SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2032
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

        At 3:02 AM, the Cross-Town Expressway was all but deserted.
The man at the wheel of the two-tone silver-and-charcoal '19 Camaro
heading west from the airport found this refreshing.  He was a little
jet-lagged despite his hypothalamic control module's best efforts,
having just flown in on a suborbital from Rio de Janeiro, which was
about as far as you could be from Mega Tokyo and still be on land.
Add the two-hour delay in clearing Customs and he was devoutly looking
forward to checking into his soundproof suite at the Imperial Palace
Hotel.
        The skyline of the self-dubbed "Megalo City" loomed before
him, reminding him a little of the masts of ships rolling up from
under the horizon as they approached port.  For a second, he thought
that the vaguely conical shape in the background, so massive that it
dwarfed the skyscrapers of downtown the way skyscrapers dwarf suburban
houses, was Mount Fuji; then he realized that it had a lighted highway
spiraling up toward its flat peak, and furthermore it was in the wrong
place.
        "Well," he said quietly.  "GENOM Tower, I presume."
        "Yeah," his passenger confirmed, nodding.  "Haven't you ever
seen pictures of it?"
        "Not from this angle."  The driver shook his head, whistling
softly.  "The city's changed more than I expected, Zoner.  I don't
recognize anything in that skyline."  He shrugged.  "That shouldn't
surprise me, I guess.  Been a while since I was last here."
        "That was just after the quake, wasn't it?"
        The driver nodded.  "I covered the aftermath for WorldWatch.
Seven years ago."  He gazed thoughtfully at the cityscape, one hand
rising involuntarily to press fingertips to his chest through his
button-down shirt.  "Seems like a lifetime."
        He seemed to lapse into a reverie for a few moments; then he
shook it off and said, "Radio.  Local indy rock.  Retro."
        The radio panel in the center of the dash blinked to life,
searched for the region's broadcast satellite, dug around in the
database for a moment matching available streams to the search
criteria, and then projected a list of suggested choices into the
driver's holographic head-up display.  He considered them for a
moment, then shrugged slightly and said,
        "Play stream A3."

# Kinuko Ohmori [Priss & the Replicants]
# "Konya wa Hurricane"
# Bubblegum Crisis: Complete Vocal Collection Vol. 1

        "Hmm.  Not bad," he said after a few bars.
        "The singer sounds a little like Joan Jett," Zoner remarked.
        "Wow.  That's going back a ways."  The driver nodded his head
to the beat through the first verse and chorus, smiling to himself.
"Yeah, not bad at all.  Radio.  Capture track.  Add to standard
playlist."
        A cheery "ping!" acknowledged the order.
        "'Priss and the Replicants'," Zoner read from the radio's
display.  "Somebody likes old movies."
        The driver chuckled.  "Apparently so."  He eyed the clock in
the center of his twin-pod instrument cluster and made a grumbling
noise.  "Three hours behind schedule.  The faster transportation gets,
the more opportunities for delays appear."
        "Worried about our reservation?" Zoner asked.
        "A little.  Radio, pause.  Phone, dial Imperial Palace Hotel,
Mega Tokyo."
        The music paused.  A pleasant female voice asked, "What
department?"
        "Reservation desk."
        "One moment please."
        A few seconds' pause; then a different pleasant female voice
said, "Imperial Palace Hotel, how may I help you?"
        "Hi, this is Benjamin Stark calling," the driver said.  "I
have a reservation for tonight - well, actually last night.  A double
suite for two guests.  We're running late and I just wanted to make
sure we still have our suite waiting for us."
        "What is the other guest's name, please?"
        "MegaZone."
        Pause.
        "Yes, Mr. Stark, your reservation is still in order.  We
-were- beginning to get a bit concerned, though."
        "We got held up for a while at Customs," Stark said.  "We're
on our way now, though.  We should be there in... "  He glanced at the
navigation computer.  "... half an hour or so."
        "Very good, Mr. Stark.  We'll be ready."
        "Thank you."  Stark was about to utter some closing
pleasantries and sign off, but just then he noticed a bright light in
his rearview mirror - one approaching much faster than he would have
expected any regular traffic to be bearing down on him.  Almost by
reflex he twitched the Camaro one lane to the left, out of the way.
        With a howl of redlined turbine, a low-slung racing-style
motorcycle flashed past.  Stark and Zoner had only the barest of
moments to get an impression of the vehicle and its rider.
        It was enough.  Stark was a journalist, prepared by training
and inclination to register details at a glance; Zoner had the aid of
cutting-edge cybernetic imaging equipment.  The two men glanced at
each other, a single look sufficient to confirm that they'd both seen
the same thing: the rider, almost certainly a woman, had been wearing
what appeared to be an armored combat suit.
        "... Better make that an hour," Stark said.
        "Very good, Mr. Stark," the Palace Hotel reservationist
replied cheerfully.  "Thank you for calling the Imperial Palace
Hotel!"
        Stark waited until the CALL TERMINATED message came up on his
HUD before remarking aloud,
        "Well, I'll be damned.  We came to town to find the Knight
Sabers... and there goes one now."
        "Eris moves in mysterious ways," said Zoner sagely.


                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                               presents

                    BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: THE IRON AGE
                           Mega Tokyo 2032

           Issue #1: Meet Interesting Singles in Your Area

                       by Benjamin D. Hutchins

                          Series devised by
                         Benjamin D. Hutchins
                               MegaZone

                (c) 2006 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


        "Radio, stop stream," Stark said, tugging his seat harness a
little tighter as he spoke.  "Execute playlist 7AC, random."
        As a different song filled the car's cabin, Stark reached to
the console and flipped a couple of switches, deactivating some of the
Camaro's automated driving-assist systems and taking full manual
control of the car.  Then he took hold of the gearshift lever, threw
in the clutch, and started playing catch-up.

# Drivin' n' Cryin'
# "Turn It Up or Turn It Off"
# Smoke

        Ben Stark expected to have a tough time catching up with his
quarry.  After all, the Knight Sabers were a legendarily reclusive
group, so chary of public exposure that their nemeses, the Tokyo
Advanced Police, were almost credible writing them off as urban
legends.  Only very fuzzy photos of them, usually taken by random
surveillance cameras, ever appeared in the mainstream press.  This one
was certain to take a dim view of being chased down by some guy in an
old muscle car - doubly so if she knew he was a journalist.
        On the other hand, she might not notice right away.  Traffic
was light enough that he didn't have to bother with the car's not-
strictly-legal siren and popup light bar to clear himself a path.  If
she were intent on her destination, she might not realize she was
being pursued until he had at least gotten some decent photos.
        "I wonder where the others are?" Zoner mused.
        "Dunno," Stark replied tersely.  His passenger didn't take
offense; Zoner had known Stark for a long time - since before he was
Ben Stark - and he knew that all the man's concentration was on the
road right now.  At these speeds (the Camaro was just touching 130
miles per hour and still accelerating), the slightest error could be
fatal, even on a well-maintained and deserted superhighway.
        They plunged into a tunnel, the car's turbine cry keening back
at them from the enveloping concrete in a jumble of dopplered
overtones, then boomed out onto open highway again with the dazzle of
the sodium lamps still in their eyes - 
        - to discover that catching up to the Knight Saber wasn't
going to be as hard as they thought.  A column of fiery smoke half a
mile or so ahead showed where her motorcycle had plowed into the
median and exploded, and in the middle of the highway were visible the
flashes and sparkles of nighttime combat.
        Stark downshifted, feathered the brake and throttle, and
slewed the Camaro to a sidelong halt fifty yards short of the fight.
Before the car had completely stopped, his left hand had flashed to
the top pocket of his dark green overcoat and come out with his
liveshades.  He slipped them on even as he jacked the car's parking
brake and made certain the gearshift was in neutral with a gesture
born of long habit.  Two seconds later he was out on the tarmac
watching the battle.
        "Shades.  Night mode with flash comp.  Record still exposure
every two seconds," he ordered.  "Mnemonic record mode."  A red light
flashed in the upper right corner of his field of vision.
        Then, standing next to his car with his hand on the roof and
his eyes fixed on the fight, he began to speak as if narrating the
scene.


>>> INFOFEED
    FROM printedcircuits:starkwire.com
    POSTED: 20320213.2030 (UTC)

"URBAN LEGENDS" SLUG IT OUT ON TOKYO HIGHWAY
By Benjamin Stark
STARKWIRE EXCLUSIVE

MEGA TOKYO - What you are looking at is a battle between two forces the
authorities in this city will tell you do not exist.

Reporters have been threatened with physical violence by city
officials, most notably members of the Tokyo Advanced Police, for even
suggesting that the figure on the left might be real.  Reporters have
-met with- physical violence from agents of the world's most powerful
megacorp, GENOM Corporation, for daring to ask whether things like the
figure on the right present a potential danger to the public.  Both
will assure you that incidents like the one you are seeing here
cannot, do not, and will not happen.

But here it is.  What you see here is a GENOM Bu55C combat boomer,
apparently gone rogue, in battle with a member of the mysterious
armored action force popularly known as the Knight Sabers.

The boomer's reasons for being at large in the city are unknown, but
the implications of its actions are chilling.  The battle took place
at approximately 3 a.m. Tokyo time (20320213.1800 UTC).  Had this
incident taken place twelve hours earlier, at 3 p.m. on Friday, it
would have been happening not on a deserted expressway, but in the
middle of some of Mega Tokyo's heaviest traffic.  The potential for
injury and loss of life, to say nothing of property destruction, is
hard to calculate.

Fortunately, it was 3 a.m., the expressway was deserted, and there was
someone present who was able to deal with the problem.  The unknown
woman, equipped with a unique suit of powered combat armor unlike
anything in any known police or military arsenal, was able to disable
the boomer and end its rampage before any citizen of Mega Tokyo could
be harmed.  After making certain the boomer was disabled, she left the
scene and vanished, eluding all attempts at pursuit.

Neither GENOM Corporation nor the Tokyo Advanced Police responded to
requests for comment.

>>> EXTRA CONTENT:
    SIDEBAR: HISTORY OF BOOMER INCIDENTS

Boomers are part of life anywhere in the developed world today.
Unknown ten years ago, today they're so common that their popular name
has already ceased to be recognized as a trademark by the average
citizen.  (The name "boomer", which the Associated Press style guide
still insists should be capitalized, is a takeoff on the GENOM
technical designation for them, BUMA - the precise expansion of which
is described by GENOM spokesmen as a trade secret.  In Japan, both
words are pronounced roughly the same.)

They're everywhere, so near-ubiquitous they're often overlooked -
until something goes wrong.  Then their physical power, and the danger
it represents to the public when uncontrolled, cannot be ignored.

Rogue boomer incidents have been reported as far back as 2025, when
the mechanoids were first produced in large numbers to answer the
massive demand for labor in the wake of the Second Great Kanto
Earthquake.  The city's near-miraculous reconstruction is largely down
to boomers' untiring efforts, which earned them the nickname, often
quoted in GENOM public-relations literature, "Assemblers of
Prosperity".

But there has been a dark side to what some socioindustrial historians
call the Boomer Revolution.  Boomers' programming is so complex, their
underlying technology understood by so few people, that it has long
seemed to some observers that these powerful servants are not entirely
under their creators' control.  The most infamous rogue-boomer
incident happened in the United States in 2028, when a prototype
military boomer being tested at the White Sands Missile Range in New
Mexico developed what a GENOM spokesman later called a "catastrophic
neural-network fault", then ignored instructions to stand down after a
live-fire test.  The boomer rampaged into the base housing area,
killing 45 people and injuring 173 before it was finally destroyed by
a U.S. Army attack helicopter.

GENOM's public relations machine here in Tokyo insists that such
"teething problems" are in the past, and that today's boomers - even
the heavily armed military and security models - are perfectly safe.
Why, then, was a Bu55C, one of the company's best-selling security
boomers, on an apparent rampage in downtown Mega Tokyo in the middle
of the night?  Why - since it had presumably escaped from the control
of its owner - were no GENOM Security forces on hand to subdue it?
And why did the AD Police, the agency charged with protecting the
public from threats too powerful for the regular police to handle,
take more than 30 minutes to respond to the incident, by which time
they had nothing to do but clean up the mess?

>>> EXTRA CONTENT:
    SIDEBAR: HISTORY OF KNIGHT SABER ACTIVITY

The first known sightings of the armored combat force known as the
Knight Sabers occurred in late 2030, when eyewitnesses reported seeing
a trio of armored women defeat a GENOM Mark 14 construction boomer
that had suffered a neural breakdown (later attributed to excess heat
buildup in its positronic core) and was attempting to tear down a
residential block in the Shimura district.  The first official denial
of the existence of the Knight Sabers followed by about three hours.

Since then, tracking Knight Sabers sightings has become something of a
cottage industry on the InfoWeb, where dozens of Knight Sabers fan
sites operate around the world.  The most carefully-researched
authorities, such as knightsabers.infotrak and SaberSpotters, put the
total number of incidents involving the Knight Sabers at somewhere
around 60 in the two years the group has been operational.

How many Knight Sabers there are is unclear, though the group is
apparently small.  Reports indicate there may be as many as five,
though that figure is based on the assumption that there is only one
of each unique armor type that has been spotted.  Witnesses almost
universally agree that they are all women.  Their equipment is of
unknown manufacture and appears to be well ahead of the current state
of the art in military powered armor technology.  It is believed that
the Knight Sabers act as mercenaries, secretly hiring out to
corporations and individuals seeking special protection or a deniable
strike force - possibly in order to fund their anti-boomer activities,
which must require considerable financial backing.

About the women themselves - who they are, where they come from, why
they do what they do - nothing at all is known.

>>> EXTRA CONTENT:
    REPORTER'S NOTE:

This battle was witnessed and photographed by yours truly on
February 14, 2032, at 0311 Tokyo time - February 13, 2032, 1811 UTC -
on Expressway 7 just west of the Takamori Bypass Tunnel.  The
photographs are verified by my liveshades' neuroprint and my notes of
the incident are in time-encrypted Mnemocode.  There's no forgery
possible here.  This is the chip truth.  This is vindication.

InfoFlash and I parted company over my commitment to a principle - the
principle that GENOM's control of its boomers is either too lax, or
possibly too great, for the public's safety.  Not content with simply
dismissing me, InfoFlash CEO Royland Tanner took the opportunity
presented by my departure notice to ridicule me, both for my
commitment to that principle, and for my conviction that the Knight
Sabers are real.  He asked archly in his editorial that week whether,
having been freed from InfoFlash's high journalistic standards, I
would next take up the pursuit of Bigfoot, or perhaps the Ogopogo.

The great Hunter S. Thompson once wrote that the hell of being a
journalist is that you get whipped when you're right and you get
whipped when you're wrong - but it feels a little better when you're
right.

Well, I feel pretty damn good right now.

Ogopogo: You're on notice.

>>> END INFOFEED


        After making his initial notes - fixing the time, place, and
participants in the incident - Stark fell silent and just watched the
fight, letting his brain work.  He knew, roughly, the performance
limits of the Bu55C; such things were both military and trade secrets,
of course, but there were ways of determining them within tolerances.
Now, watching one in combat with a Knight Saber, he had the
unprecedented opportunity to use that knowledge, coupled with his
understanding of both the extent and the limitations of current
powered armor technology, to make the first really serious estimation
of a Knight Saber's power curve.
        The first thing that became apparent was that, though its
performance envelope was obviously greater than that of a regular
military or police powersuit like a K-12, the Knight Saber's suit
lacked the sheer physical power to confront a 55 head-on.  Rather, its
chief advantage appeared to be its maneuverability.  K-suits were
clumsy, lumbering things that had evolved from power loaders and
didn't handle much better.  The Saber suit Stark was watching now was
much more agile, able to maneuver with great speed and precision.
        It was also surprisingly light on firepower.  Based on some
reports he'd seen, Stark had expected to see some kind of beam weapon
in action, but this suit, at least, seemed only to mount a
small-caliber chaingun - entirely inadequate against the 55's heavy
armor.  As he watched the two combatants dance, Stark realized
something with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and a
glance back across the Camaro's roof confirmed that Zoner felt it too.
        The boomer, it appeared, was winning.
        Just as Stark had the thought, the Saber tried a ballsy move
that would, if successful, have made up for her suit's apparent lack
of firepower.  She faked to the left, darted right, and then abruptly
changed direction with a percussive snort of booster jets, intending
to dash clean past the boomer and plant a magnetic explosive charge on
its chest.  At the very least, that should compromise its armor enough
for her chaingun to have some chance of doing it internal harm.
        Unfortunately, the boomer anticipated her tactics.  Twisting
its body with deceptive speed, it flashed a hand out and seized the
charging Saber by the helmet, lifting her clean off the ground.
Snarling, her mechanoid opponent shook her like a ragdoll, squeezing
her helmet until the onlookers could hear the metallic ping and
crackle of its structure beginning to break down.  Then it turned and
hurled her to the ground with such force that she bounced and rolled,
armor sparking against the pavement, for perhaps two dozen yards
before fetching up against the median barrier.
        "Holy shit!" Zoner blurted.
        The statement seemed to flip a switch somewhere inside Ben
Stark.  His face, set until now in the neutral expression of a
reporter taking in a story, hardened into a look of grim resolve.
Whirling, he snapped, "Shades, stop recording.  Car, open trunk."
        Obediently, the Camaro's rear hatch hissed smoothly open on
its pneumatic lifts.  Stark and Zoner arrived at the back of the car
at the same time.
        "Are you doing what I think you're doing?" Zoner asked.
        "Maybe," Stark replied.  "Cover me."

# Powerman 5000
# "Action"
# Transform

        Zoner looked about to protest; then he glanced up, saw the
boomer stalking toward the fallen Saber (who was moving feebly,
attempting to rise, but not getting very far with it), and made up his
mind as well.  He reached into his dark denim jacket and drew out a
chunky black handgun.
        "I won't last long against that monster," he said.
        "I don't need long," Stark replied, keying a lengthy code into
a keypad concealed in the sidewall of the Camaro's trunk.
        Zoner nodded, turned, and trotted toward the combat zone.
        "Grenade," he told the gun.
        "Selected," the gun replied in an electronic voice.
        "Hey BITCH!" he yelled.  The boomer paused, turning its head
back to track the source of the challenge.  A moment later its head
vanished in an orange fireball.
        "HA!" Zoner cried.
        The boomer whirled and lunged toward him, its head -
apparently undamaged - emerging from the cloud of smoke.
        "FUCK!" Zoner cried.
        Back at the Camaro, Stark heard the explosion as the secret
storage compartment in the trunk slid open.  He pushed the sounds of
combat out of his mind and concentrated on what he was doing - which,
at the moment, was unbuttoning his shirt and tugging its tails from
his pants.
        Beneath the shirt he wore an armored chestplate, its dull grey
finish sullenly refusing to catch the light of the streetlamps
overhead.  Glancing up, he saw Zoner duck violently away from the
boomer's razor-sharp bayonets, moving with all the speed his
chip-enhanced nervous system could muster and barely staying ahead.
Not much time... not much time at all.

        The woman in the scarlet-striped blue Knight Saber hardsuit
regained a fuzzy semblance of consciousness and was faintly surprised
to find herself still alive.  She opened her eyes and saw nothing but
blackness; the damage to her helmet had destroyed her combat virtual
reality system, cutting off inputs from her visual sensors.  Wincing
at a grinding pain in her shoulder, she raised a hand and pushed her
visor up.
        It didn't want to go - the helmet was severely deformed - but
after a couple of shoves it opened far enough for her to see out at
least a little.  Tinkling shards of the helmet's crystal inner
facebowl rained into her lap and the cool night air smacked her in the
face, reviving her a little.  She could feel blood cooling on the side
of her face, probably coming from the sharp pain just outboard of her
right eye.
        Everything outside the helmet was a blur.  Gritting her teeth,
she forced her eyes to focus - then felt them widen in horror.  Some
guy, some big crazy-ass gaijin in black denim, was throwing down with
the boomer that had just wrecked her suit.  He had a set of wolverines
(funny name for a cyberweapon, that) to match the boomer's wrist
bayonets, and he had a heavy autopistol of some kind, but he was still
clearly outmatched.  It was only a matter of time before he got
himself killed.
        Like now, for instance, as the boomer anticipated his lunge,
tripped him heavily to the ground, and bore down on him, intending to
pin his head to the pavement with its right arm's twin bayonets.
        It never got the chance to follow through.  Before it could
bring the blades down, it was hit broadside by - well, the Knight
Saber wasn't really sure what.  Some kind of -beam weapon-, it looked
like, bright white streams of energy that almost seemed -solid- in the
way they affected the boomer.  It was flung violently away from its
target, as if hit by a truck, and actually lost its footing before
rising and whirling to confront the new threat.
        This guy was even stranger than the last one.  He had on
combat gear, but it was the weirdest gear the Saber had ever seen - an
armored chestplate and a pair of big, chunky metal gloves, the latter
connected to sockets low on the chestplate by thick, heavy cables.
Apart from that he was wearing ordinary street clothes: jeans,
sneakers, a button-up dress shirt and green trenchcoat that flapped
open over the chestplate, sleeves shoved back to the elbows by the
gauntlets.  Smoke curled up from the palms of his gloves.
        Who the HELL, she thought, and then lost consciousness.

        Ben Stark felt a curious mix of exultation and terror as the
boomer turned to face him.
        Terror because what he was doing was manifestly -stupid-:
charging into combat against a military-grade boomer with only his
chestplate to protect him.  Sure, he had his two main weapons, but
without the rest of the suit, he had no strength or reflex
augmentation.  Worse, without the helmet he had no sensors, no
targeting aids, not even any easy way to keep track of his battery
condition... and battery condition was absolutely critical, not only
to his success, but to his very -survival-.
        Exultation because, even with this jury-rigged bare-bones
setup, he might just hold more power in his hands than any other man
in history, and he was applying it in a righteous cause.  The lure of
power and righteousness had always been dangerously strong in Benjamin
Stark's life.  He had an addictive streak in his personality, and it
was drawn to danger, action, and the idea that what he was doing might
-matter-.  It was why he had become a reporter.  It was why he had
gone to Southeast Asia.  It was why his hands had crafted the weapons
that now sheathed them, the plate that covered his chest.
        He hadn't had a fix like this one in five years.  He'd
forgotten how good it could feel.
        It frightened him... but at the same time, he realized that it
had been precisely that long since he had felt so alive.
        And that, too, frightened him, but right now he had no time
for fear.
        The boomer sprang toward him; he let it have another blast of
his repulsors, intending to hit it in the chest and knock it down.
His aim was off.  The beams struck the boomer in the right shoulder,
spinning it off-balance but not bringing it down.  It roared its
disapproval, seized the nearest heavy object - a chunk of concrete
blown free from the road surface by an earlier part of the fight - and
heaved it.
        Fully suited up, Stark might have tried to intercept it with
weapons fire, or maybe just let it hit him.  Now he had to force
himself to get out of its path.  His movements weren't fluid; he was
out of practice, and besides, the chestplate and gloves were never
meant to be used this way in actual combat.  His balance was off, his
timing flawed.  He avoided the attack but fell heavily to the ground,
rolling in an ungainly tangle and winding up on his knees.
        The boomer swept in, bringing its right-arm bayonets down.
Stark barely got his left hand up in time to block it, and though the
metal of his gauntlet did stop the blades, the impact nearly broke his
unsupported arm.  Wincing, he jammed his right palm against the
monstrous machine's flank and fired.
        The beam punched through the boomer's armor, tearing a hole
clean through its lower abdomen but missing its fiber-optic spine.  It
reeled back, orange coolant fluid spraying from the exit wound in its
back.  Stark tried to rise, but the unbalanced weight of his gauntlets
robbed him of his footing; he got partway up, slipped, and fell on his
back.  The boomer recovered its poise and moved in to counterattack.
Stark raised his hands - but nothing happened.  The right repulsor,
overheated by the contact shot, wouldn't fire again until it had
cooled.  As for the left, he looked and saw that the power cable,
never intended for use in combat, had disconnected, leaving that
gauntlet no more useful than an oven mitt.
        Cursing, he rolled, barely avoiding a bayonet slash that
carved deep furrows in the pavement.  Momentum and panic combined to
get him back on his feet.  He spun, thrust out his right hand, and saw
with dismay that -that- cable had been -severed-, eight or so inches
of useless slack hanging from the input port and ending in a neat,
bright cut.
        The boomer sized up its opponent's situation, and had it been
capable of satisfaction, it would have felt it at that point.  It
moved in for the kill.
        Stark knew what he had to do.  He'd been hoping to avoid it -
there were too many things that could go wrong with it - but there was
no way around it now.  He yanked off his left glove - the fingers had
stiffened without power - and clawed at the manual backup controls on
his belt.  The boomer lunged - 
        - a brilliant beam of yellow-white light erupted from the
palm-sized circular fitting in the center of Stark's chestplate.
Unlike his repulsors, which were essentially concussion weapons, the
unibeam was a tuned laser array, and at its highest output setting it
could burn a hole in the side of a tank.
        Or the chest of a boomer.
        The mechanoid recoiled, tried to regroup, and then collapsed on
its back, twitching.
        Stark took a half-step back, stumbled, and nearly fell, but
Zoner was there to steady him.  Sweat had broken out on the shorter
man's face, which was deathly pale.
        "Easy," Zoner said.  "You OK?"
        "No," Stark replied, his voice strained.  "Hurts - battery
level - "
        Zoner flipped open a small panel next to the miniature
controls on Stark's belt.  A small red light was flashing beneath it.
        "Hell," he said.  "Hang on."  He lowered Stark to the ground,
hustled to the Camaro, rummaged in the trunk compartment for a moment,
then ran back with an object that rather resembled a large hypodermic
with a pair of electrodes instead of a needle.  He twisted and yanked
out the severed stub of the right-hand power feed cable, shoved the
prongs of the device into the socket slots, and thumbed a button on
top of it.  Stark twitched as the emergency battery dumped its charge
into his chestplate's onboard storage cells.  The status light on his
belt changed from flashing red to steady amber.  Almost immediately,
some color returned to his face.
        "Phew," he said, his voice much steadier now.  "Thanks."
        Then he sat back, let his arms trail slack at his sides, and
started giggling.  He didn't really feel like laughing, but he
couldn't quite help it.  With all the nervous tension of the crisis
draining out of him, he had to laugh.
        "Goddammit," Zoner grumbled, shoving the spent emergency
battery and severed cable stub into his jacket pockets.  "Haven't you
ever heard of a safety reserve?"
        Stark's giggling fit wound down.  "The chestplate battery -is-
the safety reserve," he replied, clambering to his feet and retrieving
his abandoned gauntlet.  "I didn't have time to fit the belt pods.  I
wasn't expecting to go into combat, anyway."
        "That's no excuse," Zoner retorted.  "You've had that damn
suit for five years."
        Stark turned to him, all traces of giddiness gone now.  "I
wasn't expecting to go into combat," he repeated flatly.  "-Ever-."
        Then he turned and walked to the side of the fallen Knight
Saber, who still lay where she'd come to rest against the median.
        Zoner cocked his head.  "Sirens," he said, though Stark
couldn't hear anything.  "Cops will be here in... probably five
minutes.  We need to get out of here."
        "Uh-huh, give me a hand here, will you?" Stark replied.  "I
should probably not be doing much heavy lifting right at the moment."

2:54 PM

        Priss Asagiri expected to wake up in one of two situations:
either handcuffed to a jailhouse infirmary bed, or dead.  She knew she
wasn't dead as soon as consciousness returned.  She wouldn't be so
sore if she were dead.  Her head was killing her, her shoulder wasn't
all that happy, and her knee felt like someone had taken a ballpeen
hammer to it.  That left option 1 - picked up, ID'd, and arrested by
the cops at the scene of her botched tangle with that combat boomer.
        Except... 
        She sat up, winced, put a hand to her head, and carefully
looked around to discover, to her infinite surprise, that she was...
        ... at home.
        "What the fuck?" she whispered.  She closed her eyes, counted
to five, and opened them again.  Nope, still at home - her converted
cargo trailer in the Barrens, be it ever so humble-yet-rent-free.  She
threw back her sleeping bag to discover that she was still wearing her
datasuit, though it had been cut away around her knee and shoulder.
But - 
        - there was no sign of her hardsuit.
        "... Sylia's not going to like this," she muttered.
        At that exact moment, her telephone started ringing.

3:24 PM

        Akira Takeguchi, director of the advanced robotics lab at the
Stark Industries research facility in Chiba, wasn't scheduled to work
on Saturday afternoon, but like many of his generation, he was a bit
of a workaholic.  The Japanese had always been renowned as hard
workers, but the generation who grew up in the wake of Second Kanto
especially so.  Staying at work was easier than going home and dealing
with the devastation, and even now, when a comfortable standard of
living had been restored to much of the Megalo City and its immediate
environs, the habit was hard to break.  Thus was Takeguchi to be found
clocking into his lab at 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon, intending to
finish up some minor fab work so that his team would have a leg up on
their next round of testing come Monday morning.
        Or, well, -trying- to clock into his lab.  The security reader
at the lab entrance didn't seem to want to let him in.  After futzing
with it for a few minutes, he went to the security kiosk and inquired.
        "Oh, you're in Lab 17?  Sorry, I should've posted a sign," the
guard said.  "Mr. Stark's in there.  He came in a couple hours ago and
said he needed complete privacy for an experiment he needed to run."
        "Mr. Stark is -here-?  In Japan?" Takeguchi blurted.  His
surprise was evident, but understandable.  Benjamin Stark owned the
company, but his official standing beyond that was uncertain to the
rank and file of employees.  He wasn't involved in the corporation's
day-to-day operations, didn't even have a seat on the board.  He came
and went as he pleased, used company resources - within reasonable
limits established by some form of corporate agreement that Takeguchi,
being an engineer, didn't understand - to support his InfoWeb news
site, and occasionally stopped in to make friendly suggestions, most
of which happened to be good ones, to various people.
        "Mr. Stark is here in your -lab-," the guard replied,
grinning.  "Don't worry, he promised he'd put everything back where he
found it when he's done."
        "What's he working on?"
        "Search me.  I'm just a guard.  He and some big guy from the
US office were lugging one of those big hard-sided equipment cases."
        "Hmm."  Takeguchi rubbed his chin.  "Can you pull up the
security camera for the lab?"
        The guard shook his head.  "Nope."
        "Oh, come on.  It's -my lab-.  I'll make it worth your while."
        "No use appealing to my better nature, pal.  I said I can't
'cause I -can't-.  Mr. Stark disabled the cameras first thing."

        The reason for Stark's caution would have been apparent if
Takeguchi -could- have seen into the lab.  It would surely have raised
some eyebrows in quite a -few- circles if it got out that the owner of
Stark Industries had a Knight Sabers hardsuit in his possession.

        As it happened, one person already knew that, or at least
strongly suspected it.
        That person was not Priss Asagiri, who sat uncomfortably at
the briefing table in the Knight Sabers' secret underground base and
wondered when her boss was going to -say- something.
        For her part, Sabers founder Sylia Stingray showed no sign of
being about to speak.  She stood at the end of the room with her back
to Priss, gazing thoughtfully out the window overlooking the empty
training room below.  Her face, reflected in the armor glass, was
completely unreadable - which was usually the case with Sylia, and the
thing about her Priss found most annoying.
        Across the table from Priss, Linna Yamazaki tried not to
fidget.  She knew it would just aggravate Priss further, and her
volatile teammate was already annoyed enough.  Still, the waiting was
tough on her too.  They'd never faced a security problem like this
before in their careers, and the not knowing was the worst part.  Who
had happened across Priss's fight with the rogue boomer?  Who had
determined her identity and delivered her to her home?
        Who now had her hardsuit?
        The door opened to admit the petite blonde form of Nene
Romanova, the youngest of the Knight Sabers.  She had a fistful of
printouts in one hand and an expression mingling triumph and worry.
        "I know who has Priss's hardsuit," she said.
        Linna and Priss turned to look at her (Priss wincing a little
as the sudden move made her neck twinge painfully).  Then, when Sylia
didn't react, they turned back.
        "Sylia?  Did you hear that?" Linna asked.
        Sylia didn't respond for a moment; then she turned, nodded,
and said, "Go on, Nene."
        "I found this on the InfoWeb just now," Nene said, plopping
down the papers she held on the table.  On top of the stack was a
printout from a news feedsite, complete with a color picture of Priss
and a Bu55C fighting and the headline "URBAN LEGENDS" SLUG IT OUT ON
TOKYO HIGHWAY.
        "It's an article from StarkWire," Nene went on, "about Priss's
fight with the boomer last night.  Complete with pictures that had to
be taken by someone who was up close.  The reporter even says in a
sidebar that he witnessed the fight in person."
        Sylia blinked, a thoughtful look passing over her face.
"StarkWire?" she mused.  "I know that name... "
        Linna nodded.  "Sure, Benjamin Stark," she said.  "I read him.
He's kind of a fan of ours.  He got fired from his last news-syndicate
job for messing with GENOM."
        "Right," Nene said.  "After he left InfoFlash and started his
own feedsite, he started really going after GENOM for covering up
rogue boomer incidents.  From that it seems like he got onto us.  He's
been following our trails for at least a year.  I dug up activity
records showing that he's read and posted on a dozen different Knight
Sabers sites since last March.  He even joined Knight Sabers OK! in
June.  And now he's posting live pictures and a description of Priss's
latest fight on the InfoWeb -two hours after it happened-.  He has to
be one of the two guys Priss saw."
        Linna stood up and leaned over the printouts, looking down at
the photo.  "He and whoever he was with must have managed to beat the
boomer," she said.  "They ID'd Priss, took her home... and kept her
hardsuit."
        "Well, that's just -great-," Priss growled.  "First I lose a
fight, then I manage to blow our cover in my -sleep-?"  Then her frown
changed from an angry one to a thoughtful one and she added, "Hold on.
If this guy Stark saw me get whipped by this boomer, stole my hardsuit,
scanned my face, looked up my address and took me home... why isn't
that in his coverage?"
        Linna blinked.  "You're right!  This would be the story of the
decade for a guy like him.  Your face and close-ups of your suit ought
to be all over his feedsite.  He should've sold the files to Megacomm
or somebody and retired to his own private -asteroid- by now."
        Nene shook her head.  "There's not a -word-," she said.
"Nothing on -any- feedsite about anyone salvaging a Knight Saber
hardsuit, or anybody learning any of our identities.  The only mention
of Priss on StarkWire is a little note from later this morning over on
Stark's personal blog."
        Priss raised an eyebrow.  "... Context?"
        Nene grinned a little.  "He says he heard one of your songs on
his sat radio driving into town from the airport last night and really
liked it."
        Priss snorted.  "I wonder what -that's- code for," she said.
        "Could be true," Linna said.  "'Konya wa Hurricane' is in
pretty heavy rotation on A3."
        "Really?  Huh."
        Linna turned to Sylia.  "What do you think, Sylia?"
        The Sabers' leader thought for a moment, then said slowly,
"This man Stark is playing a very cool game with us.  He must know
that we'll eventually learn who took Priss's hardsuit.  He's waiting
to see what we do - trying to draw us out."  She nodded, her gaze
turned inward.  "Yes... a very cool game... and two can play any
game."
        Then she raised her dark eyes to the worried green ones of her
team's information officer.  "Nene," she said crisply, "find out
everything you can about Benjamin Stark.  Before I decide whether to
accept the invitation to play his game, I want to know who I'm playing
with."
        Nene nodded firmly.  "I'm on it," she said, then turned and
left the room at a trot.

10:51 PM

        Dressed only in sweatpants and his ever-present chestplate,
Ben Stark sat in his hotel room, considering the partly crushed helmet
that sat on the desk in front of him.  He had Zoner's analysis of the
hardsuit glowing at him from the holodisplay of his portable computer.
It - what he could understand of it, not being a cyberneticist himself
- had contained few surprises for him... but it had also lacked an
essential insight, one he could only get from a single source.
        He got up, went to the door, and made sure it was locked.  He
double-checked the heavy drapes on the windows.  Then he went back to
the desk, opened a small compartment on the belt of his chestplate,
and carefully removed the item contained within.
        It was similar to a standard datachip module - a little chunk
of plastic and integrated quantum circuitry about the size of a man's
thumbnail - but for the eerie blue glow that shone faintly through the
outer casing from the components within.  Stark sat back down,
regarded the chip for a few moments, then sighed and inserted it into
one of the chipslots on the top of his portable.
        A dialogue box popped up asking him to connect a neural
interface cable.  He did so, uncoiling it from its storage reel on the
side of the portable and plugging it carefully into the neurojack
behind his right ear.  The dialogue box disappeared and was replaced
by another one demanding a password, then another requesting him to
present his right eye for retinal scan; and then there was nothing but
the big green button.
        Stark took a breath, braced himself for the rush of memory and
sensation that always flowed over him, and hit it.
        The room swam; had he not been seated, he would have fallen.
He grabbed reflexively at the corners of the desk, steadying himself
until the moment passed.  Images flashed across his mind's eye - the
jungle, the heat, the dull CRUMP of the explosion - 
        Then everything was still again.  He was sitting at the desk
in a posh hotel-suite bedroom, his portable whirring quietly in front
of him...
        ... but he was no longer alone.
        Well, any philosopher or psychologist would have told him he
was.  ROM-encoded personality constructs weren't people, they would
insist.  They were merely recorded libraries of information patterns
with the ability to mimic aspects of their recording donors'
personalities and intellects, that was all.  They had no capacity for
creativity, no spontaneity - no souls.
        Benjamin Stark wasn't so sure.
        "Hello, Tony," he said.  He didn't need to speak out loud, but
he always did - it seemed to help him concentrate, to keep everything
straight in his head.
        The voice that replied was inaudible in the room itself; it
was coming from a tiny bionic speaker mounted to Stark's mastoid
bone.  It had a slightly dry and tinny quality, like an old recording
of a familiar voice, and as always it chilled his blood slightly when
it replied in the remembered tones of a friend,
        "Hi, Ben.  What's up?"
        "I have something here I want to get your impressions of,"
Stark said.
        "Sure thing," Tony replied.  "What've you got?"
        Stark picked up the helmet and held it before him.  "This.
It's a helmet from a powered combat suit - one of the Knight Sabers.
Zoner says some of the control circuitry looks familiar.  I wondered
what you thought."
        "Have you got his scan data?" Tony asked.  Stark punched a
couple of keys and shunted the report to his neuroprocessor's data
bus.
        He could have run the ROM construct on the portable itself,
saving himself the unpleasant sensations of sharing his head with
it... but somehow he could never bring himself to do that.  It would
have been like snubbing a friend.
        "Hmm," Tony mused.  "Yes, this does look familiar.  I'm
reasonably certain some of these circuits are my designs, or
extrapolated from them.  The underlying concepts are from relatively
early in my work with cybernetics, but I recognize the architecture."
        "Any idea where the maker of this helmet could have come by
the designs?" Stark asked.
        "I included some of the basic concepts in papers I did back at
MIT," Tony replied.  "Some of this is too advanced to have come from
that, though.  Hmm... "
        "Did you share your designs with anyone else after college?
Any collaborators, anything like that?"
        "Not that I recall.  No, wait.  There was one - a young woman
in Japan, we corresponded over the Web for a few months before I went
to Vietnam.  Her father was a colleague of my father's back in the
'teens.  She had an odd name... what was it?  It wasn't at all
Japanese, that's why I remember it... Stingray.  Sylia Stingray."
        "Is there anyone else?  Anyone at all you might have shown
these circuit designs to?"
        "Not that I can think of, aside from you and Dr. Yinsen.  I
assume you've checked with him to make sure he didn't build this."
        "Uh... yes.  That's not... not on the table."
        "OK.  In that case, I'm pretty certain this must be her work,
unless the circuit patterns are just coincidental.  I would tend to
doubt that, though."
        Stark sat with his eyes closed for a couple of moments, the
fingertips of one hand resting gently on the cracked and bent surface
of the armored helmet.
        "OK," he said.  "Thanks, Tony."
        "Any time," the construct replied.  Stark opened his eyes,
moved a hand to his portable's keyboard, and detached the ROM
construct from the system, then uncabled his neural interface, ejected
the chip, and returned it to its compartment on his chestplate's belt.
        He sat looking thoughtfully at the empty helmet for a few
moments, then got up, unlocked his bedroom door, turned off the light,
and went to bed.
        His dreams, as he expected, were not restful.


SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2032
KNIGHT SABERS HEADQUARTERS

        It had been a while since Nene Romanova had pulled a good
old-fashioned all-nighter, and she was feeling pretty pleased with
herself - if a bit wired - when she walked into Sylia's office and
dropped a single datatab on her desk blotter.
        "There you go," she said.  "My complete dossier on Benjamin
Stark, alias Benjamin Hutchins."
        Sylia raised an eyebrow.  "Alias?"
        "He changed his name five years ago.  When he inherited Stark
Industries from -Anthony- Stark, its late founder's son.  It got a lot
of play in the American press, but nobody took much notice of it over
here - there was a big flap with some cousin or something of Stark's
over the legality of the will.  It's all in there."
        "Why does his original name seem familiar?"
        "He was already a pretty famous reporter when the Stark thing
happened," Nene said.  "He worked for WorldWatch back then."
        "Ah!" Sylia said, recognition sparking in her eyes.  "He
covered the Quake."
        Nene nodded.  "How'd you know that?"
        "Unlike -some- of us, I wasn't too young to read feedsites
back then," Sylia replied with a touch of mock asperity, making Nene
flush.  "Is there anything in his history that would explain why he
would sit on a story like the one we know he has?"
        Nene shook her head.  "Uh-uh.  I'm just as baffled about that
as you.  Everything I've read about him suggests that the it's the
kind of story he lives for."
        "Curiouser and curiouser... " Sylia mused, tipping back in her
desk chair to gaze thoughtfully at the ceiling.
        Then she faced front again and said, "Good work, Nene.  Go
home and get some rest.  We're going to start a surveillance operation
on Mr. Stark starting first thing in the morning, and you'll be
pulling the night shift."
        Nene's shoulders slumped.  "Surveillance?  Aw, Sylia.  We're
-crap- at surveillance.  The only one of us who's any good at that
kind of tradecraft is -you-, and you can't risk detection on -this-
job."
        Sylia nodded.  "I know.  It'll only be for a few days."
        Nene sighed.  "Yes, ma'am."
        The little blonde turned to go, mulling things over in her
mind.  She'd never held anything back from Sylia in a report before,
but this time there was something she'd omitted... and she wondered
precisely why she'd done so.
        It's not solid enough yet, she told herself.  You could just
be chasing ghosts.  You're tired.  Go home and sleep on it.
        Yeah.


>>> INFOFEED
    FROM blog:starkwire.com
    POSTED: 20320216.0610 (UTC)

WHAT'S ON MY MIND: BENJAMIN STARK'S PERSONAL LOG

SUBJECT: Tokyo, seven years later

The last time I visited Tokyo was in 2025.  I arrived 17 hours after
the Second Great Kanto Earthquake, aboard one of the very first UN
relief flights into the city.  The aircraft on the last leg from Guam
was a U.S. Air Force Hercules II aerodyne, one of the early models
that still looked like a C-130 with bobbed wings and duct fans.  We
had to land on a stretch of freeway in Otemachi because the airports
were all out of service - Haneda's runways were either cracked or
covered with rubble, Narita was too far away, and Kanto International,
of course, had sunk.

I remember an Air National Guardsman next to me at one of the windows
as we overflew the city.  He was stationed in Guam and had just been
in Tokyo two days before on leave.  He kept turning to me and saying
in a helpless tone of voice,

"I don't recognize anything.  Nothing's where it's supposed to be."

What we found when we finally touched down was utter chaos.
Civilization had entirely broken down in the city.  Some people,
convinced that the world was ending, had gone almost catatonic with
shock.  The strong and the armed were taking whatever they felt they
needed - or in some cases whatever they wanted, or just whatever they
could take - from the weak and the unarmed.  Buildings leaned crazily
against each other or had collapsed, some falling into the streets,
others just imploding as though professionally demolished.

Over the next five days, armed police, JSSDF troopers, and
UN-organized foreign military forces re-established order and started
organizing relief efforts.  For a month I traveled all over what
remained of the city, talking with anyone who would talk to me.  All
of them had different stories, but there were common threads running
through them all, and one was that everyone I talked to kept coming
back to that National Guardsman's refrain.

Nothing was where it was supposed to be.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I came back to Tokyo.  Of
course, I've read all about the spectacular success of the rebuilding
efforts, the meteoric rise in the standard of living, the almost
magical contributions of the so-called Boomer Revolution.  I've seen
pictures of the new skyline and watched pulse-of-the-city clips on
feedsites and the TV news - hip young reporters talking to hip young
people in hip young neighborhoods about what a hip young city the new
Tokyo would be.  In my old InfoFlash column "Another Part of the
World", I commented at some length on the rather silly flamewar that
gripped the whole city and spilled over onto the InfoWeb at large in
2029 over the whole "Neo-Tokyo or Mega Tokyo?" question.  In short,
it's not as if I haven't been paying attention to the city's rebirth.

Between one thing and another, though, I never made it back to the
city to check in on it in person, so to speak, until now.

Well, I've been here for two days, and the city's been good to me,
figuratively speaking.  On my way downtown from the -airport- I
managed to run into the story I came to town looking for in the first
place, which was an unexpected bit of luck.  So I'm taking the time I
expected to spend chasing that story to look around and generally get
a feel for Mega Tokyo.  I want to see how it has changed - and how it
has not.  I'm curious as to whether Tokyo has managed to hang onto its
old spirit this time around.

I have to say, so far it's not looking promising.  I don't recognize
anything.  Nothing's where it's supposed to be.

>>> END INFOFEED


# Information Society
# "How Long?"
# Hack

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2032
CHILI'S, AKIHABARA

        "Well, I'll give them this," MegaZone said between bites of
his supreme nachos.  "They're keeping a cool head about the whole
thing."
        Stark grunted agreement and signaled the waitress for another
lemonade.  "Very cool."
        "I mean, they must have figured out it's you by now."
        "One would think.  I left a trail a blind man could follow,
and they must have an information specialist."
        "Think we should rattle their cage a little?" Zoner asked.
        Stark shook his head.  "No, not yet.  There's really no way we
can initiate contact that won't come off as threatening, under the
circumstances.  Let them make the next move.  We don't want to make
them feel cornered.  They might do something rash."
        Zoner grinned.  "Like kill us and hide the bodies."
        "Yeah.  Like that.  That would be inconvenient," Stark
observed dryly.

        "Well, I'll give them this," Priss Asagiri said between bites
of her hero sandwich.  "They're not hard to keep track of."
        "No kidding," the voice of Linna Yamazaki crackled back in the
earphones Priss wore.  "They've had lunch in this same restaurant every
day so far.  It's like they want to be found."
        "Maybe they do," Priss replied laconically.  She took a swig
of her warm Pepsi, made a face, and made a mental note to get after
Sylia about fixing the fridge in the mobile surveillance unit again.
        "Hell," she went on, "maybe they're just lonely and this whole
thing is a cockeyed plot to meet girls."
        "Great," Linna replied.  "Now every time I look at them I'm
going to think, 'Hey, there go the Knight Stalkers.'  I hate you,
Milkman Dan."
        Priss rolled her eyes.  "Whatever, just stay on them until
4:30, then Nene will relieve you."
        "Thank God for that.  Y'know, 24-hour surveillance really
doesn't work with only three people, especially when we can't use one
of them directly because the targets already know her face."
        "Tell me about it.  The inside of this van is starting to feel
more like home than my camper."


>>> INFOFEED
    FROM printedcircuits:starkwire.com
    POSTED: 20320219.0130 (UTC)

JAPANESE OFFICIALS DECLARE WAR ON KNIGHT SABERS
By Benjamin Stark

MEGA TOKYO - City officials announced today that the capture of the
armored vigilantes known as the Knight Sabers would be the second-
highest priority of the Tokyo Advanced Police after protecting the
public from boomer incidents.

"I have today ordered Tokyo Advanced Police Chief Nicholas Roland to
commit whatever resources are necessary to bring the Knight Sabers to
heel, short of interfering with the ADP's primary mission of public
safety," Mega Tokyo Metropolitan District Coordinator Saburo Kobayashi
announced at a staged press event on the steps of City Hall Thursday
morning.

"Despite their flashy public image and sophisticated equipment, the
Knight Sabers are truly no better than any other gang of armed thugs,"
Chief Roland said in his turn to speak.  "We cannot have pack-mentality 
vigilantism in our city.  That's why the ADP is committed to hunting
down these so-called 'protectors of the people' and bringing them to
justice like any other gang of criminals."

Neither official would answer any questions.

Citizens' groups demonstrated outside ADP Headquarters and City Hall
waving signs and chanting slogans in support of the Knight Sabers
during the press event.  One group unfurled a large banner reading
"KNIGHT SABERS 58, AD POLICE 0" before it was taken away by riot
police.  The score referred to the most commonly accepted figures for
successfully-handled boomer incidents by both groups in the two years
since the Knight Sabers first appeared in Mega Tokyo.

"Of course the ADP are going after the Knight Sabers," said Billy
Hinamura, head of the citizens' group Knight Sabers OK!  "Now that
they've been forced to admit that they really exist, they've got no
choice but to face up to the fact that the Knight Sabers have been
making them look like the clowns they are for the last two years."

The announcement marks a significant change in attitude from the city
government and police authorities, which have consistently dismissed
reports of the Knight Sabers' existence as urban myths.

One ADP officer wrote off the announcement as a publicity stunt,
saying that the agency has always placed a priority on apprehending
the Knight Sabers.

"Of course we never really believed they were an urban legend," said
the officer, who asked to remain anonymous.  "Hell, most of us have
tangled with 'em at one crime scene or another.  Tell you the truth, a
lot of us in the field ranks would just as soon deputize them, but the
brass has had a secret shoot-on-sight order out on them since Day 1.
Somebody up there doesn't like them, that's for sure."

The Knight Sabers, of course, could not be reached for comment.

>>> END INFOFEED


FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2032
CHILI'S, AKIHABARA

        Linna was beginning to feel just a little bit frustrated.  It
wasn't that this assignment was boring?  It's just that it was BORING.
Every day it was the same thing.  Pick up the targets at the Imperial
Palace and follow them to the Stark Industries office in the financial
district.  Hang around outside trying to look inconspicuous until
lunchtime.  Follow them to Chili's.  Hang around.  Follow them back to
the office.  Hang around until Nene showed up.  Go home and get a
couple hours' sleep.  Go to work.  Go home.  Get a few more hours'
sleep.  Get up and relieve Nene.  Repeat.  She wasn't getting enough
sleep, or at least wasn't getting it in long enough single blocks.
Worse, the targets weren't _doing_ _ANYthing_.  It was about as
exciting as watching paint dry, except then presumably she'd have been
getting her eight hours a night.
        Today was even worse.  Apparently they were taking the
day off.  They'd come down to Chili's right when it opened at 10 AM.
It was now coming up on 3 PM and they were still in the corner booth,
talking cheerily over some file folders or something.  Every now and
then they'd order more nachos and skillet queso.  Linna, meanwhile,
had managed to forget her credit tab at home, and had only enough cash
for a drink and some chips and salsa.
        It thus came as something of a surprise when a waiter appeared
with an enchilada plate - Linna's favorite item on the menu here,
she'd splurged and had it for lunch on Wednesday - and plopped it down
on the table next to her.
        "Your lunch, miss," he said with the perfectly synthesized
politeness that only a boomer waiter can manage with aplomb.
        "Uh... thanks, but... I, uh, didn't order anything," Linna
said - a trifle awkwardly, since she was basically admitting that she
had no business being in the restaurant.
        The waiter - who looked remarkably lifelike, but for the
dead-white skin and silver earcaps that recognition laws required on
humanoid boomers - inclined his head.
        "With the compliments of the gentleman on whom you've been
spying all week," he said, as if it were the most ordinary thing in
the world to say.
        Linna's eyes bugged out before she could stop them.
        "WHAT did he say?" Priss's voice demanded in her ear.
        "Oh, hell," Linna said as Benjamin Stark turned a little in
his seat, caught her eye, and gave her a friendly grin and a cheery
wave before turning back to his consultation with his burly associate.

        Four hours later, Nene Romanova stood next to a lamppost and
wondered how much worse her day could get.  The fact that Linna had
been made was bad news for everyone; not only did Stark and his cohort
presumably know who she was, making them 2 for 4 in ID'ing Knight
Sabers, the fact that they knew her face meant she couldn't be used
for the surveillance any more, which stretched their already
overextended womanpower beyond any acceptable tolerance.  At this
point she'd be out here until midnight, unless the pair of them
finally left the damned restaurant and went back to the hotel.  But
no, they were still in there, still going over whatever the hell they
were talking about, and the management seemed perfectly content to let
them stay as long as they wanted.
        Maybe Stark bought the place, she mused.
        Nene stretched, working a crick out of her back, and turned
slowly around to take stock of her situation.  It wouldn't do to get
so intent on the restaurant window that she lost track of her more
immediate surroundings and got mugged or something.  Even with Priss
on duty in the monitor van, such things were not impossible - and who
even knew if Priss was awake at this point?
        "Nene, any change?"
        Nene jumped a little, turned back to the restaurant, and
blinked.
        "That's odd.  Stark is still at his table, but I don't see the
-big- one anywhere."
        "Maybe he went to the can."
        "Actually, I had to run down to the store for some more
Post-Its," a deep voice said behind Nene, who nearly jumped out of her
skin.
        "AAAAAAAH!!" she yelled, spinning and recoiling at the same
time.  Her cellphone dropped from her hand; MegaZone's flashed out and
caught it before it got halfway to the ground.
        "Nene?  Nene, are you all right?" Priss's voice rasped tinnily
from the phone's earpiece.
        "She's fine," Zoner said.  "I just startled her a little, is
all.  I'm not sure how I manage to sneak up on people like that - I'm
a big guy, it's not like I'm at all stealthy.  How's your knee?"
        "... It's fine," Priss replied after a few seconds' nonplussed
pause.
        "Good, good," Zoner said.  "You had a meniscus tear and some
strain to the ACL.  I gave you an injection of Cartigen and inserted a
couple of time-release anti-inflammatory pellets.  It should be good
as new in a couple of days.  Anyway, here's your friend back."  He
handed the phone back to Nene.
        "Uh... Priss?"
        "Are you OK?  Is he threatening you?"
        "No.  No, he's just... standing here.  Everything's fine."
        "Great.  Well, you might as well go home.  I'll call Sylia and
tell her the whole operation's blown."
        "O... OK.  Good night."
        "Yeah, right."  Priss hung up.  Nene blinked at her phone,
then put it away and looked back up (and up, and up) at Zoner's face.
He didn't look all that threatening up close, which was odd - with his
size and presence, he was imposing from a distance, and she would have
expected that to be magnified up close.  Instead, the closer range
made it easier to see a sort of gentleness lurking behind his sharp
features and dark eyes.
        Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.  Nene certainly hoped
it wasn't.
        "You know," he said, "we'd be happy to have you join us.
We're just going over some financial crap - first-quarter projections
for the Japan division and all that junk.  We'd love to take a break
and chat."
        "Uh... I shouldn't," Nene said.
        Zoner nodded.  "Well, suit yourself.  Here," he said, and
suddenly he handed her a white cardboard box.  She took it
reflexively; by the time it occurred to her that that might not have
been the best idea, he'd nodded cordially to her and walked past.
Without yelling after him, there was no way to get his attention now.
She watched him disappear back into the restaurant, then reappear
behind the glass as he returned to the corner table.  Then she looked
down at the box.  Warily, she edged up the lid, half-expecting to find
a bundle of dynamite and a ticking clock inside.
        Instead, to her considerable surprise, she found a wedge of
cake.  Silver cake with strawberry frosting, if her nose didn't lie,
and in matters of cake it rarely did.
        Her favorite!  And with a plastic fork thrown in, to boot.
She shut the box and looked at it more closely.  There was a logo
printed on the lid, the symbol of a famous bakery a few blocks away.
Nene loved their cake above all others - and that was saying a lot -
but she only allowed herself to spend that kind of money on her
birthday.
        She could hear Priss's voice, figuratively, in the back of her
head - "You idiot!  You're taking -food- from -targets-?" - even as
her saliva glands kicked into high gear in anticipation.
        But it looked so -good-...
        "... do I eat it?" she whimpered to herself.

        "Well, if they know all of your faces now, it can't be
helped," Sylia told Priss from the surveillance van's videophone
screen.  "That may actually work to our advantage.  Switch to open
surveillance - let them know we're not going to give up.  Don't avoid
contact if they initiate it again."
        "You're the boss," Priss sighed.

        At 9:30, the two men finally emerged from the restaurant
(bowed to the door by the entire staff, all of whom had been tipped
well for their forbearance all day).  They were chatting animatedly as
they stepped to the sidewalk, and seeing Priss leaning against the
lamppost just in front of the restaurant only gave them a moment's
pause.
        "Hello," Stark said.  "We were starting to wonder if they were
going to let you out of that van."
        Priss shrugged, refusing to let them rattle her.  "I needed
some air."
        "Would you like us to tell you where we're headed next, or
would you rather be challenged a little?"  Stark grinned.  "You look
like the kind of girl who likes a challenge."
        Priss couldn't help it; she grinned back, just a little.
Stark wasn't her kind of guy, if Priss Asagiri could be said to have a
kind of guy.  He was a little on the short side and stocky, with broad
shoulders and a barrel chest, and she liked more of a lean and hungry
profile.  Plus, the Howard Hughes mustache and corporate hair didn't
really do anything for her.  There was something kind of engaging
about him, though.  He had balls, for one thing, and she liked that in
anybody, man or woman.
        "Challenge me," she said.
        His grin widened.  "I'll do that."

        He was, she reflected half an hour later, as good as his word.
        She climbed off her motorcycle, listening to the turbine ping
quietly as it cooled, and hung her helmet by its chin strap on the
left handlebar.  Mr. Benjamin Stark might lead a soft life writing
pretty words for the InfoWeb and owning a big American tech company,
but he'd learned to drive like -hell- somewhere, and he'd led Priss on
a merry chase through the backways and byways of Mega Tokyo before
finally settling here.  Another notch of respect earned.  Priss had a
low opinion of guys who drove cars in general, but there were a few
cagers who were a cut above the rest, and this guy was one of them.
In his hands, that old silver Camaro was like a -blade-.
        These guys might be worth getting to know.
        ... of course, the fact that their chase had ended at a strip
joint didn't really lend itself to that conclusion.  Still, if they
expected it to stop her from following them, they were sadly mistaken.
She waved aside the bouncer with one of her patented "don't bother me
until you evolve a more vertical forehead, boy" glares and brushed
into the place like she went into strip clubs every day.

# Juno Reactor
# "Zwara"
# Labyrinth

        At this hour, the place was packed and noisy.  It took her a
few minutes and a couple of discreetly thrown punches to work her way
to the back, where she found Stark and his - bodyguard?  Secretary? -
in a booth lighting up the hibachi in the middle of a little forest of
teriyaki beef skewers.
        "Oh, hi!" Stark yelled to her over the pounding of the music.
"Glad to see you made it."
        "You'll have to do better than that to lose me!" she replied
with a little bit of a smirk.
        "Have a seat!" Zoner hollered.  "Can we get you anything?
Something to drink?  Lap dance?  ... You have a -great- death glare!"
        Priss snorted, but it was mostly to keep from laughing as she
shoved her way back through the crowd to the front.

        "I'm telling you, either they're running the biggest
goddamn fakeout I've ever -heard- of, or they're on the level.  Every
time they have any contact with us, they're just... -nice-."  Priss
shook her head.  "It's starting to freak me out."
        Sylia chuckled dryly.  "Very well.  Break off, go get the van,
and return to base.  I'm calling off the surveillance.  We've made
contact.  Let's see how they react to -not- seeing us around.  The
next move is theirs."
        "OK, I'm out," Priss replied, thumbing her bike to life.  "Be
nice to sleep in my own bed for a change anyway."

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2032
MEGA TOKYO BATTLEDROME

        Nene Romanova was good and ticked off, and when she was good
and ticked off there were only two things that could really make her
feel better.  One was to go on a Knight Sabers op, but that wasn't
what a person could call a reliable outlet; missions happened when
they happened, either because of a rogue boomer - and there was no
predicting those - or a contract - and those never happened on the
weekends because Sylia's underworld fixer was very particular about
his weekends.  Something about his divorce settlement and visitations
with his kids.
        The other was to come down to the BattleDrome and just -blow
some stuff up-.
        She climbed into her favorite pod - #6 in the fourth cluster,
back left corner of the 'Drome - and slotted her MechWarrior ID tab,
which was keyed to both her payment and scoring accounts.  The pod
canopy hissed down and locked; a moment later the holo-environment
rezzed up, drawing the interior of a 'Mech hangar.
        MISSION IN PROGRESS THIS POD CLUSTER, the main display said.
JOIN?  Y/N
        What the hell.  She usually played solo or with friends she
already knew, but it was fun to jump into a random mission in progress
sometimes - particularly if the other players actually roleplayed the
MechWarrior experience.  Most didn't, but occasionally she got lucky.
She decided to roll the dice and picked "Y".
        While the screen said PLEASE WAIT, Nene strapped in - the pods
were on motion-control rigs and tended to buck around quite a bit
under heavy fire - and snugged up her neurohelmet.  Then she ran
through the last of the immersion-breaking tasks: picking a 'Mech from
the list of units her accumulated combat record entitled her to.
        There was a momentary pause while the pod computer loaded the
configuration of her favorite unit and rearranged a few of the
controls accordingly; then the virtual image of a 'Mech technician
emerged from off to one side, glowsticks in hand, and guided her out
of her bay.
        "Sidehacker, this is Colonel Pearson," the familiar voice of
the game's "operations officer" said in her earphones.  "Welcome to
Halloran V.  Your callsign for this mission is White Star Two.  White
Star Leader is engaged with Jade Falcon forces two klicks
north-northeast of your current location.  Proceed to Nav Alpha at
best speed and reinforce him."
        Nene keyed her com.  "Roger that, Ops.  White Star Two, moving
out."
        Now this was more like it.  No worrying about the mysterious
strangers who had penetrated most (if not all) of the Knight Sabers'
secrets but didn't seem inclined to do anything about it.  No dealing
with grumpy Linna or even-more-remote-and-thoughtful-than-usual Sylia.
Just Nene, her Mad Cat, and the 31st century's all-consuming warfare!
IN THE GRIM FUTURE OF HELLO NENE THERE IS ONLY WAR!  A simpler,
cleaner life.
        At least when lived in chunks of an hour or two at a time.
        "White Star Lead, this is White Star Two," she called.  "I'm
one klick from Nav Alpha.  I don't see your IFF on my radar."
        "Roger that, White Star Two," the voice of White Star Leader -
a man, but not much more could be told through the distortion of the
tactical band - replied.  "I'm spoofing my IFF transponder right now.
These Clanners don't seem to know what to make of it, but they'll
figure it out soon enough."
        Nene felt a smile stealing onto her face.  He sounded like a
roleplayer, and moreover, he sounded experienced.  How lucky could one
girl get?
        "Enemy detected," the Mad Cat's onboard computer reported as
the first red blip appeared at the outer range of her radar display.
Nene tabbed her threat display and had a look.  A Masakari, oh ho!
The Clan forces meant business.  Well, they usually did, didn't they?
        As Nene crested a rise, the battle zone was revealed.  The
burned-out wrecks of three 'Mechs littered the shallow valley this
ridge overlooked, their types impossible to determine now - but they
looked big, probably heavies or assault 'Mechs.  Her radar beeped
again and again as more hostile targets appeared.  She knew without
counting them how many there had to be.
        Two full Stars of Clan 'Mechs against -one guy-?  He's either
good or just crazy, she thought.
        The tone of long-range missile lock sang in her neurohelmet;
she squeezed the trigger and sent 40 LRMs rocketing off to rain down
on the unsuspecting Masakari.  The Clan 'Mech pivoted - and in doing
so revealed the single friendly all these Clanners were trying and so
far failing to kill.
        Nene was so surprised that for a moment she neglected to
follow up her bombardment with laserfire.
        "A Warhammer!" she breathed.
        White Star Leader was piloting an honest-to-God -Warhammer-,
one of the original 'Mechs from the very first tabletop Battletech
game.  To a modern virtual-reality MechWarrior like Nene, seeing one
on the battlefield was like seeing a Roman centurion piling out of a
SWAT van.
        She knew that the original 'Mechs - the Unseen, as modern
players had dubbed them - had been modeled for Virtual MechWar.  She'd
seen an Archer once, a year or so before, and it had the same effect
of astonishing her completely.  The Unseen were never piloted by
computer opponents; they could only be controlled by human players.
Further, they had only been unlockable for a very brief window of time,
and that window was a -long- time ago.  For the man in Pod 1 to have
a Warhammer on his account, he had to have been an active player, and
one experienced enough to succeed in a difficult special mission,
during the "40 Years of Battletech" special event.
        In 2024.
        Nene Romanova was nine years old in 2024.
        She shook her head and got her mind back on the fight.  Now
was not the time to be woolgathering about the implications of an
antique 'Mech chassis.  If she didn't get on the stick and help this
guy, massively experienced player though he must be, the Clanners
would be happy to show her what a Warhammer looked like when it went
critical, and she could do without seeing that.
        "White Star Lead, I have you in sight.  Break left and I'll
get that Ryoken off your back."
        "Roger that, Two.  He's a persistent little fellow."
        The Warhammer broke left as requested, opening up the medium
Clanner harassing him to a missile spread.  Weapon fire from the
Masakari whipped all around Nene's Mad Cat, a few shots striking home
and pitting armor, but Nene's shots told first, cooking off the
Ryoken's missile ammo in a spectacular fireball.
        Nene twisted her Mad Cat's torso to the left, tracking on the
Masakari while continuing to run east.  One nice thing about Halloran
V: She didn't have to worry much about heat buildup fighting on an ice
planet.  She let the Masakari have it with all four of the lasers
built into her 'Mech's arms.  The big Clan unit staggered, its cannon
fire going wide.
        WHAM!  Something hit the Mad Cat from behind, causing it to
lurch violently and lose missile lock on the Masakari.
        "Heads up, Two, you've got a shadow," Lead announced.  She
looked and saw the Warhammer's torso pivot, those two long tubular
arms leveling as if at HER -
        The brilliant bolts of the Warhammer's dual PPCs shrieked past
Nene's cockpit, passing so close they made her displays fuzz out for a
moment.  From behind her and to the right she heard the harsh crackle
of armor and systems being savaged by the twin particle beams, and
then the distinctive whining blast of a reactor critting off.  One of
the red dots disappeared from her scope.  She hadn't even seen what
type it was.
        "I have to give that guy credit for guts," Lead remarked,
"bringing a Shadow Cat to a fight like this.  Vector to one-two-one
and watch your left flank, that Thor's taking an interest... "
        They found each other's rhythm quickly, each getting
comfortable with the other's skill level and style of battle.  White
Star Lead was a gunnery fighter.  He concentrated on one target at a
time and brought it down with precision fire.  Nene preferred to chip
away, using her pulse lasers to harass an enemy while her LRM racks
reloaded; Lead liked to nail enemy units with both barrels, so to
speak, pulling off extreme torso twists and the occasional dual-arm
track while using his secondary weapons to set up a twin-PPC
deathblow.
        It was Nene who had the last shot, raining the very last of
her Mad Cat's missiles on that same damn Masakari she'd tangled with
at the beginning of the fight and watching with great satisfaction as
its reactor boiled over.
        "Nice shooting, Two," Lead remarked.  "Ops, this area's
clear.  Two Stars eliminated."
        "Roger, White Star Lead.  Return to base for refit and
debrief."

        Not bad! Nene thought as she acknowledged the "Pod 1 has left
the game" message.  Normally she didn't shut down and dismount just to
meet other players face-to-face, but for this guy she'd make an
exception; she saved her mission score, extracted her ID tab, and
climbed out, hoping she'd catch him.
        She did, but when she did the sight of him brought her up
short with a gasp.
        "Y - YOU!" she blurted.
        Ben Stark blinked, apparently just as surprised as she was.
        "Oh, uh... hi!" he said.  "Fancy meeting you here."
        "Are YOU following ME now?" she demanded, but he held his
hands up and shook his head.
        "No, not at all," he said.  "This is just a coincidence,
honest.  I didn't even know you played."
        Nene weighed that (along with the slightly funny look of
bafflement on his face) and decided she believed him.  She wondered
what to do.  Sylia hadn't said anything about what to do if she
just... -ran into- one of them in some random place like the 'Drome;
only if they sought her out, tried to get her to go anywhere with
them, or the like.
        Curiosity had been burning within her since Sylia had first
set her to investigating the background of this man called Stark,
though, and now that she had him alone... 
        "Come with me," she said.  He blinked.  "I'm hungry," she
added, indicating with her head the Solaris Cafe in the far corner of
the 'Drome.

        Once they had their burgers and their seats, Nene decided to
rattle Stark's cage a little and see what happened.
        "I have a question for you, Mr. Benjamin Hunter Stark," she
said cheerfully.
        "Shoot," he replied.
        Nene grinned, folded her hands and perched her chin on them,
her green eyes twinkling with merriment.  "Well!" she said.  "I know
you changed your name in 2027, when you inherited Stark Industries.
That's a matter of public record.  What I -don't- know is why there's
no record of you under -any- name before 2021."
        Stark gave her a blank look for a moment, then returned his
attention to his cheese fries.
        "Oh no, it's no good pretending you don't know what I'm
talking about," said Nene with a slightly nasty grin.  "I've done my
homework.  Your birth records say you were born in 2003, but they were
-created- in 2021.  Whoever did it covered his tracks well, but not
well enough to fool -me-."  She folded her arms and looked smug for a
moment.  When he didn't react for several seconds, she opened an eye
and scowled at him, then put both hands flat on the table and
demanded, "Well?  Aren't you going to say anything?"
        Stark calmly finished chewing his latest bite of burger, put
the rest of the sandwich down, used his napkin in an unhurried manner,
and then replied,
        "No."
        "NO?!" Nene squeaked, making nearby patrons turn to look.
Reddening, she lowered her voice and went on in a furious hiss, "But
I've GOT you!  Dead to rights!"
        "You've got nothing but a few facts that don't line up and a
hunch," Stark replied flatly.  "I respect hunches, and I respect your
diligence, but if you expected me to spill my guts in a video arcade
snack bar, you're even more naive than you look."
        "What?  Now you listen here - "
        "No, -you- listen, Officer Nene Romanova," Stark interrupted.
His voice was calm, not combative, but it stopped her irritated
bluster cold as he went on, "You think you've got something on me?
Well, maybe you do.  God knows I've got things on you.  My goal isn't
blackmail, though, and I hope yours isn't either."
        Nene blinked at him, momentarily at a loss for words.
        Stark gave her a little smile and went on, "Look, we've all
got things we prefer, for whatever reason, to hide.  You and your
friends have your, uh, second jobs.  There are gaps in my personal
history.  You ran away from home and lied about your age to join the
AD Police.  We all have our secrets.  Well, except for Zoner.  He's
pretty much exactly what you see."
        Nene stared at him in vaguely horrified disbelief, all her
triumph having melted away.  He smiled at her again - a kindly,
non-threatening sort of smile - and said gently,
        "You're not the only one who can trace spoofed birth records."
        Nene fumbled around for her powers of speech for a few
moments, then said, "I... what... "
        Stark shook his head, looking a little annoyed with himself.
"I told you I didn't want this to turn into blackmail.  Yes.  All
right?  There are reasons why my past has holes in it, and I hope
someday we get to know each other well enough that I can tell you what
they are."
        Nene felt her face redden slightly - this guy must be, what,
12 years older than her? - and then she saw a look of discomfort flash
across his face, as if it had just occurred to him how that statement
could be taken.  He gave her a sheepish grin.
        "That's, uh, not what I meant," he said.
        Nene laughed.  Immediately she liked him again.  She found
herself doing this a lot - making snap judgments of people's character
based on early impressions - and her instincts, it must be said, had
rarely steered her wrong.
        "So what now?" she asked.  "Mr. Big Time Secret Keeper?"
        His reply startled her anew.
        "Can you get me a meeting with your boss?" he asked.
        "You mean at the ADP?" she replied weakly, but he just smiled
and shook his head.
        "No.  I mean Sylia Stingray."
        The name hit her like a hammer to the forehead.  Jesus!  He
knew Sylia's name!  He knew -all- their names.  But how had he cracked
Sylia's?  She had never joined in the surveillance.  There was no way
he could ever have seen her face and run an identiscan on it.  There
was nothing in the public record to connect her in any way to anything
-like- the Knight Sabers' operations; she had made sure of that
herself, and if Nene Romanova had one thing, it was confidence in her
ability to manipulate records data - though Stark had already shaken
that once today.
        She considered trying to brazen it out, but he had her.  He'd
seen her entire train of thought; if Nene Romanova lacked one thing,
it was a good poker face.
        "I... I don't know," she finally said.  "I'll pass the message
along, but... I can't promise anything."
        Stark nodded.  "Fair enough," he said.  He rummaged in the
inside pocket of his overcoat for a moment, came out with a card, and
handed it to her.  "You know where to find me," he added with a grin,
"but I might as well make it official."  He got up, picked up his
tray, then paused and added, "Oh - when you do talk to the boss lady,
you might let her know that I'd like to return her property."  At
Nene's surprised blink, he grinned again and said, "What, did you
think I was going to steal it?"
        "Uh, well... "  Nene shrugged.
        "Not my style," Stark said.  "My mobile number's on the back,
call anytime," he added.  "If you want someplace neutral to meet, this
place works as well as any.  Plus I wouldn't mind gaming with you
again sometime."
        "Really?"
        "Really."  He waved.  "Be seeing you."
        "Bye," Nene said.  She watched him drop off his tray at the
sanistation and leave, then dove for her cellphone.


>>> INFOFEED
    FROM blog:starkwire.com
    POSTED: 20320221.1341 (UTC)

WHAT'S ON MY MIND: BENJAMIN STARK'S PERSONAL LOG

SUBJECT: That was fun.

I hit the Mega Tokyo BattleDrome tonight.  First time I've strapped on
a MechWar pod in a year or so.  I've still got most of my moves, which
was nice.  I met a neat girl, which was nicer.  Then I realized that
when I registered my MechWar account, she was probably in something
like the second grade.

So now I feel old.

What?  They're not all going to be Pulitzer-winning insights crafted
with loving care from the finest, most elegant verbiage.

>>> END INFOFEED


MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2032
STARK INDUSTRIES BRANCH OFFICE
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

        The nice thing about owning a multinational corporation, as
far as Ben Stark was concerned, was that you could basically find a
place to set up shop anywhere in the world, at least for a little
while.  Almost all of Stark Industries' branch offices had a vacant
desk -someplace- that nobody minded the boss camping out at for a
couple of weeks.
        Much longer than that, though, and folks started getting a
little antsy, which was why he had a StarkWire "home office" back in
Boston, even though the actual location of the entirety of StarkWire's
staff and physical plant at any given time was wherever he was.  It
gave him a quiet place to sit, think, plot, make airplane
reservations, whatever.  A physical office wasn't really a necessity
in today's wired world, but it made him feel better to have a home
base somewhere.
        If he was going to stay much longer in Tokyo, he'd have to
think about setting up a proper StarkWire office here, so he could get
out of the corner office at the Stark Industries sales office in
Akihabara.  Someone would want it eventually, he was sure.  He'd heard
rumors around of a new district sales manager coming in at the end of
the month.
        Standing at the window of his temporary office, looking at the
antlike figures of the people walking along the sidewalk 20 floors
down, he wondered if he'd be in town that long.  Technically, he'd
gotten what he came for on the very first night.  The smart thing to
do now would be to hand back the hardsuit, assuming the Knight Sabers
made contact and wanted it back, and then head back to the States and
find the next story to chase.  Rumors he'd picked up of recent
developments aboard the Genaros space station had the sound of
something intriguing...
        The office door opened and Zoner poked his head in.
        "Yo.  Anything?"
        Stark turned and shook his head.  "Nope."
        "Oh.  Lunch?"
        "Might as - "
        Stark's phone rang.
        " - hang on."  He flipped it open.  "Stark."
        "Mr. Stark, this is Sylia Stingray."
        Stark gestured to Zoner.  Zoner nodded and activated his
TeleJack, then gave a thumbs-up to tell Stark he could hear both sides
of the conversation.
        "Oh, hello," Stark said.  "I was beginning to wonder if you
were going to call."
        "To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure I should.  An associate
of mine passed on your message about my property, but I think you must
be mistaken.  I run a ladies' wear shop.  We specialize in... intimate
items, you understand.  It seems highly unlikely that you would have
anything of mine."
        Zoner snorted.
        "If you'd like to meet somewhere, I can show it to you," Stark
offered.  Zoner thumped himself in the meaty part of one leg with a
fist to keep from laughing.
        "... Very well.  You don't need to bring all of it, though.  I
think our first meeting should be someplace neutral.  Someplace
public."
        "Mm."  Stark nodded out of habit, then agreed, "You're right,
not the best of settings for showing off any... intimate items.  How
about if I just bring the maker's tag?"
        "That would be sufficient, I think.  Would you care to suggest
a meeting place, or shall I?"
        "You know this city far better than I do.  I'm at your
disposal."
        "All right.  Can you find your way to La Vie Riche?"
        "I think so."
        "Good.  Reserve one of the private rooms there in your name
for 7 o'clock tonight.  It'll be a small party - just me, my three
associates, and whomever you decide to bring along.  For security's
sake, we'll meet outside and enter together."
        "Fine.  I'll have one person with me.  My personal physician.
I never go out to eat in a strange city without him."
        There was a pause; then Sylia's voice returned, sounding very
faintly amused.  "Very wise.  I look forward to meeting you then,
Mr. Stark.  Goodbye for now."
        "Bye," said Stark, but she had already hung up.
        "Wow," Zoner said.  "She has a really sexy voice."
        Stark gave his phone a bemused look, shrugged and made a
noncommittal but not argumentative sound, folded it up, put it away,
and then said to Zoner, "I wonder if she thought the thing about my
personal physician was code for something else?"
        "Probably."  Zoner grinned.  "I bet they all think I'm a
security boomer."
        Stark snorted.  "Stark Industries doesn't even -make- boomers."
        "Sure, if you believe the -press department-," Zoner replied.


>>> INFOFEED
    FROM printedcircuits:starkwire.com
    POSTED: 20320223.0911 (UTC)
 << EMBARGOED: NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE UNTIL 20320224.0000 (UTC) >>

SPECIAL RELEASE FOR ALL STARKWIRE SUBSCRIBERS
by Benjamin Stark

I have a date tonight - in a little less than an hour, in fact - -
with a very special group of ladies.  That's right, group.  No, it's
not what you're thinking.  I'm still in Tokyo, I haven't caught a
transorb to Genaros.

If you're reading this, it didn't go well.  In fact, I would bet that
if you're reading this, I'm dead.

You see, the women I'm going to meet for dinner at 7 p.m. Tokyo time
tonight are the Knight Sabers.  Since I've come to town, I have -
through a combination of blind luck I'm not too proud to admit and
good investigative work I'm not too humble to take credit for -
learned the identities of all four of them.

I came to Tokyo bent on proving that they exist.  I did that before
I'd been in town an hour.  In the process, I saw the first one's face
and learned her name.  By the end of the week I had them all.  And
here's the thing: They're not the sort of people you would expect.
Most of them are regular people, just like you and me.  One's a
fitness instructor who's studying law on the side.  One's an
up-and-coming musician, and a pretty good one, too.  One's even a
police officer.

That surprised me.  More, it intrigued me.  What I thought would be
the end of a big story turned out to be just the beginning of a bigger
one.  As the week went on I became obsessed with it.  I knew their
faces, their names, their jobs - but all that knowledge did was teach
me that I know nothing about them.  -Who- -are- these women?  Why do
they do what they do?  What drives them to risk their lives in defense
of a city that, for the most part, doesn't even have the grace to be
grateful?

I have to know... so I've told them.  I've told them that I know their
names.  I'm meeting with them tonight to try and get the rest of it.
Because I'm a journalist.  Because I have to know.  My instincts - and
my instincts have been pretty reliable over the years - tell me that I
have nothing to fear... and that I may even find what I'm looking for.

If I'm right, you won't read about this for years - maybe never.

But if I'm wrong, I wanted you to know what happened to me.

Mahalo.

 - BHS

 << ATTACHMENTS FOLLOW: KNIGHT SABERS DOSSIERS 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 >>

 << EMBARGOED: NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE UNTIL 20320223.0000 (UTC) >>
>>> END INFOFEED


6:54 PM
LA VIE RICHE

        Stark and MegaZone arrived at La Vie Riche to find three of
the four women waiting for them in the parking lot.  They had
apparently come in the same car, at the sight of which Stark was
mildly startled.
        "Wow," Zoner said.  "Is that a Benz gullwing?"
        Stark nodded.  "300SL.  1957, I think, if it's not a replica.
I'd bet that it's not, too."
        "A classy car for a classy lady," Zoner observed, his eyes no
longer focused on the red Mercedes.  "I like her style."
        La Vie Riche was a formal restaurant, the kind of place that
preferred its gentleman customers in full evening dress but would
grudgingly accept a jacket and tie.  Stark and Zoner had taken this
into account and were dressed in the full penguin regalia.  The two
women who had accompanied Sylia - Linna and Nene - were doing their
best with what Stark guessed were their job-interview clothes, and
they were certainly presentable; but Sylia Stingray was something to
see, draped in a silvery dress of moderately daring cut, her dark hair
expertly coifed.
        Well, Stark thought wryly, she -is- a fashion designer.
        "Good evening, ladies," he said as he climbed out of the
Camaro.  "You're looking lovely tonight.  Thanks for agreeing to meet
us."
        "Mr. Stark," Sylia said cordially, inclining her head.  "I
believe you've met my associates, Linna Yamazaki, Nene Romanova."
        "I haven't actually met Miss Yamazaki," said Stark, bowing to
the black-haired young woman with a smile.  "Miss Romanova, on the
other hand, has had the pleasure of saving my bacon once already.
Virtually, at least.  May I introduce my friend and colleague
Dr. MegaZone," he added as Zoner rounded the back of the car.
        Sylia nodded.  "Doctor."
        Zoner grinned.  "Pleased to meet you.  Call me Zoner."  He
looked around.  "Where's Priss?"
        As if summoned by her name, the fourth member of the Knight
Sabers organization pulled up on her motorcycle, shut it down next to
Sylia's Benz, climbed off, pulled off her helmet, and said in a tone
that made it clear she wasn't really all that concerned,
        "Yo.  Am I late?"
        "Only just," Sylia replied without consulting her watch.
"But you've made the acquaintances of Mr. Stark and Dr. MegaZone
already."
        Priss arched an eyebrow skeptically.  "'Doctor Megazone'?"
        "Or 'MegaZone, MD', if you prefer," Zoner said.  "One way I
sound like a supervillain, the other way I sound like a TV show about
a coroner."  He shrugged.  "Six of one.  Friends call me Zoner."
        Priss snorted.  "Have it your way," she said, then added
tartly, "Doctor."
        "(Ooh, burn,)" Stark muttered under his breath as he led the
way to the restaurant.
        "(I like her.  She's sassy,)" Zoner replied, his eyes
twinkling.
        Zoner held the outer door and Stark the inner.  Only as Priss
walked past him into the restaurant itself did it occur to the latter
man that she was dressed pretty much the same as the last time he'd
seen her: in cycling boots, leather jeans, and a matching motorcycle
jacket adorned with rather more buckles and zippers than one
customarily saw on dinnerwear.  The only real difference was what she
had on under the jacket - a man's dress shirt and tie.
        The maitre-d' seemed uncomfortable with this.  Attempting to
be as diplomatic as possible - she was the guest of an important and
well-to-do American businessman, after all - he asked,
        "Er... is this what you will be wearing tonight, miss?"
        Priss gave him a "what kind of question is that" look and
replied, "Yeah.  So?"  She inclined her head toward the discreet sign
by the maitre-d' station: PATRONS MUST WEAR JACKET AND TIE.  "I have a
jacket.  I have a tie."
        "Uh... that sign is primarily intended for our -gentlemen-
customers."
        Priss leaned very close to the man, her nose almost touching
his, and told him in a low voice, "Ask me if I care."
        "Is there some problem?" Stark asked in his smoothest business
voice, slipping artfully between the two and managing to push them
apart without seeming to be manhandling anyone.
        "No, no, not at all, Mr. Stark," the maitre-d' replied
hastily.  "Your private room is ready.  Right this way, please."
        "(You sure have a way with people, Priss,)" Linna whispered as
the group followed him up a flight of wrought-iron stairs and across a
narrow balcony to one of the restaurant's private dining rooms.
        "(It's my gentle, artistic personality,)" Priss replied
darkly.  "(People are just drawn to me.)"
        Linna suppressed a snort.
        The conversation was light and casual - and entirely deniable -
during the phase of the dinner in which waiters were coming and going,
delivering bread, taking orders, bringing appetizers, and so on.  Only
when the dessert and coffee were on the table and the door closed and
privacy-sealed did the atmosphere in the room darken a bit; before
then they all could almost have believed that they were just friendly
business associates having dinner together, perhaps to celebrate the
signing of a new deal.
        "Mr. Stark," Sylia said, her quiet voice cutting through and
stilling the light conversations.  All eyes turned to her as she went
on, "I believe you have something to show me."
        Stark smiled.  "Two things, actually."  He reached into his
jacket - Priss stiffened slightly, narrowing her eyes, but didn't make
a move - and took out a pair of envelopes.  These he put on the table
and slid with a flick of his finger down to Sylia.
        "The one with the red corner is your proof that I have the
item Nene and I spoke of."  Sylia opened the envelope and removed from
it a broken fragment of a circuit board - just so much electronic junk
to anyone unfamiliar with its origin, but unmistakable to its creator.
"It was already broken like that when I came into possession of it.
I've done no further damage to the item while I've had it."
        Sylia examined the circuit board - part of the display
management system from Priss's hardsuit helmet - then put it back in
its envelope and tucked it away in her small handbag.  "And the
other?"
        "Have a look," Stark said.
        Sylia opened the second envelope and tipped its contents into
the palm of her hand.  It contained a single electronic chip, about an
inch square.  Its lower surface was a forest of little platinum pins;
its upper surface was smooth and bore the distinctive Stark Industries
trademark.
        "That's a Stark Industries 7010 signal processor," Stark
said.  "I noticed that your existing design uses a group of 7000 SPs
to handle some of the logic elements.  The 7010 is pin-compatible with
the 7000 and shows about a 15-percent increase in efficiency, with
roughly a 10-percent decrease in energy consumption.  It's brand new -
won't be on the vendor market for three months, nor the general market
for six.  I expect that replacing all the 7000s in your existing
product with 7010s would net you a significant performance boost.  Not
dramatic, but enough to make the changeover worth your while."
        "Hmm," Sylia said.  Then she put the chip back in the envelope
and said, "What a shame it won't be available for months."
        Stark smiled.  "I own the company," he said.  "I could have
500 of them for you tomorrow."
        The other Knight Sabers stared at him with varying degrees of
bafflement.  Sylia's fine-featured face was expressionless, but he
could see a spark of interest in her dark eyes as she regarded him.
        "Why?" she asked.  "What do you expect in return?"
        "Your story," Stark said.  "I want you to tell me who you
are."
        "You know who we are," Priss growled.
        "No.  I know your names.  Your faces.  I don't know -you-.
Not yet.  And I want to."
        "(God, you were right,)" Linna whispered to Priss.  "(He
-does- want to meet girls.)"
        "Your curiosity is understandable," Sylia said.  "We're a
story, you're a journalist.  You must understand that what you ask is
impossible, though.  Our effectiveness - our very survival - depends
on anonymity.  After all," she added with a dry little smile, "we
-are- criminals.  If we told you our story and you published it, the
AD Police would be at our doors in the morning, and after we've
embarrassed them so consistently for the last two years, I doubt
they'd bother arresting us."
        Stark shook his head.  "I didn't say I want to -tell- your
story.  Not now.  I want to -know- it.  And... "  He hesitated, unsure
how to say the next part.  "... I want to help you."
        "We don't need help from some gaijin fatcat," Priss snapped.
"In case you haven't noticed, we're doing fine on our own."
        "Priss," Sylia said, her voice just the tiniest bit sharp.
Priss shot her a look, but subsided, and Sylia went on, "Your proposal
is intriguing, Mr. Stark.  I presume the help you're offering is more
than just a handful of signal processors."
        "When I agree to back a project," Stark replied, "I back it
all the way.  Even if it costs me in the end."
        "Which involvement with the Knight Sabers surely would," Sylia
pointed out.  "You would be aiding and abetting Japan's most wanted
criminals.  If we were ever caught, you would almost certainly be
brought down with us.  And you could hardly expect to turn a profit
from our activities.  We do some mercenary work, as I'm sure you know,
but all our gains that don't go to support our overhead - less fair
cuts for the ladies here, of course - goes into research and
development."
        Stark grinned - actually grinned, not just a conversational
smile - at that.  "My company wrote the book on obsessive R&D," he
said.  "How do you think we manage to stay number four in the world
with an operation so much more streamlined than GENOM's?  Because we
make our products -right-.  That takes a -hell- of a lot of research
reinvestment."
        Sylia nodded.  "As it happens, I use a lot of Stark products
in my work - for their reliability, and because your company is one of
the few really capable technology companies that doesn't have any
connection to GENOM."
        "At least none that I could ever find," Nene chipped in.
        "Still, I have reservations about this whole affair," Sylia
went on.  "We have powerful enemies, Mr. Stark.  It's not beyond
imagining that they would arrange a scheme as elaborate as this to
eliminate us."
        "If I wanted to eliminate you, I could've done it already.
Look, if we're going to work together - and I'm not presuming we will
be, I'm just taking note of something that has to happen if we're even
going to try - we have to trust each other.  I understand that's a
hard thing to do.  Like I told Nene, we all have secrets."
        "Except me," Zoner put in, making Linna, who was seated
nearest him, jump a little - it had been so long since he spoke that
she'd half-forgotten he was there.  He caught her eye and gave her a
little grin that was probably supposed to be reassuring.
        "Except Zoner," Stark added automatically.  "I think, on
balance, I know more of your secrets than you know of mine right now.
Fine.  I recognize that.  The balance is uneven.  But, on the flip
side, I think I can help you more than you can help me.  As you've
pointed out, getting involved with your organization doesn't get me
much other than expense and potential trouble.  Even if I were to
expose you, what would that get me?  A scoop, sure, but how much will
I be able to enjoy that when it's set against the knowledge that I've
left Mega Tokyo unguarded by anybody but those cretins at the AD
Police?"
        "Hey!" Nene squeaked.  Priss gave a half-suppressed snort of
laughter - she had decided that, weirdo though he was, she really did
like this guy's style, if nothing else.
        "So... your proposal is that we cast prudence and caution
aside and trust each other without sufficient evidence that that trust
is warranted," Sylia said skeptically.
        "More or less," Stark replied.  "Look at it this way.  We're
already showing each other some trust right now.  You four could have
blown us away and gotten away with it a dozen times over the past
week.  I could have plastered your faces all over the InfoWeb and had
the AD Police at your door at any hour of the day or night for the
last few days.  But you haven't and I haven't.  Isn't that a start?"
        Sylia considered him for a long, long moment, her slim hands
folded on the table before her, her face completely impassive.  She
almost seemed to be weighing him, trying to judge him, with her eyes.
        Then she said, "I don't - "
        Behind Sylia and one level down, the windows at the front of
the restaurant imploded.  Everyone in the private room jumped up.
Linna and Nene darted toward the front, flanking Sylia, trying to see
what was going on; Stark probably would have gone with them, but Zoner
had thrown an arm across his chest, holding him back.  With his other
hand, the big man had whipped out his pistol and was leveling it at
the nearest threat - 
        - Priss Asagiri, who had her own gun out and leveled at him in
turn.
        Zoner looked into the Knight Saber's angry eyes and told her
in his most level voice, "This has nothing to do with us."
        She narrowed her eyes slightly... 
        ... then took her weapon off him and went to join her comrades
at the front of the room.  Zoner and Stark followed.
        Down below, what looked like a commando squad was invading the
restaurant.  Patrons and staff ran screaming or cowered under tables
as a dozen men and women in black battle dress and two four-legged
combat droids - not boomers, but competing products of another big
company - stormed through the shattered windows.
        "Fan out and find them!" a man with red shoulder caps on his
flak jacket - their leader, apparently - barked.  "They're in one of
the private rooms!"
        Zoner and Priss looked at each other.
        "Friends of yours?" they said in unison.
        "They're not from GENOM," Linna said.
        "Unless they're deniable," Nene pointed out.
        One of the commandos saw them watching and pointed.  "Sir!  Up
there!"
        The leader made a whirling motion with one hand, then closed
it into a fist.  "Take 'em out!"
        "Hell," Zoner grated.  "Gryph, you better try to get out
through the kitchen.  Take the others with you.  I'll hold 'em here as
long as I can."
        "Not by yourself you won't," Priss said.
        Sylia considered the situation for an instant, then nodded.
"All right.  You two cover us.  Linna, Nene, you're with me.  Let's
go, Mr. Stark."  A tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she
added, "You may just get a chance to see the Knight Sabers in action."
        The kitchens were clear - of attackers and of employees, the
latter having apparently fled when the commotion started out front.
Within a few moments the four were through the service door and onto
the loading dock, which backed onto a parking garage.
        A large panel truck of the type often used for urban
deliveries sat idling on the ground-level deck of the garage.  A young
man - teenage boy, really, was sitting at the wheel reading a
magazine; he looked up in some shock at the sight of the three women
and one man in evening dress running toward him, then ran his window
down and said,
        "Hey, Sis, what's going on?"
        "No time, Mackie!" Sylia snapped.  "Prep the mobile bay for
action.  We have to go back in there and get Priss and Dr. MegaZone
out."
        "Who the hell is Dr. MegaZone?" Mackie asked.
        "Didn't I just say 'no time'?" Sylia replied.
        "OK, OK," Mackie said, flipping switches on his instrument
panel.  "The bays are hot, go to it.  I take it you don't care if this
guy knows," he added sourly.
        "He already knows, Mackie.  This is Mr. Stark.  You've heard
us talking about him.  Mr. Stark, my brother Mackie.  If you'll excuse
me, I have to change."

        While he waited, Benjamin Stark stood with his back to the
truck, staring hard at the restaurant.  He could hear faint sounds of
gunfire and explosions even from here.  Zoner was in there fighting
for his life, having put it on the line to cover his friend and
employer's escape.  That was what he did, after all.  "Bodyguard"
wasn't part of his job description, but both men knew it was there.
        Stark hated it.  He hated the powerlessness, the waiting, the
feeling that he hadn't earned the kind of sacrifice his friend's
selfless defense might eventually demand.  He especially hated knowing
that he had the power to change all of that - if he only dared run the
risk involved in seizing hold of it.
        These four women took that kind of risk every time they suited
up, and they did it to protect an entire city full of people who would
probably fear them if they met face-to-faceplate.  A city whose
government had first dismissed them as mythical and then declared them
public enemies number one.  While he, Benjamin Stark, played with his
company and wrote nice things for his blog and pretended that any of
that mattered.
        He drove a fist into his opposite palm.
        No more, damn it!  No more!
        The Knight Sabers emerged just moments later, three trimly
armored figures, powered up and ready for action.  They made to pass
him without acknowledgement and throw themselves into the fight, but
he put out a hand and stopped one of them.
        "Nene - wait," he said.
        "What?  What is it?" Nene replied, her voice slightly
distorted by the amplifier in her helmet - the better to defeat
voiceprint identification, Stark supposed.
        "I need your help," Stark said.
        "Uh... I'm kinda -busy- right now?" Nene pointed out,
gesturing toward the building and her already-disappearing teammates.
        "Please," Stark said, gripping her pauldron hard.  He knew she
could shrug out of his grip without any effort at all in that suit,
and it was hard to tell if he was really making contact with the
person inside when he couldn't see her face at all through her opaque
helmet visor - so he stared as hard as he could at where he thought
her eyes would be and said again, "-Please-."
        "... OK, but this had better be good," Nene said.

        It was.
        Stark led her to the back of his car, opened the trunk, and
started punching a code into a hidden keypad.  Nene started to ask
what was in there, but before she could do so, a panel slid open and
she saw it for herself.
        It was a hardsuit.
        Well, sort of.  It was in pieces, rather than all together the
way the Knight Sabers' hardsuits were when they weren't in use; each
of this armored suit's segments was fitted into a carefully sculpted
foam socket in the shielded compartment below the hidden panel.  Each
piece was formed of some dull dark grey metal, not polished or
thermocoated like the Sabers' suits.  And... there was a piece
missing.
        "Where's the - " Nene started to ask, but then Stark, who had
shrugged out of his tuxedo jacket and tossed it into the back of the
car already, yanked his shirt off over his head to reveal that his
torso was clad in the same dark metal.  " - oh."
        "Help me suit up," he said.  "The suit wasn't designed for
urban combat.  It can't be put on without help."
        "That's kind of a big design flaw, y'know," she pointed out.
        "I know," he replied wryly.  "I was kind of in a hurry when I
designed it."

        Back in the restaurant, Priss and Zoner were holding their
own.  Neither was very familiar with the layout of the restaurant, but
the commandos didn't seem to be either, so that worked out all right.
They weren't making any headway, but they at least kept themselves
alive and distracted the commandos, whoever they were, from picking on
the other patrons.  Most everybody had managed to clear out within a
couple of minutes.
        "Oi!  Zoner!  You still alive?" Priss called from behind the
lower-level lounge bar.
        "So far so good," Zoner replied from the other end of the
bar.  A burst of gunfire answered his announcement; there was the
sound of splintering glass and a loud "FUCK!" from Zoner.
        "What?" Priss asked.
        "Just got a vodka bath.  Not my favorite," Zoner replied.
There was the heavy POW POW POW of three shots from the high-caliber
pistol he carried - Priss made a mental note to ask him what it was if
they both survived the fight - and a clattering thud as one of the
commandos hit the floor.
        "Come on, you guys, how long does it take to suit up?!" Priss
muttered.
        Another commando spotted her crouching behind the bar,
grinned, and pulled a grenade from his equipment harness.  "Got
something for you, kid," he muttered, thumbing out the pin, and then
raised his voice to alert his teammates, "GREN - AAAAH!"
        The unconventional suffix was due to the sudden sharp pain
that stabbed through his right arm near the wrist, which had suddenly
been transfixed with what looked like a foot-long needle of gleaming
steel.  He stared at it for a second, then turned to see where it had
come from, and then realized that he'd dropped the grenade.
        BOOM.

# Loudness
# "Soldier of Fortune"
# Soldier of Fortune

        It was for one of his teammates, then, to see who had actually
shot him - an armored figure coated in gleaming green with orange
accents, one of a pair standing in the wreckage of the upper level
balcony.
        "What the HELL," the red-shouldered leader yelled, "are THEY
doing here?!"
        OK, Priss thought bemusedly, I guess they weren't after us.
        "Hey, where the hell is Nene?" Linna wondered.
        "You guys - umph - are NOT gonna believe this," Nene's voice
replied in the armored Sabers' earpieces.
        Sylia patched her command suit's data system into Nene's
suit's visual sensor stream, blinked, then said crisply, "Very well,
carry on.  Linna and I will get started without you.  Knight Sabers:
Go!"
        "Don't you mean 'Knight -Saber-'?" Linna wondered wryly as she
vaulted the balcony railing, rolled through her landing, and slugged
one of the commandos with a power-assisted fist.
        Priss took advantage of the distraction provided by her fellow
Sabers' arrival to get to her feet and look for a way out.  Ideally
she'd find a way to get to the truck and get into her own hardsuit -
doubly important because Nene, big surprise, didn't seem to be around
for the fighting.  She turned and nearly ran into one of the guys in
tactical gear, who had backed around the corner from the vestibule.
He whirled, bringing his weapon to bear, and grinned.
        Priss had pretty well resigned herself to at least taking a
round in the shoulder when a large, dark blur suddenly shot past her
and plowed into the commando.  He let out an oddly truncated yell and
slumped as the blur, which resolved into Zoner when it stopped moving,
slammed him back against the wall.  A moment later, the reason was
revealed as Zoner stepped back and withdrew his left arm's wolvers
from the man's chest.
        "Those come in handy," Priss observed.
        "You want a set?" Zoner offered.  "It's a patented alloy.  Not
available in stores!"
        "I'll think about it," she said.  "Cover me while I - oh boy."
        "While you what - oh.  Crap."
        They had, it appeared, been found by one of the combat droids.
        "Look out!" Linna yelled, booster-dashing across the room just
as the crab-legged mechanoid, which stood roughly as tall as Zoner
when it raised its legs to full height, took a swipe at him with its
heavy, club-ended melee arm.  Zoner rolled with the blow, which still
almost took his head off, and ended up hurtling over the bar to crash
into the display behind it and absorb still more liquor in an
unapproved manner.
        Linna got there a moment later and caught the thing's arm
before it could swing back down for a try at crushing Priss.  Its
strength was nearly a match for her hardsuit's; she could feel the
actuators straining to maintain the pressure as she levered the arm up
and back, then drove her right fist's concussion array into the joint
where it met the robot's slab-armored body.  The blast didn't blow the
arm completely free, as she had rather been hoping, but did cause it
to fall limp.
        The robot pivoted; Linna saw a laser turret pop up and
energize, and then she was being tackled and thrown to the floor by
Priss as the beam sizzled past overhead to explode an aquarium on the
far side of the lounge.
        "Thanks," she said breathlessly.
        "Ow," Priss replied.
        The robot fired again; Priss rolled one way, Linna the other,
and the beam carved a burning furrow in the carpet between them.
Linna sprang up on one side, opening fire with her chaingun, but all
that was doing was endangering Priss as the rounds ricocheted from the
robot's armor.  Priss popped up on the other and tried a couple of
shots with her pistol, reached the same conclusion, and faded back
toward the bar.
        Zoner pulled himself out of the mess, shaking glass and
droplets of booze from his shoulders, and made an unhappy noise.  He
popped his wolvers again and made to lunge at the robot, possibly
trying to get at the vulnerable parts of its laser array, but Priss
put out a hand to hold him back.
        "Just watch Linna work," she said with a confident little
smile.
        Linna did not disappoint.  She harried the robot from all
sides for a minute or so, chipping at its armor with the concussion
arrays on her right gauntlet and boot, and then - to Zoner's shock -
dove right in underneath it.  As she went, a pair of metallic
streamers extended from housings on the sides of her helmet.  Where
they passed, the knee joints of the robot's two forward legs parted.
Linna twisted in midair while passing below the machine's main body,
slapped a limpet charge onto its thin underbelly armor, and severed
its other two legs on the way out from under.  By the time it had
crashed down and then exploded, she was skidding to a halt in a
one-knee kneel, power gauntlet digging into the floor to stop her, on
the far side of the lounge.
        "She's not bad," Zoner observed as he and Priss picked
themselves up from behind the now-thoroughly-trashed bar.
        "She's the best," Priss said.  "Even better than me."  She
picked up a mostly-undamaged bottle of Canadian Club, shrugged, took a
slug of it, then offered it to Zoner, adding, "If you tell her I said
that, I'll kill you."

        On the other side of the main room, Sylia was tangling with
the other droid.  Her hardsuit lacked a concussion array, and the
vibro-bayonet she mounted as a close-combat weapon instead wasn't much
good against armor this heavy, so her tactic was to try and stay ahead
of it with her hardsuit's advanced flight capabilities and try to
score on its more vulnerable parts with her autocannon.
        If there was one problem with the current generation of
hardsuits, she recognized that it was in the lightness of their
armaments.  The concussion arrays were very handy in close combat, but
they used a lot of power.  The heavy autocannons her suit and Priss's
mounted were accurate and reasonably powerful, but didn't have a lot
of armor-piercing punch, nor could they carry much ammunition.  The
linear accelerators all the suits had were accurate and had good
range, but were almost completely ineffective against armored targets.
The lighter chainguns Linna and Nene had were decent antipersonnel
weapons, but again, useless against armor.
        Sylia had made great strides in the years she had been
refining the hardsuit design.  The first generation had had major
power consumption issues; she had solved those.  The second generation
had been structurally weak in several key areas; she had found ways to
reinforce them.  Through the third generation, they had lacked any
aerial capabilities at all; now three had powered jump capabilities
and one, her own Mark V prototype, could actually fly for short
distances.
        But she never had been able to come up with a really effective
energy weapon.  That was, she was convinced, the future.  A lot of
combat automatons, like the C-series GENOM boomers and combat robots
like this, mounted laser or particle beam weapons, but they were bulky
affairs that only fit in such compact chassis because there were no
extraneous materials - e.g., pilots - inside them.  What she needed
was something small enough to fit into a hardsuit's arm module and
still punchy enough to take on something like this droid.
        As for Sylia herself, her main problem was a tendency to get
so focused on thoughts of improving the hardsuits that she failed to
pay close enough attention to the actual battle conditions.  She
learned this lesson again to her cost when the droid she was facing
managed to bracket her with its laser and shear off the end of one of
her flight wings, instantly rendering the system useless.  She managed
to control her crash pretty well, but she was still pulling herself
together when the droid scuttled up next to her and raised its club
arm high.
        With a sound like a hammer striking a taut steel cable, twin
beams of bright white light converged on the club arm and blew it off
at the middle joint, sending the heavy club flying back to crash into
a potted plant.  The droid seemed taken aback by the sudden loss of
its melee weapon; it took a couple of steps back and regrouped, its
optic cluster scanning the area.  Another beam, this one thicker and
tinged with yellow, slashed across its upper surface and burned the
optic mount away, then tracked up and blew the laser cannon off.
Blinded and disarmed, the robot stumbled around for a few moments,
then shut down.
        Sylia shook her head, rose to one knee, and looked - and could
not believe her eyes.
        Standing framed in the jagged hole left in one of the windows
by the commandos' entry charges was a figure unlike anything she had
ever seen before.  For a moment she almost took it for a boomer; it
was man-shaped, about six feet tall, and very bulky, with ponderous,
powerful-looking limbs.  Its entire surface was sheathed in dark grey
metal.  On its broad chest it had a circular fitting about the size of
a man's palm.  Its face was a smooth steel mask punctuated by a
glowering slot of a mouth and two dark, empty rectangular holes for
eyes.  Its heavy-gauntleted hands hung at its sides, smoke wisping up
between the curled fingers.
        "What the HELL is THAT?!" one of the commandos yelled.
        "I don't know - nail it!" the leader said, and they all opened
fire.  Bullets pinged and whined everywhere as they bounced off the
iron figure's body.  Sylia winced as one of the ricochets rebounded
again from her helmet.
        Unperturbed, the new arrival strode across the room with heavy
tread.  Sylia could hear servos whining and actuators clicking with
every step as he crossed the main dining room.
        "Ta-da!" Nene's voice called in the Knight Sabers' helmets.
"Is he cool or what?"
        "My God.  Is that... -Stark-?" Sylia murmured.
        "You stay - s-s-stay away from me!" the lead commando yelled
as the grey-armored figure walked inexorably toward him.
        "What's the matter?  Never saw an iron man before?" the figure
replied, his voice flattened and slightly metallic.  He reached out
with one hand, seized the man by the chestplate of his flak jacket,
and lifted him clean off his feet with no more effort than an
unarmored man would show picking up a drinking glass.
        "Who sent you?" he demanded.
        "You won't get anything out of me!" the commando replied.
        "Wrong answer," the armored man - Sylia couldn't help but
think of him as "Iron Man" now - said.  He tossed the man casually
away; the commando plowed into what was left of the maitre-d' station
and didn't try to get up.  Iron Man turned, saw another of the
commandos staring at him wide-eyed, and raised a hand.  The circular
port in the middle of his palm began to glow.
        "You.  Same question."
        "I don't know!" his new target replied.  "I swear I don't.
Only Togawa knows who our clients are."
        Iron Man inclined his helmeted head toward the crumpled
leader.  "That'd be Togawa?"
        "Uh-huh."
        "Then you don't know why you were after Mr. Stark?"
        The woman looked confused.  "Stark?  We're not after anyone
named Stark.  We're after Toichi Koizumi, the film star.  He's
supposed to be eating here tonight."
        "So help me, if you're lying to me - " Iron Man began.
        "I swear it's true!  This was supposed to be an easy
snatch-and-go.  Nobody said anything about having to deal with the
Knight Sabers -or- any... any Iron Man!"
        Iron Man turned his head toward Sylia.  "Well?  What do you
think?"
        "I think we need to get - "
        Brilliant light flooded the restaurant.
        "THIS IS THE TOKYO ADVANCED POLICE!" a voice boomed through a
crackly PA system.  "NOBODY MOVE!  YOU ARE ALL UNDER ARREST!"
        Armored ADP troopers filled the windows; more crowded in
through the door.  From outside came the whine of heavy aerodynes
setting down - those, Sylia knew, would be carrying the K-suits.
        "Hey!" one of the ADP troopers cried.  "It's the Knight
Sabers!"
        "Waste 'em!" yelled the man in sergeant's stripes.
        "Knight Sabers - scatter!" Sylia ordered.  "Regroup at
Rendezvous A!"
        Things got very hectic for a while.

        In the end, all that was left was a demolished restaurant, two
wrecked combat droids, some dead or injured or frightened mercenaries,
and two people with some explaining to do.  The armored Knight Sabers
and Iron Man had managed to clear the scene - though when Priss and
Zoner last saw them they had some pretty heavy ADP forces, including
K-suits, in pursuit - but the two of them were left behind, and now
they had to face the music.
        Zoner was prepared.  He waited for the ranking officer, a guy
named Leon McNichol - youngish-looking, bit of a tough guy, even with
his slicked-back brown hair and his slightly boyish face - to finish
trying and failing to banter with Priss, whom he apparently knew
already, and come over to grill him.  The guy was obviously getting
nothing at all out of Priss, so there was nothing to contradict the
story Zoner was about to tell.
        "Certainly Mr. Stark was here," he said in answer to the
obvious question.  "I got him out as fast as possible when the
shooting started.  He -is- my boss, after all."
        "What was he doing here in the first place?" Leon asked.
        "Eating dinner, of course.  You're familiar with his InfoWeb
feedsite, StarkWire?"
        "I've seen it," Leon said.  "What of it?"
        "He's thinking of moving its headquarters to Tokyo, and he
decided to make an occasion of it."  Zoner shrugged.  "You know how
people with money are."
        "Uh-huh.  And who were the other three women who were with
you?"
        "Well... "  Zoner looked around, as if a trifle
uncomfortable.  "If you have to know, they were paid escorts.  We
don't know anybody in town, and Mr. Stark didn't feel like celebrating
alone, so... we met them at a club earlier in the evening and he
decided to invite them along."
        Leon raised an eyebrow, then turned to Priss, who had followed
him and was standing off to one side with her arms folded while he
questioned Zoner.
        "And what were -you- doing with this merry band?" he asked
archly.
        Priss looked for a moment as though she were considering which
man to kill first.
        Then she gave Leon a cold glare and said, "Look, pal, I dunno
about you?  But where I come from, 20,000 yen is 20,000 yen."
        With that, she turned on her heel and stalked away, taking up
a station near the door and paying neither man any further attention.
        Leon stared after her in disbelief for a moment, then shook
his head and turned back to Zoner - who had barely kept it together,
but fortunately had himself fully back under control now.
        "I don't suppose you know any of the other women's names."
        "Hell, I don't even know hers," Zoner lied with a smile.
        "(Good,)" Leon muttered.
        "Pardon?"
        "Nothing.  All right, listen.  Where's your boss now?"
        "Back at the hotel resting, I imagine.  He was headed for the
subway when I last saw him.  Mr. Stark hates unexpected violence.
When he covers wars and things he has to psych himself up for it
beforehand."
        "Uh-huh.  Well, look, I'm going to want to talk to Mr. Stark
first thing in the morning."
        "We'll be at the Stark Industries office downtown, unless
you'd rather we came to APD Headquarters," Zoner offered promptly.
        Leon shook his head.  "I'll find you," he said.  Giving Priss
a suspicious look once more, he added, "All right, you can go for
now."
        "Thanks," Zoner said.  He cross the room without looking at
Priss and left.
        "Oi, Leon!  Can I leave or what?" she yelled at the cop.  "I
can't do you any more good here."
        Leon regarded her, then made a dismissive gesture with more
than a trace of irritation in it.  Priss couldn't help but smile
slightly as she left the restaurant.
        Zoner fell into step with her halfway across the parking lot,
melting out of a shadow in a manner very disconcerting for such a big
man.
        "So what's the plan now?" he asked.
        "Sylia gave a rendevous order," Priss told him.  "We go to the
rendezvous.  Presumably your boss is with the others."
        "OK."  Zoner fished out the spare key to the Camaro, shut the
trunk, and climbed into the driver's seat.  "I'll follow you."

        Upon receiving Sylia's order to scatter and regroup, Nene was
ready to comply at once, but as she made for the exit she noticed that
Stark was having some difficulty.  His suit was powerful and imposing,
but it was also slow and not very agile.  It had some boost
capabilities like her own hardsuit, but its jump height was pretty
poor and its ground speed wasn't good at all.  She'd been struck by
its crudity compared to her hardsuit when she was helping bolt Stark
into it, and that crudity was apparent now.  He got out of the
restaurant, but he had a K-suit on his tail, and it was obvious he
wasn't going to be able to lose it.
        Nene wasn't sanguine about engaging a K-suit.  For one thing,
she wasn't, if she had to admit it, a very good fighter.  She was a
Knight Saber primarily for the information and datasystem support she
could provide outside of combat; giving her a hardsuit and letting her
in on the action part was something Sylia had been forced into as part
of the deal to get the part of the package she really wanted, and it
was an open secret in the team that the others considered her little
better than baggage in combat.  That was why she'd been so willing to
stay behind and help Stark: She figured the others wouldn't miss her
much anyway.
        For another, the guy inside it was a co-worker, a fellow AD
Police officer.  True, he was kind of a jerk - a lot of the guys in
the uniform division were, especially the assault troopers - but
still, he was a cop, and he was just doing his job.  It was one thing
to blow up rogue boomers and robots.  She didn't want a human being's
blood on her hands.
        Still, if she just jetted away and left Stark to his own
devices, it was pretty obvious he was going to have to face down a
K-suit by himself... 
        Oh, Nene, you are so STUPID, she told herself, even as she
turned and headed back.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2032
12:58 AM

        The rendezvous point was an apartment on the south side, one
of the several safehouses Sylia discreetly maintained around the city
for such emergencies.  By midnight they were all present and accounted
for...
        ... all but Nene and Stark.
        Zoner stood at the window, his tension obvious.  After the
first hour, Priss stepped up beside him and said, "What?"
        "I hate not knowing where he is," Zoner said.
        "Hey, he's a big boy," Priss said.  "He can obviously take
care of himself."
        Zoner shook his head.  "It's not that simple.  He's not -
... you don't understand."
        "Well, I'm worried about Nene," Linna said.  "She should have
been back by now, or at least called in if she was in trouble."
        "If she -could- call in," Mackie said gloomily.
        "Don't say things like that!" Linna said, throwing a couch
pillow at him.  "Nene's tougher than she looks.  She can make it
through anything."
        Priss chuckled grimly.  "Yeah, she's a survivor," she said.
"Even so... Linna's right, something must be wrong.  She'd have
radioed, or phoned, or sent us one of those stupid 'Nene-grams' from a
public terminal by now."
        Sylia, sitting at the apartment's kitchenette table with a cup
of tea, seemed for a moment to be consulting the tea's dregs for
suggestions.
        Then she stood up and said, "You're right.  Suit up; we're
going out to look for her.  Mackie, we'll need you in the mobile bay."
        Mackie sighed - it was well past his bedtime and he was tired,
but on the other hand he would never leave the team hanging when they
needed him - and hauled himself off the couch.
        "MegaZone... you may ride with Mackie if you wish," Sylia
said.  "After tonight I think I can trust you not to hijack the mobile
bay," she added with a slight smile.
        Zoner didn't smile; he just nodded and turned back to staring
out at the city lights, as though by sheer concentration he could find
his missing friend.
        Where the fuck are you, Gryph? he thought, bunching a fist
against the glass.

TWO HOURS EARLIER

        The "iron man" had his back to the wall - literally.
        He stood near the end of a blind alley, blank brick walls
hemming him in on three sides.  The buildings were too high for his
meager boost capability to jump.  Going back would mean trying to get
past the ADP K-suit that was even now charging in after him - he could
hear the heavy kachung-kachung of its suspension recoiling after each
step as it approached the mouth of the alley.  There was no way Iron
Man could get back there before the K-suit arrived, and once the
police unit's bulk was in the way, there would be no going around,
only through.
        After tag-teaming the thing for five minutes with Nene and
wrecking its chainguns with his repulsors, Stark knew he didn't have
enough power to go through.  His armor's belt pods were nearly
exhausted, and once their energy was spent, he had only the reserve
capacity of the chestplate itself - the same reserve he had used in
his fight with the boomer on the highway the week before.  Not a lot
of firepower there.
        Nene's red and pink hardsuit dropped from the sky to land next
to him.
        "He's coming this way," she reported.
        Stark nodded, his mind racing.  What to do?  Nene's suit
didn't have the firepower to take on a K-suit, even one with its
ranged weapons disabled.  Her weapons wouldn't even scratch its
armor.  To disable it, she'd have to go for the cockpit glass and try
to incapacitate or kill the pilot, and he knew she wouldn't.  Hell, he
didn't want her to.  The guy was a cop, after all.
        He thought of telling her to leave, but dismissed the idea as
a waste of time.  She could have escaped at pretty much any point if
she wanted to, with her suit's superior mobility, but she hadn't, so
chances were she wouldn't if he just asked.
        "Here he comes!" Nene cried as the K-suit's silhouette loomed
in the mouth of the alley, 20 yards away.  Suddenly she moved, putting
a hand against Stark's chestplate and shoving him back against the
side wall.
        "I'm more visible than you are," she told him.  "Wait there.
When he charges me, hit him with something."
        "What?!" Stark blurted.
        "Trust me!" Nene replied.
        The K-suit's searchlights clicked on, filling the alley with
light.
        "HALT!" the pilot's amplified voice boomed.
        Nene, you are SO stupid, Nene thought to herself as she raised
her right arm and opened fire with her hardsuit's chaingun.  The
bullets sparked harmlessly against the K-suit's armor.
        "Come on, -charge- me," Nene muttered through her teeth.
        "So it's gonna be like that, eh?" the ADP trooper said.  "OK,
sweet thing, have it your way!"
        So saying, he threw his suit into a run, deploying his
close-combat weapons - a pair of heavy armored rams, hooked at the
ends like the teeth of a junkyard crane, at the end of the right arm.
        Nene shrieked, not entirely for effect, and fired wildly,
peppering the alley walls with ricochets as her weapon failed to have
any effect on the charging police unit.
        Stark stood motionless for a moment, trying to think what to
do.  He had almost decided to try and kneecap the K-suit with a
repulsor strike, but then he had a better idea.  Working frantically
at a fitting in his right wrist joint, he disconnected part of his
armor's auto-lube system.  Pressurized lube oil shot out of the
fitting, spraying all over the ground in front of him - moments before
the K-suit arrived with a full head of steam.  Just to make sure he'd
made his point, Stark switched on his unibeam in searchlight mode,
dropping the beam square onto the K-unit's visor window.
        "Wha - ?!" the cop blurted.  The charging K-suit's head turned
toward the suddenly-acquired new target, but the kind of momentum the
suit had couldn't be denied - especially not with its feet suddenly
sliding out of control on the patch of lube oil Stark had left in its
path.  The hooked crash bars whistled as they cut the air, sweeping
straight for Nene's head.  She was momentarily paralyzed - what was
she supposed to do? - and then, instead of jumping clear as she had
originally planned, she dropped to the ground.
        There was a loud metallic tearing sound as the K-suit's crash
bars rammed into the object affixed to the alley wall right behind
where Nene had been standing - an industrial-scale electrical junction
box providing power to the warehouse beyond.
        The end of the alley lit up with the dazzling blue-white
brightness of electrical arcs as the police unit bridged the heavy
cables inside the junction box.  Streetlights dimmed up and down the
block as all the K-suit's power systems were fused to slag by the
onslaught; then its weight tore the crash bars free and it fell
face-down to the ground, inert.
        "AAAH!" Nene cried as she was pinned under the fallen suit.
        "Are you OK?" Stark asked, hurrying (as much as his iron bulk
would allow) to her side.
        "I'm... yeah... I'm fine," Nene replied.  "It just... startled
me.  Is he... ?"
        "He'll live," Stark replied, peering in at the unconscious
pilot of the fallen K-unit.
        "I can't believe you brought him down," Nene said.
        "We brought him down together.  It was your idea to lead him
to the junction box."
        "Yeah, but it was your oil slick that made him run into it.
Um, can you give me a hand here?  I'm kind of stuck."
        Stark tried to pull her out from under, but it was no good;
some angle of the K-suit's armor had jammed into some angle of Nene's
hardsuit's, and the two weren't going to come apart that way.
        "We'll have to lift it off you," Stark said.
        "What?!  This thing weighs 15 tons!  We'd need a crane for
that.  You... you'd better leave me here.  When they come to find out
why this suit's not responding, they'll find me and pull me out."
        "And throw you in jail," Stark replied.  "Not an option."
        "I won't talk!  They'll never get the others' names out of
me," Nene protested.
        "I don't care about that," Stark replied.  "I'm not leaving
you behind."
        "If you stay they'll catch you too.  You can't lift this
thing."
        Stark ignored her protest, crouched down, got his iron-clad
fingers under the edge of the K-suit, and said, "I'm -not- leaving you
-behind-.  That's -final-!"
        In the quiet of the dead-end alley, Nene could hear the motors
in his suit straining to lift the K-suit's massive deadweight.  Her
armor, and some luck, had protected her from being crushed by its
fall, but she could feel its massive heaviness on her back.  The Iron
Man suit did seem to be stronger than her hardsuit, but she couldn't
have -begun- to lift a K-suit.
        "Give it -up-, it's not going to -work-!" she protested after
a minute or so of ineffective strain.  "It's too heavy, they'll be
here soon, -leave- me!"
        "NO!" Stark snapped, teeth gritted behind his mask.  He let
go of the K-suit with one hand, reached to his belt, and worked a
couple of controls, then grabbed on with both hands once more.  "I
will NOT!  LEAVE YOU!  _BEHIND!_"  With each exclamation he heaved a
little harder, forcing more power out of his armor's straining
servos... and the K-suit began to move.  A little at first, then a
little more, then faster and faster it lifted up.  Once she was able
to get a little leverage, Nene helped as best she could, bringing her
knees and elbows in and pushing upward.  Even with Iron Man taking
most of the load, she maxed her hardsuit's lift limits, virtual gauges
popping into the red.
        "NNNNGGGGAAAAHHH!" Stark roared, heaving the K-suit up on
its side and then letting it clang noisily over onto its back.  Then
he sagged wearily, arms falling to his sides, and stood panting
hollowly within his helmet.
        Nene pulled herself to her feet.  "Are you all right?"
        "Fine," he replied.  "Just - tired."
        "Come on," she said.  "Let's get moving.  They're going to
come looking for this guy soon."
        They'd have made an odd pair if anyone had seen them, the
shambling armored hulk and slender hardshelled girl-shape, moving
through the alleys and back streets of a light industrial district.
Nene's comm array was down, her antenna crushed under the K-suit's
weight, so she couldn't call for help - and Iron Man, she was dismayed
to learn, didn't even -have- a comm array.  His radio could only
receive.
        The more she thought about that, as they kept to the shadows
and tried to make their way to the safe house, the more ridiculous it
seemed.  Finally she turned and began to ask him why the hell anyone
would ever build an armored battle suit without a -radio transmitter-...
        ... only to see him suddenly falter and fall to his knees, his
left gauntlet splaying over his chestplate.
        "... Are you all right?"
        "No... my heart... energy's almost gone... "
        "What?  What do you mean?"
        "Quick - inside," Stark said, pointing to the door of a closed
warehouse nearby.  Nene burned the lock with her laser torch and
helped him in, his armored mass heavy on her shoulder.  Almost as soon
as they were inside, he collapsed on his back with a noise like an
anvil falling off a truck, then lay still.
        Nene flipped up her visor and knelt beside him.  "Mister...
Mr. Stark?  Are you OK?  What's wrong?"
        "Need air... help me get... helmet off," he said.  She fumbled
for the compartment on his belt that held the special wrench needed to
separate some of the armor's parts, undid the bolts holding the halves
of his helmet together, and lifted away his faceplate.
        The face underneath was sheet-white and stippled with sweat.
Stark's normally neat black hair was a tangled mess, his usually clear
blue eyes unfocused.  He looked like a very sick man.
        Maybe even, she thought with a sudden shock of fear, a dying
one.
        "My heart," he said.  "Damaged.  Doesn't... work on its own.
The armor... regulates it.  Why I wear... chestplate... all the time."
        "Why isn't it working, then?"
        "I used up... too much power.  Belt pods... got me through the
fight," he added, "but... lifting the K-suit... I burned my reserve."
        Nene remembered him adjusting the controls on his belt before
the final effort.  "... on PURPOSE?" she squeaked.
        He nodded.  "Thought I'd... still have enough capacity... to
get to safety.  But... must be a... short somewhere.  Chestplate
batteries... discharging too fast.  I didn't notice... haven't worn
the full suit in... five years."  Stark shook his head.  "Stupid.
Should have realized... sooner."
        "What... what can I do?" Nene asked.
        "I don't... know."
        "You don't KNOW?!  But you built this suit, didn't you?
You're Ben Stark!  The great inventor!"
        He shook his head.  "-Tony- Stark was... the great inventor.
I'm just... the guy who... carries his ghost."
        "Carries his ghost, what does -that- mean?" she asked - but
he'd closed his eyes and wasn't answering any more.
        "Mr. Stark?" she asked, her voice tiny and frightened.
        No answer.
        "... Ben?"
        Silence.
        Nene Romanova suddenly realized that she had never, ever felt
so alone before.

# Juno Reactor
# "Guardian Angel"
# Beyond the Infinite


                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                              presented
                    BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: THE IRON AGE
           Issue #1: Meet Interesting Singles In Your Area

                               The Cast
                       (in order of appearance)
                          Benjamin H. Stark
                               MegaZone
                         Priscilla S. Asagiri
                           Akira Takeguchi
                           Junichi Ikegawa
                            Sylia Stingray
                            Linna Yamazaki
                            Nene Romanova
                          Francois Beauvier
                           Mackie Stingray
                            Leon McNichol

                                 with
                            some commandos
                                 and
                           a bunch of cops


                              written by
                         Benjamin D. Hutchins

                          series devised by
                         Benjamin D. Hutchins
                               MegaZone

                        background/plot assist
                             Chad Collier
                             Geoff Depew

                       series logo designed by
                            Janice Barlow

                             graphics god
                           Philip J. Moyer

                          pagemaster supreme
                            John Trussell

                           always the best
                        The EPU Usual Suspects


               Based on BUBBLEGUM CRISIS (Toshiba-EMI)
                BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: TOKYO 2040 (JVC/AIC)
                        HOPELESSLY LOST (EPU)
                  TALES OF SUSPENSE (Marvel Comics)
                      (and, rather more loosely)
                     NEUROMANCER (William Gibson)
                   TRANSMETROPOLITAN (Warren Ellis)

           Sylia Stingray, Mackie Stingray, Linna Yamazaki,
           Leon McNichol, and the Knight Sabers' hardsuits
                      designed by KENICHI SONODA

                Priscilla S. Asagiri and Nene Romanova
                      designed by MASAKI YAMADA

                       Tony Stark and Iron Man
                         created by STAN LEE

		       Original Iron Man armor
			designed by JACK KIRBY


                         E P U (colour) 2006