"Could I ask you something?" Tony came up behind Sylia, gently wrapping her arms around her dark haired lover. "Anything you like," Sylia gave a seductive little sigh, looking up adoringly into the brown haired woman's eyes. Tony blushed, "Not that!" "Sorry," Sylia smiled. "I guess this is serious," she said, leading Tony over to the couch. They sat down there side by side, "Ask away." "It's about the Knight Sabers," Tony sat forward. Quietly she said, "I've been thinking about it, and I can't believe that they are all that you are using against Genom. You must know that they can only contain Genom, not stop it." "That's very true," Sylia nodded. She took a remote and pressed several keys, bringing up an image of the screen in front of them. Tony frowned, "It looks like the stock structure of a large company." "It's Genom's, actually," Sylia said coolly. "Quincy and his various allies own approximately sixty percent of the company's stock," she said simply, "and the remainder is owned by various other small companies." Tony's eyes narrowed in thought, then they widened as she cried out, "So who owns the smaller companies!" "Bingo," Sylia grinned at her, "they're dummy corporations owned by me." "You're buying out Genom," Tony looked at Sylia admiringly. "It was the only way that I could see to carry out my father's dream of peaceful human and boomer coexistence," Sylia shrugged. "Once I acquire enough of the voting stock I can force the board and Quincy out, and start to build the boomers that my father had envisioned, not the cheap knock offs that Genom currently makes," she explained. "So how do you get Quincy to release the stock for you to buy?" Tony asked, rather strongly suspecting what the answer was. "Every time one of his grand schemes blows up in his face, he needs money to cover it," Sylia smiled impishly, "and he sells stock to get it." "Poetic irony," Tony chuckled, "every time the Knight Sabers beat him, the leader of the Sabers buys more of his stock!" The two women laughed softly. Across town at a nice little roadside restaurant, more laughter could be heard. The table had a few beer and sake bottles sitting on it, the five finished meals pushed aside. Four women in their fifties were sitting around it talking with a women in her twenties. Yoriko grinned at the others, "So this good looking lady strips off her skirt to reveal that she's wearing a pair of boxer shorts underneath! Then the breast forms fell out of her shirt, and we realized that she was really a he!" "Do you really have to tell that story?" Aoi was blushing furiously. Priss shook her head admiringly, "I'm impressed. Are you still..." "I got the latest operations a few years after the quake," Aoi smiled. "After what happened to some of our friends, I decided I couldn't put it off any longer," she finished. "Not that it didn't create a few problems," Yoriko took Aoi's hand in her own. "They were lovers both before and after the operations," Natsumi leaned over to whisper to her niece, Priss. "I guessed that," Priss smiled back. The four of them were so close, showing deep bonds of friendship developed over years of being together. 'I wonder if Linna, Nene, Sylia and I will ever be like that?' she wondered. "Those two have been together almost as long as Yoriko and I have," Aoi nodded to Natsumi and Miyuki. She smiled slightly, "Though if Miyuki's last boyfriend hadn't been a jerk, I wonder if they would have ever figured it out." "Ken wasn't that bad," Miyuki said quietly, "and it's in poor taste to speak ill of the dead." Yoriko winced, "Sorry." "The 'quake?" Priss asked Natsumi quietly. Her Aunt nodded slightly in reply. Priss looked down at her watch, and her eyes widened, "Shit." "What?" Aoi looked across the table at her. "Ladies, it's now well past one in the morning," Priss grinned, finally noticing the weary looks the waitresses were tossing them. "I'd love to keep this going, but I've got a performance tomorrow," she sighed. "And we," Natsumi got up and stretched, "are probably going to regret this in the morning. Or afternoon, whenever we wake up." Miyuki counted the bottles on the table, then gave a thoughtful look to the other four women. The only one who wasn't swaying a bit was, not surprisingly, Priss. "You going to be all right to drive?" she asked her. "I'll be fine," Priss smiled. They settled up on the bill and headed out into the bracing night air. "I'd invite you guys out to my home," Priss hugged Natsumi, "but my place is a dump. Call me, I'd love to do this again." "What, drink us all under the table again?" Miyuki asked, and they all had a good laugh. The sun rose the next morning, and by late afternoon there was a mini- conference going on over at the Silky Doll. Sylia and Tony sat together on one of the large couches, with Mackie, Nene, Linna and Priss scattered around the meeting room. Showing a certain amount of reluctance to be parted from her lover Sylia got up to face the group. "The hardsuits are going to be unavailable for the next week or so," Sylia said, "as Tony, Mackie and I are going to be giving them a bit of an overhaul." "What do we do if there's a boomer attack during that time?" Linna asked worriedly. "There's always the AD Police to protect us, of course," Tony offered, and then grinned at the chorus of pained groans that quickly surrounded her. Even Nene, an AD Police dispatch officer herself, groaned loudly. "Tony's contacted Biko and her partner, Eiko. They're staying around town while Biko investigates Genom's activities," Sylia smiled. "And I guess they're willing to tackle boomers," Priss said thoughtfully. "Oh, yes," Tony smiled grimly. "Apparently both of them are quite displeased with Genom's deceptive tactics," she added. Nene offered, "Akiko tells me that Nuku-Nuku and her fellow android Emi seem to quite enjoy thrashing boomers." "That's not a bad idea, Nene," Sylia smiled at her. "See if you can convince them to come into town for a few days," she added. Linna looked over at Nene and smirked, "I noticed the two of you getting quite close back at that party Sylia threw." "We're just friends," Nene answered, while trying to fight back a telling blush. "You may just want to be friends," Priss drawled, "but that really wasn't the sort of look that Akiko was giving you." "Linna," Sylia looked at her, "I've noticed that you've started to become friends with Hatoko Kobayashi." "Yes?" Linna asked her cautiously. Sylia could be a bit ruthless when it suited her, so Linna was just being reasonably cautious. "Could you try to feel out how she and her friends Misaki, Sai and Kaede actually feel about Genom?" She smiled wryly, "I'd still like to see if we could recruit them as reserve Knight Sabers." "Will do," Linna half saluted, half waved. "Then that's pretty much it," Sylia smiled. As they others got up to go, she called out, "Priss, could I see you for a moment?" "Sure, Sylia," Priss waited as the others left, leaving just the two of them and Tony. "I understand you went to see your Aunt last night," Sylia smiled. "I'm not even going to ask how you knew about that," Priss shook her head ruefully. She smiled slightly, "My Aunt, her partner and the other two members of their detective agency all showed up for dinner." "I should apologize," Sylia surprised her as she said quietly, "I've actually used their agency before, but I didn't connect Natsumi to you." "Not that Sylia could have known," Tony noted, clearly disapproving of Sylia taking on any guilt in the situation. "She's right," Priss nodded to Tony then she looked Sylia in the eye, "you really couldn't have known." "Thanks," Sylia smiled. She paused, then added, "If you want, invite them over to dinner here one night. It's got to be better than the trailer." Priss chucked, "One of these days I'll take you up on that." She moved towards the door, "I gotta go, I have a show tonight."
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