Oliver was wrong. It was nearly another hour before they heard rustling in the brush. They both brought their weapons to bear on the noise.

"Who goes there?" D'khara called.

"Caw, caw," came the response.

D'khara lowered his gun.

"Did you just say 'caw, caw'?" he shouted hoarsely.

"Yes?" came Little Timmy's reply.

"That's supposed to be a crow call. You're not just supposed to say 'caw'!"

"How do I know what crows sound like?" retorted Little Timmy. "I've only ever seen pictures!"

"Well, get over here! What did you find? Where's Roger?"

Little Timmy ran over, hopping adroitly over the body in the clearing.

"Roger ran off when we got close to the border of Cryocorp territory. Said something crazy and ran toward the facility. What's with the stiff?" he asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the Ready/Impact soldier.

"One of their guys, shot up bad. Did you see anybody else?"

"No, nobody. The whole gash is as dead as that guy. No trucks, no gunfire, no nothing."

"What's going on?" Fleer asked, walking up from behind. The group started, and Little Timmy screamed a little. "Also, you guys should keep a better watch. What's up?"

They filled Fleer in on what they knew so far.

"Hmmm." He looked thoughtful for a long moment. "I don't like this. Something's wrong. Little Timmy, did you say Roger ran off to scout the area?"

"I guess? He said something like 'I'm a pretty pretty princess' and ran that way."

"Yeah, sounds like he went to hunt up a little more info. Who's that?" Fleer asked, pointing toward the body.

"That's the Ready/Impact guy we were telling you about."

"No, I mean, who's that going through his pockets?" Fleer asked, quietly lowering himself behind the crates.

There was a man dressed all in black, crouched over the body. As the Riotfish watched, he yanked off the soldier's identitag and scanned it with his datapad. Nodding to himself, he tucked it away in his pocket and prepared to leave, when his eye was caught by the mess of bandages D'khara had pressed to the man's wound. He peered closely at them.

Pocketing his datapad and raising his rifle, he scanned the area. The Riotfish sat perfectly still, their guns trained on the stranger. He moved away from the body, scanning the woods in sweeping arcs as he moved out in a spiral.

He moved closer and closer to the crates. All the slack was gone in the Riotfish's triggers as he neared.

The stranger was only 30 feet from the Riotfish's hiding place when his thick watch beeped. He glanced at it and suddenly jogged off into the woods, away from the Riotfish.

"Who was that?" Oliver asked, once the stranger was gone.

"Not one of the Ready/Impact soldiers," Fleer said quietly. "Did you see how he moved? That was a professional. Not just some chump guard. And now he knows someone else is here."

Fleer slid down and sat in the dirt while the Riotfish clustered around him. He frowned deeply for a minute, and pulled out his datapad. He spun through some data, and thought some more.

"Fellows," he said, "I think we might be in trouble."

"Are the trucks not coming?" Little Timmy asked.

"I don't know. We need to check out the Cryocorp facility. A hundred guys didn't just up and vanish. And we have to know where the gold is. We need to get over there and see what's going on."

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"David, can we do that?" Oliver asked. "Legally?"

Fleer considered things for a bit, then poked his head over the crates, looking at the body.

"Did anybody see who shot that man?"

A round of negatives circled the group.

"Neither did I. But I did see someone-- possibly his murderer-- rifling the body. And he ran back in the direction of the Cryocorp facility."

"Did he? I thought he ran--"

"Shut up, Timmy. And so, I think we should track this murder suspect, which gives us coverage under the Good Samaritan Tracking clause in the Standard Inter-Territorial Agreement, in the unlikely event that we track him back to the Cryocorp facility."

Oliver nodded.

"That could work. In arbitration. Out here, though, we'll probably still be shot at."

"So let's make every effort not to be seen. That will make things easier all around."

"Is Roger going to be okay?" D'khara interjected. "With a professional out there somewhere?"

"Roger? Oh, he'll be fine. He's in his element here."

"The swamp?"

"The chaos. Let's go."

----------------------------------------

Fleer held his rifle low as he crept through the woods. Worry gnawed at him, spurring his feet faster, but caution kept his pace slow and quiet.

Not that his quiet mattered much, with the rest of the Riotfish crashing along behind him. D'khara, especially, was ill-suited to stealthcraft, but at least he was making an effort to keep his hoarse swearing quieter than his crashing around.

They were traveling parallel to the gash, staying several hundred feet in the cover of the woods, tracking back toward the Cryocorp facility. Excepting the Riotfish, the woods were unnaturally quiet. No birds sang, nothing moved, and even the relentless cicadas were taking a break from their endless song. The gash itself was bare and empty. No more wounded soldiers reeled back. No more mystery men in black appeared. No trucks full of gold rumbled by.

They neared the border of Cryocorp land. Fleer motioned everyone to stop, and he pulled out a pair of binoculars. He strapped a scanner onto the eyepieces, plugged the whole assembly into his datapad and stared at the screen as he swept the binoculars back and forth over the grounds.

The trees and underbrush stopped directly at the border, as cleanly as if cut with a knife. The Cryocorp land was a tidy, well-maintained lawn with gentle swells. It had a small pond with a fountain in it. A tall, grim concrete building dominated the tasteful landscape, overcoming the greenery with Brutalist architecture. A small parking lot was tucked away behind the building to the east, with a narrow road leading away.

There were no trees or bushes more than knee-high, nor cover within two rifle-shot lengths of the building itself.

"Where are the sappers?" asked Oliver quietly. "I thought they were going to be cutting the rest of the gash open."

"Charges," Little Timmy pointed out. "Look over there. They must've strapped those explosives to the big trees since you and I checked this out. They can blow those and just drive the trucks right over the smaller trees."

Oliver nodded.

"That makes sense, but then why haven't they blown the charges yet? I don't hear any shooting."

Little Timmy shrugged.

Fleer spent many long minutes scanning. The building had a single point of entry on its south side, a pair of roll-up cargo doors. One was closed, but the other was slightly open, rolled up about three feet. The interior was dark and impenetrable, looking at it from the bright outside. Fleer fiddled with the scanner controls, but was unable to get a clear view inside.

After scanning, he sighed, and packed away the scanner and binoculars, and stared at the facility.

"Okay," he said finally. "I am going to go in there. Now, this is a legally questionable action, and I'm not going to ask any of you to come with me. You should stay here until I come back, and keep watch."

"Permission to go on break, sir?" D'khara asked.

"Huh?"

"I would like to take a break, sir. I have not had my contract-enforced break yet today. I get two short breaks and a long break every full workday. I'd like my break now." Fleer stared at him in puzzlement. "On my break, my own personal free time, I might take a walk on these grounds. Independent of any liability to Riotfish."

Fleer laughed with delight.

"Well you'll fit right in the corporate world before you know it, thinking like that. It's not as serious as all that. I'm not ordering anybody to stay back. Just know that we're getting into some mucky legal territory here."

"I don't worry about the legal stuff," D'khara said.

Fleer's delight paled and he sighed a little, with a mix of fondness, longsuffering and exasperation.

"All right, well who's coming with?" he asked. All of the Riotfish raised their hands.

"Okay. There's no cover, so we'll need to get across that open ground as fast as we can. Looks like about four or five hundred yards. We'll gather at the edges of that open cargo door. Ready? Go!"

The Riotfish moved toward the building at various speeds. Oliver easily loped ahead of everyone, distantly followed by Little Timmy, and then Fleer, with D'khara bringing up the rear. They assembled on either side of the door.

Looking at it up close, it was clear there was going to be no stealthy entry. The door was rolled open to hip-height, and even up close the interior was too dark to see into. Fleer motioned to Oliver and D'khara to roll up the door, so that he and Little Timmy could sweep into the facility.

They nodded, did a three-count, and heaved upward on the door. It rattled up another foot and stopped hard. Fleer and Little Timmy had to step back, as they had already started moving in. Crouching, they squat-walked into the facility. Oliver and D'khara readied their weapons and followed.

Once inside, their eyes adjusting to the light, they were able to stand up fully.

"Oh," said Oliver into the stunned silence. "Oh no."