"It wasn't like that," Anders said, though it was going to take him a bit to explain what itwas like.

After a long pause, he came out with: "She -- Louise, the little girl -- they'd treated her with a special drug and sent her out to collect a chemical from corpses. Her parents had sold her into it. I don't know how she ate or where she slept. She had this huge protector in a metal suit, more a machine than a man. He attacked us and we had to take him down."

He drew a breath. "Once we'd gotten her back to normal -- we didn't exactly go searching for her proper guardian. But I can't imagine anyone left down there deserved her, anyhow."