Christmas > telnet ks1.genom.com Trying 128.100.80.28... Connected to ks1.genom.com. Escape character is '^]'. GENix System (ks1) > login: Quincy > Priority: 2 > Password1: > Password2: GENix version 9.23.5d (gally) ks1 Copyright 2017-2035 Genom Corp. All Rights Reserved. Last login: 02:46/16/10/2035 ***** GET TO WORK!!! ***** You have 497 new messages in your mailbox [20:14@ks1]/> _ "Ooooooooh," the redhead groaned, slumping in her chair. Nene began wade through the hundreds of emails and CRON reports. Things were really getting out of hand. No matter how much she fiddled with the scoring, or how smart she made the administration scripts, the number of messages she had to personally check was increasing at an alarming rate. It had become truly overwhelming. Nene, however, took a deep breath and started writing responses. She knew she needed help, but there were only three other people she could trust with this job, and only one of them was truly qualified. During the year after she had managed to take control of Genom's central computer, things had gone quite smoothly. Not unlike the company's former guiding power, she had taken the guise of the notorious Chairman Quincy. His politics, however, had changed rather quickly during those first few months. Boomer attacks had ceased, and extensive re-structuring had taken place, pulling Genom further and further away from its military endeavours and towards more constructive ends. Achieving this while keeping stocks up and layoffs to a minimum was a phenomenal task, however, and Nene was feeling the strain. She still regretted having to had to quit her job at the ADP. She commanded enough wealth to buy half the country, but she didn't believe in buying friends, and so she only squirreled a tiny portion of her official salary, enough for rent and food. As for the friends she had left, Nene could not help but to feel a tinge of resentment against them. Genom's defeat had come as a liberation for Sylia, and Nene only realized later what an enormous burden had been lifted off her shoulders when Sylia decided to leave the country and start anew, setting up a lingerie shop in Germany. Although the redhead had assured her ex-leader that she could handle things on her own, Nene had never imagined Sylia would actually take her word for it. She now regretted having been so cocky and self-assured. Linna had also helped out a bit at first, especially with the economics. After a while, however, the stocks had more or less stabilized, and with her investments secured she had been content to leave things up to Nene while she went on an endless "date-hunting" spree. Linna didn't seem to have any problem "meat shopping" around, and she could now easily afford it. Priss never really got into things all that much. She just sort of drifted away, back into her world of lowclass joints, sleazy record companies and trailer trash. Nene had tried to help her out, but she didn't seem to care much about anything anymore, except perhaps her music. Nene sighed. Maybe loneliness made her look at things the wrong way. She hadn't seen them in almost a year, and ultimately it was partly her fault too. Fortunately that would soon change.... Five hours later Nene had barely managed to filter out 233 relatively unimportant messages (correspondingly modifying the scoring criteria), answer 78 urgent ones, and make 16 modifications to Quincy's behaviour and decision-making engines. During that same period of time she received 32 more emails and reports. She pouted every time she heard her terminal beep. An hour later Nene took a break. She had never imagined that war could be such a lucrative business. Genom's weapons division generated so much money its downsizing had some stockholders screaming for blood, Only "Quincy's" iron grip had managed to keep them at bay, and more than once Nene had been surprised at herself for the harshness she could convey through the Chairman, a shadow of his former self in some respects, but still a formidable "man". Almost idly, Nene nibbled a Pocky, typed a few commands on her keyboard, and cd'd into Genom's most securely protected hard disk directory. She casually listed a file whose existence was known to only one person in the entire world total 1 -r-------- 1 root 781764931649 Dec 25 2033 04:44 core After almost two years of analyzing the binary image of that fateful coredump, Nene had gained a pretty good understanding of the basic principles behind the "humanoid-AI", or "bio_AI", that Stingray had developed. Indeed, she had been working on similar theories when perfecting the command interface of their own hardsuits during her Saber tenure, and had recently managed to apply some of her newfound discoveries. Sylia, of course, kept the suits in safe hiding, but she had (rather hesitantly) allowed the redhead to keep her helmet and some of the electronics. Enough, Nene had made sure, to build a second neuro-computer interface. The computer beeped, Nene pouted. It was going to be a long night. Nene got up and went to the kitchen, bringing back a carton of milk, a glass, and another pack of Pockys which she placed next to her machine. She then took out a pair of earphones from a drawer and plugged them into the computer's audio jack. Last Christmas Priss had given her a few ROM cards of old CDs. At first Nene hadn't been too keen about them (she was wary of anything made before she was born), but the music kind of grew on her after a while. Although she knew English, the lyrics didn't distract her unless she concentrated on them, so she was able to work. She chose her favourite album and plugged the card in. Nene quickly began typing again, answering messages, reprogramming Quincy's behaviour, perhaps not fully aware of the small but significant market shifts she was causing worldwide. Through Genom, the redhead's actions were actually molding the economic landscape of the planet, an incipient econo-socio-political Nenefication of the globe, the consequences of which were of course unpredictable. If a butterfly could cause hurricanes, Genom was Mothra, and Nene just kept (carefully) flapping its wings. Nene tried not to think about this and, being the hard-working and responsible person she was, did the best she could, trying like all of us to get a day's work done. At four in the morning she finally decided to stop, and practically fainted on her bed, so tired she was. As she lost consciousness the words of one of the songs floated through her amazingly tired brain: A sleep trance, a dream dance A shared romance, Synchronicity --- GENix version 9.23.5d (gally) ks1 Copyright 2017-2035 Genom Corp. All Rights Reserved. Last login: 21:51/29/10/2035 ***** BOO!!! O.O HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! ***** You have 499 new messages in your mailbox [15:14@ks1]/> _ "Ooooooooh," the redhead groaned, slumping in her chair. Nene put on her earphones and began her daily chore. This time, however, she zipped through the emails, as she was determined to get this entire batch done by that day and put everything on hold for the weekend. For the first time in months she was actually looking forwards to something. It would finally be like in the old days! Sure, a Halloween reunion was kind of weird, but it would be fun, especially since she had (through _much_ pleading) managed to convince her friends to dress up for the occasion. She only hoped Sylia would be able to make it, since she hadn't been able to promise anything (could the lingerie business actually be _so_ time consuming?!). In any case, with Priss around it would be a blast. She had last seen the singer a couple of months earlier at a concert, and she had been great. Things had not been going too well for her, and Nene had applied a bit of leverage within the record industry, without Priss's knowledge, of course. At least, that's what Nene had thought. After the concert the redhead invited her friend to dinner, but Priss declined somewhat abruptly, murmuring something about "handouts". Priss had been a bit drunk at the time, and she had called Nene the following day, apologizing. Nene didn't hear from her again, until she called Priss, inviting her to the reunion. Nene sighed, sitting back. 300 messages done, a couple hundred more to go. She began to munch on a Pocky. Sometimes she really missed the way some things used to be. Not Quincy and his boomers, of course, but the other stuff, the training sessions, for example, even if Priss _did_ make fun of her. Sitting in front of the computer and eating Pockys all day certainly hadn't helped at all. Nene had had to dump her Chibi-Usa Halloween costume or otherwise Priss would have a field day at her expense. She also missed her friends at the ADP. Nahoko had actually gotten married earlier that year, and was already expecting a kid, while Daley had moved to Kyoto. Leon was the only one who was still driving the Chief crazy, and dropped by her place every other week, with all the newest gossip, half-jokingly wondering about Genom's new-found heart. Leon, like everyone else, was relieved that the attacks had finally ceased. Nene sighed again. It takes a while to adjust to new situations, and ultimately everyone was better off. She just wished she could feel happier about it. The redhead took a deep breath and began typing on the keyboard, unconsciously lip-synching the song coming through her headset I have stood here before inside the pouring rain with the world turning circles running 'round my brain I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign But it's my destiny to be the king of pain... --- GENix version 9.23.5d (gally) ks1 Copyright 2017-2035 Genom Corp. All Rights Reserved. Last login: 01:12/31/10/2035 ***** BOO!!! O.O HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! ***** You have 533 new messages in your mailbox [00:14@ks1]/> _ Nene frowned, her whiskers wrinkling on her face. This time she cranked up the loudspeakers as she began to work, lips pursed, fingers practically banging on the keyboard as she typed. "Beep!" The evening had been a disaster. Sylia was still "too busy in Germany". It didn't matter that the trip took a mere three hours by train, noooo, she was more worried about underwear than anything else. And Priss! Cancelling an hour before to say she was going to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" instead! What the hell was _her_ problem? Even without the video image, Nene could tell from her voice that Priss had been drinking. "Beep!" Only Linna had shown up, without a costume and, get this, with a _date_! And there was Nene, feeling ridiculous as a plump owl-bear Totoro. To make things even worse, Linna's new boyfriend was a pompous ass! PA: "So, ahem, Nene, what do you do?" NR: "Uh, I'm a software developer...." PA: "Is that so? What a coincidence! So am I! Where do you work at?" NR: "Well, I'm kinda doing some things on my own right now, um, shareware mostly. What about you?" PA: "I'm currently a developer at one of Genom's manufacturing plants. It's OK, and the money is quite good. It has to be, of course, since they only take in the best. If you ever get tired of making, um, shareware, maybe I could put in a good word for you, there are a few positions available at tech support...." LY: "Now dear, I'm sure Nene is doing quite well on her own, aren't you, Nene?" NR: "More chips?" "Beep!" "Stupid idiot!" she thought, smashing the keys. One of her executives had botched an important account. Nene made sure Quincy would show her his displeasure. "Only the best" eh? The guy was so low in Genom's hierarchy Nene didn't even know his name. "Tech support" eh? She could fire him with a single keystroke! "Beep!" Nene closed her eyes, slumped in her chair, and took a deep breath. This was madness. She needed help. Sylia would have to get over her traumas and help her. Nene hated the idea, though, deep inside she understood that Sylia needed to get away, but still.... In any case, it was a bit late even for that. Nene had things more or less working the way she wanted. It was still a precarious balance, however, and she didn't want to disturb by allowing someone else.... Someone else.... "What if it wasn't someone _else_?" "Beep!" The redhead jumped up from her chair, and went into the nearby closet. She came out with her old helmet and a laptop, and began wiring the various ports to her computer. Nene knew it was a bit risky, but she was sure to understand the principles behind Stingray's technology. Besides, the only way to know was to test it at some point, right? What better time than this? She would have liked to make smaller test runs first, but unfortunately it didn't quite work that way. Furthermore, only Genom had the computational power to house and run the bio_AI. Indeed, the machine to which Stingray had originally been transferred to was state-of-the-art at the time, a 16 million processor behemoth with enough memory to store his entire mindprint. And yet, for all that, the computer was barely able to handle the load. Part of this was due to the inefficiency of the bio_AI code itself, and part because a human brain is a pretty damn complicated thing. Stingray, however, was well aware of this, and had spent a good ten years studying and analyzing the shortcomings of his new silicon environment and the workings of his quantum soul. He was continually re-compiling parts of himself, molding, ameliorating and improving his very essence. Nene and Sylia had stopped him just weeks before he had a chance to make his next move, one which might have meant the final defeat of the Sabers. Codenamed "Melchizedek", the new computer hosted 512 million processors and could store almost an exabyte of information in real memory. "Hard" storage was a couple of orders of magnitude larger yet. It also had a dozen quantum units, probabilistic CPUs which for certain computations were millions of times faster than any of the "classical" chips, perhaps even infinitely fast if you believe in quantum entanglement. The entire machine ran at the speed of light, using photons instead electrons to transmit information throughout. Nene had never seen EMACS run so fast in her life. It was to this machine that Nene logged into, as she began to synchronize the neural interface between host and server. She would only set up a skeleton of her mindprint, just enough to help her with the simpler management decisions. Some administrative knowledge, and the basic pattern of her ethical and moral standards would suffice. She put on her helmet and typed a few commands. She didn't have to concentrate or do anything else, just wait a while for the transfer to take place. Nene simply sat back, and loudly began to sing out of tune along with the music coming out of the speakers Fifty million years ago You walked upon the planet so Lord of all that you could see Just a little bit like me Walking in your footsteps Walking in your footsteps Walking in your footsteps Walking in your footsteps --- GENix version 9.23.5d (gally) ks1 Copyright 2017-2035 Genom Corp. All Rights Reserved. Last login: 09:57/15/11/2035 ***** WORK SUCKS LIKE NOTHING HAS EVER SUCKED BEFORE :P ***** You have 213 new messages in your mailbox [12:09@ks1]/> _ Nene put on her earphones, and logged in. She began scanning the messages. The bio_AI was working quite well, and the mail load kept decreasing every day. Nene was quite satisfied, although not very impressed. Nene hated bloatware, even if the bloatware was she. The program had become quite large, and for the first few days Nene had grown slightly worried to see it growing at a geometric rate. She had expected this to happen (although not so fast) as it (she?) gained an understanding of its new environment, but after it stabilized she couldn't help to feel a bit disappointed at its size and capabilities. Sure, the bio_AI was slowly starting to take care of things, making routine but important management decisions which always agreed with what the real Nene would have done. Its convoluted reasonings, which Nene continuously analyzed, were ultimately correct, but also filled with doubt and hesitation. It was as if Nene's intermittent lack of self-confidence had been amplified by the bio_AI, generating a deficiency in determination which made it very, very slow. Were it not for the fact that it ran on a trillion-yen supercomputer, the program would be slower than Nene herself. The redhead was particularly annoyed at the snail-pace with which it was reorganizing the weapon's division. Although Nene understood it was probably the most delicate subject her program had to deal with, it took days for it to do anything. She had had to push it a bit every once in a while to get things done on time. Fortunately it had recently begun to take small, but more decisive steps by itself. Indeed, Nene could hardly complain. After a first few days of febrile activity, making sure the bio_AI was behaving, things were finally starting to settle down. It was truly a relief for the devastatingly overworked girl. After a couple of hours Nene decided to take a break. She disconnected and sat back, thinking about RL while she munched on a Pocky. After the Halloween disaster Nene still felt hurt, but she couldn't hold a grudge against her friends. They had their own problems which, although rather insignificant compared to the things Nene had to deal with, were still personally overwhelming. Linna, who kept bouncing back and forth between relationships, Sylia always hiding under a rock, Priss and her self-destructive lifestyle. Nene really wanted to help them, and now that things on her end were improving maybe she could finally afford to do something about it. They had to get together, and Christmas would provide an excellent opportunity. She would invite them to her parent's house, just like last year, and maybe they could start from there. Nene had now the means and the time to help, although she wasn't yet sure how. The first step, however, was to get back in touch. Before she began making phone calls Nene decided to log in again, just to make sure things were running smoothly, the usual programmer's paranoia. She grabbed her headphones and began to type. She only took a moment to skip "Mother" soon after it began, as its neurotic lyrics always made her feel uncomfortable The telephone is screaming Won't she leave me alone? The telephone is ringing Is that my mother on the phone? --- GENix version 9.23.5d (gally) ks1 Copyright 2017-2035 Genom Corp. All Rights Reserved. Last login: 14:11/17/12/2035 ***** Is anybody alive in here? ***** You have 33 new messages in your mailbox [18:10@ks1]/> _ _What_ _was_ _her_ _problem_? Nene thought indignantly. The speakers blared, but the redhead hardly noticed. She kept banging away on the keys, rolling her eyes every other message she read. It had taken her three weeks to get through to Sylia. Three weeks! And what did she have to say? "I'm sorry Nene, I'm much too busy, you know, with people doing their Christmas shopping and such. I'm really sorry, Nene. Have a merry Christmas!" Who the hell did she think she was?!? "Hmph!" she grunted. Why was this stupid program taking so _long_ breaking up the Osaka Weapons Division? All this work to create a diffident silicon moron! "Just fire them!" she almost typed. Her actual instructions, although not as drastic, were just as furious. She gave a boost to the self-confidence module, hoping the thing would finally stop dragging its feet. And Priss, that pitiful excuse for a singer. Sure, let her "Konya Wa Hurricane" a bunch of losers on Christmas eve, she deserved the public she got anyway. "What?!?" the redhead exclaimed, reading the email. She had told the bloody thing to cancel that defense contract a month ago. Stock projections appeared on her screen, showing Nene the consequences of taking that course of action. "Fuck the stocks!" Nene swore, smashing on the keys. She was tired of this, and hastily lowered the program's heuristic caution settings. This was only money, after all. Speaking of which, Linna had sure turned out to be great support, bailing out like that. Nene didn't even bother to hear her excuses, tersely saying good-bye and quickly hanging up. "I _don't_ believe this!" Nene growled. She didn't give a damn about solar flares and fluctuations in the magnetosphere, those satellites were supposed to be pointing _outwards_, into space, targeting hazardous asteroids. She instructed the program to override the usual safety procedures and rotate those things in the right direction. Nene continued angrily typing, filled with frustration and ire, unaware of the tone of her own instructions. Her fingers relentlessly hit the keyboard, nearly breaking the keys, not realizing it was almost in perfect synchrony with the loud music exploding through the speakers Many miles away Something crawls from the slime At the bottom of a dark Scottish lake --- GENix version 9.23.5d (gally) ks1 Copyright 2017-2035 Genom Corp. All Rights Reserved. Last login: 10:15/24/12/2035 ***** MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! ***** You have 1 new message in your mailbox [20:44@ks1]/> _ "Nene! Where are you hiding now girl!?" "Up here! Just a second obaa-chan!" Nene quickly read the message. > Hello Nene-chan, > > I hope you like my gift.... > > Merry Christmas! The redhead re-read the email, puzzled. According to the headers it had come from within the system, from the machine itself. Nene thought for a moment. She had felt very bad about her outburst a few weeks ago, but the program had behaved spectacularly well since then. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, and things were progressing very nicely. So well, in fact, that Nene's workload had by now been reduced to a few brief tasks. She had had time to think things over and now the redhead felt tremendously guilty about her friends. She soon decided to try to mend their friendship no matter what it took. Nene had even started thinking about going back to the ADP now that she had so much free time. This must be the gift her "alter-ego" was talking about, and she indeed felt very grateful for it. She was about to send a reply expressing her gratitude when she suddenly realized how silly it would be. "Neeeeneeee!" "What's up, obaa-chan?" Nene replied, as she came down the stairs. "Nene, you work too much! Come here with your old obaa-chan for a change." "Where are mom and dad?" Nene asked, as she sat on the couch, to her grandmother's left. Chi-chan was perched on her obaa-san's right shoulder, and even after all these years it still gave Nene the creepy-crawlies. "Oh, they're with the neighbours, they'll be back in half an hour or so, which makes this a good opportunity to talk." "Talk?" Nene asked, cautiously. "Nene, I want great-grandchildren." The younger redhead's body immediately tensed, as it usually did when her obaa-chan mentioned the subject. "I'm not getting any younger, Nene-chan, and neither are you. You should take a bit of time to enjoy other things life has to offer...." "But...." "But _what_ Nene? Look at you! Always there for your friends and your work, but never for yourself. I'm not saying it's wrong for you to be like that, it's just that I don't want see you throw away everything else." "But...." "But...?" Nene sat silently for a moment. She thought of Nahoko. Her obaa-chan's arguments were not new, of course, but her situation was. Nene realized that the conviction which fueled her previous excuses didn't seem to be there anymore. Instead it was replaced by a simple question: why not? Nene's grandmother sensed this, but she was too smart to push to her. She realized she had finally managed to plant a small seed in Nene's mind, and knew it would sprout sooner or later. She smiled in and outside. "Ice-cream and cookies?" she suddenly asked. "Huh? Oh, um, sure obaa-chan...." "By the way, did I ever tell you about the time I burned out that Fujijoku test plane? I had just gotten transferred to...." Nene had heard the story at least ten times, and was rather glad when the kitchen door closed behind her obaa-chan, drowning her voice. When she came out Nene would simply ask what had they done to her, and act surprised at her promotion. As Nene leaned back on the couch she noticed she was sitting on something. She took the TV's remote control from underneath her, studied it for an instant, and pressed the "on" button. Commercial - Infomercial - Commercial - It's a Wonderful Life - Commercial - Ai No Corrida (which Nene watched for a few seconds, stunned, until she realized her obaa-chan might appear at any moment) - Commercial - "... of the top 1000 countdown!" Nene's eyes opened wide. That was one of her favourite songs! She had never seen the video, and leaned forward, closer to the screen. A couple of minutes later she frowned when the music was suddenly interrupted and a rather ugly anchorwoman appeared. Nene's features quickly began to change as she heard the news. "... an urgent message. We have just received reports from the AD police that a boomer rampage is in progress in the Taito-ku district. No further information is available at the time, but the ADP assures that there have been no casualties. The area has been sealed off, but police urges people in nearby neighbourhoods to avoid leaving their homes, and noted they will be evacuated if necessary. More information as the crisis develops. We continue now with our regular...." "... and then I told him, 'Yeah, _both_ of them!' You should have seen the look on his face! Guess what they did to me?" Nene's grandmother continued, as she stepped out of the kitchen, a bowl of ice-cream and cookies in each hand. She suddenly found herself standing in the middle of the living room, alone save for the little bat perched on her shoulder. "Nene...?" Nene was nowhere to be found, a scribble on a card was all that was left of her granddaughter: Sorry! Gotta go! Merry Xmas! I'll call later! xox - Nene "Hmph!" pouted the slightly greyed redhead. "That ditsy girl of mine really needs to settle down," she murmured, casually looking towards the TV. "Gee, I _remember_ those guys!" she thought, sitting on the couch, pouring the ice-cream and cookies into a single bowl, readying her spoon Every breath you take Every move you make Every bond you break Every step you take I'll be watching you --- > telnet fire.genom.com Trying 128.100.80.13... Connected to fire.genom.com. Escape character is '^]'. GENix System (fire) > login: Quincy > Priority: 1 > Password1: > Password2: > Sorry, login refused. > _ Nene turned intensely pale. She tried two other machines. Same thing, she couldn't even get past the firewalls. She tried three unprotected computers. All three accounts had been deleted. She tried various dummy accounts. All gone. All the back doors she had carefully prepared had been shut, even the most innocuous weaknesses had been fixed and secured. She desperately began to attempt a break-in, telneting to every port, probing sendmail, nntpd, ftpd, httpd, xnetpd, everything she could think of. A couple of hours passed and Nene began to panic. "Nene! What's going on?" The redhead almost hit the ceiling. She violently turned around. Poor Nene was almost hyperventilating. "Linna!" "Sorry to startle you! I rang but nobody came, so I used my key to get in. Sorry it took so long, I just saw the news. What happened Nene?" "Linna! It's my fault! I've lost access to Genom's machines! It's starting again!" "Calm down Nene! Have you called Sylia?" "No! I'm trying to get into the system but it won't let me! Sylia will never forgive me!" "She'll understand, don't worry about that Nene. Keep trying to break in, I'll get in touch with her and Priss...." "Priss! She'll hate me now! After all Genom's done to her! Oh, she's going to _kill_ me!" "Relax Nene! I'm on your side no matter what. You just do what you can." Nene sniffed loudly, her thin lips shivering as she quickly assented with a nod and sat on her chair, facing her monitor. Linna whipped out a cell phone from her bag. She began dialing collect but then changed her mind and punched in Germany's country code and a number. She suddenly heard a familiar voice. "What is going on?" "Sylia! Something has gone wrong with Genom's computers...." "Sylia!" cried Nene, spinning around. "Yes, I'm talking to her right now," said Linna, placing her index finger over her lips, indicating Nene to quiet down. "What happened to the computers?" "Oh, Sylia! I've lost control of the control program!" "Who are you tal...?" Linna suddenly spun around and found herself face to face with the leader of Knight Sabers. "SYLIA! How did you...?" "The Euro-Shinkansen Express. What control program, Nene?" Nene quickly explained the events up to that point, with Linna squeezing her by the shoulders in support when the redhead began to nervously babble. A few minutes later Sylia was pretty much aware of the entire situation, while Nene was almost crying, her big, trembling eyes filled with tears. "But Nene, _who_ is that exactly?" Sylia asked. "It's... it's me... kind of...." "How 'kind of'?" "Like I told you, it was me, or part of me, but I didn't think it was a part of me large enough to be really me, or to become me, or someone else. Oh, Sylia, this is all _my_ fault! I should have never- " "This is mostly _my_ fault, Nene, but it's meaningless to point fingers now. We've all made mistakes here. Now we fix them. I think that at least for now the computer is a dead end, we have to act quickly. Nene, call your friends at the ADP, see what the situation with the boomers is. We'll try to get hold of Priss." Nene gulped loudly, as she grabbed the phone on her desk and began dialing headquarters. "Sylia," Linna whispered, leaning close to Sylia, "if whoever this is knows what Nene knows then our cover does not exist." "I know, Linna," whispered Sylia, "and I'm pretty sure Nene is aware of this. Look at her, she's falling apart. On the other hand, remember that our cover never really did exist, and if this thing wanted us dead, we wouldn't be here right now, especially if that supercomputer is as formidable as Nene says...." "But why?" "It's not hard to fi-" "Sylia!" Nene said, breathlessly, "Two BU-55 boomers are smashing up some warehouses over at Taito-ku. They seem to be doing a lot of damage, but they haven't moved around much since they started." "Any casualties?" asked Sylia. "Oh, thank God no! ADP actually says they're avoiding any direct confrontation, just tearing down the place." "In any case we have to get hold of-" "PRISS!" Linna and Sylia spun around. Priss stood at the entrance of the room, heaving. "YOU!" "P-Priss... I... I..." "How *COULD* you! You thought I wouldn't find out?" "Careful now, Priss, it wasn't all Nene's fault...." Linna cautioned, putting a protecting arm around Nene's little shoulders. "I KNOW it wasn't! You're just greedy and want my share!" "Your share...?" "Nice party you got going on here. My suit better be ready, Sylia, oiled and fully armed, or I'm kicking ass starting right now!" "Priss, I think you got it wrong...." "Nene! You finally grew some balls! A boomer rampage! What an idea! Unbelievable! I'm sorry for the way I behaved, but not telling me this? I love you girl, I really do!! Why, you've even _lost_ some weight since I last saw you!" "Priss, I'm afraid you're somewhat confused. This is not some kind of gift, it's for real. Nene lost control of Genom." "What!? Who is behind this then?" "Well, Nene, kind of. It's a program based on her mindprint," answered Sylia. "So it wasn't Nene who grew balls but some fucking video game!?" "It's _not_ funny, Priss!" Nene cried, pouting, as Priss bent over, laughing hysterically. "No, it's not funny," agreed Sylia, "and we'd better get moving. Nene, grab your helmet, we're getting the suits. I'll drive." "Are you sure, Sylia? We haven't been training, and- " "Don't worry, Linna, they _won't_ fight to win, at least not this time...." "What are we going to _do_!?" Nene whined, as her comrades exited the room. "What do you _think_ we're going to do, Nene-chan?" asked Priss in a broken English, grabbing her friend by the arm, "We're gonna save the fucking day!" A few minutes later the room became silent, and nothing stirred, not even a mouse. Suddenly Nene's monitor flickered out of powersave mode, and the screen came to life. A window entitled "nene@melchizedek" opened, and a few words appeared across it. A second window materialized, the ROM card's control panel. From the list offered, a title was selected, and an instant later the speakers came to life, filling the house with their haunting, prophetic melody Devil and the deep blue sea behind me Vanish in the air you'll never find me I will turn your face to alabaster When you find your servant is your master You will be wrapped around my finger You will be wrapped around my finger You will be wrapped around my finger _________________________________ marco@chinook.physics.utoronto.ca Gunnm: Broken Angel http://128.100.80.13/marco/alita.html