[NOTE: This story takes place after Bubblegum Crisis 8:
Scoop Chase, and completely ignores/rewrites the events of
Bubblegum Crash.]


March 11, 2033 - Genom Tower, MegaTokyo

     Quincy Masada, chairman of the largest and most
powerful multinational corporation on earth, stood before a
large monitor, completely powerless to do anything.

     Great men had fallen and had been crushed under the
boot of Quincy, and always for the same reason: emotion.
What made his competitors different, and weak, was that they
relied on their emotions to guide them through their
businesses, while Quincy had only cold logic with which to
forge his empire.  Until now, he had never feared
competition, because until now, they had always been
inferior.

     Now, that was all over.

     With tightly clenched fists, strong enough to bend
still within, he ordered the video to be replayed one last
time, so he could gaze upon his fall, and know that, no
matter how delayed, there would be an end, it was only a
matter of time.

     "Quite an impressive sight, aren't you?" the slightly
tinny recreation of Quincy's voice spoke in the darkened
room.  There weren't many employees of Genom in the room
with Quincy, as a rule, there could never be more than three
at any time, but they all looked up to face the Chairman as
a sort of reflex action.  When they noticed it was merely
the recording, they returned to their work, ears open for
the sound of the chairman's voice.

     Quincy, well aware of the habits he made sure his
workers had, ignored the nervous shuffling noises they were
making and studied the screen before him carefully.  Now
Largo was surrounded by the several 55-C boomers that were
in the office, but instead of being afraid, his smug little
smile persevered, although his young female companion was
obviously terrified.  Perhaps if Quincy had noticed that
earlier he could have found a way to exploit it, as it was,
things continued to get worse as he asked for the large
Multivision monitor behind him to display the other branches
of the Genom empire.

     Raining down judgement with beams from heaven, Largo
commanded the Orbital Particle Beam Platform network to
destroy the towers Quincy had so foolishly showed him.
First Sidney, then Chicago, then Berlin.  Millions of people
employed by Genom and hundreds of thousands of outsiders
dying in the blink of an eye because somebody left the keys
in the car and the devil decided to take a ride.

     First mistake: Letting Largo take control of the
situation.

     Then the 55-C's attacked ... futilely.  Quicker than
the camera could record, Largo had dispatched them, and
nearly killed Quincy's Special Assistant Madagan in the
process.  She was battered and had a concussion, but she
would have been alright in the morning, if it wasn't for the
particle beam strike that happened several minutes later.
As of now she was lying in a special Genom hospital,
connected to several machines, barely hanging onto life.
Such a devastating blow to such a remarkable career, but
Quincy had plans for Madagan, her life wasn't over, it was
just beginning.

     "A-Are you a Superboomer?" Quincy, the one on screen,
asked.  The live one looked up to face the monitor and
calmly paused the playback.

     Second mistake: Allowing his emotions to emerge.

     In Quincy's head, the voice continued to speak,
replaying the words he'd spoken in that office over and over
again.  Analyzing the way it shook to reflect fear, the way
it simply offered control over to Largo in the most subtle
of ways, the actual terror that he was feeling at the time.
It all came cascading down to appear, physically, as single,
beaded, drop of sweat, rolling down his cheek, frozen in
time by the press of a pause button.  It was a catastrophe.

     True, that wasn't really him in that office, just one
of his many android doubles, but he was directly controlling
it from his secret office in the Genom tower.  He actually
spoke those words and the fear that Largo would destroy the
tower, and him in it, was very evident.  Despite the fact
that he'd gotten the better of Largo in the end, and had
gotten to have the last word in a nice smug tone of voice,
he still lost in the end.  Emotion was his greatest enemy,
and it was winning.

     The end must be near.

     A small flashing light silently alerted him that the
crews in the pit were almost done and the man in charge was
about to report.  He reached down to the console in front of
him and tapped the glowing square.  The large image of his
own face on the monitor disappeared and was replaced with a
smaller image of a man in his twenties, with short brown
hair and a slight stubble on his chin.

     Trene Steger, Quincy's mind registered.  He didn't know
everyone who worked for Genom, but he certainly knew the
ones designated as `Risk Employment.'  Basically, anyone who
showed the potential to excel in any useful field but was
rough around the edges was put into the Risk Employment
category.  There were many of them, and many ended up being
harmful to Genom, but there were many gems that had been
reaped from the Risks.

     Brian J. Mason had been part of that lot before showing
that he could refine himself and control his somewhat
obsessive tendencies.  Then he was promoted to Special
Assistant and served Genom, or more precisely Quincy
himself, for no fewer than fifteen years before his
obsessions took over again and he was killed by the white
Knight Saber.  His end was messy, but looking back on his
entire career with Genom he was considered a success.

     But Trene Steger was no Brian Mason.  In fact, the
young boy was quiet the opposite.  He was sloppy, even as
his appearance suggested, and had shown very little ability
to delegate responsibility and direct a team.  No, he would
never be elevated to the prestigious role of Special
Assistant, however his boomer designs and AI skills seemed
very promising.  Perhaps Genom might provide him with a
laboratory of his own, like it did for Doctor Stingray, all
those years ago...

     "Mr. Chairman," Steger said with a nod.  "The
excavation team has begun removing the remains of the
boomer."

     "What is your opinion, Mr. Steger," Quincy said in his
low, stern voice, "regarding the ability to recreate the
technology?"

     The rather thin, lanky, man reached up to his chin and
rubbed the fine hairs that had just begun to emerge from it.
Quincy decided to ignore the obvious violation in corporate
dress code.  Risks usually tended not to bother with the
rules at first anyway, and Trene's thin face might look a
little healthier with a beard, just like how the young
Katsuhito looked older with his mustache.

     Quincy silently scolded himself.  Too many nolstalgic
feelings for the late doctor, even after all these years.
Quincy had had great respect for Doctor Stingray, and it was
one of his hardest decisions to terminate his employment
with Genom.  The man simply refused to listen to reason:
morality has no place in a business.  Quincy should have
known better than to think the man's strong morals would die
with him, but then again, his children picked up much more
from him than anyone expected.

     "For the most part," Steger said, returning Quincy from
his reverie, "the body parts are intact and should easily be
recreated.  But it's not incredibly different than our
fusion boomers, just has a few features of the 33-S in it.
A rather ingenious combination if I may say so, I'm
surprised no one thought of it before."

     "What about the brain unit?" Quincy asked.  This was
the most important part of the excavation, if it was too
intact, he might still be alive, if it was too damaged, the
technology would be lost.

     "The particle beam shot did only superficial damage to
the outer layers of the skull interface, it should be easy
to fix.  But the condition of the actual processing unit is
unknown; the damage done by the bullet lodged in the
equivalent of the frontal lobe of the brain could be
extensive or could be superficial like the skull interface.
A more in depth analysis will have to be performed."

     Quincy thought upon the issue for several seconds
before speaking again.  "Very well," he said slowly.  "When
the unit is fully recovered, have it brought to the main
boomer development labs."

     "Yes sir," Steger said and turned as if to walk off the
range of the camera.

     "One more thing," added Quincy before Steger was
completely gone.  It was an unusual thing to have to do,
actually, very rarely do any employees ever even think of
walking away from a conversation with him until told to do
so.  "In your opinion, is he dead?"

     Trene was still for a moment, and Quincy could see the
muscles in his jaw tightening as his teeth clenched together
while he thought.  "In everything I've seen and created in
Boomer design, the damage to the frontal lobe, as I've seen
in this boomer, would totally eradicate any resident
personality stored in the brain."

     Quincy nodded slowly.  "Just my opinion, sir," Trene
added. "Largo is dead."


     **************************************************
       MegaTokyo 2034: The Story of The Knight Sabers
                      Bubblegum Crisis
                              
                            *****
                    His Blood Still Cries
                            *****
                              
                        By Adam Leigh
                             ***
                              
           "I'll see you again when the stars fall
                       from the sky."
                                    -U2 `One Tree Hill'
                              
     **************************************************

One Year Later


     --bypass the circuits and activate the primary drive,
not too fast, bring up the secondary backups-

     "Hey Doc!"

     --undo the tertiary thruster assembly and change the
polarity of the-

     "Hey, Raven!"

     --flux drive and shunt all power to the buffer, rework
circuit assembly-

     "Yo! Pops!"

     --and test the dri--huh? Pops?

     "That's DOCTOR!"

     Leaning on the wall by one of the large doors into the
garage, looking over at the busy doctor, Mackie Stingray
giggled.

     "I see I've finally got your attention," he said,
righting himself and walking over to Raven.

     The doctor rubbed the back of his neck and smiled.
"Sorry Mackie, I was a little preoccupied."  He glanced at
the floor around him and grimaced.  "I guess I should be a
little more careful with all this sensitive equipment laying
around."

     The ground was littered with all sorts of mechanical
parts, most of which were easily recognized by Mackie as
being from one of the team's hardsuits.  A scrap of white
armor lying by Raven's foot identified the suit as Sylia's,
Mackie's sister and leader of the Knight Sabers.

     The prospect of his sister's suit in such a state made
Mackie nervous.  He'd been away for a week or so and wasn't
sure if the Sabers had gone on a mission while he was gone.
While the parts on the floor didn't look battle damaged,
Raven could have removed those parts already if he had been
fixing her suit for a while.

     "Did something happen while I was away?" Mackie asked,
still looking at all the parts on the floor.  Normally this
would be his job, to fix up the battered hardsuits after a
mission, but with him gone, he guessed that his sister had
to resort to enlisting the help of Doctor Raven.  For a
moment, he wondered if it was right to do what he was
planning.  His sister can be so stern sometimes and so
fragile others.  But which life was more important, his own
or hers?

     Raven interrupted his paradoxical thinking.  "No, no,
Sylia just asked me to work on a few upgrades she's been
designing.  This is actually her Evolution One suit."

     "Oh," Mackie said, still trying to balance his and his
sister's life in his mind. Unfortunately, ever time he
seemed to get both lives on the scale, the balance would
break.  Both lives were equally important to him, but only
one had a true future.

     "So, how did it go?" Raven asked, still smiling at the
boy.

     Mackie looked down at the paper in his hand and managed
to push another smile on his face as he held it up for the
Doctor.  Somehow, both tasks seemed to be heavily weighted.
"It was a breeze!  The tests was so easy after all the work
I've done for my sis and the team.  I should be getting the
formal acceptance letter in a few days."

     Raven slapped the kid on his back and made an even
grander smile, if that was possible.  "Great going kid!  I
knew you had the stuff.  Someday you'll probably be as great
as me."

     "Maybe greater," Mackie suggested.

     "Well, don't get ahead of yourself, perfection is a
hard thing to beat!"  He laughed for a bit and Mackie
couldn't help but join in.  "Ah, your father would have been
proud."

     "I know," Mackie said, a bit of the cheer draining from
his voice.

     Raven debated whether or not to ask his next question,
because he already knew the answer, but he wanted to stress
the point one more time.  "What does Sylia think?"

     The rest of the cheer made a mad dash for the door as
Mackie's smile changed to a frown and he wiggled out from
under Raven's arm.  He turned to face out of the garage when
he spoke.  "She ... she doesn't know yet."

     "Come on, kid, you've got to tell her," Raven pressed.

     "I know!" Mackie said, perhaps a little too loud.  He
turned to face Raven but ended up simply looking at the
parts on the floor.  A piece of white armor caught his eye
and he found himself unable to look away.  "I want to tell
her, I really do!  But... I know what she's going to say, or
what she's NOT going to say."

     "You know she only wants the best for you."

     "Yes, I know, and that's what she'll say to me too," he
found the strength to rip his eyes from the floor and look
to Raven.  "But I know what she's thinking.  She's thinking
I'm abandoning the team, she's going to think that I don't
want to have anything to do with the Knight Sabers anymore."

     "She's not going to think that," Raven said.  Then
hazarded, "Do you want to have anything to do with the
Knight Sabers?"

     "YES!" Mackie said with such enthusiasm that it nearly
knocked Raven off his heels.  "God, all I want to do it help
my sister.  But, I can't help feeling that there's more for
me, that there's something else out there for me to do.  Who
knows?  Maybe when I finish college I'll come right back and
pick up where I left off.  But... then there's what you said
about my father."

     "You don't think this is the life he wanted you to
have?" Raven asked, but he knew.

     "I'm not consumed by my sister's revenge," he said.
"Father is dead, and, while it may fulfill Sylia's life to
try to avenge him, it doesn't do that for me.  I ... I feel
like I'm talking in circles."

     "Listen, kid," Raven said, putting a hand on the
shoulder of the boy.  "As much as I want to tell you what I
think you should do, it's not my place to say so.  Talk to
your sister.  You know she's smart, and she can be
understanding.  Let her decide how she feels.  You never
know, she might surprise you."

     "I guess," Mackie sighed.  "Then again, she might kill
me for trying to secede from the organization."

     "That would certainly be a surprise," commented the
Doctor.

***

     The Genom Crushers were the closest thing MegaTokyo had
to a baseball team after the corporate giant bought out the
NeoGiants and disbanded them.  Having such a strong hold on
almost every other commodity in MegaTokyo, Genom decided
that the next step was to domineer the mass entertainment
market, namely sports.  Beginning with the Genom Rally, now
one of the most sought after car racing tournaments, they
took over baseball, professional boxing, and had now been
host to the last two Olympic Games (Genom stadium is big,
REALLY big, and with seat warmers and individual 15" flat-
screens even in the nosebleed section, even the Americans
said they never had a better time).

     Officially, the American Yankees were still the number
one team in the world, but they hadn't played the Crushers
in at least three years and in that time the team had shown
such remarkable progress, that people speculated that they
were actually cyborgs, in violation of international play,
but such rumors were never proved.  Of course, they actually
WERE making usage of cyborg parts, but that was a secret
known to only a few people within Genom and even fewer
outside of the tower.

     Fargo was one of those people who knew, and it was that
information that had gotten him a reserved skybox for every
Crushers game for the next three seasons.  Now, he wasn't
exactly a fan of the sport, but he also got a substantial
monetary sum and as long as the box was reserved, he might
as well take advantage of it, once in a while.  Besides, it
was secluded, very comfortable, and a perfect place to
discuss private business.

     "I must be paying you too much," Sylia said from the
doorway to the skybox.

     Fargo stood up from one of the couches and turned to
face Sylia.  "What, this?" he looked around.  "This is just
a ... company perk."

     "You should trade it in for a couple of new suits," she
replied, coolly, walking with a deliberate pace towards one
of the unoccupied couches and sitting down.

     "It was non-negotiable," Fargo said as he sat down,
then ran his hand over the area of the couch next to him.
"Why don't you have a seat over here?"

     "Why don't you get down to business?" Sylia said with a
sigh, placing her briefcase-like bag on the couch beside
her, just in case Fargo got any romantic ideas.

     Fargo sat back down and tossed a folder onto the glass
table between his couch and Sylia's.  She opened the folder
delicately and flipped through the pages within as Fargo
leaned back on his couch and spoke.

     "An inside source at Genom has told me that they're
developing a new type of boomer, designated NX class for the
time being, but the source says it's going to be a combat
model."

     "More combat boomers," Sylia commented.

     "Genom IS a production company, after all, and boomers
sell ... big."

     "So what's the job?"

     "Standard job whenever there's news about Genom's
newest potential products.  Full specs if possible, but you
know that they must have at least three or four prototypes,
so one of those gets you the bonus prize."

     Sylia simply stared at him.  Fargo shrugged.

     "All right, the straight line," he sighed.  "Two groups
are contending for this information, USSD and Gulf &
Bradley. I'm not sure how high they will go but you'll get
at least fifteen million for the info, and an extra twenty
for the prototype.  Standard deposit has already been
secured."

     "Gulf & Bradley?" questioned Sylia.  "Weren't they in
bed with Genom before?"

     "They WERE in bed with them," Fargo agreed. "But
following the incident with Doctor MacLaren, Quincy pulled
out of their deal.  Then the new chairman at G & B made some
lousy decisions and they had to overturn their boomer
development department.  They're quite angry with Genom
these days."

     "Very well," said Sylia as she closed the folder and
slid it into her bag.  "How reliable is the source in
Genom?"

     "Somewhat good," Fargo said, crossing his arms.  "This
particular informant has been giving me good information for
some time now.  However, they've never asked for or accepted
a fee for the information, so I don't trust it one hundred
percent."

     "I don't like misinformation," she said and Fargo was
almost sure he saw frost forming on her lip.  "Never trust a
double agent."

     "I'm going to do some more checking, but this informant
hasn't let me down yet."

     "Then it's far past time."  She stood up and walked out
of the room.

     Fargo watched her go with a bit of longing in his eyes.
He quickly broke himself of the reverie by shaking his head
and looked down at the game going on down just in time to
see the Crushers bat one right out of the stadium ... again.

***

     Nash Clancy was a rather plain individual who had not
engaged in much athletic activity prior to meeting his
latest girlfriend, so he was, to put it frankly, rather
weak.  Which is why he was on his butt right now, being
helped up by an off duty AD Police officer, after being
knocked down by the excited greeting his girlfriend had just
given him.  She was already on her feet, her gymnastics
experience heavily showing, but being restrained by her
friend, some scarcely known retrotrash singer, from knocking
Nash over again.

     In the dark recesses of his mind, he wondered if all
his dates with Linna Yamazaki would start off this eventful.

     When he was standing again, and after Leon had brushed
off the dirt from his clothes, Priss let Linna fly and she
rushed over to Nash.  For a moment, all involved thought
that a repeat of the incident was about to happen, but Linna
throttled back and managed to gently stop at his side.

     "Are you okay?" Linna said in a blur.  "I'm so sorry, I
didn't mean to run into that hard!  Are you hurt?"

     "Woah," Nash said with a smile, putting a hand on
Linna's arm.  "I'm fine, I don't bruise that easily.  I just
didn't expect such an ... exuberant welcome."

     "It's been so long since I've seen you, I couldn't
wait," Linna blabbered.  Priss turned away, disgusted, and
went to check on their table.

     "It's been thirty-six hours," Nash said, glancing at
his watch.

     "So you've been counting down the hours as well?" asked
Linna.

     "Umm ... n--" he began before seeing the look on
Linna's eyes and internally melted.  "Uh, yes, of course,
why wouldn't I?"

     Linna smiled and reached up to kiss him.  After a few
moments of their lips touching, the sound of a nearby cough
alerted them to Leon's presence.  Linna backed down and
blushed as she motioned to Leon.

     "Uh, Nash," she said.  "This is Leon McNichol, he's a
Detective for the AD Police.  Leon, this is Nash Clancy."

     "Pleasure to meet you," Leon said.

     "Is it too bright in here, or something?" Nash posed.

     Leon let out a short chuckle and pulled his sunglasses
off.  "No, I just wear my shades so often I forget they're
on sometimes."  He hung them on the inside pocket of his
coat.

     "The woman who's storming towards us right now is
Priss," Linna said to Nash as the brunette singer
approached.  "She's the leader of a band called Priss and
the Replicants."

     "Ah, yes, I knew she looked familiar," said Nash before
turning to face Priss as she came to stand in front of him.
"I've heard you sing a few times, you're pretty good."

     "Oh, really?" Priss said.  "You don't look the type to
be found in the kind of bars I sing in.  I'd definitely
notice a pencil-pusher among all the bikers, gang members,
and loser cops."  She grumbled the last bit towards Leon who
merely smiled as if he'd been complimented.  Priss shook her
head.  "Anyway, the table's ready, if you're done groping
each other."

     "Of course, Ms. Asagiri," Nash said and held his arm
out for Linna.  "Shall we, milady?"

     "I'd be delighted," she replied and hooked her arm
around his.

     Leon watched the two walk away, then, gathering himself
up, trying to look even more suave than he already was, held
out his arm and--

     "Don't get any crazy ideas, Leon," said Priss as she
turned to follow Linna.  Leon raised an eyebrow in
curiosity, and ran up next to Priss.

     "Hey, you're the one who asked me on this date."

     "What word did that tiny brain of yours confuse for
date?  I don't believe I ever mentioned date in my call and
I certainly don't plan on upgrading our evening to that
level."

     "I don't know what you'd call this then," Leon said.
"It seems to have all the facets of a date.  Look, fancy
clothes, nice music, you and me eating dinner together..."

     "This is NOT a DATE!"  She glanced around, realizing
how loud she'd just said that.  Thankfully, no one seemed to
notice.  "This is me not wanting to spend an whole evening
alone with those two while they suck face and do all sorts
of things that people who ARE on dates do.  This is a
convenience."

     "All right then," Leon said, holding his hands behind
his back, still smiling.  "Why did you call me for your
convenience?  I'm you have other `friends' that you could
have called.  I'm pretty sure I've seen at least three of
them."

     Priss grit her teeth.  Ever since he found out about
her being a Knight Saber, he never misses a chance to remind
her that he knows.  Although she was glad that's all he ever
did.  Never once had he pressed her about the identities of
the other sabers, and in the year that he's known, he hadn't
blurted it out to anyone else.  "Quite a guy," she had once
said about him to Sylia, and no matter how much she might
try to deny it, it was true.

     Although at the moment he was being incredibly
annoying.  "Or am I a little more than a convenience?"

     Maybe, Priss thought, if I pop him one right in the
kisser, I'll get through enough of his dense head to bruise
his ego a bit.

     "Come on, you two," Linna was calling from the table.
Priss had hardly realized that she'd stopped walking and was
now engaged in some staring contest with Leon.

     I'll not lower myself to him, Priss thought.  "I'm
coming," she said, and turned towards the booth.  A little
voice in the back of her head murmured, "you gave up."

     Her collective psyche then battered that voice into
dust.

***

     Nene yawned deeply as she approached the door to her
apartment.  Fumbling with the keys, she managed to unlock
her door and slip inside with only the slight delay of
trying two wrong keys before she discovered the correct one.
Tossing her purse and keys onto her night-stand, she flopped
onto her bed with he arms spread out and sighed.

     What a day, she thought.  The only thing anyone wanted
to do was give me paperwork to do as if I'm somebody's
secretary.  I'm an AD Police officer, not some desk jockey,
why do I always get stuck with all the work.  Not even Naomi
gets so much work and all she ever seems to do is talk and
buy concert tickets.  Not that I mind the concert tickets,
that last concert was way cool and what great seats!

     Nene giggled and grabbed her large plushie rabbit,
holding it against her chest.  Again, she breathed a sigh.
The fact that she could spend so much time an effort into
her job at the AD Police was because jobs for the Knight
Sabers were rather low and had been for some time.  Genom
had been quiet for a while now, as had the other corporate
competitors of the big `G'.  Aside from the random boomer
rampage, to which the AD Police had been showing an
increasing ability to subdue, there was nothing.  Not even
an infamous missing persons case, the ones Sylia seemed to
hate so much.  But who's to blame her, after what happened
the last time they took a missing person's case.

     A shrill beep ringing from the corner of Nene's
apartment alerted her to the presence of a hacker caught in
her anti-infiltration program.  Pushing the plushie off her
chest, she leapt to her feet and dashed over to her PC,
clearing the screen of the bunny screen saver she had
running.

     "Lets see," she muttered as she typed.  "Who have I
caught in the net this time?"

     Her primary monitor displayed a single garbled name and
an alphanumeric IP address, both highlighted in blue, both
of which were obviously scrambled by an experienced hacker.
In her experience there had only been two people with the
sort of ability to get as far as blue level before being
caught by her net: ViXoR and 8Ball.  She wondered which one
had been snagged.

     ViXoR was some computer engineer, working for a company
he wouldn't disclose.  He was the first to challenge Nene's
computer skills and the only one to almost win.  So, suffice
to say, he was an excellent programmer, and since his career
wasn't in programming (as he often liked to remind) his
engineering skills must be even better.  But in the
programming world, Nene was at the top.  No one had ever
proven themselves up to her level, except perhaps Sylia, who
had designed the puzzle that lead Nene to the Knight Sabers.
Nene's greatest wonder was whether her skill compared to
Sylia's.

     8Ball was a very entertaining guy who also tried to
hack through Nene's security, although he did it while
distracted and didn't get as far as ViXoR.  He's never tried
again after Nene's `Kill' program wiped his hard drive when
he failed to get through the defenses, although he claims
that if he was really trying, he could top both Nene and
ViXoR together.  She tended to doubt that.

     Ghosting into the Genom net with her own advanced
encrypting program, she moved her caught prey into a chat
room.  At first the name appeared in the `guest' list as the
same garbled mess, but then, after a few seconds, the name
cleared then reappeared in a somewhat recognizable order.
Nene smiled.

     "Caught you again, ViXoR," she said as she typed, an
odd habit that seemed to have developed through her
persistent viewing of overly dramatic science fiction
movies.

I got blue level this time, you're getting sloppy,

NeoKnight.

     "Me? Sloppy?" Nene stifled a laugh.  "Never! I let you
in."

I let you catch me.  I have a bit of cyber-etiquette in

me.

     "Oh yeah, I've never known you to do something
uncouth."

See?

     Nene sighed.  "Just prodding my walls or do you have a
reason for this attempt?"

Just prodding.  8Ball is out with his g/f, left me
with no one to talk to.

     "Don't you have any IRL friends?  You know, people who
live near your apartment? Perhaps work with you?"

Oh, you mean that world outside of this computer?

     "Something like that."

I know a few people, but they're all boring.
Astrophysicists, cyberengineers, and AI developers.
Although, I wouldn't classify the AI developers as
`intelligent' so I wonder what they're using as a
model for their work.

     That got a laugh out of Nene.  It was generally assumed
in the programming community, that anyone who was
egotistical enough to believe they could mimic every facet
of the human brain, was probably too dumb to understand
exactly how extensive the brain actually is.  But you can't
make a boomer without a brain, so even Genom is forced to
rely on these somewhat crazy individuals.  Of course, this
was obvious by the hundreds of boomer rampages that happen
over the course of a year.

We should meet in real life someday.

     Nene quelled her laugh enough to sigh again.  She'd
seen this line about eight times in the last few weeks,
ViXoR's desire to meet her was getting annoying.  "Now now,
we've gone over this before.  You could be some terrible man
after my amazingly cute body and incredible intelligence."

Or I could be from Mars.  About the same probability.

     "Ooooh! Hmph! You know the NeoKnight doesn't reveal her
real life identity, that would be a breach of protocol."

Whose protocol?

     "The awesome hacker protocol, didn't they give you the
brochure when you signed up?"

That must have been the purple thing I threw away!
Drat, I knew it was important.

     "Serves you right, now run along and play with the
other hackers, I've got work to do?"

Whatever.  Maybe I'll try and hack through 8Ball's
computer, erase his critical files just for fun.

     "Good luck, he keeps quite an incredible sentry program
up."

That just makes it even more fun.

***

     "Good evening, Doctor," Sylia said, strolling into
Raven's garage.

     "Ah, Sylia," Raven said, standing up from the pile of
parts he was fiddling with.  "Come down to use the
simulator?"

     "Yes," she nodded, "and to see what your progress is on
the suit.  Are the designs descriptive enough to work from?"

     "They're fine, I actually just finished work on the arm
assembly," he motioned over to a bench against the wall and
Sylia walked over to it.  "It'll be modular, like you
wanted.  Right now I have it hardwired for power, but when
it's attached to the rest of the suit, it'll draw from the
suit's generator like the old systems did."

     Sylia slipped her arm into the device and was surprised
when the inside padding shrunk to conform to her arm and the
fingers responded to hers.  It gave off a soft whurr that
she could feel more than hear.  "This is ... will it need a
softsuit anymore?"

     "Yes, actually," Raven said moving over to her.  "The
arm has a built in softsuit so it will better adapt to being
modular, but the rest of the suit, the torso and legs, will
still need the body softsuit interface.  I haven't figured
out a way to infuse an interface with the hardsuit that'll
remain ... well, clean."

     "Oh," she slipped her arm back out of the assembly and
it fell silent.  Raven hovered just in her peripheral
vision, his fidgety motions and stoic expression clearly
indicated something was on his mind.  She'd seen the look in
Priss before, just after Sylvie was ... well, deactivated.
But her little pep talk with her merely made her more
saddened, so she was hesitant to ask Raven what was
troubling him.  Perhaps, she thought, given the right
environment, he'll tell me himself.

     She looked down at the table where the arm was resting
now.  There were many parts around it, obviously
replacements from the previous arm assembly, a few tools,
and a group of small pictures in tiny wooden frames.
Glancing at the images captured in each of the pictures she
paused at one of the three inch snapshots and picked it up.

     "Is this my father?" Sylia asked, showing the picture
to Raven.  He looked closer then softly ran his finger
across the glass surface.  It showed two men, a tall, young
looking one with long dark hair and a bushy mustache wearing
a suit and another, shorter man, with graying hair and
wearing a dark blue jumpsuit.  They were smiling and holding
up an inscribed plaque with lettering too small to be made
out by the picture.  In the background was a blue sky that
was only halfway taken up by a large sky scraping building.

     "Yes," he said softly with a solemn tone to his voice.
"It was taken a long time ago, before you were born."  He
smiled.  "Your father had just gotten his doctorate at a
University in the US called MIT.  I was still a professor
back then, teaching Cyberengineering at that same
university.  Your father was my favorite student, and my
best friend."

     He pulled the picture from Sylia's hands and returned
it to his work bench.  "We did a lot in those days, some of
the early designs for boomer musculature, early AI
programming.  We came so close to consciousness one time, we
thought we'd had it, we called the whole university board to
come see it."

     "What happened?" Sylia asked.

     "Well, it turned out our programming was better than it
should have been for AI.  You could talk to it for hours,
and it even had the programming to know when to tell a story
of it's own, but ... it had no personality. It nearly passed
the Turing test as well, until we discovered it was giving
the same answers to the questions each time.  The only thing
it proved was that our search algorithms were thorough and
we should try computer game programming."

     He chuckled, "Katsuhito nearly died of humility.  Ah,
but the kid got back up on his feet, graduated higher than
anyone before him.  Offered a position at the University,
too, but he knew where he was going, and it wasn't towards a
teaching position."

     Raven's smile slowly faded.  "The good old days," he
said with longing.

     Sylia swallowed and breathed out slowly.  "What's
bothering you, Doctor?" she asked.

     He seemed to think about it for a few moments before
looking at his feet and saying, "Mackie's back."  He paused
for a moment and looked up at Sylia.  "You know?"

     "No," replied Sylia.  "I haven't been back at the
building all day.  I had a lot of errands to run."

     "I've heard.  But I think you should take some time to
go see him.  Talk to him."

     "I will," Sylia said, looking away.  "After I use the
simulator."

     "Perhaps the simulator can wait," Raven said.

     "So can Mackie," she replied, turning towards the door
in the back of the garage that led to the lower level
simulation room.

     "Maybe not as long as you would think," Raven called to
her.  She slowed her pace but did not stop.  "He's a lot
like his father.  He knows where he's going."

     The doctor waited for her response but all he heard was
the sound of the back door closing.

***

     "Heyo!" said Mackie towards the closed door as the
sounds of shuffle inside indicated something akin to last
minute cleaning.  After a little more than a minute, the
door swung open and Nene stood in the doorway, clad in her
AD Police uniform, leaning against the frame.

     "Mackie!" she said exuberantly, before leaping at him
and embracing him.  "You're back!" she said.

     "You've noticed," he replied through a chuckle.  Nene
detached herself from around Mackie's neck and backed into
her room a few feet.

     "Please, come in," she said motioning for the boy to
enter.

     Mackie strolled in as Nene quietly closed the door
behind him.  "So, how was Germany?" she inquired as she
moved over to him and offered him a chair to sit on from
kitchen table.

     "Very... German," he replied and Nene giggled a bit.
"I know quite a bit of the language, but there are lots of,"
he motioned with his hands wildly trying to articulate what
he wanted to say. "Regional differences which made it a pain
to do anything in Munich outside of the university, where
everyone spoke Japanese anyway.  Kind of strange, actually,
so many Japanese speaking people, I would have thought
English as a dominant foreign language but, oh well, I won't
complain."

     "How were the tests?"

     "Easy," he made a `safe' motion with his hands.  "It
was all simple preliminary boomer design theory, if they
only knew I've built and rebuilt hardsuits all my life, they
wouldn't have even bothered with the exam.  They said
there's no doubt that I got in."

     "Ooooh, good job!" she energetically said, then tackled
him with a hug again.  "Wanna go out for some celebratory
dinner?"

     Mackie glanced at his watch, "I'd love to, but I--"

     "Aww... come on?"

     Mackie looked up, about to cite some previous
obligation to talk with his sister, when he looked into her
green eyes and melted.  As much as he'd like to think he'd
matured beyond his old lecherous ways, every time he looked
at Nene, he felt willing to do anything to be near her for
just a few moments longer.  "Oh, all right."

***

     The dinner, Priss reflected as she pulled her leather
jacket over her shoulders, wasn't that bad.  The steak she'd
ordered was perfectly cooked, tender, and marinated to just
the perfect flavor.  The environment was acceptable, perhaps
a bit fancy for her tastes, but it was nothing that she
wasn't expecting, Linna did, after all, tell her where they
were going.  Even her `convenience' managed not to make an
ass of himself or assert his ego anywhere.

     No, the problem with the evening so far was the
conversation, or rather, the lack of it with Linna and the
presence of excessive amounts with Leon.  With Linna totally
engrossed in her date, and vice versa, the only person left
to talk with was the Macho Man Leon McNichol.

     This wouldn't have bothered her so much if it wasn't
for the fact that she actually listened to him ramble on
about meaningless things like the current trend in boomer
crimes, and how the weather has been unusually bad lately,
or the occasional comment about how good she looked in the
outfit she was wearing, without getting bored!  Worse yet,
she actually lost track of time listening to him, as if she
.. she...

     Enjoyed it.

     *shiver*

     "You cold, Priss?" Leon said to her as they left the
restaurant.  He was in the process of taking off the long
trench coat he was wearing when Priss waved him off.

     "Nah, I'm fine."

     "Where to next?" Linna asked, holding tightly onto
Nash's arm.

     Priss glanced at her wrist, remembered that she'd
purposefully left her watch at home so that she couldn't be
constantly reminded how long Linna had been talking to her
date, then grabbed Leon's wrist and looked at his watch.
"It's gettin--"

     "I know a place," Nash interrupted her.  Priss turned
towards him with a venomous look in her eye and locked eyes
with her adversary.  He was staring right back at her with a
smirk on his face, as if he was enjoying making her suffer
by hanging around with him and Linna.  "If you want to talk
over a few drinks for a while, that is."

     Linna caught somewhat of what was going on, or at least
she decided to impose herself on her date once more (either
way it ended Priss' silent war with Nash), and tugged on his
arm a bit.  "That sounds fine," she said as Nash turned to
face her and the evil, somewhat teasing smile he was wearing
melted into a compassionate one.

     "It's right around here," he motioned down the
sidewalk.  "Shall we?"

     "Of course," Linna smiled and started walking with him.
Priss could have sworn she saw Nash take one last look back
at her and snicker, but she dismissed the idea, the way he
was standing would have prevented it unless he was capable
of spinning his head three-hundred-and-sixty degrees.

     "Are we joining them?" Leon asked, watching the couple
walking away while he and Priss were still standing in front
of the restaurant.

     "I guess," she sighed.  Why was she getting herself
worked up like this anyway?  It wasn't like she was ...
jealous?  Over Nash?  Impossible.  He was a jerk, kinda like
Leon, and seemed to be enjoying turning this night into the
longest ever.  Why would she care about Linna's date?  She
should simply worry about herself and cope.

     She turned to Leon.  "Come on," she said with renewed
vigor.  She was about to hook her arm in his and pull him
along, but decided against it. Leon might misconstrue it to
be some sort of pass and bring up that whole `this is a
date' topic again.  If he would just keep from opening his
mouth, he might become bearable to be with.

     Might.

     Shaking her head, she grabbed his arm (with her hand),
and pulled him after Nash and Linna.

***

     "Steger."

     The voice boomed as if spoken from the heavens.  Trene
gripped his console in response then slowly released his
hold as the picture of Quincy filtered onto the screen
before him, ushering out the schematics he was looking at.
Running a hand through his hair, he cleared his throat and
prepared to answer.

     "Yes, sir."

     "How long until we can activate the unit?" the voice
came again.

     "Activate it, sir?  I wasn't aware we were up to that
stage of the development."

     "An oversight on your part I assume?"

     "A-Yes, of course it was, sir."  Trene felt hot and
pulled at his collar, a three button collared shirt with his
project division name written across the left breast, he
hated playing these power games.

     "I want to see results within the next two hours."

     "Two hours?" Steger nearly yelled before he realized
who he was talking to.

     "Two hours."  The screen went blank.

     "Oh, god," Trene said to his screen, the schematics
having returned, and ran his hands through his hair.  Two
hours will never be enough time, the Largo AI code hasn't
been fully adapted yet, it'll go crazy.

     Of course, that would be the point, wouldn't it?  The
survival instinct portion of the code was completed before
everything else and Quincy knows it.  He just wants to know
how the NX will fare against the Knight Sabers.  But the
instinct portion of the code won't function without at least
a rudimentary AI installed, and the new boomer was so
radically different than others that a transplant was
impossible.  Constructing a new one could take months, not
hours, without a design for the robotic assemblers to
follow.

     Trene looked above his monitor, where a long cylinder
filled with a bluish liquid stretched from the octagonal
console where he sat to the ceiling high above.  Typing in a
short command, the lights inside of the cylinder turned on,
giving him a good view at what was currently stored inside.

     At first glance, it appeared to be a bundle of cables,
balled up in the center of the tube and trailing down into
the console. If one were to look closer, they would see the
vague outline of something, almost human looking.  But if
you were around when the object was placed in the cylinder,
you would never forget it, the image burned in the mind of
each scientist that glanced at the beast, each worker that
attached the wires, each programmer that had to gaze deeply
into the lifeless eye sockets and determine what made the
thing turn against it's former god.

     Trene shivered.  Even deactivated, lifeless, halfway
disassembled, and virtually impossible to power, the husk of
Largo scared him.

     But he continued looking, as he would do every day
since he broke the code, since he discovered what the
other's didn't, since he peered into the mind that WAS
Largo... or Mason, as he shortly after discovered.  Rooted
in all the fear and utter hatred, was subversive, almost
perverted, pleasure.

     A small chain of bubble eased their way through the
tube, causing some of the wires to sway, which in turn
caused the remaining arm unit to wave back and forth in the
minute current.  Trene forced himself to look away, the
figure almost seemed to be beckoning him.  He looked down at
the monitor, breathed deeply, and activated one of the wires
in the tube.

     A thin thread of light weaved through the mess of cable
and struck Largo's exposed cybernetic brain.

     Instantaneously the screen before Steger filled with
text, documentation that catalogued everything that ever
happened to Largo and Mason.  The entire life of the half
human, half boomer, man that floated above him.  The file
was immense, much larger than anything else in the mind of
Largo, and much heavier guarded, but Trene broke that guard
long ago, and learned everything.

     And ever since then, he had been, or rather he felt,
different.  He hadn't even read the entire file, just
breezed through the highlights, but even as it scrolled
across his screen, he felt parts of it, unknown parts, enter
his mind.  When he was done he had suddenly become *aware*
of Quincy, not just as his omnipresent employer, but as a
cunning, genius level manipulator.  He learned about plans
that Mason had begun in an attempt to take over Genom one
day, but never completed.

     And most of all, he learned about the Knight Sabers.
Genom had an incredible file, and Trene suspected that
Quincy had an even larger one, kept hidden in his office,
but the knowledge Largo had was so extensive, he doubted
that even Quincy knew as much.  Trene discovered detailed
specifications on the two hardsuit designs that had been
used against the dual-personality cybergod, a predicted
location of the Knight Sabers base of operations, a list of
people most likely to be the Green, Pink, and Blue Knight
Sabers, and, of course, a file on a woman named Sylia
Stingray.

     Trene had known that Dr. Stingray had had a daughter,
the life of the father of boomers was well known among
boomeroid engineers, but he had assumed that she ran that
lingerie shop by the fault-line because she had skills that
could be used elsewhere.  The file indicated otherwise.
Sylia was skilled in boomer development as well as over
sixteen other scientific fields, all related in some manner
to boomer engineering.  She had apparently came one step
away from getting a degree in each field before leaving the
respective university and changing her field of study.  With
the money Dr. Stingray left behind, she could afford it, not
that her lingerie shop ever did poorly.

     The last note in the file was a curious one.  Not as to
it's meaning, that was quite clear, but to it's condition.
It was a simple line that read:

     `Sylia is also known as Saber Prime of the Knight
Sabers.'

     When Trene first read it, he blinked and read it again
to make sure what he saw was right.  Largo had known the
identity of the leader of the Knight Sabers.  And yet ...
the file on the woman mentions almost nothing about it.  It
was as if her secret identity was trivial compared to the
woman herself.  Indeed,  he knew that Mason had been
infatuated with Sylia ever since she was young, but this was
.. incredibly inconsistent with the rest of the data.  The
group of mercencaries that conspired and eventually executed
a plan to destroy Largo, and he keeps little more than a
footnote as to the identity of their leader?

     And therein lies the psychosis, Trene thought.

     He turned his attention back towards the matter at
hand, pushing aside his reminiscing for later.  Quincy
wanted a test, and Trene had to deliver, but he had no idea
how to fix the problems in the NX series cyberbrain.
Scrolling through Largo's brain, he searched for something
to help him with the problem, a similar instance, perhaps,
where Quincy demanded something of Mason that he wasn't
prepared to deliver.  Just so much as an idea would...

     Ah-ha!  Here's something, Trene thought, ignoring the
fact that somehow he knew the idea was coming up before the
file even reached that point.  A time during his early years
before he became Special Assistant to the chairman.  It
might even work *well*.

     He swiveled in his chair and pushed himself towards a
different console.  Calling up the designs for the remains
of Largo that were recovered, he isolated the braincase and
extracted the designs.  They were grossly incomplete, partly
because of the damage from his final battle and partly
because a few pieces of the construct were still
unidentified, but they would suffice.  He punched up the
incomplete designs for the NX brain and overlayed the Largo
brain over it.

     The holes in one almost perfectly matched the completed
parts in the other, only a few sub-systems remained
incomplete.  Trene disposed of the Largo Survival Instinct
portion and replaced it with the NX version.  Might as well
test out what we have to far, he thought.  Now to force the
other pieces into place.

     A few minutes later, the designs were complete.  As to
say, all the work he was going to do on them were done, the
brain itself was far from being able to be marketed, but it
would run for a few moments before shorting out and
depending on the SI unit to function.  That's all he really
needed, something flashy to show Quincy, and then a test of
the SI unit as he was sure was Quincy's hidden agenda.

     He sent the plans over to the robotic assemblers and
sent orders for the brain to be installed in the NX
prototype and activated at the farthest testing facility
from the tower.  No sense being too close to the carnage he
was about to create.

     Very good, a small voice said in Trene's brain, you'll
do quite excellently here.

     Unable to deal with the origin of this random thought
that his brain suddenly sent him, Steger simply ignored the
words and forgot them as if they never happened.

     Less than a hour and a half later, the first NX Boomer
was being shipped away from the Tower.

***

     Nene's hands pulled and twisted at the cloth napkin
beneath the table she and Mackie were sitting at.  The food
hadn't come, in fact, they hadn't even ordered yet, but she
was still playing with the napkin nervously.  Nothing had
gone wrong this evening, her computer was safe, the trip to
the restaurant was uneventful, the music was gentle, and the
wine was sweet, and yet, with each passing moment, she felt
uneasy.

     She looked up at Mackie and noticed he was looking back
at her so she quickly looked aside and blushed.
Undoubtedly, he was still looking at her, trying to figure
out why she was so fidgety tonight.  If he asked her about
it, she wouldn't have an answer, even though she knew
exactly what was bothering her, she just didn't want to
admit such a thing as possible.

     But it was getting harder to ignore the little voice in
her head that was telling her it was true.  She had missed
Mackie while he was away in Germany.  A lot.  Too much, in
fact, to satisfy her boundaries of a working friendship.
She had started to depend on his presence, his sometimes
lecherous self to remind Nene that no one else could make a
police uniform look so good, or that when she put her hair
up before getting into her softsuit she looked extra-cute,
or her encryption algorithms for protecting the Sabers
database were exceptionally brilliant.  He was a flatterer,
but Nene had liked it.

     And now he was going to go away again, possibly for a
whole year.  The uneasiness in her stomach was getting
harder to ignore and it would only get worse.  She just
wished she knew a way to find out if he felt the same way.

     "Will you marry me, Nene?" asked Mackie, holding an
enormous diamond ring in his hand.

     Nene blinked and shook her head.  "What did you say?"

     "I said, this is a very nice restaurant, Nene," Mackie
replied as he sipped a bit of his glass of wine.  Nene
sighed.  "But, isn't it a bit, expensive, for a police
officer?"

     "Well, it's not like I have a problem with money,
Mackie."

     Mackie swallowed his wine and nodded.  "Yes, but aren't
you supposed to be keeping up the impression that you aren't
.. umm, moonlighting?"

     "I only come here once or twice a month, at the most.
That doesn't look too strange, does it?"

     "I don't know."  Mackie leaned back in his chair.  "I
guess it's fine for special occasions.  Anything more than
that is going to appear suspicious."  He sighed.  "So how's
everyone else been?"

     "Who haven't you seen yet?"

     "Anybody, really.  I've only see you and Dr. Raven
since I've gotten back.  Everyone else seems to be out, I
haven't even seen sis yet."

     "Well, your sister's been brooding around lately, I'm
not sure what about, but something is definitely bothering
her.  She never talks to anyone how she feels though so I
can't help her."

     "Hmm," pondered Mackie.  "I'll have to look into it.
Do you think it has anything to do with the work Raven's
been doing on her hardsuit?"

     "Raven's doing work on her hardsuit?"

     "You didn't know?"

     "Not at all."

     "When I stopped in at Raven's he had sis' old suit
taken completely apart and laid out all over the ground.
Like he was doing some major redesigning."  Mackie sat up
straight again.  "You're telling me she hasn't mentioned
anything?"

     "No," said Nene with a shake of her head.  "Nothing."

     "This is very peculiar.  You think it's a job she
hasn't told us about yet?"

     "I would like to think she would have at least told me
if it was, but she has hidden things from me in the past, so
I can't be certain."

     "Just like things to go to pieces when I leave," Mackie
said with a grin.

     "Oh, I'm sure you're the glue that holds us all
together."

     "You said it, not me."

***

   o/~ Message keeps getting clearer
       Radio's on and I'm moving `round this place
       I check my look in the mirror
       I wanna change my hair, my clothes, my face
       Man I ain't getting nowhere just living in a dump
like this
       There's something happening somewhere
       Baby I just know that there is...     o/~

     "Not bad."

     "Not bad?" Clancy asked.  He motioned around, nearly
hitting a passing waitress who's own expertise in navigating
with wild drunks was the only thing that saved her from
certain destruction.  "I would think this place is right
down your alley.  Exactly the sort of atmosphere your music
seems to encourage."

     Priss took another look around at the bar she, Leon,
Linna, and Nash were sitting in.  It was a single large
room, slightly darkened, with large wooden tables, painted
and lacquered a dark color so they better hide the beer
stains they were placed to receive, and a long bar along the
far wall next to the entrance.  It looked pretty much like
every other bar she'd been to, with the exception that the
paraphernalia on the walls was all from the early eighties,
where as most bars tend to embrace the times closer to the
turn of the century.

     He was right, through.  Her music was specifically
modeled after this age, the Rock'n'Roll, lone-guitarist-with-
a-stubble-and-long-dark-hair age.  The rebellious, dirt-of-
the-earth feel of the music made her feel ... less alone in
her struggle.  This whole bar filled of exactly those types
of people seemed almost idyllic.

     The stage at the other end of the room with the mike
and Kareoke machine on it seemed to be calling out to her as
well.  She stamped out the temptation.

     "Okay, it's ... good," she ceded.

     "Whatever," Nash said with a shake of his head and a
smile.

     "So all this music is from the nineteen eighties?" Leon
asked.

     "Not really," explained Nash.  "I think it used to be
that way, long before I started coming here, but they got
stuck in a rut with the same handful of songs, so they
kinda, expanded their horizon."  He paused for a second to
take a swig of his beer.  "These days they play anything
that was recorded in the `spirit' of those days.  Stuff from
the seventies through early 2010's, some things from these
days, now that there's a revival going on."

     "Yeah," nodded Priss.  "I'd like to go back and laugh
in the face of all those people who started callin' Rock an
old man's music in the late nineties."  She laughed.  "Maybe
get the sig of the Boss or Steinman while I'm there."  Nash
joined her in her chuckle.

     Linna eyed the two strangely.

     Leon ordered another beer.

***

     The orange blob floated before Sylia, almost staring
her down if the thing had eyes.  At this level of the
simulator, there were over twenty threat points on the
thing, each of them capable of extending ten feet in order
to `tag' it's target.  This was the hardest level anyone had
ever played on the simulator and if Sylia could beat it, she
would top even her own record.

     She rose her hands into defensive position, signaling
the program that she was ready to begin.  The `enemy' flared
a brighter orange for a moment then flashed each of it's six
attack points before moving forward amorphously.  Sylia
stepped back at first, changing her stance to prepare for
the first attack.

     The orange blob moved to place Sylia within it's attack
radius and hesitated for a moment.  Sylia blinked.  At this
level, the simulator would be displaying almost human
fighting mentality but she hardly expected it to disengage
it's first attack for defensive reasons, especially when
none of the targets were currently flashing.

     As Sylia boggled for a moment, the orange blob moved
forward again, quicker this time, and thrust out one of it's
tentacles towards Sylia's gut.  Noticing the advancement
just in time, she dodged to the left just as she noticed the
blob rotating to swing at her.  She remained still for an
extra second to find out at what height the attack would
come from, then, when she saw that it was going for a head
shot, she ducked down and spread her arms out to balance
herself.  The arm flew over her head.

     She looked up to watch for the next advancement and
noticed the first target lighting up, informing her of an
exposed vulnerable point.  The orange mass around the point
shifted and Sylia back flipped almost too late to dodge the
upwards swing the blob took at her.  Regaining her posture,
she lowered her shoulder and barreled towards the hologram,
dodging to the left and diving to the right she pivoted when
her hands hit the ground and kicked the glowing sphere
inside of the blob.

     Sylia was rolling away already as the light that she
tagged faded away and the blob turned towards its enemy
again.  Sylia breathed deeply and returned her hands to
ready position as the blob moved forward again.  This time
it was quickly, and without same the hesitation at the
start.  The first tentacle from the thing shot out
immediately, followed shortly after by three more, aimed
right for Sylia.

     She jumped back to dodge the first, then twisted at the
waist to slip in between the other two.  Without a target
exposed, she had no place to attack, so she dropped to her
knees and rolled away.  The simulation immediately picked up
on her movement and flung three more tentacles towards her,
obviously giving up on tact and moving, at least
momentarily, to brute force to end the program.

     The second light appeared, marking the next target as
being right behind one of the tentacles. Sylia squinted,
staring down the hologram.  It moved first, twisting around
to swing from the left.  Sylia jumped back out of the
tentacle's range and it flew past her nose, barely missing
her.  Swallowing, she stepped back once then leaped forward,
diving beneath the next attack, which she already saw
coming, then rolling past when the second attack swung down.
She crouched right next to the orange, one leg extended for
stabilization, and jabbed her hand out, into the image, and
striking the glowing target.

     The simulation was quick to recover, even as the light
was disappearing, it was winding up for another attack.  It
didn't even come close to Sylia, who was already thinking
several moves ahead of the computer.  By the time the third
light came on, she'd gotten into a rhythm and tagged it
quickly, waiting for the next target.

     As she moved through the program, getting quicker and
quicker with each attack, she kept her mind at ease,
thinking only of the possible attack-counterattack
combinations to defeat the program.  But by the twentieth
target, even her rigid mind started to wander.  She thought
it would be all right to think a bit, her moves were almost
instinct by now.

     I've never made it this far, it occurred to her.  I
wonder how many targets there actually are in this level,
the computer supposedly begins generating it's own levels at
this point, so the number doesn't have to follow the system
devised in the earlier levels.  If I pass this level, I'll
have to begin work on upgrading my hardsuit to compensate.
Come to think of it, I haven't had the other Sabers tested
in a while, I should call them down to do so.  I wonder
what's after this...

     That was as far as she got before her mind wandered too
far and the orange blob smacked her right in the gut,
piercing the `critical area' as designated by the program.
The simulation collapsed around her, the blob melting into a
goo then evaporating into nothing along with the dojo-style
walls and ceiling.  By the time Sylia blinked, she was
surrounded by holographic emitters.

     Tugging at the cloth around her waist, she walked out
of the room and into the monitoring station where the
computers there were recording her performance and
evaluating it.  They would analyze her reaction time, her
biological conditions, rate of fatigue, and speed and graph
it against a set of data that she entered to designate the
`Average Saber.'

     Grabbing a towel from a rack by the door, she moved
over to the computer and glanced at the monitor as she wiped
her brow.  Sixty-eight percent above average, a whole
percent better than before.  The program asked her if she'd
been working out lately.

     Sylia grimaced.  Dr. Raven had a strange sense of
humor.

     A monitor next to the one displaying the graph jumped
to life and faded into a shot of Raven, apparently still out
in the garage.  Sylia moved to stand in front of it, so the
visual sensor would pick her up.

     "What is it, Doctor?"

     "You've got a phone call on that `special' line of
yours.  You know, the one you won't even let ME touch?"

     "Yes, I remember."  She looked at a clock on the wall.
"Fargo's a little early.  Thank you, Doctor."

     "Yeah, yeah."

     The screen cleared to black before displaying the
pending call and all the information the tracer could gather
about it.  As usual, it couldn't identify anything, but that
was part of the agreement that Sylia had with Fargo, neither
would know more about each other than necessary to conduct
their extra-legal deals.  The very line he called on was
being ghosted from a totally different area of the city just
in case he tried to trace her, not that he ever would.

     Sylia and Fargo's relationship, while not the intimate,
romantic, type that Fargo had so often tried to initiate,
was rather close, considering the kind of work they did for
each other.  Sylia actually trusted Fargo, not as much as
her Sabers (a relationship which had improved greatly over
the years since she recruited them), but she trusted him all
the same.  Of course, Fargo was very trustworthy to his
clients, but he repaid Sylia's trust by going out of his way
several times to help her gather information on potential
jobs.

     Doubtless, at this moment, he was about to inform Sylia
of his success in finding a way to obtain an NX-class
boomer, or to tell her of a nice, unguarded database
somewhere in the city where she could hack in and get the NX
plans.

     Putting her towel down, she keyed up the decryption
program she used for Fargo's calls and activated it.  The
screen cleared in an instant, then, slowly, built up an
image of Fargo, looking up at her from the screen.
Instantly, Sylia feared the worst.  Fargo was hardly
emotional, and yet, on his face, she could easily read
tension, as if he was carrying an awfully heavy weight on
his shoulders.

     "Sylia," Fargo said, his voice still slightly scrambled
from the encryption he was using.  "They just let one of
them out of the tower."

     Sylia raised an eyebrow and picked up her towel once
again to wipe her hands.  "Where is being shipped to?"

     "No, Sylia," Fargo said slowly.  "Not shipped, they let
one go.  They walked it out in front of the building,
pointed it towards the heart of the city, turned it on, and
walked away."

     Sylia's eyes widened and she spoke softly.  "What is
doing?"

     "The same thing every boomer does when they've been
released into the city without a primary directive."

     "My god."  She paused.  "How long ago?"

     "A few minutes.  My `informant' inside of Genom told me
just as they were about to do it."  He waited for Sylia's
reaction and when he received none, he continued.  "He's
told me that when the thing is active it emits a signal at a
specific high-band frequency that you should be able to
trace.  I'm sending you the amplitude right now."

     "This is the same informant as before?"

     "Yes."

     "Curious," Sylia mused.  "If he's all on our side why
doesn't he simply send us the schematics for the boomer?"

     "I don't know," admitted Fargo. "He contacts me through
such an encrypted channel that he might not even be able to
send me the schematics."

     "Whatever," Sylia shook her head as the severity of the
situation hit her.  "Have you at least found out if it's
armed?"

     "I have no information on that."

     "Fine.  I'll contact you when I have the situation
under control."  She didn't even wait for a response before
shutting down the communiqu, and pressing her palm into the
signal button under the console that would alert the rest of
the Sabers.  Briefly going over her mental checklist, she
made sure she'd done everything before heading to her
emergency transport that would take her to the Knight Sabers
hangar.

***

     "I'll go get another round," Nash said with a smile,
picking up a few of the empty glasses and heading over to
the bar.  As he walked away, he kept looking back at Linna
until he nearly walked into a waitress and decided that
keeping the glasses in his hand intact was a little higher
on the priority list.  At least, at little bit.

     "Isn't he great?" Linna asked, turning to Leon and
Priss, hearts in her eyes so big she probably wasn't able to
hear anything bad.

     "He certainly is ... different," Priss said, looking
over at the rather tall man at the bar.  "At least, from the
rest of the pencil pushers you've dated in the past.  This
guy almost seems... alive."  She snickered.

     She choked on her laugh when she was reminded of her
proximity to Leon by a sudden jab from his elbow.  "That's
hardly fair," he said to Priss but loud enough for Linna to
hear.  "He seems like a nice gentleman."

     "Yeah..." Linna trailed off.

     "Oh boy," mutter Priss.

     *BEEP* *BEEP*

     Linna was broken from her trance instantly and reached
into her jacket to pull out a small, disc-shaped object.
Simultaneously, Priss' hand dove into her jeans pocket to
pull out a similarly shaped piece of machinery.

     Slowly the two glanced up at each other, then Priss
turned to Leon who was already nodding, as if he knew
exactly what was going on.

     He turned to Linna, "I thought you were one of them,"
he said.  Then he looked back at Priss.  "I'll take care of
Nash, you go on ahead, I'm sure it won't be long before I
get MY call."

     "Lets go, Priss," Linna said, grabbing her purse and
throwing it over her shoulder.  Priss looked at Leon for a
few seconds longer, then put her hand on his shoulder and
squeezed a bit.

     "Thank you," she said to him softly.  Then she looked
up to Linna and the two started off towards the door.

     "Ah, well," Leon said to himself, picking up a nearly
empty glass and raising it to his lips.  "It was lovely this
far, at least."  He tipped his glass back-

*BEEP*

     Downing the rest of the glass, Leon wiped his mouth
with the back of his hand, slammed the glass back onto the
table, and pressed the small button on the side of his, now
flashing, watch that signified that he'd received the
message.  "It doesn't rain, but it pours."  Getting up, he
started walking towards the phones while fishing in his
pocket for his AD Police card.

     A few moments later, Nash arrived at the table.
Putting all the cups down, he looked around the table and
boggled.

     "Huh?"

***

     Nene pulled the beeping disc from her purse and
examined the tiny message being displayed on it.  It was a
single word, `Recall,' but it meant that the Knight Sabers
had a job and Sylia was calling them back to headquarters.

     "So much for a nice evening," Mackie said, setting down
his glass and getting up out of his chair.

     "Get the valet to bring the car around," said Nene,
stuffing the disc back into her purse and slinging it over
her shoulder.  "I'll pay for this."

     "All right," Mackie nodded and turned and headed for
the exit as quick as possible without attracting attention.

     "Just like old times," Nene reminisced as she flagged
down a waiter.

***

     Most boomers are slow, despite their mechanic agility,
they tend to respond slowly when they decide to rampage over
half the city.  This boomer decided that tactics were stupid
when everything that the enemy was throwing at you bounced
off harmlessly.  Thus, he went from the lower districts to
the east side in relatively short time before running into
the AD Police and discovering that the sound of a body going
splat was more fun than a building going vrrrr-boooom.

     This did not bode well for Daley and his squad.

     "GET THE HELL DOWN!" Daley yelled at the members of his
unit that were advancing towards the berserk boomer.
"GABBY!  BLAKE!  WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Daley was then pulled back behind the squad car he was by
when a barrage of bullets flew past.

     As he waited for the bullets to stop, Daley punched the
side of the car he was leaning against.  "Damn, those two!
I don't think they've *ever* listened to what I've said!"
He looked around and several other N-Police and AD Police
officers huddled behind cars.  "And where on earth is my
backup?!  Where's Leon when you need him?"

     "Headquarters says it'll be five more minutes before
backup arrives!" called a man a short distance away who was
yelling into the radio in his car.

     "We won't last five minutes!"

     As if to accentuate the point, the car the radio man
was hiding behind exploded in a fiery inferno, incinerating
the man and the three other ADP officers around him.  Daley
cursed again.

     "What the hell was that?  Where did that thing get a
bazooka?"

     "That wasn't a bazooka," said one of the officers next
to Daley.

     "Then what was it?" asked Daley.  The man pointed over
the top of the car.  Daley furrowed his brow, turned to get
on his knees and peered over the hood of the car.

     The boomer was holding the body of an ADP officer now,
one of the ones that died earlier, and was closely examining
the belt he was wearing.  After confirming something, the
blue beast's hand reached out and pulled an egg shaped
object from the belt and tossed it at Daley.

     Only a second elapsed from when the grenade bounced on
the hood of the car and when Daley reacted, but to him it
seemed like eternity.  The clang of the hood as it hit rung
in his ears for half that time, the other half taken up by
his head turning, infinitely slowly, to look at the other
officers behind the car.  Then his jaw opened.

     "Shit," he said.  Then started running as fast as his
legs could carry him.  When he heard the explosion and only
barely felt the heat, he thought he would be alright, then
he felt the rain of shrapnel cut into his body.  He stumbled
forward into a slight ditch that was created by an earlier
explosion, and felt the darkness grab him.

***

     Sylia was already completely suited up by the time
Linna and Priss arrived, and they were halfway done when
Nene and Mackie showed up.  It wasn't the quickest response
time, Sylia decided, but none of them even knew they were on
a job, so it was acceptable.

     "Here's the low down," Sylia started as soon as Nene
made her way back to the hanger after getting into her suit.
"Genom has been working on a new boomer, it's called the NX
Class.  A half hour ago, they decided to test it's combat
tactics by releasing it into the city and seeing how it
fares against the AD Police and, ultimately, us.  We don't
have plans or schematics on this design yet, so if at all
possible, disable, but do not destroy.  If we can bring back
seventy percent of the boomer we can kill two birds with one
stone and complete our job."  She paused.  "Any questions?"

     "Yeah," Mackie said, raising a hand.  "What shall I
do?"

     "Welcome back, Mackie," Sylia replied as a matter of
course.  "You'll be flying the Knightwing as before and
acting as air support."

     "All right," Mackie said, slightly annoyed.  He'd hoped
she'd let him use the support suit like he did during the
ADP headquarters takeover.  At least that time he felt like
he was doing something instead of circling the fight zone in
the Knightwing.  Besides he got to be close to Nene...

     "How should we disable it?" Linna asked.

     "Go for the head," said Sylia.  "Take out the brain
functions."

     "Isn't that normally the most critical part of a
boomer?" asked Nene.  "Wouldn't we want to save it?"

     "Not on this boomer.  This time the body is the most
important part."

     "Why's that?" asked Priss.

     "I don't know."

     "Well, that's vague enough, lets go," Priss said
mockingly.

     Sylia said nothing for a few seconds, then spoke.  "I
don't need to remind you to be careful, this is a totally
new design of boomer, you never know what to expect.  Move
out."

***

     Leon arrived at the war zone at what he considered
exactly the most dramatic time.  As he was stopping his car,
something down the street blew up in an incredibly fiery
explosion and the boomer walked through the wall of flames
like it was nothing.  Stepping out of his car, Leon decided
something theatrical was necessary, so as a bunch of ADP
officers was nearing him, he pulled his gun and turned to
face them.  "Backup's arrived," he said, the yellow red of
the fire reflecting off his visor sunglasses.

     "Detective McNichol!" the man in the lead of the group
said as he got up to Leon.  The man looked around with a
quizzical look on his face.  "Where's the rest of your
unit?"

     "They're still on their way," replied Leon, closing the
door of his car and walking down closer to the battle zone.
"I was in the area.  Who's in charge here?"

     "Daley was but he's been injured," another man from the
group said.

     "What?" Leon said suddenly.  "Where is he?"

     One of the men pointed to a patrol car on it's side
with two officers kneeling next to a downed one, "Over
there."

     Leon didn't hesitate to run over.  As he neared the car
he heard a few explosions in the distance but ignored them
for the time being.  He recognized one of the two officers
by Daley as Gabriel, one half of a hot headed duo in Daley's
unit that tended to ignore the regulations whenever they
thought they had a better idea.  This one had the tendency
to ramble on about things and had gotten the nickname
`Gabby.'  The other half of the pair, Blake, was no where to
be seen.

     "How is he?" Leon asked Gabby.

     "He keeps coming in and out of consciousness," said
Gabby.  "He got hit pretty bad by shrapnel and is loosing a
lot of blood, but I don't think any of his major organs are
damaged.  I'm no doctor, though."

     Leon nodded and knelt down beside Daley.  He tried
shaking him slightly to stir him awake but he remained
under.  After a few seconds he stood defiantly.  "All right,
everyone, listen up!  I'm in charge now, and we're gonna..."

     "Sir!" someone yelled suddenly.  Leon turned to them
angrily for disrupting his speech.

     "What is it?" he yelled.

     The young man had a smile on his face as he pointed up
into the sky.  Leon followed his finger to see a large,
delta shaped craft hovering over the area.  Leon had seen it
enough times to recognize what it meant.  The officer spoke
it aloud for him though.

     "The Knight Sabers are here!"

***

     Priss looked down from the Knightwing at the carnage in
the street below.  The whole block was lit up red and yellow
from all the fires that were burning uncontrollably below.
Unfortunately the whole area also had a grayish, or
sometimes black, haze over it from all the smoke the fires
generated.

     "I can't see a fucking thing down there," Priss said.

     "And infrared scans are being disrupted by all the
fires," Nene continued.

     "How are we supposed to find this guy?" asked Linna.

     "Here," Sylia said from further back in the Knightwing.
She pressed a button on a console there and uploaded the
frequency data from the computer to each of the Sabers.
"The NX emits a signal along this frequency whenever it's in
operation, you should be able to track it using this."

     "Yes," Nene said almost immediately.  "I'm getting a
signal, I can see it now."

     "How do you know this, Sylia?" asked Linna.

     "It came with the job data, now move out!"

     The three sabers acknowledged her and leapt out of the
Knightwing and down into the war zone below.  Sylia
hesitated for a second, then followed.

***

     "They're using the frequency!" a technician suddenly
turned and said to the ominous figure behind him.

     "Good," Quincy said.  "Now use it to get a satellite
lock on them, I don't want to lose them if the stop using
the frequency."

     "Yes, sir!" said the technician as he pivoted back to
his console.

     "Excellent, everything is going according to plan."

     "You bastard."

     Quincy turned slowly to face the young, thin looking
man currently being held by two Genom guards.  He was
slightly struggling against their grip but more importantly,
was staring down Quincy with the evilest look he could
muster.  Quincy simply smiled.

     "Yes, Mr. Steger, I am, though probably not in the
meaning you intended."

     Trene gave up struggling and simply resorted to
staring.

     "Don't act so surprised," Quincy continued.  "I told
you when I promoted you that I watch everyone and
everything.  You can't do anything in my empire without my
knowledge.  From the first time you tried to contact the
Knight Sabers I have been watching, waiting for when your
fascination with them could be put to good use.  Now it
has."

     "I'll take you down for messing with my plans!" yelled
Trene.

     "Of course you will," Quincy nodded.  "But what am I to
do with you in the meantime?  Perhaps it's time for another
great scientist to disappear in an `accident.'  Guards, take
him down to floor 20 for preparation.  Our relationship is
over."

     The guards started pulling Trene away but he started
resisting again.  He wasn't nearly strong enough, however,
so the guards were only slightly slowed by his struggle.  As
they were leaving the room, Trene made a last effort to pull
away from the two men, but only managed to stop the for a
moment, and the soon resumed their pull.

     "You can't get rid of me easily, Quincy!" Trene yelled,
his voice somewhat deeper than it was before and more
rushed.  "I keep coming back like a bad penny."  He was
almost through the door when he added.  "You'll see me again
or my name isn't Brian Mason!"  The doors closed behind him.

     Quincy, who had turned his back on this whole affair,
suddenly straightened and turned back towards the door.  His
eyes were wide with surprise, but he quickly covered it up
and tried to return to his original stature so that no one
would suspect anything.  Couldn't show emotion in front of
his employees.

     Brian Mason, he had called himself, though.  Why?  Was
it merely to scare him, to trick him into showing emotion
again?  A thorough scan of his history and genetic code
would have turned up any relation to Mason, and yet, he just
used his name.

     Perhaps this *wasn't* over.

***

      Linna had circled the area a few times already and
determined that visibility was simply too poor to get a good
view of the boomer from the air, the only way she was going
to be able to see the thing to kill it, was if she was on
the ground.  Cutting her jets, she landed in a relatively
clean area of the street that was only a short distance away
from where her sensors were telling her the boomer was.  She
could hear gunshots and things exploding in the cloud, but
still couldn't see into it.

     Swallowing, she stepped forward into the black soot and
watched her display, telling her where the frequency was
coming from.  She kept close to the ground, knees bent, in
case she would have to make a quick getaway if she got too
close.  The sounds were getting louder, but her normal
sensors weren't picking up anything, only the frequency was
reporting back.  She pressed forward.

     Suddenly something blew away all the smoke and the
arena was clear.  Standing, not more than ten meters from
her, was the boomer.  It wasn't at all what she expected.
With the exception of the 33-S, all boomers had had an
obvious, visible skeletal structure, with a few pieces of
armor in the chest and various places along the body to hide
and protect critical points.  This boomer ... if it had not
been for the color of the skin, she would have thought that
it was a naked man.  Apparently about six foot tall, silvery
hair, and large, but not excessively so, muscles.

     Then it turned to look straight at the Green Saber
before it, and when Linna looked back into those eyes, all
thoughts of it being human were erased.  Instead of two eyes
of perhaps brown, green, red, or blue color, there were two
inset spheres in the sockets, one glowing a gold color, the
other casting a silvery light.  The `skin' on the face
contorted to show rage and the boomer started barreling
towards Linna.

     Her knucklebomber was charged with a single thought and
she brought it around to hit the stampeding boomer right in
the gut.  She stepped forward, raised her fist, and leapt
forward, swinging her arm around, impacting in the center of
it's chest.  It spew more smoke everywhere, but it was soon
blown away by the same winds that were tending the fires
letting Linna see exact what damaged she had impacted.

     She was hoisted into the air by her neck before she
even had a chance to look.  The boomer had her in it's two
hands, lifted off the ground, gritting it's teeth at it's
enemy.

     "Urrkk!" Linna said as she swung her foot around to
kick the boomer in the head.

     With little effort, the boomer let got of Linna with
one hand and grabbed the foot, changing grips, and began to
swing her around.  She was about to go airborne when
something smacked up against the boomer and exploded.
Distracted, or perhaps after a reorganization of threats,
the boomer let go of Linna and sent her flying.  She'd
gotten away with minimal damage, she'd almost considered
herself lucky, then she looked up just in time to see the
building she was about to impact against.

***

     Priss leapt backwards and landed next to Sylia as the
charge she planted on the boomer exploded, freeing Linna
from it's grasp.  Again, smoke filled the area, but the
boomer soon emerged from it, heading right towards Priss and
Sylia.  Despite the size of the blast, it still appeared
only marginally damaged.

     "Time for a change in tactics," Sylia said to Priss.

     "I agree," she replied.  The two jumped away in
opposite directions, Sylia going into flight mode to circle
around behind the boomer.

     Priss looked back towards the boomer after her jump to
see that it had compensated it's charge and was still
heading towards her.  "Shall we dance?" she asked in jest.
Charging forward, she waited until the boomer was almost on
top of her before leaping up over it and slamming both of
her fists into the head of the boomer.  Scissor kicking over
the boomer, she landed on her feet behind it and ran a good
distance away before turning back to look.

     It seemed to be rubbing it's head for a moment then it
turned back around and displayed for Priss how her double
knucklebomber had managed to give the thing a nice haircut
but had left little damage on the frame.  It opened it's
mouth and the skin around it's jaw tore, revealing a
particle cannon inside.

     "Shit!" Priss yelled as she jumped to the side, barely
missing being blasted by the cannon.

***

     Sylia hovered above the battle, watching Priss' efforts
against the NX boomer.  The boomer was not reacting as
expected, and the reduced size and stature made it much more
agile than previous classes, even more maneuverable than the
hardsuits.  Add to that the fact that it seems undamaged by
conventional weaponry, and you've got a neigh-invincible
package.

     "Sylia..."

     A voice squawked over her communications link that she
quickly identified as Nene's.  "Can you find a weakness?"

     "I haven't been able to even thoroughly scan the
thing!" Nene whined over the link.  "It's got some sort of
positional force shielding, it's blocking my scans and
making it nearly impossible for you to punch through."

     "Isn't there any way to beat it?" Sylia asked, swooping
down a bit lower to position herself for an attack.  "Some
hole in the defense?"

     "There seemed to be a momentary flicker in the
shielding when it fired it's particle cannon.  Maybe it's
depleting it's battery and needs to divert power when using
one of it's projectile weapons.  Also, like I said, it's
positional, a fully engulfing attack should do something,
assuming it's strong enough to get through the shielding
when it's fully spread out over it's body."

     "An all at once strategy?" asked Sylia.

     "Seems like the way to go."

     "Acknowledged."

***

     Darvis Blake fingered his pistol nervously as he
climbed up the staircase of a building that was overlooking
the fight below.  He was taking little more than pod shots
when he down below, a higher altitude would give him a nice
location to sniper from, maybe find a weakness in that
indestructible alloy the boomer was coated in.  Could make
him a hero, he'd make Detective by next week.

     He stopped by a window to glance out at the battle
below.  The boomer was fighting with the Knight Sabers now,
while the rest of the ADP offers were off hiding behind
their cars and praying for salvation.  Now that Daley was
taken out, they wouldn't have anyone to rally behind.  It
was up to Darvis Blake to save the unit again.

     Blake continued up the stairs, trying to get the proper
height with which to take his shot.  When he was a few
floors up, however, he started to encounter a lot of rubble,
but the stairs still seemed structurally sound so he
continued up.

     When he got another floor up, he discovered the source
of the rubble. There was a hole in the exterior wall, shaped
almost like a person, and a matching one going through the
wall and into a room.  Lying just inside that room, covered
in large chunks of concrete and a heavy dust, was the Green
Knight Saber.  Her hardsuit was battered and damaged, but
more or less retained the same structure, an image he had
been taught to look out for the day he joined the AD Police.

     Blake never expected to see one so close before, only
to get a view from the sidelines like most of the AD Police
except Detectives Wong and McNichols.  He suddenly felt
privileged.

     An explosion from the battle outside returned him to
the situation at hand.  Darvis held no delusions about his
ability to take out a boomer single handedly, the Knight
Sabers have always been the most effective and best at
destroying them.  With a Saber lying before him, the battle
going outside would be at an disadvantage, and the last
thing Darvis wanted to see was more property being damaged
by the mad boomer, let alone more loss of life.  He had to
help her.

     Unsure exactly how to go about doing that, Blake
grabbed a hold of one of the chunks of concrete and pushed
it off the green figure.  It slid off, leaving a gash in the
armor of the Saber, and rolled into the stairwell and out of
the building.  Immediately, he began moving another chunk.

     "This will take some time," he said, struggling with
the next piece.

***

     Trene Steger let himself be led through the Genom Tower
with little resistance.  That was because he was busy trying
to figure out who the hell said that last line about Mason
to Quincy, and why it sounded like his voice saying it.  He
remembered getting angry at Quincy for turning the help he
was giving to the Knight Sabers into a trap to trace them
back to their base, then things kind of got hazy and he felt
like he was outside of his body, and he heard his voice say
something about his name being Brian Mason.

     {that's because it is}, a voice said in Trene's head.

     Did I just think that? Trene thought to himself.

     {no, i did,} replied the voice.  Trene was certain he
was hearing another voice, hearing somebody else's thoughts.

     Great, I'm going crazy, thought Trene.  Must be all
that time I spent reading Largo's brain, I'm starting to
think I AM him.

     {something like that, yes.}

     Well, as long as I'm having this conversation with
myself, thought Trene, how are we doing?

     {you are doing fine, i'm a little drained from taking
control of your body like that.}

     Oh, so that was YOU who said I was Brian Mason.

     {i am brian mason,} said the voice, then added, {or
rather, we are now brian mason.}

     That's nice, I think I'll pay attention to walking now.

     {just listen and walk slowly, the guards will pace with
you.}

     Whatever, thought Trene.  He slowed down anyway and was
only a bit surprised when the guards slowed to match his
pace.

     Hmm....

     {see?}

     Oh, you're still in there?

     {i'm still in here, now keep walking and listen up.}
The voice paused for a second. {quincy is going to have you
killed.}

     I rather figured as much.  That's not rather nice of
him.  Hey, where were you when I needed help on that
sociology final in college?

     {stop fooling around, i'm serious.}

     Oook, it's nice to have company during this death march
anyway.

     If the voice could sigh, it would have, but it wasn't
real and had no reason to even take a breath so it just
continued.  {i can save your life if you pay attention.}

     Not like I have a choice, since you're speaking into my
brain and all.

     {alright, fine, we'll have it your way.  by the way,
they guards are about to trade when you get to the elevator.
quincy's guards aren't allowed to have guns, but these
elevator guards will have a pistol hanging on the their
right side.}

     Will they?

     {just you watch.}

     Trene just smiled, deciding that he really was going
crazy and he might as well have fun with it.  He continued
walking with a stupid grin on his face while he came up to
the elevator and the two guards he was with walked away just
as the elevator doors opened and two different guards guided
him into the elevator and pressed the button for floor 20.

     {there, look.}

     Trene took a dopey look down and noticed the gun on the
right side of each guard.  He chuckled.  Look at that, he
thought, good guess.

     {it wasn't a guess, i know enough about this company to
run it, and better than quincy ever will.}

     Hah, I have a personality with an ego in me.

     {the guard on your left's name is suki, he's getting
old and has been hiding a fear of firing his gun.  his wife
was killed by a biker gang with automatic weapons a few
years back.}

     Aww, sorry for him, too bad he didn't have an extra
personality to console him.

     {the guard on your right is a good shot and has a
pretty quick draw time, but he's not too strong, you could
probably overpower him easily.}

     Possibly.

     {there's a red button sticking out of the panel by the
door, if you press it in it stops the elevator on whatever
floor your currently on.}

     You must have really liked this elevator when you were
alive.

     {if you were to barrel into the guard on your right, he
would have enough time to half draw his gun and your impact
would probably knock it out of his hand.  you could turn and
throw him into the panel that would stop the elevator enough
to jar the guard on your left.  use that time to pick up the
gun and hit the guard you just threw in the head with the
butt of the gun.  by this time, the other guard would have
his gun drawn, but he'd never fire it, so you could take
your time.}

     Take my time to do what?

     {shoot him, of course.}

     Ahh, well, that's a very nice and complicated plan, but
I think I'll just stand here and wait for floor 20 to come
up.

     {you will die if you let the elevator get that far.  of
this i have no doubt.  you know too much about the nx boomer
to let go alive. think about it.}

     Maybe I will, thought Trene, to which he go no
response.  Hello?  Hmph, I guess he left.

     He started to whistle.  The sound echoed nicely and
made it sound richer, so he continued, swaying a bit to the
tune.  As he waited he let his eyes wander about the
elevator.  It was plated with polished brass from the waist
up, showing an almost perfect reflection on the four walls,
then it had wood paneling below that to a hardwood floor
that was also polished to perfection.  As he looked around
he noticed the guard on his left swaying with the music as
well, the lack of omnipresent elevator music in the room
definitely taking it's toll with these guards.

     As the guard swayed, Trene noticed in the reflection
the revolver attached to his side and the four visible empty
chambers.  The gun wasn't loaded, that must have been where
the voice conjured that whole story about fear of guns and
stuff.

     He looked right as saw the other guard very still,
sometimes his hand would twitch as well, as if to reach for
his gun but deciding against it at the last second.  Like he
was jumpy, ready to jump into combat, ready to make a
mistake...

     {now you're seeing it...}

     Perhaps... his mind voice trailed off.  Were they
really going to kill him?  The voice told him they would,
but that was just some crazy compilation of the stuff he
read in the Largo file, nothing but a symptom of insanity.
Then again, he never read about the guards in the elevators,
and if a man can recognize his insanity doesn't it mean he's
not really crazy?

     {think about it,} the voice repeated.

     The elevator was nearing the twentieth floor now, any
moment he would walk into, potentially, his doom.  He wasn't
ready to die, especially not for Genom.  He wanted to live.

     {then free yourself...}

     He wanted to be free.  He NEEDED to be free.  There was
only one way he really could be free.  Only one possibility
had been presented to him.  Only one option to take.

     {now, GO!}

     "Aaarrrgghh!" Trene yelled as he dropped to one knee
and slammed right into the gut of the guard on his left.  A
shot rang out, but he didn't feel any pain, so he ignored
it.  He raised his fist and slammed it into the stomach of
the guard and he heard the clatter of a gun hitting the
floor.

     "Hold it right there!" the other guard yelled.

     Trene pivoted on his foot and threw the smaller guard
into the panel on the wall and the elevator screeched to a
halt, causing the car to rattle a bit and shake.  The guard
he was holding hit his head against the wall and passed out,
so Trene turned to look at the gun and dove for it.

     His hand was around the grip faster than the other,
older, guard could even orient himself.  "You hold it!"
Trene yelled at the man.  The guard froze.

     {shoot him.}

     "No," Trene unknowingly said aloud.

     {shoot. him.}

     "He's unarmed."

     "What?" the guard said, but his voice was only in the
background of Trene's conversation with himself.

     {he'll cause trouble, kill him now.}

     "I'm not like that!"

     {you'll have to start if you want to live.}

     "What do you mean?" Trene said, a bit worried.

     {genom does not let information leak out.  if you get
away they'll send everyone after you.  there is hardly a
place in the world where genom does not reach.}

     "Then what will I do?"

     {you have to reach them first.}

     "Revenge?"

     {they'll follow you eternally if you don't get them
first and cut off the hounds.}

     "Revenge..."

     {it's too late to turn back anyway, either you run, or
they kill you.  I for one wouldn't suggest death, it's a
rather... annoying experience.}

     "Revenge," Trene looked down at the man and pointed the
gun at him.  Somewhere within his head, someone was laughing
gleefully.  He decided it wasn't a completely terrible
voice...

     He brought the gun down across the back of the guard's
head causing him to pass out.  He wasn't that far gone.

     {we'll never survive}

     "We'll see about that," said Trene, looking at the
panel and pressing the `Open' button.  The doors in the
elevator slid open and another set of doors opened halfway
of the doorway above where the floor of the elevator was.
He shrugged and climbed through, bringing the gun with him.

     Trene looked about.  "Now what?" he asked aloud.

     {get to a computer.}

     "What for?"

     {you need to open up a path out of the building, nearly
everything is controlled through the computer system.  and
we have to do one other thing.}

     Trene nodded.  Somehow, he knew exactly what Mason was
talking about.  "We need to help the Knight Sabers."

***

     "I could sure use some help here!" Leon yelled back at
Daley's unit.   His backup hadn't yet arrived so he was
working with a team that he was unfamiliar with, trying to
organize a strategic strike.  Having the Knight Sabers god-
like reputation hanging around wasn't helping things.

     "Why don't we just let the Knight Sabers take care of
it?" one of the officers asked.  "They always seem to pull
through in the end."

     "Even the Knight Sabers sometimes need help," hollered
Leon.  "I can recall a few times they needed my assistance
to defeat a boomer or two."

     "Yeah, sure, Leon," another officer said.

     "Alright, if we have to do this the hard way, I will."
He cleared his throat.  "All of you are hereby ORDERED to
assist me in trying to incapacitate the boomer.  As your
superior officer you are all obligated to obey me or suffer
the consequences of insubordination!"

     A few of the officers shaped up and snapped off a
quick, "Yes, sir!" while several others simply waved him
off.  "A suspension is preferable to certain death," they
yelled back.

     "What happened to the good old days?" Leon wondered
aloud, then turned his attention to the group of officers
that were listening to him now.  "Alright, here's the plan,"
he pulled out a piece of paper and laid it down on the
ground.  Drawing a simple map of the area, he quickly came
up with a plan that involved some sort of hit and fade
operation.  When he had thoroughly explained the plan he
crumpled up the paper and tossed it aside.

     "Everyone understand?" he asked afterwards.  He looked
around slowly to check, then turned and pointed down the
street. "All right! Lets move out!"

***

     Linna awoke to the feeling of someone pulling on her
head.  She opened her eyes sudden and saw almost totally
black with the exception of some red light blinking in the
corner of her vision.  She blinked again and realized that
the red light was a small box on her visor that read [POWER
CONSERVE MODE].  She still felt the pull on her head and
there were muffled grunts not too far away.

     She deactivated the mode and the screen jumped to life
with a whir, joining a ritornelle of other buzzes and noises
telling her that the secondary systems were coming online.
The first thing she saw was the big blue superimposed image
that outlined the damage to her hardsuit, and the second
thing she saw was the face of a man with his hands on her
helmet, apparently trying to wretch it off.

     She turned her head to better see the man and he jumped
back nearly twenty feet, tripping over a large piece of
concrete and falling on his back.  He let out a short yelp
and started to right himself.  As he pushed himself up, she
noticed he was wearing the outfit of an ADP officer and
sighed.

     "What did you think you were doing?" she asked
incredulously.

     "I-uh, I couldn't tell if you were breathing," he first
stammered then slipped into a smooth voice that reminded her
eerily like Leon.  "I thought you were suffocating in that
helmet."  He paused, then added, "I suppose you weren't."

     "Excellent deduction," Linna said before she heard a
nearby explosion and remembered why she was here to begin
with.  She checked her systems again and noticed only slight
damage to her suit exostructure, and a rather large drop in
power levels, which probably kicked her into Power Conserve
Mode when knocked unconscious.  She could still fight for a
while on her remaining power though.

     Brushing off some of the pebbles and rocks stuck in the
joints of her suit, she noticed the piles of rocks to either
side of where she was previously laying.  She looked up to
the officer, who was now on his feet, trying to look as cool
as ever (again, just like Leon), and nodded.

     "Thanks for your help," she said.  "What was your
name?"

     "Blake," he said.  "Davis Blake."

     "Thank you, Blake."  She turned away from him and moved
to the hole in the wall and then in the staircase.  Briefly
surveying the area, she leaped out of the hole and dove
towards the battlezone.

     Blake watched her go and sighed.  "Gabe will be so
jealous," he noted to himself with a smile and looked around
as if he'd just said it to a studio audience.  Finding the
room devoid of a camera crew and people, his smile faded.
Then his brow furrowed when he noticed he was in a
laboratory of sorts.  In the corner something was smoking,
and several chemicals were lying all over the place, some
spilled, some in cracked jars, and several shelves of all
sorts of unusual materials.

     "I thought this was just an office building," Blake
said to himself.  "What's all this stuff doing here?"  He
moved over to the counter where the experiment was smoking.

     Resting on the counter was a rack of three beakers, one
of which had cracked and was now spilling a red liquid.
Nothing was labeled, and there was no documentation in the
area, hardly the procedure for a scientist.  He looked down
at the liquid dripping and noticed that wherever the liquid
dripped there was a hole in the table.  Further examining
where the liquid had fallen he noticed that it had not only
burned through the table, but the six shelves beneath it,
the tile floor beneath that, the metal I-beam that ran
through that section of the floor, and then continued to do
the same thing to the floor beneath him.

     "What the hell is this stuff?" he thought.  Then
another explosion, this one closer, rocked the building and
caused the broken beaker to spill it's remaining contents
across the table.  It spread over the table like water,
quickly, thinning to less than a millimeter thick, then it
began to eat away at the table.  And the shelves.  And the
floor.

     Then he got to thinking.

***

     "There you are," Priss said, holding her shoulder while
staring down the boomer.  She had taken a pretty nasty hit
when the boomer had found that streetpost and started
playing baseball with anyone who came near it.  Eventually
it hit a fire-hydrant and started spraying water all over
the place, creating yet another difficulty in keeping visual
contact with the machine.

     The boomer had eventually lumbered around the rainfall
and came into Priss view.  She couldn't move her arm to aim
her rail gun, the actuator that operated that arm had been
damaged and cutoff from the power supply of the rest of the
suit, so she had to rely on her knucklebomber, which up to
now, hadn't been too effective.

     At least the thing was damaged now.  While Priss was
bombarding the thing with rails, Sylia had managed to dart
in, and, with her vibroblade, chop off one of it's arms.  It
was a distract/attack tactic and seemed to be working the
best against the construct.

     Nene still couldn't find a weakness, but she was
beginning to piece together a vague image of the thing.
Every time shielding would flicker she could get a half-
second scan that she would cross reference with her other
scans and confirm or deny the location of systems.  There
still was no way through the positional energy shielding it
was using, and whenever Priss attacked it where the shield
was up, it would do practically no damage.

     Basically, what it came down to was, in a battle
between this one boomer and the four Knight Sabers, the odds
were tied.  At least, it should be against the *four* Knight
Sabers, Linna had disappeared in the beginning and hadn't
come back ye-

     "Hey guys!" Linna's voice came over Priss' comm link.
Speak of the devil, Priss thought.  "Sorry I disappeared for
a while, I got up close and personal with a building."  She
landed behind the boomer, the same distance Priss was in
front of it.  Simultaneously, Sylia landed off to it's side
and Nene dropped down to ground level, but still remained a
distance off from the fight.

     "Back together again," said Nene.

     "Any plan yet?" asked Linna.

     "If we attack it all at once, we have a better chance
of getting through," Sylia informed them.

     "What do you mean, `all at once?'"

     "The shielding is positional," Nene explained.  "A
single vectored attack will always be blocked because when
the shielding is concentrated at one point it's neigh
invincible.  But when it's spread out, it's weak enough to
take down."  She wined for a second.  "At least, I hope it
is."

     "It's worth a shot," Priss said with a shrug.

     The boomer looked as if it were `breathing' heavily, as
it looked around and noticed the four Knight Sabers standing
around it.  It opened it's mouth and the cannon fell into
position.

     "It looks like now or never, guys," Priss said.  "I'm
going in, see ya on the other side."

     "Acknowledged," Sylia said over the comm.

     "BLUE, ATTACK!"

     Priss hesistated for a moment and Sylia looked around.
"I didn't say that."

     "It's the AD Police!" Nene said with a shriek.

     The Sabers looked down the street to see Leon standing
on top of a car turned on it's side, looking his usual slick
backed hair, visor glasses, extra large gun pointed at the
boomer.  He fired one shot from his gun that impacted at the
head of the boomer causing it to stumble backwards.

     Even as his shot was echoing down the street, three
more ADP officers popped up from behind rubble, but in front
of Leon, and fired their automatic weapons at the boomer.
It stumbled about under the onslaught.

     As Priss was admiring Leon's handy work Sylia suddenly
yelled in her ear.  "They're providing a distraction, attack
now!"  Priss nodded to pretty much no one in specific, then
started dashing towards the boomer, charging her one
knucklebomber and getting ready to do a spin kick
afterwards.

     "GREEN, ATTACK!" Leon yelled.

     The officers in front of Leon stopped firing and ducked
behind their rubble again.  The boomer, rather annoyed now,
would be planning a counter attack.  Leon leveled his gun
again, and fired a single shot, hitting the upper torso,
again, knocking it back a few steps.  But that was merely
the cue that told the three officers that were behind the
running Priss to start firing.

     The boomer was being pummeled with bullets by the time
Priss reached him, completely distracted from the fist
heading straight for the gut.

     "Linna, you ready?" Sylia said.

     "Ready as ever," replied Linna.

     "Go."

     Saber green came running from the opposite side as
Priss, thankfully managing to find a path to him that was
devoid of fire from Leon's men.  As Priss jumped for the
swing kick to the head, Linna charged her fist and slammed
it into the boomers leg, the momentum carrying it head over
heels and landing on it's back on the ground.

     The gunfire from Leon's team stopped as the boomer
landed, and Linna gave it a kick for good measure.

     "Nene, fire," Sylia said.

     "PINK, ATTACK!" Leon's orders followed shortly after.
He fired his one shot again, knocking the boomer, that was
about to get up again, back onto the ground.   Then the men
behind Nene popped up and started firing at the figure on
the ground.  Nene raised her arm to aim her cannon, and
fired as well.

     Despite the onslaught, the boomer still seemed to be
getting up.  Sylia decided that it unacceptable and jumped
into the air to dive down on her attack run.

     "HALT FIRE!" Leon called out as he was loading his gun
again.  Nene stopped firing with the rest of the officers
out of habit.  When she realized her mistake she also
noticed Sylia's attack and decided to stay out of the way.

     Up above, Sylia circled around one last time, trying to
get the perfect angle to attack from to end this conflict
now.  Meanwhile, Nene began scanning the boomer nervously.
She wanted Sylia's attack to succeed as much as she did.
Her sensor back extended from the back of her suit and began
scanning the boomer thoroughly.

     To her surprised, something started to turn up.  "Hey,
I'm getting something!" Nene said.  "It's working!  The
shielding is flickering, I'm getting scans in between
cycles!"

     "Get as much as you can, Nene," Sylia said.  "I'm going
in for my attack now."

***

     {hurry up} Mason urged.

     "I'm trying to," Trene said in a typing frenzy.  "It
was hard enough putting in these safeguards on the boomer,
it's even harder to break them down.  I've got the shields
on a long cycle modulation, but I'm having trouble actually
shutting them down."

     {we don't have much time, if we linger we'll loose our
opportunity to escape.}

     "I know, I KNOW!"

     All around him, lights were flashing, machines were
beeping, it was all very distracting.  But the only way
Trene could get the access he needed was by hacking directly
into the core from a unit directly attached to it.  So he
had to deal with all the noise.

     {we're running out of time.}

     "Alright, I think I've got something," Trene said,
fidgeting in his chair.  "Dammit! The survival code shut
down almost *everything* when it went into activation.  I
think I can confuse it for a few seconds to think that that
things are normal.  It would revert back to the primary
brain, detect the malfunction and drop back into survival
mode, but there would be a few seconds where the defenses
would drop and have to cycle back on.  If they're watching
closely, they'll be able to take advantage of it.  It's the
best I can give them."

     {what about the lock quincy has on them?}

     "We'll have to contact them somehow, there's no way I
can help them from here.  That's all higher functions that
only Quincy can control.  There isn't even an access port to
them from here."

     {quickly then, let's move.}

     Trene pressed a final key and sent the command to the
boomer before closing out of the terminal and standing.

     "Hold it!" yelled a voice from behind him.  "Put your
hands up and turn around slowly."

     {we don't have time for this.}

     "I agree," Trene said, his face darkening.

     "What do you agree with?" the voice asked.

     "THIS!" Trene dropped his hands to the console and spun
around quickly to look at the guard.  As he turned his and
brushed over the gun resting on the console and he gripped
it, his finger going immediately to the trigger.  He leaned
back as his hand came around in front of him to point the
gun at the guard, and pulled the trigger.

     The impact pushed the man backwards, his arms flailing
up and firing the gun once into the ceiling, where, a good
distance up, some piece of tubing ruptured and began spewing
some cloudy gas into the room.  Afterwards, the man lay on
the floor, unmoving.

     {you're getting better at this.}

     "I'm warming up to it," Trene said, turning around and
running towards the exit.

***

     "The shield is down!" Nene said, feeling a little
melodramatic.  "Go for it, Sylia!"

     Sylia squinted as she dove towards the boomer.  It was
starting to stand up, by the time she reached it, it would
be fully erect, giving her the perfect place to score a
kill.  She extended her vibroblade and braced her arm.  She
was coming down at some speed now, if she missed she would
impact the pavement and do serious damage to her suit to say
nothing of her own body.  But this attack had to succeed,
not just because the opportunity was right, but because she
had had enough of this boomer.  It reminded her too much of
Largo.

     She was getting closer now, two, maybe three more
seconds and she will have impact.  The blade sung in the air
as she descended and Sylia felt the wind resistance trying
to tear her arm from her body, but she held on.  Even as her
hardsuit sensors tried to tell her to stop, she pressed on.

     Staring down, she was nearly touching the boomer, when
time suddenly slowed to a crawl. Everything blurred before
Sylia's eyes and she could hear a slow distant beating that
could only have been her heart.  The boomer beneath her
turned to look up at the saber raining from the sky, and
Sylia looked back at it, into it's eyes, one gold one
silver.  The boomer's face was easily readable, the short
lived intelligence not even given the chance to develop a
poker face.

     It sneered at her, as if so confidant it would survive
it would laugh at the face of death.  As it stared at Sylia,
bearing down at her with it's eyes, another part of it
blurred, the remaining arm, raising up to pluck Sylia from
the sky.  It was trying to rob her of the killing blow.

     But Sylia had already convinced herself she would win,
and her discipline was one of titanium, not easily deterred.
She simply adjusted the way her legs were positioned to
change the flow of air around her body, applying the
Bernoulli principle in a microsecond.

     Her direction shifted drastically, away from the
boomer's arm, but still within range of her blade.  Then
time resumed it's normal course.

     Sylia slammed down into the boomer's shoulder, cutting
down along the side of it's body, down to it's knee before
hitting the ground with a sickening thud.  She felt the suit
crack under the stress and could almost hear her own body
cry out in pain, but she pushed off with her legs one last
time in a thruster powered leap.

     To the observer, it looked almost as if she had
bounced.

     "Sylia!" Priss cried out.  She ran and leapt into the
air, catching the currently less than graceful Saber Prime
out of the air and landed gently on the ground.  After she
touched down she looked back at the boomer that was
currently roaring in that language of anger that all boomers
seemed to have been programmed with.

     It was missing both it's arms now, a shoulder, part of
the torso, and was partially without a leg, standing now,
more out of balance than out of support from both it's legs.
It screamed in agony but at the same time looked around
nervously.

     Priss and Sylia were huddled behind a piece of fallen
building, merely peering over the wreckage to see the
boomer.  Linna had leaped away and was standing closer to
Leon and the blockade of cars.

     Which left Nene.

     Standing alone.

     Staring at boomer that was now staring right back at
her.

     Then it's mouth opened, and the cannon fell into place.

***

     "Nene..." Mackie mouthed from above, still circling the
area in the Knightwing.  On his screen he saw the action
going on below, he'd just seen his sister's neigh-kamikaze
attack on the boomer and her subsequent retreat and now he
was watching the boomer stare across the former street
turned battlefield at a frozen with fright Nene.

     The slightly enhanced sensor package on the Knightwing
over anything any of the Sabers carried in their hardsuits,
was continuously scanning the area for, at the least,
records.  When it detected the buildup of energy associated
with the mouth cannon of a boomer it made a soft beep, but
in Mackie's somewhat entranced state, it sounded like a
sonic boom.

     He leaped in chair as the seriousness of the situation
reached him and he spun the Knightwing around suddenly,
causing several of the gyros to momentarily slip, and
activated the multidirectional gun on the belly of the ship.
It descended from a small compartment and pointed straight
down.

     Slipping the Knightwing into station keeping mode, he
took control of the gun and pointed it generally at the
boomer and opened fire.  If he could distract him for a
moment, maybe Nene could get away, or someone would do
SOMETHING to help her.  ANYTHING would do.

***

     Leon gazed past the car he was hiding behind, through
the battlefield, at the boomer that was staring at Saber
Pink.  From his view he could see almost everything that was
going on at that time.  He could see Priss and Saber Prime
off to the left, Saber Green a distance from them, the
boomer standing in the middle, and Saber Pink facing it, a
short ways away.

     He knew a little bit about the Knight Sabers in his
years of fighting alongside them, enough to know that Saber
Pink was the least combat capable of the team.  Even now,
she seemed frozen with fright that the boomer was staring
down at her, if she didn't get moving soon she would be at
the brunt of whatever assault the boomer was going to throw
next.  And even Leon's respect for the Sabers wouldn't
relieve him of the feeling that it would be bad for Pink.

     If only to distract the boomer, send it after another
target, Leon stepped out from behind the car and leveled his
gun, aiming at the boomer's head again.  He would smack it
upside the head, wave around to get it's attention, and hope
for salvation.  He aimed his gun precisely.

     Then it began to rain bullets, and the ground around
the boomer nearly exploded with debris, obscuring Leon's
view of the enemy.  He glanced up to see the Knightwing
laying down cover fire.  Whoever it was firing up there,
though, she wasn't very good, none of the shots had hit the
boomer yet.

     A bit of the debris cleared up and Leon tried to aim
again, and he saw the characteristic glow of the boomers
head that signified it was charging a mouth cannon.  Leon
wondered if he could even get off the shot in time.  He
concentrated on his gun and prepared to fire.

     In the background of his shot, he saw someone running
towards Nene from behind, but he simply shoved it out of his
mind and concentrated on the shot.  It looked like an AD
Police officer, probably an ambitious dope who thought he
could make the papers by trying to save Saber Pink.

***

     As Darvis Blake barged out from the ground floor of the
building he was in, he saw an unusual scene before him.  A
boomer was picking itself off the floor and just as it was
standing up, it turned just in time to get a blade from the
white colored Knight Saber through it's shoulder and out
it's knee.  Then the saber bounced off the ground and was
caught by another saber, the blue one, and was pulled away
for safety.

     It was quite an amazing stunt, and Blake thought for a
moment that he might not even need this red stuff he was
carrying with him.  Then he noticed that the boomer wasn't
dead yet, and just turned it's sights on the pink colored
Knight Saber.  Nearly a third of it's body detached and the
thing was still going.  Can anything stop this thing? he
thought.

     Blake looked at the flask of red liquid in his hand.
"I hope this works," he said to himself, and started running
towards the boomer and the pink Knight Saber.

     As he dashed, he pulled the cork off the flask (not
that it would have done much had the beaker tipped over),
and dropped his arm to start a pendulum motion to toss the
glass like a softball.  He was running as fast as he could,
and even as he started making some distance suddenly the
boomer was surrounded by flying pieces of concrete and
twisted metal.  It took Blake a moment to realize that
someone was firing from above, but he was too occupied to
look up, the ground was so uneasy that a misstep could mean
his death.

     When he was within his own expected range, he stopped,
bent back, and lobbed the flask underhand towards the
boomer.  But even as he was breathing in after letting go of
the flask he knew he had miscalculated.  His throw was too
strong, the beaker was going to go over the head of the
boomer.  Blake cursed to himself as the boomer's mouth
suddenly glowed, charging it's cannon.

     Blake squinted, waiting for the blast to come.

     Then he heard a single shot, that was louder than the
other shots coming from above, and the flask shattered in
mid-air.  Blake's eyes widened as he watched the liquid
spread out like a giant sheet and cover the boomer from it's
head to it's feet.  Immediately the liquid began to steam
and the boomer went into throws of agony.

     Blake was about to smile when he felt a sudden rush of
heat fly past him, and he saw the boomer, as it was falling
backwards, fire it's cannon, nearly missing Blake, and
carving a wicked line up through the building he was just
in.

     The fire from above ended as the boomer hit the ground
and began fizzling away, no longer even moving, just
melting.  Blake grinned and looked around.  He expected to
see other ADP officers in relief, or also grinning, but they
all just looked at Blake with this alarmed look in their
eye.

     He glanced around suddenly until he realized that they
weren't looking at him, but at the figure at his feet.

***

     "Nooo! Nene!" Mackie screamed as he looked at the
camera image from inside the Knightwing.  Nene was lying on
the ground, parts of her suit giving off a black smoke.  She
hadn't taken the brunt of the blast, just the edge as the
boomer was falling, but she still didn't look good.

     "Oh my god, ohmygod, ohmygodohmygodohmygod-"

     "Mackie! Come in!" Sylia's came from one of the
speakers in the cockpit.  "MACKIE!"

     Mackie shook his head, and pressed a button on the
console that activated the comm link.  "Yeah, sis," he said
emotionless.

     "Come down for pickup," Sylia said.  "Now."

     "Coming down," Mackie said in the same voice.

***

     "Nene?" Priss said.  "Nene, do you read me?  Come in,
Nene."

     "Quickly," Sylia's voice interrupted.  "To the
Knightwing."

     "What about..." Priss trailed off.

     "Linna," returned Sylia. "Get Nene and bring her to the
Knightwing.  Come on, Priss, lets get out of here quick."

     "Right," Priss said uneasily, then helped Sylia to her
feet and quickly moved her to where the Knightwing was
landing.

***

     Leon watched the Knightwing pull up into the sky as he
walked over to the puddle where the boomer once was.  "I'll
have to call her tonight," he muttered to himself.  Pulling
off his shades, he gazed down at what was left of the
boomer.

     "Hmph."

     "Quick working stuff, huh?" a voice said from beside
him.  Leon looked up to see a man standing beside him with
short brown hair and green eyes.  He was one of the members
of Daley's unit but Leon remembered this guy personally.
Darvis Blake, the ego-tripped officer that not only
disobeyed any regulation he didn't like, but had the best
success record in the unit, not to mention he was good with
a gun as well.

     "You could say that," Leon replied.  "Where the hell
did you get it?"

     Darvis nodded in a direction.  "From inside that
building."  Leon looked up at the moderate sized building,
now featuring a large twisty gouge through it.  "I was
trying to get a better position for a shot and stumbled
across it."

     "What is it?" asked Leon as he pushed his shades back
onto his face.

     "Beat's me," replied Darvis.  "It worked though, didn't
it."

     "Your aim was off," Leon said, turning to head back to
his car.  "The flask would have went right over the boomers
head."

     "Well, thankfully you were there to hit it for me."

     Leon chuckled and slapped Blake on the back.  "Good
thing I missed the boomer, eh?"  He walked back to his car
with a smile, leaving a bewildered Blake behind.

***

     Trene gripped the wheel of the truck he was driving
away from the Tower tightly.  He was a little tense for a
while, when he was exiting the building and he was stopped
by the guard to check his shipment information, but he got
out anyway and was now driving away with little trouble.

     {stop doing that} Mason said.

     "Doing what?" asked Trene.

     {that thing with your hands, you're going to hurt
yourself.}

     "Fine, whatever.  Now that we're on the run from Genom,
self-inflicted damage is the least of my worries."

     {we're not that bad off, you know, there are eight c-
class boomers in the trailer.  that's almost an army.}

     "I'd never have enough time to modify them all," Trene
said, trying to force his hands to relax by straightening
them periodically.  "They've probably figured out I'm
missing by now and are tracing me somehow.  Speaking of
tracing, I hope Sylia gets that message we sent her, I don't
know how often her contact calls her."

     {i'm sure, considering the message, it'll be delivered
promptly.  hey, feel the back of your neck.}

     "Huh? Why?"

     {it just occurred to me that quincy may have put a
tracer on you at some time during your stay at genom}

     Trene let go of the wheel with one hand and reached
behind to feel his neck.  "I don't know what I'm looking for
he--"

     {you found something}

     "It's like... a button, attached to my spine."

     {pull it off} A pause. {on second thought, pull over
first, this'll probably hurt like a bitch.}

     Trene got off the highway and pulled onto a side road
to stop.  "How much is this going to hurt?"

     {a lot}

     "It won't kill me though?"

     {i'm not sure, i've never seen one removed.}

     "Oh joy," mused Trene.

***

     "Plusses and minuses, sir," a non-descript man reported
to Quincy, who was currently in his office at the top of
Genom tower, peering out through his array of window at the
city below.

     "As there are with every operation," Quincy commented,
turning his head halfway to the side.  "Proceed."

     "Yes, Mr. Chairman," the man said, adjusting his tie.
"The NX test run is being classified as a success."  He
waited for some comment from the Chairman, when he received
none, he continued. "The NX series body design worked on
first power-up, the energy shielding technology that Genom
has been working on for some time has been thoroughly
tested, the survival AI, that has been the key design for
the NX, has proven effective in combat, and the body has
proven extremely resilient even under the assault of the
Knight Sabers as well as the AD Police."

     "Very impressive," said Quincy, unmoving.  "Now the
minuses."

     The man took a deep breath and nodded, despite the fact
that Quincy couldn't see him.  "Even though we were able to
get a satellite lock on the Knight Sabers during the
conflict, our link was broken shortly after the battle
concluded.  Our best guess is they activated some form of
cloaking device to hide their escape."

     Quincy remained still, only his chest signified the
fact that he was still breathing and alive.  Then his jaw
moved, "Go on."

     "Yes, sir.  While the NX did carry out it final mission
objective, the building in the battle area classified as
Sigma-Delta-Alpha-Four collapsed on itself shortly after it
received the NX's cannon blast, the damage in the area was
not large enough for Genom to easily move into the area.
The current developmental owner is expected to rebuild
quickly with little desire to sell.  Of course, this can be
changed, but it will require more work than the original
projected amount.  Evidence of the `experiments' being
conducted in the building were all destroyed in the
collapse, the only thing remaining is the memory of the one
AD Police officer that when in there during the fight.  We
don't expect trouble from him, he hardly knew what he saw."

     "Keep an eye on him anyway," Quincy said.  "This,
Officer Darvis Blake."

     "Yes sir," the man said.  He tried to make it seem like
his report was finished, hopefully he wouldn't have to
deliver the *really* bad-

     "And Mr. Steger?"

     Damn, the man cursed internally.  He lowered his voice
to tell Quincy the final part "Ah yes.  Mr. Steger never
arrived for preparation."

     Quincy turned slowly around to face the man in the suit
before him.  "He never arrived."

     "No sir," said the man.  "Our cameras show that the
elevator he was in stopped on floor twenty-six and he exited
alone.  He visited two other rooms before leaving in one of
the company trucks, his office and the computer core."

     "What exactly did he do in the computer core," Quincy
asked coolly.

     "We're still trying to figure that out, sir," the man
said.  "I'll report back to you as soon as we do, sir."

     Quincy nodded.  "Dismissed.  Report back when you know
exactly what he did."

     "Yes, sir!" chirped the man and he quickly exited the
room.

     Quincy turned back to his windows and looked back over
the city.  Flashes of his encounter with Largo in this very
office kept entering his mind.

     "Mason," he muttered looking up to the night sky.
"Leave me alone."

***

     Mackie walked through the halls of the hospital
briskly, carrying a large bouquet of flowers.  He'd gotten
the message that Nene had recovered consciousness and ran
over as quick as he could, stopping only once to get the
flowers.

     He scanned the numbers on the doors as he walked down
the halls until he noticed a figure in sunglasses and a long
black coat that wasn't exactly a trench coat but it was
longer than a jacket standing in front of one of the doors
in the hall.  Curious, but somewhat aware of who it probably
was, he moved up to the figure.

     "Hi, sis," he said to Sylia.  She turned to him and
nodded.  "She's in there?"

     "Yes," she replied.  Mackie glanced down at the jacket
and noticed that she was wearing a brace on one of her legs.
"How are you doing?"

     "The brace is only temporary," she said.  "The doctors
say I simply strained my legs a bit and it'll take time to
heal, but they aren't broken."

     "That's good to hear," said Mackie.  He fidgeted a bit,
trying to think of something to say.  Finally Sylia glanced
at her watch and pushed away from the door and leaning on a
cane that Mackie apparently hadn't noticed before.

     "I've got a meeting to attend, so I'll be going," she
said.  "If you see Priss, give her my regards.  I haven't
had a chance to see her yet."

     "I'll tell her," Mackie said with a smile, then let it
fade as he watched his sister limp away.  He sighed and
turned the handle on the door.

***

     "Nash and I'll have to be going now," Linna said,
holding onto Nash with one arm and Nene with the other.
"I'm glad to see you'll be okay, though."

     "Thanks," Nene said.  "For the flowers and for coming
to see me."

     Linna smiled and nodded and Nash waved.  "Feel better,"
Nash said as he moved for the door.  He reached for the
handle but it turned by itself and opened automatically.
Nash was about to make some comment about the technology in
hospitals these days, when Mackie stuck his head in the
room.

     "Hi everyone," he said, slipping into the room, trying
to keep the large bouquet of flowers behind his back but
failing.

     "Hey Mackie," Linna said.

     "Hi Mackie!" chimed Nene from her bed.

     Mackie pulled the flower out from behind his back to
show to Nene. "I brought these for you," he said then looked
around at the room.  Already filled with flowers.  "I guess
it's been done already, huh?"

     "Oh, don't worry about it," Nene said.  "Your flowers
are special because they're from you."  Nene blushed and
suddenly felt awkward.  "Uh, just like Linna's flowers are
special, and Nash's..."

     "Okay, I get it," Mackie said, putting his flowers on a
table near the bed.

     "Well, like I said, we'll be going now," said Linna.

     "Bye!" said Mackie and waved to the two leaving.  They
closed the door after themselves and Mackie slowly turned to
Nene.

     "So..." Nene said.

     "So..." Mackie agreed.  "Uh, how are you doing?"

     "It's just a little brusing," Nene said, looking to her
shoulder which was covered in a large bandage.  "Most of the
injury was the impact, nothing was really injured."

     "Oh, well... um, I'm glad," Mackie said.

     Mackie looked at Nene with a slight smile and Nene
looked back with a similar look.  They simply stared at each
other for several minutes before Mackie looked away suddenly
to one of the bouquets of flowers.  "We never got to finish
our dinner," he said.

     "Yeah," Nene nodded.  "Although I'm hardly in the
condition to go out to dinner right now."

     "Yeah, I know.  But, uh, maybe when you're better we
could, um, try it again?"

     "Yeah," said Nene. "We should."

     "Great, so it's a, uh, date."

     "Yeah."

     Again, silence.

     "So when do you have to go back to Germany?" asked
Nene.

     "August."

     "Oh, so you have some time still."

     "A few months.  Then it's back to Germany I go for my
freshman year."

     "Come to think of it, that isn't all that much time."

     "I guess not," Mackie mused.  "I can't miss the first
week of classes or I'll be behind all year.  Unless, uh, you
could think of a reason I might want to stick around and
push it off a semester or two."

     "Well, I - I don't know," said Nene.  "That is, I'm
sure there's a reason, I just don't know if it's important
enough for you to push off college for it."

     "If you tell me what it is I can tell you if it's worth
it," Mackie said quickly.  Maybe too quickly, Mackie
decided.

     "Oh, well, it's just..." Nene started.

     "Yes?" asked Mackie.

     "Oh ... nothing."

     "Oh."

     A few more minutes of silence.

     Mackie started, "Well, I guess I should get-"

     "Don't leave," Nene said so softly that Mackie wasn't
even sure she said anything at all.

     "What?"

     "Um, I mean, can't you stay a bit longer," she looked
at him with an almost sad look on her eyes.  "For me."

     Mackie looked at her and melted. He would do it for
her, stay here in MegaTokyo, if only she would tell him to.

     "I'll stay forever if you want," Mackie whispered.
Nene weakly smiled back at him.  He reached back and pulled
up a chair to sit right next to Nene's bed.

     "I don't know if I'm ready for forever," Nene said.
"Just stay tonight, and we'll see."

     "Okay," Mackie said.  "We'll see."

***

     Fargo glanced around the bar nervously.  It wouldn't do
to look too suspicious, someone around here might think he
was an undercover cop or something.  Turning his back to the
room again, Fargo picked up his glass and took a small sip.
He'd been playing with the beer for a little under an hour
now and only had drunken a third of the glass.  He never
wanted to enter into a meeting with a client while drunk,
afterwards he could enjoy himself but for now, he had to
remain sober.

     And calm.  Sylia had never completely deserted him
before, and even though she was over half an hour late, he
still waited for her.  He had too much riding on their
relationship to leave because she was a little tardy.

     "Nice suit, Fargo," a voice said from behind.  He spun
in his seat to see Sylia standing behind him, wearing a long
black coat and slightly leaning on a cane.  He was sure he
checked behind him, how did she get there without him
noticing.

     "Good evening, Sylia," Fargo said motioning to the
chair next to him.  "Thank you, I picked it out for you."

     "I won't be staying long," Sylia said, reaching into
her coat with her free hand.  She produced a thin datadisc
and threw it onto the bar in front of Fargo.  "That's
everything that could be gathered about the NX."

     "The money has already been placed in your account,
waiting for withdrawal."

     "Very good," Sylia mused with a nod of her head.  "What
happened to your informant?"

     "That's a good question," Fargo sighed.  "After
delivering to me that message I passed onto you, he hasn't
contacted me.  Since he no longer works for Genom, I doubt
he has a reason to anymore though."

     "Oh, I have a feeling," Sylia said, rubbing the back of
her neck. "That he'll contact us again."

     Fargo frowned.  "Why is that?"

     "Because a human being is nothing if not predictable,"
she said.  "He's on the run from the largest corporation on
earth. He knows their secrets, and Genom knows that he
knows.  If he isn't already dead, he'll be contacting us
again someday."

     She turned and headed for the exit of the bar.  When
she reached the door, she glanced back and said, "After all,
we're the only ones who can protect him."

     She pushed through the door and out into the street.
As she did, she heard the distant rumbling of thunder in the
sky.  She looked up to see a large grey cloud moving above.
She flipped her collar up and started walking back to her
car.

     // Sylia... //

     She nearly jumped.  The voice echoed in her head
strangely, unnaturally.  She looked around for the source
but saw only a deserted street and sidewalk.

     // Sylia Stingray... //

     She looked around again.  She knew that voice, it was
the same one that had contacted her this way twice before.
She felt the need to look up into the sky again.

     Peering into the darkness above, she saw a shadowy
figure standing at the edge of the building across the
street.  She strained to get her nightvision to focus on it
but all the neon lights and bright signs were preventing
her.

     Suddenly there was a flash of lightning and the figure
was silhouetted against the sky.  It looked like a man,
standing with his one arm slightly extended, hand clutched
like a fist.  The light quickly faded, followed by the crack
of thunder.  She couldn't see anything on the roof anymore,
the lightning having messed up her nightvision again.

     Sylia limped across the street and into the building
where she saw the figure.  She climbed the stairs to the
roof but when she got there, she saw nobody.  She felt a
drip on her hand and when she looked up it started to rain.
Glancing around more time, she put her hands in her pockets
and descended the stairs again.

     // Two of a kind... //

     She heard the voice say as she climbed back down the
stairs.  When she reached the bottom, she scanned the
rooftops again but saw nothing.

     "Mason..." she said.

***

     "I'm sorry, Leon," Priss explained over the phone in
her trailer.  She glanced outside to see the pouring rain
drench her bike and the grounds around her trailer.  "I
can't tell you these things, just believe me.  She's okay."

     "Then how are you?" Leon asked.

     Priss sighed and sat down on her bed.  "My arm's
broken, again, but it'll heal like it did last time, and
I'll be fine."

     "That's good to hear, but how are you feeling?"

     "I'm fine, Leon," Priss said exasperatingly.  "We all
got battered, but no one is permanently damaged, everything
is going to be okay in the end."  She struggled for a way to
move the conversation away from her or the Knight Sabers,
she feared she would slip if he kept prying the way he was.
"So how's Daley."

     "He's in the hospital right now," Leon said with a
sigh.  "He got torn up all over and lost a lot of blood.  He
should regain consciousness tomorrow, though, I'm going to
go see him."

     "What do the doctors think?"

     "They say he didn't lose enough blood to have to worry
about brain damage, but they can't be certain.  He won't be
in for work for a while, though."

     "How are things at the AD Police?" Priss pressed on,
this line of conversation was good, she didn't have to worry
about telling him a secret by accident.

     "We lost a lot of men in that battle," he said.  "The
chief is trying to patch things up.  Daley's unit got
battered, down to a few men now, so he put them in with my
unit.  If Daley ever gets back to work, he'll be my partner
again.  And that one guy, Darvis Blake, he's getting a
commendation, maybe even a promotion for his efforts against
the boomer.  He may become my partner while Daley is out.  I
can't imagine that being fun."

     "But, he's just like you, I'd think you'd bond."

     "Yeah, right, I'm not anything like that hot head."

     "You're biased."

     "Am not!"

***

     "Good evening, Sylia," Doctor Raven said as Sylia
walked into his garage from the pouring rain outside.  "How
are you feeling?"

     "Doctor," she nodded to Raven as she walked over to
him.  "I'm fine."

     "No, you're not," he said suddenly.  Sylia looked at
him strangely.

     "I beg your pardon?"

     "Sylia," he sighed.  "I've known you since you were a
little girl, you've been playing in this garage much longer
than you've been a mercenary commander, and in that time
I've come to know you.  I know when you're lying and when
you're telling the truth, and I know the look in your eyes
when you're in pain.  You can't tell me you're feeling
alright, I can see that you aren't.  And I can just guess it
has something to do with that."  He motioned behind himself
at the black hardsuit hanging on the wall behind him.

     "You finished it?" Sylia asked stepping towards the
suit as if it had summoned her.

     "No," Raven said shortly.  "This is just a computer
generated concept model.  I wanted to know what it would
look like when it was done."  He paused.  "Tell me Sylia,
what's wrong?"

     She looked up and down the model several times, then
turned to Raven.  "If it comes out to look just like this,
it'll be excellent."  She turned towards the garage doors.
"I'm a grown girl now, Doctor, I can take care of myself."
She started walking away.

     "Just ease an old man's heart who was once very
important to you," Raven called after her.  "When was the
last time you've slept?"

     Sylia paused at the door for a second, looked back to
Raven, and said, "Five days ago."  Raven's eyes widened
slightly.  "I can take care of myself."  She walked out the
doors and back into the rain.

***

     Quincy stood before a large monitor in a completely
dark room.  A small panel was lit before him that controlled
the monitor.  With a clench of his jaw, he reached out and
rested his finger on the area marked [PLAY] on the panel.
The screen jumped to life.

     It was the surveillance camera for the computer core,
recorded from when Trene had decided to visit.  At first it
showed the room being empty, then, the far door started to
fizzle and then fell into the room with a clatter.  When the
smoke cleared, Trene strode into the room and looked around.

     "That's the core," Trene said, seemingly talking to
nobody.  Then there was a few seconds of silence and Trene
nodded his head.  "Right, first a way out then we deactivate
the NX."  He moved over to a computer console and sat down
at it to type.

     At first he didn't type anything, just nodded his head
dumbly.  "Yeah, I know.  I wasn't his Special Assistant but
I know how the core works, Mason."

     Quincy closed his eyes for a few moments.  "How many
times must I have you killed, Brian," he whispered.  When he
opened his eyes again, Trene typing furiously at the panel.

     "I'm glad you've been dead before," Trene said
suddenly.  "But I can't make this go any faster, just be
quiet."  A pause.  "Fine, fine, lets just get out of here
first, then we'll plan your revenge."

     The image froze.  Quincy had pushed his thumb into the
stop button, he didn't need to see any more of this.  He
learned all he wanted.  Whether Steger was crazy or somehow
Mason was communicating from the dead was irrelevant.  The
man believed it, and as long as he believed he was talking
to Mason, he would be a threat.

     A most serious threat indeed.

     "Mr. Chairman?" a voice intruded the monitor room.
Quincy pressed a separate button on the small panel and a
larger one lit up.

     "Yes?" he asked into the darkness.

     "The new AI department has those estimates for you."

     "Proceed."

     "Uh, yes, sir." The sounds of papers shuffling was
heard for a moment then the voice returned.  "Based on the
currently developed subroutines and physical pathways, the
department estimates that they'll have a functioning model
in three months and will be ready for integration a few
weeks after that."

     "Very good, tell them to begin their work."

     "Yes, sir."

     The monitor room fell silent once again.

     Only time would tell if the events of today would
ultimately be a success or a downfall.

     Either way, Quincy planned to be on top.



                         THE END

                    (at least, for now...)

Authors Notes:

     When I began this endeavor, I had hoped to make a stand
alone Bubblegum Crisis story that would be more than just a
few pages of thoughts from one of the characters.  I wanted
to tell a real story, with a setup, a climax, and then a
falling action, just like I learned in school.  Somehow, I
ended up with this incomplete piece of fiction.

     Obviously, there must be a sequel.

     Of course, that will take time as well, I may be well
into my Freshman year in Collage before it's even near
completion, but who knows, I may get inspired again.

     I feel I must discuss at least one character in the
story, because I don't believe I've accurately described his
condition.  The character is Trene Steger, and boy is he a
mess of crossed plotlines.  Originally Steger was going to
be the Knight Sabers informant in Genom, he would tell them
what was going on with the NX and they would respond,
eventually to the point of trust, so when Quincy finally
found out, he could go to them for help.

     Well, that went out the window rather quick, as you can
see.  The problem was, that when I was writing the scenes
with Trene looking up at the husk of Largo, I started
getting these twisted visions of him working late night,
studying the history of Mason/Largo to find a way to break
the security, the finally cracking it and falling even
further into dementia.  It was twisted, it was very b-movie-
ish, it was just the sort of element I was eager to explore.
Thus, welcome the return of Mason, a sort of alternate
personality that Trene's mind created to deal with all the
information he learned about Mason when he was researching,
and everything he discovered in the file in Largo's brain.
Trene doesn't know it, but his mind remembered everything
from that file and that was the source of the Mason alter-
ego.

     Anyway, I just thought you might want an explanation as
to what exactly happened with that character.  In the
future, expect to see him (to a lesser degree), and the
other original characters I created, such as Blake and
Gabby, and Nash, as well as much more screen time with the
original Sabers.  (I noticed they were somewhat lacking in
this story, sorry! @_@ )

     Bubblegum Crisis was created by Kenichi Sonoda and
Suzuki Toshimichi and was brought to North America by
AnimEigo and Dark Horse Comics.  This work, while using
characters and settings established in the above copyrighted
work, is, itself, Copyright c1999 Adam Christopher Leigh.
All Rights Reserved.