The next day, "Lily" and "Major"… better known as Colonel and Iris… went to the library to figure out exactly what Zero had been talking about.
The chance meeting in the bar had been interesting and informative about Hunter HQ. The recruitment day was two days away, and included a full guided tour. But the revelation about Repliforce had stunned them. They were expecting to find the two organizations working together hand in glove, the way they had, briefly, in their own world. Not that one had destroyed the other.
"Doesn't this universe have the jewel chips?" Iris muttered as she scanned through newspaper clippings. The Maverick wars were too recent for history books to be written about them.
"That will be up to Dynamo and Wraith to find out," Colonel replied absently. Jewel chips were an innovation a brilliant programmer had designed. They carried a strange, mutating counter-virus that was programmed to attack the Maverick virus. If a Reploid bearing a jewel chip was infected, the counter virus would be unleashed. It wasn't an ideal solution. The resulting conflict could destroy a Reploid, and even when it didn't they would be out of operation for weeks. And sometimes, the Maverick virus triumphed. Perhaps a quarter of the time, the infected Reploid would go Maverick. But they weren't here to look into that… Dynamo and Wraith had been set the more dangerous task of ferreting out information about Reploid designs and the Mavericks in general.
Colonel sighed to himself. He knew Wraith had judged him to be almost totally incompetent at espionage, which was why they had been set the dull task of looking through library books. He would have been stung by the estimate of his skills if he hadn't known it was true.
"You know, Zero seemed a bit odd around you," Colonel said, changing the subject. "Almost… haunted."
"Really?" Iris looked up at him with a smile. "I thought he was just trying to pick me up. Oh, don't get your tights in a knot!" she said, correctly interpreting Colonel's thunderous frown. "He was the perfect gentleman about it."
"Hrmph… he's not really your type." Colonel snorted. "Speaking of your type, how is Dynamo these days?" Iris laughed, a sweet, tinkling sound.
"Egotistical as always! Or maybe I should say egotesticle? Ack! No lecture!" She held up a hand to forestall a brotherly tirade. "We're not really dating anymore. He's really quite a prick, even if he's cute."
"Gah, ptth." Colonel decided not to pursue the discussion any farther. He really didn't want to know the nuts and bolts of his sister's love life, beyond kicking any man in the pants who was even faintly disrespectful.
It took them a long time to gather up all the information, but they finally had a good picture of all the Maverick wars in their twisted permutations.
"Sigma is very active here… I wonder how the jewel chips will do against him." Iris voiced her thoughts, troubled. The jewel chips hadn't gone up against the real Sigma/Maverick virus in a long time. When Sigma had left, the virus had weakened greatly. It was possible the chips wouldn't be very effective.
"This whole thing with Repliforce blows my mind." Colonel grimaced, touching one article. "I can't believe they destroyed us." Iris shrugged. She didn't really mind the fate of her double. In fact, it was something of a relief that she wouldn't have to worry about meeting herself.
"Well, Repliforce doesn't really exist anymore in our world, either," she said, then smiled at Colonel's hostile glance in her direction. "Come on, brother. Let's be honest. We might still be flying the flag, but we're basically just another unit of hunters. X and Zero are humoring you." Colonel gritted his teeth, but didn't allow himself to be pulled into a debate. Iris could really get on his nerves, sometimes.
"I've been at this long enough," Iris declared, straightening and picking up her notepad. They had both been taking notes on everything. "Let's go get some lunch!" Colonel considered that for a moment, then nodded. Lunch was definitely an appealing idea…
Elsewhere…
"Gads, can you believe this list of prices we have to get?" Micky complained to Bicky, who shrugged.
Micky was human, while Bicky was a Reploid. They'd both been picked for the scouting teams because they were uniquely forgettable. They both had brown hair, brown eyes, and very boring, ordinary faces. The only odd thing about them was how much they resembled each other. It was a bizarre coincidence, since they were human and Reploid, and Micky had been born across the country from where Bicky had been made. And the resemblance wasn't only physical… they had almost identical personalities and worked well as a team.
They were on a pretty simple mission too, but not because they were inept. There just weren't a lot of exciting missions to go around.
"What's a swarovski crystal?" Micky muttered as he perused the list. "Tiffany glass… what in hell?"
"I asked Tabby before we left. She's trying to figure out what stuff to buy for the best returns. She has a line on the next Southeby's auction." Bicky adjusted the backpack he was wearing.
Several nations had decided to raise funds in an interesting way. A certain number of slots on each colony ship went to the highest bidder. That meant that treasures were being constantly sold at fire sale prices, as people tried frantically to raise enough money.
Some nations wouldn't do that, and the USA was one of them. They took people strictly on personal merit and the needed skills. Farmers, biologists, chemists and the like were the prized skills sets.
"We should find an Internet café." Micky said, folding up the list. "I bet we can find this crap on the Internet. And I know we can find the price of gold, platinum and silver there."
"Then we go appraise the jewels." Bicky agreed. His backpack held some loose jewels and jewelry. Bicky had worked out of a satellite HQ in Mexico for most of his life, and he was an expert at bargaining.
They were completely unaware of a pair of off-duty Hunters observing them.
"Is that Micky and Bicky?" A red armored female asked her male companion. Her tone was very dubious. The pair of Reploids she was referring to had gone Maverick just a few months ago, leaving several of their squad critically injured. The thought that they would be openly wandering around in Earthsaver I was almost beyond belief.
"No way." The male finally judged. "That one guy is human." The female's eyes narrowed, and she looked more closely at the man in question. It only took her a moment to decide that her friend was right. Humans moved differently than Reploids, especially burdened by armor. Although this human seemed pretty much indifferent to the weight he was hauling around.
"Huh. That's a strange coincidence." She murmured, and the male shrugged. They left arm in arm, discarding the strangeness from their minds.
Elsewhere, at the same time…
Three girls and one guy had the assignment several sections of the Maverick Hunters considered to be most critical.
They had secured a very posh hotel room, complete with cable internet and unlimited phone lines. They had NO idea who would be paying off their Hunter HQ charge account, but the credit card worked and it was unlikely anyone would notice the expenses for a couple of days. Right now, one of them was surfing the internet while another was putting the phone lines to use. The other two were looking through dozens of pamphlets from a local travel agency.
"…And we'll need eighty-seven rooms." She concluded her order. "For three months from now. The exact date doesn't exactly matter." A short pause. "No, we don't have credit cards for the deposit. We'll be paying in cash." Pause. "Uh huh, I know that's unusual. Don't ask, okay? Can you do it? We'll pay a premium. Right… well, we want the best we can get. Sure." She grimaced and made a negative gesture to one of her friends working on the pamphlets. He nodded, and crossed off a name. "I'll get back to you on that, thanks."
Individually, this group was made up of average Hunters of no particular fame. Collectively, they were the heart and soul of all the parties in HQ. Also known as the Party Planning Committee, and when they were looking for people to help out, as Oh Shit, It's Them. Everyone loved the parties but didn't want to get drafted for the cleaning crew.
"Man, getting a hotel is a pain…" She started dialing up another travel agent. "Hello? I want to book a vacation in Hawaii…"
At the end of the night, they were all tired but pleased.
"Hotel? Check! Restaurants? Check! Biking and volcano exploring trip? Check! Snorkeling and swimming with dolphins trip? Check! Luau dancing? Check!" The male Hunter grinned widely. "My god guys, this is going to be so GOOD!"
"You said it!" With almost unlimited funds at their disposal… the price of gold here was sky high compared to what they were used to… they were taking a shotgun approach to the activities. Creating a chart with the various activities, they had scheduled each one for fifty people. They'd have to pay for fifty, no matter how many showed up. Now they were working on sign up sheets so precisely fifty Hunters could sign up for each activity. With the number of activities available, that would give them a great deal of flexibility in what they wanted to do. And that was only for the first two weeks, which left one final week free. Depending on what activities were popular, they'd try to make more plans for that week. Of course, if some activities weren't popular, they'd be wasting a lot of money. But knowing the Hunters, that wasn't too likely.
"Time for bed, then." One of the girls yawned. "We can get back tomorrow." They had done their work well…