Crossover:  A Battle Angel and Small Wonder Fanfiction

by Elliot Bowers

Based on Howard Leed's 1980s Small Wonder and Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita Japanese anime and Manga, with technical advising from the Semi-Official Small Wonder sysops and Seraphim of The Scrapyard.

Chapter 1:  Two of Them

Things were going wrong, too many things.  And if too many things went too wrong for too long, there would no longer be any reason to care -- because the story would be over.  The situation would be beyond repair.  The upright, inch-thick monitor on his desk glowed with the information.  Thousands and thousands of years of technology -- plenty of quantum physics and plenty more cybernetics -- told him what he already knew.  He pounded his right fist on the desk in the darkened office, pounded the space of desk to the right of the wireless keyboard.  The resulting echo actually had the baritone sound of thunder itself.  This office was in Another Place, probably a place at the end of time itself.

The man uttered multiple oaths in multiple languages, including Cherokee, English, and French.  As the brutal oaths came out of his anger-tightened jaw, his fingers rattled out hundreds of commands.  His fingers were very quick with years of practice, a century or so of it.  As he was, his health was not of concern, would probably never be a concern.  No, other people's health became the main concern now.  He had to care; that was his job.

In a place unknown, in a time unknown, the dark-suited man at the anachronistic wooden desk set to typing.  What year was it?  Where was this place?  Who cared?  Times were so far gone that no one bothered to keep calenders anymore:  Too many years had passed to bother keeping count.  Thunderhorse, the man at the desk, did not care about this year -- not about this point in time.  His fingers continued their quick and mad work on the keyboard.  A mad amount of numbers and equations representing time and space scrolled along the screen.  But still, two notations in the upper-rightmost corner of the screen remained.  Translated, the notations were just notes:

"Southern California, Northern Continent: circa 1990 c.e."

"Scrap Iron City, Northern Continent: circa 2900 c.e."

Someone else would have grown bored, watching Thunderhorse type for almost two full hours, typing at the wide wooden business desk only illuminated by one green-shaded lamp.  Eventually, the notations in the corner of the screen flickered green.  He had a lock for both time periods!  Thunderhorse successfully found what he would need to set things right -- hopefully.  More exactly, he found the two "people" that could set things right.  Another twenty minutes of typing, and their names came up.  The notations changed:

"Southern California, Northern Continent: circa 1990 c.e. -- "V.I.C.I."

"Scrap Iron City, Northern Continent: circa 2900 c.e. -- "Gally"

This was just the start of setting things right.  To restore some deceny to history, much effort was really needed.  It was going to cost him much.  Also, fixing history would test the limits of the devices Thunderhorse perfected over much of his long, long life so far.  For the next few hours, Thunderhorse would type some more, typing to change things.  He needed help to set things right, needed the help of two beings somewhere across the dark oceans of time.  It was about time.
 
 

In the distant past, in the America of the late 20^th century, life in Southern California seemed decent today.  This was even true with the weather.  The warm and mid-summer winds rushed and buffered through the streets of this particular suburb.  Casually dressed people rested well and outside on this day, enjoyed the surprisingly decent weather.  It was one of those days where life just flowed.  Some chose to sip drinks on lounge chairs in back yards, others sat on front porches and watched friends go by.  And there were kids, gaggles and clusters of soft-faced and cute children running about through the lawns and in back yards of this middle-classed neighborhood.

Their parents worked hard both at work and home, raising children in these times.  But they lived along well.  Families had the same troubles of bills, work, school and such.  But next to nothing happened here.  There was once a robbery in the local town, and burgalars had struck the street once during the previous decade, but this was suburbia--land of idyllic America.  Aside from some severe quirks of behavior among some, everyone seemed too normal.  That was, excepting one family and the one being that was not ...  normal.  She was not human, to be explicit about it.

The Lawsons, a decent and small family bunch, lived in one two-story house along one of the green-grass and tree-lined streets in this particular suburb.  The forty-ish and thin Joan Lawson was the kind, but smooth and extremely competent mother of the family; she still managed to balance a grade-school teaching career with raising the two children in the family. Ted Lawson was the father, a somewhat absent-minded, yet now the brilliant robotics and computer engineer at work.  He was a tall man, loved playing golf on the side.  That, and Ted invented and maintained the only inhuman member of the family.  There was a real boy of a boy Jamie Lawson: just as impishly playful, just as sports-oriented, just as academically mediocre. Completing this Lawson family was a "daughter."

Vicki Lawson passed for being the daughter.  She seemed to be a short and petite girl, pretty, with large brown eyes and a fluffing mane of large-curled dark hair.  She had a complexion described as being "peaches and cream," yet the complexion would not even tanned in the California sun.  Vicki was one of the Lawsons, a very average American family.  The term "daughter," though, is used loosely: Vicki was a robot.  She was a robot programmed with personality.

Standing before the mirror, dressed in jeans and a casual blouse, Vicki Lawson "thought" herself human.  There were some times when her peculiarities made her stand out, drew attention to herself, but being weird some times was always expected of teenagers.  With a "mind" constantly programmed and reprogrammed, the robot's "Artificial Intelligence" was sophisticated enough to pass for human.  Decades of research and development made Vicki possible. Now, the five-foot and dark-haired result of that research and development eyed "herself" (or itself) in the mirror: brown eyes, her hair in a ponytail and a splash of hair that hung over her forehead.  And she looked at her own young woman's figure -- not knowing her body to be factory-made as well.

Vicki was more than the best of commonplace 1980s technology and 1990s upgrades could make, a physically near-perfect humanoid robot made to resemble a young human female.  Her smooth skin was actually a tough, yet elastic, synthetic thin material.  The synthetic skin went over her artificial muscle tissue, a substance called "myogel" that exceeded the strength of ordinary muscle tissue manifold.  The combined effect of synthetic skin and muscle tissue, along with a skeleton modeled exactly after a young (if short) human female, made her look and even feel human.

Deeper inside, her skeleton was made of titanium; Vicki never broke bones.  Her torso and head were filled with solid-state computer transistors that acted as her nervous system.  That made the computer circuitry the container of her mind.  Programming too advanced for the time made her "thinking." Beneath the surface and personality of the "girl," Vicki was absolutely synthetic.

This was good, as the robot-girl before "thought" she would never develop. (In fact, had it not been for an argument between her "mother" and "father," father-and-inventor Ted Lawson would not have added the upgrades to Vicki's body necessary for such womanly changes.  ) Vicki also took to admiring her figure that seemed quite fit for running and dancing.  A quick smile of her (synthetic) face, and the absolutely artificial girl grabbed her small purse and went off.

The clothes she wore were more real than she was.  Still, Vicki was "human" enough for friends and family.  With her small purse slung over one (synthetic!) shoulder, the artificial girl left her still-new room, went along the hall of this second floor, and began down the stairs.  She gave a glimpse to her "father" and creator, who was on the couch and watching weekend afternoon television.  He looked as if his attention were totally absorbed by the televison.  Then, Vicki continued her careful stepping down the polished brown stairs.

"So, you're going to the library again?" asked Ted, turning his head and upper body around to look at the "daughter" on the stairs.  Vicki made it to the final step and stood on the raised area of flooring that was at a right angle to the stairs, in the living room.  She shrugged.

"Yes, I wanted to be there before all of the science fiction was out. Are you worried, Dad?  Do you want Jamie to come along with me?" she asked in a well-done mid-teen soprano.  Indeed, Jamie often accompanied Vicki places, often acting to explain Vicki's occasional acts of inhuman strength and behavior.  Despite those better-than-best programming and upgrades, Vicki still exhibited some behaviors that was strange.

Ted worried about his robotic "daughter" having an incident in town or the library and Jamie not being there to explain away Vicki's inhuman quirks.  What if Vicki were to help lift a car to help someone with a flat tire, only to be gawked at bystanders, or what if she were forced to defend herself against the occasional mugger -- and injure the full-grown person?

"Vicki..." he said, hanging on her name.  Then, Ted thought on this -- hesitated. Should Vicki go to the library alone?  He had to let her make occasional forays into the public alone.  Otherwise, her still experimental personality emulation program would not better adjust to people.  Vicki had to learn and grow.  The first four or so years since he brought Vicki home from the labs of United Robotronics, he treated her as if she were "just a robot." But the personality programming -- and the length of time she was with the family -- made her seem more like a true daughter

He had to break the silence.  "Am I worried?  Well, no." Ted then flashed a trademark smile -- maybe one that looked too hokey.  Okay, so let Vicki go to the library.  "Go ahead and have a time!  Jamie probably wouldn't want to be caught at the library, especially not with his sister."

"Yes, he's still afraid of being called a 'dork.' Last week, I asked him to with me to the library.  But he had excuses to hang out with Reggie and Harriet at the movies.  Jamie and his friends can't be broken up, you know," said Vicki, her face animated as her arms remained motionless at her sides.  Was she still standing too stiffly?  Maybe, he would have to correct that later, program Vicki move just a bit more when talking to people.  But that was for later.

"Well, go on.  And try to be back before sundown, partner," said Ted, trying not to sound as nervous as he really was.  He was nervous. Vicki could handle herself, right?  "The library closes at 5 p.m.  I expect to return fifteen minutes after that time," said Vicki.  She then walked energetically over to the couched Ted, gave him a quick cheek-kiss, then left after a wave.  The front door opened and closed.  Ted's head swiveled right; he staring at the closed door.

With an effort, he managed to turn his head from the door and back to what he was not really watching on television.  Vicki could easily handle herself.  Physically, that was at least true.  But he continued his worry about his robotic "daughter." Now was another time when he reconsidered the upgrades done to her.

He again thought of more improvements made on Vicki.  The first three years of her existence, Vicki spoke in an actual robotic monotone that would have given away her inhumanity.  Her false human appearance and passably human ability to communicate helped evade revelation of the truth with most everyone.  It took years to upgrade her AI, artificial intelligence. Eventually, such upgrades as the personality emulation program and faster computer processors made Vicki a better imitation of a human girl.

Ted Lawson thought of how far Vicki had come from being an absolutely stiff and monotone-speaking robot.  First brought home from beta-testing at United Robotronics in the 1980s, Vicki had no personality -- really.  It took half a decade to give the artificial girl something resembling a human personality, as with the installation of a better "personality emulation program."

Now, in the 1990s, programming improvements to Vicki as an artificial female were still ongoing.  She could now get through entire days away from home without making people worry about her.  Only on several occasions in the past fourteen years did strangers come close to suspecting Vicki of being a robot, one that did her/its best to pass for human.  Also, only grudgingly did Ted accept that Jamie's closest associates -- Reggie and Harriet -- come to know of Vicki's secret at the end of the 1980s.  As an experimental being, Vicki's programming -- through outside improvements and her own intaking and processing of human behavior -- become more "human" behavior-wise.

The best of programming gave her the learning and memory rentention capabilities of a computer, but just barely kept her personality and mental processes at a thirteen-year-old's level.  Until better programming could come along, Vicki would seem to behave that age while retaining inhuman amounts of knowledge -- a serious contradiction and worry for when she graduates from high school.  Ted thought he had too many worries.  Vicki had to learn!

He tried to concentrate on the football game.  His eyes were on the screen; his mind stayed on Vicki.
 
 

Vicki walked along to the library, walking an inhumanly tireless stride. She could have run the distance, could have run at dozens of miles per hour.  As with humans, her thought processes made her hesitate at wasting that energy, though.  It was a full and bright day, the blue sky overhead and the sun full out: Why not enjoy the longer walk?  It took part of the hour for her walking to bring her some distance along a slightly busier road, the road heading into the heart of a more developed area of the neighborhood. The library was only two miles away, along this sidewalk.

She also thought as she walked.  Vicki's thoughts went along and were "understood" by her consciousness.  She thought of what books to read and such, thought of which ones to bring home for borrowing as well.  All that time, the computer circuitry in her head and chest relayed millions of calculations for every one of her thoughts.  Every thought was backed by sophisticated computer work.  That, and her walking also took plenty of computer work -- decades of computer and robot technology at work just to make this scene.

Closer to the library, Vicki passed several cars parked on the shoulder of this road, cars presumably parked by people making purchases at local shops.  All of the cars the artificial girl passed looked empty, save for some packages inside a few.

One car was not really empty.  The windows were light-refracting and high-resolution holographic video displays that gave displayed falsehood while allowing light to pass through one way.  Looking "through" the window only meant looking at a computer-generated illusion that shifted as one walked.  The three inside the car were able to look out with binoculars at the surroundings, able to see out without being seen as the windows showed an "empty" car.

The three damnably well-dressed industrial thugs sat invisibly in the "empty" and unmarked car.  They were all athletic, the industrial thugs who spied on the surroundings and spied on Vicki.  One was a bald-pated and round-faced male with dark sunglasses and a full suit.  The other in the car was a sinuous woman who sported slacks along and a business-formal blouse, the outfit finished off with a jacket; her straight brown hair ran just past her shoulders.  The third was brown haired and brown eyed and very nondescript man of twenty-six or so -- a passable and seemingly normal group of professionals.  They were especially a group as symbolized by their uniformity clothes: All of their outerwear was the exact shade of gray.

Better yet, and all three sported the same types of silenced pistols, hand-held and limited-edition weapons made of plastic.  The bullets made from special ceramics to evade metal detectors.  They hoped not to have to use them, but would to get the product: If Vicki resisted, she would have to be damaged.

"There's the robo-chick," said the bald and round-faced one, his vein-rippled hand holding the binoculars and zooming in on Vicki, the gynoid, as she walked away.  The brown-haired woman looked at the girl that shrunk in the distance as she walked away.  "The 'Man' wants us to take her with force, no techno-hacking.  Yeah, we'll probably plug her a few times...." The businesswoman made a double-take -- but not at the brutality of her comarade's commentary.  "That was the fake bitch?  I should have paid more attention!  You should let me in on more fun before it comes up."

"Come on, you never like to have fun, especially with us.  Why should you be let in on more action now?  Or do you have too much a good time with The Cloaked Man to be with us when we hit parties?" said the brown-haired man.  He grinned when he mentioned their recent employer's obvious code-name. The brown-haired woman glared at him.

"What would happen if The Cloaked Man found out about you ranting about him that way?" asked the woman, partially joking.  She fully expected fear from the brown-haired man.  No one tangled with The Cloaked Man. With his somehow limitless amounts of cash and ... unusual abilities to do things that people should not be able to do, The Cloaked Man could be an extreme benefit to whomever befriended him -- even if temporarily.  The reverse side of it was that The Cloaked Man was a very deadly enemy.  The brown-haired woman clenched her hands to supress a shudder, because all three in the car knew that the person who called himself The Cloaked Man was clearly insane.  He paid well and had an obvious sense of humor, a joker.  But his jokes just covered a brutal mind.

While the two others went at each other with words, the bald businessman put down the binoculars.  He then opened the glove compartment -- full of many portable gadgets neatly set in it.  He selected a portable something, tapped in numbers and programming on a small number pad built into it.  Now, the trio in the car would be able to detect the batch of electromagnetic radiation that leaked from Vicki's energy systems.  The bald man would do the tracking: The device transmitted information on Vicki's location to a small screen in one of his sunglass lensess.  And now, the device worked very well in telling him exactly where Vicki was.

"Let's go earn our keep," said the bald one to his two comrades.  The three then left the car when no one else was around -- to avoid ruining the illusion.  This time, the view through the windows was accurate as the car was empty; the illusion-generating windows flickered off to save energy.

And Vicki continued her happy walk along.  It was Saturday, it was the weekend, and it was summer vacation from school.  There was no stress at all for this girl, as even Vicki could experience stress through her programmed humanity.  This was one of those times made for memories.  Life could just go on this way.  But, it did not last.

Vicki's ultra-sensitive hearing picked up the sounds of steps matching her pace as she approached the more dense downtown area.  That downtown was the place of street-front shops, an area where the streets closely resembled strip malls.  In the groups of people that slowly increased, maybe those following her hoped to be disguised as just another gaggle of weekend shoppers?  No, Vicki's hearing could pick out the steps of those who matched her pace.

The stores of information in her mind told her that those matching her walking pace could not be friendly.  She also thought this because Ted Lawson put in some subroutines that always kept Vicki on edge for trouble.  So, what now?  Would she be able to lose the jerks that chose to follow her? There had to be a plan.  Vicki thought on; her banks of microchips calculated possible plans of action....

Vicki chose to walk faster as her mind's computers calculated options. She would not go straight to the library.  That would make her path too obvious.  Her computer processors loaded a map of the immediate area in her mind.  She then began to run at a pace just a bit faster than jogging. If Vicki ran any faster, she risked harming the shoppers and others that walked along the sidewalks.  This was a time for her programming to simulate panic.

The three behind then broke into a run.  They shoved aside people, did not show the restraint the robot girl had.  The lithe and artificial teenager then began to act more swiftly, running in a "broken field" pattern of dipping left and right, dodging past people.

The little pseudo-bitch is quick, thought the brown-haired man.  She's not human, the little plastic freak. At one point, they approached an ice cream parlor along the street -- and Vicki continued her running. She ran by a place where people were enjoyuing this spare day, escaping the troubles of life.

Kids were with parents, enjoying the time.  People here were dressed in clothes fitting the setting of summer; the three that strode past and shoved their way through the crowd around the ice-cream parlor were dark encroachers on the fun.  And some took attention to the running girl. "Hey, show some manners!" said one man in the cluster of people around the street-front ice-cream vendor's.  The bald one was sure to push this one to the ground.  "Sorry!" he said, not so sincerely.

Vicki was close to disappearing from their sight.  Then, the brown-haired man had an idea.  According to some data hacked from the United Robotronics files, Vicki's core programming was that of a domestic servant -- a maid in the home.  And, of course, that programming included some safety protocols. Vicki was programmed to really care for people.  Well, how would Vicki react to the pain of innocent bystanders?

The brown-haired hired thug then slapped an elderly man, who made an angry shout as he fell over.  Vicki, who managed to get two blocks away away, stopped moving.  Vicky clearly heard the slap and cry.  Good, thought the thug, the gynoid did have that weakness.  Mercy is a weaknesses. Maybe, that would be a way to get the gynoid with a minimum of fuss?  As the crowd shouted aloud at the woman's unprovoked attack on an elderly man, the woman of the thug trio saw how Vicki reacted to what happened. The brown-haired man took on an idea.

As Vicki still stood a block away, the nondescript brown-haired thug in the business suit grabbed someone's baby -- and unholstered a sleek and dark gun.  The gun went to the baby.  Let's see that little robo-bitch resist this, he thought.

The other two corporate thugs saw what their comrade did, then set their weapons to bear on the crowd as well.  "Baby!  No, please ...!" cry-shouted the mother.  Then, half the crowd fled; the other remained rigid with anger and fear.  That business-suited jerk with the gun pointed at the baby's chest was a shocking scene -- transfixingly shocking.  The entire afternoon became coated with horror.

Vicki now stood still and analyzed the situation.  A baby, they held a baby!  Vicki's deepest programming responded to the threat of that small human being held gunpoint.  She could not leave the baby to die.  Vicki rigidly walked back to the open-air ice-cream parlor, the brown-haired businessman's eyes on her.  Vicki approached, looking for ways to save the baby.

The female industrial spy pointed a gun at Vicki, and the crowd backed away and behind the woman's range of vision, away from the potential gunfire. She began to laugh, laughing at how easy it would be to pull in a cool and tax-free $666,000 each -- for just this job.  "Aim for the lower abdomen, and don't do too much damage.  We want to salvage as much as possible, for more of a ..." said the bald one.

Vicki acted while he was in mid-sentence.  She did a quick zig-zag dash, and the corporate spies could not get a steady shot at her.  Then, too fast, Vicki was close and she managed to pluck the baby from the jerk's arms. She did a quick dash, handed the now-crying baby to those hiding behind the ice-cream parlor's counter, then felt the first shot pierce her lower back.  The silenced pistol only whispered when it fired.

Damage signals flared through her systems.  Vicki turned to look at the three.  She staggered a bit, looking at the three that faced her with guns drawn.  She managed to run at them, and managed to punch the bald one in the gut.  She sought to disable, not to kill -- certainly not to kill. Ted Lawson installed just some self-defense programming into his daughter, but not murderous programming.  Such programming was active now.

Then, another shot hit Vicki in the waist, through her back.  She felt her legs weaken as her mobility systems began to fail.  More damage signals flared through her body's electronic systems.  Vicki emitted a shout that was as much a shriek as it was loud static.  Sparks flared inside her.

She sank to her knees, her left hand to the thin blouse material at waist to try to hide the sparks that flared from bullet damage.  Though not human, she could still feel pain -- pain from her electronic innards being torn by ceramic slugs.  Her wholly artificial body flared and reacted to the pain in her lower abdomen.  Vicki was "just a robot," then?  They why cry over the being that began to crumple bloodlessly to the sidewalk?  Why did people panic and shout at what was done with the too-silent pistols?

The three began to approach Vicki as she began to fall forward.  "What the...!" shouted the bald-headed man.  Vicki vanished.  Before she struck the sidewalk, she simply disappeared.  Vicki disappeared from the twentieth century altogether when the transition warp took her.  As soon as she did, a gust of wind whipped by, whipping clothes.  The crowd ran away as the hired thugs shook their heads.  "What the...?  What the...?  What the...Hell?"  Bystanders were still running away, not caring "what the Hell."

Centuries, then more centuries passed from the 1990s.  Ted Lawson and the rest of the family faded from memory, from records and into eternity. Vicki simply seemed to vanish due to misadventure.  The suburbs they lived in also faded into the winds of history.  All the countries as well vanished with time -- forever.
 
 

Somewhere, in a grand and darkened office illuminated by just a desk lamp, Mr.  Thunderhorse continued to work at the keys.  He managed to get that one through time.  The false being called "Vicki Lawson" was now outside of time -- and away from those industrial mercenaries hired by The Cloaked Man.

And according to the data presented to him by the monitor, he managed to get Vicki before The Cloaked Man could eliminate her.  Anyway, if The Cloaked Man's hired hands eliminated Vicki, Thunderhorse would not have been able to pull her out at all.  Now, if only the other would come through? Maybe, his opponent already foresaw the other one and moved to eliminate her as well?  He selected the onscreen batch of computer commands that would pull another "person" through space and time, then pressed a key.  Translated into 20th century English, the lines on the key meant "Enter."  It was time for someone else to come out of her time period; it was time to take the "Angel" from her dark and ruined hometown.
 
 
 

Now, centuries into the future, times are very different from the Southern California suburbs of America's 20^th Century.  Of great interest is the industrial metropolis called Scrap Iron City.  This was a place dozens of miles from where the Lawsons' suburban neighborhood existed, and hundreds of years distant on top of that.

Scrap Iron City was an immense industrial area in which residential areas seemed built as afterthought -- simple and rugged architecture to barely house the people.  Gray, solid, rugged and short are words to describe most buildings here.  Beyond one's eyesight, into the distance, low and faded buildings went far and into the horizon -- a landscape that was clear and sharp despite the many smokestacks of the Factory's many manufacturing structures.  The buildings in this neighborhood, more a business district (if Scrap Iron City can be said to have a "downtown" away from two main sports arenas).  Even the buildings in this "downtown" area of small shops and drinking bars were seldom painted well, and the solid concrete fronts of the buildings were cracked in places.

The street was decent, somewhat.  Maintained by the rulers of Scrap Iron City, it was one of the few decent features of the city.  Still, solid metal chunks of debris along the sidewalks and streetsides stayed put in the wind as clusters of lighter trash blew along by.

People could live here, barely.  And people did live -- unaware of what those out of prevous ages would call squalor.  This was certainly recognizable as a city, to one out of the 21^st century.  Maybe, ghetto was a word that failed to be strong enough to describe it?

Above, there was a floating city.  There was a place in the sky, a place as close to heaven as mortals could conceived.  In the sky, away from the Hell-ghetto on the ground, was an astronomically grand and floating circular structure.  In the blue of the mid-day sky, the floating and circular city was high and away, now suspended above the cracked city by a mountainous pillar that stretched into space.

The floating and circular city was connected to buildings of Scrap Iron City by piping that was meters thick.  People in the floating city had to get goods and food from the ground somehow.  High and far away, the floating City of Zalem was beautiful -- with beauty not seen by those in the ground-ghetto. But to those on the ground, here in Scrap Iron City, that place was a dream-place -- like the colonies on Mars.  Zalem was a dream place, far and away.  No one could get there from here, not even by climbing the dangerously secure tubes that connected sky-high Zalem to the ground.  And to believe that, over eight hundred years ago, this was once the American Midwest.  Now, it was a barren and ruined landscape -- save for such very few places like this.  Generally, the astronomically large floating city seemed to exist as a harsh contrast to life on the ground nearby Zalem -- like a beautiful jewel embedded in a rusting statue's head.

On the ground, the people continued in the business of life.  "People" roamed the streets on this off-day from working in the buildings, off from working in the machinery-filled buildings.  Those that walked the streets, they were not quite what a person out of a previous era would have expected. Parts of their bodies glinted with the hard gleam of metal.  Instead of soft flesh, many body parts had all the hardness of steel.

Hands at the ends of long sleeves and arms in short sleeves were not of skin, but of thick and hard jointed steel and titanium.  Some people just had body parts replaced with ones of armor-hard alloys and such.  But plenty in the crowd of daytime walkers had bodies that were wholly artificial. In those cases, all of their bodies were of hard armor outside -- with rugged electronics and electromechanical innards insdid.  Inside, along with more metal, was advanced plastics, mechanics and wiring along with glucose-dependant systems to keep these semi-human beings alive -- keep their brains alive. The computing power that maintained the bodies were designed just as Scrap Iron City was "designed": rugged, simple and sturdily productive.

To keep an outside semblance of humanity, for those with absolutely synthetic bodies, many of the people had heads and faces fitted with synthetic flesh and vat-grown human hair: making at least their heads seem "natural." Their heads and hair are beautiful, falsely so.  Heads and faces gave illusions of life and vibrancy to bodies that were as artificial as the machines that manufactured their parts.  But, the only reason the bodies could be seen as "alive" was because of the soft and living human brains in them -- the brains kept alive by more machines that acted in lieu of lungs, hearts, intestines, stomachs and everything.

Bodies of metal were concealed under ragged clothing on roughly half the people, but some people had new and good clothing to cover well their false bodies.  Those few had the toughness and even madness to take on some of the more well-paying (but often always) jobs: gladiator, Motorball player, or bounty hunter.  Often gray, some took to other colors and tones.  It was not the color of skin.

Those people were cyborgs.  In Scrap Iron City, the only city left on earth in the 30^th century, plenty of people were cyborgs. Cyborgs -- beings who were a cross between flesh and metal, commonly living humans with artificial body parts integrated as parts of their bodies. The bodies of these cyborgs were indeed as strong and tough as those of armored machines: only the most extensive mutilation and crushing could kill the cyborgs, unless the head was to face trauma.  With their electromechanical metal bodies, the cyborgs felt almost no sensation or pain at all save for injuries that could bring them close to death.

As disadvantages, their heavily mechanical bodies had almost no feelings to feel winds, cloth or even the handshakes or hugs of friendship and care. At least, their bodies were very good for the grindingly long hours of heavy and repetitive work in the manufacturing plants of this city.  Indeed, the only corporation in the city, the Factory, kept people busy.

It was an rare off-day today for many in Scrap Iron City.  Cyborgs strutted along the decadent street.  But plenty of people were also in the various restaurants and bars: Cyborgs could eat, had to eat to stay alive, just as their still-unmechanized bretheren needed real food to stay alive.  Non-cyborgs or full "flesh" people very occasionally appeared in the streets and in the places of common consumption.  Then again, not everyone had regular working days; some people were on duty every day.  A majority had no steady employment at all.  Such were the times so many millenia since the years of America, suburbs, and the Lawsons.
 
 

Gally lived here.  Immediately, one would see Gally as small, slender and female.  Shimmering dark hair radiated from her scalp, forming a dark radiating halo around her head and pale face.  Pale skin and high cheeks  went with her dark eyes, along with a small-lipped mouth:  an elven and shiny-eyed pale face with night-dark hair in contrast.  The face was vaguely Eastern Asian, very likely slightly Japanese...if anyone ever considered matters of ethnicity in these ruined times.  Her face went with her small body, a body that was dancer-thin.  She was four feet tall, with the body she had now.

Below the synthetic flesh of her face and neck, her small and lithe body was just as metallically hard -- literally.  Physically, it looked as if the four-feet-tall cyborg-girl wore a form-fitting suit of armor under her not-so-modest bodysuit.  In place of a flesh-person's muscle groups, Gally's body surface had curved sections of metal and mechanics:  Her body's surface made up of of alloy delineating a gymnast's or ballerina body form in mechanical alloys -- while her pretty face was made of softer material.

Her full self really was fully electro-mechanical -- and she was sometimes very conscious of the fact.  Beneath her smooth-pale and pixie-lipped  face of the young semi-Japanese beauty, her skull was also of metal.  Her whole damned skeleton was of metal, she habitually recalled.  The only thing that remained of her physical humanity was her brain and the remains of her spinal cord.  At least, her metal body retained the form of a pretty girl -- a thin but shapely form crafted in hard and solid material. Gally, the being with such a synthetic face and body was a small, thin cyborg teenager -- and a cuttingly deadly bounty hunter.

But those were personal details, details about being almost totally inhuman.  She was a bounty hunter.  Gally made her living through violently killing violent criminals.  Little, dancer-slender and metal-bodied Gally the cyborg made her money by killing whomever or whatever had a bounty on his or her head.  Also, Gally killed more for personal necessity than money, however.  Death was what Gally did for herself.  Affairs were that way in Scrap Iron City, as the elite that lived in the sky only set up a system of skilled, armed and deadly bounty hunters such as Gally to eliminated those the elite declare crimminals.  That is the same elite that runs the sports stadiums and the Factory, as well as being the rulers of the city.

The elite, high and far away, ruled the people.  From their floating and mountainous city, they ruled those on the ground.  They set the bounties on the criminals Gally hunted and killed.  Up there were Gally's employers, in a floating city above Scrap Iron City.  But Gally did not want to think of all of that now.

Today, Gally was also dressed for "business." She donned her favorite form-fitting and sleeveless bodysuit, a bodysuit made of a material that resembled leather -- tough, somewhat elastic, and matte-dark to fit the contours of her petite and athletic female body.  She usually wore a trenchcoat over her small and shapely self.  Her business, though, destroyed the last one -- along with parts of her artificial body that had to be replaced.  Yes, her body -- she sometimes felt -- really was not hers.

This was a relaxing phase of time for Gally, a time to sit in this bar. Gally chose to temporarily drink troubles of life away.  She sometimes dosed her still-human brain and troubled thoughts in liquid relaxation -- with good tea.  Or did Gally become insane long ago, and not know it?

This bar was called Kansas:  a very popular bar for bounty hunters (or Hunter-Warriors as they are officially called by the uncaring ruling class of this society).  In this indoor bar for those in her danger-ridden profession, Gally sat alone at a circular table just by herself..

Seated, Gally had a cup of tea in her right hand, below her face, on the table.  Two-thirds of the mug still had passably decent tea in it.  For Gally, the tea itself was part of a ritual, a ritual older than Scrap Iron City, a ritual of meditation that Gally practiced unconsciously.  It was part of a ritual of contemplation.  Well and well, what was to pass today to lift her from her melancholy?

Maybe a 'crazy'  would decide to turn criminal today, someone the ruling elite in Zalem declares an outlaw.  It would be another quick dash and flash of cash to add to her already immense cache.  She had money, a cache that sized hundreds of thousands of credit-chips.  But money was not anything to this young girl in these jaded times of sobering seriousness. But it was not about the dirty money that Gally fought.

Another sip, and the tea was not too far gone.  As deadly and as prolific a bounty hunter as the cyborg girl was, she was having another Day.  A Day for Gally was one where she did not feel too much to care.  Her body of armor felt colder and more numb that it was.  Gally's thoughts went through her mind, going along lacking in will.  She thought of the times, thought of direction.

What do I care?  I care for people, they die.  This is probably all that there is, ever will be.  After this drink is done, there will be time again to walk.  I will walk, will stalk, and more criminals will die.  More bounties for me.  I do not even need a weapon to kill; my body is a weapon. Gally took a gulp to that thought, the drink going down her synthetic throat to be put through her artificial body's myriad systems -- to be absorbed by the warm and soft matter of her brain.

The drink was nearly done.  I will finish the drink and not worry about the future, thought the small cyborg girl.  Then, she listens to conversations, eavesdropping as her dark eyes glaze and look into the drink's dark dregs.

"Yep, plenty of cheap bounties recently.  Plenty of people going crazy these days.  There are plenty of chips to fill a hunter's cache, " says a powerfully built and broad-shouldered cyborg at another table, a katana sword of excellent carbon-steel strapped to his synthetically solid back, his straight green hair rising above his synthetic face.

"Is that mercy in your voice?" comments another at that table, a second cyborg.  This one's shirtless and professionaly bulky metal body gleamed with a polished look.  The polish that had to be re-applied, after every battle he had, with every criminal.  He took in enough cash, and there was always much to pay for re-applying that polish after ever battle.  "If it is mercy," said the polished cyborg, "you're getting soft in the inside."

"No, it is not at all softness.  It is celebration, of sorts.  It is a celebration of madness.  Madness drives more citizens to madness, then the blessed people of Zalem above bless us with plenty o'chips for eliminating those mad folks.  And with the recent spate of criminality and the burst in bounties, it is all good," finished the first cyborg as he moved to finish his drink.

Another chimed in, "I drink to the madness.  Also, I drink to the money. Both the danger and the money make the Hunter-Warrior's life worth living!" Gally did not recognize the voice, but did not bother to turn to see who it was.  A laugh wafted up as the three clinked mugs of drink, then drank down their contents.

Here is my drink, thought the small girl-cyborg who sat alone at another circular table.  I finish it, and then I move on with my existence.  Her large and dark brown eyes go to the drink.  Brought to her small and puckered synthetic lips, the drink vanishes.  The doll drank her drink.

As soon as Gally finished her tea, a loud shout came from up at floor level.  Something, a Hell of something, was going down.  Rather, something was up.  Up there, up stairs and outside, something happened in the streets outside of the bar.  The people in the bar went silent as they contemplated going to stop the disturbance.  Or maybe it wasn't worth quelling the disturbance upstairs?  Why bother to do work when there may not be bounties to be had? Let the citizens handle it.

Something to do!  Finally, a chance to test myself comes around, thinks Gally.  She stood to her full four feet of height (for her current body) and strode out on her slender legs, her solid feet in rubberoid footwear making sounds along the floor.  Other bounty hunters stared; Gally would kill again.

"We'll leave all the cash to you, girl; there's no need to share the bounty!" shouted someone.  Murmurs followed.  Then, the rest of the patrons went back to their drinks.  Gally stepped beyond the stairs and into the daylight streets of the city, the streets between the low and square buildings.

Her head slashingly swiveled to look right and left.  Left, there was a small and pocket-sized disturbance: multiple cyborgs just being brutal. Five cyborgs of average height, three male and two female cyborgs, harassed a full-flesh couple.  The skinny full-flesh man and his shapely and red-haired girlfirend were in good clothes -- clothes in good condition and without holes.  The man was in gray pants and a casual shirt, the woman in a blouse and a pleated skirt that came to smooth knees.  Clearly, it was an expensive outing for them both.  Now, that date was being ruined by just more crazed cyborgs.

"He's cute, girly.  I think I'll get a feel -- of his skinny neck!" said one of the five, a thin-bodied female cyborg with a pink metal body covered with a short leather dress torn around the hem.  "Hah, he fits in one hand!" she said, grabbing the full-flesh young man around the neck, her solid fingers clamping around his full-flesh neck.  The female cyborg was quite capable of easily breaking his neck with a squeeze of her hand.

"Yeah, then we can play with the girl!" said a male cyborg.  The three males and the other female, them in dust-stained jeans and kevlar jackets over their gray and solid bodies, surrounded the girl.  She went to her knees as a male cyborg reached for the front of her blouse.

Gally took off with a rapid run, her upper body leaning forward as her legs pumped.  Clearly, the cyborgs were on one of many drugs not to have noticed the small and dark-clad girl dashing in their direction.  Gally skipped around to the back of the one nearly strangling the young man, and clenched her right fist.  Heat and sparks radiated and flipped from her fist.  Soon, her fist flared -- surrouned by an aura of plasma-energy.
 
 

Unseen, someone watched the small cyborg run at the druggies he hired. Yeah, if I can distract her, then I won't have any trouble here in Scrap Iron City.  He was among the crowd, the crowd that primarily didn't care about the harassed young couple and their plight.  As Scrap Iron City lacked a police force, violence was just another part of life -- like the wind and rain.  But it rained often here.  And that was why The Cloaked Man had traveled through time to this specific point.  He was here because it was so easy to cause humanity suffering.  Like at the turn of the twenty-first century, there was plenty of occasion to cause pain.  The Cloaked Man smiled from his place in the crowd, loving the mad scene to come.  He hoped that the drugged-up cyborgs he hired would finish off Gally.
 
 

Running and leaping, Gally struck straight out.  Her fist went through the shoulder-machinery of the pink-metal cyborg holding the young man: The sinewy mechanical arm holding him separating from the cyborg-woman's body.  "Damn!  What the ...!" blurted the woman, staggering back as the man fell with the severed mechanical limb still clutching his neck.

The other cyborgs became befuddled at this blast of new violence.  "You little scrap-metal bitch!  I'll scrub my hands with chunks of your brain, then use your body parts for ornamentation!" said the pink one.  Gally stepped back, and took on a martial artist's stance: one fist close to her pseudo-leather clad abdomen and her other fist cocked and held close to her face.

It was one varied stance of the Panzer Kunst, the most deadly cyborg fighting style possible.  These five were either insane, too jacked up on a mind-altering substance to care, or quite brave.  The way they behaved and swayed, the first two seemed the most likely truths.  As the full-flesh girl went to her fallen boyfriend, the other four cyborgs anemically turned to face Gally.  They wanted fun, too.  Meanwhile, the young lady in the dress cried as she clutched her boyfriend around the shoulders.

"You die, little bitch!" said the now one-armed cyborg as she swung her other mechanical arm at Gally, swung in a left and arcing punch.  Small Gally easily ducked the blow aimed at her head, and the momentum from the woman's punch swung the taller cyborg off balance; the drugged cyborg's balance was off as one of her arms was missing.  Gally's follow-up punch went through the woman's mechanical "neck." Wiring and bits of metal flew everywhere, and dark fluid jetted from the synthetic body's neck-stump.

"You're a dead little thing now, girl!" said another cyborg, one of the men.  The other four stepped off, just stepped several meters distant from Gally, circling.  Gally smiled.  This was conflict, a fight!  She felt fully integrated, alive!  Her body was now her way of expression now.  Her artificial body was now really part of her.

"You're dead, little thing!" "Yeah, yeah!" "You're brain is going to die today!" "We're going to break your small body into even smaller pieces!"

"Consider your own deaths!" shouted back Gally, her body locked into a stance: arms-cocked, right leg forward and left leg back.  Before another could take another step, Gally's fists blurred in what was an uncountable flurry of machine-quick punches.  They blurred right through the hard chest of one of the male cyborgs. Then, before he collapsed, Gally kicked, and his head flew down the street.  The body that was once his fell chest down, leaking dark fluid.

"The Cloaked Man's cash be damned!  I'll kill you for free!" said the other female, one wearing just a jacket and jeans over her hard artificial body.  Gally thought, who is The Cloaked Man?  Before the other female cyborg's straight punch could connect, Gally caught the mechanical fist flying at her, then tore it off.  As the other cyborg female stepped back, Gally leapt and kicked off yet another head.  If there were bounties on these heads, she would at least get a multiple sum for whatever each one was worth.  Maybe the heads would by some months of drinks, at least, or another three trechcoat to replace her last burned-up one?

With inarticulate growls, the two cyborgs that remained reached out to grab Gally.  She let them grab her shoulders.  They tried to grab her neck, but Gally's quick and reinforced-hard fists amputated the four mechanized arms of the two -- sparks and pieces of metal fluttering.  Now, the thugs were reduced to arm-stumps, wiring flailing.  That made them very, very angry in addition to them being insane.

Another punch to the right, and a high kick left, and Gally simply exploded the alloy skulls of the two that were left alive.  "Five opponents, one fight.  Maybe there's some cash to be made from their heads?" said Gally aloud.  She then looked down at the weeping girl who clutched her defeated one.

Gally failed to save the young man.  Clearly, Gally had acted with the belief that the young man was still alive when the pink cyborg woman grabbed him.  As soon as the pink woman's fingers went around his neck, his vertebrae had been snapped.  That was in the past, the evil done before Gally could stop it.

Gally looked at the kneeling girl.  The girl in the blouse and pleated dress cried and cried.  She clutched a corpse with a broken neck, the mechanical fingers of one of the cyborg-druggies having made bloody indents in the flesh.  And Gally just stood, her eyes on the weeping girl before her.  Gally's body now felt more detached, felt like the machine that it was.  "Saying sorry cannot help ..." she said.  "I do not know what will.  But ..." The rest was lost as Gally's emotions silenced her.  She went to one knee.  The girl's face dripped tears, tears onto the dead young man.

The man in the crowd, the one who hired the junkies, pushed his way into the open.  He stood behind kneeling Gally.  He stood exactly six feet tall, wore dress slacks and a plain tee-shirt.  Heavy looking and thick-soled sneakers completed the outfit.  The slacks and tee-shirt were good clothes by the standards of Scrap Iron City: without holes or tatters.  In fact, they were excellent clothes, looked new.  The man had a medium build, solid around the chest and midsection but not massively built.  The odd thing about him, was that he had a cape, one sewn to the back of his tee-shirt. Though a cape, the man sometimes called it a cloak.  His skin was a summer-tanned red tone, red faced below a a mane of dark and thick hair with a sturdy and square-jawed face.  His dark brown eyes glinted above a grin.  Perhaps, it was the lean look of a former Army cadet ...  He felt ready to joke up some more trouble.

"Hey there, freak!" he shouted.  Gally whirled to face the man, The Cloaked Man.  "Guess what?  I hired those jokers to get at you!" Gally's lips collapsed into a frown.  "Wooh, you looked pissed!  You want a piece of this?" he said. Gally leapt, and The Cloaked Man whisked -- was a moving blur.  Gally shot past, a gray and dark figure.  The Cloaked Man turned to face Gally anew.

But, Gally was gone.  She had vanished into time.  By now, Thunderhorse's calculations and such had locked onto Gally and removed her from the 30^th century.  Before she could confront The Cloaked Man in direct combat, she had been taken away.  Perhaps, with the technology and trickery The Cloaked Man had for weaponry, it was for the best.

The Cloaked Man shrugged.  Looking around, the smile still on his rugged face, he said, "People, the cyborg has left the area.  Actually, she stepped out." He hesistated, then added, "No, she had to leave.  I made her leave.  And leave she did.  Gally left, so Gally is gone.  So far gone!  So sad!  So what?"

The people of Scrap Iron City began walking away, somewhat quickly.  He was nuts, gibbering the way he did.  They saw The Cloaked Man as just another "crazy" to crop up.  Commonplace poverty, drugs, and anarchy bred the likes of people like The Cloaked Man here.  "Hey, people!  Come on!  The cosmic joker is just warming up!  What's a little death?  Don't be sad, people!" The Cloaked Man looked down at the crying girl, who now looked up at him.

"You're not funny!" he shouted.  She went silent, eyes glistening with tears, face paused in sadness.  Then, she clenched her mouth shut, brought her fallen one's body closer to herself.  If that madman was going to kill her, she was going to die with her lover -- in the same place.  "I said, you're not funny!"

The Cloaked Man swirled his cape, brought it close to his face.  "I've got better freaks to fry.  Later!" That being with the ill-placed humor, The Cloaked Man, then fingered his thin red cape.  It rippled, sparkled, and twisted the material of time and space.  He then wavered and vanished into time, just as Gally did -- and just as Vicki did a millenium's time ago.
 
 

In Another Place, Thunderhorse's monitor displayed yet more reams of equations.  Most of them were green, and only some of them showing results he did not like.  From the notations and equations on the screen, Thunderhorse knew himself to be somewhat lucky -- having been able to get the two before that jerk in the sewn-on cape could eliminate them.  They were in his office. Both were on the floor now, put there by millenia of physics technolgy.

Now, Gally lie on her back, on the hard marble floor.  It was hard to tell how large this marble-floored place was; the room was dimly lit by one small desk-lamp, and the rest of the room seemed large and engulfed in shadow as the curtains over the tall panoramic windows were drawn.  Her brain was unconscious, probably due to the effects of the transit.  She looked as if sleeping, her lean legs straight and arms at her side, respiratory system still at work in her solid chest.  As still as Gally lie, she slept as if in death.

A meter from Gally, lying on her side, was Vicki.  Somehow, the dark-haired humanoid robot that resembled a full-flesh human girl was fully repaired since being pulled into that place, pulled from her time and place in reality. Her blouse and pants were even in new condition.  Everything seemed in new condition on Vicki.  Still, her eyes were closed -- and she was in a simulated sense of sleep.  Did she malfunction now?  Both were before the desk that held the room's only significant illumination.

Notations appeared again in the upper right-hand part of the screen:

"Subject: Gally ... Transition Warp Complete!"

"Subject: Vicki Lawson ... Transition Warp Complete!"

"Charging Transition Warp-Flux, please wait ..."

The device really did work.  Then again, the equations he planned always worked.  But he was seldom allowed by certain powers-that-be from using all the universe-bending equations and physics.  But this was not just an experiment; it was actually part of more plans.  There was work to do, work that only the two mechanized females were best suited for completing.

Mr. Thunderhorse mentally willed the two to awaken.  Vicki's computer processors began running commands to bring her back up to full power.  In minutes, the artificial girl Vicki would again become "conscious." Gally's body began supplying more nutrients and such to her brain, and she should regain consciousness after a stirring fit as full consciousness returned. Indeed, in his own theater-sized office, Thunderhorse would have his two new servants awaken.