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

5. The River of Time

Chapter 5 : The River of Time

Atlanta

"I'm ready for my new brain", Dale said miserably and sat down on the floor.

Anthony Fong ,Widget and Neko-Ney stopped walking on their way from breakfast. Their FBI handler, Special Agent Leia Brahms stopped and looked at Dale. She brushed her short chestnut colored bangs out of her eyes and frowned at the replicant chipmunk.

She looked at Widget and Neko and asked, "Does he do this a lot?"

Anthony was waving a hand in from of Dale's face, to no response. Neko shrugged and looked at Dale suspiciously, her ears twitching , while sniffing at him. Neko-Ney was suddenly was very jumpy.

Widget couldn't guess what spooked her this time. Widget glared at Dale and said, "Dale! Straighten up! What the heck is wrong with you?"

He didn't acknowledge Widget or even look at Neko or Anthony. "I don't....my brain isn't right. I need a new one."

Neko hackled up and circled behind him. Dale blinked and said, "I forgot how to sleep."

Widget looked at Leia, who looked back equally alarmed. Anthony backed up, feeling creepy by both how Neko and Dale were acting. Widget asked Dale, "What do to mean? You lay down, close your eyes and shut down your higher functions."

"My higher functions read as off-line. I need a new brain. I'm ready for my new brain." Dale said in the same exhausted dead-pan voice.

Neko batted him in the back of his head with her ears down, and jumped back. Dale sat there unmoving and blinked. Anthony wondered if it were really bright to get involved with Neko-Ney or not.

Widget blinked and said to Leia, "No–he doesn't do this all the time." Neko pounced on Dale ,biting and kicking him a couple of times half-heartedly and then leapt off of him in a split-second. Dale lay there, staring at the ceiling, while Neko came up curiously and sniffed his toes. Widget put a hand on her face and turned red and muttered, "SHE on the other hand....is like this all the time!" Anthony could help but feel sorry for the giant faux chipmunk.

Neko crouched on all fours and looked at Dale and pronounced, "Dale is broken!" She jumped up to her feet and shook her head. " Insufficient Primary Control Program operating parameters. Buffer of P-C-P substrate has over-run his system. Poor Dale!" Neko stood up and dusted off her hands and said with finality, "The lights are on, and Dale has left the building! What's for breakfast?"

Widget blinked and her eyes teared up a little and she glared at Neko. "Don't you feel anything at all for him?"

Neko looked distracted and then shook her head. "Nope. Didn't really know him. Fought alright. Not good enough to save Fidget or Chase. He's a brain-dead yokel ,now. So what?" She came over to Anthony for reassurance and he petted her. She purred and rubbed her head against his shoulder. She kissed him on the cheek and bounded over Dale's unresponsive body.

Leia frowned and called Milo on her cell-phone. "Mister Finch, the Dale Unit-One just went off-line in the hallway. You better come take a look."

He came out from a room at the end of the hallway and ran up. He pulled out the portable tester from his pocket and plugged it into Dale's DNI-UTC plug in the back of the giant chipmunk's head.

Neko looked over his shoulder and said quietly, "Abraham Lincoln called Micky Mouse and the line's dead. Buffer Over-run! Crash-boom-buffer-bang."

She smiled at him as he glowered at her and growled, "Do you mind?"

She smiled more and said quietly and said quietly, "No. Not at all! You could. ...reinitialize Dale's P-C-P and hope he don't tear into ya! You sure got a way of charming people!"

Widget rolled her eyes and shrugged. She looked at Dale sadly, and said, "She's annoying all to heck and gone, but she is correct. After the marathon debriefing session with Gadget, there is no doubt what the outcome would be. Dale would attack you, Milo."

He read on the Diagnostic tool-set, 'Primary Control Program Buffer Over-run. Insufficient underlay of experience for independent operations. System has crashed. Buffer over-run 46! Primary Control Program to reboot from control cortex Y/N?' He clicked the 'NO' icon and stood up.

Milo suppressed the urge to kick Dale while he was down. "Dammit! Just like Chip! His system failed after the head shot. He wouldn't reboot with P-C-P assistance. I don't know what was moving him without the P-C-P ON!"

Milo yawned and came up to Widget. "I need to get a baseline on your P-C-P Buffer. I am curious to see what's going on."

She paused and pulled her hair out of the way. He plugged her in and he took a reading. After a few moments he frowned and shook his head. He had a strange look on his face and said, "You have an AVERAGE Buffer over-run of 1. Dale has a steady 46 now. Widget–why does your's oscillate from a -1 to a positive 2 ?"

Widget shrugged and looked uncomfortable and said, "That is the same level of failure that Two had–isn't it?"

Anthony looked at Neko and asked, "Is that the reason you kept looking at Dale at breakfast? Special 'cat-sense' that Dale was going to fall apart?"

Neko took Anthony's arm as they went into Gadget's impromptu hospital room. Gadget was laying down, with her upper-body elevated, with an IV drip going in her left arm and Miriam holding onto the right hand. The other bed had a cat-napping Zoe on it. Larry was asking Gadget about her earliest memories at the Belize Replication Facility.

Neko put a finger to her lips and chuckled, "Ix-nay on the at-cay ense-say! I'm a cat-goddess. I have to keep up appearances!"

Just in the hallway behind the two of them, Widget looked worried and Milo thought about his wording a little bit.

Milo patted her on the back as they went into Gadget's room at the end of the hallway. "That was with an intact P-C-P. If your P-C-P was reinitialized, your Buffer over-run would fall to less than a measurable amount."

Widget looked stressed. She muttered, "Great. That's just ...uh...great. Long as I think with someone else's mind, I'm fine."

Gadget looked exhausted and looked over from where Miriam and Larry were. She looked grimly at Milo and Milo said, "Sorry. Dale's system just crashed. I was afraid of that. He suffered terminal Buffer over-run."

Miriam looked horrified, "That nice red-nosed chipmunk died?"

Milo shook his head. He frowned and said, "It's difficult to explain to the lay-man. His system crashed. I can reboot his character file, but he'll act different. He has a full database in the control cortex that can reboot his persona, but his personality is on his substrate, also called his Buffer. Call it his experience with learning situations to fill in the blanks of the P-C-P. He still needs the main program to HAVE the blanks filled in of, though."

He looked sourly at Neko who was sniffing Gadget's face and said in irritation, "Though some here are all blanks."

Neko turned and yawned at him. It struck him as more primal than tiredness, it was a threat. 'Keep going and I will bite you'.

He sighed and said to Neko, "Come here and let me get a Buffer base-line on you, too."

Neko stuck out her tongue and said, "Get stuffed!"

Widget and Gadget were surprised and appalled. Miriam was amused . Larry and Leia watched in intense interest.

Milo was floored. He said, "I have to get a base-line on your buffer over-run number."

Neko leapt over Gadget's bed and she shook her head and asked, "What'll you give me for it?"

Milo sat down and shook his head. He gritted his teeth and said slowly, "I don't have time for this."

Neko bounced on the balls of her feet and grinned, "I do!"

Miriam laughed and said to Milo, "Try the magic words." Everyone's eyes were on Miriam. She smiled sweetly. Milo looked from the amused Gadget to everyone else. He swallowed hard. Everyone else apparently got it except him.

Milo looked completely blank.

Miriam said in irritation, "I should sock you, Milo"

Neko started giggling and said enthusiastically, "Yeah, yeah! Sock'im, SOCK'IM! POW! Right in tha KISSAH!"

Milo groaned and looked sick. Widget smiled at him and she whispered to him, "I don't get it either." Widget squeezed his arm and he looked bleak.

Miriam said, "Neko-Ney, if you'll please come over here and let him take his reading, I'll get you some salmon."

Neko came over and sat down in front of Milo. "No probs, Gadget's mom! Gimme the fish!"

Miriam said, " 'Magic words'? Please and thank you? Oh, come on ,Milo!"

Milo rolled his eyes and squeezed out, "Thank you, Neko."

She chortled and gloated, "I get a 'thank-you' AND a fish! Mmmmmwahahahahah!"

Gadget smiled ,but was exhausted from retelling her tale to Widget and Neko and from staying up all night. She was feeling strange from the drugs the doctors there put her in her I-V to inhibit the swelling of her brain. She suddenly realized that something was missing. She watched as Milo jacked into Neko's skull with the diagnostic probe. Widget still looked uneasy, and Miriam was still holding Gadget's hand. Zoe was finally asleep from the thrilling retelling; though she acting uninterested, she was captivated by the adventure of it.

Leia was asking Larry about Gadget recalling Two's memories. Larry was professional about the retelling. Tiffany had just left to go lay down, but that wasn't it. Gadget couldn't place what was wrong. Then it hit her. She had forgotten the weird dreams that she had.

Miriam looked at Gadget and Miriam squeezed Gadget's hand and asked, "What's wrong? You have an odd look."

"I have just completely forgotten the dreams I had underwater."'Gadget said in consternation.

Milo looked up and said,"Neko's Buffer over-run reading is a fairly steady -2, which frankly surprises me that she acts so unstable and actually is so stable."

Neko-Ney turned and glared at him and bit him on the hand and ran out of the room.

He jumped up and yelled, "OW! Shit! Damn cat!" Miriam put a hand over her face and chuckled. Gadget and Widget giggled. Larry turned away to smirk and Leia frowned.

"What way do you mean 'unstable'? She apparently acts very cat-like to my limited observations. VERY cat-like." Special Agent Leia Brahms was captivated by the actions of these peculiar replicants. They didn't act like any she had ever seen.

Milo was shaking his hand, frowning, and checking for blood from where Neko nipped him at and continued, "....But I am not surprised that Gadget has 'reforgotten' the dreams. This indicates a program barrier in the buffer." He looked surprised and blinked and exclaimed, "Wait a minute! I am surprised! She has a live brain! Dammit! I keep forgetting. If the auto-repair on the CPU's fix a physical problem, everything returns to how it WAS before the accident. The human brain doesn't have a super-aggressive regeneration procedure like the Doorways-CPU Bio-ware."

Miriam called the neuro-surgeon, Doctor Fisher, who had treated Gadget for her concussion.

It took him a couple of minutes to set up the portable MRI machine in her room. After some moments he was astounded and turned to them. He was a plain-spoken man in his late fifties and looked tired, but now ,was looking shocked. He sighed in surprise and shook his head in disbelief.

He said, "I do not believe it! The difference is ...well, shocking! Look at this." He put up a three-dimensional image of Gadget's brain with red and orange splotches on it on the PTV in the room. "That was from when you brought her in here twelve hours ago."

He put up the image from the MRI machine which showed grays and whites and pinks. He said, "Now--Nothing-- but healthy, undamaged tissue! You brought her in with a class three concussion! It didn't get up and walk out. That is a strange brain in that head. I'm not sure what healed her brain. If she's a plague victim—she is well past the terminal stage. Her brain isn't quite functionally human anymore. It's similar to a Doorway-CPU according to Mister Finch. I don't know what it is. It acts like a human brain AND has DNA that definitely belongs to one Miss Molly Hackensack. That was confirmed from the mitochondrial DNA test we just finished.."

He looked uncomfortable and said, "That is Molly Hackensack's brain. I don't know how it is still alive."

Milo stood up with a look of horror on his face. "There hasn't been a case Lefrene's Syndrome–a NEW one in TEN years! You said 'if she's a plague victim...' "

Everyone in the room was on their feet instantly and staring at Gadget in fear. Neko was the only calm one in the room. Gadget giggled nervously and waved a hand and said merrily, "Oh–that! If I was infectious ....I would have caused one by now! Golly! I have been a Rescue Ranger for FOUR years and never given anyone a sniffle!"

Neko shook herself and beamed, "I already knew! She doesn't SMELL infectious! Unlike Leia, who should be sick by tonight. I smelt it! I'm a magic cat-goddess. It's a miracle! You there, Miriam! Give me a salmon! Roasted one, too! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!"

Widget frowned and said to Neko, "Oi! Don't you ever shut up?"

Neko looked thoughtful and then shook her head. "Nope! Not when I got something important to say!"

Larry cleared his throat, and said in a commanding way, "We're all tired and need to sleep. Regular people and replicants, both. Let the experts worry about where Maximilian Matamoros may have gotten the first live sample of the Silico-organic plague in ten years."

Gadget's heavy breathing caught people off-guard as she fell right to sleep. Miriam smiled and several others shook their heads.

Larry rolled his eyes with a tired smile and said softly, "Sleeping conditions are a little rough. We'll get a rolling bed in here for you, Miriam" Miriam nodded. "Anthony, Milo and I will bunk in one room. Two beds and one sleeping bag. I get a damned bed at my age and you two get to flip a coin for the floor!" They looked unhappy and nodded. He looked at Widget and Neko. "You two get the last room."

Widget looked askance at Neko-Ney and then frowned. "With the fubar furball?"

Neko-Ney was joyous. She said, "Oh, Yah! A room and room-service!"

Larry said, "No room service! Shut up and get out, now. Gadget or ..ah...Molly needs to sleep."

They split up and were shown their various rooms. Milo lost the toss and ended up on the floor in a sleeping bag. He thought that had to be fate.

Neko and Widget didn't even pull the covers down and just fell out on top of them.

Gadget got up first feeling restless and undercharged. She went into the bathroom, and figured out the shower fixtures by trial and error and took a shower. They had taken the IV out and she put on slippers and the stretch pants with the hole cut for her tail and the v-neck pull over-shirt they gave her. She moved silently to not disturb Miriam or Zoe. She kept thinking of them like that, not as MOM and Zoe. It still struck her as odd.

She went out into the hallway where a man in a anti-ballistic vest and helmet was standing guard with a 4.65mm Makarov assault rifle/grenade launcher combo. He didn't quite point it at her, just in her direction. She closed the door behind her and stood carefully in the hall. She said quietly, "Golly...uh...I'm hungry and would like a grilled cheese sandwich? I didn't want to ....be shot...which would disturb people....and where is the kitchen? Or such? Vending machine? Oh, shoot! Scratch vending machine. I don't have any money."

He looked in his mid-twenties and was trying to look tough and trying to not be amused. He smiled and showed dimples to Gadget. She liked that..

She smiled broadly and stuck out a hand and said in a bright voice, "Hiya! I'm Gadget! Who are you?"

He burst out laughing and said, "Oh God! You're the important guest I'm protecting? Aren't you just the cutest little thing!"

She batted her eyelashes at him and preened. He was very cute in that muy machismo Latino way. She said in a coy voice, "Thank you....Who EVER you are."

He laughed and shook his head. "Ramon Perez. I'm supposed to call for your handler if you or any of the other replicants got up."

She laughed and rocked back and forth on her slippered feet. "Handler? Makes me sound like a part of a trained animal act! Besides....I'm not a replicant! I'm a real girl...in the replicant body. I mean a brain. A brain inside this body. I mean I have a live HUMAN brain inside of this...Ahem...You were telling me where the kitchen is?"

He held up a finger and said, "Wait a moment. Leia? One's up. Named Gadget."

After a moment, the young woman came out from an office near the stairs up and came over to Gadget. Gadget gave her a smile and shook her head and said, "All this fuss over a toasted cheese sandwich! Hiya, Special Agent Brahms! Golly. I hope I didn't pull you away from something important. I just wanted a toasted cheese sandwich. I don't want to be a bother."

Special Agent Leia Brahms held a hand up in bemusement and laughed, "I think it's the most natural thing in the world that a replicant mouse girl wants a real cheese sandwich. Follow me to the kitchen, please. I must say, Miss Hackensack...."

"Gadget, please. If you must, then 'Miss Hackwrench'. I don't FEEL like Molly Hackensack." Gadget interrupted with a tiny shiver..

"Miss Hackwrench, then...I find that the replicants moving without crashing their systems and NO Primary Control Program are very interesting to me. I find YOUR case to be of greatest personal interest to me. I was born with a genetic disease that destroys my long bones and have had such replaced with cybernetic replacements. Virtually my entire skeletal structure and major muscular groups were replaced with the cutting edge cybernetics." Leia smirked and whispered, "You aren't the only one to lift a car around here."

Gadget shrugged and said, "I know that. You weigh almost 240 lbs and have 40 power units, I weigh 130 pounds and have 400 power units. I can see into the low ultra-violet and high infra-red spectrums. I have faster reaction times than a human. They did something to my neural connection speed that made it very fast. Neko-Ney flipped over TWO armored cars in combat and is slightly faster than me. If we meant harm, we'd have done it by now! Golly, all I want is a cheese sandwich."

Gadget was wearing her most ingratiating smile at the end of that. Gadget looked back the hallway and waved to Ramon. Leia was put off by her off-handed way of speaking plainly and sounding so cute while doing so. Leia caught herself sneezing explosively. Gadget jumped back out of the way and laughed. "Gosh! Hey! You aren't coming down with something, are you? Neko said...."

Leia opened the kitchen door and said, "Here! I need a paper towel!"

Leia ran in and got a paper towel. Gadget followed her inside. Gadget found the sandwich bread, found some cheddar cheese in the refrigerator and a skillet, while Leia sneezed in the hall-way. Gadget experimented her way through making the sandwich. She got out the skillet and put it in and turned on the heat.

Leia came over, sniffling and asked, "Never had one before?"

Gadget nodded. "I liked the one I had. I want another." She looked at Leia curiously. Gadget frowned and said sourly, "I left out some important step along the way, didn't I?"

Leia laughed, and pulled out the butter.. She smirked and said, "You might want to butter the pan."

Gadget was floored. She threw her hands in the air and sighed, "For the love of Pete! I was so busy thinking about Ramon....I mean...uh...JUST thinking about things....AH FOOEY!"

She went to the fridge universal cooking panel completely flustered and looked up recipes. It replayed how to make a fried cheese sandwich and variations. Leia went over and snatched off the pan before it caught fire. Gadget looked surprised and said , "Oops. Sorry. Got distracted reading about what I should be building. Let me try again."

Leia laughed and shook her head. She raised an eyebrow at Gadget and whispered for effect, "Ramon doesn't have a girl-friend."

Gadget almost dropped the frying-pan. "Ah! No? Uh...gulp...Mmm-nnnn! O-K."

This time she sauteed onions and put them on the cheese and buttered the pan and made her sandwich to perfection. Gadget looked at Leia and offered her half. "Here. You kept me from burning the place down. Or worse! The fire alarm would have gone off and woke everyone else up and boy–they would have been grouchy! Gosh!"

Leia laughed and took it and a napkin. "For your second sandwich, this is pretty good. I like the sauteed onions. You cut them into small strands, but didn't mince them. Why?"

Gadget looked thoughtful. She frowned and said, "I don't really know. I didn't see them on a menu or recipe that I remember seeing. I just thought that the onions would bring out the flavor of the cheese. I mean ...why am I am drinking grape juice with the sandwich? I never drank grape juice before. How did I know?" Gadget drank the dark concord grape juice deeply. "AH! Golly, that is stupendous! How did I know? Maybe it's...a memory of something I don't have anymore. Of being Molly Hackensack, maybe? I don't know, really."

Leia asked with a smile and a sniffle, "Who do you answer as? Who are you?" Leia sneezed again.

Gadget smiled and answered, "As Gadget Hackwrench. I guess Neko pegged you with coming down with something. The nose must know."

"I'm a goddess. It's a miracle."

Gadget leapt away with an ,"Eeek", flipping backward into the sink and hitting her head on one of the cupboards with a thunk. Leia leapt sideways, falling over a chair and drew her machine pistol and pointed it at Neko-Ney. Gadget held her head and shouted, "Good Golly!"

Neko-Ney blinked and smiled at them, "Whassup guys? Jeez, you mugs is jumpy as a herd of cats!"She opened the fridge and started prowling, "What's good to eat?"

Gadget jumped down and helped Leia up. Leia got up and was tense from the adrenaline surge. She swore and holstered her pistol. Gadget looked at Neko and asked, "HOW did you sneak up on us?"

Neko got out the smoked ham, licking her lips. "Cats sneak up on stuff. I snuck up on Widget and Fidget a lot in the house. Widget hates it. Fidget laughed." She looked really sad and stabbed the ham fitfully and said quietly, " I miss her laughter. I couldn't save them. I thought they got killed. Chase gave me fish and thought how I ate potato chips cute." Neko looked up and her eyes were filled with tears. She sniffed and asked, "What are those mean people gonna do with'em?"

Gadget came over and hugged her. She said softly to Neko, "I don't know. They figured that they needed both. If they were going to kill them–they'd be dead like poor Doctor Lassiter. We WILL get them BACK. I swear it!" Gadget and Neko-Ney looked at Special Agent Brahms.

Leia looked away from them. She said quietly, "I'll bring to bear all the pressure I can. I agree that UTX needs to made to pay for what they have done."

Widget came in and said sarcastically, " '....though 'WE' ,the AMERICAN government, won't get our fat butts to save your buds, because this only concerns a couple or six deaths and some replicants..' "

Leia held up a hand and said stronger, "Look here! This is SERIOUS! And I know you are angry! This matter pisses me off ,too. This will be handled. We will get Chase Victor back. You all need to decompress some. We need to get some information about what is going on, and where they might be held. We have...sources. We'll find her."

Neko sighed and picked up the half-a-ham she cut herself and held it up. Yep, you're right. Ham helps a little though. So you got spies on the inside of UTX? Bwaahaha! That's a good one. Anything is possible, I suppose."

Widget frowned and looked at Neko and said, "You aren't going to eat that whole hunk are you?"

Neko's ears folded down and she said irritatedly, "You complain about my chips now this. Let me be sad and eat ham!"

Gadget asked in a high-pitched voice, "What about the gosh-darn potato-chips?"

Widget said in a disgusted voice, "It is so yucky! She licks the salt off of each and then crunches them as loudly as possible. She doesn't just eat them!"

Gadget looked at Neko astounded and then at Widget with her mouth open. Gadget held up a hand between them and came up to Widget and flicked her hard on the forehead with her middle finger.

Widget Staggered back and put a hand on her bruised forehead and shouted, "OW! What'dya do that for?"

Gadget got up in Widget's face and said ,"Get over yourself. We are all frazzled and falling apart. We have to hold it together for Chase and Fidget. Forget Neko's chip eating! Goodness! We have more important things to keep track of."

Widget looked unsettled and blinked several times. She clenched her fists and then finally sighed. Widget looked over at Neko and whispered hoarsely, "I'm sorry, Neko."

She smiled at Widget and offered her a bite of the huge ham chunk, and said, "You can have a bite. There are parts I haven't slobbered on yet. If people give you a choice of sadness with and without ham, pick sadness with ham. Sadness is always better with ham."

Leia added, "And with friends, too–it appears."

They ate ham and Leia suggested mustards to go with ham. Widget loved horseradish mustard, while Gadget loved honey-mustard. Neko's try of horse-radish caused her to lick the taste of it on her tongue off on a chair-back, much to the other's laughter.

It was later in the afternoon, the laughter had evaporated as Milo ran another check on their Buffer over-run numbers. Neko's was a steady -2 on the diagnostic. No change at all. However, Widget's was averaging in the 2 range.

Special Agent Leia Brahms, Doctor Walter Fisher, Larry WIlliams, Anthony Fong and Miriam were in the medical laboratory as Milo used some of the diagnostic tools they had taken from the back of Doctor Fairweather's aircar.

Widget sighed bleakly, "I don't have much time left." Milo looked over at Gadget and shrugged. Neko looked over ad Widget and came over and licked Widget's face.

Neko whispered tenderly to Widget, "Do you want some ham?"

Widget looked angry, then shocked and then hugged Neko and cried softly. Neko hugged back and said, "I guess 'no ham'?"

Gadget said, "We have to do something!"

Milo gestured her over to a chair and pulled out the diagnostic tool out again and said to Gadget, "I want to get a diagnostic reading from you, Miss 'Live Brain of 2083'."

Miriam looked confused. "Why? She has a live brain! She doesn't have a computer-buffer."

Neko said, "Or a floor-buffer, either!"

Milo said in a curious voice, "There is a translator on the tool, and I have NO idea what in hell it will show." Gadget nodded with a resolute expression on her face and moved her hair out of the way.

Doctor Fisher said, "It would be a good thing to find out. I've never seen the kind of infiltration into a human brain as in 'Gadget's brain. It has more cybernetic implantation than any brain I have record of. I want to know what exactly is in that head, and why does UTX invest so much interest in making her brain ACT like a Doorways-CPU?"

They crowded around the read-out and he jacked it into her DNI-UTC plug on the base of her skull. Milo pointed at some figures for Miriam and said, "This is the host communicating with the probe. Probe identified host as Gadget Unit number 4. Query, query ....blah,blah,blah. ...P-C-P is off-line, do you want reboot? We hit NO! And Buffer over-run is -1! Well isn't that wonderful? Now input the passcode and get the straight numbers!"

The bar graph jumped up into the red and down back into the green. Milo said, "It's jumping around so fast, I can't tell what it is. It is jumping from positive 30 to negative 30....so I guess it averages zero ."

Miriam looked at it and said, "Hey! It looks sort of like one of those bio-rhythm things, except that Widget's is a little slower., I think. What does it mean?"

"I have no idea. It doesn't have a rhythm other than it jumps around. I don't know what happened between last night and now, to cause such a big jump." Milo looked worried, and Widget looked ill. She went over and sat down, looking lonely.

Doctor Fisher said after a moment of thought, "It looks like an abstract EEG read-out. Possibly reading on emotional/psychological states?"

Neko-Ney came over and said in a small voice, "I argued with Widget over potato chips after we slept. We had nightmares. And didn't sleep long. Woke up edgy."

Gadget jumped up and exclaimed, "That's something! We aren't sharing dreams! Maybe that is something that we need to keep from crashing. I've really missed it."

Neko-Ney nodded as Widget said slowly, "I've had terrible nightmares every night. I have trouble sleeping."

Anthony suddenly interjected, "That's what Dale said before he crashed. He forgot how to sleep, remember?"

Dr. Fisher said, "That leads to psychosis in humans, much less the plain old impairment in driving and thinking. Who would have thought that replicants need to dream? Is it the human dreaming in the mix that adds spice to the replicant's dreams?"

Milo looked shocked, and sat down in misery. "That's probably it. It's 'dream deprivation' or something. The Disney super-computer is the one that monitored that subsystem. I don't know if I can replicate something that complex."

Gadget looked determined said strongly to Milo, grabbing him by the arm, "You can, because you have to, even if we have to go to Tandy Shack and get a DNI-UTX cable with a splitter built in it and just plug it in jack-port to port. We are not going to lose Widget! You got that, Milo? You get that point?"

"I'll do what I can. God, this is science by the seat of my pants! I'm going to need parts. Let me try to do up a parts list and see what we have here and see what we need to fill in",Milo looked nervous, but determined.

Miriam looked quite confused. She held up a hand and asked, "I'm lost. Why don't you reinitialize the Primary program thingamabob? Wouldn't that keep her from crashing?"

Milo shook his head and frowned. He struggled to put his thoughts together, and Gadget looked thoughtful. Gadget said to her, "Look at it this way, Mom. It's the difference between freedom of action and slavery. Right now she is free to explore her 'Leslie Watts' memories and act the way she wants. If the Primary Control Program was in control, she would default to the Gadget personality and act inside those parameters! She couldn't shoot bad-guys, and she would have parts of her experience overwritten by the P-C-P, so she could act like Gadget Hackwrench. It would be like being possessed by her. We need to save the independant person who used to be Leslie Watts and who is now called Widget."

Anthony Fong looked at Widget and over at Gadget and Neko. "Couldn't one of you girls keep a shadow copy of Widget in your central cortex like the Unit Two did of Four that time? Or did I get that wrong? Then Milo could turn on the PCP til she's alright and then turn it off and reintroduce the info back into her brain?"

Milo frowned sourly. "If we had a NORMAL replicant, I'd have at least an idea of what that would do! Neko doesn't even HAVE a Primary Control Program, and Gadget has a live brain. Running a shadow-copy of the Buffer information destabilized Two and would have crashed her eventually. I have no clue what it would do to either Neko's CPU data, or to Gadget's brain. Don't get me wrong—IT IS an idea. Just a dangerous idea we'll keep in mind til we've exhausted all other possibilities. I hope we don't have to find out."

Gadget said grimly, "If we DO need to do, I'll do it. Leslie Watts was human. Neko-Ney may be in greater danger than me to put the ghost-copy of the Buffer info into her. I...don't think it may be logical....but it feels right. Human information to a human brain. Who knows? It might help both of us."

Milo looked serious and squeezed her hand and said in a very serious tone, "It might give you a nervous breakdown, or even destroy your personality. I think this is very premature to discuss this possibilty. We haven't even discussed the possible problems of overwriting this AMOUNT of Buffer information. It might collapse the system and need a reinstallation. That would be tantamount to brain death! We are in new lands here."

Miriam frowned and went, "Alrighty, then. Golly, this is frightenly complicated!"

Gadget looked at her and laughed. " 'GOLLY'? Golly! You sounded like me!"

Neko batted the back of Gadget's head. "Stop laughing! Widget is sad! This isn't about you, fer once, ya mook!"

Widget said in a tremulous voice, "Just let me crash. I don't want to be a bother. I don't want anyone else to endanger themselves for me." She looked young and lost. Her eyes were filled with tears, that she kept blinking away."

Gadget stroked Widget's cheek and grabbed Miriam's arm with her other hand.

Gadget announced to Miriam, "Widget is more of a sister to me, than Zoe is. I don't really know Zoe. I know Widget. She IS family! She needs me, Mom! Needs us. Do you understand?"

Miriam nodded, feeling really put on the spot, but feeling charitable to the little, lost mouse girl. Miriam flapped her arms once, not quite a shrug and gave Widget a huge hug and swung her around. "Welcome to the family, Widget!"

Miriam looked at Gadget, as Widget started weeping on Miriam's shoulder, and said, "You know...I'm only doing this to see the look on Zoe's face. You come from a family of fighters."

Neko-Ney said to Miriam, "Give her a back-rub ,Mommy! And give me a SALMON! You promised! Mmmmmmmmm, salmon!"

Miriam looked at Neko in mock out-rage and said to her, "Now you wait one minute, young lady! You can take care of your own self! You'll get your fish! I didn't forget you."

Milo said, "I better get on the parts and programs list. This is going to take some work."

Leia looked at Milo with her eyebrows raised and shook her head. She said to him, "They are...something else, aren't they? They react fully human. They make you react to them on a human-to-human level. That's really impressive."

Milo shook his head. "No–inexplicable! Dale was atypical, but what usually happens eventually. Neko-Ney is unbelievable, Gadget is anomalous, and Widget is inexplicable. I'm trying to going to try to fix the inexplicable and make her understandable...at least to me."

Neko slapped her hands together and shouted, "Alright, you mooks! Lets move like we have a purpose! Let's get stuff together to fix Widget and get me a fish!"

Gadget reached over and whacked Neko in the head with her open hand. Everyone laughed.

The Yucatan Peninsula

Chase woke up to some one laughing in the distance. A heavy door closed some where Her head was pounding and her senses seemed distorted. She laid there for a long time staring at the peach canopy of the canopy bed she was in. She felt the silk sheets she was between. There was a warm body next to her on the left side. She had trouble moving even her eyes.

Fidget asked in a tremulous voice, "Chase? Are you awake? I can't tell where we are. It's been almost twenty-six hours since the attack. I can see and blink and talk. Other motor control appears impaired. You are on my right side. Can you move? I'm scared."

Chase's heart was pounding in her chest already. She was trembling harder to hear that. She levered herself up and looked around. She was wearing some antique looking underwear and Fidget was next to her. Fidget was wearing a violet flannel nightgown and looked frightened. Chase looked around the room and felt weak and very dizzy. There was an uncomfortable opulence to the place. There were drapes on the windowless walls. There were appointed chairs of leather and tables of polished wood. There was a mini-fridge and PTV and door going to a bathroom. She could just see the bath-tub.

Fidget said, "Chase–you have a DNI-UTC plug now."

To her horror, she felt the back of her head and felt the cold plasti-flesh rim of the metal plug. She felt like throwing up. She pulled herself to the bed-edge opposite Fidget and vomited. She had dry heaves for a couple of minutes.. She got herself under control in a few minutes. She was trembling violently and felt violated. She didn't know what god-awful things they had put into her head and the thought of being a puppet made her ill.

She wept and punched the bed-side.

Fidget cried ,too. She said, "I'm sorry, Chase. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. Don't cry."

Chase turned and looked at Fidget still laying there in the same position. Chase blinked back tears with a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach and asked Fidget, "Why aren't you moving? Can't you move?"

Fidget blinked and looked terrified. She said in a high-pitched, terror-filled voice, "I already told you! Don't you remember? No. I can't move!"

"Sorry, Fidget. I-I'm a little bit out of things. Effect of the surgery, most likely, and maybe the anesthetic." Chase checked Fidget's body and limbs for damage and then her neck, feeling carefully for breaks. She felt something odd at the DNI-UTC plug at the base of Fidget's skull. Chase said to Fidget, "Baby, I have to turn you over to see what's attached to your DNI-UTC plug. What do your internal diagnostics tell you?"

"Nothing useful. It just says that most of my muscle groups are off-line. I figured that already...not being able to move." Fidget tried to sound upbeat, but was too terrified to sound other than just panicked.

Chase turned her over and discovered a red plastic button in Fidget's DNI-UTC plug. She noted the set-screw holding it in place and would bet good money, there wasn't allen wrench that would fit it in the room. It was a DNI-restraint. It was a simple device to immobilize replicants and many of the cyber-psychotic. It simply disengaged some of the volitional muscle-groups with a simple jammer. It was viewed by many as a peaceful way to handle dangerous psychotics or uncooperative replicants.

She trembled in relief that she didn't have similar inserted into her own plug now. She felt guilt from her relief and tried to remove the plug from Fidget's DNI-UTC jack with her fingernails. After several minutes, she had to give up. It was set in there and tightened down. She said to Fidget, "I'm sorry, honey....I can't get it out. It's a DNI-restraint. I don't know why they think you are dangerous."

Fidget said uncomfortably, "The only danger I pose is peeing on myself. I got to GO!"

Chase said, "Hang on. Let me get you off the bed." Chase man-handled the limp Fidget into a carriable position, and picked her up with difficulty. Chase got her into the bathroom and onto the toilet fairly quickly, but had to hold her upright since she was completely limp, though with no mishaps along the way. Chase let Fidget tend to her business with a minimum of fuss and decided enough is enough. After putting Fidget back to bed, Chase picked up the phone and dialed the operator.

After a moment, a young woman's voice came on the phone and said, "Good afternoon, Ms. Victor. Do you wish to place a dinner order?"

"No, I DON"T!" Chase struggled not the scream and rant. As scared and violated as she felt, she hoped reason might prevail. "I want to go home. I want that DNI-restraint removed from my friend's neck. I want us both to leave here unharmed."

"I can't fill those menu items. For other items, the management will be consulted. You must recuperate first. That will take one to three days. Some anxiety is typical. I am a meal preparation and menu program. You will be checked on periodically by Doctors. There is no need for concern." The voice never faltered or changed in pitch. Chase despaired of the phone.

"No need for concern? Dammit", she trailed off, her tired voice cracking. Her stomach rumbled as she looked over at Fidget. Fidget looked so helpless and was chewing her lower lip.

Chase lowered her head. She said in an even voice, "I want to order breakfast. Two orders or scrambled eggs and ham. One chocolate milk, one coffee and one grape juice. Two orders of white bread, toasted."

"Yes, Ma'am. It will be delivered in 20-30 minutes." The automated system announced in it's unchanging pleasant tone.

Chase hung up and sighed. She looked over at Fidget and said quietly, "I ordered breakfast for both of us. I'll take care of you, Fidget. Taking care of you will be like taking care of a big baby."

Fidget whimpered and closed her eyes and said in a tiny whisper, "I don't want to be a big baby."

Chase smiled a little at that. "Oh no?" Chase choked back on asking Fidget about how she had been acting. "It'll be for only a couple of days, I hope. Let me get you upright for breakfast-time."

Fidget pouted and said sullenly, "I don't wanna be a bother!"

Chase shushed her and smiled at her. "Fidget. Look at me. You are not a bother. I help you now and if you get a chance...you help me. Or one of the others. That's how it is. You've ended up my responsibility, so I'll take care of you. Don't feel bad about things you can NOT affect. Trust me and I'll take care of you.."

Fidget made a face then stuck out her tongue. She blinked and said, "Aw fooey! I forgot–I can't even nod! Thank you, Chase ...even if I can't hug you, or anything."

Chase piled up the pillows behind her and fluffed them to an incline to support Fidget's upper body and keep her head upright. The door opened without fan-fare and an automated serving cart rolled into the room and stopped by the table. Out in the hall, Chase saw a UTX 210 security mech in a doorway.

Chase got off the bed and walked over to the serving cart. It raised it's lid and revealed a serving platter beneath it's domed top. She removed the serving platter and watched as the little cart rolled back out of the room and the door closed silently behind it..

Chase walked back over to the bed with the meal, just as she had ordered it. Fidget was frowning and complained, "I can't hear either. I couldn't hear the little rolling bot-thing, until the door opened. That smells wonderful! I am so hungry!"

Chase was appalled at how small the food servings were. The servings were practically mouse-sized. She still felt nauseous, so decided to let Fidget eat both minuscule servings. Chase actually derived some small satisfaction in hand-feeding Fidget. She was so hungry and appreciative of the attention and the food.

Near the end of 'breakfast', Fidget looked around and was appalled at how little was left. She looked at Chase and said, "I'm not eating anymore! You're too thin, Chase! You eat the rest. You have to take care of me. I use little energy laying about. You have to eat for yourself and me, too. Please."

Chase smiled and said, "Alright. I'll eat most of the next meal, alright? I'm feeling sick from the surgery, so I don't really have an appetite."

Fidget looked uncomfortable and said, "O-k! Most of the next meal! You promise?"

Chase looked guilty and said, "I promise! Now drink your juice, before it gets warm!"

Fidget stuck her tongue out at Chase. Chase laughed and 'made' Fidget drink the grape juice. Fidget slurped loud when she ran out. Afterwards, Chase wiped Fidget's face and went over and picked up the phone and dialed the operator.

"I'd like more breakfast, same orders as before." Chase was expecting a rebuff, but she had to find the limits, before she tried them.

"I'm sorry. You have expended your caloric intake allotment for the day." The voice was infuriatingly polite.

Chase was expecting something draconian, but she still felt the blood rush to her cheeks and her hands tightened on the pick-up like she was wringing someone's neck. "What in HELL are you blathering about? That was barely enough food to starve on! How are we supposed to get more food?"

"You should....get a job. Good bye." The program hung up on her. She didn't have to 'act' mad at that. She was furious.

Chase slammed the phone down and shouted, "You mechanized bitch! 'Get a job' doing what?"

Chase went back to bed and laid down next to Fidget. Fidget said quietly, "I'm sorry. I wouldn't have..."

"Stop it, Fidget. Don't worry about it." Chase looked up at her face and squeezed Fidget's arm. I'm tired. How is your recharge status?

Fidget frowned. "That's what's weird. Bio-power is 100% ! I'm completely healthy, but body power is zero. I'm strong as a normal human right now. I'm no danger to anyone."

Chase caught herself before she reacted. She blinked and said, "Hunh! That is weird. I don't know what they're doing." She closed her eyes and evened her breathing. She assumed Mister Matamoros was playing mind-games of some kind. Fidget is completely helpless. She was with Fidget. Fidget knows the Alien language in her Buffer. Fidget likes Chase. Fidget is dependant on Chase and in a period of intense grief. Fidget is vulnerable to suggestion.

Chase knew what the equation was. Fidget had. Matamoros wanted and was going to use Chase to get! Why didn't he just kill Chase, and strip the information from Fidget's mind? She assumed he would be willing to do what ever to achieve that end, but why the mind-games.

" 'Get a job' she said. Doing what?" Chase thought intensely about that. Maximilian Matamoros was a powerful man and controlled a lot of the world. Perhaps he wanted willing accomplices? Maybe he wanted her broken and begging for him to save her from starvation and willing to say or do anything. Why the DNI-UTC jack? She needed more information. It was his game, and if she had to play by his rules, she wanted to know what game they were playing.

She was going to have to wait and watch and behave very deliberately. If she could behave and not lose control.

Chase got off the bed and paced around the room, looking into corners and the bathroom and at the ceiling. She turned on the PTV and sat down on the bed nest to Fidget.

Chase wrinkled up her nose as she found out it showed only one channel, and said wryly, "It figures." She watched the UTX-TV channel for a moment and smirked at Fidget and said, "This is like cable-vision in Hell! There are 666 channels and never a damned thing on!"

Fidget blinked. "I don't get it."

Chase chuckled sadly and said softly, "That figures, too."

Atlanta

Widget said, "I don't get it."

Ramon laughed and said again, "That figures. Look, I'm fair at hand-ball and you're a replicant. You guys are like super-powered in comparison to us regular guys, right? You never played and I'd like to play with you. If you're up to it. I figure it might take your mind off your problems. When I'm depressed and worried and stuff, working out big-time helps me a lot."

Zoe nodded, "Running helps me."

Widget looked over at Gadget, who smiled encouragingly at her. Gadget said to her, "What do you have to lose? Might be a fair match. You should play with him. If it were fair, I would play with him!"

He smiled at Gadget, showing off his dimples and asked, "You'd play with me?"

Gadget was speechless and blushed. She giggled and batted her eyes at Ramon and then hid her face in her hands as Widget laughed and gave Gadget a push.

Zoe laughed and exclaimed, "Go Gadget!"

Neko and Milo watched from the kitchen. Gadget, Widget, Zoe and Ramon were in the lounge cutting up. Milo had taken a break from working on the 'dream-machine' and came in to make a sandwich for lunch and watched the interplay with distaste. He hated guys like Ramon. Guys that were that slick and smooth gave Milo an angry disposition.

Neko spotted Milo's reaction and squeak-mailed a short exclamation. Widget glanced over and grinned. Gadget looked at Milo, who turned away to make his sandwich. His cheeks felt hot. Gadget raised an eyebrow curiously. Zoe looked at the two of them and saw Milo's reaction. Zoe gave Gadget a push and giggled.

Widget poked Gadget in the side and whispered to her, "You have too many boy-friends!"

Zoe looked outraged and whined, "Dammit! That is NOT fair! You mousy sex-pot!"

Gadget turned pinked pink to the ears and said, "Golly! How many is too many?" She smiled over at Milo and she called out to him, "Hey ,Milo! After Widget and Ramon play hand-ball, Neko-Ney and I were going to play. Did you want to come watch? It might be so quick, it's over before we blink."

He glanced over and looked uncomfortable. He came over and said, "I–don't know. I better keep working on the synchronization system. It's got loads of bugs."

She smiled at him and said softly, "You do need a break. Look, I'll help you afterwards? O-K? A little relaxation won't kill you, you know? Golly! Lighten up!"

He blinked and shuffled his feet once and said, shrugging, "Sure! Why Not? I am curious as to which of you two are actually faster. In pure processing speed, Neko should be faster, but the human brain has it all over the Doorways-CPU in multi-tasking visual cues. Should be close to a level field. I think."

Neko shrugged. "I just want to swat a ball around and have fun! We aren't playing for prizes or nuthin'!"

Widget smiled and said, "Hoo–boy! Here comes 'match of the century'! Ramon, we should hurry up and get our match out of the way and give these two room! They might tear the place down!"

Gadget shook her head and giggled. Neko giggled and nodded. They looked at each other and broke out laughing. Milo grimaced, trying to smile. His heart wasn't in it, because he kept thinking of Chase and what she might be going through. Gadget was flirting with that guard ,too. He wasn't sure which bothered him more.

Neko asked Milo straight out, "Hey, Mistah Brain? You ain't jealous of Ramon, here, play footsie with Miss Gee, are ya?" Milo choked on his sandwich when Neko's New York accent chain-sawed through his playing-it-cool.

Gadget exclaimed to Neko, outraged, "NEKO! That isn't very polite! Golly!"

Ramon laughed, but tried to act disinterested in the answer. He obviously was a little bit interested in her.

As Milo downed part of a glass of milk, to get his choking under control, Neko added, "I don't really want to know. I'm just curious, is all." She smiled broadly at Milo.

Milo retorted angrily, "You know what happens to curious cats."

She stood up and stretched and yawned. When she yawned she took a step toward Milo. She asked him in a low voice, "You know what happens to people who play to rough with cats don't you?"

Her left hand moved so blindingly quick, he didn't even blink as he felt a slight tugging on the plastic milk glass he was holding in left hand. She turned and stalked out of the room. Gadget was on her feet, and Milo realized his hand was wet.

Zoe said in awe, "Holy jumping shit! WOW!"

He looked at the plastic container weeping milk from where her razor-sharp claws had sliced right through the surface, missing his fingers by millimeters. He put it carefully into the sink.

Gadget asked him, "Did she get you?" He shook his head in a negative and got another cup.

Widget smiled and shook her head. "Ya know, Milo? You shouldn't casually threaten people like that. She was playing with you. You were out of bounds. Am I right ,Ramon?"

He nodded and said, "Yep. That was a little harsh, bro. You really need to work on your people skills."

Zoe threw in, "You are lucky! She coulda torn you a new one! Dude, you need a time out!"

Gadget stood up and said in a strong voice, "That is quite enough! Milo has had enormous strain and stress and is showing it. We are all frazzled. Neko included. Milo...I'm sure she'll get over it, but don't keep baiting her. Please? I'll talk to her ,too. We need to calm down and not snipe at each other."

She turned to Milo, and said, "The hand-ball court is on the top level and has a six centimeter thick poly-lexan observation wall you can watch through. I would like you to watch."

Milo opened his mouth and just nodded and said softly, "Alright. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Ramon and Widget went about warming up the court while Zoe watched the match.

Widget made the mistake of wearing a white cotton sports top and white shorts when she started the match. She threw herself into it with gusto. She caught on quickly and trounced him in quick order, building up quite a sweat. Her perspiration was dripping off of her when she was finished.

She noticed Zoe flagging her down while she was getting a congratulatory hug from Ramon. Widget noticed Zoe wanted her to look down.

Ramon was saying,"I'm glad to see you happy. I thought I'd be disappointed to lose to a replicant. But I'm not!"

Widget looked down to see that her clothes had turned translucent. She went ,"Eeep!" She covered herself and blushed. Looking down, she notice that Ramon was liking what he saw. She blushed redly and muttered to Ramon, "You should have said something!"

He looked at her in surprise and asked, "Why? You might have changed clothes?"

She huffed and exclaimed, "Men!" She punched him in the upper-arm and ran out of the court. Zoe laughed and stared.

He winked at her and left it, too.

Widget went to Gadget's room and warned her of what happened with her. Gadget and she had a giggle about it. It was Gadget's turn to be jealous of Widget and she didn't like the feeling one bit. She had never felt those stirrings and if these were what Milo had, she owed him an apology. She went through the box of clothes that Leia had scrounged up for Gadget, Widget and Neko-Ney. At least if any one could wear it, they all could wear it.

Gadget got into some exercise clothes. A blue sports bra and shorts went together for her outfit. She was nervous and feeling a little exposed when she came into the court. Neko-Ney came up with a pink sports bra and pair of pink and black speedos Gadget was put off by the thought that Neko was showing less skin than she was.

While they were dressing, Gadget asked Neko in Squeak-mail, "Why annoy Milo?"

Neko said in a normal voice, "For freedom's sake. I want to keep him reminded that he doesn't control us anymore!"

"You don't have to take it so ...personal!" Gadget was exasperated.

Neko stopped dressing and looked at Gadget and shook her head.. She grinned at Gadget and said, "He annoys you ,too! You two do it yet?"

Gadget worked her mouth and then growled. She huffed, "Why do you do that?

"I'm unabashed. I like knowing stuff. DO you like him? Like you like Ramon? Milo is sort of cute."

Gadget got finished dressing and glared hopelessly at Neko. "Yes, he annoys me, too. Like him? Yes, I like him. I don't know how I like him. Milo is not an easy man to know. He's been hurt before, I think. He doesn't talk about her, but he doesn't trust women NOT to hurt him. He opens up more to me when he forgets that I'm a real girl inside of this exterior. When he's reminded, you can see the shutters go up and he pushes me away."

Neko nodded and finished dressing. "What I thought. He's afraid and doesn't know how to be brave with what he wants to do."

Gadget turned the knob and opened the door out into the hall. "What does he want to do?"

Neko grinned broadly and gave Gadget a shove and exclaimed, "YOU!" Neko bounded off down the hallway, laughing loudly.

Gadget stood there alone for a moment, thunderstruck. She swallowed hard and blushed fiercely and was glad noone was around to see her face.

Gadget caught up to Neko, and they went into the court and found apparently everyone else came in to the observation gallery to watch.

Ramon announced , "You two are going to play by Gambian rules. Winning score is twenty-one points. Ball hits the back wall, counts as a miss. Since Neko is the challenged, she serves."

The two girls threw themselves into the game with abandon. They started slow, but soon had the ball ricocheting back and forth so quick, it could barely be seen. Abruptly Gadget slowed down in returns and lost the match fairly quickly.

Both women were soaked in sweat from the work out.

Neko gasped out, "Hey! No fair! You pooped out on me! No recharges?"

Gadget shook her head. "No time to!"

Leia got a weird look on her face and ducked out. Zoe and Miriam came up to Gadget and congratulated her on a good game. Anthony hugged Neko and said, "That deserves a fish dinner and all the trimmings!"

Neko cheered tiredly, but with great enthusiasm, "Yippee! YAY! Hooray for me! Fish dinner! Let me bathe, nap and I'll be ready! Will you take me out? Am I going out on the town? Is this a date?" Neko was giggly and some of the other girls were acting giddy about it.

Zoe pulled on Neko's arm and giggled something to her. Neko looked quite pleased with herself. Milo felt like he should turn a hose on them. Some one pulled on his sleeve.

Gadget looked up at him and smiled at him. She said, "Let me shower and I'll be right with you, Milo. I have some ideas I'd like to bounce off of you. Alright?"

He blinked in surprise and nodded. "Fine! That's fine by me. Thanks, Gadj. You need to recharge and I'll make sure not to keep you to long. I was able to find another couple of recharge harnesses. So we're almost set for trials. Get showered and I'll get the cords set-up."

He patted her awkwardly on the back and rushed off to work.

Gadget spent a little extra time to get clean and made sure her modified jeans would fit her tail. She missed her old pants with the snaps in the back. She hated threading her tail through the hole. It tickled, especially near the top of it near the base where it joined her pelvis.. She paused after she pulled on her sleeveless tee-shirt. Miriam was playing a music video in the other room and the music hit Gadget in the gut like a punch.

She came out of the bathroom with a dazed expression on her face. Gadget looked at the screen in shock and wonder. The woman singing was mouse like. She had large ,round ears and a little pink nose. Her hair was a dark golden color almost matching her skin. Her dark coral lips caressed each note with passion, as her bright blue eyes flashed with blind fire. Her tail lashed with emotion and long limbs swayed in time with the throbbing beat.

"Playa Maya", Gadget whispered. Playa Maya tore through the song , like an emotional tornado. It was a song she had heard before, but never in this life. She trembled as she listened to it. It was a song about someone breathing their last breath, called ironically enough 'My Last Breath'. She accessed the IAI and looked up information on 'Playa Maya' and found out it was an Evanescence song from almost eighty years before.

Playa Maya apparently had a load of this group's music as covers on her last music album which had been called, 'The Mice in the World's Walls', published in 2078. Playa Maya was reputedly born in Beijing, China, in 2056, the year of the rat. She suffered Lefrene syndrome in the plague that cost her, her eyesight until recently. She was a Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. resident now, and was an out-spoken critic of UTX and their policies. She had extensive cosmetic surgery performed in 2075 after a run-in with UTX security during a protest in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. where she was almost beaten to death by the UTX security contingent there. Seven protesters were killed and hundreds were injured in the riots that were spawned by this incident violence.

Miriam shook Gadget free of the pull of the IAI and Gadget blinked back tears. She was surprised to find tears running down her cheeks. She shook with emotion and she was suddenly in Miriam's arms for comfort. Miriam was surprised by this action.

Miriam stroked Gadget's hair and said in a soothing tone, "Aw, I'm sorry. I guess I should have warned you. I wasn't thinking...of how the music might impact you. You were lost in it from the look of it."

"Mom? What year was I born in?" Gadget was breathing fast and asked with trepidation.

Miriam Smiled and said, "We missed so many birthdays together. You were born in 2056, October 31st , A halloweenie baby! I was only sixteen at the time. I'm glad I kept you. My mom helped raise you. Why do you ask?"

Gagdet took a step back and looked agog at her mother. "Ahem. I wondered why you looked so young. That was to much info. It said that Playa Maya was born in the year of the rat. I was born in the same year? Wow. That is sort of weird. I'm a mouse-girl born in the year of the rat! I thought I was younger than that."

Miriam went over to one of the bags she had packed for herself and Zoe and got out a small stuffed animal. It was a rat in a blue satin jacket and wore a red scarf.

"You caught this at a Playa Maya concert, years ago. Here. Happy birthday, early or belated. I'm not sure which. Either five years or three days one side or another"

Miriam turned down the PTV and sat down. Miriam smiled and said, "I'm forty-three and you are twenty-six, going on twenty-seven and Zoe is thirteen, going on forty!"

Gadget blink in surprise and grinned. "Good golly! I have a birthday coming up in THREE days?"

Miriam looked sad and said wistfully, "Don't get too excited, kiddo. Laying low here, you might not even get a cake. I'll try to get you at least a cupcake with dinky candle in it at least. Anything more than that is a bloody miracle!"

Gadget frowned and headed for the door and said, "OOPS, sorry, Miriam. I got to go! Milo is expecting me to help out! I better get with it."

Miriam smiled at Gadget and asked, "Do you like him?"

Gadget looked at Miriam in surprise and rolled her eyes, "Ugh! You and Neko! Golly! I don't think I SHOULD answer now that everyone is asking! I don't know. Yes. Not like that! Good-bye, Mom!" Gadget left the room quickly and practically ran to Milo's impromptu working area in Dr. Fisher's lab.

Milo looked up and smiled at Gadget and then looked at her curiously,"You're looking flustered. Everything O-k?"

"Sure. Just raring to get to work! What's first?"

He frowned and said, "I know you're a fast learner...but if you don't know what you're doing–let me know! Yours and Neko's and Widget's minds are held in the balance! We have to be sure in that. If we do this badly enough...all three of your brains could be irreparably damaged!"

She swallowed and nodded. In a small voice, she said quietly, "I understand."

"Good. Let me fill you in on what's going on. I'll refresh, Dr. Fisher, too.", Milo said before he launched into a long technical explanation of what he was doing. The system he put together had to handle up to four huge uploads and downloads simultaneous with sorting and sifting the information going both ways in such a manner that it was understandable, not gibberish, and not poisoned with worthless data. The hardware was the simple part and Milo and Dr. Fisher threw together the parts fairly quickly. It was the enormity of the upload and download and the 'refining' of the raw data and compressing the files created into a readable format that had Milo over a barrel.

Basically they needed a huge computer, or even a super-computer capable of processing several tera-bytes of data per second. The biggest desk-top model they had in the safe-house could barely manage one and one-half tera-bytes per second.

Gadget suggested to Milo, "We use what we have and try Widget and ME and let everyone else not worry about it. It'll either work or it won't. If it works....fine! If not, we try to get a bigger computer, or we build a network in-house, or do something else? This is at least relatively quick. If it works. I'm game."

Dr. Fisher nodded. "The human mind is very flexible. Gadget might make this work, even if on calculation, it shouldn't."

Milo shrugged. "Alright then. Let's get Widget and try this out."

A moment later Widget came in with Ramon and announced, "I'm ready."

Doctor Fisher looked agog at Gadget and Widget. "What in hell?"

Milo looked up and over at Doctor Fisher with a curious look and asked, "What's wrong?"

Dr. Fisher looked at Widget and asked with a nervous sound to his voice, "Why did you come in NOW? We just now finished."

Widget nodded and said matter-of-factly,"I came because you were finished."

Dr. Fisher persisted and asked, "How did you know?"

Widget looked confused and said plainly, "Gadget wified me. We're physically close. Otherwise she would have celled me."

"Cybernetic telepathy?" Dr. Fisher asked of Milo.

Milo nodded and in surprise, exclaimed, "Jeez! You don't know! It is one of the slicker things that was going on at Walt Disney World! All the replicants there communicate across a complete domain of communications. They can wifi each other to make requests of the communications nets, or special effect cues, or cue each other. They can cell-phone each other for direction, aid, emergency protocols or information uploads or downloads. The replicants are pretty damned sophisticated." He paused as what he just said sunk into him. He turned and looked with wide eyes at Gadget. "Holy Shit! Why haven't you gone mad?"

She yawned. She blinked and looked over at Widget. Widget looked back. Gadget shrugged. Gadget looked at Milo and asked, "What?"

Milo said slowly to her, "The human brain can not handle the onslaught of wifi data! It can NOT process the data."

Gadget giggled. "Golly! Mine can! Aren't I special? Can we continue with this later?"

Widget nodded and said sarcastically, "Wow, Gadget! You have an inbuilt radio in your brain? The human brain can't handle satellite radio! Oh my golly! I'm stunned!" She looked over at Milo and smirked. She crossed her arms and asked, "Sound familiar?" Gadget giggled.

Milo flinched and turned red and gritted his teeth. He turned on his heel and stomped over to the door and flung it open and stalked out. Gadget's expression died on her face as she slumped as she realized she and Widget had gone to far.

Ramon chased after Milo, calling out, "Hey you! Come back here!"

She ran after him. "MILO! Come back! We're sorry!"

Widget's lip trembled, while she crossed her arms in front of her and she muttered in a low voice, "Why don't you whack him in the head and tell him, 'get over yourself'?"

Ramon caught up to Milo in the hallway and jerked him around by the arm and shouted at him, "What the hell is your problem? You have a shitty attitude, mister!"

Milo shoved him away angrily and shouted back, "Get OFF me, dumb-ass!"

Ramon pushed back. Milo was in a blind rage and took a swing at him. Ramon danced back and punched Milo in the face, knocking off his glasses. Milo growled and leapt on him and overbore him to the floor, punching wildly. Ramon rolled back and went prone, flipping Milo over his head.

Gadget caught up to them in time to see the punches fly. "STOP IT!" She screamed it and as Milo was flipped over Ramon's head. She was close enough to catch one of Milo's flailing heels impacting to her right breast. The pain exploded into her brain like a white-hot explosion of burning hot wires being drawn through her chest. She collapsed to her side moaning and curled into a foetal position.

Ramon jumped back to his feet and whirled around as Milo clambered to his feet. Milo spun around as Ramon tackled him backward, where they both tripped over the prone Gadget. They spilled to the floor, still trading punches.

Doors swung open and first on the scene was Miriam Hackensack. She saw Gadget was down and had heard her scream to 'Stop it' and reacted in a rapid-fire way. She leapt over the moaning Gadget and jerked the fighting men up by their collars and slammed their heads together to stun them.

She shook them like they weighed just pounds each and their toes dangled over the ground by and inch or more. She growled at them, "Your wild punches hurt my little girl! Apologize!"

Zoe stood in the door and looked white as a sheet . Her eyes were huge and her mouth was a little 'o' as she stood there staring at her mother. She couldn't recognize the amazonian warrior that her mother had suddenly transformed into. She whispered in surprise,"Mom?"

Larry was slightly in front of Tiffany, at the end of the hallway and remarked in surprise, "Well! Holy Shit, Mrs. Hackensack can kick ass."

Widget ran over to Gadget and knelt by her and helped her to her feet. Tears of agony ran down Gadget's cheeks as she kept both hands on her right breast. Widget whispered, "You weren't supposed to get hurt when you knocked him in the head!"

Gadget said aloud, gaping at the super-strong Miriam, "Mom! I'm alright. One of them fell on me when I tried to break them up. It's my fault! Oww. We caused the fight by making fun of Milo and then things shot to straight to heck."

Miriam put them down and glared at both of them. Milo looked shamed and Ramon looked on Miriam with fear.

He stammered out, "Y-you aren't a cyborg! You showed no cybernetic parts!"

Miriam turned a little pink as she realized everyone was staring at her. She rubbed her nose and smiled, "I ...uh...work out a lot."

Zoe exclaimed in pleasure, "Oh my god! My Mom is a super-powered cyborg killing machine! Oh MY GOD! This is so cool!"

Miriam snapped at Zoe, "ZOE! Shut up! You are not helping mommy!"

Dr. Fisher exclaimed loudly, "NOW, if everyone is through beating up on everyone else, I can try to fix the injured! Idiots!"

Leia took Miriam by the elbow and said quietly, "We need to talk, Mrs Hackensack."

Miriam looked surprised and said, "Oops! Darn. Busted!"

Larry shook his head and remarked to Tiffany, " 'More secrets than cold-war Berlin' I seem to remember saying?"

She grimaced and said, "Matamoros is like a big, unkempt conspiracy-dog, and everyone's secrets are like fleas."

A door in the middle of the hall flung open and a sleepy Neko-Ney wearing a blue tee-shirt and rubbing one of her eyes, shouted out in a sleepy voice, "Fight quieter! Shut up! Sleeping!" She then slammed the door back.

Leia shook her head and said, "Boring-- you people aren't. This is like a traveling circus! Come on, strong woman! Time for you to sing in the center ring!"

Zoe came over and grabbed her mother's other arm , and said,"I wanna hear how you became a killer cyborg, too!"

Miriam glowered at Zoe and said to her, "You are NOT helping out, dear."

Tiffany bent over and grabbed up Milo's glasses. She looked over to Larry and smiled. She said to him, "Reminds me of some of the fights you had with your brother."

As they went into the medical room, and Larry said to her, "Maybe...but I never involved you in them."

Tiffany laughed, "Sorry! Gadget is more active-oriented than I am. She is more prone to wade in and mix it up, than I was. I was the one more prone to shoot people. She obviously gets it from her mother, Miriam."

"Fierce women seem to fall into my orbit" ,Larry said in jest.

Tiffany said to him, "Must be because you are so fierce!"

He laughed loudly enough for everyone's attention to be attracted. He gave her shoulders a quick rub and patted her back. "Me? Fierce? Not compared to some here!"

She chortled and came up to Milo and offered him his glasses back. Milo took them without a word and looked down. He looked beaten down. He was bleeding from the nose and had a cut over one eye. He said in a whisper, "Thank you ,Tiffany."

Zoe went over to the fridge and got out a chill pack. She took it over to Gadget and offered it to her with ,"Somebody pegged your boobie good, hunh?"

Gadget accepted it and applied it the bruised area, while she gave out a low hiss through her teeth. Gadget said, "It wasn't 'good'! I got sloppy and my body power was at zero. To slow to dodge." Gadget stuck out her tongue and shrugged.

Zoe asked mystified, "What is 'body power'?"

Gadget replied, "It is the amount of stored motive power for my actuators and special movement systems. It's what makes me strong and super-quick. On bio-power produced by my body's biological system, I am only strong as strong as a human man."

Zoe asked, "Don't you mean, 'as strong as a human woman'?"

Gadget shook her head and smiled, "A little thing like me? I'm very strong for my size. About as strong as a chimpanzee, or a larger human man. My bio-power is limited. I could throw people around like Miriam if I was as big as her. Wait!" She looked at Miriam intently. "What..."

Leia intently looked at Miriam and asked her, "You have replicant bio-ware musculature implants! They can't be normally implanted in humans due to rejection factors. Where did you get rejection-free implants? Getting a nuclear weapon on the black-market is child's play in comparison."

Miriam continued looking at Gadget and nodded toward her and said, "From her, when she was still wearing a human face. Before she 'died' as it were."

Milo said to Gadget in a small voice that verged on a sob,"I am so sorry for hurting you."

Gadget turned pink a little and gave an ironic laugh. "After the grand speech I gave in the kitchen about NOT sniping at each other and not cutting each other down....well, aren't I just the biggest hypocrite!? I'M sorry for jumping on you, Milo. It wasn't a good thing that I did. I don't really know if getting kicked in...an embarrassing spot hurt more or less than hurting you. Sorry."

Widget chimed in, "I started it. Gee, I was so...irritated that Milo was carrying on about Gadget and what the human brain can and can't do....I was...I don't know. Angry about it? I'm having a problem with other people getting more attention than me. I'm nervous and anxious and really scared. Am I invisible?" Tears ran down her cheeks when she asked that and she looked shocked at that. In a quizzical voice, she asked, "Why am I crying? Am I in pain?"

Miriam blinked and said, "Yes. Yes, you are! You are jealous of your sister and it tears you up inside! My god! I saw plenty of it with Zoe. Molly was thirteen years older than Zoe and she had oodles of natural jealousy. It is natural in siblings. That kind of relation is all too common. Your relationship to Gadget is a little harder to pin down. Older to younger or vice versa, I suppose it doesn't matter. You are left out and it eats you up inside. Come here!"

Widget looked suspiciously at Miriam and came over. Miriam gave her a big hug and kissed her on the cheek. "I can be proud of all my girls. You can be the middle daughter, between Molly/Gadget and Zoe! Yo, Zo! What do ya know? What do you think? The little one is always spoiled!"

Zoe shrugged and said in a casual tone of voice, that bordered on pleasure, "Sure–that's fine by me."

Miriam looked intensely suspiciously between Widget and Zoe. Miriam asked Zoe, "Alright! What's up?"

Zoe scuffed her feet guiltily and said in an innocent voice , "Nothing. She just taught me some moves. Martial arts thingees."

Ramon laughed, "She was teaching you to kill men with martial arts!"

Zoe nodded and exclaimed in glee, "I know! She is SO cool that she knows how to kill people!"

Miriam frowned and put a hand over her face and sighed, "There goes my instilling of family values down the ole' crapper! ZOE! Killing people is NOT 'cool'!"

Zoe looked superior and crossed her arms in front of her and asked sarcastically,"Oh? Is that right, 'killer cyborg mom'?"

Miriam put a hand over her eyes and said quietly, "Oi!"

Tiffany looked at everyone and looked at Miriam, in turn. "Miriam...we NEED to hear how your daughter ,Molly, got involved with UTX, how you got implants, and what happened to her!"

Miriam nodded. She said, "It involved the 'River of Time' project that UTX was involved in. I'm still not sure what it was. Molly never told me. The muscle implants were part of her last gift to me. She smuggled out some kind of muscle and bone implants, from what ever she was working on for UTX.. I never knew why UTX needed a language translator. It never made sense to me. What language did they need to have translated?"

Miriam fidgeted uncomfortably and said," She was an intern with UTX translation programming and graduated college at age eighteen, going right to work for them. She had gotten over a bout of the plague she contracted in 2072 at age sixteen. It changed her sight and hearing, making them more acute and clear to her. Her sense of balance grew more acute as well. She was part of that rare one percent that benefitted from the plague. Half died, four or five percent were crippled, and one percent benefitted."

Zoe interjected, "I'm one of the four or five percent. If I didn't have cyberntic balance implants, I couldn't get out of bed. Permanent vertigo. It destroyed my balance sense completely. It wasn't fair. I was four. Ever since...I fall down a lot. Sorry. Just throwing in my two cents. I try not to let it effect me...but I don't how to do that."

Widget reached over and rubbed her upper arm and said, "Gee, sorry I called you dizzy earlier. I meant 'Ditsy ' as in 'inane' or 'goofy'. I didn't mean to overly insult you."

Zoe gave her a caustic glare and said sarcastically, "Great apology! I feel so much better now! 'Overly insult'! Thanks loads!"

Widget and Gadget giggled. Widget smiled, patted her on the arm and said, "Good! I look like a mouse, you are ditzy, and Gadget is the pretty one.. What do you want?"

Zoe looked outraged and said loudly, "You two are clones! Well...practically clones."

Widget shrugged and sighed, "Well yes, we're both the pretty ones. I'm sorry, Zoe."

Zoe slugged Widget in the upper arm several times ,half-heatedly and Widget giggled and laughed.

Miriam glared at them and said loudly, "GIRLS! Behave!"

Leia prompted Miriam, by asking, "How did Molly get involved with UTX?"

"They were interested in her because she was a survivor of the plague, and had a talent for languages. She told me it ...uh...it was an 'aptitude for loving her family'. She never explained that one, either. In the last year, I almost never saw her. It was all so secretive, and she was working with Maximilian Matamoros and with Doctor Jules Fairweather and the physicist who has worked on that electromagnetic direct thrust engines. Oh, Gregori Krekorov! That Ukrainian fellow who signed on to UTX a couple of years ago. I think Molly was sweet on him. He was young , in his late thirties, and was terribly brilliant, and was funny. She prized that highest in men. Men who could make her laugh!" She looked at Milo and he flinched. He looked so shy to Miriam.

"On her last trip to visit me she seemed nonchalant but was dying inside. I could tell. She was moody and suspicious. She was argumentative and couldn't hold still. She was obsessed with dinosaurs and the ancient central American cultures. She woke up screaming from nightmares she couldn't tell me off. I could tell that, that man did something to her. She couldn't talk normally. He put something in her head to guard his secrets. It was evil. Evil!" Miriam could barely hold her helpless fury in check. Gadget came over and squeezed Miriam's hand.

Milo interjected, "That's what Ramos said we had to under-go when we found out the truth about Gadget's brain! They killed Becky and Ricky and Unit Two. They kidnaped Chase and Unit Three....I mean 'Fidget' because of that. They killed Chase's guardian, Doctor Lassiter! What did Molly know? They apparently need what is in her brain! Could it really be 'aliens'?"

Leia sniffled and said, "How about 'Illuminati'? Ancient cults? We see NO hard information. Why didn't Gadget remember seeing Gregori Krekorov? They were together at the Yucatan area?" Leia looked over at Miriam and said in a flat voice, "Molly Hackensack was a science-fiction fan, had innumerable sci-fi games AND had as a hobby making alien languages? She had aliens on the brain, Mrs. Hackensack."

Milo snapped angrily, "Maybe! Even so–ole' Maxxy sure tried to kill a bunch of folks to make sure they didn't talk about something! He could have made up some bull-shit to hide Molly's brain! What is in it, worth all the blood?"

Gadget stood up straighter and said wonderingly, "I wonder if Jerry Reynolds knows?"

Several pairs of eyes fastened on her curiously.

Gadget looked at Leia and Ramon crossly. "Golly! Isn't he part of a conspiracy to KILL people and silence witnesses and stuff? We need to arrest him! Right?"

Leia shook her head and said quietly, "No. We don't have enough to arrest, just enough to label him a 'person-of-interest', or such. No one saw him do anything or say anything as incriminating. If we pull him now, it jeopardizes the investigation AND tips our hand."

"Well...",began Gadget, "...we could go into his office and poke around and see what we can turn up."

Leia frowned and asked Gadget, "Do you mean an illegal breaking and entry, followed by an illegal search and seizure?"

Gadget nodded her head and said,"I don't want him to get away, scot free! We have to do something!"

Widget growled angrily," I'm in favor of capitol punishment! Jerry cost us all too much! Like Chase and Fidget for starters."

Gadget nodded tiredly and yawned. Miriam patted her on the shoulder and said, "Almost through, honey! Just hang with me a couple of minutes longer." Gadget nodded and stretched and yawned.

Miriam started again, and said, "She presented me with these tiny tissue sampled in a sealed container thick as my finger. She said it contained cybernetic tissue used in replicants and I should use it to protect myself if something happened to her. She was nervous and edgy and I believed something would happen to her. She sounded so...paranoid and obsessed. She never had much interest in dinosaurs. Or the Olmecs or Toltecs and such!"

Miriam dropped her head and with a tremulous voice,"Molly never made it back to Belize. They said. UTX said. They said that one of the turbines on the air-car hit a bird and failed catastrophically causing the vehicle to be lost, with all aboard."

A tear ran down Miriam's cheek as she said, "They said that some of the bodies were recovered. The pilot and both passengers were killed on impact. Molly's body from the torso down was recovered. It was similar for the other two victims in the crash. UTX said it was quick and they didn't suffer."

"I had the implants put in the next year after they had grown enough for the procedure. I thought that foul play was involved in the incident. I complained and asked everyone to look into it. I wasn't satisfied about Molly's death. Too many questions. My questions. I died inside. I couldn't believe she just died." Miriam choked off at the last and wept quietly

Gadget said ironically, "I almost died in that Percy Priest Lake, in Nashville. I think the trip back to Belize was all bull-pucky."

Larry smiled Gadget and said, "Yeah, 'bull-pucky'."

Milo said tiredly, "Obviously–it was smoke and mirrors. Matamoros wanted what Molly Hackensack knew. BUT why a mouse? Why the conversion from Hackensack to Hackwrench?"

Anthony Fong said quietly, "Affection?"

Widget said, "OH My Gosh! Affection? Leslie Watts was a huge fan of Gadget Hackwrench! I found in one of her blogs, that she became a marine aviator because of her fandom for one of Disney's favorite mouse aviators."

Tiffany said, "Paula was quick and clever. She was a genius in medicine AND a big 'New Rescue Rangers' Fan. It was her guilty pleasure. Hell, she even had 'Gadget" scrubs!"

Gadget got an unusual look on her face and squeaked-mailed to Widget, "We progressed from (ones that adore) to (ones that have become)."

Widget acknowledged with a quick squeak-mail back,"Truth is truth. Desire in youth, regret as adult."

In real time it took almost two seconds for Gadget and Widget to talk, and everyone except Milo and Tiffany missed it. Milo asked Gadget, "What was that about?"

Gadget looked surprised and said smiling, " 'I used to not be able to spell 'Gadget Hackwrench'–NOW I am one!', Golly!" She giggled and shook her head. Widget laughed.

Leia looked queasy. She sniffled and coughed and said, "Makes sense from a cyber-psychotic point of view. If you adore something as a 'fan' perhaps there is less 'rejection-factor' of the cybernetics?"

Tiffany looked at Leia and raised an eyebrow at her. Tiffany asked, "Why don't you lay down for a while and drink chicken-soup? My god, you sound awful! You must feel horrible."

Dr. Fisher came over and put an infra-red thermometer in her ear and measured her temperature. He shook his head and growled, "You're burning up, agent. Dammit. You cyborgs think you're invulnerable, and complain when you're not. Let me get you an anti-viral nasal spray. It'll take care of most normal bugs. You know, Agent Brahms–you should have listened to the cat-girl. This could have been prevented."

Leia shrugged and said,"I never HEARD of a robot, android or replicant SMELLING an infection before symptoms developed. I'll listen next time."

Widget groused, "I want some restful sleep, and I want a piece of Jerry Reynolds' hind-end! I want to be in on the Op that's going to go into Belize to get Chase and Fidget out! We're all just fooling around in here!"

Gadget looked surprised, and said to everyone, "That's right! We...Widget and Me, were going to sleep and try to synchronize our dreams."

Widget looked around in irritation and jerked a thumb toward the door and said, "Alright, you mooks! Get out! We got sleeping to do!"

Gadget looked at Widget and asked her, " 'Mooks'? Where did you pick that up at?"

Anthony Fong laughed and said, "I bet I know! Hanging around the 'cat-goddess', hunh?"

Widget frowned and said in a huff, "Yeah, cat-goddess! My tail!"

Dr. Fisher looked sternly around, after administrating a nasal anti-viral to Leia, and said, "Milo, Gadget and Widget stays, everyone else–get the hell out of my sick bay unless some one else breaks something. Agent Brahms, sleep off the virus. Agent Perez, try not to tackle anyone else for a day while you heal back from your fist-fight with Mr. Finch. Mr. Finch, the same goes for you as well. WE have work to do. Everyone else, good-night!"

Zoe and Miriam gave Gadget and Widget quick hugs and left the room behind Anthony Fong and Special Agent Ramon Perez. Larry and Tiffany gave Widget and Gadget quick pats and left.

Milo got off the examination bed with a groan, and went about setting up the synchronization rig. He groaned, "I should work on my sense of humor. God. Everyone probably hates me. I can't believe I lost control like that."Gadget and Widget stripped down to bra and panties. Milo turned away to hide his interest.

Gadget sighed and said while climbing up on the table, "Milo...no one hates you. You take things to personally. You need to laugh and smile more."

Milo frowned and said, "How? People I care for have been killed. I have been betrayed. My life has been ruined. A girl I really liked, was kidnaped and my car was blown up and set fire to! How can I treat these things like they don't matter? Like they don't touch you? Don't they touch you?"

She laid down and jacked into the rig. Widget did the same and asked Gadget, "Y'know, Gadj... I'm like him in this. How can you laugh in the face of that?"

Gadget looked thoughtful as Milo put the recharge harness on hert. Dr. Fisher did the same with Widget. Gadget answered in a drowsy voice, "With effort. But it is worthwhile. It helps others not feel so bad. Milo? What's your buffer over-run number?"

Gadget was asleep before he could answer her. He was somewhat shocked hearing her question. He never really thought about it. He felt really stressed, but he hadn't thought about that.

Dr. Fisher said off-handedly, "You look like you're thinking a positive ten or better."

"From cyber-telepathy to real telepathy in one afternoon. Good trick, Doc",Milo said grudgingly.

Dr. Fisher monitored the EEG's of Gadget and Widget, and glanced over to Milo and remarked, "I have to stay ahead of the damned curve. You people are re-writing the neurological book with these ...new things. I don't even know what in hell to call'em any more. Jesus! Full brain replacements? She's worth her weight in gold bullion, y'know."

Milo shook out of his reverie and stared agog at Dr. Fisher. "What in hell are you talking about? She is–WAS and expensive replicant! Worth over sixty-five thousand world dollars! That's not chicken-feed, but not worth her weight in gold! Well maybe the illegal muscles and bones would add more."

Dr. Fisher came over and shook his head. "You just don't get it, do you? Her brain regenerated! That little girl's brain RE-fucking-GENERATED! UTX has cracked the immortality nut! If my brain had the same treatment and put into a replicant body like her's...I would be immortal! Undying until I was killed by violence. What do you think that is worth?"

Milo paled and swallowed hard. "Holy shit. More than her weight in gold! I never really considered the implications."

Milo put a shaking hand to his mouth and regarded the sleeping form of Gadget in awe. He whispered, "A human upgrade. Homo sapiens version 2.0. Holy cow. Why did Matamoros stick Molly Hackensack's brain into an immortal mouse girl?"

Dr. Fisher shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe a test-bed of what's possible. She got involved in something dirty, and maybe he needed her knowledge, but also needed Molly Hackensack a cadaver ,too. I don't know. We have to many questions and no real answers."

Milo nodded sadly and said, "We need to monitor these two, and make sure neither are damaged by our experimental set-up."

Dr. Fisher nodded and said, "Right."

Gadget woke up light-headed and tingling eight hours later. Milo looked unkempt and unshaven and asked her, "How do you feel?"

"Fine. Fully refreshed." She replied sitting upright and helping Milo un-plug all the attachments from her.

Widget said in a pleasant tone, "I dreamed of fishing. Bass fishing on a blue boat in some bayou. It was wild!"

Neko-Ney said, "I ate fish in a restaurant. Miriam paid for it and Anthony took me there. I'm ready to recharge. The fish was good. The news isn't"

Widget sat up and looked around at her. Gadget did like-wise. Milo sighed and said sadly, "I should fill in the gaps. The Feds have dropped the investigation. 'Insufficient evidence to pursue drastic measures' or some-such clap-trap. The F.B.I. is the local American arm of the World Government's World Investigation Agency. Well, the W.I.A. pulled the plug on any Black-Op or covert operation to rescue Chase from Belize. They also nixed the idea of pulling in Jerry Reynolds, too."

Widget looked as stricken as Gadget felt. Widget asked, "In other words....we just ran at full speed into a bureaucratic-stone-wall cover-up! The Vocal Governance Chip won't let me talk about those so-and-so's freely, so I'll just stew."

Gadget said sourly, "Golly! Let me guess. The remaining witnesses to what happened to Chase Victor are 'replicants' who can't testify in court; me, who is owned body and soul by UTX under the laws of the land, and you, who UTX has already destroyed the reputation of."

Milo nodded slowly and dropped his head.

Gadget was furious and she thought quickly. With determination, she said to Milo, "Well then, Robin Hood–if the Sherif of Nottingham has Maid Marion and her hand-maiden locked up in the tower, don't you think it's time for the Merry Men to stage a rescue?"

Milo shook his head and said dejectedly "It's over. I'm not a professional soldier, hell, I'm a lousy amateur one ! I can't rescue Chase. I'm just a loser."

Gadget put her hands on his arms and squeezed tight. "No, you aren't ,Milo! Only if you believe you are. Believe in yourself and you can accomplish miracles! We can't give up! Chase and Fidget are counting on us! We can't let them down, even if others let us down!"

Widget said softly, "I AM a professional soldier. Or was once. We can do this. A surprise hit-and-run raid to liberate her might be effective. We have to try! We can't just sit around on our tails!"

Milo shrugged and said slowly, "Maybe I'll feel differently after I sleep on it. This is a lot to take in. We need transport, weapons and support. Who do we bring with us?"

Neko-Ney said, "I'm in. I wanna save Chase from the mooks in Belize. Ask for volunteers! There will be plenty!"

Gadget frowned at that. She muttered, "We don't need plenty of volunteers. We need trained troops. Volunteers might shoot each other in the back by stumbling into the line of fire."

Widget said, "We'd need training....but if we are all we have...we'd go anyway! We have to do something!"

Milo nodded and patted the bed that Gadget had gotten out of and gestured to Neko-Ney, who jumped up on it. She seated herself and lifted her arms, so Milo could strap her into the recharge harness. Neko laid down and fell asleep when Milo powered up the rig.

Milo shrugged and said tiredly, "I'm off to bed. You can mention your idea to the others and see what they think. Don't be discouraged if the idea doesn't go over well. The Belize Replication Facilities are one of the most heavily guarded places on the globe. Terrorists and anarchists have tried for years to gain entry, and all have failed. I don't think there is any history of the tries outside of UTX files, so we would be proceeding blind. Good night."

On impulse, Gadget kissed Milo on the cheek and hugged him. "We'll get her back."

Widget gave Milo a pat on the back as he tiredly staggered by her. He looked a little more light-hearted after the peck on the cheek, but that could have been her imagination.

He stopped at the door and said to Widget, "Your Buffer over-run number fell by one. I'd say the 'dream-machine' is an unqualified success. That's one for our side."

Widget smiled broadly and high-fived Gadget.

Gadget said happily, "Every victory IS a victory! We have to celebrate each one of them!"

Milo gave her a small smile and nodded. "Good-night, sappy mouse-girl." He turned and left.

Widget shook her head and said wonderingly to Gadget, "I am impressed by THAT!" Widget hopped down off the table and headed for her clothes to get dressed, and shrugged into her jacket and said, "You actually made him smile!." She zipped that up and pulled her pants up. "I didn't think you'd ever make him smile." She pulled her boots on with practiced moves. Widget giggled as she said, "Not without sex, at least."

Gadget gave Widget a shove and blushed. Gadget said, "We need to see what our numbers are, what kind of data we have on the place in the Yucatan, and our armament and transportation situation is. The devil is in the details, so we have loads of little devils to boot about. Golly! What a pain."

It took them about six hours in the dining room, looking for virtual tours of the Belize Replication Facility, reading security appraisals from various sites , and talking to various people –virtual personas to real people on-site to boot devilish details. They were able to find substantive plans, virtual tours and details on the Belize facility. About forty percent of it was common knowledge. From placements of air-ducts, another ten percent could be guessed at. That left a full fifty percent unknowable. That included the high-security areas, Research and Development, Executive living quarters, and the special projects area.

This area was an area the size of Cape Canaveral and with a population of over forty-thousand workers and security personnel. Not counted in this were the security robots, androids or replicants.

Anthony Fong sighed and said quietly, "It'll be like attacking a small country!"

Gadget said, "No. No attacking. We sneak in, find Chase and Fidget, and sneak them out. I might be tough as far as some replicants go...BUT I am small and light and by nature, unarmored. There are things in there that can eat me alive. Literally! I think I have some kind of stealth mode built into me. When I was on the roof of the UTX Medical building, the hunters and chaser couldn't scan me. They reacted when they SAW me. That might give me an edge."

Neko-Ney said, "Dr Fairweather foresaw this as a possibility. He was worried about Max moving against him. He feared Max. Max is a very bad man. Dr. Jules raised me with help from his housekeeper, Mrs. Mahoney. She's from Jersey. She ain't no mook! That's fer sure! I know some secret ways into the B.R.F.! You have to take me along. I have to save Dr. Jules! I know how to penetrate the security and where the secret armory is!"

Gadget and everyone else sat up at that. Widget smiled and said quietly, "We might pull this thing off! Secret armory? Hooha! Okay, Cat-goddess! Spill!"

Neko looked a little ill. She flashed up a holographic display onto the table. She shook herself and bristled up. She pointed square at the reservoir adjacent to the Facility. "We have to swim! Swim down the Belize River to the dam that powers the Belize Replication Facility. At the bottom of the dam is a grate here, that covers an inspection corridor filled with water. We swim in here past the cyborg pirana fish, past the metal scanners and up to here where we are in an underground complex. There are some corridors here going to some rooms, one of which is a secret armory."

Milo looked stricken and asked,"Metal detectors? We can't carry guns or even knives into the damned thing? What...WAIT! CYBORG PIRANA FISH? Are you joking with me?"

Neko looked sad and shook her head. "No. Giant cyborg pirana fish. About two and one half meters long. Very dangerous."

Widget shrugged and said, "It makes it difficult, not impossible. Ceramic headed spear-fishing spear-guns loaded with neuro-toxin darts could kill them. Or shark batons! They are 12 gauge shotgun shells in spear-gun spears. If we know they are there, we can plan to bypass them. Ceramic weapons are hard to come by, but they can be gotten."

Gadget looked sick. She whispered, "Into the dark, so deep. Great."

"Anywho!" Neko-Ney exclaimed and pointed at one end of the dam and said, "There is a corridor there that leads to the security core zone above the 'Pit'. The 'Pit can only be entered by passing the test. I have no idea of what the 'Test' is. The 'Pit' is one hundred fifty meters in diameter and almost a kilometer deep down to the 'First Zone'. The 'Second Zone' is one hundred meters below the first. I don't know what any of the terms mean. It's smack into the high-security zone. Dr. Jules made me memorize this stuff."

Widget nodded and said, "This is do-able! It'll be hard, but I think we can pull this off."

Neko said, "I don't want to swim."

Gadget nodded and said slowly, "Me neither, BUT– we have to! There is no other way to go. This is not good. We don't float."

Ramon said, "Modern SCUBA gear doesn't care if you float or not. There are positive floatation vests and weight harnesses to get you to neutral buoyancy. The thing is, you need some SCUBA training! Anyone going. I'm SCUBA trained. Anyone else trained that way?"

There were some head-shakes, and Anthony Fong put up a hand. He said, "I used to free-dive some of the shallow areas of Oahu, Hawaii. I've done some SCUBA when younger. I haven't done any in years."

Milo said, "I did some snorkeling when I was a kid, but I never did any SCUBA diving, sorry."

Tiffany said with a smile, "At least there are some! There could have been none. You just need some days in the pool to familiarize yourselves with the equipment and you'll be ready."

Gadget smiled at Tiffany and remarked in a sardonic tone, "Golly, how easy you make it sound. We'll be sure to eat at their food court, too–while we're there."

Tiffany laughed and Widget shook her head, smiling. Neko said with a smile, "I hope they have cheese-burgers there!" Her exaggerated lip-smacking made people smile.

Widget punched her lightly in the upper arm and said, "Idiot."

Neko wrote in the 'Mission Objectives' list; which read, 'Rescue Chase, Dr. Fairweather, Fidget', she then penciled in 'secure cheeseburger', to much laughter.

Widget closed one eye and glared balefully at Neko-Ney with the other one and asked in a dire voice, "You have never heard of 'professional demeanor', have you?"

Neko nodded with eyes full of bright mischief. Widget winced, and Gadget put a hand over her eyes, as Neko-Ney pronounced, "The less professional I act, da meaner you act! 'Professional Demeanor', sure–I know all about it! What does that have to do with cheese-burgers?"

Milo chortled, "Not one damned thing!" He put a hand over his mouth to smother his sudden laughter. The rest of the room erupted in laughter as the dour Milo Finch suddenly developed a sense of humor.

Gadget sat upright and looked intently at the holographic display. The laughter died off as people looked at her. She whispered, "A palm-top wouldn't set off the metal detectors, would it?"

Leia said, "In the air, yes—underwater, no. There is to much crud in the water. Silt, run-off, pollution, and just ...well, junk. What are you thinking, Gadget?"

Gadget smiled and looked up with a burning intensity, and said in a quiet tone, "I am thinking of taking in a weapon that could take down a city. If it works."

Widget snapped her fingers and grinned. "Gotcha! Good gosh! That would pack a wallop and then some. We just need to pay him a visit and get a copy!"

Milo caught on immediately, this time. He nodded enthusiastically and said with energy, "Payback is a bitch. He owes us a mighty weapon, at least. I want to examine this virus and make sure it'll deliver."

Miriam looked lost until then. She said, "AH-HA! The traitor, who has a hacker friend named 'Ruby Laser'?"

Milo looked up and around, and said, "I've got a plan."

That Night: Orlando, Florida

Jerry Reynold's long, low 2063 BMW Mantis racing coupe pulled up into the driveway. He loved the almost silent purr of it powerful hydrogen turbine. He climbed out from under it's gull-wing door and activated it's security system. He looked lovingly at the reflective black finish and turned to walk up the walkway. He paused, catching the merest glimmer of movement from the bushes. The sun was hours down and the moon was behind scudding clouds.

Some of the lights going up to the house were burned out giving a dark patch where he saw the movement at. The house was dilapidated and missing a shingle or two. The self-cleaning windows had failed a decade or two earlier and the siding showed years of neglect. The yard was neatly trimmed by an ancient robot lawn-mower, that still purred through the yard at the dinner hour.

A black cat dashed from the bush where he had seen movement and stopped on the walk-way and looked at him. It almost looked like a Halloween decoration. The main window had a flickering holographic jack-o-lantern in the middle flanked by ghosts that jiggled like gelatin.

He bent over and petted the cat with a sad sounding, "Hey, kitten-little, has the sky fallen on you yet? Guess not. Gotta go visiting folks. Hang around, I'm afraid this guy might be feeding me cat-food!"

Jerry stood up and walked up to the door and rang the bell. Anvil Clay's face appeared in the view-plate of the door. He smiled at Jerry and said jovially, "So glad you could make it on such notice! When I heard about your promotion, I just had to invite you over to celebrate it! Hey! You're early! Let me get ready. Just have to put my pants on. My new girl will let you in."

The door was opened by a short-haired Gadget model replicant wearing a French-maid outfit. She looked him up and down with just a flicker of emotion. She asked quietly, stepping out of the way, "May I take your coat, Sir? May I offer you a libation while you wait for my master?"

He shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her arms, and he said, "Ooh-la-la! Sure! I'll have a martini with two fingers of vermouth. Shake it, Babeeee! Always figured ole Anvil for a Gadget-phile. Pervert!" He laughed and shook his head and remarked, "It takes all kinds, I guess."

"Very good, sir",she said hanging up his coat in the entryway closet.

He looked around curiously and looked over at her, and asked her,"Where in the world did Anvil pick you up at? He couldn't afford you new."

"My first owner died. I'm a second owner replicant." She said that as she made him his martini. She handed it to him as he head footsteps on the stairway.

He took a sip and gagged. He exclaimed to her, "This SUCKS! God! This is just-- AWFUL!"

She produced a four-shot, .50 caliber revolver from underneath the bar and pointed it between his eyes. The laser-sight twinkled from one eye to the other. "I don't take criticism well." She smirked.

Jerry swallowed and said conversationally, "You know? You need a little work on your attitude!" He kept his hands away from his sides and kept very still.

She smirked more and cocked the hammer and asked innocently, "Really?" She batted her eyelashes at him. He felt very queasy.

He was estimating that a city bus could drive though the opening at the end of the barrel, when two other barrels poked him in the back. Milo Finch's voice came from the left side, saying, "Hiya, Jerry! We're going to work on YOUR Attitude!"

Neko-Ney came in from outside and pronounced after she closed and locked the door, "He came alone. Figures! He couldn't get a date, unless he bought her, or rented! The white-noise filter is on and noone outside this room can hear us. In case he screams or we shoot him and stuff." She sounded very cheerful at the tail of that.

Jerry, with a stream of cold sweat running down his face, said, "Oh shit! Look...I know how it looks—but you gotta believe me...any of you would'a done the same! It's that idiot, Max Matamoros' fault! He screwed up –royally! I'm helping save the world. Chase and Fidget threw in when we were able to tell them what the hell is actually going on. You gotta believe me! I can't prove it! But-- it is the truth, I swear it!" He was weeping and tears were running down his cheeks as he begged for his life.

Milo, disgusted, pushed him pushed him back until Jerry fell into the recliner. Milo shouted at Jerry, "Cut the bullshit! We don't believe any of your bullshit anymore! GOD! You already screwed us all over! Don't play the 'wounded innocent' card on us! We'll choke on it!"

Gadget looked at him. She wore the cobalt blue LadyMouse armor and strode up to him. She snarled at him, "Look here, Jerry! You are slime! ONE thing might save your skinny backside! The Anti-Doorways- OS virus you got from Ruby Laser!"

He rolled his eyes and sighed, "I guess it's the only way. Why do'ya think I do business with her and her radicals? Matamoros is fucking crazy! That egotistical madman is going to kill us all! That's why! Be careful with that damned thing. It's a monster when released. It is a net weapon of vast destructive power. You could cripple the World Web with it."

Gadget looked astonished and raised an eyebrow at him. She leaned in close to him and asked, "How did YOU end up with such a powerful weapon, Jerry? What did YOU have to do to get it.?"

Milo frowned. He nodded and snarled at Jerry, "You slime! How many other people did you have to betray to get this?"

Jerry held up his hands and spoke softly, "Whoa, Whoa! Just one. Maximilian Matamoros. He put a voice governance chip in my head. Ruby Laser hates his guts, so I figured she might take it out. Turned out....that...the technology...it....DAMMIT! She couldn't take it out. But there are windows around it that open and close in cycles. So to speak. She figured out the cycles. She's one smart cookie. She used the virus to paralyze the chip for a cycle and I spilled to her. The 'Mosquitos' Virus is my payment."

Milo put a gun to Jerry's head and shouted at him, "Did you get your thirty pieces of silver for handing over Chase? You dirt-bag!"

"Hold it! HOLDIT! She's still alive! They needed Chase and Fidget alive because they had bonded together. That is rare and important! They will help save the world. I hope. I can't tell you! The VGC controls my mouth and language about this subject!" Jerry gulped air like a drowning man and he glowered around at Milo and the three 'replicant' girls. He said in a calmer voice, "Look ,Milo–I am not the enemy. Hell...most of the folks at UTX are okay, too. I'll tell you the straight dope. Max Matamoros and his cronies are crooked as they come. I just can't tell you what is going on."

Jerry looked directly at Gadget and said pleadingly, "Look. You gotta go to Belize! I CAN'T tell you other than....millions are counting on you! Every time, when push came to shove– YOU volunteered to help Max! YOU did! You're still alive! Oh my god! You gotta go! Please!"

Of all the scenarios they practiced in the safe-house, this was not covered. Gadget took a step backwards bringing her hands to clasp her hands under her chin. Gadget looked around in confusion.

Neko-Ney rushed up and raised a hand at Jerry and shouted, "Hey! Shut your face, ya mook!"

Jerry glared at her and said in a low voice, "Look here, miss kitty-cat. You aren't important. Milo Finch ain't important! None of the units other than number Four are important. Gadget unit Four is crucial! Crucial! I can't explain–but she has to go to Belize!"

Milo thought frantically about what he was missing. He thought about playing a dangerous card, but felt out of options. Ramon and Anthony were upstairs with Anvil Clay. Milo didn't want to tip Jerry off that two allies were waiting upstairs and had heavy weapons if things went really badly.

Milo said, "Ah cut the crap, Jerry! We know all about the aliens, the pit, the test, the zones, the rest of it. Why do they need Gadget? What part does she play?"

Jerry laid back and barked out a short laugh. He waved a hand and said, "Aliens? Ha! Wish it WERE that simple! It's wifi web keyed. Once in the Belize Replication Facility's wifi web–blammo, the VGC goes off-line. Has to do with a radio key. If it ain't clickin' the tumblers...your tongue is tied behind your back! Any wonder I hate the guy? Biggest thing in human history and can't even talk about it. Passwords don't cut it."

Widget said angrily, "Dr Lassiter is dead. Ricky is dead. Becky is dead. TWO is dead! It is HIS fault! Why don't I blow the VGC out and bash it with a bat? That would break it? Right? I vote we shoot this monster!"

Jerry stared in surprise at this vitriolic outburst from Widget and looked at Milo, and asked him, "What did you do to these girls? This one, sure as hell, don't sound like Gadget from the New Rescue Rangers!" Neko-Ney just stood by the door and lashed her tail back and forth, while flexing her claws.

Milo said, "You don't have the right to ask questions here, Jerry. Fork over the virus, and the activation code!"

Jerry held up his hands and said, "Okay, okay! Here. Normal anti-virals can't stop the thing. It can't recognize it. Ruby has the counter-viral program. She wrote it to specifically counter the 'Mosquitos'. She called it 'Flyswatter'. She didn't give the counter-virus. Cute, hunh?" Jerry activated his wrist-top and let it communicate to Milo's palm-top and downloaded the virus.

Jerry looked at Milo and asked him, "What now? Are you gonna shoot me? Let me go?"

Milo asked Jerry, "Where is Chase? What are they going to do with her?"

"I thought you said you knew all about everything!" Jerry seemed surprised for a moment.

Widget said, "I can beat it out of him." She and Neko-Ney looked ready, willing and able to smack the crap out of him. Jerry cleared his throat and shifted around uncomfortably.

'"Okay! Alright! They moved Chase and Fidget from the Executive Suites, to the Security Core, where they'll prepare Fidget for....her....swim in the River of Time, tomorrow." Jerry struggled with the last part and finished gasping and wincing.

Milo looked significantly around at the others.

Gadget stepped forward and asked, "What is the 'River of Time'?"

He flinched and winced more. Jerry Gasped out, "It's a term. I can't tell you what it really is. It's a synonym for something else. If Fidget survives, she'll..."

Gadget grabbed Jerry up by the collar and glared at him nose to nose and snarled, "...IF she survives? What do you mean?"

He flinched and moaned, "I said 'If she survives'...she'll move deeper into the complex. Few of her kind survive the River of Time, to move on to the other parts. It's about even money–whether she makes it or not. Is she doesn't make it—well...Max doesn't like loose ends, and won't have an use for Chase Victor any more."

Gadget pushed him back into the recliner. Milo asked Jerry, "How much time do we have before Fidget takes her 'swim'?"

Widget asked, "What do you mean, 'Few of her kind survive the 'River of Time'?"

Jerry winced and groaned out, "A ...uh...feeling soul ...is needed to navigate the River of Time. Replicants don't have real feelings most of the time."

Neko-Ney smacked Jerry in the head and hissed like a pair of air-brakes on a truck. Her claws left bloody tracks across his face as his head rocked back. He screamed, "OWWAhh, Jesus! I said 'MOST'! Jesus! You clawed me up, dammit!"

Milo shouted at Neko-Ney, "Calm down! Shit! Go on, Jerry."

Jerry shook as blood and sweat ran down his bruised face, He drew a shuddering breath and said quietly, "Without an...uh...anchor on THIS side, the soul of the traveler...uh...is lost in the underworld, forever and their body is destroyed. People unwilling to...uh...you know... sacrifice, are destroyed by the Well of Knowledge and never reach the River of Time."

Widget asked, looking at Gadget and remembering what she said about her dreams, "Is the mirror with the wispy smoke, the Well of Knowledge?"

Gadget answered. "No. That is the Tezcatlipoca. The 'Smoking Mirror', also called the test at the top of the Pit of the Underworld."

Milo looked at Gadget and asked in wonder, "Hey, Gadj...you have a memory break-through?"

She shook her head and answered slowly, "No. Just connecting the dots, I guess. I have a library of knowledge in my head. That includes a long list of terms and locations. When the location is one I know, I can answer."

Ramon interrupted on the ear-bead communicators. "I'm still monitoring his voice -stress analysis. He believes what he says. If he lies–I'll tell you."

Gadget tapped on the pick-up microphone twice to signal she heard him.

Jerry nodded and looked at Gadget. "Yeah, that's why Max wants her back. She's the most successful penetrator he ever found! My god! She's the one who found the River of Time. She made the journey to the underworld fifteen times!"

Milo frowned and pointed his Makarov 4.65mm rifle at Jerry's mid-section and said, "You're talking a lot, but not answering the question. When does Fidget take this test? How long does Chase have?"

Jerry shrugged. "Tomorrow evening at twilight. Damned VGC, I can only dance around the edge, on this, and give you all an allegory...or metaphor or whatever the hell it is, so be patient! This is REALLY important! Don't blow this off, okay?"

Jerry paused, clenching his hands together and collected his thoughts, threading them through the Vocal Governance chip, and said,"The Smoking Mirror can only be faced at dawn and twilight. That is when the doorway to the Underworld lays open. There are devils in that Underworld. They were woke up by Max, the dumb-ass! He hopes that someone like Fidget, an innocent, can calm them down before they wage war on heaven again."

In the upstairs bedroom of Anvil Clay, listening on ear-beads, Anthony, holding a tri-barreled 4.65 mini-gun, looked at Ramon in shock.

Anvil put a hand to his forehead and pronounced aloud, " 'Wage war on Heaven AGAIN!' Uhm...It sounds like you boys might need a little, teensy bit of back-up."

Ramon looked grim as he cradled his RPG-27 and nodded. He looked at it and said, "We need bigger guns."

–To Be Continued –