"Paperwork, please," the guard requested in a monotone voice.

He was promptly handed a clipboard with several papers attached to it by the eighteen-year-old driver of the van, who wore an all-black suit and opaque black sunglasses, a commpiece in his left ear. His black hair was brushed neatly, his posture stiff, professional, his skin deeply tanned like a farmer's, as opposed to the ordinary pale skin tone. A pair of black cloth gloves covered his hands, which remained on the steering wheel after the guard took the clipboard.

After examining the papers, the guard appraised the teen.

"What's your business in the Fog Zone?"

"Recovery," the teen answered without looking away from the road ahead of him. "Zenitk Pharmaceuticals has requested the recovery of a harddrive in one of their abandoned facilities, priority one. Recovery of several stored items if the backup generator for their vault is still functional, priority two. Recovery of additional paper files from an office in the same building, priority three."

"Is there anyone else in the vehicle?" The guard asked.

"No," the teen answered. "I'm taking on the job alone. It's been up for a few months."

"We've had several Scavengers go into the Fog Zone for this job," the guard told him. "None have returned successful. The only group which did return was a team of four experienced Scavengers a decade your senior, and they lost one of their own and were low on supplies, and they never made it to the city."

"Your job isn't to judge or advise away," the teen said. "It's to confirm the paperwork, then allow those with the proper credentials through. I'll return with the requested items."

"Arrogance has gotten many killed," the guard told him.

"Do I need to put Zenitk Pharmaceuticals on the line?" The teen asked. "As you'll note from the file, and if you ran my credentials as you're meant to, I'm not a Scavenger. I'm an elite combat specialist under the employ of Zenitk Pharmaceuticals. I have a Class B combat suit in the back of this van, which is far superior to anything the Scavengers you've seen so far have used."

Class A combat suits were military-grade, and even a corporation as large and influential as Zenitk Pharmaceuticals were not authorized to use them. Everyone knew why, though – it wasn't just a matter of how powerful the magitech was, it was a matter of practicality in making a Class A combat suit. Some of the resources which went into them were quite rare, and letting corporations use them for themselves could hinder the military's only production.

However, a Class B combat suit wasn't cheap, either, and the teen knew that if the guard checked his paperwork, he would find the credentials which suggested such a thing being in the van wasn't impossible.

If Zenitk were serious about retrieving the hard drive, they would give up on failed scavengers and send in one of their best, and the paperwork he gave the guard showed that he was the one from the best they chose, despite his age.

The teen turned his gaze to the guard, who froze up in that moment, despite the teen's gaze being hidden by the opaque lenses of the sunglasses. Even with his gaze concealed, the teen's attention felt predatory to the guard. While he'd never faced a dragon before, the guard felt in that moment that he might be talking with one.

Dismissing that notion, the guard scanned the paperwork with a hand scanner, then checked his computer. Verifying the teen's credentials, he handed the paperwork back.

"Thank you," the teen set the clipboard on the front passenger seat.

The guard pressed a button, and the barricade blocking the road through the Gate raised. Pressing his foot onto the accelerator, the teen drove forward. For several minutes, he drove in silence along the road, passing into the light fog which filled most regions outside of the towns.

Only because of the Beacons were the towns and cities safe from the fog. Light other than from the sun seemed to repel it, and magical light repelled it further. For thousands of years, candles and lamps were used to keep streets clear of the fog.

Then ten years ago, the Fog-Dispersing Kal Beacons, referred to as the FDKB or Beacons for short, were invented by Asterox Corporation, the leading magitech company in the world. Placed atop towers five hundred feet in height, the Beacons shone with a gentle green light, pushing away the fog.

Despite their light not being as bright as a candle's, lamp's, torch's, or spotlight's, the Beacons were far more effective. Their power cleared the fog for five hundred yards, meaning that no longer was it necessary for someone to ascend taller buildings to see the sky and view the sun. No longer were the expensive sun lamps produced by Asterox necessary to run farms on the surface instead of on terraces stretching between tall buildings which rose above the fog, where most farmers lived, among the only people to tan as a result of being in the sun's rays every day.

The teen checked his GPS, and after ensuring he was far enough into the fog, pressed a button on his dashboard. Immediately, the exterior of his car began to glow with green light, and the fog around him dispelled further. Before, his van relied on the headlights, taillights, and the lights fixed to the roof to dispel the fog around him, allowing him to see if something was coming.

With the green light his van emitted, however, they were no longer necessary, allowing him to see up to one hundred yards around, a much greater range than the lights of the van. He flipped a switch to turn off the lights on the top of his van, leaving just his headlights and taillights on for increased visibility. The green light was decent, but it still had its limits in brightening an area full of fog, and the lowest section of fog known in the region was only five hundred feet up, a full two hundred above the area cleared by the green light of his van.

"Are you insane?" A voice asked over his commpiece. "Seriously? Challenging the guard like that? What if he decided to call Zenitk to verify your credentials? You'd be screwed, Nyz."

"You'd have redirected his call, used a voice modifier, and confirmed my credentials," Nyz said. "It's not like we haven't run this game before, Kal. He should have. Then, you could have ripped into him for calling them for something pointless and put him in his place. He'd already scanned the van and verified its credentials, and he scanned my biosignature when I lowered the window. It doesn't even match up with the identity I used for signing up for the job, because your hacking was excellent, as always."

"That's not the point, Nyz," Kal told him. "I take it you're planning on performing the job, anyway?"

"I'll have plenty of time," Nyz told him. "It's in the same city. Can you run me through why it was abandoned one more time?"

"We were living there when it was abandoned, Nyz," Kal said. "Don't you know?"

"I do," Nyz said. "But I want to make sure I know any updated information."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

He heard his friend sigh through the commpiece and knew that Kal was pulling up his personal file on the incident.

"Eight years ago," Kal said. "The Anomalous Magical Force that lurks within the fog grew violent. Rather than keeping out of the light, it pushed into it, attacking the gates. Its first targets were the FDKBs on one side of the city. It destroyed their towers, effectively shutting them down, then went after a local power plant nearby, shutting it down as well. With the FDKBs out of commission, the fog began to return to the city.

"During the invasion," Kal continued. "Asterox Corporation evacuated its employees, the youth at the Academy, employees of other corporations and businesses they worked with or who were essential to the economy, and then civilians. The AMF entered the city once it was filled with fog once more and began its attack. Though the city had more than five hundred thousand residents, only two hundred thousand were successfully evacuated before the AMF took over, killing everyone.

"During the invasion," Kal continued. "Power was rerouted from Valeros City, where we're now based out of, into Troak City. It was used to turn the FDKBs back on and finish the evacuations. Though the city isn't inhabited anymore, the FDKBs remain on, though a portion of the city remains in the Fog Zone due to the towers atop which two f the FDKBs sat being destroyed."

"I've never understood," Nyz said. "Why do they leave the FDKBs on? They drain a fair bit of power from Valeros, enough so that another reactor had to be built to sustain them without needing to draw power from other cities."

"With the emergency evacuation," Kal told him. "None of the corporations had time to pack up everything. Part of it is to protect the resources left behind, which they send Scavengers out for from time to time."

"Couldn't they just send an elite unit out to pick up everything?" Nyz asked. "With the FDKBs active, it shouldn't be difficult for them to send in actual elite squads. Even if they face monsters from the fog inside, it shouldn't be too hard. With the fog not around, the fog beasts inside the city due to the breach are weakened, and most normal beasts would be easy for them to deal with."

"Most of the data was already backed up," Kal explained. "That which wasn't but still accessible was downloaded through the underground wires during the evacuation. While they do hire Scavengers from time to time to recover things, it's usually not high-priority things. For those, they do send elite units. It's cheaper to pay Scavengers than to send in their own forces.

"That said," he said. "I'm curious what's on the hard drive, for Zenitk to leave the petition up after so many deaths. They have it flagged in their system for one more failure, then they're sending the elite units. It seems they're able to tell it's still in the facility. Ah, that's why. I forgot they had that system."

"You can have your tech exploration later," Nyz said. "How do they know it's still in the building?"

"The backup generators are running," Kal answered. "At least, the one for the security system. That's why you have the data card, to give you access to the facility's security system if needed, though it won't open up some of the doors. The harddrive is tracked while in the facility, so it must be pretty important. I'm uploading the location data to your visor, though it's in the location the mission file says it was left in."

"Any data on why no one's managed to retrieve it successfully?"

"No," Kal answered. "Their security cameras aren't recording in order to save on power, since the place is abandoned. Wait. That's strange. They do actually have some recording."

"They do?" Nyz asked.

"Yeah, looks like they're still watching the vault," Kal told him. "Probably to see if any Scavengers are taking things they aren't meant to."

"So when I go in, only take the assigned items," Nyz said.

"No," Kal said. "Take some other stuff, too, and hand them over with everything else. Don't comment about it unless they do."

"Why?" Nyz asked.

"Just to see their reaction," Kal answered.

"Got it," Nyz said. "Anything else I should know?"

"No," Kal answered. "You already know the plan. Hit the Asterox facility first, then speed over to the Zenitk facility, swap suits, and head inside. They won't be able to see the van outside with their cameras down, and I'll ensure they stay down. With the current specs on even a Class A suit, no one would manage to move between the two facilities as quickly as you would."

Nyz chuckled a little. He had a Class C suit in his van, which was what Zenitk believed he was using for the mission. However, he also had what classified as a Class S suit, which was available only to him, courtesy of its inventor, Kal.

Only Nyz could use it to its best due to his unique biology. No one else possessed the reaction time necessary to respond with the speeds he could achieve in the suit.

"If they interrogate me," Nyz said. "And ask why it took so long, mention that there were monsters and rubble. I had to take a long route to reach the facility."

"Yeah," Kal said. "They might be suspicious initially, so just pull that whole innocent thing you have going on."

"What innocent thing?"

"Know how you act when you aren't putting on airs, acting, talking business or a mission, or being annoying?"

"I act the exact same."

"No, you don't," Kal snorted. "Nyz, when you aren't trying to misdirect someone or annoy them, you tend to have a lost puppy look on your face and an innocent tone to your voice."

"I do?" Nyz asked.

"Yes," Kal told him. "You've been using it the last few minutes."

"I wasn't aware."

"It's actually rather cute."

"Yellow."

"Sorry," Kal said, then they were both silent for a few minutes. "So if they interrogate you regarding the mission, don't put on airs, just be yourself. They'll believe it, trust me."

"Got it," Nyz responded. "What are the odds of Asterox communicating with Zenitk, finding out I'm there, then seeking me out to interrogate me?"

"Even if they flew in choppers," Kal said. "They can only move around a hundred and twenty miles per hour, which is a little less than double you are. They'd arrive at the city after maybe forty minutes from when the alarm goes off, accounting for around five for the team to scramble. That's enough time for you to do the job, get to the other facility, then get changed and maybe enter the facility. Chances are, they'll send two choppers, and if Zenitk informs them that they have a Scavenger on a job, they'll check to see if you've arrived yet. Most Scavengers probably don't drive seventy an hour in the fog, so they won't expect you to be too far into the job."

"Got it," Nyz responded. "I could probably go another twenty an hour."

"Probably," Kal said. "But don't push it, you never know if something will be in the path, and even with reflexes like yours, you might hit them."

"The van can take it."

"So?" Kal asked. "I designed that van to be durable as hell, but that doesn't mean you can just abuse it like when you tried ramming it into the-"

"I didn't try," Nyz said. "I did. And it worked."

"Just… keep it at seventy as the max."

"Sure."

The rest of the ride was silent, nothing coming near the van, though Nyz's sharp eyes were able to pick out forms in the fog. They seemed docile to him that day, avoiding the clear zone they sensed rapidly moving by.

It was unusual, and it made him wonder the cause of it. He knew others would be unnerved by such a thing, especially with the eeriness of the fog and the green glow of the van, but Nyz wasn't other people. Even if the strangely docile mood of the monsters might hint at something worse coming, Nyz simply kept alert as he wondered what might be coming.

When his GPS said he was close to the clear zone around Troak, Nyz dimmed his van's glow, reducing it to a third of its range. When his clear zone met another, Nyz immediately switched off the glow, running the last thirty yards without his van's glow as the fog slowly crept back into the space.

He drove the van into the city's clear zone, taking in the thick concrete walls surrounding it. Unlike in Valeros, where walls were only fifty feet in height and eight in thickness, the ones surrounding Troak were five hundred feet in height and one hundred in thickness.

Troak had been considered a fortress city, one of the most formidable of them all. Its loss to the AMF frightened the world. Some people suspected it was a result of the Beacons, but those in charge knew it was something different. It wasn't the first time the AMF attacked like that, and Troak wasn't the only city that had the Beacons at that time. A similar attack had not occurred since, either, despite most other cities having much weaker defenses, even with the Beacons active.

"Give it another five to seven years," Kal told Nyz as the latter drove through the open Gate in the wall. "And Valeros will have a wall this large and thick, with FDKBs atop it as well, not just on towers built for them. Construction on the thicker walls is set to begin in three months."

Nyz didn't respond as he'd begun to focus on the ruins of the city ahead of him. When he pulled through the final Gate in the wall, he swept his gaze over the ruins nature had begun to reclaim.

"Home, sweet home."