[Fanfic] UF - HT:DOT - The Girl Who Knew Too Much

[Martin Rose]

Thunder Force log, Standard date August 3rd, 2321. I was
starting to get that feeling again -- it always comes around
the general time frame of my birthday. It's not my own
birthday that's the problem, though, but those of my late
brothers; we were all born in the same calendar month. I've
never really admitted to anyone that I miss my family a
great deal. Sure, when you've lived with them for a while
they seem annoying, but ... it was a basic comfort I took so
much for granted.

We defolded in Earthspace a couple days ago. It was the
first time I'd seen my homeworld in over three centuries.
The lot of us did the Tourist Thing for a while. I went off
alone to Michigan, to see what there was of my family to
find. Turns out there was quite a bit to be found. My
ancestral family is still around, and in no small numbers --
but, naturally, I was presumed dead after the Neo-Worcester
incident, and my given name may be commonly knowable, but
it's pretty much fallen into disuse. So, I'm basically an
outsider to my own relatives. I didn't bother introducing
myself.

Eiko and Riko decided to track me down after a little while.
I'm glad they did -- they caught me as I was visiting Mom
and Dad's grave. They put aside their differences for the
occasion. The combined support they gave me was more than
welcome.

Anyway, after that, we came back to the Indignation. We'd
received a call while I was out. Nothing complicated; just
another pirate run out in the boondocks. We're folding over
there in a few minutes.

Well, not 'we'. They. Over duly-noted strong objections by
most of the group, who think I'm in no mood to go running
off alone, I'm leaving Riko in charge for this run. Me, I'm
taking a little time out -- flying Batwing to New Japan.
I'm going to visit a friend.

I wonder if I'll find him. It's a big planet.

Wrong Side of the Ocean
in association with
Smalltime Writers, International
presents
a tale of Undocumented Features

H A M M E R T I M E :

D A Y S O F T H U N D E R

THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

by Martin "PCHammer" Rose

Martin walked silently along the forested mountainside. Considering
the amount of dried foliage on the ground, this was no mean feat, but,
thanks to the rigorous training of a Predator of the Ripperfang clan, it
was as easy for him as riding a bicycle. The rhythmic rustle of dead
leaves one would expect was eerily absent.
He'd been circling the planet of New Japan for a day and a half,
asking around at the spaceports. Coming up empty there, he started
looking around in more secluded areas (which is where he should have
started in the first place, he duh'd to himself).
He paused and looked around, checking his bearings. Nothing in
sight.
That's okay, he told himself ... sight is only what you make of it.
He transformed, making a faint buzzing-crunching sound as he did so.
Once in his Rotofoil mode, he invoked his "edges" view and rotated
slowly in place.
The forest around him was now a collection of glowing lines, the
outlines of trees, leaves, branches and shrubbery. All the lines were
either green, yellow, or some combination of the two. It made for quite
a confusing sight, and definitely would have been useless for any
attempt to navigate through the woodlands. It had other uses, though.
For instance, there was that sharp, bluish outline that came slowly
into his field of view.
Metal. Jackpot.
Martin transformed again, returning to his human form, and continued
on his silent way toward the object he'd sighted. He was wearing an
unmarked navy-blue jacket, black denim jeans and a red plaid flannel
shirt. The shirt bore a large Thunder Force sigil, which was presently
obscured by the jacket.
At last, he came to a clearing in the woods. He stepped into the
open sunlight and looked over his objective -- a lonely Hyper-Valkyrie,
in the peculiar squatting stand of Gerwalk mode, bearing WDF symbols,
electric blue and black edging, and the image of an eight-ball.
He orbited it slowly, hands in his pockets. The wild grass had grown
in around its "feet", healing the patch of ground that had been charred
by its landing -- it hadn't been moved in a long time. The afternoon
sun glinted off of its clear canopy as Martin walked by. He idly
regarded a collection of small symbols painted beside the cockpit -- an
iconic record of one of the most impressive kill lists in the entire
Wedge Defense Force.
Of course, he also noticed how clean it was, particularly for a
neglected piece of equipment -- which meant that it wasn't neglected, at
all.
Martin checked his shoes; they seemed clean enough. With a flick of
his ankle, he sailed through the air, landing soundlessly just behind
the transparent blister atop the fuselage. He knelt down and looked
into the cockpit, reading what he could from the mostly-dormant
instrument panel. Fuel cells nearly full, all systems green and
functional. Ready to go on a moment's notice.
He sighed, wondering, for just a moment, how he'd feel if he were
being hunted by someone who'd once loved him. This was quickly replaced
by a silent prayer that he'd never have to find out.
He stood upright, scanning the clearing. He was still alone. He
considered leaving a note to let the plane's owner know he'd been there,
but decided against it.
With another hop, he boosted himself into the lightly-clouded blue
sky. He transformed to Rotofoil-Chopper mode, hovered for a moment, and
banked away, leaving the fighter just as he'd found it. After all, its
owner would need it, sooner or later.
Take care of yourself, Ben.

Mega-Tokyo was, in all likelihood, one of the worst places to be if a
person was seeking complete physical isolation. The megatropolis's
average population density was easily among the top ten for the entire
United Galactica. An unceasing swarm of people were on every street, in
every building, at nearly every hour of the day or night. It was an
endless bustle of activity, whether working, playing, struggling, or
just living.
None of these facts bothered Martin in the least -- he could isolate
himself in the middle of a crowd of thousands. After all, he mused as
he strolled absently down a busy street, that was just about how he'd
spent his first month aboard the Wayward Son.
The Son. His biological family no longer knew who he was -- the
Wedge Defense Force had been the closest thing he had to a family for
nearly three centuries. Now, even that was gone. All that remained was
a small group which had somehow sought him out as a rallying point.
Did he pity himself for his situation? Maybe. Experience, however,
had repeatedly taught him that he was far from the most pitiable
creature in the cosmos. Every time he'd tried to convince himself that
he was, he would immediately be proven wrong.
He walked the thoroughfares of Mega-Tokyo for hours, waiting for just
such an occasion.
It didn't seem to be coming.
He kept walking anyway.
It was now past midnight. (A small display seemed to flicker into
existence in a corner of his mind as he wondered what time it was,
informing him that it was 00:27 in the local time zone. His
continuously-increasing cyberhuman abilities were starting to compensate
for his poor sense of time.)
He was still walking, but he was now in an urban residential
neighborhood. Apartment buildings and closed-up shopfronts lined the
sidewalks, standing in rigid formation like a platoon just out of boot
camp. He didn't see them. His eyes were fixed forward, and his mind
was somewhere else entirely. He didn't even notice that he was the only
person in sight.
He pulled himself to a halt, turning his head to one side.
Footfalls. Light and rapid. Running, stumbling. Gasping breaths.
High-pitched ... possibly female, probably a child.
More running feet. Heavier. Sounds like ... three, maybe four pair.
A chase. Someone's in trouble.
I'm needed.
He took a breath and faced the sound's direction of origin, preparing
for whatever may come.

The girl collided with a large plasteel waste bin, capsizing it and
nearly falling. She managed to twist herself to bring another foot
down, though, keeping her balance at the cost of an iota of speed, which
she quickly regained. She swatted a lock of her long, wavy red hair out
of her eyes and kept running, her torn, half-length skirt flying about
her legs in a hurricane of panic.
Stupid, stupid, stupid girl! she grated to herself. You could have
just told a policeman, but noooooo, you had to look into it yourself and
be Miss Junior Sleuth. Miss Junior KLUTZ is more like it! Now they've
seen you, and you can run all you want, but you'll never get away!
Shut up and run, she replied.
There was a sudden jerk at her left arm -- the material of the sleeve
of her sweater had caught in a hinged gap in the side of a dumpster.
When she'd received it at her last birthday, she thought the slightly
too long sleeves, which she could adjust so that her fingertips just
peeked out the cuffs, were a cute touch. Now, she grumbled at the
inconvenience and yanked it free, ripping the soft material and
returning to her escape.
The steps of her pursuers rang in her ears. They're getting closer!
Oh, God, someone help me! I'm so tired...
At last, the alleyway came to an end, and she emerged into the stark,
artificial light of the street. She slid on the smooth soles of her
shoes as she scurried around the corner, banking a sharp left turn and
breaking into a full run once more. She was three blocks from home. A
tiny voice of despair whispered that she'd never make it, but she kept
running anyway.
That's when she first spied him.
She'd never seen him before. At least, not in person -- something
about him looked familiar, but she couldn't quite place it, and lacked
the time and inclination to try. He was tall -- no, he was HUGE -- over
two meters. (Wow!) Somewhat thin, with a jacket, some sort of T-shirt
under that, black jeans, and short, brown hair. He looked like he
didn't know he was in trouble.
"Mister!" she shouted between gasping breaths. "Run! They're
coming!"
He didn't run. He crouched down, catching her by the arms as she
tried to herd him away. His grip was gentle, but she could feel the
strength behind it as she struggled to free herself. "Hey, hey, slow
down, little lady!" He spoke calmly, quietly soothing her panicked
spirit. "Who's coming?"
She faltered in a quick search for words. She quickly decided she
must have been quite a sight -- hair tossed carelessly, torn sweater
barely hanging onto her shoulders, skirt almost ripped in two up one
side. It was a little embarrassing to think about.
The sound of running feet and voices from the alley became the sound
of running feet and voices on the sidewalk. She whirled with a gasp.
Too late! The four punks had caught up with her. She shrank back
against the stranger.
She felt a hand on her head. When she turned to look, she saw a pair
of determined, unyielding eyes regarding the men, if the term could be
correctly applied to her hunters. "Stay close to me," he whispered
before rising to his full height. She moved cautiously around him,
hiding behind his legs. She didn't notice that he spoke the same
language as she, though he was obviously a foreigner.
"Hey, hey, hey!" one of the hoods opened. "Looks like we'll get
t'have a little fun before the main event!" She decided she didn't want
to know what that was supposed to mean.
"I don't suppose I should bother asking what you want with the girl,"
the stranger said with undisguised contempt.
"'I don't suppose' it really matters," a second hoodlum replied
mockingly.
"'I don't suppose' you'll live long enough to care," finished the
first. With a flick of his wrist, he was holding a monoblade. He
walked forward without a worry in the world, since the stranger had
assumed no fighting stance.
The girl clung tightly to her new companion's leg. She wanted to
run, but she knew she'd never get away if she tried. Besides, her
terror had her rooted to the spot. The punk was so close, she could
read the serial number etched into the side of his knife.

Shiro stopped, regarding the stranger with more than just a little
distaste. He had to look up to meet the stranger's eyes, since he
himself just barely topped a meter and a half. It didn't faze him; the
stranger was lean, almost wiry, while he was bulky and muscular. This
foreigner had no threatening posture, while he knew all the best
fighting techniques of the street gangs. And his hands were fast, with
the usual cyberenhancements augmenting his trained reflexes -- par for
the course, if you want to be In.
The stranger had one thing that clearly marked him as Out: what
could be seen of his T-shirt clearly showed something resembling a WDF
logo. Shiro snorted. A Wedgie. A dreamer, or a loser, though it
didn't matter which. He was dead either way.
The girl made a short cry as, without preamble, he thrust his blade
forward.
It didn't reach its target. The unbelievably strong hand on his
wrist saw to that.
Suddenly feeling very helpless, Shiro gritted his teeth as the
pressure around his arm gradually increased. He spat every expletive he
could think of as his hand loosened and the monoblade fell to the
pavement with a brief clatter.
"That was quite rude," the stranger stated in a deep voice filled
with dark menace. "You should be kind to children, and respect your
elders."
Shiro's tortured growl became a loud yelp as the hand gave a quick
squeeze, snapping the bones in his forearm. There was no visible effort
in the stranger's face; he continued looking down on him with the same
contemptuous glare as before.
With deliberate movements, the stranger picked him up by the throat
and threw him into the midst of his gang, ten meters back. He hit the
concrete hard, knocking his head and filling his vision with a thousand
points of light.

The girl gasped and took a step away from her protector. She had two
reasons; firstly, she knew he might need a little freedom of movement to
fight, and secondly, he scared her.
A second of the punks clenched his fists and charged forward,
cyberspurs extending from the backs of his hands as he ran. He leaped
onto the stranger, ready to disembowel him.
With a quick song of sliding metal, the stranger abruptly grew swords
from the backsides of his arms. He swatted his attacker with the flat
of one blade, throwing him off-target. The other blade whistled through
the air, neatly removing one of the assailant's hands. His leg came up
before the punk had even landed, kicking him in a screaming arc all the
way back to his cohorts.
"Take a hike, Wolverine."
She stared in wide-eyed wonder. Swords from his sleeves? Could it
be ... ?
The punk in the rear whipped out a pulse pistol. "Bad mistake,
asshole. Your last mistake." He aimed and fired. Again. And again.
And again.
Every shot was deflected by one of the stranger's swords. The
seventh shot attempted to go past him, directly at the girl; as a reward
for the attempt, it was returned to its point of origin, fragmenting the
pistol's barrel and tearing through its wielder's hand with shards of
steel.
The swords sang out once more as they returned to their hiding place.
"Go away," the man commanded. "You annoy me."
The foursome limped back into the alley, assisting each other as best
they could. "You'll regret this, fucker!" the sole uninjured member
shouted.
"I doubt that."
And they were gone.

Martin sighed and looked backward, expecting to find only the
retreating back of the one he'd chosen to protect. Instead, he found
her gazing up at him with sparkling emerald eyes.
He blinked with surprise. She can't even be ten yet ... heck, she
looks closer to seven ... and she's not afraid of me?
He slowly dropped to his knees, holding out his arms to see how she'd
react. Wordlessly, she stepped toward him, reached forward, and
carefully opened the front of his jacket, blinking with wonder at the
image it had concealed.
He smiled brightly at her. "Surprised?"
She just stared at his chest. "It's really you," she whispered.
He nodded.
She spoke softly as she traced her finger along the crooked outline
of the stylized yellow thunderbolt, superimposed over the time-worn WDF
symbol. "I hear about you on the news ... every so often. I'm your
biggest fan. I never thought ... I never dreamed..."
He cocked an eyebrow. "I didn't know we had a fan club."
She giggled. "Well, it's not official. I'm the only member."
"Guess that makes you the president."
She nodded, now smiling brightly at him with uncontrolled admiration.
"Mm-hm! I have a scrapbook of every newspaper story about you. It's
really neat! I had to go through a news database to find the one about
your Funkotron case, but I found it!"
His eyebrows rose. "Wow. That's persistence."
She grinned. "My mother likes you, too. She says she's glad I've
found a good role-model. She says there aren't enough heroes these
days." She sighed. "She gets a little worried, though, when I say I
want to be a policewoman when I grow up, because it's a dangerous job
... she thinks I should be an aerobics instructor, or run a 'lawn-juray'
shop--" the French loan-word came out a little awkwardly "--or 'be
something normal', as she says."
She realized there was something there she didn't know, looked up at
him and asked, point-blank, with all the innocence of youth, "What's
'lawn-juray'?"
Martin cleared his throat to disguise the slight coloring of his
face. "Um ... I don't think I'm the right person to ask. <Ahem, cough,
ahem!> So, now that I know all this about you," he said quickly to
change the subject, "what's your name?"
Her face lit up at the question. He could almost hear her thoughts:
Wow, he asked me my name! He LIKES me! (Which was true, actually. He
found her cute, friendly, and remarkably intelligent for her age, and
not just because she was his fan, either.) "I'm Nene! Nene Romanova."
He smiled at her, putting a hand on her head and ruffling her hair
just a bit. "Well, Neee-ne," he said, speaking her name in a sing-song
fashion, "don't you think you're out a little late? Your mom and dad
will worry about you."
She started hemming and hawing, just as he'd expected. "Well, they
... don't know I'm out," she said meekly, clasping her hands behind her
back.
"And why don't they know you're out?" He wondered, for a moment, how
much like his late father he sounded.
"Because ... I snuck out." Her eyes examined something terribly
important by her feet.
"And why did you sneak out?"
"Um ... because I was following this lead, you see..."
"'Lead'?"
She finally found the courage to look at him again. "Well, yeah, I
heard these guys talking earlier today, you know, and they were talking
about some kind of planning meeting tonight. They're not exactly
debate-team material, so what else could they be planning, right? So I
tried to be sneaky and quiet and find out what they were up to, only--"
Martin sighed. "Why didn't you tell a police officer, Nene? The
police are here for that, you know."
She looked up with frustration. "Because I only had a couple little
hints! A word or two here, a look over the shoulder there -- police
can't act on that! Police need a search warrant -- how can they get one
with no solid tips?" She looked around suspiciously, then whispered
conspiratorially to him. "The kids are members of a world-wide gang.
They've been getting away with all sorts of things, and they can't
arrest the leaders. They don't have enough proof to make them stand
trial."
Gadzooks! Martin thought. This girl has a good understanding of due
process, for her age. She will _definitely_ make a good policewoman --
if she lives that long. "Nene, criminal investigation is no place for
little girls! Or little boys, for that matter. This isn't a game!" He
took her by the shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eye. "You're
playing with your life!"
She sighed, exasperated. "But who else would do it?" she whined;
then, checking her tone, she resumed her previous whisper. "Besides, I
overheard them talking tonight. Their boss was there, and he said he
wants the Security Commissioner 'rubbed out'." She nudged him for each
syllable of the last phrase in a you-know-what-that-means fashion.
Martin paled. "And they know you heard them?"
She nodded solemnly to him.
Here comes that sinking feeling, Martin noted. After picking up the
dropped monoblade and stuffing it in one of his jacket pockets -- it was
a switchblade-style knife, and retracted easily -- he wrapped his hands
around Nene's tiny waist and lifted her, cradling her in his arms as she
hugged herself to him.
"Let's get you home, Nene. You'll be safe there." I hope.

Her parents were a bit reluctant to believe who he was, at first. Of
course, when he demonstrated a quick transformation for them, they were
utterly dumbfounded. Nene giggled with delight when he returned to
human form in his Darkwing costume. She was all but walking on air
around him, and all three adults (if you count Martin as one, that is)
could readily see how she doted on him. Martin, for his part, was
feeling more than just a little uneasy under her blatant hero-worship,
but resigned himself to live with it, for the time being.
They put little Nene to bed. Martin gave her a comm-pin in the shape
of the Thunder Force logo ("If any of those goons gives you trouble
again, just call me, okay?"), and a kiss on the forehead. With that
completed, he returned to the living room, where her parents waited
expectantly.
"Sir, Ma'am ... I'm afraid I have some disturbing news for you." He
took a deep breath and seated himself. "Tonight, if what she told me is
true -- and she seems quite honest -- your daughter has overheard a
planned murder conspiracy against New Japan's Security Commissioner."
They looked at each other with grave concern. "Are you serious?" the
mother asked hesitantly. The color and style of her hair reminded
Martin of Noriko, but her eyes were a pale blue.
"Deadly serious, I'm afraid. She was also discovered."
The mother gasped. "Was she hurt?" the father queried. His thinning
scarlet hair and lively green eyes served only to accent the worry on
his face.
"No, she didn't say anything about that. But the gang knows what she
looks like." He paused, making certain they grasped the implications of
what he'd told them. "She may be in danger."
The parents sat a while in silence.
"What can we do?" the father asked at last.
Martin stood. "I'd recommend getting the police involved in this, as
soon as you can. See if you can arrange for some kind of watch on Nene
at all times, and keep an eye out for suspicious characters who look
like they're not doing anything in particular. As for me, I'll be
around town for a while. That pin I gave her wasn't just for show --
when she calls, I'll be there. You can count on it."
They smiled, reassured by his resolve to protect her. After an
exchange of farewell pleasantries and helping initiate a call to the
police, Martin was once again walking the streets of Mega-Tokyo.

The dumpster stood, immobile and uncaring, with a small piece of soft
sweater caught in one of its hinged seams. Martin noted its presence
and moved on.
The trash bin lay on its side, its pungent contents strewn on the
ground. Martin observed the layout of the scattered garbage. It was
knocked over, then kicked aside afterward. He stepped over it and moved
on.
He walked silently, as one with the shadows. His eyes carefully
followed the faint patterns on the ground. Four sets of footprints with
large shoes, and one set with small ones. Nene's.
Skid marks indicated that she'd turned a corner in her flight. He
followed the trail.
The trail ended, or, rather, began at a closed doorway. Martin
placed a hand against it, closed his eyes, and listened.
Nobody's home.
He tried the knob. It gave easily, and the door swung open with a
gentle creak that made the hair on his neck stand on end.
I HATE that.
The interior was as black as the Lovely Angels' CVR armor. He
quickly produced a handlamp and swept the room with its beam, muttering
"NBC Mystery Movie" from sheer force of habit. One of the two doorways
leading inward was open. He followed it.
The hallway left very few options. If she'd actually made it this
far without being detected, Martin admitted, she was definitely more
than just a pretty face. Either that, or these goons were exceptionally
sloppy.
Another doorway had a short bit of nail protruding from its frame.
This nail was currently decorated with a long, thin strip of material.
Martin recognized it -- the same material as Nene's skirt. He pushed
the door open and walked through it.
The room was completely barren, save for a slightly-cracked door
leading even further inward. The wall behind the door bore a large dent
where the knob had been slammed into it; this, apparently, was where the
chase began. He swept the beam of his lamp around the floor, and
noticed one last detail -- a button from Nene's sweater.
Apart from that, these last two rooms were empty, visually cleared of
litter and evidence.
Martin began walking around the inside room, watching the floor with
his handlamp. The room itself was dominated by a large, heavy
conference table, and the several chairs gathered around it.
Come on, come on, let's have something in here. Even I don't clean
up THIS neurotically. There must--
His lips formed a slow smile. "There you are," he whispered, bending
down and pulling at a small fleck of white that had caught his eye. It
was part of a small sheet of paper, mostly concealed underneath the
massive table.
Standing erect, he snapped the half-sheet to attention and examined
it. Impressions on its surface indicated it had been written on
indirectly, perhaps with one or two sheets on top of it. And it bore
what looked like a corporate letterhead.
Fisk-Ishikawa. The "i" in Fisk was dotted with what appeared to be a
faceted diamond.
Martin sighed. Nothing beyond the circumstantial.
He began to turn to leave when he heard the sound of slow, cautious
footsteps outside in the alley. So, the police have come, after all.
He went to greet them.

"FREEZE!"
"Calm yourself, Corporal."
With a nervous glance at his superior, the officer lowered his
pistol, switching its safety catch back on.
Martin removed his hat with a nod and a slight smile, stepped forward
and offered his hand. "Your men are well-trained, Detective..."
The police detective, a medium-build New Japanese native wearing an
open trenchcoat and a Dick Tracy hat, accepted Martin's offered hand.
"That's quite a compliment, coming from an Autobot. I'm Lieutenant
Katsuhiro Zenigata. I apologize if your welcome was less than cordial."
"Lieutenant Zenigata." I wish the universe would stop doing this, he
didn't say aloud. "No apology is necessary under the circumstances.
>From what I've seen of this town, a little paranoia can be a healthy
thing."
"Thank you, PCHammer."
Martin waved a hand. "Please ... don't kill yourself trying to
address me properly. 'Hammer' will do."
"Very well, Hammer. You should call me Katsu, then." Katsu looked
at his men. "I take it you've already looked the place over."
Martin nodded sagely as three officers hustled past him, flashlights
cutting into the gloom. Three more went through the door he hadn't yet
investigated. "Nothing to find from the way I came, really. Just a few
confirmations of the Romanova girl's story -- bits of her clothing and
the like -- and this." He handed the letterhead to him.
The detective looked it over, shaking his head. "Fisk. It always
comes down to Fisk."
"I don't suppose you could spare a little time to tell me what this
is all about," Martin opened. "After all, I'm new in town."
"So I'd guess. By the way, what'd you do to that girl, anyway? We
almost had to pry this location out of her with a crowbar. She only
talks about you."
Martin sheepishly scratched at the back of his head. "I hope it's
just a phase she's going through. Did you leave someone behind to keep
an eye on them?"
Katsu nodded. "Two undercover men will watch their building at all
times, and another will specifically look after the girl."
"That sounds good. She's bright, crafty, observant ... someday, she
could be bucking for your job."
Katsu smiled. "I hope I'll still be working when that day comes.
She'll certainly get a positive reference from me. Oh, she mentioned
that you captured a weapon from one of the assailants."
Martin snapped his fingers. "That's right, I almost forgot! She
doesn't miss a trick. And neither do you, I should add." His hand
vanished into his cape, returning with a handkerchief-swathed grip on a
monoswitchblade. "Here you go."
One of Zenigata's men was instantly beside them and accepted the
weapon with a white-gloved hand, dropping it in a clear, plastic
evidence bag.
"Did you pick up the, ah, souvenirs I left in the street?"
The lieutenant nodded. "You must be everything the grapevine says
about you to be able to take off that punk's hand without injury. The
'spurs were made this year -- that guy was state-of-the-art."
Martin shrugged. "His body, maybe. But no amount of tech can make
up for basic stupidity."
"Sir." Katsu turned to face the three officers who'd gone past
Martin earlier. They saluted him sharply, carrying plastic bags
containing the items Martin had noticed earlier. "The Thunder Force
leader was correct, sir. They cleaned the place out quite thoroughly
before they left." The other three also returned at this time, and
indicated they had come up equally dry.
"Prints?"
"Wiped clean. Sorry, sir."
The detective cursed under his breath. "Thank you, Sergeant." He
returned his attention to Martin. "Well, Hammer, if you'll accompany us
to the station, we can fill you in on what ails this city."
"Thank you, Lieutenant."
"What did I tell you?"
"Katsu. Sorry."

Lieutenant Zenigata had a fully-enclosed office in Mega-Tokyo's high-
rise police headquarters, rather than a cubicle out on the main floor,
which offered a break from the constant noise of telephones and
keyboards. Two of the walls were completely occupied by large windows,
one facing in and the other offering a view of the outside. From the
fifteenth floor, however, the view was still dominated by the
surrounding buildings. From the thirtieth floor and up, as Katsu had
told Martin, you could see above most of the rooftops, and could easily
pick out the tallest, most massive structure in the city -- GENOM Tower,
the mega-corporation's planetary headquarters.
Martin said nothing. GENOM wasn't his problem. Not anymore.
"Ah, here we go." Katsu pulled a rather thick file folder from one
of the cabinets in his office. He dropped it on his desk and sat in the
chair behind it; Martin pulled up the office's other seat, which had no
wheels or swivels, but, at least, was well-padded.
"I see this is a hobby of yours."
The detective grunted. "Not hobby; job. I specialize in criminal
organizations, and this is the biggest we've got." He flipped up the
top of the folder and began shuffling through its contents.
"The new heads of the Yakuza?"
"I wish. This new organization makes the Yakuza look like Tiki's
Little Neighborhood."
Martin shuddered. 'Tiki', an overly cute Salusianesque marionette,
was the modern-day equivalent of the 20th century's greatest scourge,
'Barney the Dinosaur'. "There goes the planet."
"And here you are." Katsu uncovered a photograph, and handed it to
Martin. It was an obvious enough picture of two people, probably taken
during some high-society gathering.
The woman was obviously of Japanese descent, tall, sleek and slender,
but not quite so much so as the Righteous Indignation's chief engineer,
Nadia Davion. The pale crimson gown she wore left no doubt that she was
not at all ashamed of her figure. Her face carried an unconcerned,
regal beauty, accented just enough to highlight her features, and her
ebony hair was gathered stylishly atop her head. She was not smiling.
"The woman is Ishikawa Ginrei," Katsu explained. "She's the daughter
of a powerful industrialist, and descended from a samurai bloodline,
ironically enough. Don't be fooled by her looks. They called her the
Dragon of New Japan, even before the Earther entered the picture. She's
cold, cunning and ruthless -- perfect for her job."
Martin nodded, then examined her companion. The man was enormous --
Martin guessed him to be nearly his own height. "Thin" was not the
first word to come to mind when looking at him. "Bucket" seemed more
appropriate, as in "Better get me a", but his stomach did not sag, as
one would expect from such a mass amount of flab; in fact, his entire
torso was roughly equal in circumference at all points. His white suit
fit him rather sharply, and his thick, dark eyebrows stood in stark
contrast to his completely bald scalp. One hand held a thick, smoking
cigar; the other bore a ring with a large diamond. His gaze seemed to
pierce right out of the page. He wasn't smiling, either, and looked
like nothing could make him want to.
"The man is Wilson Fisk. He's Ishikawa's match in every respect,
from all reports. Just as she's supposed to be deadly in the martial
arts, you mustn't count him out, either -- that bulk is solid muscle.
His history shows him to be a self-made man, the builder of his own
criminal empire on Earth -- starting out in North America, then
expanding over the entire globe. He's known as the Kingpin."
Martin whimpered silently. When does the hurting stop?...
"They consolidated their operations five years ago, easily wiping the
Yakuza and just about all other native gangs completely off the map.
According to the headlines," he added, displaying a newspaper clipping
as evidence, "there was a similar elimination in Earth's crime
syndicates around that time, as well. Ever since, crime on both worlds
has gone like clockwork; we have our hands full 24 hours a day, and we
can't keep up. Allegedly, they're looking into expanding their
operations onto the Salusian homeworld, and beyond. Syndicates
throughout the Quadrant are trying to pull themselves together, but they
won't be able to iron out their differences in time. They're scared
silly."
"Can't blame them, can you?"
"Not a bit."
Martin looked over the photo again. The future rulers of an
underworld empire, perhaps as large as the United Galactica itself. And
the UG's deteriorating state could easily make the two of them the more
powerful governors, if they succeeded. Once again, by no fault of his
own, he was exactly where he was needed.
"With that kind of power ... why would they bother with one Security
Commissioner? They seem to just walk all over the law as it is."
"'Seem to' is the right choice of words. Our new Commissioner was
appointed just a year ago, and he's been dogging their heels from day
one. He works together with President Haggar, who's stuck closely to
the law-and-order platform that got him elected. It's no secret that
our last President was just a puppet of Fisk-Ishikawa, which is why they
got away with so much. Thanks to a lot of hard work, and some good
luck, we may finally have a crack at cleaning up this place."
Martin handed the picture back to Katsu, who returned it to the
folder. "I don't suppose I could speak to the Commissioner or the
President myself."
The lieutenant stood and walked across the room, returning the folder
to its place. "Actually, I'm sure they'd both be honored to meet you.
Your little friend isn't the only one who considers you to be something
of a legend."
Martin groaned. "Don't say that. A Legend is a driver's license
picture of Truth -- not a very good likeness."
Katsu laughed, already stepping through the doorway. "Come on, the
New Japan Security HQ isn't far. I think Perry may be in his office."
Martin rose (yes, yes, I know) and followed, already getting that
familiar I-really-don't-want-to-know-the-answer-to-this-question-do-I
feeling. "'Perry'?"
"Mason."
Get me out of heeeeere...

The lock on the hotel room door snapped to attention, and the door
slid open easily. The room's lone occupant walked in. "Lights," he
announced in a tired voice.
At Martin's spoken command, the room was quickly flooded with soft
light from an overhead fixture and a couple table lamps. The door slid
shut behind him, and he surveyed his temporary home.
It was a fairly typical affair, as hotel rooms went. Just the
equivalent of a large bedroom with a shower, toilet and closet in an
attached room. He wouldn't even be using the closet -- his
transformational abilities guaranteed that he never needed to carry a
change of clothes. Even his closet back aboard the Righteous
Indignation was empty.
He walked to the room's second most important feature: the window.
Inspecting it visually, he quickly determined how to open it. Then, to
make sure he was right, he did so. The glass pane slid smoothly to one
side, allowing entry to the sounds of the city. He smiled. The last
time he was in a room with non-openable windows, he got an emergency
call and had to smash through. That jacked up the room fees quite a
bit, and it was a false alarm, to boot -- Danilia'd set off a distress
beacon while fishing for change.
He slid the window shut and pulled the drapes over it. Walking
toward a large empty spot in the room, he transformed (another
requirement he had for hotel rooms was enough space to transform in) to
Rotofoil and back, changed into a set of light pajamas. With that
completed, he dumped himself on the bed.
"Lights out," he muttered, and the room was dark. He closed his eyes
and thought about the past couple hours, since, this being an unfamiliar
bed and all, he knew he'd never actually get to sleep.
All things considered, the situation was going rather well. Most of
the people he'd met tonight already recognized him. He had to admit,
Thunder Force was gaining quite a reputation. He hoped it wouldn't
exceed them.
Security Commissioner Mason was, as Martin had feared, a former
defense attorney with an astonishingly good track record. That served
to fuel his passion for justice all the more; having worked in defense
for so long, he was acutely aware of how important concrete evidence and
irrefutable proof were for a successful conviction. What he'd gathered
against Fisk-Ishikawa so far, in close collaboration with his
counterpart on Earth and President Haggar, who'd also been introduced to
Martin, was taking shape into a truly solid case that could completely
shut down most, or even all, judge willing, of the syndicate's known
fronts.
Assuming, of course, he lived to take it to court. He'd seemed
somewhat reluctant to listen to the alleged hearsay of a seven-year-old
girl, but having a three-hundred-year-old Autobot to collaborate the
story proved quite helpful. He promised to take more precautions until
something more concrete could be brought to light. In the meantime, the
police watch on the Romanovas would continue.
Speaking of which, Martin reminded himself forcefully, you'd better
get some sleep if you expect to help keep an eye on little Nene during
the day tomorrow. (Sorry, it's not tomorrow ... it's this morning, only
a few hours from now.)
With an impetus like that, how could he refuse?
Zonk.

Nene walked warily down the street, hugging her bookbag to herself.
Her eyes looked carefully around her, taking in the scene as thoroughly
as possible. They'd start to slide shut every so often, but she snapped
them back open when she noticed it. She wasn't going to let her guard
down just because she didn't get enough sleep last night.
She nervously fingered at her blouse. Her gaze fell onto the small
Thunder Force pin that was mounted high on her lapel. It bolstered her
confidence a little, but only just. After all, she was only one girl.
How much attention could someone like him spare for her?
She tried to stifle a yawn, but it escaped anyway.
"Neee-neee!"
Nene gasped as her head whirled to face the source of the loud call.
Her alarm was poorly-justified, though, and she sighed with a hand on
her heart once she'd confirmed that. "Hi, Usagi."
A girl, with long, blond hair, done into a pair of waist-length tails
originating near the top of her head as two small, tight balls of hair,
hopped up beside Nene, carrying her own bookbag by the handle. "Good
morning, Nene! Wow, you look tired. Get your math homework done?"
Nene nodded. "Yeah. It was easy."
Usagi gave her a quizzical look. "Only for you! I was having a
terrible time with it! Until I called Sho and got his help, that is."
She sighed happily. "He's so smart. And cute, too."
Nene smiled. "Maybe you should give up math and become a
professional boy-watcher."
"Well, math is harder than relationships! Besides, at least I'm
watching boys my own age," Usagi teased, whirling around Nene as they
walked, "unlike SOME people." She nudged Nene with an elbow, winking at
her. "I'll bet you were up late thinking about that guy I caught you
watching yesterday."
Nene glared at her. "I was not!"
Usagi giggled. "Getting touchy! I was right!" She skipped beside
her irritated friend, singing, "Ne-ne's got a cru-ush! Ne-ne's got a
cru-ush!"
Nene dropped her head into her hand. "Give it a rest. Besides,
Leon's six grades higher--"
"HA!" Usagi grinned, pointing an accusing finger at Nene's nose.
"You went to the trouble to find out his name! You DO have a crush on
him!"
Nene waved the finger away from her face. "I'd hardly call it
trouble. Every girl in his grade knows him."
Usagi's grin vaporized into a look of surprise, which grew into a sly
smile. "Oh, I see," she said as coyly as an eight-year-old could. "You
just don't think you have a chance with him, then." She tsked.
"Becoming a realist so early in life. So sad," she sighed, mimicking a
mournful pose.
Nene groaned. She knew there was no way to dissuade Usagi from her
theory, untrue though it may be. Leon McNichol _was_ cute, though, in a
six-years-older-than-her kind of way.
And she suddenly realized they weren't alone anymore.
There was a man sitting on the bench by the street, in front of the
school's entrance. He was dressed in a slightly battered-looking coat
and dark slacks, with a brown fedora down over his eyes, obscuring his
face.
He was right in their path.
Usagi could feel Nene tensing as one of her hands moved over her
lapel pin. Where'd she get that, anyway? She didn't have it yesterday.
"What's wrong, Nene?"
Nene didn't hear her. Her walk slowed to a nervous shuffle as she
kept her eyes riveted on the stranger, ready to tap, scream and run on a
moment's notice.
The stranger took a hand out of his coat pocket, using his index
finger to push the hat up as he lifted his head to look at her. He
smiled faintly, winking one of his hazel eyes and turning his collar
slightly to reveal a pin identical to hers.
She relaxed herself, releasing a deep, relieved breath. They nodded
to each other, and Nene resumed walking, her former tension replaced by
cheerful reassurance. He said he'd watch out for me, didn't he? That's
the last time I'll ever doubt him.
Usagi walked alongside her, looking from her to him and back again,
wondering if she was missing something important. "Nene ... that guy's
WAY too old for you."
Hammer shook with stifled laughter as Nene rolled her eyes.

Shiro made an irritated noise and rolled his head toward the window,
away from his broken arm. He was told that the organization wasn't
willing to foot the bill to get the entire forearm replaced, so he would
have to wait for it to heal the usual way. Even with the modern medical
techniques available at their private hospital, that still meant he'd be
spending a couple weeks out of action.
Being off-line that long grated on him, particularly knowing that the
asshole who'd put him here the first place was still out there laughing
at him. Foreign bastard. Give him a second chance and he'd show the
fucker his own backside, and he'd do the little redheaded rugrat, too.
Respect your elders, my ass. He's not that much older than I am.
The schedule for any of that was all wrong with his situation, too.
Timetables were being pushed forward, and it'd all be over before he was
even out. Word came through their inside contact that Commissioner
Mason and President Haggar were on to them, because of the girl. He
knew he'd get plenty of shit for letting her get away. She wouldn't
have even been believed if she hadn't befriended some guy everyone was
calling 'Pee-see-hammer'. What the hell kind of name is that? How do
you spell that, anyway?
He snorted another breath through his nose. If only he could get
another chance at that bastard...
The door to his room swung open. The reflection on the window
garnered his attention, and he turned his head back to face it.
He was, to understate severely, quite surprised to find that he was
being visited by the very Dragon of New Japan herself.
She stalked into his room, pacing a slow path to the foot of his bed.
She was wearing a flamboyant crimson overcoat which, despite its
thickness, clung to her figure rather well. Her ebony hair was mostly
pulled back into a tight bun on her head, and her face bore an
unreadable expression. Her cat-like eyes never left him for a moment,
and he felt naked under their relentless scrutiny. Not that he would
have minded being naked in a room with her, mind you -- as long as she
was, too, and they were alone -- but she was accompanied by two men with
business suits and sunglasses and three in white hospital uniforms.
"I understand," she said after a very long, uncomfortable silence,
"that you were among those assigned to bring back the girl."
Shiro swallowed a dry lump in his throat. Every bad feeling he'd had
in his life paled in comparison to what he felt right now. "Yeah," he
croaked.
Her eyes narrowed. "You will address me with respect," she hissed,
"or die."
A cold trickle of sweat rolled down the side of his head. Oh, shit,
I'm really in for it now. "I ... I beg forgiveness, Milady."
She smirked. "Better. You can never expect to rise above the common
street dogs if you have no manners."
"Y-yes, Milady." He wondered why he wasn't dead already.
"I also understand," she said coldly, picking up where she'd left off
previously, "that you desire revenge against the one who came to the
girl's aid and put you where you are now."
His mouth formed a smile before he could stop himself. "Yes,
Milady." He hoped he didn't sound _too_ eager.
She seemed to pick up on his tone anyway. "He has angered you
greatly. Excellent. Such determination deserves a just reward." She
clapped her hands twice, the sound muffled by the black gloves she was
wearing.
The men in the white uniforms stepped forward immediately. Shiro
felt something cold against his neck. There was a sharp sensation,
accompanied by a brief hiss. He tried to piece together a respectful
protest, but his vision, as well as his mind, began to cloud in moments.
He looked up toward the Dragon, who smiled as she walked toward him.
"When you awaken," she cooed, "you will have the power to carry out your
desires." He tried to reach up toward her, but everything was moving in
slow motion to him, and his limbs wouldn't budge. He felt his bed begin
to move, and heard the quiet rattle of plastic wheels on the sterile,
tiled floor.
Somewhere, in the fading dimness, he heard voices.
"Hammer will pay dearly for trifling where he is not wanted. Is
there anything more on the girl?"
"We have a name now, Milady: Nene Romanova."
"Excellent. Perhaps Miss Romanova's schoolmates could help her learn
a valuable lesson in obedience."
"Very good, Milady."
He felt sharp, cloth-swaddled fingertips brush his hair away from his
forehead.
He felt the cool rush of air against his face and arms.
And then, he felt nothing at all.

The final bell rang, signaling the end of the day.
For Nene, it didn't come a moment too soon. She'd been stifling
yawns all day, and could really use a nap before tackling the day's
homework. It was the closest she'd ever come to falling asleep in
class, and she hadn't escaped the teacher's notice, either. The harsh
snap of the meterstick against her desk still rang in her ears.
"So," Usagi teased from the seat next to hers, "are you in for
another busy night?"
"Go away," Nene groaned. Usagi's incessant teasing was another thing
she'd had to deal with all day. She tried to ignore it as she
transferred the books she'd need from her desk to her bookbag.
"Oooo, trying to brush off her best friend. She must have it
baaaaad."
"When I get home," Nene grated, "I'm going to _sleep_, _eat_, do my
_homework_, and then _sleep_ some more. What you seem to _think_ I'll
be doing is none of my concern."
Usagi gave her a mock pout, which Nene ignored completely. "Fine.
Just take all you can handle, and don't share any with your friends.
See if I care." Quickly slipping into an impish grin, she hopped to her
feet and fairly skipped out the door, blond tails flying behind her.
Alone at last, Nene dropped her head to the desk and heaved a great
sigh.
Why me?
It was another couple of minutes before she was actually on her feet
and on her way. As she stepped out into the empty hallway, she could
already hear the loud whir of the floor polishing machine from the
stairwell -- the custodian was starting early today. She loped down a
flight of stairs to the ground level (where the whirring was loudest)
and trudged toward the main exit, glad to be done with this particularly
boring day.
"Hey, kid."
Nene gasped at the gruff call, and her head whirled to face its
source as her feet froze in place. There, in a nearby doorway, were two
boys, much older and taller than herself, leaning against the sides of
the recessed doorway. They were dressed for school, wearing the basic
boys' school uniform, but their demeanor suggested that schoolwork was
definitely not on their minds at the moment.
"Yes?"
"We hear you've been makin' trouble." The one on the right was
speaking; his hair was styled into a flat-top.
Nene swallowed. "Trouble? I'm not in any trouble."
"Oh, yeah, you are."
Nene's eyes darted toward the wide-open exit. Two more boys stepped
out in front of it, standing with their arms folded. She chanced a
glance behind herself as well, and found yet another duo closing that
route, entering from opposite sides of an intersecting hallway.
Trapped!
"You see, there are things that people like to keep between each
other and not tell anyone else," Flat-top chided. "If someone who isn't
supposed to know it hears it, they shouldn't go telling other people
about it. It's bad manners."
Nene reached up slowly, pressing her fingers on her lapel pin and
holding them there, making it look like a nervous gesture. "I ... I
don't know what you mean."
"Oh, you poor little girl." The two boys in the doorway pushed
themselves upright and walked toward her. Footsteps to either side of
her told her the other four were advancing, as well. "Didn't your
mother ever teach you good behavior? It's not nice to spread secrets
around."
Nene stepped backward, soon finding herself pinned against the wall.
"I-I still don't see--"
"Stop playing stupid, you little bitch," the other one, who wore a
red band over his left sleeve, finally said. The two of them were now
towering over her. "The Dragon doesn't like people who aren't honest."
Nene swallowed a little harder, feeling very, very small under their
shadow. "D-- ... Dragon?!"
Flat-top offered a smile Nene immediately disliked, rubbing his right
knuckle into his left hand. "A lot of people are unhappy about how much
you talk. Maybe y-- ... Hey! HEY!"
All eyes turned toward another figure who had just entered the hall
from behind the two farthest inside the building. He was a tall, gawky
offworlder with brown, tousled hair, dressed head-to-toe in rumpled
coveralls and moving to an unheard beat from the headphones on his ears.
The only reason anyone noticed him was that he was presently guiding a
very noisy floor polisher in front of himself, making even loud
conversation impossible.
"HEY, CAN'T YOU DO THAT SOMEWHERE ELSE?" shouted Flat-top, obviously
irritated.
The custodian, walking with his eyes nearly closed, brushed past the
two closest to him, whistling a hint of a tune that Nene almost thought
she recognized; Flat-top was blocking her view, though, and she couldn't
see his face. He didn't seem to hear a word anyone was saying.
"HEY!" Flat-top was bellowing at the top of his lungs as the janitor
began to march past him. This seemed to make the man pause, and he shut
off his polisher. The blaring music from his headphones was audible
now, and he took them off, too.
"You say something?" he asked in a thick offworld accent.
"Look, old man, just take your stupid scrub brush and beat it."
He shook his head. "Afraid I can't do that, youngster. How will the
floors get clean if I don't take care of them?"
Seeing what she thought was an opening, Nene tried to dash for the
door, but was instantly caught in Red Band's grip. "You stay put, you
stupid brat."
"Let me go! You're hurting me!" She tugged futilely against his
grasp.
He gave her arm an unkind twist, and she shrieked in pain. "We'll
fix you right now if you don't shut up, bitch."
"Hey, what do you think you're doing to that poor girl?"
"Stay out of this, old man."
"I can't stand by and let you pick on that poor child! You!" He
jabbed at Red Band with his index finger. "You let her go!"
Flat-top grabbed the chivalrous custodian roughly by the chest of his
coveralls. "I SAID stay OUT of this, bastard!" He locked stares with
the man, who just looked back at him.
He got the unfamiliar feeling that he was making a rather large
error.
"You should be kind to children," the man said coldly, his thick
accent suddenly becoming a distant memory, "and respect your elders."
Before he really knew what was happening, Flat-top found himself flying
away from the man, who'd cast him aside like a straw dummy. His brief
flight ended when he ran into the two boys from the inside hallway,
bowling them over.
"Fucker!" Red Band released the girl, who remained rooted to the
spot, and threw himself at the new enemy. His reward for his courage
and skill was a rapid trip to La-La Land, as he was immediately ushered
to the floor, head first. Hard.
"You like throwing your weight around, don't you?" the man asked the
remaining five. "You like making people afraid of you. Especially if
they can't fight back."
The five of them, definitely the unobservant type, took fighting
stances, each producing a vibroswitchblade. "We'll teach you what it
means to fight!"
The janitor folded his arms, stood in the center of the hallway and
tapped his foot impatiently. "I'm waaaaitiiiing," he sang tauntingly.
That did it. They ran whooping toward him, knives humming through
the air, three in front of him and two behind. Nene shut and covered
her eyes and winced at the ensuing cacophony of shouting and thumping.
When all was quiet once more, she opened them again, peeking comically
through her fingers.
As she'd expected, only one person remained upright. Well, there was
another, but only because he was being held up by the hand wrapped
around his ankles.
Hammer looked his catch over. "Too small," he complained. "I'll
have to throw it back."
The catch, who Nene recognized as Flat-top, looked significantly
worse for wear. "Who are you?" he croaked.
Before Hammer could reply, another voice did it for him. "He is the
terror that flaps in the night," Nene said as ominously as she could.
"He is the sword that will slay the Dragon, the bowling ball that will
topple the Kingpin! He is--"
"A-HEM."
She stopped abruptly, then smiled sheepishly up at Martin's look of
mock annoyance, her emerald eyes sparkling with gratitude. "Sorry."
"It's okay this time." He swung his handload over, catching him by
the collar and hissing into his face. "Your bosses know who I am ...
and they fear me. You fear me, too, don't you?"
The kid nodded dumbly.
"That's a healthy attitude. It'll keep you alive longer. I noticed
you seem to do all the speaking for this little gang of yours." He gave
the nearby heap of unconscious (alleged) humanity an unkind kick, and it
emitted a collective groan in response. "So I want you to do a little
speaking for me. Ready to take some messages?"
He nodded again.
"Good. Tell your bosses that they're fooling no one but themselves.
Tell them the Hammer says their days are numbered. And tell everyone
you know that anything they try against anyone named Romanova will be
taken, by me, as a personal insult ... and I don't _like_ being
insulted. It makes me very unpleasant." He pulled the kid just a hair
closer. "Got that?"
He nodded a third time.
"Thanks. You're a sport." He gave the boy a congenial pat on the
cheek, then dropped him onto his pile of friends. He then turned his
attentions to the small redhead nearby, crouching down on the balls of
his feet. "You okay?"
She smiled back at him. "Thanks to you."
"Sorry if I made you worry."
"It's okay ... I knew you'd keep your promise." She sighed. "Think
you could carry me home?"
He did the lift-and-cradle thing with her again, standing to his full
height. "Wouldn't you rather ride?"
"Nah," she said tiredly, resting against him and closing her eyes.
"I want something warm right now. And walk slow, please. I could use
the sleep."
"This could be construed as an abuse of privilege, you know," he
warned with a smile.
"Yes, I know," she yawned. "But I also know you'll only do what's
best for me." Her voice lowered to a mumble as she allowed herself to
slip away in his comforting embrace.
After phoning her parents to let them know she'd be home a little
late, and asking the police to clean up the mess he'd left behind, he
did as she'd asked.

"Mr. Fisk is here, Milady." Ginrei looked up from her desktop
computer's flip-up display and nodded her silent approval. The servant
bowed deeply in acknowledgment, retreating through the enormous, ornate
carved doors to show her guest in.
The office was furnished like a throne room from a glorified vision
of ancient Japan, with lush tapestries, delicate artifacts, suits of
samurai armor, abundant plant life, and even a small brook running along
one side. The glass ceiling far above would flood the room with light
during the daytime; it was nighttime now, so the lighting was
artificial, but remarkably tasteful.
At the head of the room, immediately before a tall, clear wall of
solid polyglass, sat Ishikawa Ginrei herself, dressed in a ravishing
green, gold and white vested gown, her chair and desk standing where one
would expect a golden throne for New Japan's dark shogun. She
considered herself a supreme modern warlord, having conquered all her
adversaries in the battlefields of the underworld by strategy, skill and
force.
The doors opened once more, and she rose from her seat, walking
around her desk to greet a fellow conqueror and gingerly pushing her
desktop display into its flat, closed position from sheer force of
habit. He walked boldly, massive arms swinging confidently around his
bulky frame, clothed in his trademark white suit. He was a somewhat
coarser warrior than she, by her reckoning; where she prided herself in
her deceptively demure tact and adherence to Japanese traditions, he
strode boldly, afraid of nothing and damn proud of it.
Still, even he knew when he was a guest, and he stopped at the foot
of the tall dais of her desk, where she stood patiently. As he bowed
with respect, his voice boomed softly, "Madame Ishikawa."
She smiled, toying with her hair, black as midnight and cascading
down her back. Coarse though he may have been, he was still a charmer,
and the traditional ideal of the unification of two warring families
appealed to her in this context. "Please, Wilson ... you, and you
alone, may call me Ginrei."
"I was not certain we were alone."
"We are."
He continued forward, pacing up the ten steps to stand beside her,
though, with their feet at the same level, he loomed over her like a
shining monolith. "The girl remains at large," he stated.
His American bluntness, which she'd thought she was finally getting
used to, startled her for a moment. She recovered quickly. "Miss
Romanova has been dealt with."
"No, she has not." He looked impassively through the windows behind
the desk, over the twinkling lights of Neo-Tokyo.
She regarded him coldly. "I sent agents to put her in line."
"They were rather soundly beaten."
Her eyes widened. "How do you know this?"
"They took advantage of their phone call to notify one of our
offices."
Ginrei's gaze fell to the enormous diamond on his finger. "I see.
The girl has a bodyguard."
Wilson nodded. "Not just any bodyguard, Ginrei. The group you sent
claims he identified himself as 'the Hammer'."
She scowled. "Hammer again ... what is he doing in New Japan?
Thunder Force is fighting a pirate blockade near the border of Salusian
space even as we speak." Her eyes narrowed, a possibility forming in
her mind. "Unless that's _precisely_ why he's come here ... if those
Elasi fools have double-crossed us..."
He leaned down on one hand, looking directly at Ginrei. "Why he is
here is no longer important. He's protecting the girl, he knows what
we're working toward, and he's challenging our domination. It's either
him or us, now."
Her ruby lips twisted into a fiendish smile. "How heroic ... a fight
to the end. I've made arrangements for a little surprise for him, when
the time comes."
Fisk lifted himself to his full height, once again scanning the
evening skyline. He knew what she had in mind, and it didn't sit well
with him -- but this was her home domain. "To be relying on such a
contingency so soon, after all our preparation..."
"The careful warrior prepares for every possibility, Wilson. Even
the unthinkable must be anticipated. And Hammer has proven quite adept
at doing the unthinkable." She lifted a bauble from her desk, a
beautiful golden statuette of a dragon, and studied it with her hands.
"Continue your plans to remove the director, Wilson. Hammer will find
that the tail of the Dragon may succeed where tooth and claw do not."

It was Day Four, and Nene was growing a little weary of her
continuous state of Protective Custody. The knowledge that the police
were almost constantly watching her was more a discomfort than
otherwise; she was getting quite good at spotting their undercover folk
as she tried going about the business of being a third-grade girl.
Seeing them just about everywhere she went was annoying.
One of the side benefits of noticing the undercover cops was also
noticing the other eyes that followed her from time to time. Though
they hadn't tried anything since that afternoon at her school, she knew
they were still around, watching and waiting, as if listening for a snap
of the Dragon's fingers as the signal to pounce. For whatever reason,
the signal never came.
Frankly, the only person she _hadn't_ seen was Hammer. She knew
enough not to let it bother her, though. If he didn't want to be seen,
he wouldn't be, until she called for him. She gently brushed a fleck of
lint from her commpin and smiled a private smile.
There was a second reason for the smile, of course; she'd just
succeeded in eluding her protectors.
She all but skipped through the mall, trying not to laugh aloud at
the certain frustration of the two cops who'd tried to follow her.
She'd lost them somewhere on the other end of the complex, ducking
through an elaborate sequence of shops to keep them on their toes, and
she was now engaged in furiously relaxed window-shopping. She would
just stay out of sight until it was time to rendezvous with her parents,
which she would determine with her own little wristchron. Not a Rolex
by any means, but it kept the time well enough for her purposes, and
bore a group picture of Thunder Force on the face -- she'd saved a
depressing number of box-tops to get it.
The mall itself was a marvelous place, a lovely, sprawling six-story
temple of consumer excess just outside the northeastern city limits of
Mega-Tokyo. It had a sea breeze that kept the air around it cool and
clean, and a clear, glassy roof that allowed the dwindling rays of the
early evening sun to shine on the upper two levels. She wasn't on the
upper two levels, of course, since she had no great love of squinting.
(Mustn't strain my pretty young eyes unduly, she chuckled inwardly.)
Besides, the third floor had more than enough of the shops she wanted to
check out.
She stopped to browse through a software store, told the ever-helpful
clerk that she was beyond help (greeted by a typical look of surprise,
followed by an all-too-predictable "oh my, how cute" response), and
meandered through the racks of games for the Sega machines. She took a
promising-looking box from the shelf and examined it. It was the third
Thunder Force edition of the ever-popular Street Fighter series, and she
grinned an elfin little grin as she pored over the screen shots on the
back. The picture of a match with Danilia judo-tossing Dund made her
laugh. She made a mental note to pester her parents about an advance on
her allowance.
From there, she continued on to a shoe store. She peered doubtfully
at one of the newer items, wondering just what type of person would want
a pair of shoes that would play the Tiki theme, note-by-note, with each
step. As if to answer her question, a girl from her class tromped by
with her parents, taking her steps with a careful rhythm so as to try to
match the tempo of that very song, producing a note with each footfall.
Nene groaned and tried to look like she'd never seen that girl before in
her life.
From there it was only a few paces to a trend-follower's fashion
outlet. The sheer size of the Tiki-licensed section made her roll her
eyes, as she realized that every piece of clothing, both visible and
hidden, could have a Tiki logo on it. This included a wide line of
accessories, toy jewelry and the like, and T-shirts with Tiki slogans on
them. She didn't even honor the Tiki panties with so much as a
scrutinizing glance.
Another, somewhat smaller section of the store, on the side opposite
the Tiki area but still up front, caught her attention easily. She knew
Hammer must have had some kind of say in what items Thunder Force would
endorse; still, she thought, a set of TF undies would be cool, in a
silly sort of way. There were none to be had, though, and only obvious
forms of outerwear could bear the insignia. She was slightly startled
at the price tag on the charm bracelet, until she realized that it was
made from real silver.
She took a jacket from its hangar on a nearby rack, a replica of the
Thunder Force uniform jacket in her size, and pulled it onto herself,
turning to look in the mirror. She smiled at the image for a moment,
whirling like an out-of-practice fashion model, but considered it again
as her smile faded.
Someone was entering the store. She could see him in the mirror; a
fairly muscular guy, probably high-school age or slightly over, and
probably a member of the Dragon's gang, judging by his dress and the way
he seemed to be looking for security measures. He scanned past her, but
kept going, walking deeper into the store; either he didn't notice her,
or he wasn't after her.
She put the jacket back on its hangar, trying not to make any sudden
moves, and turned to face the entrance. Two more punk kids were
strolling in, just like the first. They also did nothing unusual as
they looked at her, but they moved toward the sales register island in
the center of the store from different directions as the first one made
like he was interested in Tikiwear, across the main central aisle from
her.
Trouble. Big, big trouble.
She began to move her hand toward her commpin, but paused. Should I
call him? He gave me this to help against the gang, right? Well, yeah,
but he said if they came after _me_, not if I happened to be a robbery
witness, after all, I've seen plenty of trouble so far in my little
life. But I know he wouldn't want me to just stand by and do nothing...
"EVERYBODY DOWN! NOW!"
Well, that settles that, Nene thought as one of the punks by the
register pulled a weapon from his jacket and started firing in every
direction, his shots eerily quiet but no less lethal. Her quick dive to
avoid making a target of herself resulted in her colliding with a junior
mannequin, and both of them tumbled to the floor. A shriek behind her
made her whirl just in time to see another kid in her section, maybe a
year or two older than her, fall in a spray of red.
'This isn't a game! You're playing with your life!'
Those words meant a lot more now than they did when Hammer'd first
spoken them. She forced herself to tear her eyes away from the body.
The other punk by the register, the first to enter the store, was on
the clerks in a flash. He slashed at the nearest one menacingly with a
shiny, humming weapon -- a vibroblade, Nene deduced -- and she went down
with nasty cuts on her arms. He grabbed the other frightened young lady
by the shirt, pulled her up to him in a cruel parody of an embrace, and
held the flat of the knife to her throat, causing her whimper to gurgle
slightly.
"Open it!" he commanded.
She complied, quickly disabling the security around the main daytime
cash store. He threw her aside once she was finished, banging her head
loudly against the edge of the counter. He began jamming the creds into
his bag.
"Freeze it, you two! You're under arrest!"
Nene sighed with relief as two mall cops, a man and a woman, stood at
opposite sides of the front of the store, their guns drawn and ready.
The two punks began to straighten up slowly, but the one toting a gun of
his own still held it.
"Drop the gun!" the woman shouted. "NOW!"
About then, Nene remembered the one who'd stopped to look at Tiki
items. She looked in his direction; she didn't see him there.
"LOOK OUT--"
Even as Nene uttered the warning, she was too late. The third punk
leaped from his hiding place, cyberspurs already extended from the back
of his right hand, and pounced on the female guard, impaling her in the
chest. She shrieked as he tore downward through her jacket, shirt and
flesh, and fell, curling into a ball of blood and pain.
"Hitomi!" the male guard shouted, and the distraction cost him his
life. He went down with a startled whimper as three bloody holes pecked
through his stomach and chest, lying less than a meter from Nene.
Nene was now officially frightened. The punks resumed emptying the
cash box, hurrying to avoid any further delays. If she just sat still
and did nothing, they'd leave her alone and she wouldn't die ... God
knows she didn't want to die...
Instead, of course, her mind seized upon a plan. It was risky, and
foolish, and impossible, and just plain stupid, but she couldn't sit by
and let this happen.
"Okay, let's GO!" The punk with the bag jumped to his feet and
vaulted the counter as the other two scattered. The one with the 'spurs
was already long gone as the one with the pistol raced past her, hopping
over the body of the guard he'd felled, his foot slapping the floor
right next to her. Nene braced herself. The leader was coming her way.
He was jumping over the guard...
NOW!
With a hard push, Nene forced the felled mannequin out into the
punk's path.
His jump had been a bit too showy, and his foot, not expecting to
meet the white-tiled walkway again for another twenty centimeters or so,
landed squarely on the dummy's head, which rolled out from underneath.
The foot went sailing out from under him, and he didn't even have time
to curse before he was flat on his back, knocking his head hard on the
floor. In all of this, he lost his grip on the bag, and it flew out in
front of him.
Nene jumped up, dashed over the punk (placing a gratuitous footfall
on his crotch), scooped up the bag, and ran.
Yes, she immediately realized, this was a VERY stupid plan.
"YEEow! What the-- FUCKIN'-- GET BACK HERE!" The punk scrambled to
his feet and gave chase.
"HEEELLLP!" Nene wailed plaintively into her commpin as she darted
through the crowd, a forest of pants and skirts that kept her from
getting away, but also kept her pursuer from getting close enough. She
pushed past, dodged around, and ducked under more pairs of legs than she
wanted to think about, inciting some rather surprised and alarmed cries
in her wake, which became even louder and more abusive as her pursuer
charged through behind her, knocking several of the people completely
off-balance.
"Hey! Stop'er, dumbass!"
"Stop who?"
The shout and its reply made Nene realize she was charging toward the
gun-toting thug, who'd been wandering through the crowd as if nothing
happened. She gave him a hard kick in the shin as she ran past.
"OW!" He grabbed at his bruised leg, hopping to remain on his feet
(or, in this case, foot). "Stupid little bitch!"
"Forget your damn leg, she got the haul!"
"She WHAT?!"
A glance behind her after another few seconds of flight confirmed
what Nene'd feared; she was now being chased by two rather than one.
The other punk had his gun drawn, and the crowd couldn't seem to decide
whether to cower or part before him. She let them make up their own
minds, and continued running, skipping back and forth.
Just then, something seemed to go right.
An elevator was open and waiting, some distance in front of her.
Whispering a few thankful words to who-or-whatever was looking out
for her, she dashed toward it. Her thanks turned to pleading when the
doors began to close.
"Stop'er!"
With a final burst of speed, she slipped through the doors without
triggering the sensor that would have opened them again. She whirled,
slapped the "6" button, and collapsed into a fit of gasping against the
door. She could hear the muffled pounding and curses of her pursuers,
and would have laughed if she'd had the breath to do so.
She worked to calm her frantic heartbeat as the elevator made its
merry way to the top floor, and decided that, when the revolution came,
elevator music would be the first thing to go. Far too soon, the car
reached the sixth floor. With a soft, electronic chime, the doors
opened.
And Nene flattened herself against the rear wall of the elevator at
the sight of the large, hulking boy before her. She hadn't counted on
them being able to call for help. She and the brute locked stares for a
long moment. He grinned. Nene swallowed and tensed.
With a yell, he leaped forward, grabbing at her.
With a scream, Nene dove and rolled forward, under his legs. She
caught one of his ankles accidentally with her foot, and a desperate tug
pulled him off of his already-precarious balance. His head made a loud
bang against the elevator's far wall.
Grabbing the sack, which she'd dropped beside the door, she fairly
flew out of the elevator as the doors began to close. She was a few
steps away when a couple sounds gained her attention: firstly, the
sound of the brute's hand stopping the doors, making them reopen, albeit
ponderously, and secondly, the sounds of running feet from the nearby
stairway.
Not waiting for either to yield its inevitable result, she ran. Her
head was spinning with fatigue, her heart was pounding in her ears, and
her breath came in yelps, but she knew she couldn't give up as she once
more charged and thrashed through the crowd. Somehow, she could still
hear the voices behind her, their feet drumming the ground like an
unholy thunder.
Where is he?!
Her head whirled to face a sharp howl next to her, where a man fell
to the ground, clutching at his now-reddened leg. Oh my God, they're
shooting into the crowd! I have to get away from here!
She bolted to the side, into one of the outcropping lounge areas,
small islands of rest among the infinite sea of walkways. She glanced
behind herself, needlessly verifying that she was still being followed,
and scaring herself witless with the sight of the gun-toting kid drawing
a bead on her. She sprang onto one of the benches, vaulted over it, and
was in mid-air when she realized that she'd made a minor miscalculation.
The bench she'd chosen was situated with its back to the guardwall.
She now had an unobstructed view of the ground floor.
Forty meters away.
Straight down.
WHAT AM I *DOING*?!?
Nene shrieked a long, loud note as she fell, eyes as wide as dinner
plates at first, then squeezed shut, as if not watching her impact would
make it any less painful. The crowd, yelling and darting around in a
frenzy below her, was coming closer, closer, oh God I don't want to die,
damn it Hammer you'd better HURRY...
"OOF!"
.....
Not to complain, but ... shouldn't that have hurt more?
Wherever I am, it feels suspiciously like being held in someone's
arms.
Am I dead?
The voices of the crowd surrounded her. No, I can't be dead, she
decided; death would be a lot quieter. As it was, her ears were
smothered in a blanket of "look at that"s, "lucky kid"s, "nearly got
killed"s, "amazing!"s and "good thing"s. And through it all, the
rising, increasingly grateful murmur of a single name.
She opened her eyes and looked on the smiling face of her savior.
"There are safer ways to get down from the top floor, Nene," Hammer
stated.
She stared at him for a time, emerald eyes shimmering in wonder,
before grabbing his violet jacket and hugging him tightly, first
laughing, then crying in the security and comfort of her hero's embrace.
He rocked her back and forth as her voice choked and babbled. "Oh
Hammer it's so good to see you I was so scared they were after me I was
gonna die oh God I was so scared I thought you wouldn't come..."
He put a hand to her face, and she looked up at him. "I'm sorry I
scared you like that ... are you going to be okay?" His fingers wiped
the tears from her cheeks.
"I ... I will." She fell against him again. "Now."
Other running feet came to visit them -- the alarmed shouts of her
bodyguards, the startled cries of her parents -- but she didn't really
pay attention to them. His voice soothed her, its deep, gentle sound
resonating through his body and humming pleasantly against hers, as one
of his hands smoothed her tousled hair.
"Aw, SHIT!"
Nene didn't need to open her eyes to know that her former pursuers
had finally caught up with her. They were probably hoping to simply
remove the money from her dead, limp hand. They weren't counting on
having to deal with this.
Hammer barely moved at all. He merely straightened one arm, pointing
it at the lead punk. A muffled BLAM announced the firing of his
grappling cable, and said punk had barely taken a step when he found his
legs bound tight. He hit the floor hard as Nene's undercover bodyguards
dashed after his compatriots, and he was immediately surrounded by
security officers.
Nene smiled. Her stupid plan _had_ worked, after all. Not quite the
way she'd intended, but in this case, she'd take what she could get.

Dr. Evanston Tym tapped the butt end of a datapad pen, one of several
he kept around the lab, since he would always lose track of just one or
two, against a noteworthy piece of information on his still-updating pad
as he strolled from one of his laboratory's status displays to another.
His thin lips formed a tight line -- his latest patient was coming along
exactly as he should. Which, to Dr. Tym's estimation, couldn't be a
good thing.
Dr. Tym was one of the galaxy's current leaders in the fields of
robotics and organic-cybernetic interface research and practice. As
such, he was not an overly athletic man, by any standard; short in
stature, rather weak in build, with a hawkly nose, curiously sunken eyes
and shallow cheeks framed by a moustacheless beard and a head of unruly,
thinning black hair. It made him look like a bad artist's rendition of
the historical United States president, Abraham Lincoln, albeit in a
loose-fitting lab coat, rumpled shirt, unkempt necktie and baggy
trousers. Fortunately, his contemporaries were not great students of
ancient history, and he was spared any comments on that subject.
His work was, as he once liked to put it, "the Human Body Shop". His
efforts had mostly gone into the field of replacement and enhancement of
organic body parts, a field which would have long ago been called
bionics. Whereas most cyberlimb work strove to make the replacements
stronger, quicker, and more durable than their original counterparts,
Dr. Tym had focused on making his work seem more "real" to the wearer --
most of his patients would have long since forgotten they even had an
artificial limb, if the loss of the original weren't so psychologically
jarring at the time.
He was a great scientist, and a fine physician. Unfortunately, he
was not a good accountant. He had consistently undercharged for his
work, because, in his single-mindedness, he had completely forgotten
just how much each one had cost. No hospital would keep him on after a
few of these incidents, due to the amount of money that would be sunk
into his operating expenses with no chance of being recovered. His
attempt to run a practice on his own wiped him out after just one
operation.
This was how Ginrei Ishikawa had found him -- a brilliant and capable
man, tragically destitute because his work was expensive and he just
couldn't keep books. She took him out of that and convinced him to work
for her. (She didn't have to sweet-talk him at all -- at that point, he
would have done anything to avoid a job which involved the phrase,
"Would you like fries with that?")
He hated his work, now. He spent his days watching street punk after
street punk have their own, perfectly healthy limbs removed, replacing
them with special Swiss-Army limbs that contained more weapons than a
professional assassin's closet. Cybernetics, by his reckoning, was a
tool of necessity and reconstruction, not a breeding ground for new ways
to kill. They were only children, for God's sake! What she had him
doing was unethical, immoral, unthinkable!
But one must work if one expects to eat.
"Good afternoon, Doctor."
And speaking of eating, here was the woman who'd made him chew up his
very soul.
He stopped for a moment in his tracks, whirled to face the Dragon,
and bowed curtly to her, droning, "Good afternoon, Milady." He then
went directly back to what he'd been doing before.
Ginrei ignored his display of controlled hatred, having long since
grown accustomed to it. She'd forced the man to compromise every
principle he could possibly hold dear, taking open pride in the
knowledge that he could do nothing about it. Despite that fact, he
never tried to rebel against her authority, and he still did excellent
work. For that, at least, he had her respect.
She stalked forward to stand in front of an enormous window in the
center of the lab's dominant wall, nearly totally black due to the
darkness on its other side; it was specially polarized to prevent it
from becoming reflective under those conditions, as most any other
glass-like material would. A few dim lights did shine within the
solitary chamber, though, illuminating a poorly-defined form of dull,
cold metal, connected to what seemed like a hundred umbilical cables,
and with no more than three small indicator lights visible and blinking
slowly.
"Is the body complete, Doctor?" she asked after a long moment's
contemplation.
"Yes, Milady," he replied, staring at one of the status displays.
"Is he activated, then? Can he hear us?"
"At present, no," Dr. Tym replied, satisfied with his readouts and
walking to stand just out of the Dragon's physical reach. "I still have
him in hibernation, to minimize the inescapable damage."
"Surely he'll need some time to adjust to the new form," she
suggested coldly, "if he's to make effective use of it against Hammer."
"That, Milady, is the _last_ thing that should happen." Dr. Tym
tried to restrain his anger, but found he could not. "I've done all I
can to program the new reflex and motor control patterns into his
wetware. When he awakens, he'll know more about how to use this new
form than he ever knew about his own flesh and blood! But if he spends
one minute more than is absolutely necessary _conscious_ within that
hulking, inhuman monstrosity of a robot shell, he's going to develop a
case of cyberpsychosis so severe that he'll go _violently_ insane,
without a snowball's chance in HELL of recovering, even if he's
installed back into his original body!"
Her eyes turned to regard him with sharp menace, but he wasn't about
to back down. They glared at each other in a long, tense silence,
disturbed only by the faint background noise of the lab itself.
"Very well," Ginrei conceded at last. "He shall remain off-line
until the moment he is needed." She lifted a black-gloved finger and
continued emphatically, "But if _anything_ goes even slightly amiss in
his operation..."
"I accept full responsibility, Milady," he interrupted. "He _will_
do his best, when the time comes. You have my word."
After another long, cold look, the Dragon whirled on her heel, her
tight scarlet overcoat snapping faintly with the movement. Her heels
rapped sharply on the floor's hard tile as she marched back out the way
she'd come.
Dr. Tym stared numbly at her back, even after the door had closed
behind her. Then, he returned his gaze to the figure behind the dark
glass.
To him, it seemed to glare accusingly back at him.
"Dear God," he muttered, not for the first time, "what have I
become."

Nene entered her classroom humming a song from one of her Clay
Pigeons albums. She'd been listening to their music nearly constantly
for the past three days, using it as background music while she did her
homework, and then just singing or humming along with it when she was
done. Her parents kept her inside most of the time, fearing for her
safety. In truth, she felt safe everywhere she went, because she knew
who was watching out for her.
She'd also been keeping a close watch on the news concerning the
ongoing crusade against the Fisk-Ishikawa syndicate. She was slightly
surprised when her family had received notice, just last night, that she
was to testify in a preliminary hearing as a witness for the
prosecution. She surprised the attorney who'd called by asking what she
thought was a rather basic and obvious question concerning the
admissibility of her testimony in a court of law. At length, she
received her answer; despite precedents that may discredit her validity,
mostly relating to her age, they felt what she had to contribute was
sufficiently damaging to the defense to warrant its inclusion.
Still, as she made her way to her seat, she couldn't shake the
feeling that something was wrong.
She sat down just as the start-of-class bell rang. She sighed; she'd
have to wait for a break in the lecture to move her books from her bag
to her desk. She looked into it anyway, to take a quick stock of the
materials she'd left overnight.
Her eyes immediately fell upon a long, white envelope, with her name
typed on its face. There was also a heart drawn in red crayon, right
next to the additional words "Do Not Open Until Lunchtime". She
groaned. She'd been on the receiving end of a relentless stream of
curiosity and rumors from her classmates, particularly concerning just
why she was being protected by a celebrity like the Thunder Force
leader. The last thing she wanted was a secret admirer.
"Nene!"
Startled, Nene looked up from her desk. "Y-yes, Miss Ayumi?"
"I asked you if you know where Usagi has gone to."
Usagi? Nene looked beside her, and, sure enough, Usagi's desk was
vacant. Of course, she realized to herself, _that_'s what seems wrong!
You didn't have Usagi pestering you about your love life this morning!
Well, at least _some_thing's going right today.
She looked back to the teacher and shook her head. "I'm afraid I
don't, Miss Ayumi."
Miss Ayumi looked thoughtful for a moment. "Her mother didn't call,
or leave any messages at the office ... ah, well." Shaking her head,
she made a mark in her attendance book. "Unexcused absence for Usagi
Moone. *tsk* There goes her perfect record..."
Nene's selfish smugness turned to concern. Though she may have been
a mischievous young delinquent at the age of eight, Usagi never, _never_
skipped class -- perfect attendance was her sole claim to sainthood.
She took the envelope out of her desk and fingered it idly. Perhaps the
answer was in there...
She set the mysterious envelope back where it had been, returning her
attention to the front of the room.

Lunchtime, Nene soon determined, was never so far away as when you
were anxiously waiting for it. She took her Thunder Force lunchbox and
the envelope out into the schoolyard, walked around to the side of the
building, and sat on the grass under the tree where she and Usagi had
been eating lunch and sharing stories since they'd met in first grade.
Much as she hated to admit it, Nene was actually starting to miss
Usagi's constant pestering.
The lunchbox took low priority, of course. The envelope was far more
important. She wedged her finger under the unpasted part of the flap
and began to tear it open.
She became aware of the soft whoosh of an idling hovercar engine. A
sidelong glance through the schoolyard fence allowed her to see a large,
black sedan. The windows were darkened, preventing her from seeing into
it, but the front windows slid downward as if to accommodate her. She
saw the driver, an imposing fellow with dark glasses, short, black hair
and a dark suit jacket. His head turned, and, behind the shades, she
knew he was looking at her.
She pushed her finger along the inside of the top edge of the
envelope, slowly ripping it open, suddenly feeling very uneasy about
what she'd find within.
She pried her fingers into the paper prison, immediately feeling its
contents. A single, smooth, stiff sheet, with a glossy, almost waxy
feel on one side -- a photograph. There was also a small slip of normal
paper near one end of the photo, held in place by a paper clip. She
lifted it out and examined it.
The image was that of Usagi, looking frightened out of her wits;
redness in her wide young eyes evidenced that she'd been crying. The
background of the picture wasn't any place Nene recognized, with bland,
unremarkable walls that could belong to a large number of places. The
note was quite succinct.
[Go with the driver and she'll be safe. Tell no one.]
Nene's face paled as her pulse pounded in her ears. She lifted her
gaze and saw the man in the hoversedan again, watching her with no
readable expression. She now noticed that he was wearing what looked to
be some kind of tiny earpiece. Probably to keep in touch with his
higher-ups, she told herself. One peep out of me and...
Oh, Usagi ... what have I gotten you into?
Snatching up the envelope and completely forgetting her lunchbox,
Nene bolted to the tree's blind side and flattened her back against its
thick trunk. Once there, she tapped her commpin.
"Hammer!" she hissed, afraid that, even here, she might be heard.
"Come in!"
"I'm here, Nene," his voice responded after an eternal moment, clear,
calm and quiet. "What's wrong?"
She closed her eyes, sighing with the slight relief provided by his
reassuring voice. "Bad news. Remember that girl I hang out with,
Usagi? The one with the blond tails?"
"Yes."
"They've kidnapped her."
He paused. "That's bad."
"They left a note in my desk -- there's a guy here in a sedan who I'm
supposed to go with. Looks like a real creep. He can't see me right
now, but he's waiting for me."
Silence.
"Please ... what do I do?"
She heard him sigh, then say something quick and harsh in a language
she didn't recognize. "I should have seen this coming ... I'm afraid
you'll have to go with him, Nene."
She swallowed nervously. "I was afraid you'd say that."
"First, though, move your commpin someplace where it's hidden, but
still secure."
"Okay..." Her hands carefully removed the small pin from her lapel.
She looked herself over for someplace to hide it. A small stroke of
inspiration flashed a smile across her face, and she pinned it to the
inside of her sleeve cuff, close to her wristchron. That way, the chron
would throw them off if they scanned her for metal. "Got it," she
announced to her wrist.
"Good girl." His voice was slightly muted by the pin's new location.
"I've told the police not to try to stop you from leaving. While you're
with them, keep this in mind: don't _be_ afraid, just _act_ afraid.
Get it?"
She nodded. "I understand."
"Welcome to undercover work, Nene. Good luck. If you need me, I'll
be there."
"I know. Thanks." She twisted her cuff inside-out and gave the pin
a quick kiss. "Nene out."
She walked back out from behind the tree, taking uneven steps and
wiping at her eyes, trying to look as if she'd just had a good angst
session instead of a teleconference. She fumblingly collected her
lunchbox as she looked at the driver, who smiled a tight, smug smile she
instantly hated.
She strolled toward the gate, looking around all the while, acting as
best she could like a nervous little girl trying to act casual. It was
a lot more natural than she'd've liked. The car followed her around the
building, turned the corner, and stopped at the gate.
Nene stepped forward, meekly approaching the vehicle, both hands
gripping tightly to the handle of her lunchbox, with the envelope, photo
and note wedged under her right thumb. The rear door on her side
clicked and opened with no visible assistance. She entered, assuming a
penitent pose as she sat on the far-too-large seat, and the door
automatically shut behind her. She set the lunchbox and papers beside
herself, folded her hands in her lap and, for the second time this week,
felt very, very small.
"Smart kid," the driver said with an audible smirk as he accelerated
into the street. "You just do what you're told, little girl, and
everything'll be just fine."
Nene's eyes bored into the back of his head, firing 600 icy daggers
per second.
You'll get what's coming to you, you creep. Just you wait.

"Okay, Hammer, she's in the car. Now can you tell me why we didn't
stop her?" Lieutenant Zenigata, who'd replaced the sergeant formerly
assigned to watch Miss Romanova at school, was rather unhappy with the
current turn of events.
"Because the syndicate's kidnapped one of her friends," Martin
replied quietly, watching the incredibly mundane-looking sedan enter the
flow of traffic. It was nearly indistinguishable from any other such
vehicle in seconds.
"So? We comb the city, find her, and bring her back. We can't
endanger our star witness now, when it's all coming to a head!"
Martin looked at Katsuhiro. "And if the operation doesn't go right?
What then? Usagi dies." He turned his head to face back out the window
of their stakeout post. "I don't want that on Nene's conscience."
"Hammer, the probability--"
"Is there, Katsu. Nothing ever goes completely to plan. And the
risk run by charging into that scenario blindly is very, very great,
especially for her." He paused. "This way, at least there's a chance.
Check on Usagi's parents while I'm gone, would you?"
"Wait," Katsu said as Martin headed for the door. "Where are you
going?"
He turned and smiled. "To follow them, of course. You didn't think
I was going to just let them _take_ her, did you?"
"But..." Katsu stammered, his eyes darting back out the window. "But
it's long gone already! How will y--" That was the moment when his
mind remembered the commpin planted on Nene's person. "Ahhh, I see.
You can trace that signal?"
Martin's smile turned to a grin. "As though I could see it. Nene,
Usagi and I will see you later, Katsu, though I can't say how much
later." With that, he closed the door behind himself. Katsu heard the
distinctive sound of his transformation, followed by the soft, fading
whupping of a helicopter flying off.
He wondered how to word the communique to HQ so as not to give away
what was going on. Whatever Hammer was up to, he'd definitely need the
element of surprise.

"Miss Romanova has arrived, Milady."
Ginrei tried not to look overly smug as she rose from her seat,
pacing around to stand before her desk. "Excellent. Please, have her
escorted in."
The servant bowed and retreated through the doors, which swung more
fully open behind him. Through them marched a slightly odd-looking
trio: two dark-haired men, wearing black suits, sunglasses and
expressionless faces, flanking a rather small girl with brilliant red
hair, wearing a tidy school uniform with a non-regulation scarf about
her collar, in some indeterminable state between frightened and angry.
The men matched pace with the girl, who clasped both her hands around
the handle of a lunchbox decorated with a large, colorful Thunder Force
insignia.
The three of them halted at the foot of the raised deskthrone.
Ginrei nodded to the men. "Well done. You may leave us."
"Yes, Milady." They bowed, whirled sharply, and marched out much
more swiftly than they'd marched in. The doors thundered shut behind
them.
Nene fixed Ginrei with a silent stare, her emerald eyes as cold and
fierce as any elementary-schoolgirl's had ever been.
The Dragon smiled down at her controlled, impotent rage. "So, at
last I meet the troublesome Miss Nene Romanova. Come, child." She
beckoned for Nene to approach her; swallowing a lump in her throat, the
little girl did so, silently deciding that ten simple stair-steps had
never seemed quite so frightening before. When she'd reached the
plateau of the dais, Ginrei leaned forward, hands over her knees, in the
most condescending pose imaginable. "Have you nothing to say for
yourself, my dear?" she sang.
Nene's glare remained constant. "Show me Usagi."
The Dragon sighed, shaking her head slowly with her fingers pinching
the bridge of her nose, her lovely face displaying a pained expression.
"My child, my child, where are your manners? Have you no respect for
your elders?"
"Only the ones who deserve it. Show me Usagi."
"Such poor etiquette," Ginrei chided quietly, straightening to her
full height and looking haughtily down at the impudent girl before her.
"You'll never accomplish anything with such an ... unhealthy attitude."
Nene ground her teeth, fixed a gaze of pure evil on a potted plant to
one side of the room, and grumbled, "Please, I would like to see my
friend, Usagi..."
Ginrei regarded her with mocking impatience.
Nene forced herself not to spit as she added, "...Milady."
Ginrei now allowed herself to look very smug, and she patted Nene
atop her head, a gesture which quickly earned her the girl's undying
hatred. "There," she sang, "that's _much_ better." Ginrei looked back
toward her desk, turning the computer to face herself. Quickly tapping
in her access ID and password with one hand, she confirmed that her
other guest was waiting outside her office. Satisfied, she rested a
finger on her intercom button. "Wilson, you may bring the girl, now."
One of the huge double doors opened with a loud click, and Nene
turned to face it. The opening was soon filled by an immense, bald man
in a very white suit, wearing a diamond ring on one finger. She
instantly recognized him as Wilson Fisk, or, as most called him, the
Kingpin. He wasn't who she was looking for.
Before him, however, was a small, blond, very frightened girl,
dressed in a school uniform nearly identical to her own -- minus the
scarf, of course. Where the Kingpin's stride was bold and confident,
this girl's was skittish and uncertain, but his hand on her shoulder
kept her moving forward as the door boomed shut behind them.
"Nene!" Usagi pulled free of the Kingpin's grip and ran toward her
friend.
Nene let go of the lunchbox with one hand as she turned and hopped
down the stairs. "Usagi!"
Usagi made a bee-line for Nene, colliding with her not far from the
base of the dais in a shamelessly terrified embrace. "OhNeneI'mso-
scaredIdidn'tthinkI'dseeyouagainImissMomandDadwhatareyoudoinghereanyway-
thesepeoplearescaryIwannagohome!" she blurted through her tears, nearly
too fast to follow. She buried her face in Nene's deep violet scarf.
Nene'd bought it near the beginning of the school year, while shopping
with her mother, due to its near-perfect match to Hammer's distinctive
costume.
Nene quietly returned her friend's fearful hug, never once letting
her eyes off the Kingpin as he approached. He walked up to the girls
unhurriedly; after all, they weren't going anywhere. Rather than take
the Dragon's approach of talking down to her, he regarded the young
redhead from his full, imposing height.
"We meet again," he stated flatly.
She didn't reply.
"You've caused us a good deal of trouble, young lady." That didn't
sound so much like an admonishment as a statement of fact.
"Well, now you have me," Nene said, fear and anger still evident in
her voice. "Let Usagi go."
A cold shiver ran down her spine at the sound of Ginrei's chuckle.
She was very nearby, having come down from her dais to join the happy
reunion. "Ah, the innocence of youth," the woman sighed.
"I'm afraid the two of you will have to remain here for a while,"
Wilson replied, almost by way of explanation. "There is much to be done
-- and no one must know of it, or of our involvement in it."
"I ... I won't tell," Usagi sniffled, lifting her head from Nene's
shoulder to beg for the Dragon's mercy.
"Oh, but you might," Ginrei purred. "People can be very persuasive.
I should know. It's a risk we just can't afford to take." She leaned
down again, brushing a lock of Usagi's light yellow hair away from her
eyes. "You're a bright little girl ... you understand, don't you?"
Nene's eyes widened, then narrowed. Oh, I understand, all right, she
didn't say aloud. You won't let us go. At least, not alive.

Hammer stood on a rooftop less than a block from the Ishikawa
skyscraper, the flapping of his cape in the wind the only sound he made.
He'd overheard the entire conversation, just as he was hearing what they
were saying now. As he regarded the tower, he could feel the location
of the commpin in his mind, its image as clear as a bright red dot in
his vision. They were many, many levels up, nearly on top of the
building, in what he guessed to be Ginrei Ishikawa's very office. It
was brazen of them to take her here, but also clever as Satan himself --
an act of cavalier confidence, which, he was loath to admit, was quite
well justified.
From what he'd seen before and could see now, the place was actually
an upscale, midtown fortress. Three city-blocks on a side and over 200
stories tall, constantly guarded, armored behind a deceptive layer of
glass and steel, corridors likely bristling with automated defenses ...
a burglar's nightmare. He needed little more than an energy scan to
know that the ceiling and all windows were alarmed and booby-trapped;
that's why he wasn't inside the building right now. The men standing
watch at the entryways -- there were two waiting at every entrance to
the building, and another two nearby -- were obviously cybered to a
rather high degree. They must spend their entire lunch break polishing
all that chrome, he joked to himself, failing to muster a laugh. Within
their trendy castle, Fisk and Ishikawa were king and queen, undisputed
rulers with nothing to fear.
That, of course, would have to change.
The conversation stopped as the Dragon ordered them taken elsewhere
to "wait", though she didn't specify what they were waiting for. The
sounds he received as the commpin began moving again told him that the
two girls were being kept together. The squeaky wheel gets the grease,
he mused; the pairing was probably due to the guards' unwillingness to
put up with any more of Usagi's crying. She was still whimpering, but
Nene was quietly consoling her, telling her everything would be okay
soon.
Her confidence in him brought a smile to his face.
"I won't disappoint you, Nene," he whispered.

Katsuhiro wasn't overly surprised when his pocket-phone twittered for
his attention. He pulled it out, opened it, and droned, "Zenigata."
"Good news and bad news, Katsu."
His attention quickly turned fully to the voice over the phone. The
school was a whirlwind of inactivity now, anyway. "Ah, Hammer. Good
news first."
"She's arrived at the syndicate safehouse, and is presently with her
friend."
"Great ... where's that?"
"That's the bad news. They're in Ishikawa Tower, a few floors shy of
the top."
Katsu paused, letting this sink in. "I see."
"I'm sure you understand that a large extraction team is out of the
question. There's no way you could scale about two hundred stories of
urban skyscraper without being detected."
"How about a roof landing?"
"I get the distinct feeling that they're very prepared for such an
attempt. You could make a hobby of watching the building defenses zap
pigeons like an oversized bug-lamp."
"Great. So she's not coming out."
"Oh, I never said _that_. I just said _you_ couldn't do it."
"You're crazy, Hammer."
"It's what everyone loves about me. By the way, how about the
Moones?"
"They're at the station. Seems they were about to file a missing-
persons report on little Usagi when I started calling around."
"Good. Two less complications to worry about."
"What should I tell the higher-ups?"
"Tell them not to even think about trying to move in yet -- more
manpower will only make this scenario worse. Oh, and tell the Romanovas
not to worry. Talk to you later. Hammer out."
Katsu closed his phone slowly, wishing there was something he could
do beyond just staying out of the way.

A large truck, bearing the bold red words "LIVE CRAB" on its sides,
backed into Loading Dock 4, the northernmost loading dock on Ishikawa
Tower's east side. It was immediately flanked by two pairs of guards
who eyed it with little more than bemusement.
"Looks like another dinner for the Big Shots upstairs," one of them
noted aloud, adjusting his cap to give his long, blond hair some air.
"Wish I could afford crab."
His partner, a slightly shorter fellow with shorter, darker hair,
chuckled. "If I had that kind of money, crab would be the _last_ thing
on my mind."
The blond smiled wickedly. "Coming from you, I believe that." He
watched the driver of the truck, who was presently showing her ID and
delivery authorization. Workmen came from inside the dock, opened the
back of the truck, and unloaded its contents -- eight large, heavy
crates, each bearing the same words as the truck. The workers were
audibly wishing that live crabs could be shipped without filled
aquariums to carry them.
"Saaay, that driver's cute. Think she'd be interested in--"
"No."
"Oh, why not?"
"Because you have the character depth of a microwafer, Null-Set.
Besides, she's leaving already." Sure enough, she'd started her vehicle
and was pulling away from the loading dock. She got lucky and found an
opening into the heavy traffic around the Tower, and pulled out, gunning
her engine for all the push it could muster.
"Ahh, shit. So much for my grand designs..."
As the guards returned to their posts and the dock's wide door began
to lower itself with a noisy hum and rattle, the blond paused, noticing
that there was a damp trail from one of the crates. He shrugged and
followed his partner; after all, a leaky tank was none of his concern.
Less than a minute after he was gone, the door clattered shut. Soon
after that, though, the top of the very crate he'd wondered about hinged
upward, and something which should most assuredly be his concern climbed
out, dripping wet.
Hammer scowled as he looked himself over. He'd transformed into a
sort of Purple Ninja costume, minus the mask, before secreting himself
aboard the delivery truck. He most assuredly hadn't counted on having
to hide in a water tank, but it wasn't a problem; he could hold his
breath for a few hours, if he had to. He just didn't like how the
costume felt when it was completely soaked through.
He reached behind himself, pulling off a crab which had latched onto
his backside, and tossed it back into the tank, closing the lid of the
crate. Then, with a quiet sound of transformation, he changed forms
twice, going first to Rotofoil, then emerging in his Darkwing guise,
clean and dry.
Hammer smirked, whispered a quiet thank-you to the utterly clueless
crabs, gathered his cape around himself with a slight flutter, and
merged with the shadows.

"How long have you been here, Usagi?"
She sniffled. "S-since ... last night..."
Nene gave her friend a quick embrace. "Shhh, shhh ... come on, cheer
up! It'll be okay."
"Re-- *snif* Really?"
"Really."
Usagi started to speak again, but a faint growling sound made her
nearly jump into Nene's arms. "Yaaah! Nene! What's THAT!?"
Nene smiled at Usagi, looking slightly embarrassed. "My stomach."
Usagi blinked, realization slowly creeping in around the general fear
that had surrounded her throughout this entire ordeal. Once it had made
its way clear through, though, she actually giggled. "Missed lunch?"
"Yeah. Good thing I brought it with me." Nene opened her lunchbox.
"Spent your lunch period watching Leon again?"
Nene groaned. Maybe she was better off when Usagi was paralyzed with
panic. The plastic bag she'd wrapped her peanut-butter sandwich in
crinkled lightly as she removed it, balled it, and placed it back in her
lunchbox, barely aware of her habitual litter-free practices. Just as
she was wrapping her mouth around the bread, though, she stopped.
There was something faintly familiar-looking on the far side of their
large, darkened room. Taking a slow bite from her sandwich, Nene rose
to her feet and walked carefully toward it.
"Nene?"
"Ffhh..." came Nene's attempt to utter a "sshh" with a mouth full of
white bread, raspberry jam, and peanut butter. The little redhead
continued across the room, intently looking at the hint of reflected
light she'd barely noticed before. She smiled as the object she'd
thought she'd seen came close enough to see despite the gloom.
A network terminal. The screen seemed to have a faint non-light of
its own, as if it were on, but displaying black. Nene reached forward
carefully and gave the backspace key a gentle tap. In response, the
screen blinked instantly to life, displaying a classic "login:" prompt
and an impatient, blinking cursor.
"Oh-ho-ho-hooo, funtime," she grinned quietly, slipping into the seat
in front of it as she took another bite. The peanut butter adhered to
the roof of her mouth in a manner she would have found thoroughly
annoying if she weren't as distracted as she was now.

Hammer sank into a doorway, vanishing from sight just as a group of
businessfolk turned the corner, strolling down the hallway. They were
discussing something involving market shares, public image, and nanotech
research. He silently listened to them babble, but there was nothing
even remotely incriminating in their conversation -- apparently, equal
amounts of legal and not-really-legal work went on within Ishikawa's
walls. None of the people in this particular gaggle were likely even
aware that a pair of schoolgirls were being held hostage less than two
hundred floors above them.
When they were past, he re-emerged and continued. He'd been
fortunate so far, he mused to himself as he strode briskly, the lower
edge of his cape fluttering behind him. He'd actually found a staircase
that wasn't littered with security cameras and alarm tripwires -- why
the stairwell was unbugged and the elevator shaft was crawling with
security, he had no idea -- but it only took him twenty stories up
before reaching its terminus. He was presently looking for another way
up.
The bright lighting of the corridors didn't please him much, either.
It's difficult to skulk through the shadows when the shadows are few and
far between. It spoke well of the Tower's maintenance staff, that a
building of such an immense size could remain so well-lit everywhere,
but that knowledge did nothing to aid his task.
The doorway to another stairwell was waiting at the end of the second
hallway he entered. He marched up to it. Peering through the narrow
slit of a window, he could see that this one went up as well as down.
This was a refreshing change. He began to twist the doorknob.
Whoa, whoa, hold it.
He relaxed his grip on the knob, took a step back, and transformed.
He switched to an edges view and looked through the door again.
His caution was well-rewarded -- a security camera, mounted up in the
near corner, was patiently scanning the landing right at the door's
opening.
He returned to human mode and sighed. Whirling with a brisk snap of
his cloak, he strode back down the hall, looking for some other
solution. Maybe I should have stayed in the crab tank, he thought
glumly.
It was about then that he heard a peculiar tickle in his ear -- the
familiar three-tone he'd associated with a specific commpin.

"Hammer!" Nene hissed into her wrist. "Hammer, are you there?"
"Who are you talking to?" Usagi queried. She was standing behind and
to one side of Nene, trying to make some sort of sense of what her
classmate was doing.
"Shh!" Nene cautioned, a little more harshly than she should have.
She resumed her call. "Hammer!"
"I'm here, Nene." The soft, masculine sound from Nene's wrist would
have startled Usagi if she wasn't already getting used to so many other
completely weird things.
"Where are you?"
"Right now, about twenty floors up. I'm having a little trouble
finding a way to get higher without alerting building security -- I'll
need some time to get to you."
"Nene, who is that?"
Nene smiled back at Usagi. "A good friend of mine."
She blinked back. "That voice is too deep for Leon."
Nene's smile turned to a frustrated scowl. "Can't you give that a
rest for just a minute here? Hammer's trying to rescue us."
Usagi looked confused for a moment, then gasped with surprise, as her
mind made the connection she'd been missing. "'Hammer'? You mean --
_PC_Hammer? _THE_ PCHammer!?"
"Well, we aren't available in stores yet," Nene's wrist replied with
an audible smirk. Usagi blanched while Nene stifled a laugh, glad to
see someone else behind the eight-ball for once.
The little blonde took Nene's forearm in her hands and spoke
nervously into her wrist. "Um ... h-hi, PCHammer, I ... uh ... I'm
Usagi M-Moone ... pleased to ... um, like ... meet you..." Nene
completely lost her composure at this point, breaking into a subdued
belly-laugh with her free hand clapped firmly over her mouth.
"Good to meet you, too, Usagi," the wrist replied. "Hopefully, we'll
be able to meet in person before the end of the day. Nene, if you
called to ask if I'm coming yet..."
"I know, I know," Nene stated, her laughter abating. "Actually, I
was calling to ask if you needed any help."
"What kind of help?"
"Well," she said smugly, "it seems our hosts were kind enough to hand
me and Usagi the top-level security ID for the compound before locking
us in a room with a terminal."
A pause. "You're kidding."
"Have I lied to you yet?"
"Well ... no, now that you bring it up."
Nene chuckled. "I almost can't believe they'd do this. I mean, she
typed in her password right in front of my face! Like the fact that it
doesn't display could keep me from watching her fingers. And then
locking us in with a computer -- do they expect us to play Minesweeper
to pass the time or something?"
"Maybe they were expecting a pair of ordinary third-graders."
Nene made a motion as if cracking her knuckles, but produced no
sound. "I'll teach 'em to underestimate _me_," she grinned cruelly,
curling her fingers into typing position.

<So,> the voice in Hammer's mind said, <what should I hose first?>
<No hosing,> he replied, his lips moving involuntarily while no
actual sound came from his throat. This was one of his oldest 'tricks',
one which he'd had since the day he was rebuilt -- the ability to
project the "sound" of his thoughts across sub- and realspace radio
communications bands. <Try to keep a low profile. I still have about a
hundred and eighty floors to climb, and I'd like to stay undetected for
as long as possible.>
<You're no fun.>
<This isn't a game, Nene.>
She sighed. <I know, I know -- we're playing with our lives.>
<And don't you forget it.>
<Okay, okay ... want me to open up a staircase for you?>
Martin backtracked to the door to the stairway he'd rejected just a
minute ago. It was only a few steps away; he'd frozen in his tracks
when he heard Nene's call. <I'm next to Stairway Seven West, on level
21. There's a camera inside, right next to the door.>
<Just a sec ... okay, I have it. It's linked to a screen in Monitor
Station G.>
<Anything you can do to make it look like nothing's there?>
<I could blank it out...>
<No good. That'd grab their attention instantly. At the very least,
they'd send a maintenance crew -- I've yet to see so much as a light
bulb out of order in this place.>
<Hmmm ... let me check on something here.> He heard the rapid rattle
of a keyboard as her fingers flew. <Okay, I got it.>
<What?>
<I'm sending the camera signals from a different stairwell to the
monitors for this one. They all look exactly alike, anyway.>
He grinned. <That's the way. Can you pull this off for the whole
stairwell?>
<Already done.>
Hammer pushed the door open and walked through, closing it carefully
behind himself. He turned to the security cam and gave it a thumbs-up.
<You're welcome,> Nene replied.

Fooling security cameras was easy. That was a good thing, since
there turned out to be many, many cameras to fool. This task began
getting more difficult when they were out of the nondescript, all-
identical-looking stairwells and in the hallways between them. One of
the building's more annoying features was the lack of a single set of
stairs going any more than twenty floors up at one shot, so choosing
paths between them became a bit of a task.
Nene found herself taking an enormous role in the process, and
eagerly accepted the challenges presented to her. She searched a bit,
locating floor-by-floor diagrams of the building and the inter-floor
connections. She brought them up on her display and shuffled them as
rapidly as she could, trying to stay a step ahead of Hammer to warn him
of cameras and alarms and advise him on his route. This all went well
until he'd reached the one-hundredth floor.
That's where they started posting armed patrols.
Hammer bided his time behind a corner. He'd been rather fortunate
that neither of the guards was looking his way when he'd walked into
plain view of the both of them. He'd nearly made a sound as he jerked
himself back around the corner.
<Anything yet, Nene?>
<Still searching. Sorry about that.>
<It's not your fault. We should've known they'd start posting guards
somewhere in here.>
<Okay, here we go. I've added the guard posts and patrol routes to
the map.>
<How's it look?>
<Hmm ... not good. I don't see any paths between your position and a
usable staircase without any guards.>
Martin sighed, rubbing his knuckle into his opposing palm. <I knew
it'd come to this, sooner or late-->
<Someone's coming down your hallway!> Nene's voice was agitated --
apparently, she was so intent on the task of getting Hammer past his
current obstacle that she'd laxed in what she felt was her obligation to
check his back. Actually, Hammer should have noticed it himself;
whoever was coming was pushing a none-too-quiet cart in front of them.
He glanced quickly behind himself, spied an open doorway, and dove
into it, pulling the door shut behind himself. That reflex certainly
saved him from a grievous, noisy blunder, as his grip on the doorknob
kept him from crashing into the janitorial supplies that filled the
oversized closet he'd selected as his hiding place.
Well, well, he thought to himself. Isn't this convenient. Even ...
yup, a set of uniform coveralls. Add a building ID, and I'd be all
set...
The cart, which possessed one misbalanced wheel that was the cause of
its faint rattling sound, came to a halt directly in front of the door.
Hammer judged his options in a split-second, and found none.
The door opened, and the custodian -- or perhaps that should be
custodienne, as she was a tall, rather lovely woman with short, bright
blond hair, combed straight and not quite reaching her shoulders --
reached in for one of the long-handled squeegees, not even looking in to
notice the violet-suited arm that her hand reached first.
"What--"
That was all she had time to say before she all but flew into the
closet.

The guards looked up hopefully as the rattling janitor's cart turned
a corner and came into view. Unfortunately, their expectations were
poorly-met; they'd been hoping that the pretty young custodian (whom the
both of them had been unsuccessfully trying to hit on for the past two
weeks) was making another of her required rounds, and this new fellow
with short, thick hair was, by comparison, a major disappointment. His
height was certainly nothing to sneeze at, though.
"Guess we'll never know," one of them, who was standing, said quietly
to his seated partner, who nodded.
"Afternoon," the man said as he paused at the guard station.
"Hard to tell in here," the standing guard said. "What happened to
the girl who usually runs this route?"
"Oh, she came down with something." (Sudden unconsciousness, his
sense of humor elaborated.) "I'm subbing until she gets better."
The guards smiled. So long as she'd be back, they were happy.
"Okay. Let's see your pass."
The new guy blinked. "Pass?"
"Yeah, that thing clipped to your pocket there. You _are_ new here."
"Oh, that. Yeah, they called me in from a temp agency." He took it
off and handed it to the nearer guard, who handed it to the seated
guard, who flashed it in front of a scanner. The scanner produced a
happy ping just as the first guard was handing it back to him.
"All set. Need any help with directions?"
"Thanks, but I've already got that covered. Laters." The tall
fellow wandered off, his cart rattling before him, as the guards
returned to their previous state of utter boredom. If they'd bothered
to look at the screen of the ID scanner, they would have likely found
something wrong with its claim that his name was Mary Blue. It'd only
remained that way for a moment, though, before the "Mary" changed to
"Mark".

"That was close," Nene commented with a sigh to her wrist. "Good
thing they didn't bother to look at the ID screen -- I almost didn't
notice it."
"Can't be helped," Hammer's voice replied. "Unless we can get our
hands on a magstrip writer, we'll be doing this a lot. At least it's
not a picture ID."
"We may not get away with it much more, either," Nene retorted.
"That strip holds a lot of data about her, including physical stuff --
height, weight, hair, eyes, stuff like that. If they're watching the
screen before I can change it, they've got you."
"Oh, fun. This'll definitely be short-lived. Any secret passageways
in this place?"
Nene shook her head. "Nope, sorry. I've looked through the normal
hallways, service 'n' freight hallways, elevator shafts, even the air
ducts. It's all rigged with cameras, touchpads, motion sensors or some
combination. I think even the roaches need passcards around here."
"Lovely. Time to knock some skulls together. Just the attention I
was hoping to avoid."
Usagi grinned. "We won't mind, honest..."
"You will when the Dragon hears about it and decides you aren't worth
the trouble to keep."
Usagi's grin vanished, and she swallowed hard. "Um ... well, don't
hurry on our account..." Nene snarfed as quietly as she could at her
companion's sudden change of heart, and the blonde turned away from the
screen to try to hide her embarrassment.
The commpin sighed. "At least I can use an elevator without forcing
the doors, now. Is there any limit on how high I'm allowed to go with
this passcard?"
Nene's fingers flew across the keyboard. "Hmm ... upper floor limit
for Mary Blue: none. Guess that means you could take an elevator all
the way up to the main office, if you'd like."
Hammer's voice chuckled sardonically. "Lucky me for waylaying a Most
Trusted Janitor. Let's hope the elevator doesn't check my weight. Have
you figured out which floor you're on yet?"
"Got it covered. We're on level 197, near the south center of the
complex. I suppose finding us won't be a problem once you're on the
same floor, will it?"
"Not really."
"Nene..." Usagi said in a quiet voice.
"Just a second, Usagi." Nene studied the displayed map of Hammer's
current floor. "Hmm ... there's an elevator not far from you. Take a
right at the next hallway. I'll have it ready and waiting for you when
you get there." Her fingers danced rapidly again, ordering the elevator
car into motion.
"Good thinking. The sooner we get this over with, the better."
"Um, Nene..." Usagi said again, tugging lightly at her friend's
sleeve.
"Just a second, Usagi." Nene quickly switched to the map of the her
floor. "You'll be turning right when you get here, just so you know. I
could give you detailed directions, but the layout isn't complicated at
all, and I don't see any regular guard posts or patrols listed."
"It'll be nice to have something simple for a change. Stick close to
Usagi until I get there. I see the elevator now, and I can hear it on
its way up -- good work, Nene."
"Thanks."
"See you soon. Hammer out."
Nene lowered her wrist and turned to face Usagi, who, she noted,
looked a bit frazzled. "Okay, what is it, Usagi?"
In response, the little blonde just pointed mutely. Nene turned,
following the finger's path, and quickly discovered what was troubling
her friend.
The door to their room was open.
And there was a tall, slender silhouette in it.
"First, you start spreading my secrets around the city," the Dragon's
soft, familiar voice cooed. "Then, you refuse to address me with the
basic respect I deserve; and now, you abuse my hospitality. Your
parents have certainly been negligent in your upbringing, my dears."
It was now Nene's turn to swallow hard.
"We're in trouble, aren't we?" Usagi whimpered.
"Yeah, I'd say so," Nene replied, not in the mood to point out how
glaringly obvious that statement was.

The elevators in this building, Hammer realized, were the most rapid
he'd been in since visiting the World Trade Center in New York City,
back when he was a boy on Earth. The digital floor-number indicator
twiddled its digits at a rate of nearly two per second at its peak
velocity. Still, that meant he had about a minute to wait until he'd
reached Nene's floor. He closed his eyes and "watched" the signal from
her commpin getting closer to him, seeming to move downward as he shot
up through the building. The pin seemed to be moving on its level, as
well; apparently, she'd moved away from the dataterm in her room and was
nervously pacing her room.
Actually, her pacing seemed rather hesitant ... she'd stopped now.
And now she was running. The pin's location swung wildly back and
forth, roughly sketching a path that first went away from, then darted
past her previous location.
Martin's brow furrowed. Either she was in a very large room, or
something had just gone very wrong.
The floor numbers were slowing down as he opened his eyes, and his
heightened hearing readily made out the noise of several armed men and
women gathering at some point above him, preparing their weapons and
moving into position.
He quickly shoved the janitor's cart to one end of the large freight
elevator, eyes darting about to visually gauge the space he had within.
It was most definitely the latter.

Every weapon in the crowd of guards, who numbered nearly a dozen, was
ready to fire and trained on the elevator as its soft chime sounded, and
its doors began to part. The deep, scraping whoosh of their opening
traced out a long, tense moment for the entire group. Once it was fully
open, they discovered...
...a cart of cleaning supplies.
With a hand signal to hold fire, the group's leader poked his head
into the door and looked around. There was nothing more to be seen, of
course, since the doors opened flush with the inner walls of the
elevator itself, but he had to be sure. He also glanced up, peering
directly at the elevator's escape hatch. It was tightly closed.
The guards' battle-readiness dissolved into confusion as the doors
slowly closed themselves, and the elevator, bored with the current
goings-on, started its trek back down to the more civilized levels.
The group leader's befuddled moment ended as his headset's earpiece
muttered for his attention.
"Group Bravo," he reported to his throat mike, seemingly speaking to
the air. "Just a cleaning cart. No sign of the target. ... Right." He
returned his attention to his team. "Okay, let's move it, people!
We've got every elevator in the building headed for this floor, and no
way to tell which one he's in! Ivory, take the Green squad and head for
Shaft 6! Red squad, you're with me!"
The group broke in two, with half of its members following the
initial leader, and the other half led by a dark-haired woman. Soon,
the once-crowded corridor was deserted and quiet.
A faint screech broke the silence as the elevator shaft doors
shuddered and parted slightly. Fingertips appeared through the opening,
and, with a submissive whine, the doors opened more fully.
Hammer stepped into the corridor, gave his hat a quick tug to
straighten it, and furled his cape about himself with a needlessly
dramatic flourish.
Very clever, Nene, he said silently. Calling multiple elevators up
as decoys to cover my arrival. I owe you a hot-fudge sundae.
Just make sure you're able to collect it.
With a brisk stride, he started toward the commpin's location, which,
he hoped, was still also hers.

Eiji peered into another of the unlit rooms, his hand tight around
the grip of his pulse pistol. He didn't really know why he'd even
bothered to take the weapon out of its holster; perhaps out of some
bizarre notion that a third-grade girl would need to be subdued by
lethal force. He didn't bother flipping on the lights, as the light
spilling in from the hallway gave him enough of a view into the gloom.
He swung the door all the way open until its knob hit the inside wall,
and, satisfied that no one was hiding behind it, moved on.
It's not as if she even has anything to use as a weapon, he tried to
coax himself as he moved to the next room, keeping his senses as open as
he could manage. She threw her lunchbox at the Lady, and hadn't been
carrying anything else.
Of course, another side of him noted, some of these rooms are
offices, and you never know what kinds of nasty things a creative mind
can do with office supplies. An unbent paper clip could put your eye
out, a pair of scissors make a great stabbing weapon, and don't even
think about what can be done with a staple puller.
Oh, get real, he tried to reason. This is just a kid! She wouldn't
be that cruel.
Remember when _you_ were a kid? came the reply.
He held his gun tighter.
A smallish sound made him pause from the room he was about to check.
He froze and strained his ears to listen. Yes, there it was again -- it
was like someone very small, panting for breath, and was from a little
further down the hall.
Cradling his pistol in both hands, he crept down the corridor. He
passed another room on his left, but that wasn't the source of the faint
noise. He continued, every muscle tensed to hear the quiet sobs of his
young prey.
There. The next room on the right. That's where she is.
He slowly leaned into the open doorway, keeping his weapon ready. A
typical office desk, large and probably heavy, two typical office
chairs, one wheeled and one not, a tall mirror in one corner, no
carpeting (which was peculiar, but no reason for concern), and shelves
filled with books and loose paper were all he found. His eyes saw no
sign of her, but she was there.
As he moved fully into the portal, her breath stopped with a sudden
gasp -- his shadow, long and obvious, had given his presence away.
Her reaction had given away hers.
He slipped his gun into its holster, careful not to make any sudden
moves, and, with a rapid motion, slammed the door fully open.
"YOWWW!" she squealed, as a pair of soft thumps announced to him that
she was pinned behind the door.
"Got you now!" he crowed softly. Letting the door swing back until
it stopped at his foot, he reached around and grabbed at the first thing
he could feel, soft and skinny, probably her arm. He pulled it out into
the open, where he could see, and saw that was exactly what he'd found.
"Oww, let me go!" The girl struggled uselessly against his harsh
grip and superior strength, her bright red hair tossing frantically as
she tried to free herself.
"Now, now, be a good little girl," he chided to her as she continued
to squirm. "It's all the trouble you give us that-- hold still,
dammit!" He grabbed her arms with both hands and shook her roughly,
which brought an end to her struggles, and she looked fearfully up at
him with wide, green eyes. Somewhere within his strictly-business
demeanor, he finally noticed just how cute she was. "There, that's
better. Now just come with me, and there won't be any more trouble."
"No, no," she whined to him, "don't take me to her, please!"
"Stop it!" he barked, giving her another quick shake. "Don't make me
hurt you."
She looked up to him, eyes shimmering on the verge of tears.
"And don't try that crying routine on me, either, because it won't
work," he lied. "Now we're going back to the Lady, and you're going to
behave, got it?"
Her glance fell down to the floor.
"Got it?" he repeated more firmly, shaking her again.
"Excuse me..." a voice rumbled quietly beside him.
Startled, Eiji's head snapped to face the hallway, and he froze at
the sight of the violet comic-book escapee that greeted him there.
"...did you ever dance with the devil by the pale moonlight?" he
completed.
Eiji's trance broke as he made a grab for his gun, which, he
immediately discovered, was missing.
"Looking for this?" the stranger said quietly, his cape parting
smoothly down the middle, revealing a hand carrying his pulse pistol.
He held it for a moment before squeezing it tighter, and it twisted,
stretched and deformed to the point of uselessness and beyond. He
tossed it into the room, where it bounced across the floor with an
inconsequential clatter.
Eiji's grip on the girl went limp, and she inched away from him as
the newcomer stepped closer and loomed over him, the impenetrable shadow
under his hat making his eyes seem to glow with a hypnotic light of
their own.
The two locked stares for what seemed like a very long time.
With a sudden lunge, the stranger barked, "*SEGA!*"
Eiji yelped, tried to jump backwards, tripped over the small girl
who'd been waiting behind him on her hands and knees, and hit the floor
hard with a loud "oof". He only saw stars for a moment.
The view he had of his tall, ominous captor from lying on the floor
made him wish they'd stayed with him for a while.

After tightly hog-tying the subdued guard, Hammer reached down and
took Nene by the hand, lifting her from the floor, where she seemed on
the verge of giggling herself to death. "Come on, it wasn't _that_
funny."
"Yes it was!" she managed between breaths.
He opened his mouth to contradict her, paused, reconsidered, and then
smiled. "Okay, maybe it was." He waited patiently for her laughter to
subside. "I take it Usagi wasn't able to follow you."
Nene's smile vanished immediately, replaced by a look of sorrow as
her gaze dropped. "When Ishikawa came for us, we tried to run ... I got
past by throwing my lunchbox at her, but Usagi was caught. She sent the
guards after me, so I tried to hide, but..." Her eyes looked up into
his. "You told us to stay together, and I let you down..."
He dropped to one knee, laying a hand on her shoulder. "You didn't
let me down. If you tried to stay with her, you'd both still be the
Dragon's captives ... and where would that leave you, hm?" She smiled
as he rose to his full height, once again furling his cape around
himself. "We'll get her back ... they can't hope to win against--" he
abruptly shifted his voice to a deep, eerie one, which he liked to call
his Business Voice -- "the Terror That Flaps in the Night." Swapping
back to a friendlier tone, he continued, "And, of course, his loyal,
trusted side ... kick...," but his voice trailed off as he noticed her
reaction.
The move had been calculated to make Nene laugh again, but instead,
it seemed to put her in a surprisingly pensive mood. She folded one arm
around her chest, holding her opposite elbow as she curled her hand over
her mouth.
Hammer blinked down at her. "What?"
"I don't know..." Nene said quietly, almost as if she thought what
she was about to say was high-order blasphemy. "Something's missing."
He looked surprised. "What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure. The voice is a terrific effect, and it's a great
costume, but ... it needs something." She idly tapped an index finger
on her temple as she considered him carefully, deep in thought.
A smile grew across her elfin young face as an idea struck her. She
held up one hand in a classic One Moment Please gesture, and unwound the
long violet scarf from around her neck with the other. Dragging the
room's other chair -- the one that lacked wheels -- over next to Hammer,
she climbed up onto it, looped the scarf around his neck, folded it
together, knotted it neatly behind his head, and then adjusted it so
that it obscured about half of his face, leaving his nose uncovered.
She hopped down, took a few quick steps away, and reviewed her
handiwork. She appeared quite pleased with herself.
"There," she said with finality. "Now you look a _lot_ scarier."
A floor-to-ceiling mirror was mounted on the wall near one corner of
the room, and Hammer strode over to stand in front of it. He blinked at
the image he found looking back at him -- a fusion of the Darkwing
disguise with its parody-source, one of Gryphon's old, discarded guises,
The Shadow.
The end result, he had to agree, was a marked improvement.
"This," he stated quietly, "I like." The little redhead beamed with
pride. "But right now," he added, turning to face her, "we need to find
Usagi."
Nene's smiling face turned all-business. "That shouldn't be hard.
She'll be in Ishikawa's office, on the top floor. Getting her away from
her is the real problem -- I don't suppose we could convince her to just
hand Usagi to us."
"Probably not," Hammer muttered. Then, slowly, both he and Nene
began to turn, until they were both looking directly at the bound-and-
gagged guard lying on the floor.
You could almost see the light bulbs winking on over their heads.
"Nene," Hammer intoned, "are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so, Hammer," she replied thoughtfully, "but the nearest ice
cream parlor is two hundred floors below us."
He blinked twice at her innocent smile, then sagged his shoulders
with resignation as she giggled triumphantly. He'd walked right into
that one.
"Come on, Nene," Hammer grumbled, slipping back into his Business
Voice as he straightened himself. "Let's get dangerous."

"This has all gone as wrong as it possibly could, Ginrei," the
Kingpin noted gruffly. One of his massive hands was clenched behind his
back as he stood at one side of the Dragon's desk, considering the
dazzling New Japan sunset through her enormous windows and wondering if
it was somehow symbolic of this, the apparent twilight of his career.
The other held a thick cigar, with a wisp of white smoke casually
leaking from its tip. "Commissioner Mason is safer than ever, the star
witness against us has been snatched from our grasp ... even our Elasi
compatriots have been routed. All our work is crumbling before us."
Ginrei Ishikawa wanted to snap at the statement, but dared not break
her calm facade. She remained seemingly impassive, her fingertips
absently tracing one of the white pattern edges on the shoulder collar
of Usagi's sailor blouse. The tiny blonde had long since given up
crying for Lent, even though it wasn't Lent anyway, but still had to
fight back the urge to wince and leap away from the Dragon's touch. She
was seated beside her, on a small cleared space on her desk.
"Have patience, Wilson. My guards will find Miss Romanova."
"Or Hammer will, which I consider far more likely. Your soldiers are
no match for him."
"That much, I will grant you," she replied after a moment. "But he
will not leave ... not so long as our other guest is here with us."
He turned toward her, eyebrow cocked questioningly. "Surely you
can't intend to challenge him yourself."
Ginrei chuckled for a brief time, but before she could reply, her
office's immense doors emitted a loud clack and swung open. Her
indignant reaction at being interrupted without so much as a knock was
turned to a confident smile by what she found entering her office -- two
uniformed guards, flanking a familiar young schoolgirl, frightened, yet
angry, with intelligent green eyes and brilliant red hair.
Usagi's heart fell. "Nene, no..."
Ginrei rose to her feet. "Excellent, excellent!" she clapped.
"You've found the girl before she could escape. Well done!" Her face
turned stern as she continued, "Normally, I would have you relieved of
duty for this unannounced intrusion, but, for this occasion, I shall
excuse you." Usagi took to her feet as well, slipping down from her
desktop perch.
"Thank you, Milady," the guards recited, bowing in perfect unison.
Ginrei's glance went down to the small girl beside her, her wide,
blue eyes shimmering with an unspoken question. Turning more fully
toward her, Ginrei said, "Do you wish to ask me something, Miss Moone?"
"I..." Usagi's young mind fumbled and raced to assemble a simple
question, teetering somewhere on the verge of panic. "Can ... may I ...
go see Nene ... my friend ... um ... Milady ... please?"
The Dragon smiled. There was hope for this younger generation, after
all. With a regal nod, she replied, "Yes, child, by all means. Go,
greet your wayward friend." Her eyes followed Usagi's hurried, bouncing
path down the dais to the floor, then across the carpeted walkway,
stopping about halfway to the door by hurling herself around Nene. The
sniffling, frightened sounds of each greeting the other quietly
dominated the room.
It was while watching the two of them reuniting that she noticed
something amiss with the taller of the two guards. Her eyes narrowed.
"Guard, explain yourself."
The shorter one blinked. "Milady?"
"No, your partner. Guard, why are you unarmed?"
The shorter guard's head whirled to face the other, whose face
remained calm. "I am never unarmed, Milady," his deep voice replied.
"Why do you not carry your weapon?" The Dragon's finger stabbed into
the air, indicating his empty holster. The Kingpin was now facing him
as well, his thick brows low in a suspicious glare.
The tall guard did not flinch. "I need no weapon, Milady."
A glance and a nod from the Dragon were all the prompt the shorter
guard needed. In a flash, his gun was out of its holster and trained on
the taller fellow. "Don't move, impostor," he warned.
He heard a quick ringing sound -- the sound of metal sliding on
metal, like an unsheathing sword. Not waiting to see what kind of knife
the stranger would draw on him, he pulled the trigger on his sidearm.
The shot went completely off toward the door as the flat of a blade
extending from the back of the intruder's arm swatted his weapon with
such force as to drive it from his hand. He yowled and gathered the
hand to himself as he listened to the thud and rustle of his gun
striking the wall, losing itself in the foliage that lined the back of
the office. The sword returned to its sleeve, as if satisfied that its
duty was fulfilled.
Nene watched this with an assured smile. Usagi, by contrast, looked
like she was about to become the youngest heart attack victim on record.
Ginrei and Wilson stared ineffectually -- Fisk cool and impassive,
Ishikawa filled with outrage -- as the tall intruder lifted the guard by
the front of his shirt and tossed him up beside them, where he landed,
head first, on her desk. They didn't bother watching him tumble into
her chair, pushing it backward until it slammed noisily against the
thick glass wall behind them.
"I _am_ a weapon," the newcomer continued as if never interrupted,
"Milady."
"You," Ginrei hissed, as close to losing control of her temper as
Wilson had ever seen. "How dare you invade my palace like this! Such
impudence -- impersonating one of my guards and mocking me to my face!
Who are you?"
"You mean, you haven't determined it yourself?" the stranger queried.
He sprang into the air, and an odd sound, a sort of buzzing crunch,
accompanied him as his body impossibly folded itself into a sleek,
violet wedge-shaped vehicle. At the apex of the leap, the vehicle began
transforming again, and when it landed in front of the two girls, human
once more, the crime lords found themselves staring at the very person
they'd expected, and the last they'd hoped to see.
"I am the terror," Hammer's voice rumbled from every direction as his
cape settled around him, "that flaps in the night. I am the final
curtain on your criminal charade. I am ... the Hammer."
Nene whistled appreciatively. "Nice one," she noted quietly.
Usagi was having a little trouble dealing with this.
Ginrei actually seemed calmed by the dark avenger's presence. "So,
Hammer. At long last ... I was beginning to think that you'd actually
had sense enough to stay out of my affairs."
"Sorry to disappoint you, Madame Ishikawa," he replied, bowing in a
courtly manner. "I'm afraid my obligation to protect young Nene, here,
was the primary cause for this ... intrusion."
The Dragon chuckled, almost good-naturedly, as she leaned back onto
the edge of her desk. "Why, dear Hammer! Did you truly believe I would
allow her to come to harm?"
"'Allow' wasn't the word I'd considered in that context."
"(Stay alert,)" Hammer's voice whispered from Nene's commpin; he'd
told her to give it her closest attention. "(She's about to spring her
trap.)" Nene nodded to herself, having also noticed Ginrei's hand
inching toward a tiny contact pad on her desktop.
Ginrei heaved a great sigh of tested patience. "It grieves me that
you'd feel that way," her voice lilted.
Her ring finger quietly came to rest on the pad while she was
speaking, and Hammer's enhanced hearing detected the slow, quiet sliding
of a large door somewhere behind him -- the way his feet were vibrating,
he determined it must have been in the floor itself.
"(Behind us,)" the commpin hissed. Nene whipped her head around to
look, and Usagi turned to join her.
An immense lump of sculpted metal was rapidly rising from a wide
trapdoor in the floor, its dull, gray surface only gleaming faintly in
the fading light of day, slowly being overcome by the office's interior
lights. The part that had emerged first, a sort of forward-edged wedge-
shaped protrusion with a rounded cap on top, only vaguely resembled a
head when it could be seen in context with the broader "torso" that
followed it, particularly since it seemed to have no eyes. The oddities
didn't end there -- Nene was visibly startled to discover that it
possessed not two arms, but four. At its full height, the monster was
obviously taller, looked more powerful, and seemed far more menacing
than their guardian, even after Nene's makeover.
Three small lights flickered on the surface of what would be its
belly, brightening to a steady glow, and Nene realized it had just come
on-line.
Usagi whimpered, transfixed by the sight.
"But," Ginrei continued all the while, not missing a beat, "if this
is the way it's to be between us, then I'm afraid you've left me no
choice but to remove you by force. It's the only proper thing to do,
I'm sure you understand." Standing fully up from her desk, Ginrei
struck a commanding pose, pointed at Hammer and shouted, "Shiro! KILL
HIM!"
Hammer whirled and snapped "Move!" at the girls before balking at the
sight of what he had to face. Nene, fortunately, still possessed
sufficient wits to operate her feet, dragging Usagi with her as she
rushed off toward the nearest wall.
The robot growled, a guttural, metallically-distorted noise, as it
began tromping forward. Its footfalls boomed through the chamber,
punctuating the hiss and whine of the intricate interplay of hydraulics
and servomotors in its legs. Its arms swung purposefully as its torso
swayed slightly to the left and right, vise-like hands snapping open and
shut with alarming speed and force.
Hammer began backing toward the dais, watching it advance, estimating
its size to be roughly half again his own height -- though perhaps a bit
more -- and maybe ten or fifteen times his body mass, at the minimum.
Okay, he told himself. Just a big war-machine. I can deal with this.
A panel opened on its left shoulder and an autocannon emerged,
initially aimed to the side, but quickly rotating to face forward.
This, on the other hand, could be a problem.
The cannon belched loudly, hurling fifty slugs in the space of two
seconds. Hammer darted to one side, well out of their path, and they
tore a messy hole through both his cape and the stairway up to
Ishikawa's desk.
"BE CAREFUL, YOU OAF!" Ginrei shrieked, having nearly jumped up onto
her desk; off to one side, all but forgotten, Nene and Usagi huddled
with their hands over their ears, watching fearfully.
Hammer only had a moment to wonder why she was treating the robot
like any other lackey before he had to duck and roll out of the cannon's
path. One of the potted plants tumbled in a spray of dirt and shredded
flora, splashing into the artificial brook in front of it. Again the
robot's weapon roared in fury, and he leaped out of harm's way, sending
another shrub to that great greenhouse in the sky.
He landed on the opposite side of the machine and whirled to face it,
hoping it couldn't turn quickly enough to keep up with him. The good
news was, it couldn't. The bad news was, its cannon could. No sooner
had he found his footing than he had to leap to the side again.
Obviously, a more direct approach was required.
One of his armswords sprang from the back of his right sleeve. He
paused for a moment as the cannon fixed its aim on him, then vaulted up
and over the robot again as it fired. He twisted through the air,
carefully aiming his sword at the mechanoid's shoulder.
"Blade," he snapped.
Whirling orange shivs of energy appeared on the back of his sword,
racing down its length and then flying onward. Two of them glanced off
the sloping armor of its chest and made thin slits in the floor; the
next three found their mark, slicing into the autocannon.
Hammer touched down and turned, standing in front of Ishikawa's dais
and pulling his armsword back into its sheath. The robot growled and
turned to face him, the remains of the cannon buzzing in an unhealthy
manner as it spun and aimed. With a roar not unlike a battle-cry, it
commanded the weapon to fire.
The roar turned into a howl of shock as the autocannon exploded,
nearly throwing the robot onto its side as its fragments scattered
around the room. Nene and Usagi screamed and huddled a bit more closely
at the heat and force of the explosion, but were unscathed; Fisk
sidestepped a large, twisted chuck of debris, which smashed through the
window behind him, and everyone's ears popped as the office's air pressure
quickly equalized with the early-evening air.
Hammer watched as the robot wobbled precariously on one foot, the
smoke from its shoulder curling a peculiar path into the air. It
staggered and twisted itself, making small "whoa-oa" noises as its arms
flapped to keep it upright. After a few long moments, it finally
settled back onto both feet, and, with another bellow of rage, it began
stomping toward him, arms forward and ready to tear him limb from limb.
All its fearsome posturing did it no good, of course, because Hammer
now knew its weakness.
With a muffled BLAM, his left arm spat a grappling cable; its clawed
end magnetically stuck itself to the robot's closer leg, just above its
ankle. As it lifted its opposite leg to take its next step, he raced
around its side, keeping the cable tight all the while. The mechanoid
seemed to pause in the inception of that next step as Hammer became a
violet blur, racing in several quick laps around it.
Nene, who'd risen back to her feet after the cannon was destroyed,
blinked with astonishment as Hammer came to a halt to one side of the
monster. "Shiro" (if that really was the robot's name) was now
teetering comically on one foot, its other foot tied firmly to its
opposing ankle. The trapped leg continued to hiss and whine, shifting
slightly back and forth, trying to free itself and regain its footing,
and its four arms were now spread out, flailing occasionally to maintain
its balance. Its menacing growl had changed to a baffled whimper.
Hammer calmly walked up behind the mechanoid, looking almost pensive.
He glanced over toward Nene and pointed at it, as if to ask what she
wanted him to do with it. She shrugged; what would a third-grade girl
do with an eleven-foot-tall, half-ton robot?
A broad, mischievous smile spread across his face; Nene could see it
in the curl of his eyes, even if his lips were concealed by her scarf.
He cocked his middle finger behind his thumb and reached forward,
holding that hand less than an inch from the robot's back.
"He wouldn't," Nene chuckled quietly.
Hammer's finger abruptly sprang loose, smiting the mechanoid in the
back. It struck with a loud PANG, lurching the robot forward; its
frustrated grumbling rose to a startled squeal as it found itself
falling forward with no means of stopping.
"TIMMMM-BERRRRR!" he announced loudly.
Shiro crashed to the floor, making a great deal of noise and an
enormous, ragged hole as it became halfway embedded in the carpeting and
wood tile. Its arms flapped helplessly for another moment before
dropping limp, and the robot lay still.
"He would," Usagi noted, rather hoping to wake up from this bizarre
dream sometime soon.
"He did," Nene giggled.
Ginrei blinked with what had to be a tremendous effort, since her
eyes were as wide as dinner plates. "Impossible," she whispered,
slouching against her desk.
Hammer made a show of clapping some imaginary dust from his hands.
(There was no dust to be had anywhere in the office; the place was
immaculately tidy, save for the recently-added mess.) "No," he replied
nonchalantly, "just highly unlikely." With a shrug of his shoulders,
his cape settled about him once more; save for the slight swiss-cheesing
near the bottom of his cloak, the cannon's sole damage to his person, he
was unscathed.
He marched forward, tromping right over Shiro's inert metal form (an
internal "panic button" had shut the robot down after its humiliating
defeat), and stopped at the foot of the dais. Glaring to one side of
the desk high above, his gaze fixed on the Kingpin, and his voice once
more rumbled from every direction. "Mr. Fisk ... you will surrender
quietly, I trust."
His thick eyebrows were knotted low in obvious displeasure, but
Wilson Fisk nodded affirmatively.
"Thank you." Hammer's eyes turned, and Ginrei shuddered under their
scrutiny. "As for _you_," he hissed, letting the sentence hang.
She gasped as he leaped forward, taking the full ten steps with a
single hop. Her stare followed him from his effortless launch to his
inhumanly smooth touchdown, mesmerized by the faint glow of his eyes
like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
Ginrei swallowed hard and looked up at him, trying to contain her
fear, and not succeeding in the slightest. "So ... wh-what would you do
with me, then?" She tried to step back, but only succeeded in pushing
herself against her desk. She saw the corners of his eyes seem to curl
slightly, but his scarf concealed the cause of that -- was it a scowl of
rage, or a cold, mirthless smile?
"Ginrei Ishikawa," his voice growled. "You have plotted to take the
life of a just and honest man. In the course of doing so, you have
spent an entire week threatening the life of a girl in the joy of her
youth, taunting her, worrying her needlessly when she should have been
playing and enjoying her budding life. Against her will, you removed
her and her best friend from their rightful education, causing her
needless anguish and frightening her parents with her absence." He
gathered the front of her vest with one hand, pulled her closer (and
completely off her feet) and added, just a little more intensely, "That
was _extremely_ rude."
Ginrei was so busy being afraid that she didn't even see the irony of
that statement. "A-and ... what is your j-judgment? Will you ... will
you kill me?"
Without warning, he leaped from the dais, still holding her by the
collar of her vest, which proved far sturdier than it would have seemed
otherwise. Ginrei cried out in surprise, punctuating with a final
"oof!" when they landed on the floor. Hammer's burning eyes turned to
pierce hers once more, and she wondered what terrors he had in store.
"Your behavior toward these two young girls has been uncouth, ill-
mannered, and _inexcusable_." His grasp on her relocated to the back of
her collar as he spun her around; then, abruptly, she was freed from his
grasp, and his hands carefully smoothed out her vest. "But rather than
inflict any sort of retribution upon you," he continued, "I'd prefer you
to make amends yourself."
Looking down, Ginrei found herself face-to-face with little Nene
Romanova, who smiled brightly back at her, and Usagi Moone, who seemed
more baffled than ever by the goings-on.
Hammer pointed down at the girls and issued his command:
"You will now ... APOLOGIZE."
Ginrei blinked.
Indignant, she whirled on the dark avenger. "_What_?!"
"I didn't stutter," he growled.
Ginrei's retort died somewhere between her brain and her throat, as
the force of his voice, combined with the faint glow of his eyes under
the shadow of his slouch hat, rather quickly reminded her just who was
in charge of this situation. She glanced down toward the girls, then
toward Hammer, then toward the girls again, then back toward Hammer.
"If ... if I refuse?" she stammered.
"Oh, that would be _bad_," he rumbled in a voice that all but grinned
on its own.
Ginrei continued to glance around, looking for some sort of option
that could save her dignity, but knowing there was no such thing -- not
so long as HE was there.
"Go on," he said encouragingly, in a deep mockery of her own smug
taunt from earlier that day. "And say it like you mean it ... or you'll
have to do it over."
Nene folded her arms over her chest, her foot impatiently tapping the
carpet. "I'm waaaaitiiiing," she sang softly.
Resigned to her fate, Ginrei faced the two girls and drew a breath.

"Hammer!"
The call distracted Martin from his silent, satisfied vigil, watching
Ginrei Ishikawa and Wilson Fisk being led, with no struggle, into the
police van. The Dragon had already made her threats to him to avenge
the "unspeakable humiliation" he'd put her through, swearing that she
would have her revenge, if not by her own hands, then by those of her
children or her children's children. He'd brushed it off rather
flippantly, since he knew she didn't have any children yet (and seemed
unlikely to do so), which had incensed her all the more, at the time.
Now, with the police and the newsfolk all around, Ginrei was the picture
of calm. The Kingpin, by contrast, just glowered as he was marched off
-- no threats, no posturing, just a silent, if unhappy, admission of
defeat. For that much, at least, he had Hammer's respect.
The voyage out of the office complex had taken a little time, since
Hammer'd paused to wrap up a couple loose ends. One of them came in the
form of a short scientist who identified himself as Dr. Tym; he quite
startled Hammer with the revelation that the defunct war-robot had a
human brain inside it. The Doctor seemed relieved that it had seen no
more than two minutes of actual on-line time before shutting down in
what amounted to mortified embarrassment. The other delay was taken
care of fairly quickly by a stop at the 100th floor, where Hammer
recovered and untied a mildly cheesed Mary Blue.
He now turned to find Lieutenant Zenigata leading the Romanovas,
along with two other parently-looking people he didn't recognize.
"MOM! DAD!" Usagi bolted from her place beside Hammer and Nene,
dashed across the open space provided by the small police blockade, and
threw herself into the embraces of the pair of dark-haired adults
following Katsu -- the Moones, apparently, though Martin wondered where
Usagi got her brilliant blond hair if those were her parents.
Mr. and Mrs. Romanova, meanwhile, rushed past Katsuhiro to similarly
greet Nene, falling to their knees as she happily accepted their
welcome.
"Hi! Mom, Dad, gosh, I missed you so much!"
"Nene, we were so worried about you when they told us you'd been
taken from the school!"
"Are you all right? They didn't hurt you, did they?"
Nene laughed. "I'm okay, I'm okay! It was scary, but I wasn't
afraid. I knew Hammer would come for me." She turned, craning her neck
to smile up at Martin. "He'd never let me down."
Martin's smile turned sheepish. "Well, just make sure that courage
of yours doesn't flag after tonight, Nene. In a couple days, you're
going to have to face the scariest things of all." He bent down
slightly, and, in a low voice with a stage-whispering hand, he
explained, "_Lawyers._"
Nene, of course, giggled.
Mr. Romanova stood and spoke. "Hammer, I must confess that I had my
doubts about you, when Lieutenant Zenigata called and told us you'd let
little Nene be captured by Ishikawa's gang."
"Doubts?" Mrs. Romanova added, still holding her daughter. "I was
scared to death! Poor Nene and Usagi in the hands of those monsters!"
Mr. Romanova nodded. "However, I can see now that her faith in you
was more than well-justified." He bowed deeply, then extended a hand.
"Thank you, Hammer, for saving my daughter."
Martin smiled, returning the bow and accepting the hand with a firm
shake. "You're quite welcome, Mr. Romanova. And, might I add, you are
the father of an exceptional young girl -- she proved extremely helpful
in her own rescue."
"Oh, go on," Nene said, blushing.
The elder Romanovas glanced at each other, not sure what to make of
that comment. Before they could ask about it, though, their attention
was caught by a commotion of pointing and startled murmurs from the
crowd behind the police line, and, indeed, from several of the officers
present. Everyone turned, looking skyward. Martin and Nene smiled at
the sight.
A sleek, silvery form descended from the sky. It seemed, by all
appearances, to be a late 20th century Terran groundcar -- a DeLorean,
to be precise, right down to the "DMC" logo on the forward grille. Its
wheels swiveled from their perpendicular, downward-pointing positions to
the more conventional sideways positions, and it landed with a light
bounce, a perfect four-point touchdown.
The whine of its flight engine died down, and the gull-wing doors,
another distinguishing feature of the DeLorean, lifted open. Two people
stepped out; from the car's left, a young-looking medium fellow of
Chinese descent, seemingly just into his college years, and from its
right, an even younger-looking, smaller woman with fluffy, intensely red
hair.
Both wore Thunder Force uniform jackets.
"See what I mean, Eiko?" the man said. "All you have to do is look
for signs of big trouble, and chances are he's right in the middle of
it."
"Yeah, he's a magnet for that sort of thing," Eiko chuckled.
Martin grinned. "So are you two gonna insult me all night, or are
you gonna say hello?"
"Great Scott, Marty!" the man bellowed in a Christopher Lloydish
voice as he and the woman strode forward. "No need to get your
transistors in an uproar, we're coming already!"
Eiko reached him first, hopping up into his embrace, forcing him to
step back to keep his balance as they collided. "We missed you, Diggy."
"I missed you, too, Little One," he replied quietly.
Pearson looked at the Romanovas. "I see you've made some new enemies
while we weren't around to stop you."
Hammer put Eiko down on her feet. "Actually, I did, but they've
already left in a police van. I'd like you two to meet Alexei and Lucia
Romanova ... and their daughter, Nene." The Romanovas nodded, bowed
slightly, and smiled, unsure of what to say beyond the basic greeting.
Doc's eyebrow arched at the name, and Martin saw what looked like a
smile of recognition on his face, but didn't think much of it -- this
was Doc's first visit to New Japan, after all.
"Hi there!" Eiko immediately bent down to smile at the little girl.
"You're Nene?"
Nene nodded, her face beaming with an ear-to-ear smile. "Mm-hmm!
And you're Eiko Magami! That's 'Doc' Mui with you, right?"
Eiko blinked, surprised. "Uh ... yeah, that's us, all right! But
... how'd--"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Martin interrupted. "I forgot to mention -- Nene,
here, is the President of the Thunder Force Fan Club, New Japan branch."
Pearson also bent down, crowding Eiko a little to one side; Nene'd
grabbed his attention by correctly pronouncing his name on the first
try. "We've got a fan club, now?" His head shook in a 'somehow, that
figures' fashion. "First the action figures, then the licensed video
games, and now the fan clubs." He counted them off on his fingers,
dangerously close to Rant Mode. "Hammer, are you sure you won't
reconsider that lip gloss contract?" he joked.
"Forget it," Martin said immediately, folding his arms. "No lip
gloss, no underwear, no insurance endorsements, and absolutely _no_
magic-card games. You can only push me so far, Doc."
"Well, yeah," the doctor mumbled, "you're just a _tad_ bigger than I
am. TSR's still miffed over that, y'know."
"Hey, their loss is Fleer's gain. Trading cards are okay; magic
cards, forget it. By the way, what took you guys so long? I thought
that pirate run was supposed to be a simple job."
"Well, no one mentioned the Elasi factor, did they?" a pretty voice
commented through Eiko, Pearson and Nene's commpins.
Martin blinked, looking a little surprised as he spoke into the air,
simultaneously transmitting his voice over the commpins' frequency.
"Elasi? I thought this had nothing to do with Elasi. Oh, and hi,
Riko."
"Hi, Marty. Actually, it turned out that 'little blockade' was a
front for a major Elasi operation. We had to pull reinforcements from
three planets to drive them off."
"Ouch. Did you figure out the purpose of the operation?"
"Yes, we did," a new voice announced over the commpins.
"Hi, Thom. You know, we're wasting a lot of time with greetings."
"You're the one who feels he has to say 'hi' to everyone. Anyway,
from what we've gathered, the Elasi were preparing to fulfill some sort
of agreement they'd reached with the Fisk-Ishikawa crime syndicate. It
seems they were going to assist that syndicate in their next move onto
the Salusian throneworld."
"Wait, wait, hold the phone." Martin waved his hands, quite ignoring
the fact that Thom couldn't see him. "Did you say 'Fisk-Ishikawa'?"
"That's right."
"You _knew_ about that group?"
"Have for quite some time."
"You were aware of what they were planning?"
"It's been all over the underworld grapevine for months."
Martin's hands curled into frustrated fists. "Jumping Jiminy
Christmas, I just got done tossing both Fisk _and_ Ishikawa in jail!
Why didn't you SAY something to me??"
"Well, they never ran across us before, and you didn't ask."
"Silly!" Noriko interjected.
Martin groaned, slapping a hand over his eyes and dragging it down
his face, trying to ignore the fact that everyone was laughing at him.
Eiko's laughter died as she blinked at him. "Where'd that come
from?" she queried, indicating the scarf around Martin's throat.
"Hm?" He glanced down. "Oh, this was Nene's idea. She thought I'd
look more intimidating with my mouth covered. I think she's right,
really." He pushed it up into position, furled his cape around himself,
and rumbled, "Booga booga."
Nene sighed. "Yeah, I gave up my favorite scarf _and_ lost my
favorite lunchbox in this ordeal. We'd better get some kind of damages
from those creeps to make up for it."
Martin looked down at her for a moment, and offered a smile. "Don't
worry -- I'm sure we'll work something out after the concert."
The girl's eyes widened at that final word. "C-- ... _Concert_?"
"Of course! You and Usagi -- and your parents, of course -- will
just have to be our front-row guests at the Clay Pigeons victory concert
the day after tomorrow." He looked up at the Romanovas and Moones, the
latter having joined the small crowd around the Hero Du Jour, as much
from curiosity as gratitude. "If that's all right with you, that is. I
mean, being their parents and all that."
Nene whirled and looked up at her parents with pleading eyes. "Oh,
Daddy, can we go? Please, _pleeease_?"
"I'll do all my homework without being yelled at, I promise!" Usagi
added, bargaining with her own mother and father.
Alexei chuckled, patting his daughter on the head. "Okay, okay!
I've always wanted to go to a Clay Pigeons concert, actually, but I've
never been close enough to a Thunder Force operation before."
"And now," Doc added with an irreverent half-smile, "you've been
_too_ close."
"I'll say," Mr. Moone concurred quietly, adjusting his glasses.

The concert was, to put it mildly, a roaringly successful event.
Nene's face had blushed nearly as red as her hair when the group, and
Martin in particular, performed the Def Leppard classic, "I Wanna Be
Your Hero," directly to her; she looked about ready to die on the spot
when he pulled her and Usagi up onto the stage. They giggled themselves
silly, they tried to follow Noriko through one of her dance routines,
they were each presented with a Gizmonics jumpsuit (in the proper size)
and one of Pearson's seemingly infinite supply of fishing hats, pulled
from thin air, as usual. In short, a great time was had by all.
The trial began the very next day. Martin sat with Nene in the
courtroom, and she fell asleep leaning on his side, providing the press
with an unmistakable photo op. The image of that moment made its way to
both the evening news and the next morning's newspaper. She was called
to testify on the third day of the proceedings, and did quite well for
herself, not even flinching in the face of what nearly turned into a
hostile cross-examination. When she was finally allowed to step down,
she had every right to be proud of herself, and Martin told her so.
Unfortunately, duty called soon enough, and Thunder Force had to
leave. Nene tried to return the commpin, but Martin told her to keep
it, with his promise that, when she needed him, he'd be there. With
warm hugs and farewells all around, the group returned to the Righteous
Indignation and the Tarawa and prepared to go.
Minus Martin, who said he had one last errand to run.

Batwing's engines howled eerily as it streaked low above the treetops
of a vast, familiar forest, leaves and branches thrashing in its wake.
Its transponder was turned off, and all stealth measures were presently
engaged; where it was going, it wanted no one to follow.
In the cockpit, Hammer idly watched the landscape race past him. He
knew roughly where to look to find his quarry, but hadn't committed the
exact location to memory. Still, he was certain he'd find it soon.
In fact, there it was now.
Batwing's main thrust went dark as its retro-boosters flared briefly,
and the VTOL-thrust came to life as well. A clearing opened in the
forest below, like an improbable hole in an ocean of trees. The black
plane slowed and came to a halt just above tree-level, eclipsing the
only object in the clearing: a Valkyrie starfighter.
With a quiet hiss drowned out by the nearly-as-quiet sound of its
engines, Batwing's canopy slid forward. Hammer pulled himself out of
his seat, stepped toward the front of the cockpit, and hopped down,
falling between the forward edges of the plane's wings. He landed
gently, right behind the transparent blister of Eight-Ball One's canopy.
He looked around, scanning the clearing. It was empty, as before,
save for himself and the fighter beneath him.
His hands vanished into his cape for a moment. When they emerged,
one was holding a newspaper clipping and a photograph; the other, a
notepad and a razor-point pen. He sat down on the Valk's fuselage, put
everything but the pad and pen into his lap, took the pen in his right
hand, and scribbled briefly on the pad.
He scanned the finished note, and nodded with finality. He capped
the pen, tore the top sheet from the pad, and put the pad and pen back
into his cape. His hand seemed to fish around inside the cape for a
moment; when it re-emerged, it was holding a heavy-duty refrigerator
magnet with the Thunder Force insignia on one face. Collecting the
note, clipping and photo together into a thin stack, he held the entire
collection against the side of the fuselage, just below the canopy.
With a satisfied snap, he let the magnet affix itself to the plane, near
the top-center of the note.
Hammer smiled knowingly to himself and leaped into the sky. Within
moments, Batwing was once again streaking off across the forest; when it
was a safe distance away, the ebony plane angled up and shot skyward,
and beyond.
A slight breeze flowed through the clearing, causing the note to
rustle in its place, as if impatient to be found and read:

G -

Hope you're okay. If you ever tire of the
hermit's life, keep an eye out for this girl,
Nene. She's bright, but she's going to get in
heaps of trouble when she grows up -- I can
feel it in my bones.

'Til all are one,
- H

--
The High Diggy-Hoek of Chihuahua-Wala Land (or Martin Rose, if you must)
--------------------------- mfr...@umcc.umich.edu ---------------------------
Truth is stranger than Fiction ---------------- Stupid is a boundless concept
The Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies: Ann Arbor Division