Agent Gairyio in Of No Fixed Address Characters and storyline by Zelloss zellossmetallium@msn.com A part of the 'New Generation' stories To be found only on www.fanfiction.net

Chapter 3: Signs of a Lunatic

With the mission breifing fresh on their minds, the group grabbed the elevator, heading to the fifteenth floor. Gairyio gave a 3 second rundown of what was happening to Miju, before the door opened, and he shut up.

"I'm finally on a mission! I'm finally on a mission!" Miju whispered.

"Shut it" Shingeru advised. She did.

There was only one door, at the end of a small reception room. A woman looked over at him.

"Gairyio? Falix is busy testing..." the secretary advised.

"I'll just go right in then..." Gairyio smiled, walking right past her, despite her attempts, and opening the lock.

A missle shot by right in front of Gairyio as he stepped into the room. There was a shing sound, and Gairyio looked, to see the model of a man firmly encased in ice.

"What the!?" Gairyio turned his head.

"Gairyio! I thought my secretary told you not to come in here! Especially during testing! You could have been frozen to death!" Falix shouted.

"So... Sorry!" Gairyio looked at something like a portable turret. Falix's hands were pale.

Falix put down the contraption, rubbing his hands together. "Bloody cold, it is". Falix was getting somewhat old. At 43, he was head of the Gadgetry Department. Him and his assistants, which sometimes included Shingeru, had the floor all to themselves. The floor was armed with several layers of metal and tons of stabilizers, there had been many explosions up here.

Falix had greying hair, the start of baldness showing across his large forhead. He was wearing a white lab shirt over blue jeans.

"Ah, Shingeru... Jefferson..." Falix grimaced a bit as well. "Oh? And who's this young woman?"

"Miyatorujukiya Hisai" Miju introduced herself. "Call me Miju"

"Ri.. Right" Falix nodded. "Long enough name... Are you new to the force?"

"Just got brought up from secretary position for this task" Shingeru explained. "Now, I heard you've got all kinds of goodies for us?"

"Obviously" Falix smiled. "Take a good look around, miss Miju. This may be your only chance to see this place, few ever do!"

Miju gaped. "There's so much stuff!" she walked over to a water gun. "What does this do?" she picked it up.

"Put it down!" Falix advised. "And do NOT squeeze the trigger!"

Miju dropped it, her finger accidentally pulling the trigger.

There was a rough smell, as the water shot out of the gun, hit plastic, and the plastic burned and twisted.

"Acid in a water gun. We need to find something safer to disguise it as, though. I mean, what if a kid were to get hold of one?" Falix ran over and replaced the water gun in it's case.

"One just did..." Jefferson rolled his eyes, and saw something on the cieling. He pointed to it. It looked like a turret on the ceiling. "New defense system?"

"Yes... and no..." Falix laughed. "Watch..."

Falix walked over and pressed the light switch. The room went dark. Instantly, everybody in the room was glowing red.

"Infrared Lights" Falix grinned, turning the lights back on. "Only works when the lights are turned out though..."

"And the point of that is...?" Gairyio asked.

"Not a clue, but no doubt we'll find one!" Falix said matter-of- factly.

"This guy's a bit of a lunatic" Miju looked at him.

"He's one of the best lunatics on the force, though" Gairyio shrugged.

Miju looked at him like he was crazy.

"Now, then..." Falix smiled. "Obviously, in such a short time period, communication is required. We've come up with an upgrade for the watch..."

"Oh, no, not another one..." Gairyio sighed. "And I was just starting to figure out the old one!"

"Well, it's basically the same design..." Falix smiled. "Instant Audio-Video connection anywhere in the world. Better then PETs. And speaking of PETs..."

"Oh, what now?" Gairyio asked.

"Well..." Falix smiled. "You see, since PETs can contain tons of information, we've created a special PET casing. That way, if something does explode, we can pick up any details you might have lost when you, well, blew up."

Gairyio sighed. "Oh, you really don't give a damn about human life, do you, Falix?"

"Nope!" Falix smiled, pulling out four hard, metal cages. Gairyio knew they were metal, but they were disguised to look like the old versions.

"You know mine's special designed?" Gairyio asked. "That won't work"

"Of course it will!" Falix walked over, inspecting Gairyio's model. "Of course it... won't... You're absolutly right! But... That certainly is an unusual way of using your PET... A PET Glove... Ingenious! Who made it?"

"None of your buisness" Gairyio stuck his tounge out.

"Oh, well, I'll find out one of these days anyway. Still, I think it needs a case..." Falix loomed closer to it.

"The thing has a diamond coating" Gairyio explained, pulling it away. "It is never going to be destroyed, and nobody except me can control him. Beyond the PET models that are standard-issue here, even."

"Well," Falix flicked it, chipping his nail in the process. "I'll be damned! Alright. But I don't see why you'd need such high protection anyway!"

"None of your buisness" Gairyio answered. He didn't want to give away his one weakness.

"Well, then" Falix smiled. "Aside from these PET cases, we have the watches, of course..." he retrieved four from a table. "There's a help file if you tap that button there...'

Miju tapped it.

"Wrong button!" Falix dived for cover. A red-hot laser shot out of it, singing the metal cord that was holding up a small sack of paper. The paper fell, and each one shot out through the bag. Everybody took cover.

Sheets of paper, as hard as razor disks, were stuck into every corner of the lab.

"Oh, I told you, it's THAT button there!" Falix tapped the button.

A display appeared over the watch, like a minature 3-d database. Miju fiddled around with it for a few moments, before tapping the button again.

"Are you sure this is the top of the line?" Gairyio asked.

"Of course it's not!" Falix sighed. "Netopia's professor seems to have it a lot better then me as far as funding! But we're second in the world. Wait, third. Professor Tsuki at Elsyium City has the best funding in the world..."

"Elsyium City?" Gairyio asked. "Never been there."

"It's just on the edge of the waterline, way high up in the country... It's bigger then Akihara now. Almost a billion people in it."

Gairyio's eyes spun. "What if that's a possible target?"

"Probably... But no atomic bomb invented could blow that entire city up!" Falix advised. "It's too big."

"Right" Gairyio sighed. "Now, then, anything else? And what's with these papers?"

"Well, it's almost like a bomb..." Falix advised. "Give it a shock, and the sack comes apart and shoots metal sheets disguised as just basic papers in all directions. Shraphnel taken to a whole new level! This is going to take a while to clean up..."

"Right..." Shingeru tapped one of the sheets of paper. It wobbled, and the sound made it obvious it was tin or some other similar metal.

"Okay, now then. Obviously, we have to go for weaponry... You're not getting the Freeze Missles, not by far. They're not practical just yet. Too cold to hold for more then a minute at a time" Falix turned Gairyio's gaze away from the contraption.

"Now, then, I'm sure you're already familiar with your usual weapons... So, I've upgraded them all" Falix offered them back.

"Just a warning. You'd better have a really smooth trigger finger..." Falix smiled. "The silencer is built in. Each of these weapons also now has an automatic fire feature built in..."

Gairyio flipped his weapon around his thumb. He heard a click.

"That's the switch..." Falix pointed to a smaller trigger, right on the other side of the normal trigger. "You'll know when it's on automatic fire, turst me."

"Can I take a shot?" Miju asked.

"Sure... Here... Let's see..." Falix ran over to her, inspecting her.

"Hey! What's... Don't you DARE ever touch me there again!" Miju shouted.

"Let's see... Ah, this should be best for you!" Falix walked away, grabbed a silver plated pistol off the rack of weaponry at the back of the room, and walked back, giving it to her.

"Okay..." Miju smiled, taking aim at the frozen human, and firing one shot.

The figure exploded in all directions, ice crashing into bulletproof windows. Miju just stared.

"And just so you know, the bullets in that thing are rather powerfull... As you... just saw..." Falix laughed nervously. "Oh, and only one more tool for you..."

"What now?" Gairyio asked.

"Just got them in from Tsuki! A good number of them, too. They're now commonplace among spy agencies. Try them on" Falix offered four pairs of sunglasses.

Gairyio grabbed a pair, and put them on. There was no difference in his vision.

"Hmm... One-way sunglasses..." Gairyio sighed. "There's definatly something different."

"Yes, two things, actually" Falix smiled. "One. The things are preset with radio channels to the closest Agency. So, you can tap the side, and open up a link. Don't!"

Miju froze.

"Don't worry them unless you have to. It's more for emergencies. Two. Try tapping the nose of the glasses" Falix smiled.

Everybody did so.

Instantly, Gairyio's vision changed. Infra-red vision... And was it sonar? "Woah..." Gairyio smiled, seeing that the edges of the glasses were showing around his left and right sides as well.

"Problem is, we still have yet to find a way to improve them to show what's behind you, the major vulneurable area..." Falix sighed. "And you'd think, with all this technology..."

"It's fine. Got any X-Ray?" Jefferson asked.

"X-Ray?" Falix asked back.

"Duh!" Jefferson made a momentarily stupid face. "We're going to do some searching, and any clues we might find would be nice!"

Falix paused. "Tap the nosepiece three times, then the two rims of the glasses at the same time. The exact same time, mind you!"

Gairyio did so. Suddenly, the entire room was a dark blue, instead of the red of Infra-vision. He could see something in the back wall.

Gairyio walked over, and saw that there was a slideaway panel. "Hey... Falix..."

"Yeah? Don't touch it!" Falix shouted. Gairyio pulled his hand away. Falix grabbed one of the pieces of metal paper and threw it towards the panel in the wall.

As it hit, there was a sudden flash, as blue lasers covered every inch of the panel. For a few moments, they remained, before dissapearing.

"Home security double feature. Try to X-Ray a hidden panel? Zap, the panel hits you. The actual switch will be on the lasers themselves, via a special security card..." Falix laughed. "One of my more ingenious works..."

"Sounds... strange, that's for sure..." Gairyio sighed. "Well, anything else?"

"Nope! Now get out!" Falix cried out. "I have to get to work..."

"One more thing!" Miju walked over to a corner, where there was a sub sandwich. "And this does...?"

"It's my lunch, girl, back away from it" Falix ordered. Miju dropped it.

"Honestly, I had better call one of my assistants up... You four have made an awful mess doing almost nothing at all! Get out!" Falix pushed them through the door, and shut it.

"He's rather rough..." Miju complained.

"You're lucky you don't work for the man!" the secretary cried.

"Ah... Ms. Dollarbill..." the voice came over the secretary's voicebox. "Will you bring up one of the janitors? Awful mess in here..."

"Okay" the secretary smiled. "Now don't you have a job to get to?" she ushered them into the elevator, pressing the button for 'First Floor'.

The elevator went down to the ground floor. The four stepped out, walking out of the building. Orin, the messenger kid, ran past them.

"Oh! Mr. Gairyio... One of them new-fangled Chevrolet Speed Demons is waiting for you outside! And here's the address for the hotel... And the address for the Professor's residence. L says he sorry he forgot!" Orin ran to Gairyio, dropping keys and two slips of paper into Gairyio's hand, before taking off running to the elevator. Gairyio noted he was wearing a headset of some kind.

Gairyio walked outside. There it was, in the parking lot. A Chrysler Speed Demon. Newest model. Absolutly sleek and beautiful, it was a lot in the old style of the 1990s, but there was all the power of a new engine in the sucker.

"Well, this looks good enough..." Gairyio opened up the driver's side door, as the others shuffled in.

"Oh, this is going to be fun..." Miju grinned.

"Girl..." Jefferson, who was in the back seat with her, sighed. "Sometimes this work is the most boring thing ever! I mean, what are the chances that the Professor dude is still in his residence, when they've already searched it?"

"The ONBA are generally incompetent people" Gairyio laughed. "Come on..."

Gairyio turned the key. A small video monitor popped up out of the dashboard.

"Oh, don't tell me he modified this too..." Gairyio sighed.

"I modified this personally..." Falix's face appeared on the dashboard. "As you can guess, it's outfitted with all the standards these days. Armor plating, side-mounted rockets, front mounted machine guns... Turbo boosters, smoke generators, the axels can produce spikes, rotatable license plates, etc... But aside from the normal, it also includes refrigerated beverage holders, a coffee maker..."

"Ooh..." Miju smiled.

"Wait for it..." Gairyio cautioned.

"And a personalized net connection" Falix finished. "Oh. If you'll care to press the button on top of the viewscreen..."

Gairyio tapped it, as he revved up the car, his mind mostly focused on his destination.

"You'll see that there are several weapons that can be dispensed into the glove compartment... Sniper Rifles, bombs, anything you see on the selection window right here."

"Good boy, Falix. You give us a really neat piece, but I don't think we'll need it..." Gairyio tapped the video screen, and it pulled itself down.

Miju looked at a button on the doorhandle. "What does this do?"

"Don't" Gairyio advised. "It's probably for the ejector seat on the other side, you know?"

Miju paused, before pulling her hand away. "Right."

The Speed Demon, capable of doing 1 to 100 in a second, was traveling at a low 60 kmph. Gairyio sighed. "Oh, for crying out..."

It only took a few minutes, before the four saw the tall, golden- tinted hotel in Akihara. The Del Marris, one of the most famous in the world.

The car pulled up into the parking lot.

"Well, what say we check in?" Gairyio offered.