Alita leaped the fence as if it were a low hurdle.

Behind her Reiko fumed. Damn flashy bitch, she thought. Now I'll have to get through the fence without her help.

Reiko quickly scanned the area. She knew a visual scan wouldn't yield any new information about the factory's security arrangements, but it was a good habit to stay in, if only to ward against nasty surprises. After all, the scans they'd done of the place over the past week might be flawless, but a foot patrol wouldn't be a part of them. Neither would dogs. Reiko shuddered. She never liked dogs. She hoped there would be none tonight.

From an outside observer, Reiko would have seemed to get a far-off look in her eyes, but from her point of view things were much different. Her view of the ten foot fence remained unchanged, but now it became overlaid with a computer-generaged energy scan of the eare. As she turned her head, the overlay turned with her, showing the energy patterns of the defensive grid, and its associated weaknesses.

Reiko crouched down to avoid any sentries, although she knew there were none. Genom had been overconfident with they designed this place. They thought no one would attack an unassuming factory such as this. They thought that no one would get through the electronic systems they had set up, far beyond those a normal factory would need. They thought they were safe.

They should have thought twice.

From the bushes, Reiko found the spot she needed. A control panel thirty feet inside the fence controlled the alarm mechanism for one of the side gates. If that were knocked out, she thought, I'd just be able to stroll through. Just get through the electrically charged, alarm wired gate. She looked around her feet. There were a number of stones there. Reiko smiled.

A moment later, there was a two-inch hole through the centre of the control box and a chip of stone embedded in the concrete wall behind. Several moments after that there was a tearing sound and a much larger hole in the wire gate, still popping with electricity.

Reiko was in.

From the outside, the Genom factory was nothing out of the ordinary, except for the rather tight security, move of which was not visible to the public. This was the way Genom International wanted it. As a matter of fact, there were several things Genom International did not want the public to be aware of.

For example, there was the fact the Genom International, sole creator of the mechanoids known as Boomers, had come by this advance directly through the murder of their inventor, one Doctor Stingray. If the public knew about that, then they surely would begin to suspect that the dangerous Boomers who ran amok, causing such a high death tool particularly among police, were not actually runaways after all. This was true, of course, and the runaways were actually designed to test combat applications for sales to military powers worldwide. But the public was not meant to know this.

Reiko and her team did.

Inside the factory, Reiko was gratified to see that her suspicions had been right. Row upon row of Boomers in various states of assembly lay aobut the workshop on conveyor belts. This was a secret factory for assembling Boomers for military sale. This was also one source for the Boomers who so distracted the police while Genom's more shady deals were taking place.

Reiko knew she had to stop it.

Inside her eyes, she now saw a florr plan of the building, with her position on it, moving about as she progressed through the building. For a moment she allowed herself the luxury of memories.

Five years ago, things had been different. Reiko was a normal person like anyone else, living, laughing, never suspecting that an evil flowed just below the surface. She had no idea that she was destined to play a more active part in the game.

Then the accident happened and the world convulsed.

When the smoke had cleared, the morotcycle and her boyfriend crushed beneat the truck, herself at the brink of death, a turning point occurred. A man with talent seized this opportunity and practiced his art in such a way that Reiko knew nothing of what had been done.

What she did know was that things would never be the same again. Her boyfriend was dead, her life was in shambles, she had a synthetic left arm and some parts of her left brain were replaced with special chips, whose capabilities she could only guess at. There seemed nothing for her to return to, so she didn't.

Over the next few months, Reiko tried her best to weave a new life for herself. Her foster brother, Kaneda, whose father had been responsible for her living at all, played a large part in giving her life beyond just breathing. With his help, she made a new life for herself, managing the cafe that she inherited from her natural father, and learning to love again. After the accident, she knew she could never love a man again, but Candice, who became her bookkeeper as well as her partner, taught her that she didn't have to close the door on love altogether.

When Candice died, a new chapter began for Reiko.

Candice was onboard a JAL flight that had been brought down by one of Genom's "runaway" Boomers. Reiko was almost shattered by the experience, but Kaneda and his father rescued her from the brink once again. They taught her what Genom had become and how they had caused Candice's death. They taught her how to use the new abilities they had given her and had laid dormant until now. they taught her that she could make a difference.

The emptiness inside Reiko was once again filled. This time it was filled with vengeance.

Emptiness.

Aside from Reiko and the open spaces of the factory, there seemed to be nothing. Could Genom have been so confident of their security that they had not even put in sentries? Or were the real security placements elsewhere? Reiko nervously backed around a corner.

The hand that grasped her shoulder almost made her hit the roof.

She spun around, ready to strike back against whatever threat presented itself, but stopped short of actually hitting the giggling form before her.

"Alita, you little bitch," she hissed. "What's the big idea? Don't you know we've got to stick together?"

This only brought more giggles from her small partner. Sometimes, when Reiko felt depressed about her fate with partly mechanical parts, she thought of Alita. Alita, to the casual observer, looked somewhat like a small girl, roughly around twelve. The first impresion however, was misleading. In reality she was much older than that, only her deceptively slight build and childlike attitude maintaining the illusion of extreme youth.

At some point in the past, Alita was a normal human, but something had happened. Now she was no longer human, but a mix of Boomer and human, only retaining her head and some internal organs to attest to her former humanity. This new body was amazingly strong and agile, allowing her to pull off feats to make an Olympic athlete feel inadequate, which was good since she tended to prefer flashy, flamboyant moves rather than the quick efficiency that Reiko preferred.

As to where she came from, even Alita did not know. Her memory only extended back to slightly before meeting Reiko. What had cause her to be like this was a mystery which seemed insoluble, although the Street Professionals had advanced numerous theories concerning it.

The Street Professionals were a rather odd lot. Each of them was an eccentric genius, well versed in some field of science or art, usually both, and given to flamboyancy much the same as Alita herself. They formed a sort of surrogate family for Alita and each other, but for some reason Reiko never seemed to be able to penetrate them. They were friends with her, but would never be more than that.

Alita's gigling finally subsided, and she was finally able to control herself enough whisper back at Reiko, "I wish you wouldn't get so uptight, I was only having a little fun."

"A little fun?" Reiko whispered back. "I could have killed you. You know what this arm of mine can do. Besides, what if their security systems had caught you?"

Alita pouted. "You couldn't hurt me if you tried. And there isn't any security in here. I checked. Not a patrol, not a scanner, nada. This place is ripe for the picking."

Reiko huffed at this. She was never completely able to reconcile her own thirst for vengeance against Genom with Alita's simple cat-burglar attitude. She had reprimanded her on several occasions for not taking raids seriously enough, but they had never had an appreciable effect.

"I'm not here to pick. I'm here to make sure Genom won't make more of their titanium murderers here, like they've done elsewhere."

"Well, you can destroy all you want," Alita huffed. "I'm just here for the brain boxes. Long John andb Chipper have been itching to take one apart and they asked me to grab as many as I can carry. That concussion wave of yours doesn't leave much for salvage, you know."

Raiko shuddered and withdrew a bit at this. The concussion wave was an attack of hers which frankly scared her, mostly because she didn't understand it. It had manifested itself for the first time several months back when a Boomer had gotten the drop on her on a routine scouting mission. The beast had been about to crush her when Reiko held up her arm and closed her eyes. There was a vibration in her artificial arm and a great noise from the Boomer.

When she opened her eyes, the Boomer had been torn to pieces.

Later, when she had asked about it, Kanede had told her that it was a concussive blast that her arm had produced, and that the Boomer had literally shook itself to death. They also told her that she could reproduce the effect again, if she wished.

She severely doubted she could do it.

The same thing had happened on two occasions since then, but both times it was instinct, not intent that triggered the wave. Reiko remained nervous about it and really doubted she could call it up herself. Kaneda said she would when the time came.

Alita, seeing Reiko's distressed, tried to sooth her. "Hey, don't worry about it. If we should run into any Boomers, they won't stand a chance. I won't let them hurt my buddy." With this, she struck a weightlifter's pose that looked thoroughly ridiculous on her.

Reiko giggled despite herself. "C'mon, 'Lita. We've got work to do."

The factory floor was a maze of light and shadow as the moon broke throught he clouds. Strange moving shapes populated the floors and walls. The unfinished Boomers took on a distinctly sinister appearance. The night seemed alive and malevolent.

None of this however, seemed to have any effect on Alita. Her enthusiasm was far too strong to be dampened by some mere mood lighting. Where on the factory floor the moon had created an air of lurking menace, on Alita's face it gave her the look of a child up to mischief. Herr smiles were infectious, and Reiko even began to feel a slight sense of adventure behind her darker mission.

They moved together toward the more unofficial parts of the factory. Reiko's floor plan overlaid yet again, showing the differences between the official plans submitted to the city authority and the actual site, gathered from her own satellite scans. There was a smaller underground complesx, it seemed, hidden behind an unassuming metal door. The door was marked "Power Tools, Use With Caution", but Reiko knew better. The fingers of her right hand dug into metal and the door gave way. And elevator waited for them on the other side.

The secret factory was a ricker trove than either of them had expected. Alita's eyes glittered as she took in the richness of her find. All about, technical equipment glittered, brand new and ready for use. Cabinets housing coded chips and sensitive parts stood near the work areas, all of which were a treasure trove of saleable technologty. She took it all in with glee, wondering how much she'd be able to carry out.

Reiko wasn't so excited. Her attention was focused on the object of the work, the Boomers. Six metal giants, eight feet of armoured walking death, ready to loose on the unsuspecting public to be followed by a stream of denials and outragte from Genom that such an accident could happen.

Reiko knew they had to be destroyed.

She turned to Alita. "You ready? I've got to wreck this stuff, so you'd better get what you want now."

Alita, used to Reiko's businesslike manner when faced with Boomers, quickly moved to examine the chips she'd been sent to find. She looked for a moment wtih glee, then with a questioning look. Suddenly she whirled on Reiko.

"These are fakes!" she yelled. "It must be a trap!"

With this, there was a noise from the work benches. The six Boomers were coming to life. Reiko and Alita readied themselves for battle.

"Damn," Reiko snarled. "I should have known all that easy security was just a front. Alita, you ready?"

Allita just nodded and bared her teeth. Reiko knew she had just triggered the adrenalin surge in her mechanical body that would give her a dangerous fighting edge. Reiko drew her pistol with her left hand and backed toward the elevator.

From a wall speaker came a sinister voice. "Welcome, ladies," it said. "I've been waiting for your arrival. You've been a thorn in the side of Genom for far too long. It's time we had you removed. Goodbye."

With this, the Boomers attacked.

Alita became a blur of motion. Her artificially enhanced reflexes made her a dangerous opponent to anyone, human or Boomer. the Boomers seemed to sense that this jumping, twirling creature was the more dangerous, and three of them converged on her.

Reiko, on the other hand, was a much slower target but in reality no less dangerous. As usual, she fought one-handed, using her artificial righ arm for close combat, tearing and blocking, while she fired armour-piercing bullets from the pistol in her left. Two of the Boomers attacked her.

Both of them were far too busy to notice the sixth machine holding back, waiting by the far wall of the lab.

Reiko shot and severed several servos inthe arm of the further Boomer, while her right arm did far more damage to the chest plating and many of the central mechanisms of the other. Nearby, Alita had finished off the first of her opponents with a kick that severed its body at teh waist, and was now careening off a wall to deliver a crushing blow to the head of the other. The remains of the head became a part of its torso, leavinng it to fall lifeless to the ground.

Reiko caught this and felt a hint of disapproval. Far too showy, she thought, finishing off her closer opponent by tearing at the exposed wires inn its now-open chest cavity. This isn't a game we're playing.

Reiko fired another shot that pierced the eye fo the other Boomer, while Alita managed to rend the final Boomer limb from limb in a rather impressive display of brute force. The two girls stood for a moment, flush with their victory, then turned on the final Boomer.

The Boomer however, remained standing by the far wall and did not advance. Reiko heard a humming sound coming from it, that seemed to be getting louder.

A mechanical voice sounded inside Reiko's head. "Danger," it droned. "Increasing power source near your location. Must neutralize before it reaches critical levels."

"Understood," she said aloud. She didn't really need to speak to be understood by the satellite her brain was linked to, but she had never been able to cross the psychological hurdle of communication without speech. She turned to Alita.

"It's going to overload, we've got to stop it."

The humming had now become an angry buzz. The air around the Boomer began to haze.

The satellite spoke in her head again. "Approaching critical. Must destroy power source immediately"

Reiko fired at the Boomer. The armour-piercing bullet rocketed from the gun. What reached the Boomer was a small lump of molten metal.

Alita gasped. "The energy's too intense!" she yelled. "We've got to get out of here!"

"Can't! We'd never get far enough in time. You can't get it?"

"If your armour piercers can't do it, I'd never get close. That field would melt me in a second. There's only one way out."

Reiko froze. Only one way out, she thought. And it's the one thing I can't do.

The Boomer began to change colour. The energy field was burning at its outer shell, as it began to change to an angry red, becoming tinged with yellow.

"Destroy power source immediately. Power levels approaching critical," said the voice inside her head.

Alita's eyes were becoming panicked. "The concussion wave, Reiko! You've got to do it now!"

"I can't!"

"Now, Reiko! Do it now!"

Reiko screamed. The pressure was mounting. She knew she couldn't do it, she couldn't call forth her power. She had to do it now, but she knew nothing would happen.

"Now, Reiko, please!"

She saw what would happen. She'd try and fail. The Boomer would explode, they'd both die. Never would anyone seem them again, because she couldn't do it.

"Reiko, please!"

Reiko's mind went blank. She couldn't face any more. She knew she couldn't create the power. She knew she'd fail. She knew she had no faith in her ability. And as she knew, a new image flashed into her mind.

Candice.

Candice lived in her now. She was the only place where Candice still had life, since Genom had ended it. If she died, Candice would die again. Genom would win again.

She would not let that happen again.

Reiko's mind suddenly became calm. She stood, quickly and deliberately, her eyes locked on the glowing, seething Boomer before her.

She raised her arm.

A familiar tingle began from her shoulder and ran to her fingers.

A voice somewhere said "Detonation imminent. Evacuate immediately."

Alita leaped.

Reiko closed her eyes and thought of Candice.

"Revenge."

Some time later, the world recreated itself.

For Reiko, the world came back together a little at a time. One of the first things that came together was a splitting headache. Seh supposed it had something to do with the concrete wall she was laying against.

Next, she became aware of a great weight on her legs. It turned out to be Alita. She seemed unconscious, and for some reason her back was giving off steam.

She looked around in a bit of a daze. They were in a large room wtih the remains of a lot of technical equipment. Something happened here, she thought. And it did a lot of damage. She looked at the back wall. It had been shattered, blown back so that the night sky could be seen above ground level of the basement lab. An awful lot of damage, she decided.

On her legs, Alita stirred. "Reiko," she said in a dazed voice. "We made it, didn't we?"

"Yeah, 'Lita, we made it." Reiko, coming to her senses, looked around the wrecked lab again. This time, she looked with more recollection of events. "I did it," she said with a slightly amazed voice. "I really did it."

Alita got to her feet and inspected herself. "Yeah, you ddi it," she said over her shoulder. "But next time could you not leave it quite so fine? I mean, we almost got killed. You're not armoured like me, remember?"

"Look, I saved us, that's all that matters. If I hadn't done the concussion wave when I did, that explosion would have cooked us. As it was, I managed to throw the force of it agains the back wall."

Alita finished her inspection and seemed satisfied. "Yeah, but if I hadn't shielded you when I did, you would have gotten cooked by the backwash. Anyway, there's nothing left to steal. That damn Boomer melted most of the good stuff."

A voice arose in Reiko's head again. "Enemy units approaching. Evacuate area. Large numbers detected."

Reiko smiled. "Let's go, 'Lita," she said, heading for the opening in the wall. "I think you'll get more salvage than you know what to do with. Let's have a little fun."