Chapter 6
For a moment nobody said anything. Not the Knight Sabers or the cops. They were all surprised and shocked. Linna lay wounded on the ground. The combat boomer was standing right before them. He was already looking for other targets. Then Priss broke the silence and got active
"You bastard", she hissed.
She made a charge at the boomer and shot him again and again. Priss was angry and shocked about what happened to Linna. Priss managed to land several hits on the boomer and caused an amount of damage. Sylia tried to give her cover by firing at the boomer too. This was dangerous, no this was stupid. Linna could die here and Priss was not having a clear head. Attacking the boomer was the right decision or he might have shot somebody else but now they needed a plan. They needed to take him out fast. Linna might die otherwise. She and Priss had to cooperate to take the boomer out as fast as possible. But Priss was attacking on her own terms.
"Priss", Sylia called to her friend, "calm down. Let us take him out together."
Despite her rage, Priss heard her and nodded with her head. Both Knight sabers were now attacking the boomer from two different sides. Leon and Daley were also taking aim at the boomer and opening fire. He was already damaged from Priss previous attacks and could´t take much more. Two direct hits, one in the breast by Priss and one in the back by Sylia ended it finally. The boomer fell destroyed to the ground.
Nene was, while the others were fighting, trying to take care of the injured Linna. But where wasn´t much she could do.
"God", Leon called out as the boomer was destroyed. He looked at the downed Knight Saber. It was obvious that the woman needed help. But if they took her to a hospital her identity would be exposed and she would probably be arrested in the long run or murdered. He was sure that a organisation like the Knight Sabers had contact to someone who was able to deal with such injuries. The problem was only, how to get her to that place.
Priss and Sylia were now coming to help their injured Friend. What they saw caused mixed feelings in them. Linna was alive. Her suit seemed to have taken the most of the damage. But she was obviously still badly injured and lying in her own blood. Nene was now kneeling helpless beside Linna.
"Nene", Priss asked, "how is Linna?" Priss saw the desperate look on Nene´s face.
"She is losing blood. But I can not get that damn armour off of her, it is to damaged. I don´t even know how bad her injuries are", Nene cried at them.
"We have to get her home and out of that suit."
In opposite to Priss and Nene, Leon didn´t know who this woman was. But he knew that the Knight Sabers were needed in Mega Tokyo. He saw horrified that the two Sabers were trying to drag the third one away. He called out to them.
"Wait, if you try to carry her in that state she will die." The two Knight Sabers, Priss and someone else, he knew, stopped and looked at him.
"And that should we do?" One shouted at him. "You know exactly that we can not bring her to a hospital." Yes, Leon thought, that was definitely Priss.
"Good if you had to bring her to where ever your hideout is, at least let us give you a car." Despite their combat suits the two managed to look startled. Nene was only looking at him with an open mouth.
"Thank you", said the silvery Knight Saber, the one who was not Priss, to him.
"Just let it stand in some side street. We will find it again then."
Genom tower
"And you are sure?" Quincy asked.
"Yes", Kate Madigan answered him
"Both, the boomer from the massacre and the one from the rampage 4 days ago were sold by vice president Taiko and her department. She had been selling boomers and weapons in foreign countries to, what in retrospective, seemed to be fake costumers. Our contacts in the government confirmed that that."
"Why have we not found out about this a long time ago?" Quincy asked.
"The most of Taiko´s customers seemed to be shell companies, but well disguised ones. And to be honest", she looked at Quincy questioning. He nodded for her to continue,
"nobody in the company saw a reason to ask questions as long as more money came in", she finished.
"I understand", Quincy pointed out.
"Go, take a dozen of our 55C and place her under arrest. Try to get all information's, she might have, out of her and then inform the AD Police."
"Yes Sir." Kate Madigan smiled.
Knight saber headquarters (a car workshop in Mega Tokyo)
Doctor Canes was one of the confidants of the Knight Sabers. Like a few other, he knew their identities. He was the one in Sylia´s organisation who was responsible for treating the Knight Sabers if one of them was seriously injured.
"Will Linna going to be alright?" Sylia asked him.
"She is out of danger", he told Sylia and the other Sabers.
"But at least for the next weeks, she should´t be part of one of your missions."
"I understand. Thank you doctor", Sylia answered him.
"So we know now who is responsible for the last attacks?" Nene asked everyone. There was something else, she had to talk with Sylia about, Jessica Kaneda and that she knew their secret. But she just didn´t want to talk with Sylia about it right now. Jessica was dead, Nene thought sadly. So it had obviously time anyway.
Sylia addressed everyone. "Fargo told me about a genom officer, who has been selling the boomers to the organisation behind the assaults. We know her name."
"Are we going to get her?" Priss asked.
"If we attack a high ranked genom executive directly, there is a good chance we will loose, especially without Linna", Sylia explained them. Then she smiled.
"When we however attack her it will certainly drag the eyes of the AD police and genom to her. They know that we wouldn´t attack for no reason. Even if we don´t get her ourselves, it could already be enough to dispose what she truly is."
"Yes Nene. We are going to get her."
Omnitec industry building
The man who was currently calling himself Seth Newman 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 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. 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 and wanted to tell him as few 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 escaped 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. He was reminded what the creature before him truly was.
"No that is not true", the boomer AI shouted. In the next moment he heard a scream going through the entire system. In the next moment, the entire VR systen 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 who 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 partner´s 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.
Hoever the DD had not simply saved Sylvie´s mind. Her software and the one from the battlemover were completely merged. They became literately 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.
Mega Tokyo, before the private residence of genom vice president Taiko
Three Knight Sabers were on their way through the town. Sylia and Priss were on their motorroids, Nene was following close behind. As they were coming close to their destination. Two 12B boomer guards were approaching them and going into attack.
This time the Knight Sabers were better equipped and knew what was coming. They transformed the motorroids into battlesuit form and started to fight. The two boomers were dispatched in a matter of seconds.