Jennie looked into her cup of coffee distastefully. She preferred the fancy, sweetened coffees from Starbucks rather than the bitter brew they were serving at the police station.

But beggars couldn't be choosers, and she downed it with a single gulp. The whole process was taking about as long as she thought. They had been required to repeat their story several times and fill out several forms. She thought it was finally winding down, though.

But they were still being held. She wasn't sure why, but Jennie had an unhappy feeling she'd find out soon.

Axl was staring at a wall, his mind obviously ranging far and wide from his body. Then he suddenly spoke.

"Jennie? What was the first thing that attracted you to me?" He asked her, and she blinked, and then gave it some serious thought.

"…Your face." She finally said, then smiled. "I love your eyes, the scars… you just look so cute." Axl grinned at her, taking her hand.

"Cute? Aww, thank you. You look cute too." He said playfully. "But what about my other parts?" He guided her hand to that part, making her blush lightly.

"Oh, that's very nice too."

"Nice?" Axl looked hurt. "Only nice?" Jennie bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"Well… that's a nice big handful?" She laughed softly as he grinned again.

"A handful… I like that!" He moved closer to her, looking deeply into her eyes. "You know what I like best about you?"

"No… what?" Jennie licked her lips. He was so close… his eyes were so green, so sincere…

"Your lips. They're so full… so kissable…" Axl suited his actions to words, and kissed her deeply. They explored each other for a moment… then broke up sharply as someone opened the door.

"Oh! Sorry to interrupt, but you're free to go." A young, female officer smiled at them apologetically. "If you can get past the crowds, at least."

Crowds? Jennie glanced over at Axl, but he seemed as mystified by that remark as she was. She hesitated, then stood.

"Where should we go for supper, Axl?" She took his hand, smiling. "Any ideas?" They had the rest of the day free. Their patrol had been completely blown in any case, so X had decided to give them some extra time off when he got the full scoop on what had happened. Half a day's patrol missed wouldn't matter much anyway, in Arizona. It was one of the stablest areas under Hunter control, which was part of the reason why they were putting a new base there. Jennie suspected that she and Axl were being given boring duty both as punishment, and something to do until she had mastered the art of listening to her communicator in the heat of battle.

"Mmm… if you're up for it, I'd really like something Chinese. A buffet would be- GAH!" Axl flung up a hand as a light flashed in his eyes, and Jennie froze in shock.

A crowd! Was her first wild thought. It was quite a large crowd, too, mostly made up of reporters but with a generous sprinkling of interested citizens. Axl and Jennie were both shocked as they were bombarded with questions.

"Ma'am, why did you stop…?"

"Sir, what did the husband say to you…?" After that, Jennie tried to ignore the questions. She didn't want to give an interview, and Axl seemed even less inclined. The crowd was obviously freaking him out.

"No comment!" She said sharply, trying to push her way through the crowd. It wasn't easy and wasn't quick, but no one was willing to actually prevent them from escaping. It was still a madhouse, and she tried hard to ignore everything around her except the location of the hoverbikes… she had to almost drag Axl through behind her. He was far more careful of the humans around them than she was.

There! The hoverbikes! Jennie jumped onto hers gracefully, and Axl got onto his with more enthusiasm than normal. In only a few seconds, they had pulled into traffic, leaving the reporters behind them. Soon, her communicator crackled on.

Kzt… That was crazy! What was that all about? Axl asked, bewildered. Jennie grimaced, and then laughed.

"Have you ever heard the saying that one death is a tragedy, while a million is a statistic?"

Yes… why? Axl didn't see the connection. Jennie sighed.

"This is the flip side. One million people saved are a statistic, while one person saved dramatically is a human interest story. I'm afraid we might be famous for a while."

That's… appalling! All we did was stop some human perverts! That's nothing compared to what X and Zero and everyone else does!

"I know, but that's human nature for you." Jennie grimaced again. "I'm just worried someone might investigate me and get an idea of who I really am." Her brother, David, hadn't released that information yet. They would both much prefer never to release it, or at least not until the human/Reploid transfer had become fairly commonplace. If that information got out, on top of what they had done, she might end up besieged. It was the last thing Jennie wanted.

Let's hope not. A brief silence. So, who's going to be getting the new Jennie busters? Jennie was grateful for the change of subject.

"X and Zero… maybe the other unit commanders. That's about it." She guided her hoverbike down a seamy side street. There were too many pawnshops, too much grime.

Only them? I thought the Jennie buster was better than anything on the market.

"It is. And the price tag is a cool half a million." Jennie frowned, looking around. She really had no idea where they were.

Woah! What's in it, rubies?

"Oh, the parts are much more expensive than rubies." The Jennie buster was cutting edge, and as expensive as could be imagined. Achieving the extreme power in such a small package had meant using a special power generation system. That had led to a special, very critical cooling system. If a normal X buster malfunctioned when it was charged up, it would be painful and the injuries would need a great deal of work. If a Jennie buster malfunctioned when it was charged up, the medics would be picking teeth out of the walls. The armor was thicker, yet the whole weapon was thinner, sleeker and lighter than earlier generation busters. "It's not going to be widely used until it can be made more cheaply… Axl, do you know where we are?"

Not a clue. I thought you knew. She was ahead of him, so that was reasonable.

"Then we're lost!" Jennie smiled. "Let's pull over at the next intersection and get out the map." It wouldn't take long to figure out a good location to go for supper…