A supplement to that warning up above : the violence in this part is slightly more intense. Hopefully nothing too stomach-turning, but I felt that I should warn you. There, I said it. Now read.

Oh yeah, and read the other parts of this story before reading this one.

A Killer's Heart

Part 4 : Field Testing

The story thus far : A 33-S-H class assassin boomer named Jason McCormick surreptitiously grows a conscience in time to save Meg and Lou from the Doberman on Genaros. He then later tracks Sylvie and Anri to MegaTokyo, and brings Meg and Lou along with him. Jason changes his name to Nicholas Brady, both to symbolize his change in jobs and to stay hidden.

Sylvie has been brought back to life, thanks to Nick's efforts. Unfortunately, both she and Nick have undergone some changes, as a result of the resurrection. Sylvie now has a battle computer in her brain, and Nick isn't quite the hopless sadist he'd been before. Anri is next on the list for resurrections.

No one knows it yet, but Largo has somehow returned, and he's got a 33-S-H of his own working for him. This 33-S-H, named Karl Richards, is hunting down Nick.

Something Nick and a few of the Knight Sabers know is that Nick is dying. By freeing himself, he has given himself a slow death sentence. When last we left, he only had two to three weeks left to go. Faced with this grim fate, Nick had two choices : go on a killing spree, living as a 33-S-H once more, or explore the new emotions he's taken on from Sylvie. Miraculously, he chooses the latter. He also begins serious work on Anri, sacrificing his personal health to try and resurrect the girl before he dies.

***

In an unlit office, a shadowy form sat silently, waiting. Its elbows rested on the desk, and its fingers were steepled. It was difficult to discern much else, however, due to the lack of light.

A telephone call from a cellular phone reached into the office. There was no phone in the room, but the call was still received. It was the shadowy form itself that took the call. Inside the dark man's brain, a conversation ensued, his responses being sent out by way of cellular transmissions back to the caller.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Hey, boss..."

The dark man remained silent, prompting the caller to go on.

"Look, I found Jason McCormick. I've checked everything out, and I know exactly where he is."

"As you were told to do," the man responded in a cold voice. "Do not waste my time, Richards."

"Right, right. But, well, I figured that since I can't kill this guy, can't I at least screw with him a little? I mean, a simple test to see what he can do - "

"Fine. You may do whatever you desire, but leave him _alive_. He's no good to me dead."

"Right, right. Well, anyway, I'm gonna need you're help for this one."

"I'm listening. I suggest you make it worth my while."

"Yeah...anyways, I'm gonna need some backup for this one."

The dark man remained silent yet again.

"So where can I get some boomers?" the caller asked, finally.

The dark man laughed a little, a cold, hollow sound. "Very well," he said. "I'm sending you the coordinates of a GENOM storage warehouse. I'm also including the password to get through their security."

There was another pause, during which a modem inside the dark man activated and transmitted the information.

"Alright, here we go," the caller said. "How'd you get this password, anyway? I thought only GENOM execs had access to that stuff."

"Don't ask questions. Just do as you've been ordered."

"Right, whatever," the caller said, just before he hung up.

The dark man leaned back in his chair, his arms coming to rest in his lap. In the dark, two red dots appeared, right about where his eyes would be.

"And so it unfolds," he said to himself. "I'm coming for you...Silia Stingray."

***

Leon was on his fifth cup of coffee by the time the call came in. He was cleaning off his revolver, making sure it shone before pulling out the bullets for it. Daley ran up to his desk, a cell phone pressed to his ear. He gestured wildly for Leon to get up. Leon watched, interested, and slowly got to his feet. As Daley talked, Leon carefully loaded in three bullets for his revolver. Satisfied, he put it back in its holster, hanging just under his left armpit.

"Uh huh...look, I got him right here...yeah, okay. _Bye_," Daley said, before hanging up. "Let's go," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the door.

Normally, Leon would have made some witty comment to his partner, something about how this made it look like they were going steady, but the tone of Daley's voice dampened Leon's sense of humor almost instantly.

"What's up?" Leon asked, following Daley and grabbing his jacket on the way out.

"Boomer incident," Daley responded in a rushed voice. "Terrorists are holding up an office tower in the west side. Looks like they've got a few boomers."

"Damn," Leon said, impressed. "What's it look like?"

"We've already lost three choppers," Daley said as they walked through the ADP lobby. Leon looked at the magnet scanner as they passed by it, his mind momentarily concerned with the mercenary that was causing him so much hassle. This same move brought another thing into his vision. He saw a familiar redhead running for the door of the ADP, already loosening her tie. Leon stopped in his tracks, much to Daley's annoyance, as he watched Nene leave the building.

"Come _on_," Daley said, trying not to physically drag Leon out the door. "Time to save the city, and all that."

Leon nodded distractedly. "Daley..." he asked.

"What?"

"Wasn't Nene working the late shift tonight?" Leon asked.

"Uh...maybe, I don't know. Why do you ask?"

They jogged down the steps and to the squad car Daley had pulled around to the front. Leon glanced to his right just in time to see Nene climbing into an unmarked van, which pulled away almost before she'd gotten the door closed.

"Well, it's just she's getting off pretty early for someone working the late shift. And she's in a hell of a hurry to get out, too."

Daley shrugged. "Doesn't matter," he said as he opened the car. "Get in."

Leon complied. He thought about the Nene situation for a moment longer as Daley started up the car and its siren, sending them shooting off down the road. An idea came to him, suddenly.

"Have the Knight Sabers been called in?" Leon asked, leaning his seat back all the way.

"Yes," Daley responded, quickly. "Them and someone else you might be interested in."

"Guillotine?" Leon asked, momentarily forgetting Nene.

Daley nodded. "Intel guy just filled me in. Someone in called Guillotine in after he couldn't get in touch with the Knight Sabers. And for once, Guillotine said yes, instead of turning it down again."

"This oughta be fun, then," Leon said, checking his pistol again.

Daley didn't answer.

***

Late Wednesday evening, a small brown sedan pulled into the parking lot of a nondescript office building. Two women got out. One had short red-brown hair, the other's hair was long, and a pale blond color. They were both beautful, by most standards. And, they both looked exeedingly worried.

Their names were Meg Jones and Lou Smith. They'd been born with their first names. The last names, however, were given to them by their partner/employer/protector/etc., Nick Brady.

Not speaking, they went into the building and took the elevator up to the third floor. They went down the dim, gray hallway and to the office near the end. On the smoked glass of the office's door were the words, "Brady and Smith Cyberdroid Repair."

They stopped outside of the door. Instead, they listened, looking at each other with questioning gazes. Inside, they could hear two voices, one female and one male. The voices were normal conversational tones, but it was obvious that they were slowly going up in volume.

"Looks like they're gearing up for another all-nighter," Meg said, hearing this. Lou nodded, biting her lip.

"Might as well go in," Meg said. She reached forwards and opened the door. It swung open, revealing Sylvie and Nick. Nick was standing at the end of the short hallway that led to their operating room, while Sylvie was standing in the middle of the main room. Nick was wearing his sunglasses, hiding his eerie eyes. He shifted his gaze a little to see the new arrivals, while Sylvie had to turn around to get the same view.

Nick just glanced at them. Sylvie smiled a little and nodded, acknowledging their arrival. Then she turned back around, her face going hard again.

"I'm just saying you should take a _break_ once in a while," she said, continuing a conversation/argument.

"And why can _you_ tell me what to do?" Nick came back.

"Because Anri's my friend, and you're no good to any of us if you kill yourself working on her."

"I can do whatever the _hell_ I want, Syl."

"Not if you hurt other people. And STOP calling me Syl!"

The discussion went from there. Meg and Lou walked in, disappointed looks on their faces, and went to sit at their desks. Meg only sat at hers for a moment, however, before getting up and going into Lou's office herself. She closed the door behind her, helping to block out some of the noise.

"How much longer is this going to go _on_?" Lou moaned out, slumping down to her desk.

"I don't know," Meg sighed out, pulling up a chair. "I'm tired of it, too."

Ever since Sylvie had become aware of the changes her interface with Nick had brought on, she'd been spending her free time here, 'talking' with him, getting a feel for what was happening to her. Most of the time, it turned into an argument over some petty thing.

Both women cringed as Sylvie's voice hit a particularly high note. "Why do you suppose she comes over here all the time?" Lou asked. "I mean, she's just gonna get into a fight again."

Meg shrugged. "I tried asking her about that. She just says she wants to understand what's happening to her."

"Tell her to read a book on it," Lou mumbled. "I'd rather be locked in a room with Nick for the rest of my life than put up with _this_ for another day."

Meg patted Lou's hand comfortingly, eliciting a small smile from the other woman. "Well, he oughta be done with Anri soon, if it's any help."

"Yeah..." Lou said, her lips going tight. "Maybe another day, at most, from what I can see."

Meg's eyebrows went up. "That's...that's great."

Lou nodded. "Well, he's got my help, you know. And I don't think he slept at all last week. I don't see how he does it."

"He's just different," Meg replied, looking out the window and into the darkness beyond.

"Yeah, I guess."

"What?" Meg asked, hearing the tone of uncertainty in Lou's voice.

"Well...look at Sylvie, Meg! I mean, she's usually the Sylvie we remember. But when she's angry, she practically turns into a clone of Nick! And...well, they wouldn't call them the 33-_S_-H if we weren't related a _little_, don't you think?"

Meg shrugged again. "I can't say," she replied, not knowing any other answer.

They sat there, in silence, a while longer, while the voices on the other side of the door kept going up in pitch. Meg went back to looking out the window, while Lou became very concerned with a knot in the wood on her desk.

"I guess we should get to work," Meg said.

"We can probably wait a little longer," Lou replied. "I'm sure I can find something I can do in here."

Meg smiled a little. "C'mon, Lou. You're helping fix Anri, right? Well, she won't get fixed any quicker if you stay in here."

"Well, yeah...but _you'll_ be right in there, Meg! You'll go deaf!"

Meg sighed. "Maybe. See if you can get Nick to get back to work."

"Yeah, I guess."

The two women stood up, hesitated a little, and finally went to the door. Lou opened it, and led the way back into the room beyond. On the other side, Nick and Sylvie had stopped yelling at each other for a moment, and were not just trying to stare each other down.

"Well, I'd better be getting back to work," Lou said loudly, walking past Nick and into the operating rom. She made sure not to cross the lines of their gazes, however, because she was sure she would disintegrate if those looks were turned on her.

"Yeah, why don't _you_?" Sylvie hissed out, still staring at Nick. "It _is_ your job, you know."

"She can handle it," Nick said, not budging.

Lou kept walking, going into the operating room and grabbing her lab coat off a hook as she passed by. She closed the door to the operating room behind her. There, on the table, was Anri's body. Her chest was still open, but it looked much better than it had before. An unskilled person would say all was in order, in fact. Lou, however, could see various things that needed work.

She took off her watch and pulled a pair of latex gloves on over her hands. She also took a rubber band out of her lab coat pocket and used it to tie her hair into a loose ponytail. Buttoning up the coat, she walked up to Anri's body, picking up a tool on the way. Her eyes flickered up to the body's head, but that was still covered by a large cloth. ^It's not Anri,^ she told herself. ^Just another patient. Not Anri.^ She eventually convinced herself of this, even though she knew it wasn't true. She leaned over the body and started working, reconnecting various blood vessels.

With her watch in her coat pocket, she lost track of time very quickly. Her mind went blank, and she concentrated on the work at hand. Slowly and methodically, she put parts back where they were supposed to be. She honestly didn't know if it had been five minutes or five hours by the time Nick walked in.

He said nothing. He was already wearing a lab coat and latex gloves of his own, and had removed his sunglasses. He came up on the other side of the body and took up another tool, working around Lou's arms as he rebuilt another part of the body, a part Lou couldn't see from where she was.

Finally, Lou was done with the section she'd been working on. She double-checked her work anyway, knowing how Nick reacted if everything wasn't to his satisfaction. Then she stood up, unconsciously wiping her hands off on her coat, leaving smears of synthetic blood.

She sat down in the room's one chair and took a moment to catch her breath. When Nick stood up to get another tool, she saw her opportunity.

"Why are you like that?" she asked him.

Nick turned towards her. Lou tried not to cringe at the sight of his eyes. "What?" he asked.

"Why do you and Sylvie always fight?"

Nick shrugged and turned back to the rack of metallic tools he'd been looking at. "She's just a bitch," he said, evenly.

Lou's face screwed up at this. ^He can't talk about Sylvie like that!^ she thought. "No, she's not," she said. "I know her better than you, and - "

"_Do_ you?" he asked, whirling on her. "Have you _merged_ with her brain? Did you swap chunks of your personality for parts of hers? Did _you_ spend a week putting her back together?"

Lou shook her head. "No, but I was with her on Genaros. Can you say that?"

"_Yes_," he said, exasperated. Then, his eyes widened a little, as though he realized what he'd just said. Lou was similarly surprised.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said, turning back to work. He plunged both hands into Anri's torso.

"No, there's someth - "

Nick's arm jerked slightly, and Lou felt an impact just below her left armpit. She looked down, seeing a scalpel sticking out into space. It was attaching the sleeve of her lab coat to the back of the chair. However, it hadn't touched her body.

"I _said_ nothing," Nick said. "Now get over here and help me with this."

Quivering a little, Lou pulled the scalpel out of the chair, flexed her arm to make sure it wasn't hurt, and walked carefully over to Nick. Shaking off her surprise, she went back to work.

Time passed. Lou again fell into a trance, doing the work in front of her, and forgetting who was under the knife. When she was done attaching a large vein to Anri's newly-rebuilt heart, she stood up straight. Her hands relaxed, dropping the probe and foreceps she'd been using. They clattered to the floor, making her jump. Nick didn't even notice, however.

Lou noticed two things : one, her back was sore from leaning over, and two, she was very tired. She fished her watch out of her lab coat's pocket and checked the time. Her eyes widened.

"Uh...it's 23:02," she said, checking her watch again. "You gonna stop for the night?"

"No," Nick said flatly.

Lou just shrugged. The response hadn't been any different for the week and a half he'd been working like this. She wondered how much longer he could go on at this pace.

She turned and walked out of the room. She rubbed at bleary eyes with one hand while the other fumbled with the buttons on her lab coat. She walked into the main room. She noticed, with some degree of surprise, that both Sylvie and Meg were still there. They were both seated in front of Meg's computer, staring intently at the screen.

"Heyyy..." she said, surprised at how tired she sounded. "What're you two still doing here?"

"Shhhh," Meg replied.

Lou was instantly interested. She looked over the women's shoulders, at the computer screen. Blinking a little to clear her eyes, she saw that the screen was displaying a TV program. One of the news stations, from what it looked like.

"What's this?" she asked, lowering her voice.

Sylvie didn't even look like she'd heard. Meg glanced at Lou. "Someone's holding up a skyscraper downtown," she whispered. "They're saying it's terrorists."

Lou looked back to the screen, her hands resting on the backs of Sylvie and Meg's chairs. She listened to the reporter's commentary, getting a vague idea of what was going on.

"There, there!" Sylvie said, pointing at the screen.

"What?" Lou asked. When no response came, she looked where Sylvie was pointing. It took her a moment to figure out what she was looking at, but soon realized she was seeing the glowing exhausts of four small jet engines. The glows came closer, eventually coming into the light and revealing that they were attached to four sleek power-armor suits.

"And the Knight Sabers have just arrived..." the reporter was saying. Lou swallowed and kept watching. Something had to be pretty bad if those mercenaries had to be called in.

The thought of mercenaries made her look away, towards the door to Nick's office. There, inside a duffel bag at the back of a small closet, was his Guillotine clothing and weapons. He hadn't touched them in the week and a half since he'd started working so ferverently on Anri.

She looked back as Sylvie gasped.

"What?" she asked, on edge.

"L...look," she said.

Lou looked. She could see pieces of glass flying from the front door of the building. The Knight Sabers, who had been waiting outside, ran in through the smoke. Soon after, there came the flashes of gunshots and the streams of lasers.

"The Knight Sabers look to be in trouble," the reporter said, nervously. "I'm sorry that we can't see inside, but I doubt they were expecting such heavy resistance..."

"Priss..." Sylvie said to herself. "Please be careful..."

"What?" Meg and Lou asked simultaneously.

"Nothing," Sylvie said, shaking her head.

They kept watching, their eyes glued to the screen. After a while, the explosions died down. Finally, it was quiet again.

"Do you think they made it inside?" Lou asked.

"I hope so," Meg replied.

"They did," Sylvie said, her voice showing her certainty.

"How're you sure?" Lou asked her.

"I just know, okay?"

"Alright," Lou said, backing away a little. She didn't want to get Sylvie all worked up over nothing.

All three women looked up as they heard the door to Nick's office closing. There, calmly locking his door, was the man himself. In one hand was a gray duffel bag.

Lou jumped a little at the sudden appearance. "H-how long have _you_ been out of the operating room?" she asked.

"Since the Knight Sabers appeared," Sylvie said, still watching the screen. "He's been watching over our shoulders."

Nick just shrugged and nodded, showing that Sylvie was right. Lou looked at Sylvie with wide eyes. Meg did likewise. Sylvie, pretending not to notice, glanced up at Nick.

"Where are you going?" she asked him, as he headed for the door to the hallway outside.

"Lou," he said, ignoring Sylvie, "the 'roid in there just needs a little bit more work. Do me a favor and reconnect the spine. You know, at the base and those two spots we had trouble with. And..." he thought through a mental 'to-do' list. He started ticking things off on his fingers. "Digestive system needs another cleaning...circulatory system needs to be given the once over...and go ahead and replace those bio circuits I pointed out. Then just sew her up. We can start when I get back."

"But where are you _going_?" Sylvie repeated herself.

_Now_ Nick looked at her. "I'm taking your advice," he said. "I'm taking a break, and going back to an old hobby."

All three women were still thinking that over by the time the door closed. Sylvie figured it out first, and sighed resignedly. Lou figured it out soon after, and sprang to her feet.

"Wait!" she said, running for the door. "You can't go! Not if you're done! We can't - "

"He's already gone," Sylvie said, not bothering to get up. "And you couldn't stop him even if he was still here."

Lou sagged on her feet. "But if he said we're _done_..."

Sylvie looked at her, sympathetic. "I know," she said in a sad voice. "But he's a lot stronger and faster than you. If he wants to go, he _can_."

"But..." Lou tried to say, searching for words.

"I know," Sylvie said, looking back at the screen. "I'm really sorry he's like that. But why don't you do what he asked you to? Then he can finish things." She didn't say it out loud, but she was reluctant to actually say 'reactivate Anri.' She didn't really know why; maybe it just meant admitting that she hadn't been able to protect the girl.

"But..."

Sylvie looked at her again. Her face still showed sympathy, instead of the annoyance she could feel in her gut. ^She's my _friend_,^ she told herself. ^Why am I getting annoyed at her?^

"Al...alright," Lou said. "But I need to get some tea. And lots of it. I need the caffeine." She kept looking at the other two, as though expecting them to come along with her. Neither of them budged, too focused on what was on the screen to notice she was waiting.

With a sigh, Lou walked out of the office.

***

Silia Stingray watched the scene unfolding from the roof of a nearby building. There, several hundred meters in front of her, was the tall glass and concrete structure of the office building. Her helmet's scanner was working overtime, trying to see what was inside, but she couldn't make out much.

"Getting anything, Nene?" she asked.

Nene shook her head. "They must have jammers or something in place. I can't see much past the first-floor defenses."

"And what's that look like?"

"Uh..." Nene consulted her helmet's scan. "They've barricaded the door, and it looks like...maybe a half a dozen men are in there. Carrying assault rifles."

"What class of rifle?"

"I don't know," Nene said, disappointed in herself.

Silia sighed. Of all the times to have an incident like this. She'd just been about to start upgrading the suits with Dr. Raven. The upgrade might have given Nene's suit enough power to see through the jamming, and definitely would have given it enough to see what kind of weapons the terrorists had. To say nothing of the added defenses the upgraded suits would posess...

But she didn't have time to whine about what they didn't have. She just had to work with what they did have. She started by opening a channel to their hangar.

"What's your progress, Mackie?" she asked.

"I'm doin' pretty well, sis. I got the Knight Wing ready to fly. I can be there in ten minutes. But I won't be able to do much unless you can clear the roof."

Silia glanced towards the roof of the office building. The whole structure had to be a hundred stories high, at least. And whoever had taken it had been smart enough to set up some very effective anti-air weapons on the roof. The ADP hadn't been doing too well; three choppers had already been on the receiving end of those guns. All three had exploded in midair before crashing to the ground in heaps of scrap metal.

"We'll see what we can do, Mackie. Get here as fast as you can, but stay out of range of those guns. We're going to try and clear the roof."

"Roger, sis."

"Okay," she said, opening a channel to the other three Knight Sabers. "We need to clear the roof. And to do that, we're going to have to go in low and work our way up. There's a group of men holding down the lobby, but they shouldn't be a threat to us. So we'll go in that way. We need to be agressive for this one."

"Say no more," Priss said. "I'm already there." She started walking towards the edge of the roof they were on.

"I'll back you up," Linna said, following.

"Okay, then," Silia said. "Knight Sabers...go!"

All four of them jumped into the night sky. Priss arced her jump to land just in front of the main door. As Nene had said, it was barricaded. Priss looked it over as the other three Knight Sabers landed some distance behind her.

"Stand back," Priss said, reaching behind her back. The other three all took a few steps backwards. Priss's hand came back holding one of the high-explosive grenades she'd decided to take on this mission. She armed it, rolled it up to the doors, and fired her boosters, jumping back about a dozen meters.

All four women turned their backs to the door as the grenade went off. The shockwave alone was enough to push them away a step. Shrapnel filled the air, along with a wave of heat. The hardsuits were up to the challenge, however; the Knight Sabers were in no danger.

"Charge!" Priss yelled, firing her jets again and blasting through the now-open main door. True to her word, Linna followed closely behind, her mono-streamers trailing behind her. Silia absentmindedly wondered if she should make those things retractable before going in herself.

Inside, Priss and Linna had already taken cover behind some of the rubble. The men - a half dozen of them, just as Nene had predicted - were backing away, clustering together. Their rifles were at the ready. Silia could ID the rifles on her own at this distance. They looked like standard low-budget models. Some paranoid people bought them to defend their houses, but that was about all they were good for. Why would they be using guns like that here, against armored ADP officers and the Knight Sabers?

"Drop your guns!" Priss was yelling from behind her cover. The loudspeakers on her suit's helmet amplified her voice many times, so it filled the lobby. "Drop 'em and come quietly, or I'll kill every one of you!"

About half the men dropped their guns, casting them aside as though they were toys. Noticing how ready they were ready to give up their weapons, Silia began to suspect something.

"Everyone stay alert," she said. "There's something wrong here."

"Yeah, yeah. I got this covered, Silia," came Priss's voice. Silia turned her head just in time to see the blue-and-red suit walking out into the open for all to see.

"Priss, get back!" Linna's voice said over the comm line.

"I know what I'm doing," she hissed back. "Drop 'em!" she yelled again, switching back to her loudspeakers. When none of the men made a move, Priss raised her arm cannon. Silia could see that the woman had switched to the machine gun mounted in that arm.

"I'll do it!" she yelled. "I got no problem shooting all of you! So _drop_ the guns!"

One of the men pushed forwards, to the front of the crowd. His gun came up, in a blatant display of bravado. Priss didn't hesitate. She fired her own gun, filling the air with lead. Several shells hit the man's chest, which exploded into a red spray.

"_Now_ are you gonna listen?!" Priss asked.

Silia, not letting herself feel anything at the violence, zoomed her display in on the stricken man, who hadn't fallen yet. He looked a little surprised, but he also looked like he was getting his balance back. Intrigued, Silia looked closer. She very quickly saw the metal plate revealed under his now-destroyed shirt and skin.

"Priss, get back!" Silia yelled, but it was already too late. The 'man' had opened his mouth, and the cannon had dropped into place. He fired, the laser catching Priss full in the chest and pushing her backwards.

"Holy shit!" Priss said, losing her balance and falling onto her back. She wasn't hurt, yet; the suits could take a few hits like that before they began to give out. But Priss was already damaged, and the battle hadn't even started yet.

"Looks like our secret's out," the boomer said. "Let's get 'em, boys!"

The rest of the guns hit the floor. All of the men began to shake, sweat coming out of every pore. A few of them opened their eyes, which were now glowing red.

"Boomers!" Silia yelled, getting down. As soon as she said this, all of the men exploded, skins and clothing shredding like so much paper. Underneath was armor plate and hyper-strong muscles.

"We're in trouble..." Nene said. Silia didn't bother responding. She opened a channel to the other two.

"Linna, Priss," she said, calmly but quickly, "move up the right side. Try to break them up. Nene, jam their targeting sensors."

All three women responded with an affirmative. Silia went up the left side of the lobby, feeling very exposed as she came out from behind the rubble she'd been using as cover. A quick glanced showed Linna runnning up the opposite side, Priss close behind.

The boomers split, four of them going for Linna and Priss, two going for Silia. Silia fired her boosters and jumped, going clear over the first cyberdroid. Her arms came forwards as she landed. The second boomer opened its mouth, but Silia sidestepped the laser blast. She feinted to one side, hearing her first attacker skid behind her as he tried to turn around quickly. She then shot to the left, ducking under the boomer's grasping hands. She buried both her arm cannons in the thing's armored gut and fired.

There was a muffled explosion. The boomer's back burst open, smoke pouring out of a ruined main computer. Silia turned around from the already-dead machine...

And immediately caught a punch in her chest. The first boomer had done an impressive turnaround, and had caught up to her already. Silia felt her breath rush out of her as she flew through the air. But the suit had still taken most of the hit; it didn't feel as though her ribs were cracked. But now _she_ was damaged, too...they had another ninety floors to go, at least!

The boomer jumped for her, one of its arms deploying a claw. Silia rolled out of the way, hearing the floor crack as the 350 kilogram machine crashed down right where she'd been. She was on her feet in an instant, already firing.

At point-blank range, her arm cannons could push through almost any armor. After a few meters, however, their effectiveness started to taper off. Her rounds hit the boomer, and most of them sank into its body, but nothing got through to the vitals inside. Silia looked around, trying to find a way out of this. She extended both of her arm blades, even though she knew full well that a stand-up hand-to-hand fight with this thing would mean her death.

She crossed the blades in front of her, preparing to block the first blow as best she could. But the boomer stopped as a thin red laser beam bored into the side of its head. The cyberdroid turned to its left, just in time to catch another laser beam from Nene. The beam had been cranked up to full intensity, but the boomer's armor was still able to block most of it. Nene fired again.

"Anytime would be nice, Silia..." came the girl's voice as the boomer turned towards her. It took Silia a heartbeat to figure out that Nene was trying to distract the boomer. She used her jets to charge the boomer, coming around on its blind side. Her arm blades retracted, and her arm cannons re-armed. She fired as she went by, passing at a distance of no more than a few centimeters. _That_ close, her cannons were quite capable of punching through the machine, destroying its computer. The thing fell to the ground just as it reached Nene.

"That was reckless, Nene," Silia said.

"But I saved you - "

"Yes. Thank you. But that was still reckless. You could've been hurt."

"Well, I - "

Silia tuned her out, turning to see Priss and Linna. The two women had done quite well, from what she saw. Two boomers were in pieces, and Priss was finishing off a third with a few rounds from her railgun. Linna was shooting at the fourth and last with her arm gun, but the rounds weren't doing anything. Annoyed, the boomer charged, using its jets for more speed. Silia moved to help, but Linna was already in motion. She jumped into the air, clearing the cyberdroid. She flipped as the machine went underneath her. The move whipped her mono-streamers into a twin circle of death, catching the boomer completely off-guard. Both its arms and a fair chunk of its torso were neatly cut off.

Linna and the boomer both landed. The boomer fell to its knees, roaring its frustration. Linna spun and nailed it in the back with her Knuckle Bomber, blasting a hole the size of a basketball clean through the machine. The boomer finally hit the ground.

"And you're calling _me_ reckless?" Nene asked, indignant.

"They know what they're doing," Silia responded, without looking at her. "Linna's up to level eight already on the simulator, and Priss isn't far behind."

Silia thought she could hear Nene's "hmph," as a response, but she wasn't sure, and at this moment, she didn't care.

"Come on," she said. "We've got a lot of territory to cover before we get to the roof. And keep your guard up. I bet a lot of these so-called terrorists are boomers."

"Bring it on," Priss said.

Silia shook her head a little, noticing how burned and scratched-up Priss's suit was already. How were they going to make it all the way to the roof?

^We'll just have to improvise,^ Silia thought, leading the way to the stairs.

***

Careening through the streets of MegaTokyo in a manner that normally would get him arrested for aggressive driving, Daley got them to the crime scene in record time. The siren and lights on the car drove off all traffic, making it easier. Both men were out of the car as soon as it had screeched to a halt. Daley ducked around to the trunk and pulled out a powerful personal radio, while Leon went up to the nearest officer, a lieutenant.

"What's the report?" Leon asked the youthful-looking man.

The unnamed lieutenant turned around, pausing before he recognized Leon. "Uh..." he said, sputtering for a moment before collecting himself. Leon cocked an eyebrow and waited.

"We count at least two dozen boomers in there," the man said, pointing to the massive spire of the office building. "And that's just how many we've seen. There's probably more. We took a few of them out," he said, pointing over to one end of the hastily erected ADP barricade, "but we didn't come off too well."

Leon looked where the man was pointing and cringed a little. He could see the remains of an APC, along with a few bits of what might have once been heavy weaponry. It was all covered with a sickeningly large amount of red slush.

"Riiiiight," Leon said, looking away.

"Some of the boomers took the guns we used. Odds are they fused some of 'em to their bodies," the other man continued.

Leon nodded, gritting his teeth. Boomers were bad enough to start off with; when they started integrating other weapons and equipment into themselves, they got even worse.

"What's the status of the merc help?" Leon asked.

"Huh?"

"Mercenaries, you idiot. The _Knight Sabers_? Maybe you've heard of them?"

"Oh, yeah..." the man said nervously. "Uh...we saw them go in through the ground floor a minute ago. They had a hell of a lot of trouble."

"How much trouble?" Leon asked, feeling his stomach lurch.

"They ran into a bunch of boomers. The Sabers got beat around a little, but they came out on top."

Leon sighed, thinking. So Priss was all right. For now, anyway. But she was in there, with two dozen combat machines. And he was out here, helpless...

"We think someone else might be in there, too." the lieutenant said.

"Who?" Leon asked quickly. "We don't know," the man said helplessly. "We found another APC with the back doors ripped open, and with the driver knocked out cold from a concussion. Whoever did it took a PRAA gun outta the APC, along with a couple of HE grenades. I'm just assuming he went into the building, 'cause we haven't heard any reports of someone going around armed like that."

Leon grunted and turned around, walking back towards his squad car, where Daley was giving orders over a portable radio.

^Great^, he thought. ^It's gotta be Guillotine. At least he's not killing cops, yet. But this guy can rip up boomers with his _hands_, and now he's got our guns. Just wonderful^.

He came up to Daley just as the other man finished giving orders. Daley lowered his radio and looked questioningly at his partner.

"The Sabers are in there," Leon said, looking Daley in the eye. "I think our boy's in there, too. And he's got some of our High Explosive grenades and a PRAA gun."

Daley quirked an eyebrow. "Uh...PRAA?" he asked, pronouncing the letters as a word. "As in preys on animals?"

Leon resisted the urge to strangle his partner. "PRAA. Personal Rotary AntiArmor gun. It's like a rifle-sized minigun."

"Oh, yeah," Daley said. "I remember hearing about those. Don't you need a cyber-implant to use 'em?"

"Yeah, _humans_ need cybernetics. Guillotine probably just plugs right in."

Daley nodded. "So what're you going to do, then?" he asked, maintaining eye contact.

Leon took a breath and looked away, turning his gaze to the high rise. He could just make out some gunfire, along with the orange glow of fire. As he watched, a few of the building's windows exploded open, some broken by bullets, others by missiles. He shook his head.

"Give the mercs another ten minutes," Leon said, looking back to Daley. "Then I'm going in. Get me a K-11 ready."

Daley didn't even bother arguing. Leon had that look on his face, the one that said he was going to do it _his_ way, whether or not anyone let him. As such, he just offered advice.

"K-11, Leon?" he asked. "I just got the report, and these guys are packing _big_ guns. Why not a K-12S?"

Leon shook his head. "I need the mobility. And the K-12 can't fly worth a damn."

Daley pursed his lips, thinking, then nodded slightly. "I think I can get you a second K-11 to go along for the ride. Might help to have the backup."

"Right," Leon said. "See what you can do."

Daley picked up the radio again and started relaying orders.

*** Nick ducked around a doorway and leaned against the wall, breathing hard. After a moment, he put one hand to his mouth and started coughing. He coughed so hard his whole body spasmed. He put his free hand, which still had its glove, against the wall for support and kept coughing. After a few moments, he met with success : several 'dings' of metal-on-metal sounded from his hand.

Catching his breath again, Nick took his hand away and wiped his mouth, which was covered with a generous dose of his own blood. He opened the hand he'd coughed into. Inside, resting on the leather palm of his glove, were five small bullets, bathed in a little bit of blood. Still coughing slightly, Nick threw the bullets away, listening to them bounce around on the hard floor. He looked down at his chest, where five holes in his shirt marked where the rounds had gone in. It looked like he'd need to do some repairs later, but for now, he was fine. He felt no guilt at having left his standard-issue 33-S-H body armor back at his apartment. He never wore that gear, anyway; it restricted his movements. In any case, if you were fast, you shouldn't get shot.

Unless, of course, you walked right into a boomer with an attitude and an assault rifle. Nick had managed to kill the boomer by tearing off its head, but not before the thing had hit him with the machine gun. And Nick's chest was now on fire with the new sensation of 'pain.' That was one of his new feelings he wished he didn't have. He would definitely prefer not feeling how much he was hurt. But at least now the bullets were out. And as his body bypassed the damage, the pain lessened until it was nothing more than a slight twinge.

^At least that boomer didn't use anything heavier^, Nick thought. ^Guess it thought I was human. Not that it would matter, anyway...^

He touched the back of his neck. It was hurting, again. Not as badly as last time, but it hurt all the same. If Ms. Stingray had been right, he only had a week left if he was lucky; three days if he wasn't so lucky. Instead of being worried, he felt...liberated. He didn't care whether he lived or died, because he was screwed either way. He could go all-out if he wanted.

And his conscience wasn't acting up, either. If he'd had to deal with pain, impending doom, _and_ an inability to do what he wanted, he probably would have gone insane. Apparently, his conscience didn't care what he did to combat boomers. He didn't mind _that_ at all.

He popped open the ammo slide in the rifle he had slung over his shoulder, and rammed in a new clip. He was quite satisfied with the stopping power in this weapon, but it's accuracy left something to be desired. He wouldn't have a problem leaving it somewhere for the ADP to find later. And he wouldn't even need to wipe off his fingerprints. A trio of wires coming out of the gun were strapped onto his arm, accessing the interface ports under his skin. He could command the gun just as easily as he could walk or move his arm.

After reloading, Nick looked around for another way to go. He didn't want to risk going back down that hallway; odds were there were other boomers lying in wait.

Spotting another doorway, Nick went into the hallway beyond and began jogging down it, his head whipping back and forth in search of new targets. All of a sudden, he stopped, and edged over to one side of the hallway. He could almost hear them...

Somewhere ahead of him was the clatter of hard, armored feet on the floor tiles. Nick checked the rifle to make sure it worked. Judging from the footsteps, he guessed there were four of them. Words flickered across his field of vision, a message from his J-2 :

TARGETS(?) : UNKNOWN. APPROXIMATELY 4 ARMORED TARGETS.

WEIGHT SCAN...THERMAL SCAN...EM SCAN...COMPILING DATA.

BEST APPROXIMATION : LIGHT COMBAT-CLASS CYBERDROIDS

MOBILITY RATING : B-

OFFENSIVE RATING : D

DEFENSIVE RATING : D-

THREAT ASSESSMENT : MID

PROCEDURE?

OK, so there were four lightweight boomers. It would be a joke to deal with just one, but four together did present a real threat. How to deal with them?

PROCEDURE : AMBUSH

ACKNOWLEDGED

Nick backed up, retracing his steps in his mind. He needed to find a place to hide, somewhere to catch the group off-guard. Odds are he could take out two of them with this rifle before the others even noticed. And he could take out the other two quickly enough some other way.

ALERT. NEW THREAT TO REAR.

^_What_!?^ Nick thought, whipping around to look at the doorway he'd come out of just a moment ago. Sure enough, he could just see the glitter of blue metal and the red glow of boomer eyes. The thing hadn't seen him yet; one of the advantages of the J-2 battle computer was that you knew what was going to happen before anyone else.

Nick looked at the new threat, then back at the previously identified one. He made a split-second decision. He slung the rifle on his back again and jumped up, holding his hand up protectively.

He made contact with the ceiling, and continued on, crashing through the acoustic tiling and grabbing onto a pipe. Working off of arm strength alone, Nick pulled himself up into the ceiling and edged over to one side of the hole he'd made. It was a tight fit in the ceiling, but hopefully, this idea would work. He wouldn't be able to use the rifle for this, because he wouldn't have much room to move. At least he still knew how to use his assault pistol. He pulled this weapon out and chambered a HEAP round before sliding the gun back into its holster.

After a moment, the blue, armored shape of a 55-C moved underneath him. It stopped underneath the hole, glancing upwards into the ceiling. Nick grinned, practically drooling in anticipation. He didn't know 55-C's very well, but he could improvise. He guessed that the boomer was just on patrol, running a simple program of shooting any unidentified personnel. It had no idea how to handle a hole in the ceiling. Odds were it was still asking its controllers what to do. Nick didn't give it the chance to figure out how to handle the situation.

Nick rolled quickly and fell out of the ceiling, back through the hole he'd made. He twisted in midair, slinging both arms around the machine's neck even as it tried to reach for him. Nick soon had it in a headlock, even though his feet were dangling off the floor; 55-C's were much taller than he was.

Nick twisted his grip and grabbed at the thing's armored throat, pushing up into its jaw, hoping the armor was weak there. The 55-C immediately retaliated, reaching for this annoying thing on its back with both metal arms. Nick released his choke hold and reached behind his back with his left hand, while his right kept a hold on the cyberdroid's throat.

Nick's left hand came back a half-second later with a glittering blade. He lashed out at the machine's left arm, grinning wildly as he saw the weapon cut right through armor and sever the arm at the shoulder.

The boomer paused, surprised at the loss of an arm, but only for a moment. It grabbed Nick's right arm with its own right, and began to squeeze. Nick's reinforced skeleton held up for a moment, but he could feel the bones beginning to crack. He definitely couldn't let this thing keep its grip.

Nick released his hold on the boomer's neck and flipped forwards, using the boomer's grip on his one arm as a stabilizing point as his feet touched the ceiling. He twisted in midair and brought his demi-sword around again, ramming in into the thing's forearm and twisting the blade. Sure enough, myomers ripped and failed. Suddenly deprived of its hand strength, the boomer released Nick's arm. Nick fell, but turned in midair and landed on his feet in front of the boomer.

Unfortunately, the machine was not down yet. Its mouth had opened as soon as it saw Nick falling down, and its laser cannon had dropped into firing position. Nick reacted instantly, dropping his sword, jumping onto the boomer, and ramming the heels of both hands into the machine's chin. As he'd hoped, the boomer's head snapped back, sending the laser shot into the ceiling.

Roaring in fury, the boomer unfolded its back jets and fired them, turning towards the wall to the outside as it did so. Nick saw it coming and just held on, his fingers crushing the machine's armor plating as he got a good grip.

With a tremendous 'smash', the pair exploded out the window and into space. The boomer turned its jets to full power straight down, giving them enough thrust to stay aloft. It then began to twist back and forth, whipping Nick around like a rag doll. He could feel his grip slipping already, but then again, he hadn't meant to spend much time out here, either.

Nick let go with one hand, using his other one to keep the deadly laser aimed somewhere other than his face. Shots from the boomer's mouth lanced wildly into the night air as it fought him. Eighty stories down, people watched, amazed.

Nick reached to his waist and pulled out one of the grenades he'd procured from the ADP truck. He hadn't been programmed with knowledge of how to use a grenade, but it wasn't the toughest thing to learn; pull the pin, and it goes 'ka-boom' a little bit later. Even as the boomer kept thrashing in midair, Nick put one thumb through the ring and popped it out, hoping the explosive had a moderately long fuse.

Nick twisted and put both feet on the boomer's chest, straining his muscles to the limit as he did so. At the same time, he rammed the grenade as hard as he could into the boomer's stomach. Armor bent and broke, wires sparked, and myomers gave way under the full-force punch. Nick also grimaced in pain, feeling his arm nearly shatter under the stress. He lodged the grenade in the boomer, let go with his other hand, and kicked off from the boomer's chest.

He curled himself so the glass he was about to hit wouldn't cut him; the last thing he needed right now was more pain. As he flew back through the air, Nick's J-2 noted the four targets he'd heard earlier were right where he was about to be. Cursing, he recalculated his options as his mental countdown continued.

***

Silia Stingray was leading the Knight Sabers down the hallway, moving by twos to guard each other. It had been a messy, dirty battle up to the floor they were on. The first few boomers had caught them off guard; it was amazing they were all still in one piece. Now, they were moving carefully, conserving their ammo and power supplies. But, so far, Silia wasn't sure they'd be able to get through this building without needing to leave for a resupply. And if they did _that_, the boomers would have time to regroup and prepare a better defense, one they might not be able to get through...

This train of thought stopped when they heard the sounds of combat just ahead of them.

"C'mon!" Priss shouted over the radio, as she jogged ahead. Silia did not mirror the enthusiasm. However, she followed, hoping Priss didn't jump in too deep, again.

She heard the roar of jets and the sound of glass shattering before she finally got to the scene of the fight. Priss had arrived a moment earlier, and was standing there, looking back and forth from the burn marks on the floor to the huge hole in the glass wall to the outside. Silia guessed from her stance that Priss was bewildered.

"What happened?" Silia asked, taking a look at the scene for herself.

"He...they just went out the window," Priss said, pointing.

Silia followed hardsuit's finger to where she could just see the fire trail of a boomer's jets, at the top of the glass. She took several steps forwards to take a better look.

Sure enough, there was a boomer flying outside, shooting wildly into the sky with its mouth weapon. What looked like a man in a black trench coat and sunglasses was wrestling with the machine. The man's face was somewhat familiar; Silia had encountered Guillotine once before. The Knight Sabers and him were not on the best of terms, but they weren't enemies, at least.

Linna and Nene had caught up by the time she saw him reach for his beltline. Working off her extensive battle experience, Silia immediately figured out what was going to happen.

"He's either insane...or very good," she mumbled to herself, as she saw the pin pop off the grenade. Judging from what she knew about the 33-S-H, she guessed that this man knew exactly what he was doing.

"Silia! Do you see - " Priss tried to say.

"GET BACK!" Silia said, shouting to get Priss's attention. Linna and Nene also heard the command, and took several steps back the way they'd come.

Sure enough, Guillotine kicked away from the boomer, dropping down and towards the building with his momentum. With a 'smash' he came through another window. Sliding across floor tiles and glass dust, he landed right in the Knight Sabers' midst.

A split second later came the ear-shattering explosion of a high-explosive grenade detonating. Shrapnel from the junk heap that had once been a boomer came flying in, ricocheting off of the floor and the Knight Sabers' hardsuits.

In the chaos, Guillotine kicked upwards, using the momentum to get back to his feet. Silia, however, had been ready for the explosion, and so saw the move. Almost as soon as Guillotine's feet hit the floor, the metal hand of Silia's hardsuit had closed around his right arm.

By the time the other Knight Sabers had recovered, Silia and Guillotine were in a very awkward position. Guillotine had unholstered his gun in a blur of speed, and had it pressed against Silia's faceplate. Silia, for her part, had the cannon mounted in her free arm aimed at Guillotine's chest.

Silia could see his trigger finger. If it was so much as one hair tighter, the gun would have sent a HEAP round through her helmet and into her brain. Silia also knew that, at this range, her hand cannon would blow Guillotine in half. No damage bypass system could get around that. And, Silia was counting on the fact that Guillotine knew that, too.

"Silia..." came Nene's nervous voice, over the radio.

"I can handle it," Silia responded coolly. She kept her entire body rock-steady, ignoring the gut-wrenching fear at the pit of her stomach. This was definitely _not_ the time to be afraid. She doubted the man in front of her could even feel fear, which meant she couldn't either.

Guillotine was breathing hard from the exertion. He turned his head a little, glancing around and noting the presence of the other Knight Sabers. A moment later, he smirked and took his gun away, releasing the trigger and putting the pistol back in its holster. Silia retracted her own gun and let her free arm fall limply to her side. She kept her grip on Guillotine, however.

Guillotine curled his hand into a fist, putting it over his mouth as he coughed a little. After pulling his glove back on, he spoke up.

"Well, hello," he said, in that gravelly, I've-been-chain-smoking-since-I-was-five voice of his.

"Hello, Guillotine," Silia said, keeping her calm. "We didn't expect to find you here."

"You kiddin'? I gotta reputation to keep up. I'm second only to you chicks," he said.

"Yes, we know."

"Can you let go of me, now?"

Silia looked him steadily in the eye, something that was hard to do, considering Guillotine was wearing those dark, wraparound sunglasses. Finally, she let go.

Instead of running, which Silia had half-expected him to do, Guillotine just shook himself a little, and straightened out his torn, hole-filled trench coat. He smiled a little, a half-crazy smile, as he looked back out the window. Then, as though remembering something, he walked down the hallway and picked up the sword that had been sitting on the floor.

Guillotine brought his blade around to his back and slid it upwards into an inverted sheath. Silia took a moment to call up the data Nene's suit had autonomously collected on this man. It looked like he was packing a PRAA rifle and a few grenades in addition to what he'd had when they'd first met him. There was something else, too...he was damaged!

"Having a hard time of it, I assume," Silia said, gesturing to Guillotine's chest, which was currently covered by the folds of his trench coat. The man looked a little surprised that she would know about his injuries even though they were covered, but then he shrugged noncommitally.

"Just had some bad luck. And it doesn't look like _you're_ doing too well, either."

Silia knew what he meant. The hardsuits were definitely not in top shape, not after the fighting so far. They were covered in burn and scratch marks, along with a few deformed areas that marked bullet and shrapnel impacts.

"But you're not my problem," Guillotine continued. "So, 'scuze me, but I got a job to do." He started heading down the hall, back the way the Knight Sabers had come.

"And how do you intend to survive long enough to finish this?" Silia asked.

"I'm making it up as I go along," Guillotine answered without looking at her. He kept walking.

"Really?" Silia asked. "I'm reading you currently have two HE grenades, a single extra clip for your pistol, and no spare ammo for that rifle."

Guillotine turned around and stared at her, visibly angered. "I _said_ I'm making it up as I go along. Now shut up and let me work."

"Really?" Linna asked, stepping in front of him. "What're you gonna do when you're out of ammo? Gnaw their arms off?"

Silia saw Guillotine's hand go behind his back. She knew it was too late to warn Linna, so instead she signaled Priss.

Guillotine thumbed the lock on his blade and whipped it out in a flash of steel. It was at Linna's throat, _just_ nicking the hardsuit's armor.

"I'll use _this_," Guillotine responded, his voice dripping with annoyance and anger. "Now get the hell out of my way."

It was about then that Priss's arm cannon clicked on. Guillotine glanced over his shoulder, at the railgun aimed at his head. His hand tightened on the blade's grip. Linna was frozen in place, not daring to move, for fear of getting a first-hand view of Guillotine's skills.

"You wanna finish it here?" Guillotine asked, smiling a little in wild anticipation. "Sure, I'm game."

"Wait," Silia said, as she saw his arm tense, preparing to ram the blade through Linna's neck. Guillotine did not relax his arm, but he _did_ turn his head to look at Silia.

"None of us want to do this," Silia said.

"I do," Guillotine responded quickly. "And I _could_ do it, too. You bitches don't have the jump on me, this time."

Silia held up her hands defensively. "Look, we all know a fight would only injure us all. Despite your bravado, Guillotine, you will be killed before you kill us all. We also know that if we continue on alone, we'll probably all fail our contracts. I suggest an alternate method."

Guillotine didn't respond. He just stared.

"Silia..." came Linna's nervous voice on the radio. "Get this...this..._thing_ off of my throat, please!"

"Just hang on a moment longer," Silia radioed to Linna. She turned her loudspeakers back on, speaking to Guillotine. "I suggest we work together, if only for this contract," Silia said, fighting to keep her cool.

Guillotine kept staring at her for a moment, then threw his head back and laughed to the world. Silia would have expected the sound to be chilling and hollow, but in fact, the man's laughter was full and honest. He was genuinely amused.

"Reeeeally," Guillotine said, drawing it out. He took a few steps, coming around behind Linna and turning his demi-sword so its edge was across her neck. He gestured at Silia with his free hand as he leaned on Linna's shoulders.

"You," he said. "You, the best damn mercs in MegaTokyo, are asking _me_, a lowly boomer, to help you out?"

"I'm just making the best of a bad situation," Silia said, glancing at Priss. For once, the woman wasn't suffering from an itchy trigger finger. It looked like she didn't want to take chances either, when a teammate's life was at stake.

"Yeah, this _is_ a bad situation, isn't it?" Guillotine asked in a cocksure voice. "But...hmm..." he said, making a show of putting one hand to his stubbly chin, looking thoughtful. "It _is_ intriguing. What's it worth to you?"

Silia took a step forward, tempting Guillotine to go ahead and kill Linna, while secretly hoping that he wouldn't. She needed to see how serious he was.

Guillotine responded by pulling the blade a centimeter closer to himself, cutting through the hardsuit armor, the softsuit, and touching Linna's neck. Silia stopped as she heard Linna gasp in pain and fear.

"It's...on...my..._neck_, Silia," Linna said, between gasps. Her voice was shaking as she struggled to maintain control of herself. "I can..._feel_ it, right there."

Silia didn't answer. Her mind was working hard on how to handle this. She hadn't counted on the sword being sharp enough, or Guillotine being strong enough, to cut through hardsuits like that.

"I don't see why we should pay you for help," Silia said. "You benefit, as well. You won't be able to finish this contract without our help." She looked Guillotine in the sunglasses. The man's jaw clenched as she did so. "I'm right, aren't I?" Silia asked.

Guillotine's arm muscles tensed up, preparing to finish the cut. But, all of a sudden, he gasped a little. Silia could see his face twist up as his body suddenly seemed to rebel. Shaking a little, Guillotine whipped the blade away from Linna's neck, but at the same time angrily planted one foot between her shoulder blades and pushed, sending her sprawling to the ground. Before she'd even hit, Guillotine had put his blade away, his movements so fast that Silia couldn't track them.

Linna was picking herself up shakily, putting one hand over her neck to make sure it was still in one piece, even though the hardsuit kept her from actually touching her skin. Silia made an effort not to look at Linna, instead keeping her eyes on Guillotine. ^She'll be all right,^ Silia thought. ^I don't need to watch, to make sure...she'll be all right...^

"Okay," Guillotine said, after an awkward silence. His shoulders sagged. "I'll go with you. Goddammit..." That last word was more to himself than anyone else.

"Good," Silia said. She finally permitted herself to turn to Linna and help the woman regain her balance. "Are you alright?" she radioed the woman. Linna just barely managed a shaky nod, although one of her hands was still at her neck.

"Okay," Silia said on her loudspeakers. "We'll divide into two groups." She looked to Guillotine, who shrugged. He didn't seem to have a problem with Silia taking command. He almost looked...defeated, somehow. Silia wondered what was going on in his mind. It had looked like he'd been ready to slit Linna's throat, but then he'd relented. _Something_ was making a 33-S-H behave in this abnormal manner. She'd have to figure it out later. She cataloged this in her memory as she switched back to the present.

"We'll need one group to keep going up this way, and a second to fly up and take the roof," she said. "It's only about twenty more stories, so we can probably make the jump, now. If we can clear the roof, ADP helicopters can move in and help us secure this building."

"Whatever," Guillotine said. "I'll take the ground job. Flying isn't my thing."

Silia nodded at this. "You," she said, pointing to Priss, "go with Guillotine. Continue along the route we planned. The rest of you," she said, turning to Linna and Nene, "are with me. Are your jets in order?"

The green and red helmets nodded. Silia turned back towards Guillotine. "Understood?" she asked.

The man just shrugged and unlimbered the rifle strapped to his back. "What the hell," he said. "I've always dreamed of going down with the local warrior bitch."

Priss bristled. "That's it, Silia," she began, over the radio. "I'm _not_ taking this job. Send Linna! Or Nene! _Anyone_! Send a freaking _motoroid_ with him!"

"Priss, you're going," Silia responded, phrasing her sentence not as a suggestion, but a statement of fact. "The motoroids won't fit through the doorways, here. Your suit has the heaviest weapons, and he has the hardest job. Which means you go."

"Silia, I don't care. Let him go alone! He can handle himself, we've seen him!"

"Priss, we can't take risks with this. He might be a boomer, but he fights GENOM, which means he's on our side. I'm not going to let him die," she said, stopping before she added on the word 'yet' after that sentence.

"I...oh, okay," Priss said. She'd just remembered who was responsible for repairing Anri. "I'll watch his back, but I'm warning you - "

"Fine. Thank you, Priss. Now get on it. We probably don't have much time before they regroup."

Priss stiffend at being interrupted, but then nodded and started off down the hallway. Guillotine followed obediently, checking his rifle.

"Let's go," Silia said, before they'd gotten out of sight. She activated her radio connection to the Knight Wing. "Change of plans, Mackie," she said, listening through the small bursts of static, "We need a distraction. We're coming up the south side of the building, and you need to get those snipers off of us."

"Can do, Sis," Mackie's cheery voice said in response. "Gimme two minutes to get in position."

"Just remember to keep property damage to a minimum. And try and stay safe, yourself."

"Yeah, yeah. I gotcha."

***

Priss stalked along down the hallway, quite conscious of Guillotine's presence at her right. She was a babysitter. That was what she was doing. She was babysitting this prick, to make sure he didn't get himself killed. But she _couldn't_ let him die, or else Anri would never...

She resolved to swallow her pride for this one mission. She couldn't make any guarantees to herself about any other missions with Guillotine, however. She hoped that he fixed Anri quickly. Then she wouldn't have to guard him. She could...

"Priss," Silia's voice crackled in her ear.

"What?" Priss snapped over the radio.

Silia was unfazed by the tone in Priss's voice. "Mackie's setting up distraction from the Knight Wing. I'd suggest you get ready for a hit on the north side of the building."

"Right. Gotcha, Silia."

Silia didn't respond. She'd already terminated the communication. But Priss didn't have time to get angry at being cut off like this; she stopped moving and braced herself against the wall. Guillotine saw the move and immediately followed suit, a heartbeat before the sounds of explosions came from the upper floors, and the building began to vibrate.

Priss kept her balance as the floor shook and the walls creaked ominously. "What the hell is he doing!" she asked aloud.

Guillotine responded with a sound that was halfway between a grunt and a laugh. Priss glanced over at him, to see him staring at the ceiling.

"What?" she asked, trying to ignore the loose ceiling tiles that fell to the floor under the vibrations.

"Sounds like incendiary missiles, if I guess right," Guillotine responded, as though he was just passing the time of day. "Probably shooting 'em through the windows of the...ninety-third and ninety-fourth floors."

Priss drew back, a little disturbed that this man would know so much just from the noises and vibrations. But she immediately shifted back to how she'd been; there was no need to have this man see she was afraid of him.

"We'll wait 'til it's over," Priss said. "Then we'll - "

"Why wait?" Guillotine asked. He stood away from the wall and, despite the thundering explosions from floors up above and the cooresponding shockwaves, managed to continue down the passage. Priss followed, after a moment's hesitation. They had made it up to the next floor by the time the explosions ceased. Priss tried to stop there, but Guillotine had motioned for her to keep going.

"But there'll be _boomers_ on this floor!" she said. "We can't just skip over it. It's our job to get them all!"

"Wow. I'm so shocked," Guillotine said. "Just shut up and keep going." He pulled another grenade from his back.

"What're you doing?" Priss asked, beginning to go up the stairs.

"Trying something out," he said. He took a roll of tape out of his pocket.

"Where'd you get that?" Priss asked.

"We're in an office building, Einstein. Every one of these frikkin' rooms has tape in it." Guillotine hooked the grenade's pin over the door handle, and proceeded to tape the body of the explosive to the wall.

"Let's go," he said, satisfied with his work.

Priss went up the stairs, Guillotine close behind. She was getting a rough idea of what he had planned. But they'd need to coax someone through that door for it to work.

They made it to the next floor. Priss pushed the door open and kept walking. Guillotine walked past her, stopping in front of a doorway.

"There's a few in here," he said, gesturing towards the door with his head. "Right," Priss said, nodding. Finally, some action. She could handle that. She didn't even bother to ask how he could know what was in the room, without opening the door.

"I'll go in the back door," Guillotine said, walking down the hallway.

"Whatever," Priss said. "Just say when you're ready."

Guillotine opened up a door further down the hall. "I'm ready," he said, before disappearing from view.

Priss took a breath to calm herself, listening to her pulse pounding in her ears for a moment. When she was focused completely, she lashed out with her foot at the door.

As soon as her heel connected with the synthetic wood of the door, an energy burst was sent out from her hardsuit's foot, causing a small explosion and shattering the door. Amid the dust and splinters, Priss stepped in, her right-arm railgun loaded and fully powered.

Her display instantly targeted a boomer, to the left side of the door. With a war cry, Priss jumped at the one on the left, nailing it in the gut with both feet. The heel blasters fired again, creating the same result as with the door. As she fell to the ground, she managed to get one foot and an arm underneath her, avoiding what would have been an embarassing crash-landing.

Priss whirled on the rest of the room, bringing up her gun. There were two more targets, both of which were boomers, according to her display. They were still in their skins, though. One was masculine, and stood by the window, while the other one, a female, was closer to the corner. Priss hesitated, trying to decide which one to go after first. She had her misgivings about killing a woman, even one that was actually a machine. Making her choice, she pointed her gun at the male boomer.

All three of them were caught off guard by a crashing noise. Guillotine was there, having just smashed through the wall. He grabbed the nearest target, the female boomer, and dragged her back through the hole in the wall. A second later, the boomer's screams could be heard. They continued, despite the audible squeals of tortured metal.

Priss whirled on the remaining target, the male boomer. He'd already burst out of his skin, and was coming right at her.

Priss ducked to one side, getting clapped on the shoulder by the charging boomer. She stumbled and wildly fired her machine gun at it, but the bullets just ricocheted off of the boomer's tough armor. She debated using the railgun, but she only had a few rounds left for that thing, and she didn't want to waste them. That left hand-to-hand weapons. And in the close confines of the room, she was at a serious disadvantage...

Her battle-trained mind came up with a plan. Moving on instinct alone - as she preferred - she regained her balance and charged the boomer, which was currently turning around to face her.

The boomer saw her, identified her as a target, and began to reach for her, but it was already too late. Priss rammed her left fist into its chest, the Knuckle Bomber there causing a concentrated explosion that pushed through to the boomer's internals. The machine opened its mouth wide, roaring in fury as it felt its main power supply go off-line. Priss was still moving, grabbing a grenade off of her back plate and pressing the activation button with her thumb.

"Eat this!" she yelled, ramming the grenade down the boomer's still-gaping throat. The machine choked and stuttered for a moment, reaching for its mouth in an attempt to retrieve the explosive. Priss grabbed the boomer with both hands, shifted her weight and lifted it up over her head. With a yell, she chucked it out the window. Priss took a step backwards as she heard the explosion, and the subsequent 'crash' as the boomer's shattered body impacted with the pavement below. She silently congratulated herself for bringing along her own set of high explosives, instead of the crescent-shaped breaking charges she usually carried.

She heard movement behind her. She didn't have time to react before Guillotine brushed by her.

"I gotta say," he said, glancing out the window and towards the street, "it sure looks like you're picking up some of my tricks."

"Oh, shut up," Priss said.

"Whatever."

Priss watched him walk out, then followed. "I'm going to be glad when this mission's over," she said to herself.

"Yeah, me too," Guillotine responded, walking back up to the corpse on the floor. Priss cursed again. She hadn't meant to leave her loudspeaker on when she'd said that.

She followed him through the hole in the wall. "What were you doing in here, anyway?" she asked.

"Just downloading a pain program," Guillotine said, his voice full of false innocence.

Priss was going to ask what that meant when she saw the inside of the room. As her helmet's display automatically adjusted to the dim lighting, she saw what was left of the female boomer. Her body had been torn into several small pieces, most of which were still connected by tattered wires. Guillotine had artfully decorated the room with pieces of her. The boomer's head had been cleanly severed, and lay in the corner. Priss couldn't look; the boomer hadn't had time to shed its skin, and so it looked like a human's head.

^Well,^ she thought, ^He's not called 'Guillotine' for nothing.^

She walked out of the office the boomer had died in, and went into the hallway.

"You're a psycho," she said to Guillotine. "You gotta be quick and clean, if you're gonna live."

"Tell you what," Guillotine answered, as though speaking to a child, "you do things your way, and I'll do 'em mine."

Priss didn't respond. But she jumped a little as she heard yet another explosion.

"Is he firing on the building again?" she wondered aloud, looking out the window to see if the Knight Wing was visible.

"Nope," Guillotine answered, bringing his rifle down off of his shoulder. He levelled it at the door to the stairwell. "Someone just found my little present downstairs. Here they come."

Priss looked at where he was aiming just in time to see the door burst open, and a very angry-looking 55-C come out of it. It was followed by several other forms, some out of their skins, some not. She realized that Guillotine had been expecting their action here to draw attention from the floors above and below. That would save them the trouble of rooting out every boomer, but that also meant at least half a dozen boomers were coming in, right now.

"COME ON!" Guillotine yelled, his machine gun opening fire. "WHAT DO YOU GOT?!" His face was a mask of near-insanity, as the gun spat thunder down the hallway. The first boomer was literally shredded by bullets, and fell to the ground, looking more like Swiss cheese than a battle machine. Guillotine didn't even flinch as the boomers returned fire. He sidestepped the laser blasts and kept firing, wounding a few more cyberdroids, but not downing them.

Priss turned as her display alerted her to a new threat. Down the other way, a few more boomers were coming through a hole in the ceiling.

"You idiot!" she yelled at Guillotine. "You got the attention of the whole building at once!" She levelled her railgun at the boomers and fired several times in rapid succession. Guillotine didn't respond. He fired his gun until it was out of ammo, then chucked the heavy weapon at the nearest boomer's chest. His assault pistol and combat blade were out in a flash, and he careened down the hall.

Priss was busy, as well. Her railgun was quickly depleted, leaving three more boomers that needed to be handled. Two of them were 55-C's, but the other one looked like one of the higher-end models. It was a dark green, and had more sharp edges and fancy styling. She jump-kicked this one in the gut, blowing a crater in it. The other two boomers were instantly there, each one grabbing an arm. Priss reacted, firing her jet pack and breaking one of the holds. The other boomer managed to keep its grip, however, and spun her around in a jet-assisted spin, sending her out the window.

Priss cursed as she went through the glass, then cranked up her jets and did an about-face, charging right at the waiting boomer. She came back through the window and tackled the boomer, pushing them both across the hallway and through a wall. The machine grabbed onto her right arm, trying to crush it, but Priss's left arm was still free. She used it, bringing the Knuckle Bomber there down onto the boomer's head. Its skull caved in and exploded, shocking the machine so much that it let go of her. Priss punched it again, this time destroying the abdominal computer.

She turned around, high on adrenaline, looking at the last boomer, waiting for her back in the hallway. She shouted out another war-cry, charging. She grabbed the boomer around its gut and did a pile-driver into the ground. The boomer twisted, trying to get away, but Priss wasn't going to let it. She wrapped her arms around it and picked it up off the ground. She squeezed it with every ounce of strength her suit could give, smiling maliciously as she felt its armor cave in and the internals give way. She dropped the machine once it had stopped struggling.

She got to her feet and looked at the boomer she'd kicked. It was better built than a 55-C; the kick hadn't stopped it. It was actually getting back to its feet.

"You want some more?" she asked it. The boomer kept trying to come at her. Priss crossed the distance and rammed her foot down on its head. Its skull caved in and detonated. Priss rammed her right arm through the hole in its chest and fired her machine gun into its internals, watching the sparks fly and the boomer struggle. It finallys stopped moving. Satisfied, she turned back towards Guillotine.

The man was fighting three boomers of his own. A few other boomer corpses were on the floor around him. He levelled his gun at one cyberdroid and fired once, into its head. The resulting explosion blasted pieces of the boomer's skull all over the hallway. He then swung his sword in a large arc, with such force that he cut a deep furrow from the boomer's groin all the way up to its neck. Continuing the loop, he rammed the blade through the gut of another boomer, the tip of the weapon coming the the machine's back. The cyberdroid stumbled backwards, embedding itself in a wall. Guillotine faced the last boomer, which was targeting him with its mouth laser. He didn't even try to dodge; he just aimed and fired twice. The first bullet hit its chest and exploded, doing no damage, but the second one went into its gut. The round detonated, jerking the boomer's form. The laser fired anyway, but due to the explosions, missed Guillotine's head by a few centimeters.

Guillotine watched the dead boomer fall to the ground, then ejected the clip of his gun. He pocketed the empty clip and slammed in a new one. Then he removed the brass catcher, emptied it into a pocket of his trench coat, and replaced it with a practiced motion. Priss had crossed the distance to him by the time he'd finished reloading.

"Y...you...you..."

"Yeeeeeess?" Guillotine asked, in a condescending tone.

"You got a death wish or something?" Priss asked, privately amazed at how her scrambled voice sounded when it shouted. "You just took on two or three floors worth of boomers!

"It's amazing what you can do when you don't care what happens to you," Guillotine replied. "And I know what I'm doing, anyway. That's two or three floors we don't have to deal with, any more."

"You bastard..." Priss said, biting it out. "You don't have the right to take risks like that."

"Who're you? My mother? Oh, wait, I forgot. I don't _have_ a mother. So shut up!" Guillotine shouted back, dragging his sword out of the boomer in the wall. A considerable amount of circuitry was pulled out with the blade. The boomer, no longer attached to the wall, slumped down to the ground. After pulling the pieces off of his sword, Guillotine swung back and jerked his arm forwards. Priss closed her eyes just before she heard the brief 'ching' of metal cutting something. She heard the 'clunk' as a heavy metal object hit the ground.

"Gimme a minute," he said, going over to the other boomers he'd killed and decapitating them, as well. "I gotta reputation to keep up, ya know."

"Go to hell," Priss replied.

"Screw you," Guillotine shot back.

Once Guillotine was done, they continued through the building, heading towards the roof, which the other Knight Sabers were already occupied on.

***

Silia crouched down as another deadly beam of energy blasted right through where she’d been a moment ago. She tucked and rolled, finishing the maneuver with a short, jet-assisted jump behind some rubble. She surveyed the situation her suit’s radar system.

There had originally been two guarding the roof, but they had fallen under a combined assault from both her and Linna. However, two more boomers from the floors below them had come to back up their comrades. These two had orginally been standard 55-C’s, but they had somehow come across a collection of heavy weapons. They'd melded the extra guns to various parts of their bodies, complementing their already deadly mouth laser and heat cannon.

To top it all off, the Knight Sabers were starting to run low on ammo. Her suit was telling her it only had enough power for a few more minutes at this level of activity, and her weapons only had a handful of rounds left in them. Odds were Linna wasn't doing much better.

"Nene, give me a status report!" she yelled into her comm. She usually didn’t get this worked over from just some _boomer_, but seeing the two walking weapons platforms with enough firepower to level a building had put her a little on edge.

"Uh..." came the voice of her computer expert. "The ADP’s sending in some of their K-11’s. And Linna's trying to separate the two boomers."

The first part of the news was bad : K-11’s wouldn’t last for a second against these things. The second part of the news had been good. The boomers, in an impressive display of tactical knowledge, were staying together. With their upgraded weapons, it would probably take all three of the fighting Sabers - herself, Linna, and Priss - to take out the two of them. But with Priss occupied further down the building, they couldn't handle both boomers at once.

Silia barely flinched as a missile barrage tore into the rubble she was hiding behind. But it was probably time to get out of the way. She hit her boosters, flying out from behind her cover and getting behind the shattered, smoking remains of an ADP chopper. Glancing around the edge of her newest shield, Silia could just see Linna crouching on an elevated portion of the roof.

"Priss, do you copy?" she said into her radio, her voice betraying none of her fear.

"I'm here, Silia," came Priss's voice.

"Good. How close are you to the roof?"

"We're making good time, somehow. I think the rest of the building is clear. We can be there in a few minutes, if we run."

"Dammit," Silia said to herself. A few minutes was the equivalent of a few years, under these conditions. They needed an alternate plan.

"Priss, get here as fast as you can. Their roof defenses are heavier than we thought."

"Gotcha."

Silia immediately switched her radio link to the red hardsuit on the roof. "Nene, you’ve got to help us somehow," she said. "Can you distract one of the boomers?"

"I think I can, Silia. Its sensors are still a system I know."

"Good. Do something to boomer 1. We’ll take number 2."

"Right. Ready when you are."

Silia was ready. Radioing Linna, she told her the plan. On her signal, all three Knight Sabers jumped into the sky.

A blistering salvo of energy beams, bullets, and missiles quickly filled the air. But Nene already had her ECM suite working; the boomers couldn’t target much of anything. As such, Silia was able to maneuver in between the shots and fire off a couple of rounds from her arm cannons at what her display had tagged as boomer 2. She tried to ignore the low power warning, as well as the alert that there were only two and three rounds in the right and left arm cannons, respectively.

She hit the ground and rolled, bringing up her cannons again as she stopped. Firing them in a one-two punch, she rolled out of the way again as boomer 2 put a crater in the ground using the missile launcher it had attached to its leg.

"Nene, where’s our backup?" she shouted.

"It’s coming!" came the reply. Silia looked up to see the red-and-pink hardsuit come up behind boomer 1, which was preparing to fire a salvo at Linna.

Silia nodded, and radioed a message to the green hardsuit. Then she stood up and fired her left arm gun at the leg missile launcher on boomer 2. Sure enough, it had some rounds left, and it exploded in a firey display. The boomer actually appeared injured from the hit; sparks and mech fluid were coming out of the wound. But the thing showed no pain. Instead, it charged Silia, using its jets to lift its heavy body off of the ground.

Meanwhile, Linna had flipped down to their level and run over to one side, to come up on the boomer’s flank. The boomer, enraged by Silia’s assault and blinded by the explosion, had not seen her. As such, when it charged, it ran right into her cutting ribbons.

Silia let a smile form on her mouth as she saw the boomer’s chest torn open, circuitry and myomers flying everywhere. Linna moved in to finish the job with a Knuckle Bomber hit to the abdominal computer.

"Silia, we'll be there in thirty seconds. What's going on?" came Priss’s voice over the radio.

"Another boomer down," Linna answered, responding for Silia. "Just one more to go. You're missing all the fun here, Priss."

"Yeah, right. _You_ try going through a building with this guy."

Silia tuned them out and looked over at boomer 1. Nene had done a good job. She’d come up behind the boomer and activated her remote interface, establishing a wireless connection to its computer. If Nene was using the disorentation program she’d made earlier, the machine probably didn’t know left from right, currently.

Silia’s eyes widened a little as she saw a door further down the roof burst open, and saw a misshapen metallic form come out.

"Nene, look out!" she called into the radio.

"Huh?" Nene asked. She looked back and forth, her gaze falling on the incoming BU-22. Specifically, she noticed the rocket launcher it was levelling at her.

"EEEEK!" Nene shrieked out as she rocketed off the ground, just missing a rocket explosion. Unfortunately, the shockwave sent her off course...directly into the remaining 55-C.

The battle machine might have been distracted by Nene's hacking skills, but even in its current state, it couldn't miss the bright red hardsuit coming down right on top of it. The boomer reached out and grabbed Nene by her shoulder, its fingers digging into the suit. It then swung its arm through the air, viciously launching the girl across the roof. As Silia got up and prepared to charge, the boomer opened fire with a chaingun it had on its left arm.

Silia closed her eyes for a heartbeat as she saw the bullets strike Nene. The armor seemed to be doing its job...

A scream from the computer expert filled her ears and forced her eyes open again. Where was she...there. Nene had hit the ground, and was trying to crawl away from the boomer. She was leaving behind a wide trail of glistening blood.

As Nene’s screams mixed with sobs, Silia launched herself towards the boomer, running instead of flying to conserve power. She angled her run to put the machine between her and the other boomers. A one-person charge probably wouldn’t work, especially not with the latest reinforcements, but Linna was hopefully about to back her up. And Priss should be coming onto the roof herself right about now...

She fired on the boomer, watching helplessly as her shots bounced off of its armor like ping pong balls. But, she succeeded in getting its attention away from Nene. As her display blared that she was out of ammo, the thing turned towards her. Its eyes glowed evilly as every gun it had came to bear on her. With its targeting systems no longer being jammed, there was no way it could miss.

Silia was still prepared to dodge as much of the salvo as she could, but as it turned out, she didn’t have to. The boomer was suddenly hit from behind by a hail of fire. Overbalanced by all its guns, it fell face-first into the pavement. Silia looked up to see what had hit it.

She was greeted by the suddenly welcome sight of two K-11 armor suits descending down on columns of flame. They were both clutching their smoking, oversized rifles, and seemed prepared to fire again, if necessary.

Smiling despite herself, Silia deployed her wrist blades and ran the last several meters towards the boomer. On the way, she glanced over at the BU-22 boomer. It had already begun moving into battle position at the sight of the armored troopers. It was now taking potshots at the K-11's. The suits took cover, and returned fire.

The boomer that had hit Nene was just now getting up. It looked up just in time to get a blade through the eye. Silia tore her weapon out of the thing’s head, then swung it down again, spearing it through the gut. The boomer shivered once, then fell still.

The whir of helicopter blades filled the air. Silia looked up to see at least a half-dozen ADP combat choppers coming in on an attack run. Their gatling guns were spitting hot death into the area the BU-22 was hiding in. The odds were quickly evening out.

One of the K-11's stopped firing and looked over at Silia. "Looks like _you_ needed _our_ help for once," came a familiar voice from the suit. It was Inspector McNichol. He was one of the best suit pilots the ADP had...but he’d been coming to the boomer incidents involving the Knight Sabers a lot more often lately. He could be a problem, if he learned too much.

Silia looked at him and nodded wordlessly. To conserve her flagging power, she deactivated all of her weapons. Leaving the other boomers to be finished off by the ADP, she ran over to Nene.

The hacker was still sobbing in pain, and her suit diagnostic showed she was going into shock. Not good. Silia turned her over and had a look. Her torso, head, and arms all seemed intact, although large chunks of armor had been shot off. Her legs...

Silia took a sharp breath. Her right leg had taken a shot right through the thigh. The armor had not been enough to hold off the high-powered chaingun rounds, there. Blood was pouring out of the wound, leaving a large pool. How could she lose so much blood...

"Oh, no.." came Linna’s voice from behind her.

Silia turned around. The green hardsuit was standing just behind her, looking very worried. But Silia's attention was quickly drawn to the background, where a firey explosion was mushrooming into the air. Both K-11 suits took cover behind various pieces of rubble. Silia adjusted her display and zoomed in on the action. She saw Guillotine coming out of the smoke, firing round after explosive round from his pistol at the BU-22. Unfortunately, the boomer's armor was too thick for his gun to have any effect. Priss's suit was also there, firing bursts from her machine gun.

"Priss!" Linna called out over the radio. "Quit showing off and get over here! Nene's hurt."

Priss's blue helmet immediately turned in their direction. After a moment of hesitation, she checked over her shoulder, looking at Guillotine. Seeing that the man was handling himself quite well, she powered up her suit's jets and jumped through the air towards the other Knight Sabers. Silia watched, wondering how much power Priss's suit could have left. It _was_ packing the new heavy-duty power cells she'd wanted to test out, but even they had their limit.

Silia couldn't help noticing one K-11 turn away from the action, its view following Priss's arc. That was the one Leon was piloting...what was Leon's interest in the blue hardsuit?

"What happened?" Priss asked, coming to a graceful landing.

"She took a chaingun round," Silia responded authoritatively. "It looks like it nicked the artery. I don't know how badly." Her voice betrayed her as she finished; she was truly scared. ^And all I did to her this mission was yell at her,^ she thought. ^Nene, I'm sorry...^

"How is she?" Priss asked, sounding afraid for the first time all night. Silia's demeanor only cracked when it was _really_ bad.

"We need to get her to a hospital, and soon," Silia said, making sure to keep control over her voice, this time.

Linna responded, her own voice on the edge of panic. "But the closest hospital’s ten kilometers from here! And we can't show up in armor, we have to - "

"Let's see about that," Silia said. She fired up her radio.

"Mackie, where’s the nearest hospital?"

Her brother’s voice greeted her. "Uh...kinda far away. Who’s hurt?" Silia paused, taking a breath. "Nene is."

She was greeted by silence.

"Mackie? Are you there?" She could hear the sound of his fingers tapping madly on a keyboard. She had a fair idea of how close Mackie and Nene were. If Nene died...

"Sis, I...dammit, there's no time! How long would you give her? We gotta get rid of the hardsuits before we can drop her off."

Silia nodded to herself. Mackie was fighting with the same decision she herself was : if they rushed Nene to a hospital, they'd draw a lot of attention to themselves, and someone would end up finding out the identity of the person behind the red faceplate.

"I don't know how long she has, Mackie, but it doesn't look good. I'm open to suggestions, right now."

The Knight Wing came into view, hovering just beyond the roof.

"Just get in!" Mackie yelled. "Maybe we can help her on the way."

Silia knew it was a stupid idea. None of them had detailed medical experience, and Nene needed the help of a trained surgeon, _now_. But she didn't bother arguing. She just picked up the red hardsuit, with Linna’s help, and carried Nene's limp form over to the Knight Wing as it came in, lowering the landing ramp.

"Freeze!" came Leon's amplified voice.

Silia turned around. What was Leon thinking? They didn't have time to deal with police business...

But Leon wasn't looking at them. He wasn't looking at the BU-22 either; that was at work engaging the choppers. Leon was looking at Guillotine's dark shape, which was still standing in a cloud of smoke. Silia zoomed her display again, checking on the figure in the black trench coat. He was currently holding his demi-sword tightly in one hand. His gun was nowhere to be seen; presumably, he'd run out of ammo and had holstered it.

"You're under arrest!" Leon continued, levelling his gun at Guillotine.

The other man didn't even bother responding. He moved so quickly he almost seemed to disappear, going behind a chunk of concrete.

"Fire at will!" Leon barked aloud. He and the other K-11 immediately started unloading ammo at the cover Guillotine was behind. Two of the choppers broke away from the BU-22, and started looping around to come in from the other side.

Priss reacted immediately, leaving Silia and Linna to carry Nene inside the plane. She turned around and walked back onto the roof, activating her loudspeaker as she did so.

"Leon, you damned _idiot_! Stop shooting at him! He's on our side!"

"Get back here, Priss," Silia bit out. "We need to get going."

"I know what I'm doing. Get her on the plane," Priss shot back. She looked like she was readying her arm cannon. Silia hoped that the woman wouldn't resort to shooting cops...

But she didn't have to fire a single shot. All of a sudden, every light on the roof activated, lighting up the area like it was noon. The effect was immediate : all the ADP units stopped shooting. Most of the choppers lost control; the two that had been coming around to shoot at Guillotine crashed into each other and fell to the roof, where they detonated.

Silia immediately realized what had happened : the suits and helicopters had been using light enhancement to cope with the dark, so the sudden activation of all the lights would have been like looking at the surface of the sun. Sure enough, she could hear cries of pain coming from one of the armored troopers. Silia took a moment to wonder how Guillotine could have pulled that one off. Finally, she remembered : 33-S-H mobile phones allowed the boomer to take control of simple electrical systems by remote. Systems like the roof lighting.

Amid the chaos, Silia saw the BU-22 turning and aiming at something distant. It fired a missile into the night, almost casually. But that was the last thing it did; Leon's suit, apparently unaffected by the light, lined up a shot at the distracted boomer and put a round right through its gut. The boomer collapsed into a smoking heap.

Amid this chaos, Guillotine came from around his cover. He was unarmed, this time; he appeared to have sheathed his sword so it wouldn't get in the way. He ran at top speed towards the Knight Wing, covering the thirty-meter distance in a heartbeat. He picked up a surprised Priss, effortlessly slung her armored form over his shoulders, and ran up the entry ramp with his human cargo.

"Go!" he shouted, just barely as he got up the ramp.

Silia was angered that he thought he could take charge like this, but was not one to argue, given the conditions. After another glance at Nene, she radioed Mackie.

"We're all on board. Hit it, Mackie!"

The Knight Wing immediately banked, sending them all against the wall. As they pulled away from the roof, the entry ramp retracted back into the plane. After a second to re-align the Knight Wing, Mackie switched out of VTOL mode and hit the main jets, sending them flying away from the office building.

"Sis, I got the plane on auto! I'm coming in!" came Mackie's voice a second later.

"No, don't," Silia responded, glancing at Guillotine. "We have another passenger. That other mercenary."

"_He_'s here?! What the hell are you thinking?"

"He came of his own accord. He..." Silia stopped, thinking. If Guillotine was who she thought he was, then maybe this could work out for the best. Glancing at Nene's motionless, bleeding form again, she spoke up, radioing Mackie.

"Just stay in the cockpit, Mackie. I'll tell you when it's safe to come out."

She was answered with a few agitated grumbles, along with a few choice expletives Silia would never have guessed her brother knew. She cut her radio and turned her speaker back on, as she approached Guillotine.

Priss had shaken free of the man's grip as soon as the Knight Wing had levelled off. Guillotine didn't look too thrilled to be where he was, either.

"Well," he said, getting up and dusting himself off. "Take me home, Jeeves."

"You're welcome," Linna said, angry. "Just freeload whenever you want."

"Hey, what would _you_ have done?" Guillotine asked, bristling and turning towards the green hardsuit. "How's about we drop _you_ off back there, and ask those cops to take a few shots at you!"

"Why, you - "

"Stop," Silia commanded. Linna went silent, while Guillotine whirled to face her.

"You're not my boss," he said.

"You're right," Silia responded. "You don't have to take orders from me. But, we did just save your life."

"Oh, I could've made it - "

"No, you couldn't have, and you know it." Silia was amazed at how easily the boomer was able to lie. Usually, they were built with at least _some_ drive to tell the truth. She cataloged the information in her brain for later use.

"And," she continued, "we're asking a favor of you, in exchange."

Guillotine smirked. "Really? What? Someone you want me to nail?"

"No," Silia said, shaking her head. "We saved your life, now we need you to reciprocate. One of us took a hit."

"Oh, yeah," Guillotine said, turning his back to her. "Red there. Where'd she learn to fly? _I_ at least know you don't throw yourself at a boomer unless you're completely cracked."

Silia ignored the hit on Nene's competence. "You've obviously got some surgical skills, if what I've heard about you is right. And you're a businessman, Guillotine. You have a debt to pay. I'd suggest you pay it." Priss and Linna took this moment to punctuate Silia's request, loading their guns.

"So it's _this_ again, huh?" Guillotine said, looking at the blue and green suits. He faced Silia again, walking towards her. "Well, I tell _you_ something. It's just your own tough luck that someone got hurt. So you can just..." he got quiet, suddenly, as Silia kept her gaze on him. Guillotine's hands clenched, and he shook a little, as though fighting another internal war. He fell to his knees.

"I..." he said, whispering. "I'll take a frikkin' look. Where is she?"

"What's with the sympathy, all of a sudden?" Silia asked.

"Shut the hell up," Guillotine responded, getting back to his feet. "Just show her to me. I'll...do what I can."

Silia pointed to Nene's form. Guillotine walked over and squatted down, suddenly oblivious to the threat of Linna and Priss's guns. He looked around the damaged leg, peering through the entry and exit holes the bullet had made.

"Do you know human anatomy?" Silia asked quietly, her scrambler removing whatever emotion had been in her voice.

"Technically, no," Guillotine answered, distracted. "But I can just pretend they're 33-S sexaroids. Humans are pretty much the same, 'cept they're not as tough."

"You know the 33-S well, I gather?"

Guillotine angrily flipped her the bird. "Just let me work, okay? How the hell do I get this armor plate off?"

Silia bit her lip. "We can't remove individual armor pieces," she resplied. "We'd have to take the whole suit off."

"Then do it," Guillotine responded, stating what he believed was the obvious solution.

Silia turned towards Linna and Priss. Both suits betrayed the users' uneasiness. They had to save Nene...but at the cost of revealing one of their identities to someone? To an assassin boomer, no less?

"Oh, screw it," Guillotine said. Silia turned back around, in time to see him pull out his demi-sword.

"What are you doing?" Silia asked.

"Watch, and don't distract me," he answered curtly. Guillotine reversed his grip on the blade and, very carefully, began to cut away a slab of the hardsuit. Silia tensed, knowing just how form-fitting the suits were. If Guillotine so much as sneezed, he'd bury his blade into Nene's leg.

But, luckily for them, Guillotine had seen the thickness of the suit by examining the bullet holes, and so he knew exactly how deep to cut. In just a few minutes, he'd managed to cut away the armor over Nene's thigh. He pried off the plate, using his sword as a lever. The softsuit underneath had been cut in a few places by the blade, but it was in surprisingly good condition, given the method he'd used for removing the armor plating. Guillotine grabbed at the softsuit with one hand and ripped it open. That left an expanse of bare leg to look at. It normally would have been quite attractive, but currently, the leg was marred by the huge furrow the bullet had cut into it.

The gash was pretty nasty. It was almost half a dozen centimeters in length and two or three in width. Parts of the skin were burned black, while others were swollen and red. The muscle was shredded in a few places. And blood...who would have guessed a wound could bleed so much?

"Damn," Guillotine said aloud, in appreciation of the effectiveness of the boomer's attack. "I gotta get me one of those guns."

"What's it look like?" Silia asked, trying to keep him focused on the job at hand.

"It looks like she's been shot," Guillotine replied, his voice sarcastic and annoyed. "How should I know? Let me look." He stared down at the wound, his eyes flickering back and forth behind his sunglasses. Silia watched him calmly, hoping he knew what he was doing.

Guillotine shrugged out of his trench coat, revealing his well-muscled torso. He balled up the coat and pressed it down onto the injury, stopping the blood flow as best he could. He also elevated Nene's leg, letting gravity help out.

"Hold this a minute," he said, glancing up at Silia.

Silia knelt down and carefully started pressing down with one hand and holding up the leg with her other hand, as Guillotine removed his own hands. He also took a packet of cigarettes and a metal lighter out of the trench coat's pockets.

"What are you doing?" Silia asked, as the man pulled out a cigarette with his lips and lit it with a practiced motion. She couldn't blame him for smoking; she would have liked having a cigarette, herself, right now. But, this didn't seem like the time or place to be taking a leisurely smoke.

"Just shut up a minute," Guillotine said, smoke pouring out of his mouth as he smoked. After he'd gotten the cigarette started, he brushed Silia away and removed the coat. The fabric stuck to the wound, and as he pulled it away, Nene began to groan in pain, even though she was unconscious.

Guillotine reached up with one hand and pressed down as hard as he could onto the exposed leg just above the wound. He got a good grip, and kept it. Sure enough, he began to cut off blood flow; the bleeding slowed down quickly.

"Hold right here," he said to Silia. Silia complied, clamping her suit's hand over the area Guillotine indicated.

"Keep up the pressure, so we can slow down the bleeding long enough for me to work," he said. He then carefully brought his cigarette down onto a part of the wound. Skin and sinew hissed as they burned, and a little smoke came up.

"What the hell?" Priss asked, over the radio. She took a few steps towards Guillotine. But Silia stopped her, holding out one hand to block the woman.

"I'm cauterizing it," Guillotine said, as though reading Priss's thoughts. "It cleans the wound, and stops the bleeding. This isn't enough heat..."

He stuck the cigarette back between his lips, its diminished glow re-igniting as he did so. He took his lighter out and flicked it on, holding the flame to the largest blood vessels. Nene began to twist around a little, trying to fight off her attacker as the pain began to wake her up. Silia immediately started using her free arm to hold the girl down. Linna and Priss just watched, entranced by the scene.

Guillotine kept up a steady pace of burning the cut, checking to re-assess the damage, and then burning it again. He aimed for strategic points, sealing the artery and the largest veins closed. Nene came around during this, and began to cry out in pain as the burning continued. Silia was sure she felt the whole plane shift when Nene cried out the first time, but Mackie managed to keep the Knight Wing steady after that. Silia knew what was wrong; in her current state, bare nerve endings were getting burned, sending what had to be agonizing pain through Nene.

Guillotine tuned out the screams. He spat out his cigarette and looked up at Silia.

"She is _really_ messed up," he said. "Just burning it isn't gonna work. I'm gonna have to do some surgery right now. Can you hold her?"

Silia nodded, radioing Linna as she did so. The green hardsuit move into position and helped hold Nene down. Guillotine moved back into place. This time, he drew his blade, the metal glittering in the overhead lights.

When Nene saw Guillotine moving back to his work, demi-sword in hand, she began to thrash even harder.

"Let me go!" she shouted. "I - AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!" she screamed, as Nick cut into her. "Silia! Make him stop! AAAAARRRRGGGHHH!!! I...SiliAAAAAAAA!!!!!"

Silia grit her teeth as Nene pronounced her name, but Guillotine didn't even seem to notice that Nene was speaking. He was...she looked again to make sure. Guillotine was clenching his jaw tight, trying to tune out the cries of pain. Silia knew mental constitution of the 33-S-H; they liked causing pain. So then, why would this one be disturbed by hearing a girl scream? And what would have convinced him to heal an injury? Silia didn't know, but she did know that now was not the time to find out.

"What a wuss," Guillotine mumbled under his breath. He made another surgically precise cut.

"HELP ME!" Nene screamed out desperately. She began to sob as she realized that her friends weren't going to let her go. "AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!! What are you _doing_?! MACKIE! MACKIE, WHERE ARE YOU?"

Silia _knew_ the plane shifted when the girl yelled out that last part. They nearly lost their balance as the Knight Wing banked a little.

"Keep it under control, Mackie!" Silia radioed to the cockpit. Silence was the only reply she received, but the Knight Wing did re-stabilize. She looked back to the man in front of her. "Can't you do something to make it hurt less?"

"Nope," Guillotine responded quickly. Nene seemed to scream even louder at this.

Guillotine was finally done. He finished up by re-cauterizing the parts he'd cut. He got to his feet and pulled his trench coat on again. The blood spot from where it had touched the injury was barely noticeable against the black fabric. But, as Silia looked, she could see many other old blood stains on the coat. Obviously, he'd been in this racket for a while.

"Bandages," he said, holding out one hand, while still looking at the injury. No one moved. "Come _on_," he said. "I gotta dress this up, or else it'll just start bleeding again."

Linna had the presence of mind to take the first-aid kit off the wall. She threw it to Guillotine, who took out a long roll of gauze and proceeded to put a quality field dressing onto the leg injury. He was done in a matter of minutes.

"Glad that's done," he said casually, rubbing his ears. "Hope I get my hearing back."

Silia finally let go. Nene instantly began to twist away, trying to get away from the people who'd been holding her down.

"Don't let her move that leg," Guillotine said quickly, his voice sounding just a little worried.

Silia signaled to Linna. The other woman bent down and held Nene's leg. She also talked to the girl, trying to calm her down. It turned out she didn't need it; Nene's pain-overloaded mind was already shutting down, sending her back into peaceful unconsciousness.

"I did all I could," Guillotine sighed out, lighting a new cigarette as he leaned against the wall. He glanced at Priss. "Put the gun down, please. I work better when I'm not being targeted."

Priss paused for a moment, thinking, but then slowly lowered her arm weapon. Guillotine looked back to Silia.

"Anyway, I had to improvise a lot with the bigger veins and stuff," he said. "But I stopped the bleeding, which means she's stable for the moment. Don't move that leg any more than you have to. And get her to a hospital as fast as you can."

An awkward silence filled the room for a moment.

"Thank you, sir," Silia said, finally.

Guillotine looked at her and nodded. "Like you said, I'm a businessman. And I _did_ have a debt to repay. By the way, fire your pilot. He sucks."

Silia managed to keep control over herself and not let her anger show. She didn't want anyone talking that way about her brother, but then again, it hadn't been the smoothest ride, either.

"Will she...need a cyber-implant?" Priss asked, speaking up.

Guillotine glanced over at her. He looked ready to send a cynical comment her way, but caught himself at the last second. He shrugged. "I have no idea," he said, throwing up his hands. "I did all I could for the leg, but it's pretty messed up. She might need a little strategic replacement."

Priss shuddered, thinking about that. She looked down on all forms of cybersurgery, even the kinds used to save lives. Guillotine noted Priss's reaction, along with similar reactions on the part of the other Knight Sabers. He didn't say anything, though. Being a boomer, he had no problem with cybernetics.

"Where can we set you down?" Silia asked, switching back into 'business mode'.

Guillotine shrugged. "Anywhere no one'll notice a huge VTOL jet landing. I can walk a long way, if I have to."

Silia nodded and radioed instructions to Mackie. The boy responded in a dull monotone, giving an affirmative.

The group sat back and waited, as the plane continued on into the dark night.

***

Sylvie shifted around uncomfortably in the hard chair she was sitting in. It would have been maddening, if she hadn't had Meg and Lou for company. Currently, though, only Meg was in the room. Lou had been in the operating room for the past few hours, working on Anri.

Sylvie crossed her legs and leaned back, trying the position for what had to be the third time. She normally would have tried making conversation with Meg, but the TV held both womens' attention.

A news helicopter was taking a tremendous risk, bringing their channel a real-time aerial view of the office building the Knight Sabers had entered. Sylvie couldn't help wondering if the terrorists occupying the building would shoot the helicopter down. If the explosions from earlier were any indication, they definitely had enough firepower to do it.

"And we're switching back to the ADP barricade..." the reporter was saying. The view immediately switched to a camera angle that was zoomed in on the line of ADP officers in full battle gear, all taking cover behind the hastily erected armored shields.

"As we can see," the reporter continued, "the Advanced Police is still waiting, but you can feel the tension. It looks like they're getting ready for something. Still no word from the Knight Sabers, or the Guillotine mercenary from inside."

Sylvie just concentrated on breathing. She was concerned about Priss, who was stuck inside. She didn't want Meg and Lou to know, because that would give away Priss's secret. So she just sat there, worried to death and having no one to talk to.

"And it looks like the ADP's bringing in some of their bigger guns..." the reporter stated, as the camera panned over to a large truck pulling to a stop. Sylvie cocked her head as she noticed a familiar face. There was a man with short brown hair and dark blue eyes, with a serious expression on his face, running up to the truck. He was obviously ADP, judging from his manner, but he was wearing normal clothes instead of a uniform.

"Who's that?" Sylvie asked.

"Who?" Meg countered.

"Him," Sylvie said, reaching forwards and tapping the man's image on the screen.

"Oh, that's Leon McNichol. Haven't you heard of him?"

Sylvie looked down blushing as she remembered something. "No..." she said, unable to keep a giggle out of her voice. "I just remember seeing him...somewhere. He was always trailing after Priss, I think."

Meg shrugged. "Cute, isn't he?"

Sylvie went a deeper shade of red. "Yeah...I can see that. But it sounds like he's interested in Priss."

Meg laughed a little. "So? He's still available. And I hear he's open to experimentation."

"Meg!" Sylvie said, smiling as she glanced at her friend. "What's gotten into you?"

The other woman just shrugged. "I guess it comes from living with Nick," she replied.

Sylvie instantly sobered and turned back to the TV, her face going blank.

"Sorry," Meg said.

"It's all right," Sylvie said, unconvincingly, as she kept her gaze on the screen. It looked like the ADP had decided they didn't want the news crew with them. The screen was filled with hands, pushing the camera away. A few voices could be heard yelling in the background, ordering the camera crew away.

The view changed, suddenly. From the new angle, Sylvie could make out a falling humanoid shape, small against the building at the range the camera was at. She was still trying to determine if the form was human or boomer when it exploded into a fireball. Sylvie's eyes went wide and she sat back, watching the now obviously metal form plummet to the pavement, where it left a sizeable impact crater.

Sylvie heard Meg gasp behind her, watching the boomer die. But, for her own part, Sylvie found her eyes glued to the screen. She knew she should be disgusted by what she'd just seen, but she was instead enthralled.

The camera was zooming in on a broken window, which the boomer had fallen out of.

"And, we just saw another boomer get destroyed...we're seeing if we can spot anyone in that room," came the reporter's nervous voice. "Oh, there, you can just see someone..."

Sylvie squinted as the camera kept zooming. There : just inside the window, she could make out a blue hardsuit. She immediately recognized it as Priss's. It looked slightly different from the last time she'd seen it, as though it had been upgraded since then, but the distinctive lines remained.

Sylvie saw a shadowy form move from behind Priss. She knew warning her friend was impossible, so she just watched.

From behind Priss came another familiar face. The sunglasses were different, but...it was definitely Nick Brady. He pushed Priss aside and glanced out the window before turning and disappearing from view. Priss's helmet slowly rotated to watch him. The two of them walked out a moment later.

"So, it looks like the Knight Sabers are currently working with the mystery man, who only goes by the name Guillotine..." the reporter continued.

Sylvie took a breath to calm herself. She'd known that both the Sabers and Nick were the building. But the thought of Priss, working alongside an H...was disconcerting. They seemed to be getting along fairly well, too.

The camera angle had panned upwards, aimed at the roof of the building. Flashes and fire lit up the air, but nothing could be seen from the camera's position on the ground.

"I again apologize that we can't see the roof," the reporter was saying, "but currently it is much too dangerous to send a helicopter up there."

Sylvie let her head fall back, looking at the ceiling in exasperation. If only she could _see_ what was going on. She didn't trust the H any further than she could throw him, currently. And he was working right next to Priss...She kept watching, hoping she could see something happen. All she got in return for her patience was more pictures of a deceptively peaceful building wall.

After several minutes, Lou walked in, pulling bloody latex gloves off of her hands.

"What's up?" she asked, dropping the gloves in a nearby trash can. She started unbuttoning her white lab coat as she walked into her office.

"What was the last thing you saw?" Meg asked distractedly, staring at the TV screen.

"Uh..." Lou said, coming back into the room with a bottle in one hand, using her other hand to finish unbuttoning her coat. "I think the Knight Sabers were going into that building, or they were about to, or something. Oh, and Nick went, too."

"Well," Sylvie began, "they've gotten up to about three-quarters of the way to the roof. And it looks like Pri...the Sabers are working with Nick."

Lou didn't notice the slip. She twisted the cap off the bottle in her hand and tilted her head back, taking a long drink.

"Hey, watch it, Lou," Meg said, noticing the drinking.

"Oh, don't worry," Lou said, coming up for air. "It's just flavored water. I learned my lesson about alcohol."

"Oh...okay, sorry," Meg responded, going back to watching the TV.

"How's it going in there?" Sylvie asked.

Lou shrugged and pulled up a chair of her own, sitting down next to Sylvie. "Actually..." she said, grinning. "I'm done. I just finished sewing her back up."

Sylvie tore her eyes off of the video screen, as did Meg.

"Really?" Meg asked, excited.

"Yeah," Lou said, her smile growing as she nodded.

"Well that...that's great!" Meg exclaimed. Sylvie was about to agree, when the screen caught her eye.

The camera angle had switched again. "One of our pilots has agreed to a long-distance view," the reporter said. "So we have an exclusive shot of the battle for the roof." Sylvie's mind tuned everything else out. Meg and Lou had lost interest in the screen, and Sylvie was too intent on what was happening to get their attention.

The view was not very good, the camera having to zoom in from a considerable distance. To top it all off, it was pitch black, the only light coming from the stars and the moon, both of which were occasionally obscured by the clouds. But despite the view, Sylvie could still make out the flashes of gunfire. And as the moon momentarily appeared, she saw the hunched form of a BU-22. The combat boomer levelled its gun-arm at something and fired off a rocket. Sylvie's eyes tracked the projectile, to where it lit up the night, highlighting a red hardsuit, which was apparently flying out of control. The moon went back behind a cloud as the suit landed on top of what looked like a 55-C. Sylvie bit back a curse. She had to see what was going on! She couldn't just be stuck in the dark like this!

She took a breath as she saw an explosion. In the quickly dying flames, she saw a hardsuit and a man in a trench coat come out of a doorway. Both of them were already firing.

"Be careful..." she mumbled to the two figures. "Don't get yourselves killed."

"Huh?" Meg asked, hearing Sylvie. She looked at the screen. "What's this?" she asked. "What's going on?"

"Uh...roof view," Sylvie said absentmindedly, still watching the screen. "News got it. Sabers are there. Yeah..."

"Where's Nick?" Meg asked.

Sylvie didn't answer. She strained her eyes, trying to see what was happening.

She had to draw back a minute later, as the roof was suddenly lit up. She squinted, mildly annoyed. She looked back, seeing the two K-11's standing with their guns aimed at a pile of rubble. Behind the rubble was Nick Brady. Nick immediately began running, going out from behind his cover, and right in front of the suits.

Sylvie couldn't help herself. She shot to her feet, and viciously grabbed the screen.

"YOU GODDAMN IDIOT!" she yelled. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING! YOU'LL GET SHOT!"

She heard a 'thud' behind her, but didn't look. She kept her eyes plastered onto the screen. Unfortunately, she didn't get to see much else happen, because at that moment, she caught a glimpse of a missile, coming right at the camera. Then there was static.

Sylvie gasped, realizing that the helicopter had been on the recieving end of that missile. She was also furious at having missed the end of that, to see if Nick had made it or not. The screen flickered, and went back to the reporter, who was holding a hand to his ear.

"Oh...dear Lord. We've lost our helicopter pilot," the reporter said. "And It looks like the Knight Sabers are pulling out," he continued. "That means its up to the ADP and the Guillotine mercenary to finish off this tense situation. The...the pilot we lost, along with the cameraman in that helicopter, are - "

As the reporter continued, as the view switched back to the ADP barricade. The troopers were already deploying, moving past the shields and charging the building. Watching the orderly manner they moved in, Sylvie immediately became convinced that the battle was won. It was just a matter of time before the situation was resolved.

She set the screen heavily down back down on the desk. She then turned around. Her eyes widened a little. There, on the floor, was Meg, still sitting in her overturned chair. Lou was crouching over her. And both women were staring at her, shocked.

"Wh...what?" Sylvie asked.

"Y-you blew up..." Meg said. "I was surprised...and I fell over."

Sylvie knelt down next to the woman and helped her to her feet. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to do that. I just got excited, I guess."

"What was so exciting?" Meg asked, picking up her chair.

"Oh...Nick was just being stupid, again," she said, putting on an annoyed look.

Lou and Meg's brows furrowed. "You got _that_ excited over Nick?" Lou asked.

"Well..._yeah_," Sylvie replied. "If he gets himself killed, Anri can't come back, right?"

"I guess so...yeah," Lou responded. Meg sat back down, looking suspiciously at Sylvie.

Sylvie shook herself and went into Lou's office, asking the woman if she could grab a drink of her own. Lou said okay, so Sylvie picked up a water from the small refrigerator. She was draining it before she'd even stepped out of the office. Meanwhile, she was trying to sort out her thoughts. She'd felt her heart drop into her stomach when she'd seen Nick run out of cover like that. It was just because he had to save Anri, right? Because he was the only one who knew how to reactivate a dead brain. Yeah, that had to be it.

"He's just an idiot," she said under her breath, taking another drink. She caught herself before she started downing too much of the bottle. She didn't want to drink the same way Nick did.

Sylvie's brow furrowed as she kept thinking. Then, shrugging, she checked her watch.

"I gotta go," she said. "I guess I should get _some_ sleep."

The other two women got up and said their goodbyes. Sylvie left a little bit later, after calling a cab company so she had a ride to her new home.

Meg and Lou remained there, waiting for Nick to call them up, and knowing that he would. He'd begun making a point of calling them at the end of every mission. He'd told them that if he didn't call, it meant he was dead, and they would have to run if they wanted to avoid certain GENOM representatives. It was a tense time, waiting for a call every night he went out. But it was better than the old way, of always being in the dark, not knowing until the next morning whether he'd made it or not.

Finally, just after 1:00, the phone rang. Meg stood up - Lou was asleep - and went to pick it up.

"Hello?" she answered.

"It's me," came Nick's voice. He sounded tired.

"So you made it through?" Meg asked.

"Yup, you're stuck with me for a while longer. Look, I'm headed over there now."

"You aren't going to the apartment?"

"No. I've gotta check everything over on that 'roid. I probably forgot a few things. Did Lou do what I told her to?"

"Yes," Meg replied. "Anri's fixed, according to her."

"I'm sure," he said, skeptical. "I still wanna check it out."

"You don't trust her?"

"I stopped trusting people a while ago," he said, his voice sounding even more tired. "Now listen, I just got the payoff for that job. It's in our account, so it's safe. I don't have to do anything else, so I'm going over there. I'll probably sleep at the office."

Meg shook her head at this. "Okay," she said, resigned. "Fine. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Hey," Nick said, stopping Meg just before she hung up.

"What is it?" Meg asked, intrigued.

"Is that one sexaroid there? The one named Sylvie?"

"No, she left a while ago. What is it?"

"You just tell her that I owe her a punch in the face."

"What?"

"Whatever she did to me, it's making me a sympathetic bastard. See you there." This was immediately followed by the 'click' of Nick hanging up.

Meg pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it incredulously, unable to believe what she'd just heard. 'Sympathetic' was quite possibly the very last word she would use to describe Nicholas Brady. But, he'd sounded like he was telling the truth. Why lie about it?

And on top of that, Nick sounded like he wasn't going to change his opinion on Sylvie anytime soon.

"Will you two _please_ stop fighting all the time?" she said, loudly, at the dead receiver.

Lou stirred. "Huh?" she slurred out.

"Nick's being himself," Meg replied quickly. "He's not going to stop fighting with Sylvie anytime soon."

"Oh, okay..." Lou mumbled, before closing her eyes again.

Meg sighed and shook Lou awake. They left the office, locking it behind them before going down to their small car to drive home.

Some time after the elevator doors closed behind the two women, Sylvie stepped out from around a corner. She walked up to the office door, feeling incredibly guilty. She'd betrayed her friends; she'd outright lied to them. She had been ready to go home, but she'd decided against it. But she'd still said that she was going home. What kind of a friend was she? ^About as good a friend as Priss,^ she thought, remembering how Priss had lied to her earlier. ^I see Priss as a friend, right? I guess this is okay.^

Looking around nervously, she pulled a set of keys out of her pocket. She'd found it in Meg's desk earlier. And as it turned out, it was useful to have. After trying a few keys, she found the one that opened the office door. She stepped inside the dark room, flipping on the lights again. Still feeling guilty, she dropped the keys back into Meg's desk.

She took a seat in one of the waiting chairs, leaned back and crossed her legs. She checked her watch. 1:05.

^What am I doing here?^ she asked herself. ^What insane reason made me come back here? The H is coming back.^

^So?^ answered another part of her. ^You've spent the night with him before, yelling at him the whole time. And his name is Nick, not 'the H'.^

^But he's dangerous - ^

^He brought you back to life. And he's going to bring Anri back. Yes, he's a killer, but that's no longer all he's good for.^

^Fine. That's why I'm here, then. I want to have Anri back.^

^Very noble. You're dedicated to your friends, and all. But then why'd you lie to them? What's so important that you'd lie to Meg and Lou?^

^I...I want to be here when he brings Anri back.^

^Really? Is that the only reason?^

^I...I...I...^

Sylvie didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think, period. Shutting out that other voice, she asked herself something, this time expecting a response.

^Computer, I don't want to think for a while. Anything you can do?^

AFFIRMATIVE.

The now-familiar words continued going across her field of vision.

POSSIBILITY ONE : J-2 USER LOCKOUT, RELAGATE ALL FUNCTIONS TO COMPUTER FOR A SET AMOUNT OF TIME.

^Uh...no good,^ Sylvie thought. ^I just want to block out my thoughts for a while. I don't want to lose control.^

POSSIBILITY TWO : ENTER DORMANT STATE.

^Oh, yeah...I can fall asleep and wake up in no time flat, now. Are you responsible for that?^

AFFIRMATIVE.

^Oh, okay. I'm going to sleep, then.^

She did just that, slumping in the chair, her head falling onto her chest. She was already asleep.

***

A group of a dozen ADP regulars moved through the corridors of the office building. They had machine guns and light body armor, along with a few electronic gadgets. They were commonly known as 'the cleanup crew', i.e. the guys who take care of whatever the mercenaries had missed. The grunts didn't really mind the job; it was _just_ dangerous enough to make for some good stories, but it wasn't blatan

t suicide, unlike a lot of other ADP jobs.

They'd had to finish off a few boomers that hadn't quite been dead, yet. Their machine guns were the ADP standard, loaded with light armor-piercing rounds. Alone, they were nearly useless against an undamaged combat boomer, but when enough of them were pointed in the same direction, the target went down quickly.

They continued down the hallway, the only light coming from the flashlights on their machine guns. They had imaging goggles, but preferred to save the batteries on those expensive devices. It was kind of pointless to use them, anyway; they _were_ just the cleanup crew.

All twelve men perked up at the sound of running footsteps. The front five went to one knee, levelling their guns at the approaching person. Five men behind them remained standing, although they also readied their guns. Another one radioed HQ, telling what was going on, and the last one stayed back, ready to act as backup.

A woman ran around a corner, into the field of their flashlights. She had Japanese features, along with dark purple hair. The men relaxed at the sight of her.

The radio man looked at the new arrival. "Roger HQ, looks like an SSC," he said, a smile coming to his lips. SSC meant 'Scared Shitless Civilian'. It was not a technical designation, but it was a common enough term that the person on the other end of the radio would understand.

"Help me!" the woman screamed. "He's going to kill me!"

"Jackson, Chon!" the backup man barked out. "Escort this woman to safety."

"Roger," one of the men said, getting up from his position. A second man also got up. As the woman reached the two men, they moved alongside her, telling her that they were going to protect her. The woman nodded, looking quite pale.

"Who's going to kill you?" the backup man asked.

The woman pointed down the corridor. "H-he's coming! He's got guns, he's j-just shooting everyone in sight!"

"Is he a boomer?"

"M-maybe...I don't know, I don't know! H-he's j-just gonna kill _everyone_."

"Get her out of here," the man said, gesturing to Jackson and Chon, who nodded and started walking back the way they'd come, the woman following them.

"Alright, men, get to work!" the backup man said, moving into position among the remaining men. "Sounds like there's another terrorist here. Probably a boomer, from what I've seen so far. Imaging gear on, guns prepped! Cover each other, men!"

The men nodded, all of them knowing the drill. They pulled their goggles down over their eyes and switched off their gun flashlights. Two of them activated IR gear, just in case, but the rest switched their goggles over to electromagnetic mode. Their world was suddenly all in shades of blue, with metallic objects showing up as yellow and white.

The radio man took a moment to get HQ up to date. As he finished his transmission, he looked up, back down the hallway, towards Jackson and Chon. His breath caught at what he saw. The men were showing up as dull blue splotches, but the woman was a bright yellow and white flare. She was made of metal...

"Sarge - " he tried to get out, but it was already too late. Something he couldn't see shot out of a nearby doorway. He felt something touch his throat, and then there was pain. He fell to his knees, trying to breathe and finding that he couldn't. He grabbed at his throat, hearing the gasp of escaping air. His fingers groped at the edge of a hole in his neck, where his vocal cords used to be. He tried to yell, but all he did was make a few breathy sounds. It took him several seconds to die, but no one knew about it.

The new arrival reached under his black trench coat, coming back with a machine pistol in each hand. He flicked off the safeties, took aim, and fired in a wide spread towards the ADP troopers.

The guns used low-caliber Teflon-coated bullets. In other words, no conventional body armor could stop them. The ADP troopers found this out very quickly, as four of them dropped to the ground, bleeding from numerous wounds.

The other five whirled around to see what was going on. The lucky ones saw, with their EM gear, that a dull blue shape was running at them. Not one of them saw much else afterwards. The new arrival was a blur of moving limbs. One man's neck snapped as a blow of unimaginable force caught him in the chin. Another man saw his heart literally pulled out of his chest just before he died. The other three suffered similar fates.

The man brushed himself off, blood dripping from the edge of his trench coat. Leaving the thoroughly dead men behind, he walked up to the four that he'd shot. They were still alive; he hadn't aimed for anything vital. He made them suffer, giving them a new definition of pain before leaving them to slowly expire in pools of their own vital fluids. Smiling broadly, he walked down the hallway, towards the last two ADP troopers.

Both men were already dead, although they hadn't seen it coming. Their bodies were not nearly as messy. One's head was turned 180 degrees around, while the other had the hilt of his own combat knife sticking out of his chest. They'd turned at the sound of gunfire, just in time to find out what it was they were escorting to safety.

The 'woman' they'd been with was standing calmly in the middle of the hallway, the barest hint of a smile on her face.

"Did I do well?" she asked, her voice cold and indifferent.

"Very well," the man in the trench coat replied. "It looks like you remember your human anatomy well."

The woman nodded. "There is...one more thing I need to do, if I remember your orders correctly."

The man smiled again. "Of course. Go right ahead, but be quick. Odds are they'll send reinforcements sometime soon."

The woman nodded once more. She flexed the fingers on her right hand. Under her skin, five flexible rods - one for each finger - hardened and reshaped themselves into mono-edge blades. The blades extended, breaking the skin at her fingertips as they came out. Not a drop of blood came from the cuts.

The woman looked at the blades, which were glowing white-hot, their microbot cores vibrating to generate heat. She approached the two men on the floor. Two quick swipes removed both their heads. Then she walked up to the other ten men, giving them a similar treatment. She walked back up the hallway once she was done, the blades retracting back into her hand and becoming soft and flexible once more. The skin of her fingertips closed back up once the blades were gone.

The man kept smiling, showing the tips of his pointed teeth.

"Good," he said. "That should do. Come along," he said, gesturing for her to follow. The woman did as she was told, coming alongside him. They headed down the hallway.

"The mark has passed the test, Caroline," the man said.

"Very good, Mr. Richards," the woman responded.

"Jason McCormick has gotten to the point where he's learned enough on the outside that he can improvise during a battle. I'm sorry to say his battle skills outstrip my own."

"Acknowledged, sir."

"We'll have to take up the contingency plan for this one. A direct assault is definitly out of the question."

"Yes, sir. When do we proceed with the next phase of the plan?"

Richards's smile fell a little. "I haven't gotten the word yet," he said. "For now, we'll have to wait."

Caroline nodded in response. She kept pace with him until they reached the office they'd been headed towards. She opened the door for Richards, who walked in without acknowledging the gesture. He'd expected her to do it; it was her job, now.

Caroline grabbed a thick rope that had been sitting coiled on the office's desk. One end was already tied to a ceiling girder. She threw the coil out the window, letting it unroll down to the street. She then looked back towards Richards.

"Would you prefer to go first, sir?" she asked.

Richards shook his head. "Go on," he said. "Make sure it's safe down there."

The woman nodded before crawling over the windowsill and climbing down the rope. The rope strained with her weight, but did not give. Richards watched her go. He'd had his doubts about taking a 33-C for a personal assistant, but he was already sure he'd made the right choice. She didn't make for good conversation, but she had the skills to supplement his own. And it was always a good idea to have some backup. That much, he knew.

Once the rope relaxed as Caroline got off of it, Richards climbed out the window. He headed down the rope, towards the street.

***

Sylvie woke up what felt like a second after she'd fallen asleep. She was instantly aware that the doorknob was turning.

^Forgot to re-lock that,^ she chided herself. She turned her head towards the door just in time to see Nick walking in. His hand clutched his shining blade. Sylvie just looked back, exercising every amount of self-control not to flinch.

Recognition flickered over Nick's face. The sword came down. "_You_'re still here?" he asked, sheathing the weapon. "Dammit, don't leave the door open!" he said, going over to his door. He reached through the hole in his door and unlocked it from the inside.

"What? So I forgot! So sue me!" Sylvie shot back, getting to her feet.

Nick threw a black bundle into his closet; Sylvie could see it was his trench coat, wrapped around his gun and holster. His blade and sheath were unstrapped next and went in on top of it all.

"You're lucky I didn't just shoot through the door when I saw someone was in here," he said, storming back out of his office.

"Oh, come _on_," Sylvie retorted, keeping herself from becoming scared. "You couldn't have done that, and you know it. You're out of ammo."

"Oh, I couldn't, huh?" he asked, confrontationally. "What makes you think I'm outta ammo?"

"You came in with your field blade. You'd have used your gun if it had any ammo left in it."

Nick didn't respond. He walked down the hallway to the operating room, unlocked it with a key from his pocket, and went inside.

Sylvie hesitated. The last she'd seen of Anri, the girl had been alive. And she'd never gone into that operating room, afraid of what she knew she would see there. She didn't want to see them defiling the corpse, picking it apart and putting it back together. But now Anri was repaired...maybe she could look, supposing Nick wasn't cutting her open again.

She began walking down the corridor, slowly at first, then more quickly as she gained resolve. It became easier to walk after she'd taken the first step. By the time she'd gotten to the door, her confidence was back in full-force. She didn't hesitate at all to push the door open.

As the door swung aside, Nick quickly turned around to look. He recognized her again, and then went back to his work, shaking his head a little.

"Paranoid?" Sylvie asked, sarcastically.

"_You_'re asking me that? You oughta know the feeling," he said, checking a few of the computers.

Sylvie nodded almost imperceptibly. She knew the feeling, all right. In the past week, she'd found that she couldn't let her guard down. Everything and everyone was a potential threat to the J-2 in her head. It wouldn't let her relax until everything had been checked thoroughly. Paranoia was a natural side effect.

"Why're you here?" Nick asked. For once, he didn't sound argumentative. He honestly wanted to know.

Sylvie glanced at her watch. It was 3:29. She _had_ been here a while, hadn't she?

"Lou told me she's done," she asked, looking down at the body on the table. She walked up to Anri, reaching forwards and slowly removing the cloth over the girl's face. Sylvie couldn't help a sad smile, seeing how peaceful Anri looked. She looked calmer than she did in any of Sylvie's memories.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered to Anri. She hadn't been there. Anri had trusted her for protection. And when the girl had needed it the most, she hadn't been there to save her. And here was the result.

"Talking to a corpse ain't gonna change anything," Nick said, without looking at her.

Sylvie looked at him, hurt. "That's why I'm here," she said. "If Anri's done, can you bring her back?"

Nick snorted out a contemputous laugh. "Well, _you're_ dedicated."

"So?"

"Nothing," Nick replied, shaking his head. "It's just...I don't know which of us is better. You, who trusts your friends, or me, who's learned not to make any friends."

Sylvie's brow furrowed as she watch him continue going around the room. "You don't make any friends?" she asked, quietly.

"I'm not the nicest guy, in case you didn't notice," he said, his voice sarcastic.

"What about other H's? I heard you stick together."

Nick turned around quickly, glaring at her. Then, he smiled a mirthless smile. "That's where I proved the rule that you shouldn't make friends," he said. "They have an interesting tendency to shoot you in the back."

Sylvie cocked her head a little, trying to understand.

"And then they reload and fire a clip into your head," Nick continued. "And then they burn your bleeding corpse before you're cold." He turned back to the computers. "That's why I don't make friends any more. Happy?"

Sylvie was not happy. She was scared of what Nick had said. She couldn't make much sense of it, but it sounded particularly nasty. And he'd practically hissed the words out; she'd definitely hit a nerve on him. She wondered if his eyes were moist behind those sunglasses.

"Sorry," she said, looking at the floor.

"Apologizing don't change shit," he said, nodding as he finished reading the last computer. "And if you're interested, yes, the green-haired paper weight is ready for reactivation."

Sylvie's mood instantly brightened. "Sh...she is? Well, are you ready? Can you do it?"

Nick's head dropped, looking at his chest. His hands touched something Sylvie couldn't see. "Yeah, I'm ready," he said. "Almost ready, anyway."

"Wh...what do you need? What is it?"

"I need whatzername's human contact," Nick said. "Either that or an extremely close friend."

Sylvie thought about it. "I can do it," she said.

"Really?" Nick asked, smirking at her. "I know you're close and all, but she's been dead for a year now. I need someone _really_ close."

Sylvie got up, her face dark. She walked right up to him. "You think _you're_ the only one with bad memories?" she asked, her voice simultaneously even and dripping with anger. "I _dragged_ Anri into that shuttle that brought us here. I made myself drive that demon Battlemover, knowing what it would do to my brain. I hunted blood for her _every night_. And I asked Priss to _kill_ me so Anri could live." She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and pushed him against a wall. She could feel a few tears starting to go down her face. "_Close_ enough for you?" she asked, using every ounce of resolve to keep from breaking down.

Nick's smirk didn't fall. "Let go of me," he said, almost bored. Sylvie complied. Nick straightened himself out and brushed off his shirt. "Yes, that's _close_ enough," he said. "Come on. If you're so hot on this, let's do it right here."

Sylvie nodded, her hands clenching and unclenching. She noticed her fingers were sticky. She looked down, seeing the blood there.

"What the..." she said. She looked up at Nick. "What happened to you? Are you alright?"

Nick turned to face her again. He lifted up the front of his shirt up to his chin. Sylvie could see the bullet holes, one of which had broken open again when she'd grabbed onto him.

"Aside from _that_," he said, dropping his shirt back down, "I'm perfectly fine. How are you?"

"B...but you're hurt!" Sylvie said, walking up to him. Nick held out an arm, keeping her away. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said. "I'll fix myself later. And since when do you care, anyway?"

"You're no good to me dead," Sylvie said, the response coming out of her mouth by habit. It was the same response she'd been giving Meg and Lou for the past week and a half.

"Yeah, like I haven't heard _that_ one before," Nick said. "That's basically what GENOM kept tellin' me and the other H's." He walked up to the head of the table, pulling off both gloves. "Let's get started, then. I got some sleep to catch up on."

"You're sure you can do it like this?"

"_Yes_," he said. "I can do this in my sleep, which is what I'm going to be doing if we don't hurry up."

"Fine," Sylvie said, pulling up a chair. "What do I do?"

"Well, this time, I'm doing it the old-fashioned way," he said. "None of this computer crap," he said, gesturing to the walls. "That stuff is just for monitoring, anyway. I'm routing everything through my J-2, the same way I'd do with a 33-S-H."

Sylvie nodded. "Through your J-2? Does that mean I..."

"Maybe," Nick said, anticipating the question. "If someone took the time to train you, you might be able to resurrect boomers. But _I_ ain't trainin' you, so don't ask." He placed both his hands on Anri's face.

"You talk to Anri," he said, making sure he had a good grip. "Let her know she's not dead. I'm going to lock myself out this time. It'll be all up to my J-2. I won't hear a word of what you say, so don't hold back. And keep talking until I break contact, got it?"

"Yes," Sylvie said, nodding. She crossed her fingers.

"Okay, anything you want to get out of your system before we start? I don't want you saying anything just as I go in. If I get distracted, there's no telling what'll happen."

Sylvie slowly looked away from Anri and up at him. "Just...thank you," she said.

Nick cocked an eyebrow, as though he hadn't been expecting that. "Whatever," he said. "Let's go."

Sylvie nodded and looked back to Anri.

"Starting...now," he said. A shudder went through him as his personality was locked away, and his computer took over.

"Anri, can you hear me?" Sylvie asked.

No response. ^Well, I guess she can't answer me. Have to keep talking.^ "Anri, it's Sylvie. I guess you think I'm dead, but I'm not. And neither are you."

She looked over at the computers, trying to make sense of them. She kept talking. "Anri...I've wanted to tell you since I heard what happened to you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I...couldn't be there. I would have given anything to have been able to protect you, one last time. I wouldn't have hesistated to - "

She stopped. ^Didn't Nick say there's always a way other than committing suicide?^ She shook her head. "I wouldn't have hesitated to take the hit for you," she said, finishing the sentence. "I don't care if I'd have died. But I promised you I'd protect you. And I didn't. So, here I am, trying to save you one more time. Don't you leave me."

She was about to say something more when she heard something that made her heart stop : Anri breathing. Sylvie slowly put her hand onto Anri's chest. She felt the thumping of a heart.

"You're so close, now, Anri," Sylvie said. "I'm so proud of you. Don't give up. You're almost there. You - "

She broke off as Nick stood up straight again, his hands coming away from Anri's face. He took a shaky breath as his personality came back from lockout.

"Did it work?" Sylvie asked quickly.

Nick didn't respond. He just looked down at Anri. Sylvie followed his gaze.

Anri's eyes were open.

"Anr - " she tried to say, but Nick was there, putting one hand over her mouth. He pulled her away from the girl. Sylvie struggled, but it was like fighting a bulldozer. Nick turned his head and whispered very quietly into her ear.

"Meg and Lou told me what you were like when you woke up," he said. "It's very confusing when you first wake up. Give her some breathing room."

Sylvie kept struggling, her eyes watching Anri. The girl's eyes swiveled in their sockets, looking around a little. Then her eyes closed again. She took a particularly deep breath, then her breathing slowed.

Sylvie began putting up even more of a fight. Tears began going down her face again. Anri was dying! Why wouldn't this damn _H_ let her try to help! She bit his hand, feeling his blood flow into her mouth. She was quickly disgusted, remembering how much she hated that taste. She wanted to spit it out, but his hand was in the way.

Nick's arms shifted, twisting her head to its very limit. Sylvie couldn't even breathe. If he twisted any further, her neck would snap like a twig.

"She's fine," Nick said through clenched teeth. "She's just fallen asleep. _You'll_ be a lot worse off if you try that again," he said, tensing his muscles.

Sylvie looked at him. Her eyes probed his face, trying to see if he was lying or not.

"I'm serious," he whispered. "I'll let you go, so you can check. But if you scream, or try to wake her up, I'm breaking your neck. Got it?"

Sylvie's eyes widened a little, but then she nodded as best she could from this position. Nick's arms released her. She took several steps away, rotating her neck around, feeling how strained it was. Nick didn't try to follow. Sylvie walked up to Anri. She put her hand carefully under Anri's nose, relaxing considerably when she felt the breath coming and going. Life had returned, and it wasn't going anywhere, at least not yet.

"She's...asleep," Sylvie said, slowly.

"Like I said," Nick said, throwing up his hands. "And she's got the right idea." He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a roll of bandages. He wrapped his bleeding hand tightly, eventually ripping off the strip of bandage and taping it down. He clenched his fist, his face showing the pain he was feeling from the injury. Sylvie looked at him questioningly. The H's weren't supposed to be able to feel pain. But this one seemed to be hurt.

Nick pulled his gloves back on, covering up the bandages quite effectively. He also opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle, full of some kind of amber liquid. He plugged it into a hypodermic needle. Sylvie drew back, afraid that he'd try to use it on her. But he didn't. Instead, he stabbed himself with the needle, through his shirt. He injected a little of the fluid. He then repeated the procedure four more times before dropping the hypodermic on the nearest countertop.

"What was that?" Sylvie asked.

"This from a 'roid that says she doesn't care what happens to me," Nick said to himself. He looked up at Sylvie. "Microbots. They help me heal these scratches," he said, showing her the bullet wounds again.

"Oh...okay."

Nick walked out. Sylvie sat next to Anri, looking at her. The girl's face was still quite peaceful. She'd never watched Anri sleep before...had she looked like this back when she'd still been hiding out in that apartment? Had sleep been some small escape from the pain and fear each day had brought?

She looked back at the door Nick had gone out of. Then she looked back to Anri.

"Welcome back," she said, stroking the side of Anri's face. "I'll see you in the morning."

She got to her feet and walked out the door. She went back down the short corridor, seeing that the lights were still on. She looked around the main room, noticing that the door to Nick's office was closed. Nick himself was in the main room, sitting at the end of a short row of chairs against the wall.

"Sleeping here?" she asked, walking up to him.

Nick grunted out an affirmative. "Don't wanna go to the trouble of getting a cab."

Sylvie nodded a little. "Why not in your office? The chair's better in there."

Nick mumbled something Sylvie couldn't make out. Interested, she took a seat next to him. "What?" she asked, quietly.

"I get jobs in there," he mumbled out. "I get contracts to kill people." He turned his head towards her, the movement looking labored. "I couldn't sleep in there if I tried."

Sylvie met his gaze. "You mean you don't like it?"

Nick shrugged, looking like he had to move a thousand pounds to do that simple motion. "I dunno," he said. "But my conscience was really bugging me tonight."

Sylvie nodded. "Well..." she looked back at his tired form. "You've done...a lot tonight. Why don't you rest?"

"I was _gonna_ do that," he said. "I got a week of sleep to catch up on. So go away." He went limp immediately after this, already snoring lightly.

Sylvie watched him sleep. Whereas Anri looked peaceful, Nick looked...troubled. As though even sleep wasn't a release. His face remained tense, and occasionally twitched as a dream or a rogue memory went through his brain.

^What's going on in there?^ she wondered. Her gaze went down to his hands, sheathed in their printless leather gloves. An idea formed in her head. He could interface with things by touching them. Maybe, if she touched his hands, she could interface with his brain. She could find out what he was thinking that was so bad.

^He knows everything about me,^ she thought. ^I ought to learn something about him.^ Satisfied with this justification, she reached down and began to tug the leather back on one of his hands.

The hand instantly clenched into a fist. Nick's other hand reached up and grabbed both of her arms. Sylvie looked up at his face, suddenly very afraid.

"Nice try, Syl," he said, smirking down at her. "But don't ever do that again."

He released her, and crossed his arms, planting both his hands firmly under his armpits. He went back to sleep, now looking even _less_ comfortable. Sylvie sighed, seeing how she'd made it even more difficult for him. She felt guilty, again.

She leaned forwards, wondering if he could hear her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I...was just interested, that's all. What _are_ you?"

In a flash, one of Nick's arms came out of its folded position and shot around her shoulders. He dragged her right up against him. Sylvie stiffened, but didn't fight.

"When I find that out," he whispered down to her head, "I'll tell you. But right now, even _I_ don't know."

Sylvie nodded. She noticed that, once again, he'd gone to sleep. His arm was still around her, but it was no longer the vice-grip he'd used just a moment ago. She could feel his chest was slowly rising and falling next to her. Looking up, she saw that his face had actually relaxed a little.

^That's interesting,^ she thought, looking at this. Carefully, she put her arms around his chest. Nick shifted, but did not wake up. His face relaxed even more. He still looked tense, but not as tense.

^Glad I could help,^ she thought, smiling. At that, she shifted in her seat, getting into a more comfortable position. She rested her head on his chest.

^What am I _doing_?^ she thought suddenly, beginning to get up. ^I am _not_ staying this way with an H!^

Nick chose that moment to twitch his arm, however. Whether the movement was conscious or unconscious, it still managed to pull her back up against him. Sylvie heard him make a sound. She wasn't sure, but it had sounded a little like a moan.

Sylvie froze, listening to that sound. Nick was hanging onto her as though he was stuck in the middle of the ocean and she was the last life preserver. The sound broke her heart, and silenced the voice in the back of her head that was telling her to get the hell away from this man. Despite everything she knew about Nick, Sylvie found it hard to believe he was a killer at this very moment. She realized that she didn't want to get up, anymore.

She put her head back onto his chest, feeling warmth flowing from him and into her. She took a moment to relish the feeling before finally letting herself go to sleep.

***

That same night, Silia Stingray was pacing in a hospital waiting room, her usually calm demeanor somewhat cracked.

Guillotine had done a good medical diagnosis on Nene; he’d basically said what the doctors had told her later. Of course, they hadn’t been looking at a woman in a hardsuit, but rather someone 'who was unfortunately caught in the crossfire of a boomer rampage.' Yet, even when they’d been able to get a closer look, without the inhibiting effects of armor and softsuit, the trained, licenced surgeons had been able to tell her nothing new.

Guillotine's predictions had been painfully correct, actually. Nene was now one leg lighter. Silia didn't know what to do, now. One half of her brain was worried about how Nene would react, and whether or not she'd want a cyber-leg. The other half was wondering what the Knight Sabers were supposed to do, now. They still had their three fighters, but without a computer expert, they wouldn't be able to fight as effectively. Maybe Mackie's suit could be modified appropriately. Of course, that was supposing Mackie would want to fight, after seeing what had happened to Nene. And if Nene actually _did_ want a cybernetic leg, braving the effects on her sanity in exchange for full use of her body again, then her suit would have to be modified.

"Sis, you’re gonna wear a hole in the floor," Mackie said, walking in. Silia glanced at him, then went back to pacing. She’d been impressed with how well he’d handled Nene’s being wounded. He hadn’t broken down, he hadn’t gone berserk. He’d actually been collected enough to drive them to the hospital in the Knight Sabers's van while the women changed into normal clothes. Of course, he hadn’t left Nene’s side since then, but that was to be expected. Currently, the redheaded ADP officer was resting in the recovery room, sleeping off the effects of the sedatives they'd given her. Odds were Mackie was just taking a break to stretch before going back to wait with her again.

"Something just doesn’t add up about this man," Silia began.

"Who, the sexaroid guy?"

"Yes," she replied, looking at the floor.

"What do you mean?" he asked, as he went to the vending machine and bought a soda. "He saved Nene’s life. I think he’s okay."

Silia stopped and glanced at her brother. It was nice having him around, if only as a sounding board. He'd really matured these past few months, something that took a lot of stress out of Silia's day; she no longer had to worry about him walking in on her, trying to catch her in her underwear.

"He's...different," Silia said, as she went back to pacing. She mentally went over the specifications for the 33-S-H, along with the scans Nene had run on Guillotine when they encountered him. She nearly had them memorized.

"His class of cyberdroid is built for one thing only," Silia said, Mackie paying rapt attention from his seat on a waiting room couch. "He's supposed to be a killer. Not a cold-blooded, emotionless one like the other assasin cyberdroids, but one that loves causing pain more than anything else."

"Yeah...but you've seen the work he's done before, right?" Mackie asked, skeptically, after taking a drink.

Silia nodded. "Yes. He puts his surgical skills to good use, to be that precise."

"Well, I wouldn't say it's _good_ use..."

Silia nodded, understanding. "I was sure I could predict Guillotine's response when I told him he needed our help, and later when we asked him to help Nene. And both times, it looked like he was going to do it. But then, he stopped, and helped us. I was sure he'd need some prodding to work on Nene."

"But he went and did it without much trouble."

"Yes," Silia said, recalling those tense moments. "Each time he did something unpredictable, it looked like he was fighting with himself. Now, from the specifications, I know he's got the capacity to develop at least some kind of conscience, supposing his brain grows without restrictions. But he's gone beyond even that. When he was helping Nene, he did everything he could to help her. I saw his face; he didn't like hurting her."

Mackie didn't respond. He just looked away and took another sip from his drink. Silia thought of apologizing to him for reminding him of what his girlfriend had had to go through, but thought better of it. She just continued.

"And _then_, he told us to get her to a hospital. He must have known that would be the best thing for Nene. He'd have known they'd give her painkillers, and maybe even have been able to save the leg."

"Yeah...so?"

Silia sighed, exasperated. "That's not what a 33-S-H would do. Normally, it would have done something like cut Nene's leg off, right then and there. Supposing he didn't shoot her outright, saying he was putting out of her misery."

Mackie cringed as he thought about that.

"Sorry," Silia said, figuring now an apology was necessary.

"Right," Mackie responded.

Silia sat down, her legs tired from pacing back and forth. She reclined in a chair and continued thinking.

"He probably thinks he's turning into a wimp," Mackie said, laughing a little. "The big, bad sexaroid killer's getting sympathetic on us."

Silia looked up. What Mackie had said had caught her attention. Sexaroid. 33-S's were sexaroids...and they were renowned for being very sympathetic to other people's problems. She quickly remembered the conversation Priss had recorded, about how Brady had warned Sylvie she'd received some kind of programming upgrade. What if it worked both ways? What if...what if Brady/Guillotine had received an upgrade from Sylvie?

"Think of something, sis?" Mackie said, polishing off his drink and getting up.

"Maybe..." Silia said absentmindedly. "I'll need to check some programming capacities, to see if it's possible."

"I won't ask," Mackie said, throwing away his empty soda can. "Tell me in the morning if you come up with something. Maybe I can help."

Silia nodded. "Thanks, Mackie."

"No prob, sis," he replied, opening the door back to the hospital room, where the gentle sound of Nene's snoring could just be heard. He disappeared inside.

Silia smiled slightly, seeing Mackie's concern for her computer expert. But she only allowed herself a moment to enjoy it. Then, her smile fell, and she started thinking about the 33-S-H base programming again. She would have some serious work to do, when she got back home.

She checked her watch. The doctors had said Nene would be stable enough to move in another hour or so. She wouldn't have come out of sedation yet, but they could take her home. And that would be important, in a lot of ways. Silia sat back and waited patiently.

***

"Oh, how cute."

Sylvie stirred at the sound of the voice. Her eyes opened, and she lifted her head up off of Nick's chest, looking around.

She spotted Lou coming in the doorway, regarding them with an interested look on her face.

"Good morning," Sylvie said, quickly waking up.

"What's been going on _here_?" Meg asked, coming in and looking at the scene.

"Uh...it's a long story," Sylvie replied. "I'm not sure I get it, either."

"Huh?" Nick said, coming around. "Wha? Oh..." he said, noticing the position he was in with Sylvie. He also noticed Meg and Lou.

Almost faster than the eye could see, he had extricated himself from Sylvie's gentle grasp and gotten to his feet. Sylvie's eyes widened, and she almost lost her balance, but caught herself at the last second. Nick brushed himself off, quickly regaining his dignity.

"What were _you_ two doing?" Lou asked.

Nick turned to face her. "I just fell asleep. I woke up, and _this_ whore was on me."

Sylvie felt anger fill her as she got to her feet. "Hey, _you_ put your arm around - "

"Anyway," Nick said, cutting her off and clapping his hands together, "I just finished up work on Anri."

"What?" Lou said, instantly forgetting the situation with Sylvie. "You mean you're ready to turn her back on?"

"Better," Nick said, smiling. "Have a peek. But try and be quiet. She's sleeping quite well."

Meg and Lou both froze, shocked, but then ran madly for the operating room. Nick soon heard them fumbling with doorknob to get inside. While they were occupied, Nick turned towards Sylvie. Sylvie had her hands on her hips, and was glaring at him.

"What?" he asked, taking a step towards her.

"You jerk," she said. "You can't even admit that _you_ grabbed _me_ last night."

Nick lowered his sunglasses and looked at her skeptically. "Or maybe I forgot," he said.

"You never forget," Sylvie replied, meeting his gaze.

Nick smiled, raising his sunglasses again. "I guess you're right."

"Well, at least you have the decency to admit that."

"Yeah..." he looked at the floor. "Syl, I...I..."

"What?" Sylvie asked, not caring this time about the nickname he'd used.

Nick looked like he was struggling with something. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He tried again, but with the same result. He didn't get any further, because at that moment, Meg and Lou rushed into the room.

"She's alive!" Lou exclaimed, absolutely ecstatic. "Anri's _alive_!"

Sylvie nodded, smiling. "Yes, she is." She looked back to Nick, wondering what he'd been about to say.

"You did this without us?" Meg asked, simultaneously happy and put off.

"Well, Syl can be really persuasive," Nick said, shrugging.

"_Don't_ call me Syl!" Sylvie shouted. Now that she had an audience, she _did_ care what he called her.

"Oh, why not?" Nick shot back. "You call me 'the H' all the time! I tell you what - "

"Hey, hey!" Meg said, stepping between them.

"Can you two _please_ stop fighting just for five minutes?" Lou asked.

Nick and Sylvie both looked at the other women. Sylvie nodded and relaxed, while Nick remained indignant.

"Well, _she_ started it," he said, gesturing at Sylvie. Sylvie bristled, ready to come back with a retort, but a pleading look from both Meg and Lou made her be quiet.

"Okay, good..." Meg said, thinking. "So...when will she wake up?" she asked Nick.

Nick shrugged. "Probably sometime today. I dunno when, exactly."

"Did it...go well?" Lou asked.

"Yes," Nick replied. "Anri oughta be the same 'roid you remember, for what it's worth." The women nodded at this, thinking it over.

"Oh, my God," Sylvie said, going for the phone. "I need to call Priss. She'll want to be here when Anri wakes up."

"You do that," Nick said.

Meg looked at him. "Uh...Nick?" she asked.

"What?" he asked back, meeting her gaze.

"Could you...leave for a while? So Anri doesn't see you when she first comes out of that room. I mean, you remember how Sylvie reacted."

Nick smirked, but then looked at the ceiling, thoughtful.

"Yeah..." he said, slowly. "Yeah, I have something I can go do. See you."

"Thank you, Nick."

"Whatever," he said, walking out the door.

Sylvie's eyes flickered to the door as he left. She was still wondering what he'd been about to say to her. After thinking about it some more, she just shook her head, clearing it. Then she dialed Priss.

***

Nene woke up crying.

She'd been reliving that battle the whole time she'd been asleep. And every time, it was the same : she made a stupid mistake, lost control, and fell onto a boomer. But every time the dream repeated itself, the boomer was bigger, and the hit it gave her was worse. She'd woken up when she'd seen a bullet the size of a freight train coming at her.

She turned herself around, until she was on her back. Slowly, her head came up off the pillow, and she looked down. There, where her right leg should have been, there was nothing.

Her face contorted and her throat closed up. She rolled over and cried, hard. She punched her pillow uselessly, out of anger. It wasn't fair. Life had just decided to screw her over. She'd been so _happy_ before. And now...

She thought she could feel an itch on her leg. She automatically tried to scratch it, but only groped at air. ^It's not there,^ she thought. ^I'm just imagining that it itches.^

She didn't really have any regrets about what this injury would do to either of her jobs. She was sitting down all day at the ADP, anyway. Maybe Naoko could do the footwork for her. And, as for the Knight Sabers...well, she hadn't been that much of a fighter, anyway.

^Look what happens when I try to fight,^ she thought. ^Silia was right. I was reckless. I was wrong...^

And now she was paying for her mistake. She looked at her body again. Fresh tears started going down her face. She was ugly, now. She was a horrible, ugly monster. And that meant...losing Mackie. He'd had always been a sucker for pretty girls. That had included his sister, up to the point when he'd started dating Nene. And now Nene knew that she wasn't pretty anymore. She wasn't even whole, now. Who could love a legless woman?

A long time ago, she'd left her parents behind to go live on her own. For a while then, she'd felt very lonely. But she'd grown used to the feeling of living on her own, eventually growing calloused to it. But then she'd become a Knight Saber, and relearned what it felt like to belong. And then she'd met Mackie, and had _just_ begun to learn what it felt like to...need another person. To feel safer with a specific someone than she did when she was alone. And now, it was all gone. She couldn't act as a Knight Saber like this. And Mackie couldn't love her, not now.

She considered getting a cyberleg. Nene didn't really have the revulsion the other Knight Sabers had to cybernetics. Perhaps a little biomechanical aid would help reconstruct her life along with her body. If anything, she could stay on as a Knight Saber. And maybe even Mackie could learn to live with a girl who wasn't entirely human. Supposing _she_ could live with it, that was.

She didn't know what to do anymore. Life could continue on as normal, if she sacrificed her humanity. But if she wanted to remain totally un-boomerized, then she'd have to give it all up. The conflict elicited a loud moan of desperation from her.

She lay back on her pillow, looking at the ceiling. She had just recognized that that was the ceiling of Mackie's room when she heard the rustling of movement next to her. Soon after came a masculine groan. Nene realized who it was and turned away, feeling that the weight of her remaining leg was now completely unsupported.

"Nene?" came Mackie's voice. She felt a soft tapping at her shoulder. The contact made more tears come from her eyes. ^He won't touch me again,^ she thought. ^This is the last time, isn't it?^

"Are you awake?" he asked.

"No," she bit out.

She heard a light, sad chuckle from him. "Do you want to sleep?" he asked. "I can wait longer, if you want."

Nene still didn't look at him. She felt her throat close up, putting a damper on all possible conversation. She lay there for a very long time, thinking. She concentrated on the sound of Mackie's breathing.

"How long have you been there?" she finally mumbled out, her voice nearly a whisper. It was the loudest her voice would go, right now.

"All night," he answered, solemnly. "I was waiting for you to wake up."

Nene couldn't hold back several sobs. "I'm sorry," she whispered out. "I'm sorry this happened...Mackie."

She felt Mackie's hand on her shoulder. ^This is it,^ she thought. ^Here's where he says, 'nice knowing you, Nene, but you're not a whole woman anymore.'^

"It's not your fault," he said softly, rubbing at her arm.

Nene's sobs slowed. "Wh-what?" she asked.

"It's not your fault. You did the best you could, and that's all anyone can ask."

Nene sighed. ^Fine, if he isn't man enough to say it, I'll do it for him.^ "Just leave," she said.

"What?" he asked, surprised.

"I know why you're here. You don't want to be with me anymore. You don't have to say anything. Just leave."

She felt his hand stop rubbing her arm. He didn't move for several seconds, but then finally took his hand off of her. Nene began crying again, quietly. ^And so I'm alone again,^ she thought, feeling the well-known cold feeling coming back into her gut, for the first time in years. It was worse than death.

She stiffened as she felt two arms encircling her. She recognized them as Mackie's. He was lifting her up into a sitting position as he sat down on the bed. Nene didn't try to fight; a feeling of hope was already pushing out the coldness.

Mackie pulled her up against him, tilting his head to rest on top of hers. One of his hands stroked her tangled hair, while the other just held her tightly, not letting her get away.

"Do you know what I thought when I heard you got hit?" he asked, whispering into her ear.

Nene's throat had closed up so tightly that she could barely breathe. She just shook her head in answer to Mackie's question.

"I didn't think, 'oh, no, my girlfriend's not pretty anymore,' or 'well, it was fun while it lasted, but she's not as sexy as my sister anymore.' You know what I thought? I was thinking, 'Nene's hurt. She might die.'"

Nene just listened, afraid that if she moved, this moment would end.

"And then," Mackie continued, "I thought about what would happen if you died. I couldn't help imagining what life would be like. And it...was a terrible feeling. I felt my body turning to ice. The whole world was gray. I knew, right then and there, that I'd give my life if it meant saving you, because life wouldn't be worth living if you died."

Nene decided to risk moving. She slowly unfolded her arms and put them around him, pulling him in tighter. Mackie gently kissed her on the forehead.

"And then I couldn't be there. When you needed me the most, I couldn't be there. I was flying the stupid plane, while he was cutting you up. I heard you calling me. It was the hardest thing I've ever done not to come."

Nene still didn't speak. ^I thought he wasn't there because he knew I was damaged goods,^ she thought.

"When I heard you were going to live," he said, "it was like color came back into my life. I was so happy, I could barely breathe. Not _once_ did I wonder if you'd still be beautiful. All I cared about was that you were still alive. I'd be willing to live with _anything_, if it meant having you live. And that includes this little thing," he said, one hand stroking her side, ending at her truncated right hip.

Nene sobbed again, but this time, it was one of happiness. Mackie wasn't going to leave her. He wasn't concerned with how she looked. Maybe she still wasn't alone.

Silence is an odd thing. In some cases, it means nothing at all. In others, it means something absolutely terrible is about to happen, or has already happened. But in this case, the silence filling the room meant that the two teenagers were comfortable in each others' arms. Neither wanted to break the silence, just yet.

"Mackie, can I ask you to do something for me?" Nene finally asked, in a soft voice.

"Of course, Nene. Name it."

"Can you stay here, with me? Just for a little longer?"

"I'll stay here as long as you want."

Nene kept her hold on him. ^At least I still have my arms,^ she thought.

As though by some unspeaken consent, they both shifted their heads to look into each others eyes. A kiss followed soon after. Nene put her all into the kiss. She'd come so close to death, she wasn't going to hold back, at least not now. She started leaning backwards, forcing him to lower her to the bed.

Tap tap.

Nene's eyes opened slightly, flickering over to the window. A sound had come from there.

Tap tap.

Her eyes opened the rest of the way. With a groan, she broke the kiss.

"What?" Mackie asked, seeing her eyes.

"There's...it's silly. I think I hear something outside."

"Nene," Mackie said, stroking her arms, "We're fifty stories up. There's no way anyone could - "

Tap tap. Louder this time.

Mackie carefully laid her down on the bed, and then got up. Nene curled up in the covers, trying to remain warm. Mackie turned towards the window. "Close your eyes," he said, getting up. "It's gonna be bright."

Nene clenched her eyes down to little slits. Mackie raised the blinds quickly, letting in the blazing sunlight of midday.

A familiar man in a black trench coat was outside the window. A thin black rope was attached to his belt line, and extended upwards, past the view from the window. Nene shrieked a little at the sight. Mackie just drew back, his eyes going wide.

Guillotine cupped his hands and pressed them against the window. "Would you mind letting me in?" he asked. "I've had more than enough fresh air."

Mackie thought it over, eventually figuring that Guillotine was safe. He was responsible for Nene being alive now, if anything. He considered calling his sister; odds were this was her problem. But he was sure she already knew about this.

He reached forwards and slid the window open. He unhooked the bug screen and pulled it inside, leaving a large portal. Guillotine took advantage of the opening, and swung inside, sliding down the rope he had been dangling from.

"Whoo," he said, shaking himself. "_That's_ a way to get the day going." He reached down and unclipped a carribeaner from his belt. No longer attached, that end of the rope fell to the floor.

"I had to drop in on you," he said, not one hint of apology in his voice. "If I'd had to watch that much longer, I'd have puked."

Mackie extended his hand. "Hello, Mr...uh, Guillotine."

"S'up?" he asked, taking Mackie's hand firmly and shaking it. "Mackie Stingray, right?"

Mackie nodded. "Um...yeah. What are you doing here?"

"Well, I'm looking for your sister..." he stopped as the door to the bedroom opened. Silia stood there, her silenced .45 loaded, but aimed at the floor.

"And there she is!" Guillotine exclaimed. "Yo, Ms. Stingray, whazzup?"

Silia regarded him coldly. "What are you doing here, sir?"

"I gotta talk to you," he said, walking towards her. Silia made no move to get out of the way. Guillotine grit his teeth and looked at her. "Come on," he said. "I'm not here to hurt you. If I'd wanted to do that, I'd have done it already."

Silia's eyes flickered, and she stepped out of the way, putting the safety back on her gun. As soon as Guillotine had cleared the threshold, Silia closed the door to the bedroom.

"So what is your purpose for barging into my apartment like this?" she asked.

"I came to talk to you. Supposing that's Red back there, the one that's missing a leg, I think I can help you out."

"I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about," Silia said, her hand clutching her gun a little tighter. How much did he know, now?

Guillotine smirked as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He didn't offer Silia one, but she wouldn't have taken it, anyway. After putting his lighter away, he took the cigarette between two fingers.

"Don't you bullshit me," he said, calmly. "I know who you are."

^Nene, you idiot,^ Silia thought. ^You gave away my identity with your screaming.^ She quickly stopped this train of thought, however. She had no right to try and control how Nene screamed in pain.

Guillotine had noticed the kitten Nene had bought was also here. It was staring at him, hissing and lowering its teeth. Guillotine stared back for several moments. Then, he _growled_ at it, the sound more like an animal's than a human's. The kitten immediately went off the attack, turned, and scampered away to go hide under a chair.

"And I _have_ known who you are for a while, okay?" Guillotine continued, as though nothing had happened. "I've known since before I got to this damn city. Though I didn't know who Red was. Guess I know now."

Silia instantly felt guilt at having accused Nene of giving her away.

"Fine, then, what _am_ I?" Silia asked, taking several steps away from him.

"You're White," Guillotine replied, quickly. "The Knight Saber leader. That one in the white armor, with those double arm cannons and the flight pack and the - "

"Fine," Silia said, cutting him off. "That's satisfactory."

"Scared to hear the truth?"

"I know the truth. I don't want you to waste my time. I suppose now we're on a level playing field."

"Whaddya mean?"

"Stop playing games, Nicholas Brady."

Guillotine looked at her, before his shoulders slumped and he looked at the floor. "I guess it couldn't last," he said, using his normal voice. He took another draw on his cigarette.

Silia nodded. "So what is your purpose for breaking into my apartment?"

Nick turned and looked out the window. "Like I said, I think I can help Red. Tell me honestly, here. Is she the amputee in that room?"

"Perhaps."

Nick didn't react. "Anyways, I got to thinking last night and this morning. And I realized that if I can bring one person back to life, I should at least be able to fix a leg."

"Her leg is gone, Brady. There's nothing left to fix."

"I _noticed_ that. I've replaced stuff before, you know. You should see how much I had to rip out on that one 'roid I just finished work on."

"This girl is not a boomer," Silia countered, slipping into slang. "You can't just mix and match parts."

"What kind of an idiot do you take me for? Just listen to me for a minute. You know what I said about the 33-S last night? About how that boomer's basically human?"

Silia nodded.

"Well," Nick continued, "there's some company over in America that took advantage of that. They can gene-clone almost anything, using the same tech GENOM used to make the 33-S. They could grow Red a new leg. Be the same as her old one, minus the huge bullet wound, of course."

"Yes?" Silia asked, expectantly.

"Well, I was gonna give you their phone number," he said, looking at Silia with a straight face.

Silia looked away. "Why should I trust you?" she asked.

"Why would I lie?" he asked, shrugging.

"I can think of a few reasons."

"All of which are just from paranoia. I'm serious on this one, okay?"

"Perhaps. But we would have to fly her over to America, correct?"

"Yes. That, and pay for the procedure, which has a price tag like you wouldn't believe. But hey, you're a pretty good merc. I'm guessin' you have the money stashed away."

Silia thought it over, pacing a little. Nick moved over next to the window and slowly finished off his cigarette.

"Can you recite the number?" Silia asked, finally.

"In a sec," Nick replied, whipping out his phone. He punched a few keys on the device, watching the small display. After a minute, he dictated a long phone number, which Silia wrote down. She was very suspicious that he might be giving them a false number, but she didn't want to throw away a chance like this on a suspicion. If Brady was lying, she'd make sure he lived to regret it.

"I'll have to look into this," Silia replied.

"Fine," Nick replied, heading back for the door to Mackie's bedroom. "I'm just trying to help."

Silia watched him suspiciously. "Any particular reason? What is the explanation behind your sudden change in attitude?"

Nick stopped and turned around. "You should know," he said, angrily. "You're the one with a map of my brain." With that, he threw open the door to Mackie's room, picked up the rope, and reattached it to his belt. Silia came into the room just in time to see him jump out the window. He swung around outside and started climbing up the rope, quickly disappearing from view.

Silia went to the window and watched him leave. "That is a very dangerous man..." she said to herself. "Dangerous, but maybe not to us."

"What'd he say to you?" Mackie asked from his position on the bed.

Silia turned away from the window to face him. "Something I'm not at liberty to disclose, just now. I'll need to look into it. And...don't lose hope." She walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

***

Anri stirred, feeling her consciousness returning. She’d been in the middle of a horrible dream. And waking up was no help. That just brought back memories of what had just happened to her. Largo, her friend and protector, had turned out to be evil, and he’d tried to kill Priss, otherwise known as "the bitch who killed Sylvie". Anri had surprised herself as much as anyone else by protecting Priss. And the pain...she’d been sure she’d felt her insides turning into mush. And Priss had been trying to help her. She’d tried so hard to stay alive, so Sylvie and the others wouldn’t have died in vain. But she’d felt the blackness closing in...

And then she'd been awake. She had opened her eyes. She'd been in a very cold place, lit up by a too-bright light. She hadn't been able to understand how she'd gotten there, and so had slipped back into unconsciousness, preferring not to know.

And now, she was awake yet again. That hadn’t been a dream. She knew it had happened. She’d felt so cold, as death came for her...but then, she'd felt warm as life stayed with her. Now, she felt cold, but not in an ominous sort of way. It was just uncomfortable, as though someone had turned up the air conditioning too high. The explanation, she realized soon after, was that she was still in that odd metal room. She could feel a solid table underneath her, a table that was a little too much like the hard floor she’d fallen on after getting hit by whatever Largo had used on her. This was too weird. What had happened? Had she teleported, or something?

She sat up and looked around. The room was kind of dark, the lights having been shut off. She found herself wondering what time it was. Off to her left, she heard the humming of computers and the steady beeping of an EKG. So she was in a hospital...then her secret was probably out. If Priss had somehow beaten Largo and gotten her to a hospital in time, then the doctors would have seen she was artificial. And a sexaroid, at that. What was going to happen to her, now?

She immediately thought of the 33-S-H's. She couldn’t get that image out of her head, of Jason standing there. He'd somehow been there, listening to what Sylvie had been telling them. And if he'd been able to do _that_, he could find her. Him, or another H.

She shifted around as she fully regained consciousness. Her muscles felt very tired and very stiff. She pulled the wires off of her body, freezing as she heard the EKG flatline. But then she realized that of course it would do that; it wasn't connected to her anymore. She worked up the strength and twisted around so her legs hung off the side. She had to catch her breath after that. ^How long have I been out?^ she thought. ^I shouldn’t be this out of shape.^

She slowly lowered herself to the floor. Her bare feet hit the cold floor, waking her up the rest of the way. She stood up, unsteadily, and using the table for support. After regaining her balance, she tried a few steps. She almost thought she had the rhythm of walking down again when one of her legs collapsed under her, and she fell over with a gasp.

She fell for only a moment; her body twisted as she bounced off of something hard. Then she hit the floor with a 'thud'. What had she hit?

Whatever it was, it was moving. It was stirring as though it had been asleep. Anri tried crawling away, suddenly feeling the paranoid fear that this thing was a 33-S-H. The shadowy form’s head turned towards the now-empty bed, then down to look at her trying unsuccessfully to edge away.

"Anri?" came a familiar voice.

Anri paused. That...sounded like Sylvie. But she was dead...Priss had admitted to having killed her. But, no...as Anri's eyes adjusted to the light, she saw the figure’s face. It was definitely Sylvie, or another woman that looked and sounded a whole lot like her.

Anri had to stop to catch her breath. She suddenly felt very tired. She watched the shadowy form get up and move to the door. The lights flicked on a moment later. Anri clenched her eyes shut in pain as the bright white overheads blinded her. Two strong arms pulled her to her feet. The arms released her after setting her back down on the table. Then she heard whoever-it-was walking around in front of her.

"Anri? Can you hear me?" came Sylvie’s voice again.

Anri almost didn’t want to believe it. It was too strange. How could Sylvie be alive? But, nevertheless, she opened her eyes, squinting against the light for a few seconds. The face she’d seen moments ago was still there.

"Sylvie?" she asked.

The person in front of her smiled and then caught her up in a gentle hug.

"Yes," Sylvie replied, almost whispering. "It’s me. I missed you..."

Anri found herself returning the hug, tears coming to her eyes. She didn’t know how this was possible, but she liked that it was happening. Sylvie was alive! They held each other for several long minutes, saying nothing.

Finally, they parted. Anri wiped her tears away and looked at Sylvie. She looked fine, perfectly healthy and uninjured. To top it all off, she was smiling, something she’d rarely done while she’d been hunting blood.

"Wh...what’s going on?" Anri asked.

Sylvie sat down next to her and put her arm around Anri. She kept smiling, not saying anything for a few moments. Then : "I’m going to tell you the hard truth. Can you handle it?"

Anri nodded. The truth was usually the best way.

"You and I were both dead," Sylvie said, bluntly.

Anri felt her eyes going wide. She’d known that had been the only possible outcome of stepping in front of Largo’s shockwave blast, but...she felt alive.

"A man, a friend of mine, repaired both of us," Sylvie continued. "He gave us back our lives, Anri."

The other woman thought about that one. Who would go to such trouble?

"W...Why? Who?" she asked.

Sylvie took a breath. "He did it mostly to see if he could, I guess. I really don't understand myself. As for who...he’s just a boomer repairman I knew."

Anri and Sylvie both completely failed to notice that Sylvie had just used the 'b' word without hesitation. Anri just nodded at the woman in front of her. ^I hope this man won't be asking for sex favors from us,^ she thought.

"I...I don’t know what to say," Anri said, leaning forwards and holding her head with one hand.

"Well," Sylvie began. "There’s a few people outside who’d like to see you. Do you feel up to it?"

Anri finally smiled. "Sure," she said.

Sylvie got up and walked to the door. She stuck her head out of it for a minute, then came back, sitting down next to Anri again. She took the girl's hand in her own.

"I'm glad you made it," she said.

"I...thought I’d never see you again."

Sylvie just smiled, though Anri could see the tears in her eyes, tears that her own eyes were mimicking.

The door opened.

"Anri!" came three other familiar voices.

Anri turned to see Priss coming up to her. The rock singer soon had her caught up in a crushing embrace, which Anri returned in kind. She still couldn’t get the thought out of her head that this was the woman who’d killed Sylvie, but...Sylvie was right here, alive and well.

She looked past Priss, and her eyes went wide again. Meg and Lou were standing there, watching her.

"Y..._you're_ alive, too?" she asked, once Priss released her.

"Yup," Lou said, smiling.

"H-how?"

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," Meg replied.

"How’re you feeling?" Priss asked, sounding like Anri was just recovering from a long illness.

Anri turned away from the other sexaroids, facing Priss. "I’m fine...I guess, considering..." she replied.

Priss smiled and hugged her again. "I’m glad everything’s all right," she said.

Anri finally released. She looked at her friends as she caught her breath.

"Who..." she began. Sylvie and Priss leaned in closer. "Who did it? Can I see the man who...fixed me?"

Priss looked at Sylvie, who looked back. They both had concerned looks on their faces. Meg and Lou bopth sucked in their lips, making a visible effort not to answer the question.

"What?" Anri asked. "What is it?

"He’s gone," Sylvie said, finally. "He left once he got you working again."

Anri’s brow furrowed as she tried standing again. Her legs felt strong enough to merit such an attempt.

"You mean he didn’t want to talk to me, to see how things turned out?" she said as she found her balance again.

Priss shook her head. "No, he had other business. He had to go."

Sylvie cut in. "But enough of that. You had us worried for a while back there."

Anri looked at her, puzzled. "Why?"

"You were twisting and turning all night, like you were having nightmares," Lou replied, cutting into the conversation.

Anri nodded. "I was. But can I have something to eat? I’m suddenly hungry."

The other woman put their smiles back on. "Sure," Priss replied. "C’mon, we’ll give you a hand."

The four women were more than enough to get Anri out of the room and into the main offices of Brady and Smith. Then they started getting the girl up-to-date on what had happened.

Of course, they had modified the parts of the story that included Nick Brady. Specifically, they made him out to be a 33 series combat boomer. None of them were sure Anri was ready to hear the truth about him, just yet. Maybe later, but definitely not now.

***

The next day, Leon was going through the contents of a folder. His face was emotionless, and his eyes cold. He turned another page in the report he was reading. On his desk was a collection of pictures. Each picture was of a dead man. A dead ADP officer.

The picture on top showed a man with his spine forcefully removed. On top of that, his head had been cut off after he'd been killed. Blood was everywhere in the picture. The other men had all suffered similar fates, including the decapitation.

Leon could still hear the chief's voice when he'd been handed this folder. "Looks like you were right, McNichol. Guillotine's gone bad." Leon had been overjoyed to hear that it was now legal for him to go after Guillotine. And he'd have ADP backup, not just people who decided to chance fate.

Then he'd looked at the folder's contents. His joy had quickly faded. It hadn't been the disgusting deaths; he was used to seeing things like that. In any case, excessive violence followed by beheading was Guillotine's trademark. What had made his smile fall were the other things he'd seen. There were a lot of little things, like the fact that there had been caseless Teflon bullets, instead of the HEAP rounds Guillotine _always_ used. But the biggest issue was the timing; the last transmission from this ADP group had been after the Knight Sabers had evacuated. Leon had been lucky; he'd heard Priss yelling at him, and had turned his light enhancement gear off so he could look back at the well-lit entrance ramp to that jet that had appeared. And so, he'd managed to save his eyes. The other K-11 pilot was now legally blind, and was considering getting cybereyes so he could see again. The chopper pilots hadn't gotten off much better. To say nothing of the two that had crashed into each other...

But because Leon's eyes had still been intact after that little light show, he'd been able to kill that last boomer. _And_ he'd seen Guillotine running across the roof and jumping into the Knight Sabers's jet. Leon had taken aim, but then Guillotine had picked up Priss. He hadn't wanted to risk hitting her, so he hadn't taken the shot. The point was, if Guillotine had been flying away in that jet, then he wouldn't have been able to kill these men.

And on top of that, Leon had seen the sword Guillotine had been using. It had been at a long distance, but he thought he could recognize it. A while ago, he'd seen a man named Nicholas Brady using a sword exactly like it. And, come to think of it, Brady had the same color eyes as Guillotine...

He needed a break. He got up, his legs shaky from sitting down all day. He made his way out of the room, which was full of similar desks, with other ADP officers working on their own papers. Leon could just pick out Daley, who looked haggard from his own work. Leon sighed a little and looked back to his desk. He had needed to figure out what to do about Guillotine. Looked like it was going to be a late night.

He made it to the break room and poured himself a cup of coffee. Well, it was _supposed_ to be coffee, but Leon was convinced it was just water someone had dyed brown. He drank it anyway, hoping there was some caffeine in there. He drifted out of the room and down the hallway, trying to put some distance between him and his desk. Maybe a boomer would attack and he'd have an excuse to get out...

He glided into another room full of busy people working at desks. But these desks were actually powerful computers, with a maze of wires coming out of each one. Leon glanced around. He immediately spotted one desk, and made his way over to it.

The desk had a small nameplate, marked 'Nene Romanova'. It was unoccupied, however. Nene had missed work again, for the second day in a row. There had been no explanation, just a phone call saying she couldn't make it. Leon had been particularly disappointed at this; he could usually get Nene to help with his paperwork, in exchange for a few ice cream sundaes. But with her gone, he had to do his own work.

Leon put both hands in his pockets and sighed a little, looking at the empty desk. The relative quiet only lasted a moment.

"And what are _you_ doing, mister?" came a high voice behind him. Leon cringed a little and turned around. A short, brown-haired girl was standing behind him.

"Nothing..." Leon said. "Just seeing if she's back, that's all."

"I'm sure," Naoko said. "You were thinking about going through her desk again, weren't you?"

"N-no," Leon responded, holding up his hands. Naoko had caught him digging through Nene's desk yesterday, on the first day of Nene's absence. Leon had his reasons, but he couldn't tell them to this girl. Or anyone else, for that matter.

"Hmph," Naoko said, putting both hands on her hips. "You just truck your butt back to your desk. I'll _tell_ you when she's back, okay?"

"Fine," Leon said, turning away and brushing past the girl. "Forgive me for being worried."

Naoko didn't answer. She just checked over the desk to make sure Leon hadn't touched it.

Outside, Leon polished off his coffee and threw the cup in the nearest trash can. He kept moving down the hall, still moving away from his desk. He had some other business to attend to.

He had some suspicions about Nene. He could remember when that little reporter wannabe Lisa had come through. Poor Nene had been stuck with watching her, but she couldn't be with Lisa all the time. So once, Lisa had cornered _him_, and asked him a few questions about Nene. He'd answered them as best he could, not knowing at all why the girl would be so interested in Nene. He'd learned later, through office gossip, that Lisa was trying to uncover who the Knight Sabers were.

Leon's police-trained brain hadn't taken long to put two and two together. It _was_ a little strange that Nene kept vanishing, coming back sometimes with weird injuries. Other times, she came in in the morning, looking like she hadn't slept at all. Leon had normally not paid much attention, guessing that Nene had a second job, which was perfectly legitimate in MegaTokyo's competetive economy.

But now, Nene had disappeared, just after the red Knight Saber had been wounded. Leon had seen the hit himself; it had been nasty. That had been the reason he'd tried going through Nene's desk. He'd been trying to find out just what Nene's second job _was_.

He walked up a few levels, taking the stairs to give his legs a workout after all that sitting down. He found his way down another hallway, turning into the room he remembered.

He walked into the ADP's crime laboratory, feeling just a little nervous. He didn't come in here much; he preferred analysing evidence at the crime scene itself. But, every police station in the world had a lab like this. And, in this case, Leon was glad the ADP had one.

He looked back and forth, ignoring the puzzled looks the lab workers were throwing him. He looked a little out of place, wearing jeans and a tee-shirt among people clad in immaculate white lab coats and safety glasses. Finally, he found the man he was looking for.

"Hey there, Zack," Leon said, tapping a large man on the shoulder. The man turned away from the microscope he'd been using. It took a second for him to recognize Leon.

"Oh, hi Leon. What's up?"

"You finish getting the data on those samples we talked about?"

"Uh..." Zack said. "Sorry. Which ones?"

"The blood samples from that office thing, two nights ago."

"Oh, yeah," Zack said, trying and failing to snap his fingers, due to the latex gloves he was wearing. "I got them right here," he said, patting his pockets, looking for something. He finally came up with a data diskette.

"I was gonna do those tomorrow, but I figured you'd come by," Zack said.

"Yeah, thanks," Leon said, taking the disk. "What's on this?"

"Gene scans, mostly, of the blood we found around there. I guess you'll be able to find some terrorist matches on there. But a lot of the stuff was corrupted. You should've seen this _one_ sample. It looked like someone mixed together about twelve different people's blood and threw it on the wall."

Leon nodded. "Yeah. That's our boy, Guillotine."

"Who?"

"Forget it. Thanks, man," Leon said, turning around and walking away.

Zack watched him go, then shrugged a little and went back to his work. He was used to not getting an explanation for why officers wanted certain data; a lot of this ADP stuff had to be really hush-hush.

A beeping noise drew his attention. He turned towards the computer terminal that was making the noise, puzzled.

"What the hell?" he asked the air.

Words flew across the computer's screen.

AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED...THANK YOU.

PLEASE INPUT PASSWORD.

Zack looked nervously over his shoulder. Was the computer asking _him_ for a password?

It wasn't. Several asterisks appeared in a line as a password was entered.

PASSWORD ACCEPTED. INITIATING DATA ERASURE.

^_What_?^ Zack thought. He sat down at the terminal and started typing keys, trying to stop whatever was going on. But the terminal wasn't responding. Fate didn't give him much time to think about this problem; a freezer next to the computer suddenly began displaying several flickering red lights. Panicking, Zack knelt down to the freezer and looked at its display. More words appeared.

COMMAND ACCEPTED. DISPOSING SAMPLES.

"Noooooooooo!" Zack shouted uselessly, as the freezer started to make several odd noises. He tried pulling the door open, but it was already locked. He watched, helplessly, as the blood samples inside were burned up. Meanwhile, the computer erased several choice files from its hard drive.

Zack wouldn't realize until days later that the computer and freezer had both contained all the blood samples and gene tests they'd collected from the office building.

***

"Takes care of _that_," Nene said, brushing off her hands dramatically. She pushed her chair away from her computer and leaned back.

"Did they have time to do anything?" Mackie asked from behind her.

Nene turned her head and looked at him. She smiled deviously. "Nope," she said. "They don't do blood stuff 'til at least four or five days afterwards. Takes too long to do, so no one wants to do it 'til all the easy stuff's done."

Mackie smiled in appreciation. "Good," he said. "So you're safe, then."

"As usual," Nene replied, throwing her arms up in triumph. Unfortunately, the move also agitated her stump of a leg. She immediatley lowered her arms, her expression having changed over to a grimace of pain.

"Well, safe in the computer world, anyway," Mackie said, picking her up out of the chair and supporting her weight as he carried her to the couch to sit in front of the TV.

***

Leon took the elevator this time, travelling to a still-higher part of the ADP building. The door he was looking for was just outside the elevator. It was the door to one of the building's computer rooms.

Inside were banks of several individual computers, all wired together into a powerful network. Leon didn't care about power or speed; he just wanted something with a disk drive.

He sat down at a computer that didn't have anyone sitting near it and slid the data disk in. His brow furrowed as he wracked his brain for how to work the terminal. Nene had tried to show him, months ago, and he'd promptly forgotten it all. But he had to figure it out on his own. It was too dangerous to let other people in on something like this.

After a lot of guessing, he managed to call up the ADP personnel database. The system had just been upgraded to be more user-friendly, so he was _just_ able to manage a cross-check with the personnel and the samples contained on the disk. After the computer started its work, Leon stood up and paced around a little, stretching his legs. He couldn't stand sitting down after all that paperwork, and this time, he was also very nervous. Did he want to know the truth? Or should he just remain ignorant, like any other person would? Didn't he respect Nene's privacy?

The computer didn't give him much time to decide. After just a few seconds, it 'beeped' and displayed a very familiar face on the screen, marking it as a definite match. Someone who would have had no reason to be at that office building that night. Leon stared at the screen for several long minutes.

"Hello, Nene," he finally said to the picture.

***