LadyMouse

by Joel Lane

The year is 2083 and Disney has been under the thumb of the UTX megacorporation for ten years. Disasters have plagued the world and a group of unlikely heros lead by the Replicant Gadget Hackwrench might just save the world, though death surround them all

3. Silent Voices shouting in the Wind

Chapter 3: Silent Voices shouting in the Wind

Now:

Milo shrugged and sadly said, "I still haven't found out what we are involved in."

Tiffany got up and pulled the drapes shut to keep anyone from passing in the twilight from peeking in from seeing their peculiar house-guests.

She said, patting Gadget on the shoulder, "It's almost dinner-time, why don't you go and wash up? It's a miracle you are still alive after all that!"

Gadget leapt up and stretched and nodded. She had fallen quiet and moody after going over Two's death. She paused and looked at Milo. "You said, '...and some others' when the S.W.A.T. team came back after killing Two? Could Jerry have been among the group running up? Could you have inadvertently shot him there?"

Milo looked at his feet miserably and shrugged and then shook his head, saying, "I just don't know! I don't remember seeing him. He–could have been there. He WAS in UTX's pocket! My hands were shaking so much and I was so frightened....I can't say he wasn't. They were going to kill me. I–I didn't want to end up like Two did",Milo finished miserably.

She nodded and smiled gently at him and patted him on the shoulder and turned to go up-stairs. She was part way up when she said with a smile to Larry, "Hey, you guys EVER going to fix the first floor bathroom? It's been like that forever! I'm pretty good with my hands if you want me to take a crack at it!" Gadget smiled broadly at them and went upstairs to the bathroom.

Larry frown while he was having a deja vu. "She sounded just like Paula, then",he whispered to himself and rubbed his chin, and became lost in thought.

After a long moment, Larry said, "You could move the Air-car you two have into the garage to recharge. If it would fit? The garage was built to house a gas/electric Hummer and I hope your air-thing isn't any bigger."

Milo said quietly, "It's longer, I think. Just as wide as a Hummer, given the out-rigger engine pods. Let me ask you something, Larry. How does Gadget strike you? I mean..really?" Milo's odd-seeming question struck Larry strangely. He regarded Milo curiously.

"How do you mean that?" Larry was wondering what Milo was getting at.

Milo shrugged. "I ...don't really know. I know replicants. In the past three days of dealing with replicant problems and live brains and such....I can't tell the difference!"

Larry raised an eyebrow and asked, "What do you mean? You lost me."

"She is supposed to be different! She has a BRAIN. The replicants have Doorways-CPU wetware processors! She acts as real as Two did! Two was a machine, an android— a wetware non-bio-ware android! One and Three were at least Bio-Ware! Two didn't act like any 'machine' I had ever run into before."

Milo blinked back tears and said in a tight voice, breaking with emotion, "Last night I had nightmares about her being killed again. She gave herself to save my life. And I don't know if she lived! She certainly acted like she was alive!"

Gadget came back down the stairs with an odd look on her face. "Milo...I want you to look out the bathroom window for me and tell me what I'm looking at. If you aren't busy?"

Milo sniffled and stood up and smiled, "Sure! No problem!"

Larry said, "I'll go to check on Tiffany and see how dinner's going"

Gadget looked at him and smiled in a warm, friendly way and said brightly, "Gosh! Thank-you, Larry! Golly, you and Tiffany are good people. We...we don't want to put you out."

He smiled back and held up a hand. "It is no problem! We like the company. It's been like a tomb around here and this little piece of excitement is very welcome."

She chewed on her lower lip for a second and then nodded and started back up the stairs, saying, "Thank you! And be sure to thank her, Too!"

Milo threw in, saying, "Yeah, you guys are the best!"

Milo asked Gadget when they squeezed into the bathroom, upstairs, "What's up?"

She pointed out the window, into the waning light into Mrs Winslow's backyard and asked with a strange note in her voice, "Milo, what is that?"

He peered into the dim twilight at the far end of the old lady's yard at a tripod with pad on it. The pad had circles painted on it and an arrow protruded from the center of it.. He shrugged and said quizzically, "Is that it? It's an archery target! Have you never seen an archery target before?"

"No. I don't like that one! She should get rid of it" ,Gadget said in irritation.

He looked at her in surprise. "You need to get a grip. You have been...off since that old lady was came over here with her fake grand-daughter! Tell me what's eating you? Was it the fake grand-daughter? It gave ME the creeps."

She crossed her arms before her and rubbed her upper arms, looking very uncomfortable, and whispered, "Why did we come here? I know I picked this site off the map as a set-down site, but I felt drawn here. Just like a gosh-darn magnet to a piece of steel! I...don't know WHY though! That archery target gives me the creeps just like that old woman's voice."

She looked up at him and leaned forward and said softly, "Her voice gives me the shivers. I don't know why her voice makes me shake when I hear it. Have you have had the shivering shakes just from being near someone?"

He stared down at her concerned upturned face and moist lips , as her chest brushed his stomach. He shivered and almost fell into the bath-tub as he jerked back, exclaiming, "Whoa! Look at the time! We need to see if we are on the news!" He slid by her and practically ran down the stairs.

She looked after him blank surprise , putting her hands on her hips in confusion and exclaimed after him, "What's eating ME? What's eating YOU? Milo?"

She said in amazement, "I just can't understand humans!" She giggled and followed him downstairs, saying, "Oh, silly me! I am one ,too."

The plasma-screen was on and showing the national news when she came down the stairs. The usual stories of storms and Middle-East strife had the head-lines and the program progressed without comment until the header of 'Disney World Worker Shooting' came up.

Larry called to the kitchen to get his wife to come out.

The image of Milo Finch appeared on the screen while the news anchor appeared to one side of his image. She was a dark skinned woman, with long black hair and slanted almond-shaped eyes. She read off the news, "For the third day in a row, Florida state police and F.B.I. agents seek this man ,seen to your right, Milo Jason Finch, aged 25 for the murders of two of his co-workers at Walt Disney World. They were shot and killed by Mr. Finch in what appears to be a dispute over a 'Gadget Hackwench" replicant."

Gadget shouted at the PTV, "That's 'Hack-WRENCH!' Not WENCH! Gosh!"

She was shushed ,while the news-reader read on, "Apparently, he became obsessed with her and developed a fantasy involving the said replicant. When confronted by his co-workers, he grew hostile and confrontational. When he learned that one was to be returned to the Belize Replication Facility for servicing, he acquired a virus from the black-market and infected the other Gidget replicants...."

Gadget again,"That is GADGET! Not GIDGET! Golly!"

To which everyone else went, "Shhhhh!"

"....replicants at Walt Disney World with a homicidal urge worm, causing them to suffer from murderous cyber-psychotic episodes. Apparently four out of the five of those kind of replicants was affected . The only one not affected by the worm is the defective one he has with him, Unit Five of the five units that..."

Gadget again retorted, "FOUR! Ah for gosh sake!"

"...that the Disney company had in Walt Disney World at that time. Over fifteen deaths have been attributed to this worm and Milo Finch's actions. The Chinese Ambassador, Wu Ling involved the F.B.I. in this matter and moved that the circumstances involving the near drowning of her grand-son were of suspicious nature. On an ironic note, the Gidget Hackwench replicant...", She said as an image of Gadget appeared in Milo's spot, labeled 'Gidget'.

Gadget pulled her hair and went, "AAUUUUUUURRRRRGGHHH!"

Everyone else went loudly, 'SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

".....replicant saved the young boy's life, as we at CBS news reported on the 23rd of this month. Mister Maximilian Matamoros, owner of UTX International ,parent company of the Walt Disney Corporation, had the following things to say about this incident, in an excerpt from an exclusive '60 Minutes' interview with him to air this Sunday night at Seven o'clock American Central time on all of our CBS affiliates."

They crowded close to see this unexpected turn of events. Milo was riveted. He had seen 'Big Max' in a rock-star like haze before ,but now had a different perspective of him. The scene on PTV cut to Max's home on the southern coast of Mexico. As usual, Mister Matamoros was impeccably dressed in a dark blue silk shirt and khaki pants. The creases of his pants looked sharp enough to slit your wrists on, Milo observed. His black leather loafers were polished til they glowed.

Maximilian Matamoros was a late thirties in appearance with wavy hair and had a face so close to perfect, he could have any woman in the world. He often did in multiples, several times a night. He smiled sadly, playing the doting father for the cameras.

Gadget-Four said, "Wowee! Golly, he's dreamy!" She broke off as everyone stared at her in disbelief. She swallowed and continued, "For ...UH...a murderous, monstrous guy who wants to kill my friends and do heaven knows what to me!" She sank back into the sofa-cushions, blushing and wishing she could turn invisible.

Maximilian Matamoros crossed his right leg over his left and looked at the cameras, his dark eyes flashing with power. "My dear friends," he began as he always had, his cultured tones suave and witty, "WE have a problem. It is my fault for not catching it. United Techtronix International has millions of workers in tens of thousands of occupations world-wide. They are like family to me."

"It DOES aggrieve me when one of them slips up, or in this case, goes astray into the grips of madness! The poor boy lost his entire family to the plague and this apparently caused unhealthy fixation on things he worked with every day.

"The more human-like we make our machines, the more likely people respond to them as humans. Gadget-Four is a cartoon derived replicant of a hundred year old cartoon mouse-girl. Milo Finch is obviously unwell if he has determined the this 'mouse' loves him in turn."

Milo shouted, "WHAT?"

"SHHHHHHH!"

"It, in turn, has become delusional, but is probably harmless. To determine what he did to it, we at UTX need to have it returned to us as soon as possible, as SAFELY as possible. We will give a reward of one million dollars U.S currency as a fee to anyone returning our 'runaway robot' to us at UTX. If he still has it with him–it is obviously is not homicidal!

"He IS, given the large number of people he murdered at Walt Disney World! He needs to surrender now! Not later! My God! He must get help; he so desperately needs it now! After the plague, we all were scarred. Some more than others. I don't think he is evil...just lost in his own little world and can't get out.

"We need to help him, whether he knows it or not", came the compassionate sounding speech of Maximilian. Milo wanted to throw a shoe at the screen.

"Those were the words", continued the news reader,"...of Maximilian Matamoros, CEO of UTX International, Parent company of Walt Disney Corporation and ABC news. This is CBS News, and we'll be back in a moment with a retrospective look back to the year 2023 when the first Lunar colony was established and the plans from Earth's Isolated Colony about their sixtieth anniversary. We'll talk with Lunar President Mikhail Radenov on special hook-up and find out how difficult things have been there since the space-embargo of fifteen years ago!"

"We'll also ask Mister Radenov what plans the Lunar Republic has to deal with the close passage of the Galloway Comet, six months from now.

"First, this word from UTX-Pfizer Pharmaceuticals!"

Larry hit the mute button and sat back, slowly. He looked pityingly at Milo and Gadget, and said, "You two are screwed! If I hadn't heard your story when I had...I might not believe it at all, now. "

Gadget nodded, "Delusional, right. That—so-and-so! Gosh darn him to heck!"

Milo smiled at her and patted her knee. He then straightened up and snapped his fingers. "You know....what happened to Chase? They didn't mention her! OR Doctor Fairweather. Aren't I supposed to have kidnaped him?"

Gadget shook her head. "Milo–they didn't mention anyone by name, including Becky and your friend Ricky."

He nodded and sighed, "You're right. This is hopeless!"

Gadget frowned and clenched a fist in a gesture of defiance and said sharply, "NO! It is NOT hopeless! The truth will come out and wreck the plans of that man! Two and the others didn't die for nothing!"

She looked at Tiffany and Larry. "Do you have a vehicle?"

Tiffany looked at Larry. He shrugged , looked back at Gadget and said, "Follow me."

They went through the kitchen to the garage. Milo followed Gadget and asked, "Where are we going?"

She said with conviction, "To the truth!"

Larry turned on the light to show Milo and Gadget his old model Ford Desertstar SUV from the late 2020's with a retro-fitted electric motor. It was a flaked dark green , with one panel primer grey, and had seen better days. Larry fished out the key and Gadget walked around to the front of the car. She held up a hand and said, "This is good!"

There was a dark blue motor-cycle dating from the early 2060's under a sheet, sitting next to the SUV. Gadget looked longingly at it for a moment and turned her attention to the task at hand.

"I want you two to see something and tell me if I am delusional" ,she said and squatted in front of the front bumper. She reached under the car and lifted straight up using her legs. The large vehicle squeaked and groaned and the front lifted into the air.

Larry said , "Holly shit!"

The front of the massive vehicle raised slowly up, it's wheels leaving the ground, then dangled. She straightened her legs and gulped air and said, the strain barely sounding in her voice, "Im not through., yet!"

Gadget shifted and pulled up with her arms and lifted the front of the car up until she was fully extended with her hands over her head.

Milo said in awe, "WoooOOOO!"

Tiffany gasped out looking at the straining girl, "Holy mother of God! That is ....wow!"

Gadget gave it a little shove into the air and caught the car after it fell forward and down two feet with her crooked arms, then settled it back to the ground. She gave her arms a shake and sighed, breathing heavy and glistening with sweat. She looked at the Williams and shrugged.

"Well?"

Larry Williams said, "I'm convinced! How about you ,Diamond?"

Tiffany pushed at the car with all her weight, as if expecting it to float away. It didn't budge. She looked at her husband and nodded. "If this was delusional...We're all gay as a tree full of nitrous oxide snorting monkeys!"

Milo laughed and said, "I'll have to remember that one!"

Gadget smiled and said, "NOW I really need to wash for supper! ICK, you should vacuum the underside of your car!"

Larry patted her on the head and tossed her a rag to her to wipe off on and said smartly, "It's on my short 'to-do' list, after I rotate the house with MY Herculean strength."

Gadget looked abashed and said quietly, "I wasn't showing off! I had to PROVE the truth the quickest way possible with the least amount of doubt! My increased strength is all I have to convince you with. "

Milo looked wide-eyed at Gadget-Four and said admiringly, "Wow! I mean WOW! Holy crap, I knew you were strong...really strong....but I had no idea that you were THAT strong! No replicant is that strong! THEY are stronger than cyborgs! Jesus! No wonder you kicked Ramos' ass! He was just a six foot four inch muscle-bound Cyborg! No wonder you have so much body-power! Your actuators have to be brand new technology! I have never seen ANYTHING like them! I'd love to take them apart and see what makes them tick. No WONDER Ole' Maxxy wants you back. You must be chock full of secret technology! You must be some kind of test-bed for.."

Gadget finished wiping off her hands as her ears folded flat to her head and threw the rag at Milo angrily. "FINE! You do that! I thought you might like me, but you are not looking at me as a woman, NOT EVEN AS A PERSON! You've been looking at me like your NEW STEREO SYSTEM! You don't like anyone but yourself! You want to know WHY? You are so FULL OF YOURSELF, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR ANYONE ELSE!!" She ended up jabbing him very hard in the chest with her finger, while her tail lashed back and forth like a whip and shouting at the top of her lungs.

She stomped past him while he rubbed his aching chest and wondered what he said to make her so angry. When she walked past, her tail lashed across his knees like a black-jack. He jumped back, howling, "Owwwwwwwwwwwwww!" He grabbed his knees and cursed them now they were black and blue as his face turned red.

Gadget stamped into the kitchen her own face red, her fists clenched and blowing hard. Her stomach growled as Tiffany dished out pot-roast from the crock-pot. Gadget-Four glared at her belly and growled back at it, "Traitor! Shut up."

She looked at Tiffany with bright, wet eyes and said in a tight voice, "I'm going to my room. I-I don't feel like eating. I hate him!" Her voice broke on the last word and she ran crying out of the kitchen and pelted up the stairs. A moment later came a door-slam that shook the building.

A moment later, Milo came limping through, holding his knees. "Four! Gadget! Wait!"

Tiffany put a hand on Milo's arm and shook her head. "Let her be, Lad! She has a real head of steam built up and to talk to her now without letting her cool off, would be to put out fire with gasoline. You don't want her to belt you with a car do you?"

Milo bit out angrily, "What is that 'Hack-wench' bent about this time? God! I don't understand women! Even 'mouse-women'."

Tiffany sighed. It was going to be a long night.

Larry walked by the moaning Milo and slapped him on the back and said, "The news got that part wrong ,too. About you two getting along so famously and you know, being so... chummy. That probably wasn't even Matamoros, either. It was probably just a hand-puppet."

"Mmm, pot-roast! My favorite. Thanks, Diamond. Oh...you might want to get Milo here some ice for his knees", Larry said good-naturedly, and wandered into the dining room.

Tiffany looked at him disapprovingly and said reproachfully, "Milo–for such a smart boy, that was certainly an idiotic thing to say. You need to take other people's feelings into consideration! My goodness, you forget she is a young woman in that mousy looking exterior" ,Tiffany said simply. "Now go sit down at the table and I'll bring you some pot-roast and then some ice for your knees."

Milo went and sat down in a state of bruised ego and flesh. He had lost his appetite after that interchange of anger. In truth he wasn't sure which stung more–her words, which had cut him to the quick...or Gadget's swinging lash-of-a-tail. "I thought I was complimenting her, and I just said something stupid. I'm lousy with words. My Aunt Helen raised my sister and I. She had to work all the time and I was alone with the computers and robots all the time. I don't know how to talk with ...well...normal people."

Tiffany and Larry laughed in sympathy. Tiffany wiped tears from her eyes and said in amusement, "Oh! That's what your problem is! Laddy, there NO normal people! Anywhere, at anytime in the history of the world. There are no normal people anymore than there are unicorns!"

"How about those genetically engineered unicorns that Rover Genetics came out with a couple of years ago? They are real and have larger brains than regular horses and are gentler, too...from what I hear." Larry's interruption was greeted with a rolling-eyed frown.

"Larry! SHADDUP! Lordy—see? He's abnormal, too." She grinned at her husband and wrinkled her nose in amusement.

Larry said with an expectant look at Milo, "More to the point, even if you were an EXPERT at 'normal' people....'mighty-mouse-girl' is NOT a normal woman!" Larry talked around a mouthful of pot-roast and nodded to his wife, "It's good! Thanks, honey. It is my favorite."

Later, Gadget came timidly back downstairs and came up to the table. She glanced at Tiffany and Larry, making a point NOT to see Milo, as if he turned invisible. She cleared her throat and said in a quavering voice, "I'm sorry for getting so angry. I–I am not angry with you or you...just with Milo. I don't want to be alone. I'm very hungry. I–I'm not a threat. I don't want to leave the impression of being super-strong and out of control. I feel sick from getting so angry."

She interlaced her fingers and wrung them in misery, looking completely abject in her statements and thoroughly miserable.

Milo whispered quietly, "I'm so sorry for treating you like a 'something'! You are a real person." Louder , he said, "I am so sorry. Please forgive me. Next time, just knock me in the head just hard enough to get my attention." He smiled hopefully at her.

She dropped her hands by her sides and glanced at him then looked away. She paused and then looked back and gave him a little smile and a nod and said, "Alright. I forgive you. Don't do it again, please! I dislike feeling angry. It makes me nauseous. I really hate feeling hungry and nauseous."

The IBM Caretaker robot came into the living room and asked in a flat voice, "How may I be of service? Is it time to clean the kitchen, now?"

Tiffany waved a hand at it and said, "That's fine ,Bell. Please do the dishes and mop the kitchen."

It nodded and said, "Thank you, madam. I'll get right on it."

It walked across the room and entered the kitchen while Tiffany filled up a plate with food for Gadget. Gadget looked at Milo and back to Tiffany. "Bell? Like 'Alexander Graham...?"

Tiffany laughed and said slyly, "The telephone guy? Akk! Heavens no! Bellerophon. After Alexander the great's horse. I had to name it something! I wanted something unique."

She looked curiously at her while filling up Gadget's glass with Diet Pepsi and asked her, "So, Gadget–what do want to do?"

She sat down and paused before eating and looked thoughtful. "I can work on the car. I have complete tool use specifications and have knowledge of mechanics. I don't want to be a drain on your resources"

Tiffany blinked and laughed. "NO. I mean with your life? Assume we get this mess straightened out tomorrow—what do you want to do with your life?"

Milo perked up at that question. Gadget chewed for a while and looked thoughtful. She blinked and said, "Go back to work, doing what I was doing at Disney World, why?"

Milo choked on his milk and Larry stopped eating and looked hard at her. Tiffany looked at her wide-eyed and blinked speechlessly. Gadget kept eating for several seconds and looked around in confusion. She tore apart a roll and put it down.

"What's wrong with that? I guess I could get a job at McDonald's, but I wouldn't like it as much as what I did before. I was happy there, though...", her voice choked up with emotion as she continued, " of course everyone else is gone. I would be so lonely without Two and One. I'd miss Three a lot, too. She never talked a lot, but she had loads of affection. I don't miss Five, she was a spy, that's why we didn't teach her 'squeak-mail'..."

"WHAT!?" Milo was on his feet, looking at her agog. "What's that about her being a spy?"

Gadget went back to eating and shrugged, "Sure! Didn't you already figure that out?"

Milo shook his head in amazement. "Who was she spying on and for? How did you know?"

"Spying on me for Jerry and Doctor Fairweather, I think. I never found out. Five died before I found out. I know she was programmed to keep track of me and things I was doing and to protect me if needed. Two and One kept an eye on her for me. Three didn't like her at all, but we were ready to accept her as one of us. If you hadn't freed us from program driven restraints and goals...when during the shooting, she'd have saved me and you, Milo, would have died!"

She looked thoughtful and added, " I guess the key for us...I mean for One, Two, Three and myself, was my human brain", Gadget-Four broke off to eat some more and reflect.

Milo prodded her with a question, "Key? How do you mean?"

She shrugged and said, "I had veto power in the link. I could control what was permitted to pass into the memories of Five. I was comfortable with One and Two having full access. Three was so brightly emotional and had program conflicts, it was dizzying to link to her. She felt about things stronger than me. Did she have a human brain, too?"

Milo shook his head. "No. She had a standard mark 22 wetware processor, with the standard package of programs and features. Yours was the only odd one out of the whole lot. I examined everyone's 'brains' save yours. Other than Jerry Reynolds, only Doctor Fairweather was allowed to examine your processor. I figured it was some experimental wetware that only Jerry and Dr. Fairweather were cleared to deal with. It never occurred to me that you could have a human brain."

Milo paused and looked disgusted. He threw his napkin into his plate and flinched from the pain the sudden movement caused his knees. "I don't understand it! Jules Fairweather struck me as a kind, decent, moral man! Jerry–I would expect this from him. He'd sell his mother for a dollar!"

Gadget shook her head. "No, he wouldn't! His mother is in a UTX medical-care facility for Lefrene's Syndrome. That is why he spies on Doctor Fairweather for Mister Matamoros, to get his mother free medical care! 'Only the best for his mother!' "

Milo groaned and put his head in his hands and said miserably, "Oh my GOD!" He stood up and glared at Gadget-Four and said sternly, "Didn't you think ANY of this was important? About who was spying on WHO?"

Gadget flinched and then defiant. "Mmmm, no? I didn't think it was important. Golly...why is it important?" Gadget looked lost. "People spy on each other all the time, right?"

Larry said in amused derision, "Apparently in the Walt Disney World Technical sector! My god, more per capita spying than in cold-war Berlin, at least if you believe the old movies."

Milo said desolately, "I don't know who to believe anymore."

Tiffany pointed at Gadget-Four and said quietly, "Her, I think. I don't know what it is about her that seems so familiar to me, but I am a good judge of people!"

"Married me, didn't you?" Larry interjected, to Tiffany's amused irritation.

"...Even though I have my lapses, I'd trust this girl with my life. She reminds me of my daughter, Paula, dead in the ground these fifteen years. Maybe dead. I'm not so sure, now" She gave Milo a piercing stare and said quietly, "If there is ANY possibility that my daughter, Paula's, brain is in a robot, replicant or what-have-you in UTX control? I'd want to know."

"Damn straight! " Larry said with some passion. "Our little girl was a doctor, married to Martha Winslowe's son. She was a brilliant light in the darkness of the world, and since she died...a piece of our world is a darker place", Larry said, his eyes growing bright.

"Milo, you look at me", Tiffany commanded, "Is there the SLIGHTEST chance of some part of our daughter is surviving someplace in an UTX robot or replicant?"

Milo felt heartsick as he tried to formulate what he wanted to say.

He dropped his head and dumbly nodded.

Gadget suddenly spoke up in an unrecognizable voice which asked quietly, "She could have been an Olympic caliber archer, if she hadn't gone into medicine?"

Larry jumped up so quick, the chair flipped over and broke a vase on the end table.

Tiffany stared at Gadget in horror, with tears starting down her cheeks. "We never told anyone that!" Tiffany exclaimed it in a hoarse whisper, and stared, riveted at Gadget.

Milo was on his feet, and watched numbly as Gadget went over to one side of the stair-way as if she were sleep-walking, and pressed on the wall-panel in the wall under the stairs. It sprung open to reveal a small space filled with trophies, and a life-times paraphernalia.

"Oh My God! Only Paula, myself and Larry knew where her secret stash was located at! You–Are you...our...",Tiffany sobbed as Gadget leaned into the cupboard under the stairs and reached to the left and pulled out a dusty envelope.

Gadget Four turned with eyes filled with tears and presented the dusty envelope to Tiffany. In a hollow voice, strangling with emotion, Gadget said, "She wanted you to have this if anything happened to her. It's like a...memory of a memory. A silent voice shouting in the wind of memory, that I can barely hear now."

Tiffany grabbed Gadget by the shoulders and shook her gently as if to wake her and whispered, "ARE you our daughter, Paula?"

Gadget whispered, "No. I remember her, somehow. I know you two –as if described lovingly by a dear friend....as if looking at photos from the Link. The LINK...I KNEW her."

Milo said it without thinking. It just sort of slipped out .

"Two! Could it be possible? How is it possible? Two was an archer and had doctor-skills! She had skills that weren't programmed in!"

Larry grabbed Milo by the shirt front and shouted, "How is this possible?"

"It ISN'T Possible! PERIOD! Two was inorganic! She had an inorganic wetware Doorways-CPU in an inorganic body! She didn't eat and couldn't heal! She was a replicated android, she wasn't even a replicant! She was NOT bio-ware! Two was special...but NOT alive! I wasn't thinking! Get off me!"

Gadget looked at them all in confusion and said tearfully, "I knew where her will was. Where her secret place was. How could I have known? Paula was—had to be...unit Two. I don't know how. Looking at the link-logs...I thought it was just false data....like dreams. I never gave them any thought. That is what the program filter is for, to filter out corrupt or false data."

Larry let go of Milo's shirt and wept. Tiffany asked, "Who are you, then?"

"Hi, I'm Gadget Hackwrench–Oh you already know that! Sorry, reflex. That is all the answer I have. That's not much help, I guess. I–I'm so sorry!" Gadget dropped her head and sobbed. Tiffany held her and wept again for the second death of a daughter, thought already dead.

Larry said, with tears in his eyes, "I'll kill that Matamoros bastard for this. That bastard! These are crimes against humanity!"

Milo said simply, "It's just not possible for Two to be your daughter. I don't know what was done. I don't have a clue how they did it. Maybe they did a near-death engram of her brain and transferred it into Two's brain, somehow. BUT why?"

Larry went over and up righted his chair and said softly, "Ramos was right about that. 'Bad publicity for the COMPANY!?' My god—this news could wreck the whole world if it got out! Where would you start with this?"

Gadget tearfully said with determination, "With more information! I need to forge the first link with MY past. I'm calling Miriam Hackensack and find out about her next of kin!"

"I'm not YOUR daughter, but I must be someone's! Maybe ...maybe Miriam Hackensack's daughter", Gadget said hopefully. "I hope it's not a case of 'silent voices shouting in the wind' and I'm just remembering someone else's memories. Tiffany, you and Larry here feel comfortable to me, but...Miriam scares me. I don't know why."

Milo shrugged and said thoughtfully, "Maybe it's some kind of aversion reflex built in to keep you from getting to close to the truth. The more immediate the relation, the greater the aversion?"

"It makes sense to make the center of the lie, adverse to the truth", said Tiffany looking intensely thoughtful. "It must have a limit, though."

Milo nodded and spoke with enthusiasm, "It has to! Gadget was weirded out by the archery target and the sound of Mrs. Winslow! Survival mandated close proximity to you two, and must have over-rode it.. It must be subliminally averting toward the target people, and once a certain numeric target is reached , the program must disable."

Larry said, "Milo, you are thinking to much! You disabled the programed drives....including the aversion reflex?"

"Trained reflex?" Gadget looked quizzically.

Milo went over and asked, "We never got around to asking this in Walt Disney World! Gadget...when you met Mrs. Miriam Hackensack, how did you feel?"

"Like I would die. I didn't want to run away. I'm--Gadget is a curious person, and I kept that in character and reacted with pure curiosity. It took everything I had to talk to her. That...that is why I overreacted to that man. I was trying to leave and he grabbed me. I was ...well...mortified, when she stood up and defended me to him. I was seething when he spoke to her. I lashed out to protect her and had to pull back! I couldn't NOT hit him! I made my excuses and ran like heck! Golly, I went and threw up!" She wiped her forehead and looked upset.

"That's what I was doing when I ran into Two and One. They helped talk me down from the ...the ...RAGE that had me in it's grip. I had to protect her from that man. From some man? I'm still confused by it."

Tiffany snapped her fingers and shouted, "Voila ! Milo! The passwords that Doctor Fairweather left you! One might unlock her memory!"

Milo went, "Damn! That's a good idea! She was mind-wiped several times...IF it is password protected data, it might be accessed by one of them!"

Larry smiled at his wife and hugged her. He whispered to her, "I knew you were more than just a pretty face and great pair of legs!"

Tiffany giggled and hugged him back.

Milo read off every one of the passwords he knew from the list of pass-codes that Jules Fairweather left him. Nothing happened.

Gadget sagged in disappointment and Milo, not knowing what else to do, hugged her. She was short, but smelled like a young woman and was very warm and soft in all the right places. He let go of her to quickly, before he had an embarrassing physical reaction to her femaleness.

She looked at him curiously in that awkward moment. Milo cleared his throat, put his hands into his pockets and turned away.

Larry said offhandedly, "You know...they have to have surveillance on her phone, on her house, too. Miriam Hackensack, I mean! The satellite-cell phone may not be traceable, but everything you say to her will be seen by them. You know...as a cop, I used to run surveillance. I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve. First thing–we have to recharge your Air-car and quickly!"

Milo nodded and patted Gadget on the shoulder and said, "I'll go get it. I'll be right back!"

He seemed overly eager to get away from her. She noticed that one thing more than anything else...and it hurt her deeply. She fought off the urge to throw herself on the sofa and bawl her eyes out.

Larry said, "I'll move the SUV and Tiffany, you grab Paula's motorcycle and we'll move them into the back yard!"

Gadget asked tremulously , "What do you want me to do?"

Larry pointed at her and said sternly, "Stay out of sight!"

Gadget looked down and clasped her hands on her belt-buckle and said, "Right."

It was several minutes later that Milo returned with the Boeing air vehicle. Milo landed it before the garage with a gale of swirling leaves and a loud whine of sound. Milo drove it into the garage on it's small ground wheels and parked it before the recharge station.

Milo waved Gadget over after he turned the lights off. She came over and got the recharge paddle and slipped it into the front of the vehicle. He called to her, "We have a message on the phone!"

She slipped into the passenger seat and leaned over to see, while Milo hit the playback button. The face of large chipmunk with a red nose filled the screen. Dale announced happily, "Found them! They are mostly alive and intact. We don't have much time to talk! Chase found out that human engrams are encoded on the support thingees. We learned Widget is really USMC First Lieutenant Leslie Watts and that Fidget knows an alien language..."

In the background of the call, they could hear Neko-Ney scream, "They're coming through the WALLS!"

The phone was knocked over as wallboard exploded on to the pick-up, leaving it mostly dark, save for one patch where running feet passed by the lens. The call erupted in auto-fire and the phone went blank and the phone disconnected.

Milo gasped, "Oh my God."

Gadget looked stricken and grabbed Milo by the arm. "We have to save them!"

Milo put a hand on hers and looked into her huge tragic blue eyes and said softly in sad tones, "Walt Disney World is HUGE! Do you know where they were?"

She dropped her head and shook it.

Tiffany, who watched from over Gadget's shoulder, said sympathetically, "We just have to pray that your friends are all right! Who is Widget and Fidget?"

Gadget sniffled piteously, putting the shaking fingers of one hand to her forehead and whispered out, "I don't....I don't know. USMC? Alien Language...that sounds familiar but I don't remember it. Pray? I never prayed before. Does it help?"

"It helps more than fretting and worrying does. Having faith in something is what makes us human. You need to learn that all over again. I'll teach you, if you'll allow it?"

Gadget blinked back tears and hugged Tiffany.

Larry said, "No matter about the message. We can't help or change what happened with them! Period! We need to hook up Miriam Hackensack with our Gadget before it's to late, and see what sparks fly. I have a plan!"

Then:

One shouted , "I have a plan!" She turned and fired a burst at their pursuers. She said urgently, "Take the next right! Right ,right!" The breeze-way turned right and continued ahead Chase in the lead, turned right followed close on her heels by Neko-Ney carrying Three, and then bringing up the rear, Unit One.

After twenty feet, Chase came to a vent and a left turn. She called behind her, "Which way?"

One shouted, "Kick it out!"

Chase kicked out the vent cover and started out, only to be grabbed back by One. One whispered tersely in Chase's ear with her mouth right to the ear, "Take the left as quietly as you can and then the next right. Quick now! "

Chase went left and felt her way to the next right. That went another fifty feet and turned left in a curve for another ten feet, ending in a vent cover. Unit One squeezed by her and pulled it free and slid it into the breeze-way beside them. Chase looked out and gasped. She looked down a lit shaft, ten feet across and over a hundred feet deep. Her heart leapt into her throat looking at the drop. The wind from the shaft was very strong, pushing them back the way they came. Down at the bottom of the shaft was a huge turbine blowing air straight up the shaft at them like a vertical wind tunnel.

Unit One squinted and pointed down at a door about seventy feet down the shaft. She shouted into Chase's ear over the loud roar, "There! That green door! We go down!"

Chase was uncomfortable with heights and the thought of climbing down that shaft petrified her. Neko-Ney and Three pressed past them and Neko-Ney simply leapt out into the shaft with just a look and grabbed the ladder-rungs and scrambled down, while Three held onto to her like a baby spider monkey holding on to her mother.

Unit One looked irritated with Chase and pulled on her arm, then with folded ears, leapt to the ladder and started down. She paused at the bottom next to the heavy sliding door that Neko-Ney and Three had just went through and looked up at Chase through her goggles. Her long blonde hair swirled around her head as she glared up at the terrified girl. She gestured for Chase to follow her. Chase shook her head and snuck back to the last bend and looked around it.

The S.W.A.T. point-man was fifty foot down the vent-way from Chase when she poked her head around the corner and was blinded by his flashlight-beam.

He shouted as she pulled back, "This is Peterson! I SEE ONE! They must have doubled back! Where's my back-up?" She didn't realize he was just covering this opening and the other team-members were about a hundred feet away, fooled by One's ploy of the kicked off cover. They swarmed through the food warehouse looking for the rogue replicants. They reformed up and started up back into the vents to aid their guard.

He fired a 22mm concussion grenade from his rifle at her to stun or incapacitate her. She ran full out toward the ladder, as the grenade skittered around the curve and exploded on the floor behind her . The explosion stunned her and blew her into the vertical shaft. She ricocheted off the far wall and dropped by Unit One on the ladder next to the armored door. Unit One held the ladder with her tail and left hand and lunged for Chase with all her strength with her right hand.

She just brushed Chase's shirt as she fell by, out of reach. Unit One yanked back and closed her eyes against the horror of what would happen. Chase screamed and screamed for a long time. This struck Unit One wrong and she blinked in shock, seeing Chase floating over the turbine, like a ping-pong ball floating in the air-stream of a blow-drier! Unit One knew now that she had moments instead of fractions of a second to act.

She pulled herself down the ladder, as Chase flailed about helplessly, while bobbing up and down wildly. Unit One weighed in at strong 130 pounds of muscle and resisted being blown up the shaft, barely. Chase was a spindly 110 pounds spread over a five foot two inch frame. If the power surged, Chase would probably shoot back up the shaft. Gadget-One came level of her and wrapped her tail around the ladder-upright , hooked one of her feet in one of the rungs and extended toward Chase. Chase finally regained her bearings and reached for One's hand as gun-fire erupted in the shaft.

Unit One got hit in the shoulder, and cried out in shock, flinching as Chase rotated on her axis and looked back up the shaft. Up the shaft where Chase has been flung out into space at, was S.W.A.T. team-member Peterson, firing bursts down the shaft at them.

He reported, "They are at the bottom of some fan-shaft! They're doubling back below us!" He was only partly right. Unit One was next to a vent cover that would run back the way they just came from, but she had bolder plans to follow.

Chase drew her machine pistol from her waist-band and fired up the long vertical shaft. This caused her to become less wind -resistant, which in turn caused her to sink toward the huge spinning turbine blades.

The long burst she fired had little chance of doing any real damage, but one round of the burst that raked up and down the armored UTX S.W.A.T. Officer's body went between his thigh armor and his cup, hitting him in the pelvis. Peterson shrieked and overbalanced forward, falling into the shaft.

Far below him, Chase's shoulder-blades struck the turbine-blades. The rapidly spinning blades, since they were blowing air–HIT instead of sliced her, and rapped painfully against her back, causing her to spin out of control. She slammed into the wall over the thin catwalk around the turbine, which flung her pistol into the depths past the huge fan blades.

The 240 pound S.W.A.T. team member in full armor and gear ,still clutching his groin, fell so close to Chase his left boot struck her right thigh. The heavy UTX officer fell head first into the spinning mass of blades, which crushed and broke his body and bent and snapped off some blades, which flew like knife-blades into the sheet-metal walls around Chase.

One of the blades speared the metal next to her head. It hit so close, it sliced her cheek with a tiny gash. She gaped at it in cross-eyed horror. A growing , 'WthumpWthumpWthump' sound was growing from the now out-of-balance turbine motor caught her attention as Gadget-One, above her, screamed, "Quick! Take my hand!"

Chase knew if the turbine kept on what it was doing...it was going to be very bad! She leapt up the ladder with a shriek, aided by what tiny wind was left. Chase was trying to negotiate around the inverted, Gadget-One when the whole shaft jerked and Chase lost her grip.. She fell back-ward and Gadget-One grabbed her by the back of the belt as the whole bottom of the sheet-metal shaft was sheared off by the torque of the jammed turbine. The weight of the 240 pound ex-Marine was more than the old rusty turbine brace could hold in combination with the increasing vibration of the broken fan.

With a mighty roar and clatter , the shaft from just below Chase's feet down-ward, collapsed another forty feet down into the huge artificial tunnel they found themselves hanging just above the roof of.. Below them was the huge fresh-water pipe, and sewer lines, and high-voltage lines and thousands of miles of fiber-optics, all on one side of a two-lane road. The forty foot tall artificial cavern was lit and clean and went out of sight toward Orlando.

Chase gave a shriek, seeing the twisted mass of knife-like sheet-metal below her and catapulted up the ladder to the doorway with a scream, where the concerned Neko-Ney and unit Three were gazing in fear and wonder at the disaster which unfolded below them. They scrambled to get out of the way as Chase almost climbed over them. Unit One beat a breathless retreat up and into the doorway as well and after it slid shut, she locked and barred it with a crow-bar, while dripping sweat and gasping for breath..

Chase sat and hugged Three, who had latched onto to her, shivering, and sat with her back to the wall and panted in exhaustion and shuddered in fear from how close she had gotten to death. Unit One winced in pain as she put a hand to her bloodied left shoulder. Neko-ney looked at it and said, "Hey, it ain't to bad! It went clean through the meat. Here. Lemme band-aid ya!"

"Fine. Just be quick! We don't have long",One snapped breathlessly, and looked hard at Chase. "You almost got us killed back there! You pull a stunt like that again—and by Golly...I'll leave you behind! What were you thinking? Were you thinking?"

"I have fear of heights. Sorry. I was so afraid." Chase looked on the verge of tears.

Three held her tighter and said to One, "She shot back when YOU got hit. She got him ,too!"

One smiled ruefully and stuck a hand out to Chase and sighed, "Yeah, you did alright for a new recruit! Remember—those guys won't care about your fears! They'll shoot you anyway! Don't you think I wasn't terrified?"

They looked around for the first time and saw they were in some kind of pipe-fitters' workshop. Unit One spotted the welding acetylene and oxygen tanks. She got a look on her face that scared Chase. She snapped at them,"Chase ! Carry Three downstairs and wait for us. Neko! Help me pile these tanks up by the door. I have a surprise for our pursuers!"

Chase took Three and staggered out into the hall and down the stairs. She was sure her back was bleeding, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off, she felt like hell. She made it down the forty feet of altitude and around the corner to the bottom and slid down the wall and sat there, holding the shivering Three.

Unit One and Neko finished sliding the huge green oxygen and chipped orange acetylene tanks in an untidy pyramid in front of the jammed door. Unit One looked to Neko-Ney while striking a flame to one of the torches and said cheerfully, "Run!"

Neko-Ney sprinted for the door and shot through it to the downward stairs, and leapt up onto the railing and raced down it and leapt clear at the bottom. She was followed by One, who just laid the burning torch on an Oxygen tank.

Unit One hit the door-lock mechanism on the way out and the huge sliding door slammed into place behind her. She made it to the bottom of the stairs when the tanks exploded in a pyrotechnic inferno of noise that deafened them all, by blowing the three hundred pound doors out of there frames and dozens of feet across hall-ways. Unit One was just barely caught in the fireball that expanded down the connecting corridors and stairs.

Unit One was picked up and thrown down the stairs by the shock-wave of the fireball. The flames licked all around her as she covered her face with her hands and rolled on the ground down the hall toward Chase and Neko. Neko, Three and Chase patted out the flames with their hands. One's long blonde hair was now off the collar and her ears and backs of her hands were singed, but she was alright otherwise.

She grinned and yelled something. The roaring , ringing pain in Chase's ears echoed and she hoped she hadn't ruptured her ear-drums. She and Neko-Ney reached down for Unit One. They helped pick her up from off the floor. Then Neko ran over and activated the cleaning robots in an alcove at the bottom of the stairs, to polish the bloody, singed floor where Unit One had fallen.

They saw headlights up ahead on the road They ran up to the metal stairs which went up to a second -floor walkway, hanging twenty feet below the ceiling over the center of the tunnel. The fire-alarms rang and the water-sprinklers kicked on, drowning all the other evidence of their passage.

Unit One picked up a metal stanchion that had fell from the above fan supports as an impromptu weapon, as they ran up onto the walkway and hunkered down. The walkway ran down the center of the corridor, twenty feet above the oncoming traffic lane. The collapsed air-vent blocked the road and covered part of the walkway.

The large blue and white garbage truck hissed to a stop on its air-brakes near to where the road was blocked by the ruined air-vent. A burly man with dreadlocks, with a cell-phone in his ear, was saying as he got out of the cab of the truck, "Holy shit! Looks like the roof blew in or somethin'! Part of the roof blew the hell up or somethin'! No! I am telling you–this, THIS is some serious shit! This might come down on me or something!" The large truck driver scanned the ceiling in fear and glanced around nervously. "No, I don't see nobody aroun' what to ask about nuthin'!"

One, Neko and Chase had rushed up onto the truck and were over it on the catwalk, a bare eight feet over the back of the truck. Unit One gestured down and everyone crouched. She lobbed the piece of metal she had, to land next to the truck driver and ducked out of the truck driver's sight.

It landed five feet behind him with a loud 'clang' and bounced to a stop. He jumped and shouted, "OH SHIT! JESUS! This damned place is falling in! I'm getting out of here! You is on your own, brodder! Fug dis shit, mon!"

As the heavy Jamaican man climbed back into the cab, Unit One jabbed downward and leapt silently onto the truck. Chase hesitated and Neko pushed her off the walkway and leapt down next to her. Chase landed badly and sprained her wrist and collapsed moaning to the garbage -truck roof. Three rolled off her back and tried to help her. The driver popped the clutch and suddenly took off in reverse. Unit One and Neko almost spilled off the truck top, as he then braked to a halt and skidded into the water-pipe with a bang, denting it.

He turned the truck around and took off toward Orlando at a high rate of speed. Neko jumped down into the back of the truck and motioned toward Chase. She pulled Three around and handed her down to Neko, working one-handedly. One indicated to Chase to go down into the truck interior , and pushed her gently. Case swung her legs over the hole and with One's support and Neko-Ney's help, slid into the interior and braced herself to land in horrid muck. It was actually dry and relatively clean.

Unit One jumped down silently and dragged her back into the front part of the garbage-truck and took the first-aid kit out. Unit One and Neko worked on Chase's wrist, while Chase held Three in her lap like her little girl, and Three fell asleep right away. They passed by the valve station controlling the water flow, and headed for the Orlando Disney/UTX security station controlling entrance to the 'Moria-Road' used for years to quietly remove waste from the Magic Kingdom.

Chase shook with fear. Being shot to death in the back of a garbage truck is not the way she wanted to die. Before today, she expected to live forever and never thought about death. Now, dying is all she could think about. On the bright side, she reflected, at least I can hear again, and when they shoot me, at least I'll be able to hear it.

Commander Watts ordered a team of two men down the shaft to the door below him in the now ruined vent. The two men carefully repelled down into position and worked on the locked door. He moved back to the food warehouse and contemplated his foes cunning. The doorway combat engineers had just radioed up that the door appeared to be jammed and they were cutting through the door when it suddenly blew out into the shaft in a thunderously lethal wave of flame and metal debris. The two men just outside the door were crushed and incinerated instantly by the explosion. The one at the top of the shaft was set on fire and the others were sent sprawling by the force of the enormous explosion. The burning man screamed loudly as the plastic parts of his anti-ballistic armor burned brightly. The other S.W.A.T. members smothered the fire with their bodies. They picked him up and dragged him out of the ventilation system.

If they hadn't been armored, Commander Watts and his men would have been killed by the explosion. They pulled back to make plans and make sure their cover story held, and to request medical evacuation. Watts was already furious when Mister Ramos called him on his headset.

"Watts! Where in hell have you been? I need you topside at the lift-port. Unit Four is going to make a try for Milo Finch's air-car and I want you top-side to lend support!

"Sir–we suffered a loss of four men. Three dead and one wounded. We lost the trail altogether. I would have equipped my men differently had I known you wanted us to take on combat replicants. We were ill equipped to face such formidable foes, without equipment!" Watts voice was tense, but calmly angry. "Sir, YOU told me that they were 'harmless Disney characters, who wouldn't raise a finger'. SIR, They raised the ROOF! And almost blew my men and I straight to hell!"

Ramos shouted excitedly, "I don't give a RAT"S ASS about your men! Get up topside and give us support! Spartan-Two just engaged unit-Four on top of the Monorail! Get up here quick! We flushed her out! Hurry UP!"

Ramos hung up on him. Watts muttered to himself, shaking his head, "What a miserable bastard you are! I hope she kicks your ass." Louder, to his men, he shouted, "Jenkins, Rodrieguez, Sanchez, Hartley and Frenchy! You're with me! We're on the top-side detail. The rest of you-–pull back to Disney Sec-zone 3 and await my orders! If you encounter ANY of those THINGS–SHOOT THEM! We are OUT of the negotiated surrender business! Manning, Roberts and Peterson are dead because we handled it by Ramos' book! Now, fall back and wait for me! People, MOVE IT! MOVE LIKE YOU HAVE A PURPOSE!"

The ex-Marine drill instructor motivated his men like marines and stuck by them, but had low tolerances for 'certain' things. One of his men ,name of Sanchez, hoisted up his rifle and got cold-cocked by Watts. He sprawled on the hard floor, spluttering. "What tha fuc–"

Watts stood over him with the laser sight of his weapon glowing redly on Sanchez's head, right between his dark frightened eyes.

"YOU LEFT YOUR POST, MISTER! Peterson died because his back-up was in here, goofing off, looking for prey, INSTEAD of backing up his buddy! YOU BASTARD! I ought to shoot your miserable ASS and HANG YOUR WORTHLESS MISERABLE STINKING MAGGOT-RIDDEN CARCASS UP IN THE SUN FOR THE FUCKING VULTURES!"

In a low voice, "Instead I'll do this." He twisted the rifle at the last second and squeezed off one round into Sanchez's left upper arm. Sanchez screamed as the upper arm broke. "Look at it this way, Mister Sanchez! You get six weeks of paid medical leave while the company fixes your arm, and if I see you again, I'll put one in your head. Oh, by the way, Sanchez?"

Sanchez flinched at the happy tone in Commander Watts voice. "S-sir?

"You are Fired! Let's move out, men!" They left Sanchez bleeding on the floor for the bona-fide Disney security men to pick up.

Chase and Three both whimpered quietly when the air-brakes screeched and hissed loudly and the garbage truck came to a halt at the security station. Unit-One listened intensely and looked around, planning her next move. She and Neko traded pistols. Neko still had a full magazine and Unit-One had only two to three bursts left in the gun.

Neko-Ney squeak-mailed, "You are better shooter. I claw better. You are long range, I am close support?"

Unit-one smiled and nodded, listening as the truck driver climbed out of the cab to argue with the guard at the gate.

"What de hell is your problem, mon? Lemme de hell outta here! There is shit blowing up and falling down and shit! You got nerve telling me to stay calm and shit!" The heavy-set Jamaican man was angry at the corporate bullcrap and wanted to go the recycling hub and tell his buddies what happened in Disney World..

The slim , young, Chinese-American security-man came over and said in a soothing voice, "Whoa! Hey, Jack! Take it easy! We'll let you go in a few minutes. O-kay? The main office says an employee went crazy and made a bunch of replicants go crazy or something. You didn't see any crazed replicants running around in there did you?" Anthony Fong had to phrase it that way to get the maximum reaction from Jack, the driver.

"What's that you say? Micky Mouse with a machete? Holy shit shooting out Jesus' dog's ass! Let me go outta this crazy place! You gonna hold me here til Goofy or some fugged up cartoon bassitch comes up to play dice with my eyes or some kinda shit? Shit! Lemme de hell go outta here!" Jack swore passionately and pulled his pants up a little farther.

Anthony laughed at his paroxysm of emotion and was tickled by his swearing. "God, Jack, You really ought to write this bottle this stuff! You have a way of phrasing things! I need to look around the truck and make sure you don't have 'Micky Mouse with a machete' in your cab or in the back."

"What is the big WAIT for? I am late now for sure! I have to go back to the hub and tell them this wild stuff! They'll say I'm doing dope or some stuff! What're we waiting for?" Jack was demanding looking around like something would jump out and get him from under the truck.

Anthony chuckled and pointed under the truck and jumped and shouted, "OhMyGod! What's that?"

When Jack jumped too, Anthony broke out laughing and slapped him on the back. "I was waiting for that and another security guy to sign off on the inspection for legal reasons, if you're smuggling dope into the park or something."

Jack pushed Anthony and said, "You big butt-hole! I should twist you up like a pretzel! Mon!? Can I sign something to get me the hell out of here if I waive my right to twist you up like a pretzel, or something?"

Anthony nodded at him, and said levelly, "I really don't want to piss you off. This is all in good fun. If you sign this waiver, you agree to waive any rights to sue either UTX OR Disney Corporation for any damages caused because of, or suffered by you ,by any breach of security entailed by the shortening of this inspection. Sign here if you don't care if the replicant in the back 'plays dice with your eye-balls' and cuts you up for bait and yatta,yatta,yatta."

"Fine,fine! Lemme sign de damned thing and be done wit' it ,Mon !" Jack signed the word-pad that Anthony presented him and thumb-printed it

Anthony pulled out his mirror-wand and walked with Jack around the truck. Anthony told about how it was procedure to do inspections with a buddy in case of danger, but because Jack was bonded, it should be alright.. Jack let Anthony talk. He liked the younger man, but thought he was to eager to see action and was a wise-ass as well..

Anthony climbed up and looked on the roof, also seeing nothing. He and Jack went around to the back of the truck and Jack looked at Anthony as he started the hydraulics to hinge the back up to look in, and said, "Tony, you should get a drink after this thing. Jeez, you are way to high strung, my mon."

The back swung up to reveal a horrible scene out of an abattoir. Next to the door was the corpse of a dead cat-girl with her neck at angle that didn't support life. She looked young and small with her eyes partly open and unbreathing. A young human woman with short brown hair with a splint on her arm lay recumbent on the body of a Gadget replicant that was mostly under her. Another mouse girl was weeping over the human girl and fretting. The mouse-girl was holding the woman's hand and sobbing intensely and bleeding from her bullet riddled side.

She jerked around and whimpered loudly, "Please don't shoot us anymore! I can't help Chase! She's all broken up inside. UTX killed everyone! Please don't shoot us! Please, please!" Her begging was the same of a broken-hearted girl begging for the life of her mother.

Jack said in anger, "Those sons of bitches musta tossed these girls down that shaft when I was backing out! I heard a 'thump' and thought it must have been something." He climbed like lightning into the back and checked the Human woman first. She was battered and bruised but not suffering internal injuries.

Anthony climbed in, in a dazed state of horror. He put his hand into a huge puddle of blood next to the cat-girl. He stared at his hand in horror, "So much blood!"

The remaining mouse-girl pulled on Jack's arm and begged piteously, "Please help her! Don't let Chase die! Don't die, Chase! Please don't leave me alone! Not again!"

Chase opened her eyes and looked into Jack's. She had this look of someone who had seen death in vivid detail just minutes ago. She looked tired , but resolute. She said in a low, husky whisper, "Gadget number Four has a human brain in it. I saw it on the MRI. UTX murdered everyone who has found this truth out. Now you know. I'm sorry. We can't go back into the belly of the beast! The will kill us and make up bullshit to cover it."

Neko-Ney suddenly animated and grabbed Anthony's testicles so he could feel her claws on his man-hood.

In a state of complete sensory overload, he looked down to see a luminous pair of fully dilated yellow cat-eyes looking up into his as her broken neck straightened with a crack and Neko-Ney said quietly in intense humor, "Booga-booga!"

Anthony sighed and his eyes rolled up into his head and he pitched forward without a sound. Neko yelped and caught his face with her grimy boot, instead of letting him plant his face on the polished steel flooring.

Chase sat up and LOOKED like she wished that she hadn't. In a strained whisper, she chopped off to Neko, "You crazed cat-witch! What did you do to him?"

Neko-Ney turned red and shook her hand and went, "EWWW-ICK! He peed on my hand before he passed out! That is NASTY!"

Three touched Chase's mouth and looked at her as Unit One slid out from under her with her machine pistol out. Neko-Ney wiped her hand on Anthony's back, fussing.

Three looked at Chase and asked in a tiny voice, "Gee...will you be alright? Chase?"

Chase looked at Jack and said with tears in her eyes , "I am so sorry I told you that. I couldn't draw a gun on innocent people. Well, my wrist is busted, but I wouldn't anyway! I'm so tired! I don't want to die! I don't want these people to die either."

Three buried her face in Chase's neck and sobbed in relief. Chase smiled in embarrassment and said, "I think she thinks I'm her Mommy!"

Three shook her head and said, "The bad men wanted to kill everyone!. They killed Becky and Ricky and even mean old Number Five! They shot me! It hurts. I don't want to go to sleep forever." She was trembling and holding tight to Chase.

Jack stroked Three's hair and Chase relaxed a little. Jack said in quiet intensity, " I was in the Kingston food riots when Jamaica came apart at the seams way back in the 2050's. I remember it like yesterday. Oh, I seen death. I seen what rich men do to the poor, when no one person lifts a hand to help! De ocean came in and human feeling went out. I seen people begging and this little girl done moved me. I drop you in Orlando and I'm through with you. O-kay?"

Chase smiled and nodded eagerly.

"Lemme move the truck to the wall and you slip out the side panel and up to the passenger door without the cameras seeing you.. If you can move? " Jack looked at them. Neko-Ney wiped her hand off on Anthony's shirt again and sniffed her hand with a disgusted look on her face. Unit One got up and favored her wounded shoulder. One of Three's bullet wounds were weeping blood and Chase may have broken her wrist. They were in bad shape.

Jack got out of the back and went up to the cab and moved the truck up against the wall of the tunnel. Then he climbed up to slide open the left side refuse panel and unlocked the passenger door. Jack walked around the back and looked at Anthony lying there twitching.

Unit one leapt out of the truck and went up to the passenger door. She kept low and moved tactically. She opened the passenger door and peered into the small space and calculated. She thought it might work. She holstered her pistol and went back to the open panel and climbed up. Neko handed up Three and Unit One helped her into the truck cab. Chase clambered out and climbed down to the road with difficulty . She slunk into the cab, followed by Neko and Unit One. It was a tight fit for the four of them.

At one point, Three pointed at Unit One and giggled. "Widget! You look like Widget!"

Unit One grumbled, "Good Golly, as if I don't have enough problems."

Chase was confused and pulled out the mylar blanket from the roadside aid kit the truck had and shook her head. She tossed it over the group of replicants behind the front seats and said quietly, "Hey, you guys! Be quiet or the jig is up. Please?" Unit One nodded and they covered themselves with the silver side of the mylar, leaving the flat-black side outside.

Chase got into the passenger seat and looked pained.

Jack got into the back and patted Anthony's face. "Hey! Brodder! You better wake up."

Anthony started and sat up with a jerk, disoriented. "What?"

Jack gave an easy laugh and said, "You big wimp! My God! You put your hand into a puddle of hydraulic fluid and said, 'OHMYGOD! So much blood!' And fainted like a little girl! I taught you have a heart-attack and die maybe. Jeez, mon—you hypo-glycemic? You need lunch as well as a drink?"

Anthony looked around in confusion, "Where is the bodies? The cat-girl zombie? The babe with dead mouse-girl?"

"Tony? You are listening to yourself? Mon–you were moaning about that fugging shit in your sleep. Listen to yourself! You were dreaming! You want me to call an ambulance for you? Or maybe a psychiatrist? Hey! You had an accident!" Jack looked at Anthony's crotch and guffawed. Anthony's grey pants revealed the nature of the accident.

Anthony left the back of the truck and turned red. "Don't call an ambulance! Dammit, maybe I do need to eat. I do feel light-headed. They might let me go for falling out. Jack, I need your word of honor you won't tell anybody about this...incident!"

Jack crossed his heart and said solemnly, "I swear I won't tell anybody about this, mon! You got my word! Can I go now?"

Anthony walked quickly over to the guard-shack between the lanes and pressed a button to lift the gate and waved him on. "Hit the road, Jack! Get outta here!" He then got a paper towel to wipe the 'blood' off on. Anthony was angry with himself and feeling humiliated by the whole thing. He grabbed up his coffee cup and checked it. It was half-full of lukewarm coffee.

"Perfect", he said and carefully poured the contents across his lap from crotch to left-hand pocket. He happened to look up as Jack climbed back into the cab of his truck. He saw the strikingly beautiful passenger in the passenger seat with a splint on her right wrist. She saw him looking at her and waved at him left-handedly.

Chase called out to him, "Thanks for the splint! Pleasure meeting you...Tony!"

He stood up again and looked incredulously at her as Jack closed the door and drove over the now retracted 'severe tire damage' spikes and pulled out onto the ramp to Interstate 4.

"That was the girl in the back? Splint? What happened?" He ran the video from the two working security cameras in the entrance back and watched the truck pull up and Jack gets out. He watched the interplay. He went over and climbed into the driver's seat to look around.

He strained to see into the cab windows, but couldn't see past the bright reflections from outside. Anthony frustrated. He only spent a few seconds in the cab. He checked his image for reactions as the walk-around with the mirror-wand was done. They went into the truck back and disappeared.

"What in hell?" Anthony advanced the recording ten minutes and Jack got out and looked straight at the cameras. He went up front to the cab and climbed in and backed the truck up and went forward again, moving the truck closer to the side-wall. "What happened here?"

He watched Jack get out and go over to the unseen side of the truck for a minute, then walk back around the front of the truck, around the seen side to the back. He could make out the passenger-side door opened and dark movement in it. It was so dark in the cab and so bright outside, he couldn't make it out on the dim image.

He looked up as the phone rang in the shack. He just missed seeing the image of Gadget-One climbing behind the driver's seat and ducking out of sight. He picked up the phone and said, "Guard-station 34, Fong here!"

It was his supervisor. "Fong! Where the hell have you been? I called you six minutes ago! We have a situation and I want those doors to the interstate locked manually. The remote controls on that door were severed during that explosion!"

Anthony Fong swallowed and said, "I was inspecting and clearing a garbage truck for leaving. He had...his stereo on so loud and I was so close to it, I didn't hear the phone. Aren't we supposed to keep this entry-way open for emergency vehicles? That explosion was just six miles from here in the main-body, aren't ambulances going to...."

"FONG! SHUT THE DOORS! Now! There is a Red alert in effect! Lock it up!" The supervisor was furious at the limited resources he had and this was no help to him.

Anthony Fong pulled the levers and the metal grates to seal the entry-way slid screeching out of the ceiling with a rattling crash. With a cold feeling, he listened to the supervisor on the phone continue, "You are some kind of worthless incompetent! Fong, I'm writing you up and putting you on report!"

He looked down at his coffee-stain and said quietly, "What a great day this has been."

On the garbage truck, Chase sweated bullets. Unit One said to her, "You did well. He should be completely confused by now. Glad I can hear so well?"

Chase bit off a short, pained laugh, "You know it!"

Three said of Unit One in a playful, mocking tone, "Smell like burned hair–look like Widget!"

Chase asked, "What–who is 'Widget' ?"

Unit One said, "Gadget's irritating cousin on her mother's side who caused trouble to the New Rescue Rangers in episode 10:'Ringing down the Rubble' and episode 23:'Twin Daughters of Different Mothers'. Usually if we need an irritating, immature twip to play 'Widget', we 'volunteer' number Three to do it! She's ALWAYS in character!"

Three said in outrage, "Hey!"

Jack laughed, "God! Sounds just like my little girls going at it! Where you goin' to, pretty lady?"

Chase frowned and thought heavily. She hadn't thought that they would get out, so really had not thought about it.

"Mmm? Chase? I'm ...mmm... bleeding again." Came a quiet complaint from behind her from number Three.

Chase touched the little replicant's worried face with her finger-tips of her left hand and looked back at Jack. "Take us to the Lassiter Free Clinic downtown." She hated to call on someone she already owed so much to, but desperate times DID call for desperate measures.

Jack shrugged and said ,"Sure t'ing, pretty lady! You leave everything to ole' Jack!"

Minutes later, they braked to a stop across the street from the 'Lassiter Free Clinic' a dingy looking place that had seen better times decades previously. Several homeless people wandered around outside of it. Chase got out painfully and said to Jack ,while the replicant girls piled out of the truck cab, "Thank you so much for all the help! I--I can't repay this kindness!"

Chase was sniffling with gratitude when she said this to Jack. Jack smiled and said wisely, "A famous Jamaican said, 'Favors can only be paid forward. As you are done for–do that for another, and so we turn the Earth wit' kindness.' I do–then you do for somebody else! Try not to get shot up anymore, now. Good-bye"

Three was last to get out, and turned to Jack as Chase took her by under the arms and said, "Thank you, Mister Jack! You shouldn't cuss so much. It isn't a good thing to do. Your kids hear you and cuss to. Golly! "

"You a cute little thing ! Alright...I'll try to stop! Take care." Jack gave her a little smile and wave.

Chase closed the door and blinked back tears and watched the truck pull away. She thought of all her rich friends in medical School and in the private High-school she went to and never once thought of garbage men as humans. "He wasn't just a 'garbage man'. My God, he was a human being, too!" She turned red from the shame.

"Chase...weird looking people are looking at us!" Neko-Ney commented uncomfortably looking at the homeless people staring at them in curiosity.

'Widget' or Unit One glared around her defensively, ready to draw her machine pistol out of her jacket. Three had her face mostly pressed up to Chase's back and looked like a shy five-year-old in the city for the first time.

"Come on girls, we're going to the doctor!" She stewarded them across the street and into the Free Clinic.

The triage nurse was a burly lady with brown hair and a wrestler's build. She was alarmed when a disheveled young woman came in with a group of bloody replicants. She recognized the young woman after a moment of surprise.

"Chase? Chase Victor? Were you in a car wreck? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Maggie! Busted wrist, but I need Hank to take a look at my charges. We have a couple of contusions and puncture wounds he might need to look at. I might need to see if my wrist is broken",Chase said, bringing the replicant girls around the counter.

Doctor Hank Lassiter was thirty or more years out of medical school and was a scruffy looking bean-pole of a man with a roman nose and sharp gimlet eyes that widened when he saw Chase. He rushed forward and asked, "What happened? It's good to see you again so soon, but not under these conditions!" He lead them to the patient entrance and opened it and stared at them.

"Oh, You have little ...uh, people with you! You need to bring them into the back. You know, Chase...I usually treat people–not bio-ware!" They rushed into the examination room, where Chase lifted Three onto the table and lifted her shirt, showing Doctor Lassiter the blood soaked bandages.

Chase rattled off, "This girl was hit by needler rounds, three times in the upper thoracic cavity. Someone performed emergency sealing, but it was a quick job and a lot happened since then."

Chase continued, indicating Unit One, "Your second patient has first and second degree burns on her neck and ears, and was shot with a rifle in the upper shoulder muscle group.

"Your third patient has a possible broken wrist and various contusions, abrasions ,sprains ,strains and lacerations all over my freaking body !" Chase said that while pulling up a stool by Three's right side and sitting down holding Three's right hand. Chase was unsteady enough, she almost missed the stool.

Doctor Lassiter said in alarm, "Maybe I should see you now?"

Chase shook her head and rubbed Three's cheek with her knuckles and said with a little smile, "Take care of her first, I can wait."

Three smiled warmly at Chase and asked shyly of the doctor, "If I'm good, do I get a lolly-pop?"

Neko-Ney suddenly exclaimed, "I AM good! I didn't get wounded at all while those dozens of guys were trying to kill us! I want canned tuna fish and a back-rub, I am so good! Worship me! I'm a cat!" She beamed, purring.

Hank Lassiter had seen a lot of weird things in the thirty some odd years he had been a doctor, but he was put off by these replicants. He cleared his throat, while looking in the stomach of number Three with a high-resolution table-mounted MRI scanner.

" 'Dozens of guys trying to kill us'? Uh...Chase? What are these...ulm...people? Who is trying to kill you?" Doctor Lassiter was a gentle man, and had trouble imagining why one person would hurt another, much less why dozens of men would try to kill Chase. " Didn't you just start work at Disney World yesterday?"

"It's UTX. They put a live HUMAN brain in the body of Gadget-Four! When we found out–they had these hit-men-thug kinda guys show up to whack us as some kinda global conspiracy cover-up! Oh my god...it's been a terrible morning! At first I was excited and stuff, but people died! This girl named Becky , who pulled a bad joke on the Chinese, and this really cute security guy named Ricky were killed by UTX shooters" ,Chase said in a desolate, desperate way.

Doctor Lassiter cleaned the wounds on Three's stomach and administered a coagulant and then dressed the wounds. He shook his head and said, "Chase—you've been looking for global conspiracies and bigfoot and these wild things all the time I've known you! UTX and it's subsidiaries have done so much to make this world a better place, it just seems out of character for them to be this big global group of 'super-EVIL super-spies' kind of folk! I on! You have to admit that it sounds unbelievable!"

Unit One said sharply, "One of those 'unbelievable' operatives tried to shoot Chase to death with a 4.65mm Makarov combat rifle, firing depleted uranium slugs at her, one of which hit me in the shoulder before she shot him to death in an air-shaft! If I were you–I'd hop on the old 'Believe IT' monorail and understand this is the straight deal from people who were there."

Three said around her lolly-pop, "That's our Widget! Yep! Tol' you. Very Widget-wike! Mmmm Wemonwy! My fawowite!"

Neko-Ney put a hand over her face and said, "I do not know this mouse! If you're talking–Take out the lolly!"

"Noh! You'ww twy to wick it!" Three said petulantly and kicked her feet rhythmically while Doctor Lassiter examined Unit One's shoulder.

Unit One looked side-long at Three and asked to Chase, "What did Milo do to her...to US when he removed the personality program constraints? I knew that Three was child-like, but Golly--OW!" She winced as Doctor Lassiter moved her shoulder.

He looked at her and looked at the three-dimensional display of the MRI read-out and said, "Some of the aluminum cladding of the round came off in the wound. It is slightly more radioactive than background radiation. Widget? Can I call you Widget?"

She nodded and said rolling her eyes, "Sure, why not? At least it's not a curse-word."

"Widget, I can try to put you under or anesthetize the wound area with Lidacaine or Marcaine and then extract the fragments. The problem is...you are a replicant! I am a DOCTOR! Not a replicant repair technician! I have NO idea whether the Lidacaine will work or not. If not–it will hurt like hell!" The concerned Doctor Lassiter looked at his patient and wondered what her reaction would be. Chase kept looking back and forth from Widget to Three and they acted as different as night and day.

Widget shrugged and exclaimed, "OW! I hope it'll hurt less than that. I'm tough. Heck, I didn't even cry even when I almost blew myself to kingdom come! WOWEE! Eight oxygen and acetylene tanks really blow up good!" She laughed an winked at Chase. "Note to self:Next time–run FASTER!"

Chase sat there with her mouth open and stared at Widget in disbelief. "Who are you? You don't act like Gadget!"

'Widget' winced as Hank started probing the wound with a pair of forceps after injecting the area with Lidicaine . She said through gritted teeth, "Alright–it doesn't kill the pain. Gosh, GOSH! Hurry it up!"

She looked in pain , but with clear eyes at Chase, and said, "I am who I am. Who I am when not playing Gadget. NNNG! Born in the fire, and tempered like steel. Always faithful to my friends! OwwwwnnNNNNNG! A-always faithful." She finished speaking, drenched in sweat and Hank worked on sealing up her shoulder.

Hank said in amazement, "You sound like a mouse-Marine! What's your rank, soldier?" Hank asked the question in jest, not really expecting a reply

"First Lieutenant, sir! Flight crew pilot, sir" , she snapped without thinking and looked thoughtful. "Where did that come from?"

Chase thought in a rush about what she said and how they reacted. She sat anxiously while Hank finished bandaging 'Widget's' shoulder.

Chase, in a rush of frightened inspiration, jumped to her feet in a surge of adrenaline and shouted in Widget's face, "You say 'SIR' when you address an officer! What is your name and rank?!?"

Widget leapt to her feet in a practiced move and saluted smartly and shouted back, "Sir! First Lieutenant ....Leslie Watts, Sir!"

Chase settled back down to her seat, feeling exhausted and shivering in fear at the magnitude of what she uncovered.. She wasn't sure WHAT she had uncovered, but it seemed important.

Three looked while flinching and asked in a small voice, "First Wootenant Weswee Widget?" She finished her lolly-pop with a crunch and asked, "Can I have another? I'm really, really hungry and sleepy. AND a hot dog! I really want a BUNCH of hot dogs! With everything!"

Chase while looking at at Widget, in a shaking voice, asked Hank, you scan her brain and tell me what is there?"

Hank was lost as to what was going on, but he felt it was terribly important. He sat Widget or Leslie or whoever she was down and ran the MRI over the skull. He looked and shrugged. "Good thing she didn't suffer a head trauma! I don't know what I'm looking at, but it isn't a human brain! It is half the volume of the human brain, with the same general structure , laid around a hexagonal crystal of carbon AND silicon! The main structure shows a lot of electrical activity. These structures look like chillers or heat exchangers of some kind to keep the processor cool."

He looked at Chase and shrugged as Widget sat back down, looking nauseous. She said, "I'm gonna hurl!" Hank held the waste can as she violently vomited. She shook and eventually stopped throwing up after a few minutes.

Hank looked in agitation at Chase and said, "I wish you would warn me when you pull tricks like this!"

Chase stroked Widget's head and said softly, "I don't know what they might do. They have people personalities in them, some how. I wish I knew what UTX did to make these processors. I'm not technical. I'm a software expert."

Hank looked intensely introspective and said, "UTX wants your skinny ass in a sling! They know you back and forth, up and down. Stay here. I'll be right back. I have an idea–I think."

Chase held her aching arm to her side and Three came over and hugged her. She didn't know why Three was so grabby, but at this moment, she didn't care.

Doctor Lassiter came back in and said, "We're going somewhere. A safe house. A patient of mine died last week after a long illness and he left me his house. You are moving in there. That is as random as it gets. I don't know if he has groceries or not, but the power is still on."

He treated her arm and discovered she did have a broken wrist. He set her wrist and treated her shoulder-blades as well. She was black and blue all over. He treated her as best as he could and they left the building into the back alley.

He brought around the gun-metal colored mini-van, that he had driven since medical school and they loaded into it. During the drive over to the hose he told them of, Three asked Chase ,"Is the doctor your daddy?"

Chase looked over her shoulder at Three and then sighed, "No he isn't. He was my mom's boyfriend. She died when I was little and he raised me. I do not get along with my Father. He's rich and doesn't understand me. He has stock in UTX and I don't know how to relate to him."

Chase then related to Hank what happened at Walt Disney World and what she had done. She was spent when she finished her story. She looked at her thumb-nail-watch and it's tiny LCD face. It read just past noon. It seemed a year ago when her day started.

After driving around for a while more, he pulled into the driveway of a two floor, ivy covered small house. He led them to the side-door and unlocked the kitchen door and let them in. The replicants descended on the pantry like a flock of locusts and ate everything they could find.

Widget found some chocolate pop-tart toaster treats and Three started in on a box of Fruit-Loops. Neko-Ney found pouched tuna and was in fish heaven. Widget called to Three from the refrigerator, "We have ham! Part of a chicken ,too!"

Neko-Ney rushed over to claim a piece of chicken, too.

Widget and Three ate like they were starving, while Hank stared at them amused and said to Chase, who was still looking around the house, "My God! You could lose an arm in this feeding frenzy! Don't they feed their robots at Disney World?"

Chase found the laundry room and bathroom. She said, while stripping in the laundry room, "Hank, they're damaged and need fuel to regenerate with! Their bio-systems go into overdrive when a certain level of damage is detected. I read that somewhere."

Three ran into the laundry with a plate of cold ham slices and toaster strudels and looked shyly at Chase and said eagerly, "I got some food for you! What'chu doin'?"

Chase found herself eating and telling Three to toss her clothes into the washer with her own. Chase figured she needed fuel as well as the replicants..

She had to peel Three's clothes off of her. They were stuck on her with her own blood. While doing that, Three laughed and fidgeted. Chase looked at her hard and asked, "Sweety–What is your name?"

"Oh, hi! I'm Gadget! Oh, you already know that! What comes next? Oh, you're still standing...let me build you a chair." Three giggled and twisted around acting cute. She continued to fidget about.

Her high spirits were infectious and Chase laughed and said, "You need a special name, so I christen you, 'FIDGET'! Three is so impersonal You little squirmy thing! "

'Fidget' squealed loudly and hugged Chase, giggling, "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I'm Fidget! Fidget, Fidget, Fidget! Thank you!"

Hank stuck his head in and jerked it back in surprise as Chase shouted at him, "HEY!"

'Ooops! Sorry, I thought I heard distress! Since you guys are getting along fabulously, I need to get back to the clinic. If patients could heal themselves, I'd be out of business. I am on the city payroll, y'know!"

Chase stuck her head around the corner and said to him, "Thanks for everything ,Hank. You're a better dad than my father ever was!" She smiled at him and blinked.

He patted her cheek and said softly, "Take care, keep away from the windows and I'll try to come by later if I can. They'll put a tail on me if they put the two of us together. Here...",he dug in his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, and said, "It's only one hundred twenty dollars, but it's all I have on me. I'll be in contact when I can."

Chase squeezed his hand and teared up. In a breathless voice, she whispered, "Thank you!"

"Take care, punkin." He said it and ruffled her hair

He left the house and Neko-Ney locked the door after him. Neko went into the living room and jumped into the overstuffed chair across from the PTV, carrying her pouch of tuna and sat next to the sleeping Widget. Neko turned on the PTV and put her feet up to watch the news. She grew bored swiftly and got up to act cat-like and prowl around her new domicile.

She purred and rubbed her hands together with a look of glee on her face, and her cat-ears perked up and muttered, "Now that the 'castle' has a new 'queen' it is time for the 'queen' to survey the 'kingdom'. Maybe the attic has mice?" She looked at the sleeping Widget and snorted. "REAL mice!"

She slunk to the back stairs and pelted up the stairs with the sound of thunder.

Widget woke for a moment and glared in the direction that Neko-Ney went and muttered, "That darn cat!" She turned to the side and fell back asleep.

Chase went into the bathroom and showered. 'Fidget' kept trying to climb in with her. Chase pushed the mouse-girl out of the shower-stall and said, "Honey–you are being a pest! I won't be more than ten minutes! Please just keep yourself occupied or play for ten minutes...and stay out of trouble!"

Fidget nodded obediently and saluted sloppily and said, "M'kay! Sir!" She giggled and went about prowling about in the bathroom cabinets.

Chase went back to showering and muttered under her breath, "I think... I have been adopted. Lord, let me live through this."

A few moments later, Chase heard Fidget ,through the shower stall curtain, say to someone, "Hello. I'm dying my hair! I'm playing make-up artist!"

A strange woman's voice answered back, "Hello. Do you want to play with me?

Chase's heart skipped a beat. With fear squeezing her heart, she looked out past the shower and looked at a perfect beautiful brunette wearing a slave collar and a bondage harness and little else. Chase gave out a little shriek of panic and fell back against the back wall of the shower and slipping down the wall to the bottom of the stall.

The strange woman blinked without a change of expression and asked, "Hello, do you want to play with me?"

Chase scrambled around and looked at knee level from the stall. 'Fidget' had black hair dye in her hair and was looking out the bathroom door , which was now open, as suddenly a streak of pink, purple and black struck the woman from behind, smashing her onto the floor to land face down next to the shower stall.

Neko-ney flipped the woman over onto her back and drew back her right hand with claws fully extended , while digging the claws of her left hand into the throat of the woman and snarled at her, "Alrighty ya robo-bimbo! This is my place now! Be nice, or I'll pull yer kissy-face off and beat ya ta death with it!"

Neko-Ney's short pink hair was puffed up and her ears were flat to her head. Her right hand slowly traveled back as her eyes dilated wider and wider. Chase saw the cat-spirit behind Neko's eyes coming up to the fore and knew what the results would be if she didn't act..

She paused for a moment of terror and thought madly as to what to do. She looked at the cat-girl, while her heart was racing furiously. CAT-girl?

Chase flung open the shower and shouted, "NEKO! Stop THAT RIGHT NOW!" Neko flinched, but drew back her lips and hissed like a steam locomotive. She hadn't stopped staring at the woman cowering on the floor. Chase turned the shower-head on Neko-Ney and said, "BAD CAT! BAD! STOP IT NOW!"

Neko-Ney leapt backwards ten feet out of the bathroom with a loud, "MEYOWRL!" She looked angry and offended. Chase looked where the woman, unruffled by the savage take-down, climbed back to her feet and looked at Chase instead of Neko. Only an android simpleton would do that. Only something with NO survival instinct would turn it's shapely backside to something as visibly threatening as Neko-Ney.

Neko stood there with claws out and her tail moved her whole body as it went, "Thumpthumpthump!" against the walls of the small hallway outside the bathroom making a sound like a helicopter.

Chase thought quickly. She definitely didn't want to alienate Neko-Ney. She said placatingly to Neko, "Hey, good job on pouncing! You knocked the bejesus out of her!" Chase grabbed up a towel and tossed it to Neko who caught it off-handed with easy grace. "Now go dry off! Sorry about the shower thingee. You were losing control."

Neko's ears went up, she blinked and leapt downstairs.

Chase tried to swallow her heart back down into her chest and glared at the cyber-sex-doll. She drew back as if to punch it and looked at her fist and laughed, dropping it to her side.

Fidget looked at her strangely and asked, "What's so funny?"

Chase said thoughtfully, trying to remember a song lyric, " 'As if though a glass darkly, strange reflections show unexpected things'! Yeah, bo!"

She made a mental note to give the cat-girl a back rub later to make up for the water-treatment. Fidget looked at her curiously and Chase suddenly jumped and swore under her breath and came over to the mouse-girl. "You've made a real mess! Come here! " She finished undressing Fidget and glared hotly at the sex-doll and ,"You! Go stand in the hallway on one foot!"

"Yes, mistress!" The sex-doll did exactly that. Fidget giggled and pointed with a dirty finger as Chase dragged her into the shower and turned on the water again.

Fidget giggled and squealed as Chase scrubbed her clean. Chase was put off by the 'womanly' form that Fidget had. She certainly didn't look like a 'little' girl, more like a small woman Chase was just happy there were no mud-puddles around for her to get into. Whatever stuff that Fidget put into her hair didn't wash out completely. It curled up Fidget's hair and turned it mousey-brown. Chase laughed at the result.

The poofy fall of curls struck Chase as amusingly old-fashioned.

Chase pulled some shirts out of the laundry and put a long tee-shirt on Fidget and a long-button up one on herself. They went downstairs where Neko sat next to the sleeping Widget. Neko was watching the local news interrupt, which was showing "Siege at Disney World!" It was as biased and inaccurate as Chase had feared. She wasn't even mentioned.

After a few minutes of coverage, the station went back to some network romance-drama trash that bored Chase. She thought of Milo and wondered whether he survived and escaped. She hoped so.

She went and stretched out on the sofa, which was covered in denim and was over-stuffed. She was so tired and looked at the tavern-sized , fiber-optic 'Coca-Cola' sign, which cascaded color around and whirled.

She awoke with a start and it was dark outside. The sign was flashing and the PTV was talking sports. She was practically wearing the sleeping Fidget, who was sound asleep, and curled up in Chase's arms like a child. Widget was blissfully drooling unconscious on the arm of the recliner. Neko was across the room, staring at the flashing phone and looked at Chase.

Neko asked quietly, "Who'd want to call some dead guy? He might answer!"

Chase stared in fear at the dead man's telephone and wondered who it was who was calling a dead man at midnight.

Now:

The phone rang and Zoe reached for it. She punched the 'hands free' button and the image of some guy in his fifties or sixties came on. He was in some kind of vehicle and was dressed well. He had a beard and moustache and slicked back hair.

He said flatly, "I need to talk to Miriam Hackensack about her daughter."

Zoe was a defiant fourteen year old with pale skin and violet dyed hair and nails. She looked at the man hostilely and said, "What'ya gonna say 'bout me, Gen-omega, dude?"

He raised an eyebrow and looked sharply at her and said, "You aren't the ONLY daughter she had."

Zoe looked at the man and thought hard. This guy looked dangerous and her mom did not want to be disturbed.

In a coquettish voice, she asked, "You calling about Molly? She died. Years ago. What'd'ya want my mom for?"

"What do you know about Molly's death?" The man looked expectant and his question had a probing edge that she didn't like. He moved marginally toward the pick up and stared at her.

"Why do you want to know? Who are you?" Zoe felt nervous now and felt like calling for her mother.

"I have no time for you. Tell your mother, 'this concerns details of her daughter, Molly's death." He was insistent and commanding, like a cop or something.

"Hang on."

She put it on hold and ran to her mom's study. She was on the IAI and had three PTV's on different news channels and trying to watch all of them. Miriam looked at her daughter and said in irritation, "Zoe! I don't have time to listen about your.."

"Mom! It's the phone! Some gen-omega carrying on about Molly and how she died", Zoe got out, before Miriam jumped up, pushing her daughter out of the way and sprinting to the phone.

"MOM! What the fu– ", she trailed off seeing how upset her mom really was.

Miriam turned te image on and looked at the stern stranger. She said anxiously, "Who are you? What do you know about...."

"Mrs Hackensack! Your phone is tapped. Meet me at the railway tracks underneath the Demonbreun street bridge within thirty minutes. I will not wait." The phone went dead and Miriam looked stricken.

Ashen pale she called to Zoe and jerked on her jacket, "Zoe! I'm...going out for a while. Keep all the doors and windows locked. If I call–I'll use that goofy security question! You listening to me?'

Zoe nodded and asked in a casual tone, she didn't feel, "So...what is this about? What is going on? You've been weird since that crappy trip to Disney World with dumb-ass gen-alpha dude. I SAID he was.."

Miriam went out the door, and said ,"Good-bye, Zoe. Love you!"

The outer door closed while Zoe was talking and she trailed off into the silence of the now empty house and hugged herself against the quiet and said sullenly in a quiet voice, "Love you ,too, mom."

Miriam drove like mad from where she lived to the run down section of Nashville and rattled over the railway tracks under the Demonbreun street bridge and looked around. She saw the mystery man standing in a long dark raincoat.. She killed the lights and got out, her heart beating like it would burst. She ran up to him and asked, "Who are you? Where is the ...what do you know about my daughter's death?"

He said nothing. He pulled out a paper envelope and handed it to her. A car screeched up and he opened the door to get in. She grabbed his arm and asked passionately of him, "What am I to do with this? How can I get in contact with you? Where are you..."

He held up a hand and said intently, "Monday night...you saw something similar to Saturday afternoon. Read the contents by that light over there and stick it in your pocket. There is little time. It is Tuesday now. For the next couple of hours, at least. Good night, Professor Hackensack." He climbed into the car and it sped off with a whine of it's high-powered electric engine.

She looked around nervously and went over to the light in question and opened the letter. It read, "10:45 P.M. Outbound Murfreesboro road at the airport tunnel. Be there if you want truth. We want the same in turn."

She looked at her LCD thumb-nail and it read, '10:15 P.M.'. She sighed and got back in her car and drove out Murfreesboro road past the public housing projects and toward the Metropolitan Nashville Airport. The tunnels were almost a hundred years old and lit on the sides by glaring lemon-yellow flickering halogen bulbs. When she entered the outbound tunnel, she recognized the shark-like air-car she had seen in Macon, Georgia. It's strange darkly shark-like shape was a strange thing to see there. The mystery man was next to it.

She pulled up behind the Boeing air-car and got out. When she did, he motioned her over to the vehicle. She remarked , "With an air-car, you make good time."

He opened the back door and gestured for her to get in. She swallowed hard and did so. She moved in from the glaring lemon-yellow light of the tunnel, and into the darkness of the back of the vehicle. The door closed and it was very dim inside. She could tell that several other people were there other than just the man.

Someone held up a glowing PDA- LCD screen which read, "Please say the following in a natural voice and hold up your car-keys. Be silent afterwards, please: ' I understand and will be there in ninety minutes!' "

The door to the air-car opened again and she could tell a woman dressed similar to her was across from her. The message appeared on the screen again. She took a breath and said the wording as exact as possible. "I understand completely. I'll be there in ninety minutes."

The keys were taken by the other woman and Miriam was shocked to see a reasonable facsimile of 'Miriam Hackensack' get out , go over to her auto and get in her car and drive off. A moment later, the air-car engines roared into life and it taxied down the inside of the tunnel and leapt into the sky.

After a moment the lights came up and LadyMouse looked into Miriam's shocked eyes. She smiled and looked nervous as she said, "Hello, Miriam. We...need to talk. UTX is trying to kill my friends and apparently want my brain back and we need to ask you some questions."

Miriam asked, with her heart and voice breaking, "Are you my daughter, Molly?"

Gadget blinked and smiled,"That is a complicated question! I don't...know!"

Milo shouted., "Oh, Gadget! We have a little problem!" Milo's voice was nervous, edging toward panic. There are like these ...uh..four jet fighters making a bee-line at us!"

Gadget said, "Milo–activate the gosh-darn stealth-cloak!" Gadget reached over and squeezed Miriam's hand.

The vehicle started doing evasive maneuvers and Milo said tersely, "It IS on! I can't lose them!"

The cell-phone in the Boeing flashed ,"Incoming Call."

Milo activated it.

It was Maximilian Matamoros. He smiled at them and said simply, "Good evening, all. My fighters are targeting you. You choices are these. Set course for the Yucatan, surrender immediately, or be shot down immediately. Mouse-girl...she is your mother. You might sacrifice anyone else, but would you sacrifice your own mother?"

They looked at each other and Gadget sweated. Mister Matamoros looked at his finger-nails and looked up. He said, "The fate of the world is more important than you. I give you ten seconds to decide your fate. I have no more time to waste on this."

Milo asked, "What do you want to do Gadget?"

She looked at the count-down clock and watched the seconds countdown toward zero.

–To be Continued –