All The Colors of Yesterday

Chapter 8

by Elliot Bowers

"Questions in A World of Blue"

vocals by Julee Cruise

lyrics by David Lynch; music by Angelo Badalamenti

_____Sloosh-sloosh-slosh… The discolored beast of chunky alloyed steel boldly strode through the water-bottomed darkness, its optic sensors seeing everything in blocky red. It had switched over to infrared to navigate the dark parts of these sewers. It was not minutes ago that something tried to attack the Adversary: something with slavering jaws, quick as a reptile, with too many teeth…about the size of a child.

_____Mutants, were they really human? Some were simply twisted, horrid things with minds that did not go far beyond run, kill and eat. Were they lucky to have survived being born, these forsaken and twisted things of the sewers? Most died soon after childbirth, their bodies too compromised to be viable, and some were simply put out of their misery. The ones that lived usually found it safer and easier to stalk the sewers. When live prey came down here--rats, stray dogs, the hapless human--the mutants attacked. Except in this last case, the live prey wasn't so easy…

_____Sloosh-sloshClomp-clomp. This tunnel came to end in a small square chamber, three smaller tunnels branching out to the left, right and front. But the tunnels were too small for the huge beast to get through. The Adversary's simple electronic brain took in the data and calculated a solution. If it could not go forward again, it would go up.

_____"Do you hear something, Aunt Janine?" asked the curly haired teenager in jeans and oil-smudged work-shirt. He looked up at the female cyborg higher up on these wide apartment steps. She frowned and listened for a while--then shook her head and smiled. She may have heard something, but the sound was gone.

_____It was getting late into the night, but everyone was having such a good time--drinking and talking--that they probably wouldn't go to bed for a while. Aunt Janine and Bobby were sitting on the big wide stairs of the apartment, while three male cousins were nearby and playing cards--talking, drinking and occasionally laughing. Aunt Janine herself was an orange-haired female cyborg, a bottle of beer in her somewhat large metal hands. Bobby always thought Aunt Janine's metal hands were a bit large for the rest of her slim and young-looking metal female form.

_____When Bobby was a small kid, he asked why her hands were so big. The better to tickle you with, silly! Then she would tickle him into fits of giggles until he couldn't take it anymore. Then he and his little brother would play checkers or get another reading lesson from Aunt Janine. He liked visiting Aunt Janine on her days off--the only days he could visit her.

_____The truth was, Aunt Janine had worked in a metal reprocessing facility. Her hands had to be large to work with the heavy controls of manufacturing machines: controls too big and tough for the weak fingers of fleshie hands. She had worked most all the time when Zalem was in charge, working days and nights, but she wasn't bitter about it. Her pretty and friendly face almost always had a smile when he and his little brother was around.

_____Bobby had only seen Aunt Janine angry a few times, and that was only when she spoke to his mother--yelled at the woman. Bobby's mother beat him and his brother Jake often... Too often, thought Aunt Janine! Bobby thought that mothers were just like that, getting angry and beating their children. But whenever Aunt Janine yelled at Bobby's mother and threatened with those machine-hands of hers, Bobby's mother would cower down and not beat them for a while. Then she would drink and start up again…

_____Aunt Janine had told Bobby and little Jake to make a run for it when they were old enough. Get a job and get away from their mother--who earned money working with water-pipes. When Bobby was big enough to fend for himself and drive a vehicle, he took his little brother with him and managed to get a job. Bobby got a lucky job delivering newsprint paper--a job given because he could read. Jake--who was barely eight years old--stayed at the new place they called home: the room of a certain abandoned building.

_____Things didn't last that way. Jake became sick from drinking contaminated water and died almost instantly. Bobby later heard that their mother had gotten drunk and staggered into truck traffic, killed outright…around the time that the City of Zalem had that accident with their power plants. All the same, Jake always had the fear that the mother would come back. He feared stomping shoes clomping into his home and waking him up. Then the beating would begin.

_____"You're thinking about that worthless jerk-mother of your again, huh?" asked Aunt Janine, looking at Bobby--who was looking across the night-darkened street. Having been alive for so long and knowing her nephew so well, she was able to tell when his mind was on his mother. "I'm still ashamed to say that the idiot was even my own sister. She never tried to hit me 'cause I was older than she was, but she just kept picking fights and killing small animals… Rats…. Your grandmother tried to set her right. Nothing worked. Something was wrong with her brain, we figured. Yeah, something crazy…" Aunt Janine then took a sip of beer.

_____"I don't know… I always get the idea that she's going to come back and come for me or something," answered Bobby. "There's this idea stuck in my head that I'm always doing something wrong and punishment is going to happen. All the time. My boss says I'm good and reliable. But still…"

_____ "Hmmph… It's not you, if that's what you're thinking. Yeah, again… It's your mother…" Aunt Janine let that statement hang in the air for a few seconds, taking another sip of her beer and leaned back on the stairs. The three cousins laughed at an obscene joke one of them made just before an explosion rocked the night. Everyone turned to look.

_____ Part of the street had exploded upwards in a blast of fluorescent light. Plasma blast, thought Aunt Janine. She knew what a plasma blast looked like--having seen the same thing vented by alloy fabrication furnaces. But that was no blast from a furnace. That was from a weapon.

_____For goodness' sake! Bobby looked to Aunt Janine, who simply said, "Run…" Then she flung her skinny nephew over one of her metal shoulders and making a dash for it. The three male cousins were close behind--going up the wide apartment stairs and into the huge apartment building itself. They had left their go board out there, but nobody wanted to go out and get it.

_____Out there, the big-wide beast of metal stood at the edge of the gaping hole in the street, some of the street-lights flickering from electrical interference. With the combination of the flickering street-lighting and the garish paint-job on its body, the Adversary looked more like the monster it was. It was thinking like a monster now: It had detected targets around here. And it wanted to destroy more targets. Destruction was the thing that filled its simple electronic brain. Target… Target…

_____"Y-e-e-e, HAW!" came the shout from somewhere along the city street. There was a ridiculously loud squeal of tires, and a junky looking car came zipping down the city street. If rapid acceleration didn't ruin the tires, then the skidding stop must have done the job--leaving long black streaks on the asphalt. About six cyborgs in coveralls came piling out of the vehicle, each with all kinds of big rifles.

_____Then there was a great deal of noise and light, sounds of crack-crack and bo-oom filling the city night as that group opened fire on the Adversary. The Adversary's chunky metal body was suddenly lit up with flashing sparks and big blasts while it tried to take aim with its plasma arm cannon--trying to steady its gun-arm under this massive barrage.

_____Out of all of those blasts, one incredibly lucky shot went up the arm cannon's barrel at just the right time. There was a sudden splash of florescent glowing energy, loose and wild, spilling out from the arm-cannon. Growling, the Adversary tumbled backwards--falling into the hole in the street. There was a loud ground-shaking crash-h-h from below and those farmers stopped firing….

_____"We beat that thing off!" they shouted. "Look, people! Barabbas' rebels help you all out! Not the Black Market! We did! Barabbas' rebels! Remember that!" They made whooping celebratory noises and began dancing around though there were no citizens in sight. One of them got a can of spray paint of the car, sprayed a message on the cracked street near the gap. That done, they piled themselves and their rifles back into the jalopy of a vehicle and drove off.

_____Aunt Janine, Bobby and the rest went outside again--as did some other neighbors on this residential urban neighborhood. The people walked over to the message that had been left behind: done in spray-paint some color. Someone lit a flashlight and played it over the letters. The message read, THE REBELS OF BARABBAS SAVED YOU! THE BLACK MARKET DID NOT! REMEMBER THAT!

_____"Looks like someone's trying to move in on the Black Market," said Aunt Janine. "People have been talking about this 'Barabbas' guy before. Wonder who he is…" She then turned to one of Bobby's older cousins and put her big hands on her alloyed hips. "Sounds Looks like that Barjack stuff all over again, doesn't it?"

2.

_____The next morning, burning red sunlight shone through Scotch's window. He woke with a slight headache and stomach-ache. Maybe he was still getting used to this synthetic body, or this synthetic body was getting used to him. The funny thing Scotch learned about being a cyborg was that his body sometimes had an attitude of its own. He wondered if it was the same way for metal-type bodies. Anyway, he washed up and put on some more coveralls. He had to go to work…

_____Three hours later, he was at work in a basement garage of the West-Side Arena. Somebody around here had a radio going--playing some synthesizer-backed rock music--while Scotch was working on a hydraulics capacitor for Gogam. The greasy metal part was cylindrical and about the size of a large fist. Opened up, there were all kinds of rods and gears inside it--like an overly complicated piston. Truth was, Scotch had never seen this kind of thing before.

_____At least he had the general idea about how it worked. He just had to remember where all the parts went after he systematically disassembled it. Then the hydraulic capacitor's internal parts were around the table, and he was cleaning one of the gears… Gee, no wonder why Gogam's right punch was a little slow: this thing had a chipped gear! Analog systems were great for gladiator-cyborgs--nice and rugged, but parts always got damaged during bouts.

_____The synthetic skin of his hands still oily, he picked up the chipped, coin-sized gear and got up from the stool--walking over to the right side of this noisy garage. Over there was big-bellied male cyborg in similar coveralls, standing in front of a table and looking over one of several wide sheets of thick paper--sky-blue lines on an oil-smudged white. Those sheets of paper were the schematics to Gogam's electrical system.

_____"Hey Gusto," said Scotch above the sudden sound of a spinning turbo-drill. Gusto turned his head to the left--looking at Scotch. "This gear's chipped and pitted. How do I fix it? Can we machine it back into shape?"

_____Gusto carefully took the proffered gear and looked it over--his brows furrowed. Hmmph… "This is a one-inch toothed gear. Take it to Lu-Anne. She'll know how to machine it back into shape. If not, bring it back to me! I'll see what we can do for replacements." He handed it back.

_____Whir-r-r-r…! "Thanks, boss!" shouted Scotch above another bit of racket. Gusto then returned to his overview of schematics. Where was Lu-Anne? Oh yeah…. She was one of the few female mechanics there were on this team--sitting over there. He walked around the gigantic waist-high platform where big metal-bodied Gogam was lying down to get to the other side of this garage.

_____Lu-Anne, a metal-type cyborg, was dressed in coveralls like all the other mechanics--though she wore a leotard top with her coveralls. Her dark hair was held back with a strand of wire. Usually, her working area was that bench over there, set in front of a clear-shielded multi-purpose device for cleaning and fixing small parts. To her left was a small stool with a towel atop it--several small parts needing cleaning.

_____Scotch approached. She turned off the machine and set another cleaned part on a tray to her right. "That's a one-inch hydraulics radial gear. I'll clean it as soon as I do these other parts… Come back in twenty-six minutes."

_____ Nodding, Scotch turned around and went walking back to his own work area. Somebody tapped him on the left shoulder. "Hey Scotch, some guys in suits want to talk to you," he was told above the noise. "They're waiting outside."

_____What the…? Aw, great! And he thought his day was going so well. He wiped his greasy synthetic hands on his coveralls and began walking slump-shouldered towards the exit door. It was some guys from the Black Market… Things were going to be bad. Was he going to disappear too? They could have at least let him finish this day at work.

_____Out in the hall, there were three similar-looking female cyborgs waiting for him--dressed in dark dress-jackets and pleated skirts--dark stockings over their legs, dark shoes to match. The only difference between these businesslike women were their hairstyles. The female with blonde hair put a hand on one of his shoulders and grinned.

_____She had sharp metal teeth… "Hello, Scotch. We have heard that you saw something last night." The grip on the shoulder tightened just a little. "Come with us. We want to ask you a few questions." Then that metal hand on his shoulder turned him around. The three women in dark business clothes took him farther along the hall and to one of the garages not being used today.

_____ The one with fluffy red hair opened the door and gestured the way in while the one with straight dark hair flicked on the lights. In here was another garage, except with a different layout. They found a short stool and sat him down…hard. Seated on the low stool, he had to look up at the three females. One of them smiled that piranha's grin of hers--if anyone these days knew what a piranha was.

_____While the blonde-haired her solid hands on his shoulders, the dark-haired one stepped in front of him. She stood with her hands behind her back, her feet together--looking deceptively prim. "So!" she said brightly, then smiled without showing teeth. All the same, Scotch had a glimpse of those sharpened things in her pretty mouth. He wondered how these three managed to talk normally with mouths full of such sharp and evil-looking things. "Sleep well after those troublemakers stopped the Adversary? Since you've had such a good night's sleep, tell me who was there to stop the gigantic robot-beast when it showed itself. Describe who and what you saw there, please. That will help you out a lot.."

_____Gripping this low stool, eyes wide, Scotch answered as best he could given his situation. "Ma'am, it went like this. After that first big explosion, I ran down to the first floor of the apartment building. You know… The foyer. I looked out the window and saw… That big thing. I was thinking, Gosh, I'm not going out there! Then there was this really loud sound of a car with lots of torque coming down the street. Some guys came out of the beat-up old vehicle, some farmers, holding some of the biggest weapons I've ever seen before!

______"They started yelling and making good-time sounds when they aimed at the big thing and started shooting at it! I was scared silly, ma'am. I expected the Adversary to stomp over to those crazy farmers with the rifles and kill them all. Thought they were making it mad. They just kept shooting at the thing. There was a funny kind of explosion when they hit its big gun-hand thing, and then the big stupid thing fell backwards into the sewers. The farmers sprayed some graffiti next to the big hole in the street and drove off… Their graffiti said something about rebels having saved the neighborhood."

_____Scotch was going to mention the part of the spray-painted message about the Black Market not being there and all. He decided against doing that because he did not want to anger these three women. They probably already knew, anyway. Offending them just might not be a good idea at this time--or any other time.

_____"Hmm-m-m…" went the one with straight dark hair. She began to slowly turn around, looking at the racks of tools and machines in this big underground workspace. "That sounds about right--a bunch of crazy farmers drive up out of nowhere, with big strange weapons no one ever saw before, then start blasting up the place--luckily sending the Adversary back to the sewers. Were they really lucky or just plain stupid? Dumb luck! How did a bunch of gun-crazy runaway farmers from the wastelands stop that thing?"

_____If his synthetic skin could give off perspiration, his forehead would have been beaded with small worried sweat-droplets. He thought about his answer, thought about the sheer power and bulk of the thing. "Well ma'am… It's kind of hard to say. I don't know how they stopped that thing… About two-thirds of the monster's weight is some kind of alloyed armor from the times of the War--when there used to be space-ships. And it's got more than one internal power source--some kinds of nuclear batteries I've never even heard of before. Even if the thing had a head, I don't even think that knocking it off would stop the thing 'cause it's got more than one computer-brain."

_____They were staring; he realized that he was rambling… Well, so long as he kept talking and feeding them information, they wouldn't hurt him. "What I'm trying to say is, ma'am, maybe those farmers just got lucky. I don't know if the Adversary can be stopped. I want to kill that thing… It killed my brother. But what can I do now?"

3.

_____The day was moving on into noon-time, getting along as usual. There was always the burningly hot sun overhead, blazing yellow-hot and heating the city while machine-buildings churned and thrummed. All the gray and red-colored smoke billowed up to the sky, mingling together to make for a slight haze. Heavy trucks still drove along these hot city streets, their heavy electromechanical engines rumbling.

_____That bright yellow of noon-time became afternoon, eventually. All of the rumbling and churning from the machine-buildings slowed down, the billowing toxic smoke from the chimneys slowed to puffs. Doors opened, and droves of cyborgs and fleshies walked out of the buildings and into the sidewalks. With exhausted relief, everybody knew that they were done with yet another day of work.

_____Time to party… A group of six metal-bodied factory workers went to their usual hang-out spot--the end of a back alley, set near an abandoned industrial warehouse. They had drinks with them, along with some newsprint to read and some more newsprint to burn. The huge building of corrugated tin and steel beams was too rusted and wasted to be restored. The Black Market was probably waiting for that thing to collapse before they did anything with the real estate: demolition cost money.

_____They set up the old metal barrel at the mouth of the alley and some old chairs they had stashed back here. They set to drinking…and set to talking, reading the newsprint and talking about the problems around here. Liam screwed a light bulb into the alley's light fixture set in the wall when the slanting sunlight became too dim.

_____Talking and drinking, drinking and laughing, the cyborgs kept chatting it up and having a generally good time as sunlight began to dim, going down and away--making for those deep orange-red tones of sunset. When the cold night winds began to blow, it was time to light the barrel. Jimmy set down the news printout the was reading and took out a small cylindrical lighter--which he used to light up the waste-paper and old synthetic wood-chunks in the metal barrel. The result was heat and light against the oncoming chilliness of the night.

_____Click-CLICK! Squee-eak… Everyone went quiet. They had heard a door opening somewhere nearby--or they thought they did: hearing a metal door being opened on rusty hinges. Murray and Joel went out of the alley and looked around. Of course there were no metal doors nearby. They've used this alley opening for years, even years before Zalem blew itself up. There were no doors around here. So where did the sound come from?

_____When everybody went back into the mouth of the alley, back to their hang-out spot, a strange man stepped out from around the right corner. He was tall and dressed in a red-colored synthetic-silk suit, his blond hair was combed straight up in a silky bouffant. His bushy yellow eyebrows were above his brown eyes, eyebrows thick enough to also be combed. Brown eyes? Or were they red eyes?

_____They had never seen that man before. Working and living around here for so long, this colloquial group of six had thought they had seen everybody by now. They were wrong now, of course: the man in the red business suit was certainly a newbie to this area… He looked around, put his hands in his pockets, then walked around the burning barrel and left through the alley--going out to the city streets. He had an appointment to keep.

_____After Aikasa was done singing for the day, the restaurant was a bit less crowded. The girl's blissful performances were wonderful, but very short--only eighteen minutes at a time. Some of the crowd was already going to where Aikasa's talent agent was driving her next. There were more seats now--enough tables open for Dr. Sera to have a place to herself in the corner. Her glass of red wine was on the table, one-third empty, while she read newsprint by the light of the light-fixture overhead.

_____After reading another article, she set down the multi-folded ream of paper and put her hands flat on the table--sitting up with knees together. She spreading her fingers... Her synthetic skin was smooth and without flaws. Flexing her fingers, the synthetic skin around her metal knuckles stretched like rubber.

_____These were robotic doll-hands. Dr. Sera again realized that her synthetic body was that of a life-sized human doll. Her clothes--white blouse and slacks beneath a long lab-coat--were clothes for the life-sized doll-woman. And her fluffy red hair, probably her most dollish feature. She was a brain in a toy body!

_____Smirking to herself, she reached for the glass of wine and drank some. Setting it down, someone in a garishly styled outfit quickly pulled out the seat opposite her at this table and sat down in it. Looking up, she saw that the man's outfit was a red business-suit. His blonde hair was combed up from his head, and his eyebrows were also odd. So were his eyes…

_____Looking at him, she asked, "Excuse me, but do you know what being rude is? It is when a person steps beyond the boundaries of decency and interferes with someone else's relaxation. Or do you think you're so important that you can interfere with anyone's recreational time? You may be important wherever it is you came from, but here in the city, we have manners! It keeps people from getting killed for being rude."

_____Leaning forward with jacket-covered atop the table, the man in the red suit looked into Sera's eyes. "Where I come from, there is nobody…" he said in a smoky voice, barely audible above the low din of the restaurant. "You, or one of you wanted me to come. We come when properly invited."

_____Dr. Sera thought she misheard what he was saying. Where he comes from, there is…nobody? "I'm sorry, but what you're saying doesn't make much sense," she said. "What do you mean, 'properly invited'? As for 'one of us' inviting you, I do not see how that can be true…because there is only one me, and I do not recall inviting anyone anywhere. At least, there is one of me now." She said that and thought to herself, See, I can talk in puzzles, too.

_____ Rubbing his hands together and still leaning forward, the man in the red suit responded, "Do you know what you know? I…believe that you know…and you know things that would open your mind to what I would say. It can make sense if you're careful."

_____This was quite an interesting man…even if his suit did give off an odd scent of cinnamon--able to be smelled above the other smells of food and drink in this restaurant. Or maybe the olfactory receptors in her sinuses were malfunctioning. "Really?" she asked. "What is there to say to me? Then, I take it you have known of my technological attempts at progress and scientific endeavor. What should I be open-minded about?"

_____Rubbing his hands along the tabletop, the man in the red suit stared deeper into Dr. Sera's eyes and said, "What if…scientists performed lots of little experiments that tugged at the fabric of reality itself? And next to that, what if…burning nuclear fireballs made for bends in time and space--stretching and altering the flows of karma? This reality is not all that there is…"

_____Dr. Sera didn't fully understand the man's insane gibberish, but she had the idea that he was talking about metaphysics--the science of reality. Dr. Sera had dabbled in metaphysics once. That was especially true when she made her dark compact pistol. To make it, she used ultra-powerful electromagnetic fields, tachyon streams, and other forces of matter and energy… Making and firing the dark pistol sent material objects out of reality. As Dr. Sera remembered this, the man in the red suit smiled as if he knew what was going on in her mind.

_____Then, when he resumed talking, it was as if the rest of the restaurant faded into a dark background… Dr. Sera's attention was now focused on the man in the red suit, sitting across from her. Nothing else seemed to exist beyond the pool of light above this table.

_____"What am I…talking about? There is light and there is darkness. 'But also, there is darkness. Not all places are in the light--where everything is orderly and makes sense. What was there before the universe came into existence? What is that place still beyond the light of reality? 'Let there be light!' Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…"

_____The "light of reality?" This was finally too much crazy talk for the female scientist. She wanted to shout, Will you please make sense? But she found that she couldn't talk at all right now, her throat not working, as if her synthetic body only allowed her to breathe. Something wasn't right here. In a way, though, some of what he was saying made some kind of sense.

_____"There is still a dark place beyond the light--a place dimly lit from shades of reality," he continued. "It is dark, but there are things in it--things made real and given life when shreds of light shine in from those little rips in the fabric of reality. The fabric of the universe can flex and bend, yet those strange machines buried in the ground keep those rips and bends open. The strange machines of your spaceship engines were buried and almost forgotten. The effects remain. And you know it, using that little gun of yours!"

_____That's it! Dr. Sera's pretty face became angry, and she slapped both hands atop the table--making for a loud noise. "Ooh-h-h! Will you get away from me, you crazy thing!" she shouted, her eyes squinted shut. "I don't even want to hear your crazy talk anymore! Just start making normal sense or just go away!"

_____When she opened her eyes again, everything snapped back into normalcy--with people looking at her. The restaurant had gone quiet, everyone's eyes looking in the direction of the red-haired scientist-woman. What was that about? More importantly, who was she yelling at?

_____She looked around. The man in the red suit was gone. Embarrassed, she looked down at her smooth-skinned hands again--the skin too smooth to be real. But who could she have been talking to? Why else had she just slapped the table? Somehow, she had managed not to spill her red wine. Or maybe she had just imagined the man in the red suit? She had only recombined her brain several weeks ago; there was really no telling what could happen sometimes. She could have been hallucinating… No, he was too solid to have been a hallucination.

_____The other people at the other tables looked away and began talking among themselves. Was that scientist-woman crazy from work-stress? No, that couldn't be it. Some people definitely saw a man sitting at her table--some blond-haired guy in a strange-looking red business suit. He also had the strangest hairstyle they'd ever seen in their lives… Hell, the guy's fashion sense was so freaky that he probably wasn't even human.

4.

_____After leaving a tip for the waitress, Dr. Sera stepped out of the restaurant into the night-darkened sidewalk--in a sort of daze. Standing here on the sidewalk with people walking by, she saw the harsh glare of the streetlights flicker on, and the neon signs of local shops and restaurant seemed brighter compared to the to the oncoming darkness of the city night. Cars and trucks rolled by in the streetlamp-and-neon-lit darkness, full of people now out to have a good time since the work-day was done.

_____Well, the day was over for most people, at least. She still had things to do now, though her professional work-hours were done. Since one of her workers was killed by the Adversary, there was even more work to be done--like finding another member of the Black Market trustworthy enough to handle her research facility's income and organize the maintenance personnel. She was a research scientist, not an accountant! All she wanted to do was to develop cyborg technologies, like synthetic-flesh type bodies and figuring out how to better use nanotechnology. She also wanted to catch up on her newsprint reading…

_____ She glimpsed an eye-catching petite figure in the pedestrian traffic across the street. There was only one girl in town with that kind of hair and a red scarf, worn with blouse and shorts. Dr. Sera especially recognized the scarf she'd made for the girl. "Hello-o-o!" she shouted, smiling and waving to the petite pale-haired girl across the street. But she kept walking..

_____There was nothing to do but try and cross the street. Thank goodness traffic was reduced: almost no trucks at night. Still, city people drove like motorball players--revving and dodging. In timed dead and gone, there were things like traffic signs, traffic lights, speed limits and just traffic laws in general. Nowadays, driving was dangerous. Crossing the street was even more dangerous than that.

_____Using the agility of synthetic muscle tissue and computer-enhanced reflexes, she dashed and weaved through the chaotic traffic. She ran while making sudden right and left turns without stopping. Even if she had been hit, titanium bones didn't break so easily; the front hoods of cars would be damaged before her metal skeleton was. Besides, she was too quick to have been hit.

_____Skidding on her rubber-soled footwear on the sidewalk across the street (and ignoring a few amazed stares of cyborgs and fleshies), Dr. Sera again tried to get Aikasa's attention. "Hello there!" she shouted again. Aikasa paused and half-turned and looked back as the female scientist caught up. "It's about time you noticed me! For a moment, I thought you were ignoring me."

_____ The girl shook her head and looked up at her. "No, Dr. Sera, I wouldn't have done that to you," she said above the noise of the trucks and cars, the walking feet of the people on this sunset-colored city sidewalk. Then she looked across the street. "It's just that… Something…" Something was…

_____"My goodness! The noise is inconvenient! Let's find a place to talk," she said, holding out her right hand. Aikasa took hold of Dr. Sera's hand and allowed herself to be led to one of the many store-front restaurants and cafes around here. One of the cafes had glass picture-windows, giving a comfortable view of the inside--a few window-side tables available. "Let's go in here! I'll pick up the tab. My treat!" Nodding once, Aikasa was led into the café.

_____Inside, it was certainly a lot less noisy than the outside. The sound of vehicles and sidewalk crowd of cyborgs and fleshies was just a hum outside the windows. Soon after the two sat down at this window-side table, a waiter in black slacks and shirt approached the table--his metal hands exposed beyond the sleeves. "A polite evening greeting to you, ladies," he said in a cool voice. "What is wanted, please?"

_____Dr. Sera's eyes rolled up for a second before she answered. "Um-m-m… Give me some coffee, a pitcher of the darkest and sweetest kind you have. I don't want it extra sweet, just as sweet as you make it--plenty of glucose. What about you, Aikasa?"

_____"I would like a tall glass of water," she answered in that beautiful voice of hers, fingering her scarf. "And do you have any unflavored sushi? Fish doesn't…quite taste right when people add flavors to it. Hmm-m-m… Yes, that is what I want."

_____The cyborg-waiter in black noted down their orders on a pink square notepad, and Dr. Sera gave him a large-denomination credit-chip. It was twice what their order came to, but she had credits to spare: The customers who came to her medical facility, executives of the Black Market, paid her plenty. She could be afford to be a little generous--and maybe a little careless--with her money now: a change from when she first came back to this city after a time at that wasteland farm.

_____ Accepting the credit-chip and bowing, the waiter walked away to fulfill their orders. "So… How was your day, Aikasa?" asked the doctor, tilting her head to the side sympathetically. " You look tired. Did you have to do a lot of singing again?"

_____"Yes, maybe a little bit," answered the girl, sounding a little wistful. "But my talent agent let me take a nap between performances today." She then slapped her hands atop the table, her big pretty green eyes suddenly sparkling with anger. "And would you believe it! Some drunk bullies tried to take my scarf! This one you made just for me!"

_____ "Really?" went Dr. Sera, leaning back. The waiter brought their orders back: a pitcher and mug of dark coffee for the scientist; two glasses of water and unflavored sushi for the little singer. When he walked away, they resumed talking. "So… I hope you hurt them! Goodness, and it's just when I thought the city was getting a little better since Zalem's out of the picture. I hope you hurt those bullies and taught them to never threaten you again!"

_____"Yes… I made sure that they learned," she answered, thinking of their dead bodies. Gya-a-ah! "Hmm?" went Aikasa as she raised a tall glass of water to her lips, using both hands. Look at me, you ignorant people! For several seconds straight, she drank from the tall glass of water, taking in half of it while her eyes were looking to the right. Ha-ha-ha…! Setting it down on this table, she turned her head--looking out this café window. "Oh, that's sad…"

_____You fools! Pay attention to details! "What's sad?" asked Dr. Sera, following Aikasa's gaze. There was someone outside of here, someone ranting and raving. He was drawing a crowd of interested pedestrians. A lot of people went crazy in the city--going a little insane in all kinds of ways. With some people, though, the insanity was more entertaining…like with that crazy guy dancing on the sidewalk, right now.

_____Annoyed, Dr. Sera gently patted the table. "Wait here, Aikasa. I'm going outside to see what's interrupting our relaxation-time. And maybe I can convince him to find some other place to go crazy--before a member of the Black Market shoots him for being a troublemaker." Indeed, irritating important members of that p5! once-criminal syndicate was a sure way of suicide.

_____Again outside the café, she went over to where a small crowd was forming--interrupting the flow of sidewalk traffic. People looked at her as she gently pushed them aside. But then they saw that she must be someone important--given how she was dressed in the white professional clothes of a cyber-doctor. They let her through.

_____The man, a fleshie wearing crumpled business clothes, looked and sounded deranged. His black business jacket was half-off, and his white buttoned shirt was half-undone. The slacks must have been well-tailored and professionally wrinkle-free once. Now, they were bunched-up and looking sloppy.

"You don't understand! The space invaders…are…here! They're space monsters, most of them are evil red muscular midgets with bald heads and dressed in breech-cloths… Somebody let them into our world, and now they're showing up all over the place! Most people can't see 'em, but everybody knows what they do!"

_____"Calm down, pal! There ain't any such thing as space monsters," shouted a man in blue coveralls. "The only monsters we got around here are some messed-up mutants and metal-freaks…like my friends and me. See?" For emphasis, he raised his left hand and wriggled it--the metal joints articulating. People laughed. "Yeah, the monsters are here alright, pal. We're the monsters! R-r-rargh!"

_____"And that's your ignorance!" shouted the deranged man, hopping around on one foot, his jacket still half-off. "The space monsters are in the breeze, on the prowl. You wouldn't even know a space-monster if you saw one! R-r-raagh! " With a growl, the deranged man in the sloppy business suit finally threw off--tore off--his jacket: revealing a holstered pistol.

_____Everyone went still. There was no telling what one of those crazies will do with a gun… That deranged fleshie took the handgun out of the holster, then put the barrel to the right side of his own head. He turned to look right at Dr. Sera. "Thanks for the ride here, doctor! Thanks…for the ride!" He winked at her before finally squeezing the trigger.

_____People turned and ran, everyone except Dr. Sera. All that they saw was that, instead of there being a nasty death-scene, something crazier happened. Some kind of glowing reddish-orange haze had completely covered over the deranged man in the ruined business suit--a glow that seemed brighter than the streetlights. The air suddenly heated up, maybe from the radiation given off by that creepy orange haze. Nobody wanted to stick around to find out what happened after that!

_____One person stayed behind, having seen the sunset-colored haze before. When it the orange haze faded, Dr. Sera noticed something, something small and dark by the light of the streetlamps and pouring out from the café. She walked over to the thing on the sidewalk and knelt--picked it up. How could it be…?

_____The female scientist picked it up. She recognized it as surely as she recognized her own face. The dark, compact pistol's unusual heaviness was familiar. The trigger was its only moving part, and the thing seemed to be made out of one solid piece of well-shaped dark metal. No, it wasn't merely metal with a dark coating. She knew the metal itself was dark as a side-effect of the weapon's properties. She knew this because she was the one who made this weapon, the dark compact pistol…

_____Back in the café, Aikasa asked if she had solved the problem. There was a lot of noise--and that horrible flash of light! Dr. Sera said that the problem solved itself and gently changed the subject. While she and Aikasa talked, there was now the hard sleek lump of metal squeezed into the left pocket of her close-fitting white pants--the shape hidden by the looseness of her labcoat. It was almost as if she could feel the karmic radiation given off by the still-warm tip of the barrel, pressed close to her left thigh by the tight material of her clothes.

5.

_____An hour into the night, and Patrick's main restaurant was still full of people. Though Aikasa wasn't here to sing right now, the band that did her backup melodies were--playing out instrumental renditions of some of Aikasa's recent songs. Though the little pale-haired beauty wasn't here herself, the gentle angelic melody set everyone in a pleasant mood: The melody reminded them of her. There was no hope of hearing her sweetly sad and gentle voice now; she was probably worn out and sleeping wherever she called home.

_____"…So we just stood there while that hu-u-uge thing just sort of exploded out of the freakin' street!" said the short, muscular teenage boy in red coveralls and orange tee-shirt--his brown hair loose and wild. He was sitting at this table with three of his friends--his current girlfriend and another couple. A tall mug full of some strange red drink bubbled in front of him--frothing and foaming. "Bla-a-am. Great big chunks of the street and parts of people went fly-y-ying! Man, you shoulda been there!"

_____As if to match his exuberance, the red drink seemed to become even more frothier. Nobody really knew what he was drinking this time, and nobody really bothered to ask. There were plenty of exotic drinks to be had around the city--given all the tens of thousands kinds of beverage chemical combinations available. Some of the drinks made for varying kinds of drunkenness, and some drinks could kill anyone but the hardiest of cyborgs. This teenage boy was determined to drink every kind of drink ever made in the city. The fact that new drinks were being invented all the time was not a deterrent to his massive (and thoroughly intoxicating) goal in life.

_____"Are you crazy?" went the female cyborg sitting opposite him. Her feminine metal body was tinted blue--dressed in pants and half-unzipped synthetic leather jacket. She had her dark hair worn up in a bun. "You could've been killed by that thing! I heard that some scavengers found it in the desert and tried to get it started with batteries. Then it woke up and started killing people. It's killed, like, a hundred people already."

_____"Didn't the Black Market tell people to stay away from that metal beast?" chided another teenage boy, dressed in jeans and tee-shirt, with synthetic-leather jacket over. His short-cut blond hair was as careful and as conservative as his attitude. He had to get his eyes replaced because of a factory accident. "I've sometimes had to ask myself if you were suicidal…or something like that. If you want to kill yourself, there are easier and more dramatic ways."

_____"Suicide? Death? Hell, I'm not scared of some messed-up old machine somebody probably made in some garage!" bragged the short, muscular teenage boy. He took another gulp from that odd frothing drink of his. "The Black Market is probably a bunch of sissies! They may be too weak to…" Swoosh-wham!

_____No one at this table was really sure what the heck just happened. One second, Lex here was talking about how he wasn't scared of the Adversary and how the Black Market was too weak. The next, there was this dark-suited blur of motion--knocking him out of his chair. There was a foot on his neck, and a gleaming silvery blade was at his nose. Despite his apparent peril, he was smiling. Part of the drink must have been liquid courage or something.

_____"What did you say!" shouted Mr. Muyamoto. As usual, the Black Market executive was dressed in a dark business suit, his straight dark hair cut short at the sides. In his right metal hand, he clutched the grip of his blade, waving the tip of the edged weapon inches from Lex's nose. The entire restaurant was silent. Nobody moved; everyone was looking over here. "Say…that…again! Do you claim that the Black Market is full of cowards? Speak up! Now that you have an audience, let them hear what you have said of the Black Market!"

_____When the shoe eased up on his throat, Lex sucked in another breath and spoke up. "Yeah, I said it! The Black Market can't keep us safe from the Adversary. At least when Zalem ruled the world, they had machines and stuff they could use to stop big crazy monsters. And the bounty hunters didn't even need guns."

_____"Hmm! So you say…we are an ineffective organization, unable to prevent harm from coming to the common people of this city?" asked Mr. Muyamoto loudly. "Despite all that we have done for you, despite the stability and easygoing freedoms you now enjoy, are you still ungrateful? Though your lives are now so easy that you only work a third of the time you once did under Zalem's control, though the goods and luxuries of your work now flow right back to you, instead of going up to a rich city in a sky… You are still not thankful to us?"

_____"If you hadn't been friggin' interrupted me, friggin' eavesdropping, you would've heard the rest of what I had to say!" grunted the muscular boy on the restaurant floor. "But if you wanna put it that way… Yeah, you guys with your fancy business suits and your guns can't stop that monster."

_____The cyborg in the business suit stared at the muscular fleshie-boy, meeting his stare. There was no fear in the boy's dark eyes--just angry conviction. It was either bravery, stupidity, or intoxication that made him so bold. Yet the boy spoke his true beliefs--a slowly spreading belief among the people. The people were beginning to believe that not even the enforcers of the Black Market could stop the Adversary.

_____Swish-swish! Mr. Muyamoto sheathed his sword with two machine-quick motions, the weapon disappearing beneath his dark business jacket. Still, he kept his right shoe where it was--on the boy's neck. "If you lack confidence the Black Market, then I must act in a way to restore it. I will act honorably this night. I, Muyamoto Hiro, executive of the Black Market, will hunt the Adversary." That said, he lifted his foot from the boy's neck and began to stride towards the door. The other four people in business suits followed him out.

_____Mr. Muyamoto and his other enforcers drove around, asked around, their car driving through the city night. And within exactly sixty minutes of this driving and questioning, they found it. Finding a ten-foot metal monster wasn't too hard after all. Its big left claw-hand glinted with the fluids of murdered cyborgs and the tip of its gun-arm glowed red from recent firing. The thing was stomping its way along a sidewalk on its thick metal hooves--electronic growling coming from the analog speakers high up in its chest.

_____The sleek dark car scraped to a halt in front of the Adversary, the rubber tires making a sound like a scream. All five of the enforcers stepped out of the car and onto the streetlamp-illuminated sidewalk, guns ready. Mr. Muyamoto had a thick blocky pistol in his left hand and blade in his right. He raised the blade, glinting in the light.

_____Swoo-sh… A mighty sweep of its massive left arm, extending its three-tined claw-hand, and one of the enforcers was killed in one blow, her expensively clad metal body landing on the other side of the street. Everyone else responded with gunfire--aiming for the jagged upper-part of the chunk armored body where the armor hadn't been closed up correctly.

_____They must have done some kind of damage. Some sparks sprayed out from where they had fired, along with a few palls of smoke. The Adversary grow-w-wled and shook. Still, it did not fall. It did not stop.

_____Moving unbelievably fast for something so huge, the Adversary then hopped forward and finished off the fight with just a few more sweeps of that mighty arm with the huge three-tined claw-hand. Its synthesized voice boomed from its speakers, growling and snarling like the beast it was as it slashed and slashed and…

_____Aikasa was so small and pretty, so glowingly beautiful with the spotlight shining on her white gown and the pale-blonde hair, her face full of peace and beauty. Her voice floated and filled the room wish such wonderful dreaminess. Everyone listened, feeling the bliss fill their ears and setting their spirits. Listening to her sing made everything seem okay.

Why…did…you go-o-o?

Why…did…you…turn…

…a-way from me?

Whe-e-en all the world

…seemed to sing

Why…! Why…did you go…?

Was it me?

Was it you?

Que-stions in a world of blue…

How can a heart

that's filled with love…

Start…to…cry?

Whe-e-e-n ALL the world

seemed so-o-o right

How…can…love…die?

Was it me?

Was it you?

Que-stions in a wo-o-rld of blue…

_____Back out here in the dark streets… When it was over, after the Adversary had went back down into the sewers and left destruction and death in its wake, a curious group came over to see the remains. They saw the bodies of defeated enforcers, lying still and sparking in the gloom of the city street and sidewalk. The people of this neighborhood said that the Black Market was full of weak cowards and bullies, a bunch of rich people using guns to keep everyone poor and humble. Though this act showed that the Black Market's enforcers were courageous and willing to fight, it was still true that they could not stop the Adversary. But, then again, who or what could stop the Adversary?

_____In the pub… They saw some tears come from the girl's big pretty eyes. Several wet drops slid down her smooth cheeks, dropping onto her red scarf. She had stopped singing for some seconds as the melody played. When she resumed, her voice was still smooth and beautiful, but full of deeper misery and sadness.

Whe-e-en DID the day

with a-a-all it's li-i-ight

…tu-u-urn in-to night?

When a-a-a-all the world

…seemed to-o-o sing!

WHY…? Why…did you go?

Was it me?

Was it you?

Que-stions in a wo-o-orld of blue

…Que-stions in a wo-o-orld of blue