• Chapter 3

    Dr. Han was very excited today. He was getting a "defective" model, one of those deemed unfit for the higher ups, now he was going to get a play thing of his very own, at least to work out the kinks if nothing else. He approached the cage, "Come here my pretty..." he cackled. He grabbed the catgirl by her chains and dragged her to his bed. "Great, what, d-cups, full c at least, not that you've ever worn a bra or anything else for that matter. Too bad there's just enough fur to cover the best parts. But then again, I like kitties, heh heh heh." He began to grope her, running his fingers through her fur and stroking her. He moved for her face to kiss her. He pushed his tongue down her throat...

    ...and she bit down, hard. She hit him in the groin and threw him against the wall. She was careful to throw him within range of her chain so she could reach him and beat on him, striking the pervert with all the rage she'd built up spending all eighteen years of her life as someone's slave.
    She took the keys from his pocket and unlocked her chains. "They always say they like it rough, then they just can't take it as well as they give it out." She spit his blood back on his half-dead body, and slinked out of the room with all the grace and stealth befitting one with feline DNA.

    * * *


    Hidariude was exercising all nine of his blades, the five tiny finger tip razors, the three claws on the back of his hand, and the big one the length of his forearm. The whole cyberarm, including the blades, were made of nie crafted steel, martensitic crystals embedded in pearlite matrix. The blades were sharpened by lasers to a thickness of one molecule. His training involved a robot with an identical arrangement, a sort of high-tech form of shadow boxing.

    Hidariude came out of the training room to find Renzokuken waiting for him. "So you broke another training robot? That's the sixth one this month."

    "The sixth one since Kichiku..." Hidariude wasn't sure what word to end the sentence with, "Do you have any leads on him?"

    "No, he just disappeared. We don't want him just out there like this, but if we don't find him soon, we may just have to give up and put our resources to better use."

    "Easy for you to say, you've been on active missions, while I've been stuck here on training."

    "You let him get away. I was going to do what had to be done but you got in my way!"

    "And you sold me out to save your own skin you..." he stopped and backed off from Renzokuken, "I'm sorry, I know we're not going to get Kichiku back any faster if I beat you up, and it certainly won't get me back on active duty. I'm going back to my quarters until they fix my robot. Maybe number seven will be the one that's finally a fitting challenge."

    Hidariude went back to his room and sat on his bed. He couldn't stop thinking about that day. Every day and night, even in his dreams all he could think of was his friend running away with that crying child. "Why?" He got up from his bed and checked his locker. He hadn't felt up to cleaning it since he got back from his last mission. He had just thrown his stuff in there, but it was getting too full and messy. As he jostled his stuff in his locker, something fell out. It was the device that the child's father had given him. He hadn't thought about it before, but maybe it held the answers to his questions after all. For the first time since it came into his possession he took a look at it. It was some data storage device with a screen to read the data. He found a button to turn it on and started reading the files...

    A journal entry, "I'm so excited, today my wife and I were chosen to bear a special child, and not just any child, the PERFECT child. They haven't tried to create a perfect specimen since the first attempt thirteen years ago. Most of our specimens are embryos enhanced with genes from other species, but they attmepted one that was a perfect balance of a pure human genome without cross-species contamination. Unfortunately it was flawed, missing it's left arm below the elbow. It was declared a failure and salvaged only by the cybernetics divsion. They had an idea, shoot his stump of an arm with a radon gun to infuse electric eel DNA so that his muscles could create an electric charge and operate a prosthetic device. That much seems to have been a success, score one for their department, not the main biotech group. It took more than a decade to diagnose the cause of the brachial assymetry in the flawed individual and repair the genome for a second attempt. Now they have the ultimate human being prepared, and one of our embryos will be used to make it real! We will usher in a new era of perfect human beings lead by our own child! What a legacy!"

    The journal entry was done, but there was another one that appeared to be dated weeks later. "What a day, both good news and bad news. The good news is that our child appears to be perfect as promised, perfectly healthy, all of his limbs, no adverse abnormalities. The bad news came from a technical trainer who says we can not stay here. His name is Ryu. Ryu has recently found out why we have been creating all of these superhumans. We had believed that they were simply adapting to the changing climate on earth and that they would simply be better able to survive under extreme circumstances. We were wrong. They are soldiers and they will be used to conquer humanity. He knows because he's been training them to fight. That's all they do, all day from the moment they are able to stand up the biotech specimens are forced to do whatever they are designed to do, and as soon as they have mastered their basic movements they are committed to combat simulations. Every waking moment they fight, only taking breaks to eat and rest. Approximately two decades are dedicated into preparing each of them to go out into the world and destroy any who would oppose 7th Moon, even if only passively. They will eliminate everyone until all that remains are those eternally indebted to 7th Moon. In a few years the first subjects will be ready for their first missions and they will be targeting organic farming communities all over earth, just because they don't need 7th Moon. He knows they are serious about this because they have already attacked his home. He wants to go to earth to confirm what happened, and he wants us to come with him. He says if we stay our child will be groomed to be the totalitarian leader of this society. I do not want that to be our legacy. I think we will go." Another journal entry, weeks after the previous one, "He was right. We returned to his home, a mountain temple. He had been one of many monks training in martial arts, and were reknowned for their physical discipline. For this reason they were contracted to train the 7th Moon army. However, not all agreed to come along. Once they hit a stalemate, 7th Moon murdered everyone who remained. Ryu wants to stay at the temple and hold vigil for his fallen brethren, but he does not think it's safe for us to remain here, so he is sending us away to a commune. It's probably not a good idea, knowing what we know about the future, but the odds of our particular commune being targeted seems to be better than our odds if we stay at a known target site."

    Most of the remaining data seemed to be corrupted except for some coordinates. One set looked suspiciously like the site they had been to on their last mission. He had been thinking about this long enough and he could put together the pieces. It was no coincidence, the first mission was to put down a resistance after all, but they were justified, they didn't want to be a part of this evil tyranny. Hidariude had all the answers he was getting here, now he was going to follow the last clue he had, the coordinates of the temple. He put the recorder in his pocket and got up to leave his quarters for the launchpad.

    As he was leaving his room, an alarm began to ring. Renzokuken approached him. "There's been an escape, or at least an attempt. One of the docs was found almost dead in his room. It seems it was a test subject that turned on him. He's in critical condition. We need to go to the launch pad to cut them off before they get away."

    How perfect, Hidariude thought to himself.

    The two soldiers hurried to launchpad. The area was a mess. It looked like the escapee was already here. "We'd better check inside to make sure the target didn't set launch yet." Renzokuken put in his code knowing that Hidariude's had been restricted. As soon as they got inside, Hidariude hit Renzokuken over the head, knocking him unconcious. "This is as far as you go, buddy. Your weakness is that you may be great at ranged combat but you were never much for close range hand-to hand. Okay, whoever you are, you can come out now. It's your lucky day, I happen to want out too, and I can launch the shuttle, so if you just come along nicely we can both go to earth and you can do whatever you want."

    A naked girl slinked down from the cieling. She had pointy cat like ears on top of her head instead of normal human ears, and a slinky tail, and just enough conveniently placed fur to cover her private parts. Her plump breasts heaved as she breathed rapidly, purring quietly. If she didn't look so angry and hadn't been covered in blood, she would've looked positively sexy.

    "My name is Hidariude. And you are?"

    "They call me Keisei."

    "Keisei, I can only imagine what you've been through, but right now, I just need an excuse to get the hell out of here. So either come with me, or I'll have to cut you down like I did to him, and you are clearly too exhausted for another fight, so I recommend the first option."

    Keisei realized he was right, there was nowhere left to go, and she didn't need another fight right now. She slinked aboard the nearest shuttle. Hidariude followed and set up the launch sequence, utilizing the coordinates in the recorder. In moments they were launched into space, headed toward earth, specifically toward Ryu's temple.