Rurin and Vernicia land on the great ridge, looking out over the great expanse of the lands to the north. Vernicia touches something with her finger.
"Hey Verni," Rurin calls. "How about we check out Chandonis while we're out here?"
Vernicia isn't paying attention.
"Uh, Verni?"
"Oh. Sorry." She turns to face him. "Hey, you think maybe this is all just a fool's errand?"
Rurin raises an eyebrow. "What's with you all of a sudden? Getting cold feet?"
"What's cold is our trail. I've been talking – uhm, thinking about it," Vernicia says. "You realize we have literally nothing to work with, right? Like, have you even heard of Neocon before Joseph brought it up?"
"Well… no. I was kind of hoping we'd just get lucky," Rurin sheepishly admits. "You know, run into someone who has exactly what we need, lead us to exactly where we need to go, junk like that. Wishful thinking, right?"
"The wishfulest…" Vernicia sighs. "Ugh. Now I wanna go shopping."
"Huh? You have money?"
"You don't?" Vernicia flashes him a sly grin.
"What… where would you even keep the stuff you buy? Y'know what, never mind." Rurin activates his comm. "Ru here. Verni and I are off to the big city."
"Gotcha," Diantha replies. "We'll head over once we finish searching the badlands."
"While we're on the topic of a fool's errand," Vernicia snickers.
"I heard that! I'll have you know I like the biting cold," Diantha shoots back.
"But blazing hot, it is right now," Angelina says.
Diantha sighs. "Angie, come on. Work with me here."
"Eh?"
"Never mind. Don't get lost, you two." The comm link closes.
As the fog coats Chandonis's midnight skyline, the duo land in downtown, cloaked by the dark.
Rurin looks around. "Wait, are shops even open this late?"
"Tch." Vernicia looks away.
Rurin sighs. "Yeah, okay. Let's just check the directories for now."
Fortunately, automated directory kiosks are scattered all around downtown. But when it comes to the search…
"Why isn't Neocon on any of the maps?" Rurin turns away from the screen, frustrated.
"That just means it's a shady organization," Vernicia replies, tossing up her hands. "Fool's errand, remember? We'll need way more than guesswork if we want to find anything."
Rurin leans against a lamppost. "I wonder if Kit and Trav are having any luck."
Vernicia starts tapping on the kiosk's screen again. "How do we know Joseph wasn't wrong about us? Or maybe our parents chose our names, sure; but perhaps that doesn't mean they're the same names as our parents' actual names. You know what I mean?"
"Sort of? I get what you mean, but I doubt that's the case," Rurin replies. "After all, Trav's mom… hmm…"
Vernicia glances over at him. "You wondering if she's hot?"
"Well… a little bit, but that's not important," Rurin says. "I read somewhere that family will always reunite. Like, through twists of fate intertwining."
"I guess that's not super farfetched." She pulls up a route. "Hey, there's a starlight café down the way. Want a bite?"
"Is it good?"
"Only one way to find out."
The two of them jog down the sidewalk towards their destination: a black-walled restaurant with a clear roof, bustling with patrons.
"Weird how people would go here," Vernicia mutters, looking at the completely obfuscated sky. "Isn't stargazing the whole point of a starlight café?"
Rurin also looks up. "They're only open at night too, yeah? Chandonis is like the worst possible spot to put one of these restaurants. I dunno, maybe the food is crazy good?"
Then they both see it – a flying figure silhouetted by the dimly-lit fog. It wavers in the air, then tumbles down onto the roof of a nearby warehouse.
"Huh…" Vernicia hesitates.
"You place the orders," Rurin decides. "I'll go check it out."
"What do you wanna get?"
"Something sweet? I don't know, surprise me," he shrugs.
"Well, don't stay too long or I'll eat your food."
"Copy that." Rurin heads across the street, then flies up to the warehouse's roof. The place seems abandoned, with a rusty access door on one side of the roof, a row of mechanical units near the center, and an old furnace on the other side.
Cough, cough.
Rurin's gaze snaps to the noise – there! Trickling from behind a unit is a growing pool of blood.
He quickly flies over. Sitting there is a familiar face, battered and wounded.
"Roy! Didn't think I'd ever see you again," Rurin says. "We… well, most of us have been thinking about what you said, you know. And we could really use the help of some seasoned hands like yours, haha."
"Glad you lot are capable of… self-reflection," Roy grunts, "but I probably… won't have time to lend much aid."
"Hmm? Well, yeah, you're kind of banged up, but you'll live, right?" Rurin squats to take a closer look at Roy's condition. "I mean, bullet wounds never kept us down for long."
"Must be… nice… being so tough," Roy pants. "I've lost too much blood already… I don't think…"
Dread sets in. "Uhh… look, you just hold on a little longer while I comm my pals," Rurin tells him. "Then we can get you patched up somewhere."
"Seriously… don't bother," Roy says. "Just listen to me. I found an important lead… an armored executive. She went to this island called Tasmil, but… her goons found me while I was infiltrating. And they've already upgraded their machines to the Delta model– rgh!"
"C'mon, stay alive! What about Larry and Pex?"
"I don't know. Ngh! Not that it matters now."
"Hey, come on," Rurin weakly protests. "Seriously, if you die, I'll steal all your stuff."
"Just listen!" Roy pushes his bag to Rurin. "It has the same encrypted data as Pex and Larry's… so don't! Lose it! You guys have the best odds… of winning this war. So… win it…"
Roy slumps over, the last of his life slipping away.
Rurin stares in silence for a moment. While he and the others were aimlessly grasping at air, Gen 1 was still fighting.
Rurin grips Roy's bag. We have to fight too! I won't waste this opportunity, Roy. I'll fight in your stead. And maybe also… get rid of the body…
As the furnace roars to life and cremates Roy's remains, Rurin opens the bag. Inside he sees the final laptop of encrypted data, along with a clasp full of money and a bunch of different colored orbs. Roy's weapons… not sure how they work, but from what I saw, you can probably use them like bombs maybe?
Rurin flies back down to the starlight café. There Vernicia is sitting at an outdoor table, eating a sandwich.
"I found a big lead," he says, landing next to her. "Once we reconvene, I'll show you guys."
"Good, 'cause I found squat," Marc grumbles, sipping a chuchu.
Rurin almost jumps, but stops himself just in time. "Oh. Ahem. When did you get here?"
"A few minutes ago. Does the lead have to do with that bag?"
"Yeah." As Rurin sits down, Vernicia slides a plate over to him. "Is this a firecake?"
"A gourmet firecake," Vernicia clarifies. "You need utensils to eat it without gunking up your fingers."
Rurin takes a bite. Roy is dead. Where's the rest of Gen 1? He can't possibly expect us to finish this ourselves, right?
Marc looks at Rurin. "You, ah, doing okay?"
"This firecake is crazy good," he replies. We still need someone who knows what they're doing! Wait, no, the encrypted data. But none of us have trained in digital anything! Except for maybe Verni… she's always full of surprises. Maybe I'll ask her later.
"Uhm," Marc begins.
"What?"
WHOOSH– Diantha and Angelina land at the table.
"Ugh, I'm done with this," Diantha groans. "I don't even know what we're looking for! What nerve, sending us out in these conditions."
"Hey, there you guys are," Vernicia says. "Come sit, Rurin found something. Oh, and order something too. My treat." Finally.
"Well… if you're paying." Diantha picks up a menu. You piece of… stop being so hard to hate. I won't forgive any of you.
Marc grimaces to himself. Then he says, "Is this everyone? Good."
"The bag, what's in it?" Angelina asks. Death, I sense it. Regret and hope, how odd. Open it, open it.
"Looks like the bags Larry and Pex had," Vernicia observes. "Does that mean…"
"Yeah. That was Roy we saw," Rurin confirms.
Vernicia gives an approving nod. I knew I wasn't the only klepto in the team.
"Don't look at me like that! I didn't steal it," he disclaims. "He gave it to me with his second-to-last breath. We've gotta win this war in their stead, so we can't lose this one." Roy was serious. Those Deltas, that armored executive – they could be real trouble.
Rurin opens the bag and sets it on the table. "Oh. Didn't check the side compartments yet. Let's see…"
Vernicia pulls out a greyish block. "What could Roy want with plastic explosives? And the other compartment has a gun!" They really were serious about taking down those big cheeses.
"Hum. Good taste in hardware," Marc notes as he opens the laptop. "No password lock? Not that it would've stopped me, heh…" He starts going through the files. "Wow, this is a lot of encrypted data. I'll have to crack it later when we have down time."
"What's that file? The unlocked one." Diantha points at a file labeled 186_DATA1.
Marc opens it. "Let's see… looks like the details for a type of biotool called fireman. Says here they're like living flamethrowers," he summarizes. Then he sits up, realizing something– "Wait, that's what he meant!"
"Who?"
"I don't know his name, and he exclusively communicates via audio transmissions," Marc explains. "Last time Joseph and I talked to him, Joseph mentioned that aeronauts were their only option for weaponization."
"I'm with you so far," Rurin says.
"Well, his response was 'best'. You guys are his best option, which means there are other sets of biotools he could choose from, like these firemen!"
"I wonder how they do it. The flames, I mean," Vernicia muses. "I mean, they figured out how to replicate faery wings, so maybe they found a dragon or something." I wanna meet a dragon. She said they were real, but where…
"What're you getting at here?" Diantha asks.
"N-nothing! Never mind. What else is on there?" Vernicia promptly redirects the topic.
"Hmm… Gen 1 started out fine, but they died prematurely," Marc reads, "from something called burnout. Gen 2 and 3 were more successful, looks like. Says here they're fielded."
"Like we are? I mean, were," Rurin says. "Doesn't seem like any of them escaped."
"Wow, it's even got some info on their biology. Listen to this," Marc continues. "Firemen have reservoirs inside their bodies that store their excess blood. They connect to blast ports in their hands, which ignite and shoot out the flames via… nerve impulses. Huh, they're starting to sound like cyborgs."
"Flammable blood… quick spontaneous combustion, it sounds like." Angelina shudders.
"You know… Roy mentioned Tasmil before he died," Rurin says. "Maybe this is what he found there."
Marc shakes his head. "You don't know, do you? Tasmil is an island nature preserve that's at least half forest. Why would they put a facility on it, let alone one harboring fire-spitting biotools?"
"I don't know. But he said he tailed an armored executive there. And I highly doubt she was sightseeing," Rurin replies. They killed him, after all. They could kill us too.
"Hmm… an armored executive with an armed entourage on Tasmil… I mean, it's suspicious no matter how you look at it. Definitely worth investigating."
"It's gotta be Neocon," Rurin affirms. "Joseph said the protoforms would be there."
"Yeah… let's do it, then," Marc decides.
"You said your Tetrider can go over water, right? I wanna ride," Vernicia says.
"No, no," Marc replies, putting up a hand. "If Rurin is right, then we'll need to be as inconspicuous as possible when we go on the approach. Anything that draws suspicion will put us at an immediate disadvantage. That includes using my Tetrider, and obviously flying."
"Oh, come on…" Vernicia crosses her arms. I'll steal your keys. Don't test me!
"You'll thank me later," Marc tells her. "There's a ferry at the docks that'll take us straight there. Way easier, way less conspicuous."
Vernicia uncrosses her arms. "Hmmm…" He didn't say faery.
"I've always wanted to ride a ferry," Diantha says. "It's romantic, isn't it, Angie?" Tch, those Gen 3 guys have no idea, do they? It's all over their faces.
Angelina looks away. "Uhm…" Bad vibes. Feel them, I still can. Won't listen, won't forgive. Why?
"Hoo boy," Marc sighs to himself.