<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Jerrod McKenzie</strong></span><br/><hr/><br/>It was more than that.  The LDB constituted man's sole offensive force against the Immortals.  Oh, SolTech definitely had helped to tip the balance back in mankind's favor, but it was largely a defensive effort - protect the Cities, rather than destroy the Immortals.  The reason for that was very simple: your typical SolForce Marine platoon lacked the firepower to take down anything beyond a Guardian, and that was only with heavy weaponry.  The Renfields - those traitors who had thrown in their lot with the Immortals - and the Immortals themselves could not be harmed by SolTech.  With one exception.  The Lightspeed Frame.  A Frame could go up against a Renfield and win, and it had proven on occasion able to injure and force even Immortals to retreat.  And with the Wild Bunch nowhere to be seen, the girls of the LDB were the only hope of winning the war.<br/><br/>"Jerrod is fine," he told Alice as she sat down.  He listened as she explained her mission here...listened and<em>watched</em>.  It was no secret that Lightspeed Girls were all pretty - some joked you needed to qualify as a model, too, in order to be one - and Jerrod had, shall we say, limited interaction with the female gender.  But he was still a man, and a young one at that.  "Uh...uh, yeah.  You probably know two of my sisters, they're both in the Battalion..."  Jerrod sounded distracted.  Distracted by the<em>sexy</em>.  "Well, I mean...if you think it'll help, I'll be glad to come along..."<br/><br/><em>The Lightspeed Girls need your help</em>.  Boy, if Alice hadn't<em>already</em>gotten inside his head, she definitely did with that statement.  Part of it was civic duty - the Girls were well-beloved by the entire City; nobody would refuse helping them.  And part of it was Jerrod being young and male - this was part of where what Alice was doing really paid off, as it sparked half-formed fantasies of them 'thanking' him for their help...  "Are...are we leaving right now, then?"  They had better be - the medical nerds wanted the process they were planning on putting him through to be irreversible by the time the McKenzies found out what was going on.  Right now, there was a window of about an hour before Jerrod needed to be put under, otherwise...