They assessed their bearings. To Robert, the jungle was all the same but Amanda had her special ways to coax information out of it.

"We are deeper into the Mollusk Realm than most delvers reach. I think the passage back home is north of here."

"How can you tell?" Robert asked.

"Some plants don't grow near the passage. Something about how the ether near it affecting the vegetation."

"Which way is north? It’s all the same to me, without a sun to guide us."

"That way," she pointed. "Most plants in this realm like to point in a single direction. The northbound fern," she pointed at a fern growing on a tree. "It only grows on the north side of trees."

"Northbound fern?" Robert smirked.

"We can rename it if you want. The plant rights are owned by Samson."

"Was it named by you, perchance?"

She tossed a rock his way. Robert switched dimensions and dodged it. More time reading and taking a nap. When he returned, he pinged life sense and foresight with one minute of range. He did that every minute. Though he didn't fear the mollusks, he still had some trauma left from the encounter with the deviant squid.

"We should wait here until they wake up. I believe Campbell here is a two-star."

The explorer only had a nameplate on her armor with the sayings "Campbell B+" as identification. But they didn't search her. Just the name Campbell was fine.

"If we linger for too long, Mollusks will show up. They will sense our presence and attack."

"Let them," Robert shrugged. "They aren't a threat to us anymore."

"Yeah," she smiled at him.

Robert replied with a faint nod and no words. They stayed in silence, savoring the coffee for a while.

"Thank you," Amanda said. "You somehow convinced that eidolon to leave me alone."

Robert brought a finger to his lips. it came too late but he could make do.

"Just doing my job, Miss. Your bodyguard should take a shot meant for you."

She glowered at him, annoyed at the formal treatment. It took a while for her to understand. With a sigh, she changed gears. "I think you are correct. Anyway, thanks for your stellar service."

"It is my pleasure, Miss," Robert grinned, then turned his head. "Oi, Campbell, coffee is going to go cold if you don't get up immediately."

Campbell sat up. "Good morning?"

Robert stared at her with a raised eyebrow. "Why say it as a question? You are safe here; I'll invoice you the bill for rescuing and healing you later when we get back to earth. Now come and get some sustenance. For whom do you work?"

"I work for the city," Campbell replied. "You can bill them directly."

"Samson will handle it," Amanda said in her business voice.

"Oh! I saw you on the missing people file!"

"Many thanks for. Coming," Amanda's tone was regal. "It’s not often that the rescue rescues the rescuer."

Robert just sipped his coffee. That argument was beyond his pay grade. He didn't care to know what the conversation was the two were having in the subtext of that talk.

Josie woke up a few minutes later. Amanda knelt next to her. "Josie! Josie?"

"Miss Samson? What happened?"

"Everything is okay, Josie. You were wounded in the crash but Robert healed you. What is the last thing you remember?"

"A passage opened up and swallowed the car. I'm sorry, Miss. I couldn't avoid it."

Campbell snorted. "The damn passage swallowed way more than your car. There's a crater eight hundred feet across in the middle of district eighteen, now."

"Given the number of debris that came with us, we assumed as much," Robert said. He pinged life sense and foresight with one minute of advanced warning. He detected danger from both. "Get ready for combat. Enemies are coming. Six in the one-star range."

"You kids stay put," Campbell said as she stood up. "I'll take care of them."

"Be our guest," Robert said. While they could take down a mollusk group, Campbell didn't need to learn about their powers.

"Which direction?" She asked. Robert pointed. The woman grinned and then vanished behind the foliage. A minute later, they heard sounds of combat. Another minute and Campbell returned. "I must say, you are a very skilled healer."

Stolen story; please report.

"Thank you."

"You fixed even my scars. That's supreme healing." Campbell said. She had a disturbing grin on her face. The one people had when they were seeing dollar signs.

"And that's a fact you will keep to yourself," Amanda said as a threat. "We can claim we didn't rescue any survivors of the exploration team. Your people believe you dead right now."

Campbell snorted. She stood up and waved her arms, blades of metal sprouting from her wrists. She stood poised to strike like a predator. "Do you think you can—" She stopped when she sensed Robert's knife digging into her skin.

"Come on. Do something. Show us how cool your two-star powers are." Robert hissed.

Her skin became metal. Campbell elbowed Robert and he flew away, leaving his weapon stuck to her skin. It's not that he let go of the knife but it was stuck to her. As he landed, healing hands already fixed the wound he received.

The blades shifted into square-headed hammers. "I think I'll just put you kids in a coma and then claim the very generous bounty your great-grandmother placed on you. Crack a few bones, why not? So long I don't hit anything vital, healer boy here can fix you up later."

Amanda was too nice to him. Robert forgot how cutthroat the world of Archhumans was. He exchanged a glance with Amanda.

Eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a thin line, she nodded back. Robert vanished, appeared with a hand on Campbell's shoulder, then both disappeared. In less time than her eyes took to blink, he was back, alone.

"Too bad we found no survivors," Robert said as a joke but he was fuming with anger and disgust.

"Yes. Only the three of us got out," Amanda said and looked at Josie.

"It is as you said, Miss Samson."

Robert grunted. He knew it would come to this eventually, but now he was a murderer. He took the first step in the slippery slope, embraced the corruption of his powers.

Amanda felt guilty but also proud. Robert was scary if you thought about how easy he took out a two-star veteran. But he was her scary bad boy. And she knew he had a heart of gold. Her guilt only increased when she saw how conflicted he was because he killed someone.

"Let us break camp and start making our way back. Robert, try to find any delvers. We can ask them to escort us back."

And they had to obey orders from Samson staff or risk a ban from the passage or worse.

*

*

Robert sensed a party of five Archhumans a mile away. Amanda changed course to meet them. They didn't avoid making noise and soon were hailed by the delvers.

"Who goes there? You cannot approach us, that's a violation of the rules!"

Many unscrupulous delvers would attack, rob, or even outright kill other delvers for a little profit. Considering how expensive Archhuman gear was, he couldn't even call it a little profit.

"We are with Samson. This is official business," Josie said. Amanda's voice was too young and she didn't want her status to be known to the general public.

"Hands where we can see. We don't want trouble but many have already impersonated Samson personnel."

"Then report them. Don't go around tossing rumors," Josie retorted.

The party on the other side cut down a bush, and they had visual contact.

"Hey, that's the deviant slayer," one of them pointed at Robert.

"You signed with Samson?" Another asked.

"Pay is good," Robert said. "But don't go spreading this information. Nothing good will come of it and we can track the source to you."

Robert set prescience to run five seconds ahead, all the time. Experiencing all these parallel timelines was a bother but he would know the moment things started to converge into aggression. Sane people didn't just suddenly change their minds. They nurtured an idea and only then acted. The timing of their decision to go rogue could change but it would become increasingly probable as time passed. That was what he expected to see with his prescience.

The flood of information surprised Robert. Was this knowledge imparted by his new Mental affinity? Anyway, it was a sound plan.

"We are taking these trainees to see if they are a good fit," Josie said. "It's part of their interview."

"Then why are you around just the three of you?"

Robert saw the archer in the back shoot an arrow at Josie in one of the futures. Robert stared at the guy and shook his head slowly. The probabilities went back to all peaceful.

"We got waylaid by happenstance," Josie replied. "And now we need you to guide us to the passage. Samson is willing to pay each of you fifteen thousand dollars as a reward."

"Fifty," their leader said.

Then he saw their caster entangle them with vines. Robert shifted his gaze and grinned. Peace.

"Fifteen and priority queue for the next two months as compensation for the interrupted delve. Failure to comply with Samson staff requests is a straight ban."

Next, Robert saw the leader used a burst of wind to close in and tackle Robert. He raised an eyebrow at the man. The guy narrowed his eyes. The probability of an attack increased. Somehow, they could tell that Amanda, Josie, and him had a lot of valuable stuff on them. Was it one of their talents? In any case, violence was reaching 50% of probability.

Robert entered the liminal void to bleed the excess time he'd built up. This was to keep his guests' visits as short as possible. It wouldn't be good to have Amanda and Josie in the void with him for a month or even a week. He studied the party, taking notes about their equipment, body position, and facial expression. Once he was satisfied, he sat on a rock and read some books. Eventually, he returned in the same spot, to avoid showing them too much.

"Ladies, grab my hands, please," Robert said as he walked between them.

He felt a breeze and next thing, all future impressions were of cooperation. Something triggered the change, leaving Robert puzzled.

"Deal," the delver leader said. "Name's Marcus, by the way."

"Josie. It's a pleasure to do business with you, Marcus," Josie replied.

"The passage is northwest of here, about one hour away. Let's go."

Led by Marcus, they just followed the trail they had left behind. The way the vegetation in this realm grew back so fast was still a mystery for Robert.

*

*

At the passage facility, Josie used her work ID to have Marcus and party paid, then the three of them went to the employee-only section. An APC came to pick them up and take them to the arcology. The escort had eight two-stars elites, including Tyrone.

Robert felt no need to antagonize the vanguard Arch. Exchanging a glance with Amanda, he nodded and smiled.

"Hey, Tyrone."

"Sup, Robert?"

They shook hands. Tyrone didn't apply not even five percent this strength.

"Sorry for marking you on the eye."

"Sorry for punching your guts into mincemeat."

"All good?"

"More than good," Tyrone said with honesty. "You brought the lady back from a passage who killed six two-stars minutes after entering. You have my respect."

The others nodded. Robert fought to keep the praise from going to his head.

"Thanks. From you, it means a lot."

"You are one of us, Robert. Samson Security!"

"Hoorah!" The others saluted Robert.

Amanda almost let a squeal escape.

But they were back home.

Their first stop after leaving the APC was Jeremiah's office. Robert saw the caring father instead of the heartless executive.

Josie touched his elbow and the two left the office, leaving the Samsons have their moment alone.

It didn't last long. The door opened, revealing a teary-eyed Amanda. She seemed concerned.

"Robert. We need to take the private lift."

"Is something wrong?"

"Yes. No. Maybe. You have a meeting with the CEO."

Amanda's great-grandmother. A four-star Arch and Samson's big boss.