Saxon kept browsing through whatever files he could find before he heard a knocking at the door.

“How long are you gonna be in there?” a voice on the other side of the door called out.

Clicking on the flash drive, Saxon saw that all the relevant files had been copied over. Saxon knew that any more time spent would only draw suspicion, so he unplugged the flash drive and pocketed it.

“Sorry about that,” Saxon replied, opening the door.

The man muscled his way past Saxon, into the room, elbowing him in the process. “It’s whatever, just don’t do it again.”

As the man entered the room, he glanced at the desktop where Saxon had forgotten to close the files he was looking at. “Why were you looking at this?” the man asked, his head pivoting back to look at Saxon.

Saxon froze in place. Turning around, he could see that the man was still at the door, and thus couldn’t have carefully examined the files.

Unfortunately, if Saxon were to walk in there now, and delete all the files, it would arouse too much suspicion. On the other hand, if the man was permitted to see what Saxon had looked at, it would also raise alarms, especially if Saxon were to act on the information.

“Now that I look at you, I haven’t seen you around at all,” the man said, looking Saxon up and down.

This was a major drawback of The Gray Man. It prevented you from drawing attention, but once people were looking at you, there was nothing that could be done.

“Oh, I’m new here,” Saxon responded, trying to think of a way out of this mess.

The man started walking further in, insistent on getting a closer look at the files. Saxon panicked. Unable to think of any other options, Saxon called up Raijin to try and shut down the computer.

In the past, Ina was able to walk into buildings and easily shut down all the electronics in an instant. Saxon was not Ina.

Saxon, having only learned this technique earlier today, coupled with a very short explanation of how it works, and his relative inexperience with Raijin as a whole, made it so that this stunt blew up in his face, literally.

As Saxon tried to cut power to the computer, it began sparking. He had done it so hastily, that he ended up overloading the computer instead of shutting it down. The computer began smoking, and flames were beginning to grow.

“What the hell did you do?!” the man asked Saxon furiously.

Everybody was now staring at the two men. Saxon, instantly recognizing the aggression in the man’s voice and body language could tell the man was about to get physical. With no better ideas, and his goal of shutting down the computer technically complete, Saxon ran.

Ducking down low to avoid any attempts the man made to grab him, Saxon began bolting down one of the hallways. Saxon turned his head to see the man chasing after him. The man was in a suit, and Saxon wasn’t, so Saxon seemed to be increasing the gap.

Saxon knew that in this situation The Gray Man would have no use. Unless Saxon could find a crowd to blend in with on the 13th floor of an office building, then he’d have to think of something else.

While running, Saxon pulled out his phone and started flipping through the photos. Once Saxon had the photo he was looking for, he began scanning his surroundings for any private area.

Eventually, he came across the bathrooms, where he immediately swung the door open to the men’s bathroom and took refuge in one of the stalls.

Saxon stood on the toilet, and ducked his head, to ensure neither his feet nor head was visible to anybody. He then looked down at his phone and at the picture of the passenger seats in the taxi he had taken to get there. Calling upon the mythos of Schrödinger's cat, Saxon vanished from the stall, reappearing in the back of the taxi.

By the time the man entered the bathroom to chase after Saxon, Saxon was already gone.

Once in the backseat, Saxon took a look at his surroundings and breathed a sigh of relief. Had the driver or anybody been looking at the backseats, then Saxon wouldn’t have been able to make it here.

He deleted the image of the taxi from his phone. From his experience, when using images for Schrödinger's cat they were solid the first time, but afterward, there were some inconsistencies.

Saxon had so little faith in his impromptu plan that he didn’t think of how to explain to the driver how he magically appeared in his car, and why. Luckily, Saxon noticed that the car was not moving, and there was nobody else in the vehicle.

Stepping outside, Saxon could see that the taxi was parked outside a 24/7 diner. It seemed the driver had gotten hungry, and stopped for a bite to eat. Across the street from the diner was an internet cafe. Although Saxon was craving diner food now, he wanted to examine the files closer to plan his next move, and he preferred to do so on a computer that wasn’t his.

Saxon stepped into the cafe to be greeted by an employee working at the entrance. “Hello there, welcome to Bytes. What would you like sir?”

“Coffee, and a computer,” Saxon replied, “preferably one that’s near a window, so I can look out at the street.”

The employee pointed over at a computer right at the window. “That one just got freed up, so swipe your card, and it’s all yours.”

“Thank you,” Saxon replied, swiping his card.

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“And how would you like your coffee sir?” the employee asked.

“Black, but give me some sugar cubes on the side,” Saxon requested.

“Should be able to do that,” the employee responded. “We’ll have that out to you right away.”

“Sure thing,” Saxon said, walking off to take a seat at the computer he just rented out.

When nobody was looking, Saxon pulled out the flash drive from his coat pocket and plugged it into the computer. It was likely the data was bugged with a tracking device, so Saxon couldn’t stay here for long. That meant he couldn’t waste time transcribing the data onto physical paper.

The only major regret Saxon had was that he was unable to download all the personal files of the avatars listed as needing their mythos re-evaluated. The good news was that the list did contain their addresses--likely so it could be sent out to the team meant to perform the re-evaluations--their mythos and their photo.

However, there was one person on the re-evaluation list where Saxon did have their file.

Opening up Desmond Riley’s file, Saxon started doing a deeper dive into what was on there. They had examples of the camera distortion his mythos applied. It was nothing extreme, but something Saxon definitely would’ve noticed if it were on the footage they had of him jumping onto the car.

Moreover, Saxon found it strange that Desmond, unlike the other avatars on the list, was never placed on paid leave. Checking his file to find out when Desmond was added to the list for a re-evaluation, Saxon saw that the date was only a week ago. That meant all of the people who were on leave were on the list for at least a week themselves.

Admittedly, Saxon recognized there were several factors at play. One of the biggest was that Desmond’s change may have been fairly hard to notice, ironically enough. The disappearance of camera distortion, and attention deference, are unlikely to be recognized and hard to gauge respectively.

Still with the list numbering over 100 avatars, Saxon was confident enough that this had been going on for a while. What scared Saxon even more though, was the speed at which this was being done. The list was dated as being created only a few months ago, meaning that most, if not every, avatar listed had their mythos altered this year.

Next Saxon checked Octave’s file. As he had suspected, Octave’s mythos--which was listed as Orpheus--was described as being able to vibrate objects, causing them to emit musical sounds. Importantly, there was no mention of the music forcing people to dance. That reinforced Saxon’s belief that Octave’s mythos had somehow been modified without him knowing.

Saxon started drinking his coffee, and rather than mix in any of the sugar cubes, he started snacking on them to fuel his brain.

In Saxon’s mind, there were a few big questions that needed answering.

How was this person altering mythoi?

As Saxon had already previously deduced, there was no way of changing this many mythoi, in this short of time, using the known working method of a hard reset--and that’s setting aside how impractical it is.

For right now, Saxon’s running theory had to do with what Octave told him. If Saxon was right that the person Octave met with a FMPD badge was the one altering mythoi, then he believed it was somehow through a mutual contract.

Octave had mentioned that he struck a deal with the person, and Saxon suspected that that deal may have been the catalyst for the alterations to Octave's mythos that forced people who listened to his music to dance.

Saxon was nowhere near satisfied with this theory, however. Frankly, it didn’t explain quite enough.

Neither Octave nor Desmond would willingly enter a deal to have their mythoi changed in the way they were. Additionally, there was nothing about it that explained Desmond’s strange behavior.

The biggest nail in the coffin was that Octave had no recollection of his mythos being changed. If he had agreed to have it changed, then that made no sense--unless Octave was lying to Saxon, which Saxon sincerely doubted.

The next big question was if the person doing this was working alone. And if so, were they the only ones able to alter a mythos, or could their compatriots do the same thing?

The primary thing that made Saxon suspect an organization was the sheer speed of the alterations. If it were an organization rather than a singular person, then so many avatars in such a short time would make more sense.

What supported this idea, even more, was the outreach of the operation. People who are a member of the FMPD, and can access over a hundred Midas employees are few and far between.

Now while there was a lot of evidence pointing it in the direction of this being an organization, Saxon had a big issue with the idea. Saxon assumed this was the work of a particular mythos, and since there could never be two avatars with the same mythos, that would mean there was only one person capable of modifying a mythos.

The powers granted by a mythos are limited only by the imagination. For right now, a mythos was the only explanation Saxon saw behind the alterations.

While it could still be an organization built around an avatar with a mythos that allowed them to modify another mythos, Saxon struggled with accepting that idea. Such an organization would gain a far better advantage if it went public.

Currently, there exist no laws around altering a mythos--mainly because nobody believed it could be done. Additionally several people, such as James Martin, likely want their mythos changed or even removed in its entirety.

The love of the people is a far better shield than anonymity. Operating in the public would allow the group to grow so big that by the time any laws could be put in place, they would be untouchable.

Now if it's only a singular person, the reason for staying hidden makes a lot more sense. Everyone in Fable from crime families to big corporations, and even the FMPD, would want an avatar who could change a mythos’ manifestation. Going into the public eye would instantly place a target on the individual’s back.

Likely the biggest unanswered question for Saxon was what is the motivation?

Changing mythoi, seemingly at random, without informing the avatars themselves provides no merit to anybody.

Saxon had no idea where to even start with this one. He had a few ideas, but none of them were more than baseless theories.

Perhaps this was some scientist experimenting to perfect the modification process. However, in that case, it still doesn’t explain why they are trying to perfect it.

Maybe this is just somebody who wants to see the world burn. Saxon had seen several people like that, but he couldn’t help but feel that whoever was behind this had some grander plan.

If somebody wanted chaos and could modify mythoi--very quickly seeing as Octave had his modified after only one encounter--then Saxon thought there would be better ways.

The only thing Saxon knew was that he didn’t know nearly enough. He was hoping Midas would have the answers, but instead Saxon found leads. In Saxon’s eyes, leads were just eventual answers, but they needed to be acted upon, and where better to start than at the beginning?

Saxon pulled up the list and scrolled straight to the top. At the very beginning of the list, he found the very first person to ever be placed on it: Kenji Fujisaki, an avatar with the mythos of Miyamoto Musashi.

After reading through what was provided on Kenji, Saxon pulled out the flash drive, closed his tabs, finished his coffee, and stuffed the rest of the sugar cubes in his pockets for snacking purposes. Saxon wanted to visit Kenji to try and get some answers. According to the address on the list, that meant it was time to head to The Backwater Bridge district.