"Stay alert, everyone," Gabe said as the group rolled into the fog. "I know it doesn't need to be said, but keep in mind that we're moving too fast for our lights to push the fog back. We have a visibility range of one hundred feet here in the fog, and it'll drop down to twenty by the time we reach the waypoint at Norulb. From there, we'll likely need to move slower."

"Don't worry about visual range through the fog," Nyz said. "But do keep alert. Don't let anything that attacks get past your guard. Don't attack anything that isn't already attacking us."

"We should always worry about visual range," Gabe told him.

"I know," Nyz said. "But we'll have a better clearance soon."

"How?" Gabe asked.

"Just wait."

Nyz returned his attention to driving the mech, waiting until they had cleared the one-mile mark before tapping a button on the screen of his console. Immediately, the mech began emitting a blue glow, and the fog around them disappeared, giving them seventy yards of range without the fog. The glow, true to its proper name, left behind them a path without any fog, though Nyz knew it would fill in within an hour.

"Hooooly shit!" One of the men, whose name Nyz had learned to be Harn, swore. "Is that the Beacon glow? It's blue, though?"

"The Kal I mentioned before," Nyz said. "Is the sole inventor of the FDKB, the child that Asterox claims they named it after. The FDKG is improved over it, though the range itself is more limited. Look alert, my scanners are indicating that we're being approached."

The Scavengers all went on alert, and a minute later, large, bat-like creatures with sickly green fur soared out of the fog. Nyz watched on the monitors as the six Scavengers tensed up as the sonic blasts from the monsters hit their walkers. However, when the attacks failed to budge the mechs even as the Scavengers' own gunfire peppered the bats, their expressions turned to shock, then determination to finish the fight.

"These things are pretty neat," Gabe said as they continued on their journey. "Ours would have dented a little from those attacks."

"They are dented from attacks like those," Wys said. "It's strange, though. We don't normally see the vinear bats until we've passed at least the second way station. What are they doing so close to Honlar?"

"Who knows?" Nyz asked. "Let's continue on."

They resumed their journey, and Nyz alerted them before their own helmets registered any attacks that came towards them. Nyz and Wys left the fighting to the other Scavengers, nothing around strong enough to warrant the use of the beetle's weaponry.

Each of the walkers was supplied with food, so they made no stops for lunch or dinner, continuing their journey through the day. Shortly after ten in the evening, they arrived at a five-story building with concrete walls and metal doors set onto the side of the path.

Gabe navigated his walker to the hanger doors and opened his mech's window so he could reach out and pull a lever beside the door, then pressed his hand against the scanner. A few moments passed, then the rolling door raised up. Everyone entered, then Gabe closed the door.

All of the Scavengers left their walkers and entered another room, keeping their helmets sealed as they did. Nyz and Wys waited out the decontamination gas in the beetle as the others went through a decontamination as well.

When it finished, Wys started to leave the cockpit as Nyz switched the beetle out of combat mode, but stopped when he heard Kal through Nyz's commpiece.

"Oi, I know you just arrived there, but I wanted to let you know an update."

"I thought you were busy?" Nyz asked.

"I am," Kal told him. "That said, I'm taking a brief break to let you know that there's a third job."

"A third job?" Wys asked.

"Apparently," Nyz told him. "What is it, Kal?"

"Lurnal Power," Kal said. "Has requested that we add on their job as well. It seems there was an experimental reactor being developed there, but the research and the magitech engineers developing it were lost in the attack, and they want to see if there's anything from it they can use for better reactors, research that really was lost and never redeveloped. The data should be on one of their servers. I've already sent you the data necessary to locate the proper one. If the server is still intact, then the job is to recover it. Upon completion, the pay is two hundred million."

"Understood," Nyz said. "Wys is mouthing at me to tell you he says 'hi'.

"Hi, Wys," Kal laughed. "Anyway, I need to go, talk to you later, Nyz."

"Later," Nyz responded, then looked at Wys. "I'm staying in the beetle. I'll let everyone know about the new mission tomorrow."

"Alright!" Wys jumped over to him and ruffled his hair, laughing as Nyz pulled away and shot him a look of annoyance.

"One of these days, I'm going to stab you for that."

"It's a brother's job to harass his brothers!" Wys laughed and left.

Nyz returned to his checks on the beetle after switching it to idle mode, then walked into the general room and pulled out a pair of yellow-tinted glasses made from a single piece of enchanted polycarbonate. He pulled them on as he lay on one of the benches, then began playing an RPG.

An hour passed before a beeping at the front of the beetle alerted him that someone was attempting to contact him that way rather than through his ear comm. Pausing his game, Nyz pulled off the glasses and made his way to the front, taking a seat and accepting the video call.

Staring at him through the monitor was Sen, who looked surprised. Her brown hair had been fixed into a ponytail, and Nyz could see that she wore a long-sleeved, dark green shirt that was loose enough her modest boobs were barely noticeable. Were he to be honest with himself, he found her attractive, and had since they met. But she was simply a prisoner to be used against the head of a corporation, so he wouldn't admit it to anyone, not even Kal.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Especially not to Kal.

"Whoa," Sen said. "We really can contact you while you're in the fog."

"Where's Kal?" He asked.

"In the other room," she answered. "He let me do this. I was trying to contact you by your commpiece, but that was failing, so I went with the more obvious option. There's an actual button for a video call with the beetle. The image is so clear, too. He said I won't be able to contact anyone but you. That seems to be true."

Nyz guessed that to mean she had attempted to contact her father, only to find the call blocked. It was just another sign she couldn't be trusted, in his opinion.

"Why did he let you do this?" Nyz sighed in aggravation.

"He's given me some rather convincing evidence," she sighed, leaning back in her chair. "And I mean really convincing evidence. Stuff I can't argue with."

"He hacked into the academy and showed you their records, didn't he?" Nyz asked.

"How did you know?" She gave him another look of surprise.

"He's shown them to me before," Nyz answered. "Asterox Academy's files are the only place you can find the information on who actually invented stuff. When Asterox claims it as their own, they change the information in their files, but leave it in the academy's so that if something goes wrong and their own engineers can't fix it, they can present the problem to the original inventor. It's part of why the FDKBs are the exact same as they were before. They know how to make them, but they don't understand the magic behind it, so they can't adjust them. Kal, on the other hand, invented them. He understands the magic better than any of them. That's why he was able to modify it into the glow used by the beetle, my vans, the and the glow ring. That's why ours is more powerful and more effective, too."

Sen sighed, then shook her head slightly.

"To think my family steals the work of children," she said. "Well, and teens. Exploiting natural geniuses. I guess there's some truth behind Gairal's words."

"Gairal," Nyz said. "Is a group of extremists who deserve to be put down. The moment Kal thinks they're no longer useful, we're ending them."

"It still bothers me," she told him. "I spent the first week after you left being a bitch to Kal, too. Then he hacked into the academy, and… the last week has given me plenty of time to think. While I disagree with some of what you guys do, I can understand the frustration if my family's company has stolen from you. Repeatedly. I had no idea about it."

"Kal says you were supposed to be slowly introduced to the darker stuff starting when you turned twenty-one," Nyz informed her. "Let you adjust to it. Why were you at the secret complex?"

"It's tradition for my family's members," she told him. "To work incognito as a guard at one of our facilities starting out, get a feel for how the grunts are. My father put me at that one, since I'd be least likely to be seen by someone who knew me or get hurt in an attack there than somewhere else."

"Ah."

For nearly a minute, they were silent, Nyz annoyed that she'd called apparently just to check that they really could communicate through the fog.

"Kal let me see the orbs," Sen eventually spoke again. "He let me see them this morning, including the slot for the fourth one. Actually, there were two slots."

"He wants to have a backup orb," Nyz told her. "In case of a temporary failure of some sort, but making the orbs isn't easy, and he won't let me go with him for when he makes them."

"I take it once the fourth is recovered," she said. "He'll be making the fifth?"

"I'm not sure," Nyz admitted. "But if he does, he'll probably bring me along as backup, since your company stole one already."

Sen flinched at the bitterness in his words, and Nyz allowed himself a small smile.

"I hate your family," he told her. "Even if you've decided you accept us, Sen, that doesn't change the fact that you're an Asterox."

"You hate me for something I had no part in, just because of my family?" She asked.

"Yes," he answered. "How do I know you aren't just acting? You wanted proof we were serious. I want proof you are."

"That's kind of hard to do," she said. "When our only method of communication is this."

"Not really," he told her. "You can still earn my trust talking this way. Wanting to do it in-person only makes me think you're version of 'convince' is 'seduce'."

"What?" She asked, eyes wide and face horrified. "I'd never try to seduce someone just to get them to trust me!"

"I don't know you well enough to make that judgment," he stated. "All I can trust is myself, Kal, and Wys. Anyone else must earn that trust, and until they do, I'll remain suspicious of their motives."

Sen sighed again, and Nyz stared at her, ensuring his gaze was intense.

"From what little I know about you and Kal," she said. "I can understand why you'd be suspicious of someone's motives. What about Taylor? Are you suspicious of him?"

"Yes," Nyz answered. "He hasn't earned my trust, even if I know he's honest."

"If he said the same thing as me," she said. "That it's difficult to show you he can be trusted without you being here, what would you think?"

"That he thinks seducing me will make me trust him."

"I-what?" Her face reddened slightly. "You'd seriously think a guy would try to seduce you?"

"Seduction isn't limited by the sexes of those involved," Nyz stated. "And until I have reason to believe otherwise, I assume everyone swings both ways."

Sen groaned, putting her head into her hands, and remained like that for several moments.

"Nyz," she finally looked back up. "What I'd meant by my statement is that it's hard to get to trust someone over just a video or voice call. There are all sorts of nuances that are difficult to read without being in-person. It also limits the opportunities to go out and do stuff together. Not sexual stuff, get that look off your face. You might be hot, but I don't trust you well enough to even consider that."

"And I don't trust you well enough to believe that," he stated.

"I know," she said. "However, I'm willing to do what's necessary to get you to trust me, Nyz. The stuff Kal's shown me this last week, I want to help you. Though I know my father won't just hand over the orb, and no, I don't know where it is."

Nyz closed his mouth, his question answered. At least, if he believed her.

"Kal's already grilled me," she told him. "He says he has an idea of where it might be, and should know for sure if it's there by the time you finish the job. I think that's part of the big project he has going right now. That said, I'm willing to go along with whatever plan he comes up with for dealing with my father."

"Good," Nyz said. "If you actually follow through with that if it turns out we do have to threaten your father with you, I might start to trust you."

"Okay," she said.

"Now," he said. "I'm going to bed. Don't call again unless it's an emergency. You can ask Kal how I get when I'm woken up."

He ended the call without waiting for a response, then entered the general room of the beetle and changed into shorts and tee, before laying down on one of the couches. He slipped the glasses back on and resumed playing the RPG for another hour before finally going to sleep.

When morning came, Nyz woke, ate breakfast, then dressed for the day, then took his seat in the cockpit and started the switchover to travel mode. Reading the data appearing on the monitors, he frowned, then changed a monitor to show him Kal's guidebook on how to read everything.

"Of course he broke it down as simple as possible," Nyz muttered when he realized how simplified Kal made the instructions.

His friend ensured that Nyz would be able to understand what the readings meant. Humming quietly to himself, Nyz referred to the guide as he looked at the readings, then shook his head and looked up how to tap into the way station's PA system.

"We're heading out in twenty minutes," he said. "Get up, get ready to go, and get in the walkers. The AMF is active and fog density has increased. That means we might be facing more aggression from the monsters for a bit. Anyone who delays us will have their pay decreased if we manage to complete any of the three jobs set before us."

Nyz then spent the next minute trying to figure out how to turn off the connection to the PA system, resulting in the Scavengers hearing muttered curses until he figured it out.