This is a work of fiction that I am in no way making any money off of. It is not intended to infringe on anyone else’s copyright. It is however something that I wrote and I would ask that you please ask me first before using the reality or original characters I’ve created. Music lyrics used from Elecric Head pt.2 (The Ecstasy) and More Human Than Human. © White Zombie Astro-creep: 2000, Greffen Records 1995.

 

Biker Mice from Mars FanFiction

Chapter Three

Things Change: Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing

By Kat

12/27/99

 

Kaals held on for dear life as Lucifer sped through one alleyway into another. In a very technical way she was in control. She had control over Charlene and Charlene controlled Lucifer, but dangling from the side of nearly homicidal motorcycle with your only lifeline being the arm of a human that at the moment was unconscious and being remotely driven was not her idea of true control. Kaals quickly entered the location she wished to go to into her pad. It was an old warehouse at the end of town they had recently bought. Kaals gritted her flat, herbivore teeth when Charlene’s central processor sent the command to Lucifer and the bike veered sharply to the right.

Just when Kaals thought she couldn’t take any more bumps, jars and jerks, they arrived at their destination. Lucifer came to a sliding halt out side the front door and Charlene put out her foot out to prop them up. Kaals had to type in a command for Charlene to let her go and the Human unceremoniously dropped Kaals on her side. The Tulsan had no curse words in their language so Kaals had to resort to a few of Charlene’s favorites as she picked herself off the ground.

Kaals angrily punched in her next command and followed Charlene as she walked Lucifer into the warehouse. Charlene proceeded to the back of the empty room where their sleeping quarters were located while Kaals stopped to pick up the supplies she would need to patch the human up. Kaals glanced down at her pad that listed Miss Davidson’s injuries in order of severity. She looked into the bag of medical supplies from one of the packed crates they came to Mars with. Inside she found several rolls of tape, a verity of pain killers and antiseptics, a box of square gauze for the minor scrapes and a suture kit for the deep cut that was bleeding freely in Charlene’s leg. Realizing that every thing that she needed was everything that they had, Kaals zipped up the bag and hauled the whole thing to the back.

Kaals entered the back and found Charlene in the room’s only chair. In the far corner Lucifer sat deceptively quite, but Kaals knew that he was watching and recording. Long ago, when Charlene had first put Lucifer together from an old FLSTS Heritage Springer chassis and a forgotten Martian AI they found in one of the many Plutarkian dumps they had scavenged, Charlene had programmed the bike to record everything that happened while she was unconscious. It was the only way Charlene would sleep peacfully.

Kaals dumped the bag at her charge’s feet. Automatically Charlene’s self-preservation sub routine took over and the human began to bandage herself up. Charlene took off her soiled and ruined racing suit and revealed the black shorts and tank top underneath. Kaals sat back and watched. She had written the sub-routine that Charlene was using from medical journals, but she had never done any emergency first aid herself.

As Charlene worker her movements became jerky and hesitant, a sure sign that she was regaining consciousness and trying to override the computer controls. Kaals waited until the last suture was in place and the sight covered with a bandage before remotely turning off the control sequence she had activated out on the racetrack. Charlene went limp in the chair and Kaals berated herself for not having her human charge lay down on one of the room’s two cots.

"What happened?!" Charlene demanded. "Where are my glasses?!"

Kaals sighed and quickly produced the mentioned spectacles and handed them to her. Charlene glared at the Tulsan with her mechanical eyes and Kaals felt a shiver creep up her back. She had known Charlene for almost five years. In fact she had been the one to design Charlene’s new eyes, but the solid orbs of metal were still unnerving to her. While in the hands of the Plutarkians, Charlene had lost her original eyes due to the lack of care they had given her. Charlene had gone sightless for over a year before she had learned to use the security cameras at the Plutarkian prison to ‘see’.

When Charlene had become her ‘project’ Kaals had made the eyes for the human from designs she had made years ago. At the time they had only meant to be functional, not ascetically pleasing. And functional they were. Charlene’s eyes had full frontal range, 500x zoom, UV/VIS (the entire spectrum), and thermal sensors. They were constructed from a Plutarkian glass steel/Martian Flex-Plate Shielding alloy that Kaals discovered, all her internal wiring was of the same alloy, which made them strong, durable and flexible. At first glance, Charlene’s eyes appeared to be solid silver orbs with no iris or pupil, but if you looked closely you could see the fine mesh of sensor relays.

Charlene shoved the sunglasses on her face. It was her way of hiding her eyes. They had discussed replacing her eyes with something more realistic looking, but Charlene refused. Her distrust of anyone manipulating her body was strong and Kaals couldn’t blame her. Between the Plutarkians and the XenoX Charlene had been well used.

"Well, are ya gonna tell me what happened or I’m I gonna have ta shake it out of you?" Charlene threatened, flexing her gloved hands.

Kaals stood her ground and refused to show the human that she was intimated. She knew Charlene could kill her with little effort. She had seen her kill ruthlessly and without reservation, but to show Charlene that she was scared of her only made it harder for the Tulsan to help her.

"I am your Keeper Charlene, not your secretary. Ask your guard dog," Kaals said, indicating Lucifer in the corner.

Charlene turned her back on Kaals and went to her bike. The female Tulsan gave a silent sigh of relief. Charlene had quite an attitude most of the time and it was going to get her a death sentence if she didn’t straighten up. Kaals knew that she was taking a big chance by bringing Charlene here, but it was her last alternative. Mind probes, data searches, hypnosis, and even regression therapy had all failed. If Kaals couldn’t prove that Charlene wasn’t the homicidal killer her people believed she was there would be nothing to stop them from executing the human.

While Charlene was occupied with Lucifer, Kaals went over her plan. Once Charlene was in her sleeping cycle, she was going to approach the Martian Freedom Fighters for help. Kaals knew that Charlene had connections to them in her past, but how was unclear. According to the Plutarkian records they were able to secure from the XenoX after the Slaughter of Sellous Prime they were able to ascertain that Charlene knew three Freedom Fighters; Modo, Vinnie and Throttle.

Kaals had been very careful in planing her seating arrangements during the race. She needed to see these three ‘Biker Mice’ to know if they were going to be any help at all. She had been almost convinced that it would be a waste of time and an unnecessary emotional strain to Charlene until she had seen the way they had reacted to seeing the human.

Kaals people were never very emotional, preferring logic and a calm focused center, but she knew the look of hope and love when she saw it. Now if only Charlene would react the same in kind. It was a risky bet, hoping that those three Martian Mice could retrieve the memories that Charlene had so carefully eradicated from her mind. There was no telling how Charlene would react once she saw them. That was why Kaals had run. She couldn’t risk Charlene going into a defensive posture against them. It would most assuredly seal her fate. Kaals heard a match light and knew that Charlene was watching her.

Sure enough, when Kaals turned she found Charlene leaning back against Lucifer drawing on one of her smoking sticks called Tags. Charlene had picked up the habit on Vult from the cybernetics expert Kaals had been consulting about her human charge’s memory block. Fortunately the sticks were not carcinogenic like there Earthly counterparts, but they still smoked up the air. Charlene claimed they calmed her and they did have a slightly tranquilizing effect, but mostly the human smoked them because she knew Kaals did not approve.

"So whatcha up to Blue?" Charlene asked, the Tag hanging from the corner of her mouth.

"It is not your place to question me Charlene."

Charlene yanked the Tag from her mouth and glared at Kaals over her glasses. If the snarl on her lips didn’t tell Kaals that the human was angry the way she was rolling the Tag between her thumb and middle finger did.

"Listen here short stuff. You drag me here to this dirt ball, force me to live in this empty hovel for a week and then have the nerve to tell me that it’s not my PLACE!"

Charlene was becoming highly agitated. She put the Tag back in her mouth and made three rapid drags off the stick. Greenish gray ashes fell to the floor from the end as she smoked and the tip glowed with a bright green light. Charlene stomped her way over to the Tulsan and dropped the Tag at her feet. She ground it out with the heel of her hobnailed boot and bent over to blow smoke into the Tulsans’ face.

Kaals struggled not to cough. The gray smoke was very irritating to the sensitive sinuses in her flat nose, but to let Charlene know that she was making her angry would be counter productive.

"If you are quite finished acting the child, I believe Lucifer needs attention. I believe he damaged his front relay in the crash," Kaals informed the aggravated human to distract her.

With a curse Charlene turned and attended to her bike. Kaals inwardly pitied the human. Charlene had never asked for any of this to happen. Somewhere inside the confusion of Charlene’s soul was a loving person otherwise no one would have escaped the Slaughter of Sellous Prime. Besides Kaals was partially responsible for Charlene’s condition. The XenoX had made her body into a killing machine but it was Kaals that had given her the will to kill.

The hours of the day passed slowly. Charlene on a good day wasn’t much company and today she was impossible. She refused her system checks and ranted and raged through her daily memory back up. For almost five years Kaals and Charlene had been inseparable, not because they wished it but because it was mandated by the jury that had tried them. Kaals had one Tals cycle to prove that Charlene was a victim and she was running out of time. Soon night was falling and Charlene slept with her dark angel, Lucifer, watching over her.

Kaals left with no worries that Charlene would follow. Once the human slept it was for seven hours exactly, no more no less. Kaals walked through the Martian streets and ignored the stares she got. Once or twice she had to consult the map in her ever-present computer pad, but she found the Freedom Fighter’s headquarters with no problem. She entered the unadorned building and walked straight to the main office, however she found it empty.

"Can I help you with something?" a young tan-ish gold, pregnant, female Martian asked her.

"Yes, I am looking for the Martian known as Stoker. Would you be privy to his whereabouts?"

The mouse seemed reluctant to answer, but eventually she gave Stoker’s location. Kaals punched up her map of the city and plotted a route to the spaceport. The area was alive with activity, even more so than a normal space port. Kaals dismissed this and weaved her way through the crowd of bodies. Kaals very quickly became lost. Being as short as she was compared to the Martian population it was impossible for her to see anything to direct her movements. Kaals was becoming frustrated when she saw the mouse she was looking for by the boarding gate. He was unmistakable with his bionic tail. Squaring her shoulders she marched herself over.

"Throttle, we have searched every transport, every cargo ship and private vessel in the entire port. There just isn’t a sign of this Tulsan and the woman you think is Charlie."

"Stoker I know it was her. Ask Vinnie or Modo they’ll tell you the same."

Kaals hadn’t noticed the other mice until she come closer. She had been too intent on her objective of finding Stoker. Now that she saw them standing there she felt hesitant, but she needed to right the wrong she had done and set right all the suffering.

"Throttle, I’m sorry there just isn’t any sign of them. Maybe we can look at the docking logs. Maybe we can find a clue to where they are at."

"That will be unnecessary. I am perfectly willing to give you our current location."

The reaction Kaals got was not what she had expected. She had anticipated shock, surprise and even anger, but not a homicidal rage.

"What have you done with Charlie!" the white mouse roared, grabbing Kaals by the front of her one-piece robe and hauling her off her feet while twisting the material painfully around her neck.

Kaals would have answered if she had of been able to breathe, but the choke hold Vinnie had on her made that impossible. Instead of struggling Kaals waited. She was quite use to having threats made against her life from Charlene. All she had to do was wait out the storm. Unfortunately, this particular individual was far more motivated in completing his task than Charlene ever was. Kaals could feel her blood congealing in her brain the longer it stayed stagnate. She was in no danger of suffocating, she could hold her breath for a very long time, but if her blood was not continuously circulated it would thicken to a gel and kill her.

"Vinnie! Drop her! She can’t tell us anything if she’s dead!" Modo yelled, pulling on his friend’s shoulder.

Vinnie reluctantly complied and set Kaals back on her feet, but refused to let go completely. "Where is Charlie?!" he demanded again.

"Could we adjourn to another location? We are attracting quite an audience."

The four mice looked around them and realized that Kaals was right. Stoker barked a command and a few of the onlookers left, but many of them were free citizens and visitors and they continued to watch unabated.

"Come on. We can go to the Control Room. I’m sure we can find a place to talk there," Stoker said, motioning him to follow him.

They walked in silence and Kaals was feeling a little like a criminal. Throttle and Stoker were walking in front of her and Vinnie and Modo followed close behind her. The pace they set was tough for her to keep up with and more than once Kaals felt a push from behind, but dared not voice a complaint. They entered the Control Room and were directed to a back room where Kaals met another hostile Martian.

"Is this the Tulsan?" a gray furred, black haired female asked.

"Yeah, that’s her Carbine. She turned herself in," Throttle answered for the group.

"I did not ‘turn myself in’. I came to consult you on our mutual acquaintance."

"Mutual acquaintance my…" Vinnie started in anger.

"Vinnie! That’s enough!" Stoker hissed, wishing that the white mouse would stay quiet long enough for them to figure out what was going on.

"Thank you Stoker. I had hoped to talk to you alone, but…" Kaals looked around at the angry, waiting faces and decided to let that thought drop. Kaals cleared her throat and took a deep breath.

"As you well know I have in my acquaintance the human you knew as Charlene Davidson."

"Hold it right there," Carbine said holding up her hand to stall the Tulsan. "’Knew’… pasted tense?"

"Yes… It has become a question with my government if she is still Charlene Davidson or an Artificial Intelligence program."

"Artificial Intelligence? Like our bikes?" Modo asked, clearly more confused than he was earlier.

"Similar to your bikes, but far more advanced." Kaals saw the blank and unbelieving faces staring back at her and pointed to the computer terminal in the room with a view screen. "May I? It will be easier to explain with my data tracks."

Stoker and Carbine gave their permission at the same time and Kaals linked her personal computer up.

"Over five years ago the body of Charlene Davidson came into the possession of the XenoX. According to records left by a small contract group on Sellous Prime, the XenoX purchased Charlene’s body from a processing clerk on the Plutarkian prison moon Torren when her funding was terminated."

"The XenoX?" Throttle whispered.

Kaals looked at the tan mouse and was shock to see that he looked almost ill. Throttle leaned against the wall and put his face into his hands and swallowed several times.

"What is it Throttle?" Carbine asked.

"There was… a XenoX ship there the day we went to Torren. They loaded a crate… a human sized crate, on to their ship before they left. All I could think about was how relieved I was that they were gone."

"Throttle, don’t beat yourself up about this son. There was no way you could have known," Stoker said, trying to comfort the distraught mouse.

"She was right there… less than 20 meters from me and I didn’t even know it," he whispered.

"I saw them too, bro. We all did. We didn’t know," Modo said, trying to comfort his friend.

The room sat silent for a few moments. Throttle, Modo and Vinnie looking lost, sick and remorseful. Carbine and Stoker kept their thoughts to themselves, but it was Carbine’s meaningful look that made Kaals continue.

"After the XenoX acquired Miss Davidson they began to make improvements on the work the Plutarkians had started." Kaals punched up some footage taken in the days that Charlene was being worked on.

On the display was something that one might expect to find on a medical tape. It showed the many different surgeries that the XenoX performed on Charlene. They implanted her eyes, and laid the fine webbing of sensor nets that covered her most sensitive areas, including her lips and fingertips. They replaced her knee, hip, elbow and shoulder joints. They even reinforced her rib cage with the same glass steel/flex shielding alloy.

"They made improvements on her sensor nets. Extending the neural relays to all of her nerves, completely replacing her spinal column and major neural pathways so that the central processor the Plutarkians implanted into Charlene’s brain could control them. After that was completed they started testing her."

The images on the screen changed. Now a picture of Charlene in a stark white room appeared. There was murmur of disbelief in the room. Kaals wasn’t sure how Charlene had looked before, but she was positive that she looked nothing like this. Her hair had been shorn close to her scalp and only a short reddish brown fuzz was visible. It did little to hide the many scares and metal veins there. She wore a simple sleeveless, all over body suit in gray that hugged all of her curves. Not that there were many curves to see. The Plutarkians had nourished her minimally and the point of her joints and her ribs could be clearly seen.

"Her eyes. What happened to her eyes?" Stoker asked, mesmerized by what he saw on the screen.

"Humans do not have a reflex that closes their eyes when they are in certain types of commas. Under normal circumstances the attending physician will tape their eyes shut to prevent them from drying out. The Plutarkians did not afford her that care. It was necessary for the XenoX to replace them."

If it was possible for fur to turn green it was happening. Throttle tugged on his own specs and shuttered. Vinnie cursed under his breath and ground his teeth, making an almost intolerable grating noise. Modo fingered his mechanical arm and Stokers tail was still for the first time all evening. Carbine nodded her head indicating that Kaals should go on. The Tulsan wondered if the female mouse realize that she was rubbing her old scar across her face.

"Her reaction time is computer fast, but they found that they had to slow it down to prevent her from dislocating her joints and pulling her muscles, but when the situation calls for it Charlene can override that."

The Charlene on the screen performed many quick precise fighting moves that resembled human Marital Arts moves. From the side a XenoX warrior attacked. It was a tall burly looking beast, seven feet tall and covered in short black quills similar to a humanoid hedgehog. Charlene easily dropped it on its back and snapped its neck with a single move.

"They programmed her with killing techniques, but they discovered that she could not expand beyond her original programming. She was little more than an automated sparing partner. She had no originality or intuition."

Another XenoX attached using more evasive moves than the previous opponent. Charlene could not compete. The XenoX faked a lunge, Charlene blocked and the warrior swept her feet. Charlene laid almost passively while the XenoX struck her face with the tip of his boot. Charlene tried to come to her feet, but the XenoX struck her in the back of her head. The fight continued well past the point a normal human would have fell unconscious.

"She would fight in the same organized, preprogrammed way until she was dead with out changing. She could not adapt, so they decided to fit her with an Artificial Intelligence unit. That is when I was brought in."

"You?!" everyone in the room demanded.

"Yes. I am an AI expert on my home world and I have extensive knowledge of cybernetics. I was their most logical choice. They had already used my neural webbing system for all of her ‘improvements’."

"So you helped them do this to Charlie?!" Vinnie almost yelled, murder clearly in his pink eyes.

"It was not willingly I assure you. They sought me out knowing the fields I study and ‘arranged’ to have me delivered to them. At the time I believed that Charlene was an animated body, but now I am curtain that she IS a freethinking entity. This is footage taken on Sellous Prime, Charlene’s first outing with the AI board I implanted with learning algorithms."

They watched intently as the display showed the landscape of a planet they had to assume was Sellous Prime. It was fairly normal stuff. Plants that were green to blue-green in color and exposed soil that was a tanish-red. In the foreground was Charlene. She stood stiff and straight like a department store mannequin, then, suddenly she fell to the ground. She laid there for a moment, then she curled up in to a ball, hugging her knees close to her chest.

There was an explosion just beyond the hill where she laid. She looked up and huddled close to the dirt, scared and alone. Several more blasts filled the air with dirt and rocks and Charlene crawled her way to the edge of the hill. The camera lens followed her and showed the scene she saw behind the hill.

In the shallow valley a fight was raging. Three XenoX mercenaries were attacking a group of Tulsans at what appeared to be a small archeological dig. The XenoX fired lasers and lobbed grenades at the Tulsans that seemed to be defending them selves with shovels and rock pulverizing tools. Charlene watched the ‘battle’ for several minutes, clutching her head in her hands seemingly in pain. Suddenly a Tulsan appeared behind one of the XenoX that was separated from the other two. The Tulsan was about to swing his shovel at the mercenary when Charlene made her move.

"Look out!"

The room jumped with the shock of hearing Charlene’s words. Kaals could see that all of the mice were going to ask questions at once, but she shook her head and pointed to the screen. There was much more they needed to see and hear first.

Charlene launched herself at the startled Tulsan. She took the improvised weapon from the blue skinned, purple eyed male and made a mighty body swing, bringing the shovel completely around her body and impacted the metal end of it with the Tulsan’s head with expected results. His head caved easily and he fell dead. Charlene then took the shovel and broke it over her knee. She used the freshly made sharp wooden spear like a javelin and threw it at a Tulsan that was approaching their position. It hit home, right in the middle of the belly where the Tulsan’s hearts were located. He fell without a whimper.

"Come on, Big Guy," Charlene said as she hauled the confused XenoX up. "Let’s get with other macho metal heads before these stink fish separate us."

The screen only showed a few more moments of the XenoX completely destroying the Tulsans with Charlene’s help before going blank. The room was silent, as Kaals had expected it to be. Now was the moment of truth. Would they help her or would they condemn Charlene with the evidence they had seen?

"How…?" Carbine began then stopped. The carnage of the acts she had just seen stealing her thoughts before they were ever formed.

When there seemed that there wasn’t going to be an immediate response, Kaals filled the silence.

"When I wrote Charlene’s AI and leaning algorithms it was to observe the XenoX fighting and learn from them, but when they were activated her organic brain began to function again. Before this Charlene was brain dead with no observable brain activity. I believe that somehow they stimulated Charlene’s own mind into functioning, but unfortunately her severely damaged and altered mind misinterpreted her situation and made it into something that was easier for her to deal with. This was the only evidence that I had to keep my government from executing Charlene."

"What happened on Sellous Prime?" Stoker asked for the group.

Kaals sighed. "It is still unclear what exactly happened. From the few survivors that lived through the massacre on Sellous Prime we were able to piece together a scenario. The Gewla, a race of insect-like beings that coveted Sellous Prime, hired the XenoX to exterminate my people from the planet. At the time we had a colony of 10,000 there, only a hundred survived.

From all reports of the survivors, Charlene along with the three XenoX systematically destroyed all of my people’s strong holds over the span of three months then suddenly all the attacks stopped. When the Tulsan military arrived they searched the planet for Charlene and her accomplices. They found them in a small base located in the mountains. The XenoX were dead and Charlene was close to death from starvation. All of her systems had been internally shut down and her data banks were beyond recovery. It was assumed that she had malfunctioned and killed her companions. They were going to shut down her central processor, the only thing keeping her alive, when I pleaded for her life. Because I had a hand in creating her they allowed for the possibility that Charlene was not in control of her actions and therefore not responsible, but I had a Tals cycle, five years, to prove it, and my time is almost up."

"What do you need us to do?" Throttle asked. The statement was echoed by the others.

Kaals sighed with relief, they were willing to help. "I think that if Charlene is confronted with figures from her past that it will stimulate her memory."

"So let’s go then," Vinnie said as he headed for the door.

"NO! Wait!" Kaals called after him, grabbing his tail to stop him.

Vinnie gave a sharp yelp and glared over his shoulder at the Tulsan. Kaals glared right back and pulled a second time on the mouse’s fifth appendage to make him turn around.

"You can not go charging in like a Taarn water beast in a Vulan glass shop. Charlene Davidson is in a very fragile state of mind right now. You push too hard too soon and she will break."

"So, what do you want us to do?" Modo asked.

"Start off gradually. I need someone that was from her past that she knew as an acquaintance, but didn’t know all that well."

"That would be me," Carbine said, stepping forward. "We knew each other, but we were never that chummy. I think we only met two or three times at most."

"Excellent!" Kaals exclaimed with more life that she had shown all evening.

"What’s going to be my excuse for seeing her? I mean wouldn’t be kinda odd for me to show up out of the desert and start talking to her."

"That has already been taken care of," Kaals rummaged through her pockets and pulled out an official Martian document. "Just yesterday we were approved to open a mechanic’s shop in the old warehouse on the outskirts of this city. This is also where we will be staying. You could come under the guise of having your vehicle repaired."

"Better yet, give her the civilian mechanics contract for the Military/Freedom Fighters off-duty vehicles. She’s still a good mechanic, isn’t she?" Stoker asked.

"Her skill has become quite legendary in our travels. She is more than capable of performing any job you wish."

"Good, then it’s settled. I’ll show up tomorrow and offer her the job."

"It will be best if I am not there. Charlene will ignore you completely if I am around. I must warn you. Charlene is not the most agreeable of people. I’ve seen Gruk slugs with more manners. Do not be surprised by her… offensive behavior."

"Charley? Offensive?" Modo asked.

"You must be talking about some other human mechanic. Charley-girl is the most charming young lady I’ve met in a long time." Stoker said, earning himself a glare from Vinnie.

"That is exactly my point," Kaals said, trying to impress upon her coconspirators the gravity of the situation. "This Charlene Davidson’s life started the moment I reactivated her after Sellous Prime. She has no past, no memories. She woke up with a head full of knowledge and an entire planet thirsting for her death. All she has ever known is the destruction she caused and the lives she has taken. As part of her punishment she was made to memorize the names of all she killed and repeat that list every night before she sleeps. As you may well imagine this has effected her psyche immeasurably."

"Don’t worry. I think I can handle it," Carbine said to the Tulsan. How bad could it be anyway? She found out the next morning.

==

Carbine approached the warehouse and she could hear it long before it was in her sights. To say that the music coming from the stone and brick building was loud would have been the understatement of the century. The air fairly throbbed with the heavy electricity of the sound. Strangely enough she instantly recognized the song. Even though some might think it strange, Carbine was a fan of heavy metal. The fast pace of it and the say-anything-do-anything style that didn’t apologize for being rude or offensive was attractive in its own way. It was freeing on a basic primal level. Saying things you never dared to say out loud. Most times music reflected the mood of the person listening to it or playing it. And if the White Zombie Carbine heard coming from the warehouse was any indication, Charlene was in a self-destructive mood.

Carbine parked her bike outside and listened for a moment.

Breakneck speed get a violent spinal crack’n

Back down to the chrome and feel the death wish attack’n

Hubcaps on your eyes- Yeah

Cannot sympathize- Yeah

A fistful of hair and a splinter in the mind

Yeah – I want it

Yeah – I need it

Yeah – I love it

Yeah – Electric Head all in your head all in your head all in YOU!

Carbine just shook her head. It sure didn’t give you that warm fuzzy feeling of hope and prosperity. She took off her helmet and wince when she realized how much louder the music was with out it. Good thing this place was on the outskirts of town with nothing around but other abandoned buildings or she’d probably would have been met here by the local civil law.

That song ended abruptly and the silence was even more profound than normal. A few seconds later the music was back. Carbine almost felt herself blush when she heard the new selection. The beginning of the song was hard not to recognize. The panting ecstasy of the human female that opened the song was a bit embarrassing at that volume. Carbine put her helmet on her bike, centered her shoulders and walked into the warehouse.

The huge open room had little to offer. There were a series of metal crates of various sizes scattered about the room, giving an almost maze like appearance. On top of one of those crates was the sound system that was belting out the tune that seemed a little too appropriate for the occasion. Carbine saw Charlene immediately. She was working on what Carbine recognized as an engine lift.

The human had her waist length hair in a simple braid with what appeared to be electrical tape holding the end together. Charlene was barefoot and clad in a pair of cut off jean shorts and a long sleeved flannel shirt that was tied in a knot in the front. With those few inches of skin exposed between the top of her shorts and the bottom of her shirt, Carbine could see the metal of Charlene’s spine reflecting in the dim light.

Carbine could see that Charlene was in the middle of installing the lift. The heavy metal cables that would support the lift, trailed out across the floor to a system of pulleys that eventually would make it easy to move the lift with its heavy cargo from side to side. Carbine was going to ask if Charlene needed any help and quickly found that she needed none. More Human than Human, indeed.

Charlene attached a chain to the top of the lift and then put the other end in her mouth holding it in her teeth. Above her was a rope that was anchored to a crossbeam of the warehouse. The rope was slightly out of her reach so she had to jump to reach it. Then, with seemingly little effort, Charlene pulled herself up the rope, hand-over-hand, without using her legs to stabilize her body. A maneuver that Carbine knew from experience was difficult in itself, forget about dragging ten pounds of chain in your teeth along with it. When she was half way up the lyrics of the song began.

Yeah

I am an astrocreep

A demolition style hell American’s freak - yeah

I am the crawling dead

A phantom in a box, shadow in your head…

Charlene reached the crossbeam and planted her feet wide apart. She began to pull the lift up with the chain. The strain on her body was quite obvious, but she kept pulling. Suddenly the chain slipped. White-hot sparks flew from between her hands. The metal of the chain and the alloy on Charlene’s palms and fingertips grated against each other and Carbine wasn’t sure if the scream she heard was the sound of metal on metal or Charlene’s cry of pain. Carbine thought for sure the human would drop the lift, but if anything it made her pull faster.

Scratch off the broken skin

Tear into my heart, make me do it again – Yeah

More Human than Human More Human than Human More Human than Human More Human than Human More Human than Human More Human than Human

Within seconds Charlene had the lift anchored on the beam, but instead of using the rope to get down she took the scenic route. Like an insane diver, Charlene flipped backward off the beam in the full tuck pike position. She came un-curled at the last moment and landed on all fours, her chin missed hitting the ground by millimeters. She rose from the ground slowly with the grace of a cat and instead of returning to the lift and finishing her work she fixed Carbine with her pupil-less eyes. The music instantly died.

"Enjoying the freak show?" she snarled.

A bit of red caught Carbine’s attention. There was a series of stitches on Charlene’s right leg and the landing must have torn them because there was a thin trail of blood running down her leg from them. Carbine didn’t let the mechanic’s attitude get to her. "I would have knocked, but the music was too loud."

"That was the point."

Charlene turned her back and went to the lift. "Is there something you want, or are you into voyeurism?" That got the female mouse’s tail to twitch.

Kaals had warned her that she would be rude. Carbine decided to fight attitude with more attitude. "I was told that there was a passable mechanic here. Do you know where she is?"

That got Charlene’s steam rolling. She turned back to face Carbine. "That’s me, sister. What of it?"

Carbine grated her teeth. "I have a job for you. It’s long term, repairing various civil equipment for the Military and the Freedom Fighters. You up to it, or is climbing ropes and falling on your face the extent of your abilities?"

Charlene grinned without humor. "Sister, I can fix anything this back-water dirt ball has to offer."

"Good. You have the job under a trial basis. But let’s get one thing straight," Carbine approached the human and got within inches of her face. "First and foremost, I am not nor will I ever be your ‘sister’. I am your boss and you work for me. I tell you what to do and when to do it. Is that understood?"

Carlene smacked her heels together and Carbine could hear the bones of her ankles crack against each other. The human gave her a mocking salute. "Yes, ma’am, General, ma’am. Anything you say, ma’am."

Carbine spun on her heel and stalked out of the warehouse before the urge to punch the mechanic became too strong. No one had ever talk to her in that manner since she had become a General. Carbine yanked her helmet off her bike and was about to put it on when she heard the familiar sound of three powerful engines. Throttle, Vinnie, Modo and Kaals (riding in front of Modo) pulled up beside her.

"So, how did it go?" Vinnie asked hopefully.

"She is the rudest, most infuriating…"

"Carbine, calm down," Throttle tried to soothe while unsuccessfully trying to hide his grin.

"Do you know what she said to me?"

"Yes, she called you ‘General’," Kaals said as she slid off Modo’s bike, typing on her ever present computer pad. "Charlene does not know who you are, but she knew you were a General without any badges or strips to indicate you as such. I would say your meeting with her went exceptionally well."

Carbine snorted, "If that was what you consider going well I’d hate to see what would have happened if it had of gone bad."

With that Carbine pushed on her helmet and mounted her bike. The area was split with rib thumping music that was instantly recognized by the mice as the ‘General’s Walk’. A bit of music that was played at official Military functions that proceeded the Generals when they walked into the room. This version, however, was not very respectful. The trumpet-like instruments that made up the bulk of music had been replaced by what sounded suspiciously like kazoos and the percussion had been substituted with whoopee cushions.

The three Freedom Fighters tried not to laugh, but the fact that Vinnie was already on the ground holding his stomach and gasping for breath didn’t help. Carbine growled and hit her visor closed, gunned her engine and tore off. The three remaining mice didn’t try and hide their amusement anymore.

"Man, Charley got her good," Modo said between his deep chuckles.

"I would say that this proves that Charlene likes General Carbine, other wise she would have just ignored her," Kaals said, sounding very pleased with the situation.

"Well, I don’t think Carbine thinks much of Charley-girl right now," Throttle laughed.

"Did you... did you see how pissed she was?" Vinnie said between gasps. "I haven’t seen Carbine that mad since… since…" He couldn’t finish his statement.

"Well, at any rate I think that this is a very good start. I’ll be contacting Stoker when I fell that time is right to introduce her to someone else."

"When do we get a go of it?" Modo asked.

"Not until she is more comfortable with her surroundings. The last time I pushed too hard she panicked and it knock my progress back months and I do not have months left to work with."

The mice were once again reminded how critical this plan was and their jovial mood was popped. If it didn’t work Charlene was going to find herself in front of the preverbal firing squad. The three of them rode off mindful of Kaals warnings of keeping away and out of sight. They even had their bikes programmed to tract Charley so that didn’t accidentally run into her when she was out and about fixing whatever Carbine and Stoker assigned her to do. It was going to be a rough couple of days, but for Charley’s sake they were going to do what they were told. This time, anyway.

End chapter 3