Elise pressed her comlink.

"Birddog, do two cross-indexed searches for me. Check: nanospore activity with nerve agents. Check: nanospore activity with opium cults."

Bruges gasped.

"They are here," he whispered.

Elise assessed the man at her side.

Good engineer, even better soldier, and yet the thought of the nanospores made him visibly ill. Manifestation was a real threat, a horrifying possibility that the people of the Quadra lived with daily.

Yet, somehow they all learned to live with it. Elise decided she needed to probe him further.

"They hittin' your dreams pretty hard, huh?"

She noticed Caza was paying attention to them with side glances. Ears like a hawk. He took out two UV flashbangs from his fanny pack and clipped them to his bandolier.

"Yeah," Bruges pumped his head up and down as he stooped on the bar counter, "they've been fucking with me pretty hard. Especially the black-eyed twins."

He tossed his supper in a stream of puke.

"Chief," said Caza, "there is no discernible movement below bouncing off my pulse, and more than two hours until chop time. You can spare Bruges a solid minute or two."

She squinted as she appraised her second in command's attitude.

"Did you know about this, Caza?"

He nodded his head affirmatively.

"I've been trying to get Bruges an appointment at the clinic for the last week but they wont see him until his blood work clears from that previous incident on his visit so like most Salvage matters, it is stuck in limbo."

"Shit, shit, shit" Bruges repeated helplessly.

After Elise grabbed a Brahma Pilsner from the cold fridge and opened it, she put a hand on Bruges shoulder, and handed him the cold beer

"Easy, my friend. I would like to make you a double shot, but anything heavier on the spirits might cost us some paperwork hours. Take your time, drink it."

There were no cameras aside from Caza's shoulder pin which was aimed steady down the hall towards the stairwell. Audio pulse, however, was being used to establish the time signatures of their movement patterns just in case anything had to be reviewed for legal purposes.

With a tight breath, she made her move. Elise had to be very, very careful with her next course of action. She slowly removed a tiny pill from her fanny pack and hid it against her thumb as she turned Bruges away from everyone else.

The exploit likely appeared vivacious to anyone who watched; this was one of the few times that was legally preferable to what was actually occurring.

As Bruges swallowed down the beer she stroked his free hand. His eyes beaded up curiously.

Elise opened his hand, and made sure he could feel the pill against the flesh of his palm. She leaned in, and said the English word, 'microdot.'

He didn't recognize the word.

"What?"

"Don't make me say it, Bruges."

The manufacture of LSD was a capital offense under the Salvage. Even the possession of rye argot could get one several years behind bars.

And Elise Luna Claro did those very things, manufacturing and cultivation, for an underground charity that assisted those desperate for the inoculation.

Fortunately, Bruges finally got the message and he quaffed it down with his next gulp from the bottle.

With the next few swallows he finished off the beer. Elise then took that time to go back to the bar stand and pay for it.

"I'm good to go," he announced.

"Bruges, self monitor, okay? Don't hesitate to let me know if you need to break-off and head back."

In the right frame of mind, LSD consumption was a perfectly manageable experience but it tended to enhance and exaggerate one's emotional state of being. Properties of the human mind that the nanospores were expert at manipulation.

"I'll be fine, Chief. Sorry about that."

Elise smiled and looked down at her hands. They felt numb on the tips still but neither did the condition worsen. She glanced back up at Bruges.

"Don't be. It took guts what you did and you did the right thing addressing the problem head on like that before we took it live -," Elise turned to the other crew members - Caza, Hugo, Levon who was the other half of her American gunner team, and Kauane,"- anyone else need to get anything off their chest?"

They all shook their heads in unison. She mashed her comlink.

"Good. Birddog, you got that stream up and running?"

"We have a solid set, Chief. The AI Assistant found previously unknown correlations. Heroin and opium both extend the life of the virus inside the blood stream. Well known fact, of course, but it is the only means the nanospore virus evolves a set of digits that is necessary for necrotic manipulations."

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Necrotic manipulation. Essentially reviving a dead body. The general public was aware of this occurring in animals that ascospores hunted, like deer and peccary, but they were kept in the dark about the Otros. Humans who were brought back to life.

If what Fiona said was true, this was a major development in the fight against the nanospores. But, already, Elise was formulating doubts.

"Just a second, Birddog. Animals aren't opium eaters and heroin addicts. How does the condition form in the natural world?"

Birddog chuckled as if she were addressing a naive child.

"Addict poop accumulates in say, for example, the well of a suburban home. It grows mold on it that in turn forms the ascospore we call the grises, or gray creepers.

"It just so happens that all seven types of ascospores that have been identified ooze one form of neurotoxin or another but only the grises have the markers that I'm finding in my brother's real time blood work."

Caza smiled with a grimace and patted the little container attached to his hip. Through its clear tubing blood circulated.

The gallo puntero was expected to be loaded up with monitoring devices.

"So, they are definitely here," he said with resignation in his voice.

Elise swore a soft profanity.

"What about the other matter, any correlation between the spore entities and the dens," she asked.

"No. And I believe that is a deliberately systematic cover up on their part to keep us unaware of a potential exploitable vulnerability."

Worth checking out later but at the moment she was more concerned whether or not they had the fire power to deal with a non-human aggressor.

"Caza, given this update, what is your assessment of our preparedness?"

He kept his eyes fixed on the stairs below.

"Decidedly underwhelming. I have dealt with ascospore invasions before. When they take over an area they typically build a defensive parameter infesting a rapid growth oriented species like spiders, rodents, even chickens."

He held up his .72 Saturnine Air Carbine.

"Nothing wrong with this gun," Caza continued. "But the round is not optimal."

Elise nodded. "Fine. Reconfigure as you see fit."

He pointed to Hugo. "Moreau, fetch us six clips of incendiary rounds, and six teffies, on the double, chief."

Slowly going down the steps, the crew took on an arrowhead formation. Caza remained on point, and his Saturnine was still armed with nonlethal rounds. He would take on all human targets. To his left, the Brazilian Kauane was equiped with the incendiary rounds. He was tasked to shoot to the center of the floor to break up any horde invasion and form firewall barriers. That left Hugo to his right with the teflon-razors to break bones and cut through dense solid matter.

Behind the three, Bruges and Levon shuffled forward with their guns equiped with non-lethal rounds for cover fire, and Elise held the rear position with the .50 air pistol equiped with neurotoxin rounds.

They made it down the stairwell with no incident. The hall they now stood in was part of the office suite.

There was no one roaming about in the immediate area.

The lighting was dim, and Elise doubted that the opium den at the far end of the level would be open for business given the activity centered around Gael-Sebastian's induction ceremony programmed for a few hours later.

Regardless, they would have to check the den out. The first priority of infiltration was ensuring that the egress was clear of conflict.

"Chief," Caza began, "bouncy time?"

She activated her eye to full spectrum.

"Go time."

The little rubber flyer was no bigger than a flashbang. Caza spun it in a whirly-whirl that smacked hard against the wall thirty five meters down before it came to the double doors at the far end.

Elise got two sets of reaction reads from the hit. One exposed an individual in a single office suite not far away. It appeared the individual was startled awake.

The other was more ominous. Inside the opium den on the far side were six humans gathered together in ritualistic fashion holding something above their heads.

It was a goat. Above the goat something she could not make out swirled in the air as if it floated.

"Caza, first door to your right. Everyone, hug a wall, go cameotic, stay still."

When the woman popped her head out of the door she looked both up an down the hallway. She brought a nine millimeter Beretta up even with the door frame and minimized her exposure.

Not bad technique. Not bad at all.

She recognized the woman as the office manager, Estelle Atrése. No outstanding warrants, no criminal history. But she definitely had some explaining to do.

She could not be innocent of being aware of what was going on in the opium den. Then Elise got a hunch that would square that mystery up.

Elise aimed at the top far side of the door frame behind the woman, and fired the neurotoxin round.

The contents splattered across the back of the woman's head. She jumped down and swiveled to face the purple substance as it turned to aerosol.

Before she could scream or shoot her Beretta, Caza popped her twice. Once in the shoulder and once on the elbow.

Estella Atrése slumped down and dropped the gun.

"Cover me," Elise commanded. She crawled over to the slumped unconscious body and felt the skin along the back of Atrése's neck.

The lateral grain felt silky against Elise's palm, very sensually so. A straight up and down rub felt like normal skin. It was an identifier.

Elise set her eyes on the woman as she whispered on the comlink.

"Birddog, run a full diagnostic in pulse mode with my eye."

Several seconds later, Fiona came back with the results.

"She's Otros."

Elise winced. The normal Ùltimos Dìas policy for Otros encounters was extermination. They were abominations, not truly human.

However, this was a Board mission, not UD. She couldn't just kill the woman. With exasperation in the breath she let out, Elise bound the hands and feet with flexstraps.

"Alright everyone, it's likely to get a bit weird up this way, I saw some shit, so follow me."

They pushed slowly through the hall, and all the while, Elise's mind raced. That the Otros worked the day to day operations of the den went a long way to explaining how the connection between Opium-Eaters and the nanospores was kept hidden.

But who was Sachmilli's informant within this tangle of intrigue?

When the team reached the double set of wooden doors they stood back five meters as Caza cranked up the tensile debilitator to get it to its full kinetic potential.

As he did so, they could hear the repeated word, "golden. Golden. Golden" coming from behind the sealed doors.

Caza swung the rod that held the net in place.

The net spread out to the corners of the door, and once clamped, crumbled it in an instant.

Elise threw herself in the gap in a bullish stampede, and shot neurotoxin rounds to each side of the six opium-eaters, two women, four men, all nude. They circled around as they held a near legless alter platter that bore the goat.

An oozy red ascospore floated above them. Two tentacles on each side of its spherical body swayed to the groove of the rhythmic music in the background.

The shrieking naked people began to fall to the ground as Caza shot them with debilitation rounds.

Though the platter crashed to the ground the ascospore caught the goat with its four tentacles. The goat cried out in fearful 'bahs' as the ascospore gripped it close. Two of the tentacles wrapped around the goat's horns and split the skull apart.

The monstrosity latched a vaginal shaped orifice onto its brain. Sucking noises bellowed out in a quiffing fashion.

All the team's fire power now aimed at the ascospore until it finally shredded apart with a milky film that splattered on the marble floor below it.

Elise put away the Saturnine she had switched out for better fire power.

"Bruges, Levine, help me clean these people up. That ooze could be toxic. Everyone else, secure the chamber's parameter."

Just as they started to move the unconscious bodies away from the splattered area, they heard someone with a melodic voice yell, "don't shoot!"

"Come out," Caza commanded.

How could there be a seventh person? The whirly-whirl flyer would have detected a suddenly jolted heart beat.

From behind the bar a nude woman of whom appeared to be in her late thirties but also a mere four foot eight came out of hiding. Her skin was a wondrous golden.

"Don't shoot," she repeated. "I am a friend of Sachmilli's."