'I really don't need this,' thought Rick as he walked along a typical Australian suburban street. 'It's too damned hot to be walking back from the bus.' Sweat was showing through the shirt he was wearing. 'I probably wouldn't mind it as much if I was fitter. But when do I get the time to work out? At least I've been losing weight.' Some movement off to the side attracted his attention. Something appeared there as he looked. He rushed over, and saw that it was someone in blue and pink armour of some description. It seemed familiar to him somehow. He also noticed that it seemed to be damaged. "Hey? Are you all right?" he asked, mentally telling himself off at what a stupid question it was he'd just asked. He shook the armour lightly. A short moan emanated from inside it. A burst of energy exploded around the two of them just as he realised why it seemed so familiar. Rick screamed in agony as the energy was absorbed into him and the armoured figure, and then he passed out.
Rick awoke to find himself in what seemed to be a hospital room, or maybe an infirmary. As he sat up, he found that it was surprising reassuring. "Heat exhaustion. That must be it. That's what caused the hallucination. There's no way I could have seen power armour." He started laughing nervously. "I'm going insane. That's the only explanation." The door to the room opened, and he looked to see who it was. He blinked to see if the person was going to change from who he thought it was. No such luck. His head dropped back onto the bed.
"You're not going insane, Mister Jakins. This is all quite real," came the polite reply. Rick noticed a distinct lack of emotion present in the voice.
'This is not good,' he thought. 'I've just gotten tangled up in a whole lot of trouble.' "Can you prove that?" His visitor walked over with a pin, and poked him in the arm.
"Is that proof enough?" asked the visitor.
'Still no emotion. That level of control makes Tuvok look like he's in an emotional turmoil.' "The pain in my arm tells me that this is real," said Rick, glaring at the visitor. "So, who are you?" he asked, knowing the answer that he would receive.
"Brian J. Mason, Special assistant to Chairman Quincy of the Genom Corporation. If there's anything you need, please call me on the videophone." He indicated the unit next to the bed. "Please, enjoy our hospitality."
"There's no doubt about it. His identification is authentic, and matches the records," reported Mason. "He's from 1997 all right. According to the date on his watch, he skipped over exactly 35 years. His watch was out by one hour, which is the time difference between here and Western Australia. He was slightly dehydrated, matching the weather conditions at the time, and there was pollen from several plants found in that combination at the time in the city of Perth. However, there is no record of him existing in that time period. So it's either a very elaborate trick, or he's from another universe." Mason's tone told the chairman that he wasn't very happy with the second alternative, but felt that it was the most likely.
"Do you think he could be useful to us if he is from another universe?" asked Quincy.
"There is a possibility that he could give us ideas on technologies we could make. Different universes could have different ways of thinking. I'd also want to know how he got here. He could have the technology to do it, but I doubt that because of his reaction when he woke. He thought that he had gone insane, until I convinced him that this was real."
"And if this is a trick?"
"When we are satisfied of that, we can use him for some biogen experiments. After we find out who he's working for."
"It's your decision, Mason. Do as you see fit."
'This is incredibly bad,' thought Rick. 'I jump between realities and find myself in Genom's clutches.' He started pacing the room, when he felt a cramp in his stomach, and he doubled over, groaning. Two people he assumed were doctors rushed in and started examining him. The pain washed over his whole body for a minute, and then receded. He slowly stood, a little shaky but otherwise all right. The doctors continued their examination, and then left the room. Rick sat on the bed and realised that he felt slightly different. His toe no longer hurt. He looked down at it, and saw that it was perfectly healthy. He frowned, trying to work out what had happened. He couldn't explain it.
"Nene? Are you all right?" asked Linna as her friend dropped in pain. Getting no reply, she ran to get Sylia. She was back a minute later with Sylia and Priss, while Mackie waited outside. Nene slowly got back up.
"I'm fine. Don't ask me what happened, though," said Nene.
"I think you'd better stay here tonight, Nene," said Sylia. "If it happens again, someone will be here."
"Sure. I wouldn't want to ride home. I'm a bit giddy right now." She shook her head, trying to clear her mind completely.
"I don't understand it," admitted one of the doctors. "When we checked him first, he had a bad toe and an ankle condition. They vanished over the course of a minute."
"Nothing we've heard of could possibly do that," added the second doctor. "Apart from his physical conditioning, he's in perfect health. It's completely unknown to medical science at the moment."
"All right. Keep observing him," ordered Mason. As the two doctors left the office, Mason considered what he had just been told. It leant credence to the theory that he was from another universe.
Mason re-entered the room where Rick was. Rick sat up as he entered. "Hi," he said.
"Hello. Do you know what happened to you?"
"You mean that pain thing? No idea what caused it." 'Yeah right,' he thought. "Your people got anything?"
"Not yet, but they should soon."
"Well, if someone comes up with something, could you let me know?" 'I think I have an idea as to what's happening to me,'
"Certainly." Mason then walked out of the room. Rick unconsciously let out a sigh of relief.
'Man, that guy gives me the creeps.' He mentally prepared himself for the pain he suspected was coming. A tingling formed in the core of his body, which rapidly increased into pain. He concentrated on keeping the pain down. After sixty seconds of pain, he breathed out. 'The intervals double, and they don't know it yet.' He thought. He looked down at himself. He now looked extremely fit. 'I wonder...'
Mackie froze when he entered the room Nene was in when she had screamed. Sylia bumped into him as she ran around the corner. "What?" asked Nene, recovering from the pain and noticing Mackie's slack jaw. Sylia walked in wordlessly and guided Nene to a full length mirror. Nene was speechless for a moment. "Well, it gives us something to do," she said, considering her new figure.
"I kind of like it," said Mackie. Nene spun and glared at him.
'Next boost, one AM, local time. Looking forward to it,' thought Rick. 'And those bastards don't know a thing about it. I wonder what I'll get next? Flight? Telepathy? Super Strength? Whatever I get, it should be good.' He lay on the bed he had been provided with. Staying awake wasn't going to be much of a problem, the mattress was well outside of his tolerance range. To keep himself alert, he started thinking about what he would do when he got out of Genom. Joining the Knight Sabers sounded good. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. He set himself for a long wait, considering everything he knew about this universe. He started to lose his place since he didn't want to write anything down.
Nene was sleeping lightly. Sylia looked down at the youngest Knight Saber. She didn't know what was happening to her, but she was extremely concerned about it. She looked at her watch, and saw that it was almost one. Mackie walked in.
"You should be asleep," said Sylia.
"You should be as well," replied Mackie. "I'll watch her for a while so you can get some sleep."
"Thank you," she said, knowing that Mackie was right. She had to run the store, so she needed some sleep. "I'll be back in a few hours." Sylia stood and was about to leave when Nene woke up, crying in pain. Half a minute later, the pain died down.
"What's happening to me?" she asked as Sylia hugged her.
"I don't know," came the reply. Nene cried into Sylia's shoulder, scared at the loss of control. "I think you should call in sick for a while. Until we can work out what's happening."
'I don't feel any different,' thought Rick after the pain had passed through him. He decided to consider it later, and turned the lights off to get some sleep.
Sylia sat in the hardsuit bay, considering what had happened. She saw some possible patterns and decided to backtrack to see if anything had happened. She called up the flight recorder data from Nene's hardsuit and checked the data for one hour before. The communications logs showed that she had lost the transponder signals of the other hardsuits for sixty seconds. In that time, she heard a voice speak. "Hey! Are you all right?" she was asked in English. Then, there was a scream of pain from the same voice. Sylia then went over the communication logs of the other three hardsuits, and found that they lost Nene's transponder signal for a minute, but they had been too busy fighting to notice. She then physically examined Nene's hardsuit, and found some dirt and grass blades caught in the damaged areas. 'Where did this come from?' she wondered.
Rick was awakened at eight thirty the next morning by a maid. "Good morning," she said.
"Morning." He noticed the trolley she had brought. "Would I like the answer if I asked if that had breakfast in it?"
"Yes." She looked him over for a moment. "I'll be back in a few minutes with some clothes for you." She turned and left.
'Ten bucks says she's a boomer,' thought Rick as he started to eat breakfast. Ten minutes later, he had finished eating the meal and the maid came back, carrying a set of clothes.
"Here you are. There's a shower through there."
"Thank you. Is there any chance of getting a radio or something in here? I'm going stir crazy with nothing to do." The maid turned to a wall and pulled a section open.
"Here you are," she said.
"Thanks again." He looked around as the maid left, and saw his backpack in the corner. He walked over and opened it, finding the CDs he'd had in his bag. He grabbed one and put it into the CD Player. The familiar tune flowed from it, and he walked into the shower. Hopefully, the water and the music would prevent the bugs from picking anything up.
The technician who had been monitoring the bugs in Rick's room cursed. He turned to the videophone and made a call. "Mason."
"Sir, we can't hear what he's doing now. He's got some music playing, and it's masking the bugs."
"Relax. Once we identify all of the music on it, we can mask it from the bugs. We can't make him suspicious, can we?"
"I guess not, sir. When we've got all of the music, we'll let you know."
"Good." Mason hung up. The technician sighed, and started on the task of identifying the music. Given that it was likely to be almost forty years old, it wasn't going to be an easy task.
'Almost time,' thought Rick as he glanced at his watch. He braced himself for the pain. It washed over him, and died down much quicker.
Nene woke again from the pain. Mackie was sitting nearby, waking from the short shout of pain that Nene made. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"I think so. I hope this stops soon," said Nene.
"I don't know if it will stop, but they will get further apart," said Sylia as she walked in. "Expect the next pain burst at one tomorrow morning."
"How do you know?"
"The interval is increasing geometrically. Soon they'll be years apart. But for now, you'll get this late at night and early in the morning. I don't know why, but I think I know the trigger. You vanished for about sixty seconds an hour before the first pain burst. That seems to be what caused it. As to what happened in that sixty seconds, I'm not sure. Someone asked you if you were all right, and then they screamed in pain."
Nene closed her eyes, thinking back. "I do remember someone asking if I was all right. I was kind of out of it then."
"Well, if you feel up to it, I want to run you through some tests so I can adjust your hardsuit and see what other changes have occured. Mackie, can you look after the store this morning?"
"Not for too long," said Mackie. "I didn't sleep much last night."
"Good. Whenever your ready, Nene." The young redhead nodded, and started to prepare for the day after Mackie had left.
"We've got about half of the songs identified. The others aren't bringing up any matches in the computer, so we're going through collections. Adding the fact that he sings along to half of the songs, and it's mayhem as far as bugging him is concerned," said the technician. "We won't be able to get anything for a while."
"Keep working on it," said Mason. "I want to listen in on him as soon as possible."
Nene walked out of the testing chamber. "How did I do?" she asked, breathing hard.
"Better than you've ever done," replied Sylia. "You're on level six now."
"Level six? Wow! I guess there's a lot more happening to me than just a better figure," said Nene, excitedly. "What now?"
"I want to test your physical abilities individually. So, if you'll meet me in the gym, we can check them out."
Rick was mildly surprised to be joined for lunch by Mason. "So, have there been any repeats of the pain?" he asked.
"No," lied Rick. "Just the one."
"That's good to hear." The tone Mason used indicated that it was anything but. "So, I suppose you want to hear about where you are now."
"That would be good. I'm rather confused right now. I'd never heard of Genom before last night." Rick hoped his lie would pass.
"Well, Genom is the world's largest multinational company. We produce most of the world's manufactured goods, and we extract about half of the worlds primary products. We also hold world-wide rights to the manufacture of boomers. You are currently in Genom's corporate headquarters, located in MegaTokyo."
"MegaTokyo?" asked Rick. "When did Tokyo get so big?"
"What year is it?" said Mason.
"1997."
"This is hard for me to explain. You are no longer in 1997. You have travelled 35 years into the future. It is currently 2032." Rick stared at Mason in fake surprise. "The world as you know it has changed. Tokyo was all but destroyed in the second Kanto Earthquake in 2025. It was rebuilt as MegaTokyo. Boomers are biomechanical machines, designed to help people by performing dangerous tasks."
"I see," said Rick, slowly. "If you'll excuse me, I want to come to terms with this on my own." Mason nodded and left the room. Rick reached into his bag and pulled out another CD, replacing the one in the CD Player. Some new music, with a more military beat to it, started coming from the sound system.
"You're strength and agility levels have increased dramatically, Nene," said Sylia.
"How much by?" asked Nene. Priss looked at the display over Sylia's shoulder.
"Let's put it this way. If you're speed increases by a similar amount, you should be able to stand a chance against an unarmed boomer without your hardsuit," said the brown haired singer.
"Wow!" said Nene. "And I've got no reason not to expect a speed increase!"
"Still, you had better be prepared for the next burst of pain. I'll adjust your hardsuits control programming tonight, leaving in a provision for increased speed. I'll want you down here to test the changes. All right?" asked Sylia.
"Sure," said Nene, cheerfully.
'I really need to gain access to some kind of facility in order to find out what's happening, but I'm not about to let Genom find out. They'd probably kill me if they found out I'd been lying to them. Mason would without turning a hair.' He looked over to the CD Player. 'Good luck to them trying to locate a Command and Conquer CD.'
Over the next five days, Rick and Nene both experienced three more boosts. Rick was still in the dark as to what they had done, but due to testing, Nene was aware that she could now move silently, and had indeed received a speed increase and more endurance. She surprised everyone by making it to level eight in the simulator. The Knight Sabers were amazed at what had happened, and had run out of conjecture.
Rick was awakened by a loud noise. He was a little bit fuzzy for a moment, but then realised that there had been an explosion in the building. 'That must be the start of the second OAV,' he thought. 'Perfect time to get out of here,' He slid over to his backpack and got changed into street clothes. He stuffed the rest of his belongings into his backpack and walked over to the door. He pushed at it, and it opened slightly. He pushed it suddenly, and it hit the guard who had been standing behind the door, knocking him out. Another guard was on the other side of the door, and started to raise his gun. Quicker than he had expected to be able to, he sprang at the guard, knocking him out with a well-timed punch. A quick search of the guards netted him ten five thousand yen credit sticks and two guns with two spare clips of ammunition. 'I'm probably going to need more than that, but I should be able to make do.' He started moving as quietly as possible, searching for more guards and an exit. It was just a question of which he found first. He found guards first. He KO'd the two guards he passed, netting and extra ten credit sticks and four clips of ammunition. Then he found a window. "I hate heights," he muttered. "Too high to attempt a climb to the base." He looked down and saw the vehicle access around the tower two floors down. He smiled and pulled out one of the guns. He had second thoughts for half a second, but went ahead and smashed the window. He cleared the glass from the bottom, and climbed out.
In the security office near the base of Genom Tower, another alarm sounded. "There's a window broken on the fiftieth floor," said the person monitoring the security systems.
"Who's up there right now?"
"Henderson is."
"Right." The second security officer keyed his radio. "Henderson, there's a broken window on your floor. Check it out." There was silence over the radio. "Henderson?"
"Jakins," muttered the first security officer.
"Maybe. Edwards?" he asked over the radio. No reply. "All officers, be on the lookout for any unauthorised personnel."
Rick jogged downwards, circling the tower. He saw the crowd forming at the entrance to the tower. "That's going to liven things up if they decide to send any boomers after me." He picked up the pace a bit.
"He's gone," reported one of the security guards. "He's taken his things with him as well. He also has the weapons from the guards he knocked out. We have to assume he had eight clips of ammunition."
"All right, Mister Jakins is now a liability," said Mason. He cut of the video connection. He made another call. "Send six C-55's to dispose of Mister Jakins."
Rick stopped and spun in place as he heard some things crash down on the ramp behind him. He spun back and sprinted as they burst into C-55 boomers. He slammed around the tower just in time to escape their heat rays. He kept running, though. He reached the bottom of the ramp and sprinted for the crowd. Not caring about whether or not he knocked anyone over, he ran through it, with the C-55's flying after him.
"You bastard!" shouted Priss at the receding figure. "If I ever catch you, you're going to wish you hadn't done that!"
"He's outrunning six C-55's, Priss," said Linna. "I doubt that you're going to catch him. Besides, all he did was knock you over."
"I'm still going to kill him for that. He didn't even apologise."
The scanner monitoring AD Police radio beeped. Nene turned the volume up. "Seven boomers downtown, causing damage to property. Six are confirmed to be C-55's, one is of undetermined class at this time."
"I think we should go help," said Sylia. "ADP won't be able to handle seven boomers on their own at short notice."
"I'm ready for it," said Nene. She'd been itching to try her adjusted hardsuit for a couple of days.
"Good. Let's go."
Rick turned a corner extremely quickly, making the boomers slow down to avoid crashing into a nearby building. Two of the boomers didn't make the turn, and crashed into buildings. They extracted themselves from the rubble, and began the pursuit again. Rick made another turn and saw an ADP line being set up. He charged straight through, causing consternation amongst the officers present. A more immediate threat caught their notice, and they began firing at the C-55's that had turned up. After holding the boomers at bay for thirty seconds, Nene and Sylia arrived. Nene destroyed two boomers in thirty seconds, while Sylia eliminated one in that time. The other three boomers were destroyed in the next twenty seconds.
"Where's the other one?" asked Sylia.
"There are no other boomers," said Nene, checking her scanners. "Three possibilities. It was fast enough to get out of range, it can mask it's signal, or it wasn't a boomer."
"I don't like any of those possibilities," said Sylia.
"Well, I can move fast enough to keep ahead of a C-55 now," pointed out Nene. Sylia conceded the point.
"Let's go back to base then," she said, and they both flew off. The officer in charge at the scene contacted headquarters.
"Chief, it's Thompson...No, the other one. We're going to have to change the evaluation of one of the Knight Sabers. I'll fill you in when I get back."
"I still can't believe that happened!" said Priss as they entered the Silky Doll.
"Can't believe what happened?" asked Nene.
"Some guy was running from half a dozen C-55's and knocked Priss over," said Linna. "I think she's a little angry about it."
"Six C-55's?" asked Nene.
"Yeah. He ran from the tower," said Priss.
"Do you think there was a chance that it was a boomer?" asked Sylia.
"No way. He didn't feel a thing like a boomer," said Priss. "Why?"
"We got a report of a bunch of rogue boomers. Six C-55's and an unknown type. I think we destroyed the pursuing boomers," said Sylia.
"And they're probably re-evaluating their data on me," said Nene, smiling widely.
"Do you feel up to returning to work, Nene?" asked Sylia.
"Definitely. You did say that my next attack would be in five days, anyway. I've never felt better."
"Good. Find out what you can about today's events. Priss, you try to find out what you can from your sources. All right?"
"Yes Sylia," replied the two of them.
"You've lost weight," said Naoko as Nene walked up behind her. "If that's because of the illness, I want to catch it."
"It's not worth the trouble," said Nene. "Believe me on that one."
"So, have you heard what happened yesterday?" asked Naoko.
"No," replied Nene.
"Well, just after the explosion in Genom Tower, Leon and Daley were moving through the crowd. They saw someone running away from the tower, knocking people out of his way, and he was being chased by six C-55 boomers. They ran into a hastily made roadblock. The guy ran through, and he must have been a boomer because he managed to stay ahead of the other boomers, and our guys opened fire on the other boomers. Then, the white and pink/blue Knight Sabers showed up. I wish I'd seen it! The pink/blue Saber destroyed four of the boomers in under a minute! They're busy trying to work out what could have happened. The best they can figure is that it's a whole new person in there."
"And what do you think?" asked Nene.
"Maybe she overcame a confidence problem or something. Still, it would have been good to watch. She was like us, just supporting the others with technical skills, but the others wouldn't survive without her. I hope they really appreciate her value now."
"The way you're speaking, it sounds like you're the pink/blue Knight Saber." They both fell over giggling.
"Oh yeah," said Naoko after getting her breath back. "They also got a photograph of the mystery boomer. It's in the incident report, but I can't get at it."
"OK, let's see," said Nene, moving into business mode. Her hands flew across the keyboard as she dug through the security and pulled up the incident report. Quickly, she saved it locally and pulled out of the database. She then brought up the picture. Nene blinked as she thought she recognised him from somewhere.
"If he wasn't a boomer, I'd probably fawn over him as well," said Naoko, not knowing the real reason for Nene's stare. Nene shook her head.
"I'm not fawning," she said defensively. "He does look great, though." However much she tried to dismiss it, she couldn't shake the feeling that she knew him from somewhere.
Rick rode on the train to Yokohama. He had decided that he ought to introduce himself to the Knight Sabers, and thought that it would probably be a good idea to help them upon introduction. Hence, he found himself on the train, planning to search Yokohama until he found Linna and Irene to keep an eye on them. He looked around nervously, half expecting a boomer to pop out at him. At least he'd worked out what the last five boosts had done for him. He wondered what the next boost had in store for him.
"Irene!" shouted Linna after she saw the car heading in the direction her friend had taken. She was about to chase after the car when someone ran next to her and drew a gun, aiming it at the car. Two shots echoed through the street, and the boomer inside slumped as the bullet penetrated it's skull.
"Armour piercing? They had armour piercing bullets?" said Rick in disbelief. "I'm glad I knocked them out before they could react to me. Armour piercing. Brrr." He shivered.
"Who had armour piercing bullets?" asked Linna as Irene came back slowly.
"Those guards I knocked out. If I'd have known that, then I would have just shot those C-55's and not run through an ADP boomer stopper."
"You're the one who was being chased by those boomers yesterday?"
"Yeah. I don't think Genom likes me now, especially since I KO'd four of their guards and lied pretty heavily to Mason." He walked to the car and looked at the boomer. It was quite dead. "And deactivated one of his bodyguards."
"So, who are you?" asked Irene.
"My name is Rick, and I'm from another universe where this universe exists as a fictional series. As such, I know many things, including the fact that you were meant to wind up dead in the next five minutes, and the identities of the Knight Sabers. I'm also going through something completely and totally weird at the moment, that let me get away from Genom. I need somewhere to crash and the cash I got from the guards is going to run out soon. This city is more expensive than it looks."
"Do you have any evidence to back your claims up?" asked Linna.
"Ok, your name is Linna Yamizaki, and you're an aerobics instructor at Pheobe's near AD Police headquarters. You used to be a dancer, your parents were killed by a rogue boomer just after the second Kanto earthquake and your best friends are Priss Assagiri, lead singer of Priss and the Replicants, and Nene Romanova, a dispatcher in AD Police." He turned his head to look directly at Irene. "I don't know too much about you, Irene Chang, but I do know that your fiance was killed in the explosion at Genom Tower yesterday, and after I raced through the crowd you went up to confront Mason over his death. Priss and Linna went to help you, and then an AD Police inspector called Leon McNichol intervened. You have a sister called Reika who is also known as Vision." Linna and Irene were speechless. Then Priss rode up.
"What's up Linna?" she asked. "And who's this?"
"It's a long story," said Linna. Then she thought for a moment. "Actually, it's a short story, but I wish it was longer. Anyway, you wanted to catch the guy who knocked you over yesterday?" Priss stared at Rick, her eyes narrowing. She reached for her gun. Rick was quicker, drawing both of the guns he had 'borrowed' from Genom.
"Don't even think about it Priss. I'm a hell of a lot faster than I used to be. Now, can we get out of here? I don't particularly want to be around here when someone comes looking for that boomer. I'm rather high on Genom's kill list right now." He slipped the guns back into his belt as Priss moved her hand away from her gun.
"Why should we trust you?" asked Priss.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," said Rick. "Or at least my ally. I was a 'guest' of Genom for a week. I was fairly certain that they had me bugged, so I kept my knowledge to myself. Then, when I left, they sent half a dozen boomers after me, and the guard at the door tried to shoot me. With armour piercing bullets. Now, can we get out of here? I do want to avoid Genom's clean up crew."
"All right, our transport should be arriving soon," said Linna. "We'll just wait here."
"And if we see any boomers, we shoot, right?" asked Priss. Rick leant over to Irene.
"I think I should have taken her gun off of her," he muttered. Linna spent the time before Mackie arrived in the van keeping Priss from killing Rick.
Sylia was sipping tea while she waited for Mackie to get back. She closed her eyes and listened as voices started moving towards her.
"I still don't think I deserved that!" Priss.
"Priss, you need to be taken down a peg now and then." Linna.
"Thank you for your support, Linna." Priss again.
"Hey, don't look at me. He's the one who said it." Sylia didn't recognise that voice. She guessed that it was Linna's friend, Irene.
"Well, it needed to be said." Mackie. "Isn't that right?"
"Sure. If you look in the dictionary under trigger happy, you'd find Priss or the average combat boomer." Sylia recognised the voice from somewhere, but couldn't quite place it.
"I'm going to get you for that!" That wasn't the smartest thing he could have said.
"Hey, are you all right Priss?" Sylia dropped her cup as she realised where she had heard the voice before. "You're face has gone an interesting shade of purple." Sylia's eyes snapped open as the five of them walked in. "Maybe not the best time to walk in," muttered Rick as he saw the broken teacup on the table. A few seconds later, Nene came in the other door.
"Sylia, I managed to get hold of a picture of that boomer," She looked up and saw the six people in the room. "But I see that I don't need it now." She put the picture on the table, making sure not to drop it in the tea. From where he was standing, Rick could see that it was a picture of him rushing through the ADP blockade. There was an uncomfortable silence for a minute before Sylia broke it.
"Would you care to explain this?" she asked, indicating the photograph. Rick sighed and began to explain what had happened, editing out the bursts of pain.
"Well, I walking home from the bus stop after finishing work, when something caught my eye..."
"...so I decided to stop the attack on Irene. After that I came here and you know the rest of the story." He looked at his audience. Linna and Irene had the appearance of completely believing him, Nene looked as if she wanted to believe it, Mackie appeared doubtful, Priss seemed to have made up her mind to disbelieve him, while Sylia looked serious. Priss noticed this.
"I can't believe you're giving this story serious consideration!" she exclaimed.
"It does fit the evidence available." said Sylia.
"There's hard evidence," said Rick.
"It's true?" asked Priss, her face showing shock.
"I'm inclined to believe it," said Sylia. "To succeed in faking this, Genom would have to be more advanced than they actually are." She looked hard at Rick. "So, what exactly do you plan to do?"
"I don't really have much planned. I managed to get about a hundred thousand yen from the guards I knocked out. From the prices around here, I don't think it would last too long if I lived on the street. Not to mention the risk from Genom. I honestly don't know what to do. There are less than a dozen people in this world I could possibly turn to for help without being stabbed in the back. Over half of them are in this room." The silence returned. Finally, Sylia spoke.
"Since you have nowhere to go, and Genom would try to kill you if they found you, I'm inclined to offer you a place to stay. Irene, the same goes for you. I'll arrange somewhere safe for you to stay. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have something we need to do." The Knight Sabers and Mackie started to leave.
"Hey, watch out for the big red thing," said Rick as they left the room. He gave a sigh of relief as they left. "I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull that off," he muttered.
"Can I ask you a question?" said Irene.
"You just did," deadpanned Rick. "Shoot."
"Who are the Knight Sabers?"
"I don't think you ought to be told who, but you have met them all," said Rick. "I'm going to go and get some sleep." He grabbed his bag and went to the room he had been assigned. He crashed onto the bed, but despite his tiredness, he had trouble getting to sleep.
"Morning," said Rick as he walked into the kitchen. Sylia responded in kind as Rick went over to the cupboard and grabbed a glass. He filled it with orange juice and sat down. "There was one positive thing about staying in Genom Tower."
"What was that?" asked Sylia.
"Wake-up calls. How'd it go last night?"
"Priss and Linna dealt with the bodyguards while Nene and I beat the 'big red thing'," Rick raised an eyebrow at this, but refrained from comment. He started to drain his glass of juice when Sylia spoke again. "If you feel up to it, I could run you through the combat simulator." Rick thought back to the events that had occured in Genom Tower. He set his glass down.
"Sounds like fun," he said. "There's something I want to test as well, and it had best be done in the lab."
"Namely?"
"How good that ammo Genom has really is."
"That's extremely good ammunition," said Sylia after Rick had made a test shot into plate armour.
"I'll say," said Rick, from where he had fired. "If they hit the same spot twice, they'll get through your current armour."
"It's very hard to hit the same spot...," said Sylia. Rick fired a second shot, silencing Sylia.
"Twice?" Sylia looked at the armour. The second bullet had punched through the other, making a hole all the way through the armour.
"Good shot," offered Priss.
"I Robin Hood a bullet and all you can say is 'Good shot?'" asked Rick. "That's stretching the definition of good." Priss shrugged.
"Well," interrupted Sylia. "I suggest you get changed so I can test you." Rick nodded and headed to the changing rooms. Sylia turned to Priss. "Why are you so hostile towards him?"
"Why shouldn't I be? He waltzes in with an unbelievable story, and basically blackmails his way in."
"If he wanted to blackmail us, he wouldn't have come here to tell us he's going to. He would have just called over the videophone and threatened us."
"I don't do blackmail," said Rick, entering in a softsuit. "So, now what?"
"I'll start you out at level one and see how you go," said Sylia.
Half an hour later, Priss came down and noticed that Rick was in the simulator fighting. "How's he doing?" she asked.
"Extremely well. He's as good as you in a fight," replied Sylia. Priss looked annoyed as Sylia said this. "Ok, that's enough." Rick came out of the chamber and looked at her.
"How'd I do?" he asked.
"Your natural speed, strength and agility compensate for your obvious lack of training."
"Well, I kind of had to learn on the job," said Rick defensively. "And right hooks aren't exactly hard to learn."
"Also, you are very accurate with ranged weapons. I'd say that you were ready to handle a hardsuit now. Of course, I'd have to build it first." Rick and Priss didn't miss the implications of that statement.
"You can't be serious!" said Priss.
"Since when does Sylia joke about serious matters, Priss?" Rick quietly asked. "I need something to do with my time, and the Knight Sabers are a noble cause." He turned to Sylia. "If you are offering me a place in the Knight Sabers, I would be honoured to accept."
"I still don't like it," said Priss.
"If it's about me knocking you over a couple of days ago, would it help if I said sorry?"
"Well, yes," admitted Priss. "But I'm still going to get you for that."
"I'm going to have Linna set up a training schedule for you to improve your fighting skills. Also, based on the data I got from the testing earlier, I can begin construction of your hardsuit," said Sylia. "I'll have Mackie start training you in hardsuit maintenance. Priss, try not to kill our new recruit."
"Looks like I'm going to be busy for a while," said Rick. "Anything else?"
"Yes. What colour scheme would you like?"
Rick looked nervously at his watch. He sat in Sylia's lounge, waiting for the next boost to occur. 'One minute," he thought. Nene and Sylia entered the room. "Hi," he said, smiling at the pair.
"Hi," said Nene, a little nervously. He wondered why she was nervous.
"What's up?" asked Rick, noticing the medical kit that Sylia was carrying.
"It's kind of hard to explain," said Nene as she sat on a chair. Sylia sat down as well.
"It started eleven days ago," said Sylia.
"But that's when I arrived..." said Rick, trailing off as he guessed at what was happening. A gasp of pain came from Nene. Rick turned reflexively, losing his concentration. He realised that Nene was going through the same thing he was. "Oh shit," he breathed as he realised he'd lost his focus. A second later, a wave of pain struck him. A minute later, he managed to concentrate again. He looked to see Sylia looking very confused. "There's something I neglected to mention," said Rick, weakly. Sylia's expression cleared. Rick noticed that Nene seemed angry. He then realised that he couldn't see Nene. He felt the anger seep away, to be replaced by confusion. He looked at Nene. "Empathy. Knowing how my luck's been running lately, it's probably a prelude to telepathy. And I really don't want that."
"Why not?" asked Nene.
"Telepathy lets you communicate with anyone mentally, and lets you read them." Rick moved to sit next to Nene. "If the thoughts of those around you are strong enough, you'll be reading them more or less permanently if you couldn't shield out the thoughts. As it is, we can get their emotions. Probably to let us practice screening out extraneous information."
"I see," said Nene. "This isn't getting any easier."
"It's not meant to be," said Rick. "The solution is to try and filter it out. Once you find a way that works, you practice it regularly until it becomes easier to do. You don't do anything else in that time. Then, when you don't need as much concentration, you try it while doing other things, splitting your attention. Eventually, you should be able to think of it as a switch, turning it on and off at will. It will make things easier when we do wind up with telepathy."
"Right." Rick could sense fear and excitement from the redhead. "What happens if we can't control telepathy?"
"Insanity," said Sylia.
"I didn't know you had an interest in the paranormal, Sylia," said Rick.
"It's just a passing interest."
"Well, I'm a bit more aquatinted with it. You're right, though. You'd lose yourself in the thoughts of others. We have eleven days until the next boost, which could be telepathy. We need to be able to control it by then." Rick closed his eyes and began to concentrate. He smiled as he achieved some success in blocking the incoming emotions. Nene tried it as well.
"It's not working," said Nene. Rick shifted out of his blocking state.
"I've been blocking things for the better part of a decade, so I have more practice at it. Try not to block out everything."
"How?"
"Focus on one person. I'm going to be here for a while, so you can focus on me. Close your eyes, and listen to my voice." Nene complied. Rick looked at Sylia. He silently mouthed "It'll be easier if you left," and waved her away. Sylia nodded and left as quietly as possible. "I want you to clear your mind of all other thoughts..."
Two hours later, Sylia knocked on the door of the lounge. A minute later, Rick opened it. "Hi," he said quietly.
"How's it going?" asked Sylia.
"Fine. Nene can focus on one person now," replied Rick. "It's rather tiring for her, though. She's been asleep for the last one and a half hours. I didn't have the heart to wake her, though." Sylia looked through and saw Nene curled up on the couch, sleeping lightly.
"I don't have the heart to wake her either. How are you handling this?"
"Fine. I've had to deal with lots of things before. This is just another one. I'm a little insane already, which helps a lot."
"I'm sure it does. Could you block everything else out?"
"There's a neat little trick that occured to me after Nene fell asleep. I'm turning the focus on myself. It's a matter of willpower at the moment, but I'm getting used to it."
"That's good. Do you think she can handle going to work at the moment?" Rick shook his head.
"Focusing on me was made easier by the lack of people around her. If she went to work now, she'd be overwhelmed by emotions. That wouldn't be good for her. She should stay here for a while, until she gets the hang of blocking emotions."
"You're the closest thing to an expert one what's happening," said Sylia. "How long do you think it will be until she can handle it?"
"I don't know. However, from now on I suggest that Nene and I be alone when the next boost comes. Any controls will fall, either due to the effort to mask the pain, or the pain itself. We can bring each other back to normal afterwards."
"That's probably the best thing," agreed Sylia. "We'll try that for the next boost, and see how you go."
"So, how's the work going on my hardsuit?"
"It'll be ready in a week. The colour scheme is exactly as requested."
"Thanks." Rick settled back into a chair to wait for Nene to wake up.
"Are you sure you want to go through with this? If you're having second thoughts, we can find something else for you to do."
"No, I have to do this. I'm not going to let some bastard in the tower dictate my life to me. I've never been one to buckle under. I may suffer for it, but my will hasn't broken once yet." 'Well, not completely,' he admitted to himself.
"It's your decision. I hope you know what you're doing." Sylia left, quietly closing the door behind her. Rick went back to waiting for Nene to wake up.
"I hope so too," he whispered.
