Novi pushed on, ignoring the aching soreness in his calves and thighs. He nimbly sidestepped a slick mud patch, then propelled himself faster, finding a familiar comfort in the rhythmic thudding of his feet against the ground. The forest around him buzzed with life. He could hear rustlings of scampering wildlife, calls of cicadas and the buzzing of other insects. Yet he knew none existed. He kept running, as sweat poured down the sides of his face. The intertwined branches of the canopy above provided welcome shade, but did little for the humidity and heat of the environment.

He had chosen the Rainforest trail for the denseness of the trees and shrubbery. He liked the feeling of sprinting through a lush tunnel of nature. But the real reason he chose it was that it was the trail most likely to be empty in the middle of summer. To escape the heat outside, people tended to prefer the relatively cooler experience of a birch forest, or a breezy ocean side run. But Novi didn’t mind the heat and humidity. He preferred that to having to share a packed trail.

Novi’s wrist glowed an urgent red, and he jerked to a halt. His contact within the Intacta had sent an SOS. He flicked quickly through the rectangular light that hovered above his wrist. His contact had obtained valuable information, but compromised himself. He needed a way out, fast.

Novi hurried toward the side of the path, and placed his palm on the trunk of a tree. The trees slid apart, and he stepped out from the trail onto a beltway. He amped up the speed and the beltway rushed him to the entrance, wind whipping his wavy brown hair.

He retrieved his transport unit from the underground parking lot below. He hopped in without missing a beat, chose the emergency option, picked his destination, and the vehicle shot out of the sports centre.

It whirred rapidly through the streets to the Bureau headquarters, as he exchanged a quick call with his contact, while changing into his preferred inconspicuous hoodie and sweatpants combination.

Gera was already waiting for him outside the gates. The door slid open after a scan of Gera’s face, and Gera hopped in. The vehicle picked up pace and sped towards the extraction point.

“What did Holliot tell you?” Gera asked, swiping through messages hovering above his wrist.

“Not much, it was a brief call. He overheard a conversation between two high ranking Intacta members. He got closer, but got caught. He talked his way out of it, but he’s pretty sure they’d be coming for him soon.”

“Got it.”

“I’ve sent him the coordinates and our ETA. He’s sent confirmation. It should be a quick in and out.”

The transport unit went down a quiet lane, shielded by the lush hedges of residential buildings on either side. Novi took the opportunity to activate the camouflage function. The usual options popped up on screen. He tapped the Taxi Unit option and the external shell of the transport unit morphed into the bright red and yellow of typical Taxi Units. The vehicle pulled out of the narrow lane and merged with the traffic on the main road, for all appearances a functioning taxi unit, with the Occupied sign lit.

“Another right turn, and we’re there,” Gera stated. They switched the Occupied sign to the Free-for-hire sign. The Transport unit slowed its pace, and started to cruise along the lane next to the sidewalk.

“I see him,” Novi pointed ahead. Holliot stood on the sidewalk up ahead, flagging them down.

The transport unit came to a halt, and the doors slid open. Holliot sauntered on, carrying a large backpack.

The door slid shut, and they were off.

“Huh. That was …easy,” Novi said, a tinge of surprise lacing his tone.

Gera nodded, looking at Holliot. “Whenever Novi calls anything a ‘quick in and out’, shit usually happens. But this was a quick in and out. Easy.”

Holliot cleared his throat. “Yeap. All right, now I’ve just got to transfer the data out of this.”

Novi and Gera turned to see him pulling out a computing unit.

“I didn’t have time to retrieve the info. Had to take it with me.”

A small spike of adrenaline lodged in Novi’s chest. “You do know they’re tracked, right?”

“Yeap…yeap. But if we start the transfer now, we should be done by the time we’re on Quma bridge. We’ll dump it then.”

Novi decided not to argue. He exchanged an uneasy look with Gera. They watched as Holliot typed quickly on his computing unit, touched his external port to it, and activated the data transfer. The countdown started on the side of the port. Gera checked their radar, which was configured to detect possible tails. The coast seemed clear for the moment. As the transport unit neared the bridge, the port glowed a deeper blue, signalling the completion of the transfer.

“Perfect timing,” Holliot grinned. He removed his external port from the surface of the unit, and pulled out a small canvas bag from his backpack. The computing unit slid snugly within. He hesitated for an instant, then reached in to peel a tiny sticker off the computing unit, before zipping the bag up. He looked up to see Novi’s frown.

“It’s just a sticker,” Holliot said, showing the cartoon eye printed on the sticker. “Sentimental reasons.”

“You might want to scan it anyway, for trackers or whatever,” Novi cautioned.

“Sure. Later,” Holliot said as they drove onto the bridge.

“Get closer to the left railing,” Holliot instructed.

“Missus, keep left,” Novi commanded. The transport unit edged left. Holliot raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching.

“Hey, he gets to name his unit whatever he wants,” Gera said.

“All right,” Holliot said, smirking.

Novi ignored them, and reached up to tap the emergency override button above the door. The door slid open. Balancing himself and wedging his legs on either side of the door, Holliot lifted the canvas bag with the unit in it, and with as much force as he could muster, lobbed it over the railing. They watched as the bag arced its way down into the river below. With luck, the drivers around would assume that they were just inconsiderate assholes littering. Their pseudo transport unit number, generated together with the taxi appearance, would probably be tracked down for a fine. There was an account set up just for that purpose.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

As the transport’s door slid shut, Holliot activated its scanner, which began a thorough scan of the passengers and objects within. No unauthorized devices were found. Holliot stuck the eye sticker onto his external port.

“What’s with the eye?” Gera asked.

Holliot shrugged. “I like them. They bring my devices to life. Makes them less…machiney,” he explained. It was Gera’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“Hey, I get to stick whatever I want on my devices,” Holliot quipped. Gera grinned, and held up his hands in a gesture of peace.

The transport wove its way into the heart of the city, then back out to the suburbs. Whilst passing through an empty underground tunnel, Gera changed the camouflage to a nondescript family vehicle unit, for extra caution. From the outside, it looked like a sea green sphere.

They soon pulled up at the safe house on the outskirts of the city, a quaint little house that seemed, on first look, like a simple stone cottage covered in creepers and vines. It had what appeared to be an old school, traditional entrance, with a vintage lock and key system. Novi located a key placed in the hollow underside of a rock, and inserted it into the door. He stood still for a moment, allowing the biometrics system to scan his body and facial features. Given the prevalence of face and body modifications, where the colours of eyes, hair and skin could easily be swapped out every other day, the system had been trained to detect more permanent physical features such as brain and skull shapes, as well as the overall body structure. It also recorded the subtle muscle movements of the face and body for matching purposes. The key registered his fingerprints at the same time, and he stared into the keyhole for his retina patterns to be scanned.

The mechanism clicked, and they pushed the heavy door open. The weight of the seemingly wooden door told Holliot that it was likely constructed with Targum, an advanced alloy of extreme hardiness and durability. This was definitely a top level safehouse.

They made their way to the living room, a simple, sparsely furnished area with a stiff new couch. Gera sat down, and the seat instantly molded itself to fit him snugly. Novi placed his palm on the coffee table. There was a clicking sound before the wooden surface rose up and tilted itself to the perfect height and angle for him. The wood grains on the slab peeled apart from each other, the wood fibres dispersing. Soon, the entire surface had morphed into a smooth, clear panel. It lit up. Novi touched the external port to the corner of the glass panel for a few seconds, and the information loaded on the screen.

Dozens of files, documents and images appeared, including some of Holliot’s more personal recordings. Novi scrolled through them briefly, and raised an eyebrow. “A whole file on Sizzlers! Huh.”

“Somebody’s living the high life,” Gera chimed in.

Holliot smiled. “Just some notes on the herbs I grow.”

Gera grinned. “Sure. Herbs. Got any on you?”

Holliot paused for a second. “Yeah, but I ain’t sharing.”

Gera laughed, before realising that Holliot was serious. “Oh c’mon.”

Holliot shrugged. “Hey, it took me months to perfect this strain. I have this much of it,” he said, holding his thumb and pointer close. “I gotta ration it.”

Gera thought for a moment. Then, looking Holliot straight in his eyes, he reached out for Holliot’s backpack.

“I’ll cut you,” Holliot said, smiling calmly and staring right back at Gera. Gera slumped back into his chair, and raised his hands in mock defeat.

Holliot nodded and turned back to the screen. He flicked through the different documents, until he came to a line of inconspicuously titled files. He clicked on one titled “Schedule (July)”. A recording appeared on the panel. He hit play. The recording didn’t show much, mostly darkness and an occasional wooden surface. The recorder on Holliot’s shirt button appeared to have been pressed against a door. The faint voices of two people talking wisped from the recording. It was difficult to hear what they were saying, but a couple taps on the audio adjuster icon on the screen, and they were just able to make out the words.

“What are we, machines?” A frustrated sigh.

“That’s it for the next couple weeks. We’re gonna be holed up in the lab. All day, all night. Working on that damn upgrade.”

“I don’t get the damn rush. Why July? They can unleash the next round any time. December, next Jan, it’d make no difference. And January, now that would be a timeline we can actually meet. I mean, it took us a whole year to programme the first one. And that was with all the help we had.”

The words got clearer as the recording showed Holliot slowly sliding the door open, and silently creeping behind the counter. For a while, he seemed to have gone unnoticed. The conversation continued.

“Exactly. The virus is working. And no one’s close to a solution. What’s the point of a second version? They don’t get the amount of work that goes into tweaking the code.”

There was a pause. “Did you hear that?” They saw the visual recording go dark, and footsteps getting closer.

Holliot paused the recording there. “That’s it.”

“Did they find your recorder?” Novi asked.

“I popped the button off, in case they decided to search me.”

“Did you swallow it? Hardcore, man!” Gera patted him on the shoulder.

Holliot grinned. “No. I got one of those smart fabric shirts. You know, with the self-repairing tech? I hid the button in a premade slit, pressed the seams together, resealed it, that was it.”

“You got one of those? Huh, guess the department’s pretty generous,” Gera said, a touch of envy in his tone.

“How did you talk yourself out of that?” Novi asked. “I mean, crouching behind a counter. That’s got to look bad.”

Holliot, sighed, then reached over to resume playing the recording. The audio played, and they listened as Holliot tried to convince the two men that he had popped a button. He had been on the floor trying to find it.

“Nice.” Novi nodded in approval.

Then they heard the two men questioning Holliot about why he was sneaking around. And listened as Holliot explained that that was just the way he was, a naturally quiet person. People never seemed to notice he was around.

Holliot caught Novi’s wince, and admitted, “Yea that was weak.” From the rest of the conversation, it seemed clear to all three of them that the two Intacta men were unconvinced, even though they did eventually let him leave.

“Good thing you got out,” Novi said.

Holliot nodded.

“And that was talk of a new version of the virus. Right? Something they plan to release in July?”

“It sounded like that, yeah. Like an upgrade of sorts.”

Gera plopped heavily into his seat and massaged his temples. “This is insane. We’re barely coping as is.”

“We’ve got to get this to the higher ups.” Novi pressed his finger onto the corner of the glass screen, and a window popped up. He swiped the recording into the window, and proceeded to type up a quick summary of its contents.

Gera and Holliot settled back on the sofa, sharing a mildly uncomfortable silence punctuated only by the sound of Novi typing.

“Beer?” Gera offered, clearing his throat.

Holliot nodded. Gera tapped the drawer at the bottom of the coffee table, and it whirred open, revealing several chilled beers. Taking a long swig from his bottle, Holliot pulled out a rollie and his metal lighter. The cold, clean, almost visceral sound the lighter made as he flicked the lid open brought him comfort. It was the main reason he refused to use the modern lighters.

He lit the rollie with the good old flame he was used to, and took a long puff.

“Ah… Beer and Sizzlers,” sighed Holliot, leaning back and closing his eyes, his face a visage of peace and contentment. “Best feeling in the world.”

Novi and Gera stared at him, both envious and just a little resentful.

“Huh. Wish we knew,” Gera muttered.

Holliot shrugged, and took another puff.

Novi finished updating the headquarters and put the panel away.

“What now?” Gera asked.

“We’re just gonna hole up here and get prepared, for whatever orders come. We’ve everything we need here, more or less,” Novi said.

“It’s pretty impressive,” Gera admitted. “I’ve never actually been to any of our safe houses. In the two years on the team, there’s not been a single case that required a safe house.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Means there’s less crime, less danger,” Novi pointed out.

Gera gave a non-committal nod and got himself a bottle of beer, before sinking into the futon. The trio clinked bottles and settled in for the night.