Daniel Snyder <snydder@ocf.Berkeley.EDU>


[BAA/Gunnm - Legend of Mother Sarah] Motherbird


An engine is a desert. The foolish can look at a desert, or hear an
engine running, and they will perceive monotony. They will take both for
granted, and proceed to put them to their use--as space to turn to
lodging or agriculture, or as a source of power for another
machine--without any more regard.

The desert is filled with geometry, the hand of Judgment rendered as
abstract art. The creatures that lives there--aloe and saguaro,
sidewinder and scorpion--each and every one is a testament to the
all-pervading rule of life: where one can live, one must live. The
kangaroo rat and the tumbleweed accept the harshness and ephemerality of
their existence with the resolve of ascetics; when Nature rises in the
color black, and the sandstorm or flash flood ravage the landscape, they
are at her whim to play with. The land itself is filled with all manner
of _dramatis personnae_: monolithic sandstone blocks, left from the
glaciers that bent the face of the earth; flats of salt, marking where
once the sea brought with it life of a sort more appealing to human
eyes; and the sand dunes themselves, seas of silica in place of water,
defined by the same principles of chaos that govern the hurricane, or
the burning of a star.

Why, then, compare this to an engine? The desert's life is hidden but
still present, while the engine is nothing but steel and petrochemical
fumes. The desert is so vast; it is rare for an engine to take up more
than a few cubic meters. And yet...both share the same stark beauty,
though at very different levels. As the dunes in the desert bend beneath
the blue heavens above, so an engine has its shining, twisted metal; one
curvature is the result of natural accident, the other of human
precision. Both curves serve human desires, though not needs. A desert
his heated by the daylight until the rocks nearly burn, then cools to
freezing at night as the land gives up that radiation. A piston draws in
gasoline vapors, compressing them until they explode; then, as it
recoils, it fills the vacuum with cooling air. A desert, to the eye of
the globe, is but a temporary dry spot that will receive a different
weather pattern within a few paltry millennia; an engine, to the eye of
a mayfly, is a great roaring beast, all chrome and carbon monoxide, that
will surely live forever.

*

Tsue was feeling good. It was March, and it couldn't have been any
hotter than 42 degrees or so in the van. Moving at a good 90 kilometers
per hour with his window open and having the solar-powered fan in the
side window brought down the temperature as effectively as anything. His
thighs weren't sticking to the seat, and there was good music on the
stereo--a tape he had found about a week and a half ago, filled with
Gregorian chant and tenor saxophone. Nothing but good times for him, at
least until they reached Villa. His eyes meandered the landscape,
watching the dunes, hoping for a sign of civilization somewhere near.

His vision was temporarily blurred as a foot hit his head: two toe-taps
and a heel thump on the top of his helmet. "Whoa!" he murmured to
himself, and started the gentle process of breaking to a halt. As the
speedometer dived below 10, he looked up at the woman over his head.

"What's going on?"

"I saw something, nine o'clock, fifty meters. I think it's a distress
flag."

"Mmph. And now that we're stopped, you probably want to go check it
out." His companion was already climbing down the ladder, so Tsue eased
out of his seat and opened the passenger-side door. "Ah-pray-voo,
Florence Nightingale," he said, and followed her outside.

The woman didn't even pause to stretch as she got out of the van; she
immediately set out across the sand dunes, seeming to shrug off the
burning of the sun. Her long wrap or cape stretched down to her shins,
where leggings led up from military surplus boots. She had removed the
cloth that had covered her mouth, exposing a face of more than thirty
years; precisely how many could not be guessed. It seemed as though that
face was a patchwork quilt of mercy and judgment, experience and hope.

The woman ran as best she could up and over one sand dune, then
struggled up the next. She paused to take a sip from her canteen and
reassess her mission. She could see a strand of cloth hanging from some
kind of metal pole, jammed into the side of the next dune in front of
her. There were no traces of feet leading to it or away from it. The
woman looked around, her trained eyes trying to pick up any sign of
friend or (more likely) foe. None appeared present; but, deferring to
her better judgment, she slipped a machete out from under her wrap and
walked slowly towards the banner.

She stopped about five paces below it, then turned her path, making a
wide circle around it. It appeared to be a pikestaff of some nature,
perhaps a meter and a half out of the dune; its color and composition
were obscured by the glare. No signs of booby traps were obvious. The
woman briefly considered throwing her machete at it to activate any
possible traps, but decided to wait before taking that (obviously
dangerous) course of action. Instead, she clambered up to the top of the
dune and looked at the far side.

Sure enough, there was a second anomaly to go with the first. On the
north side of the dune there was a conspicuous bulge, perhaps halfway
down. Even from her vantage point, the woman could see evidence of
clothing of some sort. Someone was partially buried in the sands. "As a
safeguard against the heat, of course," she thought. "The north side
would be cooler. Very clever."

"Sarah!" She turned at the sound of her name. Tsue was rushing up to
her, carefully cradling the pikestaff in his arms, using the banner to
keep from burning his flesh. "Wouldja look at this!"

The weapon, in a word, was exquisite. Its base was made of two ceramic
pieces, held together by a clasp. They were rough but smooth, like
shark's skin--held one way they would allow for an easy, sliding grip
and held the other they would grab and hold the hand. They were as long
as the blade, implying a butterfly design; but this would be a much
bigger butterfly knife than Sarah had ever seen. And the blade! It was
an intricate medley of gray and amber, with seven holes in one end. The
blade had two cutting edges, easing together to make the sharpest of
points. The outer, convex blade curved gently, to maximize both the
cutting area and the absorption of the impact. The inner, concave blade
was a copy of the first, rotated from the point. Sarah had to force
herself not to snatch it from Tsue's hand and make some passes through
the air, to feel the heft and balance against her arm.

"That's a wonderful weapon," she said. "And that's probably the owner,
down there in the sand."

"Uh-uh. Finders keepers."

"OK, Tsue," Sarah said, starting off down the dune. "But what if he
lives? Do you think a Cub Scout would be carrying that thing?"

"Um...well, I can live with a consignment," he replied, following her. 
They began to dig away at the sand, exposing the person underneath.
First came the legs, drawn up in a fetal position. The woman--if the
shape of the legs was any indication--was wearing some kind of burgundy
body suit, with dark gray armor on over it. Sarah looked closely at the
armor. It wasn't quite all gray--there was a thin clear layer covering
it that was unscratched by the sand. Sarah sucked in her breath.

"What's up?"

"That's synthesized corundum armor plating, with a diamantine
microcoating."

"Which means...?"

"Imagine putting a ruby inside a diamond. Then try shooting a bullet at
it. Shit!" She attacked the sand with renewed fervor. "This woman is
Epoch--nobody in the whole ME territory knows this much about materials
science. She's clearly a mercenary of some kind, with survival training,
probably a cyborg to survive out here, she's...she's just a girl!"

They had succeeded in exposing the whole of the body now. The
cyborg--the rivets around the ears gave it away--looked to be in her
early twenties. Her shoulder-length black hair was matted with sand, and
there was more in the eyelashes of her large eyes. There were two
peculiar marks, shaped like the heads of birds, under the eyes and
around her mouth. Her mouth itself appeared to be poorly constructed, or
bent from the weight of the sand, giving a pursed look to her lips.
Sarah paused only a moment to look, then placed the backs of her hands
against her own forehead and the forehead of the girl. "Temperature of
about 103 degrees Fahrenheit...Tsue, we've got to get her into the
shade." She tossed the (astoundingly light) cyborg over one shoulder and
made for the safety of the van, staggering between her burden and the
sand's inability to support her weight.

Tsue watched the pair for a few moments, then shrugged and shouldered
the halberd. "All right, but you owe me if she lives."

In the space of two minutes they had returned to the van. Sarah put the
young woman down in the shade, then pulled out her canteen and sprinkled
a few rivulets of water onto her patient's forehead. Satisfied by this
stopgap measure, she pulled the fan from out of the van's window and set
it at the girl's feet. She turned it on to a moderate setting, then
propped the feet up on top of it. Tsue joined her as she was applying a
second bath to the forehead.

"So, is she going to make it?"

"I can't say, she's in God's hands now..."

"Hey, she's comin' round!"

The girl's chest was starting to heave, and her lips were quivering.
Without hesitation Sarah began to dribble water into the girl's mouth.
She half-rose to meet the stream; then, as she swallowed, she suddenly
jerked her head to one side. A spasm flew through her body, and she
started to hyperventilate.

"Tsue!" Sarah kicked the fan over before the girl could kick into it.
"Get some rubbing alcohol! We've got to cool her fast!"

"Right, first aid kit." He dived into the van and emerged with a clear
plastic bottle of liquid and a cotton cloth. Sarah snatched both out of
his hands and applied a liberal dose of alcohol to the cloth. The girl
had gone into a series of convulsions, and Sarah struggled to contain
her enough to rub her face. The jerking reached an apex, and the girl
let out a garbled shout.

"P.....N! P.....N!"

"What?!?"

"Pellet gun???"

Sarah soaked the cloth again and ran it over the young woman's face,
being careful not to get it into her mouth. Her caution proved
unnecessary, as the girl's activity was waning perceptibly. After
another 30 seconds of careful attention she had lapsed into slumber, and
Sarah let her body sink to the road's surface.

"It's too dangerous for her to travel, Tsue. We stop here for today."

"Yeah, I kind of figured."

--

She knew she was.

She knew the world was not as it should be.

She opened her eyes.

She knew the colors red, yellow, and black. She knew the sensations of
firmness and lightness. She understood balance. She saw shapes that gave
the sensation of heat. She knew vibrations in the atmosphere, and
particles they swam through.

Then her mind gave them meaning. A cold, hard roadbed at night. Stars in
the sky. Two people, like her, seated at a fire a distance away. They
were moving. They were coming close to her.

"Are you awake?"

ar yoo uhWAIK...an amalgam of sounds...not random. Must have meaning.
Concentrate.

"Can you hear me?"

ken yoo HIER mie...oh, "Can you hear me?", a familiar request for
information. Am I able to hear the person speaking to me. A response is
needed.

The girl opened her mouth and tried to say something, but words didn't
come out. She simply nodded as best she could.

"Still kind of tired, huh? Here, have a little water." The pair lifted
the girl upwards and propped her against the side of the van. Tsue
tipped her head back and poured a thin stream of water into the girl's
mouth. She swallowed without much difficulty, and he poured a bit more
in. She swallowed that, then of her own initiative pulled her head away
from the canteen.

She said a very quiet, "Thank you." As if it had been the greatest thing
she had ever done, she fell quiet again, gasping for breath.

"Don't exert yourself, you're still pretty weak." Sarah sat down next to
the girl. "We found you under a sand dune, a few hours ago. Can you
remember what happened?"

"Huh?"

"A sand dune...you had crawled under the sand of the sand dune...you
left your weapon sticking out of the sand, like a signal...does the
phrase 'pellet gun' mean anything to you?" The girl was still looking at
her blankly. "Amnesia," Sarah thought. Restraining her curiosity, she
gave up the questioning. "Can you eat some soup?"

"Y...y...yes." The girl stared forwards as she tried to put her thoughts
together. "Yes, please, I'd love some. I--I'm very hungry, I feel like I
haven't eaten for days."

The choice of words struck Sarah as peculiar, but she resolved to think
about it later. Tsue was bringing over a steaming bowl of soup with a
spoon sticking over the rim. "Can you feed yourself?" he asked.

"I can try, I guess. Thank you." She slipped one hand underneath the
bowl and pressed the rim to her chest for support. Her other hand
grasped the very base of the spoon. She lifted the spoon to her lips and
sucked off the soup it contained. Satisfied with the results, she dipped
it in again, and slurped down another spoon's worth. As the food
disappeared into her mouth, she looked up at her companions and blushed.
"Pardon my table manners," she said. Tsue and Sarah laughed.

--

The young woman lifted her bowl away from her mouth. It was a little
easier, though not dignified, to eat with both hands on the bowl and no
spoon. She closed her eyes, and felt the glow as the soup moved into her
belly and warmed her heart. She smiled at the irony--she had been
boiling to death hours earlier, in the heat of the day, but now that
night had come she needed to keep warm. She reshouldered her slouching
alpaca-wool blanket with one hand.

"You're going to eat us broke," Tsue muttered, refilling her bowl. He
turned to Sarah. "Let's just hope we reach Villa tomorrow, so we can get
some supplies for her."

Sarah smiled. "Let's just hope we're still south of the glaciers, Tsue."
She turned to their guest. "When we got off the seabed, the first thing
he said to me was, 'Whoa, is that South America?' Like he had been
expecting the Moon or somewhere."

The girl let out a giggle. "That's funny. So, you two are traders or
something?"

"I am," Tsue said proudly. "Sarah here just gossips."

"Not really," she said. "I listen for Tsue."

"Hm?"

"See, people will talk to a woman before they'll talk to a man. It's
psychology--men are more intimidating than women. So, I go around, talk
to people, find out what needs buying and selling. If Tsue has it, then
he makes a deal. If he doesn't, he finds someone who does and acts as a
broker." She took a drink out of her canteen. "And my cut pays my way."

"Huh." The girl was staring into the flames, watching the shadows. By
daylight, the objects would be so familiar as to be taken for granted.
But this was night time, and the light obeyed its own rules; edges
became less defined, black on white became violet on yellow. "So what do
you talk about?"

"Oh, all kinds of things. Whatever I guess a person's interested in
talking about." Sarah reached into the folds of her wrap and brought
something into the light. "If I don't have anything else, I talk about
my family."

The girl reached forward and took the scrap of paper. It was a dog-eared
photograph of a group of four children, and a woman, ostensibly their
mother. All were dressed in their best clothing, and were smiling quite
happily, except for the boy in front with a comical scowl on his face.
The setting seemed to be an indoor arboretum of some kind. The mother
looked somewhat like Sarah, maybe her little sister.

"They're adorable. Who's who?"

"That's Sakoto on the left, then Tsumuri and Harato. My children." Sarah
reached for the photo, lingering before putting it away. "We had that
photo taken about 10 years ago, now. We got separated in the Exodus, and
I've been trying to find them ever since."

"We..." the girl thought. It seemed incredible that the woman in the
photograph was the same one that was talking to her. There was an
obvious physical similarity, but still...that couldn't account for all
the difference..."Huh? What?"

"I asked you if you were getting sleepy," Sarah laughed. "Well, I'm
getting tired too."

"Beddie-bye time," Tsue said. "These pots can wait to be washed out." He
rose from his seat and walked towards the van.

The young woman let out a sigh. "I don't suppose you have a cushion or
something for me to sleep on?"

Sarah laughed again. "Pillows are always quick sellers, I haven't had
one to sleep on for months. We use books, actually."

"A little light reading?" Tsue returned to the light to join in the
joke. "You get first pick, miss. What sounds comfy?" He read each title,
then tossed it to their guest. "Biochemistry and the Cellular Life
Cycle...Qualitative and Quantitative Stress Analysis--A Textbook...Great
Military Marches--A Study in Leadership...what'll it be? Hey, what's
gotten into you?"

She was staring at the title of the book.

"Qualitative and Quantitative Stress Analysis--A Textbook"

"quALITAtive"

---------------------------------------------

Alita sprinkled a few grains of sand into her water bottle, then
squirted a small stream into her mouth. She avoided eye contact with her
hosts. "I have to get some silicon into my body. Otherwise my
self-repair systems will malfunction. I'll have to get a nail from you
so I can get some iron, too."

"That _can't_ be healthy," thought Tsue. He squelched the urge to say so
out loud, and instead asked, "So what _do_ you remember?"

"Last night, I remembered...someone telling me that I have to get raw
materials into my body for nanomachines to work on...someone else
telling me to find my friends so we could all play ball...and someone
saying, 'Jeez, you're slow!' But...it's like they're from three
different lifetimes, not one person's life separated by a few months."

A wistful smile dashed across Sarah's face. "You must be young still.
The older you get, the shorter a year seems." There was a pause in the
conversation as all three thought their own thoughts. In the aura of the
pre-dawn, their faces looked as though they were made of stone--strong
relief, no detail. Only the flickering of six eyes showed that the small
company still had life.

Tsue broke the spell. "Well, we'd better cover some ground before it
warms up. I guess...Alita, right?...you'll want to be up on top with
Sarah."

"Yeah. Hey, I'll probably need something to keep the sand off of me, do
you have another wrap?"

"You can use the one you were wearing when we found you." Sarah opened
the door to the van, and standing on the step on her tiptoes she reached
up onto the roof and pulled down the cloth. She shook it a little to get
the last remaining sand grains off, then handed it to Alita. "You'll
also attract less attention, I might add."

Alita looked at herself. She was wearing the same clothes she had worn
the day before, but with a night's sleep behind her they seemed more
familiar. She lay her wrap on the ground, and methodically assembled her
armor, more by sense of touch than by conscious thought. The feeling of
remembrance grew upon her. "Sarah, where's my blade?"

Sarah threw the weapon, fully extended, towards Alita. It spun slowly
and gracefully through the atmosphere; and, to Sarah's horror, its
trajectory was in danger of cleaving Alita in two. As she opened her
mouth to scream a warning, her brain became aware that Alita was no
longer even in its pathway. By the time Sarah could appreciate what this
meant--that she had _dodged_ the strike--Alita was between the woman and
the weapon. She jumped. Her arc carried her up over the whirling handle,
tracing its path in parallel. Alita reached out and touched the base of
the halberd, pushing upon a disguised catch. The two halves of the base
became separated from each other physically, if not yet through inertia.
Alita was prepared for this. She pulled the base towards her with a
strong jerk. The blade's momentum shifted, suddenly flipping backwards
into a gap in the half Alita held. As the blade swung into safety, the
second half closed upon it. Alita pulled out of her flip to make contact
with the ground, her weapon safely stowed. Less than a second had
elapsed.

She turned to Sarah. "Actually, just handing it to me would have been
enough."

--

By dawn they were moving along the river. It lay under the sky like a
colossal blue python, slithering in a cleft in the rust-orange rock.
Only a few petering dunes covered the sandstone, leading up to the sheer
100 meter drop to the water. The river itself was absolutely placid; its
universe of turbulence and thermodynamics was self-contained. To the
casual observer, it was purest lapis, 500 meters between the absolute
edges. The only evidences of life were the van, the road, and a single
dwarf evergreen tree, perched in a crevice in the sandstone where an
errant seed had sprouted long, long before.

To Alita, the scene was a visual oxymoron. Here was water, the very
source of all life on the planet, but nothing was alive. So much
potential was wasted, being lost downstream, that it simply _could not
be so_. She wondered what sorts of creatures lived in the
water...someone had told her that there were bacteria, but what else?
She struggled to remember.

Sarah found herself trying to pick out tiny ripples and eddies on the
very edge of the river. Each and every one would have a brief flash of
spray, or merely a glint of sunlight, before they spun out into the
deeper water and lost their energy. Some went farther than others, but
each was lost into the current as it spun out of control. Sarah tried to
watch which ones moved the farthest, or stayed the longest.

From below came the sounds of a tape player. Tsue simply concentrated on
his driving, and murmured in time to the lyrics of the songs.

--

Picture an abortion.

There was a bend in the river. With the bend had come silt, with the
silt had come life, with the life had come people, and with the people
had come exploitation. A bank had formed from the heights of the stone
to the surface of the river. This bank was being improved upon by the
many machines trundling about the surface, bleeding the Earth for space
and mineral wealth. The buildings of the city were buboes upon the
landscape: where they were built within the rock, it was as though
something was trying to break free; where they were upon the rock, they
looked like colonies of some foreign microbe spreading across the skin.
As a final affront to Mother Nature, a great filtration plant lay at the
base of the city, sucking water from the river for transportation up the
cliffs.

This city marked the very edge of the desert. From their vantage point
as they descended into town, Sarah and Alita could see great fields of
grass and grain, battling for each centimeter of growth, every day of
survival. A few scraggly trees could be seen scattered at random across
the pampas. Defining the horizon were the mountains, sentinels of
granite, testament to the great forces that had shaped the earth in the
days when mankind was humble. Beyond the mountains there would be more
land, then finally the forest, stretching to the little bit of ocean
that the glaciers in the north chose not to hoard.

The streets of the city were not constructed with vehicular conveniences
in mind. They were tall and narrow, paved with cobblestone. The people
who filled them scattered at the sound of the approaching van, or ran
into doorways and flung open shuttered windows. The three travelers felt
their skins prickle. It wasn't as though they were expected to entertain
these people--they _were_ the entertainment. The citizens gawked openly
at the van, the parcels, and the people as they made their way to the
center of town.

The center of town was a large plaza, flanked on one side by an odious
government building, and by the necessary church on the other. A
fountain gurgled but failed to provide the needed sensation of euphoria
at its center. Around the fountain were a large mass of people and a few
dozen market stalls. All other commerce was suspended as the van pulled
into the square. Almost too eager to apply the parking brake, Tsue
jumped out of the van in a comic bound. A chuckle spread through the
crowd. Without missing a beat, Tsue went into his patter.

"Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! Tsue's Traveling Bazaar has
arrived! Filled with all manner of things useful and beautiful, we are
now..." He threw down the side panel of the van, exposing his
storefront, "...open for business! Feast your eyes upon the array of
goods available for you! Rock bottom prices, limited to stock on hand!
Yes, miss, that's an authentic 20th century electric lamp, from France.
One of a kind, I might add, so much valuable art lost--but this was
saved, and has been put up for sale! Sir, would you care to purchase
this high-quality set of wrenches? The ideal thing to have for all the
little repairs around the home. Madam, I'm sure your child would love an
adorable little dolly, but please ask her to keep her hands to herself.
400 chips? For that rucksack? It's never even been used. If I didn't
value my customers so highly I'd almost be offended. Yes, I like
walnuts, but I can't eat that many, you've got to throw in some cash as
well..."

The crowd milled about the van. Their eyes were drawn to the bright
objects displayed at the front--knickknacks, pots and pans, toys--and
lured by the darker things, hiding in the shadows, tempting with their
strangeness. The wonder of the merchandise let them forget their
problems for a while, and instead fancy played with their heartstrings.
Many would fall into temptation and buy exactly what they didn't need;
but that activity, the act of freeing the self from inhibitions, was a
need.

The scene had long before ceased to charm Sarah, but she allowed Alita a
few minutes to watch the dynamics of the crowd in front of her. Then she
tactfully took her behind the van and spoke to her confidentially. "I
hope this doesn't sound rude, but I think we'd better split up. You can
take care of yourself, and I work better alone." She pressed a few chips
into her hand. "I don't know if you'll want to go shopping or what, but
be back here for lunch, around 2. OK?"

"I will. Thanks, Sarah." Sarah moved into the crowd. Alita idly watched
the crowd for a few minutes more, then made her way off in a different
direction.

--

"Ma'am?"

The woman at the stall returned to Earth and looked at her customer.
"What can I do for you?"

"I'd like a quarter-kilo of museli, please."

"Certainly. That's 50 chips."

"That's all?" Sarah was genuinely surprised, and reached into her pants
pocket for the change. "In that case, make it a half-kilo."

"Very well." The woman pulled out a plastic bag from a container, and
filled it with mixed grains and some dried fruit from a large box at her
side. "You're with that gentleman with the van, aren't you?"

"Yes. I'll be in town for a few days. Is there anything you'd be
interested in buying, that I could save for you?"

"No, no...you wouldn't need any grains, would you?" The woman's stall
was comprised of a large tarp, supported by a few aluminum poles, over a
few wooden crates. They were filled to heaping with all sorts of
cereals: wheat, bran, oats, barley, more than Sarah could pick out at a
glance. There was a scale that hung from one pole, and an upside-down
crate that served as a counter. That was all.

The woman looked old, but Sarah placed her at less than 50 from her
behavior. She was stout but not flabby--her size told stories of many
births and much physical labor. "Her husband's probably away fighting in
the war, even if he's older than she is," Sarah thought. The woman wore
a white blouse and a bright blue dress with a sash across the front. Her
eyes twinkled when she looked into someone else's.

"I'm afraid we don't," Sarah replied. "No demand...but it looks like
there's a big supply."

"That's for sure," the woman nodded. "We were blessed with a good rain
this year, and with another one the year before. But the authorities
took most of the crop for the war effort. We still have plenty, but
that's all. No compensation."

"That's not good," Sarah said. "They should have given you something.
Even thanks."

"Yes...but, there's a war going on, what can you do?" The woman
shrugged. "I'm Esmeralda."

"Sarah."

"Very nice to meet you, Sarah." Esmeralda though for a moment, then
looked at Sarah again. "Would you like to join us for dinner this
evening? We don't have much chance to meet new people here in town."

--

Alita found herself wandering through the streets aimlessly. The
architecture of the buildings was unappealing, and the people either
took no notice of her or simply stared. She found that frustrating. She
could say, "Hello!" or "How are you doing?" or even "Goodbye", and they
all produced the same effect--more stares. Alita gradually resigned
herself to the situation: she was an anomaly, and there was nothing she
could do to help or hinder her status. Walking, at least, provided a
chance to see the city.

The further she went from the plaza the steeper the hills became. The
houses jutted out from the hillside like crystals growing out of mud.
White stucco fronts, red tiled roofs, and the cobblestone road under her
feet; nothing at all seemed to change but the angle she ascended at. She
steered away from the mining operations on the edges of town; somehow,
she felt she had seen that activity all too often...

After an hour she came out of the valley and onto the plain. Fields of
corn and wheat extended for as far as she could see. To any other
observer the sheer expanse would have seen mundane to the point of being
boring; but Alita found the whole captivating. She walked over to a
single corn plant. It was a form of life, like she was. They both shared
the same DNA biochemistry, and even had similar numbers of chromosomes
in their cells. But this form of life did not know desire or fear, had
no need to assert its individuality, or seemed to require a group to be
with. It only knew the sunlight and the shade, health and debility.
Alita stroked the broad green leaf. She could feel the heat radiating
from its surface. The ear felt firm and supple under her touch. She
remembered...she remembered a thought. She had thought at some point
about how precious life was, and that it shouldn't be taken
indiscriminately. But she couldn't remember what the context had been.
She thought about the weapon hidden under her wrap, and who this woman
was who could regard life as valuable but expendable.

Pulling herself away from the field she looked at her surroundings with
more discrimination. There were houses in the fields, spread out
seemingly at random, each no less than half a kilometer apart. But it
wasn't quite right to think of the fields as universal; Alita saw one
large gap in the fields a good distance away from town. She wondered
what it could be; a blackened building indicated a fire of some sort.
She lost interest, deterred by the intervening distance, and once again
looked around her. The only other building of note was a massive stone
structure near her, where the edge of the fields met the lip of the
town. A few minute's walk brought Alita to its side. It was a stone
building easily two or three stories high, and a few hundred meters down
one side. There was no visible entrance, or windows, but a few men in
military uniform were clustered near the far end of the building,
ostensibly to guard it for or against something.

"Hey, beautiful!"

Alita waited a moment before acknowledging the voice. She turned and saw
a boy, at most seventeen years old, swaggering over to intercept her. He
was dressed in a moderately neat uniform and had a rifle jauntily swung
over one shoulder. Alita wondered if his sweat glands had started
working yet.

"I haven't seen you around here before," the young man went on. His
smile was amazingly broad, and his hands were on his hips, betraying the
actual direction of his thoughts. "Are you from out of town?"

"I came in this morning," Alita replied, not smiling at all, "with the
Ultra-Psycho Bitch From Hell Brigade."

"Ha, ha!" the boy laughed, and kept on laughing, trying desperately to
think of something clever to say. He didn't. "You sure are a funny one."

"Ah." Alita walked a step away from him and turned to face the building.
"What's this building that you're guarding for?"

"It's a prison camp," he replied, moving up behind her. "There's about
200 men wanted for war crimes in there, and I have to make sure that
they don't escape."

"In a corn field?" Alita chuckled. "This is a granary, private." She put
a slight emphasis on the last word of the sentence. He flushed, but
brought himself under control as she moved away from him, walking around
the corner of the building.

"Listen, you can't be..."

"What's this?" Alita was looking at a large stain at the base of the
wall. It had been scrubbed well, but not well enough to disguise that it
had once been blood. A tightly clustered group of bullet holes in the
wall told her all she needed to know. "When did this happen?"

"That?" The young man had recovered his composure. "Uh, I don't think
you should be looking at that. It's not good for a girl to be around..."

Alita spun around. "Look, why don't you just cut your posturing shit and
tell me who got executed?" She suddenly realized that she was gauging
the distance between the two of them, and that her hand had closed upon
a knife in one loop of her belt. "I've used that knife before..." she
thought. "To stop a man with a gun..."

The boy was oblivious to her sudden recall. "W-w-we've been having some
problems with those ME bastards," he stammered as his gaze was dragged
back to the wall, "There's a war going on, so...you can't keep 'em
around, gotta get rid of them. So...we found some sympathizers. We
interrogated them. Then we killed 'em." He glanced nervously towards his
comrades at the building's head. "I'm not even supposed to be talking to
you, we're on an alert."

"Oh." Alita stared at the spot for a moment more, as if to wring a
little bit more meaning from the blood stain; then she turned around and
began her walk back to the town. The young man took a step or two in
pursuit. "Hey, listen, it's almost time to eat. Maybe we could..."

"...split up? Good thought." She half turned her head to shout to him.
"See you, Ramon."

"What?!? How did you know my name?"

"Your mom seems to have stitched it onto your underpants," Alita said
with a grin. She turned to speak to him, walking backwards as she did
so. "Too grown up for suspenders, huh?"

------------------------------------------

The sky was resplendent with stars, and the darkness of the town
contrasted it strikingly. Doors were shut against the perceived enemies
in the world outside, and power for the people was rationed tightly.
Sarah found the night walk unnerving, not merely because of the lack of
signs of life, but also for the frequent police patrols moving through
the streets, perhaps one every five blocks. She knew that they were
there to protect, not to persecute; but old prejudices are hard to
escape from.

At last she found herself in front of a nondescript stucco house,
exactly like all the other ones on the street. Her sole clue that this
was her destination was the lonely light over the doorway. She tapped
quietly on the front door. She pressed her ear to the door and heard the
sounds of shuffling feet approaching.

A moment later a whisper came. "Who is it?"

"It's me, Sarah. Is that you, Esmeralda?"

"No, Mother is in the kitchen. One moment." Sarah leaned away from the
door as the bolt slid back. The door was opened by a woman in her
mid-twenties. She was dressed, if not identically, on the same theme as
her mother. She carried a small child up close to her breast. Her face
though bathed in shadow, showed a close resemblance to the woman in the
market stall. "Mother said we'd have a visitor. I'm Luz."

"I'm Sarah," Sarah introduced herself again. She moved inside and looked
around. The house was sparsely furnished, with just a few mats and two
chairs in the entry/living room. The walls were papered with yellowed
newspaper, and a few handmade objets-d'art were propped up on shelves.
The light came from the next room inside, where a warm, rich smell was
coming from. "You're just in time to eat," said Luz. She shifted her
tiny burden in her arms as she led the way further back into the house.

The kitchen was even more simple than the atrium. There was a dirt
floor; a cauldron over a fire testified that dirt was, ironically, the
best thing to have in the kitchen. There was also a more elaborate brick
oven in the corner of the room. Two benches were pressed up against the
oven and the wall, and various cooking utensils hung from the walls and
the ceiling. There was a bit of smoke in the air, but it succeeded in
heightening the atmosphere of closeness, of family.

The room was occupied by two people. Esmeralda was sitting by the fire,
intently stirring the pot's contents. She looked up from her work as the
two women entered, and gestured for Sarah to come and join her. Sarah
also noticed a young man, about the same age as Luz, lying on his side
and watching the fire. "He must be her son," Sarah thought to herself.
She postponed a closer examination until it was more appropriate.
Instead, she embraced Esmeralda and offered a brief kiss of greeting.

"I'm glad you could come. It's so nice to have a guest."

"Thanks for inviting me, home cooking is hard to come by." Sarah sniffed
the air deeply. "Potatoes?"

"Yes, we've all that you want. And a few seasonings from the garden out
back. Now, you've met Luz and Ignaciocito. His papa is off fighting in
the war, we get letters from him as often as they deliver the mail." She
moved over to the recumbant figure on the bench. "Teo...are you feeling
good enough to speak?"

Theo smiled weakly. "Yes, of course, Mother." He looked up towards
Sarah. He looked very much like his mother and sister, but his higher
forehead and square jaw betrayed much of his missing father. He also
wore a thin moustache. His eyes seemed somewhat distant, or out of
focus. Sarah wondered if he had been asleep...but it didn't quite look
right for normal sleep. "You must be Sarah. How do you do."

"I'm fine, pleased to meet you." Sarah slipped down onto her haunches,
coming to just above eye level with the man. "Your mother didn't tell me
that you've been sick. What seems to be the matter?"

"I'm anemic." Teo raised himself from the bench, and with Sarah and
Esmeralda's help sat upright with his back against the wall. "What with
the stress and all, I've been having health problems. That's why I'm not
in uniform."

"My boy's an accountant for the city," Esmeralda prompted, hinting at
familial pride. "So clever with numbers."

"You're lucky to have such a good job," Sarah said. She passed a plate
of potatoes to Teo, then took another one for herself. "But what's so
stressful about living in a town like this? The battle lines are far
away."

"It's ME," Luz said. "We had a surprise attack back in December. The
army killed them all, but not before they burned some of the spring
crop. Since then, we've had...one of the water lines sabatoged, and some
trash got into the filtration plant." She passed her child to her own
mother, and accpeted dinner in exchange. "Nobody got killed or hurt, and
there wasn't much damage...but everyone's worried."

"About another attack? But the army's right in town, why would they be
targeting civilians?" Sarah's question took the family by surprise, and
she instantly regretted asking it. Before anyone could speak again, they
heard the sound of a siren wailing only a few hundred meters away.

Driven by a half-forgotten impulse, Sarah's gaze darted around the room.
All three of her hosts were still seated, but glancing around as best
they could, as though hunting for any clue that might tell them more
about their situation. "What's going on?"

"I--I don't know, that's the emergency alarm. It's too late in the
evening for a drill, is it--Sarah?" Esmeralda rose as their guest moved
towards the door. "You can't go out there! There's a curfew!"

Sarah paused a fraction of a second at the door, as acknowledgement.
"I'll be fine," she said. She added, to herself, "It's not like I
haven't done this before."

--

Sarah quietly closed the door behind herself and pulled her hood up over
her head. She managed to take one step out from the light before an
unseen foot kicked her left knee out from underneath her. Sarah
stumbled, and twisted as her assailant's right hand dragged her
backwards. She landed, bewildered, in someone's lap. A metal finger
pressed itself over Sarah's lips.

"The next truck will pass by in about half a minute, let's get into the
alleyway."

"mmph...Alita, is that you?"

"Yeah." She released her grip on Sarah, and the two women dove into the
break between the two buildings. "Tsue went to bed as soon as it got
dark. I think he must have tried to sell everything in---" She broke off
as the truck went past the alleyway. Its headlights played like a
symphony across the far wall; then, for an instant, the truck was a
tangible machine, not just an oblique sound; and finally there was the
echoing afterglow of the taillights. The two women emerged from their
hiding place a few moments later, and moved out into the street. "I
think the siren came from up there."

"Yes...up near the edge of town." The pair started walking down the
road, shoulder to shoulder. "Did you follow me?"

"Of course not." Alita smiled. "But there was only one house in the
neighborhood with the lights on, so I knew where to look."

Sarah's pace quickened as she thought. Less than a half a minute had
elapsed between her first hearing the siren and her leaving the house.
Alita _had_ to be lying, no-one could move _that_ quickly.

--

The night wind was an impartial observer to the activities of the humans
below. Though it did not bellow mightily, bearing upon its back the
storm front, it still played the music of power. It blew the phermones
of insects, still blindly lusting for mates, towards indifferent
partners. It cooled the air of the houses around, and chilled the aged
to their bones. It danced in the corn field, portraying the change of
season in shades of the pain of birth and death.

Its capricious pathway was further mutated by the sounds that filled the
air. Some were constant, such as the wailing of the siren. Others were
more erratic, like the footfalls and voices raised in panic. The
rhythmic hum of engines came to calm the scene, adding touch of
mundanity in all the sorts of turbulance that played on the ground.

Halogen lamps cast a light as bright as daylight and as stark as terror
onto the side of the granary. One group of men stood attentively,
resting their weights upon the rifles they wore. Another group was
struggling furiously with some occupation, whose precise nature their
shadows hid. The last group was sitting at ease on and around two APCs,
watching the scene being played out in front of them. Their senior
officer was waiting impatiently by the base of the V the vehicles
formed. His suit was immaculately pressed and ironed, his shoes were
radiant in the stark light. His fair complexion and smoothly shaved face
showed that the care he applied to his clothing extended to his
immediate person. His name was Martin Yerba.

"What's taking you bastards so long?"

"Sorry, sir," came a terrified voice from the second group. "They didn't
respond to the sedatives at all."

"Balls! I'll tear that doctor apart." Yerba tapped his foot, but, with
the practiced care of a geisha, avoided any trace of dirt upon the
tip."Are the posts you got holding up at all?"

"Yes, sir. We're nearly done here." The members of the group conferred
among themselves for a moment, then backed away, revealing the fruit of
their labors. There were three stout posts driven into freshly dug
ground. Around each one was tethered a man, stripped to his waist. All
three were thrashing and tugging at their bonds as best they could.

"Major, listen to me! I'm no rat fink spy! I'm a decent citizen!"

"Please! I have a wife, and two children!"

"Preserve the new Epoch!"

"PRESERVE THE NEW EPOCH! PRESERVE THE NEW EPOCH!"

The assembled parties watched the spectacle in front of them for a few
moments. Perhaps it was out of curiousity, perhaps it was out of need to
see someone even more pathetic than themselves. Then, by unspoken
consensus, the crowd roused itself, and began the task of cutting the
animals in front of them off from humanity. The commanding officer
stepped carefully off the truck and addressed the group. "Company! Three
volunteers!" Three young men, egged by a fear of failure, stepped
foreward.

"Assemble before the target!" Each shambled into a position in front of
one man that he had known as an ally the day before.

"Please...please..."

"GOD SAVE THE MOTHERFUCKING EPOCH!"

"Ready!" The men cocked and lifted their guns. The AK-47 felt pecuilar
in their arms; light by themselves, yet as though they had been tied
down with a great number of smaller weights.

"Aim!" Each man raised his gun. The butt end of the rifle pressed
reasurringly against the shoulder. Fingers tapped triggers. Nine eyes
formed three triangles.

"NOOOO!!!!!"

"Fire!"

The rifles threw their lead into the air. Each bullet spun with the
grace of a condor towards its target. They met bone, and bone was
shattered in the force of the impact. Each man jerked his head, as if
trying to duck away from his own forehead. After a furious quarter of a
second, the bullets stopped themselves, buried in the wooden pylons.
Behind them slumped dead flesh. Without even acknowledging the deaths,
the commander turned on his heel and strode out of the light.

"Somebody go get that doctor, I want autopsies done on the bodies. Find
out why the hell those drugs didn't do shit. And the paperwork must be
filled out correctly this time. The rest of you boys get back to your
quarters."

--

Tsue jerked awake. He was usually a heavy sleeper, but there was one
sound he had trained himself to listen for. Sure enough, footsteps were
approaching the van--his van. "Never fails," he thought, "first night in
town some kid gets eager for my stuff." His hand darted under his pillow
for his gun. His fingers wrapped around the butt end, and he felt secure
and awake. Instantly he had his thumb on the hammer; then, carefully, he
moved into view of the side door and aligned his weapon. From outside
the van came two high whistles and a long low one. Tsue let out a
releaved sigh.

"Chrissake, Sarah, don't do that to me!"

"Sorry. I forgot to let Alita in on the secret." Tsue pushed open the
door. The two were black forms on black buildings, unconsciously
standing at attention in the doorway. Their wraps were swishing gently
from side to side, giving them the appearance of banshees. "Safety on?"

"Yeah. Come on in." Tsue pushed himself up against the wall of the cab,
and the three of them crowded together. "So, what's going on? I thought
you wouldn't be back 'til later." He turned to Alita. "I didn't even
hear _you_ leave."

Alita shrugged. "I didn't want to wake you up." She sat down in the
driver's seat. Tsue had his back up against the door. Sarah was bending
over at the base of the ladder, hunting for something. "Tell the truth,
Tsue...have you sold any of the pricey goods?"

"N-no. Nobody even approached me." He glanced quickly outside, then
lowered his voice. "Why? You see anyone with an AK?"

"No." Sarah replaced the lid over the concealed weapons, and
straightened up. "Something weird is going on. It doesn't feel right."
She let out a sigh and leaned against the dashboard. "Well...how was
business?"

"Wonderful." Tsue was already returning to his bedroll. "People were
buying like there was no tomorrow. Can't wait for the morning."

------------------------------------------

Without even looking up from his bedroll, Tsue knew that it was far too
early. Period. He shook his head to clear his mind of the daze, then
tried to concentrate. There was some reason why he was awake. He
struggled to resume cause-and-effect thinking. His attention was
captured as a second volley of knocks came from the van door.

"Open up in there! City patrol!"

"Jee-zus. One sec." Tsue fumbled into his sarape and struggled to his
feet, cursing himself for his sleepiness. He paused to dig a few
personal papers out of the glove compartment, then he opened the
passenger door. Outside were three men, all well into their fifties,
dressed in standard issue army uniforms. Tsue guessed at how happy the
three of them were to be up in the morning, and decided to forgoe his
usual chipper mannerisms.

"What's going on, officers?"

"Lieutenant Loess has asked us to bring you to speak with him." One of
the men thrust a hastily scribbled note on offical state letterhead into
Tsue's face. "If you would please come with us, now."

Tsue made an act of glancing over the summons, but didn't see anything
in it to cause him concern. At least, nothing to indicate that he was
suspected of smuggling what all he was smuggling. As he finished it, he
slapped his hand against the doorjamb three times, apropos of nothing;
he hoped that Sarah was awake to get the message. He returned the paper,
then carefully and deliberately descended to the group. "So, where are
we off to?"

"This way, please."

--

Tsue's journey was mercifully short. He was shown into a room on the
second floor of the government offices across the plaza from the truck.
The walls were white stucco and bare of any ornamentation. The contents
of the room were a simple exposed bulb, three chairs, two desks, and a
man. He was tall and blond-haired, a slight anomaly from the other
townspeople Tsue had seen. His uniform was in fair shape, though it
didn't quite fit him...or, perhaps, he didn't fit the uniform. He seemed
uncomfortable with the sight of everything that surrounded him. He sized
up Tsue two or three times in quick succession as he entered and stood,
rather uncomfortably, on the cold stone floor.

Loess waited a few more seconds before he gestured to the chair that
faced the other two. "Please be seated." Tsue quietly took his seat.

"Name?"

"Tsue, sir."

"Place of birth?"

"Guyana." Tsue fumbled in his pockets for the right forgeries. "A little
town called Bartica...don't s'pose you've ever heard of it?"

"No," came the flat reply. The Lieutenant glanced over the papers. "Why
are your parent's names not listed?"

"I was a street kid," Tsue replied, smiling widely. "I got sick of
living on the streets...so I started to work. Then I got sick of
town...so I hit the road, you know?" He chuckled. "Nice town, this one."

Loess didn't reply. He glanced once more at the papers, then asked, "How
long are you planning to stay in town for?"

"Oh, just a couple of days...do some business...see what everyone wants
to sell. Then, just move along like I always do."

"Who's that woman with you?"

"Sarah? She's my business partner. She scouts around town for me while I
stay with the truck." Tsue jerked his thumb towards the window to add
emphasis to his words.

"Where is she from?"

"The States, I think...is there some problem, sir?"

Loess didn't acknowledge the question. He merely stared at Tsue for a
moment; he then doffed his hat, scratched the back of his head, then
placed his hat back on again. Having acomplished the maneuver, he fixed
Tsue with an even, hostile gaze. "Are you a proud Epoch citizen, Mr.
Tsue?"

"I am, sir!" said Tsue, with as much vitality as he could muster.
"PRESERVE THE NEW EPOCH! Now and forever!"

"And that woman who is with you?"

"She's a real patriot too, sir! She doesn't take lip from anyone."

The questioning stopped abruptly as Major Yerba burst into the room. He
was only a notch less nicely dressed than he had been the night before,
though his hair and face were wet, implying that he had been interupted
in his toilette. "Loess, what's going on in here?"

"Sir!" Loess jumped to his feet and snapped a salute. "I have brought
this gentleman here for questioning about the subversive activities that
have been plaguing..."

"Without my orders?" Yerba made a token effort to look at Tsue. He was
now standing, with his hands clasped in front of him. He was smiling his
usual broad, simpering smile. "I should have _you_ strung up for
subversion. What's he got to do with anything?"

"Sir, this man and a woman, and a female passenger, arrived in town
yesterday afternoon. They made no effort to register with our offices,
and they've been talking with the townspeople...who only knows what else
they've been up to!" Loess' expression was becoming more and more
pleading by the moment. He broke his ground and approached the Major. "I
realize now that my activities may have been preemptive, sir, but the
security of this town is a priority..."

"Mmph." Yerba moved away from his second-in-command, favoring one of the
chairs near Tsue. He motioned for Tsue to sit and shuffled through the
papers on the desk. Bored by that activity, he arranged them neatly into
a stack and passed them to their owner. "Mr. Tsue, I'm sorry about the
trouble you've been through. Lieutenant Loess' actions were excessive,
though I should tell you now that they are _not_ incomprehensable." He
paused, hoping to unsettle the listeners, and thereby gain a
psychological victory over them. "Are you aware, Mr. Tsue, that this
town is in grave danger?"

"N-no, sir, I had no-no idea whatsoever. I mean, it looks safe as houses
to me."

"Looks can deceive, Mr. Tsue," Loess spoke out of turn. "If I may,
sir...we've been the victims of sabotage by ME forces and sympathizers
over the past few months. They set a fire in the fields just as the
plants broke the soil, they clogged the desalinization plant's filters,
and they have attacked our own base several times. So, you can
understand why we are most concerned."

"Oh, I...I didn't know, that's a real shame, sirs." Tsue folded his
papers and shoved them back into his pocket. "If I had known, 'course, I
would have gotten down here right away...I guess, if there's any way for
me to make it up..."

"Mr. Tsue!" Loess turned to Yerba. "Sir, this man presents a serious
threat to our community. He shows up unannounced, doesn't register with
the correct government authorities, and sells who knows what kind of
merchandise right under our noses! And we don't even know about those
two women he's with, they could be out right now..."

"Lieutenant." Yerba raised a hand to stifle his second-in command. He
then gave Tsue his full undivided attention. "Mr. Tsue, I may be acting
outside of the law here, but I think that being expedient is more
important. You have broken the law; however, your actions are far from
hostile. So, I am going to fine you 8,500 chips, and then award you your
permit for another 1,500 more. I'm giving you one-half of an hour to put
the funds together."

Oh, a bribe, thought Tsue. What a nice man. "Yes, sir. I'll see if I
can't scrounge that up for you, sir." He stood, and offered a formal bow
to the men. "Yes. I'll just be going now."

--

"Hey, mister!"

Tsue spun around at the shout. He didn't like to have attention drawn to
himself when he was away from the security of his shop--even if Sarah
was around to cover for him. His eyes made out a form, waiting patiently
in the shadows of the collumned veranda of the government building. As
he watched, a girl peeled out of the darkness. She was dressed in jeans
and a t-shirt and had a band tied around her forehead. Tsue reflected
that she was the only woman he had seen until that point who wasn't
wearing a dress. Her expression was simultaneously disdainful and
curious.

"So what was that all about?"

"Huh? What was what all about?"

"What'd the Major wanna talk to you about?" Three meters separated the
pair. Though they could each touch the building from where they stood,
the girl paid took no notice of their surroundings, as though the
conversation were taking place upon the pampas. "And why'd you make such
a dash for your truck, then get right back out again?"

Tsue chuckled nervously. "Miss, I don't think that's any of your
business..."

"Yeah?" Her hair was black, and would have been straight and long if she
had taken the time to comb it. Her eyes were large and bright with
energy. Her ramrod-straight pose combined with her natural beauty to
give her a kind of brazen appeal; she could kiss you or break your nose
with equal odds and equal sentiment. "I'll be the judge of that."

Tsue's chuckling continued unabated. "Miss, I'm afraid...I don't really
have to tell you anything, so why don't you just let it be, huh?" He
waved a cheerful good-bye, and paid no attention to the rather impolite
word spoken in his general direction. He approached the truck, eager to
see that both Sarah and Alita were awake. "G'morning, girls...hope I
haven't missed anything important."

"You're seeing it happen," replied Sarah, gesturing to the plaza around
them. It was as good as empty. Perhaps a dozen people, the very old or
recent mothers, were greeting the morning. There were no stalls being
set up, nor was there the buzz of anticipation among the participants of
the scene.

"Aw, man, where is everyone?"

"Oh, don't be such a grouch, Tsue," Alita smiled. "It'll pick up."

"Yeah, right." Tsue accepted a cup of museli from Sarah. "People would
be out here getting set up if anything was gonna happen. Looks like we
might be S. O. L."

Sarah shrugged. "Well, I owe Esmeralda an apology for leaving last
night. Maybe I can find out what's going on from her. So who was that
girl you were talking to?" Tsue told them the story of the interview and
of his peculiar questioning. Alita found herself calling upon
half-forgotten instincts, trying to parse its exact meaning.

Finally, she said, "I tell you what...she's still hanging around. If she
goes anywhere, I'll follow her and see what she's up to. Sarah, you go
and meet your friend, and I assume that Tsue here can behave himself?"

They laughed good-naturedly.

--

The wind that had blown the night before was cruelly absent beneath the
hot sun that reigned over the workers in the field. Each and every one
functioned like motors and gears, executing timed steps as part of a
greater mechanical whole. The sum of their labors would be lost like
rumors in time, at most preserved in obscure statistics; but this was
now, the future was still many steps beyond the thought of the workers.
Younger or older, with ability or without, each and every person gave up
their daily token of their soul in blind hope that the world might
gain...something. Such is community without spirit.

Esmeralda swung her hoe with all the spirit she could muster. At times,
the weeds represented difficulties, problems, thoughts, even
individuals, as she symbolically chopped them into oblivion. Today,
weeds were weeds. Her mind was as blank as a chalkboard when school is
not in session. Hers was labor for no sake whatsoever.

"Esmeralda!" She paused at the mention of her name, and looked up to see
Sarah walking through the rows to where she stood. "I'm glad I found
you. I wanted to talk to you about last night."

Esmeralda leaned on her hoe, grateful for an excuse to breathe. "I'm
glad you did, too. How on Earth did you find me?"

Sarah shrugged. "Ask who looks friendly, bribe who doesn't." She glanced
over her shoulder, making sure the foreman was still looking the other
way. "I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have left you without saying
goodbye last night. I felt like I needed to go keep an eye on things."

Esmeralda smiled. "Well, you're safe, that's all that matters." Feeling
a rising sense of guilt, she resumed her work, this time at a slow pace.
"So, how is buisness?"

"Dead, I'm afraid. There's nobody around today." Sarah followed
Esmeralda as she inched foreward. "Where is everyone?"

"They're here," Esmeralda replied, gesturing around herself. "Everyone.
You see...since the ME scare, everyone's afraid. You don't know who to
trust...so everyone comes up here. The soldiers guard you, and you show
you're a patriot." She paused for breath. "I'm as worried as
anybody...I'd rather spend my time at home, but I'm worried about what
would happen to me...and, besides, there is plenty of work to be done."
She glanced around at the field. From where she stood, she could
probably spend the whole day counting, and still not be able to number
everyone up in the fields, sweating against the sandy ground for another
shaft of grain. She bit her lip, trying to keep herself from saying what
she really felt. "There's always plenty to be _done_."

--

Hunter and quarry moved through the town. The young girl's mind was
occupied with everything but her immediate safety; she took for granted
the security that chafed at her spirit, and that was her undoing. Alita
watched her carefully, moving from vantage point to vantage
point--between buildings, on rooftops, behind trash cans out by the
street. While this method aroused little notice from her target, it did
have one downside: abruptly, Alita lost the girl. She ran through one
alley, down another; no sign. "The only other thing she could have
done...is go into one of these buildings."

Alita glanced around, making sure that no-one was watching her from the
streets. Then her legs buckled, and she executed a three story,
two-and-one-half-flip leap into the air. At her apex, she swung her
weapon, driving the blade deep into the stucco wall of the most
prominant building. She hung there for a moment, regaining her poise;
then she swung up onto the blade. Peeping into an adjacent window to
make sure the room was unoccupied, she then leapt onto the sill and
extracted her blade.

The room was dark, and showed no signs of recent occupation. Squelching
a minor twinge of guilt, Alita slid the window open and entered the
building. The room she entered was unlit; as her eyes adjusted to the
darkness, she could pick out a few random pieces of furniture: a bureau,
six chairs, two desks, an old computer. "Storage," thought Alita. She
decided to err on the side of caution, and slipped her blade under her
wrap, instead moving her small knife and a "borrowed" pistol within
reach.

As quietly as she could, she moved a desk under one of the building's
ventillation ducts. Standing on tiptoe, she was just able to reach the
screws that secured the vent's grate. She drew her knife and removed the
screws; in the space of a few moments, she had opened a pathway into the
building. But gaining that pathway would be a problem; the duct itself
stuck out about 50 centimeters from the wall before dropping towards the
ground. It was made of sheet metal, and Alita doubted that it could
support her weight without bending or straining, and (possibly)
generating noise. On the other hand, she could simply cut her way in;
however, the gash she made would be noticed in a moment.

After careful thought, Alita took off her wrap and folded it up, then
tucked it up underneath her halberd. She crossed the room and stood
facing the duct, looking from below at the gaping hole. She gauged its
distance from her, and its height above. She skipped once, twice, then
jumped upwards, allowing her body to rotate as it ascended along the
parabola, curving her outstreched arms into the vent. As soon as she
broke the plane of her entry she was pressing her hands against the
sides, trying to generate friction. Her momentum carried her foreward.
Instantaneously her back and legs moved outward to slow her further. Her
fingertips touched empty space, and she reacted, pushing against the now
downward-curving walls, jarring herself to a stop with both forearms and
both shins keeping her from touching the lower half of the vent.

Alita was inside the ventilation system, her body at a right angle
parrallel with and perpendicular to the floor. She felt her eyes trying
to adjust to the scant light that trickled around her body; then, at
once, she "saw" the shape of the tunnel in front of her, and the patches
of negative space where side tunnels branched away from the main. Her
forearms, merely contours in her topographic vision, scootched her
foreward as they kept up the pressure on the walls. She descended,
centimeter by centimeter, towards an unknown destination within the
building.

Acting on an impulse, Alita made her way towards the basement. Her
instincts rewarded her a few minutes later. As she descended onto the
ducts that ran through the ceiling over the basement, half-heard
frequencies became sounds; these sounds segued into human voices, then
finally into coherent human speech:

"...so then I'm all, 'So go on, tell me,', and he's all, 'Sorry, honey,'
and he goes off to his little truck, and I'm all, OK, I'm outta here, so
I came back." The speaker let out a sigh. "Dumbass. You can't even talk
to strangers about Yerba. Everyone's afraid."

"Well, it's not like it isn't understandable." The second speaker was a
man, going on middle aged. He sounded educated, certainly more so than
his comrade. "If you're not with him, you're an enemy of his, and then
by default an enemy of the people...so what was happening last night?"

"Yeah, what was with the siren?"

"Not another false alarm, I'm afraid." The third voice was a man
slightly older than the second speaker. "They were checking some of the
mining boilers two nights ago when they discovered one was about to
blow. So, they arrested three of the workers, charged them with
conspiracy...and sometime last night, they got a confession out of them.
At least, that's what I've heard, none of the men are talking."

"Who were they?"

"One was Grenden...and I'm not sure who the other two were. If he
talked, there might'n't be much damage to our group, but I'm
understandably concerned."

There was a grim silence. Alita had been crawling along the vent,
following the sound towards the part of the building kittycorner to
where she had entered. With the silence, she paused instinctively to
ensure the secrecy of her location.

A few moments later, the first man's voice sounded again. "I
suppose...there's no point of staying 'round here anymore." There were
murmurs of agreement, and at least three pairs of feet moved about on a
concrete floor. A door slammed shut...and Alita found herself alone,
crouched in a darkened ventillation duct, floating in silence.

She padded on her hand and knees to the duct where she thought the
sounds had been coming through. Naturally, it was grated shut; a
moment's work with her knife brought the panel crashing to the floor.
Alita slithered out of the recess and dropped the distance to the floor.

The room was, in fact, quite similar in size and appearance to the one
she had first entered. It contained four chairs and a table, none of
which was the least bit dusty. She touched one seat. It was warm;
someone had been seated there only a moment before.

And then all thoughts were interrupted as her head exploded. Alita
dropped to her knees, unable to hold back a scream of agony. From a
point between her temples and just above her palate, some thing was
violently pulsing, actually moving as it disgorged an abominable sound,
a mixture of white noise and human shouting, at a volume far above her
pain threshold:

*#@%***#@*#)*%@)%A-1!!!!##@(%##%#@^#@COPY ME#$@#@!!^~!#@%
#$$#@(%TO DUTY@!$@*$%#$CAN YOU ACK-@*%$@+$%!~SHIT!--------

It stopped.

For a full hour and three-quarters, Alita lay on the floor in a fetal
position. Her breathing was regular and deep. Her mind was like a sieve
beneath a waterfall as fragments of her life, vague memories, and stored
feelings danced around and through her consciousness. Her physical pain
was replaced by a vague spiritual discomfort as her life, punctuated by
massive gaps, overcame disorder and began the arduous work of forming a
whole.

--------------------------------------

1430 hours. The sun had slipped noticeably from its zenith, but the heat
of the day was still waxing. The light that provided all the energy for
life on Earth came down, deaf to the anguish of the humans on the
ground. It reminded them, This is the bargain we must uphold: I shall
establish a rhythm, but you cannot advance or hinder it. This is your
lot.

The sternness of the sun stirred anger and frustration in the workers on
the plain. They were bound by fear to work, bound by the heat to sweat;
but the mind of a human is strong, and it can break those bonds in
desperation and arrogance. There was a feeling of angst that day, a
desire for respite--any form. _Any_ form.

At once, it came. Those closest to the edge of the fields heard it
first, but the sound of an engine carried far across the plain, and then
anyone who looked up from their labors could see the van that had
arrived in town the day before driving furiously towards the very center
of the field. On either side of the van was a large sign:

WATER--ALL YOU CAN DRINK--5 CHIPS

In a great cascade, tools were dropped, people scampered away from their
labors. They surrounded the van on all sides, forcing Tsue to draw to a
premature stop. He clambered out of the driver's window and was
instantly being forced to take 5-chip tokens. "Hey, folks, ya gotta back
up, I need to open up here!" Resentfully, the crowd surged backwards,
and Tsue opened the van. Inside was a crystalline paradise: a half-dozen
clear jugs, each at least 20 gallons, filled with ice-cold water. "All
right, take your time, there's plenty to go around...here's a cup for
you...and you...hey, don't share! That ain't healthy, you'll get germs!"

Sarah laughed at the spectacle, and passed her own canteen to Esmeralda.
She gratefully accepted, and took a long drink before returning it.
"Ahh, thank you...so where did the water come from?"

Sarah gestured down towards the rim of the city. "Just the
desalinization plant. Tsue got each of those, put the merchandise in
storage, and we came up here." She paused to take a mouthful of water.
"When he heard that there were a few fields of sweaty workers up here,
he didn't need much convincing to come."

Tsue's arrival had not gone unnoticed by the local peace keepers. Two
very young men, each brandishing a weapon and thinking very highly of
themselves as a result, swaggered up to where Tsue was perched,
pretending not to be expecting them.

"Hey, you! What do you think you're doing here?"

"Mm?"

"I said..." The boy's voice trailed off as they noticed two small
bottles of whiskey by Tsue's foot. They glinted, catching the afternoon
sun in their glass. The boy went on. "We..wondered..what was going on
here, that's all."

"I'm just selling some water." Tsue casually reached for two Styrofoam
cups and pushed the bottles to where his hand might easily grab them.
"You men interested in something to drink?"

--

1630 hours. The water had long-ago been drunk dry and the alcohol was
hidden away from prying superior officers. In the fields people were
still working, but without the tension that had driven them before. Now,
they only worked out of a token sense of responsibility to finish what
they had started to do.

Tsue and Sarah were still at work for exactly the same reason. 350
Styrofoam cups had to be picked up and thrown away before it got too
dark to pick them all up. Any other trash might be used as an excuse to
drive the entrepreneurs away, so it had to be disposed of as well.

His purse hanging heavily at his side, Tsue talked as loudly as he could
to Sarah. "I figure...we don't need to make a run for more water this
evening. The plant'll be open tomorrow, we can stop by after breakfast.
What I'm worried about is competition."

"Tsue, tell me...how many trucks did you see in this town? A dozen,
maybe?"

"Eleven. I was counting." Tsue stooped to pick up another cup, then
tossed it into his garbage bag. "That's eleven people who could come up
here. Now, say they cut costs by using paper cups, or their trucks don't
need as much fuel. That's my margin, down the drain."

"Well, you can move on. Nobody's forcing you to..."

"Hey! ALITA! OVER HERE!"

The two walked back towards the van to meet Alita. "I didn't see you
guys over there. What happened?"

"We sold what needed selling," Tsue replied. "You work, you want to cool
down...so we brought up some water from the plant down by the river."

"Good thinking." Alita nodded her approval. "I'm surprised there wasn't
a riot."

"Yeah. Everyone was pretty cool about it, though." Tsue kept talking as
Sarah loaded the garbage into the van. "After a while, people were just
sitting around, talking. One guy even had a flute or something, some
people were singing with him."

"I wish I'd been there."

"That reminds me," said Sarah, "We saw that girl again. Some of the
militia were hanging around here, and she was talking with one of the
guys, pretty earnestly."

"Prying?"

"I suppose. Why do you ask?"

Alita was lost in thought for a moment, her eyes tracing lines of logic
through the atmosphere. "'Yerba' is the name of one of the men you
talked with this morning, right Tsue?"

"Yeah. I saw it on the license he gave me."

She nodded, then broke off from her activity. "Where are we parking the
van tonight?"

"Down in the plaza," Sarah replied, "since that's where we've been
before. People like us to stay in one particular area. They still think
of us as outsiders, no matter if..."

"I guess we should get going then," Alita said. There was an undertone
of authority in her voice; Sarah and Tsue found themselves meekly
following her into the cab of the van. As soon as the door closed, she
declared, "I think there's some kind of conspiracy going on in this
town."

"What?"

"This morning, I followed that girl into an abandoned building. I
overheard her talking with two, maybe three other people. They seemed to
know a lot about those men who got killed last night. That girl said,
'You can't talk to anyone about Yerba, everyone's afraid,' and one other
guy said, "If you're not with him, you're against him.'" She looked at
her companions. "Do you suppose those are the ME people that they're
talking about?"

"Maybe," Sarah mused, "but I doubt it. If they were with ME, then they
wouldn't be so bold as to meet like that, or harass Tsue. A town like
this is too small, it's hard to keep secrets."

Tsue let out a snort. "Am I hearing you right? Are you suggesting that
there's ME and ANOTHER group of people acting around here? Shit, that
just doesn't make sense. If you're going after the same thing, it'd be
smarter to work together, right? Plus, like you said--too small a town.
People'd figure out that there were two groups at work before too long."
He dropped down into his seat and keyed the ignition. "Now you two can
either stay here and keep me company or get up on the roof. We hit the
road in ten seconds, let's be quick."

Sarah and Alita clambered up onto the roof and took their seats, side by
side. Below them, the engine was shuddering to life, and the truck's cab
began to inch forward and overcome the friction of the ground. Over the
noise of the van, Sarah said to Alita, "He's right. It's stupid to think
that there's two groups of terrorists in this town. That means that
there's really only one."

"Or maybe, there are two, but they're just out for different
things...and so far, they've covered their tracks."

"For this long?" They were right at the edge of the town. It lay below
their feet in the lengthening shadows of the day, becoming blacker and
blacker. Shapes were blending, becoming monstrous parodies of the more
healthy forms of a town. The earth moving machines on the edge of town
still labored; but their cabs and cables were indistinct, so they seemed
like zombie dinosaurs, laboring without any hope or awareness of their
work. Sarah shuddered. "Maybe there's another possibility."

"What's that?"

"Supposing it isn't ME at all. Supposing it's someone who wants us to
think it's ME for their own purposes?"

"But...that's awful. Who would go so far to make people think an
invasion was near, just for their own cause?"

"I don't know."

--

"OK if I don't help with the chili, Sarah?"

"That's fine. What's the matter?"

"I just want some time alone, that's all."

"Fine." Sarah struck a match and slipped it into the gas stove at her
feet. With a quiet "whoosh" a blue flame appeared in the top of the
stove. Sarah smiled at a job well done. "I can manage down here."

Alita didn't wander far. She ambled aimlessly out of the plaza and
walked down one street before diving, as she had time and again during
her stay in the town, into an alleyway. The sun was just diving below
the horizon, and it was easy for her to melt into shadows, to become
another shape placed by chance between two ordinary buildings.

She took a moment to breathe deeply, to clear her mind. Then, seated
with her back to one wall, she flexed where a muscle on the back of her
throat should have been, and imagined herself talking.

Nothing.

She tried again, flexing at slightly different places, and varying her
concentration. She tried more clear "enunciation".

Still nothing.

Alita tried again and again, until she almost felt something catch in
her throat. She tensed that muscle, delicately holding its position, and
tried as best as she could to speak to herself.

--Please acknowledge.--

After a moment, a reply came blaring into her palate.

--A1? A1? CONTROL ACKNOWLEDGE A1, WHERE ON THE GREEN EARTH HAVE YOU
BEEN?--

--Control, that's a little loud.--

--SORRY.-- She felt a twinge, then the voice came back, at a reasonable
volume. --A1, where the bloody hell have you been hiding for this past
month?--

--I've been undercover.--

--Indeed. That's VERY nice. Now please explain to me just why you didn't
think to contact us just ONCE.--

--I've been doing counterintelligence work...and I didn't know if
keeping in contact would attract attention.--

--If you don't have ANY faith in the body we've given you, A1, you're an
idiot. Well, never mind... I see you're still on the continent...how did
you manage to get from a tornado a few hundred kilometers north of your
present position to here?--

--It's a long story, Control, and I can't explain right now.--
...because I can't remember. Sorry. --Listen, I need some data for my
work. What do you have on the town of Villa?--

It is difficult to explain the exact sensation of a contemptuous snort
from the middle of your head, but Alita had that sensation. --Would you
like to know what type of sock the privates like to wear? A1, you name
it, I can find it for you.--


--Thank you, Control.-- Unconsciously, Alita leaned forward, imagining
herself at some important meeting. --There's been some terrorist
activity here in Villa. They must have filed reports of what all has
happened. Can you tell me what all has been reported over the past, say,
two years?--

--This isn't story time, A1,-- came the reply. --It should take me a few
minutes to pull up the data. Find a computer with a few megabytes of
storage space upon it, and I will use you as the modem for a text file,
ASCII format. Will that be _all_?--

--Yes, thank you, Control.--

--Good. And let's have more prompt reports from you from now on?--

--

Tsue played his flashlight around the interior of the pot. Nothing. He
double-checked the very corners, and once again found nothing. He made a
cursory sweep around the pot's surface. There was nothing there, either.
He tossed the pot with an easy underhand motion to Sarah. "This one's
clean, too! Am I done now?"

Sarah handed the pot to Alita, who gave it a similar inspection. "All
right, good enough. Let's go in." She led the way in, followed by Sarah.
Tsue brought up the rear, grouching to himself about having to retread
the Welcome mat.

For the second time that day, they all crowded into the van's cab. Tsue
barely had time to close the door before he was pressing Alita. "So,
what's on your mind? I think I'm really starting to like this detective
work."

Alita let out a theatrical sigh. "Darn, I can't remember..." They
laughed. Then Alita's manner became completely serious. "OK, I'll tell
you what I know, but you can't ask me how I found out, all right?" Her
companions nodded, and Alita launched into her tale. "This afternoon, I
did some checking up on the terrorism that's been going on...and I found
some very interesting things. For starters, there were essentially no
incidents before two years ago, when the rains were so heavy."

"So what?" Tsue butted in. "It could just mean that the ME didn't think
that this town was worth paying attention to."

"Possibly," Alita replied, "and that's what I thought at first. But
listen to these incidents." She tapped a few commands onto the small
computer that Tsue had mounted onto the dashboard. "The first incident
is in that year, just before a local festival of some sort. There's a
bomb threat, and in a one-day state of emergency groups are kept from
forming. People can't celebrate, but they are allowed to go to work
under strict supervision. The next incident is a few months later,
during the harvest. A number of people are left temporarily jobless
after someone monkeys around with the machinery in one of the mining
operations. Naturally, they go to work in the fields to get some food on
the table."

Alita started to skip through the records, and Sarah moved up behind
her. "After that, things start to pick up. One act of terrorism occurs
every few months. No injuries, perhaps some slight damage...but, if
something does go wrong, it's always with civilian enterprises. Grain
shipments and mineral processing aren't even touched."

"...but, if any terrorist wanted to hamper the war effort, that's what
they'd go after immediately," Sarah added. "Something's not right,
though. There was that fire right during planting season. That would be
a pretty serious blow, wouldn't it?"

"Uh-huh," replied Alita. "So I double-checked that one. There was an
addendum added to that report. A man by the name of Rhodes claimed that
he had seen government soldiers fleeing the site of the arson. Guess
what?"

"What?" Sarah felt a knot forming in her stomach.

"A few days later they found his body floating in one of the ponds in
the desal plant. The report said that there were signs of a struggle,
which implied that he was trying to prevent more sabotage. But if it's
pure coincidence that he died so quickly, I'm a Martian rollerskater."

"Jee-zus Christ," Tsue muttered. "You're saying that the government's
been terrorizing the people to keep them in slavery?"

"Not just that. Hang on one second..." Alita typed a few commands into
the keyboard, and a moment later a picture, under the heading of
"Ricardo Rhodes", appeared. The photo was a candid of a man sitting at a
series of computer terminals. He was short and skinny, with a balding
head of white hair. He was dressed in a white dress shirt and khaki
pants, and was pretending not to notice that his photo was being taken.
But it was the person behind him, smiling into the camera, that captured
everyone's attention. The resemblance between the two made it obvious
that they were father and daughter. She appeared to be the
quintessential tomboy, complete with short hair and dressed in jeans and
a t-shirt.

"That's her!" Sarah gasped.

"Exactly," Alita replied, " the girl who's been hanging around. Now,
keeping that in mind...two and one-half weeks after he died, there was a
gas leak in the Army barracks that almost blew up the officer's
quarters. Then comes a near-fatal accident at one of the mines...and so
on, alternating civilian and military targets at the rate of one or so
every two weeks."

Sarah moved back from the monitor and leaned up against the ladder. "So,
Yerba scares the people into working themselves to death...silences
Rhodes...his daughter tries to take revenge...and the people are caught
in the middle. In a kind of a sick way, that makes sense."

"Whoa," said Tsue. "I gotta hand it to you, that's some good
thinking...but is that the truth?"

Alita's reply was cut off as a series of knocks came from the door.
"Open up! This is the militia, we know you're in there!"

"Maybe we'll have a chance to ask him," Alita muttered.

As soon as they entered the granary, Sarah assessed the situation. The
overhead lighting consisted of exposed halogen lamps, hanging from the
ceiling overhead. They revealed an awesome amount of grain--corn, for as
far as she could see, stacked bushel upon bushel almost to the ceiling.
The sheer height of the stockpile made the scene all the more imposing.
Two rows of militia men formed parallel lines along each wall. Each was
at the ready with a submachine gun slung to his hip. They followed every
movement of the prisoners like condors watching field mice at the very
bottom of a canyon. The escorts behind them marched the trio towards a
single, massive wooden table. Behind it sat Major Yerba, his elbows
resting on the table, a very tired look on his face.

The prisoners were forced onto their knees in front of the desk. Tsue
made the mistake of resisting, until a boot in the abdomen splayed him
out, gasping for breath, across the floor. There was some snickering
from the assembled troops. Yerba waited for the noise to fade out before
he pushed back his chair and stood over the captives.

"Ladies and gentleman...I speak for everyone here this evening when I
say that we would like this matter resolved as quickly and completely as
possible. Now, then. I am sure you are all aware of the terrorism that
has plagued our town." The three nodded silently. "What I would like to
know from the three of you...is exactly what role you are playing, or
have played, in the ME activities in this town."

He paused to let them speak. Alita quickly replied, "None whatsoever."
She surreptitiously nudged Sarah, who said nothing.

Yerba smiled. "None whatsoever," he echoed. There was nervous laughter
from all parts of the room. He began to pace, as though summing up his
arguments before a jury. "You say 'none whatsoever'...and yet, this
evening, my men confiscated exactly 12 AK-47 assault rifles, 10 M-16
rifles, each with two clips; plus 37 hand grenades, four Colt .45
pistols, two knives, and some kind of giant Swiss army knife.

"I concede, that evidence may be circumstantial; perhaps you were simply
afraid of the dark." There was more laughter from the troops. "However,
in addition, we have a signed confession, by a Miss Anna Rhodes., to the
effect that you were in this town for the purpose of aiding and abetting
assorted ME operatives and recruits within this town. This, ladies and
gentleman, is a very serious accusation indeed."

"It's a lie!" Alita sputtered. She tried to struggle to her feet. Behind
her, one of the guards butted her knee with a rifle; surprised, she
staggered to her knees and fell, prone, to the floor. Sarah kept very
still, trying desperately not to be noticed.

Yerba chuckled at the sight of Alita on the floor. "If you behave, you
_might_ have an opportunity to speak at the end. But that is some time
coming." He returned to his chair and called over his shoulder, "Please
bring in the witness."

Sarah shifted her gaze towards her left as the figure was brought into
the room. Two soldiers were leading in the boy that the girl had been
talking to earlier in the day. It was the most likely person, at any
rate, though the prima facie evidence was slim. The boy's face was a
solid bruise. His eyes were shut to avoid the pain of keeping them open.
He was oblivious to the blood and snot on his face, and didn't make the
effort to wipe the saliva dribbling from the edge of his mouth. His
uniform covered the damage to his body, but subtle things--the way one
leg dragged heavily behind him, the irregular shape of his
fingers--showed that the torture had been ubiquitous. Sarah winced out
of empathy, then looked away from him.

"Ramon da Silva," said Yerba, "do you know these people?"

Ramon said nothing. He merely stared blankly, unable to make any sense
of the scene around him. One of the men who supported him prodded him in
the ribs with his gun. Ramon winced. The pain jogged half-remembered
lessons in his mind. "Yeah...yeah..." he whispered. His companion
prodded him again, harder. "Yes, goddamit, I do," he snarled.

"That's good, Ramon." Yerba was smiling broadly. "And where do you know
them from?"

"I...I know her...she talked to me...wanted to know about the Army..."
His head lolled forward, then gently rolled back onto his shoulders.

"Fine, fine, that's good enough. Thank you." The two soldiers let their
burden fall. Ramon didn't move from the ground where he lay. "Pity, he
would have been more forthcoming if his girlfriend hadn't become..."

"Stop it!" cried Alita. She was struggling to pull herself off of the
ground where she had been lying. "You can't torture people, even if he
did break the law! Get him to a hospital!"

"My, we're quite the humanitarian all of a sudden, aren't we?" Yerba
laughed out loud. "Miss, I don't think you should..."

"Shut up." Alita pulled herself to her feet and stared fiercely at her
captor. "Under article 243.4 Paragraph 3 of the Declaration of the New
Epoch, 'torture' is expressly forbidden, whether for punishment or for
obtaining information. Furthermore, under article 243.1 Paragraph 1, we
are guaranteed trial by jury with legal representation. This court is a
farce."

Tsue was staring blankly at the young woman. Just in time to keep him
from saying something stupid, Sarah motioned for him to be quiet. A
moment later he felt her hand on his handcuffs, and heard a scraping
sound as a pick slid into the lock.

Everyone else in the courtroom was dumbstruck by the sight of the
cyborg--short, dark, and a woman, no less--citing legal code to the face
of their leader. For his part, Yerba was only aware of a growing fury
deep within his spirit. "Listen, Miss..."

"Ido. Ido Alita." She held up her right hand. Of its own accord, it
sprouted two wires from the tips of her second and third fingers. They
extended upwards, interweaving to form a perfect letter E over her hand.
"Agent, metropolis of Tiphares. You are hereby ordered to report to
Command Central in the metropolis of Buenavista to undergo court-martial
proceedings on charges of treason. Please be prompt, you are being
monitored." The wires sunk back into her hand.

--Anything you want to add to that, A1?--

--Negative, Control.--

Yerba stood behind his desk for the length of a few heartbeats. His suit
was as neatly pressed as it had ever been, his hat was aligned perfectly
on his head. His face, shaved clean to the skin, was frozen in a look of
utter dismay, like a lone birch tree in a meadow, its white bark and
green leaves seeming to leak from a crack in the blue sky above.

Before he could recover his anger, a sound like rolling thunder rocked
the building. "An explosion!" someone cried. The surreal order of the
room was instantly thrown into chaos. The assembled company broke their
ranks and rushed headlong for the door.

"Wh-what's going on?" stammered Yerba.

"Don't know." Sarah stood up and marched over to an abandoned
Kalashnikov rifle and bayonet. "But I wouldn't be too surprised if some
of Anna's friends just blew up some--SHIT!"

>From the doorway came the sounds of men screaming, followed headlong by
the barking of machine gun fire. The soldiers who had been stampeding to
evacuate the building were now in retreat, firing shots from the cover
of their fallen comrades. Ricocheting bullets could be heard from
outside, mixed with occasional volleys that succeeded in coming through
the doorway.

When the firing had started, Tsue had bolted for the pile of confiscated
weapons that lay on the ground to one side of the room. Now, with an
M-16 and Alita's blade, he stood with his back to the granary wall,
eyeing the doorway desperately. "Guys, what's going on?"

"They're laying covering fire!" Alita yelled. She jerked her weapon away
from Tsue and pressed an Uzi into his hand to compensate. "Get against
the wall and wait for me! Sarah, get over here!"

"Right!" Sarah started to back away from the doorway, keeping her rifle
leveled; and it was fortunate that she backed out of Alita's line of
vision, for it was Alita who first saw the grenade. She had been
expecting an explosive device, perhaps a rocket or a bomb; its presence,
however, took away none of the horror that the incident was actually
happening. She ran. As she followed its trajectory, she changed her
course to intercept it, but deviated from her path when she ascertained
that she would hit something. Then she realized what it was.

Ramon.

At 100 kilometers per hour, Alita tossed her blade directly upwards. It
left her hand, and she jumped into a double forward flip. At the apex of
her flip, her path crossed the grenade's. She caught it on the laces of
her shoes, cradling it for a fraction of a second as she hovered,
spinning, over the floor. With a flick of her feet she sent it flying
into the corn, far from harm's way.

She landed and rolled into a crouch. Ramon was less than three meters
away from where she was. Oblivious to the bullets around her, she
scooped him up in her arms; and, waddling at a superhuman speed under
the uneven weight of her burden and slowing slightly to catch her own
blade, she returned in less than 1/2 of a second. Even in the heat of
combat, Tsue found time to let out a low whistle.

"Save it. Hold this." Alita thrust Ramon into Tsue's arms. With a swish
she had extended her blade. "Sarah, cover me." She turned her full
attention to the stone wall of the granary. Alita swung her blade. It
cleaved a neat line through the wall. "Hang on, I'm cutting us out of
here."

"Hurry." Sarah dropped to one knee and aimed the rifle towards the
doorway. The militia was being picked apart, and she thought she could
see rifle barrels at the very edge of the doorway. She fired a couple of
warning shots. In the back of her mind she noted an explosion. "The
grenade must have gone off..." she thought.

"Sarah!" Tsue yelled, shooting off a volley of fire. Sarah jerked her
attention away from the door to see Yerba, running straight at them,
firing a pistol. She whipped her own weapon around and fired back. One
bullet struck his shooting arm and another struck his left leg: he
dropped his gun and tumbled to the floor, cursing, and lurched forwards
to reclaim it.

Sarah tasted madness. Breaking from the group and ignoring any soldiers
who might still be alive, she ran at Yerba. She squeezed the trigger
once, and even as she did so she felt the bullet misfire. She cursed her
luck and raised the butt of her rifle.

Yerba saw the blow coming, and raised his arm to protect himself. The
rifle slammed into his fist, shattering his fingers and dashing the
pistol from him. He looked up at his antagonist. He felt the power in
her spirit, and he felt his own sudden powerlessness measured up against
it. He wanted to say that it was wrong, that people should have an
infinite capacity for forgiveness, that everything he had done wrong in
his life really didn't matter, that he'd be a good person if he got
another chance. He only knew pain, now, for the first time in his life.
He wanted to get better, to recover from it. He knew that he'd do
better.

Sarah slit his throat, without feeling an ounce of joy or reverence for
the matter. She was vaguely aware of excited shouting coming from the
doorway and a smell of smoke coming from somewhere in the warehouse: the
corn had caught fire. She left her victim where he was on the floor and
ran back to the group. In her absence Alita had carved a hole in the
stone of the building, and Tsue was dragging Ramon through the hole.

"OK, let's go!" Sarah yelled as she followed Tsue into the ersatz
doorway. As she backed in, she realized that Alita was frozen in place,
standing almost at attention by the hole she had carved.

"C'mon!" cried Sarah. "The corn's on fire, it might collapse! Alita?!?"
Alita still didn't move. She was staring blankly at Yerba's body, lying
on its side in a slowly-spreading puddle of blood. Her whole body was
trembling, and her eyes were becoming moist. Impatiently, Sarah grabbed
the girl and thrust her through the hole. She followed behind her; but
she was stopped by a very peculiar sound from the inside of the room.

She had heard the explosions right after the grenade had detonated and
mistook it for gunfire from the rear of the granary. Now, as the fire
spread outwards, she realized her error. The corn husks, dried for so
much time in the building, had become a perfect source of fuel for a
fire, but the corn itself was not so easily burned. The last thing Sarah
saw as she pulled herself out was a wall of white popcorn, covering the
scene of battle like a tsunami, like an avalanche of snow.

--

Esmeralda closed the door to her house and stood on the doorstep in the
brown of the very early morning. "I don't think he's going to make it
much longer. The doctor's in there right now...but he says your friend
is bleeding inside his body. He's in God's hands until we get them both
to the hospital."

Sarah sighed heavily. "Well, at least we're giving him a nice warm room
to be in." She embraced Esmeralda, then backed away as Alita took her
turn. Sarah pulled out a small bag from her pants pocket. "Here...this
should pay for the truck ride and the doctor's bills."

"Th-thank you."

Tsue leaned out from the window of the truck. "Hey, listen...if you need
anything, and we're in the neighborhood, look us up, OK?"

"I will," Esmeralda smiled, and waved to him. He waved back.

Alita was standing aside, somewhat awkwardly, watching the two women.
Her hands were behind her back. She was calm but tense, as though
waiting in line to jump off the edge of the world. Sarah walked to her
side. "We should be going, we've got a lot of ground to cover."

"Yeah." Alita waved a last goodbye to Esmeralda. "Take care, you'll be
all right."

Tsue started the motor, and the two women joined him in the cab. The
shadows of the city rushed by them, offering a token resistance against
the approaching daylight. By the time they had crested the city limits,
the sun was at the very edge of the horizon, beckoning the world to
life.

"So, where are we headed?" Tsue asked Alita.

She shrugged. "I guess I should be making my way to Buenavista...now
that my cover's blown, I guess I'll be a bit of a drag on you two."

Tsue laughed. "Think again. I don't have anything left to smuggle, and
I've just made a nice little profit on two days of hard work. You're
good luck for us." He reached over towards the glove compartment and
drew out a stack of maps. "Buenavista it is, then! Somewhere...I
guess..."

Sarah picked out a map and unfolded it for Tsue. "Just keep your eyes on
the road. We'll be up top if you need us." The two women climbed up on
top of the van. The farmland was just beginning to fade into grass, and
the desert could be seen a few kilometers ahead. Sarah pulled Alita to
her side and whispered into her ear, "It's all right now. You don't have
to be brave any longer."

"Huh?"

"You've been trying to hold back your tears all night. I can see it in
the corners of your mouth, and by the way your eyes lose focus." She
looked into Alita's face with pure compassion. "You remember now, don't
you?"

Alita slumped against Sarah and burst out crying. She sobbed for more
than a quarter of an hour, and it felt good, it was good to work all the
little pains right out of her spirit, and feel them trickle down her
face onto the ground. As the familiar sand dunes played around her, she
stammered out her story:

"There was a man...he wasn't the most handsome guy I've ever seen...and
he couldn't even really read...but he had more spirit than just about
anyone. And he knew how to live life. I admired him. I-I fell in love
with him.

"Since I was a secret agent, I wasn't supposed to be having a
relationship...but my communications link was down, I had to have it
repaired anyway...so I said to him, 'Why don't you come along, maybe I
can buy my body from them and then we can be together.' He said OK, so
we tried to get to a metropolis.

"We came over the mountains without any problems. Then when we got into
the desert, we ran into a sand storm. Within a day and a half we were
stuck.

"That day...it was high noon...my body began to overheat. I said,
'Figure, my brain's going to die, and you're going to starve.' He said,
'Don't worry, you'll be all right.' Sometime that day I blacked out.

"I dreamed that I was in a cool, dark cellar in some building somewhere.
All at once the sprinkler system went off, and there was water pouring
all over my body. It was warm water, but it felt so good, I was drinking
it and rinsing my body and laughing with joy. Then, in my dream, the
pipe broke, and it fell on top of me. I woke up."

Alita looked up at Sarah, her eyes open very wide. She forced herself to
say, "It was his body. He'd slashed his throat open and bled on me,
trying to cool me down." She broke down into tears again.

Sarah rocked her gently, pressing her to her one breast. The other was
prosthesis. Sarah remembered the sensation of a child at her breast, and
what a beautiful thing it was to have someone to care for. As Alita
began to calm down again, Sarah asked, "So what was the pellet gun?"

"The what?"

"When we first found you, you started to scream something. You were
delerious, and it wasn't quite intelligible, we thought you were saying
'pellet gun'."

Alita sat up and mouthed the syllables, "pellet gun", two times. Then
she remembered, and she let out another sob. "No, no...it's not 'pellet
gun', it's 'pelican'."

"What? You mean, the bird pelican?"

"Yes. That was my dream later that night. I was with my father, and my
uncle, and we were sitting in the family room of my old home. We were
reading together out of a very old picture book that he had found
somewhere. There was a picture of a bird over a nest of baby birds, on a
rock in the ocean. She had her wings spread outwards, and was pecking at
her own chest. My father read the caption: 'Such is the love of the
mother pelican that she will peck out her own heart to feed her brood'."

--

Copyright 1996 Daniel Snyder. Permission granted to distribute in any
digital/binary/e-mail form; however, any physical printing is
prohibited. Based on characters created by Yukito Kishiro in Gunnm and
Katsuhiro Otomo and Takumi Nagayasu in Legend of Mother Sarah.
Translations by Fred Burke, Toshifumi Yoshida, Sterling Bell, Matt
Thorn, Dana Lewis and Toren Smith. Any resemblance to persons living or
deceased is purely coincidental. Thanks to Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard
Ensemble--David James, Rogers Corey-Crump, John Potter and Gordon
Jones--whose album "Officium" inspired the opening scene of this story.


Author's note--please send ALL comments to snydder@ocf.berkeley.edu
Please feel free to visit "Seraphim of the Scrapyard":

http://death.berkeley.edu/~snydder/seraph.html

for more writing about and for the worlds of Yukito Kishiro.

|~|  |  | /~     ||Daniel|http://death.|
|_| O| O| _/ O U ||Snyder|berkeley.edu/|
|snydder@ocf.berkeley.edu|~snydder/|~~~
"Is that the voltmeter talking?"
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}
</script-->
<style>
    .adCenterClass{margin:0 auto}
</style>
<div id="tb_ad" class="adCenterClass" style="display:block!important; overflow:hidden; width:916px;">

<div id="ad_container" style="display:block!important; float:left; width:728px ">
<script type="text/javascript">
if (typeof lycos_ad !== "undefined" && "leaderboard" in lycos_ad) {
  document.write(lycos_ad['leaderboard']);
}
</script>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
if (typeof lycos_ad !== "undefined" && "slider" in lycos_ad) {
  document.write(lycos_ad['slider']);
}
</script> <!-- added 7/22 -->
<div id="FooterAd" style="background:#DFDCCF; border-top:1px solid #393939; clear:both; display:none; width:100%!important; position:relative; z-index:999999!important; height:90px!important"> 
<div class="adCenterClass" style="display:block!important; overflow:hidden; width:916px;">
<div id="footerAd_container" style="display:block!important; float:left; width:728px">
<iframe id="lycosFooterAdiFrame" style="border:0; display:block; float:left; height:96px; overflow:hidden; padding:0; width:750px"></iframe>
</div>
</div>
</div>