The two troopers who were leaning against the upper section of the statue’s right wing were not surprised in the least when the radio they had placed between them crackled to life with the commander’s inherently dark voice. "Report, Ivonava."

Ivonava, who had been playing a game of cat’s cradle with some medical wraps, instantly responded as her compatriot looked over at the relatively demure-looking house that, arguably, held the most dangerous being in the entire city. "Yes sir. There’s been no action in the area pertaining to the subject since she left to her day job with the Doctor last morning. When she got back, at approximately 1600, she disappeared for several hours, though she didn’t leave the house. At approximately 2000, someone wearing a cape and black hat simply jumped onto the roof of her house from the lawn without any assistance."

The commander’s response through the radio was an incredulous snort. Ivonava smiled, but nodded. "I didn’t believe it at the time, but Subject Alpha’s accomplice left in the same style, giving me a clear view of what she was doing. I have the entire three hours on tape including her weapons test at 23:21."

"Weapons test? What did she use?" The commander leaned in to look at the small video screen hooked up to the recording system, and put on a pair of headphones to listen in to the resultant sounds. He watched the screen as Sara appeared at the window, lifted a large weapon, and fired a single shot, which produced a muzzle flash large enough to compete with the streetlights for brightness, and launched a hideous noisemaker that set the commander’s teeth on edge.

Wincing, he looked at the replay of the recording, noticing how even through the muzzle flash the camera picked up details on the weapon, revealing that whatever it was, it was obscenely large, and loud. "Now that’s a page from the history books. It looks like she’s using a modified version of a German Nebelwerfer, more commonly nicknamed the ‘Moaning Minnie’."

Ivanova’s companion spoke up, looking anxiously over at the house as he did so. "Sir, weren’t the Nebelwerfers ten-inch mortars that weighed almost two hundred pounds apiece? Now, I don’t know what she has, but whatever it is, by the time I saw the muzzle flash, the shell had already whistled past my ear by about two feet. Whatever else we know, we can be assured that she knows we’re here."

The commander frowned, then decided quickly. "Damn. Okay then. You two are going to be rotated back to base for now, and Michaels can take over your observation post. Make sure to do a complete information transfer to headquarters as well."

Ten minutes later, after the other posts had checked in, and the orders had been dispersed, the commander finally relaxed, managing to drop into a light slumber that, though without any redeeming value to his body, cleared his mind quite effectively.

Lying in bed, Sara tossed and turned, though her eyes were tightly closed and she was definitely asleep. Finally, she sat up, gasping for breath, and bathed in her own sweat. Taking a few minutes to try and calm down, Sara then curled up into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut. Bitterly, she thought of all the things she had done under the employ of the corporation, much of which had been the sources of all her nightmares over the last few years. The knowledge that the corporation had found her and was virtually pounding on her front door only made the nightmares worse.

A choked sob was the breaking point, and Sara finally rolled out of bed, landing on her side on the floor. Still curled into a ball, she just lay there, weeping and remembering. Inside Sara’s mind, there were only a few images she had wanted to hold onto. Little snapshots of her past life, mostly of her and her grandparents, and one little scene where her mother had given her a charm bracelet to ward off bad things. After her surgeries, Sara had found that her bracelet had broken, and all the charms had disappeared. At the time, she had been heartbroken that something she had loved so dearly had been destroyed, but, looking back, Sara felt that it was more of an omen than just bad luck.

Sadly, most of Sara’s mind had been taken up by the stresses and strains of what she had been forced to do. One corner of her mind was entirely packed with the images of those she had been forced to kill. She had been good at what she had been forced to do, though, at the first opportunity, she managed to escape, at least for a few months. She had been captured, tortured, and reprogrammed. For a while, she had gleefully killed everyone and everything her ‘minder’ had told her to kill, but something had happened. The neural rewiring had degraded, and, during a mission where she had been left alone for just under twenty-four hours, she had disappeared.

Almost two hours later, Sara finally pulled herself out of her memories enough to realize that she was completely defenceless, and so she finally stood up, grimacing as her right elbow shifted around again. She looked at the disarray of her room, smiling at the sight of so many weapons stashed into the relatively small area, and then sighed slightly as she removed her nightclothes, which were tossed into a wicker basket near the Lesbian Gardener. She changed into a loose T-shirt and carpenter jeans, and then headed downstairs for breakfast.

She called up the school at Seven-ish, and said that she couldn’t come in today or tomorrow. She then had breakfast, easily devouring a bowl of Corn Flakes with a glass of orange juice and some toast. After her meal and the subsequent washing of the used dishes, Sara went into the back room where the washer and dryer usually lived, where she collected a small cardboard box from a small shelf above the dryer. Opening the box, Sara gazed at the two albums for a few moments, then came to a decision.

She went into her living room, and opened the first album to the oldest pictures, one of which was a series of Sara at about ten years old, with her grandparents. All three were sitting around a small kitchen table, making a cake that read ‘Happy Birthday Mom!’ in red icing. The second picture was of Sara and her grandfather sitting on a wooden dock, apparently fishing for the denizens of the pond that had been about fifty yards from the old house that had eventually turned into an orphanage.

Sara closed the book quickly, remembering all the other pictures inside the book. She opened the second album, and the first picture was of her, about six years younger, wearing a hospital gown and holding a tiny baby. The Sara in the picture hadn’t been mutilated by grenade shrapnel, and was wearing a simple golden ring on her right hand, signifying something that went a lot deeper than surface appearances. She was also grinning from ear to ear, despite being covered in sweat and looking like she had pulled an all-nighter.

Sara removed the picture from the clips that held it in the book, and flipped the glossy photo over so she could read the fine print on the back. The writing was simple, but said more than anything else could. ‘Selina Del Naryen-Valentine, with our newest member, Sebena Rosa-Jean. January 15, 1996.’ Sara looked at the writing, and didn’t notice the tears that pattered onto the pressed fibre backing of the picture.

*I’m sorry for all the things that went wrong. I’m sorry that I couldn’t help either of you. I’m sorry for the fact that you died because I was a member of a corporation that couldn’t comprehend that I was happy with you. And I’m sorry that I’ll never see your smile again.* Sara’s mind, having checked out for a minute or two, flashed back to reality, and she put the photo down. She turned the page in the album, and looked at the picture of two headstones beside each other. The smaller one simply said ‘Sebena Rosa-Jean Valentine. B. Jan. 15, 1996 D. Sept. 10, 1996.’ The large stone on the left side also had some writing on it, and it said ‘James Duran Valentine. B. Aug. 20, 1970 D. Oct. 15, 1996.’

"I will find the people responsible for what happened, and when I do, there will be nothing recognisable left of them." Sara closed the album, putting it, with its twin, back into the cardboard box, which was then replaced above the dryer. She went back into her bedroom, and checked out all her equipment twice just to make sure that nothing was going to break when she used it. Sara finally realized that she needed one other thing to complete her arsenal. Smiling, Sara picked up her cellphone, thinking about which number to dial, and quickly coming up with a few possibilities. Sara dialled the number she had selected, and, glad that it was past eight, she also tapped in the extension for Dr. Zack’s classroom. The number went through quickly, and she got an answer in only three rings.

"Hello?"

Sara grinned, clicking her tongue against her teeth for a second. "Hey Tony. I was looking through my stuff and noticed that I’m running low on some high-tensile wire. Do you know where I could root some out?"

Dr. Zack seemed to chuckle, annoying Sara slightly. "Actually, I’m selling synthetic spider webbing at twelve dollars a metre. How many metres would you like, and at what time?"

Sara smiled, but only for a moment. "Hold on a sec. First, synthetic webbing? Second, what’s its tensile strength? And third, because I need it ASAP, do you have any lying around your house?"

Dr. Zack seemed to be smiling on the other end of the line, though Sara had no way to be sure of that. "Yes, the webbing is synthetic. I produced a chemical mix remotely based on the process to create nylon thread to create webbing that is approximately nine times stronger than tempered steel. Also, I have a thirty-metre spool sitting in my closet, and I’ll accept payment whenever you can get around to it."

Sara laughed. "Hell, I’ll leave some cash on that small table you have near your front door. That okay?"

Dr. Zack chuckled "All right. Just stay off of the lawn, alright? Be careful, and I’ll see you about."

Sara paused, and then spoke again. "Tony, if you hear twenty repeats of what happened last night, go to the crater northeast of the city."

Dr. Zack also paused, though for a longer time that Sara had. "Twenty? Of that horrible howling? What do you have, a mortar?"

Sara smiled slightly, feeling slightly better. "No. I fixed some noisemakers to some specialized slugs for my heavy gun. Just trust me on this. If you hear them, hightail it to the crater. Bring Cyb, Erin, and maybe Lucas as well. Oh yes, when that happens, call in a tip about the airport murders, stating that the killer will be there as well."

Dr. Zack sighed, knowing that he would have better luck trying to repeal the laws of gravity when Sara used the tone of voice that she had used. "Alright, I’ll do as you ask. I hope you get out of this in one piece."

"So do I. Goodbye Tony." Sara disconnected her cellphone, turning off the power to the small machine. Moving almost furtively, she quickly headed over to Dr. Zack’s house, and, thankfully, the house’s security system identified her as a friend, and decided to go back to its ever-watchful state of dormancy. Once inside the house, Sara simply snagged the roll of cord, noting the apparent strength of the thin cord by tugging hard on a length of the fibre, nearly shredding her hands in the process. As payment, she left three hundred dollars on the small side table by the door, and then promptly scooted off to her own house,

As she left Dr. Zack’s place, Sara noted, with some amusement, that the surviving signs saying ‘keep off the grass’ had been altered with a postscript: ‘The hard water is fairly painful’, which was pretty low on the scale of good taste. Ducking slightly as she returned to her house, Sara felt the familiar tingle down her neck, and looked back over at the giant statue of the city’s guardian.

Sara grinned to herself when she saw a brief flash of darkness on the statue’s shoulder, so she waved, flashing the middle finger before she ducked into her house, disappearing into her garage for the rest of the day..

M-17 and Jess climbed out of Jess’ jeep, looking at the run-down brownstone tenement that they had decided to utilize for their little hunting mission. To the two young women, the building seemed to exude a palpable sense of decay, not to mention a series of stenches that could have put any normal human off of lunch for a week. M-17 glanced at Jess, who, despite the grimace on her face, nodded in confirmation.

M-17 opened the door as Jess lugged in her two gun cases, then went back to the jeep for M-17's gun case. The influx of fresh air into the building was obviously of great consternation to the building’s superintendent, who rushed out of the office, ready to yell at whomever had opened the main doors. However, as soon as he saw the two young women walking into the building with a set of bulky cases between them, his tune changed dramatically.

Instead of yelling and carrying on, which likely would have earned him a kick to the jewels, the super’s first response was to spit-shine his hair. The attempt was made to try and make him look less like a pregnant toad, but it only enhanced the visual effect of such a mental image. He then walked up to M-17 and Jess, and, official manners oozing from every pore in his system, he spoke to Jess. "Well, who might you be?"

Jess’ response was typical, clipped, and cut off every possible advance he could make at the knees. "Some people who want to be left alone."

M-17 grinned as Jess verbally sniped at the man, but grimaced and started coughing as she smelled something akin to a dozen rotten eggs frying in rancid grease. She didn’t listen to Jess’ bartering with the man, instead pretending to be interested in the surroundings as Jess finally got fed up and pulled one of her silenced pistols, aiming right at the bridge of the super’s nose.

"Now, you are going to give us the key to a top floor room, with a good view of the park. If you decide to refuse my demand, I will give you an extra nostril. If you speak of this to anyone, I will find you and kill you. If you shut up, do what I say, and otherwise act like a model citizen, I will have no reason to kill you."

The super, noticing that Jess had cocked the handgun, and was quite ready to ensure that he would spend the remainder of life contemplating the abstract pattern his brain would make against the far wall, simply nodded, keeping his mouth shut, at least for a few seconds. "Fine, fine. I’ll just give you the key to the room you want, and let you have your fun."

M-17 snarled at the super’s leer, and cracked her knuckles one by one, while Jess simply pressed the barrel of her pistol into the super’s forehead, leaving a tiny divot. "Okay, I got the fucking point! Here’s your key."

The super handed over a small metal key, connected to a plastic tag that looked and smelled like it had been in the obese man’s back pocket all month. Jess smiled, put her pistol away, and picked up her two cases, leaving M-17 to hold the key and her own gun case. The two climbed up the stairs, not trusting the elevator even if their lives depended on it. During their trek up to the top floor, which involved dodging piles of garbage, dog turds, and various other effluvia of the bottom heap of humanity, Jess and M-17 almost constantly swore, and, by the time they had managed to get to the apartment that the key unlocked, they were quite ready to go out into the building and kill every tenant, just to cut down on the stench of decay.

However, they did not. Partially because the view out of the two windows was perfect for their needs, and partially as the apartment was infinitely cleaner than the rest of the building. After M-17 and Jess had knocked out two windows so they could set up their guns correctly, M-17 decided to go and explore the rest of the apartment. However, her discovery of what was in the bathroom was enough to actually go down to the ground floor, where she literally forced the super to clean the entire bathroom, which was relatively easy, considering that she had threatened to slowly flense him with a series of knives if he didn’t clean the place.

Jess just sat back and laughed, then decided to get some reading done. Pulling out a pair of half-glasses, Jess opened up the book she had been reading for a week. *Hmm. I think I’ll add Frederich Nietzsche’s works to the network’s list of must reads. ‘Der Wille Zur Macht’ is quite interesting.*

Sara had finished tinkering with her bike by the time 8 PM had rolled around, and she then spent almost two hours in the shower, scrubbing madly to remove every particle of grit, grime and grease that had permeated her skin when the oil pan on her bike had ruptured, rendering the massive machine useless. Mentally, Sara was wondering how much it would cost to repair the big machine, as she liked the bike almost as much as she liked her friends. Eventually though, she just put it out of her mind, and scrubbed until her skin was almost raw.

After getting out of the shower, and letting her nanomachinery repair the cosmetic damage she had unintentionally inflicted upon herself, Sara towelled off, and walked, stark naked, into her room to get ready for the upcoming battle. Entering her room, Sara first put on her armour, which was in the form of a bracelet, and her pendant. Underwear and a tanktop followed, and then Sara started to strap on her weapons.

Her knife went on first, strapped to her right calf in a way that could allow her to pull it on the run. The ‘holster’ for her heavy gun was strapped to her left thigh, letting the big weapon slap against her leg freely as she slung the ammunition bandolier for the gun around her waist. The card pouch was next, neatly resting on her right hip as Sara checked the cards in the pouch. Finally, Sara slung her sword across her back, letting the long blade rest peacefully as she opened her safe and picked up something. Sara closed the safe, locking it and tossing the key underneath her night-table as she did so.

She then examined the dusty wrist brace she held in her right hand, and, sighing, she put the light material on, relaxing as the cool material neatly wrapped around her right wrist. Sara finally activated her armour, setting it to peacetime mode so she could move her head freely while tweaking her various belts. As the armour covered her wrist brace, three crystals inset into the material shone to life, glowing faintly. Sara frowned for a few seconds, trying to remember what the three crystals signified, and then shrugged for a second when she did remember.

"Yep, the green one is my brainwave feedback scanner. When that one starts to turn yellow, I’d better shut this stuff down for a few minutes. The red one tells me what my vital signs are. Bright red is normal health, black is dead. Finally, the blue one tells me when my suit’s offensive functions are being jammed. When it starts to flash, I can’t use the enhanced armour, or any of the three weapons modes, and whomever’s jamming me had better have a mile-long head start."

Sara fiddled with her belts, making sure everything was not going to fall off, and then she moved her sword so it was at a diagonal angle instead of pointing straight down. Finally, Sara put on the cape, which folded itself around her like it was alive. Smiling because of the extra protection, She then looked around, remembering something, and picked up her weapons brace for her left wrist, which held her four throwing knives. Strapping the brace down, and letting her armour cover everything except the knives themselves, Sara grinned, nodded to herself, and turned off all the lights in the house.

She then opened her bedroom window, moving slowly, and climbed out onto the porch. Closing the window behind her, she let her eyes adjust to the darkness of the night skies and smiled to herself. Finally, after almost half an hour of starting at the night skies, she started moving. Sara jumped into the park, deliberately keeping low, and actively trying to keep away from the pools of light cast by the occasional car and street lamp. Sara told her armour to shift to fully active mode, and paused as the material covered her face with the defensive substance. She then moved quickly towards the statue,

Sara looked up, saw a glint of metal above her as something shifted slightly, and decided to piss off the spec-ops team by taking out one of their own. Moving very slowly, trying to keep from making noise, Sara pulled her sword from its sheath. In anticipation, the sword began to flare into spurts of brightness, but Sara exerted some mental control and damped the blade’s excitement down a bit. Sara then crouched, concentrating for a second, and leaped into the air, rising almost straight up as her cape trailed behind her in a blur of motion.

Sara virtually hovered in the air about four feet from the trooper who was supposedly observing her house, and, as gravity began to pull her downwards again, she leaned forwards, planting her feet firmly on the rounded shoulder of the massive statue. Just as the trooper turned to respond to Sara’s determined rush, she swung the blade around in a neat arc.

The sword’s tip caught the trooper just below the jawline, and the razor-sharp edge tore right through the trooper’s own armour. From a clinical standpoint, the cut was messy, as Sara missed one carotid artery completely, only nicked the jugular veins, and didn’t even sever the trachea. However, the damage done, was enough to send the trooper staggering backwards, both hands clutching his throat as the severed artery pumped blood out in a spray that easily exceeded three feet. Sara, feeling some pity, kicked the trooper in the chest hard enough to send him flying backwards, and into open air. The trooper, having been given a slow rotation from the force of the kick, spun end over end as he fell to the solid stone base of the statue, landing headfirst. The only noise in the entire attack was a wet, hideous crunch, signifying that the trooper’s spine had compressed itself by about ten inches, mainly by moving several vertebrae into his skull, thoroughly scrambling his brains.

Standing on the shoulder of the statue, looking down at her third human kill in almost four years, Sara sighed dejectedly and sheathed her sword, ignoring the weapon’s mental protest that it hadn’t fed enough. Looking through the small pile of materials that had not been damaged in her quick onslaught, Sara soon found a military-issue radio. Turning the thing on, Sara quickly found the channel used for the previous communications, and started speaking. "This is the Angel’s Nest to the Roost. Anyone care to come and catch me?"

The crackling response from the radio was almost completely incredulous, but quickly calmed down. "Who the hell? Oh shit. So, Subject Alpha, how’s the husband and daughter?"

Sara gritted her teeth, letting her breath hiss out through her teeth like an angry snake’s sibilant response. "You fucking bastard. You know full well what happened, and I can bet that you were the one that cut the orders as well. I will kill you Vincent."

Vincent chuckled, seemingly unperturbed by Sara’s threat. "I’ll admit it. I ordered them to do it. But, you’re not going to hold it against your cousin, now would you?"

Sara’s response was short, vicious, and decidedly rude. "I’ll still kill you. However, it just means that I’ll be killing you a lot more slowly now. After all, unlike you, I kept my skills with my weapons."

Vincent laughed. "Not quite my dear. The company still has a very nice training program, and I think you were never that good with guns anyhow."

Sara snorted. "Come see me and we’ll find out if that statement has any merit."

Vincent chuckled, seemingly amused. "Have you forgotten all the good times we had together? I’m going to make sure you remember right before I splatter you all over the landscape. My friends here are definitely gonna help as well, and I think they’d all like a crack at you."

"You amoral little son of a bitch. You know, when I get to you you’ll be sent back to your daddy in a box slightly larger than a matchbox. After all, postage to New York isn’t that much down here."

Sara heard Vincent’s sharp intake of breath, and chuckled, mocking him. "What? Surprised that I know where HQ is? Or surprised that I didn’t walk in there five years ago and slice up your daddy for giggles?"

Vincent laughed. "Actually, I’d have loved it if you had killed that ossified blowhard. He’s more of a pain in my ass that the prisoners I was stuck with for a few years."

Sara laughed herself, remembering the incident Vincent was referring to. "Your own fault for stealing my stuff when I was younger. Just be glad that I didn’t get to you first. This time, you’ll be lucky if you manage to crawl out of here with one working limb." Sara killed the radio before Vincent could reply, then kicked every contraption from the angel’s shoulder, waiting to hear the satisfying crunches of the machines hitting the raised concrete pedestal and smashing into unusable circuit boards and metal frames.

Instead of waiting for the typical quick response form the rest of the spec-ops troopers, Sara jumped north, hiding in the park for a few minutes to catch her breath, and then heading north until she landed heavily on the roof of a slowly decaying eight-story tenement. Sara staggered heavily on her landing, nearly falling before she caught her balance and moved towards some cover. Flexing her ankle, Sara felt some pain, but it was not much more than a minor stretch, and of minimal consequence.

Sara decided to observe her opponents, and so she poked her head over the edge of the building’s raised cornice, propping her chin against her forearms as support. In the distance, barely visible, several forms leaped towards the statue, visible as dark spots that moved over the white body of the guardian. Sara instinctively ducked after a minute, knowing that an IR sweep of the area was still standard doctrine for the troops. She waited for two minutes for the troops to spread out, then pulled her mini-cannon, checking the safety was off and making sure the action was still clean and smooth.

Just underneath her, M-17 and Jess carefully aimed their weapons at the nearest dark form that was moving steadily towards their position, making sure that they couldn’t possibly miss before opening fire. Jess was first, with a massive slug from her sniper rifle slamming into the person’s leg hard enough to knock the person over. M-17 followed up with a long burst from the BAR, keeping the unfortunate victim flat under the hammering volley of depleted-uranium slugs.

However, neither of them were prepared for the ear-splitting crack from above them, followed by a flash of flame almost five feet long. The subject of the shot however, did not take it too kindly when the three-centimetre wide spike of tungsten neatly speared right through his upper torso, shattering every rib in his body, and turning his heart into a mass of tissue that could best be compared to ground chuck.

M-17, not appreciating her kill being taken by someone with a bigger gun, turned the BAR’s muzzle towards the ceiling and opened fire, cutting a circular hole through the thin materials making up the building’s roof. With a yelp of surprise, Sara literally dropped through the weakened part of the roof, and, landing on the balls of her feet, she automatically swept her gun across the room, ready to fire. Feeling something shift underfoot, Sara stepped back as something stood up, aiming her gun at the centre of the figure’s back.

Sara looked at the person she had just dented the floor with, and simply slammed the barrel of her gun into the girl’s breastbone, digging in with the muzzle of the big gun. The girl, in response, grabbed onto Sara’s right wrist, and began to twist, trying to break the bones. She stopped when Sara’s finger squeezed through the first stage of the two-stage trigger. "Let go of my hand, or your vital organs are going to be cooked meat all over the opposite building."

M-17 did so, noticing that the immense gun was still firmly aimed at the centre of her chest as Sara moved towards the window. "Thanks for the opportunity to remove another thorn from my ass. However, as you two are not much more than small fry, I’ll leave you alone, for now."

Just as Sara expertly climbed through the window, deliberately bending the BAR’s barrel downwards with her boot to render the gun useless, Jess moved, snapping her sniper rifle up towards Sara. Before Sara could react, Jess fired one shot, and the big bullet slammed into Sara’s right wrist. Normally, due to her armour’s impact-absorbing properties, Sara would have gotten away with only a bruise. However, Jess’ bullet managed to hit Sara in the third crystal of her armour’s diagnostic brace, which was much less bullet-resistant. The impact of the half-inch wide slug broke Sara’s wrist in three places, and shattered the blue crystal into glittering shards.

Sara groaned in pain as she felt two bones shatter completely, with three more dislocate themselves. Her right hand suddenly useless, Sara one-handed her cannon towards Jess, who fell backwards as the big gun fired. The muzzle blast was so close to M-17 that it scorched her face, burning off one of her eyebrows, and sending the psychopath into a screaming fit of rage. Jess, however, was lucky as the explosive slug that Sara had fired passed over her head by less than an inch, tearing off some of Jess’ hair before it hit the wall and blew up. The explosion was so powerful that it literally knocked a ten foot wide section of wall out of the building, raining bricks on the street below.

At the same time, due to the force of the explosion, the entire building shook ominously, and Sara let go of the building and dropped. She fell almost three stories before she managed to plant her feet for a wall-jump, launching her to the opposite rooftop. Sara landed next to the corpse of the trooper she had impaled with the spike, and, jacking the action, she loaded a fresh shell into her gun’s receiver. Holstering the gun by looping it through the strap on her left leg, Sara flipped off the building she had just been on, and disappeared into the darkness.

M-17 instantly got her backup guns ready, then grabbed the BAR, examining the barrel of the big gun. Sighing, she easily bent the barrel back into its normal place, and carefully smoothed out the dings in the barrel from where it had been bent. Squeezing off a burst of five rounds, M-17 smiled as she noticed that her aim now royally sucked, but at least the gun still shot what it was supposed to.

Jess, who had just sat up and looked at the blown-out section of wall behind her, was now a shade of white normally found on snowmen. "Damn. Do you think we did something wrong by pissing her off? I’ve never seen a gun that could do that, and She’s probably going to be using it all the time."

Punctuating Jess’ statement, another massive explosion lit up an alleyway four blocks to the east, followed by a horrible grinding squeal. Jess shuddered as she listened to the noise, which sounded almost like metal being rubbed on metal, producing a tortured squeal that reverberated through the area and set every dog in the area to barking madly.

M-17 just snorted. "Look at it this way. She’s wounded, we have backup, and she can only carry so many rounds for that runt cannon. Besides, both our big guns are still in working order, and you have that snake of yours as a backup gun. Not to mention your two lugers, my knives, and my own handgun."

Jess smiled, standing up as she did so. "You’re forgetting our arsenal of explosives, and besides, I don’t think that our small guns will be able to do much of anything against that bitch’s armour. By the way, you said something about backup?"

M-17 nodded as she slung the BAR over her shoulder, stuffing magazines into her coat’s pockets and strapping the two remaining ammunition belts across her chest. "Yeah. I intimidated some types into helping us out, so they’ve sent in some squads of Ideas to shoot at anything that isn’t green. I think the cops will respond right... about... now."

Outside, just as Jess finished strapping her Python to her leg, the sporadic gunfire and explosions that were a nightly occurrence tripled in volume, revealing that the police had come prepared for the fights. With a bit of an assist, Jess got to the next rooftop, privately thankful for M-17's enhanced strength. Once outside, the two paused for a few seconds, then heard what they were listening for. A piercing howl, which faded into a bestial whine before merging into several groans and squeals set their teeth on edge, but the volume of firepower being thrown about suddenly paused, seeming to hang in the air like a spectre, before redoubling itself.

The two women had ample time to find several large shell casings on the next few rooftops, and a dead body, its head having been crushed into a wet spray that had decorated the alleyway where the two had found the body. M-17 and Jess soon managed to begin catching glimpses of their prey, who was expertly ducking, weaving, and otherwise making it impossible to get a good shot at her, even while she was firing her cannon at an amazing rate. Every fifth shot was one of the moaners, which almost always heralded a pause in the immense firefight that had wreathed the city in a halo of explosions and screams.

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