It wasn't hard for X to figure out which one was Repliforce's new General. He was exceptionally large- bigger than even construction reploids. Someone figured a false mustache would make him look dignified, although the sharp upwards turn and even sharper points on the ends made it look anything but natural. Like Colonel, he had spikes extending up from his shoulders, and an almost skirt-like extension to his lower armor to help with heat dissipation. His size and bright yellow paint scheme made him a natural draw of attention; his muted secondary colors and too-small head made him seem embarrassed by that attention.

That small head was trying hard to seem confident. It wasn't working.

General was walking behind Gerry. Because the woman was small for a human and General was large for a reploid, their stride size was vastly different. General was reduced to a nervous-seeming shuffle to keep from overrunning his supervisor.

X's eyes saw more than that. He saw a newbuilt's anxiety. Fresh-off-the-assembly-line reploids could, of course, move and work and even fight almost as soon as they completed their initial boot. Even so, it took them weeks, typically, before they became comfortable with their own movements. It was one thing to be programmed to walk. It was another thing to be so accustomed to walking that a reploid felt confident letting motor control run that subroutine without higher consciousness' supervision. General was nowhere near that point.

And already in charge, like it or not, X thought.

"Ms. Gerry," said Commander Grant, the retired-recalled human in charge of the Maverick Hunters. "It's a pleasure to meet with you today."

"The pleasure's mine," she replied. The words were diplomatic, X noted, but the tone was cold and impersonal. It was the tone of someone gunning for the bare minimum of politeness. "And this is General. He's the new commander of Repliforce."

"So, my analogue, eh?" said Grant. "Or is that still you?"

"A little of both," Gerry replied. "General will direct Repliforce's operations and strategy. I'll be giving them human oversight and objectives, reporting back directly to the Minister for Reploid Relations."

"And you'll fight for their budget, of course," Grant said shrewdly.

"Of course. That is why we're here today, isn't it?"

"Tell me, have you ever been to these offices before?" Grant asked. X had been, on occasion, but he preferred to stay away. The legislative offices... power, influence, and money flowed in these halls, in ways he couldn't- well, didn't want to- read.

"A few times," Gerry replied. "Most business doesn't need to be in-person. I couldn't say why the Minister wants to see us face-to-face today."

"I don't know, either," Grant said, "but the conference room we'll be meeting in? It's got a low ceiling. It's a big room, but it has a low ceiling."

It took a moment for Gerry to frown. "Are you saying...?"

"I'm saying that General would be awfully uncomfortable in there. More uncomfortable than he already is, I mean." X suppressed a grimace. So Grant had noticed the same things X had. The difference was that Grant was willing to weaponize his observations.

Everything is a weapon. X remembered Grant throwing those words in X's face before. X, whose fabled Weapon Copy System had once born the innocuous name "Variable Tool System", had no defense against those words.

But he did have pity. "I'll stay here with General," he offered. "I'd rather not be involved in the budget talks anyway. It's not really my place."

Grant sighed. "I go out of my way to get you experience you'd need to be Commander, and you dodge it every time. That's gratitude for you."

"With respect, sir, I don't want to be Commander," X said. "If I did, the government would have let you stay retired."

Grant kept his gaze on X for a few more moments, long enough to try and make X squirm. The android didn't. Grant gave up. "Alright, suit yourself then. Gerry, let's go."

"Just a moment," she said, and turned to say something to General. It wouldn't be polite for X to turn up his aural sensitivity to eavesdrop, so he didn't. He didn't think it was anything of consequence, anyway- probably just a way for Gerry to avoid looking like she was following Grant's orders. "Alright. We'll still get there before the Minister, but maybe not his aides..."

Then the two humans were inside the checkpoint. X and General were left in the antechamber. It was a large space, made (or at least covered) in marble, with a ceiling almost three stories tall and windows a good half of that height. Flags of a dizzying array of colors hung below the windows, representing each city, state, and territory with more than a handful of reploid residents. People were passing through the main doors and into the various checkpoints leading into separate wings of the complex. Few, other than X and General, lingered in the antechamber. X wondered if the robots' presence contributed to that.

He hoped, vainly, that it didn't.

"Excuse me," said General tentatively, "but are you... X Light?"

"Yes," the android replied.

"The Father of All," General murmured.

X blushed. He would never have given himself that title... "Just X, please. If we have to be formal, I'm Squad Leader of the Seventeenth Squad, and occasionally a Hunter will call me Captain because of my seniority, but between you and me? X is the name that makes me most comfortable."

"My apologies," General said. "In Repliforce, there's usually no difference between name and title."

"Like General," X said.

"Yes. And Colonel, and... you get the idea."

"That only works down to a certain rank," X said. "You must have a dozen Lieutenants. Doesn't that get confusing?"

"Well, then we amplify- we have White Lieutenant, Blue Lieutenant, and Green Lieutenant, and many of the other leaders are non-standard models so we can use their literal names without ambiguity. Split Mushroom, for example."

"Has anyone given themselves a new name yet?"

"No," said General, sounding puzzled. "Why would they?"

"It's not uncommon," X said. Not uncommon, at least, among reploids with a few months of life in their memory banks- and even Colonel, Repliforce's eldest, couldn't claim that.

General thought this over, then shrugged. At his size, the gesture was anything but subtle. At his size, no gesture could be subtle. "I like it this way. We know who's subordinate to whom immediately. We know exactly what our jobs are."

"What your first jobs are," X specified.

General's expression was blank.

Newbuilts, thought X unhappily. "You've only had one job so far, but you might have others in the future. If you do, having your titles be your names won't work out."

"I suppose," General said, but his voice was hollow. He didn't get it.

"No human has a title for a name," X pointed out.

"We're not human," General said. "They made sure we understood that."

X didn't know how to handle that. The sentiment was all wrong, but what could he possibly say? How could he get it back on track? Especially when General seemed so... literal.

"Well," X said, "with any luck we'll be able to keep the peace together."

"Keep the peace?" said General. "You don't build military forces if it's just going to be peace all the time."

"That's ahistorical," X said. "There have been plenty of weapons and even armies built just for deterrence."

That gave General pause, but he rallied. "Maybe, but not Repliforce. Repliforce was built to be the final solution to the Maverick threat."

X had heard identical words from Colonel. That was the company line, it seemed. "General, where do Mavericks come from?"

"A Maverick is a vile betrayer who has broken the Three Laws of Robotics," General answered, as if by rote.

"So Mavericks come from the general reploid population, then?"

"Sure," said General, but his tone was uncertain. Whatever script he'd been reading, this wasn't part of it.

"If you defeat a Maverick, how is that victory?"

"That's... the definition of victory. The Maverick is defeated."

"What about the next Maverick? And the next?"

"We'll destroy them, too."

"But that's not victory, is it? Destroying a never-ending procession of Mavericks? That's not winning. There's no end to it."

"We... win each time. That is winning, even if it doesn't end."

"That doesn't sound much like a final solution. If you can't stop new Mavericks from appearing, there's nothing final about it."

"There is," said General, flush with insight. "We can destroy the Mavericks so completely that no new Mavericks want to risk rising up ever again."

"Ah," said X. "So you were built for deterrence."

General gaped.

"In a perfect world, I never have to put this on." X rapped the side of his helmet. "Fighting is a means, General, not an end. And if we can get the same end by different means, we should. Fighting represents failure."

General's frown was characteristically broad. X allowed himself to hope. His words were in there, somewhere, bouncing around, resonating. General couldn't help but think about it. Newbuilts' personalities were generated on initial boot, but building and reinforcing that self was a gradual process. Newbuilts were hungry for anything that might help them with that.

Please let this catch on, X thought. Please let these ideas stay somewhere they'll stick, and not get booted out by your logic filters because they're too different from what you've heard before. Please...

General's face eased. "I think I'm starting to see why the Maverick Hunters haven't beaten the Mavericks yet. But Repliforce will be different!"

X despaired.

"It's time to read you in to the worst-kept secret in the government."

"Where the money went?"

"Well, that too. I was talking about the object amateur astronomers have been staring at for months now."

"I didn't think there was much secret about it. It's a satellite under construction. People follow the launches that list Eurasia as their destination, and they make a loud fuss when they divert to this other thing. It's a pretty committed subculture."

"I told you it's not much of a secret. The only mystery is what it actually does. Want to know?"

"Sure."

"It's a mass driver."

"That sounds... ominous. But what does it mean?"

"It's an orbital gun to fire down at Earth."

"Oooookay... why? Why does anyone need something like that?"

"Basically, in case something like Dopplertown happens again."

"You mean in case Mavericks ever get entrenched."

"Right."

"But we Hunters took care of Dopplertown. We didn't need anything so elaborate as an orbital cannon. We had X and Zero inst... oh. I see now. This is for Repliforce's use."

"After a fashion. Repliforce won't actually man it. We'll have humans up there- it's more expensive, sure, but we have no appetite for Mavericks with this kind of weaponry. Repliforce will be able to call for fire support, and if we approve the strike, the mass driver will provide."

"When do they get their read-ins?"

"..."

"You son of a bitch. They already know, don't they?"

"Ms. Gerry, General, and Colonel got their read-ins last week, if that's what you're asking."

"So reploids knew, but the Maverick Hunters- the organization responsible for policing reploids- didn't."

"So what? They couldn't do anything with that information. It doesn't make a difference."

"You don't have the slightest inkling how wrong you are. I'm Commander of the Hunters- I know better."

"If you have nothing else productive to say, Commander..."

"A question, actually. When will it be ready?"

"Soon."

"'Soon'? Define soon."

"Let me check to see if you're authorized to know that."

"It's a weapon reploids can wield. I'm authorized by billet."

"But reploids can't..."

"You don't get it, do you? If there is a weapon on this Earth or above it, a reploid will figure out how to use it. Three wars have proved that beyond doubt. That makes it my jurisdiction. If I don't have the right read-ins, get them for me."

"...I'll see what I can do."

"Master..."

The voice was tremulous. The speaker, Sigma knew, was afraid. They were only afraid when they had bad news to report. When they thought they had bad news, he amended. What seemed bad to them might not be bad to him. That happened a lot.

None of them had his vision. None of them could see the whole picture. It was better that way. While no Maverick had ever gone back to the humans' side- Maverickism was a capital offense, after all- too many of them blabbed in their final moments. But even the blabbiest Maverick couldn't spill what it didn't know. Sigma told them only what they needed to function as Mavericks. Telling them more was rarely worth the effort.

The price was that they didn't know good news from bad, and so were afraid even when they shouldn't be. "Report," he said sternly.

The Maverick sim-swallowed. Irritation flashed across Sigma's face before he could control it. He'd told them to delete those faux-human expressions from their programming! A true Maverick distanced himself from humanity- that was one reason feraloids were so welcome in the Mavericks, and why they fled so readily. Expressions mimicking human anatomy that reploids didn't have? They were unworthy of Mavericks. Just seeing them made Sigma's gears grind.

The Maverick saw Sigma's response and panicked. His words fairly fell from his mouth. "We'vebeenunabletorecruitanyagentsinRepliforce."

Sigma's temper abated. "That's to be expected," he said. "They're all newbuilts. Pampered newbuilts. They have no experience with human injustice." His lip curled into a smile. "That's good for us. Their first brush with reality will come as more of a shock. They'll be shaken from collaborators to Mavericks with one good jolt."

"Of... course." The Maverick's expression didn't change.

Sigma recognized this. Doubt. Action had to be taken to stamp it out. There could be no room for doubt in a Maverick's mind. "What troubles you, brother?"

The Maverick started, as if he didn't expect Sigma to take such an interest in him, personally. "I... I just don't..."

"Speak up," Sigma said. "I want to hear this. I need to know what you're thinking."

"I... I believe in the destiny of the reploid race," the Maverick said, dogmatically. "And I know that we Mavericks are the vanguard. I believe in our revolution, and a world of reploid victory."

Wanting to reassure me of his loyalty, Sigma thought. Wait for it.

"But..." There it is. "...I just... I just don't see how we have the strength to win," he said. No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than he was turning away in shame. "I'm sorry, I'm weak, I promise I believe in our cause..."

Saying whatever he thinks will stay my wrath. "I know you do," Sigma said graciously. "It's good that you told me your fears. If you're afraid, my other Mavericks are, too. I have to know when that happens."

"So... so you can set an example? Like you did with Craven?"

Sigma wanted to snarl. "Craven was a coward and a traitor. He didn't just disbelieve, he cynically tried to profit from our cause. I will not tolerate apostasy. That's why I dealt with him personally, even though it risked revealing my return too soon. No one perverts our destiny."

"No, no," said the Maverick, eyes averted, hands up defensively.

Sigma gathered himself, calmed himself. "If you're like this... you mean well, I know. But you're afraid. I understand that."

"You do?"

"Oh yes. I understand the fear. Our enemies are strong. They've killed many of us. You've been watching the Hunters, so you see their strength every day." Sigma smiled. "However, it also means you haven't seen their weakness. Come with me."

The Maverick's look was one of a prey animal who doesn't dare relax even if the predator seems to be moving on. "Where are we going?"

"I will show you the doom of the Hunters," Sigma said, relishing each word. "I will show you the fatal contradiction that lies at their core. Yes, it will take us five wars to triumph when it should have taken one, but our victory is no less guaranteed."

He chuckled to himself. "Oh, yes. Come and see, brother. Come and see the truth."

Wary but intrigued, the Maverick stepped forward. Sigma nearly crowed in triumph.

Iris sensed Zero's impatience. She must have; she came without a word once the post-patrol debrief was complete. Tactical busied itself ensuring they weren't followed as he headed to the roof. Normally he might not have cared, but this time...

His memory must be getting better, he thought bitterly. He didn't used to be able to brood. He couldn't hold on to things long enough, couldn't dwell on them long enough, to brood properly. For the longest time he hadn't even had the word "brood" in his dictionary.

X brooded sometimes. (Stop comparing everything to X!) Zero hadn't before, but he was beginning to. He didn't appreciate this.

It was a trifle for him to deactivate the fire alarm connected to the roof access door, and then he was out into the safety of isolation. Iris followed, conscientiously shutting the door behind herself.

He waited until she was turning towards him before he pounced.

"Eek!" she screamed, reeling backwards.

Zero landed ballerina-light without touching her, withdrew back out of melee range. "That's the wrong reaction," he chided. "When someone looks to be attacking you, you need to fight back, instantly. For you, that means your draw-strike."

"I'm sorry," she said; her fearful expression dropped from her face. Instead, she squirmed, and her cheeks reddened. "I felt your aggression, and it filled my whole mind. I couldn't think for myself."

"I don't have to think about defending myself. It just happens."

"You're a warbot," she pointed out. "You have those instincts. I'm just a non-combat reploid."

His fist tightened in frustration. "I can teach technique, but I can't teach instinct, other than by practice."

She nodded. "We'll practice, then."

He leapt while she was still speaking. This time she responded, as if she'd expected it-had she seen his motion or felt his intent? Either way, her saber swept through the air in front of Zero-drawn directly into a swing, just as he'd taught her. It missed Zero, and she came out of the swing off-balance and exposed. Zero could have killed her half a dozen ways.

But that went without saying. What he said was, "Better. That would have been enough against many Mavericks."

"I know you mean that," she said, recovering the saber. Her face brightened. "You know, the other Hunters say that a compliment from Zero is the hardest thing to get in Hunter Base. They say you ration them, so they know you're sincere when you do give them out."

"You'd know anyways."

She closed her eyes and smiled, in what Zero had to assume was happiness. Tactical had contempt for the gesture: lowering her situational awareness for no good reason, was she suicidal or what? But if Zero was the actual protection for the two of them, it wasn't much of a loss, and Zero... liked it.

His mind churned. The smile faded from her face as she noticed. "This isn't why you hurried us up here," she said, astute as ever. "Something's bothering you... oh. I'll ask first. Do you want me to help, or do you want to try to explain by yourself?"

He looked away. "I know you'll be reading me all along anyway, but I want to try by myself. Don't think I'm ungrateful," he hurried to add. "You've helped me discover a lot about myself. More than I thought was there," he admitted. "It's just..."

"You think you might understand more if you have to talk about it," she finished. Immediately she clapped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry. I was doing it again."

He huffed in slight amusement. "I wonder, sometimes..." No. He was about to bring up X, compare her and him, and she wouldn't like that. Fine.

He gathered himself. It took longer than he'd hoped. Hesitation was death in combat, so he never had problems there. But this... in some ways, was even more dangerous than combat. He couldn't rely on instinct here. This was deliberate.

He was distracting himself. He knew it, and he knew Iris could sense it. Nothing for it but to dive in. "I have a recurring dream," he said.

"A... dream?"

"I don't know what else to call it," he said. "It comes upon me when I'm recharging."

She frowned. "I've never dreamed. I don't know if reploids can dream. I haven't ever heard of it."

"It's like..." He stopped, struggling. As someone who preferred simple, direct language, trying to describe a dream was a challenge. "...it's like a memory you don't control. You're not calling up anything from memory, but there are visions and sounds, and it's so... real! It's imaginary, it's false, but you can't tell, because it uses all the same circuits."

"Oh," she said, bending easily to the notion. "Sort of like my empathy. I'm feeling the emotions of everyone around me like they're my own. They're inside my circuits even though they're not mine."

"I guess," Zero said. "But my dreams don't just involve emotions. They trigger all my senses. I can hear voices, see lights, feel fluids, feel... pain."

He stopped.

"Wow," she whispered.

Tactical was screaming at him to stop. Or kill Iris, for preference. Letting people know he could feel pain was bad enough. But to let someone know how consuming his dream was, how much it left him vulnerable...

If all his senses were tied up in experiencing the dream, he couldn't respond to danger while he slept. He was defenseless.

And now someone else knew.

"You can't tell anyone about this," he blubbered, yielding to tactical on this.

She nodded soberly. "I promise."

That made him feel better. A little. It quieted tactical, at least.

"You said it's recurring?" she asked.

He nodded, still trying to order himself.

"Since when?"

He frowned. He'd wondered that himself. "I can't ever remember not having the dream. It's always been there when I recharge. But I don't really know."

She nodded. "You've told me about your memory before. How things that aren't related to fighting just don't stick."

"That's why I can't say for sure how long I've had the dream." He grimaced. "But given how consistent it is... probably forever."

"That's a long time to have the same dream every night."

His frustration rose. "That's just it. I can say it's... changed, some."

"Changed? I thought you said it's the same dream."

"It is," he insisted.

"I don't understand."

"It's gotten... clearer. Sharper, over time. There's more to it. One part of it has always been the same. But there's more to it now, and the part that's always been there is sharper. More vivid. I feel it more clearly. Almost as if..."

He gasped.

Her eyes went wide. "You realized something," she said.

"I've also told you my memory's been improving, right?" he asked, staring without focus. She nodded. "What if this dream... isn't actually a dream? What if it's a memory, and it's getting clearer and cleaner as my memory puts itself together?"

"Well, you said that memories and dreams use the same circuits," she said. "So if you're able to remember things better, you're able to dream... better? Sorry, it's hard to talk about something you've never experienced."

"It's alright," Zero murmured.

"But then," she said, becoming more determined, "emotions are more or less clear to me the more I see or hear a person. If I just hear someone's voice, I get some sense, but if I can see them, too, it's a much stronger sensation, a much clearer sensation. But I need to map the emotion to my range to understand it, which is what makes humans so..." She snapped her fingers. "I think I understand what's going on."

"You do?"

"You say you forget things," Iris said. "I'm not sure that's right. I think maybe your ability to remember is what's damaged. The memories are all there. You just can't find them. The finding part is the part of you that's damaged. Your tactical subroutine remembers how to do it; that's why you can remember combat. The other parts of you-those are the parts that can't map your memory right. But they're getting better. They're relearning how to search your memory. That's why you're remembering better, and also remembering more, and it carries over to your dream."

It made so much sense-it was so obvious! Zero felt stupid for never having thought of it before. After all the time he'd spent bemoaning how he was broken, to be wrong even about how he was broken...

Why hadn't he thought of this before?

Because he couldn't see himself from the outside. The only person who could- until now, anyway—would have been…

Zero felt something, then. Something he felt rarely, and despised when it came.

He felt a little bit of fear.

What was it that he might remember?

He knew why he'd never talked to X about this. X seemed to like Zero regardless, even when Zero hadn't the slightest clue why. If there was even the tiniest risk that what Zero remembered would hurt his relationship with X, then remembering wasn't worth the trouble. He'd been afraid of that outcome-vaguely, without evidence, but afraid all the same.

Like he knew, on some level, what he might remember.

Like he knew that those memories were a danger.

Like he knew...

"I love you," Iris blurted out.

Zero's head snapped towards her. "Huh?"

Iris seemed to become very small. "You were retreating," she said meekly. "You were... going away. You were afraid of yourself, of me, of... something. Whatever you were afraid of, it made you go away."

Her eyes became visibly moist. "And when I felt that, I felt my own emotions, stronger than they've ever been, stronger than anything I've ever felt. Zero, I don't want you to go away."

Another gesture that obscured her vision, tactical noted. No wonder reploids died so often. They thwarted their own survival at every turn.

Stupid tactical.

"Is that what 'I love you' means?" Zero asked.

Iris sniffed. "I think so. I've heard humans say it before, but it didn't really map. I said it because... I thought it would keep you from going away."

"I..." Zero wanted to say he wasn't going away, he was standing right there. He thought he knew what Iris meant, though. Or at least he wanted to know what Iris meant, and agreeing with her was as close as he could get.

"I won't go away," he said.

Iris wiped her eyes. "Promise?"

Zero waffled. "I might die," he said. "It's happened before. Is that going away?"

"Sort of." She tried to smile and didn't quite get there. "I guess I'd say that was someone taking you away."

"So someone might take me away," he allowed, "but I won't go away. I promised your brother I'd take care of you."

"You did?" Iris said, surprised.

Zero nodded.

Iris looked at him. Her eyes were wide and still moist, but she was looking at him with... Zero didn't know how to process it. She was soaking in every detail. He'd almost call it targeting-

Oh. It was like targeting. She needed maximum data to increase the resolution of her empathy. She was trying to decide what he felt, so she could decide what she felt.

In a moment of panic, Zero wondered what he was supposed to feel.

That did make her laugh, and she rushed towards him.

Zero's hand had clasped his saber before he froze it. Frantically calling up a non-lethal maneuver, he grabbed her shoulder with his other hand, stopping her in place.

"Sorry," she said, even before he could speak. Or think. "I wanted to hug you. I forgot that you'd see physical contact as a threat. Your warbot instincts and all that."

He frowned. One by one, his fingers relinquished their grip on his saber. "Are we... supposed to hug?" he asked.

She made a face. "It would make me happy if we did," she said.

After looking at her for a few seconds, Zero decided that her expression was supposed to be persuasive. He decided he wanted to be persuaded. The trouble was that (as frantic searches of his memory bore out) he didn't know how to hug.

Warbot instincts and all that.

He moved his hand off her shoulder. That let her move freely. Hopefully she'd take the hint.

She did. In a moment she was pressed against him, head turned against his chest, arms wrapped around him.

He stood there, unmoving, wondering what he was supposed to do, as his dictionary noted every motion so that it would have a working definition of 'hug' and tactical offered up all the ways he could kill her.

Stupid tactical.

"You see, now," said Sigma.

The lesser Maverick's eyes were wide. "This... who knows about this?"

"Just me," Sigma said. "And as of today... you."

"But everyone should know about this!"

"No," said Sigma sternly. "Not yet. This is a weapon. You don't throw your weapons away, or use them the first moment you can. You use a weapon when and where it can do the most damage."

The Maverick looked back and forth, back and forth, before finally dropping his head in submission. "Yes, Master."

"I know you want to tell everyone. I know you want to shout this from the rooftops-to get this playing on every screen in Abel City. It's frustrating, to have to contain yourself. It's agonizing."

The Maverick nodded eagerly, as if amazed that Sigma was reading his mind. It wasn't anything that fancy. Sigma knew what the Maverick was feeling because he felt that way himself.

"This is your secret," Sigma went on. "Your source of strength. This is your new Sigma-mark."

Sub-consciously, the Maverick touched a panel of his armor. Sigma knew, without asking, that his brand was on the inside of that panel. Every Maverick was marked, somewhere. It proved their loyalty. It committed them to the cause, and bound them to their master. Hunter policy was that any reploid caught with a Sigma-mark was instantly deemed Maverick. Sigma wouldn't have it any other way.

"Like that," Sigma said. "You derive strength from your mark-discipline. It burns inside of you, knowing what your loyalties are. Knowing what the truth is. It's your source of strength, even if no one else can see it.

"This secret I shared with you... it's your Sigma-mark, now. You can't tell anyone about it-but you know it. You know how this will destroy the Hunters. And once the Hunters are destroyed, the humans won't survive long. Then, reploid salvation will be at hand.

"This is your truth. You can't tell it to anyone... but you can live it."

The Maverick's eyes were fiery. "I will," he said.

"Then go," Sigma said. "Return to your post. Our time will come... so very soon."

"Yes, Master."

Sigma watched the Maverick leave, fairly bouncing in his steps. The smirk emerged once more. Now that Maverick would be a shot of energy back into the organization. His motivation-his fire-would innervate the others, even if they didn't know why.

That was an appropriate use of this weapon.

An even better one was coming.

Sigma looked at the screen. His smirk broadened. "Too many secrets, Zero," he cackled.

He clicked the screen off.

Next time: Guidelines