Chapter 2: Construction

Segment 1: Building a new home

Chloe stood in the drydock orbiting Nippon, looking over the old and battered hull of a supertanker. It was huge, 3.6 km long and one in diameter, but it needed to be rebuild from the ground up.

"I'll take it." Said Chloe to the merchant selling the ship.

***

Griever blinked awake, as in, asleep one moment - desperately wishing to still be asleep in the next. All in all, the way things usually were. The place of waking excluded. He smiled faintly, realizing he'd not really slept under this familiar a ceiling in a while. It wasn't even a particularly nice ceiling, the plaster cracked in some places but holding sturdily enough. Last time he'd seen it had been some five years ago, roughly.

Hauling himself upward and from the low bedframe, he suppressed the customary morning groan.

'Even after, what, two centuries of having a biological clock that knows better when I should wake up than my conscious mind does my body wants thirteen hours of sleep daily. Must be what people mean when they say someone's naturally lazy.'

"Utopia?" he asked, pulling on a pair of loose cargo pants and reaching for a nearby tee with his free hand. A skill he'd perfected over the years. He only fell over in the process half the time he tried it now, instead of the initial 88% quota.

A section of a wall flickered, revealing an old-style plasma display. The woman shown on it, head and shoulders like, wore a pair of square spectacles and a rather crisp looking black business suit. Her short hair was jet black, and piercing blue eyes gazed out past the glasses. The background on which she appeared was a fairly typically arranged office. Unless you took into account the streams of electric-blue lightning flowing past the bay window.

"You have a message, video and audio, on record since midnight" she said calmly, still leafing through various transparent sheets on the desk. Utopia was an AI, and an old one at that. The main architecture had been designed sometime back when Terra was still 'Corporate' Earth, as a watchdog and majordomo of the Utopia network that had, by the second half of the 21^st Century, wound its way around the blue planet. Part admin, part 'tweaker' of those with cyber and showing disloyalty to the power that had been called Eurocorp she, then it, picked up various characteristics over the years of activity. Finally, when Eurocorp fell from grace rather spectacularly, as a result of prolonged conflict with a fanatically religious organization that had been led much like an open war, the network was taken apart and replaced ... but the core personality and 'self' of Utopia were long gone already.

Griever hadn't relished those days one bit. Oh, they weren't _that_ bad in most regards, but the strong-hand policy with which the corporations and afterwards Eurocorp ran things wasn't something that let people feel all warm and fuzzy. Of course, when it came to the choice of joining up with the worldwide Zaibatsu or with a bunch of religious psychos bent on 'liberating

the world' ... well, at least you knew where you stood with the former. And he had even less left for organized and enforced religion than he did for totalitarian regimes. The latter sometimes, if rarely, turned out alright. The former ... 'nuff said.

Though the fact was that there were still occasions once or twice per year when he woke up in cold sweat remembering the time he and the other three Corpsec Div agents in his onetime team had been dropped in the middle of occupied New York, surrounded by spiderbots and Epies ... Watanabe had been fried by an electron-mace minutes after they'd dropped, and the rest of the

two or so days that followed were almost non-stop fighting. Horace was, aside from himself, the only member of Team Shrike to come out alive. He'd gone nuts on the next mission, with another team he'd been assigned to, and gunned down his teammates halfway through a delicate extraction operation. After which he removed the stops on his power-cells and blew the whole

Juuban ward of Tokyo sky-high. Griever liked to think that he'd been stronger than that and hadn't snapped, but he knew himself better too well to try and fool himself in that way. He'd snapped much earlier and simply hadn't bothered with getting back to normal.

"Just one, huh?" he stepped into a pair of silk slippers, and went off towards one of the doors leading out of the bedroom/living room. To the kitchen specifically.

"Well, I'm in demand. Play it."

The wallscreen in the kitchen flickered online and displayed the face of a pretty, or rather stunning, raven-haired woman in a beige business suit, with the Neo-Edo skyline as if seen from considerable height displayed through a bay window behind her.

*"You'll never change, will you?"*

"Not in the near future, nope." he answered, not really looking after he'd seen who it was from. Instead he busied himself with fishing a vac-sealed bowl of stir-fry from the fridge, popping the seal, and dumping the contents into a wok that sat on an already warm hotplate. His mad cooking skillz weren't anything to write home about, but he took some pleasure in the fact

that he'd near mastered the art of 'creative' stir-fry cooking. Meaning he'd take anything vaguely appealing to him and dump it into the mix, which often resulted in odd combinations like soy noodles mixed with peppers, peas and corn and various miscellaneous veggie things dumped in alongside the meat.

*"I suppose it's not going to help any, but I may as well say it anyway..."*

"Ouch, here it comes," he winced.

*"You never write, you never call ..."*

"Well ex-cuse _me_ for having a sucky memory for these things. And I _did_ remember to send a birthday card and present this time, so there goes that 'never' bit." he stirred the food, sniffing lightly as it started to simmer.

*"You _could_ have at least said something ahead of time about coming. Instead I find out about it from _Fargo_ of all people."*

"Umm ... there you go," he shrugs, not turning away from the wok. "Just the way I planned it ... yeah, that's right. Just the way I planned it. No use in wasting comspace if I was going to be here soon anyway, right? Right. Right? Oh, okay, so I forgot. It happens. Now stop giving me that

disappointed look. It didn't work when you were twelve, and back then you had a helluva lot more on the innocence factor, and that's what makes the puppy-dog-eyes work."

*"Honestly, I don't even know why I bother anymore. In the hopes that you'd mature enough and outgrow being an egoistic jerk maybe?"*

"Yea, I love you too Sylia-chan." he snorted a reply.

When there was no continuation of the message forthcoming he turned, wok in hand, to look at the plasma display. The woman seemed to have lost some of her icy demeanor, and actually seemed a little flushed.

"Oh," he realized what the issue was. "This is a live transmission, isn't it?"

She nodded.

He facepalmed.

"Err, right. Skip it. I'm not in any mood to deal with this so early. I'll drop by at the office as usual, kay?"

*"Right."* she still seemed a little out of sorts. *"We'll talk then. Out."*

The screen flickered, and faded to black.

"You realize you're going to get diagnostics duty for this one, dontcha?" he asked the blank screen, which flickered again and showed the shaking form of Utopia. Shaking in a fit of laughter that is. "Great, why the hell did you have to develop such a nasty sense of humor?"

He then manually flicked the screen offline.

"Now what the hell was so bad about the status-quo?" Griever shook his head as he looked to the ceiling, a frown on his face.

When no answer was forthcoming he sighed and looked down.

"Oh well, breakfast time. Eat now, worry about potential complications later."

***

The office was spacious, and kept in tones of white and blue, and if you looked at the room it was in it could be compared, in overall shape, to a slice of pizza. The ceiling was just high enough to make it seem large without being cavernous, and the bay window that curved inwards made up half the chamber's wall-space. Sparsely furnished, it was nevertheless very tasteful as far as decorations went. The desk that stood in the middle of the room was large and heavy looking, a pastel aquamarine in color. A couch of white leather sat against one of the walls, opposite a flatscreen display built into the other one. In front of said couch sat a stained glass coffee table.

A woman sat behind the desk, in a large black recliner, wearing a sharp white business suit. Her face was young, thought that meant relatively little in a world where prolong was an often-used process. In fact, she wasn't much older than what she looked like, still in her twenties, and

attractive in an aloof sort of way. She had also left explicit instructions stating that she was busy and did not wish to be disturbed.

An eyebrow was quirked as she looked away from the display of her desktop terminal. Her secretary wasn't one to treat anything like that lightly. Being vice-president of, arguably, the largest company in Neo-Edo had its high points when it came to getting good co-workers.

"Ma'am, there's someone here to see you."

"Oh?"

"Umm, yes. He doesn't seem to have an appointment though."

"I see, send him in please." there wasn't really any way to get that far up the corporate chain without an appointment, though there was one side route a select few knew about. You had to be in good standing with Utopia, for one thing. Besides, she knew all too well who it was anyway.

"Hey," the door slid open, allowing her guest inside. "Love the decor. Got promoted?"

"Not by much." she replied in a dry tone. "Of course, you wouldn't have to ask if you'd show up more often than once every few years."

"Didn't we have this conversation today already?"

"It wasn't much of a conversation with you talking _at_ me and not to me, now was it?"

"Relax Sylia, I'm just teasing." Griever shrugged.

"That's the problem. It's so damn hard to tell with you." said the woman.

"How's the Doc doing?" the man switched topics, walking over to the couch and sitting down. She was hardly phased by this, remembering it as one of his antics when something uncomfortable came up in a conversation. To be frank, she wasn't all that hot on continuing that thread of thought either, for various reasons.

"You mean you haven't seen him yet? You used to enjoy scaring the living daylights out of him the last few times you were here. I swear, he almost had a heart attack once."

"Well, umm ... I figured our conversation had a bit more priority this time." said the sometimes-mercenary. "Was I wrong?"

"No, not really." the woman replied after a few moments thought, slightly hesitant.

"Hey, c'mon, it's still me, right? The eternal kid, the moody guy who seemed the bane of your very existence for a few weeks every year or two since more than a decade ago?"

"The person who caused me and a number of female coworkers a lot of grief by not having sufficiently safelocked certain files." her tone was stingy.

"Err ... yeah ... so Mackie didn't know the meaning of 'private' files back then and cracked the encryption on a whim. You can't hang _that_ on me. And it's beside the point anyway!"

"I know."

"Look. Syl, you're like a sister to me. Really. Or the 'Voice of Reason' on occasion." the man started.

She muttered: "Gods know you need one, since yours seems to be on permanent vacation."

"You know how many people I can call 'friend' out there. 'Bout as many as I can count fingers on one hand last I checked. You rank up somewhere on top of that list."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, and I know damn well that I'm definitely not someone you'd enjoy having around for more than those few weeks once in a few years. I'm a real bastard to live with, ya know." he shrugged, and the happy-go-lucky mask on his face slipped away for a moment.

"So, you were just throwing around banter this morning?" she asked, calmly.

"Umm ... this is going to be awkward." he admitted. "Not entirely. Just that, well, I do love you, for what and who you are to me. Not ... well ... not like that though. Crap ... that sounded even less coherent than my usual, didn't it?"

There was silence for a moment, and it stretched uncomfortably.

"I think I understand." she smiled faintly. "Good to have that cleared up. Now, what did you need?"

"Er, what? Why did you think I needed something?" Griever feigned innocence. It wasn't a very good attempt, nor was it very convincing.

"Get off it." said Sylia, with her smile changing into a smirk. "You needed something almost every single time you were here. That reminds me, the hull you brought back last time? It got back from the manufacturer. You wouldn't believe the amount of 'fun' they've had with the old thing, but it's back. Lots of bulk empty with the modernization done. We have it up in one of the

docks orbitside."

"Well, if that isn't good enough to make my day, I don't know what is. You're getting to the last polishes on her, right?"

"Yes. A few months at the most, and it's going to be done. The bill will drain that little expense account you've got set up with us, though."

"Oh well, that's how it goes." he didn't seem particularly perturbed. "Time to do some work again, no biggie."

"We may have something up in that regard, if you're interested?" she inquired.

"For you? Always. Besides, I'm on your payroll, aren't I? Or at least Simon Knight is. Hit me." was the reply.

***

"Interesting, I'll give you that." Griever said, deep in thought. "How sure was this info?"

"Personally delivered." Sylia nodded to him. "Yes, there's fairly little doubt about authenticity. The courier had a personal interest in the matter."

"Ugly case though, or looks to be one." he amended. There were few things he disliked doing, and murder investigations were high on that list. Murder investigations in so called 'hostile environment's and where the victims were considered to be property ... interesting was only one of the words he'd use to describe it, and quite definitely the most positive one of the lot. Still, she'd asked. And, as much as he disliked the admittance thereof, it was something that, if not right up his alley, came fairly close to being such.

"I'm in. I'll need another set of eyes though, and likely another set of hands as well as feet."

"Getting cautious in your old age?"

"No, just that I don't like going into Taiidani territory, period. Backup would be nice, even if it means some hassle with the 'getting there' part." The man admitted. Far more than that he'd have liked having a full contract team with him, armed to the teeth, but this wasn't really a fighting job ... aside from the end maybe. One extra was the limit he thought he could get away with bringing over. Anything more would be ... conspicuous.

"Fargo will keep an eye out. Clean and quiet?"

"That's the plan. I'll take the "Pride", switch tags at Caladan, then go from there and see what we can find on site."

"If things go smoothly, which they rarely do." Sylia commented.

"Right, right. All too right, in fact. Okay, get Utopia to send me the relative details, I'll go from there." Griever nodded more to himself than to her. "And while I'm gone, there _is_ something you could arrange done for me."

"Depends on what you need."

"A corpse."

***

Somewhere in Neo-Edo in some seedy bar Chloe was talking to a man in a rumpled suit.

"That many nanofacs will cost at least 50 million, and they won't be easy to obtain. And these stealth systems you want are quite sophisticated." Said Fargo, "and I don't know where the hell I'm going to find that many GAZERs."

"That is why I came to you. I was told you are skilled in getting information and materials." Replied Chloe.

"Indeed I am, but this is a large order. It will take me months to assemble it all, and 250 million." Complained Fargo.

"You will have one month and 100 million."

"Make it 220 million and you have a deal."

"120."

"190."

"150. Take it or I will find another fixer."

"Very well miss Redienh's Nei, you have a deal, if you are willing to do me a favor." Agreed Fargo.

"What kind of favor?"

"There has been a rush of synth murders on Nu Pari. The local enforcement would rather call it 'loss of property', since synthoid rights aren't exactly a high point within Taiidan space, much less the part thereof controlled by House Harkonnen. However a client of mine has some interest in the matter, but can't spare any significant resources for what you would call an 'investigation'." Fargo sipped his drink, and continued. "This doesn't stop said client from involving less obvious means of engagement."

"I take it a 'synth' is an artificial life form of some sort?" Chloe almost frowned at the idea of another civilization using non natural life forms as slaves, but a warning murmur from K'val made her keep a pleasant if puzzled expression.

Fargo was surprised that she didn't know this, and resolved to do a more thorough background check on the girl. "Yes, an artificial humanoid to be precise."

"I don't have a ship yet." Chloe said, will you arrange transportation or do I have to find my own way?

"A mutual acquaintance of mine and my client has already taken up this particular task, and I was asked to look for someone willing to lend a hand, so to speak. He will supply transit slightly more reliable than the usual commercial routes. You will probably leave tomorrow evening, but I'll give him your number so he can contact you."

"I see. Very well I agree."

***

Chloe and Ukir are back in the dock with the new ship Chloe has acquired.

"This is not a warrior's vessel!" Complained Ukir rather loudly.

"I believe I already told you that I dislike loud people." Countered Chloe.

"There is no honor in piloting a merchant vessel." Said Ukir in a much lower volume.

"This merchant is not going anywhere until it is fixed up. Follow me and I will explain the test you must pass to get accepted into the clan Redienh's Nei." said Chloe completely ignoring Ukir's complaints, while heading into the ship. "I am the clan head or at least the closest equivalent to a Klingon clan head. Epetai I believe you call them." After waiting for an affirmative grunt Chloe continued, "Unlike Klingon clans you can't bribe your way into this clan, or get in through pure skill and reputation. To join the clan you must serve Cy and pass seven trials. The three trials of combat, the trial of leadership, the trial of learning, the trial of the hunt, and the most important one, the trial of loyalty. We will begin with the first trial of combat. Shall we begin?"

By Now Chloe and Ukir where walking through the corridors of the ship, all bare metal, and more than half of the lights where broken casting long shadows in many places. Ukir noticed that Chloe stuck to the shadows and he frequently lost sight of her as the shadows just seemed to shallow her. "Hurmpf, hiding like a coward. Maybe there is indeed no honorable soul to be found outside the empire." He thought while answering, "Sure, what must I do?"

"Here put on this ring." Said Chloe handing him a ring and waiting until he put it on, "Defend yourself, and if you can counterattack. Unarmed and improvised weapons only." Answered Chloe, before dropping to the floor and making a combination handstand and mule kick towards Ukir's face which he barely dodged only to be hit by Chloe's following upside-down spin kick.

As Ukir regained his balance he looked down the hallway they where fighting in but he couldn't see Chloe.

"What are you waiting for?" Came Chloe's voice from behind him, causing Ukir to spin around and get into a ready stance.

"You really haven't be trained in unarmed combat at all have you? That's all right I will train you in the clan's own martial art."

Ukir could hear the voice, and it was clearly coming from that patch of shadow, but there was nothing there... Wait the was the barest hint of something, so Ukir charged, and promptly found himself airborne before he fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

"I'm impressed, most people can't seem to see me while I'm in the darkness."

Growling Ukir got up again, but before he even had the chance to reorient himself he was pounded back to the ground.

"You are to slow, any enemy could be pounding on you right now and you would never be able to retaliate. Oh by the way this battle will last until you give up or are unable to fight."

Ukir got back on his feet thinking himself ready for the assault now, but Chloe just grabbed his legs from behind and pulled causing him to land flat on his face. This time however Chloe didn't give him the chance to get up, instead she sat on his back and put Ukir's arms in a painful hold.

"Do you yield?" asked Chloe in a playful tone.

"No." growled Ukir, trying to sit up until Chloe increased the pressure on his arms.

"Yield or I will break your arms." Said Chloe still sounding like she was enjoying this game a lot.

"Never!"

"Oh well you asked for it." A smile for his stubbornness played around Chloe's lips, he reminder her of Orog, she'd had to do something similar to him to make his tribe join the empire. Meanwhile two snaps and a howl of pain could be heard.

Ukir slowly got up both his arms hanging limply at his side.

"There is no dishonor in surrendering if you can't win. Oh and next time, don't scream so loud please." Said Chloe sounding rather bored, and fingering one of her sensitive ears with a hand. Ukir merely growled and tired to kick Chloe which she jumped over and then kicked him in the face. Ukir staggered but managed to stay on his feet. Ukir tried to kick Chloe again but she just caught the foot and spun it hard and Ukir landed on his face again and now one of his legs was dislocated.

"You can't fight anymore. You lost this battle, and you failed the first trial." Declared Chloe, "And here I thought Klingons where great warriors. Ah well at least you are persistent."

One quick cure spell later and Ukir was able to move again.

"That ring I gave you is a ring of regeneration, it should heal you completely over the course of about 10 hours. It will also allow you to regenerate lost organs and limbs although it does not help you survive organ loss. I have a feeling as if you will need that ring if you are going to train regularly with me. Tomorrow evening I must leave for a few days, maybe even weeks, I will give you a set of design plans to implement during that time. Make sure that whatever workers you hire won't lose sleep over the addition of a few not quite legal weapon systems."

Ukir seemed to brighten quite a bit at the mention of weapon systems, and asked "I take it this won't stay a merchant ship then will it?"

"Tzk, tzk," said Chloe while shaking her head, "of course it will remain a merchant ship, the Humanx stated quite clearly that they would not let me keep a warship. Besides carriers are mostly empty space anyway. Can you handle it?"

"Of course Epetai."

"Here is the design. Look it over and tell me if there is anything you think could be improved." Said Chloe while handing him one of her precious laptops. "The information on this laptop must remain a secret, defend it with your life if you have to."

***

Ukir found the crew quarters of the ship and sat down to study the designs after figuring out how to work with the odd interface.

"Hmm, weapons would be a good place to start." Thought Ukir to himself.

Immediately the green wireframe lit up with evenly spaced red dots and a large blue line that stretched through most of the ship. Calling up details on the blue line first Ukir was impressed with the projected range and firepower of this spinal mount particle cannon, the power costs where enormous though. The red dots turned out to be interceptor guns that could double as offensive weapons, however at a rating of up to 9 GW the power cost for 15'000 of these guns would be enormous.

Curious as to how Chloe planned to power all these weapons Ukir checked the plans for the power system, and immediately the entire wireframe turned red. Looking a little closer Ukir saw that the power distribution system was composed of a central line down the middle with periodic lines to the outer hull and the outer hull was for a large part just a network of power lines. He was impressed with the amount of redundancy displayed in the construction of this power net. It wouldn't be all that to disrupt half or so of the power net in a section, but that would only affect a few interceptor turrets, if that much.

A listing of power plants finally gave Ukir the information he was looking for, and thought for a moment that he was on the wrong page. Well the antimatter reactor explained where she would be getting the power from, even though he wasn't feeling suicidal enough to fly a ship with one of those into battle. Then he noted the other reactors listed below that and he was impressed by the sheer amount of paranoid redundancy built into the power system. If you cut the ship in half it would be only be a minimal reduction to its combat power. Of course the ship could be built far more efficiently if the amount of redundant components where removed and more weapons added instead. And these production facilities, this wasn't a carrier it was a small mobile base!

On a hunch Ukir checked some other systems and found the same pattern of redundancy everywhere, two hyper drives, two types of main engines with several of each type, four types of Sensor Arrays, everything was redundant. Also while many components where Humanx or Narn in origin there where a lot of components listed as being made by Cyan Tech, including the primary weapon of the ship the Cyan Tech Doberman Boomer, revised edition. A short search revealed the exact designs for all the Cyan Tech components, and those components had the same sort of redundancy seen in the overall design of the ship.

"Well I guess I know where Chloe learned her engineering skills." Thought Ukir to himself.

***

Chloe and Ukir where siting together in the bridge discussing the modifications to be done to the ship.

"And that is why I think it would be better to have more weapons and somewhat less redundancy." Finished Ukir after he outlined the changes he proposed to Chloe and their reasons for them.

"Hmm, your argument for bigger hangar doors is noted, and approved, as for mounting more weapons, your reasons are sound except for this fact. This is a carrier, not a battleship, if we do get into combat we are either desperate, or trying to get away, and I would rather not have a lucky shot cripple us while we are trying to get away, and if we are desperate enough to join in combat ourselves then a few more guns aren't likely to do the trick." Replied Chloe. "Any more suggestions?"

"No."

"Very well, then I will start teaching you the basics of hand to hand combat now."

***

[scenes of Chloe teaching Ukir]

Ukir grunted as he was getting himself up from the floor where he landed after Chloe demonstrated that throw again.

"The important thing is to lift your opponent from the ground when doing this throw and then using your entire body to turn and throw the enemy. I really can't do it properly with you since you are too much taller than me, but for someone as tall as you this is an excellent technique." Lectured Chloe, "Now try it on me a few times."

Ukir obediently grabbed Chloe's outstretched arm and strained to lift her.

"No, you shoulder must be in my armpit if you want to get the proper leverage. Yes much better." Commented Chloe as Ukir threw her, "This is the high throw variation, which is useful when you want to get some distance between you and your opponent. However, you where supposed to hold on to my arm a little longer to slam me into the ground. From there a variety of techniques can be used to subdue, cripple or kill an opponent. So let's try that again this time I will rush at you with a punch like a real opponent is more likely to do instead of standing still."

***

"Ok, we are done with practice, make sure to keep on doing the strength and endurance training while I'm gone. Also I have a personal favor to ask, I had a motorcycle which I left at home, and I would like you to design another one. The full design of my old bike is in the laptop, I would like one similar but improved however much you can. I'll help by adding any enchantments you think useful, but I'm not too much of an engineer myself, though I should learn."

***

Segment 2: Meeting Griever

The place that the address on the calling card given to her by Fargo indicated was a little outside the city, five miles away from the Northernmost spaceport in the Neo-Edo area. It was a bulky building, squat and ugly looking, painted a bland shade of gunmetal gray that was scruffed and scorched in places, and interlaced with patches of tan and the occasional steel-colored armorplate that had been used to patch up holes, most likely. There was also a rundown airstrip nearby. Still, even though it didn't really look as if it was lived in, this _was_ where the card indicated the person she should contact had wanted to meet.

And, she had to admit, it was far from the worst safe-house she could think of. Out of the way, with level, clear ground on all sides, and high walls. Any attackers that came from above ground would be easily noticed, but Chloe was puzzled by the lack of arrow slits, after all even guns don't go through walls.

The main doors looked sturdy enough, and big enough to drive a shuttle or something slightly larger through. Side entrance then. She found it easily enough, and the security keypad beside it looked new enough. She tried the door but it was locked, and pressing some of the buttons didn't seem to do anything. There was an narrow gap beside the keypad but Chloe couldn't figure out what it was for, never having seen a cardreader before in her life. Shrugging she continued around the building search for another entrance.

"No entrance, must be a test." She thought, "ah well I have plenty of experience going where others don't want me to go."

And with that thought Chloe started to climb up the wall, and half a minute later she was on the roof and stumped once more. The roof was just one flat piece of metal, with no openings or windows. Sighing Chloe returned to the door and studied it. She knew she wouldn't be able to pick the electronic lock, she hated those damn tings.

"Well there is only brute force left." Chloe thought glumly, checking the area for any spiders or other things that prey on insects and finding none she polymorphed herself into an ant and went under the door. Ten seconds later she transformed back, but at that point she was already inside.

From the inside the old hangar looked slightly better than from the outside. A few high placed lights cast their whiteish glow on the center of the workspace that was still the building's centerpiece. She could see what had surely once been the offices of the place, a flight of stairs upwards and with windows from which one had a good view of the building's insides. The faint tingly sensation on her skin told her that there had been another of those technological things around the door. She paid little heed though, seeing as that she wasn't breaking and entering.

As her eyes scanned the large expanse of the building's inside, she also understood what Fargo had meant with 'transportation.'. In the center of the cavernous building, directly under one of the lights, sat an unusual looking craft.

The hull was elongated and no longer than fifty meters, sixty at most, with twin gondolas housing engines near the rear, and a sweeping 'wing' as wide as the ship was long suspended on a short vertical stabilizer that was almost exactly between them. For some reason it seemed that this particular vessel would be as much at home on the waves of an ocean as it was in space.

Midnight blue in color, parts of the engine housings and the wing had white accents to them as well. The name 'Kitty Pride' had been painted on one side of the front hull, in silver paint and flowing script.

Currently, it sat on three point landing gear, and its cargo bay, or whatever the metallic 'tongue' sticking from the ship's underside led, was open.

***

"And may I inquire what the nature of your visit is?" she heard from slightly above, and to the left - the direction of the stairs. A man was casually leaning on the railing at the top, arms crossed and elbows propping him against it. He wasn't particularly tall, no more than one and a half times taller than herself, averagely built, with a mop of slightly shaggy brown hair and green eyes the shade of murky water. He was dressed in faded black cargo pants, a tee and a worn denim jacket that had, upon a time, been blue. Though the clothes were baggy she could see the tell-tale bump of a holster under one shoulder, as well as a slightly too regular crease in the side of the jacket, one that was possibly a sewn in scabbard.

She showed him the card Fargo had given her ands said, "I was told to meet someone here. I'm assuming you are Fargo's acquaintance."

"Yes, that would be me. Though the term 'friend of a friend' would fit better. Oh well, close enough I s'pose. You're here about the little jaunt, right?" the man said, straightening his arms and pushing away from the railing. He started down the stairs, towards Chloe.

"What exactly did he tell you about it? I need to know, mainly because it'll make briefing you easier."

"I'm to help you in stopping 'synth' murders in NuPari, and you'll arrange transportation." Answered Chloe.

"Right. Figured as much." the man nodded to himself. "First off, NuPari. The gist of it is, its Taiidani, and a mix of the best and worst it has to offer. Or plain the worst. Nobody's ever been clear on that matter. It's a fief of House Harkonnen, so the usual totalitarian mindset of their upper crust applies. It's not as bad as Giedi Prime, then again, few things are.

As far as matters immediately relevant are concerned, you can leave the ID checkpoints up to me, but that's for when we've gotten on our way. The rundown on the case is, there's been a long string of 'vandalism' there lately. Not something that the local authorities concern themselves with."

He stopped walking, a few meters short of her. "My acquaintance only found out about this a few days ago. One of those immediately concerned managed to contact her. Seeing how House Harkonnen laws see 'property' traveling alone, that's quite an impressive feat. Even more so since the NuPari manufacturing plants, heck, all of the Harkies' synth manufacturers aren't all too keen on real intelligence in cyber-brains. Makes them harder to keep in line, and sentience isn't something keenly looked upon in 'property'. It gives them weird ideas. Apparently, they didn't butcher them enough, since the synth who informed 'us' about the goings on did, in fact, pass a Voigt-Kampf handily."

The man stopped talking for a moment, noting the barely perceivable tilt of Chloe's head at the mention of that name.

"Yeah, okay, the test is antique, I'll give you that, but it's also a pretty good baseline. Since the old N6 models were considered fully sentient by the laws back when, and in fact still are . . . pull your own conclusions." He sighed. "If one thing's certain, is that life finds a way nine out of ten times. Even a butchered cyberbrain or equivalent matrix can develop sentience, given time. Unfortunately even here most courts discount that, in synth models geared specifically for one group of tasks, sentience can develop. Vide, Genom and most of their dedicated C models, to name a nearby example."

For a moment it seemed as if he were about to say something more, but then he blinked, smiled sheepishly, and shrugged. "Umm . . . sorry, I tend to ramble. Basically, we go there, find whoever's doing it by any means deemed necessary, and deal with them. Preferably, without the authorities' knowledge. That's our intel, what we have for now anyway. So, now that you know as much about the case as I do, are you still in?"

"Trying to stop me would be most hazardous to your health, mister..." Chloe trailed off, K'val quite insistently informing her that threatening potential allies is a bad idea, and tried to salvage the situation to the best of it's abilities. "You know I don't believe I have introduced myself yet, I'm Chloe Redienh's Nei, Heartsblood of Cy."

"Good to know." The man smiled slightly, and held out his hand. "I go by a lot of names, but I tend to keep with Griever to people I have more than a passing acquaintance with."

***

A minute or so ago when Griever first saw Chloe, the first thing running through his head was the question: 'Blade Runner or Edge Walker?'

The difference could have been academic to most, but to him and others dealing with the faster side of life it was the difference between hitting paydirt and just plain hitting the dirt. Blade Runners and Edge Walkers were both of the same breed, but the latter ... well, if you slowed down even a little while trying to keep balance on the fine edge, you fell. Running made

it far easier. He'd never looked at himself in that light, but he figured he was a Walker who'd slipped.

An answer was apparent as soon as he caught sight of her. How she'd gotten in, not tripping the door sensors aside from the motion detectors, he didn't know. There were a few ways, but none were in the 'run of the mill' Runner's arsenal. He made himself _stop_ thinking about it. That would eventually lead to assuming, which was a mistake as large as one could make. Speculate

to your heart's content, but never _ever_ assume something for certain. You're fucked when you don't get it right the first time.

The best way to find out would be to ask.

She was intense though, even if there was an edge of ... no, not hesitation but slight uncertainty. Good. Not cocky or overconfident. Certainly unusual though. And most definitely a Runner if he ever saw one.

Her manner convinced him even further of this fact.

Her appearance was a matter of some confusion. Far from being the most unusual humanoid female he'd ever seen, she was shorter than him and very slim. The black skin tugged at his memory for some reason, even though he couldn't say why.

Another thing was what his _other_ sense was telling him. It was odd, but ever since he'd gotten somewhat in tune with his Kessen-chu, the Bloodworms that had made him effectively immortal, he could 'feel' the heartbeats and bloodflows of people around him, within a ten meter radius or much farther if he focused on a specific person. It probably had something to do with his 'pushing' the worms more towards their regenerative aspects than his onetime sensei had. While Manji had become damn near superhuman in his speed, strength and skill with a blade he himself was about as hard to kill as one of the odd people he'd met along the way who'd claimed to be something called a Wu.

And this girl ... what he was getting off her was faint, damn near nonexistent. As if the cloak she was wearing blocked her out. Which was damn near impossible with anything short of a hardsuit. Impossible for technology.

'There are more things on heaven and earth ...' he thought to himself. Wasn't it nice of the Spiral to throw something odd that _didn't_ want to kill him yet his way.

He introduced himself, holding out his hand ... they shook.

Her pulse was _weird_, not like anything he'd ever felt off a human but close to something ... something ... close to that of an elf! The details clicked in his mind, as cliche as that sounded, and for an instant he wondered if there shouldn't be some sort of crumbling noise, what with the AD&D sourcebooks back in his cabin on the "Pride". The skin color, the distinct 'signature' of her pulse, the oddly graceful way she moved and talked ... Fargo certainly didn't kid when he said he'd found someone very interesting.

It surprised him enough to note his conclusions out loud, his voice tinted with more than a bit of curious interest.

"Well I'll be. A Drow."

"I see you know of my kind," answered Chloe. "Not many seem to."

***

Chloe sat in a corner hugging her knees, her eyes closed. She looked as if she was resting but she was actually in a deep discussion with K'val, the name of the earrings she wore. They where a gift to help her with the diplomatic trouble she was having at that time, they where essentially her diplomatic advisor.

"We really need to work on that temper of yours again, you haven't been like this since you had that meeting with queen Rael." Whispered K'val so softly even Chloe could barley hear it. Chloe winced at the memory of that encounter, that could definitely have gone better.

"I'm sorry," Chloe replied, "but there is just something about this place that angers me."

"I think meeting the other Laucilol might have dragged up some bad memories."

[continue]