Sara woke up with a start, partly because of a tapping noise against her window, and partly because her body finally told her to wake up. The tapping continued, making Sara groan in irritation, and as a response, she rolled over and buried her head underneath one of the three pillows on the bed. Eventually, the tapping ended, and Sara rolled out of her bed, nearly cracking her head on her night table. Cursing to herself as she rubbed the developing bruise, Sara stood up and looked at herself. Muttering, growling and complaining under her breath, Sara changed into a new set of clothes, the ones she wore yesterday adding to the growing pile next to her closet.

Sara looked at the pile, wondering for a second or two if it was moving towards her, then growled something unintelligible as she picked up the entire pile. Moving slowly, to avoid tripping over something, Sara half-dragged the entire heap downstairs and into the back room, which had the clothes washer and dryer sitting there, collecting dust. Sara tossed her clothes into the machine, dropped in a few cupfuls of detergent, and turned on the noisemaker. As the machine cleaned her clothes, Sara went into the kitchen, where she had a bowl of cereal for her late breakfast.

Sighing to herself, Sara walked into the living room after cleaning her dishes, and flipped on the TV, specifically avoiding any news channels as she surfed the cable lines. After laughing at a few cartoons, and viciously mocking another Power Rangers-ish show, Sara turned off the TV, and grabbed the still-open graphic novel that she had been reading Friday night. Sara spent almost four hours reading, finishing off the series, then pulled her now-clean clothes from the washer and tossed them in the dryer. After getting them dried and folded, Sara put her clothes back into the closet and decided to clean her weapons that she would bring to the meeting.

Heading back into the basement, Sara looked at each weapon she had selected. And gently touched each one. Selecting the dozen throwing knives first, Sara gently used a damp cloth to remove the slightly corrosive neurotoxin from the six daggers she had warned Erin about. Looking at each of the blades after they had been cleaned, Sara clicked her tongue against her teeth as she realized that the blades were useless due to the corrosion caused by the toxin. Each of the four inch long blades were pitted, weakening them to a point where after a single throw, regardless of getting a hit, the blades would break.

Sighing to herself, and muttering about the vagaries of time, luck, and Murphy’s law, Sara carefully slid the six damaged blades into a sheath, which she then strapped around her left forearm. *Well, if they’re toast, I may as well use them instead of chucking them. After all, Toledo steel is damn hard to find now. Maybe I’ll get my next set made of Damascus steel, as that stuff’s best in the world. Too bad that it’s even harder to find.*

Sara then picked up the pack of twenty-five cards, strapping it to her waist, so it rested lightly above and behind her right hip. The knife, already cleaned, was quickly sheathed in its heavy scabbard, and strapped around Sara’s right calf. She loosened the straps holding the blade down so she could quickly draw the dagger in an underhanded pull and slash that, in several fights, had left her standing over someone who had just been forced to gargle on his own blood.

Sara picked up the sword, easily balancing the long blade just in front of the pommel with two fingers. When she touched the dark sword, it once again coursed with unearthly flames that covered Sara’s hand, but left no marks. As if the sword recognised Sara’s reluctant acquiescence to feed it, it quickly calmed down and allowed itself to be sheathed, not once complaining inside her mind as she climbed out of the basement.

Going upstairs to her safe, Sara unlocked the heavy door and swung it open, consciously avoiding any glances at the picture that rested on the upper shelf of the safe’s interior. Sara quickly pulled her two Desert Eagles out of their box, then pulled out a gunbelt she had tinkered with a few years ago. Sara rooted through the safe, eventually finding what she had been looking for. An old friend had recommended a type of ammunition that, instead of having a powder charge, used a low-powered plastic explosive as a propellant. The bullet itself was a solid slug of tungsten, which was reputed to be capable of punching right through an angry elephant. Sara had deemed using her limited supply of elephant slugs would be an effective way to get some single-shot kills on the greenskins that roamed the city, and they were also effective at punching straight through an armoured opponent.

She had only fired five of the elephant-stoppers before, and that was during testing to ensure that her guns could stand up to the strain of having a greater explosive payload being used to fire the bullet. The only noticeable effect for Sara was that the recoil was greater than normal, forcing her to use the Weaver stance when firing one gun. If she tried using both at once, her accuracy dropped like a duck that had been hit at twenty feet with a few loads of buckshot. Sara emptied her guns of the Spartan-class bullets she had last used, and slowly and methodically cleaned the two guns, making sure that she got every speck of grit out of the barrels, triggers, and actions.

She then closed the actions, which she had locked open in order to clean the guns, and loaded the guns with a magazine of her special ammo. Removing the magazines, Sara then inserted one extra bullet into each mag, putting the bullet count up to nine in each gun. Sara then put her magnums in their respective holsters on the gunbelt, making sure that the right side magnum hanging down to her knee while her left magnum relaxed cleanly at her hip.

Looking at the clock, Sara noticed that it was nearing eight at night, so, after removing her weapons belts and weapons, she had a quick supper of pasta, and decided to watch the news. At ten at night, Sara went up to her room again, looking around at everything inside, and smiled to herself. Closing the safe, Sara first put her card pack back on. She then strapped her knife to her right leg, making sure the blade was still loose in its sheath. The throwing knives went around her left forearm, giving her easy access for several vicious throws.

The magnums, still holstered, went around her waist, and partially strapped down to her legs in order to keep from flapping around, which would make unnecessary noise. Six extra magazines of elephant-stopping slugs were pulled into the slots on the back of the belt, giving ample reloads if needed. Sara then took her sword, which was virtually jumping with anticipation of tasting blood, and looped the scabbard’s belt over her right shoulder, letting the sword settle across her back diagonally.

Sara then activated her armour, letting the armoured scales cover her body from the neck down. Looking at herself in the mirror, Sara snapped her fingers and dashed back into her basement room, collecting her twenty-five foot long cape. Gently adjusting the pauldrons to seat themselves correctly on her shoulders, Sara let her armour ripple itself over the base of the pauldrons, sealing them onto her shoulders. "Huh. Now I look dangerous enough to take on the world."

Sara opened her bedroom window, and after climbing out onto the roof of her porch, she closed the window behind her. Sara looked around quickly, noticing the silence of the area around her house, then jumped north several blocks, using the roofs of the houses around her as stepping stones. In one particularly long leap, Sara used her cape as a parachute, slowing her fall long enough to allow her to glide at least another forty yards beyond her old record, and land toes-first on the edge of an old brownstone. Stumbling around for her balance, Sara grinned and laughed. "Damn! I forgot just how much fun it is for me to do this! It’s like skydiving, but without the risk."

Sara was almost giddy with happiness, but calmed down when she remembered what she was up to: A clandestine meeting with an unknown employer, who may be a royal piss-off. Sara was still grinning as she told her armour to go to full combat mode, which covered her face and head completely, leaving only her eyes visible, and that was because of the armour generating a set of transparent scales that allowed Sara to look out at the world around her without worrying about any lucky shots that might hit her in the face. She jumped northwards again veering towards the waterfront, and in less than five minutes, she was sitting on the roof of one warehouse, looking at the warehouse where she was supposed to meet her prospective employer in. Sara lay down on the corrugated iron roof of the building she was resting on, and told her armour to shut down completely for a little while.

Several minutes later, and about five minutes before midnight, Sara reactivated her armour and jumped down to the pavement in front of the open door in the side of the building. Moving carefully as her eyes adjusted, Sara sensed more than saw the movement beside her, and responded with her typical dangerous reflexes. Ducking down, she grabbed her assailant’s hand around the thumb, and twisting it back towards her opponent, she broke his thumb in three places.

Sara looked at the pseudo-military garb, the twin ammunition bandoliers for the assault rifle slung across her victim’s back, and the knife still held in the man’s right hand, though his thumb was now useless. "Well. It seems that I’m late."

Sara let the man go, watching with some disdain as he curled up into a ball, cradling the shattered ruin of his right hand. She then walked into the centre of the room, where two trestle tables had been set up, surrounded by chairs. Sara glanced at the small congregation of unruly men, cataloguing the weapons that were visible, and smiling to herself. *Boys and their toys. Why is it that all the lower-end hunters have to use the biggest guns?*

Sara glanced pointedly at a very large man, who, while obviously built like a truck, shrunk back from her cool stare as she noted the two RPG-7 rocket launchers he had strapped to his back. Sara looked at the rest of the group, sighed under her breath, and spoke. "So, who wants to be the spokesman here? After all, We’d better look like a collected front for this negotiation."

A grizzled soldier looked up at Sara, and his eyes widened. "Well, if it isn’t The Knife."

Sara grimaced at being recognised so easily, and then she took a closer look at the soldier. "Pops? What the hell? I thought you retired three years ago!"

‘Pops’ McGillicutty, one of the founders of the IBHS grinned up at Sara from where he sat. "Yeah, I retired. I’m just here as arbitrator. By the way, thanks for the rescue job you pulled for me a few years back. You really pulled some old allies out of the fire back then. By the way, you have the most combat experience, and I’d be happy to let you control this group, if at all possible."

Pops’ words sent a ripple of surprise through the group at having an S-class hunter in their midst, prompting some people to mutter amongst themselves. "I heard she’s a cyborg, what’s she doing in a backwater like this?"

"Hell, I heard she blew up a helicopter a few years ago with one shot! She’s inhuman!"

"Ha! That’s probably true, but I heard that her bodysuit was once the gear of a corporate assassin she killed with a pencil. Also, if it’s true, that suit can change its shape and is almost completely bulletproof."

Sara, grinned, shrugged, hooked a chair from underneath the nearest table and dragged it over with her foot. Sitting down on the uncomfortable plastic chair, Sara looked at each bounty hunter standing around, then noticed that a door had opened on the opposite side of the warehouse.

Sara signalled for the bounty hunters to sit down and stop their muttering, and then watched, eyes narrowed, as several hulking guards, each easily twice the size of the largest man in the room scattered through the passageways, trying to keep in the shadows. Even though they succeeded on that part, Sara noticed the glowing red eyes that the hulking beings tried to keep hidden, and she instantly started to curse under her breath. *Well shit. Why in hell are greenskins here? Either we just stepped in something nasty, or we just managed to step in something infinitely worse if they’re part of the delegation.*

Sara then noticed as two groups of eight people, looking human except for their obvious disdain as they looked at the motley group sitting at the table in front of them. She picked out two as potential threats; one with a high-powered sniper rifle, and the other with a flamethrower, and both looking like they had fallen off of the ugly truck during its annual shipment.

Sara noticed that the people got progressively smaller as the groups got closer to the table where Sara lounged, to all appearances completely unconcerned about being that close to a bunch of greenskins. Finally, a greenskin that looked to be easily twenty feet tall, and who Sara instantly dubbed ‘Tiny’, walked up towards the table, holding something in one hand. The immense greenskin placed whatever it was in its hand on the ground, then turned and walked away. Sara, with almost clinical detachment, looked at the chair that had been placed opposite of her, and smiled as she noticed that two people had to struggle to turn the thing around so she could see who she was going to be talking to.

The chair finished swivelling around, revealing a little boy wearing a set of oversized orange-tinted glasses, a cute little shirt and tie, and lederhosen. Sara bit her tongue to keep from laughing, but her reaction of planting both feet on the floor and sniggering set off every member of the hunters, all of whom started to snicker. Standing on each side of the boy, and also trying valiantly to avoid sniggering, two young women stood. The one on the right Sara recognised as the techno she had crippled earlier. However, the techno seemed to have little difficulty walking, most likely due to a leg brace. The other girl was a question mark, plain and simple.

Wild brown hair, the occasional muttered outburst, which was as often as not silenced by the same person, and a metal band covering her right forearm told Sara all she needed to know about girl #2. Namely she was completely nuts, and worth watching. Inwardly observant and watchful for anything that might be going on, Sara nonchalantly planted her booted feet on the table, leaning back and acting without any respect for the prospective employer whom she was staring down.

Sara glanced at Pops, and he smiled slightly, nodding at her as he relinquished all negotiations to her. Nodding herself, Sara returned her attention to the boy, who was just beginning to get eminently pissed off. However, instead of yelling, screaming, and otherwise throwing a massive temper tantrum, he just took a deep breath and started his commentary. "Good. You’re here. Now, I’m offering a bounty of several thousand dollars to the person who brings me CyberSix’s head."

Sara snorted under her breath, but sat up straight, deciding to listen to the boy’s rambling. *Bullshit. My minimum price tag is ten thousand per day, and I rarely do assassinations. This kid has a lot to learn about hunters, especially those in this room.*

Sara refocused on the boy’s rambling, as he talked about how each person would be richly rewarded for their participation, even if they failed in the mission. *Yeah, what would that be? A pat on the back and a ‘better luck next time’?*

Sara listened as the boy managed to push every one of her buttons, virtually one after the other. As she listened to the boy’s speech, Sara slowly tightened her grip on the table’s edge, a warning that all the hunters heeded by discreetly loading and arming their handheld weapons. *Geez. Even my previous employers weren’t this sick. This kid has obviously been snorting crack. What’s next? Some preaching on the evils of humanity?*

Sara wasn’t disappointed, as the boy launched into a diatribe that lasted for several minutes, and managed to alienate and piss off every person in front of him. Sara herself was getting very pissed off, and stopped the boy’s speech by clenching her hand completely, breaking off a chunk of the table with an echoing crack. The boy jumped, as did several hunters, as the noise of the wood giving up to Sara’s enhanced strength was almost identical to a gunshot. *‘To complete my father’s ideal plan?’ Okay, this kid is an utter wack job.*

The boy looked at Sara she brushed the splinters off of her hand and stood up. "Now, why did you do that? I was just about to see who wanted to sign up for the mission."

Sara laughed, setting the boy’s nerves on edge, and making him angry. "You want my answer? No. That goes for all the hunters in this room, and you’d better abide by the rules of parley and let us walk out of here unmolested, as we have made our decision."

She watched as the boy’s face turned red, from anger or embarrassment, she couldn’t tell. He hopped down from his perch, and Sara noted, with some amusement, that he was short enough to walk unobstructed under the trestle tables. He finally arrived at where Sara stood, and, kicking her in the shin, he asked her a question. "Who the hell are you?"

Sara, milking the opportunity for all it was worth, decided to act like the boy’s guardian. "Ask nicely, or I’ll have to give you such a zetz, you won’t know what hit you!"

The boy, obviously smarter than he looked, noticed Sara’s uttering of the Jewish word, and his eyes widened. "You’re one of them, aren’t you? M-17, Jess, you know what to do."

Sara, noticing the two girls readying themselves, reached down to where the boy was turning around in preparation to running away from her, and picked him up by the scruff of the neck. Bouncing him up and down for a few seconds, she gauged his weight at a shade under fifty pounds, and she then brought him closer to her, bringing her face next to his so she could whisper into his ear. "I am not religious. I used that word in order to see if you were worth what I’m going to do next. Thank you for validating my decision."

Sara pulled the boy away from herself, slamming him face-first into the table in front of her. "Now, all of you, STAND DOWN! I don’t plan to get shot today, especially as we are all operating under the flag of peace right now." Pulling the boy up, and ignoring the blood pouring from his nose, Sara leaned in towards him, pulling her boot knife out and waving it under his nose. "Tell them, otherwise I’ll make sure that you’ll need a new trachea."

The boy gulped, obviously smart enough to know when to give to a superior force. "All forces, stand down. By the way, who are you?"

Sara smiled, though the gesture didn’t translate through her armour very well. "I’ll tell you who I am. I’m The Knife. Remember the name, as you’ll never see my face. Now, before we finish the introductions, what’s yours?"

Sara had picked up the boy again, this time by the throat. However, she was only squeezing enough to keep a grip on him, and was avoiding squeezing hard enough to cut off his air supply. She had also replaced her knife in her boot sheath, noticing that all but six or seven other hunters had promptly buggered off as soon as the negotiations had soured. "I am José Von Reichter, heir to the Von Reichter legacy, and you are going to let me go, now!"

Sara nodded, absorbing the information. Then, instead of being nice and placing him on the ground, as he wished, or placing him on the ground by driving his head through the table, as several of the remaining hunters were urging her to do, Sara looked up at the large windows that opened out onto the harbour. Mentally calculating trajectories, the amount of force required, and how much damage she could do without leaving lasting damage to her new football, Sara grinned and lifted José a bit further off of the ground. "All right. You get your wish. Now, I hope you like my gift to you."

Sara took two steps back, allowing her the leeway to get a good arc with a kick. She then dropped José, who, midway through his fall to the floor, was met, quite squarely, with a boot to the seat of his pants, leaving a fairly deep imprint of the toe of Sara’s boot as he sailed through the air in a perfect trajectory, smashing through one of the windows in a hail of glass shards. Listening carefully, Sara heard the scream suddenly cut off, followed quickly by a fairly large splash.

Sara then turned to the group of greenskins, technos, and at least one special, unsheathing her sword as she hopped onto the table. While on the table, Sara felt her cape tug slightly as two bullets ricocheted off of the flexible metal-laced polymer, and she crouched with one leg extended behind her, ready to leap onto the nearest opponent, which happened less than two seconds later.

Sara literally launched herself into a cluster of about seven technos, her sword leading the leaping assault. In one sweeping arc, two heads popped off their respective bodies, both of which flared into vapour as the sword, acting almost as if it had a mind of its own, twisted in Sara’s hand and impaled itself through the breastbone of a third. Wrenching the sword free from the collapsing form of its latest victim, Sara used an overhand spin to attack one techno that had levelled its gun at her back. Her sword, hungry for any type of blood, laughed gleefully in Sara’s mind as the razor-sharp edge punched through flesh and bone, carving a seven-inch deep gouge in a diagonal arc that shredded both lungs, separated the right atrium and ventricle from the left, and neatly severed the descending aorta, sending a spray of blood spewing into the air.

The blood pattered down around Sara in a rain as her return sweep with the blade neatly amputated the unfortunate techno’s legs at the knee, sending him crashing onto his back, with a fountain of blood being his only response before he disappeared in a green flare. The three surviving technos around her finally managed to open fire, staggering Sara as her armour was forced to absorb the impacts of three dozen bullets form three different directions.

Grimacing in pain, Sara’s response was to duck low, keeping her sword held in one hand, and then lunge forwards in an upwards slash that caught the techno in front of her by complete surprise. The impact was bad enough, but the sword had bisected the techno from crotch to clavicle, letting most of his vital organs and gastro-intestinal tract thump to the floor in a squishy mass that stank to high heaven.

Sara dropped flat as two greenskins also opened fire at her, narrowly missing with their rockets, but managing to hammer her prone form with another dozen or so machine gun bullets. At that point, Sara was extremely pissed off, as the bullets, though they didn’t harm her to any measurable extent, were still painful when they hit. However, as her sword was sated for the moment, Sara sheathed the deadly weapon in favour of one with a bit more reach. Standing up, she pulled one of her two magnums, and fired twice.

The first shot nearly caused her to drop the gun as the recoil was sharp enough to wrench her hand back to an uncomfortable angle. However, the bullet, travelling at close to Mach five, smacked right into the breastbone of one of the two greenskins that had shot at her, splitting open the creature’s chest like an over-ripe melon being hit by an axe. The second shot, fired while Sara was recovering from the recoil of the first, missed cleanly, but slammed into a stack of crates with enough force left over to topple the entire stack. The following cry of agony told Sara that someone had been stupid enough to use the crates as cover, and was now going to have many splinters pulled out of them before being put into a full-body cast.

Turning smoothly, and using her left hand as a brace to help control the recoil, Sara fired another shot, catching the flamethrower wielding techno in the fuel tank. The ignition of gelled fuel turned him into a living torch, and activated the sprinkler system, quickly dousing everyone in the large building. Sara quickly hopped backwards a few steps as she heard a dull roar from behind her, recognising the noise as three AK-47 assault rifles on full automatic. Several hunters were standing in a cluster, shooting at everything except Sara, and she mentally thanked them for putting out the covering fire.

Sara added her own fire to the mix, carefully and neatly amputating two heads, one arm, and a leg with the remaining bullets in her gun’s magazine. Calmly reloading her pistol with a fresh magazine, Sara dodged to the side at the last second and watched as one greenskin took a full AK magazine to the chest before falling to the ground, out of the fray. Sara put the reloaded magnum back in its holster, and, just as she arrived at the group that had provided her with some cover, she heard a hissing whoosh from behind her.

Sara instantly turned and dove into a nearby alcove that had been created by the vagaries of whomever had stacked the crates, screaming for the group to scatter, but watched, helpless, as the four hunters were shredded by one well-aimed rocket. Swearing quietly, Sara vowed revenge on whomever had fired the rocket, and listened as the three or so other hunters who she knew to be in the vicinity were quickly hunted down and killed, almost always in a sudden burst of fire and lead.

Sara, however remained hidden in the alcove, watching a group of five technos move towards the impact point of the rocket, intent on examining the wreckage for anything useful. Sara noticed that the entire group was too watchful for her to ambush in a conventional manner, so she decided to get a higher viewpoint. Gathering her strength, she leaped up onto the stack of crates behind her, crouching in order to keep a lower profile. Looking around quickly, Sara reached behind her and pulled out a single red card from her belt pack. Judging the distance, angle, and her own ability, Sara neatly flicked the card towards the group, waved slightly, and moved away, not bothering to watch the carnage.

Behind her, one of the technos noticed the small red object sailing towards the group, and dodged to the side, yelling for a duck and cover manoeuver. Too late, however, as the card hit one techno in the back of the head and exploded, creating a twenty foot wide explosion that cooked all four technos caught in the blast. Their charred bodies hit the ground almost simultaneously, then disappeared as in a second fireball, finishing the work of the first.

Sara moved quickly to a third stack, trying to keep out of sight, and doing a good job at it. Pulling her left-side magnum out of its holster, Sara settled down on a taller stack of crates, near where she had booted José out the window. Aiming carefully with the decently powerful scope on her pistol, Sara squeezed the trigger and neatly blew a greenskin’s head off, watching it bounce around like a blood-filled football for a second or two before dropping flat and letting a small arsenal’s worth of ammunition sail over her head.

Thinking for a second, and noticing that her cape was flapping softly because someone had turned on the fans in the warehouse, she decided to take the cape off, lest it attract some unwanted attention to herself. Removing the cape was easy enough, as all she had to do was pull slightly, releasing the binding the armour had created, though Sara had some difficulty in keeping it down flat until she rolled up the length into a loose cylinder, and left her pauldrons on top to act as weights.

Noticing movement to her left, and on the same level as her, Sara started moving again, running along the stacks and pausing only long enough to snipe the occasional greenskin that didn’t look up. *Okay, someone has gotten the bright idea to fight me on my own turf. They’ll probably be able to go up against me close up, but until then, I have the advantage.* Two minutes later, she was lining up a shot on a techno when she noticed that a little red light was flickering on her wrist. Less than a second later, as Sara jerked her arms up, a bullet whistled by, close enough for Sara to smell the gunpowder residue that was burning off of the heavy slug.

Sara grimaced as she moved out of the line of sight of the shooter, realizing that only a sniper rifle could cause enough damage to worry her. Naturally, as she peeked out over the edge of the crate, two bullets smacked into the crate just below her eyes, and she ducked back, cursing. The techno that had avoided being fried by Sara’s chem-ex cards was now actively hunting her, and was armed with the sniper rifle she had seen earlier.

*Dammit. I’d better keep away from the business end of that gun.* Sara continued moving, looking for the person who was on the top of the crates with her, and occasionally taking the time to line up a shot at a greenskin, of which there were very few left, or of a techno, which were crawling all over the place like ants on honey. Very quickly, Sara brought her ammunition reserves down to one full magazine in each gun, and, deciding to keep them in reserve, she started using her cards in liberal quantities. Her path of travel was easy to follow for the first ten, as ear-shattering explosions followed closely behind her, usually accompanied with a scream of agony as some poor victim fried in his or her own juices.

As Sara moved along a small alleyway some fifteen feet above the concrete floor, surrounded on both sides by what looked like boxes of machine parts, she heard something shift behind her. Glancing behind her, Sara slowed down to a very slow walk, turning a full circle before shrugging off the noise and continuing on. It was possibly the worst mistake she could have done, as her next step was thrown off balance by a heavy boot slamming into the small of her back with enough force to knock her sprawling. Sara’s training in martial arts came to her rescue, as she turned the added momentum into a quick front roll that moved her away from the majority of the momentum of the kick, saving her from a damaged vertebra, and possibly paralysis. As Sara came out of the roll, on her feet, she spun around and came face to face with the brown-haired girl she had seen earlier.

The girl rushed forwards, leading with a right hook that snapped Sara’s head halfway around, and caused her to bite her lip hard enough to draw blood. Sara’s response was nowhere near as glamourous, as she stepped into the arc of the girl’s second punch, allowing the girl’s forearm to graze her shoulder, and viciously stomped on the arch of the girl’s right foot with the heel of her own. Sara smiled grimly as she heard the girl’s foot crack wetly, telling her that she had just broken at least three bones in the girl’s right foot, thereby hobbling her for at least a month.

The response was a howl of pain, followed by a vicious punch to the midsection that sent Sara staggering back five feet, winded. The girl, gingerly tried to step forwards with her broken foot, but failed, so she settled for dragging the wounded appendage behind her. Sara looked at the pain and hate-filled gaze levelled in her direction, and, disregarding the possible risk, she raised her right hand and flipped off the unmistakable gesture that would infuriate anyone.

The girl, tougher than she looked, straightened as Sara lowered herself into a Pentjak stance, and then spoke, clearly biting off the ends of her words. "So, you’ve caused me a bit of pain. Let’s give you a lesson in how to inflict it."

The girl spat angrily at Sara, and then charged her. Ducking and weaving, even with a hobbled foot, Sara was hard-pressed to defend herself from the all-out assault being heaped upon her person. The girl laughed, punching repeatedly with her right hand right before switching and landing a solid blow with her left, catching Sara in the midsection again. Sara twisted to the side to deflect much of the force of the blow, and she succeeded, but she still felt a wet pop as what felt like a blood vessel gave up and ruptured, squirting blood into her upper abdominal cavity.

Sara gasped in pain, trying to keep upright, and viciously shoved the girl away from her, nearly knocking the girl over the edge of the stack of crates. Instead of pressing the attack, Sara stumbled backwards, pulling her knife free from her boot sheath as she did so. At the same time, her left hand came up, holding her magnum that she knew had only two shots left in it. Standing, Sara looked at the girl from ten feet away. "Come on. What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?"

Sara ducked the girl’s hasty charge, pushing the girl up and over her shoulder, and flipping the smaller person onto her back behind her. Turning, Sara blocked a kick, swivelled on the balls of her feet as the girl stood up, and slashed outwards with her knife. The knife barely hit the girl, only two inches of the blade actually making contact, but it sliced into her left forearm like a shark through water.

The knife, once pulled away from the girl, left behind a foot-long slash that had neatly severed two tendons, an artery, and a major vein. However, Sara wasn’t done. Slamming her left hand forwards, Sara pushed the muzzle of her gun into the girl’s stomach, and used her suit’s enhancing abilities to allow her to lift her opponent into the air by a good two feet. There, suspended in the air, the girl’s eyes changed, pleading for Sara not to do it. Sara ignored the girl’s look and squeezed the trigger twice, sending both bullets right through the girl’s body. As the bullets were designed to kill elephants, they did not slow down for bones, tissues, or anything else, and so simply punched two neat, half-inch diameter holes right through the girl, who fainted almost instantly from the shock.

Sara flicked the blood off of her knife by snapping her wrist downwards, sheathing the blade as she still held her defeated opponent in the air. Finally seeing a soft target, Sara hauled back and flung the unconscious body onto the techno that was still holding onto the sniper rifle, sending both people to skid into a rather precariously balanced pile of crates. Groaning, the abused wood fell over onto the two, letting Sara retrieve her cape before sneaking quietly away from the chaos and devastation inside the warehouse.

Several minutes later, Sara landed lightly on the roof of an old building, about ten blocks away from the warehouse. Staggering into the shadows of an old chimney, Sara sat down and winced as she gently probed her abdomen. The blood loss had stopped a minute or two ago, but she felt dizzy and weak from the loss of so much blood in the first place.

Sighing to herself, Sara ejected the empty magazine from her magnum, which she had held onto all the way to her current hiding place, and, checking behind her back, found that she was completely out of reserve ammunition. Sighing, she placed the empty gun back in its holster, wiggling her shoulders to seat her sword comfortably across her back. Checking her reserves for everything else, Sara found that she still had all twelve of her EMP cards, as well as her smoke screen, not to mention her knife and sword, but she was down to four rounds of ammunition from a starting load of sixty-six shots.

She then tried to stand up and get home, but didn’t manage to get very far at all. Sara coughed twice as she fell onto her right side, and then she vomited a mess of blood all over the rooftop, not stopping until she had the dry heaves and had nothing left to purge from her system. Coughing and gagging from the coppery tang of blood, mixed in with the sharp and foul stench of bile, Sara managed to move further away from the mess, shutting down her armour before she collapsed behind a low wall, unconscious.

Dr. Zack settled down in front of his ‘special’ phone, looking at the number scribbled on the Post-it note he held in his hand. Pursing his lips, and wondering if he should or not, he finally picked up the receiver, dialled the number, and got an automatic message demanding the country prefix.

Sighing, he got up, rummaged through a drawer for the phone book, looked up the country prefix for Canada, and punched it in, along with the number. He smiled when the phone, finally, clicked through to the other end and began to ring.

It took the person on the receiving end five rings to pick up the phone. "Hello?"

"Is this Dr. Charles Sorbie I am speaking to?" Dr. Zack noted that both lamps on the top of the phone lit up green.

The recipient of the call paused slightly, as if weighing some options. "Yes. Who is this?"

"I am Dr. Anthony Zacharias, calling from South America about a patient of yours. Miss Sara D'Arnise."

A pause, "I'm sorry, but I've retired, and don't have access to my records any more. The name doesn't ring a bell."

"Well, in the E-mail you sent to her yesterday, you addressed her as Selina."

A very long pause, followed by a faint smashing sound. "Is there something wrong?"

"Not yet, but it was extremely irresponsible to-"

"Out of my hands." Dr. Sorbie interrupted hastily, "It was not my idea."

"But-"

"She was in very bad shape when I got her," Dr. Sorbie plunged on, "extensive surgery was required, extreme drug regimes, physical therapy, the works. Her family couldn't possibly afford the expenses."

"So somebody footed the bill? Why, the cost of developing and constructing those-"

"Out of my hands." Sorbie interrupted, "It was out of my hands."

"Dr. Sorbie, only a corporation could-"

The left light on the phone changed from green to yellow, then to red at the mention of the word "Corporation".

*DAMN! Voice activated wiretap!* Dr. Zack realized why the initially polite Dr. Sorbie had started to interrupt him, "-uhh, be able to afford funding a chair of Medicine at Meridiana University!" he thought wildly, trying to save himself from another problem.

Dr. Sorbie apparently was no fool, and did not wish to tempt fate any more than he already had. "I'm sorry, but I've retired, and have my family to consider. I wish you luck in finding some other suitable candidate."

"Could you give me the names of a few you could recommend, Dr. Sorbie?"

To make it sound convincing, Dr. Zack wrote the names down, making sure he got the spelling right, "Sorry to bother you, Dr. Sorbie."

"Quite all right. Quite flattering, in a way, to be considered."

"Good bye."

"Good bye."

Dr. Zack hung the phone up and leaned back in his chair, "Damnation! Now I've got TWO corporations to worry about!"

"Sir?" The door to the office opened, revealing a rather spooked person who seemed to shrink into himself as he spoke.

"Yes? What is it this time?" The response was gruff, roughened from years of cigar smoke and cursing bad golf games.

"We seem to have picked up a charge wave corresponding to the original suit. Also, we have records of a person entering the area where the wave was picked up, with unprecedented amounts of metal in her system."

The timid person seemed about ready to disappear, when the rough voice stopped her. "So, she’s finally appeared in our sights. Where is she?"

"A medium-sized city in a third-world country. The place is called... let me see... Meridiana. We don’t have a branch office there, so we have no reconnaissance right now." Gaining confidence, the voice stopped quavering, but still seemed ready to fade away at any time.

"Get our spec-ops forces briefed. I want them in that city within two months. Oh yes, give them the carrier wave that shuts down her suit, and train them in the upgraded version."

"Um, sir?"

"What?"

"We also have a partial call to the doctor who did the operations on the subject. Apparently, one Dr. Anthony Zacharias was attempting to offer our ‘good doctor’ a position at the local university as head of medicine. Would you like the team to put him under surveillance?"

"Dr. Zack? Calling Sorbie? Damn."

"You know him sir?"

"Yes. He worked for a competitor. Luckily, he quit before they would have squashed us. I’m surprised that our subject has contacted him. Didn’t you say that she was in Meridiana?"

"Yes sir. Isn’t that city the epicentre of a lot of the world’s paranormal activities?"

"Yes, and that’s why we don’t have a branch office there. Get Zacharias under surveillance as soon as possible, and, if possible, arrange to have him removed from the picture."

"Yes sir." The door closed, leaving the room dark for a few seconds before a tiny flame flicked on, then off. The pungent aroma of cigar smoke soon filled the air.

"Soon, we will have the subject back, and this time, we’ll hang onto her."

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