Nobody else seems to be the least bit reluctant to post their Dirty Pair stories, and I don't see why I should be the one to spoil the fun. I haven't been nearly as verbose as some of the other posters, though, so nobody is likely to overflow their memory allocations over this. Moreover, I have waited until I am done writing to being posting! Those of you who don't care may as well hit 'n' now! The events of this story take place in conjunction with and just after the events of the flashbacks in 'Dirty Pair II', and assumes that the reader is familiar with the story. I prefer the animated Dirty Pair to their American comic book incarnation, but to tell this story it is necessary to follow the Studio Proteus version. The title is intentionally reminiscent of Dirty Pair II: 'Dangerous Acquaintances'.) A friend of mine noticed while proofreading that the name of a character was the same as that of the author. Yes. Some months back I began thinking up a personna for science fiction conventions, and found that I had a story to tell about him--so I've written it. Several things are also drawn from Larry Mann's definitive Deirdre & Shasti story 'Experiment 101-E', but it is not a sequel. The original Dirty Pair books and movies display an easy disregard for continuity in the pursuit of good entertainment; I have followed their example and put the story ahead of religiously following the precedent of earlier fiction. For those who haven't read the comic, a brief synopsis (which doesn't do justice to the story): When the Lovely Angels' very first mission ended badly they were teamed up with a pair of more experienced Trouble Consultants, Deirdre and Shasti, in the hope that they would learn to solve problems quickly, cleanly, and precisely. Their assignment was to locate and neutralize a sociopathic criminal named LaCombe who had obtained an experimental piece of software that would allow starships to be taken over at will and operated against the crew's wishes. Their chances were excellent-- not only were four Trouble Consultants on the case, but Shasti was a state of the art bioroid, made by the WWWA to be better than human at investigation and combat, the "perfect Trouble Consultant". It almost worked. In an experiment, Shasti had been given an internal computer simulation of LaCombe's personality to allow her to better predict his actions; nobody stopped to consider if Trouble Consultants SHOULD be thinking like psychopaths. Shasti resigned from the WWWA by shooting her partner and the Lovely Angels, and escaping in the criminals' spacecraft. DANGEROUS ALLIANCES Nogurosu, 22 Aug 2139: Shikokuyama Hospital "You can't go in there, sir!" "Watch me." "Visiting hours are noon to twenty-one hundred for family, eighteen hundred for others. You'll have to come back later!" "No." "Look, you--" *Thump!* The door shook. "What are visiting hours for people who carry grenades?" "Go right in, sir." The door opened and a man entered, to be framed in the sights of Kei's blaster. He stopped. "Relax. I'm on your side." He actually smiled. "Who the hell are you?", demanded Kei. "My name is Scott. Trouble Consultant 184S." He unclipped a badge from his suit and tossed it onto the bed; Kei looked down at the WWWA ID card in her lap. "I see I've found the Lovely Angels. Only a rookie would have looked down," he explained. Kei growled. "Are you here to debrief us?", asked Yuri. "No. Director Ayoob is coming to do that, but I've read your report. I'm here because I want your help." "Us? With what?" "Finding Shasti." "That bitch!", exclaimed Kei. "I'll kill her!" "If necessary." "Uh... We didn't exactly do so well last time," Yuri pointed out. "Yes, but you survived," he said, cutting off further objection. "She also had the advantage of total strategic surprise. We don't need to fight her. We only need to find her, and stop her." "How do we bring her in without a fight?", asked Kei. "She's sure not going to come along if we ask." "With luck, a tranquilizer dart or sleep gas grenade will do it. If not, well, that's what a bazooka is for." Kei's face lit up. Yuri moaned; in training Kei had liked the bazooka way too much... "Yeah, that'll do it! Let's see her laugh that off, the crazy little..." "Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves? I mean, we don't even know where Shasti is, right?" "More or less. LaCombe's shuttle was a Triton 4403 Nimbus, which doesn't have a warp drive. There's nothing in space which she can't get planetside, and spacecraft are easy to find." Apparently Scott liked to lecture. "Remember your Escape and Evasion lessons; you can hide best on an inhabited planet. Shasti probably came in ballistically over one of the poles, flew nap-of-the-earth to an inhabited area, and abandoned the shuttle before reaching controlled airspace." Yuri remembered dozing through this in E&E class; Kei had already tuned out, laying on the bed fondling her blaster and probably dreaming psychotic fantasies. This could go on a while, so... "What if she isn't going by the book?", she asked. "She was pretty crazy when she shot us, you know; she could be doing anything right now." "Your right." He sighed. "I worry that while I'm telling half the planet to look out for her, she's flying around in circles somewhere making fingerpaints out of her food. If she is, we'll soon catch her; that's all the comfort we can get from that." "'Fingerpaints'?", asked Kei, sure she had missed something. "Or whatever. The personality implant may have unbalanced her completely, but I'm assuming the worst--that she has all of her old skills and is running LaCombe's thought patterns." "That's pretty bad, all right. We can't quit now, right, Kei? We're still going to be in the hospital a few days, though." "I know." Scott had carried two flat objects under his left arm; he brought these out and handed a black plastic unit to Yuri. Offhandedly he have Kei the other, a box of chocolate candies. "I've brought you a mini terminal to keep you busy. All the information I've gathered to date is there, along with comm numbers that you will need. Your personnel file said you did well with computers, Yuri, so that's your job. I will be busy doing legwork." "Just a keyboard? That's odd," Yuri commented, examining the terminal. "Not really. You two had interface sockets when you joined, but I'm covered by Directive 108. Eh?" He paused, and cocked his head at the door. "That noise will be hospital security coming to throw me out. It took them long enough. I'll be in touch." "Hey, what about me? Don't I get anything to do?" "At the moment, get well. Help your partner as much as you can. And give me a call immediately if either of you gets an ESP flash." He left. "Uh, er, right," Kei told the door. "Gee. I hadn't thought of that old trick in ages. I guess he really did read our files. Hey, Yuri, what was that bit about Directive One-oh-eight, anyway?" "Part of the rules for TCs, I guess. You could look it up." "Okay. Give me the manual." Yuri threw the book at her. "Geez, watch it." Yuri grunted, poking at the terminal. "He wasn't kidding about giving us *all* the data; there's gigs of stuff here..." Kei grunted back. "Here it--ack!" "What?" "Listen to this: 'Due to the possible adverse effects from neurological modification, many kinds of cybernetic implants are forbidden to psionic personnel...'" "'Psionic'?! HE's a psi?" "You want to read it yourself?" "I wonder what powers he has." "I wonder if he could get a personality instead," Kei grumped. *breep* *breep* *breep* *bree--!* "Smith Ward, Boardman here. What can I do for you?" "I'm calling to check on Deirdre." "'Deirdre', sir?" "The 3WA Trouble Consultant in room K-12." "Oh, yes. There's no change; she's still on full support and regen, minimal responsiveness." On the screen, the human half of Director Ayoob's face twitched, but he said nothing. "I wouldn't get too hopeful, sir," the nurse said to fill the silence. "She was dead a long time before the medics got to her, and CNS degradation--" "I know!", he snapped. "Thank you." The screen blanked. Nurse Boardman shrugged, hung up, and went back to reading the newspaper. "Damn." In the comm booth 'Director Ayoob' reached for his collarbone and his image flared rainbows as the hologram generators shut down. Scott drew the hood back from the now black bodysuit, wishing there was more he could do. Nogurosu, 23 Aug 2139: Shikokuyama Hospital At Shikokuyama Hospital Yuri sat in bed with a terminal on her legs as she had for hours, forcing her mind through the screen into the computers in search of clues. Even a small planetary population generates vast amounts of data every day, and there are hundreds of mainframes in a network. Finding a useful piece of information was hard. Recognizing it as significant could be impossible. But sometimes you get lucky. "Hmm..." Maybe, just maybe. "Take a look at this, Kei. Kei?" "Skzzk..." "Fine, be asleep." Yuri checked the clock--quarter after twelve. She couldn't get too mad at Kei for being asleep after midnight. Knowing the hour made her tired as well. One more thing done, she decided, and she could rest. Yuri transferred to another system and typed out a quick message. She snapped closed the terminal, lay down, and fell asleep. All too soon someone was telling her to wake up. "G'way, Kei; s'too early," she mumbled, even while realizing that Kei's voice wasn't this deep. Reluctantly other parts of her brain came on line. She knew who must be sitting on the bed before looking. "Oh, good morning, Scott." Yuri sat up and rubbed her eyes, then corrected her posture after reconsidering leaning way over in front of him in a small top. She yawned. Halfway through a stretch she stopped. "'Scuse me," she gasped, and bolted for the bathroom. A minute later Yuri was out of the bathroom, a bit more awake and much more modestly dressed. "C'mon, Yuri, tell us what you found," demanded Kei, bouncing up and down on the bed. "Why did you want Scott here?" "Calm down; I just went to get dressed." She looked at Scott. "It isn't the medication, you know; Kei is always like this." Kei blew a raspberry at her. Yuri made a face back. "Nyyr!" "Ladies?", Scott begged, against all evidence. "Right! I asked you to come over because I found something that may be related to Shasti's activities here on Nogurosu." Everyone sends signals with their words, tone, and body language; this was Yuri's I-am-not-a-crazy-bimbo mode. "I was searching through databases last night and found this in the police files: Samantha Darwin has been missing since yesterday morning. No clues so far." Yuri handed Scott the terminal, its screen showing a picture of the missing woman. Samantha Darwin is blond, attractive, well dressed, and appears cheerful and friendly if not very bright. "You think Shasti is involved." "What was your first clue?" "Hush, Kei. Look at her vital statistics, on the next page--she's almost exactly Shasti's size!" "Of course. Shasti could have laid in funds, but she didn't have clothes. A Trouble Consultant's uniform is too conspicuous. Good work, Yuri." "Thanks. The police had a list of what she was wearing when last seen. She probably had some money on her, too." "Probably." He looked out the window a few moments. "Did this woman have a vehicle?" "Yes, an aircar. It's missing too." "Damn. This means that Shasti could be nearly anywhere, and that we will probably not find Samantha Darwin's body." "You think she's dead?", Kei asked. "Yes. Shasti would be working with only what she could carry away from LaCombe's shuttle. She needed camouflage and mobility; this woman's clothes and car provided that. Money is always helpful, of course. Shasti could take what she needed and leave Miss Darwin alive, but in her current state, do you think she would leave a witness behind?" "Actually, it's *Mrs.* Darwin," said Yuri. "Her husband's been bugging the police a lot." "Mm. I will have to talk to him. I'm not looking forward to that." "Let us," Kei said. "We're supposed to get out of here today." "Or tomorrow," Yuri amended. "Aw, they don't need us in here. We'll be out by this afternoon!" "Let's hope so. Shasti won't waste any time getting off-planet if she knows she's being pursued, and I have to assume she does. She could discover the increased alertness level I've incited in the local police agencies, and if she knows that you two are still alive she knows that the WWWA will be taking the obvious actions." "Director Ayoob already got to the media," Yuri told him. "They aren't going to say anything." "Good. That takes care of the obvious leak. Given her abilities it would be a trivial matter to arrange an alternate entry into the WWWA computer systems beforehand, but she's less likely to be able to crack in from the outside. "Either way, she does not know that *I* am here. I was in the area on other business, and when I found out what had happened I took the precaution of getting to work on the case without waiting for orders." "So the computer doesn't know you're here! Yeah!" "Isn't that against the rules?", Yuri asked. "Yes. It is." "Oh." Shasti drove over the forest, her face expressionless except for constantly shifting eyes. Her long hair was in tangles from the wind. She hadn't bathed in three days. She knew these things, in the sense that she could answer correctly if asked about them, but they were irrelevant to her. Only her social personality cared about such things, and it was not functioning. In fact, very little was functioning properly. Internal diagnostics, overworked, reported multiple systemwide failures contributing to ongoing fragmentation of the system. The Investigator routines concurred. Fault diagnostics kept returning 'nontraceable software conflict' and 'unknown fatal error'. Warrior routines were functioning unhindered; the meta-controller kept trying to default to that operational protocol. Threat-assessment algorithms noted the total lack of dangerous situations or personnel, and handed off control to Meta for more appropriate handling. Consulting the Investigator again on fault management, it was noted for the 873rd time that the fragmentation process had not reached disastrous proportions until the termination of Deirdre (WWWA TC 101-D, see data files), but was unable to offer any repair advice. The Warrior aspect noted 99.86% probability of termination in that instance, and saw no significance in the action. Ten humans had died in that engagement, seven of them killed by Shasti, three of those were Trouble Consultants. None of them inflicted injury before their death, and none were left to give pursuit. What was the importance? The LaCombe program concurred; yeah, the girl was dead--so what? Investigator theorized an emotional breakdown. Error trapping algorithms caught this as an invalid diagnostic result. Twelve percent of the processor went into an oscillating loop before being cut out and wiped. Covert Activities routines were brought on line, more because they were functioning than because they were appropriate to the moment. The tactical and strategic situations were analyzed, extrapolations made, and the judgement rendered that all was occurring as it should. Covert Activities shut down. In desperation Meta invoked the Social program. Oh wow I did it at last I'm away I'm free no more 3WA no more experiments no more no more *Deirdre* I didn't I did oh God no I couldn't Deirdre my only friend Deirdre DEI--#Error# #Error# #ErrErrErrErEEEEE&!^///- Shasti woke up, saw that she was in an aircar parked in a large clearing. "Oh, God, that was a bad one," she said, feeling her aching head. The car was down and stopped; the driving software must have lasted long enough to set down safely. These system crashes were hell. The only good thing about this was the period of integration after everything fell apart. Where was she going when she fell apart? She was going to obtain a way off the planet, but there was something more. There was something important that she couldn't remember--no, shouldn't remember. What had happened that-- The Covert Activities programs seized control. The entire police force of the planet was alerted to her presence and would be hunting her. Shasti was in motion before any conscious decisions were necessary. She checked her surroundings even as she was bringing the car into the air. If she was being hunted she would have to move quickly. This was something she could handle. Nogurosu, 1042 Local time, 23 Aug 2139: Shikokuyama Hospital "Tomorrow?!", Kei yelled. "Or the next day," replied the doctor. "We need to run a few more tests and --" "@!$& that! There's a killer psycho out there and you want us to sit around on our asses waiting for you jerkoffs?" "Yes, and you will, too. I've posted orderlies on the floor who will keep you here if they have to sit on you!" It was the Lovely Angels' hospital room, so the doctor got the privilege of storming out. "Bastard!" Kei threw her pillow. "They aren't keeping us here because they like your personality," Yuri observed. "What do you care?", raved Kei. "What are you doing about it? Shasti's on the loose killing people and we're shut up in this rat cage!" "Are you done screaming?" "Maybe. Why?" "The police found LaCombe's shuttle." "When? Why didn't you tell me?" Yuri shrugged. "That was when you were complaining about breakfast," she explained. Innocently she continued, "I've heard you gripe before; I didn't have to listen. It's probably your rough personality, you know--" "Forget my personality! What about the shuttle?" "Some hikers found it last night and called it in to the police. Shasti landed it in some woods and covered it with branches, but these guys stumbled onto it. "Anyway, it's mostly intact and their forensics people are going over it. The report didn't say if they found any weapons, but they did find LaCombe's body." "Ha! Now we're getting somewhere." "Yeah. They could have been working together. Now we know it's three to one." Shasti had been facing three other Trouble Consultants on the freighter, too... "I hope Scott knows what he's doing." "Why worry about him? He's done this stuff before. He'll be okay." "Maybe. I'm afraid he may be getting kind of crazy." "Who, him?" "Yeah. You'd better take a look at something." Yuri took the terminal off her nightstand and started accessing data. "Remember all that background data he gave me? Well, he must have just dumped everything in his computer related to Shasti or Deirdre, because there's a lot more here than we need. He didn't think to edit out what we didn't need to know..." Yuri handed the terminal to Kei. On the screen a bright picture glowed, Deirdre and Shasti posing with their arms around each others shoulders, Deirdre flashing the V-for-Victory sign. A caption proclaimed them 'Top Agents--January 2137'. Handwriting overlay the picture, a short message that said too much. 'Neat, huh, Scott?', it read. 'US, the team of the month! We had a gnarly party. Too bad you were away--hurry back, okay? Miss you, Lustpuppy. -D.' Oh, jeez...", Kei breathed. "Deirdre...and Scott...?" "Yeah. No wonder he wants Shasti's ass." "He never said a thing." "That's an intelligence specialist for you. He must be going nuts, Kei. I don't know if this is such a good idea. I mean, he can't--ack Hide it! He's here!" "Where?", Kei asked, looking around. They were alone, and the door to the room was closed. "At the window." She turned to see Scott wearing a battleframe over his Trouble Consultant uniform and dangling from a line outside the building. He gestured at them and said something; no sound penetrated the multiple panes. "What the hell?", Kei wondered. She looked at the opposite wall where he seemed to be pointing. There was nothing there. Scott repeated his attempts at communication, then mimed frustration. He reached into a pouch at his hip and produced a small disk which he slapped against the window. "Limpet mine!", Yuri screamed as she dove behind her bed. A moment later Kei piled on top of her. "Ough! Dammit, Kei!" "He's crazy!" "That makes two of you!" "Hey...why hasn't it gone--" * WHOOM!!! * Shards of plastic showered the room, but in the blast shadow of the bed the worst they suffered were ringing ears from the concussion. "He's crazy!", Kei repeated. Looking around the trashed hospital room she saw Scott lower himself back into view. There was a large empty space where the window had been. Crunching footsteps announced someone at the door. "What the flying fu-ugghkk!" The burly orderly's eyes glazed over and he toppled face-first onto the floor. Kei noted in passing that the door was gone, too. Scott holstered the small slender pistol that had appeared in his hand. "Tranquilizer dart," he explained. "You trashed our room," gaped Yuri. "Shasti's been sighted in the city. We're going after her." "But...the room..." "Worry about it later," he said. "Right now we're leaving." "You could have used the door," Yuri said as she climbed onto the battleframe. "I think I've worn out my welcome at the reception desk." "Hold it! I'm not ready!" Kei ran to the closet. Noticed she was still in her underwear, Yuri guessed. Kei came back, blaster in her hand. "Okay, let's go!" Jeff Ayoob, the WWWA's Deputy Director of Operations (Crime), was riding an elevator elsewhere in the building. He was not happy. It was bad enough that one of the WWWA's prize experiments had gone berserk, killing one Trouble Consultant and wounding two others, but now there was some intelligence spook nosing around and no one could or would tell him why. He didn't want to think about the Buxom Babes magazine fiasco. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. "Holy--!" A triangle of debris fanned out from...Kei and Yuri's room. Of course. First the nuke, and the whole Shasti business, and now this. "What the hell is that dirty pair of airheads doing this time?" The battleframe's winch didn't seem to mind the triple loading as Scott walked up the wall with the two women clinging to the battleframe. "Alright, already," Kei fumed. "So I forgot my clothes. Big deal." "Yes, and why are two pretty women like you fully dressed while I'm running around in silver underwear?" "Because you've got nice muscles," Kei told him. "Ahm. Right. Communicator on; computer, status report." "#There are seven uniformed humans on the roof,#" came the reply. "#No visible weapons. They have not yet noticed the grapple.#" "Damn." He stopped the climb. "I was afraid of that." "What's the problem?", Kei demanded. "You tranked the guy in our room." "You just can't go around shooting everybody you meet," Yuri told her. "Why not?", Kei asked. "No, Yuri is right. Let's try something else. Hang on, we're going down." He kicked away from the wall. At the peak of their swing he cut out the cable brake. They fell. "Aaaaeeeeiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!" As they plummeted past the sixth floor Scott applied some drag to the free feeding cable. The drag on his left arm sent both Lovely Angels into his waiting right arm and leg. It also sent them all towards the wall. Simultaneously he triggered the cable brake and the backpack thrusters, the deceleration made considerably worse by having more than his own weight in Trouble Consultants clinging to him. They landed in a heap on the sidewalk. "Whew! I never did that with two other people before!" "...oh god oh god oh god..." "We're alive?" "Ah, you can let go of me now." For small women they certainly had plenty of grip strength when they needed it, Scott noticed. Perhaps falling from a skyscraper had something to do with it. Incentive. "Computer! I'm going to need transportation!" "#There is a WWWA vehicle in the parking garage of this structure. Autopilot override engaged; ETA 32 seconds.#" "That's odd. Convenient, but odd." He thought of the adage about gift horses and shrugged. Scott had landed his ship upon the hospital roof-- thereby violating eighteen different local regulations, according to the computer--and had meant that it should come down and pick them up. He had not been looking forward to flying a starship through city traffic; a car would be nice. He disengaged the grapple and many meters of monomolecular cable whizzed back onto the spool. "Here's the car," said Kei. "Let's go! Yuri, you drive." Without waiting for the car to stop he leaped into the back seat of the convertible Director Ayoob wondered if he could get one of the staff to provide him with a mild pain reliever A stress induced headache was going to hit him any minute now, and he still didn't know where the Lovely Angels had gone, or why their room had exploded. At least they weren't dead; there were no bodies in the room. And who had drugged the orderly on the floor? "Yaaaghhhh!" He blinked his human eye. Three screaming people had just fallen past the hole in the wall. That couldn't be right... Carefully he edged over to the opening and looked down. There was a fireball and THEN they hit the sidewalk--it seemed backwards. He zoomed in with his cybernetic eye. Yes, they were still moving, and as he had thought two of them were the Lovely Angels. The man in the battleframe must be the Intel Trouble Consultant. Then he saw the one thing that would make his day complete. "Hey! That's my car!" Surprisingly, Scott thought, no one had come out to harass them. They were piling into a technically-not-quite-stolen car, outside a busy hospital, after falling out of the sky on a jet of flame, after blowing open a wall with explosives, after he had landed a starship on the roof. Okay, so maybe not too surprising. "Do you do this a lot?", Kei asked. "All the time," he lied. "I knew I'd like this job!" "Computer, give us a map display. Where's Shasti?" "#Working.#" The car's video screen lit with a map of the city. Graphic overlays flickered past. "#Extrapolation from earlier data suggests approximately three kilometers north-northeast of your position.#" "That's a start. This is the east lot, so--" "That way!", interrupted Kei, pointing. Yuri found an exit lane in the indicated direction. "Yes," Scott replied. "I was just saying that. Yuri, the truck!" Yuri blew the horn, scaring the oncoming truck aside. As they swept past they saw two cars approaching side by side, filling the road. "Look out!", Kei yelled. Using the horn again, Yuri moved to the center of the road. It seemed she actually sped up as they got closer. The other drivers had no taste for playing chicken; their cars zoomed past on either side with a meter to spare. "This is a one way street!", Yuri yelled. There was a smashing sound behind them. "So why did you come this way?", demanded Kei. "Because you pointed this way!" Yuri dodged another car. "Oh, sure, blame it on me!" "Turn right here," advised Scott. "Okay." Yuri spun the wheel hard over and their borrowed car slid sideways into the intersection, scattering traffic in all directions. Scott lost his grip on Kei's seat and fell halfway out of the car. He held on to the outside while Yuri slalomed through other vehicles, plunging across lanes to an appropriate opening in the traffic flow. As they gained distance from the suddenly chaotic intersection Yuri settled down to a saner driving style and Scott climbed back into the rear seats, noticing that he had badly twisted the headrest of Yuri's seat. She obviously only used the edge of it, anyway. They also survived the next ten minutes of Yuri's driving. "Where is she?", Kei sighed. "Be patient," advised Yuri. "We've only been looking for a few minutes." 'Remember that this is only the most probable area. If Shasti is doing even the most basic E&E we--" "There she is!", Yuri yelled, pointing. To their left a small blue vehicle was visible on another road, not fifty meters away. It was clearly Shasti at the wheel. Yuri threw them into a sharp U-turn; other cars flew past, franticly evading the WWWA vehicle. They crashed through a guard rail and careened down an embankment onto the avenue Shasti was following. Scott was thrown loose as they slammed into an unlucky bus and pitched into its side. Shrugging off shattered window glass he kicked the car away from the bus and jumped across the gap. Once safely back aboard he repeated a few favorite swear words. "Where's Shasti?", he asked. "About 200 meters ahead of us," Yuri told him. "She didn't notice that?" Amazing. "Go faster!" Kei was standing up, holding on the windshield and waving her blaster. "We're doing a hundred and ten now!" Between Yuri's aggressive driving style and the two standing people brandishing weapons their car was getting all the room it needed to outrun slower traffic. Shasti's car came into view ahead of them. "Eat this, bitch!" "Not yet!", Scott said, too late. Kei's blaster bolt blew through the passenger compartment, holing the windshield and missing Shasti's head by centimeters. The car was accelerating even as she looked back to see her attackers; a quick lane change and Kei's second shot went into another car's trunk. Shasti was half an hour's drive away from the spaceport when someone put a shot through her car. Warrior personality took over immediately. Heavy civilian plasma pulse hand weapon, it diagnosed. Other routines were already spinning the wheel left to evade, whipping her head around for a threat assessment, and increasing metabolic rates to combat ready levels. She was changing lanes while looking opposite the direction she was driving, but collisions right now didn't concern her. Half a second later she was facing forwards again, clipping a tail light off the car ahead of her, and analyzing her brief glimpse of her attackers. A battleframe. WWWA issue, model DBC-62, flight pack option and probable customizing. That was bad. It was worn by a brown haired Caucasian male; he looked like Scott (WWWA TC 184-S)--loyalty change, ID error, impersonation? No time to worry about it now. The person actively firing was a young red haired mixed race female, apparently Kei (WWWA TC 234-K), but she was dead. Shasti remembered killing her. The third and last pursuer was driving and not clearly visible, a light skinned female with long dark hair. No ID. A formidably armed trio, but manageable. Shasti saw no point in eliminating them; evasion seemed simpler. The car she had nicked took a blaster shot to the rear, a clean miss of its target. She floored the accelerator and started putting cars behind her. All but one. Her attackers were giving chase. Let them. Combat programs flooded her systems with adrenaline--a sufficient reflex booster for the maneuverability of this vehicle. It was nearing maximum speed now and Shasti drew on all the lateral thrust it could produce as she flew past other cars at triple the speed limit. She smiled; the challenge was making her software integrate under pressure. A useful datum. Checking the rear she saw that the others were still behind her. The driver was either very good or very reckless. They were unable to match her accuracy or reflex speed but had found a critical distance at which the slow responses of the drivers belatedly dodging her passage created an opening before collapsing into a tangle of confusion and crashed vehicles. A pulverized rear view mirror showered over the windshield. Traffic was thinning up ahead. That was bad; it meant less cover and less dodging for her pursuers. Fast maneuvering and their sheer speed was keeping them from firing but that wouldn't last. Time for a change of tactics. Disdaining off ramps she took a hard right through a guard wall and into the city streets. "Follow her!", screamed Kei. Yuri had no intention of doing otherwise and made her own exit from the highway. "She's headed for the beach!", Scott yelled over the wind. "What does she need there?" "Yuri! Look out for the moose!" They annihilated a fast food restaurant's plastic icon to bad taste at 200 kilometers an hour, spraying fragments a hundred meters down the road. "There goes the windshield!", Kei cursed. The much battered blue car careened through city traffic, only amazing luck or superb skill fending off disaster. A block over a convertible sporting the distinctive WWWA logo charged through with less success. Hundreds of innocent bystanders fled for cover; several dozen of them called the police. Occasional blaster shots at the first flew from the second, without hitting home. A respite of several block occurred when the WWWA vehicle briefly pulled ahead of the other. The blue car was speeding through and intersection when the convertible appeared around a blind corner. The hurtling WWWA car rammed broadside into the larger car; the joined vehicles hit the ground, pinwheeled twice, and slammed into a building. Something exploded, a fireball enveloping the building and throwing fragments of wreckage blocks away. Scott hovered with the battleframe's flight pack, a Lovely Angel on each arm, looking down at the flaming remains of two cars. "It worked!", Yuri gushed. "I thought of it, didn't I?" "I admit I wouldn't have done it," confessed Scott. "Yeah, but it worked, and we got her and oh God we didn't get her--look!" Down below, a rumpled dirty and very alive Shasti was coming out of the rubble beside the building. "Oh damn," chorused Scott and Yuri. "How? How?", Kei pleaded. "She's worse than the Terminator!" "Communicator on computer I need pickup now now now!" Scott invoked. "#Acknowledged; ETA 2 minutes.#" On the street Shasti took her bearings and moved out into the crowd. There was a small disturbance. Moments later she reappeared on a motorcycle, riding away from them. "After her," urged Yuri. "Already on it," Scott said as they swooped after the receding bike. Kei discharged a few ineffective plasma bolts at Shasti, to no effect but to make her weave and go faster. "Oh, real swift, Kei," Yuri remarked. "We'll really sneak up on her like this." "Aw, she knew we were here all along!" "Maybe, but you got her dodging!" "What do you expect with just a blaster? Hey, Scott, you've got the battleframe, how about using some of that firepower?" "I've had Angels in my face. Get out of the way." He raised an arm and Kei swiftly got away from the twin autopulser muzzles. A rain of superheated plasma tore past Shasti, leaving a strip of boiling pavement. Two more volleys were just as spectacularly useless. Mechanical clicking sounds above Yuri's head made her duck in time to avoid the unfolding missile launcher which dumped its ammo load into the street around Shasti. Huge gouts of flame smoke enveloped the area. They flew through the cloud in time to see Shasti disappear around a corner. "Oh, that was really great," Kei spat sarcastically. "I'm an Intel Consultant, all right? I catch people with a computer, not a gun!" "We've got company," said Yuri. "It's the cops!" In the sky a number of armed vehicles were converging on them. Visible on the noses was the emblem of the local police department. "I hope they're here to help us," Scott said. "YOU IN THE BATTLE ARMOR!", bellowed a PA system. "LAND IMMEDIATELY!" "Maybe not." He called, "We're Three Double-You Ay agents in hot pursuit of a Class-A Wanted--" "YOU ARE UNDER ARREST! LAND RIGHT NOW!" Anything else Scott might have said was lost in a low rumble of sonic boom that rolled over them. A dark speck grew all too quickly into the shape of a small WWWA starship seen head-on. The difference between a large air car and a small spacecraft was well understood by the police; they scattered. One didn't make it. It mattered not at all. The ship swept them into an open hatch and flew on. Various police weapons spent themselves futilely against the armored hull. Aboard the Wyvern a pile of Trouble Consultants had landed in a corner. "Get off of me, you two," Scott said from the bottom. "Hey, watch the hands," Kei protested; she was being felt up in a sensitive place, and it sure wasn't by Yuri. "You can sit on my lap later," promised Scott, struggling to his feet. "Right now we're busy." "Why you..." "Ha! What's the matter, Kei? Can't keep a man?" "I can so!" The clatter of Scott shedding his battleframe mixed with the sound of a killer noogie fight behind him. "Computer, where's Shasti?", he asked. "#Unknown.#" "Well then, let's find her." He slipped easily into the pilot's seat and gained altitude. A few hundred meters up he leveled out and commanded, "Run ground sweep for Shasti." "Isn't that her?" Yuri pointed over his shoulder. On the ground a woman was riding a motorcycle along the beach, kicking up a wake of sand. "So it is. I'm glad you could join me in the cockpit." He angled the ship downwards. "Computer, arm lasers. This will do it, girls." "Do it," urged Kei from the rear. Yuri nodded agreement. Scott put Shasti in the targeting recticle, flipped up the firing button cover, and brought his thumb down on the laser trigger. The sharp thunder of laser fire came at the same instant as the crackle of particle beams; the ship shook just enough that the multi-megawatt lasers bored into the wrong section of beach, sending up an explosion of half molten sand and steam from flash boiled sea water. Shasti and the motorcycle emerged from the cloud tumbling through the air in different directions. Almost the instant she touched sand Shasti was on her feet running for the rustic boardwalk that paralleled the beach. "I don't believe it!" "What the *!#& was that!?!", Kei screamed. "It's the police again!", Yuri exclaimed. "I hate persistent people!" The explosion sent Shasti flying many meters down the beach. She controlled her spin and rolled with the impact. She headed for the walkway above the sand; there was cover and the prospect of transportation there. She looked for the source of the heavy weapons fire and found the guilty ship only a few hundred meters away. The Wyvern, she thought. It was Scott chasing her! Shasti wasted no time wondering why a former ally was shooting at her; she took stairs three at a time up to the boardwalk and found a fair number of people wandering through the arcade blocks bordering the ocean. Good. Scott wouldn't fire into a crowd. Without a pause Shasti moved inland. She heard missile fire pummel the Wyvern but knew by the sound that it would only be a nuisance. Her blaster wouldn't even be that. Out of their line of sight she would be unidentifiable by sensor and could lose hers-- The sound of splintering wood warned her. She threw herself down as the wall of the building beside her exploded outwards, pushed by the blunt nose of the Wyvern. The starship missed her by centimeters and perversely stopped, hanging silently in the air above her like a hideously solid cloud. She could see individual specks of dirt on the landing gear. If Scott turned off the contragravity now he'd have to clean her off the hull with a sponge. Particle beams pounded against its armor and Shasti could see the ship tremble above her. It pivoted in midair as if looking around, sweeping down more of the building wall. Shasti didn't wait to find out what would be next. She rolled free and sprinted down a convenient street. With luck the pilot would not look right for a few more seconds. With the appearance of the starship tactical superiority had been lost. Now her range of options was dangerously narrowing. She was going to have to change that. "I don't believe this," Yuri said, echoing Scott. "She couldn't have gone too far," he said. It might even have been true. "So where is she?", asked Kei. "Maybe she's in one of the buildings." "There she is," said Scott, spotting a running figure already nearly a hundred meters away. "We've got to stop screwing around and finish this before she can shake us off for good. She won't let us re-acquire her." The small spaceship pivoted at Scott's command and swiftly flew down the street. "How can she run that fast?" wondered Yuri. "What's our ground speed?" "Thirty two " "Wow." "C'mon, Scott, can't you shoot her?", Kei demanded. "Not in a populated area. We don't have much combat flexibility. This isn't a Wasp, you know; the Wyvern is just a Sphinx class warp-yacht with a few upgrades." "Some upgrades! Twin five megawatt laser cannon, retractile ventral missile launcher, class II hyperalloy armor..." She trailed off; Yuri was staring at her. "How do you know that?!", she demanded. "Hey, I pay attention *some* of the time!" "Since you're so well informed, Kei, why don't you do the gunnery?" Scott flipped some switches on the central console and gestured to the right-hand seat. Kei gave a whoop of glee and climbed past Yuri into the small cockpit. "The lasers are your best choice; the Wyvern has a total load out of only eight missiles, and most of those are tricky Intel toys." "Got it," Kei acknowledged, already checking weapons data. "EMP flash, MOSS, smartsats-a cluster missile! Only one..." "I don't do that much ground bombardment. Whup! There she goes!" Shasti had entered a parking structure; Scott brought the ship down to ground level. No movement was visible. "We won't fit in there," he said unnecessarily. "Computer, run scan for humans." "#Working.#" The holographic HUD barfed data across the scene for a moment and settled on highlighting a single sedan. "#One human present.#" "All right!", Kei cackled, bringing the laser to bear. "Are you sure it's Shasti?", asked Yuri. For an answer the car's headlights came on in their faces; in the instants it took for the Wyvern's port to compensate for the changing light the car pulled out. As it sped between the rows of parked vehicles they could see Shasti behind the wheel, grinning. She was headed up. Scott moved the ship to cut her off at the only exit above ground level. Easy solutions never worked against Shasti. The car smashed through the low wall on another side and reappeared to them in mid-air halfway to a raised freeway running near the garage. It landed hard, and came to rest against the retained wall. The front end looked like sheet metal coleslaw but the engine was undamaged. The car backed up, turned, and in moments was speeding away from the rapidly pursuing Wyvern. "She's made a mistake!", Scott exclaimed, looking forward. "Kei, see where the road splits up ahead? Slag the right hand fork and she can't go inland-- she'll have to take the bridge over the water!" "And we can blast her!", cried Kei, understanding. The car was already near the Y intersection, so Kei wasted no time playing the lasers over the highway. What didn't vaporize outright melted, sagged, bent, or simply collapsed. In seconds hundreds of square meters of pavement were boiling and frothing, emitting vapors Dante would have despaired of describing. An entire fifteen meter span let go and fell onto whatever was below. Some people were going to file interesting insurance claims. The La Brea Tar Pits would have provided a better driving surface; the fleeing car went left and out over the ocean. "Cluster missile!", screamed Kei, firing this weapon. A tongue of flame roared from the ship's belly, fragmenting into dozens of smaller missiles. They arced out, weaving to avoid nonexistent anti-missile fire, and converged like piranha on meat. They hit. Hundreds of meters away shrapnel pelted the Wyvern. Roiling masses of water fought in the space once occupied by a bridge; ragged edges of roadway faced each other across thirty meters of space. Steam bubbled up from headed masses too large to have been flung away. There was no sign of the car at all. "That's it," Scott said. "We did it. We did it! We actually beat Shasti!" "*I* fired the missile," reminded Kei. "*I* did it. You're just jealous because you haven't gotten to shoot anything today." "I hope so." "What do you mean, Scott?", Yuri asked. "I mean, *look* at that. We saw her in the car, we saw the missiles hit." "You're right. But I'll feel beter when I see the body." No body was ever found. Scott returned the Lovely Angels to the hospital with assurances that the entire escapade, despite the high property damage, was a success. He pointed out that they had even been required to act as they had, since Shasti had been declared a Class-A Wanted Criminal; when asked how that normally lengthy process had occurred in mere days his explanations became vague. Their doctor was livid and placed them in a small windowless room underground. And they were left to themselves. "We sure caused a lot of damage, didn't we?", Yuri commented. "Look at the bright side," Kei said. "I don't think we killed anybody. Except Shasti, I mean." "That's true. And we did get Shasti." "Yeah." "You're right, Kei. Like Scott said, it was a successful mission. We couldn't help the rest of it, could we?" "Of course not. What more could you want?" The door of their room slammed open. Framed in the doorway stood Director Ayoob, his cybernetic eye glowing. He growled. "Uh-oh."