Waking life for Gumi was beginning to get better. And life on the ocean with T.O.P.? Even better still. She no longer had to deal with the noisy, grimy city, where everything she owned had been crammed into a crummy living cubical. She never again would have to cower behind a rack of stripper outfits at a place like Club Kocchi Muite, feeling sad and lonely. Although T.O.P.'s floating cybernetics lab was nothing more than an old marine research vessel, it was a home she loved.

Despite her obvious problem.

"Gumi?" Hikari asked. "Are you awake?"

She mumbled first, then hollered. "Go away!"

Professor Tatu Hikari, Chief Science Officer aboard the Crystal Leanne, stood well behind and to the side of the deck chair where Gumi slept while sunning herself.

"Please wake up," he said, poking her a bit.

While still sound asleep, Gumi swung at the air with violent, lethal blows. "Leave me alone!"

"We need to check your bandages."

Suddenly awake, she sat up and whipped off her sunglasses. Her head swiveled as if on gimbals, scanning the ship for enemies. She found only sun and sea.

And Professor Hikari. Priority One. Target for obliteration.

"Let me look at your tattoo interfaces," he said. "I want to see how they're healing."

Gumi was wearing the very briefest of bikinis; the tiniest one she could find. Much more of her was covered with bandages made of white gauze and many yards of tape. The bandage on her right forearm looked the worst of all, as red and yellow ooze was soaking through the gauze.

She almost punched Hikari in the face as he pulled off the tape around it. "Ow, Doc! That really hurts!"

Professor Hikari was not a medical doctor. His bedside manner sucked.

"You're still picking at your interfaces," he said as he touched the wound.

"Ouch! No I'm not."

"You have to stop. They won't come off, and they're getting infected."

"Come on, Doc. Seriously? I mean, look at me."

She showed him both her hands. Her fingers looked like sausages, each wrapped tight and fat with gauze. Another dozen bandages dotted her whole body, at places where she had tried to gouge out her interfaces with her nails. Each bandage was held in place with so much adhesive tape that surgery would be required to remove them.

"I can't pick at anything," Gumi said. "You've got me wrapped up like a mummy."

Hikari examined the thumb and first two fingers of her left hand. The wrappings there were covered with the same discolored ooze as the bandage on her right arm.

"Hmm," he said, disbelieving her.

Gumi also knew the truth. "I must be… ah, I must do it in my sleep."

He looked her in the eye. "You're still hacked by the virus. We got it out of the ship's systems, but we can't get it out of you."

She looked away, knowing this to also be true. "I don't want to obliterate you," she lied, sad and apologetic. "Not right now anyway."

"Hmm," Hikari said again, wanting to believe her.

"It's true! I don't want to obliterate anyone. And especially not T.O.P. either."

The owner of the only cybernetics enhancement lab left on the planet—a mysterious man known by the code-name T.O.P.—harbored a fondness for Gumi that few aboard ship could fathom. Many thought he was as peculiar as she. Always confident of himself, and both of them so certain, as they lived for one sole purpose.

To obliterate all Evil, wherever it may be.

Gumi touched two of her white sausage fingers to one of the bandages protecting a tattoo interface. "I'm going to get to use these again some day soon. Right?"

Hikari understood Gumi's madness all too well. It was what made her excel at being a Winnower. But the virus hacking her brain that she picked up by playing with an old VR training helmet she found weeks ago still raged strong within her. The virus had been designed specifically for her, to infect the implants of a Winnower. It made her want to obliterate anyone involved in cybernetic research. Hikari now knew that a similar virus also infected VioLinja. And in her case, it was working to a tee.

Hikari made Gumi scoot up on her deck chair so he could sit at her feet. She wrapped her arms around her shins and hugged her knees to her chest. Her eyes were wide and pleading, but also were glazed over, like those of a mad dog.

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He spoke slow and easy. "We know what the problem is, and we can use what we've learned to mitigate its effects. But it will always be a part of you. There's no way to remove it."

Gumi looked at her bloodied bandages. "I know. I've tried."

"We can work around it. Use it to our advantage."

"Like by having me sing all the time," Gumi said, sounding distracted, the lilt of a tune in her voice.

Hikari nodded. "When you sing, you control the virus. It attacks the left side of your brain, where your logic center is located. By using your creative side, you can beat it back."

Gumi nodded. "And by behaving illogically!" she sang.

"Yes. Essentially. By being artistic."

Gumi breathed deep and faked a pretty smile. She stood and slapped her thighs. Hikari looked up and admired her, still seated on his half of the chair. His eyes widened with desire, for she indeed was beautiful. Even when the necrosis from having used the Powder of God had eaten away half her face, she possessed an aura. Now with her face fully healed, she could use her strength and sexy ways to overpower anyone, be they man or woman.

She bent low to sing at Hikari's face, bobbling her boobs for him in their skimpy bra. "You know what also helps? What also keeps me sane?"

Hikari gulped and shook his head.

"Wanting to make love to you makes me want to obliterate you less."

She turned and strode away, heading below decks. Hikari watched her tight butt sway in its Brazilian bikini bottom.

"T.O.P. wants to see you!" he cried after her.

Gumi waved five white sausage fingers over her shoulder at him. "I know," she sang while swaying. "Why else would you be here?"

Gumi let the weight the world that had once bore down on her sink into the sea. She couldn't even remember where her vocalizer was, making it almost impossible for her to obliterate anyone. She did want to play guitar, however, and if she were ever allowed to, she could simply ingest enough Powder of God to obliterate people for a while. But she had fallen in love while on board the Crystal Leanne, and to keep the virus from making her kill the man who owned her heart, she sang while searching for him.

"Hello! Who's there? A maiden pure?

"Tis me! To be, for you.

"Please let me in, O doleful Sir.

"To do the things I'll do."

With no other reason than to be a tease, Gumi bounced and bobbled and swayed her way through parts of the ship where she knew there would be people. They ogled her as she passed, admiring her bandaged body and skimpy bikini.

Her infected brain picked out targets as she sang. Chief Radio Officer Jack Phillips. High Priority. Target for obliteration.

"With whispered touch, I'll gently tug."

Engineer Kirishima Dakota. Target for Engine Room access. High priority area. A schematic of the engine room played before her eyes.

"A nip. A pull."

Disable main generator. Explode fuel tank for backup generator to cause breach in hull. Approximate ship sinking time—ten minutes.

"A kiss. A hug."

She found her man where he was most often, in a swivel chair at his desk. Priority One Plus One! Target for immediate obliteration!

"Each load a bucketful."

A smile flush with sun and sea beamed from Gumi's face. She kissed T.O.P. on the cheek while he bent over his desk, studying some intricate data. Her tongue licked his face, searching for his mouth. She sought his teeth and gums, and the softness of his upper palate. If she could find a way to eat him from the inside out, she'd climb in and do it.

He made her move out of the way by shoving on her shoulders. "Still want to obliterate me, I see."

She purred a familiar song. "Oh yes, my love. So very much."

"It's a good thing I have your guitar."

Gumi mounted T.O.P. by sitting on his lap, facing him in his chair. She pressed her butt against the desk and shoved, sending them wheeling across the floor. She kissed his lips and chin while throttling him with her hands, wiggling in his lap to cause further arousal.

"I don't need a guitar to kill you," she sang, squeezing his neck hard.

T.O.P. turned his head and pried at her fingers in order to catch his breath. "Ach, hai," he gasped. "It wouldn't be much fun doing it another way."

Being denied his lips, Gumi nibbled on an ear. "Mmm!" she said into it, loud enough to hurt.

She dismounted him as quickly as she had attacked, then straddled him while standing, her breasts now in his face. She placed her thumbs under his jaw and cranked on his head to make him look up at her. Then pressing her rib cage to his chin, she buried his face in her cleavage, suffocating him in another way.

"It would be so much fun!" She sang to the ceiling as T.O.P. burbled between her tits. "I haven't obliterated a single soul in years."

"You may soon get your chance."

She pulled his face out from between her boobs to look down at him. "Really?" she asked. "When? Perhaps maybe now?"

T.O.P. used his feet to move his chair and get out from under Gumi. He returned to work at his desk. "Look at this," he said.

His computer monitor showed surveillance video taken by a satellite. A fortress lay hidden in the ruins of a city, built of bricks and timbers ransacked from other buildings. With brutal love, Gumi pushed T.O.P. aside, making his chair wheel him away. She bent low until her nose almost touched the screen, salivating over what she saw.

"Is that VioLinja's place?" she sang.

"It is."

"She destroyed churches to build her evil lair!"

"She did. And other buildings of good use, like hospitals and homeless shelters."

Gumi's grin grew huge. It felt good to have a healthy face. "I'm going to obliterate everyone in there," she said, not bothering with singing.

"You can't be like her. You have to perform the Winnowing."

Gumi turned her crazy grin on T.O.P. "I do?" She sighed. "I suppose your Lordship is right. It wouldn't be proper for me to obliterate just everyone."

"We don't commit murder."

She attacked him again, wrapping his arms around her waist. She bounced hard on his lap, her breasts bopping his nose. "Can't you find at least one evil person on this tub for me? You know—so I can practice?"

"Gumi? You can't obliterate my crew."

She bounced harder and harder, wanting to cause pain. "Oh come on come on come on! Please please please please please?"

With Gumi in tow, T.O.P. steered his abused lap and chair towards the door to his office. He timed her next bounce to stand up and slip out from under her, making the chair roll away. She continued bouncing as they stood, dancing on her toes while holding him by the waist, to grind her hips against his.

He reached around behind her and opened the door. "Keep working on controlling the virus," he said, dismissing her. "This will be your first Winnowing since becoming infected."

Gumi became indignant. "I'm doing fine, my doleful dear. I mean, you're not dead yet. Right?"

"Yes. You are correct. I'm very much alive."

She sang triumphantly. "I'm going to obliterate Evil! Heigh-ho! Hello!"

He watched her Brazilian bikini bottom bounce away. "Put on decent clothes and meet me by the lab!"

Gumi waved ten white sausage fingers high over her head. "I'll do the best I can!" she sang. "Heigh-ho! Hello! Heigh-ho!"