Harpuia frowned at the report in front of him. Not only was it unwelcome, it simply made no sense. Leviathan was sitting across from him, in his office, looking both downcast and defensive. She knew Harpuia was not about to go gentle on her.

"Well?" He raised his gaze, spearing her neatly with a look that everyone in Headquarters dreaded. "You were completely unaware of his instability?"

"Yes," Leviathan said, tapping her fingers nervously against the arm of her chair. "Harp, who could have foreseen that It was just nuts!" Harpuia privately admitted that she had a point. Nothing in the brief dossier seemed to indicate homicidal tendencies. Still…

"A commander should know as much as he can about his troops. Especially someone brought in to act as a Lieutenant." The soldier in question, Leo, had already achieved a fairly high rank in the local police forces assigned to the Reploid parts of a small town. In Neo Arcadia, police forces were separated according to parts of town… Reploids enforced the law in the Reploid part of town, while humans handled the human areas. It generally worked fairly well, and Harpuia's forces recruited from those organizations heavily. Many police Reploids had seen combat against the Rebellion already. "Does anyone know why he did it?"

"No. That's the weirdest part," Leviathan looked acutely unhappy. "He didn't even know the woman, as far as we can see. He worked halfway across the country until we recruited him, and he certainly never met her when he was working for us."

"And yet, it was a classic murder/suicide." Harpuia said with some sarcasm, and Leviathan nodded. That was what the human police investigators had called it, and everyone in Headquarters had been asked some very pointed questions about Leo's history. Harpuia had been quite ignorant of the realities of such crimes, but by now he knew that there almost had to be some kind of personal connection between Leo and the dead human woman. Even if it was only that she resembled someone from his past. "Have you gotten any word from his past employers?"

"Yes, and they seem to be baffled. I faxed them a picture of the dead woman, and they say they'll look into it. There's not a lot else I can do, Sage, and keep up with my other duties." Harpuia glowered at her for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. He knew that was true, however little he might like it.

"This is going to do wonders for our image with the humans," he observed, and Leviathan frowned.

"That's the weirdest thing. The press isn't paying any attention," she said, and Harpuia frowned slightly.

"Explain."

"Well, one of our soldiers, fairly high placed, slaughtering a woman then shooting himself? It ought to have made first page, but it hardly got a mention on page twelve. And the TV news didn't pick it up at all. Is that weird or what?"

"Strange, but fortunate for us." Harpuia said thoughtfully. "Maybe the Council squelched it." Leviathan made a face.

"The first time they've done us any favors, if they did. Can I get back to work, Harp? I've got a lot of things to do."

"Yes, go." Harpuia watched her leave, then turned his attention back to the report. He flipped through it again, as if it could tell him the secret pain that led Leo to murder and suicide. What could it be? Why would he have done something so… insane?

Harpuia closed his eyes, trying to call up a mental image of the new Lieutenant. Leo had had a lion motif. His hair had been a glorious mane of tawny gold, and his armor had matched it, the bulky armor of a warrior who counted more on toughness than speed. But all Harpuia could remember of him personally was interrupting a fight between Leo and Fefnir, and giving the new Lieutenant a dressing down for insolence towards a superior officer. He hadn't been as harsh as he could have been… Fefnir had a way of going hard on new recruits. What had that argument been about, anyway? He couldn't remember.

Harpuia frowned. He shouldn't be devoting this much attention to something so minor, even if it did have the potential to blacken their name severely among the humans. Especially since someone seemed determined to make sure it didn't blacken their name. Yet… that bothered him almost as severely as the incident itself. No one had ever gone to any trouble to help their image in the past. Why would someone start now? What was so special about Leo?

Coming to a decision, he stood up. Asking questions with a com link might be faster and easier, but it was never quite as good as meeting someone in person. He would go question the police force that had employed Leo himself.

Harpuia walked down to the HQ telepad. If he had been outside the HQ, he would have teleported himself to the Laguna telepad directly, but inside HQ, all teleports had to use the telepad. So he ran into Fefnir on the way there… almost literally, as he turned a corner at the same time as the red warrior.

"Woah! Sorry Sage." Fefnir's hand flashed out to grip his shoulder and steady him, surprisingly quick. Fefnir hadn't been fazed by the impact at all, Harpuia noticed with a faint touch of envy. But then, Fefnir did mass at least four times his weight. "Where're you going?"

"Out." Harpuia didn't feel like explaining his actions to anyone. Although… he tilted his head, looking at Fefnir curiously. "Tell me, Fefnir. What were you and Leo arguing about that time I interrupted you?" Fefnir's face darkened at the mention of the dead soldier.

"That asshole." Fefnir moved his shoulders in a way that any of his soldiers would have recognized… and feared. "He never should've been recruited for this."

"I'm sure we can all agree with that. But what were you arguing about?" Fefnir frowned, looking down as he considered Harpuia's quiet question.

"I dunno… just about his attitude. He wasn't putting as much effort into things as he should have been." Fefnir said, and Harpuia frowned. Leo hadn't been directly under Fefnir… he had been Leviathan's subordinate. If anyone had noticed slacking off, it should have been her.

"Wouldn't that have been Leviathan's duty to take care of?" He said neutrally, and Fefnir shifted uncomfortably.

"It wasn't Fairy's fault she didn't know… I… well, I knew the guy. A long time back." That surprised Harpuia, although he let no sign of it show on his face. Nothing in Leo's record had hinted at a prior acquaintance with Fefnir. "And I knew he wasn't doing what he could. He was better, that time I knew him."

"Hm." Harpuia considered that, then nodded. "You have no idea why he did this?" Fefnir shook his head, his dark skinned face grim. "I see. Well… thank you, Fefnir."

"No prob, Harp." Harpuia was deep in his own thoughts, almost oblivious to the world, when he reached the telepad. Why hadn't Fefnir mentioned his prior acquaintance with Leo? It wasn't like him to hold back information. Perhaps it had been limited to combat, and he hadn't thought it was pertinent… which was true, this appeared to be a personal matter. Harpuia shook himself back to reality as the controller of the telepad looked at him expectantly.

"Laguna, please," he requested politely. She nodded, and pressed the right key as he stood on the pad. The world dissolved and reformed in an instant, and he was at Laguna.

Laguna was a small town, on the very outer edges of the territory Neo Arcadia called its own. A beautiful little town, really, with houses made mostly out of red brick. Harpuia frowned slightly as a few people, humans and Reploids both, spotted him and hurried away. It was perhaps an understandable reaction… a little town like this didn't expect to see a Guardian… but he still didn't appreciate it.

"Perhaps I should have gone incognito," he said to himself, then shook his head. He would need his authority to get his questions answered quickly and efficiently. Harpuia immediately set out to find his destination, glancing around occasionally.

The more he looked, the more peaceful this town seemed. He was in the downtown street, and the shops were pretty and interesting. Glancing into one, Harpuia saw it was a bakery. A Reploid was manning the counter, cheerfully selling a human on some little cakes that looked good enough to make Harpuia slightly hungry. Huge trees were planted on islands in the road, branches outspread over the minor traffic that was to be seen on a Sunday morning. Harpuia tilted his head as he heard soft music, and he tracked it to a small outdoor café, where diners sat beneath red and white striped umbrellas as they sipped their Sunday tea. It was all wonderfully peaceful. In fact, it was almost the ideal of Neo Arcadian civilization, and made Harpuia feel a little… nostalgic? Neo Arcadia's capital wasn't half as charming as this small town.

Suddenly, Harpuia frowned as something occurred to him. How had Leo gotten enough experience in this tiny, peaceful town to warrant being brought in as a Lieutenant into his forces? The records he had looked over showed several citations for actions against Mavericks and even some Rebellion soldiers. The records had been fairly sketchy, only mentioning the incidents without any details. But as far as Harpuia could see, this town had no battle damage at all… could the incidents have happened somewhere else? But that made little sense.

Things began to make even less sense when he reached the street that the police station was supposed to be on. Harpuia stared at the pretty little house in front of him, then checked the address he had written down. This… was the place. Unless there were two streets with similar names, and someone had made a typo? A little girl playing in the yard gave him a curious look. Harpuia looked around, but there was no one else on the street.

"Child, could you please come here?" Harpuia asked politely, staying safely outside the fenced in property. The child came to him, curious and far more trusting than a city child would have been. "Thank you… I'm looking for the police station, but somehow, I was given your address by mistake. Could you tell me where it is?" The child nodded with a smile, and pointed down the road with a rather grubby finger.

"You just go down the road, turn right, then go up to the gas station and turn left. You can't miss it, they have a huge flag out front an' a memorial and everything."

"A memorial to what?" Harpuia wondered out loud, and the girl shrugged.

"Some old war." Harpuia winced at the callousness of the young, but thanked her anyway and walked away. The instructions were good, and soon he was at the police station, looking at the memorial. A historical plaque said that it had been found in the ruins of the town, when explorers from Neo Arcadia came and began the current town. Harpuia ran his eyes down the names, wondering who and what they had been… some sounded like Reploid names, but others sounded human. How had they died? And for what? No one even knew anymore. Briefly, he wondered if he himself would someday be so completely forgotten.

Pushing aside that uncomfortable thought, he entered the station.

"Hacky… sack. Hacky… sack." Harpuia stared at the female human police officer, who was whiling away her time by bouncing a little stripped ball from one foot to another and other tricks. It was an impressive display of dexterity and a poor one of professionalism. "Hacky… sack."

"Excuse me," he finally said, and she flipped the ball up, catching it with one hand and raising her eyes to look at him quizzically. He noticed she was quite pretty, with blond hair pulled into a ponytail and cornflower blue eyes. Her nametag had the name McIntyre on it. "I am General Harpuia. I would like to ask you some questions." That made her eyes widen.

"Wow! That's… wow, you are? You do? Hold on." She stuck her head into the back before he could say anything else. "Bebe, guess who's here to ask us questions?"

"God," said a deep, melodious baritone.

"No, better! General Harpuia!" There was a brief pause.

"I told you not to touch the pot we took from those kids."

"Bebe, I'm serious!" Harpuia frowned as he listened to the bizarre little conversation. Why were they so shocked? Leviathan had been speaking to an Officer Brenshaw for days about the situation. Surely they would have expected a visit from someone, if not Sage Harpuia himself.

"Are you out of your-" A very large Reploid, his armor painted in the manner of a police uniform, stepped out into the room, and stared at him, taken aback. "Uhh…" Harpuia smiled faintly at his obvious disbelief, then frowned slightly again. Why were a human and Reploid working in the same building? There were usually separate police stations, unless… unless a town was very small and very quiet. The Reploid blinked, then swallowed. "My apologies, Lord Harpuia. How may we help you?"

"I came to ask some questions about a former officer from your town named Leo." Harpuia fished a picture out of his vest, and offered it to him. The officer took it, regarding it with an air of puzzlement.

"I've never met him before in my life. When was he supposed to have worked here?" Bebe said dubiously, handing the picture to his partner. She regarded it alertly.

"For three years, until six months ago when he was recruited into my forces." Harpuia watched as a small frown developed on Officer McIntyre's face. "Do you know him?"

"Not… really, but it seems like I should," she said slowly. "Not from here, though. From someplace else." She thought for a moment, then shook her head. "I can't remember. But I think it was a long time ago."

"How long is long, Pam? Are we talking last month, last year, or when you were five?" Bebe asked pointedly. "Try to do a bit better, will you?"

"Stop being an ass, Bebe." She gave the picture a slit eyed stare, and suddenly blinked. "Oh… I'm stupid! He looks like my old boyfriend in high school." Harpuia stared at her.

"You dated a Reploid?" He couldn't help but sound appalled. Interspecies dating and sexual relations sometimes happened, but… it wasn't the sort of thing a good girl did. She grinned at him, passing back the photo.

"No, worse, I dated Leo Morn. Weird resemblance, but he died last year in a car crash," she sniffed disdainfully. "Favor to the world, if you ask me. The man was a brute."

"I… see." Harpuia tucked away the photo, more confused than ever… and deeply suspicious, although not of the two officers. "Well, thank you for your time."

"Wait a sec!" Harpuia paused as Officer McIntyre rooted through the papers on her desk. "Can I have an autograph? The rest of the crew will never believe I met you otherwise. Nothing ever happens around here." Harpuia smiled faintly as he accepted the pen, and scribbled his name. It was actually quite rare, someone asking for his autograph. Most humans seemed to regard him and his forces as necessary evils, not… celebrities. But then, he rarely dealt with humans at all, and then mostly in the capital, not a tiny provincial town.

"Nothing happens? Didn't the chip truck explode last week?" Bebe protested mildly, and McIntyre shook her head as she took back the pad.

"I meant interesting crimes, Bebe. There was nothing criminal about that, just some moron forgot to turn off the burner. Thank you so much, sir." She gave Harpuia a dazzling smile.

"You're welcome," he replied politely, and left the station. Without any answers… but several more questions.


Over the next few days, Harpuia himself couldn't spare the time to look into the discrepancies. And he decided not to ask Leviathan to do it. Someone had obviously arranged a false background for Leo quite carefully, and the way it had been done indicated the work of someone deeply within Neo Arcadia. Perhaps a highly placed spy for the Resistance, hidden within the human government, someone who might take alarm if the ordinary investigation stopped abruptly. So Leviathan would continue her own inquiries, with no suspicions, while Harpuia set someone else to a more covert investigation.

He looked up from the tedious, routine paperwork as that person entered his office.

"Padrick, reporting for duty Lord Harpuia." The soldier in front of him gave him a crisp salute. Harpuia regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.

For a Reploid, Padrick was an oddly human name, but he had clearly been built to be as human as possible. His armor was a dull, dun color, of no particular interest and, to the casual observer, less value. He was very slight, no taller than Leviathan but his body gave the impression of speed and wiry strength. His light brown skin matched the color of the majority of Neo Arcadia's population, as did his dark brown eyes. His face was youthful and handsome, like most Reploids, and under his helmet Harpuia knew his hair was a rather peculiar mix of dark brown and grey. What humans called salt and pepper, but that was something that usually happened naturally to the old. It was a strange thing to build into a Reploid.

Padrick's ordinariness was his greatest asset, in and out of combat. Enemy soldiers constantly underestimated the small, dun Reploid to their very short regret. So did allies… often to their more lasting regret. He was intimately familiar with scouting and intelligence gathering, and would be a perfect weapon for this kind of situation.

"I want you to investigate something for me, quietly. I want no hint of this to go beyond the two of us." Harpuia instructed him, and was pleased to see a hint of interest in Padrick's dark eyes. "Here is the situation." He quickly brought Padrick up to speed on the situation with Leo, what the soldier had done and what Harpuia had discovered, or rather not discovered, about his past. By the end of it, Padrick was looking quite thoughtful.

"You suspect a spy in important places," he stated, and Harpuia nodded. "If this is the case… you realize Leo might not be the only one planted on us?"

"I do," Harpuia said grimly. It had been his first thought. "Try to find any others who have been planted. Look for addresses and contact numbers that don't match the official records, or places that do not exist." Padrick nodded. "You are relieved of all other duties for the foreseeable future." At that, Padrick frowned.

"Lord Harpuia, if you wish to raise no suspicions, it might be best to have me relieved as a disciplinary measure," he said mildly, and Harpuia cocked his head to one side. "If you could arrange to be in… mmm… break room 3 at 10AM tomorrow, I can arrange a violent quarrel between myself and Zhasta. If you suspend us both, it will strike no one as suspicious, and I could use her assistance." Harpuia smiled slowly in appreciation of his clever little ruse.

"Very well. I'll be there." Harpuia pushed over the folder of all the information he had gathered on Leo, which Padrick accepted with a nod. "Dismissed."

He was certain the clever, dangerous young Reploid would soon have what he needed.


It was almost a week before Padrick finished his work, but when he did, the result was a humdinger.

"You're certain of this?" Harpuia demanded, staring numbly at the list of names in his hands. It was a long list, and it was headed by… "Fefnir?"

"I'm afraid I am," Padrick said, expression firm with conviction. "The manufacturing facility where he was supposedly created doesn't exist. It never existed." Harpuia shook his head, more in disbelief than denial. But if that was true…

"This can't have been done by the Rebellion. If they had this many agents in our ranks, we would already be dead," he said, examining the list again. "And these are some of my best warriors." Most of the names came from those with high rank. Harpuia shuddered at the thought of what would happen if they all turned traitor… Neo Arcadia could be decimated in a day. Almost as bad, how could he remove and replace them? It would leave the command structure looking like Swiss cheese, and there was no way he could find enough people to promote to change that. Harpuia chewed his lower lip, trying to decide how to handle this.

"Thank you, Padrick." Harpuia finally said, looking up at the Reploid who had brought him the bad news. "That will be all, for now. Return to your regular duties and say nothing of this to anyone." Padrick nodded respectfully, and stood. Harpuia stared at the list long after he was gone.

This was evidence of a conspiracy that had been going on a long time, and almost had to have the sanction of someone high in the Council. But how had the manufacturing facilities for so many Reploids been secured? How had they gained the energy? And why? What was being hidden, and what purpose did these Reploids with fake pasts serve?

"Fefnir…" Harpuia closed his eyes in pain. That part hurt the worst, that his fellow Guardian had kept such a secret from him and Leviathan for all his life. He took a deep breath, and organized his thoughts, pushing the pain away. How would he go about finding the truth of the secret? It would be better if he could do it without alerting Fefnir and the others on the list, given the potential danger they posed.

To do that, he would need some help… it was time to bring Leviathan into his confidence. He only hoped she would be able to act normally around Fefnir, once she knew…