2 AUGUST 1992

	The black sky rumbled, then split wide open, brilliant white
light roaring down onto a hilltop outside a city, in front of a
bizarre stone edifice.  There was a roaring noise, a tearing wind that
ripped leaves from trees in the wake of the light. A thunderous,
earsplitting crash of sound blasted glass out of buildings on the
outskirts of the city.
	Then there was darkness and silence again.
	In the city, hardly anyone noticed.
	Three people stirred in the blackened blast zone of the light.
The largest sat up and put a hand to his head, inadvertently pushing
the baseball cap off; it flopped to the scorched earth.  He groaned
and looked at his watch.

	12:00
	12:00
	12:00
	12:00

	"Shit," he muttered.
	"What the fuck?" another muttered, getting to his knees and
shaking his head, his thick hair shedding soot.
	"Ouch.  Are we dead?" the third asked, feeling his own head
for a hat and not finding one.  "Shit.  Lost my hat."
	The big one got to his feet and looked out over the city.
Then he shrugged dejectedly.  "Only if Hell is a big city," said
MegaZone.
	"I kinda doubt that," Gryphon told him.
	"Shall we check it out?" ReRob queried.
	"Might as well," said Zoner, and they started walking down the
hill.
	None of them noticed Bancroft Tower; none had looked back.

			  Eyrie Productions
			 in association with
		   Up Too Late Productions, DisInc.
			       presents
				   
			A Discordia Production
			  Of A WaveDrag Film
				   
			   Hopelessly Lost
	      (It's not Undocumented Features, really.)
				   
	  Benjamin D. Hutchins                      MegaZone
				   
	 Copyright (c) 1993 Benjamin D. Hutchins and MegaZone

	"Oh shit," ReRob said, hanging around in front of the Mobil
and waiting for Gryphon to get out from buying his Pepsi (being dead
is thirsty work).  "This is Worcester."
	"How lame," Zoner complained.  "We walk into the jaws of doom
to save the entire universe, and wind up back in Worcester?  I am most
pointedly not dead.  That pisses me off!"
	A motorcycle pulled up to the gas pumps.  The rider got off,
pulled the cable out of the jack in the side of his head, and walked
toward the store, pulling off his gloves--wait a second.  What was
that bit about the cable?
	"I think maybe there's a little more to this than we first
thought, Rob," Zoner said.  ReRob began beating his head rhythmically
against the store, chanting ancient Latin.

			   7 DECEMBER 1993

	It was dark in the city of Worcester, dark and cold.  Winter
had the metropolis in an iron grip.  It was three in the morning; no
one was out.  The streets were deserted, the nightspots had closed an
hour ago, everyone was home, in bed, huddled against the cold, asleep.
	Well, almost everyone.
	The door to an apartment near the campus of Worcester
Polytechnic Institute opened and someone stepped out of it.  He was
shortish, five foot seven or so, and rather stocky; he wore beat-up
black and white hightops, black fatigue pants, and was zipping up a
leather jacket as he emerged.  He had on fingerless driving gloves and
a battered gray cap, and even though it was dark, he was wearing a
pair of iridium mirrorshades.
	Gryphon turned around and closed the door to E7, then glanced
at his watch; he turned and crossed Institute Road, heading for the
vehicle that waited for him on the other side.  This was not an
ordinary motor vehicle; it was a gleaming blue-green Chevrolet Camaro,
its windows blacked.  He unlocked and opened the door, sliding behind
the wheel with the practiced ease of someone who is well-versed in the
use of his car.
	The door closed with a satisfying whomp and a hiss of air; he
sat in the dark of the car for a moment before slipping the key into
the lock.  Immediately the dash lighted up, running all of its checks
(all bar graphs sweep from off to full and back, all needles to top
and back down, all eq lights and volume graph to full and down, single
sweep on the radar display, et cetera); the form-fitting seat and
ergonomically designed controls were bathed in a soft blue light.  He
fastened his five-point harness, then took the lead from the headrest
beside him and jacked it into his shades.  Then he turned the key.
	A flash of red light hit his right eye, not damaging his night
vision, as the computer checked his retinal pattern against those
registered in its archive as authorized operators; the pattern checked
positive as primary operator.  Full authorization start-up mode was
engaged.  The engine, a Mark Three fusion turbine, started up with the
dull, almost internal-combustion rumble of its type, sucking air in
through the twin ramscoops on the hood.  The Camaro was what Gryphon
referred to as a "proper" car, with the engine in front "where it
belonged" and the power going to the rear wheels "like a civilized
machine" (although it could be directed to the front as well), and
analog gauges (although the technophile in him accepted the bar graph
backups).
	Gryphon smiled; he loved this car.  There was a knock at the
passenger window; Gryphon's head swung to look.  It was Zoner.  He
tabbed the power locks; the passenger door unlocked with a clunk and
Zoner opened it up, sticking his head inside.
	"Where you headed?" Zoner asked.
	"Out," Gryphon replied.  "Dunno where."
	"Mind if I join you?"
	"Not at all."
	"Cool."  Zoner threw his bag in back, got in and shut his
door; Gryphon put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.
Undocumented Features was playing, ironically enough.  That was an odd
experience.  Life was shit, but for now, that could be held at bay.
	They cruised in what would have been silence if not for the
music for some time.  The sky was thickening, the dark of the night
becoming impenetrable; the headlights of the car were having a problem
cutting through the darkness.  Gryphon shrugged, switched on his night
vision systems, and turned them off; the view of the outside world
turned red inside his shades.  Hmmm...image amp was getting very
little, that would be more dangerous than the lights... passive IR
wasn't doing much better...active IR patched through the variable
headlights--ah!  Clear as day.  Gotta love those 100,000-watt IR
lamps.  Just as long as nobody looks right at them with a passive IR
sensor...ouch!
	"I hate it when you do that," Zoner said.
	"Why?"
	"I can't see anything."
	"Oh, sorry."  Gryphon tabbed on the windshield IR filter.
"Since I got the shades, I tend to forget that."
	"Yeah, you've got all the cheater toys...too bad you're not
rigged."
	"I can still take you on, wirehead."
	"Try me anytime, nature boy."
	"I can't very well do that if your car's dead again."
	"It's not dead!  I'm having some work done to it."
	"Why, so you can keep up with my car?"
	"I still can't believe you bought this thing."  Zoner shook
his head.  His Daytona was nice, yes, and modified up the ass--but
this car had matched or exceeded most of its modified capabilities
from the factory, and that annoyed him greatly.  The arms race was out
of control.
	"What can I say, I'm a nut...it could be worse, it could be J.
B. Gibson's car..."
	"Goddess... Christine with armor.  That'd be something."
	"And when the odometer hits zero--you die.  Nice car."
	A flash of lightning split the sky above them and thunder
roared over the music and the car's soundproofing.
	"Whoa!" Zoner observed, looking up through the
semi-transparent roof.  "Check that out.  Lightning in December?"
	"And no rain, either.  This is weird."  It happened again.
And again.  The sky was starting up a war with itself.
	"Go up to Bancroft."
	"Why?"
	"Just do it."
	"Oookaaay..."

	The epicenter of the lightning phenomenon was right over
Bancroft Tower.  None of the energy was hitting the ground; it was all
striking clouds and wracking the sky, lightning bolts crashing against
each other as though Zeus and Leir were fighting it out once and for
all.  And the nexus of it all was above Bancroft.
	"See?  Did I tell you there was something about the Tower?"
	"Weeeeird," was all Ben had to say.  He slipped down his
shades, turned off the IR, and just watched.  The darkness was even
thicker; all they could see was the Tower, illuminated by the warring
thunderbolts.  Even the lights that normally shone on the Tower were
muted.  The blanket of light that was the city was invisible, as
though the entire city of Worcester had up and moved since they
ascended the hill.
	"I think we should get out of here, man," said Gryphon. He
sounded quite nervous.
	"Yeah..." Zoner muttered.  "Yeah, I think you're right.
Whatever this is, I don't like it.  Let's go."
	"For once you agree with me."  Gryphon put the car in gear and
turned the IR back on, pushing up his shades.  As the car started to
move, lightning started striking around it.  For some reason, the
electronics were unaffected; except, of course, for the fact that the
radar was going mad.
 	"I don't liiiike thiiiis," Gryphon muttered, slewing the
vehicle expertly around the corner.  The car shot out of the
conflagration--except that one bolt shot out and struck it unerringly
in the roof.  The vehicle was engulfed in light-- and suddenly, they
were streaking right for the Tower, back the way they came, right into
the wall of thunderbolts.
	"AAAAAAAAAAAAA--*"
	The sudden storm vanished with all the abruptness with which
it had arrived.  All was once again normal at Bancroft Tower, after
one brilliant flash and a thunderclap that shattered windows for a
block and a half.  Gryphon, MegaZone, and the vehicle that had carried
them were gone.  All that remained was a large black spot on the
pavement in front of Bancroft Tower.

	"*--AAAAAAAaaahuh?!"
	The Camaro plunged out of the lightstorm into another street.
It was yet night.  But...
	"Where's Bancroft Tower?  Where the hell are we?" Zoner
demanded.
	"Dunno.  The nav comp is going berserk.  According to it,
we're--gk?  What the fuck!  We are not in Tokyo!" Gryphon tapped the
nav comp's face with a fingertip.  It remained true to its claim.
"According to this, this city's layout as relayed by the navsats is
close enough to error tolerances to be Tokyo.  There are major
discrepancies, but according to the computer, they can be put down to
outdated local software.  Rrrrr..."
	"Gryphon, what the hell is going on?  We didn't jump
dimensions AGAIN did we?"
	"I wish I knew."  They cruised easily into a side street; the
car didn't seem to be damaged at all.  And there was no doubt that
this city was much more active at night than Worcester was.  Also
dirtier, larger-seeming, more crowded, and populated by very strange
vehicles.  And all the signs were in that strange amalgam of Japanese
and English so common in urban Japan.  It did indeed appear to be
Tokyo.
	"How the fuck did we wind up in Tokyo?"
	"Dunno.  Bancroft Tower teleported us?  Welcome to The Final
Countdown, Part II.  I'm beginning to see this as a surreal day..."
	"And why doesn't this look like Tokyo?  This place is
too...too..."
	"Too futuristic."
	"Yeah.  And these cars are very strange."  Zoner took a small
plastic case out of his jacket pocket, selected a triangular silicon
chip from among its contents, and slotted it into his chipjack.
"Well, at least I can ask for directions now...what're you gonna do,
without any chrome?"
	"I suppose I'll have to rely on my natural fluency in the
language...what do you think I did all summer, work or something?"
	"Argh."
	"Wulp, what can I say?  I got bored."
	"Tell me you at least used 'trodes."
	"Nope.  Hypnopaedia and retention drugs.  All-natural."
	"Oh, yeah, retention drugs, real natural."
	"More natural than running wires through my head..."
	"Think we oughtta ask where we are?  I mean, after all, if
this is Tokyo, we've gotta figure out some way to get back."
	"Truth.  Ok, fine.  You've got the almighty Chip...you ask."
Gryphon sighted a slot in traffic and pulled to the curb.  It annoyed
Gryphon that they were on the left.  Wait a second--
	"Zoner, something else is wrong here.  They're driving on the
left.  The Japanese drive on the right!"
	"They do in 1993, in the dimension we were just in."
	"You mean you think--"
	"I'm almost certain of it.  Look around, doesn't this city
look at all familiar to you?"
	"Yeah...it looks like a big, dirty, decaying city.  Like Los
Angeles in Blade Runner, or New York anytime, or Gotham--"
	"Or MegaTokyo?"
	"Oh no...recursion alert, recursion alert--MegaZone, what tape
are we listening to?"
	"I know...spooky, isn't it?  But we've proof that
transfictional universes exist, right?  Roll with it," Zoner rolled
down his window and hailed a passing pedestrian in Japanese.  The
pedestrian responded in Japanese--roll SAN--and, confused, told
MegaZone that he was indeed in MegaTokyo and yes, it was 2032,
February 14, to be exact--why did he ask such a silly question?
	Ben's forehead hit the steering wheel with an audible wumph.
Zoner thanked the confused pedestrian for his help and rolled the
window back up.  Not wishing to make a scene, Gryphon pulled back into
traffic.  They drove a while in silence.
	Finally, Gryphon broke that silence, saying, "Ok...we were hit
by lightning.  I'm unconscious right now, slumped over the steering
wheel of the mangled, twisted mass of metal that was once my car,
piled into those concrete things by Bancroft.  Either I'll come to in
a hospital and everything will be fine, or I'll die soon from lack of
blood or exposure or internal injuries or something stupid like that.
Either way, this is not happening.  You are one with the dashboard,
should've worn your seat belt, deal with it later--"
	"Dude, dude, you're losing it.  Calm down.  This is weird, but
we can handle it.  Besides, I always wear my seat belt."
	"Oh, well, aren't we taking this sudden inversion of the
universe well."
	"It isn't any weirder than ending up in a universe we
created," MegaZone offered.
	"That's supposed to make me feel better?  I'm several thousand
miles and forty years from home, as well as, probably, a couple of
dozen parallel dimensions--unless I'm in a coma someplace dreaming all
of this.  Wonder what Death Level I'm at...?"
	"And I'm dreaming it with you?  Not likely.  I mean, I know
you receive me well, but--"
	"You're just something my neurons are firing at me to keep my
guard up.  Stress personified by my tattered mind into something I can
talk to."
	"If this was a dream we'd be under the ocean or on the moon or
something by now.  You know dreams can't stay constant.  Stop trying
to deny it.  You know as well as I that we have indeed jumped into a
new dimension.  Now, how long until we run into a Vaughn?"
	"Dreams can remain constant.  Some of the ones I've had about
the UF universe have.  Just like real life...or at least, I suppose
so...constant right through to the end, though.  No weird background
shifts, characters changing persona, streets laid out differently,
rooms changing place on me--rock solid reality, till I woke up.  This
is one of those.  Besides, how do you know what a coma dream is like?
Shut up, you're not even here."
	"I'm just telling you what I think.  This is real.  Somehow I
don't think a floating persona in a dream would be trying to convince
you the dream was real.  Besides, UF turned out to be all too real.
So why not this?  If we can create a universe by writing, why not
others?"
	"You never know...maybe my subconscious is trying to get me
back for all the times I've disappointed it by waking back up to
reality."
	"Well, be that as it may, we're here for the time being
anyway.  We have to find someplace to sleep.  We're not gonna find
anything around here.  Try and get on a highway or something."
	"Yes, master."  Gryphon selected the next right-turn lane and
within moments was on one of those ubiquitous gently curving
multilayer expressway-type things that are all over MegaTokyo.  The
road was empty, except for them, it seemed.
	A light appeared in the rear view mirror some minutes later,
beginning to gain; Gryphon was seized by that familiar "someone's
behind me" anxiety.  He kept glancing back at it--he was using the
regular lights now, not knowing MegaTokyo's policy on special
nightvision gear in civilian vehicles.  It was growing, a single point
of white light...either a car with one light out--not likely--or a
motorcycle.
	"Maybe it isn't the MegaTokyo we think it is," Zoner said.
"Could be there's nothing special about it at all, just forty more
years of technology and--"
	The motorcycle passed them.  Low-slung, red, fast fast fast,
carrying a clearly female rider in red leathers and helmet, brown hair
flying in the slipstream.  Unmistakable.
	Ben slapped a hand to his forehead.  Zoner's voice trailed off
into nothing and he went silent for a moment before adding, "--never
mind."

MegaTokyo 2032
The Story of Knight Sabers

BUBBLEGUM CRISIS

	"I don't believe I just saw that."
	"Well, don't just coast here-- catch her!"
	"What for?  Introduce ourselves?  Get blown off because she
thinks we're just a couplea fanboys trying to hit on her?  Oh, fun fun
fun."
	"Oh come on!  You're telling me you don't want to meet Priss?"
	"I don't want to chase her down on the goddamn highway!  Live
action Car Wars--what a great way to meet women.  Maybe we'll get
arrested and meet Nene and Leon too," Gryphon said sardonically.
Nevertheless, he was accelerating.  The road predator in him wouldn't
allow him to be taken by a bike, no matter how cool the rider--Kaneda
excepted, possibly, out of a combined bike/rider cool-factor.  The
tach began to rise; it was nearing the 12,000-rpm redline when Gryphon
threw the car into sixth.
	(The manual magnetohydrodynamic fluid transmission in the 1993
Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 Interceptor has eight forward gears, only five
of which can support legal highway speeds in its native reality.  Here
in MegaTokyo?  Four.)
	Gryphon's mouth twitched into a near-smile as he flipped a
different tape into the tape deck, and before long, the car was filled
with the sounds of stomping feet and clapping hands, and the late
great Freddie Mercury's inimitable voice.

Buddy you're a boy make a big noise playing in the street gonna be a
big man someday / You got mud on your face, you big disgrace, kickin'
your can all over the place / Singin' we will, we will rock you!

	He found himself wondering if his quarry had ever even heard
of Queen.  She was retro enough, he decided; she might have.  He'd
have to ask.
	The speedometer continued to climb, the bar graph crawling
across toward the air conditioner vents as the needle swung,; 110,
115, 120...they were beginning to gain on the motorcycle.  A quick
flash of their headlights from the clear panel on the front of a
motorcycle helmet; she had glanced back.  She was on to them.  Now
she'd open it up--
	The cycle began to pull away.  Gryphon grinned and tossed the
gearshift into seventh gear.  The Mark Three fusion turbine snarled
heartily.  This was what it had been designed for.  The Interceptor
model of Camaro Z/28 was, as its name indicated, a police pursuit
vehicle.  It looked exactly like a base-model Camaro on the outside,
except for the ramscoops on the hood and the ducted ground effects.
The sounds produced by its fusion turbine were modulated to be
indistinguishable from the lower models' piston engines.  Only a tiny
"Z/28 Interceptor" badge on the rear betrayed its nature, and then
only to the few who knew what these cars could truly do.
	Its other virtues included a sophisticated multitarget radar
tracking and guidance system, satellite-linked autopilot with
navigational computer, and an onboard, cellular-Net-linked computer
with automatic software that was very, very close to being an
artificial intelligence (in fact, Gryphon had often meant to upgrade
it to a true AI, but never had the time).  Its gleaming skin was not
steel or ABS composite, but a full half inch of Valiant Lamellor IV
armor plating--suitable for stopping Tesla-II Gauss rifle spikes and
105mm APFSDS rounds.  It wasn't painted blue-green; that was currently
the color of its armor.  If weighed, the Interceptor would betray its
true nature by being a full ton heavier than the regular Z/28, and of
course, anyone who got a look inside would know instantly that it was
not a normal Camaro.  Edison's quarter-million dollars had been well
spent.
	In other words...
	They pulled alongside Priss in a couple of seconds.  The howl
of her engine could be heard inside the Interceptor--she was redlined
and in top gear.  The look on what of her face could be seen was one
of incredulity--and envy; Gryphon could tell from his quick glance
over that she wanted a car like this one, or at least, a bike like
this car...
	Zoner smiled in a friendly manner and waved, trying to
indicate that she should pull over.  Instead, she threw the cycle into
a skid, performing a neat full-speed bootleg and screaming off in the
other direction, popping a momentary wheelie.
	Gryphon smiled a feral smile and rammed the wheel to the left,
his feet stapling the clutch and brake to the floorboards.  His left
thumb overrode the anti-lock brakes, forcing the wheels to lock; the
Camaro twisted 180 degrees in the road, its M5 rubberized plasteel
tires wailing.  As Priss's taillight swung into his HUD again, Gryphon
released the brake override; the antilock system cut in and began to
compensate.  Then, as things started to grab, he put the gearshift
back down into second and let out the clutch.
	The fusion turbine howled into the night; the wheels bit down
hard and the Camaro rocketed forward.  The chase was far from lost.
Another flash off Priss's visor as she glanced back; she had heard the
incredible noise that maneuver had made, no doubt about it.  Everybody
in that end of Japan probably had.
	The laser rangefinder built into the Interceptor's sensor
suite kept pinging Priss's motorcycle and feeding range readouts to
Gryphon's HUD; he kept her squarely in the brackets as it counted
down.
	Then the ceiling of the expressway crumbled in front of them
and something big, blue, and ugly dropped through. Priss attempted to
dodge the pile of rubble and biomechanoid killer; her back tire broke
free and down she went.  Luckily, she separated from the bike; cycle
slid into the wall and impacted hard, while rider rolled painfully
across the expressway and fetched up against the median only a little
more gently a few dozen feet down the road.
	Gryphon buried the clutch and brake, this time leaving the
antilocker on; speed dropped off so precipitously that Zoner almost
ate dash and Ben let out a hard hiss of air from his harness'
pressure.  The car stopped ten or fifteen feet in front of the Buma.
	"55c, would you say?" Gryphon inquired calmly.
	"I'd say so," Zoner replied.  "I don't see any missile racks."
	"Mark would kill to be here with us."
	"Yeah...  Too bad we can't go get him."
	The Buma surveyed its surroundings for a moment; then an
ADPolice chopper swung down into the expressway from above, opening up
with its chaingun.
	"Oh look," Gryphon said, pointing.  "A Wasp.  How cute."
	"How utterly doomed," Zoner added, laughing twistedly.  As if
it had heard him, the Buma blew the chopper away, apparently annoyed
by its mosquito impression.  On the shoulder, Priss stirred and showed
signs of attempting to get up.  The Buma turned its attention to her.
	"Hmmm..."  Gryphon tabbed the switch by the headlight knob
marked COMBAT MODE.  The ports over the forward machine-guns slid open
and the missile rack in the front air dam opened up; a Predator-style
targeting reticule appeared around the Buma as the laser rangefinder
took up its secondary role.  Gryphon put the Interceptor in
reverse-first and opened it up.  The Buma noted itself being lased and
turned to face them, its mouth opening.
	"Shit--" Gryphon said.
	It fired the particle cannon thereinstalled; Gryphon wrenched
the wheel to the right and dodged the bolt, then tabbed one of the
switches on the ceiling above the mirror.
	A largish, four-finned missile launched from the air dam,
spiraled picturesquely, and blew the Buma to bits.
	"Yes!" Gryphon said, pumping a fist.
	"Good shot," Zoner said, and they shared a high five.  Gryphon
put the car back into first and drove slowly over to Priss, who was
still trying to make it to a kneeling-type position.
	She abruptly found herself semi-surrounded by
concerned-looking total strangers, two in all.
	"Who're...you guys anyway?" she asked, pulling herself at last
to hands and knees.
	"Take it easy, we're friends," Zoner said.
	"Would be, anyway," Gryphon qualified.  "It's not totally our
decision."
	"We're on your side, anyway."
	"What side is that?"
	"The good guys, of course," said Gryphon with a grin.  "Come
on, let us help you up."
	"I can manage."  She got to one knee, straightened, gasped in
pain, and fell back to hands and knees.
	"Don't be so tough all the time," Gryphon said, offering a
hand again.  "You remind me of someone else I know..."
	"Et tu, Gryphon?" Zoner said sarcastically.  He went over to
check on her bike.
	Priss looked up, then slowly took his hand and let him help
her up.  Nothing appeared broken--the miracle of leathers--but, like
ow?
	"Your bike's trashed," Zoner called, standing over what was
left of it.
	"Not like I could--ow--ride it anyway," Priss muttered.  "Why
the hell did you chase me?"
	"We wanted to talk to you," Gryphon said, rather sheepishly.
"It was the best thing we could think of on the spur of the moment."
	"That's some car you've got."
	"Thanks...I take some minor pride in it..."
	"Yeah," Zoner snorted.  "You take some minor pride in your car
the way I had a little something to do with Akira showing at WPI...
Well, our WPI...well, our old WPI..."  He grinned at Priss and hooked
a thumb at Ben.  "He loves that car more than anything else in the
world."
	"Never know it--ouch--the way you beat it," Priss told
Gryphon.
	"Hey--I drive hard, true, but I take care of it!" Gryphon
patted a fender with almost paternal pride.  "This car never wants for
anything."
	"Christ, Gryphon, you're starting to remind me of Leona."
	"Worry when I start sleeping in it.  Which reminds me, we've
still got no place to sleep tonight.  Uh, I hate to be the one to ask,
since we've only just met and all, but do you have a couch or a floor
or something we could crash on? We're kinda desperate..."
	"I don't believe this!  You guys pop up out of nowhere, chase
me down, I wreck my bike, and now you want to crash at my place?  I
don't even know your names!"
	"Well...geez, details, details.  I'm not feeding you a line or
anything here, this isn't some lame pickup attempt--I know full well
how that kind of thing would work out.  I'm Ben Hutchins--friends call
me Gryphon--and my illustrious colleague is Brian `MegaZone' Bikowicz,
who takes serious offense if anyone refers to him by his legal name.
He most often answers to `Zoner'.  We just hit town tonight, under
somewhat less than clear circumstances which we don't understand,
really, ourselves."
	"What's that supposed to mean?"
	"It means, half an hour ago we were in Worcester,
Massachusetts, and it was December 7th, 1993," said Zoner.
	"Bullshit."
	"Didn't think you'd believe it," Zoner commented.
	"Look at it this way," Gryphon said.  "What possible reason
would we have for telling you something that wild if it wasn't the
truth?  It certainly wouldn't help our cause any if it was a lie.
We're confused and tired, and we need a place to crash.  You, on the
other hand, are hurt, and probably tired, and you need a ride back
into town.  I'm willing to give you that ride, with or without a place
to crash in return--that's the kind of nice guy I am.  Look, you saw
how fast my car is--I could've just cleared out and left you to the
Buma.  I'm an honest guy.  So is Zoner.  All we want is a little help,
and we've got some help to offer in return."
	"How do I know this isn't just some kind of trick to get me
into that car?"
	"You don't.  All you have is my solemn word of honor that
nothing will happen to you.  If you want blood on it I'll give it to
you.  Besides, think about it; if we were psychos or murderers or
kidnappers or rapists or Buma or worse, in the shape you're in, we
wouldn't have to trick you into the car..."
	"And you?" she asked, looking at Zoner.
	Zoner shrugged.  "I can't think of anything to say that he
hasn't already said...besides, he's the driver, not me."
	"Well, this is an interesting development..."  Priss walked
slowly and painfully over to the wreckage of her bike, looked at it
for a second, then turned around and looked at Gryphon and MegaZone,
who stood by the car smiling pleasantly.  There was something about
the two of them that inclined her to trust them...and Priss was not
one to trust people by instinct.  And she did dearly want to see the
inside of that car.
	She limped back over and stood in front of Gryphon for a
second.  Then, without warning, she belted him, a right cross, hard.
His head twisted to the right and some blood spattered the pavement,
but it swung right back; Edison and Master Caine had prepared him for
much worse.  He looked quizzically at her, raising a hand to rub his
jaw.
	"Making sure you're not a Buma," she said.  She turned to
Zoner, found herself looking at the cockpit of an RAH-66, looked up,
and then turned back to Gryphon.  "Ok.  I don't know why, but I trust
you--for now.  Let's go."
	"You can hit me too if it will make you feel better," Zoner
offered sweetly.
	"Umm... I don't think that will be necessary."
	"Well, whatever."
	"I'm a doctor," Gryphon mentioned as she got into the back
seat.  "I could take a look at your injuries if you like.  I imagine
you won't."
	"Good--ow--call."
	"Yeah, I thought as much.  Why doesn't anyone ever trust
doctors?"
	"Thanks, but I kind of like my doctors to be old enough to
drink, you know?"
	"That's not fair.  I am old enough to drink.  And what about
Doogie Howser?  He doesn't even shave."
	"Who?"
	"Oh, never mind."

	"Weird day weird day weird day," Ben muttered as he unpacked
the emergency field kit.  "Fweird day."  Four weeks field rations,
won't be needing those; sleeping bag, ah, useful; toothbrush etc.,
very handy; water tablets, what's the point of those anyway?; tent,
not necessary; small package of Ziploc bags, what're these in here
for?; thermal underwear, yahright, in summer in Tokyo; empty Pepsi
can, what the hell?; box of Trojans, who the hell packed this thing?!;
cordless phone?!?!  Ok, that does it.  Close the damn kit and put it
back in the trunk.
	He picked up the small box of bathroom-type stuff and the
rolled-up sleeping bag, made certain the car was locked, and then went
into the apartment.

	Gryphon stretched out on the sofa, then curled up into a ball,
pulling his sleeping bag around him.  Fucking strange day.  He drifted
into the fringe areas of sleep, wondering if maybe, when he awoke, it
would all be different again.
	"Hey Gryph?" Zoner's voice rattled him out of his haze.
	"What?"
	"D'you think we're doing this for some kind of reason?"
	"What?"
	"You know...bouncing around like this.  Do you think there's a
point to it?  Like quantum leaping, you know...do you think there's a
purpose?"
	"No."
	"Why not?"
	"Because it's oh god hundred hours and I've been dimensionally
displaced today.  I'm not in the mood to discuss Quantum Leap.
Besides, I don't believe in that `here for a purpose' shit...the
universe is just fucking with us.  Go to sleep."
	"Ok, ok...geez, what a shitty outlook.  That's my job."

	Somewhere in the back of his unconscious mind, there was the
sound of a curtain being racked back.  Light blasted across his
eyelids, filtering into his mind and yanking him away.  He turned away
from the light, opened his eyes, then looked back.  Zoner was standing
in the window, looking out over MegaTokyo (well, more like under
MegaTokyo, considering where Priss's flat was).
	"Shut that goddamned curtain," Gryphon mumbled.  "What're you
trying to do, kill me?"
	"Morning, Gryph," Zoner said.  "We're still here."
	"No shit.  Could we have discovered that in a less painful
manner?" Gryphon inquired, sitting up.  He hated sleeping in his
clothes.  "Eugh, I hate this.  My mouth tastes like the floor of a
taxicab."  He made a face.
	"Did you sleep well?"
	"Oh yeah, I love sleeping on assorted motorcycle parts.  It's
a big part of my life."  He rubbed his neck, then gave it a most
satisfying crack.  "Augh.  We have to find someplace to live."
	Zoner looked around the kipple-strewn, small room, with a huge
stack of CDs in one corner, leaning drunkenly on a stereo and amp,
with speakers scattered here and there and a guitar leaning across a
chair, and comic books and newspapers everywhere, and said, "I kinda
like it here."
	"You would," Gryphon replied.  "Looks just like goddamn E7.
It doesn't matter if you like it here, this isn't our place.  I kind
of doubt that Priss would be particularly happy if we moved into her
living room."
	"True," said Zoner, cracking his neck.  "I think we'd be sick
of it soon enough anyway."
	"I'm sick of it now," Gryphon said.  "I was never the
sleepover type."
	"Hmm...well, first, we'd have to have money, which probably
involves getting jobs..."
	"Doesn't that just suck."
	"Doesn't it, though."
	"Morning guys," Priss greeted them as she limped into the
room.
	"Morning.  How're you feeling today?" Zoner asked concernedly.
	"Stiff and sore, but I've been worse."  Priss sipped at her
coffee.
	"Yeah, those hardsuits can't absorb--oops..."
	Priss sprayed her coffee across the kitchen.
	Gryphon grabbed at his face and cried, "Doh...!  Bart!  Sure,
sure, why don't you just tell her we're interdimensional psycho
killers from beyond time and space?!  Ravenous Star Groaties!  Spies
from Planet Zardon!!" Gryphon raved.
	"Hey, it just sort of slipped, ya'know."
	"Ok!  I want to know who the hell you guys are, and I want to
know now," Priss asked from behind a rather large gun.
	"I just told you," Ben answered.
	"He's Ben or Gryphon if you prefer, I'm MegaZone or Zoner.  We
did this last night, remember?"
	"That's not what the fuck I meant!  How do you know about me?"
	"Well, um, the dimensional vortex we keep getting sucked into?
It's kinda transfictional.  Where we come from you're kind of ink on
sort of a plastic cel, and they changed your voice actress once, and
everyone hated the new one.  That gun looks real to me, though.  What
do you think, Zoner?  That gun definitely looks like the kind of gun I
wouldn't lie to."
	"Actually I think it's pretty nice.  Looks like a...."
	"Zoner!  Not now, she's going to shoot me!  Back me up!" Ben
snarled.
	"Well what do you want me to do?  This..."  Zoner snapped
across the kitchen nook and snatched the gun from her hand.  "Hey,
this IS a nice gun."
	"That isn't what I had in mind, but I suppose it'll do."
Gryphon eyed the weapon.  "Colt M2000, isn't it?"
	Priss meanwhile had begun backing along the wall away from
Zoner, eyeing him with obvious unease.
	"Oh, hey, sorry about that.  I just didn't want you to drill
Ben.  I'd hate to have to explain that one.  Here," Zoner removed the
clip and jacked the shell out of the chamber, "you can have this
back."
	Priss took the proffered gun from him.  "You're a Buma."
	"Me, nah, I just have some modifications.  I'm human, same as
you.  I've got a little electronic assistance, but I can explain that
later.  You still plan on drilling us, or can we discuss this
situation over some coffee?"
	"Ah, I guess I can always kill you later," Priss said with a
smirk.
	"I suppose so, if it makes you feel better, here."  Zoner gave
the clip and shell back to her.
	"Ben, would you care to join us?"
	"I suppose I should."  Gryphon stumbled to the kitchen table.
"Coffee.  Ugh."
	Zoner began the story.  "Well, it all started back in the fall
of 1991..."

	"You're trying to tell me you altered an entire universe to
match your story.  Travelled to that dimension, leapt from there to an
alternate Worcester, and then from there to here," Priss asked, just a
wee bit incredulous.
	"You're right, that is a really lame story.  The truth is
we're refugees from the Fire Maidens of Outer Space and we came here
because we were sick and tired of the non-stop adoration and sex.  We
wanted to be mistreated and have our lives threatened by a woman, so
we came to you," Zoner summed up.  "Now, point that gun at him again,
he just loves it."
	"Zoner, if I survive this you will die.  Slowly.  Painfully.
And in a very inglorious manner.  A manner that will gain you no
respect on the net at all.  A manner that will make the net go, gee,
what a lame fuck that Zoner was.  Besides, you're lying, we're really
The The Eye Creatures."
	"Hey Crow--rock climbing."
	"Rock climbing, Servo."
	"Joel?  rock climbing."
	"Hey, Cambot, rock climbing."
	"How much Keefe does this film have?"
	"Miles O'Keefe!" they chorused.
	"Sorry, Joel, but you won't be watching E.T. this
Thanksgiving.  Instead you're going to watch this cheap
Czechoslovakian rip-off called Pod People.  It has nothing to do with
pods.  It has nothing to do with people.  It has everything to do with
hurting.  Oh, and just so you don't feel left out, at the end, E.T.
goes home.  Ball's in your court, Spielberg.  Oh, and I've had Amy
Irving.  She's hot!" Gryphon rambled.
	Priss was reduced to a quivering ball of laughter, at the same
time quite convinced that both men were totally insane.
	"I think we broke her," Zoner observed.
	"That we did.  But really, I mean gee, wouldn't you?  Wouldn't
you laugh if your head exploded?  No...I guess you wouldn't.  I
would..."
	"But to regain some semblance of seriousness.  Ben and I are
from a different plane of existence.  To us this is a fictional
universe.  Of course the universe is infinite in size, and there are
an infinite number of them.  So it's no big surprise that it really
exists.  It could be worse, we could have ended up in Rocket Attack
USA."
	"Um, I know I'm going to regret this.  But what is Rocket
Attack USA?"
	Zoner cringed a little; he knew what was next.
	Gryphon took a deep breath and began, "Well, first of all, Sam
Waterson sends the spy guy in the Piper Cub over to Russia, to the
restaurant with the bad service, and then he meets the girl who dates
a pig, and he lives in her closet for ten years while they develop the
United States rocket program!  Yeah, yeah, and like a fine wine the
relationship between the spy girl and the fat stinky balding Russian
pig guy only gets better--and that's disgusting!  Enter Leonard
Nimoy/Bill Bixby type...he hands 'em a megaton of TNT, leads 'em into
the woods and suddenly they're having a teary departure like we're
s'posed to care--I mean, we didn't even know the guy was s'posed to be
a Brit, y'know...all he did was say things like `Cheerio' and `good
boy', gaaah.  And then Suie the Pig Girl gets shot, in one of the
least dramatic scenes since Date with an Angel, Spy Guy muffs the
bombing on the missile guarded by the Fotomat and then he gets shot in
the same place as Suie the Pig Girl!  Oh, cut to New York, where Art
Metrono and Harry Connick eat pizza and buy ties for their stupid
girlfriends and Harry Truman gets off a plane by the sewage dump and
then a blind guy goes by and says `Help me,' what the hell was that
supposed to be?!?  And then there's the glorious ending where the
entire center of New York City explodes (except for the perimeters)
and all we learn is that you're supposed to live in the suburbs, not
in the city!"
	Priss just sort of stared, slack-jawed.
	"Well, you asked," was all Zoner said.
	"You guys are very, very strange.  But you've convinced me.
Bumas aren't that odd and the way you're talking you must be from
another dimension."
	"So, care to introduce us to the rest of the Knight Sabers?
Or should we just go and surprise them ourselves?" Zoner asked.
	"Sure!  Let's risk getting shot three more times!  You can
pick your friends, but time travel partners you're stuck with."
	"Hey, it was just an idea... I'd like to shock Nene a bit...
hehe."
	"You are cruel.  I would be forced by the commands of my
genetic structure to defend my fellow gweep, you realize."
	Zoner nodded solemnly.  "So, how about it Priss?"
	"I guess it couldn't hurt."
	"You think Sylia might have jobs for us?  We're going to need
to get some new clothes, food, living space, etc...  And I think it
might be hard to get a job through normal channels."
	"Well, you'll have to talk to her..."
	"Bad idea, bad idea, very bad idea, big, big bad, big bad
thing, bad, bad idea."
	"Problems, Gryph?"
	"Well um... You know... Um... You do remember what kind of
legitimate business the good doctor Stingray runs don't you?"
	"A lingerie shop."
	"Yes.  And I have such a pressing desire to work in a lingerie
shop.  It's always been a career goal of mine.  There must be a
McDonald's in town.  Or some construction work.  I have experience
with construction."
	"And I suppose you're going to be able to satisfy the
government requirements.  Like citizenship.  Besides, I was thinking
more along the lines of working on the Knight Saber end of things."
	"Yeah, there's legitimate work.  I can see myself filling out
my tax report.  Occupation, hardsuit technician.  Wait a sec, let me
try something...."  Long thoughtful pause.  "Crosspatch subsection
four to circuit DN413...  Would you like fries with that?... Ok, I'm
in."
	"Nice to have you aboard... I figure you're pretty good with
the electromechanical end of things and I'm not bad at the electronic
end.  Having skillwires has its advantages.  Besides, I'm sure the
Knight Sabers could use a doctor, eh?"
	"True...and there are just so many things to do on the
electromechanical end of those hardsuits..." Gryphon was starting to
warm to the idea.  "At last, a real budget.  No more of this
nickel-and-dime five-digit shit...we're talking millions of bucks'
worth of gear here.  The armor is probably foamed duranium, injection
cast.  The circuit paths are probably molded right in.  I can't wait
to get a look inside of them.  Wonder what temperature the casting
runs at?"
	"You're drooling, Ben... Anyway, how about we take a shower
and head out into the world?  Ok Priss?"  Zoner asked.
	"Oh boy, a shower.  Wish I had time to wash my socks.  I feel
like such a slob.  Next time I'll pack extra clothes before jumping
dimensions."
	"Take it easy, there isn't much hot water," Priss warned.
	"That's ok, Zoner likes cold, builds character."
	"We could always conserve it by sharing," Zoner offered,
receiving a look cold enough to freeze dry from Priss.  "Hey, it was a
joke.  Really."
	"Like I said, Zoner likes cold, builds character."
	"Hey, I'm sorry, actually I like it real hot.  I may be metal,
but I still have some flesh... Sometimes the lech sort of sneaks out
when I'm not watching."
	"Brian, you're a lech," Ben quoted Zoner's old roommate Paul.
	"Can we please just drop it?  Besides, I wouldn't want to get
on Leon's bad side."
	"Leon has a good side?"
	"Hey, go easy on the guy; he's a cop, but he's an all right
sort of guy."
	"Last time I checked, those two things did not go together."

	"They're what?"
	"From another dimension."
	"Have you been drinking?"
	"Linna, I'm serious.  If you let them talk for a while, they
can prove it."
	"Gryphon?  Rocket Attack U.S.A., if you would be so kind?"
	"Ahem.  Well, first of all..."

	"I suspected as much.  Have either of you read Dr. Eiji
Kosawa's paper on the possibilities inherent in transfictional
interface?" inquired Sylia.
	"No," Zoner replied, "but then again, we're living it."
	"Good point."

	Gryphon was walking down the street later that day, feeling
pretty good.  He had left Zoner back at Sylia's, discussing the ethics
and physics of transfictionality, and was walking toward the video
arcade that Linna had told him about, his clothes clean and with some
money in his pocket.  Life wasn't really all that bad.  Dr. Stingray
had seemed impressed with his knowledge of electromechanics--the money
in his pocket was an advance on his technical support and assistance.
Having an actual medical doctor around was always a plus as well.
	He went into the arcade and was surrounded by the familiar
atmosphere of one: sound effects and garish lighting, and in the
background he could hear the thudding bass of a techno song,
Information Society's "Can't Slow Down", he recognized.  A classic, by
this time period.  He smiled and went inside, looking around at the
games.  He was looking for something a little more archaic than he was
used to back "home" in Worcester: an old-style video game, maybe even
an early goggles-and-gloves VR game like Gunslinger or Starfighter
2121.  It occurred to him then that there were no couch-and-jack games
here.  Most of them were old-style analog games, and there were a lot
of cockpit simulators.  He smiled to himself.  Forty years in the
future from his Worcester, MegaTokyo was behind in some areas of
technology, just starting the Chrome Revolution that had happened in
1965 "back home".  Actual hardlink cyberjacks were rare, toys or tools
of the very rich and very dedicated--Dr. Stingray had one, but then,
he knew about her.
	Here, VR was common, but it was almost all G&G, with a couple
of 'trodes here and there.  Yet the cars were so much more advanced
than most of those back home, in common usage.  Sure, his own car was
even with or better than most here, but that was a special case.  The
average sarariman here had a better car than most of the folks "back
home".  It was weird.
	After a few minutes of searching, he did in fact locate a Wing
Commander ][ machine.  There was someone in one of its three pods
already, but that didn't matter; video gamers crashed each other's
games all the time, and Gryphon was willing to bet that the same
occurred here.  He climbed into the third pod and closed it, then fed
the manual pay slot some coins and fitted the goggles to his head and
the gloves to his hands.  He settled into the seat and, curious to see
if it would work, dug his WC][ saved game disk from back home out of
his coat pocket and slotted it.
	Not only did it fit, it worked.  The computer pinged and
showed him his scores, rank, comparative ranking at this arcade (about
the same as back home), and his current configuration (gender, sexual
preference--so the machine would know whether or not to include the
minor-plot-point romance between the PC and Colonel Devereaux--age,
reflex scores, etc., etc.).
	Then he watched the countdown flash, and then, with a burst of
static, he was in a briefing room, and Colonel Devereaux was
instructing him to launch immediately and proceed to Nav 1 in support
of First Lieutenant Romanova, who was in trouble with a squadron of
Drakhri medium fighters.  Gryphon saluted and ran to the launch deck,
and within moments, Major Benjamin D. "Gryphon" Hutchins of the Terran
Confederation Space Navy, service number 006-86-3510, was streaking
across space in a North American F-44G Rapier II medium starfighter.
He kept his thumb on the afterburner switch the whole way; Romanova
needed help, and that was all there was to it.
	He was too busy playing the game to think about the
implications of the name.
	Within a few minutes, the fight was in view; Romanova's ship,
a light DeHavilland F-54C Epee, was badly damaged and not able to make
full speed, and the four Drakhri, one trailing sparks itself, were
pursuing and harassing the wounded fighter at long range.  Eventually,
its engines would fail at that speed, and then the persistent Kilrathi
would have it for lunch.
	Gryphon keyed his InterCom and announced, "Lieutenant
Romanova, this is Major Hutchins, vectoring to assist."
	"Glad to see you, sir," a woman's voice, young, replied.  The
screen showed static; apparently the Epee's comm systems were damaged.
"What's your handle?  Mine's Sidehacker."
	"They call me Gryphon," Gryphon replied, kicking burners again
and diving down on the Kilrathi from the sun.  "Hold tight--comin'
in."  He opened up with his Rapier's full armament, lasers and
particle cannons, as he came down, raking one of the unsuspecting
Drakhri from nose to stern.  The fighter heeled to starboard and
exploded as the other three, startled, scattered.  Gryphon sent a
Pilum FF missile after one of them and then peeled off to engage
another, opening up his throttles all the way.  He kept doggedly on
this one's tail, firing when he could get a clear shot, and soon
knocked down its shields and began chewing into its engines.  Then his
seat kicked him in the butt and the slot alarm howled; one of them had
gotten onto his tail and was doing the same thing to him he was doing
to the Drakhri in front of him.  He kicked the burner and rolled to
confuse his adversary, getting in a burst at the one in front of him
as he passed it; his radar informed him that his target blew behind
him as he passed, but he was still getting hit by the bastard behind
him.
	He threw the Rapier II into an afterburner skid, the craft's
orientation changing as its direction remained constant for a moment,
and faced the Drakhri while moving away from it.  This let him absorb
a couple of its hits with his intact forward shields, let the rear
shields build back up for a second, and--most importantly--get off a
few shots, and try for a missile lock.  He didn't get it, but he
knocked a decent dent in the enemy's shields before blasting the
burners again and shooting past and below him.  The Rapier rocked with
hits again, this time from the side.  Gryphon cursed; the other one
had made him.  He threw the fighter into a neat spiral as the other
Drakhri's guns hammered at his flank, and then the fire ceased.  He
spun the Rapier to port to look; his tormentor was expanding into a
cloud of superheated gases as the Epee flew past, executing a victory
roll.  He keyed his InterCom again.
	"Nice shooting, Sidehacker," he called, pulling an Immelmann
and hearing the missile under his wing pinging for a lock on the
approaching Drakhri.  He opened up with his guns again as he let it
pass and pulled in behind it, and when the tone of lock came, he
released a missile.  It powered forward, punched through the Drakhri's
weakened shields, and blew it to bits.
	The rest was history; they returned to the Concordia, were
debriefed, Gryphon got a bronze star and punched out of the game.  As
he climbed out of the pod, he looked over at pod one to see just who
he had been flying with.
	She was a pretty girl, about his age, with long red hair, and
big green eyes, and he could swear he'd seen her before.  She was
wearing an ADPolice uniform, the office-duty kind with the knee-length
skirt and the high white boots.  She turned to look at him, smiled,
and walked over.
	"Thanks for the save," she said, "you came along just in time.
I'm Nene.  Nene Romanova.  Do you have a name?"
	Gryphon grinned.  I knew she looked familiar.  "Yes, as a
matter of fact I do.  My name is Hutchins, Benjamin D. Hutchins, but
I'd like it very much if you were to call me Gryphon."
	"Gryphon?"  She laughed, and it was a pretty laugh.  "Do you
love the game that much?"
	"Hmm?  Oh, no.  It goes much further than that.  Sometime when
we have a couple of hours free I'll start at the beginning."
	"Do I know you?"
	"No, not yet.  Give it time, I've only just gotten to town
last night.  Your friend Priss was kind enough to put my associate and
I up for the night."
	Nene's eyes widened.  "Priss?  Kind?  I thought I'd never live
to see the day."
	"Well, we sort of saved her life," Gryphon was saying as they
walked outside.  "We kind of ran into her on the highway--well, not
actually...ran into her...shit, that'd be a big practical joke--and
there was a wandering Buma...so I kind of blew it up."
	"Blew it up?"
	"Yeah.  You know, with a missile.  Boom!"  He laughed.  "They
make pretty explosions."
	"You had a missile launcher with you on the highway?" Nene
inquired.  "That's illegal, you know."
	"Oh, come on.  You aren't going to arrest me, are you?  We've
only just met."
	"No, I guess not--since you saved Priss and all."  She smiled.
Gryphon had the sudden feeling he was going to die, but it passed.
"Where did you come by this missile launcher?"
	"Well, it's part of my car, you see," he said, and told her
the whole story--up to but not including his knowledge of her
out-of-work activities.
	Needless to say, she didn't believe him.
	"Whyever not?" he asked, wounded-sounding.  "Priss believed
it.  Ms. Yamazaki believed it.  Hell, even Dr. Stingray believed it.
She and MegaZone are probably swapping theories on transfictionality
right now."
	"Oh, come on," Nene said, reproachful.  "You expect me to
believe that Sylia actually 	believed that fairy tale?"  She seemed
to realize then just what the list of names he had given her meant.
They were standing in front of Sylia's building.
	"You...you know," she whispered, backing away.
	"Nene Romanova," Gryphon said, bowing low and presenting his
card, "I present myself, Dr. Benjamin D. Hutchins, M.D., Esquire,
General Physician, Surgeon, Cybertechnician, Hardsuit Designer,
Shaolin Priest, Terror that Hunts in the Night, and Gweep at Large."
	"Gweep?"
	"Gweep, hacker, cracker, keyboard cowboy, cyberjock,
programmer, wizard, netgod.  Or, in your case, goddess.  Computer
operator with an anarchist streak.  One who runs the 'Net without
doing the suicidal braindance thing."
	"Anarchist?  Me?"
	"Don't lie," Gryphon said with a knowing grin.  "Gweeps can
always tell their own kind.  Go on, tell me you didn't feel a kinship
when you saw me."
	"Well..."
	"Aha!  See?  We're of a blood, you and I.  A rare and dying
breed in this the age of regulation, crackdowns, and jackheads.  Is
Stallman still alive?"
	"No...NetWatch got him last March."
	"Damn!  There goes the last of the Great Old Ones."
	"Tell me about it.  Still, his son's still out there, and so
is Bob Morris IV--he crashed the entire Orbitsville 'net last month
with some kind of tapeworm.  NetWatch is still trying to sort it out.
They never will, though--all of 'em together don't have an eighth of
his brains.  The guy is just incredible.  And the Android's still out
there--I don't think they'll ever get him."  She realized she had been
rambling, and blushed slightly.  "Sorry."
	"No, thank you.  I've been away for a long time.  I needed to
get back in touch.  Sometime, you'll have to show me the 'Net--I'd be
willing to bet it's changed a lot since I went away."  He smiled.
"I'm glad 'Droid's still out there.  I'll have to get in touch with
him, see if he remembers me."
	"You know Android?!  Android at WPI?"
	"Oh yeah.  We go 'way back."
	"How far back?"
	"1991."
	"You don't look even remotely that old..."
	"It's a kind of magic."
	"I see."

	"Hey," Zoner said as Gryphon and Nene entered the living room
of Sylia's apartment, "looks like the gang's all here, eh?"
	"Yeah," Gryphon said, sitting down at the end of the couch.
"That arcade has the coolest Wing Commander ][ game...you gotta try it
out."
	"Any jack games?"
	"No...this timeframe hasn't gotten there yet.  I'd say the
cybertech here is roughly like it was in the Sixties, back home."
	"No kidding?  Yet the cars and the robotics are way advanced.
I could make a killing with cybertech breakthroughs here.  hehe."
	"I know.  Funky, isn't it?"
	"Just so I don't feel so alone," Priss said then, "who here
feels that this is a completely surreal day?"
	Everyone raised a hand, Gryphon and Zoner included.
	"Good.  I don't feel quite as bad now."
	"Hm."  Gryphon looked outside, watched the sun sink behind the
buildings to the west.  "It's almost nighttime on Friday in
MegaTokyo...what to do...what to do..."
	"Well, I don't know about you," Zoner replied, "but I'm going
to go get some clothes."
	"Good idea.  Got any idea where there's a decent mall around
here?  I can take three passengers, if the two in the back are small
and friendly."

	"All right, I'm coming out.  Tell me what you think."  Gryphon
opened up the fitting room and emerged, clad from head to toe in
black.  Jungle mosh boots with black canvas sides covered his feet;
black ripstop fatigue pants were secured about his waist with a black
web belt.  His black T-shirt was one of two articles of his clothing
that had any color to it at all; it was emblazoned with a neon green
and orange general arrangement diagram of a K-12 Armored Trooper.  The
other item of color on his person was his hat; although black, it had
a silver Batman logo on the front.  Final coverage was provided by a
black flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
	"Gryphon, you're a Goth," MegaZone remarked.
	"Et tu, Brutus?" Gryphon replied, glancing pointedly at the
shopping bag in Zoner's hand, which contained fifteen identical black
T-shirts and five identical pairs of black jeans.
	"At least my shoes have color."
	"Well, I haven't bought the red Converse yet.  Besides, is
this black thing really a shock to you?  I mean c'mon.  I've been
wearing black for years.  Even my costume is black."

			  A FEW WEEKS LATER

	Sylia wandered down to the basement office Zoner had
established for himself.  She had offered him a place on the top
floor, but he mumbled something about photons and asked for the
basement.  She had simply given him the space he asked for and the
network connections and let him at it.  He was rarely seen by anyone
else, simply sending out the latest schematics and mechanicals to the
SCAD/M system.  He seemed a virtual hermit, working odd hours and
avoiding everyone else.  The office was his private haven.
	Well, she had to admit he had contributed a great deal to
refining the hardsuit control systems.  Though he was still trying to
convince the team to get rigger implants.  She had vetoed that idea.
She didn't really feel comfortable with the idea of cyberware.
	The office was easy to find, MegaZone had rigged up a
blacklight and painted the door hideous Day-Glo(tm) shades, but in a
rather intriguing geometric pattern.  A large Sacred Chao in blue and
yellow dominated the center of the door.  A plaque next to the door
read "MegaZone: Cybernetics and Control Systems Design", underneath a
small note read "Things to make us go."  She was about to knock when
the door opened and Zoner's voice said, "Welcome to my inner sanctum.
Please enter."  Sylia shrugged and did just that.
	The office was a combination of fastidiously neat areas and
wild zones.  Along one wall a comfortable looking couch hid in the
shadows of a towering case of books and data cartridges.  A slightly
frightening compilation of tubing and machine parts lurked in the
corner, the room lights were off, a bank of monitors provided the
eerie glow which cast the room into stark shadow, and behind a desk
across from the monitors Zoner slouched in a large recliner.
	"You wanted to see me?" Sylia asked.
	"Yes," his eyes looked at her, but his voice didn't come from
his body, but seemingly from the room itself.  A nice surround system
she assumed.  "I wanted to ask you a few questions on a project of
mine.  Oh, but I'm being rude.  Just a moment."  The room lights
flickered to life and several of the monitors deactivated.  He reached
up and removed the interface cables from behind his ears.  "There,"
this time the voice was his own, "this is probably more comfortable
for you."  A smile played about his lips.
	Sylia shuddered inwardly, she couldn't imagine someone being
so comfortable with their mind hooked up to a machine.  "What
project?"
	"Well, I've been feeling like I'm not holding up my end of the
bargain.  I haven't been contributing directly to the Sabers.  I want
to start working on the field ops.  I've been able to rework the
suits' control systems to give a faster response and a finer motor
control.  As best as I can do without rigging the operator..."  Zoner
glanced at Sylia questioningly.
	Her frown was all the answer he needed.
	"... but anyway, other than some of the basic research and
net-running I've been doing for the team, I decided to work on a suit
for myself.  Now that I'm just about done I'd like to get some
feedback from you.  You have much more experience than I.  Care to
take a look?"
	"Certainly, I'm interested in seeing what you have done."
	"Great, just a sec."  He reached for an interface cable but
decided to use the boards instead.  He called up an image of the armor
on the largest monitor.  It seemed very fuzzy.  "Oh, here, put these
on."  Zoner handed Sylia a set of goggles.  With the goggles in place
the image became a three dimensional view of the armor.
	Sylia looked at him questioningly, "What about you?"
	"I've encoded a signal on the monitor and I wrote some
software for my eyes.  I don't need the goggles.  I do most of my work
in cyberspace anyway, so I don't rely on this system.  That's why I
didn't waste any money on a holotank.  Anyway, I started with the
basic hardsuit design.  From there I pared it down to its present
form.  The basic suit provides protection and strength boosts to the
operator.  In my case my internal cybernetics already give me a decent
strength and reflex increase, and I didn't want to interfere with
that.  But I can't go into combat without some armor, that'd be
stupid.  It's not even an option.  So I started with a basic
BallisTech shell, same as the conventional suits.  But since I don't
need the increased strength I dropped the flat motor technology and
used a full myomer articulation.  To do that with a conventional suit
would require a large powerplant, but since I didn't need the strength
I used just enough myomer to articulate the armor without interfering
with my movements."
	"It should be like you're not even wearing it."
	"Exactly, so it shouldn't interfere with my reflex boosting
either.  I've fitted a full suit sensory system so I can rig the armor
and maintain a full situational awareness.  The space made available
by removal of the large motor systems, and the actual power surplus
I've realized, goes into weapons systems.  High-intensity pulse laser
generators are installed in a helix around the forearms.  They feed
small focal arrays on the fingertips via fiberoptics.  I can control
the pulse through the 'trodes, aiming is as simple as pointing.  I've
installed a set of monomolecular edged claws in the backs of each arm.
When I'm rigged my internal wolvers are cut out and the standard
reflex is redirected to the suit."
	"You've done a lot of development work.  It appears to be a
basic exo-skeleton based on your physiognomy.  So, you can use the
same fighting style in or out of the suit?"
	"Yes, that was one of my requirements.  I've been fairly
successful thus far.  I wanted to build on my past successes, not
start from scratch.  An evolutionary revolution in hardsuit design."
He shot a glance at her.
	She didn't smile.
	"Well, what do you think?"
	"What do these power level indications mean?"
	"Hmm... oh, I haven't fully documented everything yet...  I
also have add-ons for a harsher environment."  Zoner quickly called up
a secondary window.  "A backpack flight and missile system.  The
flight aspects are based on your hardsuit, but without as much
endurance.  I sacrificed some of the propellant storage and heat sinks
to add this."  He zoomed in on the window.  "An anti-armor missile
system.  It carries four missiles in a 'clip' or sorts and one in the
tube.  When activated the tube swings into position over my right
shoulder.  The missiles acquire their initial lock via laser
designation with the low-level output from the arm lasers.  They also
have a rudimentary image recognition system which gives them a chance
to home on the target if the designation is lost.  After firing the
tube swings back into position and another round is shoved home.
Total time from firing to launch ready, point-eight-seven seconds.
Not too bad.  And it packs quite a punch."
	Sylia took over at the console, nudging Zoner out of the way.
She seemed very intently absorbed in the data.  Zoner just stood back
and grinned.  Sylia used the touch-screen to scan through the menus,
almost faster than Zoner could keep up.  "So, this gives a strength
boost factor of one-point-one-four, protection comparable to a
standard Stingray hardsuit, the lasers give a punch point-eight-seven
times as effective as Priss' railgun, but with a sustainable rate of
fire.  Good use of space," she gestured to the, apparently hovering,
image, "the extra heat sinks should keep the suit at 69% of the
standard operating temperature.  The sensor web should work ok, but I
recommend installing a standard helmet imaging system as a backup.
What about force sensors?"
	Zoner was startled out of his reverie and turned back to the
image.
	"Force sensors?  Oh.. yeah... I was thinking of using a
standard undergarment with sensor weave.  Solely as a backup mind you,
I'm working on interface software so all my motor control signals
drive my body and the suit directly.  It's a bit of a project, but it
should give me a point-zero-zero-three second delay.  Far better than
the normal suits.  But then, I'm rigging."
	"Ok.  Are you using standard telemetry units to link with the
team?"
	"I'm using the standard protocols, but I decided to test a new
design.  It's a bit more compact and draws less power than the old
design.  And it should have a higher reliability, if it works the way
I think it will.  Consider it a test installation, if it works ok in
my suit it'll go into the other suits when we do SLEP."
	"I'm not sure I like the idea of testing a system in combat,
but it is your life on the line."  She continued to scan the suit's
data for several minutes.  "What is this?"
	"Oh, my pride and joy.  A nanotechnological suit maintenance
system.  I've based the designs on the nanohealers I have in myself.
Like I said, the suit is based on me."
	"Is this transferable to the standard hardsuit?"
	"Theoretically, but it would take some reprogramming and
retooling.  I engineered these to work with the myomer systems and
sensor web in this suit.  I would have to redo the design to work with
the traces and armatures in the conventional suits.  I've done some
preliminary studies, but I want to work the kinks out in this system
first.  I would hate to debug a few thousand of the critters.  Be neat
if they went nuts and started weaving myomer all over the place.
Nanospiders, weee...."  Again he shot her a look.
	Again she didn't smile.
	Sigh.  "So, how about it?"
	"How about what?"
	"Well, I wanted to get your approval before I diverted the
materials and machine time to produce the LightSaber, as I call it..
It is your call after all."
	"Oh, very well.  Go ahead with production.  I'll authorize two
sets of components, one for use and one for spares.  Will you need
anything else?"
	"I was hoping to have Nene look over my code a bit.  I know
what to do, but she has better technique.  I'm sure she could tighten
up my code."
	"Very well, I'll let you know when she is free from her other
duties.  Will that be all?"
	"Yes, thank you."
	"My pleasure."
	Zoner approached the aforementioned pile of tubing and parts.
"Would you like some espresso or cappuccino?"
	"That is an espresso machine?"
	"Yes, I built it as sort of a meditation exercise.  Like
kitbashing.  But it works, and makes a damn fine brew.  Did you want
some?"
	"No thank you.  Have a good day."  She strode purposefully out
of the office.
	"Geez, I think it cooled off twenty degrees while she was
here.  I've got to loosen her up," Zoner commented to the empty
office.ONE MONTH LATER

	Gryphon was down in the lab he had staked out as his, behind
Dr. Raven's bike shop, tinkering around with some hardsuit parts.
Zoner had taken the day off and gone to the carnival that had blown
into town a few days ago; Nene and Linna had gone with him.  Priss was
rehearsing with her band.  Sylia and Mackie were off doing something
mundane, shopping or something along those lines.  He was all alone.
That didn't bother him; he usually came up with better ideas alone.
He pushed a railgun capacitor idly round with a wrench, then turned to
the SCAD terminal he was working at and punched in a couple of
figures.  He grinned.  He had been right; the hardsuits' external
plating was indeed foamed duranium, and was made by a process of
injection casting at around 1,750 degrees F.  Efficient, but not the
strongest material available.  Gryphon had an idea for a forged-alloy
system that would make the suits almost 45% more resistant to damage.
All he had to do was find some depleted dalekenium someplace...
	The door to the lab hissed open and Zoner walked in,
looking--of all things--happy.  "Yo, Gryph, whasup?  You gotta check
out that carnival, man, it's the greatest.  It's even got decent
rides."
	"Hm?" Gryphon asked, looking up.  "Oh.  Mm...I
dunno...carnivals aren't really my thing, you know?"
	"Lighten up, man, you work too much."  Zoner came over and
stood behind Gryphon, looking at the screen.  "Speaking of which,
what're you working on?"
	"Just kicking around a couple of ideas for armor upgrades to
the hardsuits," Gryphon replied, punching up a general spec.  "See, if
I make the big castings, the ones that don't vary from suit to suit,
with drop-forged BallisTech alloy instead of foam-cast duranium, and
then machine the custom bits out of the leavings, it adds a couple of
man-hours to the fabrication time, but you get a 45% increase in
strength across the board, and who cares if it takes a couple more
hours per suit?  It's not like we're in a booming market here."
	"Looks decent.  Sylia seen this yet?"
	"No, she's out.  Check this out."  Gryphon tabbed a few more
keys and another image appeared, that of a person's forearm and hand,
encased in a wireframe of an armored limb.  A wireframe of some sort
of weapon system was overlaid in red, and the arm ended in a robotic
waldo-controlled hand.  "This is a redesign I've been thinking of
doing to Priss's right arm sometime."
	"You should probably ask her--I imagine she wouldn't like it
if you just started cutting up her arm."
	"Gods, but you're funny.  Seriously, take a look.  I've left
the railguns here, here, and here, but by using the new myomers
instead of the flat-motor armatures in the arm articulation, I can
save enough space to replace the chaingun with a particle cannon.
That'll give her a 60% firepower boost on the long-range end of the
curve, and 10% in the up-close curve.  If I array the heat sinks like
so, I can squeeze fifty BTU/S out of it, and feed seven or eight watts
to the thermocouples at the same time, and her arm stays nice and
comfortable.  Recoil shock is absorbed by the armature and shoulder
rams, same as with the chaingun.  Tie the targeting system
across--easy enough, no?--and voila!  And, with the myomers, the
crushing, gripping, and punching strength of that arm is increased by
over 8,000%!"
	"Not bad, not bad.  I could probably work out a better
circuitry system for arm control to give it a finer level of control.
Maybe bleed a little tech across from the cybernetic controls used for
implants, surface pickups.  It would be simpler if we could get them
to use cybernetics to rig the suits.  Too bad only Sylia has the ware,
and I haven't told her yet...  What would happen if you stripped all
the flat motors and did all the musculature with myomers?"
	"I'm working on that--I'll show you in a second what that's
leading up to."
	"You've been busy."
	"I try."
	"You ought to go out, relax, have some fun.  You've been
working awful hard lately.  If you work too long you'll get too
focused.  Get out and relax and you might get more big ideas."
	"Fun is for other people.  Besides, I'm having fun.  You
should see what I've cooked up for myself."
	"I knew you'd get around to building your own toys someday.
What is it, a hardsuit?"
	"Of a sort."  Gryphon punched up another drawing.  The screen
blinked to a view of an interesting-looking battlesuit, one which
showed very different design influences than Sylia's hardsuits.  It
wasn't as sleek and pretty to look at; in fact, it had all the
downtown chic of a dump truck, but Zoner liked it anyway, just because
of its angular, vicious look.  Also unlike the Knight Sabers' suits,
it had a face of a sort, two rectangular eyeslots and a sharp,
frowning mouth line.  It looked very, very nasty.  Something was
protruding slightly above the points of both shoulders; closer
examination showed one to be labeled "8 Tube Missile Canister--Idle
Mode" and the other "2mm Minigun--Idle Mode".  The glowing green
letters underneath the schematic read "Iron Man Variable Threat
Response Combat Armor Model XI Mark III--General Arrangement--Drawing
1 of 4,225".
	"Iron Man?  Changing comic-book heroes?  Gryphon, you're
weird."
	"It isn't exactly like the Model XI Iron Man armor you see in
the old comic books, which is why it's labeled Mark III instead of
Mark II.  The power delivery systems are a bit different, and I had to
fudge some of the weapons to get them to fit, at least on paper.  It's
also a little stranger than the old Stark designs, considering the
Stingray design influences in it--Sylia happened by a while back when
I was messing around with the endoframe design and we wound up having
a six-hour technomantic brainstorming session."
	"Kind of a `techie bonding' thing?" Zoner asked, a slightly
jealous tone slipping into his voice.
	"Bestow upon my humble self a small break."  Gryphon
reconsidered, then said, "Yeah, I suppose, I guess you could call it
that.  Anyway, check it out; this is the neatest thing.  You know how
Iron Man's armor works, right?  It doesn't get motive power from
armatures or a linear frame like the hardsuits.  It's not even `hard'.
Instead, most of its armor and strength capacities come from the
molecular force fields that actuate it.  The whole thing is a huge
tessellated-fabric computer system.  With the power off, it feels like
heavy cloth.  Power it up and it'll stop artillery and rip right
through battleship armor with its bare hands.  I can't wait to
actually wear this thing."
	"I didn't know you knew enough about force fields and the like
to make this."
	"I don't.  This disk," said Gryphon, holding up an optical
minidisk, "contains the complete technical readouts and diagrams for
the fabrication of the Model XI Mark II Iron Man armor.  I got it
straight from Tony Stark."
	"Edison?"
	"Bingo."
	"And you've been waiting until you had the facilities to make
it."
	"Another two points for the Zoninator.  Like I said, Sylia and
I had to fudge a few things to make it work--the technology and
facilities here are a little less effective than the ones Tony had to
work with--but work it will, once I get it finished."
	"So it should be stronger than a hardsuit?"
	"Much.  I figure this suit will be able to bench-press around
fifty tons at full power.  The real improvements will be in weapons,
though.  Check this out."  He tabbed the remote again; the wireframe
schematic became a full-blown UVGA virtual diagram, super smooth
animation, as though film footage of the actual suit was on the
screen.  Zoner had to admit, with the glowering frown-line on the
faceplate and the silver and gray matte color scheme, the thing looked
mean.
	The protrusion on the right shoulder swung up, over, and
locked down, revealing itself to be a missile canister with eight
small tubes in it; the one on the left shoulder became a six-barrelled
minigun.  The left forearm guard unfolded into a little two-barrelled
autocannon-like arrangement, and the right hand presented its palm to
the "camera", showing a small circular impression.
	"The missile rack is obvious," Gryphon said.  "It fires little
missiles about the size of road flares, which can hit their maximum
speed of Mach 2 in around five seconds.  They cold launch with jets of
liquid nitrogen, like the missiles in my car, and the sustainer kicks
in after about a half second.  See the little bulge on the side of the
helmet?  That's a laser designator for the missiles.  I can reset the
blink-rate eight different ways and target each missile independently,
in a matter of a second or two, theoretically.  I can tool the
machines up to make all kinds of mini-missiles; so far all I plan to
make are the HEAT, incendiary, and smoke rounds.  I don't have the
budget for depleted uranium penetrators, and I don't want to even
think about making the 1.8 kiloton subnukes."
	"You've got the plans for subnukes?  I want copies," MegaZone
declared.
	"Too bad.  Anyway, check out the minigun.  It's pretty much
your standard six-barrelled rotary minigun, with the motor packed
inside the 1,800-round spiral magazine for compactness' sake.  The
rounds are 2mm caseless tungsten penetrators, coated with Teflon.  I
like the image of shell-casings flying around, but I decided they were
too much of a pain in the ass."
	"Hey, nice design.  With a few changes I think I could base a
nice personal weapon on this.  Make a good smart gun.  Say, what about
a hollow centered flat motor system built into the circumference of a
hardsuit arm?"
	"You'd run into problems aligning the hand so it doesn't get
in the way.  That'd be a pain.  But it would look neat.  Anyway, the
little chaingun on the right forearm guard uses the same kind of
ammunition; there's a cassette system that snails the ammo around the
arm.  I've got around two hundred rounds in there, and I'll make up a
couple more mats to carry in the belt utility slots.  The other
gauntlet has a beam saber projector--basically, a focused particle
beam with a set of magnatomic field generators that sculpt the
particle emission into a blade shape.  Very nice.  The missile rack,
the minigun, and the gauntlet weapons are all modular, and can be
removed, so if I come up with other things, they'll be easy to mount,
and if I want a sleeker profile, less of that `loaded for bear' look,
I can leave them off and just go with the built-in weaponry.  Speaking
of which:
	"The round thing on the chest is the unibeam, a tunable free
electron laser plate.  I can throw the equivalent of a Klieg light,
cone it down to a pocket flashlight, or melt a hole in an M1 tank with
it, or pretty much anything in between.  It's tied to the targeting
system too, in case I need to use a really large laser designator, or
designate a target through a lot of smoke or water or the like.  The
helmet designator isn't all that powerful."
	"Of course, the things in the palms are Iron Man's signature
weapons, 32mm palm repulsors.  They're basically neutron guns; they
use a laser pulse to clear the pesky air molecules out of the way for
a focused neutron force beam.  On the default settings they don't do
burn damage, just concussion, but I can set them to do things like
neurostun and full beam burn, too.
	"If I want that, though, all I really have to do is use the
pulse bolts--repeating plasma generators in both forearm guards.  They
sculpt the pulses using the magnetronic fields around the gloves
themselves--ingenious, and it explains why the suit looks like it's
throwing the pulses right off the gauntlets.  The neat thing about
pulse bolts is, rather than be weakened by range, they increase in
power, pulsing as they go and adding to their overall power with
ambient static and air friction and like that, until they destabilize
at a half-mile or so.  I'm not too sure how they work, really.
	"The cybercontrol systems are tied to a direct Tactical Helmet
Virtual Reality, a helmet holotank, and that combined with the fast
control computer, the cybernetic response net--basically, a set of
rigtrodes--and streamlined software should give me a 25% increase in
reaction and action times over the standard hardsuits.  The boot jets
and avionic software are real pieces of work; I figure I can make
sustained flight at supersonic speeds with them, and complete control,
no sweat.  Tony really is a genius.  Someday I hope to be half as
smart."
	"Don't sell yourself short; I've seen what you've done on your
own and been impressed by it, after all, and you know what it takes to
impress me."
	"True.  Anyway, Sylia took a look at the data on the third day
we were here, and it turned out I was lucky enough that she had a
nanotank big enough for it, down in the subbasement.  Turns out it's
left over from her father's Buma research; she doesn't do any nanotech
work herself, and most of the fabrication work on the Iron Man suit is
nanotech, not gross hands-and-tools stuff.  So it's down there perking
away."
	"Cool.  So, when should this new suit see the light of day?"
	"I dunno.  Depends on when I have time to work on it.  Like I
said, because of the nature of the flex-metal and stuff, I can't
actually build most of it by hand.  I just fed the data to the
nanotank computer and the nanomachines are doing the rest.  The suit
itself is almost finished--probably another two days--but I've been
putting off making the powerplant because I'm going to have to
fabricate that by hand, and if I screw it up, it'll probably be really
bad."
	"Why?  What is it?"
	"I think I've figured out a way to make a workable microfusion
generator."
	"No shit."
	"No shit.  Problem is, I don't dare to try and make one,
because if I screw up, it'll probably explode the first time I test
it, and I think the city of MegaTokyo would get a little irritated
with me if I set off a small H-bomb in the Canyons.  Not that I'd be
around to care."
	"Well, hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?  I
thought you couldn't make magnets powerful enough to contain the
reaction and still have a plant small enough to use in a hardsuit.  As
I recall, that was why you stopped working on the Griffin suit you
were going to build last summer in Worcester."
	"I couldn't--not until I got this data from Tony, anyway."  He
sighed.  "If I make this thing work, I can start rebuilding the
hardsuits for this kind of power.  Shit, if it works, I can refit them
to use full-body myomer actuation.  Computer projections of lifting
strength show that a standard hardsuit, with its endoframe reinforced
and fully fitted with myomers, would have eighty times the strength
they have with the flat-motors.  It'd be able to press over forty tons
without much of a problem.  Can you imagine Linna going hand-to-hand
with that kind of strength?"
	"Gah, I'd have to rework all of the wiring controls and
interfaces to handle that kind of power.  Auto-dampeners and the like,
a flinch could kill someone.  I think you're blowing the technology
curve right off the map, chummer.  Why not just build them all
flex-metal forcefield suits like this?"
	"What, and step on Sylia's toes?  She's just got a different
design philosophy than Tony Stark, that's all.  Soon as I finish the
fusion plant, her own designs will probably show more potential than
the Stark design.  Hell, the `me' over in that universe has the same
design philosophy as she does.  You should see the Mark Four Griffin
suit in person.  Jesus, what a pig!  It's a thing of beauty.  A work
of art.  Eight feet tall if it's an inch.  Probably weighs three tons.
Three-quarter-inch armor plating with articulated layered joints,
myomer musculature enhancement, six interlinked onboard computers, the
particle accelerator that ate Toledo...  Totally intense."
	"The Time Lord?  He's real?"
	"Everything's real, somewhere in the multiverse, right?  Great
guy, too.  'Course, I'd think that, 'cause he's me and all."
	"You have been busy."
	"Yeah, and I'm not done yet.  Listen, I'm going to construct
the upgraded railguns, myomer articulation, and particle gun for Priss
around a subframe I designed to fit my arm, and connect it to a mobile
power unit for testing and demonstration.  Think you could do me a
favor?"
	"What?"
	"I need a Blue Buma to do the demonstration with."
	Zoner's eyebrows shot up.  "Intact?"
	"Preferably, although I wouldn't mind if it wasn't running
around the lab blowing things up.  This stuff is expensive, after all,
and I haven't done all that much to earn it yet."
	"Ooookaaay...I'll see what I can do..."

			  SEVERAL DAYS LATER

	Gryphon ran to his lab with Zoner hot on his heels, shouting
behind him, "Don't leave without me!"
	"Gryphon, what are you doing?" Zoner asked.  "You haven't even
tested your armor yet, you don't know if it'll even work!"
	"Sure I do," said Gryphon as they entered the lab.  "All the
subsystems worked before I had the tank assemble the thing, didn't
they?"  He kicked off his shoes and tossed his sweatshirt across a
chair, then went into a fitting room, and came out dressed in the male
version of a hardsuit undergarment.
	"Only in simulation testing!  What about the driver software?
None of that's been tested yet in real life--"
	"Consider this a field test then," Gryphon interrupted, going
to the bay where his new armor stood.  "I'm needed, and the suit's
done.  This is a perfect opportunity.  Besides, I've done tons of
simulation tests.  It's ready."  He opened it up and took out the
trunks, pulling them on, and then the boots.  The leggings dropped
into place almost automatically, sliding into the tops of the boots
and locking down.  The clamshell of chestplate and backpiece came
next, sealing easily, and the gauntlets; the sleeves did just as the
leggings had, sliding down his arms and locking into the tops of the
gauntlets automatically, with a sound reminiscent of a Slinky
navigating stairs.  Gryphon put on the helmet, turning it a couple of
times to make sure all the rigtrodes had worked their way through his
hair and into direct contact with his scalp, and then he snapped it
into the neck cuff and flipped the faceplate down.
	There was a brief hum as the microfusion reactor powered up,
and then, with a slight zap, the force field came online and the suit
stiffened, turning from a somewhat loose-fitting metallic jumpsuit
with strange accessories into a suit of rigid, formidable armor.
Inside, the Tactical Helmet Virtual Reality erased the helmet from
Gryphon's field of view and hearing, replacing it with an
unadulterated view of the outside world.  Turning his head, he noted
that everything scrolled smoothly.  It was as if he wasn't wearing a
helmet.  He looked around with his eyes; all the projector units were
online.  He honestly couldn't tell he had a helmet on, except that he
could feel it.  The status readouts and menus glowed greenly, hanging
in midair and moving to stay stationary in his field of vision.  Right
now they were reporting a nominal status across the board, something
for which he was quite glad.

SE  Iron Man Model XI 

STANDBY MODE
Reactor Nominal
All systems 100%

	Gryphon smiled as he felt the Power flow through his creation.
Even without doing anything he could feel its might.  Truly, this was
a tour de force.  Standing still it exceeded his wildest speculations.
	"Wow!" Gryphon breathed, and laughed.  "It works," he reported
to Zoner, and then headed for the door, feeling the reassuring
closeness and weight of the suit around him and the firm,
reverberating thunk of his feet hitting the metal flooring.  The
rigtrodes were doing their job perfectly.  Zoner imagined Gryphon
could get another 30% speed or so if he hardjacked the suit, but
they'd been all through that before.
	"Great, let's go, they're waiting.  Looks good, by the way."
	"Thanks.  Like the colors?  It's supposed to be more
foreboding than the usual Iron Man, or something, which is why it
isn't standard Iron Man red and gold.  Too bad though...I like the
`Golden Avenger' nickname.  Maybe I'll change it when I upgrade and
redesign, 'cause you know I'm going to...but for this design, these
colors work."
	"Yeah, I agree.  I like it."
	"Good."

	They raced up the side of the GENOM Tower, Priss in the lead,
Linna after her, and Gryphon flying above them, while Sylia, Nene, and
Zoner took the more direct route, straight to the roof.  They weren't
long in encountering resistance; three Model 12 combat Buma raced out
to meet them.
	"Got the one in back," Iron Man announced, and throttled his
boot jets up for the attack, powering over the first two and vectoring
straight at the third.

SE  Iron Man Model XI

FULL ASSAULT MODE
Arming All Weapons
All Systems 100% Combat Ready

	The missile rack swung into position with a sharp click as the
minigun locked down on the other side; the laser designator put its
red triangle around the Buma as it fell back and opened up with its
chaingun.  Gryphon, grounding with computer-assisted ease, ignored it;
Threat Assessment didn't even register the slugs as they pinged off
his armor.  Instead, he made sure the Buma was securely targeted and
launched his missiles, all eight of them.
	They ripped free of their weather-sealed tubes in a quick
cycle, port to starboard and top to bottom, spiraled beautifully as
their little stabilizer fins popped out, and then hit home, blasting
the crablike combat Buma's chest and blowing an optical boom away.
Howling in outrage, the machine fired its own spread of missiles back
at him.
	The minigun twitched on his shoulder as his THVR informed him,
"ANTI-MISSILE SYSTEM ENGAGED"; then it opened up with its breed's
characteristic buzz, the THVR informing Gryphon as each individual
incoming target was intercepted and destroyed by its fire stream.
	"All right!" he shouted to anyone who might be listening.
"The Goalie works!"  Gryphon had programmed the point-defense
capability into the minigun himself; it was an application Tony Stark
had not foreseen for the weapon, and he was justifiably proud that it
worked.  He turned the minigun on the Buma next, opening up with the
right-gauntlet chainguns as well.  The wounded combat machine ignored
his bullets just as he ignored its.  He had expected as much, but he
had to try, no?  Besides, he wanted to test all of his weapons.
	The Buma jetted backward and fired a round from its bazooka to
cover its retreat; Gryphon's left gauntlet flashed up, palm opening,
and a pinpoint repulsor shot detonated the shell a good twenty feet
distant, although Threat Assessment informed him that his armor could
have easily withstood the impact.  He launched himself after it, fists
extended before him, and, traveling at 350 mph and accelerating, hit
it with a body shot that would've done any NHL defenseman proud.
Crashing against the wall of the Tower, it backhanded Gryphon with its
cannon arm and knocked him clear.
	Rolling to his feet, Gryphon suddenly found himself surrounded
by explosions as the Buma blanketed his general vicinity with bazooka
shells and machine-gun ammunition.  Smiling, he backed up a couple of
steps and tried his next weapon, jacking the unibeam up to maximum
intensity and firing.
	The six-inch laser bolt punctured the Buma's torso clean
through and continued on into the building beyond it.  It gathered its
remaining strength and charged as if intending to take Gryphon over
the far guardrail and off the building.  He set himself and, as it
approached, launched a wheel kick at it.
	The armor responded beautifully, and the kick pitched the Buma
right back to the wall.  Gryphon pressed his advantage, closing on it
and delivering a series of punches, strikes, and kicks.  The feedback
from the suit's external tactile sensors was perfect, and the lag time
from the 'trodes almost nil.  Gryphon was adjusting to it even as he
fought.  He backed off a step or two, parrying the Buma's own clumsy
punch attempt.  Then, tiring of the dance, he activated the beam
saber, and his next parry took off its gun arm.  He then backed off
and blasted it with full-power repulsors, halting its enraged charge
effectively, as well as blowing off its remaining arm and the leg on
that side.  Switching to pulse bolts, he reduced it to twitching slag.
	Standing over the smoldering remains of his first adversary,
Gryphon remarked to himself, "I guess I'd call that a successful first
field test.  Better see how the others are doing."  He looked up and
subdivided off the center of his vision for a mag-20 look up top; he
couldn't see much from that angle.  Looking up and down the road, he
didn't see much either; Linna and Priss had passed him, their battles
being a bit more mobile than his own.  Shrugging, he deployed his
powered boot skates and zoomed up around the curving Tower Road to see
if he could be of assistance.
	The answer to that question was "no"; by the time he arrived
at the top, Linna and Priss had dealt with their adversaries (although
Priss had caused a nasty case of chamber searing in her autocannon to
pull it off), Nene had killed her 55-series Buma adversary (wonders
just never cease), and Zoner and Sylia were quite well-involved with
some clown in a battlesuit that reminded Gryphon of the Firepower suit
he had seen in a comic book a few times, except minus (fortunately)
the nuclear missile on its back.  Zoner ended up getting intimate with
a wall, and the clown in the battlesuit was trying to pry off Sylia's
helmet.  Zoner was occupied freeing his LightSaber custom combat suit
from its crater.
	Gryphon locked his targeting system on the grey GENOM
battlesuit and got ready to paste him with pulse bolts, but before he
got the chance to light up the night, the guy in the suit committed
the Number One Tactical Error of armored combat; he opened his helmet
to gloat, which gave Sylia what, in armored combat tactical schools,
is referred to as a Truly Golden Opportunity to Stick an Eighteen-Inch
Bayonet Through His Neck.  Of course, not being stupid, Sylia took
full advantage of said opportunity.

			     20 JUNE 2032

	One of the shutters in Gryphon's apartment windows was
malfunctioning, as it had for some time.  Only one of the louvers in
the north window's shutter was stuck open, but it was inconveniently
placed so that, at about three in the afternoon during this time of
year, it directed a single, sharp-edged slash of brilliant sunlight
across the approximate area of the bed where Gryphon's face was.
Therefore, it was no surprise to him that he awoke at three-fifteen
with a shooting pain from his eyes to the back of his skull.  It was a
sunny and irritating day.  Grumbling something unintelligible, he
turned over so that he faced away from the sunlight, burying his face
in the pillow.
	About that time, his secondary sensory systems came back
on-line (he had been operating on tertiary input before this point),
and his mind, which was starting to spin up, came to a startling
realization from the new data that was coming in.
	He was not alone.
	This was a significant deviation from the usual "three-
fifteen-in-the-afternoon-and-I'm-bloody-well-still-in-bed" routine.
	His eyes snapped open, but he managed to keep from flinching,
and his mind raced momentarily as he attempted to guess who it might
possibly be.  What had he been doing the previous night?  The
Replicants had released their new EP, Storm Warnings, the day before,
and the release party had been at his apartment.  He looked round (he
could see the bulk of the apartment from his vantage point); yes, the
place was a total disaster area, as befitted the site of a somewhat
rowdy release party.  He was slightly relieved by the fact that it was
mostly just trash and clutter; there had been few spills and no
uncontrolled ralphings that he could remember.  Then again, "remember"
was a spotty term at best, at the moment.
	Try to reconstruct.  The party started to peter out at about
midnight.  Zoner had left around then with Sylia, which was a surprise
of a sort.  The rest of the band had filtered away by one or so.  By
one-fifteen it had been just him and Priss, listening to the EP and
commenting on the quality of the recording and Gryphon's new stereo
system.
	At this point Gryphon felt he had to check something, so,
turning onto his back, he glanced to his left with his eyeballs
sharply angled, and his fears were confirmed.  Discarding what, for
the moment, was the useless and possibly even dangerous realization
that she looked quite peaceful asleep, Gryphon went back to his
attempt at figuring out what had gone down.
	Then there had been the token attempt at cleaning up.  This,
he decided, must have been the source of the neat geometric stack of
pizza cartons on the kitchen counter.  Then there had been the matter
of putting paid to the remaining liquor (no one had taken it), which
included such things as a half-inch or so of Jagermeister, an inch
(perhaps more) of Rumple Minz peppermint schnapps, something
unidentifiable and green (thinking back, Gryphon decided with some
trepidation that it must have been the last of the drummer's
absinthe--oh, shit), and what, by the time they got to it, they had
snickeringly proclaimed to be "just a little" of the martini mix left.
	And then...
	Oh, shit.
	Again, Gryphon managed to keep from physically startling as
his memory spun fully up and replayed for him the events of the
previous morning...
	Oh, shit.
	He wasn't quite certain why he though this was quite so bad as
he thought it was.
	But, he was quite certain that it was.
	He tried to think of a plan.  There must be something he could
do to minimize the backlash from this.  Perhaps if he got up now and
quietly relocated to one of the armchairs, he could pretend he had
been there, all night, and she would just think it had all been a
dream.
	Perhaps if he jumped out the window.
	No, best thing to do would be to stay right where he was.  The
least he could do now was own up to it and face the music...
	Although, he was hungry...perhaps he should get up and do
something about breakfast.
	Beside him, Priss stirred.  The light had worked its way
across to her.  She stretched, groaning softly as various bones popped
back where they belonged, and then turned over, throwing an arm across
Gryphon and snuggling closer to him (mammalian instinct, I guess).
Then her eyes, so close to his own that he could actually read the
little "BAUSCH & LOMB" printed on the irises, snapped wide open.
	"Er..."  Gryphon searched his mind for something appropriate
to say.  What does one say in a situation like this?  You can't go,
"Aaaaaauuuuuggh!  Aaaaaaaauuuuugggghh!!!!  AAAAUUURRRGH!"  It's not
even an option.  "Did you sleep well?" just doesn't seem appropriate.
He had to think of something that was gentle, unthreatening,
unincriminating, yet not taking a completely self-blaming stance
either--something that implied tacit acceptance and a (how he hated
this expression) stiff upper lip, something clever and perhaps a
trifle witty to break the tension with some humor.  Something like...
	"Uhm...morning..."
	No, that wasn't it.
	Especially not in that nervous, "please-don't-hurt-me-I-just-
work-here-lady" tone of voice.  Oh well.  Too late, it was said...
	She looked at him, confused as hell (just as he had been).  He
could almost see the progression of memory across the back of her
eyes, party, windout, cleanup...
	Priss actually flinched with the memories, blinking almost
audibly and swallowing hard.  She pulled back slightly out of reflex,
then tried to say something, but all that came out was, "Wh--wha...uh,
wh--wh..."
	"I think so," Gryphon replied.
	Her bewildered and even slightly panicked expression settled
into a look of mild consternation.  "Well, isn't this a kick in the
ass."
	"I'd go along with that, yeah," Gryphon replied.
	She turned on her back, putting her hands behind her head, and
they lay like that for a long time, side by side, looking at the
ceiling and ruminating.
	At length she turned her head to look sidelong at him and
said, "You know something?"
	"What?"
	"I'm okay with it."
	"Yeah.  Me too."
	"Well, that was easy."  She laughed.  "This is fucking
surreal."
	"Yeah, I'll go along with that."
	"Dire Straits seems to have an odd effect on me."
	"I think it was more the half-inch of Jagermeister."
	"I dunno..."  She laughed.  "Look at us, we're fucking
analyzing it!  Dammit!  This is weird."
	Gryphon laughed as well.  "Uh huh."  Then, thinking of
something, he let out another laugh, a short, choppy bark of amusement
(the kind which he always gave when he had just thought of something
funny).
	"What?"
	"I just realized something.  I don't have a hangover."
	"Huh.  Neither do I.  In fact, I feel great."
	"So do I.  Hey, cool!  We've discovered the secret cure for
the hangover!  Coolness.  Too bad we can't tell anyone about it.  We
could make a mint."  They both broke, dissolving into helpless
giggling for upward of three minutes.
	When he had recovered, "If that's what happens when Dire
Straits is played, I should go and get the rest of their albums."
	She hit him in the shoulder, hard.
	"Ouch!  What?  That's my first law in action.  I believe in
complete honesty.  I say what I feel.  I think it's a good policy, and
if everyone did it the human race would have a lot fewer problems."
	Priss reflected briefly, then said, "Hmm.  Good idea...but it
took me a little off guard..."  She smiled and turned back onto her
back, humming the intro from "Money for Nothing" softly.
	At the appropriate point in the music, Gryphon cut in with the
vocal.  It seemed the appropriate thing to do.  Momentarily,
frustrated with the vocal medium's inability to carry the hard-edged
rasp of the actual guitar, Priss fumbled on the floor next to the
mattress Gryphon had serving as a bed, found the stereo remote, and
turned on the actual song.  The speakers hidden all over the apartment
were ready as usual. Gryphon's Sony NGX-2401AXL let it rip.

Now lookit them yo-yos 
That's the way you do it 
You play the guitar on the MTV 
That ain't workin' 
That's the way you do it 
Money for nothing and your chicks for free 
No, that ain't workin' 
That's the way you do it
 Lemme tell ya 
Them guys ain't dumb 
Maybe get a birthstone on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb

We got to install microwave ovens 
Custom kitchens, deliveries 
We got to move these refrigerators 
We got to move these colour TVs

The little faggot with the earring and the makeup 
Yeah buddy, that's his own hair 
That little faggot got his own jet airplane 
That little faggot he's a millionaire
We got to install microwave ovens 
Custom kitchens, deliveries 
We got to move these refrigerators 
We got to move the colour TVs

We got to install microwave ovens 
Custom kitchens, deliveries 
We got to move these refrigerators 
We got to move these colour TVs

I shoulda learned to play the guitar 
I shoulda learned to play them drums 
Now lookit that mama, she got it 
Stickin' in the camera, man 
Oh we could have some fun 
And he's up there--what's that--Hawaiian noises 
You bangin' on the bongos like a chimpanzee 
Oh that ain't workin' 
That's the way you do it 
Get your money for nothing, get your chicks for free

We got to install microwave ovens 
Custom kitchens, deliveries 
We got to move these refrigerators 
We got to move these colour TVs

Ooooooooo--oo!

Listen here--now--that ain't workin'
That's the way you do it 
You play the guitar on the MTV 
That ain't workin' 
That's the way you do it 
Money for nothing and your chicks for free 
Money for nothing 
Chicks for free

	As the song was petering out and swinging into the next one,
Gryphon started to get up to go and fix something to eat, when
suddenly Priss caught his arm and yanked him back to the mattress.
	She looked into his startled eyes and allowed herself just
enough time to say, "No, it's definitely Dire Straits," before
commencing.

	I want my MTV.

			   7 DECEMBER 2032

	A man was riding peacefully through the center of town on a
motorcycle, wearing a suit of close-fitting polycarbide armor that
made him look like either a riot cop or an offroad racer.  The bike
was an interesting design, American-looking, with heavy front shocks
and strange tubes on the sides of the front wheels, apparently part of
an elaborate suspension system.  The snarl of the big engine
underneath him echoed in the streets, and the big twin headlights lit
up the road before him well.  Streetlights raced across the silvered
surface of his armor and the bike; both were completely unpainted, and
the face of the helmet was black.  He twisted the throttle and
accelerated onto an expressway.  It was after midnight; although
in-town traffic was about average, there was no one on the expressway.
	The cycle howled down the expressway at close to 150 kph,
rider tucked low behind the black windscreen, presenting the most
aerodynamic profile possible.  Speed climbed steadily, and within a
few minutes, the cyclist had caught the attention of the only other
person out on the road at that time: ADPolice Inspector Leon McNichol,
driving his car back to the station.  The silver cycle whipped past
him going a good 200 kph and climbing, and Leon put on his lights and
siren and gave chase.
	It wasn't easy; even with the extra power of his police
pursuit car, he had a challenge just keeping the silver bike in sight.
The rider had noticed him, but didn't seem to care; instead he hunched
a little lower over the handlebars and kept ahead of him.  Leon
thought of calling for backup, then disregarded it; the guy was just
speeding, after all, and didn't look particularly inclined to
violence, although there was definitely a military look to him and his
bike.  He clicked the supercharger on and pressed the accelerator,
making a momentary gain.  There was a flash as the rider glanced back,
Leon's headlights catching his facebowl; then the bike sped up to
match him, maintaining its lead.  Leon cursed; how fast was this
thing, anyway?  It was outpacing him as easily as that damned antique
Chevy that had made such a laughingstock of him down at HQ.  He didn't
like to think about that.
	Suddenly, his concentration on the road was broken by his
radio, calling out an all-call; rogue Buma in district seven, all
units respond.  Leon smiled; the quickest route to the location they
gave was right off this next exit.  He began to slow down, abandoning
his pursuit of the biker in anticipation of the off-ramp.  You're
lucky tonight, pal, Leon thought to the biker.  Keep riding, and we'll
meet again someday.
	The biker sheered off at full speed, throwing sparks from his
left kneeguard as he banked hard and shot down the offramp.  Leon's
brows knitted quizzically as he followed, taking the offramp at an
unsafe speed in his determination to keep up with this guy.
	It wasn't easy; the silver bike was very agile, ducking and
dipping through the backed-up in-town traffic, and once it even
performed a rocket-assisted leap right over a packed intersection.
Leon managed to keep it in sight, even so, and as he drew near the
area where the Buma call had come from, he saw something that made him
groan.
	The guy on the silver bike was driving right at the Buma, a
Bu-55c that had taken it upon itself to rampage through the video
arcades.  There were no other units present yet, and the Buma had
noticed the biker.  It turned and set itself to meet his charge.  Leon
stepped on the gas, hoping to get there in time to do something to
save this brave idiot.
	He needn't have worried.  The front fairing on the bike opened
up in two sections, one just above each headlight, revealing twelve
stubby little circular objects.  When they shot forth, spewing vapor,
Leon knew they were missiles.  The Buma was temporarily hidden by
explosions; when it emerged from the smoke cloud, it was missing an
eye, a hand, and a decent chunk of one thigh, and it was pissed off.
The Buma's mouth opened as it prepared to fire its particle cannon.
	The silver motorcycle performed another of those incredible
leaps just as the Buma's blue bolt shot forth to blow a decent-size
hole in the pavement where it had just been.  In midair, its
components shifted, changing form around the rider.  The suspension
swung downward, heavy shocks paralleling the rider's upper arms as the
twin-tubed armatures locked against his forearm guards; the fairing
swung up and split in two to latch against his chest as the skid plate
on the belly became chest and body armor.  What Leon had taken for
chain guards became "outriggers" of a sort against the upper legs as
the boots elongated slightly, and the engine, tank and seat folded up
into a compact bundle on the rider's back, wheels locking up--he could
see now that they must be shaft driven--on either side behind his
head.  The armored warrior grounded about ten feet from the Buma and
raised his hands, elbows tucked tight against his hips.  The Buma took
a step back and uncovered its heat-ray.
	The guy in what had been a motorcycle let off four more small
missiles, one from each of the two tubes on each forearm.  They
spiraled the fifteen feet and slammed into the Buma, and the mechanoid
monster was lost in the flare of white light as the plasma warheads
went off.  When the glare faded, the Buma, its entire torso gutted and
melted and its head blown completely away, toppled to its back,
twitched, and then lay still.
	Arm tubes smoking, the armored rider turned and regarded
Leon's car.  The ADPoliceman got out of it and, sidearm ready,
approached him.  As he got closer, he noticed that it wasn't
completely unpainted.  On the sides of the helmet spar and the front
fairing, painted in small, distinct black letters, were the words:

		       K N I G H T  S A B E R S

	"Knight Sabers?" Leon asked, holding his weapon to the side
but ready.  He was pretty sure the biker guy was on his side, but...
"Oh, it's you, `Iron Man'."
	"You're quick," the battlearmor replied in a familiar
modulated voice.  "I can see why you made Inspector so quickly."  He
knelt on the ground, then, and the part of his armor that had been the
bike fell away, reforming into a motorcycle under him and lifting him
up.  He put one foot on the ground as it came fully upright and sat on
it like any biker at a stop sign, ready to ride away.
	"Funny guy," Leon said.  "What happened to your hardsuit?"
	"Nothing," Gryphon replied.  "This is an emergency backup
system, in case anything does happen to it."  Gryphon decided not to
correct Leon; it would take him at least ten minutes to explain the
difference between his armor and a hardsuit, and it was a technicality
that only mattered to techies like him anyway.
	"Emergency backup?  When it's converted, that thing is easily
the equivalent of one of our Armored Troopers."
	"Exactly the benchmark I was shooting for.  Thanks.  As you
can see by my sadly undecorated state," he went on, waving a hand at
his unpaintedness, "I'm in the testing phase.  This was the first
field test of this equipment, and I'm quite prepared to call it
successful."
	"Testing phase?  You built this yourself?"
	"Every part, machined by hand," the biker replied with
electronically modulated pride.  "Beautiful work, if I do say so
myself."
	"I'd say," Leon agreed, holstering his sidearm.  He
appreciated good machinery, and what the hell, the guy had taken out
the Buma.  That was what the Knight Sabers did.  Besides, his bike was
fast and his armor was strong, and Leon had no illusions about being
able to stop him without going back to his car and getting the missile
launcher.  His gut told him the silver biker was on his side, and that
was good enough.  Still, he could hear approaching sirens; the
oncoming ADPolice ESWAT team probably wouldn't feel the same way.
	The silver cyclist had apparently had the same idea; he
started the engine and raised a hand in salute.  "See you around,
Inspector McNichol," he said.  He twisted his throttle, pulled a
wheelie, and rode away into the night, leaving Leon with a dead Buma
and some explaining to do.

	Some blocks away, a low-slung red street machine swung out of
a side street and pulled abreast of the silver motorcycle, its rider a
woman in red leathers and with long brown hair in a ponytail out of
her helmet.  She opened up the visor of her helmet at the next red
light and called across, "How'd it go?"
	Gryphon shoved back his facebowl and replied, "Decent.  She's
faster than I expected, and handles even better than my estimates.  If
I do say so myself, and I'd better 'cos no one else will, I've really
outdone myself this time."  He grinned widely and went on, "We'll talk
back at the shop.  Ok?"
	"Ok," Priss replied.  Gryphon gave her a thumbs-up, which she
returned, and roared off with her close behind.

	"Yep," Gryphon said, rubbing the side of the tank with a rag,
"a marvel of modern engineering.  You've got to try it sometime,
Priss...responsive, quick...mm!  It's the best bike I've ever
ridden...and I've ridden a few."
	"You're so modest," Priss replied with a smile, patting his
shoulder.
	"About which, my experience, or my engineering triumphs?"
	"Both."
	"Well, I'm pleasantly surprised, is all.  I expected it to be
sweet, but this...well, I've never had a bike that handled this well
before, or accelerated this fast.  It's really great, so why not be
honest about it?  And as far as my experience goes, well...if you've
done it...flaunt it."  He smiled--actually, it was more of a comically
exaggerated leer--and twitched his eyebrows above half-lidded eyes.  A
good-natured thump in the shoulder was his reward.
	"Go on," Priss said, walking over to the bench and picking up
a spanner.  "Your first bike was a '75 Honda."
	"CB550," Gryphon agreed, reminiscing.  "I loved that bike.  It
wasn't very powerful, or very fast, but it handled nice, especially
once I got the new tires on it.  I bought a silk aviator's scarf just
so I could feel like a fighter pilot when I rode it.  Took my test
with that scarf on...summer of '93.  Ahh...those were the days."  He
leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed above his head, and
sighed.  "You can't go home again."
	"No," Priss agreed, "but you can make new ones."  She put the
spanner down on the bench.  "Do you feel at home here?"
	"Here?  In MegaTokyo?"  He considered.  "Yeah, I guess
so...most of the time.  Sometimes when I'm out in the city alone, I
still feel like a stranger in a strange land, but most of the time,
when I'm among friends...yeah.  That's what home has always been to
me, really.  Not so much a place, as a gathering of friends."
	"Mm."  Priss was silent for a moment, reflecting.  "There was
a time when I didn't have any friends."
	"I'd hate that," Gryphon said.  "When I was little, I didn't
have any friends, except books.  I made my first real friend when I
was a freshman in high school.  By the end of that year I had three.
A couple of years later I made a couple more.  Then I went to
Worcester, and there they were all around me.  My own kind.  Kinsmen,
gweeps and Wedge Rats all.  My definitions of home and family changed
that year, much to my parents' dismay."
	"`Home' became wherever you and your friends happened to be,
and `family' became your friends?"
	"Yeah."  He chuckled.  "I call Zoner `brother' sometimes, but
we're not really related, at least as far as either of us knows.
Although, hey, you know, we just could be.  It would be weird enough.
But either way, we're so similar that we couldn't be anything else."
	"What about me?"
	"What about you?  Well...you're you.  There's no one in the
world like you.  If there's one ability of mine that I find to be a
curse most of the time, it's my perception.  I think I'm one of the
only people in the world who can read MegaZone, and likewise, I'm one
of the only people in the world who can read you."
	"You can read me?"  Interest--and a spark of worry--showed in
her eyes, cybernetic though they were.  Gryphon marveled at their
sophistication, not for the first time.  The eyes were the windows to
the soul, it has been said, and Priss's eyes fulfilled that capacity
better than she suspected, despite the fact that "BAUSCH & LOMB" was
printed in tiny letters on their blood-red irises.
	"Yes.  It isn't easy, but it's possible.  I find you let down
a lot of your guard when you're around me."  At this comment she
stiffened perceptibly, but relaxed moments later; it was true.  "You
show a side of yourself to me that I don't think you show to other
people often, and you probably didn't realize until I told you that
you did."
	She accepted the analysis without comment, then asked, "What
do I say?"
	"Your strength, and toughness, and all that...they aren't just
an act.  They're real, not a veneer.  You're made of steel.  But they
are a defense mechanism.  There's so much pain in you, so close to the
surface.  So bravely hidden...but so obvious to someone like me."  He
sighed, grabbing his face in his hand and shaking his head, eyes
squeezed shut.  "Shit, I have to be careful.  So careful..."
	"Careful?"  She took a couple of steps toward him.  "Careful
of what?"
	"Well, you see, it's like this.  I'm not the most emotionally
stable person in the world.  You don't see that now, because I'm
happy, and in a position of control in my life, but I'm actually
pretty fucked up.  That's where at least half of my good nature comes
from.  Noticed how easily frustrated I am?  How I avoid situations
like...well, like this?  Being one-on-one with someone, anyone?  It's
because of my nature.
	"It's my nature to love.  The tiniest provocation--or
sometimes none at all--and my emotions start playing the Masochism
Tango in my head.  I've done it six or seven times that I can count,
and I'm only twenty.  It happens in friendships.  It happens in casual
acquaintanceships.  Once it happened in no relationship at all--a
picture on a television screen and the most beautiful voice I had ever
heard set it off.  So when I meet someone I genuinely like, I go on
guard, knowing how rapidly that kind of thing can get out of hand with
me.  As time goes on, and the bonds become stronger, it gets harder to
control, and eventually I start to feel comfortable, and then I drop
my barriers completely.
	"That's about the time it usually goes straight to hell in a
handbasket, and I usually don't even salvage a friendship out of the
mess.  I did once--I was lucky--but aside from that one case, every
time the smoke clears, whoever it was is very uncomfortable around me,
and I take off.  When I came here, I was stupid enough to think it
would be different."  He opened the lab door and went through into the
corridor, then down to the garage where his car waited.  Priss
followed.
	"Wait a minute," she called after him.  "What are you saying?"
	He opened up the driver's door and got in, waving at the
passenger seat.  She came around and got in, leaving the door open.
Gryphon started fooling around with the onboard computer for a
distraction.
	"Isn't it obvious?" he replied, slotting a 2" disk and keying
the download process into action.  "My thoughts are dominated, every
waking moment, by a single train of thoughts, a single set of images.
I can think, yes, I can function, but everything is referenced back to
the same person.  Everything I see is connected in some way,
everything I experience tied somehow to a reminder of, the same
person.  I fixate, and stay fixated for probably a month or so of the
most agonizing experience...it's unpleasant, but there's always the
hope...and then I come down, usually without managing to keep the
whole thing quiet, and blam.  Everything goes to hell."  He stabbed a
couple of keys almost accusingly.  "I had so hoped that, after all my
training, I could be over this stupidity...I had so hoped that, if
nothing else, Cheryl had taught me not to be such a damned fool."  He
removed the disk from the dash computer and pocketed it, then started
punching keys almost savagely.
	Priss sat back in the seat as a tear rolled down Gryphon's
cheek, not knowing what to make of this situation.  She didn't have
his problem; if anything, she had the opposite problem.  She found it
very difficult to love, or even, really, to trust.  She hardly ever
revealed her feelings to herself, let alone other people.  Yet here
was Gryphon, obviously suffering, and he was a friend.  She had few
friends, and, however secretly, treasured those she had, and she felt
she ought to help him...but showing sympathy was not in her nature.
She fought a quiet battle with herself for a moment, and then made a
decision.
	She reached out, took him by the near shoulder, and turned him
to face her.  "Are you talking about me?" she asked quietly, in a tone
so unlike her that Gryphon appeared momentarily surprised.  "Is that
what you're trying to say?"
	He smiled sadly.  "No, fortunately.  I felt the warning signs
of that kind of thing when I first met you, but I kept it together,
which surprised me.  I do love you--curse that word, it has so many
meanings--but so far, I haven't gotten all messed up in you.  Give me
until Christmas and ask again...if I run away, you'll know what the
answer was.  By then, my current situation should have blown up in my
face."  He chuckled.  "It would be another textbook case of Gryphon's
emotions running wild, though.  Gods know I've fallen for women much
like you, in the past, tough, independent, but somehow...I don't know,
almost vulnerable, although the mere mention of the word makes you
bristle.  But no, not this time."
	"Oh."  She took her hand off his shoulder and looked down,
embarrassed somehow.  She had been pretty certain her guess was right,
and, surprisingly, the thought hadn't annoyed her, as it usually did
when she found out that someone was attracted to her.  She felt kind
of silly to have come out with the theory now that it wasn't
right--but then, it had been a good guess, and based on past
experiences.  Both had originally been all right with what had
happened at the Storm Warnings party, but things change...
	"Don't worry about it," Gryphon went on.  "It was a hell of a
good guess, and like I said, give me six months or so and it might
turn out to be right.  You are the type of woman I usually get into
this kind of mess because of."  He grinned wryly.  "It's a little
disturbing that the kind of woman I'm usually attracted to is so much
like Zoner."
	That took her aback for a second.  Did he just compare her to
Zoner?  They were totally unlike!  Not even remotely similar, at all!
She tried to be indignant about it, but failed.
	"No," Gryphon said sadly, "this time, I've gotten further out
of my league than ever before."  He pressed his lips together in a
thin, bitter line.  "If experience is the best teacher, then why the
hell can't I ever learn anything?"
	"Look," Priss said, recovering from her embarrassment, "you
need to talk to someone about this, or you'll explode.  I'm going to
tell you something I've never told anyone, not since my parents died.
Look at me."  She turned his face by hand, in case he should prove
reluctant, and met his gaze with her own.  "You are part of my family.
Yeah, sure, I'm tough and strong and all that other shit, but fuck all
that right now.  Like you said once, it's after one in the morning,
there's no caffeine left to power the illusions.  You're in a lot of
pain here, and I can't let that go on."  She took a breath, let it
out, and then continued, "You're right, the word has too damned many
meanings.  Figure it out, damn it, I love you."
	Gryphon blinked.
	"It's true.  You and your wacko friend--" she smiled a bit at
the memory-- "popped into my life one night, endangered it, saved it,
and changed it, all in the space of a few hours.  Before I met you
guys, I had four friends.  It went up to six that night, although I
didn't realize it for a few weeks.  You figure out for yourself how
significant the numbers there are.  We've ridden together, hit the
range together, jammed, fought shoulder to shoulder for our
lives--hell, Gryphon, we've done the most intimate thing two people
can do together!  Now start this car, and drive back to your
apartment, and if we have to talk all night, you are going to feel
better in the morning.  Do you understand me?"
	Gryphon blinked again.  Then, silently, he strapped in,
started the car, and keyed the garage door.  Before long, they had
reached his apartment, a cluttered studio on the top floor of an
office building.  Gryphon dumped his field jacket on the Japanese
office chair by the police box, kicked off his Chucks, and collapsed
on the couch.  Priss ditched her boots and hung onto the jacket,
wadding it up and leaning an elbow on it as she sat down on the floor
next to the end of the sofa.
	"All right," she said, "talk."
	"What do you mean," Gryphon replied, "talk?"
	"Start at the beginning.  This story's been trying to get out
of you since it started.  Now's your chance to tell it."
	"The beginning?  That was a long time ago.  Middle school.
1986.  I was thirteen."
	"Yeah?"
	"There was a girl in some of my classes.  It was stupid.  I
was thirteen."
	"Uh huh.  Go on..."
	"I actually ended up making friends with her in high
school...we sat together in biology sophomore year and traded music
tips.  Our tastes were pretty close."
	"This girl didn't have a name?"
	"Not important."
	"Everything's important."
	"Are you sure you aren't Austrian?"
	"My mother was Irish.  I ended up with her looks, and her
attitude, and Dad's religion.  I'll tell you my life story later.
Promise.  Now go on.  Forget about her name if you don't want to tell
me--she's sixty-some now anyway."
	The thought hadn't occurred to Gryphon, and he was mildly
unsettled by it for a second.  Then he gathered his wits and
continued.  "Her name was--is--Lori.  Next...oh Gods.  The next one
was even stupider.  It was actually two.  There were a couple of
sisters, my junior year, and I think I alternated between them on
about a daily basis.  I was...sixteen, then.  It was just as stupid.
No...it was more stupid.  By then I should've known better.  That one,
like the one before it, I managed to keep fairly quiet."
	"Uh huh.  Keep going..."
	"Ok...senior year next...well, there was the class president,
and her best friend whose lead trombone I played second to in stage
band...that was a lot like the year before, except we were actually
friends, and had been for quite some time...I thought I kept it under
my hat pretty well, but a year or so later I told one of them, and she
laughed and said they'd always known, but they didn't want to let me
know they knew, 'cos it would've made me feel horrible...she was
right, it would've.  Turns out she kind of liked me too...one of those
things that make you go `huh?'..."
	"Mm hmm..."
	"Oh, Gods.  Then I got to college and really lost it.
Suddenly I had a zillion friends, most of them gweeps at first, and
then, around October, I started getting in with the fringe elements,
Zoner among them.  One of the gweeps had caught my eye, when I first
rejoined GweepCo, but she was involved with someone, so I chalked up
to bad timing and went on.  Little did I realize, then, what would end
up happening there.
	"Anyway...then there was Tricia."  He smiled.  "Tricia is the
one I got lucky with.  She was in my calculus class, and kind of took
me under her wing as I struggled with failing.  Then she got involved
with the Wedge Rat crowd, and the people who lived at E7, where Zoner
lived.  She started going out with his roommate Mark, who was a friend
of mine too.  We hung around a lot, and at first everything was cool."
	"And then it stopped being so cool?"
	"Ding.  That was the worst thing I had endured up to that
point.  Around then, two people close to me and mine killed
themselves, and Zoner looked to be real close to following them.  I
was failing everything I tried and losing my direction in life in a
big way.  My head was coming apart, and in the middle of this, I
started to realize that It Was Happening Again."  He sighed.  "So I
ditched for a while, hanging around in my room, avoiding E7 and Tricia
and Mark, because they were friends of mine, and I wanted them to be
happy.  I didn't want to get them down being depressed about it.  They
figured something was up and invaded my room one night, and we all
talked until dawn...and that whole thing got worked out."
	"No kidding."
	"No kidding.  All was cool, after that.  Oh, sure, it hurt for
a while, but there was no guilt, for once, and that terrible feeling
of lugging around the secret was gone.  They weren't uncomfortable
around me, and showed a little respect for the walking wounded.
	"And then..."  He sighed again, a much deeper sigh this time.
"Then there was Cheryl."
	"I get the feeling Cheryl was different than the others."
	"Yeah.  Different is the word.  And better.  And a million
times worse.  See, she liked me, too.  We started hanging around
together in mid-March, and by the end of April we were pretty close.
Then I went away."
	"Went away?"
	"I left WPI on the last day of April.  I was as close to
insane as I think I had ever gotten--maybe I actually had cracked by
then.  Anyway, we said our good-byes, and kept in touch.  I called her
every Saturday night, and racked up an impressive phone bill that my
father spat blood about for months, and we wrote a lot.  Then I got
dimensionally displaced for the first time, in early August.  That
kind of re-arranged my viewpoint on a number of things, but that
Saturday, out of reflex, I called her, and found out that whoever I
had been in that dimension before I came along, I had been in the same
situation."
	"Weird."
	"No shit.  So I called home, to see if I was expected back in
Maine on Monday to work, and the response was, hell no, you're in
school, what the hell's wrong with you?  It was so bizarre.  Suddenly
I was back in Worcester.  I had a place to live and I was back in
school...life was starting to look pretty neat, even if Zoner was
pissing and moaning about not having died a heroic death to save all
creation."  This drew a small grin from both of them; they had both
heard him do it from time to time, in his darker moods.
	"Whoever I had been, I had managed to hang on for the summer
session, but the general feeling I got from all my friends who were
natives of the dimension was that it wasn't expected to make any
difference.  That pissed me off enough that I passed the things I was
in over the summer and got my ass off academic probation.  Then
regular classes started, first of September, and she came back to
Worcester.  Turned out I lived in the opposite end of the same
apartment as her.  That seemed to make her uncomfortable.  I asked
what the matter was, but I always got some kind of excuse.  Turned out
it was because I was supposed to have been gone for good there, too.
So there I was, feeling like I was back home, and she was acting like
she didn't want me to be there.  Eventually she just said look, I'm
not real comfortable right now, I don't want to get involved with
anyone.  It's nothing personal, right?  So I said yeah, suit yourself,
and it pissed me off, but nothing I could do, right?  So I cried some,
and that was that."
	"Except it wasn't."
	"Except it wasn't," he confirmed.  "See, there was this guy
named Eric."
	"I hate it when that shit happ