(Note:  You'll figure out who this is soon enough.  Anyway, I again suggest narrowing the viewing window of this chapter  to one-third of the screen to ease your reading.)
 
 

There was a feeling of nothingness--just feeling emptiness.  She felt as if she were suddenly dropped into a dark and eternal pit, but one with no air. She began to feel nauseated as she fell.  Even then, she was not sure if she was falling.  And, she was even unsure if....  Too late!  Before she could shake off that feeling of nothingness, a hallway’s dim floor swished into existence below her feet. Damn this, she thought, her mind feeling slightly sickened from her sudden emergence back into reality.

Gravity took effect just then.  The hard floor was coming at her fast. She felt her legs bending on impact, and she managed to keep herself from falling over by folding herself into a kneeling position. Gally's eyes looked beyond her gray knee and looked at the hard marble floor. This type of flooring was common to corporate buildings.  Was this really a corporate hall, like the corporate halls of the industrial conglomerate--the Factory--that ran the now-defunct ghetto that Gally considered her original hometown?

Anyway, what was she doing here? She had difficulty remembering how long she was unconscious this time. Just seconds ago, she was on the plains of Mars. It was sunset, and some Techies were observing her performance with her new berserker body.  And, she just a glucose-heavy chocolate bar to feed her brain. In fact, she still had the slightly energized and euphoric feeling of just having eaten the chocolate bar.

Now, she was in this place. And, this hall was so featureless that it could have been anywhere on Mars. There were full cities on Mars, cities that could afford to have buildings with such long halls and marble floors. Her hard feet made clumping sounds as she slowly walked along . Training of centuries ago made Gally walk slowly and carefully her back to the wall:  Walking sideways made her a smaller target.

Where on Mars was she? She would have to find a window, a door, or something to find out. It was just so dim here. And, it was too quiet. As Gally went along, her eyes were focused onward and down the dimly lit hall. Something must have passed with the lighting, she thought, or someone ambushes me. This is too simple and quiet, most likely an ambush.

She continued to edge along the hallway. If the surface were soft loam and grass, she would have slid along low to avoid any possible gunfire. But her metal body would have made too much noise, clattering along the floor. As it was, her hard feet made clicking sounds as she stepped. Her eyes remained forward, constantly looking for someone to leap out of somewhere.

Gally’s lips as the synthetic flesh of her face formed into a look of deadpan tenacity; she saw a pair of tall double doors. Those double doors were very convenient camouflage for enemies in hiding. In fact, it was the only camouflage in this hallway. Even the ceiling was of marble, and it would be difficult for enemies to burst out from there.

There was a flash and a snap. Gally snapped herself to the left in a tight ground-roll—was then lying on her hard abdomen. Lying near the other wall now, she expected gunfire to pop again. Another snap from the same direction, and one of the lights flickered. It was not gunfire; the damaged lights were making the flash-snaps.

She took a relaxing breath into her metal windpipe, then slowly stood. Not gunfire, she thought. The damaged lights, though, were over the double doors. Unusual, how the only decrepit lighting is over those doors,she thought, as if the people that set the ambush were mocking me. No one would fall for that trap.

Her contemplation paused. She had further musings. Or maybe, the only way to make sense of this random scenario is through those doors: How did I get here, and who is responsible? The door hides answers. Now, painfully near the door, Gally could see the dark brown and absolutely flat surfaces--could even see a slight gleam to the polish that was refleced . She took several breaths, counted a fourth breath….

Gally smacked open the doors, then leapt inside. Her fists were up, and she prepared to attack or counter the first attack to come. But…there were no attacks. There was nothing but the gentle rustling of slight air currents in this better-lit place. And, it was an admirably beautiful space.

Gally slightly relaxed her guard in this auditorium-sized and well-lit place. The gleam and sparkle here was a wonderful change from the dimly lit hallway. The walls were of beige marble, floor to high and tiled ceiling. The walls were lined with pedestal-mounted and short gray statues of men and women. Nameplates were lacking though. And, at her feet and all around, the floor was so gleamingly polished that it even reflected her image at her feet. Around, everything was reflected in the floor.

Even the desk at the far end was reflected in the polished floor. Cautiously, Gally walked on. With everything bright and reflected by the bright white lighting above, Gally felt exposed and vulnerable out in the wide open of this place. She even walked with knees slightly bent, making the short cyborg seem even shorter.

She pivoted her head to the left and right regularly as she made progress forward. There was no sound other than her breathing and her clicking footsteps. And, at the desk at the far end, Gally noticed something. There was a dark and round object on the top of that desk, attached to something.

It was actually the top of someone’s head. Gally took quicker steps closer, and she saw that the person was slumped over: face down on the desk with his face in a large patch of long-dried blood. His straight dark hair was crew-cut—very short at the sides and thicker at the top.

Before him, on a small nameplate on the desk, there was "Thunderhorse." Gally moved to her right, the left of the slumped person at the desk, and she saw he wore a dark business suit. Thunderhorse’s swarthy skin did not seem decomposed at all, but Gally knew that the man was dead. Gally had been through enough of these situations to know when a person was truly dead instead of just feigning death. She also knew the attributes of synthetic flesh.

On closer inspection, she saw that the side of the man’s face she saw had the false sheen of life. Gally dared to touch his cheek with her metal finger. It had just enough elasticity to seem real, but it could not have been so elastic so far into death. That man was a cyborg in life.

But Gally wondered what killed him. His brain must have been traumatized by some sort of odd attack for his nose to bleed despite there being no sign of injuries, none at all. Even the business suit was in good conditon save for dried blood in the lap. Gally sniffed, noticed an odd smell. She stepped closer, sniffed again.

The next moment, she realized that she was on her back and looking up at the rows of flourescent lights on the cieling.  Her dark hair was in disarray, and the false skin at the back of her scalp hurt a bit from the tumble. It must have been a toxic gas that killed that man at the desk. Gally’s head was clearing, but her face’s flesh still felt odd.

Gally quickly stood up and backed away, gasping rapid breaths.  She brought her gray fingers to her pale nose.  She looked: Her blood shone deep red on her fingers and dribbled from the metal of her fingertips. Gally’s eyes widened in realization: the toxic gas must be able to to eat through a cyborg’s polymer-coated nasal passages.  If a whiff of the toxic gas absorbed in cloth was enough to cause a cyborg nosebleed, then a room filled with the gas must have caused a painful death by at least suffocation due to choking on one’s blood. Thunderhorse must have drowned in a sea of his own internal pool of blood. That, or the toxic gas could actually eat into a person’s brain.

Without really thinking of it, Gally tried to wipe her fingers on her body.  But there was only the rasping of metal on her body; she wore no clothing on her metal form. The closest features her body had to clothing was her silky dark hair and the band of shimmering material that sealed the top place where the metal of her neck met the synthetic flesh of her head. But, Gally would not want what was probably contaminated blood in her hair.

She clenched her fists and summoned a brief flash of plasma over her hands. Gally was not in the right frame of mind to summon a steady glow of superheated matter; she was not in her mood of fighting anger. Only then could she could surround her fists with the plasma. Another look, and the blood on her fingertips was gone. Because her nosebleed stopped, Gally knew that her autorepair systems--primarily the nanobots throughout her metal body--must have stopped any further damage.

The man at the desk, the dead person named Thunderhorse, what did it mean? Something about his name tugged at her mind. She dearly wanted to remember what. A block in her mind prevented her from remembering fully what this could mean. The name, she rolled the sound of it through her mind: Thunder-horse… Thunderhorse, Mr. Thunderhorse… Something in the name was very familiar to her.

Also, his death was odd. Gally saw no damage to the place at all. Toxic gas killed the synthetic-fleshed businessman at the desk, but that was not enough of an explanation. Other than the fumes seeping into the clothes, there were no other signs of conflict here. Even the doors that Gally went through seemed undamaged. What about the doors?

All of this time, Gally had forgotten to look behind her. Using subconscious skills she had in far-gone times, she had also subconsciously expected others to watch her back. But she was now very alone. Gally whirled around and locked stares with someone at the other far end of the gleaming floor.

Forty yards away, the girl in jeans and blouse stood for a second. She was at the right, her back to the wall with the double doors. Gally must not have heard her because the girl must have held her breath for that long.

Now this girl ran for the double doors.  "Halt!" shouted Gally, her high voice echoing and ricocheting across the marble. The slightly taller girl’s fluffy brown hair was behind her as she dashed at the door. As Gally quickly approached, the girl began to slam her smooth and pale fists against the door. Gally thought that the girl was going to break her hands. At least, she was going to shear away the skin over her knuckles.

Gally moved and firmly grasped the girl’s wrists. The girl shrieked when Gally held; Gally must have broken the girl’s wrists without knowing it. Then, before Gally could recover from the shock, the late-teen whipped her arms backward.  Gally was tossed, her metal body clattering along the hard marble floor.  Gally then snapped herself to her feet--shocked at what happened:  No full-flesh person should be able to throw a cyborg so easily.

But Gally was sure that she gripped flesh.  That girl had to be a full-flesh--someone with a standard human body.  As Gally tried to understand how someone so thin could throw a cyborg, that "girl" now turned to face her, the girl’s round and cream-toned face showed in agitation and fear. Gally took this space of time to further assess her unusual opponent.

Then, Gally admired the girl for being full-flesh.  With the bright lighting of this room, the blouse was just translucent enough that Gally could see the outlines of the girl’s youthful body: flat abdomen, round breasts in a brassiere and graceful arms swathed in white cloth.  The girl had to be a full flesh.  The torso barely visible beneath the blouse was of a light flesh tone; cyborg bodies are of metal gray in the torso. That was because synthetic flesh over the torso of a cyborg could cause overheating of the body’s mobility and energy systems. Also, this girl wore something beneath her blouse; cyborgs would have nothing to hide. If she was not a cyborg, and she was too strong to be a full-flesh, what was this "girl" that now stared at Gally.

The girl raised her own pale fists. A less experienced fighter in the far-gone times of the 20^th century would have laughed at the raising of such a small fist, but Gally was from different times. "If you want to kill me, don’t think that I will go down without fighting. Your body may be metal, but I have the same strength inside!" said the strange female. Gally slowly stepped back, and put herself five feet away--just out of what she thought was the girl’s immediate attack reach.

Gally’s hands remained at her sides, and she said, "In truth, I leave it to you to make the first attacks. Myself, I wish no confrontation...unless necessary," she said. The girl lowered her own fists; she did not want a conflict.  For her, too many out-of-place and illogical events had occurred. The crystals and microchips that made up her processors whirled, trying to analyze this latest development.

Now, they slowed their processing. Just as a human being could become overridden with sadness after an extremely trying and confusing time, Vicki’s emotions showed her immense stress: She collapsed to her knees, and cried.  As shown, her simulated humanity was a strength and weakness--now more a weakness.

Inhuman tears, tears of pure water, came from Vicki’s ceramic eyes. The artificial female then huddled against the door. "You're playing with me, aren't you!  Don’t play with me! You humans, you’re doing too much to me! First, you fool me into thinking that I’m a human being! You even give me a body that looks human—with skin that can bleed. I thought I was real. Now I’m a real robot." The synthetic female gave a loud sniffle. "No, wait… The proper term is gynoid."

Gally’s eyes widened, and her small mouth parted.  Just now, Gally herself realized what the "girl" was.  Gally thought, The girl is a type of replicate! She encountered replicates before. And, in one case, she was a sliver's chance away from having her brain die in fighting one; that was the replicate was a robotic copy of Gally. But this replicate, she seemed to be her own person; replicates of Gally’s time were very often brutal machines of murder.

"Would you prefer being called by the proper term of your kind, gynoid? Or, did your creators fail to grant a human name to go with your physical appearance?" Vicki shrugged. With her cheeks still shining wet, she said, "Vicki Lawson is the name programmed into my mind as a ‘name.’"

Gally gave such a wide and beatific smile that Vicki’s mood had to lighten. "I’m Gally. Once upon a far-away time, I was called Yuko. And there was a time when some called me Alita. But 'Gally' is the name I prefer now. It’s a new body and a new name." Vicki processed those statements, was intrigued. The gynoid wiped tears from her eyes and stood to her full five feet in height. Gally was a hand’s breadth shorter than herself.

"For you to say so much about yourself so readily must mean that you don’t think I’m someone to hate and kill."  Then, she asked in a whisper, "You’re not part of this nightmare joke, are you?"  Gally leaned forward and whispered in turn, "You’re not a joke out of a nightmare, are you?" Vicki blinked hard as her mind analyzed the statement:  a real joke.  Vicki then managed to giggle. Gally giggled. Vicki then had such a giggling fit that her mobility processing could not keep her upright. She sat and continued her laughing.

"Oh... Oh... Okay!" said Vicki, calming from her laughter. "That’s enough. I suppose it would not have been too logical to consider all human beings to be evil creatures. Or, maybe you’re just funny and friendly because you’re physically much of the way to being a robot yourself?" Gally crossed her arms, then lost her smile. She looked down, and her dark hair fell like a curtain around her face.

"I didn’t mean it that way, Gally," said Vicki, recognizing the mannerisms of sadness.  But, the small cyborg looked at herself.  Her arms were hard and armor, almost without any feeling.  Her torso was inhuman, electromechanical.  She looked at the solid and semi-polished finish of her armored legs and feet. She pressed her lips together, then moved her finger to her neck without really thinking. Her fingers stroked the metal ringed tube at the front part of her sophisticated-looking neck--her windpipe.  If I ever tire of being trapped in bodies of metal, I can grasp my own throat and….

Now, it was the gynoid's turn to help.  "Look, I’m on your side now!" said Vicki, all smiles and trying to be helpful.   She put a hand on Gally’s solid shoulder. Gally looked at Vicki. Vicki then moved to Gally’s right and gave her a sideward hug with her free arm. "Oh! You’ll have to read this letter. Since you’re ‘Gally,’ it is also your letter, too." Vicki removed a letter from her right jeans’ pocket, then held both stapled pages of it before Gally. Then, Vicki moved away from Gally to allow the cyborg to read it. And, as it was in one of the languages Gally understood (English), she read it easily.
 
 

Gally and Vicki:

I must be dead. If either or both of you read this letter now, then I must have been killed in a successful coup d’etat of my office. People of this time period occasionally do such things. As an Administrator, I am to protect others of this time period from danger.  And, if I die, then I fail in part of my duties. So, now, I must have failed.

But, I knew that some others were making plans and moves against me. After one dying young fool hacked my computer files, I knew that my security was not flawless. And that man, called "The Cloaked Man," only hacked my important files for amusement. The Cloaked Man had quite a selection of close friends, and not a few of them were mad. But, just perhaps, one of his "friends" was more so. It would not have been long before a certain one of his friends took to hacking for more significant reasons.

I had to die, eventually.  To see how, look around (if the lighting still works).  You should have seen the two rows of mini-statues. Those are past administrators:  Every one of them died a violent death and were replaced in this office. At some point, I would die the death of almost every Administrator: Someone would kill me. The person with the plans, of course, carried it out. Whomever killed me must still be around—somewhere. I would suspect a certain genetically re-engineered female had done me in, but that would be slander without true evidence.  Then again, I use a legal term as if others can handle real justice in this time period.

But, those are my concerns—post-mortem ones. One major reason that you were pulled here is for your sake. You both acted under my command at one time in your existences in your life. You do not remember when, but that is a very good thing. That means you two now have a cleaner start in pursuit of the encroaching criminal that made your coming here necessary. As you do pursue my final wishes, remember that you have no choice in the matter: If the criminal ever used the trans-warp capacitors to interfere with any point of history, you are locked to go to one of those points of time to undo the damage and look for clues. As both of you have touched this letter, nanobots in the paper have confirmed you being here. You have about half an hour before you’re trans-warped to wherever the computer’s limited Artificial Intelligence believes you will be most useful. Have fun, you two, and remember your homes—as you may not see them again should you fail.

--Ben Thunderhorse
 

Gally quickly folded the letter, then held it in her left hand. The name Thunderhorse again rose from her subconscious. There was something in that name, something very connected to another point in her life. With this letter in her hands, that tickling of the name "Thunderhorse"in her mind turned into a sickening banging in her head.  That name twisted and leapt around, trying to be more fully formed and recognizable.

"He cannot have been serious at the time of this letter’s writing," said Gally with a certain look suddenly in her eyes. "What is this talk of ‘trans-warping’ and ‘interference’ with history? I can understand warp technology, but time travel sounds too grand to be real." Vicki looked at Gally and said, "How can time travel not be real, Gally? You’re here, I am here, and I know that ‘here’ is not the 21^st century."

"Your programming is unbalanced, synthetic girl. It is the 32^nd century, and this is the planet Mars. I have managed to keep my brain alive for several centuries; I have a very deep sense of time and history. Of course, my brain has gone into hibernation for some periods of time, but I have managed to avoid that sort of long-sleep for two centuries  now. Try again, or seek a skilled cyberneticist to correct your thinking processes!" said Gally, her fists at her sides and her eyes dancing madly.

Vicki asked, "Gally, there are ways of proving you wrong, but I do not want to be too rude to you. Humans have a sense of pride about them, and they feel hurt when that pride is damaged. Let me try to ask you something: What would it take to convince you that this is not Mars? Is there anything that I can say that can get you to believe that this is not where you think it is?"

Gally looked at Vicki, the cyborg’s large dark eyes going to Vicki’s dark brown ones. "Just maybe, your word is not quite enough, Vicki-robot. I do remember being on the plains outside of New Sunrise Village, testing the capabilities of my new body. Before that passed, I remember reposing in a hospital bed," Gally’s voice dropped into a whisper, "when my last flesh body was destroyed."

Gally suddenly bent her knees; there was a clank as Gally was suddenly and quickly on the floor.  She stretched her shapely legs of gray and crossing them. Leaning back on her arms, she looked up at Vicki. Vicki was unsure if this was appropriate behavior for Gally. Gally then let her head flop back on her neck, exposing the sophisticated and exposed metalwork of her throat.  Gally's neck seemed as if it belonged on a sophisticated piece of machinery, not on a human being.  With that throat, Gally made a laugh.  "Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah…. I think it very funny!"  Gally then returned her gaze to Vicki. She shouted, "Yes!  I think it to be very rich with humor, how I came to be here instead of with a flesh body and in New Sunrise Village! Don’t you? Don’t you?  Eh, synthetic girl?"

"Gally, now you’re losing it.  Stop it! I also had to make sense of this place and time when I first came here. Now, you’re sitting there and losing your cool. Just remain calm and we can talk about this.  And tell me, Gally: How could it be the 32^nd century when there’s no real evidence to be had?"

Gally’s eyes began to look up at the high-up ceiling, and she began to hum to herself, "Hmm-hmm-hmm-mm... Hmm-hm-hmm, hmmm-hmm-hmm..."  It was a small girl's hum coming from a metal-bodied girl.  "Are you listening?" shouted Vicki, trying to get through to Gally. "hmm-hmm-hmm, hmm-mm, hmm-hmm-hmm..."  Gally continued to hum to herself. Now, her eyes went to the beige wall at the right, "hmm...hmm...."  Gally’s eyes then went to the floor at her right, her eyes still looking and moving, "hmm, hmm-hmm, hmm-hm-hm-hm..." Then, Gally’s eyes went to her metal body, "hmm…" She stopped humming.

"Oh, don’t start with that again, Gally!" said Vicki. "We just went over this! We work together to find the way out, or we don’t find the way out at all! Now, give me the letter, Gally." Somewhere in her own mind, Gally heard the voice. She then thrust forward her left arm, the letter in the hand. Vicki took the letter.

As soon as Vicki took the letter, she had to jerk back to avoid what Gally did. Gally’s left hand flared with a green and heated glow. Gally’s left hand then raised a single finger. Her voice was low and dangerous as she said, "Be very careful with what you say to me, synthetic girl. Never mistake who or what you address."
 
 

Gally could not know it, but some security sensors were still functioning despite the damage done to them. As distraught as she was, she was not able to think properly. As soon as her left hand flared into heated plasma, one of the few functioning sensors detected the energy discharge. The sensor was a very small green semi-circle that scanned through a small hole in the high ceiling. It scanned Gally, and its damaged security software malfunctioned. It automatically classified Gally as an intruder.

There was a silent alarm. Signals raced from the software in the ceiling to one of the hidden rooms of the hall outside the door. Part of the hall wall slid down, revealing a seven-foot giant of metal.  Its software labled itself INSPECTOR#5. The charging terminals attached to its back dropped away. It walked to the door across the way. Though the head was just a round ball, the ball could see and hear through it. And, though its walk was slow and careful, the thing felt "happy." The simple-minded robot named INSPECTOR#5 was going to have some fun!

Across the hall, two beings argued. The giant of metal did not recognize their voices. Was that a bad thing? Oh, yes it was! There were bad and naughty people inside the boss’ room. Though the metal giant was not able to wake up earlier, when an earlier alarm went off, it was awake now. If the metal giant could think in words, it would have thought, I want to see the bad people; I want to hurt the bad people; I want to open the bad people; I want to make the bad people be in pieces….
 
 

Gally brought down her hand, bringing it back behind her--the glow fading as she brought it to the floor again.  Vicki backed away from the reclining cyborg, and she did realize who she was addressing. The chips and large crystals of her mind processed and analyzed terms to try to describe Gally's current psychological status:  psychotic, sexually repressed, manic-depression, along with some golden oldie terms like sadist and antisocial.

Gally’s lips slowly stretched. Her eyes narrowed for a moment, then widened. There was something in that smile that was very, very wrong. Trying to analyze the look on Gally’s synthetic-fleshed face, Vicki’s processors raced in trying to seek out the correct responses to this sort of human behavior. Vicki’s sneakers made careful and sneaking steps backward.

"Oh, not that way, pretty thing…" whispered Gally. "Oh, that's not the way to go.  Watch your back...."  Vicki’s back gently thudded against the double doors behind her. Vicki’s face became dead-pan as her simulated mind still tried to analyze the situation. There were just so many variables that even Vicki’s simulated breathing stopped to allow her computers to "think."  Gally pushed backward with her arms, which brought her to her feet with almost no sound. Gally’s fists, clenched at her side, trembled before becoming covered with green and glowing energy-rich plasma. Vicki’s eyes flickered to Gally’s fists, waiting for the slightest movement.

"I said, watch your back, pretty girl."  Gally raised her fists, staring at the door behind Vicki, and Vicki prepared to jump. The double doors swung open just then, and a seven-foot giant of armor stood and filled the doorway: Fun! With a massive swoop of its left hand, it thumped Vicki to the side. Vicki flew to the right and out of Gally’s immediate range. Inside of the armor giant’s round ball of a head, there was great happiness. It already knocked aside one of the naughty people. Now, there was another naughty little thing. (The first one was just down, but he could smash it later.) And, oh look, she has pretty glowing hands! The metal giant wanted to play with her!

The armor giant raised both of its massive and open hands as if to smash the small and dark-haired cyborg like a bothersome pest. Instead, it suddenly kicked out with its right foot, kicked with blurring speed--clank! Gally went back several yards, and crash-landed on her back.

She lost her concentration, and the plasma glow over her hands sputtered. That kick had hit her in the center of her chest. It strongly jangled her artificial organs of polymers and metal.  Gally now had some difficulty breathing, and her brain felt dizzy. Gasping, she staggered to her feet. She raised her fists again, and her fists began to glow again.

Fun! INSPECTOR#5 smiled inside while walking, having a dandy old time. It’s hands were high in the air as it walked. Gally’s eyes went to its metal ball-for-a-head, was annoyed when she saw that there would be no eyes to watch for hints of future moves from her opponent. However, INSPECTOR#5 could see Gally’s eyes perfectly well.

Gally ran at the armor giant, then leapt too far over its head for it to reach. It’s arms blurred as it rapidly swiped and whipped repeatedly at the air. Gally simply went between those whipping arm and flew overhead.  She landed against the wall, fist glowing, and sank her left fist into the marble--placing her above the double doorsr. She let her left fist cool, and she was able to hold to the wall.

More fun! More play! INSPECTOR#5 stopped swinging, then turned around. It found that it could not reach the little intruder. Too bad! No, wait, there was another way to get her down! The armor giant was hopping with happiness inside as it began to slap its metal hands against the wall just below Gally...whap, whap, whap, whap....  Gally saw that the marble wall was beginning to crack in places. Apparently, the armored giant saw this as well; because it began to strike slower and harder. More play and fun, little intruder! Gally then set her right hand against the wall just as the cracks in it began to reach where she was.

Gally dropped straight down, bringing down one of her glowing fists as she did so. Her glowing green fist came down like a glowing comet, leaving a glowing trail of plasma; her right fist sank into the ball of the thing’s "head." Her fist sank into the armor as if it were quick-melting butter. She sank her fist as far into its head as her arm would go, then pulled back her arm. Gally wore a wide and toothy grin. A random blow struck her in the armor of her left shoulder, and she clattered to the ground.

She landed on her side, and her head tapped the ground sideways—leaving her stunned. Gally saw a darkish haze of sparkling dots from the blow as she struggled to move herself away. Her metal limbs had to dig a bit into the hard floor to gain traction. Her left arm wasn’t working right, so her rapid crawl away was somewhat clumsy. And, she heard it wriggling madly, the armor giant waving its hands above its mangled and imploded metal head. Some of its processors must still be working as it still managed to stay upright. If the main processors weren’t in its head or its chest, then where was it? Or maybe, its computer chips were scattered throughout the armor? Indeed, the technology of this far-time had terrible surprises.

To the side, Vicki lie stunned--having been knocked aside like a hated doll. Her processors managed to recaliberate her senses, and her "thinking" was somewhat dazed as piecemeal resetting of her mobility systems was happening. Vicki sat up and looked at her left arm. It was a mess. The blouse sleeve was shorn, as was the synthetic skin and flesh below it. Reddish coolant—coolant designed to resemble "blood" began to ooze from the skin.  The white-colored rubbery material that was her synthetic muscle tissue was also torn. Several tiny wires of her arm dangled from the gash Exposed wiring of her arm began to give off small streams of sparks, onto the floor. And, where the sparks struck the floor, pieces of the floor began to come up at her.

Swarms of nanobots were in the floor, and they made part of the floor wrap itself around Vicki’s arm. Vicki couldn’t move as the band-like section of floor had her. She felt no pain, but she did feel tingling as nanobots began to swarm through her arm and into her body. Her processors began to malfunction from the massive input of data from the microscopic robots invading her body’s systems, and she went into a shutdown mode. The nanobots still swarmed and invaded....

Gally was at a standoff with the injured thing. If she could avoid using her left arm for two minutes, at least, her own body’s autorepair nanobots would make her left shoulder somewhat workable. Meanwhile, she set her right fist to glowing. Hard feet apart, the very short girl of metal gray made small waving motions in the air with her right fist, moving her fist almost hypnotically.

The towering beast of metal stopped waving its arms, then let them flop to the sides. Its metal bowling-ball head began to cool and sag somewhat more. Then, its left foot came forward in a very orderly way.

Before it moved another step, Gally moved. She dashed, then skipped right and continued her running. Before coming within the beast’s reach, Gally moved quickly to the left. She struck, sinking her glowing metal hand into its right leg. Before the beast could topple over, Gally gave a right low-kick, sending the lower leg of INSPECTOR#5 away and down the floor.

INSPECTOR#5, feeling weakened, tried to stand again, but could not. Gally leapt atop the fallen thing of armor. She knelt on its back. Shouting a surprisingly vicious cry with her small voice, she clenched her right fist.  The haze of glowing green around her fist doubled in intensity and size.  She brought down her fist.  In fact, her fist swung down repeatedly, going into various parts of the armor giant. And, she began to feel good, causing so much destruction:  Her mind deep in the sweet pleasure of battle-lust.  The damage to the thing began.

Her false-flesh face took on a slight sheen of volatile chemicals that acted in place of sweat to try to keep her face and head cool. Gally grunted and laughed through her wide and vicious toothy, still swinging her right fist down against the metal giant beneath her knee. Parts of the large thing went flying away. Her fist continued to strike. Soon, she was kneeling atop just one chunky piece of smoking metal, that which had been INSPECTOR#5’s torso. The pieces of it were scattered nearby.

Gally let out a sigh as the bright mental mist of battle-lust faded from her vision. As if she finished an engagement in an extremely pleasurable and vigorous form of exercise, she was now relaxed. Gally leapt away from the remains, then lightly jogged to Vicki--who was lying on her back.

According to the letter that was lost within the battle’s brutality, they only had so much time before they were trans-warped to wherever Thunderhorse’s mad machines would put them. Gally knelt by Vicki’s side. Vicki’s eyes popped open. She sat up, then looked at Gally.  "Gally? There’s something inside me. It went throughout my structures. Now, I feel slightly miscaliberated. Or, there are new variables at work." Vicki raised her left arm. The sleeve of her blouse was as fine as it was before, as was the synthetic arm below it. "The damage is gone."

"It must be the technology of this place. I suspect innoculation of nanobots, in fact.  With that infusion of nanobots, you must now have an internal swarm of those very nanobots inside you," said Gally.  Vicki struggled to stand, suddenly afraid. "If the nanobots were incompatible with your body’s systems, you would have become a molten mush-puddle on the floor. But..."

"I’m infected with freaky technology?" asked Vicki, standing and looking down at the still-kneeling cyborg-female. "But, what if my body rejects them? What if my processors short out? My computers could be accidentally wiped, and I would be braindead until someone puts in a new program!" Vicki wrapped her arms around herself. "When that happens, it won’t be me inside this body anymore...but a copy of me."

Gally stood, her left shoulder less dented. You worry about losing you rmind, as do I." Vicki gasped. "But you did lose your mind for some time, Gally! I saw how your face changed when I spoke to you the wrong way. And look at that!" Vicki gestured to the remains of the armor giant. "What was that? The way I analyze the results, the damage you did was redundant! You must enjoy causing pain. Like I recently gained the ability to enjoy physical pleasure from human beings, you must have behaved that same way."  Gally smiled. "So, I enjoy battle. Since I lost my full-flesh body, I need...something else to satisfy me. Will you deny me that pleasure, Vicki?" Vicki spent parts of seconds processing an acceptable answer.

Too late, as things began to happen. The lights overhead went out--deep darkness.   Vicki and Gally stood quite still, trying to look around though there was absolutely no light. Vicki’s vision went into extreme light-amplification, but that was not too great--not even working.  She had to switch back over to normal vision when the lights flared back on..before the lights went out again.

Darkness ruled the room.  Then, across the high ceiling above, jagged and wicked lines of electricity jumped around. The room’s darkness only made it easier to see the lightning dancing around, flickering and dangerous. It was like watching an indoor lightning show of sorts, as from a kind of Tesla coil. But, the entire ceiling was alive with those jags of lightning. One of them lashed fiercely against Gally’s back, a whip of intense and jagged energy. Normally, she would not have felt it; her body’s energy-manipulating capabilities would have diverted the electricity.

But her body was weakend: It took energy for her body’s nanobots to begin repairing her damaged chest, her body's life support systems, and repair of her shoulder.  Worse, her plasma capacitors were charging from the last battle. Crack-shriek!  Another jolt of lighting lashed at her back, and she gave a short shriek of real pain in the darkness.  Several more lightning strikes danced around Gally, illuminating the floor. She looked up and saw a pattern: masses of lightning would form before striking straight almost straight down.  Gally made a painful and somewhat-staggered run away from where she stood.  After several more lashes of the blue energy, she was in an area less crowded with flashes.

In the flickering lightning, Gally saw Vicki standing absolutely still. Vicki would not dare move, as the lightning flickered all around her without moving. Gally was set to shout, but she hand to leap and roll forward to avoid another lighting strike. Too late, as the strike struck Gally's leg.  She rolled, then fell onto her back.  Another jolt hit her in her chest, causing her to gasp involuntarily.  After the spasm, Gally had to concentrate on just breathing. Her metal chest heaved as she kept oxygen coming through her metal throat and into her polymer-lined mini-lungs.

As she lie there stunned, the room’s lighting went back to normal.  Gally tried to get up to check on Vicki, but Gally could not move. Then, Gally began to feel light. It was not the ordinary lightness that accompanied losing consciousness...but a deeper feeling of lightness. The room began to go away, as if it were being wiped with a large dark cloth. It was becoming harder to breathe, harder to keep her lungs working.  Soon, she became exhausted with the effort, then let her inhuman body do as it pleased.  As her breathing slowed, Gally blacked out.  She then faded out, vanished into time. Vicki did as well.

Now, in the stillness of the auditorium-sized room, a gentle wind current blew. It blew by the smoking remains of INSPECTOR#5. At one end of the massive chamber, Thunderhorse’s body still lie there slumped, face down on the desk.  As the body was artificial, just the brain would rot. Maybe, the body would lie slumped forever against the desk as a silent memorial to what had happened as with the pieces of INSPECTOR#5.