New LA. Near ITMP HQ., 1:10 AM

She waited for the sirens to die out, hiding in the shadows between two dumpsters as several
men holding ugly-looking rifles ran past. After the alarm system shut off, she grinned and cocked
the wrist-mounted crossbow that was resting on her left forearm. It had been loaded with
tranquillizer darts, but the darts had been enhanced enough to be able to put down an angry elephant
in just under three seconds.
She knew two guards were to her right, so she peeked out, raised her arm, and flexed her
wrist twice, sending a dart into each guard's back. Both men grunted in pain, then collapsed into
lumpy heaps as the tranqs took effect. She grinned wickedly, reloaded the crossbow so it held its full
complement of four shots, and stepped out of the shadows. Moving into the building through a
nearby air vent, she started to search for the CEO's room.
Twenty minutes later, she was looking down into a dim room with two people inside. One
person, obviously the CEO of the company, was looking outwards through a very large window at
the perpetually dark and smoggy skies. The second person, holding what looked like a TriggerMortis
ReadyKill machine pistol, was already aiming the gun at the hapless victim's head at almost point-
blank range.
She was about to break through the vent when her objective fired her gun twice, cleanly
blowing the CEO's head off, and splattering large chunks of bone and matter all over the window.
The killer turned around, getting ready to leave, when the headless body stood up, letting a
mechanical voice grate out of a speaker in its chest. "Do you think you can kill me that easily? I've
had all my organs transplanted into my chest, and they're enclosed in trained metal."
The killer spat on the ground, raised the gun, and toggled a switch on the side. The barrel of
the gun increased in diameter to almost four inches, and she grinned, revealing bloody teeth. "So?
Let's see what some mini rockets will do to that stuff." Before the headless body could move, the
killer back-flipped onto a desk, and fired a stream of six rockets at it. Five rockets hit, exploding in
a series of strobe-like flashes and muffled roars.
The effects of the rockets were obvious, simple, and greatly nasty. The body was torn apart
into pieces about the size of a person's finger, while the sixth rocket smashed into the window,
shattering the armoured glass into razored shards that rained over the streets thirty feet below. At that
point, she had seen enough and smashed her arm through the grate, triggering all four crossbow
bolts. Three missed, smacking into the steel flooring and sticking there like impromptu needles in
a piece of cloth. The last bolt hit the killer in the knee, punching through the leather and metal
bodysuit like it was made of paper.
The tranq took effect instantly, knocking the killer out in less time than it took to gasp in
pain, allowing the observer to pry away the remnants of the grate and drop into the room. After
discarding the now-useless crossbow, and arming herself with the custom gauss rifle she had used
several days ago on the firing range back at home base, she moved to the unconscious person.
Turning the person over onto her back, the woman roughly ripped the barbed crossbow bolt out of
her objective's knee.
The woman studied her objective carefully, first removing the machine pistol still clenched
in her right hand. The objective's face was deathly pale, almost albino-like. She was wearing a
bodysuit that had what appeared to be integral boots and gloves, but the most interesting part was
a small glimmer of gold that seemed to nestle at the base of the throat. "What the hell is that?" The
metal glimmer disappeared, looking so much like a metal worm that she unconsciously shuddered
as she pulled the unconscious woman's head around to search for any scars.
The person's short black hair was thick, and hindered the examination for a few seconds. The
exam turned up nothing, and the woman slung her unconscious charge over her shoulder, letting the
rifle dangle from her left shoulder by its leather sling. She had pulled a small radio from the ever-
present utility belt, and tapped out a code, which got an immediate response by two clicks and the
dull WHop-WHop-WHop of a helicopter's blades cutting through the air. Three minutes later, both
people were in the troop deck of a black-ops GC257-HL0, heading towards the airport.
The stealth chopper landed only long enough to drop off the objective, who, still
unconscious, was secured to a heavy-looking medical board by straps of flexible titanium. After she
was satisfied that the straps were secure, the woman re-embarked the helicopter and hooked herself
up to a headset so she could talk to the pilot. "So, have you got a trace yet?"
The pilot shook his head, then spoke through his own headset. "Not yet. I'm betting on at
least three more minutes until the uplink has managed to get a complete trace on the Martinet. Wait
a sec, it looks like we have a partial trace from the objective's left hand. Apparently, there's a
transmitter that she uses to get in contact with a middleman. We've locked on the middleman's
location, and we can than trace through his own connection to the boss."
"Good. Let's go." The helicopter lurched, rising into the air several metres before heading
off towards the core of the city.

Dr. Zack's house, 4:15 AM

Dr. Zack looked at his special phone, then at a slip of paper with a number that had taken him
almost the entire night to find. He mentally thanked the fortune he had by knowing CyberSix and
her kindred though. Reba had supplied him with the cell number several minutes ago, and he had
just managed to finish setting up the complex anti-trace program to scramble the call location.
Sighing in resignation at being sucked into another strange and interesting adventure, Dr.
Zack picked up his special phone and dialled the number. After six rings, the number went through,
and a muffled growl was the first response, followed quickly by a less-muffled curse.
"Yeah? If this isn't a beautiful woman, I'm hanging up." Dr. Zack tried to keep the
amusement from his voice as he heard several background noises, including the rattling hiss of a
cockroach.
"I'm an... associate of sorts. I have information about your injured member and his missing
weapons."
There was an instant change in the tone of voice. "I'm listening."
Dr. Zack continued. "I have an insider in the organization that 'collected' some weapons
through larceny and leaving your comrade in a hospital bed with his head covered in plaster. There's
a certain mansion just to the north of the city limits. Inside that mansion is a secret weapons lab
owned by the same people who have those green freaks running around committing murder and
grand larceny."
"Hmmph. Continue."
Dr. Zack felt slightly unnerved by the lack of inflection in the voice, but forged onwards.
"Well, the same source also told me that the weapon that was taken is currently in the laboratory,
where several people are trying to reverse-engineer it so those guns could be used by the entire
organization. I don't think you want people who consider humans to be nothing but cattle to be
slaughtered having weapons powerful enough to destroy a tank in one shot."
The voice began to collect vigour, and the man seemed to growl slightly. "Damn right I want
to keep weapons like that out of their hands. Do you have any more information?"
"Only the basic stuff. The place is perpetually guarded by almost a platoon of those
greenskins, and most of those are armed with RPG-7 rocket launchers from the old Soviet Union.
I'd recommend heavy body armour, and a team of good snipers. Also, the mansion is loaded with
enough ammunition and explosives to take out most of the north quarter of the city even at that
distance. I'd be careful."
The voice chuckled darkly for a few seconds, then seemed to fade out. "Oh, I'll be careful.
Just watch out for the fireworks."
Dr. Zack smiled thinly. "I'm quite serious. Please don't go for as much collateral damage as
possible, despite the fact that it would greatly please many denizens of the city. My source also
advocated restraint."
"Okay. I'll pass that recommendation onto everyone. Still, I'd tell your source to be as far
away from that mansion as possible in a few hours." The man hung up, leaving Dr. Zack to wonder
if he hadn't just signed the death warrants on everyone in the north quarter of the city. Deciding to
take no chances, he dialled the mayor's office and left a message on the answering machine.

Imperial Hotel, 4:40 AM

Wilson yawned again, looking like someone had kicked him out of bed several hours too
early. Scratching the back of his neck, he glared slightly as two fingers came back bloody. *stupid
vampiric roaches. Maybe I'll move the base of ops tomorrow.* Sighing, he heard his cell phone beep
twice in the special code used to tell him of mission updates. Looking at the display, he read the
scrolling line of text and smiled slightly.
"Heh. Looks like our boss has already completed half of her mission. Now, let's get ready
for our own mission." Looking around himself like an angry bear, he noticed that the team he had
selected for this mission-within-one were almost completely ready. Most of the members had their
personalized suits of reactive armour on, and several were now getting their weapons ready. Wilson
had already suited up, leaving his own armour at the default peacetime mode because of the slightly
lower power drain.
Wilson turned to his own weapons, and selected only two from the medium-sized rack. His
first choice was what looked like a katana's hilt, but the blade existed as an almost paper-thin edge
of nanomachines. The 'Dragon's Tooth' as the sword was called, could cut through anything made
of solid matter like it was warm butter. That's why the blade, when deactivated, retracted into the
hilt, leaving the ten-pound weapon as nothing more that an eight-inch long chunk of metal.
The second weapon, created by Blue Shot technologies, was aptly named the 'Kinslaughter
PPC'. The basic shape of the weapon could best hearken back to the old bazookas from WWII, but
a bazooka didn't have electrical capacitors in the barrel to channel a stream of charged protons into
bolts of pure energy. The gun was unwieldy, slow to fire, but could fry the nervous systems of about
ten men per shot and blast holes through six feet of reinforced concrete without producing so much
as a spark.
Wilson placed the Dragon's Tooth into a specialized scabbard that kept the weapon dormant
until he drew it, then slung the Kinslaughter around to his back as well, where he made sure it
wouldn't bang around by wrapping a leather strap connected to the gun around his waist. When he
was finished, Wilson looked at his now-ready squad of ten.
"Okay children. This is a search-and-acquire mission. We go in, retrieve our property, and
leave, preferably without being spotted. Now, I'm the diversion, along with Jenny and Davidson.
Davidson, this is your first time on one of these missions right?"
The response was hesitant, but truthful. "Umm, yes sir, that is correct."
Wilson nodded slightly, then smiled. "Okay, you stick close to Jenny. She's the sniper, so
she'll stay back a bit. You just keep her out of trouble, while I make more trouble." Davidson looked
confused, but nodded slightly as Jenny gave him a more concise set of rules on what to do while she
was sniping. Wilson chuckled, then pointed at each of the eight other members of his little raiding
force. "You're the infiltrators. Be careful, and don't get killed."
With that, he then opened the window and motioned his squad out into the early morning
gloom.

Adrian's Apartment, 6:20 AM

*That's the last time I let Lucas convince me to get into a drinking competition. I think some
extremely strong espresso might destroy my hangover enough to turn me into something at least
resembling human by Eight.* CyberSix, still dressed in Adrian's shirt and baggy pants, groaned as
she sat up, looking at herself in the full-length mirror she had nailed onto her bedroom door.
Frowning at the image, she stuck her tongue out at it, and put on her glasses. *Hopefully, Lori's sick
today. I don't need her bothering me today.*
She stood up form the desk where she had been marking some of the essays from the
previous week, and instantly regretted it as her headache returned with a vengeance. Slowly moving
into the kitchen, she brewed herself a large pot of espresso, and downed the entire concoction in just
under twenty minutes. The caffeine instantly blasted the remnants of the hangover into orbit, and Six
almost instantly felt better.
Soon, she was outside, dressed as Adrian Siedelman, and wondering why there were several
dull cracks and faint explosions coming from the north of the city. Still, she walked towards the
school, rather unconcerned about the occasional blast. Inside her apartment, the phone began to ring.

Mikae's House, 7:45 AM

Mikae was sitting at the window of her room, sulking about being grounded. Just outside,
she could look down the street to the jungle bordering the north side of the city. She had been
watching since almost five in the morning, when a loud metallic crack jolted her out of bed.
Occasionally, a tree in the forest would shudder, then collapse like the trunk had been shattered into
many small pieces.
A rather loud explosion rattled the windowpanes in front of her, but Mikae was bored and
didn't really care. After all, the windows had been rattling for the last ten minutes from the smaller
explosions. Of course, being bored also meant that she wasn't paying attention, and so Mikae nearly
had a heart attack when a blackened chunk of wood smashed through the window, clipping her right
thigh, and nearly totalling her computer. "WHAT THE HELL?!?" Mikae was on her feet in a shot,
tossing the smouldering chunk of wood back out of the totally destroyed window.
Her sore leg nearly buckled under her body weight, but her cursing only accelerated her
mother's haste from the kitchen. Sarah Kreubens ran in, looked at the destroyed window with bits
of glass strewn about, and saw the now-bright purple bruise on her daughter's thigh, partially
obscured by the shorts she was wearing.
"Oh my... What happened here?" Mikae looked at her mom, tears in her eyes from the
apparently excruciating pain from her bruise. "Look out what's left of the window. You'll see what
looks like the remnants of a telephone pole that visited my thigh from outside. Ahh, dammit this
hurts! Can I stay home today?"
"Sorry, but I'm too busy. You'll have to fend for yourself at school." Mikae's eyes doubled
in size as she slowly straightened out her bad leg, wincing in pain as the bruised flesh stretched
slightly.
"Mommm!!! Can't I stay home?"
Sarah was still inspecting the damage done to the window frame, and mentally sighed at the
fights with the landlord that popped up inside her head. "No. Besides, you have a Math test and
another English essay due today."
"I was hoping you'd forget about those. Okay, I'll go to school, but don't blame me if my leg
collapses under me."
Sarah turned to see that Mikae had finished getting dressed in her pseudo-normal clothes,
wearing loose pants, a baggy shirt, and her ever-present jacket. "Well, you look pretty healthy. Now,
get to school before you're late. Take the bus today. Your leg probably won't hold out on your
normal route."
Mikae groaned, and hobbled downstairs into the kitchen. Grabbing a piece of buttered toast,
she wolfed it down, then rooted in the fridge for a half-empty bottle of sustenance. Pouring a fair
amount into a glass, she guzzled most of the glassful before putting the rest of the bottle into the
fridge, then finished off her drink. "Mmm. Tangy. Well, off to the one place I hate more than
anything."
She grabbed her school bag, which had been turned into an impromptu doorstop, and limped
out of the house, just in time to be nearly knocked off her feet by a shockwave that rattled overhead.
"What in the name of god is going on out there? Hopefully, Jose's mansion is being knocked down
by a few dozen bulldozers."
Mikae regained her balance after the shockwave passed by, and walked over to the closest
bus stop so she could get to school.

Outside Jose's Mansion, 7:50 AM

Wilson growled slightly as a brace of six rockets flew overhead, exploding in the trees behind
him. Jenny and Davidson were situated on a small knoll about forty metres to his left, gleefully
popping heads off the green-skinned brutes as fast as possible, despite a few near misses that had left
the ground around them pocked and scorched.
His PPC had overheated after almost five minutes of sustained fire, but the west wing of the
old mansion was more hole than structure. Wilson ducked as a second volley shattered underbrush
into steaming fragments of wood and leaves, and cursed again at the bad luck that had seemed to
overtake him. His squad had managed to infiltrate the base quickly and quietly, and they had
managed to get to the weapons lab in the basement where they recovered the captured gauss pistol
as well as almost forty C8 grenades and several damaged laser focussing crystals.
Leaving the mansion became much harder when they were attacked by a squad of ten brutes,
forcing Wilson to create a very large diversion. At that time, he had aimed carefully at the windows
of the most opulent part of the mansion, and fired a few shots to wake up whomever owned the
place. Hopefully, he had killed the evil bastard as well, but he was too busy to dream about such
things.
The PPC's primary attack was a vicious bolt of electrical energy, capable of causing massive
burns to a target as well as roasting their nervous system. The secondary assault was just a vicious,
but in a different manner. The secondary attack was a concentrated static discharge that ionized the
air in a cone in front of the large-bore weapon, blasting a pressure wave through almost anything
solid. The only side effect of the pressure wave, other than having greenskins being knocked over
like bowling pins, was a massive sonic boom in the reverse direction.
Still, it was a good weapon, despite its propensity for collateral destruction as well as street
sweeping. Wilson was letting the gun cool down to a reasonable temperature before firing it again
when he heard something that was almost music to his ears. The distinctive echoing cracks of gauss
rifles being fired on full auto echoed form the damaged building, and Wilson added to the cacophony
by firing three shots from the PPC. Each blast shattered part of the wall surrounding the front of the
mansion, and the infiltrators blasted their ways out of the front of the mansion, moving as fast as they
possibly could.
Davidson popped the head off of a greenskin that had been sighting in on Wilson, and Jenny
was providing covering fire for the infiltrators. Wilson discarded the now-useless PPC, and using
the Dragon, he smashed the bulky weapon into unrecognisable scrap. Wilson waited for the rest of
the team to get out of the mansion with their booty, then ordered them to clear out of there. He stayed
behind until everyone had left, then turned and cleared out of there as well, chased by several
rockets.

Inside Jose's Mansion, 8:00 AM

Jose wasn't pissed. He wasn't even tearing his hair out and tossing about temper tantrums
like they were going out of style. Instead, he was so angry his face had settled on bright purple for
its current shade, and his eyes were totally bloodshot. Currently, he was talking to his second-in
command, who had nearly been turned into a blood slurpee by a well-aimed shot from what appeared
to be a portable tank cannon.
"Now, what can you tell me about this unprovoked assault upon my home? Who did it, why
did they do it, and what are we going to do as RETALIATION?!?" Jose was almost frothing as he
spoke, but Helmut took it all in stride.
"Master, we should first find out what the extent of the damage is, and find out what was
taken from the weapons lab." Helmut tried to placate the extremely torqued off clone, but was
interrupted by a techno wearing a long laboratory coat which was torn and scorched.
"Those nasty little bastards! They stole the gun I salvaged, as well as the laser crystals and
a hell of a lot of high explosives! If I ever find one of them, they will definitely not be able to be
recognised as human later." Jess was growling angrily, mopping blood from a gash at her hairline.
Jose smiled slightly at seeing someone angrier than him, but stopped when the techno's words got
through his skull.
"They got the gauss weapon? Why didn't you DO SOMETHING?!?" Jose exploded again,
causing a nearby Fixed Idea to scramble away, accidentally knocking over a small table with a lamp
on it. The buzzing pop of the lightbulb shattering set everyone on edge for a second, then Jess started
to yell at Jose.
"Do you really think I could do anything? I was surrounded by eight people, all armed with
those rifles that cut your little assault to pieces. If I had pulled anything, you'd be out one weapons
specialist, and most of the mansion would've disintegrated around your ears when the ammo stored
in the lab would've cooked off. Now, I don't think you want to be turned into fertilizer anytime soon,
but that's exactly what would have happened if I had decided to try and keep them from taking what
they wanted." Jess neatly cut off all of Jose's arguments at the knees, leaving the short villain to stare
at the fuming techno, jaw agape.
"Now that I'm done ranting, I'll give you an idea. First, we split up into smaller cells so that
something like this doesn't happen to a firmly established base. Secondly, we go out and capture
someone, even if it's just to make you feel better by getting a torture toy for you. Thirdly, we get that
secret project of yours up and running as soon as possible. Good enough?"
Jose nodded, but frowned slightly as he remembered the generators in the basement. "What
about the sustenance pool? Huh? We just gonna forget about it, or the castle, and starve to death?
Don't think so."
Jess frowned, than removed her shredded coat. "NO, I'm not proposing that we abandon this
place. I'm saying that we need to spread out our strength so we don't get hammered like this again.
The core of our strength will still be here, but we'd also have forces scattered through the city so we
can wreak havoc all over the place instead of just in the north end."
Jose smiled slightly, then ran off to his damaged office in order to find something. He quickly
returned, carrying two map cases and a sheaf of papers. "Okay, Helmut, you have the east side of the
city. Go there with a squad of FIs and Technos. Find a few boltholes and begin to establish discreet
perimeters. Also, try not to be seen. Jess, you have the south side. Same orders, but I probably don't
have to tell you to remain unseen. After all, you've been trying to stay hidden ever since that mission
I gave you."
Jess growled slightly, her cheeks reddening slightly. Helmut, however, saluted his 'master'
and took the offered map before leaving to gather some troops. Jess did the same after a few minutes
of hesitation, leaving Jose standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by cracked mortar,
splintered wood, and shattered glass. In the corner, unnoticed by all, a Fixed Idea swept up pieces
of glass while wondering about the ramifications of this change in plans.

Near LAX Airport, 5:10 AM

The helicopter landed after almost four hours in the air, and as soon as the door to the rear
compartment opened, a small metal and plastic headset flew out, shattering on the pavement as a
volley of curses followed it. The source of the cursing soon hopped out of the helicopter,
instinctively ducking to avoid the still-turning blades. After the pilot of the chopper left the dormant
machine, three technicians scurried in to service the monster. The pilot hurried to catch up to his very
angry passenger, but when he got beside her, all he could hear was a muttered string of curses that
would have traumatized anyone who hadn't served in the military.
"Stupid, goddamn, mother-fucking, donkey-raping, imbecilic bastards! The next time I get
faulty information, I'm going to make sure that they'll never talk again." The woman started to move
with a purpose, heading towards a communications van parked near a spruce goose. The pilot tried
to stop her, but he was roughly shoved out of the way, and with the enhanced strength of her body
armour, he was sent tumbling almost forty yards.
By the time the pilot had gotten to his feet, shaken the cobwebs out of his mind, and resumed
moving towards the van, he could hear the extremely inventive supply of swearing echoing through
the large van. Inside, things were another matter. The woman was so angry, she had one of her
myriad firearms out in her hand, and was aiming at a point between the eyes of the communications
officer that had screwed up. The officer, as a result, was madly thumbing the panic button screwed
to the underside of his console, while trying to keep from going cross-eyed as he focussed on the
wide barrel of the woman's heavy pistol.
"Now, if you ever pull a mistake so stupid as to say that a HOUSING COMPLEX is a SAM
site, I'll personally cut your dick off and stick it through your ear! Also, don't try to presume what's
going on in a stealth helicopter, especially when we're on a manhunt." The woman was quite ready
to blow the person's head clean off, but was stopped by three of the elite troops that had been
assigned to the temporary base as security. The three troopers buried the woman under their bodies,
but the armour she was wearing kept her from being hurt.
However, the three men messed up the shot, sending the bullet from the pistol straight into
the monitor in front of the officer. The explosion of plastic, glass, and sparks told everyone just how
pissed she actually was, so while two of the security troopers held her arms down, the third troop
pulled out a hypodermic, jabbed it into her neck, and depressed the plunger, releasing an extremely
strong tranquillizer into her bloodstream.
The instant it took effect, her body went limp, and her eyes closed, but not before shooting
an if-looks-could-kill-all-that'd-be-left-of-you-is-smouldering-boots glare at everyone in front of her.
She then dropped off in unconsciousness, and the three men carried her out of the van. The
communication officer looked at the shattered screen in front of him, ears still ringing from the close
proximity of the pistol shot.
"She could've killed me. I can't believe how close I was to having some light let into my
head."
The second person in the van turned to look at the destroyed monitor and whistled. "Just be
glad she wasn't at top form. Otherwise, she'd have triple-tapped your head while those guys tackled
her."
"She's that skilled?"
"Or that psychotic. Don't cross her, and make sure you never produce a mistake that could
set her off." The second officer turned back to his own radio setup and made a short call to the boss
of the security team. The almost-victim stood up, placed his headset on the table between himself
and his comrade, and walked outside to have a smoke. After lighting the cigarette, he took a few
deep drags to calm his nerves, and watched the sun rise in the distance.

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