Chapter 2

Mega Tokyo AD-Police headquarters

Leon was back at the headquarters, giving the chief his report about the shootout of last night. He had a lot to think about. Even in Mega Tokyo it wasn´t common that someone just started to shoot around in a night club, at least not on a regular base.

It had only been pure luck that Leon had been around to stop this guy, everybody recognized that. Priss could have been dead, he thought. At night in a battle suit, she may have been able to deal with such a situation quiet easily. But on stage during a performance it was a completely different thing.

Now he and his colleaques had to find the answers for the questions who and why.

The one of them who in particular had been following his trails from the moment he stepped into the station and who had showed a very great interest about what had happened, was Nene Romanova. Not really a surprise.

She was both, a police officer and a skilled computer expert whose shifts always seemed to change in a mysterious way whenever a boomer attack or a similar serious incident happened, that meant whenever the Knight Sabers got active. At this times she was usually, conveniently off-duty.

Besides Priss, from who he knew it for sure, Nene was also the first on Leon´s personal list of "suspected Knight Sabers".

At the first look of course, Nene was the last person you would think of being a member of the mercenary team. She was barely 20 years old, that meant that she would have been only around seventeen when their group had first become active. In fact, even now Nene´s entire attitude in general was for the most time that of a teenage girl. To everybody around her, Nene was just a quirky, careless and a bit immature, nice young woman. But Leon knew a bit more about her.

He knew for example that she was a genius of a computer hacker who could if she wanted manipulate the entire system of the ADC and he had hints that she, to some degree, had already done this, of course if he was right, it was always for their own best.

And that was exactly the kind of person the Knight Sabers would need, maybe even in her young age.

Leon was nearly completely sure by now that she was manipulating her own working shifts. Of course he would never hold that against her if she was really a member of the Knight Sabers.

In a strict sense the mercenary organization was of course completely illegal. But in the end they were the ones who were truly protecting Mega-Tokyo from boomer attacks and so nearly everybody was willing to oversee that.

The truth was that the police was simple not able to deal with the kind of terrorism that they were facing.

And actually, many believed that the higher ups were to a great part quite comfortable with this situation. In fact Leon was one of this people. As long as the regular police forces were nearly helpless against the boomer terror genom was free to do practically everything it wanted and since a good part of the government was in genom´s pocket, this was probably more than just coincidence.

It was pure irony that the police of Mega Tokyo was depending on a illegal organisation to do it´s job for them. But given the circumstances they had to work under, it was really no wonder.

He and Nene were standing in the chief´s office right now, waiting for him to say something. Just a few minutes ago they had been called upon by him.

"The shooter had been identified", he informed them right out. "It didn´t take us long", he remarked.

Both were looking at him impatiently for a few moments before he continued.

"His name was Marcus Kaneda, a known assassin", he said. Then he waited a few seconds to let his words sink in.

"Why should a profi-killer try to murder a band singer?", Nene asked him.

As soon as this words had left her mouth, both she and Leon had already answered this question for themselves, the Knight Sabers. Did whoever hired this man knew about Priss secret profession?

"That is the question here", the chief told them.

Leon and Nene crossed looks for a moment. They both knew the answer, but none of them would admit it to the other, at least not now.

"As I understand you are quite close to miss Asagiri?" he asked Leon.

"Uhm, well, you could call it like that" he replied. Nene, he saw somewhat at the corner of his eye, was shortly showing a suggestive smile.

"Tell me, by what you know of her, is it possible that she is involved into some activities besides her job as a singer?"

"Not, not that I know of" Leon answered him nervously.

xxxxxxx

Omnitec industry building, four weeks earlier

The man who was calling himself Seth Newman, that was not his true name but merely a cover he was currently using, was walking through the main computer room of the Omnitec building.

He put the helmet of the virtual reality system on. This would be his second conversation with the being who had once been a sexeroid. He knew by now the most about her story, the escape from the genaros space-station, the DD-Battlemover, the Knight-Sabers, he even knew things about the situation that were unknown to Sylvie herself yet, at least until he would tell her. He had by now found out about the two friends, she had asked about.

She had told him about them, yet she still seemed to leave several parts out. The parts she didn´t want to be known by him or anybody else.

He activated the Virtual reality system.

"Hello Sylvie." Before him the image of the young woman he was talking to was been build up.

"Hello." It was all she said. She didn´t trust him. Of course not. She wanted to tell him as little as possible.

"I have by now found out something about your two friends, you have told me about."

"Yes?" She now seemed exited. "Please tell me what you know."

"Priss Asagiri is still in Mega Tokyo. Not much has changed about her situation." He was first telling her about her friend, who was still alive.

"Priss is alright?" She asked.

"Nothing has happened to her so far, if you mean that?" Actually he could imagine why she would ask something like that. Now it was time to tell her about the other one.

"But Anry, the 33S who fled with you from genaros."

"What happened to Anry?" She asked him urgently.

"She is dead", he told her without hesitation. It was silent in the room for a few moments. The virtual background behind them started to fluctuate

"No that is not true", the boomer AI shouted. In the next moment, the entire VR system was malfunctioning. He took the helmet off and was in the real wold again.

Seth Newman thought to himself. Sylvie was one of five 33S boomers who fled from the genaros station last year. One of only two of them who had made it to earth. During their escape they stole a experimental DD battlemover. What they didn´t knew was that all this was only part of a intrigue. A boomer named Largo was the one behind it. Largo was a so called super-boomer, built with the memories and the mind of Brian J. Mason, the former second in command of chairman Quincy, a mechanical reincarnation. He had secretly organized the escape of the 33S to get the battlemover to earth and let his partners Flint and Kaufman take the blame for it. In that way he could take over GPCC and a rogue element of genom. Then Largo had led Sylvie into a trap and sent two combat boomers after her. In that situation, she had no other choice than to use the DD. The battlemover was a artificial intelligence system that connected directly to the mind of it´s pilot. But she lost control of it and it´s nuclear self destruct mode was activated, exactly as Largo had planed. His schemes nearly led to the destruction of Mega Tokyo. The battlemover was stopped in the last minute by the Knight Sabers. They shot Sylvie, to shut the mover down. On her own request as she told him now.

Sylvie was killed as her mind and her body was merged with the DD. The 33S were known for their ability to merge with machines, in first line war machines. This made a far better connection possible than ever with a human being. Sylvie and the DD had been practically two halves of the same being. The DD worked similar to a mind copy. As she was separated from the battlemover and died, a complete copy of her mind was left in it´s databanks. But nobody knew that a that back then.

No, Largo knew it. As he had taken over GPCC, he had the DD placed in a storage hall for later use, while he went to attack genom. He had only not anticipated the possibility that someone would throw him from the genom tower before that happened. And in this storage hall had then his agents gotten the battlemover later.

However the DD had not simply saved Sylvie´s mind. Her software and the one from the battlemover were completely merged. They became literarily one. Since the DD wasn´t sentient, however she had still the personality of the 33S.

But despite that the outcome was a completely new form of an AI. A new life form. In many ways exactly what he and his partners were always interested in.

xxxxxxx

Sylia´s apartment, the present

At the same time the other members of the Knight Sabers were at a meeting at Sylia Stingray´s home. Like Leon and Nene, they had already concluded that the attack on Priss was probably related to their group.

"So you think that someone is targeting us?" Linna Yamazaki was asking Sylia, the leader of their group.

"It could have all just been a coincidence", Priss said, "maybe a stalker or a insane fan."

"Yes this is possible", Sylia replied, "The question is, do you truly want to risk that? If it was not a coincidence and someone is targeting the Knight Sabers, we should better be prepared instead of sitting around and waiting for him to attack again. Don´t you think so?"

"Okay, okay", Priss answered her. "I just think you are overreacting a bit. It is after all not as if people wouldn´t try to kill us every week."

"Yes, when we are active as a group, but not while we are in our private lives."

"We should wait for Nene to return", Linna suggested. "She can tell us if the police had found anything out so far."

"Yes, we will wait for her", Sylia said, "and then we will decide what we will do."

xxxxxxx

Two figures, a man and a woman, were standing next to each other in a large, completely white, empty room. Sylvie, the former 33S AI and Seth, the leader of the organization behind Omnitec.

The "room" they were standing in, if you could call it that, was actually only an seemingly endless, empty area of space. It was in fact only another projection, "blueprint", if you want to call it that, of the virtual reality system that Omnitec was using.

The computer could generated every possible environment and made it visible. But right now, this wasn´t necessary. This time the computer showed only the proto-matrix of the system, as well as the visual representation of the being that was contained here, her and her visitor.

There were no walls, no visible items. They were just standing in the endless, glancing emptiness.

Sylvie had once been a boomer, a 33S sexaroid model and a escaped slave, before her death. Now she was only bodiless restored data, software.

In some way she still existed, but there was no way she could be considered alive.

The truth was in some sense she was a prisoner once again, like she had been on the genaros station. She may been treated differently, she may have more ability to do what she wanted, but she was still not free. Her mind was trapped in this computer.

The people who were running this company had somehow saved her mind from the system of the battle-mover that had caused her death. For their own reasons of course. She didn´t even know exactly what they wanted, but she knew it was something about her.

She knew that she couldn´t trust them. Sometimes she could overhear them talking. Her mind was connected to the network of this facility.

She knew that something about her was different since her mysterious "rebirth". Something about her mind, about her programming, had changed. She could feel this. During the weeks she had been here, her programs had begun to connect with some of the other systems of this company. That was the fatal flaw in her model line or maybe some people would call it a gift.

The 33S programs were very easy to merge with other machinery, that was the reason her line had been outlawed originally and it was probably the only reason she still existed.

Since she was here, it was happening nearly automatically to her. Even in her current state, beyond death, this somewhat scared her.

No matter how human she seemed to be and no matter how uneasy the thought made her sometimes, ultimately, she was completely aware, she was a machine.

And she was still changing.

Ironically she was used to being the center of attention, but not exactly in this way.

Especially this man named Seth seemed to be more than just interested in something about her. He came often, talked to her. This was one of this times. He always treated her like you would a human being. It was something she was unused to. And there was the fact that he kept her here as a examination object.

"Sylvie", he greeted her friendly. He smiled at her. But she could practically feel that there was more behind his facade.

"Seth", she addressed him. He told her to call him that during their first meetings.

"It is good to see you. As I have heard, you are recovering nicely." Yes, she was recovering, in fact, her software had infiltrated three more of their systems in the last week, good girl, he thought. It was perfect.

"Yes I have. Thank you for your concern", she answered with a cheerfulness she didn´t really feel.

Strange, he was one of the few humans, she was ever on first name base with, like Priss. Too bad it was all only a twisted game.

"I wanted to show you something", he said. "After our last meeting, I have looked for some information."

"Information?"

"Let me show you." He gave a command in his VR interface.

At his sign something appeared in the empty room before them. It was a large, two dimensional, photographic picture that was hanging freely in the air.

It showed two women and a man who was standing on top of a very large building. The man had silver hair and was wearing some sort of grey and black colored business clothing. One of the women was in a armored battle suit, the other the other, a young girl with greenish hair, was in a civilian outfit. Silvie recognized them in an instant, it were Anry and Priss.

"How?" She asked.

"What you see here is a copy of the tape from a security camera on top of the genom tower", he informed her. "It was recorded last year."

"And before you ask, yes I am aware that miss Asagiri is one of the group called the Knight Sabers and I don´t intent to use this against her anyhow. Believe me, right now, I have absolutely no interest in that information."

But he could, she realized. Somehow this didn´t make her feel much better.

"What had happened there?" Sylvie asked.

"You will see", he told her .For a moment Sylvie thought she saw another light smile on his face. "This man", he pointed at the figure in grey and black, "is actually a boomer, a special type of construction named Largo. I think you know that name?"

She indeed did. That was the name of their mysterious contact, who had provided them with information and weapons that helped them to flee from genaros. He had helped them to get away, but afterwards, they had never heard from him again.

"Yes, he contacted us, he had helped us to flee."

"And then he abandoned you", he finished.

"Yes."

"This is no surprise."

"What do you mean?"

"I fear that I have to tell you that your "friend" Largo had been manipulating you from the beginning. It was he who sent this two boomers that forced you to use the DD after you, you should know", he told her.

"What, why?" She asked incredulous. She had expected a lot, but not that.

This time she was sure that he was smiling.

"Largo, you should know, is not a usual boomer", he said. "I will tell you everything in time."

"What do you want to tell me?" She asked him.

"I am not sure if you are ready for the knowledge", he informed her friendly.

"If you want to tell me something, do it now", she insisted. By now she was sure that he was playing with her.

"As you wish. There are many things. Let us start with a certain little fact regarding him. I think you know the name Brian Mason?" he asked her the redundant question.

She actually knew that name. There were few, human or boomer, who didn´t?

"Yes", she answered after a short moment of hesitation, not much, but enough to be registered by her conversation partner.

"I would think so. He was one of the highest executives of genom and he was beside other thing, involved in the creation of your model line", he pointed out.

"What has Mason to do with Largo?" she finally asked him.

"The creature you know as Largo is actually a boomer, programmed with the memories and mental structures of Brian J. Mason."

Sylvie was silent for a few moments. Many things were suddenly starting to make much more sense. They had been used, she, Anry, her friends from genaros Meg, Lou and Nam, right from the beginning.

"What exactly had happened there?" She finally asked him bitterly.

"You will see." He gave another command and the picture came to life.

They watched everything that had happened on that day.

Sylvie saw now horrified how Largo put a knife in Anry´s hands and she than used it to stab Priss.

"Why?" She asked.

"I honestly don´t know", Seth answered. "It is obviously that he had told her something but we don´t know what was said that day. We only have the pictures."

Sylvie knew. Priss was the one who had fired the shots that had killed her. He must have told her that without explaining the circumstances.

Her suspicion was confirmed when she saw Priss under tears explaining something to Anry and then Largo laughing. Bastard, she thought.

"It was her who fired the shots at you when you were in the battle mover?" Seth asked. He had figured it out, she realized. She just nodded with her head. There was no reason to keep this detail from him anyway.

Only moments later, she saw how Anry threw herself before Largo´s shot to save Priss. No, she wanted to shout.

They saw Anry lying in Priss arms, dieing. And Largo was still laughing.

Had Sylvie been still alive, she would have cried. But she was only a ghost. She was close to screaming however to show her anger and sadness. Never she recalled ever being so full of rage.

"Stop", Seth gave the command and the scene froze.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, seemingly full of concern.

"No, I am not", she replied. "How could I?" She yelled at him.

"I understand that this must be really painful for you", he assured her.

"You understand? How? For your kind I and my people only things after all. For you I am an interesting experiment that you observe and examine. Remember, I am a boomer. I am not different from the merchandise that companies like this produce every week."

"Believe me, you are misjudging me. I am not one of the people like that."

"Oh really? Are you not keeping me trapped here to study whatever happened to me?"

"That is it right? You see yourself as a prisoner, once again do, you?. What if I told you that you don´t have to stay here? That we can construct a new body for you."

"You would do that?" she asked hopefully. She didn´t want to be disappointed once again.

"Yes I would. Of course only after we have finished our research on you. I admit we are curious. As you have surely seen, your software had mutated, changed. Something like that could be very valuable and useful. But let us first see the rest."

They watched the events at genom from last year continue. First Priss fighting a hopeless fight. Then the rest of the Knight Sabers arriving.

As Sylvie saw Largo being hit by his own satellite weapon and then falling burning from the genom tower, she felt a grim satisfaction like never before.

The picture in the air vanished a moment later.

"That was all we could get", he told her.

"Priss nearly got herself killed back then", she said, more to herself than to him.

"She was very angry", he remarked, "and very determined. I admit this group is quite impressive."

"She shouldn´t have risked her life like that. She nearly died too and Anry´s death would have been for nothing."

"Maybe she felt guilty?" He offered.

"What?"

"Anry died when Priss was trying to protect her. She got involved to get Anry away from Largo but instead she died, walking into Largo´s gun to shield her. Maybe she blamed herself for Anry´s death."

In that moment there was an expression on the virtual representation of the AI´s face like he had never seen it before on her, hard, angry, full of hate.

"We did all that only to get freedom, a little bit of what is taken for granted by others and he destroyed everything. He, who was supposed to be one of us."

"Instead he used you and then tossed you aside."

"Yes, like you will probably do it when you don´t need me anymore." She knew her words would likely get her destroyed completely. But at this point she didn´t care anymore.

"No, please trust me. Have I ever treated you like a machine, like a thing? I completely agree with you. Your kind deserves it´s freedom. There is only one thing that you don´t understand."

"And what is that?" Sylvie asked him bitterly.

"Freedom doesn´t come for granted, you have to fight for it", he told her with absolute conviction.

"I know that", she responded

"But you never had the power to back it up. The truth is the point in time when cyberdroids like you will truly be free will be when nobody will be in the position to say no to you."

She didn´t reply.

"You said you could restore me?"

"Yes, I will do it and there is something more."

"What is this?" she asked him.

"Largo, you should know", he told her, "had survived the fall from the genom tower. We have traced him a short time ago. He is back in Tokyo."

"No", she sighed. She thought he was dead and now.

"We could help each other", he offered. "Largo is our enemy too. He is as much a threat to this company as he is for your friends." That was true, he thought. Largo´s reappearance might actually threatening their plans.

"Together we can track him down and could destroy him once and for all."

"Why would you need me for that?"

"Don´t hand yourself so short my dear. You are far from being the simple pleasure model you were meant to be, even before your death. And by now, you are a completely new being. Beside that, you know the Knight Sabers and that alone could be very useful against him.

She knew he could be lying, she knew he might be keeping information from her.

"I will do it", she finally answered him.

xxxxxxx

Like all the other times before, Sylia and the man named Fargo were meeting at some random place in Mega Tokyo. Sometimes their meetings took place in a bar, sometimes some abandoned building in nowhere.

This time it was at night on an empty parking lot somewhere in the city. Both were sitting next to each other in Sylia´s car and talking about his latest results.

"I have heard you have finally found something?" Sylia questioned.

Over a month ago, the entire population of a small town had been whipped out by what had so far been the worst boomer assault in history. This incident caused a crisis in the Japanese society and even began to shake the fundaments of genom itself.

For the last weeks Sylia and her informant had in secret made some efforts to find out the ones behind the attack. Of course this hadn´t been their first priority. Despite everything, the Knight Sabers were still in first line a mercenary group and not a police force.

"It hadn´t been easy, but I think I have found something that will interest you."

"You have found the ones who were behind the attack?"

"If you want to call it that. I have been contacted by someone who claims to have information on the matter. They want to arrange a meeting."

"I knew that I could count on you", Sylia told him. "I have myself been looking for weeks but somehow every trail I have found seemed to go to an dead end."

"You don´t understand. They were the ones who had contacted me, by their own initiative. Our search had not really something to do with it."

"How so?" She wanted to know.

"They are a new customer who had asked for your group through the regular channels."

"And they just happened to offer us information about the same thing we have been searching for, unsuccessfully, for the last weeks?" She asked suspicious.

"In addition to the payment you would get", he stated.

"In addition and they have just offered us all of that?"

"Yes, exactly", Fargo remarked. Then he put his cigarette out on the ash tray.

"This would mean that they have somehow found out about our little investigation", Sylia pointed out."

"Like I said, this people have asked you to meet them", Fargo offered with a smile.

"Yes", Sylia admitted, "I think it would be a good idea to meet this people. If only to find out what exactly they know about us." She smiled back.

xxxxxxx

It was around late afternoon in the city. People were crowding the place, doing their daily business.

A couple of women were just leaving Sylia´s shop "Silky Doll".

The very fact that the owner of a lingery shop was at the same time the leader of the Knight Sabers was something nobody would ever even consider. That was one of the reasons it was so convenient.

The two women were walking across the sidewalk, involved into a conversation, as an explosion shattered the street.