Crossover

Chapter 4:  This is Where Gally Lives

In the 30^th century, Scrap Iron City continued to exist -- with the floating City of Zalem in the sky and the hyper-ghetto of short, cracked buildings on the ground. Only several buildings throughout the city, the more important ones, were taller than ten stories or covered blocks of space. In one part of the city, there was a vast region of waste, of hard trash. Those dozens and dozens of miles square were covered with vast and barren hills made of solid junk: a landscape of scrap and chunks of rust. Among the mountains of junk, almost nothing grew save for small scrubs and hardy weeds. Otherwise, this place of junk not far from the buildings of Scrap Iron City was a dead place. An immense area covered with junk, the scrap yard was in fact where the floating city overhead regularly dumped its refuse.

The sky overhead was a darkening blue-gray as night was soon to set. A rain shower poured onto the city and on the trashy hard waste, the rain making it just somewhat harder to see. Throughout the landscape of trash, cyborg workers worked the 100-foot immense cranes. Such were the cranes that kept the mountains of junk organized, working with powerful headlamps that blazed through the darkening and rainy night air. The workers had work to do, and there were always acres of junk to make into neater mountains. Work would go on until sundown itself, sundown in the acreage of the immense scrap yard.

But the junk was also resources, the junk that poured down from the floating city above. It was this junk that the citizens of Scrap Iron City chiseled, hammered, riveted and repaired to make all of their goods: building materials for their homes, appliances to put in those homes, furniture for the same purpose, machinery, and such. The junk and scrap was even used to repair cyborgs. Junk from the seemingly well-off people in the sky showered down to be used by the laboring and generally impoverished cyborgs that lived on the ground, in Scrap Iron City.

A quick gust of wind whipped across one part of the scrap yard, a flatter place where the ground was embedded with junk. Then, something happened in one place: a bit of the air five feet over the junk-solid ground began to waver, began to flicker. A flat and circular section of the air rippled in the rain, then blackened: a really black hole in reality. Wind whipped and whistled into the hole in reality, that hovering dark hole that stayed above ground. Somethings came flying through.

Vicki flew feet first through the reality hole, and smacked tumbling into the rusty and solid ground. She then lie there, face up, her synthetic skin and hair proving to be waterpoof against the down-coming rain. Soon, her blouse and jeans were damp -- then suddenly soaked.

Gally did better than Vicki did, flew through the hole in reality. She came feet first through the hole in reality, slender legs together. When her feet hit the ground, Gally did handsprings to slow her forward momentum, snapped her body through the flipping maneuvers until being slowed enough to stop herself. A final handspring, and Gally regained balance by landing in a kneeling position. Gally then moved a solid right hand over her hard torso. After the warp from Vicki's time, her body had been perfectly repaired during the transition -- not a single bullet hole from those strange guns used by those industrial thugs. Thunderhorse was right: His time-warping process did repair physical damage -- flawlessly.

Still on one knee, she looked up. Gally watched as the hole in reality irised itself closed, then vanished. The small cyborg looked around, and the scrap yard junk on and in the ground here represented the obvious: This was where Gally lived, Scrap Iron City of the 30^th century.

Lying, the robot girl's fine hearing heard the particular sounds of Gally's metal body executing those agile handsprings, the barely audible clicking sounds of her body's electro-mechanical parts working as she moved. Then, Vicki heard Gally stop. Gally, thought Vicki. Vicki thought angry thoughts, the computer chips and circuitry that made up her mind flickering with outrage. That psycho metal-bodied girl made it with me! And she's going to get away with murder!

Vicki rolled onto her side, felt the hard and packed ground made of solid junk, then stood. Gally remained in a kneeling position. It seemed as if she were not shot at all; her fingers slid across the form-fitting pseudo-leather over her athletic form. Sounds pattered behind her, through the rain. Gally snapped to her feet and whirled when she heard steps approach.

"You crazy psycho! You killed people!" shouted Vicki, her voice synthesizers getting in good volume. Gally stood her full four feet, her small and thin metal body standing calmly and almost disinterested. Rain continued to soak Gally's dark hair around her synthetic face. Vicki, seeming taller than her five feet of height, stood before and over the cyborg. "You! Killing humans, people, is wrong!" shouted Vicki some more. That was really loud, and her shout echoed along the mountains of solid junk. Was that replicate Vicki malfunctioning? The rain pattered on as the two stood in that junked landscape.

Vicki raised a hand, palm flat. With some inhuman strength, she struck Gally. Gally let the blow rock across her rain-wet cheek, swiveling her head to the right. "People are dead, dead! Don't you care?" asked Vicki. Gally turned her head to face Vicki again. A smack with Vicki's other synthetic palm, and Gally's head swiveled the other way. "Don't you care for people's lives? Don't you have a soul?"

Gally did not mind the slaps at all. Her body was absolutely synthetic and primarily made of metal, the "skin" over her head and neck was synthetic -- with almost no feeling. Gally more heard the slaps than felt them, only felt a dull force of the blow. There was no sensation. Gally awaited what followed. "You!" yelled Vicki. Vicki raised her palm, and Gally let the third slap from Vicki do it's worst. The next moment, Gally was on her back, some distance away.

Gally lie there with arms and legs splayed, the rain coming down on her and pattering on her armor-solid self and her bodysuit. "I know that where you come from is nasty and ruined and...and...ghetto-like. But we people from my time don't kill! We don't kill unless there's...a very good...reason!" Vicki stuttered on some words, extreme "anger" building in the hardware that was her "brain." Her thoughts jumbling and spinning.

Gally breathed, still lying there. Vicki stood to the side of Gally, both of them still immersed in the constant waterflow from above. The sky was now dark and cloud covered, all of the sky over Scrap Iron City and the city's scrap yard.

Vicki's "anger" continued to build. "I think you need to be locked up, psycho! No, they should bolt you down! They should bolt your gray body to the floor...of a mental institution, one of those institutions for the...violently insane. And I would be happy to turn the bolts that lock you in place myself..."

Vicki's personality emulation programming spun emotions faster. Her circuits began to grow warmer, and this was too much for the robot-teen. "I'd bolt you... I'd bolt you, make sure you never ...." Vicki staggered, her right hand going to her head and left hand going to the center of her chest -- inside where the other half of her thought microchips were stored.

Malfunctions began to build. "Logic dysfunction," "logic error" and two other types of error signals began to appear in Vicki's computer-mind. Her next words came out as bursts of stuttering static, interrupted by "warning" signals. Then, results came. Vicki's lips quivered, her body becoming rigid. Too many program errors were building up. The ultimate shock came with her taking her eyes off of fallen Gally; Vicki bothered to look around at where she was.

Through the haze of malfunctions that cause her eyesight streak a bit, Vicki saw where she was, really. Her more basic sub-programs, the ones that processed logic, simply refused to process visual data: This was most probably the place Gally described before -- and the place Thunderhorse referred to. The darkness of the vanishing day and the pouring rain could not hide the solid junk at her feet, junk illuminated by powerful lights of the stories-tall cranes not far away. It was junk that her computer-perfect memory could not identify. The setting was...exotic. A look backwards, and she saw the mountains of refuse, the mountains of junk and scrap. Vicki then looked away from the towering amounts of solid rubbish. She did not know where she was, her chip-bound memory trying to identify the place.

And, she saw the buildings away and in the rain-covered distance. It was a ragged and jagged gray horizon of short and simple buildings, the buildings of the city. Minute mechanisms in her eyes triggered automatically as Vicki stared at the distant buildings, gave her a slight zoom.

Her mind's thought and logic processors were still worsening in functionality as she continued to assess her location. But she was still able to identify where she was: It was the Scrap Iron City, 30^th Century, that Vicki had to be in. The noticeable smokestacks and high proportion of short buildings made for evidence of that, and the sheer density of industrialization really irritated Vicki's "understanding." No city in Vicki's home-time was as densely industrialized as that thousands-of-miles square city in the distance.

If this was the 30^th century, Scrap Iron City, then there should be an airborne confirmation of that. Vicki arched her neck, rolled her eyes up, and looked up. There was Zalem. The miles-wide floating circular city was high above, an immense and circular city at cloud level. That really was a floating city. This really is the 30^th century, concluded Vicki's thought processes. This must be Gally's hometown -- Scrap Iron City. And that above must be Zalem.

That did it: Her logic processing processes took a major load and went into overload. Vicki's body stiffened. She fell over backward. This was all too much. If she were human, she would have been said to have fainted.

Gally, still lying down, rolled her eyes to her right, eyes not blinking in the still-coming rain. Vicki had fallen over, seriously! Poor robot, she lacks the human flexibility of mind to tolerate her circumstances and emotions, thought Gally. By now, sunlight was gone. Then, some pole-mounted lights among the bleak mountains of scrap flared on, giving some light to the landscape.

Up and walking again, Gally knelt by Vici's side. She placed a solid hand to Vicki's chest to find out if the gynoid still functioned. Though not human, Vicki probably breathed to help keep her systems cool -- and to better pass for being human. As a bounty hunter skilled in the ways of fighting, of killing , Gally was of expert level in determining if a person (cyborg of non-cyborg "full-flesh") was dead. Vicki lacked most all life signs of a human being, even lacked breathing. After keeping her hand on Vicki's sternum, Gally felt no movement of the artificial girl's chest Vicki was a robot, no doubt of that now.

Gally's gray fingers stroked Vicki's loose dark curls from her soft, smooth forehead. The downpour caused rivulets of water to flow along the contours of Vicki's soft face. Gally had parts of thoughts on the now-unconscious robot, the one whose computer mind had gone into "shut down." Gally thought, No one is perfect, even if they were made to be. And machines can be just as human as the people that make them. Gally sighed, slowly shook her head.

Gently, Gally's gray and narrow arms went under Vicki's waist and upper back -- cradling the gynoid. To the cyborg, Vicki's compact weight of computer circuitry, synthetic flesh and such was little weight. Gally cradled the robot girl that was bigger than herself, held Vicki to a hard and electromechanical body that gave no real warmth. Let us go to a friend, Vicki. He will help you. He must, thought Gally. Vicki remained unconscious and unmoving weight in Gally's arms. A moment's pause, then Gally began the first steps to the buildings of Scrap Iron City, to the populated part of the city.

The walk to the more populated parts of Scrap Iron City was a familiar one for Gally. These days, the immense and over-industrialized hyper-ghetto of impoverished and metal-bodied cyborgs was probably the only significant place to be in the world. Gally seldom had desires to leave this immense city. Outside of old Scrap Iron, there was not much to see that Gally knew of. The interstellar war of centuries ago ravaged Earth's surface. There was not much to be seen outside the city's "hydro-walls" other than a smattering of farms close by, plenty of desert wasteland and plenty of wild-eyed bandits who lived as parasites who stole from agricultural.

Gally lived in this city, had been for the few years she had been resurrected. This walk was different because of the new being she ported along. It was even true that the scrap yard was where Gally's already cyborg remains and rebuilt in the first place. Gally walked out of the scrap yard and into the city itself, through the steady rain that still came, away from the hard ground paved with scrap and solid trash-junk to ground of hard-packed and toxin-laden mud. Eventually, her booted legs stepped on the pavement and concrete of the city's more developed areas. Luckily, no one interrupted the miles-long walk. Even Vicki remained silent in Gally's hard limbs -- did not complain of the unyielding solidity of the cyborg that carried her.

Soon, Gally reached one less-crowded residential enclave, a neighborhood with concrete and blocky houses several stories in height. She looked through the steadily streaming drops of rainshower. Then, there was the house that doubled as a medical clinic for cyborgs. A certain brilliant man lived here, one that found just the head and bust of Gally's cyborg remains; that was a smatteing of years ago. Since then, Ido Daisuke had been a kind protector of Gally. Though Scrap Iron City could be said to be populated with plenty of kind and friendly people (save for the immense percentage who turned criminally cruel), Ido was kinder than most. He would help Vicki.

The cyborg girl went to the door, then carefully hefted Vicki over her shoulder. Vicki's body may have felt human, with its artificial muscle tissue, but it had more density; Gally felt the density when she shifted Vicki to the left shoulder. Gally pressed the door buzzer with a solid finger. There was the barest sound of approaching footsteps coming down stairs. After a moment in which the person at the other end peered through an electronic eye-hole set in the alloyed door, he opened it.

Ido was tall and blonde man, a bit on the skinny side, who often wore professional slacks and pressed shirts to be worn with ties. The lack of muscle was shown with his rolled-up arm sleeves. Dressed so, he looked the part of a professional medical man, down to the small spectacles and long, solid jaw that told of long and dedicated hours and years spent learning and practicing his profession.

Something marred his otherwise normal features; there was a cryptic circular mark set in his forehead. It was a dark and circular spot one inch in diameter. The outline of something like a finger extended almost halfway into the mark, an outline that was not colored in. He seemed to be a full-flesh person. He was probably a bit over a foot taller than Vicki. Ido had to look far down to see Gally and the being she carried.

"Gally!" he then exclaimed. His expert eyes went over the "girl" that Gally held -- looking for injuries or signs of trauma. There were none. "What happened, and why are you carrying that girl? Is she hurt?" He motioned for Gally to come in. And Gally carried the being into the reception area that was on the first floor -- the floor that served as the cyber-doctor's main medical facilities.

Gally saw Ido running around to prepare for a human patient. "Ido, please be more calm! She's just...sleeping, not injured," said Gally aloud, sounding more human than ever. Ido stopped his rush for the operation and repair room. He turned. "Then why doesn't she breathe? And why the pasty skin?" Ido primarily worked with cyborgs, but knew the physiology of full-flesh people as well.

The "girl" in Gally's arms did not breathe -- did not need to breathe. Then, Ido's highly skilled perception noticed that the "girl" in Gally's arms did not quite have small nuances that belonged to real human skin; Vicki's skin looked too flawless. Was the "girl" a replicate?

"Gally, is that a replicate? If so, is she still dangerous?" he asked. Gally shook her dark-haired head, then gave a light laugh. "Yes, Ido, it's a replicate. But no, Ido, she's not dangerous. She's just a confused robot. I will explain later. In the meanwhile, is there a place to set her?" she asked. Ido nodded. "Carry her upstairs and set her on a hard stretcher -- the ones we use for cyborgs. Set her near the heating unit in the upstairs kitchen. The heating unit should dry her clothes. And if that is a standard replicate, the change in environmental conditions should prompt a sort of response."

Gally nodded, confirming having heard Ido's orders. She carried the limp Vicki upstairs and set her on the floor before the heating unit. This was a typical kitchen of decent size, if the refridgerator was dented in places, but the heating unit was conveniently placed at waist level of people to make eating more comfortable on colder days -- as if it the temperature ever went too low in these times of pollution and environmental damage. The kitchen light was on and Gally was able too place Vicki directly before the grille that supplied heated air.

She dashed back down stairs, found the foldable and high-strength stretcher used for cyborgs, then set it up. Vicki's synthetic skin and tissue heated before the unit. Then, Vicki's computers detected the environmental change and sped up the process of bringing Vicki's personality back online. Ido came into the kitchen, walked around the four-place circular table, then stood by Gally's side.

Looking at the "unconscious" gynoid on the stretcher, Ido said to Gally, "Tell me about this replicate, as much as you can." Gally began to talk. She told of how she met Vicki, how Gally and the gynoid had been pulled through time. "Are you sure it wasn't anyone from Scrap Iron City? What about Nova, or Chaos" interrupted Ido. "Those two may have perfected their matter and perception manipulation techniques enough to confuse you..." Gally shook her head, then continued the explanation. Ido heard about Thunderhorse and the mission Thunderhorse sent Gally and Vicki in.

Mr. Thunderhorse seemed to have very powerful technology. Nowadays, time travel was still just a theory. But someone named Thunderhorsehad the ability to twist time and pull specific people through it. He could also track events throughout history. That, and he understood much about gynoids and cyborgs. Who is he? Ido wondered about Thunderhorse.

Yet, Ido listened carefully, did not doubt a word. If this Mr. Thunderhorse was more powerful than anyone in Scrap Iron City or the floating city of Zalem, then it was probably best that Gally follow Thunderhorse's requests. That was best as Thunderhorse could harm anyone he wished--it seemed.

Gally then grimly remembered her last order of business -- the business she carried out before being trans-warped out of Scrap Iron City. "Ido, I left a few heads back at a small Hunter-Warrior's bar. Would you watch after her until I return?" asked Gally, looking up at Ido. Ido smiled. He agreed, but asked that Gally hurry back: If she has tasks to complete as ordered by Mr. Thunderhorse, he wanted to know and be in on it. Gally left.

Twenty minutes passed, and Gally ran her way into Kansas bar and hangout. Of course, no one else claimed the heads of the bullies she killed: No bounty hunter could legally take another's bounty. Seeing Gally, the bartender reached behind the counter, then lifted a white sack lined with plastic. The heads (and remains of heads) of the bullying cyborgs she killed earlier were bulges in the bag. Gally thanked the bartender, promised to tip him later, and was given a small section of printout. It seems there was a bounty on the heads of a groupf of five "crazies": two female, three male, and all murderously crazy. Gally put the printout in the bag of cyborg heads (and head scraps), then left. Kansas was a bar that gave real service and courtesy to Scrap Iron City's bounty hunters; she refused to hear different.

With the bag of heads in her left mechanical hand, the cyborg girl jogged through the rain, lightly jogged over to a grand and large-doored Factory administrative building. Inside, after having the barcode on her brain scanned, she was allowed into the slick and metal-desked offices past the reception area. The bounty distributor was behind the first door on the left, in the hall.

After passing through the doors of one first-floor hall, Gally saw the deckman that gave cash for criminal's heads and proof of brain-death. The deckman had a four-foot closed cylinder (a foot in diameter) for a body, a cylinder set in a wide circular desk: The chubby-lips and cheeks, along with the two circular camera lenses, served as his face. He greeted her, and business commenced.

"Hunter Warrior, welcome! Please deposit proofs of bounty in the concaves. Bounty assessment will follow immediately." Deckman No. 10's voice sounded normal (if a bit too much like that of a salesman), but had a metal vibrato sound. The body was of the hard material, so distortion would be expected.

Gally reached into the bag, then pulled out three cyborg heads and two separate chunks of brain matter. Those went into separate and inch-deep circular concaves on the desk. The heads were put through analysis, a process that did not take long. "Scanning and assessment com-pleted!" said No. 10, his voice singing the first syllable of "completed." Then, the automatic desk dumped the heads through an unsealed hole in the wall. The heads would either be catalogued for DNA data or simply incinerated.

The bowl-shaped concavities reattached themselves to the desk. A section of the desk opened, and a thick rubbery hand at the end of a simple metal arm held a bag of chips -- a bag of money. The bag had the "credits" symbol, labeling the contents. Credits came in the form of circular, hard and specially encoded "chips" of various colors. The sack held by No. 10 was two-thirds full of chips.

"Here is your bounty, a bounty of 26,000 chips! Good pay for a hard-working and reliable Hunter-Warrior! Do stay in contact, and remember to keep up with Factory news printouts!" said No. 10. Gally took the sack and silently nodded thanks, sealing the transaction. Well, she could buy two dozen more trench coats with the cash, cash to add to one of her caches. And she had to hide her cash: Scrap Iron City had no banks, but everyone always found places to hide their cash -- at home or in other places.

Back at Ido's cyborg medical clinic, upstairs, Vicki began to move again. Diagnostics and data compression programs in her head and chest cavity finally squirreled away the last of the excessive data. Then, her personality emulation programming was slowly brought back online. Slowly, the systems that coordinated her body's movement allowed her control as her myogel muscles were recaliberated. Vicki began to come around.

She felt as if her head were stuffed with...stuff. There was this whole idea of time-travelling, the Brindles being tied up, a evil person that wanted to destroy humanity and some grand man named Mr. Thunderhorse. Then, Vicki remembered slapping a girl named Gally. She remembered slapping and shouting--up until everything stopped making sense. Now, she was here. This was not a dream, but Vicki wanted it to be one.

Vicki, her clothes more dry, slowly sat straight up on the stretcher. Ido was at the kitchen table several meters away. If the humanoid robot was violent, he would be at a safe distance when she-it reactivated. Then, he could grab the backup weapon that leaned against the wall -- a weaker but faster version of the energy-powered jackhammer he used for his own night-time employement.

It was a weapon that resembled a full-metal jack-hammer: a handle four feet long, with a hardened and ten inch-long circular head that had a rocket nozzle attached to one end. The other end of the head was a sharpened point. This implement also had a small jackhammer's mass, had just as much heft when handled. But, the strength of it was in the propulsion. If Ido tapped a small red button on the hammer, the propulsion could kick in and generate a forced swing of several hundred pounds. It took skill to use the smaller weapon; the more often-used and full-sized rocket hammer was one of Ido's large cases -- a large case that also housed a sythetics-armored trenchcoat.

Ido continued to look at the "girl" on the stretcher. The replicate (?) on the stretcher did not yet seem violent. Maybe he would not have to use the rocket hammer. But Ido had used the rocket hammer before, and he would not hesitate to use it again.

Vicki's eyesight returned to standard focus and magnification. She looked outside through a night-darkened window. Vicki saw the buildings of Scrap Iron City illuminated with streetlight and their own lights attached to their outsides. Then, she looked around this kitchen. It was a kitchen, an ordinary kitchen! Some of the appliances seemed to have been bent and repaired, not new. But everything looked clean and well-kept for.

At the tablecloth-covered circular table, a tall blond man sat with hands on the table. He sat facing her, sat with the table between himself and Vicki. His fingers seemed ready to fly to something, maybe one of the appliances? "Hello," he said.

Vicki slightly shook her head as if to shake clear some residual confusion she felt, another nuance of behavior to mimic humanity. "Vicki, how is your status?" asked Ido, ready to listen for violent tendencies in Vicki's response. "Do your thought processes still run awkwardly?" Vicki paused, thinking a bit.

"I feel fine, sir," she said before swinging her legs over the edge of the cushion-less stretcher. "Thank you." Ido noted no trademark twinges or vibrating vowels in her voice that indicated a violent replicate -- replicates being humanoid doubles sometimes designed to imitate flesh people and kill. Ido would give this "Vicki" replicate a benefit of doubt and talk with her.

"You will have to tell me about yourself, how you came about and where you came from," said Ido. "If you can, come to the table." Vicki nodded, then stepped off of the metal stretcher. Then, almost reverently, the artificial girl pulled out the solid aluminum seat opposite Ido, and sat. Knees together and hands folded in her lap, Vicki looked prim.

"I failed introduce myself," said Ido, looking at the now-insular Vicki. "My name is Ido. This is my home, a place that doubles for a cyber medical clinic for people. The profession does not pay much, but my friends and I can make it through the years. Gally, the cyborg that brought you here, also lives here -- acts as an assistant."

Vicki's eyes suddenly locked on Ido's face; her simulated personality putting on "anger" at the mentioning of Gally. Vicki angrily voiced, "She's a psycho killer, that is what she is. I saw her kill two human beings, people -- and that little psycho did not even care. Do you not know that your 'assistant' kills human beings?" Vicki's hands were now clenched in her lap.

"Please, listen. I must have started this conversation the wrong way," said Ido, trying to placate Vicki while tensing to reach for the spare rocket hammer. "You will have to tell me why Gally killed people. She would not kill without reason. As succinctly and as easily as you can, tell me about the situation."

"Ido, I have to tell you about what I'm doing here. Some strange man with weird machinery put me here. He said that he uses time-travel, but I'm not sure of that. Then, he teamed me with your so-called 'assistant' to go get some sort of time-traveling criminal. If I do not, then I cannot get back home. That is why I am here..."

Ido interrupted with a calm voice. "Gally told me about your situation, Vicki. You do not have to tell me again if you find it difficult to do so," he said. Vicki nodded. "You can skip to more recent events, if you please."

Vicki did. "Before Gally and I came to this place, we had to stop some of the people hired by an evil person, someone I heard to be called The Cloaked Man. Anyway, we were back on my street, back in my hometown. Three people in business suits, people with strange guns, they tied up my neighbors. I found that out when I got there. Gally and I, had to save the Brindles. So, Gally and I moved to save the Brindles by stopping the bad guys. Gally was shot a few times, but she managed to get the guy that shot her. But then, when we tricked another bad person outside, Gally broke the woman's neck! Gally killed a human being!"

The gynoid's personality cannot understand ideas of justice, is too simple-minded, thought Ido. She must have simply been programmed to prevent the death of any human being -- a simple safety measure to prevent her from killing. She would not live long in this place, that pacifist attitude in place. Ido then tried to reason with Vicki, the angry robot in synthetic flesh. Robots were reasonable, unless programmed to be otherwise.

"Vicki, do you understand the idea of 'self-defense?" asked Ido. Vicki nodded a "yes." "So, give me your definition for it." Vicki's personality program called up a simple definition from her memory banks, one programmed in by Dr. Lawson, her "father." It was one deeply embedded.

"Self-defense is acting to defend oneself from harm to avoid suffering." Vicki said in a near monotone. Ido slowly nodded; the idea must have been so deeply programmed into Vicki that she gave the definition in such a basic voice. He would have to go in a simple way from here, trying to communicate with Vicki's more basic and core thinking processes. In a tone of voice unwittingly matching the tone of software engineers that worked with Vicki before, Ido spoke to Vicki.

And, Vicki listened very carefully. "If a person attacks a victim, does the victim have the right to attack back?" Vicki quickly nodded, once. "Yes, that is self-defense," she said. Ido added another question. "Then if a person has a gun and shoots a victim, then should the victim attack to avoid being further injured or damaged any further -- assuming that the victim can still fight back?" Vicki nodded "yes" to that as well.

Now comes the kicker. "Now Vicki, if a person threatens to shoot and kill a victim, should the victim kill the other person to avoid being killed? If you believe that self-defense means 'defending oneself to avoid harm,' then killing to avoid being shot to death is self-defense." Vicki was very still when Ido said that. Ido added a conclusion. "Gally killed humans in self-defense, Vicki."

Vicki's systems took a jolt at the logic of that: Human beings should kill for self-defense if they are threatened with death. That is only an extension of self-defense. Vicki's basic "morality" program underwent some self-tweaking from that added logic to self-defense. New thought patterns went through her mind; bits of some old programming was reconfigured.

By usage of Vicki's own logic, Ido was right. Vicki was wrong in believing Gally to have been wrong. Now, the gynoid experienced deep embarrassment at the way she treated Gally, felt quite ashamed in slapping the metal-bodied girl who only killed to avoid being killed. Hadn't Gally been nearly killed when her electromechanical body was shot through with ceramic bullets?

Vicki gasped with the rapidity of the reconfiguration of her thoughts: Making immense realizations actually produced physical sensations of shock and excitement for the gynoid. After several seconds, she covered her face with her hands. "I'm ashamed. I did not now. I never saw it that way, never. There are reasons for people to defend themselves, and Gally just defended herself. She is not a psycho!"

Ido's shoulders became less tense; he became less likely to reach for the powered rocket hammer. And Vicki slowly shook her head. "It makes sense, really does," she said, still hating herself a bit for not understanding that logic in Gally's behavior. Vicki recalled how she slapped Gally in anger, how she struck at the small cyborg-girl just because she defended herself. Gally could have easily struck back at Vicki in self-defense, but only stood there and took the hits to the face.

The severity of "shame" value in Vicki's thought processes made her want to cry. Stored moisture came down from Vicki's eyes, simulated crying from the simulated girl. "I'm sorry! That poor girl! She was only trying to avoid being killed, and I hit her, Ido! I hit Gally!" Vicki would continue to "cry" until below-consciousness programming in her personality allowed her to stop.

Ido was amazed at the skill in the programming that prompted Vicki to feel "shame," and he just stared with that amazement. He thought. A replicate that can think for itself, can feel shame and "learn" so well -- that "Vici" has a well-programmed personality. Granted, she has simple morals and is too narrow-minded in some ways, but she can learn and feel shame: amazing for a replicate, a robot. And, was she being operated from an unseen remote?

Ido spoke more to Vicki. "Vicki, because you can learn from mistakes, you should be proud of yourself as a robot, a replicate. Most robots can't learn from mistakes so easily without extensive reprogramming." Vicki shook loose "tears" from her eyes. "What was that? Did I hear you correctly, about me being a robot?" asked Vicki, looking slightly confused. Ido realized his faux-pas; he realized Vicki was probably programmed to think herself human.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I meant to say that you should have pride for being able to learn from past mistakes. Learning is good. Learning from mistakes will help you keep from making them in the future." Ido tensed again, ready to go for the rocket hammer at any sign of violence. Vicki relented, then again put her hands on her face.

Ido already used simple reasoning to show the replicate, the artificial girl, that killing could be justified with self-defense. Trying to convince Vicki that she was not human could take more logic-wrangling. Ido was fortunate that Vicki's idea of self-defense was not hard-wired and unchangeable. But her idea of herself being human could be so deep in her programming that she may not be convinced otherwise. Maybe, he should just allow her to sit in silence and let her newer thoughts on self-defense build themselves. After all, this was probably one of the few places safe enough for Vicki to "think," and danger later probably would not give her enough time to "think" later.

The door buzzer downstairs buzzed for exactly a quarter of a second. It was the way Gally buzzed. "That must be Gally. She went to...handle business in town. You and Gally can talk about things now. I'll let her in." Ido hesitated, thought, then moved and hand on the artificial girl's shoulder. Vicki remained with her face in her palms.

Two pairs of footsteps made their way back upstairs, almost ponderously. Gally walked to the table and sat to the right of Vicki. Ido sat opposite Vicki, still. Vicki uncovered her face, then looked at Gally with wide eyes. Gally stared back.

"I'm sorry, Gally! I'm sorry for hitting you!" said Vicki, contrite and upset -- as her personality mimicking programming made her so. "I did not understand before. No, you're not a crazy person. You just have to act in self-defense. So if you are threatened with being killed, you have the right to kill people just to survive. I'm sorry for being angry at you...because you were just defending your own life."

"It is okay, Vicki. Since you are from a very different time, a different place, I should not expect you to know much of customs here. I do not know the ways of your time, so I should be understanding of your...ignorance. I should forgive you," said Gally. Vicki smiled.

"I said should. I will more fully forgive you if you stand by my side in what we must do. We were given a mission to completel, Vicki. I must do my part in completing it. Will you help me, stand by my side in what must be done?" "Yes, I will, Gally," said Vicki. "Even if it means that you must harm human beings?" Vicki nodded; at least she hoped not to have to kill. "I don't want to be forced to kill human beings, but I will help you, Gally," said Vicki. And that was that.

Gally felt a phantom twinge of something resembling hunger and looked at the refrigerator. As a cyborg, her brain was still "alive"; Gally still needed food and water -- even if her mechanized body did not. Most cyborgs had glucose-based systems for nourishment, but Gally had an actual digestive system; she could eat actual food. Ido understood; he was the one who installed the digestive system that kept her brain nourished. Ido was the man who put Gally in the modified body she had, after all.

Ido then said, "Gally, I made just the thing for you. It's more food that Gonzu has been perfecting for cyborg digestive systems, more energy and no waste. He knows that some cyborgs prefer full digestive tracts and he has been experimenting with food chemical formulas found in some scrap. He thinks he formulated something special. Are you willing to try it out for dinner, Gally?"

"Okay, Ido. Let me see the food," said Gally, sighing when saying it. Ido smiled, then went to the sink and washed his hands. He then reached into the refrigerator. Vicki then saw Ido place a plate of green blocks before Gally, blocks of a solid and cake-like substance. They resembled two-inch blocks of tofu. Another trip to the refrigerator, and Ido brough out a pitcher of clear liquid. He poured a serving of the liquid into the glass as Gally eyed her food suspiciously. Gally looked up and gave a quick smile to Ido, then returned a serious gaze to the food.

Vicki's amplified sense of smell told her that the four blocks of "tofu" were not tofu, but were hightly concentrated and complex carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins -- plenty of nutritional value. The glass of "water" was not just water; the water had a high concentration of glucose withing it. Gally's large eyes glazed as she stared at the food. Is this what cyborgs eat -- could eat?

First, Gally chewed and actually swallowed the four tofu-like cubes. Her mouth and throat seemed human enough. And her digestion sounded deceptively human. After that, Gally then drank the glass of water and glucose solution. The solution cleared her palate. She swallowed. "I remain conscious, Ido. That is sure..." said Gally.

"Well, now that you're sated Gally, did you read the latest from the network?" asked Ido, his hands on the table's wooden surface. "No, I have not. I was...elsewhere. Why, are there any interesting new bounties?" Ido nodded exactly once, then said, "I'll get the latest print. Just wait a bit." With another nod to Vicki, he left the kitchen -- and took the rocket hammer with him.

After Ido left, Gally stood from that table and carried the plate and tall glass with her. At the sink, she poured a cleaning fluid on the dishes, then poured water over them. A drying rack served as the place to put them. Vicki just looked at the four-foot and lithe little cyborg as she cleaned and did that simple little chore. How old could she be? If Gally's brain could have an age, how old was her brain? Was Vicki supposed to judge Gally's age based on Gally's brain or her artificial body? Vicki did not bother to ask.

Gally sat again to Vicki's right, and Ido's seat opposite Vicki was still free -- awaiting its occupant. With the sound of returning steps, Ido came back to the kitchen. He held a ream of printed paper. It must be Scrap Iron City's equivalent of a newspaper, dotted at the edges with paper-feed holes.

Holding the paper before Gally, he said, "Read about the latest 'crazy,' the latest one to claim more than ten victims so far," said Ido almost grimly. Gally took the ream of three sheets, folded it comfortably as so she could read the first page, then did. Her mouth hardened. Clearly, Gally did not like what she read. Below a blurry photograph of a bare-footed and skinny figure in a dark brown trenchcoat, there was the write-up:

Bounty #120900-M (Name: Unknown)

An unnamed full-flesh woman was identified by Factory sources three days ago as being a crazy, a prolifically murderous person. To date, it is known that she has killed at least ten workers of sectors nearest the Motorball Arena. Sources are quite sure there are more victims, but the evidence and remains must still be found. Be warned, there is a high probability that this full-flesh may have undergone physical alterations since immersing herself in regulated manufacturing chemicals.

Reward: 41,000 cr.

Gally handed the printed paper to Vicki. The bounty was listed in multiple languages: Japanese, English, German, Korean and one Vicki could not identify. It may have been in Martian for Vicki. Vicki read the bounty listing that was printed in English, below the print in Japanese kanji characters. Gally had taken the time to read the bounty listing in both Japanese and English. Vicki took half a second to read the English one. One square and color photograph of a woman in a faded trenchcoat went above the bounty listing: But many in Scrap Iron City wore faded trenchcoats: more expensive than ordinary clothes, but lasted longer in the winds and polluted rains.

"Gally, you said something earlier about someone that is at work in both Vicki's time and at work here in the city," began Ido. "From the sudden appearance of such a prolific killer as the latest bounty, I suspect your target could be responsible.

"For a full-flesh to claim that many kills in a few days is rare. The hunters that went after that crazy said that she seemed almost as resilient as a cyborg. She's probably a mutant. But if her body's physiology remained stable enough to heal after exposure to mutagens, then I would have to say that the mutation was deliberate -- and controlled."

Gally, face drawn and serious, looked at Vicki. Gally said, "The Cloaked Man! It stretches coincidence that a new mutant appears in the city just as we return to continue our quest against The Cloaked Man. Vicki, the one we look for must be here. If he still chooses to use people as his pawns, then mutants would be good playing pieces for him to use. The mutant must be stopped, or more citizens will die." Vicki heard this, then placed the long folded sheet of printed paper on the table. On the table, the photograph of the trench-coated mutant-woman sat as a threat.

"Ido, this bounty will have to belong to me. And Vicki will have to help. It is what Thunderhorse would want. If The Cloaked Man is at work here, we have to stop him. Otherwise, he will win." With silence, Ido agreed.

"And Gally, another thing," he said after the pause. "About that 'Cloaked Man.' Other bounty hunters talk about that full-flesh called 'The Cloaked Man' as being responsible for some annoying disturbances and his threatening to vandalize some Factory equipment. Some tried to get close enough to restrain him, but he somehow...vanishes before they can do that. I suppose you know to be on the lookout for him as well." Ido then brought Gally up to speed on what people have been talking about.

Very far into the future, many millenia onward, Thunderhorse sat behind his

lamp-illuminated desk. The fist-sized indicator orb on his desk still had an ever-so-slight tinge of red, and the redness flickered. Thunder grumbled from somewhere outside the theater-sized and dark office. The photograph of Gally and the one of Vicki still remained in color though, which meant that both females -- the cyborg and the gynoid -- were still functioning and viable. But what about the redness of the globe, the redness that meant that evil still interfered with human history?

"The two are now in the 30^th century, close to the evil, and that damned troublemaker is still interfering," said Mr. Thunderhorse, checking the equations on his computer monitor. "I sometimes feel tempted enough to make another independent trans-warp device and eliminate The Cloaked Man myself.

The Good Man, who still sat opposite Mr. Thunderhorse at the desk, had an answer. "You could try that," he said. But then, that would mean you leaving your office." Chidingly, The Good Man spoke to Thunderhorse: "You can't do that. You have responsibilities of your own. So long as the two are alive, there's a chance they will survive. Besides, you can send them an occasional clue with the trans-warp device, right?" Thunderhorse agreed.