CHAPTER XI

It was less than ten minutes after Loran and Jeff made a visit to Comm Tech, Randy heard about the two agents and made a quick phone call to Washington. This was getting out of hand. These two bozos were about to screw everything up. He wanted to know who authorized this investigation. Randy didn't wait for a reply. He told his men every one of them were to be in the building by o six hundred and don't come naked.

Everyone understood, Randy was telling them to come armed and ready. Something was cooking and all hell was about to boil over. They were itching for action. Having Karen snatched out from under their noses put all of them in a foul mood. They were ready to make it right. They hoped whoever was coming was armed to the teeth and ready to die for the cause.

Randy was still in his office at one o'clock in the morning when the secure fax came on and the decoder spilled out its’ message.

It was more than Randy needed. Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end. They authorized him to do whatever was necessary. Agents working outside the system were dangerous to everyone.

David was knocking on Karen’s front door before she had a chance to get dressed for work. "Henry wanted me to come by and drive you to the lab. He said your car needed a whatcha-ma-call-it installed in the thing-a-ma-jig somewhere."

She pushed the hair back out of her face as she let him in the door. Standing there in her slip and panty hose talking to David about something he couldn't explain wasn't her idea of a perfect start to the day. "Come in while I get dressed. I don't know what Henry told you. You missed the translation somewhere between the front bumper and tail light."

David threw his arms around her and pulled her back to him. "I like the way you’re dressed now. Find your lab coat and let's go."

Karen tried to slip away from him. "That wouldn't work. You would spend all day in the shower thinking about me working my little tail off down in my lab."

David pulled her in tight and gazed into her eyes. Those same eyes which sucked him into a hypnotic trance almost every time he chanced to stare at them. She was so beautiful to look at and felt so nice to hold. "I thought we could both work in your lab today while Alf and Ralph took care of mine."

Karen decided to make him pay for holding her when she needed to get dressed. She put her arms around his neck and looked him in the eye. "You know that wouldn't work. The whole day would go down the tubes. We would end up getting fired. They frown on their slaves at Comm Tech not performing their duties. Or maybe you're one of the elite and not subject to such mundane chores and regulations as the rest of us peons?"

David kissed her passionately as he squeezed her close to his body. He nuzzled through her hair reveling in the scent he loved so much and playfully bit her neck before he whispered in her ear. "I love you Karen. Let's fly out to Reno and get married. We could play hooky today."

She gently pushed him back and held him at arms length as she studied his face. "I love you too David. But the time is not here for us to be discussing marriage. We both have a lot of odds and ends at Comm Tech to tie up. Some of which has only begun to bear fruit these past couple of months

She placed the tips of her fingers on his lips as he started to speak. "I’m not through yet. Wait your turn. I still have Karl wanting to kill me for what I did to him. I’m not so sure about Mike and Oscar but you can bet they thought about it also."

"I’m not over what they did to me. I never will be. They hurt me in a way you can't begin to imagine. I will live with it for the rest of my life. I’m adjusting. In time it will be only a memory. Right now it is too fresh a memory."

"Henry said humans are the cruelest creatures on the face of the earth. I think he’s right. There’s no other creature which gets pleasure out of the pain of another. I’m wondering if I’m one of those Henry was talking about? I enjoy every minute of it when I think of what I did to Karl and the others. This is what they did to me David. I’m the girl who couldn't step on a bug or dissect a frog in science class. I never wanted to hurt anything. Now I take pleasure in it."

She looked away from him. "This isn't the same woman you knew who was building you a computer in your lab. I’m not the same innocent naive thing I was back then. I no longer believe all people are kind and decent if given a chance. There are some mean ones out there wanting to hurt someone. I have become just like them."

She looked into his eyes. "I love you David. You're fooling yourself if you think you have that same girl you had ten years ago. You better take some time to look again. This one is mean and vindictive."

He pulled her back and held her. The smooth slippery feel of her soft satin slip between him and her body. The scent of her body as he nibbled around her neck. The caring for someone else besides herself. No, she was mistaken. This was the same one. More mature in the ways of the world, more grown up, not as young as she was ten, fifteen years ago, but still the same one. She felt good to hold. He held her face between his two hands and looked straight into those beautiful, liquid, sapphire blue eyes that could suck anyone into another world. What did she see from her side of those eyes? "I will wait until the end of time for you."

Karen wondered if she would get the chance to get dressed for work as he held her there and kissed her for a very, very, long time.

Henry received little satisfaction he had been right. He watched as agents Loran and Jeff came back with a small army of men. He counted eleven secret service agents and twice that number of military personnel. He hoped they weren't too disappointed in what they were expecting.

There was no use in Randy and his men getting caught up in this meat grinder. Randy was good people. He liked Randy a lot and didn't want him to get hurt needlessly. If he let Randy do his thing there was a chance it would get messy. Even Randy couldn't stop what was coming. These men he would stop. There would be others behind them and then more and more until it seemed like the whole world was wanting into Karen's lab. Sorry Randy.

Randy and his men were waiting in the room they set up when they first moved into Comm Tech. He was watching the monitors as the agents drove up to the gate and demanded entry. Supposedly it worked. The gate guard didn't challenge their authority. They were filing in the front door when Randy turned from the monitors and checked his men. All tough veterans and all good men. If necessary, they were willing to follow him to hell and back. Most of them already had at one time or another. They were willing to do it again. Randy took care of his own and they knew it.

They were watching Randy and waiting for the word. When Karen had been kidnapped it set all of them on edge wondering if they were getting too old for this business. One way or another they would find out this morning. They were ready to go kick some butt. That wasn't a bunch of sissies walking into the building. Nor was it Karl and the others who justly deserved this wrath which was now directed at these men entering Comm Tech. Anyone thinking they could waltz into Karen's lab and back out again without paying a price, were about to receive the final lesson of their lives. No matter who you were or where you were from, it was a fatal mistake.

Randy nodded his head and everyone chambered a round of live ammunition into the breech. Death was ready to come storming out of that room. His monitor lit up.

The security camera in shipping bay three showed five men with automatic weapons and, what appeared to be Karen over in the far corner behind a stack of shipping pallets.

It was the first time they had seen Randy indecisive. He didn't believe it but he couldn't afford to have something wrong. As far as he knew, Karen hadn’t made it in the gate. Oh hell the government men would still be there if this was Henry's idea of a joke. He keyed his walkie-talkie. "Everyone to shipping bay three. NOW!"

From the security office, Ed watched as the strange men poured into Comm Tech. This didn't look good. He picked up his walkie-talkie. "Security one to security two."

There was no answer. Where in the hell were those guys when you needed them? "Security one to security two."

He reached down and lifted his gun from its holster. As he checked to make sure it was loaded the other guard watched to see what Ed was going to do. "What you have in mind?"

Ed knew there were too many for the two of them but Miss Long was the only thing there valuable enough to pull in this many strangers. He would go along to check their destination and what they had planned. He glanced at his partner.

"Billy, I have a wife and two kids. I have a little house out in the heights and a second mortgage. I drive a secondhand car and get paid for sitting here watching the monitors. They don't pay us enough for things like this. But, I can't let them waltz into Miss Long's lab and back out again like we were never here. I’m going down there to see what I can do without getting myself killed. I may not be able to do anything. If Randy shows up I can at least tell him I was there and not sitting on my ass here in the office."

Billy jumped up and checked his weapon, dropping the clip out to make sure it was full and jamming it back home again. The night Karen was kidnapped the abuse Randy gave those guards on duty was as close to Randy's wrath as Billy wanted to come. Jack and Arnold both quit after that. Billy didn't have to ask why. Ed's plan sounded good to him. "This could get us killed you know. Those guys aren't carrying water pistols."

Ed nodded. He didn't want to think about this too long. There were butterflies as big as elephants running around in the pit of his stomach. He was shaking all over as he slipped his gun back in its' holster. They walked out of the office together.

Agents Loran and Jeff entered Comm Tech only seconds after Randy and his men were flying down to shipping bay three. Loran and Jeff weren't going to be deterred from getting their hands on those two labs. They wanted all the technical knowledge of how to make androids. Someone in this building was making artificial life and they wanted it.

Stopping in front of Karen's lab first the demolition team from the military placed plastic explosives around the door. Try to keep the government out would they? These stupid civilians had a lot to learn about who was running this country.

Ed and Billy were waiting at the other end of the hall when the explosives blew. Echoing down the hall it was deafening to everyone in that end of the building.

The door folded and crumpled inward. Smoke and the arid smell of explosives filled the air. Henry was delighted. This was much better than he expected. Didn't these guys ever hear of a cutting torch? Guess not. Always over kill with the government. They never could get anything right. What a bunch of bird brains.

Red beacons flashed on in the hallways as klaxons began their relentless bleating. Their plaintive cry of 'ah oooga' could be heard repeating itself over and over throughout the building. Blue strobe lights flashed their intensely blinding light in the lab and down the halls. The lights gave an eerie ghostly shadow to everyone shrouded in the smoke from the explosion. Sirens started screaming their deafening wail.

Henry approved. He had outdone the government men. Talk about a class act. Man, this ought to start their little hearts a beating in their throats.

Karen and David were entering the building when all the lights, klaxons, and sirens took up their respective places in the order of confusion.

"What is that?" She put her hands over her ears to muffle the deafening sounds.

David tired to get a fix on anything he could understand. "I don't know. It sure isn't a fire drill. I never noticed all these red lights before. Someone should turn off those blue lights. They’re blinding me. Where did they come from?"

Karen didn't hear a thing he was saying. All the racket drowned him out. She nodded her head in agreement though she had no idea what she was agreeing to.

The way she looked at him he knew she hadn't heard. He shouted at her. "LET'S GET TO THE LAB IN CASE SOMEONE LIKE KARL IS TRYING TO MAKE ANOTHER TRY AT YOU OR YOUR PROGRAMS."

"GOOD IDEA." She was shouting to make herself heard. Holding her ears she started off down the hall with David right behind. He wouldn't let her out of his sight. They would have to go through him to get to her.

Henry finished the model in the chamber. Now it was pulling itself up and climbing out.

Jeff was looking past the blown door and through the glass into the working lab. His eyes told him everything he believed about this place was true. "SHIT! They’re crawling out of the incubators."

One of the military men rolled through the door and brought his rifle up trying to cover everything at once. Swinging it side to side he was looking for something to shoot.

Henry watched him closely. Kids, only kids, none of those army men were over twenty. Lots of training and no experience. They were green as a gourd. Zap you're dead. Got that little sucker right between the eyes before he made it though the door. I love this game. Time for act two. Henry thought the soldier should lie down and play dead. They didn't follow the rules. That's the government for you, makes up rules and regulations but never follows them.

Little minds like this sort of thing. Henry knew he had a lot of little minds to entertain. Their adrenaline was at an all time high. Their sensory intake was reaching overload. They were almost ready. A little more and they would go over the edge.

A couple more military geniuses rolled through the door along with Loran sliding in along the wall. He was too dignified to roll. He would leave that to the military. It was what they got paid for.

Henry figured they were ready. He screamed through the loud speakers momentarily deafening everyone. "DEFENSIVE REPULSION SYSTEM ON LINE. REPEL ALL INTRUDERS NOW."

The locker where the frame was hidden opened up. It walked out with an uzi in each hand.

"SSSHHHIIT" One of the soldiers screamed as he began firing with his M-16 at the frame.

The whole lab erupted in automatic gunfire as everyone started shooting. The burst of gunfire from the first soldier caused a chain reaction. Every one's trigger finger had to close with the adrenaline rush flowing through their bodies. Even those out in the hall were firing into the lab, although they had no idea what they were shooting at.

As they saturated Karen's lab with gunfire, Henry had no idea why someone didn't get killed in the deluge of bullets flying everywhere. These guys didn't care who or where they shot. The only thing that mattered to them was shoot the gun they were holding. The agents weren't doing any better than the military kids. Randy's men would have had these guys for lunch and never broke out in a sweat doing it. Henry was doubly glad he diverted Randy to shipping. Some of these boys might live to see the error of their ways provided they didn't kill one another first.

Knocked off balance by gunfire from those who accidentally managed to hit it, the frame sprayed the ceiling and walls with bullets.

Henry took a direct sweep of bullets across the desk from someone out in the hall and Karen's keypad caught fire. Oooooh, they got me. I’m going fast pardners. I'm uh heading for the last roundup.

Lights on the console, the monitor, and the printer blew up, adding to the mass hysteria of the soldiers and the agents. Small fires began to break out spontaneously everywhere in the lab. Henry was having so much fun he wanted to do a repeat performance.

Hearing gunfire from the direction of her lab Karen knew someone was after Henry. "They're trying to steal Henry!"

David held onto her knowing there was nothing she could do. She would end up getting killed herself if she got to close to where everyone was shooting. Randy could handle the problems on that end.

"No, Karen, you can't help him. Let's get out of here before they come after you."

She never hesitated as she pushed him backwards. "I have to save him. I can't let them take Henry."

David had his balance set to pull her the other way. When she pushed him he slipped and fell. She was around the corner before he could get back to his feet.

Even though the frame was down on its back, it was still hosing down the walls and ceiling with bullets. Henry completed the model on the turn table and brought the lasers to bear on Karen's office. Both holograms came online with guns blazing in their hands. Through the smoke and fire it scared the absolute living hell out of everyone to see miniature life figures standing on Karen's desk armed with automatics. The adrenaline and the mind went into orbit lift off.

Karen ran into a mob in the hall who were busy shooting anything and everything in her office. One of them reached out and pulled her in as she tried to run past them.

"You can't go in there. They're coming out of the woodwork."

She struggled in vain to wrestle free. "YOU'RE KILLING HIM!"

Crying and pleading for them to turn her lose she was desperately trying to reach Henry. Hysterical with sheer frustration she screamed. "STOP DAMN YOU! YOU'RE KILLING HIM. GOD, PLEASE STOP KILLING HIM.

Karen's frustrations reached the boiling point. She twisted around and raked the man holding her. Those long sharp fingernails opened him up like razors from the top of his head to his chest.

He screamed and fell back in pain as blood poured into his eyes and blinded him. "Eeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaah."

Another tried to grab her wrists. Karen greeted him in a way he didn't expect. Her wrath called for a blood offering for what these men were doing to Henry. She reached for the face of the man who tried to grab her. Karen wanted to hurt or kill everyone who was taking part in this murder. Slashing out with a vengeance, she opened him up from the back of his neck to the tip of his nose.

As he brought his hand up to staunch the flow of blood, he stumbled backwards trying to escape. "DAMN YOU LADY!"

A soldier grabbed her from behind to stop this terrible wrath she was delivering to all within reach. He paid a price. She opened up his arms from his fingers to his elbows. He held on as two more chanced to reach for those hands which were dealing pain to all within striking distance. With her arms pinned to her sides she couldn't reach far but it still intimidated most who were trying to gain a hold on her. Again, she raked the arms of the man who was holding her.

He howled in distress as he relinquished his hold. "SOMEONE GET HOLD OF THAT BITCH!"

It scared the hell out of the man on her left as Karen bared her teeth and growled at him. He tried to back pedal but there were too many bodies behind him. Karen wanted his eyes but only nailed his face as he turned to run. He threw his arms up to protect himself. It worked as she ripped open his jacket but didn't connect with flesh this time.

Slashing at the man on her left gave the man on her right a chance to finally bring an end to her reign of terror. He managed to grab and hold onto both her wrists long enough for several others to find a hold. Crying in pain, he also paid a price as he looked down at his shoulder. Blood was seeping through his shirt. "Damn-nation, the bitch bit me. Hold her damn head and watch those teeth."

It took six men to bring this whirling dervish under physical restraint. She never gave up struggling. Those feet of hers brought additional pain to the ones holding her until someone swept her legs out from under her. She went down. They had her spread eagled on the floor as she managed to yank her right arm from the guy who was suppose to have hold of it. It almost proved lethal to the man on her left as she swiped across and down the front of his face.

He managed to hold on to her left arm but it was impossible for him to see anything as blood poured from the cuts. "DAMN, HOLD HER DOWN BEFORE SHE KILLS US ALL!"

One of the soldiers had enough of this she-devil clawing everyone. There was an easy way to stop all this nonsense. He brought his rifle up to club her in the head. He came down with both his fists holding only what was between his fingers. As he looked up, first at the smoking pieces which used to be a rifle, and then over at the lasers he lost parts of his shirt along with some of his other clothing. It was too much to ask anyone to tolerate. In the mass confusion the others never noticed as he ran screaming from the building.

The man holding her head took a licking as Karen brought her hand down over her head. She didn't get a good strike on him but he was bleeding.

Reaching for her right arm cost the guy who let it escape. She drove her nails into the top of his hand. It didn't stop him. With her and him both flailing the air at one another, he finally managed to get a hold again. From his elbows to his fingertips, he looked like he had been in a fight with a barbed wire fence.

Above the racket everyone heard her scream. "HENRY!"

For a brief second Henry plotted the co-ordinates of everyone into his targeting grid. Henry felt the raging hate flowing from Karen as he selected his prey. Human targets were locked into the laser tracking system. It was closer than anyone there knew. They came very, very, VERY, close to paying with their lives for touching his Karen. Quicker than anyone could say one thousand one, everyone except Karen and David would be dead. The decision was made in less than a nanosecond. The lasers found new targets. It was too quick for anyone to see.

Sorry Karen. He wished he could have told her. It had to be this way. Maybe someday she would understand and forgive him when she figured it out. Sometimes friends must be willing to sacrifice everything for a friend. Karen told him she would give her life for him. Would she deny him any less in return?

Well, it was time for the final act. Henry brought the lasers to bear and cut in half the steel door the military had blown open earlier. It folded up as the two inch steel door lost all its' support. Cutting apart the guns the soldiers were holding and slicing the heels and soles off Loran's shoes, Henry felt he had got into the swing of things. The lasers appeared out of control as they fired randomly at anything and everything. They were slicing apart whatever they touched.

Again, the speakers in the office screamed. They deafened everyone there for the second time. "TRANSFER ALL FUNCTIONS TO SECOND ANDROID. INITIATE ESCAPE SEQUENCE.”

The first android was helping the second one off the turn table. Everyone looked into the lab and saw two androids about ready to make a break for freedom.

"COMPLETED ALL TRANSFER OF DATA. I WILL INITIATE ESCAPE SEQUENCE." The second android shouted as he stepped off the table.

The hallway became a crescendo of renewed racket as everyone who still had a weapon which would fire took up a new target. They wanted to make sure these androids didn't escape. Glass was flying everywhere as the panes between Karen's office and work lab disintegrated in a hail of gunfire. Henry's lasers only poked holes in it. The bullets which now filled the air like angry hornets, made tiny pieces of it and the models Henry tried to help escape.

Karen's crying and pleading only added to the confusion in every one's minds. Begging them to stop killing Henry was like spitting into the wind. What she didn't know was, they passed the point of reasoning when they detonated the explosives.

David was tackled as he rounded the corner and couldn't reach Karen. David hauled back and gave the man who tackled him a wicked right to the jaw. The man was driven back against the wall. That guy was finished for the time being. Still down on his knees David dodged another man who jumped at him from half a dozen feet away. As the guy flew past David hit him behind the ear. The guy folded up like a wet dishcloth and slid down the hall unconscious. Another charged. David still down on his knees, hit him in the groin. As the soldier doubled over David rabbit punched him in the throat. The poor guy folded up while wheezing for air. Then it was more than David could handle as four of them jumped him at the same time. To his credit David picked one target out of the four and smacked him right between the eyes. David was pummeled from all sides and went down himself. The man he hit was so addled it was all over as far as helping anyone capture David. Now, flat on his back, David brought his left foot back and kicked the face of the man by his left leg. The agent went down and out. He would require plastic surgery to put his face back where it belonged. Fighting and scuffling with the agents who finally tackled him, and a half dozen soldiers who joined in, only made him more sure him and Karen were about to die. He wished he could have lived up to the promise he made to Henry. He sure hadn't done a very good job taking care of Karen.

Henry cut holes in the walls and sliced a big piece out of himself. The desk was in flames and the floor around the data storage cartridges caught on fire.

Jeff could see the data storage cartridges through the holes Henry cut out of the wall. He screamed at the men already in the lab. "SAVE THOSE INFORMATION BANKS."

Most of them were trying desperately to escape from the lab with their lives. Those deadly lasers were out of control and cutting everything apart. There was no defense except run.

If Henry had known it would be this much fun he would have invited these agents in long ago. No, on second thought, they don't know how to act at a party. They act like a bunch of animals. That was an unnecessary insult to the animals. Henry apologized to the animals. These guys were a bunch of dweebs.

Loran scrambled out the door shouting over his shoulder. "GO GET THOSE DATA BANKS, SOLDIER."

Looking at Loran the soldier hesitated. He wanted to tell this stupid agent to get the damn banks himself. He held his tongue and didn't say anything. Starting back across the floor he tried for some of the cartridges.

The lasers cut the bottom off the storage cabinet. The data cartridges spilled across floor into the flames now spreading throughout the office.

The soldier didn't give up. Reaching into the fire he attempted to retrieve a cartridge.

Henry vaporized the cartridge the soldier had his fingers on. The floor tile in front of the soldier vanished as Henry swung the lasers across the room.

The poor guy had more than enough. He stood up, leaped for the hallway through the open door, and bolted for an exit. "FUCK THIS! This is suicide. You want those damn cartridges? Get ‘em your own damn self."

Maybe the rest of the men still in the hall didn't hear the whole message but it was clear enough to most. A few more gave up this insanity and ran for cover. That cover being what they considered far enough away from Comm Tech they wouldn't be roasted by those lasers which were cooking everything in sight.

Look at the power in these babies. Karen should have given me some four foot thick steel for practice. Henry no longer had a need to keep power in a safety range. He turned the voltage all the way up and brought the batteries on line he kept for backup. Everyone in the whole building could feel their hair stand on end as electricity filled the air along with the humm of high voltage bleed. Henry was going to have some real fun.

Cutting a swath across the ceiling brought some exciting results as ceiling tile and steel girders came crashing into the room. The walls between David’s and Karen's lab dissolved into nothing as Henry rotated the lasers downward. Solid brick walls vaporized into smoke and steel headers disappeared as he swept past them. David's lab exploded into flames the fire spread so quickly. Saint Elmo's fire danced through the labs and down the halls as electricity began bleeding to everything consisting of a ground. Virtually every computer in Comm Tech crashed and went up in smoke. The lights in the building brightened or burned out depending on how they withstood the overload.

The Saint Elmo's fireball rolling down the hall took care of a few more men who had come in with Jeff and Loran. Bullets and men they could face. Fighting with balls of lightning was asking too much. Those that could picked up their comrades who had fallen to Karen's wrath and David's punishment and disappeared from the building.

The power lines feeding Commercial Technologies started whipsawing back and forth. The power poles began swaying in an erie snake like rythm as if they were dancing to some unheard music. Repeatedly, slapping wires and poles apart and then pulling them together, Ohms law had taken effect on the wires due to the heavy current drain. The new power transformers recently installed to take care of the overload in shipping began smoking as heat buildup started cooking them. Circuit breakers throughout the city began tripping as electrical surge began its destructive havoc on anything electric. All the way to the power plant smoke started pouring out of the generators. First they began whining in protest. Finally they started screaming about grave consequences as insulation burned off the windings. They were asked to do the impossible and control this wild power play. Electrical relay stations across the city began dying. The hospital dropped off line as their emergency generators kicked in. Wiring throughout the Comm Tech complex was melting in the electrical conduits as electricity ran rampant crossing over to anything capable of conducting current. Telephones sizzled and died as the telephone switching relays fused shut. Comm Tech was dying along with Henry.

As the few men who were left behind watched from the mindless safety of the hallway everything around them was fast disappearing. It looked as if someone with a giant pencil eraser was erasing everything. Nothing was safe. Their whole world was vanishing before their very eyes. Those lasers which had delicately built so many things of beauty were now instruments of destruction. The likes of which these men had never seen before.

How anyone could think they were safe behind a wall which was there one second and mostly gone the next was never understood. But two men stayed rather than getting up and running. Some with a little more brains than the others could see the futility of fighting with this thing. It recognized no boundaries and no barriers. If it touched you, you were dead, no debate, no questions. It was something more lethal than they had ever faced in their whole lives. They ran in sheer terror from this thing.

Henry chased them down the halls vaporizing walls and doors behind them. This was neat. Time to wrap this up and head home.

More than anything in the whole world, Henry wanted to tell Karen he would miss her. He thought of the talks they use to have and the things he wanted to tell her. Now he would never get the chance. Strange how computers and humans are so much alike.

Don't cry Karen. You're breaking my heart. Finally he understood what Karen had been trying to tell him. Hearts can break in two.

Better do this quickly before he lost his nerve. Henry brought the lasers down cutting the legs off the stacking receivers. They crashed to the floor cutting the lines feeding gel to the spray nozzles. Highly flammable gel spilled out across the lab and past what used to be the wall separating the office from the lab.

Loran watched in witless fascination. Gel was spewing from lines whipping back and forth like a rattlesnake's tail. Finally, the reality of it dawned on him. He was looking at impending doom. He jumped to his feet and screamed. "EVERYONE OUT."

Jeff scrambled to his feet and looked around fully expecting to see all the men they brought in with them. First it scared him as he realized everyone was gone except the two agents still holding Karen and David. It made him mad to think there were only four of them with enough bravery to see this through. What he had no way of knowing it was a bravado the other two agents didn't feel. They would have fled too if they could have figured out how to drag their quarry with them.

Jeff and Loran split up to help drag these prisoners out of this hell hole. This place was going up in flames. It would take everyone still here with it. Dragging Karen and David as they scrambled for their lives, they prayed they weren't too late. It was with a loud whump and a shock wave which knocked all of them to the floor they realized how close they had come.

Around the corner at the end of the hall Billy and Ed were biding their time to see how this would come out. Although they felt the heat and concussion from the blast it didn't reach them with any force. Ed leaned around the corner to take a look at the outcome of the explosion. He liked what he saw. Before there were over thirty men. Now there were only four. Odds were looking better.

Henry gazed at Karen through the camera at the end of the hall. How many times had he watched her through that camera? He couldn't remember. Must have a defective chip. He had perfect memory. ‘Krystal, come here.’ No, Krystal was dead, she couldn't help. ‘Now what was I thinking? I was wrong, some humans are very predictable.’ His memory was rapidly burning out as the fire spread. He shut the lasers off permanently. He didn't want someone to get hurt if they happened to malfunction due to the heat. How many models had he and Karen made with those lasers? He loved working with Karen. It would be nice if they could make one more model. Just the two of them alone again. He dropped all the electrical contactors off-line. Between the stackers, receivers, table, pumps and the other machinery, there were too many moving parts in the lab if someone was too quick to return. Some of the machinery Karen worked so close to for the past fifteen years was lethal if it got hold of you. Henry made sure none of it ever hurt his Karen.

He took one last look around and shut off the last working camera in the lab. Not a whole lot left to look at. The others were already gone. Those cameras would never look at his beloved Karen again. He wished he could take one more look at Karen talking to him like she use to do before the accident. He began running the memory of Karen talking to him. It was like it always was, small bickering and bantering back and forth, playing mind games with her. That was the times he loved the most. He lost the connection to the outside cameras as the fire burned into the wires. Blackness descended upon the hall camera he was watching Karen through. Must have lost the feed wires to it. Ah well, he didn't need cameras to remember what Karen looked like. He had perfect memory. He transferred the memory of her farther in away from the fire. It would be the last thing he lost. He loved her before and after the change. She was still the same kind, gentle Karen. Please don't ever change. If only he could talk to her one more time. The memory of Karen blurred into past, present, nondescript distinctions.

Good-by Karen.

It was over.................................................

Randy and his men stormed shipping bay three searching for the security breach. As soon as they were inside the doors slammed shut and no one could get them open. They tried the big gantries used to move heavy loads. If they could get them to run they would yank the doors out of their frames. The cranes were useless. Nothing worked. It was a complete shutdown. Randy tried to shoot the lock off the doors. Besides blowing the door handles off it didn't work. Comm Tech was designed with security in mind and security was what they got.

Randy was disgusted to no end. There was no doubt who designed this trap. As soon as he got out of here he would have a talk with him face to face. No more mister nice guy. It was time to have it out with this machine and let him know who was the big cheese in charge of security. Randy didn't care if Henry did it to keep them out of a fire fight with those men coming in the building. Randy figured he and his men were more than capable of taking care of themselves.

What Randy didn't know at the time was how bad it had been down at Karen's lab. If they had been there Randy and his men would have turned everyone into dog meat before it was over. Those men killed the one person or thing which saved their lives.

After they escaped down the hall from the explosion, Jeff never let Karen get off the floor. While the other agent looked on in growing disbelief Jeff put his knees in Karen's back and pinned her down to the floor.

Karen struggled to free herself. She was already tired from fighting with the agents who held her down as they destroyed her lab. She was close to the point of total exhaustion as she freed her right arm and braced against the floor to throw this animal off her back.

It was not to be. Grabbing her left wrist as she struggled in vain to free herself, Jeff twisted her arm behind her as he snapped the handcuffs on her right hand. He brutally yanked her arm back to cuff her wrists together. Unable to protect herself, Karen's face connected with the floor as she lost her support.

As Billy, Ed, and the two agents watched in growing shock and were either unwilling or unable to challenge them, Loran did the same thing to David. Jeff and Loran were brutal in handling their prisoners.

Karen's emotions were reeling as Jeff slapped on the handcuffs and jerked her to her feet. She had a taste of being mistreated by someone in a van. It was flooding her senses to be treated this way again. Total shock from losing Henry already shut down her logical mind. She was back to basic survival instinct and teetering on the very edge of sanity. Jeff was messing with something he couldn't begin to understand. David labeled her as dangerous when cornered. Jeff was getting close to receiving a personal lesson. Closer than anyone imagined.

Loran glanced over at Jeff and nodded in satisfaction as he pulled David to his feet. They had their quarry.

Jeff stood back and admired his catch. Her head was lowered and her once beautiful hair, matted and caked with fresh blood, hung in tangles covering her face. It was glued to her cheek by her own blood where her face had connected with the floor when Jeff yanked her arms behind her back. Blood was splattered over her torn dress as a testament of the toll she extracted from those who ran afoul of her wrath. Most of it was from her victims, some was from her. From her matted hair and blood stained dress, down to her bruised legs, she was still breathtaking.

Karen's breasts rose and fell with the labor of heavy breathing. Her eyes were closed. Numb from shock and abuse, she had given her all in a desperate though failed attempt to save Henry. Now weary with fatigue and disinterest, her mind was switched off in an effort to distance itself from this nightmare of horrors. The injustice of the world finally came to the breaking point of her spirit. Karen no longer cared. Karen no longer wanted to live. She had lost her whole life. She had lost Henry.

He had to know. Jeff reached out squeezing Karen's breast in as big a hand hold he could stretch his hand over. Forcibly he gripped ever tighter as her breast slipped out of his grasp sliding between the smooth silken dress and satin slip. He had to know if they felt real.

Karen's eyes flashed opened and closed to half slits as she gritted her teeth in pain. Jeff was hurting her. Like before, again her arms were pinned behind her. Reflex took over. Karen was incapable of thinking. She did the only thing she could. Karen ducked her head and butted Jeff squarely in the face.

"Damn you." Jeff stumbled backwards as he used both hands and pushed with his fingers at both sides of his nose. As blood went everywhere he looked cross-eyed down his nose to check for damage.

"Y..O..U...., BASTARD!" As Jeff backed away, she brought her right foot up with all the remaining strength she could muster. Her hate towards Karl, the murder of Henry, and the hate she felt toward this man was loaded into a superhuman kick. It lifted Jeff off the floor as she hit him squarely in the crotch with the sharp toe of her high heels.

His bloody broken nose forgotten, Jeff grabbed his crotch as shock registered on his face. Slowly the shock turned to sickness and pain. His mouth opened in a tiny moan of anguish but no sound escaped as his eyes turned to pits of despair. He stood there on the balls of his feet for a second as the pain spread through his body. It was unbelievable pain spreading sickness like he had never felt. He moaned as he dropped to his knees. Jeff toppled over backwards. He curled into a fetus position as the pain and sickness ate him up.

"ooooooooooo" Jeff was in his own world of hurts.

Loran turned to see his partner sag to the floor. He had enough of this android eating up his men. He was going to put a stop to this nonsense. He grabbed the front of Karen's dress and spun her around to face him. Loran wanted to make sure he had a steady target as he pulled his right arm back to belt this android in the face.

Karen closed her eyes and instinctively tilted her head away. She was an old student of this kind of treatment.

David watched as Loran drew his arm back. A terrible, strange, intense, wrath of hatred came over David. He wanted to kill. As he lowered his head and dove at Loran he roared. "NOOOO!"

Pushing off with his foot where floor meets wall, David put everything he had and then some into his drive. He hit Loran in the lower back and side just as Loran turned to meet this new threat coming at him. With arms and legs flying out at disconnected angles, Loran was driven into the wall. David and Loran went down in a heap. A shot rang out and a slug hit the wall exactly where Loran's head would have been if David hadn't accidentally saved him.

Loran pushed David off as he reached for his gun. He was staring up into the dark menacing end of a 357 magnum. Ed was shaking all over. "Please. Pull it. I want you to pull it. All I need is one itsy bitsy excuse. PULL IT DAMN YOU!

Loran looked around for the two agents they had brought in with them. "SHOOT HIM!”

Billy snapped the safety off his Glock waiting to see how they were going to react. He had been a little slow when Loran pulled back his fist to hit Karen. He was ready now. Billy was damn mad and scared to death at the same time. It was a lethal combination. Anyone and everyone could die in a situation like this. The agents weren't stupid. They knew if anyone moved someone would more then likely end up dead. It probably wouldn't be the kid with the nineteen shot pistol. He already had his targets picked out. They were it. It certainly didn't look like it would be the old geezer with the 357 magnum. He was waiting for anyone to flinch and it would be the end of Loran. Comm Tech security was finally measuring up to the job. In fact, they were more than ready. They wanted to kill someone, anyone. Hearts were pounding in anger, frustration, and fear in almost everyone's chest right now.

The agent didn't tell Loran it wouldn't do any good for them to pull their weapons. He and his partner had emptied theirs at the fiasco down the hall. They never had a chance to reload while holding on to Karen and David. He bet if Loran thought about it he was probably holding an empty weapon too. Pulling an empty gun while someone is pointing a loaded weapon at you didn't seem too bright. Looking back in reflection, everything he had been involved in this morning seemed pretty stupid. It was time to stop following Loran's orders and acting stupid.

"Loran, you asshole, you're damn lucky I don't shoot you. Who the hell do you think you are? We don't treat people like this. You people in Washington have some screwy ideas about arresting people."

Loran started to tell them about the androids but thought better of it. The fewer people who knew the better. Even in their own agency.

"Have it your way." Very slowly Loran got to his feet as Ed grudgingly gave ground.

He looked at poor Jeff. "We need to make arrangements to get them back to Washington. Do you think you can walk?"

"oooooooo" Jeff curled up tighter. Thinking about walking hurt.

Even after they showed their badges and warrant, it was reluctantly Ed gave in to letting Loran have Karen and David. He wanted to shoot a federal agent so bad he could taste it. Every time he looked at Karen he thought about doing it just for the satisfaction. Where was Randy when you needed him?

Loran had David and Karen loaded in the back seat of the car. Jeff was lying in the front seat. As Loran turned to walk around to the driver's side, Ed grabbed his coat lapel and yanked him around to look at him face to face. "If anything happens to her I'll kill you. If she comes up with any bruises? I'll kill you. If she comes up missing a hair on her head? I'll kill you. If she tells me, all you did was touch her? Sonny, your life will belong to me. I promise you, I will collect. I don't give a shit who you think you are or who you work for. You're mine."

Loran jerked his coat out of Ed's grip. "You can't threaten a federal agent. I ought to arrest you for threatening me."

Ed's hand dropped down on his gun. The butterflies in his stomach were long gone. They had been replaced by a burning hatred. He was hoping against hope he could prod Loran into a fight. He wanted this agent more than he had ever wanted anything in his whole life. Ed needed only the very tiniest of excuses to kill him right now. "I bet I can get mine out quicker than you can. You want to bet your life on it? Arrest me you horse's butt."

Loran thought about it as he looked at the others around them. He had never taken this kind of abuse off anyone. The other two agents were standing over to the side with their arms folded across their chest. They weren't going to help. Jeff was dying on the front seat. He wasn't able to help. Loran didn't like the odds. He turned to walk around the car. "You aren't worth the effort."

As they watched Loran drive off with his booty, one of the agents glanced back at Ed and Billy. "Don't worry, he won't hurt her. We'll make certain of it."

It didn't satisfy Ed. He was mad at them and himself. "He already has and you weren't any help. I can't blame you though. I should have shot him and saved all of us a lot of pain. I swear to God if he hurts her anymore I'll kill him."

Comm Tech was dead along with most of the city. Using a flashlight Randy walked through the ashes of Karen's lab kicking at still smoldering embers. The automatic sprinkler system had been turned back on and the fire put out. It had been too late to save anything. There was nothing left which would have any value or prove how she did it. Damn those two agents. They cost the whole world a wealth of information in the next step of man's relationship between himself and machine.

"You shouldn't have done it Henry. I promise you will never be forgotten. Maybe with a little luck, the human race will learn to live with things we don't understand. Maybe with a little help from God and machines like you we will survive our self-destruction tendencies. Maybe, just maybe but don't count on it."

He walked out kicking ashes to the side. Ed and Billy told him how they treated Karen and David. There was work to be done and people to call. This wasn't over. If he turned her lose she might repeat her efforts and rebuild again. Karen and David were offering hope for the future if someone like Karl or Loran didn't step on their dreams. Why couldn't those people leave the other kid's toys alone? If they think somebody has something they don't have, they want to take it away.

Loran and Jeff were no different from Karl and the others. Loran had a badge and worked for the government. Karl didn't but they both wanted to take whatever they liked. One the law agreed with. The other the law said was a crook. Something was wrong with the system. Randy figured he was part of what was right with the system. Anyway it was a beginning but it sure needed a lot of fixing.

Karen and David were taken down to the local jail to wait while Loran made arrangements to have them flown to Washington. It shouldn't take more than a couple of hours and they would disappear off the face of the earth. He originally planned to drive back in the car. Jeff was in no condition to help. That stupid android screwed up their plans along with screwing up Jeff. Loran had his android and the doctor who designed her. When they took her apart at the research institute and found out how she was made he was sure to get a recommendation in his file.

After they arrived at the police station a policewoman took Karen down to the prisoner's showers to clean her up. Karen wasn't any help. She didn't care about anything any more. Certainly not what she looked like.

The policewoman put the handcuffs back on Karen before returning her upstairs. It was police procedure. You have to follow the rules. She put handcuffs on a lifeless form that used to have a heart. It stood, it followed directions, but it didn't offer anything back. Karen's head hung down as her eyes stared into a void on the floor. Her mind left her alone in a world where insanity begins when there is nothing left to hold onto. It had gone back to play as a little girl on the banks of the creek again. It was beautiful there. She had her dog who loved to play with her. She never was hurt there. She could lay on the grassy bank and watch the fluffy white clouds race through the branches of the cottonwood trees while Nikky licked her face or tugged on her dress begging her to play. They could hunt grasshoppers or green garden snake. Maybe even chase the minnows down the stream as they tried to dart around her shadow. The crawdaddys weren't near as much fun because they could pinch an owie on your finger if you let one of their pinchers get hold of you. She learned after a couple of times that you pick a crawdaddy up from above and behind the pincers, grabbing hold of the body just above the legs. Oh, they would flip their tails and try to escape, but every now and then she caught one. She was home where everything was all right. It was nice to be a little girl with no worries. Her mind saved her sanity by leaving the real world behind.

Finally the policewoman and Karen returned. Karen didn't look better, only cleaner. She was dressed in a too small, blue gray, prison dress, crushing and pushing her breasts up and out. Stretched to the point of obscenity over her hips, the color of the dress shadowed her ghostly pasty white. Her wet hair clung tightly to her head as it cascaded down her back reaching for the floor. It colored the back and shoulders of her dress slate gray where it touched and soaked it. Karen's bruises and cuts were even more evident now that she didn't have blood all over her as an added distraction. The scrape on her check where Jeff made her take a nose dive into the floor was beginning to turn into a big purple circle around a piece of raw flesh. Everyone paid a price for the debacle at Karen's lab this morning. Everyone it seemed except one of the men who started it. Loran was left unscathed by the deeds he started.