If cities in the south spread all over the regions around them merging everything into their seamless cityscapes, the Citadel was a majestic design of extraterrestrial construction, that rose high up into the sky like a massive castle not bound by the laws of gravity. In its heart was a center of modern orbital transportation, the space elevator. A massive tube of rings floating in the air, that extended far out of the atmosphere of the Earth, connecting to an in-orbit station, that people called the space port. It was all held together by an advanced engineering no man yet understood.

Built on the shore of a lake inside Manshü caldera on the northern inlands of Hokkaido over a thousand years ago, it was originally a facility that harnessed the power of an active volcano for the Creators. Since then the volcanic activity had distinguished, and this Citadel become an interesting mixture of sophisticated Creator architecture and classic Japanese expertise, that had changed significantly over time as this establishment grew.

The Central Citadel looked like something out of this world, extending its reach upwards with constructs that grew higher the closer they got to the space elevator. Coming further from its core the buildings were more man-made, until in the outskirts they were all constructed by Japanese wanting or needing to live in the vicinity of this monument of coexistence. From afar it looked like the Citadel was fused to the surface of the Earth by this manmade concrete mass.

A hub for all air transportation in and out of the Citadel was built around the body of the space elevator. It looked like a thick metal and composite shell protecting it. Traffic there was always busy. With all those passenger and cargo shuttles zooming everywhere, it reminded of an agitated, gigantic beehive on a full alert mode.

The shuttle that was carrying Annie, Gabrielle and Thomas glided silently between all the other traffic towards a landing platform designated to them at the lower section of the hub facility by the overseeing flight command program. Here the long distance crowd transports landed and took off on the Citadel, and it was much more crowded than upper parts where cargo terminals were located at.

Annie followed the chaotic traffic around them through the shuttle window. Seeing other shuttles fly past and around, and right at them missing only slightly from every direction. It twisted her guts even though she knew that every plane, shuttle, ship or pieces of scrap metal had a trajectory that was carefully calculated by several overseeing A.I. units, to prevent any incidents from happening and seizing the traffic operation around the Citadel.

Gabrielle had fallen asleep in her own seat, still holding up hugging her legs in her lap. Her head hung to the side, only kept up by the wall she leaned against. Thomas was laying back on his own seat that was adjusted back down as far as it went. He was almost lied down, his hands crossed over his chest and he breathed slowly, but Annie had a slight suspicion that he wasn't dozed off at all but rather in a meditation of some sort. Whatever the case might had been, he was missing the incredible site of approaching the Citadel.

Although she had been on all of them many times and lived in the center of the main Citadel, she was still mesmerized by the overwhelming size of these alien fortresses that had discreetly been masked as a mega city and modern centers of everything imaginable. She tried to recollect the previous times she had been there at the Citadel of Hokkaido. She didn't remember, yet she was still convinced that the place wasn't this busy back then, however none of those times were on board a shuttle heading straight into the very core of all the traffic.

As they approached their landing pad and came closer and closer to the transit hub and the space elevator, Annie was dumbstruck by the imposing size of the thing. Spanning over her field of view the round walls of the construct curved behind itself, forming a vertical horizon that couldn't be seen beyond. She felt humbled and insignificant comparing herself with such a construction.

The shuttle's landing gears reached out from the opening hatches under the shuttle, touching the landing platform's surface the moment it got close enough. The degravitation engines powered off letting the shuttle and its passengers back into Earth's gravity pull. The mechanical arms of the landing gears suspended the weight of the aircraft making subtle balancing moves to bring it perfectly level.

"We have arrived at our destination." called the ship's pilot A.I. to inform the passengers about the landing, that was otherwise completely unnoticeable from inside.

"Well. This is my stop," Thomas informed. His eyes opened and he lowered his hands to the sides of his seat to the controllers and brought it back upright to a sitting position. He stood up and fixed the jacket better on him, waiting for the cabin door to pop open.

"Guess these are good byes again?" Annie stopped him with a question.

"Unfortunately. It was good seeing you anyway," Thomas tapped her shoulder and nodded, with a neutral and steady face that he usually wore. "Give my regards to her when she wakes up, alright?"

"Sure," she said looking at Gabrielle sleeping in her own chair, unknown of this stop at the transit hub.

She saw two large sliding doors opened up on the far side of the landing pad through the window behind her, revealing three dark figures walking out towards the shuttle. As they approached, the shuttle door clicked and opened quietly, and a walkway descended to able any passengers to exit.

"Who's that bunch over there?" Annie asked Thomas. "You've hired bodyguards for yourself now?"

"Not exactly." Thomas said with a matter-of-fact-tone. Annie wasn't sure if he was sarcastic or serious with his answer at first. "I tried to talk him out of coming here but he insisted. 'Needed to secure the premises.'"

"Sounds like a stubborn one," she said and stood up and went to the door to take a proper look at the men standing outside on the landing platform right in front of their shuttle. One of them in the middle, a huge, bearded guy wearing a similar trench coat as Thomas looked really familiar to her.

"Well, you know him." Thomas hinted her. "Want to go say hello to an old friend? I don't think your partner would mind it."

"Old friend. Isn't that James?" She asked, eyes keen on the trio outside. Thomas nodded. "In the flesh." She stared out to him, longing to change a few word with him. "You bastard," she thought out loud while they headed out of the shuttle.

She stepped down the shuttle's stairs to the landing pad with Thomas following her closely behind without a rush. Annie took a second to look around the landing pad before she was ready to take another step. She did her best not to think about it but the picture still came into her mind of them being some four kilometers high in the air, hanging on from a side of a giant pipe. She managed to keep it together, as the platform was stable and completely windless. A massive bubble shield covered their landing pad entirely. An electrically projected membrane that absorbed all external energies that were projected against it. It was another technology she barely understood apart from it being used on the Sentinels they piloted. She watched how the bubble shield rippled and shimmered as it absorbed the forces of wind into itself. She took a step forward and kept on going.

Coming closer to him Annie remembered how big of a man James really was. She felt herself tiny in front of him, having to look up to meet his glimmering blue eyes. He was at least two head lengths taller than her and his shoulders twice as wide with that black trench jacket on. Her eyes leveled with his Name tags, that said "Chief of Security" and "Hill".

"Hey big guy."

He watched her standing in front of him, making comparisons of how she's looking now and how she was in his memories from maybe a handful of years or so ago. He wasn't completely sure when they had met the last time.

"Abrams." He scanned her face and body with his eyes, inspecting the facial reconstruction and the yellow bionic eye. The former pictures of her haunted him in the back of his mind. "It's been a long while."

"Yes it has. You look like doing well."

"Not to mention you. Last time I saw you– it wasn't pretty." He smiled at her. "You look like you used to back then."

"Thanks to you– and Tom. Without you I wouldn't be here now."

James didn't say anything. He just nodded back at her with that smile keeping up on his face. He was glad to see her again after a long time.

"Shall we go? I believe we're on a clock." Thomas joined their conversation and asked James, pointing at the elevator he and his men came out to the landing pad. "Annie you can walk with us."

They get on the move side by side, James' two guards following them close behind inspecting their surroundings.

"I owe you many thanks," James continued with Annie while they walked forth. "You have taken care of many problems that had caused a lot of trouble to my assets."

"Oh. I was waiting for you to get to the point. You owe me one, big time."

"Yes I know. Sec-com... They did a lot of damage to our operations. We still haven't been able to fix that mess. Without you maybe we would had been seized completely."

"I thought we still did. Haven't you read the news lately?" She pressed on James like it was an old habit. "Anyway you can save your words of gratitude. I'll come collect when I'm in need of a favor from you. Just don't forget."

"Hah..." he knew that she wasn't in meaning to insult him, but the way she always addressed things to him made him annoyed and frustrated. "You just like to play cocky with me, woman. Or have all your achievements finally got into your head?"

"Achievements?" The comment made her halt. "I've done lots of things but none of them can't be called achievements. We're doing war here. There isn't any fucking achievements out there. Only losses and misfortune. Every fucking day." Annie started to get aggravated all of a sudden as well. James got under her skin with his comment and he knew it. The subject of talk was a sensitive one for her. "And hey," she continued, taking a few steps in front of James and pointing a finger at him. "Taking down that Coburn piece of shit was a fucking hard thing to do. A nightmare. I'd like to see you make it."

"War is a dirty game, Ann. Losers lose it all and those who survive better take the prize and make the best use of it when they still can," Thomas stepped in, clearly taking James' side of their argument at hand. "We have made a great deal of things to make this world a better place. Do I have to make you a list of everything you've alone done to ensure the safety of this planet's people?"

She rolled her eyes and shook her head to Thomas. "No you don't." They stopped in front of the elevator lobby doors, that opened up automatically with a quiet A.I. voice announcing the floor they were on. Annie wanted to make a nosy comment against them, but she couldn't make up any. It felt wrong to admit it, but she knew that they had a point. She sighed. "Fuck it. I'll give up."

"Good." Thomas smiled. He always knew that she wasn't one who was good with the debates.

James put his hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. "I'm glad you haven't changed after everything you've seen and been through."

"Oh I have." She put her hand over James' hand, tapping it gently with her fingers. "It was nice arguing with you again but I should probably get going. My partner must be waiting for me and we have a long way back to home."

They both let go and Annie turned around to head back to the shuttle.

"It was good seeing you."

"I disagree– I think. But maybe we'll start getting along sometime." she said looking over her shoulder at him. She was still upset for being defeated in yet another debate, but she knew she'd be an underdog before getting into challenging them.

"Annie. A word," Thomas stopped her before she got going.

She looked at him with an asking look on her. "Yes?"

"It's about your friend, Gabrielle."

"What of her?"

"I've noticed how the incident has effected her. She's clearly not herself right now. Remote and unstable. That's a sign that she's trying to cope through difficult situations. I know because this isn't the first time she's acting up like that. I'll have a talk with Calvin about her, but in the meantime if you could keep an eye on her, let me know if her state shifts, because it can go both ways."

"And it goes down way faster than it comes up. I know," she agreed with Thomas, being on the same line with him that Gabrielle was in need of someone watching after her for the sake of herself. "Yeah. I can do that. I'll report if there's anything alarming."

"To me, directly. I want to know exactly how she's doing."

"Alright." She nodded to him as a sign of understanding, and took some steps backwards again. Before turning around, she pointed at Thomas. "In return don't you fuck this meeting up, ok? Everything's bad as it already is."

"No promises. You know how politics are. Be safe on your journey back."

"We will."

"We'll meet back at the main Citadel," he said before they parted ways.

Thomas and James with his entourage walked in to the elevator lobby as Annie turned around and headed back to their shuttle. She walked with long strides across the landing pad while looking up at the bubble shield that now was waving harder as stronger winds swooped by. The sight made her stomach turn and she felt tensed up.

She hurried the last few steps and climbed back in to the shuttle cabin. Inside she took a look at Gabrielle. She was still fast asleep, right in the same position she was when they left a moment ago. These past couple of days must had been wearing for her.

Annie sat down to her own seat and took a pad to read through some latest news. First she needed to calm down and she closed her eyes and took couple of deep breaths trying to find a calm place in her mind. "Let's go home," she said to the shuttle A.I. before opening her eyes and the aircraft shut its door and began to take off, informing its passengers to prepare again.

From her window she followed the takeoff that didn't feel like being in motion at all from inside. Their shuttle turned around above the landing pad while the bubble shield disappeared and they softly took off and accelerated away from the Citadel of Hokkaido. The surrounding traffic and buildings were left behind with a view of open sea opening in front of them. Annie stared out into the horizon, thoughts about their future occupying her mind.

From the other side of the cabin she heard a heavy thud and rattling and turned to look. Gabrielle's feet had slipped and fell to the floor from her lap under her arms. She was awakened by the sudden sound and appeared disoriented. Annie looked at her from the other side and Thomas wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Morning, sleepy head," Annie called to her. Gabrielle turned to look out from her window to the sea, rudely passing Annie's greets.

* * *

A set of wide elevator doors opened up inside a large entrance hall, letting out Thomas, James and his men. They stepped into a crowd of busy people all occupied with their own businesses and affairs. It was a usual day at the Hokkaido transit hub with all of its clients and personnel. Over a hundred thousand passenger moved through those halls every day.

"She's quite a personality," James referred to Annie's behavior up on the landing pad..

"Try to bare it. She's invaluable to us." Thomas commented, watching the surrounding people's paths to avoid bumping into them. Many of them went right past him, softly touching him while occupied by their phones or companions. They probably didn't even notice him passing by. "And she's right by the way. Coburn nearly got the best of her. If she does ask you a favor, be kind and give her what she needs."

"Yes boss."

The doors of the front entrance remained constantly open at daytime due to all of the people walking through. A long line of glass panel doors were guarded by more of James' men. They were security guards, dressed in all black protective attire, completed by a helmet with a black visor to conceal the identity of the person.

"They really made a good job repairing her. She's almost as– handsome as she used to be when we first met her. I was sure she was going to die to her injuries when we found her."

"She's a fighter, that's for sure."

Outside the entrance on a flat landing the sight of the cityscape of the citadel of Hokkaido opened up in front of them. Tall skyscrapers standing side by side with the space elevator that towered behind them. Wide city streets with green lanes of trees and lawn dividing the traffic into separate streams of vehicles. Busy people on the move flooded every corner of the street. Thomas admired the buzz of the big city. "Home", he thought in his mind.

"Still adore this big city life?" James asked him, stopping by his side.

"You know it."

Long set of stone stairs gently descended down to the street where James' two armored vehicles were parked on the side of the walkway. As a fine detail of the Citadel city design, the transit hub stairs shifted its color as they walked down, from light shades of grey to a very dark, almost black stone to mach the shade of the asphalt road and black concrete slabs of the sidewalk.

The vehicles were pitch black with their tinted windows, the SUV one on the back looked similar to those ones that escorted them to the airport in Shizuoka. The one in front however was a pickup truck that completely stood out from its surroundings. With massive tires giving it unusually high clearance for a vehicle in a city street, chrome front bumper with extra headlights bigger than a dinner plate, thick side bars and a roll bar on top with a mounted light rack right above the roof. There was no other chance than this being James' car.

"You took your own truck to pick me up?" Thomas asked, the thought amusing him. James' trucks were always so unusual that it was a treat to get into one.

"Of course. Hop in"

They climbed into the vehicle. James in to the driver's seat while Thomas sat next to him to the passenger's side and slammed the doors shut.

"Didn't want to sit in the backseat? I know this ain't no Biz but we still have ones in here as well," James looked at him and joked around.

"Nah, there's a better view here in the front."