Endgame

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Chapter 4

This was not good. Julia couldn\'t think. Normally, she was good in these situations. Spike\'s gun was inches from her face. She drew in her breath, let it out.

\"Well?\" Spike asked. \"Are you a spy?\"

\"I don\'t know what you\'re talking about.\"

He laughed. \"This is so bad. It\'s so obvious. Once the Komodo syndicate was disbanded and you found out your brother was dead, you would have left. And how is it you were the only one in the building who survived?\"

\"Therm-\"

\"Shut up. You probably had something to do with it, didn\'t you? And how are you going to begin to explain why you\'re in the library at this hour and with Kyle Woo\'s identity card that you probably have in your pocket right now?\"

He put the barrel of the gun to her temple, took the safety off, and began to rummage through the pockets of her coat. It wasn\'t in the left or right pocket, so he turned her so her face was pressed against the spines of the books and began to tear her jacket off. The gun wasn\'t pressed against her skull any more, so she grabbed Spike\'s wrist and dug her fingers into a pressure point. He began to lose his grip on the gun.

\"Easy, girl,\" he breathed and tried to throw her to the ground. She didn\'t let go of his wrist and used his weight to start bending it in the wrong direction. He grunted. She brought her left foot down on his left foot, and as he brought it off the ground she kicked at his kneecap with her other foot. Thoughtlessly he tried to take the weight off this leg and fell to his knees on the ground. Their hands were both still locked on the gun. \"Kinda rough for a girl, huh?\" he asked.

\"Try it without a gun like a man,\" she replied. Then she kicked him in the face, hard. He fell back but didn\'t let go of the gun, bringing her down with him. He started laughing. \"You really are unbelievably obvious and not particularly astute,\" he snorted. She stopped struggling, wondered if that was what he wanted her to do. \"Not only are you the worst candidate for a spy in the history of mankind, but you can\'t fi out out who the other one is.\" He let go of the gun and dropped his head back to the floor, laughing as if he\'d just pulled the prank of the century. Which he just had. Julia climbed off of him, the gun still in her hand. He could be lying. She rose, and leaned against the bookshelf, and ran her free hand through her hair. Spike was still laughing.

\"Explain yourself,\" she said softly. Spike looked up. The gun was pointed at his temple. He looked up, which ended up being horizontally since he was lying on the floor, as if in thought. Then he took a communicator out of his pocket, pressed a few buttons, and put it to his ear.

\"Yeah, Kyt?\" he said. \"She doesn\'t believe me.\" He nodded. \"Yeah, she is that type.\" He looked up at her and extended the phone as an offering. Julia took it, feeling a little like an idiot. Spike, still prone, lit a cigarette.

\"Hey,\" Julia said noncommitantly into the receiver.

\"Julia, Spike has been employed by Delaware for the past three years.\" She looked down at him. He winked at her.

\"\'Kay,\" she said. \"Bye.\"

She tossed the phone down to him. \"Women,\" he said.

\"Thank you, Spike.\"

\"You\'re welcome. What for?\"

\"I\'ve been very angry for a long time, in a my brother was killed I want to kill everyone who ever thought the word Syndicate kind of a way. But it\'s been a long, long time since I\'ve felt angry in the trivial I\'m gonna kick your ass way.\" She looked over at the gun, then at Spike, then threw the gun nine levels up to the top. \"Let\'s do this without the gun.\"

He shrugged. \"Gotta finish my smoke.\"

She waited for him to finish his cigarette, which he did while lying on his back and throwing quizzical looks up towards her. He finished his last drag, looked fondly at the cigarette, then mashed it on the ground. He was on his feet within one backwards flip. Julia wasn\'t impressed.

\"I should warn you,\" he said. \"I don\'t hit women.\"

\"That\'s alright,\" she said, shrugging off her coat. \"You\'d never hit me anyway.\" He bounced on his feet a little, bouncing closer and then farther away from her, not willing to throw a punch. Julia just stood there with her arms folded. \"What?\" she asked after fifteen minutes of this. \"Scared?\"

\"Oh, come on!\" he said, and then, so fast she almost didn\'t see it, bounded up to her and put her in a headlock. \"Ha! Miss you\'d never hit me anyway.\"

\"You didn\'t hit me,\" she said calmly, then brought her leg up behind her and cracked him so hard on the head it made a sound. He sat down, stunned. She thought it would probably be fair to wait for him to recover before she hit him again, but decided against it. She delivered a roundhouse to his ear, and he fell to his side. She leaned down to inspect him. He was out. She kicked at him experimentally, and the next thing she knew he\'d grabbed her by her ankles and was dangling her over the railing.

\"Pink underwear, huh?\" he goaded her. \"Very traditional. Now yield.\"

Julia, upside down and with her skirt hanging down to her shoulders, folded her arms. \"No way.\"

\"I\'ll drop you.\"

\"No you won\'t.\"

He let go of her ankles for a moment, causing her to shriek, and at the last moment grabbed one of them. \"Yield!\" he commanded.

\"You didn\'t drop me,\" she said. \"And just wait until I get back up there.\"

\"Okay, fine, I\'ll dangle you there all night and stare up your skirt.\"

\"Go ahead.\"

\"It\'s a nice view, I\'ve gotta say.\"

\"Oh, fuck you.\"

\"Name the time and the place.\"

\"How did I know that was coming?\" Julia sighed. \"Fine. I yield.\"

Smiling, he brought her back up and set her on her feet over the railing. \"That\'s more reableable.\"

\"Whatever. Do we have business to discuss or what?\"

\"Yes,\" Spike said, lighting another cigarette. \"The mission we\'re assigned to is to track down the decoy organization Harley and Delaware have set up. We\'re gonna be going to the sleeper factory that made the bullets, and they\'re gonna lead us to this Illuminati group, which is a real group. We\'ve just gotta kill them before anyone finds out they weren\'t responsible for the Komodo coup.\"

\"Is that what they\'re calling it these days?\"

Spike just grinned at her. Julia glared at him.

\"What?\"

\"I won,\" Spike said.

\"Yes, you won. Is there anything else we need to discuss?\"

\"No.\"

\"Good,\" Julia said, and went to grab her coat. She stood and walked past Spike to the stairs. \"And Spike?\"

\"Yeah?\"

She turned around and delivered a swift kick to the balls. The cigarette dropped from his lips and his skin went white. He crashed to his knees in ag \"I \"I won.\"

Chapter 5

Spike lurched into the back of The Barracuda, Julia\'s ship from her time in the Komodo syndicate. Vicious smirked at the green tinge to his face.

\"Couldn\'t take it, hmmm?\" he asked slyly, walking an old Earth coin from finger to finger down his hand.

\"Neither could you,\" Spike put in defensively. \"I mean it\'s fine when you\'re not watching the meteors she\'s aiming for whizzing past you a half- second from impact. Women drivers.\"

\"From what I hear, they\'re a lot worse than this. You couldn\'t pilot a ship this fast.\"

\"Sure I could,\" Spike argued, flipping a smoke to his lip.

Vicious pocketed the coin. \"Give me one.\"

Spike scowled in annoyance, then threw a cigarette over to Vicious, who caught it neatly between his smoking fingers, then produced a lighter, and, with a fancy turn of his fingers, lit the cigarette and made the lighter disappear. Then he relaxed into his normal state of zen staticity. Spike rested his head in his upturned arms, smoking like a train.

Julia appeared in the door Spike had just come through.

\"This is too much!\" Spike shouted. \"Crazy driving, fine, but at least pilot the ship, Julia!\"

\"I was just coming backsay say we\'ve docked at Jupiter,\" she replied with her usual near-bored calmness.

\"What about the asteroid belt?\" Spike asked.

She gave an offhand wave with her hand. \"Slim pickings. Time to grab your bikes, boys. We\'re in for a bumpy ride. I\'ve already programmed the location into your boards.\"

The two partners rose and eyed each other. \"I think she wants to race us,\" Vicious said.\"

Julia smiled at him, and then wordlessly disappeared to the hangar.

Julia got to the sleeper factory first, but she was neck in neck with Spike and Vicious most of the time, and Vicious did pass her a few times before it became apparent to him that it was dangerous to do so. Julia had a habit of bumping tires with anyone that got ahead of her, which always unnerved the victim more than the perpetrator.

They had already studied the layout of the factory and decided the informatics locus would be in the northwest corner of the building. They stood on the perimeter while Spike prepared his tools. Julia was standing in her catsuit, eyes shielded against the sun, examining the perimeter. Spike noticed Vicious stealing covert glances at her. He nodded towards them when he was prepped. Spike got them past the locks and the security, more noisily than was necessary, but effectively. Vicious took care of the more out of hand guards, and Julia didn\'t have any left to bother with. When they got to the informatics locus Julia took charge. Within moments the necessary information was on the screen. It was too easy to access, having been programmed in by Delaware\'s less than crack hacking squad. She looked uneasily at Spike, who just nodded. The sale of three hundred and twelve of the heat-seeking rifles whose bullets fit the description was attributed to the Illuminati, whose address, as Julia and Spike already knew, was on an old bomb shelter on Earth. Spike gave a convincing surprised growl at the information.

\"Nothing good comes from earth,\" he said.

\"It\'s a hell of a hide-out, what with the meteors,\" Vicious pointed out. Julia smiled at the easy sell. She holographically recorded the information and they were out faster than they had been in.

They took the Barracuda back to Vicious\'s luxury ship, the Narwhal, which Vicious had remote navigated from Mars. Spike tried to argue Julia into letting him pilot the ship most of the way back, but Julia refused. Vicious looked on with a bemused, if somewhat weary eye. He was glad Julia was the one at the controls, since it meant they would be at the Narwhal faster.

Once they\'d docked , Spike immediately headed for the bathroom. Vicious noted the half-hidden smile on Julia\'s normally expressionless face.

\"You give him a hard time on purpose, don\'t you?\" he asked her. She turned to him, half-lidded blue eyes meeting his gold ones. She didn\'t respond, but the smile managed to hide itself back into her game face. They looked at each other for an uncomfortably long time, like their shared stare was a challenge neither wanted to lose. It was broken by Spike striding between them.

\"I need dinner,\" he muttered as he strode past them into the kitchen.

\"Guess he needs to replace the contents he just threw up,\" Julia suggested with a note of amusement in her voice.

Vicious gave her a knowing smile. \"Care for any food yourself?\"

\"Sure,\" she replied, and together they followed Spike\'s path to the kitchen. Julia stifled a gasp when she saw it. The entire thing was tiled in spotless pearl white, and the spice rack alone took up half a wall. There were mechanical servants darting to and fro. Spike was currently engaged in a battle with one for a wok. She realized that even the Syndicate didn\'t provide the kind of wealth displayed here, and wondered how Vicious had become so wealthy.

\"What do you feel like eating?\" he asked her.

\"What do you have?\" she asked.

\"Every food group,\" he replied.

\"Fish, then I guess. Surprise me.\"

He nodded, then bent over a control panel. The mechanical servants started to whiz around, banging open cabinets and refrigerators, of which Vicious had three. The servant Spike was fighting abandoned him, and he triumphantly held up the wok. Vicious turned to Julia.

\"It should be ready within twenty minutes. I\'m just going to go to the navigation room to program the coordinates for Earth.\" She nodded, and he left the room. He seemed to float when he walked. His head was always at the same level, never displaced by his steps.

Julia turned to Spike, who was grabbing ingredients from around the room as if he knew it from top to bottom. She placed her elbows on a nearby countertop and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. \"How long have you been partners with him?\"

\"Three years,\" said Spike, slicing up bits of vegetables and throwing them into the wok..

\"And you\'re friends?\"

His back was turned to her, so she couldn\'t see the expression on his face. It was a moment before he said, in an odd voice, \"Best friends.\"

Julia wasn\'t sure how to react. Even in the Komodo syndicate, she wasn\'t close to one of the people there, having decided they were all murderers, even those who were in the same position she had been put in. She had liked Kyt\'s father. \"But what about when-\"

\"Not here,\" Spike cut her off. \"Not anywhere. I can\'t do my job if I let myself think that way.\" He started to fry his food, expertly dodging the servants around him. He tossed the food up in his wok, then turned to her, placing one hand in his pocket. \"Truth is, I would have ended up in the Syndicate if Delaware hadn\'t given me a job. Hell, I\'m as good as a Syndicate man. I murder the same people.\" Turning back, he muttered, \"So do you.\"

The barb cut. Julia didn\'t ever think about the killing much. Her aversion to it had been programmed out of her in her early days with Komodo. Funny how it became something like an addiction. She had come back to the Syndicate ways of her own volition. Still, searching for it, she couldn\'t find any guilt. It was the barb that cut, not the truth behind it. She glared at Spike\'s back before turning to leave the kitchen.

She began to wander the halls of the ship, making a map in her head with the entrance and the kitchen as the center of it. The halls were all claustrophobic tunnels made of cool metal, occasionally lined with doors. None of them would open, so she guessed the rooms\' measurements by the angles of the turns within the halls. At the end of one hall was a window, past which the stars whizzed by. She walked tos its it until it opened into a large deck. There were plants everywhere, exotic, poisonous-looking breeds she didn\'t recognize. The floor was carpeted thickly enough for her to feel her feet sink down half-an-inch or so. There were huge, blood-red pillows strewn around. Overall, the deck gave the impression of being an inten com comfortable trap.

\"You should be careful, wandering around like that,\" Vicious said behind her, sending bone-cold fingers down her back. She turned to him. He looked at her impassively, something hidden in his eyes that she couldn\'t make out. \"You might get lost.\"

\"Vicious,\" she said. His lips quirked at his name. She turned back to the window. \"I never get lost. How did you find me, anyway?\"

\"I didn\'t. I was coming here myself.\"

\"Everything is red and green,\" she said, almost to herself. \"The color of death and life.\"

\"That\'s all there is, in the end, isn\'t it?\" He said, and she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, and she closed her eyes at the sensation. \"We should go.\" She turned, nearly brushing against him as she did so, he was so close. His mouth opened, and he stepped back. A flicker of some emotion crossed his eyes- fear? \"Dinner\'s ready.\"

Chapter 6

The Illuminati was a century-old organization that had once subtly controlled the mechanics of Earth politics, until the moon incident. Once the population had exploded into the planets they lost a great deal of influence, and had been trying for a long time to regain it. It had made them an ideal scapegoat as far as Delaware was concerned. There were only men in the organization, but they had a misogynist obsession with women, which made Julia the ideal candidate to infiltrate their base. Apparently they liked to kidnap women and hold them on the premises as trophies. Once on the premises, Julia would activate a quick-working poison that killed only men. She had to wonder if Vicious had manufactured the poison from his plants. After all, poisons were one of his expertises, and he did seem to consider the Narwhal his home.

They left the Narwhal in orbit past the moon and navigated the Barracuda through the occasional meteor spray. Julia still wouldn\'t let Spike pilot. They docked in California some miles away from the location of the Illuminati base, and Julia left Spike and Vicious behind. They would go their own way to wait by the base in case she needed them as back-up. They brought gas-masks with them and the alert communicators, one of which she wore on her hip bone.

She dressed as a visiting Martian, which wasn\'t hard since her own wardrobe had lately come from Mars. Then she rode her motorcycle to a high- class restaurant she knew Illuminati members frequented. She had dozens of their profiles in her head, which wasn\'t really necessary since most of them wore the 33-degree Masonic symbol on their jackets.

Entering the club, she saw why she would be a prime candidate for being kidnapped by the Illuminati. For some reason, whether it was the meteors or the Illuminati, there were very few women in the restaurant, and of those most were hardened and ugly from survival on Earth. She stood at the door for a moment, waiting for everyone\'s eyes to note her presence, while she scoped out the room. Rich, on Earth, wasn\'t really as flattering to the eye as it was elsewhere. Everyone was dressed in second-rate suits or dresses that they\'d probably gotten off the blackmarket. It made the members of the Illuminati stand out. They were dressed in the finest Venetian designs, wore their hair Martian-style, and had the distinctive Masonic emblem on their lapels. Julia moved slowly through the room, chin high and her eyes meeting no one. She\'d long learned how to dominate a room. She\'d been taught by the best, Tussaud, one of the most notorious courtesans in the galaxy. The occupants parted from her. She drifted through a mixture of jealousy and desire, and stopped at the bar. There she ordered an old Earth wine, one that had been bottled before the Moon collapsed and whose year had just come. She knew there were people who came to Earth just to taste it. There were apparently only one hundred bottles of the stuff. Luckily, her supply from the Red Dragon syndicate covered it. The bartender procured the money before serving her the drink. As she put the glass to her lips she became aware of a presence beside her. From the Venetian cologne she guessed it was a member of the Illuminati.

\"It isn\'t often you see someone order La Narcisse,\" the man beside her said. She turned to the man. He had ruby-colored eyes framed by hair the same color. If it was possible his hair captured the light at well as his eyes. He was unusually tall, well-built, and Julia guessed he must be the one the Illuminati always sent to procure a new trophy. She allowed an aloof smile to play her lips and sipped the wine, holding it in her mouth to savour it.

\"Why else would anyone come to Earth?\" she said. \"It\'s too bad they refuse to export it.\"

\"There are some who say,\" he said, leaning closer, \"the experience is better when the surroundings are so poor.\"

Julia appraised the man as if she were looking at a jewel. She saw he enjoyed it, knowing in the end he would be chosen.

\"Enjoy your wine,\" he told her. \"I\'ll be waiting outside for you.\" He stood and walked back, confident enough not to spare a glance back at her. Julia sighed. Rich, confident men. Exactly the kind she despised. Hopefully this mission would be over soon. She took her time finishing the wine. It was the best she\'d had, but then she was more of a vodka person. She left the bartender a tip and made her way outside, noting that the Illuminati members were watching her leave, and one of them started to speak into a communicator one she started to leave.

The winds were high outside and carried flecks of dirt that hit her skin. The ruby-haired man was leaning against a ruby-colored car. Julia tried not to roll her eyes.

\"Shall we go?\" he asked.

\"How do you know I came for? I ? I might be on my way back to Mars,\" she couldn\'t resist pointing out. He didn\'t answer, only smiled. She brushed her hair past her bare shoulder and walked over to him. He was looking at the leg she exposed whenever she put her right foot forward. She stopped inches away from him, smirked, and said, \"But of course you know I came for you.\" He tilted her chin up and stared at her for an unbearably long time before he kissed her, tongue sliding into her mouth like a snake. She cringed, hoping it would go no farther than that until they got to the base. He turned her around and leaned her against the car, pressing himself against her and groping her breast. She grunted and he took it for a moan, and brought the hand down to her bare leg, slipping it up and far to near the communicator. It was when he started tugging down her underwear that she gave up. \"OK, that\'s it,\" she muttered, kneeing him in the groin and brandishing a gun. \"In the car,\" she instructed him. \"Hurry.\" She watched him as he stumbled to the driver\'s side, glaring at her. She let herself in on the passenger side, and cocked the gun at his temple. \"The communicator on your shoulder. Take it off.\" He did so, refusing to look at her. \"Go to the base. Now. I know exactly where it is so don\'t try anything funny. Call your friends and tell them to meet you there in half an hour.\"

He took another communicator, this one in the car, and spoke into it. \"Yeah. I got her. Be there in half an hour. I\'m gonna have fun with her first.\" Once he clicked off, she laughed out loud.

\"Make sure to park outside of the line of sight. We\'ll wait for your friends to make it into the base before we go in.\"

True to his word, he didn\'t try any funny stuff and parked behind the base. Julia couldn\'t see any signs of Spike or Vicious, but then, they were good at covering signs of their presence. The man still wasn\'t looking at her, but he did seem somewhat confident for someone being controlled at gunpoint.

\"What\'s your story?\" he asked at one point. \"What are you planning to do, take us out for the sake of womankind?\" Julia didn\'t answer, wondering why he even bothered to ask. \"Are you from the syndicate?\" Again, she kept silent, but promised to herself if he spoke again she\'d shoot him in the shoulder. Luckily, he didn\'t. A trail of cars pulled up to the base. Once she was sure the drivers had all made their way into the building, she gestured with her gun that they should leave.

He whistled and kept his hands in his pockets as he walked. Julia kicked him lightly. He took the hint and pulled his hands from his pockets, shrugging. They walked in the door. It was lucky she had the ruby-haired man in front of her, because the whole organization had their guns cocked and ready for her. Almost without thinking, she released the poison and braced the man in front of her, shooting at a couple men. One managed to shoot the gun out of her hand, and then she kept entirely behind her captive. After a minute, the shots stopped, but her captive hadn\'t become victim to the poison. He untangled himself from her and turned with a malicious grin. \"I\'m so glad you used poison,\" he said. Julia\'s mind was racing. She went for the gun on the floor, but the man kicked it away from her. He grabbed her by the front of her dress, tearing it a little, and shoved her against a cement pillar. She activated her alert communicator.

\"What the-\" He slapped her.

\"That\'s for kneeing me in the groin,\" he said. His eyes traveled hungrily down her body. \"Looks like I get to have fun with you after all. He took the strap of her dress and slowly began to slide it down her arm. \"You see,\" he breathed, \"Poison doesn\'t work on me.\" Then he clamped his lips on her neck, breaking the skin with his teeth. Her muscles froze in paralysis. He moved his head back up and looked into her shock-frozen eyes, staring past him to the door, where Vicious had appeared, with Spike behind him. They were both wearing gas masks. Oblivious, the ruby-haired man continued to slide the strap down her arm, exposing a breast. Vicious\'s face contorted behind the mask, and in one movement he leapt and drew a katana from his coat. He sliced across. The man\'s head disappeared into a ruby gurgle of blood. His body fell before her, and without its support, Julia\'s paralyzed body started to fall to the floor. Vicious caught her in his arms, realizing something had happened to her. He looked intently into her face.

\"Julia,\" he said, his voice distorted by the mask. She couldn\'t answer. Tenderly, he slid her dress up to cover her.

She heard Spike behind him say, \"Must be one of those mutations-the moon caused a lot of them.\"

Vicious stood with her frozen body cradled in his arms. \"I think one of the antidotes to a juy leaf should revive her.\"

\"Is she conscious?\" Spike asked.

\"I don\'t know what type of venom he used,\" Vicious replied.

\"Let\'s get out of here,\" Spike said. \"This place gives me the creeps.\"

\"It\'s just a bomb shelter,\" Vicious said while following him to their motorcycles.

\"Not the base,\" Spike said. \"Earth.\"

Chapter 7

It all came back to Julia in a rush of melted images. Ruby red, Vicious\'s face. She sat up. She was wearing the same red dress she had that night, and wondered how long she\'d been out. Her head felt about three sizes too small, and she felt the urge to vomit but knew there wasn\'t anything to come up. Gingerly, she looked around the room for signs of Vicious or Spike. Luckily, they weren\'t anywhere to be found. She groaned again, not at the pain embracing her body but at the thought they had seen her so weak. Especially Spike. He was the person who she most needed to be blind to any of her weak spots. He already thought she was weak. She stood up with a growl of frustration and sat down just as quickly, hugging her head to her chest. The door opened ten times too loud, and Spike emerged through the door.

\"Hey,\" he said as she composed herself, leaning against the door frame. \"Vicious said the antidote he came up with should work about now. He\'s coming up with something for the pain.\"

Julia nodded, hoping vainly he\'d leave her to her misery.

\"You okay?\" His voice caught in the middle of the sentence, as though he didn\'t know whether or not he should ask.

\"Fine,\" she said. She could tell he wanted to say something, so she continued, \"I just need a shower and a change of clothes, if you don\'t mind. How long have I been out?\"

\"Five hours,\" Spike replied.

Julia stood and steeled herself against the urge to sit back down. \"Boy works fast, doesn\'t he?\"

\"Yeah.\" He gave her a sympathetic glance that she hated him for before he left.

Julia lurched towards what she hoped was the bathroom. A wave of relief passed over her when she saw a Jacuzzi the size of a small pool. Hopefully the hot water would relieve the pain. She turned on the tap and began to slip off her dress.

* * *

Julia didn\'t answer the tentative knock on her door so Vicious went in, thinking perhaps the antidote hadn\'t worked as well as he\'d thought. The empty bed and steam coming from the bathroom told him otherwise. He started to leave when he heard Julia.

\"Vicious?\"

He cleared his throat. \"It\'s me. I have something for the pain.\"

\"Oh.\" There was a pause, then the sound of water being stepped out of. Minutes later Julia emerged wrapped in a towel, her wet hair plastered over her shoulders and her skin pink from the heat. She was being careful not to show any pain, but Vicious could tell by the extreme rigidity of her posture and gait the toll being forcefully paralyzed for six hours had taken on her. \"Thank you,\" she said, carefully extending her hand and barely wincing.

\"It\'s an injection,\" he said, producing a vial and syringe from his pocket.

\"Oh,\" she said, again, biting her lip. She sat down on the bed, wet hair making transient stains on the sheets. Her arm was still extended. Vicious filled the syringe. Then he gently took her arm, probed for a vein, and slid the needle into her arm. Julia showed no response to the pain. Her face still wore an expression of that half-lidded calm, that seeming softness that hid a strength whoricerice he wondered at. Vicious withdrew the needle. Julia didn\'t look at him.

\"It\'s all right, you know,\" he told her. \"We\'re comrades. We look out for each other. I know you think you made a mistake, but no one can play a bum card like that. You had more than one bum card, and you made it farther than most men I know would have.\"

Julia looked at him, gri grip of her gaze overpowering. \"I don\'t need your justifications.\" She stood, with much more ease than she\'d sat. \"It\'s working. Good thing we had a poisons expert on hand.\" She looked back at him, offered a half-hearted smirk to soften her words. \"I\'m going to finish my bath, if you don\'t mind.\"

He left her to her recovery. He headed, as he often did, to the deck. Spike was lying back on some of the blood-colored pillows, smoking. Vicious stood, watching the stars through the frame of his plants. He didn\'t say a word.

\"She all better now?\" Spike asked.

\"She\'s fine.\"

\"She\'s a lot of trouble,\" he offered. Vicious didn\'t reply. Spike sucked on his cigarette. It had cemented, the second he saw Vicious go for the Illuminati man with a passion he never allowed himself in battle. The way he cradled Julia\'s body as he walked her to the bikes, the speed with which he\'d concocted an antidote from the juy plant, his prized possession, one of seventeen known samples. Spike wanted to say something in warning, thought about how bad his own betrayal would be when the time came to shut down this branch of the Syndicate. It would be worse in Julia\'s case. If she even knew what Vicious already felt for her. But there was nothing he could say. So he just finished his cigarette and left Vicious to come to his own conclusions.

It was a short time before they docked at Mars and were off to their assorted homes. Julia was pale and silent, Vicious was brooding, and Spike was sick of both of them. Once again this job seemed like it was dragging on far to long and with far too many complications. He sped to his loft in the rain, taking turns too shaor tor the weather, on purpose. He didn\'t know what he hoped to achieve with his impatient taunts at death. Once home, he made a report to Kyt Harley and tried to drown out his musings on Vicious and Julia with television and cigarettes, until it was time to convene with the elders.

* * *

Vicious could tell the elders weren\'t happy about something. He wondered if one of their soothsayers had something or another to say about the whole Illuminati situation. Neither Julia nor Spike seemed to notice anything off-key during their report. However, Vicious realized it had nothing to do with the Illuminati situation, when he ran into Mao Yenrai on the way out.

\"Vicious,\" the old man said with pleading eyes. \"Leave soon!\" Julia and Spike slowed their steps in curiosity. Mao kept on glancing at the hallway behind him. Spike frowned at him, demanding an answer Vicious couldn\'t give.

\"Mao,\" Vicious said, pulling his arm back from the man.

\"Leave,\" he hissed. \"Hurry!\"

Vicious was about to say something when his father burst through the door.

Spike had never seen Vicious afraid, and the sight of it made him sick to his stomach at whatever could cause it. There was a reason for Vicious\'s name, a lack of fear that verged on madness, something that intimidated Spike when he saw it. And Spike wasn\'t easily intimidated.The man\'s presence broke into the room the way a knife broke through skin. His speeding, tyrannical gait threatened to overtake Vicious. It was the way a murderer walks towards its victim, and Vicious took a step back. The man enfolded Vicious into a hug, Vicious\'s face recovering over the man\'s shoulder. Spike spared a glance to Julia, who was coolly surveying the situation.

\"Son,\" the man said, clapping Vicious on his back.

\"Father,\" Vicimanamanaged, weakly. Mao had regained his composure and pumped Vicious\'s father\'s hand vigorously.

\"Pleasure, Mr. Dragon,\" Mao said.

Vicious\'s father turned towards Spike and Julia, and proclaimed in a booming voice, \"Friend? Or foe!\" The question was meant for Vicious, who didn\'t answer. The man whirled around to Vicious. \"Learn to answer me, boy,\" he said in a sinister whisper.

\"I\'ve learned when I shouldn\'t answer you at all,\" Vicious said seriously.

The man giggled. It was a madman\'s giggle, high-pitched and uncontrolled. \"Right you are, my boy,\" he said. Then, \"You know why I\'ve come here, don\'t you?\"

\"It\'s my birthday in a week,\" Vicious replied. His voice had gone miles beyond desolate. He refused to look at Spike or Julia.

\"That\'s right,\" his father said. \"Time for another test.\" A cold hand grabbed Vicious\'s heart and squeezed.