6:10 AM. Ido felt himself coming back to Earth. He broke his form from 
the lotus position and rose up from the mat. The intensity of his schedules--
everything from repairs to operations by day, risking his life in the name of a 
justified killing at night--required regular sleep that he simply didn't have time 
for. Meditation was his release. An hour's worth or two after dinner, then the 
hunt, then a few hours sleep with another hour of meditation before he opened 
the clinic.
	Ido began to stretch a few muscle groups in turn, easing from one 
position to the next, feeling the caressing burn. His lifestyle seemed to be a 
success: he was in good body health, his mind was active, his spirit was in as 
much tranquillity as any active man could expect. Still, he was aware that there 
would be a day when such a cycle would not suit his being. No more 
hunting...shorter hours...hoping for a full night's sleep. He wondered how Alita 
would change as they grew older. Would she want a different body to suit the 
changes in her mind? Would she want one now, now that she was coming close 
to Hugo? Ido liked to think of the two of them together. He mused on that 
happy thought as he walked to the window to greet the morning.
	He pushed open the drape and looked out onto the buildings around him. 
In an instant, he knew something was wrong. His trained eye picked out at least 
five bounty hunters on the rooftops around the building. Even as he watched, 
they became aware of his presence at the window.
	Ido pulled the drape shut with a jerk. He stood in the semi-darkness of the 
room, wondering what was the matter. Could a criminal be loose in the 
neighborhood? But hunter-warriors didn't fight in groups, what could possibly 
have drawn so many together? Perhaps he could find out from one of them. He 
had enough time to put on a pair of pants and his white jacket before there was a 
ring at the door.
	Ido switched on the intercom. "Who is this?"
	"Zapan. I wanna talk to you and Alita."
	"She's asleep. I'll be right down."
	"Get her--" The remainder of Zapan's sentence was cut off as Ido silenced 
the intercom. He stepped into a pair of sandals and began to trot towards the 
elevator.

	"Alita!"
	"Huh?" Alita shook off a dream of white and pink and love. She was 
curled up beside the futon in the guest room. There was light coming through 
the curtain of the window--she could see the cups and the tea tray were at the 
foot of the bed where she had pushed them. She sat up and looked around. 
Hugo was sitting upright as though he was listening closely for something 
nearby. "Hugo, what's the matter?"
	He took off his bandanna and gazed at her. The look in his eyes startled 
the girl. There was an intense golden shine in those eyes. She had seen it before, 
in the pupils of the most crazed of junkies; she saw it when they were cornered 
and crippled and she was coming for the kill.
	"There's about 20 bounty hunters outside. They've come for me. They 
want to take me away to Factory 33 and torture and kill me."
	Hugo's absolute honesty and self-assurance made Alita gasp. She didn't 
even think to ask how he knew. "Hugo, why? Why would they do such a thing?"
	Hugo looked down, shame all across his face. He gulped twice, then 
murmured, "Alita, I have something awful to tell you."

	The elevator opened at the bottom floor. Ido was wide awake now--
alertness was a necessity of both his professions. He flip-flopped in his sandals to 
the front door and pushed it open.
	As he stepped out something fell down in front of him and poked him in 
the abdomen. Ido instinctively stepped back with a gasp, then realized what he 
was looking at. It was the barrel of a 60-megawatt bazookoid pulse laser, 
complete with ultrasonic ranging system and UV laser guidance. Effective range 
of fire was unknown, but could be used over--and through--several blocks. Ido 
had seen a beam similar to it, which he knew had an output in excess of one 
megajoule per liter, cut through bricks. The sole use of the laser was to kill, 
regardless of any obstruction. It was the most deadly weapon in the Scrapyard. 
Only the Factory's Netmen, the internal investigations force droids, had access to 
it.
	Ido slowly looked up into the facial area of the Netman. "Dr. Daisuke 
Ido?" it blurbed. The screen that emerged from where the mouth should be 
displayed 'DOCTOR DAISUKE IDO?'
	"Yes, I am."
	"I am Factory Law Remote Terminal Number 6. My sole purpose is to aid 
any Inquisitory proceeding if so requested. We would like to examine your 
premises for the presence of an implicated Suspect."
	"What!?"
	"Funny thing happened last night, Doc," Zapan said, ambling towards the 
pair. "I ran into a couple of kids offering lube jobs but giving back rubs. Take a 
look." He pulled out a small video screen and handed it to Ido. He then plugged 
it into the video player he carried in his jacket. The screen flickered for a 
moment, then Ido watched the last minute of Danji and Van played out in 
miniature. "Turns out ol' Hugo is one of the perpetrators of all that spine theft."
	Ido handed the screen back with disgust. "Is this your idea of fun, Zapan? 
Torturing a confession out of a kid, then picking on a little girl?"
	"Tut-tut-tut. We can't choose who's the criminal, can we?" Zapan let out a 
sadistic chuckle. "Anyway, a few of the bounty hunters wondered if the girl 
would try committing treason and make off with the kid, so we've got the 
streets and buildings around here surrounded. Frankly, I think the FacLaw was a 
stroke of genius. So--" He stepped up towards Ido and grinned into his face--
"were you planning on impersonating meatloaf or could we step inside for a 
moment?"

	"So I hunted them. Night after night. I'd get anywhere from 5,000 to 
50,000 for a complete column. I never intentionally killed anyone."
	"Did they die anyway?"
	"A few did." Hugo began to tremble. "Mistakes...heart attacks...a 
suicide...for a whole year I wrestled with the question, how do you make 
ammends for something like that? I finally decided that, once I got to Zalem, I'd 
smuggle people up like Vector did, but I wouldn't take any more chips than I 
had to. It seemed like a solution then. I don't know now."
	Alita was thinking frantically. She could hear voices being raised down 
below on the street. "Hugo, what are you going to do? What can you do?"
	Hugo's eyes resumed their glow. He started to unwrap the bandages on 
his hand. "I guess there's only one thing I can do," he said. He held his hand, with 
its straight fingers and its unscarred palm, up to the light.

	Ido recalled a question from his interview for cybermedical school. The 
woman had asked him, "If you found Adolph Hitler with a stopped heart, and 
you knew that if you gave him catapulmonary resuscitation he would live, what 
would you do?" He had said that he would perform the CPR--he was a doctor, 
and he was obliged to help his patients in any way they needed and in all ways 
he could perform. And if I came across him on the street today, thought Ido, I'd 
help him. I'd get him back to good health and send him on his way. And that 
night I'd hunt him down and kill him. He wondered how Hugo was different, if 
he was different.
	The elevator opened. Ido and Zapan emerged first, followed by two 
bounty hunters, and lastly the FacLaw. As soon as there was enough room the 
muzzle of the laser slid back down, parallel to the ground.
	Zapan rubbed his hands together. "OK, Tamil, you check down to the 
right first."
	"But be quiet, there's a patient in there!"
	"Shut up. Sul, you go straight ahead. Number Six, come with me...and 
you're welcome to join in, Ido."
	"Fuck you, too."
	There was a beep and a click from the droid before it announced, "IR scan 
indicates the presence of person or persons down this corridor." It began to roll 
forward.
	Ido remained where he stood. His mind went back to a night fifteen years 
ago, maybe more. There had been a woman he loved...a romantic evening of 
dining and dancing...the two of them alone on a terrace...and he hadn't done 
anything. They had remained friends, nothing more. And right up until he knew 
he would never see her again, they had stayed friends. Ido knew then why he 
wanted Hugo to be different. Alita had a different kind of courage than Ido had, 
and she had used hers to go to someone she loved. He wanted her to succeed 
where he had failed, so badly that he would grant a pardon to her lover, a thing 
he had never done before in his life and went against every rule he had been 
taught.
	How strange a feeling, Ido thought. I'm a human...His thoughts were 
returned by the crash of a door.
	The FacLaw burst into the guest room, and Zapan nearly knocked it over 
in his eagerness to enter. "All right, where's Hugo?"
	"Hm?" Alita leaned up groggily from the futon and rubbed her eyes. 
"What's going on?"
	"Alita?" 'ALITA?'
	"Yes?"
	"I am Factory Law Remote Terminal Number 6. My sole purpose is to..."
	"Yeah, yeah, she knows who you are and that you're here to get that 
punk." Zapan sat down on the futon next to Alita. "Now, where the hell are you 
hiding him?"
	"Hugo?" There was a look of complete and total innocence on Alita's face. 
"Why, he left here early this morning."
	"WHAT!?"
	"He needed to go to work...is something the matter?"
	Zapan stood up, looking frantically around the room. "Number Six, where 
the hell is that kid?"
	"IR scan indicates that another person has been in this room within the last 
10 minutes." Its bright red face was pointing towards the middle of the room. 
"There are traces of undissipated heat from the north and west."
	"Ah, so he left early this morning, did he?" Zapan chuckled. "How early, 
10 minutes ago, maybe? Tell me, Alita," he bent over to look her in the eyes, 
"How do you explain _that_?"
	Behind the FacLaw, Ido hung his head. Behind him, in turn, came a 
flushing sound from the bathroom. A moment later, a rather woozy Gonzu 
joined them. "Sorry, I found a good bottle of port last night...am I interrupting 
something?"

	The factory was quiet. It was a quiet full of portent, for a storm was 
brewing overhead. Wind stirred, blew through the building ostentatiously, 
mocking the structure to show what great force would carry the deluge upon it, 
then dying down...for the time. The iron in the nails tenaciously held the wooden 
beams together, while steel coiled and pressed upon itself gently rusted from 
derelict machinery into dust. The concrete floor became cracked, the cracks 
formed more cracks, the many cracks formed rubble, the rubble became dirt, the 
dirt grew grass and then there would be no more sign of human activity upon 
the landscape.
	Then, in one corner of the factory, the principles of entropy were violated. 
A force--a will--excited a quantity of atoms to an impossible speed. Their energy 
became matter--first hydrogen, then carbon, then nitrogen, then oxygen. Hugo 
materialized out of thin air. Or rather, his body did. Certainly some of his spirit 
made the transport, somehow; but that crazed animal glow was still in his eyes, 
and it was becoming stronger. Something inside Hugo was bending and 
straining.
	Hugo took a moment to readjust to his surroundings--it was his first 
teleportation and he wasn't used to the side effects. When his head was cleared 
he began to run, making a mad dash towards what had once been the canteen. 
He ran up a flight of stairs, then turned left into a room perhaps twenty meters 
square. The tables and chairs that had once been there were gone, but there 
were still a few snack machines and a beverage dispenser. Hugo threw the 
whole of his weight and his momentum against the dispenser. It leaned, then 
gracefully fell to the floor.
	In the blink of an eye the young man had pulled up one of the floor tiles. 
Underneath the cover were two satchels. Hugo took one out and set it gently on 
the floor next to him, then untied the knot on the other. Inside lay an immense 
sum of chips--9,500,000, to be precise. Very few people in the Scrapyard saved 
that much money in a lifetime. Hugo seemed disappointed by the lot, however. 
"Just another ten spinal columns for an even ten mil...well, maybe Vector will 
give me a deal," he sighed. He slung the chips over a shoulder. "Only one way to 
find out, I guess."

	Zapan was pacing furiously. He would have smashed something, but the 
FacLaw was around, and anyway, he felt kind of awkward destroying stuff 
while on duty, so forget it. He paced in a circle a little over a meter wide, the 
largest the room would allow, too small to adequately vent his frustration. Alita, 
Ido, Gonzu, Sul, and the Netman merely watched him.
	The guest room door opened and Tamil entered. "Well, I couldn't find 
anything...oops, sorry, Gonzu." Gonzu moved out from behind the door.
	"What do you mean, you couldn't find anything?"
	"He's not there, Zapan. I checked all three rooms down that end of the 
building, no kid...oh, and Doc, you're patient's still asleep." Ido nodded.
	"Did you double-check?"
	"'Course I double-checked. Nothing."
	The FacLaw sprang to life. "Zapan: I was contracted to assist the 
investigation of this building, which has failed to show any sign of the Suspect. I 
am now returning to Factory 33. If you so desire a Remote Terminal for the 
investigation of another location, please alert the Factory." It slipped its barrel 
into a vertical position and wheeled towards the door.
	"C'mon, Tamil," grunted Sul, lurching away from the wall he had been 
leaning against. "Nothin's here. Guys outside are probably bored to scrap."
	"Yeah. Let's jet. Later, Doc."
	"'Bye."
	The group of three moved out the door. Gonzu closed the door behind 
them. The click of the latch sounded almost deafening in the tense silence of the 
room.
	Alita broke the spell. "It's such a shame about what happened, Zapan," she 
said softly. She was walking very, very slowly across the carpet towards him. As 
her hips moved with every step the bottom of her robe flapped in time, like the 
wings of a bat. There was a cool and determined look on her face, and her 
eyebrows were ever so slightly furrowed in the middle.
	"Yep," said Gonzu, sliding the deadbolt into place. "The guy went down on 
his knees to drag all those second-rate bounty hunters here, he took a Netman 
because he didn't have the balls to do the job by himself..."
	"And then," continued Ido, as the trio began to circle around their quarry, 
"he couldn't find a thing. Probably, his pride was too much for him, didn't see 
any other way out."
	Alita let out a tiny sigh. "If only," she said, looking up into Zapan's face, 
"he could have talked to someone about it."
	"Wait, I..."
	With a scream, Alita drove her open palm into the center of Zapan's neck. 
His head snapped with the shock but remained in place, and his torso took the 
blow without a shudder; but his synthetic voice box was shattered. He tried to 
shout. Only the whine of the gears in his neck was produced.
	Alita gave him a moment or two, not out of mercy, but so that he would 
be able to appreciate the horror of his muteness. Then, just lightly enough not to 
break it, she kicked Zapan's right knee out from underneath him. He began to 
collapse. Her right hand caught him underneath his chin a fraction of a second 
later, and she spun underneath him to catch him on her back. In one beautiful 
movement her right hand aimed him towards the window, her left elbow 
propelled him upwards, and her left leg launched the pair forward. Without any 
screams or protests Zapan plunged into the window towards a five-story fall and 
death on the concrete and scrap metal below.
	"Must've hurt his neck in the fall," grunted Gonzu.

	"Thank you, Gonzu." Alita took the bowl out of his hands. "For 
everything, I mean. Pass the honey." 
	 "Oh, it's not a problem, really," he said, sitting down across from her at 
the table. Alita began to drizzle honey onto her yogurt. "You can't live with a 
bounty hunter for long without knowing when to talk and when to keep your 
mouth shut. Let me have the honey after you're done. So, what did happen to 
Hugo?"
	Alita stirred the honey and yogurt until it was almost homogeneous. "I 
don't know what happened, Gonzu. It was like..." She ate a spoonful, then 
looked at the man across from her. "You know those optic puzzles? If you look 
at the picture one way it's a woman, if you look at it another way it's a man?"
	"Oh, yeah, or that flipping cube?"
	"That's right." Alita took another bite. "Well, you know how your eyes 
kind of scrunch up when they're making the change? It was exactly the same 
thing. I looked at Hugo...and then he was gone. It was like two pictures of the 
same place, but one was with Hugo and one wasn't."
	Gonzu took a bite out of his yogurt. He didn't swirl his honey, he just left 
it as a blob on the top. He really couldn't taste the honey if he didn't. "So, where 
did he go off to then?" he said. "I mean, you don't sound like you're worried."
	"No, I guess I'm not," Alita replied. A smile started to form on her face. 
"You see...he was just so calm and collected, I can't help but think he knew what 
he was doing. If he did, I just know he'll be all right. I'll find him, or he'll find 
me."
	Gonzu was touched by her faith in the boy. At that moment, the front 
door opened and closed. "Ido, is that you? Back already?"
	"Yes, it's me." Ido picked up a bowl from the cupboard and joined the 
other two at the table. "It's strange...I went down to get Zapan, but I couldn't 
find his body."
	"Huh. That is strange."
	Ido served himself some yogurt. I'm not lying, either, he thought. I 
couldn't find his body. I suppose someone could have come by and stripped it 
for parts, but still...it couldn't have been any more than 10 minutes in the interim. 
He knew that the disappearance would nag him for a long time.
	As they were finishing their breakfast there was a ring at the door bell. 
Ido answered it. "It's Professor Nova. I have a serum prepared and some 
nanomachines with me to put it to use."
	"Excellent. I'll be down in a moment to let you in, Professor."
	"How is Hugo?"
	Ido glanced behind him at the two other members of his family. Then he 
mumbled into the intercom, "I'll explain as we come up."

	Vector was a man who knew what he wanted and learned how to get it. 
Abstract things like money were usually what he wanted, but he also liked 
material goods. He wore clothing that suited his character--well-cut suits, flashy 
shirts, and comfortable shoes. He decorated his office with a few works of art 
and with diagrams and paraphrenalia related to his line of work. He rented 
rooms in one of the more tasteful buildings in the Scrapyard, one with a large 
window to look out of. That he behaved in such a way is not to say that he was 
not practical: he knew that he would never have need of a car for himself, for 
instance, so the one van he owned was also a storefront of sorts.
	Vector was a middle man. He bought all manner of things from people, 
no questions asked. He sold them to other people, no questions asked. As soon 
as they left his hands his customers could burn his wares and dance on the ashes 
for all Vector cared. There was a supply, there was a demand, and so there was 
opportunity--for him. Although everything from children's shoes to prime rib 
passed through his hands, he was best at buying and selling body parts; so body 
parts were what he focused his energies on. If he had grown flowers better--and, 
of course, had sold them at a reasonable price--he would have been a florist. But 
body parts were his specialty, and they brought in a steady supply of money as 
well.
	Vector had a hobby, of sorts. He liked to learn things. Not things like the 
weight of the moon, or even how to type, but useful things. If someone had a 
reason to believe the next Motorball fight would be fixed, or that there would be 
a load of peas for sale in a few days, Vector always was eager to listen. 
Sometimes the information he was interested in would seem irrelavent, like who 
had been seen where with whom, or who had spent a lot of money they couldn't 
have earned. Vector would only bide his time, and more often than not that 
information, along with other things--cancelled checks, letters, photographs--
would prove quite valuable to someone.
	That morning, as he sipped his tea at his desk, Vector was learning some 
most unwelcome information. On his desk lay a pulp printout of the morning's 
news from the Information Service. "INQUISITION ON!" screamed one headline. 
"SPINAL THEFT RING BUSTED!" was another. This, Vector thought, was not 
good. He'd have to wait until the furor died down before he could train anyone, 
and until then he would need to know where he stood in the eyes of the law. A 
little money would solve that problem, but if a furor was raised he'd be in 
trouble. Silence, that was what he thrived on.
	Vector was so intent on his work that he was oblivious to the flash of light 
from behind one of his screens, and to the slight change in heat of the room. He 
only took notice when a voice called, "Mr. Vector?"
	"Hugo?" Vector sat bolt upright in his chair. Across the room stood Hugo, 
somehow seeming taller than he ought to be. He was dressed in a thin t-shirt 
and boxer shorts, and there were no socks under his shoes. Vector was dimly 
aware that something wasn't right about the expression on his face, but he let 
that slide at the sight of a large bag in the boy's hand. "I didn't here you come in."
	"I suppose I should have knocked." Hugo seemed to be thinking for a 
moment, then walked stiffly towards his boss. "I'd like to make you a deal, 
Vector. I--" He broke off. The colors in the room were changing. Vector's skin 
was taking on an unhealthy yellow color, and Hugo felt something cold and 
black off to his left. He shook it off. "I've got 9,500,000 chips here. If I act as your 
connection in Zalem, will you knock off the last 500,000?"
	"Well, that sounds like a pretty fair deal." Vector pretended to consider the 
offer. He approached the boy. "You think you can handle the responsibility?"
	Hugo nodded. "I'm certain, Mr. Vector. I can meet people, I...aaah!" The 
sentiment that Hugo had been trying to surpress bulged in his psyche. Vector's 
head was glowing canary yellow, and there was only a gap where his face would 
be. To the boy's left, something damnedable was calling. Terrified, but without 
hesitation, Hugo looked. It was onyx black and tentacled and covered in the rime 
of formaldehyde, and it wore a face Hugo knew well. A tendril snaked out and 
burrowed itself into the young man's forehead. Hugo began to sway back and 
forth as something, too coherent to be a feeling but too disembodied to be a 
memory, pulsed into his mind. As he swallowed it, he felt control of his body 
being wrenched away from him by his lower drives.
	And then, in one great explosion of empathy, Hugo died, driven insane to 
the point of annihilation. Akira whirled towards Vector. "You killed him?"
	"Huh? Hugo, are you all right?"
	"Tanji!" wailed Akira. Inside the confines of the closed office a wind began 
to whip. It lifted the edge of the canvass that was covering some objects on the 
god's left. That edge exposed a jar. Inside the jar was a hand. Tanji's hand. The 
wind pulled at the canvas more, exposing a liver, some of the small intestine, and 
two eyeballs. More jars beckoned from underneath the canvas.
	Vector got up from the edge of the desk where he had been sitting and 
started to move around behind it. "I don't know if they eat them or test them or 
what, but every month the folks up in Zalem request one individual's worth of 
body parts. That's what that is."
	The wind was dying down. Akira collapsed on the floor, tittering in a 
voice that wasn't quite like Hugo's. "You lied to me, Vector. Last night Tanji 
came to you. You told him you could get him to Zalem. He listened to you. You 
gave him a drug--told it was to knock him out, get him adjusted for the change 
in altitude--and then you had Myra slice him up." He spat out the last syllables, 
then struggled to his feet. "You've never even been to Zalem. You son of a 
bitch..."
	"Hey, back off, Hugo!" Vector pushed a button on his desk. Somewhere 
nearby the hum of hydraulics indicated the opening of a door. "I got ways to 
deal with punks like you! Ever hear of..." there was the crash of a wall near to 
Akira. "...Zaariki?"
	Akira turned, a smirk on his face. He was woefully unimpressed. The 
creature he looked at was at least 10 meters tall. It was covered in a pink-brown 
combination of ceramic and steel armor, supported by two rather spindly legs. 
Its arms were tipped in a pair of claws, but a chainsaw took the place of one of 
each of the nippers. The thing's face, almost comically disproportionate, was 
frozen in a sneer.
	Akira closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the blood vessels under the 
lids. His eyes rolled back a little. With a token effort, he could picture every rivet, 
every circuit, every cell in his opponent. He decided not to be overly cruel. He 
drew in a breath and began to sing a single note to focus his thinking. Then, he 
drew the tiniest of amounts of his willpower and thrust it into Zaariki's main 
computer banks.
	It was just enough to cause a few electrons to deviate from their normal 
flow. These altered others, and the many altered the many more. A short circuit 
began to appear in the computer. Zaariki felt something wrong, and tried to 
adapt. That was his undoing. Akira felt the willpower his opponent expended, 
reached out to pluck it from the atmosphere, and took it into himself. He sent 
that energy at Zaariki, this time towards his central nervous system, making him 
feel a pain in his leg. Zaariki endeavored to shrug that off as well, unaware of the 
feedback loop the two had formed. He began to advance, but suddenly realized 
that something was catestrophically wrong with himself. That act of realization--
the energy of self-awareness--was like an orgasm of power for Akira. He basked 
in it for a moment, using only a drop to produce a momentary feeling of 
euphoria, then returned the thought in the form of a kinetic energy blast. 
Zaariki's body was torn to shreds.
	Akira silenced his singing. Then he looked straight into the eyes, into the 
twisted soul, of Vector. He giggled. "Mr. Vector...you really shoudn't fuck with 
me if you've got crabs like those." Vector began to stammer something, a 
bargain perhaps, but Akira didn't listen. He closed his eyes. He pictured the 
building. He could feel every girder, every rivet. The closer he looked, the more 
their defects became apparent. Playfully, he began to loosen a few rivets, widen 
a few cracks, upset a support here and there. Sadly, just as he was beginning to 
have some fun, the building collapsed. Akira watched with fascination as Vector 
began to slide along the floor as the building's base gave way. When Vector 
finally hit the wall, Akira reasoned that there wouldn't be much more to see. He 
shrugged, broke open the picture window, casually noted what the shards of 
glass did to Vector's body, and left.