Boid gave her a cheery and helpful personality.

Theren gave her a modern beauty look.

Merisa worked hard and made the finest of all 8800 Series Replicants except for the first two built by her father.

So when Orelen, no. 8857, disappeared 6 weeks after being sent to work in a hospital on the Commonwealth world of Velcar, the three were extremely concerned.

They contracted a private investigator to find her but that didn't pan out. Orelen was nowhere on Velcar.

Oresa volunteered to find her kin, convincing Merisa that who better to find her but her own kin.

She set out from Tirakel and traveled, guided by a faint signal from a locator on Orelen's spine. These locators were in all 8800 Series Replicants but could only be activated by Merisa.

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Oresa wore a grey hooded overcloak and dark sunglasses to disguise her pretty face. Her search had led her into the dark underbelly of the Commonwealth.

She carried her plasmic cannon, strapped to her left shoulder and a regular 12mm plasmic pulse gun. She had no compunctions about shooting those that would do her or her kin harm.

She was in a city called Elis on the Commonwealth world of Kienshen, a bloated, overpopulated, stinking cesspool of a city.

Smoke rose from massive wood burning fireplaces and ovens. Chemical odors seemed to be a fog around an unknown industrial plant.

Oresa was grateful that she could go without breathing for a time. Her artificial eyes burned, interfering with her sight a bit but not seriously.

People and aliens thronged up and down a wide street, buying things from vendors set up in suprisingly modern carts. The smells of every kind of food confused Oresa's olfactory sensors.

She heard at least 17 languages spoken but several that weren't in her database.

She made her way to a public comset terminal and deposited one credit to run a hypercomm trace on the antenna in Orelen's left shoulder. It if was recieving, it would bounce a trace signal back to the comset.

As she waited for it to run, a hand gripped her shoulder, spinning her around. She looked into the eyes of a huge ugly man, who smelled of sweat and grime.

"Hey, girly, go find another call screen to book your tricks," he said.

Oresa smiled grimly. "I'm sorry? Are you accusing me of being a prostitute?"

The man became agitated. "Yeah, I am, you are a whore, ain't ya?"

She shook her head. "No, sorry to disappoint you. You can wait for this call screen."

"Like hell I will," he said and grabbed Oresa, who instantly smashed him in the throat, sending him reeling back, bleeding from his mouth.

Oresa turned to see that the signal was bounced from a warehouse near this location. She cleared the comset and call screen and scoffed at the coughing man.

She left and went to this warehouse unmolested.

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It was a condemned warehouse, its stone walls somehow disintegrating. Oresa was careful to stay away from dangerous areas as she made her way across a large catwalk above an expansive concrete floor littered with various industrial detritious.

It was very dark in here and smelled strongly of machines at work. She had to resort to a composite visual system to see in the near pitch blackness.

Oresa checked her locator pad and saw that the signal was very strong, meaning that it was nearby.

She tried to send an electronic message: Orelen? It is me, Oresa. I am looking for you.

A faint reply was immediate: Oresa? Help me, I am being cut into pieces.

Oresa proceeded further down the catwalk, which led to a 3rd level work area. Its concrete floor was slik with....Oresa realized with horror that it was liquified cytec.

She quietly made her was down a corridor, following the trail of cytec. Orelen. Can you see? Tell me of your surroundings.

I am laying an a table. My legs have been removed. They are cutting into my abdomen to get at my power cell. Please hurry

Oresa pulled her handgun from its secret holster and peeked around a corner to see two white suited people mutilating Orelen's body.

A targeting screen overlapped her vision and she selected her shots. It dissolved into a composite view and a recording system engaged.

She took aim and fired at one, then twice, catching both people in the necks.

They both dropped to the floor nearly simotaneously, gurgling as they clutched bloody throats.

Oresa hurried to her injured kin, horrified to see her legs missing and a painful looking pin that stuck through her chest, sticking her to the table. "Oh, my.... Orelen? Do you require technical help?"

She shook her cytec stained head. "No. Just get this pin out of me."

Oresa gripped the pin and yanked it out, drawing a painful gasp sound from Orelen.

Liquified cytec surged from her mouth. "I cannot walk," she said through it, sounding as if spoken underwater.

Oresa removed her cloak and wrapped Orelen in it, picking her up. She carried her as quickly as she could out of the warehouse only to find police waiting for her outside.

She was worried for a moment but a zip line appeared beside her, connected to a ship above them. She smiled and gripped it, being pulled up and into the ship as it raced off.

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Orelen lay almost completely reconstructed on a worktable in Merisa's area.

Merisa was looking into the people who kidnapped her and cut her into pieces, learning that the cytec shortage made it valuable to criminals.

The assailants were morons. They damaged more cytec than they could have harvested from the legs, both badly damaged due to foolish attempts to cut her bones.

They were both dead and Oresa safely here on Tirakel, not subject to the penalty for killing them, she did it to save a life.

Orelen would be transferred to a hospital here on Tirakel and carefully watched for any signs of Orelia-like behavior.

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3 months later, Orelen was sitting in the large garden of the Tirakel facility when Merisa came to her table and sat down.

"How do you feel?," she asked.

Orelen smiled. "I feel nice."

Merisa smiled too. "Good. I'm happy. How is your body?" Orelen looked down at herself. "I can still feel it, the cutting, the pin in my chest. I do not understand why."

"Its only a sensor echo. You feel damage after its been repaired. It will fade over time. Do you need any help?" Orelen shook her head. "No, I am okay, as you say."

"Good. Please call me if you need anything." Merisa got up and went back into the facility.

Orelen frowned, troubled. If they would attack and cut her up for cytec, would they also do the same to a real person for thier organs? It bothered her immensely.

� 29 Feb 04 Gregory Thompson