Mega Man X: Trinity Helix

by Revokov

Episode 5: Two Towers-Two missions begin at once, dividing Hunter ranks while Kou Cao's agents set up some deadly surprises.

3. Damage Assessment

Chapter 1—Damage Assessment

From: Cmdr. Gorov

To: Cmdr. Signas

Priority: Flash

Subject: Incident Report

This morning at approximately 3 a.m. there was a massive attack in central Moscow. Only two Hunters were nearby at the time: Revenant, commander of the local branch of the 17th, and Haley, the SiC of the local 20th. The latter was found dead at the scene and the former is missing but is presumed dead. Full details will arrive after a formal investigation, but it looks like a team of crack Mavericks got a little trigger-happy.

Signas, I've just lost the best man on my roster. Morale just plummeted among the others—if someone got Revenant, than no one is safe. Worse is the fact that we can't find the body. If it was Mavericks, then we can be reasonably sure they'll tamper with him in some way. We both know how bad that could be.

From the looks of things it's possible that Revenant was specifically targeted. I recommend you tell your officers to watch their backs, and pass the message along to the other commanders. I will contact you later in the day, and hopefully then we will both know a lot more about what's going on in this world.

***

Maverick Hunter Headquarters

Tokyo, Japan

            Good coffee could cure any disease in the world, he remarked to himself, even the heavy lethargy of a Monday. It was Douglas's own brew, and the mechanic was proud of it. Even the top dogs in this outfit humbled themselves by coming down into Douglas's greasy cluttered garage and begging for his patented pick-me-up potion. And so, when the chief of Research and Development saw Archer, the commander of Unit 5, marching towards his unkempt office he justly assumed that his comrade was in need of caffeine.

            But the look on Archer's face said otherwise. That was worth a tilt of the head. In his left hand the commander held a manila envelope that to Douglas immediately meant "bad news". Douglas nevertheless greeted his friend with a characteristically chipper "G'day," to which Archer responded with a sad smile and a shake of his head.

            "I wish I could agree, Douglas." He removed some documents and pictures from the folder and set the whole mess in front of the mechanic. "There was an incident in Moscow last night. Revenant was killed."

            "Revenant?" Douglas blinked, feeling a chill. He did not know Revenant personally, but rather by reputation. In concept, it was rather like X kicking the bucket, and hence the unease. "How the hell did that happen?"

            Archer motioned to the photographs he'd removed from the folder. "Looks like a strike team got him. His girlfriend was taken out, too." A hardness came over Archer's voice and he stopped to collect himself. Unlike Douglas, he had known Revenant, and losing a friend always came hard. "They never actually recovered Revenant's body, but given how little of Haley—his sweetheart—they managed to collect, Gorov wonders if there's even anything left that we can call a 'body'."

            Douglas picked up his green helmet from among a mass of paperwork and situated it on his head. He then snapped an eyepiece down over his left eye and zoomed in on a photograph of what looked like a residential street. More than one home had been wrecked, and it looked like even a few larger buildings had seen better days. He focused on a blast crater in the middle of the street, frowning mightily. "RPG, looks like." That was saying something. Rocket-propelled-grenade launchers had evolved just as much as any other weapon over the years. They still, however, required some time to reload, and that led Douglas to his next hypothesis. "If so, then there had to be at least three of them…maybe two, if they were fast little buggers." He chewed his lip, squinting at a different portion of the image. "'Course, coulda just been one or two Reploids with innate launchers."

            "That's about what Gorov's people think," Archer affirmed, running a hand through his short blonde hair and sighing. "Whatever the case, there's no sign of the bastards. The investigation just started, but Gorov's pissed."

            "Understandably."

            "They'll track the bastards wherever they fled to…Jesus, Douglas," Archer breathed, shaking his head again. "It's been a long time since an officer that high up was taken out."

            "Maybe the Mavs are finally getting smart," Douglas suggested. "Signas isn't giving them any room to breathe, so they have to switch to other methods."

            "Yeah, well, they'll pay for it all the same. It's a war they can't win. Why they can't realize it, I don't know."

            "Nor will we ever." Douglas smiled as consolingly as he could. "Sorry, man. I know you were friends."

            Archer straightened and nodded. "I'll be fine, just as soon as we catch the guys who did this. Could you look that information over? Gorov's sent us some measurements and estimates about the damaged areas and weapons that may have been used, but your opinion's probably more weighted than theirs."

            "Well if you're gonna kiss my ass about it, why the hell not?" Douglas briefly scanned the documents to see what each one related to. "Anything else?"

            "Nah. Just gotta find someone."

            "Signas call a meeting?"

            "Of course. I'll stop by later. I have a feeling this is gonna be a late night."

            Douglas took a sip of coffee and smiled. "I've got that part taken care of, my friend."

            Though full details were only given to Hunter commanders and the local authorities, it wasn't like news agencies had fallen asleep over the decades. Images of the Moscow attacks were broadcast throughout the world, with reporters more or less repeating the same three facts in a variety of different ways, as only reporters can do: there was an attack, there were casualties, and they didn't know anything besides that.

            Two Hunters watched the story unfold on a couch in the expansive lounge that Signas had been gracious enough to include in the newly established global Maverick Hunter Headquarters. The previous location for this prestigious facility had been New York, but Signas, the leader of the entire Hunter force worldwide, had undertaken an effort to separate the Hunters as entirely as possible from the national armed forces. That had required a move to the more secluded Tokyo, where they'd be free from the yolk of the Megacity Army.

            The move had come shortly after the close of what was being called the Seraph Uprising. Four Mavericks who had in the past served the Megacity Army as virtual slaves revolted and stole minor nuclear weapons from their resting places. Their trump cards in hand, they constructed an airship in their base in the Catskills, which had been code-named "Seraph Castle". By the time the Hunters and the Army worked through enough paperwork to go after the bad guys, the Mavericks were already on the move. They used their airship to launch the nukes at the Hunter Headquarters and the Army's flying fortress, Icarus. The HQ bomb was a dud, but Icarus vanished in radioactive fire. Adding insult to injury, a cleverly placed Maverick ground force closed in on the evacuated HQ and occupied it, sending a strike team to destroy the Hunter leaders who'd stayed behind while the main force raced out to Seraph Castle, only to have to turn around and race back.

            But the end of the story was a fairly happy one. The Hunters returned too late to save Icarus but soon enough to save their comrades and liberate their home base after a long and bloody battle in the Megacity streets. Meanwhile in Seraph Castle, a team of elites led by Mega Man X himself released the captured Zero and brought the Maverick kingpins, including Sigma, to justice. Vowing never to waste time with the Army again, Signas had remained in New York only long enough to clean up the mess made by the Mavericks and then began reconverting the standard Tokyo base into a fortress capable of housing the Hunter Command. Now, a little over two years later, here these two Reploids sat watching live coverage of a new tragedy, but one that they, with any luck, wouldn't have to face in person someday.

            "Jesus," observed Mega Man X, his eyes leveled towards the widescreen television that adorned the north wall of the lounge.

            "Amen," said his counterpart, Mason. "They said Hunters were among the casualties, didn't they?"

            "Give 'em a few minutes, and they'll say it again," X said with a shake of his head. It was really amazing how little things changed, especially with the media. "I knew it had gotten too quiet."

            "Now isn't that the truth." Commander Mason of Unit 3 downed the last of his bottled water, a gesture that wasn't really necessary but did refresh him. Mason was, like all the off-duty Hunters, in plainclothes, which for him was a sleeveless white shirt and combat pants. His salt-and-pepper haircut was a bit longer than a Marine barber would allow, but still carried the image of a military man, though Mason eschewed the bureaucracy of the Megacity Army even more than most. As the leader of the 3rd Unit worldwide, he headed up a team of straight infantry, and they were damned good at it too. Often he worked with the 5th Unit, which was infantry also but specialized in some stealthier tactics. The frequent plan was for Archer's people to set up the strike, and for Mason's heavy hitters to then go to work. In the past their next closest companion was the 20th, which was a mixed unit of soldiers and battle machines, but for straight machinery you went to the 15th. Headed up by a human named Erich Zegmann, the 15th contained most of the ride armors the corps had in its service. There were many other units but they were less prominent, and were often used either for menial patrols or, on the flip side, very specific operations. One such group was the 8th Unit, a team of guerillas that made very efficient and very covert warfare on targets who often thought themselves impervious. Their leader, Damia, was also something of a spook, Mason had decided. She worked a lot with the Intel department, and it was rumored they had an unofficial unit up and running. In fact, Mason knew, they did. Called Aegis, it pulled its recruits from regular units and occasionally sent them on this-never-happened type missions.

            Then, of course, there were the big dogs. Hunters who overqualified in specific areas of combat were chosen for Commander Zero's aptly named Unit 0. It was a smallish team, and each member had a different skill that they excelled in. The idea was to have a single unit that could function as a jack-of-all-trades team, a move deliberately made to copy the common Maverick strategy of leadership employed during uprisings. Finally there was the 17th, the most revered of all Hunter units. Here went the cream of the crop, those who showed enough promise to be schooled personally by the man who had defeated Sigma three times alone and twice again with Zero—Mega Man X, the hero of the century.

            But X didn't really look like a hero, sitting there in blue jeans and a black T-shirt. In fact he didn't look like he had anything to do with a military group at all. He had the image of a man who'd just reached his 20s, and despite all the havoc he'd seen in his day the lines in his face were not all that telltale. Since the madness that had unraveled in New York, X, like his friend Zero, had taken on a generally positive look on life, even if he did seem to be working more now than he had when the Mavericks were revolting openly. No sooner had they set up shop in Tokyo than Signas had begun a worldwide effort to root out any Mavericks left in hiding and stamp them out before they could regroup for another attack. After the last one, it seemed clear that the enemy was willing to cross any and all lines to accomplish their mad dreams of genocide and Reploid dominance. Signas had made this relatively simple by reorganizing the entire Hunter force, arranging for every individual unit to have branches in every major Hunter base. The overall unit commanders were all based in the master Headquarters. This had wrought a change in the 20th, the commander of which had been Zion, the tactical genius who had won back the New York Headquarters from Mavericks two years earlier. Zion was now the overall Commander of the New York base, and most of his unit had stayed with him. The Hunter who now controlled his old unit was the woman who'd done so in Tokyo until Signas came, another soldier/strategist named Luna, who was quite capable if not sometimes quite mad.

            They were talking about civilian casualties now. X watched the scene on the screen and let out a disappointed sigh as photos of a mother and her six-year-old daughter were displayed on the screen. Both had been killed on their doorstep when an errant missile struck. "It never gets any less disgusting, you know?"

            "Yeah." It was not something Mason often dwelt on—merely a fact of life, he thought. But X was at his core a pacifist, one who fought only because he wanted to ensure peace for the future, and for no other reason. That was probably why he'd maintained his innocent appearance. X had no real ego to speak of, and was generally soft spoken despite his uncanny wealth of knowledge. Every day the champion Hunter seemed to get a little wiser, probably, Mason thought, because he still spent a boatload of time with Cain, the old human scientist who'd held Signas's position until the New York attacks. Mason, himself more of a gung-ho soldier, got along better with the free spirit Zero than the contemplative X, but that didn't mean he didn't have tremendous respect for the latter. One thing about X was that if you were his friend you could always count on the guy to cover your ass, no matter what. "But that's what we're here for, man. They'll find the ones responsible."

            "And if not," X completed the thought, massaging his left temple, "we'll be ready for them when they show their faces again." X would not have been overly troubled by the news—Mavericks still pulled off successful surprise attacks, despite the Hunters' best efforts. But there was something more to this one, he sensed, and whatever it was it was bad.

            About ten minutes later that suspicion was partially confirmed when a regular beeping sounded from both Hunters' wristwatches, which doubled as pagers of sorts. "Well damn," Mason said, stretching lazily before pulling himself to his feet. "Looks like something's brewing, after all."

            "Is it too much to ask for a day off?" X asked the air, rising and leaving the room with Mason. Signas was calling a meeting on the fly, and that usually meant work for someone. The answer to his day-off question, X knew, was a big fat yes. Given the size of the tasks they'd pledged themselves to, they had to be on-call almost twenty-four seven if they hoped to accomplish anything. The enemy never waited until it was convenient for the good guys. X didn't mind all that much, frankly. It probably beat the hell out of a civilian Reploid's life, and for all his aversion to fighting, X hated boredom even more.

            Maverick Hunter Headquarters is a U-shaped building that sits on the outskirts of Tokyo, as far from the established Army bases as possible. The horizontal central portion of the base is the largest, and comprises the offices, meeting halls, residence quarters, hospital, lounges, cafeteria and, on the upper floor, the Intelligence division. The vertical east wing is home to R&D, and has both the expansive garage and various laboratories that allow the Hunters to create and manage their tools of war. The west wing is where all the training goes on. It houses conventional exercise and training equipment, along with virtual simulators and all manner of programs to get Hunters in top shape. A full mile behind the building itself is the airfield, home to the small air force the Hunters maintain, and all around there are ingenious traps that could be activated should anyone decide to invade the place. No one wanted the events of two years prior to be repeated.

            Nestled in the west wing now were two units locked in heated competition, moving through a virtual reality jungle setting armed with some of the deadlier weapons known to man. Their commanders stood on platforms at opposite ends of the arena, watching down as their troops quietly slinked through the overgrowth, both hoping dearly for victory, since the price of the drinks tonight rested on the loser's shoulders.

            "God damn it!" a male Reploid erupted as his orange armor received a bright blue splotch in the chestplate. "Tyclammel is out."

            "Damn it, people!" Zero crossed his arms nervously behind his back, forcing himself not to pace. "Let's try to show some effort here?" His efforts were rewarded by a single shot, and a grumble from a Hunter near Tyclammel. "Atta boy!" Zero praised the attacker—the single shot meant it had to be Cort, who even used pistols in paintball matches—while a blue and green Reploid named Deluge announced his disqualification.

            "Touché," said a woman standing on another elevated platform across the room, haughtily tossing her shoulder-length brown hair over her shoulder. She wore dazzlingly blue armor lined with gold. "But it was just a lucky shot."

            Cort heard the air shift nearby, and knew the enemy commander was about to prove her point. If he let her, that was. The silver-haired gunman clutched a pistol in his hand and crept carefully away from the sound, while making enough noise for his location to be known. He looked behind him, and sure enough the short-warper was making her way forward. Cort got a general idea of his target's location and brought his pistol up, quickly firing off another two rounds. Both struck true. "Nexus, out," reported the newest member of Unit 8, a relatively quiet girl in dark indigo, now tarnished by the yellow that was Unit 0's mark.

            "And I suppose that was luck as well?" a smug Zero asked his opponent.

            "No," his adversary responded, smiling. "That was a diversion."

            Cort heard the words and swore mentally, because there indeed was a presence nearby. "Clever bastard," he whispered, swirling on his feet and firing his weapon in hopes of a drastic success, but taking a three-round burst of blue all the same. "Cort, out."

            Zero's dismay was erased by Acrystos announcing her own defeat. The Huntress, her light green hair about the same color as her armor, had taken one of Cort's wild shots due to her close proximity to her partner, Brant Everett, a lanky human who served as the squad medic. So, the guerillas were hunting in packs…and that worked against them. "And now the plot thickens," he said, grinning wickedly. "I'll beat you even if I am one short."

            Commander Damia crossed her arms over her chest and met Zero with a steely stare. "Then let's see you prove the blonde jokes wrong."

            That, of course, was up to Delates. With Cort and Tyclammel down, that left him with the two rookies. They weren't rookies at all, of course, but they were new enough to the team that even after over a year Delates and the others were razzing them. One, Siren, was predictably a noisy little pistol with a skull full of ideas for incapacitating enemies. The other, Victorio, was a muscleman patterned after a knight, though he didn't wear his armor here due to the fact that he'd quite obviously stick out like a sumo wrestler in a nun's convent. Delates was pretty sure he knew where the other two were hiding, and made his way towards the center of the arena, making as little noise as possible. He was tracking three opponents, as far as he knew.

            Then he saw it—a particularly large bunch of foliage that for whatever reason didn't quite blend in with the rest. He fixed his rifle in its direction and rattled off a burst of paintballs. "Damn," grumbled the bush. "Dantz, out."

            "My, how the tides have turned!" Zero grinned. "Ready to surrender?"

            Damia tilted her head curiously. "Wanna pull out all the stops?"

            "By all means."

            Siren heard it and released the safeties on her innate talent, and a monstrous screeching sound filled the arena, not from her vocal chords but from a soundwave unit in her buster. Brant Everett yelped at the pain in his ears but used the sound to cover his movements, firing in any odd direction to try and stop the enemy, he succeeded only in presenting a target to Delates, who took it gladly. "Everett, out," the medic announced, clutching his ears and realizing no one would hear his proclamation anyway.

            Siren stopped, pleased, and Victorio flashed a thumbs up from within her line of sight. No sooner had he done so than a blue paintball exploded against his broad chest. Siren blinked, and almost as soon as she took action another paintball found her, both courtesy of the final member of Damia's posse. Both of Zero's troops announced their defeat, and Damia met Zero's gaze with a thin smile. "Well I don't think it's ever come quite this close."

            "Know your enemy, Del!" Zero bellowed. "You can kick his ass! He's just a poser anyway—" His taunts were rudely interrupted when a shot landed right between his eyes. "What the—Castle, you little shit!"

            "I believe you said something about pulling out all the stops?" Castle demanded from the field, his voice laced with laughter.

            "Well since you insist," Zero snarled, drawing the pistol the commanders had chosen for themselves, but before he could snipe Castle Damia drew her own weapon and pegged Zero squarely in the chest. "What the hell!" the blonde commander exclaimed. Damia just laughed and rolled to the side as Zero's downed troops rejoined the fray, opening up at her from below. She rolled off the platform into the foliage as Zero took wild shots at her, but the crimson Hunter had never been much of a success with pistols, especially fake ones.

            Delates twisted around and found himself face-to-face with Castle, the dark-armored superspook of Damia's team. Castle tossed him a ferocious grin before darting off without firing a shot. Delates rushed after him but heard a noise to his right. He turned at the same time his opponent did, and just like that he and Damia were staring down the happy ends of each other's weapons. It took Damia less than the second of pause the moment generated to realize that Delates would kick her ass with his weapon's automatic function and dropped low, racing off while firing into the emerald Hunter's legs. He laughed and gave chase.

            This farce of an exercise went on for another five minutes, with the two units warring without rhyme or reason until they looked like walking easels. Finally Damia deactivated the jungle program and they were left standing in an empty simulator. "So now what?" Everett asked. "Who buys the beers?"

            "Eh, don't worry," Zero waved it off, unintentionally flicking paint at the human's eye. "I'll find a way to pin it on X before the night's over."

            "Or Castle could chip in," Delates suggested, quite evilly. "If you had only resisted, I'd be clean now."

            "You?" Castle retorted incredulously. "I'd have planted one right between your eyes, same as your boss!"

            "That was a cheap shot, by the way," Zero said, deadpan, wiping blue paint away from his own eyes.

            "Get cleaned up," Damia ordered, checking the time. "Then…uh, where are we going?"

            "Let's get the hell off the base, at least," Tyclammel said. "What about Aoki's place?"

            "Works for me if it works for you guys," Zero agreed, getting shrugs all around. That was when his pager went off. "Oh, hell…"

            "He wants a meeting," Damia knew even before checking. She examined herself and sighed. "Well, this'll get a reaction."

            Zero grinned. They both were embarrassingly polka-dotted for a high clearance meeting, but what were you gonna do? The two teams headed into the little paintball armory to replace their weapons, where Delates winced at his reflection in the mirror. The two colors had merged into a sickly green, and the paint was oozing down his legs. "This is your fault, you know," he said to Damia as they entered the armory.

            "My fault?" She grinned up at him—Damia was about 5'3 in height, whereas Delates neared the six-foot mark. "If you were a little more careful, maybe I'd stop embarrassing you on the field."

            "Well that doesn't mean I can't embarrass you off of it," Delates replied, quickly snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her close for a very elaborate kiss. The gathered units chortled and whooped, while Castle, grinning the scene, lifted his rifle and unloaded on them both. Damia, without diverting her eyes or attention from Delates, brought her pistol up to bear and fired into Castle's groin. "You're getting better at this," Delates laughed, backing away.

            "Jerk," she punched his shoulder lightly, and then frowned. "Oh hell, I have paint in my mouth."

            "THAT was a cheap shot!" Castle was declaring loudly, while Acrystos, his own significant other, slumped against the wall in laughter.

            The Commanders took leave of their units, walking the halls and both putting on over-the-top displays of dignity despite their appearance. Damia had snagged a small towel on the way out and had used it to clean her face, succeeding only in smearing the paint. "At least it blends in a bit on you," Zero grumped. Blue and yellow did fade easier onto blue than they did on bright red. "And I'll have you know that if you keep raping my second in command like that, I'll raise a complaint with Personnel."

            She laughed. "Why Zero, if I didn't know any better I'd say you were jealous."

            He grinned wryly. "This is the day for cheap shots, isn't it?"

            Damia stared imperiously at a passerby who did a double take of their appearance. When he'd passed she leaned her head back, cracking her neck slightly. "Any ideas what this'll be about?"

            "It's been a while since the commanders were called together." That made Zero frown. They'd been busy for the past few hours, and had not seen the news. Moscow was eight hours away on the global clock, and thus the Hunters were still quite awake. "Maybe they'll actually have a mission."

            "Field work," Damia said dreamily. "Wouldn't that be nice?"

            For her it would be, they both knew. Damia had not participated in any real combat operations since the relocation, partially due to lack of missions and partially due to her medical situation. During the last catastrophe in New York she'd been subjected to extensive torture at Maverick hands, and had sustained lasting physical and psychological damage. The past year for her had been long and hard, but she appeared to have faced the majority of her demons and had come out all the better for it. She'd forced herself through a physical therapy regimen to recalibrate her internal systems, intending to continue commanding the 8th Unit. That, Zero knew, was largely because her teammates wouldn't give her up. The guerillas were a close-knit group, just like Zero's special ops team, and Damia had only lost two of them in all her years of command. A tanker in New York had gunned down the first one. The second, Henry Wallace, had resigned after shattering his leg in a training accident. Nexus had been brought in to fill those gaps, and she seemed to be fitting in well enough. Damia liked her, and that had made things a lot easier for the newbie.

            Zero himself had undergone a sort of reconstruction as well. No longer a somber brooding wretch, he was once more the energetic, confident little shit the corps had grown to love. When he wasn't training Siren and Victorio up to full potential, he was helping train rookie units or going on "field trips", unscheduled patrols with his unit that usually ended in some weird public spectacle. Occasionally even X would join in.

            The walk was long, since Signas's office was near the top of the main sector. The office was a big one, both because Signas was the big boss and because he liked to have private meetings there. When they did arrive they found that the others had already gathered, and in this case "others" meant the principal commanders. X, Archer and Luna occupied a large couch while Mason leaned against the wall next to them. Across the room Erich Zegmann, a big, powerful man, sat tiredly in an armchair. All eyes went wide at the sight of the two new polka-dotted arrivals. Damia blinked very innocently.

            Signas was parked behind his massive oak desk, poring over a file with a big frown on his face. The Grand Commander was a big Reploid who only very rarely stepped out of his blue suit of armor, tailored to resemble an officer's garb. Near him was Caligula, a Reploid who by contrast was rarely if ever seen wearing his armor. Few people even knew what color it was. His only real trademark was a brown trench coat that he wore in cooler months, even indoors. He stood an inch or so higher than Damia, making him reasonably short but like his occasional partner he packed a wallop when he wanted to. A former field spy himself, Caligula had distinguished himself sneaking behind enemy lines as though it were as easy as zipping a fly, and his ability to think and act decisively on gathered information had earned him the trust of Signas and Cain before him. His only drawback, and it was a major one, was that he was about as controversial as his namesake. He tended to do his own thing whether the authorities liked it or not, and had more than once found himself at odds with other senior members of the Hunter group, and especially the Megacity Army. But more often than not his actions were for the better, such as the time he disobeyed a flat order from Army bigwigs to leave captured Reploids in enemy hands lest he embarrass the Army by exposing their shitty tacticians for what they were.

            "All right," Signas said, lowering the file, "you're all here, so—wow." He raised an eyebrow at the blue-faced Zero, who raised one right back. "Uh, right. As you may or may not know there was a little party in Moscow very recently, and a very capable Hunter may be dead because of it. How many of you knew Revenant?"

            All had at least heard of him, and the use of past tense told them all they needed to. "Jesus," Damia observed quietly.

            "There was no body," Signas went on. "But given what was left of his friend Haley, Gorov is afraid there may not be anything of Revenant to collect."

            "Or he was kidnapped," Zegmann finished.

            "That's a possibility." Signas sighed, glancing again at the file from Moscow. "They don't know who did it yet, but from the looks of things it was a small, heavily armed strike force."

            "Mavericks," Mason said. "Who else?"

            "Probably," X mused. "That would explain the lack of restraint involving civilian targets. But Mavericks aren't the only ones who hate us."

            "The Furies are pretty strong over there," Archer pointed out. The Furies was a very militant anti-Reploid group. Occasionally they launched attacks on civilian Reploids, but Union police had more or less put a stranglehold on their operations.

            "I don't think the Furies have the stones for this one," Zero threw in. "I mean, Revenant was no pushover. The Furies are fine and dandy when it comes to unarmed Reploids, but not many of them are that devoted that they'd stare down the best Hunter in Russia."

            "I saw the footage," dark haired Commander Luna offered. "The whole hullabaloo reminded me of SC2." She referred to Sub-City 2 of Megacity 30, a Florida coastal area. At large in the world was a group of marauders calling themselves the Brave Little Toasters. It was a funny name for a group that wasn't funny at all. Under the oversight of Meltdown Rattler, a former Maverick demolitions expert, the Toasters lived up to their name by razing and pillaging smaller cities while the authorities were busy elsewhere. During the Repliforce War, they'd attacked the Floridian suburb city and gotten away clean. The residents there still had nightmares.

            "The Toasters work for profit," Damia countered, shaking her head. "If they took Revenant alive they could ransom him, but it'd be too easy to track them down first. Plus, they've never made a move when the world wasn't at war."

            "Ah, true," Luna said, shrugging. "Dopey me."

            "There is one other fellow who doesn't like us much," Zegmann put in easily. "And he certainly has the resources to do this kind of a job."

            Currently number one on the world's shit list was a former aide to an operations chief of the Megacity Army. His name was Chartreuse, and if the leads were correct he was the leader of a crime syndicate that had already fully corrupted the Megacity black market and was looking to go global. Known as the Serpent Network after its leader, who had for years operated under the moniker "Gold Serpent"—he also used "Kou Cao"—the group had been positively tied to the nuclear attacks of two years prior, and some speculation blamed the Serpent for orchestrating the whole thing. This was an organization of criminals with the efficiency of terrorists, only they pursued money rather than ideology, and if they were capable of arranging for the use of nuclear warheads, who knew what else they had up their sleeves? The Army had tried and failed to track down the leaders of this syndicate, but a certain general in the Army ranks had formed a partial alliance with Signas who, despite his separation policy regarding the Army, agreed to use both Army and Hunter personnel to form a strike force that would root out and neutralize components of the syndicate as soon as they were discovered. The pressure the Hunters had been putting on Chartreuse lately gave him clear motive for taking out his anger on a Hunter commander.

            There was, however, one thing that didn't click with that theory, and X picked up on it. "No, I don't think so, unless he's far stronger than we'd imagined. For all his progress infiltrating the System, the Serpent hasn't gotten far in other nations yet, and he can't seem to even touch the Union. It's like something's repelling him from inside."

            "Yeah," Zero had to agree. "But he could have flown the assets into Moscow to do the job and then retreat."

            "There's all kinds of speculation we can do," Signas said, taking control of the conversation once more, "but the fact is we won't know exactly what to do or who to suspect until Gorov finishes his investigation. But no matter what happens with that, the fact remains that this is the first time in a long time that a commander has been specifically targeted, hard as that is to believe. Gorov suggested I warn the commanders across the boards, and I think I'm going to do that."

            "What?" Luna asked, feigning insult. "You don't think we can take care of ourselves?"

            "It's not you people I'm worried about. In fact I wouldn't be as pressed to send the message were it not for the second incident."

            "Second incident?" X asked slowly.

            "Moscow isn't the only place burning tonight," said Caligula, his first words thus far. He spoke as usual in an easy drawl bereft of significant emotion. "A UK Coast Patrol vessel was attacked and sunk by unknown assailants. A second vessel, presumably the one the Coast Patrol was investigating, is also sleeping with the fishes, seemingly due to a bomb. There are one or two survivors, but they're too busted up to tell us anything yet."

            "One or two?" Mason echoed.

            "One or two," Caligula responded, just as solemnly.

            It wasn't so amazing that none of them had heard of it. Despite the much higher body count of the Rathlin Island incident, the media would consider it just another battle among soldiers—statistics, with no drama. Moscow got all the attention because the viewers were more interested in attacks on civilians, and given that both stories were still breaking, Resolute's destruction would probably not be brought to light until the following morning. A cold fact, but a fact nonetheless.

            "The ones attacked were all under Army jurisdiction," Signas said, absently drumming a finger against his desk. "The reason I'm concerned is that the attack occurred almost simultaneously with the attack in Moscow. Both incidents involved very heavy firepower. Both incidents involved civilian casualties—there were murder victims on the bombed yacht. And both incidents may involve a missing Reploid."

            "A recovery effort has started," Caligula explained. "But already there are missing bodies. The two divers claim that their third man, one Spartan Lionfish, surfaced to see what was going on above them. There was apparently a battle of some sort, and now nothing is left of Spartan at the scene."

            "Spartan Lionfish," X said, leaning back in the couch. "Is that the same Spartan Lionfish who…"

            "Fought the Maverick undersea units? Yes, yes it is." Caligula smiled without humor. "This time, there is somewhat of a link to the Serpent, for as you know, X, Spartan has done his fair share of busting Kou Cao's seafaring smugglers. Taking him out could feasibly be on our friend's to-do list."

            "So two capable Reploids have been taken out most violently in the past few hours," Zero summarized. "And you want us to spread the word that we should all be careful."

            "That would be nice. It would be even nicer if you tried to live by the advice." Signas glanced at the wall clock before rubbing at his right eye. "All right. That's about it. Tomorrow we'll know a bit more and hopefully a few leads'll turn up. Till then, have a good night."

            "You too, boss man!" Zero replied, flashing his boss a thumbs up instead of a salute. "Don't work too late."

            "If only I had that choice. And do try to get cleaned up before you address the rookies in the morning, Zero. Contrary to popular belief we do try to appear serious once in a while. Some of us more than others," he added, taking a stab at himself. Zero often remarked on how lucky they were to work for this guy. They respected him because he didn't take himself too seriously. Signas worked as closely with his officers as he could, operating under the philosophy that as clever a manager and strategist he may be, it was the individual units that did all the actual work, and to make sure they operated at their best he wanted to make sure he only asked them to do what they could reasonably accomplish. This had established quite a close knit community of do-gooders, and had succeeded in making this Hunter base the most efficient in the world, even after only a mere year of activation.

            Damia left the room first, making a beeline for her own quarters. One could only stand being covered in paint for so long. As a commander, she merited a slightly larger living quarters, which had made it convenient when she and Delates had decided to room together. That had been one of their better moves, she thought. They both took great pleasure out of simply being close to one another, especially Damia, since she still woke up from nightmares on occasion. The fact that fragments of data popping into her subconscious mind scared her was more than a little embarrassing, but Delates had never been anything but understanding.

            The man in question was sprawled out lazily on the bed, dressed down to civilian clothes after cleaning himself up. "Good god, is that what we looked like?"

            "Oh, at least it's not still dripping." She stepped into her private shower—another cozy little benefit of being a commander—and began the annoying process of rinsing off her armor. Once that was done she stepped out long enough to remove her armor and clothes and went back under the warm spray to take care of the gunk on her body. Five minutes later she was dried and dressed, falling onto the bed next to her lover and letting out a tired sigh. "Mondays never get easier."

            Delates agreed, rubbing his hands over her shoulders. "What was that all about?"

            "There were a few attacks," she replied, purring at the feel of the massage. "Mavericks—well, we assume it's Mavericks—killed some Hunters in Moscow, including their champion, a guy named Revenant."

            "Revenant…" Delates thought for a second. "Yeah, I've heard of that guy. Damn."

            "A couple of boats got blown up around the same time in North Ireland. Signas doesn't know if there's a connection, but we're supposed to be careful anyway."

            "That mean he canceled our field trip?"

            "Oh, hell no." She smiled. "Even if he did, Zero'd smuggle us out."

            "Well then let's go before they leave without us."

            "Mmph," she replied, not savoring the idea of getting off the soft bed.

            "Come on, you laggart!" He scooped her right off the bed, heading towards the door. Sure enough she squirmed out of his grip, not about to let anyone see him carrying her. "Now was that so hard?"

            "Yeah, laugh it up. You might have to carry my ass home afterwards, anyway."

Sakimoto Airfield

One Mile Behind Headquarters

            The jet screeched past overhead, its sonic pulse deafening him as he stood in awe, eyes riveted on the small cluster of sky where white plumes of smoke were still trailing to the earth like a spider's legs. "That may have been the coolest thing I've ever seen."

            "Well I'm glad you like it, Commander Tremont." The speaker was a tall, regal Reploid stallion, but his most notable features were the broad, white, feathered wings on his back. His uniform was white and red, the colors of a high-ranking Repliforce officer, but Repliforce was long dead. Now the Skiver earned his paycheck coordinating a special Reploids-only air unit in the Megacity Army, aptly referred to as the Reploid Air Force. He didn't really mind helping the Hunters, the ones who had led Repliforce to its demise, because his ties to the mother unit had never been all that strong. He'd been something of a trainee back then, and as such it was easy for him to put the past behind him. He did think, however, that the Repliforce pilots under Storm Owl would have given Tremont and his boys a run for their money. "We spent a pretty penny making sure this jet was top of the line. Even your Ravens will be hard-pressed to defeat it."

            "I'll believe that when I see it," responded Alec Tremont, commander of the Hunter air unit. Still, he had to give the horse props. What he had just seen was both the greatest departure from aerial combat he'd ever witnessed, and also one of the sweetest spectacles his eyes had ever beheld. "Though the uses of this jet are very clear. How soon can we expect one?"

            "You can expect one, and I mean one, within the next two weeks if you hustle." The Skiver spoke in a clipped British accent, which made sense considering that he was in fact quite British. "We may have been able to fork over more, but given Signas's disposition towards the Army my superiors have been less than eager to donate to his cause."

            "Understandable," Alec said with a shrug, which translated roughly to Bullshit, you pussy bureaucrats! He was a very average looking man, standing at about 5'11 and sporting plain brown hair and plainer brown eyes. In times of cool weather he and his fellows wore black bomber jackets straight out of the movies, complete with the poofs of cotton rimming the edges. This sweaty summer evening, however, he wore merely his uniform; black garb with silver eagle epaulets. He figured it would be best to appear somewhat respectable before the notoriously uptight Spiral Pegasus. "Nice birds," he remarked to the winged stallion in question. "They'll definitely give the bad guys a run for their money."

            "Doubtlessly," the Skiver agreed, watching the small fighter jet land.

            They called the new model the Nighthawk, an improvement over the Hunter Raven on more or less every aspect. The Nighthawk was even more so than the Raven a ride armor capable of flying at jet speeds. While it resembled a conventional jet, it had the capability to slow its speed to an actual hover, making stationary combat possible. Strafing a Maverick infested building had long been a dream of Alec's, and here was his venue for fulfilling that dream. The Nighthawk was equipped with heavy Vulcan cannons and Sidewinder2's, homing missiles equipped with heavily armored tips for use in blasting through walls or other structures to reach the exact desired point of detonation before blowing their tops. Like the Raven, the Nighthawk had a laser weapon that worked almost like a lightsaber, but could be concentrated for use in dissipating force shields if enough birds attacked enough proper locations at once. Alec's favorite feature, however, was the Immolator. The Army aeronautics people had dubbed it the "Cluster Fucker" and Alec was finding that description accurate. Whoever was on the shit end of the Immolator stick was certainly going to have his day ruined. The Nighthawk would first lock onto a target, which could be a building, machine, or even a single human or Reploid and discharge a self-propelled pod that would close in on the target before unleashing a storm of incendiary minimissiles that generally left nothing standing. On one hand it was overkill, but on the other it was nifty as hell. The real beauty of the Immolator was the pod's ability to infiltrate buildings and take out targets inside, rather than wasting perfectly good missiles breaking down the walls. The pods themselves were equipped with self-defense devices, which would detect if an incoming projectile was about to take it out. At that point it would launch its payload, a payload that was composed of homing missiles already locked onto the same target the pod was. Even if the approach failed, the end result sure as hell wouldn't. About the only way to stop the Immolator was a direct blast of EMG. Because of its capacity for carnage, the Immolator was obviously a weapon to be used only in the most extreme of cases, but Alec had no worries about misuse. His people all knew how to minimize collateral damage. There was always some of it, but too much of it was just embarrassing, and if deemed reckless could lead to imprisonment.

            "Bout how hard is it to fly one of those?" asked a Reploid to Alec's left. He wore a uniform similar to Alec's, and had no armor donned on his humanoid form. If Bale ever actually wore armor Alec rarely saw it. In fact he wasn't even sure what his friend's armor looked like. Greenish, he thought.

            "The learning curve for one of your Raven pilots won't be too terribly difficult," the Skiver allowed, most generously they both thought. "I would insist that you take them for many a test run before actually using them, however. You'll probably have more than one before this is all said and done, and I'm sure Signas can find a way to purchase more, but they're still valuable as diamonds. Crash one, and you likely won't be getting a replacement anytime soon."

            "Don't worry," Alec replied, feeling only slightly patronized. "My pilots keep the tray tables up. We haven't had a crash in…well, a very long time."

            "There is a first time for everything, I'll remind you," the Pegasus Reploid pointed out most morosely, turning and walking off the runway with his associates in tow. "And no aircraft is invincible. The Nighthawk's armor is stronger than a Raven's, but nothing's perfect."

            "If things were perfect," Bale pointed out, "we wouldn't have to be here."

            It was a good note to end the meeting on. The Skiver bade them good evening and went back to doing whatever stiff Megacity pilots did before heading home, and the two Hunter pilots returned to the military style jeep that had brought them to the airfield. There was no official unit number for Alec's people, and none of them thought calling themselves "The Pilots" would be any fun. Instead they'd come up with "Steel Wind". It was a name the pilots thought was more than passable, especially since the other units just got crummy numbers to identify themselves. There weren't all that many pilots—fifteen in all, and of them only five were regularly on call. In peacetime, that was usually more than enough. The pilots were used mainly for reconnaissance and quick strikes, and that didn't necessitate a large roster. It was during wartime that Alec wished there were more eyes in the sky. The Mavericks usually tended to launch potent air campaigns, and the Hunters were always pitifully meek in comparison.

            It was no more than a five minute drive back to the base, and there Alec and Bale left the jeep in the garage. The two made their way outside to the front of the base, passing the large garden used as a sort of relaxation point. The old base had sported a garden much for the same purposes, but the pilots and most of their comrades liked this one better. It was a curious mix of conventional Western flora intermingled with a Zen garden on water. A great place to meditate on life's deeper mysteries, Alec thought, or to eat a snow cone.

            "Where are you going now?" Bale asked when his friend turned away from the building entrance.

            "I need gas," Alec explained, brandishing the keys to his sleek red vehicle, a remake of the Corvette of old.

            "You need ass, is more like it." Bale laughed wickedly at Alec's expression. "You still chasing that Steele chick?"

            "Chasing? I think I may have backed her into a corner by now."

            "That's when they're the most dangerous." He smirked and shook his head. "Alec, how dare you go and fall in love? You're the antithesis of the old Alec, just for that!"

            "You know, I could have your ass running laps from dusk till dawn, my friend."

            And he would, Bale knew, at least a few laps anyway before he called it off, just so he could wear that smug smile of his. But that's why you didn't piss Alec off. It was a hard thing to mess up Alec's perpetual good mood anyway, and usually even then he'd just razz you for a while, but if you really got him going… "Mercy, Lord Tremont. Your chariot awaits."

            Alec snickered as he swung open the driver side door. "That's more like it."

Esperanza Textile Plant

Mazatlàn, Mexico

            The wealth of resources the organization possessed was truly astounding. They had assets in every nation bound together in the Megacity System, assets that even working undercover still produced favorable results. A perfect example was this textile factory, which had started out as just that. Even now it produced fabrics for sale on the free market, manned by employees of both flesh and steel who wished only to make a day's wages before going home to get drunk, pass out, and start the whole process once again. Their lives were dull, dead-ended and ultimately worthless except to their employers, who reaped the benefits of their workers' efforts.

            They also did as they were told, which was an added benefit to the true controller of Esperanza Textiles. The dyes and chemicals used to color and purify fabric components were many, and all the workers knew was to apply certain amounts of what was given to them. They paid no attention to the other chemicals that were imported into the factory, knowing that to go snooping was a sure fire way to become unemployed. They also knew not to go near the special laboratories, because it was dangerous to both their health and their financial status. They were told that the company developed new and improved formulas for the business in there, and no one really bothered to question this. After all, what the boss man did with his own time and his own money was really not their concern. They had their booze, and they were happy.

            They also had their supervisors, who told them that the security guards were necessary for defense against crack Maverick squads, and who would argue with that? In fact the guards were used to cover the imports of the lesser-known chemicals into the plant and to guard the old man, as the workers called him. These chemicals went unlisted on the official manifest, and nothing was ever made of it. No one knew of any foul play. Esperanza Textiles had long been an upstanding establishment, after all. The police had better things to do than to watch an old cloth mill.

            All in all, it worked out very well for the old man. He'd been a bit skeptical when they'd stationed him here, but he'd found that the process was very efficient indeed. Here was his safe haven. Here he could develop the product he'd been tasked with developing, and now at last it seemed to be completed. The final test results had been most reassuring. He would have preferred a live subject, just to be sure, but the work the product had done on model units appeared to be devastatingly effective. Besides, getting a live subject would have attracted too much attention. People did start asking questions when other people went missing, and why press his luck? He was most curious as to whom the product would be used on. It would be a miserable fate for those doomed to it, he knew, but that, after all, was the point. Kou Cao wanted to send a message, and Doc Volvar was the one writing that message. He didn't know who the deliverers would be, but he envied them. It would have been so nice to see his hard work in action.

            The workers called him the old man, and it was a fairly accurate description. Volvar was a shorter Reploid with a very slightly hunched back. His hair and beard were both a gray that was trying hard to retain its blonde roots and had the look and feel of steel wool. He wore an old red coat, though it was not really a lab coat, and knew he probably presented the image of a mad old man to the deadbeats making their menial livings outside his lab. The Mavericks had never called him "old man". The Mavericks had respected him, both for his ability to heal almost any wound—he was a doctor, after all—but more so for his ability to make almost any wound. Volvar had been a master interrogator in his heyday, before he'd sold out to the Gold Serpent. His crowning achievement was a rather recent one. With the aid of one Boomer Kuwanger, he'd developed a method of torture that presented enough pain to perfectly mimic the effects of a truth serum—the victim's mind would simply not allow them to lie, since a lie would ostensibly bring forth even more pain. Since the said serum was rather easily dealt with, Volvar's method was already seeing practical use within the Serpent's association. Traitors were more deadly now than ever before, since one rat could lead a whole storm of Hunter and Army personnel to a vital base of operations, and thus traitors needed to be unearthed at any cost.

            But this current project was designed to make those two particular nuisances regret their intrusion into the Serpent's business. Volvar didn't actually know that for certain, but it didn't take a genius to put two and two together. He'd just finished development of a weapon that had been deemed top priority by the Serpent himself. What use might a top priority weapon see other than a top priority mission? And given the nature of the weapon, and who it could specifically target, Volvar had a feeling the Maverick Hunters in particular would be getting a nasty sting in the near future.

            It may have even started already, the renegade doctor thought as he walked towards his phone. He'd seen that mess in Moscow on the news, and they'd just confirmed that two top Hunters were dead. He himself frowned at the display of violence. Volvar preferred subtle methods to the raging carnage he'd seen on the television. There were so many better ways to skin a cat, he knew, but there was also more than way to send a message and this, he had to admit, was definitely one of them. But if two Hunters were dead, and if his boss indeed had some hand in it—which suddenly struck him as doubtful, since Kou Cao didn't yet have all that much power in the European Union—then that probably meant that more such dominos were soon to fall.

            He dialed a number and waited. His was a secure line, different from the ones used in the rest of the plant. He patched into a relay, and was forwarded to his target audience. He had no need to identify himself, since Control could trace all calls coming to it.

            "What's your status, my good sir?" asked a sickeningly cheerful voice on the other end.

            "It is done," Volvar said, before his correspondent could continue. "The latest formula is a success, and I have produced several samples."

            There was a slight pause at the other end. "Done? Well, I'll be damned…" The man got even more confident, letting out a triumphant laugh. "Nice work, Dr. Death! I might have to buy you a beer!"

            "I don't drink," the scientist lied. If he stayed in the same place with this one too long he'd go insane. "My orders were to reproduce the successful formula until our supply was worth exporting. Do those orders still stand?"

            "Well I don't know. Would you like them to?"

            "Dynamo, can you be serious for just one damn moment in your life?"

            That hit a nerve. "Don't begrudge my professionalism, old man," the Control officer replied with just the slightest hint of acid. "Yes, the orders stand. When you have the required amount of the product, let us know. But before we get to that, how does it work?"

            "It works well." Doc Volvar left it at that. He was not about to get into a scientific explanation with this idiot at the other end. "I enjoyed full success on the replicated systems in the lab. A live Reploid would have been nice, but there were too many complications."

            "Oh, I trust a live Reploid or two will be enjoying your lovely new air freshener soon enough," Dynamo opined, reverting back to his cheeky, omniscient tone. "It'll definitely make them regret the Bangor Bust and all the merchandise they took from us there. Now, uh…what are you going to call it?"

            Volvar had thought long and hard about that one. "Nexnecis."

            "What? That sounds like an indigestion medicine!"

            "No." You fool, he managed not to say. "It's simple and subtle, Dynamo. Nex necis is a Latin term meaning 'to kill'."

            "Murder."

            "…Yes, you could say that." Volvar himself thought of murder as a strike against the innocent. The people who would be exposed to Nexnecis would hardly be innocent, and thus he didn't exactly feel like a murderer. But some might disagree with that, he thought with a little smirk. "Anyhow, given the plant's resources I expect to have a suitable amount by this weekend."

            Dynamo privately rejoiced. It was only Monday. That gave him a week to plan the collection. It didn't have to be anything big, but security would have to be absolutely perfect. If they were busted carrying Nexnecis, there wasn't much they could do to explain their way out of that. But he'd manage. He'd show the damn quack how serious he could be. "Then I'll contact you later in the week to confirm an actual date. When that day cometh, Doc, you'll need to leave with the weapon. The Boss has other work for you."

            That was fine with Volvar. He didn't like Mexican food all that much. "I can't wait."

            "Good work ethic!" Dynamo praised. "Though let me give you one suggestion. Take a Viagra."

            "What?!"

            "Yeah, man. Take a Viagra. That way you'll have an excuse for being such a stiff."

            Volvar hung up, still staring at the receiver in something bordering both disbelief and disgust. Dynamo never failed to amaze him with immaturity, though the scientist had a feeling it was all a show. It would be easy, he knew, to underestimate a man like that, and it had been a fatal mistake for more than one person. Dynamo was as crafty and cunning as he was cocky. But that didn't mean Volvar had to like him.

            So, he had about one more week…then he could finally get away from this place, and the real fun could begin. He didn't imagine that the Boss would waste time. If he knew Chartreuse, then someone—probably Guyver—would soon be rounding the globe setting the stage for something big. He did wish he could see Nexnecis in action. He wanted to see the look in the victim's eyes as the weapon ran its course. It would be a horrible endeavor, and thus a perfect punishment. He hoped they used it wisely. He knew whom he personally would use it on.

            …But no, that wasn't right, was it? Doc Volvar let a very slight but rather fond smile crease his weather-beaten features, leaning back in his revolving chair. He didn't exactly want to kill that one. Not anymore. She was far too intriguing for him, far too much…fun to kill. She had fought hard for life during their last meeting, but life could be more of a curse than death, and Volvar could prove it for her. He almost had. It had come to pass that—rather perversely, he thought—the torturer had established a dark bond with the victim. He remembered warmly the thought of staring into his prey's motionless eyes, knowing the pain that registered beneath them and smugly knowing also that she could never express that pain. She'd been totally paralyzed while Volvar had worked his magic, developing his new "truth serum"…she couldn't even scream.

            And yet, she had survived, he knew, and continued to serve at the head of a Hunter unit. It hadn't seemed fair to the scientist at first. If anyone deserved a death, it was a Hunter commander, but this one had not only escaped death but also had further slapped her tormentors in the face by killing Boomer Kuwanger with her own hands. One could argue she certainly had the justification for a little violence at that moment, but to Volvar it was just one more sin on a laundry list that would eventually merit final judgment. How he would love to be the one to give it to her. She was strong, stronger than anyone he'd ever encountered in his line of work. To break her spirit would be the ultimate challenge…and the ultimate amusement. Where was Commander Damia now, he wondered? What would she do if she saw him again?

            "Well that's easy," he answered himself aloud. "She'd fucking kill me."

            And that was the big problem. His frail body was not combat effective, and he'd have to take her when she was helpless. He thought of it less cowardice than practicality. If she was dumb enough to get caught, she could face the consequences. Given the right set of controls he could fix things so there would be little to no threat to his own life. But Chartreuse himself had forbidden Doc Volvar to even consider such things, seeking to keep his premier scientist hidden and safe. Even Dynamo would have told Volvar to back off, though he'd probably appreciate the audacity of the idea. It was that practicality issue again, holding him back while before it let him move freely.

            But he supposed it was not worth thinking about. A pleasant fantasy, maybe, but he had work to do, and daydreaming did not get the work done any faster. He now had to set up the individual production tanks to generate more of Nexnecis based on the formula he'd just perfected. That could be done by the end of the day, he reasoned. Then tomorrow he could start actual production. A few days later and it would be time to leave Esperanza Textiles behind him and move on to whatever other great mission the Boss had up his sleeve.

            He wouldn't allow himself to forget about his daydreams forever, though. And even if he couldn't carry them out he hoped his past actions would do the work for him. Wherever Damia was he hoped she still saw his face in her nightmares. To be forgotten by his victim would be an almost unbearable insult, though he doubted she'd have trouble remembering him.

            And maybe someday, he thought with an indulging smile, he would get to refresh her memory. Just in case.

            "It's sort of a mix," Douglas said to Caligula, pointing to the sheet of missile diagrams in front of him. "The smaller craters match up with any number of these brands of miniature torpedoes, most of them with homing capability. It's the crater in the street that's the interesting one."

            "How so?" Caligula asked, looking around the mechanic's cluttered office with thoughts of pure distaste. His own office was in pristine shape, which made sense given that he probably had more paperwork to organize than any other Hunter.

            "The crater is deep, deeper than the others. Unless it was fired from the air, then we're looking at a launcher with a pretty damn good propulsion system." He slid his finger over to an image of a missile that reminded Caligula of a small battering ram. "My guess, it was the Dozer." It was a fitting name for the weapon, which tended to reduce even the strongest armor to shreds.

            "Or something like it," Caligula affirmed with a slow breath. "But the propulsion—and sheer energy reserves—needed to fire a Dozer with some semblance of control are too much for a Reploid to maintain. You'd need a larger mechaniloid of some sort, or just a tank, and there was nothing like that sighted."

            Douglas just shrugged. It wasn't his fault if it didn't make sense. "'Tis just my prognosis, Cal. I don't claim to know what actually happened, but even if you find someone who does, does it matter all that much? Two top Hunters are gone. I'd be more concerned about the why than the how."

            Caligula managed to hold his tongue—he hardly needed to be reminded how to do the job he'd been doing for years. "Everything is being taken into account, Douglas, and everything can make a difference. Suppose there is now an easier way to transport and fire Dozer missiles. Wouldn't it be nice to know that before sending the troops into a situation where they may learn about it the hard way?"

            Douglas shrugged again. "You're the spook. Whatever's the case, there was a missile attack and, if these reports are correct, a high-powered laser was also involved. I can't tell you any more about that from just images—I'd need the actual weapon specs. Whoever they were, they were quick, they were well-armed, and they weren't concerned with keeping quiet."

            The intelligence boss nodded in concession to that. "And we still don't know who they are. You'd think the Mavericks would learn by now that they're just making things worse for themselves." It had to be the Mavericks, after all. They were the only culprits that really made sense. The question now was which Mavericks and were they up to something more than simple assassinations?

            "Well, it's an issue for another day." Douglas leaned back and gestured to the pot on his desk. "Coffee?"

            "No, thank you. I won't be awake long enough to need it." Even on a day as active as this, there was still very little for the Invisible Men to analyze. The real information would come in a few days, when the on-site analyses were complete. Caligula thanked Douglas and left the mechanic's office and the east wing itself. He passed through the lounge in the central building, where he found an athletically built blonde man doing a crossword while comfortably seated on one of the numerous blue couches. "Still battling the infernal squares, Kevin?"

            "Five letter word for a blink," Kevin Seitz replied, chewing on his pencil in thought, "also a rude gesture."

            "Flash."

            "It's not my fault I don't have a thesaurus programmed into my circuits," Kevin said immediately, filling in the squares. "Matter of fact I don't have circuits, just this shitty gray mass squirming around in my skull full of little veins that can explode whenever the hell they feel ripe and kill me for sport."

            "Oh, that happened to me last year. Hell of a headache, but nothing compared to when your toes jump off your feet and brandish plungers and beat you to death in your sleep."

            "That is a bother." Both were avid Monty Python fans, and too much British humor was and is clinically proven to warp the brain. "So what's the take on Moscow?"

            "Boom?"

            "I guess that does sum it up, don't it. More work for us, I suppose?"

            "Always, Kevin, always."

            The two Intel officers both glanced to the right as two other figures passed through the lounge. Both were young Reploids. The woman was slightly shorter, and had her icy blue hair tied back in a ponytail that reached down between her shoulders. The man was fairly nondescript, except for his strikingly silver eyes, eyes that perfectly matched the armor he wore in battle. Kevin only paid them enough attention to identify them and returned to his crossword. Caligula, however, knew that he was being watched and watched right back, nodding to the man in a show of politeness. The nod was returned and the couple passed out of sight, though the man hadn't been able to hide the slight unease that came over him during the encounter.

            "When are you going to tap that one?" Kevin asked, without looking up from the puzzle.

            "When I'm positive he has what it takes," Caligula replied to his lieutenant, his gaze lingering at the doorway where his target had disappeared.

            "You've watched his training for months now," Kevin protested. "French word for seal."

            "Phoque. And I'm not sure—"

            "Phoque? Like 'fu—'"

            "Yes, phoque, just like it sounds."

            Kevin blinked. "Well I'll be. Anyway, you've been watching him for months. Aren't you sure yet?"

            "There are still complications," Caligula admitted. "His psychological profile isn't all that sparkling at the moment. Though it strongly depends on who you ask."

            "Meaning?"

            Caligula leaned against the back of the couch, resisting the urge to fall asleep on his feet. Only a little longer, he told himself. "Dr. Trask says he's made significant progress, but that girlfriend of his is dead set against him returning to combat."

            Kevin paused, drumming the eraser against the page. "You think they know?"

            "Of course they know, they're just not sure what they know. That's the beauty of Aegis. It's a matter of waiting for the right time to recruit them, just like with Castle and the others. Something'll happen to make him desire a special kind of power, and we'll be able to provide it."

            "It's like hunting your own comrades," Kevin observed morosely. "Three letter word for—"

            "Yak," Caligula replied, having already read the question. "Yes, but name one person who's been worse for the wear by joining Aegis."

            "One day, one of them is going to die, Caligula." The pronouncement, while already a fact accepted by both of them, deadened the air nonetheless. "It's inevitable."

            "I know…"

            "They take on operations that would make even Zero's people tell Signas to go screw a wall socket if they were assigned to them."

            "I know. But they know the risks, and it's not like they can't drop out. And if we notice they're not up to par then we kick them out." Caligula was very adamant about that. Though Seitz didn't know it, someone had already died in Aegis, but that incident—and the identity of the agent—was a secret kept tighter than the secret of the unit itself. "But that's why I'm taking my time, Kevin. If we're not careful, who knows what could go wrong?"

            "Yeah. Especially if the Mavericks decide to get antsy again…or maybe they just did. Four letter word for prophecy?"

            Before he answered Caligula let his eyes stray to the television set on the wall, which still played media coverage of the damaged blocks in Moscow. The fires were out but it was still clearly a scene of chaos. A shiver went down the intelligence chief's spine, and though he damned superstition for doing it to him he nonetheless couldn't deny the irony of the moment.

            "Omen, Kevin. The word is omen."

            Vulcan had been seeing a lot of omens himself recently, and none of them struck him as all that happy. This last one, the brief encounter with Caligula and Seitz in the lounge, didn't serve to make him all that comfortable at all. The spook boss had seen him, had acknowledged him, had known him, and that was a very weird feeling indeed. There was a mystique of sorts about Caligula, since no one ever really knew what he and his people were up to at any given moment, and Signas wouldn't even let X and Zero in on some of the spy's secret projects.

            It wasn't as though this were the first time, either. Vulcan trained long and often, and more than once had seen Caligula in one of the observation booths casually monitoring his progress. He'd put on good shows for the Intel chief, but couldn't help but feel scrutinized, as though Caligula were turning him over like an apple to determine if there were any wormholes. While solid facts about Caligula were few and far between the speculation was certainly plentiful. So, Vulcan had at least some idea of what might be going on.

            The secret wasn't as closely guarded as it should have been. Unit commanders knew about the hidden unit, and word had spread to the seconds. They kept their mouths relatively shut, but even they couldn't hide logical guesses about where certain unit members suddenly disappeared to. Vulcan didn't know the name "Aegis" but he knew that certain Hunters were suspected of associating with the spooks, chief among them being Castle and Acrystos of Unit 8. The two, partners in both their social and battlefield lives, would not confirm anything, but would occasionally tell a story of "weird missions" they'd been on. Other fingers were being pointed at Scylla, a particularly haunting member of X's 17th, but Vulcan wasn't around her enough to know if or how she discounted the rumors.

            As to what exactly this secret unit did, Vulcan could not guess. It seemed to him that anything that needed to be done quietly could be handed to Units 8 or 0. The need for a totally black unit suggested deeds that maybe went above and beyond the normal call of duty for a Maverick Hunter, and Vulcan wasn't sure he liked the vagaries of that.

            "Oh, settle down, will you?" Krysta shook her head and sighed as they left the lounge. "You freak out every time you see that ghoul."

            Vulcan smiled, feeling slightly embarrassed. "I know. But you'd be weirded out too if Caligula kept stalking you."

            "After all you've done, you've got no business getting punked out by a desk weenie." Krysta grinned, her light blue eyes glinting mischievously. "Or did I underestimate you?"

            "Please." Vulcan smiled back, watching her brush her hair out of her face. He didn't have that problem, thank God, and he didn't see how Zero and every other man with long hair could stand it. His own mane was shortly cropped and black, conventional in comparison to Krysta's icy blue strands. She'd been right, he knew—he had seen a lot. They both had. It was up to their eyes to tell the tale, however, since they both presented a youthful aura. Both were styled as late teenagers, and being machines that would never really change.

            Vulcan was as young as he looked. He'd joined the Hunters about two years ago without putting much thought into it. After being accepted into the 5th Unit under Commander Archer he'd met his current crop of friends and started down a typical road for a young Hunter, training himself up to fighting capacity.

            Then came Seraph Castle, and everything typical ended.

            Vulcan's first real test had been a surprise mission to assassinate Sigma, who had kindly made himself available for killing. Vulcan didn't take the shot but did take the credit, and this wave of fame carried him into battle again with elites, this time against Blast Hornet and a deadly swordswoman on the top of a speeding train. That had predictably ended badly for the inexperienced Hunter, and he'd been spared future combat until the actual battle for Megacity 5 came about. Here he'd come a little unglued. Surrounded by total war, a fact made all the worse by the knowledge that a nuke had just exploded nearby, he'd seen friends die and had even been smeared in the remains of one, something that still haunted his nightmares.

            After the uprising, Vulcan had experienced a difficult time readapting to a peacetime world. Archer made him see a shrink named Trask, and Vulcan didn't care who the hell you were, if your name was Trask then you were evil. Anyway, Evil Doctor Trask had admittedly made some progress, and Krysta had done the rest. Vulcan was fortunate enough to have a good circle of friends including Rykov, a fellow unit member, and even Alec Tremont of Steel Wind. Vulcan was now more or less able to function as a normal member of society though he still experienced some moments of what he could only describe as…well, paranoia plus something else. But now was not one of these moments, and so he wasn't going to dwell on it.

            They came to the west wing, where most of the Hunters had already cleared out. There was one training room still in use, however, and the two Reploids sneaked into the observation booth to watch the dueling opponents.

            In the left corner, a tall, well built Reploid in red and blue armor sported a large machine gun and ducked behind obstacles to guard against the stun beams flying at him. Rykov, demo expert of the 5th Unit.

            In the right corner, a red and white Reploid armored in a style that was very vaguely American Indian. He was also of powerful build and carried a blaster so big he had to rest it on his shoulders. Hawkins, second in command and the superior of Rykov, Vulcan and Krysta.

            "So what now, Jack Sparrow?" Hawkins taunted in a scratchy accent as his attack ceased. "Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until judgment day and the trumpets sound?"

            "Or you could surrender," Rykov finished the quote, popping up and unloading with a quick burst of stun beams. Hawkins threw himself down behind cover just in time, but the SiC wasn't done just yet. He rolled out from his hiding spot, catching Rykov off guard and driving him down with a burst of heavy fire.

            "You're off the edge of the map that mother made!" Hawkins chortled as he leapt to his feet and rushed Rykov's position. "Here, there be monsters!"

            No sooner had the words left his mouth then someone swept his feet out from under him. He landed hard on his rump and glared up at the intruder. "And who the hell are you supposed to be?"

            "I am Will Turner," Vulcan declared loudly. "And I'm stealing this duel."

            "Commandeering," Rykov corrected, getting to his feet. "No big deal, we stopped being serious a long time ago. Hawk killed me about fifteen minutes before you showed up."

            "Rykov, you pussy!" Krysta said accusingly. "If you're letting a girl like Hawkins beat you, what's the world come to?"

            "Don't you go oppressing me!" Hawkins yelped in his best high-pitched voice, getting to his feet. He grinned at the assembled trio before him, for they were indeed a trio. Vulcan, Rykov and Krysta were rarely seen apart from each other, except when Rykov was off chasing Seri, a spunky new addition to Unit 5. Apparently he and Alec Tremont had a sort of silent rivalry going as to who could find a girlfriend first. Hawkins rooted of course for his teammate Rykov, but Alec had been seeing that Steele girl for a while now. Perhaps it was a lost cause. "So what's the plan for tonight, Miss Swan?" he addressed Krysta, the usual leader of the posse.

            "Sex, drugs and rock and roll!" she replied, pumping a fist in the air and then slowly lowering it. "Minus the sex and the drugs. Being a Reploid bites."

            "Eh, it has its perks," Rykov countered, flexing an arm that, if it hadn't been made of metal, would have been snapped on countless occasions already. "What about you, big man? What's planned for this long Monday night?"

            "Sleep, that's what." Hawkins shook his head. "You all are nuts. Monday nights are for resting…after all, the rest of the week is for working. Besides, tomorrow I'm probably gonna have to go over a shitload of security lectures. Some Hunter chief got hit in Moscow," he explained.

            "Jesus," Vulcan was the first to observe. "A chief? As in, commander?"
            "So far as we know it's an isolated incident," Hawkins nodded. "But that's all that Archer told me, and to keep you people on alert just in case it's not so isolated. But that doesn't mean shoot at anything that moves, Mr. Paranoia!"

            "Who, me?" Vulcan asked innocently. Of all his superiors, Hawkins was his favorite. Archer was a good guy, but too immersed in the upper echelons to really click with each of his considerable number of soldiers. Hawkins on the other hand worked as much with Vulcan as possible, partially to restore Vulcan to full fighting capability but also because they just got along. Hawkins had given Vulcan invaluable advice as far as dealing with his combat nightmares, since Hawkins had a few of those himself, and for that Vulcan would be in his debt. What better way to repay the favor than to pull through and continue kicking all manner of ass?
            "Later, Hawk," Krysta said, spiriting Vulcan and Rykov away. "Come on, Seri's waiting!"

            "Who?" Rykov asked, the picture of innocent incomprehension.

            Hawkins watched them go and allowed himself a good stretch. He disarmed and left the training room in street clothes, heading for his quarters. He fully intended to sleep, he really did, just as soon as he finished watching Jackass. In the past the show hadn't been what Hawkins would consider entertainment, but now the show paid civilians to do stunts rather than using hired hosts, and Hawkins found it endlessly amusing watching society's idiots kill themselves off. Then he'd sleep, and he'd rise again to repeat the cycle of training and paperwork and more training and more paperwork, on and on and day after day. But he supposed it could be worse. He could be poor and desperate enough to be on Jackass.

Moscow, Attack Scene

            The fires were all out now, which was a relief to everyone involved in the operation. However one horror begat another, and now came the process of removing the bodies. Many of the dead had been simply vaporized either by being too close to a detonating missile or catching the full brunt of one of the lasers. The only plus was that the damage was mostly confined to only one city block, but even so it seemed excessive for what appeared to be a straight assassination.

            One man at the edge of the scene was pondering that last bit very carefully. Whoever had done this had wanted to send a message of some sort, and that had perked his attention. Normally he didn't bother himself with investigating Moscow street crime—after all, he knew about most of it before it happened—but the scale of the attack had given rise to a sort of professional curiosity. Then he'd learned that top Hunters were dead, and that had to mean something.

            So here he was now, observing with his own eyes what he'd seen on television. He was by physical accounts an average looking man, standing 5'10 with neck length dark brown hair tucked neatly behind his ears. He had the build of a man who was in shape and nothing more than that, a useful deception in many cases. The only remarkable thing about him was the fact that his eyes were different colors.

            One of the police officers saw him standing there and approached quickly, waving a hand in dismissal. "Sorry, sir, we need to ask you to stand back."

            "Don't think that I'm a danger to your operation, Grigoriy," the man replied, very casually. "I came to help."

            "Oh…Gospodin Stralnikov." Grigoriy stepped back in slight embarrassment. "I did not realize it was you, sir."

            While physically unremarkable, the man carried himself in a way that let everyone around him know that he was someone important. Standing there in his long black trench coat, guarding against the slight chill, and leaning on his long black eagle's-head cane Vladimir Stralnikov simply looked like a force to be reckoned with. He looked like a young man, but the force of his expressions and character spoke of considerable age. In fact he was going on fifteen years now, an insignificant age for a human but a milestone for a Reploid. It marked him as one of the originals. He'd been around since almost the very beginning. Just as he was not a human, neither was Vlad Stralnikov really an energen mining baron, as his official profile stated. True, he had his own personal mine, but it was really just a front. He was involved in far darker things than mines.

            "Never mind, Grigoriy," he said to the policeman. "Where is Detective Richter? I need to speak to him."

            "This way, sir," the cop replied, leading the way. Stralnikov followed him through the mess of rescue workers and rubble, observing the scene with a fairly indifferent stare. Scenes of carnage no longer fazed him. After all, he'd created some mighty big ones himself. At first glance he judged that the Dozer missile variant had seen some use on the street, but that would require a launcher of some power. Surely they hadn't started building those in Reploids?

            Detective Hans Richter was a short but solid man in his middle fifties. His hair was blonde and thinning to gray, including the bushy mustache that lined his upper lip. He started towards Stralnikov as soon as he saw him. "Thank you, Grigoriy," he said, dismissing the junior officer and looking to the businessman. "Quite a scene here, Vlad. Please tell me you didn't have anything to do with this?"

            A smile formed almost instinctively on the businessman's lips at the simple suggestion of the deed. "Not this time, Hans. These Hunters help me more than they hurt me." Which was true. Like many underworld figures, the Stralnikov family had made extensive donations to charities and housing projects, and also certain members of the local Hunter echelon, though for reasons that weren't publicized. Buying out his enemies was to Stralnikov a wonderful dose of irony, for he still indeed thought of them as his enemies. But for the moment, they had a common goal, and it would be foolish to divide their powers until after this particular storm blew over. "Are there any suspects?"

            "Mavericks, of course." Richter scratched the back of his neck absently, not bothering to stifle the coming yawn. "They have been known to spring up occasionally in violence during peacetime. If there's any major plot going on, someone will figure it out as more incidents turn up. They always do."

            Stralnikov nodded. He knew that very well. That was why he liked to keep his own operations very quiet. The less the Hunters knew, the easier it was to work around them. For while they had the same goals, the devoted followers of Signas would never condone Stralnikov's methods. And that, he thought, was a crying shame. "Are you aware that there have indeed been other incidents?"

            Richter's eyebrow rose. He often learned as much from Stralnikov as the businessman learned from him. He'd made some of his most impressive captures only after Stralnikov surrendered the whereabouts of the criminals. "What incidents are you talking about?"

            Stralnikov glanced towards Rovanin Park, which had been largely untouched by the chaos. A few trees had burned due to their position in the line of fire, but otherwise it seemed like the only peaceful place in Moscow tonight.

            Richter followed his gaze and knew what was being thought. "Don't let it fool you, Vlad. They found pieces of Revenant's armor there. If anything, that's where the poor bastard was vaporized."

            "So he's dead, then?" Stralnikov took that as a mixed blessing. Revenant was a huge ally against the combined enemy, but in future might have proved bothersome.

            "We assume so." Richter shrugged. "It's no big deal if he isn't…reprogramming jobs are way too complicated for most people to do right. And even if they succeed, he's just one Reploid."

            Stralnikov wasn't sure Revenant would agree that losing one's mental identity was "no big deal" but it was rather out of his hands, and why worry about such things? "All this for two Reploids…?"

            "Looks that way. Assassination. That, or Revenant just cornered the wrong hood. Now what about those other incidents you were talking about?"

            Stralnikov remained silent for a few seconds, deciding how much he should say. Well, best to start with what was already public. "There seems to have been an attack in North Ireland…at about the same time as this incident here."

            "Any correlation?" the detective asked at once.

            "Other than timing, no. A gunship of the Coast Patrol was sunk, most violently I'm told, and there aren't many survivors."

            "Two violent incidents in one night…you can't tell me there isn't something fishy about that."

            Stralnikov shrugged. "Perhaps, but what can we know now? I have someone on scene looking into the matter." And now it was time to let Richter in on something a little more secret, he decided. "Two weeks ago a Megacity Army base in Alaska was attacked by unknown militants."

            Richter lit up a cigarette and offered one to Stralnikov, who declined with a half-nod. "You're shitting me. A base?"

            "A base." Stralnikov ran his gloved fingertips over the elaborate silver eagle's head carved at the top of his long ebon cane. He carried it everywhere with him, both for what it added to his image as well as its other practical uses. "The militants were guerillas. They bombed fuel reserves to set off a chain of explosives before vanishing. None were caught. The Army responded too late, as usual."

            "Covered up?"

            "Naturally. They pinned it on Maverick dissidents and never disclosed full information to the public."

            "And now there was an attack in both the System and the Union…" Richter was good at making connections. "You don't suppose someone's trying to pit them against each other?"

            "It's possible. I doubt much could come of such a scheme, though." At least, he hoped so. Another world war would likely bring civilization to its knees. To some, like the Mavericks, this would be a godsend, a chance for them to seize control and build the world from the ground up. To Stralnikov, it would just an awful waste of resources. There were better ways to build empires, as the Gold Serpent had proved. "How much do you know?"

            "Only what I've told you." Richter shrugged again. "Feel free to have a look for yourself. Doubt you'll find much."

            "Leave no stone left unturned, my friend. Have a nice night." Stralnikov smiled and headed for the crater in the street. He crouched down and cross referenced the new pothole with others he'd seen in his long career, frowning deeply as he did so. Truly, powerful forces had been at work tonight. The miner baron took a handful of residue from the crater, knowing that tiny fragments of the explosive would still remain. The authorities would be running similar tests, but Stralnikov's people worked far faster than any policeman. Even so he'd cross-reference his findings with Richter's. It was so useful having the detective on his payroll. You learned the most interesting things from those who were in positions of trust.

            His internal communicator went off at that moment. Being a Reploid had many advantages—long life, good health, and built-in cell phones. "Stralnikov here."

            "'Allo, Vladdy!" The voice had a heavy Australian accent. "We're neck deep in the scat this time, mate."

            "Always nice to hear, Zade." Stralnikov couldn't help but smile. Zade was the most eccentric person in his employ, but also one of the most efficient. "What have you found…?"

            "Message traffic between known Serpent operatives has been booming lately, and tonight was no different. I reckon they knew something was going to happen, whether they did it or not."

            "Have you tracked onto any specific orders yet?" Modern technology was so wonderful, Stralnikov knew. You could tap into pretty much any communication device if you just had the right key…and that was why every single such device Vladimir himself used was carefully designed and encrypted by his genius wife herself.

            "Nothin' about sinkin' British boats or treatin' the Russkies to a relapse of good old Two," Zade replied, referring to the Second World War when German troops had come storming towards Moscow, only to be repelled by fierce resistance and bitter winter cold. "But the night is young, mate, and the coffee is bountiful! If there's something to find, we'll find it." His tone grew a little more serious. "So, what about you? You really think it's our old bud?"

            "It's possible," Stralnikov allowed. "The Serpent certainly has reason to strike out at the Hunters…but his arm will have grown long indeed if he can strike them in the heart of the Union. I'd rather not consider that as a possibility." That, after all, would mean that the Black Ankh was on its way to failure, and failure was something they could not afford at any cost. "Whoever it was, they knew how to make an entrance. And an exit. There's not a trace of evidence except the flames."

            "Any word from the Missus yet? I'd sure love to know the deal on them boats, and CNN isn't giving me anything except rehashed Moscow dribble."

            "Never trust CNN for news of import," Stralnikov replied firmly. "I'll get back to you when Anya responds. Monitor the feed until then."

            "Aye aye, cap-i-tan!"

            Stralnikov killed the connection and stood up. So, perhaps Chartreuse was up to his old tricks again. It was certainly about time. The Serpent had been too quiet for too long, and in Stralnikov's experience that meant something big was in the making. The trouble with Kou Cao was that you never knew how big "big" might be. It could be something painfully subtle with extreme rewards, or it could be as horrendous and showy as a nuclear explosion.

            A device resembling a cellular phone started beeping in the inside pocket of his trench coat. Stralnikov removed it and unfolded it to reveal not a phone but a datapad, a device akin to a pager.

            CIVILIAN SHIP SEA KING, CP RESOLUTE SANK.

            SPARTAN LIONFISH UNACCOUNTED FOR.

            RETURNING TO 607.992

            —T

            And for Vlad Stralnikov, that was worth a shiver. His wife had departed for Rathlin Island itself to survey the crime scene, and her information was much better than what the news agencies provided. The names Sea King and Resolute didn't mean anything to him, but he knew of Spartan Lionfish, the scourge of the Maverick deep-sea forces. Now he had gone missing, and there was also the possibility that Revenant, the number one Hunter in Russia, had vanished as well. Two unusually powerful Reploids had just been removed from the playing field…

            …Now wasn't that familiar.

            Sufficiently unnerved for one evening, the energen tycoon left the scene, nodding to Richter and Grigoriy as he did so. He walked one street away to a small black car. Waiting for him in the front seat listening to live pirated radio feeds was a haggard looking man in plainclothes with an untamed head of thick black hair. "Nothing new in radio land, chief."

            "There probably won't be anything more for a while now." Stralnikov hopped into the passenger seat and shut the door. "Let's just get someplace where we can think this over."

            "Where to?"

            "Teretenov's warehouse," Stralnikov replied, referring to point 607.992. Anya Stralnikova would be waiting there. His wife traveled using an encoded teleportation signal that seriously complicated any attempt to pinpoint her specific identity, and sometimes it even blurred the reality that anyone was teleporting at all. It was very useful for these kinds of "phantom trips" where the messenger went someplace for a very brief time and vanished just as quickly.

            "The encoded beam again?" The driver shook his head and started the engine. "You place too much stock in codes, Malevex. Codes can be broken."

            "That's why we change them, Diavus. Just as the Serpent does. We copy his moves, and improve on them."

            "Then let's hope we're not copying his mistakes along with his successes," the ever-pessimistic Diavus responded tiredly, driving towards the warehouse on the Moscow outskirts. From there they would probably rent a hotel and head back home to Yekaterinberg in the morning. They could teleport, but what Diavus said did have some merit, and to reduce risk they teleported only when absolutely necessary.

            The Reploid calling himself Vlad Stralnikov rested his head against the back of the seat as they left the scene of the crime. They indeed could not afford to copy their enemy's mistakes. They'd made enough mistakes themselves in the past, and if they hoped to survive they could make no more. The Black Ankh had to be successful. They remained the only sizable group to successfully resist the encroaching Gold Serpent crime network, and if they fell then the great traitor Chartreuse would be able to ferret his way into all levels of every organization on earth. Then none of them would be safe. They had to come out on top, no matter what they had to do to get there.

            …And the spouses Stralnikov were known for doing some pretty extreme things when necessity required them.

            Perhaps the time had come for Black Ankh to show its stones, Stralnikov thought. That was fine with him. For over a year now they'd built themselves up, and a successful stand might win them more allies. If more people started to believe that Kou Cao could be resisted, then they would naturally stand more wholly against him. More and more Stralnikov was coming to believe that some kind of public spectacle was needed to convince them of this. The miner baron smiled, somewhat ominously. With any luck, the way things were going, the other players in the deadly game of world power would accomplish that for him. All he had to do was watch, wait and make the popcorn. And that was perfectly fine with him. He'd fought and bled against Chartreuse in the past while the Hunters had merely thrown the occasional stone.

            Now it was their turn to bleed.