**********

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 Four

**********

"Important information? That was what the Commander said, right?"

It was another day in the work of a Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau officer. Rune marched along with Zophie through the busy carpeted halls of the CSMB HQ. Four days had passed since the dramatic confrontation Rune had had with the metal ninja Kagedo at the Municipal Data Preservation Building. He had made his mark once again. Not only had he killed two of the establishment's bioandroids, but also he had destroyed the data disk that contained information pertaining to the Merkabah satellite and the worm cluster that had been installed inside. Even more than that, and more beneficial, was that he had proven that there was a definite reason behind the murders of those little girls recently. It had something to do with Kagedo's `Boss', the man he had spoken so highly of. He had referred to Rune as his `shadow', whatever that meant. But it was clear now that he was the one pulling the strings in any case. And Rune's deepest suspicions were telling her that that man was Drake Mahrem, statesman and proprietor of the industrial superpower known as the Mahrem Conglomerate. She wasn't sure what the whole picture was but she was damn sure of that man's involvement.

Zophie ran a hand through her lengthy platinum blonde hair and sighed. Whilst walking with Rune she easily noticed how preoccupied she was with herself. "Rune...? Are you even listening to me?"

"Huh?" She looked up. "Did you say something?"

Zophie exhaled again. "Never mind. I swear you've been really off the ball recently. You've been showing up late for work, spending less time at your apartment, anytime I try and buzz you through NNTL outside of work you shoo me off. And I swear to God, three days ago I think I saw you smile. Not a sneer, an ACTUAL smile. What's your deal?"

There was no secret there, that Rune's life had been a little different recently. And it was all down to one woman, Jenna Woodworth. Not even Rune herself had realized the scale of her changes until people at work (like Zophie and Nastasia) had pointed out how much of a difference they had observed from her in the recent weeks. Aside from Nana, Frank and Tia, there were the only two people who really knew anything of her so she wasn't about to argue with them. But then she wouldn't either. She felt different about things to. The old things that used to get her so riled up were falling from their importance. And although she still bitterly resented bioandroids, she was much less prone to expressing that hatred. It was one of the things that had gotten between Jenna and her old friends and she didn't want it to upset their relationship. That though alone was enough to silence Rune on anything.

"It's nothing," Rune answered, shoving her hands into her trenchcoat pockets and staring at her boots.

"Oh really, nothing?"

The slightly older one exhaled. "Why are you interested, anyway?"

"...I... I'm not, I'm just... curious is all." Replied Zophie.

"Well knock it off. You're acting as though it's strange for me to be happy."

Zophie stared at her. "So you at least admit that you've been feeling happier about things?"

"I guess so. Look Zophie, where is this going?"

She frowned. "It's not going anywhere, I just... wanted to know. What's the matter with you? Every time I ask anything about you or your past, you get all defensive."

Zophie didn't stop staring at Rune for a response until Rune stopped walking. The taller woman cast her a disapproving eye. Zophie blinked, looked away, and felt herself wilt. It wasn't an angry glare but a very forthright one. It was the kind of glare that someone gave you when they wanted an end to a conversation without saying another word. Zophie silenced herself appropriately.

Rune turned to the door they had stopped in front of and knocked. The Commander replied `come in' as he always did in that gruff voice of his. The pair walked in quietly and closed the door behind them. Frank, who sat behind his desk with a letter and a letter opener in hand, put his items down and nodded to them as they saluted him. "At ease."

"...You said you wanted to see us?"

Frank bobbed his head. "Correct. Sit down."

Rune and Zophie both sat down on the chair ahead of Frank's desk. The commander of the CSMB then said, "Rune, after what you told me about the events at the Municipal Data Preservation Building three days ago, I've considered more of what you've said about the Mahrem Conglomerate."

"And?"

Frank sliced open the letter he had been holding and took out three golden ink decorated slips. He handed one to Zophie and the other to Rune, whilst holding the third in his hand.

Zophie glared at the rectangular card in her hands. "What is this?"

"Something I managed to rustle up for the two of you after pulling many a string. There are invitations to a wine party being held and hosted by the Mahrem Conglomerate itself. And in the public facilities of their own building, no less."

The corner of Rune's mouth pulled a little grin. "Perfect..."

"Apparently they're holding this to introduce a new quadra-pedal war tank that the group has being developing for the past three years. I have heard that, assuming the test runs go well, the Mahrem Conglomerate are going to mass-produce this weapon and sell it to the many factions in the Middle East. It's probably part of the effort to end the ongoing wars that have been dragging on there since the collapse of the state of Israel."

Zophie nudged her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Any battle specs?"

"None," replied Frank. "You'll just have to wait and see the presentation they give at the event. It should be quite a show."

Rune slotted the invitation into one of the pockets of her black leather trenchcoat, next to her gun holsters. "Thanks for this, Commander Kinborough. You really came through on this one."

"Well, just be sure to make good use of it. And whatever you do, do it on the sly. They have thermal scans and weight detectors there so using PCCP is out... and if they find out what we're doing and Mahrem lets it get back to state officials we'll be in for it. I may even lose my job... not to mention my life."

Zophie frowned. "Commander..."

"I won't screw up, sir," Rune told him. "I'll try my best to dig up some dirt about Drake Mahrem's intentions without putting you at risk. I just hope that I can find something out is all."

Frank chuckled under his breath. "Fair enough. But you should know, it's a formal event. Try and look the part. And you should also know that the invitations you received are presented in a party of three. You'll need to take someone with you to the wine party to avoid looking suspicious."

"A third person, huh? Like who?" Asked Zophie.

The Commander shrugged. "That's not for me to say."

"...Jenna," Rune whispered to herself.

Both Zophie and Frank turned at stared at her, but Zophie what the one most alarmed. "...Who? Who's Jenna...?"

The brunette-haired agent took the third invitation from Frank's muscular hand and slotted it into her pocket alongside the other one. She smiled privately from thinking of her in that moment, her Jenna, until she noticed the four eyes (six if you were offensive enough to include Zophie's glasses) staring at her. "...What...?"

Zophie glared at her. "Who is Jenna?"

"She's..." There was probably no point hiding it anymore. "She's my girlfriend, alright?"

Two reactions. Zophie's face fell while Frank coughed into his fist. Rune exchanged her glance between the two of them, but seeing (or rather paying attention to) Zophie's distant look of surprise. In fact, she was so surprised she almost looked upset.

Rune ran a hand through her and stood up from her seat, turning to the door. "Well, thanks for this Commander Kinborough. I won't make any mistakes. So if there's nothing else, I'd better be on my way now. I have another report to write thanks to what happened at the Municipal Data place."

Frank bobbed his head. "You may go."

So she strode out of the office. But before she could even close the door behind her, she heard someone close it for her and then felt someone turn her around, almost roughly. It was Zophie. And this time her being upset certainly wasn't up for debate.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Zophie barked.

Rune's eyes rolled from Zophie to the few passers by who started staring at them. "...Could you keep your voice down?"

"Why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend!?" She repeated. "How could you do that?!"

"What are you talking about...?"

Zophie released Rune's wrist when she realized she was still holding it. "...I... I can't believe you sometimes...!"

"Alright, you've really lost me now."

"You should have told me! You shouldn't have let me run around thinking... we..."

"I should have told you...? I should have told you -- what?" Rune questioned, getting defensive. "When in the hell has my private life been any of your business? Who I do or do not date has nothing to do with you!"

"How can you even say that to me...?"

"Because we're NOT friends, Zophie!"

She had shouted so loudly that everyone in the corridor had stopped what they were doing and glared to the scene that was unfolding between the two girls. Eight of them not one could say a word. They only stared, as Zophie and Rune did, at each other. One of them happened to be Nastasia. Everyone, even Rune herself, was shocked by what she had said. Zophie stared dumbfounded at Rune for a moment sporting the most vulnerable expression anyone had even seen of her, like a child first scolded by her parents. Rune's eyes shook when Zophie's rolled away from hers. It was obvious she'd gone too far. And she knew Zophie well enough to tell that she was holding herself back to keep from bursting into tears. Rune had probably been the only one in the department to forget how fragile Zophie was. And so the ex-soldier clenched her hands into fists and heaved a sigh of frustration. There was nothing she could say to make this better. And even if there was, how likely was Zophie to accept it?

"Perhaps I should go." Rune whispered.

Zophie said nothing.

But she didn't wait for a reaction. Rune shoved her hands into the pockets of her trenchcoat and walked away, leaving behind a silent and emotional Zophie and a stunned group of CSMB office workers. Rune passed by Nastasia without a word and walked to the doors of the elevator at the other end of the corridor. She pressed a button and waited. It came a few moments later; and a few moments after that she was gone.

Zophie took her glasses off and rubbed the tears out of her eyes, willing herself not to sob. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked over her shoulder and saw Nastasia, sans her Nizhlogg, comforting her. "Come with me."

She didn't argue. She didn't even have the strength for it. She only followed along as Nastasia led her out of this part of the office floor and over to the elevator. They took it down two floors and walked down another stretch of corridor that led to the cafeteria of headquarters. It was a large hall-sized room armed with twenty long rectangular dinner tables and many buzzing agents of the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau eating around them. The room was filled with the sounds of their laughter, chatting and snacking. Nastasia led Zophie over to one of the vending machines first and slipped in a few coins. She pressed in a code into the side panel and took out the bottled mineral water she was given in return. Then she marched with Zophie over to one of the tables and sat down. Zophie did the same.

Nastasia twisted the cap of her bottle and gulped water down her throat before finally saying, "Do not let it get to you."

"...That she hates me?" Zophie answered weakly.

"I do not think that she hates you," Nastasia said in that thick Russian accent. "I can see that even if Rune cannot. Look... let me put it this way. I know how things work with some people. When they are lonely for long periods of their life... finally finding someone to share their life with can be a very emotional thing. For Rune it is the same situation. And so naturally she gets defensive about it when challenged. But I do not think that reflects on her relationship with you. At least not to the degree that you seem to be thinking of right now."

"She said we're not... friends. And she meant it. I know she did."

Nastasia smiled. "Well... in the past she has openly admitted that she had no friends. Why would this surprise you now?"

"I dunno, just... hearing her say it like that... it... it hurts."

There was a pause on Nastasia's part. "...You are in love with her, are you not?"

"Huh?" Her head jolted up, shocked. "H-how did you...?"

Nastasia smiled at her puzzlement. "I have seen the way you are with her, sometimes. You sneak glances at her when you think that no one is looking. You stand up for her even when she is being, as you Americans so elegantly put it, a `twenty four carat bitch'. And more importantly I could see it in your eyes. That fire, that compassion, that lusting. There is nothing like it. I can always see it when it is there, `smack-bang' in a woman's eyes. Unfortunately, Rune cannot. I fear she may be one penis away from a man as far as sensitivity goes."

"...I do care for her," Zophie admitted, pressing her hands into lap. "I guess when she said she had a girlfriend... I just... I lost it. It's not her fault. And she is right... we're obviously not friends... and I honestly don't have a right to pry into her life like I've been doing. But... it's hard. I see her sometimes... and as miserable and as distant as she acts... I feel... sort of warmer when I do. I thought over time she'd come to feel the same way I do... you know? Maybe if I just showed her I care... showed her that I'm the one who could finally make her happy. But now... she's..."

Zophie hugged herself as if shivering. "Oh God... I can't stand the thought of someone else being with her..."

"Love," Nastasia ruminated. "They used to call it a `woman's greatest sickness' back in my country. As far as I can see I want nothing to do with it – your example being a big help to that urge."

Despite her situation, Zophie smiled a little at that. "... Isn't this supposed to be a pep talk?"

"I am not going to lie to you about this, Zophie," Nastasia responded. "I have seen the way Rune has changed recently. This girlfriend of hers has captured her heart. You have no hope of superseding that; in the same way that no one has a hope of turning your eye to theirs right at this moment. Thus you have only one choice. You have to tell Rune the truth – tell her how you feel about her -- and then put it behind you."

Zophie looked away. "I-I can't do that."

"Yes you can. And you should. Until you confess what you are feeling to Rune you will never be able to get past it."

"How could I even... explain it?"

"That is your problem," Nastasia said with a grin. "After all, I was not the one stupid enough to fall in love."

**********

"You know, sometimes, I just don't get that girl. I mean, what the hell is her deal? One minute she's all calm the next she's flipping out like some overbearing Nazi little mother-in-law. I can't figure it out."

Jenna sat back and listened to her girlfriend as she sat back and recited what had happened earlier in the morning, getting the chance to let the steam out of her engine. They did thus at Little Elm Coffee Shop. It was the first place they had sat down and had a chat at, that night that seemed so long ago. Since then it had become kind of a regular for Jenna and thus also for Rune. It was the third time in the past week that they'd agreed to meet up during Rune's breaks from duty with the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau. Unfortunately she'd spent most of the time thus far ranting about Zophie. Jenna sipped from the plastic cup of her latte and watched her girlfriend spew all that needed spewing about the situation and more. But stopped briefly to interrupt.

"Can I ask you something?"

Rune looked up. "...Sure. Shoot."

"What did this girl actually say to you?"

At the memory, Rune sneered. "I came out of the Commander's office after telling them that I had a girlfriend. It just sort of came up in the conversation. Anyway, as I try to leave, I feel her spin me around and start yelling shit at me about why I didn't tell her about you earlier. So I got sick of it and..."

"And what?"

A pensive Rune looked away. "...It wasn't a big deal."

"Then why do you look so guilty?" Jenna questioned. "C'mon, I just wanna know."

"...I... I told her we weren't friends."

After pausing a brief moment Jenna sipped from her cup and thought about it. "...I see. And is she?"

"...I've never considered her to be. Up until I meant you the only person I really cared about was Nana. But I see so little of her and to me; she's always been more like a mother. I've always felt that I was alone in that way... not having any friends... and I didn't mind it. There's a difference between being a loner and being lonely. I was pretty much neither, but I just... didn't consider myself having friends. And Zophie knows that. I've said it to her before, anyway... so why would it be a shock to her now?"

"May I say something?"

"You're going to anyway, so fire away."

"Rune... sometimes you can be a complete uber-bitch."

"Gee, thanks," she said sardonically. "Always a pleasure."

Jenna giggled and put her cup down. "Baby, you know I don't mean that in a bad way. But it's just sometimes, I don't think you pick your words carefully enough or really think through how they sound when you say them. I'm not saying that you're always out of line or anything... but I think that maybe you could try being a bit more sensitive. I mean this Zophie girl you're talking about. Is she a bad person?"

"...Well, to be honest... no..." Rune admitted with a wince. "...She's always been like an annoying little sister... but I've never hated her. And she's never given me a reason to... other than maybe being a bit of a nag sometimes."

"Okay then. So do you think it was fair to blow up at her?"

Rune frowned. "How did you know I blew up at her?"

"I can see it on that cute face of yours. You're feeling guilty. And I know you wouldn't feel that way if you had politely said that `we are not friends'. You got mad at her, didn't you?"

"Jenna, I just didn't see how my love life should be any of her business when I've never gone out of my way to be involved in hers. And for her to start yelling at me like that for no reason at all... it got my goat. Anyone would react the same if they were put in that position."

Jenna winked. "But you're not just anyone, are you? You're `Rachelle Maye McNeil', my new girlfriend. And I know for a fact that my new girlfriend wouldn't be so cruel as to let a sweet girl, who very clearly IS her friend, remain unhappy from thinking otherwise."

"Is that your roundabout way of telling me to apologize?"

"That's the slim of it."

Rune riddled with the plastic coffee stirrer in her cappuccino. "...I don't know if I can do that."

"And why not?"

"It's hard for me to apologize..." She admitted.

Jenna smirked at her. "In other words, it's too much of a job for that big-ass ego of yours to handle, huh?"

"It's not about pride-"

"Oh yes it is. You know you're at least partly wrong in all this. Why let it drag on? Be the bigger woman and just let it go. Tell her you're sorry and tell her that you truly do consider her a friend. There's no shame in admitting those things if they have any little scrap of truth to them. If she doesn't want to accept that, then fine, to hell with apologizing. But for now Rune... just give her the benefit of the doubt."

There was no arguing with that or her. Rune cast Jenna a defeated smile and sighed. "You could probably talk me into resurrecting Franco, you know that...?"

"Well, I'd never make you do something that extreme, although I might try and manipulate you into coming to my house tonight for a late meal. How about it? A bottle of wine, something red and European, some soft music to set up a little bit of what I like to call `ambiance' and me, with more than 75% of my body exposed by skimpy clothing. How about it?"

"It's tempting, but... I was wondering if maybe you'd come to wine party with me tonight?"

Jenna paused thoughtfully. "...A wine party?"

"Yeah. It's being hosted by the Mahrem Conglomerate... sort of an introduction for... well... a kind of tank..."

And at that, Jenna balked. "Are you kidding me? You're turning down a bottle of wine, a Barry White album and a half-naked me for a wine party between some snobbish industrial arms junkies?"

Rune winced. "I didn't think you'd mind this much."

"Seriously Rune, you know how I feel about weapons. I don't want to go to a party endorsing them."

"But I have to go," She told the singer. "It's important that I do. But I want you to be there, too. I mean, come on, it's not like your going with me is gonna change anything about the deployment of that thing. They'd be building and selling it even if we weren't involved whatsoever. So will you come? For me?"

It took moments for Jenna get over the idea. "...I'm still not sure..."

"Look, if you come with me, I'll definitely apologize to Zophie. She's coming too, you'll get a chance to meet her."

"Ugh," That moment saw Jenna's will to resist deflated. "Fine, I'll go with you. But I'm only going for YOU. I've heard bad things about the Mahrem Conglomerate, you know. I'm just not sure how much of it is true."

That honestly didn't surprise Rune. The Mahrem Conglomerate was the true holder of power in this city. All other big capitalist companies inside Junk Town, like Gun-Tek Inc, Douglass Agricultural and the Wong Trading Company, didn't have so much as a shred of the leeway that Mahrem had as far as influence stretched. It manipulated all other entities in this city to its will through deceit and subterfuge, conning one group of people to get its way with others, spinning its fingers into a wider web of the American power-network. It was their careful management of the legal system in this town that had allowed them to avoid state action for all the crimes it had committed. Even ordinary people like Jenna were becoming aware that the Mahrem Conglomerate moved in shadows that spread across the entity city with their potency. But also like most, including Rune, she had no idea how far that influence truly stretched.

Rune was just happy to have Jenna with her. There was more to it, she had work to do, but taking Jenna out with her to a public place as spouses, even if it was the Mahrem Conglomerate HQ, was another big step she was willing to take. She reached out across the table and cupped the aquamarine-eyed beauty by the chin, leaned in, and kissed her, softly, sweetly, with more affection than Rune had known herself capable of giving. She pulled back and Jenna floated in her seat, almost giddily.

"So, a wine party, huh?" She said, breathing heavily. "Formal dress code?"

The CSMB agent nodded. "Apparently."

"I'm okay by that. Let me refill my latte and I'll tell you what I'm gonna wear."

"You already have an idea?"

Jenna stood up from her seat and smiled. "Hey, everyone masters at least two things in their life, right? Well so did I. It's my love of singing and my wardrobe. And I also know how to use both to get my hardcore girl all squishy inside."

"Are you trying to seduce me?"

"Ah, you see that's the beauty of it, Baby," Jenna said lustfully. "If you're asking the question then I already have..."

And so she walked away, putting a little extra swing in her step. Rune couldn't get enough of it. They seemed to bring out the fire in each other in a way, at least that was the way Rune saw it. Neither one of them was this bold when they'd first met each other. She felt good about it too, even though she and Zophie weren't seeing eye-to-eye. She was happier now than she'd ever been before. Yet thinking of that made Rune's thoughts drift back to the time when she was least happy. Those times during the Civil War, when she was so deeply conscious of the fact that she was alone in the world...

**********

In all honesty #003 couldn't have imagined the mission turning out anything like this. Nor could she have imagined the huge toll it had taken on her. And now she didn't walk through the jungle, she merely drifted from place to place within it until it began to thin out. Her body ached. Her joints felt sore. Her boots were muddy and worn. Her eyelids hung heavily over her tired eyes. Her breathing was ragged. Her clothing was torn. The cut across her arm, the one she'd gotten from Venomous' knives, was bleeding profusely. If she didn't have it treated soon she'd risk getting an infection. And on top of all of that, all her friends were dead. Every last one of them had lost their lives in this chaos. She didn't need to see their deaths with her own eyes to confirm it. Deep down she knew the truth better than anyone could have explained it to her.

And yet she kept walking.

All her friends were gone, her body was on the edge of collapse, but still #003 kept shuffling towards that final destination of hers, the city of Pietermaritzburg. The only thing keeping her going was the thought of saying goodbye to this jungle of death once and for all. So #003 struggled on, one step at a time, shaking off the effects of Venomous' poison knives, the murder of her friends – what some might all her family – and continued on at pace for the goal. Eventually the trees and the waters started thinning out at a steady pace the more #003 walked until in the good distance she saw the outline of city lights in the vivid orange dawn sky. It was just a few more miles to Pietermaritzburg now.

Then at that point, the senses she now realized had been given to her by the Gethsemane Project were kicking in. And something deep inside her was telling her to stop moving. And so she did. When #003 did stop she made a point of checking out her surroundings. This part of the jungle was delimited to the west and east by large rocky formations that suggested the jungle was in fact thinning out into more traditional grasslands. The trees were sparsely laid out. Huge gaps of three to four metres between them and the blades of grass were higher here too. There was only one source of water that was nearby, a tiny stream of crystal clear waters. Light from the rising orange sun seeped through and spread out across this clearing, making it easier to see. All the gunfire in the background had died out now. Which either meant that the U.N. was already here or that the SANDF had managed to route the rebels. Either way #003 had to leave as soon as possible.

Then at that point #003 heard the loud squawk of a large bird. She looked up into the sky and saw a good fifty metres above a very fast bird circling the area. From what little the Project had told her about wildlife #003 identified it as a Peregrine Falcon, one of the fastest birds on Earth, and with a majestic wingspan of nearly a metre. It parted its yellow and black beak and squawked once more before plummeting out of its flight and diving speedily to a specific point. #003's tired green eyes watched it descend from the air onto the shoulder of an older woman -- an older woman that she didn't remember seeing six seconds ago.

Rune gripped her M16 and stared at this person. She was tall. Well over six feet in height. She was also bi-racial, at least as far as her faint brown skin colour would suggest. Her long hair, which inched all the way down to her waist, had been dyed a pale white and tied up in a braided ponytail that she'd swung over her right shoulder. Behind her back #003 could see the handle of a Mossberg 590 Military shotgun. And she was dressed in the same dark green jungle combat uniform that Venomous and Doomshot had been wearing, along with a heavy-looking pouch strapped to the belt around her waist. Not only that... but along with the Peregrine Falcon that had landed on this woman's shoulder, there was a calm but very poised Black Panther standing astride her legs. It glanced at #003 and snarled to bear its ferocious pearly white teeth.

#003 raised her M16 into a shooting stance. This was most definitely the last of the US Jungle Corps, the leader of the group itself, Ark-Angel. The American soldier smiled warmly and pressed her gloved hand into the panther's deep hide of ebony hair, stroking it.

"You may calm down, Yahweh." She said soothingly. The panther, named Yahweh, did just that. Then Ark-Angel ran her finger soothing under the beak of the falcon, whispering to it. "Just as you should, Elohim. You have spotted the target for me. I thank you, my friends."

"Are you Ark-Angel...?" #003 shouted.

The woman nodded with a motherly smile. "I am she. I am the leader of the US Jungle Corps. Or to perhaps put it more accurately, I AM the US Jungle Corps. As I see it, you and your comrades managed to defeat both members of my team, Venomous and Doomshot. I commend you for that. It seems Project Gethsemane was not an absolute failure."

"Aren't you upset we killed your comrades? Just like you killed mine?"

Ark-Angel smiled. "My father was born to the spiritual N'Golo people of South-East Zambia. He eventually left his village and journeyed to America to pursue a college education, which was where he met my mother, a pureblooded descendant of the Iroquois. Both of my bloodlines have a deep affinity for and respect towards nature and the flow of the world. I have been blessed with that affinity. Because of this I know that Venomous and Doomshot have merely returned to the Eternal Cycle, to the bosom of Gaia, where they may rest. Your brothers and sisters have found rest there too. And now you shall as well. I do not like killing young people such as you. But your fate was sealed the moment you failed to kill Ekard Merham."

"Why was that so important?!" #003 yelled to her. "Why did the Pentagon circumvent international convention and take the risk of raising an entire army of child soldiers just to kill ONE man?"

Ark-Angel smiled. "Do you know the original number of soldiers there were in the US Jungle Corps?"

"What...?"

"There were more than sixty members of the US Jungle Corps up until 2051. That year our team was sent to Botswana to put down the leaders of a rebellion. One of the prime fighters in that rebellion was Ekard Merham. And he was successful in wiping out more than a third of our unit single-handedly while the rest were blown away by his support squads. I was only a youth back then... but I remember the carnage. His power... it was simply phenomenal... and though his troops lost the war Ekard made his mark. Only Venomous and I managed to survive that nightmare while Doomshot was recruited later. But that hell we were sent into did have one benefit. It made the US government realize the truth – that man is a time bomb. Wherever he goes he explodes and produces seeds of rebellion. Ekard Merham had to die. But if something as powerful as the US Jungle Corps could not take him down, something had to be fashioned specifically for that cause; hence the Garden of Gethsemane."

"You mean... that's the whole significance of Gethsemane...? Of me?"

Ark-Angel sighed. "You are merely his Anti-Existence. You were `born' specifically to kill him. That is your only role. I pity you for that. No child should ever have to see the hell of war... at least not like I did... which is why I feel no horror in killing you now. You can rest within the heart of Gaia. From here on in Ekard Merham will no longer be the meaning of your existence."

"..." #003 was stunned. Venomous had been right after all. "...What was I even fighting for...?"

Ark-Angel closed her eyes. "You can stop fighting now."

"...No."

"What?"

Her eyes steeled out again. "I said... no."

"Why do you resist me?" Ark-Angel questioned sharply. "You know you cannot win."

#003 sneered at her, re-adjusting her stance with the M16. "...You think I'll let you kill me like this? After #008 and #087 gave their lives to protect me, to ensure that I'd make it this far? You're exactly like the government! You're so deluded with your own objectives that you won't stop for a moment to see us as being more than just your weapons! They used you the EXACT same way in Botswana! Yet you stand there and tell me to surrender myself to you without a fight? If you didn't give up then what the hell makes you think I will?"

Ark-Angel exhaled sadly. "...I fear... that if you knew the truth of your genesis... you'd think differently."

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

"Should you defeat me here," Ark-Angel reached into one of the pockets of the combat slacks. "Then I will tell you. You fail to see the difference between you and I. But if you win I will tell you. You may think of it as one more incentive to stay alive, child. But first let me tell you the situation. This entire area is booby-trapped. It is rigged with numerous traps that I levied in order to kill you and all other members of the Garden of Gethsemane that crossed my path. Toward the end of the clearing is where I will be. If you manage to survive the traps then you and I will finish things. And if you win... you will have your answers."

The item in Ark-Angel's hand was thrown down to the ground heavily. And a huge plume of smoke rose up from that same spot. It wafted all around her body until it was impossible for #003 to see her anymore. And by the time the smoke started to dissipate Ark-Angel, along with her animals Elohim and Yahweh, were gone. #003 sneered and threw off the safety of her gun. This was the last one. The last member of the Garden of Gethsemane was vying for life against the last member of the US Jungle Corps. This time there was no one to help her. Everyone else was dead. But she had to win. There were still secrets surrounding this whole thing, secrets that Ark-Angel apparently knew. She had to find out what they were.

"For the first time," #003 whispered to herself. "I'm fighting for myself. And so I'll do whatever it takes."

The adrenalin pumped as it had done before. And the abrupt burst of power she'd felt within her during her battle with Venomous returned with all new strength. Boots was stomping forward through the underbrush before she'd even known she'd commanded herself to run. At the other end of this territory were Ark-Angel and the answers she sought. As she ran forward her muddy boots hooked on something within the high grass. A tripwire. Moments later #003 heard the sound of metal darts fiercely screaming their way through the air. She dropped to the ground and the grass. Six metal darts zoomed overhead and staked a nearby tree. The bark chipped and leaves were knocked from it – all a result of the force of the blows. #003 turned over onto her back and stared at the darts. Ark-Angel wasn't kidding when she said that the immediate area had been rigged with traps. #003 sneered and pressed her free hand into the earth, pushing her weight up with all the strength she had left in her. She clamoured up to her feet and stood upright. Her wide green eyes adjusted through the haziness of both lack of food and Venomous' drugged knives, enough for her to look ahead and see the area that was now surrounding her. Everything seemed normal from this point but this whole section of the jungle was riddled with traps just like the one she had avoided. And yet she walked. It was slow at first – stepping carefully ahead by pressing one boot down and keeping a steady eye on what she stepped on. She could hardly see anything thanks to the height of the grass, almost reaching up to her waist. But she felt nothing. With that foot firmly secure she took another step just ahead of that.

Nothing.

Before moving an inch father she looked up and readied the gun in her hands. The M16 was almost on empty so she couldn't afford to waste bullets. And although she had God Save the Queen strapped to her back she didn't want to waste its energy cell without a good cause. #003 took another careful step forward with her left foot. Her boot trudged into the soil beneath the grass but didn't trigger off anything. So she put her right one ahead again until the motions became more fluid, as if learning to walk once more. #003 returned to a steady cross over the damp grass toward the other side of the territory that Ark-Angel had made a death trap of. She continued on with her bullet-based firearm at the ready. Then she felt the ground fall from beneath her. The loud echo of a bolt rang and the grass and soil beneath her collapsed into itself. #003 plummeted with a gasp into a pit climbing metres below. As she fell through the air she reached out with her free hand and latched onto a thick tree root. Her dirt-stained hand grabbed it for dear life and she hung prone from the root with that single arm, the other tenuously holding onto her M16. After breathing a sigh of relief she looked below her. A good three metres below at the bottom of the pit were dozens of thin bamboo sticks fixed into the ground with sharpened tops. She'd fallen any father she'd have been skewered on them. Then she looked at the pit itself. It was almost 4x5 metres wide and a good twelve metres deep. There was no way Ark-Angel could have prepared something the few hours it took for the Garden of Gethsemane to fail its mission. But how long had they been here? Had the American government been preparing for their possible failure from the very beginning? That alone gave her all the more reason to get out of this place.

Ain't found a way to kill me yet

Eyes burn with stinging sweat

Seems every path leads me to nowhere

#003 grit her teeth and crudely swung the M16's strap around her neck and right shoulder. With her right hand freed she grabbed another part of the tree root growing out of the wall of the pitfall. Then she dragged her left leg up and struggled to get a footing there. Once it was secure she did the same with the other leg. Then she climbed. Like a spider she climbed up on the thicker clumps of soil and tree roots to ascend to the top of the pit.

Wife and kids, household pet

Army green was no safe bet

The bullets scream to me from somewhere

Around the rim of the pitfall a soil-dirty hand launched up and clutched the jungle floor desperately, carving nail trenches into the earth. A second hand joined it and latched onto a rounded and worn rock. With those two buoys steadying her self-rescue, the soldier girl hoisted herself out of the pit. Both her army combat clothing and her face were smeared by newly carved soil below. #003 heaved and winced until her boots were once again touching the floor of the jungle. A plume of dust spread from under her as she flopped over and caught her breath. With that brief moment of pause she looked around again. Ark-Angel was still nowhere in sight. But that didn't matter. As long as she found the woman once more and got the answers out of her, that would be enough. With that thought being one of the few that could keep her going, #003 frowned once more and heaved herself onto her feet. Her aching and tired muscles ignored their ailments and abided by their mistress's commands. Soon she was once again walking. Her weak footsteps kept her at a sluggish but stable pace. With less caution, #003 ushered herself forward through the grass again. Every passing moment she took a look at surrounding as her only precaution. No trap had been triggered. So #003 walked on until she passed by a lofty tree to her right. #003 paused there for that moment and leaned back into the tree in a tired slump. While she gave herself a moment to rest she reached behind her back and unhooked a small flask from her belt and twisted its lid off. The soldier brought it to her dirt-speckled lips and guzzled down the small sample of water inside. Her throat bobbed up and down as she consumed the water with abandon until there was nothing left but droplets. Yet her mouth and stomach still wanted more. She growled and threw the canister away, only watching it disappear into the grass. Beyond everything she was conscious of how hungry she was, as well as how much that hunger would impact her performance on the battlefield. But like everything else she could only ignore it and find the will to continue. The summoning of that focus caused her to be oblivious to her boot stepping into something circular.

Here they come to snuff the Rooster

Oh yeah

Yeah, here come the Rooster

Before she even knew it a rope tightened around her leg and #003 was hoisted into the air by it. She found herself suspended in the air by a rope that had been rigged around a branch and trunk of the tree. The woman cursed now with her whole vision turned upside down, dangling from the rope and the blood rushing to her brain. In her mind she could not help but respect Ark-Angel's ingenuity. Not only was had she planted lethal traps to kill but also non-lethal ones to slow her down. So she scowled and tiredly reached up to her belt. She unfurled something from it she had stolen from Venomous' corpse before abandoning it. It was one of his knives, the `Naphtali' one. It was extremely sharp so one slash was all it took for #003 to cut herself down. She started to fall. In the midst of her impending crash she span around in the air with a somersault and landed in a crouched stance. What was left of the trapping rope remained dangling from that branch.

Yeah

You know he ain't gonna die

No, no, no

You know he ain't gonna die

A heavy breath and #003 found was standing again. The soldier girl reattached the Naphtali knife to her belt and pulled the M16 harness of her neck. She got the assault rifle into a shooting stance, her shoulders heaving, her breath ragged, and resumed walking forward, this time taking a better care of watching what she was and was not stepping on or into. She inched on ahead with more cautious steps. Soon she came to a part of the area that looked different from the others. In fact it looked too different to be inconspicuous. #003 stopped and scanned it over. The ground for about thirteen metres around had been disturbed recently. The soil had been overturned and lumps of it stood out more than the rest, like tiny mounds. The miniature knolls of soil were dotted in between the tall blades of grass common to the rest of this dell. But even with that as cover they stood out somehow. Thinking of the reality of it came to #003's mind.

Here they come to snuff the Rooster

Oh yeah

Yeah, here come the Rooster

Yeah

So she stepped back, dropped her M16, and pulled God Save the Queen off her back. The silver and white finish of the gun had been tarnished by specs of earth and blades of grass, scuffed by her falls. But it could still shoot with the best of them. She mounted God Save the Queen into a shooting stance with both hands and placed her eye against the scope of the sniper sight. The next thing she saw was the jungle through the gun's crosshairs. Those crosshairs moved to the first and nearest mound of upturned soil there was. She fired and a blast of laser energy struck the lump. It exploded in a furious bang of flame and light. Blazing bits of earth were tossed clear into the air and spat back down across the area.

"...Son of a bitch," the last member of the Garden lowered her gun. "Miniature landmines."

Ark-Angel didn't just use archaic traps like spike-bottom pitfalls and tripwire-released darts. Apparently she liked to use explosives too. Even so, she'd spotted this one earlier. #003 flicked at the recharge bolt of her laser sniper rifle and the ballistic coil re-energized. Soon it was ready to fire. And so she put her eye to the sniper sight and raised it up once more for another shot. She fired and blew up the closest landmine mound to the first. It exploded. She then repeated the process of clearance, shooting the mine, recharging the gun, and then firing at the next. Before long she had cleaved open a path through the forest of landmines to the territory beyond it – which remained untouched by their dangers. So #003 wrapped God Save the Queen over her back once again and took her M16 into her hands. She carefully jogged along the path she'd made through the clusters of landmines, jumping over the fiery bits of charred dirt that those bombs had made. Eventually she was clear of the entire landmine nest. With that she slowed into a walk and carefully stalked along the area with the M16 at the ready. After only taking a few more steps she heard a large bird squawk.

You know he ain't gonna die

No, no, no

You know he ain't gonna die

Looking up she could see Ark-Angel's Peregrine Falcon, Elohim, flapping through the skies above. That flapping turned into a nose drive as it bolted straight for #003. Immediately she crouched down and the bird swooped in over her, slashing at her shoulder with its sharp talons before climbing back up into a powerful and speedy ascent. Though she winced at the cut across her shoulder blade she rolled onto her buttocks and lifted the M16 into the air in a weak one-handed grip. #003 shut one of her eyes and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. She did it again. And yet still nothing happened. The girl seethed a frustrated cry and slapped the thing.

"Ah!" She cried out in frustration. "The motherfucker's jammed! And NOW of all times...!"

Elohim squawked in the sky and flew around in a vertical arc before picking up speed for a second dive at #003. She was quick enough to pick up on it moments later. With split-second timing threw away the M16 and she pulled God Save the Queen off her back, speedily putting her eye to its laser sight. The bird was within the alignment of her crosshairs. Just as Elohim was about to swoop in for another aerial attack she pulled the trigger. The crack of a laser gunshot and the whelp of a bird occurred almost concurrently. Elohim dropped out of the sky with a hole blown straight through its chest. It landed in a patch of grass just six metres behind #003. And so the soldier heaved her rapidly tiring body back onto two feet. Her eyes glanced over at the distance she was headed for. When she did she noticed a cloud of fog in the distance. Ark-Angel stood there with Yahweh at her side and her Mossberg 590 Military shotgun at the ready.

"So. You managed to survive my traps AND Elohim. That's admirable. Though I shall miss her, Elohim has returned to the bosom of Gaia. So we must decide which of us will follow her. And now...? ...Yahweh...!"

Walking tall machine gun man

They spit on me in my homeland

Gloria sent me pictures of my boy

The Black Panther heard its mistress' call and roared its ferocity, automatically reading Ark-Angel's feelings. The beast then bounded across the fifteen-metre gap between its mistress and its target. #003 held God Save the Queen down in one hand and then pulled the Naphtali knife out of her belt again. In the instant that Yahweh was close enough to pounce, she threw the knife straight at it – nailing the cat through the neck. It gargled its blood when it dropped to the floor with a thud. She didn't bother to listen to its dying purrs. Almost as soon as Yahweh had been bloodied, that dark urge, the same urge she'd felt upon meeting Ekard Merham and fighting Venomous, was returning. The savage urge to fight, superseding even her consciousness of her own bodily limitations; its weakened state.

Got my pills `gainst Mosquito death

My Buddy's breathing his dying breath

Oh God please, won't you help me make it through?

Ark-Angel stood with an unreadable look and reached into the pouch at the side of her waist. From it she took out a shell and loaded it into the Mossberg, pumping its handle. "Elohim and Yahweh have ascended. And so...? Will I be the next one to join them in Mother Gaia's grace? This will be our last stand, Number 003. For you see we are alike. We are the last of our squads. No matter what happens... it is certain that either the Garden of Gethsemane or the US Jungle Corps will be eradicated here. The only real question is... which will it be?"

Here they come to snuff the Rooster

Oh yeah, yeah

Yeah, here come the Rooster

Yeah

As Ark-Angel lifted her shotgun into a shooting pose so to did #003 with God Save the Queen. The two women froze and stood posed to strike each other for moments, the area descending into silence, all thoughts of anything other than the standoff between the two of them falling into obscurity. That elongated pause was broken when the two women fired simultaneously at each other. The binary implosions rocked the silence and faded soon after. And the two stood as they were with their guns at attack stance. Or at least it seemed that way before Ark-Angel flopped backwards and collapsed into the tall grass.

#003 had won.

You know he ain't gonna die

No, no, no

You know he ain't gonna die

But with victory came the downfall of the combat high and her fighting urge. Suddenly all that had been holding her back from her drowsiness, her hunger, and the pain of her injuries couldn't be done. One of her eyelids drooped while the other eye shut. Sweat mingled with the dirt and blood in her face. She could taste that horrid mix of blood, sweat, saliva and soil in her mouth. Her muscles ached. Her shoulders were heaving. Her breathing was ragged and her stomach groaned and churned for something to eat. Yet despite all that, despite her tremendous tiredness, the kind of fatigue that would have crippled a lesser person hours ago, #003 still inched her way forward in weak steps. The exhausted soldier stopped astride Ark-Angel's body. She had been shot through the chest.

It was a miracle she was still alive after a blast like that.

"Tell me... what you meant..." #003 demanded.

Ark-Angel smiled as the blood began to run free down her mouth. "...Earlier... you asked me... how I could ask you to surrender when our situations... were so similar. But there is a difference... you can't see it... and of the few who know of the Garden of Gethsemane... there are few of them who know either..."

"...Tell me..."

"You... and all the others of Gethsemane... are actually..."

********

The evening had come.

It was 7.57. In three minutes a stretch limo would pull up at the front of her building to collect her for the evening. And though she would have preferred to drive to the Mahrem Conglomerate Building herself, there was a certain degree of style with which the Mahrem did business. Hiring limousines to collect the people attending their functions was simply one of them. Rune stood before the large mirror in the top right corner of her bedroom. With reluctance her eyes studied her reflection. This was the first time in more than three years that she'd ever worn a dress. It was of a smooth white tone and was elongated, running all the way down to her ankles to partially conceal the open-toed three-inch heel shoes she was wearing. It was the same one she had worn to her induction ceremony into the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau. It still fit (other women might noted that that would have meant no significant changes in their figure since the age of twenty) but Rune didn't feel anymore comfortable in that dress than she did three years ago. Unfortunately this was the only formal attire she had on her. Rune sighed and reached for the handbag she was forced to buy three years ago along with the dress. It had no pockets (how did other girls put up with this?) and nowhere to conceal her weapons. But then she couldn't take those either. Solidus and Liquidus, as well as her Naphtali knife and her reserve USP, lay on her bed in wait for her. Their wait would be a long one though. There was no way she could take any weapons into the building as they were bound to do a scan for them before allowing any of the partygoers to get inside. If she was caught carrying any cannons into that place then the jig was up and she could kiss goodbye to her one chance of getting close to Drake Mahrem. She didn't know what she was going to do when she did meet him – ask him questions or force him to answer them – but what she did know was that she was dying to finally encounter that bastard.

So Rune took what she could; her cell phone, three cigars, a lighter, her wallet and her keys, then slotted all three into her little purse and got moving. The bedroom door slammed behind her when she exited and jogged awkwardly to the front door (it was damn near impossible to run in heels, another thing Rune wasn't comfortable with). She locked it when she left and rather than use the stair she took the elevator down to the lobby. When the doors opened up she crossed the marble finished floor of the lobby, passing by the bellhops who made the point of greeting her, to the glassy and metallic revolving doors of her apartment building. She stepped outside and the cool night air hit her; and as she walked down the marble steps of the building something else hit her. Standing beside a parked silver stretch limousine was Zophie. Garbed in a strapless, knee-length pale green evening dress along with a pair of white 3 & ½ inch heels. She still wore her glasses (rather than wear the contacts she had once admitted to owning) and her golden hair had been wonderfully styled into quite a gorgeous mass of French curls. It was a hairstyle that suited Zophie perfectly. And as much did not want to admit it, Rune conceded that Zophie looked beautiful tonight. But that beauty was deeply contrasted by that sad look on her face.

Zophie tried to tug a smile when Rune approached her. "Hi."

"..." Suddenly Rune wasn't so forgetful of what happened at the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau HQ this morning. A deep frown crossed her face. Zophie winced at it. All the more so when Rune cleanly passed her by and yanked open one of the rear doors.

Zophie held her by the arm before she entered. "Wait...!"

"...It's cold out here," Rune said dully. "We'll talk inside."

"...Oh. Okay..."

So the blonde woman released her partner's arm and walked around the rear of the limo to get to the other side. She took a seat on the leather upholstery and tried to get comfortable as Rune shouted directions to Jenna's house through the mini intercom in her armrest. He replied that he understood and the car's engine came to life. She then drove off towards the checkpoints to leave Kentish Town. Once on the road the silence between Rune and Zophie itself was deafening. And Rune didn't dare look Zophie in the eye. She simply put her purse down and crossed her arms. But as she turned her head and stared through the window at the city lights illuminating the night sky distance she could feel Zophie glaring at her. The data analyst didn't wait long to let her know why.

"Rune? Please talk to me..."

She shut her eyes. "What is there to say?"

"I'm sorry..." Zophie apologize. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have shouted at you like that. You were right. It is your private life and I didn't have any right to interfere in it... so I'm sorry."

Rune glowered when she opened her eyes again. "I don't want any of your apologies, okay?"

"Please, Rune..."

"...Please what?" She turned and stared Zophie in the face. "You know, this isn't the first time you've meddled in my life. And you know what? Before, I didn't even mind it. But this is the first time in years that I can honestly say that I'm happy. I've found someone who makes me happy. Who makes me enjoy that I'm alive and well. Who makes me smile, who makes me think, who makes me feel alive. And after everything I thought that you'd be the one person most happy for me `cause of that. Then I tell you and the Commander about her and you explode at me? And for what, not telling you? How would you react if I did something like that to you? Would you be in some desperate hurry to kiss and make-up?"

Zophie's head lulled. "...Rune... there's something I haven't told you..."

"...I don't care."

"But Rune, I-"

"I said that I don't care." She affirmed. "You've said your piece and I've said mine. Now back off."

She couldn't have been more forthright than that. Zophie clammed up like a shell and held herself by her arms, staring at her knees. Rune returned to staring out through the window. And then that awkward silence returned to limo. But in all honesty it really didn't matter. Though she had agreed with Jenna to resolve things with Zophie, seeing her in the flesh made her all the more conscious of the fact that she didn't want to.

From then on the limousine drove across the city from Kentish Town to Willow Hill. It took the better part of an hour thanks to the traffic (which made the ride even more uncomfortable for Rune and Zophie) but eventually the limo was pulling up at the parking spaces erected before Jenna's house. Zophie sat back and discretely watched Rune rise out of her seat and exit the car. Once out in the cool night again she breathed a sigh and strode across the cobblestone path towards her girlfriend's front door. She knocked a second later and a few seconds after that it opened. Once again Rune beheld the singer with disbelief in how utterly gorgeous she was... and how utterly gorgeous she always seemed to be. She'd chosen to wear an ankle-length rouge dress with a pair of long sleeved black evening gloves and that white headband that had come to be so easy to identify with her. Rune eyed her from the tips of those black open-toed heels to the sapphires fixed into her silver drop earrings. She was absolutely magnificent.

Jenna blushed and tugged a strand of her long black hair behind her ear. "Is that a habit of yours?"

"Huh?"

"Eyeballing me every time we meet at a door?"

Rune blushed, smiling. "...Sorry."

"Don't be sorry..."

The club singer leaned up and kissed her cheek. She melted and stiffened all at once when Jenna wrapped her warm arms around her body. She could feel those small, soft hands pressed against her back and instinctively pulled her into an embrace. It had been said that Rune was not big on hugs. Maybe it was more accurate to say that she wasn't big on hugs with anyone other than Jenna.

"...And by the way," Jenna crooned. "You look unbelievably sexy in a dress too."

Rune clung to her girlfriend's curvaceous hips. "...You know you're starting to make me wish I chose you tonight..."

At that, Jenna giggled, until she peered over Rune's shoulder and saw a geeky-looking yet pretty blonde staring at the two of them through one of the rear windows of the limousine. Without much thought she deduced that was Zophie sitting there. But Jenna also noted the mixture of emotions expressed by her face. It was a sort of trinity between anxiousness, unhappiness and frustration. Jenna pressed her hands into Rune's shoulders and pushed back.

"That girl in there..." She whispered. "Is that Zophie?"

Rune grimaced. "...Yeah..."

"Did you make up with her?"

"...Not exactly."

Jenna's lips curved into a frown. "What do mean `not exactly', you either did or you didn't."

"Okay then, I didn't."

"Rune..."

The CSMB agent squirmed. "Look, can't we just go to the wine party?"

"What, with your friend out there, sporting a face with as much sweetness as a lemon? I thought we agreed that if I go with you to this weapon-hopping party tonight that you'd resolve things with her. I mean come on, you can see how upset she is."

"Forget about her, she's fine." When Jenna gave her an unconvincing frown Rune fumbled to speak on, "...Lets... lets not let her ruin our evening. We were gonna do something tonight anyway, right? Please?"

If Rune was vulnerable to Jenna's demands then Jenna was equally as vulnerable to Rune's. She stood resilient for a second then exhaled in defeat and shut her house door. After locking it Jenna hooked her arm around Rune's and the two of them strode down the cobblestone path. Within the limo, Zophie secretively watched the two of them as they encroached on it. She'd seen the kiss and the embrace. Rune really did have a girlfriend. And that faint but palpable smile of hers proved she was happy. Zophie pressed her hands into her lap and tried her hardest not to let slip the tears that were welling up in her eyes. It did make her happy to see Rune happy, it really did. But seeing them together...? And with Rune now mad at her, she couldn't have felt any worse.

The door into the limo opened and both Rune and Jenna clamoured in, Rune sparing Zophie only a slight frown before parking herself next to Jenna and settling down. They sat on the black leather seats across from Zophie's. Jenna put her purse down next to her hand extended her hand to Zophie, smiling brightly, "Hi. I'm Jenna, Rune's new girlfriend?"

"I'm Zophie." She said quietly, shaking that hand.

Jenna pulled a lock of her hair out of her eyes. "So, Zophie, are you looking forward to tonight?"

She looked up and gave Jenna a flat, perhaps even cold, glare. "I'm kind of a third wheel now, aren't I?"

It hadn't been very obvious until she said it. But when she did it was the most glaring thing on Earth. What was there you could say against something like that? If the tone in that limousine needed one last thing to give it a discomforting climate then that was it. Zophie tightened up and stared at her knees again while Rune heaved a sigh and crossed her arms in a way that was rather `unladylike'.

"Third wheel? Oh no, of course not..." Jenna pulled an uncomfortable smile and leaned back into upholstery, right before elbowing Rune in the shoulder. "Right, Rune...?"

She lazily muttered the response, "...Huh? Oh. Yeah, sure... whatever."

The driver was already on the road by the time Jenna cast Rune a wordless but irritable expression. Zophie sat back and very succinctly watched the way the two of them were together. Even when Jenna was chiding Rune it was clear that there were genuine feelings between the two. So then there was Zophie. The third wheel, the runner-up, whatever you wanted to call her. She certainly wasn't in the loop. The more she regarded it the more she hated it.

That stretch limousine with the uncomfortable ambience drove from Willow Hill to the North New Coast district while the three passengers kept in a silence that was only once or twice broken by conversation. Mostly Jenna asking Rune what was expected of her from this crowd. She hadn't much experience with them either and said as much. Zophie was in the same boat but said nothing to them about it. She kept herself quiet and spent the time stealing nervous glances of Rune as she spoke with her new `friend'. Eventually the limo pulled into a long road of an outsized junction that cut in between the gigantic office buildings of the district. This particular street led to the largest building of all – the Mahrem Conglomerate Headquarters – that was in fact the tallest skyscraper in the city at approximately 163 storeys in height. The limo drove straight along one of the twelve large roads that fed into the Mahrem Building's grounds until it reached an enormous ring shaped parking lot that surrounded the whole structure at a seventy-metre distance from its walls. The limousine drove into a free parking spot (one of thousands) and locked off the engine.

"We better get going then." Rune spoke, opening the door.

Jenna followed after her. "Would you slow down there Wally West, there's no rush."

Once Rune and Jenna got out of the limo Zophie exited and stepped out into the chilled night air. From here all three of them could see the numerous cars and limousines that had parked here for the evening. Even now a few other partygoers, dressed in the same pompous, designer label, ballroom attire; were flooding out from their vehicles and marching in droves towards the security barriers sealing off any further entry into the Mahrem's quarters. The security barriers were merely a sizeable line of electrified fencing running around the outer ring of the building's grounds. From point to point there were tall gates fixed into the fence at which there were bioandroid security guards. They were dressed in grim amethyst-coloured padded armour akin to riot gear and armed only with M9 pistols. Four BA troops stood alongside each gate. There were four major ones (for shipping via trucks and such) and another twenty miniature ones for people to use. The closest one to them was Gate 07 so Rune, Jenna and Zophie walked to that one. There was a line of about six people standing there when they did. There were tall scanning compartments built into the frame of the gate. Rune scoped them out as she started remembering just why she was here. From the looks of the scanners they were x-ray, thermal, and ultraviolet scan capable. The line shrunk as more and more people marched through the scanner's arc. Soon it was their turn.

The first of the four bioandroids at Gate 07 gestured between Rune and the scanner ahead of her. "Walk onto the platform and pause for three seconds, please."

She did just that and only that (rather than spouting some hate-filled anti-bioandroid vitriol, as Zophie would have expected of her) and the computer screen that the second of the bioandroids was manning showed that she and the contents of her purse were clean. So she walked through it and waited for Jenna and Zophie on the other side. They too walked through it and turned up clean so they continued walking the rest of the way to the building.

Jenna unconsciously hooked arms with Rune, oblivious to the jealous stare of Zophie, as they walked together. "Babe, I'm not exactly getting good vibes from this place. It seems more like a military encampment than a place of business."

"The Mahrem Conglomerate is the most powerful company in the city, so they're just being cautious about who they do and don't let in." She answered. "It's not that hard to understand if you consider how much crime is committed in this city, really."

The singer frowned. "Still... I don't think I like it here. It's not even about the weapons thing, it's just..."

"Just what?"

She shook her head. "Ah, nothing. Forget I said anything, Baby."

"...I like it when you call me that, you know?" Rune admitted with a blush.

Jenna grinned at her girlfriend as they walked arm in arm together. It was comments like that, with Rune expressing her feelings, which really got her going too. So Jenna's right hand reached up and clasped around the nape of Rune's neck, the sprinkled amethyst of her nail polish clashing with the deep chocolate of the agent's hair. She pulled Rune closer to her and the two kissed each other deeply, lovingly, moaning into each other's mouths. Zophie's footsteps came to an abrupt stop. She stood dumbfounded with her heart racing at the sight.

Her fist shook at her side until she could stand it no longer. "...Don't y-you guys think we should get going...?"

Jenna broke the kiss with a gasp. Pulling herself out of the embrace she hadn't realized Rune had wrapped her in, Jenna cast the data analyst a sheepish smile. "Oh right. Sorry about that, Zophie. You know how it is when relationships kick off. That's the most tactile part of the game, right?"

"I wouldn't know." Zophie whispered, turning on her heels and walking on.

Jenna frowned and whispered into Rune's ear when Zophie was just about out of earshot. "Is she okay?"

"Who knows?" Rune shrugged.

"Well obviously you would. You work with her, right?"

There was a pause before Rune answered that. "...We do work together, but... it's not like I spend a lot of time with her. I honestly know her grandfather, the Commander, better than I do Zophie. And that's one of the reasons I can't understand why she flipped out this morning."

"Well then don't let this thing drag out any longer than you have to. As soon as you get a good chance, apologize to her. If we get that out of the way then maybe she can enjoy the evening a little more."

Rune smiled at her as they started walking again, just a few metres behind Zophie. "You're always thinking about others, aren't you?"

"Well to be frank... you're the one I'm thinking of right now, Rune." Though it was said with a suggestive tone her face displayed her seriousness. "You know, if anyone else had asked me to come to a place like this for a party supporting some killer weapon, anyone else, I would have turned them down flat. But not you."

"So... you're prepared to compromise yourself for me?"

Jenna giggled. "Just this once. Don't let it go to your head."

The three of them strolled (or rather in Zophie's case, stomped) across the granite walkway and up to the smooth double-glazed front doors of the Mahrem Conglomerate Building. This time there were more people hanging around or walking to the party, all of them being the exact kind of bourgeois, aristocratic flock you'd expect someone as rich as Drake Mahrem to associate with. There were at least sixty of them converging and passing through the doors, and from what Rune could see there were a few differences between them. Some were as young as they were and others were much older. Some were thin and gangly while others were portly and short. But in short most of the people here were just businessmen whom had happened to drag their trophy wives along with them. Rune, Jenna, and Zophie stepped through the chatting crowds and passed the glass doors by to enter the marble-finished floor of the ground-floor lobby.

Standing in front of one of the six reception desks in the centre of the large hall was a cool and collected man in his late twenties, dressed in a stylish black suit with a white rose placed in one of the lapels. He uncrossed his arms and shoved one hand into one of his pockets while the other swayed at his side as he walked toward the guests of the evening whom had gathered up at the doors of the lobby.

"Hello, everyone," He said cordially. "The gathering for the introductory display of the Zopheridae anti-infantry quadra-pedal war tank begins shortly. Please follow me and I shall take first to the refreshment hall where you may relax and converse amongst yourselves before moving onto the dining chambers."

The well-dressed man slotted his other hand into his pocket and turned to the left. He walked toward the wide opening of a side corridor off at the west of the lobby while the congregation followed after him as asked of them. And the girls were amongst that crowd. They all walked through the length of that expansive corridor, their shoes clicking and echoing against the marble. Whilst she walked with them Rune looked around and observed the place. Even on the ground floor they had armed guards defending the place. At least six of them (all bioandroids) stood silently along the corridor amid all the lush impressionist landscape paintings and Romanesque statues that decorated it. Yet soon enough the group of aristocrats converged in another vast chamber.

It had a decidedly Georgian feel to it with everything from the crystalline chandeliers and the gold-rimmed portraits to the embroidered white tablecloths and ridged pillars that held up the ceiling. There was a twenty-metre long table at the end of the room covered over with delicate lace-like linen. Refreshments were placed along that table along with open bottles of champagne cooling in buckets of ice. That table itself was surrounded by nine or so worker-model bioandroids, all of which were clothed in butler's outfits and in the image of apple-cheeked eighteen-year-old boys. Flanked by them was an eager line of eleven female worker-model bioandroids. They were of the same age as the boys but they were dressed in slightly more elaborate French maid uniforms. There were no guards posted in the immediate area but two at the door in and two manning a door leading to the lavatories. The only thing slightly technological was the huge video screen that stood behind a stage wall to the right of the room. There was a microphone-enabled podium on that stage also, where Drake Mahrem would obviously be speaking from about the Zopheridae.

At this point the guests started to spread and mingle.

When they did that, the eleven BA maids took up a tray each; and each one of those had six glasses of champagne standing on them. They spread into the tiny groups of people forming a larger whole and handed out their glasses of champagne with peppy and polite pleasantries. Soon one of them got to the girls. This BA nodded to the three of them with a big, friendly smile.

"Hello, it's nice to meet you all," She took one of the glasses and presented it to Zophie. "Here you are, Miss."

Zophie took the glass into her hand. "Thank you."

Then the BA maid passed one of the glasses to Jenna. "Here. One for you."

"Thanks," The singer replied.

Rune stopped checking out the place in time to see the BA presenting her with a glass of champagne. She clasped it and stared at the rim, blinking. "...Is this all you've got? No Irish Cream or anything?"

"...Um... I don't think so, Miss."

"Ugh. All right," Rune sipped from the glass whilst the BA maid turned to a neighbouring married couple to offer them two of her remaining drinks. When she was gone Rune scratched the side of her face and sighed. "God, you'd think that a multi-billionaire like Drake Mahrem could afford a little variety in the alcohol department."

Jenna smirked at her. "Oh yeah. You're all about the variety Miss I-don't-drink-anything-unless-it's-Irish-Cream."

"That's not a lack of variety, that's called good taste."

Zophie sat on the sidelines sipping her champagne, apprehensively watching the way Rune and Jenna teased each other. In her mind the thoughts were the same. `How did Jenna know about Rune's hang up with Irish Cream?' and `I thought I was the only one who knew that about her' and so on. They'd been going out for less than a fortnight and yet they knew these intimate little details about each other. Why were things like this? It seemed like the more time she spent around them the more conscious she was of the fact that she was alone. They were together and what did she have? Jenna could hold Rune in her arms and what did Zophie have?

All of a sudden, Zophie's sip of her wine turned into a gulp. Once she backed down the entire glass she looked away and tried to control the shaking in her limbs. It was taking her everything she had not start crying in front of them. Jenna saw at the corner of her eye how pensive Zophie was. Immediately she brought attention to her.

"So, Zophie..." She began. "So uh, Rune tells me that the two of you work together at the-"

An alarmed look crossed Rune's face until Zophie cut Jenna off. "Yes, we do. I'm her... data analyst and the liaison with all the information necessary for her to know on each of her missions."

"Oh." Jenna plastered an uncomfortable smile on her face. But Rune and Zophie exchanged glances with each other. They couldn't announce that they worked for the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau here or their cover would be blown. And although Zophie had stopped that from happening she hadn't made herself look or act anymore hospitable.

Rune took another sip from her glass. "You know what? Lets not talk about work. I get enough of that every day."

Then things amongst the three went silent. Bang. That was the moment it settled on them (or at least on Jenna and Zophie) that there was nothing the three of them as a whole could talk about. Only Rune and Zophie could talk about their work at the CSMB (even though they really couldn't do that here anyway), only Jenna and Rune could talk about their relationship and Jenna's work at clubs in Willow Hill (which Zophie knew nothing of) and there was absolutely nothing that Jenna and Zophie could talk about (seeing as how they didn't really know each other).

All this made Zophie all the more conscious of her role as the proverbial third wheel. None of this would have been awkward if she weren't here. And from the look on Rune's face, she didn't want Zophie here, either. Suddenly everything about this night just seemed like a bad idea. Rune exhaled and swept down the last of her champagne. All she wanted right now was to spend some time with Jenna before scooping out this place for some information on Drake Mahrem. That was obviously not going to materialize... at least not in the way she would have envisioned.

Fortunately, soon after the large-scale realization of how uncomfortable this night would be amongst the girls, the man whom had led them to the wine room returned. He walked onto the stage, stopped behind the podium, and leaned into its microphone whilst asking, "May I have your attention please?"

By now the group of aristocrats attending the party had spread out across the varnished wooden floor. Most of them had a drink in their hands and those that didn't were attended to by some of the bioandroid maids. As the man up on the podium called for their attention they stopped chatting amongst themselves and turned to the stage. The low hum of their talking and laugher evaporated into a paused stillness.

"Thank you," the man uttered politely. "Before we continue with the evening's events I'd like to introduce to you the host of tonight's party. Please welcome The Moa Anbessa Ze Imnegede Yehuda Mahrem; Drake Mahrem."

When he started clapping those that could did it too (with the exception of Rune). Amid all that clapping there appeared a single man from behind the folds of the black stage curtains. That man was Drake Mahrem. He was a tall and authoritative man in his late forties. Yet despite his age Drake stood and walked with a lithe and muscular figure that had been dressed in a formal dark grey suit similar to a tunic. His long greyish-blonde bangs hung over the left of his aging yet somehow youthful face, obscuring his left eye and the left half of his self-assured smirk. He carried himself with a kind of restrained passion, a smouldering magnetism, it was almost as if an aura of influence surrounded and burned about his body. The one to introduce him stepped back from the podium.

Rune didn't notice it at first. She only leisurely looked to the stage as he name was called. But the very second she saw him in all his passionate and composed fury, it struck her like a punch in the stomach. It was HIM. Everything between the two images, the one in her mind – the one she'd retained since the civil war, and the one that was appearing before her here and now – they completely overlapped. The long silvery-blonde hair, the thin face, the muscular-lissom stature, the pale alabaster skin, the bangs shrouding half of his face, that dark and arrogant grin, it was HIM.

Ekard Merham.

There was no doubting it. They were identical beyond the clothing they wore. And suddenly the unusual name of `Ekard Merham' made more sense. All she had to do was reverse the letters and she had her answer. THAT was the man that the Garden of Gethsemane was supposed to kill five years ago in South Africa. That was the son of a bitch rat bastard that had cost her the lives of every single human being she had called `friend' up until the age of eighteen. The past that Rune had been reliving in her daydreams and the present that she was living now converged in one soul-consuming moment. And in the seconds that she had to take notice of Drake and his presence here – his true identity – it happened. The incredible surge of bloodlust, the one that had struck her and her team once they were confronted by that man five years ago, the burst in rage known to her heart by the ridiculous yet appropriate name `Anti-Drake Mode'.

Rune's entire body juddered as if struck by a bolt of electricity. Her back hunched and eyes fell out of focus, the hot blood in her ears throbbing, the thoughts in her mind running rampant with the sole need to KILL this man. Immediately, as they saw Rune lurch forward, Jenna and Zophie rushed to her side, holding her up.

"Rune? Rune! What's wrong with you...?" Jenna asked concernedly.

She groaned and struggled to fight off the urge, pulling Jenna a haggard smile. "It's nothing, I... think I just felt a bit dizzy there for a moment. Don't worry about it."

"...A-are you sure that's all it is?" Zophie asked as she briefly forget about the situation.

"Yeah. I... I'm fine."

Though neither Jenna nor Zophie were prepared to believe that they both knew there was no point in arguing with Rune about it. She staggered back upright until she could stand properly. Then her thinned out eyes rolled back to the stage where Drake was receiving his ovation. If not for the little control she had left over her body, she would have charged across the room and thrust her fist through his skull in that very instant. But soon the clapping began to fade as Drake pressed his hands into the podium and leaned over to speak into the microphone.

"All of you in this room are financial leaders," he said in a deep, hauntingly effervescent French-African accent, "in this grim city they now call with scorn `Junk Town'. It was once a paradise, as many of the elders amongst you may know. Yet now this city stands in the cyclone of drug abuse, prostitution, murder and rape. This city is a caricature of the vile nature of the world at large. But make no mistake. This is not a result of the numerous wars that have overtaken this Earth. No. It is a result of the political nihilism of the masses and the errantly spineless nature of governments the world over. The only solution to their weakness is our firmness. We are resolved to spread our strength through military means if necessary. And my life has shown time and time again that military means ARE necessary. Bullets are the only things Europeans listen to. Tanks are the only things Asians may acknowledge. Bombs are all Americans respond to. The answer is simple. We must militarise ourselves not for the purpose of proposing a deterrent but rather for the doing down of political corruption and civil indifference. My goals might be far off from their completion. However I assure all of you that the day will come when the weak-hearted, bleeding-heart nature of this world will once and for all dissolve amid the realization that true order can only be established with a firm hand. The answers to the world's problems lie not with blind compassion, but with well-managed power."

Needless to say, Jenna was literally seething when she heard all that. "What a load of bullshit."

"The road to those answers may not be too far, my friends," Drake continued. "For now a weapon has been fashioned by the Mahrem Conglomerate and it is one that will see its see its role fulfilled by bringing an end to prolonged conflict in the Middle East. For too long that territory has been ruled by the senseless profiteering of numerous Islamic states that bicker over their pathetic concerns with oil and Jews and American expansionism. Our new weapon of destruction will put an end to their folly once and for all – the first stroke in our crusade against weak leadership. This weapon is the Zopheridae."

The video screen behind him flashed on. Some in the crowd gasped and muttered to their companions when the saw the image on it. It was a schematic wire diagram of the Zopheridae, the prototype model of the war tanks that were to be deployed in the Middle East. It had a futuristic and menacing look to it. Jenna frowned at it. Zophie kept sort of indifferent towards both it and Drake's speech, gesturing to one of eleven bioandroid maids to bring her another glass of champagne, her third glass of the night. Rune had her entire focus fixed on Drake.

The Anglo-African mercenary branched out one of his hands to the screen. As he did that a torrent of statistical data appeared on screen beside the schematics of the weapon. "This is the Zopheridae. It is merely the first of a new generation of walking quadra-pedal tanks that are capable of activation and mobilization on both land and sea. It incorporates a powerful AI known as Xu, which regulates the highly advanced form of movement that the Zopheridae is designed with. This form is called the poly-muscular transportation system or `PMTS'. It uses artificial muscle tissue built within the Zopheridae's four metallic limbs that contract and expand, as a real muscle system would in any of us, through a potent electromagnetic stimulation controlled distributed along the frame of the Zopheridae by the Xu. Both the Xu and the PMTS are the fruits of the genius head of the Mahrem Conglomerate's scientific research teams, Professor Nyles Nooreen. Thanks to his work, there are few places on the Earth that the Zopheridae cannot reach. It can assault the sands of the Sahara, the grassy fields of Alsace-Lorraine, and the murky depths of the Pacific, why it could even launch itself into the frozen tundra of the arctic. No stronghold on Earth is safe from the Zopheridae. And with the weapons systems on it, you'll understand why."

The computer schematic on screen switch to six specific close ups of weapons built into the Zopheridae and explained with tiny details their names and significance. Drake grinned and gestured to the screen once again. "The Zopheridae is equipped with numerous weapons systems including twin Vulcan cannons fixed into either its first two shoulder plates, both capable of maximum firing rate of 9000 rounds per minute. The left shoulder Vulcan fires armour-piecing bullets. The right shoulder Vulcan fires anti-EMS polymeric bullets. These cannons are fed their payload from two enormous drum barrels built within the Zopheridae and together they are large enough to store more than 875,000 bullets. But that is not all. The Zopheridae units also possess a miniaturized yet hi-powered liquid laser system that is fully capable of emitting a 2400-kilowatt beam from the cannon inside its lower back shell compartment. This laser beam can effortlessly pierce through titanium-plated defences and is more then efficient enough to neutralize ICBMs within a maximum 700km range. But the Zopheridae's primary weapon is the MAG or Magnetic Accelerator Gun connected to the right of its torso. This coilgun fires heavy-duty ES rounds with a velocity strong enough to propel them to a distance of 37kms. Yet the immense power of the Zopheridae does not lie only in its offensive capabilities but also in its defensive ones. Its tough composite armour is sufficient to protect any pilot against anything from sub-zero to plus-Kelvin temperatures. It is equipped with EMS technology and can produce its own shields to divert and nullify blades, bullets, grenades and ES rounds. The Zopheridae's speed alone is reputable enough to be considered a defence. It can reach a top speed of 16mph on sand terrain and 25mph on even stone terrain. The technological capabilities of the Xu program within the Zopheridae allow it to emit signals via a unit that scramble the image of the Zopheridae on computer surveillance screens making it undetectable to virtually any non-ultrasound radar. In short the Zopheridae is the ultimate mobile anti-personnel weapon on Earth."

Many in the masses of the partygoers were stunned, but none more so than Jenna, and for far different reasons.

"Why in the hell would anyone make something like that?" She said to herself.

Drake continued on with his speech. "If the trial run of the Zopheridae is successful then this weapon shall be mass-produced and sold to allies of ours all over the world. This is but one stroke in my ambitions. And it is a glorious moment that calls for celebration. Now. If you would all follow my subordinate to the dining hall."

There were two doors to the left of the stage. A couple of the bioandroid butlers waiting this chamber quickly opened those double doors for the guests. The well-dressed man that had led them all to this room stood there and he led the way in for them. As the guests started moving en masse to the dining hall Drake walked off the stage. Rune's focussed green eyes followed his every movement. He stepped calmly into another corridor on the right of the stage. Her first instinct was to follow but there were two guards standing at the entryway. There was no chance of getting past them without making a scene.

But her eyes didn't leave that spot that Drake had disappeared into.

"Rune?" Jenna clasped her hand. "Come on, let's go. After watching that moron parade his nightmare-gizmo in front of me I've got a nasty taste in my mouth. Maybe some free lobster and wine will get rid of it, huh?"

"You go on without me," Rune told her. "Enjoy it."

Jenna frowned, blinking. "Huh? What are you talking about? Look Rune, if you go, then it's just me and Zophie and I don't know if you've realized this but we don't seem to be hitting it off much."

"I won't be long," She told the singer, not seeing Zophie walk alone into the dining chamber. "I just need to make a pit stop in the ladies room. Once I ask someone where it is and before you know it I'll be back. Okay?"

Though Jenna paused as if to think about it, she'd already made up her mind, grudgingly. She exhaled with a defeated smile and softly kissed her girlfriend goodbye. "Don't be too long, okay?"

She wouldn't be. Jenna was good to do this. Come to the building of a company she didn't like, attend the party celebrating a cause she didn't support, and going for a dinner with someone she clearly wouldn't have an easy time getting along with; all to make Rune happy. She valued what Jenna was doing for her even if she didn't say it. Rune smiled and watched her join up with the straggling few guests. They walked into the dining hall and left her behind. Without wasting anytime Rune scanned the walls for the closest place to that corridor that Drake had disappeared into. The closest was a second door just twelve metres down from it. The CSMB agent walked to it and a guard that was standing beside it.

"What are you doing?" The armoured BA declared. "The dining hall is down there."

Rune cringed at him; muttering `asshead pseudo-human' under her breath, then asked in a more pleasant tone, "Where do you think I can find the lavatories?"

"Though this door and down the hall... third door from last." He told her.

Rune faked a ditzy grin. "Oh, I'm always so bad with directions. Do you think maybe you could show me the way?"

"Very well."

He performed one last sweeping check of the wine room to make sure no one would be coming his way in his absence and then opened the door. Rune grinned and followed him through it to a new corridor. Unlike the previous room its tone was certainly not Hanoverian. It was a long and under-decorated corridor of white walls and ceiling stretching from the first door, past sixteen other doors, and ending at another corridor, which split off into two directions. One led to an elevator and the other led to two flights of stairs, one leading up and the other leading down. The BA guard led the way until he stopped at the sixth door down.

Just as he was about to say `here are the toilets' Rune span him around by the shoulder and thrust her fist forcefully into his stomach. He gasped and lurched over her arm, trails of saliva trickling down the corners of his mouth. She scowled at him and grabbed the fabric of his padded purple riot armour. He was out cold. Rune groaned, knocked the bathroom door open with her shoulder and dragged him with her into the ladies' section. She knocked that door open the same way, marched into one of the cubicles, and lugged him on top of the toilets. But before she left his ass there to stew, she took the M9 out of his holster and slipped it into her purse. It might come in handy later. And with him taken care of she peeled out of the toilets and back out into the corridor. The cost was clear. So she ran down its bland white length toward the secondary corridor and the flight of stairs it led to. When she turned the corner and got there she saw that the chunky stone platform steps would take her to a new level -- either the first floor or one of the underground floors. But Drake was still on this level, the ground floor.

"Horseshit," Rune seethed. "Then how can I...?"

She silenced herself when she spotted an iron grating in the wall just ahead of her. She smirked and jumped up to latch onto its bars and tug. After a moment of strain the grate started to come loose. Moments after that it broke completely out of the wall. It hurled Rune back into the thin layer of carpeting. The CSMB agent smirked (despite her spectacular fall) and threw the grating away. Once she was back on her feet she leapt for the now open square hole in the wall and crawled into it. Her dress was scuffed in the process but not only did she not care – she barely even realized it. She merely scuttled her way through the metallic ventilation shaft, her knees and elbows banging its thin aluminium. Along the way Rune glanced at a second grate in the duct. Light phased up from it. Rune crawled over to it and looked down. It was a room that there was no access to from the wine hall. Inside it was numerous surveillance equipment including computers that provided visual feedback from the numerous cameras on this floor on their screens, thermal sensor units (TSUs) designed as a counter-resistance to users of optical camouflage, weight limit monitors on elevators (for the same purpose as the TSUs, tracking potential intruders with stealth optics) and so on. There were more than a few chairs surrounding the desks that all that technological equipment was on. But only two people, actual humans, were monitoring them.

If she wanted to find Drake then she'd have to act fast with them.

The former soldier pressed both arms into the walls of the duct and drew in her legs. Then she forced double kick straight into the grating. The two operators gasped when they saw the grille knocked powerfully out of its place by two high heel-bearing feet. Rune pounced out of it within seconds and lunged at the first of them, grabbing him by the neck and forcing him down to the ground with her arm against his throat. His gargled breath dissolved into a careful breathing as he passed out. Rune dismounted him and automatically reached for the second man. He shouted `what the hell?' just as she grabbed him by the shoulder and punched him with vigour in the stomach. He wheezed and coughed, the blood rushing to his skull almost immediately, until he dropped to the ground unconscious. Both men were down.

Rune's shoulders bobbed up and down as she caught her breath for a second. During that time she made the point of taking off her heels. For the life of her, she could hardly run in them. As soon as she started breathing normally she glanced at the monitors that provided this room with intel on what was happening elsewhere. Her eyes moved from one corner to the other whist looking all of the screens over for a sign of Drake Mahrem. He had to be somewhere on this floor. But when she looked at #15 of the screen she saw something just as eye-catching... maybe more so.

It was a visual feed of a corridor on the other side of the ground floor. On it more than eight soldiers were lying across the floor. But what made that confusing was that they were dead. Not only that, but their blood had been splattered across the walls as if some of them had been hacked open. That was not the work of a gun but more of a melee weapon; like perhaps maybe a sword. That idea was contributed to by the fact that some of those men had actually been austerely decapitated, the running red mess of the necks spilling out over the dry beige carpeting.

For the life of her, Rune couldn't make sense of that, but then she didn't need to, either. She was here for Drake. And she'd find him no matter what it took. And so she kept searching through the computer screens until she found what she wanted – the legendary mercenary himself. He was sitting leisurely on a coffee-brown wing chair in a private room just two corridors down from this recon room. He sat with a wide-rimmed glass of what looked to be Port and could be seen grinning at something.

Rune tightened her fists, the bloodlust welling up in her again. "There you are, you little bastard..."

The question was could she get to that room from here? In her haste to find that way she saw something else that caught her eye. A camera feed of a room adjacent to Drake's, it showed three men, all of which were dressed in the exact same way as the man whom had shown the guests to the wine room and the dining hall, black tuxedo-like suits with white roses on one of the lapels. These three were a little different from him, though. One was a stern-looking but calm black youth, who seemed to be saying something to the two others. The one sitting on a stool next to the black guy (and not really listening to what he was saying) was a slightly shorter man with a decidedly effeminate nature; his hair dyed a bright pink and both ears pierced with dangling gold hoop earrings. The third guy was taller than both. He was bulky, muscular and constantly drew lusty looks from the effeminate boy. He looked uncomfortable about those glances but also too polite to say anything about them.

For some reason it had Rune curious. She took up the earphones from one of the other monitors, unplugged it, and then re-plugged into the unit displaying those three men. She turned up the volume so that she could hear what they were saying to each other.

"Mr. Salamander said `he thinks this could be the big one'." Commented the black man. "To be honest I think he's being a bit too hopeful... but he wants the Redrum Unit to become the primary bodyguards of Master Drake. I'd want that too... but does he really think we'll ever surpass Dark Christ in that respect? I can't see that happening."

The pink-haired boy giggled adorably. "You're too much of a pessimist, Mr. Leopard. We're just as tough as that bunch of freaks. I haven't met a man or woman yet could escape one of my SOCOM's bullets. We handle the security that they can't do, like today's little party. It's too much public exposure for them, right? Eventually, Master Drake will see how much of a benefit we are to him and he'll promote us."

At that point, the effeminate `bodyguard' turned to the shy muscular one, grinning cutely. "What do you think, Mr. Viper?"

"...Uh..." `Mr. Viper', as he was nicknamed, blushed. "...I'm sure we'll do all right... Mr. Flamingo."

The black one, `Mr. Leopard', reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a SOCOM pistol. He eyed it over for a moment and then took aim at a formless target, holding his gun-hand, then returned it to its holster beneath the suit. "Well, it seems that whatever the outcome is... all we can do right now is do what we're paid to do. And that's protecting Master Drake. So while Mr. Salamander is busy entertaining those elitist bourgeoisie bastards... we'll be covering some ass."

"...Heh, heh, heh..." The pink-haired Mr. Flamingo sniggered lewdly. "...`Covering some ass'? Oh, that's such a tempting notion. What do you think, Mr. Viper...?"

Mr. Viper blushed and glanced at his shoes awkwardly. "...Uh... well..."

When he failed to come up with a response, Mr. Flamingo giggled effeminately. "You're delightful, you know that?"

That was all that Rune needed to hear. She took off the earphones and looked up at the entrance to the ventilation ducts. There was still no way to know if it would get her to Drake's room but now was the best time to try. She walked under it and jumped up with all her Garden of Gethsemane agility then resumed crawling through the tight metal aperture. She crawled along the duct, her knees knocking against the floor, until she came to yet another grille along the way. Her face crossed the beams of light rising up from it. And below she saw the new room, Drake's room. And in there he sat, sipping his port on his wing chair, with a sizeable grin on his face. Rune didn't know what he was grinning at until she saw him swirl his glass around for a moment and say,

"I know you're up there."

Her eyes widened.

But if that was in fact the case then there was no longer a need to be subtle. Rune grit her teeth and focussed all of her rage and bloodlust into her right fist. A bestial cry sounded out and that same fist punched the grille with more than enough force to knock it out of the ceiling frame. Rune's lithe body dropped through the opening and landed onto the shag carpet of Drake's `recreation room'. The Anglo-African himself stood out of his wing chair and grinned, putting the glass of Port down on a side table. Rune sneered at him the moment they locked eyes. And she yanked her M9 from her purse, swinging its straps over her shoulder. Yet though he had a gun aimed at him, Drake didn't move or even flinch. He remained as he was, grinning nobly, running a finger through the lengthy silvery-blonde bangs that ran down the left side of his face.

"You're taller than I remember you," he said in that urbane accent. "You've grown."

She shut one of her eyes. "You remember me, huh? Do you remember everything else? Do you remember what I lost because of you? Do you remember what my country did to them for not killing you?"

"Blaming me for your government's shortcomings? Not very forward thinking, are you... nor bright, for that matter. I hope that isn't something you inherited from me, my child. I was actually hoping to run into you today. I know that you've become a member of the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau. And I also know that you've been doing quite a bit of investigative work concerning me. So I decided to motivate something of a... meeting between old acquaintances."

"Acquaintances?" Rune growled under her breath. "Just looking at you makes me sick. I'm only here for one reason. I know that you're the secret benefactor behind Jackson James and his thugs. I know that Dark Christ is working for you and that you used Kagedo to take out Mimi Pritchard. And I know that you coerced Coconut into killing those other girls. What I want to know why you wanted to kill those kids. What's your angle, what are you after? Start talking."

Drake shut his eyes with a smile. "What I seek is no more than an ambitious man's dream. But unlike most men, ambitious or not, I have the power to make my dream a reality."

"I don't want any of your cryptic bullshit! Tell me what you're planning, now!"

"And if I should refuse...?"

Rune's eyes thinned out. "...Then I'll kill you..."

When Drake opened his eyes he was still grinning. "I think you learned five years ago that that's just not possible. But you're not like the others, are you? The other members of the Garden are long dead. Yet you live... you who decimated the legendary US Jungle Corps. And no matter meaningless that is, I just can't help respecting it. Very well. You may pull your trigger. And then you'll see how powerless you really are."

She was through rationalizing at this point. But then it hit one of those moments in life where everything just seemed to happen in slow motion. Rune grimaced and pulled the trigger. She could make out the sound of a gunshot. But the second that she did she felt one hand grab her wrist from behind and force it against her back. Across her throat she felt someone wrap an arm around it. The M9 dropped out of her free hand and quickly clawed at the arm locked around her neck, Drake's arm.

He chuckled dryly in her ear, listening to her struggles. "You'll need more than bullets to kill me, my shadow. In Africa they once called me `Negusa Nagast'... soon, you will learn what that means..."

"...Bastard..." Rune rasped. "...What are you planning...?"

"My plans? They're quite simple, really. But I have an annoying fly I need to swat down before I can proceed with them. In order to do that I'm going to need to expend a few things... but with the impending launch of the Zopheridae... I can build it all back again. Once Deus is out of the way... it can all begin."

Rune continued to struggle in his tight iron hold. "...D-Deus...? What is...?"

With the same razor-sharp speed that had put it there, Drake snatched his arm from around Rune's throat and shoved her forward as he released her wrist. Rune staggered and dropped prone across the shag-carpeted floor. A devilish mix of fear and awe settled into her when she looked up and saw Drake crack his knuckles with a competitive grin.

"You are the one who stood against Kagedo and defeated the US Jungle Corps?" He speculated, mockingly. "Now either the Jungle Corps was weaker than I originally thought and Kagedo is losing his touch... or it's possible that you might be holding out on me."

Rune sneered at him and pounced back onto her two feet. "Bastard!"

The CSMB agent rushed up and thrust a punch. Drake grinned once then bolted to one side, moving like an inexplicably fluid blur, until he was standing astride her. His foot shot out and Rune's ankle, mid-momentum, was caught against it. As she was thrown off her balance, Drake's powerful hand grabbed the back of her skull in one powerful clasp and forced her face straight into the floor. Rune groaned as her body thudded against it, the carpeting grazing her cheek. In the two and a half seconds it took to do that, Drake snatched both of Rune's arms and held them behind her back with his free hand.

"Standard Close Range Arts takedown," Whispered Negusa Nagast into her ear. "I invented the system, you know. Every skill you have is a mass-produced copy of my own. We even have the same shooting stance."

Rune kicked her legs but couldn't get free. "Damn... you...!"

"Even the hatred you feel for me is not your own, but rather, something given to you by someone else. Has it ever made you curious? Have you ever wondered how much of `you'... is actually you? For all you know, the entire shape and breadth of your consciousness maybe nothing more than some feeble scientist's construct. And if that is the case then what is the true value and meaning of your existence? Being less a person and more an item."

"Shut up...!" She winced, shutting her eyes. "Just shut up!"

Drake smiled all the more. "My `shadow', eh? Heh, heh, heh. You are weak. You haven't even tapped your full power yet. And until you do you will never have the power to kill me. But you shouldn't feel too badly about that. Very few people do. So I say to you, my child, how far do you really think Anti-Existences like you can go?"

"I am not... just... an extension... of you..." The ex-soldier said with her voice muffled. "I am a... human being..."

For that Drake tightened his hold on her. "And what is that really worth? If you had any of my insight you'd know. We can't put faith in humanity. We can only put faith in ourselves... and in power. This is nothing more than an expression of my power. Can you see it? Can you see it? The true nature of our power is not dominance over others but self-reliance. It takes a strong person to stand silent and alone and face life on its own terms. Clinging to foolish hopes of calling yourself `human' with that self-righteous arrogance will get you nowhere."

"What... do you mean...?"

"We're the same, you and I," He neither said to her. "You might be weaker than me but we are essentially one in the same. We are neither here nor there. We're too involved in our own self-interests to be soldiers... and we lack the battle honour necessary to be regarded as warriors. We are the by-products of this bitter modern world -- a pure and novel breed of fighters who battle for ourselves and without honour. We are not `human', we lack their morals and their souls... we are something both above and below `human'. Because of this... the only thing we can profit and express our existence through is itself fighting. It is for this reason that power; power incarnate... is our only true goal. You can feel that too, can't you? That's why you joined the Civil Stability Maintenance Bureau. The desire for more power... that in itself brought you to me...!"

Rune winced and continued to struggle. "You're wrong! I am NOTHING like you!"

"Why deny it? Power is the only thing you have. You have no identity, no cause, no moral code, no dignity, no righteousness, even your will to kill me is manufactured. Don't set yourself limits. Express your desire for power at all costs and with no restraints. You'll never be able to kill me unless you do."

"...Son of a bitch..." She spat. "...Let... go... of me...!"

Drake grinned, still pinning her down. "It's not a nice experience, is it? To feel your desire for power frustrated by the superior power of something else. I feel that now. There is an obstacle to my dream and I must crush it to proceed. That is why I've been doing everything I've been doing."

"Is that right? Creating that monstrosity, the Zopheridae? A new world order, huh?"

"Heh, he, he, he, he," Drake sniggered derisively. "Heh, heh, heh, heh... ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Her sight nudged up. "What are you... laughing at...?"

"Did really believe a word I said out there to those pathetic, limp-wrist, pencil-pushing, monetary whores? I could care less about