The journey didn't take long- relatively.

Being what they were- the Gates weren't easy to comprehend. The folks at Ys and the more elder magicians working at Red Clay threw around a lot of words like "esoteric," "hypothetical," "hitherto unseen before," and things like upper and lower bounds, singularities. Bobby's job did not deal with that, and he thanked God first, then Benjamin, then the smart fellas that dedicated their life to figuring this stuff out. Back when he got started at Red Clay and had to be educated about all of that, the model they used assumed a lot of variables, infinites of various kinds. The eggheads offered Tylenol when it got complicated. It boiled down to Ys and the Lower Kingdom- Earth and associates- being assumed to be a two dimensional representation of the Material. The Material, of course, being everything that wasn't the Gates. Two cones stuck out of the tops and bottoms of the Material, extending outwards to some unknown point. Said cones had an infinitely divisible number of layers that were practically divisible into "the ones we can travel through" and "the ones we don't for very good reason."

Ys- fifty million souls, ruled by the extremely powerful Colossi- had a bit of a monopoly on Gate transit. They were the first ones on the scene, and first come first serve. They came up with the name, a Beacon to make transportation easier, and did the grunt work of mapping out how much they could actually use. Most of the "Layers Mundane" as it translated were just that, boringly mundane, a decent compromise between going too high up and having to deal with angels or too far down and needing to contend with demons, and a small enough infinity compared to an infinitely expanding "normal" world that it came to be used for transportation. The eggheads explained it away that a mile in the Gates- depending on layer- got multiplied. Anywhere from ten to a hundred to a thousand to even millions. The higher the layer the more it increased. That was just the model, and Bobby had his suspicions that the Material wasn't so much just the known universe but the unknown universes too. Just an uneducated hunch.

The Colossi were the major political powers of Ys. Benjamin happened to be one. The name certainly seemed appropriate, considering his size. They weren't gods- not in the sense of divinity- they could be born and die, but the scale and breadth of their existence far eclipsed mortal comprehension. They cordoned off parts of the Gates- the higher Gates, that went "above," were for normal usage. The lower Gates were oft reserved for servants and those who received the patronage of such Colossi- Red Clay being such a case.

The slightly increased threat of demons showing up still couldn't spice up the fact they were driving down a highway with absolutely nothing of any interest. Bobby scratched the skin under the matrix hooked into his arm, digging a finger under the sheath. Hours of boring travel passed, until his elven partner turned off the long highway and headed down another route. "Almost there," she proclaimed. "By the gods I think I'd rather drive down I-285. At least traffic keeps you on your toes."

"Tell me about it." Bobby shifted up in his seat. "At least there ain't nobody tailing your ass."

Alys gave him a quizzical glance before swinging the steering wheel hard to the right. "We're not on a donkey?"

"It's a metaphor." Bobby chuckled. "Ass- the- tailgating you, Lys, tailgating. Like getting up on the rear of the truck. That always gets on my nerves, I got places to go too, y'know? Did you drive from the warehouse to Alabama?"

"I took a gate there and back but the local stuff, yeah." As she spoke the Gates shifted- a sudden transition. There must have been signs and markers for her to see with her elven eyes that just didn't even register on Bobby's. And he didn't quite have the will to summon a proper spell to see it himself.

They left the Lower Gates without much fanfare, entering in one of Red Clay's satellite facilities in Ys. The massive city necessitated almost dozens of checkpoints and hubs for Red Clay to conduct its business, and even then it could be hours to get between such places. Bobby checked the signage, and noticed they were at one of their hubs closer to the city center- known as the Nexus. Still more than two hours out even by flight, but no matter. He relaxed and let Alys handle the Gate guards: the Yssian routes were much less of a headache to travel through. They had a few Red Clay representatives there, as required. Most called Bobby "sir" and Alys "madame"

After their paperwork went through, Alys drove the Deuce-and-a-half up through the exit gates and up into the satellite facility. It had the same air as the main Technical Services warehouse, though obviously a lot smaller. A veritable horde of Kobolds worked here, with elven overseers and a great number of human guards. He noticed a few Yssian guards, with colorful crests on their shoulders, swords, revolver and wand hanging from their hips. They had more formal uniforms under their breastplates, favoring by which Royal House of Man they came from. A few of Red Clay's internal security members were showing them around the place, wearing sleek armor carriers and slung with rifles and shotguns.

"Hey, Lys-" they turned a corner and pulled into one of the motor pools. "We let the Royals in here now?"

"Happened after Ziz' death." She swung the truck into the motor pool. "He was quite popular with the humans down here. Benjamin and Lua, not so much."

"Huh." Bobby prepared his gear, letting Alys park the truck. They went through the standard procedure and started unloading. All their cases and bags ended up in an electronic mule piloted by another kobold. Then they piled into the cart and set off towards the hangar. "Guess I must have missed the memo."

"Hey, you've spent most of your career on Earth, I don't blame you for not knowing." Lys shrugged. These were decidedly more modern carts, and so they moved at a pleasantly fast pace. Before long they'd gotten to the hanger, where they'd link up.

Bobby was pretty dang familiar with helicopters. He rode in a few of them in his military days. Even shot a few guns out of them. The gunships Benji had 'acquired' were older specifications, a mix of black market gear and fudged deals. He was pretty certain Benji had some kind of fixation on military gear, a notion Bobby found quite funny. But for a dragon with his amount of wealth? Well- he had the money, he could have a whole air wing stationed here.

It wasn't necessarily a military endeavor, either. There were plenty of low intensity conflicts out in the Wildlands that threatened Red Clay's endeavors. They worked in a mindboggling number of fields, research and development, and a lot of... well, private military stuff. Nobody else in Ys- or, hell, even the other city states- had quite the fleet. No tanks, no jets, but propeller aircraft, gunships, and a lot of observation aircraft dominated these hangars. The two rode on past the technicians.

It took a minute, but after checking the dossier they rolled into a helicopter bay. It was an old Black Hawk they'd "acquired" and brought back up to a good standard. He didn't remember the exact specification, but Red Clay had the means and... Connections to get it outfitted. Machine guns hung on mounts by the doors. At some point in time they'd even gotten set of stumpy wings and festooned it with sensors magical and technical alike. In the helicopter bays- advanced weatherproof overhangs with retractable roofs- Red Clay's paintjob looked extra pretty. It wasn't a special color scheme- fresh milspec paint but the tail of the bird painted red, with "RED CLAY TECHNICAL SERVICES" emblazoned on the side.

Bobby had ridden in this ship before. The man noticed a new set of pods on the wings, and the blacked out cockpit. Tiny points of light cut across the tinted glass. He stopped the crew chief, a sturdy man by the name of Giuseppe. "Hey slick! R&D been working on some fun stuff?"

Giuseppe grunted, and scrolled down a tablet. "Nothing new, 'm afraid."

"Nothin' new?" Bobby looked. "We got the five percent tint on, Gee. That ain't new?"

"Hm? That?" Giuseppe turned the tablet away. "The eggheads just approved a new Panoptes module, for the Keystone controller. Tint is there to keep it cool. It runs a little hot."

Bobby nodded, while Giuseppe flagged a centaur loader with a big harness on his equine half. The horse hybrid followed along and easily handled the heavy black cases that gave Bobby trouble. "They're finally ironing out the kinks on the interface end of things? Getting the brain to play nice with the computer?"

"You got that right." The short, squat man pointed to Bobby's orichalcum gauntlet, and the conspicuous Keystone in it, much smaller than the helicopter's. "Gen three. Not like that old second-gen monitor you got there. State of the art tech we got in this bird."

Bobby rubbed the protruding pod. It flashed a few colors. He didn't really feel like twisting it to show the display or its esoteric runes. "Hey, it works."

"Yeah, yeah." Giuseppe went back to overseeing the helicopter preparation. Bobby and Alys stepped aside and reread their dossiers for the dozenth time. It really was quite simple: Bobby wondered why the dragon didn't just get another team from internal affairs and security to investigate, but- well, it was family, after all.

It didn't take long for Giuseppe to finish the helicopter- then he moved on to the next in that particular squadron. They were flying with Highwaymen, callsigns Cash, Jen, Nel, and Kristoff. Cash would lead. Bobby would go by Cash-1, Alys Cash-2, and he reckoned when he got Lua's folks they'd fill out Cash-3 and Cash-4. Bobby and Alys took seats on Cash, their helicopter, and waited for clearance to take off.

Keystones. The topic came up frequently in the research department. Bobby usually only cared when they came up with new weapons or armor- which wasn't very often, admittedly. Red Clay didn't make a lot of money off of arms and armament. The real money? Well that was in marrying Yssian magic and Earthen technology. Keystones happened to be one of Red Clay's developmental focused. They were a cornerstone of Yssian automation, tiny thinking crystals grown in vats from animal brain cells. They were "dumb" because they couldn't calculate ones and zeroes or perform however million floating point operations a secone. A keystone had very little raw computational capacity, but a lot of room to develop snd optimize themselves.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

What it did have was intuition and observation. A computer processed tremendous amounts of data by inferrence and algorithm. But it could only ever come up with things completely logically, doing exactly as it was programmed to do. A computer did not have a sense of touch except as abstracted through sensor readings. A Keystone processed very little information, but it didn't need complex algorithms or massive databases to make decisions. They could be thought of as a lower rung of artificial intelligence: artificial reflexes, senses and emotions. Far faster than any human could be, but unruly and often shackled down by restrictions to get them to behave.

Generation three Keystones were a Red Clay trade secret. Generation One were original grown from neuron clusters of races on the Civilized Bloodlines Roster- but that technically fell under the umbrella of necromancy. The Undertaker Mandates practically criminalized all necromancy performed on elves, orcs, humans, any particular race that could create spellcasters. Ys had to move on to Generation Two, grown from explicitly mundane tissues. Gen One keystones were prized possessions, Gen Two little more than commodities. Generation Three? Largely Generation Two- but with architecture copied off microprocessors. A lot more logically sound, he reckoned.

Bobby looked through the cockpit of Cash-1: there were enough provisions in there to pilot it in case the Keystone failed. Alys leaned in over his shoulder. "Pretty amazing what your scientists can come up with, isn't it?"

"Mhm." The man leaned back and hung his rifle up on the wall.

An intercom piped up. The sweet young lady on the other end barked out orders in a handful of languages. "Attention, Highwayman Squadron and Crew! Please report to Cash!" Her intonation was a little off. English may well have been her third or fourth language. Alys and Bobby hung out on the edge of the chopper.

Over the next few minutes, a bunch of loitering agents gathered around. There were a handful of technical types among them, all of them Red Clay employees. He spotted a squad of elves and orcs loitering around and meanderong over. Most curious was the small clan of kobolds that waddled over. They were small, hardy, but always handy to have around: what almost got Bobby giggling were the tiny carbines they carried.

"Alys- Alys, look at 'em. They're so tiny." He discreetly pointed at the little troopers. "We could sell merchandise of them and make millions. The Kobold Unit. Or the Diamond Dogs. It would sell like hotcakes."

Alys sputtered, almost getting red in the face. "Bobby- you better not let them hear you, you know how they are."

He waved her off. "Nonsense. They love me." Then he stood up: the Dossier listed him as being in command, and so he puffed up his chest and walked out to meet his subordinates. "Good morning all y'all!"

Bobby got groggy nods back from the agents. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two absolute giants of men take up positions at the back of the unit.

"Right! Good to see all of you in such fine condition this morning." Bobby crossed his arms. "Y'all probably know me from your on onboardin' videos, if you were hired from Earth. If yer from Ys, you've probably heard of Bobby Black. That would be me. I know what you may be thinking. But yes. I am in fact prettier in person."

Chuckles went rhrough the small crowd.

"Well, let's get down to business, folks. I'm in charge of this operation."

---

Callsigns assigned. Units named. Teams organized. Bobby wasn't expecting an unarmored component- but otherwise he familiarized himself with the unit, shook hands with everyone and introduced himself. When he finally got to the two giants- both standing well over seven foot tall each- he noted their Yssian attire, loose and informal unlike Red Clay's de facto dress policy.

"I take it you two are Lua's folks?" He asked, shaking hands with the elder of the two.

"You bet." The giant spoke with a familiar voice. Bobby couldn't quite place it. "It's a family matter after all. You don't recognize me?"

Bobby shook his head. "Usually Lua's folks are all Atavists, chimera, or lesser drakes. You two are...?"

"Hah!" The taller man laughed. "Rory! And this is my son, Rune. It's about time for him to go through his Rites, you understand, plus he's on break from his schooling, so I figured, why not bring him along!"

"Oh- Rory? Shit, I didn't recognize you at all!" The image of the seven-foot-seven monolith, long black hair and taut skin over a human form looked nothing like the roiling mass of violence Bobby usually associated with him. "Y'all're gonna be in Cash, with us. Rory, when you're on the radio, you're gonna be Cash-3. Rune, pleasure meetin' ya, I'm sure your pappy's told you lots about me. If you hear Cash-4 on the radio, we're talkin' 'bout or towards you. It's your callsign."

The young man opened his mouth in awe. He looked like the spitting image of his father, save for being a lot thinner and more graceful looking. Bobby noted canid ears and tail hanging out of his clothes. The big fellow was just a smidge shorter at seven-foot-five, and he wore glasses of all things. "I have a callsign? Like Call of Duty?"

Bobby blinked. "Sorry, come again?"

"Yeah!" Rune bounced on his heels, obviously looking over Bobby. "My dad got me a box on his last trip down to your place! And he got me a game which he says is what you did in your army."

"It's a lot more boring than what you saw in there, kiddo, sorry." The man chuckled and turned away, rubbing his forehead. He couldn't help but laugh, but they were already prepping for takeoff. Bobby took all of them to Cash and helped them board. "C'mon, let me help you in."

Bobby got the members of Cash assembled. In a few minutes they all got inside their helicopter, while the members of Giuseppe's crew came on and got final preparations done. A small kobold technician squeezed into the cockpit and plugged in flight information into the Keystone. Bobby watched intently, then gave the little creature a pat on the back as they left. The modified doors slid closed. As they sat down, Bobby passed around the flight helmets and strapped in. He and Alys had little trouble, Rory took a minute, but Rune was having trouble- so Bobby reached over and tightened it on for him.

"Here ya go kiddo." The young man had a little trouble, but after getting help he squeezed into the helicopter's seat and buckled in. "Yeah, it's gonna be a long ride. Y'all bring some snacks?"

Rory produced a small bag- and pulled a large flask from it. "Well I haven't got any snacks, but I got some drink and I got some smokes for ya."

"That works." Bobby grinned, even as the intercom came on and the helicopter bays opened up. He caught the barest glimpses of Ys coming out as the hangar doors dropped. Rory passed some cigarettes over. Bobby stuck one in his mouth and lit it up with a snap of his fingers. He sucked on it and leaned back, looking out the window over the sprawling city.

Ys and Seoul had a lot in common. Large metropolitan areas. Huge population. But what set Ys apart from Seoul- and then again, just about every other city- was scale. Fifty million is a big number, and Ys' censuses weren't as comprehensive as Earth's. Physics-defying couldn't begin to describe the size of it: Earth had skyscrapers, Ys scraped the heavens. The helicopter took off with a whirring of blades, the whole thing shaking, and taking off. The rest of Highwayman Squadron took off after Cash did, following after.

The thing with Ys though, is that it wasn't a modern city. About twice as big as one, but it wasn't modern in the same way that Seoul was- and Bobby could compare, since he'd been stationed there. A city on Earth used concrete, steel and glass. Ys counted bricks by the billion and brass by the ton. The whole place wasn't even necessarily on one plane of existence. The whole city extended up and down into a dozen layers of the Gates, but the part that actually bordered the Wildlands remained the largest. The upper layers were the Core- where the Colossi, like Benjamin and Lua and the Light One conducted themselves. Ys Proper and the Libertine below it were the domains of all the lesser mortal creatures.

"Cash-0 of Highwayman Squadron exiting Red Clay Highwinds Station." An artificial voice echoed through the radio. Bobby figured it was a plug-in for the Keystone.

"Oh-" Alys nudged Bobby's side, the man turning and looking over. "-Hey, we're pretty close to where Ziz touched down. If we just swing around over on the east side, it's only a few kilometers away-" The elf looked over at the entrance of the cockpit. "-Should be able to see it."

"They're still using the same commands as the last few Keystones they installed. Should be able to." Bobby tapped on the cockpit. Rory pursed his lips. Rune, the young man, seemed a little confused, like he hadn't been taught about it. "Cash-0, divert ten klicks east, send Jen, Kristoff, and Nel on the old course then return to standard flight path."

"Query processed. Affirmative. Diverting course now." The robotic tone warbled and the helicopter lurched. Rune clutched the seat as tightly as he could, obviously unused to riding in such a machine. He had white knuckles, and his father reached a hand over and gave him a reassuring pat.

Bobby unbuckled and grabbed a handle to steady himself as he looked out the window. A few minutes passed as they went over the city. As far as the eye could see it was Ys: Highwinds Station, as he recalled, was one of their service hubs. The building disappeared behind them, the practical concrete construction and the Red Clay logo vanishing. The rest of Highwayman Squadron flew off as Cash diverted. The tall skyscrapers- a mix of styles that reminded him of cathedrals and Victorian architecture- soon gave way to sprawling industrial factories, processing areas and warehouses. The buildings got shorter and shorter, the roads narrower, until the computer beeped again to confirm they were getting closer to.

The chopper swung over and smoothly transitioned back to its first flight plan, though it left plenty of time for Bobby, Alys and the rest to look out the windows. The industrial parks gave way to a massive wound in the surface of Ys, covered by suspension bridges like stitches covered a wound. He couldn't quite process just how large it was: the thing broke the city in half, miles wide and stretching leagues off either way. "Entering high turbulence area. Returning to original flight path."

Bobby whistled. Rune looked confused and tried to mouth something, but it didn't go through with the sound of the rotors and the engines drowning it out. He had to be shown by his dad how to hit the radio button. "-Sorry. Mister Bobby-"

"That's Cash-1 to you. What's up, sonny?" Bobby peered out the scratched up windows at the gouge. The cut in the city exposed almost a mile of bedrock, and almost all the surrounding buildings had been demolished or flattened. He spotted a few buildings hanging off the edge, small specks and twisted corpses teetering over a gaping maw.

"What are we looking at?" Rune stuck his head beside Bobby's. The boy looked uneasy. "Is that-"

Alys piped up. "That's the Great Scar Gorge, if I'm not mistaken. Most people in Ys don't talk about it, but when Ben- sorry, you may know him as Uncle Behemot- fought Ziz, one of his wings dipped down and carved that out."

"Thanks 'Lys." Bobby sat back down. "Thirty years, something like, thirty-three cycles for y'all."

"That isn't so long ago, you know." Alys put her hands on her lap, sitting serenely while Bobby buckled in again. "Or, hell, I can tell you all about those. It's gonna be a long ride anyways. Wanna hear?"

"H-how long?" Rune cocked his head to the side.

Bobby knocked the Keystone with his knuckles, the helicopter buzzing along back onto its original pathway. He puffed a little more on his cigarette, he and Rory filling the helicopter's cabin with tobacco smoke. Cash would regroup with the rest of Highwayman Squadron and get back into the Wildlands, and they'd ride on. "Hey, Cash-0, give the young man over here an ETA."

"Query processed. Estimated Time of Arrival to Red Clay Refueling Station Delta: six hours." Rune balked with an open mouth at what the Keystone said, but Bobby frowned.

"Total flight plan ETA, please." He repeated.

"Processed. Total flight plan estimated at twelve hours." All the color in Rune's face drained, the boy sinking into his seat.

Bobby laughed and tapped the window. "Hope you got something to pass the time, kid! It's gonna be a long ride!"