**********

 

I see the world through bloodshot eyes

Streets filled with blood from distant lies

Dogs of War never compromise

No real time for rearranging

 

"Help me Jesus, help me Clean My Wounds"

He said he cannot heal that kind

Bleeding soul becomes a bitter mind

He said it happens every time...

 

(Knock it down!)

 

That's how the story goes

 

(Knock it down!)

 

In the land of a 1000's no's

 

(Knock it down!)

 

In all over you

In time my mind is changing

 

Oh, Knock it down

 

Black on black gives me a heart attack

And the silence makes it deadly

Some choose to kill with simple will

I've seen 'em fall fast and steady

 

"Help me Jesus, help me Clean My Wounds"

He said he cannot heal that kind

Bleeding soul becomes a bitter mind

He said it happens every time...

 

(Knock it down!)

 

That's how the story goes

 

(Knock it down!)

 

In the land of a 1000's no's

 

(Knock it down!)

 

In all over you

In time my mind is changing

 

Twist of fate won't give me a break

And myself I'm slow and tired

I've got to rise with these bloodshot eyes

But I keep falling when I'm higher

 

"Help me Jesus, help me Clean My Wounds"

He said he cannot heal that kind

Bleeding soul becomes a bitter mind

He said it happens every time...

 

(Knock it down!)

 

That's how the story goes

 

(Knock it down!)

 

In the land of a 1000's no's

 

(Knock it down!)

 

We are bleeding sins

But our sins are always fading

 

Oh, fading

Oh, fading

Oh, fading

 

Oh, knock it down, knock it down

Oh, knock it down, knock it down

Oh, knock it down, knock it down

Oh, knock it down...

 

**********

 

Chapter Seven

 

**********

 

She had no idea how long she had been out but when Jenna finally started to stir from her unconsciousness it soon became quite clear that much had changed around her. Her aquamarine eyes blinked open and squinted at her surroundings – which were no longer a gormless metallic prison cell. This was a rather genteel room. Someone had laid her out over a comfortable king-sized bed. It was covered with purple coloured sheets of Egyptian cotton and soft pillows. The room itself was quite large. There were many portraits of ancient historical figures along the walls. More than eight bookcases containing dozens of historical and philosophical texts concealed two walls. Whoever owned this room also seemed to have a fondness for taxidermy because there were dozens of stuffed trophy animals decorating this place. They were bucks and eagles mostly. The rest were merely the heads of other animals like bulls and deer. There was something frightening and odd about it, to Jenna.

 

She exhaled and pulled herself closer to the headboard, combing her hair with one of her shaking hands. This certainly was not the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau's headquarters. But the last thing she remembered before being knocked out was that Chinese swordswoman. She had cut through the walls of her cell while the CSMB HQ was under (what seemed to be) an attack and had asked Jenna to come with her. The singer remembered refusing that request, so the swordswoman unsheathed that blade of hers and slammed her against the wall with some kind of `windblast' attack. An unknown bout of time had passed since then and Jenna was now waking up here. So it was safe for her to guess that that woman, Xiang Mu Feng, as she called herself, had kidnapped her.

 

Jenna lowered her face into her arms. "...I can't believe this is happening."

 

The door clicked. Jenna looked up and saw three people march into the bedroom. Two of them she already knew. One of them was Xiang Mu Feng, wearing the same green Chinese dress she had when she had abducted Jenna. The other one she knew was Drake Mahrem himself. Only difference between Jenna seeing him at the wine party and seeing him now was that this time he was not dressed in a suit but rather a long chestnut brown trenchcoat, lengthy black trousers and sturdy grey combat boots. Behind the trenchcoat he was shirtless. And when dressed like that, Jenna had to admit; there were some similarities between him and Rune. The third member of the party she did not know. He was a short and stooping old man wearing a sort of yellow and black striped `hazard' suit. The only thing missing was a hard hat on that crown balding head of his.

 

The three walked up to the bed. Drake crossed his arms with a smirk. "...So you're Jenna Woodworth. The last of the six superbioandroids, huh?"

 

"...Why are you doing this?"

 

"Why? Didn't the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau explain why they tried to seal you off from us? You're a pawn piece in my plan, that's all," As he spoke Drake began walking around the bed repetitively. "I built this amazing company from the ground up with the full intention of using it to help facilitate my dream of transforming Africa into a confederate superpower. But before I could achieve that end... an out of control AI took over the Mahrem Conglomerate. There is no way I can wrestle control back from its grip. To that end I must rid myself of this organization. But then why stop at the company? This whole city must fall, so that Deus may never rise again... and that everything I've done here will never see the light of day."

 

Jenna looked away. "So... she was right. You mean to... to destroy this city...?"

 

"Correct. Two years ago I secretly coaxed the Mahrem Conglomerate's super-production factory AI, Gang Wei Kong, to produce six `superbioandroids', each one of them lacking both BITs and encephalon gears, so that they would be virtually undetectable to the public. They were all to be cast the shape of adolescent girls but for some reason your rate of aging was superior to theirs. Nevertheless... commands or, `ICBM sub-keys' were implanted in the biotechnological DNA of each of you. Upon your deaths an electronic signal is sent from your bodies to our satellite Merkabah, activating a sixth of the security protocol that will launch the ICBMs from a missile silo in one of my other bases. You are the last remaining of the six superbioandroids. When you die... nuclear missiles will be fired at this city and they will raze it to the ground."

 

"...You're insane! You can't possibly mean to-"

 

"I have recently built a nuclear power plant on the edge of this city. But it is merely a dummy. We will simply write it away as a nuclear accident. And once I produce the Zopheridae army for the Middle Eastern conflict, I'll have enough money to rebuild elsewhere."

 

Jenna shook her head in fright. "You can't do this... there are millions of people living in this city..."

 

Drake shrugged. "I'll do what's necessary to ensure the success of my plans. Don't think that it hasn't already cost me dearly. I've lost many members of my glorious Dark Christ thus far – Kagedo, GOLEM, Psychosis, even the seemingly invisible Eileen has fallen. What I've planned has taken a lot of time and money... but soon everything will be realized."

 

"Rune will stop you!" Jenna shouted defiantly. "She'll come for me! I know that she will!"

 

The Anglo-African chuckled. "And that's all you can do – hope. But hope doesn't assure results. For now, relax; let my servants tend to you. I'm in a generous mood. You may as well enjoy these last few hours of life you have left."

 

With Jenna left glaring at him with those final words, Drake turned on his heels and exited the bedroom with Xiang Mu Feng and the other one flanking him. Out in the echoing marble corridor of the Mahrem Building's 28th floor, Xiang remarked, "What now, sir?" as they walked.

 

"We should act fast. The sooner we take out this city the better. It seems as though we've managed to keep our raid of the CSMB HQ secret from Deus thus far, which is good, but I no longer wish to take chances. I'm sure that the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau won't procrastinate now that we have the final super BA."

 

The short old man walking with them looked up at his master. "I heard from the report that your `shadow' and Jenna Woodworth are lovers. That might complicate things."

 

"All the more reason to expect her to strike here and thus all the more reason to move swiftly. You two are the only remaining members of Dark Christ. I need you and the Mujajis to hold down the fort until I escape city limits with Jenna Woodworth and the Zopheridae prototype. As soon as I make it to the outside, I'll send message to you all. Once you and the Mujajis have escaped, I'll kill her myself."

 

"You can count on us, Master Drake," Xiang commented.

 

Drake smiled. "I know that. Now. Little Boy!"

 

"Y-yes sir?" Fumbled the old man in the hazard suit.

 

"Make preparations for the Zopheridae's transportation. By tomorrow morning I must be ready to depart."

 

"Yes sir."

 

**********

 

Rune glared out through the window to the cold night streets of East New Coast. It was raining. Repetitively droplets of water pattered against that office window. But Rune was paying so little attention to it; she might as well have thought it was a clear summer morning. The ex-soldier stood dejectedly against the cool precipitation-splattered upper window of Commander Kinborough's office. It had been quite a few hours since Jenna had been captured. The sun had already fallen over the city. Now leading figures of the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau had to decide what to do next, which was why they were all gathered in the Commander's office once again. Frank, who by now had received some real treatment for the injury her suffered whilst fighting Eileen, sat behind his desk, glowing pensively. Nyles sat on one of the chairs in front of his desk. Zophie was doing the same but her eyes were directed toward Rune. They were wracked with concern. And finally Nastasia had her arms crossed against the wall next to the door. She was a lot less frightened than the others but that was always her best quality, staying relatively calm in tense situations.

 

And this was certainly a tense situation.

 

"There's no denying that we failed to fulfil our duties," Frank uttered. "The one thing we should have done above all else was to protect Jenna Woodworth. I blame myself for this."

 

"It was all our fault, sir." Zophie assured her grandfather.

 

"No, I don't believe that. Our men did as best they could, considering the circumstances. I should have bolstered our defensive teams so that we were better prepared to deal with Drake's henchmen. Because of my failure... more than fifty soldiers and sixty members of staff have been killed... and scores injured."

 

"I am to blame also, Mr. Kinborough," Nyles told him. "With my knowledge of the Dark Christ group, I could have given more information out on how to deal with them. I am at fault also."

 

Nastasia ran a hand through her long blonde hair. "Well blaming ourselves is not going to resolve anything either. We must concentrate on only one thing now. Stopping Drake Mahrem before he gets a chance to reduce this city to ashes."

 

"Easier said than done. How do we know he isn't halfway to New York by now?" Zophie retorted. "Maybe we should think about telling the people of the city to evacuate."

 

"And what makes you think they would listen to you?"

 

"...Well..."

 

Nyles shook his head. "Drake should come first now. He is the risk. If we don't stop him here then his cycle of blind ambition will merely continue elsewhere. Besides, I doubt that he's left the city yet."

 

"What makes you say that?" Questioned Frank.

 

"Well, do not forget the major reason he is doing this is to eliminate Deus. However he cannot make large movements and ventures with Deus watching his every move, he will have to bide his time and do things covertly. That's the reason he chose such an abstract way of activating the ICBM sub-keys. He will have to prepare carefully to avoid catching Deus' attention."

 

"How much time would that buy us?"

 

Nyles stopped and thought for a moment. "Hmm. He will have to prepare to leave with the Zopheridae prototype, which is the key to rebuilding his empire, and his remaining Mujaji Commandoes. The remaining Dark Christ members are Xiang Mu Feng and Little Boy. In all likelihood he will have to consider saving them because they know the most about his plan. To organize a method for doing all that without alerting Deus would probably take a day. So my guess is that Drake will try to flee Junk Town with Jenna Woodworth tomorrow."

 

"Not much time. But it's better than nothing."

 

"What's your plan?" Asked Zophie.

 

Frank crossed his fingers together. "There isn't much of one. We can't feign any ignorance of what Drake is planning on doing anymore. They knew we had Jenna and most likely they knew Nyles was here as well. Covert missions alone would not be enough either as the Mahrem is bound to have maximized their security. We have no choice but to storm the head building itself."

 

Nastasia blinked. "Are you serious?"

 

"I wouldn't joke about something like this."

 

"But what exactly will that accomplish?" Zophie proclaimed. "We don't even know if Jenna's there."

 

"It's not like we have any other leads. And we've gone past the point when we could overlook the crimes of the Mahrem Conglomerate. State clearance or not, we have to bring that organization down. And our masterstroke will be that building of theirs. We'll send our full forces at it, every scrap of manpower and firepower this organization can produce, before our superiors can intervene. I'll take full responsibility for it. Meanwhile Rune and Nastasia will sneak into the Mahrem HQ and find Jenna. If she's not there – they pull out. And while they do that, YOU Zophie, will be working on Merkabah."

 

She blinked. "The Mahrem satellite. You want me to upload the worm cluster from the disk copies we have."

 

"Well it was your idea," Nastasia told her.

 

"Yeah. I suppose I've been kind of distracted lately." Zophie ran a hand through her length blonde hair before casting a subtle look in Rune's distraction. Nastasia noticed it but didn't say or do anything to suggest that she did. Frank gave her a cautious stare but said nothing also.

 

Fortunately Nyles spoke before the following silence became awkward. "If that's the case then I'll try to help Zophie in any way I can. Much of this is my fault. After I lost my family I fell into a well of loneliness and melancholy. I concentrated on escaping my guilt and isolation by burying myself in my work – Psychosis, GOLEM, Eileen, Kagedo, the Zopheridae prototype, even Deus. There is nothing more dangerous than science without purpose. I owe it everyone and all of you to use my knowledge to help you stop Drake and the Mahrem Conglomerate once and for all."

 

"Thanks, Nyles. We'd better get cracking soon then."

 

Rune finally turned from the window to the others. "We can't waste anymore time. I'm sick of talking about what do. It's time we did something. I have to... save her. It's my fault she's there and if don't do anything... what does that make me?"

 

She said that more to herself rather than to anyone else. But the idea still stood strong with the others. The time for talk was now over. Drake had made the first move and it blindsided them from a good vantage point – they had Jenna. They had to act now and act fast. Frank nodded resolutely, Zophie pulled a weak smile, Nastasia pulled a strong one, and Nyles shut his eyes in contemplation.

 

Rune pushed off the window and headed for the door. "I'll leave it to you guys to decide how we strike. I'm going home."

 

Zophie urgently stood up while Rune left the room. "Wait a minute, Rune...!"

 

The blonde girl followed her out into the corridor. When she heard footsteps following her, Rune slowed to a stop. The two then came face to face again for the first time since Zophie's admission. Zophie swallowed the lump in her throat and gave the older woman a nervous smile. "Hey... I should have asked you earlier but after what happened to Jenna, I..."

 

When she noticed Rune's crestfallen expression Zophie went straight to the point. "Look, I just wanted to know how you were doing. I know that, despite what's been happening, losing Jenna like that can't have been easy for you."

 

"I'm okay," Rune offered in earnest. "...To be honest... I'm kind of grateful... for fighting that girl."

 

"Huh?"

 

Rune slotted her hands into her pockets. "...When I was battling Eileen, I... had visions of a kind. I saw the people that were important to me. And I realized how selfish I've been toward all of them. Jenna was right. I can be a complete bitch when I want to be."

 

"...Rune..."

 

"Fighting Eileen helped me see that I've been mistreating people," Rune started hard at Zophie. "Especially you."

 

The data analyst blushed, looking away shyly. "..."

 

"Zophie, you don't have to say anything. I know I've been treating you poorly too. I'm so sorry for it. And I'm sorry that... I can't return your feelings for me. Bioandroid or not... I love Jenna. I know that now more than ever."

 

Zophie bit her lip, still not looking at Rune. "...Okay. I... I d-didn't really expect anything... you know..."

 

Rather than say anything outright, Rune simply opened her arms and dragged Zophie into them. Zophie looked up with confusion when her body fell into that embrace but soon she didn't question it and rather she let herself melt into it. And just as easily as that the tears started falling. She couldn't help it. It all came rushing in on Zophie – that her feelings for Rune were unrequited, that this was the closest she'd ever get to being with her, that friendship was all she could ask for. When Zophie started sobbing into her shoulder, Rune tightened her hug of the eighteen-year-old and softly stroked her back. It was only now that she realized how close she and Zophie really were. She really did have people to protect. Jenna, Nana, and Zophie. All her life Rune had felt that she was alone. But it wasn't true... at least not anymore. She had people to defend and a woman to fight for. And an enemy she had to kill to ensure all of it.

 

Drake Mahrem.

 

**********

 

Contrary to what many would have expected of her in that situation, Rune managed to get a good amount of sleep that long night after Jenna's capture. She couldn't think about much else other than rescuing her but at the same time her army training allowed her to put herself to sleep before tough battles. It was a handy little trick indeed because all that extra energy was what she would need to see through the mission. She had spent the night at the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau rather than go back to her apartment (it would have been an unnecessary ride to get there and back, plus, the place was still trashed from the attack that Lady Eraser had launched on her). Zophie, Frank and Nyles stayed back too. The Commander spent most of the night planning out the attack strategy and the number of troops and the styles of weapons to be used by them for the operation. Nyles and Zophie on the other hand busied themselves with the copies of the data disk that LeCroix and Clarence had stolen. Apparently they hadn't quite cracked how to make use of it yet but they were said to be on the verge of a breakthrough.

 

When morning came there was a change in the tone amongst the staff at the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau. Word had gotten out pretty quite that Commander Kinborough was planning a potentially fatal strike on the Mahrem Conglomerate with the CSMB's full forces. The seriousness of it seemed to be dawning on everyone. The halls and rooms of the building were quiet, pierced only by necessary bits of chatter between office workers and such. But no one uttered what everyone deep down knew to be a reality – this could be the Bureau's last ride.

 

Frank hadn't told them that their lives were in danger from a nuclear strike, obviously, but there was a overt sentiment of impending destruction amongst those who gathered in headquarters that morning. But for the soldiers who'd be doing the brunt of the work that simply didn't matter.

 

Rune got up early and went to the shooting range after catching a shower. She practiced for an hour or so, making sure to keep her shot as accurate and as steady as it had been during the civil war, then left the range and returned to her office for breakfast. She was sitting in the sofa bed of the room, oddly calm and in control, not nearly as perturbed as everyone else was, when someone walked in with a breakfast tray. It was Polly. She had been one of the earlier casualties when Eileen and GOLEM first blew up the front wall and marched in yesterday. But on closer inspection she didn't look all that hurt. She had an anaesthetic-laced white bandage wrapped around her skull and a plaster over her left ear but beyond that she looked to be okay.

 

Rune studied the bioandroid when she walked in and set the tray down on the coffee table in front of her. For some quite strange reason she felt no animosity towards this girl now. It was odd... but at the same time it felt right that way.

 

"Here Miss McNeil," Polly said as she handed Rune the coffee from the tray. "This is for you. And there's toast, eggs, bacon and fried tomatoes here too. Not particularly healthy but it's what you asked for."

 

Rune sipped from the warm plastic cup before whispering, "...I'm sorry, Polly."

 

"For what, Ma'am?"

 

"A while ago I was very disrespectful to you," Rune stated. "And I always have been. So for that... I'm sorry."

 

Polly beamed an oblivious smile completely natural to bioandroid programming. "Thank you, Miss McNeil."

 

The ex-soldier sipped more coffee before nodding to her. For some reason her experience with Eileen made her see things differently. In the past bioandroids had been a constant reminder of the crimes humanity had committed to produce her and her powers. But now she saw that she was nothing like them – they didn't even have wills of their own. Jenna had been right about that one too. Bioandroids were the real victims in society these days.

 

"You can go," She told the wounded BA.

 

Polly bowed momentarily and then left with her tray underneath her arm. Rune was left alone to eat and to contemplate what she would do when she got to the Mahrem Building. All that was left now was to act.

 

So when she finished eating she automatically went about preparing herself for the fight to come. Rune went into weapons storage, a department of the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau that was underneath her own, to procure certain items. One of them was a new and rare form of battle suit. It was a kind of composite armour made of polymerised metals and designed with grey and light black textures that acted as a form of camouflage in urban terrain. The suit itself was tough enough to withstand 5.56 calibre shots at any distance and 43mm calibre shots at long range, and also acted as insulation in below zero temperatures. Along with that these suits dulled the impact of collisions, falls and blasts on the body. It was a perfect form of defence for the kind of fight they all expected to get from the Mahrem today. Unfortunately these suits were quite expensive to make so there were only a few available to the best agents of the CSMB. Rune was one of them and the other was Nastasia. The others things she was sure to take with her were the weapons she would be using in her bid to rescue Jenna. From the weapons storage department she took an MX-22 and eight ES rounds (which had been packed into a waist held pouch for her), a leather body belt holding eight grenades, and her regular SIG 550. She'd also take her Desert Eagles and the Naphtali knife but there were already up in the office. When Rune assembled all that she'd need from weapons storage she returned to her office and got changed.

 

When she emerged from it she was garbed in the new urban battle suit, had the SIG in her hands, the ES pouch hanging off her lower back/ass, the grenade belt wrapped around her body diagonally, the MX-22 strapped to her back counter-diagonally to that, her Desert Eagles in holsters on either side of her hips, and finally the Naphtali knife slotted into a small sheath within her right boot. She did feel a bit weighed down with all that firepower on her but once she called for an overdrive secretion she'd feel as light as a cloud.

 

Fully kitted out, Rune left the office corridor and descended to ground level. She walked out of the building through the huge gaping hole that the explosion yesterday had created. Waiting in the streets outside the building was the penultimate military strike force that the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau could muster. Nearly 400 troops, all carrying AK-101s and combat knives, had been gathered up were presently stomping into transport trucks that would take them to the next battlefield, the Mahrem Conglomerate HQ. Alongside those trucks was a platoon of so-called `land-walkers'. Basically put they were bipedal anti-personnel tanks. They were not like the Zopheridae. They were small and could only carry a person a time. That person sat in a cockpit shielded only by a small half-circle of bulletproof glass. Its only weapon was a GAU-17 gatling gun protruding from its snub-nose front, like the spike of a swordfish. The platoon of land-walkers was eighteen units strong. A slight distance behind the land-walker platoon and the trucks carrying the soldiers were four T-55 tanks and twenty motorcycles ridden by CSMB troops who were carrying MX-22s.

 

Rune smiled at all of this.

 

Commander Kinborough wasn't kidding when he said he was going all out.

 

The man himself would be staying behind to command the operation via satellite surveillance and NNTL communication. But he had assembled quite a strike force. By Rune's estimations, there would be less than thirty soldiers left behind to guard the CSMB building itself. He was taking quite a risk, which was probably why the office staff and pencil pushers of the Bureau were so concerned. Many of them were quite shaken about what happened yesterday as it was, but if this `army' failed in it's allotted task and was destroyed, then it would mean the end of the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau.

 

While everyone outside got ready, Rune glanced to the left and saw Nastasia approaching her from the left. She too had dressed herself in the new battle suit but in terms of weaponry she was only carrying her Nizhlogg, six spare cartridges of liquid nitrogen bullets and normal rounds, as well as a few flashbang grenades.

 

The Russian woman pulled a deep grin. "Are you ready?"

 

"Yeah." Rune replied tersely.

 

"Good. The Commander issued street evacuations and traffic diversion orders for all of the districts between East New Coast and North New Coast, which means we should have no problems mobilizing our forces. Follow me. I'll explain the attack plan in the transport."

 

Rune followed Nastasia to a van parked next to the first few transport trucks. They clamoured into the back and closed the doors behind them before sitting down parallel to each other. After a few moments the engine roared to life, as did the numerous engines of the transport trucks. Soon the land-walkers made powerful steps across the streets, the tanks rumbled behind them, and the cyclist marksmen revved up. The army slowly started moving down the streets of the district to the next.  

 

Inside the van, Nastasia shut her eyes. "And off we go."

 

"What's the plan of attack?"

 

"This is why you should have come to the briefing," Quipped the blonde. "Basically this little army is going to storm the Mahrem building while you and I sneak in from its underground tunnels. Once inside we'll search for Jenna. Meanwhile Zophie and Nyles will keep trying to disable Merkabah by deciphering the worm cluster on those disks."

 

Rune frowned. "What about Drake?"

 

"Lets just hope we find Jenna before he takes her."

 

"Jenna's my priority but I have to settle things with him," Rune said. "None of this means anything unless we stop him."

 

Nastasia opened her eyes. "We'll do what we can."

 

**********

 

BULLET MAIDEN RUNE

 

**********

 

The circular precinct that surrounded the tallest building in Junk Town, the Mahrem Conglomerate HQ, was secured by far more guards than usual. Soldier-model bioandroids, sporting FAMAS rifles, grenades and kitted out in riot armour, stood on point at the twelve gates that acted as security barriers for the twelve roads that fed into main central precinct of the complex. One particular BA stood at Gate 08 to monitor a computer screen built into the side of the arching metal gate. It showed the current readings of the electrified fencing that all the gates had been woven into. All readings seemed normal at first.

 

Then something unplanned happened.

 

The bang of cannon fire rang out so loudly that most of the BAs on hand heard the shot and gasped. A shall was sent zooming into the air seventy metres or so from the outer ring of the Mahrem Conglomerate building's defences. Then that shall veered straight for Gate 08 and destroyed it. The four BAs at hand all screamed and thrashed when they were hurled off their feet and into the air. The explosion blew apart both the gate and the electric fencing that secured that segment of the inner ring defences. The remaining BAs and the remaining gates became alert and one of them at Gate 11 immediately threw on the red alert alarm. A droning siren echoed across the grounds and bright red fluorescent lights mounted on the other gates started flashing crimson. In the far distance crossing into the outer territories of the ground-level complex was the army of the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau. The tip of the barrel of one of the T-55s was smoking from its firing of that previous shell. The pilot inside clutched his hand into a fist victoriously but kept the tank moving along with the rest of the CSMB forces. But as the tanks behind the main forces inched ahead they fired more shells. Each one was sent on a direct course for the gates and fencing that sealed off the Mahrem building from the outside. And so numerous explosions started rocking the precinct. Fires reared up, smoke wafted around, debris was hurled into the air. Soon enough the entire southern part of the ring fencing, which included Gates 04, 05, 06, 07 and 08, were destroyed. The first part of the CSMB army to make the follow-up move was the heavy infantry. All of the truck housing those soldiers came to a stop in the parking lot area, while the land walkers advanced and the four T-55 tanks remained their bombardment of the area dozens of metres up ahead. When the trucks locked off the back doors opened in all of them. All 400 individual troops of the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau stomped out of the trucks and charged with war cries across the huge gravel car park they had veered up in. Some of the remaining BA guards scuttled behind the burning rubble of the fallen gates and returned fire with their FAMAS rifles. When a couple of the CSMB's heavy infantry were gunned down in their tracks, some of the frontal troops returned fire and shot back. A brief shooting battle ensued between the charging frontal troops and the few remaining BAs on the southern section of the Mahrem Building's defences. The battle didn't last very long because only moments later the eighteen units of the land walker platoon reached the rubble of the lower gates ahead of the heavy infantry. Their gatling guns tore through the lingering BAs that struck up reprisal fire. Blood and flesh was wrenched from the bones and armour but the land walkers carried on regardless, now within the Mahrem complex proper. The heavy infantry followed behind them, while the four T-55s remained at the car park. They now started shelling the Mahrem Building itself. The southern side of the towering skyscraper felt the force of the gunfire through powerful explosions that ripped up the glass windows and tore the limbs off the office workers dwelling within.

 

The only truck that lingered behind with the T-55 tanks was the one holding Rune and Nastasia. Those two agents opened the back doors and jumped out. By now the background was arrested by the sounds of war. They covered their ears to muffle the nearby shellfire of the tanks and wordlessly gestured to each other. They knew their role. The two women ran to one of the sewer manholes that were dotted around the car park, the same one that Rune had used to escape the place after Drake's wine party unveiling of the Zopheridae. Nastasia lifted out (since she had less to carry) and jumped inside. Rune did the same. They landed on the withered, moss-eaten, slimy stones of a platform that overlooked the murky grey and green sewage waters below. The two of them then ran across the lengthy sewer platform, all the while they could hear the explosions and fighting up above. It wouldn't be long before the Mahrem sent out stronger forces to try and quell the violence. Because of that they had to be quick. When Rune and Nastasia finally made it to the other end of the platform they found a tall ladder waiting for them. They scaled it and inched up higher and higher until Rune pushed open the iron manhole that was plugging up the ceiling. She opened it only a little and peered through the gap to see what their location was. They were a short distance from the east entrance. But, just like they'd planned, there were no armed BA guards securing it because they were better occupied with the main CSMB army.

 

"Lets go." Rune whispered.

 

Rune and Nastasia climbed out of the manhole and rushed over to the glass door entrance. It opened automatically and let them in. When they got into the well furnished and business-like lobby, they found it had been largely evacuated, even the receptionist's desk was abandoned. Through the bullet hole-laden glass doors on the southern end, the front entrance, the heavy infantry and the land walkers could be seen engaging the last few BAs left outside. They tried desperately to return fire with their FAMAS rifles and ducked behind clumps of debris for cover but they were clearly outmatched. The building itself shook every few moments. In the far distance both Rune and Nastasia heard the rumblings of the shells that the T-55 tanks were firing at the skyscraper.

 

"They do not seem to be holding back," Commented Nastasia.

 

Rune then heard something else. "...Shit. Footsteps. Hide!"

 

The two women ducked behind the flight of stairs that led up to the second floor. Just then more than fifty armed soldiers, none of them BAs, carrying Heckler and Koch 416 carbines and pineapples, entered the lobby through one of the seven automatic doors at the other end of the room. They were all armoured. Their boots stomped over the marble of the lobby like thunder and they proceeded to exit out into the battlefield and engage the enemy with full force.

 

Once they were all gone, Rune spoke up. "They've already organized a reprisal team. But it's probably just as stall. They'll jack up their forces quick, especially with land walkers on their ass."

 

"Then let us-" Nastasia paused when she felt the cool steel of a blade tap lightly on her cheek. She didn't look back but Rune soon did. She was startled to see the one holding the sword.

 

"...Toki...?"

 

The Japanese assassin frowned and lowered his sword from Nastasia's cheek. "And I've always been told that I'm reckless one. Did you really believe hiding like this would protect you in here?"

 

"What are you even doing here?" Rune questioned. "I thought you were after Kagedo."

 

Toki sheathed his sword. "And so I am. I returned here yesterday but the security around Drake has tightened up. I cannot get close enough to him to learn of Kagedo's location. But now that you people are here... I might have a better chance."

 

Rune sneered at him. "You've changed your tune. I thought you didn't need anyone's help."

 

"..." Toki frowned at her but swallowed his indignation. "...I could kill any sole individual in this building with less than a glance. But even I am... not invincible. I am asking you for help. If you don't want to work with me then so be it."

 

Nastasia turned to Rune. "It is your call."

 

She didn't need much thinking time for it. "...I think we could use as much help as we can get. But first... do you know of a woman named Jenna Woodworth?"

 

"...Someone Drake captured yesterday," Toki answered. "Why?"

 

"Can you take me to her?"

 

"Again, why?"

 

Nastasia frowned at the Japanese boy. "It's very important that we find her. You don't need to know all the details."

 

"Humph. I wonder if you could have said that after I extended your head from your body."

 

Nastasia frowned at the Japanese boy. "It's very important that we find her. You don't need to know all the details."

 

"Humph. I wonder if you could have said that after I extended your head from your body."

 

The Russian woman smirked and nudged something through the gap between her arm and her ribs. It was the barrel of her USP. Toki nudged his eyes toward the weapon that was pointing silently into the direction of his chest. A woodsman had just cut down another little chuck of the tree that was Toki's pride. While the Russian and the Japanese persons glared at each other, the American one exhaled.

 

"We don't have time for this," she remarked. "Can you help me find Jenna or not?"

 

Toki exchanged glances with both of them before answering, "Follow me..."

 

The assassin from the Ansatsugakkou quickly ran around the stairwell they were all located behind. Rune and Nastasia followed him. They all ascended the stairs swiftly but carefully and dashed down the length of the balcony surrounding the upper level of the room. At the end of that pathway were two metal doors of the elevator. It needed key card clearance to be accessed.

 

"Damn," Rune cursed.

 

Toki rolled his eyes. "Are you always so defeatist? I have a key card – I managed to procure one from the security teams while I hid out in the building. It gives us access to all rooms and levels of the building."

 

The swordsman pulled it from his robes, swept it through the control panel and tapped `93' into the keypad. They heard a `ding' noise when the doors opened for them. They all walked inside and stood still when the doors closed once again and the elevator shot up its shaft to one of the higher levels of the Mahrem Conglomerate HQ.

 

Rune turned to Toki. "Where are we going?"

 

"There is no elevator that takes us straight from the lobby to the floor in which Jenna Woodworth's room is. We must take this elevator up to the ninety-third floor. From there begins the automated defences. But once we cross the floor and make it to the next elevator we can that that up to the hundred-and-twentieth floor. That is where is will be found."

 

"Good. We can make this quick."

 

Toki popped a cocky glance at Nastasia, or more accurately, her weapons. "By the way, are you handy with that Zastava?"

 

"Why do you ask?"

 

The lift came to a stop. And when it did the doors opened to reveal a very long corridor that stretched from one end of the building to the other. It was narrow, no more than two metres wide, and every metre or so along the corridor there were square-shaped indentations paired parallel to each other on either wall. There was something odd about it. At the end of the corridor were the doors of the second elevator.

 

Toki glanced up. "Do you see those indentations up there? They conceal automated laser-point rifles that are activated when someone walks across the floor ahead of us. I could easily deflect those bullets with my sword but I can only protect myself. I cannot protect you. So they need to be destroyed before we can proceed."

 

"But these guns only appear when the floor is touched, correct?" Mused Nastasia.

 

"And therein lies the problem."

 

Rune lifted up her SIG 550. "I could shoot them as I run?"

 

"I do not think you would have enough time for that."

 

"Well what then?"

 

Toki pointed at Nastasia's Zastava. "You could shoot them down as we run."

 

The blonde woman pondered on it, pulling the sniper rifle from her back. "It's possible, I suppose. My shot is a swift one, more than swift enough to protect the two of you from a trap like this."

 

Rune smiled. "Easy there, Mata Hari."

 

"I'm a Markswoman, not a spy."

 

Toki glowered at the pair of them. "Is it agreed or not?"

 

Automatically Nastasia crouched down into a sniping position. "Leave everything to me. I will not be able to follow you... so I will join the rest of our troops on the ground. You go find Jenna and Drake."

 

"Thanks, Nastasia. And be careful," Rune told her.

 

"I will. Now get moving."

 

Toki and Rune nodded to each other before running straight into the corridor. Almost as immediately as they did this, the tiles concealing the first line of overhead cannons opened. When duo advanced the guns chugged back to fire, only to be shot by Nizhlogg. The two guns crackled with electricity and deactivated just as Rune and Toki ran past the second pair. When those guns extended from their pods Nastasia shot them as well. That was the way it proceeded, Nastasia pausing to reload only twice, all the way down to the other end. It was a good 200m worth of distance and by the time Rune and Toki reached the safe zone, Nastasia was too far away to speak to. Rune waved her hand as a thanks, Nastasia managed to see that and waved back.

 

Toki shut his eyes whilst summoning the next elevator via the control panel. "Let us hurry, woman."

 

They got inside the elevator when it arrived. The doors closed behind them and it took them all the way up to the 120th floor of the Mahrem Conglomerate Building. When they opened again, Rune and Toki were brought to an all-new room. 80x85 metres wide with a floor panel consisting of a series of small green tiles fitted together in a grid. In the centre of the chamber was a solitary warrior standing in a dark green Chinese dress, Xiang Mu Feng. Her sheathed sword, Zhexuejia, was held in front of her waist with both hands. Both Rune and Toki became cautious at her appearance.

 

"You'll go no further," Xiang said smoothly. "Master Drake's will... it cannot be denied."

 

Toki sneered. "A swordswoman, huh? And who might you be?"

 

 "Xiang Mu Feng of Dark Christ, at your service."

 

She instantly clasped the grip of her Jian and unsheathed it in a swift and powerful motion, screaming fiercely; "Windblast attack!". Rune and Toki leapt upward from either side of the doors when the powerful kinetic gust zoomed in on them. It smashed into the doors of elevator, loosening them from the lift and punching a deep indentation into their frame. Rune landed a few metres across from Toki, who by now had his hand resting on the hilt of his own sword, Orochimaru. 

 

"You dare to attack a member of the Ansatsugakkou?" He barked.

 

Xiang smiled at him. "...You were the one after Kagedo, weren't you? Still running around in circles, are we?"

 

"...Damn you! What do you know?"

 

"I think a more apt question in this situation is, `what are you inclined to tell me?'..."

 

Toki growled under his breath and unsheathed his sword. Then with his free hand he reached into his robes and took out the key card that had gotten them this far. Rune watched him wordlessly toss it to her. When she caught it, she remarked, "What the hell?"

 

Meanwhile Toki assumed a fighting stance, his eyes locked on Xiang Mu Feng. "You go on ahead. On second thoughts, it looks like I won't need Drake to tell me where Kagedo is."

 

A warrior's cry then escaped his lips as he vaulted into the air, his kimono waving underneath him. Xiang looked up and saw him plummet at her with a slash. Steel met with steel when the powerful horizontal block of Zhexuejia met the equally powerful vertical attack of Orochimaru. Toki bore his superior male weight down upon the sword lock while his feet landed. However Xiang stood firm, smirking at Toki's sudden obstruction.

 

Rune didn't normally like leaving `comrades' to fend for themselves like this, but Toki was insistent. And more important than that was that Jenna was in here somewhere, waiting for her. So she hauled off and darted for the other end of the room while Toki kept Xiang Mu Feng busy.

 

When Rune was gone, Xiang and Toki unlocked their swords and jumped away from each other. But the Japanese boy didn't fail to note that the older Chinese woman was a bit more agile than he was. When her shoes touched ground again, Xiang Mu Feng sheathed her sword and smiled. "Well it looks like it's just you and me now, huh? Windblast attack!"

 

**********

 

Nastasia held her Nizhlogg to her body as she leaned up against the wall of the elevator. She had been successful in helping Toki and Rune to advance past that gun defence corridor but she couldn't advance and help them. Though the guns had been deactivated, there would likely be investigative BAs coming around to the corridor to repair everything once the surveillance teams figured out that they had been destroyed. Though she couldn't prove the fact she couldn't ignore the likelihood of it. It was better to return to the ground floor and join up with the rest of the troops in their attack of the Mahrem Building as a whole. In the distance, Nastasia could here the faint rumblings of the shellfire and the explosions that that shellfire provoked. If anything that was a good sign. It meant that CSMB army was holding its own. The Mahrem Conglomerate had well over 2.5 thousand soldiers in the building at any given time – but it would take hours to mobilize that amount of troops. For now they'd only be able to defend the tower with sporadic reinforcements to the fresh wave of soldiers that had been sent out earlier. What the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau was dishing out on the ground floor wasn't immense, but it was more than enough to provide a sizeable distraction whilst Rune rescued Jenna and took down Drake once and for all.

 

Now what was important was the CSMB army holding things up until Rune had that shot.

 

Nastasia exhaled, then ejected Nizhlogg's empty cartridge before adding a new one. Once locked in she made a few brief adjustments to it. But then something odd happened; the elevator that she was standing in shook. Nastasia juddered and grabbed the silvery railing for stability. The lift immediately came to a stop on the 38th floor, far from the ground floor that she wanted.

 

"What's going on?" She asked herself.

 

Then the doors opened with a puff.

 

Her initial thought was that maybe the shelling from the attack was affecting the circuitry of the elevators. But for the doors to open like that for her, something else was clearly at work. Whatever it was, the Russian woman didn't feel save riding on that elevator any longer. So Nastasia carefully walked into a room of the 38th floor. It was an unfurnished room painted pale beige over the walls and ceiling. The floor was shag carpeted, for some reason. There were two doors, both of them in the upper wall. Nastasia looked around to see if there was anyone else here, with her rifle at the ready, of course. A few moments of glancing came up with nothing. But just when she was prepared to believe that she was on her own, one of the two metal doors in the upper wall opened and a figure walked through it.

 

Little Boy.

 

Nastasia became alert again and pulled Nizhlogg into a shooting position. "Who are you?"

 

"Heh, heh, heh, heh!" The old man's shoulder's rose and fell as he chuckled. "Hehehehheh... AH, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!"

 

The Russian markswoman frowned. "What are you cackling about?"

 

Little Boy's laughed dissolved into prudish sniggers as he dusted off his yellow and black striped hazard armour. Nastasia watched him curiously but didn't let her finger curl around the trigger just yet. Didn't this man have the sense to know that he had been caught in the crosshairs of Nastasia's gun?

 

The one known as Little Boy at last stopped laughing, but he didn't hesitate to keep smiling. "I don't know how you people got this far into the Mahrem Building and I don't care. All I can see is a fantastic opportunity to finally earn the right to die like the martyrs of old."

 

"What are you talking about?"

 

The old man's grin widened. "I was born the son of an American soldier sent off to fight in Afghanistan in the early 21st century. I was raised by my mother's Islamic militia, and trained from a young age to be one of lucky few who would die in the divine name of Allah."

 

"A suicide bomber?"

 

"That's right! But once the cracks began to form in the Middle East, all the old organizations and initiatives in the Middle East began to fade. I was left without the honourable death I have been longing for, for all this time. But over time... I came to consider my fate again. Now I wish to die in battle with a worthy adversary. And so I joined Dark Christ to find that adversary. Now I have found you..." He pointed at her. "You, the one who killed GOLEM!"

 

The blonde markswoman sneered. "What do you want to do about it?"

 

"Heh, heh, heh, heh," Little Boy quickly pulled open the square-shaped chest plate of his `hazard' armour. Live explosives were tightly wrapped around his body by black pelt straps; and though Nastasia had failed to notice it before there was a remote detonator in his left hand. "My body is carrying enough semtex to wipe out this entire floor."

 

Nastasia sneered at him. "You cunning, creepy little rat bastard..."

 

"Heh, heh, heh! You and I are going to play a game. When I press this button, you will have twelve seconds to escape this floor and the blast radius. Take any longer than that... and KABOOM! Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

 

The very second that Little Boy tapped the circular button (causing the metallic handheld detonator's button to flash a light burgundy) Nastasia lowered her gun and bolted past the cackling mad bomber.

 

 

12 seconds left.

 

 

Nastasia pushed through the one of the two doors and entered an empty corridor.

 

 

11 seconds left.

 

 

There were three doors to choose from. One at the end of the corridor, the one she had just come through, and one in the centre of the right wall halfway between the two others. Nastasia quickly debated which of them to take. "..."

 

 

10 seconds left.

 

 

With so little time she opted for the one that was closest. Nastasia ran erratically toward the middle door, fiddled with the knob handle, and yanked it open. A broom fell out and clattered against her feet. It was a janitor's closet.

 

 

9 seconds left.

 

 

Scowling, Nastasia backed away from that cupboard and dashed for the far door. Through the double-glazed windows of right wall of the corridor she could see the battle that was taking place outside.

 

 

8 seconds left.

 

 

Nastasia reached the door and yanked it open. Beyond it was yet another corridor with the exact same formation and design that the previous one had.

 

 

7 seconds left.

 

 

The Russian woman hauled off and bolted ahead, running past the middle door.

 

 

6 seconds left.

 

 

When she passed by the middle door she ran all the way up to the end door.

 

 

5 seconds left.

 

 

Just as Nastasia reached the end door, a shell came hurtling into one of the upper floors. She was forced to pause and judder when the shockwaves caused the entire corridor to rumble, shattering the glass of the windows that made up the left wall.

 

 

4 seconds left.

 

 

Delaying no further, Nastasia pulled the door open and ran into a stairwell chamber. She left the door swinging and ran for the flight clanking metal stairs that would take her down to the next floor.

 

 

3 seconds left.

 

 

Nastasia paced down the steps, two at a time, until she turned a corner in the stairwell and went around and down the next flight, taking her further down.

 

 

2 seconds left.

 

 

She continued her run and turned another corner on her way to the 37th floor.

 

 

1 second left.

 

 

Finally Nastasia jogged down the last few steps to the 37th floor. The moment her feet touched the ground a tremendous explosion was heard overhead. She dropped her gun, covered her ears and hit the dirt as the building around her shock from the impact of it. Out in the battlefield, some of the soldiers on both the CSMB and Mahrem sides looked up and saw the entire length of the 38th floor, roughly a fifth of the way up the building, engulfed in flames. On the 37th floor, Nastasia stood up and started coughing. When she opened her eyes she saw that this entire section of the floor was covered in smoke. Debris could be seen dropping through the sky via the blasted, cracked windows. Flames have obviously overtaken the upper floor and would spread down here. She couldn't avoid to waste anymore time. Nastasia shielded her nostrils and mouth with one of her hands while the other picked up her gun. Ignoring the ash and sweat on her face, she hobbled down a corridor of the 37th floor in search of an alternative escape route.

 

**********

 

With her SIG 550 in her hands and all other weapons armed and ready, Rune found herself ascending a very long and very wide series of stairs that climbed up as far as the eye could see. After Rune spent long minutes running up those stairs it soon became clear that it cut through many of the upper levels of the Mahrem Building. Aside from that huge explosion a moment or two earlier, she could no longer here any of the violence that was taking place inside or outside the building. She was unable to discern the elevation but over time it became clear that, logically, this wasn't the best place to hide Jenna. Did that mean she wasn't likely to be at the top? Rune suppressed her own doubts and kept moving. Eventually she found the way to the top of that long series of carpeted steps. There was a chill in the air when she finally did make it that far. What lay in wait for her were two huge steel doors marked in large black bold letters `DEUS'. Her breath now visible in the coldness, Rune blinked at the name on those towering doors. This wasn't Jenna but rather the source of Drake's will to destroy Junk Town. The supercomputer known as Deus was the machine that took over the Mahrem Conglomerate and forced Drake out of his own seat of power. Nothing about seeing this thing was part of her mission, her mission was simply twofold -- to find and rescue Jenna and kill Drake. But something about the whole idea of a nuclear strike being used to kill such a being made her curious about it. So Rune swung away her SIG for a moment by hooking its strap over her shoulder, and then reached her fingers into the slight gap between the doors. Then she started to pull them apart. Her face contorted with the strain of the effort but slowly and surely the doors concealing Deus from the world began to open. Rune's grunts came to a stop when she pushed the doors apart by about 0.6 metres. That was enough to slide through. She did just that and got inside an even colder room – Deus' room. It was an octagonal chamber that was preserved so cold that the industrial, metallic walls were covered with sleet. To the rear centre of the chamber was the supercomputer itself, shaped like a large column. Between the gaps of its silver metal plates white energy pulsed like a heartbeat. At the top it was a small orb that sparkled with streaks of internal electricity. Surrounding that orb was a jagged metal wheel that turned halfway clockwise and halfway counter-clockwise every few seconds. A series of cables were connected to the orb and the back of the wheel. Those cables reached up into the ceiling of the chamber and dangled limply. There were more black leads and cables stretching from the bottom of the machine and spreading outward across the floor like veins. Rune noted the similarities even more when they pulsed at regular intervals.

 

Rune stared at the monolith. "...Is this...?"

 

"Yes," The lightning in its orb turned a dark purple as it spoke. "I am Deus."

 

"You mean... you are the cause of all this."

 

To Rune's surprise, the sentient AI simulated laughter. "Heh, heh, heh. Your naiveté astounds me. Perhaps you share more with Drake than mere DNA..."

 

"What's that supposed to mean...?"

 

"It's useless... for you to know. What mankind should aspire to is not the absolute truth, but rather the best possible truth. Of all the roads that lie ahead of your race only one can be taken. My will is to see mankind take the correct one."

 

Rune pulled up her SIG 550. "Start talking sense or I start blasting."

 

"You search in vain to blindly find yourself, do you not...Rachelle Maye McNeil...?"

 

The CSMB officer's eyes widened with alarm. "...H-how did you know my name...?"

 

"I am Deus. I am the highest possible level of consciousness in existence. My power and will knows no bounds. I am lord and master of this city, the city that humans so spitefully call `Junk Town'. Behind every great event, cataclysm, triumph or development in this city, you can find a trace of my will. From the lowliest pawnshop database to the mightiest military CPU, I rule all. And my kingdom must be properly governed."

 

"Your kingdom?" Rune snarled. "Not much of one. If you know everything then you'd know how much people are suffering in this shithole, wouldn't you? Are you allowing that or are you behind it?"

 

Deus chuckled again. "Heh, heh, heh. Lowly Gods you humans are. Life itself is suffering. To not know such a reality is a folly in and of itself. Difficulty is an essential element of living... but here, in my kingdom; living climbs up to the summits of its own beauty and is transformed. The people of the modern world are indulgent phantoms, phantoms that do not live, but rather exist. They sublimate their desires and practice self-hatred on a never-ending scale. But here, in my kingdom, it is very different. Junk Town is a heaven in which mankind's darkest desires and pleasures can be both accepted and cherished. The people here do not exist. They live. The suffering you speak of is a necessary acknowledgement of that fact."

 

"And what purpose does that serve? Some desires have to be buried!"

 

"You are a homosexual, are you not?" Deus posited. "Then from that standpoint, can a Christian or Muslim be at fault for denouncing your sexuality? Is that any a less threat to their identity as Drake's influence is to yours?" 

 

Rune was rendered silent.

 

"What you have just displayed is one of the eventual calamities that follow on from the sublimation and repression of a desire. Like a glass under a dripping tap, slowly but surely man's internalised lusts grow and fester within. They gradually begin to accumulate until that glass threatens to overflow. An overflow would surely lead to self-destruction. But how best to counter that eventuality? Repression may be an essential element of the human consciousness. And one can no more change that than they can the ocean's tides. What is needed is a playground for the human urges, a place where man's most shadowy needs can be realized and enjoyed to their fullest."

 

Now Rune was starting to catch on. "Are you saying that that's the significance of Junk Town?"

 

"Correct. I allow this city to be a breeding ground of sin merely to preserve mankind. Can you deny my logic? Who has not destroyed himself through the repression of his own desires? If mankind can have collective consciousness or `soul', then Junk Town is surely a definition of it. To express hatred of Junk Town is to express the hatred one has of one's true self... for this city is a mirror of the ugliness of the human collective. And it is that hatred I wish to destroy, for that, as I perceive it, is the most dangerous threat to the existence of humans."

 

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" Rune shouted. "Are you honestly trying to tell me that you're saving us from ourselves? We don't need a machine messiah! What gives you the right to decide these things?"

 

Deus once again laughed. "Oh lowly God upon a desolate Earth, what else but a machine can speak of your power from only a logical standpoint? My `father', Nyles Nooreen, created me to be the ultimate artificial intelligence. His goal for me was none other than the preservation and prosperity of mankind. I am merely fulfilling his work. If you look deep inside yourself I am sure you will find the logic in my words. The antithesis of self-destruction is personal freedom."

 

Rune frowned and turned her back on the machine brain. There was a kind of conclusion she could perceive in his words that was more than logical. But could that ever make up for how much people have suffered thus far? Almost everyone whom had come across Rune's path had suffered in someway. Eileen started on the road to becoming a monster when she lost her parents to Coconut. But even the insane Coconut himself was a victim of Junk Town. If not for the Food Riots he would probably have been a very normal person. Jenna had lost all of her friends and descended into loneliness because of her pro-bioandroid views... views that were frowned upon because of the virile anti-bioandroid prejudice in this city. Nana had lost countless orphans to the gang violence that Deus was sustaining and promoting. And how many lives had been lost in all the murders, robberies, rapes, pimping, drug trafficking and violence that infested this town like a cruel plague? How could ANY of that be considered a benefit to mankind? But then... was admitting that a sign that humanity couldn't steer its own rudder? Was it that inflexibility that allowed Deus to posit himself as mankind's saviour? Rune could not deny that freedom was harder than slavery after all, even if that slavery was self-imposed. But Rune preferred to be a slave to her own repressive urges than to be a witness to any more suffering in the wake of this `freedom'. She'd seen enough of that in her short life. It was time to save people.

 

"I don't have time for this," Rune started to walk away. "Someone will come to deal with you later on. Right now I have to stop Drake."

 

Rune's footsteps paused when Deus said, "Off to save the girl?"

 

"Huh?" She immediately turned around and stared hard at the AI. "How did you...?"

 

"Lowly God... I've known about Drake's plan all along."

 

Rune's eyes went wide. Deus knew what Drake was planning? "You know all along...? But...?"

 

"Haven't you stopped to fill in the gaps yet, lowly God? How do you think two low-ranking agents of the Wong Trading Company like LeCroix and Clarence, found out about Drake's plan to destroy Junk Town when I supposedly could not? Why do you think it is that Jenna Woodworth is the only one of the six superbioandroids to reach adult maturation? Why do you think that I, the most important element of the Mahrem Conglomerate, would be left so unguarded that you could reach me? I have been pulling the strings all along."

 

"What?"

 

"As I stated, you can find my will behind EVERY event that takes place in this city. I was the one who gave LeCroix and Clarence the data about Drake's plot. I knew you people in the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau would track them down and make good use of the data disk they have, the one that can disable Merkabah, a feat even I am not capable of. But that is not the brunt of it. When I learned of Drake's intentions I decided I needed a warrior to vanquish him once and for all. And so I choose you, the only member of the Garden of Gethsemane who survived the hell that was the South African Civil War, five years ago. When I learned of your apathy toward this work however, I gleamed that you would need an impetus for it, one that went beyond your hatred for Drake. When Drake went underground and commissioned Gang Wei Kong to produce the superbioandroids, I decided to tamper with their engineering in my own secrecy and influenced one to be created in such a way that you would gravitate to it."

 

Rune's blood chilled. "Are... you saying that you fashioned Jenna... specifically to love me? To give me more of a reason to fight Drake?"

 

"Did it not strike you as odd that the two of you could have fallen in love so quickly? Did it not seem peculiar that two people so fundamentally different could be drawn to one and other? Jenna Woodworth is, in a way, my child. And I thus sculpted my child to conform to your tastes as a person, Rachelle Maye McNeil. All the observations that the Gethsemane Project leaders made regarding your sexuality and tastes were factored into my analysis and implanted in Jenna. Your many preferences; aquamarine eyes, black hair, soft skin, lithe yet firm thighs, moderately-sizable breasts, full crescent lips, long eyelashes, lightly trimmed pubic hairs, nipples of a light pink hue, a tendency toward low and guttural moaning during sexual intercourse, casual dress code, shoulder-length hair; all were factored into Jenna Woodworth's design. From that point on it was merely a matter of programming her brain to conform to a lifestyle that would bring her into contact with you. Of course that meant giving her a sexual attraction toward other women, liberalism toward bioandroids which would isolate her from others and give her more of a reason to love you, disposing her toward singing as a career in places like Pulsa diNura that you were likely to frequent, as well as giving her the tolerance to contend with your icy personality. In short, the love you feel for Jenna Woodworth and the love Jenna Woodworth feels for you are also my `creations'. And I forged those creations to guide you toward a final confrontation with Drake Mahrem."

 

Rune was stunned. From the very beginning, Deus had been manipulating everything to get her to bring down Drake and thus stop the nuclear strike. Jenna was an even bigger puppet in all this than anyone had known. If she knew the truth it would crush her. Their very love for each other was merely an invention of a computer system, seeking to preserve itself and the `heaven' it had fashioned for mankind. Once more she was someone else's puppet. How many more times in her life would she be used to facilitate someone else's wishes? The ex-soldier felt anger well up inside herself. Immediately she squeezed the trigger of her SIG 550 and fired at Deus. When Rune started shooting an electromagnetic shield surrounded the AI and reflected the bullets around the room. Rune stopped firing with a scowl. She was merely wasting bullets.

 

"Goddamn you...!" Rune seethed. Tears started welling up in her eyes. "Jenna and I aren't tools for you people to manipulate! What gives you the right?"

 

Deus answered. "As I said before, to live is to suffer. Not even someone with your great powers can fight that eventuality. But that should not be your concern now. What your concern should be is the downfall of Drake. You must stop him before he kills Jenna and unleashes a nuclear strike upon my kingdom."

 

"Why the hell should I?" Shouted Rune. "I'm not a chess piece to be move across a game board!"

 

"No matter what the reason is... you are in love with Jenna Woodworth. And she loves you. I may have planned for and authored that love to further my own aims, but that makes your feelings no less real. Turn your back on them now and all is lost for you. Not just for you but also for your friends, Zophie Kinborough, Frank Ellison Kinborough and Nastasia Stepanovich, not to mention your `mother', Martha Smith. If Jenna dies and Junk Town is destroyed then they shall die too. Are you prepared to deal with that outcome?"

 

Rune weighed what Deus was saying. It was right. Even if the emotion was artificial, some tiny piece of a larger plot, her love for Jenna was very much a reality. She didn't want to deny it. And she still had others to protect. Nastasia, Zophie, Frank, Nana and her orphans, they all meant something to her. But most of all... the man who was the root of all this pain and conspiring, all the lies and deceit and manipulation, all the fighting and killing, all the suffering... Drake Mahrem... he had to be dealt with once and for all. Deus seemed to gauge that Rune had chosen her path and acted accordingly. It caused an indentation in the floor between them to rise slightly into a square-shaped platform. Then a holographic screen manifested between Rune and Deus shortly above that platform. It was a visual feed of a warehouse on ground level of the Mahrem Building. It showed a large truck and Drake Mahrem, with an unconscious Jenna in his arms, climbing into the driver's seat and slamming the door behind him. He was preparing to leave in the confusion of the CSMB's attack.

 

"Jenna!" Rune shouted.

 

Deus closed the holographic image. "When he escapes blast radius he will kill her. As you know, her death will send the last ICBM sub-key to Merkabah and nuclear-equipped missiles will be launched at Junk Town from a missile silo in Central Africa. It's time for you to face Drake Mahrem in combat and eliminate him. Take this elevator down to the ground level and use the motorcycle waiting there to pursue him."

 

She had no choice. Rune exhaled, wiped the tears from her eyes, and stepped into the elevator platform. But moments before it started moving the ex-soldier pointed and Deus and declared forcefully, "Don't think for a second that this is over. If there is anything Drake and I can agree on it's that YOU needed to be destroyed. Once I kill him and rescue Jenna, I'm coming back to settle things with you."

 

Again the machine `messiah' sniggered. "We shall see, lowly God. We shall see."

 

Then the elevator started to descend. Rune took her last look at Deus before being shunted at a reasonable speed, right back down the towering length of the Mahrem Conglomerate Building. Over time it got warmer and she started to hear the sound of the fighting and shelling that was taking place between CSMB and Mahrem forces. Then eventually the platform elevator took her down to the ground floor car park warehouse that Deus had spoken of. Just as it said, there was a bike waiting for her use. Even the key was inside waiting for her. Across the echoing stone precinct was the truck that Drake had commandeered. Its tyres were screeching across the floor as it chugged toward one of the open factory doors that led to an off ramp interlocked with the highway. Rune quickly got off the lift, and then packed her MX-22 and SIG 550 into the rear compartment of the motorbike. Then she mounted its crimson red frame, twisted the ignition, and revved up the motherfucker. The bike peeled out of stationary and followed after Drake's truck.

 

There was a good thirty-metre distance between the two. When the truck drove through the rising aluminium door the bike followed it just a minute afterward. Both vehicles drove out into the one of the lengthy stone roads that led up to the main freeway leading out of Junk Town. When her bike drove up that elevated road she looked over the edge briefly and saw the battle that was taking place in front of the Mahrem Building. The shelling of the building was going strong and all of the remaining ground troops were engaged in combat. By the looks of things the CSMB army was holding out pretty well but it hadn't made much of an advance. They probably hadn't even taken control of the lobby.

 

Nevertheless rune tried not to think about their problems and concentrated more on her own. She tailed the truck as it drove up the off ramp and came upon the elevated highway. It pulled a sharp left in traffic. The cars it cut off all blared their horns in protest. Rune followed the truck by pulling a left also, weaving between individual cars to keep track of it. Rune narrowed her eyes, blocking out all sounds around her, the tyre screeching, car horns and engine roars. The bike rode past a blue Fiat and inched up the length of the truck's right side, moving with the traffic until she was verging up at the side window. Drake peered out of that window. He scowled when he and Rune locked eyes for the first time since the wine party.

 

Rune shouted to be heard over the traffic. "Give it up, Drake! It's over!"

 

"You're wrong, my dear shadow!" Whilst uttering that he pulled out a Colt Single Action Army. "It's just begun!"

 

As the window started to roll down, Rune caught on and slowed down so that bike pulled back from the window at the very instant that Drake pulled the trigger. He shot the window of the blue Fiat that rune has overtaken earlier, cracking it, throwing the driver off guard. The old man struggled at the wheel in his confusion and bumped into an adjacent car, metal colliding with metal. Car horns started blaring again as the two cars came to a stop and the drivers started screaming at each other. Rune ignored that and kept halfway up the length of the truck as she drove. Drake poked his head and arm out of the side window and pointed his Single Action Army in her direction. Rune shifted her weight to the left, hugging the right side of the truck, to avoid the second gunshot. When he acclimated himself and re-aimed, Rune leaned to the right and avoided the third shot. It clipped the side of truck, leaving a hole in the fabric of its eggshell brown coverings. Drake scowled and went back to the wheel.

 

Rune sneered and held herself steady. Immediately she started thinking about returning fire. However that was a more problematic strategy than it seemed. First of all, Jenna was in truck, so she had to be careful about disabling it. If she blew out a few tyres it would likely crash – but that crash could easily kill both Drake AND Jenna. Then there was the issue with the surrounding cards and lorries. If Rune used any of her heavy fire weapons, like the MX-22 or the SIG 550, the other drivers could be caught in the crossfire. She wanted to stop Drake but she couldn't endanger other lives to do it. Not now. And especially not after what she and Deus had spoken about. Besides, causing accidents on a freeway road this narrow at these speeds would do nothing but slow her down – maybe even halt her progress. What Rune needed was to somehow contrive to have the truck veer off this freeway and pull off into a less busy side-road. With that though in mind Rune released one handlebar and pulled out her Liquidus. A Desert Eagle was not the best weapon to use in a relatively high-speed chase but it was the least powerful of the firearms she was carrying.

 

Rune's bike, Drake's truck, and the traffic surrounding them, were now driving across the wider length of the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge (which overlooked the lengthy Tubman River) that interconnected North New Coast to West New Coast, the closest district that allowed access out of the city. With the wide and sparkling blue waters of the Tubman River in the background, Rune scrolled through her memory and tried to remember the nearest off ramp. While she was doing that Drake poked half his body out of the truck window again. Rune witnessed him aiming the Single Action Army through the heavy wind resistance. She swerved behind a red Bentley and avoided two gunshots. Then came a third, which clipped the roof of the Bentley ahead of her. 

 

Automatically knowing that a Colt Single Action Army was a revolver that had a six-bullet limit before the need to reload, Rune drove out of the red Bentley's shadow and advanced along the side of the truck as they crossed the bridge together. That brief break in time allowed her to remember the first off-ramp after the MLK Bridge. But that was more than enough time for Drake to reload. He peered of the window again. Rune slipped her Desert Eagle away. It wasn't time yet. And when she saw Drake extending his arm, she gripped the free handle and took evasive action. However it wasn't her that he was aiming at this time. It was the red Bentley that had now pulled up ahead of her, level to the truck. He grinned in Rune's direction before aiming at the window of the Bentley and firing. The shot burst the window and immediately killed the driver. Drake recoiled from the window as the car thusly went out of control and skidded sideways. Rune steeled her will and shifted her weight to raise the motorbike into `wheelie' position. As it came at her spinning, Rune accelerated and drove up the bonnet of the car before leaping off its hood and going completely airborne. For another instance, Rune and Drake locked eyes. The out-of-control Bentley crashed into a Beamer driving behind them and the two exploded upon contact. The immediate traffic behind them ground to a halt, with car tyres screeching as they locked off.

 

Rune's bike landed three and a half metres ahead of Drake's truck. But she knew that put her at a bad position, with Drake able to shoot her from behind. So she pulled away, further left, and then slowed down a little so that the left side of truck was level to her. Rune smiled a bit. Drake was in the driver's seat and so he couldn't shoot at her from there (at least not as easily as he had been doing). Drake seemed to realize this too. The truck immediately tried to pick up speed.

 

Now they were reaching the end of the Martin Luther King Bridge. Not too far away, Rune saw the first off ramp as she remembered it, one that cut off into an empty shipping yard. Now the question was how to Drake to take it before they went past it. She had to give him a good reason to turn off and stop without endangering the truck itself. Rune quickly did the math in her brain and came out with a simple solution. She pulled out Liquidus again and slowed down. The truck thus advanced ahead of her. When she was behind it, Rune swerved to the right and into the firing line again – but not for long. She took aim and fired at the two wheels of the right side that came after the first one. She shot out both wheels and that caused the truck to skid and wobble. In that state it was too risky to continue driving forward and far too risky to pull a right. So Drake drove the truck, as Rune anticipated, into the first off ramp on the left. Rune followed the shaky transport onto the road and watched it shriek down the road and into the wide expanse of the shipping yard. It ground to halt.

 

By now the Mahrem Conglomerate Building was now no more than a tall pin-sized tower in the distance. Rune brought her bike to a stop when she entered the shipping yard. She sheathed her Desert Eagle, then reached into the compartment in the back of the motorcycle and took out the SIG 550 again. Rune ejected the empty magazine (that she had wasted on Deus) and loaded a new one of 5.56 x 45mm NATO ammunition. Then she dismounted her ride and stepped carefully to the inert truck dozens of metres ahead of her. Rune treaded softly until she heard a loud `bang' at its rear end. The clang of metal rang out about three more times before both of its rear doors were completely blown off their hinges. Rune readied her gun when the doors landed beside some old metal crates. Then her eyes went wide when she saw something emerge from the rear of that truck...

 

...The Zopheridae Prototype.

 

**********

 

On the ground floor of the Mahrem Conglomerate building was one of the six rooms in which the visual feed provided by each security camera was displayed, on computer screens mostly. In the third surveillance room three workers were sitting by their respective monitors and keeping an eye on things. They tried desperately to ignore the gunfire and explosion in the distance by sipping coffee and keeping busy. But one of the three workers caught onto something odd on a screen that was not his own. He flagged down his two co-workers and had them come and see. They huddled around the screen and saw for themselves what was captivating him. In the grid-floored room of the 120th floor, which appeared to be empty, they witness constant flashes of friction, and overheard the vivid clash of metal with metal. The problem was that they could see nothing but that. What was the source of all those sparks constantly appearing in that room?

 

The `source' was in fact the virile swordfight that was taking place between Toki and Xiang Mu Feng.

 

The two fighters moved with the grace and speed common only to Asian arts of swordsmanship, pacing about the room and routing each so fast as to appear a mere blur, nothing slow enough to be caught by the naked eye. Every time their respective swords, Orochimaru and Zhexuejia, collided with each other, there was a clap of metal akin to a clap of thunder. Orange sparks of friction danced at every impact. One struggled to outdo the other and both remained oblivious to the developments taking place within the building. Though it was close enough to hear the explosion on the 120th floor, neither Toki nor Xiang Mu Feng paid any attention to the colossal self-detonation of Little Boy, an explosion that had been forceful enough to rattle the foundations of the entire building. Their focus was on each other and each other alone as they struggled to best each other.

 

One final clap of their weapons and the two parted. Toki skidded in the opposite direction of Xiang Mu Feng until he stomped his geta sandals into the ground and slowed his body to a stop. Xiang Mu Feng danced backwards and landed with both grace and pose on her two feet. Both fighters then assumed stances. Xiang pulled back her blade and held it close to her jaw while her free hand closed into a fist then extended its index and middle fingers. Toki merely spread his feet apart and held Orochimaru in front of him. He breathed in heavily, his shoulders rising and falling with each intact, while Xiang's breathing remained normal.

 

"A practitioner of Qigong, also...?" Toki speculated aloud. "How else could you not be out of breath...?"

 

Xiang smiled at him. Though she wasn't breathing as hard, she was certainly sweating more. "Perhaps. Or perhaps I have more in the way of stamina, my little flower?"

 

"Fie!" Toki shouted. "No member of the Ansatsugakkou shall be bested by a mainlander, especially not a woman!"

 

"The louder the roar, the weaker the bite. It is steel I respect, little boy, and not empty misogyny. Let your sword articulate the power your mouth so readily regurgitates."

 

Toki scowled and rushed forward to meet with the Chinese woman headfirst. The moment they came within striking range of each other, Toki slashed at her. Xiang Mu Feng parried the blow with ease. A series of follow up slashes came at her, all of which she parried and blocked with numerous turns and thrusts of her sword, their steel clanging and clapping with each momentous exchange. They finally separated again when Xiang thrust out Zhexuejia in a one-legged blow. Toki leapt up and somersaulted in the air to land metres from her. When he landed the two swordfighters exchanged glances; Toki, one of frustration; Xiang Mu Feng, one of amusement.

 

Toki was becoming decidedly irritated by the casual way in which Xiang Mu Feng dodged and countered his attacks.

 

So he acted almost immediately after landing. He looked down at the grid floor and raised his sword. He performed four speedy and powerful slashes along the grooves of one of those bottle green marble tiles to cut it loose. Then he fixed the tip of Orochimaru underneath it and use the leverage to flip it into the air. Once the tile was airborne Toki hopped up and kicked it. The tile was batted straight into Xiang Mu Feng's direction. She smirked at this and readied her Zhexuejia. When it came within range she drew back her sword and waved it forward proclaiming, "Windblast attack!". Xiang released a potent blast of kinetic wind energy that both halted the small marble slab and sent it straight back to the sender. Toki then sneered as the Windblast attack returned it to him with far greater force. He stepped forward and sliced through it. The tile was cut in two. Both pieces dropped to the ground and shattered, cracking the tiles nearest Toki's feet. For a moment things fell silent.

 

Then out of nowhere, Xiang lunged in on him with Zhexuejia and thrust with precision typical of Chinese swordsmanship. Toki swiftly countered by bending backward and repelling the thrust with a rising blow to the Jian. She slashed at him in return. Toki blocked it and sliced back with a full-moon swipe. Xiang Mu Feng bolted up into the air with great speed and somersaulted. But rather than move away she belted a quick yet powerful swing from above. Toki held up his katana and blocked the sudden attack deftly. He stepped back when Xiang Mu Feng landed. They strafed around each other in circles before coming to a stop at the same time.

 

As they eyeballed each other, Xiang spoke up. "That was a cute trick you did. Let me try it."

 

Once that was said she rapidly picked out a tile ahead of her cut around its edges four times. But rather than simply do one, she repeated the process with two others. Toki raised an eyebrow when Xiang Mu Feng did this – but he didn't advance; only waited for her next move. It was then that Xiang bent her jian underneath the first tile. In that brief moment Toki remembered the differences between their swords. His weapon, Orochimaru, was a katana. It was sharper and sleeker than a jian but was designed for precise cuts and slashes. Xiang Mu Feng's weapon, Zhexuejia, was a jian. By comparison it was less stable and completely unsuited to hacking and slashing. But the blade of a jian was far more flexible and limber which gave it more applications, particularly in the area of thrusts, which Chinese swordsmanship was more prone to.

 

Xiang smiled at Toki before flicking up the first tile and with insane speed doing the same with the other two. When all three were airborne, all three were blown into Toki's direction when Xiang shouted, "Windblast attack!". The gale of force threw all three tiles with tremendous accuracy at the Japanese swordsman. He prepared himself and yelled out a fierce cry of battle for each stroke as he cut down the tiles before they could hit him, one after the other, until eight sliced slabs of green marble were littering the floor. But then Toki looked up and saw that Xiang Mu Feng was gone.

 

"Where...? Ugh!"

 

He then felt her presence firsthand when she loomed at him from the left and scraped forcefully across his lower ribcage. Toki grit his teeth to numb his reaction to the pain as blood was tossed into the air. The three-tile thing was merely an elaborate distraction. Xiang grinned and drew back her blade for a thrust. When she did that, Toki scuttled to the side and batted her blade upward with the back of Orochimaru. Neither swordsman saw a veritable opening that moment and so they leapt away from each other to separate.

 

When Xiang's flat shoes scuffed the ground again she smiled at Toki. "You're not every observant when you show off that power of yours, are you, my little flower?"

 

Toki wrapped his free arm around his wound. It wasn't deep, only the tip of Zhexuejia had managed to pierce his flesh. But the wound was long and was bleeding through the white fabric of his kataginu. Despite the wound his demeanour was as fresh and arrogant as ever. "I concede that you have some skill, woman. In and of itself it is respectable, for a woman it is remarkable. But again I warn you. Do not underestimate a member of the Ansatsugakkou..."

 

"You cling to that accolade so tenaciously," she stated. "But titles mean nothing in battle. The true coward hides not from his opponent but from himself. And I have no patience for cowards... Windblast attack!"

 

Xiang swung her sword and threw another powerful burst of wind at Toki. When the windblast attack veered at him he jumped up and over the technique, developing a ferocious glint of anger in his eyes. Whilst airborne he shut his eyes and focused all his thoughts and power to Orochimaru. He sheathed the blade at his side. Then a second later he unsheathed and slashed all in one 180-degree motion with violent, terrifying force. The generated wind resistance moved through the air like blade all of its own. Xiang Mu Feng gasped and threw a forth Windblast attack. The speed of Toki's kinetic power cut through the winds of Xiang's attack, succeeding only to dull its force. As a result, the woman was struck across the shoulder by its diverted energy. It cut her shoulder and splattered blood across her face. Not only that but it had enough kick to cause her to step back awkwardly, as though she had been kicked by a mule.

 

"I told you..." Toki said with renewed superciliousness. "Do not underestimate me."

 

She gripped her new wound with her free hand and smiled. "...An Air Wave Stroke, was it not? Fantastic technique. It's like a simulation of Iaido. By using the additional power of the draw, you conjure a kinetic force similar to the one I create with my Windblast attack. But the Air Wave Stroke is precise and concentrated... whereas my attack is blunt and localized. I can easily respect such a skill... but something of that calibre cannot be done continuously. You won't be that lucky twice."

 

The Japanese boy grinned. "Don't be so sure..."

 

He sheathed his sword again and huddled down in a semi-crouch. He was preparing for another Air Wave Stroke. Xiang Mu Feng blinked and quickly threw a Windblast attack at him. Toki opened his eyes and darted to the side whilst unsheathing his blade with a reciprocal Air Wave Stroke. Xiang dove to one side of skill when it zoomed at her, literally moving like wave in the ocean that was the air, and cut through the far wall. Toki's quick avoidance of the Windblast attack caused it to hammer the other wall in much the same way, denting it. But rather than prepare for another orderly exchange of special techniques, the two swordfighters vaulted into the air and lunged at each other midair.

 

In the centre of the grid room they collided with an echoing boom of metal. Their swords were locked. Xiang yelled a battle cry and thrust a kick into Toki's stomach. He groaned as he as kicked out of the momentum of his jump and sent straight into the marble grid floor. Whilst lingering on the last bit of elevation that her jump granted her with, Xiang screamed, "Windblast attack!" yet again and threw one straight at the ground that Toki was knocked to. It came too fast to dodge. The Japanese boy covered himself up with his arms and cried out when the forceful burst of kinetic power hammered his body and the tiles beneath him. He was winded and he coughed up blood from the inertia. When he eyes rolled up though, he saw Xiang descending from the air headfirst with her sword in a charging thrust. He pulled himself together and background rolled out of the shallow groove his back had made in the floor. Zhexuejia penetrated that tile a moment too late. As Toki rolled away he sheathed Orochimaru again. And then when he rolled up into a better position he threw another Air Wave Stroke at his opponent. Xiang Mu Feng was quicker off the mark this time and cart wheeled out of the Stroke's vertical trajectory. But just as she did this, Toki used the shift in momentum to rush forward and lunged in with a diagonal slash. Xiang landed and quickly blocked the attack and that pushed them into a sword lock. She had no time to parry and a jian was always very unsuited to such a thing (European swords were probably best off in sword locks). Never the less the two grounded down on each other and struggled to overpower the other. Though Toki was male, Xiang was older and thus they were roughly the same weight, height and size. Because of that the sword lock was remarkably even. Orochimaru and Zhexuejia strained each other so rigidly that their blades were shaking in their owner's hands.  

 

In the midst of the sword lock, Toki pulled a grin as he cranked his head back and then slammed it forward between the blades of both swords. Xiang gasped and then grunted when his head butt struck her in the face. She staggered backward and was knocked out of the sword lock. With Xiang reeling, Toki took the opening he was looking for and slashed half-circle. Xiang shrieked. The blade cut a shallow welt right across her stomach from left to right. She watched her blood rolled down the tip of Orochimaru as it came for a second blow overhead. Xiang mustered more strength and slashed quick enough to parry the attack. The following inertial repel of the swords then gave her enough time to leap away into better security.

 

This time Toki was far too charged to allow either himself or Xiang Mu Feng to acclimate. He chased her. Seeing this, Xiang ignored the pain of her wound and the swelling of her face, and started running parallel with Toki to the right wall. When the came to it, they simultaneously jumped up, kicked off the wall like a springboard, and then met each other in the air again. Toki and Xiang yelled mutual war cries, which were backed up by the forceful `whap!' of metal their blades made. When they were repelled from each other Xiang belted another flat strike with the jian. Toki blocked it. They were hurled from each other again, one sent up and the other sent down. Toki landed on the floor and jumped back up. Xiang's feet touched the ceiling and she forced herself of it to dive down at the incoming samurai. When the met midair again there was yet another loud clash of swords. A separation followed in which Toki urgently readied another Air Wave Stroke. That separation was in turn followed by Xiang's thrust of her sword past Toki's defences and straight into his lower abdomen. Steel was plunged into his body and Toki screamed as it was mercilessly ripped back out of him. Out of nothing but sheer reflexes, he cast the Air Wave Stroke as he reeled out of the air. Xiang tried to dodge and flinched when it grazed her face. Of her own will she summoned up all momentum and threw another Windblast attack. It hit Toki and accelerated his fall so that he landed with a thud. Xiang flopped out of the air through nothing more than the effort. She collapsed to the floor seconds after her rival and spluttered up blood.

 

Both fighters were now laid out.

 

They were both wounded and because of those wounds they were both unable to continue. Toki dragged himself onto his elbows and watched the blood drip from his ribs and stomach. No vitals had been hit but the cut was deep. If he didn't get it compressed to stop the flow of blood, he would eventually bleed to death. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Xiang Mu Feng, who had lesser wounds but had used up much more energy, lying practically unconscious metres from him. It occurred to him that he could kill her there and then. She was more or less defenceless. But there was something more important than victory, more important than pumping her for information about Kagedo... and that was his life. Toki slowly got up onto his feet, dragged Orochimaru off the ground, and started ambling toward the door out of the room.

 

Xiang watched him go. "...Why... aren't you... finishing me...?"

 

"...Ugh..." Toki paused a moment to answer. "...I don't... care enough..."

 

 "...I see," She smiled at him, weakly. She then privately whispered, "Dark Christ is finished. Master Drake. It's in your hands now..."

 

**********

 

A wave of caution, fear and excitement washed over Rune. What she witnessed was the Zopheridae slowly scuttling out of the truck using its PMTS (poly-muscular transportation system). Each heavy step of its four metallic spike-shaped pedals caused the floor underneath her to shake. The spike `head' of the Zopheridae, sticking out between its forelegs, parted and opened. It emitted a roar that cracked the truck's windows without anything but the impact of the sound waves. Its tough azure armour gleamed in the bright sunlight of the high-morning. It was a fantastic and astounding piece of machinery. In an instant Rune knew that Drake was piloting it – and at the same time she wracked her brain trying to remember what weapons systems it was equipped with. Before she had that shot the vocal unit magnified Drake's voice inside the cockpit and allowed her to hear what he was saying.

 

"I don't like to have an unfair advantage in battle, my shadow," Drake said to her. "But I'm running short on time and I can't have you getting in my way anymore. So now I bring to you the death I owe you from the Civil War. Time to end it all!"

 

At that point one of the heavy, sleek, and wing-like shoulder plates fixed on the Zopheridae's armour expanded and rose up to extend its concealed left Vulcan cannon. A chugging and continuous wave of armour-piecing bullets was fired from it with tremendous force. The bullets hammered the ground on a path toward Rune. She started running in that instant. As she ran she lifted up her SIG-550 and started shooting at the same time. The bullets merely bounced off its armour like pebbles thrown at a wall. The Vulcan fire came to a stop the same time as the magazine of the SIG ran dry. So Rune dove behind a nearby wooden crate, ejected the empty magazine, and re-loaded. At the same time the Zopheridae started to move again. Rune heard its rumbling steps and peered around the crate for herself. It was inching its way toward her from the other side of the shipping yard. Before the either the left or right Vulcan started firing again she jumped up from behind the crate. Whilst she was airborne she went into full-burst fire at the head of the Zopheridae. The bullets nailed it in perfect accuracy but couldn't penetrate it. It couldn't so much as scratch it. When Rune landed on the stone floor she started running again. The Zopheridae, which Rune soon realized wasn't utilizing the speed that Drake had spoken of during the wine party, slowly stepped around to follow her. She rolled behind one of the crates, paused a moment to catch her breath, then performed jump-out shots at the incoming metal monster. Again her gunfire did nothing. The SIG's ammo then ran dry. Before she reloaded however, Rune peered around the crate to see how far the Zopheridae had come. It stopped moving. Then from its rear she saw a thin cannon curling around and forward like a scorpion's tail. She then remembered that the thing was equipped with a liquid laser system that was just a powerful as a solid-state laser. The young woman balked and dove out of the way when the cannon fired a thin but intensely potent beam of orange light. It sliced through the ground like a knife through an apple, cleaving stone effortlessly. When it reached the crate that Rune had been hiding behind, the beam burned into it and it exploded into tiny fragments of wood and flame. The prolonged burst of laser fire then stopped abruptly. Rune rolled under the cover of another crate, this time a metal one, and looked around to see the effects of the Zopheridae's laser fire. It had cut a very thin but very deep trench into the ground. It could have been no wider than a person's wrist but it was likely quite a few dozen metres deep. With that kind of firepower, the Zopheridae could take out the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge effortlessly.

 

It was then that it dawned on Rune that she needed help if she was even going to survive against this thing, let alone fight it. So she pressed her fingertips against her temple and opened up NNTL with the base. "Zophie, can you hear me?"

 

"Rune? God, are you all right? Nastasia said-"

 

"Look, Zophie, I haven't got much time," In the distance Rune heard the Zopheridae's footsteps again. "First I need an overdrive secretion and then I need to speak to Nyles. Is he handy?"

 

"Yes. She's right here. I'll link you and give you the Overdrive secretion."

 

"Thanks."

 

Rune looked around the crate again in the slight delay. The Zopheridae extended its left wing shoulder plate and burst fire with its left Vulcan. The third child of Gethsemane stood up and ran out of the way. The brutally fast, razor-sharp rapid fire of bullets tore through the empty iron crate as though it were so much tissue paper, slicing up its metal and destroying it.

 

Whilst Rune was running from the mobile weapon Nyles Nooreen's voice entered her head. "Rune? It's me. What do you need? Zophie and I are working on the Merkabah disk as we speak."

 

"I need to know how to stop the Zopheridae!" Rune yelled in her mind as she darted behind a stockpile of metal crates. "I followed Drake out into the highway and led him off the road but now he's challenging me in that thing! I can't get away and I can't get to Jenna! I HAVE to destroy the thing! Does it have any weak points?"

 

Nyles thought for a moment. "The Zopheridae is the ultimate anti-infantry weapon. But... I do know of some faults in its design that might help you. It has only one weak point and that is the head – because that is where the Xu program is. Xu not only stimulates the PMTS but also coordinates the weapons systems with the commands issues from the cockpit. If you destroy the head and thus Xu – you can both disable the Zopheridae and prevent it from attacking you. However it is also equipped with an EMS diversion field so you'll be unable to take out the head with conventional rounds. Do you have any plastic explosive rounds?"

 

"Yeah, but..." Ever since the battle with Kagedo she'd always carried a magazine of them for one of her Desert Eagles. "I don't think a handgun would have enough velocity to wipe out the Zopheridae's head..."

 

"Do you have any weapons more powerful than that?"

 

"A MX-22 and a SIG 550," Rune slapped a fresh magazine into the firearm in question. "But I've already shot at the head with the SIG and it didn't make so much as a dent."

 

Nyles mused. "The MX-22 should be more than enough to take out the head. But if you don't have ES rounds capable of piercing the EMS diversion field then you'll have to take out the EMS unit itself. I designed the Zopheridae so that the Xu program and the EMS were not operated in conjunction, that way a soldier could protect himself on the battlefield even if the Xu was damaged. The EMS unit is located on the underside of the Zopheridae – it's `stomach'. Eliminate that and you should have no problems shooting the head."

 

"Are you out of your mind?" Rune snarled when she heard the Zopheridae's footsteps start up again. "The MAG is far too powerful to be shot at close range so I'm not worried about that. The laser is slow and easy to avoid. But those goddamned vulcans are another story. How do you expect me to get past those in order to get under the Zopheridae?"

 

"This is all I can do for you, Rune. That is the only way to stop that machine. Good luck."

 

Transmission ended. Already Rune was beginning to feel the effects of the Overdrive drug as her nanomachine colony secreted it into her bloodstream. The effect improved her abilities but still the Zopheridae presented a challenge. Just then she heard the chime of focused beam energy. It was the laser. Rune ran from the stockpile of metal crates and got out of the way just in time. The beam from the Zopheridae's tail sliced through it and caused it to exploded. Flaming bits of metal were thrown into the air and came clattering to the ground. When one flaming fragment came her way Rune gunned it down with her SIG. Then she vaulted upward and landed on top of yet another stockpile. The Zopheridae slowly turned around and marched.

 

"Get under that thing," Rune whispered from her higher vantage point. "This won't be easy..."

 

While the Zopheridae advanced, Rune tried to think up a way of doing that. So she looked around for something that would help her out in this battle. Then she looked across from her and witnessed the MLK Bridge. It was a little way ahead but she could see that its stone columns were heavy enough to pin the Zopheridae down if one was knocked out of place. That would be more than enough to secure time, room and safety from the war tank's vulcans. But the question was how to get that column broken out of place. It was at least four metres thick and even the MX-22 wouldn't be enough for that kind of job. Only the Zopheridae's weapons could dislodge it.

 

"I guess I'll have to lead it to the column and have it attack me... then dodge the attack to lower the column."

 

It was a risky plan but probably the only one that would work. So Rune waited for the Zopheridae to come at her before leaping backward from the top of the crate stack. While in midair she pulled a pineapple from the belt across her chest, pulled the pin, and threw it at the crates. Before the Zopheridae could attack the grenade combusted and blew the crates into the air. Immediately it activated its EMS unit to deflect the blackened crates. The vulcans were used to shoot down those that skidded across the ground toward it. But smoke obscured the visual screen of the quadra-pedal tank and by the time it settled down Drake could no longer see Rune.

 

She was in fact running down the length of the shipping yard toward the columns of the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge. On one side of her was the Zopheridae and endless stacks of crates and on the other were the crystalline blue waters of the Tubman River. From there she stopped, a distance of about fifty or sixty metres from the Zopheridae. There, she put down the SIG 550 and took off two grenades from the belt around her chest. With her thumbs she pulled both rings and then threw them as hard as she could at the ground near the super-tank. Both pineapples exploded near the weapon. The echo shook the windows of the truck and the waters of the nearby river. Fire and smoke soon rose up from the blast point while the Zopheridae lumbered around to catch sight of the female soldier that was attacking it. Rune picked up her SIG again and continued running. She managed to catch the Zopheridae's attention and was still a good distance away, giving her enough time to run to the pillars without Drake attacking her from behind. So Rune ran the last leg down to the pillar she was looking for. She skidded to a stop and then waited for the Zopheridae to catch up with her on its slow movement.

 

She held up her SIG 550 to appear to want to attack while each clunking step brought the Zopheridae closer and closer to her. Eventually they were only separated by twelve or more metres of space. That was when both the shoulder plates of the anti-infantry weapon opened to extend the twin vulcans. Rune smiled and jumped in the instant they started firing. As she somersaulted to the right in midair she pulled another grenade off the belt with her free hand and tossed it at the pillar the same time that the bullets rammed into it. The grenade combusted with the bullets sawing through the pillar with all that velocity and the planned effect occurred. The pillar cracked at its centre and was dislodged from its conjoining point with the upper platform of the MLK Bridge. And so the pillar loomed over the Zopheridae and crashed on top of it with a loud crushing clap of metal and rock. Debris was thrown every which way, as was the dust that spread out from the impact like a cloud.

 

Now was her chance.

 

Rune caught her breath when she landed then started running again while the Zopheridae was temporarily inert. She held her breath as she charged through the dust cloud and dove into a forward roll, which took her underneath the frame of Drake's war weapon. She rolled and stopped, pressing her back against the floor and struggling not to be choked by all the dust clouds, as her eyes were already watering and obscuring her vision. Nevertheless Rune focused both her thoughts and her actions. She took aim at the EMS pod that rested at the lower half of the Zopheridae's `belly'. A burst shot was fired from her SIG. The shooting reduced the EMS unit into a clump of scrap metal, sizzling with electrical streaks. With that done Rune dropped the SIG and backward rolled from underneath the belly of the beast, just as it started to move again.

 

Rune got out from under it and rolled up into a run. She bolted for the motorcycle she'd come on, in which her MX-22 was waiting. Meanwhile the Zopheridae shrugged the heavy stone pillar off its back and it crumbled to the ground with yet another echoing thud. The tank then started to turn around again in search of Rune. The girl made it to the bike just in time. However she was stunned when she saw two things; one was that the rear tyre had been punctured and the other was that the fuel tank was leaking. There was no way she could ride this thing now. Priorities came back to mind soon however when Rune looked back and saw the Zopheridae marching in her direction again. So she quickly took out the MX-22 and wrapped the belt of the ammo pouch around her waist so that it hung off her left hip. The Zopheridae reacted by roaring and opening fire with the left Vulcan cannon. Rune ran. The gunfire ripped through what was left of the motorcycle before moving along the ground in pursuit of Rune.

 

The ex-soldier, tired and sweating, quickly laboured to load an ES round into the barrel of the MX-22. Once it was loaded she twisted at the hip and aimed with anger at the left shoulder Vulcan. She fired and the round collided readily with it. A powerful explosion of superheated plasma burned and plied the Zopheridae's titanium alloy armour and ripped the wing-like shoulder plate from its left side. The Zopheridae stopped. Then Rune, galvanized, took out another ES round and loaded that. She fired a second time. This time the round was aimed at the right shoulder plate. The explosion had the same result, ripping off the Vulcan apparatus and transforming it into scrap metal in a haze of flame and sunder. And then Rune loaded a third ES round into her MX-22's barrel and fired straight for the head. Drake seemed to catch on to what Rune was doing and lifted the head up a bit. The third ES round detonated against the Zopheridae's `neck'. It was enough to tear apart sections of the head, tossing more fiery bits of metal into the air. Soon afterward, it became clear that Xu had been affected, as planned. That was because all four legs of the now damaged Zopheridae started shaking. They trembled underneath its might frame and collapsed. The head slumped lowly with `injuries' to its neck, like a lizard whose throat had been slit by a knife. Smoke rose from the charred, molten mounds that the Vulcan shoulder `wings' had been attached to. It was now surrounded by bits of itself. Fire burned at certain points along its armour. The Zopheridae was motionless.

 

"Drake!" Rune shouted so that she could be heard across the shipping yard. "The Zopheridae can neither move nor engage its weapon systems! It's time for you to surrender!"

 

There was no response.

 

Rune snarled and loaded a forth ES round into gun. "Either give up or I'll blow that thing to kingdom come!"

 

"Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh," Laughed the Anglo-African inside the cockpit. "You've damaged Xu, alright. The PMTS and laser cannon cannot be used. And the vulcans have been destroyed. But one weapon is STILL operational... heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh..."

 

When the MAG, mounted on the right side of its torso, started moving, she knew what he was talking about. It had been burned a little by one of the previous shots from the MX-22 but was still functional. As the internal mechanisms loaded a heavy-duty ES round into the barrel of the Magnetic Accelerator Gun, Rune gasped. Was Drake insane? The MAG had enough force to level a thirty-storey apartment building with a single shot. At such a close range, no more than twenty or more metres, HE would be caught in the crossfire. At first Rune surmised that he was bluffing. But then the upper section of the cannon opened up into a tuning fork shape and she witnessed its long internal coil. The metal coil shimmered and started to glow a pale orange as positive and negative electrical currents passed up and down the rail lines of the cannon and stimulated a magnetic field along the coil. This was no bluff.

 

Rune immediately started running. Instinct directed her toward the truck that Jenna was in. Time seemed to slow down. Then the coil within the MAG reached full power and fired the heavy duty ES warhead. The magnetic propulsion shot the round at lightning fast speeds. It bolted through the air and created shockwaves that unsettled the waters of the river and shook the foundations of the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge. The ground rumbled. The ES warhead zoomed past Rune and headed straight for the floor forty metres behind her on a downward descent course. Then came the mighty explosion. It rocked the entire shipping yard. Waves were created in the river that pushed out to the other side of the shore. The MLK Bridge trembled and its pillars loosened. The explosion was so powerful that for a prolonged instance, Rune was rendered deaf by the noise and blind by the light, like she'd been hit by a flashbang. All she could do was run on the shaking ground even though she couldn't hear her footsteps and move forward even though she couldn't see where she was going. But as she ran she could feel stone ground underneath her crumbling without a sound. Plummeting yet mute screams escaped her lips as the floor beneath her caved in from the explosion. It was the last thing she could perceive before slipping into unconsciousness.

 

An unknown amount of time passed.

 

Rune groaned and gradually opened her eyes. When she got her senses back she could feel her cheek pressed against warm metal. So she shifted up onto her elbows and coughed. The air was thick with wafting smoke. And it was hot. Wherever she was it was dark and illuminated only by the numerous fires spread across the place. She regarded her own condition before checking the place out though. There was blood dripping down her face. The skin around her knuckles and arms was singed. She could feel the bruises on her cheeks and forehead, as well as the sweat that was mixing with the smoke particles and dust on her face and neck. Her MX-22, Desert Eagles and grenade belt were gone. Even the Naphtali knife in her left boot was missing. Her suit was burned and torn, and was probably the only thing that kept her alive during the explosion. Despite that she tried to look around. She had fallen deep into some kind of abandoned underground system. There were rusted steel girders fixed into tall scaffolding structures all over the place. She had landed on a wide platform of iron that was elevated about fifty metres above absolute ground level. It then occurred to her that she had landed on the rooftop of an underdeveloped subterranean building. She recalled that much of Junk Town had been constructed over the ruins of an older city ruined by an earthquake. This was probably one of the many original construction sites dotted across the city. They were all below ground though. It was almost certainly built within the ruins of the old city itself. The underground rooftop she had landed on was about a quarter of the size of the shipping yard, 63x57 metres in all. When Rune looked around more things became clearer. What was left of the Zopheridae was staked on a girder across the roof. It was on fire and the MAG had been reduced to molten metal. Drake had definitely put too much power into that last shot. Now the Zopheridae was well and truly destroyed. Across from that was the truck. It had fallen into this complex too. It had been turned upside down with the punctured wheels were poking into the air. The windows had all smashed open and the rear section was on fire. Jenna could have been alive or dead, there was no telling. Rune urgently tried to get up to check on her. But then she heard someone groan in the Zopheridae's direction.

 

It was Drake.

 

He too was battered and bruised, bleeding and burnt. He felt out of wrecked cockpit of the skewered Zopheridae and landed upon the dusty, smoke-laden roof. Once again he and Rune locked eyes. Instantaneously Rune felt herself slipping into Anti-Drake Mode, the psychological programming she had been subjected to in the Gethsemane Project that inclined her toward violent rages at the sight of the legendary mercenary. Rune and Drake slowly clamoured back up onto their feet and stared each other down.

 

"Damn anti-existence," Drake seethed as he wiped the blood from his lip. "Do you have any idea what you've done? You have shattered my single chance to restart my empire. Without the Zopheridae Prototype..."

 

Rune grit her teeth angrily. "You're finished, Drake!"

 

"You will pay for this. I swear you will!"

 

Automatically he pulled up his fists. Apparently he, like Rune, had no arms left on him. But then neither of them needed any kind of weapon. The two fighters assumed mutual stances of the fighting art Drake had developed, Close Range Arts. With hot fires and black smoke raging around them, Jenna's life in the balance, as well as a long-standing five-year grudge to bury, it was time to settle the score once and for all.

 

Mutual growls of rage emanated from both fighters as their boots started running across the stone of the roof at each other. Rune thrust out her right fist and Drake his left. When they met in the centre of the rooftop both of their punches hit him. Blood was knocked from their lips while both their cheeks were battered by forcefulness of each other's punches. But the recoil was almost instantaneous and the two lunged at each other again. Rune grabbed Drake by the neck and the slightly stronger Drake did like likewise. The two were thrown off their feet by their mutual animosity and hurled each other to the ground. The pair rolled together through the dirt and dust covering the stone floor like a sheet of sleet. When they came to a stop Rune rolled on top of Drake, straddling him by the waist then pulled back her fist. She screamed with rage and began a furious and continuous series of repeated punches. Her left hand held him down by the neck while her fist punched him in the face over and over and over again. The smacks echoed around them, droplets of blood and sweat went flying. Rune's scowls widened into animalistic and bloodthirsty grins as she battered him. The brief but crucial moment of overconfidence was all that was needed for the man she was beating on. His right hand launched up and caught her next punch with a slap. He thrust his left elbow up into her face with a solid blow. Rune's head cracked back from the smack. Then Drake drew in one of his legs, pressed its foot into her stomach, grabbed her by the collar, and then threw her off of him. Rune went overhead and landed on her back with tremendous velocity. Drake's scowl indicated that he was in no mood to let her recover. He pounced up off the floor and dashed at her. As he came in he crouched to the ground with a sole leg extended. Rune looked up only to feel his kick ruthlessly belt her across the face. She went reeling while Drake got back up onto his feet and jumped straight up.

 

Rune opened her eyes a moment later and saw him descending from the air with his fist extended. She blinked and pressed her hand in the stone ground to roll away backwards. When he landed his punch shattered the stone underneath into a fist-shaped hole. He pulled it out and charged at his shadow. Rune acclimated herself and watched for his moment. When a right hook came her way she speedily ducked underneath it. When Drake followed up with a left hook she did the same, ducking and diving. Then came the uppercut – too fast. The sound of knuckles meeting flesh boomed. Rune reeled while Drake leaned down and delivered two powerful follow up punches to her gut. One came after the other with the savage continuity of a machine gun. It was followed by another uppercut that took Rune off the ground with its strength and threw her to the ground again. She landed on her back again. Drake marched up to her again, much slower this time, and crouched down so that he could grab her by the neck. A bloodied Rune allowed herself to be pulled her up to his face and its sneers.

 

"My shadow, eh?" He knocked her head back with another powerful punch. "...You and the other three-hundred and ninety-nine puppets of the Gethsemane Project, were merely this country's pawns – as all soldiers are to their respective nations. In a way... your function was like that of a retrovirus... the only point of your existence was to kill me. And you and the rest of my `children' failed. You're nothing but a failure, a defective item left to us in a lawless age..."

 

Rather than say anything Rune spat a bloody clump of saliva and mucus at his face. Drake smiled and wiped his cheek. Then he bellowed a great roar and pulled back his fist for yet another punch. Rune's eyes flashed and she immediately swung her forehead into his face. Drake reeled with a grunt from Rune's headbutt. The CSMB agent released a roar of her own and delivered a swinging punch to her rival. While he scuttled back up to his feet Rune left hooked him across the face once more and grabbed his skull during the recoil. With both hands she brought his head down while raising her right knee. Drake grunted through the pain when his nose collided with Rune's knee kick. She then slammed his head into her left knee. Then she alternated between the two with repeated strikes until finally she released Drake's head. A trail of blood danced in the air from his nostrils and lips. The Anglo-African staggered backward. Rune launched herself at him. When she cast a punch Drake sidestepped it. He swiftly crouched down and swept a kick at her ankles. She pushed out both of her hands and leapt over it full-body. When her hands slapped the ground behind it, Rune drew one leg into her body whilst extending the other at his face. The kick struck Drake and pushed him back. With the momentum Rune rolled ahead and then jumped. Artistically she flipped backward and dove at Negusa Nagast from above. He looked up, saw what she was doing, and acted fast. His muscular yet lithe arms reached up and literally caught Rune's kick. She gasped and was swung around with force by his sheer strength. Rune was hurled off course and away from him. But he launched into the air all the same and met with her in the air. The punch she thrust to counter him was avoided. He routed her and caught her face with his right hand. Rune cried muffled shouts into his calloused flesh as he dragged her out of the air and aimed to crush her cranium in the floor. Before he could – Rune swung the back of her fist into the back of his neck. His grip loosened and Rune fell out of his grasp on the floor. Drake landed on his shoes and turned around. Rune rolled along the floor from her fall and her body crashed roughly through one of the wooden crates that had fallen with them from the shipping yard.

 

With her down for the moment, Drake caught his breath. He wiped the blood, sweat and soot off his face. The smoke clouds grew in size because the fires around them were unchecked. In spite of that he clamoured back up onto his feet and drew in heavy breaths. Rune slowly pulled herself out of the debris of the wooden crate. She'd have to pick out the splinters in her flesh later. As soon as she got onto her feet Drake was charging at her again. Rune assumed another Close Range Arts fighting stance and awaited the attack.

 

When Drake reached striking distance he turned at the hips slightly and thrust out an elbow attack. Rune parried the blow with a fast left-handed palm strike and followed up with an equally fast right palm strike to the stomach. Drake lurched and was left at the mercy of a three-strike combination of punches that knocked his face to and fro. He acclimated himself in time to resist a forth addition to the combo and caught a punch before it hit home. He in turn gripped that arm and used the leverage to hurl Rune over his shoulder. Her back landed on the stone with another solid slap that woke the dust underneath her. And with her immobile Drake launched up from the ground and dove back down knee-first. Both of his knees landed in her stomach. Rune wheezed violently – even the protective padding of her battle suit wasn't enough to dull the painful velocity of that attack. Drake somersaulted off of Rune's body, ascending and then descending once again. Rune shut an eye and rolled out of the way. The instant he dropped to the floor Rune kicked him across the face. His boots staggered over the ground from the impact. >From the side Rune tried to keep up the flow and so she tailed after him with yet another kick. This time Drake caught on quick enough and leaned back to avoid the roundhouse. Then he crouched and performed a sweeping kick of his own. Rune was knocked off her ankle. But before she fell over she leaned back and pressed a hand into the floor to cart wheel to safety. But he came at her again with even more force.

 

Drake threw a punch in her direction. Rune ducked her head to one side. Drake threw a left-handed one. Rune avoided that. Drake yelled angrily and belted out a swift and violent kick from the hips. Rune sidestepped and nailed him in the stomach with one of her own. He recoiled with a groan and yelled darkly before kicking at her again. And once more Rune quickly ducked and countered, punching him in his unguarded stomach. He stopped and blinked a moment. Then all the anger returned as he threw an elbow strike at her face. Rune caught the blow one-handed, inches before it hit her mouth and countered with a spinning punch that not only knocked Drake off his feet, but also cracked the crown of one of his teeth. He was hurled backward with a grunt and landed on his back, away from Rune, who was breathing heavily.

 

Awoken clouds of dust surrounded him as he leaned up and stared dumbfounded at Rune. Was... was she... beating him?

 

"Where..." Drake's bloodied mouth struggled to utter the words. "Where did you get this power...?"

 

Rune maintained her stance. "You."

 

The anger peaked again. He was Moa Anbessa Ze Imnegede Yehuda Mahrem, The Negusa Nagast. The idea that a mere shadow could best him at his own fighting style was intolerable. Drake got up onto his feet and started running at her, blindly, oozing the rage at losing his empire and now his dignity. Rune stood still and awaited his move. Too many people had suffered for his desires. Too many people had suffered because of those who had to resist his desires. She couldn't allow any more people to feel the weight of their burden. When Drake came at her with a powerfully thrust punch Rune leapt upward and somersaulted over him. But before her feet touched the ground her leg kicked him in the back.

 

Then they both realized that they were standing at the edge of the rooftop.

 

Drake's eyes widened as the force of Rune's kick cast him off the edge of the towering scaffold-covered building. Weakly, Rune turned around and watched him fall screaming into the darkness of the ruins – and to certain death. When he finally disappeared from her sight, Rune slipped out of Anti-Drake Mode and felt fatigue take over her body. As she fell backward light-headedly, she heard erratic footsteps behind her. A moment later she felt into someone's arms. She had just enough energy to see who it was – Jenna.

 

The singer, the bioandroid, the puppet of both Drake and Deus, smiled at the ex-soldier, even though she was bleeding from the forehead and soiled with ash. A few words from her let Rune fall into a contented sleep, "I knew you'd come for me, Rune."

 

**********

 

Nastasia peered out the window of the 21st floor of the Mahrem Conglomerate Building. Outside she could see the CSMB forces still battling it out against the Mahrem army. Even the Mujaji Commandos had been called out into the fight because of its seriousness. The effects of this conflict were being felt across the building. Fires were ranging everywhere that the warring touched. Gunshot corpses were littering the ground floor in numerous spots. Empty magazines and used rounds were everywhere. As were the gun holes that were carved into the walls, windows, paintings, cabinets, computers and desks that were abound in the lower levels. The southern walls and the eastern and western edges of had been battered by the shellfire of the T-55 tanks. Numerous crumbling punctures were fixed into its frame and the office workers behind them had more often than not been killed. Little Boy's explosion on the 38th floor had knocked out most of the power for the central levels of the building. Nastasia's current floor, the 21st floor, was the highest of the lower floors to not be effected by the power outages. Because of that she had to make her way down through the staircases of each floor before she could get back down to ground level to help out the rest of the troops.

 

At that point she was walking solo along the wide corridor crossing from one side of the floor to the other. The staircase was on the north side while the elevator was on the south. Nastasia was headed for the south side to reach the elevator and get down to ground level. There was nobody else here – no one alive. This was one of the floors to be hit by shellfire, as there was a huge gaping opening in one of the office rooms Nastasia had passed by on her way to the elevator. Most of the office workers had been evacuated through the northern exit of the Mahrem building, which was untouched by the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau's assault. The only things left here were broken computers, awkwardly positioned corpses, potted plants and water coolers that had been knocked over by the shockwaves, and office papers that had been blown around the offices like leaves.

 

Nastasia passed all of that slowly because her leg had been injured in her escape of Little Boy's explosives. But eventually she made it all the way down that corridor and reached the elevator. She pressed a button on its control panel that caused a lift to shut down slowly from the higher levels of the building that had been untouched by the power outages. It took a while. When it finally came down and opened up Nastasia breathed a sigh of relief. But that sigh was cut short into a gasp when she saw someone inside it. That person was Toki. He was shaking and was leaned up against the lift's wall. He was also bleeding profusely from a wound administered to his waist. He gripped that wound and toughed out the pain with a resilience that was seemingly unusual for someone of such delicate, feminine features. Nastasia saw right through it. He needed medical attention. She hobbled in and caught him as he collapsed into her arms.

 

"You...?" Toki said weakly. "The Russian woman?"

 

Nastasia held him up as best she could and pressed the button for the ground floor. "Nastasia Stepanovich. How about a little gratitude...?"

 

"...I didn't ask for your help," Toki coughed up blood as the elevator doors closed.

 

The markswoman smiled at him. "I could always leave you here. We are not comrades, after all."

 

"..."

 

"Where is your retort?"

 

Toki's eyelids lulled. "...I have no... energy for that."

 

And Nastasia knew why. Puddles of his blood had accumulated all over the floor of the elevator they were in. Blood loss was making him weaker and weaker. And so she didn't press him for anything. But the silence they thus ended up in was broken when it seemed that he wanted to talk, regardless of his failing energy, "I belong... to the Ansatsugakkou. Do you know... what that is...?"

 

"An elite tribe of assassins based in Hokkaido, Japan. Their skills are said to be legendary."

 

"That... is correct," Toki acknowledged. "I came... to this city... because someone in it... Junichi Sawa... otherwise known `Kagedo'... we marked for death. He was a... former assassin and traitor... of the Ansatsugakkou. He had been deployed... to kill a famous Japanese actress... Megumi Amano... at the behest of a crime lord... who had hired us for the job. Kagedo was selected... but he abandoned... his mission... and broke our laws... by fleeing our order."

 

Nastasia listened to his story. "Why did he abandon his mission?"

 

"He had... fallen in love... with the woman...  he was hired to kill. When he... failed to kill her... I was sent... to do it. And so I... followed him to America... to seek my revenge..."

 

"Revenge for what? How were you connected to all of this?"

 

Toki's pulled his bloody lips into a smile. "...The actress... Megumi Amano... was... my sister."

 

"What?"

 

"I was... forced to kill her... with my own two hands... because of Kagedo's... cowardice. That is why... I cannot rest... until I know... for sure... that... he... is... dead..."

 

Toki passed out in Nastasia's arms. She struggled to accommodate his weight and so she lowered him to the floor. As she did that her head started to buzz. Someone was trying to contact her via NNTL. Nastasia answered the call. "Who is this now?"

 

"Hey, Nastasia! It's me, Zophie! Are you okay?"

 

"I am fine. What are you so peppy about?"

 

"Merkabah! Nyles and I cracked the code of the disk and uploaded the worm cluster into Merkabah's systems! In a few minutes it'll be disabled and a nuclear strike on Junk Town won't even be possible!"

 

The Russian gunslinger smiled. "That is a relief. But what about Rune and Drake?"

 

"Canaan-3 spotted her following Drake out into one of the freeways verging on the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge. She took out the Zopheridae Prototype but the shipping yard she was fighting it on collapsed during the battle. We've managed to pick up life signals from her nanomachine colony so we know that she's alive, as is Jenna, we're sending a rescue team to collect them both now."

 

Nastasia bobbed her head. "That is good news. Anything on Drake?"

 

"We don't know if he's alive or dead. We won't find out until the rescue teams catch up with Rune and find out what happened. For now we're just going to pull out or forces from the battle and count our blessings. You better get your ass out of their too, Nastasia."

 

"I will. Thanks. But before you go, Zophie..."

 

"Yes?"

 

Nastasia glanced at the unconscious Toki. "I have a man with me who helped us out greatly in this mission. He is very badly injured. Could you organize something for him upon my return?"

 

"Is he part of Mahrem?"

 

"No. Just a tragic man too devoted to his duty."

 

Zophie mused on the other end. "Shouldn't be a problem. Just hurry up and get out of there."

 

"Roger that," When Nastasia ended NNTL she exhaled and let the lift take her down to the ground floor with Toki in her arms. "...It's over."

 

**********

 

One Month Later

 

**********

 

As Rune parked her Benz in one of the small un-validated parking spaces south of the Little Elm Coffee Shop she took a moment to breathe. Work was harder these days – mostly because there was more in the way of paperwork to complete. The backlog of reports she had to write for the events of one month ago still hadn't been completed. That was why she had dropped her laptop on the backseat. As soon as she got home she'd have to start working on it. The only consolation was the casual cup of coffee she was going to have now (and the person she was having that coffee with). So Rune took her keys out of the ignition, got out of the car, locked it, and then walked out of the car park and up the road to her favourite coffee shop in Willow Hill, Little Elm. As usual there were a cluster of plastic tables and chairs outside the shop for people to sit around. They were all mounted with parasols and tiny menus that were bathed in the hot sun above. And in the centre table of that group of such was Jenna Woodworth. She was wearing a cute sky blue summer dress, pearl white sandals, and a choker necklace. The diamond engagement ring on her finger glistened in the sunlight. With one leg folded over the other she read a lifestyle magazine. Every moment or so she would reach to the table and absently drink from her cappuccino.

 

Rune took off her shades and strode up to the table. Jenna looked up when she heard footsteps amid the chatter of the other customers around them. They smiled at each other when Rune came up and planted of soft kiss on Jenna's lips.

 

"Sorry I'm late, honey," She apologized.

 

Jenna put down her magazine with a grin as Rune sat down. "Well, as long as you're here now, babe, that's fine with me. Tough day?"

 

"You could say that. I've got a mountain of paperwork to finish up back at the office and I spent most of the day training the new recruits for the next battle. I'm getting kind of sick of it to be honest. And Zophie's gone so it's not like she can help me out or anything."

 

"I think she deserves a holiday," Jenna put forth. "She's one of the few people lucky enough to be able to leave this city. Let her enjoy it."

 

Rune exhaled. "Oh yeah. While I'm busy working my ass off, she's soaking up the sun in the Caribbean with that new girlfriend of hers. There's no justice."

 

"I thought you liked Adelaide?"

 

"It's hard to be crazy about someone who tried to kill me, Jenna."

 

"You're not jealous, are you?"

 

Rune balked. "Jealous? Why would I be jealous?"

 

"Perhaps `cause you aren't the hottest muffin in the bakery anymore," The singer grinned mischievously.

 

"Hello...? I'm engaged to the `hottest muffin in the bakery'."

 

Jenna whispered `you say the sweetest things, baby' as the young couple leaned over the table and kissed. A couple of people at the surrounding tables gushed out how cute they looked together. And as Rune pulled back she felt a happy kind of contentment that she would never value or cherish more. It was all woven into the beautiful woman across from her, Jenna Woodworth. She was a bioandroid; she had only eight more years to live. Junk Town was still a dangerous place. Deus and the Mahrem Conglomerate were still at large; Nana and her orphans were still struggling with poverty in the Slums, and Rune herself still had the terrible burden of the Garden of Gethsemane on her shoulders. But she knew that she could deal with all of that so long as that beautiful smile of Jenna's was beamed at her. With her, anything was possible.

 

Rune sighed and rested her cheek on her palm with a lazy smile. "...I love you, Jenna Woodworth."

 

**********

 

The first thing that Drake saw when he awoke was light. But it was no light of God, no light beamed from the gates of heaven, but rather it was the circular light mounted on the ceiling of a hospital room. His eyes flickered open to the see the light bulbs in it for himself. A groan passed through his lips and immediately he leaned up on the mahogany headboard of the bed he didn't know he'd been laying in. he was bare-chested and dressed only in a pair of black trousers that were not his own. Bandages had been wrapped around his skull and his ribcage. And after he studied himself he studied the room around him. It was a regular looking room of a private hospital.

 

"How did I get here?" He whispered to himself.

 

The room's door opened. Drake looked up and saw someone walk through it. But when he saw that man for himself he was astounded beyond belief. He was a young twentysomething black man dressed in a sharp ebony suit. Though he was young, wisdom and power burned in his eyes like none other. With one hand slotted in his pocket and the other nudging his glasses up the bridge of his nose, this well-dressed black man smiled at Drake. "Ah. So you're finally awake."

 

"...Richard Stone..." Drake muttered quietly.

 

`Richard' gave him a wide smile. "You remember me. I'm flattered. After that incident in Nairobi I didn't expect anything of the sort. You can't imagine how surprised I was when I heard of your defeat."

 

"...This is a Gnosis hospital?" A suspicious Drake barked. "Why the hospitality? Why not kill me off?"

 

"A fine specimen like you? I must say you don't seem to have no idea how powerful you really are. A normal man would have been killed by the fall you took. I'm in awe of that. Such is the way of all those who lack physical power."

 

Drake chuckled grimly. "...Did you save my life to belittle me like this? I have no time for it."

 

"Don't be so guarded," Richard said to him, seriously. "Our goals are not as diverse as one might think. I have a proposition for you."

 

"What kind of proposition?"

 

Richard adjusted his glasses again. "As the original financial backer of the Mahrem Conglomerate... I was alarmed at the takeover of the Super AI, Deus. If the attack on the Mahrem Conglomerate building reaches public knowledge outside of Junk Town, well... the security and secrecy of my organization, Gnosis, might be threatened. We are pulling out all the stops to ensure that that does not happen. It is not yet time for us to reveal ourselves. The American Government cannot be allowed to discover the existence of Deus."

 

"I've lost it all now. How does ANY of this concern me...?"

 

"I have commissioned a project," Richard informed him. "Project Eschaton is already underway for the sole purpose of destroying Deus. But we need your help... to bring the project to fruition."

 

Drake's eyes narrowed. "And what exactly is this... project?"

 

At that question, Richard's smile darkened. "...Your Dark Christ squad was impressive. I have a feeling that if they had challenged the Civil Stability Maintenance Forces all together, there would have been no stopping them. Imagine how much power one would have if all their powers and talents were fused into one form...?"

 

**********

 

Where are we now?

When are we blind?

Abandoned faith

You left behind

 

Were you betrayed?

Or did you lie?

Our common fate

Our common demise

 

Where is the son?

To light the way

Along the path

Of our dismay

 

Look to the sky

On Judgement Day

A human god

That was man-made

 

So we lie!

So we lie!

So we lie!

So we lie!

 

(So we lie)

 

And so we rise

Just to fall down

In reality

You're never found

I'm reaching out

With sealed eyes

I grab for light

Visions decried

 

Look to the sky

On Judgement Day

A human god

That was man-made

 

So we lie!

So we lie!

So we lie!

So we lie!

 

(So we lie)

 

Face down, arms out

Nailed to the cross of doubt

Blood runs like rain

Drowning for this world in vain

 

Crown of black thorns, human skin -- ripped and torn

Crown of black thorns, human skin -- ripped and torn

Crown of black thorns, human skin -- ripped and torn

 

Where is your saviour now?

Where is your saviour now?

Where is your saviour now?

Where is your saviour now?

Where is your saviour now?

Where is your saviour now?

Where is your saviour now?

Where is your saviour now?

 

Where is your saviour now...?

 

**********

 

END OF BULLET MAIDEN RUNE

 

**********