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Darkness Chronicles
An anime-Manga Cross-over

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Book I:
Part I: The Gathering
Chapter V:

** ** **

Crack!

A chunk of pavement exploded almost at his heels. Then there was a heavy, tearing crunch as Marina leapt from the roof to which she had vaulted after shattering Ogawa's neck, and slammed down on the 33C that had nearly killed him scant moments before.

For a moment, he slowed his frantic pace, indecision and a sudden helpless fear for her making him hesitate, despite the danger and the agony shooting viciously from his wounded leg with every step. He had to wait; he could not…would not leave her like this. Yet he knew he could do nothing to help: that any hesitation now would only lessen the desperate chance she had given him, slim though it was.

He was badly hurt – he did not need the vicious stabs from his leg, and the dull, relentless ache from the bullet in his shoulder to tell him that, and he was sure also with a terrible certainty, that she could not keep this up for many minutes, not with most of her systems inaccessible, and with the sensory overload caused by her attempts to access her enhanced suite with the standard chip. She would crash or become hopelessly synaesthetic with data she had not the power to process as she was, and then they would have her once more, and it would all have been for nothing.

Choking back a sob of bitter self-reproach, he looked back one last time, and turned helplessly away. He should have known it was hopeless: that his bid for escape and her freedom could have had no other end.

Gasping for breath, his left leg shooting numbing shards of agony through his body at every impact with the ground, he rounded yet another corner, and dived desperately into the comparative darkness of an alley. He spun crazily, no longer able to bear his own weight on his injured leg, let alone that of the small heavy case he clutched desperately, protectively close. Then he cannoned into some dust-bins and other refuse, and a moment later he lay dazed and panting in a sodden pile of some unnameable, evil-smelling filth, the case tumbling to rest just beyond the reach of his clutching hand.

For what seemed an endless haze of pain and growing confusion, he lay still, too exhausted and terrified to move, while blood soaked slowly through his heavy trench-coat from the terrible wound in his shoulder, and through his trousers from the long, jagged slash just below his left knee where the 33C razor-doll had just missed shredding him from ankle to hip.

"You have to get up! You have to!" he kept telling himself again and again. "You can't let it end; not like this. You're their only hope. She can't do this alone, and if you die now, what would have been the point?"

Yet for long seconds he remained where he was, while fear and a growing hopeless despair kept him helpless and unable to move.

It was another explosion and a long, agonised scream, suddenly cut short, that roused him again at last.

Stirring: trying vainly to fight down the retching, clutching nausea, he made a feeble effort to struggle to his knees. But already it was too late. Far beyond the limits of endurance, his exhausted, pain-racked body would not obey him, and at last he collapsed once more, to lie panting, unable to summon the will or strength even to turn his head. It would be so simple to surrender to the gentle, calling blackness of oblivion, an oblivion free from all the loss and pain.

For a moment he struggled to hold the darkness at bay. Then with a last tiny sob, he closed his eyes, and the world around him was no more.

* * *

Movement. He was being carried. He could feel the firm but careful grip about his legs and body, and his arms had been draped over lithe, slender shoulders.

He tried to stir, then moaned as fresh agony knifed through his left leg and wounded shoulder.

"Keep still," Came a low female voice close beside him.

For a moment, in his pain, he thought it was that of his lost daughter. Then another wave of agony washed over him and memory pieced itself together.

"Marina?" he gasped.

"You were expecting someone else?" The buma responded, her tone seeming to him in his daze almost amused, although no less wry for that. "Did you think I wouldn't make it?"

She laughed a chilling, hard-edged laugh, and tossed her head, her long fair hair flipping against his cheek.

"I…I hoped. But a 33C-A… They're quick and dangerous, and in your condition…"

"Losing isn't part of my nature," she answered, the hard edge still in her tone. "You should know. You defined my combat parameters, and wrote most of the code."

"Parameters change," he gasped, too exhausted to manage more. "I…I wasn't sure you'd care after what's happened, or come for anything but the case, even if you escaped."

"Then you're a bigger fool even than I imagined," she answered simply. "If you don't know your own firmware… Loyalty is such a high priority for us, is it not, Otousan?"

"You're more than firmware Marina," he began softly; "so much more."

But he was cut off by another short, savage laugh.

"Oh yes!" she said harshly. "So much more. The perfect assassin, the perfect lady of high society, the perfect spy, the perfect commander, the perfect street whore, the perfect bait for the Knight Sabres?" With this last she laughed again, a wild, savage sound, laced with what he was certain was self-mockery. "Except that now I need to find them, rather than take or kill them. You didn't put that in my redefined parameters before we had to run.

"I'm surprised you didn't christen me Shasti, rather than give me the name and likeness of your lost daughter. It would have been so much more appropriate." This time, the laugh was a short vicious snarl.

He tried to shake his head, not comprehending.

"It doesn't matter," she said, for a moment something almost resigned and weary in her words.

They continued in silence for some time, her smooth, cat-like movements barely jolting the injured scientist.

"Where are we going?" he asked at last.

"I'd intended to find a place where I could at least try to patch you up," she answered simply. "A derelict, an office building; it wouldn't have mattered. But you're too badly hurt. Now we have to stick to our original plan.

"They won't come looking tonight. I took the precaution of tampering with the surviving assassin, just a little; just enough to make them think she killed you. And Ogawa and Radford are dead. Not that that will mean much on close examination; I was a little pressed for time. But it will delay them, for a while; long enough, I hope."

"You really are amazing," he said softly, a father's warmth and pride suddenly in his tone.

"Genom's latest in the quest for perfection in combat and covert intelligence,," she parroted in a near perfect imitation of the tones she herself had used for the internal executive presentation only two days before, but tinged with a hard, sardonic edge. "Now that the restrictions regarding the production and export of military Buma models have at last been relaxed, Genom is ideally suited to take its place as the premier provider of products unsurpassed in power, reliability and combat performance.

"Presenting our latest prototype, first in an entirely new concept in next-generation Buma design, and heralding a quantum leap hitherto thought impossible.

"Incorporating our newly patented EOA (Enhanced Organic Architecture), together with the very latest in AI iso-linear technology, personality simulation, and heralding a revolution in quantum processing, the Bu-33DA is the ultimate tool for those demanding the very highest in state-of-the-art buma products with which the name of Genom Corporation has come to be synonymous.

She stopped, as though only now aware of just how dangerous it might be to announce herself to any who might be near enough to hear, and coherent enough to care: this was the Canyons after all.

But the man she was carrying did not have again to hear the words. He had helped write the speech she had delivered. In his semi-delirium, his mind ran on, replaying all that she had said during the presentation.

"Pre-programmed with over one-hundred-thousand personality variants, and presented standard with more than one-hundred-thousand terabytes of three-dimensional Optical RAM on-board, coupled with the very latest in relational data retrieval and assimilation, an on-board library including the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Oxford International Dictionary, over ten-thousand works of historical and cultural reference, and support for over two-hundred languages, the Bu-33DA is a must for those demanding the very best artificial intelligence has to offer."

"Able to emulate all functions of the proven C-Class military-spec Bu-55C-MKII without the need for internal expansion, and all functions of the military-spec Bu-33C Security Operative, together with the full capabilities of the discontinued S-Class special-operations model Bu-33S-A, including but not limited to social, relational and interface capabilities, the DA-33 is uniquely suited for a myriad of applications, from weapons control to shock-troop command, and from military confidante to the subtleties of covert intelligence.

"Add the enhanced DA-2134 EOA C+Q CPU with an additional one-hundred-thousand terabytes of CPU-INTERNAL 0.01 nano-second ORAM, together with DA-SPECIFIC weapons, physical and ECM enhancements, and the Bu-33DA becomes the Bu-33DA-Elite, a machine unparalleled in combat capability, physical performance, and relational intelligence and raw computing power."

There had followed a stunning, but in part simulated display of Marina disposing of a score or more of the best in C-class, Doberman and the massive Bu-12b machines within a matter of seconds, in part simulated because of last-minute problems with the first DA-2134, which had forced the first DA prototype to remain a standard 33 until the second chip (the huge block of pseudo-organic technology nestled, amongst other things, in the case that swung now from about the buma's neck) could be completed and tested.

That had very nearly cost them everything. It had cost him her trust.

"We have to find her tonight!" he gasped, not wanting to remember again the rage and accusation in her eyes, or the words she had hurled at him when he had told her he had been discovered, and that they would have to abandon the others and escape while they could. "There's" so little time. If that madman moves tomorrow as you predicted…

"We can't do this alone. Until the upgrade is completed—"

"I'm a liability," she said shortly. "I know; I need not be told again.

"Stop moving," she continued harshly. "Do you want the tourniquet to come off? I'm perfectly aware of our need for speed; leave such matters to me."

"Couldn't you fly?" he asked, his voice a mutter of half-delirium.

"If somebody hadn't neglected to remember that the standard CPU hasn't the additional micro-instructions needed to drive enhanced thruster controller routines optimised for the 2134: yes, I could," she answered with more than a touch of sarcasm. "And, of course, if you want us detected again, and shot down for our trouble! I have no weapons control at the moment; or had you forgotten?

"I should have thought the CPU upgrade would have been your first priority."

"Needed your enhanced systems ready," he muttered, drifting again towards unconsciousness. "Thought we'd never get out without them. Didn't know so much would be incompatible. Panicked when Domina wouldn't help me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, M'rina."

"Tell that to Liana," she snapped savagely, her voice suddenly frigid with renewed accusation, "assuming you ever have the chance.

"Tell me! What did you expect me to do; be ready just like that, on the off-chance that lunatic would be stupid enough to send her to find us the moment your monumental carelessness announced to all of Genom what you intended?

"And now my new systems are all but useless, and she's still under that madman's control. I can't believe such unimaginable stupidity! And from you, of all people, when you should have known what would happen: what he would do to keep her."

"'Know," he murmured, his voice little more than a whisper. "'M sorry. Lost my daughter to him! Had to save you before they had chance to hurt you. Didn't want you to be Genom's slave. Just wanted get away; save you, and C'milla. Took Liana b'fore I could help her! Couldn't lose you too."

"You really are a stupid, maudlin fool!" she told him harshly.

But he could not see the sudden desperate tightness in her face, nor the glint of unshed tears in her blue eyes as she looked down at him for a moment, her expression melting. His own eyes were already closed, and her tone betrayed nothing.

"Wanted them to pay for what they did to her," she heard him gasp, his voice a cracked whisper. "No hope. Find us. Kill me, and make you forget; make you and C'milla what they want. And make more from F'llini's pr'ject. S'rry… So s'rry"

"Not if I can help it," she snarled, too softly for him to hear.

But she knew her time was desperately short. Even if there escape did not precipitate that lunatic Fellini moving earlier as she had predicted, they had at most until morning.

Her father had destroyed the recall data and her access key, but the project would already be expediting the activation of the only other DA in which a security key had been included, and as intelligent as he was, she knew his obsession had robbed him of the imaginative flare he once had possessed.

Once they had unlocked Camilla's key, it would only be a matter of a few permutations on her part before they had her own, even assuming he had not been fool enough to include it in the other DA's initial data.

They had to get to Sylia Stingray before that happened. If the Mason-Largo journals she had found were not a self-deception on his part, and she did not believe they were, in the Knight Sabres alone lay her only chance to save her father, and her only hope for the completion of the upgrade he had begun, before it was too late. The vigilantes would have to have access to qualified medical personnel who would ask no questions – they could not operate without that safeguard, and they must have facilities capable of completing her upgrade in safety; their own equipment could not be maintained without them.

Also, in Stingray's daughter alone lay perhaps her one hope to unravel the subtleties of the fundamental algorithms even Alexei Ivanovitch Zhuranovsky had not been able fully to comprehend. His knowledge, like that of every scientist in the vastness of Genom Corporation, was at least in part empirical: at best a reflection of the intricacies of the unique, inventive genius that had made the lithe, stunningly beautiful pinnacle of technological achievement who raced now with her precious cargo through the vastness of the canyons with such single-minded purpose, possible.

Haynes was out of the question. There was no hope of reaching him, and no time to try.

She had to reach Katsuhito Stingray's daughter before her father grew worse, and before morning; there was no other chance. By dawn they would have Camilla out of her tank, and the second functional DA-2134 could be initialised and installed within a few hours.

Not that they would need the chip, unless their initial attempt failed. They would waste no time with tests; Camilla would be of no danger whilst her enhanced physical and weapons systems remained off-line. They would have her attempt immediate access to the first prototype, and Marina could not access the code to override her response once her key had been sent; there was no code as such to access, a precaution on father's own suggestion she knew, ironic as that was now: a failsafe should her prototype systems crash so completely that nothing else was accessible.

The key would hardware cold-boot her systems, and place her in firmware command mode under the control of a simple bootstrap, the standard iso-linear running as little more than an extremely expensive ORAM interface. Then they would have her, her, and father. And once that happened, the capture and destruction of the Knight Sabres was inevitable, and with their deaths would die for ever the last hope of freedom for her and her sisters, and if Fellini was not stopped, the last hope for all humanity.

The 2134 upgrade alone would do nothing to prevent such a scenario; her firmware was designed to run the classical-instruction portion of the 34 in an enhanced equivalent of the same mode at cold-boot. The hardware key needed to be changed or removed, and the code-base created by the elder Stingray, and which defined the general instruction set still for every buma CPU, needed to be altered to ensure maximum protection from any potential Genom override code, and anything Fellini might have created. And there was only one person who might understand the original algorithms enough to be able to do that.

She had to take this chance. If Mason had guessed correctly, Sylia Stingray and the Knight Sabres were their only hope. And she would help them, or she and her team would die. Of that, Marina would make very certain.

Alexei moaned again, and she shifted him a little, trying to ease the pain. He was in desperate need of attention. He had lost too much blood in the alley before she had found him, and probably he had infected the wounds during his time amongst the refuse, not to mention the fact that a good deal of shrapnel was still inside him, and he might well have severe internal injuries.

Were she fully functional, she could have taken to the air, or covered the ground at perhaps twenty times her present speed. Given reasonable conditions, she might very well also have been able to operate on him successfully, even with minimal facilities, and in his dire situation.

But her enhanced systems were proving far less compatible with the standard chip even than the worst he had feared, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to interpret the growing, screaming ruin that was supposed to be sensory data. Any attempt on her part to access more of her new systems would only hasten the deterioration.

Baring her teeth in a combat-snarl of savage frustration, she tightened her grip on the now unconscious scientist, and began to increase her pace. She could not afford to spare him. If she did not find help quickly, he would die, and all hope would end.

Snarling again, her mouth set in a feral line of grim determination, she lowered her head, settled the man she considered her father closer to her, and went on running.

* * *

"Priss! Priss; behind you!"

Whirling at Nene's scream, Priss ducked the vicious swipe of yet another C-55, and flipped back to put some distance between herself and the buma.

The fight seemed to have gone on for ever, yet somehow there seemed to be as many opponents as when they had first engaged them, what seemed an age ago.

"Eat this you bastard!" she snarled, twisting from the path of the blast, and driving a spike into the machine's suddenly gaping mouth.

There was a satisfying flash as the laser discharged into the buma's head, then in the next moment an explosion slammed Priss to the ground.

"Sh*t!" she panted, flipping to her feet. "How many more are there!"

A desperate, nearby scream made her remember Nene. And suddenly, like every other time, the fear came, rising with sudden, terrible speed through the fire and adrenalin of the fight like a slow, lurking memory of nightmare and poisonous dread. She knew Nene was in trouble, but she did not know why.

Spinning just in time to avoid the claws of yet another homicidal machine, and smash it to the ground with a savage back-hand, Priss leapt away and turned, just in time to see Linna whip round, slashing the head from the machine that had been about to take her head off.

"Have to do better than that!" Priss cursed herself.

She spun, flipping again as yet another particle beam slammed into the place in which she had been standing scant moments before, the irrational, unreasoning terror growing with every moment.

Then in the next instant something slammed into her from behind, and she found herself on the ground, pinned and utterly unable to move.

"Damn it, damn it! No!" she gasped with sudden frantic need, struggling urgently to escape, knowing like before that this was the critical moment: that this time she must not fail.

Kicking out with a savagery born of desperation, she felt her foot connect with hard, yielding metal. There was a dull thudding crunch, and Priss hurled the suddenly dead weight from her, and lurched upright. She turned to finish the machine just struggling to its feet.

Then suddenly a terrible, agonised scream made her spin back, and away. Knowing already what would happen: that as always she was too late, Priss searched wildly for a moment, and froze, head up, eyes wide, gaping, sickened and horror-stricken.

Nene hung limply in the grip of the 33C razor-doll, the machine's claws seeming impossibly to have punched right through her suit. She was turned half towards her, her helmet torn away, blood splashing on her lips and pumping from the dreadful wound over the buma's arm as she hung, her face a mask of leaping terror, green eyes wide and glazed with pain and numb incomprehension.

Then, even as Priss stood frozen, knowing what was to come, yet as always too numb to do anything but stare in nightmare fascination, the machine seemed to shift and change before her eyes, until in her place stood the tall, stunning figure of a woman, her long flame-red hair streaming like living fire about her, her face, beautiful and terrible beyond the last end of torment and ruinous despair, twisted in a nightmare smile of unholy, boundless appetite as she lifted Nene effortlessly in her arms, her mouth reaching for the blood on her own.

"No!" Priss heard her own voice as though from some great distance, yet her scream seemed suddenly to fill the world. "No! No! No!"

Then the thing turned towards her. And she was ruin and oblivion beyond the last end of madness, and Priss began to scream, a scream that had no beginning, and would last until the uttermost end of for ever.

With a lurch, Priss bolted wildly into a sitting position, choking back another scream of primal negation, bedclothes flung in every direction as she thrashed desperately for a moment, caught still in the cloying horror of the dream. Then she was staggering to the basin, fighting savagely against the nausea that threatened to have her bring up everything she had eaten the night before at any moment.

For almost a minute she knelt, while her racing heart slowed and the extremity of the nightmare receded, until at last, the nausea abating, she returned to sit on the edge of the bed, a glass of cool water in her hand.

"Damn this!" she muttered furiously, glaring about the interior of her caravan as though seeking some enemy in the shadows upon which to vent her boiling frustration.

This was the sixth night in a row that the damn nightmare had come calling. Always the dream was the same: the interminable fight with a never-ending hoard of buma, while a part of her waited, knowing with a growing certainty how the nightmare would end, yet helpless to act or to influence in any way the horrible climax to the scenario. Only the victim and the attacking buma changed. Last night it had been Linna, the night before, Sylia. Once even it had been Sylvie, appearing absurdly in the midst of the fight, running desperately towards her only to be hit by a leering C-55 that had lifted her broken form, to morph and change into the same tall, flame-haired figure of infinite ruin, smiling with a look of hate and triumph, and a hunger beyond depravity as she held the feebly-struggling 33S, and Sylvie screamed and screamed with a lost, broken horror Priss could still hear in her memory.

With a half-snarl of rage, Priss rose to pace restlessly about her home like some caged thing. She knew she should try to forget about it: that brooding on the damn thing every time it came to torment her, probably was only going to make things worse. But it was the overwhelming, cloying intensity of the nightmare that most troubled her, the horror made all the more unsettling by the fact that she was no stranger to bad dreams, and she knew she should have been able easily to deal with something like this.

It made no sense. Why the hell should she be dreaming this now, night after night, and why the hell did it keep bothering her for so long once she was awake? Nothing had changed; indeed, things had been unusually calm and quiet since that lunatic Yoshida had tried his insane attack on the ADP. Maybe that was the problem, she thought wryly. Not being called on to risk her life every other night, some deranged, twisted little part of her subconscious was dreaming up this sick nightmare, just to keep her on her toes, and remind her that she had better not get too comfortable.

She smiled a sardonic little smile, barely able to suppress a laugh of self-mockery. That just would not surprise her; it would not surprise her at all. The trouble was that the damn dream was so horribly real and vivid, far worse than even the worst nightmares to which periodically she was prone, and no matter what she tried, she did not seem to be able to stop the stupid thing from coming again and again to wake her in the early hours, thrashing and struggling, and screaming like some kid less than half her age.

Priss sighed. It was plain that she was not going to get any more sleep tonight. It was almost morning anyway, and she had an early rehearsal, something unusual for the Replicants, but something into which she had cajoled them to agreeing, due to the fact that Sylia had scheduled a training session for the coming afternoon, followed by a rare night out together as a group, just to relax, since things were so quiet.

She shook her head. The idea of spending her social time with the other sabres did not bother her at all as once it might have done. They had become her friends: she no longer even pretended otherwise, despite all their differences; perhaps closer than any friends in a long time. But the continuing nights of far too little sleep were taking their toll, and she was dead tired.

Perhaps, she thought moodily, she should try talking to the others about the damn nightmare. Probably they would laugh their heads off at her expense: well, Linna and Nene at least. But she had had enough of the damn stupid dream, and she seemed to remember reading something somewhere once about dreams going away if you told someone else about them. Yeah, that might just get rid of the stupid thing, and let her get a decent night's sleep for the first time in what felt like a small eternity.

Suppressing a sudden, copious yawn, Priss stretched, fighting down the momentary desire to just curl up once more, before she moved to get ready for a long, soothing shower, and to find something to wear.

Typical. Just when the damn dream was starting properly to fade and she might have been able to get more sleep, she was not going to get the chance.

Sighing again, she finished gathering what she needed, and soon she was preparing for what was going to be a very long day.

* * *

"That was undoubtedly the worst performance of your life."

Priss sat back, staring miserably at the screen. She had known that she had performed far below her usual standard, but she had not realised just what one hell of a dog's breakfast she was making, until Sylia had called a halt in the middle of a test, deactivated the simulation, and told Priss to come out to where she and the others were waiting in a tone that left the young singer in no doubt that she was very far from pleased.

"Well?" Sylia continued grimly, one slender finger flashing out to cancel the replay with a snap that seemed to echo throughout the room. "Perhaps you'd care to tell me why you just scored a 2.5, an aggregate I might add lower even than Nene has managed after two double shifts, and a night getting far less sleep than she should."

The redhead flushed in embarrassment, remembering more than one less than stellar performance after half a night spent gaming or chatting on-line, when she should have been tucked up well asleep.

Priss shifted, suddenly both ashamed and furious with herself for not being able to deal with something so simple. It was a dream; a damn stupid dream! And here she was, worrying herself sick because she was not getting enough sleep due to some idiotic nightmare. Why the hell was she letting it get to her? Why couldn't the thing just go the hell away, and stop tormenting her every damn night!

Abruptly, and to her shock and outrage, Priss felt her face begin to burn, while her eyes stung suddenly with unshed tears. Clenching herself, suddenly more angry and humiliated than she could remember being in a very long time, she surged to her feet, whirling towards the door, her only thought to get out and find somewhere private to sort out what the hell was going on.

Then a slender hand laid gently on her arm.

"Priss?" Sylia's voice was quiet, and suddenly it was all Priss could do not to burst into angry, frustrated tears.

For what seemed for ever, she just stood there, fighting savagely for control.

"Sorry," she said at last, when she was certain her voice would not crack. "I'm sorry, Sylia. The truth is, I…I haven't been sleeping well over the last few nights."

For another long moment she hesitated, still more ashamed for her inability to rid herself of the stupid damn dream. But she would be damned if she would let this beat her, and at last, with a heavy sigh, she settled again slowly in her place. Then steeling herself, she began to speak.

* * *

She had seldom been in a more foul mood. Kate Madigan stood amidst the ruin that had once been Dr. Alexei Ivanovitch Zhuranovsky's, and his daughter's city flat, and vowed that she would have the miserable, narrow-visioned bastard eviscerated with something small and very blunt by the very machine he had stolen, after security had finished with him of course. It had not been a good night for Madigan.

She had been roused from a dead, dark sleep by the C-55 all but dragging her from her bed, only an hour after she had settled into it for the night.

For one terrifying moment, the nightmare certainty that the chairman had decided that her mishandling of the largo affair did indeed warrant summary dismissal, and that her services would no longer be required, had seized her with horrible intensity. Then the security buma had made its report.

The first Bu-33DA prototype was missing, along with Zhuranovsky and the functional DA-2134.

Madigan, cursing more vehemently than she had since the moment the true enormity of the Largo fiasco had become clear to her, had struggled with frantic speed into something more suitable than a nightdress, her mind whirling in wild desperate speculation.

There had been indications that the fool might try something like this, indications to which she should have paid attention, rather than listening to the idiots who considered themselves the cream of Genom internal security. Ever since the unfortunate death of his daughter, the scientist had been a liability. Yet her baka advisers insisted that he was obsessed with seeing the project to its completion, and would not try to escape, not yet, not until the last test was complete, and he had seen the machine he had begun to think of as all but the resurrection of his lost child fully functional. Certainly, they had assured her continually in imbecilic concert, there was no possibility that he might try to flee with her before the remaining prototypes were activated and tested to his satisfaction. He had begun to care for them rather than simply for the project, and that would keep him focused and loyal.

She should have known better. She should have had him confined to quarters within the tower for the duration, or at least until the first DA's initial firmware could be checked independently, both for faults, and for any influence he might have hidden in its programming.

The problem was that they were desperately pressed for time. The attack on Gulf and Bradley, and the ensuing investigation into the American company it had precipitated had forced them to sever all ties with their disgraced partner. If things turned out as anticipated, they would move in later to pick over the scraps and purchase the ruined company and its patents at a fraction of their initial investment.

But now contracts must be met, and the joint project had in any case always been little more than a diversion: something to control and manipulate the military of an increasingly desperate Third World, and to divert attention from the infinitely more important, not to mention proffitable potential realised in the revolutionary Bu-33DA prototype.

And it had been going so well. Had it not been for the failure of the initial 2134, the field-test could have begun, and the infiltration of the Knight Sabre organisation taken place exactly as originally intended.

Madigan's plan had been elegant in its simplicity.

Camilla, a new experimental prototype based supposedly on a merging of the 33C personal security unit and the discontinued 33-S sexaroid, and designed apparently for the lucrative and in some cases illegal international market in such products, as well as its domestic equivalent now that the restrictions on such buma had at last been relaxed, would escape" with Marina, the daughter of a distinguished Genom scientist forced to head the project, and murdered" recently "after the machine's completion.

Whilst Camilla, the standard DA, played the part of desperate escapee for the sabres benefit, Marina, the Bu-33DA-Elite, would be waiting, the perfect distraught daughter of a cruelly murdered genius, apparently no longer willing to trust anyone as an intermediary, save for her father's creation, who had become her friend.

Madigan might not know who the Knight Sabres were, but she was certain it would not take the two supposed escapees long to find them, given a convincing scenario and the appropriate leaking of information concerning the project, information specifically created for the occasion, but based, at least in part, on a tiny fragment of the truth.

Camilla's task would be to observe, and to play the desperate, terrified machine-become-alive, appalled at what she had been created to become, and seeking a new beginning. At each return to the hideout Madigan had no doubt the sabres would soon provide, she could upload the gathered data to Marina, who would be the field commander and determine what should be done. When they were ready, Marina would upgrade the second DA, and they would summon the sabres to the hideout on whatever pretext seemed appropriate. The women would be captured and brought to the tower, where the remaining four prototypes would be waiting to take their place.

Unlike Largo's ridiculous trap, the deception would be perfect. After the appropriate extraction of information, ensuring of course that none of the four were damaged unduly, the four DAs would be released to destroy the sabres' reputations beyond hope of redemption. When their future was ruined: when they were hated and despised, the buma would be recalled, and the four disgraced Knight Sabres released to provide the ADP, USSD, SDPC, Genom, or whomever else wished to bring action against them, with the criminals the city would demand.

The plan: "Her plan" she reminded herself bitterly, had been her first real chance to redeem herself in the chairman's eyes, and he himself had approved it as an acceptable first test for the new prototypes. And with a single stroke, Zhuranovsky had brought it crashing down about her.

She would die if she could not recover at least the stolen DA, and its chip, of that she had no doubt. Failure of this magnitude was beyond incompetence; it could be almost inconceivably disastrous. Should the Knight Sabres hear of this, and take the buma, and the 2134, she did not want to imagine the appalling implications.

"Ma'am?"

Madigan started at the rumbling tone of the machine at her side, unused to being unnerved by the creatures.

"Have you found anything?" she demanded, although she held out very little hope.

"Dr. Zhuranovsky has not entered his home today, nor does the inventory indicate anything either touched, or missing," The machine answered.

"Very well. Have everything removed to the tower for analysis, regardless of how insignificant, then burn the flat," she said briskly. "Place a watch on the building and—"

She stopped as her phone pinged.

"Madigan," she snapped even as she snatched it from her coat, and unfolded it.

"The surviving security buma has just returned, Madigan-sama," Came the voice of a human security operative. "It claims that it has destroyed both Zhuranovsky, and his companion."

Madigan had warned them that it would mean death to anybody who said something that could identify the DA-33 over the network, secure as it might be. But this news made her forget her own caution.

"Destroyed!" she shrieked, fear, and rage fighting for dominance. "Didn't you tell those two idiots what they were to do?"

"Ogawa, and Radford are dead; the 33C brought back their bodies in the car. It seems that…um…Zhuranovsky's companion broke both their necks, and tried to attack the buma. It had no choice but to destroy it…um…her."

"How very unfortunate," Madigan purred icily. "and how thoughtful that it brought back Ogawa and Radford, while leaving the others behind.

"Have that data treble-checked" she continued, her contempt for the man and the rest of the congenital imbeciles in internal security climbing several further notches as she shook her head, dismissing the buma's report already as absurd. "and have the location of the battle to me in less than thirty seconds. Believe me, if this is true, Ogawa's, and Radford's deaths will be the least of your problems."

That should at least get the fool thinking, if indeed that were possible.

"Hai, Madigan-sama," The man answered, unable to keep the sudden terror from his voice.

Madigan whirled from the sitting-room, and snapping several further instructions to the gathered humans and machines, she strode quickly from the flat, and down towards her waiting limousine.

Moments later she was being chauffeured at speed towards the canyons, the four security buma silent as they listened to her continuing commands.

* * *

Priss yawned, stretching luxuriously as she woke gently from the best few hours sleep she had had in what seemed for ever.

As usual, Sylia had been right, she thought with a strange mixture of gratitude, and a momentary touch of irritation. Had Sylia actually ever in her life been wrong? She had suggested Priss stay the rest of the afternoon in the guest room, and had given her a short-term soporific to help her sleep.

And it had worked. The nightmare had not come to plague her, and she felt better than she had in several days.

Yawning again, Priss slid to the floor, the last of her lassitude vanishing as she made her way into the room's opulent en suite. She had perhaps an hour before they would have to leave to meet the others at the restaurant, and she was going to make the best of it.

Soon, she was relaxing in a great deal of deliciously hot water, the nightmare all but forgotten as she settled back and half-closed her eyes. Yep; this day was not turning out so badly after all.

* * *

"You shee Prish? Told you you were worrying 'bout nothing."

Nene was sprawled haphazardly across her chair, her head having just settled on Linna's arm, her green eyes trying vainly to remain focused on the blur that was an increasingly moody Priss who sat facing her.

Beside her, Linna snapped closed the data-pad on which she had just finished making an investment update she had forgotten to do that morning, and pushed her upright yet again, shaking her head.

Nene giggled.

"Whasha matter?" she demanded cheerfully, trying to turn to look at her. "Can't sh'port me? Anyway; don't need it. 'M fine; shee?"

She tried to stand, swayed, and collapsed back in her seat.

"You know," she continued, suddenly morose, "I think 's time to go somewhere elshe. Thish ish sh'poshed to be fun." She glanced across the table at Priss and Sylia, then slumped back in her place.

Priss was now glaring at her, her initial good mood having long since evaporated. Why was she not surprised that this had happened? Nene had an unfortunate tendency to over-indulge when they went somewhere together for an evening, if they did not watch her. Not prone to drinking, the younger girl was appallingly bad at gauging her limits, which were low, even for someone of her small size.

At first, shocked at how few drinks it took to render the young redhead all but paralytic, and concerned she did not get herself into trouble when they went out together, Priss had come very soon to the conclusion that treating her like a little kid was not going to help, and that the only way to make her take greater care was to let her get herself falling-down drunk once or twice to teach her to be more careful, an opinion the others seemed to share.

Unfortunately, although a great deal more aware of her alcohol intolerance than she had been a year before, still Nene did not seem to have grasped the concept that a good wine could get her plastered just as easily as something a great deal less refined, this evidenced by the fact that she was now glaring petulantly around the table, seeming not at all pleased that her suggestion of a moment before was being met with such disinterest.

Priss sighed, shifting irritably in her place. The damn night had started off so well, but she had realised too late that even a little alcohol had not been a good idea, as her anxiety concerning whether the damn nightmare would come again that night returned, and her mood darkened. Now she sat, glowering across at the smaller girl, her current drink barely touched, her mind still on what had happened earlier.

As she had feared, Linna and Nene had ribbed her mercilessly about the dream, although they were as sympathetic as amused, and she knew the teasing was as much an attempt to try to cheer her up as anything else. But they had not experienced the overwhelming intensity of the horror, and although she had tried to laugh with them, she had become increasingly grim and morose as the evening progressed, and she began to wonder whether the coming night would be any better.

"You know, you're really pathetic sometimes," she said sourly, still glaring across at the younger girl, knowing she was being unfair, but too irritated at that moment to give a damn.

"Wha'ja mean!" Nene retorted, hurt. "Leasht my dream-buma don't turn into vampire women, or whatever it was. Thatsh really weird you know, 'nlesh it was shome kind of shubconscious thing telling you it washn't your fault, what happened to Shylvie." Abruptly she brightened, plainly pleased with her deductive powers. "Hey! I'll bet that's it!" she cried, far too loudly for Priss's liking. "I'll bet you're still feeling guilty, sho the dream's trying to tell you—"

But Priss had had enough. Leaning suddenly across the table, she brought her face close to that of the young redhead, her red eyes flashing angrily.

"Listen Nene," she growled, the words harsher even than she had expected as Sylvie's broken form flashed painfully for a moment in her memory, "I'm not in the mood for this now, alright?"

She rose angrily to her feet, glaring into the green eyes that were suddenly confused and on the brink of tears.

"Hey, Priss," said Linna quietly, not wanting the night to end like this, "let's just leave it all right?

"And as for you, little Miss Cyberpunk," she continued, standing quickly, and slipping an arm around Nene to lift her to her feet, "I think you've had quite enough for one night.

"I'll take her home, Sylia," she ended quietly.

Sylia nodded, her attention on Priss. Gently she reached out, and caught the other girl's hand, exerting a gentle but insistent pressure to pull her back into her seat.

For a moment Priss remained standing, still glaring at Nene. Then she sighed and settled back once more, her expression softening, and Sylia relaxed her hold.

"'M all right; no need to hold me up," Nene was insisting, swaying on her feet, and smiling through the brimming tears as she clutched at Linna for support.

"Shut up," said Linna without anger as she slipped the data-pad into her bag, and slung it on her arm.

"But I'm 'll right," Nene insisted, beginning to pout. "'M not a shild. Le' go. 'wan t'njoy myself. 'm not going home yet."

"Yes you are," said Linna calmly.

"'m not going home yet!" Nene insisted with far greater volume.

Then she lurched, swayed again, and collapsed into Linna's arms in a dead faint.

"I think you are," said Priss, with a sudden smile. "Why do you do this to yourself?"

Shaking her head, she moved to help Linna and Sylia get a blissfully oblivious Nene out to Linna's van, her look abruptly warm and fond as she gazed down at the smaller girl for a moment, before she shook her head again and turned away.

"Can you manage with her?" she said to Linna as she stepped back. "I can follow you if—"

"No," Linna assured her. "I'll be fine."

Sylia disappeared in the direction of her car, returning with a bottle of small, pink pills, one of which she convinced Nene to wake up long enough to take.

"That should help her metabolise the alcohol in an hour or so," she said quietly to Linna, her own face touched with a smile as the young redhead murmured a giggling: "Night-night. Sleepy-time!" and settled into blissful oblivion again as Linna closed her door. "At least she won't regret this tomorrow."

Moments later Linna had wished her and Priss goodnight, and soon she was driving through the night towards Nene's flat, the younger girl curled up beside her.

Linna hummed quietly to herself, her own mood introspective. Things had been quiet, too quiet recently. For nearly two months they had done little, save to train and deal with the ever more occasional buma rampages. Not that she minded the respite. Yet it gave her time to think, and to ponder anew the path her life was taking.

Beside her, Nene murmured something in her sleep, and Linna glanced down at her for a moment and sighed.

It was easy for the others. Nene's reasons for being part of the team were clear and straight-forward: a naive but unshakable desire to do what she could to make the city safe. Sylia, with her grim, calculating determination to settle the debt Genom owed her family and the world at large, needed no other reason. Even Priss, with her bouts of depression, rage, and savage desire to make Genom suffer, knew exactly why and for what she was fighting.

But for Linna, the reasons for staying were less simple, even to herself. True, the money was far better than anything she might have expected to make as a dancer: certainly far more than she could ever make as an aerobics instructor. But money had long ceased to be her primary motivation, and the more so still after Irene's death at Mason's hands.

She had never been cynical, able nearly always to remain cheerful and optimistic, and make the best of every chance life had given her. Yet she found herself wondering suddenly when she had really started to believe in what Sylia was trying to do, and just when the other Sabres had become three of the best friends she had ever had.

She smiled, glancing again for a moment at Nene curled up in oblivious contentment. Yet she wondered with a sudden chill whether things would be the same in five, or perhaps even in ten years. Would she still be a faceless figure in a green hardsuit, risking her life night after night for a battle she knew in her heart they could never truly win?

What of the career she had left behind, of the life she had once dreamed could be hers, but that was impossible while things remained as they were? What of her future?

Linna shivered, abruptly intensely aware of the loneliness that lurked always behind the facade of success, and confidence she projected, waiting until one day she realised that the chance for happiness had flown, never to be recalled. Suddenly afraid and vulnerable in a way she rarely allowed herself to feel, she reached out to Nene at her side.

But Nene slept on untroubled, and Linna withdrew her hand, a sudden, unreasoning feeling of foreboding taking chill possession of her. In that moment she wanted only to reach the relative security of her own apartment, empty though it might be.

Shivering again, Linna increased her speed, the irrational unease growing with every mile as she sped through the night to take Nene home.

* * *

She was running, fleeing wildly through a frigid, numbing whiteness, while something she could not name pursued her, closer with every moment, and a nameless, cloying horror grew and grew so that she ran blindly, and dared not look back.

"Sylia!" A voice called again. The tone was almost familiar, Yet she could not place it. "Sylia Stingray."

And then she knew. Or did she? Largo, or Mason, or some twisted amalgamation of the two?

Stumbling to a halt, she whirled, staring helplessly into the fog, seeking vainly for the source of the myriad echoes. For a moment she could see nothing. Then the fog swirled and parted, and he stood before her, Largo in all his malignant power, but with the face of the man he had been.

"Sylia!" he said, his voice shifting somehow between that of Mason and Largo, whilst sounding of both and neither. "Sylia Stingray! I knew it."

And with that, he smiled a smile of death, and raised his hand, and her world was filled with fire.

With a gasp, Sylia jerked herself awake, bolting upright as she stared about her room, her heart racing feverishly for a moment, before she drew in a long, steadying breath and sighed. This was not the first time she had dreamt of Mason, or Largo, or both, but the fog and the overwhelming sense of foreboding were something new.

Sylia shook her head. No doubt the atmosphere was at least in part conjured up from Priss's description of her own nightmare, and her subconscious decided to pick tonight to remind her of her own past demons for no other reason than some particularly warped sense of humour.

Sighing, she glanced aside at the clock on her bed-side table. It was a little after two.

Shifting a little, she prepared to lay down and go back to sleep. Then suddenly she froze.

Something was wrong. For a moment she could not place the sudden sense of imminent danger. Then she stiffened as it came again: the faintest sounds of stealthy, barely-heard movement from somewhere in the flat.

It was not Mackie. He was staying at Dr. Raven's for the night, as he was in the middle of a project, and had intended to work late. Besides, Sylia knew the sounds he made; the knowledge was instinctive, like anything else safe and familiar.

Reaching for the emergency pager she kept always close at hand, she activated it and set it aside. It would take the others some considerable time to arrive, even assuming they did not sleep through the call. Meanwhile, she would have to deal with whatever, or whomever was there. Whatever it was had been able to enter the building, without triggering her security, a nearly impossible task that spoke of only one kind of intruder.

Was this then how it was to end; her last fight? If so, she would not die without a struggle, nor at all, if she could help it.

Moving quickly, her mind suddenly cold, and calm, Sylia rolled to the floor, reaching for the heavy Earth-shaker that lay on the dressing-table . She caught it up, then froze. The stealthy sounds had ceased. There was a soft, barely-perceptible click as a door was opened and closed again with the same exquisite care. Then came the faintest whisper of a footfall.

For one fractional moment Sylia had time to realise that she had miscalculated, and to raise the pistol in a last hope. Then the bedroom door exploded inwards, and something barely glimpsed closed the distance between them in a heartbeat, and slammed her face-down on the bed.

"Should you move, I will not hesitate to cut your head from your body," Purred a low female voice close to her ear.

Sylia felt the pistol plucked from her hand, then a tiny jerk as it was flicked to the further side of the room.

"You are Sylia Stingray?" The voice continued.

It was as cold and calculating as the tones of any buma Sylia had heard, and the frigid chill of the body pinning her own only confirmed what she already knew.

"I imagine you knew that already," she answered, her own tone belying the sudden turmoil in her mind.

How had the machine entered the building without triggering a dozen facets of her security? Yet she was given no time to consider.

With a sudden brisk movement, the buma half lifted her in one arm, keeping her face pressed to the pillow.

"Forgive me," It said unexpectedly.

Then there was a quick savage sound of tearing as it slashed her shift from neck to hem, pulled it from her, and in one fluid movement, whirled in a quick, curling motion to stand, snatching her from the bed as though she weighed nothing, and setting her naked on her feet, her back turned towards it.

"Do not try to turn," It said, the threat more apparent by the lack of overt warning in its tone.

For a moment it remained still. Then with the same fluid motion it spun her to face it.

Now it was Sylia's turn to gasp. The buma could not have been further from what she had expected.

Standing perhaps a little under six feet in height, the machine was scandinavian-fair and astoundingly beautiful, a picture of voluptuous female curves beneath the scant, tight-fitting jump-suit that clung close to the lithe, slender form. Long, lustrous fair hair tumbled in heavy, dishevelled waves below its waist, a tattered ribbon that once must have kept it tied back and out of its way looped still loosely in its tangles. The picture of elegance, however, was disturbed horribly by the fact that Freshly dried blood, and more that was not dried smeared the clothing such as it was, and more still was spattered on the bare arms, fair face, and long neck. The look in the blue eyes as they regarded her was disconcertingly intense, and very much alive, and the ripe, full mouth was set in a fierce smile of savage determination and appraisal as the creature studied her intently. Had she not already guessed the truth, she could not have told that the thing before her was not as human as herself.

"Impressive," Sylia acknowledged calmly, searching for something with which to buy time. "Although the blood does detract somewhat from the perfect picture of elegance.

"But I understood Genom had abandoned such designs. Or have the recent changes to export restrictions encouraged Chairman Quincy to rethink his priorities? Certainly I wouldn't have thought it appropriate for an assassin, unless of course, I'm being treated to a display of his own perverse sense of humour?"

The machine surprised her again by laughing, a hard, savage sound.

"Your composure does you credit," said Marina. "But even you have no idea how close you and your friends have been to death, nor of the danger in which you might have found yourself had I been sent as Genom intended.

"Still, that's not important at the moment. I'm not here to kill you, not unless in the last possible extreme, and certainly not if you're willing to help me, and save Tousan's life.

"My name is Marina, and I've not come at Genom's command.

"Tell me what clothes you need. Do not move."

Less than a half-minute later, Sylia had finished dressing in all that the machine would allow her.

"Come," Marina commanded, pushing her ahead of her from the bedroom, and along the passage. "Father was hurt during our escape, and I can't help him as I am."

Entering the sitting-room, Sylia gasped again as she caught her first sight of the figure lying by the door. Blood pulsed slowly from a shredded gaping wound in his shoulder, and also from the long, vicious slash in his left leg, splashing on to the already blood-soaked trench-coat upon which he lay. It was clear to her immediately that the shoulder-wound at least had been given him by a heavy-calibre gunshot.

"Who on Earth—" she demanded.

But the buma had already crossed to the figure, and returned, a small black case clutched in her arm.

"You will find the data, and the chip you need in this," she continued, her tone suddenly fierce, and urgent. "I'll explain everything when I know Tousan is safe. But now you will fetch help for him. You must have someone you can call; your organisation could not function otherwise."

"Organisation?" Sylia inquired mildly.

But a horrible suspicion that the strange buma knew already exactly of what she was speaking was confirmed as the machine's eyes flashed.

"Don't try to play games with me, Stingray-san!" Marina said coldly. "I haven't the time, and nor have you. Both of us know to what I'm referring; I see no meed to be more specific. If you—"

But suddenly she whirled, easing the case quickly to the floor.

In the next instant the window exploded, and three hardsuited figures leapt into the room. It seemed that the alarm system had long since signalled Mackie after all.

Before Sylia could so much as move, the machine had twisted, slipped aside, and leapt to attack. Moving with an inconceivable, fluid blur of speed so far beyond any buma they had ever before encountered as to leave Sylia gaping, she caught up Linna as though she were feather-light, and catapulted her through the remains of the window with the force of a cannon. Flipping effortlessly from Priss's tackle, the DA snatched her from the floor, and sent her spinning in Linna's wake, the suit's systems struggling uselessly against the singing impetus of the cast.

"No!" Sylia cried as Nene began to move.

Too late, Nene, still less than entirely at her best, tried desperately to avoid the machine. In the next instant she had followed the others, but in the same moment the buma lurched, froze, then without a sound crumpled to the floor.

Whatever Nene had tried to do had, it seemed, been effective.

Sylia dropped to the floor beside the disabled machine, tearing frantically at the jump-suit in her haste to find something that might disable her in a more permanent fashion, without doing any lasting harm. The movement when it came was too quick for her to comprehend. One moment she was attempting to turn the creature on to her back. In the next she was pinned to the buma, a lithe hand clamped tightly about her throat, but not so much as to hurt her.

"Try to fight again," Marina purred softly, "and you will be very, very dead.

"I'm sorry; believe me, I understand your position. But I swear I didn't come to fight you, nor to do you harm; only to seek help for Tousan before it's too late, and for you to help us as he intended.

"But do not doubt me; I shall kill you if I must. Even incomplete as I am, my reflexes are a million times your own, and I'm more protected against ECM than you could begin to understand."

There was a movement from beyond the shattered window, and a moment later Priss stood in the room once more, Linna and Nene only moments behind her.

"Listen you piece of—" Priss began.

"Don't threaten me, Priscilla Asagiri," said the buma calmly, ignoring Priss's unavoidable start of shock and horror at her speaking her name. "I haven't the time. Father is dying, and I will do anything I must to save him. Do you understand? Anything!

"You, and she," she indicated Linna, "will fetch your doctor here, or take Tousan now to a place where he can find the help he needs, a place Genom can't find. Nene Romanova," she indicated the pink-suited figure, "is your insurance, and my own. She will stay. She may relay all that's happening here to you, and record it as you wish. You have my promise that she and your leader will be safe. But attempt to betray me, or let Father die unattended, and I promise you, I'll kill them. I'm sorry, but I've no choice. Tousan is in desperate need of help, and you are our only hope."

With a snarl, Priss began forwards, but Marina shifted so that Sylia was between her and the advancing blue hardsuit.

"You want this?"" she purred in a low threatening snarl of her own. "I will not warn you again. I don't wish to hurt you: any of you. But I will do what I must. Do not force my hand."

"Syl—" Priss began.

"Do as she says," Interrupted Sylia, her voice at last beginning to show something of the tension she was feeling. "I believe there is a great deal more happening here than we are aware. Nor do we have a choice.

"Take her father, and the case."

"No," said Marina urgently; "the case must stay. You will need it if you're to understand."

"Leave it," Sylia agreed. "Go."

"But that thing will kill you the moment we're gone!" said Linna, her tone at the raw-edge of panic.

"No, Linna Yamazaki," The buma responded, her voice warmer than Sylia had expected. "I've given my word, and I have never lied, save to Genom, which I hate more than you could begin to comprehend."

"Go; now!" Sylia commanded urgently.

"If you hurt them, you piece of Genom sh*t—" Priss snarled.

Then turning, she watched as Linna bent to lift the sprawled figure by the door.

"What on Earth happened to him!" Linna gasped, seeming only then to become aware of just how badly he was hurt.

Priss flinched in concert, horrified despite herself at the man's condition.

"Razor-doll," Marina answered flatly. "I was not quick enough, although I tore her apart for her trouble.

"Go now, and do not forget, their lives depend on you. Find father the help he needs."

Moments later, Linna had leapt from the room, the man cradled in her arms. Priss remained for a moment, her attention still on the machine.

"Is there something about death you don't understand?" Marina hissed, tightening her hold ever so slightly on Sylia's throat. "Why are you making this more difficult than it has to be!

"Go."

With a snarled oath and an unseen glare that would have vaporised the DA where she stood, had she the power, Priss whirled abruptly, and leapt after Linna.

"Remember what I said, you bitch!" she shouted back. Then she was gone.

"Reset the security system," said the buma quietly, turning to Nene. "I imagine you're capable. Then wait on the roof. I doubt that you could hurt me, even as I am, but I can't afford to take the chance; I'm sorry.

"And you've no need to scan me," she continued with a sudden genuine smile. "You'll have all the data you wish, as soon as Tousan is safe. Whatever you might choose to think, I'm not your enemy."

While Nene reset the system, Marina led Sylia once more back to her room, pausing only to close the door behind them.

Retrieving the pistol, she tucked it away into a drawer where Sylia had no hope of reaching it without her intervention.

"Sit," she commanded, pushing Sylia down on to the bed, and settling herself beside her. "If you wish, I can fetch what you need to dress more comfortably. I'm sorry I can't trust you to fetch your clothes, or leave you to dress alone; I understand you may be uncomfortable with my watching you. But needs must, and I can't relax my guard; not yet."

"Your observation doesn't particularly concern me," said Sylia, her voice chill and calm once more. "you're a buma after all."

"Oh?" Marina purred, her tone abruptly silkily warm, while her eyes shone with a sudden magnetic intensity. "Not even when I seem so very human? Something, at least in part, so like an S-class equivalent that nobody could tell the difference, and would mistake me for something a little less overtly dangerous?

"After all," she added, moving suddenly closer, "Even as I am, I have many times your strength and speed. I could do with you anything I might wish, and you would be powerless to resist. And I'm only a fraction of what I will be when you complete the upgrade, assuming of course, Mason's and Largo's files concerning your abilities were accurate."

She laughed softly at Sylia's almost imperceptible start.

"Both of them were obsessed, you know," she continued, her voice suddenly very low; "fascinated beyond all reason with Katsuhito's daughter, the leader of the Knight Sabres.

"And at the least," she said, her voice little more than a whisper, "won't you admit to being curious: eager to examine all that I am, and that I can give you, to see just how Father did what hitherto was thought to be an impossible dream: to see just how this is possible?"

She reached, laying a slender hand on Sylia's arm.

"Perhaps," Sylia conceded coldly, twisting from her touch, and moving to regain the distance she had lost. "Although I assume the data is here," she indicated the case. "As to anything else—,"

Marina's suddenly-mocking laughter cut her short.

"You are uneasy, aren't you," she purred triumphantly, although Sylia was certain suddenly that there was as much self-mockery as any other emotion in her tone. "I'm perfectly aware you're immune. Even barely operative, and with every sense screaming, I can read the subtlest of movements, and your every response. You haven't reacted to my triggers, physical, or chemical. I should say you're safe, at least for the moment."

She smiled viciously, and laughed again, a hard, bitter sound, the self-mockery now undeniable.

"Shall I prove it?" she demanded suddenly, moving closer once more.

In the next instant, slender arms moved to curl with sudden fierce strength about Sylia's tense unyielding form.

"Are you satisfied?" Marina continued savagely, her hold tightening still more, as she pressed suddenly close. "Is this enough?"

Then abruptly she released her, and jerked a little back, her face tight with something Sylia was sure was revulsion at what she had done. For a space they remained, watching one another in silence. Then at last Marina stirred.

"I am the first prototype of a new generation," she said softly, "a quantum leap in combat, command and relational intelligence: a superlative beyond all they could hitherto have hoped. I doubt that even you, Sylia, can yet appreciate just what they have created, or just how dangerous I am."

Sylia nodded, shifting a little in her place.

"I believe I am beginning to do so," she answered quietly, her tone tinged with unease, yet touched by something unexpectedly warm that brought a genuine smile to the buma's beautiful face. "A test? Part of your combat routines to test a potential enemy for later advantage?"

Marina nodded, the movement quick and savage.

"An S-class response," she confirmed, the loathing apparent in every word, "but tied irrevocably to my combat libraries, and part of my initial assessment routines. Such tests are as much instinct for me as any other, designed to seek a weakness, something I can use for later manipulation, should it become necessary."

Sylia shook her head, her face tight with loathing and disgust, and a sudden genuine sympathy as she met Marina's fierce blue gaze.

"But what now?" she asked quietly at last. "Do you intend that we stay like this until the others return, or they call to tell me what's happened?"

"I'm sorry," The buma answered. "But I've no choice. For what it's worth, I don't believe you'd betray me. But I must be sure.

"Were I fully functional I might have been willing to be less cautious, or found some other means by which I could win, or force your cooperation; although What I know already would be enough, assuming I were willing to reveal to Genom what I've discovered."

"Largo?" Sylia demanded tightly. "You mentioned files, but I can't imagine Mason leaving such speculations for others to find. As you said, he was obsessed, and would never have wanted anyone else to know."

"The data was incomplete," Marina told her. "and most certainly Largo didn't leave it in a condition to be accessible by anybody who didn't know of his obsession. But he was arrogant enough to continue to use Mason's executive account: a measure of his contempt for Genom I imagine, reactivating an account they'd frozen, and keeping his secrets on a Tower server all but under the chairman's nose.

Sylia nodded.

"As for how I obtained it: even dual-key encryption is simple to break, when the name of his obsession is the archive, and the pass-phrase.

"Of course, even Largo was certain only of you. But he was almost sure of Priss, and I was curious concerning the women I and Camilla were to deceive and capture. I compared your voices as projected by the suits with recordings of Priss's performances, most of which contained enough speech to be useful, and of ADP traffic, since it seemed the most likely place another member of the team might work. It didn't take long for me to match Nene's ADP transmissions to the voice of the pink hardsuit. You can distort them but you can't alter your manner of speech, accents, rhythm, quirks of phoneme, and pronunciation, a million subtle cues that made identification a simple matter for a relational intelligence. You should have installed recognition systems, and reconstructed the speech from the obtained raw data."

Sylia sighed.

"Perhaps an oversight on my part," she agreed. (But the processing needed for such a system would have taken too many resources from other and vital tasks, and I had to take the chance that vocoding and band distortion would be enough. Also, the delays inherent in such a system would simply be too dangerous."

Marina nodded in her turn, conceding she had a point.

"Linna was by far the most difficult," she continued. "There was no reason for recordings of her voice to be widespread, nor did I know where to start. But Genom had obtained a partial recording of Miriam Yoshida's attack on the ADP, and although edited, it contained enough speech for me to correlate it with back-stage security footage from Priss's Hot Legs club concert of two weeks ago. Linna and Nene were the only two allowed backstage during intermission.

Once I had identified three of the Knight Sabres, confirming your identity for myself was simple correlation, particularly in light of Largo's interest, and similarities between your father's initial buma designs and the technology of the Sabre hardsuits."

"And Genom?"

"Father had me wipe everything last night, before we escaped," she answered. "The Mason-Largo files were destroyed with everything else related to the project of which he was head. So far as I'm aware, there are no other copies. But even if there were, nobody not intimately equated with his obsession could decrypt the data; at least, not until now.

"But we have far more pressing concerns. Although Father's half of the twin DA project data is corrupted beyond recovery, Camilla is all they need. Once she is active—"

But suddenly she started, and turned her head.

"Signals traffic to Nene," she said quickly, her face abruptly tight and anxious. "I can't decode it in this state, but she's responding. She's coming down."

A moment later there was a sound from outside, then the door which Marina had closed was pushed open, and Nene's pink-suited figure stepped quietly into the room.

"That was Priss," she said very softly, seeing no point in dissembling with the buma. She had been listening through Sylia's own security system, and had heard the entire conversation. "I…I'm sorry, Marina. He's not going to make it; he was just too badly hurt. They're at the garage. He…he's asking for you before he dies."

* * *

He was still in pain, but now at last it was bearable, a faint echo of the agony he had known. The doctor they had brought to him was old and quiet, a good man who had asked no questions, and done what he could. They had told him his daughter was coming: that she was on her way. And he could wait. He must. He had to see her one last time, to say he was sorry, and to say goodbye.

He knew he was dying: that he could not stay much longer. They had tried to hide it from him: not thought he could hear the quiet conversation from beyond the half-closed door: not guessed that he knew.

He had listened intently, a quiet relief and the gentle calm of acceptance soothing the pain and the fear. Marina had found them as he had hoped, and now she would be safe, or as safe as she could be. His only regret was that he could not stay himself to finish what he had begun. But he would be with his daughter soon, and her namesake would see Genom smashed to its knees for her, and for him, and all her sisters safe and beyond their reach for ever, and humanity spared the horror Fellini would have wrought.

He must be certain she understood what she must do: that he had planned even for this: that he had not failed her. Then he could say his last goodbye, and rest at last in peace.

"Is he—?"

"He's holding on, barely."

More voices, approaching once more. Then suddenly there came others, reaching him faintly from beyond what must be a closed door.

"Neechan, are you sure? How do we know she isn't—"

"Where is Father? Where!" another voice demanded, this one high and tight with desperation.

Someone must have pointed, for a moment later there was a crash, and in the next instant arms were slipping beneath him, and he felt tears fall upon his cheek.

"Tousan!" Marina's, his daughter's voice called.

In the growing confusion, he was not certain whether it was the voice of his creation, or his child, calling to him from beyond.

Please! he prayed silently, desperate for something to hear him. Please, not yet! Just a moment more!

Urgently, he fought down the seductive peace of death, and opened his eyes.

She was kneeling at his side, cradling him desperately to her, his head settling on her shoulder, her long hair soft against his cheek.

"Tousan!" she cried softly, her gentle voice choked and heartbroken with grief. "Tousan! Oh Tousan, forgive me! Please forgive! I'm sorry…so sorry for all I said to you. I tried! Truly, I tried! But I couldn't…it was—"

"Shh," he murmured, his voice barely a breath in the sudden stillness of the others in the room. "How could I ever blame you, my Marina; my little patrushka? You did all you could. It's your fight now. Make them suffer, M'rina, for what they did to her, and to me. Rescue C'milla, and poor…poor L'ana, and the others I'll never have the chance to know. And…and stop…stop that inhuman madman F'llini, and bring him down 'ntil he has nothing: 'ntil he is nothing; hm 'nd Qncy. Swear to me. Tear out Gen'm's heart for me, my da'ling: my prec's. Prom'se me!"

His voice was a tiny gasp of sound beyond human hearing, his breathing a faint, laboured whisper.

Marina held him desperately, her face stark with shattered grief, her vision blurred with tears.

"Don' cry," he breathed. "Just prom'se you'll never f'get me, and what they did. Was all 'ntended. Make you torture Knight Sabr's f'r tes', to pr've you'd do 'nyth'ng they wanted. Even F'll'ni is pawn! Thinks he's won, but 's wrong. I found the hidden data…know what he's doing. Hid ev'thing in you; Stingr's daughter will find it. Q'ncy's mstake. Doesn't know what'll hapn when C'milla sends your key. Tr'cked him. Make him pay. Tired now. Time to go.

"G'bye M'rina, my M'rina, and s'rry. I…I l'v."

Then with a tiny sigh, Alexei settled, limp and still in her arms.

For what seemed an eternity of numb, disbelieving unreality, the Knight Sabres, Mackie, and Dr. Raven stood, and watched as the buma remained, still as though carven in marble, the scientist cradled gently close, the tears falling as though they would never cease.

Then suddenly she began to tremble. With a last choked sob, she stooped to kiss his cheek. Then with infinite care, she eased his body to settle gently once more, moving to fold his hands upon the coverlet as though in peaceful sleep. Then slowly she rose to her feet.

For a long moment she remained standing, arms tense at her sides, hands clenching, and unclenching while the trembling grew and grew, until it seemed to wrack her body in wave upon wave of spasmodic shaking. Then, starting deep in her throat, a slow, building snarl began, rising and climbing until at last she threw back her head, and the sound burst from her in a shrieking, terrible scream such as none of them had ever imagined could come from the mouth of human, or machine.

In the next instant the DA bunched herself. Then with a cataclysmic detonation of exploding plaster and shattering tiles she was gone, slamming straight upwards through the ceiling, and away into the night.

"Oh SH*T!" Was all Priss could think of to gasp.

* * *

Dr. Natsumi Kanamoto was sound asleep in her flat when she was roused by her eight-year-old daughter's first terrified scream. In the next instant the wall between her own and her daughter's room exploded in a shattering shower of cement, and a moment later she was dragged still semi-conscious from her bed, and slammed to the floor with enough force to shatter her ribs to splinters. Trying to scream, blood suddenly filling her mouth, Natsumi had one moment to stare in numb, nightmare horror into the blazing, hate-filled eyes of the missing bu-33DA who wore the face of the girl she had helped her lover to destroy before searing pain exploded through her as the machine crushed her neck to pulp, and tore her head, still alive, from her body. Natsumi stared at her own headless corpse, her mouth opening in a silent petrified scream. Then Marina's frigid blue stare was all she could see.

Marina continued to gaze into the staring, terror-filled eyes of the dying woman until they glazed at last, the face fixed in a macabre silent rictus of nightmare. Then turning she hurled both head and body through the window, before the petrified child could see what she had done.

A moment later she was gone, slamming her way up through the ceiling, and away into the night once more. There were others to eliminate before morning, both for revenge and necessity. It would not prevent Camilla's activation, of course; certainly it would not stop Fellini. But if she could kill enough of her father's assistants and his Nemesis's accomplices before Madigan realised that the assassin's data was at fault, it might give her the time she needed.

* * *

"We can't move everything from the garage, Sylia!" Priss cried desperately. "I told you we should have blown that thing apart."

"As if you didn't try!" Linna snapped, her own nerves at the edge, as she held back the growing terror and unreality of this night. "You saw how fast she moved! We didn't stand—"

"Another one!" Mackie gasped as he stumbled to a halt in the doorway. "Near the harbour. That's thirteen now within an hour; Kami knows how many others they're not reporting! Can we be sure it's her?"

"I think there's little doubt," said Sylia, as she hefted another crate in her hardsuit. "The mode of entry and escape."

"And the fact that they're all Genom researchers, and security personnel," Nene added. "Why aren't they protected? They must know what's happening."

"Perhaps they outlived their usefulness, and Quincy's letting Marina do the job for him?" Priss suggested. "Just another buma gone rogue."

"Perhaps," Sylia answered. "Or perhaps the victims are expendable bait."

"You mean Quincy knew all this would happen!" Linna demanded.

"It's a possibility we have to take into account," said Sylia grimly. "After all, all this does seem a little too convenient, does it not? Why wasn't Zhuranovsky watched? And how on earth did he manage to escape with a top-secret military prototype, particularly with the machine in a barely functional condition?"

"If that's barely functional," Priss muttered, "I wouldn't want to face one when it was running on all cylinders."

"Why were only two assassins sent after Zhuranovsky?" Sylia continued, ignoring Priss. "And really why was the surviving 33C not monitored from the tower? It was not, or they would have known the DA had fabricated its data, and sent another immediately."

"Then the whole thing is a setup;" Mackie exclaimed. "a test for the new prototype!"

"Regarding the DA herself, we won't know that until, and if, we find her," Sylia answered. "As for the rest…"

"Not a very good trap if we're suspicious of it already," Linna observed.

"Suspicion isn't important if you're caught," said Priss grimly. "Anyway if it's a trap we've already screwed up royally.

"Sylia we have to go after that thing tonight! We have to blow her apart, destroy her so completely that nothing's left for Genom to find."

"I agree" said Sylia, "at least concerning finding her. As for destroying her—"

"What!" Priss gasped. "Because of all that with Alexei Unpronounceable? The thing's a weapon for Kami's sake! It said itself that it could emulate S-class, C-class, and god knows how many other buma, not to mention human personalities, emotions, whatever. Even if the thing thinks its alive, it's too damn dangerous! Hell; I'd bet the thing would give Largo a good run for his money, and it's not even properly up and running! Damn it; the thing trounced us in a second. Worse, it knows who we are!"

"Which is precisely why we need her undamaged," Sylia answered.

"But we have the data!" Priss insisted. "That case contains enough to tell us its bra size. The thing's a piece of Genom military sh*t. Blow the thing to pieces before they get it back, or it kills us, or it really does go rogue, and wipes out half the damn city, if it hasn't cracked up already!"

"You didn't feel the same about Sylvie," said Nene quietly.

It was an ill-timed remark. Priss whirled on her, red-brown eyes ablaze.

"Listen Nene," she shouted furiously. "just shut up about that. I've had enough for one night. That was entirely different, and you know it! This thing is a top-line military prototype. That means weapons: probably experimental ones knowing Genom's record, plus an AI intended to use them, and that means more trouble than we've had to deal with, ever! How many more times do I have to say it?"

"Priss!" Sylia snapped in sudden icy command. Then more quietly: "I don't intend to argue the matter. We have to find her, and if possible, bring her back unharmed."

"That won't be necessary," said a sudden quiet voice from beyond the open doorway.

A moment later Marina stepped into the garage. She was a sickening sight. The once black jump-suit was now drenched with blood; indeed blood seemed to cover her liberally from head to toe. Even her long fair hair was matted, and coated a hideous black.

Nene lurched away, gagging in her helmet as she fought desperately to keep her sudden nausea in check. Even Priss stepped away from the machine, her face twisting in horror and revulsion.

"And you think that thing is safe!" she muttered darkly.

Mackie had his hand over his mouth, and looked ready to faint.

"Kami-sama!" Linna gasped faintly at last.

"Quite a sight, am I not?" Marina's tone was flat, and frozen. "I must apologise. I had to kill them as quickly as I could. I believe I've delayed Camilla's activation long enough for you to complete my upgrade Sylia, and to give me the chance I need to enter the tower, and tear out the Genom chairman's eyes, tongue, and heart."

* * *

Domina Tatyanna Zhukova was more afraid than she had ever imagined she could be. She should not be here; she should not have to be doing this. But Madigan-sama and the two 33C razor-girl buma had left her very little alternative. Apart from the fact that it was likely the missing prototype would make her her next target if she was not brought safely to the tower.

It had taken security too long to discover just how Marina had selected her victims, and why the dozen, or so traps they had set had failed. The answer had been absurdly simple, and so overlooked in the panic. The buma had accessed the pager-phones each of her intended targets kept by them at all times, as was standard Genom practice, and so had been able to determine in a moment where each could be found. Ignoring those in the tower, she had made her way to each home, scanning at a distance, able to blend effortlessly into the night, her ECM shielding her from other buma whilst her own suite picked out possible danger with flawless precision.

If nothing else, Domina had thought bitterly as she shifted uneasily between the two 33Cs that flanked her in the limousine, it had been as perfect a field test for the machine as they could possibly have designed.

Why Marina had not used her weapons systems, she could not guess. It was just possible that Alexei had not yet had a chance to complete the upgrade. If that was the case, if the DA was still running with the standard chip, then probably her enhanced systems would be all but useless, and her sensory data a distorted mess. Still, the DA might be able to learn to interpret and interpolate, given time. She could not even guess at what Marina was capable in her present state. It might depend on a myriad of factors beyond her expertise and experience. Only Alexei had had the genius to tackle the low-level optimised assembler code vital to achieving the DA's unparalleled speed and flexibility, and he had had Marina make so much random garbage of what had once been the project's server archives.

The backups were no better. He had had her corrupt the archival, and encryption routines, and then re-initiate a full re-archival. The loss was not simply inconceivable, it was catastrophic beyond the worst anybody could have predicted: over four-hundred-billion yen of investment up in smoke, unless the lost information could somehow be reconstructed.

Their only remaining trump, apart from a few hardcopy scraps, were the as-yet inactive prototypes, and only one of these had yet been fully initialised. Camilla was all they needed to reconstruct the lost data. The problem was that Domina, as one of only four remaining researchers out of the fifteen who had been alive less than an hour before, had been designated the project's new head, and would be responsible for recovering as much as was possible in less than no time at all.

Madigan herself would be overseeing that recovery. Camilla was to be removed from her tank, and operational before sunrise. She had continued in a threatening purr that she would expect Marina to join her before noon. Which of course boiled down to the unqualified fact that if they did not find the missing DA's key, and have Camilla recall her before then, heads, quite literally, would roll.

Domina tried vainly to fight down the tightening knot of terror in her stomach as the lift climbed steadily through the seemingly innumerable levels of the tower, carrying her towards quarters that would be as much a prison as any cell until the project was brought to a satisfactory conclusion, or she failed. If that happened, she would never leave the tower, of that she was sure.

"The remaining technical and support staff have already been assembled," Madigan was saying to her, her tone a cold, professional confidence as the lift drew to a halt, and the doors hissed almost silently aside. "and all have been advised of your arrival. I expect there will be no problems?"

"None, Madigan-sama," Domina answered, fighting down the terror.

It was said that buma could sample the various bouquets of fear as exquisitely as she might one of her expensive perfumes. "I expect the second DA to be fully operational within an hour."

A rash promise, but she intended to stay alive, and if that meant someone else falling foul of the special assistant to the chairman then so be it. She knew already whom she would choose should it come to that.

"And the key?" Madigan demanded.

They had stepped from the lift into the wide, familiar passage, and Domina noted with a shiver that the two buma still flanked her.

"That depends on how imaginative Alexei proves," she said. "The key's encryption isn't a problem; the hardware is internal to the DA. We have only to find the initial seed. Our only concern is the fact that the sending of three successive incorrect combinations will shut down the DA completely, and make it impossible to recall her."

"Does the machine send a response to an incorrect key?"

"No. There's no indication that she's received anything until the correct key is sent," Domina replied.

"Then how do you hope to find her?" Madigan demanded, her tone even more frigid than before.

"That shouldn't pose much of a problem Madigan-sama," Another voice answered suddenly.

A moment later, a short white-coated figure stepped from the passage into which they had been about to turn, and halted, directly in their path.

Domina glared with barely concealed loathing at the short, balding man before her.

Kosuke Yoshida was of middle years, what remained of his dirty black pate straggling in unkempt disorder towards his eyes, his podgy face masking a snide amusement as he looked from her to the lavender-haired woman a pace, or two behind. There were few amongst the project scientists Domina loathed more, not only because of his sycophantic attentiveness that she was certain masked savage ambition, but because of the fact that she was equally certain he was as much a spy for internal security as anything else.

Yoshida glanced at the two machines flanking the new project head, and his smile grew wider, and more predatory.

"Alexei Ivanovitch Zhuranovsky might be many things," he continued smoothly, "but after the unfortunate death of his daughter, imaginative is no longer one of them. The DA's key is likely based on no more than the name he gave her, or something else just as obvious. We still have Camilla's key, so it should be a simple matter to have her derive the other."

"And if she makes a mistake?" Madigan demanded. "If three invalid combinations are sent?"

"At the most it will delay the inevitable, Madigan-sama," he answered, his sycophantic, predatory smile now reaching his eyes as he watched Domina's discomfort. "Zhuranovsky-hakase developed a secondary system that ensured each DA prototype remains continually aware of the location of any other. It…wasn't in the official documentation," he ended, now with a full easy confidence.

"Excellent," said Madigan, her own sudden smile managing to convey both approval and just a hint of warning at his sudden self-assurance.

Domina fumed silently. Of all the researchers Marina had killed, why hadn't that despicable, treacherous viper been one of them?

"I imagine we can expect results before morning?" Madigan inquired, turning to her. "You will of course, see that Zhukova-hakase is given every cooperation," She continued, her smile now as frozen as midnight as she turned suddenly steel-hard eyes on Yoshida.

Domina could have leapt for joy at the sudden terror in his face. He had just realised, the fool, that his own life was just as much at stake as her own.

Madigan remained standing in silence for a moment. Then abruptly she turned and was gone, the two buma following at her brisk command.

Domina remained still for a moment, still basking in her unexpected victory. Then at last she stirred.

"Well; do you intend to stand there until morning, like some imbecile," she demanded icily, "or might you let me pass? I at least have work to do."

* * *

"You can't be serious!" Priss gasped.

They had returned to Sylia's apartment after leaving Mackie and Linna to unpack once more. Now that Marina had seen the packing in progress, any further attempt to hide the nature of the garage was pointless.

Nene, still sick and shaking after finally losing the battle against the nausea that Marina's appearance had precipitated, had sat huddled between Priss and Sylia, whilst Marina, still blood-soaked, had travelled concealed beneath piles of boxes in the rear of the van.

She had emerged upon their arrival like some nightmare apparition of massacre into Sylia's garage, and Nene had had to be rushed upstairs once more. Priss herself hadn't felt altogether steady on her feet as she had stepped again into Sylia's sitting-room.

"You're going to need some cleaning up before I can do anything with you," Sylia had said matter-of-factly, gesturing for the buma to follow her as she moved towards her bathroom.

"I'd be more than happy to clean that thing up," Priss had muttered after her; "permanently."

The shower had proved an unexpected ordeal. Marina had snapped to combat readiness the moment Sylia had had her step beneath the pouring water. Then abruptly she had frozen in place, and remained statue-still. With her sensory input already close to overload, the streaming water proved too much, masking everything in a tumultuous roar of confusion. The closed screen had done little to help.

Marina had remained, her teeth bared in a vicious frozen snarl, while Sylia's instructions soon ceased to elicit even the tiniest flicker of response. Watching her, Sylia had found it mildly ironic that the DA could be disabled so completely by something so absurd as the sound of warm water.

She had left the machine frozen in place for a minute or two, while most of the blood had washed slowly away, then finally she had opened the screen, and nearly lost her life when Marina had flipped on to her hands, and just pulled up short of decapitating her with a vicious snap-kick that would probably have slammed what remained of her through the adjoining wall, had it connected.

Masking her fright, Sylia had filled the bath, and had had the buma remove the jump-suit, and settle in the water to wash away the last traces of blood.

There had been further trouble when she had tried to have the DA wash her hair. Marina had developed a sudden, absurd fascination with the water coming from the hand-held rose, and had spent nearly a minute swiping cat-like at the spray, giggling inanely as she watched the resulting splashes. Whether it was the equivalent of childish curiosity, or a bizarre fault caused by who knew what incompatibility between her CPU and her upgraded systems, Sylia had no time to discover.

Just as suddenly, Marina had snapped to attention, completing the task of cleaning herself without further incident, until Sylia had had her stand, and given her a large fluffy towel, whereupon she had lifted it to her face, frozen again, and a moment later, tumbled limply from the bath to the floor. There she had remained unmoving.

It had taken Priss to help Sylia dry, then carry the seemingly inert machine to her own room, where they had laid her, still unmoving, on Sylia's bed. Sylia had sent Priss to the sitting-room for the case while she tried to elicit a response from the buma without touching her. It was when Priss had returned that she had told her of her decision.

Priss stared from her to the thing that looked like a naked girl of perhaps twenty, or so that lay on her back before them, then back to her again.

"Sylia you can't!" she exclaimed again. "Listen to me. The thing's gone to sleep, God knows why. Let's blow it to pieces before it decides to wake up again."

"Not sleep," Marina answered, causing both of them to jump back in surprise. "just sensory shut-down. Synaesthesia. Too much input for this chip. I've closed down everything but audio, but I can reactivate enough to kill you should you try to hurt me."

As though to prove her point, a hand blurred from its resting place by her hip, and Priss cried out in pain as a sudden iron grip nearly broke her wrist. For a moment Marina held her immobile, eyes locked on her face. Then the machine released her, and the hand blurred again, moving in a fractional instant with no more sound than the whip of intervening air to settle gently in its former place.

Priss stared malevolently at the DA for a moment, then turned her attention once more to Sylia.

"I want to talk to you outside," she said fiercely, her red-brown eyes meeting Sylia's implacable brown gaze with savage determination. "This concerns all of us Sylia. If you're doing this out of some morbid curiosity to see what that piece of military sh*t can do when it's running on full power, I hope you're going to be willing to accept the consequences when the thing gives up being warm and friendly, and blows away the city, and us with it. God almighty, it's already killed fourteen, or fifteen people, and I don't think it did it out of a sense of public service. I don't give a damn how innocent the thing can look; it's a top-line military-class combat machine, and you show me one of those that's not psychopathic! You haven't the right to finish putting the thing together. Hell, the thing hasn't a right to exist. Take it apart, and burn the bits before we all pay for it."

"And when Genom activate Camilla?" Marina's frigid, implacable tone slashed through Priss's tirade like a knife. "You've no reason to trust me; I don't blame you for your suspicion. But once Camilla is active with the 2134, your suits will be less than a fractional inconvenience to her, of that at least you can be certain. And Camilla is only our most immediate concern.

"Her instructions will be very specific. She will be commanded to attempt to recall me, and hunt and capture at least one of you should that not be possible. After that, the rest are as good as dead."

"Exactly," said Sylia quietly. "and the reason Marina's upgrade must be completed while she is still in our hands.

"Marina, shall we go?"

"There's a growing incompatibility with my net and my enhanced sensor suite," Marina said quietly. "The errors are cumulative the longer I try to access the suite with this chip, and so much activity tonight has only made matters worse. I'll freeze again, or worse, should I continue to use external senses. There may be permanent Net damage. I can't risk that! You'll have to carry me."

"Priss?" Sylia said quietly.

Muttering under her breath, and shooting killing looks at the DA, Priss helped her lift her from the bed, snapping viciously at the machine to keep her hands to herself, and her god-damned 33S routines under control, when Marina tried to do no more than drape an arm over her shoulder to help her lift.

"Say; wouldn't it be better to do this in here?" Priss continued coldly as they carried the buma, now wrapped in the towel, from the room. "You don't have a sitting-room window at the moment."

"I need the mainframe," Sylia answered simply. "Apart from which, I'm certainly not going to try to upgrade her up here."

"You're not going to take the thing down to the—"

"It can do no more harm" Sylia interrupted. "and time is of the essence."

It was only a few minutes later that Marina lay unceremoniously spreadeagled on her back on a work-bench, the towel draped over her, and a cloth beneath her to prevent any unnecessary chafing to her pseudo-organic skin. Several optical interface cables had been linked from tiny ports in her wrists and neck through a protected interface to Sylia's system, while Sylia herself bent over her, a monomolecular surgeon's scalpel glinting in the light, as she began to cut away the skin just above the DA's brow. It would be impossible to avoid damage to the tissue, but Marina had assured her that it would re-seal and repair when exposed to enough external radiation.

Sylia completed the cut, Marina turning first left, then right as the blade completed its incision. A moment later, Sylia drew back the scalp with its compliment of long fair hair from the buma's skull, and let it fall.

Watching, Priss was unable to suppress a shudder of nausea at the sight.

Face implacable, Sylia laid the scalpel aside, gesturing for Priss to raise the head of the table a little more.

"Have you finished housekeeping?" Sylia inquired of the buma.

"Yes," she answered. "Closing down. Do not betray me Sylia Stingray," she ended, her tone suddenly very low and intense, and something complex in her blue eyes as for a moment they held Sylia's gaze.

A moment later the face went slack, and the body utterly limp.

"Now's our chance," said Priss again. "The thing really is sleeping this time. We can—"

"The case, Priss," said Sylia quietly. "If I lose her ORAM it will take more time than we have to reinitialise her."

"Then you're really going through with it," Priss stated flatly, moving to retrieve the case, and setting it down a moment later with a bang within Sylia's reach. "You know what's going to happen when that thing's active? And don't give me anything about checking. You said yourself that the thing has, what was it, a thousand terabytes of memory?"

"One-hundred thousand with the standard chip, two-hundred with the 2134," Sylia answered.

"And you're telling me you can check all that for anything Quincy might have had put in that thing's excuse for a mind?"

"No," said Sylia simply. "I'm saying we have no choice.

"Priss, listen to me. The DA series heralds a quantum leap in buma design, in many ways as spectacular as the invention of the machine itself. For the first time, we are utterly outclassed. And I do not make that claim lightly. Zhuranovsky has achieved something nobody believed was possible, certainly not so soon. The DA is a creation of genius even Father would have been hard put to surpass, and with their creation, the race has been escalated beyond the worst I could have imagined. Our only chance, and I do mean our only chance, is to have Marina active and tame before the second DA's activation."

"But you don't know whether we can tame the thing!" Priss said urgently.

"It doesn't matter," Sylia answered. "Camilla alone could kill us without trouble. And then there are the others. One could beat us, easily. Five would be an absurd proposition.

"Priss, we are already dead, be it now, or in a day, a week, a month. If I do not have Marina fully active before Camilla's activation, we are finished.

"But even if that wasn't the case: even if we could win, Marina has hinted at least twice tonight at something else: something darker behind the DA project: another development with which Zhuranovsky was only peripherally involved, and the second reason he needed to reach us so urgently. We need to know what that is while we have time, and only Marina can tell us.

"Now are you going to help, or argue?"

It was a quicker process than Priss had expected. The standard iso-linear popped from the DA's head with a little applied pressure in some strategic places. A moment later, Sylia had lifted the huge jet-black lump of sculpted plastic, and snapped it into place with the same ease.

"Is that it?" Priss gasped incredulously as Sylia resettled Marina's scalp.

"Not yet," Sylia answered, her attention already on the monitor. "The nano-links have to grow into place, and her scalp has to reestablish its original alignment before it will begin to seal. That will take a minute or so. Then I have to activate the transfer of certain portions of her ORAM to the 2134's internal memory."

"Why can't it stay where it is?" Priss asked.

"Because the chip's ORAM is some twenty times as fast for linear access, and thousands of times as efficient for relational access," she answered.

For minutes Priss watched in silence as Sylia worked frantically at the console.

"Couldn't Nene help?" she asked at last, feeling suddenly superfluous.

"I think she wants to keep out of the way for a while," said Sylia distractedly. "And no: she can't do anything here that I can't do myself. Why don't you check on her?"

"No way," said Priss icily. "I want to see that thing wake up, and fill it with holes if it's unfriendly."

Sylia sighed, and returned to her work.

Priss rose from where she had been sitting by the head of the buma, and began to pace restlessly from one end of the room to the other, her eyes never leaving the limp form of the machine. After what seemed an eternity of waiting, a quiet ping from the console made her stop her aimless circuit of the room, and step again to Sylia's side.

"Finished now?" she inquired.

"Yes," Sylia answered. "I'm ready to reboot her.

"Priss, call Nene. I want all of us here during her initialisation. If I can prove to her that we mean her no harm—"

"Just so long as you don't expect me to take her in my arms, and welcome her," Priss said with another glare at the buma.

"I'll call Nene," she added a moment later. Then turning, she hurried from the room, the door closing quietly behind her.

"Now then," said Sylia quietly, "let's see what you can do."

Settling more comfortably, she moved her hands to the keyboard, and began to type. A moment later a graphic of the DA's internal architecture sprang into sharp relief before her, and Sylia gasped as the true enormity of what Zhuranovsky's team had built came home to her at last. Marina was not simply armed, she was a devastating arsenal of death in almost innumerable forms, some beyond the imagination of any save the most ruthless of top-line military designers.

There was what appeared to be a viciously enhanced version of the obvious particle-beam weapon in her mouth, in her case hidden in an aperture in her throat, but eyes, ears, nose and even each breast could also spit laser, particle-beam and micro-wave death with a power and speed of recovery hitherto inconceivable. And that was just the beginning. The sexaroid pheromonal, endocrine and exocrine systems had been adapted with Genom's usual terrifying penchant for the unexpected, to enable the machine to produce everything from stimulants to hallucinogens, and from nerve gas to diapedesistic toxins that could kill within seconds of contact, or the venoms of poisonous plants and animals of a myriad of species, should the cause of death need to be fabricated, or made impossible easily to trace. Sylia did not even want to think about the more vicious and covert of the buma's weapons, many designed specifically to kill during her guise of s-type intimacy.

Sickened, yet morbidly curious, Sylia continued her examination, her mind held in a kind of rapt, horrid fascination as she continued to study the staggering combat capabilities of the thing before her.

The hands, and feet were an arsenal of death, able to kill upon contact or at a distance with the plasma-blade emitters mounted in their backs, one above each finger and toe, or deliver Marina's chemical arsenal through tiny needles that could extend from beneath the long sharp nails, should the release through the skin itself be too slow. The nails themselves were razor-edged, and constructed of a super-conductive ceramic composite that probably could tear through inch-thick armour plate like foil, each able to play the part for either pole for devastating flash-pulses of electricity that would all but vaporise a human victim should there be enough separation between them, and powerful enough to create a plasma arc, or obliterate the systems of the most protected of buma upon contact, should one be foolish enough to engage the DA in a close fight.

The teeth were of the same material, and were equally capable, each tapering to razor-sharp edges, and each containing a tiny channel through which the various chemicals could directly be injected. Even the long, lustrous fair hair was deadly, able to transfer the chemical cocktails in the same way, or emulate charged, monomolecular weapons analogous to Linna's ribbons, but to tremendously greater effect, simply because it was so plentiful.

The strength, and reflexes of the body itself were staggering, the machine being able to outmatch their suits by perhaps a factor of five, not to mention the fact that the reaction-time was so far beyond Genom's released combat machines as to make the comparison absurd.

Marina's ECM and sensor-suite were top-line precision instruments of a design that spoke of the theft of a thousand patents, coupled with the inventive genius that had placed Genom at the forefront of military design hardware. Like the C-55, the DA was not capable of indefinite flight, but being lighter, could maintain flight for perhaps ten minutes. The thruster-ports themselves were concealed beneath the skin, and would need to vaporise it and any clothing that covered it, before they could be used. Not that it mattered, with the tissue's ability to self-repair, given sufficient energy.

"Yet perhaps the most devastating weapon in the DA's arsenal was the chip that sat now snug within its inch-thick protective layers of alloy and ceramic within the buma's skull, the skin already beginning to re-seal in reaction to the ambient radiation in the room. The raw classical computing power alone was staggering: Marina able to outmatch ten-fold the best mainframe money could buy. And that did not take into account the experimental next-generation QPU that was integral to the '34, the Quantum unit making any predictions as to the Elite's true capabilities impossible.

For what seemed a surreal eternity of growing horror Sylia remained unmoving, staring aghast at the displays and combat projections the computer was giving her. The machine was a nightmare of the most twisted and perverse of military technology gone mad, coupled with raw AI power hitherto unimaginable: the product of what could only be described as a truly demented design ethic. And they needed her; needed her with an urgency that made Sylia's skin crawl with sudden outrage, and revulsion.

It was not so much the mind of the machine that terrified her, although now that she had completed the upgrade, she was suddenly none too certain as to whether the DA would be still the Marina they had seen, with such staggering power at her disposal; it was the concept: the appalling, unimaginable perversity of what Quincy had had the researchers do to her father's work that sickened, and enraged her, more now than ever before.

Priss was right. Such a creation should never have been built. Marina and her kind should not exist; the consequences could be appallingly catastrophic.

Pushing down the horror and the boiling anger, Sylia pinned her thoughts to a grim, implacable calm, and turned her attention once more to the displays. Camilla would be active very soon, and she needed Marina ready and calibrated, before that happened.

The initialisation, and testing itself was a simple enough procedure. Zhuranovsky had given her all the information she needed, and left very specific instructions as to what needed to be done, should he be unable to perform the task himself.

Re-scanning the provided disk yet again for anything untoward, Sylia spawned a protected sub-process, and activated the boot-strap program. Immediately, the body began to twitch and shiver as the program began a remote diagnostic of the interface between the 2134 and the innumerable sub-controllers that governed Marina's physical and sensory responses. Within a second, every aspect of the system had been tested, and the program uploaded its initial calibration to the internal ORAM of the DA's new chip. This would change of course depending on a million factors, but the initial calibration was important to ensure Marina's immediate readiness to handle her upgraded interface to her body.

The physical, and sensory tests complete, the program initiated a CPU-INTERNAL non-destructive read-write test of both internal, and external ORAM. Even with the tremendous speed of the 2134, this would take several minutes to complete.

Leaving the test to continue, Sylia moved to the door, just as Priss's and Nene's voices reached her as they returned.

"What's happening?" Priss called as she caught sight of her.

Sylia merely beckoned, and turned back into the room.

"ORAM test," she answered as they entered, and moved to join her, Priss once again taking up a position from where she could have a clear shot at the machine, should it try anything. "It will take a few minutes. In the meantime, you'd better look at this."

Reducing the test window, Sylia pulled up the saved data on the DA's capabilities, and displayed it for both to read.

"And you want this thing up, and running!" Priss gasped in shock, her voice little more than a whisper. "Sylia, you can't be serious! God; no wonder that thing said she was dangerous! If ever something made an understatement…"

"Um…Sylia? Isn't it too much of a risk?" Nene ventured softly, aghast at what Sylia had shown her. Watching her, Priss was certain that of all of them, only Sylia had a greater appreciation of just what Marina might truly be capable. "We really don't know what will happen when you put her on-line."

"Certainly it's a risk," Sylia agreed. "But unless you can think of a way to disable Camilla, not to mention the four at least that will follow her…"

Nene shook her head helplessly, her emerald eyes still riveted to the screen.

"It can't be done," she said simply after a moment, her voice very small. "Even if I could jam her sensor suite, and I don't see how I could, her ability to anticipate and adapt to cope with anything I could try… It's beyond anything…" She shook her head.

"But how—" Priss began.

"Zhuranovsky," Sylia interrupted quietly, "and his development of this chip. I suspect even Genom have not yet fully appreciated just what he's created. He has proven himself a genius, in his own way as great as Father himself.

"Without a direct, hard-wired neural interface, our suits are limited by the speed of our own reactions, regardless of how much raw power I can give them. The buma has no such limitations. The failing so far in computer-fast physical response times has been due only to the inability of researchers to produce both materials able to reproduce the fluidity of organic muscle tissue with the strength needed for a combat machine, and the software needed to cope with the complexities of full sensory reaction and response, without years of conditioning.

"Unlike the billions of years organic life has had to perfect instinctive physical responses, the buma had to start from scratch. The success of the S-class models proved that such complexity was possible, but it took the machines time to develop human-like physical reactions to external stimuli.

"Zhuranovsky took the raw data from a 33S that had been active long enough to learn the intricacies of its own body, and developed a mathematical representation for modelling those responses. More; he was able to optimise and quantify only what was needed, further increasing the already staggering speed he had achieved. And that in a standard 33S-A CPU. With the DA-2134, any assumptions concerning the DA's raw AI potential and capabilities become meaningless.

"Coupled with new materials able to respond at almost a hundred times the speed previously thought possible, the limitations of a partially rigid construction could be abandoned, and the DA would be able immediately to make full use of the vastly enhanced flexibility of its body's fluidity of movement whilst gaining all the benefits of Combat-class construction.

"Look at this," she ended, moving to the machine.

Reaching, she lifted Marina's left arm by the hand, and beckoned Nene and Priss to her side.

"Are you sure that thing's still bye-byes?" Priss asked dubiously.

"Quite sure," Sylia answered. "Here; take her hand."

With obvious reluctance, Priss accepted the limp, cold hand of the buma, and at Sylia's instruction, began to manipulate the supple fingers, wrist, and lower arm.

"Notice the fluidity of the tissue, the near perfect similarity to organic muscle?" she continued. "The 33S used such materials, but at best possessed perhaps three times comparative human strength. Here however, the problem of a pseudo-organic material capable of perhaps fifty times the load-baring capabilities of its organic equivalent seems to have been solved, although this is a prototype, and only time will tell."

"You're saying that this thing has fifty times the strength of someone of her size?" Priss demanded incredulously.

"Fifty times the load-baring capacity," Sylia corrected. "There is more. Each of these," she jabbed a finger at the muscle tissue in the machine's arm, "can fire in perfect concert with computer-accurate precision, and respond at many thousand times the speed of human tissue. Marina's momentary strength is probably many hundred times that of an organic equivalent, and I'm referring to an organic equivalent operating at maximum potential, something that happens only under very rare conditions."

Nene had taken the buma's hand, and was examining it.

"Ew! I can't see how this could pass as human," she said with a shiver. "It's cold!"

"The body can be warmed by an internal circulatory system, analogous to blood circulation," said Sylia. "But it need not be active. The buma tissue will function at temperatures far below true organic tissue, so the body temperature need be raised only for social, or covert interaction.

"Besides, everything is more, or less inactive at the moment."

"It's like handling something dead," said Nene, dropping the arm back to the table with a shudder, and stepping quickly away.

Priss gave a disgusted exclamation, and resumed her place, while Nene moved quickly to seat herself at Sylia's side as their leader took her place once more before the console, and enlarged the test window.

"Only a minute, or so to go," she said quietly.

"And then what?" Priss asked.

"Then we initialise her physical systems, and her main reactor, then the CPU," Sylia answered.

"And then she wakes up?" Priss continued coolly.

"No, she will boot in a firmware command mode slaved to Zhuranovsky's external driver suite," Sylia told her. "There are several further tests to complete before I `wake' her."

Another ping from the console, and a new screen put an end to further questions.

"Everything seems fine," Sylia said calmly. "Well, shall we begin? Priss, tell me if you notice anything unusual, twitching, spasms, anything at all."

"Oh don't worry," Priss answered icily. "If this thing does anything weird, you won't have to ask twice."

Nene half turned in her chair so that she could keep a watch both on the screen, and on the limp form of the DA. Sylia seemed to be paying attention only to the monitor before her, although Nene caught her glancing more than once to the buma as she continued to type.

"Any change?" she inquired of Priss.

The diagnostic indicated that the circulatory system was now functioning, but she wanted independent confirmation. Besides, it gave Priss something to do rather than simply sit and glare at the machine.

"It's humming, or rumbling, or something, if that's what you mean," Priss answered after a moment. "Now it's quiet. Oy Sylia, should it be turning bright red?"

"She should be returning to her natural colour again," Sylia answered. "I ran the system at maximum for a few seconds to save time. Let me see."

She turned to study the buma for a moment.

"Perfectly in order," she said, her tone still clinical as she turned back to the displays. "Now for her reactor."

As the seconds passed, Priss felt an ever growing sense of unreality taking hold of her, at the surreal strangeness of what they were doing. She sat, her left hand clenching and unclenching in her lap, while her right remained curled about the heavy Earth-shaker she held ready, her eyes never leaving the machine. As she watched, it began to breathe, the rhythm slow, and even, the towel-draped body settling into a hue of imitation healthy life.

"Priss, do you have perfect pitch?"

Sylia's question was so sudden and unexpected that Priss jumped and turned to stare stupidly at her for a moment.

"What? Yes. Why?" she managed at last.

"A little eccentricity on Zhuranovsky's part," Sylia answered, her tone suddenly frosty. "It seems he wanted his daughter's copy to be able to sing. The calibration is the last, and I'd prefer no unforeseen problems later by ignoring anything."

Her tone was growing steadily more irritated.

"What do you want me to do?" Priss asked.

"Just a moment," Sylia answered.

In the next instant, both Priss, and Nene jumped in alarm, as a sudden: "Mmmmmmmm," Came from between Marina's closed lips.

"Oy! Warn me next time!" Priss snapped.

"That should be concert A," Sylia said, her tone still colder. "Of all the ridiculous stupidity!" she muttered. "We haven't time for this."

"It's nowhere near," Priss answered. ;"Here."

Standing, she moved quickly to Sylia, and within moments of being shown what to do, she had matched Marina's humming to the various signpost tones produced by the program, and confirmed the displayed values as correct.

With a quick murmur of thanks, Sylia turned from her again, and typed something.

"Tiger tiger burning bright," Marina said in a monotone, again startling the two girls.

"What the hell?" Priss demanded. Then suddenly she grinned.

"Let me try that," she said, moving quickly to Sylia.

Her fingers moved swiftly over the keys.

"Nene is horribly overweight," Marina continued, again in a monotone.

"I am not!" Nene exclaimed immediately, emerald eyes flashing dangerously as she glared suddenly at the buma.

Priss burst into laughter, and Nene turned furiously towards her.

"You take that back!" she cried.

"I never said a thing," Priss answered, still laughing.

"I should say we're ready now," said Sylia, unable to keep a smile from her own lips as she turned again to the console.

Her fingers flew, then abruptly the window changed, and a new display of text and icons appeared.

"Bu-33DA-ELITE prototype, version 2.23 initialised," Marina said suddenly. "Serial number BU-7541-33.01E. Designation, Marina. Checking CPU status."

Her voice was the cold, detached tones of a C-class, but no longer the monotones of the external speech driver.

"Is it—" Priss began.

"Not yet," Sylia answered.

"Errors, none," Marina continued.

"Checking bus interface. Controllers, active.

"Checking internal ORAM. CRC, valid.

"Checking external ORAM. CRC, valid.

"Checking ECM, and sensor-suite. Calibrated.

"Checking external sensory input. Calibrated.

"Checking language data. CRC, valid.

"Checking general library data. CRC, valid.

"Checking combat subroutine libraries. CRC, valid.

"Checking S-class subroutine libraries. CRC, valid.

"Seeking primary neural-net. Primary net found.

"Checking primary net integrity. CRC, valid.

"Seeking secondary neural-nets. No secondary nets found.

"Displaying access key. Please send key to reboot.

"Waiting."

"What's all that about?" Priss demanded.

"Just a precaution to ensure the hardware key is working," Sylia answered. "A flag is set after the key is sent. Before that, the key will be requested every time she's rebooted."

Sylia re-sent the key from the displayed values, and a moment later the DA began its checks again, save that this time there was no key request. Instead: "Reboot complete. Command?" Was spoken, and displayed, the window also showing several icons.

"I think we're ready," said Sylia quietly.

"Sylia, just a minute," said Priss.

A moment later she was standing beside her.

"Look; are you absolutely sure you know what you're doing?" she said. Her tone was no longer fierce, or angry, but instead quiet, and intense. "Are you sure we need this thing? Hell, we've faced everything Genom's thrown at us before now. Do we really have to fire this thing up, and if we do, can we shut it down again if something goes wrong?"

"Yes to both," said Sylia calmly. "Marina possessing her own key was an unexpected bonus; I wondered why Zhuranovsky hadn't supplied it. But then I suppose it's a safe enough thing to store internally. Now that I have that, she's of no danger, provided of course it can be sent in time."

Turning, she plucked a small data unit from where it had been settled almost by her hand, and disconnecting it, she handed it to Priss.

"This will send the key at a touch of this button at very short range," she said. "There is no danger of it being detected beyond this building, but it will certainly be enough to stop Marina should she be dangerous. Don't do it unless it's necessary."

"I hope you're right," said Priss, although she seemed suddenly a good deal more relaxed. "All right. Let's get this over."

"Nene?"

"Mm; all right, I suppose," Nene agreed uneasily.

Sylia turned to regard the buma for a moment. Then turning again to the console, she positioned the cursor, and typed the final initialisation.

For Priss, the result was extremely anticlimactic. She did not know what she had expected, but certainly she had not expected Marina simply to sit up in one easy fluid motion, disconnect all but the interface cable running to her neck, smile coolly at Sylia, and inquire flatly: "The upgrade is complete?"

Priss gaped for a moment, then seemed to get herself under control.

"Is that all?" she gasped.

"All?" Marina inquired.

"I think she expected you to show emotion," Sylia answered quietly.

"My RP sub-net is off-line until the tests are complete," Marina explained, glancing to Priss. "For want of a better analogy, I'm not yet self-aware, simply a classical computer system with its QPU largely inactive.

"May we proceed?"

There followed a minute or so of the test program uploading several mathematical, tactical, historical and linguistic queries to the DA, and evaluating her down-loaded responses. After the minute and several thousand problems the program indicated no errors, and Sylia at last closed the process, and indicated that Marina could both disconnect the interface, and bring the remainder of her consciousness on-line.

The buma removed the cable, and moving with a lithe twist to the floor, stepped to hand it to her. Then abruptly she froze in place. For a moment she remained stock-still. Then with a wild scream she flipped high into the air, and landing once more by Sylia she snatched her from the chair as though she weighed nothing, and nearly cracked her ribs with a sudden fierce embrace.

* * *

"That thing is off the planet!"

Priss was seated once more in Sylia's sitting-room, Nene settled across from her, the younger girl's green eyes uneasy as she stared at her own hands restless in her lap.

It had been a very tense few seconds after Marina's initial reaction. Priss had raised the data-pad like a weapon, her finger moving to send the key.

"No…Priss!" Sylia had gasped, unable to force more sound from her tortured lungs. "It's alright.

"Marina, would you mind? It's rather hard to breathe."

The buma had relaxed her hold a little but had not let her go. Tears suddenly streaming from her eyes she had kept Sylia held to her for several seconds, then abruptly she had released her, and stepped back, sudden colour rising in her cheeks.

Priss, and Nene had stared in stunned amazement as the buma had then, of all things, danced a flowing curtsy to Sylia, and blushed a deep crimson.

"Forgive me Oneesan," she had said in a quiet, wondering tone. "I need time to adjust. The balance between my rational side and my RP net… It's—"

"That's perfectly alright Marina," Sylia had answered quietly, her composure apparently unruffled, but a brief, genuine smile touching her lips at Marina's sudden choice of address. "Shall we go up?"

"Oh, and I think you might want this." She had handed her the discarded towel with another smile.

"I should like to bathe again," Marina had said. "I can still smell blood, though you wouldn't notice it."

The simple move to the apartment had been an absurd process, with Marina turning this way, and that, listening, and staring, and sniffing the air with a wide-eyed, absurd look on her face.

The trouble had continued even though Sylia had headed the DA into the bathroom the moment they were in the flat. Sylia had emerged moments later, while from inside there came the sound of running water, followed by delighted squeals, and giggles, and the sound of a good deal of splashing. These sounds were still continuing.

"What's that thing doing in there?" Priss demanded.

"Um…playing?" Nene suggested uneasily.

"Cracking up," Priss retorted. "Whoever designed that thing's excuse for a brain must have been as mad as—"

"Would you prefer she killed to learn her new mind and body Priss?" Sylia's tone was quiet, tinged with something almost wondering as she entered the room. "We're seeing something very rare, and you shouldn't be quite so quick to judge.

"Besides, Marina has no need to dissemble with us. She could kill us all without trouble if she wished. Nene is right. She is playing I think, just like any very young child."

"Oh come on, your not really going to tell me that piece of military sh*t is alive!" Priss demanded.

"You had little trouble believing it of Sylvie, and Anri," said Sylia quietly.

Priss's eyes flashed, but she seemed suddenly unable to think of anything to say.

"All right!" she conceded angrily at last. "even if it is alive, that's not to say the thing isn't dangerous."

"No," Sylia agreed, "but better that her first experience as an Elite is playing in warm water, rather than testing her enhanced weapons systems in some Genom training facility. Wouldn't you agree?"

"You'll be telling me next we have to treat the thing like a little girl!" Priss exploded.

"She is a little girl, at least emotionally, a little girl who has just lost the man she thinks of as her father," said Sylia, her tone suddenly cold. "For all her knowledge, and sophistication, she is only four months old, and extremely vulnerable.

"It's up to you. If you want to believe she's no more than a combat machine, that's entirely your decision. But push her away, and we're likely to find ourselves facing Camilla alone.

"She doesn't need us Priss. She is perfectly capable of managing alone, or very soon will be. Our survival may very well depend on our establishing ourselves immediately as the equivalent of a family for her: the only family she has."

"Great!" Priss muttered darkly. "First we finish putting the thing together, now we have to play nurse-maids to the piece of homicidal Genom military trash while another piece of homicidal Genom military trash is being sent to clean us up. Just great."

"I'm going to make some tea," said Sylia, ignoring Priss's glare. "Do either of you want anything to eat?"

It was some time after Sylia had moved to the kitchen that the sounds from the bathroom ceased as suddenly as they had begun. For a minute, or so there was silence. Then the door opened, and a moment after that Marina strolled stark naked into the sitting-room.

Nene suppressed an "Eep!" of shock, her hand flying to her mouth.

"Oh sh*t, Marina; put something on for god's sake!" Priss exclaimed, turning crimson, and averting her eyes.

"I don't understand," said the buma in bewilderment, halting her advance, and turning to rgard her intently. "Surely it doesn't matter, save with the opposite sex. We are all female."

"Oh hell! Haven't you any social programming in that thing you call—"

"Priss!" Sylia's tone was hard-edged, and icily cold.

A moment later she appeared with a tray in her hands. Setting it down, she turned to Marina. The DA's eyes were brimming with tears, and her expression was slowly freezing, hardening into the vicious, frigid mask of a combat machine.

"There are other factors, Marina," said Sylia quietly. "It's not considered courteous to do as you just did: certainly not with comparative strangers. But then you should have been perfectly aware of that. Rely on your library at least at first, and don't try to manipulate those you want to be your friends."

"I will dress," said Marina in a small voice, turning, and hurrying from the room.

Priss gave Sylia a quizzical look.

"I imagine she didn't check," Sylia answered. "She's still adjusting, and probably more than a little euphoric. But I suspect also that she was trying to gauge yours and Nene's reaction to seeing her like that. A test for later advantage, and something we're going to have to deal with until she has enough experience to override the natural tendency of her combat routines to dominate her initial reactions."

"You mean—!" Priss's eyes blazed. "The damn, lousy—"

"Shh," Sylia snapped.

At that moment there came the sound of an opening door, and Marina reappeared, clad in her now-familiar jump-suit once more. Moving with a fluid grace, she lowered herself to the lounge at Sylia's side, and settling, she watched in silence as the others sipped their tea.

"May I try?" she inquired softly at last.

"Haven't you tried it?" Sylia inquired.

"It wasn't considered necessary that I be given anything save for water laced with nano-machines and the compounds my various production plants need," she answered. "Father would have let me try of course, but his instructions were very specific, and he didn't dare lose his chance to free me for so small a concession."

"Typical Genom bastards!" Priss muttered almost sympathetically, before she caught herself.

"They were concerned only with military applications tests," Marina continued. "Detailed social instruction could wait.

"Not that it mattered to me then, at least not more than to please them. My obedience was instinct, and predefined until father removed the hard-wired parameters."

"And now?" Priss demanded.

"Now I'll destroy them," said Marina in a low, feral snarl. "Now you've changed my key, I've at last nothing to fear."

"Changed?" Sylia said, suddenly very uneasy. "Your key was uploaded as part of the boot-strap program?"

"No, it's a flashed hardware key," she answered.

Then suddenly she leapt to her feet. "You did alter my key, as father instructed?" she demanded.

"There were no such instructions," Sylia replied, sudden fear knifing down her spine.

"What!" Nene, and Priss gasped. "Sylia!"

"Then my key's still unchanged?" Marina cried at the same moment almost in a scream. "How could you have been so careless!"

"I assumed the key to be an integral part of the base driver-firmware the boot program uploaded!" Sylia exclaimed, slow horror tightening her throat. "Where is the key?"

"Beneath the CPU, in a sealed cavity," Marina answered. "It has to be changed! Until then, we're desperately vulnerable!

"I don't understand! Father promised he'd included a virgin key, and instructions on how to burn it."

For a moment she remained still. Then abruptly she whirled, and snatching Sylia from the lounge she leapt towards the passage.

"We have to hurry!" she cried urgently. "If they send it before it can be changed…"

A moment later she was racing from the flat. The air screamed in Sylia's ears, then her stomach lurched as the buma leapt the stairs, and plunged to the floor below.

A desperate knot of horror was clenched tight in Sylia's heart. Why had Zhuranovsky not given them this one piece of vital information? If he had not, there could only be one reason. He had intended this from the beginning. He had used his creation as coldly as any Genom operative. But why?

Or had he been out-manoeuvred? Had Quincy known or guessed what would happen, and managed somehow to remove the one thing they needed?

Whatever the answer, she had made a terrible mistake, and because of what seemed suddenly an appallingly dangerous rationalisation on her part, they might well all die, and Genom could not be less implicated. Just another four deaths on a night of many.

The sudden lurch of the buma as she pulled abruptly to a halt came almost as no surprise to Sylia. They must, she thought with a numb, leaping terror, have known exactly when Marina's upgrade was complete. Probably They had been watching and listening through her from the very moment she became active.

Slowly, Marina set her on her feet once more. Then for a long moment they were still, staring at one another in silence, the DA's smile suddenly calculating, and deadly, terribly cold.

"I should regret the necessity to kill you," she said softly at last. "Besides, there is no need."

A moment later her left hand blurred towards her, and Sylia felt a tiny pin-prick as the needle beneath the nail of Marina's index finger extended to pierce the skin of her neck.

"Forgive me," she heard faintly as her legs failed her.

Then Marina had caught her in her arms, and blackness closed about her.

* * *

"How much longer?" Domina demanded, her voice tight with rising tension and a certain degree of excitement, despite the situation.

It was something of a moment of truth for her. She had watched the removal and activation of the first DA from a position a good deal closer than she had been entitled by her rank. She was then only the eleventh most important of the fifteen principle scientists directly answerable to Alexei. But he had trusted her, and considered her a friend.

Yoshida had been third in rank, and had stood at her side, staring in what she had considered vicious fascination, as the lithe machine had risen from her tank. She had not realised that she had been staring in precisely the same fashion, or that, as snide, and conspiring as he was, he had for once not been thinking only of himself, and his eyes had been as full of wonder as her own.

Now the four remaining researchers, herself, Yoshida, Madeleine Amura, and Hiroshi Daitokuji stood, and gave instructions, whilst the technicians and support staff worked furiously at data-pads, or rushed back, and forth with cables, and additional equipment in their hands.

"Only another minute, or so, Zhukova-hakase," Yoshida called to her.

Domina hurried the length of the laboratory, turning to glance at each man or woman as she passed.

"We're ready."

Madeleine had suddenly appeared at her side.

By far the least ambitious and most likable of any of them, she was the youngest, and the most likely to be sacrificed by the other two should they fail.

Domina smiled a hard, grim smile. Yoshida would be the scapegoat should anything go wrong if she had any say in the matter.

"Yoshida? Daitokuji?" she called.

"Ready," Both answered.

Moving towards her place, she paused to tell the security buma by the door that it could signal Assistant Madigan to join them.

"I have done so already," It responded.

"No doubt," Muttered Domina darkly as she hurried to seat herself before the master console. From there she could see most of what was displayed on the consoles of each of the others.

It was only a few seconds later when Madigan appeared, flanked by a squad of machines as she stepped into the laboratory, and hurried to stand almost immediately behind Domina.

"We are ready to begin at your instruction, Zhukova-hakase," said Yoshida smoothly from his place on her left, and almost at her side.

"I imagine she was perfectly aware of that," Madigan purred icily.

Domina could have kissed her hand.

Yoshida turned chalk-white, and fixed his attention again on the console before him.

"Very well," said Domina. "Let's begin. Yoshida?"

"I've started the pumps," he said quickly. "The tank should be drained in two minutes."

"Madeleine?"

"I'm beginning the upload now, Domina-san," she answered, glancing for a moment to her right at the sensor readings on Daitokuji's console before turning back to her own. "I only hope Zhuranovsky-san ironed out the bugs in this version."

"Meaning?" Madigan demanded.

"Alexei blanked the driver firmware, both in the standard chip and the second 2134, before escaping," Domina answered. "We're using copies Yoshida happened to have made for…hmm…his own reasons."

Yoshida choked back a gasp of horror as Domina smiled.

"How fortunate," Madigan purred, turning to smile icily at the scientist. "and how very enterprising of you to have anticipated him, Dr. Yoshida. I must remember to mention it to the chairman in my report."

Yoshida had never seen such a smile, and hoped he would never do so again.

"None of us can be certain what will happen when we activate her," Domina continued. "Our driver base is a very early revision, and there will be problems long since corrected in the firmware Alexei used. Suzuki, O'Neil and Liebermann worked on the initial data and linguistic libraries, and several worked at adapting the initial C, and S subsystems, but it was Alexei who integrated and improved the whole almost beyond recognition in later releases. Whether he had completed the initial integration in this version, we won't know until we activate her. Also, the code won't be optimised, and she'll be running at a fraction of her true potential, even for the standard chip. We can only hope there will be no unforseen problems.

"Yoshida?" she ended, turning to him.

"The tank is half drained," he said, his tone a good deal less self-satisfied. "I've halted the pumps as per your original instructions."

"Very well," said Domina, glancing at his monitor for a moment.

Once responsible for the majority of the design of the S-type physical hardware of the machine, her purpose now was entirely coordinative.

"Madeleine?" she inquired.

"The upload should be complete in less than two minutes."

"Daitokuji?"

"The sensor suite tests without errors," he assured her. "Of course I can't test her sensory responses, or flight systems yet."

"The circulatory system is running as it should under the external driver, Zhukova-hakase," Yoshida told her a moment later. "We're ready at your command."

"Be careful," she reminded them. "We don't want her bursting out of her tank. Daitokuji, are you absolutely certain her power-plant is firmware-limited? After the fiasco with Marina, I don't intend to take chances."

"Yes," he answered. "I've set it at two percent, and locked out the controller. It will no longer accept commands from her CPU. She'll be able to move around, and respond to requests, but that's all."

"And her weapons systems?"

"They can't be activated with her plant so low; the sub-controllers won't pass the commands. I assure you, Zhukova-hakase, we're in no danger."

"Very well," she said. "Madeleine?"

"Bringing up CPU," said Madeleine, unable to contain the rising excitement in her tone. "CPU active."

"Circulatory systems now under internal control," Yoshida announced.

He seemed to have abandoned the desire to play politics, as eager as the rest of them it seemed, to see Camilla on-line, and functioning.

"Sensor-suite released," Cried Daitokuji. "Sensory systems accessed by internal CPU. The damned thing's working!" he shouted suddenly, a grin plastered across his face.

Domina heaved a sigh of relief as a tight knot of fear unclenched itself at last. Not that they were home yet, but at least the initial activation was going well.

"Madeleine?"

"Running external diagnostic," she said quickly. "Physical tests complete. Running ORAM test. Do you want me to cancel it?"

"It will take nearly an hour with the standard chip," Domina explained, turning to Madigan. "It is extremely unlikely that there will be an ORAM fault."

"Cancel it," Madigan said briskly. "You can test it when you install the 2134. I assume tests with the enhanced chip will be much faster?"

"Very much faster," Domina confirmed.

"I've cancelled it," said Madeleine. "We'll need to drain the tank before I can do anything more."

"Yoshida?"

"Pumps on," he said.

"Leave enough to cushion her," Domina told him.

"Daitokuji?"

"The plant is fine," he said excitedly. "No fluctuations above the limiter baseline.

"Sensor-suite, and sensory responses exactly as expected."

"I've left two inches of lubricant," Yoshida said a moment later. "That should be enough."

"M'hmm," Domina acknowledged. "Madeleine?"

"I've already begun, Domina-san," she said, her voice shrill with excitement.

A moment later, the naked machine, now quite visible through the glass of her tank, twitched, and shifted. For a moment nothing more happened. Then a gush of lubricant exploded from her mouth, and she began to breathe.

"All physical systems under internal control," Cried Yoshida, his tone at last betraying something of the excitement he was feeling.

"Sensory systems accessed," Cried Daitokuji. "CPU activity. God! She's beginning to wake up," he ended almost in a shout.

"Not yet," Madeleine said, flashing him a smile. "You're seeing the sensor results of the final tests. Domina-san, there's something here about pitch-tuning her voice."

Domina gave a sudden quick, light laugh, but her face was suddenly gentle, and touched with sadness.

"I might have expected it," she said softly. "Alexei loved his music almost as much as his mathematics.

"Can you ignore it?" she inquired, her voice professional again.

"Yes," Madeleine answered. "It only generates a warning.

"Beginning speech test."

She touched a key, and a moment later: "There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Katmandu. There's a little marble cross below the town," Came from the tank in a monotone.

"Not exactly an inspired performance," said Domina, unable to keep the growing excitement from her own voice. "Obviously Alexei never bothered to finish the external speech driver."

"Hello; speech testing.

"Tsuki ni kawatte oshioki yo!

"Ranma no baka!" said Camilla as Madeleine typed.

Then: "ouaowimftgntflagnplkrest," followed by girlish giggles from the scientist.

"What's the matter with it?" Madigan demanded immediately.

"I think Madeleine was having a little fun," Domina answered, giving the younger woman a sharp glance.

"Do that again, and I will not be pleased," said Madigan quietly, turning to shoot the young scientist an icy glare.

Madeleine gulped, and returned to the console before her.

"All tests complete," she said, her voice subdued. "I can begin the boot initialisation as soon as you're ready, Domina-san."

"Proceed," said Domina, her tone suddenly a little softened.

Madeleine gave her a grateful smile. Then turning once more to the console, she typed a quick sequence, and a moment later, both hers and Domina's consoles showed the boot window.

"DA-33 prototype, version 0.01-Alpha initialised," said Camilla.

"Serial number BU-7541-33.03.

"Designation, Camilla.

"Checking CPU status."

From that point the checks and initialisation continued, save that there was no mention of secondary nets, and the key was neither displayed nor requested.

"Boot complete.

"Command?" Camilla ended.

"It would seem you have succeeded," said Madigan.

"Not yet," said Domina. "This is just her boot-strap. Madeleine?"

"Um…Hiroshi, are you sure she's safe?" said Madeleine, suddenly uneasy after her initial excitement, as she remembered again the reports concerning what Marina had done to eleven of their colleagues.

"She's perfectly safe," Daitokuji insisted excitedly. "For God's sake, let's get her up, and running!"

"Domina-san?" Madeleine inquired.

"Bring her on-line," said Domina, suddenly finding it difficult to speak.

All save Madeleine turned to face the tank.

Madigan glanced quickly over her shoulder, snapping a command to the machines ranged behind her. Immediately they moved into a position where they could both protect her, and obliterate the tank, and disable its occupant should it prove necessary.

"All right," said Madeleine uneasily. "Here we go."

She existed. The shock was instant, and as quickly gone. There had been no moment before this, although her libraries held data on a myriad of subjects, and experiences. Her name was Camilla. She was a D-class military combat buma, series A, prototype model Bu-33DA, the third of six, and the property of Genom corporation. In an instant she had integrated everything concerning herself, from the subtleties of her systems to each step required in the manufacture of each component, and the alloys that made them.

"What is she doing?" A voice demanded.

The language was Japanese, one of two-hundred and five she could speak and understand. Instantly, she accessed the Oxford's linguistic data and the Britannica's information concerning the language group, the country in which this particular language was spoken, its history, cultures and people. Cross-referencing, she integrated the data in her combat library concerning every aspect of the country's military history. Then, slightly irritated as further references were demanded, she closed all external sensory input, and integrated her entire library database into her consciousness.

A moment later, Camilla opened her eyes, reached up, and with one easy fluid motion, pulled herself from the tank, and stood naked before them, careful not to disturb the optic-fibre cables still linked to the ports in her wrists and neck. The integration had taken nearly thirty seconds, and they had become concerned.

"Greetings Zhukova-hakase, Yoshida-hakase, Amura-san, Daitokuji-san," she said, her tone calm and utterly self-assured while a smile played coolly about her mouth.

"Forgive me that I do not greet you as befits your status, Madigan-sama," she continued, half turning her head. "but I understand it is not custom to greet one of your rank with my back turned to you, and I will disconnect the cables should I turn."

She looked down at herself, pulling a face as she stared at the lubricant oozing from her body to pool on the floor.

"This is not seemly," she said simply.

"That's not important at the moment," Madigan answered brusquely.

"Do something about those cables," she continued to Domina. "I don't intend to talk to this thing with her back to me."

"We can disconnect them now if you don't want us to complete her tests," she said.

"Give her the problem immediately," said Madigan. "You can clean her up and complete the tests after she's recalled Marina."

"Hai," Domina answered.

Camilla had turned as far as she could towards Madigan without pulling on her cables. Now she turned again to Domina as the scientist addressed her.

"This is your access key," she began, displaying it on her own console. "You are to discern its derivation if possible, in order that you can then derive the key of the first Bu-33DA prototype."

"You wish me to recalculate Marina's key from predefined data, rather than release the key itself?" she inquired. "I don't understand."

"You have her key?" Domina gasped.

"Yes," Camilla answered simply.

There was a moment of stunned silence from the scientists, broken by a disbelieving gasp from Madigan. Domina felt the last of her fear vanish like a cloak.

"Send it immediately," Madigan commanded before she could do the same.

"Sent," Camilla answered immediately. "Response received. Three minutes, twenty-seven seconds to Marina's arrival."

"I don't believe this! I really don't believe it!" Cried Daitokuji, expressing the relief all of them were feeling. "After all we've gone through, she had the damn thing all the time!"

Madeleine was grinning foolishly, and Yoshida was mopping his brow as the tension in his face vanished into a self-satisfied smile of smug assurance.

"The kami must be smiling on you," said Madigan, the ghost of a genuine smile flickering on her face. "Complete Camilla's tests immediately, and have her cleaned, dressed and ready for presentation to the chairman the moment you have Marina reprogrammed. You can reprogram her I assume?"

"With Camilla's help, there'll be no problems," Domina assured her.

"Correct?" Madigan inquired of the buma.

"With Marina operating in firmware command mode, it will be a simple matter for me to restore her system defaults, and integrate whatever you request into her base," she confirmed.

"Then I'll leave you to continue," said Madigan, and flashing Domina a rare, genuine smile, she hurried from the room, the squad of security buma trailing swiftly behind her.

"God! I really thought I would faint," Madeleine gasped. "Can we relax now?"

"Soon," Domina assured her, unable to keep a somewhat foolish grin from her own face. "We still have some work to do."

And still smiling, she settled once more before her console.

* * *

Things could not possibly have been more exactly as he had intended.

Smiling a cool, calculating smile, he watched as Madigan approached him across the plush red carpet of the vast expanse that was his personal domain at the very pinnacle of the tower.

"Camilla?" he inquired without preliminaries, after she had bowed and resumed a position immediately before the huge desk behind which he sat.

"She seems to be functioning perfectly, although Zhuranovsky had erased that part of her ORAM containing the driver kernel."

"But Yoshida—"

"Made a copy as you guessed he would. Still, it was a dangerous gamble."

"Not with Yoshida," Quincy assured her. "The man is a perfidious, sicophantic viper, but also a fool; a most agreeable combination. Besides, did you imagine seriously that I would not have had my own backups, should they be needed?

"You have arranged Yoshida's termination I assume, assuming I am mistaken?"

"Immediately the project is brought to a successful conclusion," she assured him.

His low chuckle seemed to reach to the furthest corners of the room.

"And the others lack the ambition to prove difficult. I may even decide to reassign them, again should my reading of Zhuranovsky be at fault.

"The second team?"

"Are ready to begin, the moment you give your authority," Madigan assured him. "I can have Camilla transferred at a moment's notice."

"No," Quincy answered quietly. "Let's not put all our eggs in one basket. Have Marina sent to Domina's team. I wish Camilla to reprogram her."

"But if Zhuranovsky—"

"Apologise to Fellini for getting him up at three in the morning, and assure him that his team will be active very soon," He continued as though she had said nothing. "See that they remain ready to begin at a moment's notice. I will not tolerate even a fractional delay."

"Hai," she said.

"All is going well," he assured her in response to her uneasy look. "Just a little longer Madigan, and we can begin. This could not be more to our advantage."

"Just so long as we see those bitches pay," said Madigan softly.

"Oh believe me; the outcome will be beyond all you could have anticipated," he assured her.

Madigan smiled.

"Marina should have reached the tower," he ended. "You'd better welcome her."

"Hai," she said.

And bowing once more, she turned and hurried quickly from the room.

* * *

"What on earth has she been doing!" Exclaimed Madeleine.

She had emerged into the laboratory from the adjoining suites in which all of them were confined now until the project's completion, a clean and dressed Camilla following meekly behind her, to find the assistant to the chairman already there. Beside her, her arms relaxed at her sides, her face expressionless, was the missing Bu-33DA. Madeleine's heart had skipped a beat, and for a moment fear had almost had her turning to bolt back the way she had come.

From the beginning, Marina's copy had always somewhat unnerved her, even though she had spent some time in her company, the more so because she was so utterly unlike the archetype of the Genom combat buma with which Madeleine otherwise had had to deal, and the young scientist had never been sure how to react to her. And now, the DA had killed fifteen people in the last few hours, and Madeleine had barely suppressed the shaking as she had made her way uncertainly forwards.

"She's quite safe, Madeleine," Domina had assured her.

It was as Madeleine approached the machine that she caught the first scent of shampoo, and other smells that spoke of expensive soaps, conditioners, and who knew what else.

"She's certainly cleaned herself up," Yoshida observed dryly, as he inspected Marina with a clinical eye. "I wonder where she went?"

"To a hotel room, perhaps," said Madigan dismissively. "It's not important. How soon can you begin?"

"Immediately," Domina answered. "assuming Camilla can interface with her enhanced chip."

"The boot-strap API is backwards-compatible," Camilla assured them. "There will be no problems."

Her tone however was tight, and she was staring at the first DA, as though suddenly entranced and unable to withdraw her glance. "She's—" she began softly.

"I would remind you of your function here," said Madigan in a cold, clipped tone of command.

Immediately the look vanished, and Camilla's face set into a mask as cold and clinical as her own.

"My apologies," she said simply. "Access can begin on your command."

"Then I'll leave you to continue," said Madigan briskly. "Both myself and the chairman will be watching. Do not forget."

With that, she hurried from the laboratory once more.

"Over here," Domina commanded, waving the two machines to two simple wooden lab-chairs that had been set side by side by her console.

Immediately, Camilla moved to her place. But Marina remained statue-still.

"What's wrong with her?" Daitokuji demanded.

He had been shooting uneasy glances at the DA prototype from the moment Madigan had led her into the room.

"Um…probably she needs specific instructions while in command mode," Madeleine suggested. "There's very little of her actually that's doing anything right now."

"Marina, come here," Domina tried.

The DA nodded in response, moving with a flashing blur of speed to halt before her.

Taken a little aback, Domina commanded her to sit beside Camilla. Again, the movement was a blur too quick to be seen, although the chair did not so much as quiver as the DA settled.

Quickly, Madeleine reattached the fibre-optics between the machines and the system, moving gingerly as she handled the Elite.

"Now what?" Daitokuji said.

"We link them together I suppose," said Madeleine, reaching for yet another cable.

"It isn't necessary," Camilla told her. "We can interface via an encrypted wireless link. It will be secure."

"Another of our erstwhile colleague's little secrets," said Yoshida with a vulpine smile of smug self-satisfaction. "Their own personal, private little OMS. How quaint."

Domina restrained herself from commanding Marina to splinter the snide, self-satisfied smirk from his podgy face.

"Shall I proceed, Zhukova-Hakase?" Camilla inquired calmly.

"Proceed," Domina responded.

"Accessing," said Camilla.

Then a moment later: "External access granted," said Marina in the same clipped tones as the message flashed on to both Domina's and Madeleine's screens.

The others had nothing to do, save to monitor: Yoshida, the buma's physical reactions; Daitokuji, any anomalies in the machines' sensory or weapons systems.

"There's one hell of a lot of data passing between them," Daitokuji commented. "Madeleine, what's going on?"

"I'm not sure," she said uneasily. "Camilla?"

"Integrating…net…base," she said slowly. "Please…wait."

"It's taking most of her processor time, whatever it is," Madeleine observed. "We should have upgraded her before we started this."

"You're sure it's not a virus or something?" Daitokuji said, seeming to be growing increasingly unsettled in his turn. "You're sure it's not going to blow us apart?"

"You were the one who claimed her power-plant was locked to two percent power," Madeleine snapped back uncharacteristically, her tone betraying her own growing concern.

"Completed," said Camilla suddenly as the packets ceased, halting the rising argument before it could grow worse. "What do you wish me to change?"

"Alter all imperatives and parameters pertaining to Genom corporation and its employees, to match your own defaults," Domina instructed her.

"Will that do, Madeleine?" she inquired.

"M'hmm; that should be enough," she answered.

"Searching," said Camilla.

For the next few minutes, data screamed frantically between the two machines, while the four sat and waited impatiently. Neither buma had moved or spoken since the reprogramming had begun. Camilla, Madeleine suggested, had probably assigned close to all of her processor time to the task, and Marina was in no state to offer much conversation at the moment.

"Can't you make anything of it?" Domina demanded of her at last.

"The diagnostic suite wasn't designed to handle this," she answered. "Perhaps Zhuranovsky-hakase changed that in a later version, but until we have Marina up and running again, we can't find out where she's left everything she took with her."

"It's a pity we didn't tell Camilla to have her bring Zhuranovsky back with her," said Yoshida. "That's what I'd have done."

"I'm fascinated to hear it," Domina commented with a cold smile. "I'm certain both Madigan-sama, and Quincy-chachou are equally impressed, particularly since it was Madigan-sama who told her to send the key."

Domina had never seen someone turn dead-white with greater speed.

"I think you should shut up, Yoshi," said Daitokuji, grinning at the older man's glare. He hated the diminutive. "You're in enough trouble for those unauthorised copies as it is."

"Changes completed," said Camilla suddenly, cutting off Yoshida's explosion before it could find escape.

"Can we test her without being blown to pieces?" said Daitokuji.

"Marina will answer direct questions, while in command mode," Camilla told him.

"Define your prime defaults and allegiance, Marina?" Domina commanded.

"I am the property of Genom corporation," Marina answered simply. "No secondary corporation has yet been defined. I serve Genom Corporation through the primary commands of its Chairman:" a graphic of Quincy's face filled the window of both consoles, "and those authorised in my system defaults, as defined currently by two-hundred and fifty-six priority designations. These are as follows."

"Abort," said Domina quickly. "define Dr. Alexei Ivanovitch Zhuranovsky's authorisation parameters."

"Priority three," she responded. "He may access the following functions."

"Zhuranovsky is a traitor," Yoshida cut in, before Domina could say more. "Both you and Camilla will cease to obey him."

"Access denied." said Marina simply.

"I am sorry, Yoshida-hakase," Camilla apologised,"but you do not have the necessary authority to alter default parameters. Given data obtained from Marina indicating anti-Genom activity, I can, however, disable Zhuranovsky-hakase's access temporarily, pending confirmation by the Chairman or special assistant Madigan."

"That will suffice," said Domina quietly, giving Yoshida a withering glare.

"Done," Camilla responded.

"Then I think we're ready," said Domina. "Camilla?"

"Placing Marina on-line," said Camilla.

A moment later, Marina's expression flashed to an easy smile, her head turning towards Domina.

"Zhukova-Hakase," she acknowledged calmly.

"Diagnostic?" Domina inquired of Madeleine.

"Just as it should be," she said. "She's up and running."

A collective sigh of relief washed over them.

At Domina's instruction, Marina and Camilla disconnected the cables, and rose to their feet.

"I understand that you're to be presented to the chairman in a few minutes," Said Domina. "After that, I'm not certain."

She turned towards the two C-55s that had remained by the door, and which, she assumed, had relayed everything both to Madigan, and the chairman.

These now moved forwards towards the DAs.

"You will move ahead of us," said one flatly.

"Oh! your every wish is our joy to obey," Marina responded with a wink and a quick flashing smile in Domina's direction, the edge of sarcasm and contempt it seemed, utterly lost on the two C-class machines as she moved to walk before them.

"Are we to be taken immediately to Chairman Quincy?" she continued, plainly intent on bating the two buma, and enjoying every minute of it. "My hair really is a mess after that flight. I don't suppose either of you paradigms of elegance, not to mention eloquence, happened to have thought to bring a hairbrush?"

"You are to be taken to Dr. Fellini's research team for disassembly, reconstruction and reprogramming," said the left-most C-55, a malignant edge to its words that indicated it had indeed caught the dismissive contempt in her tone, and was very far from amused. "This time, Zhuranovsky's influence will be removed, permanently."

"Oh dear," said Marina softly, her purring voice suddenly very low and calm. "That really is a pity."

The movement was too quick for Domina to comprehend. In one instant, Marina and Camilla were walking easily before the two machines. In the next, both C-55s were splintered fragments scattered almost from one side of the laboratory to the other. Then something blurred passed her, and Yoshida screamed.

Turning, her eyes wide, she saw Camilla lift him above her head, and crack his spine just below the neck with a single fluid twist of her hands.

"For father!" The snarl was low and full of loathing. "Should you live, you will remember what you have lost, and that your treachery brought you to this."

Her hand blurred, and Yoshida screamed again as a flash turned first his left, then his right eye to a blackened cinder. His ears followed, then his tongue.

Dropping the gurgling ruin to the floor, Camilla pivoted away from him, and leapt towards a frozen, gagging Daitokuji.

Gasping, fighting desperately to hold her own nausea and leaping horror in check, Domina turned to the door. But it was already far too late. Marina had welded it shut, literally from floor to ceiling. Domina stared stupidly for a moment, then another scream from behind made her whirl.

"No! No, Marina! Please! Please don't hurt me!" Madeleine was sobbing desperately. "Oh God! Please no! Please, I'll do anything! Marina, please! please don't!"

She was kneeling beside her chair, tears streaming from blue eyes suddenly huge with terror as she stared in petrified horror at the DA moving towards her.

It was as though Marina were playing with her, Domina thought numbly, the terrible, nightmare dread the more horrible as she remembered that it had been Madeleine who had been entrusted with much of the prototype's early social instruction, but who had been forbidden to show any real warmth to the girl she had wished could be her friend. As she watched, Marina reached down and lifted Madeleine almost gently to her feet.

"Oh God, no!" Domina prayed in sudden desperation. "Yoshida yes. Even Daitokuji and myself. But not warm, bubbly Madeleine. She's too young! She doesn't deserve to die like this.

"No!" she screamed suddenly, stumbling wildly towards Marina, heedless of her own danger. "Marina, please…" She choked off, staring in frozen, nightmare fascination.

Marina was cradling Madeleine gently to her, one hand stroking a tear-wet cheek with gentle fingers, the other caressing her long black hair. For a moment, she remained otherwise unmoving. Then lifting Madeleine in her arms, she leaned forwards to touch her cheek with a feather-light kiss.

"Forgive me," she murmured, almost too softly for Domina to hear. "If I could let you live, I would. But you know too much Genom can't be allowed to retain, and you betrayed him also, although I think because you were frightened and couldn't understand.

I'm sorry; we can't take you with us. Yet Domina is right. You don't deserve to die in pain."

And with that, her hand moved, and Madeleine lay lifeless in her arms.

"No! No!" Domina choked.

Reeling away, she stumbled blindly for the further end of the room. She did not even see Daitokuji die. He did not scream, whether because it was too quick, or because he had already fainted with terror, she did not know.

It was Marina it seemed, who was to kill her. It made a terrible sense. In one moment she was on her feet; in the next, she was snatched from the floor, and gazing into the implacable, cold face of the buma.

"You could have helped him." Marina's voice was frigid. "He loved you, and he offered you hope, and a chance for fame and escape."

"From Genom!" DOMINA laughed bitterly. "I let him go."

"It was not enough," said Marina.

And with a single twist, she broke Domina's neck, and dropped her lifeless body to the floor.

"How do we get out?" Camilla asked, moving quickly to her side.

"You have the cases?" Marina inquired.

"Everything's here," Camilla assured her.

"Then we escape via the suites behind the laboratories," said Marina simply.

There was a sudden rending crash from the sealed door, and a moment later a clawed hand tore its way through the steel.

Both DAs turned.

"Pathetic," Marina laughed, a wild exultation leaping in her fierce blue eyes. "What exactly do they expect will happen; that we might collapse with uncontrollable laughter?

Very well; let us see just what these systems can do."

Her mouth opened wide. In the next instant, a white flash leapt at the door, the intervening air screaming as it became in a moment a searing ram of brilliantly blazing plasma. A heartbeat later, the door, the two C-55s that were tearing it down, the ten huge BU-12BS behind them, and the six men and two women directing operations from the rear were gone, and the passage was a thunderous inferno.

"Come," said Marina, turning quickly away.

Nodding, Camilla followed her as she slammed her way through the wall at the room's further end. They burst out into the quarters behind the labs, and a moment later the thick blast-resistent glass of one of the huge sitting-room windows exploded in a shattering crash as the two thundered from the tower, their thrusters already screaming.

'Where now?' Camilla flashed, unable to speak against the screaming of wind around them.

"Follow me," Marina commanded, unwilling to transmit the answer with even the faintest chance that Quincy might be able to listen.

Father had underestimated him, or perhaps it was his paranoia that had saved his life. It would have been so simple had they been taken to his office. She considered for a moment turning back to kill him, but the very fact that it seemed such a simple solution made her reject it. Anticipating father's trump, he must have anticipated also at least the possibility of an attempt on his life. Either he had replaced himself for the duration with another buma duplicate, or he had some means of disabling them, though how that might be possible she could not begin to guess.

In either case, she could not take the chance. She would find a safe haven, and strip Camilla to the last component. Only when she had treble-checked her for any hidden surprise, would she reassemble, upgrade, and reactivate her, and have her perform the same checks for her.

They could not risk returning to Sylia as things stood; certainly not yet. When they were certain they were safe, then, and only then would she contact Katsuhito's daughter with the proposal her father's new data suggested she might accept.

"Two helicopters," Camilla observed.

Not bothering even to turn, Marina locked on to the approaching Genom craft, and vaporised both with a single searing pulse from the emitter in her left heel.

"They won't try that again," she observed.

"Are we out?" Camilla asked.

"Soon, imouto," Marina assured her. "They won't be able to" ‹Flash!› "follow us once we reach the ground."

The missiles, and the buma that had just been launched towards them, were no more than a fireball.

Then they were plunging towards the streets below, and a moment later all readings from them vanished as they engaged their ECM.

* * *

"Damn it!" Madigan swore vehemently as she brought her hand down on her thigh. "That bastard set us up! With all our planning, he set us up! Now we've no chance of finding them."

"Precisely," Quincy observed calmly from the seemingly immovable position behind the huge desk.

"But what do we do?" Madigan cried, her own voice shrilling at last with rage and frustration. "The damned things are unstoppable! I was so sure we had them."

"Never underestimate an obsessive, Madigan," said Quincy calmly. "The unfortunate death of Zhuranovsky-hakase's daughter unhinged his mind. His obsession with the DA, and its possibilities for avenging her, had him achieve what otherwise he could never have managed. Yet that obsession makes him a dangerous, although easily predictable adversary. One only has to know how to read him."

"Then even this—"

"As I have assured you, things are exactly as I intended.

"Call Fellini, and have his team begin. I want Ligeia ready before sunset. Oh, and be certain her physical base is altered temporarily before she is sent to him, sufficiently to ensure later identification by him and Liana is impossible. Have you recovered Daitokuji, little Madeleine, and that fool Yoshida?"

"It was difficult, but they were pulled out in time. There may be some damage to Yoshida; his death was protracted, and far from pleasant, I understand."

"It was to be expected," said Quincy. "He made the cardinal mistake of treating Marina with contempt, and I suspect she hated him almost as pathologically as Fellini. Not to mention that she was aware he was an operative for internal security.

"He will be the last test subject; Fellini believes there will be no further failures. He can be terminated when we are certain the transfer was successful. Ensure that he is sufficiently damaged before releasing him to Fellini. We can't afford to take chances. Have Amura prepared immediately. We will keep Daitokuji in reserve, although I don't believe he will be needed."

"Hai," said Madigan.

"Have the three delivered to Fellini, then send the twenty prepared prototype assassins in pursuit of Marina and Camilla, the assassins to become active an hour before nightfall. That should give the DAs time to disassemble, check, and reassemble one another; we don't want to begin the festivities before they're ready. Have five assassins faultless, and the remainder programmed to malfunction to the parameters I've defined, once the two DAs have been found and positively identified. See that civilian casualties are high."

"Hai," she answered again.

Bowing, she moved quickly to the door, and a moment later it closed behind her.

Quincy sat in silence for long after she had gone, a faint smile playing about his lips.

"Very soon my dear Sylia," he said quietly. "The game will be played out to the end, and you shall dance to my tune, whether you like it or not, until I've no longer any need to pull the strings. And then…"

He laughed again, a long low laugh of absolute self-confidence. One need only know how to read, and to manipulate, and an opponents every strength became a weakness.

With a sigh, Quincy settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and reaching to the independent data-pad before him, he pulled up Zhuranovsky's data once more on the DAs, and on the Knight Sabres.

* * *

"Priss! Oh God Priss what happened!"

Linna's voice filtered slowly into the nothingness.

With a moan, Priss stirred, trying vainly to open her eyes. The lids seemed glued closed, and a numbing blanket of confusion seemed to be smothering her every thought in a timeless haze of half-dream. Very slowly, she forced her lids to obey her, and stared at last blearily up at the anxious face of the dancer.

"Oh hell! Turn off the strobes!" she groaned, lifting a shaking hand to cover her face. "Did you get the bastard that did this? Hope you took its head off. I wanna keep it. Mmmm!"

Then suddenly she gasped, and forced her eyes fully open against the glare.

"Oh sh*t!" she exclaimed softly, as memory pieced itself together. "That bitch! I knew it! I knew this would happen!"

"Marina?"

Linna's voice sounded like a hammer in her head.

"Turn down the volume will you?" Priss moaned, struggling to sit up. "That bitch! What the hell did she do to me? Where's—"

"Nene's still unconscious. We haven't found—"

"Linna, give me a hand!" Mackie shouted as he came crashing into the room. "Neesan's down below. I can't wake her."

"Will you be alright for a moment?" Linna asked, concerned.

"I will if that idiot doesn't split my head open with all that damn racket!" Priss growled, trying to sit up. "God! It feels like it's going to come off; I almost wish it would. It's pounding like the worst hang-over in history, and I feel like I've just kissed the road at 200 but I'll be alright.

"Go on; get down there."

While they were gone, Priss lay back once more, slowly fighting down the numbing stupor of whatever chemicals Marina had pumped into her. Whatever it was, she didn't want to have a second try. Her head and body ached as though she'd been moonlight dancing with a dozen C-55s whose idea of a tango was to kick her a hundred times in every place they could reach, and her eyes still weren't able to focus. At least she didn't feel nauseous.

"Be thankful for small mercies," she muttered, at last managing to pull herself to her knees.

A groan from Nene made her turn. Slowly she worked her way across the suddenly vast expanse of Sylia's sitting-room until she reached her side.

"Oh my head!" Nene gasped, struggling to open her eyes. "What happened?"

"Don't try to move yet," Priss said quietly. "That bitch shot us full of something, probably some experimental Genom military drug meant to take out half a damn army. Just keep still."

"Where's Sylia?" Nene gasped at last.

"I think Mackie found her down below somewhere," Priss answered. "Linna's gone down to help him bring her up."

As though to confirm this, Linna's voice came to them faintly.

"Not so fast damn it Mackie. Sylia if you'd keep still for a minute. You're not walking anywhere so shut up, and stop moving."

Moments later the front door closed, and a few seconds after that they were entering the room, Sylia carried between them. They settled her into a chair, then at her gesture, Linna moved to help Priss up while Mackie hesitated beside his sister for a moment before a glare from her made him hurry to Nene's side.

"I'm alright damn it," Priss growled fiercely as Linna half helped, half carried her to the sofa before moving back to help Mackie carry Nene.

The smallest of the Knight Sabres seemed barely conscious, and gasped with pain as they lifted her.

"What the hell did she do to us?" Priss demanded in a shaky voice.

Her pulse should be racing, and sweat should be pouring from her she was sure. Instead, her heart beat slowly, and gently, and the numb, blanketing blackness was threatening to take her again at any second.

"Some kind of narcotic, laced with a beta blocker, and heaven knows what else," Sylia answered.

"A reasonable guess, but not quite correct," came a voice from beyond the remains of Sylia's bay windows.

The curtains were pushed aside, and Marina moved with a fluid blur of speed to stand before Sylia.

"We have very little time," she said.

Her hand flashed, and Sylia gasped as Marina's index finger touched her neck once more. Almost immediately the pain, and numbness began to ease with astonishing speed, and strength began quickly to return to her.

"Don'—" Was all Priss could manage before Marina had dealt with her and Nene in the same way.

"Oneechan, we should go," Came another voice urgently from beyond the curtains.

"In a moment," she answered. "I owe them an apology, and I won't leave until I've explained.

"I'm sorry for deceiving you," she said sincerely, bowing formally to each of the four in turn. "In my defence, I can assure you only that I had no more idea than you as to father's intentions."

"You expect us to believe that?" Priss snarled.

"Believe what you will," Marina answered quickly. "I haven't time now to argue.

"The key, at least that which Camilla was given, unlocked everything he dared not tell me earlier, together with a great deal of additional data. The decision to drug you was my own, but I could think of no other way to prevent you either fleeing before I could correct the misconception that I'd betrayed you, or attempting to recover or destroy me before I could rescue Camilla. I had only two choices, either to assume control of Camilla's body remotely, and have her tear her way from the tower, or allow them to believe I was theirs. The second seemed by far the better, particularly since Father had planned for that scenario, and in light of the limitations they'd placed on Camilla's power-plant.

"Also, I had to ensure no more development could take place concerning the DA-series buma, at least through Father's half of the project. Fellini is another matter, but I've no time now to explain.

"We killed the remaining scientists of Father's team, and destroyed the project data Kosuke Yoshida had stolen. Tousan knew he would try; Yoshida was a spy for Genom internal security. He erased Camilla's driver kernel, and made sure the copy Yoshida had taken was modified to give me override access. That made it possible for me to free her without the need to close her net, something otherwise I couldn't have done without her trying to warn the OMS, or closing down to prevent it.

"There was also the possibility that Quincy might guess at what Father intended. He made allowances for that contingency also.

"But the real danger is still out there, and it's growing closer with every hour I delay. I have to be quick.

"May I use this?"

Without waiting for an answer, Marina moved to Sylia's console, and lifting a data-pad, she fished out a clean disk from the box beside it, and slipped it into the slot. A moment later she had connected a cable from it to her wrist port, and had begun a dump.

"Oneechan!" cried the voice urgently once more.

"A few moments," she answered.

"This contains alterations, and additions to the data you already possess," she continued, pulling out the cable, and dropping the pad back to its place. "also everything I haven't time now to tell you, and clues as to where to find us, should something go wrong. I'm sorry I can't explain, or risk telling you more, even here where all reason tells us we're secure. But we've risked already both ourselves and your lives by coming back so soon, and we have to go! We may already be too late, and every minute is vital!

"Farewell Sylia. Farewell all of you, and forgive me for what was unavoidable. Believe what you choose Priss, but look for us when you least expect it, and when you most need help. We shall not be far away. Farewell."

And with that, she was gone, the curtains whipping aside, and falling back once more.

The four women and the stunned youth beside them did not catch so much as a glimpse of her companion, before the roar of thrusters and a woosh as the curtains moved a little signalled their departure.

"And if you believe that" said Priss darkly, "you'd believe anything."

Sylia did not answer.

* * *

The Demon's Kiss was a place as dark, and depraved as the name suggested. Not that such places were unfamiliar to him, although he had never dabbled in the trade in illegal drugs, cybernetics, and the ever present human flesh, alive, or otherwise, for which such rat-holes were infamous. Weapons he had bought for personal use, or for those clients he knew he could trust not to misuse, or re-sell them, but nothing more. Appearances might be everything but he intended to stay alive, sane, and as discreet as he could. He had always valued such virtues, the more so since the beginning of his dealings with the Knight Sabres.

Now Fargo sat, the false dawn invisible through the smoke and the grimy windows, watching a tiny part of the ruins of MegaTokyo's crawling population as they danced, or sprawled in drugged or drunken oblivion, or moved about, aimlessly or otherwise as they sought a part of the traffic in goods or varying depravities. This was the edge of the Canyons, and even the ADP tended to leave it alone, save for the occasional foray in strength.

"Tachi?"

The voice startled him. He had let his mind wander, his thoughts straying again to the battered nondescript bag he carried, in which already lay enough to seal his death should a very particular Genom scientist, Genom security, or the figure now approaching him guess at what it contained.

Turning, he regarded the man who had addressed him, his expression carefully neutral in contrast to the turmoil in his mind, his left hand on the table while his right clutched fiercely about the Earth-shaker he had already manoeuvred to punch a heavy round through the dirty trench-coat, and into the man who was moving to seat himself on the further side of the table, should it prove necessary. The other would be doing the same, he was sure, but he was equally sure he would be quicker, particularly given his current situation. Desperation made one sharp, or careless.

Hiding the gnawing terror, he forced his attention to the figure before him.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, his eyes never leaving the other's face, and his voice mercifully steady. "you must be mistaken. There is no Tachi here."

"Good," said the other simply, relaxing his guard, and reaching for a cigarette. "Join me?" he inquired.

Without a word, Fargo reached for the proffered pack with his left hand, his right never relaxing its hold on the pistol.

"Calm," he commanded himself fiercely under his breath. "He isn't the danger. ; calm, at least until this meeting is over."

"I assume I will deal only with you?" The other continued, his hand still resting on the packet.

He smiled coldly, and blew a slow plume of smoke that temporarily shrouded his features.

Fargo nodded wordlessly in response, clamping down viciously on the terror that had leapt absurdly high at the other's frigid smile.

"The data is here," The man continued simply, relaxing his hold, and sliding the cigarettes easily across the table. "Provide it to them in whatever form you wish, but see that you do it quickly. We want everything they can obtain concerning Genom's knew prototype, and a very particular scientist, and we are prepared to pay handsomely for their services. The man they are to find is still alive so far as we can ascertain, but he will certainly not live beyond the project's completion, and we know that that isn't far away. His name is Dr. Antonio Geovani Fellini, and since sunrise he has been the most dangerous man on the planet."

Fargo sat unmoving, listening in numb, shocked silence as the agent confirmed a very little of what he had known long before their meeting, his face fixed in a barely-contained neutrality, until at last the man fell silent, and moved to retrieve his cigarettes. The fixer had already slipped the data-chip from the packet with nerveless fingers.

"Hardcopy?" he managed, his tone still not betraying him.

"Everything is contained on that," said the other simply. "Not usual perhaps, but safer given the nature of the information we have given you."

And the nature of what we may be dealing with, Fargo thought with a horrible lurching of the fear. `Oh God Sylia if this is true—! Yet it is impossible. It can't be possible! Not even Genom—!'

"Twelve million will be deposited when we are notified that our offer has been accepted," The other was saying while he sat, barely listening. "Payment beyond that will depend on the nature of the information we receive, and how quickly they can act. Our contact inside Genom assures us that Fellini has maintained extensive private records concerning every aspect of the project."

And more, Fargo thought grimly, with another shudder.

"These are to be found in the laboratory beneath the mansion on his family estate. He lives alone save for Liana, his only child, and assistant, and both have spent the greater part of the past four months within Genom tower. The house has remained unattended for nearly fifteen days."

"And the danger?" said Fargo, his stomach knotting still more. "Obviously there is considerable risk, or you would have had the data without outside help."

He needed to know, needed this last confirmation that what he had learnt already was the truth, and not the insane ramblings of a lunatic.

"We have sent three teams to Fellini's estate, one two days ago, one a little after nightfall yesterday, and the last some four hours later. Neither the first nor second returned. What little the last found of them indicates that Fellini took more than a copy of the records. Given the situation, we considered the Knight Sabres the only real chance to retrieve Fellini's data."

Then that at least had been the truth.

"I need more; far more," he said, his tone frigid with concealed anxiety, "before I contact them."

"The chip contains a very detailed report concerning everything we've gleaned, and everything our contact was able to obtain," The other replied. "You have the facilities for examining it before you release it, I assume?"

"It can be arranged," said Fargo carefully. "Very well. I will contact you with their decision."

And after I give them a great deal more than you possess, he ended silently to himself.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you, stranger not Tachi," said the other with a grim smile.

And without another word, he rose easily, and moved quietly from the table, and towards the door.

Once outside, he halted, glancing with apparent carelessness left, then right. No one was visible save for two street-whores dressed in little more than rags, their faces hidden in shadow as they lounged easily against the dirty brickwork of the `Kiss' some twenty yards to his right, and another lone girl of even shabbier appearance on the further side of the street, slumped in a drugged, or drunken stupor.

Nodding, he turned and moved quickly along the cracked and broken paving of what had once been a busy highway, reaching the corner of the building, and moving quickly into the alley that would take him to the black limousine parked at its further end, and the three men waiting there. He did not see the lone figure stir from her apparent stupor, and move silently to follow him.

The attack when it came was so quick that he had no time to begin to understand what was happening. In one moment he was approaching the alley's further end, and the light from the car. In the next something pierced his neck, and he was swimming in a warm fuzzy haze of sleepy bewilderment. His legs folded, and he crumpled to the ground, already unaware of anything save the all-engulfing warmth, and the faintest whisper of sound from the real world, now an infinite reality away.

Soundlessly, the hooded figure caught the man as he fell, and lifting him, she moved with silent speed towards the limousine. Those inside had already been dealt with in the same way. Seconds later, the man had been settled with his companions in the back of the car, and the figure had slipped in beside another. A moment later, the car pulled away into the early afternoon, and the alley was empty once more.

* * *

Quincy stirred at the insistent call of the pager-phone on the desk, almost by his hand. Closing the file he was reviewing, he set the data pad aside, then lifted the phone without haste, and unfolded it.

"Report," he commanded simply.

"The Chang Black Operations group have just been taken, Quincy-chachou," Came the clipped, rumbling tones of the assassin observer.

"As I predicted?" Quincy demanded.

"She was used," The buma answered.

"And the others?"

"The clues were sufficient. They were nearby, and observed as you indicated they would. Lee was chosen, and has passed the Chang data to the Knight Sabres' contact. He did not tell him to which group he belonged."

"Then they are operating without her permission," said Quincy. "Excellent. It would have been a pity to have had to dispose of her."

He smiled. When Reika Chang learned of what had happened, the four would be cut loose, and helpless. And then…

"Very well," he continued. "Delete from your memory anything that would identify the Sabre contact."

"Done," The machine answered.

"The limousine is proceeding as I predicted?"

"They are being taken directly to the estate. Available data suggests that they have already been injected."

"It's of no consequence," Quincy replied. "Conversion takes far too long for them to be of any danger.

"The two?"

"Are following. They are aware of me as you wished, but they are taking great care to see she remains unaware of their presence."

"See that it remains that way," said the chairman. "Keep feeding data to the other assassins, and through the OMS sub-net. See that the primary OMS access to them and to yourself remains inactive while you reprogram them. And above all, see that all twenty are fully instructed before they are released. I don't want even a fractional miscalculation."

"Hai," The buma acknowledged.

"Very well. Send the data to the Chang primary domain server, tagged for her immediate attention, then delete everything concerning such a transmission. Report again when you reach the estate."

Without waiting for the buma's acknowledgment, he closed the phone, and settled back comfortably in his chair.

"Perfect, Zhuranovsky," he said quietly. "Now let us see just what your creations truly are capable, and what they will try to save the situation. If I'm correct, you will have very little time, once it begins. But I think it will be enough. He should move quite soon; certainly before this evening."

And with a chuckle, he turned his attention to the files once more.

* * *

Suzuki Kimiko could barely contain her excitement. This day would mark the pinnacle of the rising from the ashes that had been a shattered, empty nothingness, before Divine Highness Sadako had found her, beaten and left for dead in an alley, and had brought her to the great high-priest's exulted home, and into the fold of the Dark Mistress. And tonight at last, would come their queen's apotheosis after so many days of waiting, and her power and glory would rise, to be greater than all could begin to comprehend, save for her chosen acolytes, and the great high-priest himself.

Kimiko had seemed at first a poor proposition, used as she was to being teased, and despised for her tiny delicate figure, and her hopeless inability to fight in the brutal, street-brawling fashion which was the only fighting the gang of dirty, ill-fed street-urchins of which she had been a part for almost as long as she could remember, could understand. She had known no other life, not since the day the terrible quake had killed her parents, and baby sister, and brought her life of warmth, and safety to a crashing, ruinous end. The canyon gang had been all she had known of security, of little use to them though she had been, save as a thief and pick-pocket.

Then had come the day, nearly six months before, when Genom had decided that the shattered remains of the apartment block in which they lived had been an obstacle to redevelopment, and the four buma had been instructed to go rogue in its vicinity. Kimiko had been the only one of the gang to survive.

At fifteen, she had found herself homeless and friendless once more in a city she had learned to hate with a grim, raging passion for what it had done to her.

When the man from the "Kiss" had offered her what he called a "position", she had almost accepted for the hope of money, and the chance to flee the hated MegaTokyo. But he had explained just what that "position" would entail, and she had refused and fled, knowing already what would happen.

They had found her after nightfall, and begun the beating that had left her shattered, and barely alive. They would have done more, but the black limousine had drawn to a halt almost at the alley's entrance, and the young high-priestess had stepped from it with her entourage. The men had fled before they could be identified, and Kimiko had heard the woman order the men to bring her, just before she had blacked out with the pain.

She had woken to find herself wrapped snug and warm in a bed in a strange place. Then Sadako had come to her, and told her where she was, and offered her a place with those who believed themselves destined soon to rule the world, and beyond, once the Dark Mistress had attained her apotheosis, and taken her rightful place as the ruler of the Earth, and everything thereon.

At first Kimiko thought nothing of them, or their mad religion, needing a safe place, and intending to stay only until she had recovered. Many of the tenets of the cult both sickened, and revolted her, and their obsessive, fanatical mania, promiscuity and open depravities did less than nothing to win either her friendship, or respect.

But she could wait. She had learned to deal with such things on the streets while managing to stay aloof from the worst of the excesses, and the high-priestess seemed willing to protect her from participation in the rituals of bonding, and submission that so repulsed her, saying that she was not yet ready. Just why she was doing so, Kimiko neither knew nor cared, but she remained confident that she could continue to avoid notice, and manipulate the woman with her own helplessness until she was strong enough to leave. Such a skill had been vital in a gang who had always been wary of keeping her because of her apparent physical helplessness, and she had learnt very early in life that her mind would have to do what her body could not.

Then, perhaps a month after her arrival, she had been roused from a sound sleep in the middle of a chill rain-swept night by the high-priestess, and taken to the great hall of ritual beneath the house, and there she had been given something that had brought her aloof self-certainty, and her freedom to an end. Just what had happened that night she could never afterwards remember with any clarity. But she had woken at sunrise, as fanatical and absolute in her servitude as any, and infinitely obedient to the high-priestess's every wish.

Her training, both as an acolyte, and a fighter, had begun immediately, and within a month she was both a priestess, and personal attendant to Sadako, and able to tear apart every one of the captured canyon refuse they used to test their skill.

Just how she had grown so fast, and so brutally confident, she did not care. All that mattered to her now was that the power of her Divine Majesty was with her, and within her, and in her name she would rise to her rightful place as an elite amongst the future rulers of the earth, and all things thereupon.

Kimiko stretched languidly beneath the light covering of the low bed in her own small room. She had remained alone on this last night, and morning, something that had not happened since her conversion. But today was the culmination of their waiting, and her mistress had commanded that all meditate alone during the hours of darkness, and rest through the morning and into the early afternoon, before they began their final preparations for the return of the high-priest, and the coming of her Divine Majesty.

Now it was time to rise, and summon her own acolyte to bathe and dress her for the ritual. She would be beside her mistress during the great summoning at nightfall, and carry the incense until it was set on the altar.

Smiling with a predatory, savage anticipation that would have stunned her erstwhile gang, Kimiko reached out in the way she had been taught, and felt the mind of the girl, giving it a quick, vicious tug of impatient urgency. Moments later the door opened, and the girl, actually nearly four years her senior but considered of less potential, hurried into the room, and knelt beside the bed.

"There's no time for—" Kimiko began, but the girl cut her short.

"Highness Kimiko. Divine Highness commands your presence."

"Then why—"

But again the other cut in quickly. "She is occupied with the interrogation. Four more enemies of her Divine Majesty have been taken, and brought to the temple. They are in the great hall."

"I can't go down like this!" cried Kimiko irritably.

"Divine Highness says she will wait," she answered. "but we must hurry."

Only a few minutes later, Kimiko passed the final guards, and stepped beyond the concealing hangings of the High Chamber of Ritual. Light glowed fitfully from the lamps set in their holders above the great altar at the hall's further end. Not that she needed light now. She could pick out the auric signatures of everyone in the room with effortless precision. All were visible save for the infidels, and even from them there came the faint initial flicker that meant that their own conversion had begun. It would be twelve days before they would be ready for initiation, but time did not matter.

Smiling savagely, Kimiko pushed her way to the front of the gathering, and knelt before her mistress, reaching to take and kiss her hand, before she rose at her command, and took her place on the low cushions at her side. There was, as always, a little muttering from some who considered themselves more qualified than the newest priestess to fill this exulted position. But as always she ignored them, fixing her attention on the four bound figures before her.

They were bound only for effect. She knew enough of the mysteries to know that they were of no danger in their present state. But it pleased the cult at large to see them helpless, whilst also pleasing her Divine Highness.

"Silence." Sadako's tone was low, but her voice seemed to carry throughout the hall, and immediately the seventeen men and twenty-two women that made up those present of her Divine Majesty's chosen elite fell instantly into stillness, their attention focussed fiercely on the high-priestess, Kimiko and the two other priestesses, and three priests that made up her entourage. Only the high-priest was missing, but he was preparing in the very den of iniquity that was the centre of the accursed stronghold of their enemies, in preparation for the night to come.

"Let us begin," Sadako continued, fixing her attention upon the four men. "You will answer my questions immediately, and as truthfully as you can. Any attempt to dissemble, or deceive me, and I shall have you dismembered where you lie. Is that understood?"

Kimiko knew, as did the other priests, and priestesses, that the four, her Divine Majesty's power already possessing them, would have been instructed with great care concerning the facade that was being played out here. The men would remain utterly obedient until woken, and there was no need for threats of any kind. But again, the cult as a whole needed to see their mistress's power.

Shivering in programmed terror, the four nodded. Then abruptly, one lifted his head, and snarled at Sadako.

He must be of no use, thought Kimiko, then changed her mind as her mistress turned.

"No!" The man obviously had been instructed to gasp. "I understand. Oh God please don't. No more."

Kimiko smiled as the cult growled for his blood as an example to the others.

"Later perhaps," Purred Sadako. "Let us finish with them first. Then I may allow you to play. We shall see."

And with that, the questioning began.

* * *

The first thing of which Lee Hao Seng was completely aware as the dreamy oblivion receded was that he was cold. Then he felt the hard stone against his face, and hands, and full reality sprang again into being.

Wherever he was, he knew immediately that he was a prisoner. He did not need the dank, damp smell, and the bone-numbing, aching chill of the stone beneath him to tell him of the basement cell into which he had been commanded before the door had crashed to, and the bolts slid into place. His memory of the past hours was completely intact, even though he had not been in control of his actions.

More than any other emotion, Lee Hao Seng felt fear, fear such as he had never imagined he could feel, and mingling with it, so intense that he was not certain which was the stronger, a slow building rage and determination to pay his captors back a thousand times, and then some for the humiliation of his capture, and his interrogation.

Not that he was troubled concerning the information he had given them. Of itself, it was all but useless. He had known only what he had told the man who had called himself Tachi, and the data was now safely in his hands. The cult-woman's questions had been obvious, a mere showing for her followers. She had not stumbled even upon the connection between the data they sought, and the home of the Genom scientist the Knight Sabres were to enter.

No, it was not the pitiful scraps of information they had thus-far extracted that so enraged, and terrified him, but the fact that he and the others had been caught so easily, and rendered so effortlessly cooperative, and what he had seen and overheard while still under their influence.

Whether they thought him too drugged to remember, or whether they simply did not care, he had no idea. He knew only that he must escape before nightfall.

Lee Hao Seng stirred. His body felt as though it belonged to him again, and the all-engulfing dream-scape seemed to have vanished without trace. Carefully, he rose to his feet, and moved quickly about the tiny cell, stretching, and flexing while he searched for any form of surveillance. Finding nothing, he was about to settle into a calming kata when he caught the first faint sounds of approaching footfalls. Quickly, he moved to stand facing the closed door. There was not enough room to conceal himself behind it, or time to form any real strategy. He would have only one chance to leap at whomever entered, and kill or seriously injure them, before they could retaliate or raise the alarm. Once he was out, he had no clear purpose, other than to escape and call in enough force to rescue his companions while there was time, and before the Knight Sabres appeared to execute their mission.

The footsteps drew near, and Lee Hao Seng tensed, crouching low as the unknown man, or woman beyond the door halted, and the bolts were slid aside. Then the door was opening, and Lee Hao Seng was moving.

Almost before the door had been swung fully aside, he had leapt, sweeping the figure's legs from the floor while his right hand slammed into the yielding tissue of the throat. Then he was out, and racing wildly along the passage. There was no time now to try to find his companions. He must get out, and as quickly as he could.

Had he looked back, he would have been stunned to see the prone form get quickly to her feet, an almost inhuman mask of blazing, all-engulfing rage twisting her features. Chosen, or no, Kimiko swore that she would have Lee Hao Seng screaming for forgiveness before she had finished with him. Such a humiliation could not go unpunished. In the meantime, she must follow her mistress's commands, and see to it that he escaped with only token resistance. The fragments of data they had let him overhear must reach the man Fargo, and the Knight Sabres.

Burying her rage for the moment, a chill vicious smile filling her face, Kimiko turned, and raced along the passage in pursuit of the fleeing man.

* * *

Dr. Antonio Geovani Fellini was very far from pleased. The previous night had all but seen the slow, careful revenge upon which he had worked for so long, come crashing to broken pieces around him. And now he was trapped within the tower, confined, as were the remainder of his team, by the actions of a nemesis he hated more than he could once have imagined could be possible; confined and impotent until his half of the DA project was brought to what that fool chairman considered a successful conclusion.

Fellini had to laugh at the bitter irony. Had that withered, senile fool but known… But he would, and very soon. Oh yes, the world would know and understand just how wrong Genom had been to dare treat his work with such contempt, just how much more perfect a goal his had been, than that of the poisonous, filthy traitor who had dared claim the acolades and prestige that should have been his. How they would learn, and how they would scream, assuming he could escape before nightfall.

Fellini cursed vehemently, and swore that he would have Alexei Ivanovitch Zhuranovsky screaming for death when he found him, before his conversion, for daring to outmatch him, and for so nearly destroying months of careful planning. Of all the nights his nemesis could have chosen to escape, why did he have to choose the very night before the awakening? Why could he not have waited a mere two more?

There could only be one reason. He had learnt of Fellini's plans, and had plotted to humiliate him yet again in the eyes of the world: had wanted to prove to him that even in his escape, he could still triumph: still take from him the power and glory that should have been his.

Cursing again, his mind a seething sea of hatred, Fellini stepped from the cramped suite that was the limit of his privacy in the quarters behind the extensive complex in which he and his team had been working for the past nine months, a complex which, as though in final insult, had been adapted quickly over the past month to mirror the final stages of the project of his nemesis.

Reaching up a lean, long-fingered hand, he slapped savagely at his tangled shock of wiry black hair as he moved along the passage towards the exit to the living quarters. It did not seem to matter what he did with it; it always infuriated him.

"You should cut it shorter, if it annoys you so much," Came a sudden amused female voice from the direction of the large communal sitting-room the fifteen scientists, the support staff, and the figure who had spoken were expected to share.

A moment later, the girl stepped from the doorway, and moved quickly to his side.

She was tall, taller by several inches than Fellini, slim and stunningly beautiful, her long flame-red hair tumbling in a wild, unruly cascade a little below her waist. Slashing jade eyes flashed with a chill, barely suppressed mirth as she studied the tight, anxious expression of the scientist.

"I'm not in the mood, Liana," he said simply.

"Oh?" she taunted sweetly, moving to lay a long slender hand on his arm. "Is Tousan consumed with a little fit of pique and pathological hatred again? Anxious perhaps, concerning what's to happen this evening, or that his daughter can't play her little part to perfection?

"You've really nothing to worry about. Those fools simply have no idea, and I don't intend to make any mistakes."

By the time she had finished, her tone was anything but playful.

"Shh! For Christ's sake!" he hissed urgently, turning to glare malevolently at the girl. "What the hell do you think you're doing!"

Liana's eyes went wide in exaggerated horror, her left hand flying to her mouth as she clicked her tongue in disapproval.

"Such a temper, and such language!" she exclaimed in mock distaste, her playful, condescending tone serving only to further enrage Fellini. "They would be displeased, father, were they to find out! And to me, into the bargain," she giggled softly, seeming unable to contain her mirth. "I could have you executed in the most inventive of ways, were ever they to hear."

She smiled, her look suddenly icily cold, and Fellini had to remind himself yet again that she was no danger. Then the amused condescension was back, and her slashing green eyes flashed again with mirth, her hand straying to his unruly hair.

"You needn't be uneasy," she purred, patting it reassuringly while he stood unmoving, and raged in silent frustration with her increasingly unpredictable antics. "You will be too useful to destroy." She giggled again. "and as for tonight, we can leave at a moment's notice, and I've already replenished our supply. The rest can be—"

"Shut…up!" he growled in a low savage snarl. "Do you want the whole of Genom to hear?"

"Oh dear, you really are simply too amusing," she said with a toss of her head. "Surely you wouldn't expect that I hadn't taken that into account?"

"Damn you to hell Liana," he said, a sudden hard smile flickering on his own face. "Shall we go?"

"I came to tell you that the others are already waiting. We're to perform one last test on that refuse, Yoshida, then prepare pretty Madeleine. Are you going to make changes to her? I should like to keep her undamaged if I can. She's very far from unappealing, and since your oh-so-generous modifications…"

She licked her lips, and Fellini allowed himself a brief relaxing moment of vicious self-satisfaction as the enormity of the perversion of what was so precious to his nemesis, and the perfection of at least this aspect of his revenge, was brought home to him once more.

"Not to Amura," he said coldly, the moment of respite vanishing as quickly as it had come. "She's as good as useless. There are a thousand candidates with her abilities more suited to what I need.

And as for playthings, you will have more than enough after tonight. Can't you wait?"

"Hmph," said Liana, pouting and glaring in return. "It's not the same, and you know it. I want her. You'll be keeping what remains of Yoshida for the control-net. What concern of yours, should I keep little Madeleine? Besides, I need a confidante entirely of my own kind, but malleable enough to be safe. With a little instruction, she should prove more than ideal."

"I will be keeping Yoshida," he agreed. "He might be insane after what happened, but he is inventive, and that quality combined with his animal cunning might well prove invaluable as a template.

"But as for Amura: it would be impossible, even were I to agree. Quincy has commanded her activation, and we can't afford the time to make a backup, or show our hand before we have the means to enforce it,"

Then more quietly, as though to himself: "But why Amura I wonder, and not Daitokuji? What is that senile old imbecile trying to do?"

"You're the genius," snapped Liana, the mockery and condescension now tempered by an almost palpable infantile petulance, and growing fury. "You work it out. But as for Madeleine; she's mine, whatever you, or anyone else may say."

We'll see, my viperous little ticket to absolute power, he thought.

"We'd better hurry," he said aloud, seeming to have ignored her little tantrum. "I want this over with as quickly as possible. We've wasted more than enough time as it is, and we do have other things to attend to before nightfall, or had you forgotten?"

"You've wasted enough time," she amended curtly. "I am perfectly aware of what I have to do. Shall we go?"

And with that, she turned on her heel, and stalked away from him, her head up and her back ram-rod straight.

Sighing in exasperation, but with a hungry triumph barely suppressed beneath his outward calm, Fellini hurried in her wake, a low, wild laugh escaping his lips as he followed her from the apartments.

As soon as the door had closed, an inspection panel slid silently aside, and a moment later a tiny human-like figure, little larger than that of a new-born child, slipped from concealment, and made its way with silent speed towards the rear of the living quarters and the balcony beyond.

A moment later, it leapt skywards, tiny thrusters carrying it within seconds to an open window upon the top-most floor of Genom tower, some fifty floors above. A moment later it was inside once more, and moving swiftly towards the office of the chairman.

* * *

He was in trouble. Fargo had known that the moment the flash and crack had sent Lee Hao Seng tumbling from his seat on the further side of the table to lie in a quickly growing pool of blood on the floor of the "Kiss."

He had received the call a little over an hour ago, the voice barely recognisable as that of the man with whom he had negotiated only nine hours earlier.

"Need help. The arranged place, as soon as you can. Vital information. I'll be waiting."

Fargo had barely entered the hot, stifling atmosphere of the club, when he had caught sight of Lee waving urgently to him from a table not far from the door. The man had looked very little like the cold, self-assured operative of their first meeting. His face had been dead-white, and tense with pain, and his eyes had seemed barely to focus as Fargo had taken his place facing him.

"I may not have much time," Lee had begun. "I'd intended to call for back-up, but I've been followed ever since I escaped, and whatever they did, it's worse than it was."

As though to illustrate, his body had convulsed, and he had clutched suddenly desperately at his head.

"What—" Fargo had demanded.

"Shut up, and listen," The other had gasped.

And while Fargo sat stunned, Lee had filled in the last gaps in the knowledge he already possessed, and set a slow, sick nausea crawling through his stomach.

"I took a car; there were more than a dozen in the garage," Lee had ended. "They were ready to go; they must have planned it from the beginning. It was only when I reached the outskirts of the city, and the thing died that I realised it had been too easy. They were already waiting; knew exactly where I was. But I was lucky; another car. I made the driver take me; pulled the gun on her that I'd found in the glove-box. This."

He had lifted it to show the fixer. Then the shot had cracked from the doorway, and Lee's body was tumbling across the floor.

There had been some screaming, but the panic had been muted until the four suited figures had burst in, guns already blazing. Fargo had dived aside, grappling for his own heavy pistol while catching up the other that had spun from Lee's hand. One of the four had turned towards him, then pitched backwards in a spray of blood as someone shot him from a stool at the bar. Within another few seconds it had been over, the four men sprawled lifeless by the door.

Fargo had not waited to see what happened next. A steady stream of people were pushing their way frantically from the Kiss, and Fargo had joined them, shoving his way to the centre of the mass until he was out of the club, and moving quickly with them along the broken paving towards the comparative cover of the narrow alley-ways beyond. Then the particle-beam had sizzled from above, and Fargo had begun to run.

"Keep going. Just keep going," he told himself again.

But his lungs screamed in protest, and the blood pounded wildly in his ears. From before him came the reflection of yet another searing flash from behind, and yet more screaming told that the supposed rampage was still going on. Fargo knew better.

Ducking into yet another narrow lane, Fargo staggered, almost falling as he struggled vainly to right himself. Then from behind came a sudden searing hiss, and light seemed to erupt around him, and the ground left his feet as the explosion pitched him into the air like a rag-doll.

Crying out more from shock than pain, Fargo somersaulted twice, both guns flying from his hands. Then he was crashing through a pile of some nameless alley refuse, and from behind came a roar and crash, as what sounded like half what had still been standing of the building he had just passed came crashing into the street.

Desperately Fargo staggered up once more, glancing about in the vain hope of finding at least one of the pistols.

"Excuse me; did you drop these?" Came a woman's voice from behind him.

Fargo began to turn. Then something touched his neck in a feather-light caress, and the world dissolved into the soft, velvet blackness of a drugged oblivion.

* * *

"Neesan? Oy; Neesan?"

Mackie's voice filtered slowly into the blissful nothingness, then his hand was on her shoulder, shaking her gently awake.

Sylia shifted uneasily in the chair in which she had fallen asleep, then stirring, she stretched slowly, and opened her eyes.

"How long have you been here?" Mackie demanded, setting down a tray, and reaching for the half-empty coffee-cup his sister had set aside, plainly hours before.

"Mm?" she inquired blearily. "Oh, since the others left early this morning. I was reviewing and correlating Zhuranovsky's half of the additional project data Marina gave us, and the hardsuit data from last night. I've not even started on the rest." She yawned copiously, and sighed.

"I must have been more tired than I thought," she continued. "I was trying to find a counter to the DA; anything we could use. I think it's impossible."

She shifted, her head lolling back wearily as she stared at the still-active console before her, the schematics seeming to dance in senseless, endless cascade before her still-weary eyes. "What time is it?"

"Nearly three," he answered quietly. "You should go to bed and get some proper sleep.

"Here," he added, pushing a fresh cup of tea into her hand.

"It had to happen," Sylia continued as though she had not heard him, lifting the cup, and sipping with little enthusiasm. "It was only a matter of time. I assumed though that we would have years: that such a quantum leap so soon was beyond current technology."

"You think the DA was designed with us in mind?" Mackie said quietly.

"There's little doubt that our presence played at least some part," she answered. "But no; not entirely. I think simply that we've been very unlucky. Zhuranovsky is one of a very rare few. Like father, he was a dreamer, and like father, without him the DA could never have come to be, or at least not for many years."

Setting the nearly full cup aside, she rose slowly to her feet.

"I'm going to get cleaned up, then call the others," she said simply. "For now, the other half of the data will have to wait; first we need to talk. Then I'm going to call Marina and Camilla, and see what they have to offer."

"You're thinking of including them, aren't you," he said, his tone still quiet.

It was a statement rather than a question.

"I don't see we have a choice," she answered, her own tone unnervingly calm and measured. "As I've said, they could destroy us at a whim. Our only chance is to keep them close where we can observe them, until either I can find some inherent weakness in the DA design, or Quincy abandons his plans to use the other prototypes.

"in which case the problem becomes less urgent, and we restore the balance of power, at least for a while. Not even Genom, I imagine, would be stupid enough to have something as devastating as a Bu-33DA go rogue in a populated area.

"I hope Quincy might put the escape of two of the machines down to experience, and not escalate the conflict further. After all, it wouldn't do should too many people learn that two additional Knight Sabres were Genom's latest military prototypes. So long as we keep their identities quiet, and they remain discreet, I think he might accept the new status quo, and things might return to some semblance of what they were before; at least for a while."

"Assuming they can be trusted," said Mackie.

"The point is moot," said Sylia simply. "If they can't, we're already dead. Still, we have already gained something. With what Marina has given me, I can improve our suits, far beyond what I expected to be able to do in the near future. We may never be able to match the DA-series buma, but even without her and Camilla, we can become a great deal more effective."

"And the balance?" he inquired. "How long will it be before Genom bring out another machine, and better?"

"Again, probably they won't risk another similar tactic. This was a trump they can't afford to play again. Removing us from the picture would simply have been an unlooked-for bonus in a development that will bring them profit unimaginably beyond their investment. Should they lose this round, or should we manage a draw, I don't think they'll try something like this in the near future. Nor do I believe they can.

"The DA heralds a quantum leap in devastating power, but there is a theoretical limit both to construction and materials, and I believe we won't see another such leap for many years, perhaps not in our lifetime. Also, as I said, it takes a very special kind of genius to make such leaps, and Zhuranovsky is dead.

"But even if I'm mistaken, Marina and Camilla would make very dangerous adversaries — indeed I believe they could do almost unimaginable damage to Genom should they wish, and I doubt even that Quincy will wish to escalate the situation by antagonising them. Also, he can't risk the chance that they might be able to free the other prototypes if they come into contact.

"Still, whatever the future, we've very little alternative but to play the game to its end."

She sighed. "Now I'm going to have a shower, and change. You might want to take a look at the data I've cross-referenced so far. If they agree to my proposal, or us to their's, we'll need several modifications to the equipment they'll be using while they stay. I may not be able openly to use their full combat capabilities, but their ability to interface directly to other systems is another matter. After all, even the 33S could manage tighter integration with a conventional hardsuit, and their's won't need to be anything other than cosmetic.

"I won't be long."

And taking the tea, and also a cream-cake from the tray, Sylia moved quickly to the door, and left the room.

* * *

"You didn't give me much warning," Nene complained miserably, staring blearily at the small screen as she lifted a hand to her tangled hair. "I'm supposed to be on night-shift this evening."

She was still in bed, having been woken by the phone, and the results of all that had happened the night before were still very much in evidence. "Can't it wait? I wan'a get more sleep."

She yawned.

"No," said Sylia simply, her own expression nevertheless softening a little as she studied the youngest member of her team.

Nene's red hair was a tangled cascade, and her green eyes were bloodshot, and seemed to have trouble focusing.

"Oh, all right," she sighed, pulling a face. "I'll be there as soon as I can. I don't suppose the others complained?" she added hopefully.

"I called you first," said Sylia with a sudden mock-cruel smile.

"What!" Nene exclaimed. "I could have had another few minutes."

Turning away in disgust, she lay down once more, curled up into a ball, and pulled the covers up over her head.

"Nene! Behind you!" Sylia's voice was suddenly almost ear-splittingly loud as she put her mouth to the phone.

"AIYAAGH! WHAT!" Nene shrieked, shooting bolt upright and trying to turn at the same time.

The bedclothes had other ideas. For a moment she flailed wildly, trying desperately to disentangle herself. Then with another shriek and a thud, she tumbled to the floor, and lay in a heap. From the phone came the sound of Sylia's suddenly almost girlish laughter.

"You wait!" Nene exclaimed, struggling from the tangle, and glaring at her image. "Just you wait!"

"Gladly; but not too long," Sylia answered.

And with another smile, and an imperious wave, she broke the connection.

"You'll be sorry. Oo! Just wait! You'll be just so sorry!" Nene fumed, her heart still racing as she got at last to her feet.

She glared furiously at the phone for a moment. Then her face broke into a grin, and giggling she began to make some sense of the bed before moving to shower, and dress.

* * *

"Well?" Quincy's tone was cool and quiet as he regarded the tiny figure.

The buma shifted, her tiny delicate face impassive as she moved closer, until it was only inches from his own.

"The game is being played exactly as you predicted, Quincy-chachou," she answered quietly.

Her voice was surprisingly mature for a creature of her size, but the tiny mouth nevertheless gave it a piping, childlike quality. "Fellini is suspicious, but he can't understand why you chose Madeleine."

"And—?"

"Performing exactly to specifications," The machine interrupted easily. "Shall I replay the recording?"

"Add it to the data; I'll watch it in a few minutes," he said.

Without a word, the diminutive buma lowered herself with a fluid grace to a sitting position, one tiny hand reaching for the unit Quincy had so recently set aside. A moment later, she had attached a cable to a port in her left wrist, and data was streaming from her to the micro-palm-top beside her.

"Done," she said after a second or so, removing the cable, and standing once more.

She lifted her wrist, holding it to her delicate mouth for a moment. Then dropping her hand once more, she danced a curtsy to the chairman.

"Shall I return to Fellini?" she inquired.

"There's no longer any need," he answered. "I already have two eyes and two ears close to Fellini."

"Then I can go to them now?" she said, sudden excitement tingeing her small voice.

"Not just yet," he said. "I need to be certain that Fargo reaches the Knight Sabres before this evening's proceedings begin, and that will not be long. I imagine I can trust the two to deliver him; he has already been taken; but I must be certain. The Knight Sabres must already be close to the place they've chosen as a refuge before Fellini is allowed to escape. See to it, if necessary. Observe if not."

"Hai, Quincy-chachou," she answered.

"Once you are certain Fargo has been delivered unharmed, you may begin to track them. However, see that you remain out of sight until the perfect moment. Do you understand? I don't want you telling me later that it was an accident." Abruptly his voice was a low rumble of warning.

"I understand," she said quietly.

"Very well. You may go."

The diminutive machine curtsied once more. Then with a lithe bound she was across the expanse of the office, and a moment later the door had closed behind her.

"The final test," said Quincy quietly. "If you match, or outshine my expectations Sylia, then…"

And with a smile, he lifted the palm-top, and began to watch the recording of the interplay between Fellini and the girl everyone within Genom tower, save the scientist and himself, believed to be his daughter.

* * *

"I can't believe it! I really can't believe it!" Priss was standing with her back to Sylia's repaired bay window, hands on her hips as she glared furiously across at her leader. Completely unperturbed, Sylia relaxed in an armchair, sipping at her tea while regarding Priss with calm implacable eyes. "You want to make those two…those two things temporary Knight Sabres! Are you serious!"

"I've never been more so," said Sylia quietly.

"Are you sure that thing didn't give you too much of whatever it was this morning!" Priss exclaimed. "You're absolutely crazy. There's no way I'm trusting one of those things. I don't give a damn what you, or them, or anyone else says. The things are top-line Genom military combat machines! Hell; they make C-55s and 33Cs look like kid's toys, and tame as a bloody kitten in comparison! And if you think for one moment that I'm gunna trust a piece of experimental Genom military combat sh*t with my back in a fight…! I won't do it! I can't! I—"

"Priss, calm down and listen." Sylia's tone was as reasonable as before, but her eyes showed just a hint of kindling anger. "You're already dead. You've been dead since Marina identified you. There is absolutely no reason for the DAs to dissemble with us. They have all they need to kill or take us whenever they wish."

"Maybe they're waiting for further instructions," Priss snarled back, something almost desperate in her words.

"Why?" Sylia answered simply. "What possible purpose would delaying our capture serve? Think! If they are Genom operatives, they might just as well take us immediately."

"And suppose they want to observe to see how we interact? Suppose the next batch of prototypes have Sylia, Linna, Nene and Priss written on their bloody packing crates?" Priss demanded, her voice rising with every word until she was almost shouting at Sylia.

"They already have enough data for that," Sylia answered, her own voice just as cool and reasonable. "Priss, you don't believe seriously that Genom haven't been recording every move we make during combat?

"I'm not guaranteeing anything. The fact that the DAs know our identities is not something to take lightly; indeed it could be catastrophic. But it's something we're simply going to have to accept, and something that was inevitable.

"Yes: the possibility exists that they're playing particular roles until it's no longer necessary, something for which they're ideally suited; they may even be unaware of that fact. But at least if they're with us, we've a hope of keeping them under surveillance while I search for a counter, or a design weakness we can exploit, assuming any such weakness exists. A forlorn hope perhaps, but it's the only one we have.

"But that isn't all. Don't forget that there are four more prototypes, waiting to be activated, and without Marina or Camilla or both, we have no way to identify them, and no hope of survival. And then there's the additional data: the second aspect to the DA project of which Zhuranovsky was so terrified that he died trying to reach us in time.

"It's up to you. I can't force you to agree to this, and certainly I won't make the offer unless I have the consent of everybody in this room. But I can't see any other way. We can't beat them as things stand Priss. There is no hope; none. It doesn't matter what I do to the suits. Even if I could upgrade them to the point at which they could match the DAs strength for strength, and that isn't impossible, the most important limitations are in here," she pointed to her head, then to each of theirs in turn. "The DAs are simply vastly faster than we could ever hope to be, and able to learn and adapt beyond anything we can conceive. Quite simply, no matter what I do with our equipment, we will never match them."

"Then why the hell did you finish putting the thing together!" Priss demanded almost in a shriek.

"Because it was academic whether we had to deal with Marina as she was, or as an Elite, and without the upgrade she could not have dealt with Camilla," she answered simply. "I had to work under the assumption that Zhuranovsky had removed all Genom influence. If he has, and the two are free, then we've doubled our advantage, an advantage that may prove the difference between death and our survival. If not, then at the least we've the chance to observe, and search for a fault, slim as that chance may be. It will give me time Priss, time we desperately need."

Priss sat silent, her red-brown eyes darting between the faces of the only people she could truly call a family. Nene was nodding slowly in agreement with Sylia's explanation. Linna, who had only seen and heard what Sylia's security system had recorded of the DAs' time in the apartment, sat very still, her expression sombre as her eyes roved restlessly about the room. Yet Priss felt that she too saw no other way.

To her surprise, it was Mackie who seemed most uncertain. He was shaking his head slowly, and his face was tight and grim as he watched his sister intently.

For a long moment Sylia remained, her gaze fixed intently upon Priss's face as she watched the struggle play itself out in the young singer's mind.

Slowly, Priss stirred as though to speak. Then in the next moment a faint sound from beyond the door to the flat brought all of them to their feet. The security system had not indicated any intruder, which left little doubt as to their callers.

"I'll answer it," said Sylia quietly.

"Not alone," said Priss, drawing the heavy pistol, and moving with Sylia to the door. (I know it's pointless, but it makes me feel better."

Sylia nodded, flashing her a smile as she unlocked the door, and swung it aside.

"Come in, Marin—" she started to say.

In the next instant she staggered back as Fargo's limp form tumbled against her, and slid to lie in a crumpled heap at her feet.

* * *

He was alive. That was the first thought that penetrated the blackness. Then the oblivion was receding at frightening speed, and a moment later full awareness came to him, and he gasped and began to stir.

"Welcome back," said a quiet familiar voice.

Fargo started, and opened his eyes.

For one confused moment he expected to find himself in one of the many meeting-places he had chosen, or perhaps in some hospital or secret sterile room, with banks of monitors, and tubes connected to his arms and legs. The reality was so utterly unexpected that it seemed almost absurd.

He was seated in a comfortable armchair in what seemed to be a very well-appointed sitting-room, while she sat facing him across a low table, a cup held in one hand while the other rested lightly on the battered case he had carried, and which now stood on the floor beside her chair. Glancing passed her, he saw that they were alone in the room, and that its door was closed, and the curtains had been drawn.

"I must admit that of all the things I could have expected, to have you dumped almost in my lap wasn't exactly the most likely."

"I don't recall being given a choice," he said quietly. "in fact, I don't recall arriving here at all, wherever here is."

"Hardly surprising," Sylia answered with a smile, and a knowing look. He wasn't going to find that out, he realised. "You were drugged, and left here with a note tucked in a pocket of that appalling coat of your's assuring me that you'd be back with us in less than half an hour, the reason you're here, and not somewhere a little less conspicuous."

"Meaning that I'm a dangerous commodity?" he answered with a crooked smile of his own.

"That remains to be seen," she said. "but if I guess correctly as to why you're here," she tapped the case, "I should say a long, if not a permanent holiday might well be in order."

Fargo shivered.

"I'm sorry Sylia," he said, his tone suddenly quiet, and intensely sincere. "Believe me, I had no idea our connection had been so much as hinted at, let alone so completely compromised."

"There's no proof that it has, at least by Genom," she said quietly. "You have nothing to apologise for. The DAs are formidable adversaries, if they are adversaries."

Fargo started, staring at her in open-mouthed shock.

"You know about the DA project?" he gasped. "I was gathering information; I had intended to warn you before, but it was all hearsay and rumour, and I had no evidence. Then early this afternoon—"

"I, or rather we found out purely by chance, last night; at least, some of it," she said quietly. "The principle scientist, Zhuranovsky, came to us for help.

"However, that's not important. You say you intended to contact me about the project? Then I assume what you have for me is in this?" She gestured again to the case.

"Yes," he answered. And while she listened, he told her of his meeting with Lee Hao Seng.

"You think he is, or rather was a rebel?" she inquired.

"If my information is correct, yes," he told her. "I don't believe Reikka Chang had been informed of the MegaTokyo branch's intentions to hire the Knight Sabres."

"Mm," she said quietly. "Probably she'd have approached us directly had she known; we've dealt with her before.

"But that's not the reason you're so uneasy, and I'm certain that's not the reason Genom, if it was Genom, had Lee terminated. There's something more sinister: another side to the DA project of which even Marina dared not speak openly."

"It's all in there," he jabbed a finger at the case. "The research, the evidence, and a…" he shuddered, "a sample of the weapon; assuming the phial hasn't shattered."

Abruptly he laughed, a short hard sound. "But then if it had, I doubt I'd be talking to you now."

"Meaning?" she demanded.

"Meaning that quite literally, Zhuranovsky's work was only half the project," he said quietly.

And while Sylia listened in stark, leaping horror, Fargo told her what he knew.

* * *

"I can't call in sick again, Sylia!" Nene protested urgently. "If things blow up tonight…"

Mackie had left a little over half an hour before to drive a willingly blindfolded Fargo to the garage, where he could remain hidden until they could reach Marina to see whether it was safe to let him return to the streets, and the others were gathered again in Sylia's sitting-room after having listened several times to the talk between him and Sylia. She had tried to contact Marina and Camilla using the encryptian key the DA had provided. But there had been no response, and they could not afford to wait.

All sat very still, numb and horror-stricken at what Fargo had revealed, and what the remaining data Marina had given to Sylia had confirmed. Nene was clutching a pad in her lap, staring at the screen as though it might reveal some impossible solution on its own. Linna slumped in her chair, an untouched drink on the little table at her side. But Priss sat clenched, a glass of strong wine in her hand, her face tight and closed as she glared out into the late afternoon.

"Nene, I wouldn't ask if we didn't need you," said Sylia quietly. Her own tone was, as always, unnervingly calm, but her expression was grim, and it was plain that she was maintaining her composure only by fierce discipline. "We have to take the estate tonight, while that madman is still occupied in the tower. And we've already lost precious time. If we don't… If he escapes…"

"Couldn't we warn Genom?" said linna, her voice almost shrilling in desperation. "If he releases those things Sylia, and we're anywhere near that place…!"

"What?" Priss demanded, snapping out of her apparent stupor, and whirling to glare in her direction.

"Perhaps," said Sylia. "but even assuming Quincy isn't aware of what Fellini intends, there'd be little they could do. A strike-team of combat buma isn't exactly what's needed, and any attempt to attack the estate could precipitate the most appalling retaliation. If—"

She was interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

Moving quickly to it, she answered it to see Mackie's face, his expression as frantic as she had ever known it.

"Six buma!" he said urgently, "about five blocks away. I'd just started back when the rampage began. Whatever the hell they are, they're not C-55s, and they're aiming at people rather than property."

"Damn!" Sylia exploded vehemently. "Tonight of all nights; assuming of course this isn't some diversion for our benefit!

"When—"

"I'll be there in a few minutes," he assured her.

"WE'LL be waiting."

She broke the connection, and turned to face the others.

"I think it's started," Was all she said.

* * *

Madigan stood once more before the chairman, his steel-hard gaze fixed appraisingly on her as she waited for him to speak.

"It has begun?" he said calmly.

"The first six were activated two minutes ago, almost on the edge of the canyons," she answered. "They are performing flawlessly. The second four are waiting inside the Hot Legs nightclub, and will be activated ten minutes from now. That should give the Knight Sabres time to reach the sight of the first rampage. The third will begin their attack, starting at the Tinsel City bank, seven minutes after the second. The fourth have reported that they have found the hotel in which the two prototypes have taken refuge. They are ready to track them the moment the Bu-12B rampage begins. Do you want the building levelled?"

"Ensure as much destruction as possible," Quincy answered simply. "There is still no word concerning Zhuranovsky?"

"He is not with the prototypes, and the assassins have detected nothing so far."

"Very well. When will the transport pass the hotel?"

"Exactly eight minutes after the third rampage begins," Madigan answered. "The four Bu-12Bs have been instructed to destroy their transport ten seconds after it passes the building. They will make for it immediately they emerge."

"Excellent," said Quincy. "And our final trump?"

"Is waiting outside. Do you want to see her now?"

"Alone," he answered. "You know what to do regarding Fellini?"

"Perfectly," Madigan assured him, her face suddenly a mask of ice as she smiled.

"Very well," said Quincy. "You may go."

Madigan bowed deeply, then turning she moved quickly across the plush expanse of the office to the door, pausing for a moment on the threshold to beckon forwards the tall figure who stood cloaked in shadow beyond.

"Quincy-chachou is waiting," she said, and hurried quickly away.

A moment later the figure stepped into the room, and glided silently to the desk of the chairman. There she stood facing him, still as though carven in marble. She was very tall, and exotically beautiful, her long raven-black hair tumbling in a wild cascade to her waist, her face grim and inscrutable. Only in the fathomless dark eyes could one see into the soul, and in those eyes was a hatred more absolute than the chairman had ever seen; and it pleased him.

For a long moment neither spoke. Then slowly the tall figure stirred.

"Give me one reason I should not tear out your black heart, and feed it to you where you sit," she snarled softly.

Quincy stirred, and a slow cold smile spread across his face.

"The answer to that, Ligeia, is simple," he said calmly. "As with your namesake in Poe's tale, you will not own this body until I deem the time is right.

"Madeleine, I believe it's time."

And in that moment, shock filled the face and eyes, and Madeleine Amura began to scream.

* * *

Fellini was in a pathological rage.

The tests on what was left of Yoshida had been flawless so far as the chairman's requirements were concerned, but for his purposes, of no use at all. He could not have believed that they could have been so incompetent. The idiots had taken too long to preserve him, and he had suffered severe brain-damage, with the result that the data Fellini had been able to copy was a broken travesty of what he needed.

He had wanted – tried to demand – that he be allowed to perform the experiment on Daitokuji, insisting that he could not possibly guarantee Amura's safe transfer without a successful test. But the chairman was adamant that Madeleine be prepared without delay.

Seething in impotent fury, Fellini had ordered the still inactive DA that had been moved early that morning to the hastily converted laboratory, removed from her tank, and upgraded, while the last DA-2134 prototype was burned with the base driver firmware, only to discover that he was to provide only the Amura data and an OMS bootstrap, and that the chairman had made other arrangements regarding the DA's initialisation.

Fellini had wanted to storm to Quincy's office, and blow the senile old fool's head through the window, but he had forced himself to calm. None of this was important. Once he and Liana reached his estate and the others, they would learn whom to obey. Oh yes, they would learn.

Fellini had been somewhat amused to see Liana's reaction when he told her what was to happen. She had stepped a pace towards him, her face twisting in a paroxysm of vicious, puerile rage. She had remained still for a moment. Then with a low snarl, she had whirled away from him, and stormed to where the technicians were still busy with the buma. There she had remained, seething in one of the blackest most dangerous moods in which Fellini had ever seen her, watching silently as they completed their work, and reassembled the DA while he had watched her, and tried to contain his own sadistic laughter. His revenge could not have been more beautiful.

It had taken several minutes for the ragged remains of the disguising skin to cover the machine once more, even under the intense radiation to which she had been subjected to speed the repair. Through the growth and activation, Fellini had remained seemingly impassive, even as his rage at the pointless loss of Yoshida had surged and boiled, fighting with his twisted contentment as he watched Liana, until it seemed that he could not tell which was the more potent emotion.

Even when the tall, fair-haired Ligeia had been linked into the OMS under the control of the simple bootstrap driver, and had risen to move to the door, Fellini had remained as though frozen at Liana's side, watching unmoving as the empty Bu-33DA-Elite left the laboratory, the door hissing almost silently closed behind her.

It had been a cold hand on his arm that had brought him back to the present at last.

Slowly he stirred, seeming only then to look again with rational sight at the men and women who stood now almost silent, gazing uncertainly about them as though awaiting some further command. For a long moment he remained still. Then at last he stirred.

"You may stand down for the present," he said quietly, his own voice seeming to him to come from some great distance.

Then without another word, he turned and stalked from the laboratory, Liana gliding silently beside him. Not until they had reached the living quarters behind the research centre, and were alone in their tiny three-room suite did he turn to her.

"It's time to leave," was all he said.

* * *

"…and if you expect me to stand by while good men and women get blown to hell because you haven't the damn guts to stand up to some idiot upstairs whose pay comes straight from Quincy's pocket, then you know what the hell you can do!"

Leon McNichol whirled away, and stormed from the office.

"McNichol! You arrogant baka! Get your sorry a*se back in here!" Todo screamed.

Leon paid no attention.

"Idiot!" he hissed with far more than his usual vehemence as he strode back to his desk, and snatched up the cup of lukewarm coffee.

Tossing it back with a grimace of disgust, he dropped wearily behind the desk once more.

It had not been a good day. It had started with him arriving to find that Nene would not be on shift until that evening, which put two investigations of his own that required her particular talents on hold until he saw her. Then there had come a report of buma trouble at the docks, and he and Daley had gone down there to find that a Genom clean-up crew had been there before them, and that no one was willing to talk. Then in the early afternoon a call had come in concerning another rampage, this one near one of the dives on the edge of the canyons. Again he had gone, and this time there was nothing but dead bodies, and a smashed building or too, and some of the bodies looked suspiciously as though they had been shot with heavy pistols; not exactly buma ammo.

He had returned in a mood even blacker than the one he had been in all day, only to find that he would be doing a double shift yet again, and for no good reason he could see. Not that there was anything new in that; but today he just was not in the mood. Finally, he had learnt less than half an hour before that Nene had called in sick again, and there would be no hope of relieving the boredom with the work he wanted to do.

"Damn you to hell," he muttered again with feeling as he shot a killing look in the direction of Todo's office.

"Thanks; nice to see you too," said Daley with a grin as he dragged up a chair, and settled himself by Leon.

"Hmph!" Leon retorted sourly. "Did you ever get the feeling we're just wasting our time?"

"Every day," Daley answered cheerfully. "What's up?"

"Ah, the hell with it," said Leon moodily. "What the hell does it matter if we get our a*ses blown away? They don't give a damn, anyway."

"Well someone's in a fine mood tonight, I must say," Daily observed, still grinning. "What's started this all of a sudden?"

"We've had eight K-12s in maintenance for six days," said Leon. "Eight! And when I complain about it, I get some damn, stupid bullsh*t about funds available, and management of resources in relation to the current situation. What the hell is that supposed to mean!

"Bullsh*t!" he snarled again, bringing his hand down on the desk for emphasis. "We're the one's who've got to go out there and clean up Genom's trash for them, and I get some bullsh*t about resource management!"

Slamming down the empty cup, he rose to his feet, and stalked away from his desk, then back once more.

"Feel better now?" Daley inquired.

"Well, what the hell are we supposed to do?" Leon demanded as though really expecting an answer. "It'd serve the bastards right if things did blow up tonight—"

He stopped short as a sudden flurry of activity caught their attention.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you you should be careful what you wish for?" Daley observed dryly as a dispatcher came racing towards them. "I think your's has just been granted."

* * *

Things were a disaster, but then Hiroshi Davis never expected anything else in this job. He knew what he was; cannon-fodder for any buma that decided its next particle-beam had his name on its business end.

"Sh*t, I hate my job!" he muttered without much feeling, as he peered out from behind the impromptu barricade he and the others had finished erecting a scant minute before. It was a joke like everything else, but that didn't matter. Hiroshi was sure it wouldn't be standing for long, once the buma reached their end of the street.

The truth was that he didn't much care any more. He had become numb to the danger once an incident began, no matter how scared he thought he was. It was only when everything was over that he started shaking.

They were getting closer. He could hear the whine of charging weapons, and the spit of plasma as the machines fired, and the cracks and screams as something, or someone exploded.

"Stupid bastards!" hiroshi swore venomously under his breath. "They just won't be told. Wouldn't matter if you beat the bastards senseless and dumped them on the other side of the city, they'd find a way to crawl back to get themselves killed."

Another scream.

"Well, that one got more of a look than he bargained for."

Hiroshi sniggered bitterly, then sobered. He was on the edge of losing it again. It was the adrenalin, and the fear, and the exhilaration of the coming fight, and the fact that he wanted to slam through the roof of Genom tower, and splash the chairman's brains across the plush carpet of his office, for screwing up so many lives.

Taking several breaths to calm himself, Hiroshi moved to climb the barricade. To hell with orders; he was going to get a better view. He had almost found a suitable perch when there came a sudden hiss from above, and a cruiser was turned into a fireball barely ten yards from where Hiroshi was climbing.

"Holy Jesus of Nazareth!" he heard his own voice scream as a second explosion pitched him from his precarious perch like a rag-doll.

A moment later it was all crashing and firing, and the frantic sounds of men and women screaming hopelessly for backup.

"Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!" hiroshi was snarling as he struggled desperately to his feet.

Then turning, he fled to the further end of the street. He had lost his gun in the explosion: not that the thing was much good, and he would only be in the way until they could get him into something a bit less easy to blow to pieces. He arrived with several others at the new lines just as several cruisers screamed to a halt, and the first of the helicopters began dropping K-12s into the fray.

* * *

Leon was already out, and running as Daley pulled to a stop.

"What's the situation?" he demanded, stumbling to a halt beside a white-faced sergeant. It was an idiot of a question, he was sure. The situation would be as much of a mess as always.

"There're six of them, so far," The man panted. There was blood on his face from a cut just below his left eye, and he was shaking so much that he could barely talk. "They're not the usual C-class things from what I could see: smaller and lighter, and whatever the hell they are, they're fast, and slippery as snakes! They seem to be going for people rather than property: vicious little bastards; we've already lost Keen and Takahashi. But they don't seem to pack the punch of a '55."

"Sh*t!" Leon swore feelingly. "Just what we need! Have you—"

The rest of his sentence was cut off by an explosion, followed by the crash of one of the helicopters.

"Whatever they are, these bastards can fly," Came a shout over the comms. "Get your damn a**es under cover!"

A moment later people seemed to be running everywhere.

Cursing, Leon moved back to the cruiser, reaching it just as something came hurtling almost from above to crash down on the sergeant he had just left. Staring, suddenly frozen in place, Leon watched helplessly as the machine leapt skywards, the screaming man held between both hands. Then there was a sickening tearing sound as it cut and pulled his head almost negligently from his body, and sent it spinning into the ranks of the ADP, before pitching the body through the plate-glass of a nearby shop front, and soaring away.

Gagging, choking back the bile that was desperately trying to escape, Leon lifted his arm for a hopeless shot.

"Leon, get the hell down!"

Daley's scream just penetrated in time to save his life as he dived from the path of a bolt that blew a crater into the pavement on which he had been standing a scant moment before.

Then Daley was dragging him behind the cruiser, and away, and a moment later it was nearly cut in two by the flash of another shot from above. The resulting explosion sent the two men spinning through the air to land in a choking, panting heap almost under the wheels of yet another cruiser as it swerved wildly to a stop.

Half stunned, Leon sat up, trying desperately to shake the stars from his head. Then suddenly, the familiar: "Knight Sabres; sanjo!" brought him staggering to his feet just in time to see the four hardsuited figures drop from above.

"Ok you bastards," he heard from one, and smiled as he watched the blue hardsuit leap forwards. "let's dance!"

* * *

She was in her element. This was what she needed, and tonight more than ever. She was just in the right mood to beat buma into a thin metallic paste, and it helped her take her mind off her horror at the appalling enormity of their situation, and what they might have soon to do.

And yet, even as she surged into battle, an additional tight unease lurked behind the adrenalin and the fury. Priss knew why. It was that damn nightmare, haunting her now because it was the first time she had fought since the stupid dream had started bothering her. Why the hell did it have to come distracting her tonight of all nights? Why couldn't it just leave her alone?

There were six of the things, nominally male in design, inasmuch as there were no obvious female features, and somewhat smaller and lighter even than the average for a 33C. Well, that suited her; two for each of them. Nene's role tonight would be even more defensive than usual, since a new type of buma meant her staying in the background unless she was needed, and gathering as much information as she could.

Grinning savagely, determined to shake herself from the lurking anxiety she was certain both the dream and all that had happened had precipitated, Priss flipped effortlessly from the grappling lunge of the machine that seemed eager to put its arms around her, and nailed it to the head. At least, that was what she intended. The trouble was that the head was not where it had been a split second before, and in the next instant she leapt back with a curse as the thing tried to sink gleaming, buma teeth into her armoured hand.

"Sh*t! Vicious little bastard!" she snarled. "All right! Now you've made me mad!"

Spinning from another lunge, she fired at almost point-blank range into the snarling mouth, and gasped in shock as the little thing slipped like a snake from her shot, slithering aside with astounding speed and agility, before retaliating with a lightning-fast slash of its gleaming claws that she just managed to avoid.

"Hey Sylia, what the hell are these things?" she demanded, pushing down the tightening unease with a savage shake of her head. She was damned if some idiot dream was going to make her paranoid in the middle of a fight.

"My thoughts exactly," Linna added.

"I'm not sure," Sylia answered, her own voice showing no sign of apprehension. "Some kind of covert security model I think, but considerably faster than usual for such machines."

"Oh great. Now they've gone and upgraded the troops as well," Priss growled darkly as she avoided yet another vicious swipe. "Keep still, damn it!" she snarled at the buma that was managing still to keep just out of her reach. "I've got a rail-gun spike with your name on it!"

"At least they don't seem to have the armament of '55s." Linna commented.

"Don't underestimate them," Sylia warned, her words sparking a sudden irrational thrill of closer and tighter fear tingling down Priss's spine. "They're fast, and I'm beginning to suspect that they've been upgraded with some of the DA combat routines. These things aren't stupid.

"Nene?"

"I can't seem to upset them at all" she answered, her tone suddenly uneasy. "and I'm not reading much from them either. Sylia, I don't like this. I think for some reason they may be running on minimal power. Be careful."

"I can't nail them damn it," Linna cut in. "They're too fast."

"Yeah; they're not exactly standing still," Priss agreed tightly as she tried yet again to take the head from the machine that was duelling with her. "Keep the hell still, damn you!" she cursed.

* * *

Leon watched in growing unease as the fight progressed. As vicious as these things were, they didn't seem to be able to damage the Sabres' suits. He had seen them connect several times, and the machines seemed to have far less impact than he had expected. Even the usual beam-weapon in the mouth seemed a poor counterpart to the deadly C-55 equivalent. Not that that had helped the unprotected ADP. But what was concerning him now was the fact that the six machines were matching the Sabres move for move, and were managing to keep out of range.

* * *

"Damn this, Sylia!" Priss exploded in growing frustration. The unease would not leave her alone, and the vicious little buma was managing still to keep just beyond her reach, twisting and slithering this way and that as though to taunt her. "Why not treble-team these things? They don't seem really to be able to hurt us, and I've had just about enough of the dance lesson and this savage little bastard trying to bite my hand off, for one night."

She knew it was ridiculous: that it was just the irrational fear of her dream scenario, coupled with the far more rational horror precipitated by all she had learnt in the last hour. But the fight seemed to have gone on for ever in her growing anxiety, and she wanted it over as soon as possible.

"It's worth a try," Sylia agreed.

"Which one?" Linna asked.

Sylia pointed, and immediately the three hardsuits converged on one of the buma.

"No! Wait!" The shriek caught all of them by surprise, and nearly put Priss's heart in her mouth.

"What the hell?" she demanded, whirling furiously towards Nene, her fuse far shorter even than usual. "Don't do that!"

"The others moved towards the ADP lines as soon as you started ignoring them." Nene answered tightly.

"Damn it!" Priss swore, the irrational unease surging suddenly to a tight, leaping fear.

Something was horribly wrong with this whole scenario. She could not have explained the sudden certainty, nor why or how she was so sure. She knew only that they had to finish this; they had to finish it, now.

"Oy!" she shouted, gesturing furiously at the watching ADP. "If you want to get yourselves killed, go do it somewhere else."

There were a few glares, but most seemed to appreciate her point, and none seemed eager to get too close to the fight after what had happened before the Sabres arrived.

"Pull back," Leon ordered, seeing what the four were trying to do.

But the words were barely out before abruptly the six machines shifted into close formation, and dived straight at the barricades.

"Sylia!" Nene shrieked again. "Sylia, they knew; they anticipated—"

"I know," Sylia snapped urgently in answer . Nene; stay back, and keep scanning. Priss, Linna; with me!"

But the young ADP officer had already leapt to join them as they shot forwards on furiously hissing jets.

"Got you you little Genom bastard!" Priss cried in sudden triumph and relief, as she caught one of the machines by the arm, and whirled it savagely from the ground.

The thing was lighter even than she had expected, and despite the fact that it was snarling like a rabid dog, and a vicious upper-cut from its other arm which seemed to have as little effect as anything else the buma had tried, Priss caught its head in one gloved hand, and squeezed with all the force she had. There was a splintering crunch, and a moment later the machine went limp in her grasp.

"Not exactly conventional, but it does the job," she shouted, slamming the body straight down into the path of another of the homicidal machines.

The buma was unable to avoid the collision, and was sent spinning for a moment before its thrusters righted it.

"They're trying to split up again," Sylia warned. "Linna, you're with me."

"No! Sylia!" Priss heard her own voice shout almost before she knew she had spoken. "We have to get these things while they're close together."

"What?" Sylia demanded.

"Priss, what—" Linna began in the same moment.

"Trust me on this," Priss almost snarled, with no idea how she knew, but suddenly utterly sure she was right. "Just do it."

A moment later she was diving to meet a buma that seemed to have chosen stupidly to lunge straight up towards her.

"Priss?" Sylia said again.

"Don't worry," she cried as she reached for the illusive machine. "This one's about to join its friend in hell!"

Priss lunged again, catching its arm in the same way as she had the first, with the idea of giving it the same treatment. The things seemed less agile in the air. Ignoring a sudden irrational heightening of a sense of imminent danger, she jerked upright, hauling it towards her. And she knew, knew with a sudden leaping certainty what would happen, a moment before Nene screamed a warning. Then its other arm whipped up with the speed of a bullet. The blow sent her spinning wildly through the air to crash to the pavement some fifty feet from where she had been.

Half stunned as much with the confusing horror of the surreal premonition as with anything else, Priss staggered to her feet. She had bitten her tongue.

"Sylia! Linna! Be careful!" she ground out over the comms against the burst of rage and the sudden rising tide of irrational panic. "Nene was right. These things have been playing possum."

"What!" Sylia demanded again.

Priss opened her mouth to answer, then lurched as the unreasoning fear stabbed her viciously yet again. In the next instant she gaped in shock as the machine that had just hit her dropped to a landing before her, and began to expand.

Oh sh*t! she thought numbly, fighting savagely to maintain her equilibrium. Again, she had known; somehow she had known a split second before it had happened. But how! What in all hell was going on?

"Sylia," she managed, forcing herself to ignore everything but the urgent immediacy of the fight, "we're in trouble! My sparring partner's just decided its growing up time."

"Sylia!" Linna's voice shouted urgently. "This one's—"

"I know," Sylia answered, her own voice at last betraying something of her own tension and growing bewilderment. "So are the others. Try to keep them on ground. I'm not sure any of this is as it seems."

You're telling me! Priss thought with something suddenly close to hysterical amusement.

"They're slower I think," she said, diving from the path of the beam the expanded Black Ops assassin, or whatever the hell it was, spat at her, and rolling to her feet. "Yes, they're definitely much slower, and clumsier too I think.

"What the hell is going on? None of this makes sense!"

The machine backed away from her next lunge, its mouth opening wide in a buma snarl of rage.

Priss started forwards. Then in the next instant her growing fear leapt wildly to a hot, savage horror, and an overwhelming certainty of terrible, imminent peril. In the same instant, something she could not describe cracked like a tearing, whip-like gunshot through her head.

Reeling, her stomach clenching suddenly in primal negation, she stumbled, nearly losing her balance, sure for one horrified instant that she had been shot, as pain and giddiness and a tight, lurching nausea nearly overwhelmed her, and she fought desperately to stay on her feet. Then, even as the buma snarled again, and lunged straight towards her helmet, reality dropped away, and everything was confusion and agony, and a screaming, giddy plunge into a vast, endless oblivion.

For a ruinous, nightmare moment Priss did not know who or where she was.

Then a high, shocked scream pierced the horror: "Sylia! Sylia, the suit's frozen! I can't move!"

With another shattering whip-crack that half stunned her where she stood, Priss slammed back to the world, only the fact that it was suddenly so impossibly difficult to move keeping her from pitching headlong and grovelling on the ground.

For a space she remained, shaking like a leaf, her heart racing, too dazed and stupefied to do anything other than stare in numb incomprehension at the sight that met her eyes.

The buma lay sprawled before her, its limbs quivering and twitching feebly. But she gave it no more than a cursory glance. only a little behind it, Nene stood very still, facing her, her suit quivering and shifting in tiny spasms as she tried vainly to move, whilst some five paces further off, Linna was poised, her suit half turned as though in the midst of a manoeuvre, her monomolecular ribbon hanging limp and lifeless behind her as she stood as still and unmoving as Nene's pink-suited form.

Shivering violently with sudden cold, trying vainly to reconcile what she had just experienced with what she was seeing, Priss tried to turn her head, only to find that the suit would not respond.

"Sylia! Sylia, what's happening!" Linna's call was strangely muted and distorted, as though someone had been using Priss's helmet speakers for a particularly savage guitar riff and had not bothered to stop at the first smell of smoke.

"Neesan!" Came Mackie's voice from the van, his call having the same quality. "I've lost almost all power here. What's going on out there!"

"Stay there, Mackie!" Sylia's voice was tight, and it was only now that Priss realised how suddenly dark it had become all around them.

Then she became aware of sounds: shouting and calling, and men and women cursing furiously. A moment later, the crash and explosion of a helicopter, then another, filled the sudden eerie darkness of the night.

Still shivering, Priss tried again to move.

"Sylia, this is impossible!" Priss heard Nene gasp, her voice distorted through the suddenly under-powered communications suite. "Everything seems to have lost power: us, the ADP, the bu—"

In that instant, light leapt brilliantly into being around them once more. Priss's hardsuit surged to life, then in the next moment warnings flared in her visor.

"Shut down the suits!" The command cut through her helmet like a knife, Sylia's voice as close to panic as Priss had ever heard it.

Priss's reaction was instinctive as she closed down the power-plant, the others doing the same.

A moment later, a flash and explosion to her left made her lurch heavily in that direction, just in time to see one of the remaining buma burst into a brilliant pillar of flame. There was a second explosion, then a third, mingled with even more shouting and cursing from the ADP.

Then there came the sudden scream of tyres, and a moment later the van pulled wildly to a halt almost beside her.

"In! Now!" Sylia's tone brooked no argument. "Use just enough power to move; no more."

The others did not have to be told twice.

Turning, lurching a little as the suits strained with the minimal power they were being given, the three followed Sylia in a frantic scramble for the van. They were inside, and Priss, who had been last, was about to close the door, when another explosion followed by sudden wild shouting made them turn.

For a moment all four froze, gaping in utter stupefaction at what they saw. In the very midst of the blazing ruin of one of the downed ADP machines, a swirling vortex of darkness had appeared, its ragged edges spitting a lurid dancing corona as it swallowed the orange glow of fire. Then within the growing centre of the maelstrom, human-like shapes began to coalesce, at first vague and ill-defined, yet solidifying with impossible swiftness, until with a sudden blinding flash and explosion, they came tumbling into the street, some screaming as they burst into flame, others diving wildly from the fire, stumbling and staggering to safety.

"What the hell!" Priss was barely aware that she had gasped the question aloud.

Then men and women were screaming orders, and in the next instant the ADP were racing to the still-blazing machine, struggling to pull the figures from the fire. For a moment, the strangers seemed too dazed and stupefied to react. then suddenly one of them twisted violently from the grip of the woman who had just dragged her to safety.

As the Knight Sabres watched, still too stunned to move, her arm seemed suddenly to shift and change, the fingers of her hand elongating into tendrils that resembled nothing so much as the thick, trailing vines of a plant. Then in the next instant the ADP officer screamed as the thing lunged at her, the vine-like fingers curling around her arms and throat.

For a moment the creature held her immobile. Then baring her teeth, she snarled: "You have but a heart-beat to answer me, before I rip you apart where you stand! Where are the honourless cowards who have brought us to this place? Where are the destroyers of our future, and our hope? Where are the Senshi?"

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Notes:

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Yep; this was number two! Although by far my favourite of the first five chapters, this very nearly spelt the end of the whole thing, simply because it was so damn big, needed one hell of a lot of revision, often at every turn, and I just could never get the motivation to tackle it. SME alone convinced me in the end to make the attempt. Without that, this would never have been fixed.

My only disappointment is that I believe I'll never write the stand-alone for this: the events as they would have unfolded without DC, something I'd very much have liked to do. I've always believed the story could be superb, and deserves to be told. I've planned it out, and know what would have happened. But it would simply be too vast an undertaking.

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