After he was done scanning through the files, Saxon had chosen to stare out the window until the taxi driver finished up his meal. Once he noticed the driver exiting the store, Saxon immediately went to catch him.

Saxon exited Bytes and stepped out onto the street. Looking both ways for oncoming traffic, he walked across to the other side of the road, and approached the taxi he had teleported to earlier.

“Mind if I get another ride?” Saxon asked playfully, knocking on the window.

The driver rolled down the window. “Get in.”

“Hang on a minute,” the driver said, noticing Saxon walking to the rear passenger door. “Return riders sit shotgun.”

Saxon cracked a smile and hopped in next to the driver.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“You said you can go anywhere in Fable?” Saxon inquired.

“That’s correct,” the driver reaffirmed.

“Can you take me to The Backwater Bridge district?” Saxon asked.

The driver’s perplexion was apparent on his face. “Why? Do you live there?”

Saxon didn’t think the man would ask any questions.

“Yeah,” Saxon replied.

“Listen between you and me, I would just have me take you to the bridge, and then you can walk the rest of the way,” the driver suggested.

“Why’s that?” Saxon asked.

“For starters, you know Backwater folk need all the money that they can get if they’re ever gonna make it out,” the driver responded. “I didn’t say anything before, because you were working for Midas, so I figured you got a little extra to spend.”

“So why can’t you just drive me across the bridge?” Saxon asked, reiterating his previous question.

“We’re not supposed to say it,” the driver said, “but there’s a bridge tax.”

“A bridge tax?” Saxon questioned.

The driver let out a sigh. “All the taxi companies have a policy that we gotta charge extra to take people across the bridge. Just the way it is.”

“How much extra?” Saxon asked.

“Honestly, I charge the minimum,” the driver responded, “and even that’s around 50 dollars.”

Saxon’s eyes went wide with disbelief, as he sank into his seat.

“I don’t like it either,” the driver said.

“Just take me to the bridge,” Saxon said defeatedly. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“Sorry man,” the driver said, starting up the car.

Once they were on the road, the driver decided to start making some conversation.

“You’re from Backwater, and you’re working for Midas?” the driver asked, astonished.

“Both of those things are true,” Saxon said, focused on keeping up his facade.

“That’s impressive,” the driver remarked. “If you don’t mind me asking, what were you doing in the Underworld?”

“The Underworld?” Saxon asked.

“That’s where you had me pick you up the first time,” the driver said, trying to jog Saxon’s memory.

“Right, right, right,” Saxon replied. “Visiting somebody.”

“Friend of yours?” the driver asked.

“Something like that,” Saxon responded.

“You know I was in prison a long time ago,” the driver said. “Figured I could tell you since you know somebody in one.”

“You were in the Underworld?” Saxon asked, surprised.

“No, I don’t get none of that fancy stuff,” the driver said. “It was just a normal prison, and it was before I even came to Fable.”

“Mind me asking what you were in for?” Saxon asked.

The driver cracked a smile. “Maybe next time.”

“Fair enough,” Saxon said, shrugging his shoulders.

“So, what happened today?” the driver inquired, after a brief stint of silence.

“What do you mean?” Saxon asked.

“You have me drive you to work at lunchtime, and now you're heading home less than 2 hours later,” the driver responded. “Something interesting happened.”

“Maybe next time,” Saxon replied, using the man’s own words against him.

“Fair enough,” the driver said, laughing. “In case it was something bad, just be careful.”

“I will,” Saxon said.

The driver sensed the dismissiveness in Saxon’s reply. “Midas does a lot of stuff that people in your situation don’t like. They aren’t a fan of Backwater, they never have been, but they still hired you.”

Saxon’s gaze diverted itself to the man’s face, as found himself listening more intently.

“Fewer, and fewer people are making it out of Backwater,” the driver continued, “but making Midas money gives you a real chance, so don’t ruin it.”

Saxon was trying to think of a response, but could only nod his head with understanding.

“Listen, if not for you, then for me,” the driver said, unsure if Saxon was even listening anymore. “The only time I liked driving across that 3-mile-long bridge was when everybody would come together to celebrate someone making it out. So make it out of there, and line that bridge with smiling faces for me. If you do, then I’ll drive you wherever you need to go, no bridge tax.”

Stolen story; please report.

Saxon couldn’t help but feel a little guilty, knowing he could never make that dream come true since everything the man knew about him was all a lie.

“I should probably stop my rambling,” the driver acknowledged. “We’ll be there any second.”

The driver pulled up to the bridge’s entrance.

“Have fun,” the driver said, as Saxon stepped out of the car.

“Thanks,” Saxon replied, closing the passenger door.

The driver smiled, and took off, leaving Saxon all by himself at The Backwater Bridge.

Traditionally, a bridge of this magnitude would be a landmark, filled with cars, and people crowding the walkways, but here it was entirely barren. There was no visitor center either. Just a seemingly never-ending bridge

Saxon let out a heavy sigh. It was time to do a lot of walking.

Unfortunately, Saxon didn’t get any service while on the bridge. He didn’t know if it was the rain, or if it was always like this. During his walk, Saxon tried to recall what little he did know about The Backwater Bridge district.

Saxon knew a lot about Fable, but The Backwater Bridge district was probably the district he knew the least about.

The Backwater Bridge was constructed after Saxon was born, so the district hadn’t been around for long. Since the only way to Backwater was across The Backwater Bridge itself which resided downtown, and Saxon rarely visited downtown voluntarily, he had never crossed the bridge of his own accord.

However, Saxon was somewhat familiar with the general layout, and building structure of the place. Sometime back a criminal organization had set up shop in the district. When the FMPD caught on that they had avatars in their mix, a full-scale raid was launched.

Every member of the raid had to become intimately familiar with the district’s layout. It was years ago--in fact, it was one of Saxon’s first operations--but some of that information was still in Saxon’s mind, though he wasn’t sure how much of it was still applicable.

The walk was around an hour but it went by in a flash. Saxon’s legs moved on their own, while his mind wandered, attempting to dig up answers, but often finding more questions. Before Saxon realized it, the other end of the bridge was in sight.

Upon arrival, Saxon pulled out his phone. Fortunately, there was a connection, and Saxon was able to reopen Kenji’s image. Saxon punched in Kenji’s address and started walking the way the navigation told him to go.

Around halfway through his walk, Saxon could tell something was up. Once Saxon entered the district, he suspected that at least 1 person had started following him.

Saxon had registered an abnormal number of people at the bridge's exit. Considering that Saxon saw nobody during his entire walk, he reckoned they weren’t waiting for somebody in particular.

Instead, he saw them as a group waiting to find a mark. Saxon recognized their type instantly; he’d seen other groups just like them outside the precinct several times before.

Just to be certain, Saxon did a quick check. During his walk, Saxon stepped into the middle of the street, ensuring nobody else was around, to make himself especially visible to any unwanted admirers. Then looking over at one of the many dark alleyways, tried to call upon the mythos of Schrödinger's cat to teleport into it--Saxon wanted to do a short jump to minimize energy consumption.

Shortly after acquiring it, Saxon found a hidden use for the mythos of Schrödinger's cat. The requirement that the user must not currently be being observed by anyone to teleport meant that so long as Saxon picked a place he knew nobody was currently looking at as his destination, if he failed to teleport, then he knew somebody was watching him.

Unsurprisingly, the activation failed.

Now acting with proper confirmation, Saxon pulled out his phone again. He started looking to see what places were nearby Kenji’s place of residence. After a few minutes, Saxon found exactly what he was looking for, and changed his destination to The Whetstone diner.

Saxon took care to stay in areas with plenty of people from there on. While walking to his new destination, Saxon passed by Kenji’s residence. From his peripheral vision, he could see the lights were off. It was late, but not late enough to be sleeping; Kenji was out, which meant Saxon had time to shake his stalkers.

Finally arriving at the diner, Saxon cracked open the door and made his way to a booth. He sat so his back would be to the door he had entered from. Although Saxon wanted to get a visual on who was following him once they entered, right now it was more important to break the line of sight.

Saxon slumped down in his seat and began fiddling with his clothing. First, he turned his coat inside out and tucked it into his waist. Then he rolled up his pants past the knee and smashed his hat into his pockets.

Doing this made Saxon look like an idiot, but he also knew it made him hard to recognize. It changed Saxon’s silhouette and his primary colors, which with the dim lighting and distance they were keeping were likely all his would-be assailants were tracking.

This alone wouldn’t be enough, but now that line of sight had been broken, Saxon could invoke The Gray Man. With that Saxon felt confident that his pursuers would lose track of him.

Sure enough, moments later Saxon heard the bell on the diner’s doors ring. He refrained from peeking, instead acting as naturally as possible. Two men passed Saxon, but only one even looked at him at all. Saxon observed nothing notable aside from some strange animal tattoos.

After a loop around the diner, Saxon heard the bell ring again, signaling the men’s departure.

Instantly, Saxon corrected his appearance and deactivated The Gray Man. He stood up and raised his hand to flag down a waiter. When Saxon sat back down, he made sure to sit opposite where he was previously to keep the full view of the outside. In particular, he wanted to see if Kenji’s house’s lights turned on.

“Sorry about that,” a waiter said, rushing over to Saxon, “must've missed you somehow.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Saxon reassured the waiter. “I’ve only been here a minute.”

“What can I get you?” the waiter asked.

“Every diner has got a special,” Saxon said, “so what’s this one’s?”

“Sushi platter,” the waiter answered.

“Sushi?” Saxon asked, confused. “In a diner?”

“What are you, some diner connoisseur?” the waiter rebutted.

“Only self-proclaimed,” Saxon jokes. “It’s just never heard of seafood in a diner.”

“We’re on an island, so our seafood is pretty good,” the waiter responded.

“Then I’ll take it,” Saxon said, thoroughly convinced. “First time for everything.”

“One sushi platter coming right up,” the waiter remarked, jotting down the order, and rushing off to another customer.

As Saxon dug into his food, he kept his eyes peeled. Kenji’s residence was a ways away from The Whetstone, but given the angle Saxon was at, he knew when the lights were turned on he would spot them in the distance. However, as fate would have it, that wouldn't be necessary.

Halfway through his meal, out of the corner of his eye, Saxon spotted a familiar face. Kenji Fujisaki himself had just stood up from a booth, and begun exiting The Whetstone.

Acting fast, and not wanting any food to go to waste, Saxon disregarded all manners, and tipped the platter directly into his mouth, then raised his hand to flag down the waiter.

“Are you okay?” the waiter asked, slightly horrified.

Saxon couldn’t speak as his cheeks were full of delicious sushi, so he merely gave a thumbs up.

“Ok then,” the waiter said. “Here is your check.”

Before the check even hit the table, Saxon already had his wallet out. Without reading it, Saxon just slammed down the biggest bill he had, and immediately got up to go after Kenji.

“Anything over is just a tip,” Saxon muttered, his mouth full of food. “You were right, the seafood is really good.”

As Saxon opened up the door, he swallowed what was left in his mouth, and began beating on his chest to ensure he didn’t choke. Once he’d downed all the food, he glanced around and managed to spot Kenji only a block out.

Saxon activated The Gray Man and began trailing him. Although Saxon could’ve simply waited for Kenji to return home, he was concerned that Kenji may be heading somewhere else, and initially, it seemed as if that were the case.

However, Kenji never made a stop, and simply went home. Saxon didn’t think much of it. There were several reasons to take an unorthodox route: perhaps he felt it was safer, or maybe he just wanted the exercise. Whatever the case may be, Saxon stood outside the residence for a while.

He didn’t want to barge in on Kenji right away, because in addition to making it obvious he was following him, Saxon also wanted to give him time to decompress. From what his taxi driver had said, it seemed as if those living in this district worked a lot to progress very little.

After sufficient time had passed, Saxon walked up to Kenji’s house and knocked on his front door.

“It’s open,” a voice from inside responded.

Saxon tried the knob, and sure enough, the door was unlocked. As Saxon swung open the door and began to take a step inside, his throat was met with the bladed edge of an ethereal navy blue katana--no doubt a creation of Kenji’s mythos.

Freezing in place, Saxon turned his eyes to see Kenji leaning to the right of the door frame, and grasping the katana at Saxon’s throat in his left hand, and another in his right.

Slowly, Kenji walked in front of the door frame, never letting the katana get less than an inch away from Saxon’s throat. “Now you are going to come inside, sit down, and answer three questions for me. Who are you? Why were you following me? And why should I let you live?”