Aite Chp. 4 The battle simulator used robots, programmed to behave mostly like Galactors did. Since Galactors were very predictable, the simulation was quite accurate. Several robots held up paint-pellet guns in quasi-unison. Ken flung his new weapon, the cutting saucer, and knocked several of the guns out of robot hands, while Jay flung half a dozen shuriken into the pressure points on the robots' foam exteriors. Behind them, Jun, Jinpei, and Ryu were dealing with robots of their own. Ken and Jay charged into the ranks of the mostly-disarmed robots. Most martial arts moves still worked on the robots, who were programmed to respond to strikes as if they were people. Throwing disciplines, however, were frequently skewed badly by the weight of the robots. Ken and the others usually practiced throws on each other or highly paid sparring partners. Jay, however, was picking up the robots and throwing them as if they weighed as much as real Galactors. Ken noticed him doing this, and a chill went down his back. In the month Jay had been training with them, he'd seen Jay use superhuman strength several times, and it never failed to spook him, though he hadn't yet decided to ask Jay about it. Where *had* the extra strength come from? And was it safe to ask Jay? After they had dealt with all the robots, some more came charging at them, armed with the spiked shields Galactors had carried in the past. Of course, the "spikes" here were rubber and collapsible, and covered with blue dye that would rub off if the spikes touched a Science Ninja. Ken and Jay leapt up, and the robots "impaled" each other with the spikes. Ken glanced about to check on the others. They had finished off their first wave of robots, and were waiting to see if there would be a second. All five of them were doing pretty well. Only Jinpei and Jay had been hit by any "bullets", and the paint marks were in the regions where the bullets would have bounced off anyway, had they been real. Ken decided to call for a break. Jay leaned against the wall. "So what do you think?" "About what?" Ken asked, as the others walked over to join them. "Think I can hack the real thing?" "Oh, *I* think so," Jun put in. "Don't you, Ken? I think he did almost as well as he used to." "There's no doubt you can handle it," Ken said to Jay. "It's just..." Well, what the hell. It had to be asked eventually. "Where did you get so strong?" "What do you mean?" "I mean those things are robots. They're heavy. You didn't used to be able to pick them up and throw them into walls." Jay frowned. "They didn't seem all that heavy to me... You sure they're not just lighter robots?" "Well, *I* can't pick'em up," Ryu said. "They're heavy, all right." "That's *weird*," Jay said, a puzzled look on his face. "They felt so light. I don't get it." "Maybe Dr. Nambu should examine you?" "I'll just ask Dr. Kymel. She's done enough med tests on me, she ought to know everything there is to know about me. Maybe it's something she did." That made sense, but Ken wasn't sure he liked the implications of it. He knew nothing about this Kymel woman, but anyone who would resurrect Berg Katse... or influence an amnesiac Joe to fall in love with Katse... "You think it's going to be a problem?" Jay was asking. "Not a problem," Ken said, thinking, *Not in itself*. "If you're much stronger than before, I can't imagine but that it'll help us. I just want to know *why*." "So do I," Jay muttered, staring at his hands. Jinpei said, "Are we quitting for the day, ani-ki?" Ken glanced at him. Kids had such uncomplicated lives, he thought. Jinpei didn't care where Jay got the extra strength, or the motive of the person who gave it to him-- as far as he was concerned, if it wasn't a problem then it didn't matter. "No. I want to practice a Cross Fight manuever, and then we're going to do a mission simulation." Ken looked around. "Everyone feel up to that?" "Uh..." Jay looked embarrassed. "What *is* a Cross Fight manuever?" "We're about to show you. Places, people-- we'll do one run without Jay to show him what it looks like, then we'll do a training run for him, then a real practice with him in it." Kyla Samonetti had already acquired a reputation in the month she'd been working for ISO Intelligence. Her native intelligence, willingness to work hard and talent for analysis and synthesis had impressed most of her immediate superiors, and they'd bumped her up two security clearance levels so she could work on the most recent and vital information they were getting. She still didn't have clearance for historical Galactor information, but then, she saw no particular reason why she'd need such a thing. Her coworkers were less than impressed with her as a human being. She was arrogant as hell, with an "I-did-it-therefore-it's-right" attitude. She was a perfectionist, demanding the best from herself and seeing nothing wrong with demanding the best from other people. She got *very* defensive when anyone criticized her, and if it actually turned out to be her mistake, she usually managed to blame it on someone or something else. And she had little warmth in her dealings with others-- she was efficient, polite and friendly in a very superficial way. She got angry, or at least annoyed, very easily, and her moods swung rapidly. On the other hand, no one could fail to be impressed with her ability. She had total recall, able to remember every detail of every report she read, as well as a genius for synthesis. Her predictions were usually more accurate than either the computers' or her coworkers'. And she was able to quickly extrapolate a larger picture out of scattered fragments of data. In just a month, she had taken the bits and pieces of information they'd gathered on Galactor and constructed a vivid picture. Gel Sadra was female, or claimed to be, at least. She had come out of nowhere, claiming to speak with Sosai X's authority, and had gone to all the private little organizations left when Galactor fragmented, demanding to see their leaders. Some of them had refused to see her. She had had their bases destroyed and them and their men killed. Those she saw were invited to rejoin Galactor. If they wouldn't, she killed them and placed a captain of her choosing in their place. Several attempts had been made on her life, and all had failed miserably. She was reputed to be far more cruel than even Berg Katse had been, and had been known to kill men because they were ugly, they didn't bow to her fast enough, they accidentally used a male form of address to her, or she just felt like it. Rumor had it that she didn't like women, and wouldn't give them positions of any authority, the one exception being Galactor's Executive Scientist Selina Marriochio. Gel Sadra had apparently *not* been a member of Galactor previously, having been specially chosen by Sosai X to act as his agent. She also brought with her a quantum jump in the technology levels. Over the past two years, discoveries ISO had made and principles Galactor used that ISO had deciphered had penetrated society, bringing the technology level of the entire planet up. The Mantle Project had been completed, and experimental cities were being built using geothermal power. And ISO had upgraded the technology of its weaponry, too. Now Galactor had also jumped, maintaining the old imbalance. Kyla was worried. Jay had hardly gotten a handle on what Galactor *used* to be like-- could he deal with a new, tougher Galactor? She was utterly dedicated to her work, putting in 10-12 hour days and coming in on weekends regularly, for three reasons. The first was the importance of what she was doing. The information she synthesized might save lives. The second was that she wanted to ensure Jay's safety, as much as she possibly could, and the more he and the others knew about Galactor the better off they'd be. And the third reason was that Jay was doing the same thing, devoting himself wholly to training, and the loneliness was too much for her. She had to keep busy. They hardly ever saw each other lately, and if Kyla did not keep herself occupied it would gnaw at her. Was this supposed to bring them closer together? *How*? One day she decided she was sick of this. Jay was always off with his friends in the high-security Gatchaman training area, and she didn't have clearance to go in. She never saw him, she never shared any part of his world. When she *did* see him, he wouldn't talk about his work, and they were both usually too tired to do anything but sleep. Kyla decided she was going to find his training area and sneak in to see him. She had never been one to take rules very seriously-- the only important consideration was not getting caught. So she carefully planned her route. The plan to the air vent system had to be available to maintenance, who had lower security clearance than she did, and so she was able to punch up a readout on it. She was a bit plumper than she had been four months ago, but she was still quite thin, and perfectly capable of fitting into the service ducts for the air vent system. She could get access to the service ducts from any number of places she *was* cleared to enter, and through a complicated routing she could crawl through the vents to what had to be the Science Ninja Team's training room. The lack of security that implied bothered her for a few moments-- if she could do it, anyone could do it, and what did that say about Jay's safety?-- but she soon realized that there were electronic sensors everywhere. A person could get through, but not with a camera or a weapon. She carried a leotard and stockings to work in her bag, and changed on overtime, after most of everyone else had left. She bound her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, and then she crawled into the service ducts, and an hour later had reached a vent directly above the training room. It was more secure than she'd thought. The grating beneath her had too narrow a mesh to fire a pistol through, and it was impossible to contort one's body at the proper angle to do so anyway. Also, it was not a convenient way to sneak into the room unless one was already a Science Ninja-- there was a pipe 10 feet below the vent, and then there was a 40-foot drop from the pipe to the floor. So she twisted her body to look down through the vent, and caught her breath. The five people down there were familiar somehow. Obviously, she knew them, but it was more than that. She had never seen them in costume before, and yet she had, and they frightened her. On some subconscious level those bird suits and the people in them terrified her-- even Jay. And that disturbed her. What had she been, that she looked at them with fear? **** She shook her head, clearing it of the image before it could come into focus in her mind. She didn't want to see it, whatever it was. She had been trying to suppress the flashbacks-- she had no desire to remember her past. Kyla watched the five of them, trying to ignore her irrational sense of fear. That was Jay, there in the blue and black, not some murderous demon as something kept trying to tell her he was. And in the white and blue was Ken, who didn't like her, and she was very afraid of him. What if he caught her in here? What would he do to her? *He won't do anything! You're Jay's wife-- you have every right to be here, stupid,* she told herself. *There's nothing to be afraid of-- don't be irrational!* And as she watched, her nameless dread slowly abated. They were beautiful. She'd never have called Ryu or Jinpei graceful, and yet, they were unmistakably so here. And the other three were poetry in motion. She watched Jay intently, how effortlessly he followed the others' moves, and something inside her hurt even as she drank in his beauty. *This is his world, and I can never be part of it...* For some time, Ken had been feeling uneasy. He had the unshakable sensation of being watched, but couldn't find anyone watching him. Jay hadn't felt it-- perhaps his memory loss had dulled his sensitivities-- and Ryu hadn't, either, but that was par for the course. Both Jun and Jinpei agreed with Ken-- they each felt themselves being watched, and not by monitor screen, either. Someone close by. They all tried to ignore it for a while, and go on with training as usual. After all, there *was* no one to be seen, and there was no cover in the vast gym where a spy could hide. But then, in evading a mechanical menace, Ken leapt up onto a pipe under the air vent-- and looked up. There *was* someone watching, hiding in the air vent! He took the new laser he'd been given and drew three lines in rapid succession, slicing the grating free of the ceiling. Then he leapt, as the grating started to fall with a woman's scream, and grabbed the spy as she fell through. He landed on the floor, heavily burdened with the woman, and pinned her underneath him, prepared to beat the living daylights out of her if she resisted. "Jay!" the woman screamed, and horrified, Ken recognized her, seeing her clearly for the first time. His blood ran cold. If *she* was spying on them... "Ken!" Jay shouted, running over. "Let her up, goddammit! It's Kyla!" "Not until she gives me a good explanation of what she was doing spying on us," Ken said. Somewhat to his surprise, it came out in a snarl. He hadn't quite intended to snarl. Kyla, or Katse, or whoever the hell she was, was struggling in his grip, trying to pull free. "Let her *up*, I said!" Jay said, grabbing Ken's shoulder and hauling him back. "Damn you, Ken, she's my *wife*, not a Galactor!" *Oh, no, Joe, you're wrong*, Ken thought. *She's your wife AND a Galactor.* He let Jay haul him up, mainly because he wasn't nearly strong enough to resist Jay's enhanced strength, but he kept his eyes on Kyla. "That remains to be seen," he said, and his voice was ice. He had rather been expecting something like this-- hoping it wouldn't happen, but expecting it nonetheless. She had finally shown her true colors. Had she remembered the past, or was it just vague echoes that had driven her to turn on ISO? Ken didn't know, and didn't much care. "I want an explanation *now*." Kyla sat up, looking for all the world like a terrified innocent. *Good act,* Ken thought coldly. *But then, that's your specialty, isn't it? You tricked me once this way. Never again.* "Well?" he demanded. "I-- I only wanted to see Jay," she said, stammering. "He-- I hadn't seen him, in so long-- he wouldn't talk about what he did-- why am I considered a security risk? I wouldn't betray him-- I'm his *wife*!" Now she got her voice under a bit more control as the bite of anger seeped into it. All very calculated to win sympathy, no doubt, and while Jinpei didn't look like he was buying any, Jun and Ryu both looked as if they were softening toward her. Oh, she was good at this. "I've done a lot of good for ISO over the past month-- a lot of work investigating Galactor-- how *dare* you treat me like this!" "You're in a restricted area," Ken said coldly. "A *very* restricted area. And I found you spying in the air vents. Exactly what was I supposed to think?" "Well, if I asked permission to come, I wouldn't have gotten it!" she replied hotly. "I was in the air vents because it was the only way I could see Jay!" Jun touched Ken's arm. "Ken, I think she's telling the truth..." "Damn *straight* she's telling the truth!" Jay exploded. "What the fuck is your problem, Ken? Kyla's not the enemy-- Galactor is! And if you don't stop treating my wife like some kind of second-class citizen, I'm going to walk. I mean it. My *friends* don't beat on my wife." Ken was trapped. Jay didn't *know* why Kyla's behavior was so suspicious, and Ken couldn't tell him, not if there was any chance whatsoever that Kyla was telling the truth, and Ken was cautious enough not to take that chance. He was by no means assured of her innocence, but he was going to have to back down, because he couldn't tell Jay why Kyla was such a danger. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kyla hadn't gotten her pound of flesh yet. With eyes that were pure malice, she said to Jay, "Your *pregnant* wife, no less." "That's right--" There was dawning fury in Jay's voice, and a sudden sick feeling in the pit of Ken's stomach. He had totally forgotten she was pregnant-- she wasn't showing yet, not even after a month since she'd come to ISO-- and it occurred to him with horror that what he'd just done might cause her to lose the baby. Whether she was Berg Katse or not, the child was half Jay's, and an innocent regardless. He looked at Kyla with mute horror, trying to summon the voice to apologize, and saw Jay rushing at him. "*Bastard*!" Jay snarled, and slugged Ken in the jaw, sending him skidding across the floor. Ken might have dodged, but didn't, feeling that Jay was justified. The punch was at normal Joe-strength, but then, Joe had never exactly been feeble, and the world spun for a few dizzy moments as Ken lay on the floor. "Are you all right?" Jun was asking Kyla. "I think so. I'm shaken up, but I think the baby's unhurt. Annoyed, but unhurt." Jay was standing over Ken. "If you *ever, ever* touch my wife again, Ken, I'll knock your head off, I swear. I mean it." "Agreed," Ken said shakily, sitting up with a hand on his jaw. "I deserved that." "Yeah, you did." He looked over at Kyla. "But *you* should have known better. I didn't know it was you until I had you on the floor, and by that time the damage would have been done. I'm sorry about the risk to the baby, and I really hope you're right about it being unhurt. But it was partially your fault for being up there, you know. And I'm *still* not sure I like your explanation." "Look, you just scared the shit out of her, nearly made her lose the baby, *I* don't think Kyla needs to hear any more of this from you!" Jay said. He walked over to her and extended a hand down. "Come on, Ky. I'll escort you out of here." He glared at Ken, as if to dare him to countermand that. Ken had no interest in doing so. He waited until they were gone before getting to his feet. Jinpei burst out, "Shouldn't we *tell* him, ani-ki?" "That the woman he loves, the woman carrying his child, is his worst enemy? Do you know what that would do to him?" Ken said, his eyes haunted. "Besides, if he knew... he might kill her. And I don't want that child hurt." "Maybe you should have thought of that before yanking her out of the grating," Jun said severely. Ken gave her a look. "Jun, I already explained. How the hell was I supposed to realize she was pregnant when I didn't even see who she was until I had her on the floor? She's not showing yet." "Maybe you could have used a little common sense," Jun said, showing more spine than usual. Possibly it was her maternal instinct, reacting to the threat to Jay's child. "Why would anyone be in those air vents to spy on us?" "Don't be stupid, Jun! Galactor still wants to know our secret identities; we'd be targets for assassination; Galactor could watch our battle techniques and learn how to defeat us... There are a million reasons." "Yeah, one-chan. Wake up!" "Don't back-talk me, Jinpei. All right, I guess I understand why you were so rough pulling her out. But I really do think she's telling the truth, Ken, I don't think she's reverted." "Now I don't think we can know that," Ryu said. "'Cause if she's Katse, she can act like anything. So she *could* be lying..." "Yes, Katse's a consummate actor," Ken said. "She could lie perfectly, Jun. She has." "That's not why. Think about it. She already knows our secret identities, so that wasn't her motive. If she'd come to assassinate us, she would have had to smuggle some sort of very sophisticated weapon in-- I've checked those detectors in the air vents perfectly, and if there was any metal, plastique, or dangerous chemicals anywhere on her, a thousand alarms would have gone off. Besides, she probably would have used it right away. As for observing our fighting style... Ken, Berg Katse already *knows* how we fight. He-- she's observed us at close range countless times. Has Galactor *ever* decided to come up with something to counteract our specific moves? It doesn't make sense that she would be here to learn about our new techniques when she never did anything with her knowledge of the old ones." She looked at Ryu and Jinpei. "Don't you think so? I mean, if Galactor were going to send spies, they'd be more interested in the specs for the New God Phoenix, or the location of our new secret base, or something. What's the point to spying on *us*?" "So you believe her story then, one-chan?" "If it's not all an act, then she loves Joe very much. And he *has* been ignoring her lately to be with us. Women can do crazy things to be with the men they love sometimes. I think she was probably telling the truth-- she just wanted to see him." Jun was right, Ken realized with a sickening lurch. If you looked at it logically, it really did make more sense that Kyla was telling the truth. Ken had overreacted because he knew who she was, or who she had been-- and if she *had* been telling the truth, that overreaction might start awakening memories. *Damn!* If Kyla had been innocent, then Ken had just done the absolute worst thing he could possibly do. "I'd better go apologize to her," he muttered. "Before it's too late..." When Ken had been ready to attack Kyla, Jay had felt protectively loyal toward her, and defended her, especially after he realized that Ken had put the baby at risk. It didn't mean he didn't think Kyla was a bonehead, and now that they were alone, he proceeded to inform her of this opinion at great length. "What the hell were you playing at? In the first place, you *know* you're not supposed to be in a restricted area-- I think you nearly gave Ken a heart attack. And what the fuck were you doing crawling around the air vents with a *baby*, for Chrissake? Suppose you'd gotten stuck, or suppose you'd injured yourself in there. How the hell was anyone supposed to get you out? Did you ever think of that?" And so forth. Kyla showed little sign of listening, and finally he ran down. Jay was not used to shouting at another person at length-- he was usually the one shouted at, and he dealt with such situations by descending into a black mood, smashing something, or stomping off. When he tried to sustain an argument, he got tired, and this time, being the instigator of the argument, none of his usual techniques would work. So he just said tiredly, "Ky, have you heard a word I said?" "I heard you," she said. "But you didn't have anything important to say, and I was thinking." If he weren't tired of shouting, he would have made an issue of the "anything important" comment. "Great. Next time tell me sooner, so I don't wear my voice out." "He hates me. He really hates me, doesn't he?" For a second, Jay couldn't follow the *non sequitur*; then he realized she must be talking about Ken. "He doesn't hate you. You mean Ken, right?" She nodded. "You just scared the shit out of him, that's all." "Why am I a security risk?" "I don't know, take it up with Dr. Nambu. I guess because they don't know you all that well. You don't have a past. If it wasn't for the fact that they remember who I am, I'd be a security risk too." "It's a lot more than that," Kyla said. "I saw it in his eyes. He hated me. He'd've killed me without a second thought if he thought he had to." "I don't know, Ky. I just don't know. He's a good man-- I don't know why the two of you can't seem to get along." "He thinks I'm someone I'm not." "Does he? Who?" "Some Galactor woman you all used to fight." Jay exploded laughing. "A Galactor? *You*? That's so ridiculous! The idea that you, of all people, would be a Galactor--!! 'Gee, Gel Sadra, do you think we can take over the world without actually hurting anybody?' No, Ken can't be *that* ridiculous. I don't believe it." "They all think it. That's why they hate me." "You're not serious. All they'd have to do is talk to you for ten seconds-- you couldn't *possibly* be a Galactor..." They rounded a corner, and there was Ken. Jay's eyes hardened. "Yo. Haven't you done enough damage for one day?" "I came to apologize," Ken said. He certainly looked contrite. "You shouldn't have been in a restricted area, but I overreacted badly. I've been on edge a lot lately-- maybe I've started jumping at shadows. That's no excuse, I know. I frightened you badly, and I'm sorry." Kyla's eyes burned into Ken's. "Just an overreaction? It had nothing to do with what I look like?" Guilt blossomed all over Ken's features. "Who you look like? Wh-- what do you mean?" "I mean Dr. Nambu told me that I look like some Galactor woman you used to fight. That's why you hate me, isn't it. You think I'm her." "I don't--" "Or do you hate me for myself? That's a pleasant thing to know." "I don't hate you." "Yes, you do." "No. I don't hate you. But I don't trust you, either." Ken sighed. "Dr. Nambu thinks we can trust you, but I'm not so sure. We don't know anything about you. You could have anything in your past, and it could surface at any time and attack us." "My word isn't good enough?" Jay asked dangerously. "Jay, I know you love her, but you used to have a very bad track record for falling in love with Galactors. Your judgment isn't good enough, I'm afraid. Now if you want me to trust you, Kyla, you'd better act trustworthy. There's a *reason* why you're not supposed to spy on us training. Follow the rules and keep out of trouble, and you'll prove you can be trusted. Until then-- well, I don't know you, and anyone I don't know could be an enemy." If Jay still had his memories, Ken thought as he turned to go, he'd know Ken was not telling the full truth. It had always been Joe who was the suspicious one; Ken trusted people *until* he knew them. The trouble was that he knew, or had known, Kyla. "All the work I've done for ISO-- that doesn't mean anything to you?" she asked. "Not yet." He walked away, and Kyla was left with fury in her eyes. Somewhere he had lied. She couldn't tell precisely where. Perhaps she *should* research her past, so she could counter his suspicion. Maybe then she could prove she could be trusted. Or-- what if he had reason to hate her? Jay escorted her up to the edge of the restricted area, and then turned to face her. "You can go by yourself from here." "Can I? Oh, you're just *too* good to me," Kyla said, her voice dripping sarcasm. "Are you that eager to get rid of me?" "No, no-- I just have to get back to the others. They need me." "I need you!" She grabbed the sides of his head suddenly and pulled him close. With him in the high-soled boots of his bird style and her in flats, they were exactly the same height. "Jay, do you know how long it's been since we've really seen each other? For more than ten minutes at a time? I never *see* you anymore, Jay! Don't you know how much that hurts?" "You think I like it?" He pulled her hands off his face, gently, and placed his arms around her shoulders, looking into her eyes. "There's a lot of work I have to do before I'm ready. That's all. You think I *want* to spend so much time away from you?" "Take the night off and come home with me," Kyla suggested. "Just one night won't kill you, will it?" It had been at least two weeks since they'd last made love, and Jay was by no means unconscious of this fact. The suggestion was terribly tempting, and he wasn't very good at resisting temptation. Besides. Ken owed them one. "All right," he said, and lifted his hand to his mouth. "Ken, this is Jay. Kyla's still shook up-- I'm taking her home, and I'm taking the rest of the night off." "Jay..." "You *owe* me, Ken. You owe *her*." A sigh. "All right. But show up early tomorrow morning. You need the training." "Right," Jay said, and lowered the bracelet, letting it shut off. He looked at Kyla with an evil grin. "Early, of course, being before four in the afternoon." Kyla laughed. "Oh, of course. We'll get you back to work before nightfall tomorrow.." True to his word, Jay made it in before four in the afternoon the next day, but not much before four, about which Ken was not pleased at all. Jay only grinned through Ken's tirade, and finally said, in a big-brotherly tone of voice, "Someday you'll understand," which didn't improve Ken's disposition any. Kyla didn't go back to work until the day after that, when Nambu called her into his office. "I'm informed you snuck into the Science Ninja Team's training room through the air vents?" She squirmed slightly inside. She hadn't wanted to get Nambu annoyed. "Well, yes." "Mm. Very resourceful of you. We'll have to tighten up security now, of course. May I ask why?" "I hadn't really seen Jay in close to a month. And I didn't realize it was such a big deal." "Well, it really shouldn't have been, not for you. It's intended to protect their identities, and you already know them. I'm afraid Ken was being a trifle paranoid." "He's always paranoid about me. What do I have to do to prove I'm not an axe murderer? Or a Galactor, for that matter?" "It'll come with time, I'm sure. I'm afraid Ken may not have entirely shaken his preconceptions about you-- there were several Galactor women who looked something like you, and while they're all dead to the best of our knowledge, it's Ken's job to fear the worst. I personally am convinced you aren't a Galactor, and I'll talk to Ken about it. In the meantime, I'd like you to find as many weak points in our security as you can, and write them up in a report. And please don't go sneaking into restricted areas again. If you want to see Jay, I'm sure a pass or something can be arranged if you consult with me." He waved her out. Kyla's action led to a major revamping of the security system, assisted in great part by Kyla herself. She was no longer working quite so hard, however, and neither was Jay. They had both decided they needed to keep time with each other as a priority, or they would burn out. On the other hand, Jay really did need to train heavily, and time was running out. What with the demands of his work and his wife, he had no time to himself, and although Ken was always nagging him to go ask his doctor where the enhanced strength had come from, he couldn't find time to do it for another three weeks or so. When he finally managed to make time to go in for a general checkup, he asked Dr. Kymel about it. "Oh, that's simple," she told him. "I had to use a great deal of artificial components in reviving you, and in fitting them all together I ended up making reconstructing a good bit of you." "Artificial?" He turned the word over in his mind, somewhat stunned. "You mean I'm a cyborg?" "Well, yes. Not the sort Galactor used to manufacture-- well, you don't remember them anyway, but they were essentially human-shaped mecha imprinted with a human being's engrams. More androids than cyborgs. That's not you. Most of your internal organs, bones and muscle had to be replaced, so I replaced them with quasi-organic artificial parts, made from high-strength plastics. It's not like you're made of metal; in fact, offhand I can't think of any metal in you, except of course the trace quantities everyone has. Most of your skin is normal; I put shock absorbers under it in some places so your own increased strength won't bruise you, but you're not by any means invulnerable. Your blood is still your own; I had some replacement blood circulating in there for a while, because you'd lost so much blood, but by now it's all your own blood. Your bone marrow doesn't produce it anymore, of course, since you don't *have* bone marrow; I implanted artificial organs to produce blood for you, and they're capable of working at double human capacity, so if you're hurt, you'll recover your normal blood volume a lot faster. Also, your head and neck region are still original parts, as well as--" she smiled-- "those organs responsible for Kyla's present condition. Lose *them*, and I can't replace them. So be careful." "Yeah, I think I can manage that," he said dryly. Something was bothering him, though. "Okay, the new muscles and stuff are why I'm stronger than I used to be, right? But Ken says I'm a little better than I used to be with guns, and my reflexes-- and that's after having not practiced for two years. Why?" "There are actually some brain implants, to compensate for some serious damage you did yourself before. They don't affect your mind-- they cover vision, balance, tactile and kinesthetic senses, and they compensate for the improvements in your body as well as for the damaged areas of your brain. But your higher brain functions, your thinking capacity, that wasn't touched." "Except I lost my memory." "Well, yes. That too." "Is Ky a cyborg too?" "No, it wasn't necessary in her case. Kyla has amazing recuperative powers-- I was able to induce her body to heal naturally. The only side effect left was an instability in her female structures, and that's being corrected by drugs." "So if I'm super-strong and Kyla's not... I always thought, if someone was super-strong and didn't know it, they'd crush people." "No. Your kinesthetic implant has a built-in compensatory system. You will always use exactly the amount of strength that you subconsciously gauge you'll require. Your subconscious knows how much strength is needed, and your kinesthetic implant knows how much force you need to produce to gain that strength. So you'll never crush anything unless you decide to." "Why exactly did we lose our memories?" Jay asked. He looked at her hard. "With you mucking around inside my head, it's not surprising I'd have amnesia. But you didn't muck with Kyla, or you say you didn't, at least. So how come *she* has amnesia, too?" Kymel looked at him intently. "Sometimes it's impossible to explain such things," she said. "Perhaps both of you had something you desperately wanted to forget. Does it bother you, that you can't remember?" "'Course it does. My friends all remember more about me than I do..." "Let me tell you a story about Joe Asakura," Kymel said, getting to her feet and beginning to pace. "Joe had the misfortune to be born to a Galactor-affiliated crimelord and his wife. In his childhood, this seemed like no misfortune at all. His parents were loving and caring, and although he was a wild young boy who never much liked to listen to authority, they were as gentle as they could be without spoiling him utterly. Even when he did bad things-- and as a child he did some *very* bad things-- he never had reason to doubt that his parents loved him. And so he was happy. "But unbeknownest to him, his Galactor parents wanted to be free of the organization. They turned against Galactor-- something Galactor could not permit. One day on the beach, two bullets ended their lives, and Joe Asakura's happiness, forever. "Oh, there was some small enjoyment in his life, after that. He had friends. He could never truly open up to them, never be as close as he'd really like or tell them how he felt, because he feared that anyone he loved would die. But he did have friends. He had several lovers, most of whom died, some at his own hands. And the only thing he lived for, the passion that drove him, was his hate and rage at Galactor." Jay listened, horrified but fascinated. Nobody had told him *this* about himself. He could sympathize with that self-that-had-been, yet felt no emotional connection-- he was sympathizing with a person in a story, not anyone he could remember being. "They-- never told me this." "Of course not. They never truly understood how terribly unhappy you were, how much the rage within you was consuming you. Is that what you want to remember? Is that the life you want back?" "No." "I didn't think so." "But how do *you* know all this? I thought you didn't know who we were!" "Oh, I knew. But there was a reason for your amnesia, you see-- both of you were escaping unhappy lives. What was the point to saving your lives, just to send you back to misery? I wasn't about to tell you who you were-- if you were going to remember, let it happen naturally, I thought. If not, why should I interfere in your happiness?" "I know who I was now, and I *still* don't remember." "You don't really want to. Subconsciously, you know you're better off not remembering. If ever it seems you'd be happier remembering, you will." "There must have been *some* good in my past..." "And maybe those parts will come back. But it must be a measure of how bad things really were for you that you don't remember anything." "What about Kyla? You know who she was?" "Do you?" "No, I'm asking. Who was she?" "Kyla..." Kymel looked away again. "Kyla was a desperately unhappy person. She grew up an orphan on the streets, surviving at the cost of her soul. She wanted friends, she hungered for love, and she never had any. None at all. She was one of the loneliest people I've ever heard of. That's why she's so insecure with you, you know. Deep inside, she remembers loneliness, and she's terrified of it." "*Was* she a Galactor?" "Do you think so?" "She's been saying she thinks she might be. Because of Ken being suspicious of her." "But do *you* think so? And would it change your opinion of her if she was?" "No--" "Then why is it relevant?" "Well, it *would* explain what Ken's problem with her is. He's been better lately, but... And Jun's fine, but the other two are suspicious, too." Kymel made an exasperated noise. "Ken's *problem* with her is jealousy, whether he wants to admit it or not. You were his best friend, and the fact that there's someone he doesn't know in your life is bothering him. The others are just jumping on the bandwagon. You tell Kyla I said so." She looked at him. "Think about it, Jay. For Kyla to have been a Galactor once, and to be the woman she is now, she would have had to change radically when she developed amnesia. Did *you* change radically?" "No." "Well, then." "But she's been having nightmares. I think she might be starting to remember, whatever it was." "Oh no..." Kymel put her hand to her head. She looked up at Jay. "Try to stop it if you can, Jay. Give her love, give her everything she didn't get, before, and try to hold it off, at least. Because if she remembers... it'll be so horrible for her..." She shook her head. "People have gone mad from loneliness before, and I think she did. The psychological damage was so great... well, if she remembers, I'm not optimistic for her mental health." Jay swallowed. "How can I stop it? I don't even *know* who she used to be." "Make her believe that all that matters is who she is now. Because that is all that matters, Jay. Remember that." It had been about five weeks since Kyla's excursion into the air vent, and Utoland was deep into winter. Several times, Kyla's nightmares, the memory of Ken's suspicion, almost drove her to seek out the truth about her past. Ken figured in her dreams as a nightmare image-- and more horrible, sometimes in dreams Jay was trying to kill her. Paranoia suffused her sleep. When she was awake, and working, she could put it out of her mind, and when she was with Jay, she could believe she was being ridiculous. He had been so sweet to her lately. She had thus decided not to actively explore her past, or try to uncover the meaning of the flashbacks that still tickled at the back of her mind sometimes. She really didn't want to know, she felt sure. Today she stood in front of the mirror, slightly over five months pregnant, and felt disgusted as she looked at herself. She had begun to show obviously at last. *I'm fat,* she thought disgustedly, even though logically she knew she wasn't. Her stomach was still only a rounded swelling-- enough to make her look pregnant, but nothing gross yet. She had put on a great deal of weight, true, but her frame was large enough to take a great deal of weight without becoming fat. The extra weight had made her look rather voluptuous, rounding her breasts, hips and rear, making her face and limbs softer and less angular. Jay had no complaints about the change in her appearance. But *she* did, and she thought she was fat. This soft, womanly woman with the pregnant belly in the mirror did not fit Kyla's self-image. Kyla Samonetti was thin, with narrow hips and small breasts. Androgynous... As she thought the word, another of her almost-flashbacks came to plague her. Since she had met the Science Ninja Team, two months ago, she had had hundreds of these things, but never clearly. Half-seen images, a murmuring of words... Now the flashback came in the form of a kinesthetic perception, and this time it was very clear. She recalled feeling herself to be a man. The sensation of having broader shoulders, narrower hips, a flat chest and organs hanging between her legs... It didn't dissipate as most of her flashbacks did, but remained sharp enough for her to look at it carefully. Though they were rarely clear, Kyla did know that three things triggered her flashbacks: loneliness, alienation/paranoia, and androgyny. She had had vivid dreams in which she was a man, but never before had she so clearly remembered masculinity during the day. Now she knew why her pregnancy disturbed her-- in her mind she was androgynous, not fully masculine or feminine, and a pregnant woman was too glaringly female to fit her self image. She had always known there were aspects of androgyny about herself-- for one thing, although she was completely faithful to Jay, she knew herself to be bisexual in inclination. But how could she remember being *male*? If she had been a transsexual who'd gotten a sex change, she would not be fertile-- and the stomach in the mirror gave silent testimony that whatever else she might be, infertile she was not. Was she imagining it? Constructing a kinesthetic impression out of imagination, and believing it to be memory? She could remember no faces, no names or clear details of others' bodies. But if she tried, she could summon exactly how it felt to plunge an erection into a soft female body; the sensation of urine traveling down and out a penis, and the fact that the penis would have to be shaken afterward to prevent droplets from running down the leg; the sick feeling of being kicked in the balls, similar to but much worse than a stomach punch or a kick to the solar plexus; the embarrassment of having an erection at an inappropriate time, or worse, not being able to have one when the situation required it. There was no way she could make up all that detail. She *had* been a man. How? She turned away from the mirror and got dressed. It was time to go to work now. She couldn't afford to spend time thinking about it... Except that every time she had a free moment, she *did* think about it. How could she ever have been a man? She didn't feel as if *this* body, as if womanhood, was alien to her; it wasn't that she had been transplanted into a body not her own. This body was utterly familiar. But so was that male body in memory. Somehow she had been *both*. *"...not a man OR a woman..."* Both. Hermaphrodite. Yes. Sitting in the break room with her coffee, it came to her. She had been hermaphrodite, with the capacity to be either sex. The thought came with a total lack of surprise-- it felt right. She *knew* it was true. But what did it *mean*? It wasn't until she was getting ready to leave, locking up her cabinet and her desk, that it hit her with horrible clarity. She remembered Nambu mentioning that there had been hermaphrodites in Galactor, back before they knew that Gel Sadra identified herself as female. She remembered her sudden fascination with the concept, and how she had shoved away the sympathy she felt for the poor hermaphrodites because it disturbed her. Had *she* been one of those Galactor constructs? If it was true, she didn't want to know. She *didn't*. She was happy this way, and as long as she took her pills, she would remain a woman. But Ken would always be suspicious of her, and she would never know why. Did he have a right to be suspicious? Perhaps if she knew who he thought she was-- perhaps if she knew who she had been, she would be able to prove her own loyalty somehow. Certainly the current method of ignoring the suspicions and hoping they would go away wasn't working. She knew the truth would make her unhappy, but she had to know, or what hope did she have of earning Ken's trust? So she looked up Galactor hermaphrodites on the terminal. It told her that information was historical and required a higher access level. Hadn't her access level just been upgraded, Kyla thought irritably? She tried Galactor constructs and ambiguous sexuality, but neither got her any farther. Somebody had put a block on the information, and she rather suspected she knew who. Kyla decided to try something. Her access was sufficiently high that she could create an account for somebody else, but the other's clearance could never be higher than her own. That was fine. Higher was not what Kyla needed; she wanted an account with no special flags on it. She generated her imaginary account in the name Kyle Samonetti, and then tried looking up Galactor hermaphrodites. One line came up on the screen. Kyla wanted to weep, or scream, or die. Her heart stopped as she looked at the horrible, horrible words. "See Historical Reference: Berg Katse." No-- oh, no.... Kyle Samonetti couldn't directly look up Berg Katse-- apparently that was a specific enough reference that it had been placed at a clearance where Kyla couldn't reach it. She excised Kyle's account from the computers and stood up. She had access to the Records Room, where ISO kept hard copies of all the data in the computers and data that wasn't available by computer, during the day on a need-to-know basis. The place would be locked now; but in the process of revamping the security system, Kyla had acquired stolen copies of numerous keys, never knowing when they might be handy, and that was one of them. Now she wondered about that. Why was it automatic with her to ignore security directives, to steal keys to restricted areas when she had no idea if she'd ever need them? Maybe the same reason that paranoia told her to know all the possible exit routes from every building, including the ones through the access shafts that no one would normally ever use. Maybe it had something to do with that name... As if in a nightmare, she went to the Records Room and unlocked the door, without bothering to lock it behind her. She was the last person in the building, aside from the cleaning people, who would assume she had business in there anyway. She dumped her purse on a carrel and sleepwalked to the filing cabinets. She didn't want to know. She had to know. In the "K" drawer, it was the fattest folder there. Kyla drew it out, torn between fear of the contents and horrified fascination, the *need* to know what lay inside. She stayed torn long enough that she reached the carrel with her terminal before she got the folder open. There were photographs that fell out the moment she opened the folder. She picked them up with trembling hands. The first two were black&whites of a little girl, probably ages 4 and 7 or so. The third was herself. Oh, the hair was styled differently. The face was younger, and at the same time harder-looking. But it was unmistakably her own face. Kyla felt a lurch in the pit of her stomach. It was suddenly very hot, or maybe very cold, in the room, and she was having trouble breathing. In, out. Take deep breaths. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? All right. Next step. She picked up the next few photographs. The person in them looked distinctly male, though an androgynous, effeminate male, dressed in a purple costume with a stylized mask. ** Kyla sucked in a breath. She *remembered* something, for the first time. She remembered the blind mask maker, and how she'd constructed the mask with a laser scope to measure the face. She remembered picking out the colors, modifying the design. That mask... she *remembered* it. Would she have remembered it, if she hadn't already realized who she was? The sick feeling was coming back, and she pushed the folder away. No. No more. But the demons of curiosity still nagged at her. How could she fight what she didn't know? Ken-- he thought she was Katse. How could she fight *that*? In the end, she pulled the folder back and started reading-- and everything she read set off a flood of memories... Name at birth: Katzchen Brenn Bergmann. **** Country of birth: Switzerland. **<"The land of your birth has always been a neutral country...">** Institutionalized at the Human Genetics Institute of Berlin until age 5. **<"Outside they'd call you a freak and rip you apart. Only in the Institute are you safe.">** Adopted by Wilhemina Bergmann, the natural mother of the child. **<"Your name is not Berg! It's Katzchen! You're my baby daughter Katzchen!">** Thereafter little is known about the childhood, until Katse entered Galactor... Kyla read and read, and with every word felt blanks in her mind opening, a trickle, a torrent of memories, revealing her past self to her in all the pain and horror and evil, and yet she could not stop... Kyla hadn't called. Normally she called Jay as soon as she got off work, and he then knocked off practice for the night. By that time, usually, Jinpei had already quit. Tonight it was *really* late, and she hadn't called. Jun and Jinpei had both turned in for the night already, and Ryu was looking like he was going to quit soon. Jay mentioned this to Ken, who dropped down off the gymnastics maze. "I was going to swing by Intelligence in a few minutes anyway. Want me to go look for her?" "I'll come with you." "No, you're beat," Ken said, and it was true. Jay didn't usually practice this late, and he was tired. He might be super-strong, but he didn't have superhuman endurance. "Why don't you go home and wait for her? Take a shower, get into bed... I'll make sure she gets home in one piece." Jay frowned. Since the incident with the air vents a month ago, Ken had treated Kyla with nothing but respect and courtesy. He supposed it would be all right. Maybe it was a peace gesture. "All right." Kyla sat in the room, her head in her hands, feeling numb. She remembered it, all of it. She remembered the anguish she'd suffered, the loneliness, the bouts with depression and suicidal tendencies. But what was worse, she remembered the things that had made her happy: The impotent hatred from those s/he'd mastered. The petty cruelties done without a second thought, the sadistic arts performed for enjoyment. Crushing enemies and laughing at their pain. Hurting innocents, and smiling to see them suffer. Murder. There was a schizoid gap in her mind where Katse ended and Kyla began. Since the beginning of her separate existence, since she'd awakened at Dr. Kymel's lab, Kyla had been a pacifist. She could not bear the thought of killing, of hurting others. And now she could remember an existence where she'd not only killed, she'd enjoyed it. She could remember the pleasure others' pain had given her, and at the same time feel sick with the memories. 50 million dead, mostly because of her. At least a hundred she could remember killing with her own hands, at least a thousand whose deaths she had presided at. She had given the orders that resulted in countless dead, and *enjoyed* it... oh, no wonder Ken hated her. Anyone should hate her. She hated herself. *Why did I have to find out?* Tears glittered in her eyes. *Why couldn't I have gone on, not knowing...* "Hey," came a voice behind her. "Jay's been waiting for you to call. I sent him home..." She turned around, but did not see Ken, her husband's friend. She heard the voice and saw the face and saw Gatchaman. The last time **