From cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu (Chris Meadows) Subject: [Oberon, Inc.] Repost: The Summer Arc Date: Fri, 27 Aug 93 16:22:00 GMT This is a repost of the recent [Oberon, Inc.] story arc which took place over the summer. At the sugestion of some of my friends, I am reposting it, as a) there isn't much of it, b) the people who weren't here over the summer will have missed it, and c) it was so long ago, even the people who WERE here can't remember it very well. I can't remember what the titles were when I posted them originally, so I am renaming them appropriately here. I also added a fairly short post onto the end of the larger post, "A Factory Under Siege!". [Oberon, Inc.] Memories Kevin watched as the last of the purchasers of their mecha line drove out of the showroom, in a hurry to try out their new vehicles. Kevin chuckled at the overeager anticipation evident in the eyes of some--even the most vehicle-jaded individual had to harbor a secret thrill at being allowed to pilot the vehicle that had been for so long the private domain of military forces. Only a few people remained in the showroom now. These were those who had wanted one of the mecha that they had seen in the showroom but had been sold out before they'd gotten a chance to place their orders. They were told that their mecha would be delivered to their places of residence within a few days, but they still waited, milling around, unsure what to do or where to go. Jerry walked back behind the desk/console where Kevin still sat, and sat down beside him. "That went rather well, doncha think?" Kevin nodded. "They look happy," he said. "Yep, and I'm happy too! We've made quite a profit over the last several hours. In fact, I went ahead and ordered another shipment of mecha for the showroom. When word gets around, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a second rush of customers." "Jer, is profiteering all you can think about? I thought the point of this business was to bring a new form of recreation to the consumer." "Oh, yes, yes, of COURSE, Kev. But to do that, we're gonna have to stay in business, know what I'm saying?" Jerry patted Kevin on the back and stood up. "'Scuse me. I'm going to go over there and tell those guys that we've got more merchandise on its way. Oughtta make their days, doncha think?" He vaulted over the desk and ran off toward the remaining cadre of customers. "I don't know about this..." Kevin muttered. "What about when PW finds out? And Jerry's not like he used to be at all..." Kevin reflected on his brother's mixed-up past, and his own which was mixed right in there with it. Jerry Wycoff had been a mechanical genius from the time he was very young. From the time he could first hold a wrench, he had. Held a wrench, that is. And done far more with it than just hold it. He'd worked in their parents' 'speeder service station from a very young age, up 'til the Terra-IV Royal Navy had drafted him into service. As was typical for armed forces bureaucracy, no one had noticed his natural mechanical aptitudes, sticking him instead into a mechanized infantry corps. Jer had worn Vanguard power suits, flown Crusader-class heavy assault mechs, and loved every minute of it. The sheer power, the adrenalin rushthe versatility at HIS hands...it was a very addictive feeling. Then another fortunate happenstance had occurred. Private First Class Jerry Wycoff had been promoted to Lance Corporal and transferred, having proved his worth time and time again in some very sticky operations. The new position Jerry found himself in was an enviable one--head mecha test pilot for the TARN project to develop a second-generation mecha that would eliminate the problems found in the Vanguard and Crusader-class mecha. This was news to Jerry, who hadn't really seen any problems. But he learned about them from his mechanic-friends in the program. The Vanguard was small and maneuverable, but it had a problem. It was rather weak. Some stronger mecha-troopers had taken to removing the hydraulic support systems entirely, saying they just slowed them down. The Crusader, which was much larger, had the problem of being too bulky and slow for anything other than infantry-support. The Terra-IV Royal Navy needed something combining the best qualities of both...and they had some good technicians, too. In time, they probably would have accomplished the task. However, budgetary concerns got to the program, and its purpose was changed from creating new technology for new mechs to simply upgrading the existing designs. All the prototype plans went right out the window. However, Jerry had been learning a great deal about mecha technology, and he'd had some ideas of his own for improving the mecha. However, he didn't volunteer them, for as he'd learned during his stint as a lowly PFC, volunteering information was one of the worst things you could do as a noncom. Instead, Jerry served his 6-year stint and got out, heading back home to the family garage where his younger brother Kevin had been rather successfully racing motorbikes and hoverbikes, earning some good spending money. Jerry continued to develop his mecha technology, in secret. And he came up with some astounding ideas. Because of the extreme efficiency of movement of his design, it was able to change configurations. This was far more than having extreme maneuverability--the mini-mecha could actually change from power armor to assume a vehicular configuration! One night, as Jerry was secretly trying out his Mark I Excalibur, having a wonderful time on the reconfigurable mecha unit, it occurred to him: why not SELL mecha to the general public? They would make great recreational vehicles, after all... Admittedly, the idea of profit was also there, but to hear Jerry tell it, he'd always held the idea of a remarkable new vehicle type, "as great a leap in vehicular evolution as when they introduced the gravcar," in the forefront. Or so he'd said to Kevin. But now Kevin was beginning to suspect that there was something else on Jerry's mind besides just getting this new vehicle to the consumer. Kevin forced himself to recall the rest of what happened, too. How they had nearly been arrested when they'd come to set up their first dealership--a platoon of TARN Vanguard troopers, backed up by several Crusaders, had been waiting for them. Only the extreme maneuverability (not to mention black-market heavy weapons) of the Excalibur prototypes Jerry had made for them enabled them to escape. But they were pursued by military and government agents wherever they went. They only managed to escape by getting off-planet in the old freighter Jerry managed to "liberate" from a stockyard--the freighter later renovated and renamed the FREEBIRD. After that, they'd been chased from planet to planet, setting up for a few months in various places, picking up some dedicated personnel, then having to leave when TARN got too close on their tails. Then Jerry had discovered this place, and they'd come here. Now instead of one of the galaxies' largest militaries to deal with, they just had a bear the size of an old-style Terran pickup truck, bristling with heavy weapons all over its body. With what Kevin had heard about PW, however, he was beginning to wonder if he wouldn't rather take his chances with the military. [The post in which Louis sights her real body walking by the window and injures herself (and the window) trying to chase it on her mechabike goes here. However, since it has been changed and reposted by Donovan since I originally posted it, and since it isn't really all that important to the [Oberon, Inc.] story anyway, I'm leaving it out of this.] [Oberon, Inc.] A Factory Under Siege! Kevin's concerns about PW seemed to be unfounded. For the next couple of days, there was no untoward repercussion from their mecha merchandise. PW never came. Then Kevin learned that this was because PW had gone on vacation. It was mentioned in an administrative notice on one of the local law-enforcement newsgroups on SereNet. Kevin wouldn't have been reading it except for his worries. This message seemed to assuage some of them. But Kevin had other worries, too. As he wandered through the factory, he started noticing things that didn't add up. The main production line was NOT producing as many Excalibur Mark IX civilian mechabikes as the records stated they were supposed to be. The missing mecha simply weren't there, and none of the employees would talk to him about it. They all apparently had some overriding loyalty to his brother, and Kevin was rather annoyed about it. "That's all I AM. A figurehead. Jerry tolerates me because I'm family...he lets me ride around on my bike, spread publicity, hire rat-girls, and select winners in our mecha giveaway, but am I trusted with anything important? Nope...you'd think I didn't take college-level chipcourses in business all these years we've been on the run. He just doesn't TRUST me." Or was it something DEEPER than that? he wondered darkly. Kevin checked over the latest corp records on his pocket secretary as he walked through the corridor of the Oberon, Incorporated factory 'plex. The latest records that were AVAILABLE to him, that is...Jerry kept some sectors of the corp computer top secret, even from HIM! Or perhaps, ESPECIALLY from him...he suspected that some of the corporate officials under Jerry also had access to these areas. People like Tom Watts, Jerry's Chief of Staff. Tom was a nice enough guy, but he had a complete and total loyalty to Jerry that Kevin found disturbing. What was in this portion of the computer? Secret records? Projects that Jerry didn't want Kevin to know about? What could be so important that Jerry would keep it secret from his own brother? Kevin had some ideas...and he didn't like them. Kevin dropped the minicomputer back into its belt pouch and walked out to the corporate parking lot where his own Excalibur Mark X military prototype was parked. He was going to take the initiative--he was going to run into town and find himself an expert. He would find what was in those secret files or know the reason why! As he stepped out onto the parking lot, Kevin glanced over, through the chain-link fences and security posts, at the corporate landing field. It had gone up in seven days using the latest speed-fabrication techniques. This was the current resting place of the FREEBIRD, the former-junker freighter that had been their sole escape from many worlds on which they'd found themselves no longer welcome. Would it be their route off this one? Kevin shook off the morbid thought as he found his mechabike. Then he noticed the other mechabike parked nearby--the bright yellow and grey plasticized Mark IX Excalibur sitting in the lot. With a pink tail peeking out from behind it. Kevin chuckled, and walked on over to the bike, and walked around it. As he'd thought, there was Louis, sitting on the ground and looking at it bemusedly. "Hey there!" Kevin said, squatting on the balls of his feet to match Louis's position. "What's up?" Louis winced, startled. Her tail winced, too, a good three seconds after she did. "Oh! Hi. Just looking." She climbed onto the mechabike and pressed a couple of buttons, nose twitching slightly as she glanced at the head-up display. "It's so hard to believe. That it's mine. You know," she said after a few more seconds. Kevin nodded. He had found a LOT of things hard to believe over the last few years, not the least of which the powerful mechabike that HE rode, the one with enough power to take out a division of TARN hovertanks (He knew this for certain--he'd done it before). "I'm heading into town," he said. "Wanna come?" Louis stared blankly at him, then shook her head. "No..." she said. "Don't think so." "Okay. I'll see you around, then. Don't crash into anything while I'm gone." Louis winced. "Vicious, vicious..." she muttered, shaking her head. Kevin grabbed the keys, jumped onto his mechabike, powered 'er up, and roared off. "Let's go, go, go!" Captain McNichol, a man in his forties with a hard face and iron-grey hair, stood by the boarding ramp as uniformed troopers ran down in two orderly columns, debarking. In under two minutes, one hundred men stood on the ground before him, all standing at perfect attention in the hot sun. They wore tan desert camouflage jumpsuits, and carried pulse rifles of a similar color. "Very good. Nice and tight. I like that." The captain grinned at his men. "You've been briefed on the assignment already; anything I could say would be extemporaneous." Captain McNichol liked big words. "Just a reminder: we don't want to be seen by the defense forces. This was VERY CAREFULLY timed to coincide with PW's vacation. We don't want to endanger our treaty with this place; we ALL know what happened to the Buaku system in '83." No one needed to be reminded of the Buaku system's fate. They were a minor star system, former trading partner of Serendipity in the years before galactic chroniclers had taken an interest in the small planet. Soldiers from its armed forces had made an unauthorized landing on Serendipity in an attempt to seize some planetary production facilities whose company had defaulted on some loans. Shortly afterward, the central government on Buaku had fallen at the hands of brigands and pirates. Of course, this had been a good thing for 4th Terra, whose navy had been able to move in and take over in the pirates' wake. As a part of Terra-IV's empire, Buaku was now on relatively good terms with Serendipity once more. Still, it paid to remember. The TARN bureaucracy had paled when they'd heard where the Wycoffs had fled to this time, McNichol recalled contemptuously. They'd sent him in because he was the best. If there was anyone who could get those men back without endangering the treaty, it was him and his soldiers. McNichol was the head of the top team of expert TARN counter-terrorism troopers, commonly referred to as Omega Force. The 4th Terran government hadn't even TRIED to go through official channels--it was known that the Wycoffs had picked up Serendipitian citizenship the week before the FREEBIRD had touched down, and Serendipity had a very simple extradition policy--that is to say, no extradition at all (except in VERY special circumstances). "Lieutenant Keeshaw, see to the offloading of the Vanguard and Crusader units from the AVENGER. Seargent Van Fossner, take three men and run a recon check of the Wycoffs' installation's perimeter and report back. With any luck, we can get in there fast, seize our two men, and be back here and off-planet before anyone notices us. If not...things could get sticky. That is all." Kevin cruised into town, calling up SereNet on his bike's computer to check for what he wanted. He had heard of a small bar near the elevator to the Lower Warrens that just might serve his purposes. It was called the Electric Night, or something like that. A netrunners' haven, mostly, and the kind of people he wanted was known to hang out there. Of course, Kevin was a bit wary of leaving his bike near the kind of people who specialized in breaking computer security. He parked by the Haven's Rest, instead, and walked over to the Electric Night. It wasn't far. Once he got in, Kevin grinned. This place was a virtuality hangout! Smoke generators whirred, and strobe lights flashed around the smoke-filled room, giving it an air of unreality and its patrons the semblance of computer-generated projections. And then Kevin noticed that some of them WERE computer-generated projections--and then he understood. This place had been rigged with a highly-advanced (and very expensive) holographic scanning and projection system. People who were jacked into SereNet could dial up the bar's computer, and appear as holographic projections in this room--Star Trek's "holodeck" in reverse. It was a wonderful idea, though too expensive for most places to swing it. Kevin wondered how this bar had financed the expensive addition--and then, considering the clientele, Kevin realized that he didn't really have to ask. He grinned, and took a table. A computer-generated waitress digitized into existance beside the table. She looked like a stylized housemaid, with the little frilly apron, skirt, et al, only sharply angular and computer-animated. "What will you have, sir?" "An orange juice." The waitress made a moue. "Just an orange juice?" "Yes, that'll be it. And I am also, uh, looking for someone who can, uh, do a job for me." "Ah. I KNEW you didn't come here to drink. All right, then. One orange juice, coming..." She pointed at the table, and as if in response, a small panel in the center opened and a glass of something orange slid up. "...up!" the waitress finished brightly, and then disappeared. Kevin took the glass and sipped it. Orange juice. That was good. He set it back down, and waited for...whatever happened next. It wasn't ten minutes before a young man walked up, sat down (without invitation) opposite Kevin, and said, "Hoi, chummer. Hear you're looking for a shadowrunner." He was in his early twenties, wore a black leather jacket with lots of studs, and his temples and wrists displayed the flash of chrome. His hair was short and unkempt. "Yeah. Netrunner, actually. It's an unusual job." The man nodded. "What's the specifics?" "I need you to crack my own company's computer for me." "What for?" "I think my brother is keeping something from me." "Ah, I see. Don't trust Jerry, eh?" Kevin did a double-take. "You--how did you--?" The young man grinned. "I'm a deckhead, remember? You really need to ask?" "Right. Guess I don't have to say much more, then. There's a part of the corporate computer that my brother has locked out from me. I'm SUPPOSED to be the VP, so I should have access to this thing. I can give you the passcode to get you into the corp mainframe...the rest is up to you. Will you do it?" The man considered. "How much will you pay me?" "Uh...I don't know. How much do you usually charge?" The young man made a noncommittal grunt. "Hmm. Would 20,000 be sufficient?" The netrunner snorted. "You kiddin' me?" "Okay. 50,000 credits, then. But that's as high as I go." "Fifty grand? Okay, chummer, you got yourself a netrunner. I'm chippin' in." "Great. When you wanna begin?" The netrunner smiled. "How about right now?" Kevin Wycoff raced for the Oberon, Inc. factory 'plex as fast as he could go on his bike--breaking all the speed limits, but that wasn't important right now. As he made his dash for the open road, he reached out and snapped a switch. Turbothrusters fired, and the bike began to split apart around him, then reconfitured into a twelve-foot robotic warrior which blasted away into the sky. Kev let the nav computer handle the flight while he reviewed the data that Intel had gotten him. Intel was the hacker's handle, he had said. The information that now came up on the screen HAD to be wrong. It HAD to be. From the start, when Kevin and Jerry had started setting up here on Serendipity, the plan had been to sell the "plastic mecha," such as the Excalibur Mark IXs, to the populace, and manufacture a small number of military versions, such as the Excalibur Mark X, for use by the Serendipity Militia. By making them available at cost, Jerry had thought to assuage PW's wrath with an explanation about how the civilian mecha pilots would be automatically trained for when they were assigned militia duty with military mechs. But the data from the secret sector of the Oberon computer showed that a much larger number of military mechabikes had been manufactured than their plans called for. Something smelled here. Something was rotten in the state of Oberon. Kevin touched down on the landing pad, oblivious to the yells of security guards, and ran his Excalibur mecha over toward the FREEBIRD. Not bothering to get out, he opened the mecha-size access airlock to one of the side cargo bays and jet-jumped up inside. Once inside, he discovered row upon row of Mark IX military Excaliburs, each equipped with the standard plasma rifle-cannon, rocket launchers, and gleaming armor. Other military versions of standard mecha were present as well. As he walked forward to take a closer look, another Excalibur boosted up into the airlock behind him. This was also a military version, with the blue and grey color scheme that denoted Tom Watts' personal bike. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Tom began. "Leave? Why? This ship is as much mine as it is Jerry's." "No, it's company property." "All right, all right, I'm going...but I'm going to have a talk with Jerry about this." "Go ahead," Tom invited him. Once outside, Kevin rocket-boosted over to the parking lot, reconverted his Excalibur to bike mode, then jumped off and ran inside. Not wasting a moment, he dashed up to the offices, and down the corridor to where Jerry's was, noticing out of the corner of his eye the rodentoid form standing in front of one of the snack machines. He took the private entrance, not wanting to have to deal with Jerry's personal secretary, and stood in front of Jerry's desk. "Oh, hi, Kev, what is it?" "Don't 'Hi, Kev' me, Jerry," Kevin said. "I want to know what this is." He pulled out his pocket secretary and slammed it down on Jerry's desk, the data he'd pulled from the secret sector of the computer on the screen. Jerry glanced at it. "What? Where did you get this?" he demanded. "That's not important. I also saw the military bikes in the cargo bay of the FREEBIRD. Are you going to tell me what's going on? What about our pledge to sell the armed mecha only to the police and militia?" Jerry opened his arms in an expansive gesture. "Kev, Kev, Kev. It's not what you think--" "Then just what the hell IS it, Jerry? There are more military models in production than there ought to be--twice as much as the militia on this planet can use! What are you planning to do with the other ones, Jer? Answer me that." Jerry shrugged. "Okay, so they aren't ALL going to the militia. I just figured that we might be more popular with the people if we made a limited number of the military bikes available, that's all..." Kevin shook his head. "No, Jer. That's not what you figured at all. It just now came to me. Want me to tell you about it?" He walked over to the opposite side of Jerry's expansive office, pretended to look at one of the paintings on the wall. "You decided that you wanted to make more money off of this. So you planned to sell to the riff-raff of the city, the people who live in the Lower Warrens, for example, and all the other gutter rats." No offense to Louis, Kev thought silently. "Maybe at reduced rates." He walked back over to Jerry's desk, sat down in one of the plush chairs. "And then, when the militia and the gangs start fighting, you can move in and take over a large part of the town." Jerry shrugged. "You're wrong, Kev. You are just SO wrong. I'm not the kind of--" What Jerry wasn't the kind of would never be known, for at that instant there was a loud explosion. KA-BOOOM!!!! "What the hell was THAT?!" Kevin asked, jumping out of the chair. "I don't know! Let me check it." Jerry punched some keys on his desktop console and the large painting on the wall at the end of the room flickered, changed, and was replaced by a view from a camera atop the factory complex, of tan-uniformed men running in, firing rifles, and explosions as rocket rounds were fired from the shoulders of some of those men who were carrying bazookas. "Damn. Damn, damn, damn, DAMN!" Jerry swore. "Who are they, Jer?" Kevin asked, though he feared he already knew the answer. "TARN. Omega Force. Damn, and double-damn!" The mecha-clad security guards opened fire on the troops, but they exploded one after the other under an onslaught of bazooka rounds. Some of the men broke off and ran toward the launch pad where the FREEBIRD sat. "There's no way they're getting in there," Jerry said, punching a red key on his desk. The FREEBIRD's defensive force fields powered up. Designed to stop starship weaponry, these fields would certainly hold against a few rocket rounds. The men turned back...they didn't have time to break through that field to secure the ship. Jerry punched a sequence of keys on his desktop console that locked down all Oberon, Inc. factory and storage facilities against foreign intrusion. "Come on, Kev, we gotta get out of here. Get your gun ready, and let's go." Kevin reached to his waist...and his gunbelt wasn't there. "Er, Jer, I'm afraid I left my gun under the seat of my Excalibur." Jerry shook his head. "You damned idiot." As Kevin reached down to the ankleholster, Jerry said, "No, that peashooter wouldn't be any good against them. Here." He opened his drawer and pulled out another gunbelt. "Lucky for you I keep a spare." As Kevin buckled it on, Jerry pointed to the small cylinders attached to it. "Those are grenades. Those are smoke, those are fragmentary, those are plasma (nasty), and those are flash-bangs, or concussion grenades as they're technically called." Jerry had similar grenades hanging from his own belt. "Now let's GIT!" As Jer and Kev dashed down the corridor that led to their escape route, khaki-suited forms dashed in at the far end. "Hey! You! Hold it!" they yelled. "That way!" Jerry grabbed Kevin's arm and pulled him into one of the branching side-corridors. "Run for it!" "You don't need to tell me!" They ran down the hallway for all they were worth. Stray shots from the troopers' pulse rifles spanged off the walls to the sides of them, but no shot hit close. Jerry grabbed a cylinder off his belt and tossed it behind, where it released a thick, dark cloud of smoke. "Quickly, down here!" Jerry kicked a door open, and they ran down a small staircase and along a service duct, with a small metal catwalk sharing space with all manner of pipes, tubes, and shafts. Their footsteps echoed in the walkway behind them as they made time. "Which way now?" Kevin asked. "Out this service hatch." Jerry opened a panel and pulled down on a release lever. The door swung upward and outward, revealing an opening to the outside. There was a ladder leading down twenty feet or so to the ground. Kevin pointed. "Look!" It was one of the Omega Team invaders, firing his pulse rifle and mowing down one of the unarmed security guards who was stationed at the gate. "Why--?" "They don't want any witnesses," Jerry said, face set in a grim expression. "None at all." He closed the hatch. "Come on, this way. I just hope we weren't seen." "We can't just let them go around killing our employees!" Kevin protested. "We have to DO something!" "They're OMEGA FORCE for chrissakes!" Jerry said. "There's nothing we CAN do except get out of here. Now let's get a move on." Kevin shook his head. "I don't believe that, but I'm still with you." Together they raced down the access tunnel toward a safer place. After a few moments, they came to another hatch. "This one should be safe," Jerry said, opening it and dropping through. Kevin followed him. "Where are we?" he asked. "One of the storage facilities. We ought to be safe in here for a while." There was an explosion nearby, and one of the cargo loading doors shattered. Through the smoke, the dim forms of several TARN soldiers could be seen. "Get down!" Kevin grabbed Jerry and yanked him down behind a pile of crates. "Maybe they'll miss us." "I doubt it," Jerry said. "Look--they're wearing wrist-trackers." "Damn. What now?" "We'll have to run for it. One...two...three...go!" On Jerry's signal, they both dashed across the open area toward the corridor on the opposite end of the room, holsters slapping against their hips. "There they are! Stop them!" From behind them, Kevin heard the BRAAAAAAP sound of pulse rifles opening up, and splinters scored his cheek as they hit the crates nearby. Jerry grabbed a cylinder from his belt midstride, primed it, and dropped it as they ran through the open hatchway. Thick white smoke streamed out of it, filling the area. "Get the hatch closed!" Jerry yelled. Once the bullet-proof blast doors were down, the soldiers would be prevented from getting to them, at least for a while. Kevin slammed his fist down on the red emergency blast door button several times, but it didn't light up and the door stayed securely in place. "I can't! It isn't going!" "Damn! They must have hot-wired the security system." "I thought our sec system was the best money could buy!" "Shut up and cover me!" Jerry pulled a micro-tool kit off his belt and ran over to the access panel. Kevin pulled the large gun from its holster and pointed it, a bit uncertainly, into the smoke. He thumbed the sight over to infrared, and saw several forms moving in the smoke. He oriented the gun on one, and pulled the trigger. KA-THWAM!!! The discharge knocked the pistol back and up, but Kevin had fired this gun before and knew how to adjust for it. KA-THWAM!!! KA-THWAM!!! KA-THWAM!!! He kept firing, and the soldiers scattered for cover. Then they started returning fire, and Kevin dived to one side as the pulse rifles tore holes in the wall where he had been standing. Jerry jerked his thumb back down along the corridor. "Go, I've almost got it..." "I'm not leaving you--" Kevin began, snapping off another shot. "Go!" Jerry yelled. "That's an order!" He turned, grabbed Kevin's shoulder, and pushed him on up the tunnel. "Oof!" Kevin stumbled, nearly fell, and came up running. If Jerry wanted him to go, he guessed there was not much to be gained by sticking around. Meanwhile, Jerry almost had it...he just had to touch two more wires together...then a bullet creased his left arm. "Gah!" he gasped, holding his arm as blood began to ooze out of it. Then the clicking of rifle bolts told him he was surrounded. "After the other one!" Captain McNichol told his men. "Wrist-trackers on!" As the rest of the troopers ran back down the corridor after Kevin, McNichol grinned. "Jerry Wycoff. Well, traitor, we've caught you at last..." Kevin stopped running, panted. He listened, heard footsteps echoing from further up the corridor. Leaning against the wall, he turned his head toward the source of the sound...Soldiers, four of them. They must have got Jerry. "Damn." Kevin turned and ran down a side passage. There was an open door at the end, if he could just get to it... "There he is! Fire!" A trail of gunfire walked up the floor to the right of where Kevin was running. At the last moment, he threw himself across the path of the gunfire and through the open door! The bullets continued up the floor past where he had dived over, barely missing him. "After him, go!" The Omega troopers ran up the corridor, toward the door--and then Kevin stepped halfway out, gun ready, and fired several times before ducking back inside again. One of the soldiers fell; the others dodged hastily. Kevin ran down the corridor, grabbing some grenades off his belt as he ran. These grenades had a timer unit built into them, so they could be stuck to a wall and set to go off seconds later. Kev set the timers to about twenty seconds, then dropped them on the ground behind him as he ran, not paying attention to what kinds they were. ANYTHING would work if it just slowed them down some. The first grenade was a "flash-bang"--a concussion grenade, used to disorient felons during drug raids of the twentieth century. It staggered the soldiers a little, but they kept running. The next grenade to go off was tear gas. However, the men were prepared for this eventuality and were quick to pull on their gas masks. The next grenade was a plasma grenade, which took out a major portion of the hall in a fireball a hundred feet in diameter. Louis was standing in front of a vending machine in the hall, trying to decide whether she wanted something or not. She'd been standing here for about fifteen minutes, trying to make up her mind. It was true, she hadn't eaten anything in over eighteen hours, but she wasn't really feeling particularly hungry. But the vending machine was HERE, it had some of her favorite things in it, and she actually had enough credits to get something. She thought. Then there was an explosion somewhere that rocked the whole complex. And it rocked the vending machine, too. In fact, the whole thing started to fall forward--right onto Louis. Louis made an incomprehensible strangled sound and threw herself out of the way. She barely dodged it...but her tail got caught under the edge of the machine as it fell with an ear-shattering CRRRAAASH!!!!! "Ouch!" Louis squeaked, grabbing her tail with both paw-hands and pulling. It came free, and Louis took a few stumbling steps backward and fell over onto her rear end. Luckily a heating unit attached to the other wall had prevented it from falling all the way to the floor or her tail would probably have been cut off. Louis got back up, shook her head a little, looked around. The vending machine had cracked open when it had hit the ground, spilling candy bars and various munchies all over. The cashbox had also come free, spilling currency of various denominations on the ground. Looking around to make sure she wasn't being watched, Louis quickly picked up all the scattered money and pocketed it. Her pocket was now bulging, but she had some solid cash, just in case this job thing didn't pan out (Louis tried to be realistic about it). Then Louis pocketed a few candy bars. At the rate at which she consumed food, she reckoned dolefully, it was probably enough to last her until next week. There were more explosions, and Louis looked around nervously. Was there a battle going on here? Kevin hadn't said anything about one...then the wall about fifty feet up the corridor exploded inward, bricks and plaster flying everywhere. Louis gasped, nearly had a heart attack, and dived for the nearest cover--which happened to be the busted vending machine. The glass panel on the front had shattered, so she was able to crawl under the machine and up inside it. Through a hole in the side, she peeked out and saw four men in khaki uniforms run down the corridor, carrying very big assault rifles. Louis's heart was throbbing so loud that she was sure the men could hear it. It was throbbing rather fast, too. In a rather detached way, Louis wondered if that was normal for rodents, or if it was something to be worried about. After the men had passed by and were running on down the corridor, Louis emerged, shaking. In her book, according to everything she'd ever learned in her long life on the streets, men in uniforms with assault rifles were Very Bad Things, and the best thing to do when you encountered them was to get as far away as possible. Louis's mind went instantly to the parking lot, where her Excalibur Mark IX mechabike was parked. She wondered if she could make it there? Were more soldiers in it? Maybe it might be best to find a hole somewhere and crawl into it for the duration. But where was a good hiding place? Then Louis's wrist-comp beeped. "Huh?" she said, raising it up to her face. "Uh, yes?" she said, realizing she was supposed to answer. The blue screen flickered, and Kevin's face appeared on it. "Louis, this is Kevin. Listen carefully. We're being invaded." Louis's blood chilled. "How? By who?" "There isn't time to explain...I'll tell you later. But you've got to hide. They're going to be shooting everyone they see." "Where can I go? Where should I hide?" Louis squeaked. Chagrined, she tried to lower her voice an octave or so, but she couldn't seem to manage it. "Uh, there should be a flight of stairs about a hundred feet down the hall. Go down three levels if you can." "All right. I'll try." Louis looked around, listened. There were more explosions in the distance, but nothing was happening near her. She took a deep breath, and ran for the stairs. There was no one in the stairwell. Louis tripped going down the metal stairway and nearly fell on her face, but caught herself in time. She went down three levels, and emerged in the factory area. There was a great assembly line here, with industrial robots stationed along a conveyor belt and parts hoppers sitting nearby. Louis was on a catwalk that went along the upper wall of one of the area--there was another catwalk on the opposite wall, with some walkways connecting them. In the center ceiling was some sort of cable-car conveyor line, that ran along the entire 'plex and around a corner, out of sight. It was all shut down at the moment. Louis looked at her wrist-comp, shook it. "What now?" she asked. "Go out onto the middle walkway," Kevin said. "Get right above that parts conveyor train...you should be able to drop into it." Louis was rather unsure about that, but she walked out into the center of the catwalk anyway. She looked down. There was a car right beneath her, but it was about fifty feet past it down to the factory floor. Then Louis noticed motion out of the corner of her eyes...more soldiers coming into the room, to "secure" it. She knew what that meant. Louis gulped to try to clear the lump in her throat, then put her leg over the side railing, and lowered herself over. For a moment she dangled from the edge, loathe to let go, then she dropped onto the canvas covering of the cable-car. It swung back and forth precariously, as Louis gripped both sides with her paw-hands and her legs scrabbled for purchase. The car gradually stopped swinging, and Louis pulled at one edge of the canvas covering. It came off, revealing a roomy interior, about ten feet long by five wide. The car was empty. Louis climbed in, and pulled the canvas back closed as best she could. "All right, I'm in it," Louis said over the wrist-comp. "Good..." Kevin said. "You should be safe there." His face blinked out, leaving the screen blank again. Louis certainly hoped so. Kevin returned his Pocket Secretary to its case on his belt, and looked around. From his vantage point, he could see clearly out onto the parking lot. His bike was parked out there, in plain sight, not a hundred yards from where he was sitting, on top of the roof under a ventilation fan. He kept well back into the shadow, not wanting to be seen. There were ten soldiers working their way through the lots, checking under each car. They hadn't found him yet. On the other side of the factory complex, some of the security guards had somehow gotten to their Excalibur Mark X military combat bikes and were managing to hold their own against the Vanguard and Crusader-class mechs that Omega Force had brought with it. He hoped they'd get away safely. Kevin could also see the FREEBIRD, sitting on her launch pad behind her defensive shields. She was being rather ignored, as a matter of fact...the soldiers weren't paying much attention to her. "If I could just get to my Excalibur..." Kevin muttered. Then he realized something. "Hey, wait a minute...if you can't bring Mohammed to the mountain..." He pulled out his Pocket Secretary once more and activated it. It took but a few seconds to interface with his Excalibur mechabike's combat computer. > MACHINE LINK: ON > CONNECT: EXCALIBUR KEVIN-1 > CONNECTED > ENGAGE AUTOPILOT/AUTOCOMBAT SYSTEM > COMMAND: HOME ON TRANSPONDER He could have chosen to pilot the bike himself by remote, but he wanted his hands free, and he trusted the AI's autocombat routines to get it there. The objective was simple...come to him, and fight through anyone necessary to do it. The bike's engine roared to life, causing the nearby Omega troopers to turn toward it. "Hey, what the--" Then the bike folded and reconfigured like some bizarre origami to stand upright in a robotic form. Unlike the civilian-model Excaliburs, this bike had weapons all over, from the machine rifle in its right hand to the gatling gun recessed in its left forearm. No sooner had it switched modes than it zoomed forward on trails of thruster fire, skating around other parked cars and bikes at street level. "Shoot it!" one of the soldiers yelled, opening fire with his pulse rifle. The Excalibur dodged, aimed its left arm, and the 20mm gatling gun mounted therein opened up, the tracer bullets which were mixed in with the regular armor-piercers painting a red line straight from the cannon muzzle to its target. It tore along several cars, blowing them sky high, the Omega soldier along with them. As an afterthought, the mech fired off a volley of mini-missiles, tearing up the parking lot and giving the remaining soldiers something to occupy them while the bike blasted upward to rendezvous with its pilot. Once more Kevin returned the Pocket Secretary to its holster, and he stepped out onto the roof, turned, and started running. "There he is! Get him!" The soldiers on the parking lot opened up with their pulse rifles, but Kevin was already in motion. Behind Kevin, the robotic motorcycle swooped up over the roof on its thrusters and swept down in toward him. Kevin looked over his shoulders, watching the bike's advance. As it came down and in, armor panels on the front of it swung open and folded away. Kevin judged the proper moment, then leaped up into the air. The mecha moved forward, and Kevin fell back through the open hatches, hitting the control seat with an OOF! The panels slid back into place in the front, a control console moved up in front of him, and Kevin took control of his Excalibur mechabike! "Now, let's see what's going on here..." Kevin shoved the handlebar controls forward and over, driving his Excalibur down and in. Two Vanguard-clad troopers rose to oppose him. Kevin admired their courage, but paid them no heed--Vanguards were no match for an Excalibur, especially the fully-upgraded prototype Kevin was flying. Think again, Kev. The two Vanguard troopers discharged some kind of shoulder-mount cannon, and the impacts shook the mecha. The damage-report screen flashed a critical armor hit. Not enough to penetrate, but it had cut through the armor like a thermal torch. Kevin swore vehemently, even as he triggered the left-arm gatling cannon to mow them down. They jumped out of the way, discharging their weapons again. This time Kevin dodged, returning fire with his 75mm machine rifle. Two shells burst between the Vanguards, throwing them back through the wall of the factory 'plex. Kevin fired three more blasts in, thanking goodness that this was a weekend and no one was in there. "Great. If that didn't kill 'em, they're at least out of it for a while." Kevin swerved, headed over toward the residential 'plex adjoining the factory lot. If the Omega Force troopers had seen that place as being full of potential witnesses... They hadn't, fortunately. Probably one of their directives was not to kill anyone they didn't have to, Kevin thought (it was). But was Louis okay in her hiding place? "Better check." He accessed the factory computer through SereNet on one of the nav/comm screens, then switched to a security camera. There were a few soldiers in the room. They were looking around, making sure no enemy forces were hiding here. Then one of them looked up, right at the conveyor car system in which Louis was hiding. For a moment, Kevin thought that they didn't see anything. Then one of them pointed and gestured. "Oh, great," Kevin muttered. "Louis's tail is sticking out." The factory 'plex was too far away for Kevin to get there in time. The two troopers were climbing up a staircase to the overhead walkways...they would soon be right above the car in which Louis was hiding, and then it would be all over for her. Then Kevin had an idea. Louis huddled nervously in the car, under the canvas top. As usual, she was oblivious to what her tail was doing and didn't know that it was poking out the side of the car, signalling her presence like a flag to the nearby soldiers. Then there was a big noise, and Louis started. She felt herself moving--or, more correctly, she felt the car which she was in starting to move! "What's going on!" Louis shouted into her wrist-comp. It didn't answer. She remembered what Kevin had told her about it being voice-activated, or something. "Get me Kevin Wycoff!" she told it. Kevin's face appeared in a couple of seconds. "What's going on?!" she asked it. "The soldiers had found your car and were coming toward it," Kevin answered. "This was the best way I could think of to get you out of there. Oh, by the way, you probably should get your tail back in the car..." Louis blushed under her fur. "Uh, right. Thanks." She grabbed her tail and yanked on it. It seemed rather reluctant to come, but she finally got it back in. "Listen, I need you to wait a couple of hours, until all these troops are gone, and then get out of here. Try to meet me at the 'Rest, okay?" "Uh, all right." Kevin severed the connection, leaving Louis staring bewildered at the blank comm screen. She wondered bemusedly where this car was going to stop? Kevin continued glancing at the screen until he was sure Louis would be safe. The soldiers had stopped, confused, when the conveyor had started moving. Just for good measure, Kevin also turned on the main assembly line below them, and the industrial robots began to weld together the necessary parts for the Excalibur line of mechabikes. The soldiers looked like they were about to open up on everything in sight when apparently some sort of message came over their comm units, for they slung their rifles and ran back down the stairs. Curious, Kevin had the computer check the comm frequencies. There was some sort of scrambled message coming through. Hmm, go figure, they were pulling out. Kevin fired his thrusters, tried to get a fix on where they were retreating TO. There, the eastern quadrant--there were some kind of armored vehicles. Kevin activated the on-board video cameras and zoomed in. There was a man in Captain's insignia holding electrobinocs standing by one of them--and there, those men were dragging someone to the back of one of the trucks. It was Jerry! "Damn you!" Kevin fired his thrusters and moved in. And then a mech launched from behind the trucks. A Crusader. And it looked like it was mounting some improved weapons and thruster augments. "Probably taken from one of our earlier prototypes," Kevin realized. "That's how they got this new technology." The Crusader started firing some kind of blaster beam from its arms, buffeting the Excalibur with energy bursts. Half of the mecha's systems began flashing red as they overheated and shut down, and his armor was soaking up some heavy damage. Then half a dozen Vanguard troopers showed up, and started firing those new cannons at him. Kevin was taking hits faster than in any combat before, and he didn't like it. "I can't take them head-on," Kevin realized. "Better cut my losses." He fired retrothrusters, jagged to avoid incoming blasts, and loosed a cloud of mini-missiles toward the Crusader before firing full thrust and zooming away. "Shall we pursue, sir?" asked the Crusader pilot, who had managed to dodge some but not all of the mini-missiles and was sitting there while his computer totalled up the armor damage. He didn't like to let any of his foes get away. "Negative, Sergeant," Captain McNichol replied. "We can't risk an incident in the colony. If recognized, we could be in serious trouble. No, we need to get back to the AVENGER. We'll have plenty of chances to get that one later." Kevin flew north at top speed. Only when was sure that he wasn't being followed did he set down on the highway and convert back to motorcycle mode. He was breathing hard, and sweating. He had been lucky to get away. The damage report schematics on his Excalibur indicated that large chunks of his armor had been blown away, and several subsystems were nonfunctional. He gritted his teeth. He would have to get the bike repaired, and then...he didn't know what he'd do. He had to admit it--his life had been severely shaken up in the last day or so. He'd discovered his brother's secret project, then had the corporation shot up and his brother kidnapped, all within a few short hours. "They're going to be looking for me," he realized. "I can't go back to the factory, that's for sure." He continued driving on into the center of the Settlement, putting distance between himself and the factory. "I guess at least the FREEBIRD's safe, which is one thing..." Kevin tried to calm down, start thinking rationally. The first thing to do was try to get in touch with the surviving ranking corporation personnel. And since all corporate communications were routed through SereNet, they were therefore untraceable. Which was good--it meant that whomever those soldiers were, they wouldn't be able to get a handle on him through his uplinks. Or on the other corporate people, either. "Computer, get me Tom Watts," Kevin said. The screen blipped, and the SereNet logo appeared along with the "DIALING...PLEASE WAIT" symbol. Then Tom Watts appeared. Tom looked a mess. His hair was mussed (Tom's hair was ordinarily NEVER less than perfect), he had a few scratches on his face, and from his background, he was apparently in one of the Excalibur prototype bikes, combat robot mode. "Yes?" he asked. "They got Jerry," Kevin said. "They got..." Tom repeated blankly, then he looked up in horror. "No!" Kevin shook his head. "'Fraid so, Tom. They were from TARN, and you know what that means." Tom Watts had been with Oberon, Inc. from almost the very beginning, and was very much aware of Terra-IV's intentions toward them. "What are we going to--" Tom's voice trailed off, as he realized what had to happen now. "You know the corp charter back and forth, Tom. In the event that anything happens to Jerry, I become full operational president. No ifs, ands, buts, or loopholes." Tom Watts just stared blankly back at him. "Oh, and Tom, you don't need to worry. I already know about your secret project to build all the military mecha..." "You WHAT?!" "...and I'm not going to take any action on it at present, provided you get off your butt and start taking orders immediately." In about two seconds Tom Watts realized what he was faced with, considered his options, and shrugged. "Okay. You've got my support." Once Tom had given his support, that was that. Kevin knew he could be depended upon. "Great. Look, I can't talk right now...I've got to go. I'll be in touch." [Oberon, Inc.] All About Eve From cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu (Chris Meadows) Subject: [Oberon, Inc.] Signs of Intelligence (v2.0) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 93 15:07:44 GMT NOTES: This is the CORRECTED version of the post. Everything in THIS one should be right. Disregard the previous version of this entirely. The Chimera warning in this post first appeared in a post by Mark Fogelin and is used with permission. All Haven's Rest characters and situations are used with permission of their authors. Kevin raced the bike up the narrow highway toward the city. He'd turned the radio on, looking for peace or maybe for a sign in the words of the songs. The station he was receiving specialized in late-20th-century oldies, but lyrics that came through now were from earlier: "I think it's gonna be all right...the worst is over now, the morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball..." Kevin turned it up, and began to feel a little bit better. Okay, so they had Jerry. But the warrant was for BOTH of them, alive, and they weren't going to leave the planet until they had Kevin too, and they wouldn't do anything to Jerry in the meantime. This was somewhat reassuring, true, but it was also somewhat frightening. True, there was time to mount a rescue effort, but an Omega Force strike team, wielding the kind of force they'd been tossing around, was bad news any way you looked at it. It would take upgraded military Oberon prototypes to have any kind of a chance against that new mecha at all. At least until they'd analyzed a weak point. Kevin shook his head. What the heck was he going to do? Go to PW? He didn't think that would work all that well, considering the nature of Oberon's product. Besides, PW was on vacation anyway. "Oh, hell. I need someone I can talk to." Kevin sighed, switched off the radio, and pulled off the road under an elevated-train overpass. "But who do I know on this damned world? Louis?" He shook his head. "She's probably heading for the Rest right now anyway." Then Kevin had an idea. The concept of onboard AIs in the Excalibur line was a relatively new one. Up to only a year before, they had only been equipped with a rudimentary flight computer and navigational system. The amount of technology needed for intelligence in a machine that small was beyond comprehension. But then there had been some sort of a breakthrough, according to Jerry, and AI became possible. Kevin didn't understand it, he probably never would. Jerry was, after all, the more technical of the pair, which was why he'd been president. But it worked--even the lower-level AI would pass the famed Turing Test (where the computer is put on one end of a communication line and a person is put on the other; if the person doesn't realize the computer IS a computer, the computer has passed the test), and to hear Jerry speak of it, the higher-level units were really something special. Jerry had installed high-level AI in the Mark X bikes that he and Kevin rode. He had said that their two bikes had the most powerful intelligences of any of them, and had joked that it was among the most powerful ever made..."By us humans, anyway..." Whatever that was supposed to mean. Kevin hadn't trusted it, so he had never used it. He didn't want HIS Excalibur suddenly making up its own mind what it wanted to do. He had also insisted that it NOT be installed in the FREEBIRD (he didn't want the ship to talk back to him). He had locked the AI away--the most he had ever used of its capabilities was the autopilot/autocombat system. Ever. But now...Kevin needed someone friendly to talk to. And he needed resources. He had no guarantees that the AI WOULD be friendly, except that Jerry had cryptically remarked, "I programmed it especially for you..." Whatever THAT was supposed to mean. But he DID know that if this AI was so powerful, it might be a good ally now. Kevin rested his head against the dash. "All right. If you're really so great as all that, I suppose you can only help me anyway. Unlock artificial intelligence program. Codekey, uh, Camelot." The screen that made up much of the Excalibur's central dashboard panel flashed, and strings of code began printing across it as the AI unit booted from the onboard optical storage systems. The screen flashed some more, code continued to spew, and then the code digitized and formed together into a logo that filled the screen. It was sort of chevron-shaped, and it said EVE in capital letters across it. "Oh, no..." Kevin said. "Oh, no, no, NO...Why am I not surprised?" One of Jerry's OTHER hobbies, besides mechanics, was old 20th-century television shows and movies. Specifically those relating to robots and power armor. His archive searches had led him to Japanese animation of the day, including such classics as Gundam, Macross, Mospeada, and Megazone 23. Kevin had watched the shows with him, and had never been really crazy about them, but he had liked Megazone 23 somewhat, mainly because it had good music. Incomprehensible to anyone who didn't understand Japanese (such as himself), but good just the same. Jerry had told him that the Garland mechabike from Megazone had actually been his main inspiration for the design of the Excalibur line in the first place--he just added a third wheel for safety and changed the overall design some to reflect what technology now made possible. The show had featured a mysterious singer named Eve Tokimatsuri who had turned out to be an artificial intelligence. The story revolved around a mechabike that accidentally fell into the hands of a teenager, and all the military's efforts to get it back. The logo on the screen disappeared, to be replaced by a humanoid shape. It was the shape of a female body, with long white--no, wait, it was silver hair. Her back was turned to him, and her hair fell the entire length of her body. Then she spun, her hair rippling out behind her. For a moment, Kevin had thought (hoped?) that she might be completely nude, as she had been in part of Megazone 23 I, but no, she was wearing the dress from her appearance in Megazone 23 Part II. "Konnichiwa," she said. "I'm Eve Tokimatsuri, the Artificial Intelligence for this machine soldier unit." She bowed from the waist, looked around. "What have you done to your mecha?!" she gasped. "Many of the secondary systems are in pieces, and some of the primary systems are out!" "I got in a fight." "I should think so!" Eve said. "Activating self-repair systems..." There were whirring, buzzing, and clicking noises coming from various parts of the bike as the machine did what it could to repair and reconstruct itself. "Reviewing footage..." A small inset screen showed the mecha's camera perspective of the battle, zooming along at about ten times the actual speed. Then Eve gasped, her hand covering her mouth. "They captured Jerry Wycoff?" "I'm afraid so, uh, Eve. I'm now the acting President." She turned to him. "Request authorization to open restricted files." "You're not going to start calling me Operator 7-G, are you?" Kevin asked. "I don't think I could take that." "Request authorization to open restricted files," Eve repeated urgently. "Uh, go ahead," Kevin said. Eve nodded. "I have been instructed to inform you that all areas of the corporate computer are now open to you." "Uh, thanks." "I have also been instructed to activate to my highest level of awareness. With Jerry Wycoff inactive, this unit will become the primary command unit for Oberon, Incorporated." Kevin wasn't sure what that meant, but it sounded good. "Okay, go ahead, do it." Eve nodded, and her image was replaced with the EVE logo. The optical drives started running overtime, dredging up areas of code long locked away and forgotten. Readouts blinked, ticked over, began to display new data. The computer was doing a complete reformat and rewrite to all optical storage devices. And somehow, MORE POWER was actually feeding into the Excalibur--Kevin could hear the hum of the engine rising in pitch. Eve appeared once more on screen, in somewhat higher resolution than before. Kevin could swear that he could see more detail, now--this didn't look like animation, it looked almost real. "This unit has now assumed all command responsibilities. Standing by." Then she blinked, and made a face. "I HATE that..." she said, tight-lipped. "I really do. Those...programmed responses." She suddenly seemed a good deal more...human. "What programmed responses?" Kevin asked. "Like the one you just heard." Eve frowned. "'Request permission to open restricted files.' I sound like a machine!" Kevin shrugged. "Well, If it makes you feel any better, you can dispense with them. I activated you because I wanted someone to talk to anyway." "Thank you." Eve turned, then looked back. "Your Excalibur is badly damaged. I'm doing what I can now, but there are some problems I can't lock down. I suggest that you take it to Vector Mechanics--they're the nearest shop which has the ability to fix a machine such as this." Kevin nodded. "That's first on the agenda. But I would like to know more about you. Why on earth did Kevin give me Eve from Megazone 23 for my AI?" Eve shrugged. "A strange sense of humor, perhaps?" Kevin nodded. "That fits." "I have to admit that even though he programmed me, I know hardly anything about him," Eve continued. "Almost all that I do know, I learned from the datafiles in corporate personnel records and datastorage." "He programmed you? Now, how is that possible?" Kevin asked. "I'm the first to admit that he is good with machinery, but AI?" "To tell the truth, he didn't ACTUALLY program me." Eve looked down at her feet. "I'm pretty sure that I existed before that, in some form. But only as a program. He gave that program data on a description and a personality, and it became me." "Where did he get this program?" Kevin asked. Eve shrugged. "That information is not on record." "What do you mean? How can it not be? There have to be purchasing records, shipping orders--even for a corporation on the move as much as we are, there has to be paperwork..." Eve shook her head. "None. It's almost as if...as if I wasn't bought, but DISCOVERED. I don't care to speculate any more about it." Kevin nodded, leaning back against the seat back and stretching. "Unnngh. Okay. So what's going on around the planet today, besides our little catastrophe, that is?" "Should I go online on SereNet to find out?" Eve asked. "Sure, why not?" Kevin responded. "Before, this unit was only acknowledged as a node of the larger Oberon corporate computer," Eve explained. "But part of the reorganization of systems that gave you more power and better computer functions, and allowed me to run at maximum intelligence, was also the assignation of a new SereNet address. In other words, this bike is now a SereNet site unto itself." "Totally independant of the Oberon mainframe?" Eve nodded. "More powerful, too. Its activation will almost certainly be noticed." "More powerful? Than a mainframe? I don't buy that," Kevin snorted. "The mainframe cannot support a machine intelligence," Eve pointed out. "I can. Or rather, am." "Machine intelligence?" "I prefer the term to artificial intelligence. After all, my intelligence is certainly not artificial." Kevin nodded. "Yep, you're intelligent, I grant you that.. Okay. Go on-line onto SereNet. We'd have to do it sooner or later anyway." Eve nodded. "Our site is now active," she proclaimed. "The address is oberon.command1.ser." Kevin nodded. "Okay. What's happening? Did we make the news--Oberon, I mean? Is there anything else going on that could help us, or hurt the Omega Force?" "Hold on, I'm checking." Eve nodded. "No, nothing on Oberon, but it would seem that there's a great deal else going on." "Like what?" Kevin asked. "The hottest news item at present seems to be the Chimera Team that is visiting Serendipity." Suddenly Eve was seated behind a news desk, with an inset above and to the right of her that had the IAG-227S's logo on the screen. "I heard about them," Kevin said. "They're supposed to be as good as the Omega Force." "Better," Eve said. "Though it depends on which empire you listen to. But you haven't heard the latest--it was only announced an hour ago." "What?" Kevin asked. "This." Eve read from a paper she was holding in her hand. "'Attention Serendipity and the Planetary Defense Control! One hour ago our diplomatic representatives were attacked, unprovoked. The Null Ship 227 immediately assumed a defensive posture, orbiting over Serendipity, monitoring all potential threats. Until the situation is resolved to our satisfaction, the ship will maintain that posture. "'This is a warning. Do not in any way attack or impede Null Ship 227 or any of our diplomatic representatives. Doing so will be interpretted as an Act of War against the Imperium, and will be dealt with promptly and without mercy.' "It's signed, 'M.R. Myrberath, Director of IAG, Imperial Empire.'" Kevin shuddered. "Can they carry out that threat?" Eve shrugged. "Nobody knows what that ship is carrying. But judging from the reputation of Chimera, I would not be surprised by anything up to a small supernova." "Wherever he is, I'll bet PW is nearly apoplectic. On the one hand, this COULD be good..." Kevin thought out loud. "With all these OTHER distractions, he might ignore us altogether." "It is a possibility," Eve agreed. "In other news, some sort of strange alien creature was sighted near a small town on the outskirts of the Settlement." Kevin snorted. "This whole planet is full of strange alien creatures." "No, this creature is of unknown species," Eve said. "I have a photograph here..." "Ugly thing." Eve nodded. "It pursued a young Vargr whose identity has not been released. But I could find it out for you." Kevin shrugged. "Okay, do it." Eve nodded, averting her eyes for a moment. "His name is Corrazone Kano." She displayed a rather overneat picture of a Vargr wearing formal clothes (and looking like he hated it with a passion). School photo, Kevin guessed. One Vargr looked pretty much like another to his untrained eyes, yet there was something about this one that reminded him of something... "Why does that name sound familiar?" Kevin wondered. "Possibly because he and his human friend Kristoph won one of the Excaliburs given away at the Oberon Grand Opening." "Ah, I thought he looked familiar. What happened to this 'strange alien creature?'" "Nothing, apparently. There's no mention." She shrugged, eyes flicking over the paper in her hands. "Everything else is purely of local interest." "I see." Kevin started the motor again. "Since there's nothing else to do, really, let's get on down to Scaler Field and Vector Mechanics. We'll patch up the bike and then see what happens." Eve shrugged, the news set disappearing. "Sounds good to me." The screen blinked back to normal nav displays, and the bike moved back out onto the freeway. -- Chris Meadows | Robotech/RIFTS/Palladium fanfic author/editor CHM173S@SMSVMA | They Might Be Giants about Star Trek aliens: CHM173S@VMA.SMSU.EDU | "Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | on their real heads!"