A/N: Please see Prologue notes for detailed information. Again, I own nothing. :) Thanks to to Classic Cowboy and FusionBlaster for beta-reading this. As usual, I do not own any established product, literary character, or work of fiction I mention. This includes all references to Sesame Street. Also, I figured I should put in a note about expected length. I originally intended for this story to be about six chapters, including the prologue. However, it would seem that it's more likely to be eight or nine. Enjoy.


"Signas out."

With a stab of the finger, the Grand Commander of the Maverick Hunters ended his base-wide transmission. His internal chronometer insisted it had only taken just under two minutes, but it felt like the longest speech he'd ever given – or would ever give again. And now, he had no idea what he was supposed to do with himself. I can't believe they did this! Fools!

Signas slid down in his chair and ran a hand over his face. He didn't know how to proceed, not with the cards he'd been dealt. Sometimes he just didn't understand the humans in power. They always expected reploids to protect them, to keep the economy chugging along, to do nothing short of support a race that had forgotten how to take care of itself, no matter what rights and dignities were denied them.

What a joke. It's much easier to count the rights we do have. Certainly a much shorter list. Of course, there's always the chance it won't be like this forever. That someday, when we finally do manage to get rid of the Mavericks, someone will be able to work on making it right. Making it the way it should be. That's what X believes ... no, what he believed. And now, now they've done this. Sure, it was legally required, but ... damn them! This Winters guy tried to get them to call it off. What were they thinking?! Forget us, here. Surely they don't think reploids around the world are just going shrug this off. They executed – murdered – a hero, a symbol ... my friend ... for injuring a killer who had the great fortune to be born human. After all that's happened, after all the times he saved them from extinction ... It seems a human murderer is still more worthy of life than a reploid champion.

That was the problem. After all this time, most people still perceived reploids as less than alive. It was far easier to think of them all as nothing but soulless machines quite good at emulating the behavior of humans. That's how anything like the current situation could come to pass. And what incentive do they have to change those views? Sigma and his ilk do nothing but try to exterminate them. They'll never trust us at this rate. But now ... after the truth gets out, how many of us are still going to be willing to trust them? To fight for them? I can't help but wonder if this whole damned, twisted caste system they've set up is about to collapse.

The soft beeping of his office's doorbell shook Signas out of his thoughts. Now what? "Come in."

Black double doors opened with a hiss, revealing Douglas. Signas wasn't really surprised to see him. He was the only member of the senior staff that wasn't in on this mess from the beginning. The Commander imagined he probably wanted to know what was going on. Without a word, the Hunters' stocky chief engineer seated himself across from Signas. The Grand Commander locked eyes with him. He knows.

"I've been in the armory's basement for the last six hours," Douglas began quietly, "it's inventory day, you know." Signas nodded. There were no video terminals in the armory basement. "I got back up here about ten minutes ago. Ran into one of Zero's guys. He filled me in on your ... announcement."

"Amazing how much the world can change in six hours, isn't it?" Signas deadpanned.

"Mind blowing."

"You have no idea."

"What?"

"Nothing. I ... guess you want to know what really happened."

"Pretty much, yeah. It's not pretty out there, Signas," Douglas said, motioning at the door he'd passed through moments earlier. "No one's completely panicked yet from what I can tell, but everyone's on edge. Excepting of course the fair number of people I've run into that are in walking-zombie mode. Commander Jared told me the intelligence chief dismissed almost everybody on shift in his department. Everything but communications monitoring and critical analysis has been shut down until Monday." His tone sharpened. "But yeah, I would very much like to know what the hell happened, and what we're gonna do about it."

Signas' expression darkened. He knew Jericho, the chief spook, pretty well. He was a good man. It didn't surprise him that he was giving his subordinates an opportunity to grieve. In fact, he had no problem with it. It indicated that underneath his taciturn attitude and cloak-and-dagger tenancies, Jericho had a good heart. What bothered him was that he was hearing about it only now, second-hand, from someone who'd only been in on today's happenings for ten minutes. He knew everyone was rattled, but it was important that the internal communication and reporting protocols be maintained. Especially right now. It was not the time for careless mistakes. Can't worry about it too much. Everyone has to be shell-shocked. As long as it doesn't keep happening, it shouldn't be a problem. And if it does, well, I'll deal with it then. He turned his attention back to Douglas. "Alright. You're part of the senior staff, Douglas. You have every right to be in on the current situation. But keep in mind that the announcement I issued earlier represents the extent of the information I want widely available at this time. For now, what I'm going to tell you doesn't leave this room. After you've been brought ... up to speed ... that'll make a little more sense. It started about an hour and thirty-five minutes ago, I guess..."


"... After that, I left the infirmary and prepared to issue the announcement," Signas sighed and leaned back in his chair, relieved to have finished the story. With any luck, he'd only have to tell it one more time at the most.

"Unreal." Douglas sat motionless, his face unreadable. He had remained silent throughout Signas' tale, if only because whenever he started to say something the Commander added another chunk of information that sent his brain into a new tailspin. The anger he'd initially felt had fallen away. It was still there, of course, and just as potent, but it no longer clouded his shocked mind. After all, what good would rage do when there was nothing he could do with it? Douglas was an engineer by training, and it showed in his thoughts. Fury was fine when it could be channeled and used to accomplish something. The current circumstances ... well, he could harbor all the hate he wanted for the system that led to the death of his friend, but there was nothing he could hope to do with it. That left him with nothing save a dull, unyielding sorrow. In addition to the general situation, there was something else troubling him, though his mind was too disoriented to pin it down. "So ... what's the next move?"

"I'm not sure. I want to do the full in-house disclosure before we do the public announcement. I've already told our PA office to sit on it. It'll be easier – and I use that term loosely – if our people know what's really going on before we tell the public anything. And telling the world the entire story ... I dread that the most. Can you imagine what this is gonna do when it gets out? I was never worried about rioting here, but once we go public ..."

Douglas nodded, then jerked his head up to look at the Grand Commander, eyes widened slightly. "What about Sigma? He's still out there. He may be laying low, but we know he's reasserted himself. Anything we release to the public, baldy's gonna see. His reaction's just as important as anyone else's, if not more."

Signas groaned. The Maverick Commander added a whole other set of variables to the situation. Yet another thing he didn't like having to think about. "I know. If we're not careful – no, I take that back – no matter what we do, there's a high likelihood he's going to try to use this. X died because he broke a law, that, had he observed, would have resulted in the deaths of who knows how many humans. I expect he'll try to make a martyr out of him."

"Great," Douglas scoffed. "Damn! How is it that only the most idiot of idiot humans stay in control of the government?"

"I don't know, but the fact that reploids are prohibited from holding office doesn't help. As for Sigma ... I have no doubt he'll attempt to use X's death to his advantage once he's aware of the circumstances. Unfortunately, I can't say for certain that he won't succeed. But we've got plenty of other things to worry about that we actually have the potential to have control over, so I want to focus on them."

"Good plan. So what is next?"

"Well, you're the engineer," he said with a touch of dark humor, "how feasible is time travel?"

"It depends," Douglas returned, in the same sardonic tone. "Going forward is easy. We're doing it now. However, I doubt that's the direction you're interested in."

Signas chuckled, in spite of himself. "It isn't. We're still waiting on the computer to executing X's termination protocols. Things are sure to get even more ... complicated when that happens. In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out the best time and way to tell everyone else what I've just told you. I don't suppose you have any suggestions?"

Douglas frowned. "I can barely believe it myself. Telling the Hunter masses isn't something I think I'd be very good at. But whatever you decide to do, you've got my full support. You're good at your job, Signas. You'll make the right decision."

Signas smiled lightly. "Thanks, Douglas." That means a lot.

"Sure thing. If you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my office. I'm sure there's something there for me to do."

"Of course. See you later. Once I think up a plan, I'll likely call a meeting of the senior staff to discuss it."

Douglas nodded, and rose to leave. As he approached the door, it hissed open, and he stopped in his tracks. The bad feeling he'd been unable to identify earlier clarified as his eyes fell on the abandoned terminal belonging to the spotter of the Seventeenth Unit. He stumbled back a few steps. "Oh, my ... Alia." He felt like someone had knocked the air out of his lungs, which was odd, seeing as he wasn't breathing. The next thing he knew, he found himself back in his seat. "I can't believe that just now occurred to me ... and she had to watch when they ... poor girl. She must be a wreck."

"She isn't taking it well, I'm afraid. Whether she wants to admit it or not. I can't help but wonder ... if it would have been better or worse for her if she'd told him she ... was interested in him."

The last of his defenses destroyed, Douglas finally began to cry in earnest. "I guess that's a moot question now. Those human sons of –" A shrill beep cut him off – Signas' intercom.

The Commander hit the receive button. "Signas here. Go ahead."

"This is Lifesaver. Activate the television mode on your terminal."

Douglas raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. The doctor sounded almost ... panicked? "What? What's going on?"

"Just turn it on, Commander. Any channel. It's everywhere."

Signas shrugged, spun his terminal around so Douglas could see it too, and turned on the Global News Network. In unison, their eyes widened. Douglas found his voice first. "Oh –"

"Shit," Signas finished, eyes narrowing.


Audrey stepped into the foyer of her one story, two bedroom house and began peeling off her overcoat and gloves. She tried to ignore the fact that her hands were shaking slightly; her nerves weren't fairing well. She hated to admit it, but for the moment, she felt a lot safer locked in her house than out on the streets. Then again, she thought as the snow in her hair started to melt under the influence of the heater, now that I'm home, Danny and I have got to figure out what to tell Angie. Dear God ... This is not a conversation I ever wanted to have with her.

Unfortunately, she knew she had to tell her daughter something ... soon, preferably before the news of X's death was released to the public. It was her own fault, really. Seven months ago, in a pinch, she'd accepted the legendary Commander's offer to sit with her daughter whilst she and her husband attended an attorney's banquet. And amazingly, despite an incident with exploding lasagna (which he spent two hours cleaning up), it went very well. X proved to be the best – and cheapest – sitter she'd ever hired. That one night had turned into two, two into three, and eventually, X was her daughter's favorite babysitter. At some point she couldn't quite determine, he'd gotten to be very good friends with she and her husband – even spending an afternoon trying to help Daniel fix his motorcycle. Amazingly, after being electrocuted several times by a faulty power unit, X still attested to enjoying the experience.

"Damn it," she whispered, mentally kicking herself, "letting her get attached to a field Hunter, especially him, was probably the stupidest thing I could have ever done."

"Maybe," a soft, masculine voice called out, "but you weren't the only one that didn't see a problem with it. And if we're to be damned for being optimists who don't look for disaster behind every door, then so be it."

Audrey jumped slightly, but felt no panic or surprise – she recognized the voice. Instead, she turned to see the sadly smiling face of her husband. An instant later, she embraced him with the most powerful grip she could muster. "Hey."

"Hey. It's good to have you home. I thought you weren't going to be off for another couple hours."

"I wasn't. Jericho let everyone off early, though. Signas issued an announcement to confirm the rumors. No one was really in much shape to work after that. I left right after we managed to get Lucy calmed down."

"I'm not surprised," Danny said slowly, looking slightly uncomfortable with what he was about to ask. "So, uh, how did it happen? What's going on?"

Audrey frowned sharply. "They didn't tell us."

"What? But you said Signas issued an announcement to confirm X's ... status."

"He did. He confirmed that he was dead, but said he couldn't release any more information right now. It was weird, he just said X had died battling 'hostile forces.'"

"That seems odd," Daniel said quietly.

"It is," she returned, moving towards the kitchen in hopes of finding some iced tea. Daniel followed close behind. "Very, very strange, actually."

"What do you mean?" he asked, following her into their living room and joining her on a black leather couch.

"No one knows anything about what happened to him, except for Signas, and, I'll bet, the senior staff. All we know is that someone killed him, but something's off."

"How so?" he asked, feeling uncomfortable and not at all liking not knowing exactly what was going on.

"I mean, my God, X is dead, and all they did was announce it. Something's out there that managed to kill someone who can – could take down hordes of Mavericks bigger, faster and nastier than him, without help. That's something extremely powerful, and it's not on our side."

"Okay," Danny said, beginning to understand what she was thinking. "So, aside from the announcement, there wasn't any kind of official reaction, was there? That's what's creeping you out."

"Exactly. X is dead. Whatever took him out had to be really nasty to do the job. And we're not even on the lowest of alert statuses, as though we don't expect to have to deal with it again. Hell, when I left the building, we were on compound-wide Condition Green. And another thing – this wasn't a planned battle. I have it on good authority that X was off duty. Something doesn't add up."

Daniel nodded; he agreed. But at the same time, he knew neither of them was currently in a position to figure things out. "From what you've told me, I don't doubt they're withholding information. But I'm sure they have a good reason. From what I've always heard, Hunter Command isn't fond of internal cloak-and-dagger maneuvers. Unlike some military organizations," he added darkly. Audrey tensed, the last thing she wanted right now was to bring up Daniel's departure from the military justice machine. Fortunately, it wasn't something he was too interested in, either. "But in any case, I think that's the least of our problems at the moment," he sighed.

Audrey groaned. "I know. At least we have a little bit of time to decide how to tell her. I dropped by the PA office to see what the official word going out was. Apparently, they're not authorized to publicly release any information on X's death. At this point, as far as the public is concerned, X is still alive. According to the kid I talked to, Signas wants to give all of us time to grieve privately before he hands the press the story of the century."

"Makes sense," Daniel nodded solemnly. It was certainly how he would have handled the situation. But then again, I was always told I was too sentimental to get very far in the military. I can't help it if I'm partial to my soul. Audrey was waiting patiently for him to say something. So he did. "It's gotta be today. She's expecting him to show up tomorrow so we can ... go to the concert."

"We ... can't go. Not after we tell her."

Daniel jerked, as though physically struck, surprise all over his face. "You didn't think I was ... actually suggesting we should ... I would never ..."

"No, no," Audrey's eyes widened, "I know you wouldn't ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Not at all."

Now it was Daniel's turn to groan. "This just sucks."

"Yeah. Where is Angie, by the way? It just occurred to me that she shouldn't be overhearing us."

Daniel nodded. "Don't worry. She's watching TV in her room. Documentary on stag beetles, last time I looked."

Any other time, Audrey might have giggled. They had a very odd six-year-old. Angie was quite smart for a girl her age, and it showed in the kinds of entertainment she liked. But she was still just six, and what they had to tell her wouldn't be something she would be able to easily deal with. It was hard enough for Audrey's adult mind to wrap itself around the situation. Any response she might have been readying was cut off by the ringing of the videophone. "Oh – who's that going to be?"

Daniel shrugged. "I'll get it. Be right back."

A few seconds later, his voice could be heard from the kitchen. "Hello? ... Hey Steve. Is everything okay? You sound kind of jumpy. ... What? No, no, I haven't had the TV on in hours. My God. Yeah, yeah, of course I would want to know. Thanks for calling me Steve. ... Stay safe. Bye." He terminated the call and started moving quickly back to the couch.

Audrey was startled at how pale his skin was. He looked very, very disturbed. "What are you doing, Danny?" He was fumbling with the television remote. "What did Steve want?" It occurred to her that she didn't like the look in his eyes, at all.

"They know."

"Who's they? What do they know?" Daniel's hand found the power button, and he turned on GNN. Audrey gasped. "Oh, God."

Across the room, plastered across their television screen, was the same blond, vacant looking woman Quinn and his friends had seen earlier. Only this time, she had something a little more interesting to talk about. Across the bottom of the screen, in bold red lettering, was the headline: "MAVERICK HUNTER MEGA MAN X DESTROYED." As Daniel turned up the volume, Audrey whispered, "There's been a leak ... that's not supposed to ... oh, my God. We have a mole ..."

And what a mole it was. The volume rose high enough that the newscaster's excited, slightly edgy voice could be heard:


"Thanks, Jim. For those of you just joining us, we have received word from a source inside Maverick Hunter Headquarters in Tokyo that the reploid Mega Man X, legendary Hunter Commander, was destroyed earlier today during a battle with what have only been referred to as 'hostile forces.' The Maverick Hunter PA Office has neither confirmed nor denied anything. As you know, GNN does not broadcast stories that are not to rooted to some degree in fact. Our inside source has furnished us with this video."


Before the startled eyes of Daniel and Audrey, and millions of other people worldwide, Signas' in-house broadcast filled the screen. The coloration looked slightly artificial, and the image jittered slightly. But the sound was good enough. Hidden camera, Audrey thought darkly, damn it! Someone's got a lot of nerve. But who would have the gall to do this? This isn't good. Not at all. Then something else struck her, and she turned a pale shade of green. Fear filled her eyes.

"Audrey?" Daniel asked, struck at his wife's abrupt change of mood.

"Oh, Good Lord! He's going to find out. They didn't want him to find out yet, if he didn't already know. And for whatever reason, it seemed like they didn't think he did."

Daniel blinked. That hadn't made any sense. "He? He who?"

"Sigma," She spat coldly.

Daniel felt his stomach lurch. That was something that hadn't occurred to him yet. But then he remembered something else, and his mood lightened, just a little. "But, Sigma's dead. X killed him in the last Uprising. Again. You said you saw the report yourself."

Audrey looked conflicted, having just realized she'd released confidential information. Did she tell him the truth, or try to cover her tracks? She looked into his eyes. Given the present situation, it wasn't a difficult decision to make. "Daniel," she began quietly, "what I'm about to tell you is classified. I'm not supposed to tell you this, and could probably lose my job, but at the moment, I could care less."

"Oh, no," he breathed, "you don't mean ..."

"Twelve months ago, we confirmed that he is active again. He's like a demon! He just won't stay dead. But, we can't figure out where he is, so the official line is he's still dormant. X and Zero have been a little nervous about it, though. It's like he's being patient, biding his time, waiting for something. He usually tries to attack just as soon as he's able." Audrey started to flip through the channels. All of them were showing their own "special report" on X. "God. It's on every channel."

Now Daniel turned green. "Turn ... turn it to 355. The stag beetles were on that channel." Audrey complied. Needless to say, the stag beetles were gone. "Oh, no. Audrey ..." They looked at each other and bolted for Angie's room.


Audrey, feeling about as comfortable as a doctor coming back into a waiting room after a failed surgery, slowly opened the door to her daughter's room – the only sound her husband's swift, anxious breathing behind her. She couldn't help but wonder how much help he was going to be. Their eyes swept over the room in an instant, taking in the scene.

The room itself was nicely sized, though not terribly large. As with most children's rooms in the twenty-second century, there were no windows. After some enterprising Maverick had realized that sneaking into sleeping children's rooms during the night and murdering them was a very effective method of unsettling the human population, putting them in rooms with reinforced outer walls was seen as a very practical thing to do.

Where a window might have been on the powder blue wall, an unusually thick viewer was hanging. It was an Artificial Window – a specially designed screen designed to receive signals from a small battery of cameras mounted in the outside wall of the house and create a realistic picture of the outside, complete with – on sunny days like this one – simulated sunlight streaming in.

For the most part, the rest of the room was as it should have been. The white desk against the wall was covered with readers and other school paraphernalia, the shelves were lined with books about knights in shining armor, princesses, princes, aliens, and talking animals. At least, Daniel thought grimly, there's no poster of X up there. But then, what good is a poster, when you're used to seeing the real thing on a regular basis?

That left the two of them with the last – and most disturbing – things in the room. Their daughter's television, much smaller than the one in the living room, was indeed tuned to channel 355. The blond newscaster, finally identified by a subtitle as Blane Wilson, was silently running her mouth. The set was muted. Audrey and her husband turned their attention to their daughter.

Angie Katrina Davis was sitting quite still on her mattress, her dark jeans and black shirt in stark contrast with the soft yellow of her bedspread. She was laying almost limp against a large pile of stuffed animals, her face directed at the television. She seemed completely unaware that there was anyone else in the room. After a few moments, Daniel moved forward and deactivated the small viewer, just as Audrey moved aside a large, stuffed Big Bird toy and sat next to her. It was only then that Angie appeared to notice their presence. She looked at her mother. For the first time, Audrey could see her wide, horror-filled eyes. "Mommy? What's – what's going on?"

"Angie ..." she began quietly, but was cut off.

"The lady on the news said X was something called deactivated. And then this big man with a weird hat said he was dead. That's not true, is it?"

Audrey and Daniel looked at each other, as if trying to decide who should answer. Amazing himself, Daniel found his lips moving. "Calm down, honey. Everything's going to be fine."

Angie sniffled a little, unconvinced. Audrey was busy marveling at the fact that she wasn't a bawling mess. "But what happened?"

"We don't know" wasn't a suitable answer, so Daniel decided to work his way into an explanation, hoping to give his wife time to come up with something safe to tell a six-year-old. It wasn't going to be easy, he knew, since neither of them had any idea what was really going on. Damn whoever dared leak this. Damn them to hell. He decided to start very simply. "Angie, you know what X does, right?" That's did, a little voice sounded in his head, but he ignored it.

Still sniffling slightly, the girl replied in a small, yet confident voice, "X is a Maverick Hunter. He stops bad reploids from hurting people. He's the best there is." She said it as if it was the simplest thing in the world. And a few hours ago, when the world was still spinning in the right direction and all pork-producing mammals were safely rooted to the ground, it would have been.

"Right," Daniel said slowly. This was proving to be far more difficult than he could have ever imagined. In fact, he didn't know what to say next. Audrey, however, seemed to have come up with something.

"Angie, honey, do you know why he's called the best?"

The girl thought for a moment, her face paling a little. It had occurred to her that something really was wrong here, but her age and innocence kept her from accepting the truth. But then, she found the answer she was looking for. "Because he takes care of people. And the people he takes care of are always alright."

Audrey nodded – it was true enough. X had only failed a handful of missions, almost never really due to any fault of his own. A few intelligence failures here and there – she tried not grimace – were mostly to blame. Because of one Audrey was too young to have anything to do with, he and his team didn't quite get there in time to disarm a hidden nuclear bomb that took out half of London and made the rest uninhabitable. It wasn't his fault, technically, but she knew he had always blamed himself somewhat. It was evident enough in the guilty undertone of his voice when he discussed it.

But no, when Intelligence didn't screw up, when factors beyond his control didn't ruin any chance of success, X never failed. Not in twenty-six years of continuous active duty. It was what made him a legend – a hero. "That's right," she began again, "X always did," she paused momentarily, realizing she had just referred to him the the past tense in front of her daughter for the first time, but continued quickly, "whatever it took to protect those who needed him." She had Angie's complete attention. It was now or, quite possibly, given the state of her nerves, never. Her tone wavered slightly, but she was determined to finish the job. "Angie, earlier today, someone was attacked by ... bad people. X was there."

"He saved them, didn't he?"

She could say yes, couldn't she? Signas said that X had died that others would live. "Yes, yes, he did. He did his very best to protect them," she didn't have to be there to know that was true, whatever had happened, "and he saved them. But he was hurt very badly."

"They can fix him, can't they?" The touch of desperation, however slight, was unmistakable. Audrey knew the answer she wanted, and the fact that she couldn't give it to her made her stomach knot. She caught a glimpse of her silent husband's face; noticed the tears streaming down his cheeks.

"I'm sure they tried very, very hard, baby," she steeled herself, this was it, "but they couldn't fix him. He's ... he's gone, dear."

There was complete silence for all of five seconds. Then, like a dam breaking, Angie's petite face screwed up into a mask of sorrow, and she buried it in the folds of her mother's shirt. There was no sound in the room, save her sobbing.


Signas angrily slammed the door behind him as he entered one of Hunter Headquarters' many high-security conference rooms. It looked a lot like the one MacDonald and his band had met in halfway across the world, only it was much brighter, better lit, and the overall atmosphere of the room wasn't nearly as ominous.

Not to suggest that it was a happy place at the moment. What was left of the Hunter senior staff was gathered around the conference table, no one wearing an expression that could be described as anything but seriously grim. Zero's face was seemingly emotionless, a far cry from the sobbing, twisted mass it had been before he left his quarters. Only his eyes gave any hint as to what was going on inside his head, but no one dared look too deep into those fiery green orbs. If it was truly possible to incinerate something with a stare, there would have been nothing left of the room, or anyone in it. Lifesaver looked completely thunderstruck – more so than he had at the revelation of the circumstances of X's death. Douglas sat scowling, muttering something under his breath about there being "too many soulless nimrods" in the world.

That left Alia, and in Signas' opinion, her face was the most disturbing. There was no rage, no fury – only a dull, hard look that seemed to be a mixture of sadness and masked anger. Otherwise she looked close to normal – the only difference being that her hair looked just slightly frizzled on the ends. He marveled at the fact that she was still keeping such a tight lid on her emotions, but it was really starting to worry him. "Alright people. I'm sure you all know why I've called you here. We have a serious problem. The media's gotten hold of information, put quite simply, they just aren't supposed to have. I don't suspect anyone in this room, of course, but there's no point in denying it. We have a mole. While what he's already done is ... beyond reprehensible, we need to flush him out, now. We can't take the chance of any other, possibly classified information getting out. Let's not forget, Sigma is listening." There were nods of agreement all around. Even a short, quick one from Alia. "The question is," he continued, "how do we find him, or if it be the case, her? If at all possible, I'd like to avoid a full polygraph sweep. Casting a cloud of doubt and suspicion over the entire compound at a time when everyone's emotional state is ... um ... less than optimal is the last thing I want to do. I've got some analysts looking at the 'hidden camera footage' they have, trying to figure out where it was shot, but that isn't necessarily going to help us. Suggestions?"

"I've got plenty for what you can do with the guy when you find him," said Douglas hotly, "I can't believe someone would dare to sell that kind of information. It's X we're talking about, for crying out loud. I can't imagine anyone who would want to make money of this nightmare. And believe you me: someone got paid a hell of a lot for this information. I guarantee it."

"What we're going to do with the coward that released the information isn't important now," Alia stated in a dark tone that effectively ended all other conversation in the room. "Though I urge you to seriously consider immediate dishonorable discharge. Bypassing the PA office with information that is otherwise not meant to be publicized is in violation of about a dozen regulations." Zero thought it sounded more like a command than a suggestion, and couldn't help the hint of a smirk that formed on his face. "But," and her tone changed again, losing its edge, "as for rooting him out, I'd suggest a trap."

Signas nodded. It was exactly what he was thinking. "Indeed. Anyone as brazen as our mystery man would be all too eager to get another big scoop. So we give him some falsified information. Like, for instance, that I'm being fired for poor performance," he finished, smiling sardonically.

Lifesaver blinked. "What?" Douglas, Zero, and Alia looked just as bewildered.

"Well," Signas said, smile still in place, "is there anything likely to draw him out faster?" His face was serious again. "I want this dealt with as quick as possible. We've got far more important things to deal with."

"That we do," Lifesaver muttered. "But we can't just start a rumor going. It'll spread till a few dozen people know about it, our mole will run with it, and we'll be right back where we started."

"Yeah. How do we catch the guy?"

Alia's brow was furled in concentration. It was a good plan – until you tried to pull it off. "There's just too many people here. If we could narrow it down some ... but even then it's going to be difficult. Singling one out of five hundred isn't going to be easy."

"No, it's not," Signas agreed, "but you're all being too logical about it."

"What do you mean?" Lifesaver asked quickly. He was very fond of logic.

Signas' expression didn't change. "Who in this room actually thinks a field Hunter is responsible for this? Or, for that matter, anyone who's worked closely with X at all? I want to focus on our non-combat staff, current company excluded, of course." Alia was about to say something, but the Grand Commander continued quickly, "Nor am I inclined to look at spotters or the medical staff. All of them work too closely with our field people – it gets just as personal."

"So, we've gone from six-hundred to about one-seventy-five," Alia said quietly. "Now what?"

"Well, assuming our blind assumptions haven't completely thrown us off track, when we release the – ahem – news," Signas looked slightly uncomfortable, "we'll wait for it to be released to the public. At which point, we will debunk the rumor, and assuming our reporter friend doesn't give himself away when he realizes he's been tricked, we will arrange our list of 175 suspects in order of tenure, and begin polygraphs on them, starting with those who have been with us the least amount of time."

"I thought you didn't want to do the polygraphs," Zero said questioningly.

"I don't. But in the end, we'll have to."

"I have no problem with it," Alia offered flatly.

Lifesaver nodded his consent. Douglas grinned grimly. "Let's do it."

"Alright, then. I'll get the ball rolling as soon as we finish up here. But ... I'm afraid we have other things to discuss." Signas looked significantly at Lifesaver, who couldn't help but steal a glance at Alia. "How's it going, with ... the body?"

Lifesaver sighed, and much to Signas' and Zero's dismay, Alia didn't react at all. She sat still, waiting for the doctor to speak. Douglas thought he saw one of her hands tremble, but in the next instant, it was still again. Lifesaver had no choice but to answer the question. "I've cleaned and patched him up as best I can. He's in stasis tube seven. I've restricted access to the chamber, so he'll be undisturbed."

"Good. I have a feeling he left instructions for us about what to do. We'll know for certain when the computer unseals his files. Now," he cleared his throat, "on to the matter of telling everyone the ... full extent of recent events, I've been thinking that –" A knock on the conference room door interrupted him. He shrugged. "Hold on." He pressed a button on the table, and the door unlocked.

A young girl, no more than sixteen years old, entered the room. She was wearing a black skirt with a blue blouse with an ID card marked "Intern" pinned on. Signas recognized her as one of the many students doing their required community service hours at the headquarters. Personally, he wasn't very happy about the arrangement. He was, of course, happy that people wanted to volunteer their time to keep the organization running smoothly (and as cheaply) as possible, but the bottom line was that it meant more untrained civilians on a military base. From a security standpoint, it was a nightmare. Yet he couldn't do anything about it – it was another one of the immutable direct orders from the UN's Hunter Oversight Committee. It still annoyed him to no end that even he could be easily and effortlessly overrode by a bunch of suits a few thousand miles away that, nine times out of ten, did more mangling than managing.

"Commander Signas, sir," she began uncertainly, "I'm very sorry for interrupting. I know this is a private conference, but we just received this sealed message from the UNHOC. It's marked as Code One," she finished nervously, not liking the angry look starting to spread around the table. UNHOC messages were hardly ever anything good – Code Ones were the highest priority of the lot, and that didn't make anyone feel any better.

Signas took the disc from her outstretched hand managed a small smile. "Thank you, Ami. You may go now."

"Yes, sir," she replied, promptly shuffling out of the room.

Once she was gone, Zero spoke. "What do you think they want now?"

"Probably decided to cut my budget. Again," Lifesaver said darkly. It was no secret that he had a bitter dislike of UNHOC. They'd slashed his department's funds by thirty-five percent eight months ago and shunted the money to an un-described "special anti-Maverick project."

"At least you have a budget," Douglas growled. "You don't have to mess with that horrid Resource Allocation Department every time you want a new set of nuts."

"Uh, right. Let's see what this is, then," Signas muttered, inserting the disc into the table's terminal, which was situated in front of his chair. A few moments later, after authorizing himself, he began reading. As the others watched, his face darkened, and his mouth twisted into a repressed snarl. "I don't believe it ... Those sons of bitches. Damn them! What right do they have to ... blast it!" He was squeezing his fists together so tightly that the distinct sound of metal being dented could be heard.

Everyone looked around uncertainly for a few moments. No one could think of a time when the Grand Commander had looked more furious. It was Lifesaver who decided to speak. "Signas? What is it? What did they do?"

Signas looked up from his shaking fists. He looked from face to face. Zero was confused, Douglas had developed a nice frown, Lifesaver was giving his Commander an appraising look, and Alia just looked wary. "Sorry about that. I lost control for a second. Brace yourselves. None of you are going to like this." He sighed and began reading. "By order of the United Nations Hunter Oversight Committee, the full circumstances of the deactivation of Mega Man X are not to be released to either the public or the general Maverick Hunter population. More specifically, the fact that he was executed for injuring a renegade human is to be considered Level Alpha classified until further notice. An official, approved-for-distribution explanation for his deactivation will be supplied to your PA office as soon as possible.

"As for the matter of X's remaining parts and components, they will be claimed by a research team for study on the twenty-fourth of December. They are to be kept in sterile storage until that time."

There was no sound once his lips closed. For the moment, no one was capable of forming words. A terrible, incomprehensible situation that everyone had up to the moment considered to be as bad as it could possibly get had suddenly gotten worse. Not only was UNHOC asserting control over their PA operations for some unknown reason; that in itself would have been troublesome enough. No – now they wanted to take what was left of X's body and rip it to shreds in the name of scientific advancement. Signas could come up with only one thought: This is sick and wrong. One look around the table told him everyone felt the same way. But – and they all knew it – there wasn't anything they could legally do to circumvent an UNHOC Directive. He was about to break the silence – it was really starting to unnerve him – but someone else beat him to it.

"No!" No one had noticed Alia's hand clinch into a shaking fist as Signas forced himself through the message. Everyone was too dumbstruck to realize the creamy tint of her skin was slowly turning a deep shade of red and her eyes – which had seemed oddly hollow for the last several hours – were blazing with a fury Zero would have been hard pressed to match. "They can't ... they can't just use him like that! He died to satisfy their cowardly, racist laws and now they want to use his remains in some sort of experiment, like he was nothing more than an interesting machine?! He was so much more ... bastards!" Her coarse yelling was accented by the sound of her fist smashing into and through the conference table, tearing it in half.


Thousands of miles away, far underneath what remained of the Antarctic ice-cap, the Grand Commander of all Mavericks sat alone in his inner chambers, brooding. He had been hidden away here, in a pitiful excuse for an underground fortress, for almost thirteen months. Not that he minded.

No, he was quite happy to bide his time. The Sixth Maverick Uprising, as the media dubbed it, had been an utter disaster. He made the rare mistake of being overly influenced by his underlings, and trusted Gate to run things until he was ready to take over. Unfortunately (in his view), Gate failed long before Sigma was at full strength. He had overestimated the genius' talent – something he swore to never do again. So, when he managed to reassert himself six months ago, Sigma decided to employ a different plan.

Rebuilding the Maverick army wasn't really that difficult. Their numbers were already strong, and grew with each passing week. His followers were all too eager to resume the fight against the humans and their Hunter pawns. Of course, the fact that he'd covertly infected each and every one of them with the virus did nothing to hamper their eagerness or their loyalty. But Sigma had been doing this for almost three decades, and even he was beginning to tire of endless defeat. They needed an edge this time – something that would decimate the Hunters and anyone else who stood against them.

That was one of the reasons he'd ordered his army to lay hidden for so long. He had taken the time to covertly mass weaponry, armor, and equipment as well as tend to a what could only be described as a personal matter. After months of tedious work on the part of the best Maverick engineers, Lord Sigma, Grand Commander of the Mavericks, once again had a body that suited his title. By his calculations, he was stronger and more powerful than he'd ever been. But even that didn't completely nullify his number one obstacle: Hunter Commanders X and Zero.

The Blue Bomber and the Crimson Hunter, or, as some of the humans liked to call them, the Demon and the Avenging Angel. It didn't matter what scheme he concocted, or how many soldiers he gathered – X and Zero always pushed him back. It never mattered that Sigma's numbers were almost always far superior or that X and Zero were, in fact, only two people. Apart, they were each somehow equal to an entire army of troops. Together – together they were simply unstoppable for reasons logic alone couldn't reveal to him. It made no sense that one man – or even two – could stand up to a field of a few hundred armed soldiers and in the end be the only one left standing. There was only one way Sigma could describe it. They were gods of the battlefield. Somehow, he'd been pitted against two people fate had seen fit to endow with skill, determination, and will that simply defied all analysis. And no matter how much he damned himself for it, he couldn't help but respect them for their power. But, he thought wryly, even immortals can die. The question is – how do I make sure they die this time?

Breaking them apart was an ideal option. Even one of them was a deadly force, a symbol that spurred others to fight. But together – he was running out of plans for dealing with both of them at once, and none of those had ever worked anyway. But how to do something that's up to now proved impossible?

As if the Devil himself were listening, Boomer Kuwanger chose that moment to burst through the doors of Sigma's chamber. His face was twisted into a smile, and his eyes were twinkling. Sigma would never admit it, but the sight of the demonic stag beetle so undeniably ... happy made a shiver go down his spine. At the same time, he couldn't help the warm feeling that began to grow in his abdomen. This was something he was almost certainly going to like. Boomer snapped off a quick salute. "Lord Sigma, I have urgent news."

"So I gather from your demeanor, Boomer. Tell me ... what is this 'excellent news?' I rarely see you so ... cheery."

Kuwanger spoke in the tone reserved for a man bursting into a waiting room full of relatives announcing the birth of his first child. "Commander Sigma, Mega Man X is dead."

Sigma would later think it was fortunate that he was sitting down. For the briefest of shocked moments, all strength left his body. It would have been very bad for his image if he'd collapsed on the spot. All at once, his wits rushed back to him, and he smiled in a manner that made Kuwanger look sane. "Boomer ... this is excellent news. Sit down. I need to ask you a few questions."

The beetle obliged. "I am happy to answer them, sir."

"First, and perhaps most important, who among us managed to accomplish this," he searched for a word, and in his mind only one fit, "miracle?"

Boomer Kuwanger shifted slightly in his seat, but his expression didn't change. "We're not sure, sir. Storm Eagle and I have been asking around ... no one's taking responsibility for it. And it certainly wasn't one of our planned operations. I would be able to confirm that. But we have proof. It's all over the news, and we even have a video of Signas announcing it to the Hunters. I've prepared a copy for you." He handed the Maverick Commander a disc, and sat back in his seat looking pleased with himself.

"I don't doubt your veracity. But, it's still very odd that no one will claim responsibility for this. Very odd indeed. Still, this is a time for celebration. One of our greatest impediments is dead."

"Yes, sir." He smiled menacingly. "If only that bastard Zero had died with him."

"Now, now, Boomer. You know very well I still have hope that Zero might one day be persuaded to ... see the true nature of the world around him and his rightful place in it." Boomer nodded slowly, all at once worried that he had overstepped his bounds. When Sigma spoke again, however, he knew that wasn't true. "In either case, it will most certainly be a lot easier to deal with Zero now that X is out of the way."

"So," Boomer began in an almost eager voice, "does this mean we will attack the Hunters soon, while they are weakened and reeling from their," and his tone turned mocking here, "horrific loss?"

Sigma's face had become calm and all but unreadable. "No. We won't attack them just yet. I want to know the exact circumstances of X's death before we do anything. I can't help but think there's something strange going on here. Until I know what that is, we will bide our time. As for attacking them while their guard is down ... don't worry, there's no need to put a rush on that. This is not something they will soon recover from. But rest assured – when the time comes, we shall use this to our advantage, and we will flatten them."

"Of course, Commander. I agree completely," Boomer said, surprisingly sincerely. "What are your orders?"

"I will review the video you have given me. Like I said, a celebration is in order. Make the preparations, if you please."

Boomer nodded as he rose. He saluted crisply, still wearing his ghastly smile, and left the room.

It would seem I have been given my edge, Sigma thought darkly, but by what hand?