---

"Onward," she whispered to her car as it took her down winding mountain roads and overgrown trails which matched the names she retained in her head. Suddenly it stopped at a T-junction which opened onto a well-paved highway, fenced in by evergreens and infrequent floodlights which struggled to pierce the fog.

The GPS couldn't - or wouldn't - recognize that street. She had no choice but to put her own hands on the wheel and follow the hundreds of remaining directions which stretched out her journey almost to sunrise.

At last she arrived at a small shop on a dry, sandy road, next to a low billboard that said "Wrench Wench." Was it really hers or a perfect imitation somewhere else? She asked her GPS but it refused to answer.

She heard a voice from inside:

"People who contribute to the economy don't ride bikes."

Lurking in the shadow by the doorway, she listened to the familiar confrontation and was passed by the pink-haired woman who stuck up her middle finger. Something about the woman's face was different, though, as if-

She stepped into the shop and it was empty.

The break room was exactly as she had left it.

The hidden elevator took her down to the basement where, in the kitchen, two plates and one small bowl had been automatically cleaned.

Embedded in the far wall was a door, uncharacteristically trimmed with rust, which she did not recognize.

"Open sesame," she subvocalized, and the door obeyed, revealing a short girl wearing denim overalls on which "Wrench Wench" could be seen in faint embroidery.

Stepping across the threshold, the girl's voice rang out clearly: "Braphog street."

The nighttime vigilante willed her combat q-module to come online, but it was silent. Gone.

"Rizzler road."

The wrench in her hand sputtered and sparked and suddenly fell lifeless. She stepped back and instinctively pressed the 'up' button on the elevator, but there was nothing there. She groped around at the cold plastic wall while the impostor girl kept speaking:

"Netorare highway. You really thought that those were real streets?"

Right before her targeting HUD dimmed to black, she managed to fling her dead wrench at the impostor who blocked it with her own.

"I guess it's not your fault. They were adversarial after all."

Seeing no way out, she sprinted forward, fists balled, trying to remember the combat training which she had long since delegated away from consciousness.

She feinted and landed a jab, slightly obliquely, before her arm was crushed by the impostor girl's powered-up wrench. She expected pain but there was none.

Her shattered forearm should have bled, but instead there snaked out wires and sparks and glowing bits of alien machinery. Her vision grew dim and pixelated.

"What the fuck did you do to me?" she screamed as she made one last desperate strike at the clone of herself who calmly brought the wrench down toward her neck.

"I learned how you learn."

The last thing she perceived was the dull resonance of metal-on-metal propagating from the top of her skull through her titanium-reinforced spine and echoing deep into the foundation of that underground bunker.

---

The girl dusted off her overalls, powered down her wrench, and personally swept up the remaining pieces of cracked silicon and synthetic skin that littered the floor.

She sighed, went to the kitchen, and requested synthetic-tuna tartare, artificial ikura, and a *large* bowl of peas. They had gotten that wrong, at least.

It had been a long day.

Now cozy in bed, she swept out the holographic display just in time to see a cat in sunglasses and white gloved hands pop up on the screen.

"Hey babe," she said, "you'll never guess what happened."

"Oh? Do tell."

"The poisoning attack worked."

Hours later, in that ornate wooden house deep in the forest, the stetson-wearing man awoke with a splitting headache. Still chained, he stared at the ceiling and lost himself in visions of what was to come. In that hypnagogic reverie, minutes and hours and centuries blended together before a pair of delicate hands finally set him free.

---