Shimi and her father froze when a large figure came out of the shadows and held up his left hand. "Stop! If you want to die, continue on to the mine-fields. The Scavs of city 64 set up explosives to deal with intruders." She looked and shrugged, "When are bio-cyclops noted for their compassion? Why would you even care?" A woman's voice sounded from the air, "I care, and I'm not biological at all. Please don't shoot when I drop Optical Camouflage." Shimi looked at her father. He nodded grimly. Shimi said to the air, "Alright. You didn't shoot us from invisibility. Go on." A cyclops with an odd shape and four legs phased into view. She said, "I am Captain Rose of the Cyclops Commonwealth. I command a group of cyclops soldiers. I'd like to ask you, why are you heading for the Scav base?" Shimi was surprised as much by the cyclops' politeness as a female voice from one. She had heard stories about them. She blurted, "Why do you sound female, you robot machine?" The Captain paused for a moment and fidgeted. She answered, "I AM female. Why shouldn't SOUND female? I am a Cyclops machine-life female capable of having sex with males of my 'species' and can reproduce immature offspring capable of growing into other Cyclops." Rose stood up on a flat stone block and stared at Shimi, "You are evading my question." Shimi's father remarked, "Holy fuck. They can BREED?!" Captain Rose waved her arms in agitation and almost shouted in irritation, "So can YOU! SO WHAT? You biologicals suffer lack of focus! Please answer the question. You both looked like murder." Shimi blinked and tears welled up in her eyes. "The flying cities murdered my mother. We found her body last week. They had used her for a year and discarded her. She was thrown from high. We saw her taken by them. I want to HURT THEM!" Captain's phased array radar plated flicked up like ears to scan Shimi's body for a moment. Shimi thought it was remarkably biological-like a gesture. Captain Rose paused, and said, "We were going to use 'Brutus' here to try an infiltration. People are always trying to get work on the flying cities if they can. If you want to...you two could help us out. It will be dangerous, BUT it may give you a chance to avenge your mother's death." Captain Rose looked back and forth at them. "I won't lie to you. Your chances aren't good for survival if you do go along with us and do your own thing inside. IF and I mean IF you are willing to take my orders in this--I will do what I can to protect you both as much as I can. If you have on IFF receivers, we can NOT shoot on you when the full attack comes." Shimi looked back at her father. He remarked in a gruff voice,"We'd have died if she hadn't said anything, I guess. If she wasn't lying." "I have no reason to lie about this. You can probe the land-mines all you want. The road up to the main gate is cleared and is a kill-zone for their sentry guns. After we hit them, you'll have only five or ten minutes to run in and loot what you can. I don't want to be out in the open naked like this for long." Captain looked at them, "YES or NO?" Shimi looked at her dad. After a moment, Shimi nodded. Her father said, "Let's do it." Captain vanished, and said, "Follow Brutus. He's a blabber-mouth, but harmless otherwise. We'll get you some new weapons that are unscanable and some IFF receivers." They moved out. --TO BE CONTINUED-- Media is Poser 6 and Vue 6