Professor Destin Enoch Nova, MD, Ph.D., carefully examined the supine figure on the table in front of him. His subject's nerves were in perfect tune, and there was no sign of brain damage. The latter criterion was the more important to him, as it would interfere with how well-controlled the experiment he was preparing would be. He reached to the autoclave and extracted a his chainkrysse. A touch of the button and it was primed, a squeeze of the trigger and the motor was whirring and whining. "Excellent!" he said to himself, and cackled with glee for a few moments. Returning to his work, he traced his laser scalpel along the man's scalp. The flesh was seared off, and Nova eagerly jerked the man's scalp away, revealing the bone beneath it. He placed the palm of his left hand on the very top of the cranium, then-- in one smooth clockwise motion--swirled his hand and arm around the man's head, carving through the bone. Years of experience had honed his practice to the point where, despite his haste, the brain itself remained intact. The brain! The flower, the very lotus, of the primate line. Besides its pragmatic value to Nova, he adored its corrugated, bleached beauty, and the sensation that its mass produced in its hand. It was sensuous, though not sexual, feeling that it invoked within his heart. He was the ultimate aesthete of the brain, and his passion for its form was unmatched throughout the ages. He slipped a pan under the subject's head and let the scalp and cranium fall into it; the brain itself remained in place. Nova nodded with satisfaction. He slipped the pan out of harm's way and deftly pulled a cart with a large bucket on its top in his direction. He hung the bucket by its handles on the near end of the table, dangling just below the patient's brain. From the cart beside him Nova took a thin piece of wire with grips at either end. He slipped its median just below the edge of his subject's cerebellum. He jerked down, and the top of the brain peeled off from the body, falling into the simulymph in the bucket with a "splorsh". Nova took his masking tape and a felt marker from his coat pocket and jotted "#64" on a piece of tape. Before he could affix it to the bucket, the wall a story below him caved in. Although he didn't know exactly what had happened, he guessed from the noise that something was amiss. He set the experiment aside for the moment, feeling a twinge of insecurity. Something was going wrong outside in the Zoo, something that neither Barzald nor Eelai had been able to avert. A second and a third clatter came from outside, and he felt very unnerved. The noise his ears had picked up sounded very much like an energy weapon discharge. Only insentient Factory Netmen were allowed to carry such things. Was one outside? Or had someone waylaid one? Confusion and chaos were heady in his mind. He needed to think carefully, something would have to be done. He dashed across the laboratory to his flan. Before he could cross the room, the door to his sanctum began to melt. A circular depression formed, and then the steel ran down to the floor, pooling upon the ground. A figure in black, carrying a cream-yellow laser hooked into her left arm, stepped through the hole. Infernal fire burned behind her honey-brown eyes, and her teeth were bared in a smile, equal parts furious and zealotry. --Desty Nova, you sicken even me, who has seen between the realms of the living and the dead. I can tell you before I even begin, you won't suffer enough at my hands.-- Nova said nothing, instead cautiously and slowly reaching for his flan. His guest shouldered her weapon and made her way to a chair within comfortable speaking distance of the scientist. The room they were in was about four by ten meters, with a low ceiling. Ducts and wires of all shapes and colors dangled from the ceiling and wrapped around the walls. --That abattoir you dare call testament to the scientific method is dead. As are your servants...separated each into a dozen containers.-- Nova nodded gravely. --I see. It would...it would be interesting to see what becomes of them once the nanobots begin to reconstruct their bodies, would it not? Mm?-- He lifted a spoonful of the flan to his mouth. The woman lazed off his arm at the shoulder. --Nova, you are a man very sick in your mind. Now tell me...how do I get to the City in the Sky from here?-- Thunderstruck, he glanced from his shoulder to the arm lying upon the ground; then he screamed in pain, and clenched the charred flesh on his shoulder. She echoed him in a shriek of her own; then she kicked on his chest, knocking him from his seat, and prodded him with the laser. -- NOW!-- --Wait a moment! I'll talk! I'll talk! Just, don't be so angsty!-- Nova scooched from underneath her boot, still clutching his wound. --Yuh-yuh-yuh, you're the Warrior Yoko, am I right? I have heard rumors, you know.-- --Oh? Fascinating. What manner of rumors? Humor me, and give yourself a moment to breathe, Desty Nova.-- --Rumors...about a person...killing expatriated Tiphareans. No- one in the whole of the Scrapyard knows, or cares, who we are. I am able to act with impunity...-- She smashed the side of his face with the laser, and Nova spat blood and teeth. --Was. Forgive me. But someone from centuries ago, from the days of the War in the Sky, would know, and would care. One person, it seemed only logical...the most noteworthy Missing Presumed Dead from the entire war.-- He swallowed. --The poets say that love is stronger than death. I remember something from my anthropology studies, back in University...how sometimes, just sometimes, a crow would bring someone back from the lands of the dead, if their love was strong enough to refuse death.-- --Love. Yes, I know what it's like to love.-- "Yoko, DON'T LOOK! Don't you hear a thing I'm saying to you?" She sat down upon Nova's knees and thrust the barrel of her laser up against his crotch. --I know what it's like to fall in love with a nation, and watch them grow, and make decisions for themselves, innocently and purely, and then have those choices raped by people with their own self-interests. You Terran bastards fucked us. You fucked not only Mars, but Europa, Ganymede, Titan, the Asteroid colonies, anyone and everyone you could tempt with your money and power. You and your lap dogs on Luna. God is a bastard, nobody's child, and He doesn't believe in security. One last time, how do I get to Zalem from here?-- Nova coaxed a calm, almost serene smile. He saw across the coming days of the world, and knew that he wouldn't be part of them. He felt secure in that death would only be moments away from him. To die, and be as confident as anything that death would be painless; it wasn't a desire Nova would have credited himself with having. It was so primitive that it seemed all but alien to the Tipharean mind. --You can't. No-one is supposed to. Unless you sprout wings, I suppose that you would have to walk up the tubes.-- He remained silent as her expression slipped. Then, buoyed by an adrenaline rush as outlandish as his preternatural serenity, Nova lurched forward and rammed the heel of his hand at the base of Yoko's nose. Instinctively, she batted him away from the pressure point; and to Nova's relief, his head was obliterated. -- "MILLION? TWENTY MMMMMILLION DEAD?" "I wouldn't have believed it myself, either," said Bertram, pushing the printout to her, "but it's corroborated from three sources. Multiple nuclear explosives along the San Andreas and sister faults. Ninety percent of Los Angeles is now underwater or beachfront property. And forget recovering the bodies, unless you've got a submarine." Yoko shook her head disgustedly. "And they really believe we did it?" Bertram snorted. "The US of A is the most the undereducated astropower, as well as the most belligerent. They'll believe anything, as long as it'll give them a target." He hung his head heavily against his hand and looked at Yoko somberly. "Bet you anything that they can't prove the claim of responsibility is faked. Even if they do, there's no way we'll come through this untarnished. We're in deep shit." "So what now?" "The Leader's called a meeting. One of his inside connections has probably slipped him some information, we'll see what the official position is. Hey!" Yoko and Bertram hurried across the bunker to intercept the Leader and two of his henchmen. He glanced up as they approached. The Leader wore a weary expression on most occasions, heavy on his face like a mask of wrought iron. He bade them a rough greeting. "Warrior Yoko. Warrior Bertram. At ease." "Leader!" said Yoko. "We just heard about the attack on Los Angeles, and we...uh..." "It's a tragic loss of life, isn't it," he sighed. Bertram nodded severely, but Yoko's nod was less emphatic. "Twenty million innocent people dead, for no reason at all. How could this ever happen. Fall in." The now-quintet strode out of the bunker and up into the storeroom of an otherwise reputable bargain clothing store. The Leader began tracing the way to an exit. "I suppose you're wondering about the Government's news. They'll have something to say within the hour. It's that grim. An evacuation of all Martian cities has been ordered." "WHAT???" The Leader nodded sagely. "Internment. The UN is planning on interning all Martian citizens for necessary background checks, papers, God Almighty knows what else. That, of course, will be their excuse. We're being pulled off the planet's surface. Relocated, to Luna, Earth if they want." "But they can't do that!" shouted Yoko. "Think, Yoko." As one anonymous member of the party pushed open the door to the outside, they filed out into a back alley. The Leader turned and pointed his finger into her face. "Terra controls water, air, food, import-export. What are we going to do? Breathe .12 CO2? Eat dirt? Once they dismantle or destroy their own machines, nobody will survive." There was a momentary pause, then Bertram, nervous energy running through his voice, said, "Maybe we can throw something together, fast. How long do we have?" "Internet and telephones are already down. All other services will cease within 48 Terran hours." Deep in Yoko's mind and heart, something began a long, slow burn. -- She was still burning centuries later, standing over Desty Nova's corpse. She kicked his flank with such force that she punctured his hide, digging her boot through his body cavity and sending pieces of him out through his back. Her pain remained; the senseless bloodshed had been for nothing. Across the room from her, a video screen flickered to life. It showed a male Tipharean seated in front of a plain white background. He was in his middle age, balding and starting to jowl. He peered through his glasses as he spoke. --Yoko? Is that the Warrior Yoko there?-- --Yes. It is I.-- She crossed the room and stared into the monitor, reasoning that the camera of her monitor would be pointed towards her face from that position. --And what might your name be?-- --My name is Yuri Russell. Now, I want you to remain exactly where you are, Ms. Yoko. We--- He broke off and shuffled with some papers. --In exchange for your peaceful surrender and agreement to remain, well treated, in the City of Tiphares for the remainder of your days, we are...--- --You can kiss my ass until you've given me an enema, mannequin,-- Yoko snarled in reply. --Get yourself a microphone, or a shortwave, and tell your whole town that each and every one of them is going to die. You will die, and your mother will die, and your aunt will die, and everyone you've had the pleasure of knowing will die until the streets are clotting with Zalemon blood.-- --Er, don't be hasty, Ms. Yoko. I, uh, wish to inform you...-- Russell ducked away from the monitor for a moment, grunted, then returned with a moderately more courageous expression, -- ..that there is a battalion from the Ground Inspection Bureau outside the building in which you are speaking from. I would advise you to go with them quietly. You have my assurance that you will be escorted...-- --Dr. Russell, a question for you. What's the last thing that goes through a fly's mind when it hits a windscreen?-- --Er, I'm afraid I don't know, Ms. Yoko.-- --Its ass.-- Without more ado she lazed the monitor.