Powerless to resist such a beautiful woman bearing gifts, the ganger let them through with a casual wave of his hand. His dour faced companion punched a button on a wall mounted panel and the locks on the reinforced door clanked open and swung open for them with an ominous creak.

John followed along behind the blonde, the darkly lit tunnels reverberating with wolf whistles as she strolled elegantly past gangers. The flirtatious comments and whistling grew quiet in her wake as the gangers spotted John and eyed him suspiciously. They eventually reached a workshop cut into a side tunnel, the bright light from a welding torch casting dancing shadows through the entrance and on to the wall of the tunnel opposite.

“Hey Sparks! You got a moment?" Alyssa called out in a friendly, familiar manner to a small, wiry figure bent over a workbench.

The welding torch cut out a moment later and the figure stood upright, lifting the heavy welding mask from her face as she half turned towards them. John could see a pasty white face Looking hopefully in their direction for a moment, before the hopes were dashed and replaced by a dark scowl.

“Custom gear's over there Blondie." she said dismissively as she waved a finger over at weapon racks on the wall before turning back to continue with her welding.

John followed the direction of the girl's pointing finger to see a surprisingly clean and well cared for set of weapon racks, filled with elaborate custom pistols and sub machine guns. The weapons gleamed in the dull light of the workshop, looking sleek and deadly. He walked over to look at them more closely and saw that the sinister looking black and chrome weapons were actually the work of a highly skilled gunsmith. He picked up a heavy bore pistol and was impressed by its excellent craftsmanship as he turned it carefully in his hand. Even the scope was surprising, with its powerful zoom and infrared capabilities, far beyond anything he expected to see in a colony like this. He carefully replaced it on the weapon rack, feeling a newfound respect for its creator and turned to focus on the reunion in the workshop.

Alyssa moved closer to the tetchy figure and tried again “Don't you recognise me Sparks?" she asked tentatively.

The wiry girl seemed to tense with irritation before turning off the oxy-acetylene torch and pulling off her cumbersome welding mask and turning right around to look at them squarely. Now John could see her clearly, he noticed a livid Looking red scar all over the left side of her face and running down her neck. The girl could have once been considered pretty, if not for the disfiguring burn that Looked to be many years old. The girl was ghostly white like all the locals at Karron and the small figure had a shock of short, spiky red hair.

“Oh yeah, I remember you from our old modelling days!" Sparks scoffed sarcastically. "Now why are you bothering me?!" she blurted out, annoyed at the interruption to her work.

“It's me..." The stunningly beautiful blonde continued "Alyssa..."

Sparks snorted with laughter “Haha! Good one, who put you up to it? Fat Tony? Choppy Bob?" she grinned good naturedly.

"It's not a joke, it's really me." the blonde said calmly. Sparks rolled her eyes and laughed derisively.

“Four years ago we got caught in a street-fight and one of the Fletcher brothers stuck me with a knife, right here." Alyssa said pointing to just above her right hip.

Sparks laughter died as she looked at Alyssa a bit more closely for a moment. She then shook her head and grinned “Nice try Blondie, but plenty of people were there at that fight."

"Yes, but it was only us there when you helped stitch me up and you told me that holding on to your lucky penny would make it hurt less.” Alyssa said, her melodic voice catching.

“How in the hell did you know that?" Sparks blurted out, before throwing the welding gear aside and striding right up to Alyssa.

Now that she was this close, the ghostly pale teenager did a double take as she stared at the beautiful blonde's lovely face. She recognised the piercing blue eyes, her mouth, her ears; she could see parts of her old friends face, but this stunningly attractive woman was over 6 inches taller than her friend, just to start with!

“What are you?" Sparks said, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Some kind of a robot?" she poked Alyssa’s arm.

“What did you do to my friend?" she said growing angry.

“It's me Sparks!" Alyssa said, growing exasperated. "We met four years ago. I used to gopher for you in exchange for food. I used to sleep over there." she said, pointing to a tucked away corner of the workshop. "I left here 6 weeks ago, because Georgio tried to rape me and I stuck him with a knife!"

The ghostly pale teenager stood there opened mouthed at Alyssa's outburst. "It really is you..." she whispered in a stunned voice, her eyes wide.

“But you're tall and so beautiful now! What happened? Was it some kind of luxury bodysculpt job or something?" She asked, while walking around Alyssa, her face showing her shock as she studied the blonde's incredible body.