"Jak, you're alright, right?"

The tone of her voice implied that she didn't actually think he was alright, but was too worried—too scared—to say so. Keira's brand of concern was far less acerbic than anyone else's, including Daxter's (especially Daxter's, come to think of it.) It was nice to hear something gentle, more or less, since Keira had been known to throw wrenches around when she was angry, and she could get pretty damn angry . . . but Wrench Throwing Keira wasn't asking.

Jak couldn't think of anything true to say and he didn't feel like lying too much tonight. Silently, Jak put his head in his hands and closed his eyes, trying hard not to think about anything at all. He didn't look up until he felt Keira's weight on the edge of the bed and her hand on his back, rubbing a small circle with her palm.

"You don't have to go through this by yourself, you know," she said. "You have Dax and me and Sig and Ashelin . . . we're here for you. You saved the world. At least three times. I think we're a little indebted to you, huh?"

Jak glanced up at her and tried to smile at her little nudge towards humor. She was trying, dammit, which was more than what he was doing, sitting around and moping like a sick crocodog. In case her words weren't helping, Jak supposed, Keira curled up into his side and wrapped her arms around him. He held on to her. It was an anchor sort of pose. Despite the proximity and the position, it was also very chaste. Samos would have cabbits if he were to try anything on her, having even gone so far as to book separate rooms. (Jak couldn't so much as order pizza, not after the first disaster.)

But remnants of his Sandover upbringing still lingered and he agreed, sort of. Keira seemed indifferent to that particular aspect, for the most part, and when he was going about his daily life, he didn't care. It was the little part in the back of his mind that said but it might help that frustrated him.

Keira leaned further and pressed her lip softly on his cheek, twice, to make sure of something. He didn't know what. When she was sure, she broke away and stood up, making a beeline for the hotel com. She glanced over her shoulder at him, smiling like he should smile too. "Do you want to eat? We don't have to go anywhere, I can just call roomservice."

She was doing him a favor by asking questions he could answer without thought. "Sure," he said, thinking about the two discs. Jak liked not being hungry. Hunger decreased response time and made you unready for things. He was going to have to face them and the message and whatever it meant and it would be nice to be ready for it.

It would be nice indeed. He tuned out as Keira talked to the person on the other end—audio only. She knew what he liked, since it hadn't changed over the years and he tuned out. The chips, those two little discs were basically what he had been looking for, right? Nice, cold-cut information on the royal family. Stuff he couldn't find in the deleted or lost files of Haven City, that not even Vin seemed to be able to track. But it was from Rayn and he trusted her as far as he could throw her father.

"Twenty minutes," Keira said to him, leaning up against the comstand.

"Huh?"

"It'll take twenty minutes to come up," Keira repeated.

"Oh."

"Jak?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't have to . . . well, I saw the chip, um, the one with your . . . the message on it and it's really old. Five, six years isn't enough to be outdated completely, but that isn't from the market from five years ago. It's specialized. Military. I don't think any old place would have the equipment now to run the whole thing," Keira said. He was surprised that she could tell from just looking, but Keira'd always been good with this sort of thing. The disc just looked funny to him. It was difficult for Jak to read her expression, but he could ferret out her meaning.

You don't have to think about this now. You can put it off and occupy your time with this necessary function. Thank the furry little screwball Precursors for Keira; she always had something for him to do.

"Where do you think . . . ?" he asked, shifting his weight on the bed.

"Maybe Vin would have something," Keira said thoughtfully. "But if not, Ashelin probably knows where there'd be discarded equipment and there's always an old chip-player floating in junk yards. The other one is newer, though."

Jak was silent. He focused on a point three feet from Keira's shoes.

"I have my portable with me," Keira said, half-quietly. That was right. Keira liked dramas and mechanic shows. She had the entire four-season set of Haven City Chopper. And the flight to Kras City was long and boring.

Jak looked for a moment like he might crumple his head into his hands again and flounder in his fears and indecision. He did not. That was not like him. Jak's expression turned stony, like he was preparing to take the brunt of—of—a shock wave or a Metalhead claw. This, this indecisiveness, was not him.

"Bring it to me."

Keira disappeared for a moment, out of the room and across the hall. She returned with her portable player, a flat pink rectangle with a blue screen and five major buttons at the bottom. Jak gave her the newer chip and she sat down close to him as she inserted the disc.

A hologram popped up immediately and blinded them as a woman's voice played on the recording. Keira tossed the player gently on the ground and a full-scale projection of Rayn began to pace as she talked.

"—ak, I know that I . . . ah, well, I betrayed you," Rayn's hologram said. Keira leaned down and rewound the recording. "Please forgive me, Jak. I know that I . . . ah, well, I betrayed you and your friends. Believe me, I did think of you as friends while the season was on."

"Yeah, right," Jak muttered. He reached to turn it off, but Keira stayed his hand and looked at him meaningfully. Let's hear what she has to say.

"I don't expect that you'll forgive me so easily," Rayn's image continued. "I deeply thank you for not shutting this off, if you've gotten this far. Jak, I want to make it up to you and everyone else—but you especially. I know that Keira won't be so glad to hear this, but I always liked you, Jak."

Jak glanced at Keira, who was in fact scowling. She made no move to shut off the player, though, and he continued to listen. Grudgingly.

"I like to think I can emphasize with you. I . . . I decided to help you. One of my spies has reported that you are looking for information on the elusive Queen Gaea of Haven City," Rayn's face looked truthful, sad, repentant. Jak wasn't fooled. He knew exactly how good an actress she could be. "My search yielded fruit. It took me a lot of time and quite a bit of money, but it was worth it. There's an old temple in the northern wastelands that a dig team discovered and excavated. During the deposition, the Queen apparently took refuge there. The archaeologists can't get past the interior doors; there's a sort of eco-lock placed on it. But according to your mother, there is a way."

A familiar touch of excitement peppered her voice. Jak frowned even harder. He didn't know if that was good or bad.

"But only you can do it, Jak. If you accept, send a letter to the address under the file, 'Triger and Luna' that reads 'yes.' They'll contact you. If not . . . I'll be sorely disappointed if your answer is no, or nothing at all, but such is life. And business," Rayn sighed in her recording, her shoulders sagging visibly. Her enthusiasm had not altogether faded, however. She looked up, as it to some distant light. "This isn't business, Jak. I am truly, sincerely trying to atone for myself. I hope that one day, we'll be able to trust one another. With any luck, we'll see each other in person, soon. I await your decision."

Rayn's image clicked off, and the screen began to display a stream of letters and options. Jak leaned to pick up the player and read the first column. It was a list of tabloid articles. To the side, a diary of Count Nialty. Newsvids predating the deposition. There was an option to play Rayn's message again. Jak selected it and set down the player. He and Keira watched it two more times before room service delivered and then they went through the rest of the information as they ate. There was too much to go through all in one night, but Jak wouldn't stop.

Keira nodded off around midnight, and Jak took a break to carry her gently to her room and situate her accordingly. She had been pretty good about this whole thing, Jak thought as he kissed her. He took the player with him, where he spent the rest of the night going through the tabloid vids and reports. The last one was the only one with a photoimage.

It was four in the morning and Jak's eyes were beginning to weaken, but he narrowed all of his remaining focus onto the indistinct figure in the image. It was the distant silhouette of a woman carrying something, on a high, cordoned off deck somewhere in old Haven City. The picture was fuzzy, it was in poor light, but Jak could see that she had long hair and a willowy form. Her head was bent as thought she were intent gazing at the thing in her arms.

Jak awoke hours later, at noon. Keira had prevented anyone from disturbing him, even though they'd missed their return flight. Oh well, Keira said. It's not like you don't have clout or cash enough in Kras City to get much coveted seats on another one, Mr. Retired Racing Champ.

..0..

She got the call fifteen minutes after their departure, her associates—her more covert associates—instructed to keep an eye on Jak and his little greaseball girlfriend. She sighed and tugged at a curl of her hair. Usually, it was elaborately done up in some fashionable manner. Rayn had trained from a young age to wear her hair in the High Krasian style, ostentatiously curled, wrought or braided and pulled over the wooden dome of her hairpiece. Instead of a pillow, she slept on a block that supported her neck and back masterfully, every day except Saturday. On Sunday, she had a new hairstyle arranged.

It showed class. It showed money. The more glamorous and ornate, the better it was. If you had the time to torture yourself into elegance, you were very, very rich and very, very affluent.

And she was. Rayn didn't waste a word on the associate. She sent a buzz to affirm that she had received his call and shut the little portable com off and tossed it on her beautifully carved desk. Rayn kicked up her sore feet on the real wood. Ah, killer heels. Another mark of the fabulously wealthy. She had the money to pamper her feet but rarely the time. All of that time was spent twisting Mizo's old lackeys' arms into obeying her instead.

If only she was a man. Father was hardly intimidating on his own, although he had been a Krimzon Guard captain many a year ago, and yet the mobs of Haven City had willingly bent their knee to him. Not so much to her. She was a woman, the simple truth of it was. Despite how much Ashelin despised her, Rayn felt a certain kinship to the governor. Women had to show power, they had to dress, act, and breathe the roles. In Ashelin's case, it was tough talk and tougher action. In hers—simple, serpentine beauty.

Today was Saturday. It was eight at night. There was nothing beautiful about her right now, her curiously colored hair in loose disarray. It fanned everywhere and pooled on her silk bathrobe. Rayn hadn't cut it since she was ten She'd skipped last Saturday's "business recovery" and she was making up for it with lazy decadence plus a box of chocolate. Crime was tough work, even though it was hardly crime anymore. Mizo, as it turned out, owned maybe half the police force through a bribery and blackmail combo.

Sometimes Rayn had an escort brought in and allowed herself to be entertained in that way. She had two or three favorites that came in from her particular agency, plus free reign to select one of the new ones before anyone else, but she was in the mood for blonds and there were no good ones to be had. Ah, well. They couldn't all be Jaks.

Or princes. Lost princes. Years too old to be those lost princes. She flipped through the copy of the files she'd collected on a player in its stand; haha, so she'd lied a bit to Jak. It wasn't like she was sharing this information. Rayn considered it his fault anyway. He'd piqued her interest. Not many men did that, so she looked into him. As it turned out, there was information by the teaspoons. She had acquired everything she knew in small mouthfuls and some of it went down badly.

There was no birth certificate for anyone by his name, no real one, at least. Ashelin had had a phony one backdated for him and that rat. There was something called Dark Warrior that he'd been involved in; most of that had been inaccessible until she'd found her witnesses, one of the scientists who had a hand in the construction and a monk that had performed spiritual necessities for the defunct Krimzon Guard. And then the time machine—ha!—had been a mystery until she'd found one of the little greaseball's old coworkers, a mechanic that now worked in Kras, fixing the racing cars up off season and then an expert in Precurian technology to match the description against.

It'd been hellish to puzzle together. Jak certainly led an interesting life.

Rayn popped a chocolate into her mouth and silently cursed as it turned out to be caramel. She hated caramel. The next was nougat and that was acceptable. Idly, she surveyed her dimly lit office. The windows were tinted to opacity. She could see out, but no one could see in. All of her furniture was real wood and feather stuffing and satin and velvet. She liked real things. It showed money and taste. Boors had to be shown sophistication at every angle or else they didn't get that she was better than them. Everything was draped in cool olive greens and mosses and golds, her favorite colors. Why not? Mizo's old office had been ugly and garish.

The com shivered on the desk, clattering noisily as it vibrated. Saturday she let her hair down. Only. It wasn't like crime stopped because it was Saturday.

Rayn picked up the com and clicked it to talk.

"What is it?" she asked, swiveling her desk chair idly.

"It's me," the voice on the other side said, hazardously sharp. He sounded like he was driving, from the engine noise in the background. "I'm at the airtrain."

Rayn rolled her eyes. "You can't be waiting for instructions. Follow them to Haven." She had to listen very carefully to understand him over the com. There were subcultures of Kras City that spoke almost entirely different languages, resulting in the myriad of accents that she encountered daily as people tried to speak one collective language.

Almost to prove her point, he mumbled something in that bizarre South Loading Docks lingo to a passenger; a high, sleepy, indiscernible voice responded. Rayn smiled. He had brought himself a living, breathing white flag, as ordered. What a good soldier.

"Alright," he said. He sounded agitated. He probably was, since he hated working for her. Like many people, he had to be blackmailed to take orders from his old boss's deposer.

He should take it as a compliment, Rayn thought to herself often. She didn't bother blackmailing worthless upstart peons. She had them shot.

"I only want you to report," she told him firmly and clearly, playing with a long strand of blue lilac colored hair. "Do not engage them unless it is unavoidable. Any of them."

A thought struck her as she popped in another chocolate and spoke around the bulk. If she kept this up, she'd be a match for dear old daddy. "By the way, how's the kid, Rollo?"

"She's fine," her grudging associate snapped. His accent only got worse when he was angry. "Don't you dare call me that."

"Very well," Rayn conceded. It would do her no good to prod him too much. She softened her voice and allowed herself to sound a little more like a woman and less like an androgynous shadow. "I'll restrain myself. Good luck, Razer."

He was muttering to himself still when she clicked off the com, but she could tell that her concession had taken an effect. Rayn leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Father had told her never to lose her head over a man. Well, fuck that, father.

There wasn't enough left of father to roll in his grave, anyway.