"So my step-mom was always telling me that the best and worst thing I could do was sign up and join the Deva," Bunny said, "I'd never liked her, so if she thought it was a bad idea, then I was all for it. Soon as I turned eighteen, I was out and at the nearest recruiting port. That was when I decided that I didn't want to live a long time without seeing more than a few planets, so I signed up for the Nephilim Academy on Eden, and then from there you know the rest."

She, Carrie, and Sarah had been spending the last four hours chattering about anything and everything. Bunny's life as a citizen in the Solar Empire, as the collective governments of Earth and her subordinate planets were called, was just the latest in a long line of topics that had spanned boys, clothes, animals, movies, and even shower products. I knew Carrie got bored easily with this kind of mission, but she'd never gone out of her way to try to talk with me like this. I was very grateful for that.

"How did you two join the Nephilim?" Bunny asked Carrie and Sarah.

"I signed up after the Scourge hit Earth," Sarah answered. "Care didn't like it, but Rickshaw was willing to take me on so long as I put the work in."

"I was the first recruit Rickshaw ever made," Carrie told her.

"Wow, you really did build the Nephilim then," Bunny said. "What was Demigod James like back then?"

"I didn't, and still don't, appreciate being made a topic of conversation," I said before either of the others could answer. "We're here anyway. Sarah, take up a lookout position to the northwest. Carrie, keep an eye on the southwest. Erica, you're with me while we get the data; it's best if you know how to do this kind of thing for later."

While Sarah and Carrie moved to keep an eye out on the chosen directions, Bunny went with me to the sensor that had been set up to blend in with the plantlife and take all the pictures we needed before I made a decision about building in the area. Once there, I showed her how to interface her Cyber with the glorified trailcam and told her how and where to store the data it had gathered for the hike back to the clearing the shuttle had landed in.

"Um, sir, I think this one's broken," she said.

"What do you mean?" I asked, stepping closer to peer over her shoulder at the tablet in her hands that provided a visual medium to peruse the data in the field to help avoid any problems.

"There's a lot of data that reads as lost from the storage cache," she answered me. "You said that the sensor takes a photo at midnight and noon and then it activates at heat movement the rest of the time, but I'm not finding the data for several days. No noon or midnight photos and definitely no photos on the times between it."

"Let's have Cai take a look," I said reaching to interface with the sensor myself. "If he can't find anything, then we've got a problem."

"Why?" Bunny asked.

"It would mean that whoever's deleting data out here, knows to also go after the soft and hard backups that all Nephilim programming and technology uses," I explained. "I mandated that all technology we used had both types of backup storage drives to avoid letting people form their own cliques and gangs in the dead space between it all. That's how you end up not recognizing an organization the fastest; people make back-alley deals and any potential recordings of them are gone forever, which means that they get away with their corruptions and bribes before you can do anything about them."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Why can't I use Rex to access that kind of stuff?" she asked.

"Safety protocols," I answered. "If I gave all Cybers that sort of access, then Cadets and Knights with less than savory ideas would abuse it and then we'd be back at not recognizing what the Nephilim are supposed to be."

"But you're not the only one that can access this kind of thing?" she confirmed.

"Horsemen and higher are the only ones that are given this access," I told her. "That means there are four Nephilim that could access this kind of thing and two of them are on this planet with at least one galaxy between us and either of the other two."

"Does that mean something bad?" she whispered, fear creeping into her voice.

"No," I assured her. "I trust Carrie with everything. Besides, with the right practice and training, you don't need access to get around the failsafes I insisted on."

"I found the missing photos," Cai told me. "Loading them onto the tablet now."

"Thanks," I said as the photos began to load in. Some of them appeared to be missing entire areas of them. "What's up with missing pixels?"

"I am uncertain," Cai answered. "I have determined that they are not a result of a virus or the photos being deleted. They seem to have been targeted specifically when the photos were deleted."

"What about the other data?" I asked.

"Sound recordings are the only other dataset with anything lost," he said. "I am attempting to retrieve them but it is proving more difficult than the photos were to recover."

"What's the problem?" Carrie asked walking up to Bunny and I.

"This," I said, showing her the tablet and the ruined photos. "Cai says that audio logs were also lost, he's working to get those back now. These look like the missing pixels were targeted directly to avoid having them be recovered by any method available."

"Yeah," Carrie agreed, confusion coloring her voice. "Kind of looks like the kind of area that a person would stand in right?"

"Now that you point it out it does," I agreed. "At least two of them, maybe more."

"You thinking conspiracy?" Carrie asked.

"No, I'm not thinking that it's a conspiracy," I told her. "If I start peering at everything like that, it won't be long before I'm peeing in jars and wearing foil hats."

"Please do not wear a foil hat," Cai said. "I would lose many sensory functions."

"I think we're good buddy," I laughed. "Did you find anything yet?"

"I have," he said. "Shall I begin playback of the audio for you and Horseman Applewood?"

"Sure," I said and the audio recordings began to play.

"I'm so glad you agreed to come out here with me," a man's voice began to play in my helmet's speakers. "I wasn't sure you'd see me after last time."

"You said you knew a place I could see the stars the best," a woman's voice said. "Sounded romantic."

"Stop," I said before anything else was said. "Cai how much of it strikes you as a secret meeting spot for people working to undermine the Nephilim here on Obelisk or in Andromeda as a whole?"

"None," he answered. "The man is heard quite often with a variety of women and each of them have a short conversation before several sounds are heard followed by clapping and grunting noises with more conversation afterwards."

"Oh my God," Carrie said before laughing out loud. "You don't think?"

"I do," I said, my face burning a bit at what this was. "Cai, can you identify the man?"

"It appears to be Wing Kevin Rooks," he answered.

"Send word to Wing Rooks that I'd like to see him as soon as we get back," I sighed. I wasn't looking forward to this.

"What's up?" Sarah asked walking over. "Are we done?"

"Yeah," I said. "Just watch your step, no telling what's on the ground out here."

"I hear that," she agreed. "Saw a bra in the brush over there, some weird shit out here, huh?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "We've got we need for now. Bunny, grab the bra, don't know who it belongs to, but I'm sure they're missing it."

Once I'd said that I turned and started walking back the way we'd come from. I made it all of five feet before the absurdity of the whole thing made me burst into laughter.