President Bush looked after Senator Jeffords as the door closed after him. A few moments later, Vice President Cheney returned after ushering the Senator out of the West Wing, glancing around the room briefly before asking, "Do you think he bought it?"

Bush smiled his usual self-effacing smile and nodded. "Dick, I looked into his heart, and I believe he did."

The two men grinned. There was nothing better for morale than feeding lies to the enemy. And Jeffords was the enemy, in more ways than one.

Neither man had bought the public explanation for Jeffords' defection from the Republican Party. Suddenly discovering that Bush had meant all the things he said on the campaign trail? Even the idea that Jeffords was just a canny politician cynically grabbing some power didn't quite convince the people who knew the man.

So it had come as only a little surprise when they found out he was working for the Elite. His attempts, and those of Senator McCain, to paralyze the United States Senate in the face of this international emergency, were part of a strategy to keep the inexperienced president from aiding the beleaguered Ireland, or even Europe, until it was too late.

Well, Mama Barbara didn't raise no fools.

Jeffords would now report to Autocrat that Bush was privately concerned about any possible participation in the liberation of Ireland, and that if Autocrat were to give certain assurances, that Bush was willing to have representatives meet to discuss the possibilities of ceding Ireland permanently to the Elite. The subject had coincidentally "come up" while the two men were discussing a possible HMO reform bill, and Bush had fallen into musings about preventing American deaths and injuries. After all, what did Bush owe to Europe, considering the unnecessary grief they had given him over Kyoto?

Presumably, Autocrat would believe that he could use diplomacy to momentarily deflect American involvement, resulting in a successful defense of Ireland and a successful assault on Europe. In reality, Bush's musings were designed to have the opposite effect. American involvement was the only thing that would make the liberation of Ireland remotely possible. After all, they were the sole remaining superpower.

"I concur." Said a female voice from the air. Both men involuntarily startled, suddenly remembering the presence of the invisible observer. Once visible, Lexi Stone was a dark-haired Caucasian woman in her late thirties, beautiful in a thin, falconish sort of way. "Senator Jeffords was indeed convinced. Let us pray that his certainty leads to some misstep on the part of Autocrat."

Bush looked her in the eyes. "I pray that every day. "

Lexi smiled. "I know you do."

Bush sighed for a moment, then turned back to his Vice President. "I guess we'd better get back to work on the tax cut."

Cheney smiled. "Well, you have to have a sense of priorities."

* * * The Team Unnamed * * *

The Outsider watched with amusement as Britannia stalked towards Zodiac. She had politely waited until the alien was alone, observing the minimum of decorum while suppressing her anger at not having been specifically named. It was an affront to her status, as well as a bother.

"Which team did you want us on?" she intoned darkly. Zodiac looked at her with those unfathomable eyes and said nothing. An eerie voice from behind her sent annoying chills up her back.

"Just the most important group of the battle. You're with me," chuckled the Outsider.

She was completely unimpressed. "And where would that be?"

"Team Epsilon."

Britannia looked from one to the other, confused. "But there were only three teams..."

"You don't suppose we're announcing everything to Autocrat's minions, do you?"

Brittannia stiffened, looking at the rapidly emptying room. The security precautions had been immense. But, after all, many of those assembled were politicians. The chance that none of them had been "turned" by Autocrat was negligible.

Which meant that her group was, in fact, going to be on one of the most important missions of the war, she noted with satisfaction. "Well, then. What are we going to do?"

Zodiac looked at her impassively. "Officially, you will be protecting the initial paratroop landing sites. Later, there will be another mission..."

* * * Locks and Keys * * *

Of course, his equipment totally failed when it came to the area around Britannia and Hex, both of whom seemed to make electromagnetic and magnetic resonance scanning problematic. Hex smiled at him, a broad grin that showed suspiciously even teeth with an odd bluish sheen.

"Even if there were any listening devices, they would very muchly not be working at this particular moment," Hex announced in a roller coaster of rising and falling tones, gesturing with a middle arm toward an empty chair. "Therefore you may relax your pacing, if you would therefore like to do so."

"This is how I relax," replied Salvage, but he disassembled the scanner and replaced the components in their respective compartments of his micromesh jumpsuit.

The Outsider entered the room in the normal way, through the door. Krios, along with a few others, looked at him oddly, as if coming through the door were exceedingly strange behavior for him. Then they looked past him at the woman who was following.

By Krios' taste, she was attractive but nondescript. She was blonde, about five foot three, and dressed in a conservative navy pants suit, with a beige blouse that matched the beige briefcase she carried. He suppressed a sigh. She was the very epitome of a minor diplomatic functionary of some sort, preparing to be hospitable to some important foreign guests. No action there.

The door closed after her, sealing the room from prying eyes. She set down her briefcase on the table opposite an empty wall. And then she changed.

Trickster was dressed in buckskin, very old but very supple, with buffalo hide boots and a half-cape of brightly colored feathers. She was five foot nine, with hair like a raven's plumage, dark skin and gray eyes, the color of the full moon on a starless night. Small breasts, but not quite flat enough to be a runway model. Now that's some action, Krios thought approvingly. Nothing but his eyes showed any expression.

Her voice was soothing but penetrating, with an odd lilt. "Most of you know each other by reputation. If not, you may take a moment for reviewing each other's skills and powers. "

There was an awkward pause, during which none of the assembled spoke. Krios smirked a little, since even before this Irish business the Nighthawks had known the files of everyone present. And the chances were good that most of them had not heard of the Nighthawks, or at least had very little intel on their powers. Reputation was a hindrance in his line of work. He picked up a petite-four and eased it into his mouth.

Finally, Britannia broke the silence. "Perhaps we can get acquainted once we know what we must accomplish."

Several heads nodded. Trickster returned the nod then began the briefing by opening the briefcase and activating a liquid screen projector within it, aimed at a blank wall. "There are a set of seventeen emplacements along the borders of Ireland. Our recon indicates that these mobile fortresses are mobile missile emplacements. Nuclear missiles.

"They are defended by the Elite's typical mutant armies, although we have indications that there may also be a small cadre of other metas. Your mission is to make sure that none of the missiles take off. If they have to blow, they must blow in their silos." Trickster paused while they took that in.

From his corner, The Outsider voiced the obvious. "Ireland is already ruined. It stops here."

The Sisters frowned at that grim assessment. So much of the duty they had assumed required this masculine compartmentalization: destroy the bad, sacrifice whatever was necessary. Britannia shared a glance from the others, then announced their decision. "Ireland will not be destroyed. In no way will it be destroyed."

The Outsider chuckled darkly under his breath, but didn't bother to correct her. Ireland was already destroyed, but Britannia wouldn't listen anyway. She hadn't been there yet.

She would see.

Trickster resumed the briefing. "These three are the targets. Each of them controls four other fortresses via computer links. And the computer links are the lock."

Salvage leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the American Indian woman. "Don't you mean the key?"

She indicated three colored canvas backpacks in one corner of the room. "No, those are the keys. Technology loaned from the Monolith. The blue is actually part of the Monolith's computer, a very important part. If it is destroyed, it will take months to repair or replace it."

Salvage licked his lips. Any chance to examine Monolith-grade equipment would be a godsend. A major limitation on his abilities was that he could really only create what he understood, with the components that were at hand. A few Monolith components and some study, and who knows what marvels he could make?

"The blue backpack goes to this emplacement, the closest to the Celestial Keep's ground base right there. Once activated, it will begin an automated assault on the Keep's computers. This must happen as soon as possible after Gamma enters the Keep."

"That should degrade Autocrat's internal defenses something awful," drawled one of the Nighthawks, a redheaded woman with several high-tech weapons. The Nighthawk leader, the man code-named Umbra, gestured gently to silence her. This briefing was likely to go on long enough without people reviewing the obvious.

"The red backpacks go to the other two. Once they are inside, on command from the Protectorate, each will generate a magnetic pulse that should destroy all the electronic control systems. And Britannia is the backup."

The leader of the Sisters bristled slightly at being considered as a piece of equipment. However, she was adult enough to realize no insult was intended. She could perform the same function as the red backpacks if necessary, her trident's command of the Earth's electromagnetic field being sufficient to overcome any probable level of shielding in the control bunkers. But she could only be in one place at a time, and the control bunkers were hundreds of kilometers apart.

"If there are three each controlling three others, what about the other five?"

"The fourth control station is this one here in the south. Tactical assessments say we can probably take it out with conventional forces. We're going to leave that to the 101st. After Britannia delivers them right there, that is, and proceeds to her own assault. "

The Nighthawk called Echo cleared his throat, then barely mumbled the question. "How do we know he won't launch before we get there?"

"First, our psychological profiles of Autocrat indicate he is not likely to irradiate any country he plans to rule, until it is clear that he is not going to be able to win it by lesser force. Second, our information indicates that the platforms will have much reduced defenses during the moment of launch than at other times. Our offshore bombardment should make him think twice before launching."

Trickster paused to watch for reactions or other questions. Finding none, she continued.

"Okay, next we'll go over the most recent reconnaissance of the installations, unfortunately over a month old, since Autocrat has managed to upgrade his defenses somehow to keep The Outsider, well, outside." Trickster smiled, a bit pained at her own pun, then continued with the recon. The insides of the installations were set up as a killing field for anyone not wearing identification proper for that base.

The briefing of known defenses and likely defenders lasted over an hour.

* * * Debriefing Delayed but not Denied * * *

The Nighthawk's private briefing was much more brief. Umbra looked at each one in turn. He had missed their last foray into Ireland, and he had not been pleased at the mission tapes. They had acted like a bunch of amateurs.

"Krios. You lost your temper in the last engagement. You got sloppy and separated from the group. And what was all that nonsense dialog? Since when do you talk to your targets?" Krios shrugged, his eyes cold. He was a pro, and the prior insertion had gone badly. There was no excuse, nor was there a need for one.

"Salvage. When you abandoned your jet, you lost a few million ergs of power. The enemy capitalized on your power limitation. But there were also power generators in the Bushmill's distillery that you did not take advantage of. "

Salvage grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I thought of that later."

"Also, as team lead, you were responsible for the success of the mission." Umbra paused for half a second. "My best guess is that the best you could have done against Avatar is a few minutes more of holding action."

Salvage appreciated the face-saving admission. Things had gotten out of hand rapidly once 'the Emissary' had clobbered the jet. But, after all, it was Avatar. Even with Umbra and the real Moonbeam, it would not have gone much better.

"Echo. You are out of shape. Six years ago you would have held out another three minutes at top output. We don't have time to fix that, but Salvage has worked out a special stimulation unit to give you a boost. Don't use it unless you have to." For a moment it looked like Echo would speak, then he stayed silent.

Echo had been in his prime in Beirut, when Moonbeam and Umbra had just been kids. Now, over fifty and retired from espionage for years, he was running hard to catch up. The life of a chemical engineer just didn't lend itself to physical conditioning.

Umbra turned to the redhead with the high-tech weapons. She was idly toying with her high-tech flame-thrower. "Delta. In the context of the last insertion, you didn't make any major mistakes. Since we're at full strength, your designation for this encounter will be 'Gattling.'"

Delta gestured with the flame-thrower as she asked with Southern politeness. "Don't y'all think I ought to use the Pyros kit?"

Umbra considered the briefing on the likely combatants. The HE rounds in Delta's Gatling kit could be useless against the mutant units designated Rock Trolls and Demons, but it would give increased takedown of Harpies and Flamataurs. Umbra raised an eyebrow to Krios and Moonbeam, inviting their opinions.

Moonbeam looked at the red-haired woman. "You might mix and match this trip. And next time you're using my name, please make sure and win your fights." Moonbeam winked.

"Honey, I always plan to win." Nonetheless, Delta blushed a bit, the red highlighting a few scars on the china complexion. Then she ad-libbed an equipment list. "Flight pack, force field, flash kit for defense. Rail gun for hard targets, flame-thrower for soft targets. Add a couple of grenades from the Echo and Umbra packs for emergencies."

"What'll we call you, 'Dark Moon Salvage'?" asked Echo, a wide smile throwing his wrinkles into high relief. His voice reverberated a little to add a subliminal echo to the mix, since she was also planning on using some sonic grenades.

"How about 'Cobbler'?" Krios replied, deadpan. His eyes glinted.

"We can call her 'Old Glory' and mix everyone up!" entered Echo.

"'Cobbler' it is." Umbra looked at Salvage, waiting for the inevitable offer.

"I'll modify her harness. I think I can work in about three clips for the rail gun, and a total of nine grenades."

"Add four more on the sides of the tank. They'll be hard to reach, but it may be a longer engagement than we'd like."

Salvage nodded. "Should I pull the hologram projector?"

"If you don't need the space, leave it and program it to simulate a Rock Troll."

"Harpy." corrected Delta. "A flying Rock Troll might draw attention, don't y'all think?"

Several snickered.

"Speaking of Harpies, we need some modifications to the suits to protect against their poison."

Salvage nodded, then got to work.

* * * A Case of Mind over Brain * * *

Alan Kott set the schematic down in front of Molet and raised an eyebrow. Molet looked up from the circuitry he was programming and looked the new item over.

It was a variation on the mind expansion helmet Molet had designed, with some very odd extensions. He took several minutes to look at it, then finally surrendered. "Very ingenious. But what does it do?"

"Well, look at this version first." Kott put a simpler version in front of him, which almost completely lacked the functions aimed at stimulating internal brain development. After a few seconds, he flashed on the truth.

"Computer interface?"

"Yup."

Molet made a rude noise, then reviewed the more complicated schematic. "All right, so you are insane. Who is giving you these ridiculous ideas?"

"It's not ridiculous."

"Grandiose then. Who?" Molet lit a cigarette as he waited for a response.

"Well, I don't know, precisely. I haven't been able to track his messages back to the real world."

"Ah, and you would set off fireworks in your brain at the suggestion of a mysterious stranger? How 'extreme' of you." He said it with the disdain of the mature for the stupidity of the young.

Kott watched the smoke curling up from Molet's cigarette. It obviously wasn't that dangerous. The ability to access any computer that included the alien triphase technology... which, thanks to Microsoft and Intel, meant pretty much every computer now... was a fairly simple refinement of the neural circuit. It would only take him half an hour refitting the helmet and reprogramming the nanofibers before he could try the new design.

Molet looked at his friend with a growing sense of concern. Kott had been using the helmet nonstop for weeks. There had to be a natural limit for the density of human brain connections, and anything beyond that would be detrimental, possibly disabling. But Kott seemed to be oblivious to the danger, or at least dismissive. He was like an addict.

And here he was, giving himself access to an order of magnitude more data. Molet stubbed out the cigarette and pointed a finger at Kott. "You will come to a bad end, my friend."

"Everyone has to die sometime." Kott replied.

Even as the words left his mouth, Switch wondered about them. That wasn't like him - he was a survivor. Who had said them originally? Thinking back, he felt the fuzziness of the image. That wasn't normal for him, who prided himself on absolute memory.

My mouth is full of the taste of dried milk. Fuzzy shapes move at the limits of my vision.

"Everyone has to die sometime." The voice is deep, distant. Mother's voice is high, cracking. She is upset. I am upset. I cry, and soon a shape resolves to Mother's night dress.

"There. You've upset him." She picks me up, and I'm surrounded by sensations: the smells of childhood, the feel of a wet diaper, the limpness of arms and legs that don't obey.

"It wasn't me that started this emotional crap." My eyes take in the gray hair and mustache of my father, my ears only the anger and resentment. "I've got to go."

"I can't..." The door slams, punctuating Mother's sentence. "...take this." We cry together, long into the night.

"Kott?" Molet noticed the inattention. "One of these days you are going into a fugue I cannot wake you from. This is a bad thing, n'est-ce pas?"

"I was just remembering something that happened a long time ago. My eyes couldn't focus yet, and I didn't know what the words meant."

"And this would help you now, how?"

Switch grinned. "Probably not at all." He turned to the matter at hand. "Now, what about this controller?"

* * * Tyranny Falling * * *

Autocrat listened to the President's speech, a low growl building in the back of his throat.

In the dark behind him, a faceless servant nervously carried off the remains of Autocrat's late-night snack, hoping to reach the door before the inevitable explosion. Glancing back at the wrong moment, she let a crystal glass clink against the tiny doorway that led to the food dumbwaiter.

Before she could do more than squeak in surprise, a cascade of dreadful energy polished her bones clean of flesh, then powdered the bones to ash.

It was too merciful of him, but he was too angry to care. Autocrat turned from the interruption back to the screen, still displaying that pathetic little cowboy.

"Indeed, little man, tyranny will fall. It will fall on your country, and on yourself. Tyranny will fall upon you, and grind you back into the dust and slime from which your benighted race arose."

* * * Waiting for Frostbite * * *

The others had left them alone together in the central cabin, probably uncomfortable at the level of cold that the two generated, not entirely subconsciously.

"Well?" Frostbite finally asked. "Why are you here?"

"To free Ireland." He said with a cold smile. "More specifically, to protect the landing party from metas until they establish themselves."

She narrowly avoided blowing up, although both her hands dropped in temperature significantly. "We are both cold generators. One of us is superfluous."

"I'm sorry you feel that way. Perhaps some therapy for your self-esteem?"

Her hand slapped down on the seat with a crack, fracturing the frozen armrest into several pieces. Krios raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more.

Umbra stepped back into the central cabin at the sound. "Are you annoying our guest, Krios?"

"She's too proud to ask what she wants to know."

Umbra looked to the Sister, a small dark mark on his face twitching like an angry bird. "Your powers are superficially similar. However, to date, the US Government archives have noted twenty-two distinct types of cold generation. Your two types are mutually complimentary."

Frostbite showed surprise, then recovered her composure and made a noise requesting him to go on.

"You absorb energy and moisture to manipulate cold. Your powers are more powerful when used against high-temperature foes. That is the point at which Krios is weakest." Umbra paused for a moment to let her react. "But you would be nearly useless against, say, Tundra, who would deprive you of the energy you need to absorb. When the temperature gets into that lower range, then Krios comes into his own. His powers are based upon cold as an element, not cold as a result."

"If we run into Sunnyboy or flamataurs, they're yours. Once you've taken them down to room temperature, I'll move them toward absolute zero. Or just punctuate them."

She looked from one to the other, then nodded briefly. Perhaps there was more logic to this mission than she thought.

* * * Nor the Battle to the Swift * * *

Above him Górny and Rakieta kept off the circling Harpies and Banshees, which luckily were unable to ferry the heavy Elite ground troops across the steep ravine. If the Elite were unable to move across this area, they could not attack the soldiers who were even now moving up the beaches. So they would not pass.

To his left, Doktor Kiel held a four-meter wide space with a spin of his glowing rope. "Fortz lariat," he had called it when he returned from the States. Strange words.

Behind him Szakal waited, ready to spell them when they tired. But for now Mlotek was in a fighting mood, annoyed at defending the soupy ground of a small patch of Ireland rather than the mountains and forests of his native Poland. But, as his country had learned a half-century before, if you did not fight the fascists where they were, they would soon come to you. Better that the ground to be burned, the well to be salted, was someone else's.

A Bushido ducked under his mallot and stabbed him in the midriff. He screamed rage and bashed it off the bridge into a broad arc, to land two hundred meters below. Szakal dived past him and gored a Troll with his claws, giving the Steel Bruiser a chance to recover. It wasn't much of a wound, and it closed before the second Troll grappled with the laughing jackal. Mlotek advanced past the two to the far end of the bridge, smashing a pair of Trolls back onto the stony ground.

This bridge would hold.

At the edge of his vision he saw a dark blur, rushing down the mountain toward the bridge. The Elite troops pulled away, and he turned to face the intruder. As she slowed, his face registered his shock.

Tall, built like a runway model from a dark nightmare. Ebony skin, high breasts, imperially slim, with pointed teeth and pointed ears. A feral model.

He knew her.

She was known to Interpol as War Rabbit, a far more fitting name than her American nickname of the prior decade. She had been a mere slip of a teenager when she had received the name Junglebunny, a name which was apparently in keeping for a sidekick of the American slang-named team The Badass Five.

Escaping the destruction of that criminal group, she had lain low until, as a young woman, she had been obliged to help defend Earth against the invading aliens. Her prior crimes were pardoned, and she left the United States for Africa.

He was also familiar with her efforts in Africa. To some governments, she was a savior, to others, a terrorist, depending upon how their soldiers treated the populace. This was exactly the kind of place that she would have been drawn to fight.

But she was on the wrong side.

"You think you are going to do something with that hammer, slave?" asked War Rabbit casually. Imperially.

"I will try." He replied. Her speed was renowned, but so was his strength. A single blow landed would be sufficient.

Szakal moved slightly, putting himself into the path she would have to run to outflank Mlotek. Doktor Kiel likewise began to move to close the other gap with his force lariat.

War Rabbit laughed, then moved.

The battle was joined, and it lasted thirteen seconds.

* * * The Home Front * * *

Pantomime rolled frantically away from the next one, a carrot, which embedded itself six inches into the concrete to show only a fuzzy green button. Passersby gasped and scattered.

"You got that, Mime? You ain't man enough to take the Salad Shooter." The man in the leafy green mask conjured a huge rotten tomato out of the air.

How the hell did he get into this?

Well, okay, he knew that one. The war was bringing every nut on the planet out in force. Most of the first and second string heroes were with the invasion force in Ireland, battling it out with the Elite. Which meant that class three and four metas who normally would never have risked a confrontation with any type of authority were acting like bad children at recess.

Or, in this case, like a bully in a cafeteria food fight.

And, since he was basically the city's last ditch defense, he was taking a few days off to put a silent thumb on the scales of justice. Or was that just one metaphor too many? Thoughts like that were a good reason for a man to keep his mouth shut.

Pantomime theatrically drew a bow in the air, nocked an arrow and let it fly, exaggerating his head motions as he watched it hone in on its target. At the last moment he threw his head to the left and the imaginary arrow swooped up to impact the tomato, blowing rancid salsa all over the place. The Salad Shooter began gagging.

Catching a whiff of the overwhelming odor himself, the mime rapidly pulled on a gas mask, adjusting it until it felt right. Then he pulled on a cowboy hat, twirled a lariat, sauntered over to the Shooter, and tied him up in the invisible rope.

He licked his finger and placed one more mark on the chalkboard that was always only a step away, then leaned on it for emphasis. Score one for the good guys.

The bow would have been more satisfying if the bystanders hadn't been puking.

* * * A Brain the Size of a Planet * * *

He had taken a couple of extra days, both to test his equipment and to watch the news of the war, but now he was ready. If there was anything to be gained by waiting, he couldn't see it. According to the news, the war was going badly, although not as badly as expected. Some supervillains had been recruited into the war, but others seemed to have come out of the woodwork to harass various cities across the country. It was a perfect time for an exploit, although he really didn't have anything in particular in mind.

Switch's mind widened, covering first the equipment in the rented room, then the hotel, then the office building next door and the entire adjacent mall. He could feel the massive flow of information, knowing that Alice Wanstein was purchasing a sweater on a Foley's credit card, George Acton was leaving the parking lot with a speedpass, and a host of insurance forms were being processed in the mainframe on the seventh floor of the office building. He reached out and encompassed the insurance data in the mainframe, randomly giving price cuts to several people and watching the results. It was basically uninteresting, and beneath him, even if the company had hired one of his rivals for its computer security.

God, his brain felt huge. It encompassed so much, so far into the distance...

Farther out, Switch reached his limits of clear perception several hundred meters away, where he could feel the flow of some credit card charge approvals but couldn't quite differentiate between them. They were nowhere near the clarity of the silver cybernetic hovertank program operating in the insurance office.

The what?

Switch looked at the program there with curiosity bordering on mania. What the heck was that doing in an insurance company? It was an assault program, cold-bloodedly manipulating resources and sending cyberbombs out to colonize or destroy any adjacent computer systems.

Even though the insurance company wasn't a client, the possibility of infection was too great to let the damn thing do its business. He dismantled it with malice aforethought, then turned to analyze how it had entered.

A stabbing pain went through the back of his head. He spun and confronted the next assault program, a tiny razor-bat shooting live ammo at his head. He smashed it and used its pieces to temporarily stop up the network ports. If these things had friend-or-foe routines, hopefully that would confuse them long enough for him to get his bearings.

Switch reconstructed the hovertank, modifying its programming for defense of the one system it inhabited, against anything it registered as "friend". Relieved of the additional duties, its effectiveness soared by two orders of magnitude. Switch copied the program into his local computer and executed it. Everywhere within range that he detected a computer capable of running the program, he initiated another copy.

He pulled himself out of cyberspace, quickly connecting a dialup line to his remote lab, and after execution explained the situation in careful detail to Sumatra. Between them, they opened lines to several of his clients, and inoculated those systems also. Then they began working on all the places where IB2Tap had back doors or friends. Or stock.

Fatigue was beginning to set in when he perceived the other offender, the one whose programs were like purple brushstrokes rather than massive mechanical silver cogs. They scrabbled at his defenses, altering quickly in the face of his cloned hovertanks.

He could see how swiftly they were evolving, changing their attacks on the tanks even as they died by its weaponry. Something was using massive parallel processing to determine an effective assault on the tanks.

Switch messaged Sumatra to do a complete power-off shutdown of all systems, self included. He prayed that the message arrived in time, even as he felt the insurance company hovertank stop functioning.

Fighting with an increasing sense of desperation, as the purple programs quickly invaded and colonized all the places that he had defended with his silver hovertank clones, Switch retreated to the hotel and finally to his body, pulling himself out and shutting off the power to the headgear.

Panting, sweating, heart pounding.

For weeks in his dreams, he would see the final moments of the battle, when the hordes of purple insect programs finished destroying the tanks, and then turned upon him.
 

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