| Chapter Twenty-One: All In A Day’s Work Scylla stared in distaste at the apartment building before her. Approaching it had not been overly difficult for the veteran of Unit 17, but the risk was still there. All one of the Mavericks had to do was glance out a window at the wrong time, and the insertion would be blown. After all, it was not hard to spot an advancing army in broad daylight. But of course, it wasn’t up to her what time her missions took place. The Huntress pressed herself to the wall of the gray building and held her active arm cannon against her chest. She glanced to the right and caught Shadin’s eye just as the other Huntress moved into position in the alley behind the apartment. Even in daylight, the shadows of the alley combined with Shadin’s black armor gave her a natural camouflage there. They wouldn’t be staying outside for long, though. Scylla retrieved a gob of putty from the operations kit inside her armor and smeared it onto the door handle. After attaching a rough set of wires and steel pins she made the proper connections and waited for her cue. One hundred meters away, Commander X stood quietly against the wall inside the temporary command center, which was really a local coffee shop. The 17th had commandeered the place in order to resolve this current conflict, and though the owners were annoyed at the intrusion, X had soothed the savage beast by promising full reparations if the Hunters broke anything. Stingy bastards, he had not said. There are lives at stake! Brief reports flew into his audio receptors via a combat microphone implanted in his “ear”. The Reploid nodded to himself each time one of his unit sergeants spoke up. The Azure Hunter had plenty of good soldiers in his overlarge 17th Unit, and he knew he’d be getting more once the ball got rolling with the Mavericks in Seraph Castle. Those Reploids who had earned his trust and respect were assigned sergeant rank, which meant little in a non-military organization, though it did give them some authority over the other members of X’s squad. Those sergeants, Scylla, Shadin, Jasper, and Lariat were the only ones he’d taken along for this mission, and as they entered into position they reported to X via simple code words. “Axe!” “Hammer!” “Scimitar!” “Gauntlet!” All was in order. “Scramble.” X said his only line of the mission, and the action got started. Scylla sprinted away from the door back in the direction she’d come from, but only briefly. Her finger was already depressing the remote trigger in her hand and the small bomb she’d rigged went off, destroying the door handle and therefore the locking mechanism that sealed it. She dug her heel into the dirt, pivoted sharply, and sprinted like a bullet into the door, busting it open and charging inside with a stun grenade at the ready. They couldn’t use ECMs, because they’d hurt themselves in the process, but a flash-bang grenade, on the other hand, is just as effective on a Reploid as it is on a human. Scylla hurled it up into the hallway where, as she’d expected, one of the Mavericks was moving quickly to find out what had just happened. The grenade went off with a blinding flash and a thunderous clap, and it so startled the enemy that he actually dropped his weapon. Scylla didn’t wait. Her arm cannon flared twice, and the streaks of plasma collided head on with the target’s head. The Huntress didn’t miss a beat, and kept moving forward even after her opponent had fallen prostrate in death. It was a shame that she couldn’t just take him alive, but he was a Reploid who had taken humans hostage, and therefore he was a Maverick. There was only one solution when dealing with Mavericks. Scylla allowed a brief sigh of disgust to escape her lips as she passed the body. If humans had taken over this building, it would have been a job for the Megacity Special Forces. The Special Forces soldiers were good, but they were vastly inferior to the 17th Unit, Maverick Hunter Corps. Nevertheless, the 17th was Reploid based, and no Reploid could legally harm a human. She shook her head to clear it. This wasn’t the time for such thoughts. This was a time for battle, and therefore there could be only one thing on her mind. Elsewhere in the building, events were unfolding in much the same way. Lariat the lion knocked the east door of the apartment complex clear off its hinges and entered the building without an enemy in sight, much to his disappointment. Shadin shot out a third floor window just as Jasper attached a grappling cable to the sill, fired from a device fitted into his arm. Jasper quickly ascended to the third floor and Shadin followed via use of her own cable. She arrived in time to see Jasper dispatch the second of two Mavericks who had been looking in every direction but behind them. The two Hunters went their separate ways, sweeping the small upper floor and meeting at the staircase in about ten seconds. At the same time, Lariat and Scylla were moving up. They met by the staircase at the lower level and ascended speedily. Time was of the essence now. Scylla opened the door and darted out into the hallway just as a Maverick got a sight on her. The frantic rounds from the enemy’s lightweight shoulder cannon missed the Huntress for the most part, but one round caught her elbow and the reflex action that traveled instantly though her arm completely threw off her aim. Lariat was more than prepared to help, though. The big Reploid came flying through the door with a speed that belied his size and snapped his right arm out towards the enemy. His metal whip lashed out and coiled around the Maverick’s neck, and with a quick jerk Lariat broke the enemy’s neck, interrupting communications from the CPU in his head to the rest of his body. “Thanks,” Scylla said simply, getting back to her feet and flexing her arm. This would need attention. “No prob,” Lariat said in his low rumble of a voice, already moving again. No more words were exchanged and both of them sped forward. Jasper, Shadin, Scylla and Lariat all burst into the largest room in the apartment at the same time. The two Mavericks inside were terribly surprised, but they’d been ready to take action the second they heard the flash-bangs go off downstairs. They’d just needed a minute or so to collect their thoughts and figure out what exactly was going on, and that was the minute the Hunters had needed to get here. One of the Mavericks already had his arm cannon pointed towards the row of human hostages lined up near a window. Scylla took him out with a double-tap to the head using her customized Vector C assault pistol—the arm cannons were strong, but the spread of the projectile was too great to be used in a room where fragile humans might be in the line of fire. The pistol, though, fired “Armor Renders”—bullets that could travel even through the powerful metal armor worn by a Reploid. It also was more of a mini machine pistol, except for the fact that it only used single or three round bursts. Perhaps it was more of a rifle? It was unique, whatever you called it, and effective. The enemy fell but the other Maverick hadn’t been standing idle. A swirling trail of green plasma flew not at the hostages, but at the Hunters themselves. It had been poorly aimed in the attacker’s haste, however, and a quick evasive move by Shadin put her out of harm’s way. The projectile exploded violently as it hit the wall behind the Hunters just as Shadin discharged a round from her own pistol. Surprisingly, though, the enemy was moving towards the window, where he probably hoped to escape from the Hunters. They might have let him, but the hostages were in the way, and they could take no chances. Jasper darted forward, raised his assault pistol and fired into the Maverick’s metal skull in one fluid motion. The final enemy fell and Shadin immediately went to search the hostages for weapons. It seemed foolish enough, since they were all human, but it was procedure, and that was the point of this “exercise”, as X called it. “No other known targets remain active,” Scylla reported without being asked. “Make sure,” replied Jasper curtly. Though they were all technically the same rank, Jasper was X’s second in command and everyone knew it. Therefore, he tended to lead the 17th when X wasn’t around. Nobody hated him for it, since he was quite competent and skilled at his work. Plus, like X, he listened to everything his “underlings” had to say and actually put effort into seeing whether or not their suggestions had merit. That kind of thing generally made an officer popular. Lariat accompanied Scylla out of the room, using his nose to sniff out any threats, but there were none left. Jasper reported to X that the hostages were secure, and when Lariat and Scylla returned they began the process of escorting the hostages to the safe point. X met them there. He hadn’t expected anything less than full success, really, and it seemed that he had gotten precisely that. Earlier in the week, the Treasury Department of Megacity 5 had killed a movement by the much-oppressed Kato Welders, a group of laborers who had recently been laid off by the bankrupt Kato Corporation. Steel Alley’s Engineer Corps leaders had recently had a falling out with Kato, and were being troublesome about allowing the desperate welders to join the Corps. The welders begged the government for some compensation while they tried to work things out, but after the refusal, things looked even more desperate. Sympathetic Steel Alley laborers were already planning a strike to force the Engineer Corps bosses to allow the welders in, but extremists among the welders had decided to take action into their own hands. They’d taken over this apartment building and held the human occupants hostage, demanding that the Engineer Corps allow their comrades in immediately. Perhaps they’d meant to make themselves martyrs. X didn’t care. He’d engineered their destruction rather coldly. He could, actually, have pulled some strings to allow the Mavericks to be taken alive, but he was rather ill disposed to them. Because of their rash action the Engineer Corps now had the perfect excuse to keep the other welders out—the government would forbid it. The welders would now all be investigated as Mavericks, and while they’d be cleared in the end, they had a much harder road ahead of them now. It had really been a simple mission, taking these guys out. It should have gone to the less experienced units, who needed the practice, but X had gotten his hands on the paperwork first. He wanted his group to get all the combat experience they could get. After all, there would be a major campaign soon, whether people admitted it or not, and he didn’t want his sergeants to be rusty in the area of infiltrations. After all, the only way to overcome a Maverick Command Base was a covert infiltration by a single agent or a very small elite contingent. Contrary to popular belief, X was not the world’s greatest all around soldier. Frankly, X was two things: an infiltrations expert and a duelist. He had infiltrated countless areas occupied by Mavericks and successfully assassinated the area commanders. Time and time again he’d used his skills in stealth and covert attacks to arrive at the door of a Maverick commander’s sanctuary, the only place where the enemy felt safe and secure. Once inside X would defeat the enemy every time, simply because of his dueling tactics. His mind was made for that sort of thing. X had the rare ability to learn an enemy’s fighting style even as he fought them for the first time, and he would soon be developing countless strategies to exploit his opponent’s weaknesses. It was strange, he thought, that his CPU was so combat savvy even though his creator had meant for him to be a pacifist. “Report.” “Commander X, sir.” Jasper stepped up while meeting his commander’s eyes. “Hostages are secured, sir. None are injured.” “Casualties?” “No friendlies, though Scylla did get a scratch.” “Serious?” “No sir,” Scylla piped up. “Nothing that can’t wait till we get home.” “Enemy casualties,” Jasper went on, “total five. We believe we got them all, and Lariat confirms it.” “Good job, people.” X’s face softened somewhat. “Now, think you can do it against a castle full of trained Mavericks?” “No sweat,” Lariat rumbled with a grin. He was glad X had exited his “stiff mode”. The commander was a good guy, but he got too worked up and high strung whenever there was a big op about to go down. Well, Lariat reasoned, the boss’d seen a lot more carnage than any of them ever would, so maybe he had that right. At least he didn’t bitch and scream at his troops like some commanders did when under stress. “We’ve got a layout of the castle,” Shadin said with a shrug. “How hard can it be to plan an infiltration off of that?” “Not hard at all,” X replied. “Yeah,” Jasper agreed, “planning it’s a piece of cake. Executing it, though, will be hard as hell.” “Because,” Lariat carried on, “we may have a map of the castle, but they know we have a map, and so they’ll be trying to anticipate where we’ll come in, and they’ll set their really nasty traps there.” “I’ve trained you well,” X said with a grin of his own. He tilted his head upwards a bit, scanning the street ahead of him. “Pickup crew’s coming. The hostages will be debriefed and taken to the hospital for a checkup, of course. Time to go home.” “Can we celebrate?” Jasper asked hopefully. “Celebrate” only meant one thing, and intoxicated soldiers, X figured, would be a bad thing for a while. “For this?” X frowned in feigned distaste. “This was practice and you know it. Really, Jasper, I expect more from my Second!” Jasper took the mock rebuke in stride. “I’ll bullshit better next time, sir. Promise.” “You damn well better!” But of course, Lariat knew as he followed his comrades to their own transport, this had not been “practice” at all. In a practice session, no one was supposed to die. People had died here—mechanical people, but Lariat thought of his race as people—and that’s what made it real. When people died, you weren’t playing games anymore. It was his job as a Hunter, he thought, to stop as many deaths as possible, human or Reploid, and that could only be done sometimes by taking the lives of renegades such as the Mavericks. Still, death was death. If Lariat had possessed any notion of exactly how many people were going to die in the coming weeks, it would have absolutely floored the feline giant. _____________________ Squid Adler was a career Hunter, but he was finding that he liked his job less and less. The relatively short blue mollusk Reploid did very little in the way of actual combat. Rather, he often assisted Douglas, the chief mechanic, in powering heavy machinery. He was innately equipped with powerful fusion generators that gave him access to quite a store of electric power, and that skill was very useful during construction projects. In direct contrast, he was also an interrogator. It seemed a terribly strange pairing of specialties, but Adler was good at both, and while he was becoming more and more disillusioned with both functions, he always did his job well. He had never actually tortured a confession out of someone, though his electricity tactics could certainly do the job. He found torture to be barbaric, actually, and the intellectual Reploid would rather just ask questions in his own calm, collected manner. The humanoid sitting in the chair before him, however, had just about dried up all of the aquatic Reploid’s patience. The manager of the Steel Alley train station had been kept here for a few weeks now, and he was getting very pissed about it. His claim that his station had been taken over by Mavericks was bogus, of course, but the Hunters had no way to prove that, and Steel Alley was getting very angry about the captivity of one of its premier figures. “How much longer are you gonna piss away your time like this, fish boy?” Cartwright’s attitude was scathing as ever. “We’ve got plenty of evidence against you, Cartwright,” Adler replied patiently. “It won’t be that hard to convict you of assisting the Mavericks.” “Why would I assist the guys who hijacked my station?” Cartwright played his part well, much to Adler’s distaste. “You can’t hold out forever.” Actually, he probably could. He’d been holding out like this for a long time. Cartwright knew he had a secure defense and he was sticking to it. Adler had on several occasions infuriated Cartwright in hopes that the station manager would let something incriminating slip while in a rage, but so far there had been no luck in that area. “If you had something on me,” Cartwright began again for the fifth time that day, “you would have already burned me with it. The only reason I’ve been stuck here for two weeks is because you’re stalling. You ain’t got nothing, and you know it.” He leaned back confidently. “The boys down at the Alley know I’m innocent. You’re just in need of a scapegoat to cover up your foul up with the train mission. It won’t be me, pal. Take it out on the real culprits…the Mavericks themselves.” Such a simple mind, Adler thought, but simple minds are good at the whole broken record thing. “What did you smuggle for them?” “Nothing! For Pete’s sake, man! Get it through your giant blue head! They stole that stuff!” “What was in it?” “Cargo!” He was getting really pissed now. “Steel, wood, fuel, some energen we were keeping in storage for the Corps, all kinds of junk! They raided us, dumbass. When raiders come, they tend to, oh I don’t know, raid.” Adler could not stop himself from grunting in frustration. Indeed, Steel Alley was raising quite a stink about this, and fully supported Cartwright’s claim of innocence. He’d tried for the whole week to get this man to slip up, but nothing would come out. He was not about to use his electricity over something so trivial as smuggled firearms—which was probably all it was, anyway—but he still hated to see Cartwright go free. Didn’t Intel have anything else to charge this guy with? The rest of the “interview” was just as unproductive as the early stages. Adler got up and left after another ten minutes of futile questioning. He joined the human waiting for him in the hall, leaving Cartwright to twiddle his thumbs. “Still nothing?” asked Kevin Seitz. Adler’s face told him all he needed to know. “We got nothing to keep him on and he knows it.” The squid gave the semblance of a frown. “And I guess your presence here isn’t just for show?” Caligula’s protégé frowned an affirmative. “We’re out of maneuvering room with him.” “Completely?” “Yeah…” Seitz growled. “He’s gonna walk.” Adler glowered. “There’s nothing in the past that you can nail him with? I thought you’d caught him smuggling before.” “In the past,” Seitz said with a sigh. “And even if we could charge him with something else, the Engineer Corps is raising political hell, and we’re gonna need Steel Alley’s help if we wanna wage a campaign against ECLIPSE.” ECLIPSE was the code word for Seraph Castle. “So…he gets to go free after aiding a Maverick smuggling op.” It wasn’t that Adler cared so much about the actual crime. It was more that over the past two weeks, he’d developed an unfriendly rivalry with Cartwright, and letting the enemy win after all this time and effort annoyed the aquatic Hunter significantly. But, he reasoned, it had happened before and would happen again, so why worry too much about this particular case? “Thanks for your effort,” Seitz said. It sounded lame even to him. Adler bowed slightly, for he really didn’t have a neck to nod with, being patterned after a squid. “You win some, you lose some. What do you think this guy could have been smuggling?” “Probably just what he said in there,” Seitz said with a shrug. “The point is, during a Red Climate, you don’t mess with the Hunters if you know what’s good for you. It’s nothing more than a lightly applied version of martial law, but unless armed guards patrol the streets, nobody pays any attention.” The human waved angrily in the direction of Cartwright’s confines. “This isn’t the first time that guy’s dicked with us. It’d be real nice to take him out of the running here and now, but we can’t quite do that.” “I still haven’t been able to get anything out from him about the other matter.” Seitz nodded slowly. The “other matter” involved unconfirmed but probably correct reports that Cartwright and his entire station crew had sold out to Kou Cao, the so-called “Gold Serpent”. Law enforcement agencies throughout Megacity 5, including the Intelligence branch of the Hunters themselves, had spent years trying to root out the Serpent’s high-ranking troops and destabilize his “empire”. Anyone involved with the Gold Serpent was a definite target for interrogation, but when your hands were tied like this…what could be done? “I have to brief Cal,” Seitz said at last. “You’re done here, I think. We’ll send his ass back home within the next few days.” Adler performed his “nod” once more. “I imagine you have a lot on your mind.” “You don’t know the half of it,” the human replied with a weak smile. “A big castle sitting right in our line of vision, and still we have little to no intel…” He shook his head and bade farewell to his Reploid companion. Adler marched slowly back to his desk, fuming quietly over a battle lost, and the SiC of Hunter Intelligence headed back to his own office. He scooped a pile of papers off his desk and was admitted immediately to see Caligula. The office of the Hunter Intelligence Chief was not very large at all, as the man himself spent most of his time out of office flying from one location to another, getting data and leaving it to the technicians to sort out. Caligula was quite potent with computers, but he still eschewed doing computer recon. It was too easily monitored anyway, he often said, and in this day in age the Hunters should have the technology available to provide a better mode of communicating with field agents. The small office seemed considerably smaller to Seitz this time, because several other people were in it. It was quite a notable bunch, the human noted, and he immediately wondered whether or not he should hold off on his briefing. Caligula glanced up from his desk when his underling entered and motioned for him to remain. Seitz leaned against a wall, as none of the few chairs were currently available, and waited his turn. Sitting near the back of the room was Tiberius, the head of the Medical Ward. Near him was Douglas, the short, stocky green Reploid in charge of Research and Development. Signas himself occupied the final chair, the one closest to Caligula’s desk. This was a surprise. If Signas, the Grand Commander of the Maverick Hunters, wanted to call a meeting, it would make more sense to hold it in his own spacious office, would it not? Oh well, best not to meddle in the affairs of officers. Speaking of officers… Seitz looked across the room to acknowledge the other foreign presence. He was a Reploid decked out in a suit of light green armor. The armor was light on the arms and legs, allowing for nimble sudden movements, and heavy atop the shoulders and around the chest. It was a well-balanced defense for a well-balanced soldier…the Hunter called Zion. Seitz didn’t know Zion all that well, but that was probably because the soldier was a Unit Commander, rather than a chief like Caligula and Tiberius. Signas himself technically ran all the operational maneuvers the Hunters engaged in, but Zion was his close advisor, and many considered him the undeclared Chief of Operations. They could have done worse, Seitz decided. Zion was reputed for possessing a quick mind and was one of the best tacticians the Hunters had with them. He was always level headed and a tad emotionless, and as such he had little in the way of good friends. Zion was one of those Hunters who put the mission ahead of everything else. He would never leave a man behind, and would never take any unnecessary risks, but whenever there was a substantial chance of success during a mission Zion would take that chance and do all he could to make sure things worked out. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, and Zion’s Unit 20 rarely suffered many casualties when they went to battle. Seitz supposed that whatever campaign the Hunters might launch against Seraph Castle, Zion would have a large part in planning it, which probably explained why he was here in this room now. “Good afternoon, Kevin,” Signas said politely. He was big Reploid with a massive suit of armor that was fashioned to resemble a navy blue general’s coat, complete with green gems down the centerline to form the “buttons”. No one had ever seen Signas let himself get into a hostile situation, but despite rumors that Signas’s brains far outweighed his brawn, it wasn’t hard to imagine the Grand Commander beating the holy hell out of someone who made any move to strike him. “Same to you all, sirs,” Seitz said with a nod, and tried hard to blend in with the wall. The faster the meeting proceeded, the better, and Kevin waited for the chiefs to pick up where they’d left off. It seemed, though, that Seitz had entered during a dull moment. Caligula looked up at his protégé and his gaze wavered from the human to the Grand Commander. Signas nodded once and Caligula relaxed somewhat. “Get comfortable, Kevin,” said the boss of the Invisible Men. “What do you have for us?” Seitz blinked, having not expected his turn to come right away. He still knew better than to drag the brief on any longer than he had to, and so he skipped to what he deemed to be the important parts. There really wasn’t much to report, other than Cartwright and… “Well, sirs,” Seitz began, “uh, I don’t have much of great import. Firstly, that Cartwright guy didn’t tell us squat.” “Figures,” Signas interjected with a frustrated shake of his head. “We finally get a guy with ties to Kou Cao and we gotta let him go.” “You’re sure of that connection?” Douglas piped up from the back of the room. He and Signas went way, way back, and the concept of “rank” didn’t really exist between the two, and so Douglas repeatedly neglected to tack a “sir” onto his statements to Signas. His boss couldn’t care less, and so it was always a tragedy averted. Douglas was also quite interested in Kou Cao’s activities. The Serpent was the suspected of several item theft escapades at Hunter HQ, and Douglas didn’t like it when people stole his tools. “Sure as sure can be,” Seitz replied for Signas, hoping he wasn’t out of line. It was his department, though… Signas didn’t seem to care at any rate, so Seitz went on. That was a nice thing about Signas—he considered himself less important than the heroes X and Zero, and the fact that he outranked them bugged him more than a little. Therefore he tended to be remarkably lenient and easygoing for the general he was supposed to be. “I mean, the data is all gathered on past intel reports that legally should never have happened in the first place, but…” “Since when have we cared about legalities?” Caligula traded a smirk with Signas about some inside secret. Signas lowered his head to hide his own smirk. Seitz was deathly curious but forced himself to go on. “We can’t use it publicly against him, so we have no evidence.” “Damned shame,” Douglas piped up again. “Release date?” Caligula queried. “Two days tops,” Seitz replied. “I imagine we’ll want to keep a close eye on him from now on…?” “Bet your ass we do,” Caligula grumped back. “He may be a free man, but he’ll never even be able to brush his teeth the wrong way without us knowing.” Everyone present overlooked the fact that Reploids had little need to brush their teeth. “The memory chips we pulled from the Mavericks at Cartwright’s station,” Seitz went on with his report, “haven’t really told us much. We have more refined maps of Seraph Castle—locations of some machine gun encampments, where some security traps are located, stuff like that—but otherwise no clear intelligence as to what the new Maverick leader is up to.” “What do we know about the Maverick leader?” It was the first time Zion had ever spoken to Seitz. His voice was hardly unpleasant, but it carried a certain air with it that compelled Seitz to answer right away. It really wasn’t hard to see why this guy was such a good commander. Even from his first major battle, the forest ambush led by Sting Chameleon so many years back, Zion had always shown considerable promise. “The commander’s name is Gredam, but his name is all we know. He’s one of them Reploids who just sorta sprung up out of nowhere.” Seitz wished he knew more, but he really didn’t. “There’s no official record of him that I can find, and no production certificate from any robotics company we know.” Then he did remember something else. “We’ve also confirmed the existence of at least one sub-commander. Remember when Zero came back from that slum bombing all frazzled? He gave us a name to go with that old Mortar guy’s ID—Malevex. How much you wanna bet that that’s the guy who made our crimson buddy go crackers at the quarry?” “Well if he survived a raging Zero,” Signas said with a slight chuckle, “ I imagine he can hold his own in a fight.” “There was a woman leading the Blackstar assault,” Seitz reminded the chiefs, glad that he still had stuff to say. “She could well be another sergeant for Gredam.” “So they’ve got some kind of organized leadership,” Signas summarized. “Still, order or not, you know the history. When Sigma’s not around, little to nothing gets done.” Caligula nodded in thought. “Anything else, Kevin?” “No, sir.” Seitz reorganized the files in his hand and made to leave. “Stick around.” The order came from Signas. Well, how did he say no to that? Seitz leaned back on the wall behind him. Zion’s face did not betray any emotion, but Seitz bet that the commander was secretly displeased with Seitz’s lax appearance. “The medical ward has increased its staff,” Tiberius said without being asked. The tall, thin Reploid was decked out in his usual “smock” which was a thin metal suit of white with red stripes. He was always the quiet one, and this was the first time Seitz had heard him speak at this gathering. “Lifesaver is doing well managing and training the staff, and I think we’ll be sufficiently prepared for whatever you all have in mind.” He said it somewhat distastefully. Tiberius was a career medic, having served first with the Megacity Army and gradually moving on to his position with the Hunters. He hated when Hunter units went on any expedition that was deemed dangerous, since something always seemed to go wrong and the medical ward was swamped with more than it could handle. The recent quarry battle was a perfect example. “I don’t think things will go quite so badly, Tiberius.” Signas turned to look at his comrade. “This is one of those blessed times when we can just pound the opposing base with our air and heavy artillery assets. We won’t be relying so much on foot soldiers.” Tiberius nodded very slightly, but he still didn’t seem to trust in Signas’s assumption. “We’ve hooked up additional equipment. Any war against the Mavericks always results in more casualties than anticipated, sir.” It was his job to be the pessimist, after all. Signas nodded, knowing Tiberius was right, but not letting the dark thought burrow too far in his mind. “Douglas? How goes LEGO 9?” Excluding the first uprising, the Hunters had always undertaken a massive buildup in war machines and armaments when preparing to go to battle with the Maverick core leadership. Each buildup was a costly, expensive procedure that took about a month to reach full capacity. Of course, that rarely happened, and the Hunters tended to move a week or two before the program was completed. This was the ninth such mission in the program someone had earlier christened LEGO, after the building blocks of old. LEGO 9 involved the whole R&D department, and so it was Douglas’s problem. “Things are going slower than expected.” The green mechanic toyed with the work goggles sloppily positioned on his forehead. “But that’s always happened. We’ve got a buncha light tanks left over, and the Raven jets used by the air unit are more than enough for aerial battles.” Signas gave Douglas a very serious look that said “Are you sure?” very loudly without making a sound. The concern was valid. Throughout all four uprisings, the Maverick Hunters had never, not once, possessed air superiority over the Mavericks. Storm Eagle’s Death Rogumer had been the absolute scourge of the early Hunter army, and even when the ship was brought down the Hunters had no airships of their own. The six months leading up to the second uprising had been a time for rebuilding cities, not airships, and so when the X-Hunters began their attack, the Hunters were defenseless in the sky. Dr. Doppler’s forces crushed the Hunter HQ early on in the third uprising, and even though the Hunters by then had a significant air force, Doppler’s sky army was far more formidable. Storm Owl’s unit came next. The platoon of battle ships had razed city after city, and even after Storm Owl’s defeat the unit continued to sow chaos until the very end of the war. The Hunters now had the powerful Raven jets, but even they only went so far. If the Mavericks churned out another airship… “Our new weapons are truly amazing,” Douglas promised. “The Ravens are the most powerful birds in the sky, don’t worry.” He grinned. “Times like now, I wish we hadn’t retired the Enigma cannon. As far as the ride armors and the tankers, well, give or take a few weeks.” Signas nodded. It would be at least that long before they got to attack, wouldn’t it? Seitz stood idle for the short remainder of the meeting. Tiberius and Douglas got to their feet and bade farewell, but Signas and Caligula motioned for Zion and Kevin to remain with them afterwards. Well, what was this about? “Intelligence has something else to say,” Caligula stated seriously. “The Smudge?” Signas evidently knew something Seitz didn’t, which pissed the young man off a bit. He was the SiC of Intelligence…why was he being kept out of the loop? “Yeah, The Smudge.” Caligula produced a black and white terrain photo and passed it to Seitz. “Sky spies took that the other day. See this smudge in the corner?” It was a photo of the Catskills, and yes, Seitz could see a smudge. “Isn’t that just…?” “Seraph Castle?” Caligula smiled and shook his head. “That’s north. Not on the photo at all. That smudge there is…well, Signas, it’s what we were afraid of.” “UNDINE,” Signas breathed. Seitz looked up in curiosity, but Zion merely stepped forward calmly. He already knew about whatever this was. “Sir,” Zion began in his level tone, “it is well within the capabilities of Special Unit 0, or any advanced unit for that matter, to secure the UNDINE site. I’ve been over this.” “You have,” Signas agreed. “But if that is UNDINE…” “It is,” Caligula confirmed sourly. “Shit…” Signas looked terribly frustrated. “That place was supposed to be destroyed, dammit!” he whispered sharply. “All right, well…Zion, there are things inside UNDINE that are…well, not for Hunter eyes to see.” Zion blinked. “You mean a cover up?” “Not necessarily,” said Caligula, coming to his boss’s defense. “The info that probably still remains there is sensitive, but not…well, it’s not something that would disgust you, Zion.” Signas knew Caligula would rather not bring anyone else into the loop, but he decided to go ahead anyway. Besides, Seitz was a human and Zion was the model Hunter. The chances of either of them leaking info was next to nil. “The site we call UNDINE was a secret base used by Dr. Doppler during the third uprising.” “So close to the Headquarters?” Seitz asked right away, surprised. “Yep,” Signas nodded, forcing himself not to chuckle at the annoyed look that now creased Caligula’s features. “You must remember that Doppler was one of most ingenious Reploids to ever live. His mind was so advanced that he was capable of creating the perfect code…several of them, at that.” “Yes,” Caligula nodded in resignation. “Doppler took cruel pleasure in frustrating our Intel department with his encryptions. That’s one of the reasons we never realized his air force was heading for our HQ until it was too late…we couldn’t break their communications.” “So what does that have to do with what’s happening nowadays?” Seitz knew he’d jumped the gun and annoyed his boss, but he’d rather just get to the point. Curiosity was a real bitch sometimes. “Well…” Signas replied, scratching his head and grinning sheepishly. “After Doppler fell, the Hunters did something really terrible.” “We realized how smart Doppler was,” Caligula said quickly, addressing the very concerned looks on the faces of the two underlings. “Sorry,” Signas said with another weak grin. “Yeah, with Doppler gone, most of his bases were no longer operational, but his remaining followers were working to either destroy the remaining codes Doppler invented or use them in last ditch computer attacks on Hunter HQ. The Hunters invaded most of these bases, including UNDINE.” He stopped as if uncertain. He didn’t want to say this next part wrong. Caligula handled it for him. “Inside UNDINE we found a rare treat: several unused codes developed by Doppler himself. When we analyzed them we were amazed at just how clever Doppler really was. We of course began to use the codes, and came to realize that for all the genius the codes seemed to emanate, Doppler actually followed a relatively simple pattern to form the backbone of his encryptions.” He looked both Seitz and Zion in the eyes. “We still use that code pattern today, and in more than just communications.” “The UNDINE site was supposed to have been destroyed years ago,” Signas went on. “We wanted to take out the site and all remaining data with it. We didn’t bother to relocate all of the information inside UNDINE…we just took what we needed and expected our demolition crews to handle the rest.” Here Signas frowned. “UNDINE is located near a Catskill cave system. When our demo crews detonated their bombs, a massive cave in took place. The problem was that no one realized it. The general assumption that the new rubble was merely rocks churned up by the explosives…” “And now it seems that most of UNDINE is still buried down there beneath that rubble, which actually came from the surrounding area when the cave collapsed.” Caligula shook his head in disbelief. “Our probes indicate that most of the explosives didn’t even go off.” “So what we have now, if I may attempt to summarize,” Zion began, “is a base full of top secret information in what is now in Maverick territory.” Seitz’s mind flew into action. “Yeah…if we’re still using those codes, and the Mavericks find out the root pattern, then they can break the code rather easily.” “We use them to encrypt our communications,” Caligula explained. “But we also use them as passwords for our computer networks and secret files. If the Mavericks somehow broke our code, they could access pretty much…everything.” “That includes files that are above our jurisdiction,” Signas added, surprising the hell out of both Zion and Seitz. “What do you mean, sir?” Kevin asked. “You’re the leader of this institution. Why couldn’t you access…?” Signas smiled somewhat ruefully. “Kevin, the most important information is almost never made available to those who can make use of it. Most of the files guarded by Doppler’s code are government property, so to speak. Assault teams that accomplished more than what was reported in the papers, projects that never officially happened, you get the picture. More than once crucial information has been denied to the Hunters until it was too late.” “Sir,” Zion began again, “I know the danger that the UNDINE site presents, but I still do not see why you won’t allow a Hunter squad to neutralize the threat.” “Zion,” Signas said, selecting his words carefully. He knew he’d offend Zion one way or another, but he didn’t want to make it worse than it had to be. “Most of the Hunter units qualified for this kind of mission are composed of Reploids, and Reploids always have a chance of going Maverick.” Zion’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Speaking for my own unit, I can assure you that there are no threats to Hunter security.” “Still…” Signas sighed through his teeth. “I don’t like it either, Zion, but the operational risk is too great. There’s not much chance of getting these codes changed any time soon, and so the less people that know about them, the better.” “Signas refers mostly to the alarming number of information dealers popping up.” Caligula once again came to his superior’s defense. “The chaos being caused by the Gold Serpent—Kou Cao—is much greater than anyone around here cares to admit. The kind of money involved in this kind of information…well, it’s like the drug dealing that was so profitable last century.” Zion and Seitz were both thinking the same thing, but it was the human who spoke first, somewhat to the Reploid’s relief. “This UNDINE place has to be investigated, and if you can’t trust the Hunters…who can be trusted?” Caligula spoke quickly, so he would be the one who officially proposed the idea. It was better for people to think him the bad guy if things went wrong than for them to get pissed off at Signas. “People who don’t need money. People who have no need for profit or power. People with scientific ideals, and those ideals alone.” For the first time that day, Zion’s face showed real emotion: distaste. “You can’t possibly mean…” Caligula cut off the soldier, who he didn’t much like anyway. “Who better to investigate than the Investigators?” “You’re talking about that scientist, right?” Seitz recalled a brief character profile. “The one in charge of Science and Technology in the Megacity System?” “His name is Gate,” Signas reminded him. “He’s one of the most reliable Reploids in existence, and a personal friend of mine.” “Sir,” Zion said tersely, “’personal friend’ is hardly the kind of qualification we need for this kind of operation.” “I know,” Signas responded, just as tersely. “Gate is one of the most respected scientists in his field, and best of all, he and his people want peace.” “Gate…” Seitz repeated the name and recalled what he knew about the Reploid. “Firm believer in pacifism, and he wants to stop the wars entirely. His ‘people’ are simply called the Investigators, and they tend to go where no one else is willing to go. Right…?” “More or less,” Caligula confirmed. “His team is fairly small. As far as I know, his three operatives are Blaze Heatnix, Ground Scarabich, and Blizzard Wolfang. All three specialize in exploration, and aside from them, Gate has contacts in other areas. There’s a big guy called Rainy Turtloid who spends his time investigating heavily polluted areas…areas that become polluted because of the Maverick Wars. Another one I know of is Commander Yammark, a jungle operative who keeps tabs on greening projects down south, and watches suspicious development projects while he’s at it, just in case the Mavericks are up to something.” “So in other words,” Signas summarized, “Gate and his Investigators are technically neutral, but on the same time they’re on our side. They want the wars to end totally, and that means making us the dominant party.” Zion was unconvinced. “Just because these people act like peacekeepers doesn’t mean they won’t one day want to use these codes against us. Letting them see the UNDINE site isn’t much better than sending in a troop of Hunters, who are not likely to betray us.” “It’s a sticky situation, Zion,” Signas admitted. “But while the Investigators might well try to use codes against us, it won’t be immediate. They’ll never let anyone else know, even the Gold Serpent, even if he pays them all the money in the world.” “How do you know that?” Zion persisted. “Because they already have all the money in the world,” Caligula said, more sharply than he had intended. “Gate and his people are fully funded by the government. The leaders of the Megacity System are quite taken with him, and he has no trouble funding anything he wants to fund. While there is a risk, the risk won’t come into effect before we have a chance to change our coding system, which more or less means that they’re the lesser of the two evils.” Zion still didn’t like it, everyone could see, but he took it in stride, forcing himself to analyze and inevitably accept Signas’s decision—even though it offended the hell out of him. “Fine. But that brings us to the next issue…can they do it, and if so, when?” “Soon, to answer the latter,” Caligula answered. “Can they do it? I think so. The Catskills are a winter wonderland this time of year, and Wolfang will be right at home in there. Heatnix might not like it, but he can fly, so that oughta pacify him. Scarabich is a career explorer…he’ll jump at the opportunity, and he’ll do his job well.” “I’ll head on over to the next meeting of the Council,” Signas suggested. “Gate is always at those meetings. I’ll have a word with him in private, and see if he can’t help us out.” “So that’s that?” Caligula asked. “It can work,” Zion admitted gracefully. “If it’s really what you want to do, I don’t see any operational problems as of yet.” “It’s done.” Signas glanced at Zion. “Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty to do soon enough anyway.” Zion frowned. Seitz noticed. It wasn’t that the soldier wanted a battle to fight. He just wanted to make sure that the Hunters weren’t taking unnecessary risks. His pride in his men caused him to take the proposal of Gate’s services somewhat hardly, but he barely let it show. He merely wanted to keep things limited to the Hunter army, and not to bring in too many outsiders. Seitz figured he could sympathize with that. Zion must still have nightmares about the ambush in Yates Forest, back with Zero when Sting Chameleon went Maverick. Sting’s use of materials outside Hunter jurisdiction allowed him to take Zion’s team by surprise and butcher the lot of them. It might be a long while before he would be able to place his trust in anything other than the soldiers he commanded. Signas nodded at Caligula. “Well then. You’ve got plenty to do, so I won’t keep you any longer.” Caligula stood and nodded back. “I’ll keep you posted, sir.” Signas turned and vacated the room. Zion glanced at Caligula. It looked as though the commander wanted to say something, but he either found himself unable to form the proper sentence or decided against it altogether and followed his superior out of the room. “Squid Adler will have a full report drafted by tomorrow?” Caligula switched topics effortlessly. “Yeah,” Seitz nodded. “I’ll get him on it right away.” “Oh yeah,” Caligula added before Seitz could leave. “What’s this about Commander Archer headed to a landfill…?” “Oh.” It took a while for Seitz to remember. “Some tip from one of his informants. You know how he likes to play detective.” “Well, he hit right on the money with the quarry incident. Get a quote from him for me when he gets back, will you?” Neither of them knew they’d be getting much, much more than just a quote. *** On the other side of the Megacity, deep in the clutches of the Catskills, Seraph Castle buzzed with activity. Small teams of Mavericks launched guerilla attacks on drone targets posing as Hunters. Their instructor, Malevex, was bound and determined to get each one of his men to know as much about the layout of the surrounding mountains as was possible. The ebon Reploid knew that an invasion had to come sometime, and he wanted to be ready for it. He just hoped that the Hunters took their time about it, or all of this would have been for naught. The thing was, while they were guarding against a Hunter invasion, they were going to leave Seraph Castle soon anyway. The kind of plan they had in motion was secret enough, but when they took the first move the Hunters—and the Megacity Army, for that matter—would respond instantaneously, and very violently. There was no way that Seraph Castle could hold out against a full invasion effort by both armies at once, and while they would do their best during the initial strike to level the Hunter forces as much as they could, the Maverick base itself would eventually be taken and destroyed. They had to have an evacuation route. A separate complex being constructed in Brazil covered that particular aspect. It was being built both legally and illegally—legally in the sense that the builders were on an official job, and illegally in the sense that they were being paid a gracious tip in exchange for them not telling anybody where the place was. The original plan was to just eliminate them, but Gredam had decided against that, wisely, Malevex thought. The parent company would raise hell, and an investigation would soon be underway that would eventually reveal the new jungle command center for the Maverick army. Cyber Peacock was handling the funds for this project, using money taken from the accounts of dead humans, much as he’d done with the Seraph Corporation. It was useful to have such a potent hacker around, Malevex decided, even if the bird was a little kooky at times. The peacock Reploid’s use was doubled in the sense that he had been able to crack several codes used by the Hunter security networks. This breakthrough was made possible by one of Doppler’s old bases, a place that the Hunters apparently called UNDINE. Malevex had found the place almost immediately upon moving into Seraph Castle. How foolish it had been for the Hunters to assume their demolition job was complete without even so much as a post-op evaluation of the site! But he wasn’t complaining. It gave Cyber Peacock the information he needed to break into a few of the Hunter control networks, and it aided the hacker hired by Malevex and Gredam early on to procure the list of Terrornova leaders…the list that had served as the death warrant for Peter Thornton and Timofey Komanov. And the best part was that the hacker was still there, safely integrated into the Hunter community, and trusted with enough things to make him a valuable contact for the Mavericks. No doubt, the former spy knew, he would want to use the hacker again for the later stages of the plans that were coming slowly but surely to their completion. And with that one thought came another, a thought that he’d been trying to ignore for some time now. When the time came to begin their blitzkrieg—it was a term that Malevex had come to like, a German term meaning “lightning war”, and it was exactly the kind of combat that the Mavericks had in mind this time—he would be leading troops into battle. The Hunters would turn up to stop him, and more than likely so would the Megacity Army. At that point, what would he do? Would he concentrate on the mission at hand, and destroy as much of the remaining Hunter forces as he could? Or would he be overpowered by the desire for revenge that really did still lurk deep in his equivalent of a soul, and direct his efforts towards stopping the Megacity Army and killing the people who’d caused the Terrornova project? It was easy to say now that he would never succumb to that temptation, and that he would help his men achieve the victory they believed they were fighting for. But when the time came, would he be able to really do it? Kitao and Virdelko were still at large, and Chartreuse too… His blood boiled at the very thought of the bastard’s name. If he saw Chartreuse blood would flow, plain and simple, and screw the Great Maverick Cause. It would take self-restraint of the kind he knew he didn’t have to ignore that demon, and while he knew Chartreuse was probably the most dangerous swordsman out there aside from Zero himself, Malevex had already promised himself that he would not die until he saw Chartreuse’s charred corpse at his feet. Or at anyone’s feet, for that matter…so long as the bastard died. Malevex shook his head to clear it. The Maverick platoon he was training had gathered into a few rows on the road closest to Seraph Castle. Malevex didn’t put much effort into making his soldiers stand in the usual stiff military pose—the Maverick “army” was even less of an army than the Hunters were. The fighters did, however, stand respectfully still in what passed for attention when in the presence of one of their new commanders. Most of the Mavericks nowadays were in the group for their own reasons, and most often those reasons did not include Reploid independence. Rather, profit was a big motive, and in some cases the battles the Mavericks got into were just excuses to kill people. Even these most brutish of fighters, however, respected their new commanders, for because of them the soldiers now knew many things about combat, especially combat in the Catskills, that they hadn’t known before and would not have known had Malevex, Teytha, and Gredam not imparted the knowledge to them. Sigma had always been a good leader, but he tended to be too lax on specific training regimens. The Team was trying to correct that. These new tactics would keep the Mavericks alive much longer, and they appreciated that enough that they had respect for their leaders, and it was actual respect, if only even a little, rather than the respect out of fear that most people had had for Sigma. As they made their way back towards Seraph Castle, Malevex glanced up to see Teytha staring down at them from atop the building’s roof. She liked to go up there to enjoy the view, he remembered. Gredam would be somewhere in the planning sector of the base, drafting tactics, reviewing maps, or analyzing developments, and Mortar would probably be close to him doing the same thing. The thought of his friends told Malevex more or less what his real mission was regardless of whatever else happened: keep them all alive. He’d come into this with his three companions and he meant to leave it with all of them safe and sound. They’d entered this escapade thinking only to make a world where they could live safely, and that meant defeating the government above all things. If a bunch of people had to die for that to happen, well…tough shit. That was cold, of course, but he didn’t much care at the moment. He had his mission, he had the means to accomplish it, and he sure as hell had the motive to do it. From this moment on, it was just as matter of when it would all happen. The Hunters were about to solve that problem for him, though he couldn’t know that. ____________________ For Teytha, the mission was far easier to define: save yourself, save your friends, and to hell with everyone else in the world. And really, she had little reason to think anything else. The Maverick swordswoman stood atop the central tower of the complex people called Seraph Castle. It was deathly cold up here, but the view made it worth it. She’d never seen a place like this before, and never had she seen so much of any one place in particular. It was one of the few things in life that always took her breath away. Plus, standing up here was one of the most relaxing activities she’d ever discovered, and she needed a lot of that lately. More than any of her comrades, Teytha feared the battles to come. It wasn’t that she was afraid of combat itself, or really anything else in the world for that matter. Except for one thing. That one thing was a possible outcome of the impending future, and it was not a future she wanted to look forward to. She lived today because of Malevex and Gredam, and she more or less lived off their companionship. Mortar was just as important to her. She’d always wanted a free life more than anything, but she didn’t want to have it if it couldn’t be with these people. If any of them died in the upcoming battles, she wouldn’t have very much left to live for. She’d do all she could to watch their backs, and hope they all came out of things safely. Especially Malevex. She was close to all three of her friends, but it was different for each of them. Because of Gredam’s innate demeanor as a commanding officer, it was often hard to open up to him about anything, and it often seemed to her that she was aiding him merely in repayment for putting her back together. Mortar had always regarded her with a sort of fatherly care, and had given her the emotional support she’d needed. There wasn’t much that she couldn’t handle on the physical scale, but she hadn’t been ready to handle the mental horrors of the Terrornova program and without Mortar’s help, she would have given up a long time ago, and to this day she still went to him for advice and counsel. With Malevex, though, she felt a special closeness. During their days as assassins he’d been there for her whenever Mortar couldn’t be, and protected her in a more overt manner than the older Reploid had. After her revival, it had been Malevex who’d spent nearly all of his time with her to try and get her back up to speed with the world, and to help her through the lingering memories of her deactivation at Chartreuse’s hands. For that she was extremely grateful, and even more so for his efforts to help her realize that she was now the free Reploid she’d always wanted to be, and his efforts to make her feel safe. For that was what she really needed, she’d realized. You couldn’t really be free if you were constantly in danger. Malevex had given her a real sense of security, and it was only around him that she ever felt completely safe. Most Reploid CPUs had the capability to comprehend what the humans called love, but Teytha tended to dance around the term. Try as they might, the creators of the Reploid race could never really copy the full emotional structure of the human mind into a mechanical being, and so it was a common belief that while some Reploids might understand love and try to emulate it, to actually feel it was somewhat unheard of. Teytha thought of Malevex more as her truest friend than anything else…but then, wasn’t that what some humans considered to be love? Well, it was better not to think about it. In short, she didn’t want to live without him, and while she doubted that he’d allow himself to be killed easily, she’d still make a special point to protect him, much as he’d protected her all these years already. Her thoughts broke up when Storm Eagle alighted next to her, folding his great blue wings and offering her a beaky grin. The big, cerulean armored avian was one of the most competent Mavericks Teytha had met thus far, and so she didn’t mind having a conversation with him. “I see that someone else enjoys heights.” He seemed pleased. Storm stretched his arms out and took as good breath as he could of the extremely thin air. “Or the view, at any rate.” Teytha smiled a bit. “The latter.” “I see.” The Maverick chuckled a bit. “Well, heights would scare me too, I suppose, if it were possible for me to fall from them.” “It is,” Teytha responded with a shrug. “All someone would have to do is clip those wings of yours.” “Shh. I’d rather not dwell on such things.” She laughed in turn. “How goes your end of things?” He shrugged lightly. “I’ve got several scout droids in the skies. A spy plane might run into ‘em, granted, but they’ll still tell us when someone’s coming for us.” He glanced at her. “And as for the main event, Revolver and his crew are putting the finishing touches on Gallagher’s weapons systems as we speak. They’ll attach it when they’re finished, but…” “But…? Is something wrong?” Storm took a slow breath. “Well…it’s just…” Out with it, he decided. “Are you guys absolutely sure you want to do this?” Oddly, the question took Teytha by surprise. She’d never bothered to do too much thinking on their attack method, other than acknowledging the fact that it’d do a number on the Hunter army. “It will work.” “If nothing goes wrong,” Storm pointed out. “This is an extremely sensitive operation. If only one thing goes awry…” She was forced to nod at that. “I know, Storm. But we’ve thought up ways to deal with most every situation that might come up.” “The situation that always comes up is the one you never plan for,” he reminded her. Again, she had to nod. “What else can we do?” “It’s not that I really disapprove of the plan,” Storm clarified. “I just don’t want us to get in even more over our heads here.” He nodded his head downward towards the soldiers Malevex was leading into the base. “I’ve got a responsibility to those soldiers in my command.” “You always struck me as pretty loyal…I can see where you’re coming from.” She stared across the expanse before her, towards the farthest mountains she could see. Her hair hung loose due to the absence of her helmet, and the wind tussled it nicely. “Must be nice, having so clear a goal.” Storm blinked. “Well, I wouldn’t say it’s quite so clear.” Teytha blinked back. “You fight for a cause, right?” He nodded. “True, but just what cause is that? The liberation of Reploids? The well being of my soldiers? Or for my commander, Sigma?” He stopped, and his eyes faded somewhat. Memories of a rather distant past flooded back into his mind, and he looked towards Teytha with his beak again in the semblance of a grin. “Did you know that I originally fought against him?” This was news. “I thought his whole unit went Maverick with him?” The avian shook his head. “Not so. Sigma told most of us that he was going to go Maverick beforehand. They were prepared, and were more than willing to follow him anywhere. I, on the other hand, was not part of the loop.” He looked up towards the sky, the endless expanse that he considered to be his heaven. “When Sigma betrayed the Hunters that day, I was shocked and enraged. I’m a loyal bird by nature, and my devotion to the Hunters was strong. I confronted Sigma alone atop the old Hunter Headquarters building, and sent gust after gust at him to try and knock him to his death. Through all that time, though, he never attacked me. He just dodged my attacks and pleaded with me, over and over, to see the humans for what they really were. Eventually he made me realize that my loyalty was not to the Hunters, as I suspected it was…my loyalty was to Sigma himself, the best commander I’d ever served, and a man who truly wanted nothing more than the freedom of his people. When I surrendered, what do you think he did? Nowadays, people who don’t know the real Sigma would say that he probably punished me severely for my insubordination, but that’s not true. He just welcomed me back, and trusted me as fully as he had before all this chaos started.” Here he sighed. “Over the years, though, Sigma changed. He was a whipped dog, a hated menace whose only goal seemed to be the sowing of destruction. Traces of his original personality vanished, probably on account of that strange virus that no one can figure out.” In his voice he carried a bit of grief for the commander who’d died and been replaced by a hollow shell of himself, and the gesture was not lost on Teytha. “I didn’t know all that,” she admitted. “But if he’s nothing like he was when you originally followed him, why do you still wait for him to resurrect himself so you can follow him again?” Storm’s face bore a slightly embarrassed look. “It sounds a little melodramatic, but this last form of his…the body that got shot up at the quarry, it was different from the others. This time, I could see a bit of the commander I knew peeking through the virus that’s killed his emotions. Sigma was back, at least for that moment, and when he comes back—and he will, he always does—if he’s anything like he was this time, he’s someone I’ll fight for. He’s been my commander for the majority of my existence, and I’ll fight for the realization of his dreams.” “But what about your own dreams?” “My dreams?” Storm laughed a bit. “My dream is simply the end of this mechanical apartheid. The humans and Reploids could probably live in peace, but the humans won’t let that happen. They have too many bullshit laws and prejudices against our kind, and for that reason the only real way to get anything done is through force.” He grew very serious. “So that’s why, ma’am, if you want to use the kind of force that Revolver is equipping Gallagher with…if you want to use a force that terrible, then fine. I’m still with you. Force is the only way to accomplish my dream, and Sigma’s dream, and I’m behind it all the way.” And that was it, she knew. If Storm Eagle could be this level headed and still support what they were planning to do, then it had to have at least some merit. Didn’t it? The bird straightened up. “Well, I’ve talked you to death, ma’am. I’ll be getting back to my unit.” His wings unfurled and began to beat in powerful thrusts that lifted him off the roof and into the sky he loved. “I await your next command.” With that he dove down a good many feet and arced upwards to a decent cruising altitude. His small unit was somewhere in the nearby mountaintops, and he headed right to them. “So many different missions,” she said to herself, “and one way to achieve them all.” She’d do it. It wasn’t that bad, really. If collateral damage had to exist, so be it. It was like she said—save herself, save her friends, and the rest of the world could go to hell. She found herself wondering if she’d think the same thing after the mission came to its culmination. ____________________ Megacity Landfill XRE was located in the “dead section” of the giant metropolis. Most landfills in the city were in or were close by this area, officially called the 7th District. There were plenty of slums in Megacity 5, but the 7th District was by far the largest of the lot, and it was littered with thugs and hoodlums. Many thought that this was why the Megacity 5 Headquarters of the Megacity Army was located on the edge of the 7th District—to keep order. But that was a job for police, not soldiers. There were other reasons for the Army HQ being where it was…reasons regular people didn’t need to know. Commander Archer of the Maverick Hunters met the landfill’s patrol supervisor as soon as he passed through the entrance gate. This had better be good, he found himself thinking. It wasn’t every day that a Hunter got called away from the HQ to do what had to be nothing more than police work, and even then the Hunter sent out was never a unit commander. Someone, however, had deemed it necessary to invite a high-ranking officer down to the landfill to take a look at something or other, and Signas had sent Archer to do the job. That was too bad. Archer would much rather have been training with his unit, which only recently had fully recovered from the battle in the 12th district quarry…that seemed so long ago now, didn’t it? And only now was his unit back together entirely—Vulcan had been released from the medical ward this very day, and Kyre, who had sustained a very serious injury during the quarry incident, had been released three days ago. But, instead of preparing them for the battle that would come once the politicians stopped sitting on their hands, he had to dawdle around in a junkyard. This better be good, he thought again. His first inkling of how “good” this would be came when the supervisor led him into the landfill’s small office building. Normally it was the spot where the diggers or patrollers would punch in or out, and on certain days would collect their paychecks. Now, though, it was empty except for Archer, the supervisor, and a tall human decked out in the garb of a major in the Megacity Army. Archer’s annoyance was immediately drowned out by curiosity. Not only had someone called forth a commander of the Hunters, but they’d also sent forth a major of the “real” army. Perhaps something big really was afoot. But what could come out of a landfill that would pose any danger to anyone, not counting infections humans could get by stepping on shards of metal? “Commander Archer,” the major said as soon as the Reploid had entered the room, “I’m glad you could come.” “Something up around here?” Archer asked as he took the human’s proffered hand. A high and mighty Megacity official shaking hands with a lowly Reploid? Wow. And why a handshake and not a salute? Wasn’t that what the army did? “You could say that,” the human responded, glancing towards the supervisor. “I am Major Coleman of the Megacity Army. This fellow here alerted my superiors in regards to a theft that took place in this landfill.” “How do you steal something from a landfill?” Archer asked with a raised eyebrow. “Wouldn’t someone see you?” “Eh…” The supervisor looked like he wanted to melt into the floor. “That’s my responsibility, I guess…we had a power problem a couple of weeks ago, and the guys I had on patrol were pretty good with electricity. I didn’t wanna call the power company—it takes them ass holes forever—so I figured I’d see if these guys knew what the problem was. They did, and we spent an hour or two fixing it. I guess during that time, someone dug up a patch of land and stole the stuff beneath it.” “Do we know what was buried there?” Archer had inadvertently jumped right to the heart of the matter. “Perhaps we’d better take a walk,” Major Coleman suggested. He motioned to the supervisor. “Show us to the spot, will you? Follow us, sir.” They left the office and began a speedy march into the depths of the large landfill. Archer’s first thought was that he’d rarely been forced to smell something so horrible. But Coleman didn’t look affected by it, and Archer would be damned if he complained before the human did. “My two newest guys discovered the whole thing,” the supervisor said as he walked, hoping he was being helpful. It was his ass if the Army decided to punish the landfill. “They saw that the dirt was a bit darker than the dirt around it…we cover everything here with dirt, so we can easily access the farther regions of the ‘fill.” “Your two newest guys…?” “Yeah,” the supervisor replied with a nod. “Hired ‘em not a week ago. At first I thought they were a bit lazy, but it turns out they got good eyes, I guess. Still…” “Still what?” Archer persisted, mostly for the sake of conversation. “Still,” the supervisor continued, “they’re the weirdest two guys I know. One of ‘em’s a skunk, and he’s got the foulest mouth I’ve ever come across—and I come from what was once Brooklyn, y’know? The other one is this big gorilla, and he seems dumb as a pile of dogshit, but he’s the one who first saw the dark dirt, so who knows, eh?” Archer had frozen in midstep. Coleman glanced back in a bit of concern, prompting the Reploid to move forward. “Something wrong?” the major asked. “No…nothing at all.” It couldn’t be…Pierre and Ludwig were some of Archer’s best contacts. They’d been the ones who’d tipped him off about Grizzly Slash’s meeting with Sigma in the quarry, but even so, the two crept the bejesus out of Archer sometimes. They came to a halt near a rather large hole with nothing in it. Major Coleman nodded to the supervisor and he left, walking rather speedily towards his office. He seemed glad to leave. “What I’m going to tell you is classified, sir,” Coleman explained. “Even the workers at this landfill can’t know what’s buried here, in some locations.” Archer nodded. He was finding that he liked Coleman…the human called him “sir” and that was unheard of. “I imagine that this information can be passed to my superiors?” “Them, and no one else.” Coleman was dead serious about that part. Archer nodded and the human relaxed somewhat. He looked down at the hole and a new expression came over his face. It was a mixture of disappointment, uncertainty, and…fear? Right then and there Archer knew that this day was taking a turn for the worst. “So,” Coleman began again. “What do you know about history?” Archer blinked. He had been preprogrammed with knowledge of most of history’s major events, but he really didn’t pay much attention to things other than wars, which he studied to analyze tactics and little else. Plus, it did help to know what other had done that hadn’t worked out in the long run, so he wouldn’t make similar mistakes. “Not much,” he admitted to the human. “What part of history in particular should I know about…?” Coleman nodded thoughtfully and to himself, as if he’d just decided what he was going to say. “Well, all throughout history, humans fought wars against each other using weapons that got deadlier and deadlier each time around.” “I do know something about wars,” Archer offered. Coleman nodded again. “Then you know about some of the weaponry in question? We evolved from stone spears and steel swords to firearms and daggers, and from there to grenades and even things as terrible as mustard gas, and other chemical and biological agents.” It was Archer’s turn to nod. “We had a scare with those recently. Split Mushroom, remember him?” Split Mushroom had been a Maverick in Sigma’s employment during the Repliforce Revolution. He’d holed himself up in an abandoned bio lab and spent his time developing killer biological weapons. Fortunately, the Hunters had stopped him before his projects had become operational, but people were still afraid to go near the bio lab because of what might or might not remain in the air around the place. “I remember,” Coleman said solemnly. “Biological weapons were one of the great weapons of mass destruction. Their counterparts throughout most of history were guided missiles equipped with nuclear warheads.” The human lowered his gaze to the hole in the ground, and his voice became somewhat distant. Archer paid close attention, though he wished the human would just get to the point. “The Nazis were the first ones to utilize guided missile technology with their V1 and V2 rocket programs. From then on, every country wanted a piece, and with the advent of nukes we were all in trouble. Did you know that missiles in Cuba nearly started a nuclear war?” Archer didn’t, and it was slightly interesting to him. “You mean the Cuban Missile Crisis? I thought it was just a footnote of the Cold War.” “It is,” Coleman said with a snort. “It should be so much more, though. We were literally hours away from the destruction of the earth…but that’s the past, right?” “Right,” Archer said warily. He had a feeling that he wasn’t answering correctly, but he wasn’t concentrating hard enough to be worried about it. “What do you know about the Global Nuclear Reduction Treaty?” Archer thought for a moment. He actually did know the history of this one. The Global Nuclear Reduction Treaty, or GNRT, came about after a series of terrific nuclear crises that nearly resulted in the same nuclear war that the Cuban Missile Crisis could have begun. About a century ago, vast amounts of nuclear weapons had spread throughout the world, and not only to nations. Terrorists were constantly threatening some nation or another with nuclear holocaust unless they conformed to this condition or that condition. The nuclear programs of many prosperous countries, such as the United States, had expanded to the point where people were learning ways to control nuclear power that hadn’t existed in earlier times—if you could call it that. Archer didn’t believe that nuclear energy could ever truly be controlled. Of course, with all those nukes floating around the world, political and military stability only lasted so long. The scare came during a particularly trying time in the diplomatic relations between the USA and China, the world’s two superpowers at the time. The two countries didn’t like each other very much, and some fool US military op on Chinese territory pissed the latter party off royally. Top US officials, most of who were war hawks anyway, suspected that the Politburo might even be mad enough to send a message via one of its Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Not long after this observation was made, something happened in China that made the rest of the world jump in their seats. The small US invasion force had given China’s Red Army sufficient cause to worry about other possible attacks, and they’d convinced the Politburo to get their nukes ready to fly, just in case. During this process, there was a massive computer error at one of the missile silos. No one knew the specifics, and Archer personally believed that a saboteur was involved—a simple computer error shouldn’t have caused this incident, which was, simply put, the sudden launch of a Chinese ICBM. The warhead, fortunately, was not activated, and being as the launch was unexpected, certain flammable components were still beneath the rocket when the engines flared to life, creating a rather massive explosion that leveled the silo and disabled the missile before it got into the air. Of course, the US spy satellites noticed this little incident right away, and when confronted with the problem the Chinese, in all their arrogance, denied that anything had even happened—they still had yet to get organized themselves. Paranoid, and equally disorganized, the Americans reviewed their satellite imagery and concluded that there definitely had been a launch of some kind inside China. They could not, however, locate an incoming missile, which brought new fears: what if the Chinese had some new stealth technology that they didn’t know about? Immediately, the USA upgraded their defense systems and readied their nuclear weapons in case China was indeed launching a nuclear attack. In the end, politicians from both countries had contacted each other and cleared up the incident. It hadn’t been quite so simple, of course, but the end result was really all that mattered to Archer and to the rest of the world. Almost instantaneously afterwards, however, a new nuclear crisis broke out between India and Pakistan, and this time the diplomatic channels were slightly less effective. The two countries had always been mortal enemies, and given the fact that both countries had access to nuclear weapons and both of their governments were decidedly unstable, the world should have paid more attention to them. But of course they hadn’t, and because of it nearly a whole generation of Indians and Pakistanis were wiped out. War erupted between the two nations over a religious incident—what else?—and despite sudden efforts by the other nations of the world, nuclear weapons were used. The carnage wiped out entire patches of land and bestowed a barren curse upon them that would last for decades to come. Muslim nations of Asia united around Pakistan, their brother in faith, and threatened to use their own militaries to defeat India. Knowing that it would surely lose were the combined Muslim nations of the world to come against it, India was willing to back down. Diplomats from the USA and other countries good at covering things up came to India’s aid, and with Pakistani officials they drafted a plan in which neither party had to surrender, preserving some old vendettas but quelling new, more severe ones that would have come from a humiliated India. Instead, both countries merely left the other alone, and UN peacekeepers kept watch on the nuclear arsenals of both countries to try and comfort the enemy nations, who didn’t trust each other in the least regardless of whatever treaty they’d signed. It was these things that caused world leaders of most every civilized country to realize that nuclear weapons in any form meant death, one way or another. The entire world gathered together and drafted a treaty that aimed to remove all nuclear weapons from the earth, something most people claimed would never happen. It hadn’t happened, but the number of nukes in the world had been drastically reduced by numbers no one would have thought possible a few years prior to the signing of that historic treaty, the Global Nuclear Reduction Treaty. With that treaty, all governments had more or less discarded the option of nuclear weapons. “I know that the GNRC was the treaty that saved our asses from cooking in a radioactive fire,” Archer replied truthfully. “Indeed,” Coleman nodded again. “You know that governments had stopped using nuclear weapons, but there were still terrorists to worry about. The USA stockpiled their nuclear weapons in various sites that were under heavier protection than the White House itself. No terrorist had a chance of getting in there. In these sites, the USA dismantled its nukes and rendered the parts useless, destroying them in any way possible and burying the things they couldn’t get rid of…nuclear waste, and all that.” “So what does that have to do with this hole? Was there nuclear waste here or something?” “No…” Coleman almost laughed. “The waste is just that—waste. Most of it has been sterilized anyway. That’s something we learned how to do well a while back. No, this hole is something different.” He looked embarrassed again. “It’s a major failure on the part of the government…both the former United States and the Megacity Council. In the days following the GNRT, the USA had developed the technology already to ‘control’ nuclear power, if only slightly. What this more or less meant, for their military, was that they could create nukes that would only damage smaller areas, rather than the big whoppers that wiped out entire cities like in Pakistan and India.” Archer laughed despite himself. “Come on, major. There’s no such thing as a small nuclear bomb.” Coleman didn’t laugh. “Well, you’re partially right, but when you think about it…picture a warhead that destroys an entire city. Now picture a warhead that only wipes out a certain part of the city, maybe even only a radius of ten or twelve blocks. I’d say that there is such a thing as a small nuclear bomb.” Archer blinked, still not guessing where Coleman was going with this. “Begging your pardon, Major Coleman, but what kind of dumbass creates a nuke that only does minor damage? It sorta defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?” “Come again?” “I mean…isn’t the whole point of a nuke to wipe out as much as you can? I mean, when the army was making these things, why would they settle for a small section and use a nuke on it? Why not use a regular missile? Don’t tell me that there weren’t missiles that could do the same thing as the nukes you just described, and without all the political fallout. I mean, Jesus!” Archer, without really thinking, invoked the name of a being that meant nothing to him, a machine. “I mean, once you use a nuke, the rest of the world starts using them against you, and if you only have that one chance at a free nuclear attack, why the hell would you waste it on something a conventional missile could do?” “Zero percent chance of survival,” Coleman said simply, as if it made perfect sense. “Conventional bombs don’t guarantee that everyone in the blast range will die. These missiles do, more or less.” Archer blinked again. “How could there possibly be that many people in one spot who absolutely had to die?” Coleman answered him with a simple look, and Archer realized that he really did know dick about international politics. And he’d thought the Mavericks could be ruthless! The thought hit him like a sack of bricks. The Mavericks… He looked up slowly at the major, and Coleman responded with yet another one of his looks. Archer was finally getting it, the human saw. “I regret to say,” the major went on, “that due to time constraints and monetary issues, the nukes to be dismantled were not always fully dismantled…if you know what I mean.” “No, I do not…” “Everyone in the GNRT deal had to make certain reductions in a certain time frame,” Coleman explained. “Since the USA had so many more nukes than most countries, they had a whole lot more to reduce than the other guys did. In effect, we screwed ourselves with our own treaty.” “You mean, sometimes we couldn’t meet those deadlines we set?” “Right. So to save face, we—the US—would sometimes make a half-assed dismantling effort on some of our bombs and bury them right away, to make quota.” “Pardon me, major, but dicking around like that with nukes…that’s just stupid.” Coleman nodded. “No argument there.” He motioned to the hole in the ground. “Megacity Landfill XRE is much more than just a landfill, Archer. It is a base for the Megacity Army, and that is why we have some patrols running around keeping watch every once in a while. Sure, we bury garbage here, but long ago, other people buried something else here, and some of it was right in this hole.” Coleman looked Archer in the eye. “The United States produced the Buzzbomb right near the time the GNRT was signed.” “Buzzbomb?” Archer asked with a frown. Then a random memory hit him. “Wait…wasn’t the German…?” “Yeah,” Coleman nodded, impressed. “The Nazis called their V1 rockets Buzzbombs, too. I don’t know why the USA of all countries picked that name, but they did. Anyway, the Buzzbomb was a tiny missile equipped with an equally tiny nuclear warhead. It was designed to take out certain areas entirely, in case a message ever needed to be sent or certain people had to be killed right away. You were right on the money with the ‘one shot at a nuclear surprise attack’ thing. The Buzzbomb would create a blast that would pass as something a conventional missile would do—only it would be a helluva lot more effective at the same time.” Coleman again looked at the hole. “One time, there was a big problem with the reduction process, and a few Buzzbombs didn’t get dismantled like they should have. They were tampered with briefly, and placed in a landfill to rot. That was this landfill. In this hole.” A hole that had just been dug up, Archer realized. “You’re saying someone stole nuclear weapons from this place…?” It was a hell of a thing to say, and the force of it hadn’t fully hit Archer yet. “I’m saying,” Coleman clarified, “that three outdated, heavily damaged, and still rather dangerous former nuclear weapons were here, and now they’re not, and that train over there had a part in it.” He motioned to the tracks near the landfill. A train came by every day depositing new garbage for the landfill, and no one really thought much of it. “What about the train?” Archer didn’t make the connection only because his brain did not want to. Coleman sighed. “Someone had to get these nukes out of here somehow, didn’t they?” Archer blinked yet again. What was it with all these questions? Why couldn’t this guy just spit it out? Why couldn’t— It hit like a freight train. It was just a small thought that blossomed from the back of his brain. It seemed so unrelated, so distant, so remote, but could that be the key that connected everything that had happened thus far in Megacity 5? “Where…where does that train stop?” No more holding back, Coleman knew. “That train comes here and back to base via a lap around the city, usually. It was installed for convenience, mostly, not for military use, which I admit now was a mistake.” The human put his hands in his pockets and stood up straight, no longer meeting Archer’s eyes. “Recently, a new route was added to that train’s itinerary. This time it was to collect the trash it would bring to the junkyard. Things went on like this for a while until these weapons were stolen.” “That night,” Archer persisted, “where did this train stop?” “That train,” Coleman said, deflated, “stopped inside Steel Alley on a regular basis, and on one night it stopped a little longer than usual. It unloaded a shipment that remained in the care of a man named Cartwright…and a few nights later, another train came by known in the stations as Blackstar train number 5041 to collect that load.” Coleman forced himself to look the Hunter in the eye and summarized what he’d said. “The Mavericks have smuggled nuclear weapons from this landfill to their home base at Seraph Castle.” The first thought that flashed through Archer’s mind, when he was able to think, was that by realizing that something was wrong in the landfill Pierre and Ludwig had probably just saved the free world. Any humor that the irony of that thought might have invoked died hard when Archer considered the next thought that immediately jumped into his mind, which was that the Hunters and the humans were in deeper dogshit than ever before. The air around him sort of crashed, and he felt slightly sick, or at least as sick as a Reploid can feel. For a moment he lost all sense of time and location, knowing only one thing: the Mavericks had nukes. When he did come back to earth, he couldn’t find the proper words with which to address Coleman, who just stood there patiently. The human had experienced a similar reaction himself, and wondered if Archer’s final mindset would be similar to his own. It was. “What do we do…?” the Reploid asked, somewhat helplessly. “I’m meeting you here,” Coleman explained immediately, “only to give you the information in person. It is impossible to trust this information to coded channels or network addresses—if the Mavericks intercept the message and realize that we know what they’ve done, they may become antsy and, well…you know what might happen then. However, it is equally impossible to entrust this information with anyone less than a unit commander, so that’s why I called you down.” He stood up straight, speaking as confidently as he could. “You’ll now go back to your headquarters. Colonel Alan Kitao of the Megacity Army is already on his way there. Brief your commander and your intelligence chief, and wait for Kitao to arrive before doing anything else. Action will be taken,” Coleman said as affirmatively as he knew how. Archer processed the still overwhelming information in his mind before nodding to the human. “Thank you. I will do as you suggest.” |