ACT III

        “Come on, let Edward see,” whined Ed. She had met Matthew at the hospital just as he was about to be released. She wanted to get a look at his stitches which were covered by a bandage.

        “I’m not taking this thing off,” he replied. “You sure do have a fascination with sick things.”

        “Careful what you say,” she replied in a teasing voice. “Remember that you’re one of the things Ed is fascinated with. So does that mean that you’re sick? Are you? Huh?”

        Matthew had to suppress a snicker. What an odd girl he had fallen for. And yet there was something more human about Ed than anyone he knew. Just then, he heard a siren and an ambulance pulled up to the emergency room. To his and Ed’s shock, Lau and the others emerged. All of them looked banged up and bruised, but none of them had life-threatening injuries.

        “Papa!”

        Ed was horrified to see Jet’s metal arm blown to bits. Sure it was an artificial limb, but it still shocked her to see him like that. He had deactivated all of the circuits in the arm before emerging from the subway just in case there were any gas leaks. A spark could have ignited an entire city block.

        When Lau, Jet, and the rest had emerged from the subway it was a real mess on the surface. People were dead all over the place and property was destroyed. In comparison I suppose it doesn’t matter much but the Swordfish and Redtail had been badly damaged. Lau’s sedan was dented up pretty badly and all the windows were broken. When an ambulance showed up at the scene, there was no one left alive to transport except the Bebop crew. Even though their injuries were minor, they had been taken to the hospital anyway.

        “I’m all right, Ed,” said Jet as he followed a man in a white coat to the elevator. “They’re gonna fix me up with a new arm upstairs and I’ll be good as new. In the meantime, go home.” He entered the elevator and went up to the top floor.

        Another doctor was looking Lau over. “You’ll need stitches for that gash on your arm,” she said. “And what happened to your ear?”

        Lau looked over at Faye and grinned. He looked back at the doctor. “Well doc, fact of the matter is my wife beats me.”

        “I’m sure you deserve it,” replied the doctor with a grin as she lead him off to be stitched up.

        “Hey what about me?” called Fatty after her. “I know I look all right but I had a lady fall on my gut and she must weigh as much as a...” One angry look from Faye told him he’d better shut up right now or he’d really need a doctor.

        “You’re fine, you wimp,” replied Bob. “Except for some bruises, you and I are OK. I don’t know why they even bothered bringing us here. Come on.” He and Fatty sat down in the waiting room with Faye, Ed, and Matthew.

        Faye sat down and explained to Ed and Matthew what had happened. Matthew began to tremble as he realized just how fortunate he had been to have survived Vera. He knew she was dangerous, but he had no idea she had that kind of destructive capability.

        “She’s not human!” said Matthew. “There’s no stopping her.”

        “She’s human alright,” replied Bob. “Someone created that monster and that someone either had ties to ISSP or was one hell of a kidnapper to get her out of a research facility without getting caught.”

        “Ed’s the best hacker on the planet,” said Matthew. “If she couldn’t find any computer records in the ISSP files on Vera then there probably are none.”

        “Oh stop, you’ll make Ed blush,” replied Ed with a grin.

        “What I want to know is how she’s finding all these victims,” said Faye as she tried to quiet Julia.

        Just then Lau came out of the ER with his arm fixed. “So what now?” he asked. Everyone shrugged. “Damn, we need some kryptonite or something.”

        “Right now we’re just asking a lot of questions,” said Faye. “One of which is, where is Vera finding her victims?”

        “Maybe she has access to the bounty hunter database,” said Lau. “If she has an account on that, maybe Ed could find it.”

        At that moment, Vera was lying face-down in the bell-tower of a church. She was in a lot of pain from her injuries. She couldn’t believe that she had actually been hurt by these people. Didn’t they understand that what she was doing was as necessary for her as breathing? It’s miserable when no one can see the world through your eyes. Who could understand?

        “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” asked Fatty. “We can’t just sit back and let this woman kill while we try to find out who she is and how to stop her. You know the police won’t just sit back and do nothing. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the thugs she’s gone after but I can’t sit back and watch cops get smoked.”

        “We’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Lau. “She’s shown complete invincibility to bullets and explosives. She does seem to have some vulnerability to plasma, though. But the only plasma weapon we have is on the Swordfish and that’s in the shop right now. All we can do is wait and investigate right now. I don’t like it any better than you do but we can’t help anyone if we’re dead. Bob, what is it?”

        Bob looked to be deep in thought. “As far as ISSP is concerned, Project Tongpu never existed. And yet they’re the only ones who might be able to give us anything. Somehow we have to get them to talk about it. We have to try at the very least. Right now we’ve got nothing. We have to go talk to them.”

        Fatty looked very displeased. “If you’re going to Mars, then hurry the hell up and go. Vengeance doesn’t wait long.”

        “Bring Edward back a souvenir,” said Ed.

        Lau was absorbing all of this slowly. “We’re going to Mars? Now? Are you sure this won’t be a wasted trip?”

        “No,” replied Bob.

        “OK, I love this plan,” replied Lau as he rolled his eyes and grinned.

        Lau hated the idea of going into space when the Swordfish and Redtail weren’t ready yet. But he couldn’t wait around. He decided to do something he would normally never do. He borrowed Jet’s Hammerhead without his permission and loaded it onto the Bebop. Faye and the baby stayed on Earth while Lau and Bob took off for Mars.

        The trip to Mars in hyperspace is not a terribly long one. Lau was more than a little depressed about the deaths of those two other bounty hunters. He had hired them himself. “Hey Bob, I was just wondering how attached you and Fatty are to Venus.”

        “We do alright there,” he replied. “Why are you asking?”

        “Well, we lost those two employees and you and Fatty are a couple of the best cowboys in the business.”

        “Thanks but no thanks,” replied Bob. “I can’t tell you how much I love being my own boss. There’s nothing quite like it. Now tell me you didn’t love being co-owner of MFR a million times more than being an employee.”

        “You have me there,” said Lau. “Man was meant to live free.”

        Back in New York at the hospital, Jet was trying out his new arm. This one was gold in color. They gave him the option of a flesh-colored sleeve that could fit over it, making it look like a real arm, but he refused. As the doctor walked out of the room, Faye and Ed walked in.

        “Hey roomie,” said Faye with a grin. “It’ll be just like old times staying under the same roof as you again.”

        “What are you babbling about?” asked Jet.

        “Bob and Lau went to Mars and took the Bebop, so Faye Faye is staying with us,” said Ed.

        “What?”

        “Oh, and Lau borrowed the Hammerhead. Ed hopes that was OK.”

        “What?!”

        The Bebop landed on Tharsis. Both Lau and Bob had to cram into the Hammerhead together. Bob practically had to sit on Lau’s lap.

        “Bob, we will never speak of this to anyone.”

        “Agreed.”

        The two of them sped off to ISSP headquarters right away to speak to someone in the science division. But they couldn’t even get an appointment with the research and special projects director. Explaining that this pertained to the killings in New York didn’t help either.

        “Tell the director I have some information about a young lady in Tiajuana that his wife would be quite interested in,” said Bob. The secretary wasted no time in locating her boss. “See? You have to know how to talk to these people.”

        Suddenly Bob and Lau were surrounded by a group of men with machine guns pointed at them. “Yeah Bob, you really have to know how to talk to them,” said Lau sarcastically.

        Back on Earth it was night. Faye paced up and down the short hallway in Jet’s apartment trying to get the baby to stop crying. Crying infants were something Jet was certainly not used to. The only thing stopping him from complaining about it was a promise he had made himself a while back to try and stop being so grumpy. If Ed had been there they might have had better success in calming little Julia.

        At that moment, Ed was outside the airport with Matthew. The two of them were lying on their backs in the grass right outside the fence. Planes that took off or landed went directly over them. They could actually feel the wind. Ed squealed with delight practically every time one went overhead.

        “I’m glad I brought you here,” said Matthew. “I used to come here a lot with my mom when I was a kid. She knew every single type of plane that was passing over us and could guess where they were headed with a lot of accuracy.”

        “That’s nice,” said Ed. “It’s nice you can remember your mother- person. All I remember about mine was that she called me Ed. Julia is lucky, you know that?”

        “Yeah?”

        “She has Faye Faye to rock her and sing to her at night and tell her bedtime stories. Ed wishes her mama had not died.”

        Matthew had never heard her talk like this before. He put his arm around her. “Wherever she is now, I know she still loves you and she’s got to be just bursting with pride watching you. When I was up against Vera, I really thought I was going to cash in my chips right there and then. It really bothered me, you know?”

        “Ed knows. Who would want to die?”

        “But I think what bothers people about death the most is that they go through their day-to-day life and nothing really matters and then all of the sudden they meet that one special person. Someone who makes them want to live forever. Someone who makes the thought of dying almost unbearable. I thought about you. I thought about never seeing you again and it nearly ripped my guts out just thinking about it. You’re the most unique and special person I’ve ever met in my life. I just wanted you to know that.”

        Ed thought back and remembered Spike saying something like that about Julia. She never in her wildest dreams thought someone would care about her that much. She leaned over and kissed Matthew. “Ed thinks she’s in love,” she said very softly.

        Back at Jet’s apartment, Faye was still having no luck. Little Julia was just too upset. “Why don’t you let me take her and you get some sleep?” offered Jet.

        “You don’t have to do that.”

        “Well I’m not going to be getting any sleep until Ed comes home anyway,” he replied. “So as long as I’m up, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

        “Jet, I really appreciate this. If I weren’t so tired I’d feel guilty but I am so good-night.”

        Faye fell asleep on the couch and Jet took Julia back to his bedroom. Ein came up and scratched on the door, so he opened it up just enough to let him in. Julia seemed fascinated with Jet’s new arm. Jet looked at the little girl very carefully. “You know Ein, I always wondered what it would be like to have one of these of my own. Never happened though. The girl I came closest to marrying walked out on me. Aw, I guess a wife would have driven me crazy. I have no regrets. Still...my gosh, this kid has her mother’s eyes doesn’t she? Look at you, kiddo. Look at these little toes of yours. Look at them.”

        Ein gave Jet an odd look. Jet continued talking softly to Julia. “I’m nearly forty now, you know that? When I think about all the stuff you’ll have to go through before you get to be my age, it’s almost depressing. But it has its good moments too.”

        Julia reached up and grabbed hold of Jet’s beard. “You have a strong grip for a little tyke, you know that? Must get it from your daddy. Gees, you’re the only person who’s ever sat there that long and listened to me without charging me five hundred wulongs an hour for therapy. I’m not boring you, am I?”

        Julia continued to stare into Jet’s eyes. She sort of cocked her head to one side then straightened it back up again. “I’ll take that as a no.”

        Back on Mars, Bob and Lau were sitting in the director’s office. “Well Bob and friend, to what do I owe the pleasure of this blackmail?” he asked.

        “You mean to tell me there really was a girl in Tiajuana?” said Bob. “Man, I was just taking a stab in the dark and hoping you’d go for it.”

        “Bob, what do you want?”

        “OK look, I know about project Tongpu,” replied Bob.

        “Never heard of it.”

        “Cut the crap!” growled Lau.

        “I know I’m not supposed to know,” continued Bob. “But you know how the rumor mill is at ISSP. No secret is safe.”

        The director sighed. “Alright, you have me. Now what’ll it take to keep you two quiet? And before you consider asking for a ridiculous amount, may I remind you I can make the two of you simply vanish.”

        “Boy, you guys in ISSP really are something else!” yelled Lau angrily. “No wonder Jet wanted out.”

        Bob was used to this kind of thing and kept his composure. “You misunderstood us. We came to get information. Right now, one of the subjects from that experiment is killing people left and right in New York.”

        The director looked relieved but confused. “One of the subjects? There must be some mistake. There was only one subject. His current whereabouts are unknown. That must be your killer. If that’s the case...”

        “No, we know about Pierrot and he’s already dead,” interrupted Lau. “It’s a woman we’re dealing with in New York.”

        “Well then, it wasn’t from Tongpu. We only had one subject and it was a failure.”

        “Oh come on,” replied Bob. “Everyone heard you brought in a bunch of homeless teens for that experiment.”

        “True, but out of that group, we selected one and sent the rest away. I’m telling you, Pierrot was the only subject. But things went wrong.”

        “Well duh,” replied Lau.

        “Pierrot started showing mental regression,” continued the director doing his best to ignore Lau. “His mind became more and more like that of a child. He started losing impulse control but the impulses he had were those of an adult and he possessed the strength of ten men. We had a very unfortunate incident with one of his nurses and not long after that we decided to cancel the project.”

        “What happened to the nurse?” asked Lau. “Did he kill her?”

        “He raped her,” replied the director. “She was furious and threatened to sue us.”

        “Did she?”

        “The weirdest thing happened, she mysteriously disappeared.” The director looked over at Bob. “Maybe I should rephrase that. It makes it sound like we did her in or something. She just didn’t show up to work one day and we lost contact with her.”

        Lau had a horrible feeling all of the sudden. “What was her name?”

        “Why would you want to know that?”

        “Just tell me!”

        “Let’s see...I can’t recall her last name but her first name...I think it was Vera...”

        “OH NO!”

        Ed came back into the apartment a little after midnight. She had totally lost track of the time and she hoped Jet wasn’t about to yell at her. She walked over to his room and found the door open a crack. Jet was asleep and the baby was asleep on his chest. Yes it was a cute scene, but Ed was worried about what would happen if Jet rolled over in his sleep. She picked the baby up and put her in a playpen that she kept in the apartment for when she baby-sat. Ein had heard her come in and followed her. Ed kicked off her sandals and laid down on the living room love seat. Ein jumped up onto the arm of the couch. The two of them fell asleep right there.

        Lau was trying to explain the situation with Vera to the research director. “Black hair and green eyes? That sounds like her all right.”

        “Is it possible that the biological alterations you made to Pierrot could be transmitted to another person through body fluids?” asked Lau.

        “I’m really not sure,” replied the director. “There were still a lot of unanswered questions when he escaped.”

        “Man, no wonder she targets men who victimize women,” groaned Bob. “Both of them annihilate anyone who even reminds them of people who caused them trauma. And the urge is nearly irresistible. In Pierrot’s case, he wanted to get back at ISSP. In Vera’s case, it was violent men. But for some reason, she’s more powerful than Pierrot was.”

        “I can’t explain that,” said the director. “We never tested the effects of those agents on women. It’s possible her hormones have made the alterations stronger within her. I can’t say for sure.”

        “So how do we stop her?” asked Lau.

        “If we knew that don’t you think we would have stopped Pierrot from attacking all those ISSP officers? Tell me, how was Pierrot killed in the first place?”

        “It was one of those psychological triggers of his,” replied Lau. “A mild injury with was inflicted on him and he over-reacted to the pain. In his hysterical reaction, he was accidentally crushed because he wasn’t paying attention to anything else.”

        “But Vera might not suffer the same weakness,” said Bob. “She seems a lot tougher both physically and emotionally.”

        “Then all I can tell you is that her shield merely protects her from bullets and explosions, nothing else,” replied the director.

        “No other means of attack is fast enough,” said Lau angrily. “I even had a lock on her with a plasma cannon on my ship and she managed to dodge most of the impact from that.”

        “Honestly, there’s nothing else I can tell you that would help you,” said the director. “I’ve been as candid as I could considering the secrecy of project Tongpu. We created a monster so I feel responsible for every death she has caused. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but I have to. Even then, I only know so much.”

        “If you’re really so set on redeeming yourself, maybe you could hand over some data on the project,” replied Lau. “It couldn’t hurt. If the right person analyzed it, they might find something helpful that you morons couldn’t.”

        “Wait a sec,” replied the director. “You don’t know what you’re asking here. It’s not like I keep that kind of information in my desk here. That’s the most classified of the classified. Even Commissioner Stagler doesn’t know about it.”

        “Are those records being kept where I think they are?” asked Bob impatiently.

        “Of course,” replied the director.

        “Am I missing something here?” asked Lau. “What are you two talking about?”

        “There’s a secret facility where the corrupt underbelly of ISSP keeps its dirty laundry under lock and key,” replied Bob.

        “They only keep stuff there that won’t be destroyed; things that may have future use,” said the director. “But they would never let me get at the files you want. If I even asked, some crooked cop would probably shoot me dead on the spot. Stagler didn’t weed out all the bad apples. If he ever found out about the place I’m talking about, a lot of heads would roll.”

        “You let us worry about that,” replied Lau. “Now where is this place?”

        A new day was dawning on Earth. Vera woke up in her bell-tower. She shielded her eyes from the sun. Her arm still hurt badly. She decided not to go out that day. It had occurred to her that she needed to be at her peak. Someone had nearly gotten her. Perhaps she wasn’t so invincible after all. She sat there as Mad Pierrot’s evil laughter echoed in her head over and over again. It was nearly unbearable. In fury, she punched the bell, making it ring.

        The Bebop was docked in the Sea of Tharsis. Bob and Lau headed back there, praying that the information they had received was accurate. Both of them were exhausted and needed some shut-eye quite badly.

        Bob fell asleep on the couch right away. Lau headed off for his bedroom. Before going to sleep, he decided to contact Earth. Transmissions from that distance get a little garbled sometimes but he needed help.

        Back at Jet’s apartment, Faye’s communicator started beeping. She had left it on the coffee table in the living room. Ein heard the noise and nudged Ed awake. She picked up the communicator. “Lau? Is that you?”

        “Ed, are the Swordfish and Redtail fixed yet?”

        “The repair shop said they would be ready by today,” she replied sleepily.

        “Good. Can the Falcon fly in space and hyperspace?”

        “Sure, but why...”

        “Ed I need you to listen,” interrupted Lau. “I need you to send Jet, Faye, and either Matthew or Fatty up to Mars right away. They’ll need to borrow your Falcon. Tell them to bring weapons and gear.”

        “Is the psycho lady on Mars now?” she asked.

        “No, but if we’re going to beat her, we need some reinforcement sent to Mars right away. Just trust me and do what I say.”

END OF ACT III

(c) 2004 Joseph Kerner