City of Slow Dreams: Chapter 3 (by Elliot Bowers)

     As they rode along, The Cloaked Man had some vague idea of what to do next.  What they did for now was just for escapism.  Their newly acquired rides were fit for just that, too.  Excellent suspension to cushion the ride, about a hundred years of nuclear-fueled  torque,  half a tank of nanobot-containing medium for autorepairs and self-maintenance, nuke bikes were very care-free vehicles.  It was very easy to just lean back in the seats and just…ri-i-ide:  the relaxing flow of it all, a flow made with the thrum of the repulsor engines, the passing road, and the wind. 

     Even better, they were riding in the late afternoon; the roads were almost totally unoccupied.  Administration's product trucks were almost totally absent from Brunswick's streets; shipping was handled in the morning.  The only other real vehicles to contend with were the very occasional cars.  Other nuke bikes were not in the street. Whenever there were other vehicles, The Cloaked Man and his new crew just had to gently bank right or left turns around them—trucks and cars. 

     The Cloaked Man just had an attitude that was just, Who cares? As he and his two other party members gently banked around one particularly large and industrial four-wheeled specimen—a tall truck carrying goods—he contemplated his own status in this city.  What was his place in the city, his job?

     In Brunswick, one's job was the only thing that set one's status.  That was because jobs were of the city's official hierarchy.  The better a person's job, the more stock a person had—until one was part of Brunswick's government itself: made an executive.   

     The Cloaked Man had an infinite amount of dollars; he did not have a job.  He just apported all the cash he needed from his left pocket.  His money came from somewhere and nowhere at the same time.  Without a job, though, he had no status—regardless of how much money he had.  

     Once, he even offered to sell the beginnings of his technology to Administrations, to get a job as techie, but Administrations refused him.  He demonstrated some apport technology to executives;  they laughed.  And worse.  That's sleight-of-hand, said one.  There is no way that your technology is possible, said another.  You're nuts, went another.  Who gave you that technology? went another.  Get the Hell out of this office.  You'll never make executive…  So on and such.

     The Cloaked Man took his apport technology and developed it himself.  He  then apported enough cash to get an customized synthetic body—one with inducers in his back for his static capacitor cape and apportation circuitry installed in his mobility systems.  Since apportation took a significant amount of energy, he could only configure components of his new body only so much.  His body's components could now just generate apportation fields in a small space left of his left hip—or where his left pocket would be.  Now, any item he could recognize, he could apport.  Like cash.    

   Odd, he made that particular technology on a whim.  Somewhere in The Cloaked Man's easy-riding subconscious was insane knowledge; the absolutely maddening science that allowed him to develop apporter technology.  Likely, The Cloaked Man had the same sort of deep-seated but controlled madness that allowed for the improvement of nanotechnology and innovations in cyborg technology.

     Whatever.  His thoughts just went their own ways for a time as he comfortably cruised through streets.  It was also likely that his cohorts' thoughts were going the same wayward ways.  About other people…  He saw the pedestrians in the periphery of his vision, the townies.  They had their lives to live in this city of short buildings, small shops, factories, and all that.

     The Cloaked Man knew that they were soon approaching the western-most edge of the city:  There were more houses.  Then,  one of the party decided to turn left at the next intersection.  Alia probably did; she was on The Cloaked Man's left.  And they did, before they took another left and went back in the very general direction of the city's heart.  Still riding on…

     Elsewhere, someone was not having such an easy time.  That was apparent in how he looked and sounded.  This, though he was among friends.

     "You're forgetting to ask me just o-o-one thing," said that someone, not having a good time on this late-afternoon sidewalk.  He slur-stated that last statement to five other standing Ganglanders.  Well, as everyone else stood; Zackus swayed. 

     He also had to make a conscious effort to keep from crushing the bottle of Brennan's Special in his left hand: one of few drinks tailored to pass through cyborg digestive systems—for the sake of getting his brain drunk.

     With cyborgs, drunken slurring was not too much an issue.  Motor functions and speech remain relatively intact as alcohol only goes a cyborg's brain.  As such, judgement is always a casualty.

    The five other Ganglanders here had seen Zackus get sloshed before.  But this time, this was Zackus sloshing his brain into the darkened depths of oblivion.  They were here now as a last-minute stopgap against any sort of drunken mistake Zackus could make. 

     Lula shook her blonde head, her sharp-featured face annoyed at Zackus' lack of judgement.  The other Ganglanders looked on.  "Forgotten to ask you something?    Please do the generous favor of enlightening us on what.  We ignorant people simply adore your deep (if alcohol-sodden) wisdom," she said Lula, her arms crossed.  Unsaid by her was,  And let's hope you finish that bottle before it finishes you.  

     "You've forgotten to ask me.  Forgot to a-a-ask…  If I care!  Ha-ha!" he finished, then punctuated the answer with a quick swig from his bottle.  The liquid sloshed all about his realistic lips and mouth, dribbling.  He swallowed the mouthful, and the mellow stuff went down his myogel esophagus.

      Jimmy stared at Zackus.  "You have to care.  Just have to.  If you don't, well…  Maybe we won't be around to pick up your scattered parts because of the result.  With e-cops being constantly suspicious of us and plenty of townies afraid, you could get hurt if you're not careful.  Just listen to yourself.  You're too bent to make safe decisions now."

     Zackus made slow and very careful steps toward Jimmy.  Zackus squinted at him, then said,  "Ah, but who's better at making decisions for my…  myself than me?"  Zackus put his right hand to his own tee-shirted chest, the titanium of the hand gleaming.  "For me, I'm the best freaking decision-maker!  And, let me re-mind you of my-y-y best decision for me.

     " That little freak antique has to die.  No way am I going to let something four feet tall live with the reputation of beating me!  The Zackus!  Not going to let it live with that reputation, not its whole little four-foot life."     

     He brought his bottle to his lips yet again and tipped back the contents. That resulted in Zackus tipping himself onto his own back.  He was that mellow.  As the world suddenly seemed so smooth and wavy, he also decided that staying on the sidewalk was the best thing to do now until everything became organized again.  He did not care that his cohorts were leaving him, leaving the drunken fool to pickle, slosh, smash and waste his brain.  

     Later, the party of three eventually meandered back to Brunswick's shopping district, at roughly 1600 hours.  Then The Cloaked Man snappingly remembered what he wanted to do next.  He looked left at riding Alia, her face holding a faint smile as her pale hair fluttered in the air current.

     "Hey, let's park over on that upcoming street!" he shouted above the rumbling of the nuke bikes.  Alia heard, and she nodded.  He looked right, and Van—still in her brief waitress' outfit—heard.  She nodded as well. 

     They slowed, then parked their nuke bikes single-file along the curb.  Stopped, they released the handlebars, put down kickstands, and dismounted.  Doing that turned off the nuke bike's engines and locked the vehicles; they would only work again when their current owners' body frequencies were near enough to the seats and handlebars.  Or, when they mounted the nuke bikes again.

     Now on the sidewalk, they gathered for a close talk.  Waitress-looking Van and metal-bodied blonde Alia walked over to The Cloaked Man, curious.  Van spoke first.  "Is something wrong?  I thought we were going to just leave the city and travel?  You know, face big dangers and journey to a legendary place.  An adventure…"

     The Cloaked Man looked at Van.  He then hunched over just enough as so his six-foot self was eye-to-eye with the five-foot Eurasian gynoid.  "Yeah, there's something wrong.  Or, there's someone wrong, that word used if you consider yourself a person and not a robot."  Van went silent, wordlessly compliant.  "Your outfit, it's all wrong.  Look at her, Alia!  You ought to know; you're female!  But look at her!  Just look…at…her…outfit!"

     Alia grinned as The Cloaked Man stepped behind Van, grabbing the dumbstruck gynoid by her thin shoulders.  He presented her to Alia, and he spoke.  "Her blouse and apron, they're so darned corny!  Look at her top.  The blouse is passable, but the apron…  Yech!  Looks so… So servant-like! She looks like a freaking waitress!  She's not anymore!"  He then moved to Van's left and made an open-handed gesture at her very brief skirt.

     "And look at that!  Steve must have been a horny jackass of a misogynist, robot or not.  Go figure, a jackass programmer must have made a real jackass of an android.  Namely, Steve.  Steve the misogynist android.  Steve-the-misogynist-android-with-a-jackass-programmer must have put my…"  The Cloaked Man then wrapped his right arm around Van's shoulders—a  sideward hug.  "Must have put my poor, dear friend Van in such a slutty skirt.  No way to treat a lady, be she real or robotic inside.  Jackass programmer!"  He unhanded Van, who smiled in spite of herself.

     "Okay, let's freaking undo what Steve-the-misogynist-android did.  Let's go get Van some real clothes."  The Cloaked Man pointed down at nearby Alia.  "Since you know women's clothing better than I do, I order you to help Van choose clothing."  He then pointed to himself, that same finger to his forehead.  He crossed his eyes in looking at his self-accusing hand.  "I also order myself to pay for it, since I can just apport all the cash necessary." 

     He brought down his hand and uncrossed his eyes.  "Okay, with the orders passed out, let's go shopping!" he said before turning around, facing the red-bricked garment shop immediately behind him.  They walked into that shop, Janice's.

     Inside Janice's  shop were plenty of women's clothes.  Circular racks of women's clothes in the front half.  Straight aisles of women's clothes in the back.  Clothes hung on the walls.  Clothes for short women, tall women, real-bodied or synthetic bodied.  And likely, some clothes could be slightly modified for metal-type bodies.  Amidst this was the cashier's counter at the right.  A thin dark-haired and darker-skinned woman stood there, wearing her hair in a bun and a white dress on herself.

     She came from behind the counter and over to the newly arrived party.  "Hello, how may I help you three?" she asked, hands clasped before herself.   

     "I need clothes," said The Cloaked Man.  The shopkeeper eyed him, still managing to hold to her courteous smile despite what the castually dressed man with a red cape said.  "I need clothes for looking pretty and able at the same time.  Clothes not too slutty but not too butch."

     She managed this store for forty years and had strength enough to give a polite laugh.  "So, sir…  I suppose I could help you dress in something appropriate to your…  Ah, figure.  I could find something to fit your breadth of shoulders, tops and such.  But some items may have to be taken in at the waist."

     The Cloaked Man smiled.  "You think so?  My figure really looks awful.  Like, I tried body upgrades—and even considered getting another body—but my girfriend wouldn't like it.  She wants me to dress in the way she…"  From there, The Cloaked Man started a rant. 

     As The Cloaked Man ranted, Alia had turned to face him.  She tried eyeing him with her huge eyes, looking slightly angry enough to get her message through to him.  But he gibbered on with his inappropriate talk, talking some talk about wanting to "dressing like the gentler gender" and "being a woman inside."  Not that there was anything wrong with crossdressing in Alia's opinion, but they had business to attend. 

     Alia then reached up, her gleaming metal hand open, and firmly slapped The Cloaked Man on the right arm.  She was rewarded with an "Ouch!" and blessed silence from the madman.    

     "Sheesh!  Okay, okay!  I was just joking with you, miss shopkeeper.  Actually, my friends here want to buy some things.  My little friend Van needs something else.  Whatever she wants.  And my even littler friend Alia—my very little and tiny friend…"  He ignored Alia's even more reproachful glare from below.  "…Will help."  He then grinned at the small blonde metal-type:  Her cute synth-flesh face rendered her look of anger into a pout.  She was just too darned adorable to take too seriously; he resisted a whim to pinch her cheeks just now.

    And then, having spoken with the elegant shopkeeper, Alia and Van did look through plenty of clothes.  Alia had some opinions on clothes, having looked at people of Brunswick for some time.  As for Van, she was too painfully self-conscious at kind treatment she was being given:  Someone—a person with a real human brain—was going to buy her clothes, and someone with a real brain was helping her choose them.  Van never had friends before; she thought that robots were not supposed to have them at all. 

     The Cloaked Man crossed his arms in looking at those two females choose clothes.  He rolled his eyes a few times.  Then he just turned to look at the wall behind him.  Yes, he wanted Van to look like something other than a waitress.  Anything else but that.  But all this trouble for shopping was annoying.  What was this going to be, a fashion show?  Alia was probably the worst; she took plenty of time in helping Van choose clothes.  Why should anyone care so much about what he or she wore.

     In half an hour of going along racks and, those two synthetic-bodied females and the shopkeeper finally chose a set of outfits.  They went between the racks and rows of clothes and to the fitting rooms at the back.  The women talked and whispered and such.   Primarily, they talked.  But they sometimes laughed back there.  Even Van laughed.  What were they doing back there, taking rush pills?  Toping it up?  Doing the technically impossible and manually rewiring their synthetic bodies for sexual stimulation?  No, no, no… 

     Finally, after who knew how long (an hour, really), all of that conspiracy at the back of the shop stopped.  What The Cloaked Man heard next was footsteps.  Three sets of footsteps moving in procession.

     Then there she was.  From between the racks of clothes came a more respectfully dressed Van.  She had a new blouse: simpler than her previous one, but without that apron, and didn't cling to her small breasts like skin.  And she had slacks that showed the curves of hips and nice legs but without clinging to them.  Van looked very pretty—nice figure to go with her pretty face.  Pretty, because that word connoted cuteness and beauty.

     She stood with her hands at her sides, letting The Cloaked Man look.  Then she did a slow turn, arms out.  Faced him again, smiling.  There was an appreciative nod from him.  Van would have blushed at his stare now—if synth-flesh could blush.  All the while, in the periphery of his vision, he could see Alia's big-eyed stare, a stare that said, Be serious, Cloaked Man; Van is very sensitive about her new outfit.

     "I like it, Van.  I really like it…" he said, thinking of further praise.  "You look pretty.  Much prettier than before.  That change of clothes changed your appearance, really!" he said.  Then he looked left, "Okay, Janice, let me pay." 

     And when The Cloaked Man paid, his "tip" left Janice agog.  The Cloaked Man could have easily bought half the store's stock with the money he left.  But he just left.

     They emerged from the shop into the yellowing sunlight of very late afternoon.  A  breeze blew down the street and sidewalk out here.  There was then  a flash of black-and-blue movement from the side as someone dashed at them.  A clunk came as that someone struck Van on the side of her head.

     Van collapsed to the sidewalk and no longer moved.  Some sounds of static came from her open mouth before closing, silence.  TCM and Alia were stunned as their newly dressed party member lie there broken.  Then they became angry.

     TCM spoke first.  "Who the Hell broke our robot?"  He looked up from the broken gynoid and saw a mouse-faced Ganglander standing there—tee shirt, jeans and boots.  This Ganglander was missing his synth-leather black jacket, though.  Probably ditched it to move slightly faster.  "Hey, you broke our robot!" said The Cloaked Man.  "And we just acquired her, too!  I suppose you're going to pay for the damage to this one.  Or, I'll make you pay for the damage, and force-feed you some packets of oatmeal.  It is a way to begin to pay.

     "Payment, isn't that better than oatmeal, by the way.  By the highway and byway?  Ever think about highways and oatmeal, man?  Just give me a choice of finger flippers and I'll let you know…." 

     Indeed The Cloaked Man's talking mutated into a rant.  As The Cloaked Man bedazzled the drunken cyborg by talking free-form, Alia knelt by Van's side.  She put fingers of her right hand to Van's forehead, then put her left fingers to the center of the gynoid's chest.  Through the thin material of Van's blouse, Alia's fingers could do preliminary readings.  Van was broken—or dead.

       In addition to ranting, the Cloaked Man now began to point angrily in the direction of the Ganglander, who stood there with a stupid grin on his face.  That man with the cape, in the opinion of the Ganglander, was nuts.  It was evident in his speech.  In fact, the Ganglander vaguely hoped that that man's insanity wasn't catching.

     Too bad; it was.  The Cloaked Man's free-association ranting easily discombobulated an already alcohol-muddled Ganglander.  The Cloaked Man had worked his current ranting into a full-tilt, swerving force of confusion now.  "…And finally," he said somewhere in his twisted talk, "that is why bumper stickers are best left not dipped in chocolate pudding.  Keep that, and mouse balls, in mind the next time you step down to your local haberdasher's."

     That statement, and many others, left Zackus the Ganglander slack-jawed.  As it was, that last bottle of Brennan's Special really ruined his thinking.  He simply planned to smack and kill the little antique cyborg.  But somehow, for whatever reason, he decided to hit the tall female instead.  Why?  For the drunken man's answer, why not? 

     Now he would pay for that mistake for it.  Now he was facing the full brunt of The Cloaked Man's driveling mad talk.  "…Why, when I was just half a glint in my father's ceramic eye, I was eating lightly fried crickets by the light of a pale winter moon.  Not that it took too much maturity, mind, but crickets and moonlight were both darned good back when I was your age.

     "Not to discredit you and your generation though, even though you lost respect for fried crickets and lunar illumination.  You also lack respect for mutilated pennies and shotgun-blasted pigeons.  Not that pigeons exist anymore, but you should respect them all the same.  If I had a bag of fish heads and magic markers for every word of disrespect you even think of regarding the latter and former, I would have a lot of magic markers and fish heads! 

     "But the truth is, it all comes down to brain power.  Yes, raw brains.  It took fresh brains to mutilate pennies, then raw brains to prepare lightly friend crickets.  And you can use that raw brains today.  See, you go down to your local delicatessen or bucherie and ask for raw brains—cow brains will do.  They'll synthesize them for you if they don't have them in stock.  Then you can take the brains back home, mash them up, then add them to the batter you use to fry up any snack.  And fry crickets.

     "Are you listening?  You're looking a bit wasted.  Like, mutilated."   The Cloaked Man knew that his stream of free-form talking was thoroughly mangling this Ganglander's state of mind, but he did not care.

     As The Cloaked Man ranted on, Little Alia then stood up from fallen Van.  Her large eyes were darkened and angry.  Then, The Cloaked Man's madcap ranting stopped.  She knew that slack-jawed and swaying Ganglander.  Oh yes, she certainly did.  Since her first day in this city, Alia remembered who he was.

     "Zackus," said Alia.  In two powered steps, the metal-bodied blonde waif was behind that Ganglander, her fists up and ready.  With two straight punches of her titanium fists, she tore away parts of his lower back.  Shreds of synth-cotton and bloodless synthetic flesh sprayed and fluttered to the sidewalk. 

     Zackus managed to turn around.  "Wa-hey!  Is that supposed to hurt, little antique?"  He felt Alia then kick him in the left thigh, sending some more of his synthetic flesh shredding away.  As she snapped back to her fighting stance, he brought his left fist down, scraping her  right shoulder. 

     The blow knocked her down, but not for long.  Almost as soon as she was down, she was up again.  Damn, the little thing was quick, probably made quicker or something with the same operation that gave her a new face and hair. 

     Her solid hands moved very quickly in counter-attacking, gray streaks that slashed across Zackus' midsection.  Synthetic flesh flew in all directions as Alia used multiple attacks to lay open his artificial body.  With the myogel of his abdomen remove, his inner-components became visible.  She then reached into the Ganglander's abdomen with both hands, gripping those components.  When she tugged, sparks and smoke then obscured Alia from sight. 

     That did it.  Zackus fell to his back, body severely damaged.  Alia tossed the electromechanical innards she held, knelt atop the paralyzed Ganglander's chest.  Tearing out those components meant that Zackus' brain was no longer able to control his body at all—no movement, no speech, and certainly no escape. 

     This, as Alia's fists went slamming into his forehead to make frightfully large dents.  Worse, for Zackus, the dents in his head became larger and deeper.  As The Cloaked Man looked on, feeling a touch sickened, Alia reduced Zackus' metal-skulled head to something relatively flat, flesh-coated, and bumpy—brains oozing from the eye sockets.  The ceramic eyes were long since misplaced. 

     The Cloaked Man wanted to stop this; it was becoming redundant.  "Alia, that's the real definition of overkill!  The guy is deadly dead!  Get me?" he shouted.  He saw Alia pound the flattened skull again.  "Alia!  Get a grip!" shouted The Cloaked Man.  "Deader and deader, how much dead can someone get…?" 

     Somewhere in her haze of anger, Alia heard that distant voice.  Her head was just so full of anger.  It was anger that built up all of this while.  Being insulted, being beaten, being hated and hurt for so long by random Ganglanders and other citizens of Brunswick.  Disrespected until she got a new face and scalp.  Maybe, she had to let out her anger.  She then stood up and away from her victim, her solid knuckles moist with blood and slick brain-matter.

     "Hey you kid!  Hold it!" shouted someone from somewhere on the street, very loudly.  That person's voice was amplified, in fact.  And after that loud shouting, there were very loud footsteps approaching the scene.  The Cloaked Man knew who approached; he did not even have to turn to find out.

     The two gigantic brown-haired figures in brown trench coats came running up, dark repulsor batons drawn and sparking.  They stopped at the scene of this particular public disturbance: a Ganglander with his brain smashed and a metal-type cyborg with hands moist from doing the deed.  Disgusting.  And the e-cops would have to clean it up.

     "It was like that when I got here," said The Cloaked Man, raising his hands.  "Rather, it was likely to get like that when we got here.  Bound to happen by fate and all that."  He looked from one e-cop to the other, finally noticing how all e-cops had the very same synthetic bodies. 

     "Fated, huh?" asked one e-cop, the one on the left.  "Like those two on the sidewalk were fated to be assaulted and killed in a mini-rumble?  I know what this looks like; I've seen it all before."

     The Cloaked Man's brows beetled, and his lips formed a small "o": a look of annoyance and confusion.  "Mini-rumble?  What in tarnation are you rambling about?  That Ganglander, or that former Ganglander, came out of nowhere with a bottle of Brennan's special.  He must have been drinking from that bottle, because he took it into his head that attacking my party, alone, was a way to pass the time."

     He then turned to Alia, who now knelt and cradled Van's limp upper-body.  "We were just acting in self-defense.  Not our fault that drunken Ganglanders decided to attack innocent citizens." 

     The second e-cop looked around on this sidewalk, and he saw the unfinished bottle of Brennan's special some yards away.  He shrugged, then put his repulsor baton in his trecnchoat—vanishing.  His partner did the same.    

     "We'll give you that," said the first.  "Self-defense against a Ganglander.  But it's still a public disturbance.  We have to take you in, at least." 

     "Oh, cool!" exclaimed The Cloaked Man, putting his hands to his cheeks.  "We're going to an authentic e-cop quiz-session!  I read all about it in Bill Street Blues and R.U.P.D. Blue.  Are we going to be treated like real bad guys, being cuffed and hustled downtown?  Will we go into the interro room with just chairs and a table—a single bright white light of perusal overhead, a magic mirror of deception against the right wall?"

     Both the first and second e-cop had looks of their own to give.  Apparently, this caped man pulled descriptions almost straight out of pulp fiction.  And he exaggerated, probably because he was nuts. 

     The second e-cop spoke.  "No, we're not going to treat you like 'bad guys,' because we can't officially call you bad guys.  We just need to take you down for questioning."  He looked down at the metal-type cyborg-girl, who now looked up from where she knelt on the sidewalk—by her fallen friend  He knew that she would want to carry her friend; cuffs would keep her from doing so.  "And sorry to disappoint, but we won't cuff you."  The second e-cop saw The Cloaked Man snap his fingers in disappointment.

     Little Alia cradle-carried Van and the first e-cop shoulder-carried the dead Ganglander as they went to the station.  With the shopping district and the tall Administrations in easy reach, this was downtown.  The police station was not at all far away from where the trouble passed.

     Approaching, one could see the simple and rugged design of the station: a two-story, red-brick box with some windows and very tall double doors at the front (for the tall e-cops).  The word POLICE was above the entrance: simple and accurate, a typical cliché of Brunswick.

     The Cloaked Man had words to say on the simplicity of that sign, but he said none of them.  He did speak when the e-cops stopped at the front stoop, not quite going in.  "What's going on?  I thought we were going to the interro room.  You know, bright lights and good-guy-bad-guy talk."

     "That's right, we are going to talk, caped man.  But someone has to stay outside and watch your broken robot," said the first e-cop.  He looked at the little cyborg that still held her friend.  "Tell you what, caped guy.  You can come into the station and talk with us.  Your metal-type friend is free to go."

     The Cloaked Man agreed to that; he really wanted to see the inside of an e-cop station.  All of those years reading about them, and he would finally get to see the real deal.  So he allowed the e-cop at his back to guide him into the station.  The Cloaked Man, easily subject to flights of fancy, did not see Alia carry Van to the curb—to dry-weep over her.

     There would not be any tears.  Cyborgs do not shed tears.  This is not to say that cyborg are never deeply saddened.  In fact, the lack of tears makes for their sadness being bottled and more concentrated.  Worse, intense emotional upset can interfere with a synthetic body's workings, making for some actual pain.  According to some, nothing truly hurts like a cyborg's sadness.  Tears bottled up inside for a lifetime.

      Inside the station, the e-cops took The Cloaked Man to the right of the tensor-fielded waiting area and into a narrow hall.  The narrow hall led to multiple places:  holding cells, the briefing room and—of course—the interro room.  To keep The Cloaked Man from "exploring" on his own, the first e-cop kept a firm hand on his right shoulder. 

     In this narrow hall, the interro room was the first on the right.  The Cloaked Man and his escort went in.  The second e-cop went away to process the Ganglander's remains for disposal—likely storage in a disposal pit until the rotted on their own accord.  Later.  That left the first e-cop with The Cloaked Man.

     He was seated in a simple folding metal chair at this wide green table.  It looked like formica.  And, there was a bright light overhead.  He looked right, at the wall opposite the door in, and he saw the two-way "magic mirror" set in one of the gray walls.  Probably, that one-way window had extra tensor fielding.  This is getting groovier, he thought.

     The large figure in trenchcoat sat down opposite The Cloaked Man, ran a hand through his brown hair, then exhaled.  There was a look of trying and prolonged tiredness in the synthetic flesh of the e-cop's pale face—also seen in his brown ceramic eyes.  And there he sat, opposite The Cloaked Man, just looking for a time.  He was looking for the right words to say.

     "Okay, listen to me, caped man," he began. 

     "No, I'm The Cloaked Man," he corrected.  "I've got a cape at my back, but there's a reason for there being 'Cloak' in my name.  Not going to say why, though."

     "Cloaked Man, listen.  You and your small friend don't seem like the violent type.  Not really.  But we can't have refurbished War antiques going around and just bashing in Ganglanders' brains.  In a way, it's murder.  Self-defense and all, but it's still murder. 

     "The Ganglanders, they usually don't like it when their own is killed.  They say they have a sense of honor, fair play and all that.  But that's really…  What's the word I'm looking for?"

     "Tentative?" suggested The Cloaked Man.

     "Sure, tentative.  The Ganglanders' sense of honor and fair play is just something tentative—something that always needs testing, you know?  Tested constantly.  Not everyone knows this, but the Ganglanders used to be much worse than they were now.  And at one point in history, they absolutely destroyed a quarter of the city.  Next time you go to the residential area in the south-western sector, look around and notice how all the houses look newer.  They were rebuilt from the last Ganglander riots."

     "What year?" asked The Cloaked Man.  "Just for history's sake.  Ever since I came to Brunswick, people kept telling me things about history, but they never give years.  Isn't that annoying?"

     "Come on, don't interrupt me.  And you know better than to ask for specific dates around here.  Everyone has their own idea of what year it is.  Frankly, I don't care; I don't have the energy to care.  We e-cops can't care.  Too busy damned trying to keep up the appearance of stability and fairness in this city."  As he talked, the e-cop's tone of voice confirmed something with The Cloaked Man.

     It was something he knew and what plenty others knew, but something few really wanted to talk about out loud.  Being obnoxious, The Cloaked Man did want to talk about it.  "Hmph!  Interesting, you e-cops are just a token force of law enforcement officials!  You said so yourself.  'An appearance of stability and fairness!'  Dang, that's tough and scary, isn't it?"

     The e-cop's face looked temporarily grim.  "Not going to say anything beyond that, Mister Cloaked Man.  Just reminding you that there aren't too many of us.  But we'll do what is necessary to keep this town decent.  We brought you in, didn't we?  And we have repulsor batons.  We can really handle public disturbances—as with what happened at Steve's Café and that scuffle your friend the antique put on."                

     With that, The Cloaked Man was escorted to the front door of the station.  And when he came out, it was very late noon.  It was also sad to see that Alia and Van were both gone.  What now?  Start the journey now?  No, he would have to look for his two other party members first.  Nothing to do now but to go back to the apartment for rest and recovery; even cyborgs need that.

    The Cloaked Man strutted back in the direction of his apartment, the wind blowing across the city streets and between buildings.  It was nearing sunset, and most everyone else in the city was at home after work.  He had the sidewalk all to himself.  And he had some time to think. 

  He bothered to care and think about little lost Alia.  Rather, he tried to think like her.  If he were a homeless, metal-bodied little cyborg, with blonde hair, whose new friend had been killed by a Ganglander drunken on Brennan's Special, where would he—as a petite she—go in the City of Brunswick? 

     A gust of wind whipped by, fluttering his cape and almost upsetting the rhythm of his strutting walk along this sidewalk.  He shook his head, then walked on.  Anyway, the answer would be, anywhere.  Alia could go anywhere in Brunswick.  Probably going off somewhere to cry herself to sleep with that broken robot by hers side.  So much for trying to think like Alia. 

     Eventually, with sunlight gone from the city and the bluish halogen-arc streetlamps  on, he came to his street.  His eyes were in the direction of his apartment building when he slapped himself in the forehead.   

     Then, he ran in the direction of his building and stopped, seeing something in the gloom.  Dang it, he thought, why didn't I get that stupid answer?  The answer to his inquiry was right here, before his apartment.

     Where would Alia go?  Why, where else?  And here Alia was, visible in the peripheral lighting of the streetlamps.  She was sitting on the curb in front of his building, her knees to her chest, her pale-blonde head down.  The broken gynoid in new clothes was laid flat out on the sidewalk nearby. 

     The Cloaked Man went to a knee, never minding any possible stains to his tan slacks.  "Hey, shorty!  Don't look that way.  You're going to make me upset."  There was no reply from the little cyborg.  "If you get upset, then I'll get upset.  And when I get upset, everyone's going to get upset.  But don't be sad; it's not like we can't get a new computer-brain for Van…if that's what's wrong."    

     Alia looked up and straight ahead at the now night-darkened street, her hair splayed on the sides of her face.  She brushed it behind her slightly pointed ears, took in an audible breath.  She then said, still looking away, "That would be failure.  Van would still be dead.  Replacing her A.I. module completely would still mean that the original Van is  dead, replaced with just another intelligence." 

     "But we can't just leave Brunswick without a gynoid!    Our dreams said we needed a Eurasian gynoid, right?  Our dreams didn't say, but had the gynoid in the cards.  And we can't just drag around a broken robot-girl on our nuke bikes.  What are we going to do, get a machinist to dismantle her for easier shipping?"

     Alia looked at him, her new face deadpan.  "I can repair her mind.  Buy me parts, which are inherent in a new A.I. module.  Then it can be done."  As she said this, her dark ceramic eyes held confidence.  "It can be done.  It must be done."

     The Cloaked Man certainly saw something in Alia's eyes.  And it was not just the indirect glint of the streetlights.  "Tell you what.  We'll put the gynoid in my apartment for safekeeping.  Very early tomorrow morning, as soon as the shops open up again, we'll go buy a new A.I. module—for parts.  Then you can spend all day at my place, playing with Van's processors."     

     To that plan, Alia listened to every syllable and nuance.  After The Cloaked Man laid out that plan, she stared into his eyes.  Ceramic eyes to ceramic eyes.  Then, she agreed with a single nod. 

     They then went in for the night.  Up the stairs and into The Cloaked Man's apartment.  But Alia insisted on sleeping on the armchair, by the sofa where Van's still form was put.  The Cloaked Man was in his own bedroom, wondering if Alia was becoming too darned attached to something that was just a robot done up to look like a human being.  Then he dreamed of little blonde elves with big batteries wired into their backs, singing little songs.  Weird.

     As sunlight broke over the building-jagged horizon of the city, The Cloaked Man was up.  He looked at the gray-painted ceiling lighten from the sunlight through the window—even through the curtain.  He just now noticed smaller details of his apartment, just when he was planning to leave it. 

     He then heard someone swishing around in the tub.  Alia was probably up, soaking city dust from her face and body.  Did metal-type cyborgs rust?  No, that was stupid.  If Alia's body did rust at all, autorepair systems would handle it.  Or it would have rusted into uselessness as she roamed the plains out there.

     The Cloaked Man got up and put on his black shoes.  Another convenience of being a synthetic-bodied person: one could sleep in the same clothes one wore yesterday, wake up, not change, and not at all stink.  Of course, rubberoid skin still had to be cleaned to prevent dust accumulation.

     He went into the short hall outside his bedroom; the bathroom was through the door on the left.  After he tapped on the door, the swishing water sounds stopped.  Alia spoke.  "A moment more."  She then went back to swishing around.  What in tarnation was she doing in there, swimming?  Given her pitiful size, The Cloaked Man thought that such might be possible.  Nah, she'd probably sink.

     And as soon as he went from the hall and into the living room, he heard the end of the swishing sounds, and then heard the wall-mounted air blower dryer going.  As Alia dried herself, he stood in view of the broken gynoid on the sofa. 

     Van looked as if sleeping, though her chest did not move.  Her smooth and pale face was without expression, just calm.  And her face was visible because the length of her long dark hair was under her.  This was as her hands were across her flat abdomen—blouse and slacks still neat. 

     Alia must have arranged Van that way.  Somewhere, during the night, she probably found a comb and used it to brush Van's hair.  There was probably a comb somewhere in this apartment; he never kept track of the knick-knacks he bought.  The Cloaked Man imagined Alia grooming and singing to Van, as a friend would to someone sick but still in need of bedside care.  Van was just a gynoid, a humanoid robot, for Thunder's sake!   

     Then they went through with the order of tasks.  They locked the apartment and jogged to get two of their three nuke bikes by the clothing shop—where they left them.  Then, they sat on the nuke bikes and waited until 0900, when the shops all opened for the day's business.  People stared; seldom did people other than Ganglanders have nuke bikes.  But the people left them alone: Any group of people with viability enough to win nuke bikes was a seriously tough group.    

     Alia and The Cloaked Man rode their two nuke bikes eastward from the clothing shop, over to where machinists had their shops.  They pulled up to one machinist's shop, one just called Montaigne's Electromechanics.  Alia wanted to shop from this place, and The Cloaked Man came in with her.

     They came out ten minutes later with two A.I. modules and a tool kit.  Alia said they needed just one, and they were painfully expensive.  But The Cloaked Man just laughed; he had money in excess.  To the shock of both the gray-haired tall shopkeeper and Alia, he insisted on two A.I. modules—and a new toolkit.  The one in his apartment probably wasn't best for gynoid repairs. 

     Even more shocking was how The Cloaked Man paid the shopkeeper back there: in cash, all of it from his left pocket.  What madman would carry over two thousand in cash?  Of course, The Cloaked Man was not actually carrying the cash—just the components  built into his abdomen that apported the cash from between-space.      

     They arrived back at the apartment at 0945, with the two packages—the brain-sized A.I. modules—and the new toolkit.  Alia took the toolkit in her right and an A.I. module in her left, going to the sofa.  The Cloaked Man was left alone with one of the packages, standing by the door.

     Alia was already at work, taking items from the new toolkit—screwdrivers, a scalpel, a small vial of nanobot medium, and such.  To get at Van's A.I. module, for repairs, Alia was going to have to cut away the rubberoid skin of Van's forehead, unscrew a large part of the titanium casing beneath, and take out the damaged component or components.  Parts of a gynoid's computer brains.

     As he watched, Alia did.  She cut open the bloodless rubberoid over Van's forehead and unscrewed parts.  With her silvery fingers, Alia then reached into the opened forehead and pulled out a long circuit board, studded with stone-sized crystals. 

     The Cloaked Man knew that Van was just a gynoid.  But seeing an open head with circuitry where a brain ought to be just made him feel a touch odd.  Did he want to watch this?  Oh no, he did not!

     "I'll go carry Van's nuke bike here," he said as Van quietly and diligently went to work.  As he left, Alia was already opening the sealed package of one of the new A.I. modules.  Testing the strength of his myogel-muscled synthetic physique by carrying a nuclear-powered motorcycle was better than testing his strength of character, watching gynoid head surgery. 

     As he jogged the blocks and miles to where Van's nuke bike waited, he came to know why he did not want to see Alia work on Van's computer-brain.  What if he was just a robot who just thought that his brain was human, like Steve, the abusive android?  He was a synth-flesh cyborg, at least.  With that, a person's brain was put in a body with electromechanical insides, titanium bones, and myogel muscle tissue covered over with very realistic skin. 

     A cyborg's looked human, though the skin was a touch too perfect—blemish-free.  But the brain was still alive, a brain in a plastisteel braincase in the skull, kept alive with a blood flow carrying carbohydrates, proteins, hormones and such synthesized right in the body by nuclear processes.

     The synth-fleshed Cloaked Man came to Van's nuke bike.  He then knelt and hefted the thing upside down and onto his left shoulder, balancing the seat there with both hands.  And he then had to walk back, walking for over an hour.  Twice, he nearly dropped the vehicle.  But with infinite endurance and maniacal patience, he managed to get the nuke bike there.  A nuke bike riding a person, that was a sight for the morning pedestrian traffic to see. 

     He finally put the motorcycle down, then went up and into his apartment.  And Alia was on the sofa, sitting very close to a newly refurbished Van.  She had her arms crossed and was looking down at the floor.

     Van looked up at him, as did Alia.  To The Cloaked Man's eyes, the gynoid looked as if nothing at all went wrong.  Even the skin on the forehead head was re-sealed.  Alia must have used dabs of nanobot solution to so flawlessly re-seal the rubberoid skin of Van's forehead.   

     She looked fine.  "Howdy-do, girly?  Glad to see you're fixed up and all.  Are you ready to do some traveling?  Bet you're just as ready to leave this annoying city as I am by now."   And in fact, Van was.  They all wanted to finally leave Brunswick, before the city made any more attempts at keeping them in.