Bubblegum Boy
Chapter Two

by Jared Ornstead
aka Skysaber

The amazing thing to him was how five ladies with identical
backgrounds, identical skills, and in identical circumstances could be
so different!
Nam had plunged herself into the stolen supplies and now she had a
collage of favorite hairsprays, scents, bathgells, shampoos and so on
that he couldn't even begin to keep track of. There was just this army
of bottles in the bathroom drawn up in ranks like soldiers whose faces
were the myriad different shapes and colors of bottles only Nam seemed
to understand. She always smelled nice, though, and Jared shared with
no one his secret guilt in sniffing her when he thought she wasn't
looking.
Meg, if she used scented soap it was always just a simple lilac.
She far preferred to be nose-deep in technical manuals or sweaty and
greasy as she crawled through the guts of some machine, learning them
inside and out. Already she'd rebuilt one of those space labor
powersuits four times! Not that he complained, he helped her as often
as he could. It was a fascinating subject to study and she was learning
all the time, which made her an excellent teacher as well.
If Meg liked machines, it was Anri who was nuts over their
computers. It was the sort of thing you'd expect to see in a hacker
movie, the combination of typing and souping up her chosen machine with
wires strewn all over the place and cables hanging over the backs of
chairs like a catch of exhausted octopi. But unlike the typical
stereotype of rumpled and frumpled, wrinkly and stinky hackers who've
had fewer nanoseconds of personal care than their CPUs had hours, she
always looked nice in a casual sort of way and smelled sweetly of
roses.
It was Lou and Sylvie that he spent most of his time with because
their interests were so close together they were able to practice them
with each other and the more the merrier. Lou's dancing practice
required exercise, space and stretches, while Sylvie was only concerned
with getting good workouts. So in that way they kind of teased each
other to do a little bit extra and Lou lifted weights she didn't need
to while Sylvie did leg lifts and pirouettes that weren't really her
idea of nice, clean strength training. She changed her mind swiftly
enough when it became clear how strong those dance steps got her
legs, and Lou quickly learned not to complain when she learned how to
incorporate arm strength into her dance routines.
Sylvie was also a quiet and demure adrenaline junky, which thing if
he hadn't seen personally he never could've believed. The girls all had
a "passionate under a quiet surface" air about their personalities, but
they all took it different ways. It was kind of like having a herd of
younger sisters, innocent about bunches of things, eager and energized
and about to explode off into hundreds of different directions at once
and trying to herd them so they didn't escape supervision entirely.
Jared was outnumbered five to one and he'd like to be implementing
his own plans instead of waiting for the sexaroids to grow up so he
could stop shotgunning them all against disaster. So whenever he could
he'd arranged group activities, but what was most wanted was a group
interest to keep them from blasting off every which way and being
lost to each other forever.

After the shuttle thefts it seemed wise to avoid space traffic for
a time, but he had arranged to steal a shipment of mining machinery on
its way to Indonesia from Germany. To their delighted surprise, on
board there was a Brum-Bar specialized tunnel boring machine that
weighed 300 tons, designed for creating underground paths for things
like mine shafts and subway tunnels. The thing was nuclear powered and
almost wholly automated (once Anri had a chance to reprogram the
computers, that is), so they'd set it up to be boring out an
underground, underwater base in the closest thing their underwater
range had to an island - which was a decent sized mount whose top was
broad and flat instead of pointy, so what could have been a good sized
surface territory was instead a huge mudflat in low tide and a
navigation hazard at high tide.
That kind of sea formation was so far worthless to man. You
couldn't live on it or farm it and it was dangerous to ships to be
around. That made it avoided and therefore private and therefore
perfect! Jared used the Synoptic Teacher to get some building and
planning courses, shared that with the girls via their programming
implants so he could get an extra set of opinions from different
viewpoints and share the workload, and between them they'd adapted some
already complex plans for base layout he supposedly had because in his
series he'd had to infiltrate those facilities.
Well, then he had to admire some of those villains' architects,
because some of those were sweet designs. They actually adapted two and
linked them. An ingenious military compound and an industrial site,
carving them into two different levels of the sea mount and adding some
features to adapt to the underwater environment, plus they had to add
bays to hide their stolen shuttles, transfer their cargo, and also
handle subs in the future because you'd really need to hide your
transportation if you wanted a base to stay secret. Parking on the lawn
just gives too much away.
And speaking of parking on the lawn, it gave them away.

They were all in the middle of a meal lovingly prepared by Nam,
just sitting down to talk about the day's issues, when a loud knocking
came three times upon the hull. It was scary to be interrupted
unexpectedly like that, and the more so because they were on the run
from the law and had thought themselves safely hidden away.
The knock repeated, a very deliberate, very measured, very human
knocking. Out in the water there was someone trying to get their
attention.
"Okay ladies," Jared nodded as the knocking continued, repeating
the third time. "You report to the weapon lockers and stay out of
sight. I'll go see who our guest is and what is it they want. I'll call
you if I need rescue or anything." They began scrambling to get to the
guns while he took a leisurely look around the breakfast he didn't get
to eat before sighing and heading to the nearest airlock.
Their nearest was actually their best, modified by Meg to work
underwater where most of their airlocks couldn't and didn't, space not
giving you the same difficulties in pumping something out to get the
air in. Readying himself for a dive, the redhaired superspy pressed the
cycle button to go out and see what they wanted, only to be caught by
surprise by the doors opening to reveal three men in dive suits
standing there dripping wet. The first took off his helmet, shaking his
hair out, and revealing a man who'd had a very expensive bio-sculpt,
plastic surgery that gave his head features of a German Sheppard. He
started their conversation complaining. "Took you long enough. Now what
is this emergency you'd been signaling about?"
Jared's chance for replying was taken away when a shrill voice
cried out from behind him. "THERE!" He whirled to see a disheveled
blonde he'd never seen before. She was stalking forward in a fine
temper, addressing the man who, by his markings, was the head of a
rescue team. "I want you to arrest this man at once! He's guilty of
piracy and kidnapping me, and..." she shook with outrage to the
ceiling. "He's not even noticed me!"
The rescue team had spearguns pointed at him now. Dog-face
addressed him. "I think you two had better come with us."
Jared sighed and nodded patiently, plotting contingencies as best
he may.

The dive team took them up, carrying the crying & near hysterical
woman in their dive-support rescue bag, while Jared (on a hunch) just
used his own abilities to the surprise of all. Thankfully, the
demonstration quieted his accuser and won him some respect from the
divers, who informed him that they were with the CEO of Green Corp on
her boat touring her company's fish farms in the area when they'd heard
a weak radio distress call under them and stopped to investigate.
So zero attention yet, beyond this small group. Jared was wishing
this event hadn't happened, but was already working out how to get out
of it with as much secrecy intact as possible. His group had way too
much equipment now to move it, and it was way too soon to be able to
hide it. So he was hoping to negotiate some kind of deal with these
people - a plan which miss damsel in distress was no doubt going to
complicate. After all, they would have remained a secret even now if
not for her.
They should have thought to check more thoroughly the shuttles and
ship they'd stolen. He thought they'd put everyone off. Obviously,
they hadn't. And he didn't feel like killing everyone here just to keep
a secret. It didn't rub him right.
So, preparing himself for the worst, they came up on the deck of
the cabin cruiser this lady CEO was on and Jared got up first, looking
around, only to stop dead cold once he saw who it was. "I know you..."
he said, confused, in full voice.
The lady CEO lay still on her beach chair sipping drinks while
wearing a fetching one piece swimsuit. Around her was a pool and
various things Jared didn't pay a moment of attention to at first,
concentrating as he was on her. Shaking himself out of confusion, he
put on his glasses for the Heads-Up-Display they offered, calling up
the lady's information at a glance.
"Yes," he continued. "Caroline Evers, also known as The Ripper,
competed with a fellow employee for promotion in 2022, lost when he
graphed her menstrual cycle against her productivity." By now people
from the divers rising up the ladder behind him to miss CEO herself
were sitting up to take notice, especially miss distressed blonde, but
Jared was too wrapped up to pause his narration of facts spreading
before his eyes.
"Humiliated, Evers removed all womanly functions, replacing her
womb and uterus with cybernetic parts. A driven woman, it took her
three more years to rise to the position of company president. In early
2027 the man who had beaten her out of that promotion came to her,
unemployed, begging for a job. Instead, she made him her husband."
The lady in question had slid off her chair and was rising to her
feet, staring at the red haired teen in shock. He continued on,
oblivious. "Tragedy struck when Caroline began to experience phantom
menstrual pains in her cybernetic parts. Attempting to stop them, she
had more and more of her body replaced, to the extent of: Major Organ
Replacement, four Boomerware Cyberlimbs with Realskin and two
Cyberoptics with nightvision, at minimum. At the same time, she
discovered that her husband was seeing a prostitute. Confronted, he
declared Caroline was not a real woman anymore. She murdered him, then
used corporate resources to cover it up. But she had gone over the
edge. Caroline began to experience blackouts, seizures, and periods of
murderous rage - all symptoms of cyber-psychosis. Afterward Caroline
would come to finding herself holding a bloody knife over the body of a
murdered prostitute. She tried to get help but the specialists she
consulted claimed her operation was too extensive to reverse. By that
time a joint ADP and Normal Police task force had tracked down "The
Ripper's" trail. Declared a "Boomeroid" under new legislation, Caroline
Evers was hunted down and destroyed by the ADP, terminated in 2027."
There passed a long second's worth of silence.
"But it's only 2026." The woman in question declared in a soft,
small voice.
Putting away his glasses, Jared declared with a sly grin. "Then I
would recommend you make some changes. No?"
She nodded, now appearing helpless and afraid, but firmed as she
asked the polite question. "Who are you?"
His grin blossomed. "I am Skysaber, Interdimensional Superspy
Adventurer."
"I thought you were a poser." One of the divers opined, no longer
sure of himself.
"He isn't."
The distressed blonde who'd surprised him by being on board their
sunken shuttle suddenly firmed, stepping clear of the divers who'd
rescued her to speak to the shaken CEO. "This man is the real
Skysaber!" She declared, pointing at Jared, then facing back to
Caroline Evers. "He first came to this world on a shuttle carrying five
sexaroids to my boss on Genaros 5, and he freed them and stole the
shuttle doing it. Then he stole two more shuttles carrying up parts,
and I happened to be on one of them. He used authentic tools from the
series, including a Nerd Toy, to cut down sixty-two security boomers
during launch when no one else could even move around!"
All eyes went to Jared, who shrugged. "It's a good time. No way
that one boomer could tell that another was dying. Makes a great series
of ambushes instead of having to fight all sixty as a coordinated
group."
There was another long moment of silence.
"So what are you doing here?" Another diver asked.
Again, a nonchalant shrug. "Saving the world from Genom. What
else would I be doing here?" The superspy stretched during his reply
in a way similar to Ranma. "But how would you guys know about me
anyway? What's all this talk of me being 'real' or 'poser'?"
"Because you're a major, animated series here." Caroline replied,
stunned he didn't know. "You've been the most popular thing for half a
century."
"Not again!" Jared's face dropped into his hands.
"Again?" The dog-headed diver queried in shock.
"Yah," the superspy complained, "this isn't the first time when
I've been assigned to a mission where the target world has been big
fans of my show. Now I've got to deal with people quoting all my
dialog, wearing Skysaber T-shirts, and knowing all about my toys. It's
embarrassing to be a superspy who hasn't got any secrets!!!" He shouted
toward the sky.
"It's not just that." Caroline took a bit of recovery out of
enjoying teasing him with this. "But just like "Dog-faced Doug" next to
you got a sculpt to match a horrid nickname, you've got fans who wear
your face and appearance by surgery. You've got entire poser-gangs who
match characters from your series walking the streets."
"Ooooh, nooo." The spy moaned, getting paler by the moment.
"Still think he's a poser." Said one of the divers.
"I don't!" The damsel they'd rescued insisted.
Jared shot her a glance out from under a haggard eyebrow. "I
thought you and I were at odds just a second ago. Why reveal where I'd
hidden my ships only to change sides now?"
She had the grace to look sheepish. "I'm sorry. All my life I've
been a fan, ever since I was a little girl. I even went into security
so I could like you and maybe have adventures like yours. Then you
first show up and I thought you were another 42-S sexaroid, only you
did in the boomer set to guard you. Then you did in all those guard
boomers for that secret cargo, but you didn't come to rescue ME!!!"
She shouted with hands at her hips clenched to fists.
Jared shrank back from her ire, to the laughs of the dive team.
"I was SOOO mad! So I called for a rescue on a portable radio while
sneaking around the backs of your friends down there. And THEN!" the
blonde went on. "You used your aquatic modifications when you didn't
even have to, and then you KNEW about this woman even though it's
obvious you never met her before! And you even knew the secrets of her
future! How could you be anyone else?"
"I'd like to know how to fake that myself." One of the divers
opined.
The damsel pouted. "About all I can be angry on now is that you
knew her and NOT me!"
Jared presented a hand to her for a shake. "Hi, my name's Jared
Saotome, only I go by Skysaber while I'm on duty. Pleased to meet you."
The lady took the hand, giving it a good couple of shakes. "Hello,
pleased to meet you. I'm Christina Erics. I hope we can be close
friends."
He nodded agreeably. "I'd like that, Miss Erics."
"Please, Christina's fine, or Tina."
"Tina, then."
"Can I call you Jay-chan?" Christina bubbled easily.
"Uhmm... I'll think about it." The redheaded celebrity edged away
nervously.
"Do you have any proof that you're the real deal? Besides her word
and that bunch of predictions, I mean?" The Green Corp CEO and mistress
of the boat had crossed her arms beneath her breasts and mustered
enough courage to ask.
"Sure." He tossed back. "What form would you like for it to take?"
The spy gave back cheerily.
The response cut off Caroline's objections, stilling them before
they could start. She could ask whatever she wanted, hmm? No way was
any stage magic going to manage a trick that wasn't prepared for, so
all she had to ask was something unpredictable.
"How about doubling my bank account?"
"Any hacker could do as well." He shot back, not turning from his
view of the sea as the sun made the waves sparkle. "Are you sure you'd
take that as proof?"
"Well, no." She reluctantly had to admit. She wouldn't. But it
still would've been nice. "How about some technology, then?"
"In what field?" He returned, still contemplating the ocean.
"Matter transportation!" The excited corporate president exulted.
Still standing twenty feet away, the superspy offered her back her
swimsuit. "Here, I know how much suntanning means to you, but please!
Some modesty in front of the men, if you don't mind."
Looking down at herself, Caroline shrieked. A lightning-snatch
towel-grab and wrap was done at sublight speed. Then, blushing, she
crossed the deck to reclaim her swimwear from his proffered hand.
The dive team sniggered under their breath, trying to hide it.
Caroline turned a frosty gaze upon them. "I think the nets for the
barracuda farm need checking. If you would be so kind?"
With a chorus of "Yes ma'am"s they were off back down to their
submersible launch. When they'd crossed the deck line and could no
longer see aboard, Caroline stepped back into her suit, pulling it up
around her legs and arranging herself into it before removing the
covering towel.
Jared was hiding a grin. Imagine Happosai's techniques turning out
useful! Who would have guessed? A panty-snatch maneuver done too fast
to see and his credibility was assured!
Tina was scowling at him, and whispered. "You could have done
something else."
"Jealous?" He thought to cut her off, diverting to denials.
"Yes. Steal mine, too." She presented her hips for the taking.
"Ack!" He shrank back behind upraised arms, planning escape routes.
Caroline laughed. "Okay, that settles it. You are the real
Skysaber!"

It would be months before enough of the tunneling was done on their
new base for any attempt to move in. The necessary mess of construction
combined with the need to remove rubble from the fresh tunnels ensured
they wouldn't be habitable until the diggings were virtually complete,
by which time they'd have exhausted the fresh air down there. So that
meant they were leaving until the boomer plus borer combination could
have things to where the breathing occupants could move in.
It wasn't going without difficulties, though.
"I saw Skysaber's goodies!!" Caroline cheered. "I saw them first!"
"No, you didn't!" Tina objected, tears glistening in her eyes. "I
saw them first!"
"I need to start bathing in swim trunks, or something." Jared
groused, strategically placed washcloth in hand as he reached for the
towel hanging just outside of reach.
Other girls crowded into the bathroom, staring at the CEO. "You saw
Skysaber naked?" "No Way!" "No fair!" "He's mine." "I want to see him,
too!" "Lemme in." "I wanna see!"
Sneaking quietly out of the press, Jared made his way out to the
cruiser's pool. Not the best place to wash the soap off, but better
than the sea. He was out there swimming (and suited), when the rest of
the crowd discerned his location and followed in a gorgeous panoply of
swimwear.
Jared got a nosebleed himself, just watching them come out. He
turned and dove to hide the reaction, swimming underwater until their
feet began to enter, followed by more interesting bits until he began
to judge that swimming on the surface was safer for the eyes.
He broke the air/water barrier he rejoined the conversation, which
had already meandered to other topics. Business topics, actually, and
Nam and Anri seemed quite interested as Caroline discussed her company.
Quite innocently, Jared began making suggestions.

Genom's orbital research facilities aboard the Genaros 5 were to
have been a thing of wonder. Horror, also, inevitably as anything they
created to go into use would serve their evil masters directly first
and foremost. But there are materials that can only be made under
orbital conditions, crystals that can only form in free-fall, etc. So
those secret facilities were to have been the very best.
It was also a project that executive assistant to the chairman
Brian J. Mason was having trouble calling off, though unfortunately for
him, he didn't know it. You see, the techs and scientists who were to
have used that facility were easy to reroute. They knew that to disobey
was death and that Genom could find them anywhere. But Genom's
engineers who had installed most of those secret laboratories had left,
and now many of them were dead. It fell to auxiliary resources to
remove the equipment, and in this case that meant an episode of space
boomers going 'rogue', as strangely seemed to happen whenever it would
serve Genom's interests for them to do so.
Unfortunately for Mason, three of the space boomers slated for this
task, all routine security types, had been knocked out by EMP grenades
earlier that week, and so were cold husks resting on a service shop's
table waiting for extensive repairs to reactivate them. They naturally
couldn't go rogue as they were powerless, although another two who had
also received those special instructions did, as they had not been at
the scene of the EMP grenades and still functioned.
Another element of that plan, Doberman boomers breaking lose and
going on long killing sprees, running amuck, and, incidentally
destroying all of that secret equipment in those hidden labs, never got
activated or set loose from their kennels as one of the 'rogue'
security boomers went nuts in an industrial area and was quickly
dispatched by a clever man at the controls of a crane, dropping the
berserk cyberdroid in a vat of acid before it could do any real harm.
The other was acting alone instead of as a widespread event and was
easily enough dispatched by lesser police boomers, who lost a mere
dozen of their number.
So while the boomer incident got reported, the rampage was actually
overstated by a station controller who thought this would shake out
some money from his boss's suddenly tight purse strings.
As a result Mason, who relied upon that report to confirm what he'd
already thought had gone on, found the wildly exaggerated tale of
bloodshed and destruction entirely in line with the situation as
planned and felt satisfied that the whole cleanup operation had gone
off without a hitch, taking no further action. He was already well
underway with plans to duplicate the secret facilities on board Genaros
3, and was deeply engrossed with plots on how to keep all these new
arrangements concealed even more deeply than the previous one. As far
as he was concerned, cleanup was over and his job now focused entirely
on making the next set of secrets harder to ferret out than the last,
because the last's only perceived fault was they believed that it had
been discovered.
And so, entirely functional secret labs on Genaros 5 fell off
anyone's scopes, into the depths of obscurity, as Genom proceeded to
pressure their puppet space corporation to cut off the station's
funding and shut it down so they could conceal their tracks better.

Well, there went one conventional idea.
In the company of Miss Caroline Evers, the group of free sexaroids
made land at one of the tiny islands in that area that Green Corp
maintained a local headquarters to monitor and maintain operations in
that area. Christina Erics made her goodbyes and went on to catch a
plane to a shuttle to where she could resume her duties on board
Genaros 5, but she promised to stay in touch. Jared, on the other
appendage, decided to introduce his girls to a hobby.
The idea had been to bring the girls in to an empty stage, advance
to the front rows whereupon the curtains would rise revealing brand new
band equipment. From there... well, that's as far as it went before
being derailed. It didn't go any farther into the "you be this, and you
be this..." because it swiftly became apparent that they each wanted to
be them all. So that's what they wanted, it's what they got. He set
down a rule that whichever one wrote the music got to pick their part
for that piece and that gave him a half dozen eager composers, each
with a different style and different tools they preferred, but since
each girl wanted to dance and sing, and play instrumental (often in
the same piece) he let them so long as they could make it work.
Which, it did. And it gave them some very highly unconventional
music that played a bit like a circus as far as juggling who did what
and at what moment, but it gave them the most original sound of the
century. Sounded great, too; and as there were so many writers
competing for which girl did it (and got to pick her roles) it crossed
a wide spectrum of tastes too. But they quickly learned enough writing
skill to be very cosmopolitan in their appeal, as otherwise they got
difficulties getting their friends with different tastes to play. So by
sheer happenstance they came across how to make a band which had all
the talents it needed to be the major thing on the music scene for
decades.
It was after that happened, of course, that it occurred to Jared
just how often music groups, even the best ones, broke up, and sent him
back to the drawing boards searching for a new way to hold the
interests of the girls together, as he was feeling it would be even
more tragic now if they all parted their separate ways.
The name of the band, naturally enough, was The Sexaroids, and
Jared was startled to find how often he was billed as a lead singer.
Well, they explained, he was one of their group and always had been and
there was no way he was getting out of this now! Not if they had
anything to say about it!
So he sang. And he played, and he danced, and discovered that he
quite enjoyed himself doing it. With a name and a tune they began
cutting chips to amuse themselves and keep the music flowing, correct
mistakes or just listen to while they played around other ways.
Then Caroline, who'd become their first and only fan listening to
their jam sessions, found a pile of performance chips unguarded and got
an idea. Green Corp bought an old media corporation and a distributor,
both going out of business because of pressure from Genom, and
reorganized the companies with a well aimed infusion of Green Corp's
wealth.
They released their first screaming hot hit days later.
The Sexaroids shot to the top of the charts and then nailed
themselves there as hit after hit began striking the shelves, only to
be torn off in buying frenzies by an ever growing base of
all-too-enamored fans. Posters, wall-scrolls, and other merchandise
followed with a steady flood of music, all reasonably priced and timed
to never wear out their customers so they would get a long burn instead
of a brief spark, making their group one on par with Elvis for
popularity, if not greater.
All without the band members themselves ever knowing. And, in fact,
the music was piling up because they were composing and performing it
faster than the media moguls judged their fans could afford to buy the
new stuff.
Caroline convinced the band to add special effects displays to
their art, with the dancing and the performing, and after a bit of
juggling Anri began to incorporate the stuff with their themes using a
specially programmed computer slaved to the score (so they didn't have
to give up one of their performers to operate it). That failed though,
as the computer just couldn't keep up.
So Anri, without consulting the others, dumped the core programming
of the spare Skysaber sexaroid they still had lying around their first
stolen shuttle, rebuilt its personality and gave it a duplicate of
their shared skill programs, named it Poindexter and activated it to be
their effects tech.
It wasn't days before Jared's effective twin was joining him in
duets for the song pieces, but the new Sexaroid was more shy and
retiring that the original and he made it clear that he preferred to be
kept backstage as much as possible, so that's where they left him much
of the time.
Caroline had stars sparkling in her eyes all this time and yen
signs floating around her face like bubbles as the group's music chips
and videos just kept climbing until they alone represented a great big
chunk of the entertainment business, with offers from every spot on the
globe competing to be higher on the priority tree for when the group
began to tour. And that had her biting her lower lip. For the group to
tour, she'd actually have to tell them they were a sensation, and their
popularity described in terms that would not offend them as they had
never, strictly, consented to be popular; and it was something of a
burden to bear.
Jared got off easy, as there were so many of him on the street
anyway, duplicates and posers, that he had anonymity after a fashion.
What was one more Skysaber among so many? Even if he dressed up in
costume, well, so did many of his posers. In fact his girls often
teased about getting him a ring, tattoo, or something distinctive so
they could actually recognize him without grilling one Skysaber after
another with personal questions. Of course, if he wore whatever it was
on stage, the instant that video hit the markets he'd be unrecognizable
again as poser after poser copied the device and marketing sold them in
stores.
If he hadn't led such a unique, standout life up to that point he
might have feared just becoming reduced to a clone. As it was, for a
time it was refreshing to blend in again, and he had plenty of alone
time with the girls as it was to feel unique again in a whole new
fashion.
All of which didn't solve Caroline's problem about how to get the
group on tour; or even tell them they were a group, which was the
sticky part. She was still pouring over the problem when Jared broke
the music routine for a time to get all his girls registered in Dive
School, on the twin theories that A- It would be useful, seeing as how
their coming secret base was all underwater to begin with, and B- That
shared skills and past were just the thing that might lead to useful
bonding experiences between them and thereby avert possible future
breakup of the group.
It had nothing to do with how he liked seeing them in swimsuits.
Really.

Christina Erics, known to Jared as Tina, arrived back on Genaros 5
to find a station in disarray. The station's progress toward completion
was halted first by parts delays caused by shuttle losses. But that
really wouldn't have put it off schedule too much, just delayed things
a bit and increased the cost. No, what was the stickler was that the
word had leaked down that funding was to be cut off completely and now
"rats leaving a sinking ship" would not be an unfair analogy.
Genom's best personnel, on board for hundreds of reasons, all
suddenly up and left overnight on special chartered shuttle flights.
That alone was enough to desperately scare everyone else into leaving
by the first available commercial routes.
Space was not like land, you didn't have the guarantee of food,
water, even breath. It was a necessity for anyone to survive working
there that they keep their eyes open. Caution wasn't just for security
types. A micro-leak could kill the highest chief executive if he wasn't
careful. Landlubbers could afford to shut their minds to anything too
unpleasant to acknowledge. Highriders got killed too easily to go
blundering about heedless of the risks.
And when the big office room types cut the funding, that mean that
shuttles stopped and air filters didn't get replacements and water and
food were no longer shipped, which all put together meant that whatever
wonder you'd built was just one great big orbital coffin. Anyone left
inside was dead, so go ahead and arrange the funeral.
What this meant of course was that the station was doomed and there
was nothing a security officer could do about it. Quickly evacuating
her things into the same shuttle to take her up, she proceeded again to
take it down, this time having to lock herself in the ladies rest room
and pull her feet up to hide in a stall during departure because all of
the seats down were sold well in advance of her flying up. Only by
pulling 'Security Business' was she even able to get her things on
board, and doing that at a cost of leaving one of Genom's mainframes
behind.
Out of a job, without a space station to be security officer for,
she resolved to go look up Skysaber again and see what he could offer.

The dive school he'd booked them in hadn't been an ordinary sort.
Jared's Synoptic Teacher was keyed to his unique mental
architecture. It couldn't work for anyone else (it was fussy that way);
as a security feature, it couldn't even be made to try. He'd had
enemies in his comic books who'd attempted to copy his advantage and so
cancel it out, either with their own equipment or capturing his.
None yet had succeeded in an attempt.
However that wasn't the only method or accelerated learning
technique available to the superspy. Using their own sexaroid program
implant/edit function to its best extent, armed with top-of-the-line
skill software bought on the open market (with some adaptations so
they'd be personalized according to their unique mental structures for
maximum benefit) he'd shared some additional programs among the girls.
Doing so he managed to give them slightly above what was normally
available via implant education to anyone but him; that skill level
normally associated with a competent but not especially gifted
professional.
This could be built upon, of course, as chip skills couldn't, but
not by a dive school for beginners or the less serious minded about
their sport. No, it took something really special. So, upon finding
that Green Corp maintained partial share in a dive school for the
corporate special forces equivalent of SEAL teams he'd immediately
signed them all up.
Six weeks of grueling work followed, dealing with everything a
normal diver didn't want to know. They blew up full pressure air tanks
above and below the water just to get a good idea what they were
avoiding. They swam long distances, bad conditions, and were in the
water practically every day. The days they weren't they spent learning
sub operation and maneuvering everything from fightersubs to old,
decommissioned ballistic missile subs bought when the US trimmed their
navy. As if that weren't enough they spent days learning every aspect
of submersible power armor, old clunky suits that felt like wearing
small cars but could handle depth pressure almost as well as the
submersible missile boats.
Their teachers taught them aquatic flora and fauna they could
survive on at skin diving depths or gather in the trenches while
working on a submarine bottomed out for repairs. They also learned
every aspect of repair that could be crammed into their heads in so
short a time. When their muscles ached from swimming they went to
classrooms or shops, hooked up to Scholar VR systems and learned while
their bodies lay in tanks healing. They learned maintenance, repair,
and jury rigging of devices they never knew existed until they had to
fix them. They also got the hands-on expertise of what things did and
why you wanted them working right, plus a few veterans tips on how to
tweak them.
It was probably the hardest thing they'd ever done. It was also a
blast and they learned so much going through it Sylvie and Nam wanted
to go again. While they worked to exhaustion, and sometimes beyond, it
was all fun work they way it was presented and the amount they picked
up was very gratifying both to them and their instructors.
It wasn't the military approach, but it would do.
They left as divers suited to just about any type of underwater
mission, but neither the best in the world or even close to it, merely
very solidly qualified. Experience would have to do the rest.
Tina graduated the same class they did, having arranged every
locker room 'accident' she could in six weeks of training. Jared was
beginning to wonder if his blush had become a permanent imprint
staining his cheeks ever more rosy.

Caroline was back now at the Japanese mainland, having duties to
the corporation she was president of. The music business they still
didn't know they were supplying had run through a shocking amount of
their material reserve, so when the sexaroids left the dive school it
was not to go back to the lonely island base they'd started at.
Caroline had arranged a corp transport to the world headquarters
building at MegaTokyo, and when they arrived the guy and five girls
found all their things waiting for them in a residence there.
Along with a first rate recording studio with Poindexter was
already there and tweaking. It had been his place in dive school that
Tina took over, as Poindexter was too sedentary to want to attend and
had given the opportunity to her.
Feeling vengeful, after all, all those glimpses of Tina trying to
seduce him via a living pornography show were because thisguy had
bowed out, Jared went ahead and signed him up for basic training with
the Israeli Special Forces.
Poindexter got him back by doing the same to Jared and the girls.
The Mossad came and picked them up for their tour of enlistment later
that same day.
Thankfully, Caroline was able to secure their release from Israeli
military service after only two months of active duty. But they now
could get by passably in Hebrew, as well as having stellar military
training, with live fire against terrorists and insurgents. Active duty
in Israel means active duty, and those two months gave the team as
much or more actual combat than 90% of the military forces in the
civilized world.
Oh, and of course Tina had found ways to give Jared peep shows he
didn't want and embarrassed him terribly. But that was to be expected
from her by now.
By the time they got back Caroline was pleading with them to go
back into music, which they did as they needed the relief, turning out
more music in a shorter time than they had ever done before, and of
slightly better quality too. The top-quality gear she'd gotten them had
something to do with it, but it was more the need for an emotional
release than anything.
Their fans were going nuts over the new music, but the performers
didn't know that.
After which, Meg played a prank of her own and signed them all up
for beautician school. And not just any old hairdressing institution
either, they got to learn massage and all the ordinary skills, plus
more weird and esoteric stuff. Poindexter feigned death until the
coroner came to take him away, then he bribed the driver to take him to
the airport home.
Once they got a postcard from the escaped convict of beauty school
Jared tried the same thing but got caught by the newly vigilant girls.
Which was a pity, because having finished the ordinary segments of
beauty training they got to be instructed as models, then stage
actresses and actor, then film (all of which was building on skills
already programmed into them by sharing Lou's original purpose), then
of course dance and singing and it was here that the bunch got revealed
to be that ultimately famous group: The Sexaroids.
Caroline whisked them out of there three minutes ahead of the film
and news trucks. They spent three hours trying to lose them in
MegaTokyo traffic, finally having to go to the airport and pretend to
take a plane to dodge all of the helicopters and cars that had joined
in the chase. After that, she made them agree to no more pranks of that
sort on each other.
But Jared had made to himself, during this encounter, a very
interesting observation. There were several times when they could lose
their pursuers only to regain them again because the reporters knew the
city better, or chances where they might've lost them if only he and
his friends had known the local terrain.
Since this was his life the superspy knew there would be running
chases in it, so the boy genius resolved to learn the layout of the
city as best he could to prepare for those oft-foreseen future
contingencies. For that future need he got the maps and city plans
arranged in chip form, downloaded them to his brain, then (because it
was obvious since the quake that things had changed) he went out to
gain some firsthand knowledge.
Of course, he hadn't reckoned on MegaTokyo on being quite such a
rough town.

When the owner of this club named his bar the Deathdance he didn't
know how right he would be. It was based in the top of an old,
pre-quake skyscraper stripped mostly to the frame by the catastrophe.
Fallen chucks of concrete and glass closed the streets to all sides of
it and formed a semi-lethal rock garden that customers in the repaired
penthouse dance hall and bar could look down on, seeing the people
below like rats in a maze.
The site was one of the most notorious gang hangouts in Megatokyo,
and worse, the bar was a well known place to find boostergangs - those
particular types of hoodlum fraternities whose members used any and
every means of enhancement they could lay hands on, legal or illegal.
Cybered and wired, half the boostergangs in the city congregated
there to boast of their past misdeeds, but they didn't come to dance
for the pleasure of it. Close to half the official challenge matches in
the city were fought in and amid the broken stones around the fallen
building, with the occasional spectator helped off the balcony to fall
screaming onto the jutting stones below. It was considered a bad night
when the body count was below twenty.
Jared's automap listed this as a department store in a prosperous
business district.
Naturally getting close dispelled that illusion and he pulled over
to update the map. Perhaps not the wisest choice. He groaned when
wind-blown litter by the side of the road concealed glass shards that
punctured his front tire.
"Great, now how am I to get out of here?" He groused, looking
around he could see no immediate signs of help. This wasn't exactly the
type of place where you could just call up Auto Club.
"Maybe the American Auto-Duelists Association." The redhaired boy
thought aloud. Nobody without plenty of arms and armor would venture
into this neighborhood, which got him to thinking about his own present
state of attire: riding suit and gloves, almost preppie.
This was not the sort of place to be on the casual end of almost
fashionable, not in California beach-dweller mode anyway. He'd need to
be Goth at least to fit in around here.
The redhead closed his eyes, silently counting to three. One...
Two... Three... Okay cue rough punks on a shakedown mission.
Right on the dot of his prediction a collection of street trash
separated from the shadows, stalking toward him with wide smiles and
evidence of weapons, a collection of clubs and chains for the most
part. "Hey pretty boy," their leader called out. "You got the time?"
Jared took off his bike helmet, using the opportunity to stylishly
toss his hair and simultaneously flash them an 'I have no fear' smile.
"Why, no." He generously disagreed. "What I do have is Mister Tommy
Gun!"
His left hand, concealed by the bike, had pulled out a Thompson
Submachine Gun which he then hosed across the walls and surfaces around
the gang, who disappeared into the cracks and shadows as fast as they
could dive.
The superspy snorted and drove off, holstering his weapon at the
same time pulling on his helmet as he drove with his knees. Shouts and
hoots of laughter came from the roof as the dance club spectators
witnessed the scene.
I'll drive on rims to get out of here. The superspy told himself,
accessing his map. Now, let's see. Where's a decent repair place?

At Raven's Garage his wheel was beyond salvageable. The rubber tire
had come off about a mile back, nearly causing him to spill, and he was
worried that any more motion and he'd lose the whole front assembly.
There wasn't alot of reputable business ventures this deep into
quake territory. This soon after the catastrophe there wasn't much yet
in the city, period. The redhead counted himself lucky to find this
one, and it was with a wry smile that he pulled into the open garage.
"Hey Doctor!" The superspy called out as he parked and yanked off
his helmet. "You do bike repairs here?"
"The depends on the customer." Doctor Raven came out of the back,
wiping his hands on a cloth. His formerly bored eyes widened as he saw
the classy getup and sad state of the cycle of his guest. "Oh? What
happened to you? Your type usually have enough to do up in the
renovated zones."
"I got lost." The redhead replied airily, making light of it, eyes
sparkling as he considered the figure before him.
The good doctor weighed him, evaluating the man so unafraid despite
the story his transportation told. "Hmm, maybe you'd like to come
inside? I can keep you out of sight while I put a new wheel on this.
Then directions to the safe parts of town."
"Both would be appreciated." Jared shone as he swung out of the
saddle. "How is Sylia bearing up, by the way?"
That earned him a piercing glance.
Jared lightly ignored the hostility, tugging off his gloves. "You
were friends with her father, weren't you?" He shrugged. "I'm nobody,
and I don't know her, but I heard what happened with her father and I
hate to see good people get down and out over stuff like that. It's bad
enough that it happens, it doesn't have to destroy those left by
collateral grief."
The old man just grunted his reply.
Jared moved merrily back to the vicinity of the garage's kitchen.

There were five Genaros stations, numbered for the Lagrange points
they occupied. The Lagrange points were calculated by a scientist of
the same name, as places in orbit around the Earth where gravity from
that planet, the sun and moon all canceled out, making them the most
stable points in the area. Anything put there tended to stay there,
which was not the case for most of space.
The Lagrange points 4 and 5, on either side of the moon, were
considered the best for material shipment, just because the way the
math worked fuel costs for moving cargoes to and fro between the Earth
and Moon used spiral patterns that only really made sense to the
chrome-domes who'd figured them. But since their math produced costs
well below all other methods, everybody used their patterns.
It was the slow-boat way to travel the distance, but it was cheap.
Point 1 was directly between the Earth and Moon, more towards the
moon's side of the scale than anything. For laser communication, or
anything traveling the direct route, this was the most important path
of all and the Genaros station there appropriately valuable.
Naturally Genom owned that one.
They owned 5 and 3 as well, all indirect and deniable. Genaros 5
because it was on the natural route for return to the Earth using those
inexpensive spiral routes, and anything that traveled the path could be
put at risk if the owners and operators of the station felt those
shipments needed to pay a tax or be subject to the station's guns.
That hadn't happened yet, but those in the know knew that it was
only a matter of time. You could ship anything you wanted to the moon,
but if you wanted to make a profit you had to ship something back, and
that's where Genaros 5 had fallen in Genom's plans. And with 5 to
control shipping, Genaros 1 would tax information by controlling most
of the communications exchange.
There were dozens of theories competing over how best to manage the
points and their stations. Transport, communications, infrastructure
and it all could be handled countless different ways using various
devices, procedures and technologies, it's just that Genom's own pet
plans always seemed to succeed, either through political or monetary
interests, or by the simple expedient of mysterious deaths among their
competitors.
Always a company to think ahead, they'd planned to wait til space
manufacture was commercially viable at last, then step in to make a
profit off of everyone else involved in it, and by exempting their own
cargoes, undercut everyone else's prices and so gradually corner the
whole space market. Genaros 3 only entered that plan because its point,
on the far side of the Earth from the Moon, made it the ideal deep
space research station, and one of the plum spots for later expansion
into the outer solar system.
Not that Chairman Quincy was particularly interested in space or
the solar system. But there was money to be made there and money he was
very interested in. It gave him all his other tools by which he was
fast becoming the undeclared ruler of the planet.

"Mason," groaned that almost painfully-base voice from Quincy's
chair. "What news do you have on the progress of the Utopia project?"
Mason smiled in that way of his that revealed he should never be
allowed near small children, and made you hope you never, ever had to
share the same toilet seat after him, because he'd probably leave
something sticky and foul on it. "Reconstruction of the facilities on
Genaros 3 is on schedule, with an additional 30% power available to the
testing areas over the original labs." What he failed to mention was
that testing facilities were also 20% smaller, as arranging secret
facilities aboard space stations was alot harder after major initial
construction work was completed. They'd had to order their puppet corp
to remodel half the central section in order to arrange these secret
labs as big as they did.
"And the size of the facility?" Quincy almost seemed to growl, but
he always sounded like that.
Drat! Mason gritted his teeth. More and more he was learning how to
conceal secret information on his projects from the chairman, but he
was not perfect yet. "The same, except the testing spaces, which are
20% smaller, sir." He didn't dare growl in frustration.
"That is unacceptable." Quincy scowled at him, steepling his
fingers. "Those spaces are the most critical part of the design. They
must be made full size. Arrange for it, Mason. I am depending on you.
Do not fail me in this. For those research labs to be of full use to me
they must handle the full range of products. They cannot do that if
they are unable to handle in house evaluations at an acceptable rate."
"Yes, sir." Mason growled, just a little bit, but he contained it
enough to sound okay. "That will be... difficult, sir. Those
installations track every centimeter. Getting sufficient space is
complicated."
"I leave it in your capable hands." The big boss, most powerful man
on the Earth, gloated in his almost froglike tones.

Christina Erics was nothing if not adaptable. When the space
development corp that ran Genaros 5 decided to shut that operation down
she'd applied to transfer, even though she really planned on seeing
what Skysaber was up to.
Dive school had been enlightening. She'd privately admit to herself
that she'd not been naked so much since birth. Then there came military
training and then beauty school and she had to admit she'd been
perfectly shameless.
All in a good cause, of course. Snaring Jared was an
interdimensional hobby if one read the comic books right. He'd even
confessed once, to the Magic Knights of Rayearth, that his self control
did have limits.
Christine was just doing what an attractive girl could to crest
those, of course.
Still, as attractive a hobby as it was, there were bills to pay. So
when the transfer came in approved she took the next shuttle up into
orbit, heading out for her station on the newly renovated Genaros 3,
whose last security chief had to retire over a scandal brought up when
he'd demanded too much in bribes to look the other way when Genom
started in on rebuilding the station the way they liked it.
An outraged husband vented the bribe-seeker out an airlock a week
before he was to go Earthside. Police boomers cleared the killer of
charges on the plea of temporary insanity over his finding the former
security chief with his wife.
Christina knew the last chief to be as celibate as a monk. She
doubted whether he'd slept with his own wife in the last ten years. But
killing to cover shady business deals was a standard practice in Genom
and all its subsidiaries. She'd mostly avoided it by pretending to
airheaded innocence whenever questionable subjects came up, coupled
with dogged work at maintaining respectable, if uninspired, standards
on regular issues.
This combination made her bland enough to be of use to Genom
without threatening any of their secrets. She suspected she'd only
risen as high as she had based on the fact that certain parties always
wanted her 'airheaded blindness' overlooking whatever projects were
secret this week, while efficiently keeping the regular peons in line.
As a result, she knew a great deal of what passed for secret in
Genom dealings, and it was bad enough to begin wondering, when she
caught their new plans for lab space on the already renovated station,
if she shouldn't lay plans to fake her own death. Get enough of a
settlement plus life insurance and adopt herself as an heir and she
could retire and not wonder any longer when Genom would finally decide
the airhead image was a fake and she knew too much to live. A change in
name, fake the age, alter some records and soon her life of intrigue
could be over.
Plus, she could be with Jay-chan.

In most cyberpunk worlds a chip rack is among the most useful bits
of cyberware a body could have. The ability to acquire competence in
virtually any field just by slotting a few chips was hard to equal. It
was superior, of course, to actually have those skills, 'cause then you
could improve upon them with experience, where chip software is always
the same.
Jared had an alternative in his Synoptic Teacher, which all it
really did was download those same, or very similar skill programs into
his grey matter instead of stored on opticals, but it also held
programs superior to most if not virtually all cyberworlds.
None could match his in versatility.
While waiting in the back of Raven's Garage he'd implanted the
appropriate cycle maintenance programs for this technology, and
immediately upon waking had learned how much more he'd preferred
hoverbikes. This stuff stank!
Then Doctor Raven came back, wiping his hands and asking for
payment on the replaced wheel and tire. Paying up with a tip, Jared
shrugged and saddling up, he roared off to continue his explorations.
Actually, after blowing away two more attempted muggings by fellow
bikers in the next three miles, he decided to call it a day.

"Sylia, someone on the street is asking about you. I ran into one
today. He knew I was connected with your father, in spite of all I'd
done to hide it." Raven's image flickering over the vidphone's screen
looked concerned.
Sylia Stingray, one of the most influential and wealthy sixteen
year olds in the city, if not the country, and certainly one of the
most intelligent, was wise enough to know a danger sign and heed it. "I
understand, Doctor. What do you recommend I do about it?"
"Those plans you've been talking to me about. Now might be the
right time to put some of them to use."
"I understand, Doctor. Thank you for the warning. I will begin
implementing the plans you're referring to at once."

The real difficulty to mowing down muggers was this was Japan.
People noticed things like high caliber hand weapons, were afraid, and
called the cops, Jared reflected as he gunned the throttle on his
motorbike, vaulting off a slope in the curb to sail across the hood of
the police car that had veered to a sudden stop in front of him, pulled
sideways to try and block his path.
The two police cycles on his taillight followed the maneuver, one
heavier than he landing on top of the cruiser's hood and leaving tire
marks as the cop raced off trying to catch their fleeing pursuit
victim.
Jared stood in his saddle, one foot hooked under the lip of the
bike's seat while the other stood on top of its side as he lay the
racer nearly flat to make a turn, accelerating up the incline of a
slope, onto a busy freeway, only to slice across four lanes of moving
traffic weaving in and out between cars passing at nearly right angles
to him to jump the barrier across and do the same to the four lanes of
traffic on the other side, speeding down their on ramp.
That would have lost 'em if not for the news helicopter that had
picked up following this chase scene and recorded that evasion in
loving detail. It wasn't often that MegaTokyo had a chase scene so
vivid they interrupted programming to broadcast it live, but Jared was
starring in one of them right now.
He'd lost the original chasers, but two more police bikes and a
four wheel interceptor arriving as backup to the first chase team
pulled onto his tail as he was hightailing it down a residential block.
Instantly the superspy pulled a wheelie into a side alley so narrow he
had to perform a handstand on his handlebars to avoid grinding off his
knees on the fences to either side.
Several expletives were said by cops as he raced down the narrow
walk threading a needle between low walls, bike still picking up speed
standing on its back tire and him balanced upside down on the
handlebars.
A major network picked up the news copter's feed at that point to
paint the gripping scene over their all-news channel.
Swinging out of the narrow alley and back onto his seat and both
tires, Jared put the bike through a 270-degree spin to change what
street he'd race up just as the cops angled to catch him at the other
one. Gunning the throttle once again, he stood the bike on its back
tire to race up a flight of steps instead of into the intersection
where two more police cruisers screeched to a blockade stop moments
later.
As good as he was, he was using up all his good luck and he knew it
as he lay the bike nearly flat in a side-stop as he slid under a
railing bar, into a park, and stood the cycle up without pausing, to
chase ducks and geese to flapping explosions in the air on either side
of him in a feathered wake behind him while racing for the other side.
But cops don't fight fair. One of their dispatch agents following
the chase had a frame from the newsfeed frozen, isolated an image,
enhanced it, from that found out the make of his motorbike, and from
there called the code room.
The engine of Jared's bike died as one of the chasing cruisers
broadcast a halt code built into the timing chips by the manufacturer
at the police's behest.
George Orwell strikes again. Jared thought bitterly as he saw his
window of escape close before him. Well, the bike was now so much
metal, and decelerating at that, so he ditched it, popping the pin off
a plasma grenade which he dropped in the gas tank as he jumped off the
traitorous bit of road machinery and into the brush.
That ought to burn the ID tags off of anything and everything they
might recover. Was his thought as he made his way in a low, fast stoop
back to the still disturbed duck pond, sliding in just moments before
police helicopters bathed the area in the white glare of searchlights.
The pond water was too muddy to do ought but reflect the light back at
them as they searched the bushes with lights so bright they made the
greenery transparent.
The crashed motorbike chose that moment to explode, fountaining
bits which would rain down over a wide enough radius to give the police
forensics labs fits trying to tell bike parts from beer tabs and other
litter.
Jared had not been idle all this time, arriving at his chosen
destination. Not the other side of the pond, those clever police
inspectors would surely walk the perimeter and find his wet trail and
resume the chase just concluded. No, he arrived at the pond's drain. It
was a simple thing. It was a stream fed pond so the exit had to have
the same capacity to flood as the water entering, controlled by the
same sort of hydraulic properties that kept a toilet bowl full most of
the time.
Cutting his way through the grating bars with his Nerd Toy, Jared
proceeded to swim downstream and underground to safety, exiting at a
corporate park's fountain a little over a hundred yards away.