Not another BGC Self-Insertion... "Yours Truly 2032"
Dartz
waffled mindlessly on topic, as I'm known to do. I really can be a git
for the filibusters and such but... darn...
Anyway, I've been scratching away at this since about April or so.
It's done in First person perspective, and I won't even try to deny
that it's been influenced by some of the more famous fics out there.
I'm trying to do a bit different, by bringing in elements of Stephen
King's Dark Tower series... which I'm somewhat partial to.... and
there is also the slight hitch that "I" am a boomer model, with all
the boons and busts thereof. Especially bust.. the only one that made
sense was a 33-S... from a GM standpoint, giving PC's a body with guns
and armour is a no-no.
Basic plot is... for some reason, Tet corporation has seen fit to
transplant "me" into Megatokyo, in the year 2033, with the full
intention of me being nudged into joining the Knight Sabers. Their
reason for doing so is a mystery, for the time being. But, for the
time being, "I" end up getting entagled with Irene, get caught in a
high-speed pursuit, and nearly get killed on my first night in the
city. Mason finds some of the BGC DvD's I happened to have with me,
but not all of them... and Irene has to be helped out of the city
somehow....
There's 2 chapters of it up on mediaminer/fanfiction.net, with a
slight character encoding issue, and more typo's than'd probably be
acceptable. You can find those here:
http://www.mediaminer.org/fanfic/view_st.php/161677
I have a Third ready to go, in .doc format, dealing with getting Irene
out of the city, but it's just as typo spattered as the rest of 'em.
I'm kinda hoping to find someone out there who'se willing to preread
this before I post it somewhere. I won't past it here, it's about 74
pages short, so she's a bit of a monster. I'll email it to you, if you
just drop me a line.
Some additional waffle about future plot directions involving Genaros,
Sylive and Anri can be found at the link below, but you'll have to
register to read it. Stupid forum:
http://z14.invisionfree.com/The_Fanfiction_Forum/index.php?showtopic=14935&st=0
I can copy some of it here if people would like, but I really don't
like dumping massive text-files onto people.
Thankee Sai
-Dartz
Dartz
dumps. Antagonist done prereading getting rid of the majority of my
typing indiscretions. Still a bit iffy about the sheer size of the
thing, and it wasn't even written with usenet in mind, so formatting
might get a bit ewey... Let's see what we get anyway. Trimmed due to
character limitations.
Big Thank You to Antagonist, who needled me into actually posting this
here, and himself and the folks at TFF for taking a look see over
this. Don't be afraid. It won't bite. Much.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yours Truly, 2032
Yet another BubbleGum Crisis SI, in the traditional form
Bubblegum Crisis....(c) Artmic/Youmex.
I'm just borrowing this for a while, for some Fair Deal fun.
Mmmkay?
3: Riders on the Storm.
----->>
Work didn't give me much time to think, and for that I was thankful. I
didn't get any extra pay for covering for Priss, but I was able to get
the time off. As Ken always said, “Never refuse your landlord”
That and he owed me one for covering on such short notice. I still
hadn't decided whether I was actually going to use it or not. I'd be
down 2-3 days pay, at least, though time off to rest would be nice.
I'd been hoping to do some of the monthly checks and maintenance an
artificial body demanded on Sunday, maybe I could get that done
sooner.
33-S were maintenance free in theory only. GENOM released software
updates on the last Friday of the month and I was a few months behind.
There was also some contamination of my bloodstream thanks to the city
air, but nothing serious and I needed to add some metals to my diet.
It was really an excuse to laze around in my nightwear for a day,
rather than go shopping for food, do laundry, or any of the other
necessities of life.
I had the whole weekend off work now to do all of that.
I still hadn't decided if I was going to take Sylia's offer or not. A
million yen was a lot of money, and I wanted to get Irene out of the
city.... but what I wanted didn't really matter when it came to
risking my neck and the life I was starting.
Friday morning and I still hadn't decided for sure.
My goal was to get home... and I was slowly scratching together the
price of a plane ticket. Maybe six months, a year and I'd have what I
needed. Just because this wasn't my universe, or whatever, didn't mean
it wasn't my home. It was the closest I'd get for the time being
anyway, barring a random door on a beach.
A million yen would do it in a heartbeat. A weekend's work for 10,000
€, or thereabouts? That'd be First class return flights all the way
there and back. Why back to MegaTokyo? In case I didn't like what I
found when I got home, that's why. I had a life of sorts here, and I
didn't want to strand myself away from it. I may have been a little
homesick, but I did like living here.
Do I really want to risk that life entirely, though?
I didn't have any useful skills, not from a high-tech vigilante
standpoint anyway. I didn't have Sylia's leadership or Priss' combat
abilities. I didn't have Nené's hacking and computer skills, or
Linna's agility and grace. My technical knowledge was two decades out
of date... except with regards to 33-S boomers.... my riding skills
were marginal, and I'd never fired a gun in my life.
Yeah... I was genre-savvy enough to know that I'd be the redshirt...
I'd be going along only to show just how dangerous the situation was
for the main characters by snuffing it. While Sylia might be genuine
in her intentions, the universe would have its own ideas.
And then I realised I was just being paranoid and stupid...
forgetting that this wasn't some OVA series, but a living, breathing
world where I lived.
Repeat ad nauseum.
That was all I could think about for most of Friday. It was a never
ending loop, hogging more and more of my processing time, and giving
me headaches.
Truth was, I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I spent my life
taking the safe path, and I was content with that. Here I was, doing
the same thing... settling into the same routine day in and day out.
I was a completely different person, living a new life in a new
universe. I could change every single thing about myself, and who I
was. Meg Deckard had no history, no life before May 28th 2032. People
would kill for this sort of opportunity, a chance to be a new person,
a chance to make some changes in the very fabric of who I was.
I had a blank sheet of paper to write my future on.
The face I saw in the mirror was different, but I was still doing the
same things, making the same choices. I wanted to say mistakes, but I
genuinely didn't see them as such. I wanted to do something different,
but 'different' was dangerous, and danger was bad.
Story of my life really. And there I was, writing it again... almost a
carbon copy...only the names and places were different. So why didn't
I do the safe thing that first night and run as far away from Irene as
possible?
If I'd done the 'safe thing', I'd probably be sleeping in a back alley
with no roof over my head with only a bike and an empty petrol tank
for company...or much worse. I took the risk, and was rewarded for it,
with a house, a job, and a start at life. Of course, I nearly got
myself killed... and then my mind circled right back to the start
again.
It was 5 o'clock on Friday afternoon, and I'd just finished dinner. As
usual, some of it had gotten stuck in my canines, but I'd worked out
an easier and less painful way of getting it out. Instead of poking it
out with toothpicks, I stood over the sink, set the tap running, and
blasted my teeth clear with a high pressure spray of blood. It wasn't
more than a few millilitres, but it did the job.... even if
perfluorocarbons tasted like steel mixed with sickening chemical
disinfectant.
Something about what I'd just done though, made me pause. Watching the
almost pink liquid swirl around the drain, drying a few stray drops
off of my lips, I thought of Sylvie and Anri.
I felt strangely guilty, and I wasn't sure why.
Because I am free now...
I am free too. Freer than I should be.
Suddenly I switched to a different tack.
What do I most want to do? What would be the best ending for me?
I almost berated myself for going back to the whole 'this isn't a TV
show' train of thought. But, if 'all the world's a stage' as the Bard
once wrote, and we're just characters acting out a story for some
sadistic God's amusement, what do I have to do to get the best ending
for myself, to fulfil what was most important to me at that moment?
Then I had my answer.
----->>
There was the Lady633, glittering in the early evening sun, the glass
walls of Sylia's penthouse reflecting the streets below, the heavy
evening traffic clogging everything up...as usual. I'd been standing
across the road from The SilkyDoll for nearly ten minutes watching the
odd customer take a break from their rush home, wondering if I really
was making the right choice here.
I could see shadows moving around inside, filtering through lace
bodices and satin nightgowns.
18:43:37
I swallowed my dinner again, for the second time in as many minutes. I
want to do this. I want to help Irene. I want to get enough money to
go home. And the way to do that was across the road and through that
revolving door.
Alright, here goes nothing.
Just try not to get run over crossing the road. Traffic had ground
right to a halt. Just watch for bikers filtering, or anybody making a
jump for a lane, and done. I stood right in front of the door,
desperate not to throw up. A granny... who looked old enough to
remember World War 2...shuffled out, with what looked like a pink lace
nightie in her bag. She gave me a mischievous wink and the devil's own
grin, before hobbling off to wherever she wanted to go.
The underwear makes the woman, huh?
I still didn't get it.
I tried to picture myself wearing some of the things in the window,
but my body in anything remotely lacy just seemed hilariously
inappropriate. My usual jacket and jeans combo was fine... and what
was the point of sexy underwear if nobody would ever see it on me
anyway?
Well, swallow my fears and push through the door. I want to do
this.... I want to do this.... And the more I repeat it, the more I
believe it.
I didn't feel ashamed because I was standing in a lingerie shop, I
felt ashamed because I was standing in an expensive lingerie shop. I
felt a little like a Fiat owner in a Ferrari dealership. There wasn't
anything here I could afford. Even the bargain bucket had a label on
it with a number larger than the amount I had in my wallet.
I felt strangely small, and impossibly jealous of some jeans-wearing
woman rooting gleefully through. There was nothing like not being able
to have something to make you ache for it, even if you didn't actually
want or need it.
I forced my focus away from the racks of delicates.... I was here for
a job. Mackie was standing behind the till, looking half asleep in his
mechanics dungarees. Last chance to turn back, I told myself. I had an
escape plan. Just check the price of something, act shocked and stroll
out the door never to hear from Sylia again.
With each step, the sensible voice in my head told me that Mackie
hadn't seen me, that I could still leave. “Do you really want this
sort of life?”, it asked. “Really? No... Not really... I didn't want
to be shot at. I didn't want to get stabbed by a boomer's needle
nails, I didn't want to get blown to pieces by a grenade. I did want a
million yen. I did want to get Irene out of this city... I didn't want
that lingering on my conscience every day for the next 34 years.
Is that your final answer?
Yes!... Yes it is! I only have to do this once, just this one time,
then I'll have enough to get home, to get a new bike, and maybe make
life a little more comfortable on top of that. Just this one time...
In the same way the journey into hell always starts with just one
single step.
“Excuse me Miss, can I help you?”
“Too late!” screamed the sensible voice, a bolt of terror shooting up
my back.
I wished to God I could find some way to shut that voice up. Okay...
here I am... what was Sylia's code-phrase again? I leant down against
the counter trying to remember it. The sensible voice had changed the
bloody filename to hide it, hadn't it?
“I am looking for million yen nightgown, I was told talk you,” my
voice was shaking as I spoke. The boy mechanic's eyes were fixed at a
point a few inches below my chin, “And my face up here,” I added
deadpan, pointing to my cheekbone.
“Um...Sorry,” the boy gulped, his eyes darting up to mine.
I could sense the fires of teenage passion roaring within him,
touching off that mischievous spark lingering deep within me. I knew
what my revenge would be. I stared right into his eyes, deliberately
stoking the flames with savage glee. I could see the hot embarrassed
blush spreading across his cheeks, burning red. I knew what I was
doing and I loved it. It was my power and I would revel in it. It was
my strength, my special ability, the one thing I could do which no-one
else could. My confidence rose up behind me, power flooding my veins,
beating him down into the ground.
And I knew from personal experience that the best way to get revenge
on a teenage boy was to stoke his fires, and leave him without a fire
extinguisher. I'd been on the receiving end more than once...
“You are boy, you can not help it,” I waved it off with a polite
smile, backing off the throttle just enough so he didn't blow up.
”Now, can you help me?”
He swallowed the lust building in his body, “Sis is waiting for you,”
he stuttered, “You have to go to the stockroom and ring the bell on
the elevator,” he swallowed again, trying desperately to keep his eyes
on my face, “Just let her know you're here and what you're looking
for,”
“Thank you,” I grinned, backing everything off.
I left him there in a bad way, and with a few moments hindsight, I
felt the first butterflies of guilt begin to flutter up. Here I am
getting all hung up on how disgusting sex and stuff would be, and I
leave a teenage boy standing in a lingerie shop still burning with
lust.
I don't understand my head sometimes.
And worst of all, I was a traitor to mankind... ‘Though how could I be
a traitor if I wasn't even human anymore?‘ asked another part of my
mind. Besides, what I did to him would've worked if he'd been girl, or
if I'd been a male model. Hell, that might've been funnier... to leave
the boy with gender identity issues too.
Jesus Christ when did I get so cruel?
Surrounded by boxes of panties, I was giggling quietly into one hand
while I pressed the call button for the lift. Maybe nervousness was a
contagious disease, and the best way to get rid of it was to offload
it to some other poor sod. And just not think about it. Already a few
sharp pangs of fear were starting to bite deep, with a few more nips
when Sylia's voice answered through a small metalplate speaker.
“Stingray, who is it?” it asked in tinny, transistorised tones.
“It is Deckard,” I said, my words straining taught, “I am here for
million yen nightwear,”
“Oh Meg, I knew you'd come,” said the speaker with calm cheerfulness,
“We're all up here waiting, I'll send the elevator down to meet you,”
“Thanks,”
Oh hell....
A brick wall of apprehension slammed into me.
This was really it now. The brushed metal doors opened, a soft
electric chime beckoning me in. “Abandon hope all ye who enter here,”
I muttered to myself, stepping inside the mirror lined carriage.
My own reflections stretched off into infinity all around me, each one
illuminated by a train of spotlights, giving me headaches as my
systems tried to analyse each and every one, checking for any
potential threats. I focused my gaze dead on my shadow staring back at
me from the shot-peened door. I'm doing this... I'm really doing this.
Excitement warred with terror. I was going to see the Knight Sabers..
I was going to see the real-steel hardsuits.... I was going to get
shot at, chased and generally placed in extreme mortal peril some time
over the next three days.
And it was much too late to do anything about it.
“Bloody hell.... oh bloody hell,”
My voice was shaking like a leaf in a gale. I tried to call up that
same confident surge I'd felt when I'd 'embarrassed' Mackie... I tried
to swallow all my fears and compress them down into a little ball deep
in my stomach. I tried to be the fiery, self-confident redhead I'd
obviously been built to be.
All my fears lurched up the back of my throat, trying to spray
themselves across the door when the lift finally juddered to a halt.
My hands were shaking. Ashamed, I jammed them hard into my pockets.
Shivers and chills ran helter-skelter through my body.... and I wasn't
even in any actual danger yet.
Another electric chime, followed by the hollow rumble of the doors
splitting themselves open, and I was faced with Sylia standing there,
waiting for me. How she managed to look so elegant despite a bare
cleavage and midriff I didn't know... but God damn. It must've been
Sylia's special ability, or some sort of forcefield effect caused by
the shimmering pearls on her earrings.
“Good evening, Meg.” she greeted with incongruously cool warmth “The
rest of the team is in the living room waiting, with tea, coffee and
cakes if you'd like,”
“Thanks,” I nodded, swallowing a lump, following her through a short
hallway.
“That was very cruel what you did to Mackie, by the way,” she said
with the mildest disapproval, “He has to stay down there for another
two hours like that,”
I gave a bark of a laugh, finding the thought of the poor kid standing
there all hot and bothered in a lingerie shop, with shapely women
measuring silken delicates up against their ample figures, absolutely
hilarious. Sylia agreed with a polite alto chuckle, hidden behind her
right hand.
“Well, he will not stare again,” I stated,
“Yes, he will,”
Somehow, she seemed more at ease in her own apartment, more relaxed
and unguarded. I tried to read her again, but the only signals I got
back told me she was human, and even then I wasn't too sure about her.
There was something 'off' about her... and I still couldn't place what
it was. It wasn't like she was a cyberised human being....they were
usually more obvious... she was just different, almost on the lip of
the pheromone uncanny-valley
I glanced at a photograph hanging on the wall, of a young girl in a
polka dot sundress standing beside a scientist...who if he'd been
wearing something other than a white labcoat, might've looked like
he'd belong on stage with ELO with those sunglasses and pushbroom
moustache. I wondered if Sylia's strange signals had anything to do
with her father.... but that's the sort of question you'd never ask a
person.
I followed her into a living room smelling of polish, hot bread and
coffee, plush leather sofa's and...oddly... motorcycle exhaust. The
three women of the Knight Sabers were arrayed before me, with the
Koyaanisqatsi vista of evening MegaTokyo with its lights slowly
flickering to life as a backdrop
“....so the asshole just pulled right out on me... without even
looking,” Priss complained, “he was lucky I didn't spear through his
door, but the GP-z was a write-off. Sorry Mate I Didn't See You was
all the blind asshole had to say for himself.”
Some things, I guess, never changed. I lost my first bike the exact
same way.... two weeks after I'd gotten it.
“Well maybe you should drive slower,” piped up Nené, mouth full of
scone, “Another speeding offence and you'll be limited to whatever
speed the bus travels at,”
“Damn it” growled Priss... “And if you keep eating those scones, your
weight will limit your hardsuit's speed too.”
Sylia interrupted with a cough, placing a single hand on my shoulder.
Electricity flowed from her fingertips, and I felt my whole body tense
up with lightning fear.
“I assume you've all met Meg Deckard, she'll be joining us for this
mission. Now, if you'll take a seat Meg, we'll get started,”
The way Sylia was speaking, you'd swear she was starting a weekly book
club meeting. And that's almost what it felt like, with Nené sitting
on a couch beside a silent television in her AD Police uniform, Linna
on a single armchair with her handbag beside her, and Priss on the
other armchair wearing her crash-scarred red leathers ....and a
scuffed Shoei helmet on the floor beside her hard-booted foot.
She was glaring at me through her fringe, chilling the entire room
with her gaze.
“Hi,” I said meekly, and took the opposite end of the couch between
the ADP officer and the food. Comfy....so comfy and soft I could melt
into it.
“Don't get between Nené and the food, or she'll eat you too,” teased
Linna.
“Oh shut up will you!” snapped back the wounded policewoman, “I've had
less doughnuts in my life than you've had boyfriends in the last
week.”
The dancer turned red with rage. “I'm between stages in my life, while
you're between dress sizes...”
“Ladies,” chimed Sylia in, with a gentle tap on the brakes.
“I live alone, and get no larger” I stated... completely butchering
what I'd meant to say anyway.
“And you won't get a boyfriend if you keep wearing cheap unflattering
clothes like that denim,” jibed Linna.
I scowled, but before I could compose anything resembling a reply,
Sylia finally jammed on hard with another harsh “Ladies!” in a tone
that reminded me of a teacher I once knew.
“Now then, we can begin,”
Today's book is 'Small team tactics in an urban environment by former
SAS member Ryan McDodd' I remarked internally. I didn't dare say
that out loud, but with a little human interaction my fears had begun
to melt away. Right until Sylia pulled a screen down out of the roof
and the lights died. The windows themselves dimmed, turning almost
opaque, flooding the room with darkness before a single projector lens
in the roof whirred to life, casting the spotlight on the Knight
Sabers' leader.
“As I'm sure you all know, about a month ago, a Bu-33-C model boomer
under GENOM control made an attempt on the life of Irene Can.
Fortunately, this was foiled,” she looked down at me, her face still
as warm as if she was giving a reading from her book of the month, not
a military-style briefing to three vigilantes and a redshirt, “though
not without injury to Irene herself,”
That knot in my stomach started to return, and I crossed my legs
trying to keep it inside.
“Sometime afterwards, I was in contact with Irene's family in Hong
Kong, who requested our help extracting her from the city. We will be
receiving our standard fee for this mission, and each of you will
receive an equal percentage share, minus any equipment costs,”
I could see Linna counting it out on her fingertips, joyfully figuring
numbers in her head. Priss' eyes shone with reflected light through
her cowlick fringe like a demon's
“Originally, it was planned to be a straightforward dropoff at a
safehouse organised by the family deep in the fault, but four days
ago, I received a disturbing message from my contact in the family,
indicating that they had discovered a leak within their organisation,
and that the details of the handover, including time, date and
location had been given to GENOM,”
Somebody grumbled about security, while I retreated quietly back into
my chair and stole a scone to munch on. This was for real alright.
“Therefore, we had to modify the original plan somewhat, to account
for this. GENOM does not know we have discovered the leak yet,” her
eyes took on an almost mischievous gleam, “so we can use this to our
advantage. We plan to proceed with the original dropoff, and ambush
whatever forces GENOM sends, using it as cover, while Irene is driven
in a covert vehicle to Megatokyo international airport.”
I had a sudden terrible realisation as to why they would want a
redshirt along on this mission, a redshirt whom GENOM had descriptions
of. Terror warred with anger warred with my lunch, trying to explode
out my mouth at once. I forced it down with another mouthful of cake,
while Nené reached awkwardly across me to steal another for herself.
“With luck, she will be on her way out of the city before GENOM even
realises they've been led into an ambush.”
“We can do that ourselves, so why is Miss Ghost in the Shell here?”
asked Priss.
I'd never have thought the word Ghost could have as much venom as it
did right then. Linna was surprised, but I could tell she'd been
wondering the same thing.
“I am bait,” I said, sounding as sour as you'd expect anyone to be
about it.
“I wouldn't put it like that exactly,” said Sylia diplomatically, “
but that is essentially correct. GENOM knows Meg here has something to
do with Irene, and that motorcycle she was riding is very distinctive.
Together, they make a very trackable target.”
I sat there, chilled to the bone by how coldly cheerful she was as she
signed my death warrant. Or maybe I'd signed it myself when I agreed
to take this job in the first place.
“She's turning green,” giggled Nené.
“That's enough,” chided Sylia, “The basic plan is one of misdirection.
Mackie will drive the Silky Wagon to the hospital, with Linna in the
passenger compartment wearing her hardsuit, just in case... I've
arranged a donation of some delicates to the hospital. Meg will arrive
outside the front of the hospital with her motorcycle and wait there
for Priss, who will ride with her as pillion passenger,”
“Hey, why amn't I riding?” demanded the singer,
“Because, you look a good deal like Irene... close enough to pass for
her while wearing motorcycle leathers anyway. Besides, this is only a
case of riding from A to B, from the hospital to the safehouse, it
shouldn't require any advanced skills.” It almost seemed like Sylia
was trying to reassure me as she answered Priss' question, “With Meg
riding, and yourself as Pillion, GENOM should believe that it is Meg
and Irene on the motorcycle. With a little luck, they will ignore the
Silky Wagon.”
That made sense. Even if I was the maggot on the end of the hook. And
bullet damage wasn't covered by my manufacturer's warranty.
“Now then,” continued Sylia, “Meg and Priss will ride to the
safehouse, here at the Kilmer building in District 29,”
“Excuse me,” I chipped in as politely as I could, “What is stop GENOM
from shooting on road?”
Why wouldn't they just shoot the pair of use while we were riding? I
mean, that's rule one in the evil-genius guidebook, isn't it? 'Just
shoot 'em!'
“Nothing,” smiled Sylia, “But they have the chance to take us out, and
strike a blow against Irene's family, we can assume that's not
something they'll pass up lightly,”
I had a lovely quote about how assume makes an ass out of you and me,
but I held my tongue. Besides, the pun wouldn't translate across
languages anyway. At least Priss seemed to feel as sour about it as I
did. She had a look on her face as if I'd flared up some dark memory,
and I think I knew what it might've been.
“The safehouse itself will be empty,” Sylia carried on, “Trying to
take on combat boomers in such close quarters will be a bloodbath, it
plays too heavily to their strengths. There will be a single saferoom,
up two flights of stairs. Inside will be your hardsuit, Priss, and
some weapons and body armour for Meg in case she needs them.”
Dear God... real weapons... supersonic spinning lumps of copper-
jacketed lead, not just some airsoft plastic pellet shooters. I was in
way over my head, and sinking so deep I couldn't see the surface. I
had no hope of getting away, no hope at all. This was stupid, this has
to be the dumbest thing I've ever done. I couldn't go back now... I
couldn't walk out. The door was right there. I didn't think Sylia or
anyone would outright kill me... but at the same time, I didn't think
I'd make it through that door without a fight. With no way back, I
just had to push forward and hope I got through it.
Easier said than done.
“Irene's family will set up crossfire across the street from the tops
of the surrounding buildings. Myself and Nené in our hardsuits will
take on whatever they cannot handle,”
Nené winced.
“This should give Priss time to get ready, and Meg time to go to
ground away from the fight. Don't try to get involved,” she warned me
specifically,
I just nodded. Not a problem, definitely not a problem. Never will be
a problem.
“Meanwhile, Mackie, Linna and the Silky Wagon should have reached
MegaTokyo airport, and Irene will have boarded her flight out of the
city,”
Provided the flight isn't delayed.
“Any questions so far?” Sylia finished.
I had another scone. It helped keep my fears in my stomach, and not
all over Sylia's carpet. I didn't have any questions anyway... I
understood what I was supposed to do. The logical part of my mind
understood why Sylia had made the choices she'd made. Everything made
sense. That was the worst part of it... there was no room whatsoever
to argue my way out of it. Surprisingly though, Nené's hand popped up.
“Why can't I stay on the truck with Mackie?” she asked. “Why do I have
to take part in the ambush?”
I loved her for it. I wanted to use each and every one of my sexaroid
abilities to make her life a wondrous ride of nothing but ecstatic
pleasure from now until eternity because of it. Nené was as nervous as
I was. I could see it flickering behind her green eyes, sense it
radiating off of her body. She had as much love for being a frontline
fighter as I did.... I was so glad I wasn't alone in my feelings.
Misery loves company.
“Because I need your ECM and ECCM abilities to hide our ambush,” was
Sylia's answer. Nené just ate another scone... swallowing the
miniature cake practically whole. She was doing the same thing I was,
I guessed. The only difference being that her fears went straight to
her hips.
“Now then, let's have a cup of coffee, and we can work out the details
of this together,”
And then I learned why she'd hated my instant. Proper brewed coffee,
the real deal. It was exquisite. It helped at least keep my mind level
and centred while the five of us went through dates, times, routes and
costumes. The basic plan was pretty simple, but the devil was in the
details. Sylia's planning was impossibly meticulous... she accounted
for everything... it was astonishing, it was impressive, it was well
beyond something a normal person could do. If GENOM did attack before
the ambush, we were to make a run for it. If myself and Priss were
killed outright, the ambush would be scrubbed, but the mission would
still succeed. I shuddered quietly through that scenario. If they
didn't take the bait at all, I was to proceed as if they did. If they
started following the truck, Mackie was to drive to the ambush point,
while I'd have to run through the city at high speed to get Priss to
her hardsuit before the truck made it.
For the mission, that was the worst case scenario and that was made
clear
Sylia played each of our strengths to a tee. Priss could fight without
her hardsuit, from the back of a motorcycle if needed. Linna was
capable enough to hold her own if the truck itself was attacked, and
she knew Irene personally. Nené would keep the entire ambush hidden,
even if she couldn't hold her own in a fight and myself... I looked
noticeable, could handle an ancient dinosaur of a bike with quirky
customised controls that had puzzled Priss, and had the ultimate
virtue of being expendable. Even if Sylia had taken into account the
fact that I'd never fired a gun in my life when she'd given me a
choice of weapons.
Real guns, the real steel. Real grenades too. I'd been a bastard for
using them in Counter Strike... and while this wasn't CS in any way at
all, it was the only frame of reference I had that was in anyway close
to actual fighting. I didn't dare tell anyone how shite I used to be
at FPS's.
There was something about all the planning though, the rumination over
each and every detail...even if the other women talked about them with
the same ease as if they were discussing plot points in a novel....
that made me feel a lot more at ease with what I'd gotten myself into.
Not quite to the point of being comfortable, but close enough to the
point where I thought I might at least be able to do it. I might live
through this yet.
There was just one slight problem I had to sort out before the mission
on Monday morning, my bike needed to be repaired. Since the crash, it
had been stored in Raven's garage, down in Timex city.... and since I
was the only person alive who had half an idea just what sort of
'customisations' I'd done to the electronics of the thing, I had to
help... in between basic familiarisation with the principles of
firearm use and a few other little details.
It was well after 1am when the three Knight Sabers left... I stayed
behind for a few minutes at Sylia's request, digesting what exactly I
had just gotten myself involved in.
“So, how are you feeling, Meg?” she enquired, placing another cup of
steaming black liquid in my hands. I looked up at her for a moment,
receiving a softly compassionate smile back. Controlled and chilled
enough to make me wonder if it was genuine or not, but still welcome.
“I think Priss doesn't like me,” was all I could really say.
“She just needs to get used to you, that's all,” the leader of the
Knight Sabers told me. “I want to know how you're doing, if you still
feel capable of playing your part,”
“It's too late to back out now, isn't it?” I asked my reflection in
the coffee.
Sylia nodded gently, “But I can still try finding a way to ease any
undue burdens,”
“I'm fine,” I swallowed that lie, “Just not used to this is all,” I
took one great gulp, leaving the cup half empty. “I do feel better...
I really do,”
She didn't look like she believed that. I took a deep, calming breath,
feeling my belly quiver gently.
“You don't look fine,”
“I want to do this,” I told her. “I just don't want to die is all.”
“You won't” she stated with absolute confidence, “We rely on each
other. We protect each other, and for this mission that includes you,”
I nodded again, searching for an answer I could give.
“Thanks,” I offered eventually.
“You're welcome,”
I downed the last of the coffee and pulled myself up off of the couch.
“I better be going anyway,” I said... half hoping to avoid any more
awkward questions, “I'd like to get some sleep before tomorrow, long
day and all y'know,”
I was nervous as hell, desperate to get out of there, and it was
blindingly obvious.
“Goodbye, Meg. I'll see you tomorrow,”
And that was that.
I was on the mission. No going back. I said I was going to do it. No
way out now. It was only on the train on the way home, drenched in the
harsh fluorescent lights of the carriage, that I realised something
else:
Sylia had known what my answer would be before she'd even asked the
question.
How the hell did she do that?
That woman was a mystery, encased in an enigma, wrapped up in a puzzle
and dressed up in a very fine ladies suit. She spoke as if she had
planned out each and every thing she wanted to say, each and every
branch of the conversation.
But that was impossible.
But how else could she answer each and every question as if she'd been
expecting it? How else could she speak as if she'd spent hours
considering each and every sentence?
I suddenly felt like a sheep all over again.
----->>
I didn't go to sleep that night. Technically I didn't really need it;
I didn't get tired in the human way. Sleep still brought benefits I'd
miss, but it also brought nightmares. Interrupted sleep was worse than
no sleep... I'd learned that when I'd jumped awake one night after
being chased to my death by the ADP, to find that my heart had been
stopped while muscle in the left ventricle was regenerated.
I watched late night television, following the Polar war on one of the
late night news channels, another corporate conflict brewing in the
Philippines, Israel, Iran and Iraq tearing shades out of each other
and a UN conference chaired by an elderly Edward James Olmos and the
surviving cast of Battlestar Galactica on mankind's attitude towards
boomers, and how they had to learn the lessons hundreds of sci-fi
writers had already offered. This was followed by one Kate Madigan of
GENOM explaining just how leveraged the world's economy was on the
availability of cheap manual labour. The problem then was separating
the genuine toasters, the mannequins who gaze emptily back at you,
from the truly intelligent... like myself and other low-restriction
type-11 models. How do you legally define awareness in a boomer?
That was a puzzle the EC was spending millions to find out... spurred
by a political desire to give GENOM a boot in the hole whenever
possible and save as much traditional European industries as they
could.
Some Churches solved it by simply saying that any cyberdroid who
wished to join the church, and understood what that meant, was allowed
to do so. After all, if humanity are God's children, given life by
God, and Boomers are the 'children' of humanity, given life by man,
wouldn't that make them God's grandchildren? The soul was a matter of
faith, rather than a matter of science after all.
Tellingly though, there were no artificial Priests or Imams.
Elsewhere, Africans still starved in their millions, the Middle East
was burning since the oil-money dried up, China's economy imploded
after cheap boomer labour became common and South America only showed
up on the radar whenever there was a bloody coup somewhere. The US
presidential race between McClane and Gruber was heating up and the
most important news story of the day was how Hollywood actress' Norma
Hart's fifth marriage had broken up acrimoniously after 4 weeks.
Funny.... despite the exploding supertechnology, cybervigiliantes and
megacorporations pulling the strings, the world of 2032 wasn't really
that different to the one I'd left. Aside from the World Trade Centre
still standing in New York, and Iran and Israel being oil-and-water
allies somehow, the world was strangely similar. Decadence,
disaffection with authority, technology still running rampant and the
basic human being reduced to nothing more than a cash carrying
consumer by corporate marketing. Not so different from 2010 at all
then.
Maybe that's why I slipped into this sort of world so easily, the
world I'd been living in wasn't really that different, once you got
down to the nuts and bolts of it.
Except for GENOM, or Grievously Expensive Never Operating Mannequins,
as the more humorous observers would have it.
In many ways, GENOM defied 2010 descriptions. It was to the entire
world, what Microsoft was to PC's, Intel was to chip design, O2 was to
mobile phone networks, General Motors was to car design, Monsanto was
to agriculture, and Google was to information management and control;
and it was all of them together under the same umbrella brand of
GENOM. It was omnipresent. I was a GENOM product, built at the GPCC
centre just south of the city. Any other corporation could compete
with GENOM in one market sector... if two tried to band together and
support each other, as seemed like the logical thing, GENOM was quick
to launch antitrust proceedings, while fighting off the same
allegations itself, and disappearing its competitors out of the market
by taking embrace, extend, extinguish to deadly levels.
And I was going to be taking this monster conglomerate on…
Oh Hell.
I downloaded some software updates while I watched, feeling the
servers at some GENOM data farm somewhere nearby finger themselves
around inside my skull to determine just what sort of patching I
needed.
Lying in bed with a Cat-5 running to one arm, browsing the web inside
my head while I waited for the updates to download themselves, that
was the life. No more reading, no more scrolling through pages… the
information was there for instant comprehension.
If it hadn't have been for the popups and advertisements infecting my
thoughts, it would've been the perfect way to browse the web. I didn't
want cyber-breast enhancement surgery for one thing, and I certainly
didn't need full body prosthetics or a love life enhancement, and I
didn't want to think about it. One of those I didn't want, and two I
didn't need.
My boobs were just right. Not too soft, not firm. Not too bouncy when
I jogged so that they hurt my back. Not so stiff that they looked like
a Barbie-doll's. Just lovely, warm, sensitive and snuggly.
What I needed was some sort of instant combat skills download, maybe
Eddie Lawson riding skills, and something to put between the muzzle of
a gun and my vulnerable flesh that might actually have a chance of
stopping a bullet.
“No flag has ever stopped a bullet, from a gun,”
I laughed at my attempt at Phil Lynott. The air-conditioner answered
with a click, a pop, and a fizz as it died once more.
Well, at least I'll be doing something different, I suppose.
And the more I thought about it, the safer I felt. If everything went
well, I wasn't supposed to have to fire a shot… just cover Priss for
about a minute while she gets her hardsuit ready, then hide in the
saferoom. The enemy wasn't even supposed to reach the building….
They'd be dead before they reached the front door, all going well.
I had to cover 1 door for 1 minute with 1 idiot-proof gun…
Seemed almost easy.
Provided the enemy took the bait. Provided they didn't just shoot us
on the bike. Provided the ambush went off perfectly…. Provided a lot
of things….
This is so fucking screwed up. Maybe I can get away with just not
getting out of bed in the morning? At least I only had to worry about
it for the next 2 days.
I clicked the news off, and set off channel hopping, looking for
something to distract my mind. Funny, hentai just wasn't interesting
anymore when you knew it would void your warranty, or that you could
do better without the tentacles. Next…Talk show, Neon Genesis
Evangelion reruns, ADP on the beat, Sazae-san, TT-rerun, a programme
on boomer development, GENOM advertisements about assembling
prosperity, and so on…
Fuckall worth watching.
3:27:49 am…
I'd normally only be getting in from work at that time
I'm going to miss that cash.
----->>
The trip to Raven's was a pain in the arse, to put it mildly. Take a
bus to a train station that's on the right line, a train halfway
across the city, another bus down into the depths of the fault and a
ten minute walk through the junk-ridden decrepit backstreets of Timex
city.
It's not somewhere I'd've walked through at night, anyway.
The fault was more like a forge, even in mid-morning. I didn't know if
it was because the fault was closer to hell, or because the sun glared
straight down the length of the canyon, but the heat seemed to flow
down into the trench and stay there. The air was stagnant and still,
dust and smog pooling down from the city above and flooding the air.
Not even the shadows gave relief from the blazing heat. It oozed from
every building, from every rubblepile, from every passing car.
Hot, humid and hellish.
Even with my jacket tied around my waist and a light t-shirt, I was
still drowning in sweat. I flapped my t-shirt against my stomach
trying to generate some form of cooling draft. All I did was remind
myself that thermodynamics couldn't be beaten.
My body temperature held still at 39.2 degrees... that was about
normal for a 33-S... It made me feel warmer to the touch, and more
comforting. It also meant I suffered in the heat a little more. At
least I had a way of cooling off, in heat like this mannequins started
to cook their biochips. Hot days were busy days for the ADP. To
underline the point, sirens raced through the city, barely a mile
away.
Maybe the garage itself will be airconditioned?
Fat chance...
The building I found, I nearly passed because it looked almost
abandoned. The sign above said “Raven's”, but it didn't look like
anybody'd cleaned it in years. It might once have been a shining
stainless steel, but was dirt streaked and rain stained by years of
city pollution.
According to the graffiti on the yellowed walls, Bango Skank was here,
but then he was everywhere in this city, only Kilroy had been in more
places. The shutters were up, but I couldn't see much inside, the view
was blocked by some truck with a wrecked black sportscar on the back.
It might once have been an impressive looking thing, a little like
what you'd imagine the demon lovechild of a Ferrari Enzo and a
Lamborghini Murcielago would look like... with bigger wheels and six
massive exhausts out the back... but the whole front end had been
smashed flat, windows shattered, gouges torn into the roof and the
doors ripped clean through by something that might've been the Jaws of
life. It didn't look like the sort of smash you'd walk away from, it
looked like something out one of those Australian ad's....
“Just let me know if it can be fixed, Doctor, that's all,” said the
truck's driver.
“Well, I don't know,” another voice answered from the other side of
the truck, older and more seasoned. “If it was anybody else I'd say
part it out and sell the rest as scrap, but I know what that car means
to you, Gibson... I'll take a look at it, but no promises.”
Gibson? I looked up over the back of the truck, above the cars gaping
exhausts.
Griffon II – Super-GT
Wow.
Somebody's on the road to revenge alright. I felt a giddy surge of
adrenaline, finding the whole situation far funnier than it should've
been. The truck's engine clagged to life, and I was engulfed by a
sudden belch of black diesel soot. Coughing and blinded, I staggered
to the footpath, bracing myself against the 'A' in Bango Skank for a
moment. My blood contamination went up three points... thanks a lot
for that.
I first saw the Nobel Prize winner's back, as he guided the truck
around, helping the driver back it into his shop. His hair was
thinning at the top, long, oil-matted like his overalls, and strangely
reminiscent of Emmet Brown. I didn't say anything right away, just
watched and waited at the far end of the building, admiring some of
the cars up on the lifts.
One of them looked like a standard family minivan... but the entire
back end had been ripped out, seats carpeting, and all, there was
nothing left but the basic chassis with what looked like a turbo-
compound V8 engine lined up and ready to go into the empty space. The
blades of the secondary turbines were exposed and shining back at me.
That thing is going to be one hell of a Q-car.
A piston engine, with a turbine to recover power from the exhaust.
Wow. Bleed air was taken from behind the turbine's compressor, so it
also served as a turbocharger, with the driveshaft spun by the exhaust
gases being coupled to to the main engine through some sort of
gearbox.
“That's brilliant,” I commented to myself.
“Thanks Miss....,” A voice interrupted my mechanical reverie,
“Deckard, Meg Deckard,” I finished for him.
“Ah, Sylia's new recruit,” said the Doctor, “She told me you'd be here
today,”
“I am only temp, not recruit,” I corrected.
“That's what the last one said,” he remarked, giving a wry smile
through his grey moustache. “Doctor Elijah Raven, at your service
ma'am,” he took my hand, and gave it a surprisingly firm shake. “My
friends call me Doctor, my customers call me Doctor Raven, and the
bane of my existence calls me 'Pops'.” he finished with a gruff huff.
I laughed. I liked him immediately.
“Now then,” he paused for a second, “Would you care to indulge an old
man's scientific curiosity?”
“Huh?” I blinked, sideswiped
“Just hold out your left arm... please,”
I wasn't sure what he wanted. What I got back from my senses was that
it really just was a genuine curiosity, he didn't seem to be hiding
anything. Cautiously, I held out my arm, ready to snatch it back just
in case.
“Thanks,” I watched him delicately grip my wrist in one hand, rubbing
his fingers across my skin. He pressed down right where my data port
should've been, and smiled. “It's remarkable,” he mumbled to himself
“Totally lifelike,”
“I am not 'it'” I stated, offended.
“I meant your skin,” he corrected, “I can feel a pulse and everything,
muscle, bone and sinew, no sign of any mechanics. You're a fine piece
of work, it's a shame GENOM don't build biomimetic types any more,
they were always more pleasant to deal with.”
He found out! A thrill of terror ran through my body, and I snatched
my hand back as if from a boiling pot. Raven just chuckled dryly to
himself.
“Don't worry,” he assuaged with a wave of his hand, “Sylia told me
what you are, the whole truth. She asked me to give you a full service
over the weekend,”
If anybody walking past heard that, and didn't know what I was....
they'd get the wrong idea. I laughed again.
“Service service service!” I announced gleefully to the crows pecking
at the bins.
“What?” blurted the doctor, wrongfooted by my sudden announcement “Not
that sort of service!”
I just answered with an impish giggle, hugging myself, before the wind
dropped out of my sails.
“Sorry,” I said, “I live alone... and it gets a little boring,”
“I'll bet,” he snorted “Anyway, the bike's through in back. I was
surprised to see something that old show up, how the hell did you keep
that running?”
I shrugged, “BMW reliable not need much fix,”
“Except for the electrics... I don't know what you did to it, but
nothing matches the original diagrams anymore. I could spend weeks
figuring it out, but we have until Monday morning to get it done and
ready, so lets get started,”
Truth be told, I wasn't quite sure what I did to it either. I just
sort of got it running, then wired more and more things back in until
they worked and called it done. Then added a CD player, a 5v USB-ish
power source and audio jack for my MP3, some extra gauges....something
that might've once been an eePC...
I could see why a Nobel prize-winner couldn't figure it out... he was
probably assuming there was some sort of logical scientific pattern
behind it.
“Should be simple enough,” I lied through my teeth.
He gave me the dirtiest look, as if he knew how big that lie was.
“Just follow me, and don't touch anything!” he warned.
I wouldn't dream of it. Definitely not touching the workstation
computer that pre-dated the laptop in my bag. Not touching the face of
Alfred Nobel himself, watching over the entire shop, framed by
pictures of people I'd never seen.... except for one young girl,
another scientist, and a silver haired woman who looked a lot like
Sylia, but not quite.
The Garage was a grotto of bikeparts, carparts, boomer parts, assorted
gubbins, smelling of grease, steel, sweat, and gasohol. It was truly a
man's paradise. There was a car parked in the corner, wedge shaped
with a glint of silver off of its body panels.
“Is that...” I swallowed. “Is that really a DeLorean?”
“Yes,” answered the Doctor...
“Gre..”
“And Don't say Great Scott! Or I'll transplant your AI into a coffee
maker!” he headed that one off.
Great Scott,, my mind whispered. Great Scott...my throat tightened.
Great Scott... my face turned cherry read. Great Scott... my lips
pursed. I whimpered and whined like a strangled puppy. I just couldn't
kill the process.....
“The most excellent leader of the British attempt on the South Pole
who was beaten to the Pole by Amundsen and died on the way back” I
whispered
“What?”
“Never mind,” I waved it off.
“That's probably the best response I've heard so far to that,” he
commented calmly. “I'm surprised a 3 year old Boomer would even know
such an obscure cultural reference,”
“Back to the Future is not obscure,” I replied... it was as popular in
2010 as it had ever been.
“It is, if you're under 40,” said Raven, “Perhaps...” he thought,
rubbing at his chin “It might be the brain-image AI”
“A what?”
I paused for a moment, suddenly hit by an extremely unpleasant
thought, depending on just what this brain-image meant. The doctor
stopped in his tracks, a solemn expression on his face as he turned
towards me. Gibson was unloading his Griffon at the far end of the
garage, servomotors whining with the strain.
“I've said too much, Miss... I'm sorry.” he bowed ever so slightly, “I
have the bike out back waiting and we need to get started,”
A few moments of silence.
“Please tell me more,” I requested, my voice almost a monotone.
He sighed, “GENOM developed a way to copy the contents of a human
brain onto an artificial one some time ago, as their competitor to
cyberbrain technology. They called it Ghost-dubbing. It's a banned
process now, for the simple reason that it killed the original human.
It's how they made the 33-S AI, using terminal-patient volunteers.
Normally, they erased any original sense of identity the AI retained,
but it seems you might've kept some of yours,”
I nearly collapsed to the floor beneath the weight of it, before my
auto-balancers kicked in.
“I'm not that person anymore,” I stated, my voice like jelly, “What
does it matter if I never was?”
He gave me the strangest look, as if wondering what I meant by that
exactly. I felt tears well up, but I held them back. My mind started
spinning through the possibilities a lot of them centring on Tet's
explanation of how I got here.
“Self identity can be a difficult subject in a world where even the
human mind can be treated as nothing more than data,” Raven said,
drawing a deep, solemn breath,
“What did Sylia tell you about me?” I asked, swallowing another lump.
My stomach must've been full of nothing but lumps at this stage.
“Quite a bit,” he admitted “Quite a bit of which she asked me not to
discuss with you, for the sake of your own stability”
I gave a dubious groan
“Well...” I started, “My name is Meg Deckard, whatever else I may be,
that's the person I am. And if I die today, that's the man I'll be”
I don't think I quite matched the delivery, but it was enough to
distract me away from a very dark place.
“What does dying have to do with anything?” the good doctor betrayed a
lack of research in relevant TV sources.
“Never mind,” I waved it off again.
“Anyway, there's the bike,” he pointed to some amorphous tarpaulined
shape, “Structurally it's fine, the crash bars did their job. The
forks and handlebars are bent, the silencer is gone, and one of the
mirrors got ripped off.” What could be expected really, “Fitting a new
front end would normally be pretty uncomplicated, but that's a bird's
nest of wires to work through.”
“Sorry about that,” I blushed slightly,
“Tell that to yourself, you're working through it all while I rebuild
and reprogram the fuel injection system,”
It suddenly seemed like I'd gotten the easier of the two jobs. I took
a deep, calming breath, “Well, how do start?”
“With little steps. First, we take the tarpaulin off,”
----->>
6 hours later, and Raven had not only removed the injection
controller, but also the ignition controller from under the fuel tank,
all sensors from the engine and the original fuel pump and rail along
with the injectors. He was a flurry of wrinkled hands, and anecdotes
about decade old motorcycles and petrol.
In the same amount of time, I managed to drain the front brakes, and
figure out that I really should've labelled everything when I built
it. I sat there muttering as I worked through the lot of it with a
multimeter. I didn't remember doing any of it.
And because a bunch of it had to go under the fuel injection modules,
Raven couldn't finish his parts until after I did. And then it would
take God-knows how long to program it. These things were supposed to
take weeks to do, and we had to do it in two days.
“This is never going to get done,” I told myself, despondently.
16:12:54
Separate out a cable, check for resistances between two points. Open
circuit, so that doesn't connect to that. So what does? Sit there
wondering about it, wiping a greasy hand across my brow to clear the
sweat. Try again with a different cable of the same colour. Ask myself
why I was too cheap to buy the right colour cables. Open circuit,
wrong cable again. Give it a frustrated thump. Repeat a few more times
for good measure.
“This is never going to get done,” I told myself, despondently....
again
16:17:12
I hated myself for dropping this on myself. What was I always told
about software coding? What was I always told about design in
university? Document….document…. document…. And then document your
documentation just to be sure.
I sighed and sat back down on the concrete floor.
I needed coffee. Lots of coffee. Regular Boomers may be built for
mindless repetitive tasks, but I sure wasn't. I didn't mind being
dirty and greasy too much… it'd wash off. I didn't mind the smell of
WD-40, real petrol, and brake fluid either…. It was a good mechanical
smell, a strangely satisfying and functional smell
But I hate this.
Picking through fiddly little cables.
I really hate this.
Alone and without help, without mental diversion
I could hear the comings and goings in the shop out front, the whine
of an airgun, a clatter of steel, and the roar of what sounded like a
really interesting engine. I heard a bike arrive, baffle-less exhaust
rattling the concrete and buzzing in my belly. The engine died with a
rattle, a draft of distinctive, acrid gasohol exhaust washing through
the building.
“Yo! Pops, that oil leak's back around the compressor shaft for the
front wheel drive,”
Bane of existence… hah!
“That's Doctor to you, Priss!” came the irate reply from out front,
“And Sylia's been waiting for you downstairs for the last hour,”
Sylia… here…downstairs? I didn't see any stairways. Of course, the
secret base had to be somewhere. In a dark dark fault, along a dark
dark street, inside a dark dark garage, down some dark dark stairs
there was a dark dark closet, inside of which was…a hardsuit. Where
had I heard that before?
I heard booted footsteps approaching from behind, mixed with the
distinctive creak of leathers. I stared at a point just above the
original VIN stamping, looking into my own shadow. I could see another
formless one approaching from behind riding on a wave of irritation.
She stopped, and I sensed her curiosity as she watched me work.
“I don't understand why anybody would keep an old dinosaur burner like
that around,” she commented, “Not for day to day use or anything,”
She wasn't being in anyway nasty about it, she really was just
curious. I could read as much just by looking at her eyes, which were
scanning over the stripped down motorcycle, engine, gearbox,
driveshaft, the tail section with one undamaged pannier still
attached.
“Sentimental value,” I deflected with a simple generic answer.
It wasn't a question I hadn't been asked before, but that was a
previous life, and the answer just wouldn't have been appropriate.
“It must have a lot of sentimental value to pay for real gasoline, and
the spare parts for something like this.” Priss said, inspecting the
cracked taillight, “I've never seen anything this old on the road,
just in a museum,”
She ran her fingers gently along the exposed backbone of the frame. I
think she was impressed… slightly. If not by the rider then by her
bike. I sat there, casting my gaze down onto the grey cylinder head
for a moment, and the 4 hungry mouths of the inlet trumpets. I
remembered clearing years' worth of dust and cobwebs out there, I
remembered how the butterflies needed to be balanced and how much of a
pain in the arse that was to do with a kit designed for carburettors.
I remembered what Doctor Raven had told me earlier that day,
“I think it prove I am original, not copy,” I said, feeling a strange
relief wash over me.
That caught the singer on her back foot alright.
“Damn cyborgs,” growled Priss, the air filling with restrained
hostility “They throw their humanity away until they're left with
nothing more than the barest sliver of what they once where, and then
they cling to it as if it's the most precious thing in the world when
they finally realise what they've done. If it was so important to
them, why did they throw it away in the first place?”
She asked me, directly.
“I had no choice,” I followed Sylia's story, feeling oddly ashamed for
lying, “Boomeroid better than death,”
“Hmmph, maybe. I just know I don't want to be buried in that Pet
Sematary.,” she shrugged uncomfortably.
“Heh,” I smirked lightly, getting the reference. “Ramones?”
She nodded, placing her hand against the bike's frame where the
backbone, gearbox supports and tail met in an obtuse Y.
“Shit I hate this,” the singer snarled, straining against some
imaginary leash. “I don't know what Sylia is thinking of with this,”
she stopped dead for a moments thought, “Good luck fixing the bike,
later Deckard,” she finished simply, flatly.
“Thanks, I guess,” I stuttered, having expected more of a rant about
humanity, or boomeroids, or something. I watched her back as she
walked away, that gently but still confident sway to her hips as she
strode across the concrete floor.
She was almost as hard to figure out as Sylia. I'd've killed to be
able to read her mind, just to know what exactly she thought of me. I
don't think she hated me, she probably hated what I was…or what she
thought I was…but there was more to it than that; she was desperately
uncomfortable around me, like she was standing barefoot on a bed of
nails, and for a few moments, I wanted nothing more than to know why.
It didn't seem to be as simple as just mistrust, or suspicion.
Whatever it was, it ran a lot deeper than what a person's pheromones
could tell me.
Priss stopped at a door marked private, punching a code into a keypad
beside the door. I heard the brass ticks as the locks cam undone, and
she pulled it silently open, revealing a…. Closet? With cleaning
supplies, mops, a rake and something that looked like a hoover? She
stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind her with a heavy, hollow
clack. The locks reclosed, the numbers on the pad rescrambled, and she
disappeared.
There was no sound at all from inside.
At least she didn't punch me. Isn't that how Priss normally said hello
to boomers?
An hour later, she came out looking as miffed about something as ever.
She didn't even look at me as she breezed past. I heard her argue with
Raven about something else, before her bike fired up and wailed away
into the deepening night. It really got dark early in the fault.
Was Sylia really here though?
That door was probably a secret access to the base underneath the
floor. An intrepid self-confident adventurer would probably have
knocked on the door to find out for sure. Maybe that's what she
expected me to do even. I found a jar of coffee instead, and ordered
in a decent dinner out of my own account.
If Sylia was here, what was she doing?
I suddenly felt horrendously paranoid, like a hundred eyeballs were
crawling up my back.
----->>
Grey and dull, like a summer's day at home. The last delivery of the
day was a Merc' SLK with a blown engine.
20:20:20
“Are you done yet?” enquired Raven, impatiently…
“Nope,” I growled.
Though I'd finally gotten the last of it separated out. Now I just had
to get rid of it.
----->>
Dimmer than a Texan governor outside, and the last customers were
picking up their cars.
21:25:15
“Are you done yet?” enquired Raven, impatiently… for the seventh time
in the last hour.
“Nope,” I growled growled again
I'd gotten the last of it out, thank God.
“Sylia want you to find a place for this,” He placed a box on the
workbench beside me. “A 2-way scrambled radio so you can communicate
with the rest of the team,”
“No problem,” I lied tiredly.
----->>
22:19:08
Dark as a black hole outside and the shutters were down. It was still
hotter than hell and humid enough to near drown.
“Are you done yet?” enquired Raven, impatiently… for the tenth time in
the last hour.
“Almost,” I growled once more.
My hands ached, and my joint and muscle monitors were complaining
about having been locked on the same positions for most of the day. I
was built for short periods of active exertion, not a long time
kneeling down spannering things up.
“Remember, you still have to put the new front end on and replace all
of this lot,” he reminded cruelly, poking at the medusa's head of
cables, “It'll take most of tomorrow to get the fuel injection
working.”
“You know sexaroids aren't built for this,” I whined.
“And old Scientists aren't built for all-nighters!” he shouted, “But
it has to be done,”
“No problem,” I lied again, cowed by pessimism.
“I'm going for a snooze, later,”
Hey!
----->>
23:30:32
“Heavy! Heavy! Heavy! Heavy!” I squealed, having realised the problems
that came with taking the front end of a motorcycle, and leaving it
supported by only the centrestand, right before I undid the last bolt.
270 kilograms or so was a bloody heavy thing to lift by yourself, even
with a decent set of straps thrown over a girder and a good ratchet.
“There's a hydraulic bike lift out front, I can bring it in if you'd
like,” a male voice said.
“No! No!” I pleaded, “Take too long now, just get other end, I not do
both.”
I had one strap through the frame, just in front of the headstock, and
another between both luggage racks, since it was strong enough.
Keeping both evened up so it didn't tip over, or pull loose somehow,
or just do anything weird because I wanted to be careful, was a fine
art…
“Right,” Mackie answered, “I'll get the back, and we'll do it
together,”
I took one glance at the teenager, who was taking more than a glance
at me.
“Keep an eye on it in case it slips, not me,”
“Right,”
No change…. His eyes never moved. How could anybody be so shameless? I
certainly wasn't when I was his age… which according to one
interpretation I never was… and I changed course rapidly before my
thoughts got sucked into that black hole again.
It was too late to worry about things like that. Not with muscles
straining, and little alarms warning me about the stress on my back
and ankles anyway. Power and energy flared through my body, my bloody
burning hot as it tried to keep up with demands. My reserves were
already low, and I was redlining them.
This thing was so heavy I could pull with both hands on it and barely
be able to move the thing. I hadn't got the bodyweight to pull it up,
unlike the last time I'd done this, I couldn't just lean into it.
“Heavy!” I announced,
“There's a hydraulic lift….” Mackie reminded.
“Just do it!” I screeched. “And watch the bloody bike not me!”
The straps were groaning beneath the strain, girders creaking, and I
still hadn't gotten the thing halfway off the ground…
“Count of three….”
----->>
23:45:19
The lift did the job, but not before I bent some of the bracing in my
elbows, and cracked a support somewhere in my back. I slumped
exhausted against the workbench, chest heaving, body drenched in sweat
as it tried to bleed off excess heat.
“I told you so,” Mackie remarked smugly, a satisfied grin plastered
across his face.
And no wonder…. He could see right down my top.
I felt utterly defeated.
And desperately hungry.
----->>
00:34:05
The bent front suspension was lying on the concrete floor beside me, a
wagonwheel pizzabox on top of it. Chang's Tiger Pizza, the only place
that still delivered after midnight. Hot food normally raised my
spirits, but not tonight.
12 hours just to take the front forks off of a motorbike.
At least as long to get them back on again… then according to Raven,
another solid day to get the fuel injection working. A quick estimate
put the job being finished at midday on Monday… barring no more
delays.
But, I had to spend Sunday night under the Doctor's care, and was
supposed to spend a good chunk of Monday morning getting a basic
course on how not to blow my own foot off.
“This will never get done,” I told myself.
It was a mountain of work now, getting larger and larger with each
passing minute….with each bite of pepperoni pizza, with each
despairing breath I took. I was exhausted physically, and starting to
feel the lingering effects of nearly 2 days without sleep.
There was no way to get it done now…. None....
I wanted nothing more than to leave the garage and go home, to my
apartment, and rest. With a fresh mind and body, maybe that'd make a
difference. A few hours rest, and a quick, clear sprint, versus hours
of draining slog…
And then I remembered the 2 hour journey home, the 2 hour journey
back, and how 2 hours would make a really shite snooze after all that
bother.
I hated Sylia for not giving me enough time to do this. I hated Raven
for disappearing to his office. I hated Mackie for being a smug,
leering pervert. I hated myself for not bothering to label everything
up when I had the chance thus making this necessary. I hated myself
even more for making the same mistake again…..but it was too late to
change that. It was too late to back out. It was too late to finish
the job. It was too late to do anything but sit there munching on
pizza, stewing in my own bitterness.
I wanted to punch something… anything…. Time marched on but still
nothing was getting done. Tick-Tock, the clock mocked, and I wanted
nothing more than to throw a spanner at it. But then I'd have to fix
the bloody clock too. If I got pissed off and indulged in some
percussive relief on the fucking bike… that'd just be a little icing
on a very fat cake of work.
A million yen for a weekends work… Hah!...How ridiculous.
I was an expensive, high-grade Bu-33-S… manual labour was beneath a
type like me. It was like using a Lamborghini to pull a trailer full
of cattle, or a combat boomer in the bedroom. I was dirty, sweaty,
wearing oilstained clothes. I'd managed to damage myself….like the
idiot I was….
Why couldn't Sylia have just asked me to be her personal concubine, or
something?
A life in a silken cage, or this ‘freedom'…
The luxury of Sylia's penthouse seemed a great deal more preferable
than a rundown 6-mat apartment, and an hour's commute for 12 hour days
of underpaid work.
And none of this brought me any closer to actually getting the job
done. Suck it up, get a spanner out, and just keep going. Better to
try and fail, than to give up and fail.
----->>
02:34:56
Sleep deprivation makes sexaroids emotionally unstable.
So when I finally managed to attach the new front forks, and was
amazed at how easily and perfectly they slotted home… despite being of
the ‘Earles' type and stolen from a Honda VFR1400…. I took my t-shirt
off and danced around the garage in jubilation for ten minutes, before
a sense of shame and embarrassment finally caught up with me.
My second Eureka moment came a few moments later, when I realised that
90% of the wires and stuff I'd ripped out… could stay out. Power
regulators for USB, speakers, CD-player, cross-cables, audio cables,
digital control logic, switchgear… I didn't really need any of it… I
just sort of added it at the time because I thought it would be cool
to have.
And it'd make fitting that new scrambled radio so much easier.
Why didn't I think of it before? It seemed the obvious thing to do.
Because I was being stupid, that's why.
----->>
05:43:21
The sun was starting to come up, a dull grey light filtering through
the garage windows. It'd be a while before it entered the canyon
proper, but there was something so welcoming about it being there.
It was about that time that I began to think I might just be able to
get it done. I had the front brake and clutch hooked up, and the
instrument binnacle half done. Lights, horn and indicators seemed
doable, and Sylia's radio could take the place of the CD player.
I was alone, still with my t-shirt off… but with the windows open, the
morning air felt so good on my bare skin, I didn't mind. There was no-
one around to see me anyway. I could strip naked as the factory made
me and nobody would know.
No… I won't… My common sense clamped down.
Alright, I needed to clear my head. The petrol fumes really were
getting to me. I reluctantly slipped my t-shirt back on, and stepped
out into the still-dark alleyway out back.
The air and cooled somewhat overnight, but it was dead still, tendrils
(of) steam rising straight up from the exhaust vents of some grey
building across the alleyway.
The lights of the city obscured the stars… except for one, hanging
lazily in the sky between DAB corporation tower and Green Food
distribution.
I watched it for a minute, flickering in the morning sunlight. It was
the SDPC's Genaros Station.
Immediately, I felt oddly guilty, and hurried back to work.
----->>
07:20:34
Raven delivered breakfast....the same or similar mixture of porridge
and metal Sylia had given me on my first day. He didn't look tired
himself, he just looked old.
“I spent most of the night developing the base program for the EFI
controller,” he boasted,
“I spent it going tired and buggo,” I told him.
“You did label all the wires up, didn't you?” he asked...
“No,” I admitted, “I just removed all not needed, easier to finish,”
“Makes sense,” the doctor-mechanic conceded, stroking his chin
thoughtfully, “And the new radio,”
“Still not sure...”
“Try get it in by nine,” the scientist suggested... his tone very
careful not to come across as an order, “If the Fuel Injection gets in
by midday, we can get all the fairing, fuel tank and lights back on,
and set it up on the dynamometer for the injection to program itself
overnight,”
“Can we get done on time?” I asked.
“If we get lucky, yes you can.” he answered with an almost evil smirk.
“Me?” I blurted, “I thought you fit EFI?”
“Yes,” he answered, “But a job came up. Consider it a challenge.” he
goaded.
“Fine,” I sighed, relenting to more technical torture, “Do I get a
manual?”
“In the box,” he assured me, “Just follow it, and everything will be
fine,”
“Fine,” I sighed once more....
Long day.... another long day. I needed a rest, badly. Repair time for
my elbow was given as ‘infinite', the same for my back. The joints
needed to be immobilised in the 'Zero' position for my systems to deal
with it... and that wasn't likely any time soon.
I was recharging myself with food, as fast as I was burning the
energy. Fuel and oil fumes were contaminating my bloodstream, tetra-
ethyl lead making itself known.
Somebody shoot me.
No, they'd do that tomorrow, after I finished this. Put me out of my
misery, after the misery had stopped. That'd just be perfect.
----->>
09:36:33
I missed the deadline by about 20 minutes, but Raven wasn't bothered.
He just placed the box with the new injection controller, fuel pump
injectors and oxygen sensors, on the table beside me, along with
instructions.
Midday? Good bloody luck.
Suddenly, I realised that if Sylia had been downstairs when Priss
arrived... she hadn't left all night, unless there was another back
entrance somewhere. Yeah, there probably was somewhere... she wouldn't
stay awake all night just to watch me.
Would she?
Why would Sylia be watching me?
----->>
10:47:41
A motorscooter buzzed up outside, engine popping and ringing off the
alleyways outside as the owner searched for somewhere to park. I could
hear them shuffling around outside, whispering and cursing, looking
for their keys, their chain lock, their keys again, then somewhere to
stash their helmet.
I recognised the voice immediately. Somebody I wanted to talk to.
Somebody I could whine to and who might actually listen.
“Good Morning Doctor!” I heard her great with a refreshing
cheerfulness.
Already, she was dragging me up out of the morose depths of my
sleepless depression.
“Sylia's downstairs,” the Doctor answered, his voice cracking with
fatigue.
I was brimming with a strange, deluded excitement, as if rescue was
about to come bubbling cheerfully through the door. I could hear her
walking, a distinctive sound made by her favourite heels.
She rustled through the door, that candyfloss hair of hers radiating
happiness and salvation from labour. Resplendent in her AD Police
uniform, Nené Romanova smiled when she saw me sitting on concrete,
coated in dark streaks of grease and grime.
Then she giggled maniacally,
“You look like you've been dragged through a sewer, Meg,” she forced
herself to say.
“Thanks,” I groaned, deflated
“Yet you still manage to look so sexy, even when you're so dirty,” she
said, her voice suddenly becoming very small, and a little jealous.
“I guess that my talent,” I answered, shrugging. “Beside, ADP uniform
suit you well,” I returned, hoping the old trick when dealing with
women still worked.
“I really like the skirt, it shows off my legs without making it seem
like it's too...” she placed a finger on her lips, hunting for the
right word “... desperate,”
I giggled.
“How's Sylia's test going anyway?” she asked standing over my shoulder
as she cast a critical eye over my work.
“Test?” I questioned.
“Yeah, sure, Sylia tests each new member before they join.” she told
me, “Mine was to crack an online code, I was the only person in the
world to solve the problem.”
Her chest swelled with pride, her green eyes gleaming.
“Join?” I blurted out.... “I'm only here for the one mission,”
Nené's bubble burst, her pride deflating.
“Sorry, I wasn't supposed to say that,” she said morosely, propping
herself up against the bike, “Sylia's going to kill me now,”
Actually join the Knight Sabers?
“It's okay,” I reassured her, holding my hands up to stop some
imaginary attack “I'm not really want to join either. And Priss not
like me, uh... so probably never anyway”
The hacker relaxed a little, understanding what I was trying to say.
“Priss didn't like me either when I joined,” she said, as if it was
the most obvious thing in the world. “Linna neither, it's just the way
she is with new people. Once she gets to know you, she's really quite
sweet,”
Priss and sweet seemed to go together like GENOM and corporate
responsibility, at least in my own limited personal experience.
“Maybe,” I dodged, “Nice to talk to human though... I go insane all
night alone,”
Nené smiled again,
“I thought you lived alone, Meg,”
“Yeah, but...” I paused,
“I know..” she cut in, “I need a boyfriend too, but I just don't have
the time for a true romance.” a beat as her expression darkened, “And
no Romeos seem to have time for me either,” she sighed tiredly. “At
least none that don't need batteries,” she added quietly, her voice
almost mouselike.
The pair of us shared a perverted giggle, knowing just what she meant.
“I don't really need that,” I shot straight, “Not really interested in
sex,”
None at all, genuinely. I was the coldest of cold fish in bed.
“Want to trade bodies then?” Nené enquired, her eyes sparking again,
“It seems such a shame to waste such a sexy body on a woman who
doesn't event want sex. With my body, you could enjoy beer again, and
I could enjoy the deep passionate love a woman like me desires,”
Nené drifted off into dreamland, hugging herself across the chest. I
placed my hands on my own boobs for a moment, confirming that I was
just as much a woman as Nené, only without any form of womanly
drives.
“They want spend time with my body, “ I said flatly, with strange
bitterness, “not with me. Anybody who like Nené, they like who you
are,”
It wasn't just men either. I kept those drives disabled for a reason.
Funny, the first thing most men would say they'd do if they woke up
one morning in a body like this, was that they would find another
willing companion, usually their favourite animé gal and get
'exploring' together. Well, I wasn't a human woman, was I? And there
was no need to explore when I knew exactly what I could do, and what
it would feel like. I'd even tested it to be sure... out of boredom.
I smirked briefly at that thought.
“I don't know,” shrugged the pink-haired woman, “It's nice to be
needed, even if it is just physically,”
“Neon Genesis Evangelion?” I wondered,
“What's that?” Nené asked, the conversation suddenly derailed.
“Old animé,” I waved it off, “Nothing important,”
“Ah,”
An oddly awkward silence for a few seconds, then Nené starting
tittering gently, holding her pink nails against her lips. Then Nené
started giggling softly, slowly building an inexorable momentum, like
an accelerating locomotive as she struggled to hold it in... pressing
her hand hard against her mouth, her face matching the colour of her
hair. The dam broke, the full torrent of laughter flooding the garage.
“What?”
My voice was small and shamed
“Your hands were greasy,” she point to my chest.
Two mucky handprints covered my chest, one on each side.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said, in a bitter, embarrassed deadpan.
“No problem,” she gave a teasing grin. “Now I really got to go. Do
your best, Deckard,”
“See ya later, Alligator,” I waved her off.
“One more thing!” she stopped dead, “It's a little something Sylia had
us do as a team building exercise after Linna joined,” The pride had
returned behind her eyes, as she handed me micro-holographic disk
labelled ‘Asu e Touchdown' “It turned out pretty awesome, even if I
only did the backing vocals,”
“Awesome, thanks,” I beamed back, holding the multi-hued reflective
disk.
“It's encoded at nearly 2 megabits a second, so it's practically an
analogue signal, “
She quickly disappeared into the same closet Priss had hidden in
yesterday. It was nice to be able to talk to someone.... it made a
break from the monotony of a chirpy multimeter that had an irritating
Eliza-based personality.
I had the disk, but realised I had nothing to play it in. That was a
bit of a downer.
There was still the matter of the mucky handprints on my top. Simple
solution; I took it off, pulled it inside out, then put it back on. It
worked, even if the label was on the outside, along with the obviously
cheap stitching.
“Uh...” a voice interrupted, “The Doctor finished the controller
module,” it said, swallowing something.
Mackie was standing there, a grey box with a jumble of cables running
out of it in his hands, pressed against his striped shirt, his face an
almost dreamlike chance.
I wanted nothing more, than to be able to bloodily rip out of this
attractive disguise, and reveal the heavily armed and now very pissed
off steel monster within. The lecherous boy-genius must've figured as
much... he calmly placed the box on the floor, and slipped quietly out
of the room, back to work with Raven.
Nice... he's learning his lesson.
Even if the only remotely dangerous thing I could actually do was grow
my fingernails out by about 10 millimetres, if I broke one off. That
might just be enough to leave a really nasty scratch, maybe even break
the skin. The very same mechanisms that allowed some boomers to fuse
with battletanks allowed me to regrow a broken nail.
That bent brace in my arm finally jammed, and freeing it broke the
thing clean off the bone. It didn't hurt, metal held no nerves, but it
triggered red-alerts in my AI. There was only a slight numbness, and
the disturbing sensation of something crawling around inside under the
skin. It meant I couldn't do any more heavy lifting.
Repair time: 14 hours with joint immobilised.
And still I had work to do. Lot's of it.
Hopefully my arm wouldn't drop off before I got this done.
I felt like crying out in despair, the fleeting ray of Nené's sunshine
having long left this place for the world beneath. Instead, I grimly
forged on, fitting the fuel system.
O-ring on the injector, injector snaps into fuel rail. Repeat three
more times. Fit new pressure sensor to the end of the rail, replacing
return feed. Mount the whole lot back onto the inlet and admire.
I don't want to join the Knight Sabers.
The more I said it, the more it was beginning to sound like I was
lying to myself. This was tough, but strangely enjoyable, once I began
to make progress.
----->>
12:34:56
“Why is your arm duct-taped?” Nené enquired as she left.
“Duct-tape fix everything,” I explained.
And it helped stop the broken brace from moving around too much
inside... even if the glue did itch like a hundred scratching ants.
I found an MHGD player buried under some tools…. And with a spanner
as a microphone, sang along. If Sylia was watching me, she was
probably rolling on the floor laughing. The thought of that nearly had
me doing the same.
----->>
15:10:11
Linna came and went in a whirlwind, dropping something off downstairs,
before running back out… something about a starter motor for her
Renault Scenic.
The fuel tank was back on the bike, everything was hooked up and
seemed fine. There was nothing but the fairing, Sylia's radio and the
crash-bars to go. Some might've suggested that the bike actually be
started before fitting all the cosmetic stuff, but there was a very
important reason for waiting until the whole lot was done...
I just didn't think about doing it any other way.
A sudden surge of elation picked me up and carried me forward as I
realised that I might just be nearing the end of my torture. In the
distance was the top of the mountain, framed with sunshine and
cherubs, and a sparkling glass of the best German lager waiting just
for me and me alone.
Just because I couldn't enjoy the deleterious effects of alcohol
consumption, didn't mean I couldn't enjoy the cool, crisp, refreshing
flavour.
Dinner came and went, the power surge driving me forward with even
greater enthusiasm. I was giggling madly as I fiddled with a blue
fibreglass panel, scratched and damaged by the crash, and warped just
enough out of true to be an absolute bollox to refit. It should've
been frustrating, but I was beyond that... I was finally going mad...
I was finally going to finish this thing...
I wasn't going to dance around butt-naked in celebration.
Not when there were people known to record such things with hidden
cameras.
I was going to drop to the floor, resting back against the workbench,
and laugh maniacally for about 5 minutes at it all. I didn't get tired
in the human way, I just got a bit nutty…. like Windows 98 left
running for a few days, it got less and less stable, until eventually
it went completely insane and slaughtered your data.
I really needed to sleep.
My memory was fragmented, my thoughts starting to fray at the edges. I
didn't know why I stayed awake the night before… well, the Friday
night anyway… but I regretted it.
Oh right, nightmares.
Shit… I should've been off work today…
----->>
18:01:10
Only about 2 hours later than billed , the rebuilt BMW was up on the
dyno, tank full of about 10k yen's worth of Exxon's finest petroleum
spirit, and a capful of lead additive I added to save the valve seats.
It had taken three of us pushing, Raven, Mackie and myself, to get it
up there, and to connect all the monitoring and control circuitry up
to the self programming ECU. I was surprised actually how well I
understood how it worked. Raven had spent most of last night
programming the ideal power and emissions settings and vehicle
environment settings, among other things. Then using a combination of
fuzzy logic controller and basic perceptron artificial neural networks
to program the FLC, the bike would tune its own ignition and injector
timing for peak fuel-efficiency, throttle-response and power
overnight.
It was a similar principle to what my own AI operated on, but a lot
less complicated. If I was human level say, this thing wouldn't even
be an ant. It was still pretty cool though, it learned how best to
deliver the performance the rider wanted by comparing its response and
result in one instance with the ideal response and result, then
updating its control systems and triggering functions accordingly so
that they match better. Then lather, rinse, repeat.
And so basically, the more the bike was ridden, the better it got.
The downside with using ANN's was that there was no guarantee it would
ever arrive at an ideal solution, or no way of knowing how long it
would take to do it. Each attempt at training the ANN would result in
slightly different results. There was also the possibility that it
would get a little…weird…in the solution it found.
But none of that interesting technobabble actually mattered if it
didn't fire up. An expectant hush fell upon those assembled as I
stepped up, and placed the key in the ignition. Outside, I heard the
buzz of another engine approaching
“Wait, wait,” Mackie pleaded, “Priss will want to see this,”
Great, just great. Casting her grey clouds of mistrust over
everything. I was already nervous enough as it was. If this thing
didn't fire up, it'd be hell getting it fixed on time, and there's no
way in hell I'd get enough rest before the mission and I might just
fall to pieces crying on the dyno at the futility of it all.
Just the thoughts of it brought tears to my eyes.
“Hey, Pops… where is everyone?” I heard the singer's voice outside,
“Is Sylia still here?”
“In here!” shouted the doctor, his voice painfully loud in such a
small room, “And that's Doctor to you, Priss,”
Mackie chuckled. I cursed my luck, and prayed that when I fired it up,
nothing exploded. That'd be so embarrassing. The room was barely big
enough for three people, let alone four, what with the dynamometer
equipment itself, air blowers for the radiator, ventilation for the
exhaust, the two handcarts containing tools, a workstation computer,
and a 200 litre tank of petrol overhead, feeding the bike's own fuel
tank.
Priss pushed through the door, muscling her way into an already
cramped and petrol-fume filled room, before closing it behind her.
“Is Sylia here or not?” she demanded… not angrily.
“She hasn't left,” Mackie assured her, enjoying the sight of the woman
in figure-hugging red leathers.
Priss never even looked at him, she just didn't care anymore. She ran
her eyes across the bike, and I felt her mood suddenly perk up.
“Has it been started?” she asked,
“No,” said Raven, irritation flaring
“We were waiting for you,” Mackie assured her smoothly.
Priss just nodded dismissively, completely ignoring the attempt.
“It really looks well,” she placed a hand up against the cylinder
head, “What sort of power does it make?” she asked me.
I suddenly felt horrendously uneasy. She was only curious, I tried to
tell myself. More than curious, Priss was fascinated by it, so much
that she barely even acknowledged me.
“We haven't started it,” Raven reminded.
“Manufacturers specification then,”
“90 brake horsepower,” I said, before remembering the world had gone
metric, “About 70 kilowatts I guess,”
I couldn't remember the exact conversion off the top of my head, but
that'd be close enough to it.
“That must've been something special 50 years ago,” she said, peering
at the new injection system through a radiator vent.
“Not really,” I shrugged, “It is touring bike. Two people in comfort,”
“Ah, I see,” Priss smiled at me… slightly, almost imperceptibly, but
she smiled at me.
She ran her fingers across the crash damage, frowning a little, before
placing her hand on top of the new mudguard and tyre. “Too bad about
the damage,”
“That'd take too long to fix,” Raven barked, “But we need to get this
running, now, unless you'd like to walk tomorrow,”
That snapped her back to the real world, her mood hardening once more,
“Well, fire it up,” she ordered.
“Here goes,” I took a deep breath, and turned the key.
Ignition on. No smoke billowing from anywhere, no blown fuses. The new
radio came to life, displaying 888:88 MHz CODE 88 on it's green LED
display. Another deep breath, switch the killswitch to ‘run'.
The fuel pump buzzed to life, building pressure in the injectors, the
instruments flickering and checking, red oil-light winking back at me.
No smoke, no fire… time for the acid test. Push the little green
button…
Click went a relay under the fuel tank. My heart arrested for an
instant, before the starter laboured to life, cranking over three
times. The tachometer needle flickered, the injectors fired, and…
Nothing.
Click, and it stopped dead. Four people exhaled, disappointment
flooding the room. Killswitch and ignition off… And I suddenly wanted
to cry.
“Try again,” suggested Raven.
I nodded. Ignition, killswitch, starter and the engine cranked once,
twice, then let rip with a sudden, heartstopping backfire that sounded
for all the world as if the entire building had blown up.
Instinctively, we ducked for cover, waiting for the smoke to clear.
“Warn me before it does that!” Priss shouted, livid. “I was right
beside the exhaust and I have a concert tonight!”
“Use earplugs next time,” suggested the doctor unhelpfully.
Mackie took his fingers out from his ears, and I crawled out from
beside the crankcase with ‘Sonic overstress' alarms announcing
themselves inside my head,
“Sorry,” I offered.
“Third time lucky, Deckard,” Suggested the teenager leaning against
the workstation.
I nodded. It felt like the last chance, and my hands were shaking.
Ignition, Killswitch, starter… crank once, crank twice… and the engine
finally caught with a burp, roaring to life with a belch of blue smoke
and the sweet smell of raw petrol, Priss jumping back in fright in
case it went off like a bomb.
“It's running!” I roared above the din, “It's actually running,”
I almost didn't believe it. A little rough, a bit smoky, and
definitely very rich, but still… It revved, it responded; there was
good oil pressure. Everything seemed alright. The ventilation was
blasting air through, blowing it up out the chimney again, the engine
clattering and roaring painfully in such a confined space. It fuelled
the excitement deep inside… I did it… God damn it, I fucking did it…
“Burning oil!” Priss shouted, pointing at the back.
“Normal!” I answered, “Piston rings spin and line up,” I made spinning
gestures with my hand to explain, but Priss herself didn't seem to get
it. It really was just a quirk of the bike's design… honestly.
Mackie said something to Raven that neither of us heard, and I gave
the engine another prod with the throttle, making the little white
needle do a little dance on the rev-counter. Priss jumped up, an
excited gleam in her eyes… and I suddenly felt very nervous again.
“May I?” she requested, pointing to the saddle.
I nodded jumping down off the dyno as she threw her leg over the
saddle. She kicked the bike into gear with a characteristic crunch and
I smiled, ear to ear. Priss Asagiri was on my bike…
Raven supervised as she built the revs, running the bike gently up
through the gears. It pitched forward and back as she teased the
throttle, the torque reaction from the driveshaft kicking the tail up
and down.
Priss was alive, a blazing gleam in her eyes as she held the engine
just above idle in top gear. She was revelling in it, the sounds, the
smells, I could see it forged across her face, I could feel it
flooding the room and it seemed to carry me with it.
Burning petrol, such a sweet smell, compared to the acrid, harsh
gasohol.
“Give it a run!” Raven ordered, and Priss nodded.
She slammed the throttle hard open, the engine bellowing as it was
asked to give all it could. Drifts of black smoke were ripped away up
the chimney, engine coughing for a moment as it ran dangerously rich.
The machine jumped back into its stride and Priss leaned forward, down
towards the clocks as if in her own mind, she was charging towards
some distant point on the horizon
I could feel the power buzzing through the room…
I made it do that….
The room was filled with a mechanical symphony of roaring engine,
whining transmission, chattering tappets, chittering injectors, the
deep hollow burr of tyre against roller and the turbine wail of the
magnetic brakes deep inside the dynamometer.
The machine music built to a thundering climactic crescendo. Raven and
Mackie had their hands over their ears, but I stood. The engine
trilled against it's limiters, straining, coughing and backfiring as
fuel and spark were cut and retriggered when the revs dropped.
Priss snapped the clutch in, letting the engine drop to a soothing
idle and leaving the driveline to freewheel.
“What's the result?” she asked.
With the roar of the engine now dropped to a muted idle thrum, it
seemed almost possible to hear her talk normally.
“59” shouted the doctor back,
Nice… especially with the engine still coughing from time to time as
the mixture went funny. Priss was laughing, and maybe shivering. She
placed both her hands on the fuel tank, and smiled, before giving me
and Raven a thumbs up.
I nodded meekly…feeling strangely shy.
“Mackie,” said Raven, “Set the perceptron training cycle running, and
make sure Miss Mechanical Holocaust here doesn't break anything,”
“Hey!” barked Priss, “It's not my fault that the engine you built
threw a con-rod and blew itself to pieces,”
“It's not my fault I didn't design it to do twenty-thousand RPM's.
Most sensible people don't make engines do that…” countered the
Doctor.
“I told you it jumped out of third when I was trying to pass that
car…”
“It wouldn't have jumped out of gear if you bothered to use the clutch
once in a while,”
“Tch,” Priss rolled her eyes, revealing a new demonic gleam, “One more
Pull!” she announced, snapping the throttle open once more.
I winced, a picture of my night's labours exploding in a shower of
piston, crank and petrol filling my imagination.
“I don't want to see this,” I mumbled to myself… sympathetic tears
welling up.
Raven gestured for me to follow outside, and I gladly did. I didn't
want to see my poor machine die.
I was amazed how still and quiet the garage seemed, after the
cacophonic noise of the dyno-room. The engine's roaring was
immediately muted by soundproofing as the door slammed shut behind the
pair of us.
I was shivering. Excitement, terror and a hundred other random
feelings were running through my body.
“She loves bikes,” commented Raven, “She just gets a little too
enthusiastic at times,”
I wondered why she'd get so enthusiastic with a 20-odd year old BMW
with cracked fairing panels and chipped paint, before remembering that
from Priss' perspective, that bike was probably older than her
father.
“I hope it survives,”
“It will,” he reassured. “And if it doesn't, well, there's a GPz1000R
outside you can borrow tomorrow,” he chuckled dryly.
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” his shoulders dropped, “Anyway, these services normally
take a few hours, and I'd like to get my beauty sleep tonight, so if
you can get undressed, and get all that dirt washed off you, we can
get started upstairs. I've prepared a room in my apartment for the
job,”
I just nodded, running a tired hand through my hair, “I need sleep
too,”
Long day tomorrow. Even if it still seemed almost dreamlike…or
nightmarish. I was going to take part in a KS mission tomorrow. I was
nervous… I was also looking forward to it for some crazy reason, I
genuinely wasn't sure why.
The door opened behind, allowing the roar of the bike to flood the
room once more. Booted footsteps behind, and the sense of thrilled
excitement, and a strange confusion accompanied them.
“Thank you, that was fun,” Priss said flatly, passing me by.
“No problem,” I answered,
I watched Priss as she stepped into that same closet…
I still didn't understand her.
----->>
The greatest pleasure in a sexaroid's life had nothing at all to do
with sex. The greatest pleasure in a sexaroid's life was that
wonderful post-service feeling, that clean mechanical high. My lungs
were clear of dust, tar and pollution, my blood clear of all
contamination. My arm was repaired, my joints checked and bracings
adjusted. All my electronic controls and cybernetic regulations were
in perfect tune, my whole body running at its peak efficiency.
I felt new, completely renewed.
I lay naked on a steel workbench, strapped down and connected to
Raven's diagnostic gear by 108 nerve impulse needles, LAN and
dataport. My shoulders were clamped at both 'vampire' transfer ports,
either side of my neck. I could see myself through three different
surveillance cameras at once, forming a 3-D image of the doctor
working on my body in my mind.
I could watch an unmarked 8-wheel truck pull up outside, Mackie and
Priss loading an unmarked crate, or my bike running through its
training cycle unsupervised, if I wanted, but I was fascinated by
myself, and what was happening to me.
The engineer still living within was curious to see what was under the
skin. I was cyberpunk.... I loved it.
The greatest feeling of all though… was of the dirty, contaminated
blood being drained out of my shoulder, pumped through filters,
cleaned, purified and heated, before being pumped back through my
body. I could feel it heating my body from within, warmth and power, a
renewed vigour flowing through my veins.
It was pure exhilaration without even moving. I never wanted to be
anything else but a 33-S, ever again, because then I'd never be able
to experience that sensation once more. All the little quirks and
glitches, the minor irritations and niggling practicalities of being
something other than human, in a world build for humans by humans,
seemed totally worth it. I felt like a new person, mind, body and
soul.
Being human may have been easier day to day, especially in this city,
but being a cyberdroid was interesting. Like comparing a Honda
FireBlade with a Ducati 916. One might perform better day to day, the
other had its challenges, but I know which one I'd like to ride…
At least until the novelty wore off.
----->>TBC thanks to character limitations
Dartz
I woke up on Monday morning, and it felt the same as any Monday I'd
ever experienced. Weekend over, time for work. T.V. on the radio
channel, cereal time, get ready for work and then…
Remember that I had a very different itinerary today.
At 08:29:19 in the morning, it seemed strangely surreal to think that,
in just twelve hours time I might be dead in a hail of bullets. It
seemed a distant possibility, on a morning that otherwise seemed so
normal.
Talk radio was clamoured with callers complaining about TIEC, and
GENOM's rumoured purchasing of government lands, along with news of a
Bin strike. The shower was cold, the air-conditioner still broken.
Outside, the sky was leaden with rain threatening. The city was hot
and humid beneath its rolling grey blanket. Thunder seemed likely.
Parts of the fault would probably flood as well, the roads would be
jammed up with traffic, and trying to get anywhere worth a damn in the
city would turn into a soaking wet nightmare.
How appropriate, considering the day that was in it. God was in his
Heaven, and he loved that sort of cheesy stuff.
For some reason, I decided to spend more than a few minutes clearing
up the mess my apartment had become over the last 4 weeks, a little
like my old place actually, before I'd ‘arrived' in town. Spare
clothes I'd meant to wash on Sunday were gathered into a black bag,
trash cleared up for recycling, and I emptied the dishes from the
sink.
I felt like I should be going to work later today.
I thought about doing it anyway. I'd certainly be less likely to get
killed.
I felt oddly ambivalent to that, though…. It seemed impossibly far
away in the future, despite only being in a few hours' time. I was
supposed to pick the bike up at around 11, get to Sylia's before 1,
then get to the hospital where Priss would be waiting with a new
hairstyle at 7pm on the dot.
Crunching away on Green Crisp cereal, like I did every Monday morning,
it seemed genuinely impossible.
Of course at one stage, living in MegaTokyo with a boomer body,
meeting the Knight Sabers and generally doing everything I'd done over
the last 4 weeks had been ‘impossible', too.
I got fed, dressed and washed, same as always. The same as half the
city out there. Human or boomer, male or female, 90% of the
necessities of life were the same either way, the other 10% were still
novel enough to be entertaining.
I left the apartment with the first patterings of apprehension
starting to flit across my gut, a few spots of rain carried down to
the ground by a fiendishly cold breeze that chilled the bones.
I wondered if I shouldn't just ring Sylia and tell her I couldn't come
out today, on account of the rain. I could enjoy my last day off work
in comfort, rather than mortal peril.
Something told me that she'd drag me out, at this stage.
“Besides, you wanted to do this, remember?” I reminded myself out
loud.
----->>
It started bucketing rain the moment I reached Raven's. The bike was
standing there waiting for me, cleaned as much as possible, with a new
set of luggage stolen from the same Honda as the front suspension
fitted to the back.
I borrowed a helmet, assured by Raven that the owner wouldn't mind,
but couldn't find any waterproofs or proper safety gear. But needs
must, and I had to get that bike to Lady633.
I found the delivery wrappings for an old mannequin. They were
plastic, transparent and a little dirty, but with the proper
application of inspiration and duct tape, would keep most my body nice
and dry.
----->>
The accident on my first night in MegaTokyo was never far from my mind
as I rode to Lady633, especially each time I filtered forward through
traffic. I winced each time something moved. Slowly, steadily,
covering the brakes just in case somebody decided to bolt for an
opening in the traffic.
I was half shivering, and not from the cold.
The heat from the engine was welling up, slow-cooking my legs. My
plastic shield may have kept everything below the neck dry, but it
also trapped body heat and moisture. I was sitting in my own personal
sauna, and not really enjoying it at that. My skin would prune-up as
easy as anyone's.
But it was better than being soaked to the bone.
When the traffic cleared along the main highways, and I was able to
build up some momentum, I realised that, despite the modifications to
the bike, or the fact that I was thousands of miles away from home, in
a completely different universe… It still felt much the same as ever
to ride. A little stiffer perhaps, and more eager to rev, but
essentially the same.
I was back in the saddle, and it was almost as if I was back in the
control of my own destiny. I wasn't being thrown forward by Tet into
some sink or swim situation, or quietly manipulated into wanting to do
what others wanted me to do…
I was in absolute control of myself and my fate. What route I took,
how fast I rode, I had the choice. Whether I lived or died was
determined by my luck, my skill at riding, and how well I'd put the
thing back together over the weekend.
My luck bag was empty, my skill bag wasn't even a quarter full… and
for some reason the ABS warning light was on, despite the brakes
working fine.
Not taking any chances in the wet, I didn't have any moments… aside
from slide when braking across a manhole cover that the ABS caught…
fortunately. It still scared the hell out of me, not because falling
off a bike at under 10mph was really just going to be embarrassing,
but because I had the horrid feeling that nobody in this city would
brake, or even notice if I fell in front of them.
Hmm, I wonder if that sense of control was why Priss rode?
I passed a few binmen, picketing beside their parked up truck.
Citizone green waste disposal. It was a tangerine orange truck.
“Men before Mannequins,” one of their placards read, “More human jobs!
Less welfare payments”
Hence the Boomer Taxation act being debated in the Diet, whereby an
annual tax per-unit would be levied upon all cyberdroid owners, to pay
the mounting social welfare costs of displaced workers. The People
wanted it, The Corporations didn't. One had votes, the other had
money…
In politics, with elections a few years away, guess which came first?
And while those men were striking, GENOM salesmen were reminding their
employers that cyberdroids never formed unions, or joined pickets,
never complained about working conditions, or health insurance, they
just worked.
As much as the world had moved on from 2010, or 1910, some things
never changed.
I spent so much time watching them, I nearly ran into the drivers door
of a taxi, the driver of which had been rubbernecking at the same
thing. Git should watch where he's driving…
My thoughts kept being drawn to Priss though, and what I'd told her on
Saturday evening. I glanced down at my reflection in the clocks, and
saw only a dark helmet, and the vague outline of a human form beneath
it.
It felt the same. It smelt the same… more or less.
Certain that I'm not a copy?
The BMW was proof. Cast aluminium, welded steel and moulded
fibreglass. This bike, and my computer were the only artefacts I had,
beyond the memories in my head, to prove those memories weren't just a
programmer's joke. I or he…..or whatever… had been a real person. And
something about the big Bee-Em felt a lot more solid and real than
that Dell laptop, it proved my family existed, my dog, my home…. And
more things than that.
It was home in a way, what was left of it, one last little fragment of
what had once been reality.
I sighed inside my helmet, suddenly feeling completely and utterly
alone, and appallingly homesick.
Appropriately, a pair of GENOM G12 mounted THP patrol-bikers then took
it upon themselves to pull me to the side of the road, and give a half
hearted lecture on the importance of wearing proper government
approved safety-gear, while joyfully inspecting every inch of the
machine.
They were friendly, polite and really just curious about the bike.
They left me standing petrified for a few minutes, before riding off
with a congenial “Ride safely,”
Well, that was certainly different…
And at the same time, absolutely terrifying.
I tried to reassure myself with the simple knowledge that no boomer
could be terminated, until it was made certain it was a boomer. The
only surefire way to be certain I was a 33-S, and not a biomimetic
boomeroid, was lethal, meaning I could never be confirmed as a boomer,
without actually saying so. The Catch 22 was, my cover was as a
boomeroid, and boomeroids were handled automatically by the AD Police…
as boomers.
Any attempt to save myself by claiming I wasn't a boomer… I get shot.
Vice versa, I get shot.
In both cases, the only thing saving my neck was the fact that the ADP
officer had to form a ‘valid opinion that I was an immediate threat to
public safety' before he pulled the trigger.
That little caveat was a paper shield if I ever saw one.
----->>
Inside the parking garage under Lady633, I parked up beside a red
300SL… replica. That was so disappointing. It looked enticingly like
the real thing, right until I found the car's tax disk in the window,
listing it as a Mercedes S450 originally built in 2020.
Nice job though.
And I laughed at the mild irony of a replica human, being a little put
off by a replica car.
I wasn't nervous in anyway, I wasn't apprehensive. I wasn't excited, I
just sort of ‘was'. In a strange way, it felt even more unreal than
that replica car, like I might wake up back in my bed on a Monday
morning any minute now…
I thought I'd be a quivering jelly of nerves, but no, I was strangely
calm. There was definitely no technology involved in it controlling
hormones, no secret boomer self defence programs or combat controllers
kicking in.
Some of the cars in there were interesting, the other residents here
obviously being pretty well-to-do also. I spent a few minutes gazing
and an old Alpine A310, with a few cans of Yebisu and an old red
jacket on the front seat, a matte black Skyline GT-R, the R32 version
I think, with a fat pipe, and an impressive looking shark-nosed 2015
M6, gazing head on at a nearly-new GENOM Lowe saloon, parked beside a
Sturm-Tiger sports coupe.
You could tell a GENOM executive a mile off… apparently, while GENOM
were responsible for more than two thirds of the world's cars, nobody
but GENOM executives bought GENOM sportscars, or GENOM luxury cars.
The world's most popular car was the GENOM Maus, and variants… 4
wheels and a fifth to steer with, 4 seats, a multifuel engine that
could run on just about any flammable liquid, and not much else. The
Third World ran on the things.
But enough automotive gratification, I was here for a job. I found a
lift in the back, beside a Toyota van. The sub-basement and penthouse
could be accessed only by a complicated looking key, or a call button.
I felt the first nervous thrill of excitement run through my body as I
pushed the button.
“Stingray,” the lift speaker answered,
“It's me,” who idiot? “Deckard, I'm here for the job,”
“Ah Good, I'll bring you downstairs. Something's come up that we have
to talk about,”
What? I wondered, before remembering Nené the day before, I'll bet
Sylia wasn't too pleased alright. I suddenly felt very small, and very
ill. The doors opened, drawing me forward into the same mirrored
carriage, closing behind me. The lift dropped abruptly, causing my
lunch to rise up the back of my throat.
What was Sylia thinking? First she outright tells me that she doesn't
want to have me as a Saber, because of Tet, then, if I understood Nené
right, she's testing me for membership anyway. Why?
Testing, or grooming? A sudden bolt of anger sent shudders through my
frame. She knew I'd join the mission, the money was tantalising, and
the chance to make up and save Irene soothed my conscience.
What was going on behind that calm demeanour?
I didn't want to be that sheep being nudged up that final alley. Yes I
can say no, but it's so much easier to say yes. Well then, I should
say No!... a resounding, Ian Paisley NO, just to prove that I can't
and won't be treated like this.
But, if I want to say yes?
Saying no for the sake of saying no is stupid.
I knew what was going on… at least I had that in my favour… I had all,
or most of, the information. I could make a clean choice if it came
up. Be confident, cool, and in control.
Easier said than done.
The doors opened again to a brightly lit laboratory-slash-workshop.
The walls where white, the floor a hard-wearing industrial green,
polished so clean I could see my reflection. I felt ashamed to be
dripping water. Something vaguely humanoid, but too large to be human
was laid out on a workbench beside me, hidden by a white sheet. Cables
and conduits led from under the sheeting to an inactive mobile
workstation, and a transparent tank full of blood-red hydraulic oil.
A few sharp angles from underneath had tugged the sheet tantalisingly
taught.
A motoroid perhaps?
“Sylia, I'm here,” I announced, my voice nervously quiet.
“I'm in the back,” she answered, her voice coming through an armoured
door locked open. Through it, I could see a light, what might've been
the edge of a workstation computer.
Three motorslaves were parked beside a dividing wall, opposite what
looked like a CNC milling machine, and some sort of liquid filled tank
with a long articulated arm arching over it. It looked like some rapid
prototyping equipment I'd once used, but beefier somehow. A few
activity lights flickered red, the machine tools standing idle.
The room smelled of oil, gasohol, WD-40, ozone and what might've been
burning plastic. Some more machines I didn't understand gathered
around another empty workbench, arranged around a human-shaped
workbench, arms, legs and head, with cut-outs for cable routing and
access.
This is where the hardsuits were built…
I stopped for a moment, feeling sick, feeling giddy, feeling like a
child in a chocolate factory, surrounded by wondrous things I couldn't
quite comprehend, but I knew the end product was awesome.
Feeling a little like a trespasser in the garden of mechanical Eden, I
quietly inspected one of the ‘slaves, a matte green one. It looked
like no motorcycle on earth, cables and connectors running through and
around what might've been an engine, machined gold sockets staring
back at me from the seat, hand controls and fuel tank. A blank LCD
screen showed nothing but the same titanium grey as the rear-wheel
casings. I crouched down, placing a tentative hand against the front
swingarm. The vanes in the wheel were scorched by heat, like the
inside of a jet turbine, but the arm itself was almost shockingly
cold.
And apparently milled from one solid block of aluminium.
I could see the tool marks running along the surface, with rounded
corners where clearance had to be allowed for the mill itself. Braided
steel hydraulic lines were carefully lockwired into place, running to
the brakes, and what looked to be a hydraulic motor built into the
front wheel hub. It was an exquisite thing, intricate and hand
assembled with the greatest of care, yet it somehow projected an aura
of pure mechanical strength, almost as if it had been hewn by
Prometheus himself from one solid billet.
I could see how it worked, the joints and servomotors which powered
the transformation and propelled it forwards. In the metal, it all
made perfect sense.
“Oh wow,” I whimpered, awestruck.
I was shivering. I felt as if I was a mortal sinner for leaving the
smallest of fingerprints on the polished metal, like Eve taking a bite
of the apple. I moved on in a hurry before God appeared.
This room, this was a wondrous place, an Aladdin's cave for engineers.
Not even a personal tour of the Enterprise by Scotty himself could top
this. For one thing, if I really looked at things, I could just about
comprehend how they worked, and why they worked that way.
I nearly stumbled through the door, greeted first by a single vaguely
anthropomorphic, almost human-sized figure, headless, and hunched
forward almost, with its legs cut short. The head, was on the steel
table beside it.
It was Nené's hardsuit.
If I could've, I would've gone to bed with it. I wanted one so badly
it hurt…
“What do you think?” somebody asked. I barely heard them.
“Awesome,”
I tried not to drool, I tried to take my eyes off of the mechanical
wonder and address the person speaking to me, but I couldn't.
The blue and pink paint on the armour was scratched in places, the
dull ceramic underneath showing itself. I could see how the suit
flowed across the human body, and worked with the feminine form,
almost like a piece of steel lingerie. Inside, it was lined with what
looked like neoprene, a few golden plugs glinting back at me. The suit
was missing its vanes, they were lying beside the helmet on the
workbench, and part of the computer inside was exposed through a
meticulously milled stainless steel screen.
I shivered as I struggled to breathe.
“It's beautiful,” I said, barely whispering.
A dinner fit for Caligula could've been served on my eyes as I
inspected every last little detail. There were connection points to
match those on the motoslaves, a small filler-cap marked H20 on the
backpack. Parts were plastic where it made sense for them to be
plastic, such as insulators, ceramic around high temperature areas,
like the single booster nozzle under the computer, and precisely
machined metal everywhere else.
And still, it showed a fashion designers eye for the female figure.
The armour flowed across the body, working with the wearer's natural
curves, rather than against them.
“Thank you,” said Sylia.
I wanted to touch it, but I didn't dare, I just swallowed my lust and
tried to focus my thoughts. This was why she wanted to meet me down
here, not up in her apartment, or at the garage. She wanted me to see
this.
“Nené was right,” she continued, “Even if she wasn't supposed to
mention it.” Her voice betrayed mild annoyance, “I was watching you in
the garage, and this is, or was supposed to be, a test,”
“I guessed the first part,” my voice quivered out while I tried to
regain control. I should be filled with indignant fury, not awestruck
by a shiny hardsuit… sooo shiny….“But why test, when you say you do
not want me, on first day?”
“I said I didn't want to be bullied or coerced into accepting a new
member,” corrected the leader of the Knight Sabers, “Not that there
would never be an open position,”
“Shit,” I swore under my breath, not quite believing it.
“I wanted to wait until after the mission, originally. But I didn't
want to leave Nené's indiscretion hanging over your head the entire
time. I'm sure you'll agree, the last thing anyone needs at a time
like this is a distraction,”
I was shivering, shaking like my own personal earthquake, and I had no
idea why. Blazing excitement warred with blistering terror, and a few
sparks of anger I was trying desperately to stoke.
“This is fucked up,” I muttered half to myself, shaking my head. “I
don't know, I really don't know. No hasty choice,”
I needed to sit down. Badly.
“That would be wise,” she half chuckled, “This is a big commitment.
You'll have to change apartments to one nearer here for one thing,
it'll ruin any night time plans you'll ever make, and it'll be
unlikely you'll get a chance to leave the city any time soon,”
So I'd have to give up on my goal of going home then.
“And I might die,” I added. Deep breath. I was starting to sober up a
little. “I wanted go home, using money from mission,”
“That won't be possible,”
Again, I nodded. I seriously wished I could sleep on it, but this
really wasn't something I wanted hanging over my head when the bullets
started flying. My heart wanted to do one thing, while my head just
spun around in dizzy circles.
Which is exactly what I think Sylia had intended.
I wished I could faint, just to buy more time to think about it. But
no, I had to answer. Here and now. Another deep breath, and another
step on the road to damnation.
It reminded me of some sort of mortgage ad from the TV. Shiny new
house, brilliant car, suit of powered armour, lots of money, happy
safe family in their own home, the suddenly the obligatory
acknowledgement that you've signed your soul over to the devil, after
a year the house will worth much less than you still owe, and that you
better not miss a payment or you'll go straight to hell.
“Always small print,” I said, exhaling. “I should be furious,” I
laughed nervously, “I know why I here and not in penthouse,”
“And why might that be?” asked Sylia, feigning being wounded
“Because I not resist a hardsuit,”
That woman was, is, and forever will be the master of the mindgame.
“That's part of it, yes,” she admitted with a wry smile, “But also
because the suit itself needed to be repaired, and the firing range is
down here.”
I just nodded again. A sheep in the presence of her master. All
according to the plan, somebody else's anyway. Story of my life. Here
goes. “I'll do it,”
I think mice fart louder than my voice was when I said that.
Sylia nodded, extending a hand, “Welcome to the Knight Sabers, Meg”
I took it warily, being surprised at just how hard the skin on her
palm was, and how firmly she gripped.
“Thank You,” I forced out.
There was something strangely cathartic about it. Getting shot at by
one single boomer on one single mission didn't seem so bad,
considering I'd just agreed to do it for a living.
I suddenly felt like running out of there, screaming.
“I can get the baseline data for your new hardsuit next Sunday, and it
will take about a month to construct. With luck, that will be enough
time,”
I suddenly realised just what she was doing, and why she wanted a 5th
member.
“Before things Blow up?”
I hoped she'd recognise the episode titles I'd told her.
“Exactly. Whether Mason believes that the DVD disks represent the real
Knight Sabers or not, is a moot point, we have to proceed as if he
does,” a gentle mischievous glint sparked in her eyes for a moment, “I
for one would like to have something to surprise him with, in case he
decides to move against us.”
Us, now including me. Oh damn.
“So you believe… the disks are real?”
“Ever since the Superboomer at the Kawasaki factory opened itself up
to reveal the Satellite controller,” she told me in a surprisingly
straight shot. “I'm sorry for keeping it from you, and I do apologise
for being so harsh and direct at the time, but I think you understand
why I had to do it,”
I didn't know what to say, I just looked down at my booted feet. I
didn't really, not right away anyway, but I gave a gentle nod
nonetheless.
“Good,” she knew I didn't, but she moved on anyway, “Now, back to
today's business. It wouldn't do to have our newest member shoot
themselves by accident,”
“No, it wouldn't” I gave a false laugh, trying to sooth my own
spinning head with humour
On to the firing range.
I've never fired a gun in my life…. Not counting my electric
experiments. I wasn't in any way excited, I was still too overwhelmed,
and terrified I'd embarrass myself by breaking something.
----->>
Sylia Stingray could read people's minds, that was the only logical
conclusion. How else could she have done it? It was only with ten
minutes cold reflection that I fully understood what she'd done, and
what she had planned.
Once she'd decided on a Fifth Saber to surprise Mason, she looked for
a candidate. Since I already knew about the group, and had the same
knowledge as Mason, I was the logical choice. The only problem was,
she had to make me want to do it. I'd specifically said I never wanted
to be a hero…
First, from the moment I left Lady633 with her harsh warnings ringing
in my ears, she waited and watched how I lived in the city. She
watched for any more interference from Tet, or for me to run to one of
the corp's to make a quick buck. Once it became clear that I wasn't
going to betray the Sabers, that I wasn't reporting back to anyone or
that no-one was secretly watching me and using me as an unwitting
pawn, she moved forward to the next stage.
Second, she offered bait, a ‘dangerous' job with money and a soothed
conscience as a reward. She knew my conscience would bug me over
Irene, or the money would attract me, so she knew I'd say yes to one.
If I didn't, then I really was serious and she'd leave me alone, but
if I went along to the meeting, she had me hooked. It meant I was open
to the possibility of leading ‘the heroic lifestyle'.
Next, there was a test of my perseverance, my willingness to carry
through with what I'd agreed to, and a little more on top of that. It
also tested my competency as a mechanic, my understanding of
technology, and my ability to learn and adapt. If I couldn't do it,
then I couldn't do it, the mission would continue somehow, and I'd've
gotten a nice paycheck and a thank you for my troubles when it was
done.
But I did, and so got the emotional payoff from completing the task
fully, and the physical reward of a full body service to reinforce the
idea that good things come to those who forge on through
unpleasantness.
Next, she showed me the hardware of the Sabers, up close and personal,
something she knew no person of an engineering mentality could resist.
It was the seed of another juicy carrot planted in the back of my
mind. That was when she asked the Big Question, but if Nené hadn't
blown it, for which I was assured she would be punished by paying for
a ‘Welcome to the Club' meal, the final test would've been the actual
mission itself.
If the mission was completed, I passed. Along with the nice juicy
paycheck, while I was riding on an emotional and adrenaline high, she
would've popped the Big Question, probably from inside her hardsuit,
by which time I would've been powerless to resist.
If I got killed, the whole thing was rendered moot.
Masterful, truly masterful. I really should've been mad, but the truth
was, I was much too impressed by how she'd done it, and it was hard to
be angry with a person who'd been so calm, comforting and polite about
it. She'd eased me gently into it, rather than throwing me blindly
forward. With hindsight, I figured that if I'd called her on it,
she'd've happily come clean then still carried on regardless with a
new backup plan.
Remind me never to play chess against her.
----->>
As a welcome-to-the-club gift, Sylia'd arranged for a new set of
leathers, boots and a helmet which would link up with the new radio
fitted to the bike. It was pretty anonymous black, except for some
grey trim, but it was properly armoured, surprisingly flexible for new
leather, properly waterproof, and properly sexy…
Sylia had an eye for the feminine figure alright, and I looked shit-
fucking hot. My butt could cause an accident… people paying attention
to me, and not the road.
Something about that thought made me feel strangely giddy. I had
another set of similar leathers for ‘Irene Can' along with a spare
helmet, which I stashed in the bikes pannier, alongside my jacket,
jeans and old boots.
I also managed to surprise myself with how well I could shoot… for a
beginner anyway. I had a boomer's hand-eye coordination. I'd decided
on a Misaki M42-A1, the same weapon used by the ADP. It felt like a
toy in my hands, more plastic than metal, a little rattly… the sort of
thing that'd have ‘Made in China' stamped on the side and shoot little
1-joule pellets. Even the sound it made as it fired, a hard crack with
a metallic ring, a little like a golfball struck hard by a driver, was
nothing like the thunderous boom I'd expected. The weapon recoiled,
but it didn't blast my shoulder off.
It really did feel like a toy.
The fist-sized chunk the 5.7mm round knocked out of the target though,
was very, very real.
And thinking about it suddenly reminded me of my own mortality. If it
could kill a human outright, it could kill me outright too. I was a
biomimetic android, not a combat model. Just a single 5.7mm round, not
even to the head, would be enough to drop me.
And I was going to ride into an ambush where hundreds of these things
would be flying about, where even more deadly firepower could well be
aimed right at my head. And I'd agreed to do this, not just once, but
as a paying job.
I sat astride my bike, gloved hands on the bars, shivering,
whimpering, panting and trying not to throw up. I've just thrown my
life away… I've just gotten myself killed… if not today, then soon.
Shot to pieces, blown apart or bloodily ripped limb from limb… take
your pick.
My stomach finally had enough of it with that mental image… I vomited
a chime mixture of breakfast, lunch and reaction catalyst across the
bonnet of a sparkling white Toyota parked beside, wretched violently
enough to bend ‘something' inside, then fired once more.
Quivering like a turkey at Christmas, and suddenly feeling fatally
exhausted, I dropped down onto my bike's fuel tank, resting my head
lazily against the instruments. My gut gurgled and complained as I
spat the last of that disgusting brew out.
The smell of petrol and hot oil cloaked the vomit as best they could.
“Why did I do it?” I asked myself out loud.
Because I wanted to.
“Why did I want to do it then?”
Because Sylia made me want to do it.
But did she really, or did she just latch onto something that was
already there? If on day one, she'd asked if I wanted to don a shining
hardsuit and fight the good fight, would I really have said No?
I honestly didn't know.
‘Well, I'm now a Knight Saber,' I thought. It didn't excite me; at
least not once the cold reality of what that actually meant had begun
to sink in. It wasn't just a case of swanning around in shiny suits
popping steel cannon fodder. A brutal death lingered behind every
corner. One misstep at the wrong moment, one stroke of bad luck, just
the one time no matter how often I'd won, and that'd be it….game over.
“Fuck it anyway,”
I started the bike. I had a job to do, and I was suddenly starving
hungry. Even a condemned man gets a final meal.
I'd condemned myself, the least I could do was feed myself as well.
Good food this time, from a decent sushi place. At least I could die
happy.
At least Sylia and I had agreed not to tell anyone else, until
tonight.
----->>
I pulled into the hospital carpark ten minutes early, chaining the
bike up by its frame. I was welcomed by an electronic sign.
MegaTo__o Mercy Hospi_al, it read, some of the backlit letters having
failed thanks to the penetrating rain. The whole lot suddenly went
dark, shorting itself out with a puff of blue smoke. When it rained in
Megatokyo, it rained.
Acid rain dragged pollution down from the atmosphere, blackening
concrete, attacking steel, and slowly fingering its way into each and
every exposed piece of electronic equipment, eating away over time at
any protective seals.
Nothing lasted if left outside for long enough. Only glass seemed to
resist it.
The rain could even give susceptible people a rash, if they were
unlucky. It was one in a ten thousand, at most, but that was still a
lot of people in this city. Supposedly, it was the factories in
Kawasaki that did it, or the gasohol fumes, though nobody could prove
anything and anyone who tried got sued out onto the streets.
I was calm enough, calmer than I expected to be anyway. I was a little
twitchy, a bit edgy, but I wasn't a basket case. I knew what I had to
do, and I could do it. I had to keep my food where it belonged, speak
a few lines, not forget Priss' disguise gear and… shit…
With my imaginary tail between my legs, I doubled back to the bike and
retrieved the bag.
Outside, the hospital looked like just another rainwashed skyscraper
in this megatropolis, identified only by the single large neon green
cross on each façade of the building's crown. At least I didn't need
health insurance; most pathogens took one look at my systems and gave
up. That and most medicines either just plain wouldn't work, or made
things much worse.
So no painkillers or paracetamol for headaches….
Trying to exhale my apprehension, I took my helmet off… it's always
good manners, and went in through the front doors.
Inside, through almost an airlock of automatic doors, guarded by an
actual human security guard in a navy uniform who smiled thoughtfully
at me, the first thing that struck me was the stink of chlorine. It
smashed my senses like a wall, muddying my sense of smell, making my
eyes water, and disabling my pheromone senses entirely.
It was like being blinded for an instant, before I readjusted.
Greeting me was a large waiting area, just about big enough to park a
few trucks side-by-side. It was about half full, most people inside
seeming to be reasonably well to do. A few families buzzed around,
waiting for mommy or daddy, some parents hugged each other. It felt a
little like an airport waiting terminal, with the check-in desks at
the far end.
There was one separate check-in area per insurance company accepted by
the hospital, a desk for information, and one final area for the
uninsured. The only cyberdroids in the entire building were the ones
behind the reception desk.
“May I help you, miss?” a platinum haired one requested. Just another
pale-skinned mannequin, with those same dead eyes, probably turned out
from the same factory floor. The only thing different were the clothes
it wore; a powder blue blouse, a hard wearing skirt, and a pair of
cheap plastic shoes.
Remember the words… deep breath… play the part. I'm only here to pick
a woman up, nothing more. Swallow your fears…
“I am here to pick-up discharge patient,” what was Irene's pseudonym
again, “Her name is Miki Itou,”
The cyberdroid entered the name, its fingers a working almost
metronomically… and it still stared at me. It didn't even need to look
down at the terminal screen.
“You must please give your name, Miss…”
Another demand phrased as the most polite request imaginable.
“Susan Keith,” I answered.
“Thank you,” it acknowledged, keying the name in while I quietly
prayed it didn't ask for id. Sylia had been certain they wouldn't, but
there was always the exception at the worst possible moment.
“Room A225, Toshio Suzuki memorial private ward. Follow Blue route
four to elevator nine. There is a Miss Oomori and a Miss Tomizawa
signed in as visitors. Thank You and Good Day.“
“Thanks,”
I wondered to myself why I'd bothered, when I knew beyond doubt that
it really was just an appliance, a Bu-72-D, with a type-9 AI. And
thanks to those obvious toasters, all cyberdroids were tarred with the
same ‘talking white-goods' brush.
Carrying my helmet under one arm, I pushed through the hospital
corridors, keeping my eyes on the blue line. The signs were bilingual,
but the English parts weren't in any English I knew.
All I knew was I was heading towards Paediatrics, Cardiographology,
Cybercerebral Imaging and several recovery wards. The corridors
themselves were wide enough to drive a car through; one wall made up
of offices, private beds, wards and examination rooms filled with God
knows what medical technology.
All was white and sterile.
The other wall was assaulted by the monsoon outside, the city outside
melting in the sheeting rain. I was still dripping spots of dirty
water as I walked, staining the polished floor and drawing sour
looks.
I passed a melancholic young woman sitting in a wheelchair who
screamed as I walked by her. My heart spasmed, my whole body trying to
break into a panicked run. Had somebody figured out what I was? I
asked myself, What was happening?
I glanced around frantically…
No sign of a combat boomer bearing down on me with claws drawn, nobody
with a pistol aimed at my head. Just a woman, surrounded by blue-
bloused nurses and a white-coated doctor as she wailed in agony.
How did I do that? I wondered, guiltily. I wanted to apologise, but I
wasn't suite sure what I'd done. Instead, I just hurried away before
somebody put 2 and 2 together and decided to ask questions. When
you're an unregistered cyberdroid entering a building on a false name,
the last thing you want is people asking questions you're going to run
out of answers to very quickly.
I took a few moments to calm down in the solitude of a brushed steel
lift. I forced my free hand into my pocket to stop it shaking, tried
to focus my thoughts on what I had to do, not on what would happen if
I got caught, and generally failed at both.
I was aware of each and every CCTV camera and security guard I passed.
Each and every set of eyes in the building watched me as I tried to
get through the building as anonymously as possible, but a figure
hugging set of leathers and a sexaroids body made it anything but…
I tried not to look at the guards, or the cameras… that was the worst
thing you could do. If you look at them, it means you're interested in
them, and that begs the question; why are you so interested in what
the guards are doing?
So, I hurried on, focusing on nothing more than a sign at a junction
dead ahead that read “Toshio Suzuki Memorial Ward 2027”. A dark
haired, well built woman was stretchered past me, my reflection
shimmering across the surface of her steel right arm. I glanced at her
a moment, flexing my own arm before returning my attention to that
same sign again.
It was a cool relief to finally find the door marked A225. Overcome by
the strange sensation that I might've been followed, I glanced over
both shoulders. Nobody seemed to be watching me. Good. The door slid
open, and I stepped inside.
The room was small, barely big enough for the bed, a table, and a
chair. Priss was sitting in her own red leathers, legs crossed and
using the table as a footstool. The singer sported a brand new
hairstyle, her trademark fringe trimmed short with a straight edge,
with a spread of hair like a bird's tail feathers at the back, uniform
and clean cut, and dyed a much deeper, almost mahogany brown.
It was a perfect match for the young woman in the bed, being fussed
over by her black haired friend.
“Took you long enough,” Priss commented.
“It is monsoon out,” I defended “I have clothes for disguise,” I held
up the sopping wet bag for all to see.
“I hope they're dry,” remarked the singer, already undoing her boots.
“Meg, I'm just finishing Irene off here,” said Linna, looking up from
her hairdressing kit just long enough to acknowledge I'd arrived.
“Hi,” Irene almost whispered, and I suddenly felt like running out
through that door.
“Hey,” I tried to give her a smile, and felt like an idiot for doing
it. “How are you?”
“Much better,” she said, “My new arm still feels a little weird
though,”
She showed it to me, comparing it with her other hand. They looked
identical, exact mirror images of each other. Linna'd told me, that
rather than go through the bother of pinning the bones together, and
months of agonizing recovery, they'd just replaced it with a
biomimetic.
“It looks real,” I said,
She gripped her hand tightly shut, smiling at me for a moment,
“Meg Deckard here is a boomeroid,” Linna told her, earning a sharp
glare from me for a second.
“It was either this,” I pointed to my chest, “or death,”
“I can't imagine that,” she said, almost sullenly, “It's not my arm,
but it feels like it is. Anything I touch, feels almost like I'm
touching it through a glove,”
“You'll get used to it,” I reassured, trying to be confident about it.
“Better than old ones,”
She nodded thoughtfully, holding her artificial hand in front of her
eyes.
“More trouble than they're worth,” Priss threw her opinion into the
ring, already stripped down to her underwear. “Especially maintenance,
and interface issues. And boomer syndrome,”
“But bioneumatics don't have that problem, do they?” wondered Linna
out loud, getting the word wrong in the progress.
“Nope,” I said, “I never have problem with it. I know what I am.”
Priss gave me an odd look, while I silently cursed myself for not
saying ‘who' like I'd meant to.
“Didn't you keep that bike as an anchor?” she asked me, anchor
referring to anything used by boomeroid level cyborgs to remind
themselves of who they are, to hold their personalities in place
against the tide of the machine.
I just nodded. “But one arm, it's not going to be a problem, I mean,
would you let me stab a knife through it?” I asked Irene
“No!” she yelped, cradling it suspiciously to her chest,
“See,” I smirked. “Protect like original. It means something so no
problem.”
I had no idea what I was trying to say, maybe something about how her
mind feels it's her own arm enough to protect it as if it was. Truth
was I was bullshitting out my hole, and succeeding.
Priss was now naked as the day God made her, and I could see the scars
of her life written across her body. There were white bubbles that had
once been road rash spattered across her legs, hips and arms, sharp
white slashes across her stomach, shoulder and along one of her
forearms. She practiced what she preached alright, one of her legs
showed the tell-tale signs of having been pinned together with some
outside supports. Reminding me of the job offer I'd just taken were
the still healing burns on her shoulder and a pink splash just above
her hip.
I honestly questioned for a second, if she was really human, to be
able to take all that punishment, and still look so beautiful.
“A change inside the body still brings a change in consciousness,” she
said, her expression neutral “And give me my damn clothes, Deckard,
I'm not going out naked,”
I offered the bag I'd nearly forgotten about, which she snatched
gruffly from my hand. Evergreen and ocean blue leathers, a contrast to
the red Priss normally preferred, along with silken underwear,
courtesy of Sylia.
“I guess I better get dressed then,” Irene said, and sounded more
nervous than I did. Again, I was glad I wasn't the only one.
“Not until I've finished you're hair,” Linna held her down gently, “I
have to make you look like Priss here, remember?”
“There's no rush anyway,” remarked Asagiri with a smirk, “Mackie's
still probably unloading the truck,”
“I wonder if they've had to give him a blood transfusion yet,”
wondered the fitness instructor, finger to her lips, “With all the
nosebleeds he's having, he'll need one,”
The four women in the room giggled musically. It felt good to be part
of the group; it broke the stress and tension of the upcoming day's
work.
“He might ruin the merchandise,” I warned. “Especially unload one at
time by hand,”
“How can we be sure he didn't just roll around in the back on top of
the open boxes?” Priss asked, now almost dressed,
“Or try them on?” Linna wondered.
I glanced out the window in the door, seeing there were no Peeping
Toms stealing a glance, just in case.
Priss gave us a twirl in her disguise, “What do you think?”
She looked so much like Irene, it was uncanny. Give her a white blouse
and a loose skirt, and she'd be a dead match for Irene on that first
night.
“Shows off figure nice,” I said. “Real good hips”.
A trademark of Sylia's, apparently.
“Looks just like you, Irene,” chipped in Linna.
“It feels weird,” was Irene's opinion. “I think you look like more my
sister, actually.”
“It'll have to do,” shrugged Priss, “Besides, somebody now has to
dress as the greatest singer in Megatokyo, or this won't work,” Her
eyes sparked menacingly. Terrible things were going to happen to
Irene, especially since Priss' worn leathers seemed just a little on
the too-big side for Irene's slight figure.
Somehow, it worked. It was almost funny. Priss had a much deeper voice
than Irene, and watching to two women speak with what seemed to be
each other's voices was surprisingly funny. There were telltale signs
of course; different eye colour being the main one, but it was close
enough so that unless you stopped either of them and checked, you
wouldn't be able to tell.
And a decent pair of sunglasses could cover that
“We're ready,” real Priss told Sylia through a mobile phone.
“I hope this works,” ersatz Priss said, looking entirely too nervous
for the part. It really was like watching a first-timer cosplaying.
“Mackie should be done soon,” Linna said, “I guess Priss and I will go
help him,”
Priss giggled in a way real-Priss never would have. It was funny to
watch, especially with Irene's voice a register higher than Priss' in
the first place.
“Me and Irene will get on road,” I said, feeling the weight of
responsibility drop right onto my shoulders.
This was my part and my part alone. Irene looked about as thrilled as
you'd expect her to be about it. She was going along with it because
she was under orders.
“So,” Irene started, hands on her leathered hips, “Where did you
park?”
It'd just be my luck if the bike had been stolen in the mean time,
wouldn't it?
----->>
“It's been a while since I've been pillion,” Priss said offhand.
Outside, I could feel her discomfort radiating hot and uneasy. She
stood, holding one arm with the other, keeping a quick lookout while I
got the bike unlocked.. Under the concrete shelter I'd parked the bike
under, it was dry enough, except for a few spots blown in on a gusting
wind, but the rest of the car-park was fast becoming a shallow black
lake.
“This weather. I hate rain ride,” I said, my hands betraying my true
feelings by shaking as I tried to unlock the chain. I couldn't get the
key into the hole.
“How long have you been riding?”
About two months,
“Not long,” I answered, trying to dodge around. Reflect the question.
“And you?”
“Since I was sixteen,” she said. “Might've been going nowhere, but at
least I could go nowhere fast,”
I wasn't sure what to make of that, Priss' lifestyle was completely
out of my sphere of knowledge. Up until a month ago, I'd been the
normal, ordinary person with a home, family, college.
“Fast... I not want crash,”
I didn't care for crashing at all. I'd done it twice before.
“Crash happens.” shrugged the master of motorcycle mayhem. “You don't
become a better rider if you don't push your own limits and learn from
your mistakes,”
“Dead don't learn,” I snarked.
“Don't push too far then,” Priss rebutted caustically.
The chain came loose and I stashed it roughly in the pannier with my
clothes.
“Especially in monsoon.”
Fucking weather.
“Real bikers ride in all weather,”
Well, it kept my mind off other things, anyway,,
“I not real biker,” I stated my case, “I am commuter who got bike
because more fun and better in traffic than car.”
“A bike is always better than a cage,” Priss gave me a thumb's-up.
“Even in weather like this,” I agreed.
Funnily enough, that was almost true. At least I was dry thanks to the
waterproofs, and normally, I'd be out of it quicker. The roads were
also a hundred times more lethal, and drowning seemed to have become a
possibility.
The bike fired up with a characteristic judder, helmets on, saddle up,
and deep breath. I felt Priss' weight behind me, depressing the seat
down. It was strange, she made a specific effort not to touch me. She
kept her legs apart, and held herself as far back on the seat as she
comfortably could.
It was another needle to my gut that reminded me just how much she
trusted me.
“Wow, this is actually pretty comfy,” I heard her comment over the
intercom, her voice a little muffled, but still surprised. That one
compliment made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Fidgeting in the seat, I gassed the engine gently, feeling my fears
buzz through my body. Lightning flickered overhead and through my
veins, thunder rolling through my stomach.
“Are you ready for this then?” I heard Priss' voice ask, distant and
tinny.
I swallowed my apprehension, and just focused on doing what I had to
do. This was my show now; I'd better make it a good one. Ten miles
through the city… 16000 metres, that's all. Just that little distance
forward, the multiply and repeat. One metaphorical foot in front of
the other. Easy, right?
I didn't believe that for a second, but it made me feel a little
better. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for second. Be calm,
first step. “Let's do this,”
Set radio Channel 288. Code AE85. Mode: OPEN Lock as Preset 1
“Knight-Leader, this is Knight-Rider.” I spoke in what I hoped was a
cool clear voice, “Tiger has her stripes.” What was the other part of
the fucking code again? Right” “No sign of poachers,”
“Knight-Rider, Knight-Leader, acknowledged. Broadcast diversion 1,”
came Sylia's terse, commanding reply.
“Wilco,” I said, for no reason other than saying ‘Wilco' and meaning
it.
Channel 175, Code S13, Mode: NRW. Lock as Preset 2. Now let's give
GENOM something to listen in on. One thing that had been given away,
were the original radio codes to be used.
“Knight-Leader, this is Knight-Rider,” I repeated. “Idle at starting
point. Tiger is in the bag, awaiting instructions,”
“Knight-Rider, Knight-Leader, acknowledged” was Sylia's repeated
reply. “Proceed at discretion to ensure safe arrival,”
“Yeah, this weather is nuts,” I complained, suddenly feeling
breathless. Priss groaned behind me. “Wilco”
Switching back to Preset 1, I hooshed the bike down off its centre
stand, no problem so far. The stand snapped up with a the same solid
crack as always, the machine bouncing on its suspension. Priss
fidgeted in the seat as she adjusted her balance.
“Wait for Sylia,” Priss instructed as I grunted with the effort of
paddling over 300 kilos backwards.
“Yeah, yeah,” I puffed.
“Knight-Leader, this is Knight-Light,” I heard Nené's voice. “Tiger's
Den is dark.”
Meaning the Hou-Bang ambush was properly hidden, and there were no
GENOM agents hovering around to shine a light on it.
“Acknowledged,” Sylia responded.
“Knight-Leader, this is Knight-Guard,” It was Linna's turn, “Cheetah
has her spots, The Watcher is in the driving seat. No sign of
poachers.” Perfectly professional. “Or peekers.”….Or not.
“Acknowledged,”
I glanced at the vehicles in the carpark, a stray few braving the rain
before their cars floated away. Any one of them, could be loaded with
my death. I scanned for blacked out windows, dark coloured GENOM
Automotive saloons, any obvious ‘secret agent' type cars.
Nothing stood out. Maybe the rain kept them away. Ride through the
wet, don't crash. They won't follow. No guns, no fighting, no dance
with death, Irene is safe, and the whole mission ends in a beautiful
damp squib…emphasis on the damp….Please God.
I don't know what made me think the man upstairs would be more likely
to listen to me anyway tonight, than he was a month ago. Whatever it
was would be proved wrong anyway.
The little microphone in my ear hissed to life once more.
“Knight Sabers, sanjo”
Thrills of giddy excitement reverberated through my body with those
words. I almost expected the view through my visor to cut away for a
moment, to an animated image of Sylia standing on some rooftop,
lightning splitting the sky behind her.
Not that Sylia Stingray would be dumb enough to stand on top of a
towerblock in a thunderstorm.
A tidal surge of new confidence rushed through me.
“Yes!” five women's voices barked.
I giggled privately, crunching the bike into gear. Here goes
everything…
I stalled it, the big BMW guttering forward, coughing then going
embarrassingly quiet for the briefest of shameful instants, before
peals of Priss' mocking laughter rang in my ears,
“Nice one, Meg,” she placed a warm hand on my shoulder.
Any confidence I had, dissolved as I dropped down to the tank, hiding
from the shame of it. Even the fuel-pump seemed to be mocking,
burbling, buzzing and hissing at me. I gave an exasperated growl,
pulling the clutch in and stabbing at the starter.
The bike fired up once more, I gave it an enthusiastic handful of
throttle and lurched away hard enough to frighten Priss for the
briefest moment.
“Watch it!” her voice blasted in my ear.
“Sorry,” I muttered, not even close to being.
I didn't stall a second time, I made sure of it. I'd never live that
down. I crawled through the carpark, rain pattering and rattling off
the tank and fairing. There were a few cars moving, but none of them
seemed too interested in us.
“Maybe they won't come out in the rain,” I wondered aloud, hopefully.
“Don't count on it,” my passenger shot that down abruptly.
I just groaned, pulling up at the exit. Check, check right, road
clear, deep breath and away. I watched behind for a few seconds,
checking to see if anything was following now.
Nope. Nothing but the rain, Starbuck.
“Knight-Leader, Knight-Rider, We are en-route, still no sign of
poachers,”
“Understood,” Sylia's voice answered, “Can you give an ETA at Tiger's
Den?”
“Not now… hard to ride in rain at speed,”
Please don't make me rush, I pleaded mentally.
“The priority is to arrive, not to arrive quickly, speed is at your
discretion,”
“Tha- uh- Roger,” I said. “Knight-Rider out,”
I cut the channel, switched to the second preset and then repeated the
same first message on the decoy channel. It seemed a bit silly to me
to be attracting attention, especially since nobody seemed too
interested in following anyway, but that was the plan.
If they weren't following us, I was quite happy to let that sleeping
giant lie….
But then there was the chance they'd realised we were the decoy, and
were homing in on the Silky Wagon. If that happened, they'd make a
break for the Hou-Bang ambush, and I'd have to race through the city
to get there ahead of them… fuck the ambush, doing anything over 40mph
in weather like this would be lethal.
“This is Knight-Guard, en-route to the dropoff, cheetah is
comfortable, no sign of poachers.” Linna's voice crackled in my ear as
another bolt of lightning flashed above.
“Thank Christ,” I murmured to myself, feeling the weight lift off my
shoulders.
The rain had kept them away.
The same rain which was already running in little rivulets down
between the fairing and the tank, pooling in what was once a speaker
cutout and generally trying to insinuate itself into every single nook
and cranny.
The same rain which kept me from seeing more than 50 yards ahead,
through spray and streaming water across the windshield. Riding gear
had moved on a bit in 20 years' time, I was warm, dry, and not at all
sweaty. It was still bloody lethal out, rainwater steaming and hissing
off the engine, the front wheel ploughing a shallow bow-wave through
the rainwater running along the road. The front end went light in my
hands as it aquaplaned through a puddle, and my heart almost stopped.
Don't crash, I prayed silently, gripping onto the bars for grim death
and hoping the machine would just finds its way through each time it
happened.
Some poor unfortunate made a dash for their car, their newspaper
umbrella having long disintegrated.
1 mile down, 9 more to go. If it wasn't for Noah's flood, this'd be
easy.
------>>
I'd been riding for ten minutes, picking my way through traffic,
puddles and the ongoing radio chatter. Almost halfway there, and no
sign of anyone following… and I said as much about every two minutes
over the radio. Every few minutes, Linna would cut in with the exact
same thing.
Hello Missus Quincy, can Mason come out to play…? Oh No No, ladies,
his new Boomers might rust in our acid rain… Dawww…
Just when I'd convinced myself that GENOM had stayed at home, Priss'
voice hissed in my ear,
“We're being followed.”
I glanced around… nothing but the same traffic as a moment ago.
“I don't see it,” I said. Nothing that looked like the traditional
‘Evil Car'. No black paint, no blacked out windows, nothing like that
Lagonda car that'd chased Irene and I. Some kid in a family minivan
waved back at me as I filtered passed.
“Three cars back, red Toyota Corolla GT,” she said tersely.
I saw the car… it looked ordinary enough. 4 passengers, a slight dent
on the front bonnet. Its popup headlights glared back at me, flashing
off the mirrors for an instant as it pulled back behind the minivan
we'd just past.
“Looks ordinary,” I said, returning my attention to the road.
“No,” hissed Priss, “It's them. You really have no combat sense do
you?”
“Never done thing before,” I defended limply,
“Look how it rides on the road,” she instructed, “It's wallowing on
its springs which means it's heavily loaded, but there's no space for
luggage, unless it's full of gold.”
I gave a glance back at it, over my shoulder. It did seem loaded, but
there were only four people inside, broad shouldered
“Don't look!” Priss barked.
I snapped my gaze back to the road ahead, just in time to avoid
running into the back of a slow moving ambulance.
“There's only four people in that car,” continued the singer, “The
only way that car could be loaded so heavy, is if the passengers were
heavier than they should be. There're four combat boomers in that
car,”
“Bloody hell,” I stuttered out, swallowing a sudden rise of bile.
Priss almost sounded like she was realising it. I glanced down at the
bikes instruments…nothing had changed, up at the back of the truck in
front….“North Central Positronics – Moving on with the World,”….then
back at the following car.
I could hear my breathing, quick and heavy, my body charging up to run
as fast and far as it could. My wrist tightened itself around the
throttle, the big BM responding, slowly building more speed. A green
panelled sign for a motorway exit flashed past, lightning flickering
across the sky once more. I have to run away, I have to get away
somehow. Just squeeze the throttle and go, dive off onto some side
road, belt forward through traffic, just run… run… RUN! It implored.
Just fucking Run away! it screamed.
Which is exactly what they want me to do, a small voice reminded,
nearly drowned out by a fight or flight response jammed firmly on
‘flight'.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“Keep going, they're not going to shoot at us in public,”
Priss was completely unfazed by it. 4 combat boomers, nothing but a
fact of life for the battle scarred woman. I thought about those scars
for a moment, and felt my whole body shudder. I could see that car
still in my minds eye, lurking back there. I snatched glances in the
rain-soaked mirrors, looking for it, trying to watch for it making any
sudden runs.
Alright, I have to radio this in… I have to do my job… do my job, do
what was discussed. That's my best chance to get through this. Just
focus on the task at hand, and don't go to pieces. 5 miles down, 5 to
go. Almost halfway there, almost over.
Select Preset 1. Make damn sure it's the right one, because I don't
want to give the game away.
“Knight-Leader, Knight-Rider,” I tried, my voice shrinking down into
the pit of my stomach. I swallowed hard, and took a single, sharp
breath. “We have poachers, four to one vehicle,”
“Shit! There's two of ‘em!” Priss cut across the channel.
“Two Cars?”
“Yes!”
Fuck Me.
“I understand, continue as planned. The tiger's den is still dark,”
Sylia's voice had softened. She could tell how terrified I was, and
she was trying to reassure me. Probably not, but it made me feel ten
times better to think she was.
I didn't know if it was the vibrations from the engine, or my own
simmering terror that made my limbs go numb.
“Where is it,” I asked Priss, even though I didn't want to know.
“GENOM Lowe, black, hugging the crash barrier in the fast lane about
20 yards back,” she told me.
And there it was, plain as day. A car for the grim reaper himself, or
herself. I could see the driver, and the passengers' outlines through
the windows. I recognised the hair immediately, even though there was
barely more than a silhouette to go by.
“Jesus Christ, it's the same one,' I whispered. I could see its silver
claws bursting through my chest, shining pink blood dripping from the
wounds before my body shut down…
“What?”
“Same Boomer that try kill Irene!” I nearly cried
It wasn't beaten by the Knight Sabers, it ran off. And now it was back
“Well, revenge will be sweet.”
I could hear Priss grinning as she spoke. I glanced back at her, her
eyes aflame with the same burning passion I'd first glimpsed in the
dyno room. She didn't look afraid…
“How you do it?” I wondered.
“Do what?”
“Never mind,” I shrugged it off, deciding not to pry. Anyway, I had
one more radio call to make.
Preset 2, back to the decoy channel. Try to sound calm, try to sound
confident.
“Knight-Leader, Knight-Rider. Making good progress, still no sign of
poachers,”
“Understood, dropoff point is clear,”
Click back to the main channel, another glance at both death-cars and
then back to the task at hand. 4 miles to go. Take the next exit off
this expressway, down into the fault, then 2 miles of surface streets.
I could see it ahead, glowing almost radioactively, each little
raindrop reflecting the lights from below.
There was a good chance I'd die down there… Or it would be more
correct to say, it has ceased function. Either way didn't matter a
bloody toss, the end result would still be the same.
I wonder if this is how the maggot on the hook feels, staring into the
dark abyss of the fish's gullet?
----->>
I tried not to look back. I tried to focus on the road ahead, on the
route that had been planned out. The bandit cars just lurked behind,
making their presence known via the occasional flash of headlights in
the mirror, or growl of an engine spooling up to pull ahead of slower
traffic. They gnawed like rats at my confidence.
The fault was already dark, streetlights winking into life
automatically. Run-off cascaded down from above, through open sewers
and falling from broken streets. A lot of businesses were shut,
shutters down and sandbags at the door. Millions of gallons a second
were draining down from above, and the water was already deep enough
to lap at the bike's crankcases and tug at my boots. I crawled through
it, not daring to push above 10mph. Drowning the engine and stalling
would be deadly for the pair of us.
“It never rains, but it pours,” Priss commented.
I chuckled dryly at that.
“It is slowing enemy up too,” I said.
Thank goodness for small miracles alright. It must've been the slowest
chase in history, crawling along flooded roads at barely a joggers
pace, churning up a foaming wake behind which glowed red under the
taillight. The nauseating smell of sewerage crept into my helmet,
assaulting my nostrils even after I'd snapped the visor shut. It was
hilarious, when I thought about it, each time I took a turn I expected
one of the cars to rev up and try to ram us, but of course they
couldn't, any faster and they'd suck floodwater into their engines.
It made riding a bloody nightmare, but it also kept us safe, and it
gave me something to concentrate on other than the hundreds of
horrible ways I could die. I just focused on the grim pool of light
cast by the bikes headlight on the surging effluent. A doll drifted
past, pulled by some unseen current.
“Knight-Rider, Knight Leader, can you give E.T.A?”
“Knight-Leader, maybe 5 minutes, this is slow going,” I answered,
About a mile out, I guessed.
“Tiger's Den is still dark, and is dry,” the Sabers leader told me.
I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or not.
“The flooding is slowing down the poachers too,” jumped Priss in,
“Their cars are having the same trouble we are. I don't know why they
haven't abandoned their vehicles yet, they could run us down on foot
in a heartbeat in this,”
“Don't jinx,” I jibed, suddenly feeling the full force of my fears
roll back in.
“Shit,” Priss swore, “Arrogant bastards. I bet they're just waiting
for us to make a mistake. If we go down, they pounce on us like hyenas
on a dying Zebra.”
Horrible mental image
“For fuck's sake stop that!” I spat back, “I'm scared enough as it
fucking is,”
Silence…. Oh shit.
“Knight-Rider,” Sylia's cool voice anchored my thoughts, “This is no
time for profanity. The Tigers' assessment is correct. Take your time,
keep your head, and focus on your task,”
I could hear giggling from behind me.
“I understand,” I responded, cowed by shame.
“In other words, just get on with it,” Priss put it a little better,
“And don't worry about things you have no control over,”
We came to a dry patch, relatively, and could pick up a little speed
again. Not a lot, but enough. It gave the assassins a chance to ram,
but they held back, content to taunt us with their presence, looming
in convoy about twenty yards behind. They matched my speed exactly,
slowing when I pulled up, then accelerating to match when I pushed
forward…. They could kill me any time they wanted, but they didn't…
they just let me keep going. Why? Why don't they just do it and get it
over with?
Don't think about things I have no control over?
Easier said than done.
Raindrops glittered as they fell through streetlamp halos, looking
like little shards of glass dropping from the sky. 19:35:23 and it was
already dark as midnight down here. One last left turn, I knew it
would be the last, and my heart jumped to the back of my throat. I
came face to face with the building that might well become my tomb,
squatting in ominous darkness straight ahead, maybe 200 yards away.
The lights were off alright. Tiger's Den was still dark.
“Accelerate, Accelerate!” Priss urged, and I didn't argue, “Put some
distance between us so we can get off without getting run over.”
The bike squirmed and squalled in protest as I wrung the throttle hard
open. This was it… this was it… I gave three sharp blasts from the
bike's horn, echoing down the canyon streets. The engine roared
between my legs, wind howling over my helmet, rainwater plashing up
against the bikes structure.
I stopped being afraid. I wasn't calm either. I slipped out of both. I
had a clear, concise idea of what I had to do, and I knew exactly how
to do it. I glanced quickly up at some of the building rising on
either side, looking for signs of any weapons, any gunfire.
There was none.
The bandit cars were accelerating hard behind, but even a half-century
old motorbike could leave them for dead. My whole body was rigid, taut
with tension, my breathing sharp, quick and heavy. My blood burned
with energy enough to move a planet, it felt like. I was ready to
snap, I was ready to bolt, I wasn't ready to do this but I didn't have
a choice in the matter, did I?
Three more blasts from the bike's horn, almost mournful in the
concrete canyon.
“Knight-Rider, we see you,” came the reply. Terse, but just what I
wanted to hear.
I didn't feel safe, not by a long shot, but I did feel protected. Now
then, all I had to do was time this right. I stopped breathing. I
stopped thinking. I covered the brake lever with my hand, waiting for
just the right moment.
The speeding bike splashed through another puddle, rainwater exploding
in a glittering rainbow fountain. The machine slid terrifyingly under
me, but sheer momentum kept the whole lot travelling in the one
direction.
Brake… stop…run.
The safehouse building was rushing forward to meet me, all five
stories of it formed from black-stained concrete. It looked derelict,
unlived in for years, the door hanging open as if the last person out
had forgotten to lock it.
I waited for for a fraction of a heartbeat more, and just grabbed as
hard as I could, stamping down on the back-brake so hard I was sure
I'd bent the lever. The ABS cut in immediately pulsing in my hand.
The machine slewed sideways at a heartstopping angle, Priss suddenly
finding herself fighting to hold on. The brakes squealed, tyres
howling across the road as they were held on the point of locking up.
The safehouse rose up, still closing rapidly…. Too Rapidly!
“ToofastToofastToofastToofast!” I yelped out,
No again! I'm not going to crash again. I screwed my eyes shut,
expecting the final, crushing pain of flesh/concrete impact. I could
hear both chasing cars charging up behind, not bothering to even slow
down. If we didn't hit the wall, they'd ram us, and smash the pair of
us into it. I could feel Priss tense behind, the blue Knight Saber
ready to make a jump for it, just in case.
Then, silence, more or less…the bike stopped and stalled, leaving
nothing but the rain, and the roar of rapidly closing engines.
Sidestand down, ignition off, and I released a breath I'd forgotten I
was holding.
“Run dammit,” shouted Priss, already halfway to the door. “Unless you
want to die again!”
Fuck no…
The bike dropped onto its stand and I jumped off, nearly tumbling to
the footpath as my foot caught on the saddle, and dragged the machine
clear over onto its side with a metallic crash. I winced… that sounded
expensive, but I didn't dare look back.
“Just hurry up!” pleaded Priss, already halfway through the door.
I steadied myself on my legs, boots struggling to grip wet pavement. I
chased after her, already panting hard. I could hear the V8 roar of
the approaching car, bearing straight down on me. They weren't going
to brake… my shadow lengthened rapidly, the pool of yellow light cast
by the charging GENOM Lowe's headlights swallowing me whole. I
stumbled through the doorway, scant moments before the car followed
me, smashing through the doorframe and wall, punching shattered bits
of concrete, wood and steel into the building's lobby.
I landed flat on my face, cracking my visor on the hard edge of a
staircase. Something heavy bounced painfully off my back and I rolled
over on top of it, jamming whatever it might've been into my shoulder.
Scant inches from my booted foot was the smashed front bumper of the
Lowe; it had wedged itself inside the smashed doorway, doors pinned
shut. The engine was dead, the bonnet scratched and crumpled, the
windshield cracked and shattered. Steam hissed out from around a piece
of twisted steel frame wedged in the radiator. I breathed a sigh,
liquid relief cooling my veins, as I snapped my broken visor off.
Outside, the rain redoubled its efforts to flood the world, pelting
hard against tarmac, concrete and steel. I heard the other car skid to
a halt, before crashing hard into something…I prayed it wasn't my
bike.
I saw something move inside the Lowe, the wrecked vehicle rocking on
its suspension as something inside fought to free itself. A single,
feminine fist punched through the windshield, scattering splinters of
glass. Its fingers stretched, nails shining monstrously, pink blood
running free from dozens of little cuts….
“Bloody hell,” I muttered,
“This is no time to sleep!” Priss' urgent voice snapped me out of it.
I looked back up the stairs, the Knight Saber standing at the top of
the staircase, waiting for me, but ready to save her own ass if it
came to that. Well, I didn't need to be told to save my neck twice.
“Bloody Hell!” I repeated, scrambling to my feet, glass shards and
concrete dust giving way under my weight. A sudden, sickly orange
flash lighted the inside of the building for an instant… funny
lightning, I thought,… until the hand of God slammed me too the floor
a second time, The air rushed out of the building, being sucked clear
out of my lungs, shattering each and every window, it held there for a
second, waiting while my insides burned in agony, before rushing back
in again with the force of a runaway freight train, filling the air
with flying shards of glass, concrete and steel. It was a kick to the
stomach, a punch right to the core of my being, and for a few moments,
I wondered what it could have been.
A quick glance over my shoulder and over the concrete-dust grey roof
of the wrecked GENOM car told me the second chasing car, the red
Toyota, had ceased to be. All that was left was a burning wreck
billowing acrid grey smoke. And that hard rain I'd heard was a rain of
lead.
I didn't waste another second, picking myself up, and scrabbling
desperately to the top of the staircase to meet Priss. The pair of us
were like ghosts, grey and pale with concrete dust and dirt, clinging
to our wet clothes. She coughed a mix of spit and ash into her hand.
“Upstairs, apartment 204,” she said between coughs.
“I know,” I winced as something bit deep inside my shoulder… not
broken, but definitely something not right. It felt more like a
trapped nerve than anything. The dust tickled at my throat, sucking
moisture out if my body. I coughed hard, hacking some muddy mix up
from deep inside my chest. Warnings flashed through my mind about
airborne toxins and bloodstream contamination, but I ignored them.
“They may have blown the other car up, but that won't stop whatever's
out there, they'll just scorch them damn things up a little,”
She grunted with the effort of hauling herself up the stairs, I
guessed she was hurt more than she seemed. My body was burning hot,
energy charging through my veins. It was the same as on that stage…
hot, sick, tired and terrified. The pair of us practically fell
through the door into a surprisingly clean apartment, considering how
musty the rest of the building was.
On instinct, I kicked the door hard shut behind. It was heavy enough
to near crack my ankle.
Outside, there was a battle in full swing. I was awestruck for a
second, fusillades of fire raining down into the streets, answered
occasionally by stabbing purple beams of light, hissing flickering
through the rain. I saw a man blown through a window, burning as he
fell to the ground. He screamed a wordless scream.
I didn't see him land.
A white streak darted, from point to point, dodging probing laser and
gunfire attacks. It rose up on a brilliant blue flame, dodging one
attack, before dropping down for a second pass.
“Cover me for a minute,” Priss ordered, “They'll come up the stairs
after us. When they break through, give them everything you've got.”
I nodded dumbly, taking my helmet off as I did so. There was a gun,
two magazines of ammunition and a pair of little green pear shaped
objects waiting on a coffee table in front of an old leather couch. It
chilled me to think they were real. They still looked like toys.
“Good Luck,” I said…
“I'm not the one who'll need it,” Priss answered back.
She left me alone in the room, disappearing into the saferoom where
her hardsuit was kept. My senses withdrew into the room itself,
excluding the battle outside. My world was those four walls, green
paint peeling a little, a single wood-box TV in one corner, a coffee
table with my helmet on it, a sofa big enough to hide behind, a gun,
and two surprisingly heavy grenades.
And one closed, fireproof door.
A brainwave struck me. If I'd known better, if I'd known just how
powerful a grenade was, or just how stupid setting one off inside a
confined space was, I'd never have done it. But my experience with
weapons was Counter Strike and Die Hard…. And Speed 2.
That's where I got the idea. A really stupid idea.
I pulled the pin out of the grenade… believing I could just put it
back in again if this didn't work. I knew well enough to hold the
handle down to stop it going off right away. The door handle was
steel, tarnished a little, but there was enough space between it and
the door for me to jam the grenade in, bashing it up from the bottom
until it was stuck so tight not even God could've moved it.
The idea being that if one of those boomers followed us up, it'd open
the door, the Grenade would drop, and she'd get a nasty surprise right
at her feet, while I hid safely behind the couch, protected from any
explosion or shrapnel.
I smirked savagely… yes, this would work. A delicious trap.
I hid behind the couch, crouching down low on my ankles. I could hear
them coming up the stairs, floorboards creaking under their weight. My
body was shivering… this was thrilling, this was exciting… I'd get the
drop on them…. I had my trap. I was in control. Priss was still
changing; I heard something metallic hit the floor in there. What was
that?
And then, one was at the door.
I knew nothing except the sound of high-heeled feet, slowly
approaching, testing the handle. A bolt of pure excitement ran through
me, expecting the sudden bang of detonation. I clutched my gun close
to my chest, finger gently resting against the trigger… despite being
told not to do that… it was comforting.
The handle rattled, another explosion outside whipping up dust and
glass shards. I braced for the blast, huddling up into myself. I just
hoped it'd go off.
The door was kicked open, with a sharp crack, splintered wood from the
frame sent flinging through the room. I heard something pop, maybe the
grenade hitting the floor, maybe not, followed by a hard, hollow bang,
and I guessed the door bounced open against the wall.
With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I realised the grenade was a
dud.
“All clear,” a woman's voice said, with inhuman calm. Flat,
controlled, deadly.
It doesn't know I'm here.
I froze solid, my body locking tight. Seconds stretched into hours. I
could hear the boomer breathing, a biomimetic type probably. Where's
Priss? Why isn't she ready yet? Only a few seconds, that's how long I
had before it found me… I couldn't take that on… not hand to hand
anyway…. Fuck me what do I do, where's Priss?
Still getting ready.
“Come up,” the boomer said, another pair of bare feet approaching.
I gripped the gun tight, holding my breath, crouched down. If it gets
in, it'll find me. Only a few seconds. If it has anything like my
senses, it already knows somebody *was* here recently. I could
definitely sense it… a cold void of malice and murder. Where the fuck
was Priss? What was taking her so long?
There's no way she could get out the door, not in time to save my neck
from a gruesome death.
Shoot it! Part of my mind begged. Just shoot the bitch! Fuck me that
sounds like a plan. Shoot until it falls over or runs away. When?
Before it bloody well finds me! If I can surprise the bastard, I'll
get her bang to rights….
Right…
Go!
My body didn't move.
Go goddammnit!
Nothing but a twitch.
I winced. Maybe four seconds since the boomer kicked in the door, not
even that before it found me. I heard it take a step inside, moving
closer. I swallowed bile… again, gritted my teeth… thought of
something to say… forgot what it was… then went for it.
“Hey!” I shrieked as I jumped to my feet, not really able to come up
with anything more dramatic. The assault rifle came to my shoulder, as
practiced, and I stared at the boomer for a fraction of a second.
She was that same one… with the same blonde perm, the same sinister
eyes and an evil, lupine grin. She wore nothing but a blue bodysuit,
her bare arms and feet bloodied and coated with a fine layer of grey
powder. She fixed me with her malevolent gaze, almost glad to be
facing some resistance. Ghost-grey eyes sparked with inhuman life.
I shrunk back for a second, my whole body filled with the purest form
of despairing dread. So she could control her pheromones too…
5 seconds since the door opened, and I squeezed the trigger. I felt
the gun's mechanisms latch, a distinct and separate instant before the
first round fired with a sharp slap, like somebody whacking a stick
against my eardrums, followed by that distinct metallic ring.
Then another…then another… full auto fire, finger jammed hard down on
the trigger. Give the bitch all sixty rounds. I'll get you, you won't
get me. Fuck all that stuff about single shots and controlled
aggression, HAVE SOME OF THIS SHIT!
I watched her body jerk, bullets peppering her figure, and the wall
surrounding her. Pink PFC-blood mingled with plasterboard and concrete
dust. How long would it take for her to actually drop?
4 shots… 5.... 6…7…8… 9….10, I could count them out.
6 seconds since the door opened. She whipped around, fingernails
sparking as she dropped her hand. I saw those savage nails hanging for
the briefest of seconds in midair. Instinct took over and I stopped
shooting, trying vainly to dodge to the right and dive out of the way.
Something bit me on my left breast, a little like a horsefly bite, but
deeper, followed by another in the shoulder. Another hit the wall
behind me with a crack, with two more following it fractions of an
instant later.
I had enough time to wonder if that was it, before every single
synapse in my body exploded in electric agony, current flashing
through my veins. I screamed hard, my whole body dropping limply to
the ground, driving the nails in deeper. Alarms announced themselves
in my mind for the briefest of moments, before my systems went dead,
overloaded, they'd shut down to save themselves.
With dawning horror, I realised my organics systems were left to
freewheel on their own. My heart stopped, breathing too… there was no
signal to regulate them… my body shivered and spasmed as the brain
tried to take control, as I tried to make sense of what just happened.
“Enemy cyberdroid neutralised. Proceed to target,” I heard.
Impassive.
I mewled around on the floor, struggling to control myself. Nothing
did what it was supposed to. That wasn't fair! I could hear it moving
again, stepping into the room… coming towards me… ready to deliver the
final blow.
Not that I'd need it, I had about a minute before my whole body began
to shut down for the last time.
This isn't fair… I wasn't supposed to die like this… I don't want to
die… why did I want to do this?....I want to go home.
I managed to roll onto my back, pressing against the back of the
couch.
“I want to go home,” I whimpered… “I want…” Ten seconds after the door
opened, the grenade decided to martyr itself.
I didn't hear the blast, I felt it. It dropped on my chest like a
great fat elephant, blowing the air out of my lungs, and popping my
eardrums with a roar like somebody'd brought in a thousand jet engines
and set them to full throttle inside my head. The whole world went a
burning orange for an instant, hot and searing, before it faded a
deathly grey.
The elephant on my chest bounced off, cracking ribs, bolts of pain
arcing around my chest and through my stomach.
And then, the world went still again, except for a high pitched death-
scream in my ears, and the shock of something heavy landing a few feet
above my head, far enough to be out of my field of vision,
“Fuck me,” I mouthed, unable to breath.
At least I knew I wasn't dead, I hurt too bad to be dead.
I was lying on my back, frozen…staring at a ragged, dirty ceiling. A
few small slabs of plaster dropped, loosened by the blast. I could see
the bloody end of on off the nails, standing proud and painful in my
breast.
I wanted desperately to pull it out, but couldn't move my arm. No
strength, no power, no control, not even enough to flex my fingers.
No fear…. Just strangely calm.
Something starting ticking inside my head.
19:39:23
I could feel my body restarting, power starting to flow, cybernetic
systems which had shut down rebooting themselves. Each one announced
itself in wonderful sequence, heart, lungs, liver, power regulators,
flow controllers, interface linkages.
A punch to the chest and my heart started again.
Blood was flowing through my veins, power to my systems. I felt giddy,
I felt elation… I felt as if I was riding on a cloud of energy, my
body bootstrapping itself back up.
My lungs followed, drawing in a deep, ragged breath. Agony seared my
chest, ribs cracking and grinding against each other. Somebody was
sitting on me, that's what It felt like, and they gained weight with
each breath.
I could taste blood… my blood… I could feel it gurgling up the back of
my throat.
I tried to roll over, but I just yelped in pain as a hundred new
agonies announced themselves. The nails burned through my body, one
scratching against bone.
Even before I looked at my own self-generated damage report, I knew I
was in trouble.
But I wasn't going to die.
Where was the boomer?
I craned my head over, ignoring the pain as best I could, desperate to
know.
It was lying face down, with an expression of pure surprise frozen on
her features. The eyes were wide and empty of whatever malevolent life
had fired them, the mouth agape and leaking blood. Splinters of
scorched wood stood proud and tall from the cyber-assassins back, at
least half a dozen, some larger than my forearm. Sparks sprouted
fitfully from one that seemed to have gone through her spine, and into
her power regulators.
I cackled, a hacking, pained, dry cackle.
I got her… thank Christ I got her. I was bleeding out my shoulder, I'd
broken ribs, and something wasn't right inside … but I got her first.
Another pained grunt, each breath firing sparks of agony from my chest
as the nail-needles dug themselves in deeper. My ears were still
screaming, energy draining from my body. I felt something hot and
liquid flowing across my chest.
I didn't hear the door behind me open, a shadow, sleek, elegant and
feminine fell over me. I looked up, praying it wasn't some second
boomer ready to finish the job, and smiled.
Priss was in her hardsuit, standing over me, like a guardian angel
encased in blue steel. Oh wow…
“Holy shit,” I heard… at least, I think that's what it was. Her voice
was tinny, transistorised and distant. She offered her gloved hand to
help me up, and I looked at it, not sure if I could even stand for a
second.
“I blew her up,” I coughed up, my voice painfully loud.
The hardsuit looked down at the wreck, then in the direction of where
the door used to be.
“I can see that,” said the hardsuit. I swore to myself she was
laughing as she said that. What was so funny? “And half the damn
building with it! And Sylia thinks I cause too much collateral
damage.”
I tried to laugh, but I just whimpered in pain as the needles dug in
deeper. I took her hand, black fabric glove warm to the touch and
strangely welcoming, and she pulled me effortlessly to my feet. Pains
darted through my chest, and I slumped against the wall, panting
heavily, tears in my eyes.
I got my first good look at the damage, and realised just how much of
a moron I'd been to set a grenade off indoors. The television in the
corner was gone; only a shattered plastic casing remained. The door
was gone; most of it was stuck in pieces in the back of the combat
boomer at my feet. Most of the far wall was gone; it had only been
lightweight gypsum on a wooden frame. The floor was sagging, and the
ceiling above had already dropped, burying another vaguely
anthropomorphic form in a pile of plaster and concrete. It wasn't
moving either.
“I'll be damned,” I breathed out weakly. I got two. Fortune favours
the stupid it seems. The grenade got stuck between the door and the
wall, and blew both ways…. Delicious dumb luck… I couldn't've done it
on purpose!
Pain, exhaustion pulled me towards the floor, trying to pull me down
into unconsciousness. I wobbled on my feet for a second, wishing I had
something better for a prop than a steel doorframe. Strength was
draining from my body, trickling down the ends of the nails.
“There's a first-aid kid inside,” said the hardsuit, “Now sit back and
watch how it's really done,”
Priss bulleted through the broken window, thrusters flaring blue as
she jumped. I felt the concussion of the exhaust resonate through my
frame for a second, quickly followed by a second explosion outside.
Clinging for dear life to the doorframe, I tried desperately to push
myself level. I was starving hungry, thirsty as a desert and
physically exhausted. I was chilled hot… somehow… sweating but still
shivering. A new set of explosions kicked up outside, shaking the
buildings frame. Some more of the ceiling caved in, but I ignored it…
I had bigger problems.
I was bleeding, maybe not quite to death, but enough to cause
problems, and every breath sent liquid fire through my chest. I hauled
myself into the saferoom, barely finding the strength to pull the door
shut behind me. I knew I wasn't going to die.. the bleeding would stop
eventually, and my repair systems were already kicking in… but I felt
like I'd picked a fight with a train and lost.
There was a cot bed in the room, Priss' leathers, a rack to hold the
hardsuit, and a simple first aid kit. No windows, just clean, painted
concrete. Coughing brutally, spitting muddy gobbets of blood and
concrete, I picked up the first aid kit, and dropped into the cot.
I yelped in pain, feeling my vision swim, unconsciousness reaching up
to claim me. Something blew up outside… maybe another boomer, maybe
another building… I had other problems…
I had to figure out how to get my jacket off, with several inches of
bloody ceramic sticking out of my chest. Okay…. I had to get the nails
out first…. Deep breath… Ow!.... just be calm… take a firm grip….Jesus
Christ this hurts… 1…2…Oh God please don't make this painful….3… Pull!
Mason himself in the Tower probably heard me scream.
And it still fucking hurt to breath! Why couldn't that fat man get off
my chest? My ears were still ringing, and I still had one nail in my
shoulder. Jesus Christ I'll never take the piss out of the crucifixion
again…
The fighting outside sounded like it had stopped, not even five
minutes after we'd arrived. Mission complete. Relax… take another deep
breath…One more pull…
This won't hurt a bit…..
----->>
“Well,” said Sylia, placing her helmet on the table beside the others.
“Irene is on her flight to Hong Kong. The money is on the way to our
accounts, and the boomers have been destroyed,”
Even drenched in sweat with hair like a drowned rat, with her almost
pearlescent armour scoured, scorched and scratched, she still managed
to project that calm, businesswoman aura.
The only aura I could project was one of pain… a torturous mixture of
deep, throbbing, pulsing agony throughout my body, and sharp, biting
pains in my chest and shoulder. The bleeding had stopped, but I still
couldn't breath right.
“Except for the damage to the building,” she raised an eyebrow at me
and I shrunk back. “All in all a successful mission,” Sylia summed up.
“Good work everyone,”
Nené cheered in her pristine hardsuit, the AD Police officer still
fresh and dry.
“That's easy for you to say,” Shot Priss, staring down into her own
helmet, before fixing her with a teasing grin, “You weren't the one
who nearly got her head punched off by a burning boomer,”
There was a sizeable dent in the armour's temple where something had
punched it, hard.
“Or nearly evis… Evas…stabbed.” I muttered lamely.
“Well, I had to maintain our cover,” Nené defended with a pout,
placing her armoured hands, on her armoured hips with a crack. “And
hide the Hou-Bang… they had no idea about radio discipline…
professionals my butt!”
Priss sat back against the far wall, placing her helmet in her lap.
The way she was staring into it, you'd swear it held the entire
universe.
“Mackie will be here with the truck in about a half-hour,” said Sylia,
busying herself within a radio headset, “Linna will be with him. We
will head back to base, and call it a night,”
“I call shower first!” chirped Nené, raising her hand,
“Oh come one, you didn't even break a sweat, little miss cheerleader,”
Priss bit back, fixing her.
“I'll have you know, that computer system gets very hot!” defended
Nené, her face reddening, “At least I'm not some Ape-woman who blows
half a building up trying to take out just two boomers,”
I went red… giggling quietly into my fist.
“That wasn't even me, the ghost in the shell here,” pointing at me. I
scowled, hating that term. “Decided she wanted to set some fireworks
off while she was in the same room,”
“Oh…” Nené stopped dead
“I did not want be stabbed,” I frowned, still feeling a few pangs of
anger, “And Priss took long time to get dressed,”
“I'd like to see how fast you can strip and board a hardsuit, eh,
Deckard?”
Those red eyes stared through me, and I whimpered, not daring to
challenge them. That tsunami of discomfort reared up behind her for a
second.
“I don't think a blast like that will be something she'd be keen to
repeat,” Sylia edged in, “At least outside of a hardsuit anyway,”
I grasped the implications, but was much too tired to get excited
“Does this mean?” gasped the hacker.
“Meg has agreed to join us,” confirmed the Sabers' leader.
“Congratulations Meg!” Nené bubbled, jumping in her hardsuit before
she gave me a thumbs up.
“Thanks,” I answered, giving her a weak smile.
“Welcome to the club,”
I giggled nervously, praying she didn't try hug me, and accidentally
crush my body in her arms
Priss glanced up at Sylia for a moment, surprised, before her whole
body relaxed into thought. I tried to read her for a moment, and got
back nothing but that same discomfort… not quite distrust, but
definitely discomfort… She took a deep breath, the chest of her armour
rising and falling.
“Congratulations,” she said flatly, her eyes dropping to the depths of
her helmet once more. She swallowed something, closing her eyes for a
second before opening them again.
I wondered just what the hell was bothering her, but decided not to
push it. I really was to bloody tired to be worried about it, and the
last thing I wanted to do was fall asleep.
I was a Knight Saber.
Get me something to eat first before I run out of power, then maybe
I'll celebrate.
----->>
A Third Chapter. Doubles the length of the Fic, or thereabouts. Sorry
about that. Here's hoping the formatting held out.
1: I am reliably informed that Meg should've been killed outright by
the grenade blast. I know this, but I'm not going to let a little
thing like reality get in the way of a good plot. It's based on an
anime anyway…
2: Next chapter might well be as long as this one… Tet will be back…
an artifact from the Dark Tower books may appear. I'm not sure yet.
It'll be a while before I update though… goddamn this one was hard to
do.
3: First person perspective is a bitch sometimes… as much as I wanted
to show the fight outside, better to stick to Meg's own viewpoint…
Sorry. I don't like jumping VP's, it kills the mood.
-Dartz
Dartz
Dialogue is not my strongpoint. It's a real problem. From my
perspective, it reads pretty clunky and a bit unnatural.... Any
opinions out there?
Thunder Rising is a Gary Moore song, BTW. From the album Wild
Frontier.
------------------------------
4: Thunder Rising
------>>
It was a Tuesday morning like any other. I'd slept fine... no
nightmares about boomer claws ripping through my chest or anything...
thank God for that.
How surreal.
My apartment was the same as I'd left it on Monday. The television
chattered about some German made drilling machine excavating a new
underground city, and the air-conditioning was still completely and
totally FUBAR'd.
There were no scars on my body, not even a red mark on my breast where
the nail had gone in. The only proof I had of last night's activities
was a dull ache in my chest, my shoulder was a little stiff, and a
slight lethargy as my body struggled to replace the blood it had lost.
Nothing I couldn't live with, it'd be gone by evening anyway.
My ribs were healing up happily, and that punctured lung had long
since fixed itself. Standing in front of a mirror, I pocked at my
breast, trying to find any evidence at all that the needle had been
there.
The original shot felt like I'd been hit by a supercharged Tazer, and
then some. But now, there was no sign of it. Poking myself gently in
the chest tickled just as much on Tuesday morning, as it did any other
morning.
It was only then that I realised just how close that needle had come
to hitting my heart... another inch maybe, or a different angle, and
it would've cut right through the heart. Chillingly, I realised I'dve
bled out in minutes.
The thought followed me through my daily routine....
I went to work, taking the same train as always. Life carried on...
the only proof I had of what I'd actually done was inside my own head.
As the pains in my body began to simmer down, the Knight Sabers,
Irene, the motorcycle, the whole weekend seemed as if it was nothing
more than a dream.
I didn't feel like I'd really done any of the things I'd remembered
doing.
Even though I'd almost been killed.
I got into work early, planning on making up for lost time over the
weekend. I was short on cash, to put it mildly. Might have to get
creative with how I get my food this week...
At least rent was covered.
“Deckard!” the voice of Kentaro Nakamura rang through the club,
“You're early””
He was down at the stage, fixing something with one of the
cyberdroids. Tonight's act, Sekiria.
“Making time up!” I called down, leaning against the railings. They
creaked ominously.
“Well then, I hope you had a relaxing weekend, because we got to get
some stuff up down here, and we have to get it up before the bar
opens,”
“Shit,” I swore to myself, flexing my shoulder. It still hurt, and it
didn't look like it was going to get any better anytime soon.
The day wore on, the routines of working life ticking over, the same
as they usually did. The band were good, a bit too mid-nineties, but
alright. People came, people went... there was one who was a total
arsehole, and quickly lost the ability to hold his drink. Thud, he
went, slumping at the bar. That'd teach the bugger for grabbing a
feel.
I got home at 03:01:11
Same as always.
Body all healed up.
And that was it. The only evidence I'd ever done anything but go to
work over the weekend was gone. I couldn't really believe I'd actually
done something like that.
The hardsuits, the hospital, the ride through the city, gunning down
the boomer, the grenade... even nearly getting killed by that
boomer.... I really didn't feel like I'd done any of that. It just
didn't seem possible.
I had to go to Raven's on Sunday...
Or did I?
It was so weird. Like watching a TV show in my head, over and over
again.
------>>
“He was such a creep!” Linna spat bitterly, “ I mean, sure I had to
break three dates, but I had good reasons, he still shouldn't have
broken up with me. Why can't he understand that I have to do things
outside of our relationship?
”They never do,” I comforted, nudging a glass of red-wine into her
hands.
It was a better option than asking her how she would've felt if he'd
stood her up three times in a row. The bar was quiet, boomers were
changing the decorations for tonight's act, The Replicants were
playing again.
“It's not like I didn't have a good reason,” she continued, “Even if
it wasn't a reason I could tell him about, the least he could do was
trust me. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do in a relationship,
isn't it? Trust each other?”
I nodded.
“I am immune to love,” I grinned back, “Cybernetics relieve sex drive,
”
Technically not true, I'd only switched it off. It'd be a cold day in
hell before I switched it back on again.
“Don't tease,” she grumbled, “This is serious!” There were tears in
her eyes. I'll bet.
“I mean.. sorry...” what did I mean, “I never have boyfriend in life.”
I had a girlfriend, but that was a different life, “I never really
want one. I don't know,” I shrugged.
She took a long deep breath, before swallowing a mouthful from her
glass.
“Sometimes, I hate being a Knight Saber, it gets in the way of life so
much. It really is a pain in the ass. Every night I plan something,
every night, somebody decides to send a boomer on a rampage,”
“I doubt the do it on purpose,” I deflected.
“I know,” she snarled, before catching herself, “But...um... It's
still so frustrating,”
Steer her away from the topic of her boyfriend, that was the plan.
“So why join KS in the place first?” I questioned, offering more wine
out of my own pocket.
“No, I'll pay,” Linna waved it off, placing a couple of hundred on the
table. “Money's tight for you, isn't it?”
I nodded. I completely forgot I had a 1.2 million yen sitting in a
number-only bank account somewhere in Zurich. The dancer just sighed,
clutching the glass in both hands. She stared into her reflection for
a moment, before drawing a deep breath,
“That's why I joined the club,” club being a nice euphemism for the
Sabers, “I wasn't making money as a dancer, and the landlord was at
the door. This audition came up for a part, and I could've either gone
for it, or gone to my day job. Thing was, if I didn't get the part, I
wouldn't be able to make the rent. But if I got the part, I'd have no
problems for the rest of the year, so I went for it,”
She took another sip, while I gave a cursory glance to be sure there
were no customers around.
“Anyway, I danced my ass off, hitting each and every mark they wanted,
I was the best there was, but they still said no. They just didn't
want me,” she shrugged, “I was annoyed of course, because that meant I
was out on my ear, no job, no home... and then.. guess who appeared?”
“Sylia?”
She nodded. Obviously. “She offered me a one-time job, saying she was
impressed with my dancing skills, and that she might have a position
that would put them to good use. She offered me a million yen, how
could I say no?”
“This sounds familiar,” I commented with a rueful grin.
“It's how she does it,” giggled Linna, alcohol heating her features,
“I did the job, and she paid me well, and I was quite happy with it, I
could live comfortably for the next six months while I figured out
what to do. Until she decided to offer me another, permanent job. She
told me what we did, and why... and I found that I wanted to do it, so
I agreed”
“So she not only me she did to?” I wondered aloud.
Linna laughed, “It's how she recruits. Nené told me she got her the
same way. I don't know how she recruited Priss though, Priss never
told anyone, and Sylia just said it's Priss' story to tell,”
“Priss complicated,” I agreed, “I still not know how she feel about
me,” It was hard to put into words in English, let alone Japanese, “It
not she do not like me... more... very uncomfortable,”
“It's her way with new people,” Linna repeated what I'd been told
before, “She was like that with me too. Priss doesn't trust easily,
but when she does, she'll never let go of you. She's really quite
sweet once you get to know her. Sometimes, we have dinner together,”
I quirked a curious eyebrow
“Not like that!” she batted my thoughts way. And if I'd actually
turned on my sexuality I'dve found something alluring to it, as it
was, the thought of Priss and Linna in bed together was only mildly
interesting, in a factual manner. “Sometimes it's just more
convenient, especially if she's short on money.” she paused. “Priss is
a mystery though, the club was originally just her and Sylia, Nené
didn't join until 6 months after Priss, and me a few months later,”
“At least I not alone,”
“Back to me now,” Linna took another sip, the found her glass was
empty. “I started in the club, because the money was good, it let me
pursue my dreams, while keeping a roof over my head, but then after a
few missions, I saw how much good we were actually doing for the
people in the city, and I actually started to enjoy it, and how close
we were all getting.”
I suddenly felt achingly lonely, and desperate to hide it.
“So,” Linna leaned forward on her steepled hands, her features forming
into a chilling gaze that reminded me of Gendou Ikari, “Now that I've
told you why I joined, maybe you can tell me how Sylia convinced you?”
I started back, feeling a slightly embarrased flush heat my cheeks. My
reason... well.. it seemed a bit stupid, come to think of it. Money
was a fine good... but because I got hot for the hardware? Okay, so it
wasn't that extreme, but something about having my own hardsuit
certainly made me feel giddy. I glanced around, seeing the old
newspaper man shuffling his way to the bar... he just saved my
blushes.
“I have to deal with customer first,” I grinned. Linna narrowed her
eyes suspiciously at me.
It was nothing more than a delaying tactic... but it gave me some
time. Double Suntory, ice and peanuts... 800 yen... thank you sir and
enjoy. That Brumm Barr is really something. Not interested.. damn. And
Linna was scowling bloody daggers at me for making the attempt. I'm
not going to get away with this, am I?
“Sorry,” I apologised a little sheepishly, “But it is embarrasing,”
“Really?” she leaned forward. Embarrasing stories were always the
best.
“Sylia offered money,” I said, “I wanted go home, and she offer more
than enough money. But, I making money, so money not so important for
me. I want to stay safe..” how can I put it, “Afraid of death. I did
first mission anyway, money too good. Em.... Sylia decided to show me
club equipment.”
I leaned forward, Linna's strawberry perfume tingling my nostrils and
whispered.
“I wanted my own hardsuit,”
Linna started back, stunned, the expression on her face a sort of 'Is
that all?' She was almost dissapointed.
“Really, I thought it might have something to do with what you were
before you got your prosthethics,” she needled, her eyes devilishly
narrow.
I shrugged, “No secret,”
“Damn,”
We giggled.
“Hardsuits are really awesome, I still remember the first time I tried
mine, it was so tight and light, it was like wearing tights over my
whole body,”
“I never wear tights,” I stated.
Except for fishnet stockings once, the week before, on stage.
Linna pouted, “You have to embrace your body. There are women out
there who would murder for a figure you've been given off the shelf
you know?” she wagged her finger at me. “I had to work for years to
hone my body to the athletic perfection you see here,”
I see.
“It not all roses, I have problem with being machine too,”
“Oh?”
“Well,” I stood up, taking the haughty position on this, “I starve
after 4 days no food. I need metal in my food. ” I gathered momentum
on this one, “no drunk, I am un-person according to law. Boomer
syndrome, no family, no home,”
“I see,” Linna stopped dead, while I jammed on the brakes, stunned for
a second.
I shivered gently for a moment, mild guilt warring with almost
Antarctic loneliness. It stung deep for a moment, and I backed up,
against the register at the back of the bar.
“You need a boyfriend,” she suggested sagely,
“I not interested in sex,” I stated firmly, crossing my arms across my
chest.
“Sex doesn't have to come into it,” she explained, “Even just being
with another person is enough. Everyone needs companionship, Meg, even
if he's just someone with a shoulder to rest your head on, it's nice
to have somebody there. Somebody who listens to you, who trusts you,
and makes you feel wanted,”
I felt like I was the only person in the world, in the middle of the
most densely populated city on the planet.
“Getting somebody, should be simple enough, with a body like your's
you could have anybody out,”
“But, they only want my body, not me,” I said. “All everybody see's is
this,” I pointed to my chest, “And not just men either by the way.
That's what they want, not me,”
I screwed my eyes shut, shaking my head to clear some seeping tears.
“It just takes time for people to get to know you. Bait with good
looks, reel them in with a winning personality. Or go ask someone
you're interested in out, rather than waiting for them. That way, you
can choose a man for his personality, and not his looks,”
“I still don't want to,” I said, my voice small.
Being a 33-S would not make for a stable relationship, male or female
“Your choice,” shrugged the dancer, taking another sip from her glass,
“Anyway, just who would be your ideal man?”
“I never thought about it,”
“Well now's the time” she smirked.
I didn't want to think about it. Quick, just make something
up....anything.
“Just someone who like me, not my body...” I paused, and added one
more caveat, “....who isn't ugly,”
“Good luck,” she snorted, “That's what every woman wants, so join the
queue.”
I chuckled lightly, then had a spark of inspiration flare in my mind,
“I like nerds,” I said shyly.
It made perfect sense in my mind.
“Nerds?” blurted Linna. From the expression on her face, I could've
told her I like hamsters, or midgets, or something extroardinarily
weird.
“Well,” I stood up for the person I once was, “Jocks are assholes.
Nerds are quiet, shy and...”I blushed slightly, “we share common
interests,”
“Like what?” queried Linna, her face lighting up.
“Sequential art and animation,” sounded so much better.
“What?”
“Anime and Manga,”
Among other nerdy things.
Linna just giggled softly into her own hand, “I get it!” she
snnounced. “You used to be a nerd yourself, so you stick with what you
know. You want to go out with yourself!,”
Newspaper man harrumphed.
“Please,” I begged, my eyes scanning around the otherwise empty bar.
Shame flared hot throughout my body.
“It's no shame,” she laughed, “Most women look to marry their father's
anyway,”
“Besides it's true,” I crossed my arms defiantly, “Nerds are nicer and
will appreciate me. Is that what everyone wants?”
Linna nodded. “I suppose it's true. If you don't get many girfriends,
you'll appreciate the ones you have even more,”
I wasn't sure why I laughed at that, but I did.
“I came here to listen to Priss' new song, she said she was playing it
for the first time in public tonight, how did we get onto this topic?”
I shrugged. “More Wine?”
“No, I have to drive,” she answered. “Just lemonade or something when
this runs out please,”
The bar started to crowd, as more people filtered in. Wednesday night
was Replicants night was a busy night. The noise level rose steadily
as the evening rush hit hold, and I had to dart between customers and
Linna.
“Nené won't be here,” she called over to me while I dealt with some
gentleman's drinks, “She's doing overtime to pay for Sunday?”
“Sunday?” back to the man involved, “3200 yen please, can you carry?”
“Club Rule 11... Penalty for any violations is Death. In this case,
Death by Chocalate,” she giggled, “Nené's paying for a five star meal
at the St. Regis hotel,”
I winced. The place where a cup of coffee cost more than I made in a
week. “Poor Nené,”
“Her own fault,” shrugged Linna,
Making change while holding conversation, thank God for being a
boomer. Yes sir, that's 2600 yen for the lot and Isildore will bring
it to the table. 2 pints of Kirin, bottle of red wine? One moment.
“Anyway Linna, I don't think I have proper clothes,” I said as I
breezed past, “Denim not thing for expensive place,”
I could do it, but I'd feel like an idiot.
“We can go shopping during the week,” suggested the Saber brightly, as
I passed in the opposite direction, arms full of cold bottles “ I know
this place that's does good clothes, but is pretty cheap,”
“No problem,” I nodded.
Clothes shopping... never interested me before. But I needed something
formal to wear.... and I needed expert opinion. Besides, spending time
with Linna was nice. That'll be 1220 yen, thanks mate...
“Only free on mornings or Sunday,” I said, punching figures into the
till. It told me the answer's I'd had long ago.
“Sunday morning?” she questioned as I rushed past with the change
“Sunday's Good,” I said, quite easily keeping up with demands.
Pints of beer, bottles, glasses, ice, water, lemonade.... easy enough.
Make change... another person staring at my chest... shrug, as if
that'd change anytime soon. Count it out, hand it back. Next in line,
some other redhead more interested in trying to score with Linna....
Guinness and whatever's she's having, coming right up.
I heard the distinctive crack of palm against cheek behind me,
When I got back, he was gone, and Linna was steaming with anger. There
was money on the table
“At least he paid for drink first,” I gave a half hearted laugh.
“Yep, pervert,” she snorted, flexing her right hand.
Justice had been served, leaving a bad taste in it's victim's mouth. I
watched him skulking towards a corner, and silently signalled to one
of the bouncers to escort him from the premises. A little favouritism
never hurt anyone.
“I love this job,” I grinned at her, gesturing smugly towards the
front door, where the redhead was being tossed out on his arse.
“This boomer is assaulting me!” he screeched, drawing hundreds of
eyes, “It's bersek! You see it! It's assaulting me,”
He was carried like a squealing pig. Now that's job satisfaction.
The Replicants took stage afterwards, with only a few hangers on left
behind up in the bar, while the rest were ensared by the rapture of
the dance floor below,
“This is a new one we've been working on,” Priss started, ruffling
that blonde wig of hers. She had a unique way of addressing each and
every member of the audience personally, simultaneously. As she stood
at that mike, you always felt as if you were the only person in the
entire building, “It's about how, no matter how far you get knocked
down, no matter how backed into a corner you are, you should never
give up!”
Priss punched the air and the crowd cheered.
“This song's called Victory,”
Cheer's turned to ecstatic screams as the guitars kicked in, the beat
punching hard in the chest. In the corner, my laptop was hooked into
the audio feed, recording a bootleg for the PirateShip.
----->>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dartz
Anyway. More Linna. Some Nené.
------------------------------------------------
Sunday morning, and I was waiting for the knock on the door from
Linna, shopping, then a fitting for a new hardsuit, followed by a
gourmét meal at someone else's expense
Outside, basking in the morning sun, Megatokyo carried on as it always
did, the binman's strike being ended by summary dismissal of all
involved, including those who passed the pickets Their replacements
were new-model Ebisu-made Be-66 series, with newly-developed power
boosters, the announcement of the contract being broadcast by the cast-
plastic face of the machine's designer, one Miriam Yoshida, with a
Cheshire-cat grin plastered on that face, set fast by layers of false-
tan.
An arrogant bugger alright, it was so obvious, it was hilarious.
When was it, he'd orchestrate the assault on the ADPolice building?
The end of 2033, if I remembered right. There were a load of little
clues to be found, the first links in the chains of future events
being forged on TV, radio and in the newspapers. I only knew about
it, because I knew where some of these chains would go.
And then, there were the results of my presence.
“Next Wednesday on THK-4, the inside story of murder and intrigue
within one of GENOM's most secret programs, an interview with a victim
of corporate machination's”
An ecstatic thrill ran through my body each time that ad ran on
television. I saved Irene's life!.... sort of. And I'm glad I didn't
have to die to do it.
The cleanup from Monday's floods marched onwards, a good chunk of the
fault still being a poor-mans Venice. ADPolice were investigating a
collapsed building, and the remains of a firefight, while elsewhere in
the city, rioting former sanitation workers had put three officers in
hospital. There was a new governor being installed by the SDPC in
Aldrin city, on the Moon. SDPC-IV 'Kindlinas' was being repaired after
being hit by Hubble, but the problem of space debris was still being
mostly ignored. The Union of Space Security and Defence was too busy
sorting out the public mess after the killer doll incident to do much
about it anyway
The Knight Sabers were rarely if ever mentioned. GENOM's search engine
didn't even provide any hits online for the group, and even the
independent search engines only brought up a few stray websites, with
the barest smattering of grainy, motion-blurred photographs, and
testimony from a few ADPolice officers, office labourers and randomers
from the streets who claimed their lives had been saved by the
hardsuited heroes.
The Sabers were practically spectres.... people believed they existed,
but nobody knew for sure. There were rumours of a program that had
once been on the 'net, a puzzle which once solved included an
invitation to join the group, but most of those were second hand. It
still made me question what Sylia would've done if a man had solved it
before Nené....
I remembered what Tet had written in that letter, about why I was a 33-
S, and came to the obvious conclusion:
She probably would've paid for the surgery.
I gave a harsh laugh at the thought of it.
At least they were keeping quiet, that was the main thing. Whatever
they wanted me to do, I was obviously doing it well enough that they
were quite happy to leave me alone.
And who was Toren Smith anyway?
The animé reference was obvious, but it didn't mean anything. There
were plenty of people who 'rejoiced' in being named after TV
characters, by unfortunate accident or through cruelty of parent. The
building manager was a former Kendo practitioner who rejoiced in the
name Akane Saotome, but she grew up in Kobe from what I heard, and was
nearing 80.
There was nothing I could find on the internet about him. Probably
because it was just a bloody pseudonym. Tet corp had a website
alright, but it wasn't all the helpful. It was run by the Carver
family, and was generally regarded as an honourable corporation,
holding itself to the highest standards of corporate responsibility
and ethics. It was also famous for a single blood red rose in their
corporate headquarters' lobby.
I sat there, watching this on my laptop screen, wondering where I'd
seen all this before. There was something disturbingly familiar about
it, like staring at a college exam paper I hadn't quite studied enough
for. Everything looked familiar, I remembered seeing it somewhere,
perhaps reading about it, but for the life of me no matter how much I
wanted to, I just couldn't place it. Some part of my brain had decided
it would've been bloody hilarious to hide that fact from me, and watch
me sweat trying to figure out what it was.
It was like my second year maths exam alright. I stared at it,
wracking at my brains for an answer, but nothing volunteered itself.
Nothing at all.
Not a sausage.
Maybe they erased it?
A dread chill fell over my body as I ruminated over the posibbility.
It wasn't a hard thing to do. It would've had to have been done
already.... I was three years old, with no memory of those years.
They'd been replaced completely with my memories, maybe there were a
few phantoms left behind after the process?
I sighed....
Another Ghost in the 'X'... I was getting bloody sick of it.
That was a good and interesting analogy a month ago, now it was just
an annoying buzzword inside my head. I was the Ghost in the Machine,
the sexaroid with a soul. Priss like to call me a Ghost in the Shell,
again not a bloody anime reference... Priss wasn't the type to be able
to tell a Motoko Kusanagi from Motorised Lawnmower.... she meant
exactly what she said. As far as she knew, I was a dead person, alive
only inside a machine body.
And now I was talking to myself about Ghosts of memories....
A Ghost was a shadow of something that had once been alive, a spectre
that didn't physically exist in any form, but could still be sensed.
Data was a ghost, data didn't exist, as such... it was just a few bits
flipped a certain way on a disk platter.... and if the human mind
could be manipulated as easy as a spreadsheet on a disk....
It was illegal of course, but it could still be done. Illegality just
made it expensive.
The same basic techniques originally designed to program/reprogram
cyberdroid biochips, as far as I understood it.
This was tiring.
I slammed the brakes on in my mind. I hated things like this....
It was a small mercy when Linna finally knocked, the doorbell having
gone the way of the air conditioner. Three sharp raps on the steel
door and I was freed from my own mental trap. Thank you Linna
Yamazaki...
I could've kissed her... I wanted to do it, to just press my moist
lips up against her own and let the sparks fly, but I sullenly
squelched that thought underfoot with a mental sigh. It just wouldn't
work. I stamped down hard on the hollow melancholy welling up the back
of my throat, and forced a plastic smile.
Door open... a can of WD-40 having silenced the hinge.... “Morning!” I
bubbled. I was trying to hide the tug of war going on deep inside. I
was glad to be going out, but there was something empty about it.... I
couldn't put my finger on it at the time. I knew I considered Linna a
friend, Nené too, but there was something missing inside....
“Morning Meg!” answered the fitness instructor, adjusting her hairband
a little. “Ready to go?”
A sullen Nené followed behind, looking like an inmate walking the
final mile, or maybe a child being pulled through a sweet shop, whose
parent was a fruit loving dentist.
“Morning,” she said, pursing her lips bitterly for a second.
“Come inside for tea something?” I offered, standing aside from the
doorway.
“No,” she shook her head, “ We really have to hurry, before the city
begins to fill up, y'know,”
“Yup,” I nodded, and Nené sighed.
“And I still don't have enough money for the meal tonight,”
“Well that's your own fault,” Chided Linna,
“I know” groaned the hacker, throwing her eyes to the heavens. “Rule
Number 1.... but I thought it didn't matter since Sylia'd already
decided,..... This is going to suck,” she complained, putting her
hands into her pocket.
“Then why did you come?” questioned Linna, a fiendish smirk forming on
her lips.
“Because....!” blasted the police operator, before running right into
a mental brick wall... “I forgot,” she finished, her voice like as
small a solitary shrew in a cathedral. She twirled a few strands of
pink hair around between her fingers, looking desperately like she
wanted to just melt into the concrete walkway.
I giggled into my hand, having picked up that little mannerism
sometime over the last month.
“Don't rub it in,” she groaned to her feet, “I can't even use my club
account until after I pay for this, Sylia locked it out,”
“Harsh,” winced Linna.
“Definitely....” I concurred.
“At least it's Death by Chocolate, and not by Death by....” she
paused... “How would Sylia enforce rule 11 anyway?”
I shrugged, “I do not think she would,”
“Not unless someone was a spy anyway,” giggled Linna...
A sudden crushing silence descended on the three of us, punctuated
only by the distant chatter of the television behind me. We glanced
between each other, the atmosphere quickly turning oppressively
stale.
“Well, they'd deserve it!” declared Nené to the world.
A few kids playing football in the carpark below looked up for a
moment, before returning to their game.
“I don't think anybody would,” I said... even the thought of it made
me uncomfortable, “Everybody friends right?... So no betray friends?”
Both women nodded,
“But there are some things that are more important that friendship,”
noted Linna, sighing as she leant down against the guardrail, staring
the the opposing building. “Each of us probably has a weakness
somewhere,”
Change the subject... for God's sake change the subject...
“Like Cheesecake,” I grinned viciously at Nené
“I do not have a weakness for cheesecake!” she screeched, her face
reddening beautifully.
“On the way here you were saying how you'd saved enough money to try
their Greek Ice-Cream with Belgian chocolate hot fudge sundae for
desert,” accused Linna.
Nené was the sacrificial lamb, for the sake of improving everyone's
mood....
“Alright,” she moaned, defeat weighing down on her shoulders “But if I
have to pay for it, I can at least treat myself, right?”
“Speaking of tonight, we better get going before the traffic gets too
heavy,” Linna reminded us that we were still standing just outside my
apartment. “And don't forget your handbag, Meg,” she reminded me
personally.
“Not have one,” I answered with a smile, showing my empty hands before
I pulled the door shut behind me.
The TV was still on...forgot about that, but I had my keys, and more
importantly, my wallet. This promised to be fun.
I had to sit in the back of Linna's Scenic... not that I minded. The
two other Sabers chatted to each other up front, about Linna's new
boyfriend, about Nené's upcoming promotion and just how much this meal
was going to cost, and how much overtime Nené had to do... and will
have to do to cover the bill.
I really didn't feel like anything I had to say would add to to
conversation... I'd never had a boyfriend, didn't work for the
police, hated overtime but loved money as much as the next person,
and just didn't feel like talking.
Watching the city outside rush past, my thoughts kept drifting back to
what Linna had said about weaknesses. That was how Sylia had convinced
me to join, after all.... by dangling something in front of me I
couldn't resist... what would it take to force me to turn against?
How much Money?
Or even just a threat against someone I cared about?
Well, that wasn't a problem for me... Unlike Nené, I didn't have any
family. It occurred to me that maybe that was why Sylia seemed to
prefer orphaned children, people with very few family ties to be
pulled on, very few connections to anyone... nobody who could be used
as leverage.
I had no family here... my only friends were in the two front seats of
this car... my job was disposable, my little secret identity...
well... that was something I'd talked over with Sylia a while back.
Sylia'd promised to protect me if that happened, and I'd trust her
more than anyone trying to blackmail me.
Provided I could keep a rational head, of course.
There was one thing though.... one little idea that nagged at me.
What if someone offered me a way home?
A door back to my old life, the only catch being I had to tell
everything and anything about the club to the person with the key.
Well, there was only one group who knew where I came from, only one
group who probably had the technology to send me home
And this was the same group who wanted me to be a member of the Knight
Sabers in the first place?
I had a dreadful idea why.... not for information... they might want a
mole to destroy the organisation, from the inside. Just plant the bomb
in the building and we'll send you home.... easy as. Betray us, and be
a sex toy for the rest of your life.
My eyes stared back at me, my reflection sullenly watching the world
outside. Two ADPolice trucks were parked up outside café, one scorched
and dented.
What would I do?
At first, I thought I would jump at the chance, do anything to go
home, to see my dog, my family... to have everything back the way it
was, but watching the city go past, I wasn't so sure about that.
Would I betray Sylia, Priss, Nené and Linna, for the sake of just
getting home?
I'd be tempted... sorely tempted.
----->>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
antagonist
the first chapter at FFN.
It's a refreshingly different take on the OVA, and I must say that I
really like what you've written so far. I'm really curious how you'll
spin the story further and I really hope you'll update soon! :D
Dartz
this a bit more, and try get some feedback on the general direction I
want to go. It's pretty standard stuff, but I'm trying to give my
character a bit of motivation beyond 'I want to be a hero and save
stuff'. Spoilers for those who don't wanna know... so I'll post the
snippet as a second post after this. Just drop down to it if you don't
want the story to be spoiled.
Chapter 5 of this thing is just going to be one long homage to the
fandom.... don't mind that right now. There's a few people who need to
be emailed, but that'll be after I get chapter 4 out and figure what I
want to do exactly.
Chapter 6 7 and 8 are going to be the important ones, because I'll be
handling Moonlight Rambler, and Red Eyes during them.... along with a
detour down Revenge Road in the middle of it, so things aren't just
monoplot,
The first thing Meg will know about it , is shortly after New Years,
when the Orca shuttle crashes. She wanders around the city, a little
unsure of what exactly to do...especially when the first 'Vampire
murder' happens. Then another. There's a small ratchet in tension
where Leon quietly takes Meg and reveals he has a good idea what she
is, and has known since pretty much they first met (blame Daley...).
He hasn't bothered doing anything because "It just isn't mworth the
bother over one boomer", especially one where somebody's been very
careful about constructing a back story. Instead, he just wants
information about 33-S boomers, and how and why one would need to
drain blood...specifically what traces one would leave on a body. He's
quite happy to leave Meg alone... if she doesn't pose a threat to
anyone.
He also gives a speech, showing the other side of Sylvie and Anri....
they have murdered people for their freedom. Human or boomer, the
punishment for multiple murders is still the same... death. The
victims and their families do deserve justice... they're not just
names on a newspaper page, but people. (I want the readers to see that
the morality of Sylvie's actions is a lot greyer than protrayed. The
viewers sympathy in the series is with the sexaroids, to the point
where everyone forgets that they have murdered people. The vast
majority of people in Megatokyo would agree with Leon. The vast
majority of people *here* would agree with him too, if they were
reading only the news reports)
Meg is still a bit unsure about what she has to do... or even if she
should do anything. But Leon's little speech does tell Meg one
thing... she can't rely on Sylia. Sylia would probably just say the
same thing. If she is going to do something, she'll have to do it
herself. And then there's the Knight Sabers code...
The decision is half made for her by Priss introducing her 'new
friend'. Guess who it is? Sylvie and Meg recognise what each other is
immediately...Meg being the same model as the Meg killed on Genaros,
Sylvie hangs on behind after Priss leaves, to talk to Meg, and asks
for her help. Meg agree's, straight off.... and not because 'I wanna
save Sylvie lol', but because Meg knows what she is now, and knows
that she should have had the same life, she decides to do everything
and anything within her power to give Sylvie and Anri a chance at the
same freedom.
Meg uses the money she has built up as a Knight Saber to buy a supply
of artificial blood for Anri, but that's only a stopgap for a few
weeks at best. There is that disk, but Sylive hasn't found it yet. Meg
remembers from the series, that it's at the GPCC, but not exactly
where, and searching the entire building is possible. The only
solution is to do the little jobs the voice on the phone requests....
they're nothing major... couriering files, noting the times defence
minister callahan leaves his home/job/etc... easy enough, and the
voice does pay the sexaroids for their trouble. Meg wonders if it
isn't the Tet corporation again, who brought her to Megatokyo, and
have quietly helped in previous missions.... (It isn't )
This starts to interfere with Meg's job... both her real job, and her
Knight Saber duties. It's obvious to everyone that her mind is
elsewhere, but nobody pushes it. Besides, there's a cybermonster
Griffon to stop. (Timeline of the series at this time is a bit screwy,
so I'm just assuming the events are simultaneous somehow), so it's
forgotten.
Meg and Sylive are told where the disk is... and plan the 'mission' to
get it. Meg removes the neutron bomb in the D.D.... and indulges in a
bit op mecha fun. They plan to get the disk one night, when Meg can
get free from work, and her KS obligations don't clash. It looks good
on paper, and Meg has obviously learned a few things from Sylia.
Speaking of whom... Sylia's figured out what Meg's up to and calls her
on it.
Cue a polite argument about it... dancing around the Knight Sabers
code, the consequences to the group, the consequences of perhaps
tipping their hand about the series knowledge... what Meg believes is
right, what Megatokyo believes is right, and the morality of maybe
risking an entire city of millions, for the sake of 2 lives. Sylia
eventually agree's that at this stage, it would be best for the group
if Meg finish what she's started... it's too late to back out, so
instead, she just warns her not to get in too deep, and gives her a
simple distress transponder, just in case.
With Sylias reluctant blessing, Meg leaves with Sylvie on their
mission. They decide not to tell Anri too much...in case she
worries.... just asking her to wait while they go. The mission goes
well. Meg infiltrates GPCC and steals the disk, Sylvie blasts the
living daylights out of any chasing boomers as soon as Meg leaves the
building. Everything runs like clockwork. They leave the DD where
Sylia asked for it to be left.... everything is hunky dory until the
pair return to Anri's apartment, and find it empty.
It's also quite clear that she left willingly, with some others.
Meg/Sylive phones their contact, the voice, and is told to deliver the
documents to a an old church in the outskirts of town. Anri is with
the voice, having gotten scared on her own and called 'the voice' for
help. Meg sense it may be a trap, but shrugs it off... her goal is in
sight. Sylvie and Anri safe, everyone happy, a *good* end... all she
has to do is deliver the documents. Prudence would say 'Call Sylia' at
this point, but Meg ignores prudence. Instead, she leaves instruction
for Sylive, telling her where she can get help if she doesn't
return... before heading off to the rendezvous with the papers.
Inside the church, she's met with the glint of a pair of red-eyes....
and now she remembers. Now she remembers who arranged the escape of
the sexaroids. But she can't run away, she just has to hand the
documents to Largo, and leave with Anri. Then run like hell screaming
into Sylia's arms with a warning. But, she never gets the chance...
Largo grabs her arm as she hands over the files, snapping it like a
twig in his hand as he picks her up, explain all the while how
biometics are obsolete, an imperfect copy of an imperfect species...
whose only function would be useless in a world of machines... He
still has a need for Anri, but she's a bit hesitant. How would she
feel, when she finds her friends have been murdered by the Knight
Sabers? A gravity cannon blast puts Meg through several rows of pews,
nearly killing her... she has just enough consciousness left to wonder
about the crucified statue of Jesus looking down on her, and trigger
her transponder....
Some time later, Sylive walks into the Silky Doll, and Mackie has a
nosebleed.
------
Two weeks later, Meg comes too, strapped to a table.... still alive,
but not able to walk. Her secret's out alright, along with Sylvies....
Linna tells her as much, along with something about Priss going
missing for a week, when she found out. Sylia's a little pissed, but
there're bigger fish to fry. There's just been a hijacking of a GENOM
truck, and the 5 Knight Sabers have been blamed....
Out on the streets of Megatokyo, Sylive finally tracks down Priss, and
the two...chat.... It's hard for Priss to argue against freedom, and
it's hard for Sylvie to argue against the fact that she is not human,
and had been lying to Priss for some time. The story of Anri comes up,
along with what life was like on Genaros, and the escape. The fact is,
Sylvie is still the same person Priss called a friend 2 weeks earlier.
They return to Silky Doll together, both determined to help Anri....
the pair set off combing the city for the missing woman.
The heists continue, while Meg recovers. Eventually, the challenge to
the Sabers comes in the paper.... but three Knight Sabers against 5
hyperboomers? Meg is too wounded, Priss and Sylvie have dissapeared of
the face of the Earth.... things look bad until Priss and Sylvie drop
in and SilkyDoll, to steal Priss' hardsuit. Priss is injured, but not
badly, by a laser cannon. Meg asks them to wait for a bit....The
others are loosing badly, they can't just be left to die... everyone
agrees with that. Meg suits up, along with Priss... but not before
jamming Sylvie into Priss' new suit (using a basic configuration based
on Meg's own), and picking up a high-powered prototype railgun out of
hammerspace. Mackie is dragged along as a copilot, while Meg fly's the
skycarrier, pulling a Big Damn Heroes moment, picking the battered
Knight Sabers from the roof of the bank, and saturating the whole
thing with enough firepower to make sure not much gets off it again.
Knowing Anri is with Largo, the six Knight Sabers make a beeline for
the Dark Tower, arriving in time to land in the middle of the wreckage
of several security boomers. Sylia orders the skycarrier away, with
Mackie and Sylvie aboard (And that railgun), while the 5 Knight Sabers
confornt Largo. The superboomers are on their way, but right now,
Largo is alone, and vulnerable(ish). He throws Anri towards Meg,
shooting the pair of them. Anri is mortally wounded, Meg collapsing at
her side, injured again.
Anri paraphrases the 'Tears in the rain speech'.... because it's
awesome.. Meg is trying to stop her. Largo dodges a railgun blast from
Priss, before blasting Nené with a gravity cannon, throwing her into
Priss and knocking her out. Without Nené's ECM to stop him contacting
the satellites, he can get a solid lock. Linna takes a swing at him,
lashing with her ribbon cutters, cutting shreds from Largo's arm...
right until he catches her, and pitches her straight through a wall.
Cue Largos' for the crime of harming a God, the sentance is death,
speech... as he raises his hand to call down a final killsat strike...
All Sylia says is 'Now, Sylvie'... and Largo's arm dissapears. He has
enough time to be surprised about it, before a follow-up round punches
through his face, then another through the body. The superboomer just
drops... dead. Anri expires shortly afterwards, and Meg doesn't even
want to believe it.
Carrying the BladeRunner theme.... because it's bloody awesome, Sylia
says "It's too bad she won't live, but then again, which of us
does?" (Maybe this is too cold, but I like this line in Bladerunner,
especially Olmo's delivery of it, and it sort of hints at the same
thing Largo did at the end of Red Eyes... she says 'Us' to Meg, and
Sylia's doesn't mean the KS).
The whole lot ends with Sylive realising that she's the last one
left.... of the 5 from Genaros... all the death and pain. Is her
Freedom worth it? Priss tells her to make sure it's worth it.
(I know that's cheesy, but it'd make a nice ending)
-------------------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Alright, so that's just a rough outline, but it's pretty close to what
I want to do. If I can pull this off the way I want to, it'll be
awesome. If not, it'll be a dethroning moment of suck. Why only saving
Sylvie, in the end. Because as I said elsewhere... you can't win, but
you might not lose. having the pair survive would be too happy an
ending, a little out of genre. Having both die would just have
been.... what was the point?
So will it work?
Also, apologies for typos. I suck at it.
------------------------------------>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>END SPOILERS
Dartz
Just some day-to-day life.... Some training. Nené makes a bet.
-------------------------->>
Shopping made sense, when you were the one trying to clothes on
anyway. It might even have been fun. Silk and satin, skirts, blouses
and dresses... all were tried and tested. And Nené sat through it all,
wearing that same bored-to-death look I'd worn many times myself....
in a past life.
Maybe that was what made the difference.
The gossip was... well.... gossip. I started jutting in every now and
then, if the conversation drifted to something I knew about, like car
maintenance, comfort over fashion... always comfort... and the
relative merits of certain sexual positions. That last one made two
things perfectly obvious. Linna knew what she was talking about. Nené
didn't.
I still didn't understand the whole deal about sexy lacy lingerie, it
was a pain to put on, a pain to take off, and just looked
uncomfortable and pointless... considering it was underwear never to
be seen by anyone. But false silk was more comfortable against
sensitive skin the cheap cotton.....
It was a good few hours....
I actually felt like I was there as part of a group for a while,
rather than just a hanger on showing up to make up the numbers.
A small voice pointed out that this was only because they didn't know
what I actually was. I squashed that thought... it was too nice being
with people to worry about things like that. Just sit back in the car
and enjoy it.
The things you find out about people.
Nené Romanova claimed to be a descended of the Russian Royal
Family.... If that was true, then I was the King of England.
It was mid afternoon, when Linna finally parked up outside Ravens. The
shock of jumping out of a nice, cool air-conditioned car, and into the
forge that was the fault nearly floored me. It kicked the breath out
of my lungs, and I staggered to the shade.
Our bags were left in the car, hidden in the boot. This was not the
best part of town to leave expensive clothes sitting in plain view
inside a car. Either the clothes, or the car would go missing.
“Afternoon, ladies,” greeted Raven, the old scientist polishing one of
his projects, an old black Supra. “Sylia and Priss're downstairs,”
“Thanks, Doctor,” the three of us chorused... more or less. Different
accents, different honrifics, even different languages, but the jist
of it was the same.
“Oh and Meg, One thing.” he held me up for a second.
“What?”
He'd restored my bike already?
“I told you so!” he boasted, slapping me hard on the back. I glowered
down at him for a second, but he stood firm and cackled like a mad
scientist, before giving a thumbs up. I just sighed and smiled. With
hindsight, it really should've been bloody obvious to me what was
happening.
“Yeah,”
“Don't feel so bad,” he consoled, “The other two said the exact same
thing when they first joined,”
“And Priss?”
The doctor exhaled, massaging his chin with his hand as he thought
back,
“Sylia'd recruited her well before she told me what she was planning.
You'd have to talk to Priss herself about that,”
And Priss wouldn't say a word if I asked....and I'd probably earn a
thick lip to boot. I didn't see her inside the garage, so I guessed
she might've been 'downstairs'. I followed Linna and Nené through,
each of us giving a quick “Hi,” as we passed.
“Hey,” the boy glanced up from the bare bones of his project to watch
us pass.
Nené smiled at him, and the air tingled with a brief flash of hormonal
attraction, even if neither of the two knew it themselves yet. It was
like a spark off a nine-volt battery, compared to a bolt-of-lightning
that was full-on thunderstruck love.... the same basic thing, only one
was smaller, and harder to spot, and not likely to leave it's victims
frazzled and smouldering when it was done. It might flare up, given
the right sort of tinder, I thought.... smirking to myself.
“Just come in here,” beckoned Linna, keying the access code into that
same closet in back. Nené stretched and yawned as she waited.
“You sure Sylia didn't change the keycode,” she questioned.
I was more interested in the K100-shaped tarpaulin in the corner,
wondering just what Raven was planning for it. I was trying
desperately not to think about what exactly I was about to be doing. I
was about to be fitted for a hardsuit.... That thought simmered
fitfully at the back of my mind, and in the pit of my stomach.
I tried not be be nervous, I tried not be be excited, I tried to be as
unbothered by it as possible, as if this was just a fact of life, same
as for the other two women still fiddling with the keypad.
“I entered the right code,” said Linna, standing back. She gave it a
perplexed stare for a moment, putting her hands on her hips. “It just
isn't unlocking,”
She brushed her headband back, pulling a few stray hairs out of her
eyes.
“Let me see,” Nené bustled her out of the way, pressing against the
otherwise unremarkable door.
Tap-tap-tap...click... Tap. She tried the keys. Frowning, she tried
them again. Scowling, she stabbed at them.
“Stupid thing,” she spat.
“I've changed the locking module,” the door answered in Sylia's voice.
“The new access codes haven't been set yet,”
“Why doesn't she tell us these things before we make fools of
ourselves,” lamented Nené, punching 0000 into the keypad.
“Some tech-genius,” needled Linna as she leant in over the shorter
woman's shoulder
Nené threw her a bitter glare.
“It not obvious change,” I weighed in on her side, earning a small
smile for my troubles.
The door unlocked with a click, the hacker pulling it open. Inside,
were the same cleaning supplies as Saturday, a mop, a few slops
buckets, and bottles of caustic cleaners marked with hazardous
characters. The smell radiating out was enough to bring tears to the
eyes.
“Is this really it?” I wondered aloud, giving the pair a dubious look.
“Yup,” nodded Linna, “Just follow us in and see,” she beckoned towards
the open door, with a open handed gesture that reminded me of a
Disneyland tour guide.
“It's really quite cool,” Nené assured.
“Still look like closet,” I stated, right down to the rusty nails
holding the overloaded shelves up. A few spanners hung off the wall, a
pair of old light switches and some footprints in the dust on the
floor, one set from a pair of boots, the other from high-heels.
Conspicuously, nothing was actually mounted on the floor… everything
was hanging from the walls. Trepidation crawled across my back as my
mouth ran dry.
“Just step inside, Meg, and watch,” Linna smirked at me.
“Alright,” I stepped forward, joining the two women in the closet. The
door snicked shut, trapping the three of us in an inky black closet
for an instant.
And I started laughing madly, braying like a donkey in that dark,
cramped space.
“What's so funny?” queried Nené's puzzled voice, her hot breath close
enough to tickle my ears
“Share the joke, Meg,” Linna said.
“Three woman inside closet,” I coughed out, trying to hold it it.
I was answered by a pair of exasperated sighs as a set of cold
flourescent lamps buzzed and flickered into life, bathing the closet
in harsh light. The laughter died in my throat, childish excitement
sending shudders through my legs, my whole body lurching upward, the
floor dropping from beneath my feet.
I glanced around, swallowing. Nené and Linna smiled back at me, a
bottle of pink liquid stacked on the shelf beside me sloshing gently.
That is so cool.... A secret agent lift! A bit cliché for it to be a
supplies closet, mind. I felt like a child being led down the stairs
on christmas morning, body prickling with anticipation as I tried to
picture what was waiting for me below.
I had an image of what was underneath Lady633 in my mind, mixed with
half remembered fragments of animated equipment from OVA 8. Fitted for
a hardsuit.... that's what Sylia told me I would be doing. I knew
exactly what was going to happen.... okay, I had a decent idea what
was going to happen.
Somebody pinch me please.
“I'll definitely crack level 4 today,” Nené affirmed to herself,
gritting her teeth. “I nearly got it the last time,”
“And the time before that,” Linna finished for her. “And before that,”
“Is level 4 good?” I asked. If I remembered the episode right, normal
people should be capable of level 5 out of the box...so to speak.
“Not especially, I hit Level 6 on my first try,” Linna told me with a
wry smile, carefully.
“Yeah, but you're a fighter... I'm the electronic warfare specialist.”
Nené said, “You and Priss are the brawn, but I'm the brains,”
“And Sylia?” I questioned.
“She just supervises,” said Nené as the lift juddered to a halt.
“As I hear, she saved you from a 55-c last mission, “ needled Linna as
the doors opened. “Is that, true, Meg?”
I shrugged, “I was busy.” Busy either trying in vain to gun down a
boomer, or lying on my back in agony with nine-inch-nails striking out
of my chest.... Still, I almost felt sorry for the pink-haired
policewoman....almost. It was just too funny.
The door clicked as it unlocked, and I opened it, taking a long, deep
breath closed my eyes and stepped forward. Half expecting to open them
to see the same back-room in the garage and be met by mocking
laughter, I was surprised to find myself standing under cold
flourescent lights, with even colder air lapping at any exposed skin.
“Bloody hell,” I exhaled, taking a quick glance around.
No other words were necessary. Equipment lined the walls...
exercise , testing, imaging, and some things I just couldn't figure
out. 2 hardsuits were mounted on hangers against the far wall, Priss'
and Linna's.. Priss' suit half dismantled with some of it's armour
missing.
The structure beneath the armour glinted tantalisingly, cabled
conduits and linear motors flowing across the underlying structure,
pushing and pulling across the thighs and hips. I wanted nothing more
than to run up and inspect ever last mouth-watering detail. I wanted
to know how it was built, how it had been put together, how each and
every piece worked and what exactly it did.
I wanted my own suit. I wanted it so badly I ached for it, deep
inside. I hungered for it.
“We're here,” Linna called out over my shoulder.
“About time,” Priss' voice answered from somewhere inside. I couldn't
see here anywhere,
“You're an hour late, ladies,” remarked Sylia, appearing at another
doorway, “Priss has already completed her tests,”
“There was an accident on the AIC expressway, we had to wait an hour
for it to clear,” explained Linna, exhaling, “Stupid highway patrol,”
It was a lie... we'd gotten hung up flitting from shop to shop trying
things on to the point where we'd lost track of time, well, Linna and
Nené anyway, I was having such a good time that I just decided to
ignore my own clock.
“I see,” said Sylia dubiously, probably not buying it, but not really
too concerned about pushing it. “Well, we have to make up for lost
time then, the reservation at St. Regis is for 10pm,” she smiled,
adjusting the lapel on her white lab jacket. “And we'll need to be
done a few hours before that,”
Nené winced, clutching at her handbag.
It was 15:56:34, according to my clock.
“So, how did it go?” she questioned, “Did anyone buy anything
interesting?”
She had a curious gleam in her eyes, that reminded me of Nené anytime
I'd allowed her to hack away at my laptop.
“Surprise,” I winked, giving a teasing smirk. Very
surprising...considering what I normally wore. And bloody expensive to
boot.
“You'll have to wait until we get to the hotel,” said Linna, “We got
something really special for ourselves,”
“And Nené?”
The young woman answered with a despairing frown, puppydog eyes
glistening, “You know I don't have the money,” Something sparked in
her mind, a light going on behind her eyes. He fist clenched tight
with determination, fires of confidence building inside her stocky
frame. “Double or nothing!” she declared, “If I clear level 3 today,
I don't pay for anyone's meal... if I lose, I pay for two,”
Her voice resonated off of white concrete walls, melting into the buzz
of the overhead lighting. Three women inhaled a deep breath.
“I'll take that bet,” Priss' sweat drenched face appeared from a
doorway to some chamber to the right of the room. “Two free meals are
better than one!”
She was wearing that demons grin of hers, and a skintight bodysuit
that left nothing to the imagination... literally.
“Me too!” Piped up Linna, “I know a sure thing when I see it,”
Nené was appalled at the betrayal, her mouth gaping open like a
fish's. “Et tu Brutus?”
Sylia just stood there in her labcoat, considering which side to take.
“I side with Nené,” I stood firm. The hackers spirits picked up for
the briefest moment.
“If you lose you pay for your ours with Nené!” Priss and Linna
chorused immediately.
“If I win you pay me!” I cut back.
“Agreed,” they answered.
Wait.... I can't afford this if I loose... I glanced down at the
hacker beside me, a gentle nervous shake taking hold of her frame.
“I don't think gambling helps the team dynamic,” demurred Sylia,
sounding like almost like every primary school teacher I'd ever known.
“This is not a competition,”
All of us frowned like disappointed children
“But I think you will beat Level three today,” she placed a light
hand on the young woman's shoulder. “So I guess I'm in, same terms as
Meg.”
“See!” Teased Nené, suddenly overflowing with confidence. She crossed
her arms defiantly, standing as tall as her 5 foot frame allowed. Her
skirt seemed to billow in some imaginary breeze, conjured by her own
self belief and determination. Grimly, she took one step forward.
Thank Christ.... my money was safe.
Linna and Priss exchanged nervous glances across the room... the
ground under their feet melting away. They laughed a fatalist,
gallows laugh.... this was going to be expensive... for them. They
would be strung up by their pursestrings tonight. Sylia's same soft
smile remained unchanged.
Heh...Do not believe in yourself, Nené, but believe in Sylia, who
believes in you!
I didn't have the guts to say it, and nobody would've gotten the joke
even if I'd been able to say it out properly in Japanese anyway, so
why bother? I just sighed quietly to myself and forgot about it
instead, just enjoying my own private amusement with a dumb smile on
my face, that nobody bothered with.
“Anyway, let's get started shall we. Meg will have to be shown how to
wear a softsuit. There's a personal one in your locker, Meg. And I've
replaced yours Nené, because of that problem you reported,”
She was answered by the sound of barely restrained laughter. Three
guesses what Nené's problem was, I thought.
“Thank you,” she beamed, here turquoise eyes bright and wide.
Underneath, I could smell a building apprehension, radiating hot off
of her with a scent a little like burnt wood, mixed with strawberry
perfume.
My locker was closest to the door, beneath a small keyhole
surveillance camera drilled into the wall. I stared into it, barely
half a centimetre across as I undressed. Nice one Mackie, nice one. No
human would spot it unless they were going out of their way to search
for it...
I pulled the softsuit out of my locker.... the right one helpfully
labelled with 'use this for tests'. It was light, feeling a little
like some sort of high-density elastic silk. Sheer smooth, feather
light, and stretchy as a pair of latex gloves.
“Are you sure this is right size?” I held it up by the collar. It was
smaller than a five year old's pyjama's.
“One size fit's all,” said Nené, pulling hers inside out. “Watch this
Meg, it's easy to do, just mind the plumbing connections is all.”
She placed it on the sterile plastic flooring, stepping onto the feet,
before slowly rolling the jet-black and mauve garment up her body. It
creaked and squeaked as it slid over pale skin, stretching and
snapping over her chest, before clamping tight around her neck.
Mine was different though... slightly.... it didn't have the same bare
back as Nené's, or the others.
“Like a bloody Gimp suit,” I mumbled, tugging at it. It'd make ideal
fetish-wear alright.
Nené giggled, “That's what I said at first,” arching her back to
emphasise her 'luscious'... in her own words.... figure. Truth was, it
did sort of help. Nené as standard was best described as a little bit
stocky, being only about 5 foot tall but still as broad as Linna and
Priss, though with the softsuit on, it seemed to distort her
proportions a little, like some clever optical illusion, to make her
seem a little like a shorter legged Linna Yamazaki.
I gazed down into the black void inside the neck of the suit.
It still didn't look big enough
But somehow it was, even if getting it over my chest was a bloody
pain... literally. To universal joy, I only managed to get the collar
halfway up and over, before it slipped out my fingers and bit down on
sensitive flesh with a whip-like crack... shortly followed by an
agonised yelp. Tight was an understatement... Latex gloves were
tight.... this thing was practically bonded to the skin.
It sucked down onto my body like a vacuum pack, drawing up inside each
and every nook and cranny.
I think I knew why Sylia preferred women for the Knight Sabers.... I
could imagine how painful this would've been if I'd been my old
self...and embarrassing. The suits really did show everything.
As it was though, after a few minutes waiting for it to stretch a
bit, the suit was pretty comfortable, even if I got the feeling part
of it was actively trying to worm its way inside places I didn't want
to think about.
I glanced back at the crystal lens of the camera.
If I'd been human, I'd never have been able to spot it without
searching for it. 1 point towards being a boomer then... I promised
myself I'd tell Sylia at some stage, although a little bird on my
shoulder told me she probably already knew it was there.
“Comfortable,” enquired Sylia, seeing me still soothingly rubbing my
stinging chest.
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“You'll be going last, Meg, so you can watch the others and see how
the simulation equipment works,”
I swallowed a lungful of air,.... “Still hard to believe,” I said.,
watching through a laminated glass window as Linna danced her way
through Level 5. Nené was busy helping Priss with what looked like
some sort of weight training, and Linna was focusing on what looked
like a D20 made of frogspawn. Transparent, cellular, and with a little
spot on each facet.
“What is?”
I was going to repeat the same old spiel about me not being meant for
this sort of life, never wanting this sort of life, and how it had all
been a TV show 4 weeks earlier, but it was starting to seam like a
waste of time even thinking about it.
“I am a Knight Saber,” I said, trying those words on for size. It
still didn't feel like the fit quite right. I could've been the baby
with his foot in a clown shoe. Those words were a vast responsibility,
and it seemed impossible that I would fill into them.
And suddenly, I thought of my dog back home, and how he used to fit
into my boot when he was a puppy, and I just felt smaller.... and a
little colder.
“Yes, you are Meg,” confirmed Sylia, “I assume I don't need to repeat
the rules of the organisation?”
I nodded, “I remember them well enough from the show,”
“This is not a TV show, Meg,” she reminded me, her voice hardening,
“I know,” I breathed, “Same thing I tell myself regularly. It's a
bloody difficult thing to forget, though. People wished they could be
Knight Sabers, they wrote stories about themselves in hardsuits...
some of which I read,” I felt stupidly ashamed for a moment, “I
mean.... this is the sort of thing that happens in those stories....
almost word for word it could be right of a page. It sounds daft to
read it, and then funny...” I sighed, running a hand through lucious
hair, “... when I realise that that's exactly what's happened to me.”
“Oh,”
“I arrived in MegaTokyo, ran into Irene, ran into yourselves, nearly
got killed twice, and end up joining up with the Knight Sabers to be a
hero....” I laughed... “Sounds like every self insert fanfic I ever
read,”
For the briefest of moments, Sylia looked almost confused, before the
businesswoman mask fell back into place.
“And there was a time, when power-armoured sentai teams were confined
to animated serials too,” she said. “I watched several when I was a
girl. I used to feel the same way, when I first started fighting in a
hardsuit.” her expression darkened again, “But this is not a TV show.
When people die, I can't just rewind the disk and watch them stand
back up. A man doesn't run out in front and yell 'cut' after each
explosion to give stuntmen a chance to haul themselves out of
styrofoam rubble. The dead don't walk out of shot to be replaced by
bloodied mannequins.” her eyes fixed me solid, “I watched the DvD's,
those animated people, who seemed to die for no reason other than to
demonstrate just how dangerous that Bu-55-C was, those people had
families.... wives, husbands, children even. Every single one of them
was a real person, with hopes and fears, and when they are gone, they
are gone forever, understand?”
I nodded dumbly.... words catching in my throat. “I know.... I've
known since I got here. It's just hard to shake that feeling is all,
y'know?” I exhaled a breath I'd forgotten I was holding.
“I can understand,” she said, the softness returning for a moment,
“But it is something for you to remember. On a mission, in your
hardsuit, if you start thinking you're invincible because you're some
kind of main character, or that those people in the city don't matter
because they're stock characters not even worthy of a name, then
you're going to find yourself brought down to earth with a terminal
bump,”
“I promise to wear a red shirt on every mission,” I reassured her,
grinning caustically, hoping to pick the mood up off the floor with a
bit of humour.
“This isn't funny, Meg,” she admonished.
Didn't anyone here watch the classics?
“I know... I was just trying to say I know I can die. And so can
everyone else.”
“That's good,” she smiled, while I leant down against the computer
consoles, reading out details of Linna's efforts down in the
simulation room. She was barely breaking a sweat, while my own
reflection in the mirror was already damp. “Now then, I can tell you
the good news. Your hardsuit will be ready before the end of the
month, the raw materials and components arrived yesterday.”
“Sweet,” I grinned back, my mood doing it's best impression of
Lazarus.
“I think you'd do well as a more defensive fighter, along with some
more mechanical tasks that would normally have been done by Mackie in
his own battlesuit. The less he's in the field, the better,”
It was perfectly clear, that she just didn't want to risk him getting
hurt.
Again, I just nodded. “So stuff like blowing holes in walls and
helping Nené with computers occasionally?”
“A little more complicated, but that's basically it, though you'll
have more weapons to hand than Nené, so you should be able to handle
yourself in a fight without having problems,”
In the simulation pit, Linna brought her foot down in one long, arc,
striking the hologram square on.
“Got it!” she cheered, the electronic apparation dissolving away into
thin air. “Bring on Level 6!”
Sylia pushed a few buttons on the control panel, “Try make level 7,
Linna.”
The machine answered with a cheerful chirp, display readouts on the
monitors vomiting up reams of electronic data about momentum, force,
minutes of arc, orientation and a bunch of other parameters.
“I'm on a roll today,” she breathed, trying to cool her body off,
“This will be easy.”
“I've been short on cash for the last week because I didn't get paid
for the Gig I missed, that's why I'm losing weight, but two free meals
at the St. Regis will definitely help,” Priss voice rang out,
“Only if you win the bet Priscilla!” screeched Nené.
“That's Priss,” hissed Priscilla, looking like she wanted to put a
dent in somebody's forehead.
Priscilla.... a name for petticoats and flowers, not leathers and
motor oil. I snickered into my own hand at the mental image that
provided.
Linna was oblivious to everything except her simulated opponent,
somersaulting out of the way of a lashing, whipping arm. She landed
crisply into some kind of defence stance, arms guarding her face. The
hologram took a high slash at her face, blocked easily with a swat of
her arm, but opening a hole in her guarde The first blow was chased
by a stabbing strike aimed directly at the opening.
Linna's eyes glinted as she dropped low, before driving up with an
uppercut aimed at some flashing point within the body of the
projection. It jinked back, swinging around 180 with another of it's
unreal tentacles, aiming for the back Linna's neck. She pirouetted out
of the way, with a delicate, precision twirl, before backing away to
give herself some space to breathe.
Battle ballet. It was awesome. Her gaze sharpened as her opponent
adjusted itself, computer systems taking fractions of a moment to
analyse the situation and decide.... It lunged forward once more, and
the dance continued.
“I don't expect you to be able to match Linna on your first try,” said
Sylia, drawing my attention away, “so don't worry if you can't.”
“As long as I get past level one I'm happy,”
“The average woman should be able to complete level 5 without
training, and most reach level 4 on their first try,”
“Nené?” I asked,
“She started at level three,”
“I see,” I said, politely.
I didn't want to laugh... not until my own performance. That's a
lesson I'd learned the hard way, several times before.
“Just do what comes naturally to you, Meg.” She paused, thinking for a
moment with her finger on her lips, “33-S do include self-defence
programming,” she said, her voice quiet and hidden by the argument
behind.
Swallowing a sudden apprehensive lump, I just answered with “I know
Ido,” I wished softsuits had pockets I could stick my hands into.
Then I could slouch and act moody about it. “Another point in favour
of the boomer.” I sighed with a mellow smile.
“You've been keeping score?” Sylia quirked an eyebrow.
“Yup,” I nodded with a grin, “Point for point, the boomer is winning,”
For the briefest of instants, I saw a flash of surprise running across
her face. Just a flash, not even enough to be a glimpse. But I saw
it.. I caught her off guard.
“ I always believed a person in your situation would want nothing more
than to be human again. I certainly think that if my humanity was
taken away, I'd want it back,”
She was wearing an almost rueful smile.
“I think some of it's programming,” I told her, “Same way a baby knows
whether it's a boy or a girl, even though it doesn't know what either
is yet, I know what I am. The rest...well...” how best to put it....
“If I'm cursed, then I'm cursed with awesome. I like being what I am.”
To prove the point, I stretched my body taught, arching my back as I
reached for the ceilings.
“I probably wouldn't say the same if you'd decided to treat me as a
piece of property, mind and it has it's quirks, but...... it's more
interesting than being just human,”
I was hugging myself, arms across my chest, pushing my breasts up
halfway to my chin.
“How so?” Asked Sylia, her curiosity piqued.
“For one thing, I can see that camera over my locker,” I gestured
towards the black dot on the wall, checking to make sure I could still
see it... “From here?”
“What camera?” asked Sylia, absolutely straightfaced.
“Oh....”
The realisation probably dawned on herself long before me.
“Mackie,” she groaned. “I'll have to have a talk with him about this,”
Terrible things awaited that poor boy, I could see it in her eyes.
Hell hath no fury like an elder sister scorned.
“That's just it,” I carried on, “My senses are sharper, but I don't
notice it. Not until I remember that I'd never have been able to see
that camera as a human, or feel each individual leg of some small
bedbug on my skin in the morning. It's pretty cool,”
I gave have a laugh, scratching the back of my head. I could feel each
individual hair brushing across the back of my neck. I lingered on
that sensation, analysing it, positioning each and every single point
across my shoulders. I flicked a few strands off into the air, sensing
them hanging for a second, before they came to rest.
Sylia gave me a knowing look, like she understood exactly what I was
saying, but I didn't know how that'd be possible. The closest way I
could describe it was as the difference between an old DvD, and a
brand new super-definition HGD movie. The DvD seemed crystal clear,
until you watched the same scene in HGD, and realised that yes, you
can see each individual hair that made up the heroine's eyebrows.
Linna grunted as she jumped back from another swinging blow, the
projection lunging forward, driving another elastic-like tentacle
towards the dancers legs. She sprung out of the way and landed hard,
her face red with exertion, sweat trailing in glistening beads down
her cheeks and onto her softsuit. Her chest was heaving hard as she
tried to snatch her breath back, but the simulation wasn't going to
give her that chance. It surged forward one final time, striking out
first at Linna's stomach. She sprang back one more, landing slightly
off balance. Somehow, the hologram knew this, and it took its chance.
Pressing its advantage, it took one...two.... three strikes. The first
the aerobics instructor jumped over, the second she ducked under,
landing with her legs apart. The third, punched right between her eyes
and she froze, wide-eyed and beaten.
“Damn,” she breathed, taking her weight through her hands before
pushing herself upright.
Again, the console alarmed, reading out more and more data as the
hologram evaporated into nothing.
“Nice work Linna, you've improved your score since the last time,”
Sylia spoke into a microphone. “Level 6.8, reflex speed of 7.9,”
----------------------------->>>
Well... I just wanted to play another angle other than the 'OH GOD!!
What have I become?" Meg is quite content being what she is, through a
matter of programming on top of her psyche, and the fact that she
enjoys some of the quirks of being a sexaroid.
Amanda Stair
story he's working very hard on. The least you can do is give him
some sort of C&C ^_^
Amanda
Rob Kelk
But if I start reviewing other people's stories, I'm never going to
finish my own... </whine>
Amanda Stair
> On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:56:55 -0700 (PDT), Amanda Stair
>
> >Now, now, people, Dartz is going through the trouble of showing you a
> >story he's working very hard on. The least you can do is give him
> >some sort of C&C ^_^
>
> But if I start reviewing other people's stories, I'm never going to
> finish my own... </whine>
No one said your reviews had to turn into stories of their own ;) And
who knows, maybe reading others' stories will give you some
inspiration for yours.
Amanda
Dartz
That's how I got the inspiration for this story meself....
-Dartz
Dartz
Nené does stuff.
------------------------------------->>>
“I should be able to do better,” she answered as Asagiri scratched her
ears behind us, “The difficulty just hit a brick wall. One minute I
could dodge it, then it just ganged up on me,”
Pushing through the doorway out of the simulation room, she draped a
fresh towel of her sweat-streaked shoulders, leaning back against the
wall to catch her breath.
“The learning rate of the simulation ramps up the longer it runs,”
Sylia explained, “You took too long to beat it, and the program
adapted to your fighting style.”
“It didn't do that before,” she wheezed.
“You didn't get this far,”
She pushed her headband back, dragging soaked strands of hair off her
face.
“It didn't even give me an opening. I'm certain of it”
“Maybe the random number generators went to an extreme value,”
theorised Sylia, “It can happen sometimes,”
Maybe with a bit of luck on my side, I'd get an extreme value in my
favour? Meg Deckard at Level 6 maybe... Level 7 even? Just how good
was my self defence programming? Programming wasn't technically the
right word... but it was close. A computer program was a copy of a
series of machine instructions, logical operations performed within a
CPU, each of which added together to form some task. Inside me, the
instructions were coded as chemical signals on synapses, instructions
to my body on how to block, punch and kick, how to stand, how to
counter, how to dodge... the same as if I'd learned the skills the old
fashioned way..... except these were electro-chemically inscribed by a
networked computer uplink through a digital co-processor.
The best thing about programmed skills was how natural they felt, as
if I'd learned them myself. The worst thing was that I only knew I had
them, not how capable the program actually was, not until I actually
tried out it anyway.
I was curious to see just how capable I was, but it wasn't my turn.
“Now it's time to see how miss cyberpunk can do,” teased Linna, nuding
Nené's shoulder.
“Hey Linna, don't tease the person whose kind enough to buy us dinner
like that,” mocked Priss.
“Shut up!” yelled the ADP operator, eyes welling up with what I could
sense were crocodile tears.
“I've set the simulator to Level 2 to lead in, Nené,” Sylia nudged
everyone back to business, “That should give you a fair warm up,”
“Hey!” barked Linna, “Isn't it a conflict of interest if you're
running the simulation, when you've a bet on the result.”
“I have no problem,” I cut in, wearing a cheeseater grin. Priss shot a
sharp glare back to me.
“Not really,” answered Sylia. I could hear her almost rolling her
eyes, wondering why she'd gotten involved. “The programs are fixed so
results can be compared over time. If I changed them for the sake of
winning a simple bet, it would invalidate all of Nené's results to
date and corrupt the programming for her hardsuit.”
What she left unsaid, I guessed, was that paying for a meal at
MegaTokyo's most expensive restaurant was small change for her,
especially when considered against the effort of recovering months of
work. Linna and Priss still looked dubious about it, sharing
suspicious glances between themselves. Nené looked like she wanted to
die, like anything she'd eaten all day was about to be sprayed across
Sylia's sterile floor.
“I’ve never tried wagyu beef,” commented Linna with deliberate
nonchalance, “It’s always been too expensive,”
“Shut up!” yelped Nené, her green eyes quivering.
I didn’t think people could really do that. I could sense her whole
body tensing up, her fear and confidence collapsing down around her
feet. How did that Gurren Lagan quote go again… in Japanese?
Buggered if I know it.
“Good luck Nené,” I offered, levering the full force of my pheromones
behind it.
Then realised that it wouldn’t work, since most of my body was sealed
up tight inside a bodyglove. At least it was the thought that counted.
And a smile from a sexaroid would help. She just answered with a
forelorn stare, all colour drained from her features. Help me, those
eyes begged. She whimpered softly as she entered the training room.
I heard Priss whisper, “This will be quick,”
Linna nodded, humming to herself, while figuring out how much she
would gain if she won on her fingers. The bet was a sure thing, of
course… Sylia was only siding with Nené for the sake of the girl’s
confidence….like all good leaders would.
It seemed awfully possible for a moment. How in the name of God would
I afford a fifty-thousand yen meal? That was more than a month’s rent
for me. Of course, there was my Knight Sabers account, but the less I
lived obviously beyond my means, the better. Nobody would ask
questions about where I was getting the money if I didn’t flaunt it.
That’s how Bugsy Malone got caught, because someone realised he had a
vast fortune, which he hadn’t paid taxes on.
“Nené, didn’t you have your ADP training day on Thursday?” Sylia asked
the microphone.
A moment of silence, as Sylia allowed the implications to stew for a
second, the two women’s minds ruminating over them.
“I failed,” she admitted, curling up into herself, her body scrunching
down into itself. Her eyes begged Sylia for remission.
“Don’t fail here then,” she advised warmly.
“I don’t think I can afford it,” she whined, near tears.
“Don’t make bets you can’t afford,” suggested Priss sardonically,
“Consider it a learning experience,” added Linna.
“Do your best, Nené!” I cheered, waving through the window.
She answered with the gaze of a wrongly condemned woman facing her
final sentence.
“I don’t think you can afford this either, Meg,” Priss reminded me,
“I know,” I answered sourly.
“I’d like to see any of you out there understand what a buffer-
overflow is, or how I use that and an open port 72 to gain
administrator privileges on the ADP network to erase the evidence of
our dealings,” grumbled Nené, dropping into a tense imitation of
Linna’s easy stance.
The young woman was shivering as a gaseous sphere materialised out of
thin air in front of her.
“I’m not a fighter,” she continued, “I’m the smart one. Making me
fight is like making Priss do calculus,”
“Hey! I can use a calculator!” the singer blasted back, “I’d like to
see madam-cyberpunk stun a rampaging boomer with a railgun hit to the
optics, before following through it’s neck with a knucklebomber
punch,”
She was answered by the crack of Linna’s palm hitting her own face,
and my own hand scratching the back of my neck sympathetically. Nené
looked like she’d be struck by lightning.
Silence.
“….shit,” said Priss.
“Nice own-goal,” I coughed. I guess the signal from mouth to brain got
cut off halfway, and the mouth decided to just go with it anyway.
“Punch first, ask questions later,” giggled Linna. “That's Priss
alright,”
“Well it’s not something I learned in school,” countered Priss, her
face red with embarrassed anger, She was livid…fury boiling in her
body, directed not at Linna, not at Nené, not even at me, but right
back at herself. It was written across her face.
The implication I got from it was, she didn’t even go.
“The test is about to start,” Sylia stamped down firmly. “Level 2
should be a simple lead in. Just avoid the single tracking arm, and
hit three targets which appear in succession. You have three minutes,
one minute per target..”
Nené looked up and nodded morosely, before focusing her attention on
the sphere.
“Start!”
The sphere lunged forward immediately, managing to catch the ADP
officer off-guard. Maybe she hadn't expected it to be so aggressive.
She yelped, jumping back away from it's lashing tentacle, landing
clumsily on both feet.
Linna and Priss expected a quick finish, Nené hoped for one, and Sylia
just watched with gentle curiosity. I stood there, fidgeting with my
softsuit, tugging it out of places I didn't want it to go. Bloody
persistent thing.
A red light flickered within the sphere and Nené jumped at it,
throwing her whole weight behind one single punch. Strike 1 announced
the computerised displays, and I exhaled a breath I'd forgotten I was
holding.
The single arm whipped around again, Nené catching sight of it at the
last possible second. The girl ducked under, letting it pass over the
back of her neck, before stepping backwards and out of reach.
The sphere pushed her back further, slowly bringing it's one orbiting
limb back to striking position. It pressed Nené back towards the wall,
computerised algorithms seeking to trap the opponent against the
wall.
Nené quickly threw a slow glance over her shoulder, noticing she was
being slowly backed into a corner.
The sphere lashed out again and she ducked under, her face red
already. Gingerly she krept past, keeping beneath the rotating arm.
Free from the simulations inexorable press, she bolted to safety.
Another weak spot flashed red beneath the skin of the sphere, but it
went ignored.
“2 minutes left Nené,” advised the leader of the Knight Sabers.
Nené stood facing the spinning sphere, which had slowly begun to slip
towards her once more. She was shaking gently on her feet, swallowing
a mouthful of something.
The sphere surged forward, building up momentum with its single limb,
cracking it like a whip through the space where Nené had been moments
earlier. A cat-like smirk flashed across her features for an
instant.... before she stumbled, caught herself, then stumbled again.
Nene caught herself clumsily, pushing herself to the feet with her
hands.
The sphere charged at her again, and again she dodged it. Not so much
an elegant ballet as with Linna, as a drunken dance, they spun around
each other haphazardly, Nené more concerned with avoid a hit, than
taking strikes at the target.
Here eyes were fixed wide open, staring hard into the sphere, trying
to analyse and understand it.
It made one more attack, reaching for Nené's face, but she just
stepped aside. The sphere's defences open, a third target flickered to
life, deep inside the sphere. Composing herself, Nené punched forward,
striking out with a closed fist, missing with the first swing as the
hologram jinked right.
Glancing back over her shoulder just in time, she spotted the sphere's
whipping limb swinging around for a strike,
“Got her,” Priss muttered,
Nené proved her wrong, jumping back with a yelp as if she'd been
burned.
“Nice one,” I smirked, sensing safety for my wallet.
With a banshee shriek, Nené struck out at the point where she thought
the target would be, and seemed almost surprised when she actually hit
it.
2 down, one to go.
“One more minute Nené,” announced Sylia,
She nodded, sucking on her bottom lip as the hologram regrouped
itself, reconsidering it's strategy. The data streams on the monitors
flickered as parameters updated and switched over, the sphere
shimmering in mid air.
It's arm dissolved down into a single black eye, the sphere rotating
over on it's back. Nené watched perplexed, trying to get a measure of
it. She swallowed three great heaving breaths, wiping beads of sweat
off her brow with the back of her hand.
“This might be interesting,” Linna said quietly, “She's doing better
than she normally does,”
I turned my attention away from the sim-room. “Really?”
She nodded, “Yeah, Nené normally takes 2 or three attempts to beat
this level, she's on a roll,”
“I might get free meals after all,” I smirked back at her.
I would've gotten them anyway, a little voice inside my mind prodded,
if I'd never opened my mouth in the first place. But it wouldn't have
been as fun... And I had to take Nené's side... if only to keep the
balance.
I mean, I used to be the unfit keyboard-jockey myself... Or himself. I
really had to come up with a hard and fast way to define who I am, and
who I was...
A stunned shriek from Nené drew my attention back down to the sim-
room, just in time to watch the sphere make one last pile-driver
swing, it's one limp arcing up over the top, plunging towards Nené's
head,
She wasn't going to lose on Level 2, was she?
Nope!
Gracelessly, she dodged it to one side, nearly overbalancing and
falling flat on her face. Clumsily catching herself, she stumbled
round out of the way, as the whipping arm sliced through the floor
and back around to the start.
“30 Seconds,” intoned Sylia.
“If she runs out of time, she has to start again.” Linna told me
quietly. “Three attempts to beat the level, then she fails on a
timeout. One hit, and it's an immediate auto-fail.... ” a beat, “And
the meal's at your expense,” she giggled, placing a gloved hand on my
shoulder,
I exhaled. “I know,”
“20 seconds,” Sylia informed us.
“The more she repeats, the more tired she'll be, the less likely
she'll pass Level 3,” Priss added her own 2 cent. “She's already
missed a target anyway,” Sphere and Saber orbited around each other as
they tried to size each other up.... or at least, that's what it
looked like. The sphere had to attack one more time to win, Nené just
had to dodge for ten more seconds to get another go. Time ticked down
digitally.
“10 seconds,”
Nené glanced back at her for a second, as the sphere redoubled it's
efforts to attack, as if somehow it understood it's own time was
running out. Again, it tried to slam Nené to the ground, the young
woman jumping back away from it. Scrambling back, she tried to get
back, her feet skidding on the floor.
Another weakspot flickered red on top of the revolving sphere,
9 seconds,
Nené hit the floor, landing flat on her backside. “Dammit,” she
squeaked. Priss and Linna edged forward like vultures circling a kill.
The sphere continued to rotate, bring it's arm up and around.
8 seconds.
“She's done!” gasped Linna, pushing against the glass to watch the
final moments. “The pressure got her,”. Nené's eyes widened with
terror, the limb arcing inexorably towards her forehead.
7 seconds.
The young womans instincts took over, lashing limb passing through the
space once occupied by her head and through the floor..
“Nice one!” I cheered.
6 seconds.
The sphere continued to revolve as Nené scrambled back to her feet.
Shaking her head, sweat showering from her hair, she steadied herself.
“5 seconds.” Announced Sylia calmly.
Nobody breathed, three women pressing themselves against the glass. We
saw Nené. Nené saw the target. We could see the information working
its way from her eyes, through her brain, and down to her right
shoulder.
She struck out closed-fisted at the target. The hologram lashed back
with one final attack Nené had no chance to dodge...
4 seconds, according to my own clock.
------------------------------>>
Well, how's she cuttin'?
Some Guy
or intruducing magic in this fandom normaly.
> There's a small ratchet in tension
> where Leon quietly takes Meg and reveals he has a good idea what she
> is, and has known since pretty much they first met (blame Daley...).
> He hasn't bothered doing anything because "It just isn't mworth the
> bother over one boomer", especially one where somebody's been very
> careful about constructing a back story. Instead, he just wants
> information about 33-S boomers, and how and why one would need to
> drain blood...specifically what traces one would leave on a body. He's
> quite happy to leave Meg alone... if she doesn't pose a threat to
> anyone.
Translation: Meg just became a informant, or else she get shot.
Better come up with an "exit strategy" :)
> He also gives a speech, showing the other side of Sylvie and Anri....
> they have murdered people for their freedom. Human or boomer, the
> punishment for multiple murders is still the same... death. The
> victims and their families do deserve justice... they're not just
> names on a newspaper page, but people. (I want the readers to see that
> the morality of Sylvie's actions is a lot greyer than protrayed. The
> viewers sympathy in the series is with the sexaroids, to the point
> where everyone forgets that they have murdered people. The vast
> majority of people in Megatokyo would agree with Leon. The vast
> majority of people *here* would agree with him too, if they were
> reading only the news reports)
If every crime is punished by execution, then there is no insentive to
only commit minor ones.
And everyone commits minor offences. Whether it's an old lady tasting
two grapes
at the supermarket, someone downloading/uploading song on internet, or
even swiping a pen from work, etc
there are NO exceptions.
Tet corp is not hunting Meg, so Leon is not under pressure here,
Kaufman wants Sylvie and Anri back,
and they rather die then go back to being slaves. Sylvie and Anri are
up against the a wall, and they have nothing to lose,
simple as that.
> Meg uses the money she has built up as a Knight Saber to buy a supply
> of artificial blood for Anri, but that's only a stopgap for a few
> weeks at best. There is that disk, but Sylive hasn't found it yet. Meg
> remembers from the series, that it's at the GPCC, but not exactly
> where, and searching the entire building is possible. The only
> solution is to do the little jobs the voice on the phone requests....
> they're nothing major... couriering files, noting the times defence
> minister callahan leaves his home/job/etc... easy enough, and the
> voice does pay the sexaroids for their trouble. Meg wonders if it
> isn't the Tet corporation again, who brought her to Megatokyo, and
> have quietly helped in previous missions.... (It isn't )
Why bother with Calahan? Largo should know about Quincys robot
doubles.
Largo need OMS not a meeting with Quincys double. His plan should be
something new.
Mason did get the Double Vision episode.
Then there is the fact, that Mason should have known who Sabers are,
and at the very least try to spy on them.
So he should know about a fifth saber. An incentive for Genaros Meg to
survive and infultrate KS perhaps?
A mission given to escaped sexaroids after SI has helped them. :)
Moonlight Rambler's important plot point is Priss having to kill
someone she considers a friend.
Why loose this? There are a lot of fics where Sylvie and Anri survive.
But none of the other charachters, have ever been explored.
Just feeding the plot bunny here, not actualy telling you how to write
your fic. :)
> Meg and Sylive are told where the disk is... and plan the 'mission' to
> get it. Meg removes the neutron bomb in the D.D.... and indulges in a
> bit op mecha fun. They plan to get the disk one night, when Meg can
> get free from work, and her KS obligations don't clash. It looks good
> on paper, and Meg has obviously learned a few things from Sylia.
> Speaking of whom... Sylia's figured out what Meg's up to and calls her
> on it.
Why not just exchange the battlemover, for free repair by Knight
Sabers,
some identification papers, and a promise to hunt down and kill Sylvie
if she ever
kills anyone again? For that matter, why kill humans at all? Why not
just use the
battlemover to break into a blood bank? Reason being, more sexaroid
alive different decision made.
> Meg/Sylive phones their contact, the voice, and is told to deliver the
> documents to a an old church in the outskirts of town. Anri is with
> the voice, having gotten scared on her own and called 'the voice' for
> help. Meg sense it may be a trap, but shrugs it off... her goal is in
> sight. Sylvie and Anri safe, everyone happy, a *good* end... all she
> has to do is deliver the documents. Prudence would say 'Call Sylia' at
> this point, but Meg ignores prudence. Instead, she leaves instruction
> for Sylive, telling her where she can get help if she doesn't
> return... before heading off to the rendezvous with the papers.
Have you never received spam from Nigeria? I can understand any of
Genarous sexaroids being gullible, they does not have alot of life
experience, but
I find it annoying when a charachter normaly intellegent, does
something stupid,
just because plot demands it.
> hammerspace. Mackie is dragged along as a copilot, while Meg fly's the
> skycarrier, pulling a Big Damn Heroes moment, picking the battered
> Knight Sabers from the roof of the bank, and saturating the whole
> thing with enough firepower to make sure not much gets off it again.
I think the biggest problem with SIs is not that writers insert
themselves into a story,
it's that, they insert themeselves into every episode. What I mean by
that, is other
characters act the same as in the series as though nothing has
changed.
Reading the chase scene from the hospital, in your fic was a very
pleasent change,
because it hasn't happen in the series or other fics before.
> Knowing Anri is with Largo, the six Knight Sabers make a beeline for
> the Dark Tower, arriving in time to land in the middle of the wreckage
> of several security boomers. Sylia orders the skycarrier away, with
> Mackie and Sylvie aboard (And that railgun), while the 5 Knight Sabers
> confornt Largo. The superboomers are on their way, but right now,
> Largo is alone, and vulnerable(ish). He throws Anri towards Meg,
> shooting the pair of them. Anri is mortally ...
Ok right there, back in 1980s computers didn't come with large cheap
hard drives.
So when you switched one off you lost all the information, that didn't
get written down on a floppy.
In todays world the situation is quiet a bit different. For that
matter who would buy an appliance you can't power down?
And that doesn't take into an account use of lasers to read position
and molecular composition of neurons in human brain.
We can do that right now, we just can't decode the data we get yet.
Japanese drama is generally loaded with, an introduction and instantly
pilling on overdramatic BS, followed by more overdramatic BS,
all the while disrespecting the viewers intelligence. Look at
Battlemover vs Knight Sabers scene for a example,
need to kill someone to save a cop from battlemover, and then
unnecessary introduction of a neutron bomb.
Why throw her life away in exchange for some villain laughter, when
she can save one of the Knight Sabers or the world with a "noble
sacrifice",
that shows her the depth of her character. Or even save Leon's life,
then explain it was to atone for lifes Sylvie took, just before Largo
crushes her skull or something.
I am not really trying to tell you how to write your story here, but I
am trying to reboot a dying newsgroup.
I will continue to read this story nomatter what.
Dartz
> Interesting premise here, too many SIs changing technology, tactics,
> or intruducing magic in this fandom normaly.
>
Thanks..... (/me quietly hides all the Dark Tower implications under a
rug somewhere)
>
> Translation: Meg just became a informant, or else she get shot.
> Better come up with an "exit strategy" :)
>
Exactly what I was thinking of sorts:)... Definitely something Meg
should be aware of anyway. A rather useless informant mind, since Leon
doesn't know she's a Knight Saber, and she doesn't actually know much
about the Tokyo underground, or the sort of information Leon would be
interested in.... just some information on 33-S and maybe some boomer
psychology.
>
> If every crime is punished by execution, then there is no insentive to
> only commit minor ones.
> And everyone commits minor offences. Whether it's an old lady tasting
> two grapes
> at the supermarket, someone downloading/uploading song on internet, or
> even swiping a pen from work, etc
> there are NO exceptions.
> Tet corp is not hunting Meg, so Leon is not under pressure here,
> Kaufman wants Sylvie and Anri back,
> and they rather die then go back to being slaves. Sylvie and Anri are
> up against the a wall, and they have nothing to lose,
> simple as that.
>
Again, something I want to comment on. Boomer(oid) law acts as a
perverse incentive towards increasingly violent and desperate attempts
to escape punishment, rather than face certain death. People will do
anything to stay alive. It's something I want to comment and note.
It's something Meg will point out to Leon, maybe (or to someone else),
but something she herself will definitely be aware of.
Meg is not actively hunted, but she's still an illegal boomer, and
still vulnerable to the same laws if she steps too far out of line and
gets caught.
Leon is genuinely unconcerned about her... as far as he's concerned,
somebody is doing something to shield her, and they are being very
careful about doing it, it's just not worth the effort.
>
> Why bother with Calahan? Largo should know about Quincys robot
> doubles.
> Largo need OMS not a meeting with Quincys double. His plan should be
> something new.
> Mason did get the Double Vision episode.
> Then there is the fact, that Mason should have known who Sabers are,
> and at the very least try to spy on them.
> So he should know about a fifth saber. An incentive for Genaros Meg to
> survive and infultrate KS perhaps?
> A mission given to escaped sexaroids after SI has helped them. :)
> Moonlight Rambler's important plot point is Priss having to kill
> someone she considers a friend.
> Why loose this? There are a lot of fics where Sylvie and Anri survive.
> But none of the other charachters, have ever been explored.
> Just feeding the plot bunny here, not actualy telling you how to write
> your fic. :)
>
Who'se to say he isn't watching the group already?
Didn't he have some idea Sylia Stingray was behind the Sabers already?
And yet he still didn't directly attack her? Why?
One of the things I'm finagling with for this current chapter, is
whether Mason believes the DvD's or not, and whether he will just have
GENOM roll over and squish the organisation. He does have to follow
GENOM internal proceedures though, and they have rules against using
company resources for personal vendetta's... unless you're the
chairman, and you have reasons to leave them alone. (Sylia had to have
*some* sort of shield, it took a long time for GENOM to make any sort
of effort to deal with the KS, and even then it was more of a random
swat at a buzzing fly) Why is this?
Also, it seems to me that the big thing about Sylvie and rambler, was
that Priss found a boomer she had been friends with, and couldn't
hate... and even when she discovered what Sylvie was and what she'd
done, she still didn't want to abandon her, or kill her. Have the same
realisation, but with Sylvie still alive, Priss may do something other
than leave the Knight Sabers....
>
> Why not just exchange the battlemover, for free repair by Knight
> Sabers,
> some identification papers, and a promise to hunt down and kill Sylvie
> if she ever
> kills anyone again? For that matter, why kill humans at all? Why not
> just use the
> battlemover to break into a blood bank? Reason being, more sexaroid
> alive different decision made.
>
The second half, I don't know.... Easier to get away with killing
people than break into a blood bank, it seems. And why break into a
bloodbank, when you can just buy blood? It's the easiest option for
the time being.
DD does have to go away though somehow.... it has to go *somewhere*.
It could be what Sylia wants in return for her not stopping Meg.... a
set of identification papers could well be Meg's counterproposal
alright.
>
> Have you never received spam from Nigeria? I can understand any of
> Genarous sexaroids being gullible, they does not have alot of life
> experience, but
> I find it annoying when a charachter normaly intellegent, does
> something stupid,
> just because plot demands it.
>
Most people trip up on the last mile of the race. Most people crash
their cars on familiar roads, close to home after a long journey.
Meg's goal is within grasp... in her mind, there's just one minor
hurdle to overcome. Not so much gullible, as optimistically blinded,
she has her eyes so fixed on the finish line, she doesn't see the
pebble at her feet. Normally intelligent people *do* do stupid
things.... all to regularly.
>
> I think the biggest problem with SIs is not that writers insert
> themselves into a story,
> it's that, they insert themeselves into every episode. What I mean by
> that, is other
> characters act the same as in the series as though nothing has
> changed.
> Reading the chase scene from the hospital, in your fic was a very
> pleasent change,
> because it hasn't happen in the series or other fics before.
>
One thing I believe, is that one person cannot truly make that big a
difference. The basic events will remain the same, the basic players
will still be themselves. The world does not revolve around Meg, she's
just the viewpoint character for the story. Priss will still act like
Priss, whether Meg is there or not. She has an opinion of Meg (Which I
still haven't pinned down quite right), and will respond to her
actions, but she will respond as Priss. Who she is and how she
responds will not change just because Meg has arrived in town... not
immediately anyway
>
> Ok right there, back in 1980s computers didn't come with large cheap
> hard drives.
> So when you switched one off you lost all the information, that didn't
> get written down on a floppy.
> In todays world the situation is quiet a bit different. For that
> matter who would buy an appliance you can't power down?
> And that doesn't take into an account use of lasers to read position
> and molecular composition of neurons in human brain.
> We can do that right now, we just can't decode the data we get yet.
> Japanese drama is generally loaded with, an introduction and instantly
> pilling on overdramatic BS, followed by more overdramatic BS,
> all the while disrespecting the viewers intelligence. Look at
> Battlemover vs Knight Sabers scene for a example,
> need to kill someone to save a cop from battlemover, and then
> unnecessary introduction of a neutron bomb.
> Why throw her life away in exchange for some villain laughter, when
> she can save one of the Knight Sabers or the world with a "noble
> sacrifice",
> that shows her the depth of her character. Or even save Leon's life,
> then explain it was to atone for lifes Sylvie took, just before Largo
> crushes her skull or something.
>
Switch off a human brain, neurons begin to die. Switch it back on
again, and the person never comes back. Braindead is braindead. Since
sexaroids are mostly organic, once they're dead, they're dead.
Besides, if they can't die, if they can just be ressurected in a new
body, it kills the drama, doesn't it?
When people die, they have to stay dead.
And throwing a main character's life away? Well, what better way to
make it quite clear that LARGO MUST DIE!!. It also serves to royally
screw with Meg and Sylvies head, aswell as Priss to a certain point.
It's like Armus killing Tasha Yar in Star Trek:TNG... nobody expected
a main character to die such a pointless redshirt death just for the
villain to show how evil and horrible he was. What better way for
Largo to earn his death?
> I am not really trying to tell you how to write your story here, but I
> am trying to reboot a dying newsgroup.
> I will continue to read this story nomatter what.
Thanks for your feedback man, hope you enjoy the story.
Dartz
------------
4 seconds, according to my own clock.
The alarm sounded, databanks dumping terabytes to the screens. Down in
the sim-room, Nené stood statue-still, eyes like saucers, mouth gaping
open and closed like a goldfish. The sphere hung in the air like
frozen smoke, it's limb a few inches from the top of Nené's head.
The sphere dissolved,leaving Nené standing there, her face the same
shade of exhausted pink as her hair.
“I did it,” she wheezed, gasping for air.
“Level 2 complete,” Announced Sylia, “Good work Nené, Level 3 will
start shortly,”
The ADP operator looked like she was ready to cry. No more, those
green eyes pleaded.
“Wow, she did it first go,” said Priss, running her fingers through
her damp hair. She stood over the terminals, inspecting the data like
as if she could understand it even though she had about as much chance
of figuring it out as your average Joe had of figuring out the laws of
the European Union. It was just reams and reams of tangled waffle
beyond all human comprehension.
“She'll be too tired to do anything at the next level though,” opined
Linna, “Look at her, she's ready to collapse as it is,”
“Yeah but, less energy take for 1 try, than to do multiple.” I tried
to say something important, “More energy for next level than if
repeated second to pass,”
“True,” she nodded, “But Nené's never gotten above a score of 5 on
Level three anyway... she always gets killed on her first or second
attempt,”
“Shh, it's starting,” Priss hushed, as a new target shimmered into
being.
This time, the target was more of an inverse egg, with a heavy,
faceted shoulder. Two black spots stared back into Nené's turquoise
eyes as she lowered herself down into an imitation of a martial
stance.
“Nené, The rules are the same as the last time. Three minutes to hit
three targets. The enemy will now attack with two punching arms with a
2 metre reach, which you have to dodge.” Sylia told her.
“This is easy,” whispered Linna,
“Yeah, I breezed through this level first time,” added Priss.
“Nené's good at the technical computer stuff, but she's got no
reflexes, her body just can't react fast enough.” the aerobics
instructor gave her judgement, “But...”
“Start!” Sylia interrupted, silence falling as three women leaned in
against the glass to watch.
The hologram bolted forward, striking first with a right aimed for
Nené's head. “Eek!” she squeaked, ducking right out of the way, into
the path of a second jackhammer left. She crouched and rolled... a
move that surprised the hell out of Priss to say the least.
“It's not a movie,” snickered Linna into her hands.
Nené scrambled to her feet, struggling to put distance between her and
the chasing hologram. Desperation stained her features as she dodged
another strike. A target flickered on the back of the hologram, but I
don't think Nené even saw it.
Linna just grinned, “All this running around is giving me an
appetite,”
I was loosing mine quickly. “Do not count out,”
This was going to be expensive. Nené made twice the cash I did a
week.... and she'd was going to have problems paying for this. I
wondered if I could get credit somewhere....
Fast approval by 10pm?
For three minutes, Nené dodged, desperately keeping ahead of it.
Slowly, she seemed to get the measure of it's attacks, finding her
feet in the simulation. She was bleeding sweat, drowning in her own
exertions.
The alarm sounded once more. “Time up,” Sylia announced.
Nené slouched on her feet, the last of her energy draining from her
body, plashing on the floor at her feet. Her hair clung to her head,
sodden with sweat, almost like a rat drowned in a vat of pink dye. She
looked to her leader for relief, those eyes of hers begging for
salvation.
“Two more attempts, Nené,” informed Sylia, “Keep trying,”
Gentle encouragement kept her in game. I put my hands into a pair of
imaginary pockets on my hips, drawing a deep breath through my teeth.
“She has to attack it now, or she'll time out,” Priss commented,
quietly. Her red eyes stared down into the sim-room. “Or collapse. You
can only dodge a boomer so long. Boomers don't tire, but we do.”
“Make sense,” I said.
I didn't tire in the same was as humans. Once Nené's body had run out
of stored sugars, it switched to fats. When humans hit the wall after
running out of glucose, they could keep going on fats, though at lower
performance. I couldn't draw energy from fats at all, so when I hit
the wall, I collapsed. That was it, I was done, flat on my face and
with a hangover due the next morning as my electrolytes went spinning
out of control while my body struggled to fuel itself.
My one big advantage, was with anaerobic exercise... even the fittest
humans would only last about two minutes, my software told me, I could
easily go for three times as long, maybe more if I pushed it.
“Second attempt, Start!”
I didn't know what was keeping Nené going.... hungry determination, or
a telepathic link with her bank manager reminding her of how far in
debt she would be, but she took a single deep breath, and turned to
face her holographic opponent.
Priss was quietly impressed, I could sense it.... not that she'd admit
it of course.
At first, it looked like more of the same thing, Nené being chased
around by a hologram, barely able to stay in the game. Priss though,
knew better.
“She's doing this on purpose,”
“Really?” Linna and I chorused.
The group's assault expert just nodded. “She's looking for its
weaknesses, when and how it attacks her, how it responds to her
movements, when it will attack, and when it will retreat.”
“You can see that?” I asked.
Priss nodded, “Yup.”
I got it, I could see exactly how Nené's mind was working. A cracker
probes a system for vulnerabilities, scanning for ports and services
that can be exploited, patiently and carefully poking and prodding,
watching the systems responses, analysing and decoding them to reveal
the slightest cracks which open up into the root access. Once Nené had
the measure of a system, nothing would stop her.
“She Hacker. That how hackers think.” I reduced it to my vocabulary.
Linna edged forward, sharing a grin with the pair of us,“I knew there
was a reason she was hired,”
Sylia glanced up from her terminal for a moment, wearing that
impenetrably cool smile of hers. That's exactly why she was hired, it
said.
Her plan only had just the one little flaw. She didn't have an
infinite amount of time to probe the holograms defences, like she did
some random GENOM database. Ready or not, next time out, she had to
attack. It was her only chance to win.
This was going to be fun to watch.
Would Nené figure out the simulation's weaknesses in time? Would
fatigue overcome the young woman before victory was hers? Would I be
eating for free tonight?
I wondered why Nené hadn't taken the same approach with level two....
either it just didn't occur to her, or she didn't think it was a good
idea until after she'd nearly gotten her ass handed to her with he
first attempt at level 3.
Then again... if I understood what I'd been told correctly, she had
attempted level 3 several times, she'd just failed each time. And if
she'd taken the exact same approach each time.... the exact same
approach had failed each and every single time...
Or maybe the idea had just been placed on the shelf in her mind
labelled 'Too silly to be worth trying' until Nené'd finally decided
she had nothing to loose.
A minute left on her second attempt, a third target flashing up. She
made a quick, token attempt to tag it, taking a mental note of exactly
how it answered her attack, filing it away for later use.
All her effort would be rendered moot if she got tagged herself, mind.
Stay alive for another minute.
Then 3 minutes to score 3 hits.
Easy-peasey, Japanesey
Yeah bloody right. But that's what made these things a little
exciting. And a gentleman's.... sort of... wager was just the spice to
give it a delicious kick. The final showdown was coming, the
atmosphere stretching thick and taught with tension.
The air was heavy with sweat and anticipation as Sylia announced the
second timeout.
Nené was dead on her feet. The hologram was just the same computer
system it had always been, as efficient and controlled, running
through the same target and tracking algorithms as always.
She didn't look for relief. She didn't look at anything but the centre
of the hologram, eyes fixing on a point somewhere inside the turquoise
haze. The hologram hung in the air like frozen green smoke.
“This is it,” said Priss,
“Paydirt,” concurred Linna.
“For me,” I finished with a smirk.”G'wan Nené!” I punched the air.
She smiled at me.
The one problem with the horse Priss and Linna had backed was this:
How did you cheer on a hologram? Nené wasn't a horse, of course, but
the metaphor held water.... sort of.
Did she have her plan ready? Did she have enough energy left?
The young woman held her head low, shuffling her feet on the sterile
floor. I could see the weight of fatigue she was carrying, dragging
her down, her whole body slack with tiredness.
“Nené, this is your final chance to pass,” Sylia told her. All Nené
could do was nod, licking her lips. She needed a drink from
somewhere.
“She's too tired,” said Linna, her voice hushed. “Seriously.”
“She doesn't normally have to fight this long,” agreed Priss. “She
normally looses after a few minutes. It'd be hard not to feel sorry
for her when this is over,”
“Who say she going lose?” I remarked with a quick flash of a glare.
“She's too tired to win, she can barely hold up her own weight,” Priss
countered, “Let alone dodge or strike,”
“Start!” from Sylia, left Priss with the last word, as silence dropped
in.
I could here Nené's wheezing, her body struggling for oxygen. Her
face, hands and feet were a burning red. Her blue hair bow had fallen
off sometime earlier, clammy strands of pink hair splayed across her
shoulders.
The hologram charged once more. For a moment, I didn't think Nené was
even going to move. What? Was she just giving up? I winced back from
the window, feeling a pain striking deep in my distant wallet as the
hologram punched for Nené's face.
She took three steps to the left, and it drafted past her ear,
“Wow,” someone breathed beside me,
Nené gulped for air as it whirled around to attack again. She turned
about in time to come face to face with another holographic limb.
Again, she stepped aside, three steps, this time to the right.
The hologram bolted past, carried forward by simulated momentum.
Nené stepped back towards the wall, opening up her distance to it.
Again, it turned to face her, pausing as the computer systems analysed
tactics.
“She's cracked it,” Priss told everyone. “Took her long enough,”
It was pretty obvious, once you stepped back and actually looked at
it. When the hologram actually attacked, it only ever moved in the
direction it was facing. When the hologram punched, it only ever
punched in the direction it was moving. And when it punched, it
wouldn't change direction until after it had pulled its limbs back
into it's body. And that took time... enough to keep a good distance
from it, so there'd enough time to react to it's next attack, or
enough time to find an opening to attack back.
If it got too close, the battle would become a tiring scramble just to
stay ahead of it, with no chance to fight back.... exactly like Nené's
first attempt at it.
“All Nené must do is stay on feet to win,” I said, beaming.
“And hit her targets,” added Linna.
“And not get cocky and get tagged,” Priss threw in.
“Yeah but...”
I hadn't the foggiest idea how to finish that one. Sylia quietly
managed the controls. It didn't seem to matter to her one jot whether
Nené won or not... she just stood there, impassively working. My
senses could read the tense excitement pouring off of Linna and
Priss... even attenuated by the softsuit covering most of their bodies
I could pick it up... but Sylia....Sylia just radiated that same
coolly human aura as usual.
Those same analysing eyes, that same gentle smile.
The first target flickered on the crown of the hologram. Nené spotted
it instantly. Unaware of it's weakness, the hologram charged, punching
low for Nené's body. Again, Nené dodged, keeping her eyes fixed dead
on the flickering red spot. Turning herself on the ball of her foot,
she punched out hard, throwing her entire weight into the strike, her
momentum nearly carrying her whole body forwards to follow.
A chirp from the control panels announced her first hit. Two to go.
“She got it dead on,” Priss almost didn't believe it.
By my reckoning, she had about 2:10 to get the next two.
As the target pulled away to regroup, Nené was shaking on her feet,
her body quivering like jelly in an earthquake. The skin on her face
was beginning to blanch as she swallowed hard, fighting to keep
something down.
“2 more,” she was whispering, “2 more,”
I wondered if Priss and Linna weren't beginning to think they'd made a
mistake. Me, I could smell the fried steak and onions already. I could
taste it... feel the succulent meat dissolving on my tongue. And then
I remembered how much my recollections were limited by human senses,
and realised how much better it would be with my new senses.
I was looking forward to the feeling of hot meat in my mouth,
especially with my sexaroid senses.
My appetite instantly vanished.
Again it charged her, not punching, but aiming right for her like a
bull, bulldozing her out if its way. She stumbled as she tried to get
away from it... it wasn't supposed to do that...
No fair! Was written across her features.
“2 minutes,” said Sylia once more.
It turned to face, and attacked back, faster than normal, with a left-
right combination trying to steer Nené out of the way of one strike,
and into the follow-up. Nené didn't fall for it, first ducking under,
then dodging in the direction of the first attack.
“Go, Go!, Go!” I cheered, banging on the glass, wearing a hungry grin
“This isn't pro-wrestling,” Sylia censured.
Linna and Priss giggled quietly. I suddenly felt like the 4 of us were
schoolchildren, and Sylia was the teacher. I shrunk down back towards
the wall.
The target skirted around Nené, probing lazily back, testing her new-
found strength. It tried another quick attack... easily dodged, and
the battle continued. Nené was on her lasts legs, her body slouching
into a worn stance. She swallowed spit, her whole body shivering.
She'd win her free meal tonight... but she'd die of exertion before
she could enjoy it.
Another thirty seconds passed, attack and dodge, attack and dodge,
Nené content to play the same waiting game, biding her time until
another opening presented itself.
Another target presented itself, smack dead centre in the holograms
'chest'. Nené looked like she wanted to scream her tired frustrations
right at it. Of all the places it could appear, that had to be the
worst. No dodging behind it and attacking the back, she had to take
this one head on, stare it right in it's non-existent eyes.
Judging by the victorious expression shared by Priss and Linna, they'd
figured as much themselves.
Nené stood as firm as she could, fixing her eyes on the flashing red
target. The hologram moved to attacked, charging forward with another
1-2 punch.
Nené dropped under them, landing clumsily, but still deliberately, one
her back. Still focused on the target, she kicked out with a grunt,
planting her foot right through it.
Nice one!
2 out of 3.. 1:15 left.
The hologram pulled back once more, Nené rolling over prone, pushing
herself up to her hands and knees. She staggered to her feet, wobbling
drunkenly for a second as the hologram spun around to attack once
more.
Nené yelped as she dropped beneath another punch, pulling herself to
her feet just in time to be attacked from behind. Again, she dodged
it.... just.
“One minute,” warned Sylia.
Another attack, followed by another, Nené barely having enough chance
to get her bearings before it attacked again, and again, and again. It
was grinding down the last of her energy reserves, pushing her back
towards the wall.
Nobody who was watching said a word.
So near, yet so far?
To lose now? Nené would be gutted to say the least. To die in the last
minute of her last chance? Another attack, another dodge... come on
Nené, I willed. Bugger the meal, I wanted her to win full stop... it'd
be a gut wrenching anti-climax if she didn't. I could feel my body
tightening, a sour feeling deep inside like I was watching a real-life
Gainax ending.
Another 1-2 punch and Nené was only a few feet from the far wall.
Her eyes darted from side to side, her tired mind struggling to form
some sort of an escape plan. Left? Right? The hologram loomed over
her. It made it's final attack.
One left punch through the space which had been occupied by Nené's
head.... the second through the space that would've been occupied by
Nené's head, had she gone the wrong way. She dived to he left,
catching herself before she landed on her face.
The hologram tried to turn and track her, but she kept ahead of it.
“Thirty seconds,” Sylia announced as the final target flickered up,
the left shoulder of the hologram.
Nené stopped instantly, diving in the opposite direction. The target
reflected in her green eyes as she stared right through it. With one
final, heaving cry, she threw herself threw it, her whole body chasing
her right fist.
The consoles alarmed, dumping their data once more.
Nene landed on the floor with a hard slap, flat on her chest. Her body
heaved as she swallowed cool air. The only sound was Nené's gasping
breathing as the hologram shimmered into nothing.
“She did it,” breathed Priss, her voice disbelieving.
Silence for a beat.
“Damnit,” she grunted, “Now I have to pay for her meal,”
Linna just sighed, defeated, “I guess my car can do without that
service,” she shrugged.
“Nice one Nené!” I cheered, “You beat level Three!”
Free meal for me then..... which I would've gotten anyway had I not
opened my gob.... Damn, I got the short end of the stick with this
one.
“Good work Nené,” Sylia spoke into the microphone, “Are you ready to
try level 4?” She was answered by a despairing cry of pain, Nené not
even able to summon the strength to raise her arm. “Reflex speed 4.2,
score of 10 on level three,”
She glanced down at the three of us,
“I think we should help her,” said Priss, picking up on Sylia's
unspoken command.
Nene's body was shaking as we helped her out, myself and Linna
steading her by each arm, Priss gently easing her forward. She was
burning hot, drenched in sweat and radiating fatigue.
“I need a drink,” she slurred, stumbling forward. “I need water,”
“You can have some tonight,” Priss reassured her gently, “You can
drink as much as you want,”
Nené wasn't even able to cheer, she was focusing her mind just on
putting one foot in front of the other, up the stairs and out of the
sim-room.
“Good work, Nené,” said Sylia, smiling with uncharacteristic
brightness, “You can have the rest of the day off,”
Her voice sent a chill down my spine,
“Yay,” Nené answered lamely.
“You really pushed yourself hard today. I'll have Mackie bring down
some sports-drinks and something to eat, if you'd like,”
Nené only nodded, barely on her feet despite the three of us holding
her up.
“Congratulations,” I offered awkwardly.
“Yeah, Good work Nené,” Linna whispered, almost ashamed to admit it.
“Thanks,” the young woman wheezed as we helped her down onto a small
couch that had been set aside. “Never again,” she gasped, “Never
again,”
What could we do but hug her? It was instinct, Priss and Linna
starting it, and me deciding to follow, the three of us forming a
soothing circle around Nené, almost protecting her. I wondered if
they'd do the same for me? They may argue and tease, but they were
there for each other when they were needed, to guard and protect in
day to day life as much as in hardsuits.
The Japanese word for it was nakama, I think. All for one and one for
all musketeer style. And I was a part of this?
I could feel the other's, their soothing concern for Nené, their
warmth, their reassurance, their comfort. My whole body relaxed into
the group, bathing in Nené's ecstatic joy. She was too tired to show
it, but I could feel it radiating off her, hot and sweet. I used my
sexaroid abilities to help Nené relax, holding her gaze with my eyes,
fingers brushing soothingly against her body as I helped her lay
down.... enough to relax her, not get her all worked up again with no
chance of relief.
--------------------------------
Nearly done with that part.... then onto maybe a short meal scene.
Skip 2 weeks to Hot Legs, and something to do with Leon and the Hot
Leg's boomers. Also introduces Sho. Meg talks to Sylia about it, finds
out that they've actually been friends for a while before this....
Jump another 2 weeks. Sylia invites MEg to ladys633 because her
hardsuit is nearly ready... or something. Bu12b attacks like the
opening of Blow up... massive damage to Silky Doll, Ladys633 damaged
badly too, it seems the boomer did it on purpose. All the Sabers pull
together to help the cleanup.... Mason appears to 'say hello',
offering Sylia the standard compensation package. Sho's mother gets
killed.... Que asskicking of Mason, and an ambush for the Knight
Sabers....
That should be it... halfway through now.
Dartz
the end of it..... tried to say something without being quite sure
what I'm trying to say.
-------
It seemed to work. I could do it better if I had more bare skin to
work with, and my software suggested a gentle kneading shoulder
massage aswell, but that wasn't for public.
“Nené, if you'd like I could have Doctor Raven drive you to my
penthouse.” offered Sylia, “The guest bedroom is available, the
showers, and the pool if you'd like to cool off,”
She wasn't being aloof or uncaring, she was just being... comfortably
distant. I guess in the same way a ship's Captain stays a safe
distance from the crew.
“No thanks,” Nené smiled back at her, weakly giving her a thumbs-up,
“I want to see how well Meg does first,”
“We were planning to go back to my place to get ready anyway,” Linna
continued for her, “All our stuff is in my car,”
Part of the group, I thought, savouring that warm and fuzzy feeling
deep inside. A reason to be a Knight Saber that didn't come machined
out of steel and ceramic. I didn't have that many friends... I'd only
been in Megatokyo just over a month or so... but even still, my
official friend count was Linna and Nené, and that was it.
It was nice to belong to something,
Sylia put an end to my thoughts. “Meg, if you'd like to step into the
simulation room,”
The door was open and waiting for me. Mackie arrived with Nené's
drinks. I caught Sylia glancing up at the camera as he passed,
focusing his own eyes down on the bottle and glass he was carrying.
There was that same little spark of attraction, but it guttered and
died just as quickly as before.
I receited my favourite prayer. “Oh Lord, please don't let me fuck
up,”
The little evil voice inside me reminded me of how badly I had fucked
up last time I'd used it. Maybe He was too busy causing a plague in
Africa, or helping a GENOM executive make more money that first night,
whose to say he wasn't listening now?
Nené giggled as I entered a surprisingly arctic room.
Despite the aircon, it still smelled of sweat, determination and
desperation.
My turn.
I didn't feel nervous, as such. I knew I could beat Nené's score. I
knew I was programmed to do this, in case somebody decided they wanted
root access without the right password, and weren't going to be nice
about it.
I loved that pun.
I wasn't very keen on what it implied, but in my own opinion, it
bridged my artificial nature, and intended functions beautifully.
“Meg, Level One is just a sandbox, where you can learn the rules of
the simulation and warm up,”
Inside the sim-room, Sylia's voice seemed to boom from the walls,
painfully loud. No, I wasn't nervous... not one little bit... not at
all. No nerves at all. I wasn't shivering, it was just a chill from
the aircon. This is something I know I can do...
“The simulation will start now. Avoid contact with the hologram,
except for any highlighted targets. Targets will highlight red
briefly.”
There were more rules, but I'd pretty much picked them up from
watching Nené, and what Linna'd told me.
“Got it,” I nodded.
The holgram shimmered into view in front of me, 2 metres away,
hovering in mid air. My body took over, relaxing into a fighting
stance I didn't understand, but I knew I could use.
I took a deep breath of cold air, took a quick look over my body to
make sure I wasn't going to faint out of this.
I made it to Level 5.... scoring a 5.8, with a reflex speed of 6.9,
only being beaten by a dirty digital trick, as some random number
generator inside the computers went outside it's normal range.
Nené hated me for it. I guess she kind of had her hopes up that
beating level 3 would keep her off the bottom for a few weeks while I
got up to
speed.
That took about twenty minutes all told. I was hot and sweaty, but
still fresh enough to keep going with a treadmill run, and some weight
testing. By the end of that, I was still on my feet, but starting to
suffer, my body demanding more food, or sugary drinks to make up for
lost stores. There were a few warnings, that I was getting close to
the limits of what my body's energy reserves could supply, but they
weren't urgent.... not like last week on the stage when I'd pretty
much passed out after an hour.
A bottle of Fresh C energy drink and I was fine... except for a slight
headache thanks to my electrolytes going wonky again.
I peeled my own softsuit off, while Priss and Linna did their best to
figure out how they were going to afford this. Nené seemed to be
standing a foot taller, something no-one questioned her right to do
tonight. It might've been my first training day, but it was Nené's
night..
And she was swimming in it, soaking herself in the warm afterglow of
victory.
“Meg, can I see you for a few minutes,” requested Sylia, just as I was
getting my boots on.
“We'll wait in the car,” Linna told me, just as she dissapeared into
the closet with a giddy Nené, who was babbling out a list of expensive
foods
They'd better, otherwise I'd have to walk to Linna's place
“Catch you later,”
The door closed, leaving me alone with Sylia.
“There are some more things I need to talk to you about, things I'd
rather not risk the other's overhearing,” She made a specific point to
hide the little black camera.
“Is this about me being a boomer?”
“No,” she shook her head, the air-conditioning sending a cold chill
through my body, “If that becomes known, it can be dealt with. They
trust me enough to understand why I withheld the truth.”
I wasn't so sure.... this wasn't just you're regular secret identity.
They might've trusted Sylia enough, but what about me?
We all have our secrets,” she smiled reassuringly, “many of which
weren't shown or even hinted at in those OVA's”
I gave a nervous laugh “But none as big as mine,”
“Perhaps not,” For an instant, her eyes took one a sinister glimmer,
one which set suspicious gears turning in my mind, “If you're
discovered, you're discovered. It means I take a stiff fine for not
registering you, get your paperwork in order, and you start working
for me as a boomer,”
Glad to see she wasn't too worried about it.... yeah right. If I get
caught, the least that happens is I lose my freedom. Which lead to a
little question that had been bothering me,
“Why didn't you just do that in the first place? Why did you let
me...um... not be property?”
Proof that my English was often as bad as my Japanese, especially when
I change tack halfway.
“Because I have no need for a sexaroid,” Sylia answered with an almost
playful smile. I wasn't sure whether she meant that as a joke, or not.
There was a certain subtext to it alright, and if I'd been in a more
mischievous mood I might've considered actually poiting out that
nobody need's a sexaroid, but there were plenty of people who could do
with one nonetheless.
Dirty thoughts had no place in a serious conversation.
Yeah, she probably meant that straight up.
“Also, I think this option was the easiest for all concerned,” she
finished, adjusting her jacket.
That probably wasn't the entire reason.... with Sylia's mind I never
could tell.... but it was reason enough. To keep me as property
would've required registration fee's, licensing, food and board, and
she would have had to have been responsible for my psychological and
mental wellbeing aswell.... which if I was treated as a slave,
would've gone through the floor.
“Thanks, I guess,” I breathed, a little disturbed by just how easily I
could've been nothing more than a tool. Frakkin' toaster. I'd go stark
raving mad pretty bloody quickly if people started treating me like an
emotionless appliance.
Easiest option alright... she didn't have to deal with me slowly going
mad, and I didn't have to deal with her trying to control me... and
neither of us would have to clear up the mess afterwards.
“But, this is not why I asked you to stay behind, Meg.” Sylie dragged
the conversation back to where she wanted it. “I want to ask you to do
something. I want to ask you not to directly use any knowledge of
Bubblegum Crisis, without my permission,”
What? I blinked. “I thought the whole point of me being here was so I
could do that?”
Here, as in a member of the Knight Sabers, and still living in
Megatokyo.
She nodded, “Yes. This is a real world, Meg, as I said earlier, with
real consequences due to our actions.”
“I understand that, but...”
Anri and Sylvie, what do I do if I meet them? Sho's mother? Or the
fact the Gibson was rebuilding his Griffon just upstairs.
“Or inactions,” she cut me off, “If you use your knowledge to make
assumptions, that 'everything will turn out okay' at the end of this
episode, you breed complacency, a complancy that may well prove
disastrous. Just because Mason was defeated in the OAV, or Largo for
that matter, doesn't mean we are guaranteed to win if we do nothing
different. Also, the 'future' as shown has already been changed. Irene
lived, and if what you told me about OVA 7 is true, then there is no
reason for her sister's revenge.”
That thought never even crossed my mind.
“I want you to promise me that whatever happens, you will deal with
events as they come to you, as if you knew as much about the future to
come as Priss, Linna or Nené,”
i.e, that tomorrow will be Monday and the day after Tuesday, provided
the world hasn't exploded in the meantime.
“But, isn't that sort of....” I didn't know how to say it, even in
English. It wasn't a double standard, that was too negative, “I mean,
we're planning for Mason already. I am a Knight Saber so
we'll”...still felt weird... “be able to surprise him, when he expects
only four members. We're using the knowledge from the DvD already,”
“True, but they are my plans. I am the leader of the Knight Sabers
after all, it is my job to plan for our future, so that we all
survive.” She smiled warmly at me, trying to break a building tension,
“And mine to follow it, I guess,”
She was being delicate, but I picked up on what she wanted me to. She
was smarter than me, she was better at contingency planning than me,
and if I try and do anything myself, I might get in her way and get
someone killed. I'd never even thought about the effect of Irene
living
Again, she nodded, “And I didn't hire you just because of Mason, or
your knowledge, I hired you because I thought you would make a good
addition to the organisation.”
Flattery... works.... heh. She knew what to say to make me feel good
anyway.
“So, do you promise?”
“I do,” I nodded. It wasn't like I really had a choice anyway.
And when I felt good, I was more likely to agree with her.
“Thank You, Meg,”
Trust in Sylia, and she will keep you safe. Like a sheep trusting in a
shephard? I wondered in a dark moment. Truth was, she was right...
Sylia was better at the whole planning and foresight thing than I'd
ever be....
I didn't really think that through though, even as Sylia said she'd
see me at the hotel while I waited for the closet-lift, I was still
trying to figure out exactly how Sylia saw me. Just another boomer, a
sentient lifeform, or a human trapped in a boomer shell?
Why was I even asking that question?
She let me live free, that alone answers the question. She pays me as
a Knight Saber. She treats me no different than any other member of
the group, no different than made sense because of my 'unique' nature
anyway.
It was still hard to shake the feeling that I was hanging off a cliff
of freedom, and it was only by Sylia's good will in holding onto my
arm, that I didn't fall off, as untrue as it was.
She could be cold at times, but she never struck me as a person who
would 'own' another sentient being. There were no boomers working in
The Silky Doll. The mannequins in the windows were just that... hollow
plastic figurines. Sylia, as far as I knew, didn't own any boomers.
Why? When even backwater restaurants had boomer staff?
Human staff as a perception of quality? Did she hate boomers? She
didn't hate me, at least she didn't seem like she did. It didn't
matter whether Sylia saw me as a boomer or not, she saw me as
sentient, as an intelligent being, and worthy of the same treatment as
any other intelligent being. I think, possibly, she saw boomers as
potential lifeforms too, even the real toasters, and she didn't want
to be a slave-owner. Which wasn't exactly what I was thinking, but it
was how I explained it to myself.
So why didn't she say as much earlier?.... because it wasn't what she
wanted to talk about... d'uh me.
Sylia only knows why Sylia does what Sylia does.
I just had to hope she never let go of me.
I passed the stripped-back shell of Gibsons Griffon on the way out.
Linna's gree Renault was parked out front.... starter motor chattering
away. Nené waved from the passenger window.
The only thing worth worryng about now, was 'Rare' or 'Medium'.
----->>
--------------------------------------------
Yup.
Dartz
------------------------------------
Linna's apartment was huge, compared to mine, with a proper living
area, a proper kitchen area, a separate bathroom including a real bath
and an actual bedroom with bed, wardrobe and everything.
As a professional fitness and aerobics instructor, she made a good bit
more than I did. Even Priss pulled in a higher salary then I did, and
she didn't have to worry about monthly rent with that trailer of hers.
But I'll bet she didn't have airconditioning in that old truck. Of
course, I still had to find a new apartment that wasn't over an hour's
journey from Lady633.
Maybe it would've been easier if I had've been Sylia's cyber-slave
after all.... Freedom was too much hard work sometimes. It was the
same old Linux -v- Mac argument, brought to its real life roots. Of
course, the only Mac's left were in a museum. The only computer in the
world still running Linux was my laptop.
The lonely march of progress, something I had plenty of time to
reflect one while Nené luxuriated in the bath. Guess whose fault it
was that we were a half-hour late for the reservation?
A fifty storey ride in a glass lift straddling the side of the hotel
was both breathtaking, and terrifying, a 6-inch thick glass floor not
doing much to soothe anyone's vertigo. Linna and Nené were still
trying to figure out what they were going to eat, while I'd pressed
back against the door, watching Tinsel city display where it had
gotten it's name from, and trying not to guess how long it would take
to hit the ground if the lift fell.
I was still surprised how well I could walk in stilettos. When the
doors opened, I strolled into the restaurant, not really too
bothered. The carpet was so lush, it seemed to melt beneath my feet.
The smell.... it was like hot roast beef, chicken, Lindbergh cheese
and lobster, with added cash.
“Bloody hell,”
“Oh wow,” Nené agreed with me, “I love this place!”
Her pink skirt ruffled as she bounced in her shoes.
“And it's so much better now that you're not paying,” Linna
deadpanned, adjusting a strap on her evening dress. Shimmering green
satin flowed across her figure, draping below her knees.
Form fitting, gold and strapless, that was the way to go. A single
piece yellow number that barely made it to my knees. It demonstrated 2
things to me.... The first, that price was often the inverse of the
amount of cloth you actually got, the second that I could wear sexy
clothes and not feel like running to the nearest shelter to hide from
the staring eyes.
It was strangely satisfying, especially that flash of jealousy from
the fitness instructor beside me each time somebody took an extra few
moments to stare. Sometimes, being the centre of attention was fun, a
weird rush of....almost....power.
Poor Nené was stuck in a white blouse and pink skirt... cute
mind....especially with those sparkling green eyes of hers.
“Excuse me lady's, do you have a reservation?” enquired the maitre d'.
He was elderly enough, in an evening suit that seemed too large for
him, spoke with a forced French accent to his Japanese.... And stared
at me first, not Linna, which felt like some perverse form of victory.
Even if I was technically cheating.
“Stingray party,” answered Nené
“Ah, Ms. Yamazaki, Romanoff,”.... that's how he pronounced it...” and
Deckard I presume. Miss Stingray and Asagiri are waiting for you
inside, if you'll follow me.”
His tone added... 'You're late and holding us up, now hurry up'
We passed through a set of wooden doors, into a glass-walled room,
looking out over the entire city. A long bar ran the length of the
inside wall, which was lined with shining mirrors, and expensive
spirits. Tokyo was beautiful, red navigation lights on the tops of
buildings timing out our strides. The tables hugged the windows, each
one dressed in the finest cream linen and glittering silverware.
I never felt so perfectly out of place in my life.
At one table was a sombre business party, probably greasing the wheels
to some multi-billion dollar merger, another might've been a wedding.
Money money money, must be funny, in a rich-man's world...
Even if I hated Abba, it was hard not to be awed by the conspicuous
wealth on display.
“I feel like Porsche 924 go past 911 GT3,”
Nobody got the reference.... The cheap shiny model wrapped up in an
expensive badge, going past the real thing, repeatedly.
“I'm so out of place,” Nené shrunk down into her blouse.
I couldn't wait to see Priss....
“Just around here ladies,” indicated the manager with his noticeboard.
Our table looked out over GENOM tower, thousands of little lights
winking up it's black surface. Sylia sat in an ice-white dress looking
at her reflection. Priss wasn't wearing leathers... how
disappointing.... instead wearing a blood-red dress which was almost a
mirror of Linna's.
“Well, you're here at last,” Sylia welcomed warmly.
“We would've been here sooner,” said Linna, “But somebody took too
long to get ready,”
She stared down at the pink-haired woman beside her.
“Better late than never. Please, take a seat.”
She gestured towards a soft leather bench-style seat...plush and
shiny, soft enough to swallow me whole. Priss was already buried in a
menu.... “I don't think I can afford this stuff,” she said to the
vinyl-bound video-card.
That wasn't my problem. The number of zeroes after each entry was
mind-boggling. Who in their right mind would pay 20,000 yen for Wagyu
beef? 30K for farm-fresh Whale? They could farm whales? My body
however, demanded starch to replenish burned glucose.
Sweetlings.... Sweet and Sour beef dumplings on a bed of natural rice.
The perfect taste, the perfect fuel for my body. Hot meat, dripping in
sauce. Oh yes, Sweetling, you are hot, aren't you? Hot, spicy and
succulent...
Chomp.
Delicious.
Made all the sweeter by the fact that I wasn't paying for it.
Why was I in such a damn mischievous mood again? Good food, good wine,
and that electrolyte imbalance thanks to the exercise today throwing
my hormones out of whack.... That, and there was something deeply
satisfying about making a real human waiter spill a bottle of
expensive red-wine because he was too busy staring into my eyes to
watch the glass.
With Sylia in control of my life, it was nice to be able to turn the
tables on other random people. I had some power at least, even if it
was useless for anything but disturbing innocent randomers. The
knowledge that I could go a hell of a lot further than I ever did, or
ever wanted to.... there was something soothing about it.
It wasn't a sexual thing.... one of those mental blocks again
prevented it from ever being anything like that..... It was just
reassuring to know that despite being technically a slave, there was
some measure of control I had over my own life and over others.
I wonder what would happen if I pushed it on Sylia? God knows I'd
never get away with it, but I'd die laughing.
“Well,” Sylia decided to interrupt my ponderings, “Tonight, we have 2
occasions to celebrate,”
She took a sip from her glass, as the other women went quiet. Our
leader was speaking. This was important.
“Firstly, we are welcoming a new member into our club, Meg Deckard
here. Congratulations, Meg,” she raised her glass,
“Congratulations!” the others answered, clapping.
I blushed.... Dear God I blushed the same colour as Nené's hair. I
half hoped they would consume me with a group hug, but a table full of
food was in the way. Priss though, seemed almost reluctant to say
it.... not even making eye contact.
“Meg will be joining us as our defence, demolitions and engineering
expert.”
“Thanks,” I just about managed to squeak out.
“And our permanent designated driver!” Linna barked, gulping down the
last of her wine. How many had she had?
“Unfortunately,” I sighed, matching her. Social occasions were so much
nicer when you could get drunk. Even Sylia was flushed with alcohol
fuelled heat, even if she held it better than anyone I knew. Nené was
barely sitting up.... after a single glass.... poor thing. Priss
stared into her own reflection, contemplating something only she knew.
“Well, I think we all deserve an acceptance speech,” Sylia needled...
seeming more human with a little drink taken. She was thawing out, her
own natural warmth and grace radiating out from behind her melting
business mask.
I couldn't get drunk and lose my inhibitions.... given my thoughts
about control maybe this had been a deliberate design feature. I stood
up, and spoke.
“Thanks,” I said again, “It is a pleasure to to be here and meet all
nice women like yourself. And...” heroic thing to say?...”After I help
with Irene, I want to help more people, to do right like hero,”
Bullshit, I could sense someone thinking.
“Well said, Meg,” Sylia released me.
The others added their token agreement, while I dropped back onto my
seat.
“The second matter. We have a new friend in the Chang group. They have
their own grudge against GENOM, and the resources to provide us with
backup and technical support, including specialised hardware not
normally ”
“And Vision's autograph on my hardsuit forearm!” Cheered Linna,
Nené just rolled her eyes and pouted, while Priss suppressed a flash
of frustrated anger.
“Try shouting a little louder,” she deadpanned, “GENOM Tower is over
three miles away,”
I giggled.... They trusted me.
“Be that as it may, they have indicated their willingness to hire us
in the future. Our performance last Monday greatly impressed them,
they also have several contacts within GENOM and other corporations,
and they are willing to share them and their information with us. This
has been a nice little earner for us indeed,”
Nené burped... “Excuse me,” she giggled.
Oh to feel that drunk... the only thing I felt was the need to go to
the bathroom every 15 minutes. My body had to drain the alcohol out
somehow, didn't it?
There was nothing worse than only getting the punchline of Priss'
favourite boomer joke, or missing out on a good chunk of a story Linna
was telling about her latest boyfriend and his 'unique' hobby. And I
got weird looks from the attendant when I cleared my canines into the
sink.... Perfluorocarbons ruined the taste of wine, too.
But all good things had to come to an end. The bill passed with great
pain for those who paid. Sylia and Priss took separate taxi's home,
while I settled into the driver's seat of Linna's limousine. Rather
than driving each and everyone to their home, and Linna having to pick
her car up from Yokohama where I lived, the three of us just stayed at
Linna's overnight.... with one bed for the apartments owner, and a
fold out couch shared between myself and Nené.
She was dead to the world with alcoholic tiredness, and I was far too
sober and sensible to do anything other than sleep.
It was nice to be trusted, nice to be part of the group. And Nené was
lucky, in a way... very few people ever get to sleep with a sexaroid.
Even if that's quite literally exactly what she did.
That, and snore.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
antagonist
You're evil. And Nene gets no lovin' :P
And you used *that* word twice...somewhere, Sylia's spinning in her
mom's womb... :D
Alemann
> <SNIP>
Linna's apartment cannot be huge. How much do you think a small time
aerobics instructor can earn? Most of her salary goes on her rent.
"Her pink skirt ruffled as she bounced in her shoes."
Reformulate this. These sentences are annoying.
Alemann
Amanda Stair
It's all relative. I'm sure compared to Meg's wages and apartment
size, Linna's are gargantuan.
Amanda
Dartz
I changed it to make it clearly that Meg was comparing Linna's
apartment to her own.... Linna's apartment would be about average for
a Megatokyo resident.... Meg's is a shoebox.
Also changed that line.... a chunk got cut out of it somehow and it
was supposed to read differently
-Dartz
Alemann
> It's all relative. I'm sure compared to Meg's wages and apartment
> size, Linna's are gargantuan.
>
> Amanda
Living in Priss's trailer is nice and comfortable *relative* to living
in a cardboard box in an alley, but it's a shithole *objectively* when
compared to houses and apartments.
Alemann
Dartz
It is.... such is relativity.
2 scenes. Meg's new place. Meg's new hardsuit. Meg begins to figure a
little about Priss after talking with Linna. Also some boring
philosphical wafflings. Now at 76 pages.
----->>
My new place wasn't exactly what I'd expected. On the 12th floor of a
50 storey building, I think it used to be a small-time lawyer's
office. One wall was made of plasterboard, the opposite a solid wall
of thick glass mounted in the building's steel frame. The apartment
itself was basically one room split up into three partitions by more
glass walls, with electric blinds to provide some privacy. The shower/
WC were facing but seperated from each other by a sliding door, as
seemed to be the usual practice in Japan. There was some living space,
including some basic appliances, a couch, a spot on the wall to hang a
TV and not much else. The bedroom barely deserved the title 'room'...
it was literally just enough space for the bed, and a small wardrobe.
I think, in terms of square footage the whole apartment might actually
have been a little smaller than Taro.... and it still smelled like an
office... dry, dusty and stale.
“Nice view,” said Linna... who was holding one box of my possessions.
“Yup,” I gave a satisfied nod, holding the other box...
Through the window wall, was Tokyo bay, glittering in the afternoon
sun, filled with ships and boats of all shapes and sizes. Buildings of
all sorts lined the waterfront, concrete, glass and steel, throwing
dark shadows and sharp reflections on the quays below. Directly
opposite, across about a kilometre or so of open water, was Ota Ward,
and a wharf on which the sharp eyed, or those with binoculars anyway,
could pick out an old truck... with the word 'Priss' spraypainted on
the side.
“How did you afford this place?” Linna questioned, stepping slowly
around a low mahogany veneered, plastic table.
She winced as the scream of a low flying jet passing a few hundred
feet over head answered that question. Windows and doors rattled in
their frames as it passed, leaving a low, rolling thunder in it's
wake.
“It does that sometime, when wind is blowing in wrong direction,” I
said, when the roar had died down. “So say building manager. That
third time today, none yesterday,”
It didn't really bother me... I'd gotten used to living under an
airliner flightpath in my old like.... if anything, the occasional jet
overhead made this new place feel even more homely and welcoming.
“It's not something I could live with,” she said, placing the box on
the table. “Especially in the middle of the night,”
I just shrugged, “Get used to it. And earplugs.” I finished that with
a smirk. “Like tea or coffee?” I remembered my manners. I did have a
kettle, I did have coffee... I had a 50 percent chance of getting it
right.
“Nah, I have to get to work in an hour,” she refused with a smile.
I dropped my box down onto the couch. My possessions in this word
could fit into a pair of 2 foot cubes.
“Shame.... But I have work too I guess,”
Besides, I think my new apartment was too small for a housewarming
party anyway.... And I had to buy a new TV.
“Goodbye, Meg,” Linna gave a soft wave as the door closed behind her.
Another passing airliner punctuated the silence that followed.
It really had once been an office. It had that same office flooring...
a hard wearing grey carpet that showed the stains of it's past life...
I could see the outlines of cubicles and desks bleached in, with plug
sockets mounted on the floor.
I could just about make out Priss' trailer sitting in the distance.
Just as Linna's mansion was bigger and better than my little shoebox,
so was my little shoebox better than that trailers.
6 days until I got my hardsuit. Still no attack on Sylia's building.
Don't tempt fate.
----->>
The big day rolled around.
The city was burning under a July sun, but chills still ran through my
body when I got off the bus three blocks from Raven's. I'd been
training every Sunday, but I hadn't actually seen the suit yet... it'd
been built at Lady633. The SilkyWagon was parked up outside, tink-
tinking is it baked the summer heat.
The engine's fan whirred to life as I passed.
Gibson's Griffon had disappeared, having been replaced by an old
Nissan GTR that was missing it's front end. The other Saber's were
here, Priss' bike, Nené's scooter and Linna's wagon waiting for their
owners in a side alley.
The garage' proprietor was working at a bench inside, behind a Honda
Civic, the oily guts of a familiar looking motorcyle engine laid out
in front of him.
“I'm here Doc,”
“Tor, “ he finished gruffly, “They're downstairs waiting for you,”
Raven told me,
“Thanks,” I grinned giddily at him, before pausing. “How's the engine
coming?”
He sucked a deep breath through his teeth, as all mechanics did before
they gave a particularly expensive bill. I steeled myself for the pain
to come as he started to stroke his stubbled chin toughtfully,”
“Well,” he began, to draw the torture out, “I skimmed the head as far
as it could go, but I can't get the compression ratio above 12 to 1...
it needs to be at least 15 to 1 to get the best out of gasohol,”
Alcohol having a much higher knock resistance than petrol, meaning an
alcohol burning engine can run later ignition and a higher compression
ratio than a petrol engine, meaning improved thermodynamic efficiency,
so more power, more torque and better fuel economy.
And gasohol was a tenth the price of petrol.
“So..?” I almost didn't dare ask.
“So I've ordered a turbocharger,” he smirked, “Just to boost torque
mind, not overall power. 5 PSI of boost should do for 120Nm of
torque, and 100kilowatts.”....wow... “But that means a new custom
crankshaft, reinforced con-rods, forged pistons, reshaped combustion
chambers and that's before the electronics, water and oil pumps,
clutch, gearbox and a number of other things,”
“Aw shit,” I muttured. This was going to be expensive.... more
expensive than I'd planned on anyway. “How much?”
“At least 750 thousand,” he dropped the bomb, “It could go as high as
a million. If it wasn't such an old bike, I'd say you'd be better off
getting a new one.”
“Yeah,” I exhaled, sucking on my lips. My KS account would have to
cover it.... and I'd have to do another mission at least before it
could “How long's it going to take?”
“Another three months or so. There's a lot of custom parts I have to
get fabricated and tested. But it'll be real special when it's
finished,”
I nodded gently. “Yeah. Can turbocharger give more than 5PSI, more
than 100 horsepower?”
Curiosity demanded an answer... even if I didn't need more than
100-120 horses.... even if you never used it, it was still nice to
know you had power.
“Kilowatts,” he corrected, “That's about 130 horsepower. 130 kilowatts
should be doable easily, over 150 for short bursts.”
I whistled... “Wow.”
“Yup,” he smirked at me through that grey pushbroom moustache, “And it
will all be controllable by the old choke lever,”
He was having fun with this, I could tell.
“I just hope I can afford it when finished,” I half laughed.... not
quite worried, but not quite certain either. How often did KS jobs
come along?
“I hope you can too, I don't work for Free, Haha!” he matched my laugh
and I suddenly felt very nervous. “Have fun Meg,”
“I will,” I beamed. “You too,”
His reply was lost within the scream of a drill.
Three months.... just in time to be put away for winter. It didn't
seem fair somehow to ride something that special on winter roads,
through snow, ice and grit. Poor thing would be eaten alive before the
New Year.
I practically skipped to the back of the garage, passing the
dismantled skeleton of my own bike mounted on a stand on the way. I
was swallowing a giggle as I pressed my code into the keypad. It
unlocked with a chirp and a metallic click and I stepped inside,
trying to be calm and professional about this.
I'd been down here a few times. I'd seen all the Sabers in their own
hardsuits before. This wasn't really that different, was it?
My heart was still in my mouth as the lift jolted
down.
This was it... final....official.... the accollade. 40 million yen of
Sylia's own money had been sunk into the new hardsuit... more than a
good Italian supercar.... Bloody hell. I hope I don't break it, or
accidentally trigger one of the suits weapons and put a hole in
something...or someone.
Not that anybody would be daft enough to give me live ammo....
I was calmer than I expected to be anyway, aside from a few nervous
chills.... I was getting used to being around supertech. God forbid
being a Knight Saber would ever become routine....
Then again, it didn't exactly take forever for me to get used to my
new apartment, or living in one of the worlds largest and most densely
populated cities either.
The lift stopped, the door unlocking once more. I adjusted the collar
on my jacket, pulled up my jeans, swallowed a gulp of near toxic air
thanks to all the detergents, and pushed it open.
“Five thousand, that's the bet!” Priss' voice greated me.
“Deal,” Nené shook on it.
Sylia was just watching on with a dubious look on her face, as if she
didn't approve of what'd just happened, but not enough to actually
stop it. Linna was standing half naked, half into her innerwear. The
exercise equipment was as it always, and the remains of a packing
crate were splintered across the floor...
But no hardsuit.
I was almost disappointed. I'd built myself up to expect to see it
standing their in all it's shining glory, and I was greeted by Linna's
firm breasts, and some wooden splinters.
“I'm here,” I announced my presence, stepping inside.
A queezy bubble rose up the back of my throat, my stomach gurgling. I
swallowed it, same as always.
“Meg, we've been waiting for you,” said Sylia...
“Bus in traffic,” I explained, a little nervously.
“Well, hurry up, I want to see Meg's suit in action!” Nené weighed in.
Priss snickered behind her hand, giving me a fiendish smirk. Her eyes
had a savage gleam to them... It was unsettling... she was plotting
something... something involving a bet with Nené. For the sake of my
own sanity, I didn't want to know what it was?
I mean, what could go wrong with a hardsuit?
I didn't dare ask.
“Meg,” Sylia grabbed my attention, “Your innerwear is in your locker,
your hardsuit is down in the sim-room on its hanger. Linna will show
you how to board it properly,”
I nodded, barely able to squeak out an “Okay,”
The innerwear didn’t feel any different to the softsuit used for
training… it still had that same tendency to work itself into private
places, and the elastic around the neck was dangerous when you had the
largest bust in the club.
The camera over my locker was gone, replaced by a white stain of
polyfilla smeared in place.
This was it.
There was only one more milestone after this, and that was my first
mission.
It felt like the first time I put my jacket on, ready to start up a
brand-new secondhand Honda Bros I’d bought and go on my first ride. It
was the ‘one small step one giant leap’ sort of threshold to a new
stage in life.
Or maybe it was just giddiness about cool technology and shiny
machines.
“I still remember my first time,” Linna invoked a deliberate double
entendre with a vulpine smirk. “ It was so tight around my body,”
“Hah!” I barked. “Innerwear already take my virginity,”
Actually, I genuinely didn't know for sure about it, or really care.
“Hardsuit is more of the same,” she reassured me, “Just wait and see,”
More of the same?
I followed the dancer down into the sim-room, while Priss and Nené
exchanged sinister whispers and giggles. Whatever they were doing,
they were doing their damnedest to keep it from me. I didn't want to
know why.
I just wanted to see what was standing hunched under that white sheet
beside Linna's open suit.
My whole body was tingling, my lips curled up with an expectant smile.
The shape beneath the sheet was vaguely humanoid, hunchbacked, but
still managing to be nearly as tall as I was.
“Take it off,” said Linna,
“Yeah, we want to see what colour you chose,” Nené's voice came
through the speakers.
Priss watched in silence, an expectant gleam in her eyes. She had
something on her mind alright, and it wasn't my good fortune and
health.
I giggled, taking a firm grip of the cloth. One firm tug and it pulled
free, revealing the form beneath.
“Oh wow,” I mumbled, sheets dropping at my feet. My whole body went
numb as I pressed my hand against the cold metal shoulder. Liquid
reflections from the brilliant white lights overhead flowed across the
surface of the armour.
It wasn't a projection. It wasn't a mockup. Hanging by it's back from
some kind of dock, it was solid ceramic and steel, painted in a high-
gloss industrial yellow with a shadow grey trim across the chest and
hips. It smelled of metal, ozone and machine oil, mixed with a mint
detergent. Split wide open, the toes and feet were nothing but
bottomless black pits. The helmet was hung off the twin-thruster
backpack, a pair of antenae stacked on top of each other, stretching
back from above and below where I guessed the right ear was. Opposite
them, laser engraved on a plate of shining, polished metal were the
words KNIGHT SABERS in a bold black. Across a polished collar,
engraved the same way was the word HARDSUIT.
KS corporate branding, (c) Knight Saber holdings 2031, all rights
reserved.
The right arm ended in a manipulator claw, with two penny-sized silver
barrels built into the palm, the left arm ending in a black glove,
with some sort of knuckleguard swun back, pointing towards the elbow.
Mounted just below the hips, on both sides, were empty racks, to mount
a number of explosive charges.
It was a mine.... sort of.
“Jesus,” I said. And that was all I could say for several pregnant
seconds.
It stood there, purposeful, sleek aggressive and sexy, even split in
two and ready for boarding.
“Nice colour,” said Linna.
Yellow.... because it suited my cowardly nature, I guess. It also
matched my hair, even if nobody would ever see it inside the helmet.
Nené gave a thumbs up through the window, and I winked back at her.
Priss was waiting, while Sylia worked.
“Just do what I do. Don't push to hard, just let everything slide
naturally into place. It's easy,” she reassured with a warm smile.
Linna placed both hands on the open shoulders of her suit to balance
herself, as she stepped over the exposed linear motor track holding
both halves together. Toes pointing down, she slid one leg in,
followed by the second. Wiggling a little to settle herself, she
reached down to the carry handles on the hips and pulled the suit up.
Both halves of the thighs sealed tight with a gaseous hiss and a
muffled servo whine.
“Remember to push the magic buttons under the handles, or it'll just
stay locked, and you won't be able to lift it. Now then, lean forward
and arms in,”
She did so, sliding both arms down, snuggling her chest into place.
“Hands into the gloves. There's a switch in the right to seal the
suit,”
Another whine, and the suit snapped her upright, clamping around her
neck.
“Just drop the helmet into place, lining up the connectors, and,” she
pulled her helmet down over her head, taking care to tuck a few stray
strands of hair in, “done,” she finished, her voice distorted by the
helmets modulation.
She flexed her manipulator a few times, steel fingers clacking as they
clenched.
“Now you try,” the hardsuit said.
“Alright,” I peered down into the black voids of the legs... even with
the overhead lights, I couldn't see the soles of the boots. Thick red
lining reminded me of some animals gaping maw or a....
Dirty thoughts, I sniggered to myself. Support myself on the
shoulders... step over the motors... point the toes and slide in. It
was tight, yes... but..
“It's Cold,” I winced, nearly jumping off it.
“The lining acts as a heat sink, and an impact absorber. It takes a
few minutes to warm to your body temperature,” Sylia informed me,
about ten seconds too late, “Just keep going,”
“Alright,” I said again.
There was no boot, as such... my foot slid down, pointing straight
down all the way like a ballerina's. It wasn't even like a pair of
stillettos, the foot literally pointed straight down. I slid my second
leg in, bubbled of air rasping up from inside as my foot settled
snugly into place.
Copying Linna, I grabbed both carry handles, searching for a switch
with my fingers. Got it. Push it, then pull. The suit clamped down
hard around my waist and crotch, arctic gel meeting sensitive skin.
I yelped with fright, cold chills shocking through my body. It was
like someone had dunked me in iced water.
“Oh, that happened to me the first time,” said the hardsuit beside me,
“It's sort of a tradition, I guess, to make the rookie suffer as we
all did. It's funny,”
Is this what Priss had been waiting for?
Her expression hadn't changed... she still wore that same expactant
smirk. What could be more terrifying that getting your most private
parts compressed in a frozen gel vice?
My body was shivering with the cold, with volcanic excitement and
tingling apprehension.
I slipped my arms down into place, chills shocking though my chest as
my body nestled into place. Fingers into gloves, switches to hand. I
pushed it. Click.
The suit's motors slammed me upright, body sealing tightly. Servo's
whirred to life, tendrils of heat fingering their way through power
conduits as the suit bootstrapped itself. My breath caught in my
throat as I looked down at my armoured form.
“Awesome,” I gasped.
I gripped my right hand, staring in amazement at as the claw matched
my movement.
“How do you feel?” enquired Sylia.
Invincible, I wanted to say. Cocooned in steel, nothing could touch
me. It was a dangerous feeling, but I revelled in it. I knew I could
take on anything and everything GENOM could throw at me, and walk
through it unscathed.
And it was so light! I could feel it compressing my body, gel lining
flowing around my frame but at the same time there was no sense of
wearing heavy armour at all, just an amplified tightness from the
softsuit.
I felt like I could pull of Bruce Lee style martial arts
effortlessly... big high kicks and deft pirouettes through the air.
And all this was articulated by a single wobbling sound out my mouth,
a little like “uhweeoo,”
“I think she likes it,” commented Nené with a bubbling giggle.
Is this how battle-boomers feel every day of their...short...lives?
Powerful, invulnerable.
“All seals are good, powerflow is normal,” Sylia's voice was distant,
all my attention focused on quantifying the strange feeling of being
heavily armoured, without the 'heavy' part.
“Only thing left is the helmet, Meg,” said Linna. It was strangely
alien to hear her voice coming from inside that armoured shell. With
the green armour and almost insectoid helmet with it's two razor
antennae, it was like listening to a talking praying mantis.
I took the helmet in my armoured hands.... it felt like solidified
air. My brain was throwing itself through loops trying to understand
why something which looked so heavy, should be so light. I was holding
a hollow eggshell in my hands, and I was terrified just on gentle
squeeze too much and it would crumble into shards.
“A World of made cardboard and sugarglass or what?” I commented under
my breath.
“What was that?” asked the dancer beside me.
“Nothing,” I dismissed it.
It was power steering for the body, that same feeling of lightness and
quick reactions, along with the same wooliness and dulling of feel, an
isolation from the world.
It only got worse as I pulled the helmet down over my head. My senses
compressed down into a small black, sweet vinyl smelling void. I could
hear nothing except my own breath, and the rising whir of ventilator
fans kicking in, blowing cool, desert-dry air across my shoulders.
For an instant, the darkness was pierced only by a single flashing
caret, followed by a sudden rush of katakana I couldn't follow.
Darkness was pierced by strobing technicolour lights, display screens
flickering to life.
A moment later, I was looking at the same white wall as before,
overlaid with a green wireframe picking out whatever points the suits
OS found interesting.
Linna was highlighted with a small leader, and the letters “KS-04”.
Sylia, Nené and Priss where both singled out as humans. I had pitch,
roll and attitude displays, a digital compass and map, a small
targeting reticle tracking where my right arm was pointing and a
simple status display.
10: STL-uplink: established: Host: Blacknight:8a2e:370:7334. Signal:
82
20: Ipconf: 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334
30: Vent: Online. Mode:positive
40: R-Man: Mode: cut: Power: Offline
50: Thrusters: Mode: offline: ERR 221. NoFuel.
60: A.GNS: 1759
70: S-Mine: Rack Empty.
80: Battery: 20 : 10:15 estimated remaining.
90: goto 10
I checked it against what I'd been told was expected. Everything
working as it should.
I turned my head to look at Linna for a moment, HUD highlighting
little details about her suit as she walked forward, footsteps tap-
tapping across the floor. I could see the whole world frame dragging,
my hardsuits' display refreshing to slow to keep up. Details I'd
normally have been able to pick out, like the grain of the concrete,
or stray strand of Nené's hair were gone... blurred out of existance
by image compression and a screen resolution designed for human eyes.
“Knight Yellow, Knight Green, radio check?” Linna's voice boomed into
my ears, painfully loud.
“Knight Green, Knight Yellow,” I answered unsteadily, “Loud and
clear,”
“Meg,” Sylias spoke again, her voice tinny and distant thanks to the
suits own external mic's. “I'm going to release the suit from the
hanger. Good luck,”
Good luck?
I felt the bolts come loose, a quick alarm sounding out to make sure I
noticed. For one brief moment I was standing in a vat of slowly
warming gels, my body supported by the suit. Eager to test the limits
of freedom, I tried to take one step forward.
Foot down and... screech! An earsplitting scream of grinding metal
resonating through the suit's structure. I felt myself falling
backwards before the suit's own stabilisers tried to cut in. I reached
vainly out for a handhold that didn't exist, confounding the suits own
gyros and making the results inevitable.
With a soft bump as if landing on a mattress, answered by a hard
metallic clang, I landed on my backside. The shock of the impact
rippled around my body, tickling my toes and neck before reflecting
back to ground.
I barely felt the hit.
I could already hear the laughter as I tried to push myself up to my
feet. Shame turned knots in my knots in my stomach, while Linna
offered a hand to help me up.
“Bollocks!” I spat into my helmet.
“That's 5000 yen, Nené,” I heard Priss' voice bluster, Nené shamefully
laughing into her own hand while admitting defeat. I hated Priss for
it
“Everyone falls their first time,” Linna reassured my through a
private link.
I gave her a sour look, hidden by my visor. Why the hell didn't she
bloody warn me?
“Try again, Meg,” said Sylia, with enforced serenity. Her voice
couldn't fool me.. I'd seen her laugh too. Well, I wasn't going to
fall a second time.... no way.... that would just be pathetic. If I
was going to be a Knight Saber, then at least I was going to be half
decent at it.
Linna pulled me effortlessly upright with one hand... I couldn't feel
her grip. The world had become a strange videogame, and I was wearing
some sort of force feedback bodysuit like some enveloping Dual-Shock
controller.
Shakily, I tried again...
A little like walking on stilts...everything below the knee was one
solid piece of laser-milled armour... There was that same feeling of
distance even if the high-heeled design was surprisingly stable.
I could walk, hearing the steel ring of my footsteps more than
actually feeling them.
Linna escorted me through testing excersises, slowly familiarising me
with the suit, aswell as breaking in the suits mechanics. Sylia gave
instructions, Linna demonstrated, I copied.
“I could die right now and be happy,” I said, doing jumping jacks
while trying not to hit the ceiling. I really could.
“Don't” ordered Sylia, “Your suit cost too much to build for you to
die before completing a mission,”
Was that a joke? I glanced at Linna, but the hardsuit just shrugged
expressionlessly. I could hear Priss laughing maniacally at something,
and Nené was squealing something about her wallet being violated.
I felt like a real battle machine.... I never wanted to take the suit
off.... Nothing could touch me in here, safe in my metal skin. Seeing
myself in a mirror was both creepy, and strangely alluring....
Most of all.... of all the things I wanted to do with my brand new
suit... was wear it to an animé con and call it cosplay. I wanted the
whole world to see me wearing it and know that I, Meg Deckard was a
Knight Saber...an armoured superhero of justice and honour.
Sylia of course, might have a few words to say about that mind....
probably along the lines of 'You're fired', followed by a gunshot.
“So, are we doing that Hare and Hounds next week?” Nené's voice
enquired, the young woman herself appearing, pink with sweat, and with
her hair frizzed and split.
What had she been doing with Priss?
The biker herself appeared moments later, looking oddly satisfied with
herself.... as if she'd just made a nice amount of money. “Only if you
aren't allowed to cheat with your ECM,” she said, glaring down at the
hacker.
Nené puffed up like a cute, angry pufferfish, “I am entitled to use
the systems in my hardsuit as I see fit. Just because you're too much
of an apewoman to understand the ECM,”
Priss turned red, “At least my I can get a boyfriend that doesn't
require batteries or a network connection.”
Linna beside me just sighed, “Always the same when Nené loses a bet,”
she said through a private channel.
“I have had a real boyfriend!” screeched Nené, staring bloody fury
into Priss' eyes.
I got the feeling that everyone else knew otherwise, and were just
humouring her but not pointing it out.
“Pinnochio?” Priss stabbed with a Lioness's hungry grin “Only it's not
his nose that gets longer when you lie,” she twisted the blade,
drinking the other woman's suffering.
“Ow,” I winced in sympathy. But, better her than me... and I knew
better than to get between a Lion and a Zebra.
“It gets old with time,” Linna continued through the comm-link. “Nené
only ever calls her an apewoman... she's not that good at throwing
insults.”
“At least I don't ride motorcycles to hide the fact that I can't get a
ride anywhere else,” Nené brought out her big guns.
Sylia just rolled her eyes and decided not to get involved.
“They're so immature,” said Linna, “Nené's only 18, Priss 19,”
“I can tell,” I said quietly, afraid they'd hear me despite the
soundproofing. “What is hare and hounds anyway?”
I had some idea, of course... somebody playing the hare, being chased
by others playing the hounds... but how did that work with hardsuits?
“If we're doing it, you'll see for yourself, it's real fun,” I could
hear her grinning through the radio.
“So how you feel first time in hardsuit?” I asked Linna.... loosing
interest in the slagging match above.
The hardsuit beside me dropped into thought.
“It was terrifying,” it said softly, “At first. I had so much power at
my hands. I thought about those boomeroids of all things, who encased
their bodies in steel, and then went mad on it.” she paused
remembering what I was supposed to be... “no offence Meg,”
“None taken,” Well, I wasn't a boomeroid.
“Of course, on my first mission I got stabbed in the stomach.
Hardsuits protect against lasers and bullets pretty well, but not an
assassin boomer with a sharp knife, disguised as a kid. This might
sound weird, but it was such a relief to find I wasn't invincible,
that I could still be injured.”
I thought about it, remembering how Anri stabbed Priss, for some odd
reason. I poked at my gut with the manipulator, running the steel claw
across the plates, down across my crotch and hips. All armour had
chinks in it, I guess....
“Well, now that I've shared mine, how about you share yours?”
That old I show you mine you show me yours thing?
“I felt like battle boomer. Strong and cold and inhuman,”
Well, not inhuman exactly.....
“Battleboomer?”
I nodded inside my suit, forgetting that the helmet might not
actually match the gesture.
“Even more of machine than I am, I mean.”
Stupid! I grimaced inside my helmet, realising what exactly I'd just
said. Nervous thrills ran through my body as the hardsuit beside me
went silent. Could I really escape with this thing if I had to? I'd
certainly have the element of surprise on my side.
“Inhuman? You mean, you don't consider yourself to be human anymore?”
Her voice was soft and subdued... I got the sense she thought she was
walking in a verbal minefield. There was a minefield, but it wasn't
exactly herself who was walking in it.
“No,” I shook my head. I didn't want to lie, but the less I said on it
he better.
I could hear Linna breathing, slow, controlled into her mic.
“That's..... I think that may be dangerous,” she said, speaking very
carefully, and very politely.
“Well.... Am what I am. Not go mad trying to cling to last of
something I not have anymore. Still myself, my soul.” Still
bullshitting, but I had to get out of this before I said something
really dumb. “Body is not human...sort of... but still alive inside,”
“I see,” she said. The hardsuit looked at me, and then up at Priss.
“That's your choice I guess, Meg. It's not one I'd want to make,” she
took a breath, “I guess I can understand. It's not the right one, I
mean, you sound like you gave it up so easily, as if it didn't matter
to you.”
All I could do was shrug, “I just not feel human. Why pretend?. Still
me, just in different shell.”
“I don't know,” she exhaled a long, worried sigh, “If I ever had to be
a cyborg,” she took a nervous, uncomfortable gulp, “I'd like to think
I still had that..em...spark that makes me human. ”
“I don't see difference. Body just a shell to hold mind, right?” how
do I explain this? “Take 1 litre of water and put into a 1 litre jug.
Then put it in a 1litre crystal vase. What has changed except the
shape? It is still the same water chemically, still the same amount...
nothing about it has changed except container.”
Of course I was waffling.... and I was smugly satisfied with how well
I was doing at it too. My actual opinion of what and who I was, beyond
'Meg Deckard, Knight Saber and sex machine,' was a lot more complex,
to the point where actually thinking about it gave me headaches. I was
two different people, and both were one at the same time......or
something... I was I and that was good enough.
“Not unless some of it gets spilled on the way,” she remarked,
“I have....what's the word?” I didn't want to say soul even if that's
the way my heart was pointing. “I have intelligence.”
“Boomers have intelligence,” said Linna, “The high quality ones, you
can talk to them, they answer back, they sound intelligent, they look,
feel and even smell like a real person, but it's just a copy, a
facsimile of humanity turned out on a factory floor. They may be
intelligent, but they're still machines, nothing more. Don't call
yourself a machine, Meg, you're more than that.”
She stabbed me, right in the heart... and she didn't even know it. I
wanted to throw that in her face... annoucne to the entire group what
exactly I was and see it on her face when she realised she'd
considered a machine an intelligent and human friend.... how I'd
fooled her and the other Sabers.
But I couldn't.....
I could feel hot tears running down my cheeks, my body shivering. I
wanted to throw up inside my helmet. Just a machine....
“Human body also machine,” I fell back to the old argument, speaking
as seriously as I could,“Biochemical, all thought nothing more than
electric signal between synapses.... everything humans are nothing
more than chemical reaction which exist solely to keep themselve
going.”
“Humans have soul, have spirit.” she paised for a second, thinking
about it. “Boomers don't,”
“I've a soul,” I stated. “I know I think, I know what I am,”
And I sounded like I was trying desperately to convice her of that.
“The soul is humanity. You say that you have a soul, if you believe
you have that spark, therefore you still have your humanity,” Her tone
was bright and perky, as if she'd done me a favour by convincing me I
was still a human being. “Q.E.D”
I wanted desperately too prove her wrong on that. I knew I had spirit.
I knew I was a 33-S. I had once been human, but not anymore. I was a
different person than that man, but still the same. I think therefore
I am. I am myself, and all that sort of thing.
“I think a machine can be alive,” I told her. “As much as a human,”
“Well, if that's your philosophy, then how you feel makes sense I
suppose,” she shrugged, “Just don't say that to Priss if you want to
live,”
I could hear the smirk in her voice.
“Priss hate machines, I know,” I said. I guessed it was the reason she
was so on edge around me, but I couldn't read her mind.
The hardsuit nodded, “It's more than that. Nené tells me that when she
got her tech-hair done, Priss wouldn't talk to her for weeks
afterwards. It's something from Priss' biker gang days.... I think....
she places a great value on her humanity.”
“I know that,”
I remembered what the blue Saber'd said, back in the hospital with
Irene a month earlier. Replace any part of your body, and you become
something other than human... I suppose she could understand and
accept cybernetics by necessity, but I could see why she'd be offended
by someone voluntarily replacing a piece of their body, or giving up
on their humanity entirely.
Suddenly, Priss made a lot more sense....Why she''d been so cold and
brusque at first, then why she seemed to warm just a little to me when
she found out about my bike. Priss called it 'my anchor'. She thought
it was something to remind me of my humanity.
Upstairs, she was yelling into Nené's face about buzzing energizer
bunnies, while Nené had decided to point out that the only ride Priss
ever got was from a Kawasaki. Sylia, looked like she couldn't decide
whether to laugh, or stop it before somebody's hair got pulled.
It was infinitely more satisfying to watch those two arguing, than
debating the nature of humanity and sentience.... that was something
Linna and I could definitely agree on. We got back to our excersises.
It was only when wearing it, that you could appreciate Sylia's
talents.... the attention to the little details. The suits
ventilation didn't roar into the ears. The HUD didn't overload the
human brain with information, highlighting anything truly important,
like another Saber, either in hardsuit or not.
And it really flattered the female figure... partly because Sylia
seemed to like to air the fashion designer within, and partly because
the suits had to be tight to the body, both to make for a smaller
target, and so the gel liner could do it's job properly.
And once it had had time to adapt to my body shape, and to get some
heat into it from the motors and my body, it was pretty bloody
comfortable.
“Meg, any malfunctions,” enquired Sylia, having used her authority as
our absolute leader, along with the threat of cleaning duty, to regain
control. Priss and Nené watched on, with expressions like punished
children.
“Negative,” I announced, chest feeling with pride,
“Good,” the woman smiled, “Telemetry looks good up here. Signal
strength from the innerwear is satisfactory. Pulse decoder response
times are within tolerance. Basic functions are all within their
normal parameters. Primary systems check out,”
“Sweet,” I gave a thumbs up back,
“Meg, your hardsuit looks awesome,” cheered Nené, pressing against the
glass.
“The colour does suit her,” a begrudging admission growled over the
intercome.
Was that a shot?
“Yeah, it'll make here easier to spot doing hounds and hare next week,
right Priss?” Nené joined in.
“There's a reason I chose midnight blue,” Priss said,
I had to take this opportunity....
“To hide unflattery figure,” I jibed with a savage smirk. It was what
everyone else seemed to be doing, even if it was probably suicide. “I
choose yellow to show my figure to world,” And just to add a final
cut, I stretched to the ceiling, throwing my hardsuited figure into a
sharp relief under the bright lights.
“Boomers don't care about figure, they'll just see you as a nice,
obvious juicy yellow target,” she shot back with a smirk. She was
smiling, but it wasn't a nice smile. “Rookie”
She just had to say it....
“That is true,” Sylia took her side....she always seemed to take
Priss' side. “You may have a hardsuit Meg, but if we were to put you
in the field right now, you'd just be a liability. So, once we've
established the functionality of the subsystems tonight, we can begin
your training tomorrow. The sooner we get you up to speed the better,
It'll make our hounds and hare game next week a little more
interesting.”
I knew the real reason...
I had to rain on her parade, “I have work tomorrow.. I cannot skip
work,”
“Night work Yes?”
Sylia was wearing that soft, victorious smile of hers. She knew
something I didn't.
“Yes,” I felt a cold, clammy hand of dread weighing down on my
shoulder.
“And your apartment is 20 minutes from Lady633?”
“Yes,”.... Oh no...
“Can you make it to the basement under the building for 9am? Since you
work in the afternoon, I think three hours a day will do fine, and
still give you time to clean up before work,”
Nené winced in sympathy.
“Yeah, I can do that,”
So that made for four hours of sleep a night.... until Brian J. Mason
decided to stick his nose in. Priss was loving it.... everyone enjoys
the suffering of the newbie, don't they?..... Linna used a private
link to inform me that she had to do the same thing, and to wish me
luck.
I was still running tests on my hardsuit at 11pm that night, when the
other Sabers had long gone home.
Welcome to the Knight Sabers.
At least it gave me time to think about what Priss, and about my
conversations with Linna.
------>>
-----------------------------------------------
Dartz
Part 4: Thunder Rising.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5094598/4/Yours_Truly_2032
Meg gets her hardsuit, but Mason makes his first move. Will she ever
get to use it?