EPILOGUE

                The roof had suffered a nasty blow from a stray plasma bomb's aftershock, and bits and pieces of slate, steel, and concrete lay scattered all over the table where the two scientists sat, eating their lunch. Battered as the building was, it was one of the few factories up and running in Neo Tokyo, so the work had not been suspended--in fact, it had been doubled.  The men were weary, but they still had enough energy to do what they did best: gossip.

                Gary whistled sharply through his teeth, looking up at the damaged ceiling. "Woo, sure was a nasty one this time! A doozie. I think this's been the worst one so far."

                "Yeah," Dave drawled; he had heard this many times before. Old news. Time to breathe new air into their talk. "Did you know that they released the casualty lists today?"

                "Huh!" Gray grunted. He didn't like the way their gossip was headed; he didn't like to talk about death.

                "Mmm. I saw it. Lots of Repliforce bots, of course. I recognized a few of 'em."

                "I heard that the Colonel was destroyed by that Hunter, Zero," the round scientist ventured. Maybe if he satisfied his morbid friend for a bit, they would talk about something else.

                "Sure as hell was. The pieces of him they gathered couldn't fit in a suitcase. They won't be able to reconstruct him, not in a million years."

                "Swell."

                "Oh, yeah, I saw that his sister we made for him, ermm…Iris, she kicked it too."

                Gary's head shot up. "No."

                "It's true. I heard it from Spiral Pegasus himself. Remember when we created that li'l bastard? He revolted too, but X got to him and somehow talked him into giving up without a struggle. He didn't have the virus in him I guess, so they let him off with a detention period and a slap on the fanny. I sent him a message while he served his time, and he told me--"

                Dave continued his yarn, but Gary didn't hear. His eyes looked past his friend at the opposite end of the table and focused on the world outside the cracked window.

                Gary felt strangely depressed. He had made many reploids and, after three Maverick rebellions, he didn't expect many of them to last for long. That didn't bother him. Yet hearing about the death of Iris hurt. It hurt bad. If asked, he wouldn't have been able to explain why exactly…well, maybe there was a why, but it didn't make much sense. 

                The Colonel had been made for war, and it was only fitting that he should have died in battle--it was a soldier's greatest honor. But when he had punched in that source codes for that child-faced female that Dave had built, he had garnered a sense of pride that he never had had before. A reploid made after the fact only to serve as a companion to her warlike brother because the original program had been botched. If he had known, he would have refused to help create her at all. Yet he had been proud.

                "…say she went crazy," Dave yammered on. "Tried to kill Zero--as if she could! I can't find fault in her trying, though. Iris was a good sister."

                But he had helped create Iris, and so he felt a responsibility. Never before had he made anything that had seemed so fragile to him. He should have seen that fragility as a sign, but he didn't.

                Sometimes in idle, quiet moments he had thought about Iris, wishing he could have seen her mobile and alive. She lingered in the back of his mind, and he wondered what those blue eyes looked like when they had the spark in them. He had entertained the notion of going to visit her sometime in the future, just to see how she was doing and what she did and how she acted. He had heard rumors that she had been sweet.

                It was a damned shame she had to die. Dr. Thorne and the Colonel had gone before, and she had been said to be a shy thing, so she more than likely had few good friends…

                "I hear that Spiral's been really down since the rebellion," Dave's voice prattled on and on, succeeding at last in breaking past Gary's melancholy. "Supposed to be a real somber fellow now. Can you believe it? Spiral Pegasus, a wet blanket! They say it's because of that girl."

                Spiral Pegasus. What was the memory of one reploid? It wasn't going to last. He'd die as all the other reploids they had made would die, in blood. Who would think kindly on Iris Thorne then?

                'I'll remember. I'll remember you,' Gary thought. He wished that she had a grave, so he could place roses on it.

                "HEY! Fat old coot, wake up and smell the coffee! Break's over. Let's get back to work."

                "Why?" Gary muttered. "They'll all end up being broken anyway. What's the point?"

                Dave threw his co-worker an oblique look in wonder. "So we get paid of course! Don't wanna end up on the street in these times, don't you?"

                "I guess not."

                "Come on." Dave threw his arm around Gary's shoulders. "Don't be so gloomy, it's not becoming on you. Look, you can kinda see the smoke clearing outside. Gonna be a nice day out there."

                "Yeah," Gary said, forcing a smile.

                Dave grinned back and resumed his talk as the two walked down the corridor to their work.

                "And get this. All of the big Hunters have gone all crazy up there, and Cain's getting more resignations than he can keep up with. X is still with 'em, but he nearly took tail and fled. He wasn't happy with how the Hunters handled this rebellion."

                "Huh. At least it's being done in peacetime. We'd be screwed if they left when we needed them."

                "Ah, but here's the real news of the day: Zero's gone."

                "You're kidding!"

                "No, he's gone. But he didn't give in a resignation, so Cain thinks that he's just taking a break. Had some 'issues' to deal with."

                "He's never done that before. I thought he liked fighting."

                Dave's eyes lowered and his voice grew a little softer and he said: "Just upped and left without a word. I think it's because of her. They say that he loved that girl."

THE END