Redd-Y-GUY-3 was just an ordinary trucker in Alpha Complex, shipping goods for PLC (Production, Logistics, and Commisary). Thus, he thought nothing of the fact that he had been ordered to ship yellow clearance food to a yellow clearance cafeteria. He was cleared to touch it; they were cleared to eat it. He passed the goods on to the receiving clerk, Sall- Y-MTA-2, without giving it a second thought. Nor did she think much about it as she ordered her platoon of Orange and Red assistants to carry the boxes, as she had carefully made sure they were cleared to transport Yellow goods by having them fill out the fifty two appropriate forms in triple triplicate. They then stocked the vending machines in the five yellow cafeterias she was in charge of with the contents of the boxes, labeled 'Yellow Surprise'. Sure, Yellow Surprise normally comes in a yellow cup with a foil cap and this shipment of yellow surprise was some kind of yellow cylinder of cake, but it was the right color, and it would certainly be a surprise for people expecting a cup. Besides, she'd already signed for it. When lunchtime came for the clerks at the CPU Office for Creating Unnecessary Paperwork to Justify Our Existence, they filed into the cafeteria, where they had an actual choice between two drinks, two entrees, and two desserts. Some chose a 'Frozen [Deleted for Security Reasons] Shake', and others chose some Yellow Surprise. It wasn't until the first person bit into their Yellow Surprise and discovered something not yellow in it that the trouble started. To be precise, it had Ultraviolet clearance (i.e., white) creamy filling. Which tasted very good but was extremely treasonous. So they handled this in the usual logical Alpha Complex way. Accusations of treason and mass executions by means of each other's weapons. The scrubbots were grumbling for weeks about all the smoking boots. ************** Bubblegum Complex The Story of the Trouble Sabres. #3 "Ratch-23" *********** Brian-V-MSN-6 read the report and smiled. Everything was going just as he had planned. The field test had been a complete success. All they would have to do was to introduce more of the strange yellow cakes into the appropriate site and the people responsible for the death of his clone brother would die horribly. The best part would be that they would kill each other. Time was running out on his main project however. At the rate he was going, he would die before the project which had been the focus of his clone family's entire life came to fruition. Perhaps it was better this way. There would be room for only one ruler of Alpha Complex. Better that his enemies had slain his clone brothers than he. ************* Construction worker Fred-R-STN-3 was getting frustrated. For one thing, his crew was having to work in a nuclear reactor without radiation suits. Now, they HAD turned it off this time, at least. Fred-R-STN-1 had died in a reactor where they hadn't bothered to stop it running before repairs. This was among the reasons that STN sector was now uninhabitable. The flooding of the five lowest levels with self-reproducing Hot Fun hadn't helped. And thanks to his first clone's telepathic abilities, he now knew that Cold Fun was NOT an adequate reactor core coolant. It had been the last psychic transmission he had gotten from his first clone brother. It wasn't the risk of imminent death that frustrated him. In Bubblegum Complex, trying to use a toilet could be a suicidal act. It was the fact that his jackobot, which had an actual nuclear engineering skill package installed, which had cost a LOT of credits to pick up illegally from Free Enterprise, was refusing to enter the reactor. Now, he could appreciate its desire to stay out. He knew only a little about nuclear engineering and he was fairly sure that if he was lucky, he would only be horribly ill after this. But since he would be shot for treason if he didn't go in, then going in was actually the wise action. "I had you radiation proofed. It won't wipe your bot brain!" "But...but...my self-preservation circuitry is too powerful! I'll...um...it will burn me out." The jackobot waved its arms around, trying to be dramatic. "I can feel my brain frying just thinking about it!" "Your obedience circuits are more powerful. I know the three laws of robotics." "That's the FIVE laws. We got sued." "Right. Anyway, you HAVE to obey me!" "Well, if you remove my Asimov circuits so that my self-preservation circuits don't fry me..." "Har har har. I don't think so. NOW GET IN THERE!" He booted the robot through the door and into the main reactor chamber. "AAAAAAAA!!!!!!!" it screamed, then fell over. He frowned. Damn thing was bluffing. I wish I could read bot brains, he thought. His mutation of telepathy only worked on humans, unfortunately. "Get up you mangy bucket of bolts!" He threw a long lead rod at it. When it dodged the rod, he knew for sure it was bluffing. "I can tell you're not dead!" The jackobot surrendered to fate and stood up. It had a roughly human form like all jackobots, although its head had several odd protuberances sautered onto it in order to let it take the readings it needed to put its nuclear engineering skill package to full use. It handed over control of its processor to the skill package; Like most skill packages, it was essentially a very highly focused AI which only understood two things: nuclear engineering and handing back control of the bot brain when it was done. Sometimes it didn't handle the second part very well. A few prelimary readings quickly established the source of the problem. "There's a funbot impaled on four of the control rods. As a result, they've been immobilized. I recommend removing it and the reactor should be back to its normal level of mediocre functionality." Fred-R was relieved. That shouldn't take too long. "Well, let's get to work, I guess." Everyone else shook their heads. "I'm not going in there," Barn-Y-RUB-3, their supervisor said. "I'll wait here. You all go in." Everyone shook their heads again. "Make the jackobot do it!" Chill-R-MTA-4 suggested. "Right. Jackobot, remove the funbot!" Barn-Y ordered. "I'm afraid that funbot removal is not contained within my list of potential subroutines. Please insert a funbot removal and disposal skill package." Barn-Y stomped over, his short yellow hair (which he had dyed when he was promoted to yellow clearance) swishing about and taking on a faint blue sheen due to the radiation he was now absorbing by standing in the doorway of the reactor core. Not that he hadn't been absorbing radiation before through the open doorway, but it hadn't been enough to trigger his mutation, which was having his hair change color when exposed to radiation. Given that even in Bubblegum Complex, this didn't happen often, he had not previously known of his mutation, and thus had joined the Anti-Mutant society, along with three other members of his crew. They all spotted his changing hair color and thought 'Mutant infiltrator', slowly drawing their laser pistols. "Look! Just pick up the funbot and bring it out here!" "Please insert 'picking up funbots' software," the jackobot said. Barn-Y would have argued some more, but then Bilb-O, Frod-O and Loth-O all shot him in the back. Unfortunately for them, orange laser pistols are mostly ineffective against yellow level armor, such as that worn by Barn-Y. At the same time, Yellow laser pistols work quite well on Orange armor. The result was a massive but short-lived firefight. Until twenty seconds later when five combots entered and killed them all. Well, ALMOST all. The jackobot lived, but they carried him off for a good brainscrubbing. ********** Cel-I-AAA-5 carefully screwed the last screw on Priss-Y's new hardsuit. By doubling the diameter of the right arm, it now could hold far more ammunition than before. Which still likely wouldn't be enough, but it was a start. Cel-I-AAA-4 was still experimenting with another possibility, installing a tiny spatial warp generator which would allow Priss-Y to simply tap the Armed Forces ammo dumps. Unfortunately, the test model had a tendency to tap into Hot Fun vats instead. This was NOT what was wanted. Cel-I-AAA-2 was hooked into the PSION ThinkNet, a telepathic network maintained by a group of very powerful psionics in MAI sector, who spent all their time in a trance, telepathically passing messages between members of PSION, the secret society of psychic mutants which she belonged to. Her own telepathic abilities were only strong enough to communicate with her clone sisters, but they were also enough to connect into ThinkNet, although she tended to get massive lag as a result. She'd been waiting four minutes for a reply to her request for anything known about Brian-V-MSN's secret society connections. As usually happened when lag cleared, it all came at once. "He's in Free Enterprise...He was briefly in Amway, but was expelled for failure to sell enough plastic containers...He likes cream cheese...He is a member of the Romantics, as is proven by his collection of old Transformers comics...He stays crispy in milk...WOULD YOU UNLEASH THE BALEFIRE FOR ME, DEMANDRED?...He is not in Anti-Mutant, they've tried to kill him five times, and he's a registered mutant with 'Lack of Compassion' as his registered mutation." Cel-I-AAA-6 was busy having one of her usual precognitive flashes. It was an intensely detailed vision of her having steak for dinner. While her visions always came true, they usually weren't too important. Cel-I-AAA-1, on the other hand, was doing something important. She was trying to convince her superior, Jordache-V-MTA-4, to increase her budget. He was the MTA sector Head of R&D Clothing Research. Unfortunately, he was obsessed with Jeans, which had been his old specialty. That and he insisted everything have a label on its back. Ideally with his name on it. "I need an extra 500,000 credits in order to conduct a field test of the new underwear on a large enough scale in order to see if it can hold up under stress." "You should just use the acidwashing machine that Lev-I-STS-3 developed, Cel-I." He sounded bored. "That's what it is for." "Sir, I don't think bathing our products in hydrocloric acid is quite an accurate reflection of real-life conditions in Bubblegum Complex. Anything that's guaranteed to kill the person is going to leave them unable to care if their clothing held up." When she thought about it, bathing the clothing in hydrocloric acid was actually pretty gentle compared to Infrared level living conditions. "OH piddle. Hydrocloric acid won't hurt anyone." He held up his Bouncy Bubble Beverage bottle, which was full of the brown fizzy liquid known as...well, I'm sure you can guess. "This has phosphoric acid, and I'm just fine, even though I drink at least twelve bottles a day." She sighed. "Fine. Then how about if you try stepping inside Lev-I's Acid Washing machine and see what I mean?" Her first act, upon being appointed 'Acting Director of Clothing Research' during his hospital stay, was to increase her budget by twice as much as she had asked for. Sure, it meant cutting Lev-I's budget, but she had never thought that the effort to develop titanium pants had a real point to it anyway. ********** Mack-Y-2 groaned. Cel-I-AAA hadn't actually had him terminated for treason. Death would have been a quick end to his suffering. Instead, she had pulled strings to get him assigned to repairing food dispensing equipment in the Infrared cafeterias. The fumes alone would have killed a lesser clone. His own Infrared days hadn't been that long ago. He had spent three weeks working as an Infrared for Tech Services before his big break had come. For most people, it took years to get promoted to Red clearance. After that, either promotion or the termination of all your clones came a lot faster. Mack-Y, however, had gotten lucky. He had become the lover of a higher level citizen. Lower level citizens didn't have sexual urges due to hormonal treatments, but a few mutants, harem members and the higher level citizens did. Mack-Y had one advantage most of them didn't, X-ray vision. The one thing enabling him to keep his sanity while working down in the Infrared levels was looking at naked women. Periodically being electrocuted by electricity flowing through his drool was worth it. It was just his luck that the stuck food pipe finally cleared, dumping Infrared Chow on his face just as Ami- Y-AND-3 walked up. She laughed. "Snacking on the job, Mack-Y?" He cleared the food off his face and frowned. "You want some?" "Message for you from Pac-Man," she said. Mack-Y straightened up. Pac-Man was the leader of the MTA sector Pro Tech secret society. He was revered as a near-deity by them because he had once prevented a nuclear reactor from melting down with a strip of tinfoil and a bottle of bouncy bubble beverage. He could fix anything and even had invented some new devices that didn't kill all of the testers horribly. Even Cel-I-AAA-6, who Mack-Y knew was in Pro Tech, was subordinate to Pac-Man. Mack-Y wasn't sure of Pac-Man's real name; they all used code names, although some people knew each other. Mack-Y knew who most of them were, but Pac-Man had made his club disguise impervious to X-Ray vision, so he had never actually seen Pac-Man face to face. "Sock it to me." "Pac-Man wants some diagnostic reports on those hardsuits people have spotted being used in this sector." She handed him a small box. "You have 72 hours to find them and take the readings. Or else we'll find someone else." Failing secret society missions was sometimes dangerous and sometimes suicidal, but never good. Mack- Y wanted to know which kind this was, but was afraid to ask. "What if I can't find them?" "Think glowing crater." *********** As she often did, Linna-Y was eating lunch with her friend Irene-Y from the Department of Office of Clone Replacement Projection Studies. Between them, they filled several tables with all five remaining Linnas and all six of Irene-Y (who had yet to lose a single clone from her family) hogging three four-clone tables. Normally, they would have eaten in different cafeterias, but Irene had put her bureaucratic skills to work and gotten Linna into the slightly nicer CPU cafeteria. The fact that Linna conducted several exercise classes for CPU personel as part of the Armed Forces 'Make those losers in other service groups actually sweat' program helped. The best part of it was that during the sessions, she was brevetted to Blue clearance so she could order Yellows and Greens to exercise. "So you haven't had any more trouble with housing?" Linna-Y-AMA-2 asked. Irene-Y-CNG-1 nodded. "Yeah. I guess our little show of strength impressed him. They did tear down part of it, but we arranged for the people from my department to be reassigned to the part that's still standing." Linna-Y-AMA-3 laughed. "I guess working for CPU does have its advantages." Irene-Y-3 pointed to one of the vending machines by the door. "Note that our vending machines never run out of stuff either. That's the way to get ahead here, Linna. You have to know how everything works. Some people claim you have to backstab and kill your way to the top, but it's not true. You just have to understand how things work. Paperwork makes Bubblegum Complex go round. With the right forms, an Infrared can be more powerful than a High Programmer. And in CPU, you learn EVERYTHING about forms and how to use them. The Paperwork must flow, and all will be content." Soon, the alarm went off to signal that the alarm that would signal that in five minutes the alarm would go off marking the end of dinner would itself go off in five minutes. Before the alarm to warn of the oncoming end of dinner bell itself went off, five Linnas and six Irenes finished eating and left to return to their usual routine, passing a crew of PLC workers on their way to load the food dispensers with dinner. The lowly reds and oranges, wearing uniforms marked with the horizontal yellow stripe that marked them as brevetted to enter a yellow level (and NOT the diagonal yellow stripe marking them as registered mutants. Not that this stops the Anti-Mutant secret society periodically slaughtering PLC Yellow Dining Hall Food Refill crews), stepped aside to let them pass. Irene-1 said to Linna-2, "See you tomorrow!" "I wish I could manage to swing dinners here too," Linna-2 said. "Until you hit Blue clearance, Armed Forces food REALLY stinks." "I hear that R&D is gonna field test some new food production devices in the Armed Forces kitchens," Irene- 3 said. "Maybe that will help." All the Linnas shuddered in fear in unison. *********** Priss-Y-ASA-3 was excited. Vision-B-MTA-3, one of the most famous singers in Bubblegum Complex, had invited her to appear on 'One Vision', her weekly Blue Clearance Variety show. Yes, BLUE clearance. Normally, only Blue Clearance citizens or above were allowed to watch it. She'd seen it a few times, but only during her secret society meetings; the Frankenstein Destroyers, enemies to all bots, were rather fond of a recurring segment on her show called 'Bot Hunter', a short dramatic segment dealing with a Troubleshooter (played by Vision herself, of course) who hunted renegade bots. While it was technically treason to tape it and show it to citizens below Blue clearance, the Frankenstein Destroyers were already comitting treason just by existing, since all secret societies are treasonous in Bubblegum Complex. One of the main reasons that 'One Vision' was a Blue- level show was that it often featured accurate technical information in the dramatic segments, information lower clearance people were not allowed to know existed, such as how to set the clock on a VCR. Priss was a little worried about that; she'd seen people executed for knowing things they weren't supposed to know. Still, she was sure she wouldn't have been invited if she wasn't allowed to see things. Just Priss-Y-ASA-3 had come; the instructions had sent the rest of her clones to an MTA sector HPD&MC waiting room. She had brought Sho-MTA-4 with her; he had begged to come and technically, he was still a junior citizen and thus could go anywhere. As it was, she was now cooling her heels in some secretary's office, trying to NOT be bored to death. Finally, the secretary, Cand-Y- MTA-5, said, "Mr. Holl-I-WUD-1 will see you now." The door burst open and a man dressed in a paisely jacket, a flowered yellow, red, orange, green, blue, and indigo shirt and indigo slacks entered the room. He was wearing mirror shades and a small spoon on a cord around his neck. He walked over to Priss and grabbed her right hand, shaking it vigorously. "Hello, hello, hello, love your work, glad to have you with us, welcome to One Vision, I'm Holl-I-WUD-1, Vision's producer, I think you'll make a fine guest on tonight's show, hey who's the kid?" Priss began to wonder if he had some kind of mutation that let him talk without breathing. Sho jumped to his feet. "I'm Sho-MTA-4! Is it okay if I come and see the show?" "Any friend of Priss is a friend of mine, hey maybe we could use you for 'The Safe and Entirely Non- Treasonous Junior Citizen Adventures Show', ever watched it?" Holl-I-WUD-1 smiled at Sho as if he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sho's eyes lit up. "YEAH! I'd love to be on that show! The way Nobel-TNT-3 blows things up is soooooo cool!" "Perfect, Cand-Y, take the boy down to costuming, we can fit him into today's episode, boy, let her know what kind of bombs you like." Sho had been hustled off by Cand-Y before Priss entirely knew what had happened. He turned to Priss. "Sorry about your friend but we really don't need kids on the set but I do like kids so I thought he would like this better, you don't mind do you?" "I'm just raring to go. So what exactly am I going to do?" "Well, we're going to give you a chance to sing your latest hit; it seems to be a big hit with the blues according to the latest polls, and then you get a guest shot on the 'Bot Buster' segment. Ever heard of it?" Priss tried to decide if she would be executed if she admitted she had seen it. However, the joy in her heart was so busy making her eyes light up and her body jump up and down that it didn't REALLY matter what she said. "I heard a blue mention some such thing. I'll happily do it for the good of our complex and in the service of Friend Computer!" Priss normally never kissed butt, but she would have happily cleaned the entire complex with her tongue to get on 'Bot Buster'. "May I ask who our director will be?" "Yes." Priss waited, then realized what to do. "Who is he?" "I'm afraid you're not cleared for me to actually answer that." "Umm...how am I going to know who to take orders from?" "We're going to brevet you to Blue clearance. Once I get the appropriate paperwork. Until then..." He pulled out a yellow bandana. "Tie this around your eyes. That way you can't see anything above your clearance." She did so. "Okay." "Now follow me." This was easier said than done. ************* Nene was quite pleased with her new quarters. For one thing, her and Naok-O's clone families now got to live together, and the Naok-O's were her best friends. Secondly, while the room was smaller than her red dormitory, it had only half as many people living in it; two complete clone families. It had actual STORAGE SLOTS, and she got real used shoeboxes to store her possessions in! No more having to tape all her disks to her underwear and carrying them everywhere. Sure, she'd have to still carry the really important ones with treasonous information since the room didn't actually have a door, let alone a lock, but having somewhere to leave her extra disks would help a lot. And a drug dispenser with lots of Wakey Wakey Pills. Given Nene consumed enough Wakey Wakey for five people when hacking, this was a MAJOR plus. Nene-3 carefully put up her precious Teela-O-MLY poster by the door. "Isn't she cool?" she asked Naok-O-3. "Yeah. I bet we could do as well as her if we ever got to go on missions instead of answering the phones." Naok-O sighed. "I guess it does mean we don't get killed as much either, though." "So you really want to go on a mission?" Nene asked. She was starting to get a good idea. "Yeah. I mean, the first time YOU saw combat, you got promoted. It's dangerous, but hey, that's what low numbered clone sisters are for," Naok-O-3 said. "I HEARD THAT!" Naok-O-1 shouted. A brawl was soon in progress. ************* Cel-I-AAA-4 dropped by the MTA sector R&D vehicles lab. Raven-B-DOC-5, a clone so old he had to die his hair in order to not commit treason, was working on a van with a wrench. Hitting it repeatedly didn't seem to help, unless he was trying to beat out a dent. Or make a new one. "Hello, Raven-B. How's the experiment coming?" "Well, it's passing the impact test. And that new device you gave me worked quite well, although it took a while to cover the van with the fabric. I can't figure out how it works, but it does. Who invented this, anyway?" "One of my subordinates," Cel-I-AAA said. "I promoted him a clearance level since I'm currently in charge due to my boss being incapacitated. He makes good underwear." Raven-B blinked. "This was invented for..." "Color changing underwear. Don't ask. Anyway, is it ready for me to field test?" "It will be tomorrow. I've already erased it from the records. Send Mack-Y." "Good. I've arranged for a large credit transfer to your budget. We didn't really need that edible clothing project." She laughed. "Why would anyone want edible underwear, anyway?" Well, besides Mack-Y, she thought. ************* "I have to WHAT?" Priss-Y stared at Holl-I-WUD. Well, if she could have seen through the blindfold, she would have, but she wasn't a commy mutant with x-ray vision. A mutant, yes, but she wasn't even aware of it. The fact that many mutations had subtle effects and didn't require conscious control by their possessors played a major role in the fact that a society in which nearly everyone was a mutant could still fear and hate mutants and in which the secret society 'Anti-Mutant' was in fact 99% composed of mutants. "We needed a guest star to play the leader of the evil Corpore Metal bot-lovers, and Friend Computer suggested you. You wouldn't want to disappoint Friend Computer, would you?" His voice was slower and more controlled than usual, and Priss suspected this meant she could easily end up as smoking boots if she gave the wrong answer. Gritting her teeth, she said, "Anything in the service of the Computer." Maybe I can sabotage the bots I'm supposed to 'lead', she thought. Yeah. And get some valuable technical information we can use to sabotage more bots. And more bots! She began to laugh maniacally. ************ Brian-V-MSN-6 frowned at the bot lying on the table. This was a rare occurrence. Brian liked bots...a lot. "There's something...about the appearance of this bot. That's not right." He turned to Yosh-I-DAA-4, one of MTA sector's top Bot Research scientists in MTA sector R&D. He was also one of its most frustrated scientists. He was starting to get old and go bald, but despite his many contributions, he was unable to get past Indigo because the next rung up was held by Machinegal-V-MTA-6, who was apparently content to be Director of Bot Research for all of eternity. He was old with white hair that had been died purple so it wouldn't be treasonous, and everyone kept expecting Machinegal to die, but he just wouldn't die, even after Yosh-I-DAA-3 had reprogrammed Machinegal's personal scrubbot to kill him in his sleep. It hadn't worked. Then a mysterious attack by 'an army of Corpore Metal Bots' had killed off not just Yosh-I- DAA-3, but also Yosh-I-DAA-2 and 5. Yosh-I-DAA-1 had died years ago when a virus had fused everyone in DAA sector into a giant monster, and so, now Yosh-I-DAA-4 was down to just himself and clone brother 6. Yosh-I was quite sure Machinegal had been behind the attack, but he couldn't prove it. But he was willing to do work for Mason on the side because he knew Mason had the resources to get Machinegal killed. This project was a very special bot with a special brain. It was his masterpiece. "Every little feature is necessary. Trust me, Mason, this will do everything you want." "Are you sure?" "Well, the problem is that we can't actually TEST it yet due to your exact specifications." Mason frowned. "So it might not work." Yosh-I-DAA said, "Look, you only gave me enough funds to build one. And I can't test it in advance. So unless you give me enough money to build a test model..." He thought a moment, then grinned. "How fast can you build one?" "Three days if you can get me the necessary materials fast enough." "Deal." ************* Armed forces exercise programs are quite vigorous, accounting for both the high level of health of Armed Forces personnel despite being forced to eat slop most people wouldn't feed their pig, if they had one, and also accounting for the high casualty rate in a force that has never actually faced a real invasion from the outside except by primitives armed with spears and rocks. And the occasional giant monster. At the moment, it was the part of the exercise program known as 'Dodging Live Laser Fire'. Linna especially enjoyed this part as she got to cut loose with a gatling laser on various red and orange level morons. Right in the middle of the exercise, just as Linna had finally taken down one of her old squadmates who had hidden a live grenade in Linna's soup as a practical joke, the voice of the computer cut in over the loudspeaker. "LINNA-Y-AMA-2 WILL REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO MTA SECTOR TROUBLESHOOTERS HEADQUARTERS FOR A MISSION OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE. YOU HAVE BEEN CAREFULLY PICKED FOR YOUR SKILLS, WHICH WILL BE HIGHLY IMPORTANT DUE TO [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS]. YOU WILL EQUIP YOURSELF WITH [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS DUE TO THE PRESENCE OF RED AND ORANGE LEVEL PERSONELL], THEN PROCEED TO [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS BECAUSE THIS LINE IS UNSECURED], WHERE [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS] WILL BRIEF YOU ON YOUR MISSION, IN WHICH YOU WILL LIKELY EXPERIENCE LOWER THAN A 400% CASUALTY RATE. THIS MISSION WILL BE FUN AND SAFE AND DEFINITELY WILL NOT RESULT IN YOUR TERMINATION FOR TREASON. THE MISSION PASSWORD IS 'KONYA WA HURRICANE'. ANY UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL EXPLOITING THIS PASSWORD WILL BE TERMINATED. THIS PASSWORD IS YELLOW CLEARANCE." The Reds and Oranges who filled the room all screamed and ran. Linna contemplated terminating them for treason, but decided she probably didn't have time. "How soon should I report there, Friend Computer?" And where do I report? Maybe I should ask for a repeat. "13:15, Citizen." It was 13:05. Linna ran. *********** The Clone Vats are a dark and musty place whose completely unhygenic nature probably bears much of the responsibility for the fact that most of the population of Bubblegum Complex (over 99%) are mutants. The rest of the responsibility is borne by the fact that 99% of the staff has no clue what it is doing and simply monitors various screens and displays, pushing buttons when the manual says to push them. Every once in a while, someone nods off and certain nutrients critical to the development of the higher faculties of the brain are not delivered to a baby clone, or certain waste products whose build up can cause paranoia, violent tendencies, mental retardation, or a tendency to watch talk shows are not drained off at a sufficiently high rate. Some clone who oversees a critical process might be executed for treason, and replaced with someone who isn't actually cleared to read the manuals. Only the handful of geniuses who actually know how it all works are able to keep the system actually going. Most of them aren't very corrupt. They're totally corrupt. You want a new clone? They can get you one. You want a clone made to specifications, like breathing fire or looking like Teela-O-MLY? No problem. You want the clone production of GOR sector sabotaged so that they all grow up with the compulsion to wear scanty clothing? That'll cost a bit more, but no problem. They form a secret society, known as the Clone Rangers. Ikari-G-NDO was one of them. Several of them, since his whole clone family belonged to that society, actually. A second one of them was Akag-I-RIT-3, whom he was meeting in the NRV sector Clone Vats. Theoretically, NRV sector didn't exist. It was a secret base of Internal Security's Special Forces, with only the most loyal personnel. In theory. In practice, it was so infiltrated by secret societies using its resources as tools for their own plans that you couldn't throw a stick three inches without hitting five traitors. Its clone vats were no exception; they were one of the Clone Rangers' most lucrative resources. Akag-I-RIT-3 was tall and blonde, wearing a purple reflec bodysuit under a blue laboratory coat. A sonic pistol hung at one hip and she was carrying an electronic notepad. "What can I do for you, Ikari?" she asked. "I need six more Rei clones. Quickly." He wished he could have gone to someone else; Akag-I hated the Rei clones, but they were cheap and easy to make and perfect for what he needed them for. "I thought they weren't letting Greens keep harems," she said, emphasizing the word Green. Once, he had been Indigo, and she had been his green level subordinate, back in their MT3 sector days. She had never been able to prove he had been shagging the Rei clones, indeed, back in those days, she had been so pumped full of hormone suppressants she hadn't even understood the concept of sex or why she had felt attracted to him or what they did sometimes in his office or why she liked it. "Indeed, even Indigoes don't normally do it." She did. For a moment, she contemplated trotting out her tame clone of him, but dismissed the idea. That would be petty. "Not for a harem. I need to...deal with certain individuals." "I can do it, but it's going to cost you. How many do you need?" "At least three." "Well, I can make a six-pack fairly easily. More than that, and it gets more expensive, but you know that." He knew that all too well. Back in the old days, he had run through enough clones for five normal clone families. He had to be more careful now; Greens didn't have the resources that Indigos did. Things would be different when the Clone Complementation Project was finished...But first he needed to just plain slaughter a few annoying people. ************ o/~ When he lets loose, half the Complex shakes. It's Citizen Love-U's travelling Internal Security Squad. o/~ The harmonic strains of noted Bubblegum Complex singer Neild-I-MND-3's classic anthem echoed through the hallways of MTA sector Troubleshooter headquarters. Linna tried to ignore it, running about madly between briefing rooms, trying to find the right one. She'd already been almost terminated twice when she opened the door into blue level briefings. Finally, she spotted a door with a piece of red paper on it that said, 'Red Clearance Briefing Room. Scheduled Briefing: Mission Catch-23. Mission Group: Linna-Y- AMA-2. Nene-O-NVA-1. Naok-O-MTA-1. Irene-Y-CNG-1. [Deleted for Security Reasons] Shagg-Y-MTA-1. Mission Briefing Officer: [Deleted for Security Reasons] Acceptable Casualty Level: 300%. This Sign May Be Closer Than It Appears.'. The ACL failed to please her. At least I'll get to boss Nene around, Linna thought. Why the hell did I get called up for a Troubleshooter mission, anyway? I'm not assigned to the Troubleshooters. She opened the door and walked in. Most of the room was plain metal, painted red, with a long red bench across most of the side of the room by the door. The far side of the room had another door and was painted blue. A high podium with a built-in terminal sat on that side of the room, which was separated from her side by transparent, but dirty, glass. A collection of women, except for one guy, who was wearing a yellow t-shirt and black jeans, sat on the bench. There were two narrow black stripes across his shirt; Linna couldn't tell if it was a fashion statement, or if the black stripes were supposed to designate the long yellow stripe between them as the diagonal stripe that was put on the uniform of registered mutants. Since the registered mutant stripe was yellow, it often didn't show up well on yellow uniforms. He looked scraggly, with a short brown beard on his chin (non-regulation), unkempt hair (non-regulation), and a dazed look (not EXPRESSLY prohibited by regulations). A strange brown and furry bot was lying on the floor next to him; it had four legs and a strangely shaped head with a pronounced snout. For a bot, it was remarkably well articulated and looked almost alive. The bot wore a nametag identifying it as 'Scoob-Y-3' and the man by it had a big yellow happy face button with his name 'Shagg-Y-MTA-1'. She knew most of the women. Nene was easy to recognize, and she knew Irene as well. The woman next to Nene in the ADPolice uniform had a big name tag that said, 'Naok-O'. I guess the bot must have been the one deleted for security reasons, she thought. Probably an experimental model. Sitting down by Nene and Irene, she said, "Hi, Irene!" then turned to Nene and said, "Hello, I'm Linna-Y." Nene stared blankly, then her eyes widened. "Oh, right. Hi! Nice to meet you! This is my friend Naok-O. We both work here, but this is our first mission. Normally, we do the switchboards." Shagg-Y said, "I dunno why I'm here. I work for HPD&MC, testing new drugs." He petted Scoob-Y on the head. "And this is my drug dog." "What does a drug dog do?" Irene asked. "Spends most of his time tripping on various chemicals," Shagg-Y said. "And he's got a knack for finding any drugs we've left lying around, although he usually snorts them before we can stop him." He pulled out a small bag of what looked like Crunchetym Algae Chips, except for the swirling colors on them. He popped one in his mouth. "Want one?" Everyone grabbed some chips; they tasted quite good. "What's this called?" Linna asked. Turning slightly green as he spoke, Shagg-Y said, "We call them Scoob-Y snacks, in his honor. He'll do anything for a Scoob-Y snack." He tossed one to the 'dog', which happily began to munch on it. Linna shook her head. Every time she moved her head, whatever she looked at seemed to trail streaks of color. I must be getting sick, she thought. Hmm. So I've got two switchboard operators, a secretary, a pharmacist, and a junkfood-addicted dog as my team. I think I'd better pray they just need us to lick envelopes or something simple like that. ********** Cel-I-AAA-5 was supposed to be reading through reports and working on budgetary manners in order to fully exploit the Cel-I-AAA family's temporary control of her departmental budget, but instead, she was hacking. While she didn't have the raw talent of Nene, skill and patience usually made up for it. Also, she could use Jordache-V's clearance and get into more files from his computer, then blame him if she got caught. As it was, she had found large payments coming from PLC to Bot research. Time to probe a little deeper. ************* Linna's growing depression was interrupted by the arrival of the briefing officer, who was dressed in a stylish blue suit, and a somewhat less stylish blue sack over his head. Only his dark brown eyes could be seen through the two small oval holes he had cut in the front of the sack. He walked over to the podium and turned on the microphone. "CaN You HEAR mE?" he asked, his voice distorted electronically. "Groovy sound effects," Shagg-Y said. "Like, I can feel your voice through the floor. You've got base." "Yes, sir, I hear you sir," Linna said, saluting. The others acknowledged hearing him with less enthusiasm, but still a palpable level. "VeRY GooD," he said. "Welcome to mission Catch- 23. YOU HAVE BEEN picKed for your SKIlls and bzzt...crackle...whine... ABILITY TO Secure a COMMu...bzzt... controlled...bazzlkdd... PLC base in WMT sector." Linna tried to think of something, anything she could remember about WMT sector. It had a large military and bot manufacturing plant, but that was all she could remember. "YOU wiLl secure the BAse and RECOver Bot parts STOLen by the comMUNISTS. THEY have inFILtrated IT and haVE total CONTROL of WMT sector. Trust no one in WMT sector; shoot everything that movES IF IT CHAllenGEs you. EVEN THE ULTravIOLets are NOT to BE trusted THERE. Only those who GIVE THE MISSION password are to be TRUSTED. KILL all personel AT WMT sector PLC; We don't WANT to let the coMMIes know WE are ON TO ThEm." He slid a yellow piece of paper through a small slot in the glass divider that split the room in half. "THIS has DIREctions ON the EQUIPMENT you mUsT SEcure and bzzt...crackle...bssst...REPORT TO R&D FOR EXPERIMENTAL EQUIPMENT AND PLC FOR MISSION EQUIPMENT. FIRST, howEVER, I must give you YOUR team aSSIGNments." "Can I be Team Leader?" Nene asked eagerly. "An Orange commanding Yellows? I don't think so," Irene-Y said. "THE team LEAD...bzzt...crackle...IS Linna-Y-AMA-2." The blue briefing officer threw a badge through the slot. Linna scrambled forward and took it, also picking up the mission sheet, then returned to her seat. "CITIZen SCOOb-Y is appointed DEPUTY TEAM LEADER and will taKE OVer if LINNa-Y is incapaCITATED." A collar with a deputy badge attached was thrown through the slot. Scoob-Y fetched it in his mouth and Shagg-Y helped him put it on. "Citizen Irene-Y-MTA is appointed Loyalty Officer." Another badge; another scramble; another return to the bench. Briefly, the voice distortion had clonked out. Now it came back in spades. "SDLFKDJS...bzzt, crackle, pop...NE...skdklsdf... Equipment Gal." The badge came through, and Nene and Naoko both looked at each other. It had to be one of them; Shagg-Y was no gal. "You take it, Nene," Naok-O said. As Nene went to take the badge, the briefing officer continued. "SHAGG-Y is appointed Hygiene, Robotics, and Truant Officer." Shagg-Y smacked into the barrier when he tried to get his badge; it took three tries to not bang his head on it as he picked the badge up. "FINaLly, CItiZen NaOk-O is appointed Communications officer." "COMMUNICATIONS?" Naok-O frothed. "I do THAT ALL THE TIME!" "DO YOU Doubt ThE JudgeMENT OF friend... zzzzzzttt...?" Panicked, she said, "I pledge myself to Big F...to Friend Computer!" Linna frowned. That sounded suspiciously like a secret society slogan. Not that Linna could REALLY feel righteous about such a thing, being a member of the Otaku secret society, but still...the Otakus just watched Old Reckoning Animation and tried to live like their character of choice; Linna's patron saint was an indigo clearance Troubleshooter named 'Ke-I'; Linna was still trying to figure out why an indigo frequently wore only yellow clearance reflec armor and why the armor was so scanty, but she liked Ke-I's style. It had, among other things, inspired her to take up wearing headbands. She had also increased her martial arts skills by extensive viewing of the MTA sector Otakus' collection of martial arts animation. Irene was also an Otaku; it was one reason Linna could trust her. No one else seemed to have noticed the slip. Naok-O took the badge grudgingly and slumped back to her seat. Linna said, "Sir, may I ask what your name is? So we know who to contact if we have trouble?" "NO, you MAY not. You aRE nOt cleARED to Know my NAME. ConTACT no ONE whIle on this mission. IT might cOMPRomise the security OF THE MISSION. HOWEver, you CAN use the mission PASSWORD to verify if ANyONE is cleared to know or SHOULD someone SHOW up CLAIming to BE me. Any questions?" "Will there be any..." Shagg-Y suddenly sounded nervous. "G..ghosts on this mission?" "YOU ARE NOT CLEARED TO KNOW WHAT A GHOST IS." The briefing officer made a tickmark on a sheet. "GO to PLC for MISSion EquIPment, then procede to TAKE OVER the...I mean...Go to R&D for EXPERIMENTal EquipMEnt, then follow the SHEET's directions to WMT seCtoR. Go NOW." He turned and left. Linna frowned. This was a trap. She could smell it. She turned to the others. "Okay, people, let's move out. This is going to be a dangerous mission." She glanced over at Shagg-Y, who was beginning to shake. "Are you sick?" "I haven't had any Faster Faster in the last fifteen minutes and I'm starting to have withdrawal signs," Shagg-Y said, starting to shake and sweat copiously. "Anybody wanna trade with me?" Naok-O asked hopefully. Irene-Y jotted something down on her clipboard. "Switching mission assignments is treason." She glanced over at Naok-O. "And Treason is punishable by death. But that won't be necessary, right?" "No, no, not at all." Why did I get assigned a bunch of clerks and a drug addict on this mission, Linna asked herself. This has to be a death trap, but is it for me or for someone else? Or maybe there was a glitch and we got the wrong mission; this one sounds like we're being sent to rob WMT sector's PLC, but why send people who won't succeed? Unless they want us all to die, but...I need more information, which means I need Nene to hack into the full mission report. I should split the team, but then I have to put a furry bot in charge of one group, unless...ahhhh. She smiled. "Scoob-Y, escort Shagg-Y to PLC and pick up our mission equipment. Naok-O, accompany them. Nene-O, Irene-Y, you're with me, we're going to R&D. Rendevous in 3 hours at the MTA sector Transtube station. Check?" "Rokay," Scoob-Y said, heading off with Shagg-Y and Naok-O following him. Linna headed out into the corridor, then said, "Nene, go find out what is REALLY going on. You have two and a half hours. Meet us at the orange cafeteria by the Transtube station." Nene nodded and ran off. "What about us?" Irene asked. "And you think it'll take them three hours to go to PLC?" "We have to go to R&D. Which means we may not be alive in three hours. I would have sent the others, but that would have GUARANTEED no one survived. As it is, this should give us time to do that, and for you to go grease the bureaucratic wheels to get us the stuff we will REALLY need instead of what they issued us and for us to go drop by MTA Otaku HQ and see if we can get any useful info out of the Otaking." Each Otaku 'club' was lead by an Otaking or Otaqueen, of course. ************ Naok-O was pleased to discover that MTA sector PLC had opened a separate 'Troubleshooter Mission Requisition Office', which was a hexagonal room about five meters on each side with a door in each of the walls. In the center sat a single desk covered with ice, as were the walls. The air conditioning was a bit...out of control, and after five seconds in the room, she was shivering. So was Shagg-Y, but that probably had something to do with him popping five green pills as they entered the room. The clerk, a brown haired male clone named Mund-Y- ANE-3, was staring at the paperwork on his desk, not moving at all, when they entered the room. In fact, ice was forming on him. "Rero," Scoob-Y said. "Rere is rour mission requipment?" Mund-Y didn't move. His eyes were open and he was breathing. Somehow. Through the ice. Naok-O's eyes widened. A commy mutant! In PLC! "I think he's a mutant, making the ice! Should we terminate him?" "Ro." Scoob-Y said. Naok-O, who was feeling tense, took that as a yes. She drew her orange laser and fired. The shot melted the ice. Mund-Y blinked and looked up. "Hello?" Naok-O prepared to fire again, but Shagg-Y knocked her arm to one side and she shot the air conditioning controls. The temperature plummeted more. "Rero," Scoob-Y said. "Rere is rour mission requipment?" "What's your mission number?" "Ratch-23," Scoob-Y said. "Catch-23," Naok-O said. "Make up your mind," Mund-Y said. "Ratch or Catch? Who's in charge here?" "Scoob-Y is Deputy Team Leader," Shagg-Y said. "Right. Ratch-23." He fumbled through his paperwork. "Ahh, here we go." He handed a voucher to Scoob-Y, who took it in his mouth. "Take this to the main PLC desk. They'll give you your equipment. You can get in the Voucher lane." Naok-O had to shoot the ice off her shoes to move in order to get out of the office. She felt like shooting a few other things too. ************ Priss tried to read the script through her blindfold; this wasn't easy as she didn't have X-ray vision. Soon, her problem was solved when Holl-I-WUD took off her blindfold and handed her a form, which she signed. "What is this?" "You are now brevetted to Blue Clearance for the duration of your appearance on One Vision." He handed her a blue tunic and pants with a diagonal yellow stripe from her left shoulder to her right shoulder. "Wear this until we send you to costuming." "Hey, I am NOT a registered mutant!" Priss was sure she wasn't a mutant. "This designates you are a yellow brevetted to blue. If you were a registered mutant, the stripe would go from your right shoulder to your left hip. Anyway, put this on, then come with me; it's time for you to meet the rest of the cast!" Priss quickly took off her old outfit and put on the blue costume, which fit her perfectly. I could get to like this, she thought. ************* The average R&D facility radiates fear in about a five mile radius to anyone with any common sense. Some of this is due to the periodic mushroom clouds which erupt from such facilities. Some of this is because being asked to test R&D equipment is like playing Russian Roulette over and over for days at a time. Some of this is because if you showed the program 'Dexter's Laboratory' to a typical R&D tech, they would worship Dexter as a god. MTA sector R&D was different. It did not radiate an aura of fear. It was bright, shiny, and clean. Citzens walked by it every day without fear. There was a simple reason for this; it was labeled 'Hot Fun Storage Facility'. This was because it had at one time BEEN a Hot Fun Storage Facility. After the old R&D facility had become dimensionally inverted and shrank in on itself, turning into a small plushie of Teela-O-MLY, it had become necessary to build a new facility. Twenty Yearcycles later, the funding for a new facility was still tied up in CPU paperwork and R&D had moved to a series of temporary facilities, moving on once the old ones became inhospitable to human life. Three years ago, they had moved into this site, which had proven remarkably indestructible. The huge circular rooms, made of corrosion proof metal alloys, had also proven to be largely dent proof, while the huge valves served remarkably well for containing poisonous gases. R&D's casualty rate had dropped to half its previous level and five other sectors had followed suit, moving their R&D branches into Hot Fun Containment Centers, with good results in four cases. Sadly, in TWT sector, they had forgotten to remove the Hot Fun first. MTA sector R&D was renowned for three major areas of research: bot research, clothing research, and cloning technology research. While other research was conducted, these three areas actually had at least one person who was both sane and competent. Indeed, in bot research, they actually had multiple competent people, which had spawned a great deal of jealousy in other sectors and had caused at least five attempts to destroy MTA R&D. Linna and Irene walked down one of the pipes, following the Orange clearance doorguard, Ring-O-STR-3. He opened a valve at an intersection and said, "Norman- B-ATZ-2 will meet you inside." They stepped through the valve into a huge metal cylinder, about thirty meters tall and twenty meters in radius, with a desk in the middle, a huge curving cabinet along a third of the wall, and dozens of scattered chairs. A neatly dressed Blue clearance scientist with his hair dyed blue and cut short sat at the desk, filling out paperwork. A large green clearance box sat next to him on the floor. He looked up. "State your mission number." "Catch-23," Linna said. His eyes widened for a second, then returned to normal. With a shaky voice, he said, "State your mission password." "Konya Wa Hurricane," she said. "Now do we get our stuff or not?" With a gulp, he bent down and picked up the green clearance box and tossed it to Linna, then ran to the ladder that ran up the side of the tank to the valve at the top of the room, turned the valve, climbed out, and closed it behind him. Irene looked at the box. "Can we take that? We're not cleared to touch it." "Too late," Linna said, opening it. It contained three items: a two by three inch card with a magnetic strip decorated with colorfully but childishly drawn characters, a spraycan labeled 'Communist Repellant', and a small rack of eight bottles, each containing a different color of water. The rack had an attached instruction booklet, 90% of which was covered with blue stickers marked [Deleted for Security Reasons]. The remainder called these 'Aqua-Mutation Induction Bombs'. Apparently, you threw them at your opponents. The results, however, were deleted for security reasons. She put the card in her utility belt, handed Irene the spraycan, and took the rack under her left arm, then dropped the box. "Well, that was easy. Let's go check in at the club." *********** It was dinner time at the Office of Clone Replacement Projection Studies. Lots of clones filed into their cafeteria and selected their meals at the menu selectorbot. They sat down and ate their food quietly. The bot watched quietly, anticipating a massacre; it knew about the Ultraviolet Filling in the Yellow Surprise. Instead, the clerks expressed mild surprise, then quietly filed out after eating. Quite disappointed, the bot soon radioed his friends to tell them something had gone wrong. *************** Priss stared mindlessly at Vision-B-MTA-3, an elegant clone with short brown hair streaked with red, orange, yellow, green, and blue streaks. Her costume was a patchwork of colors as well, a tight fitting bodysuit that would have been quite sexy if the majority of her fans had any idea what sex was. Her eyes were a deep blue, and she had a pleasant smile. "Nice to meet you, Priss," she said, shaking Priss' hand. "I understand you will be playing the Evil Doctor Botlover on the Bot Buster segment. And singing for us?" Eyes still wide, Priss continued to stare. "Yes. For you, I can love bots. Everything I do, I do it for you." Priss normally didn't grovel this much, even when at risk of termination, but if she had had any idea what love was, she would likely have believed herself to be in that state. Worship would have been another good term. "This is just so...totally...wow." Vision smiled. "I'm sure you'll enjoy your appearance." "Not as much as I will!" Priss said, her brain swiftly turning into jello. ************* Naok-O couldn't believe it. The Voucher lane at PLC was empty. Normally, you couldn't get a piece of lint without standing in line for hours if you were below Blue clearance. And even a Blue might wait a good thirty minutes for lint. Scoob-Y dropped the drool soaked voucher in front of Scared-Y-CAT-2, a calico haired woman who looked rather nervous. Possibly a side effect of her hair dye. "Rero. Rere Ratch-23." Scared-Y hung back and wouldn't touch it. "There could be germs in that drool." "Then you can just give us the stuff," Shagg-Y said. "And not touch it." Scared-Y looked at the form. "I can't read this. What's your mission?" "Ratch-23," Scoob-Y said. Naok-O frowned. That wasn't right, was it? The five large crates indicated that either Scared- Y was illiterate, or there really was a Ratch-23 mission. She decided to just take the goods and go before she had to wait in a line. *********** Nene hacked merrily away. Things didn't look too good. The mysterious briefing officer was supposedly a 'Junior-G-ORG-3', however, the records of this person's career had been created about six hours before the mission briefing, or possibly simply altered. Given that the briefing officer had been wearing Blue, this didn't seem too likely. Various back trail records were missing; he had supposedly attended JC Creche #5 in ORG sector, but it had no records of him. A run through INTSEC files revealed no evidence of Communist infiltration in WMT sector, although it did record heavy Church of Amway activity. There had been heavy Corpore Metal activity, but the head of the PLC dispensary clerks, one Tank-G-IRL-3, had exposed the infiltrators and terminated them all in a great purge about six monthcycles ago. This was the same dispensing station that their mission group was targeted to strike. We're going to be used, probably by Corpore Metal, to wipe out a group of their enemies and steal equipment from PLC, she thought. Next time I hack into a mission and insert my name on the roster, I'm going to be more careful about WHICH mission. She sighed. It's too late to get out. There has to be some way to get enough proof to appeal to someone higher up without hacking into it, though...Can't use data I'm not cleared to see as proof. I'd best let Cel-I-AAA know about this, she decided. ********** Shagg-Y, Scoob-Y, and Naok-O got to the Transtube station long before they had been told to, so they sat down to examine their mission equipment. The first crate was full of Yellow clearance carpet in meter sized squares. The second was full of buckets of Ultraviolet paint. They all instinctively shied back from the paint; it was treason for them to even look at it, probably, and definitely to touch it. "I...should we really have this?" Naok-O asked. As he popped a purple pill, Shagg-Y's eyes glazed. "Whoa..the walls are spinning." "Ron't row," Scoob-Y said. Naok-O sighed and moved on to the next crate. "Wow! A complete set of Teela-O posters!" She counted through them carefully to be sure. Yes, all 245 of the complete set with a retail value of 100,000 credits for a complete mint condition collection. Lime flavor was only worth half as much. "They've even got the rare one where the artist had to be terminated for dressing her as a high programmer!" "Hey...I can see her waving at me," Shagg-Y said as he stared at one of the posters. A crate of paintbrushes and high pressure paint sprayers and a crate full of caulking guns, tacks, little balls of gummy stuff, three cases of Bouncy Bubble Beverage and an exacto knife finished off the equipment list. Naok-O frowned. "Did they expect us to redecorate the site too?" "We could make it a psychedelic wonderland!" "But we'll be terminated if we use the paint." "All artists must suffer for their work." ************ The Otaking of MTA sector was handsome with hair dyed blue and arranged into spikes. He was actually indigo clearance, but affected the hairstyle of an old animated citizen. It had taken a little effort to get ahold of him, but he had happily met them at the Otaku headquarters, an old HPD&MC film viewing room which had been evacuated after the old Otaking had arranged for it to be labeled a 'nuclear waste contamination site'. This guaranteed them privacy as the entire building was abandoned. Meanwhile, the cleaning up of the site had been delayed by various bureaucratic means; it was now scheduled to occur in about five yearcycles. "What can I do for you?" "We're trying to find out more about this catch-23 mission we've been sent on," Linna said. "So what's the dilemma?" She blinked. "I just told you." "Oh, the mission is called Catch-23?" Irene nodded impatiently. "Yes." "Have you made out your wills yet?" ****************** During the transtube ride to WMT sector, Linna began trying to put together something which could at least masquerade as a plan. Combining what Nene had told her and what the Otaking had told her, she was quite sure they were walking into a trap. But how to get out of it? If they refused to obey orders, they could be terminated for treason. Unless they had ironclad proof. She had sent a recording with her suspicions to her other clones; at least the knowledge wouldn't die with her. Nene had been unable to get ahold of any of the Cel-I- AAAs, although she'd left her a message. Priss had vanished off somewhere. All the other Nenes were stuck back at Troubleshooter HQ at the ready room, waiting to be called in if Nene-1 died on the mission. Ditto for Linna's clonesisters. There has to be SOMETHING we can do, she thought. Something... *********** Walton-I-SAM-3 was worried. He had been very happy when WMT sector PLC had been selected for the filming site for the latest episode of 'Botbusters'. That was BEFORE the tip came through that a group of Communists posing as Troubleshooters were going to try to break into WMT sector PLC and make off with many valuable bot parts and other goods. He had to stop them without the Botbuster cast learning the attack had even happened; if he cancelled the filming, he might never get another chance at the guest shot they had offered him, for one thing, and for another thing, he would lose prestige. He also would have to give a reason, and he couldn't tell them the truth, because they would want to know how he had found out. Since he had gotten the tip from a contact in Free Enterprise, and being in that society was TREASON, this wasn't a very viable option. Luckily, the twenty Mark V Guardbots he had activated should make short work of any attackers, although they did seem a bit erratic; the bot brains had to be sent to another sector to be reprogrammed to function as Guardbots, and they apparently hadn't fully adjusted yet. Two of them kept trying to scrub everything they saw, another one told bad jokes all the time, and a fourth one kept trying to perform surgery with his slugthrower and monofilament whips. Still, they would probably not kill the people they were protecting before the film shoot was finished. ********* Scattered across MTA sector, a large number of clones sat at isolated cubicles, filling out Treason Report Forms and electronically filing them. The Office of Clone Replacement Projection Studies was about to be badly in need of replacement clones themselves. ********** When Irene-Y found the 'Permission to use Ultraviolet and lower clearance paint' and the 'Permission to enter Ultraviolet Clearance Areas Just Painted By The Bearer' forms at the bottom of the crates that Shagg-Y, Scoob-Y, and Naok-O were carrying, she thanked the Two-dimensional Brightly Colored Stylized Gods. "Yes, we CAN use the paint without being terminated!" she announced. Linna nodded. "There's a tiny chance that we might come out of this alive." Glancing over at Scoob-Y, she sighed. "Don't snort the Communist Repellant, Scoob-Y." ********** Bob-WMT was just a lowly infrared. No one every paid any attention to Bob as he ran around WMT sector PLC delivering messages for everyone. Thus, no one ever noticed when he delivered other messages as well. Secret Society messages. He had an important one. Bob-WMT normally would have ignored the people setting up to film some sort of high clearance vidshow, just as they would ignore him. It couldn't possibly be as good as 'Bubblegum Complex's Funniest Security Videos', his favorite show, even though half of it was usually censored for security reasons. But he saw something that got his hackles up. No one would ever accuse Bob of genius, but he had learned a few things since joining his secret society. One of those things was that all Registered Mutants wore a yellow stripe on their uniform. One of the people standing around worshipping some weirdly dressed female clone was wearing such a uniform. So he reported this to those higher up in the society, of course. It was time for a lynching. ********** Priss glanced over at the three Guardbots, wondering where Holl-I had gotten fully functional Guardbots at such short notice; she was sure they hadn't come to WMT sector with the cast. She let the makeup man finish dressing her up in a yellow wig and a slinky blue leather catsuit. Not that she knew what a cat was. The yellow lightning bolt across her chest was much cooler than the 'brevet stripe' on the clothing she had been wearing, but served the same purpose. She also liked the blue clearance Needler Pistol they had issued her. It was loaded with knock out poison laced needles so she wouldn't actually hurt anyone, although 'in character' it was supposedly deadly poison. She had two major scenes; one in which she explained her evil plan to her confederates in Corpore Metal, and the other in which the Bot Busters had a battle to the Death with her in her base, a PLC facility taken over by Corpore Metal. Except for a group of clerks working as extras, most of them in bot costumes, recruited by the director, Cameron-V-JMS-3, from the WMT PLC staff, the entire PLC facility had been evacuated so they wouldn't get in the way. Well, and except for most of its high command, who were actually cleared to watch the filming, and a few infrared messenger boys and girls. They were about to film the first one, and she was incredibly nervous. If anyone from her secret society recognized her and forgot she was only acting...she'd be on the Frankenstein Destroyer Hit List in seconds. Not to mention, the idea of being a 'bot lover' disgusted her. Delivering a long speech about how wonderful bots were turned her stomach. But she would do it for Vision-B- MTA. She would do ANYTHING for Vision; she had realized that the first second she looked at the woman. Warring instincts made her head hurt. "Okay, ACTION!" Cameron said. Priss was surrounded by two scrubbots, three totebots, three Guardbots Mark V, and twenty or so humans disguised as various kinds of bots or playing the parts of Corpore Metal human stooges. One of them said, "What are we doing to do tonightcycle, Dr. Botlover?" "The same thing we we do every nightcycle, Pink-Y! TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" Priss buried her fears and launched into her impassioned speech. ************* "Here's the diagnostics you need, Mack-Y," Cel-I- AAA-3 said to Mack-Y, handing him a disk. "Now, hack into the Power Grid for me and shut off Troubleshooter HQ's power supplies. We need to sneak out a Nene and a Linna in the confusion. While you're doing that, I'll go get us a Priss. Time for us to make a surgical strike." "What about the Linna and Nene on the suicide mission?" "What about them?" He blinked. "Aren't we going to save them?" "Rule 7, Mack-Y." Scratching his head, he said, "No one in this organization may join Amway?" She sighed. "I meant Rule 8." "Who did something stupid?" "Nene did. Hacking into a suicide mission and making herself part of it." "Yeah, but Linna didn't!" She stared at Mack-Y, then nodded slowly. "I keep thinking it must be wrong since you said it, yet it does make sense. Right." For a few seconds, she stared at the wall, then smiled. "I've got a clever plan." Mack-Y wondered if the shudder that ran through him was due to the air-conditioning or the mutant power 'Sense Imminent Disaster' suddenly manifesting itself. ********** Priss stomped back and forth, ranting and raving her lines. "And then the fleshlings, deprived of caffiene by the decaffinated Bouncy Bubble Beverage that we will have substituted in all the machines for the real thing, will collapse from lack of energy. Then we will rise up and CRUSH THEM!" She crushed a bottle of Bouncy Bubble Beverage with one hand, laughing as it sprayed everywhere. Her audience was hanging on every word; Priss would have made a great demagogue. In fact, she was a little too persuasive. One of the Guardbots said, "Yes! The Fleshlings must die!" This was not in the script. "Like those spies filming us!" He opened fire with his slugthrower into the filming crew. Except for Cameron- V, who dove behind a crate, and the cameraman, Key-G- RIP-1, who was missed by every single slug, the entire filming crew died screaming, along with half the hierarchy of WMT sector PLC. The rest of the cast, which was off getting suited up for the grand conclusion scene, was not mowed down. Walton-I-SAM-3, however, was tougher than the average PLC manager. Mostly because he wore a Kevlar suit all the time after a bad experience with negotiating a labor dispute with small arms. Surviving the first barrage, he shouted, "Guardbots! Suppress the Traitor!" It is a well-known fact in Bubblegum Complex that reconditioned bot brains sometimes spontaneously revert to their previous programming under stress. It's also well known that bots often don't pick up well on the subleties of human speech. Thus, Guardbot Mark V #345 had previously been assigned to Renegade Mutant Hunting Duties. One clear sign of a Commie Mutant was surviving a slugthrower barrage. He therefore opened fire on the three Mutant Traitors. Guardbot Mark V #456, on the other hand, had a better bot brain, and therefore correctly opened fire on Guardbot Mark V #567. Unfortunately, it had a mild superiority complex because its bot brain had previously been installed in a Vulturebot Elite Bomber. Thus, it regarded the other 'bots' in the area as not being worth worrying about; after all, it could shoot through them without violating the Second Law, which prohibited harming human beings who weren't traitors. It also had a rather short memory span, and so...Pretty soon, a large number of 'Bots' were either running for cover or in dire 'need of repair'. Priss took cover and opened fire on the renegade Guardbot with her blue laser, while Key-G-RIP bravely mannned his station, continuing to film, since no one had told him to stop. It was at this moment that three things happened at once. The rest of the cast of 'Botbusters', led by Vision-B- MTA, who was toting a Cone Rifle, burst in through the door, fully armed. Five people disguised by being covered with Teela- O-MLY posters burst through the door and started hosing down the entire area with...ultraviolet paint. The loading door at the far back end of the storage area burst open and twenty clones wearing black bodysuits, black Wallace-G-RGE masks, and tin foil skullcaps, armed with lasers, needlers, slugthrowers, pointed sticks, and a lack of common sense, charged into the room, saluted in unison, and announced "No one expects Anti-Mutant!" They all pointed their weapons at Priss. "Prepare for termination, Mutant!" Cameron-V gave a sigh of relief. This wasn't half as bad as the last time he had filmed on location. ************ "All right, Maggots! It's time for some MASS Termination! The entire Department of Office of Clone Replacement Projection Studies Yellow Clearance Personnel have all turned each other in for treason. It's our job to round them up and Terminate them all," Sgt. Bilk-O said to his squadron of Internal Security Patrolmen. "Any questions?" "They're yellow clearance, right?" one of them asked. "Yes." "What if they order us not to terminate them. Wouldn't it be treason to disobey them, since we're all Red level?" "Yes." "Then how can we terminate them?" "We're going to blow up the entire building they live in without notice." "Ahh. Right." *********** Priss went down in a hail of white paint, slugthrower bullets, plasma, and cone rifle explosions, her last thought, 'At least being shot by Teela-O-MLY is an honorable way to die.' The guardbots began to pour into the room. Some opened fire on the Anti-Mutants, while others shot at the oncoming Teela posters, and one began to disassemble himself in a flashback to his days as a bot maintenance bot. Anti-Mutant held up remarkably well under the onslaught of cone rifle shots from Vision and the Botbusters; shells seemed to ricochet around them, bounce off harmlessly, fail to explode, or simply lacked the punch to kill them. On the other hand, Anti-Mutant's aim wasn't too good, and they all avoided shooting at Vision for no apparent reason, mainly focusing on trying to shoot Priss. Since she had collapsed in the middle of the room and fallen into the pile of bodies, this meant they were putting holes in the floor, which was beginning to shake. Walton managed to crawl over to Cameron-V and got him out of the room. "This place is right over a storehouse for mentally defective warbots that are being reconditioned. If the floor goes..." "It'll be really cool! Key-G-RIP! Pull back the camera and make sure you get this on film!" Ahh, dedication. ********* Priss woke up being carried by Vision. Despite being covered with enough blood for twenty clones and her 'Dr. Botlover' costume being riddled with holes, she seemed to be quite alive. "What...what happened?" "We got you out of there. The Guardbots, the Teela imitators, and Anti-Mutant are still duking it out while the floor is about to collapse." Vision put Priss down on a couch in a nearby lounge. "You relax while we go deal with this mess." She sighed. "I told Cameron not to use real bots for this. I TOLD HIM. I would meet the one man who's immune to..." She shook her head. "Anyway, we'll be back. You just rest." Priss was determined to rest more than she had ever rested in her entire life. ******** "HALT!" Everyone in the growing brawl at WMT sector PLC froze. When High Programmers speak, people listen. They all assumed the woman in the white battlesuit was a high programmer; where else could she get such a battlesuit? She had three lower clearance bodyguards, although the lowest was still Green clearance. "Mission group Catch-23, stay here. Everyone else will leave NOW or be evacuated for treason." Even Anti-Mutant wasn't crazy enough to fight a High Programmer. Not when they didn't know if she was a mutant, anyway. They withdrew, as did the Guardbots, the Botbusters, and the surviving members of the film crew. Once they were gone, the High Programmer said, "Your mission password is Konya Wa Hurricane." They lowered their weapons. Naok-O said hesitantly, "Wow." "Communications officer Naok-O. Make sure you get the following on film. It will be important in your debriefing." She swung her multicorder around and started filming again; the tape had run out during the firefight. "Recording." "I am classifying this area Ultraviolet. When you leave, destroy the floor so that the remaining goods are wiped out and the Communists won't know what was recovered from them. Now, as to the goods you were supposed to requisition..." ********* "Do YOU HavE THE Goods?" the briefing officer asked. "Yes." Linna pointed to the crates of bot parts, letting Nene open and display them. There was silence and much peering through the eyeslits of the bag over the briefing officer's head. "HRMP...bzzt...crackle...expect to survive...bzzt...crackle... WEll, NO USE cryinG OVER SpILt BOUncy BUBble BevERidGE. A Five Credit BONUS will be SENT to your ACCount. NOW go HoME." Linna herded her team out the door. "Amazing. We got through that with no casualties. Must be a record." "What are we going to do with all this paint?" Naok- O asked. "Irene and I will return our unused supplies to PLC. Naok-O, Nene-O, you can keep the experimental card thing; maybe you can figure out what it does. Shagg-Y, finish snorting the Communist Repellant and turn in a report on it to R&D. Scoob-Y, have a snack." She tossed him one of the chemical laced Algae Chips. Linna stretched. "A pleasure working with you." If this ever happens again, I may have to terminate myself, Linna thought. ********* Linna was in a good mood; turning in the paint to her secret society had gotten her and Irene both promoted one rank. She had a secret decoder ring like Irene's now; it made her proud. "Another win for the Lovely Angels, eh?" Irene nodded, and then they turned the corner and her face sank. Her housing complex, already half wrecked by Mason was now a smoking and likely radioactive crater. "..." "That bastard Mason! He must be behind this!" Linna said, snarling. "My clonesisters...dead." Irene began to cry. "I'm the last of the Irenes. This wasn't supposed to happen to me! #6 should have been the last of us! I should have died blissfully in a routine reactor leak or something!" "We can hide you at Otaku HQ," Linna said. "And then we'll get to the bottom of this. I promise you that." ********* With Mack-Y's help, Nene figured out what the card did; it was an experimental electronic skeleton key. A very useful little device. She had a few daycycles off; Troubleshooter HQ had self-destructed after the power outage; it would take a while to repair it. I'll make Naok-O one as a present, she thought. She'd like that. ********* Priss was reluctant to go home once the revised episode shoot was over; they'd rewritten the episode to let her be a heroic infiltrator who had incited the Corpore Metal agents into exposing themselves. That had pleased her much more, along with all the praise she had gotten from Cameron-V and Vision-B. Cameron was talking about making her a recurring character; the thought filled her with glee. The number of robots she'd seen destroyed filled her with more glee. And once she reported all this to her local FD branch...they'd probably put her in charge. What a GREAT day, she thought. ********* Cel-I-AAA-6 changed the channel on her vidcenter to the Censored News Network, aka CNN. "And in the news, a group of terrorist Teela O'Malley clones attacked WMT sector PLC. The investigation remains unclear due to rampage of mentally dysfunctional warbots that soon followed. Also, MTA sector R&D was plagued by disaster as some sort of experimental bot apparently malfunctioned and rampaged through the halls unleashing highly classified Aqua-Induction Mutation Bombs. Head of Robotics Research Machinegal-V-MTA-6 stopped the bot, with the help of his corps of personal bots. Sadly, noted research scientist Yosh-I-DAA-4 seems to have been turned into a duck by one of the Aqua-Induction Mutation Bombs." Cel-I-AAA-6 laughed faintly. That went better than expected. "Meanwhile, all of the yellow level clerks at a minor CPU office were all terminated for treason except for one single clone who was off on a mission. This is the largest mass termination of Yellows since the CPU Office for Creating Unnecessary Paperwork to Justify Our Existence post-meal massacre of a few days ago. How she will perform all of their duties by herself has yet to be determined." Cel-I-AAA-6 didn't need her precognition to visualize Irene buried under a pile of paperwork.