Raven

Vin Tanner leaned against the sun warmed wall of the federal building and closed his eyes. His hat slid slowly forwards as his head drooped, and to anyone walking by he probably looked like a man about two snores away from a sharp spot check on local planetary gravity. At 1.3 G it wouldn't be comfortable, but anyone looking for a little entertainment to brighten their day was destined for disappointment.

The downside to animal hide was that if it cut others off from him, it cut him off too. Most times he didn't much care. He'd had the changes made to improve his use to the armies of the Coalition. Now, the coalition was broken, the Hegemony in-fighting in something about a year away from civil war, and the Federation was taking it all, sucking it in.

No one was going to remember, or care about one insignificant little cybe.

They'd better not.

He slid slowly down the building, loose limbed, as though drunk, and laid his hands gently on the wall/walk interface. Federal buildings might be state of the art, but to someone who'd swept floors in more secure outfits than this; who'd hunted down richer prey than any this place was ever likely to find, there were ways in.

The shield edge trembled against his palm. It would take time. Well, then it took time. Joche had a deadline. Doc Jackson had a deadline. But he wanted those guys, the pale eyed Larabee with his arrogant power and the smart mouthed card sharp with his double handed targeting.

Maybe then he wouldn't end up dead. He sighed softly, and shifted as the shields melted against him. Yeah, yeah, let me in, he thought. Just me, old military codes, just another guy, let me in...

"Hey." A girl's voice.

He kept his head down, risked a faint snore.

"Y'can't sleep here!" She grabbed his shoulder and shook him. He took a fraction of a second to decide and then chose. A little training for the foolish fed.

He gripped her hand, twisted, rolled and wound up with one knee in the middle of her back, pressing just long enough for her to be absolutely clear that he could have twisted her head clear off her pretty little shoulders, and then got to his feet.

"I'm sorry, miss," and he was, a little.

She ignored his extended hand and scrambled to her feet, hand on her empty holster. "I -- I should take you in!" she said furiously. "Assaulting a federale!"

"Miss, I was asleep, and I usedta be a soldier. You know, like most everyone over twenty one around here." He tipped his hat. "Now, I said I was sorry, and if you'd jusdt let me--"

The girl made a strangled noise and turned on her heel and stalked away, gesticulating and holding forth on the iniquities of men.

He grinned and lightly touched the side of the building. Well now. A smile pulled at his lips. The shield knew him now. Wouldn't raise an alarm when he slipped in later that night. Wouldn't even complain if he over-rode those high tech print locks with his old hardwired military codes.

And that would be four. Five to one odds could work. He jiggled the xenobia in his pocket. 'Course, it wasn't going to split much between four people, but hell, maybe Larabee'd do it for free. Him being a priest and all.

The card sharp wouldn't do it without a little incentive. He grinned wickedly. Hell, maybe the priest'd fix that for him too...

Meantime, he should get well away from here. A lesson learned from OCS: sneaking around is much harder to do in the dark and is a bad strategy for anything. Sneaking in broad daylight when you've every right to be there -- *that**'s good planning.

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

Ezra was asleep when the hand slid over his face and pressed down. He was awake a split second later, eyes wide open as a faceless figure raised a finger to its lips.

"Shhh." The voice was obviously camouflaged, giving no clue to identity or even gender between the quiet and the distortion. "You want out of here?"

He shrugged, and the hand lifted from his mouth.

"That depends on who wants to know," he murmured. White teeth gleamed briefly, and he thought he caught some hint in the line of the face, despite its mask, to suggest a male.

"I have a proposition for you," the man whispered, and Ezra pulled a disdainful face.

"I think you will find I am not that sort of a man." he mocked, certain that the man meant no such thing.

There was a muffled chuckle. "Tch, now I'm all disappointed. Nah. I've got a job I reckon about suits your talents."

"A job? Actual remunerative activity?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Out of the question, dear boy. I do not do the 'W' word."

"Not even for a ticket out of here?"

"Out?"

"I hear there's a want on you signed by Granot himself," the man said lazily, as though it was just of passing interest. Ezra was suddenly acutely interested, but did not let a hint of it show, not even his heart or breathing stuttered. "Reckon they'll be shipping you back to home sweet home next week when the Axe gets in. I hear the prisons on Borealis Ultra are getting kinda crowded these days, but hell, you'll enjoy the company." The man paused a beat, "Or maybe not. You not being that kinda boy an' all."

"Most subtle." Ezra glowered at the man. "What does this 'job' entail?"

"Nothing much. Ride out to this place I know. Help out a couple of friends of mine. Pick up the payment and come back. You can head out wherever you please after that."

"Tempting," he said sarcastically, and turned his face towards the ceiling. "Let me see. An anonymous person breaks *into** a jail, attempts to break out one of the miscreants incarcerated there for the dubious privilege of riding out into the desert to some mudhole masquerading as a human dwelling place, to perform some unspecified yet undoubtedly illegal 'favor' for these unnamed 'friends', with a payment that has yet to manifest." He tucked his hands behind his head. "Amazingly enough I find I am quite comfortable right where I am."

"Got a xenobia cartridge." The man waved the distinctive capsule enticingly, and snatched it away as Ezra reached for it. "Ah, ah, ah!"

"I have no guarantee that the contents of that are genuine," he said, but even he could hear the avarice in his voice, and winced inwardly as a smug grin parted the man's lips again.

"I'll just leave the front door open for ya, shall I?" he said easily, and rose to his feet patting Ezra in an entirely too familiar manner before he exited the cell. "I'll be heading out in a few minutes. Take your time deciding, though. And if you change your mind, those boys on Borealis won't be sorry."

Ezra threw the man a withering look, but his back was already turned and it was wasted. He watched as the intruder pressed a black gloved hand to the print lock on Larabee's door and groaned.

"Hush now," the man said softly. "Don't want to wake up Ms MacKenzie there, now do we?"

"How thoughtful of you," Ezra said -- but very quietly. Well, at least if he went along with this asinine excuse for a plan there wouldn't be anyone there intent on killing him. Apart from Larabee, he corrected himself as the intruder slipped noiselessly through the open door and crouched by the sleeping priest.

A moment or two passed, the intruder whispering too softly for Ezra to discern the words.

"I believe you may have some difficulty waking him," he offered helpfully, and quietly enough that no normal human could hear, and smirked as the man's head came around. "Those half assed excuses for federal officers both cellstopped him, and then didn't follow procedure. There was a certain amount of excitement this afternoon when he stopped breathing."

The intruder rocked back on his heels. "Well, hell," he said, not at all quietly.

"Careful," Ezra murmured cheerfully, "we don't want to awaken Miss McKenzie, now do we?" He couldn't see the man's eyes in the dark and through the mask obscuring his features, but felt morally certain that hidden behind those things was a thoroughly irritated glare. He smiled.

The man sighed and prodded at Larabee one more time, then rose to his feet, bent down, slid his arms under the unconscious man and with little more than a huff of effort, hefted the man over his shoulder.

He stalked out of the cage, and glanced back at Ezra, who looked around the peace and quiet of the federal house, sighed, and climbed to his feet and followed.

"I had no idea," he murmured, eying Larabee's bobbing head, "that this was such a romantic town. Midnight breakouts, rescued damsels -- ah, gentlemen -- in distress. Why, all he needs are the flowing blond locks of legend, and we would have a tale ripe for the arenas."

The man looked amused but said nothing except: "Let me go first here," at the front door. He paused halfway through and gestured for Standish to go past, then followed him the rest of the way out.

"Photon benders on a large scale?" Ezra mused out loud as the man hurried across the street and down a narrow passageway between two buildings. "In built photon distortion tech? Legit codes?" he paused at that one and eyed the man, then shook his head. "Too tall for either of those pernicious teenagers passing themselves off as the local law, and you would have known about Larabee."

"Do you ever stop talking?" the man asked as a car slid up next to them smoothly. The lights flickered briefly, and then the doors swung up and open. "Get in. The loop only lasts fifteen minutes, then the fed net is going to notice it's missing a couple of people."

Ezra was already settling himself into the worn vehicle as Larabee was carefully lowered into the back hatch and left curled up awkwardly in a space barely large enough. "Not exactly what I'm used to," he said, eying the battered shell, torn seats and dirty controls.

The man laughed and swung himself into the driver's seat, pulling away before the doors had finished closing, leaving Ezra feeling distinctly queasy as the ground vanished and they shot upwards.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"Wait a few minutes and I'll tell you. Just got to pick up another fellow and we'll be away."

"Excuse me, did you just say that you were planning on picking up someone else?"

"Yep."

"I see. And what exactly were you planning on paying him with? Not my xenobia, I hope," he said tartly.

The man pulled the mask away from his face. "Well, sure." He grinned at Ezra's apoplectic expression, and added, "Vin Tanner. Always good to meet another fugitive from federal space." And he stuck out his hand.

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

"Kid! Wake up! Wake up!" Buck tried to shake the boy's shoulders and growled in frustration as his hands slid through. "Goddammit, what kind of di neng fed sleeps through his own fricking sirens?"

JD mumbled something, and Buck put his hands on his hips and glared, waiting for the boy's eyes to open and take in the full enormity of Buck's ire.

The kid didn't even have the decency to notice. He went from still mostly asleep to halfway across the room, pulling on jacket, hopping, off balance, as he tried to drag on his pants while he accessed the fed grid directly. Buck felt the brush of the kid's net reaching out. It was the closest thing to solid physical touch he'd had out of the VR environment, and it startled him. "What're you doing?" he asked, and tried to twist into that view that let him see the lines of data streaming. "are you wide-banding? Didn't they teach you *nothing** at Fed School? You want to flood the network and burn your brain out, you go right ahead and broadcast wide."

"I know what I'm doing, Buck," JD said. "I just, need, a little -- there!" The siren shut down and there was a yell from downstairs along with a thud, and the walls shone with a flickering blue that fizzed in peripheral vision, but was a dull, steady glow if he looked directly at it. The pressure against his being vanished, and JD sighed.

"What did you think you were doing?"

"What did *I** think I was doing? I was trying to wake up the goddamned OIC who was sleeping through the bells and whistles."

"Not that," JD glowered. "Did you access the security codes and release two of the prisoners?"

"What?" Buck's jaw dropped. "Who?"

JD's scowl deepened. "You telling me you didn't know? You were awful interested in him yesterday, calling him husband and all? Who is he?"

"Chris?" Buck took two quick steps forwards, hand out to grab the kid and shake the information out of him before he remembered that he *couldn't**, and he growled in frustration.

JD backed away anyway, and his right hand gripped his left wrist, right where the boy claimed his wristband was buried. "Stay back!"

"I'm not -- dammit, boy, I can't do anything to you, even if I wanted to! I just want you to tell me, what happened to Chris?" He slumped a little at the suspicious look, and added, "Please?" very softly.

"I oughta purge those damn nanos," JD said, but it was the tone of someone who had no such plans. "Mr. Larabee, and Mr. Standish or whoever he is, were broken out of the prison about ten minutes ago by someone who had hardwired back door access to the federal grid." He sighed, looked away. "I fucked up, again. Mr. Larabee wasn't in any condition to break out. He's been kidnapped. Unless you think he knows anyone here?"

Buck shrugged, "How would I know. But is he gonna be okay? After yesterday--"

JD grimaced. "Maybe. If they feed him, and let him sleep it out. If he gets too cold, or he goes anywhere and picks up a chest infection his lungs are just going to give up again. He needs about a week of rest according to the diag file on him."

Buck huffed a laugh. "Well, Chris was always about a week short of enough sleep, don't reckon that'll faze him so much. But the lungs -- that's not good."

"He might be fine."

"But he might not?"

JD shrugged in apology.

"Well, hell, boy, quit jawing and get after him!"

JD rolled his eyes, "Wow, I'd've never thought of that by myself."

"Enough of your sass, kid," Buck said, but a grin was tugging at his lips. "So, what's the plan?"

JD smiled grimly back at him. "Well, first, we wake Casey."

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

Josiah woke as the first air car screamed overhead. "That's a good start," he mumbled, and yawned. Nathan would be along next, so he'd have to be ready. He rolled out of bed, regretting its warm comfort almost immediately. The day's heat had long since leached from the stone floor, and he shivered. "Not that it's any warmer where you are," he remarked to the room at large. His eyes drifted to the stones laid over graves within the church.

"Well, perhaps tomorrow I'll be near as cold as you," he said finally. He slipped his feet into loose pair of rope sandals, and pulled his poncho over his head.

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

When Chris woke, his first thought was to stretch out, unkink the tight ball that he had somehow forced his body into. His head smacked hard against metal, triggering a pounding in his head that brought with it the memory of why he felt like shit. He kicked out, ramming his feet into something that was hard, but yielded briefly before stopping, sending a jolt that traveled all the way through his body with loving attention to his aching knees, sore back and chest, and throbbing skull. A blanket was tangled around his legs and he kicked out again, swearing and coughing.

"Get the fuck off of me!" He slammed his feet against the hard surface again and this time provoked a response.

"*Do** you mind?" came from a voice he recognized. He gritted his teeth, dragging the blanket off himself completely as he reached into the mind he could feel in front of him. He jerked back, furious. That filthy little would-be ship thief who'd been eyeing up the Saradam.

He twisted around and got a handful of fabric and pulled, choking the man in his seat. "Do you know what the penalty is for abducting a priest of the Church of Humanity?" he asked in a tender whisper. He didn't wait for an answer. Judging by the desperate scrabbling at his hands Standish had other priorities. "No, nobody does. Do you know why? Because no fucker's ever been stupid enough to try it before."

"Well then, I guess I'll get to have another first," a slow drawl told him in his ear, and something cold and hard pressed up into his jaw. His head snapped around fast enough to shake his stomach. "Hao le ma," Tanner added, as softly as Chris had threatened Standish, and Chris reluctantly let go.

Acid bit at the back of his throat and for a few seconds he didn't dare open his mouth. He drove the nausea back, and breathed, "You?"

He wasn't sure if he was more angry at the sight of Tanner holding a gun on him or less. He had thought he and Tanner had been, if not friends, then at least not enemies. But he'd kidnapped him, dragged him away from Buck and all bets were off. It hit him then, and he looked around quickly. No sign.

"Who's Buck?" Tanner asked, lowering his weapon. Presumably he thought Chris's lack of response meant he was going to behave. He let no expression show at Tanner's question. He hadn't meant to let the name slip out.

Standish sniggered, and Chris's fists balled in the darkness, imagining closing around that smug white throat and wringing...

"Some former lover, I imagine," Standish said airily, "He was talking to him during his psychotic break yesterday. Are you sure you picked the right man for the job? You must admit that hallucinations and incipient dementia are hardly the best indicators of sanity."

Chris drew a deep breath as the man spoke, orientated himself on the two of them, and then lashed out, one foot to each exposed head. He caught Standish squarely. The man howled with pain as his nose broke, then dropped behind the back of his seat, knocked over by the kick to his face.

Tanner was another story. He swung to one side, moving barely far enough to dodge the blow. His hand shot up and grabbed Chris's ankle, holding it immovably still scant inches from his face.

Chris tried to jerk away from him, and when Tanner's grip proved too strong to break reversed and tried to drive his foot, hand and all, into Tanner's faintly smiling face.

"Jeshu Borealis, that fa feng Neanderthal broke my nose!" Standish moaned. Chris simply tuned him out.

"Hold hard, niu lang," Tanner said urgently, "it's not what you think. I'm breaking you out. It's okay. We're the cavalry."

"You fucking *idiot**!"

Tanner just looked at him blankly, and Chris took advantage of the man's momentary inattention to twist out of his grasp and roll to a more defensible position. He blinked a little as he realized they were high above the ground; he'd been dumped in the cargo compartment of a private air car like so much shopping. Fine. He'd get control of the vehicle and then kill them both once they were on the ground. No point dying until he figured out what the hell was going on. He pushed himself to his knees and backed against the rear window, and narrowed his eyes menacingly at Tanner.

"Take. Me. Back."

"Can't do that, pard," Tanner sounded almost apologetic. "Got a tight schedule already."

"Sedate him! Do something before that madman kills us all!" Standish re-emerged from wherever he'd fallen, clutching a bloody hand to his face. "He's insane!"

"Bizui," Chris snapped, not even looking at him.

Tanner grinned faintly, and raised a pair of quizzical eyebrows at him. Chris ground his teeth. The bitch of it was that he could sense Tanner's mild amusement and the lack of threat -- no more than that. Between the leather clothes and the metallic tang of a cybe he was half surprised to sense that much.

"I was -- " he stopped. For some reason, mostly to do with the avid curiosity in Standish's eyes he was loath to say, that he'd just been sleeping off a couple of doses of oblivion because he didn't have anywhere else to go. "I wasn't under arrest," he said instead.

"He just *likes** being locked up in an iron cage, and wearing manacles," Standish sniped.

"Shut up," Tanner said mildly, surprising a momentary smile out of Chris.

"The feds made a mistake."

"What, picking you up, or nearly killing you?" Standish paused a beat, "I'm beginning to be in real sympathy with young Mr. Dunne."

They both ignored him. Tanner nodded.

"I need some men to help with a problem. Some friends of mine--" he hesitated, and Chris realized that he was editing whatever it was he had been about to say. "I was asked by someone I feel an obligation to, if I could help them go up against some hun dan threatening them. They just want a quiet life."

"Who?"

"People out at Camp Hugo."

Chris frowned, weren't they--" Cybes?"

"You have a problem with that?"

Chris shrugged. "Just checking. Their money's as good as the next man's." He paused. "They do have money?"

"No!" Ezra's protest was over-ridden by Tanner's grin.

"Got some xenobia in my pocket."

"That's my xenobia -- that's *my** xenobia, Mr. Larabee! You can find your own reward. I hear cybes can always think of something to barter with priests," Standish said, and stopped abruptly, as though he couldn't believe he'd actually said that.

Tanner hissed softly through his teeth, and Chris found his fists were clenched.

There were some things you never, ever said.

After a long, loaded moment, Chris said, "Who's going after them?"

"Some people," Tanner said vaguely.

Chris shook his head. "Who?" he insisted.

Tanner shrugged, and moved his hands over the controls. The car dipped, and accelerated towards the ground.

"We there?"

"Nah. Got one more passenger."

"Who you are not paying with my xenobia!"

"Shut up, Standish," both men said, and Chris caught the faint amusement in the mirrored blue eyes, and laughed under his breath. He sobered a second later. He must have dreamed Buck. It had been everything he'd most wanted to hear -- that he was back, he hadn't done it, he still--

He choked back the thoughts. No. Even if he was dead, Buck Wilmington deserved nothing but his hatred. And if he was alive...

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

Nathan was cold. The suns had set hours ago, and the moon rising in the north only served to make the world look colder and more hostile. He pulled his jacket around him more closely. He'd need to buy some warmer clothes for Celaeno; he'd heard it was a water world, and they were always unpredictable with their weather. Least little bit of axial tilt and you went from beach paradise to arctic wilderness in 10 clicks. He shivered, shuffling uneasily. Maybe Tanner wasn't coming. He was going to give it another ten minutes, and if the man didn't show he was definitely going. He glanced at his watch, blew on his hands.

He wondered if there were any nice girls on Celaeno. Women were in such short supply out here that it seemed that they were all in short or long term contracts -- of one sort or another. God knows why a woman would chose to come here if she didn't have to. Maybe a matching agency would have a better chance of locating someone suitable on another planet.

He rubbed his hands together and walked to the end of the gully and peered out down the canyon. Maybe he wasn't coming. He could still get a decent day's work in if he went back home right now and went to bed. Granted, it wouldn't pay, but maybe he should be focusing on his move, and not a debt of honor.

He was shaking his head even as he thought it, then ran a hand over his scalp and sighed. Who was he kidding? He tilted his wrist again to check the time. Only two minutes. Where was he? What if someone came? The feds had been running nightly patrols recently on odd nights -- not every night, and irregularly enough that you couldn't count on them one way or the other because there were only the two of them trying to do it all -- what if JD or Case came along and wanted to know what he was doing out here with his medical box?

Wasn't against the law to appreciate the stars. And you never knew what might happen. What if there was a freak accident and he didn't have his box? He closed his eyes briefly, torn between laughing and sighing. Yeah, right. A freak accident in the middle of the desert. And he was skulking in a quiet little zone that wasn't under controlled space for his health. Maybe he wanted to appreciate the stars. He looked up at the sky. Because he didn't get to see them every night. What had he been thinking?

A moment later and a dark shape swooped out of the darkness. Reflexively he ducked back into the overhanging rocks, holding his breath.

"Doctor Jackson?" a low voice called, indistinguishable against he hum of the engine. "Nathan?"

He hesitated, then edged out a little way. "Hello? Vin?"

A small glow illuminated Tanner's face for a moment, then faded, "Yeah. Come on, we're losing air."

Nathan hesitated a moment longer, looking back towards the city, the small, safe place he'd called home for years, and planned to leave by the end of the week. He'd be fine. "Coming," he called back, and hurried to the car.

"It's a bit crowded, but I reckon all y'all can get acquainted that way," Tanner said. Nathan threw a suspicious glance at him, and then another at the other occupants. Larabee and a stranger.

He crawled into the cramped cargo compartment, ignoring the sour smell coming off of Larabee, and nodded. "I'm set," he said, and closed his eyes against the sudden vertigo as the car swooped up, sans lights, as fast as it had landed.

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

"You think maybe that was a little harsh?" Buck said idly as JD fired up his bike.

JD shrugged. "Can you, I dunno, float out of sight or something?" he asked instead of replying. "Kind of distracting to see you just floating there." He tried not to think about how they could hear each other despite the helmet and lack of radio gear. If he didn't think about it, he wouldn't get creeped out by the thought of nanites in his brain.

"And deprive you of the wonder that is Wilmington?" Buck asked, but he edged out of JD's field of vision, and if he had been real, would have registered as a second rider on the bike. As it was, JD could ignore everything but his voice.

"Wonder, yeah, right," he snorted.

"Now Miss Casey there is a nice little girl, you should make more of an effort--"

"What *for**?" JD asked, exasperated. "So I can give her ammo for that discrim/harrassment petition she's just dying to hand to the local Axe?"

"You have off hours?"

"Not so's you'd notice," JD said darkly. It was tough trying to run the law here. Two kids didn't get a lot of respect; the name of the Federation tended to either get them shot at or laughed at, and worst of all, there were just the two of them and the Fed net. Aunt Nettie tried to monitor everything, but even an AI as smart as she was couldn't catch everything. So, they traded off. They both worked nights, and every day one was on call and the other slept. Sometimes that meant thirty-six hours without sleep. It was no wonder that Casey had slept through the alarm. He was only faintly amazed that he himself had woken up.

Sometimes they still needed both of them -- which meant no downtime, and a steady diet of stim shots until Doc Jackson refused to issue them with any more. He sighed. He'd have to get Casey recertificated on the cell stoppers. Maybe if he asked Travis real nice they could get some relief for a week or so. Travis always showed up with a couple of fed bodyguards. Maybe next time JD could borrow them to watch the town while he and Casey slept for a week. Maybe a month. A month of sleep sounded good.

"Well, that's your problem, right there kid. Give yourself a day off, get a nice picnic basket, take the girl down to the river. A little food, a little wine, a hot, sunny day -- what could be more natural than a cool dip, and maybe, a little nude sunbathing..."

"I don't think so," JD said tersely, "Not my style."

"Boy, take it from me. You wanna get laid, you better *make** it your style." "

"I find that, 'Hi, wanna fuck?' works pretty well," JD muttered. Though possibly prostitutes and saloon-pretties didn't count.

Fingers swiped across his vision and the bike swerved until he realized that they weren't real. "Will you stop that?"

"If I was solid--"

"If you were solid, you could have sat in with the prisoners and we wouldn't've gotten tricked by a stupid patch loop," JD grumbled, but he was far more angry at himself than he was at Buck, or even Casey, for all he'd just spent ten minutes yelling at her. Gou shi. That was probably what Wilmington was getting at. He bit his lip, and absently adjusted his screen to follow the heat trail. He'd apologize when he got back. If she was mad at him she wasn't going to fall asleep again and let anything else get by her. He grinned as infrared showed two norms and a hot going down the alley.

The shadowy trails cut off, which probably meant, according to the training scenarios Travis had made him load, that they had gotten into a heat shielded vehicle. He sighed and shook his head. Not smart enough. He scrolled rapidly through the tracing screens and smirked when a double line of dull yellow particles showed up. He adjusted the screen a little -- he didn't want to miss seeing a mountain because he was too busy watching displaced electron trails -- and followed it with his eyes. Nearly straight up, and then once out of the town's air net, out south. No problem.

Follow the trail, catch the three of them, dust a grateful Larabee down and get him back to the house before Culpepper arrived to ask about his errant priest; re-arrest Standish and get him locked up again before Travis arrived to hear petition from Borealis for extradition; and arrest whoever'd broken them out and really enjoy watching him get ten years hard for hacking a federal system. His very first jail break round-up.

This was going to be fun.

He whooped as he kicked the engine into high, and leaned far forward against the pull of gravity as he gunned it upwards to follow the softly shining trail.

"You're gonna die," Buck said fatalistically, and JD laughed.

"Aw, come on, lighten up! How bad can it be? We'll be home for breakfast!" he yelled, and Buck groaned.

"We're *both** gonna die."

The wind was rushing past, the moons were high, the stars were bright as the lights of Last Chance dimmed behind them, and JD couldn't stop grinning. This was what it was supposed to be like -- the thrill of the chase, hunting down wanted men.

"You got some sorta shielding on this thing?" Buck asked, and JD's flights of fancy came to earth with a thud.

"Oh, yeah," he flicked a switch and watched himself disappear out of the radar under stealth. Hard to sneak if they know you're coming.

"Better," Buck grunted, and JD scowled. "You got backup coming?"

"There's just me," he said proudly, but somehow the long silence that Buck greeted his statement with made him less enthusiastic.

"You and Casey," Buck said finally.

"She's gotta watch the town-grid and the house."

"Hm."

"We can't both be away," JD protested, "anything could happen."

"And so you're out here, chasing god knows how many people with the smarts to hack your grid and leave no trace of themselves."

"Three people."

"You know that, huh?"

"Yeah. The infrared--"

"And how many were in the car? How many are back at their base? Use your *brain** boy, or whatever you netheads have to pass for one, and *think** before you get both of us killed!"

"I don't have to listen to you. You're not even really here."

"I think therefore I am," Buck said solemnly.

"Not in my head you're not."

"If I'm not really here," Buck observed blandly, "why are you even arguing with me?"

JD clenched his jaw and managed to stop himself from answering. Damn wai sui took all the fun out of things.

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

Josiah swung his bag on his back, and a saddle on his shoulder and started out. He hadn't gone far when a soft breeze brushed at his face. He looked up and smiled. The night sky was shimmering with stars, their light just enough to show him how pitch black it really was, remind him how very small and insignificant he was.

Not that insignificance on a cosmic scale should prevent him from acting.

He paused and shook sand from his sandals, and spared a second to remind himself to check the etymology of the words. They had to be connected somehow. He'd barely gone a click and his feet ached already. A little pain was good for the soul, he told himself. The thought sounded just as dubious as the first time the novice-master had said it, right before he was whipped for public disobedience. However, what bothered him more was that he had a deadline to make, and about thirty clicks to cover.

He'd finally figured out the solution to the dust and sand of this out of the way little planet. Something with no mechanical parts. Something that would be largely self-maintaining. Something that would even replicate without his intervention -- given a certain number of prerequisites of course.

He chucked softly, and smiled as a dark shape loomed out of the darkness. "Hey, girl," he whispered and patted Horse on her chocolate brown shoulder. He stepped back and looked into the large, dark eyes, and spoke seriously.

"Far to go, mei-mei, and not a lamp to light the way, even if I knew where the path will take us." He nodded and patted her again, "Fang xin, xiao mei-mei. I have a feeling." He patted her one last time and hoisted her saddle from his shoulder. He furrowed his brow at the multiple straps and buckles and with a grunt of effort swung it into place. "Now, let's see if I remember how this goes..."

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

"And who is this?" Ezra asked dubiously as a large black man crawled into the dwindling space in the back of the car. He reflected briefly that at least he wasn't trapped back there with Larabee, even as a particularly painful twinge in his face reminded him that Larabee didn't need proximity to render himself obnoxious.

Tanner glanced at him. "Doc, Ez. Ez, Doc." He frowned at the skyline and Ezra glanced automatically at it to try to spot the problem before realizing that he had just been introduced with the most discourteous --

"You're a doctor?" the words somehow slid straight past his internal censor. "I wonder if you--"

"Impotence?" the doctor asked, amusement barely concealed. "A growth on your dick?"

"He wishes," Larabee growled, and Ezra was glaring at him when he realized that Tanner's shoulders were shaking gently with merriment.

"My *nose**," he said emphatically, and far too nasally to be either elegant or polite. "That, that hu lu," he gestured at Larabee, who settled himself back in the cargo hold with an air of contentment, "broke my nose."

"Ah. Well." The doctor leaned closer. "Hmm."

"Hmm-what?"

The doctor settled back. "Oh, just hmm. It's a doctor thing."

Ezra closed his eyes for a brief second, and then opened them again. "I beg your pardon. I have been most rude. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ezra, Sept Standish, Sa'Maude."

There was a silence, an he wondered if he had completely misjudged the man. But surely that had been a hint of Borealis in the low, gently amused voice?

"Clan Hou?" the man asked neutrally.

"Not recently," Ezra said, "As soon as my dear mother realized what was going on in that House she left." With a pretty penny in her pocket for keeping her mouth shut, and the gratitude of DeeGee Fourteen for doing no such thing... and a warrant on both their backs when the Clan realised.

"Hm." The doctor sounded far less kindly than he had a minute before. Ezra wondered how the fall of Ex Corp had hit this one. There was always someone with reasons to hate him.

"I'll look at your face when we land," he said brusquely, and Ezra's eyes widened. "What? You thought I wouldn't treat a Ha'Standish? I'm not like you people. I take my promises seriously."

"No, no. I just didn't want to waste your valuable time until after the small task currently before us," he lied easily, and was horrified when the man nodded.

"Maybe I misjudged you," he said grudgingly. "Jackson. Nathaniel Jackson." He held out a hand and they shook. Ezra wondered if it was too late to back out. He let the man's hand go, and his eyes accidentally met Larabee's. Okay. Leaving not an option. Not yet.

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

Casey was pacing furiously back and forth through the cellblock. It wasn't her fault. It *wasn't**. Travis ought to have left her in charge and they wouldn't have ended up in this stupid mess.

"Will you quit it!" McKenzie yelled, and Casey stamped up to the cell bars to glare at her one remaining prisoner.

"No. I. Won't," she snarled, and stalked away again. God, she'd had such high hopes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She thought she'd found a way off this hole. Volunteer into the Feds, get an education, move up and out. And now, she was stuck as the person who'd half killed a PI, and allowed him to be kidnapped. Like that wasn't enough, someone had engineered the first jail break in Last Chance's history while she had the watch.

She swiped an angry hand over her face. Okay, so there hadn't really been any jailing before she and JD took on the job, but even so.

Fine. She turned and stomped the other way, ignoring McKenzie's irritated stare. *Fine**. Maybe she could get a job in the bar. Except that she didn't really want to spread for anyone who had cred -- or a strong enough arm. And now JD had run off, and she was left to watch the baby, and what was the *point**? She might as well sign up as a breeder for a cybe-farm.

Hell, at least it paid well. She had decent genes. Okay, so the tech could be a problem, but they had to start somewhere. She sighed. Not even to buy her way out of here was she gonna breed cybes. Maybe Travis wouldn't fire them. Maybe he'd, oh, I dunno, shoot them first for nearly killing one guy and then losing two thirds of the prisoners they'd ever had. Even if one of 'em wasn't a prisoner.

JD was the security expert. That was what Travis had said when he'd told her that she'd gotten the consolation prize: second to an off-world hacker. He had skills and experiences that would be necessary here. JD had made all this song and dance about nets and grids and watches and rotas, and when it came down to it, he got all the glory and she was gonna get shafted. Nothing changed.

Maybe she could get something figured out. The computers were on full attack mode. No one in, no one out. Meant she couldn't leave, McKenzie couldn't leave. She wondered how much food was left in the kitchen upstairs, and was running through the contents trying to decide if she could bear to cook, or if she'd just have the house grid come up with something, before jerking herself back to present reality and the beeping viewscreen oh shit.

She ran to the main office, slapping the dust and crumbs off her shirt, driving her hair back with hard fingers, only to have it flop forward into her eyes again.

"Federal Waystation. Second Wells," she said, and tried not to gasp for air.

"Good morning, Miss Wells. Is Mr. Dunne there?"

Casey's eyes widened. "Uh, no, he uh, went out." The Axe! At three in the morning! Oh god, they were so screwed.

"Oh." Travis didn't say anything more, and Casey shifted from one foot to the other, then caught herself and stood still, stuffing her hands in her pockets then yanking them out again and clutching them together behind her back, out of sight.

"Is there a problem, Miss Wells?"

"Nosir," she blurted.

His eyebrows lifted. "Splendid. Well, tell Mr. Dunne when he returns that I have an opening in my schedule, and I will be there to discuss recent events with him in," he glanced up, presumably at some sort of clock, "let's say about sixty hours." His eyes sharpened. "Sixty hours, Miss Wells."

"Yessir. I'll let him know," she nodded.

"Excellent." He leaned back in his chair but didn't close the link. That deceptively old face looked thoughtfully at her. "You seem nervous Miss Wells."

"JD -- Mr. Dunne said he was gonna tell you about Mr. Larabee?" Somehow it ended up as a hopeful question.

"Ah. Yes." She couldn't help squirming uneasily under his gaze. It made her feel like she was on the wrong end of a microscope. "Unfortunate. Still, as I understand the circumstances, I quite understand the initial occurrence. The consequences were," he paused then repeated, "unfortunate, but I believe no harm was done in the long run."

"Thank you, sir," she said, and winced as her voice cracked.

"Merely my personal opinion, Miss Wells. Mr. Dunne's is the one that matters in these things. Internal discipline is a local issue." He raised his eyebrows. "Unless you wanted to add anything to his observations?"

She should tell him. Right now. Before the Axe got here and found out she'd lied. "No, sir. Nothing else. I'm sure JD was fair." She clamped her mouth shut before she started babbling, and found herself thinking, well, I tried.

"Very well. Sixty hours, Miss Wells. I expect to see both of you on time as soon as I land."

And the screen turned black and gold, the logo of the Federation of Aligned Worlds fading into sight.

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

"Tanner."

Vin stopped in his tracks and looked back at Larabee. The man was leaning against the aircar, his thumbs tucked into his waistband in a way that suggested they would have been resting on his guns had Vin given him any. "Yeah?"

Chris glanced across to the interested faces of Jackson and Standish, then back. "Get rid of them."

"There is a remarkable dearth of places to be got rid of to," Standish said, and Chris ignored him.

"Five minutes, guys."

Jackson frowned a little. "Standish, I'll fix that damn nose of yours if we've got some time." Standish immediately brightened and hurried to Jackson's side. Chris wondered why he hadn't thought of suggesting it, except he really didn't care if Jackson did plastic surgery or pushed Standish off a cliff.

Tanner's eyes were on his face, but he turned away and walked around the other side of the aircar. He could hear Standish's muffled complaints as Jackson probed his face, and ignored them.

Tanner had followed him and he could feel the blurred weight of the man's mind. He smelled trustworthy. And yet--

"Guess you're wondering why I broke you out?"

"There isn't any xenobia, is there?" Chris asked idly.

Tanner shrugged faintly, a bare shift of his leather clad shoulders against the dim light coming from the aircar.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, genuinely curious. Tanner shrugged again.

"It's the right thing to do," Tanner said eventually. "They -- we don't get many breaks."

"They ain't going to like a priest," he said dryly, and saw Tanner wince at the understatement.

"They'll live with it. They might not without."

"I'm still not real happy about getting thrown around like a sack of potatoes."

Tanner quirked a grin at him, "You lived."

"I ain't got any guns." He felt the amusement an instant before Tanner turned away.

"Here." The man turned back and handed him all four of his guns. Chris lifted his eyebrows briefly, and slid all but the rifle away, hefting it thoughtfully.

"You sure you wanna do that? I'll most likely kill you with it?"

"I'll take that chance," Tanner said with the kind of blithe insouciance that he had thought only Buck was crazy enough to hand to him.

A cry of pain dragged their attention towards Jackson and Standish.

"Guess he did break his nose."

Chris smirked. "Break more'n that if you ever do that to me again." I mean it.

"You'll have to catch me first." Tanner tilted his head, both serious and not serious. Okay. They could have it out afterwards. It was the sort of thing Buck would have said: hit me later, pard, we got a job to do. And he'd be off, whooping, and Chris would follow in his wake, and probably fight him to the ground afterwards. Or fuck him through the floor. Sometimes both.

Chris shook his head, abruptly weary beyond measure. He turned away and drew in a deep breath. Too much had happened, and his head hurt. He coughed, hard, his chest clenching painfully.

"You okay?"

"Gun ququ!" He heard Tanner turn on his heel and walk away, and drove his head into his hands. Rare you got a man who trusted like that. Course, not that Tanner was exactly a man.

He wondered if he really had seen Buck, or if he'd hallucinated that.

Cold air bit at his back, standing every hair on the back of his neck on end. Maybe he was losing his mind. He'd heard it could happen to psi ops. For a second he wondered if, when he fell into the madness, Sarah and Adam would be there too, and wrenched himself away from the thought. No. Buck wasn't a ghost, haunting his dreams and sickness. Buck was alive, and out there, and on the run.

If anything else was true, then he had just wasted three years looking for the wrong person. His jaw hardened. That was unthinkable.

He drove away the thought that if Buck were a ghost, he was dead, and Chris had never grieved for him. It churned in his stomach, and he told himself that it wasn't real, it was just dreams and wishes. The thought that Buck could have been saved.

No. Buck was alive. One day, he'd find him, and kill him.

Or maybe beg him to come back.

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

Buck was grateful that he didn't currently have a stomach. The kid drove like a lunatic. No, not like; he *was** a lunatic. That last dive had virtually been free fall until the last instant, and even if he technically couldn't feel the wind in his face, or the lure of gravity on his plummeting body, it didn't stop him from seeing the ground approaching at terminal velocity.

"Looks like they landed here," JD said while Buck reassured himself that nanite driven projections couldn't die.

"Great. Where now?" he said sourly. JD waved south west, and Buck frowned. "You know that or you just guessing?"

"Saw the trail," although that didn't seem to be spurring the kid into action.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Get after them, then!"

JD looked at him like he thought Buck had lost his mind. "I'm looking for clues."

"Clues? What've you been reading, boy? They went thattaway!" he swept out grandly with his arm. "Go get 'em!"

"They picked someone up," JD said flatly, not looking up.

Buck blinked. "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? How am I supposed to know these things? Divine intuition?"

"Shutting up would help," JD muttered under his breath.

"Who?"

"Well, if I didn't have someone bellowing in my ear every five minutes, maybe I'd know!" JD folded his arms and glared.

"What? Me? I'm just trying to help you out here. Warn you a little before you get your fool head blown in."

JD grimaced. "I've managed just fine up to now."

"And I am awed by the mystery of a universe that allowed that to happen," Buck shook his head. "Kid, if you pay attention, and listen real close, then *maybe* you will come out of this older and wiser."

"An' if I don't?"

"Then you'll be dead."

"Geeze, way to build my confidence." JD griped, and stood.

"And you should ditch that damn uniform. That color is gonna stand out for miles."

JD rolled his eyes and headed back to the bike.

"And get rid of those damn luminous stripes!" Buck yelled.

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

Joche Mendeleyev did not move as the four men walked towards him through the deserted village. Josiah had arrived an hour earlier, and even now was sitting in a hot tub of water and vinegar, and swearing that he would never get on the back of another horse so long as he might live. He'd promised him that the men coming would be enough. He eyed them through the darkness and doubted.

Tanner crouched across the fire from him, the other three staying a little back. Well, that was five. Josiah had promised seven, a good number, but had been vague about when the other two would arrive. Joche did wonder sometimes whether the jiao shi was as reliable a help as he seemed. Things always worked out, but never quite in the way anticipated. It made for interesting times.

"Joche."

"Vin." Two could play at that game. They were both quiet, and it came to Joche that Tanner actually didn't mind; he wasn't playing dominance games, he was just waiting for Joche to speak.

"They came two days ago," he began easily. The others moved closer around the fire and he nodded to them, each of the men that Josiah had promised him. He wondered if they really would be enough. "They said they were part of Sept Apman; that we owe them service and tithe." He looked around at the home they had built themselves.

"That clan was broken five years ago." A blond haired man with a closed, dark face. Joche took in the besmirched black robes with some alarm. A priest? His eyes darted to Tanner. Josiah was bad enough and he wasn't even technically with the Church any more. And an unknown one at that? Had Tanner turned them in?

"Broken, but not destroyed. Fragmented, and left headless," Joche amended, looking at him before turning back to Tanner.

"Chris Larabee," Tanner said. "Joche, gu lao to Camp Hugo."

"Mr. Larabee." Larabee nodded at him, and Joche looked at him doubtfully. "I mean no offence, but one such as yourself--"

"Not my idea," Larabee said shortly. "Tanner says you want some help running off the Apmans?"

Not just a priest. Even in the doubtful light of the fire Joche could see the burned double circle. Triad, and widowed; revenge sworn. Not a propitious person to bring in, but too late now. He couldn't afford to turn anyone away who offered a hand. Even if it was a ke wu priest.

"We have nothing to tithe them. And their leader either genuinely believes that we are lying when we tell him otherwise or pretends to do so." He shrugged. "We would simply leave, but we have left too many other places already, and we have built a home for ourselves here, it is not much, but it is all we have," he looked directly at Larabee, "It is all we have been allowed to have. This is not somewhere we would chose to live had we the choice."

"I wouldn't quarter a rat here," a voice murmured acidly, and he looked for it. Ah yes.

"Ezra Sept Standish, Sa'Maude, or some such nonsense," Jackson said. Joche smiled at Nathan.

"My friend," he welcomed him, then turned his eyes back to Standish. "Thank you for helping us."

"That's to be seen," Standish muttered, and Joche smiled serenely.

"Of course." He looked around them. "I think you should see the village."

Larabee nodded once and stood more smoothly than a man of his years had any right to. He fell in step with Joche as he moved past him, and walked silently past him. "How many people?"

Joche sighed. "About fifty."

"You have children here?"

Joche's jaw tightened. "No. Not any more."

Larabee simply nodded again. Joche wondered if he had heard the edge of bitterness in his voice. Of course the priest would ask about cybe kids. Didn't they always? He ought to refuse his help. And instead, here he was, walking with him about to take him into their sanctuary.

"You have a problem with priests, son?" Larabee asked, his voice soft.

Joche shrugged. "You have a problem with cybes?"

"I hear your money's good."

"I on the other hand know nothing of you. And yet I must trust you," he said, making a decision. He turned towards the cliff wall behind the pitiful little collection of huts and shacks and headed towards the opening that he knew was there. A split second before he hit the wall it parted and he walked through, the priest only a step behind and unsurprised. His eyes flickered around quickly. Joche would bet that he had a count of how many buildings, how many floors, approximate numbers of inhabitants and their probable threat level by the time he opened his mouth.

"Cozy."

Well, that was one word for it. Joche was proud of what they had accomplished. In secret, without anyone's help or permission they had built their own habitation, and hidden it with technology and the unthinking prejudice of those only too willing to believe that filth would live in filth, and concentrate their attention on the squalid little shacks left for exactly that purpose. The apartments had been carved back into the cliffs, but fronted with tinted glass and thin metal struts, taking in every scrap of sunlight that the narrow canyon let in. He walked forwards into the dark street and without a word, Larabee followed.

"You got many people here?"

"Fewer since Apman came through," he replied mildly. Larabee nodded silently, still taking everything in. The others followed behind, and he was pleased at their reactions, for all he kept it from his face.

"Dear God..."

"Ai ya huai le!"

"The Camp has done well for itself, gu lao," Josiah said, coming up to walk alongside him. Josiah still smelt faintly of vinegar and Joche couldn't repress an amused smile at the old priest

"Yu wan could not have achieved this much without your help," Joche said easily. It had been hard to realize that a priest, even a former priest with as many doubts as Sanchez carried could be a friend to cyborgs. A long lesson, that not everyone in the camp agreed they needed to learn.

Josiah was looking around, and Joche shook his head minutely, knowing what the man's next question would be. Trusting one priest did not mean trusting a second. His eyes slid to Larabee. He was in it for the money? Well, a good many priests were. The last thing he wanted to do was place further temptation in the honorable father's way.

"Pretty quiet," Tanner observed, and Joche nodded.

"We sent the non-combatants to safety."

"Good." Larabee pulled out a short dark stick and lit it, then inhaled the fumes through it. "How many combatants?" He blew the smoke away from their path as he exhaled -- a small thing, but Joche appreciated it. As he heard coughing off to their right he wondered if the man ever had just one reason for doing anything.

Joche shook his head. "Of the fifty, maybe thirty. We have some of our best people with the non-combatants; others are away."

"Away where?" Standish asked, and Joche eyed him thoughtfully. This one was sharp. Not even the PI had caught his hesitancy.

"Working," he said briefly, and hoped that would be an end of it. It was plausible enough.

"Off planet?"

"Yes."

Larabee sucked on his narc stick deliberately. "Tell me why the hell I should help a bunch of rogue cybes?" He blew smoke out and his eyes rested briefly on Tanner.

Joche looked at Tanner too, who stared back impassively.

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

JD sighed and chirped his hand in time to Buck's steady monologue as the man added prohibition after prohibition.

"Buck, you ever shut up?" he asked eventually. "I do know what I'm doing here, you know?"

Buck simply stared at him incredulously, and JD shook his head. "Never mind."

The trail led to a blind canyon, and JD stopped a couple of clicks away, pushing the bike out of sight, then covering it carefully. It was on standby, so in an emergency he could whistle it up, but the thermal blanket should take care of the heat trace that leaving it warm would cause.

He studied the map carefully, drilling down into it until the landscape matched what he could see with his meat eyes, and then back up. He traced along the route looking for physical barriers. A ravine meant he'd have to either go down to ground level or walk around, and he frowned, trying to decide. Something was nagging at him, and he tweaked at his net, throwing a thread back to the federal house to look for anything relating to the end coordinates.

A bounce returned immediately, followed by the chirp of his communicator, and he sighed. "Yeah?" he whispered into it. Buck clutched at his hair and stalked away, muttering.

"JD?" Casey asked in normal tones, and he curled his body around his wrist and frantically hit the volume control as her clarion tones floated out in the silence of the desert.

"Shh!" he hissed.

"Don't 'shh'! me!" she snapped, but noticeably quieter. "Travis is coming."

"What!" JD yelped, then repeated more quietly, "The Axe?"

"*Yes*, the Axe, who else?"

"Shit!" JD dropped his head for a second. "When's the lao tou getting there?"

"You've got about fifty five hours."

"What?!"

"It's not my fault if you don't check your messages," she snapped right back. "I'm a fed, not a secretary."

"Sorry."

"S'okay."

They were silent until Casey said curiously, "Is someone there with you?" Buck's irritated diatribe stopped abruptly.

JD looked up, straight into Buck's eyes. The man looked as surprised as he felt, and seemed to get the urgent message in JD's eyes and stepped silently out of the pick up range of the communicator. "No," he said firmly.

"You better find those guys quickly," she told him.

"I *know**, Case, I'm not stupid!"

"Well, all right then." The tone of her voice suggested she thought otherwise but wasn't up to arguing the point right now. He appreciated that. It was three in the morning.

"All right."

"Be careful," she said, he thought she sounded kind of grudging, but smiled anyway.

"Yeah. You too."

"I'm in town!" Casey said irritatedly, "What the hell's going to happen to me in town?"

"Nothing, I hope," JD said incautiously.

"You left me behind just to get all the fun to yourself!"

JD shook his head. "Case, I'm fuckin' freezin', I'm in the middle of nowhere, and I'm chasing three wanted men, who've just picked up a fourth. Yeah, I want all the excitement to myself."

"Ha. Sez you," And with that remarkably adult comment, broke the link.

"Ai ya!" he swore, and initiated the link again. "Case?"

"What *now**?"

"I'm going to need radio silence from now on."

There was a pause. "And you *radioed** me to tell me this?"

"Well--"

"Oh for--!" the link clicked off again, and JD pulled the communicator off his wrist and slid it into an inside pocket.

Buck was staring at him when he looked up.

"What? *What**?" he asked, but Buck just shook his head and walked away, muttering.

JD gritted his teeth. He needed to tell her because he couldn't leave it behind -- he'd need it for backup or to call the bike; and he couldn't turn it off. They didn't actually *have** an off switch. Federales were always on call.

"You coming?" he asked without looking at Wilmington.

"You're going to end up dead whatever I do, so I may as well be around so someone knows where to look for the body."

"Thanks. Not." JD shrugged his pack into place, and headed on out.

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

Chris didn't allow one single part of what he was feeling show on his face.

They were so small.

He'd found the kids.

He'd known that they had to be here. Even his relatively short time in the Church had taught him that the cybes valued nothing else more highly; would abandon almost anything else without a second thought, perhaps because their children were all they had left that were truly their own. There was nothing else worth risking. He suspected that there were other things here too - mineral wealth of some sort. Maybe a communications base. The housing alone suggested that there was a couple of hundred inhabitants normally -- a hundred and fifty more than Joche had told them. But of all this the only thing that would force cyborgs to make a stand despite hundreds of years of grinding oppression were their children.

Tanner walked in alongside him, and stopped. "Chris?" Chris glanced at him, and wondered if Tanner had been free or farmed. Not that it mattered. He ran his eyes over the pallets at the back of the apartment. It was probably a school hall of some sort in gentler times. Paintings hung on the wall, the work of childish imaginations and hands, for all that those hands had been seeded with alu-glass before birth.

Most of the younger ones were asleep -- little lumps partly covered by blankets, the tiniest banked by rolled bedding and pillows. Soft faces too thin; little hands showing glimmers of the grey that in the adults would become silvered musculature and bones. Older ones looked up from their beds, watchful eyes too old for their faces. Rigid effort of will held him from comparing-- no.

Teenagers and adults stood around the edges of the hall, hands on weapons until Joche appeared at his shoulder, and whispered something too low for human ears, and they slowly lowered the guns, but did not put them away, did not look away.

This was what the church had done. This was what made it unthinkable that the people of Camp Hugo tithe their treasure. Each child was seeded before birth with the need for cyborg components. Critical segments of genetic code replaced; metal implanted. Alu-glass, that required only a small supplement every day to grow with them.

Half human, half other. Infected from conception with nanites. Illegal as fuck. Valuable beyond price.

Joche waited.

"This all of them?" His voice tried to crack and he held it steady by force of will alone.

"No."

Larabee nodded. Didn't ask. He drew a deep breath through the burning narcotic, and breathed it out in a cloud, to the fascination of those children still awake. Joche seemed to see something in his eyes, and nodded slowly.

"You understand, priest, we would do anything--"

"I understand," he said curtly and turned on his heel. "Curtain wall: active or passive?"

"Passive. Active needs too much power, and would give exactly the wrong message."

"Passive won't keep the Sept out."

"I know."

Larabee looked at the opening thoughtfully. "You got anywhere else to put the kids?"

Joche tilted his head in question, and began to smile as Larabee outlined a possible plan.

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

It took JD about three hours to get into what his net assured him was the best place to get a good look at the lay of the land. He crouched by the mouth of the ravine and tugged his pack around to his front. He found his zoom lenses without too much digging around, and an energy bar too, which he ripped open and stuffed into his mouth as he lifted the binoculars to his eyes. An overlay let him line up with where the trail ended, and he ratcheted up the zoom until he could see the cliff face clearly.

"Well?"

JD jumped and nearly dropped the binocs. "Gou shi!"

"Bit twitchy, ain't ya." Buck stared into the distance. "Doesn't look like much."

JD rolled his eyes and looked through the glasses again. "I'm not getting anything at all. It's like the trail just cuts right out."

"Cloaked?"

JD looked around. "What for?"

"To *hide**."

"I know that, but why would people put it up all the way out here?"

"So people like you don't find it. Look how successful they're being. You didn't even know they were here."

"You reckon the kidnappers are there?"

Buck nodded, his face grim and serious as he shaded his eyes.

"Why'd you think they took him?" JD asked after a few minutes of staring at the blank cliff face.

"Who? Chris?"

JD nodded and Buck shrugged. "Could be anything. If I know my cai bao zi, he pissed someone off." Buck paused. "Okay, I *know** he pissed someone off, and I have three missing years of people to add to the list. Which was big enough already, thank you," he added sourly.

"Standish too?"

Buck shrugged. "That I don't know. Maybe they have a job for them."

"Maybe they both pissed off someone."

"Maybe they had a two for one offer on jailbreaks," Buck offered with a smirk.

"That's not helping!"

"Neither are you."

"I just want to get a proper look at the place before I get any closer in," JD said.

"Fine, fine. Don't mind me. I still think you ought to take off that stupid uniform."

"I'm a fed on official business, Buck I can't take off the uniform. Besides, I haven't got anything else to wear." JD looked up and saw a smug grin on the man's face. "Not that I'm getting changed out here, absolutely not. No way."

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

Vin wandered up to the head of the canyon as the sun rose. After the dim chill of the camp he was grateful to feel the sun on his face. He closed his eyes and tilted his face up.

A small sound to his left warned him, but he didn't move. He could smell that distinctive smoke of Larabee's and, as if that were not enough, their arfids confirmed it.

"Looks like a nice day."

Vin shrugged. "Mostly are, here."

He felt more than saw the smile on the man's face. Desert planets don't get much rainfall.

"You got a plan for when Apman shows?" Vin asked after the sun had climbed another five or so degrees. This time Larabee shrugged. He rummaged inside his coat and produced another of those pungent narc sticks.

"No, thanks."

Larabee nodded mildly and lit the thing, breathing in deeply. Vin breathed in, and cataloged the components. Nothing stronger than anshuli root and tabac. Made you wonder though, if Larabee liked getting addicted to things.

"Sure?"

Vin nodded.

"Figured we'd wait for Apman. See what sort of resistance he's expecting. Get an idea of what sort of force he's bringing, and then turn them into meatpie."

"Sounds simple."

Larabee snorted, and Vin ducked his head and grinned. "The old guy says there's not that many of them."

"Said Apman had about twenty to me."

"Hm." Larabee seemed to be as untroubled as Vin by silence. After another couple of degrees had passed, he added, "We sent the Doctor and Josiah up to talk to the non-combatants."

"Standish?"

Larabee shrugged. "I think Joche mentioned that they were hiding their treasure. The little weasel's probably off looking for it and trying to figure out if they'll notice if he stuffs it all into his pockets."

Vin grinned. He had a fair idea of what Joche meant when he said that Apman wanted a tithe; was pretty damn sure that the lack of children in the encampment was significant. Wasn't sure if Larabee knew that though. He slid a look at the man. The man was sitting with his back to the cliff, legs stretched out in front of him, his hair shining in the dawn light. He was about to ask him if he knew what the treasure was, when something to the west caught his eye. He frowned and sharpened his vision.

"What is it?"

Vin felt dizzy as his sight swooped across miles, his body settled against cool rock, and a curt voice in his ear. "Someone's out there, watching us."

A flash of grey, and he groaned, and brought his vision back to normal. "I'm betting we've got ourselves a little Federal company.

Larabee rose and stared out in the direction Vin indicated. His eyes couldn't possibly see anything, but Vin knew if he were a fed looking through a pair of binocs, he'd be feeling pretty damned worried about now. Then Larabee dropped his smoke into the sand and ground the butt end of it with the heel of his boot, and grinned.

"Well. Guess that'll add some spice to the day."

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

"How can he see me?!" JD whispered frantically. "I'm three clicks away, he can't possibly see me. God, he was looking right at me!"

Buck was still laughing.

"That's Chris for ya. You wanna catch the man, you better start thinking of ways to get in there."

JD peered nervously over the edge of his rock. "They've gone."

"You got an ID on the other guy?"

"No. But I bet he's a criminal; I couldn't get a fix on his ident, and only liuman hide that."

"And military," Buck said idly. "But you're probably right. He's probably a dangerous criminal. Wanted in twenty systems."

JD looked around sharply. "Maybe he's brainwashed Mr. Larabee!"

Buck's jaw dropped before he started laughing. "Yeah. Because it's so easy to brainwash Chris Larabee!" He sat down abruptly and JD looked away queasily as the man missed the ground and sank a few inches under it. He could go whole days without seeing that.

"Hey, it's possible," JD said, injured. He located the relevant manual and searched for victim stuff. Got it. "Stockholm Syndrome." He read swiftly through the file and then shrugged, "Well, it could have," he conceded, without actually admitting that he was wrong. "I don't think I can get much closer to the village without being seen."

"You've already been seen. I told you to get rid of that uniform."

"Buck, I'm not getting rid of my uniform!"

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

Ezra felt adrift. He'd been rescued from jail only to wind up in a jail almost as unpleasant, if with rather less chance of meeting Granot of Borealis. Though the chances of getting dead seemed pretty static. He looked around. Tanner and Larabee had gone off for another little chat. He rolled his eyes. Sanchez was communing with nature or whatever ex-priests did in their free time. He couldn't see Jackson.

He stroked absently at his nose. He wasn't exactly vain. It was no vanity to be aware that one had a fine, patrician nose. No vanity to use it in this day and age, when appearance was truly everything. He shook his head as his stomach grumbled. At least in jail he got fed regularly. Even if the other prisoners didn't.

A quick grin flicked across his lips and passed unnoticed.

He stretched his legs out, and closed his eyes, pretending to sleep on the bench in front of what he strongly suspected to be the main repository for their treasure. Mr. Mendeleyev could call it a dance hall until he was blue in the face, but whoever heard of cyborgs dancing? He snorted under his breath. No.

Clearly the cybes had some form of treasure. Probably not the stacked gold and jewels of legend. Something more mundane -- stock options, blackmail material, drugs, high quality xenobia-- ah...

Now that was a possibility. He wondered that he hadn't thought of it beforehand. Where else did Tanner get the stuff but from the cybes? Notwithstanding the man being a cyborg himself. Ezra frowned and then remembered he was supposedly sleeping. That made sense. Some sort of source here, in the canyons and ravines; a refinery concealed in those so called 'apartments', too many for a mere fifty cyborgs.

And the Apmans were probably in some sort of distribution dispute with the inhabitants of this place. Common enough. No honor amongst thieves.

Although technically, xenobia wasn't illegal. Just very, very desirable. He smiled. If they had a supply of the stuff, then getting a little extra -- to make it worth his time helping out -- would only be fair.

They could afford it. He could feel a cool breeze in his face, and the shimmer of light from the great glass windows. So, yes, they were living in a desert, but it seemed a very comfortable wasteland.

He swung decisively to his feet. Well, if no one was going to explain anything to him, he would simply have to obtain some answers for himself. He tugged his jacket straight and tilted his hat to a jaunty angle, then, fully prepared for all the world might fling at him, he headed off for fortune and favor.

It was something of a shock when he wandered, oh so casually, into the main building, perfectly ready to assure the gun toting natives that he had no ill motives in mind, just a quiet walk, no trouble at all, no sir, and found that mostly, the heavily armed cyborgs ignored him. It wasn't to say that they didn't see him, their eyes followed him, as he passed, but incuriously.

He started to feel mildly peeved, and then was amused. Maybe he had unexpectedly turned into a ghost -- although the party was becoming positively haunted with phantoms and specters. He ambled down a corridor, following the sounds of talking, and pressed his ear to the door.

He frowned, puzzled.

"And who can explain the coefficients of friction-- Yenna?"

A young voice piped up, but he had no time to draw the conclusions he surely would have reached before a hard hand gripped his elbow, and a cold voice said into his ear, "You looking for something, Standish?"

Ezra jerked minutely, and the man chuckled, a stream of foul smoke pouring into Ezra's face.

"Mr. Larabee," he waved his hand, batting the smoke out of his face. "I was merely looking for--"

"Looking for treasure?"

Chris Larabee pushed the door open, an iron grip still in place. "This what you were looking for?"

Ezra saw twenty or so children, ranging from toddlers to teenagers, sitting all over the floor, reading, writing, and four in one corner going through their lessons with one of the elders. All very normal and domestic, except that every last person in the room showed some signs of cybe traits -- streaks of grey dull and unmistakable under tender childish skin. Children. Cyborg children. And so many of them.

Treasure indeed.

He stared at them. In all his life he'd never seen such wealth in one place, and it tore at him to try to think about children that way. A pair of old reflexes at war, and he wasn't sure which would win. A small boy came up to him and smiled.

"Hello, young sir," he said easily, smiling back.

"Are you a dragon too?" the child asked, and Ezra blinked.

"A 'dragon'?" he asked carefully, wondering what breed of thing a cybe-child might call a dragon, and followed the boy's finger as he pointed and laughed.

"What a wonderful talent you have, son. Why, that is indeed a dragon, and his name is Chris Larabee." He laughed again, aware the child didn't understand, but he knew himself to have an infectious smile, and used it. "No, I am no dragon... but that doesn't mean I don't know some magic of my own," he added.

A small hand slipped trustingly into his, and he felt Larabee let go grudgingly as he was drawn into the schoolroom. He walked a few steps to the back wall and sat down, acutely aware of the pale, hostile eyes watching him. He smiled up at Larabee, who drew his hand slowly across his throat, holding Ezra's eyes the whole time, his message loud and clear.

And just in case it wasn't, he *heard** a whisper, in a way that his nightmares had promised for decades.

*Harm them, and there will be no where you can go, Standish**, Larabee whispered , and then nodded to him as though he had done no more than show him the way. Maybe that was all it was to Larabee. Ezra felt as though things were crawling over his skin, eagerly burrowing into him, seeking out his darkest secrets, and shivered convulsively.

"Are you cold?" The boy sat beside him and leaned against him, "I bet if you were a dragon, you wouldn't get cold."

"Ah, son, I think you'll find that dragons can be colder than any thing alive," he said quietly, then smiled easily into the puzzled little face.

He produced his second best cards, the ones with the embedded LEDs, and shuffled through them, whispering half to them, half to the boy watching the flicker of cards through his hands. The cards shone, danced in his hands, a ribbon of living color and form. Other children crept towards him. Here, a fan, there, a river, a bridge. Now pictures of the children, now one of the men he had traveled with, and others, strangers here, twisting and turning among the cards, find the lady, find the lady, where's the lady...

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

JD might get to swan off, enjoying the delights of chasing escaped felons -- okay, she conceded, maybe not so delightful -- but that meant she was stuck on duty, and with all the damn administrative paperwork for the escape.

Casey swore, long and vivid, and slammed her hand against the console. It hurt and she swore again.

"Miss Wells?"

Casey rolled her eyes. Oh, it needed only this. JD was enforcing radio silence while he searched for the escapees, the Axe was due in fifty two hours, and now his sept daughter, mother of the ni ta ma de system heir wanted to stop by for a chat.

"Hi, Mrs. Travis," she turned and smiled brightly. "How can I help?"

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

"Okay, I don't get what's going on," JD murmured. He peeked cautiously over his concealing boulder and ducked back down again. "There should be four of them -- I've got three. Is Doctor Jackson one of them or not? Or did he come out here separately and am I looking for five people?"

JD frowned as dust billowed suddenly and out of it emerged five men. "Who are they?" he asked, and looked from the new arrivals back to Larabee's group. "One two, three--"

"Four."

JD turned -- or rather, was turned, a hard hand on his collar jerked him around even as he twisted to see whose the voice was. A tall man with light brown hair half hidden under a deep brimmed hat, wearing faded leathers. His free held a gun trained steadily on him. "Kid, that uniform shows up against terrain like a ladyboy in a skydance." He jerked upwards with the gun, and JD slowly raised his hands.

"Now, move it. We don't have a lot of time for this, so I'll explain on the way down."

JD blinked a little at that, and climbed slowly to his feet, scanning the man swiftly. The leathers only hid so much, especially this close. A cyborg. Something about the patterns seemed familiar, and then he gasped.

"It was you!"

The man cocked his head in mild curiosity. "Probably. What did I do?"

"You kidnapped Mr. Larabee," he accused, sure he was right. The patterns matched from the pickup last night, and there was something about the way his net felt -- JD reached out, feeding shutdown codes into the cybe. "And that other guy," he added belatedly, trying to cover his broadcast. "Whatever he calls himself."

Agony sliced through his skull. He clutched at his head, uttering a pained cry as his knees gave way and he fell, barely saving himself from landing face first in the sand.

"Quit that," the man said mildly. "Fed codes won't work so don't even try it." He walked to a boulder a little away from JD's hiding place and picked up a fuckoff big tangle rifle. "If you try to run I'll catch you and cuff you," the man added casually over his shoulder. JD wiped away tears of pain, and nodded, silently fuming. Here he was, Larabee's last hope of a rescue, and he'd gotten himself rounded up by the guy he was supposed to be hunting. What kind of a lousy excuse for a fed was he anyway?

"Come on, get up. I didn't hit you that hard," he came back and held out a hand.

JD looked at it, and then back up to the face of the guy that hotwired his state of the art federal house like it was Bobby's First Firewall.

"You gonna be good?" the man asked insistently, and JD looked around for Wilmington, only to find the man -- ghost -- whatever, sitting on a rock, his head in his hands, laughing.

"Yeah. Fine. Whatever," he said sullenly.

"Your word on it?"

JD looked up into the bluest eyes he'd ever seen and stopped. "You mean it?" he asked uncertainly.

The man half smiled. "Sure, I mean it."

"Why? I mean, okay, yes, you got my word I won't run off, but --"

The man shrugged and held out his hand again. JD took it and a second later was standing, looking straight into eyes that showed no sign of grey, all blue, and the man's smile became a grin. "Vin Tanner." He squeezed JD's hand, and JD sighed resignedly and gave in.

He had no idea what the fuck was going on any more, but Tanner didn't feel like one of the bad guys.

"JD Dunne. Former First Federale of Last Chance," he said glumly.

"Aw, now kid, you don't know that," Buck said, apparently recovered from his mirth.

"I'm not talking to *you**," JD muttered, and then realized that Tanner must have heard.

"You talking to me?"

"No! Not you! Uh, I was... talking to myself!"

"Kid."

JD shuffled nervously, then sighed and met Tanner's steady gaze. "It's a long story."

Tanner simply nodded. "I'll swap you for mine one of these days."

JD smiled tentatively back. "Short version, I've got a ghost following me around." He avoided the 'n' word.

Tanner laughed humorlessly, "Ain't we all, kid?"

"No I--" and then he caught sight of Buck frantically shaking his head and stopped. "Look, all I wanna know is what the hell's going on? Oh, and how did you find me? Did Larabee *really** see me from back there? And, hey, *was** it you that broke my house codes? Because I wanna know how you did that -- because I'm going to stop you ever doing it again," he added swiftly, "Not because it was a neat piece of hacking, definitely not."

Tanner stared at him for a second, and then started chuckling helplessly. "Come on, san cun she," he said with cheerful mockery. "Daylight's burning. I'll see how many questions I can answer before we get there."

"Where's there?"

Tanner glanced at him, and shook his head. "Camp Hugo."

"Oh." *Oh*. JD blinked. That was the place where the cybes were supposedly... his thoughts diverted again, as his eyes fixed on Tanner's silver streaked hands. Yes, he knew that. Not a man. Well, okay, yes, legally speaking a man, you just had to look at him to see that, but technically a cybe, and --

"Kid, you run that hamster wheel any harder, your brain'll start steaming out your ears." JD jolted and looked up.

Tanner's face was still and watchful.

"No, I didn't mean -- I was just -- I didn't know this place was real. I thought it was just a story."

"A story?" Tanner looked confused.

"You know, among the netkids. When I was tiny they -- the big kids -- told us about a place where cybes got to go, and if we were lucky we might get there too, and--" He stopped, mainly because he'd walked into Tanner, who gripped his chin and lifted his face up.

JD swallowed as sharp eyes examined him, and a strangernet tried to access his own nets and softs. "No." He shut everything down, hard, closed his eyes even, and after a moment Tanner let go of him and walked away.

"Y'ain't no cybe."

Only because the alu-glass didn't take, he thought, but didn't say. "Nah. They wired me for sound instead." He turned slightly and pushed his hair out the way.

"What you doing out here?" Tanner asked after a glance, and JD shoved his hands in his pockets, abruptly embarrassed. He shouldn't have done that. One measly data port was nothing like getting seeded and sold.

He wondered if the man had always been free.

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

"Ridiculous," Nathan muttered as he scrambled up the steep, rocky path, "whose idea was it to put anything up here? What kind of fa feng di neng--" He squawked into silence as he walked straight into a phase wall. The more he struggled to get out the harder it became for him to move at all -- including breathing.

"Calmly, xiao di di," Josiah said peaceably. "Breath.... focus on the stars, the moons, the pretty girls..."

"Josiah!" An indignant reproof from a remarkably pretty girl, slender, with only the barest hints of metal at her eyes and jaw suggesting what her silver laced hands told loud and clear. She looked Nathan up and down and smirked. "I think this pretty girl did better than your stupid brother."

"Peace, mei-mei," Josiah said, "peace. Nathan, I'd like you to meet Zhou Yu." Josiah grinned. "She's their guerilla warfare expert. Nathaniel Jackson; he's helping with your little problem."

"Nice to meet you--" Nathan struggled to keep his eyes away from her hands. And the skin covered only by a combat pack and pants. He swallowed.

"Oh," she said contemptuously, "One of them."

"No, no." Josiah said quickly. "Just afraid he'll offend. Zhou Yu?"

The field released him abruptly and he stumbled. A strong hand caught his elbow until he regained his feet, then pulled away. He held out a hand and smiled straight into her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She looked narrowly at him, and shook perfunctorily. "I didn't know anyone was coming up here." An oblique apology.

Josiah was wandering further up the path. "Zhou Yu, is there any ice up here?"

Nathan and Zhou Yu looked blankly at each other for a moment.

"Laotou, what do you want ice for?" she called, shaking her head.

Josiah glanced back. "Is there any?"

"It's a desert, Osanchez, what do you think?"

"Good!" Josiah rubbed his hands together happily. "Think I might need to put out a fire."

Zhou Yu frowned a little, and Nathan looked at her, bemused.

"Was that meant to mean something?" he asked. Two years of knowing the guy, and still, every now and then, just when you thought he was nice and sane he'd pull this.

Zhou Yu shook her head, not so much in denial as puzzlement. "I -- I don't know," she said finally. "When you look back on them they usually do, but at the time--"

"You coming or what?" Josiah called, reappearing in a cleft some twenty feet above them. "Or am I interrupting something?" he added with a leer.

Before either could deny it he'd disappeared from view again, a grin on his face like some sort of malevolent imp.

Nathan sighed. "At the time you wish he'd just speak without the code."

"And then there's times you wish he just keep on being cryptic," Zhou Yu said and they shared a look of mutual commiseration.

"You wanna help us set traps for Apman's people?" she asked. "We've got some low tech stuff as well as the walls." She waved vaguely at the place where Nathan had been caught.

"Sure. The uh, Joche said that there were non-combatants up here." He took a step towards the path and found himself stopped by a hard hand on his chest. "I--"

"That's right," she agreed easily. "And until I've confirmed your id with the chief, you aren't going one step nearer to them."

"Ah." Nathan nodded and took a step back again. "So, how do you find the weather out here?"

Zhou Yu grinned. "Monotonous. How's the weather back in town."

"Sunny." He paused a beat. "And monotonous."

"Dust's a bitch," she added.

"Yeah. Gets everywhere, messes up contacts, and--" his voice trailed off as he tried to think of a non-tactless way to end that sentence.

"Yeah. Gets into circuitry, and on a meat interface itches like a motherfucker." She scratched idly at the back of her hand, nails digging between flesh and the metal sinews almost hidden by the tanned skin. Nathan nodded.

"I hear that."

They fell into silence. About a minute later she straightened up from her slouch by the tree, and started walking. "Come on then?"

Nathan blinked, and then sighed. Clearly a private grid.

"The chief speak to you?"

"Nah, got a download off the fed grid," she said casually, and then cracked up at his dropped jaw. "Yeah, the feds talk to us all the time. They just love us out here," but it was no good, she was laughing too hard. "What do *you** think?" she said finally.

Nathan laughed reluctantly. "Guess the chief told you, huh?"

She glanced at him then looked away. "Nope. Not the way you mean it."

Nathan shook his head, baffled. "The way I mean it?"

"Never mind. I'm not here to open your mind to political alternatives. Come on."

They climbed for some time, and Nathan was breathing hard by the time Zhou Yu paused on a area of bare rock.

"Wait here."

Nathan nodded. The woman rested her hand against an unremarkable piece of cliff face, waited a few seconds, and Nathan could have sworn he saw light shining under her palm before she said abruptly. "Move!"

She walked straight through the wall, and Nathan shook his head. More cloaking. How the hell did they power all this? He paused and looked around. Zhou Yu was a good hundred meters ahead of him and as far as he could tell, running full pelt.

"Hey!" he yelled, and broke into a run. Try as he might he couldn't catch her, and even as he told himself that was hardly surprising he found himself resenting it. He'd lost out to cybes who had faster reflexes and steadier hands before.

"Move it!" she yelled again. "Defense grid only shuts for one min thirty, and we have to be out the tunnel before it re-engages!"

Nathan's eyes widened and he ran faster. As he sprinted his eyes could now make out the weapons ports let into the walls, and he wondered how he hadn't seen them straight off.

"Where, end?" he gasped out.

"Coming up!" She ran through another blind wall without pausing and he steeled himself and followed her, for all he was half convinced he'd bounce back and be trapped, some sort of cruel game.

He ran right through and skidded to a halt. The area was wide open, with a high wall about five hundred yards away.

"Why don't you bring everyone up here?" he asked, confused. "You've got a killing field, if you let them through one at a time--"

"Because that's not what this is for," she said simply. She was standing at the edge of the tunnel, and Nathan discovered that he could see down it as though there were nothing there.

"How--"

He reached out and touched the empty space where there had been a wall.

"No!"

He snatched his hand back. Nothing happened, and as his heart slowed again he said, "What?"

"We can't waste the power just to take a hand off someone too stupid to know the truth when he hears it."

"No, I--" She turned on her heel and stalked across the open area, and he gave up trying and followed again.

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

Steve Apman had spent a long time getting himself to a position in the world where he could get the maximum return for the minimum effort. He'd enjoyed it too. The easy days, with the occasional order to give, and the nights spent in clean sheets and pretty girls.

Which made him all the more *angry** that he was sitting in a truck that stank of piss and unwashed bodies, his ass aching because it had been a week since he'd seen a bed, he'd slept in this gorram chair, eaten in it, and right now he'd be willing to bet he'd end up dying in it, and it was longer than that since he'd been in a pretty girl. Or hell, even a downright ugly one. He shifted uncomfortably as the thought of pretties stirred him, then scowled and probed his ribs again carefully.

"You all right, sir?" Frances asked solicitously, and he forced a smile onto his face. Frances was one of the few original members of staff to have stayed loyal. Once she'd had a family and a home. He seemed to remember a couple of pretty children, they'd be about ten or eleven by now, and a man who had been introduced as her husband at a company picnic.

"What ever became of your family, Frances?"

She flinched, but he didn't really care. For that matter, he wasn't really interested. "Dead, I suppose." He looked morosely out of the window. The enemy were everywhere. Within and without, only two days ago he'd had to execute one of the juniors for recidivism. "One day Sept Apman will rise, Frances, you'll see. We won't always be stuck out here. We have strong true soldiers fighting for the clan. It can only be a matter of time before we prevail."

"Yes sir."

He grinned and slapped her on the shoulder. "I can always rely on you Frances."

"Yes, sir."

"Once the gorram cybes have been taught their proper place, we'll have all the money and tech we need." He grinned viciously. "Then we take apart Travis and his sept. Root and branch."

"Root and branch, sir," Frances repeated after him colorlessly, and it was probably just as well that Apman was so fixated on his dreams of a glorious future or he might have felt obliged to cleanse another recidivist from the sept.

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

"Mr. Larabee! Man, am I glad to see you!" JD dodged neatly away from Vin's grip in a move that made Larabee revise his estimate of the kid from urban to street, and raised the guns of a good dozen others. "Are you okay?"

Larabee raised his hand fractionally and the guns lowered again. "What are you doing out here, kid?" he asked in a dry, hoarse voice.

"Rescuing you," he said simply. His lips thinned into a white line of humiliated outrage at the general laughter. Larabee tilted a mocking smile at him.

"I'm not in much need of rescuing," he observed. "In fact, Mr. Dunne, it looks like you're the one with a problem."

The kid was looking around him and blurted, "But I can help you! I didn't understand but Vin explained it--"

Chris raised an eyebrow at Vin and Vin shrugged.

"--and I know I can help you if you'll only let me! I have resources and stuff, and if you'll just..."

Chris stared at the kid until he shut up, then looked him up and down comprehensively.

"You're not the type. Go home, kid."

"Aw, Chris, after all he's been through to get here--"

Chris was half turned away from the boy and his head snapped back around so fast it hurt. "Did you say something, boy?"

The fed shook his head, eyes wide with surprise.

"Hey, pard, you wanna turn it down a little. I think he's only got but the one pair of pants with him." He could almost see the half grin Buck was wearing as he said it, but Buck wasn't here, because Buck was *dead*, or he was *going** to be dead -- his guns were already in his hands as he turned right around, searching.

"Who said that?" he snapped.

"Chris--"

"Said what?" Standish looked from him to the boy and back again. "The only person here speaking is you, sir. Once more you seem to be losing that battle with sanity we mentioned earli--" His air was choked off along with his voice as Larabee's hand fisted into the collar of his shirt, gun jammed into the hollow of his throat.

"Is this your doing?" He shook him, "Tell me, dammit! Are you doing this!"

Ezra mouthed frantically unable to speak, his air closed off completely. Chris knew, in some coldly rational part of his brain that was assessing the odds of killing them all just to get to Buck that he was strangling the man, and then hard hands were on him, pulling him away bodily.

Dunne was there, peeling his hands away from Standish's throat finger by finger. Someone dragged one of his guns out of his grasp and he twisted wildly, trying for another, but it was gone, and so was the third, and his rifle, he could see it just two strides away but they wouldn't let him reach it.

"I'm gonna fucking *kill* you!" he whispered, and reached to gouge out Dunne's eyes, and an arm hooked around his throat, half choking him. His hands automatically grabbed at it, tried to pry it away, pulled it far enough to see the grey streaks of metalled sinews and bared his teeth. Tanner. And bit down.

"Get him down! Down!"

Someone was shouting, but all he could hear was Buck, "Stop it! Chris! *Chris**!"

Doubly betrayed. He jerked desperately from side to side, trying to break free of the hard grip around his chest. The kid tried to say something, was trying to force his face away from Tanner's arm where he was leaving long bloody gouges, and he looked up and spat blood into the kid's face, and as he blinked, blinded, Chris swung his legs up using Tanner's body for leverage and landed a kick squarely in the fed's face; followed with a second to the grey clad solar plexus, sending him flying backwards. He grinned ferally as the kid slammed into a boulder, crumpling to the ground like a broken raggedy then kicking back, but Tanner still wouldn't be moved.

"Calm the fuck down before I break your neck!" Tanner yelled. He shook him hard. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Someone seized Chris's leg and he kicked again, but they hung on.

"Let go!" Chris shook his head wildly as much to clear it as to deny any understanding of it.

"Kid, you okay,?" Tanner called over Chris's shoulder. Other hands were joining the battle, gripping his wrists, dragging his head up.

"No--" Chris panted. He had to, had to--

He saw the fed crawl to his feet, then nod. "Winded," he said breathlessly and limped back into the fray.

"Keep back," Tanner warned and Chris snarled.

"I'm fine too, thank you so much for asking," Standish said acidly.

"I've seen him crazy drunk, and just plumb crazy but this--" Buck's voice said from nowhere, and Chris howled.

"Buck!"

"--I don't think I *ever** saw him get like *this**," Buck said, and he sounded confused, worried, gentle, and that didn't make sense, it didn't make sense! "Chris? Come on, baobei, what's wrong?"

It sounded too real, that gentle concern and anxiety and Chris screamed again, fire crackling in his brain, limning his sight, roaring in his ears, the heat beating on his face. Words tumbled around him, it didn't make any sense, none of it made any-- Buck was dead, or had to be dead, or--

"Chris, Chris, for fuck's sake, stop it!" Vin, yelling in his ear.

Standish, bizarrely cool headed and speaking urgently. "Where's Jackson? Someone needs to get the doctor here, right now! He's got to be sedated before he kills himself -- or one of us."

No, no, no, nonononononono -- not drugs, not drugs and needles and voices and the burning, god his head was exploding. He tried to rip the arms away from him, pull free, he had to get away. He gasped as he was thrown to the ground and pinned, a heavy knee in the center of his back. He rocked, desperately trying to get free, get to him, kill him, clawing at the ground to drag himself closer to that voice, desperate to find it, to have him back, god he needed him, Buck, Buck was back and he had to save -- kill --

Fire burned in his brain, and he screamed again. Someone gripped one of his hands and pinned it to the ground, kneeling on his wrist, flattening his palm and pressing on the back on his hand until all he could do was scrape futilely in the sand, and then only one hand was free, and then that too was stilled, a stranger holding it down, cold eyed and stern.

"Buck, what's wrong with him?" The kid sounded panicked, and for a moment there Chris could hold onto that, the clear blue strength of an emotion so close to his own, fear and not-knowing, and *why*, and there was some weird thing where he could *see* Buck; Buck was kneeling beside him, and Vin was kneeling on him, and he could see himself spread eagled on the ground but he could feel a hand over his mouth and he could hear himself asking, "What's happening?" except it wasn't his voice or his mouth or his hand and suddenly it was gone, that moment of freedom, and his face was hard against the ground again, sand grinding between his lips, pressing into his cheek....

A hard blow struck the back of his head and he fell into grateful darkness.

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

JD was watching, horrified. He'd never seen someone fall apart like that, going from sane to crazy without any warning at all. Joche and a couple of his guys were binding Larabee at wrists and ankles, and JD couldn't stop staring.

Buck was next to him, whispering in Chris's ear, and JD couldn't help thinking that Chris had been fine until Buck had spoken. But that was just crazy. He was infected with Buck's nanites. But why would Larabee be able to hear him? And if he heard him back in the cell, why didn't it have that effect on him back then?

He shook his head, frowning.

"What's up, kid?"

"JD."

Tanner blinked, and nodded, and waited.

"Nothing," JD said finally. All he had were questions.

"They're getting Jackson back off the mountain."

"I heard." Between the screaming and shouting it was amazing the entire *planet** hadn't heard.

Standish walked over slowly, and JD shielded his eyes from the sun and looked up at him.

"You got somethin' to say to me, son?" he drawled at JD.

JD sighed. "Sure, fine. You're under arrest."

"That wasn't what I had in mind," Standish said dryly, but he sat down the other side of Tanner, and his green eyes were dancing with amusement.

"Does that happen often?" he blurted, nodding at Larabee.

"What, Larabee losing his mind? Once a day on current form," Standish sniped.

Tanner shook his head. "Depends."

"On what?" JD turned around eagerly.

Vin shrugged again, his eyes on Larabee. "On what they did to break him open."

JD looked past him to Standish, who grimaced. "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them," he said softly.

JD rolled his eyes. "You know, once, just *once* I wish someone could manage to not be cryptic Kelly around here, okay?"

"This is neither the time not the place for an education in the realities of life in the Church of Humanity." Ezra said sharply enough that both men looked at him. "Or so I would conclude on present circumstance," he added, turning away.

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

Nathan was engaged in examining a small girl who seemed in perfect health apart from the little detail of a gap-toothed smile and a bio-molecular disorder that was eating her cybernetic enhancements from the inside out. He smiled at her, and stood, looking over her head to her parents.

"We can discuss this outside," he offered.

"She'll be safe outside," her mother said, "Nathalie, sweetheart, you can run along and play."

"kay! Bye Doctor Naffan!" She scrambled down from the med bed and skipped happily out of the room.

"It's true, isn't it?"

Nathan sighed, and stared at his hands. There were miracles he could perform, and miracles he could not. "Allamains-Nei syndrome is incurable, yes. I'm sorry."

"And she has it? You're sure?"

He nodded, meeting Mark Cheung's eyes. The man winced. "There is a way to slow it -- maybe even halt the progress, but it's not usually done; not usually recommended," Nathan said gently. He looked from one parent to the other, aborting the hope dawning in their eyes almost before it was born. "If I started a treatment to unbind the alu-glass..."

"She'll die anyway," Fenna said hopelessly. "You think we didn't look into *everything**? We know that."

"It might give her a little longer." Not much of course. Where the alu-glass went, bone and cartilage depleted. Take away the main component of cyborg endo-structures and their bones grew brittle, their muscles weak, and eventually, between the withdrawal and the depletion she would die. She was young. There was a remote, miniscule chance she *might** with support, grow to be a normal human being, but the oldest it had ever worked for were newly-borns. Whatever he did, that bright, active little girl was gradually going to grow less active, and less bright, and eventually, would be an immobile little vegetable. It was just a matter of how much time.

"Then why--" he began, confused.

Mark took his wife's hand and their fingers intertwined. "We wanted to know -- we wanted to know if there was a way to have it over with?"

Nathan's jaw dropped. They meant to euthanize-- "No. Absolutely not," he said harshly. "I can't--"

"Doctor Jackson!" The door slammed open and all three turned to glare at the intruder. "Medical emergency! At the village!"

Nathan looked helplessly at the two parents. "I'm sorry," he said, and fled.

"This way!" the guide said when he would have headed towards the outside exit. "There's a drop shaft."

Nathan nodded. ""Personal anti-grav?" Please let them have personal anti-grav, he thought desperately. He wasn't sure he was up for jumping into the unknown and trusting to a remote controlled a-g burst. She shook her head. Ai yi.

"Here," She skidded to a halt and waved him ahead of her, touching her palm to a security pad. A door shimmered open and he swallowed at the gaping hole waiting for him to jump. Somehow it seemed safer back on Maia, when there were hundreds of these around, and not one relied on remote a-g.

"Doctor Jackson?"

Nathan stepped forwards, hesitated for a split second on the edge of the abyss and jumped. It was over in seconds, and he stepped out of the exit at the bottom, his heart pounding and his adrenaline levels sky high. He'd *never** understand those crazies who insisted that it was too tame for words.

"It's Larabee!" Was enough to galvanize him into action. Twice cell stopped; he should have checked on the man sooner. Be a miracle if he was-- He came to an abrupt halt. "What the hell is going on!"

Larabee was tied down on a bed, struggling weakly against his bonds. The man was battered and bruised, there was blood drying about his mouth, and the restraints had marked his wrists. Nathan was there in two quick strides, examining first with scanner and then manually. "What the gui happened? He can hardly breath like this! Where are the keys?"

"I wouldn't, Doc," Tanner said, and Nathan turned around. "He's a little unpredictable right now."

"Unpredictable? He's fucking unconscious! You're the one who dragged him out of the federal house when he was in no fit state to go anywhere! I knew this would happen!"

"You knew he would have a complete mental breakdown?" Standish asked him pointedly. "His body is fine; a little battered about the edges, but nothing that won't heal."

"And you became medically qualified, when, exactly?" he snapped straight back. He read through the data as it downloaded, and pursed his lips. There was a good bit of congestion in Larabee's lungs, probably aided and abetted by those vile smokes he kept using, god knew where he'd found them. Granted, other than that he was remarkably fit for someone who'd been taken down with badly used cell stoppers, but he wasn't about to tell this pair of amateurs that. He paused as the readings stopped making sense. He shook the diagnostic slightly, but the figures just sat there. He shook his head, puzzled.

"Does anyone know when he became a psi?"

Both men shrugged, shook their heads.

"Is there anything useful you *can** tell me?" Nathan asked, and when they both shook their heads again, brusquely ordered them out.

"What the hell happened to you?" he murmured as he reviewed the data again. The congestion was easy enough; he could either give him a shot to break it up, or a shot to dry it up, and in this dusty atmosphere, either had its disadvantages. Hmm. Dry it up and keep him monitored, or break it up and get him walking and coughing. He glanced at the restraints. On reflection, Tanner didn't strike him as someone who did things without a reason, and he actually seemed to like Larabee. Now if it had been *Standish** saying keep him chained up he'd've been wondering just what the man had in mind for his captive, but... Dry it was then.

He patched Larabee, and sealed the medication carefully to the man's chest. A couple of wipes took care of the worst of the blood from his face and throat, although he couldn't find any cuts to account for it. Maybe he'd bit his tongue. Nathan was checked the man's lips and gums getting steadily more puzzled, until he shook his head and called out, "Did he *bite** someone?"

"Yep," Tanner called back from outside. He wasn't surprised that he hadn't gone far.

"Who?" Nathan asked impatiently.

"Me."

"Get back in here. You know how many diseases the human mouth carries?" He was already getting out more wipes and the tissue fixer.

Vin shrugged a little, and perched on the end of Larabee's cot when Nathan waved him there. "Won't hurt me much." He quirked a tiny grin and slid a sly glance at Nathan, "Surprised he didn't chip a tooth."

Nathan tried to frown and found himself laughing under his breath. "Let me see," he ordered. "*Go she**! If he was that hungry couldn't you have found him something to eat?"

Tanner grinned then winced as Nathan sprayed cleansing agent on the multiple bites. "Wasn't stopping to take orders," he said, watching the stuff bubble and spread out over his forearm.

"What happened?" Nathan carefully started wiping the nanites up, killing them as he went. Any that were needed would already be embedded in the wound, the rest were non-sterile and useless. He crumpled the wipe and lobbed it into the bin, then probed at Tanner's arm. Apart from the bruising darkening the arm there were at least five separate wounds. He sighed and settled in to gluing the edges back together.

Tanner shook his head. "Not sure, exactly. Brought in the fed--"

"Who, JD?" Nathan asked, surprised.

"Was tracking down Larabee's kidnappers," Tanner said dryly, but Nathan thought he saw a hint of approval.

"Guess he got a shock then," Nathan observed, and Vin chuckled.

"Reckon he did at that. Brought him down, and Larabee loses it."

"At the kid?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" Nathan looked up. "You prefer derma or alu seal?"

"Derma's fine."

"Did JD do something?"

Vin shook his head, and held still while Nathan sprayed on a flesh-tone skin layer. "Larabee wasn't even looking at him. It was like he was talking to someone, but there was no one there, and then he completely lost it. Took five cybes and two meats to hold him down."

Nathan looked sharply up at Vin. "Wait, JD was there -- Vin, was the *kid** talking to anyone who wasn't there?"

"What?"

"JD. When Chris lost it? Was the kid talking to thin air too? There, done."

"I don't think so." Vin fisted his hand then stretched the fingers out and waggled them, and nodded as the muscles in his arm moved under the synth without tearing it or pulling it away. "Nice job." He closed his eyes, running back through the encounter. "No, I --" he stopped dead, frowning, and looked at Nathan.

"What? Vin, this is important."

"Back when I found him. I thought he was just -- but he could have meant something else. You mean there really was someone else there?"

"What did he say?"

"'I'm not talking to you', or something like that." Vin looked down at Chris -- "Did the kid do something to him? Attack him somehow?" His lips tightened in a hard line. "Is JD dangerous?"

Nathan ignored this. "Blood. Did he get any blood on you?"

"*His** blood?"

"Yes, his blood?"

"I don't think so." Vin was shaking his head, and Nathan nodded curtly. "Why? What's wrong with him? And how does it affect Chris?"

"Blood nanites," Nathan said tersely. He was surprised that Tanner didn't react, but then again, he thought, the man was a cybe. They had odd ideas about nanites.

"Nanites in his blood?" Vin shook his head, "Nathan, either I'm missing something, or you're not making a lot of sense. *I've** got blood nanites."

"Not *in** his blood. *Replacing** his blood." Nathan shook his head. "I knew I should have done something when he came in."

"Wait -- he came in to talk to you? Professionally?" Nathan nodded, "And what, you sent him away with a pat on the head? When his nanites were, what? Playing up?"

"Giving him hallucinations," Nathan admitted quietly. "I thought -- I hoped that it was just him picking up someone's broadcast, you know, it happens."

"Yeah, but--" Tanner stopped, at a loss for words. "So if Chris got some of those in him --"

"From JD's blood, yes--"

"--then he's seein' whatever the kid's seeing, and it's driving him insane?" Vin was up on his feet and out of the room in a flash. Nathan stared after him for a startled second, and then followed at a run.

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

JD winced and tried to ease his face away from the rough bricks, but only succeeded in scraping his face further.

"What did you do to him, kid?" Vin whispered coldly into his ear. "He's a priest, and if you've infected him with those damn nanos you know what will happen, kid? Do you? They will come here, and they will start with you, and then me, and every damn cybe on this world and wipe us from the face of the planet." He shook JD, driving him harder into the wall. "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" JD said desperately. "I didn't do nothing! They're locked, okay? They're sealed to my fucking dna! They *can't** do anything, you gotta know that!" He winced as the brick ground harder into his bleeding face.

"Deenay lock?" Vin said.

"Yes!" All those horror stories about the strength of cyborgs, about how dangerous the genetic modifications were, how easy it was for them to regard humans as cheap and disposable; easy to break, easy to kill, short lived... God... please... He tried not to shake, but couldn't stop, half afraid that Tanner was going to rip his head off.

"Let me see," Tanner said softly, and JD swallowed.

If it was this or his life then -- "I can't let you into the federation stuff. I--"

"You're hardwired. I don't need that."

JD nodded, and ducked his head. A cold hand brushed his neck, and then he was no longer in control of his mind. Tanner was.

Vin was moving through JD's nets, looking for all the things he considered important enough to store out of the wetware and into his memory packs. JD stared at the wall as the man ran through picture after picture, his mother, dying; getting caught hacking; waking up at the age of two with no earlier memories, and an awareness of a universe of networks and connections that he'd never had before. Learning what had been done to him at nine years old. Getting the interview with Travis who had had his juvie record right there, for all it was supposed to have been expunged... Meeting Buck. The meeting with Nathan. These moved slower. Every moment of his interaction with Larabee.

The grip on his arm slackened a little and he waited, breathing hard. Vin was a cyborg -- he knew, better than anyone else in this motley group that nanites could be locked to host dna. JD wracked his brain trying to remember if there was any chance, any at all that Larabee could have been infected, but there was nothing. No cuts or scrapes; no swapping of body fluids; no swapping of hazardous materials.

And then, Vin was gone, leaving an odd taste of regret behind him, and JD feeling like he'd been raped in public.

The grip on him changed, he tugged his arm away and pushed himself against the wall. No wonder people feared cybes. Tanner's arm around his waist changed, loosened, becoming more of an embrace than the iron restraint it had been.

"Let me go," JD whispered hopelessly.

"I'm sorry," Vin said gently. JD shuddered. What was he sorry for? What he'd done -- or what he was going to do?

Vin swung him around, and considered him. JD stared back blindly until Vin stepped away from him, revealing an interested audience of Standish, Jackson, and Wilmington.

"Kid, tell them," Buck said softly.

"I *can't**," he said miserably. "It's not my secret."

"He already knows," Buck said, nodding at Tanner with a less than friendly look on his face.

JD looked away. "I would have told you what I could," he said, struggling to get the words out in an order that made sense. He didn't look up. He didn't want to see what was on their faces. Pity, or disgust, or anger. He wrapped his arms around himself, and then changed his mind and stuffed his hands in his pockets, out of sight.

"We need Josiah," Vin said quietly. JD nodded. "Whoever he is, Josiah wanted him found."

"I didn't know what he was looking for, until the engram got into the free nanites when I downloaded." He looked up guiltily. "I licked up the blood."

Vin closed his eyes. "Idiot child."

"I didn't *know**, okay? If preach had *said**, hey, JD, don't let this one cross the b-three because I've got an entire personality dumped into about twenty teraflops of data, you think I'd've done it?"

"And you think it's him, that Larabee is hearing him, or hearing the engram's thoughts --"

"I don't *know**!" JD shoved his hands in his hair and looked up for the first time. Vin was watching him, but not menacingly, or carefully, just waiting for his next words, like they mattered, and JD's head lifted higher. "Yeah. I think he knew him, before he got downloaded, Buck, I mean, got downloaded, and he's a psi -- the Church does stuff to people. PI's are meant to be able to pick a thought out of a head a light year away."

"Not quite that far," Ezra said, and JD glanced at him.

"I forgot you were there." He looked at Nathan, "It's true, right? The nanites can't cross to someone else. They're tied to me. They're no different to blood. They just dry up and die. I die, my nanites die and all that jazz."

The doctor had the look of someone agreeing against his better judgment. "Technically, yes -- but--"

"He's a *psi**," JD turned to Tanner again, "That means all bets are off on what he can perceive, right?"

He looked around hopefully. "Right?"

"Set a priest to catch a priest," Ezra said abruptly. "I suggest we arrange for Mr. Sanchez to perform whatever arcane little rituals are required when a PI goes insane."

"He's not insane," Buck growled, over Tanner and Jackson saying the same thing.

Ezra ignored all the protests. "Once that's done, Mr. Larabee can retire to a nice, quiet home, where lots of nice, strong, trained professionals can deal with him." Ezra rubbed at his reddened jaw pointedly. "Very strong."

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

Steve Apman waited for a moment around the rise of the foothills. The cybes might be rich, and strong, and once he owned them they would be his. But right now, they were free. Some were almost certainly militarily trained, and all of them would be fighting for their lives.

A pity really, because adults would be so much more convenient than children in many ways. For one thing, he could use the adults immediately.

The rest of his fleet of transport trucks waited behind him patiently, the soft thrum of their engines barely discernable.

He watched the sun on the mountainside. Another hour or so until noon. He'd promised them until noon.

"Hell with it." He picked up the communicator, making the decision that he'd known all along he would, from the second he told them to suit up ready to break camp half an hour previously.

"Well, folks, looks like they ain't rolled out the red carpet just yet, but we're a mite early. We'll just knock on the door, nice and neighborly." He grinned viciously. "And if they won't open it, then by God, we'll make a key of our own, and let ourselves in."

Frances touched his arm and he scowled for a second. "Remember, a million creds to every soldier that brings me a cybe-kid alive. Stun only. No stopping, no killing, and do not engage with the children at any cost. The kids are worth more than you are, dead or alive."

A rumble came back over the command net, and he nodded, pleased. He flipped the channel closed, and set his shoulders. "Well, then, Corcoran. Let's ride!"

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

Zhou Yu's head jerked up at the sound of a proximity alarm. The shrill bleat cut through every sound in the control room, silencing the muted talk. One by one, every head turned to the clan chief.

"Xiao nu," Joche said steadily. "Sound the alarm."

Zhou Yu nodded curtly, and hit the main alarm. There was no sound in the place. The alarm went out through the mountain, whispering directly into nets, waking those who slept, warning those who dawdled. Through the mountain came silence, eerie, waiting.

Board after board lit up in front of Zhou Yu. Passive curtain wall was up. Behind it, energy chains that read like cyborgs with hot weapons.

"Where's master Larabee?" someone whispered.

An image flashed through the network, bouncing from person to person until they had all seen the still figure of the man, restrained in a darkened room.

"If they find him here, they'll kill us," someone else whispered, and the whisper rushed as fast as the image through the tightly woven minds.

"All will be well," Joche said calmly. "Xiao nu?"

"Lao gu," she ducked her head. "We are ready."

"Then we shall begin," he said. "Walk with me, Osanchez."

Josiah rose to his feet, and moved, a hulking shadow beside the gaunt tan and grey of their clan chief. "I would be honored, lao peng you," he rumbled, and the two of them left the control room.

"Okay people, timing is everything on this!" Zhou Yu said, breaking the quiet again. "Let's be about it!"

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

"What the fuck?" Ezra looked around wildly. It was barely midday, yet the street was growing dark -- he looked up in time to see a canopy closing out the daylight high above them.

"Under attack!" Vin said, and at the same moment, Dunne gasped.

"Get weapons, they're coming!"

"Who?"

Jackson, swore, "Shit! What are we going to do about Larabee!"

"Never mind him," Ezra snapped, "what about *us**? I thought we were going out there as a team effort, seven against Thebes."

"I believe they all died, son," a large voice said, and they all turned.

"Josiah!" Nathan was fastest, "You've got to help with Larabee -- we think something's gone wrong with--"

"Never mind that," Josiah said curtly, "I need you, all of you, out the front, right now."

Ezra was shaking his head, and Josiah's hand came down on his shoulder. "The good priest inquisitor has a plan. Do *you** want to be the one to tell him, when he comes to, that you helped it fail?"

Ezra felt a hand on the back of his head, and despite his best efforts, it forced him to shake his head. "I thought not," Josiah grinned. The hand let go and Ezra turned a lethal glare on Jackson, who merely smirked at him.

"Don't get yourself killed," was all he said, not an ounce of compunction in him and walked towards the main exit.

"Doesn't feel right," Josiah murmured, and Ezra slanted a glare at him.

"That's because we're all going to die," he said.

""Don't worry, Elena," the fed grinned at him, his terror apparently completely wiped away by the prospect of murder and mayhem. "I'll protect you."

"I'm doomed," he muttered, and started walking.

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

"Where are they?" Apman asked.

Frances slid a glance at him from the corner of her eyes. Sometimes he wanted an answer, and sometimes --

"WHERE ARE THEY!"

--not so much. She tightened her jaw, trying to ensure that nothing showed on her face.

He slammed open the door of his aircar and pulled himself upright. He stood for a second, and she knew that he was trying to ignore the pain of his bruised ribs and ass, before stalking towards the area in front of the pitiful little village. His hand rose, but she was already moving, following him out of the vehicle and into the village.

"I don't like it, sir," she said softly. She'd been military herself in her time, had signed on for a peaceful stint of body-guarding. And now she was going into a fricking land war, on someone else's home ground, commanding mercenaries who'd never fought together en masse before.

She could almost *smell** the mines and traps.

"Cowards! Where are you!" Apman bellowed, turning in the center of what appeared to be the village square. A great burned area told her that a fire had been burned there. She sniffed, not wood though. Probably some sort of heat weapon.

"Sir, it's a trap--"

"Of course it's a trap! It wouldn't be any *fun** if it wasn't dangerous," Apman said. He sounded almost happy, and she bit the inside of her mouth. Working for a lunatic was sounding less and less attractive.

On the other hand, she had a contract.

On the other, other hand, the guild would rescind the contract on her behalf if she could prove he was clinically insane. *If** she could get back there alive. With Apman. And pay for a full psych workout on the man.

Maybe this wasn't all bad.

She wondered who exactly she thought she was kidding. Apman said she was still getting paid, but funny how she never saw a bank or a cred point to check that.

Frances was watching the cliff face as her thoughts churned, and so she was the first to see the curtain opening.

"Sir! Nine o'clock!"

Apman whirled, gun up and ready. She'd give him that -- he was fast and deadly accurate. A little trigger happy of course.

"Sir -- negotiate first?"

Apman scowled, and lowered the weapon.

"Mendeleyev," he said with reluctant courtesy as the village's oldest cybe walked up.

"Apman." Joche Mendeleyev inclined his head politely. His eyes flickered to Frances' and for a second she thought that he knew her for what she was, and then his eyes left her. She held her weapon loosely, watching as more men came out. To her surprise, they really were men.

Worse, one was in federal uniform, with the stripes of a First, for all he didn't look old enough to vote. If the feds were here, they were in real trouble.

Apman shook his head minutely -- trust me -- and she relaxed. A thread brushed her net, *Get someone to ID that fed. Check if he's real or not.**

She signaled okay, and passed his message back to Ops. She didn't know how they were going to find out fast enough to make a difference, and decided that was someone else's problem. If necessary, if the fed wound up dead in the heat of battle they could say the cybes did it. Once they were safe and in, they could program them to do whatever they pleased.

It might even help when they got to the inevitable confrontation with Travis if they'd 'avenged' his boy's death. She grinned. That seemed pretty plannish.

"Sir, got word, he's genuine," she said softly. Because there was no point in giving Apman an excuse to just kill the kid.

"New friends," Apman said coolly, looking carefully around the six men backing Joche. "A fed, a cybe, a priest even, I'm almost impressed, Joche, and a trio of nonentities."

The fed spoke up, "Sir, you should leave, now."

Frances winced. The kid really was going to get himself killed.

"I don't negotiate with children," Apman said snidely, and the kid flushed scarlet. He made an abrupt movement and without thinking Frances lifted her gun. The kid didn't move again, and she saw the cybe had a tight grip on his elbow.

"Mr. Apman," the speaker was a great bear of a man. "I am Josiah Sanchez, I have lived here many years, and there is no duty of tithe on this village to anyone, least of all yourself." He smiled, and Frances wondered what that smile hid. "If you leave now, it will be for the best."

"The best for you," her boss said easily. "Not for me. I've got a certain amount of pressure on me to succeed." He lifted a hand, and all around the village soldiers burst out of hiding, out from door, behind walls, under mats. "As you see, I like to negotiate from a position of strength."

There seemed to be some sort of sharp discussion going on between the cybe and Mendeleyev. Frances repressed a grin. This was always kind of fun.

Then Sanchez stepped up to the younger cyborg, and in tones that were clearly meant to be soft, but that carried nonetheless, whispered, "Trust me."

She had real sympathy for the man right then. Four sets of eyes met each others incredulously and she fought back a grin. Oh, this was going to be like taking sugar from a baby. Dissension in the ranks, elders playing a hidden hand, not telling their juniors.

"Sir, these gentlemen have suggested you leave." She blinked at the Borealean accent. A man of culture and education standing with these -- these *cybes**?

Apman was shaking his head, "And I suppose you will tell me too, that I should depart forthwith, and it would be for the good of my *health** of some such thing," the men looked startled, and she watched as Apman took them apart verbally.

"You have no rights here First Federale. Your duty ends at the town boundary."

"My duty goes wherever Travis's writ runs," the kid said firmly despite a hand on his shoulder. "If I say it runs here, it runs here. Get out while you can."

"Bravado. Always so delightful."

"The boy is impetuous, but he has a point."

"Get out." The priest spoke for the first time, and Frances shivered. There was something cold about his voice. Cold and hollow.

Hollow? Her eyes widened. "Sir! Trap! *Down**!"

Apman didn't question her shout, and dropped as she fired, not at the men standing in a loose semi circle in front of them, but at the holoprojector that had to be up on the cliff. The concussion jolted the cliff face. The images wavered and flickered and she bared her teeth in something that might, at a less violent moment, be a smile. "That all you got, boys?" she yelled, beckoning them on with one hand. "We tried knocking politely."

"I don't much like liars," Apman said casually as he backed under cover of her guns, "Kill them all."

"Except the children, sir," she said.

"Yes, yes, except the children."

"All quarters! By the ranks: First rank! Fire!" she bellowed, and the first line took careful aim and fired, then dropped to the ground, winding their way forward under their comrades covering fire. "Second rank! Fire!"

A cacophony of sound echoed from the mountain side. She watched carefully. Apman was safely at the command vehicle.

"Third rank! Fire! All ranks! On my command, fire at will!" She waited, waited ... a soldier dropped to the ground, and didn't rise. Another slammed backwards in a grotesque arc spattering blood as he fell. She held her hand high. Wait... A whistling sound warned her and she snatched it down, but lost the tip of her index finger nonetheless, involuntarily giving the free fire command as she snatched it out of the way.

"Concentrate fire on the lower back wall. Targeting will locate the entrance in approximately three minutes!" It was an order, and through her net came silent obedience. Ops was searching desperately. The projector was spotted, limned in yellow high on the cliff face and she leveled her point-S weapon at it, feeding in the distance, elevation as Ops gave them to her, as much one with her machine as any cyborg, a thought sternly dismissed, and fired. The men had scattered as the shooting began, and now vanished.

"Cease fire! She ordered. Another soldier fell. "Ops!"

Ops promised her the weapons ports.

"Cover!"

Her soldiers retreated, slipping behind rocks, into houses, into the lee of vehicles. Even as she shook her head at the last, someone on the mountain targeted a truck. It lit briefly in red to her battle enhanced eyes, warning of an enemy lock, shouts told her that others had seen it too, and she turned away, not wanting to see how many made it in time -- or how many didn't. The concussion of the vehicle exploding shook the ground, throwing up dust. The wind carried the carrion smell of blood and death and dust stung her eyes, got up her nose. She pulled her combat skin down into place, and her vision cleared instantly -- almost instantly.

"Ops!"

Data fed downstream, and she grinned. Circle after circle lit on the mountain, and then, jackpot, a great oblong reaching almost to the top of a high ridge lit. "Ladies first," Ops said, a rare foray into voice and she grinned.

"Thank you!" Tallis and Halloran's teams were entrenched, firing steadily up at the gun emplacements. As she watched, one of the yellow circles lit orange, pulsed, and blew, taking the next one with it. Idiots had packed them too close together.

Ngede's team were closest. She ordered them up with a whisper of an order through the command net, and in seconds they were around her.

"Okay, boys and girls, we got ourselves a nice door. Let's go play trick or treat," she said, and they grinned back at her, good guys all of them, Ngede, his second, Hafez, and the rest of them -- Wang, Reynolds, Glau, Wolf. They spread out as they moved up towards the entry, then took positions in a half ring around it. If there was someone behind it they were dead.

"Glau, Reynolds--"

They nodded and ran to either side of the wall, swiftly unpacking cenemite. Glau spray-painted the stuff over the wall side of the target area, and as she watched, Reynolds turned and raced back.

"Ready?"

"Yessir!" She nodded and the two of them fired off a single trigger shot each. There was a dull roar, and they backpedaled furiously. The side of the mountain seemed to be sliding down in one never ending cataclysm.

They got back as far as the buildings and watched as the dust cloud rolled upwards, higher and higher, dissipating slowly.

Ops was the first to warn her. "There's nothing there, sir."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." Ops' tone told her it wasn't good even before the image patched through to her on the command net and she swore under her breath.

"Aw, *fuck**." There really wasn't anything there. Not even a village. Echo location, the last, lowest tech of the surveying options, kept for occasions like this when heat and virtually the entire visible part of the spectrum were unavailable, revealed a clear killing ground where they had seen houses, cliff face, people. There was nothing there but a half battalion firing madly into the air.

"Retreat!" she ordered furiously. "All ranks, by the book!

"Teams, call it!"

"Team three, five standing, all accounted for..."

And so it went, team after team calling their status. Ops kept a quiet running tally for her -- standing, accounted for, not accounted for. Later they would sort them into injured, dead, and combat able. She walked back to the aircar to meet Apman's glittering eyes.

"I won't be made a fool of twice," he said coldly. His hand twitched, and she wondered if this was it, and he was going to 'cleanse' her too.

"You did well, commander," he added, and Frances nodded. She hadn't done well. Someone, somewhere, had fucked up royally, and she was going to know the reason why.

A flicker of movement registered in the very edge of her peripheral vision, and she turned on her heel, and fired even before she really registered the grey uniform.

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

JD crouched behind a rock. He'd argued long and hard for this, but in the end, the very uniform that Buck had so derided was the clinching argument for him taking the camera out to where they could record Apman's approach. Zhou Yu had promised that the area was saturated with static, that no one would hear him, even as exposed as he would be, and he had been eager to prove himself to the skeptical men. The more Buck had shaken his head and protested, the stronger his resolve had become. He frowned, struck by a thought -- he was the one waiting out in the open, while the other watched from the safety of the cliffs. Maybe winning the argument hadn't been such a good idea after all.

JD watched, astonished, as Sept Apman fell for the ruse. It seemed so transparent to him -- he knew what the fractional lag between questions and answers was, as he and the others 'spoke' their lines and watched avatars of them voice them nanoseconds later. He bit his lip, held his breath, praying that Apman wouldn't notice it.

"People see what they expect to see," Buck said softly. JD nodded. Silence was the order. One word out loud, so much as a net microspike at the wrong moment would ruin everything. Probably kill him too, but that didn't matter so much.

He swallowed hard as Apman gave the order to move in, and watched, from far, far closer than was comfortable as a battle played out. It was almost like playing arena war games. Except that as soldiers fell, they were left where they lay. Sometimes, in the several places where they lay.

"Hold on," Buck said. "Just a little longer." JD nodded again, hoping his eyes said thank you where he didn't dare. He watched as the camera rolled on, dumping its feed direct into his wristband. He ignored the blood dripping slowly from his wrist to the ground, and soaking into the sand.

Dust billowed high, and JD watched sickly as a car blew up, taking at least three soldiers with it. One was moving weakly on the ground, and he gulped as he watched him clawing himself away from the wreckage, and then looked away swiftly, swallowing rapidly as his gorge rose at the sight of the bloody, ragged, stump of a leg, gouts of blood pouring out until the man stilled.

"About a minute and a half for the heart to pump your blood right around your body," he said quietly, not really realizing he was speaking out loud.

"Better him than you, kid."

"Better him than the kids back there," he said sharply in return.

Another huge boom, and JD watched in awe as the mountain came down. Next to him, Buck was humming.

He heard a woman's voice over the roar, and frowned. "Why's she calling a ceasefire?" he whispered.

"They think they're in and it's all over. She'll wait for the dust to clear, and then send in mop up teams. It's what I'd do anyway." He looked admiringly up at the vast dust cloud. "Pity they got the wrong mountain."

JD grinned. Smoke and mirrors, Ezra had called it, back in the hasty discussion, as JD called it, or argument, as everyone else called it before he got sent out here. A few cannily placed charges -- Nathan and some woman called Zhou Yu had been laying them all morning. A holoprojector. And a piece of smart tinkering with one of the pinpoint satellites which he suspected he should have been appalled by and in fact had been eager to learn the details of had completed the illusion. Apman would go where they wanted him, see what they wanted him to see, right down to the six men and Joche out there, arguing.

And it would buy them more time -- time to wake Larabee up; time to get Travis here. Time to get those kids -- JD ignored the fact that several of the 'kids' were not much younger than he himself was -- somewhere safe. Although he was questioning how the hell they were going to do that. Between Larabee's collapse and Apman's firepower, he was starting to wonder if any one was going to get out of this alive.

The dust cleared, and he took one last sweep of the area with the camera, and sighed.

"Reckon we can head back home about now, kid," Buck said quietly. JD spared a thought to wonder why he did that? Was habit that hard engrained that even knowing you were nothing but electrical impulses in someone else's audio-visual synapses, you still lowered your voice when it seemed necessary.

"Let me see if I can get a clear shot of them," he said in return, and edged around the boulder, peeking out cautiously between it and a scrubby little bush. Between the dust and the cover he should be pretty well hidden.

"Get back here, kid!" Buck hissed.

JD rolled his eyes and waggled his hand at Buck in a gesture that he hoped suggested that the man just shut up.

He slid a little further out, and spotted another bush. He looked around carefully, but no one was watching him. Move slow, he thought firmly. Nice and slow. Rushing was what always got him killed in arena games. Of course, in the arenas he didn't *stay** dead. In the arenas, up until his arrest, he'd been one of the top hundred planet wide some weeks. He sighed. It's not a computer game, he reminded himself, wincing a little at the remembered roar of outrage from Buck when he'd described the proposed recording expedition as being 'just like Phoenix Rising, without the monsters'.

Mom would have howled too, he thought, and snickered under his breath. Maybe that was why he let Buck bang on about stuff. Reminded him of Mom.

He edged out a little further. He wasn't quite at the right angle to get a decent line on the command vehicle. He bit his lip, and looked around again. Well, there wasn't anyone moving. He checked the nets and bands. Nothing much going on. Just a trickle from the military frequencies they'd been using. He grinned at the thought of maybe breaking their scramble code. He paused. That was a good point. He downloaded the data so far to a chip, and very, very carefully tugged it out of his neck, then slid it into a tiny pouch, sealed it, then swallowed it. He desperately smothered a cough in his arm as he choked it down. Better. One more. He dumped it out to his wristband, and from there to the nanites. Not all of them were needed to store Buck. Even dead, they would still be able to get his information. In fact, even if there was nothing left but blood-- he shifted uneasily. Okay, no dying talk. Not good for morale.

Data safe, he peeked up again. It was no good. If he wanted line of sight he needed to be closer to the transport trucks. Not too close. He eyed a pile of precariously balanced rocks. He ought to get a decent view from there.

Very, very slowly he edged to his knees, and started moving towards them.

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

"Don't get so close!" Buck ran, desperate to bring JD up short, but it was no good. "Get down! For Jeshu's sake, get down!"

A gun fired and Buck flung himself forwards, across. There was an instant of knee shaking terror but the bolt passed straight through his abdomen, not touching him. Relief eased tension from his shoulders and back for a second until a soft grunt and a thud turned him around, one hand on his belly where the shot should have blasted through him.

"No."

He knew what he would see when he turned. JD was sitting on the ground, lying awkwardly, half propped up against the rocks he'd been aiming for. His right hand was open, palm up, the gun fallen from it, his left hand lay across his lap as though he'd tried to cover the wound in his belly, and then given up. His eyes were open too.

Buck flinched.

"Kid?" he said softly.

JD didn't move.

Desperately Buck reached for him, seizing control of his net, then his autonomic functions, keep breathing, god, kid, keep breathing... systolic, diastolic... four chambers, in sequence, in, out, blood moving, in out, air moving, don't die, where *is* everyone?

He heard gunshots. Vehicles roared, the sound dwindling, and in some distant part of his mind he knew they had routed Apman -- for now.

Don't die. What if you die? Who's going to save me, kid? I don't think I'm up to the job.

Your nanites die with you.

Was he dying too? If JD died, would everything that made him 'Buck' simply vanish?

He didn't want to not-be. This wasn't much of a life, but he wanted it, clung to it. Breathe, come on, breathe. What good are nanites if they can't clot efficiently, come on you useless pieces of machinery, come on, come on...

Reality or perception? Was he only real because of JD... And what would happen if the kid was dead? Was he only real because JD perceived him? Would the nanites that held his engram die too? Would he die too? Would he wake to find the engram downloaded into yet another mind? Or would there just be -- nothing?

The kid would live. He had to. He, Buck, was still here, thinking, talking, moving. If JD had died surely--

Then people rushed past him, and he shook his head. No. No... Nathan was kneeling, hands first on the pale neck, shaking his head, and then down, ripping the blood soaked, tattered grey uniform aside. Vin was there, he didn't see him kneel down, just realized with a shock that JD's head was on the man's knees, lying him back gently. A tanned hand brushed over kid's face, and when it passed, the eyes were closed. No...please...

The shouting and shooting faded into a terrible silence. He turned. Chris was staring at him, standing tall and dark, motionless in a pool of silence and he walked to him. Chris's hand reached out, and to his amazement their hands touched. He touched, for the first time since he awoke, and felt another living creature.

"Chris," he said. If he could breathe the word would have been whispered on the breeze. If he could cry, the tears he felt would be there but he could not, and Chris would not.

No tears for Adonis.

"Chris--"

And all was black.

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Disclaimer: I don't own any of the fandoms listed herein. I am certainly making no money off of these creative fan tributes to a wonderful, fun show.