Mega Man 1. Tank!

**Chapter One: Tank!**

There seemed to be certain constants in his life. Being shot at and occasionally winding up gruesomely mangled as a result were two of the more unpleasant and frequent of them, but on a lazy morning like this one both seemed reasonably distant possibilities. 

Zero ambled, staring absently at his feet. He didn't bother to look up as he walked, but continued on his meandering path down the hall outside his quarters and acted on the assumption that any traffic that flowed into his path, whether human or reploid or any of the miscellania that fell in between, would get one good look at him and then just flow on out of his way again in a damn hurry. Overhead, the dawning sun shone down through the skylights in a wash of watery yellow light, casting his shadow in indigo against the hard, spotlessly shiny floor. The sky glowed pale blue through the thick glass, turquoise and white with puffs of clouds. 

He was thinking. It was something he did quite often. More specifically, he was thinking about of the mundane constants that marked his life, those a little more routine and comfortable and everyday. Like the mother of all paperwork piles currently residing on the floor of his quarters. That was a constant. In fact, in an establishment like the Maverick Hunters you couldn't find anything more ordinary and everlasting than massive amounts of paperwork. Zero was rather fond of his pile. It was the closest thing he had to a pet. It grew and it ate like any living entity, mostly more paper or whatever other crap he left lying around on the floor of his room. He watched its growth with a great deal of interest, fascinated with the way its internal layers unsteadily shifted and slid in an alien form of inanimate biology. It had been kicked over so many times that it was starting to spawn little colonies, until the entire area around his sleeping berth began to look a lot like some sort of Caribbean paper archipelago arising out of sea of blue carpeting. No matter how much of it he actually tackled and shipped back to Cain or foisted off on some other unfortunate ranking Hunter in his unit, the heap remained at a steady level, never changing in its size or mass or ability to loom threateningly. Thus, a constant was created. 

Like it or not, his life was loaded with them. Like the fact that he woke up every morning with a big blond mat of untameable hair on the right side of his head, on account that he'd stopped sleeping on his left side after someone had told it was hard on all the life support systems stored there. Or maybe that was humans and their heart, or something. At any rate, unmanageable morning hair was another of those fun little constants in his life. 

And then, he mused, there was X, quite possible the largest, bluest, most vocal constant of them all. 

He could always count on his friend being there, somewhere, such a permanent fixture within Hunters that it required some serious warping of your imagination to phase him out of the picture. Even when the blue Hunter wasn't nearby, the vacuum his absence left behind created a familiar situation. Zero wasn't really certain why, but another of the charming _constants_ in his life seemed to be his _constant_ habit of gravitating towards his closest friend like he was some sort of small red moon, apparently doing it without notice at times. Like he was doing right now, come to think of it. Here he was, on his first free Saturday in ages with the entire weekend spread out in front of him like a blackjack hand, his hair knot-free, with his feet carrying him away on automatic, casually gravitating him across the spacious, sun-white lobby of the Maverick Hunter Headquarters. And now he was gravitating down the hall that would eventually lead him right to the common room of the 17th Unit - X's unit - where he promptly gravitated in through its doorway and then, upon entry into the room beyond, gravitated directly into an elbow. 

"Agh!" he yelped in surprise, reeling back, his hands flying to his left eye. 

"Agh!" the reploid he'd run into yelped back, leaping to the side as if he'd suddenly stepped on a poisonous snake and sloshing the beverage he was holding down the front of his armour. "I've blinded an officer!" 

Zero stared out across the room with one eye. From wall to wall, the 17th common room was packed with Hunters. 

Now, this positively reeked of the unusual. The common room of X's unit definitely wasn't a typical gathering ground for Hunters from around all corners of the headquarters, who tended to veer towards either the Air Cavalry common room or Rhino's Roadhouse, a small pub that maliciously lingered just down the road and sucked up any hungry Hunters that happened to wander past it like a liquor licensed black hole. Usually the 17's room was a serious, papery, studious sort of place, devoted mostly to idle chat and quiet downtime and games of backgammon, and that was hardly the type of atmosphere conductive towards any brand of spontaneous festivities. It was a dry, clean, airy sort of place, with institution-blue and white walls and big, curving bay windows offering a view out over the street below. It was the last place Zero would have expected to find a small party erupting inside, especially at this ungodly hour of the morning. The 17th common room was usually about as exciting as damp moss. On top of that, the television was too small, the couches too starched, everything smelt strongly of carpet cleaner and pine air freshener, and the variety of fruit drinks served in the vending machines frankly sucked. 

And yet here it was that nearly a quarter of the Hunter population had taken refuge, jammed in nearly elbow to elbow and laughing like a bunch of lunatics. And half of them he recognized as being off-duty at this time. They weren't here because they had to be, or because they needed to kill some time. They were here just to have one hell of a good time. He'd already spotted most of X's unit mixed in with the crowd. To a reploid, they were all looking strangely amused rather than annoyed at the rowdy interruption currently spilling grape juice all over their spotless carpeting and sitting on their end tables and completely neglecting to use coasters. 

On the other hand, X himself was nowhere in sight, which was both unusual and suspicious in itself. He figured it was safe to assume that the blue Hunter was out on a morning assignment already and thus unaware of the ruckus taking place, because there was no other way to explain the fact that the 17th common room had been taken over by noisy invaders without the leader unit having something stern to say about it. 

"Are you all right, sir?" the reploid he'd run into was asking earnestly enough, even as he made a half-hearted attempt to mop up the juice running into his armour with the fabric of his uniform. 

"Yeah," Zero said with uncharacteristic charity, blinking rapidly until his vision had reoriented itself again. "Eyesight is overrated anyway." 

The Hunter gave him a friendly, confused look. "What?" he shouted as the crowd suddenly let out a raucous yell. 

Zero decided to try a different tack. "What's going on in here?" he bawled over the dim. "Who died, and just how unpopular was he?" 

"What?" the Hunter shouted. 

_"What gives?"_ Zero bellowed, waving at the throng of Hunters. 

"Beats me, sir," the reploid cheerfully shouted back, nodding as he finally understood. "I just sorta followed the crowd here." 

Zero gave him a flat look. "Ah. The crowd." 

He knew all about crowds, all right. One didn't spend any amount of time as an active public defender without learning a few things about basic crowd biology. A crowd, Zero had come to realise, had a head like any other animal. It did the thinking for the rest of the body and constantly wove the entire being through its surroundings in pursuit of something that would spark its curiosity, like food or a public stoning. The head was the first to arrive at a scene of interest and usually clever enough to be the first to leave once the riot police started amassing. 

A crowd also had a tail. In fact, like a snake, the majority of its body could be considered tail. The tail provided the momentum for the locomotion of the entire animal. It was the strength and muscle. It pushed everything along. However, it never led. The tail faithfully followed wherever the head damn well chose to take it. The tail made no destination plans. The tail was basically just along for the ride. As a result, it was usually the last to get anywhere and then tended to linger afterwards long after the head had made its prudent disappearance, usually to point and laugh and throw some bricks. 

Years of dealing with crowds had left Zero with a simple, solid understanding: when you wanted to know what the hell had attracted the interest of one, there was absolutely no point trying to ask the ass end. It was always infinitely better to just hack your way straight to the head and sort things out from there. The head usually knew why it was there and just what it was doing. And at the head you could find the mouth, and almost every crowd had at least one mouth; that sole individual at the very front of the pack doing most of the yelling, typically through some sort of amplifying device. The mouth was loud. The mouth tended to stand out and attract attention. The mouth did most of the plotting, to the point that sometimes the best way to kill a crowd wasn't to chop off the head, but simply shut the mouth. 

At this moment in time, however, he'd settle for just finding out what had started this odd gathering in the Maverick Hunter's most unobtrusive common room and why the hell he hadn't been invited beforehand. The fringe lingering at the back likely wouldn't know, not if they'd just joined up with the crowd because it looked like it knew where to find a good time. He needed to find out who was in charge, around which interesting spectacle or loudmouth this zesty little get together had formed. He carefully pushed his way past the elbow and the reploid attached to it that had accosted him at the door and began a long fight through the pack to the front of the room, deftly fending off any drinks or attempts at friendly conversation thrust upon him as recognition of his red armour swiftly needled through the crowd. 

As he beat his way to the front he began to realise that somebody had turned the television on. Evidently it was someone who really knew how to work the volume knob for all it was worth as well, because as he drew near he could easily pick out the singsong voice of a television reporter riding effortlessly over the general din, drowning it out with a drone of morning news. Zero would have ordinarily expected something like the city weather report and news of local overnight stabbings to kill a party right quick rather than spark one, but sure enough, as he broke through the head of the crowd he spotted a flash of images across the flat-screened television mounted into the wall at the other side of the room and recognized one of them as being the neatly pressed reporter for the Channel Eleven News in all of her blonde and beige glory. He could see her lips moving through her big smile and he paused for a moment, straining to hear what she was saying. 

"-early reports and still preliminary, but chances are a verdict will be reached by sometime tomorrow evening. And now," she added brightly, shuffling her notes and beaming into the camera, "We take you back to the outskirts of the Nelson Military Base and the dramatic turn of events that have been unfolding there since early this morning-" 

"Shut up, shut up!" somebody in the pack roared over the hubbub. "It's coming back on!" 

_"Shh!"_ the crowd hissed back. 

Zero marvelled at the way the room immediately fell into an eager, anticipatory silence, save for an excited murmur that still rippled through the back of the throng. He took the opportunity to scan the front of the room and quickly espied a cluster of common room couches that had been pushed and hauled and finally dumped into a shallow U shape directly in front of the television. They were packed from end to end with Hunters, all of whom were gawking at the television, held mindlessly rapt by the picture playing across the screen. A small sea of empty cans and junk food wrappers radiated out around the couches like the world's messiest blast radius. Wherever X was right now and whenever he got back, chances were he was going to be mightily pissed when he saw the small landfill forming in his common room, Zero reflected. 

There were several humans crammed in with the Hunters on the couch, and even at that distance he had absolutely no trouble in recognizing one of them. The female was comfortably mashed in between two heavy reploid Hunters, sprawled low on the couch with her legs splayed out, evidently without a care in the world for the fact that either of her neighbours could easily reach over and snap her brittle human neck in an instant if they ever felt so inclined. She was short and stocky and, for reasons known only to anarchists and the terminally stoned, had dyed her hair a blinding shade of neon green that could likely been seen from a low orbit. That, combined with her large, watery grey eyes and fish pale skin, both resulting from long weeks spent working and living in a subterranean medical bay deep within the Maverick Hunters Headquarters without seeing the sun once, had gone a long way in earning the chief technician her nickname. 

"Zero!" she boomed delightedly when she caught sight of him lingering across the room, waving madly to catch his attention. "Zero! Hey! Over here! You made it!" 

"Shut up!" someone in the crowd hollered at her. 

"You shut up!" someone else screamed back. 

"Go to hell!" 

"Down in front!" 

"We can't hear anything back here!" 

"Turn it up!" 

"Would you just shut up?" 

"Guys!" 

"Geez!" 

_"BOOM!"_ the crowd gleefully bellowed en mass as something loudly and violently exploded over the television. 

_"Be quiet, you unbelievably inconsiderate screwoffs!"_ Frog finally roared with insulted impatience, twisting around in her seat to chastise the crowd from over the back of the couch. "_Some of us are trying to watch this!_ Man, they're noisy," she added in a conversational tone to her neighbour on her right when the hush sullenly reasserted itself, sliding back into her seat. 

Zero meanwhile shook his head sadly. Looks like he'd found the mouth, all right. 

Frog was grinning broadly up at him as he began to pick his way towards the the couches, sidling carefully through the mess of empties, his head ducked low to stay out of the line of sight of the rest of the crowd all eagerly watching the television. "Just sit yourself on down, Big Red," she said when he was near enough. "I saved a special place on the couch just for you." 

"It seems to have gotten cold and occupied," Zero pointed out mildly, staring down at the millimetres of free space separating her from the Hunters jammed in to either side, none of whom appeared particularly inclined to budge from their well cushioned piece of real estate and its superior view of the television. 

Frog looked to the left and right with nothing short of pure surprise. "Hmm. You make an interesting observation, my friend." 

Turning around awkwardly in place until she was almost sitting on the lap of her immediate neighbour, the mechanic reared back one foot and reefed it firmly into the side of the Hunter on her left, who let out a surprised WHOOF of air and slithered off of his seat. "Off the couch, you. You're being relocated to the floor in favour of ranking tenants." 

The rudely displaced reploid turned himself around on his knees with as much dignity as he could scrape up from the level of the carpet. "I call discrimination," he said sulkily. 

"Get yourself a petition and take it up with the new management," Frog told him with a shrug. 

The reploid glanced up at Zero, who looked back down at him and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Screw," he said. 

Starting with surprise, the reploid hesitated for a moment and then seemed to come to the unspoken decision that life would be a whole wad easier if he didn't challenge couch territorial rights with a ranking officer. Muttering darkly to himself, he slunk off into the crowd instead to nurse his grudge while the red Hunter himself dropped down heavily into the narrow space on the sofa he'd left behind. 

"Cosy," Zero noted as he kicked up his feet onto a cluttered coffee table and wormed his shoulders into the cushions until he'd found a comfortable position, much to the annoyance of the Hunter on his left. 

"Ain't it though?" Frog smirked. 

He eyed her warily and said, "And I'll thank you to wipe that look off your face, young lady." 

She just laughed at that and said, "Want some warm orange drink?" while offering him a can that she'd been keeping upright by squeezing it between her knees. 

He fended it off with his hands, feeling vaguely queasy. "No, not really." 

"You sure? It's not like we're strapped for it. The vending machine started coughing up freebies after we jammed a bunch of Japanese yen in the slot and then jiggled it with a clothes hanger." 

"Oh yeah," Zero remarked to the room at large. "X is gonna be _real_ happy when he sees all this." 

"I'm sorry?" 

"Nothing." 

"Have some," she urged again. "Just a sip." 

"I really don't want your lousy orange drink," he told her flatly. 

The mechanic looked deeply disappointed and held up the can to inspect it. "Well, damn. You just can't give this stuff away. Now I'm stuck with twenty odd free cans. And I hate this fruity crap!" 

"That'll learn you not to screw with things that don't belong to you," the red Hunter said piously. 

"I've learned nothing. Oh well," she sighed in dismay. "Maybe I can grow to like the taste of this stuff." 

She took a long, tentative sip from the can and her face immediately shut down all expression. "Five kinds of fruit, my ass." 

"Just do what I do when faced with something containing a nutritional value. Observe," the red Hunter instructed, and deftly plucked the can from her hands. After looking about himself for a moment he gingerly reached far over the shoulders of the reploid seated next to him and carefully tipped the liquid contents into a conveniently placed potted plant sitting on an end table nearby. 

Frog looked impressed as he passed the can back to her. "You are wise beyond your years, white man," 

"Whatever. Look, what's going on in here? What's with the news and the crowd?" 

The mechanic looked surprised at that. "You no hear?" 

"Hear what?" 

She gave him an accusing look. "It's been on the news and going around the building since five am, you know." 

"I miss out on stuff when I'm sleeping," Zero said dryly. "What with being unconscious and all." 

"Smartarse. Well, as the story goes, apparently early this morning some nutjob ten kinds of Crazytown managed to steal one of those big Gilgamesh robot tanks from your friendly neighbourhood military base and has been taking it out for a joyride on the streets of our fine city." 

"A robot tank?" Zero exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in surprise and staring at the television. "You're saying someone actually stole a _tank_?" 

"And how!" Frog cackled. 

"Mavericks?" he asked quickly. 

"No idea. But there's been plently opportunities to shell and/or mow down a whole lot of humans and nothing's happened, so I'm guessing no." 

Zero gawked at the screen. "Then is this guy _on crack_, or something? How the hell do you steal a _tank_ without getting your ass beaten into a puree and then fed back to you by ten beefy army guys?" 

"Beats me," the mechanic replied. "Somebody figured out how!" 

"Didn't anyone think to ask him what the hell he was doing there in the first place?" 

"Apparently not. Either everyone guarding the base was off in the can at the time, or the guy is some sort of superbeing, because it looks like he just walked right in without being spotted or questioned or anything, jumped into the biggest death machine he could find and then just drove the thing right back off their property like it was a rental off the lot. Nobody knows who it is. No pictures of names have been released over the news yet. Nobody IDed him. Nobody even saw him!" 

Zero was shaking his head in amazement. "That's insane," he said. "I mean, it's an army base. It's not like shoplifting at the Wal-Mart." 

Frog laughed. "Whoever pulled it off is fast becoming a personal hero around here. We've been here watching the whole colourful event unfold after someone over in the 6th got wind of it over the radio, and have been generally just cheering the guy on ever since." 

"This is the absolute greatest thing that's happened this week," the red Hunter declared, an incredibly evil grin coming over his face as he leaned back into the couch and slung one arm over the back. His eyes never left the television as he drank in the mayhem playing out over the screen. "No, this month. I'm so impressed." 

Frog grinned sharply at him and sank back, folding her arms over the top of her head and scratching her fingers through her hair. "They've been running the story on the news since dawn, and it makes for some mighty fine viewing, let me tell you. Too bad you slept through the best parts. He's been cruising the thing up and down the streets running over stuff with a whole slew of really angry MPs and cops on his tail, all trying to figure out just you stop a great big tank without injuring anyone when all you've got are some spike strips and a bunch of light laser rifles. It's been a real hoot and a half watching him vengefully mow down parked cars, all right." 

"Dammit, I always miss the good stuff," Zero swore regretfully. "Somebody's recording this, right?" 

_"Damage!"_ roared the crowd in delight over the excited chatter of the reporter, throwing up its hands in time to the carnage playing out on the television screen. 

"_Hell_, yes," Frog assured him after the ringing stopped. "I don't know about you, but a copy is going straight to my video collection." 

"Sweet Betsy Ross," Zero exclaimed in awe. "A tank. And just how many casualties are they wading in down there?" 

"Dunno," the mechanic said, shrugging casually. "We've been watching for about a half hour, and so far nobody's been squished yet. But he smashed up some mailboxes and kiosks and crap, which makes up for the disappointing body count." 

"A runaway tank and nobody mauled? That's wild," the red Hunter marveled, slowly shaking his head. 

"That's what we all thought," Frog said agreeable. "Especially when he ran it through that intersection. Boy, that was a tense two minutes!" 

Zero looked around the crowded common room. "Speaking of which, just why _is_ everyone short of Cain and his dog in here watching this?" he said. "Aside from the enormous entertainment value?" 

Frog gave him the long, patient stare usually reserved by adults for children who have just said a very stupid thing. "It's a tank, silly lad. And it's running amok and crushing stuff and basically just inflicting large amounts of public property damage. You figure it out." 

"I didn't mean it that way," the red Hunter told her testily, giving her a look of his own from the corner of his eye. "What I meant is why did everyone came running down here to watch it, to the 17th's common room? I would have expected this sort of luau over at the Roadhouse, or the cafeteria or something, but not here. This place makes things like the library and mental institutions and the music of Leonard Cohen look outright exhilarating in comparison." 

Frog had opened her mouth to reply when a massive, wall-rattling cheer suddenly erupted from the crowd, drowning out anything she might have tried to say. The pair reeled from the sheer concussive force of the noise as roughly twenty Hunters jammed together in the common room around them all appeared to go insane with malicious glee all at once, howling with laughter at something that had appeared on the screen. 

"Well, there's your answer right there, scrabbling for adequate cover behind that overturned truck," the mechanic shouted over the clamor, pointing at something on the television and grinning nastily. She then turned to the Hunter seated on her other side and plucked vainly at his sleeve. "What did we miss, what did we miss?" 

While her neighbour filled the mechanic on the details they'd missed while talking, Zero let his attention drift back to the footage on the television, which had been reduced to a small box in the corner of the screen while the studio reporter rattled off a list of details about the story. The video quality wasn't very good, he noticed - the picture occasionally crackled under white snowstorms of static and was joggling a bit, as if the unseen cameraman was either running to keep up with police or laughing quite hard - but it was still clear enough for him to recognize the street that the crew was filming. The tank itself was little more than a dark island trundling briskly through a sea of traffic. Indeed, as Frog had mentioned, the driver seemed more interested in randomly running down things on the street that happened across his path rather than actively attacking anyone, and the main gun hadn't moved once. It was angled unthreateningly towards the sky. Aside from a couple mangled cars and shattered public kiosks lying in its wake and two long lines of crumpled pavement left behind whenever it went from its treads, the damage didn't seem particularly inspired. He was vaguely disappointed. 

The military police didn't seem to be taking things as lightly, however. Greatly amused, he watched as they either scampered around ahead of it as if debating the wisdom of being a hero and jumping aboard, or just stood about glumly in the deep path it was carving through the street with their rifles canted on their hips. A couple cruisers were skimming along in pursuit at a safe distance, and overhead he thought he spotted a helicopter, hovering like a white fish, its rotor whirring sleek and silver. Nobody seemed particularly inclined to get all that close. The turret hadn't budged yet, but clearly no one really wanted to take the chance that it wouldn't in the future. He was suddenly inspired by the thought that, if it really _were_ a Maverick behind the wheel, he probably couldn't blame them for not being enthusiastic about the idea of being violently exploded. Mavericks tended to get a big kick out of human death statistics, particularly the high ones that happened all at once really quickly. 

Something suddenly caught his eye and he quickly leaned forward, his hands on his knees, squinting curiously at the television. Just as he did the footage flipped back to full screen and the camera angle shifted, and he instantly recognized what it was the crowd had gone nuts over, and just who it was Frog had pointed out keeping under cover behind some crumpled vehicles. In an instant, a whole lot of things about the current situation suddenly made a whole lot of sense. 

"It's X!" he yowled, and fell back against the couch with a loud burst of laughter while the fuzzy image of the blue reploid warily scampered hither thither about the screen in an attempt to keep up with the tank without attracting undue attention to himself. It wasn't hard for him to spot several other Maverick Hunters from his friend's unit mixed in as well, most of whom appeared to be from his friend's unit. He grinned broadly when he saw that they all appeared to be as hopelessly lost as to what they were supposed to be doing as their leader was. 

Frog suddenly turned on him with a wild, glassy look in her eyes and immediately began plucking at _his_ arm like an excited child at the fair. "You won't believe what I just heard!" 

"Let's just back it up a minute here, sister," Zero interrupted, still guffawing, holding up a hand to silence her. He then jabbed an accusing finger at the screen. "Hi there! How come you didn't take the time to mention that X and some of the guys from his unit were off playing around with that thing?" 

"Because I thought it would make a simply lovely surprise for you when you found out," she told him pleasantly, after regaining some of her composure. "Merry Christmas. Now, get this - if this thing ends up dragging on for another ten minutes, the military police just made the statement that they're going to have to haul out another tank to break the stalemate!" 

The red Hunter abruptly stopped laughing and stared at her instead. "They're going to _battle_ them?!" 

"I hope so," Frog said mistily. "A great big ripping tank fight would go over _real_ well right now. This sort of thing is almost enough to convince me that there really is a God." 

Without warning, the crowd suddenly boomed out a loud exhalation of surprise and disappointment and the room filled with the sounds of confused, noisy chatter. The neighbour she'd been talking to a moment before turned and nudged her in the side with his elbow. "The tank just warped out," he announced helpfully. 

"God is dead," the mechanic said flatly. 

The red Hunter's head meanwhile whipped back around towards the television. "The what did what now?" 

"Aw, damn!" Frog exclaimed, gesturing in disgust. "It really _is_ gone! Just look at that!" 

"What the hell do you mean, the tank warped out?" Zero said, ignoring her. He leaned forward and around her to regard the Hunter on her right while the human continued to glare accusingly at the television set with an expression of great, wounded insult. 

"It drove up underneath a highway overpass and suddenly just poof! disappeared," the Hunter explained patiently. "There was a lot of blue light for a moment, so somebody must have teleported it right on out of there." 

"Teleported?" Zero exclaimed. 

He glanced over sharply. Sure enough, the scene playing out on the news had degenerated into one of mass bewilderment and chaos as the military police and Maverick Hunters began to angrily swarm over and around the place the big machine should have been but quite obviously wasn't like a nest of disturbed ants. The overpass arched over their heads, and the street disappeared beneath it and then continued off into the city on the other side. The white helicopter prowled through the skies over the area, hunting out any signs of the fugitive machine as the cruisers began to descend on the spot beneath the bridge it had last been seen. He even spotted X standing on the hood of a car that had swerved over onto the side of the road when the driver had caught an eyeful of the approaching tank blithely barrelling down on him at a clipped pace. The blue Hunter had his hands in fists on his hips as he looked about himself with an blank expression. 

"Tanks don't warp," Zero said lamely. 

"Well, go explain that to this one," the Hunter said, shrugging. "'Cause it apparently doesn't know that!" 

The red Hunter looked down at Frog. "Tanks don't warp, right?" 

"Not on their own, they don't," she said sulkily. 

"So, somebody must have helped this one on its merry way?" he pressed. 

"I don't know. Maybe. Yes, probably." 

Zero turned around on the couch when he realised it was suddenly getting a whole lot less occupied. Hunters were beginning to drift out of the room in acute disappointment, although several remained behind to stare at the television and entertain vain hopes that the tank would make a miraculous reappearance, and to shake down and pilfer the few straggling drinks still remaining in the common room's vending machine. He felt the cushions to his right depress and then spring back up again as Frog hauled herself out of her seat and brushed discarded candy wrappers out of her pants, her face black. 

"Well, it's back to the Swamp for me," she muttered sourly. "There's no point sticking around up here now." 

"Cheer up," he told her. "If it got teleported that means it's now considered extremely stolen, which means parts of it might be showing up again on a police scan sooner or later." 

"I guess," she said grouchily, clearly not willing to give up on her sudden bad mood altogether. "Oh well. I was supposed to be doing inventory anyway, so I probably should run downstairs and actually help my guys sort through it before they all start plotting ways to vandalize my car in revenge for cruelly abandoning them to the job." 

"Yeah, that'd be a good idea," Zero said with a yawn. Over on the television, the police continued to buzz excitedly underneath and about the overpass, which was lit up in red and blue lights from the cruisers. He gave it a brief, disinterested look long enough to catch sight of the picture before it closed back to the studio reporter, just in time to spot X in the corner of the screen lowering his communicator and warping out of the scene from his perch on the car with the remaining members of his unit. One quick glance revealed the couch had been sorrowfully abandoned by the rest of its previous occupants, so he swung his legs up and around until his booted feet thumped hard into the opposite armrest. He crossed them at the ankles, then flopped back with his arms folded comfortably behind his head and a beatific expression settling across his face. 

"Well," he said lazily. "I guess I'll just kick around here until X gets back-" 

As if on cue the PA suddenly chimed, and there was a warning burst of static over the speakers before the unmistakable voice of the Hunters' receptionist floated over the room. "Bonjour, y'all! The time is whatever it says on your watch. Due to unfavourable conditions beyond our control, lunch will be served today. Single scientist going by the name of Cain seeks three gentlemen for a meeting in his office in twenty minutes. Must be single, fun loving, and go by the names of Sainfoin, Zero, and Griffith. We've already sold four off the lot today, so get a hustle on, sirs, before this offer runs out! Tell all your friends!" 

There was a moment of silence as the PA switched off again, during which the Hunter and the mechanic exchanged odd, contemplative looks. 

"Or not," Zero finally said with a grimace as he dragged himself back up into a sitting position. He swung his feet back onto the floor and eyed Frog, who was regarding him with a great deal of amused curiosity. "You get one guess as to what this is going to be all about." 

"I dunno," she said with false brightness. "House painting?" 

* * *

As the director behind Cain Labs and one of the chief minds behind the Maverick Hunting organization, the old scientist named Dr Cain naturally had the authority to take his pick of the offices scattered throughout the sprawling white buildings that made up the Hunters' headquarters. Whatever room he took a fancy too was practically promised to be his, as respect for him and his accomplishments ran deep and true throughout the establishment. After debating between the jealously coveted fourth floor offices that claimed wall to wall windows opening up towards the sky and the spacious first floor quarters a stone's throw away from the building that housed both the gyms and the pools, Cain had spent a week in deep contemplation and finally chosen for himself a working space that many later agreed was the evolved form of the common broom closet. 

His reasons for doing so were baffling and, ultimately, his own. When asked about it, Cain had merely grinned devilishly and started hauling in houseplants by the dozens. While ranking Hunters continued to quarrel over office real estate several floors above, the doctor had first called in some carpenters to upgrade the walls of his dingy little home from peeling, mildew soaked drywalling to a deep, attractive shade of caramel-bronze pine, and then blithely set about installing a small part of the Amazon Rainforest into the tiny workspace. With his desk and cabinets and computer and hordes of framed pictures and certificates finally moved in and artfully arranged about the room, the final effect was that an autonomous, well educated jungle had settled into the office, claimed it as its own, and was planning to start work the following Monday morning. 

The end result was that it was a cramped space that smelt strongly of pine, earth and newly wet leaves. It was also the closest thing the Maverick Hunters Headquarters had to a greenhouse, however, so nobody really complained whenever they were called in for a meeting with Dr Cain, and then left with a new understanding of herbal medicine and when the best time to plant your perennials actually was. 

Zero paused outside the office long enough to rap his knuckles briskly against the door and then strolled on in. He was mildly annoyed to see that the other two Hunters Cain had called to meet with had already arrived and had gingerly arranged themselves and their chairs around the front of his desk. As both were fairly sizeable reploids, particularly in full impressive battle armour, it left him with precious little room to manoeuvre in and as a result he could practically feel internal mechanisms grinding down into a halt as he squeezed in between the wall, an attractive spread of flowering African violets, and the back of one of the Hunters in an attempt to reach the lonely chair across the room clearly intended for him. 

Cain himself was barricaded safely behind his desk and was grinning openly as the red Hunter fought through the foliage to get to the sanctity of his seat like a stranded Vietnam soldier bolting for his trench. "Want some help?" he finally said, taking pity on Zero's plight. 

"It's all good," Zero grunted, and then gave the seat of the Hunter he was currently pinned behind a hard, aggravated shove. "Hi there, Griff! Chairs are made for moving, eh?" 

The Hunter sniggered, but obediently slide his chair forward a couple life sparing inches, bending his knees and folding his lower legs under the seat before they were crushed against the desk. Zero shot past him like a champagne cork and lurched into his chair with whatever shreds of dignity he had remaining. 

"Glad you could make it," Cain remarked dryly when he'd finally settled into place. 

"Glad to be here," Zero replied, and tried to make it sound like he meant it. He kicked one foot up onto the opposite knee and tried to casually throw an arm over the back of his chair without smashing his fist through the liquor cabinet directly behind him. "So, what's up?" 

The old scientist displayed some admirable conversational dodgeball skills by skipping around the question entirely. He wagged a finger between the three reploids sitting in front of him instead and raised his eyebrows. "Sorry I sound so hideously out of touch, but, uh, you three all know each other fairly well, right?" 

They all glanced at each other and exchanged a mutual shrug. "I guess you could say that, yeah," Zero replied. 

Privately, Zero admitted to himself that it was a half-truth, anyway. While the Maverick Hunters wasn't a large organization in numbers, it occupied and operated over a very broad area of territory, which meant that a lot of people were spread very thinly. It also meant that you tended to meet members who had worked there for years for a first time on an almost daily basis. 

"Particularly by reputation," the larger of the two other reploids added in a deep, dry, rumbly voice, glancing at Zero, and the other laughed aloud at that and then returned his attention towards looping all of the paperclips on Cain's desk into a great long chain. 

Zero himself certainly had no trouble recognizing the Hunter who'd spoken, mostly because his sheer size and bulk made him nothing short of a walking, talking natural landmark. Sainfoin was a black unicorn reploid clad in heavy yellow armour that many remarked made him look something like the world's most animated road sign. He was as big and broad as a tank, large like a prize fighter, as hard as the stock of a shotgun, with fists the size of battling rams. Although he looked the type who knocked over buildings and ate cinderblocks for fun, he was as docile as a kitten and as clever as a cat. He rarely shouted, rarely smiled, and had never fired a shot in anger. He fit into his position of command over 8th Armoured Unit like a brick into mortar, and led his troupe of Hunters with a great deal of tolerant intelligence. Zero rather respected him. He had no patience for the big reploid's steady brand of policing, but he respected it all the same. He _had_ to repect a fellow who had once folded a hoverbike neatly in half in order to make a point clear to a pair of Mavericks who had attacked a public bus. It had been a subtle point - that being that he could very easily do the same to a less _inanimate_ object of roughly the same size and weight - and one that had not been missed by the Mavericks, who had come to the conclusion that a hasty retreat would be a really super idea shortly afterwards. 

And as for the reploid who had laughed… 

It was hard not to know Griffith. Griffith was like the weather, in that he was highly erratic, often aggravating, and seemed to be everywhere at once. And he was unusual at that, and people tended to notice the unusual and remember it. For one thing, Zero had learned that he was both built and hailed from New Zealand, and as a result he had the rich, fashionably Australian-esque accent that not only clearly branded him as being from a foreign land, but made people stop just to listen and giggle at his easy drawl. Secondly, he was a hawk reploid and therefore a skilled flier, and air jockeys typically soaked in a great deal of attention. As the leader of the 7th Air Cavalry Unit he was all of the famous characteristics of the dashing airman all rolled into one: he was fearless and cavalier and reckless and freehearted, and Zero _absolutely couldn't stand the showy bastard._

"Now this is talent," Griffith was remarking as Zero's attention resurfaced back to the moment at hand, proudly hoisting up his paperclip train for all to admire. 

"Beautiful," Cain said dryly. "I'll be sure to hang it on the tree next Christmas." 

"I'll be looking for it," the hawk reploid threatened half-heartedly, and then pounced eagerly on a box of new pens sitting on the corner of the scientist's desk. 

Cain rolled his eyes and turned to Sainfoin and Zero and said, "I'm sorry for this delay, but we're just waiting for X and Mistigri- oh, wait, here they are now." 

All three reploids tried to turn towards the door at once, with semi-disastrous results as they all immediately tangled in Griffith's wings. Zero irritably folded one to the side and out of his face so that he could get a good look at his friend as the two Hunters trudged in wearily through the door and promptly found themselves fending off an attractive azalea arrangement. 

"Sorry you two," Cain was saying apologetically. "But it looks like it's standing room only in here." 

"That's okay," X said mildly, flattening himself against the wall in what little space was left over. "When it comes to standing around I'm a regular Jedi." 

X looked tired, Zero noted, like he hadn't quite gotten enough sleep the night before and had then been cruelly hauled out of bed in order to chase around a machine of mass destruction, which, in actuality, was probably the case. His eyes were lined, his smile wilted, and he had to fight back a yawn with the back of his hand every half a minute. He wobbled on his feet like a punching bag clown and seemed to be blinking a lot more often than usual. His blue armour was caked in a layer of fine dust and grime and his helmet was rather scratched up, like he'd recently put his head through a wall. Next to him, Mistigri, a tall, lean reploid with cropped black hair and decked out in a suede jacket thrown over casual street clothing, was looking positively spruce and wry in comparison. 

Old man Cain had evidently gotten around to noticing X's state as well, because he said in rising concern, "Good grief, don't tell me it attacked after all?" 

"Not really," X reassured him, carefully shaking his head like he was expecting it to fall off at any moment. "I got a little close at one point and it suddenly turned a bit and made a spirited attempt to mow me down. I got clipped a little by the tread but at that point I'd thrown myself behind a car and it got crunched instead." 

"Yeah, that bit was a riot," Zero agreed, chuckling heartily as he fondly remembered the news footage, and X lanced him with a evil look that smouldered like the business end of a lit cigarette. 

"Would you like to drop in on the infirmary before we continue?" Cain said, bemused. 

"Naw," the blue Hunter said instead, looking down at himself. "It looks a whole lot worse than it actually is." 

"While we're on the topic," Cain continued, lacing his fingers together and leaning forward over his desk. "Just how bad a casualty report can I expect to read up on in tomorrow's paper?" 

"Zilch," X replied. "Nadda, nothing. Nobody was hurt at all. The police did a great job keeping people out its path and out of the way, and all the cars and stuff it hit were all empty anyway. I think the worst case I saw was one of my guys, who got a bit banged up by some flying debris. And even he shrugged it off okay. We were pretty lucky all around I'd say, all things considering!" 

The scientist cast a quick glance at the female Hunter standing placidly next to X. "Mistigri?" 

She nodded. "He's right; the police confirmed it. No injuries were reported. The property damage costs are reputedly going to be quite high, but that seems to be the worst of it." 

"Then you don't think it was the Mavericks?" 

"Not really," X said, frowning slightly. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. "They would have at least tried to take out a couple humans, and considering that it was driven through a heavily populated area and that the energy cells on that thing were fully charged to begin with..." 

He trailed off suggestively and his expression grew grim. 

Cain made a gruesome face at the thought and then grinned half heartedly at the three reploids seated in front of his desk. "I take it you know what we're referring to?" 

"I think we sorta figured it out for ourselves, yeah," Zero said dryly. 

"What does Nelson make of the theft?" Sainfoin suddenly asked. 

"They're rather stunned it managed to happen in the first place," Mistigri told him. "Doubtless a very serious inquiry and investigation will be made towards their security, and the threat of that is embarrassing them greatly." 

"Just how did the guy pull it off in the first place?" Zero asked. 

The black haired Hunter's face grew amused. "He walked in, jumped into a tank, and then drove right back out." 

"That's _it?_" 

"That's it, at least until the MPs go back and review all the security tapes to see what went wrong. Or right, depending on your perspective of it." 

"And for the time being, that will be little concern to the rest of us working grunts," Cain stepped in firmly. He nodded conceding towards the female Hunter and added, "Save for you, Mistigri. I believe that dogging those investigations pretty much falls into your department, so stick to the police like glue as you've already been doing and try to sift whatever interesting bits of information you come across back down to us so we don't get bored and lonely. I'm _real_ curious to know who took the time to warp that thing out in particular, and just how they did it, so if you could look into that for me I'd be ever so grateful. I'm thinking positive monthly personal performance review type grateful, here." 

"Right-o," she said amiably. "Warp info equals shot in the arm for career. Gotcha." 

The scientist grinned broadly at the remaining Hunters as she silently stole from the office, leaning far back in his chair until it thumped into the wall and comfortably folding his hands over his stomach. The snowy slope of the top of his head disappeared beneath the feathery green fronds of a fern hanging directly overhead. "The rest of you gentlemen get the dull and dreary task of trying to stop that thing whenever it puts in a second appearance, and you just know it's going to pop up sometime soon in one incarnation or another. Somebody doesn't steal a great big machine like that just to park it in the garage and then arrange their tools and gardening supplies around it." 

"We're on tank duty, then?" X said, blinking in surprise. 

"Sort of," the scientist admitted, scratching his beard. "More like tank prevention duty for the time being. Sainfoin, your unit is best equipped and armoured for going toe to toe with the ordnance that kind of big nasty is packing and still be standing around afterwards, so I'm sticking the lot of you fellows on the backburner and thus on home defence on the chance it winds up resurfacing and wants to pick a fight." 

"Sound enough strategy," the big reploid rumbled, shifting slightly in his ill-fitting chair and looking vaguely pleased with the arrangement. "I'm confident we can deflect anything it dishes out." 

"I'm inclined to agree with you," Cain told him, smiling benevolently. 

"Ever been squarely hit by a bolt charge from one of those big Gilgamesh robot tanks before?" Zero asked him, twisting around to face the unicorn with a toothy grin. 

"Not yet," Sainfoin replied, yawning unaffectedly. "But life's just chock full of little surprises." 

"Griffith," the scientist meanwhile continued. "I'm putting you and the rest of the Air Cav on offical patrol duty. Be a good chap and see if you can't find me a missing tank, would you?" 

"No worries," the hawk drawled, stretching in a lazy fashion until his black banded metal wings nearly touched the walls on either side of him. He shook his head and clacked his beak and grinned sharply and added, "I'll even skin and dress it with ma bowie knife and mount its head on a nice little plaque for your fireplace viewing needs." 

"That's mighty kind of you, mountain man," Cain said dryly. "But I'll be more than happy to settle with you just finding it for me, or any sign of it." 

"We can do that too," Griffith said affably. 

"X and I are starting to get lonely over here, Doc," Zero chimed in pointedly without looking up at the scientist, scratching absently at a non-existent mark of dirt on the booted foot resting up on his knee. "Lonely and unwanted." 

"Eh?" X said intelligently, rousing himself and staring owlishly about the room as if suddenly started awake. 

The old man favoured the red Hunter with a grin that toed the shallows of evil and steepled his fingers together. His eyes shone bright and grey and nasty just above the fingertips. "Just cool your jets, there. Would you feel any better if I told you that you two are going to be on Team Strike Force?" 

"Not if you're going to insist on referring to us with that ludicrous title, no," the red reploid promptly retorted, all indignant pride. 

Cain laughed loudly at that, pinching the bridge of his nose to stifle his laughter. When he got his mirth roped back under control again he lowered his hand and said, "Well, what it all boils down to is that if we ever wind up getting into a great big scrap with that thing, were going to probably going to need the both of you and whoever you can spare from your units right there on the front lines to suppress the sucker. Gilgameshes are notorious for being a right pain in the arse to attack with anything short of another tank and can suck up all sorts of abuse before going down, so, uh, bring a lot of friends and have fun!" 

"If what you mean when you say 'suppress' is beat the living hell out of it and then spit in the ashes, then I'm way ahead of you," Zero affirmed loftily. 

X's expression, however, was one of cagey wariness. Like a wild animal sniffing around the steely jaws of the hidden bear trap he said, "What kind of abuse?" 

"Mostly lots and lots of it," the scientist said brightly. "They're heavily armoured against energy and plasma fire around the turret and the front of the machine, so shooting at them there is just not a keen idea. Their weakest spots are their treads and the underplating. Of course, if you're looking up at the bottom of a tank then that means you're the incredible unlucky twit who has just been run over by it, so I really don't advise that angle of attack either." 

"Rats," Zero said sardonically, half in jest, throwing both his arms over the back of his chair and stretching out his legs as far as room allowed. 

X cast a sly look towards his sprawling blond friend, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I guess that effectively rules out one of your crazy kamikaze head on charges, then." 

"Don't mock my violence," Zero said sternly. 

The blue Hunter sniggered at that, and Cain clapped his hands together once loudly to catch their attention, his expression bright. "Right then," he said pleasantly when four pairs of eyes were redirected back on him. "You've all got a pretty good idea of what you're supposed to be doing and there isn't much left you need to know about the whole situation that I can rightly tell you, so feel free to scram. If you've got any questions or need any additional information or data, don't be shy about hunting down Mistigri and pestering her into insensibility, on account that she's the one who's going to be keeping an eye on all police and military reports. Everyone good with that? Fantastic. Now off you trot. Hup, hup!" 

"Got one of those meetings where a bunch of you all get together and talk science while working on your short game today, Doc?" Zero said brightly as he was unceremoniously shoved into X by the hard rubber end of a cane, and then gently herded with the rest of the Hunters around the chairs, through the office jungle and off towards the door at a brisk pace. 

"In ten minutes, as a matter of fact," the old scientist replied without pause or shame. "And I'm paying for the rental cart this time and the clubhouse charges you extra if you're late, so don't walk, my boy - run!" 

* * *

Minutes later, after departing company in a friendly manner from the Armoured and the Calvary unit leaders, Zero and a slightly scratched up X found themselves idly weaving their way off through the heavily trafficked halls of the Maverick Hunters Headquarters on a path that would eventually carry them out of the main building and then onto the grounds just outside the front doors. The sun burnt down hotly through the windows far above and chased away the dawn shadows, even as the morning sky deepened into a band of brilliant blue. A lot more of the Hunters appeared to have roused themselves from sleep by that time, and the narrower halls were fast approaching a state of gridlock as armoured humans and reploids, clearly intending to enjoy the beginning of the weekend, leisurely cruised their way up and down the passages on their way to the computer and common rooms or, at a last resort, the cafeteria. The atmosphere seemed saturated with a kind of lazy, sociable energy all around, and the two Hunters basked in it as they strolled side by side across the lobby. 

"So, somebody has had a busy day today," Zero remarked gaily as they walked, in a tone of voice that warned he was only warming up to something a lot more cheerfully malevolent. 

"You could say that, yes," X said warily, sizing up his friend from the corner of his eye as if he were half expecting him to start pointing at laughing any minute. "And you probably will." 

The red Hunter was shaking his head from side to side with mock dismay, the end of his long blond ponytail lashing lightly along his lower back. "You preach and you preach and you preach about preparing for peace, and then the minute I turn my back you run off to get all hostile with a tank." 

"Whoa, there!" his friend said in protest, half sliding into a halt. The flood of people in the lobby automatically shifted and flowed around him, although his sudden stop prompted more than one annoyed glance back in his direction. "Let's just back up the truth train a ways, shall we? I'll have you know I never touched the thing. Not even once! Not even when it tried to run me down, curse it!" 

"Yes, about that," Zero continued mercilessly, with a kind of serene, fatherly patience. He had walked ahead a ways when X had stopped, but now he turned back to rejoin his friend and his hand descended onto one of the smaller reploid's shoulders like an avenging angel. The blue Hunter immediately cringed in dread at the thought of the impending lecture he'd already heard multiple times before, even as they started rambling off across the lobby again, X firmly in tow. 

Zero continued. "We're really going to have to teach you something about the concept of self defence, and what it has to do with arming yourself with car keys and shouting 'no' and not getting gruesomely killed. Pacifism is nice and fun and shiny and all, but it's not going to do you much good after you've been smeared over a half acre from a lucky shot. How would you feel right now if that tank had meant business and killed you but good, hmm? Pretty darn crappy, I'm willing to bet. Being nice and peaceful and passive only gets you so far, and then it gets you buried. And nobody wants to see that, mmm?" 

Zero gave his shoulder a chummy shake and then released him, even as X veered away with one magnificent surge of indignance. 

"Okay!" X said with forced cheer and mounting annoyance, warming up to an argument of his own as he kept on walking several paces away and out of the reach of the other Hunter. His hands balled reflexively into fists that swung at his sides like wrecking balls. "Here's another thought you might like to stop and consider - how do you think I would have felt if I fired on that thing and it fired back, missing me entirely and instead flattening a whole lot of populated real estate? You know, I'll pretty sure I'd feel a whole lot worse in a completely different way, and I'm definitely sure that a whole lot of other people would be sharing that feeling. I won't have anyone else getting hurt because I pick stupid fights. That's not fair, and it's not right either. Sometimes the guy you shoot at shoots back, Zero, and sometimes he deosn't care that he has very bad aim." 

X broke off, panting. He was feeling rather savagely pleased with himself for that one. Usually he couldn't rouse the virtuous anger to start up a really good argument in any sort of debate, but sometimes something deep within him just got rubbed wrong in the perfect way to spark off a firey rant he would ordinarily never have suspected he had anywhere in him. 

To his amazement, Zero seemed to be actually considering it. The red Hunter's head had tilted and he stared off in thought as he walked. 

"Well, the important thing is that you came back safe and sound in one piece and relatively unmolested," the red Hunter finally concluded after the space of a second, blithely oblivious and with a spring in his step. He put his shoulder into the front door as they finished crossing the lobby and gave a mighty heavy. Sunlight spilled inside and warm air smelling strongly of cut grass vacuumed into the building as the door swung open. "Now, let's first go find someplace where we get you hosed off and then we'll go figure out how we're going to spend the free weekend. I'm thinking laser tag, but I'm also officially broke as of this moment in time, so I guess it's all up in the air at this point in the game." 

X's shoulders slumped as the anger fizzled out like a wet fuse. And so ended _that_ conversation. He meekly followed his friend out the entrance instead. "Yeah, whatever's good." 

Once outside, the sun buffeted them in a ferocious wave. The air shimmered with lines of heat, and the city profile shone yellow and pale blue off in the distance. As the pair of reploids leapt down the steps leading from to the building to the walk that wound about the front grounds, they could hear the faint blare of street traffic rising up from unseen places beyond the Maverick Headquarters' gates. Beads of morning condensation stood out vividly on leaves and parked cars and the grassy front lawn, which was buzzing with Hunters. After a moment's pause, Zero sprucely started off towards the sprawling eastern buildings that accommodated the training centres, X following only after he remembered that they also housed showers for the swimming pools, which would supply him with both running and conveniently chlorinated water to wash his armour off with. 

Seconds later, however, they were both making a valiant attempt to scatter in three directions at once as something heavy and large and brown violently crashed into the earth with tremendous force merely inches in front of them like a heaven sent cruise missle, spraying them with liberal amounts of grass and dirt thrown up from the impact. While they sprinted about in a panic it calmly righted itself, vaulting lithely to its feet and enthusiastically shaking the dust from its wings like a wet dog. It clacked its beak in a self satisfactory sort of way, primly straightened its armour, and then casually turned back to regard the two wild-eyed reploids staring at it with an unsmiling expression. 

"Ahoy," Griffith intoned sombrely after what he reasoned was a dramatic enough pause. 

Zero inhaled sharply, desperately damping down his temper as he tried to reorient his scattered wits. "Man_alive_, Griffith, have I mentioned before just how much I _really hate it_ when you do that?" he seethed instead. 

"Aye, you have," the hawk reploid said, finally cracking a grin. "And that was your first mistake. Top of the morning to you, gentlemen! The lot of us were just up on the roof getting ready to leave on a wild tank hunt when I happened to spot you wandering on down below and I thought I'd give you a little friendly taste of death from above." 

"That's real neighbourly of you," Zero said sourly, still feeling remarkably silly. 

Griffith beamed at him. The tall, lanky Air Cavalry leader was indeed dressed and primed for action, the red Hunter couldn't help but noticing. His armour was light and painted a dull shade of brown, but the brass eagle insignia of his unit proudly flashed golden on his right shoulder and his broad wings were handsomely striped in black. His long laser rifle hung from a simple crimson bandolier, and had been slung over one shoulder so that the muzzle angled upwards and the butt nestled securely against his hip. Zero craned his head back and spotted several other fliers from his unit all perched like a ragged flock of starlings on the lofty eaves of the building and looking back down at him. To a reploid, they all appeared to be laughing both noisily and hysterically. 

As he glared up at the sight he sensed X moving up beside him, and a second later he heard the smaller reploid remark in a neutral tone, "Are you really heading out to look for the tank this morning?" 

"You bet we are," Griffith said, planting his hands on his hips and gazing up at the members of his unit cackling up on the roof with an expression of soldierly pride. "There's no time like the present, says I. Besides, it seems it's still pretty hairy around the spot that big bastard disappeared in, so we might be able to stumble across a trail of some sort while it's still hot." 

He grinned down at the blue Hunter and threw out his chest and winked and added, "And besides, there's an area near that overpass that's Charlie's point, and I'm sure as shootin' not against the idea of a tidy little fight to tide me over while chasing down the big game." 

"So long as you find the damn thing for us to deal with," Zero said blandly. "Try not to get too distracted by all the big, shiny things out there, would you?" 

"What, me?" 

"Charlie's point?" X echoed blankly. 

Zero glanced at him. "He means the Mavericks," he explained dryly. "Somebody watches far too many war movies." 

Griffith graciously let the comment slide without comment and just guffawed good-humouredly instead, then suddenly inhaled deeply and blew out a sharp, blasting whistle that made everyone in the immediate vicinity jump. At the cue the three fliers on the roof immediately hurled themselves into flight and began to bank around in lazy circles overhead, waiting for their commander to join up with them. Down on the ground, their shadows passed over the three reploids gathered below. The hawk eyed them approvingly for a minute or so, and then turned back to the two Hunters with a big open smile and jaunty salute. 

"I'd love to stay and chat a while longer, but I've got a tank to track and the day's already getting old," he drawled. "And thus I leave you to your weekend and your _English Patient_, lads. Ta!" 

Before Zero could think up an appropriately sarcastic reply, Griffith had already scampered straight up the side of the building like a winged monkey. Once he reached the first set of eaves he vaulted up onto the shallow sloping roof and immediately turned, cheerfully waved down at them, and then launched himself airborne with a single thrust of his powerful legs, his wings beating madly as he clawed for altitude. After he'd reached a safe height he turned back and beat his way swiftly over the lawn, fanning about the grass, waggled his wings in a friendly good-bye when he passed over the heads of the two Hunters and then angled up towards the sky as he began a long climb out to the east with the rest of his unit straggling and weaving behind him. 

Zero regarded his departure in a long minute of mildly insulted silence. 

"I can only hope that there really is some sort of justice in the world, and that somewhere out there is a big glass window with that idiot's name on it," he finally declared as he watched the hawk reploid gallantly soar away over the tops of some nearby trees, with the three other fliers in his unit forming up into a tidy formation off his wings. 

He shot a look back at X when he heard his friend making some strangled, stifled noises. "What are you laughing at?" 

"Who's laughing?" the blue Hunter sniggered. 

* * *


	2. I Fought the Law

**Chapter Two: I Fought the Law**

  


Morning dawned, as mornings are inclined to. 

Robert Bailey dragged his leather portfolio out over the driver's seat of his car, swung it up and thumped it onto the roof and then, after fumbling with his ring of keys for a moment as he yanked them out of his jacket pocket, savagely locked the door behind him. Far overhead, between the factory stacks and the tall brick buildings and the rusty jungle gym of fire escapes clambering up and down their sides, the sky was peaceably blue and yellow. White drifts of clouds serenely ghosted along the horizon on obscure cloud business as the sun lazily began its daily up to the top of the sky, idly burning away the early morning mist as it went along and chasing off the early dawn shadows. Cars buzzed briskly along the highway overpass behind him, a ceaseless drone of busy traffic and fast glinting metal and glass as people who had places to go went there with the same tireless, restless energy of the rest of the city. 

He gave the empty street ahead of him a long, deeply offended look. It was annoyingly conspicuous by its complete lack of activity; aside from a couple lost shoppers it was devoid of life, its sidewalks empty, its shops blissfully locked. He and his Nissan were a rude invader here. 

Robert glared, feeling the sun start to beat down onto his back like an invisible fist. 

Today was Saturday. Today was Saturday, goddamit, and here he was heading out to the studio to work on the Briers advertising account like some sort of artistic helper monkey. Saturday. As in one half of the weekend Saturday. Saturday. Hell. He must have been suffering from the world's most temporary case of insanity when he'd accepted the Briers account from his supervisor. It was proving to be one enormous hassle laid down after another, all of which were heaping up in front of _his_ door like garbage on a curb on a Tuesday morning. Only one week into the damn project and already the illustrator was threatening to walk out on them if he didn't see a one-year publishing rights clause on his contract, the printers were bitching for more money in order to cover the costs to print the four-colour cover page he'd only just found out they were actually doing two days ago, which, incidentally, would require _another_ image from the same illustrator already hounding his ass for more rights to his property, and yesterday evening the girls downstairs had informed him that every office in the entire building seemed to have spontaneously run out of coffee all at once. 

Oh, and three toilets were jammed in the upstairs mens washroom, and he was pretty sure he'd spotted a rat trap lurking inobtrusively behind an attractive potted plant in the second floor lobby while he was plodding through it on his way back home last night. Now he was being forced to come into the office on Saturday to try to convince the clients that their entire advertising package was actually coming along beautifully and that everyone involved was happy and smiling and working their hardest - which would doubtlessly involve some fairly serious bald-faced lying on his behalf - and to show them whatever rough drafts he could actually get his hands on from the art department, providing they all didn't up and commit mass suicide first. _His_ Saturday. 

He scowled into the sun. Life was one big cosmic joke, all right, and it wasn't goddamn funny. 

With a gusty, dismal sigh he hauled his briefcase off of his car, not even bothering to cringe at the sound the little metal corners made when they scraped across the paint. He doused his keys back into his pocket and began the long, depressing pilgrimage up the alleyway to Burroughs Street like a man facing the final walk to the waiting guillotine. The sound of his loafters slapping against the cold cement seemed unnaturally loud in the empty morning, a sudden chill wind knifed through the open front of his leather jacket and cheerfully slapped bits of dew damped debris against his trouser legs, and his mind buzzed with gloomy thoughts. Maybe he'd get lucky today. Maybe there'd been a fire overnight. Or the world's more localized nuclear strike. At this point he'd settle for coffee. Scalding hot, thrown straight into the eyes of his supervisor. 

When he reached the head of the alley, however, he stopped dead in his tracks instead of walking out into the bustling street beyond and turning south towards the offices, as he did every other day. He stared down at the ground instead, suddenly aware that his thoughts were racing past him extremely quickly. It was decided. He wouldn't go one step further. It wasn't a rebellious thing. He hadn't abruptly decided to stand up for his right to a little time off. Sudden naughty thoughts of simply blowing off work for the day and running back home to grab the wife and kids before renting a camper for the rest of the weekend hadn't crossed his mind. 

It was just that he'd run up against a police barricade. 

Robert stared down at it bemusedly. How odd. 

A blue-uniformed military cop materialized from the middle of nowhere and immediately made a beeline directly towards him. He was an older man with long lines of tension carved deeply into his face; he seemed to be sizing the art director up in a wary fashion as he jogged over, as if half expecting a one-man riot. "Sir, please-" 

"What's going on?" Robert said, beating him to the punch. He stared out into the street with a great and terrible interest, leaning far out over one of the barricades until his briefcase tangled in its legs. 

The officer promptly reached forward to shove him back, a vaguely harassed look on his face. "Sir, could you please-" 

An amazing scene of inter-city carnage greeted his eyes. Burroughs Street had been virtually destroyed, ploughed up and turned over again as if a massive agricultural combine had gone tearing up and down the pavement in order to till it for the upcoming corn season. Sidewalks had vanished from sight altogether, buried in rubble that was encrusted in filth and dust, and thousands of colourful scraplets of industrial sheet metal evidently torn straight off of cars once parked along the street, now crushed into neat steel placemats or haphazardly hurled up over onto their backs with all their windows blown out. A long series of smashed and bent telephone poles went on for miles into the distance, mailboxes lay half inside shattered storefront windows like apologetic bricks, and several nearby phone booths had been simply compacted into metal and plexiglass cubes. The entire area for at least eight blocks in either direction was flooded with at least six inches worth of dirty water that was being gouted up into the air by a crushed fire hydrant and bled out by mangled water lines lying beneath the pavement, swimming with sodden paper debris and heavy silt and ominous looking waste he really didn't want to put a name too. You could practically see hordes of aerial jungle rot diseases forming up ecstatically over the street, mingled in with the harsh chemical smell of burnt electrical wiring and ozone and upturned earth, and an unhealthy pall of thin yellow smoke hung in the air like a respiratory curtain. The whole scene was like something you saw in the movie after the car chase had ended, or the meteorite struck, or after Godzilla had risen from the ocean and gone roaring off down the streets of Tokyo in search of Rodan. 

Robert's eyes swept slowly over the scene, his jaw agape. "Holy crap, _what happened here?!_" 

"Sir, could you please just turn back around-" 

And everywhere you looked: cops. Robert had never seen so many law enforcement officers in one place before in his life, and that included college. It was like a frigging cop jamboree had hit the streets. Cops splashing through the groundwater and glumly probing through the rubble with long-handled flashlights, cops standing on overturned cars vainly trying to direct morning traffic coming through on thoroughfare streets running east and west, cops in uniform rain slickers erecting more black and yellow barricades along the disaster area and cordoning off damaged storefronts and apartment stairways and hotel entrances with ominously familiar police tape. Well-armed emergency response cops and military police looking virtually identically in their bulky blue gear, alternating crouching in whatever lee from the madness they could find in order to shout into their shoulder mounted portable radios, or simply standing about the scenery alertly at attention and generally just projecting an air of quiet, heavily armed, no-nonsense readiness. Cops yelling loudly, trying to hold back the growing crowds pressing at the fringes of the barriers in order to get a better view. Not twenty feet away from where Robert himself was standing at the alley entrance he could spot a local news reporter and her crew in a violent screaming match with a blank-faced military officer, the woman making an excellent distraction by hurling threats and insults like chairs at a wrestling match while her assistant cunningly stole over the barricade and snapped off a few hasty pictures of the chaos before being spotted and cuffed and abused back out of the street by another pair of military cops, who had been struggling to pry up a massive slab of concrete lying across a public bank kiosk nearby. Cops looking as if they were having a far shittier day than he was. He couldn't resist a sudden stab of sympathy. Apparently they didn't want to be here any more than he did. 

A odd throbbing sound pulsed overhead, and the art director glanced up in time to spot a big white military helicopter banking slowly over the skyscraper directly above them, its rotor whirring soft and silver and stirring tiny concentric ripples on the water in the street. It gently wove back and forth for a few minutes as invisible bands of radar swept down and over the city beneath it, and then turned hard to starboard and continued on its patrol, skimming cleanly up and over a nearby highway overpass and disappearing somewhere over the other side. Robert could hear the thrum of its engine long after it was gone, and then the wailing scream of emergency response vehicles starting up in the near distance. Of course, all of this was just contributing to one inevitable question: 

"What the hell happened?" he yowled, amazed. 

The cop fixed him with the evil eye. "Sir, could you please just turn back around and go home? This area is off-limits. There's nothing for you to see here." 

"Like hell!" Robert countered. He waved frantically at the scene behind them. "What about all that?! What happened to the street?!" 

"Sir, could you please-" 

"Jesus Christ, when the hell did this all happen?!" 

"About a half hour ago. Now sir-" 

"I mean, _holy shit!"_ the art director shrieked. _"It looks like a goddamn tank went through here!"_

The other man seized him by one shoulder in a hard grip and tried to spin him around. "Get lost, asshole!" 

Robert tore free and gripped his briefcase like a shield, briefly fencing at the officer with it. "Look, I've got offices down there! Is everything all right?" 

The cop dodged it awkwardly, with a look on his face that spoke loudly of a desire to just draw his gun and fire it wildly into the air. "Everything is fine; everything is under control. Look, just go home and watch it all on the news!" 

"It doesn't look fine to me," Robert retorted. He suddenly remembered his cell phone was in his suitcase; he quickly stopped flinging it around and briefly debated trying to call up work from the alley. Maybe his secretary could fill him in on what was happening; the agencies' offices were all on the forth and fifth floors, so not only was it likely that they would have avoided whatever disaster had stuck the downtown area, they probably had gotten a pretty good view of the festivities as well. "Look, can you give me ten minutes while I call my office?" 

"No! I'm telling you again, this area is off-limits! Now please, go back the way you came!" 

"Just ten minutes!" the art director bawled angrily. "Ten minutes, okay? I just need to find out what's happening at the office!" 

The cop ground his teeth for a moment, and the barricade seemed the only thing preventing him from lunging vengefully into the side street and indulging in a little friendly police brutality. "The entire street is shut down, and all business on it will be closed for the next few days at least while investigations get underway. We've already evacuated all buildings in the immediate area, so there will be no one there to answer your call. Just _go home!_" 

"But-" 

"No! I've heard enough! You're not supposed to be in the area! It's bloody dangerous, for starters! Now, get out of here!" 

"All right!" Robert howled at him, savagely swinging around his suitcase as if fending off invisible assailants. "I get the message! God, don't have an aneurism, I'm leaving." 

"Thanks for your compliance," the cop said sarcastically. 

The art director promptly opened his mouth for a witty and scathing closing remark that would somehow include a rant about pushy cops and a threat about his lawyer, but whatever he had to say was quickly forgotten as he suddenly became unpleasantly aware of a big whack of wind striking against his back, blasting at his jacket and ruffling playfully through his hair, followed shortly by a heavy 'thump' against the cement that sent impact vibrations thundering up his legs and grounding into his spine, and then the way a massive shadow fell over him and extended far across the sidewalk directly ahead. His mouth snapped shut and he froze, instinctively aware that something very large and very heavy had just settled in behind him. If the way the officer's expression had changed from a look of open irritation to one of sick dismay was any indication, then whatever had just landed in the street at his back didn't exactly didn't bode well for either of their situations. 

"Oh god," the cop groaned, staring accusingly at something over Robert's shoulder. "I knew it was only a matter of time before you people started showing up." 

"'You people?'" a new voice cheerfully boomed, ringing in his ears. "What do you mean, 'you people'? What wrong with our people? Are you prejudiced, sir?" 

"Don't be stupid," the other man snapped, leaning onto one of the wooden barricades on his hands. "Who the hell called you in?" 

"Whaddya mean? We've been here all morning playing with that thing. My group's just the latest patrol to get here, that's all." 

"Great. Just our luck." 

"Aw, you're mean." 

Very slowly, Robert turned around. A big brown bird robot was standing in the street right behind him, grinning fiendishly, fists on its hips. 

He gawked up at it, mouth opening and closing loosely. 

"Howdy, citizen!" it shouted down at him, its viciously hooked beak making a huge eclipse against the sky overhead. "Top of the morning to ye!" 

"_Holy crap!_" Robert screamed in greeting, staggering backwards into the barricade in shock and clutching at it feebly as if it were a lifeline. 

"_Pleased to meet you too!_" the bird bellowed back at him. 

"Did you get clearance to be here?" the cop yelled over both of them. 

"You bet your socks we did," the bird told him solicitously, pulling a sadly tattered scrap of paper out of the front plate of its armour and handing it down to the officer, reaching well over Robert's shoulder. "Check out this little honey. Signed and everything. Can we go play in the rubble now?" 

Robert caught a whiff of smoke as the bird bent over him, of sun-warmed steel and oil mixed in with high altitude smog. 

No, not a robot. A _reploid._

The cop grudgingly handed the paper back and peered around the big reploid's back. "How many of you are there altogether?" 

"Four," the reploid said, tucking it back into his armour. Robert suddenly became intensely aware of the powerful laser rifle hanging from a red bandolier at his side, swinging gently whenever the hawk moved, the muzzle pointing docilely at the ground as if sniffing out its unseen enemies. He stared at it, mesmerized. He was an art director, an upstanding citizen. This was the closest he'd ever been to a gun that big before. 

Robert regarded the hawk with a new interest, his initial panic swiftly burning out and replaced by genuine curiosity. He was a big brute, rangy looking and painted a dull brown colour, with broad metal wings vividly banded with black stripes and bright, savagely yellow eyes. Hell, this was the closest he'd ever been to a _reploid_ that big before. And if the brass insignia on his armour was any indication, then this was one of those vicious Maverick hunting bastards as well. The art director's sense of morbid interest hiked up another ten notches. You heard about the Maverick Hunters a lot on the evening news, usually tied to six o'clock stories of incredible violence and massive public property destruction that usually involved a lot of weepy and grateful survivors of Maverick attacks and a lot of screaming city officials. No wonder the cop had looked sick when he'd arrived. He was probably expecting the huge hawk to go completely apeshit and launch into a great, climactic gun battle with a ravenous horde of bloodthirty Mavericks descending upon the street like avenging devils at any moment now. 

This news was met with a suspicious squint. "I only count one of you." 

The reploid grinned and chucked his right thumb up at the sky. "The other three are circling around overhead, getting the lay of the land, inspecting the scene of the crime for clues from an aerial perspective, dropping quarters on people, etcetera. Don't worry. You'll hardly know we're up there." 

"I'll bet," the cop muttered, half to himself. He waved the reploid forward. "All right, go on ahead. Maybe you'll have better luck than we're having." 

"Beauty!" the hawk cheered. 

The cop narrowed his eyes. "Don't push your luck, buddy." 

"We'll be good," the hawk quickly promised, an maleficent gleam in his eye. 

Robert stared. 

The other man noticed it too. "You'd better be," he growled. "And I don't mean that as a threat, but as a simple statement of fact. A lot of people are seeing this as another big Maverick attack, and more reploids around the scene are only going to make them nervous and possibly start leaping to hasty conclusions. So please, try to keep a low profile while we do damage control. The press has already been hounding us all morning for details on this thing. Don't do anything alarming that we can't explain to them." 

"Maverick attack?" the art director echoed bemusedly. 

The reploid flexed his arms and clacked his beak and gave the officer a cheeky sidelong look. "I take it you gentlemen haven't found any traces of it yet?" 

"Nothing that I'd heard of in the last report," the cop said, disgruntled. For the first time during the entire encounter, the art director finally became aware of a faint and steady hum buzzing out of the other man's radio, of static and garbled words from distant conversations, the portable unit half hidden beneath the folds of his heavy uniform jacket. "Not even a warp signature. It's like it just vanished without a trace. But hell, the day's still young, right?" 

"That's the spirit!" the reploid said, fetching him a hearty slap on the back even as he gracelessly scrambled over the barricade, his wings tangling in the top spar and almost knocking it over. "Never give up and never say die and always tip your waiter, and all that." 

The officer staggered briefly under the blow and then spun around in a fast half-circle and shouted at the Hunter's rapidly retreating back, "If you find anything suspicious you damn well make sure you let us in on it too, you crazy bastard! We're not just here to babysit traffic, you know! And don't touch anything with chalk around it! That's evidence, for Christ's sake!" 

"Yes, yes, put my lips on everything, I got it!" Robert heard the hawk yell back as he waved cheerfully over his shoulder before romping up the nearest pile of rubble and leaping enthusiastically down the other side and out of the line of sight. 

"Don't do anything stupid!" the cop bellowed, cupping his hands around his mouth. 

There was no response from behind the rubble, but minutes later both men could spot the big hawk scrabbling through another heap of rubbish and detritus underneath the distant overpass as if looking for something buried within it, and then standing up quickly as another member of his unit swooped in and landed roughly beside him. Both reploids talked intently for a short length of time, their head bowed closely together, and after several minutes had passed they leapt into the air at once and flew up and over the highway, angling off in the same direction the helicopter had disappeared in and diving down out of sight again once they were on the other side. 

"I guess they spotted something," Robert remarked brightly after an awkward pause. 

"Who knows?" the cop said gloomily, shaking his head in disgust as he turned back around to face the side street. "I've run into those flying Hunters before, and they're all mad. Mad as the mist and snow." 

He then seemed to realise that Robert was still standing uncertainly behind the barricade, his suitcase hanging limply from one hand, and had been listening to everything that had been said in the previous conversation with a great, confused interest. Rearing back in surprise, he gave the art direction a furious look that could have withered stainless steel. "Hey, what the hell are you still doing hanging around here? I thought I told you to go home!" 

"Fine," Robert sneered, and began to amble off, his interest in the whole situation swiftly waning. Like another Maverick attack was anything new around this city, anyway. The entire big production was beginning to show itself as just another one of those enormous inconveniences that Life was famous for springing on you completely out of the blue, and god only knew that the art director had seen enough of those over the past week to get into a frothing rage over this one, or take any passionate interest in it beyond its appeal as another big story to watch on the news when he got home. To hell with it. Let the cops and the military police and those half-crazed Hunters deal with the damn Mavericks. He had more important things to worry about, like that goddamn contract with the Briers illustrator. And _hell_, if that cop was right and business on the main street wound up being shut down for a couple days thanks to some extremely ill-timed Maverick rampaging, then the whole department was going to lag badly behind schedule. Oh, fantastic. Yet another pain in the ass to add to his growing list of complaints. 

But at least it was starting to look like he'd gotten his Saturday off after all. 

* * *

Across the city, dark doings and dark businesses were transpiring in dark ways, in bright and cheery places that smelled refreshingly like flowers on a sunny summers' day. 

A hidden safe was shut, its door sealed tight, the lock clicking softly as the tumblers spun back into place. Half a cup of soap flakes were dumped, the dial spun to 'regular load'. The machine rumbled contentedly, its horrible secrets soon swallowed in soapy water. 

And the dark doings continued on that sunny Saturday morning. 

He'd deliberately chosen a laundromat to work out of. For starters, nobody ever suspected a laundromat as being a thriving nest of evil and lawlessness, lest of all people in a natural position of authority. The cops dearly loved busting down dingy little hotel backrooms, and smoke filled billiard halls, and poorly lit warehouses off in the dirty fringe district along the docks; the urge to raid dismal little caves of criminal activity and harass the inhabitants such places inevitably harboured practically sang in their blood. It was acting on pure cop instinct. If it was seedy and disreputable looking and attracked seedy and disreputable looking types of all species, human and reploid alike, then naturally somebody was going to kick its door down sooner or later. Those types of places naturally attracted both criminals and cops, like wet garbage attracts both flies and wasps. That was simply one of the more zesty facts of life that people in his line of work had to learn about in a damn hurry if they wanted to get anywhere in the world, particularly if they planned on moving around at the very bottom of it without being noticed by all the wrong people. 

In marked contract, laundromats tended to be brightly lit and agreeably dreary places that all but sap the will to be aggressive or violent or even remotely unpleasant right out of you. Nothing installs a sleepy sense of well being and boredom quite like a local laundromat will. You can almost feel your intelligence and creativity being drained away simply upon entering one and falling into the peaceable glare of the lines and lines of waiting washing machine doors, like sightless cyclops eyes, replaced instead by an amiable, glassy-eyed semi-comatose state of nonconfrontational complacency. Maybe it was the smell in the air that did it, a pacifying mix of old dryer lint and powdered soap flakes and dried coffee and floor cleaner. Maybe it was the fact that everything tended to be painted in the same calming colours of institutional yellow and blue. Or maybe it was the gentle rumbling of the spinners in the machines as they gently thrashed through a soapy load of laundry, like the contented purring of a very old, very large, very rheumatic cat, the same kind you usually saw curled up in a knitted blanket on a rocking chair at Grandma's apartment. Whatever it was, it worked beautifully. Expecting a laundromat of ferreting away criminals and their illegal acts seemed to be commonly regarded as just about as ludicrous as expecting to be savagely mauled one day by a roving pack of Boy Scouts. 

Like he said, it worked, and he wasn't knocking it. Besides the fact that the whole laundromat arrangement allowed him to go about his shady doings unmolested by either the police or any his angrier clients, it also meant that he got a lot of his laundry done at the same time, and that was perfectly okay in his books as well. 

At that moment in time, he was working on his own business in a quiet little backroom at the back of the store, seated at a table that was heaped high in baskets of nice, clean, pleasantly fabric-softened white towels. It was still early in the day, not quite ten o-clock in the morning, and on the weekends he typically didn't open until at least eleven. Already light was beginning to seep in through the room's single window, a tiny rectangular pane of glass up in the far corner beside the pipes of the hot water heater, falling inside in a soft and hazy yellow beam that illuminated hundreds of little dust motes swirling sluggishly through the air. The great old washing beasts in the next room were silent for the time being, the dryers calm and still, the radio switched off. Even the flies trapped in the lights overhead seemed to be keeping their peace. The entire building was steeped in silence. 

The Maverick liked it best that way. After all the years spent in his line of work, his nerves just weren't what they used to be, frayed down like an old dish rag that has gone through the wash cycle one too many times before. 

He licked his thumb delicately and snapped a crisp new elastic band around the sheaf of crisp new one hundred dollar bills he'd just counted out into a crisp new stack. He set it down lovingly onto the table in front of him and then, on impulse, snapped the elastic again with one finger. 

God, he loved that sound! 

Arranged around him in were fresh rolls of quarters and dimes and nickels, fodder for the machines outside, tidy stacks of banks statements smelling strongly of carbon paper, and several thick spiral notebooks crammed tightly with careful notes and memos and old checks and tax receipts from all the wrong sorts of people. Two neat rows of rubber banded bills made a little embankment around him, and a small, cheap drugstore calculator sat within easy reach. Two stubs of pencil and a worn down Pink Pearl eraser completed the scene. One of the notebooks already lay open before him, and he was pouring over the facts and figures and important names recorded inside in their proper rows and columns, the eroded tip of one pencil hovering just over the margin. He tapped the eraser end of it thoughtfully against his lower lip for a moment or two, then smiled a nasty little smile and scribbled down a short note next to one of the names, and circled it boldly. 

In the world of underground crime, his was a specialty business, based largely around one simple fact of human and reploid existence: everybody lied at one point or another. Parents lied, childred lied, husbands lied, wives lied, reploids and their creators lied, businessmen lied, police officers and store clerks and race car drivers lied, and politicians lied on a regular basis. Everybody lied at least once in their lives. On the other hand, their bank statements rarely did. 

The Maverick therefore liked to think of himself as sort of Truth Finder. Unfortunately, that title was typically followed up by that of Truth Exploiter. Within his notebooks were thousands of horrible little lies, faithfully recorded, and thousands of even nastier little truths, faithfully stashed away until he could bring them out to work his own advantage. People threw out their truths in the garbage on a regular basis - things like old cheques and statements from their banks, spoiled stationary with useful names and addresses and fax and phone numbers on them, decade old tax receipts their owners hardly thought of anymore, paid bills, pre-approved credit card applications, store and grocery receipts, brokerage statements - they threw out all of this useful paper without it seeing a paper shredder even once. It was simply a matter for him to gather this information-rich material through his own means and use it for his own purposes - or, even better yet, sell it to somebody who, say, really needed a new social security number, preferrably one slightly used and altogether not his own. If people were going to be stupid and leave this stuff just lying around in their mail and garbage where anyone else could easily get at it, then he reasoned that they deserved all the trouble they got when he bought and sold their lives and their lies without them every even knowing he was there. 

He leaned back in his chair and grinned at the sight of the open notebook in front of him, privately quite pleased with himself. No sir, nothing felt quite as uplifting as watching a good plan come together. And if this one was even half as profitable as the last one turned out to be... well, let's just say he'd be buying his shirts on a beach in Hawaii in a matter of a few short months. With somebody elses credit card. 

He was cut off in mid congratulatory chuckle by a sharp, insistent rapping against the back door. He whirled around in his seat, his hands instinctively clutching at the open notebook and drawing it protectively towards him as if shielding its incriminating contents from invasive invisible eyes. 

What the hell? Nobody ever came around this early on a Saturday morning, and no customer certainly ever tried to use the back entrance, which was hidden well out of sight around the other side of the building at the back parking lot and only led into the little side room rather than the main lobby. His mind raced frantically, his fingers closing possessively over the notebook, crinkling the paper. Could it be the cops? Or even worse, the Maverick Hunters?! No, but that was impossible; the police had no idea where he was operating from and the Hunters didn't consider him important enough to bother with. They were after dangerous Mavericks, the murderers and crusaders, the ones who killed humans without remorse in the name of superiority - not petty narks and blackmailers like him. He didn't particularly _like_ humans and wasn't at all adverse to the idea of screwing them - financially - in as many ways as he could, but he didn't exactly go around decapitating them either, and that lack of initiative seemed to be keeping him off of the Hunter's more serious wanted lists. In a teeming pool of sharks, he knew they regarded him as nothing more than a little fish indeed, and inside informers had told him (for a small fee) that they preferred to just ignore him altogether in favour of chasing down his other fellow Mavericks. 

The cold clutch of fear closed around his throat like a clammy invisible noose. Good lord, could it be another Maverick?! God only knew how many times he'd sent his fellow reploids swimming up Cop Creek without a paddle or a prayer, sold out his brethren in exchange for leniency from the police or cold talking cash from less scrupulous Hunters, mercilessly bought and sold their lives behind their back without them even knowing about it. It was all just a part of business, after all. Still, it hadn't exactly made him many friends among the more, er, murderously active Mavericks circulating silently and stealthily throughout the city, and, like the saying went, you couldn't buy 'em all. He wouldn't put it past most of them to shut up a troublesome nark with a quick introduction to the business end of a blaster. 

His eyes flicked the the locks on the doors. The bolts were all slid into place, the chains done up tight. He shivered, then steadied himself and called out, "Who's that?" 

"_Landshark!_" someone on the other side bellowed, and the door suddenly splintered around the locks and burst open, swinging around so hard that the metal handle was forcibly implanted into the wall. Two unknown reploids immediately assaulted the rooms like stormtroopers, as if expecting the mother of all ambushes on the other side. 

_"Put your hands against the wall and spread 'em before I cripple your ass, you puny mother!"_ one of them roared at him, bloody-eyed and wild and the colour of fire on the tank on a Harley, hurling himself inside like a bad storm on a mission in trailer park country. 

The Maverick stared at him, his eyes starting from his head in horror, his instincts screaming at him in raw fear. 

The red menace paused just inside the door and looked around. "Naw, don't get up. I was just joshin' with ya." 

"Well put, sir," the other piped up amiably. 

"I have a way with words," the first said modestly. 

_"Who the hell are you?!"_ the Maverick screamed at them, his wits badly scrambled from the violent, completely unexpected offensive on his peaceful inner haven. _"What are you doing here?!"_

The red reploid responded by striding over and smartly kicking his chair out from underneath him. The Maverick went sprawling as the chair traced a graceful parabola through the air and smashed up against the far wall. 

Then, for no clear tactical reason whatsoever, he kicked over the table as well. Fluffy white towels scattered across the room before gently floating to the floor. 

"Good one, sir," the second reploid approved. 

"Thanks. I'm feeling like a bit of a fascist today." 

"_My books!"_ the Maverick wailed, scrambling along on his hands and knees and flailing after the precious notebooks as they were dumped along with the table. 

"Hi there, Newt," the red reploid said pleasantly, smiling down at him crookedly. "How's life treating you, big guy?" 

Hissing painfully between his teeth, the Maverick ignored him and crawled along the floor until his books were safe in his arms again, and his hand had closed on another solid object. He was no idiot, and he certainly wasn't the feeble brained sort of petty criminal that kept only towels and the odd sock in their laundry baskets. 

Unfortunately, his ambusher was no idiot either. "Oh no you don't!" the red reploid said grimly as the Maverick spun and awkwardly tried to bring the muzzle of a small laser pistol to bear on him. He stepped forward and sharply slapped it from his hands. The weapon skittered away across the floor and slid underneath the hot water heater. 

The Maverick stared after it in dismay as the other reploid mildly remarked, "Gee, that wasn't very gracious way to say 'hello', sir." 

"I'll say," the red terror said, arcing his brow. "I almost got gored by the world's unfriendliest handshake." 

He stared down at the badly rattled Maverick with a disapproving frown. "Man, what are you so freaked out about today, Newt?" he asked, prowling around the edge of the overturned table. "I mean, pulling a gun on a person kinda indicates you're making some pretty heavy assumtions about your relationship with them. Lighten up, guy. Maybe we're just here to enjoy some friendly local gossip and talk sports over the machines while washing our boxers and chewing gum." 

Two strong hands seized the Maverick around the collar of his armour and gently hauled him upright. 

"Or maybe we're just here to count your shirts," he continued, a maniac gleam in his eye. "A guy can't have enough shirts, can he?" 

"That's right, sir," the second reploid agreed, grinning nastily as well. 

Two wires sparked long enough in the Maverick's head for certain vital connections to be made. The red armour, the mass of blond hair, the horrible devil's son grin, the same last sight granted to so many of his fellow predators before the final inevitable end descended upon them in a fiery blast of ionized light- 

"Zero!" the Maverick gurgled. 

"Right on the first try! Congratulations, sport. That's a big gold star for your book today." 

"What do you want?" the Maverick gasped, staggering back against the nearest wall for support when the red reploid's hands released his collar. 

Zero grinned at him. "World peace, a million dollars, and a nice cold beer, in that order," he said. "But right now, I'll settle for a little information." 

The other reploid gaped at him, his mouth opening and closing as he collapsed against the wall, which offered neither little comfort or a fast escape. "You're raiding me just for _that?!_" 

"Well, not exactly," the red Hunter admitted, scratching his chin. "We're also hauling you back to base for an impromptu interrogation session concerning this morning's tank excitement over on Burroughs Street. Wait, did I say 'interrogation?' I meant, casual and friendly questioning get-together where we all laugh a lot and reminisce about funny things that happened to people we know while drinking refreshing beverages and eating chips. How about it, Newt? Is good?" 

"I had nothing to do with the tank attack!" Newt screamed at him, clutching his notebooks to his chest like a shield. "I don't know anything about it - I only heard about it on the radio a little while ago! I've been here all morning! Ask the guy at the next shop over! I've been here all morning! He'll tell you! I'm innocent!" 

"You see, that's the inherent problem." Zero sighed theatrically. "You're never innocent. I don't think you've ever been innocent once in your life, Newt, and that's including the crime of being a backstabbing little git. You're probably doing something grossly illegal even as we're standing here looking at you, you obscene weirdo. When something bad happens, you inevitably seem to be linked to it somehow. It's not entirely your fault - you're just a bad criminal smell, likely because you've been cheerfully backstroking through the toilet bowl of nasty underground crime your entire existence. Chances are you're completely right, and you didn't have anything to do with the tank business. I'll believe you on that." 

His eyes glittered unpleasantly. "But when did I said anything about the incident with the tank being considered an attack? Why couldn't it just have been stolen? Why did you automatically assume an attack had taken place? For a guy who supposedly doesn't know anything about what happened with it, you sure leapt to that conclusion pretty quick, and I know for certain that nobody in the press has labelled it as anything other than the world's weirdest carjacking yet. In fact, it didn't even do anything other than run over some stuff on the street. Where did 'attack' come from, Newt? Do you know something we don't?" 

Newt was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. He could see when a mistake had been made, when he was running helplessly out of control across a field filled with conversational landmines, _when a question just shouldn't be answered for the extremely shaky sake of your own legal well being_. His mouth flapped helplessly several times and finally snapped shut. If he couldn't talk his way out of this, then he bloody well wasn't going to talk himself even further _into_ it like a goddamn idiot. 

On the other hand, the second reploid had crouched down next to the table and was pawing through the sheaves of paper littering the floor, occasionally picking one up out of the mass and holding it up into the light and peering at it speculatively, and that just wasn't something he could stand around watching without doing something about it. Monetary instincts of self-preservation momentarily overcame the survival ones as righteous indignation flooded through his system like a raw river. "Don't touch those!" he barked, lunging away from the wall. "That's private property, and part of my own personal business and you have no legal right to invade upon it!" 

"For a guy who once sold thirty thousand dollars worth of highly illegal reploid enhancement parts to Maverick parties over the black market, you sure know your legal mumbo jumbo inside out," Zero remarked mildly. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back and glanced down at the other Hunter. "Well? Anything dirty in there, Lancer?" 

"I'll say, sir," the other said, shuffling through the receipts and bank statements and loose memos with great interest. He was a slim blue reploid with pale blond hair cut in a short and tidy style and had canary yellow trim on his armour. "Some of these bank statements are downright obscene. Would you believe this guy draws a better salary than I do?" 

"Newt, you fiend!" Zero exclaimed in mock astonishment, staring at the now silent Maverick. "I should put the leeches on you!" 

"And some of these tax receipts would make you blush outright," Lancer continued gleefully, beginning to sort the more offending articles into little piles of criminality arranged according to their proper rank of illegalness. "If we can't get this guy busted for a while on a tank-related rap, let's at least try to bag him for what looks to be four years of tax evasion." 

The Hunter picked up a thin wad of papers that had been neatly stapled together and squinted thoughtfully, flipping through them with his thumb. "What, ho! And this appears to be be a number of personal banking statements from one Marjorie Baker, who was featured on the news not seven months ago as a another poor victim of yet another case of ghastly identity theft, suffering thousands of dollars lost in a credit card fraud when some unwholesome bastard somehow managed to get hold of her social security number and then made a copy of her legal identity for his own financial gain. Bank statements, discarded credit card offers, receipts - Newt, I'm seeing a suspicious amount of other people's personal information you probably shouldn't have a clue about floating around in here. Is there anything you'd like to share with us, old boy?" 

"Isn't he neat?" Zero said conversationally to Newt, pointing down at the Hunter on the floor. "You just want to bring the guy to all of your big parties so he can do your taxes and audit the people who spill their drinks on your couches. Grab it all, Lancer. We'll take it back to the police and let them sort it out." 

"Sounds good, boss," the other Hunter said, and began to scoop up armfuls of the offending papers. "They outta have some fun with this stuff. According to Mistigri, they've been trying to find something solid to nab this guy on for years." 

"Well, we get him first," the red Hunter griped defensively. "I want information about who was behind this stupid tank business, even if I have to sack-beat it out of him" 

The Maverick opened his mouth for a shrill protest. 

"Metaphorically speaking, of course," Zero added dryly. 

"I wouldn't worry about it, sir," Lancer said good heartedly as he rose to his feet, dripping loose papers. "I'm sure they'll give us first crack at him. The tank thing is going to be a huge and high-profile case for the next couple days, especially once the media really get into it, and they'll be wanting answers themselves before the accusations start to really fly." 

"Good for them," Zero said shortly. "So long as they remember who gets first rights." 

"Hang on here a minute!" the Maverick cried out indignantly, sidestepping away along the wall and pointing an accusatory finger at the red Hunter. "Hold on, here! I know my rights! You can't just barge in here and arrest me without a proper warrent. I'm not stupid, you know. Even the police-" 

He trailed off when he caught sight of the look on Zero's face. That grin was about as friendly as the business end of a woodchipper. 

"I'm sorry, but did we say we're arresting you?" Zero said with a quiet, horribly pleasant air of menace. "I must have given you that impression. Boy, is my head screwed on funny today or what?" 

"What are you talking about?" Newt said, now openly alarmed, his legal bravado wavering. 

Zero smiled. "I think you're confusing us with the police, my friend. You see, we aren't cops. We're Maverick Hunters. We hunt Mavericks. It's just this cute little thing we do." 

He pointed at the reploid, who was staring at him apprehensively, evidently already seeing where this conversation was going. "And you, sir, are a Maverick. Therefore, what we're doing right now is considered hunting you, a Maverick. Or something. Sorry to be redundant. I'm just trying to get a point across. We're doing our job like good little Hunters. We'd probably get yelled at if we _didn't_ bring you in. You could go completely crackerjack and kill a human any moment now, so far as they see it. Besides, do you honestly think the courts give a flying frig if we haul you off, when all of your Maverick buddies have been terrorizing whatever squishies they can get their hands on for years now? Nobody yells when another Maverick gets caught, pal. It's one of the little perks in my line of work." 

"Legally speaking, he's quite correct," the other Hunter chimed in cheerfully without looking up, bending over to sweep up a few escaping papers on the floor. "If the police had arrested you, you might have made a case out of it as some sort of human discrimination thing. But against the Maverick Hunters, an organization run predominantly by your fellow reploids dedicated solely to weeding out what many have dubbed the "Maverick Menace"? We're just doing our job." 

"There, you see?" Zero said, satisfied. "He knows way more about that sort of stuff than I do. The expert has spoken, and you've been out-legalled." 

He stepped over and swiftly caught the Maverick's upper arm in a firm grim. Newt started to yelp aloud, then quickly strangled it down when the red Hunter increased his grip and gave him a warning look. "Let's go, buddy," he said. "All sorts of people back home are just itching to run some questions past you. Like Major Sainfoin. You remember Major Sainfoin, don't you? Big guy, likes flowers and little kids, once punched his fist through an ice cream truck." 

A low moan escaped the Maverick, entirely unbidden. He remembered Major Sainfoin, all right. For the past few horrible months he'd been desperately hoping that Major Sainfoin didn't remember _him_. Luring the children of influencial families with candy and icecream so they could be kidnapped by Mavericks and ransomed off to their parents in order to fund the purchase of more heavy rifles just hadn't been one of his better ideas, in hindsight. Apparently the surprisingly sensitive leader of the Armoured Division of the Hunters had a much better short-term memory than Newt wanted to credit him with. Sainfoin had taken the entire business uncharacterisically personally, and had made some decidedly unpleasant promises about what he'd do if he ever caught those responsible for the crime. In public, no less. 

A million horrible scenarios perversely chose that moment to flash through his mind like a gruesome mental horror movie, and the Maverick stumbled briefly on the back step as they herded him through the door and sagged into the red Hunter marching grimly on his left. 

"Stand up!" Zero barked, giving him a good hard shake. "Have some backbone, for the love of Mike! I've had a real crappy day so far, my weekend off has been cancelled thanks to that bloody tank, and now I'm stuck rounding up painfully irritating little donkey butts like you! Stand up and get your weight off me, or I swear to god I'll break both your legs with my own goddamn hands when we get back to the base!" 

"He doesn't really mean that, legally speaking," Lancer assured the shaking Maverick hanging limply off of one of Zero's fists like a wet sack as he brought up the rear. "He actually uses a baseball bat." 

* * *

X's internal radio chirped apologetically, catching him in mid-yawn. 

The freshly washed Hunter awkwardly excused himself from the group of police officers he was halfheartedly talking to - he'd been listening mostly, and joining in on the conversation whenever he'd thought up something worthwhile to contribute - and gingerly sat down on a likely looking piece of rubble a short distance away and opened his private frequency. "Y'ello?" 

"_Hey, X, it's me. Did I catch you at a bad time?_" 

Zero, of course. "Kinda. I'm back at Burroughs Street, talking to the police." 

"_Ooh, lousy luck. Is the rest of your unit with you?_" 

"No, I let them have the rest of the morning off. I figured Cain wouldn't mind if he knew about it." 

"_I hope not, considering the way he sacked our weekend. Anything new happening over there?_" 

X squinted off across the street, through the disturbed haze of dust and tiny water particles still gently settling over everything in the immediate area, creating a thin film of muck. "Not really. Some city equipment arrived and they're just trying to clean things up a bit now, but it's going to take a while. Oh, but I did spot Griffith and the three guys from his unit poking around the overpass an hour or so ago. They seemed pretty excited about something, but I couldn't get near enough to hear what they were saying, and my radio's been acting a bit on the fritz since the excitment earlier so I couldn't talk to him privately either. A word of warning: if I suddenly cut out on you, don't be surprised." 

"_Griffith, eh? I wonder if the Birdman found anything good._" 

"Who knows? He and his group took off a while ago, flying south towards the ocean. God only knows what he's chasing after now." 

"_Good for him. I hope whatever it is keeps him away from HQ for at least a week. But in other news, guess who I've got with me?_" 

"Who?" 

X could practically hear the grin in the red Hunter's voice. "_None other than our old friend Newt._" 

"You found him?" 

"_You bet, right where Mistigri and her cop buddies said he'd be. The whole thing had to do with tracing credit cards and phony shop accounts - I dunno, Lancer ran it past me on the drive over but most of it went right over my head. At any rate, we nabbed Newt but good and we're bringing him back with us to find out what information he might have scrounged up about the Gilgamesh tank thing from the Maverick underground._" 

"Have fun?" X asked dryly. 

"_You bet I did. I got to kick over a table and everything. It was great._" 

"Well, at least one of us is having a run of good luck." 

"_Uh oh! That sounds like a cue for sympathy if I ever heard one. How did your meeting with Mistigri go? Did she give you a hassle? Need me to rough her up for you?"_

X laughed despite himself. He idly dug through the dust beneath his feet with the heel of one boot, carving long tunnels into the cement sand and debris. "No, no, nothing like that, you idiot. She just didn't have very much new information from the police yet to give me." 

"_Did you ask her where that damn tank might have warped to?_" 

The blue Hunter sighed, staring up at the city skyline. "That's exactly the same question past her earlier, but considering the way she looked extremely guilty and then dodged around it by trying to sell me a pair of tickets to the Annual Policeman's Charity Ball, I'm guessing that no, she hasn't found out anything about it." 

"_Damn._" 

"That's what I said. Everybody's stumped so far. Oh, but she _did_ have something interesting to tell me - believe it or not, but that tank isn't the first thing to be stolen from the military in the past fourteen months." 

"_No kidding?_" 

"Nope. She doesn't have all the details yet, and the military police over at Nelsons apparently haven't been very helpful in her investigation so far, but it seems that over half a year ago a transport anti-grav vehicle carrying nearly thirty tons of those special steel battery plates they make light bunkers out never made it to the base, and less than two months later three big transport gyro cruisers flew off on an unannounced search and rescue mission and never came back." 

"_Sounds more like somebody on the base decided to just cut and run with them instead of it being an outside theft._" 

X narrowed his eyes throughtfully. "That's what I was wondering myself. Besides, how does one guy steal three gyros all at once from a highly secured area, not to mention a huge truck loaded with steel?" 

"_I dunno. Maybe he's got three other buddies with him._" 

"Beats me," the blue Hunter sighed. "The whole thing is just odd, if you ask me. I'll ask Mistigri to see if she can't dig up anything else about those previous incidents, plus whatever she can about the Gilgamesh. I don't care what their police tell us - you can't just drive off a military base in a tank without _somebody_ seeing you." 

"_Yeah, probably not. Whoops, Lancer's giving me an evil look over here; I'd better go see what he wants. When will you be heading back to HQ?_" 

"In another hour or two, I guess. I'm kind of ducking out until the janitorial staff leaves for lunch - they really weren't happy with me when they found out that I'd hosed off my armour in the men's shower room over at the pools. Something about grit washing down the lining of the water drains, I think. I phased out most of it while trying to apologise." 

There was a muffled snort of laughter over the radio. "_We'll meet you there, then. I'll be sure to say 'hi' to Newt for you. Talk to you later, Mr Clean._" 

"Haw, haw," X shot back good humouredly, but the radio had already cut out. 

* * *

_Megaman © Capcom _


	3. We'll Meet Again

**Chapter Three: We'll Meet Again **

  


The speed limit approaching the military base was forty miles an hour. So Mistigri, dashing Maverick Hunter and part-time undercover detective and risk-taker extraordinaire... drove thirty-eight. 

Considering that she usually preferred to blast along the open roads and highways at a hearty fifty miles over the limit, it certainly wasn't fear of getting a ticket that had so sharply checked her speedometer this morning - a very rare occurrence anyway considering she had both a Maverick Hunter _and_ a city police badge strategically nestled in her wallet. Today, the reploid drove like an upstanding citizen purely for considerations' sake. Hell, the way she figured it, after the early morning's excitement the military police at the upcoming base were likely nervous enough as it already was, and they certainly didn't need her and her bullet-silver cruiser blasting down upon them like a fiendish bolt of steel and leather lightning. Besides, she was currently behind of the wheel of a sleek new Leedwit "Stratos" luxury cruiser, barely two weeks off the lot, and not only did those things run up a small fortune once you got greedy and started tacking on all of the optional specialty features, but were a right bitch to insure and foreign enough that replacement parts and services didn't run particularly cheap. She wasn't taking any chances that any more massive Gilgamesh robot tanks might come barrelling out of the base at a moment's notice, and in a game of chicken against a Stratos and a tank she knew exactly which side to bet her money and on which side she'd already _spent_ it. 

The Stratos attacked the road with a modest vengeance, running smooth and light and as lithe as liquid, suspended low over anti-grav propulsers that snugly hugged the asphalt, the bright morning sunshine sliding off its stylish curves like hot butter off the back of a fish. 

It was fast approaching eleven in the morning according to the little digital clock built into the dash. The sun shone brightly outside, rippling down through the trees to paint the road ahead in dapples of light and indigo shadow, and scraps of brilliant blue sky could be seen peering through the leaves. She had long left the city behind her and was now driving through its fringes; the land around her was flat and open and she could see where the grassy hills of the coastline gently sloped down to the ocean, which glowed a neon blue somewhere off to her right. Thick copses of tropical trees ran off to the west and east and receeded far into the distance in either direction, fading to pale shades of blue and icy green. Earlier on she'd rolled down the window a crack to invite in the breeze; on impulse she now inhaled deeply, and instantly the pungent smells of sap and ocean salt and flowers in full bloom invaded her awareness, mingled in with the ever-present aroma of fresh cut grass and interior leather and new car smell. Tall coconut palms lined both sides of the road, white trunks resplendent against the lush green umbrella of their broad fronds. The underbrush was thick and densely foliated with ferns and flowering vegetation, and she could see patches of red and orange and yellow lilies exploding out of the greenery, which slid past to either side as her cruiser smoothly poured around a curve in the road, leaving nothing but a tornado of dry grass and leaves in its wake. 

And as she drove her brain whirred like an industrial fan. But unlike a human mind her thoughts weren't disorganized, random, distracted, all in the fashion of a organic consciousness; instead they moved at a clipped, methodical place, each in its proper order, with one idea being presented, analyzed, and then filed away or cross-referenced accordingly, all of this happening at once, thoughts systematically layering on top of one another like bricks in a wall, all at a dizzying speed that only another computerized brain could possibly hope to keep up with. Complex and sophisticated hyper-sensitive sensory and logistical systems had long fired into life, constantly absorbing and evaluating and then consequently caching away or dismissing every little stimulus and detail of her surrounding environment, from the flickering needle on the speedometer to the pressure of her foot on the accelerator, to the feel of the wind through her hair and her lashes, to idly registering and measuring the chemical levels of salt and ozone and perchloroethylene and sulfur dioxide and noxious chlorofluorocarbons and the various other gases and particulates in the traces of city smog still lingering in the air and then using that information to predict the chances of an untimely acid rainfall that could utterly spoil the delightful wax finish of her sleek and sexy new cruiser - and finally, a small and incredibly keen part of her awareness was wholly devoted to critically pondering over the countless potential situations she might discover over the course of her morning's mission to Nelsons Military Base, and the infinite number of predictable possibilities and scenarios that might spawn from them, for good or for ill. 

And to think, parts of humanity still get hung up on Algebra. 

Within minutes she could spot the base itself looming ahead through the trees as the road straightened and the forest suddenly thinned out, and the bits of her brain designated to the simple task of driving reacted accordingly, automatically relaxing her foot on the accelerator while she drew a curious eye over the structure ahead. The main gate was essentially made up of two square, squat white pillars erected on either side of the road, with a small guardhouse built into each and a broad arch curving overhead, with brass letters spelling out "Nelsons Air Force Base" along the top of it. A great bubble dome made of thick sky-blue glass spanned over the entire thing like a curious bowler hat, and when the sun hit the glass and shone through it a weird blue glow was cast down over everything immediately underneath. Mistigri gave it an appraising glance up through the windshield as her cruiser slowed and then pulled to a stop next to the right side guardhouse. It was a very pretty piece of architecture, you had to give them that. 

She didn't bother to put on a charming smile as the guard side-stepped out of his booth, datapad in hand. It rarely worked anyway. She did, however, roll down her window and rested her arm comfortably along the top of the door as the human walked around the front of her cruiser and leaned over to peer at her, quite aware that her vehicle was likely being quietly scanned for any volitile materials even as it sat beneath the arch. 

"Good morning, miss," he said, and her mouth curved into a slight smile at his tense, if perfectly friendly tone. "Name, please?" 

"Mistigri," she replied, and when his expression grew puzzled she helpfully added, "I'm from the Maverick Hunters." 

She flashed her badge and that seemed to satisfy him. "We figured it would only be a matter of time before you got here," he said as he paged through data on the pad in his hand. "News travels fast. But according to this you're not expect to meet with the Captain Morgan until eleven thirty." 

"Yes, I know," she said. "I was hoping to have a little time beforehand to walk around the scene of the theft myself." 

An interesting look of surprise and guilt washed over his face, and he momentarily appeared caught between a shrug and a wince. "I'm certain the Captain would be more than happy to walk you through it himself if you wanted to wait." 

"Probably," she agreed. "But sometimes I think better when I'm alone, and I would like to have a little time to myself to examine the scene in private for evidence my Hunter training and, ah, reploid sensory arrays may assist in discovering. I assure you I intend only remain on the outside lots, and not enter any restricted areas." 

The guard seemed to stifle a soft sigh; evidently that hadn't been the answer he'd been looking for. Mistigri was resolute however, and she knew that her position in the Maverick Hunters - and indeed, the entire organisation itself - warranted a hefty amount of respect from the military, who had had an uncomfortable lack of success against the Maverick threat in the past. So long as there possibility that a potential human killing reploid was involved - and now prancing about the city in his new set of killer wheels - the Maverick Hunters were effectively running the show, with the military haplessly riding shotgun. Her request was a sensible one, her reputation as a solid Hunter and a logical detective respectable and polished, and not many people on the base had the authority to dispute it. 

So she therefore wasn't particularly surprised when he offered her a tight smile and straightened and touched the brim of his cap and said, "That would be fine. I'll fetch your passes right away, miss, if you'll please wait for a moment." 

"Thank you," she said politely, and as he turned and trotted back into the guardhouse she lightly rattled her nails along the top of the steering wheel. 

The guard was back within minutes, leaning down beside her window and holding something out to her. "Put this in the windshield of your cruiser, otherwise you risk getting it impounded by Security," he instructed, handing her a little white card. "And this," he added, handing her another white card that hung on a thin nylon strap, "You should wear around your neck for as long as you're on the base. It essentially grants you access to all areas rating A-3 or lower, and if you're with the executive officer you'll be allowed into just about everything else left over." 

"Ah, excellent," she said, flipping it back and forth between her fingers before looping it around her neck, just to reassure him. "Perfect." 

The guard leaned back and pointed off towards an avenue running east, curving off through a low hedge of dark green cedars and eventually leading away to a small compound of low, slope-roofed buildings and large silver hangers. "If you'll just follow that road you'll soon arrive at the visitor's lot," he said. "You can park your cruiser there, and the sheds where the stolen Gilgamesh was housed in are in a compound that is just a short ten-minute walk along the boulevard running to the north. Just keep following the blue lines on the side of the road and you'll find them without a problem. I assume you already know where the base headquarters is?" 

"Yes, I do," she replied, staring thoughtfully off along the road to the east. "Thank you for you assistance."" 

"My pleasure," the guard said, smiling slightly and stepped back from her cruiser and waved her through. 

The parking lot he'd spoken about was easy enough to find, and within minutes of leaving the gates she'd pulled up into an empty space, an even easier task considering that the lot was almost entirely abandoned to begin with. It made sense she reasoned as the cruiser's anti-grav propulsors disengaged and the streamlined vehicle gently sank to the pavement; although Nelsons outwardly seemed to be treating the theft lightly - if the easy and friendly manner of the guard at the gate had been any indication - the military police and Security likely weren't taking any chances, and any non-essential personnel on the base had probably already been chased off while some fairly serious investigations into the theft went charging underway. Aside from a few armed guards patrolling warily along the far-off fenceline to the south and east, the visitor's area seemed largely deserted. The last thing they'd want were civilians getting underfoot, particularly human ones. So much the better for her, she supposed. Before getting down to business, there was just a little something she wanted to do first without any untimely interruptions, a pure hunch she wanted to act out on just to see if anything came of it, and she didn't particularly want an audience watching her… 

After a quick glance into her rear view mirror to check the state of her lipstick and hair, she pushed open the side door and stepped out of the cruiser, leather seats sliding away from underneath her as smoothly as silk as her feet hit the pavement. As the door swung shut behind her and the auto locks engaged, the reploid slung her bag over her shoulder and inhaled deeply, looking about speculatively to get her bearings. She had changed clothes before leaping off into her cruiser to visit the base, as the plain street attire from before was completely unsuitable for a meeting with the executive officer of any military institution, and now she wore the simple black jumpsuit of the Maverick Hunters with a pair of soft-soled leather boots. She had kept her suede jacket on, however, and now zipped it up to her chin and thrust her hands into the pockets as she began to wander aimlessly across the lot. 

Nelsons was deceptively pleasant to look at, she noted. Most of the officers' housings she could spot off in the distance were surprisingly stylish and painted white, with thick hedges of foliage and neat, pleasant gardens planted under the windows. Lines of palm trees dotted the base, and dark groves of pines stitched in and between the buildings. Beyond that were the barracks and the administrative sector, the hangers and the work centres and the recreational buildings, and periodically a tall and slender communications tower or radar spire would spear up gracefully from the concrete to break the monotony of the skyline, sparkling in the early morning sunshine with more of that weird blue glass. She could even see another white helicopter taking off from the flightline in the far distance, a pale shape standing sharp against the sky as it lifted ponderously up towards the clouds. 

She idly watched its fast retreat over some distant hills and then returned her eyes to the parking lot, scanning it for signs of life. Her arrival definitely wouldn't have gone unannounced through the Security channels, especially considering her unusual request to be allowed to wander the scene of the crime without supervision, and if all went well then hopefully a certain special type of base sentinel would find an excuse to trundle off in her direction, ostentatiously to patrol the grounds but in reality more interested in warily tracking her movements like any good guard was supposed to… 

Her gaze returned to the fence line to the north, and almost immediately she spotted exactly what she was looking for slowly lumbering along the edge of the visitor's lot, its turret aimed unthreateningly out in the opposite direction as if it were pointedly ignoring her, and certainly nowhere as interested in her as she was of it. No siree. Not in the slightest. 

The reploid smiled, satisfied, and struck off in its direction, one hand closing lightly over the strap of the bag over her shoulder. And as she walked towards it her brain feverishly fired away, computing and calculating its myriad of robotic thoughts… 

Mistigri did a swift mental inventory of the information she could remember about Gilgamesh tanks on hand. Originally built by Able Electronics, the company had since been bought and swallowed by the larger, more corporate Stalwart Industries, which had continued and increased production on the Gilgamesh robot tank line in accordance to consumer demands. From a programming perspective the Gilgamesh was definitely a high-end example of modern robotics, and from a military hardware standpoint a pretty impressive battle machine as well. Their command matrixes were easy to write and were built for unwavering, humourless obedience, they could operate on their own programming or be piloted by a crew of drivers and weapons officers, were heavily armoured and had an optronic counter measures system that could protect the robot from small arms and guided missiles by jamming enemy radar. In addition, the damn thing carried a impressive V-78 ballistics computer that, combined with the two big self-recharging energy cells and the thermal barrel sleeve, could deliver a massive laser-guided plasma wallop from the one hundred fifty millimetre main gun into targets up to six miles away. Overall, it wasn't exactly the sort of robot you really wanted to get roaringly drunk and pick a fight with. While it was possible to outthink a Gilgamesh, it was a damn sight harder to outrun, outgun, outcrush, or outexplode one. In general, it simply outtanked everything else on the market. 

On the other hand, they weren't exactly well known for their creative, non-linear style of thinking, mostly on account that they didn't actually have one. Like most modern robots built after the advent of the reploid, they were designed to be predominantly slaves to their programming, ruled by stimulus and pre-set parameters, and bound by invisible chains of data that were linked straight into the core of their very being. Stepping outside of these limits either in thought or in action was not a natural act, and was usually resisted and suppressed by their programming. For a robot like a Gilgamesh, built to be a sturdy and unswayable tool for combat, it was virtually impossible. What this meant is that they were, in effect, almost painfully direct and honest, even if only because to be anything would revolt against every fibre of their awareness. Humans utilized roughly ten percent of their brains, but even using only that slim margin they were capable of lying their way out of almost any fiendish situation like complete bastards. A robot like a Gilgamesh operated all a full one hundred percent of its impressive processor's capacity, and yet they still couldn't fib their way out of a wet kleenex. It was this peculiar trait that Mistigri was honing in on like a two-legged cruise missile; while the human officials on the base might try to give her the run-around concerning what had happened that morning, a Gilgamesh was no more capable of that kind of devious behaviour than it was of whistling Dixie. 

And she had all _sorts_ of fun and interesting questions she was dying to throw at somebody. Nobody said she had to hear the answers from the mouth of a human _or_ another reploid. Or even from a mouth at all, come to think of it. 

"Hello, there," she said brightly as she drew near to the trundling tank, sidling up beside it and matching its slow pace, keeping a careful distance away from the powerful crackling blue anti-grav fields generated beneath its treads. "Beautiful day, isn't it?" 

Unsurprisingly, the Gilgamesh ignored her, and continued to rumble along the fence line with its main gun facing away from her. It was a tremendously large beast, well over twice her height and nearly double that in length; a slate blue machine with handsome white striping down its flanks and the circular yellow and red insignia of the Nelson Base painted at the base of its turret. It hung low over the ground, its anti-grav treads gently whirring up a thin mist of dust around her feet, and the vibrations from its massive engine rumbling straight up through her legs, leaving her with an indelible sensation of vastness and great untiring strength. 

"My name is Mistigri," she said in a friendly way. "I'm from the Maverick Hunters. I'd show you my identification but, uh, I'm not exactly certain how your visual sensors work and I'm certain I'd feel remarkably silly just waving it around in the air. Anyway, I've been sent from headquarters to look into this morning's theft on the chance that the Mavericks were somehow involved in it." 

The dead silence that followed reeked of a snub. 

Undaunted, Mistigri tried again. "I gather there was something of an incident here earlier." 

The tank mutely lumbered on. 

"I hear it was a Gilgamesh that was stolen. Driven right off the lot without anyone noticing the intruder, if that's to be believed. That's got to be one for the records. Security here seems fairly tight, and I'm no expert on the subject, but I'm pretty willing to bet that you Gilgameshes don't let just anybody take you out joyriding off the base." 

No response, save for some crows calling harshly in the trees across the lot. 

The reploid cocked a curious eye at the tank as she walked. "Did you know the tank that was taken?" 

Nothing. 

She squinted at some small numbers painted in white underneath its insignia. "A-10 31B9894 Lot Five - that's you, is it? What was the designation of the stolen tank?" 

Other than crushing some loose gravel beneath its treads, there wasn't a sound from the war machine beside her. 

Mistigri sighed, hunching herself further into her jacket and burrowing her fists deeply into the pockets. "I guess it would be too much to ask for a description of the culprit, wouldn't it?" 

The dead silence from the other end of the conversation seemed ample indication that it would. 

"Ah well. I suppose I'll just have to sit back and review the security tapes like everyone else. Hey, would you mind if I asked you a couple of personal questions? Well, as personal as you can get for a tank, I guess." 

The Gilgamesh's stoical silence didn't exactly give the impression that it was welcoming the idea with open arms. On the other hand, it also hadn't told her to screw off and mind her own business, and neither had it silently called down legions of crazed and irritable Security guards onto her yet to break her legs for prying, so the reploid decided to just take the optimist's view and gallantly forge on ahead. 

"Don't worry, they're nothing heavy," she assured it heartily. "I won't be asking you anything about your security override numbers or what you keep in your closet or your impressions on the shortcomings of a communist government, or anything. Just a couple little questions about life as a robot tank, more for my own curiosity, I guess. I mean, we don't exactly run into many tanks in the Maverick Hunting business. Well, friendly ones, anyway, and the other type generally don't last long enough to chat very much. So anyway, A-10 31B9 - ugh, say, do you mind if I call you A-10? No offense, but your full designation number is one hell of a mouthful." 

If it did mind, it wasn't saying anything. 

"Ah, great. Thanks awfully. It's so much easier to say than that other long list. You should consider getting it legally changed someday. Anyway, A-10, I was just wondering if you enjoy this whole line of work. You know, guarding the base and taking out the occasional Maverick and doing tank things and all that." 

The tank continued to drift along the edge of the parking lot without slowing once. She gave it an odd look. Was it even listening to her, or had it just filed her under the Not A Threat category and tuned her out entirely? Just where _were_ the audio sensors on a massive war machine like this one anyway? Hell, did they even have them to begin with, or was she just wasting her time talking to an inanimate object like the homeless insane? 

"I mean, do you like being a robot tank?" she pressed. "I don't know - are the hours good? Do you like your job? Do they treat you well here?" 

The Gilgamesh abruptly came to a stop, and she half jumped back in surprise, wondering if perhaps she'd finally touched a nerve, or whatever the robotic equivalent of it was. Then, as the heavy machine ground some gears and began to slowly swing its front end around, the anti-grav thrusters firing madly in a heatless blast of electricity and plasma, the turret revolving around with a low, soft whine to face ahead, she realised that it had only come up against the curb at the far corner of the parking lot and was getting ready to roll off in a new direction. Resigned, Mistigri stepped back to give it plenty of room to manoeuvre itself around in, the dry air roaring out from the intakes along its propulsors whacking about her black hair and spraying her nice clean suede jacket with a fine damp mist of what she hoped to god was coolant and not water. The damn cruiser wasn't the only thing she had that had cost her an arm and a leg recently. 

She stared down in dismay at the ominous black splotches dotting the expensive material like cancer spots even as the tank began to rumble onwards again on its patrol, unmindful of her plight. "You know," she said casually, freeing one hand to vainly wipe at them even as she broke out into a light jog to catch up to it. "I'm beginning to think you're not very interested in doing much to help facilitate the whole informal dialogue process, here." 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit," the tank retorted, its voice a deep and threatening robotic rumble. 

One of the reploid's eyebrows shot up to the level of her hairline. "Oh ho, so you can hear me after all." 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

"You can talk too," she noted, her voice coloured with a dry humour. 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

"I guess you really were just ignoring me after all," she said, falling back into her previous place beside it as it continued slogging along on its new path. "I was beginning to wonder if Gilgamesh robots were built with the same sort of audio sensors as other working robots." 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

"Ah well, chalk one up to persistence," she said, shrugging. "After all, that's half of what real detective work actually is. Anyway, now that I know you're actually acknowledging my existence, I'm rather hoping you'll be a sport and answer even just a couple of my questions-" 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

"Yes, we've already established that, dear," Mistigri told it patiently. "I heard you the first time. And I'm still curious to know what you make of the whole theft." 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

The reploid was amused. "What, no opinions on it at all?" 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

"Come on," she wheedled. "Not even one word for me? One quote for the newspapers?" 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

"Surely, that will make front page," she murmured dryly. 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

Mistigri almost grinned at that, and turned her head to look out over the base in a speculative fashion. Her eyes gleamed as she stared off across the lot, deep in thought. In the near distance she could spot the big silver hangers that typically housed all of the heavy machinery on the base, shining nearly white against the sun. An unusually large throng of people were milling about them like a nest of disturbed ants, and she could spot many uniformed military police among their numbers, and the crisp tan attire that marked several of them as being ranking base officers as well. 

"You see," she began slowly, still looking pensively across the base, her hands jammed back into her pockets as she walked, "I take a look at all the security here and the hefty safety measure protocols built into your programming to prevent this sort of thing from happening and I just can't help but wonder if maybe we're looking at this entirely the wrong way, that maybe we're heading way the hell off into left field by immediately looking for an outside suspect. It's only a crime if it's stolen, eh? And a Gilgamesh tank like you certainly isn't something a crook can just hotwire and nonchalantly drive off with, without anybody seeing them once." 

She inhaled deeply, her brow knitting together in concentration. "But against all odds, that seems to be exactly what happened here this morning, isn't it? Nobody spotted anyone suspicious, nobody saw anything unusual, right up to the point where the tank broke patrol and cruised right off the base, and then hightailed it straight for the city. It shouldn't have been possible at a place as secure as this, but it happened, and with remarkable and suspicious ease. All it all it makes me wonder: was it even a theft? Was there even a desperate criminal, or a Maverick looking for a dangerous new toy to play with? Maybe there wasn't anything of the sort involved after all, and there was somebody already working at this base with a nasty secret. Maybe it wasn't even one of the personnel. After all, who would ever suspect someone - or something - of hijacking itself?" 

She smiled up grimly at the tank running silent beside her, her grey eyes sharp and alert. "So, I ask you again: are you Gilgameshes _really_ all that happy here?" 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

The reploid let out her breath in a faint hiss, feeling her sturdy patience slipping a notch. "You know, this really isn't helping me all that much, A-10, old buddy." 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

"Touché," she muttered. 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit," the tank droned staunchly. 

Mistrigi mentally sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers and briefly squeezing her eyes shut. Evidently once the tank had gotten tired of ignoring her, realising she wasn't going away and leaving it along anytime soon, it had switched tactics to dissuade her from attempting to talk with it. She'd feared this might be the case. Immediately after the theft this morning, all of the other Gilgamesh robot tanks on the base must have been immediate recalled and reprogrammed not to speak with anyone without proper authority or who wasn't an identifiable base official. It made logical sense, she reasoned. Loosing one tank was bad enough; to see a second stolen in such a ridiculous fashion would be nigh unbearable, to their pride and their reputation and their standing. 

If it really _had_ been stolen after all... 

Mystery upon mystery. Suspicions were layering like a house of cards. 

"Well, look here," she said, releasing her nose and opening her eyes. "I'm supposed to be meeting with your executive officer in about ten minutes, so I can't hang around much longer to chat. I don't suppose there's any other information or details about the incident this morning you'd care to shoot my way before I take off?" 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

"Really?" she said lightly. "I never would have guessed it. Well, thanks for your time. If Captain Morgan takes me on a tour of the crime scene I imagine I'll be seeing you again _real_ soon, A-10." 

"You do not have proper clearance to interface with this unit." 

"Save it for the next Hunter," she said wearily, turning and reluctantly walking away, her bag swinging heavily from its strap, disappointment burning hotly in her chest. She hated it when a good lead unhelpfully neglected to pan out. 

"You do not have proper clearance to- wait, hold on a second!" 

Mistigri paused a short distance away, one foot poised in midair. 

_Had she heard that right?_

She glanced back over her shoulder, suddenly uncertain. "What, me?" 

"Yeah, you," the tank retorted. "Wait, come back here for a minute." 

Mistigri's eyebrows shot up. "I thought I wasn't supposed to be interfacing with you." 

"Oh, never mind that," the tank snapped. "Please, ma'am, I wish to talk with you." 

The reploid's lip twitched, but she turned and casually strolled back to the machine's side with as much nonchalance as she could muster. It had ground down to a halt and was patiently waiting for her, its engines humming gently and its anti-grav propulsers stirring up tiny tornados of dust around it. "This is sudden," she said, rocking back on her heels and staring up at its turret thoughtfully. "Two minutes ago you wouldn't even give me the time of day." 

"I was merely acting on orders," it said, the low, deep voice thrumming out from the massive body shell sounding vaguely apologetic. "After the incident this morning we were been instructed by the base commander himself not to speak with anyone that doesn't have proper clearance." 

"So I gathered," Mistigri said lightly. "What's with the sudden change in attitude, then?" 

"You are a reploid?" Although hesitant, it still seemed more a statement than a question. 

"I was the last time I looked." 

There was a soft whirring noise as the heavy main gun swivelled around to face her, taking care to keep the muzzle of the monstrous weapon pointed well away from her. "I have been built with a Able Mk-9 V-78 Optronic Sensory system. It is very adapt at picking up the traces emitted from both robot and reploid processors. However, I had previously been more intent on obeying my orders than recognising the signatures my sensors were reading that were identifying you as a reploid. Only a minute ago did I give it any mind, and I was very surprised at the data it was collecting from your neural processor trace waves." 

There was a brief pause as the tank collected itself, as if it were building up to a vital exclamation. 

"Oh wow," it finally breathed. "You... you have a very interesting brain, Miss Reploid." 

Mistigri stared at it, nonplussed. "Uh, thanks, I guess. What's with the sudden interest in my processor, old boy?" 

"No reason," the tank said glibly. "It just reminds me of a friend of mine." 

"What, another reploid?" 

"No, ma'am," the machine said. "Another robot." 

Mistigri slowly shook her head, amused. "You'd be surprised how often I hear that." 

"You should not be ashamed, ma'am," the tank rumbled indignantly. "It is a fine thing to be compared to a robot." 

"You don't have to tell me that," she said wryly. "Look, this is a really fascinating cultural exchange and all, but did you have something to talk with me about other than my interesting brain?" 

The tank hesitated before it spoke again. "Let's walk and talk," it suggested. "Although my orders limit me in what I am allowed to say to an outside and unauthorised visitor, even if it is a Maverick Hunter, perhaps I can nevertheless aid in your investigation after all." 

Spock-like, one of Mistigri's eyebrows rose up a notch. 

* * *

There was a gentle swirl of air in the room and a pulse of static electricity, the only warning before a generator in the control panel fired into action and suddenly materialized X on the warp pad in a heady rush of blue light. 

The Hunter promptly leapt down the steps leading off the platform and coasted out of the ward with a nod of thanks to the warp technician slouching in his chair behind the control panel, who was far too absorbed in reading a magazine to have paid much attention to the technological miracle of billions upon billions of unfettered free-flying molecules that had just coalesced on the warp pad, even if they just so happened to be reassembling into a certain blue Commander that just so happened to outrank him by several lifetimes. The door whooshed open with a pneumatic hiss and then whooshed shut again, without him looking up once. 

X himself, meanwhile, was beginning the long trek through the main building of the Maverick Hunters headquarters, making as direct a beeline as he could for the lone interrogation room, which, naturally, just so happened to be in one of the second story wings on the _other_ side of the complex. Fortunately it was fast approaching noon, which meant that most of the Hunters in the building - humans and reploids alike - were either long gone on their morning patrols or off getting lunch at one of the local restaurants, pubs or, as a last resort, the dreaded on grounds cafeteria down on the first floor. The traffic in the halls was therefore very light, mostly just bored technicians visiting their neighbours in adjacent labs and the odd Security drone or two, and X breezed through three wings without effort and then caught an empty elevator up to the second floor. 

The second trip to Burroughs Street had been something of a bust he admitted to himself as he leaned back against the side of the elevator and let it briskly whisk him up a floor. Other than the arrival of a small convoy of city cranes and dump trucks and industrial lifting robots sent to tackle the rubble left strew in the street, and a small army of workers from the Electric and Waterworks department to deal with the downed power lines and ruptured water mains, very little had happened and no Mavericks had put in a second appearance. In fact, nothing significant had taken place in the time before he'd finally grown bored of picking around the disaster area like a ghoul and just left, nor had the police had any more clues or information to give him. After half-heartedly fielding a few of their questions he'd just given up on trying to find out anything else at the scene of the tank's rampage and warped himself away. Investigating the crime was more up the alley of somebody like Mistigri rather than him, he reasoned wryly. 

Come to think of it, the whole thing was probably best left out of his hands for the time being anyway. Back when the Maverick Hunters organization had only been Dr Cain and a small group of reploids loyal to his vision of humans and reploids living peaceably side by side, X had done a great deal of investigative work on Maverick related crimes himself and hadn't enjoyed it much; there was something inherently sneaky and vaguely dishonest about the whole process, as if you were setting your victims up for an ambush they would never see coming rather than facing them down in fair fight out in the open, and it hadn't rung very true to his frank and forthright nature. But the Maverick Hunters had nearly tripled in numbers since then, and now other people much better suited to the job took on the tedious legal legwork of analysing attacks, which left Hunters like himself and Zero free to deal with them. Although he wasn't particularly crazy about the idea of being better designed for fighting in the end, the years spent in fierce combat with the Mavericks had proven time and time again that he could no more turn his back on the heavy handed violence they dished out against humanity than he could strangle a kitten. 

He knew Zero felt much the same way, only for entirely different reasons. Zero was very smart - in a lazy, half-assed sort of way - but he had no patience for convoluted investigative work and preferred direct action over deliberation. The red Hunter was also a straightforward sort of person, but his was the steely and simple nature of a sword, and he liked to cut to the point in much of a similar fashion. X deeply suspected that his friend's restless nature would cause him to become bored with chasing down the tank and start itching for a confrontation with it instead. Either that, or he would just ignore it entirely in favour of blithely pounding the hell out of the usual assortment of Mavericks they ran across on a weekly basis. Charging tanks weren't exactly a very common occurrence in the city; unfortunately, Maverick attacks were. Or fortunately, so far as Zero seemed to see it, X reflected wryly. 

A chime rang cheerily and the elevator doors gently irised open to deposit the blue Hunter into the second floor lobby. Absorbed in his thoughts, X hooked to the right and coasted down another hall to another smaller foyer with a single sliding door in the opposite wall, which soundlessly slide open to admit him as he ambled towards it, staring at his feet. 

Inside was a small, grey, windowless room that was clean and dry and smelt strongly of static electricity. It was dimly lit with overhead track lights, and had been divided rigidly in half with a single large pane of thick silver glass. In true cop fashion, this was actually a two-way mirror. In true Maverick Hunter fashion, it was also what the Hunters had colourfully dubbed "Raging Asshole Resistant", meaning it could withstand heavy impacts and extreme temperatures and high voltage electricity, was fully bullet proof, laser proof, plasma proof, water proof, fire proof, brick proof, and could generally reflect damage from a wide assortment of exotic robot weaponry. In theory, anyway - since it didn't exactly see a lot of day-to-day use, most tests of its durability had only involved half-heartedly hucking rocks at it during lunch breaks. Still, it had held up so far without a scratch, and Cain had been unusually firm on it being there for the protection of those watching. Maverick interrogations were rare, but they tended to be punishingly physical in nature for everyone involved, even spectators. 

It only took one glance at its current shivering, sulking occupant to see that this wasn't going to be one of those sessions, X noted immediately as he paused by the door. Newt, a thin, sallow faced reploid in ordinary human clothing, was slouching sullenly in his chair, his hands twined together in his lap and his head sunken into his neck, looking as though he'd rather be anywhere else. He didn't appear to be particularly frightened or intimidated, and there was a resigned look lingering in his eyes. X wasn't surprised. The seedy informant been hauled in to the Maverick Hunters base often enough that the initial shock of capture had likely long worn off. It was a reflex, really - whenever something bad happened involving the Mavericks, chances were that he knew something about it, and so a Hunter was sent out to drag him in for questioning right away. With Maverick attacks on the rise, Newt saw the interrogation room on nearly a weekly basis now. Hell, he was practically a preferred customer. Zero often joked about adding his name to their Christmas card list. 

To be fair, they never kept him there very long. Newt was harmless, on a physical level anyway, and whenever they didn't need information from him the Hunters by and large ignored him, leaving him to his own devices. It was an odd working arrangement, but everyone seemed fairly happy with it, even Newt himself, who seemed to take an uneasy comfort in the knowledge that there were far more important Mavericks for the Hunters to be chasing than him. Financially, he was a general hazard to anyone with a bank account and unshredded credit card applications, and X had often suspected that the disreputable Maverick was a lot more trouble than anyone really knew about - but that was police business, and he grudgingly left it to them. Hunters went after dangerous Mavericks, killers and predators, and despite his shady dealings Newt was no more violent than a garden snake. They weren't even all that convinced he was a true Maverick to begin with. As Cain had once aptly summed it up, he was just a nasty little jerk who didn't like people all that much, humans and his fellow reploids alike. There were a couple in every crowd. 

X's eyes roamed over the rest of the room, curious despite himself. He spotted Zero right away; the red Hunter was leaning up against the far wall just outside of the cone of light thrown down by the light overhead, his arms crossed over his chest, looking bored. X grinned sharply and raised his hand in greeting; belatedly he remembered the glass was two way and casually scratched his chin instead, feeling vaguely foolish. 

Seated across the table from Newt were a pair of reploids in grey armour, both short and squat and square jawed, with fierce black eyes and matching frowns on their faces that looked pretty permanent. The blue Hunter could only guess that they were Heinz and Brindle, a pair of reploids from the 14th Melee Unit who were usually trotted over to handle serious interrogations. Gruff and utterly unsympathetic, both seemed to have accepted their new role with great and terrible satisfaction, and X had often wondered just what offence the Mavericks had committed against them in the past to have provoked such animosity. Typical interrogations ran along a routine of 'Good Cop, Bad Cop', where a suspect brought in for questioning was bullied by the latter and then coaxed into cooperation by the former. Heinz and Brindle had achieved modest fame for chucking that old practice out of the window upon arriving in the ranks of the Maverick Hunters and playing a modified version of it, which many had come to dub 'Bad Cop, Slightly Lesser of Two Evils Cop.' It was similar to the first, but more people got hit more often. 

They were the only other people in the interrogation room. On X's side of the glass, in the viewing area, was a blond reploid in blue armour. He was standing close to the window and watching the scene in the room beyond it with great interest. When he heard X approaching, however, he looked over with an expression of absent-minded surprise. 

"Oh, hello, Captain," he said. 

"Howdy," X returned affably, desperately hoping that the unfamiliar reploid's name would come to him in a moment. He pointed to the other room with one thumb. "Have I missed much?" 

The blond reploid shrugged. X noticed that he was carrying a smart leather attaché case that had been hastily closed; a few loose papers poked out from the corners. "Naw, not really. They've been at this for an hour now, and Newt hasn't had much to say. I think he's genuinely ignorant this time around." 

X's face fell. "Great. There goes one of our best leads." 

The reploid grinned at him and patted the attaché case. "Don't take it too hard, sir. He might just be lying like a bastard. At least we found lots of other very illegal things to pin on Newt, so if we need to smack the truth out of him on a later occasion he'll be easy to find. The police seem pretty keen on the idea of locking him away for a while and then accidentally kicking the keys down a stormdrain. They've been after this twit for years now." 

X glanced over at the reploid sitting resentfully under the glaring light. "I hope they don't go too nuts over the idea of payback," he said wryly. "I mean, he's not much of a Maverick, if he even is one to begin with." 

"That's true," the blond reploid agreed. "But you have to admit he's not much of a Boy Scout either. Even reploids have to obey the law." 

"Good point," X sighed, not willing to debate the matter. 

Then his brain caught up to his ears, and he looked about himself in a puzzled fashion, squinting up into the corners of the room. "Wait, what happened to the speakers in here?" he said. "I can't hear anything that's going on in there." 

The other reploid looked guilty. "I, er, sort of had the intercom between the two rooms switched off. The whole session is being recorded anyway, and there's only so much enraged yelling you can put up with in one afternoon." 

"I feel your pain," X said, silently laughing his agreement. 

Then he snapped his fingers and pointed triumphantly. "Lancer!" 

The blond reploid stared blankly. "Er, yes sir?" 

X winced, feeling slightly caught out. Grinning weakly, he lowered his hand and said, "No, sorry, it's nothing. I've just been trying to put a name to your face for the past couple minutes, that's all. Gosh, now I feel really stupid." 

Lancer's eyes gleamed with amusement. "Don't feel too bad. It's getting to be a pretty big organisation, sir." 

"And getting bigger every day, it seems," the blue Hunter wistfully agreed. 

"Sometimes I think I don't even know half the guys in my unit," the other said sympathetically. 

"Same here. And I'm supposed to be leading them." X grimaced and leaned up against the glass, his expression growing pained. "The worst are the new replacements filing up from other units. You get to know them for a couple days, and then there's a big attack and suddenly they're gone as fast as they came, as quickly as the people they were replacing. I've got names floating around I haven't even been given the time to put faces to." 

"It's pretty sad, all right," Lancer said grimly. "And the increasing number of Maverick incidents hasn't helped matters much. I've only been here for three months or so, and already I've met more people than I ever have before. The problem is, they're never around long enough to get to know them." 

X suddenly became uncomfortably aware that the conversation needed a gentle nudge in a new direction before they depressed themselves stupid. He smiled awkwardly and said, "But still, I thought you looked familiar somehow, and your name rings a bell. What unit are you with?" 

"The #00 Unit, sir," the blond reploid said, straightening respectfully with a note of pride evident in his voice. 

X blinked. "With Zero? Really? Wow, I must really be out of touch - I thought I knew everyone in his unit." 

Lancer grinned sheepishly. "I'll be the first person to admit I'm not exactly the most memorable guy there," he said. "And truth be told I'm a real safety hazard with a Beam Sabre. I just can't get the hang of those things. Captain Zero's been pretty patient with me, though, so I haven't gotten the boot yet." 

X arched his brow. "Zero, patient? We're talking about the same reploid, right?" 

Lancer guiltily laughed into one of his hands at that, as if he were expecting his commander to overhear him and come indignantly charging through the glass at any moment. X took the opportunity to give him a curious sidelong look. Since he had first spotted the other reploid in the room, Lancer hadn't struck him as being a fighting reploid; at first he'd just assumed he was another technician, or maybe even one of the suits attached to the Maverick Hunter's much-abused legal department. He was thin and trim looking and had a certain air of well-groomed neatness about him, and wore light armour as if ill at ease in it. Still, there was a certain relaxed confidence in his stance and his bearing that spoke of poise and self-assurance of his position and his job, and the familiar old look to his eyes that clearly said he was still more than capable of going straight for your throat at a moment's notice- 

"Wait a minute," X said, turning back to face the other reploid as certain vital connections were made, the corners of his mouth curling up into an incredulous grin. "You're that _lawyer_ I've heard about, aren't you?" 

"Guilty as charged," Lancer said brightly. 

X laughed delightedly. "No kidding? Law school and everything?" 

"Yes, sir, a graduate from the Master of Laws and Doctor of Juridical Science programs at Colloquial. I'm _still_ paying back all my loans." 

"That's wild. I've haven't heard of many reploids, uh, pursuing, that particular career path before." 

"I guess that proves our species can't be all _that_ bad," Lancer chuckled. 

The blue Hunter grinned at that. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but I've got to know: what's a lawyer, of all people, doing in the #00 unit of the Maverick Hunters?" 

"Sometimes there is more to fighting than just picking up a sabre or a blaster," Lancer said piously. Then he made a face. "Besides, have you seen how Captain Zero fights? Quite frankly, we usually need all the legal aid we can get over there." 

X laughed again, wryly recognising it to be true. He knew Zero, all right. At the mention of his friend's name he turned back to face the glass and peered into the other room, his reflection smiling back at him. The red Hunter was still leaning up against the wall with his arms folded over his chest, but he seemed to be following the questioning with light-hearted interest now, his expression greatly amused as the two interrogators prowled around their victim's chair, his eyes bright and sharp. Judging from Newt's apprehensive expression, the whole session had soured in a way that wasn't to his favour. 

The blue Hunter suddenly found his smile slipping from his face as he continued watching, until he was grimacing queasily as he took in the scene, his gaze flitting over the room and the seemingly soundless conversation taking place within it. It was odd watching the mouths move without the words to accompany them, and only the broad, angry gestures the two reploids made conveyed any sense of life or emotion at all; it made the whole thing take on a surreal quality, as if he were only watching a television program with the sound off, terrible and violent only in his imagination. It was an uneasy sensation, one he wasn't sure he was very comfortable with. "I've never been too crazy about this sort of thing," he admitted aloud, his voice hushed. 

"I was never very good at interrogation myself, sir," Lancer replied sombrely. "I guess that's why I never really went seriously into law." 

His face crinkled in distaste. "I don't know how Captain Zero does it." 

X had often wondered that himself, but like so many other things he could only chalk it up to the irrefutable differences in personal philosophies between himself and his best friend. "I couldn't tell you," he said absently, shrugging. "But it probably has something to do with the way he keeps swiping my claw hammer. We didn't get any useful information from Newt at all, huh?" 

"Not really," the other reploid said. "He's sticking pretty firm to his story that he never heard anything about any Maverick plans to steal a tank, and usually those two are pretty good at thumping the truth out of him." 

A look of troubled dismay came over X's face and he made a noncommittal sound deep in his throat, staring moodily through the glass. "So what's the whole point of dragging it out like this if the whole thing is moot to begin with?" 

"Can't say, sir," he heard Lancer say lamely. "I guess it's just for the sake of propriety now." 

"I guess." 

A sharp crack like a gunshot made them both jump, X starting and leaping back in alarm. Heinz had just hurled his chair against the window and was now towering over the Maverick, howling something furious that didn't make it through the glass. Newt was quailing back in injured astonishment, and Zero appeared to be laughing hysterically in his corner. 

"What on earth was that all about?" Lancer said, staring. 

"I don't think I even want to know," X said, shaking his head sadly. He had come looking for his friend and some positive news, but was now starting to regret making the trip. He was beginning to remember the reasons he avoided this part of the wing in the first place. "Let's go get a drink, or something." 

* * *

A word about the Roadhouse: beer. 

So far as friendly neighbourhood restaurants went, it was nothing remarkable. It lurked inoffensively off the main road between a coffee shop and a pizza parlour, its entrance marked with a broad awning boldly painted with loud stripes of red and green and white. Wide paneled bay windows wrapped around the front, and the rest of the building was all sturdy red brick. Inside it was dimly light with dusky orange and yellow ambiance lighting, with hot pools of red and blue illumination sizzling down from the neon beer signs, and a confused riot of colour where somebody had strung up several strings of old Christmas lights above the kitchen area in a fit of inspired artistry. The front of the establishment was lorded over by the bar, by its stools and bottles and walls of gleaming gold taps and empty glasses and half-eaten plates of pub fare food, populated entirely by roving packs of peanut bowls and beer nuts and drink coasters. Towards the back was the rest of the restaurant, all red and white checked table clothes arranged nicely with candles and condiments and propped up menus, all chairs and tables and rows of family booths jutting out from the walls. The floors were scuffed and tiled, the ceiling stained with patches of cigarette smoke, and the walls were covered in what could only charitably be described as completely random crap. 

It was a Maverick Hunter restaurant by choice, if not by design. Therefore every picture, every framed photograph, every old newspaper clipping and magazine article and every trophy slathered over every inch of the walls was somehow Hunter related. Some of them dated back to the first year of the group's existence, and therefore qualified the restaurant as being the closest thing the Hunters would ever get to having their own museum or hall of fame, something they seemed to take an unusual amount of pride in. Although it had originally started out as an ordinary family restaurant, its close proximity to the Hunter headquarters had meant that since day one it had received a large number of Hunter customers on the prowl for food, who wandered inside and shortly after discovered the bar. It was a steady flow that had only increased as the organisation grew in size until now, years later, it was just easier to think of it as a Hunter pub and leave it at that. The redecorating had happened shortly after that, until now you had to seat yourself very carefully at certain tables or risk being gruesomely beheaded by prize Maverick weapons won and captured from old battles and now proudly hung on the walls for display and for bragging rights. 

The Roadhouse was still open to the general public, however; it was owned and operated by humans, and not all of its regular customers were Hunters. Traffic from the streets outside still coasted on inside for dinner and a beer, and to enjoy its other fringe benefits. Not only was it the only place in town absolutely assured not to be targeted by the Mavericks - the only thing more dangerous than a fully trained Hunter is fifty fully trained Hunters so far gone in the depths of drink after a horrible day's work that they'd drunkenly savage the fiery groin of Hell itself for being too hot - but it was also the best seat in town for voyeuristically observing Hunters in one of their natural environments. 

Zero sailed in through the front doors and stopped just inside, surveying the domain. Public interest in the Hunter lifestyle immediately hiked up a notch, and he ignored the excited stares he was earning and let his gaze rove over the restaurant instead. 

It looked like most of the lunchtime crowd was already there, he noted. The tables and booths at the back of the establishment had already filled up with packs of free ranging Hunters that had come in from their patrols for a bite to eat, with scores of lab technicians and garage mechanics, who tended to stick together in their own little groups when out in public, and two booths in the very back corner appeared to be jammed full with rowdy medical personnel, a hearty mix of the second floor Infirmary staff and the rare and secretive members of the underground emergency repair ward known only as the Swamp. This wasn't much of a surprise; medics and mechanics tended to skip dinner in favour of a big lunch, and the majority of them seemed to suck up liquor like fiends when time and work allowed them too. Zero had observed that nobody drank like a field surgeon of war or a Hunter mechanic who has had to stitch or solder together one too many gruesomely mangled bodies in one day. Alcohol seemed to come with the territory as easily as blood did. 

In a dramatic contrast, the bar was nearly empty, a strange and foreign sight. It wouldn't be until the late evening that it would start filling up, as Cain and the higher ups in the Maverick Hunter command had threatened hot and holy hell for any Hunter caught drinking before going out on their patrol. Zero was therefore quite surprised to spot a familiar blue reploid hunched over on one of the stools, slouching over the counter and staring down at the drink cradled between his hands as if it were staring back up into his soul. 

He opened his mouth to shout a greeting over the general din; then a new idea struck him and he shut it with a snap and a fiendish grin. He prowled silent and stealthy through the crowd instead, impatiently weaving through waitresses sashaying cheerfully down the isles to field new customers and old ones getting up and leaving their tables, through thick plumes of cigarette smoke hanging motionless in the air, any sound he made drowned out by the music blaring down from overhead and the lively hubbub from the restaurant patrons. He made it to the bar without being spotted by his intended victim once, and he paused behind the blue Hunter's stool to savour the moment with a great and terrible relish, his hands raised and the fingers flexed into cruel talons. 

"_Axe killer!_" he bawled, and playfully clamped his hands around the back of the other reploid's neck. 

X leapt nearly a foot off his stool with a muffled yell of surprise. "Gah!" 

Zero thumped the back of his friend's head with the heel of his palm in an easy, familiar way and hooked himself a neighbouring stool with one foot. "I thought I'd find you here." 

"You evil, evil bastard," X cursed half-heartedly. He'd sloshed nearly a third of his drink over the bar when he'd jumped, and now flicked his hand to shake the displaced beverage off of it. "You're going to give me an aneurism if you keep that up. I swear to god it's taking years off my life." 

Zero only grinned at him and seated himself. "Geez, you're a sad, lonely little man, X," he said heartily, resting his hands over the counter of the bar. "You know what they say about people who drink alone, right?" 

"Okay, first of all," X began wryly, swivelling around on his stool to face the other Hunter, "I didn't come here to sit by myself; I was with one of the guys from your unit, that Lancer fellow, and he had to leave ten minutes ago to go do legal lawyer Lancer things. Secondly, you'll please observe that I'm not even drinking anything alcoholic, and that what I'm holding is, in fact, a glass of Mountain Dew. So shutyertrap." 

"See, there you go," Zero said easily. "That's 'cause you're a loser, too." 

He crooked a finger at the bartender, blithely ignoring his friend's ugly glare. "Look man, come down he-arh," he said. "One bourbon, one scotch, and one beer." 

"Well?" the bartender said after an awkward moment had passed. 

"Well, what?" Zero said, frowning. 

The human slung his towel over his shoulder. "Well, which one is it?" he pressed impatiently. 

The red Hunter gave him a disproving look. "The beer, of course," he said. "Crickey, doesn't your species listen to the radio anymore?" 

"I'll give you a radio," the human muttered darkly and slunk off to the taps, slinging up a clean mug from the rack on his way. 

X watched his retreating back for a moment, and then turned back to his friend. "So, how did the whole interrogation thing go?" 

Zero shrugged noncommittally. "Eh. Newt didn't know much. So far as he was aware of, the Mavericks had nothing to do with the tank theft. Either that, or he didn't hear anything about it because they've finally wised up and left him out of the loop this time in case he snitched to the wrong person like a wee rat bastard. But who knows? Maybe the car on his information highway has finally run out of gas and crawled off into the ditch and died somewhere." 

X laughed at that, leaning back over the bar. "You'd think they'd have learned to stop telling him things a long time ago. You can't trust Newt any farther than you can throw him." 

There was a bowl of peanuts sitting just offside of Zero's elbow; the red Hunter studied it while X spoke, and when the other reploid had finished he pounced on it, sliding it in front of him and fastidiously picking out a nut. "I guess going Maverick doesn't automatically earn you any bonus points in Club IQ." 

He crushed the nut easily between his thumb and forefinger and fished out another one. 

The blue Hunter on his left grinned into space. "Yeah, I guess not. Still, its lousy luck not to get any information from him, and god only knows if he was lying about the Mavericks not being involved in stealing that tank. Who does that leave behind if the Mavericks didn't do it?" 

"Uh, how about roughly two million humans? Believe it or not, some of them are pretty capable of being dirty little buttholes as well." 

Another nut met a grisly demise, and a third was selected. 

"Well, yeah, I guess," X admitted reluctantly. "But, you have to admit that historically, in this city anyway, these types of big crimes are usually related to the Mavericks somehow, and-" 

He paused in mid sentence when he spotted the damage his friend was inflicting on the peanut supply, his expression growing baffled. "Wait, what are you doing?" 

"A favour for allergy sufferers everywhere," Zero replied grimly, and crushed another peanut. 

X eyed him in amusement for a minute or two and then he dryly suggested, "Why don't we just ask the bartender to go get you a box of crayons and one of those special placemats?" 

"Nuts to that. Ooh, I'm sorry - that was a bad one." Another peanut met a dismal and powdery fate. 

The blue Hunter gave him a long and steady look. "I think I speak for both of us when I say I hope your beer gets here in a damn hurry." 

"Amen to that, my brother," Zero agreed with gusto. "Hey hey, here she comes now!" 

The bartender returned, sliding a heavy glass in front of the red Hunter that happily slopped a thick layer of foam up and over one side and dribbled it down the side of the glass like a malted eruption. "There you go, Thorogood. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when Cain gets a good whiff of you." 

"Pshaw, the day I can't outrun the old guy is the day I throw myself off a high building and aim my head for a car. Speaking of which, did you put enough head on this beer?" Zero said sardonically, frowning down at it as he pushed aside the peanut bowl. "I'm just asking 'cause I see a couple millimetres of free space still at the top of the glass that you must have missed." 

"Quityerbitchin'. Whose tab is all is this all going on?" 

"Zero's," X said. 

"X's," Zero replied. 

The bartender sighed heavily as the two reploids exchanged evil looks. 

"I bought lunch yesterday," X accused. 

"And I exploded myself to save you when Vile had you stuck in that cage, you ungrateful little git," Zero retorted with mock indignation. After some thought he also added, "And besides, the chicken in my sandwich was frankly undercooked." 

X's expression was an interesting study in how to look glum and guilty and nettled all at once. "You're not going to let me live that one down anytime soon, are you?" 

"Hell, no," his friend replied. "Nothing vexes me quite like soggy chicken. Getting gruesomely killed sort of sucked too, eh?" 

There was no winning this one. X caved. "My tab it is." 

"Well, _hurrah_ for that," the bartender said dourly, and sloped away. 

Zero watched him stalk off with a half amused, half disgruntled look on his face. "Oh yeah, I _really_ like him. He's feisty. I wonder which car in the lot is his. I'm sure I've got my keys on me somewhere." 

"Don't pick on the staff," X told him sternly. He picked up his drink and swirled it gently, meditatively gazing down into what was left in the bottom. "Look, what were we talking about before we got sidelined?" 

The red Hunter yawned and hoisted his glass also. "Newt and that stupid tank. Look, X, I know you're all gung-ho on the idea of getting it back before somebody gets hurt, but this sort of Inspector Clouseau crap really isn't up our alley. Let's just let Mistigri and the rest deal with this stuff, so we can sit back and figure out how we're going to pound it when it shows up again without getting ourselves severely ventilated." 

One of X's eyebrows shot up. "And Newt?" 

Zero snorted into his drink. "I'm starting to think he's not even Maverick after all - just a weaselly little jerkoff with a grudge against the humans." 

The blue Hunter made a face and idly scratched one finger against the rim of his glass. "Believe it or not, but I was actually thinking of something along the same lines earlier." 

"What, about Newt?" 

"On both points. 

Zero blinked. "There's a new one. Alleluia." 

X continued, ignoring him. "I think you're right, and we're better off just letting people like Mistigri handle the police and Griffith's bunch the search. We're just going to get in their way otherwise, I guess. We can still keep our eyes open for anything that pops up in the meantime, of course, but there's no point in breaking off our usual patrols to go out of our way to look for that stupid tank when Cain's already got half the staff doing just that." 

He shrugged awkwardly. "Besides, there's been an unusual number of real Maverick attacks lately. Let's not get our units chasing after invisible threats when numerous other real ones are springing up all over the place at the same time." 

Zero gave him an appraising look over the top of his glass. "Wow. Did we just agree on something? Synchronicity. You're right, I don't believe it." 

His friend opened his mouth for a smart reply but was cut off in mid witty comeback by the internal chirp of his radio. "Aw, geez, what's this?" 

"Radio?" Zero said quickly, his mug hitting the bar with a sharp sound. 

"Yeah. You too?" 

"You bet. Must be something big." 

X grunted his agreement and flipped through his frequencies until he hit the Maverick Hunter general channel, absently noting that the red Hunter seated beside him was likely doing the same. "Hello?" 

"_Captain X, this is Headquarters,_" the long familiar voice of the Hunter dispatcher broke in. _"Is this a good time for me to completely ruin your day?"_

Groaning mentally, X said, "It's always a good time when you're doing nothing better. What happened?" 

The voice grew grim. _"We're getting reports that there's an attack taking place on Gibson and William Street, just outside of the Euromancer Mall."_

"Mavericks?" 

_"Who else?"_

"How big?" 

_"Er, big enough. A couple reploids have been spotted, but mostly I'm hearing that it's a lot of smaller drones that are causing some damage. Serious enough that we've alerted the rest of your Unit and Zero's if you think you'll need them there as well."_

X let out the breath he'd been holding in a noisy exhale. "Just keep them on standby and we'll go check it out ourselves first. I don't think fifty people shooting wildly at drones will help the scenery much." 

Zero's voice suddenly cut smoothly in. "_Besides, we can probably handle it ourselves. No point in hauling them out unnecessarily._" 

The blue Hunter glanced over at his friend, one eyebrow quirked in surprise. Zero grinned when their eyes met and waved. 

"Right, what he said," X added dryly, shaking his head. "We'll be there in five minutes." 

_"Have fun, and be careful,"_ the dispatcher said, an old mantra. Then he disconnected. 

X meanwhile gazed dismally at the bar. "What are the odds?" 

"Looks like we're up," Zero boomed cheerfully, sliding lithely off his perch and giving his friend a hearty slap on the back. "Life's a zesty blend of the unusual and unexpected, isn't it? First a tank rampage and now a bona fida Maverick attack, all in one day. Bet you wish you'd grabbed that beer now, eh?" 

"Not really," X groaned as he slithered off his stool with a vast lack of enthusiasm. "Now I almost wish it had been liquid bleach instead." 

* * *

_Megaman © Capcom _


	4. Street Fighting Man

**Chapter Four: Street Fighting Man **

Even a mere three thousand feet above the city, the world still managed to take on a whole new shape. 

The horizon curved away from the sky like a rind, a gentle elliptical shape so profoundly sharp and significant against that backdrop of blue it made you wonder just how the hell peple had ever botched it so badly and imagined the world to be flat in the first place. Off his right wing was the ocean, big and broad and a deep sapphire blue, a pale and shimmering aquamarine along the shoreline where thin crescents of yellow sand finally broke up through the depths to greet the beaches, the whole great mass unfurling to the very edge of the sky like a blanket. Even at that distance the whitecaps were visible, frothy and white as they rolled across the ocean, and his sharp eyes easily picked out the colourful triangular sails of a number of light boats already out skimming the waves; evidently the local yacht clubs were taking full advantage of the new morning wind blowing in from the east. Banks of thick white clouds were piling up along the horizon, as if in preparation for the rest of the afternoon. 

Meanwhile, the city itself swam far below him, a long sward of metal and concrete stretching out languidly along the shore, the white buildings glowing nearly orange in the late morning sunshine. Tiny cars zipped along the dense mesh of streets and byways weaving between stores and apartments and sprawling mall complexes, their occupants oblivious to the aerial observers flying high overhead. Parks turned into simple patches of green scattered randomly between buildings, highways becoming nothing more than nondescript grey ribbons snaking off to the east and west. From above, the city looked more like a roadmap than a jungle of glass and asphalt, all angular shapes and long winding lines. From that height even the tallest spires and blue glass skyscrapers and high income luxury condominiums looked squat and square and subdued, crushed to the earth by the cruel laws of perspective. Expense and elegance of design at street level suddenly took on less meaning and importance when _you_ were the one soaring so far above everything else that _they_ had to look up just to see you. Flight was a handy equalizer, he reckoned lazily. 

The reploid's wings thrashed through the air furiously for a moment for greater lift, then fanned out to either side of him and remained perfectly still, basking him in the warm currents and updrafts rising sluggishly from the great urban cooking pan below. The sweet tang of atmosphere and salt off the ocean fought and won against the usual bilinous reek of smog coughed up from the city. Griffith inhaled it deeply and grinned happily to himself, enjoying the familiar giddy sensation of flight and the feel of the sun brightly beating down onto his back. It was a hell of a day to be alive and about, and despite everything that had already happened that morning he was in a fantastic mood. 

"_And I dreamed I saw the bomber jet planes riding shotgun in the sky,_" he sang out lustily, sticking out one hand alongside him and surfing it through the air. "_Turning into butterflies above our nation!_" 

His internal radio crackled. They'd learned long ago that it was bloody useless to shout at each other when they were tearassing through God's own blue skies, as the rushing sound of the wind at altitude all but ripped the words straight out of your mouth and contemptuously cast them down to the earth. "_Hey, Captain! Get on the horn!"_" 

"_I wanted a mission,_" Griffith continued gleefully, flipping to the proper frequency, "_And for my sins they gave me one._" 

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "_Uh, what was that, sir?_" 

The hawk twisted his head until one tawny eye was looking back at the reploid that had paged him, who was flying on a loose formation just off his right wing. "Whoops! Sorry, soldier - I was just channeling the spirit of Francis Coppola again. You know how Saturdays are, heh heh. What can I do you for?" 

The reploid who had spoken up was a sturdy looking bird in black armour, with a vivid scarlet patch painted over each wing that had earned him the extremely uninspired name of Redwing. Even at that distance the pained grimace plastered on his face was very visible. "_I hate to say it, Cap, but I've got some bad news for you._" 

"There is no such thing as bad news," Griffith affirmed loftily, accentuating his point with an idle thump of his wings. "Just good news with a bad upbringing. What, what happened?" 

"_Remember that warp signature you had me tracking?_" 

"You betcha. What about it?" 

"_Well, uh, I just lost all signs of it._" 

Griffith actually staggered in mid-flap. "Damnation and hellfire!" he bellowed, thunderstruck. "Even at this height?" 

"_You bet, Cap. Not even a blip's showing up anymore. It completely disappeared off my sensory grid about two second's ago._" 

"Hell's bells!" Griffith swore. "I thought you said the extra altitude would help clear the signal?" 

The voice over his radio was apologetic. "_Well, that's just it, sir - we're high enough now that we've weeded out all of the other radio waves and whatnot from the rest of the city that were getting mixed in with it, but it was so weak to begin with that now we're flying too high to even pick it up._" 

"_Oh, for the love of Mike!_" a second voice broke in testily. "_What dump does Supply and Engineering order all of our sensory equipment from, anyway_?" 

The last member of the unit broke in with a snicker. "_Radio Shack?_" 

"_It wasn't a strong signal to start with,_" Redwing argued feebly. "_It's not my radar's fault it can't read it anymore-_" 

"_It's stupid. You're stupid._" 

"_Hey, shut up!_" 

"That's it!" Griffith suddenly bellowed out loud, annoyed, twisting around in mid-air and shaking a threatening fist back at the members of his unit. "I've had enough of yo' jibber jabber! I'm officially calling a heads-down time! The next person who talks writes lines after class!" 

The Airborne Division frequency immediately fell into a sullen silence. 

"Yes! Right! Thank you! Redwing," he added, calming down by degrees and switching back to radio. "If we go back to flying a low altitude patrol, do you think you'd be able to pick up on that warp signature again?" 

"_Er, yeah, I think so, Cap,_" the tracker said, subdued. 

The brown hawk pointed down beneath him, to the scores of the big industrial warehouses crouching along the shoreline fringe district as if expecting to be evicted at a moments notice. "And what do you think the chances are of it leading us straight to one of those suckers?" 

"_Pretty good, I'd say. I mean, a tank is a big machine to hide, so whoever warped it away would need a big building like that to stash it in. This area's sparsely populated, and the only people who come around here are dock workers and union shippers and unloaders, so there's no one around to accidentally stumble across the thief. And before I lost it, the signal was getting stronger and clearer the closer we got to the ocean anyway-_" 

"That's good enough for Griffith!" the big hawk boomed. "So we fly low and do a building by building search. There's only - what? - a couple hundred of those warehouses along the entire city shoreline. It shouldn't take us longer than a couple days to inspect them all." 

A dismal groan echoed up from his unit. 

"_Days, sir?_" another reploid whined. 

"_Building by building, sir?_" the third bellyached. 

This time, Redwing wisely kept his mouth shut. 

"Ah, stow it! Kee-rist! What, did you all have something else you were supposed to be doing this week?" 

"_No, Cap,_" the three reploids chimed in glumly. 

"Then down we go!" Griffith roared cheerfully, his good mood miraculously restored. He closed his wings and began a sharp banking turn to port, slicing through the air in a shallow powerdive that sent him easily spiralling down to earth, the three other fliers in airshow perfect formation close behind him. "_There's mines over there, there's mines over there, and watch out - those goddamn monkeys bite, I'll tell ya!_" 

* * *

In a subterranean level of the Maverick Hunter headquarters, the peaceful mid afternoon silence of the emergency medical ward known only as the Swamp was being rudely blown apart by three powerful concussive explosions. 

"Whoa, Nellie!" a lone technician shouted. 

He turned away from the cabinet he had been studying and stared in amazement at the source of the blast. "Stop spreading your 'teria!" 

"Oh, thanks," it wheezed. 

He grinned. "You okay there, Chief?" 

"Yeah," Frog said, sniffing, her eyes watering madly. She had turned away from her computer just in time before the coughing fit hit, and was now bent over at the waist and staring at the floor beside her chair. "Crickey. Enough of that could give a person tunnel vision." 

"You're not sick or anything, are you?" he asked. 

"Naw," she said, inhaling experimentally. "It's just a spring cold or something. I usually get one around this time of the year." 

"It must suck being human sometimes," the technician, who was indeed a reploid, said with half-felt sympathy. 

"You better believe it ain't all kittens and roses, bub. Cripes. I think my ears are actually ringing." 

"They probably heard that upstairs!" the technician laughed. Then a new thought seemed to suddenly strike him and his expression grew sly. "Somebody must be talking about you." 

"That's sneezing, doofus," the chief medical officer chided half-heartedly. She rubbed her nose with the back of one hand and straightened, turning back around to face her computer and obliterating the screen saver with one tap of a key. "Heigh ho, heigh ho, back to work we go. What were we at again?" 

"The part where you suggest we take a break for lunch?" the technician supplied, feeble angels of hope shining earnest in his eyes. 

Frog let out a short bark of laughter, typing listlessly. "Nice try, clever pants. The rest of my staff may have abandoned me for the Roadhouse like complete bastards, but you're still stuck here until we get the inventory finished. Cain wants it done today, and by god the old coot can be an outright fascist when reports don't make it to his desk on time. The faster we get this done, the faster we're outta here. If we're lucky, it'll be in time for Friday's soup special." 

"But Chief-" he started to whine. 

"Butt Chief? What do you think I am, some twisted ass freak?" she unenthusiastically joked. "Now quit yer bitchin' and start listing what's left in that cab… that cabine… cabi- oh, Christ!" 

Another round of coughing rocked the Swamp. 

"I hope they _are_ talking, talking about firing you," the technician muttered sulkily. 

* * *

The corner of Gibson and William Steet had definitely seen better days. 

Ordinarily, it was a pleasant, well-groomed plaza popular with shoppers and tourists cruising idly through the area. The two streets were among the city's longest and boasted a rich arrangement of shops and malls and restaurants, and therefore they attracted a lot of human and reploid traffic. The point of their intersection was always alive with activity as the flow of people from both streets finally met and meshed together; it was mercilessly preyed upon by hawkish street performers and guys with pamphlets and competing venders that crowded the pavement and alternated tried to sell passerbys hotdogs or cheap plastic sunglasses. It was a large and open area, tiled nicely with round paving stones, littered with benches or low stone walls for sitting, and well planted with bushy green hedges and young maple trees and gardens thick with big purple and red geraniums arranged in artful rows. A small marble fountain was erected in the very middle of the plaza and sprayed a white plume of water up into the air. Traffic crawled past in either direction on each street, and the tall glass skyscrapers rising up from the cityscape all around it brilliantly mirrored the sky. 

The main entrance to the big Euromancer Mall also stood on the corner of Gibson and William, and like the rest of the square it was usually one of the city's more attractive and popular landmarks. At that moment in time, however, people were more concerned with stampeding _away_ from it as quickly as possible, and for once it wasn't exactly because a better sale had been discovered down the street. 

A Maverick was standing on the steel arch above the entrance, cutting a dramatic figure against the rest of the building, rising high above the screams. 

He was a tall reploid, but lanky and bent and stood with a pronounced hunch, his heavy reptilian head and its fan of spikes settled well in between his shoulders, his arms drawn close to his chest with the sharp claws pointed outwards. His armour was bottle green and yellow, long chewed from battle and laced with old silver scour marks that were already busy encrusting themselves with a fringe of rust. His long spine-shanked tail was coiled around his legs, the bladed tip twitching edgily. One large eye roved restlessly over the skyline, whirling madly in its socket as it scanned over the streets snaking through the city beneath him, over the stores and apartments and the cars zipping along between them, the glassy orb a wary guardian never stopping for long on any object as it kept its vigilance against attackers. The other eye, however, was fixed resolutely on the promenade directly beneath his lofty perch, eagerly drinking in the beautiful scene of bedlam and carnage taking place there- 

He frowned and scratched his chin. No, wait, carnage - that wasn't right. A little grandiose, perhaps? Okay, wrong word. He tried out 'massacre' for size and it just didn't seem very fit to describe the scene taking place in the street below him either. Maybe in the old days it would have been a more appropriate word, back when he was at the height of his strength and ruthlessness and could pull together a _really_ nasty attack against the meatsacks and not _this_ sad sort of ambush. But that was then, and this was now, and he was just pale spectre of the killing machine he'd once been, scraped thin and hollow over what was left of his life and rapidly approaching that final desperate end… 

Huh. Happy thoughts, think happy thoughts before he depressed himself stupid. Lots of dead humans. X's head on a spit. The Maverick Hunting Headquarters nothing but a smoking crater and him dancing through the ashes. Right, that was more the spirit! Then how about chaos? 'Disorder' was a little too wussy for his own liking… slaughter? Anarchy? Madness? Madness? A scene of madness? Yes! That was it! Madness! Utter madness! 

"Haw!" he crowed aloud, fists on his hips, delighted with his own cleverness. "No, Neil, it's madness this week!" 

The little death drone hovering obediently above his left shoulder beeped a curious query. 

"No, I wasn't talking to you," he told it snippily, adding under his breath, "Dangum union dips." 

The eye meanwhile gave it a baleful basilisk stare and then resumed swirling relentlessly over the scenery again, lovingly taking in the panic, the fear, the hordes of screaming human bodies all fighting tooth and claw to get away, away from the Maverick on the arch and the certain death prowling through the air like a swarm of killer bees- 

He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Make sure you aim for the knees a couple times! They aren't just there for decoration, you know! If you shoot those out you cripple the monkeys hard enough that they can't run away, and that's always good for a few laughs! The knees! _The knees!_ Hack the bone! _Hack the bone!_" 

The street beneath him was full of killer robots. 

Each one was a stunted child of technology, barely more than a tiny green flying helicopter held aloft by a simple spinning rotor. Although they were little more than hovering guns, they darted over the corner of Gibson and William with a vengeance and cut a wide swath of destruction behind them, their violet lasers shaving cleanly through everything that happened to fall across their path. Each robot was only the size of a small toaster over, but what they lacked in size they more than made up for in sheer malevolent tenacity, zipping hither thither though the trees and swooping low over the ground and firing blithely at anything that moved and, in the case of several cars unfortunate enough to be parked on the curb that afternoon, anything that didn't move as well. The air was soon filled with an acrid haze of smoke and shimmering heat waves, the grass with blood and glass and burnt debris. The whole scene was brightly lit up with orange flames and hot purple tracer flashes as more and more of the tiny drones continued to drop out of the sky like avenging angels, lasers blasting madly in a very un-celestial way. 

The Maverick took in the sight of their murderous rampage with the critical eye of an artist. The drones were his own design, built by his own two hands, and this was their first test killin', so to speak. Truth be told, he wasn't very happy with them. They were much, much smaller than he would have liked, and he personally thought he should have added more guns, but eh, what are ya gonna do? He was no fool. The seriousness of his lousy situation hadn't lost its impact on him over the past few years. He was nothing but a shell of his former self, defeated, dirt broke, a beaten down warrior in rusting battle armour, an old victim of their war against the humans and probably long forgotten as well. In short, Home Hardware wasn't exactly knocking down his door to give him the free material from which he could forge an invisible army of killer robots. For now, he had to settle with whatever filth-slopped scrap he could scavenge up from any outer city dumps he stumbled across, and a bunch of puttering little drones. 

Indignation burned white hot across his mind. Oh, for the glory days! Back when the humans were at the top of the food chain only because the Mavericks hadn't quite figured out a way to serve them, ahaha. Back when he could have taken up his whip and to hell with the humans, and to hell with the Hunters, and killed as he pleased. Back when he'd still commanded fear and respect. The stupid apes still ran when they saw him, but now it was only because they'd gotten used to doing it so often that it was practically a daily exercise. He was just another Maverick now, just another petty pain in the ass of humanity. He'd refused to go out with a whimper, but he couldn't quite manage a bang anymore. Not in this wretched state, alive but not really living either. Just... there. An feeble threat. Empty noise. Thunder without lightning. And some other trippy junk. 

He moodily watched a couple of his drones as they viciously ganged up against a sports utility vehicle parked illegally nearby, blowing out its windows first then savaging its hood and engine. Christ. There was probably a metaphor in that, or something. 

"Good one, guys," he applauded. "What dumbass drives an SUV in this city, anyway? Do you see any rugged mountain rivers or cougars around here? Geez." 

His internal radio chimed and he turned away from the scene below, although one eye continued to regard it with great interest. "Yas? Whaddya want?" 

The voice that came through was snowed under in static, but still clear enough to vibrate with anxiety. "_I've got good news, and bad news._" 

The Maverick muttered something foul deep in his throat. "Ah, crud. I just knew it was going to be another one of those days. I felt it deep in my chassis. All right, what's the bad news? Let's get it over with first so we can all go back to being happy and smiling again soon after." 

"_Well, the bad news is that you'd better keep your eyes peeled - in about five minutes you'll be having company._" 

"Huh? Really?" 

"_Yeah. Talk about getting kicked in the fork when you're down._" 

The Maverick shrugged indifferently. "Eh, don't sweat it. No big loss. I was just getting ready to scram anyway. This scene is getting old, man. All the humans have buggered off and we're shooting cars now, and it just isn't the same thing." 

From the corner of his eye he spotted something going up in a lusty fireball of yellow flames and white fluttering papers, and then a satisfied drone swooping away. He arched a brow at it. "Whoops, no, I'm sorry, we're down to mailboxes now. Oh god, this is lame." 

"_Ah. Actually, you may want to hang around for a while when they get there._" 

"Oh?" 

"_Yeah. One of them is an old friend of ours. You get one guess towards who it is._" 

"Gee, I dunno, I'm stumped, I need more hints," the Maverick said, sarcasm dripping from the words like venom. "Batman?" 

There was a long pause. "_Try again, pal._" 

The Maverick rolled both of his eyes. His partner was a stand up sort of reploid and a fierce fighter, but god, he swore somebody had really snipped the balls off his sense of humour. He groaned into his hand, then rubbed it slowly down his face. "All right, then what's the good news?" 

There was an embarrassed cough from the other end of the radio. "_Actually, that was something of a complete lie about the good news. We're totally screwed._" 

"Whoa! Now hang on for just one blue-eyed minute!" the Maverick cried out, stomping about on the arch, anger finally bubbling its way into his voice. "I thought you said the Hunters would be too busy messing around with that tank nut to have the time to catch onto us! I think you even called it 'co-ordinating attacks', or some such happy soldier garbage! What up, buddy?" 

"_Don't look at me,_" the other reploid snapped back, deeply offended. "_It's not my fault they've upped their response time. I thought they'd still be chasing that thing around on the other side of the city too. I'm just flying over Gibson Street now and spotted the two a couple blocks away and charging hellbent in your direction, so here's your warning. Man._" 

The Maverick let a deep breath of air hiss out slowly between his teeth as he fought to regain control over his temper. "Great. How peachy. We finally get _one lousy break_ and some crazy bastard in a tank helpfully provides us with the nice big distraction we've been waiting for to keep the Hunters busy, and yet here we are still getting hassled by Dr Cain's favourite pair of boy scouts. God just opened a window all right, and took a leak on our laps." 

"_Don't worry, we can still get out of this. You've still got all those drones with you, don't you?_" 

"Yes, and the only thing they're good for is fodder." 

"_Well, sit tight. I'll be there soon enough. If I can catch them off guard maybe we can both get away._" 

The Maverick's head jerked around. His sharp audio sensors had picked up on the ominous sound of a muffled explosion from the direction of Gibson street, then another, and then the shriek of a tortured robot whistling a long death spiral through the sky. There was a pregnant pause, and then a noisy detonation of plasma and glass indicated that it had finally met the same grisly end as the rest of its mates. 

"Well, you'd better make it pretty damn quick, because I think I can hear them on their way," he said feverishly, his claws clacking together. "If I couldn't beat that little blue jerkoff the first time around, I rather doubt I'll be able to hold both of them off my back for very long in this state." 

"_Give me five minutes. Just, uh, try to stall them until then, or something._" 

The Maverick snorted. "Oh yeah, I'll entertain them with my sagely wit and charm until they're so filled with trust and crap that they lower their guard, and then I'll try to cripple them. Or visa versa. Either way, I guess it's better than sitting around on my butt back at the factory waiting for the diseased lab monkeys to come to me." 

"_Wow. No more afternoon movies for you, pal. All right, I'll be there soon. Have fun._" 

"Oh, thank you so much for that," the Maverick growled sourly, but the radio had already cut out on him. 

Silently fuming, he turned back out towards the plaza in time to spot one of his drones go careening drunkenly into the leafy embrace of a big maple. It struck a heavy branch that sheared its rotor cleanly off and sent the rest of the crumpled debris smashing into the trunk. Almost as an afterthought, it exploded into flames on its way down to the ground, then burst open into a lovely orange blossom of fire as it struck the pavement. Evidently it was lonely there, because in less than ten seconds two more burning piles of electrical wiring and metal had joined it, and then a third carcass was captured by the tree and had soon set the leaves merrily ablaze. The counter-carnage was already upon him. 

The Maverick signed dismally, his shoulder slumping. He was having some wicked déjà vu, here. 

However, fate still seemed destined to surprise him. When the first Hunter came heroically charging into the plaza like the hell of a guy he was, it wasn't the reploid the Maverick had been expecting. Armour flashing blood red against the sun, his hair a golden dervish behind him and the neon green blade of his sabre scything through the air around him like a plasma field, Zero's appearance was definite an indication that his day had just taken a sharp turn for the worse, his luck plummeting somewhere into the deep dark nether regions of total disaster. The Maverick fought down the urge to claw at his eyes and scream aloud in sheer frustration over it all. Zero! Of all the lousy luck! X would have been bad enough. The crimson Hunter was a hundred times worse. At least you could talk to X. X was usually perfectly willing to listen and debate with even the most wild-eyed psychotics. X was reasonable. On the other hand, Zero's conversational skills seemed to mostly revolve around snarky insults and decapitation. 

Oh _hell_. And here he was underpowered, running out of energy, stripped of all his formidable old weapons, at desperation's end... frankly, if he got out of this one alive he'd be shocked stupid. 

At least the red terror hadn't noticed him yet, a small consolation. Instead he had taken up a loose and easy stance in the centre of the square and was entertaining himself by blithely slicing up as many of the little airborne drones as possible. Eager for moving targets, they vectored in on him with a single minded determination to maim and shortly afterwards discovered just how much of a moving target he actually was. The blade hissed through the air, carving pell mell through the pack of robots, easily deflecting all of their lasers. Severed slabs of metal fell like rain around the Hunter's feet shortly afterwards, until he was wading ankle deep through a sea of mangled machinery. His face never once lost its look of intent enjoyment, his eyes their alert gleam, and his entire frame seemed charged with a vigorous battle energy as he joyfully hacked about with his sabre. At least one of them seemed to be having fun, the Maverick reflected glumly. 

He watched Zero with morbid interest for a while, then decided that he'd seen enough of his hard work and effort go down in flames for one day. "No, no, no, you little savages!" he barked, his voice ringing shrilling across the plaza. "Let him through, let him though. He and I need to sit ourselves down and have a little chat anyway. Go find something else to mutilate for the time being. Like that stupid fountain. Marble offends me." 

The drones obediently peeled off, flitting aimlessly around the rest of the square in search of other targets. Zero meanwhile jogged across the pavement, warily keeping track of them from the corner of his eye, his sabre loose in his hand and still ignited. He wound down to a stop beneath the arch and reared back, shielding his eyes with his other hand and staring up at the Maverick standing high above him with a look of mild amazement plastered all over his face. 

"Well, inspect my butt for flying monkeys!" Zero exclaimed heartily. "Sting Chameleon, old boy! Whatta surprise!" 

Sting chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest and flicking the end of his tail. "Zero, you big blonde retard, if I said I was shocked to see you here I'd be lying like a rug." 

The Hunter smiled at that, his lips compressing into a thin white line. "What on earth do you think you're doing?" 

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Sting said brightly, and spread his gangling arms wide. "I'm attacking the city, stupid." 

"What, all on your lonesome?" 

"Yeah." The arms flapped limply back to his sides. "I'm ambitious that way." 

Zero looked amused. He deactivated his sabre and leaned back on his heels, squinting up against the sun. "Well glorioski, ain't this a right miracle. So far as I knew you you were supposed to be as dead as disco." 

The chameleon grinned and clicked his tongue disapprovingly. If the Hunter wanted to go for a round of the Happy Chappy Casual Conversation Game, then he could play along too. "That's funny, I'd heard the same thing about you. Small world, ain't it?" 

"That's god's own truth," Zero admitted easily. "So. You're looking well for an exploded guy. Who's your doctor? I really must get his number." 

"Nuh uh!" Sting chortled. "That would be telling!" 

"Come on," Zero wheedled. "You know you wanna." 

"Not on your life, bub, for what _that's_ worth." Sting narrowed his eyes into thoughtful slits. "Why all the curiosity? I can plainly see from here the question's practically burning a hole through that half-evolved knot of grey matter you call a brain." 

The red Hunter lifted his shoulders in a noncommittal fashion. "No reason. Just wondering." 

"I bet you're 'just wondering'," Sting said dryly. "Right. And Satan mows my lawn for popsicles. But never mind that, now it's my turn, my turn!" 

"Knock yourself out." 

Sting eyed the other reploid with a keen and terrible interest. "How'd you come lurching back to the life of the living? Shouldn't you and Vile be an indistinguishable mass of melted _stupid_ right now?" 

Zero grinned. "Life's been good to me so far." 

Sting snorted loudly at that, then mockingly smacked his forehead with his open palm. "Wow, but what am I saying? For once in his life Vile got lucky and somehow managed to get all his bits stitched back together by that big dingus Doppler, and all you fancy-pants Hunters have to do to get your dents welded out is just go crawling back to the old wanker Cain and that crack-happy bunch of dope fiends he calls his medical staff and poof! Everything's groovy again, baby! It's as easy as that! Cain wept bitter tears of pain and loss over the death of his precious golden boy, then hoovered up your remains and slapped you back together again. That's what happened, isn't it? I'm right, aren't I?" 

"You sound bitter," Zero drawled. "Going through a bit of a rough patch lately? Having some regrets about leaving the Hunters?" 

The chameleon harrumphed. "Just answer the question, dickwad." 

Zero shrugged. "That's not the whole story, but you've got the gist of it. Oh, but you missed one part - Vile got dead again. It's a bad habit of his." 

The Maverick sneered. "I'd heard that lunatic went completely crackerjack at the end and got the shaft a second time - not that I care, mind you, I never liked the silly bastard or his stupid mech much to begin with - but you, you're something different, aren't you? You just won't stay down, will you, not even if it's for your own good?" 

"Was that a threat?" Zero said merrily. 

Sting gave him a look that could have withered stainless steel, his tail lashing behind him like a living thing. "Only you could think that way. So, was it good for you?" 

"What, being dead?" 

"Duh." 

"It was educational." 

Now _that_ was interesting. The chameleon quirked an eye at him. "Oh? Funny, you don't look any smarter. In what way?" 

"In that I learned a lot," Zero replied evasively. 

Sting's expression soured. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a real knack for witty conversation?" 

"Oh yeah, I hear it all the time. Look, this has been really fun and emotional and everything, and god knows I'll have to write all about it in the next letter back home, but seriously, let's stop hashing around here. Just what the hell are you up to, you scaly squirrel humper?" 

The Maverick howled with laughter, reeling back. "Now _that's_ the Zero I remember! Abrasive and straight to the point and just _brimming_ with sassy backtalk." 

"Whatever. Look, are we going to scrap or what? 'Cause I'm all for a reunion and everything, but this is starting to eat into my TV time." 

Sting only grinned back saucily and changed the subject, his tail coiling stealthily around his left leg. "Hey, where's that little blue fink, X?" he asked, idly inspecting the heavy claws of one hand. "I still haven't forgiven him for that whole killing me thing. I want a reunion with him, all right." 

Zero smiled pleasantly. "He's off shooting down those little flying menaces of yours. No offence buddy, but were you on the can when you designed those things? I think I've coughed up stuff with more firepower." 

The chameleon's expression grew injured, the corners of his maw drooping down into a frown. "Hey, hey! Watch your mouth, sonny. When you're down and out in Paris and London you work with what you've got." 

Inwardly, he seethed. The last thing he wanted to hear was a pointed reminder of his current lousy status from Zero, of all people. Prick. 

The red Hunter was continuing, looking away from the Maverick and regarding the drones now puttering aimlessly around the plaza with a disdainful air. "Well, whatever you've been doing doesn't seem to be paying off much. I hate to be the one to bring this up, but I've seen allergy attacks scarier than this one. You just aren't putting the same effort into your evil plots as you used to. What gives, eh?" 

Sting gave him the evil eye. "Hey, you don't get welfare when you're dead, pal. _You_ go get killed by that dopey friend of yours and see how far _you_ get in the war against humanity when you're living off scrap from the dump and canned soup." 

Zero yawned and scratched his chin. "I'm sorry, but was I supposed to care about this?" 

The two round globes that were the chameleon's eyes squeezed into thin slits. "You know what, Zero? I never did like you very much, even when I was back with the Hunters. You've always flounced around like you were King Shit of Turd Mountain, haven't you? I don't know about the rest of the herd back at Cain's happy smiletime retreat, but that got pretty bloody annoying for a lot of us to watch, I'll tell you what. Zero, Zero, Zero! Even Sigma used to rant on and on about you without end, about how it was your destiny to join us, how he'd swing you over to the Maverick cause one day come hell or high water, yadda yadda, ocean of blood. I never really bought into it much. The Hunter's little prince, go Maverick? Haw! And my butt sings showtunes. Besides, just look at you. You even _look_ human. Man, have the monkeys got you whipped." 

He let out a short bark of laughter, his mouth a gaping red cavern. "You know what really makes me giggle? I can't even figure out why you're a Hunter to begin with. I mean with X, it's obvious. I hate the little twit and I'd like nothing more than to hit him in the face with a power saw, but at least the lousy hippy seems to actually believe all of that 'peace between the species' mumbo jumbo that Cain just loves going on about like an old Lovin' Spoonfuls record. But what about you, eh? Do you really want to fawn all over the humans, or is the good 'ole Hunters gig just a handy way to channel your youthful angst and murderous urges? Well gee, I'm sure the entire Maverick population must love you for that one. We're just a convenient excuse for you to kill like the damned, eh?" 

Zero's rude reply was interrupted by the timely arrival of X himself on the scene, who made his entry into the open square all the more dramatic by doing it at a flat run and then leaping over a park bench with all the zest and zeal of an Olympic hurdler. Safely ducked behind cover, he then oozed an arm over the back seat and fired off a few hasty shots from his Buster, which lanced into the small swarm of drones that had been flying hot on his tail and turned them all into tiny comets streaking down to earth. Even from his towering roost above the mall entrance Sting could easily make out the faint lines of black soot criss-crossing the blue Hunter's arms and torso - plasma burns from a low level laser, mild ones, but plenty of them. A dose of malevolent satisfaction began to burn deep in his chest at the sight, with a hearty dollop of petty vindication served on the side. Oh well. If the drones couldn't kill either Hunter, he'd happily settle with injuring them somewhat. Sting aimed to maim. 

Beneath him, the two Hunters were greeting each other in a less than congenial fashion. "Cripes almighty, X, do we need to drag you out into the back woods and put you out of your misery _already_?" Zero said sardonically, his fists on his hips as his friend staggered out from behind the bench and wobbled over to join him. 

"Oh yeah?" X challenged, panting, his hands on his knees and his chest huffing mightily. "Big words from the guy who ran down the street and left me behind to deal with hell's whole horde of angry robots on my own." 

Zero's eyes darted. "That's because I was, uh, gallantly blazing a trail ahead for you like the super guy I am. Besides, you did fine. See, you're not even bleeding uncontrollably this time around." 

"Oh, thanks awfully," the blue Hunter retorted. "That's just the thing I needed to be reminded of right now. Thank you, Zero. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Anyway, I think I've cleared out the last of them on Gibson Street. That just leaves the ones here and any that may have wandered off down William Street, and _holy frig, that's Sting Chameleon!_" 

Zero sighed. "Congratulations, X. You just passed the Obvious Quiz." 

X was too busy gaping up at the green Maverick on the arch to pay him much mind. "_You!_" 

"_You!_" Sting yelled back at him. 

He pointed down at the blue Hunter with an accusing finger. "Oh ho, never mind Zero - have I ever got a beef to air about you, pal!" 

"You're alive!" X said, bewildered. He seemed to be having some difficulties with the concept. 

"That's right, and I'll thank you not to stare!" 

"But, how-" 

"Quite frankly, that's none of your bees wax," the Maverick told him with a crisp clack of his mouth. "Just accept that I'm here and mightily ticked off at the both of you and leave it at that." 

X looked vaguely hopeful. "I don't suppose you're the one who stole that tank, huh?" 

The chameleon gave a lusty snort. "Don't I wish! No sir, I have my own agenda, thank you very much. I have no clue who pulled that job, but I wish him the best of luck. I look forward to hearing all about his future bloody rampages in the news." 

"Sting here says he's attacking the city," Zero chimed in helpfully. 

X started and looked around himself. "Er, really?" 

The red Hunter shrugged. "Personally, I think that's balls, but we probably should be doing something about it." 

"Let's not and say we did!" the Maverick bellowed. He whipped out something from behind his back and punched it up into the air, holding it aloft triumphantly between his claws. "_Yee haw!_ Do you see this?" 

"Not really," Zero said, squinting. 

"Shut your pie hole! It's a detonator! And do you want to know what it detonates? Well, I'll just tell you!" Sting made a sweeping gesture with his free arm, taking in all of the streets and the plaza below, and the smattering of drones still buzzing fitfully about the area. "My robots! Yes, that's right, the same robots you were badmouthing not five minutes ago, you big red tool! Not only are they nifty little kill machines, but each and every one of them is a flying bomb as well, all lovingly crafted with my own mighty hands. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!" 

Without warning, his partner's voice broke in over his radio again. "_You miserable lizard, you never told me that!_" 

The chameleon quickly turned his head away so that the Hunters wouldn't see him talking, and lowering his voice to a dusky drawl he said, "Believe it or not, old boy, but I'm perfectly capable of masterminding my own plans without your supervision. I'm special that way. Now get your ass on over here!" 

Without bothering to listen to the outraged reply he swung back around again and let out a maniacal laugh, pleased as punch at the sudden muteness of the two reploids beneath him. "Well now, this puts a new spin on things, doesn't it! Old Sting Chameleon suddenly doesn't look quite as sad and pathetic as he did before, eh? You may have shot down a buttload of my robots already, X, but I'm willing to bet you didn't get all of the ones on the other street as well. So let that be your warning! If you even look at me funny, I'll carpet bomb this place faster than the 8th Air Force." 

A long moment of silence yawned before the trio as the Hunters absorbed this new information. 

"Well, _shit,_" Zero finally declared. 

"Ha ha, yes, well put! But hey, what am I saying? I'm a Maverick, for the love of Mike. I should just hose this place on principle." 

One finger circled tauntingly over the detonator's button. X looked thoroughly alarmed at that, but Zero's eyes only wandered to the left of the Maverick and widened, as if a new thought had suddenly struck him. He shook his head and grinned and dryly suggested, "You may want to give that idea some thought before you do anything drastic." 

Sting stared down at him blankly. "Eh?" 

Zero tapped his shoulder in a meaningful way, and the Maverick warily turned his head, one round eye still suspiciously fixed on the Hunter while the other swirled around to look for whatever he was indicating. It spotted the drone almost immediately, still placidly hovering over his left shoulder. Sting let out a yell and recoiled away from it sharply, cringing back as if the mother of all cobras had suddenly reared up beside him and spat in his eye. 

"Great galloping Genghis, are you still here?! Go!" He waved it away with great, sweeping shakes of his claws. "Go! Git! Find some humans! I don't want to be exploded!" 

"Again," Zero added, grinning nastily. 

Sting pointed a claw down at him sternly. "Hush, puppy. If I wanted biting commentary out of you, I'd squeeze your head. Oh, to hell with this. There's no use talking to you people. You're all bastards and I hate your guts. I hope you die." 

He closed his hand into a fist and slammed it down onto the button with a terrible relish. 

The drone screamed down towards X and Zero like a harpy from hell. A white-hot explosion of fire and plasma completely neglected to rip apart the plaza. 

Sting gaped down at the device in his hand, his lower jaw flapping uselessly in the breeze. "_What the friggola?!_" 

Somewhat surprisingly, X was the one to react first. Shaking off the stuporous cloud of shock that had descended upon him the minute Sting had hit the button, he raised his Buster and took aim. Two quick shots and the tiny drone went down in a blaze of fireworks, veering off and smashing into an abandoned T-shirt stand, shredded stabilizers and sparks and smoke gently fluttering through the air in its wake. Its fiery death seemed to galvanize Zero, who blinked once sluggishly and then ignited his sabre and charged forward without a furthur word, the green blade whistling death into the wind. Sting stopped bashing the detonator with his fist and let out a terrified yowl at the sight of the red Hunter barreling hellbent in his direction. He scrambled back along the arch until his back was flattened against the glass wall behind him, his mind gibbering at him in panic. Without his robots he was unarmed, his tongue whip nearly useless at close quarters, his armour all but falling apart at the seams, and he had no doubt that Zero could leap up onto his perch faster than you could say "decapitation really hurts, eh?" - 

- and something all wings and talons had just dropped out of the sky like a missile and was attacking X with a vengeance, hosing down the bewildered blue Hunter with a hail of plasma fire. Even Zero was taken completely by surprise, the red Hunter stumbling in midstride as he tried to turn and run back to his friend's aid. But this new ambush was exactly what Sting had been waiting for, and in a matter of seconds the chameleon had quickly saddled up his brain again and brilliantly taken advantage of the sudden distraction by viciously hurling the useless detonator down at Zero. The Maverick's aim was unerringly fantastic that day, and the blocky device pegged the Hunter smartly between the eyes. Zero reeled back, momentarily stunned. 

Giddily tasting opportunity in the air, the chameleon then whipped around and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey guys, the truce is officially over!" he hollered out at the robots still hovering about the plaza or wandering down the streets. He gleefully pointed down at the two Hunters. "You can handle things from now on! Feel free to take out an eye or two!" 

"You're boots, pal!" Zero bawled angrily, shaking his head to clear it. "I'll wear your lousy lizard hide for this!" 

With a cheeky wave the chameleon threw himself off the side of the arch, activating his camouflaging in mid-air. He'd disappeared from sight before he'd even hit the ground. "Ta ta, chum!" 

Zero let loose with a loud profanity, the heel of one palm pressed against his forehead. A teeming mass of flying robots swarmed on him like angry bees, but he irritably batted them aside with his sabre and dashed off in the direction the chameleon had last taken. "Sting, you damn dinosaur, get your ass on back here!" 

"No!" the empty air around him shouted back. 

X meanwhile had his hands full trying to ward off his aerial attacker. Being crushed by five hundred pounds worth of titanium and steel on a one-way trip down from the heavens was no laughing matter; it had hit him square in his left shoulder, and it currently felt as though that entire side had caved in upon impact. The earth and grass around him was scorched black and crumbly with plasma burns, and his feet tore through it without purchase as he grappled against the other reploid, who was making a very spirited attempted to shove the snub-nosed barrel of his Buster into the blue Hunter's face for a killing shot. X obviously wasn't trucking with that idea, and the instinctual desire not to have his head blown off roared up and down his brain like a freight train, until he fought back against his assailant with an uncharacteristic ferocity. 

"Gitoff!" he finally yowled, and let loose with his own Buster. The shot he'd been silently charging ripped into the ground between them and exploded outwards, hurling both reploids off of their feet and throwing up a massive haze of dust and torn up earth and finely shredded grass that quickly swallowed them from sight. Staggering to his feet some distance away, his attacker barely had time for a yell of surprise before the dustball rolled over him like a wave and then continued hungrily eating up the rest of the plaza. For the first time that afternoon, silence reigned supreme. 

Flat on his back, X groaned loudly, then gagged as long plumes of dust vacuumed eagerly into his mouth. Spitting out grit indignantly he surged up into a sitting position and looked around, fanning one hand in front of his face. Bits of debris were still plinking into the grass around him, and the air was little more than a misty cloud of disturbed dust and silt, through which he could barely make out even the vaguest of shapes. He grimaced guiltily. Okay, so maybe that hadn't been one of his brighter ideas - but hey, his head was still attached, wasn't it? The dust would settle soon enough. In the meantime he squinted about himself warily, and within minutes a park bench swam into his line of sight, and then two big feet. 

X stared, and slowly walked his eyes upwards. The wind whipped around him, chasing away the haze. 

A Maverick was standing astride the bench, a vivid silhouette against the sky, his legs akimbo and his head thrown back, his stance straight-backed and proud. Two great blue wings beat about the air for balance, fanning the grass and whacking about the dust. 

"Hullo, X," the Maverick said calmly, the metal claws of his feet digging into the back of the bench and sending tiny green chips of paint falling gently to the grass like snow. "Fancy seeing you here." 

X gawked. "You _too?_" 

Storm Eagle smiled grimly and folded his arms over his chest. "Yep, me too. Life's a real kicker, isn't it?" 

"I'll say," X said faintly. 

They both fell silent, X on the ground and the Maverick on the bench, each silently sizing up the other, for the moment neither one of them making any signs of moving. Despite his air of quiet confidence and pride the eagle wasn't looking a personal best, X noted. His armour was weatherbeaten and worn and caked with dirt, a veritable roadmap of old scars, his wings chipped and cracked and great tufts of metal feathers missing outright. There was a ragged edge to his voice that X didn't remember from before, although his eyes were as bright and sharp and stern as the blue Hunter had ever seen them. The final effect was of a polished soldier gone slumming for the day, and didn't help X much in convincing himself that the entire day really wasn't as weird as hell. 

He finally shook his head in disbelief. "I- I can't believe you two are alive." 

"Quite frankly, neither can I," Storm said grimly. 

X looked stricken. "So, where do we go from here?" 

Storm shrugged once. "That largely depends on you and Zero and the rest of the Hunters. Sting and I have had a rough time of it lately, but we've got our own plans for the future and we don't intend on putting them aside solely on your say-so. Stay out of our way and perhaps we'll stay out of yours, hmm?" 

"Do those plans still include attacking humans?" X accused. 

The eagle was unmoved. "We _are_ Mavericks, in the end." 

"Then I guess we'll be butting head again," the blue Hunter said gloomily. 

"I guess so, yes. That's the way she goes." 

X sighed. "You were a good guy once, Storm." 

"I still am," the Maverick replied severely. "I just pick and chose my friends more carefully now." 

X stared at him blankly. "Sting _Chameleon?_" 

"He has less tangible qualities," Storm replied quickly. Then he snorted and threw up his hands. "Wait, why the hell am I still here talking to you? There are more important things I could be doing right now, like putting salt into my eyes. See you around, X." 

He turned around on the bench and heaved himself into the air with a powerful thrust of his legs. His wings thumped the air once and within seconds he'd burst out through the bubble of dust and disappeared from sight, leaving nothing but a sucking hole in the hazy wall behind him and long lines of deep scratches in the top rung of the bench. X remained sitting for another minute or so, leaning back on his hands and staring after the eagle with his mind in a churning turmoil, then pushed himself up onto his feet and wandered out of the dust cloud himself, one arm thrown over his face as a shield against the swirling grit. 

Zero was waiting for him on the other side, his expression as dark as a thunderhead. "Storm Eagle too, huh?" he said when X had drawn near. 

"Yeah." 

Zero's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he chewed over that. "We'd better get on the horn and get this news to Cain," he said finally. "He's not going to be too happy to hear we've got two more veteran Mavericks to deal with, on top of everything else." 

X only grunted his agreement. 

* * *

Sting Chameleon lay on his back on the glass roof of the Euromancer Mall, one foot resting on the opposite knee, his arms crossed behind his head, both eyes staring up meditatively at the clouds. 

He'd thrown off Zero somewhere along the street and had doubled back to find a good hiding place, the whole task greatly aided by his invisibility. His prized cloak was still on, and it did its best to mimic his environment, which at that height was mostly bold blue sky and white glass. He was little more than a gently shimmering shape against the atmosphere, hazy and indistinct, like heat waves beating up off a sunburnt stretch of highway, a slight ripple in the air. If anyone was still inside the mall beneath him, and hadn't fled for cover after his arrival, they would never even know he was up there. For the moment, that's exactly the way he wanted it to be. He needed some quiet downtime to do some serious thinking, to sort things out, and he didn't want those damnable Hunters getting in his face any more than they already had. 

He clucked his tongue thoughtfully, his mind whirling away along its own orbit of thought. 

X and Zero were probably long gone by now, or off hunting down the rest of his useless robots. They never _had_ figured out a way to pierce his camouflage shield, not back when he was with the Hunters or when he was one of Sigma's Mavericks, and now that he was just some homeless vagabond with a whole lot of grievances against the world in general he was willing to bet that they still couldn't see through it. With the handy cloak on they'd never spot him now, and would probably never even guess that he was still loitering in the area to begin with. Storm Eagle had provided the excellent distraction he'd needed to get away, that one in a million opportunity, and now that he was out of the line of fire all he had to do was sit tight and wait for the air to clear and the Hunters to leave. He could handle that. When it came to just hanging around waiting for things to happen, Sting was nothing less than a champion. 

His long tongue flicked out and he caught it there between his lips, thinking hard. All right, so his attack hadn't exactly gone as gloriously as he'd been hoping. They'd hardly crippled any humans or seriously damaged any public property, his robots were being enthusiastically shot down at the moment, and to top things off he'd only escaped from from the whole mess by the grace of Storm Eagle. Still, the whole thing was hardly a total bust. His robots were toast, but the meeting with X and Zero had given him ideas. Cunning ideas. Big ideas, with lots of nasty gnashing teeth in them. 

Plans were forming, bubbling up in the back of his brain like a poisonous brew. Clever Plans. 

He flipped on his radio, half lost in thought. "Storm, you out there?" 

Static. And then, "_Where else would I be? What, what is it?_" 

Sting let out a yowl of laughter. "Hey hey, you made it out too! That was some good timing back there. The swine never knew what hit them! Pow! Argh! Complete shock! It was great. You know I hate saying it, but thanks for the save." 

"_Uh, you're welcome?_" 

The chameleon grinned up at the sky. "Didja get a chance to talk with X, or did you just settle with ripping the little bastard a new one?" 

The other reploid's voice went flat. "_Oh, we talked all right. Shortly, but it was enough._" 

Sting hooted at that. "It usually is! But never mind that now, I've got a bit of good news for you to chew on. I've been doing some thinking, and it looks like old Sting Chameleon has got himself yet another brilliant plan." 

There was a long pause over the radio as this news was digested. 

"_I'm so happy for you,_" Storm finally said uncertainly. "_You'll pardon me for saying this, but did you perhaps take the time to notice how splendidly your last plan worked out? Or were you too busy chatting with Zero to pay it any mind?_" 

Sting waved it aside, unconcerned. "Hey, that whole thing was just a dummy run anyway - no big loss! I was just testing the water, is all. But the next one will be _really_ something, something really grand, that one big score we need to set us right once and for all. Plus, we'll get to pound lots of humans while doing it. It'll be keen!" 

There was a dismal sigh from the other end. "_Whatever. I really think you should fill me in on it first. A second opinion can't hurt._" 

"Hut! Not over the radio - evil ears are everywhere. Besides, I'm still hashing out the details. It's a work in progress, you could say. I'll see you back at the factory tonight and I'll tell you all about it. I think you'll like it. It's got sneaky backstabbing and stolen property and crazy rampages and everything." 

"_How nice,_" the eagle said glumly. "_Sounds great. I guess I'll see you in a couple hours._" 

"You betcha," Sting chortled. His good humour had been restored with amazing speed. "But don't wait up too late for me, because the summer's here, the time is right for fighting in the streets, and I've got me some serious thinking to do first." 

* * *

_Megaman © Capcom _


End file.
