A Killer's Heart Part 2 : Reactivations The story thus far : An escaped 33-S-H class assassin boomer, named Jason McCormick, saved the lives of both Meg and Lou (Two of Sylvie's friends from Genaros), and then got them to Earth. Jason later changed his name to Nicholas Brady, to have an easier time remaining hidden. Several months later, the trio came to MegaTokyo, where they set up Brady and Smith's cyberdroid repair. After a little work by Nick, they manage to get Priss to come to them. Priss later brings in Sylvie for a reactivation, something Nick promises he can do.

In his spare time, Nick works as a mercenary named Guillotine. He lives up to his 33-S-H heritage, taking pleasure in hunting things down and then killing them in a very painful and very thorough manner. Leon is attempting to find out more about this mercenary, while the Knight Sabers already have their suspicions about the connection between Guillotine and Nick Brady.

The last part ended with Sylvie opening her eyes, Nick having just reactivated her, as he'd promised he would.

***

Figuratively, the brain was dead. As though that mattered; it _was_ artificial, after all. So why look at it as 'dead'? Most people would have seen it from the technical perspective : it read zero activity.

After some amount of time, someone tried to fix the damage. For a few heartbeats, a functional brain merged with the nonfunctional one, in an effort to find the fragile life that rested inside.

For several seconds, nothing happened. But then, the hardwired base portion of the brain was stimulated. Several moments later, it began to respond, inexorably reactivating itself. The base programming began to run again, stimulating higher and higher parts of the brain.

SYSTEM SCAN...SYSTEM FUNCTIONAL. COMMENCING RESTART.

PRIMARY INTELLIGENCE ACTIVATION CONFIRMED.

INTERFACE WITH OUTSIDE SYSTEM DETECTED. ACCESS CODES RECEIVED. OPENING INTERFACE NOW.

SCANNING INTERFACE SYSTEM...SCAN COMPLETE. ACTIVATE MERGE FUNCTION. INTERFACE COMPLETE.

NOTICE : SYSTEM UPGRADE FOR J-1 DETECTED. DOWNLOADING NOW. ACTIVATE...UPGRADE SUCCESSFUL.

NOTICE : SYSTEM UPGRADE FOR 33-S PROGRAMMING DETECTED. DOWNLOADING NOW. ACTIVATE...UPGRADE SUCCESSFUL.

RECOMMENCING SYSTEM RESTART.

PRIMARY INTELLIGENCE PUT TO GRADE A PRIORITY CONTROL OF SYSTEM.

The dead brain began to think, once more. That is, if an organic computer can be said to truly 'think.' A stream of barely coherent thoughts began to flow through the brain, like a dream.

^Who am I? I'm dead...no I'm not. Must live, learn, protect my friends...friends? I can't have friends, they just stab you in the back. No, friends are good...but my friends are dead. I saw them die...die, die, kill me, kill me please, stop me Priss...who is Priss? No don't kill me, I must kill, kill, kill everything...no, I don't want to...kill, torture, maim, destroy, draw it out, oh it's so much fun...is this me? Is this how I am?...bed, God how I hated going to bed with that man. But I had to...so many things I had to do...must kill to live...no, must kill because I need to, because I want to...no, I must...^

HIGHER FUNCTIONS ONLINE AT 89% MAXIMUM CAPACITY. DEACTIVATE PRIMARY DORMANCY AND RESTORE FULL CONSCIOUSNESS.

^What's happeni - ^

***

Sylvie was quite disoriented.

The last thing she could remember was looking up into her friend's eyes as she felt her life draining out of her. Had Priss been wearing an armored suit? Well, that had definitely been her behind the shattered remains of the visor.

Then, it had all gone black; but only for a moment.

She felt like she was coming out of a very, _very_ deep sleep. She felt quite rested. It was definitely time to get up.

She opened her eyes.

She almost immediately needed to close them again, as they were greeted by an all-too bright light. No, she most definitely was not dead; this felt too real. It was cold wherever she was, and the light was sterile and unforgiving.

Her eyes half-closed, she looked around. Her body felt stiff, like she'd been lying in one place for an extremely long time. Her muscles felt weak and out of shape. She could feel the hardness of some kind of table underneath her, and could hear the hum of computer equipment somewhere in the background. She could also feel the snug tightness of the biking suit she'd been wearing when...

She looked over to her right.

"Sylvie..."

That voice. It had been the one she remembered hearing. She'd been sure it had been some kind of angel, here to take her to the afterlife - if such a thing was possible for boomers. She hadn't really been able to recognize who it had been, but now she remembered.

"Priss?"

Sure enough, she was greeted by her friend's face.

Sylvie shifted around, forcing her muscles to move, no matter how much they protested. In a moment, the two women were hugging each other exactly like two long-separated friends should.

"I missed you so much..." Priss was whispering.

Sylvie was still trying to sort things out. How had she gotten here so quickly? Had Priss been able to get her to a hospital, somehow, before it was too late?

Sylvie pulled away from her friend, despite the tears forming in her eyes. She wiped them away.

"Wha...what happened, Priss?" she asked, somehow managing to control her voice.

Priss's face took on a consoling look Sylvie hadn't ever seen her take. Wasn't Priss supposed to be "Tough Girl"?

"You were dead," she said, finally.

Sylvie blinked. She pulled off her biking gloves, and looked down at her hands. She held them to her face. She...certainly _felt_ alive.

"You're alive now," Priss continued.

"How..." Sylvie said, still looking into her friend's eyes.

Priss shook her head; she seemed to be short of breath. Sylvie took a closer look at her : it looked as though Priss had been crying for a long time.

"Priss..." she said, taking her friend up in her arms again.

After they separated, Sylvie noticed that she could hear someone breathing not far behind her. She turned around...and stopped. Her eyes went wider than she'd ever thought possible.

Two other women were standing there, looking very surprised as they stared at her. Sylvie would have never guessed she'd ever see either of those women again.

"Lou?" she asked, looking at the one with pale blond hair. "Meg?" she asked the red-brown haired one.

That was about all she got out before both women rushed her, taking her up in a group hug that pushed nearly all the air out of her.

"Sylvie!" Lou said, happier than she'd ever been before in her life. Meg didn't even say that much; her throat had closed up.

After several long moments, Meg and Lou finally let go of Sylvie.

"Are you okay?" Meg asked, looking really nervous.

"Can you remember us?" Lou asked simultaneously, looking equally nervous.

"B...but...but..." Sylvie said, stammering. She tried to absorb it all, which turned out to be a mistake. Her brain, unable to comprehend the paradox of how she, Meg, and Lou could all be alive, gratefully decided to block it out for a while. Her eyes rolled up in her skull and she slumped down to the table, passed out cold.

***

Nick wasn't doing much better than Sylvie was.

He was in the main room of Brady and Smith's offices, just across from the desk Meg usually sat at. He was slumped in one of the uncomfortable chairs, his arms and legs hanging limply. On top of that, he had the migraine to end all migraines.

He felt like someone had stuffed his brain into a blender and hit 'puree'. He couldn't move. He could barely think. Currently, the only thing he had any hope of focusing on was a hate for a certain red-eyed singer in the next room.

Priss had distracted him. She'd asked what he was doing, just as he was opening the interface. Then he'd gotten hasty and merged with Sylvie's brain before locking out his personality. He'd never done _that_ with his old partners. Every 33-S-H knew that only an unrestricted J-2 could reactivate a dead brain. If the personality was still connected to it...

Alongside these worries was the weird sensation he had, that there was more in his brain than there had been when he'd first started reactivating the sexaroid. He couldn't really place it, or tell what it was. As his brain began to work again, he began to realize he was experiencing the mental equivalent of eating several whole turkeys.

He felt like he'd downed half the booze in MegaTokyo. He could barely move. After what felt like a millenium, he was able to get his arms and legs to move, a little. A while later, he could get them to move more. As his body began to respond to his commands, his brain cleared up. He quickly assigned himself the mission of being able to stand up. After that, he'd concentrate on walking. And after that...he'd go check on the patient. He might not have done it right, but it had still felt the same at the end, like there were two living things there, instead of one. That was a good thing. Maybe it had worked.

***

After they'd all stopped panicking, Meg, Lou, and Priss all managed to pull the various electrodes off of Sylvie's body, and then move the woman to the room's chair. After that, they'd been able to get Sylvie to regain consciousness. Now, the revived sexaroid was waking up, with a slight headache.

The first thing she saw was Meg's face. Sylvie drew back quickly, holding her arms up defensively. The other three women kept their distance, noting the shocked, scared look on Sylvie's face.

"Where am I?" Sylvie asked in a rushed voice.

Lou held up both her hands, in a calming gesture. "It's okay, Sylvie, you're - "

"Who are you?" Sylvie asked, cutting her off.

Lou looked stricken. "You mean you don't remember me? I'm - "

"You _look_ like my friend Lou. But you can't be. I _know_ she's dead. So who are _you_?"

Lou sat down on the operating table, with Meg. Priss remained standing, too full of adredaline to sit down. Sylvie was _alive_ again. But...was she the same? Or had Nick screwed up her brain?

"Okay..." Lou began, getting her thoughts together. "First of all, you're in the office of Brady and Smith Cyberdroid Repair. You've just been...well, reactivated."

Sylvie blinked, but gave no sign that she understood.

"You _were_ dead, Sylvie. But we...well, not me, but someone fixed you, and woke you up."

Sylvie nodded slowly, still looking at the other three women very suspiciously. She wanted to believe this was true; it was better than being dead, if anything. She wondered if this was some kind of dream. But everything was in sharp relief, too detailed to be a dream...

"Okay..." she said, trailing off. "Now who are you?"

Lou took a breath to speak, but then paused, her eyes flickering over to Priss. Meg took over.

"Who do you think we are?" she asked.

Sylvie just looked at her for a moment, then slowly lowered one of her arms from its guarding position.

"You look like Priss, Lou, and Meg," she said, pointing to the appropriate person as she spoke each name. "But...but this is so crazy!" she said, throwing up her hands.

"What is?" Meg asked, calmly.

"Well I know _you_ two got gunned down by a Doberman," she said, gesturing to Meg and Lou. "And _I'm_ dead because _you_ shot me!" she finished, pointing to Priss. All three women - most of all Priss - looked stricken by those words, but said nothing.

"What's the last thing you remember from Genaros?" Meg asked after a few tense moments. "I mean, what's the last thing you saw of us?"

Sylvie took a few breaths, looking for a moment like she was going to pass out again as she strained to think. But she kept her consciousness, and answered the question.

"Nam closed the door..." Lou looked away at the mention of this name, while Meg just raised her eyebrows sadly and kept looking. Priss, for her part, watched it all incredulously. It was all slowly coming together in her mind.

"No, wait..." Sylvie said, willing her brain to work. "I looked at the screen just before I launched the shuttle. You two were _dead_! You were both lying on the floor, with a Doberman standing over you!"

"We weren't dead," Meg answered. "Just dazed a little. The Doberman was dead, not us."

Sylvie shook her head disbelievingly. "But it fired. I _heard_ it fire!"

Meg pursed her lips a little as she dredged up the memories she'd tried to forget. "You heard _a_ gun fire, but not the Doberman's. It turns out we had a...guardian angel, I guess. And then he helped us get out."

Priss's eyes widened as she finally figured it out. She turned her head slowly to look at Meg and Lou. Lou looked back shamefully, noticing the look on Priss's face. She nodded a little, confirming the woman's suspicions. Priss's eyes widened even more. She was the only _human_ in the room?

Sylvie was shaking her head again. "I don't believe you! How do you expect me to believe some man came in like a knight in shining armor and saved you from a _Doberman_?"

"I wouldn't call him a knight," Lou said to herself.

"He also repaired you," Meg said to Sylvie. "He's in the next room," she added on after a moment's hesitation.

Lou turned and put one hand on Meg's arm. She whispered something into Meg's ear. Meg listened a little before nodding.

Meanwhile, something clicked in Sylvie's mind, though. Who had saved her? Meg had said "he." She was sure plenty of men would be more than willing to re-activate a sexaroid, for one reason or another. She wondered if she knew this man.

She looked back up at Meg. "What's the name?" she asked.

"What?" Meg asked, not understanding. "What's what name?"

"The...guy you _say_ saved you and fixed me," she said. "Who is he?"

"His name is Nicholas Brady," Priss said, butting in. "He's another sexaroid."

The words didn't quite register for a moment. A few seconds later, Sylvie finally grasped their meaning. She went pale as she took a sharp breath. Her eyes widened and her jaw clenched. Meanwhile, Meg and Lou both glared at Priss, as their minds tried to figure out how to get around this situation.

"I know there aren't supposed to be any male sexaroids," Priss continued. "But he - "

"Oh God...no...please no..." Sylvie mumbled, suddenly oblivious to what Priss was saying. Meg and Lou were both gesturing quite strongly for Priss to shut the hell up.

Priss didn't understand what could be so bad. She took a few steps towards Sylvie and leaned over. "What is it?" she asked, concerned.

Sylvie began to quiver. "No...Largo said he'd keep them away..." she mumbled, staring blankly downwards.

Priss put her hand on Sylvie's arm. "Sylvie, what's wrong?"

Sylvie turned horror-filled eyes towards her friend. "A male...sexaroid. You are _absolutely sure_?"

Priss nodded, biting her lip.

"Oh God. Oh God, oh God..." she said, putting one hand on her forehead. She noticed she was sweating.

"Sylvie, just tell me what's wrong with him. What is it?"

"It's not what you think!" Lou blurted out. "He's changed! He fixed you! He - "

"SHUT UP!" Sylvie shouted, silencing them. "You're dead! You're lying! You _can't_ be Lou! So just shut up!"

Lou and Meg both just stared, too stunned to move.

Sylvie shifted her weight and tried to stand up. She unsteadily got to her feet, but quickly found her balance. Her legs had trouble holding her up, however : Sylvie grit her teeth and curled her lips with the exertion, revealing that she had pointed teeth.

Priss helped hold her up until she got her legs under her. Sylvie seemed to trust _her_, at least.

Sylvie finally leaned away from Priss, confident in her own muscles. Sure enough, she was able to stand.

"Where are you going?" Priss asked, quietly.

"I have to go see him," she responded, staring blankly at the wall, visibly ignoring Meg and Lou. "I need to make sure he's a...male sexaroid. Priss..." she said, turning towards her friend.

"Yes?"

"Have you got a gun?"

"No," she said, shocked. "Why?" Inwardly, Priss swore; she hadn't thought to bring a weapon in her rush to get here.

"Damn..." Sylvie said, under her breath. She grabbed Priss by the shoulders, leaning on the woman for support, as well as to get her attention.

"Listen," Sylvie said. "I'll need your help. I can't do it on my own. Oh, God, not an H..." she said the last bit to herself more than anything else.

Priss nodded, trying to reassure her friend, and not to show her surprise at this new behavior. She couldn't remember if Sylvie had ever cursed before.

They started moving towards the door. Lou snapped out of the shocked stupor she'd gone into, and hopped down off the table, heading for Sylvie and Priss. Meg stopped her, however, by placing one hand on Lou's shoulder. She leaned over and whispered into Lou's ear. The other woman looked worried for a moment as she listened, but then nodded. She turned and started looking through some of the storage cabinets in the operating room. After a moment, she'd located a small hypodermic.

***

Nick had finally managed to get to his feet. He stumbled around a little, trying to find his balance. He managed to cross the meter and a half to Meg's desk, where he sat down heavily. ^Well, just another ten meters to go to get to the operating room,^ he thought, sarcastically.

He fumbled with his sunglasses, finally managing to get them off. He placed them on the desk before leaning back in the chair and rubbing at his eyes. He felt himself slowly waking up.

He'd never been like this before, and he didn't like it. Nick was used to always being in control of the situation, always knowing what was going on in every nook and cranny. Having a J-2 battle computer stuffed into your brain made that easy. But now...it was like everything was on the fritz. He didn't know what was going on, and if something happened, he didn't know if he'd be able to react. He quickly became very paranoid. He began to consider initiating a lockout, letting the computer alone guide his actions...but that would be risky. Not with two - hopefully three - 33-S's in the next room. There was no telling how the J-2 would react if left to its own devices.

It was about then that he heard the operating room door open. What sounded like a hundred footsteps came down the short hallway, into the main room. Nick managed to find the strength and concentration to turn the chair around and look at the new arrivals.

The first thing he saw was Sylvie. Unable to register shock at the moment, he just looked up, at her face. She looked back, and their eyes met.

Sylvie just stared for a moment. Then, all the blood drained from her face as her eyes went wide. She couldn't take her eyes off of Nick's.

Nick's eyes were a special type of boomer optical sensor. Normally, they had a holo-imager engaged. This imager would make Nick's eyes the color of whoever the viewer was in love with, subconsciously or consciously. But for Sylvie, it was different. Although she was organic, she wasn't a human, and so she saw his eyes for what they were : black where the whites should have been, and with a glowing red iris.

Nick was deafened as Sylvie screamed. He put one hand over his left ear while his other hand groped for the sunglasses he'd left on the desk. Finding them quickly, he flipped them open and slid them onto his face. But the damage had been done. Sylvie was backing away, right into Priss. Priss, understandably, was worried, having heard her friend scream.

"Sylvie! What's wrong?"

Sylvie just screamed again, in absolute fear. Nick was sure he'd never get his hearing back.

"Sylvie!" Priss shouted.

Sylvie whipped around, facing her friend.

"RUN!" she shouted. "Get the hell out of here! NOW! It's an _H_, Priss, a frikkin' _H_!"

"Sylvie? You're not making any sense, I - "

Priss was cut off as a pair of arms looped around her and dragged her backwards, down the hallway. Sylvie looked up to see that the arms were attached to Meg.

"What are you doing?" Sylvie shouted as she followed Priss. "Don't you know - "

"Sorry, Sylvie," came Lou's voice from behind her. The woman had no time to react; she felt a prick at her neck, and a slight burning sensation as something was injected. She cried out in frustration, and pulled away. Behind her, Lou stepped back into the operating room, her hand carrying an empty syringe. She was still mumbling, "Sorry."

Priss was trying to break free from Meg's grip, but the other woman had a good hold on her. She watched, helpless, as Sylvie staggered into a wall, pushed away, tried to walk, and finally fell onto the floor, unconscious again.

"What are you _freaks_ doing?" she started yelling. "Let the hell go of - "

"Ms. Asagiri," came Nick's voice, low and intense. Priss immediately stopped yelling, staring at the man that had somehow scared Sylvie so much. He was standing, having somehow found his balance amid the confusion.

"Ms. Asagiri, stop yelling, or I'm...calling the police," he said, holding his head with one hand. "I could use a break, right now."

"What'd you _do_ to her?" Priss asked, fighting to keep her voice steady. She didn't like the way Nick's voice had sounded, as though he was more willing to take matters into his own hands to make her be quiet.

"I dunno," Nick said, glancing detachedly at the prostrate Sylvie. He looked up at Lou. "Got an explanation?" he asked.

"I...sedated her," Lou said, coming out of the operating room. "Enough to last a few hours, I think."

"There's your answer," Nick slurred out, leaning against the wall as his balance wavered. "Let her go," he finished, barely glancing at Meg.

Meg hesitated a moment, then complied. "Sorry," she said. "But I - "

She was cut off as Priss immediately spun around and nailed her in the jaw with a right. Priss hit so hard that Meg spun around 180 degrees before falling to her hands and knees.

"You're _all_ boomers!" Priss shouted out. She turned back down the hallway, fully intending to take on the other two with her fists alone.

She didn't get very far. As soon as she turned around, Nick was there, putting one hand on her neck. He clenched his hand tight, nearly choking her as he lifted her off the floor, one-handed. Priss grabbed onto his arm with both of her hands, fighting for breath and trying to scratch him. But Nick showed no sign of pain, even when his skin broke and a blood started dripping down his arm.

"I told you to stop yelling," Nick said coolly, even though his words kept slurring a little. "Now you've gone and made me angry." He stared into Priss's eyes from behind his sunglasses. "Maybe I won't bother with the police," he added on.

Priss shivered as she felt his grip change. His fingertips were starting to dig into her neck. It became even harder to breathe. He couldn't really...

Suddenly, Nick stopped. His breath caught, and his fingers stopped crushing Priss's windpipe. Without any other warning, he let her go, and she fell to the floor, gasping for breath.

Above her, Nick was vibrating, an invisible war raging in his mind. It had happened again : a flash of mercy, a brief appearance of that 'conscience' he'd somehow developed. One part of him wanted to pick Priss up and tear out her jugular, but - for now, anyway - it was not the dominant part. That honor belonged to the part of him that refused to cause pain for pain's sake. The part that Nick usually wouldn't admit he had.

"Get out," Nick muttered, loud enough so Priss could hear. "And take your 'roid toy with you."

At that, he stumbled into his office, closing and locking the door behind him. He collapsed into his chair, wishing he knew what was wrong with him. Or, at least, that he knew if there _was_ something wrong with him. There was always the suspicion at the back of his head that maybe, just _maybe_, that conscience thing could be right, and his years as a sadistic assassin had been...wrong.

Nick didn't want to deal with it. He didn't want to deal with anything, right now. So, he took his preferred way out : he went to sleep, his consciousness leaving him in a heartbeat as he slumped over onto his desk, already breathing slowly and evenly.

***

Several hours later, Sylvie's eyes cracked open again.

She still felt groggy from whatever they'd shot her with. As such, she just concentrating on breathing for a while. After she'd woken up a little bit more, she took a moment to look around.

There was the sensation of a cushion underneath her...looking to her left, she saw that she was on a couch. Well, that would explain it. There was also a confining sheet of cloth...oh, a blanket. No lights were on where she was, but enough light was coming in through a window to let her see.

The room had a cramped, cheap feeling, even in the poor light. One of the windows was cracked and appeared to be jammed open. The floor looked like it had a carpet, but it was hard to say, because of all the trash lying around. Slowly, her memory came back to her; she knew where she'd seen this place before. It was Priss's trailer.

She sat up, catching the blanket as it fell off of her. She noticed she was still in the biking suit she'd been clothed in at that place, where she'd seen...

Another memory. Sylvie closed her eyes and took a rattling breath. ^Not an H,^ she thought. ^Why? Why'd an _H_ have to come here?^ She knew the answer right away : because she'd broken the rules. She'd run away, in a desperate attempt to be free.

Free...was she free? Well, she was alive. That was a start. As she thought about it, she realized that yes, she _was_ free. At this realization, she leaned back on the couch, eyes closed as she let herself enjoy it, just for a moment. Free. She was free. Free to do whatever she wanted. Free to save Anri...

Anri. Sylvie's eyes popped open again as she remembered the other girl. When she'd last been awake, she'd seen nearly all of her friends, with the exception of Anri and...well, she couldn't really say if Largo was a friend, but he wasn't an enemy. In any case, she had to see Anri. She'd done so much for the girl. And now...where was she?

She got to her feet, taking her time finding her balance. ^No use hurting myself just because I'm in a hurry^, she thought, exercising her usual cool logic. She concentrated on walking, making sure she had the rhythm down again before looking around for Priss.

A snoring sound revealed her friend's position. Sylvie moved slowly in the dark, stepping carefully over the obstacles in her way. After a moment, she was standing at one end of the couch, leaning on the couch for support. As she balanced herself, she looked down at the floor, towards the source of the snoring.

Priss was lying there on the floor, just behind the couch, the junk on the floor forcing her into what had to be a very uncomfortable position. She was clutching a torn blanket around her, shivering every once in a while when she caught a breeze from the open window.

Sylvie found she couldn't wake up her friend with a clean conscience. Priss had made it harder on herself so that someone else could sleep better...the thought made Sylvie smile, for the first time since she'd been reactivated. At least Priss was the same. _She_, at least, didn't trust an H. Who were these Meg and Lou lookalikes, who were that...man's....friends?

She decided even Anri could wait until morning, if it meant this scene could last a little longer. In any case, if what she'd heard had been right, she'd been gone for a while, which meant either Anri was doing fine, or...she didn't want to think about what could have happened to the girl, forced to live on her own.

Sylvie took a moment to push some of the garbage out of the way and straighten Priss into a more comfortable position. She did this as carefully and as quietly as she could, so she wouldn't disturb her friend. Finally, she took the blanket she'd had when she woke up and threw it over Priss. After a moment, the other woman stopped shivering. Smiling again, Sylvie lay back down on the couch, hugging herself for warmth. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. Sleep came quickly.

***

Nick woke up the next morning as sun filtered in through the blinds on his office window. The first thing he noticed was how dark everything seemed. Then, he realized he'd never taken off his sunglasses. Which, of course, explained the darkness. He decided he might as well leave them on, though; he might as well play it safe, while he could.

The next thing he noticed was how terrible he felt. He had never had a hangover before, but he was sure this was the mother of them all. He felt like his limbs weighed a few tons apiece. His eyes felt like someone had poured a beach's worth of sand into them. To say nothing of the nauseous feeling in his stomach. On top of that, every whisper of sound and flicker of light felt like it had been magnified about a million times. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, right then. Maybe it would pass...

It was about then that it hit him what had happened last night. His eyes, almost closed, shot open again. He just stared into space for a moment. The moment passed.

Nick shot to his feet, suddenly full of energy. He'd done it. He'd resurrected a 33-S. He'd lived up to his promises. He'd succeeded!

"YAAAAHOOOOOOOOO!!!!" he shouted out, deafening himself as he forgot how sensitive his ears were in his current state. But he didn't care. All the feelings of crappiness were shoved to the back of his mind by the feeling of success.

The door to his office burst open, and he ran out of it. He threw open the door to the hallway outside, and ran out of Brady and Smith's offices.

"YAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" he shouted out again, running down the hallway. The run soon turned into a set of backflips, which brought him all the way to the other end of the hall. Ignoring the murderous threats from his stomach, Nick turned around and backflipped the other way down the hallway, passing Meg and Lou, who were coming out of the elevator as he went by.

Both women froze, for a moment.

"What was _that_?" Lou asked, turning to Meg. Meg just shrugged, and looked down the hallway, where she'd seen that _thing_ go by.

Nick stood just in front of the office door, springing off the walls and ceiling in glee. Meg's eyes went wide.

"Uh...is that who I think it is?" she asked.

"Let me see," Lou said, looking for herself. "Uh...it...oh, man."

Neither woman believed that Nick Brady could be the man at the end of the hall. And, arguably, he could be someone else; Nick's face had been specifically engineered to have no real defining features. But neither Lou nor Meg knew anyone who wore those mirrored sunglasses inside. Nervous, they both moved down the hallway.

Nick turned as they started to walk down the hallway. With one jump, he cleared the fifteen-meter distance between him and the women, landing on his feet in front of them.

"Hot damn! I kick _so_ much ass!" he declared to the world, grinning like a maniac. Lou and Meg couldn't resist small smiles on their parts, either.

"Uh..." Meg said. "Nick, is that you?"

"Oh, yeah, baby, it's me," he said, baring his pointed teeth for the world to see. "Come on! They might be coming by!"

Without another word, he picked up both women by their waists, slung them over his shoulders, and ran back down the hall. Although surprised, Meg was able to remark that at least the door to the offices was open. Nick looked excited enough to crash _through_ the door, had it been closed.

Nick planted both women firmly down on their feet again, as soon as they were inside. He immediately ran back into his office and threw open his window. Smiling the whole time, he jumped out into space.

Lou gasped as she saw him disappear. They were on the third floor! She ran into his office and looked out the window. There, on the ground, was Nick, his feet having left cracks in the concrete.

"YAAAAAHOOOOOOO!!" he shouted to the early morning city, before dashing off down the street so fast that he was nothing more than a blur.

Lou turned back around, her eyes wide. Well, at least Nick's window opened onto an alley, so odds were no one would have seen that little display.

"I think he's insane," Lou said, a blank expression on her face.

Meg just nodded, a lopsided grin slowly growing on her face. "Kinda fun, actually," she said. "Maybe he'll work it out of his system. I'm gonna go sit down." Without another word, she turned and went to sit behind her desk.

Lou nodded and headed for her office. "Good idea. They _might_ come by, right?" she asked, her voice hopeful.

Meg shrugged. "I don't know. I hope they at least call."

***

Sylvie woke up at the sound of a hushed voice speaking in the background. Even though, for the moment, she felt like sleeping, she found that couldn't keep from listening.

"Okay, Silia..." came the voice. After a moment, Sylvie recognized it as Priss's voice.

"Yeah, she's fine...no, she's sleeping right now...uh huh..." Sylvie smiled a little, though she kept her eyes closed. It was nice to know someone cared about her.

"...Yeah, with one arm. He can't be human...Silia, adrenaline _can't_ make someone that strong...Whatever. I'll come by later, I guess...listen, I'm fine! The bastard let me go before he did anything..."

He. That word started off a chain reaction of associations in Sylvie's mind. Male. Male non-human. Cyberdroid. Sexaroid. Male sexaroid. Only known male sexaroid to exist : 33-S-H. Primary purpose of 33-S-H model line : termination of rogue cyberdroids. I am a rogue cyberdroid. Therefore...

Sylvie sat up quickly as she remembered, a gasp escaping her.

"Oh, she's up. Bye," Priss said. Soon after, the 'click' of a phone hanging up could be heard.

Sylvie was staring at a wall, feeling her newly rebuilt heart thumping rapidly in her chest. She heard Priss come up quietly and stand next to her.

"Good morning..." Priss began hesitantly.

Sylvie turned towards her, teeth clenched in fear. She forced her jaws open, however, letting her speak.

"Priss..." she began, quietly. "Just answer me..._one_ question. Are you friends with that...man?" Panic crept into her voice as she spoke.

Priss put one hand on Sylvie's shoulder. Sylvie took a few breaths, taking comfort in feeling the other woman's presence.

"No, I'm not." Priss said after a moment. Sylvie sagged at hearing this, all the tension flowing out of her. She could trust what Priss said, right?

"Hell, he tried to kill me last night," Priss continued, a touch of anger entering her voice. It was extremely hard for her to remain angry around Sylvie, however. She had that effect on people.

Sylvie brushed off Priss's hand after a moment and leaned back against the couch, closing her eyes. "What happened last night?" she asked in a quiet voice, after taking a few breaths. She heard a rustling a moment later, as Priss dragged up a free chair and sat down, across from Sylvie.

"Well..." Priss began, hesitantly. "First, you woke up - "

"Was I..." Sylvie began, interrupting. Her eyes opened again and she looked at Priss. "Sorry," she said, apologetically. "I shouldn't have interrupted."

"It's okay. What is it?"

"Was I dead?" Sylvie asked, surprising herself by getting the question out without pausing. She swallowed and waited for the answer.

Priss looked at her, her eyes soft, for a moment. Then, she nodded.

"Yes," she said, averting her eyes. "You...died, that night. With the D.D."

Sylvie closed her eyes again, taking a moment to put her hand on her chest, feeling her heart beating steadily.

"Anyway," Priss said, changing the subject, "you woke up, then passed out, then woke up again. You talked with those Meg and Lou girls, about Dobermans, and who's dead and who's not. Sorry, I didn't follow real well. Then you and I tried to leave, and you saw Brady, and - "

"How'd you know his name?" Sylvie asked, looking at her friend again.

Priss stared for a moment. She didn't like this habit Sylvie had somehow picked up, of interrupting her, but, once again, it was pretty hard to stay angry at a sexaroid.

"I know his name because I...hired him. _Not_ for whatever you're thinking of," she said, noticing how Sylvie's eyes went wide. "He runs a boom...uh...cyberdroid repair place. And he said he could fix a boo...he said he could fix you."

"So...Meg and Lou were right?"

"I guess. I don't understand what you three were talking about, but you sure didn't like Brady." She finished this with an inquistive look at Sylvie. The other woman quickly gave in.

"I thought he...was going to hurt me. Priss, don't you know what he _is_?"

Priss cocked her head a little, thinking. She tried to concentrate on what Silia had told her earlier. Silia hadn't known the whole story, but she'd still told Priss everything she'd known.

"He's a boomer," Priss said, finally. "Like...ah, screw it. He's like you."

Sylvie shook her head vigorously. "No, no, no. You're wrong. He's an _H_, Priss. Those _things_ kill people like me every _day_. And, well...I thought he was there for me, I guess."

Priss blinked, taking it all in. "He kills boomers?"

Sylvie didn't notice the slang. "It's his job. He was built for it. Like I was built for..." she trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence.

Priss got up and took Sylvie's hand, squeezing it to show her support. "But he _fixed_ you," she said, kneeling down next to the couch. "And I guess those Meg and Lou people are like you, and _they're_ still alive. I just can't believe he'd do..." she found couldn't finish her _own_ sentence, remembering how Nick had looked truly ready to kill her. And she _had_ seen the work of that Guillotine mercenary...

"Well, look," Priss said, brushing it all to the back of her mind. "He fixed you, and that's good enough for me."

Sylvie smiled again, unable to help herself. "Well..." she said, thinking. "I...I...I want to see him, then," she said, forcing the words out. "And I want to see Meg and Lou. They might be...oh, no," she said, her smile dropping. "What did I say to them?"

"It's okay," Priss said, comfortingly. "You can start patching things together. Come on, I'll take you there now. Are you feeling up to it?"

Sylvie's smile was reincarnated. "Yes, I can go. Thank you, Priss."

"It's...nice to have you back, Sylvie," Priss said, getting up.

Sylvie just nodded and followed Priss out the door.

***

Sylvie and Priss arrived after a ride through the city on Priss's bike. Priss had actually kept the speed down, mostly because her passenger hadn't been wearing a helmet. But they still managed to arrive at around 11:00.

"You ready for this?" Priss asked Sylvie on the way up in the elevator. Sylvie, looking at the floor, replied without glancing at her friend.

"Yes. I want to do it. They're my friends, I think."

Priss looked at Sylvie for a while, before nodding. "You want me to wait outside?" she asked. ^Maybe the boomers want to talk alone,^ she was thinking.

Sylvie shook her head. "No. Please come. I might need the help."

Priss nodded again, then reached behind herself and checked the hard gun she felt strapped there. It was a standard auto-pistol, based on the Desert Eagle .50 from before the Quake. It was something she carried when the bolt gun wouldn't be the right choice. It hadn't been very nice sleeping with this gun strapped to her, but at least it brought some feeling of security.

After the long walk down the hallway, they reached the door Priss had gone through for the first time not so long ago. The offices of Brady and Smith. Through the smoked glass, both women could see a shadowy form moving.

After an awkward pause, Priss reached forwards and grasped the doorknob. It turned in her hand, and she stepped inside, Sylvie not far behind.

The familiar face of Meg, framed by red-brown hair, was behind her desk, staring at a computer. She looked up as soon as the door opened, one hand inconspicously reaching under the desk to touch the anti-boomer shotgun she'd started keeping there. It was a habit of hers to check the weapon whenever the door opened. You could never tell.

Her standard nervousness quickly melted, however. It was replaced by a mix of happiness at seeing who it was, and anxiety about what would happen next.

"Good morning," she managed to get out.

"We came to settle things," Priss said, stepping up to the desk. Meg found her hand creeping back towards the shotgun. Priss saw the move, but said nothing. She glanced back at Sylvie, who gestured for her to move away. Priss did so, as her friend walked up to the desk, her face unreadable.

"Where is he?" she finally asked.

Meg grit her teeth for a moment and looked away. "He stepped out. He was pretty excited about what happened last night."

Priss snorted in the background and reached up to rub her neck, where the red finger marks were still quite visible.

"Not that," Meg said, cringing. "Um, I..."

"Where's Lou?" Sylvie asked.

"I'm here," came a voice. Sylvie looked up to see the new arrival, standing at the door of her personal office, and looking a little surprised.

"Okay," Sylvie said, turning around and taking a few steps back. She glanced back at the other two sexaroids. "I guess it's good that he's not here. I want to start by saying I'm sorry. I...I guess I wasn't myself last night."

There was a hiss of air. It seemed Lou had been holding her breath, waiting to see what Sylvie would say. She seemed relieved, now.

"And..." Sylvie took a moment to swallow. "And, I...wanted to try starting over. Can you tell me...just _why_ you're here, and with an _H_?"

Both of the other women looked away guiltily.

"Well, I guess we should start - " Lou began.

"Hang on," Meg interrupted. "This could take some time. Have a seat," she said, gesturing to the chairs they had around for the people who stopped in from time to time. Both Sylvie and Priss obediently sat down, adjusting their positions to cope with the uncomfortable chairs. Sylvie went back to staring at the other two women, waiting for an explanation.

Lou went back into her office to get her own chair. Meanwhile, Meg glanced over at Priss.

"Uh, Ms. Asagiri..." she began, trying to figure out what she could say. "You, uh...might be bored by this. You can go...uh, outside, or something...if you want."

Priss shook her head. "Don't bother," she said. "I know what you are."

Meg's eyes widened a little, but then she relaxed. She hoped Priss was trustworthy. Sylvie seemed to think so, at least. That was some comfort.

Lou came back, sitting down and leaning forwards, putting her elbows on her knees.

"Well," she began, soberly. "If you remember Genaros..."

They started talking. Taking turns, Meg and Lou told how Nick had killed the Doberman before it killed them, gotten them all off of Genaros, and to America. They told how they'd started the Brady and Smith firm to have some legitimacy, and a source of legal income. They told how they'd recently come to MegaTokyo, after saving enough money for the trip. And they finished by saying what had happened on their end, both last night and this morning. The only thing they'd left out was Nick's mercenary work. He'd made it _quite_ clear what would happen to them if they told anyone he was Guillotine. Both women sometimes woke up and puked, dreaming about what he'd threatened to do.

"I don't know what's gotten into him," Lou was saying. "It's the happiest I've seen him in a while. And, well...he hasn't come back yet."

"And that's about it," Meg finished.

Sylvie closed her eyes and took a breath, running both hands through her hair as she thought it out.

"Alright," she said, finally. "_That_ story's just too weird to be a lie. I guess...I guess you're right," she said, standing up. There was a pause. "I'm sorry," she said, finally.

Lou got up, her face soft. Meg followed suit a few heartbeats later, coming around her desk. Not long after, all three women were caught up in a tight group hug. Priss watched, smiling despite herself.

"Welcome back," Meg said, her voice quavering a little.

Sylvie just nodded, and held her friends tighter. "I thought I was alone..." she said, after a moment.

It was about then that the door flew open, with such force that it slammed into the wall and rebounded a little. Nick strode in like he was the king of the world.

"Oh my _God_," he said, after taking one look at the scene in front of him. "Hold off with the mush, you damn 'roid! I just ate."

Sylvie's eyes went wide, and she spun around, tearing free of her friends. Nick was already moving, brushing past them all and stepping into his office, to drop off the sizeable bag he'd been carrying in one hand. As soon as he disappeared, Sylvie threw a panicked look over to Priss. The other woman nodded and reached behind her back, checking her gun once again.

The smash-tinkle of breaking glass came from Nick's office. The man came back with a lit cigarette in one gloved hand and a bottle of beer in the other. The bottle had been broken about halfway up the neck; opening a beer was one of those things Nick just didn't know how to do.

After taking a dramatic draw on the cigarette, he exhaled a cloud of smoke and looked back at everyone else. Meg and Lou held their ground, having long defeated their innate fear of 33-S-H's. Sylvie, however, was backing off quickly, wanting to get as much distance between herself and Nick as was physically possible. Nick ignored her. Instead, he turned towards Priss.

"How's the neck, Ms. Asagiri?" he asked, offhandedly. "I had a headache last night, and you wouldn't shut up, so I guess I overreacted." Priss became agitated at his condescending tone. She didn't know this was the closest Nick _ever_ came to apologizing.

Nick lifted up his bottle of beer and took a long swig. "Geez, is everyone on silent running today?" he asked, sitting down on the corner of Meg's desk. He glanced over at Sylvie for the first time, noticing the pasty white color she'd turned.

For a moment, Nick looked like he was holding back. Then, his mouth curled up into a smile, which broke open into a full-fledged laugh. He keeled over, laughing hard at the picture of fright he'd seen on Sylvie's face. It had been soooooo long since he'd last seen _anything_ like that! He happened to be the only person in the room who thought it was funny. But he didn't care; he was used to having odd tastes.

After he'd recovered himself, he noticed Priss, Lou, and Meg were all glaring at him, while Sylvie had managed to get some blood back into her face. He took a minute to catch his breath, and shot a look at the three angry women that said, 'what's you're problem?' Everyone except Priss instantly relented. Priss let up a few moments later.

Nick took another long drink, then stuck the cigarette into his mouth again. He sat back and waited, his eyes on Sylvie from behind his sunglasses. He barely acknowledged anyone's existence except his own and Sylvie's.

"We came to see you," Priss finally said, breaking the silence. Nick turned his gaze towards her. "Sylvie had a few regrets," Priss added on.

"Yeah, good point," Nick said. He put his beer down on the desk, and began ticking things off on his fingers. "Let's see...the 'roid exploded at her long-lost friends," he said, biting out the last word with a sneer, "blew out my ears with her damn yelling, and needed to be brought out sedated. So, yeah, I'm guessin' she's got a few regrets. Say, how's about you just top it all off and put a few bullets in me?"

Sylvie grit her teeth. "Stop," she said, steel entering her voice. "I just wanted to...thank you for helping me. Look...I'm sorry I did all that. I wasn't myself."

"Huh," Nick grunted out, before taking another drink of beer. He was a little surprised Sylvie had asked him to stop, but he wasn't going to let that bother him.

"That reminds me," he said, looking at the ceiling in mock thoughtfulness. "Did you...oh, I don't know, have your _brain_ reformatted or somethin'?"

Sylvie's eyes widened. "What?" she asked, surprised.

Nick looked over at Priss. "Ms. Asagiri, why don't you leave for a while? This is gonna get dull."

Priss shook her head. "But I already..."

Nick began to reach for his sunglasses. Sylvie saw the move, and knew what would be behind them, and how Priss would react if she looked into Nick's eyes.

"Priss, please leave," she said, quickly. Priss looked at her, surprised and hurt, and Sylvie threw her back and apologetic and pleading look. Priss hesitated, looked at Nick, whose arm had frozen just as he had grabbed his sunglasses, and finally nodded and left.

"Oh, Ms. Asagiri," Nick threw after her. Priss stopped and looked back. "Many thanks for coming," he said, "but next time, feel free to leave your gun at home."

Priss's resolve faltered for a moment. How had he known? She'd never taken her gun out. And she'd carried it enough times to travel without giving herself away...

She just shook her head and left, leaving Nick alone with the three 33-S's.

"Well," he said, getting to his feet. He began to pace back and forth, as he continued, glancing at Sylvie from time to time. He gestured in the air, as though describing a panorama. "Imagine swimming in a smooth, warm, river, going downstream." Sylvie's brow furrowed at this. Meg and Lou, however, knew that Nick sometimes went off on tangents like this. They also knew that he was always going somewhere with them.

"That's what it feels like interfacing with a 'roid computer," he said, tapping his forehead as he continued to pace. "Now...imagine going off a waterfall. And falling onto rocks. And then getting caught in an avalanche. _That's_ what it felt like interfacing with _you_. Now, the only way that could happen is if your brain was different. Did you..." he said, gesturing as though he were searching for a word, "merge with a superweapon? Maybe something with an internal computer of its own?"

Sylvie looked away, at the floor, as she remembered. She _had_ had her brain reformatted. It was the way the J-1 battle computer worked; it wrote itself to a cyberdroid brain, allowing it to learn and gain combat experience. That cyberdroid brain had been hers.

She wanted to leave, to get out of here. But her feet felt frozen to the floor. This was so unreal...you don't talk with an H, you run from him, and hope he hasn't been assigned to kill you, because otherwise, you're as good as dead.

"Does that matter?" she responded, surprising herself as much as anyone else with the response.

"Well, yeah, I guess," Nick began sarcastically. "Because my own computer interfaced with yours, and then went and upgraded whatever was there already. Just thought I'd give you a warning, before you start getting threat assessments and a set of crosshairs to look at."

Sylvie looked at him incredulously. "What do you mean?" she asked. At the same time, her mind was filled with memories of when the D.D. Battlemover had taken her mind from her. She was suddenly very afraid that Nick was telling the truth.

"Man, you're hopeless. Can't you figure it out? You just got a J-2 battle computer upgrade. Dunno what _that's_ gonna do to you, but -"

"You're lying," Sylvie said, quietly. Nick stopped speaking, however.

"What?" he asked.

"You're lying," Sylvie said, louder. "You expect me to believe _you_? An _H_, of all people? You can just..." she trailed off, her mostly innocent tongue unable to finish the sentence.

"Screw myself. Go to hell. Shove it up my ass," Nick said, offering a few choice endings to the sentence. After that, he started going into other languages. This only made Sylvie angry, something he'd known would happen. The sight made him grin like a predator eyeing its prey.

With a considerable degree of effort, Sylvie turned her gaze away from Nick and onto Meg and Lou.

"I'm glad you're okay," she bit out, her voice cold. "I'll meet you after work." Without another word, she turned and headed for the door. A moment after she'd opened it, Priss was there, obviously brimming with questions.

"Right, well, hope to start working on that other 33-S chick soon," Nick said to Sylvie as she stepped out the door. It had the intended effect : Sylvie stopped dead in her tracks. Then, she slowly turned around.

"What...happened to Anri?" she asked, her voice carrying a hint of desperation.

Priss reached over and grabbed Sylvie's arm, starting to pull the other woman after her. "I'll tell you later," she whispered. "This bastard doesn't need to tell you."

"Well, it seems you got a soft spot for miss green hair," Nick said, gesturing broadly before taking another draw on his cigarette. "Little miss gutted, I might add."

Sylvie paled again as she shook off Priss's grip. "Is...is she...?"

Nick drew one finger across his throat. "Krrrchhh. She's cooled. She's passed on. She's pushin' up daisies. She is STONE DEAD. Need I say more?"

Sylvie stared for a moment. Then, her legs failed her, and she fell to her knees, looking at the floor.

"She must've squealed," Nick continued, looking at his burning cigarette. "Her guts are Jell-O. Hell, Jell-O could give her guts lessons on being solid."

Sylvie wasn't listening. "I'm sorry..." she mumbled. "Anri...I'm so sorry. I wasn't there..."

Priss was there, helping the still-stunned woman to her feet, and down the hall, but not before throwing a burning glare at Nick. Nick glared back, saying without words what Priss's fate would be if she said anything to him.

Priss turned away and helped Sylvie down the hallway. Nick leaned in the doorway to the office, watching them go down the hallway as he smoked his cigarette down to a stub.

Almost before Priss and Sylvie had disappeared, Nick felt a hand grab his shoulder and spin him around. He saw the blow coming, but didn't bother dodging. Meg's slap hit him full-on in the side of the face, the noise sounding down the hall. Nick's head barely moved with the momentum, and he felt no pain at all, mental or physical. He was actually kind of amused.

"_WHAT_ is wrong with you?" Meg asked, nearly screaming. "Sylvie comes back, to try and say _thank you_, and you do nothing but hurt her!"

Nick listened with half an ear. He adjusted his sunglasses, which had been dislodged by the slap, and then held up his cigarette. His arm jerked forwards, burying the cigarette into Meg's forehead, where it hissed out.

Meg cried out in pain, brushing off the burned-out cigarette and putting one hand protectively over the burn. Her anger against Nick was instantly pushed to the back of her mind, as she suddenly remembered what a stupid thing it was to attack a 33-S-H.

"Last I checked," he said, holding his hand as though checking his fingernails, even though he was wearing gloves, "I was built to _like_ doing that stuff. And, by the way..." he jerked his hand, casually backhanding Meg across the face. The force of the blow sent the woman stumbling backwards, until she landed flat on her back, now clutching the already-red mark on her face.

"_That_ is a slap," Nick finished. "Just for future reference. Now, if that is all," he said, bowing ceremoniously, "I have work to do." With that, he stepped into his office and slammed the door behind him, leaving Lou to pick her friend up off the ground and find some painkillers.

***

At the ADP headquarters that night, there was the usual commotion : two or three boomer incidents, along with a few other situations the normal police didn't want to handle. At least tonight looked like they wouldn't need the Knight Sabers' help : there were no combat models on the rampage for right now.

Leon McNichol, for once, was not out on the street, participating in the boomer incidents. Instead, he was in one of the building's many computer centers, leaning on the back of a chair, much to the discomfort of the chair's occupant, a young intern named Paul.

"Okay, back it up a little there..." Leon said, jabbing one finger at the screen. Paul leaned away from Leon's arm and typed a few keys on the keyboard, rewinding the surveillance video they were watching.

"Freeze it," Leon said. Paul complied. There, frozen on the screen, was an image from several weeks past : a man in a black trench coat was passing through the ADP metal detector, a calm, almost smug look on his face. His face was averted from the camera itself; Leon had noticed that this man never looked directly at any surveillance camera, something that made it very hard to capture an image of the man's face. That, coupled with the lack of distinguishing features on the man's face, made it pretty much impossible to figure out who he was.

"Zoom on the readout," Leon commanded, staring at the screen. A moment later, the screen was a blown-up image of the light bar on top of the metal detector. Not one light was lit.

"So he didn't have any metal at all on him..." Leon said to himself. "Nothing to set off that scanner. Huh. Okay, go to that other clip," he said, gesturing loosely in the air.

"Which one?" Paul asked, meekly.

"Camera twelve," Leon said, annoyed. Paul cringed at the tone in Leon's voice, but did as he was told.

The 'hiss' of a door sliding open could be heard. Leon turned around to see Nene walking in, holding a folder to her chest.

"Evening, Nene," he said. "Working late?"

Nene started a little at the voice, then looked at Leon, shocked. "Inspector McNichol?" she asked. "W...what are you doing here?"

Leon grinned a little. "Some _real_ police work, instead of what the chief wants me to do. You got a sec?"

"Uh...sure. What?"

"Come here."

Nene, looking a little nervous, walked up to the computer Leon was standing behind.

"Have a look at this clip," he said to the girl. "OK, Paul, play it."

Paul started the video running. The view was of the ADP's firing range. Nene could just see herself stepping out of her stall, far away from the camera, and taking a few breaths. She shrunk a little, always embarassed to see herself on TV. Or computer screen, or whatever.

Suddenly, the picture dissolved, going to static. Nene blinked a few times, just to make sure she wasn't seeing things. The static remained. She turned to Leon, her face inquisitive. Leon was looking back at her, interested.

"Any ideas what could've happened there?" he asked.

"Well, maybe there's a problem in the - " Paul began.

"I was _talking_ to this young woman here," Leon said, clapping Paul on the shoulder, just a little too hard. The skinny intern was instantly quiet.

"Ummm..." Nene said, thinking. "I guess there was a loose wire."

"A loose wire," Leon said, taking a few steps back away from the computer. Nene nodded.

"Well, turns out you're absolutely right," he said, gesturing grandly with one hand. "Techs came down a few minutes later and found the camera's output feed had been yanked right out," he said, emphasizing his words by making a yanking motion with his hand. "Instant end of video. You know what this means?"

"Uh...no..." Nene said, stepping backwards.

"It means," Leon began, gearing up, "that this guy's giving us a message. Every other camera he walked by saw him. But this last one, the one that had him talking to me, shorts out. He's telling us the _only_ reason he shows up on _any_ of our cameras is because he doesn't care if we see him or not. Hell, he might have _wanted_ us to see him. But he could've unplugged them all. And no one in the station says they saw him get this one, so he obviously knows what he's doing."

"Oh," Nene said, nodding. "Um, good work, is all I can say."

"You know this guy won't set off a magnet scanner?" Leon said, stepping up to Nene. The girl shook her head by reflex.

"Well, he won't. Didn't you tell Guillotine had a boomer's body? That he was some kind of cyborg?"

Nene's brow furrowed. "Guillotine? When was he here?" she asked.

Leon put one hand over his eyes and turned away to collect himself. He turned back to her.

"The guy who did this was Guillotine. He's been positively ID'd by a lot of guys we brought it to have a look. Don't you remember? Guy in the black trench coat?"

"Oh, yeah," Nene said, smiling a little as she remembered the way Leon had acted after coming back from his meeting with that man.

"So explain," Leon said. "If he's a cyborg, why won't he set off a magnet scanner?"

Nene quickly came up with an explanation. "I only told you a rumor, Leon. I didn't have any proof."

"Huh," he said, turning away. "Well, check your sources. They're full of crap. So _now_, I gotta find a non-metal guy, who's as strong as a boomer, and who likes choppin' people's heads off. Don't you envy me?"

Nene just stared, trying to figure out how to throw Leon off the trail. Silia was all but convinced that Brady and Guillotine were the same person. And she was supposed to be protecting Nicholas Brady, at least until Sylvie and Anri were both repaired. But unfortunately, Leon was getting too close. Again.

"You know you don't _have_ to," Nene began.

"Yes, I do," Leon said, emphatically. "This guy's a psycho, and _whatever_ he is, he ain't human. I'm getting him, one way or the other," he said, through clenched teeth.

Nene just nodded and turned away. She knew Leon's real reason for hunting down the mercenary named Guillotine. A while back, Priss had been hurt, during one of Guillotine's strikes. Leon had seemed...strongly affected by this finding. So now, he had a serious grudge.

"Well, uh, I've got to, um, do my work now," Nene said over her shoulder.

Leon nodded and went back to working. Nene sat behind another computer, further away. She knew she had some work to do, both for the ADP and the Knight Sabers. This computer lab was one of the best places to do that sort of work, but she couldn't concentrate anymore. Leon was obviously not going to let up. What was she supposed to do _now_?

***

Silia Stingray breathed in through her cigarette, feeling the smoke fill her lungs before breathing out. She looked out the window next to her, into the dark night of MegaTokyo. Briefly, she wondered what was happening in the city. If the Knight Sabers would be called on tonight. Or, if it would be one of those all-too-rare peaceful nights. Just looking out on the twinkling lights of the buildings, one could almost become convinced that MegaTokyo was a nice place to live.

But, she only allowed herself a moment to think these thoughts. She squinted in the dim light, coming from a few half-dead overhead lamps in the bar she was sitting in. From her position in a booth, she was getting more light from the street lamps outside. She regretted not bringing a small flashlight as she looked back to the sheaf of papers in her hand. She turned to the next page, one dominated by an image of a male humanoid figure. Surrounding the picture were various details : stress analyses, maximum capacities, damage limits, and so on. It was just one of many papers concerning the 33-S-H.

It had been quite difficult to dig up what she had now, but it had been worth it. On these papers were the schematics of one of the most dangerous boomers ever made. Silia fought the urge to shake her head disapprovingly at what she was looking at. Just to think that her father's work had been used to make _this_...

She was also fighting off a feeling of boredom. The papers were written in the usual dry GENOM style. In other words, few people could make any sense of what they meant, and those that could found the documents more effective than sleeping pills. But Silia had dealt with boredom before; these long information sessions were more important to the Knight Sabers than the hardsuits they wore. She couldn't permit herself to get bored, especially not in a place like this. A bar was not the safest place to be at night, and she had to stay alert.

^Let's see...^ she thought. ^How did they configure 55-C muscles to work on a frame this small? It looks like they used the fusion system somehow...^

The sound of the door opening suddenly grabbed her attention. Silia carefully placed the papers down on the booth's grit-covered table, and then casually glanced up. There, at the door, was a man in a grey suit, with a day-old stubble and a tired look about him.

Silia immediately went back to looking at the papers, glancing at her watch as she did so. It was 9:59, just turning over to 10:00 as she watched. She couldn't say much for Fargo, but at least he was always on time. And he could do his job very well.

Silia pretended not to notice as he walked up to the booth and slid into it, across from her. She remained silent, as did he, for several minutes.

"Hey," he said, finally, "are you going to let me sit here and rot, or are you going to at least offer me cigarette?"

Silia's facial reaction didn't change, and neither did her gaze, which remained rooted on the papers in front of her. However, her free hand reached into a pocket of her coat and took out a packet of cigarettes, which she slid over to Fargo. After hearing his lighter's 'clink', Silia finally looked up.

"What have you found?" she asked, immediately.

Fargo looked out the window, breathing out a cloud of smoke before replying.

"Turns out the company _did_ lose a job like the one you mentioned," he said. He didn't say GENOM or 'boomer', knowing it would be much too risky, at least in a public place like this.

Silia thought about it. "Any story on what happened?"

Fargo shrugged. "The guy was going to do his work on one mark, but then decided he wouldn't. They get pretty blurry on that point, because I guess no one really knows what was going on in his head. So the company sends another representative, and our boy nails him, instead."

"Are you sure the second operative was dead?" Silia asked.

"If you count a charred corpse as being dead, then yes. Looks like the second guy was shot several times, then set on fire."

"How...interesting,"

"And then, of course, guy number one vanishes, and is never heard from again. The company can't find him, bounty hunters can't find him. It's like he vanished off the face of the Earth."

"You're not far off," Silia said, under her breath. Priss had told her earlier about how Meg and Lou were from Genaros. If Nick had played a part in their escape, then he had _literally_ vanished off the face of the Earth, at least for a while.

"What was that?" Fargo asked.

"None of your business."

"Fine," Fargo said, keeping his calm. Years of work with Silia had hammered into him that 'no' meant 'no' with this woman, for pretty much every scenario. This realization had made him give up his quest to have her, but then again, that had just been a little side effort, something to take up his free time.

"Anything else about the...man I asked about?" Silia asked.

"Yeah. It says in company records that he's not worth going after. They say that if he wants to vanish, he will, and he'll stay that way."

"Yes, I understand," Silia said. She'd found that out on her own, trying to use a few very expensive observers Fargo had put her in touch with. Brady had somehow known they were there, and been able to avoid going outside until she'd finally given up and fired the observers. She had better uses for her money.

"Any other jobs you can connect us to?" Silia asked.

Fargo gave her a nervous shrug in response. "I'm sorry, but there just isn't much big stuff going down. Well, there's plenty of high-profile jobs, but I know you like to avoid those."

Silia nodded.

"I overheard a cop nosing around a while ago," Fargo said, getting up as he finished his cigarette. "He says he's looking for info on a guy in a black trench coat. That's the same gear as our guy would be wearing, you know. If you want, I can get him to talk to you, and you can compare notes. Double-blind and all. He doesn't have to see you." He stamped his cigarette out on the floor as he waited for Silia's response.

"Is he in the city?" Silia asked.

"Yeah."

Silia instantly knew who this cop was; Leon McNichol. Who else would be searching for a man in a black trench coat? She shook her head.

"No need," she said, going back to the papers she was looking at. "You'll find your payment in the usual place."

Fargo nodded. He let his gaze linger on her just a moment, then turned and left. ^He's learning,^ Silia thought. She continued reading the papers until she had a headache from lack of light. Taking that as her cue, she got up and walked out of the bar.

***

Silia got back to her apartment at around midnight. She felt tired, but her mind was working so quickly that she barely noticed the fatigue.

So...GENOM had had a little bad luck with their perfect assasin boomers, eh? One of them suddenly decided to quit? What would make it do that? Maybe its brain had been damaged in such a way that it would behave erratically. Or had it been paid off? Or maybe gotten a better job working for someone else?

Or had it...had a change of heart? Silia almost wrote off this last option as ridiculous, but then changed her mind. The 33-S-H was a fully sentient boomer...it was possible, in theory, anyway.

She activated the monitor on her computer and opened the file concerning the 33-S-H. Working by the light from the screen, she started analysing the cyberdroid's brain, looking for evidence that its personality could change enough that it would quit its job...

She stopped as she heard someone come into her apartment. She instantly checked the clock on her computer : it read half-past midnight. Silia didn't let herself sigh in relief, but knew that she wanted to. Many people would call her paranoid, getting worked up over an unnanounced arrival, but she knew she was just being cautious. But she had no need to worry. Given the time, she knew exactly who was coming in.

The next thing she saw was a head of long, red hair. It was the only thing that would show up well in the dark apartment. But, Silia's trained eyes could just pick out the outlines of an ADP uniform. And as the visitor turned her head, Silia could see a familiar pair of large, green eyes.

"Good evening, Nene," she said, calmly.

Nene jumped a little, then looked towards the computer. "Oh! Hi, Silia. Did I wake you up?"

"No, I was working."

Silia's eyes picked up a little motion under Nene's arm.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing at the shaking mass.

Nene instantly smiled, the motion lighting up her entire face and even making Silia feel a little bit better. "Have a look at this," the girl said, grabbing at the squirming shape and holding it towards the other woman.

Silia drew back as a little ball of fur jumped out of Nene's arms and into her lap. It sat there, purring contentedly.

"What the..." she said.

"What do you think?" Nene asked, delighted. "I was driving home, and I saw this sale in the window of a pet store, and this guy just looked right at me, and I couldn't say no!"

Both women's gazes shifted towards the couch at the sound of a brief moan. Mackie was there, trying to roll over and not having much success. Nene blushed a little, having forgotten he was there.

"It's..." Silia said, looking down at the kitten in her lap. It looked back with sensitive, intelligent eyes. She had a whole list of adjectives to say, none of which were very nice. She didn't want a cat in her apartment! They were a lot of work, they could be dangerous, they...

"It's cute," Silia found herself saying.

Nene giggled. "You see? You just fall in love with this guy. Here, I'll take him back." She managed to get the kitten out of Silia's lap, despite its protests. Once it was back in her arms, however, it stopped mewling.

"What ch'a workin' on?" Nene asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.

"Just looking at what Dr. Brady is made of," Silia said, going back to what she'd been looking at.

"Oh," Nene said, instantly disinterested. She started pacing nervously back and forth, absentmindedly stroking the animal in her arms. "Sorry about the long shift tonight. I just couldn't work it out of my schedule today."

"I didn't complain."

"Oh, uh...okay..." Nene trailed off. She kept pacing, lips pursed, her eyes flickering between Silia and the floor. It took Silia about a nanosecond to figure out something was bothering the girl.

"What is it, Nene?" she asked, calmly.

Nene shrunk back a little, not really wanting to answer that question. But her honesty prevailed. "Well, uh, it's...Leon's uh...starting to figure it out."

"Figure what out?"

"That...that guy," she said, waving her hand at the computer screen Silia was looking at. The kitten watched the gesture, interested, but was definitely happier when Nene went back to stroking it. "He was looking at some videos tonight, and he's makin' some good guesses," Nene continued. "I dunno if the cyborg story's gonna hold up."

Silia nodded, thinking it out. This new problem, piled on top of all the other ones...fatigue tried to creep into her mind, and not for the first time. She pushed it back, again. She could sleep later.

"All right. Thank you, Nene. I'll see what I can come up with."

Nene nodded a little and then shuffled off into Mackie's room to get some sleep of her own. Silia watched her go. She could easily remember what life had been like before the girl had moved in; efficient, everything in its place - except for Mackie, whom she had to always keep an eye on, since he'd been desperate to see _any_ girl in her underwear, and that included his sister. But now, since Nene had moved in...things were more interesting, to say the least. Silia found she felt better, no longer having that cold, empty feeling inside of her every morning. And seeing the girl with Mackie helped, too; their relationship was progressing at a nice rate, and seeing them get close never failed to make Silia feel better, too.

Silia tried to remember if the girl had the early shift tomorrow; mornings with Nene were always brighter. Unfortunately, her sleep-deprived brain was beginning to fail her; she couldn't remember, right now. Ignoring this problem, she went back looking at the computer screen in front of her.

So, Dr. Brady had a damage bypass system. That meant a simple bullet in the chest probably wouldn't stop him. But a shot to the head would; disabling the boomer's computer was always a death blow. That was useful to know. But what scared her was how highly calibrated the whole boomer was. Lacking armor plating and internal weapons, but still having a boomer's strength, the 33-S-H was undoubtedly very fast. Faster than any boomer they'd ever seen. The only consolation was that Brady and his kind were not flight-capable. But they could probably clear a dozen or so stories with one jump...

So many problems, so little time. ^The story of my life^, Silia thought, as she kept on reading.

Her concentration was broken by a rogue thought that entered her brain. The new problems with Dr. Brady and company. Priss had told her the whole story that morning, about how one boomer had other boomers working for him. That in itself was not new; about a year ago, the Knight Sabers had faced a similar situation, although with combat boomers instead of sexaroids. But the man had accomplices...maybe she could find _them_ and get them to talk. And they _were_ supposedly Sylvie's friends...

Silia got up from the computer and went to get a cup of tea. She'd need the caffeine, at least until she finished working out her current plan.

***

The next morning, Sylvie was sitting on the couch in Priss's trailer, staring blankly at a wall. The TV was whispering and flickering in front of her, but she didn't seem to notice. In fact, she wasn't paying attention to much of anything at the time.

She'd nearly cried herself to sleep that last night. But for once, fate had been merciful. She had lost consciousness almost as soon as her head had hit the couch cushion. She'd _never_ fallen asleep that fast, but she hadn't minded. At least, when she was asleep, she wouldn't be thinking about Anri.

But now that she was awake...

Anri. The girl for which she'd hunted blood to keep alive. The girl she'd given her life to save. And, up until a few days ago, the only other survivor of Genaros that Sylvie had known about. And now, she was gone. Nick had made that very, very clear. ^Anri, I'm sorry...^

But the odd thing was, she wasn't quite as depressed as she'd been yesterday. Thoughts of Anri still dominated her mind, but something else, an emotion Sylvie had rarely ever felt, was also crawling around in there. As she thought about it, Sylvie realized what it was : hot, burning hatred. A desire for revenge. Who had done it? Who had killed Anri? Sylvie wanted to find that person, and...

^And what? Kill him?^ Sylvie shuddered inwardly at the thought. She'd killed people when she'd first come to Earth, but it had been for a good cause. She'd been looking for freedom, and that had been the only way to get it. But, this time, the only reason she wanted to kill was to soothe her own mind. Revenge didn't solve anything; Sylvie, like all other 33-S's, had been programmed to believe that. Wasn't there always another way?

But that didn't change the way she felt. Thoughts flickered through her mind, thoughts she never would have caught herself thinking back on Genaros. She wanted to find who was responsible for Anri's death. Not only would she kill him, she'd make it _slow_. She'd make him _beg_ to die before finally finishing him off. Maybe she should take the time to learn some anatomy, so she would know _exactly_ what to do...

Sylvie slumped forwards, banging her head lightly with the heels of her hands. ^Not enough sleep,^ she thought. ^That's it. I didn't sleep enough, so it's making me funny in the head.^

A soft rustling, along with a brief grunt, signaled that Priss waking up. Sylvie didn't turn around; she kept staring at the wall.

"Morning," Priss mumbled out, as she trudged over to her small kitchen. She dug through her refrigerator, eventually coming up with a soda, which she popped open and started chugging down. Sylvie barely noticed.

"How you doing?" Priss asked.

Sylvie finally looked at the other woman, turning her head for the first time since she'd sat down.

"What?" Sylvie asked.

Priss smiled a little. "Just asking how you were doing," she said, walking across the trailer and sitting in another chair. She glanced at the TV once before starting to search for the remote.

"I'm...fine," Sylvie said, hesitantly, as she handed Priss the remote. The other woman took the little device and started flipping through channels, looking for something good.

"Though," Sylvie began, getting her voice to work again, "I think I should find an apartment of my own, soon. I don't want you to sleep on the floor like that."

Priss nodded. "Well, we can work on that. What ch'you want to do today?"

Sylvie paused, taking a few moments to get her thoughts sorted out. "Can you...send Anri to that...place?" she asked, finally. She found that she couldn't say the name of the firm, Brady and Smith. Even though she'd need that office. ^If they could fix me, they should be able to fix Anri, right?^ she thought, not knowing the answer.

Priss glanced away from the TV, at her friend. After a brief pause, she sighed a little and nodded. "Figured you'd want to do that," she said, finally. She looked back to the TV, but kept talking. "You want to see her?"

Sylvie shook her head. "No. The last memory I have of Anri is her being alive. I...I want to keep it that way."

"K," Priss responded, nodding and smiling again. "Oh, yeah," she said, as she remembered something. "You wanna see your friends from that office today? You came home and went to sleep before they got off, yesterday."

Sylvie thought about that one. She'd run the risk of seeing Brady again, but, if it meant seeing Meg and Lou...

"Sure," she said. "We have some catching up to do."

"I'd guess you do," Priss said, sounding a little miffed at being left out. Sylvie noticed this tone almost immediately.

"I didn't say you couldn't come," Sylvie said, defensively. "Why don't you? It'll be fun."

Priss nodded, relieved. "Thanks, Sylvie."

Sylvie didn't respond. She'd gone back to staring at the wall. Priss noticed this after a while. She got to her feet and grabbed Sylvie by the arm. The other woman immediately broke out of her trance and looked up.

"What is it?" Sylvie asked.

"Come on," Priss said, dragging Sylvie to her feet. "You need to get out. We can look at apartments. Or maybe a motorcycle. _Anything_," she continued, as she pulled Sylvie in the direction of the door. "But you can't sit around sulking. That's what _I_ do, and look at me now."

Sylvie smiled a little and let Priss pull her out the door.

***

The truck pulled up to the curb just as it was beginning to get dark.

Nick was there, showing uncharacteristic patience as he waited for the arrival. He was wearing a worn-out jacket for protection from the night's cold, but otherwise gave no sign that he noticed the dropping temperature, even when a powerful, chilling breeze whipped through his hair.

A large man climbed out of the truck's cab. After reaching inside the truck to get a clipboard, he approached Nick.

"You the Mr..." he checked his clipboard. "Brady we're supposed to be deliverin' to?"

Nick nodded curtly. "That's me."

"Yeah," the man said, normally happy to not have to make conversation. But this time...something about Nick was making him want to get friendly with him. He did his best to shake it off, and continued with his spiel. "One crate, contents marked 'fragile'. About two by three-quarter by one meters?"

Nick nodded again. "Yup. That's the package."

The man shrugged, not knowing or caring what the hell he was transporting. He would have preferred to try becoming friends with the man in front of him rather than do his job right now, but he also knew he had to get his paycheck. He turned around and powered up the mechanical lifter in the back of the truck. The long arm clamped down on the crate, and lifted it up with a hiss of hydraulics. The arm rotated and extended, lowering the package down to the sidewalk, where in landed with a solid-sounding 'thump'.

"K, sign here, buddy," the man said, extending his clipboard and a pen. Nick fumbled with the pen for a moment, before finally remembering his signature and scribbling it out on the bottom of the page.

"Thanks a mil," the man said, turning away. "See ya, pal."

"Whatever," Nick said, as he turned to the crate. He breathed a small sigh of relief when the truck pulled away without further incident. If the man had tried to make conversation...Nick's hair-trigger temper was already rubbed raw from having to wait for the arrival. He didn't know what he'd have done.

Nick stretched his arms for a moment and then grabbed the thick straps that encircled the crate. With a grunt, he started to lift. His muscles strained and his bones creaked with the effort, but after a moment, the crate lifted off the ground. Leaning backwards to keep his balance, Nick staggered over to the outdoor service elevator and muscled the crate inside. He hit the button for the third floor, and then relaxed, leaning against the enormous crate as the elevator carried them up.

When the doors parted, Nick got on one end of the crate and started pushing. After overcoming friction, he started sliding his package down the halls, wrestling it around a few corners before finally stopping in front of the offices of Brady and Smith. After catching his breath, he knocked on the door. The door cracked open and Meg peered out, nodding when she saw Nick. She opened the door the rest of the way.

It was a tight fit, but Nick managed to stuff the crate through the door and into the main room. Meg had closed the door behind him, while Nick cracked his knuckles and placed his hands on the lip of the crate. After making sure he had a good grip, he started pushing up. The top gave a second's worth of resistance, but then the nails holding it down gave up and pulled out of the synthetic wood. Nick grunted as he tore the rest of the top off.

"You have _got_ to learn how to use a crowbar," Meg said as she stepped into Nick's office and grabbed one of the bottles of beer he kept in there. She twisted the cap off and handed him the bottle. Nick took it without looking and chugged down half of the contents before coming up for air. He slammed the bottle down on Meg's desk and then went to look back in the crate.

"I'll learn when I think I need to," Nick said. Inside the crate was a thick, nearly solid packing material. After cramming his fingers into it, he pulled up the thick slab and threw it aside.

In the crate was a feminine form, of slight stature and possessing what most males would call a very sexy body. She also had long hair that was undeniably green in color.

"Ms. Anri, I presume," Nick said in a fake accent. Meg looked away. It had been hard for her, the first time she'd seen Anri's corpse back in a cold storage warehouse. She could at least be in the same room, this time, but she didn't want to look. She felt sorry for Lou, who'd be helping Nick this time around.

After some considerable effort, Nick carefully lifted Anri's body out of the box and carried her to the operating room. He made some cursory effort at straightening out her limbs, before plugging various IV tubes into interface ports on her body. He began the nutrient feed that would stabilize her and keep her body from deteriorating. After that, he reached up and pulled down a massive overhead device, sandwiching Anri between it and the table. By this time, Lou had come out of her office, and both she and Meg had followed Nick in.

"It's all you," he said, gesturing to Meg before leaving, to go finish his beer.

Meg watched him go, then turned to the banks of computers. She absentmindedly rubbed at her face, where he'd hit her just yesterday. It had stopped stinging, after a few shots of painkillers, and the swelling was almost gone. The cigarette burn was also not to be seen. There would be no scar; her skin had been designed with that in mind. And so had Nick's, judging from the number of bullet holes in his coat and the total lack of cooresponding marks on his body.

Although...Nick did have _one_ scar, a long, white vertical streak on the back of his neck. He never talked about it, and growled at anyone who asked questions concerning it. Both Meg and Lou had given up trying to find out anything about it a long time ago.

Meg started typing out commands on the computers. After a few minutes, the machinery over Anri began to hum softly. Soon afterwards, the screens next to Meg were filled with information scrolling by. The data concerned the condition of Anri's body.

Lou pulled up a chair and paid rapt attention to what was being displayed. She'd heard the general story from Nick and Meg when they'd come back from first seeing Sylvie and Anri, but these machines were much more exact. Hopefully, this information would give them all they'd need to know to fix her friend, the last 'survivor' of the Genaros escape.

Meg had fallen into a demi-trance, listening to the machines work. She didn't know what most of the information could mean; Lou and Nick were the surgeons. She made sure it was all downloaded to a portable data unit. Nick could make sense of data when he was reading it off of a computer screen, but if he plugged into a computer instead, well...he did a lot better. And Meg wanted everything to go smoothly for Anri. She was sure Lou and Sylvie would agree with her.

Meg picked up the data unit once the download was complete and then dropped it onto Nick's desk. She checked her watch, and her eyes quickly widened. It was 18:33! She was supposed to have gotten off over an hour ago.

"Come on," she said, grabbing Lou by the arm. The pale-haired woman blinked and looked at her friend, coming out of a trance of her own.

"Huh?" Lou asked.

"Look at the time," Meg said, showing her watch. Lou glanced at it, and her brow furrowed.

"How'd that happen?" Lou asked.

Meg shrugged. "It just does. Come on, I'm tired."

"Same here."

After taking a few moments to make sure Anri was stable, the women left. They noticed the door to Nick's office was already closed and locked. Both women shook their heads a little at this; Nick had made no effort to remind them it was quitting time. Oh, well.

They made it to the elevator and rode it down to the ground level. They stepped into the lobby...and stopped.

Sylvie was there, pacing back and forth. She was wearing more conservative clothes than the bike suit she'd woken up in, apparently having just bought them today. Priss was there, as well, sprawled in one of the lobby's chairs, with her eyes closed.

"Hello..." Lou said, hesitantly.

Sylvie immediately looked up. "Oh, hi guys. What took you?"

Meg nervously checked her watch again. "Were you waiting for us?" she asked.

Sylvie nodded. "Sorry I didn't meet you after work yesterday, like I said. I wasn't in good shape for it."

"That's fine," Lou said, walking up to Sylvie and patting her on the arm. "I'm sorry we kept you waiting."

By this time, Priss had woken up. "Oh, hi," she said. "Are you guys leaving?"

All three women nodded. "Come on," Sylvie said to the room. "Do you have some free time?"

Meg and Lou nodded, smiling a little.

"Great," Sylvie said, smiling back. "I know a place we can go for a while."

Priss stood up as the other three all walked out the door. As she followed, she absentmindedly checked the microphone attached to the inside of her jacket. Silia had approved of her going with Sylvie to spend time with the other two 33-S's, but she'd also insisted that Priss wear a wire. Priss hadn't put up much of an argument; she didn't trust Nick Brady at _all_, and if she could get these women to talk about him...all the better.

She followed the other three out, where Meg and Lou were waiting in their car. Priss hopped onto her bike, which was parked on the curb, and strapped on her helmet. Sylvie did likewise, getting on the motorcycle they'd rented for her today. A moment later, the car and bikes were both flying off down the street.

After they'd turned the corner, the street was empty and silent, for several moments. This was not a particularly busy area of MegaTokyo. But after a minute, a figure stepped out of the shadows cast by the office building's steps. As he came into the light, it became obvious that it was Nick. He pulled out his phone and thumbed a few keys. The display instantly shifted over to a mini-map, which showed a tiny glowing dot progressing down the streets.

Nick congratulated himself on having thought to put a tracer on their car. A while ago, he'd personally proven that trusting someone usually meant getting betrayed later. And he'd never trusted Meg and Lou, anyway. But he pushed these thoughts to the back of his head.

Looking around to make sure no one was watching, he flexed his legs and jumped to the top of the office building. He immediately started jumping from roof to roof, clearing even the longest gaps easily. He headed towards where the glowing dot was marked on his phone's map.

***

Sylvie led the way into a small, 24-hour diner. Her three companions followed closely behind. The place was nearly full, given the hour, but, as it turned out, Meg and Lou had mastered the art of getting people to get up from a table.

"Thanks, honey," Meg was purring out to the dumbstruck man who was standing up from his table. The man just nodded, stuffing his nearly-uneaten sandwich into a pocket. He was unable to take his eyes off the woman in front of him. Meg then turned her back on him, causing him to slowly lose interest and leave the diner, wondering who that sexy girl had been.

After getting something to eat, the four women started talking. Hesitantly at first, then more easily, all of them having memories they wished they didn't. Ignoring the other patrons of the slowly emptying diner, they filled each other in on what had been happening in their lives in the time they'd been separated. Meg and Lou went first, filling in a few of the details they'd missed the first time they'd told Sylvie what happened. After a little hesitation, they also told Sylvie about Nam's death. There was absolutely nothing Nick could do for Nam; her entire body had been destroyed by the shuttle's takeoff. Sylvie did not take the news too well; she _had_ been the one to hit the launch button. But having three friends with her helped, a lot. Together, they managed to convince Sylvie that nothing else could have been done. In any case, Nam hadn't felt it; her body had already failed by the time the shuttle had taken off.

Sylvie came next. She took a nervous glance around, noticing the wall clock read 19:24. There were definitely less people around, and those that were there were far enough away from their table to not be affected by the sexaroids. Somewhat reassured, she started her own story. She told how she'd dragged Anri into the D.D. Battlemover and gotten away, soon after the shuttle crash that had marked her arrival on Earth. She told how Anri had been bleeding from the shot she'd taken on Genaros, and how Sylvie hadn't been able to stop the bleeding. She'd had to go out on a nightly basis, using the D.D. to hunt down unsuspecting humans and take their blood. And the D.D. had invaded her mind...the J-1 battle computer had written itself to her brain, as it was programmed to do. Sylvie surprised even herself by how easily she was able to say all this; it was far in the past, now, and nothing could be done about it. She still felt very guilty, and knew that any good citizen would turn her in to the ADP if they heard this, but she also knew that it had to be said.

Sylvie glossed over the part where she was killed; it was a touchy subject for all four of them. She also didn't want to give away Priss's identity as a Knight Saber; she respected her friend's privacy. Priss didn't say anything, but seemed grateful that Sylvie had left that part out.

Once Sylvie was done, every eye at the table turned towards Priss. Priss shrunk a little under the three stares. It was difficult keeping her thoughts clear, being with _three_ sexaroids at the same table. She knew which gender she preferred, but the women in front of her were beginning to get into her head. Meeting their gazes was no help whatsoever. In fact, their eyes seemed to make the feeling in her stomach even worse.

"Uh..." Priss began. "Everything's fine for me. Just doing my job, and all."

Sylvie could see how Priss was squirming under the effects of her company. Smiling a little, she got up, saying she had to wash up.

Priss watched her friend go, then turned to the other two women. The sentiments inside of her were definitely reduced, with one of the 33-S's gone. Priss didn't like thinking of Sylvie as a boomer, preferring to see her as just another person. But, it was hard to ignore it when she brought in two of her friends. Priss suddenly found herself thinking of Leon. Where had _that_ come from?

^But he's so handsome...^ said a voice in the back of her head. ^And so brave. He'll die to protect you. How long have you waited to meet someone like that?^

Priss shook her head vigorously, trying to clear it. She had work to do, now that Sylvie was gone. She looked at Meg and Lou.

"So," she said. "What's it like living with a..." - she tried to remember the term Sylvie had used - "With an H?"

Both women's eyes widened. Lou drew back a little.

"Yes, I know," Priss said. "Sylvie told me." Her own eyes narrowed as she looked at a spot between the two women. She didn't want to risk looking into their eyes, not after what she'd seen Nick do to Mackie and Leon.

"Uh..." Lou said, not wanting to start this conversation.

Meg looked nervously at Priss. "It's dangerous to talk about him," she said. "It's like he knows what's going on, _all_ the time. You could mention his name when you're across the city from him, and it's still like he hears you."

"So?" Priss asked. "You afraid of him?"

Both women nodded. "You haven't seen what he'll do," Lou said.

Priss _just_ managed to keep herself from saying 'Oh, yes I have.' Doing so would have aroused a lot of questions about just how she'd seen a 33-S-H in action.

"I know he kills things for a living," Priss said.

Lou clenched her teeth, while Meg put on a sad smile. "_Kills?_" Meg began, in a low voice. "No. That's too polite. Nick, and every other H, likes hurting people. He's very inventive. He _tortures_ people to death. He makes them _want_ to die, and he still won't finish them off, because if he killed them, he couldn't have any more fun. He only kills you when he's good and ready."

"And that's just with the people he's ordered to kill," Lou began, cutting in. "You better pray you don't get him angry..."

Priss just kept listening, unable to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. The wire she was wearing recorded it all.

***

Sylvie walked into the corner of the diner, searching for the bathroom. As she walked by the tables that were still occupied, she could feel people looking up from their food, suddenly attracted to her for no apparent reason. Well, she _did_ have a body most people would kill to have, but still...

^Am I really free?^ she thought, as she found the bathroom and walked in. ^Am I free if I'm still a sexaroid?^

Thinking about this, she walked up to one of the sinks and twisted the cold water handle before cupping her hands under the faucet. She looked in the mirror, noticing the smudges of dirt on her cheeks. After they'd rented a motorcycle, she'd gone riding with Priss, and some of the street dust hadn't rubbed off yet.

She leaned down and splashed her face with water, rubbing at the dirt she'd seen. Then she stood up and looked back in the mirror.

Nick was there.

She saw him in the mirror, standing behind her. He hadn't been there when she'd first looked, and she'd been fairly sure the bathroom had been empty when she'd come in. It was as though he'd just appeared out of thin air.

Sylvie jumped a little as she saw him, and then whipped around to face him. He was here to kill her, she was sure. H's lived to kill. Even though Nick was wearing street clothes, Sylvie could not have been more afraid if he'd been wearing his trench coat and aiming a gun at her head.

She tried to back away, but the edge of the sink dug into her back, blocking her progress. Nick watched calmly, wearing his normal smirk. Sylvie froze in place, staring at him. After a short pause, Nick pulled out his pack of cigarettes, pulled one out with his lips, and then stuck it behind his ear, saving it for later.

"Still uptight?" he asked. "You better get used to me, 'cause I'm stayin' around for a while."

"Whatdoyouwant?" Sylvie asked, fright making her speak quickly.

Nick was still fully able to understand her. "Just thought I'd have a friendly talk with you. Did you..." he glanced at the door, as though hearing something, then looked back to her. "Did you tell her? Ms. Asagiri? About me?"

Sylvie felt her heart drop into her stomach. H's would kill you if you so much as bumped into them, if they were in the mood. Getting one angry was like signing your own death sentence. But Sylvie also found that she couldn't work out a lie to tell this man. It was how she was : she usually stuck to the truth. If the truth wasn't the best thing, she'd try to dodge the subject. But she didn't want to even try that with a 33-S-H. She just nodded, sullenly.

Nick kept smirking. "I guess she would've guessed," he said, staring at the wall. Sylvie, amazed that he hadn't already torn her heart out, just watched him.

"It was a real bitch bringing you back," he continued. "But I knew I had to. You know why?"

Sylvie managed to shake her head.

"Don't say much, do you? Oh, well. You know I did some time on Genaros? Don't bother answering, I'm sure you don't. Turns out your old boss..." - he glanced at her - "was suspicious of you," he said.

"All five of you," he continued, pacing a little. "He wanted someone watching you, ready to stop you if you tried makin' a break for it. So he rented out a 33-S-H from his buddies at GENOM. And he got me." He looked at Sylvie, who had relaxed a little, having seen that he wasn't here to kill her. If that had been his purpose for coming, he'd have already started.

"So I had to watch you guys," he continued. "Most boring job of my life. I didn't get to kill _anything_. Thought I was gonna go nuts. But then, I was watching you one day. You five were talking, the way all you 'roids do." He glanced over at Sylvie, who didn't dare react, for fear of getting him angry. Nick shook his head, as though disappointed, and continued. "And _you_," he said, pointing at Sylvie, "_You_ were going on and on and _on_ about how 'freedom' is so great, and how you 'roids were gonna take it any way you could." His voice had become very sarcastic by this point.

Sylvie could remember that day. It had been after Largo had contacted them, but before they'd started making their escape plans.

"And _then_ you said you'd die for freedom," Nick said, finishing his story. He glared at Sylvie from behind his sunglasses. "Now, I asked this to myself back then, and I still don't know the answer. Maybe you can help me on this one...how in hell does _dying_ make you free?"

Sylvie tried her best to meet the stare. Nick looked back, waiting for an answer. Sylvie tried several times, eventually finding enough breath to talk.

"You brought me back to ask me a question?"

"Maybe," Nick said, enigmatically. "Or maybe not. Can you answer it?"

"I'd rather be dead than be a slave," she said, keeping her voice even despite her fear. "And if I had to die so my friends could be free," she said, stressing the word 'friends', "I'd do it, without hesitation."

"Ho boy," Nick said, rolling his eyes. "I tell you somethin', death _sucks_. Trust me on this one. I've _been_ killed four times. Each time, some 33-S-H who owed me a favor went and fixed me up, same as I did to you. If _I_ had to pick between my old job and gettin' killed, I'd take the job, any day."

Sylvie was looking at the floor, eyes closed. Nick kept going.

"You tellin' me you'd rather die then screw people for a living? Shit, where's your head? You're supposed to _like_ that stuff, same as I like my job."

"Shut up," Sylvie said, suddenly finding a store of courage inside of her.

Nick stopped talking and looked at her, incredulously. "_What_ did you just say?" he asked, threateningly. His right hand clenched into a fist.

Sylvie was not as scared as she had been before. She stood up and looked straight at him, her gaze boring through his sunglasses and into his eyes. "Just shut up," she said. "I'm not _like_ you. _You_ are really screwed up in the head, if you think you can be like this all the time." She found that she couldn't stop talking, even though at the back of her head was a growing fear, telling her that if she didn't stop soon, she was going to be torn into many small pieces.

"You think you've retired?" she continued. She kept her voice even, not wanting to lose her calm. "You haven't retired at all. You just work for yourself, instead of _them_," she said, not wanting to pronounce the word GENOM. "And you won't be free until you stop being like this and straighten yourself out."

"Who are _you_ to ask me to do that?" Nick said, his voice carrying a very strong note of anger. "You're no different than me, you know," he said a moment later, calming down _very_ quickly.

"What?" Sylvie asked.

"You can feel it, can't you?" Nick asked, sounding as though he already knew the answer, which he did. "An itch you can't quite place, but you know it's there. There's something you need to do, and you know what it is. It's been a few days," he said, checking his watch. "Little bit longer, and you'll be ready to screw anyone who's even the slightest bit willing. You were built to do it, same as I was built to kill. We're actually the same."

"You're wrong," Sylvie said. "I'm not like you." It sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as she was Nick.

"Yeah, right. You just forget about tellin' me what to do. You're just some screwed-over 'roid who thinks dying solves everything. You're a target to me, and everyone else like me. You - "

"You're right," Sylvie said, cutting him off. She nodded, reaffirming her statement, before continuing. "Yes, that's what I am. But I'm still better than _you_." With that, she turned on her heel and walked out.

Nick watched the door close. He hadn't moved from where he was standing the whole time Sylvie had been talking. His eyes narrowed for a moment in anger, but then his face broke into a genuine smile. He laughed a little, as he stepped over to the window he'd crawled through to get in.

"Now _there's_ the Sylvie I remember," he said to himself. He turned towards the window to leave, but then froze. He stood stock-still, as though surprised, but only for a moment. Then his face contorted into a grimace. His mouth opened to cry out, but no sound escaped. Nick reached behind his neck with both hands as he fell to his knees. His fingers touched the long white scar on the back of his neck, which was paralysing him with inexplicable pain. It was too much; he felt like he was going to puke. Or pass out. He'd only felt pain _once_ before, from the injury that had given him that scar. He didn't know how to handle the sensation.

Slowly, the pain receded, going from agony to burning to a slight twinge over the course of several minutes. A little bit later, even the twinge was gone. As he sat there, waiting before he could safely move, Nick faintly heard voices on the other side of the wall. One of them, which he guessed was Sylvie's was shouting. She sounded panic-stricken, but he wasn't sure. It was hard to concentrate in his current state.

Nick got back to his feet, still a little shaky. "What the hell?" he asked himself. He didn't understand what had just happened, or why. The person who had given him that scar had said there would be no aftereffects, and that he was free, now. But now, Nick felt a deep sense of foreboding in the pit of his stomach. He was familiar with that sensation; he'd felt it four times before. Only it felt much worse, now. Like something irrevocable was going to happen.

But he didn't have time to ponder this. His sensitive ears detected footsteps outside the door. He turned and headed for the window as the door opened.

***

"Does Brady have a side job?" Priss asked, suspiciously.

Meg glanced at Lou, who looked back, obviously on edge. Priss kept staring, hoping to drive it out of them.

"Uh...we don't know. He uh...he sometime goes...away..." Meg tried to start.

Priss's eyes narrowed. "Can the crap," she said. "You're both crummy liars."

Lou broke first. "He's that mercenary, Guillotine," she said, the last word coming out as a whisper. "He does it because he has to. He needs to kill as much as we need to...uh...as much as _you_ need to breathe, or eat. If he doesn't, he'll go out of his mind."

"Sounds like a drug addiction," Priss said, exercising her limited ability of interpolation. She was used to Silia just telling her everything, but that didn't mean she couldn't make guesses from time to time.

Meg looked at the table. "I guess it is," she said, not looking at Priss. "Only there's no way to get him off of it. He's built to be addicted to it. And he..." she stopped, looking over at the corner where Sylvie had vanished. A man was standing there, looking into the small hallway that led to the rest rooms. It looked like he was talking to someone.

"Sylvie's been gone a while," she said, getting up. "I'm going to check on her."

"You do that," Priss said, watching the red-brown haired woman walk off. She turned back towards Lou.

"So, is it a drug?" she asked, trying to be relentless but at the same time still affected by the calming air around sexaroids.

"Well, I -"

"GET OFF OF ME!" came a familiar voice, shouting. This was followed soon after by a loud slap.

"Sylvie?" Priss called out to the corner. She got up so quickly that her chair fell to the ground. She jogged over to the corner, stopping next to Meg, who had already arrived, and was looking down the hallway.

The man Meg had spotted was getting up quickly, a red hand print on his cheek. He looked like he was about to get violent, but then he noticed that he had an audience. Still stewing, he turned and walked off, quickly exiting the diner.

Sylvie was curled up on the floor, hugging her knees and leaning against the wall just outside the bathroom door. Priss was there as soon as the man was out of the way.

"What happened?" she asked, worried as she knelt down next to her friend.

Sylvie's arm shot out and pushed Priss away, the action looking almost like a very big muscle spasm. The hit was still strong enough to push Priss back almost a meter, and force her to fight for balance.

"Go away," Sylvie said, in a small voice. Priss noticed the woman was quivering.

Meg gave it a try. She walked up to Sylvie, but stayed out of range. "Sylvie..." she began, her voice soothing, "It's me, Meg. What happened?"

Sylvie's head jerked up and she looked at Meg. It took her several seconds to recognize the woman in front of her. Once she did, however, she went back into her curled-up position.

"He...he...he..." she tried to begin.

"What did he do?" Meg asked, slowly coming down next to Sylvie. Priss got up and watched, instantly jealous of Meg for being able to talk to Sylvie.

"Obviously enough for you to slap him," Meg said, trying to laugh.

Sylvie shook her head, but didn't look up. "N-no...he was just t-trying to h-h-help me get up, and I h-hit him."

"So what's wrong?"

"He...he...h-he was in th-there..." she said, gesturing vaguely at the bathroom door. Priss turned and walked up to the door. She opened it and stepped inside. She did a quick check of everything, even looking at the ceiling to make sure. The window was closed, so that was a no-go...and the ventilation cover was too small for a person to fit through.

The room was empty.

She stepped back outside and looked at Meg, throwing her a look that conveyed what she'd seen.

"There's no one in there, Sylvie," Meg said, keeping the comforting tone in her voice. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Sylvie finally looked up. "No, n-not y-_you_," she said. "Y-you're f-fr-friends with th-th-that _thing_."

"What?"

Sylvie got up and started backing away from Meg. It didn't take her long to notice Priss there.

"Priss!" she said, nearly out of breath. She grabbed onto Priss desperately, pulling her into a tight embrace. Priss felt her lungs compress under the stress, but said nothing.

"I'm not like him...I'm not like him...I'm not like him..." Sylvie kept mumbling.

"What's wrong?" Priss managed to croak out. Sylvie heard the strained tone and instantly let up on the pressure.

"Oh!" she said. "I'm sorry, Priss, I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't like that sort of thing, I..."

"It's okay, Sylvie," Priss said, patting her friend on the arm. "C'mon, I think you need to go to bed."

"Yes. No. No! I don't need to go to bed! I just need to sleep. I need to rest. I don't need to...I don't need to screw anyone who's even the slightest bit willing," she said, sounding as though she was quoting something. "They made me for it, but I won't do it, I..."

"Just be quiet," Priss said, trying to sound comforting. She gently grabbed Sylvie's upper arm and started walking out. Sylvie stiffened at the contact, and shook off Priss's hand as though it were blazing hot. However, she followed Priss obediently. Meg followed far behind, gesturing for Lou to get out of their way. The other woman complied. Priss and Sylvie manged to make it out the door with some measure of dignity, despite the occasional stare from other people there.

Meg watched them go, and then listened to the two bikes start up and drive off.

"What was _that_ about?" Lou asked a still-dumbfounded Meg.

Meg shook her head, thinking about it. Finally, it hit her.

"Nick," she said. Lou looked at her quizzically. "Nick must've been here," Meg continued. "He did something to her. I don't know what, but he did something, or said something to make her like this."

Lou paled. "Do you think he knows what we told Priss?"

Meg looked like she was about to answer, but her mouth just stayed open. Her eyes were focused on something beyond Lou, who's back was to the door. Lou cringed, suddenly knowing exactly what her friend was looking at. She turned around to see Nick walking in the door, flicking his still-burning cigarette onto the floor and leaving it there without stamping it out.

"You could ask him," Meg said, quietly.

Nick went up to the counter, ostentatiously not noticing Meg and Lou. He got a small coffee, paid for it, and then sat down at a table adjacent to Meg and Lou's. He pulled a newspaper out from under his arm and unfolded it, making a big show of looking at _it_ instead of the two women who were the real focus of his attention.

Meg and Lou didn't last long. They took what was left on their plates, crammed it into their mouths, and walked out. After their car had pulled away, Nick downed the rest of his coffee in one shot, threw the paper onto the table, and left, walking towards the apartment he knew the women would be headed for. He knew what they'd said; they'd given away his secret, despite his graphic warning not to. Maybe he'd give them the night to think about what was going to happen to them. As for tomorrow...

As he walked out, he absentmindedly felt the back of his neck, still wondering what was going on inside of him. Maybe he'd check it out later, if it kept bothering him.

***

Back at Silia Stingray's apartment the next night, a girl, in her late teens and with red hair, was typing madly on a computer. On the couch, a boy, about the same age, but with black hair, was working on a laptop computer with the same ferverence. Both of them were completely absorbed in their work. The boy's computer was playing the recording they'd collected off of Priss's listening wire. A small, moving ball of fur darted around the room, looking for affection from either of them.

"Yeah," came the voice Priss had identified as Lou's. "Nick's not a very good student. He's got the shallowest learning curve you've ever seen. It took him a week just to learn how to work a shower."

"Rewind that for me, Mackie," the red-haired girl said.

Mackie, they boy, complied. Lou's voice repeated what she had just said. Meanwhile, the kitten sat down at his feet and looked up at him with its huge eyes. Mackie reached down and picked up the animal, stroking it lightly.

"Let's see..." the girl said, her eyes going over the humanoid form on her computer screen. "Let's have a look at the central nervous system." As she spoke, her fingers tapped on the keyboard, zooming the picture in on the humanoid form's head. The outer shell of the figure disappeared, and the view zoomed in again, on its now-exposed brain. The brain rotated in space, as the girl looked it over.

"Yeah..." she said. "Looks like the learning center's been trimmed, or something. It's really restricted."

"What about interfacing?" Mackie asked, glancing up at the girl. "They said something earlier about how he can learn anything by interfacing with stuff. Can you check that out, Nene?"

"We can look," Nene said, as she kept typing. The brain's view rotated again, until the back portion was easily visible. Nene zoomed in even further, looking into the brain's interior.

"Yeah," she said after a while. "The interfacing portion's really oversized. He can suck in the entire collected works of Shakespeare, and still have plenty of room for seconds."

"Who's Shakespeare?"

Nene looked at him, mock annoyance on her face. "Oh, come on," she said, with a haughty air. "He was standard reading at the American school I went to."

Mackie went back to looking at his computer, smiling just a little. "Well, I went to school _here_, and I've never heard of him."

Nene went back to working. "What'd she say before? About that long-range whatever?"

Mackie scanned through the audio recording, playing it several times before he finally found the part Nene had meant.

"We asked him about it, earlier," came Meg's voice. "We'd heard the H's can get locked out and taken over by GENOM even when they're on the other side of the world. But Nick hasn't had that problem. I guess he removed whatever lets them do that."

"Let's see what she's talking about," Nene said, cracking her knuckles dramatically before going back to typing. Mackie, tired of listening to the tape over and over, put down his laptop and checked his watch.

"When did sis say she'd be back?" he asked, while getting the cricks out of his neck.

"Dunno," Nene said. "She said she was going to _Doctor_ Raven's," she said, stressing 'Doctor' because Mackie always referred to him by that title. "I think they're upgrading the suits again."

"Cool," Mackie said. The 'u' word always got him worked up. Technical things turned him on, and now he had a new reason to like upgrades; they usually meant Nene would be better protected. He didn't like the thought of his girlfriend going out to fight deadly battle machines every few nights, but he didn't complain. Instead, he did everything he could to keep her safe. If there was an upgrade going on, he would have usually been over at Raven's garage, helping to work on the suits. But Silia had asked him to stay here, to help Nene go through the tape Priss had recorded.

"That means she'll probably be there 'til early morning," he said, getting up. He paused after this, while Nene blushed, both of them thinking some rather...interesting thoughts. They were going to be alone, in this apartment, for most of the night? The kitten seemed top pick up on these vibes, and suddenly leapt off of Mackie's lap, going back to exploring the room.

"So what ch'a got?" Mackie asked, leaning on the back of Nene's chair. The girl loked up at him, meeting his gaze for a moment before looking back at the screen.

"Looks like it's this thing, here," Nene said, as a picture appeared.

"That's his spine."

"No, no," Nene said, hitting Mackie playfully on the arm. "_This_." She typed a few commands, and the screen zoomed in on the top of the spinal column, right where it would meet the skull. There, embedded in it, was a misshapen piece of white plastic. Nene took a moment to remove the spine from the screen, leaving only the component she was talking about.

"It's kind of a last-ditch defense," Nene said. "They can use this thing to take control, no matter where he is."

"Yeah, they said that."

"I was _getting_ to that," Nene said, smiling as she hit Mackie again. "I guess you could remove it, but the boomer wouldn't get very far. Look," she said, as she made the brain reappear. The upper portion of the plastic chunk went right into the brain.

"It's plugged into a lot of vital functions," Nene said. "Without it, the boomer would keel over dead. And I mean _really_ dead. Its brain is programmed to erase itself if the part is ever removed."

"Kind of an interesting way to kill yourself."

"Mackie!" Nene said, annoyed.

"What?"

"That's just mean," Nene said, pouting. "I don't like hearing about people killing themselves, and you know it."

"Sorry," Mackie said, the apology very genuine in his voice. He put his hands on Nene's shoulders, feeling the warmth of her body as he looked back at the screen. His hands began massaging Nene's shoulders, taking the knots out of her muscles.

"Ohhhh..." Nene said, closing her eyes. "That's nice. Where'd you learn how to do that, Mackie?"

"Huh?" the boy said, snapping out of a trance. Nene giggled a little, seeing him like this. She knew that she was no better, when it came to computers.

"Nothing," she said. "Did you see anything?"

"Actually, yeah," he said, stopping the massage for a moment, much to Nene's disappointment. "Now that I can see it," he said, "it looks like you actually _could_ remove it, without killing the boomer. Look at this," he said, removing one of his hands from Nene and pointing at the screen. Nene reached up and held Mackie's other hand to her shoulder. She looked where he was pointing.

"I don't get it," she said after a while. "If you remove it, all this'll fail. What do you mean?"

"Well, look here," Mackie said, leaning down so far his chin rested on Nene's shoulder. With his free hand - Nene wasn't letting go of his other one - he keyed in a few commands. The display zoomed again, into the connections between the long-distance controller and the brain. As he typed, some of the connections moved, forming new links, eventually cutting the long-range device out of the loop.

"You see?" he said. "If you rewire a few things, you can tear _this_ right out." He emphasized this by making the now-unnecessary component dissolve.

"Neat," Nene said. "But..."

"But what?"

"It's too easy," Nene said. "I mean, _I_ could do that, with a few tools you can buy down the street. You'd think GENOM'd make it harder for these things to get away."

"Good point," Mackie said. "But I don't see what the problem is."

Nene thought about it. Mackie went back to massaging her shoulders. The motion distracted her, but she didn't mind one bit. As the stress bled out of her shoulders and back, she thought of something.

"That's it!" she said, so suddenly that Mackie jumped back a little. Nene turned and looked back to him. "We're looking at it when it's static, when time's frozen. Come back here," she said, crooking one finger and beckoning him back. Mackie did as he was told, putting his hands back on the girl's shoulders. Nene smiled at the touch, but managed to focus enough to keep working.

Nene looked back to the screen. She typed several commands, starting up an animation of every system that would change over time. That meant just about everything, because the 33-S-H was organic. Nothing happened that would suggest Mackie's 'fix' to the long-range control unit would fail. Biting her lip, Nene sped up the flow of time to many times what normal speed was. They both stared at the screen for several minutes, transfixed.

"There," she finally said.

"I see it," Mackie said. They were both looking at where the new connections had been made : as the brain was used, the modified synapses began to break down. The 33-S-H's damage bypass system was no help; in fact, it was trying to rewire the fixed connections to be the way they had been. In the sped-up time, the connections broke down very quickly. Nene stopped the animation just as the brain began to fail.

"Well," Mackie said. "That handles that."

"Yeah," Nene said. She glanced at the time indicator. "That took less than a month of real-time."

"What if you strengthened those synapses? Maybe coated them or something, so they could resist that? And rewired the damage-bypass system so it wouldn't undo what you've done."

Nene shook her head. "It wouldn't work. You might buy the boomer some time with that, though." She shrunk the image and started up a calculator program. She keyed in several numbers, which gave longer numbers, which she re-entered, and so on, until finally, she came out with a number that Mackie couldn't make any sense of at all.

"Explanation, please?" Mackie asked.

"Well, I'm just guessin' here," Nene said, "But I think that even with a grade-A job on that brain, the boomer wouldn't have much longer than a year before its...excuse me, _his_ brain stopped working."

"Uh-oh," Mackie said, as he kept looking. "Nick's gotta be missing his long-ranger, if he's still acting independently like this."

"Maybe GENOM's controlling him," Nene suggested.

Mackie shook his head. "No, remember if he gets locked out by GENOM, he loses all his emotions and becomes really efficient. Nick's got all his emotions, which means he's on his own. How long would you give him?"

Nene shrugged, holding up her hands helplessly. "How should I know?" she asked. "I don't know when he had it removed, or how good a job he got. And when did Doctor Brady become 'Nick' to you?"

Mackie paused, thinking this last one through. "I don't know," he said. "I guess after looking in his eyes like that, my whole opinion of him got switched around."

Nene threw him a sly look. "You know sexaroids don't really care which gender they go with," she said. "Do I have competition? From a _guy?_"

Mackie's eyes went wide. "No!" he said, quickly. "You don't have competition from Ni...uh, Doctor Brady! I don't love _anyone_ else! I..." he paused, suddenly realizing what he'd just said. "Uh..." he began, trying to figure a way out of this.

Nene just smiled at him. "Tell me, what color were his eyes?" she asked.

"Uh, I..." Mackie started, still nervous, but happy to change the subject. "They were green."

"Like mine?" Nene said, her voice soft.

Mackie thought about it. "Yeah," he said. "They were about...no, not about. _Exactly_ the same color as yours."

Nene couldn't help smiling even more. She'd read the part about 33-S-H eyes, and what the colors meant. If Nick had had eyes _exactly_ like hers, then...

"When did you say Silia would be back?" Nene asked, suggestively. The kitten, seeming to understand, stopped its explorations and watched the two of them, lying down on the floor to rest as it did so.

"Not until...wait a minute," Mackie said, suddenly catching on. "I don't think...uh...I don't think we're ready for _that_ yet." He said the words, though his hormones strongly disagreed with him.

"I know," Nene said, quietly. "Get your head out of the gutter, you pervert." She managed to hide the fact that her own thoughts were running in the same vein as Mackie's.

Mackie looked a little embarassed. He tried to step away, but Nene didn't let him. She reached up with one arm and pulled Mackie's head down towards her. The boy resisted by reflex for a moment, but then relaxed. Within a moment, each of them was savoring the feeling of the other's lips. By a silent agreement, they both waited a few heartbeats before cracking their mouths open, bit by bit. Slowly and carefully, their tounges reached out, touching each other gently before going deeper.

The matter with Nick could wait, for now. There were more important things to work on.

***

Nick was in the office early the next day, having walked to get there ahead of the women. He was sitting in his office, with the window blinds opened for what marginal light they provided. He was leaning back in his chair, with his feet up on the desk. A few papers were in his gloved hands, and he was doign his best to look them over carefully.

On his desk were an assortment of...tools he had the intention of using very soon. Meg and Lou had broken his trust. They'd given away his identity as Guillotine to an outsider. Despite what he'd told them he'd do to them if they ever talked. And now...it was time for him to live up to his promises. He was definitely ready for it; his desk looked like a miniature torturer's chamber. Scalpels, acid, kerosene, handcuffs, clamps, nails, hypodermics, and the like littered the surface. There was even a chainsaw in the corner, in case he got bored.

Nick grinned to himself, imagining what was about to do. He was very strongly aroused by the images in his mind. He wouldn't kill them, he knew. He still needed them around to help him get by, to help him do the things he didn't know how to do. Hell, he'd eventually patch them back together, good as new, so no one would be suspicious. But, he'd make _damn_ sure they wished he'd killed them.

He glanced back at the papers in his hand as the door opened. Meg and Lou walked in, looking nervous. Nick heard them come in and grinned again. He'd never doubted that they would come. All boomers knew running from a 33-S-H only meant a _more_ painful death later, once you were hunted down like an animal.

The women went to their respective desks and got ready for the day. Meg tried filling out some of her papers, most of which were forms asking for certain tools they'd need to work on Anri. Others concerned some of the firm's other clients. They hadn't done any other reactivations yet, but business was slowly picking up, as people began to see the top-level work they were able to do on nearly every boomer ever made.

Lou tried to immerse herself in her work, but Meg took care of most of the mind-numbing paperwork. The papers she had weren't nearly enough to let her concentrate on something other than her fate. ^Oh, God,^ she thought, ^we went and gave away Nick's secret, and he knows. He's going to torture us to death.^ She didn't know if Nick would _literally_ kill them, but she wouldn't put it past him, either. She got up and slowly made her way over to Nick's office. Nick heard her coming, and got up, meeting her at the threshold and closing his door behind him.

"S'up?" Nick asked, without looking at her.

Lou jumped a little at his sudden appearance, but then nodded. "I, uh...nothing," she said. "What's the plan for today?"

"We're checkin' out your friend," he said, stalking off to the operating room.

^What am I _doing?_^ he was thinking. ^I could start on them right _now_. They've had enough time to think about what I'm going to do, so why not _do_ it?^

He knew the answer. He'd been fighting it off ever since he'd started setting up this morning : his conscience. Just because he had one didn't mean he had to like it. Currently, Nick truly hated the voice in his head telling him to spare these women. It had been bugging him all morning, trying to find a good reason not to do it. Nick had systematically ignored or defeated every reason. Then, just as Lou had been walking up to his door, he'd found a reason to at least delay the upcoming punishments. And that reason was on the papers in his hands.

"I was just checkin' this out," he said, letting Lou glimpse at the papers. She saw that they were the analysis on Anri. Nick continued. "Your 'roid pal in there's pretty messed up. Her limbs look okay, I guess, but her torso's screwed over every which way. She's gonna be a lot of work. It might be weeks before we can get her back online under her own power, and that's supposin' we don't get any interruptions."

Lou nodded, listening to the shop talk despite her fear. Had he forgotten what they'd said? ^No,^ she thought. ^He knows I know, and he doesn't want to waste the breath making sure.^ That thought put her even more on edge. She actually found herself _wishing_ he would say something, so she wasn't in the dark about what he was going to do to her.

"I gotta check her brain before we do anything," he said. "Her spine took a big hit, and maybe the feedback fried her brain." Lou nodded, her nervousness now growing to include uncertainty about Anri. She'd been so hopeful that the girl could be saved...now was Nick going to say she was beyond help?

Nick was cursing fluently under his breath as he went into the operating room. _That_ had been the reason his conscience had finally latched onto. That the dead sexaroid might not be worth repairing. And Nick - fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it - had not been able to shoot that one down.

"It can't hurt to look," he was saying to himself. Lou said nothing, even though she was interested in what that meant. She knew she was walking on thin ice. Either that or the ice had broken already, and she just didn't know it yet.

Lou took a moment to calm herself and rubbed at her neck, easing the tension in her muscles. She silently told herself that she wouldn't have to put up with this much longer. Once Anri was back online, they were all going to leave Nick behind. They'd take their chances with GENOM; _anything_ was better than having to put up with a barely reforemd 33-S-H every single day.

Nick had plugged several wires into Anri's body, and then connected them to the large computers lining one wall of the room. He pulled off the glove on his right hand and used that hand to interface with the computers and send commands to them. Data began to appear on the screens. He didn't look at any of it; the important stuff was being downloaded directly to his brain. Lou came up to the wall and, keeping a respectable distance from Nick, watched the data fly by, trying her best to make sense of it all.

After several minutes, Nick removed his hand from the computer, nodding to himself.

"What is it?" Lou asked.

Nick glanced at her quickly before looking back to Anri. "There was some feedback," he said. "But it looks like most of it stopped short of the important areas. Means more work for us, but we can still restart her."

Lou nodded, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Still..." Nick said. "Still, I think I oughta link directly to her, and double-check. ^That's just dumb...I need a reason...^ "I'm not gonna spend all this time fixin' a 'roid that can't be helped. Move," he said, pushing by Lou as he pulled off his other glove. ^Goddammit, why can't I just start punishing them?^ He placed both his hands onto Anri's face, preparing to interface directly with her brain.

Lou couldn't help seeing how much this looked like what he'd done to Sylvie a while ago. She considered calling Meg in to watch, but decided against it. He wasn't bringing Anri back, yet; he was just having a look.

Nick looked over at her. "I'm gonna have to lock out my personality. My battle computer's gonna be the only thing in charge while I do this. I'm not taking chances."

Lou nodded, acknowledging the warning. A long while ago, before they'd come to MegaTokyo, Nick had warned them of what he'd be like if his computer locked him out. He told them he would be dangerous like that, or at the very least, unpredictable.

"Alright," Nick said. He straightened himself out. Then, he seemed to stiffen as he initated the J-2 user lockout, giving his computer a set of commands to run just before taking his personality out of the loop.

Nick remained stock-still for several minutes. Lou pulled up a chair and waited patiently for the verdict. She still felt nervous about what Nick would find, but was fairly confident that everything was okay. She'd seen the diagrams from Anri's body scan. The girl _was_ pretty heavily damaged, but her brain looked intact.

A shudder passed through Nick's body, as though he'd suddenly gotten a chill. He released his grip on Anri's face and stepped back, calmly. Lou was glad nothing as dramatic as last time had happened; she wanted Nick to stay alive long enough to bring Anri back. "So what's it look like?" she asked him.

Nick slowly turned his head to face her. Lou remembered what Nick had told her about interfacing : going in was like having your mind expand, but undoing it was like tearing off a part of your brain. She wondered how he'd act after merging with Anri.

"J-2 lockout...continuing," Nick said, in a dull monotone. His face remained expressionless as he began walking out. "New orders received. Mission priority to carry out orders." He headed for the door.

Lou saw all the signs that he was locked out, but she had to check. She walked carefully up to Nick and gently grabbed his arm, stopping him.

"Hey, what's your prob - " she didn't get to finish the sentence. Nick calmly lashed out with his arm, hitting her in the chest and sending her flying across the room, where she slammed against the far wall and then to the floor, breathing hard and in quite a lot of pain. ^Oh, no...^ Lou thought.

Nick had left the room. Lou crawled across the floor, not having the strength to stand. She tried to call out a warning to Meg, but her lungs just weren't supplying the air. Helpless, she stayed in one place, letting her body recover from the vicious strike. ^Meg, I'm sorry...^

Outside, Nick had walked through the main room, ignoring Meg entirely. He went into his office and pulled his cellular phone out of his desk. He dialed a long number, then put the phone to his ear. He didn't say a word; he didn't have to. His ear had a special interface port with his phone, and he'd already linked in with it, as he usually did. And so, he sent and received commands through the air.

He was done by the time Lou stumbled into his room. She'd already warned Meg, and the woman had cocked the shotgun under her desk. The gun was aimed directly at Nick's head when he lowered the phone from his ear.

"Reactivation of LAR-2 system complete," Nick said, in the same monotone. "Returning control to user...control interrupted. Uninitiated upgrade detected. Initaiting now." Meg stiffened, her finger tightening on the trigger.

"Upgrade successful. Returning control to user," Nick said. He shuddered again, then fell limp. He started moving an instant later, however. He immediately noticed the gun Meg had aimed at him.

"Hello," he said to the muzzle. "Any reason you're aiming that thing at me?"

Meg looked up from where she'd been sighting him down the barrel. "You got locked out," she said. "Are you yourself again?"

Nick held up his hands. "Same loveable guy," he said.

Meg relaxed and lowered the gun. "So what happened?" she asked.

Nick shrugged. "I dunno. There must have been some kind of leftover command in that brain that continued the lockout. I was interfacing with the sexaroid, and the next thing I know, I'm in here."

"You said something about an LAR-2 system," Lou said, stepping into the office.

Nick cocked an eyebrow at her. "Never heard of it," he said.

Lou didn't ask another question; her eyes had fallen on the instruments covering Nick's desk. Every drop of blood instantly drained from her face, and she stepped back.

Nick didn't seem to notice Lou's reaction. He got up and went over to one of his cabinets, pulling out a beer. He walked out of his office, pushing the women out of the way.

"Your friend looks okay," he said, calmly and almost...cheerfully. "I can fix her, if I try really hard. But just on the side...don't point a gun at me. Ever."

Meg paled and hastened to put the shotgun away. Lou stepped between Nick and the woman, ready to protect Meg from anything Nick was ready to do.

But Nick did nothing. Just nodding, he broke the top of the beer bottle off with his hands and was already draining it by the time he'd gone back into the operating room.

Lou and Meg were both dumbstruck. They'd both expected the man to do _something_. They'd been ready to _kill_ him, for crying out loud! This was a guy who'd tear your guts out because he was bored! And now he was just letting _this_ slide? This, _and_ the fact that they'd given away his identity? It seemed too good to be true, but neither of them were willing to complain.

Meg, shaken, sat back down at her desk, while Lou went back into the operating room to help Nick do his work.

"Oh, yeah," came Nick's voice, as he walked back in. Meg did her best to resist the urge to curl up as he came up to her. Here it was. He'd just been letting her think about it, before coming to do what she feared.

But he didn't even touch her. Nick reached past Meg, and started going through the drawers in her desk. Meg just watched, backing away as much as she could. Finally, Nick found what he was looking for : a small bottle, full of several hexagonal orange pills. They were the things that kept Meg and Lou free of their 33-S sex drives. What would he want them for...

"Meg, could you send some of these to Sylvie for me?" he asked, lightly tapping the bottle with one finger. "She's gotta be gettin' pretty desperate, about now."

With that, he turned on his heel and walked into his office, closing the door behind him. Soon after, there came the noises of a lot of metal instruments being hastily put away. "What the hell was I going to do with all this?" Nick's voice asked, coming through the door. Meg didn't answer; his voice had had the tone that he had been asking _himself_ that question, not her.

Meg looked back at the bottle. Since when had Nick started referring to them by their _names_? Usually, he used 'you', or some kind of slang, anything to avoid using their names in conversation. But now, he didn't even hesitate using her and Sylvie's names...

Her fear of Nick, having suddenly lost its foundation, disappeared, replaced by concern for Sylvie. ^It's been days!^ she thought. ^Nick's right. She's probably going out of her mind, unless she's...already satisfied herself.^

Meg very much wanted to keep Sylvie from doing something she'd regret later. She immediately picked up the phone and dialed Priss's trailer. She gave an explanation of what was going on and what to do, which Priss actually grasped very quickly. She said Sylvie _had_ been acting kind of strange, all high-strung and obviously trying to hold herself back. Meg offered her some consolation, and told Priss that she'd be by later with a cure for Sylvie's current condition. She didn't tell Priss, but she didn't want to give the bottle in front of her to Sylvie; that was their emergency store, in case a sudden...urge caught either Meg or Lou while at the office.

After hanging up, she put the bottle back and made a note to pick up a supply of the pills from their apartment. After that, she went back to work, having completely forgotten that, just a moment ago, she'd been worried a 33-S-H was about to slowly torture her to death.

***

Just over a week later, three men were walking down the hallway of a GENOM cyberdroid maintenance and repair center. The first two were obviously employees : they wore white lab coats, and displayed cards which gave them high-level access to the facility. One of the men in the lab coats looked old and distinguished, with a name tag that marked him as Dr. Peters. The other man looked much younger, but without the naivete of youth. Much to the contrary, in fact. His face betrayed nothing, but his eyes _just_ hinted that he knew something everyone around him didn't. This man also kept casually flipping a coin in the air, deftly catching it each time.

The third man was very different. He was walking confidently down the passageway, his movements betraying no nervousness at all. The man wore black sunglasses over his eyes and had a cigarette in his mouth. Not long ago, he had pulled off the black trench coat he'd been wearing and slung it over his shoulder. His features were slightly Russian, but in truth, he had almost no distinguishing features.

The men stopped at a doorway sitting at the end of a hallway. After swiping his card through the slot, Dr. Peters walked in, leading the way for the other two. The man with the sunglasses took his cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it to the ground, where it lay smoking. He walked up to the chair sitting in the middle of the room, and took a seat, dropping his trench coat onto the floor next to his seat. He also pulled off his shirt, revealing a body-builder's form underneath.

Meanwhile, the other two men moved around quickly and efficiently, powering up a few computers. The younger man wheeled a smaller computer over to the man in the chair, his face showing that he would much prefer someone else do it for him. As soon as the mobile unit was in place, he went back to flipping his coin.

"Do you _have_ to keep flipping that damn thing?" Peters asked.

"Yes," the young man said, very matter-of-factly. He looked as though nothing could possibly change his mind on this subject. Peters glanced at him, and threw his hands up in the air in annoyance - and not for the first time. His assistant had just recently been assigned to him, and he had caused troubles to no end. Peters still couldn't remember the man's name. He only knew that the man had appeared there just a few days ago, fully certified to work on 33-S-H's and sporting a long list of credentials. It was questionable that such a young person could have already worked enough to be certified for 33-S-H's, but Peters knew his was not the place to question GENOM procedure. Staying quiet also happened to be the best way to stay alive.

"Alright, help me with this thing," Peters said. He carefully strapped on latex gloves, and then took several cables out of the mobile unit. He roughly grabbed the arm of the man in the chair, and held it up for examination. After a moment, he carefully began attaching the cables directly into the arm. The man in the chair looked annoyed at being treated like this, but remained quiet.

Meanwhile, the other man had pulled on gloves, and was plugging wires into the other arm. After several more connections were made, they finished by strapping a velcro ring around their subject's neck. By now, the man in the chair was just barely distinguishable under the wires and micro-computers attached externally to his upper body.

"Can we get _on_ with it?" the subject asked from underneath the cables.

"Shut up," Peters said, absentmindedly. He turned to his assistant. "You know how to reprogram these things?" he said, jerking his thumb at the man in the chair.

The other man nodded once, then went back to concentrating on his coin-flipping.

"Right...well, remeber, this one's a little messed up. Cyber-implant right here," he said, tapping the patient's forehead. "Were you here? He came in with a bullet right through his brain, but someone'd already fixed it. Replaced the damaged parts with some new gear. And he couldn't remember a thing about what happened."

"No, I wasn't here," the assistant said, his voice low and chilling.

"Oh...well, here's the data, then." Peters said, handing his assistant a rectangular card of plastic. "Make sure you get it right."

"Of course," the other man said, his voice saying that he _definitely_ intended to get it right, but not in the way Peters wanted him to.

Not understanding, Peters turned and left, mumbling something about getting coffee. He didn't like being in there; the man they were working on made him feel safe and secure, while his assistant's attitude had the exact opposite effect.

The assistant watched the door close, then slowly turned to face the man in the chair.

"Let's get started," the wired-up man said, impatiently.

The assistant said nothing, watching his coin fly through the air a few times.

"_Well?_" the man in the chair asked.

"My poor little cyberdroid..." the assistant began, his voice calm, and a little condescending.

"Huh?" asked the other man. He was used to people trying to make conversation with him, but never with _that_ line to start things off. Usually, the people around here just ignored him.

"Poor, poor H...that is the slang, if I'm correct?"

"Screw you. You tryin' to rub it in that I'm a boomer? I don't got a problem with that."

"Ah, yes, I remember." The assistant looked up at the ceiling, thoughtful. "The 33-S-H...so different from the other models." He walked up to the chair, his hand repeatedly flipping the coin, as though it had a mind of its own.

"A lot of cyberdroids have names," the assistant said, continuing. "But you...you are the only model GENOM's ever thought was important enough to have a first _and_ last name. And the only production cyberdroid ever to regularly use that base term 'boomer'." The assistant's face screwed up as he said the word.

"You're freakin' me out, man. Just plug me in and send me out again."

"Yes, I suppose I should," the assistant said. He looked at the data card in his free hand, then casually threw it away with a flick of his wrist. He pulled another data card out of the pocket of his lab coat and plugged it into the mobile unit.

"Hey, wait a minute..." the man in the chair began.

"Believe me, this is a much better use of you than what they had planned," the assistant said, before hitting the DOWNLOAD button. The patient's breath instantly caught, and stiffened up as a huge chunk of his memory was erased, quickly replaced with new memories, memories that gave him the skills and knowledge he would need. His eyes glowed from behind his sunglasses as his teeth clenched. In just a few seconds, the procedure was done.

"There, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" the assistant asked.

"Hey, what the hell?" the patient said. "What'd you do? It says..." he read information being displayed in his field of vision. "I gotta nail another 33-S-H? What are you, crazy?"

The assistant smiled, barely. "Not crazy," he said, catching his coin out of the air. He didn't flip it again. "Just someone you owe a favor to," he said, leaning down close to the patient. He tapped the patient's forehead with his fist, which he'd clenched around his coin.

"Huh?"

The assistant kept the smile on his face. His eyes bored into the patient's. The man in the chair had just enough time to wonder what was going on when suddenly, his vision began to dim. His breath left him, and suddenly, he could feel his heartbeat. It had become very irregular and it was...slowing down...

Then, just as quickly as it had started, the episode stopped. The patient's heart began working again, at regular speed. Suddenly woozy, the man in the chair clutched at his forehead from under all the wires. He looked up at the assistant, amazed. The only man who could do _that_ to him would be...

The assistant stood again, with that same slight smile on his face. He opened his fist, and the coin fell out. Well, it had _been_ a coin, at one point. Now, it had been crushed into a little ball of metal. The man in the chair looked at the destroyed piece of currency, then back up at the assistant.

The other man was scratching at his face. After a moment, the mask line appeared. He got a good grip and yanked, tearing off what looked like his face. The man in the chair was aroused by the sight, but not as much as he would have been if the assistant had _really_ torn his own face off.

Underneath the mask was a gaunt face, with the same smile and sinister eyes. White hair sat on top of the head. The unmasked man closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. In that brief blink, his eyes had changed color; instead of the bright blue they had been, they were now red. On top of that, his whites had shifted spectrum entirely, and were now black. His eyes now looked exactly like those of the man in the chair, minus the holo-imagers that had such a powerful effect on humans.

The man in the chair suddenly lost his cocksure attitude. In fact, he looked...afraid.

"Y...you?" he asked. "It's _you_? B-but I heard..."

"What did you hear?" the other man asked, as he tore his lab coat off. "That I was dead? I believe you are _sorely_ mistaken, my friend. I died, once, but it was only temporary. I have evolved since then, and I am now very much alive." He leaned back down to the patient. "Now..." he began. "Karl...Richards," he said, pronouncing the patient's name. "When I did this to you," he said, tapping Karl's forehead, "I told you I would save your life in exchange for a favor. That time has come."

"F-fine. I'll do it, whatever it is."

"Good. Now, get out of that mess. It doesn't become you."

Karl complied, tearing the wires off of his body, arms, and neck. When he was done, he stood up and pulled his shirt and coat back on. When he'd finished, he looked at the white-haired man.

"What do you need?" Karl asked, his voice calm and even.

"I need you to help wrap up a little business I started a while ago," the man began. "After he's served his own purpose, of course. And if I'm standing here, then things are proceeding nicely according to plan."

"Whatever. So, now what?"

"You'll need to equip yourself," the other man said. He gestured towards a wall, and a panel opened, apparently of its own accord. A large case slid out. "Those are the weapons you should be familiar with, now that you've been programmed. I believe your current mission is by far the most dangerous you've faced...though that isn't saying much," he added on, looking at the condition of Karl's trench coat. There were a few rips in it, but other than that, it was basically new. That was a sure sign that a 33-S-H hadn't been on many missions.

Karl nodded and went over to the case, pulling it out of the wall and popping it open.

"Hell yes," he said, as he pulled out a few of the guns inside. "You sayin' I'll need all th - "

"Hey!"

They both turned. Peters was standing in the doorway, looking at the patient, who was now armed and dangerous.

"Who told you you could get out of that chair?" Peters asked Karl. "And how'd you get _weapons_, you...who the hell are _you_?" he said, as he noticed the white-haired man.

The other man didn't even bother replying. He held out his right hand, palm out. Karl blinked as he felt some kind of shock wave ripple through the air and strike Peters. The doctor's chest caved in under the force, spraying blood into the air as he collapsed.

"Damn," Karl said, smirking a little as he looked at the broken body. "How'd you do that?"

"It is a talent of mine," the white-haired man responded, examining his fingernails. "Now arm yourself. We need to get through security." His voice showed that he saw the coming fight as more of a bother than a real danger.

Karl complied, snapping clips into weapons with a trained ease, and then slipping them into holsters on his sides and arms. He took the extra clips out of the case and slid them into the pockets of his trench coat. The last gun was a large assault rifle, complete with an underbarrel rocket launcher.

"Don't see how I can carry _this_," he said.

"Use your hands," the other man responded, annoyed. "And strap it onto your back when you don't need it. Now, hurry," he said, looking out the door, where alarms were already going off.

"Whatever you say," Karl said, loading in a large clip and pushing a round into the rocket launcher, finishing by clicking the safety off and holding the gun up, at the ready.

"But how're we gonna get through security?" he asked, sounding excited instead of nervous. "We're over a dozen stories underground. And They've rigged this place to smash any boomer that tries making a break for it. And I'm kinda used to staying alive."

"They didn't have _me_ in mind when they made it," the other man said, offhandedly. "But before we go, there's one last thing to do."

"What?"

The white-haired man walked around Karl, who tried to turn to follow him. The man held Karl in place, however, until he was standing behind him.

"What're you doing?" Karl asked, fear having put him on the offensive.

"Doing something essential," the man said, as he reached up and touched the back of Karl's neck with his index finger.

Karl gasped as he felt the other man's finger sink into his flesh. Then he cried out, shaking a little as he felt the first real pain of his life. The man behind him worked calmly, moving his finger down, parting the flesh of Karl's neck as though it were paper.

Karl was so shocked by the pain that he could barely move. He weakly moved one hand back, trying to push away the white-haired man. That hand was knocked away contemptuously. The white-haired man continued, finally getting a good grip on something and yanking, hard.

As though that one finger had been the one thing holding him up, once it was removed, Karl lost his balance. He keeled over and fell face-first to the floor, gasping for breath. The other man, still standing, was holding a piece of white plastic that looked like an emaciated banana, with a number of wires streaming out of it.

Karl's face was contorted in pain. "What the...hell..." he said, breathlessly, as he touched the back of his neck. His hands came back bloody. "Aaaagghhh..." he groaned out, cringing.

The white-haired man threw the white plastic thing to the floor, just in front of Karl's face. "Your long-range link to GENOM control computers," he said. "We wouldn't have gotten very far without removing it."

Karl reached out and grabbed it. "How the..." he said, examining the component as he touched his neck again with his free hand. "You're not supposed to be able to remove these things!"

"Oh, it's possible," the white-haired man said. "I know how you're built, and I have enough power to do it. I've done it before."

"Huh," Karl said, crushing the component in his grip. He got shakily back to his feet.

"I'm afraid you'll have a scar there," the white-haired man continued. "The only scar on your body, if I'm correct."

"Whatever," Karl said, throwing the ruined piece of plastic to the ground. "I can live with a scar."

The white-haired man laughed a little, a noise that would have chilled most people to the bone, but served to make Karl smile.

"That's _exactly_ what the other cyberdroid I did that to told me," the white-haired man said.

"Fine," Karl said, annoyed. "Can we get going?"

"Of course."

They left, stepping over the bloody corpse at the doorway. Karl was barely in front of the other man. Glancing in a door as they passed, he saw two young people, a man and a woman, taking a break. Without hesitation, he held up the assault rifle and fired in a horizantal stream, putting at least five bullets in each of them. He turned away from the door before the bodies had even hit the ground.

Karl had never been happier in his life. It didn't bother him at all that he was going against GENOM; yes, he'd been built by them, but currently, they were just targets. And he liked nothing more than killing things.

His companion kept pace with him, looking satisfied at Karl's work.

"Go! Go! Go!" came a voice from around a corner. Karl moved quickly, by reflex alone, as two boomers came around the corner. He fired on one with the rifle, watching the bullets sink into its armor, but have no apparent effect. He ducked into a doorway as the boomers returned fire with the miniguns they had mounted on their right arms.

There was a human in the room he was hiding in; a janitor, by the looks of it. Karl reached out and broke the terrified man's neck with one hand. He then glanced back into the hallway, his head flickering into view for the briefest instant.

The boomers looked like modified Dobermans. Judging from the precise way they were moving, their brains had probably been upgraded so they didn't destroy everything in sight. Their weapons and armor looked souped-up, too. He doubted any of his guns could do anything against them. Maybe he could angle a rocket into a vulnerable spot...but by the time he got a shot off, both of them would have fired on him with enough guns to put a tank division to shame.

He looked back across the hallway, where his companion had also taken cover.

"I hate stand-up fights!" Karl shouted.

The white-haired man nodded. "You needn't worry," he said, remaining calm despite the gunfire. He stepped back into the hallway, arms extended in front of him.

Karl was convinced that the man had finally lost his mind. The last time he'd met the white-haired man, he could tell he'd been just barely holding back insanity. But stepping in front of _those_ things...he was cracked. He had to be.

Karl risked another glance. Both battle machines had zeroed in on the white-haired man. In a half-second, they'd locked on with their miniguns and opened fire. Karl's quick eyes let him follow the bullets courses, barely. He could see that the man was about to get a few hundred rounds through him. Who _cared_ that the J-2 had marked the white-haired man as a critical threat? _Nothing_ could handle that kind of damage.

Karl's line of thought was instantly broken as he saw the bullets stop, richocheting away just a quarter-meter away from the man's hands, which were still held in front of him, palms out. The boomers instantly reacted, tracing lines of fire up and down the man's body. It was useless; the air rippled, somehow deflecting the high-caliber rounds no matter where they came.

Suddenly, the boomers stopped firing. Karl guessed they must have run out of ammo. Other weapon ports opened, and more guns were readied. The white-haired man glanced at him. Karl took the cue and dove into the hallway, already firing. He watched the glowing streaks of his own rounds punch through the boomers' armor plating and into the vitals underneath, but the machines didn't go down. Enraged at how stubborn the target was being, he took aim and launched a rocket at the Doberman on the left. It went right where he'd aimed it : into the small opening between the shoulder plates. The joint exploded, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. Karl would have been speared by it, but he froze as he saw the air ripple in front of him, blocking the deadly pieces of metal.

He looked up in time to see the white-haired man gesture at the boomer on the right, a shockwave similar to the one he'd used on Peters hitting it. Only this attack was much stronger : the boomer's metal chest exploded open as it stumbled backwards. The wounded cyberdroid fell on its back, and promptly stopped moving. Its partner didn't bother watching it fall, instead unfolding a few more weapons and firing a spread of rockets at the white-haired man.

Karl saw his chance, and ran by the standing boomer, jumping onto the downed one. He grabbed the machine's left arm with his hands, crushing metal inward with his fingers. Within moments, he'd interfaced with the weapon there, forced the heavy arm into position, and fired at the remaining boomer. A hot beam of pure plasma shot out of the gun, going in the target's back and coming out its front. Karl kept firing, putting three more rounds into the machine, before it finally fell to the ground, dead.

His companion was by his side before he'd gotten back up.

"You have potential," he said, as he started down the hallway.

"Uh...thanks," Karl responded. He checked the assault rifle as he jogged to keep up. "Hyper-velocity rounds," he said to his companion. "I like the way you think."

The other man nodded and kept walking.

They continued through the hallways of the building. Karl shot anything that moved, and the white-haired man handled anything Karl couldn't. They ran up several flights of stairs, shooting everyone who tried to stop them, and down another hallway, this one above ground, finally stopping at a window.

The white-haired man turned and glanced back down the hallway. Karl was breathing hard from the exertion; his companion wasn't breathing at all. They were both unscathed; the white-haired man had been able to deflect every weapon that fired at them.

The white-haired man looked out the window, at the street many stories below. Karl looked, as well.

"So now what?" he asked.

"Wait another moment..." the white-haired man said.

Karl waited. Unfortunately, the building's defenses didn't. Another group of boomers tried to come down the hall, firing at them. Karl took them down with ultra-accurate shots, while his partner stopped the boomers' rounds from hitting either of them.

By the time the last boomer had hit the ground, a helicopter had appeared outside the window. Karl noticed it and looked at the white-haired man, who nodded. The white-haired man shattered the glass with a shockwave, and then jumped, clearing the distance easily and going through the helicopter's open side door. Karl followed suit, but only after shooting the dead boomers a few more times to make sure they stayed down.

The helicopter immediately pulled away, flying low to discourage the anti-aircraft guns mounted on top of the building. Karl reloaded his rifle and looked out the door again. Sure enough, several 55-C's were flying after them, weapons at the ready. He took aim and fired several times, ducking back inside the chopper when the boomers' mouth lasers fired. After the last boomer had dropped out of the sky, he reached over and closed the door.

"Looks like we're clear," he said. As he sat down, he reached into the pockets of his trench coat and pulled out the gloves he usually wore. He tugged them onto his hands with little effort.

The white-haired man nodded. "We've got a scrambler on this helicopter," he said. "They won't be able to track us." He then got up and popped open a small storage closet mounted on the wall. He pulled out a large, black duffel bag, which he threw to Karl.

"Everything you'll need is in there," he said. "Street clothes, body armor, and phone numbers that will let you get more ammunition, if necessary."

Karl lit a cigarette before unzipping the bag and taking a look. He nodded to himself a moment later. He usually received a bag like this, just before he went on a mission. Of course, he didn't have to fight his way out of a GENOM builing every mission...though the idea was intriguing.

"The mark is this man," the white-haired man said, handing Karl a picture. Karl looked it over. It looked like the production photo; the picture factories took of 33-S-H's just before sending them out. Whoever the picture was of, he was definitely another 33-S-H. The man in the photograph was wearing the signature sunglasses and trench coat. He had slightly American features.

"His production name is Jason McCormick," the white-haired man said. "But you are to kill him _only_ when I say so. He also has a purpose to serve."

"He owe you, too?" Karl asked, interested, as he unconsciously rubbed at his skull, almost able to feel the reconstructed brain tissue underneath.

The white-haired man looked at him angrily. Karl tensed, waiting for another near-shutdown to occur, but none came.

"You're not supposed to ask questions about a mark," the man said. "But, yes, he does owe me. Though he doesn't owe me his life," he said, his eyes flickering up to Karl's hand. "Which means he's not trustworthy. Once he's fulfilled his purpose, I want you to kill him. Don't save his computer. I want him permanently down."

Karl mock-saluted. He didn't care that now he was being ordered to kill one of his own. He never cared about _who_ he killed, just so long as he could kill _someone_.

He also didn't like how this man made it sound like everyone was a tool to him. Karl liked seeing himself as an individual. But, then again...his life was in this man's hands. He'd do it. Maybe later he could figure out a way to get out of this man's grasp.

"So you're confident you can do it?" the man asked.

Karl nodded. "I might not be the most experienced 33-S-H alive, but I'll get him for you, Largo."

***

END PART 2

Endnote : Come on, it's a story about resurrections. You didn't _seriously_ think I'd forget about the anime world's best C.E.G. (Consummate Evil Guy), did you? Stay tuned for Part 3, and send comments to otakusadist@hotmail.com.