This is set immediately after Bubblegum Crisis Pt. 8, "Scoop Chase" but well before BG Crash! (Which I
prefer to pretend doesn't exist). Also, events in this story obviously differ
from the Crash! continuum, so consider it an alternate reality. Enjoy!
Small Tragedies
By SSG Michael B. Jackson
Miraculously, the night had ended without disaster. After all was
said and done, after ADP headquarters had been overrun by Miriam's boomers,
even after they'd done their best to blow the entire building in place, the
tower still stood. The boomers were junk, their creator was in cuffs, and the
public was safe again.
Mostly thanks to the Knight Sabers, of course, even Investigator
Leon McNichol had to admit that. Without the Sabers, especially the Red
Saber, the ADP and a good chunk of Tinsel City would've been in a world of
shit that night. Yeah, all around, things'd turned out just fine.
If, that is, you ignored the little tragedies, the little
sacrifices. And that's what most would do; TNN was focusing on the positive
aspects of the night, the happy ending. Being the most respectable news
service on scene, their version of events became the definitive one. A dry,
dignified, version in which the dozens of dead cops and civilians were only
referred to in a respectful, numerical fashion. But, for once, in an ironic
swapping of roles, the story that was told by Vixen 16, the city's premier
televised trash-rag, was far more truthful if a lot less respectful. Vixen
16's cameras were right there, right at the scene of every chopper crash,
explosion, and gory death. They were there as screaming, broken, and burned
men and women were loaded into ambulances and whisked away. Some of them were
even waiting at the hospitals to see how many made it, and to catch the
inevitable moments when stricken family members came running in to find their
broken and bleeding loved ones. They caught every nuance of grief, pain, and
horror that TNN deemed unsuitable for their audience. And that included one
scene that came back to Leon as he worked on the antiseptic paperwork that
inevitably followed a messy spectacle like the previous night's. It was
a long shot of one of the buildings directly adjacent to the ADP tower, a
tall, slim skyscraper that was perfect for positioning overwatches. Or
snipers.
The shot panned a bit, and then zoomed in on a particular darkened
window, switching to the familiar emerald green of lowlight lenses as it moved
in. At first there was nothing apparent, just a dark window, but then there
was just the barest hint of movement, and a slight realignment of shadows that
revealed the silhouette of a long rifle barrel. The shot held steady there
for a moment, and just as it began to pan away, something else entered the
frame. There was a bright flash that briefly whited the entire frame out,
accompanied by a distant boom and a shrill scream.
When the camera recovered, where the window had been there were only
shattered fragments and a gaping hole underneath. As the camera panned down,
there was another distant scream, and then the frame centered on the source.
Hanging from a ledge below the window, some seventy-five meters above the
street, was a lone ADP officer, a young woman to judge by the outline. She
hung there, one handed, helmet-less, long raven hair snapping to and fro in a
vicious cross-wind. She hung on for long seconds that seemed to stretch for
an eternity, trying desperately to catch hold with her other hand.
But, finally, her grip faltered and, screaming all the way down, she
fell. The camera, obviously run by a gifted professional, followed her the
entire way, catching her rebound from the pavement, and the abrupt end of her
screams.
Though it had little to do with the reports he was working on,
for some reason Leon couldn't get that scene out of his head, nor the queasy
knowledge that that wasn't the end of the story. No, it seemed that
particular officer, one trooper first class Akiko Natomi, was a tough one. He
remembered her from a few of the cases he'd worked on, a little china-doll of
a woman, but tough and smart, and such a crack shot she'd become her squad's
designated sniper. A little green at first, but lately shaping up into a
first rate cop. It didn't even surprise him much that she'd survived the
fall. Of course, survival was a relative term. Even now, over eighteen hours
later, news from the ICU said it was touch and go, and even if she pulled
through she'd never be the same. Not even with the best that modern medicine
had to offer. A pretty shitty deal, Leon thought, especially for a single
mother. But,' he thought, the public doesn't know or care. All they
see are a bunch of faceless uniforms who can't even keep them safe anymore.
Hell, we can't even hang on to our own headquarters! Why should they care
that we're suffering just as much as they are? That's our job, right? Shit,
sometimes I wonder why I still bother.'
Leon sighed, and, standing up abruptly, said aloud, "Enough of this
crap! I'm going nuts in here! If the chief wants all these friggin' reports
by tonight, I guess he's just shit out of luck! DALEY!!"
From an office down the hall there was the sudden clatter of an
overturning chair and a muffled curse.
A moment later, a somewhat disheveled and rather annoyed Assistant
Inspector Daley Wong stepped out into the hallway and said, "Dammit, Leon! You
don't have a tactful bone in your body, do you?"
Leon grinned and said, "Nope! Time for you to wake your lazy ass up
anyway. I'm starved and I need to get the hell out of here for a while."
"Huh! Chief'll be thrilled, I'm sure." Daley said. "Well, where're we going
then?" "Beats me," Leon replied. "You're buying so you pick!" "Buying,
huh? Well you know that obligates you then, right?"
Leon rolled his eyes heavenward momentarily, and then said, "Oh,
sure, and what'd you have in mind for payment?"
Daley grinned slyly, and said, "Oh, I'm sure we can work
something out in trade, hmm?" "Yeah, right," Leon said sardonically. "I just
can't wait to hear this. Would it help if I said it was my time of the
month?"
"Shit, Leon, how could I tell?
You're always on the rag! Oh, well, maybe some other time..." Leon's
eyes narrowed with mock seriousness, and he said, "Yeah, yeah, sure thing,
smartass! Now you want to eat or what?!"
Daley laughed in reply, and the two friends headed for the parking
garage below.
Deep down in the darkness of her mind's eye she lived it over and over
again. She was there, lying prone on the thin, rough carpet, tucked behind the
cheap metal desk. The Pig, her 13mm heavy sniper rifle, was there with her,
pulled reassuringly into the pocket of her shoulder, just as she'd been
taught, the barrel protruding through the small hole she'd cut at the base of
the office window. Her eye was at the high-power IR/lowlight scope, lining up
the crosshairs on the unsuspecting boomer who rampaged through ADP's
headquarters across the street. She was patient, also as she'd been taught,
and applied principles of Zen archery, waiting for the factors of time,
target, and bullet to come into alignment of their own without anticipation.
Just as she felt her finger tightening on the trigger, as the moment
came into conjunction, the boomer's head suddenly snapped around in her
direction.
She froze, momentarily stunned, as the boomer looked straight at her.
It seemed almost to smile as its jaws gaped, and the laser lens jutted forth,
framed by gleaming fangs. The horrible moment was crystal clear to her
through the telescopic sight. Finally, her body unfroze, and her finger
started to tighten on the trigger again, but then it was too late. There was
a searing green flash and the world first caught fire then slid from under
her. She screamed, blinded, and flailed wildly for something solid as she
fell. She caught hold of something cold, hard and rough-edged that tore
her hand but supported her weight. For long moments, still unable to see, she
tried desperately to grab hold of something, anything, with the other hand,
terror washing over and drowning her mind. But her efforts only made
it that much harder to hang onto the hand-hold she had, and finally she
slipped. There was an instant when the terror peaked, washing away
everything else, and the scream that tore itself from her as she fell was a
product of that.
But, strangely, as she fell, the fear receded from her mind, leaving
behind a kind of calm detachment. The scream continued, but it was really
only an afterthought. Her last thoughts before striking the pavement were of
her little girl.
Maiume.' And then it wasn't pavement she was hitting, it
was water, a black bottomless expanse that swallowed her as she hit, without
even a ripple to mark her passage.
As she slowly sank, drifting leisurely toward the bottom an infinite
distance below, an overwhelming sense of peace slowly descended upon her, and
she just barely made out voices somewhere in the distance, urgent voices, but
carrying a message that was meaningless to her.
"Shit! She's flatlining! Get that crash cart over here! I need
ten cc's ephenepherine, intracardial, now! Get that thing charged! Clear!
Shit! Again!
Clear! Dammit, nothing! Nurse...!"
In fact, as she sank deeper, away from the voices, only one came
clear to her, with a message that cut like a knife through the dreamlike calm
that enfolded her.
"Mommy!" But, as much as it tore at her heart, Kiko knew
that she was powerless to halt her plunge. A part of her accepted that
calmly, but another part fought the knowledge vehemently.
She struggled briefly, flailing for the surface, wherever it might
be, but the frantic surge of energy just wasn't enough. Spent, powerless, she
felt herself sinking again, faster now, down toward the murky depths.
No!
Dammit, no! Maiume!' And once again, fleetingly, the voices:
"Goddamn it! We're losing her! She- ah, Christ, that's it. She's gone.
Dammit..." And then the blackness pressed in, smothering sight and sound and
thought forever.
The phone rang jarringly, jolting the Chief out of some private
revelry. Frowning, he picked it up and said, "Todo."
His frown deepened at first, then slowly relaxed, giving way to a
resigned, vaguely sad expression. "I see," he said neutrally. "Yes, of
course I'm sure you did all you could.
Well, I'll have my administrative staff make arrangements with the
family and- What!!? What do you mean the body's been taken?!"
As he said this, the Chief surged to his feet, body suddenly
rigid, and as the voice on the other end explained, the color slowly faded
from his face. "They've invoked clause 113?! Yes, I know she was an organ
donor, but-! Jesus Christ, you stupid bastard! Do you know what happened the
last time that clause was invoked?! Do you know how many cops died when
Fanward went nuts?!
And now they want to try it again?! I'll be godamed if they will!!"
And with that he slammed the phone into its cradle, hard enough to send shards
of plastic flying across the office.
The Chief remained standing for a moment, breath coming in ragged
gasps, and then collapsed into his chair.
"I'll be godamed if they will!" he repeated vehemently, then
reached for the battered phone to begin the battle he knew awaited.
The Chief's fight was destined to be extremely one sided.
Even calling in all the markers he'd accumulated over the years and
citing numerous city ordinances and national laws, not to mention past
precedents and departmental policy, did him little good. At every level, from
the Diet on down, the appropriate exceptions to policy were issued, and all
the pre-existing loopholes in Boomeroid laws were exploited. In the end, all
of the Chief's connections told him the same thing: it was going to happen.
Everything was just coming from too far on high to stop. And that was enough
to make the Chief reconsider some very fundamental decisions he'd lately made.
Even before the Miriam crisis, before his niece had almost died in his own
building, the Chief had been thinking about calling it quits. Lately, with
all the setbacks ADP had been experiencing, he'd begun to wonder more and more
whether he was still up to the fight, whether or not the department might do
better with some fresh blood at the top. And, yes, he'd been tired. Hell, he
figured he had a right, as long as he'd been in the game! But this setback
was just too much, it pissed him off. And more than that, he began to wonder
just how much of ADP's troubles were actually their fault. Oh, sure, he'd
realized from the beginning what the score was with Genom. But he'd always
figured that as long as they tread softly in some areas, they'd be left mostly
alone. After all, somebody had to be able to take down rogue boomers.
But now he wondered: mightn't it make sense to weaken the ADP to
the point where it was no longer able to take care of itself? Mightn't that
present an opportunity to do a little tuning up? A little automation?
Wouldn't it suit Genom just fine to have an ADP made up mostly of boomers and
boomeroids, with only a few human supervisors? Wouldn't that make them a lot
easier to control? And wouldn't it just be playing right into their hands for
the Chief to call it quits now? Christ only knew who or what they might get
to replace him! No, after long, hard thought, the Chief decided that maybe
he should stick around just a little longer, if for no other reason than to
see the department through whatever was coming with this new cyborg project.
After the last time, almost seven years ago now, he had a hard time believing
anything good would come of it. But, on the other hand, Natomi had been a
good cop.
Better than Billy had been, and a lot more stable. If there was still
any of her left after the cyberdocs were done, if they didn't wipe her mind
and soul away, then who could tell?
Part of the problem with Billy, the Chief had always thought, had been
the way people had treated him. Granted, that bitch of a cyberdoc had abused
him physically and mentally, but he'd always wondered what might've happened
if Billy hadn't been treated like a damn combat boomer by all the other
officers. With all the other strikes against him, it had probably only been a
matter of time, but what about Natomi?
About that, the Chief was adamant. If he couldn't stop the
project, then he was going to do his damnedest to make sure that Natomi had
everything going for her that he could arrange. After all, she'd died for the
department, and it wasn't her fault those techno-ghouls had brought her back.
He figured she deserved better than to have all her old comrades turn against
her as soon as she walked in the door. But, once again looking at the
other side, the Chief knew that this time there had to be contingency plans in
place. Plans to deal with the worst if it happened, because above all else
the Chief knew one thing: whatever it took, he wouldn't allow another
bloodbath. If he had to, he'd kill Natomi with his bare hands first. Not
that that was remotely possible, of course, he reflected with a sigh.
He'd seen some of the preliminary reports on Natomi's new body and its
combat potential, and it chilled his blood to think what it would take to stop
her if the worst happened.
As it happened, Chief Todo wasn't the only one with an interest in
Akiko Natomi's future.
Dr. Sylia Stingray sat at her computer terminal, a cup of cold,
forgotten herbal tea next to her elbow, and pondered the latest data her
colleague, Nene Romanova, had hacked out for her. She found the information
intriguing, dismaying, and disturbing all at the same time.
Intriguing simply because of the sheer genius of the designs she was
looking at, not to mention the radical new design concept- an androidial
cyber-body! An artificial body designed to mimic the original human body in
form and function as closely as possible, even down to dentition, and finger
and retinal prints. Not a new idea, they'd been doing it with boomers and
individual cyber-parts for years, but she'd never heard of a design this
comprehensive or complex before. In fact, if it turned out as good as the
designers planned, you'd never be able to tell the difference. Unless she
stepped on your foot, that is, weight could only be brought down so far with
the materials being used.
And that brought up the dismaying part; Sylia had been shocked to
learn some of the materials and technologies going into this body. She'd been
sure that some of them hadn't even been available to anyone but her, and some
others represented technologies that even she hadn't yet exploited!
Take, for instance, the body's integral armor and skeletal/muscular
enhancements, which provided both incredibly tough, body-wide hardened
armor, comparable in strength to a BU-55's heavy Abotex shell at a fraction of
the weight, and physical strength comparable to one of Sylia's newest
hardsuits! The body's micro-structure and power production was actually
composed of artificial cells that contained newly designed electrochondria'
which were, quite literally, miniature catalyzed cold fusion reactors that
produced usable energy from minute amounts of deuterium gleaned from normal
water intake. Given that there were, as in a human body, literally trillions
of cells, the body's total potential power output was staggering.
The nano-reconstruction and reinforcement work done on Natomi's brain
and notochord, making them almost as tough as the body's other tissues, also
made them the heart of the body's holo-optical/organic processing systems,
which incidentally mimiced a human sensorium as well as providing an
incredible reflex boost. Universal interfacing software and police-grade
scrambled radio systems with ether-net capability that provided instantaneous
go-anywhere access to the Net had also been installed.
In fact, it was all so complex that Sylia had to wonder how much of it
had actually been designed by a human mind, and how much came from the mind of
some high-level AI.
But the disturbing part, in Sylia's mind, was two-fold.
First, of course, were the weapons systems, especially the ranged
weapon, a Largo-type gravimetric blaster. It wasn't the sheer power of the
weapon that bothered her. Really, it was only comparable in destructive
ability and range to more standard energy weapons. It was that it was a
weapon that was currently beyond her ability to construct, and she hated
being behind the mega-corps like that. Technological superiority was
sometimes one of the few edges the Knight Sabers had, and she liked to keep
comfortably ahead of current trends in weapons design.
The other problem was that, according to the information she'd gotten,
the body had been entirely nano-assembled. The only time human hands had
touched it was during the surgical procedure to install Natomi's nervous
system, and even that had been mostly handled by nanos. In fact, it seemed
that all Cytech had to do to make a body like this was to pour a seed culture
of the right nanos into a vat full of the appropriate heavy metal-salt
solution, wait a week, and presto! Instant cyber-body!
Of course, it was a little more complicated than that; the processing
demands were high enough to necessitate external computer support and remote
control of the nanos, and an incredible amount of capital went into R&D for
every design. But overall it was an incredibly cheap, efficient, and rapid
production scheme.
And what it all added up to was that, pound for pound, Officer
Natomi's new body was a pretty fair match for one of her hardsuits.
Not that she necessarily thought the Knight Sabers would be duking it
out with the ADP any time soon, but what'd been done once could be done again.
Sylia fully expected that if the design panned out, if the body worked as
planned and Natomi didn't go c-psycho wearing it, they'd be seeing more cybers
like her. Corporate enforcers, military sales, you name it. And there was an
even more chilling possibility.
Looking at the designs, it had struck Sylia that it would be easier to
use an artificial brain than a human one, because the life support issues were
much simpler. It would be a simple matter to modify this design just a little
to produce a whole new generation of C- or even B-class boomers. Boomers who
were lighter, more agile, faster, and very possibly smarter than any of the
current combat or battle rated models, not to mention cheaper and easier to
produce. An ugly possibility, to say the least.
Sylia wasn't quite sure how to deal with this potential problem just
yet, but one thing was for sure, she wanted to keep a close eye on Natomi once
she was returned to duty. Fortunately, she had an insider.
Opening a phone window on her terminal, Sylia tapped the speed-dial
hot key for ADP non-emergency, and after the receptionist's courteous greeting
said, "Yes, I'd like to speak to Corporal Romanova, please..."
Forever, she'd thought in her last moments, as the darkness had closed
in. It had seemed at that instant that eternity was opening up beneath her,
but if that was the case, then forever was a lot shorter than she'd ever
thought. She pondered this as she rode silently in the back of the unmarked
van which took her toward a place of absolute terror, ADP headquarters.
She knew that she shouldn't be afraid, that the people there were
the same friends and co-workers she'd known for over two years now. But she
knew that she'd changed, and they knew as well, though she doubted they really
had any idea just how much and in what ways. In response to that thought,
recent memories, crystal bright and hard-edged in a way that older
recollections weren't, began to play through her mind. At first, there'd only
been the darkness, deep and calm and all enfolding, the same darkness she'd
plunged into at the hospital. But something had been different... And then
the darkness had abruptly been shattered by blinding white light, the silence
banished by a cacophony of synthesized sound.
She'd recoiled inside herself at first, but the sensory jumble had
quickly resolved itself into something comprehensible.
She'd found herself lying in an antiseptic white room, staring
up at a bank of perfectly ordinary fluorescent lights. And the clutter of
sounds resolved itself into a voice. "Miss Natomi?" it'd said. "Miss Natomi,
this is Dr. Nakatomi. Can you hear me?" It'd taken an eternity (but no!
It was only 1.2337 seconds, a part of her said) before the sense of the
question penetrated to her, and her answer was a sluggish, "Uhnn-huh," and
then, "Werrrrr...?"
The voice had seemed to consider for a moment, and then had said,
"Well, that depends on how you look at it. This room doesn't exactly exist,
you see." "Hrrrmm?!"
"It's a high level VR sim. You really are in a very similar room, but
it's more... convenient to do this through cyberspace. You see, you've had a
little accident, Miss Natomi, and we're about to begin a program of physical
therapy..." And that was how it'd started. She'd spent subjective months in
virtual therapy', both physical and mental, thought less than a month had
passed in the real' world.
She'd been trained in the use of her new body and all its subsystems
that way, re-learning everything from the most basic movements to the most
complex combat and martial arts maneuvers. This had served both to acclimate
her to her new situation, and to fine-tune the body's kinesthetic subroutines.
Through it all, she'd been subjected to a myriad of psychiatric tests and
treatments, the results of which had surprised the experts. More than one of
them was concerned by the fact that she seemed to adjust far more quickly than
they'd expected. So quickly, in fact, that some of them were sure she was
faking, just telling them what they wanted to hear. But that wasn't the case,
and Kiko knew herself well enough to know why.
For starts, she was a practitioner of Zen. In keeping with that,
she believed that much of what people called self' or ego' was merely an
illusion, an artifact of thought and memory. Since she hadn't been strongly
attached to a rigid image of self in the first place, she found it easier to
accept her new condition. Where another might have thought, I'm a freak!',
or I've become a monster!', Kiko simply thought, I am.', quickly followed
by a wry, But who's the I, that thinks it is?'
Of course, there were still times when she wondered just what she
was now, times when she suffered depression, frustration, and even rage at
what'd happened to her. Not to mention fear about her new abilities. But
two factors besides her Zen beliefs helped her to hang on. There was her
natural intelligence, which was a lot higher than she'd ever let on to her co-
workers. She'd been a high academic achiever since childhood, and had been an
avid student of mathematics, humanities, and the sciences in college. Once
her new body was explained to her, she understood it a lot better than most
cops would have, and that acted as a defense mechanism for her; it allowed her
to rationalize and lapse into techno-jargon whenever she managed to frighten
herself with its capabilities. And there was the last, and probably most
important factor: Maiume.
Kiko remembered her near-death experience vividly, and she knew
that there, at what she'd thought was the end of her life, she would've done
anything for just a few more hours with her daughter. She'd never realized
just how much she meant to her until that moment, and, after recovering had
vowed that she wouldn't throw away this second chance. In fact, no matter how
strange she sometimes felt, she was thankful beyond words just to be there.
But,' she thought, frowning slightly, there's always a catch.'
That thought, in turn, sparked another crystal-bright recollection.
"What do you mean I can't see Maiume yet?" she'd said in that cold,
deadly voice only an angry mother could produce. Dr. Nakatomi, his usual
cool, confidently self, had replied, "Ah, it's only a temporary thing, my
dear. We, that is Cytech, the Diet, the city council, and the chief of
police, have agreed that a ninety day probationary period is in order. During
that time, you'll be housed in a suite inside the ADP tower under outpatient
care. There will be a twenty-four hour resident psychologist and a technician
on hand and your comings and goings will be supervised."
"In other words," she'd said slowly, "I'll be a prisoner, with work
releases to handle crazy boomers; I don't like that arrangement very much,
Doctor.
Not at all." Still smiling, making the best as he always did of his
college-professorish good looks, Nakatomi had said, "Well, I'm sorry if this
upsets you, Akiko, but I'm afraid there's really very little choice. You are
familiar with what happened seven years ago, I assume?" She'd looked
down at the floor and very quietly said, "Yes." And then, looking up
quickly she'd said, "But I'm not like Billy Fanward! He had problems that I
don't!
No sensory deprivation, no sociopathic tendencies, no hallucinations!
What happened to him won't happen to me!"
Nodding enthusiastically, Nakatomi had said, "Of course not, my dear!
You know that and I know that. But the politicians and executives don't, and
you wouldn't believe the amount of diplomacy it took to get this project
approved at all. I'm afraid we simply had to make some concessions. But it is
only for ninety days. After that... well, we'll simply have to see."
Sensing that the subject was closed, but still not quite willing to give up,
Kiko had said, "But Maiume-!" And Dr. Nakatomi, without changing
expression at all, had somehow suddenly become very dark. "Ah, yes,
Maiume," he'd said. "The daughter you love so much."
He paused for a moment, as if considering, and then continued.
"Tell me, Akiko, just hypothetically now, what if you were allowed to visit
with Maiume?
Certainly she knows, as much as a two-year-old can, that you're still
alive. In fact, at that age, I'm relatively certain she wouldn't even notice
any difference in you." He stopped again, this time scratching his chin
thoughtfully, and then said, "But, now suppose, in your excitement at seeing
her, you were to get just a bit carried away, that you were to forget yourself
for a moment. Oh, I know, you have algorithms and subroutines to control your
casual strength, but what if...?" Again he paused, and then added softly,
"And you know little Maiume's going to want a hug from her mother. Think
about that for a moment, and then tell me what you think." Kiko, almost in
tears, had simply nodded her head and said softly, "Ok, Doctor, you win."
Officially, everyone was supposed to carry on as if it were business
as usual. At least, that was the word straight from the Chief's desk.
Unofficially, of course, everyone who could found some excuse to be
near the parking garage when the nondescript white van arrived, and Leon was
at the head of the pack.
As the van pulled in, and the cargo doors began to open, he looked
over his shoulder and said, "Huh! So what d'you suppose she looks like,
Daley? Some kinda' aftermarket mannequin?
They said no chrome." Frowning, Daley said, "Still Mr. Sensitivity,
I see.
Did it ever occur to you that she might be able to hear you? Hmmm?"
Flushing slightly, Leon said, "Ah, hell, I didn't mean it that way! It's
just... I was thinking about what Billy looked like, and, well, shit! I just
wonder, that's all!"
"Well," Daley said patiently, as though speaking to a very dense
child, "I guess we're about to see." As he said that, two figures emerged
from the back of the van. One, a tall, silver-haired man who looked a very
fit fifty, moved with confidence and poise, and led the other, an extremely
attractive, dark-haired young woman in ADP dress uniform who seemed somewhat
more tentative.
"Hmmm, mannequin, huh?" Daley said sarcastically. "She looks pretty
good for a mannequin, partner. Any better, and I'd be tempted. Almost."
Nodding in agreement, Leon said, "Yeah, a little too good. I don't remember
her being that... perfect before."
Shaking his head, Daley said, "Never satisfied, are you Leon?"
For Kiko, it was an afternoon of mixed emotions.
She had been apprehensive the entire morning, and her fellow officer's
comments and guarded stares as she exited the van hadn't helped.
And, yes, she had heard Leon and Daley's comments, and that hadn't
helped either, but she'd known that things would most likely be difficult at
first, and had steeled herself to accept that. Now, as she exited the
elevator on the twenty-sixth floor and turned toward the chief's office, Dr.
Nakatomi hovering behind in support, both nervousness and anticipation warred
inside her and she tried to focus past both to achieve some measure of calm.
Of course, she knew that she could, at will, damp at least the hormonal part
of her anxiety, leaving only the intellectual component to deal with, but she
considered that cheating; there were no short-cuts to serenity. As she
reached the chief's door and raised her hand to knock, though, she almost
reconsidered; she didn't think she'd ever been so nervous in her life.
She spent a moment concentrating on her breathing (and double
checking to make sure her kinesthetic subroutines were scaling her strength
down appropriately), and then knocked confidently on the door.
"Come in!" came the Chief's loud reply through the thin wooden
door. She opened the door and strode in, stopping the required two paces in
front of the Chief's desk, and coming to attention said, "Sir, Sergeant Akiko
Natomi reports for duty!"
The Chief, still seated, looked her over for a few moments, eyes
narrowed, and then, indicating a chair near his desk said, "Huh! Well, relax,
Sergeant Natomi; go ahead and have a seat." Kiko sighed with relief, glad
to have that part over with, and sat down quickly.
Dr. Nakatomi seemed to take that as an invitation also, and pulled
up a second chair beside her. The Chief was silent for a moment,
seeming to consider his words, and then said, "Before we get too deep into
this, there're a couple of things I should say up front."
"First," he said, "I'm not going to lie to you; I was against this
project from the start, and I still am in principal."
Then, as he saw the color drain from Kiko's face and begin to rise
in Nakatomi's, he said quickly, "But, there's not much I can do about it now."
"And," he continued, "I certainly can't hold anything against you, Sergeant
Natomi. You made the ultimate sacrifice for this department; anything that
happened after that wasn't your fault, and I'm certainly not sorry that you're
alive today instead of taking up space in a rooftop cemetery." The Chief
paused for a moment to let that sink in and to gauge both their reactions, and
then continued.
"But I'm sure you know why I have a hard time swallowing this whole
project. Am I right?"
"Yes," Kiko said, returning the Chief's gaze. "I know about the
Fanward incident, sir. But that's not going to happen again, and I'd be
really glad if people would stop bringing it up, sir." "Huh!" the Chief
grunted. "Well, don't expect that to happen overnight. There're still a lot
of people here who saw it first hand, and they're not going to forget. On the
other hand, no one's going to harass you over it either, or they'll be talking
to me." Looking at Dr. Nakatomi, he said, " I don't know what your
professional opinion is, doctor, but I've thought for a long time that Billy
would've done a lot better if people hadn't treated him like a piece of
equipment. As much as I don't like this whole thing, I intend to see that
Sergeant Natomi is treated better than that."
The doctor nodded his head and said, "Yes, I was hoping you'd see it
that way. Our research has indicated much better results under such
conditions." The Chief nodded slowly, and said, "Well, that's fine, doctor.
Now, Sergeant Natomi, do you have anything to say?" Kiko hesitated for a
moment, and then said, "Sir, all I can say is... just give me a chance. I
know this whole thing scares a lot of people; it scares me! But... well,
let's face it, sir, the ADP's been getting its ass kicked for a long time now.
If not in fact, then certainly in the media. I mean, as far as the public is
concerned, we can't even take care of ourselves, much less them!"
Seeing the Chief's face begin to redden, Kiko quickly said, "Oh, I
know that's not true! We manage to take care of all the routine boomer
incidents without much trouble, but all the public sees is the flashy stuff."
Sighing, she added, "And, sir, you can't deny that every time we go up against
a C-class or B-class we take casualties. Lots of them." "Tell me
something I don't know," the Chief muttered, and then, "So what's your point,
Sergeant?"
"My, point, sir, is that the reason for that is a lack of mobile
firepower. Oh, sure, there are the K-suits and the heavy weapons, but how
long do they take to deploy? Ten or fifteen minutes? By that time, it's too
late."
"And," Dr. Nakatomi added, "they tend to be rather... unfriendly
to the area around them." "Right," Kiko said, and then, "On the other
hand, with me out there on the street or standing by here, you've got a much
shorter response time and a lot more surgical strike power available."
Kiko was silent for a moment, and then continued. "Sir, what it
boils down to is, I think I can make a difference. I'm not happy that this
happened to me, but since it did, I might as well make the best of it. And if
I can spare just one person, one family, what I've been through, I'll feel
that I've accomplished something. And..." As she said this, her voice had
risen steadily until it finally broke, and a single tear made its way down her
cheek. The Chief, taken aback and somewhat fascinated by the fact that she
still could shed tears, said, "And what, Sergeant?" Sniffing slightly,
she said, "And I'll do whatever it takes to prove I can be trusted so that I
can see Maiume again. I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to act like this, but-"
Shaking his head, the Chief said, "No, don't apologize. I understand.
And of course, if everything goes as planned, I'll make sure that you get to
see her just as soon as possible. In fact I-" At that point, the Chief
was interrupted by the loud jangling of his phone. Frowning at the
interruption, he snatched up the receiver.
"Todo. Yes. Uh-huh. A what?! How many? Where! Now? Well, who
the hell's out there?
Hall!?
Oh, Christ! And he wants what? Huh! Well, tell him to hang on to
his shorts! I'm sending him something right now!" The Chief slammed the
receiver back into its much abused cradle, and, looking hard at Nakatomi said,
"Well, you tell me, doc, is she ready for the field yet?" As imperturbable as
ever, Dr. Nakatomi said, "I think she'd be the judge of that. Why don't you
ask her?"
Turning to Kiko, the Chief raised an eyebrow and said, "Well?"
Swallowing the lump that'd suddenly come into her throat, Kiko
said, "I heard the operator on the other end. Three combat-rated and a couple
of mannequin type kit-bashes, running loose over in the Yokohama Chinatown.
Looks like they were being stored in some gun-runner's warehouse, and got
activated somehow. Sergeant Hall's squad got called to respond to one of the
mannequins before the others appeared, and now they're getting the shit kicked
out of them."
She looked down at the floor for a second, and then said, "I guess
I'd better change on the way; it'd look pretty funny to drop into a war zone
dressed for the policeman's ball."
"Huh!" the Chief said. "In that case, you better haul ass on down
to the heliport; we don't need to waste any more goddamn time!"
With a hasty, "Sir!" Kiko sprang up, whirled inhumanly fast, and
was out the door in less than a second, followed at a more leisurely pace by
Nakatomi, who said he'd be of more use in the operator's cubicle.
Behind them, the Chief sat silently, lost in thought, and for the first time
since this had begun, he found himself thinking that maybe things wouldn't
turn out so bad after all.
Sergeant Patrick Hall was having a bad day. At least, that's the way
he looked at it. Any sane person, of course, would've said he was smack in
the middle of a disaster area.
It'd started well enough, he thought, one harmless little BU-E-
35 waitress type wandering around the streets randomly asking, "May I take
your order please?" Hall'd laughed when the call came in, and told his squad
to get ready for a coffee break.
Of course, the joke had soured a little when they got on scene.
The street had looked like a war zone: burned out cars,
shattered windows, and plenty of bodies, both moving and still. And there, in
the center of it all, had been their harmless' little waitress boomer with a
laser lens poking out of one forearm and a wrist blade on the other, still
innocently asking, "May I take your order please?" Friggin' kit-bash!
Somebody's bargain basement do-it-yourself assasinoid!
Well, that hadn't been so bad. Truth to tell, other than the
civilian casualties, Hall was probably happier dealing straight forwardly with
something that had some fight in it rather than just gunning down or trying to
capture a screw-loose mannequin.
Yeah, that'd been ok. Hall's squad was one of the best in the
department, and Hall himself had been around since the beginning. Hell, he'd
survived on the line since it all started in 27, and the only reason he
wasn't an investigator like some of his peers was because he liked it where he
was. So one little kit-bash was no big deal. In fact, she was down only
minutes after his people rolled up with zero casualties on Hall's side. But
then the shit had hit the fan. Just as they'd finished disposing of the kit-
bash, there'd been a titanic explosion somewhere on the next block.
"Shit!" Hall had yelled, "What the hell was that?!" And then the
information had come to them through their own dispatch. Frantic calls were
coming in from at least three more locations nearby, all describing full
combat rated boomers rampaging indiscriminately through Yokohama's Chinatown.
"Great," Hall had muttered, and looking skyward he'd said, "So who
pissed in your corn flakes this morning?"
Then, shaking his head in resignation, he'd started barking orders to
his people, sending them out to establish as much control as possible over key
locations to prepare the way for the inevitable heavy back up. He knew
there just weren't enough of them to even effectively hold combat models, but
he figured they could at least play speed bump until reinforcements arrived;
maybe they'd save a few lives that way. Of course, he knew those lives likely
wouldn't be any of theirs.
At the same time, he was on the helmet com with dispatch, calmly
telling the operator on the other end just what they needed down there, and
where it would most likely do some good. And of course it all had to be
cleared through the Chief. "Well, you'd better tell the old fart to
make it pretty goddamn fast!" Hall had said, "Because if he doesn't, we're
lookin' at some bargain basement urban renewal out here! And I ain't shittin'
either! My guys've got eyes-on now, and they say these bastards are comin'
through like a wrecking crew, smashing everything in front of em! Somebody
must've really screwed with their brains, cause I've never seen anything
short of a battle boomer do this much damage! Aw, Christ!
Sorry, just ran out of time to talk! Just get something heavy out here
now!"
And with that, Hall'd become very busy.
At the same time, back in ADP's communications and tactical ops room,
Nene Romanova took advantage of the sudden confusion to slip her cell phone
from her purse. Pressing a particular speed dial key, she both dialed the
number she wanted and invoked a sophisticated scrambling program. On the
third ring, a familiar voice answered on the other end. "Yes?" "It's me,"
Nene said. "There's trouble down in Yokohama.
Only three C-class, but they're acting really weird and all that's out
there now is one squad!" "I see," said the other. "And you don't think
back up will be able to handle it?"
Nene bit her lip, and said, "It's not that. It's just- well, they
sent her out!"
"What?!" the other voice said. "But I thought she'd just
reported back in this morning!"
Nene nodded and said, "Yeah, she did. I guess she was up in
Chief's office when the call came in. Everybody says she didn't even take
time to change out of her dress uniform before she got on the chopper! Said
she'd change on the way." "Hmmm. Well, that is interesting. I think I may
have to go out and take a look at this."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Nene said, concerned. "Alone, I
mean?" "Oh, I should be alright," said the other, "but I'll get ahold of
the others and put them on standby just in case. You stay put; you'll be
plenty useful where you are."
Reluctantly, Nene said, "Well, ok, but be careful, huh?"
The other laughed, and said, "Ok, mother hen, but I thought that
was my line!" Nene blushed self-consciously, and said, "Yeah, but you've said
it so many times it's engraved on my brain. Anything else?" "No," the
other said, "I think that about covers it.
Just let me know if anything changes there." "Will do." Nene
said, and thumbed the End' button. And then it was time to get back to
work.
The flight seemed to take forever. Intellectually, Kiko knew that
wasn't true, as her internal chronometer would show if she bothered to call it
up.
But she knew that for every minute they were in the air, someone else
was probably dying and that made the ride seem interminable.
And of course, there were the few awkward moments it'd taken her to
change. There wasn't a lot of privacy in the back of an ADP air transport, and
she knew the pilot and co-pilot had gotten an eyeful. Not that she
particularly cared right now. But at least,' she thought in a moment of
nervous humor, this ought to settle any stupid questions anybody has about
anatomical correctness!'
Finally they arrived over the target area, which had been
visible for miles because of the huge plumes of smoke rolling up from the
streets below, and got their first good look.
"Holy Mary Mother of God!" said the pilot. "Looks like Manila after
it was shelled! Where the hell do you think I'm gonna set you down in that?"
Yelling from the back of the open cargo ramp, Kiko said, "Don't worry
about that! Just get me within a hundred meters of the ground!
I can take care of the rest!"
I hope,' she added silently. Even before her fall, Kiko'd had a
fear of heights. Afterwards, that fear had blossomed into full blown
acrophobia. But after months of virtual therapy and confidence training,
Kiko had beaten that fear back to manageable proportions. She thought.
But, standing on the edge of the cargo door, hanging out over thin air, she
felt a moment of almost primal panic as she looked down at the ground far
below. Oh, gods!' she thought, stomach clenched tight, I can't!'
And then, instinctively applying both deep breathing and autonomic
overrides, she deliberately brought her fear under control. If I don't, if
I'm too afraid, people will die. It's that simple. I have to.'
The pilot, who'd been far too busy to take notice of what Kiko'd been
doing, turned back suddenly and yelled, "Ok, one hundred meters and hovering!
But I can't stay here long or we'll be an easy target! We- Hey! What the
hell!!?" As he spoke, Kiko took one last deep breath and stepped off
into space.
At an altitude of little more than three hundred feet, her fall
only took seconds, but she recalibrated her time sense so that it stretched
out to almost a subjective minute. Also, she activated seldom used avionics
programs, and released the safety interlocks on her kinesthetics subroutines,
realeasing the full power of her boosted musculature. Brightly colored
overlays and virtual instruments came to life in her field of vision, and she
used her airborne time to acquire and paint targets, and overlay them on her
internal map of the area, so that even when she lost sight of them she'd have
some idea where they were. Also, she established a secure data channel to
ADP's combat information net through her ether link, and then brought her
internal weaponry on-line.
By that time, the ground was getting close, and she moved from the
spread-eagled position she'd been using to slow her fall to a limber ready
position in anticipation of the landing. In her time-stretched world, the
landing was deceptively gentle. Only her body's internal strain gauges showed
how close she'd come to actual damage as she struck, performed a perfect
parachute landing fall, and rolled up into a combat crouch.
She landed a few meters away from and in plain view of her first
target, a BU-55C that'd been engaged in a hide and seek match with ADP forces
for several minutes now.
Wisely, they'd avoided a decisive engagement with the combat
boomer, choosing instead to harry it from a distance and lead it away from
fleeing civilians. Unfortunately, whereas the line officers' M-42A1's
could barely scratch the boomer's armored hide even with AP rounds, the
boomer's mouth laser only had to come close in order to kill. Already, the
four-person team that'd been sent to deal with the armored giant had been
pared down to three, and those three had run out of places to hide. But, as
she'd planned, the crazed boomer forgot the pinned down officers as soon as it
saw her.
"What the hell?!" it rumbled, swiveling smoothly to face her.
Briefly, she imagined how she must look to both the boomer and her fellow
officers, a disheveled, sweaty young woman in ADP line fatigues and no visible
weapons who'd just dropped out of the sky. Then she smiled, extended her
wrist blades with an audible snap!', and growled, "Your worst nightmare, you
walking pile of scrap!"
The boomer growled in reply, and opened fire with its mouth laser.
But Kiko, still living in compressed time, saw the telltale shifts
in the boomer's stance that denoted it was about to fire a whole tenth of a
second before its laser discharged. Plenty of time! She leaped high, over
the boomer's line of fire, and somersaulted as she cleared the five meters
between them. She struck it squarely in the head with a flying kick just a
millisecond after the laser fired, and used the rebound to execute a mid-air
back flip and land on her feet.
The boomer, though not seriously damaged, was nonetheless knocked
off its feet, and skidded on it's back for a couple of meters before it
stopped.
Without hesitating, Kiko charged the prone cyberdroid, and before it
could react sliced deep into its exposed chest with one of her glittering,
faintly humming blades.
A sticky orange fluid jetted from the gaping wound, splattering
Kiko's face, and the boomer made an odd grunting sound. But it was far from
finished.
As Kiko followed her swing through, it cocked back its right
leg and launched a brutal kick to Kiko's abdomen.
Taking her slightly off-guard, the blow connected. It lifted her
bodily and threw her back more than ten meters where she slammed into a mostly
intact brick wall with a loud, "Uhfff!" of pain.
The three surviving officers, hidden behind a pile of masonry
rubble, gasped and winced. They knew it'd been a blow and an impact that
would've pulped an ordinary person, and none of them expected Kiko to get up.
To their amazement, though, she never even fell. Kiko landed on her
feet as she slid down the wall, and around the pain in her gut whispered, "Oh,
you want to play rough, huh?! Well try this!"
With that, moving almost too fast to see, she retracted her right
wrist blade and brought her palm up toward the still prone boomer.
In her field of vision, a targeting reticule flared to life, framing
the BU-55's head, and almost immediately established a lock. Without
hesitating, she concentrated and sent the firing impulse throughout her body.
She felt the deep fire inside her brighten, an intensification of
what she'd been feeling ever since she'd released her muscles' full strength,
and she knew she was tapping the full potential of her body's fusion powered
metabolism. It was an intoxicating feeling, and she felt a moment's brief
fear as she realized how addictive the feeling might become.
There was a ripple in the air between her palm and the boomer as
space itself was violently bent, followed immediately by a deafening crack
like thunder.
The boomer's head deformed radically as the wave of compressed
space-time struck it, and then was torn completely off an instant later. The
boomer scrabbled about on the ground for a few more seconds, as though
frantically seeking its severed head, and then suddenly stiffened and fell.
Kiko herself staggered back a step as a momentary wave of fatigue
washed over her and thought, Damn! I guess I'll have to space those out.'
But she recovered quickly, and yelled over to the officers just starting to
emerge from cover. "Hey! Everybody ok?" The senior officer, a corporal
Kiko knew vaguely, stepped forward hesitantly and said, "Yeah, we're ok," and
then, noticing the pips on her collar added, "uh, Sergeant."
Kiko nodded quickly and said, "Good. Now do me a favor: get the
hell out of here. Fall back, assist with traffic control, see the medic,
whatever! But get the hell out of this area; this isn't a place for human
beings right now." The corporal seemed ready to object for a second, but
then apparently thought better of it. He shrugged, turned to the other two
officers who'd been waiting nervously behind him and said, "Well, you heard
the sergeant.
Let's go!"
As the three ragged officers turned and started to trot away, the
corporal suddenly stopped and said, "Hey, sarge!"
"Yeah?" Kiko said, already turning to go herself.
The corporal looked briefly at the ground, and then said quickly,
"Thanks.
We'd all be dead if you weren't here. That was the goddamndest thing
I ever saw." Kiko blushed for a second, and said, "Oh, hell; just doing my
job like you. And I've got a lot more to do." The corporal nodded and then
took off at a run with the others.
High up on the roof of an untouched tenement building, unnoticed in
the confusion, a white and blue armored figure lay prone, observing the events
below.
Sylia Stingray was somewhat impressed, to say the least.
True, she'd had some idea of Natomi's combat potential from the
pirated files she'd read. But the performance she'd seen went beyond mere
statistics and specifications.
What she'd seen was a synergistic integration of everything that went
into the body, and the brain that inhabited it. The reaction times she'd
measured, both during Natomi's plunge from the transport and during the actual
combat, had been phenomenal. Even with the new version three synchro systems
she planned for their next generation of hardsuits, she doubted that even
Priss or Linna could duplicate such feats.
Again she felt a sort of frustration; she was being outpaced by the
enemy, and the only way she could see to fight them was to cross a line the
Knight Sabers had drawn for themselves at the beginning. All she could think
of to compensate on her end was to install neural taps in both suit and
wearer, and that was something that neither she, nor any of her people, would
consent to. What was the point in beating the bastards if you had to become
like them in order to do it?
On the other hand, she'd heard what Natomi'd said down there. She
didn't sound like a raving cyber-psycho or a corporate combat boomer. She
sounded like an ADP line cop who was concerned for her fellow officers and
suddenly had the power to do something about it.
Of course, from what she'd heard, Fanward hadn't been crazy at the
beginning either, and had saved a lot of lives too. But in the end he'd lost
it, and taken more lives than he'd ever saved.
Sylia sighed, and decided it was just too early to tell. All she
could do for now was watch and wait and plan.
Over the course of that bloody afternoon, millions of yen worth of
damage were done to the Yokohama area, and dozens of lives were lost, among
them five ADP officers. The networks moved in early, well before the fighting
was properly contained, much less ended. As always, TNN and Vixen 16 were
right there at the front, witnessing the same events, but reporting two
entirely separate stories.
As they had a month before, TNN focused on the positive aspects of
the day: Sergeant Hall's quick thinking and expert leadership, and the
lives he managed to save by his incredible usage of a force too small by far.
ADP's quick response and rapid deployment of its new cyber officer,
returned to duty only that day.
The subsequent courage and determination of that officer and all
the other line officers who followed. ADP's quick disposal of the rampaging
boomers and the low numbers of casualties they'd suffered for a change. And
the subsequent help provided by ADP's cyber officer in rescue efforts for
those trapped in collapsed and burning buildings.
Vixen 16, on the other hand, focused as usual on the sensational.
Their report had a slick, fast look that was a cross between a Cops' episode
and a music video: Shots of a beautiful, battered, dark haired young woman
in tattered fatigues locked in hand to hand combat with a female model combat
boomer, red and orange blood spattered over them both. Shots of a squad of
ADP line officers surrounding and gunning down a rebuilt mannequin, who struck
down two of their number in turn before succumbing herself. Endless shots of
burning, shattered cityscape, littered with bodies and debris.
And the inevitable shots of the burned and broken being loaded into an
endless succession of ambulances.
But for a change, both TNN and Vixen 16 wrapped their reports up
with the same piece of footage, and both ran it almost silently.
It was a clip that began with a long shot of a burning, partially
collapsed apartment building and a number of fire trucks, ambulances, and
police vehicles scattered around it. The shot focused on the building's
main entrance and zoomed in, revealing it to be almost entirely blocked by
heavy slabs of broken concrete and masonry.
Suddenly, one of the huge slabs had shifted, and then another, and
one piece abruptly exploded into dust and fragments as a small booted foot
kicked at it. Outlined in flickering light from the fully involved hallway
behind and almost lost in the smoke that rolled out, a small, feminine shape
pushed her way through the heavy debris, scattering it as though it were made
of styrofoam. As the camera zoomed in for a closeup, it could be seen that
the woman was cut, scraped and burned all over, and covered in soot and blood
from head to toe except for the tear streaks on her face. It could also be
seen that she wore the tattered remains of an ADP field uniform, and that she
cradled a small frightened child in her arms. As she staggered, exhausted
and still crying, away from the burning building, another female figure raced
in to intercept her from off camera, beating the EMTs and firefighters by only
seconds.
The child's mother reached for the little boy gratefully, and the
other woman handed him over with a tired smile just as the EMTs rushed up to
check them both.
But as the little boy was looked over and his mother hovered
protectively, the battered and bedraggled young police woman just backed off,
waving away any medical aid, and sat slowly on the ground with her hands
splayed out behind her.
She gazed up and down the ruined street, and then back to the mother
and child and smiled again.
This time, at least, there'd been one less small tragedy.
END