"Right." Linna drew the word out into a drawl. "I remember
that."
"Huh." Lisa considered this. "Doesn't sound like your usual
boomeroid. Doesn't sound very dangerous at all. Are you sure
it's a GENOM product?"
Nene and Linna exchanged looks and giggled. Then Nene nodded
thoughtfully. "I know what you mean; it sounds too... peaceful.
But the City Council's on the Chief's back about it, or rather,
one of GENOM's bought council members is. So Leon and Daley and
a couple others have this little team set up to try and track it
down." She pursed her lips for a moment. "One good thing is
that it's left a lot of witnesses alive, and Priss hung out with
it for the best part of an hour, so we know what it looks like
and a lot of how it acts."
"So, what *does* it look like?" Lisa asked absently. "Seven feet
of hulking plastic and metal?"
"No, not really. It's..." Nene turned around and dug through
her clothing in its locker. "Actually, I have one of the
sketches we were handing out to merchants for a while after it
first showed up; Fuko gave it to me. Ah, here it is." She
withdrew a sheet of paper folded in quarters, creased and
wrinkled. She tossed it to Lisa, who unfolded it and suppressed
a cry of recognition at the sight of a helmet she had found once
in a wardrobe.
*Oh my god,* she thought. *It's Doug.*
* * *
The Pink Pagoda, Sapporo. Tuesday, September 2, 2036. 8:51 PM
Estelle touched Priss' arm and whispered, "Five minutes until
showtime, baby," into her ear.
Priss gave a thumbs-up and returned her attention to the phone
and its too-small screen. "Yeah, so, it's a dive. It's not like
I was expecting much else after the first few places Rick booked
us into." She looked sidewise to the long, elaborately tacky bar
that ran the length of the main room. Rick stood at the
Plexiglas-and-pink neon monstrosity, downing a local beer and
chatting up a gaggle of underage groupies. Priss briefly
imagined the tortures she would put him through in repayment for
this trip.
"Well, why don't you just call the tour a loss and come home?"
Linna's voice was weak and tinny as her sympathetic face peered
out of the credit-card sized screen on the phone.
"Coupla' reasons. One, we've got contracts with 'no-show'
penalties; if I pull the plug on this traveling circus, we end
up owing money to everyone we stiffed." She snorted. "And
two... I hate to admit it, but Rick and everyone were right.
Since we started the tour, our online soundrom sales have doubled
or even tripled in every city we've hit."
"Well, that's great!"
Priss nodded. "Better yet, the sales have been *staying* up
after we leave town, which means..."
Linna jumped in. "Which means you're still getting *new* people
buying your music, even after you're not there to play!"
She grinned and made a "gun" with her hand. "Bingo. It looks
like we're getting the word of mouth we need."
"That is *so* great. Everyone's going to be so glad to hear
about this, you know." Linna's obvious happiness and enthusiasm
was contagious, even over a long-distance line, and Priss found
her mood lightening a bit.
But not that much. "Don't go jinxing it, Linna! Let's see how
we're doing at the midpoint, okay?"
The head on the tiny screen nodded in agreement. "Okay, it's
your call, Priss." Linna's tone grew softer. "You know we all
miss you, right?"
"Yeah." Priss' lips quirked into a small, but definite, smile.
"I know. Wish I were back there, too."
"So do we." Even through the too-small screen, Priss could see
the emotion in Linna's eyes, and realized once again that while
the Replicants were her friends, the Sabers were *family*. She
felt an unaccustomed upwelling of emotion at the thought, and
rode it for a moment before reluctantly reining it in.
"Oh, and before I forget, your motorcycling buddy's shown up
again."
"Huh?" Priss yanked her attention back to the phone. "What was
that?"
"That boomeroid that you raced almost a month ago. It's back."
Priss shook her head. "I've been thinking about that, Linna, and
I think someone's putting out a line of bullshit about this whole
thing. I mean, he didn't act like any boomeroid that we've ever
met. He didn't *feel* like a boomeroid to me, do you know what I
mean?"
Linna shrugged. "That's as may be. All I know is what I hear.
And for now, they're calling him a boomeroid."
There was a tap on her shoulder, and Priss turned. Roy was
there. "Oi, getcher ass onna stage, Priss, it's showtime."
"Right, right," she said, and pushed him towards the rest of the
band. "I'll be right there." She turned back to the phone.
"Linna, I..."
The dancer gave a laugh. "I heard, Priss. Go, get on stage and
give 'em hell, okay?"
Priss smiled. "Thanks, Linna. I'll do that. But I'm gonna get
back to you on this boomeroid business. There's something very
wrong going on here." She paused. "Take care, and tell
everyone... ah, hell, tell 'em all I love 'em and miss 'em,
okay?"
Linna's eyes twinkled. "Even Leon?"
A grin spread across Priss' face. "Nah, I think I'll do that
myself," she said, and Linna laughed again. "G'bye, Linna, talk
to you soon."
"'Bye, Priss. Kick some ass tonight. Even if it is a dive."
"You bet," she said, and ended the call.
* * *
Wednesday, September 10, 2036. 11:25 PM
"Let me just make sure the pickups are in place, and then we'll
start, okay?" Leon asked, bustling around the pen-sized sensors
mounted on their gimbaled support arm. The other officers on his
side of the room stepped forward to help. "No, no, I've got it."
As Leon made sure the spring-and-hinge apparatus was securely
clamped to the table, Daley grimaced. "C'mon, Leon-chan, just
sit down. The damned thing is fine, okay? Let me just give my
testimony and get it over with." He shifted uneasily in the hard
metal chair and resisted the urge to rub the bruise along his
jaw.
Leon frowned, then gave up on the camera mount. Pulling out the
chair next to it, he seated himself on the opposite side of the
table from Daley. "I just want to make sure we have everything
recorded properly. Okay," he pulled his chair in, and turned to
the officers who stood in the shadows behind him. "Gentlemen,
are you ready? Good. Let's go." Looking at Daley, he began.
"Your name please, for the record?"
Daley suppressed the impulse to roll his eyes. "Daley Wong."
"Job and place of employment?"
"Inspector, AD Police."
Leon paused for a moment, then continued. "Can you tell me in
your own words what transpired at or about 9 PM on the night of
Wednesday, September 10, 2036?"
Daley drew a deep breath. "Okay, well, I was driving in for the
late shift I'd elected to take that night, when Dispatch made a
general announcement. A terrorist group that objected GENOM's
alleged use of third-world slave labor had called ADP and
announced that it was going to stage a 'protest' by releasing a
combat boomer in the Ota ward."
"The so-called 'Coalition for Free Workers'?" Leon offered.
"Yeah, that's what Dispatch said they'd called themselves,"
Daley sniffed. "Anyway, I was passing through Ota at the time
and responded to the call. The Morita Federal Housing Complex is
fairly central to the ward, and wasn't far from where I was at
the time, so I drove there, parked and waited for some kind of
alert. I spent about 20 minutes listening to Dispatch and our
forces deploying around the ward."
"Then?"
"Then Dispatch announced that the boomer had been sighted, at the
Morikami Federal Apartments, about half a kilometer from where I
was. I headed right over there. I was the first on the scene,
not counting the FireBees. I didn't see the boomer anywhere,
though. What I did see was a woman and a pair of kids, just
entering the plaza."
"Then what happened?"
Daley's lips quirked into a self-deprecating smile. "Well, it
was about then that I got my car shot out from under me."
* * *
Daley gingerly got to his feet. *Damn, I hurt everywhere,* he
thought. He felt a trickle on his forehead, touched it, and
brought back his fingertips bloody. *Oh, great.* He looked
around for the mother and children, but couldn't spot them
between the smoke and his own blurred vision. *If I hadn't
gotten out to chase them away, I'd've never been outside of the
blast radius. I was damned lucky.*
He glanced back at the remains of his car, now a flaming hulk
emitting huge, billowing clouds of black smoke that seemed
content to cling to the ground rather than rise up between the
towers of the apartment buildings surrounding him. They stank of
petroleum and burning rubber. The woman and her children were
nowhere to be seen, but the smoke could easily be hiding them.
Overhead, he could hear the rotors of the FireBees as they buzzed
the plaza. He couldn't expect any immediate help from the tiny
one-man helicopters. After the slaughters that occurred when the
first 55-Cs reached the street in 2032, FireBees' pilots were
forbidden to enter direct combat with anything other than
construction or mannequin boomers. And what hit him was
definitely the weapon of a 55-C.
He reached for his gun and didn't find it. He risked a glance
down at his belt and his head spun; unable to maintain his
balance, he toppled over, scraping his hands on the pavement when
he tried to catch himself. *Damn,* he thought. *I'm not going
to be rescuing anyone like this. I hope they got away.* His
sight dimmed, and when it returned, he found himself sprawled out
on the ground.
He heard the crunch of heavy footsteps nearby through the
thickening smoke, accompanied by a tell-tale ratcheting clank.
*Oh, shit,* Daley thought. *I'm going to die without ever having
gotten Leon-chan into bed.* Overhead, the noise of the FireBees
grew inexplicably louder.
"<Sutandu sutiilu, laadi!>" The voice echoed around him, louder
than the rotors, clipped and pitched as from a cheap PA system.
Daley shook his head in confusion, immediately regretting it as a
stab of pain flashed behind and above his eyes. It was English;
Leon was far more fluent in the language, but if he could have
concentrated past his pounding, spinning head, Daley might have
puzzled it out. As it was, he had no idea what was being said.
The next thing he knew, the concrete under him turned white, and
he felt himself being lifted. His stomach, until now quiescent,
rebelled at the sudden change and threatened to empty itself; he
could taste bile already at the back of his throat. It almost
distracted him from the strange surface on which he lay: it
looked like blocks of white stone, sculpted and fit together in
some complex, curving surface, but it was warm and felt almost...
almost alive.
The surface jerked again, and once more his sight dimmed. When
it returned, he almost cried out. Smooth leather gloves gripped
either side of his head, and staring into his eyes were a pair of
black goggles set into a gleaming grey helmet. Black goggles lit
from within by a constant play of lines and shapes of colored
light. Black goggles that hid much of the face of their wearer
and gave him an alien, almost insectlike cast.
"Well, well. You're pretty lucky, Officer. Mostly you're just
shaken up, although you do have a couple minor lacerations and,
hmmm, you look like you have a serious concussion," said the
boomeroid, "but we can take care of all that later. At the
moment, though, we have a wild bot on our hands."
Daley murmured vague sounds of agreement while studying the
boomeroid as best he could, given his condition. As the man
gently laid him against some kind of support, Daley noticed
through his daze that the mysterious blotch on the helmet -- long
the subject of low-key debate in the squad room -- was in fact
the olive-branch-and-map symbol of the United Nations. *How
strange,* he thought absently. "The woman and her kids?" he
mumbled.
The boomeroid nodded approvingly. "Safe for now."
"Good," Daley whispered, and his sight grew blurry for a moment.
"I hope you don't mind if I take out this warbot for you,
Officer, um..." the boomeroid glanced down to one hand where,
inexplicably, Daley's ID was held, "um, excuse me, Inspector
Wong." As he continued speaking, the boomeroid reached over and
returned the ID to the inside pocket of Daley's tattered jacket.
"I mean, I know you guys on ADP can handle this easily, but,
well, to tell the truth, I need the practice."
"Oh, no, no problem, go right ahead, feel free," Daley murmured
in disbelief and confusion as his head continued to swim and
spin. *It's strange,* Daley thought vaguely, *but I was
expecting him to be taller and bulkier... Nice build, though...
I wonder if he's got a cute butt...* Distantly, he noted that
the Harley-Davidson patch on the leather jacket had been replaced
by a palm-sized shield insignia with the romanji letters "LT" on
it.
"Thank you very much for the permission, Inspector," the
boomeroid replied in exquisitely formal mode. "I prefer to work
with the full cooperation of local law enforcement, so I'm very
glad that you're so underst... oh, shit. Excuse me, please."
As the helmeted man turned his attention elsewhere, Daley
reflected absently that it was rare to encounter anyone so polite
these days, least of all a potentially insane boomeroid. And
just where did that meter-wide ball of worked white stone blocks
come from, and how was it floating over the boomeroid's hand?
Oh, no, never mind, it was flying off now.
Daley managed to focus clearly enough to realize that he had
somehow gotten to the roof of a building. The various apartment
towers loomed overhead, so this had to be one of the smaller
administrative offices that flanked them. He took a deep breath
and twisted himself around, driving down the dizziness and pain.
He was leaning against the low retaining wall that ran around the
edge of the building's roof. The boomeroid stood, one foot on
the parapet, looking down into the plaza below and working his
empty hands as if he were operating machinery or, perhaps, a
marionette.
"You know, Inspector, you and I are just two bricks in the wall
that separates civilization from rampant crime and complete
social breakdown," the boomeroid noted conversationally. "It's
quite a heavy burden to bear, wouldn't you agree?"
Daley just stared.
Every once in a while the helmeted man flinched and grunted, and
Daley slowly realized that every grunt came a split-second after
the sound of a weapon from below. "You know," the boomeroid said
between grunts, "GENOM makes damnably tough warbots."
"Their boomeroids... are impressive, too," Daley managed to gasp
out. He hoped his tone was as flip as he'd intended.
"Really? I haven't met one of those yet. They really that
tough?"
*Riiiight,* Daley thought, and allowed himself to sink back to
his original sitting position. *I wonder if it's just my
concussion, or have things just gotten a little more surreal than
I was expecting?* Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the
boomeroid glance at him and shrug, then return to whatever the
hell it was he was doing. *Yup, he *does* have a cute butt...*
Daley thought irrelevantly as his eyesight began to dim once
more.
He must have blacked out again, because he jerked to alertness
when the boomeroid started yelling in English. This time, he
could concentrate enough -- barely -- to make out the words, but
they seemed like nonsense. "<Hah! Gotcha!>" the boomeroid cried
out, jumping onto the retaining wall and shaking a fist in the
general direction of the plaza. "<If you don't eat your meat,
you can't have any pudding! And you're going to have to eat your
meat *and* your vegetables to beat *me*, you sorry junkheap!
Take that!>" And from below and behind him, Daley heard a sudden
sharp *crunch*, followed by a dull crash, followed by silence.
Daley levered himself up and peered over the retaining wall in
time to see what looked like a dome of white stone blocks simply
vanish, leaving behind a frightened woman and two children. A
short distance away lay the inert remains of a 55-C boomer;
between his difficulty focusing and his odd position, Daley could
make out no details except that it was prone and still.
The boomeroid waved and called out, "Please accept my apologies
for the inconvenience and the fright, madam, but it was necessary
for your safety. You'll probably want to return home and make
yourself some tea. And maybe some hot chocolate for the
children. Yes, that's right. Have a good evening." Then he
turned to Daley and said, "Ah, yes, Inspector Wong, let's do
something about that concussion. <System, I'm alive. Play.>"
A minute later, Daley, dirtied, bloodied and clothes torn, stood
on the rooftop and marveled at how *well* he felt. "Who *are*
you?" he said to the man whom he was beginning to suspect was
something more than just a boomeroid.
"<Song off,>" the other said absently, then looked at him. Daley
could see the evidence of some exertion in the sheen of
perspiration on the visible parts of his face -- far more than
could be accounted for by the man's relatively restrained
movements. "Ah, well, that's the 64,000-yen question isn't it?
I'm not terribly willing to say. Let me just note that," and his
voice grew strangely pitched and accented, "some call me...
Loon?"
"Well, Loon-san," Daley began as he searched his pockets for his
handcuffs, "I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."
"Loon" drew himself up and suddenly seemed to gain a dignified
presence that belied his earlier behavior. "May I ask why?"
Daley stood his ground and tried to stare eye-to-eye with those
featureless goggles. "Because you are suspected of being a rogue
boomeroid with enhancement/replacement in excess of the 70%
limit."
A few moments of silence passed, then the helmeted man began to
snicker. The snickers turned into chuckles, and then the
chuckles became full-fledged belly laughter. "<'Oy vey,'>" he
finally said between snorts, "<'have *you* got the wrong
verevolf!'>" Finally, he regained control over himself and
spread his arms. "Sorry to disappoint you, Inspector, but you're
looking at 100% California natural, all organic. Not a smidge of
cyber. Where on earth did you get the idea I was 'borged?"
"Well, GENOM claims..."
"GENOM!" Loon's laughter ceased abruptly. "GENOM knows about me
already?"
Daley blinked. "They've been insisting we find you since early
July, because you're valuable property."
"Shit." Loon put a hand to his helmet and began pacing in small
circles. "Shit, shit, shit. How could they possibly have known
so soon after I arrived? I mean, I didn't even start doing the
vig thing until what, ten days ago?" He shook his head and
turned back to face Daley. "I'm sorry, Inspector, but I can't go
with you. By the time you confirm that I'm free of cyber, GENOM
will have come up with some other spurious but legally solid
reason to claim me as their property. I will not give myself
into their hands."
Daley nodded slowly. "I think I understand. But I have my duty
to perform and my orders to follow. If you won't come
voluntarily, I'm going to have to place you under arrest."
Loon sighed. "I'm sorry it has to come to this, Inspector, but I
can't let you do that."
* * *
"And then?" Leon asked.
Daley grimaced. "And then he decked me." He unconsciously
touched the bruise on his jaw and flinched at the pain. "I
didn't even see him move. Then he runs off and jumps off the
roof. I hear a motorcycle revving, and by the time I get back
up, the only thing I can see of him is his back as he's riding
off."
"Did you get a license number?"
Daley favored Leon with a Look. "Leon, I was on the roof of a
three-story building, and he was halfway down the block already.
I was lucky to even make out that it was *him*."
Leon leaned back and said nothing.
Daley leaned across the table and looked into Leon's eyes, a
pleading expression on his face. "Leon-chan, believe me, I
wasn't hallucinating."
One corner of Leon's mouth twitched up. "Oh, I know you weren't,
Daley. We've already interviewed the woman and her kids. They
all agree that one moment they were face-to-face with the boomer,
and then the next, poof, they were inside a dome of what looked
like white stone blocks. Except they were warm and felt soft and
springy, like plastic." He paused a moment. "They said that for
a while they could hear the boomer trying to break through the
dome. Every couple seconds there'd be a dull thump, and the
inside wall would bulge a little, then smooth back out."
"You must be kidding."
Leon shook his head. "Nope. Anyway, when the dome went away,
the boomer was dead. They also saw the boomeroid on the roof and
had a conversation with it that was pretty much the same as you
overheard. We also have building security camera footage of both
the floating stone ball *and* this Loon character bouncing and
somersaulting his way down to the street. No, Daley, you weren't
hallucinating."
Daley slumped in his chair. "That's a relief."
"So... any idea how you got up there?"
"Not a clue."
"One of the kids says a white stone column with a giant hand on
the end of it grew out of the ground under you and carried you."
He stared at Leon. "You're not bullshitting me, are you?"
"Nope."
"What did the FireBees see?"
"Huh?"
"I heard FireBees overhead right before I ended up on that roof."
Leon shook his head. "The FireBees didn't get there until all
the fun was over."
"That's impossible. I heard the rotors..." Daley shook his
head. "Never mind. What happened to the boomer?"
"Well, the lab boys are still looking it over, but the executive
summary is that it was crushed." Leon was fiddling with his
sunglasses and did not look up at his partner.
"Crushed?"
Leon nodded. "Like a, um, well, like a giant hand had grabbed it
and squeezed." He made a gesture evocative of a small explosion
or a balloon popping. "Well, I'd say that concludes this
interview," he added, then reached over and shut off the
recording pickups.
He nodded to the other officers who had silently witnessed the
testimony. "Gentlemen." The officers each returned the nod and
filed out. One gave Daley a thumbs-up; another clasped his
shoulder for a moment and offered words of encouragement.
When they had all left, a thoughtful look drew across Daley's
face. "Leon-chan, I don't know what conclusions you're coming
to, but I don't think we're dealing with something as simple as a
runaway boomeroid here."
Leon pushed back his chair and stood, saying, "I think you're
right." He glanced left and right, as if expecting someone to be
on either side of him. "You know I was already suspicious of
this whole assignment." Daley nodded slowly. "This just
confirms a few things I was thinking." Leon walked around the
table and sat on the corner near his partner.
"I'm all ears," the latter said.
"Okay. This does not leave this room, and it does not go into
any official record. But despite what GENOM says and whatever
this guy 'Loon' is, I don't buy the claim that he's GENOM
property. He's something else entirely, and I think they're
basically trying to steal or kidnap him." His face grew dark.
"And they're making us into accomplices."
Daley nodded. "The UN symbol on the helmet clinches it for me --
he's theirs. If he belonged to GENOM and were going to wear an
emblem, it'd be their trademark. No doubt about it." He paused
and thought for a moment. "And he talked like he was used to
working around cops. 'I like having cooperation from local law
enforcement.' That sounds like someone with national or even
international jurisdiction."
Leon shook his head, still glowering. "This still doesn't make
any sense. If this guy's a UN operative, why isn't he holed up
in some UN or USSD facility? Why hasn't he just gone back to
his headquarters or home base? Why hasn't he left Japan, or even
just MegaTokyo?" He growled angrily.
"Why hasn't the UN stepped in to take him out of GENOM's
clutches?" Daley offered, wearily ticking questions off on his
fingers. "Why haven't they contacted *us*? Is he on some kind
of undercover assignment? If so, why is he being so public
recently? Why is GENOM going along with our theory that he's a
boomeroid if he isn't? No, strike that, I know the answer to
*that* one. And if he's *not* a boomeroid, how does he do all
those things that made us *think* he was one?"
"And what do Ohara and IDEC have to do with everything or
anything? Too many questions, Daley," said Leon, offering his
partner a hand up out of his chair. "Too many damned questions
and not enough answers."
Daley sighed. "I'm getting the feeling that the answers are
going to add up to something so strange that we're not even going
to recognize it when we see it."
* * *
Thursday, September 11, 2036. 9:00 AM
Ring.
"Ohara here."
"I see from my sources at the AD Police that our visitor had a
run-in with a boomer last night."
"Yes. We deployed the 55-Cs in an effort to capture him. One
was to be a lure, and the other was to effect the capture while
the visitor was distracted." Pause. "We did not anticipate his
ability to... engage the boomer from a distance."
"Yes. Fascinating. I trust you had the sense to deploy some
kind of reconnaissance or sensor package?"
"We did."
"I want the raw data immediately, and an analysis as soon as you
have it."
"Certainly."
"Oh, and shall you be needing further boomers? We have several
dozen which have grown... inconvenient. Various models. You may
have them if you can make use of them."
"What's the catch, Madigan?"
"Ah, well. Most have serial numbers too similar to those of
other boomers employed recently by 'terrorists' in Europe and
North America. Entirely coincidence, of course, but you know how
these things can be blown out of proportion. And some have...
attitude problems."
"Uh-huh."
"So. How many will you be taking, Ohara-san?"
* * *
Thursday, September 11, 2036. 10:39 AM
Sylia did not allow the "End of Recording" dialog to blink more
than once before touching the "OK" box on the screen. Inspector
Wong's account of the previous night's activities caused her
concern. This "Loon" was a new, unknown variable in the
carefully balanced dance of forces and influences that defined
the hidden underlayers of MegaTokyo. However indirectly, however
shakily, a multisided agreement that was somewhat more than a
cease-fire and considerably less than a truce had evolved over
the past few years. Now this new player threatened to shake
everyone from their comfortable seats on the sidelines.
Her thoughts troubled and chaotic, Sylia tapped one impeccably
manicured nail against the icon that read, "Boomer Autopsy,
10/9/36". As she followed the report and began understanding the
implications, she found herself -- for the first time in years --
fearing the approach of the unknown.
* * *
Room 2413, The Okayama Marriott. Thursday, September 11, 2036.
3:09 PM
"Okay, Nene, thanks for calling. 'Bye."
Priss hung up the v-phone and stepped to the sliding glass door
that led to the balcony. It was far too hot and muggy to
actually go out there, so she contented herself with standing
with her nose to the glass and looking out across the beautiful
mountainous terrain to the north. In the distance, she thought
she could just make out the famous temple through the late summer
haze, and there seemed to be a glint of water near it; a lake,
perhaps, or maybe just a mirage from the heat.
Priss rested her head against the warm glass and closed her eyes.
It was no good trying to distract herself. *Face facts, girl,
you're worried,* she told herself. *This "Loon" character may
not be a threat to the Sabers, but he's doing just the kind of
thing that's going to bring GENOM down on him, hard. And
anything that involves GENOM eventually involves the Sabers.*
She kicked the metal frame of the door. *And you won't be there
to help when it does, dammit.*
* * *
Friday, September 26, 2036. 9:17 AM
Still buttoning her uniform jacket, Nene raced around the corner,
the centrifugal force of her turn threatening to tear away the
slice of jelly-coated toast dangling from her lips. She hurdled
an intern bent over to refresh the paper supply of a photocopier
and dodged between a pair of K-12S pilots, nearly knocking their
Styrofoam coffee cups from their hands.
She dashed into the conference room and yanked the toast from her
mouth, almost spattering herself with flying preserves. "Let me
see! Let me see!" she insisted breathlessly.
Daley, lounging in one of the less-decrepit seats, chuckled. "So
good of you to join us, Nene."
"Hey, give me a break," Nene retorted indignantly. "I overslept,
traffic was bad, and anyway I only just got Leon's message."
"Well, now that you're here, close the door and take a seat,"
Leon said absently. He stood at one end of the conference table,
near the built-in computer that controlled the room's multimedia
functions. He held a datarom in his right hand and tapped it
gently against his left.
Nene, one hand feeding the toast into her mouth and the other
finishing the task of buttoning her jacket, shut the door with
her foot. It latched shut noisily, and she flinched. Seeking
out a chair, she mumbled a greeting to Fuko, Daley and the other
officers present as she dropped heavily into the seat. She
swallowed with an audible gulp and then grinned brightly.
"Please, continue," she said cheerfully, prompting a chorus of
chuckles from the others in the room.
A smirking Leon stepped to the front of the room, in front of the
large display that took up one entire wall. "Ladies and
gentlemen, the reason that I've called you all together this
morning is because together we make up the ad hoc team assembled
to investigate and apprehend the so-called military boomeroid."
He held up the datarom. "Thanks to one Fujisawa Naomi, shop
owner and apparently a professional paranoid, I hold in my hand
the first video recording of the mysterious 'Loon'." To the
murmur this prompted, he smiled and continued. "Other than Daley
and myself, no one else has seen this clip, which is about three
minutes long. Let me warn you. What you're about to see, well,
it's hard to believe. But it matches the few eyewitness
accounts, and, well..." Nene was surprised to see that Leon was
actually at a loss for words.
"Shut up and slot it, Leon," Daley offered wryly.
Leon chuckled and put on a lopsided grin, his self-assuredness
seeming to flow back into him. "Right. Just remember that for
now, what you're about to see doesn't go beyond this room." With
a calculated flourish, he twirled the cartridge through his
fingers and slid it into the terminal at the end of the table.
Picking up the remote from its cradle on the side of the unit,
Leon aimed it at the wall behind himself and pressed a button,
then stepped aside.
The window shutters automatically closed. The immense screen
flickered and exploded into a shower of black and white "snow".
After a second of this, an image snapped into place -- a parking
lot lit by several tall street lamps. The view was that of a
roof-mounted camera, canted slightly on the diagonal. The full-
color image's quality wasn't bad -- a little grainy, but hardly
the blocky pixellation that a less-expensive surveillance system
would have displayed. A timestamp with blurring tenths of
seconds hovered, subdued white, in the lower right corner -- just
before midnight, less than 10 hours previous.
The clip had barely begun when a pair of 55-Cs dropped down from
above the field of view and landed in the empty lot; the asphalt
buckled and cracked from the force of the impact. Nene silently
noted that their tactical commlinks obviously weren't being
jammed, as one was clearly in sentry mode while the other fired
toward the lower right corner of the screen with its mouth
cannon. An identical answering blast impacted upon its armor
almost immediately, driving the cyberdroid across the parking lot
without actually damaging it.
Behind them, on the side of a building bordering the far end of
the parking lot, a computerized banner advertisement flickered
and went dead for a moment. Then it blazed back to life, its
endless loop of sales pitches replaced with an unmoving string of
zeroes, silent testimony to either boomer-caused damage or a
coincidental system crash.
A flicker of movement at the right edge of the screen resolved
itself into the shape of a man running into the empty lot. Two
glowing, almost crystalline oblongs floated in midair slightly
before him, flanking the man at arm's length as he entered the
camera's field of view. They were angled in toward the man,
making him the point of a surreal "V".
Even with the rear angle on him, the helmet he wore was
unmistakable: it was the boomeroid who called himself "Loon".
The purpose of the crystalline forms became obvious a moment
later, as the sentry boomer opened its mouth and delivered its
own blast. One of the glowing shapes swiftly pivoted around its
outer end and batted away the beam, reflecting it like a
mirror back at the cyberdroid who'd fired it. As before, the
returning attack drove the boomer back without seriously damaging
it.
"Loon" came to a halt and held out a hand. A pinpoint flare of
light appeared in the air a foot above his palm and expanded into
mirror-finished sphere perhaps 35 centimeters across. The
reflective ball hung there motionless. Then he made a curious
motion with his right hand, as if he were pulling back on a rope
and then letting go. The ball hurtled at the closer of the
boomers.
Its impact was impressive -- the boomer was lifted off its feet
and carried two or three meters before landing on its back. A
cavernous dent was left in its chest plate, its edges rippling
and crawling as the cyberdroid's self-repair systems set to work.
Meanwhile, the sphere had rebounded and struck the second on the
leg, apparently damaging one of its knees; the sentry boomer was
spun around by the force of the blow and seemed to be favoring
one leg as it regained its balance.
Inexplicably, at the moment of impact each boomer was momentarily
outlined by nimbus of white light, and a glowing number briefly
appeared floating over its head, ruddy and robust and bright
enough to cast shadows: "500" over the first boomer, "100" over
the second. On the electronic banner behind them, the line of
zeroes vanished and were replaced by the number "600".
The silver ball hurtled back at its originator, only to be sent
flying away by another pivoting oblong. It ricocheted wildly
across and even off the screen, careening off the adjacent
buildings, the lampposts, the ground and even a few parked cars
without apparent damage to any of these. Each point of impact
glowed for a moment, washed with a clean white light, and
manifested a number in lambent red: 100, 200, 250, and more.
The numerals on the banner blurred with each hit, and the number
there grew to four digits, then five.
For their parts, the boomers seemed momentarily confused by this
turn of events. Nene supposed that their tactical 'ware had been
churning through excess cycles trying to evaluate this new weapon
and its threat potential. The sentry boomer spun unsteadily in
place as it tried to track and target the speeding, unpredictable
ball, loosing futile laser blasts a moment too early or late to
hit it.
"Loon" immediately took advantage of the cyberdroids'
distraction. Crystal oblongs still floating serenely to either
side of him, he sprang into a wild sprint that would have taken
him face-to-face with the sentry boomer had he not launched
himself into a flying kick at the last moment. The broad sweep
of his booted foot intersected the boomer's face, and even at
this resolution and angle it was possible to see the spray of
delicate optics and electronics leading and trailing the blow as
it swept past. Almost immediately, it was followed by the second
boot which dealt another hammerstrike to the damaged face.
The boomer reflexively grabbed at him, and was parried by a
flashing sweep of crystal. "Loon", spinning like a top, rolled
through the air past the sentry. Upon reaching the ground, he
flowed through a handstand and into a long, arcing somersault
that took him over and behind the downed boomer as it clambered
to its feet. His right arm whipped out in a precisely-aimed blow
that left the boomer's left arm hanging limply at the elbow.
Behind her, Nene heard someone whisper, "Good tactics. He's
limiting their mobility and using one as a shield against the
other."
On the screen, the silver ball had finally escaped from its wild
series of rebounds and now seemed to be homing in a bullet-
straight line for the wounded boomer. After a moment's
hesitation, the cyberdroid chose to ignore "Loon", instead
letting loose a fusillade of beam attacks in an attempt at point
defense.
One beam missed and struck its partner, bowling the blinded
boomer over and scorching its pectoral armor.
One salvo hit the silver sphere head on; instead of being
destroyed, though, the ball bounced upward, as though it had
struck a solid obstacle. The boomer ceased fire and paused,
evaluating this new behavior, as its companion shakily returned
to its feet. The mirrored sphere vanished off the top edge of
the screen.
At the far end of the parking lot, the electronic banner paused
its wild enumeration at "87,950".
During this, "Loon" had not been idle. He had been busily
engaged in a series of mostly ineffectual blows to the boomer's
back and upper arms, but had stepped back when the rain of laser
cannon fire began. As the silver ball rebounded away, he stepped
in close again and was caught by surprise when the boomer's arm
snaked back and grabbed the front of his jacket.
The boomer yanked him overhead and slammed him down against the
pavement twice, then threw him across the parking lot, almost out
of the camera's field of view. The playback was silent, but Nene
and the others could almost hear the tearing metal and shattering
glass as "Loon" smashed into a car, staving in the passenger door
completely and setting the automobile rocking side-to-side.
"Well, that's it for the boomeroid," Lt. Vong muttered from
behind Nene. Leon, his face awash in light from the screen,
smiled enigmatically.
"No, look!" Fuko exclaimed.
As the car's motion damped down, a pair of booted feet kicked the
remains of the door out of the way and hooked their heels against
the lower edge of the opening. They pulled, and "Loon" slid out
of the ruined vehicle.
"Dear god," someone -- Nene wasn't sure who -- whispered. "He
survived *that*?"
"Loon" levered himself to his feet and stood, swaying, for a
moment. It was hard to tell, given the size and quality of image
on the screen, but he seemed to have a thin layer of dust coating
him; he visibly shook himself, and it scattered away in a
sparkling cascade.
In the lower half of the screen, the more intact of the two
boomers had moved to cover its companion as their self-repair
systems dealt with their most recent damage. It stood with its
back partly to the ruined car; a fatal mistake.
"Loon" dropped his arms into a position that was vaguely
reminiscent of a gunfighter readying to fastdraw. The comparison
must have occurred to him as well as the audience watching, for
he flicked away the edges of an imaginary duster and settled into
a low slouch. Then his right hand snapped up and made the
strange "pulling" gesture three times in rapid succession.
A second silver sphere formed and shot away from him, followed by
a third, and then a fourth. Behind, the electronic banner
flashed three times and proclaimed, "MULTIBALL!" Then he
launched himself after them.
At top edge of the screen, the original ball finally reappeared,
plummeting downward.
What followed was a whirlwind of light and movement that as often
as not was reduced to a blur by the video system that had
recorded it. "Loon" sped through and around his boomer opponents
even as the metallic spheres ricocheted to all points of the
compass. Every time a ball came back to him, one of the crystal
oblongs flung it away again, and every object a ball struck shone
white and evinced a floating, glowing number in the hundreds.
The only exceptions were the boomers, who displayed values that
soon mounted into the thousands. A crazy-quilt of shadows played
and shifted across the parking lot as the lights burst into life
and faded moments later. The banner ad had ceased to display a
clear number; it was a blur of spinning digits.
"Loon" himself never was far from the two cyberdroids, and Nene
and the others watched incredulously as he engaged them in the
midst of the storm of silver balls. Gloved fists and booted feet
drove their way into joints and seams as if their owner had
studied boomer physiology to pick out their weakest points -- and
perhaps he had. Attempts at counterattacks as often as not
seemed to simply slide off of him, and few of those that actually
struck seemed to harm him. One or two blows staggered him, and
more than once he was knocked back several yards, but compared to
the initial slams and throw he had taken, these were nothing.
No single blow -- from either sphere, boot or fist -- seemed
absolutely crippling to the boomers, but the accumulating total
was clearly telling upon them. A bare minute after "Loon" had
dragged himself out of the wreckage of the car, both boomers were
effectively crippled. Each had had knee and ankle joints
pummeled into mangled junk. One was missing a leg entirely; the
other one had a shattered arm that hung limply, fluids and sparks
spraying weakly from the elbow. They no longer used the sentry-
and-combatant tactic with which they had begun this battle; they
now knelt back-to-back, supporting each other and trying to lash
out at the boomeroid without knocking themselves over.
While the storm of attacks from boomeroid and silver spheres had
taxed the boomers' self-repair systems to their maximum, they
were still working. As "Loon" danced away after a rain of
punches, the more intact of the cyberdroids staggered to its
feet. This seemed to delight the boomeroid, who paused in his
constant motion to crouch and make a "come here" gesture with
both hands at the now-erect boomer.
It turned and tried to flee.
Every fighter eventually makes a mistake -- it is all but a law
of nature, and has proven the downfall of many a soldier and
police officer. Nene gasped as, at two minutes and forty-seven
seconds into the recording, "Loon" made his critical, perhaps
deadly, mistake. He had chased the stumbling boomer around the
parking lot, toying with it and teasing it into describing a
great arc as overhead, metallic silver balls bounced from wall to
wall and never approached ground. Pounding with foot and fist
into slowly-crumpling and -tearing Abotex, "Loon" had herded it
around to and past its starting point. And as he passed the
second, still-crippled boomer, he left his back open for a moment
too long. Seeing the opportunity, the damaged cyberdroid opened
its chest plates and mustered enough power to fire a point-blank
heat cannon blast into Loon's spine.
It splashed like a fire hose against a brick wall.
A susurrus of shocked whispers broke out in the briefing room at
the sight, and someone behind Nene let out a low whistle.
Six inches from grey leather, the faintly-visible beam
splattered, its deadly radiance reflected in all directions but
toward its target and forming a glowing hemisphere of red-orange
centered upon his back. The backwash caught the damaged boomer
by surprise; the still-powerful energies liquefied the asphalt
below its knees even as it seared and scorched the cyberdroid's
armor. The boomer clumsily hauled itself backwards and cycled
the shutters over its optics several times.
Then four silver balls struck it simultaneously from four
directions. Its damaged torso armor collapsed under the impact,
and then its chest imploded. The four balls collided in its
shattered chest cavity before exploding back out to continue
their paths. White light suffused the boomer's body, and over
its head the English word "<TILT!>" flared into life. Then the
glow and the letters faded away, and the boomer's lifeless body
toppled over to lie motionless on the asphalt.
The electronic banner flashed "X5 MULTIPLIER!!!"
And a scant ten feet away, "Loon" pummeled the remaining Bu55-C
combat boomer into collapse with only his gloved hands.
In less than three minutes, he had taken two cyberdroids, each
easily equal to a light tank in combat, and had reduced both to
scrap.
As the recording wound down, "Loon" stood over the bodies of his
opponents, his chest heaving visibly. The silver balls appeared
to have vanished.
After a few moments, his breathing returned to normal. He looked
down at the boomers and thumbed his nose at them, then looked up
and around, as if searching the windows of the overlooking
buildings. His gaze fell upon the security camera, and he waved
enthusiastically. Then he spun on his heel and loped off
unevenly to vanish into the shadows. The banner ad flickered,
and returned to its endless stream of pitches and come-ons. And
the boomers lay in slowly spreading pools of liquid.
The screen dissolved into static.
There was silence in the briefing room for almost a minute. From
where he leaned against the wall, Leon snorted and asked, "Do you
want to see it again?" At the mass exhalation of affirmatives,
he pressed "play" once more.
As the second playing ended, Nene shook her head. This time
she'd noted that "Loon", far from being miraculously unscathed
after the battle, was in fact favoring one side as he ran off.
Somehow, that seemed to humanize him for her -- he wasn't some
kind of unstoppable combat machine, after all. But that didn't
mean that what she'd seen was any less remarkable.
Leon gestured with the remote control, and the screen shut down.
The window shutters reopened, allowing shafts of golden morning
light back into the room. The occupants were dazzled for a
moment; when their eyesight had returned, Leon stood before the
now-black screen.
"A few points," he began without preamble. "Daley and I have
come to the conclusion that GENOM is lying when they say this
guy's a boomeroid and he's theirs."
"We think he might be the result of some secret UN boomer-
killer project," Daley interjected. "It would explain a lot of
the unanswered questions we have about him."
"And GENOM feels rather deservedly threatened by the existence of
equipment or a process that allows a single human to turn boomers
into so much recyclables," Leon continued. "They want him, and
they want him with as little fanfare as possible."
"Probably to see if there's a weakness to exploit or use as a
counter," Daley appended.
Leon nodded. "Now, what we don't know. We don't know how he
does it. We don't know, really, what it is that he does,
exactly. Probably no one other than our hypothetical UN project
knows. All we know is what we've seen. He's demonstrated
something that all the experts we've talked to say is impossible --
a 'force field', however unreliable it appears. He's far
faster and more agile than an unaugmented human. He shrugs off
the kind of damage that would put some of our best into the
hospital for weeks; hell, that would wreck a K-12S. He seems to
be able to produce physical objects out of thin air. He can also
heal injuries with a touch."
Daley raised a finger. "I can attest to that last one from
personal experience."
"He claims to have no cybernetic implants at all, and found the
suggestion that he did quite amusing." Leon paused, looked down,
and frowned. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, cupping his hand
around his mouth.
"So," Fuko asked, "where do we go from here?"
Daley nodded to himself as Leon looked up. "Well, that's the
quandary. *If* this 'Loon' is telling the truth about his
nature, then we have no jurisdiction over him. We need to find
that out for sure. If we can confirm that, maybe we can come up
with some way to catch GENOM red-handed at some dirty work."
"In the mean time," Daley added, "we continue in our current
tasks. Anything we can uncover to ascertain the truth of either
his claim or GENOM's will help us with the eventual disposition
of this case."
Leon resumed. "As usual, before you go I just want to re-
emphasize: no discussion of this case in the squad room or
around the water cooler or whatever. It's a fact of life around
here that GENOM and other organizations have their connections,
channels and yes, even spies in the ADP. If necessary, take your
conversations completely out of the building." Leon paused
momentarily, and Nene had the distinct, uncomfortable impression
he was avoiding her eyes and looking everywhere -- anywhere --
else in the room. "In addition, commit as little as possible on
this case to your computers. Keep memos to a minimum, hand-write
any you absolutely must send, and shred those you receive. We
can't keep everything completely secret, but we can at least
*hinder* the flow of information out of the department. Everyone
got that?"
There was a general mumble of agreement, and Leon grinned. "Okay
then, people, you're dismissed."
As the other officers filed out of the conference room, Nene hung
back with Leon and Daley. Something about the way Leon had
talked about spies in the ADP worried her. *Maybe I should just
ask him outright what he suspects,* she thought, but when the
room was finally empty and she was face to face with the
inspector, her will deserted her. "Um... that stuff with the
flying balls was really weird," she found herself inanely
chattering.
Leon raised an eyebrow. "Yeah," he replied.
"How do you think he does it?"
"I don't know."
>From where he sat, Daley grinned and added sotto voce, "What
makes him so good?"
Nene looked over at him. "Huh?"
Daley's grin grew larger. "Well, it's obvious that he's a
pinball wizard. And that there has to be a twist."
"I don't get it," she pouted. She returned her gaze to Leon, who
was favoring his partner with an odd look.
"I don't, either," he rumbled.
Daley chuckled. "Never mind, you two. Just an old song that all
this reminded me of."
"Riiight," Leon and Nene both intoned together.
* * *
Monday, October 27, 2036. 11:21 PM
The moon was almost my only light as I ghosted my way down the
alley toward the larger, better-lit road. Just at its first
quarter, it wasn't really enough illumination for unaided eyes;
through my goggles' night vision system, though, it bathed the
warehouses to either side of me in a soft-edged glow. The chill
breeze that swirled dry leaves and loose paper around my feet
testified in its whisper of a voice that the long summer of 2036
was well and truly over, and that autumn would be merely a brief
harbinger of winter to come.
My last encounter with boomers, just about a month prior, was a
lot closer than I liked to think about. I barely ended the fight
under my own power. If it hadn't been for the fact that the
pinballs from "Pinball Wizard" are semiautonomous, I'd probably
have ended up either dead or in some high security hospital ward.
I'd been thoroughly pissed at myself for over a week because I'd
made exactly the same mistake I had committed with the builderbot
in the dance club -- I'd gotten overconfident and got in too
close too soon without taking precautions, and I let myself get
creamed. And it also didn't help that the damn warbots
regenerated a lot of their damage.
As a result, I'd found myself drawing on the node under the city
for a little extra oomph. I originally didn't want to tap it at
all -- what happened during my attempt to rescue Delandra from
her kidnappers had made me *very* wary of trying to supercharge
my metatalent by chugging down raw mana. But the node was so
damn large, and the mana was so pervasive throughout the city,
that it was hard to resist. I figured I'd learned my lesson
about restraint, though. Besides, the node was big enough that
there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to suck it
down whole the way I did the little one near that Hardornan keep.
I'd probably explode if I tried. Not that what happened to me in
the keep was much better, but that's another story.
One thing that surprised me in the wake of the last two battles
was that I was still undercover. I do my share of egosurfing on
the Tapestry back home, looking for my appearances in the news
and opinion weavesheets. When I did the same here, expecting to
find a classic vig's "Who is he?" coverage, there was nothing.
Absolutely nothing. Oh, I found stories on the bot attacks, but
my part in their resolution was conveniently missing. For
whatever reasons it had, ADP (or someone else) was keeping my
existence under wraps. That both intrigued and worried me.
Finding out that GENOM knew about and was actively looking for me
was a shock. Learning that threw me into a 24-hour fit of
paranoid re-evaluation of my tactics and security measures. In
my misplaced confidence, I'd frequently gone out in full duty
uniform without a second thought about it; I immediately stopped
that practice. Even almost two and a half years out, I found
myself slipping into habits and behaviors that, while harmless at
home, put me at a serious risk here. I made a conscious effort
to avoid going out in public in helmet and leathers unless I
absolutely needed to. I wore my polykev every day, though --
just in case. Wash'n'wear body armor is *so* convenient...
However, there was no disputing that I was still needed, so I
kept an ear open for alerts on the ADP band radio I'd built for
myself at work. (Actually, I had two -- the tabletop model that
I kept in my apartment, and the piggyback circuit I installed in
my helmet radio to decrypt ADP broadcasts while I was out and
about. No use responding to a call if I couldn't coordinate with
or work around the local police once I got there, right?)
In the mean time, I risked two more attempts at opening a gate.
Major rogue boomer incidents that required high-firepower
responses -- the kind of incident that would require *me* or the
Knights -- had averaged about two or so weeks apart at their most
frequent. I bet on those averages and tried to open a gate the
day after I took out those two warbots, and then again about
three weeks later. For the first, I tried Peter Gabriel's
"Solsbury Hill", hoping the repetition of "I've come to take you
home" would prove to be the key. Unfortunately, it didn't. The
second was the Who's "Going Mobile" (also with frequent
references to "going home"), but it crapped out, too. And of
course, both songs burnt me out again. Bleagh.
In between the two tries, I finally got a chance to see the
Knight Sabers in action.
On the night of October tenth I'd heard the call go out on the
ADP band about a trio of boomers loose in Tinsel City. I'd just
come out of burnout, so I hopped on my bike and tried to get to
the scene fast enough to do some good. I was almost there when
the voice of the informative Inspector Wong crackled across the
airwaves to announce that the Knight Sabers had been spotted on
their way; he ordered ADP forces to fall back lest they get
caught in the crossfire. I could see I probably wasn't going to
be needed this time, but it was the opportunity to gather a
little intel. After a quick stop in one of MegaTokyo's
ubiquitous 24-hour convenience stores, I found myself a perch
overlooking the battle zone.
"<System, access song 'Kodachrome'. System, play.>" With the
helmet not in combat mode, I needed to use the longer command
syntax. But since I wasn't in a critical situation, it didn't
matter. I was looking down at a broad avenue, along the middle
of which a very energetic fight was progressing. As Paul Simon
began to sing, the fully-automatic Nikon camera materialized in
my hands, its long, heavy telephoto lens threatening to seesaw it
out of my grasp.
With one eye on the street, I popped open the back of the camera
body and discarded the roll of 35 mm film I found inside; it was
a useless virtual object unless I could process and print it
before the song was over. Not bloody likely. Instead, I dropped
in one of the rolls I'd picked up on my way, and shut the
case. Thank god digitals hadn't yet completely supplanted old-
fashioned film here. There was a whirring as the camera
automatically loaded, and a shuttersnap when it advanced to the
first frame. I brought it up and started snapping pictures.
The first thing I noticed now that my attention was on the fight
below was that the Blue Knight was missing. For some reason, I
felt vaguely disappointed at this. The remaining three Knights
at first seemed about evenly matched with the three warbots they
faced. As they engaged the enemy, I did a tactical eval on them,
supplementing what little intel I'd eked out of the few photos
and recordings I'd seen. Lady Olive was clearly the best of the
three in combat, definitely a Warriors-level fighter. But Lady
White wasn't far behind her. Lady Pink demonstrated that she was
competent, but she obviously preferred a rear-echelon support
role of some sort.
On a hunch, I had my computer run a wideband scan and picked up
several unusual radio signals. A couple sounded like encrypted
communications -- whether voice or data, I wasn't sure. (I was
regretting never getting around to putting in that extra volatile
memory as I'd planned, since it meant I couldn't record and study
the transmissions later. Ah well.) Another set of signals were
clearly some kind of electronic countermeasures. I had noticed
that these three boomers were far less well-coordinated than the
pair I'd confronted, acting as individuals rather than a team,
and I attributed that to Pink's efforts. I could see that it
made a real difference in the robots' tactics and performance.
And they did need it, without Blue there. With Pink engaging the
opposition as little as she could, Olive and White were hard-
pressed to manage three opponents. As good as they were, they
had to put more effort into defense than into offense, until
after long minutes they managed to take down one of the bots.
After that, though, it was a slaughter. Without the need to
watch their backs against a third opponent, they each took on a
boomer and killed it in seconds.
As the Knights departed and the ADP moved in, I rewound the film.
I popped it out just before the song ended and the camera
vanished. I'd get it developed shortly -- maybe Lisa could
recommend a good photo lab, even if she did prefer digital
cameras.
While I waited for the streets to clear of police before heading
home, I considered what I had just seen. Against an equal number
of boomers, the current roster of Knight Sabers could handle
themselves, but any more and they might be in trouble. In such a
case, they just might appreciate a hand.
Which leads me to the night of October 27, 2036.
About two and a half weeks after the fight I'd watched, almost
precisely on the dot by my hypothetical "schedule", there was
another boomer incident. And, as was also usual, it happened at
night. This time, ADP reported five boomers of the ubiquitous
55-C model rampaging in a loose formation through a warehouse
district on the bayfront. I was almost disappointed that it
wasn't *four* warbots -- it would have made such a lovely,
predictable pattern. Ah, well.
When I heard the alert I burst out of my apartment with my jacket
still unclasped and my helmet in my hand. I practically bowled
over Lisa, who was just leaving of her apartment, too. I burbled
an apology and ran for the fire stairs -- I could take those a
flight at a time and be in the basement far faster than the
elevator could get me there. A few minutes later, I was on the
road.
Like the last time, the Knights arrived before I did. After
slipping through the ADP lines, I stashed my cycle in an alleyway
near the action. Rather than leap into the middle of things, I
found myself a vantage point from which to watch the battle. I
wanted to see what was happening before I involved myself. In
the unlikely event that they didn't need my help, I wasn't going
to step in and look like a glory hound.
By the time I got a glance at the action, they were already hip-
deep in the fight. They had the support of some kind of well-
armed robots -- three of them, of varying sizes, from the metal-
skeleton-and-open-motive-machinery school of design (as opposed
to boomers' rather organic smoothness), and which for some reason
seemed to have large pneumatic tires as shoulder blades. Or
maybe wings.
Have I mentioned that I don't yet quite understand all the
aesthetics of machine design in MegaTokyo?
And there was something about the candy-apple red fairings and
cowlings that covered parts of the bots that tugged
unsuccessfully at my memory.
Anyway.
I couldn't spot Pink right away, which made me think for a moment
that the Knights were rapidly losing members. Then a flash of
color caught my eye and I realized that she was actually *inside*
the largest of the open-frame bots, wearing it like an
exoskeleton. Or maybe riding it from the inside, since it was
taking potshots at the boomers while she was busy doing something
else -- probably ECM, if I was right about her role in the
Knights. "<And by the way, which one's Pink?>" I murmured to
myself in a moment of amusement.
The Knights' bots -- including the one housing Lady Pink -- were
all carrying what looked like small artillery pieces modified for
use as longarms by giants. If those automatons had actually been
able to shoot at the boomers, the battle might have been over
quickly. Unfortunately the skeletal robots were limiting their
contribution to laying down suppression and covering fire. I
supposed that it was to keep the boomers from engaging their jump
jets and leapfrogging their organic opposition into a hammer-and-
anvil. As a result, most of their shots ended up blowing holes
and gouges and clouds of cement dust out the cinderblock walls
that constrained the action. I had to duck a couple of slugs
that ricocheted into the alley where I lurked.
You see, the battle had erupted on a one-lane access road between
two rows of warehouses. It was a perfect bottleneck, forcing
the fight into a narrow front line. Pink was hanging back with
the support bots, which made sense if she was their electronic
warfare expert. This put Olive and White alone going hand-to-
hand against the boomers. Although those big guns were doing
their best to blow up the walls on either side of them, the melee
was stuck -- for the moment -- in a channel no more than 10 feet
across. White and Olive ended up cheek-and-jowl with the enemy.
So even if the support robots weren't needed to keep the fight
two-dimensional, they would have been deprived of most of their
possible targets by the Knights blocking their shots. This kept
the presence of what should have been decisive extra forces from
doing anything more than barely evening out the odds.
I don't like even odds. They mean the good guys lose half the
time. One reason the Warriors are as successful as we are is
that in any given opportunity, we will field far more force that
is far nastier than the enemy is prepared to deal with. We don't
fight just to win. We fight to crush the enemy utterly. We
fight to overwhelm and destroy.
I planned on helping the Knights not just win, but overwhelm and
destroy.
I made sure the chin strap on my helmet was snug, and windmilled
each arm once to ensure that my jacket wasn't binding them. One
quick fan kick with each leg made certain I had maximum freedom
of movement there, too. I tapped my breastbone firmly and felt
the polykev stiffen into familiar rock hardness under my
fingertips. Pulling my gloves from where I'd tucked them into my
belt, I drew them onto my hands, flexing my fingers and making
sure the polykev plates were seated properly over my knuckles. I
popped up my headlamps. Then I reached up and rotated the
external speaker housings on my helmet to their "active"
position. After all, if I were going to be making an entrance, I
was going to make it with *style*.
"<System. Combat mode on.>" I grinned for a moment as I
wondered what the Knights would make of me and my unexpected aid.
Then I stepped to the mouth of the alleyway and whispered to
myself, "<It's showtime.>"
END OF CHAPTER FOUR
------------------------------------
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.
Excerpts from "The Wall" by Pink Floyd, copyright (C) 1979 by
Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Inc.
Lyric from "Have a Cigar" by Pink Floyd, copyright (C) 1975 by
Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Inc.
Lyrics from "Pinball Wizard" by The Who, copyright (C) 1969, 1993
by Fabulous Music Ltd.
The above are quoted in this fiction without permission under the
"fair use" provisions of international copyright law.
Many thanks to my prereaders on this chapter: The Apprentice,
Kathleen Avins, Joseph Avins, Paul Arezina, Nathan Baxter, Delany
Brittain, Barry Cadwgan, Andrew Carr, and Helen Imre. Additional
prereaders for future chapters welcome.
C&C gratefully accepted.
-- Listar MIME Decryption --------------
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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.
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