Sara, having recovered from her injuries less than a week after her fight with M-17, had managed, with Dr. Zack’s assistance to find out what had happened to her during the battle. Apparently, after several blood tests and an MRI scan, the verdict was that approximately two-thirds of Sara’s internal nanomachinery had suffered the equivalent of a high-powered EMP, either shutting the microscopic robots down, or completely destroying them. The cause of the EMP remained unknown however, and so Sara still suffered from the occasional bout of weakness as a result.

Still, at least once a week, Sara went out hunting. Usually she returned with several confiscated weapons, which were turned over to the police, and almost invariably had a pouch full of glowing green vials, which were either put away in a hiding place, or given to Six. Almost a month went by, and Sara had tallied almost one hundred greenskin kills, with another thirty technos that had been caught in the crossfire. Then M-17 returned, hell-bent on revenge.

The two women, with their renewed grudge match, proceeded to go through at least one fight every night Sara went out, but, due to the cybernetic enhancements that had been installed in M-17's body, the fights were now equal, instead of being skewed towards the more skilled and heavily armed Sara. Almost invariably, the fights would last until either one or the other was injured, or, in several cases, were just too exhausted to go on fighting. Also, a good dozen fights had been broken up by Six and Data 7, who had put aside his grudge against Sara in order to get some M-17 steaks.

During the latest fight however, it was only Sara and M-17, and the fight was thoroughly stacked in Sara’s favour as she led M-17 over, under and through a smelting refinery, often by the teen’s nose. Eventually, as it was nearing dawn, Sara managed to ambush M-17, leaving her with a compound fracture of the right arm, above and below the elbow, as well as a broken ankle and a torn meniscus tendon in her left knee, rendering M-17 useless for several weeks.

Being very pissed off at the time, Sara left M-17 to die, bleeding out from the ruptured arteries next to the compound fractures, but somehow the teen survived, and managed to get ready for more. Sara, in order to maintain her health, had gone to the hospital every third week, instead of every month, but she helped pay back the hospital by assisting the pathology department in finding what cold bugs would be most common, and then assisting in developing in vaccines for the colds.

Lori had become a minor asset in Sara’s mundane life, as the prank-loving teen took a shine to Sara’s eternally disgusting jokes and myriad pranks, which allowed Sara to have an almost-perfect scapegoat for the pranks she almost constantly pulled on Lucas, be they psychological, physical, or just weird. Erin also stuck on, deciding to remain friends with Sara, even as it became more and more apparent that Sara was beginning to lose ground to her own illness. Erin occasionally teamed up with Sara’s hunting persona when bored, and had also been an observant third party in several of Sara’s more widespread brawls with M-17.

Hazel Smith, Sara’s lone problem student, remained an unapproachable bastion most of the time, but she always showed respect to Sara for some reason, with the theory between teachers being that Sara is the only teacher that could beat up any student in the school, if she had a mind to. Lucas and Adrian also stuck on as Sara’s friends, despite, or perhaps because of, Sara’s slowly degenerating condition. Sara kept close tabs with both friends, but found herself slowly becoming more withdrawn as time continued to wear at her.

She ate less, prompting Lucas to start making jokes about toothpicks, but the best he could get out of Sara was a half-hearted shrug, instead of her usual comebacks, which almost invariably poked fun at his genetic heritage, or his apparent lack thereof. Adrian also chimed in a few times, and Sara usually cracked a smile when he started up on her. Eventually however, even that stopped.

The door opened, spoiling another putt. "Sir?"

The response was a muttered curse. "You have twenty seconds, and then I’m burying my sand wedge into your forebrain. Unless she’s behind you, tied up with about twenty metres of battleship anchor chain and with a pretty red bow on top."

An audible gulp followed, the recipient of the threat noting that he was in dire risk of being turned into a vegetable."Sorry sir, but the team is only moving out now. We have a seven-hour flight ahead of us."

Another putt, this time bouncing off of the edge of the hole. "Hmm. Fifteen seconds. Did the researchers find out what went wrong with the Gauss Rifle’s capacitors?"

"Yes, they did. Apparently, the magnetic field used to accelerate the slug was too powerful by an order of magnitude, and the electromagnetic feedback sent a surge through the capacitor. That ruptured the acceleration coils during sustained firing, which destroys the weapon and sends out a spray of shrapnel moving at about mach twelve. The average person who gets hit by that would be buried in a plastic baggie behind the parking lot.

A third putt, missing the hole again. "Dammit. Was planning on using one for skeet shooting in a couple of weeks. Well, issue the Gauss Pistols instead. They at least had the problems ironed out of them a year or so ago. Also, use Anti Personnel ammunition. I don’t care how you do it, but make sure that her body’s totally unrecognisable as human if she decides not to come."

"Yes sir. By the way, do you want to give her a message?"

"No. She wants nothing to do with her uncle anyhow."

Three people sat around Dr. Zack’s living room, two on the fairly large couch, and one in an overstuffed armchair. "So, as we can see, the nanomachines are rebuilding themselves, but at the expense of letting the disease in your body run rampant. That’s part of the reason why you’re feeling so weak, Sara."

"Thanks for the info Tony. Well, there probably won’t be anything we can do for now. I guess I got the short straw on this one." Sara looked like she was surrounded by a death-like pallor, with her pale skin looking like it was covered in ash.

The person sitting beside Sara frowned, hugging her friend. "Sara, why do you say that? I’ve never seen anyone like this, and there seems to be nothing wrong with your life right now."

Sara looked at the person who spoke, and smiled slightly. "Thanks for trying Six. Actually, I should tell you why I came here in the first place."

Sara looked up, and her eyes changed from a dull murkiness into the clear hues that Six remembered from when she first met Sara. "Well, I told you that my grandparents were killed a while ago, and that’s true, but there’s one other reason. I’m running."

"Okay, if that’s not a mysterious statement then I don’t know what is."

Sara rolled her eyes, a shade of her usual exasperated humour coming to the surface. "Let me finish, Six. I’m actually in hiding from a very amoral mega-corporation called Gen-Core. They were the ones that financed my operations, and they also trained me in firearms and martial arts. After being indentured to them for almost two years, I broke away from them after a nasty little bit in Africa where I had been ordered to help safeguard a camp of slavers."

Sara noticed that both Dr. Zack and Six had looks of intense disgust on their faces at the mention of slavers, but she forged on. "After I broke away from Gen-Core, I wandered the world for a while, trying to keep under their radar. Just so you know, they have tentacles in just about everything that’s possibly wrong with humanity. I saw some pretty nasty things when I worked there, and some of the doctors made death camp physicians from World War Two look positively charming."

Sara shook her head, grimacing at an unpleasant memory. "I’ll never forget that one. Anyhow, I collected some interesting items in my wanderings, including a collection of about five dozen different edged weapons that are currently collecting dust in storage. Eventually I made my way here, and decided that the one place where nobody sane would willingly go would be perfect for keeping me out of the public eye."

Sara snorted derisively, then smiled. "Guess how well that worked."

Six smiled as the sarcastic part of Sara’s wit returned, cutting through the cloud of gloom like a knife through butter. "Okay, so you haven’t exactly kept a low profile down here. Now why does this company have you so worried?"

Sara looked at Six, honestly surprised."You have no clue, do you? They have equipment that’s virtually out of this world. I saw prototypes of something called reactive combat armour, gauss pistols and rifles, and biological weapons that make Ebola look like a case of the fucking sniffles. These people are the few, the proud, and the most twisted group of fucks that ever managed to crawl out of the primordial ooze they called their mother."

Six and Dr. Zack grimaced at Sara’s swearing, but they got the message she was trying to convey. Dr. Zack caught something in the spiel first, and spoke when he had the chance. "Wait a minute. You said something about combat armour in that, correct?"

Sara nodded, wondering what was going to be asked next. "Could you describe it to us?"

Sara shrugged, thinking for a moment. "Well, it’s been about five years since I wore a suit, but yeah, I think I can remember some details. It looks a lot like your suit, Six, but it’s a bit thicker."

Six smiled, remembering how Sara had been forced to virtually strip her to save her life the second night Sara had been in the city. "Gee thanks for the reminder. This one’s beginning to get pretty worn."

Sara grinned, then continued. "Well, it can cover a person’s body completely, including the face. I think to activate it you had to get a subvocal microphone next to your larynx, and say something like ‘wartime mode’ or some such. Anyhow, the one thing that I still know about it is that the prototypes hall had the same problem. If a person wore it in an active mode for more than six hours, they had to shut down the armour for at least twenty minutes or risk their entire brainstem frying from the neural strain the suit put on them."

Sara grimaced, thinking about something. "I saw it happen once. The person goofed off for ten minutes too much. He always pushed a bit too far. I watched him fry. The worst part was the wet sizzle at the same time. When we peeled the suit off of him, we found out he hadn’t died from part of his brain frying. He died from the uncontrolled muscle spasms that happened at the same time. Crushed every bone in his body into jelly."

Six and Dr. Zack grimaced, but Sara started coughing, and did not stop for almost three minutes. After she stopped coughing, Sara looked at Six and smiled wanly. "I had to get out of there. I didn’t want to be the next one. So I did. I waited until I was the lone operative on a mission, and I weaselled out of there during the night. Haven’t looked back, nor do I plan to."

Dr. Zack nodded, then looked at Sara. "Well, I think your luck might be wavering. Over the last six months, I’ve been getting reports of a person dressed in armour like you described, and apparently the person’s been making inroads into the local Idea population like a shark on a haunch of raw meat. I really don’t know what the person’s been up to, but whomever it is could be an assassin sent to either kill you or capture you."

Six chipped in, trying to shake Sara out of memory lane. "That’s right, Sara. About six months ago, I first saw the person who Tony’s referring to. She calls herself Knife, and she managed to beat the tar out of my brother on at least one occasion. That and she seems to like working one of Von Reichter’s specials over into a pulp."

Sara shook her head, muttering to herself. "That doesn’t sound like the Gen-Core that I knew. Their idea of retrieving someone involved twenty heavily armed men, most of which were told to shoot on sight. Either they’ve mellowed out, or there’s another escapee out there."

*Heh, even my friends don’t know that the Knife and I are one and the same.*

Sara looked up, glancing at both her friends before she looked out at the night sky. "Look, if you have any more information, please tell me. If necessary, I’ll try my old access codes in the company’s site to see if I could get any information, but I promise that they’ll hunt me down that much faster if I do."

Dr. Zack and Six turned to Sara, shocked that she would even suggest something like that."Sara, it’s your risk, so I’m not condoning anything you do, but I recommend that you don’t do it. Especially with the possibility of an assassin wandering about. Besides, I don’t think we’d be able to find out anything new."

Dr. Zack puffed on his pipe, and looked at Sara again. She still looked like the core of her being had been burned out, but the remnants alone seemed to shine with pure determination. Sara nodded and stood up. She flexed her right arm slightly, wincing as her elbow seemed to shift around. "Well, I have to go. Thanks for the tea Tony. It was good to see both of you again."

With that, she nodded to Dr. Zack, smiled at Six, who responded with a light hug, and walked back to her house. Dr. Zack and Six both moved to a window that overlooked the sidewalk and watched as Sara paused underneath a streetlight, apparently looking at the night sky through the glare of the city’s lights.

Six spoke first. "She seems... lost. Alone. Almost afraid."

Dr. Zack nodded, looking at Sara who had turned and continued walking down the street. "Six, you’ve just managed to hit the nail on the head. Sara no longer has anything tying her down in life, with her grandparents dead, and she’s had no contact with the rest of her family since she had been infected with that disease seven years ago. I’m not too sure about this, but remember her birthday? She didn’t even receive a card from a relative, so either they think she’s dead, or she wants nothing to do with them."

Six nodded, thinking for a few seconds. "Well, that explains the part of her being alone, but lost? I think that’s caused by her not making many friends here. Her oldest friend here is Lucas, and he admits that he knows almost nothing about her except for her disgusting sense of humour. But what’s bothering me was what is always in the back of her eyes. Sara’s not just hiding from a company. She may also be hiding from her past, or maybe her future."

"Well, be that as it may, we have a few leads to try and get through, and maybe find out what’s eating her."

Six grimaced, slapping Dr. Zack’s shoulder. "Tony, that was a very morbid joke. We both know full well what’s eating her, and I hate it as much as you do. I just don’t like seeing her like this. She’s turned into a shell, just going through the motions of living. Even her students are beginning to wonder about it. Erin talked to me about it yesterday just after school, and she’s notorious for only looking out for herself."

"Hmm. Well, I’d better try and find out some information about this company. If I’m right, they could be worse than Reichter ever could have been."

"I doubt than any individual could be worse than Max, but an entire company’s a different story. I think I’m going to go out and work out some tension by squeezing some technos for information. Before squeezing them a bit more for some sustenance."

Dr. Zack chuckled, ordering the living room window to open so Six could leave."Goodbye Six. Have a good night."

"JOSÉ! Where the hell are you, you jackbooted, genocidal midget of a clone?" M-17's shout rattled the windows in the dining hall, where the stunted clone was busy tucking into a snack before his bedtime.

"What?" José spat out pieces of the meat and cheese sandwich, but was suddenly occupied by M-17's left arm snaking out and grappling him around the throat, choking him quite suddenly and effectively.

"How in the hell do you figure that I’m unfit for duty? That’s first. Second, why in hell did you assign me to the kitchen patrol? Are you figuring that you’ve got a little pudgy and need someone to chase you around with a butcher’s knife every night for a week? Actually," M-17 cast an appraising glance at José, clicking her tongue against her teeth, "You could stand to lose a few. So, when will we begin your endurance training? Now, or after I’ve sharpened up my knife-throwing skills?"

José was turning a pale shade of purple as he tried to get some air into his system, so M-17 loosened her choke-hold for a few seconds, allowing him to gasp for air long enough to let his colour return to normal. "Fine, I’ll tell you. First, you’re considered unfit for duty, unless you want to try and beat that bounty hunter with one arm. Besides, that’s something you have to take up with the medics, not me. Second, you’ve failed in your three missions."

M-17 frowned, looking at José as if he had grown a second head. "What three missions?"

José cackled for a second, then ticked off the missions on his fingers. "One: Kill CyberSix. Two: Kill that bounty hunter that crippled you, for the third time, I might add."Jose was cut off by a sudden squeezing around his neck, which relaxed a few seconds later. "Fine, I won’t add it in. Three: give me a show for the hidden cameras in the women’s shower room. I mean, even Stryk Twelve put on a better show for the damn things, considering she was fourteen at the time, and had no idea about the cameras."

M-17's response wasn’t the expected slamming of his head into the nearest flat object, or even the nearest lumpy object, which would have been a bust of himself on a nearby table. "You little BASTARD!!!"

M-17's face turned beet red as José cackled, but he was cut short as she swivelled around and walked into the kitchen, carrying him underneath her good arm. "W-what are you going to do to me now? Put me in the oven? Bake me?"

M-17 grinned, knowing that the insult was going to hurt more than the physical act she was about to commit. "No. That would be an insult to the oven, even though your daddy ripped it out of Auschwitz before the place was destroyed. No, I’m just gonna chuck you into the freezer for a few hours. Better make sure you’re bundled up."

M-17 opened the heavy doors to the meat locker, tossed José in, and closed the door before he could recover from his impact against a slab of beef. She then leaned against the frame, and listened to José as he tried to batter his way out of the freezing room.

"Hey, little boy."

The response was muffled, which was unsurprising as it came through an inch and a half of insulated steel. "What?"

"You want me to turn it down a bit? I can always do that."

Muffled response, interpreted by M-17 to mean, "NO! Please. I’m sorry about the shower room joke."

"Bullshit. If I let you out of there, will you tell me where the cameras are?"

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!! Now will you let me out?"

M-17 moved away from the freezer door, noticing the handle rattling as she sliced herself a piece of meat for a sandwich. "In an hour. Better keep moving around in there. The thermostat says that it’s almost ten below in there."

"Gee thanks. Can you turn it up?"

Putting the meat on the bread that was resting on the counter, M-17 looked around for any mustard as she grabbed a nearby broom handle and slammed the door shut before José’s fingers got through. "Probably. Will you take me off KP and the unfit roster?"

"Fine! You’re off KP, but the doctor has to pull you off the unfit roster. You know the rules."

"Well, I can try. I’ll see you around." M-17 moved back to the freezer, staying a few feet from the door as she started on her sandwich. Instead of leaving like she said she would, she waited for José to do the predictable thing, and heard him bounce off the steel door before she flipped open a cell phone and hit one of the speed-dial buttons.

"Hey, Jess? You wanna see something really funny? Come down to the kitchen and look in the freezer. I’ll see you there." Soon, Jess walked into the kitchen, and went over to where M-17 was leaning against a wall, finishing off a second sandwich.

Jess looked at the general disorder of the room, as well as the bench that had been placed in front of the freezer door. "So, who’d you toss into the freezer? José?"

A grin was the response as M-17 reached out and ruffled Jess’ short hair."Yep. Let’s check on the popsicle. He’s been pretty quiet for the last five minutes."

The two women walked to the freezer, and M-17 opened the door, allowing the misty air to boil out into the warmer room. They waited for the fog to settle around the level of their knees, then walked into the locker. "José, where are you? Did you get stuck to one of the legs of lamb someone had smuggled in here a few days ago?"

The response was faint, but definitely that of the stunted clone."F-f-f-f-fuck you too 17."

Jess grinned as she spotted José, hiding in the split carcass of a pig. Waving at him, she kicked the carcass, knocking him out of the creature and onto the floor."Cute. We’re letting you out now. When you get into the kitchen, I’m just gonna toss you into your bed, but you’d better keep your end of the bargain by tomorrow."

"A-a-a-all right. Y-y-you win." The two women laughed as they helped him out of the freezer, eventually tossing him into his plush bed as the two started to discuss possible ways on how to kill their mutual thorn in the ass.

Sara had just finished marking the labs she had gotten from her students on Friday, and slowly sat up, allowing the kinks in her muscles to loosen up as she then walked upstairs to the bathroom. "Ow. I’m not getting any worse, but it’s really taking a lot out of me just to keep the pain I’m in from showing up. Everyone that I consider a friend is worried about me, with Six being the forerunner in the concern department. Hell, even Hazel is beginning to ask questions about my well-being, and she’s notorious for being unapproachable at any time."

Sara winced as a familiar jolt of pain sent its way through her right side, then walked into the bathroom, stripping off her shirt at the same time. She paused as she looked in the mirror at her reflection, and grimaced as she traced the scars on her chest and arms. "I’ve had at least four major surgeries, and as a result, I’ve been shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, tossed out of moving cars, and been used as target practice over the last four years. I hate my life. Hell, why don’t I end it?"

Sara started to turn on the water in the bathtub, planning on a long soak to remove the last vestiges of tension in her muscles, and a small voice in her head allowed her to have an internal dialogue as she waited for the tub to fill.

*Simple. If you ended it, you’d never get into Heaven, and Hell would kick you out for unnecessary roughness.*

"Gee, thanks for that unflattering comment. Why don’t you go back into hiding again? After all, my memories are probably getting lonely. Why don’t you go and enjoy year six? You seemed to like tormenting me about what happened then."

*Yeah, you’d like me to shut up wouldn’t you? Not gonna happen. You know that when Gen-Core comes for us he’ll be there as well. Maybe you’d better think about giving up, especially if you don’t want to fight him. I understand and all, considering he’s your brother, but he is a right asshole most of the time as well.*

"Thanks for that reminder. Don’t forget that I would gleefully put a bullet right into his sinuses if I had the chance. Don’t forget what he did to me when I was a child. Besides, they’ve probably been busy developing weapons that can cut through my armour with little difficulty."

*Yeah, how can I forget? We’re the same person dumbass! Now, I’ll shut up. After all, you don’t seem to want to enjoy talking to the one who got you out of their clutches in the first place.*

"Yeah, yeah. You can keep dreaming now. Last I checked, all that was done was a bit of skeet shooting with a fuel dump and a plane hijacking."

Sara frowned, and turned off the taps after noticing that the water was nice and steaming. She then pulled off her shirt and pants, removed her skivvies, and slowly climbed into the large tub, letting the warm water work its magic, easing her cramped muscles and roiling mind. However, she didn’t have long to enjoy the bath, because the doorbell rang ten minutes later.

"FUCK IT! If that’s a door-to-door salesman, I won’t care if I get slapped with a murder charge. You hear me? If you’re a door-to-door, I’m getting a gun and making sure that you’ll be so full of lead you can start up a scrap drive!"

Sara got out of the tub slowly, swearing silently at Murphy’s Law as she wrapped a huge towel around herself. She then walked down to the front door and growled slightly as the person leaned on the doorbell. Sara opened the door, and was suddenly grateful that the towel was long enough to go past her knees. "Well, how the hell are you doing today, Reba?"

Reba Pearce, MD, and growth retarded person of unique social standing, stood in front of Sara, looking up at the dripping wet teacher. "Pretty good. You however, seem to be falling apart at an exponential rate. I have some results here that are almost nauseating."

Sara rolled her eyes and grabbed the offered envelope. "Gimme that. Thanks for ruining my good mood. I was hoping to see this in like, oh, a few million years or so?"

Reba grinned as she felt a cool breeze drift past her, and couldn’t resist the opportunity it gave her. "Yeah, I noticed your ‘good mood’ all the way down here. Did you have to yell so loudly?"

Sara frowned. "Yes. As you can see, I was trying to relax, and your zapping the damn doorbell wasn’t very conductive to a good relationship with a feeling of zen fulfilment."

Reba laughed, smiling up at Sara "Yeah, it must be a bit drafty. By the way, thanks for catching that new flu virus that’s making the rounds. Now we can inoculate all the people at risk before they catch it."

Sara nodded. "Well, I owed you, and besides, it got me away from the classroom for a good week. Look, I’m sorry for chewing your head off, but I’ve had a pretty bad week. Care to talk, say tomorrow, around four-ish?"

Reba nodded, turning away from Sara. "Sure. Take it easy, get some rest, and take two Asprin."

"Thanks for the advice. I’ll see you tomorrow." Sara smiled slightly, saluted Reba by patting the diminutive doctor on the top of her head, and closed the door. "Now, back to the bath."

Outside, as Sara was walking upstairs, she heard Reba’s response to her salute. "If you weren’t my patient, I’d..."

Top
Next
Previous