Author's Notes:

I hate author's notes. However, this story needs a real title, still.

I own neither YuYu Hakusho nor Weiss Kruez. Only the plot, narrative, and the occasional, (brief), OC are mine.

Connections

Chapter Three

Ken checked the tape on the cut over his eye again. Thank whoever you liked that Weiss were all good healers. He snorted to himself, as a kid he'd never thought that quick healing would become such a valuable asset. Come to think about it, he actually healed much faster even than he had as a kid. Wasn't that really supposed to slow down once you got through puberty? Maybe it was like anything else, you improved with practice. Another day or two with the tape and that split over his eye would be good and closed. He might even be able to take it off tonight, the associated black eye was already gone. When he was hit by that car at six an almost identical slice on his hip had needed three stitches. Ken chuckled at the memory. He suspected, now, that the some of the stitches had been given by the doctor for the sake of Ken's manly pride. He sighed and gave the spot one last exploratory poke. And leaned back to survey the whole. The mirror was large enough to show his full torso. Looking at his collection of cuts and bruises Ken was just relieved that they'd closed the shop for a "buying trip". He looked like Manchester United and Liverpool had played a grudge match and mistaken him for the ball. Since he'd been there while Omi put Yohji back together after his last fight Ken knew the other Weiss looked no better. If it wasn't for Weiss' superstar recovery ability neither of them would last long enough to get to the targets. They worked their bodies as hard as any professional athlete but didn't get million-dollar medicine backing them up. Too bad the cut probably wasn't going to get the chance to finish closing -he had another fight tomorrow.

He slipped into his jeans and pulled his top on and considered the effect, deciding it was OK. The extra training he was putting in at the behest of his "handler", who thought it was the only training Ken was getting, was starting to show. With the extra hour or more a day on top of the two a day and four twice a week he already put in for Weiss, the bulking-up Ken was getting as a consequence was just short of alarming. He'd expect results like this -maybe, if he was using steroids. Ken was fairly sure he wasn't. After Kase he brought his own water to the workouts and watched it closely, but this was ridiculous. The damn shoulder seam on his shirt was visibly strained. Ken's own training was carefully designed to maximize his force and flexibility while minimizing the appearance of muscles. A florist cover could only explain so much in the way of visible musculature, and 'florist' muscles, even ex-pro-soccer-star florist muscles, were a far cry short of the strength a hand-to-hand killer needed. It was a problem all of Weiss faced, (especially Yohji with his hedonistic life-style and bare-midriff dress sense). Hence Ken's carefully balanced workout. A balance that his handler's clumsy weightlifting regime was blowing all to hell. It was actually beginning to concern Ken not to mention to piss him off. On second thought, could he be sure that asshole wasn't slipping something into the ventilation at the gym? Definitely time to pitch a fit and get his own trainer. Temper tantrums: another similarity he was finding between this underground fight scene and the professional soccer scene.

Yeah, he gave his reflection a determined nod and left the bathroom, heading for Aya's flat. Time for a good, traditional, meditation and such Sensei to shut his stupid "manager" up. Aya would be perfect. And considering the work Aya had already put into prepping two or three possible identities, they could be ready to go in time to introduce him at this afternoon gym session -hopefully the last afternoon gym session. He might have to put up with getting the shit beat out of him on an increasingly frequent basis but he'd be dammed if he'd let them have control of his body too.

---|---

Ken pushed the door open and stepped from the bright, hot, muggy exterior to the air conditioned, muggy, dim, (and cheap) gym interior. His keeper spotted him immediately. "Hey, Ken man, hurry up and get changed!" He gestured to the bag on Ken's shoulder, "We gotta get started! I booked Ryu man, Ryu! And we only have him for an hour..."

Ken rolled his eyes, funny how this jerk was always "us" this and "us" that, when Ken was doing all the work. He interrupted. "That's OK, we won't need him anymore, I brought my old Sensei -he's going to handle my training now." Ken gestured behind, "Meet Master Chen".

Aya stepped from behind Ken, and out of the glare of the doorway, becoming fully visible to the men inside for the first time. Of course this Aya would have passed un-squealed, and un-hugged, if not unnoticed, by the shop girls.

From somewhere, Aya had produced a thin mustache that crossed his upper lip and hung straight down from the corner of his mouth on each side. Several hair extensions and a thorough dye job had hidden his distinctive red mop and produced a long, deeply black, braid that hung just past his waist. He wore a deep brown kimono with a feathery pheasant print in a brilliant emerald green, geta, a purple silk cap with a tassel, sleek black-and-silver wrap-around sunglasses to hide the purple eyes and finished the whole ensemble off with a gnarled walking stick that he carried as if he needed it.

Aya bowed to the room in general. Ken had no idea how he'd pulled it off, but somehow Abyssinian had managed a polite gesture that, while technically perfect; called into question the honor, intelligence and parentage of every man in the room; Ken hoped with himself excepted. Maybe it was something to do with the banker's-son training that was ground into Aya's soul. Ken had always, even at the height of his fame and wealth, considered himself "blue collar". He'd no idea how to go about calling someone the scum of the earth without a word, all the while looking so serene and magnanimous.

The handler and the trainer were clearly at a total loss as to how to deal with it for several silent and heavy seconds; during which Aya waited for them, with obvious tolerant patience, to arrive at some conclusion. Finally Ken's handler shook himself, literally, out of his stupor, and his sense of self preservation started talking. As Ken was his meal ticket, anyone else this close was a threat. "now Ken." The man flipped the lapels on his jacket up and down in his personal nervous figit, "Ryu is the best! I'm sure umm..." he paused as if searching for the name, "Master Chen", he butchered the pronunciation, "is um,... a very spiritual", he made the words ooze with sleaze and sordid implications, "um... Sensei-" again with the sleaze, "but old fashioned techniques can't -"

Aya interrupted coldly, "Hidaka-san has been my student for years, long before your..." Aya flung the accusation of impropriety back, with an almost- imperceptible and elegant twist of his lip, "acquisition. And under my tutelage he has never suffered disability or poor performance. Indeed, had modern science," he loaded the words with scorn, and turned to look pointedly at a nearby sports drink, "left him alone, he would have remained beyond your reach. Ken has assured me of his intent to pursue this course of action. Therefore I will ensure his health and welfare."

The handler blinked, again taken aback, and looked at the trainer as if to say, "are you going to take that?" Ryu gave him a nasty look and shrugged, "If your fighter wants this guy -it's no big thing to me -I can get other jobs,"

"Now wait a minute!" the handler interrupted, "I want the best for my guy! And so does the organization! Weak fighters make for weak fights!" He looked at Ken, "Ken," he stepped over to Ken and put an overly brotherly hand on his shoulder, "I realize that you have good reason to distrust the whole world, including the organization, but believe me -my job is your best interest! You do realize that I get a percentage based on every purse you win? The better you do the better I do! Surely you can trust that, right? And believe me when I say -Ryu's the best of the best! You need a fighter trainer. Not someone with general skills, but someone who can train you for the ring, who knows fighting! Ryu's a retired champion! And however good Chang-san is..." he smiled ingratiatingly at Aya, "he can't beat that!"

"Hun." grunted Ken, "and what if he can? Will you back off and let me have my own choice for trainer? 'Cause I tell you now man, if you won't I'll walk now -and you can find yourself someone else to be your chump." He folded his arms and dug his feet into the floor.

Suddenly the handler was backpedaling, "now, now Ken, lets not be hasty! You're the next tournament champion! I, we, the whole organization just want what's best for you-"

"Stuff it." Ken interrupted, "save the bull-shit for people stupid enough to buy it." He leaned forward, suddenly aggressive and shook his fist in the handler's face. "I know better. I'm only the champion if I win, and that's not decided yet. and it won't ever be if I walk out of here right now and never come back. Don't think I won't. I need that purse, but not enough to let you steamroller me. Understood? yes or no."

"Yes". The man looked positively worried.

Ken nodded, he looked over at Ryu, "you willing to put your fists where his mouth is?" Confused but willing to play along the man shrugged. Ken looked back at his handler "Your whole point is to get me to win right? You like get a big bonus if I make it to the training camp, another if I make it through the semi's, and a huge payoff if I win, right?" His trainer reluctantly nodded. "OK", Ken continued as he walked over to the ring. He tossed his bag and jacket to Aya and bent to undo his sneakers. "This trainer of your's is the best right?" he passed his shoes to Aya who had come to stand beside him and dived under the ropes. He rolled his shoulders "Grab one of the guys on the machines to ref. If your man can put me down or lock me up for at least a five count, best two out of three, I'll do what you want. Otherwise I get Master Chen, no questions, no arguments. Thats my deal. Take it or I just take my ball and go home."

The handler looked like he was swallowing his tongue. Either way he lost. On one hand, let the "talent" start dictating the terms of their own lives and they would keep doing it. On the other hand his own masters had been very pleased with Ken's development so far and he would not fare well to lose him. Finally he through his hands in the air and said, "OK by me." he looked over at Ryu, who shrugged and said, "I haven't had a good fight in a while." and dived under the rope onto the canvas, rolling to the opposite side of the ring from Ken.

---|---

"Ken", Ken put his foot up on the locker room bench to finish tying his shoe and looked over his shoulder at Ryu. Ryu smiled and tapped his chin in the same place he'd left a purpling bruise on Ken, "heh, sorry about that -I do try not to mark up people I'm just sparring with, but you were way to close and I really needed to back you off."

A soft "shhrshh" of closing door marked the departure of the only other person in the locker room; suddenly they were alone. The smile dropped from Ryu's face and he stepped in close to Ken, far too close. Ken wasn't sure why he allowed it, but for some reason he didn't feel threatened, so he waited. "Ken," Ryu began again, almost too softly for Ken to hear. "Your manager is an idiot, but you know that." Ken nodded and Ryu continued. "You know as well as I do that for all the tough guys in that gym today, there were only three truly dangerous men in the building. You, me, and that Chang you were claiming for a trainer." Ken nodded again. "You do realize that I threw that to get you the training you wanted right?" Ken nodded a third time, it had been clear the first hold he broke that Ryu was just testing him. At that point if this hadn't been a mission Ken just might have been willing to train with the man.

Ryu nodded back. "I knew you'd notice. Let me tell you a few other things I know. First I know Chang isn't Chinese -oh, you guys did a good job of implying it -any prejudiced bastard would assume exactly what you want him to assume. Which leads me to the next thing I know; you're being too careful and in fact too damn good, for you to be involved in this underground tournament by accident. I don't know what the two of you are up to but I can tell it's not just chasing a purse, I can also tell you no one's going to find out about it from me. You're the second fighter I've been asked to train for this." He shook his head regretfully, "the last one was a starry eyed kid chasing a good fight and in the end I agreed because I thought my training might keep him alive long enough that I could help him get out of it." He caught Ken's gaze and held it, "It didn't. He died at a level of combat you've already passed. And that brings me to the next thing I know. Something you don't. I don't know what training you hope to get from your friend, I've fought you, so I'm certain that you're both competent -but even though this," he tapped Ken's fist, "is not your weapon. You've gotten almost as good as you can get with it. You're almost ready for more; things my last student here could never have reached." He pulled out a card. "Ken, I don't know why you're involved in this, though I suspect it's something terrible -there is no joy in your sane punches and no sanity in the few that are joyful. I know that combat is not what you first planned for a career. But Ken, you are good. Very good. Very soon Chang's training won't be enough." He tapped Ken's fist with the card. "The time is coming soon when this will burn for something Chang can neither teach you nor help you find. And Ken, the lack of it has driven men mad before. When this fist of your's burns, when you don't know what to do next, call me." He tucked the card between Ken's fingers. "And bring Chang, I don't think he has very long either." With a last comradely punch in the shoulder Ryu walked past Ken and out the locker room door.

---|---

Yuusuke walked in just as Kuwabara finished plugging in the truly big screen; sitting on a vast, black, Ptolemaic, (whatever that was), ebony chest. He shook his head at himself. She might look ancient but in some ways Genkai would never be old. He really didn't know why it would still surprise him that she would have the newest electronics next to antique stuff.

"So," he said, finding a comfortable spot and settling himself as Hiei dropped from the rafters. "what have we got?"

"Less that we would like." answered Kurama

"What does that mean?" asked Hiei.

"It means." said Kuwabara, "That we still don't have any locations but we do have people." Pictures of fighters filled the screen. "Most of these guys have fairly complete dossiers. Addresses, jobs if they have them, standings in the preliminaries; everything."

"The pictures you're seeing now," Kurama took over as Kuwabara started clicking through screens, four portraits to a screen. "Are the current top seats in the preliminary. The next wave sent to the 'training facility' will come from this group. If we follow any of these men they should lead us higher or at least get us the location of that island."

"Wait!" Yuusuke interrupted. "Kuwabara- back up a screen."

Kuwabara looked puzzled but quickly obliged.

"There." pronounced Yuusuke, "Thats the one. That guy on the bottom right. Can you focus on him?"

"Sure" Kuwabara clicked a couple of buttons and the picture filled the screen.

The picture was of a scowling brunette, his smooth fall of shaggy hair trailing in his eyes. The skin of his face was smooth, lacking the scars of violence and the creases of self abuse that characterized so many of the other photos. Until you looked in the eyes. Something had turned those eyes that should have been a warm melting brown into hard, flat agates. Kuwabara's statement of protest died on his lips changing instead into a question. "Do we want just the one then? "

"There's no job or address information on this one." Kurama added.

"Pick someone easier then." Hiei waved a dismissive hand brusquely. "It doesn't really matter which of them we follow."

"No." said Yuusuke flatly. "Pick a second one. Just in case but... ." He shook his head, "I know that face... somewhere. . .." He shook the introspective mood off and continued. "Hiei and I will follow this guy and Kuwabara and Kurama you follow our second guy." Kuwabara nodded absently flipping through portraits.

"Could you be any slower?" Hiei growled.

Kurama and Yuusuke shot him a look.

"I've really focused and improved the ESP in the last couple years shorty." Kuwabara said absently "But it's still not a precision thing." He paused for a few clicks, "I just have to keep going until the right one well... resonates. I won't know until I get to-" he froze. "And there he is. That guy. Me and Kurama should follow him -he won't have address information or work information either. We're going to have to pick them both up wherever they were recruited, these people tend to use the recruitment site as point-of-contact, or after one of their fights. But if Yuusuke and Hiei follow the brunette then Kurama and I follow this blond."

The picture was a full torso where the brunette had been a head shot. It was of a lanky young man with a lazy posture and shoulder length blond hair tied back, escaping strands falling into eyes hidden by sunglasses.

"OK, then we know what we're doing." Said Yuusuke, "oh do these guys have names? "

"Yes." answered Kurama as he handed a picture and page of information to Kuwabara and Yuusuke. "They do. Ours," he nodded to Kuwabara, "Is called Kudo Yohji. And yours," he nodded to Yuusuke, "is named Hidaka Ken."

---|---

Yohji dropped the cigarette he was chewing, sprinted between cars to the bus on the other side of the road, and dived in just as the driver was closing the door. Omi had asked once, pulling things out of his just washed jeans, why he bothered with a mass transit card when he had the super7 racer. If only Omi could see him now. This wouldn't drop his tail for sure, but there was a major stop coming up. Yohji pull his knitted cap, the most fashionable headgear this season, from inside his coat and pulled it over his hair, (just like five or six of the teenagers around him -most of whom exchanged looks of disgust with each other when they thought he wasn't watching). Then he pulled his coat off, rolled it up behind the seat he was sitting in and switched the straps around. When the major stop arrived, two or three dozen people exited the bus in a crowd which was full of tired, slouching, ordinary people with too much luggage and too many packages, but no secret agents or prize fighters.

Kurama and Kuwabara followed the bus almost to the next stop before Kuwabara swore and told Kurama to turn around. Of course by then it was too late.

Ken had the Limo drop him off in front of the apartment building the organization had rented for him. He'd won his last flash-fight that evening and his handler had taken him out to celebrate reaching the "big-time". False dawn would be coming soon and though it was still night-dark outside he could already hear the city's morning wild life waking up. Usually he'd come here, use the bathroom to patch himself up, turn out the lights so the cameras couldn't really follow him, mess up the bed so it would look used in the morning and then crawl out through the bathroom ceiling and go home, where he could dare to sleep, while the timer Omi had put on the shower head ran the water to cover the noise. Unfortunately somebody; short, dark-haired and wearing leather or vinyl, had made four out of seven stops with the party tonight and that was just a few to many for Ken to think it was coincidence. He was being followed, which meant no shut-eye till he lost the tail.

Ken sauntered off down the street, slipping his fighting gloves back on inside his pockets, away from the residential/ retail neighborhood toward an older industrial section of the area. When his handler had first installed him here he'd taken a day's wander to learn the streets for just this kind of situation. He'd flirted with a couple of the local street walkers, hit all the bars, bought something from the most obvious drug dealer, (it has gone straight down the toilet so he still had no real idea what it was), and memorized or re-memorized every corner, streetlight, fire escape, bus, cab, school or business schedule in the neighborhood. This semi-industrial part of the area almost shut down at night -a few late-shift deliveries for the next day, but almost no people, and almost no light. as soon as Ken crossed the street out of the light of the corner's street lamp, he leapt into a sprint. He'd like to meet the yakuza wannabe that could keep this kind of speed up as long as he could.

Faintly behind him he can hear the patter of feet coming closer, not very -but still. They were catching him. Ken leaned forward and put a little more speed on. This section of town had another two or three miles tops. At his best speed he had thirty seconds or so before his muscles started to burn and began to refuse him. He was already driving his breath into a deliberate rhythm. Ten seconds to break away, ten to get clear and ten to lose them. Nine, eight, seven, (faster, faster, faster), veer into the street to get around the steel pick-up box near the corner and immediately pivot back to cut close to the light pole, five seconds to his target corner-

The quarry broke into a flat run and Yuusuke heard Hiei swear into his mind, "He just got his face ground to a pulp, spent several hours drinking like a damn fish and the stupid human thinks he's going to be outrunning me?"

This telepathy stuff still surprised Yuusuke every now and then -but he had to admit it made conversations during a chase much easier. "Yeah, and-" the suspect put on another sudden burst of speed, "so far he's doing it".

Ken leapt the last two steps to the pole without slowing, hoping he was going fast enough he reached his left hand out at the top of the leap and grabbed the pole, swinging his legs up to speed his rotation and then snapping them behind himself to throw his upper body forward to catch with his right hand, if he was going fast enough, the bottom rung of the fire-escape ladder... . Shit! too fast! Way too fast, no time- he'd be past the rung-. Faster than Ken believed it was possible to, his left hand snapped back and grabbed the rung just before he'd gone too far. His abruptly arrested motion yanked hard on his shoulder and he felt the expected burn, though thankfully no accompanying pop, as his body swung back around its new pivot and he immediately started hand-over-hand, no time for feet, up to the roof. Ken flipped himself over the ledge, rolled and came up running. He'd lost his count at "Shit!" so he didn't know how much time he had -better push it and worry about the price later. He hit the far edge of the roof full out and soared across to the next roof, rolled and came up sprinting for home.

Hiei turned the corner the fighter had disappeared around and stopped so abruptly that Yuusuke almost ran into him. "What the hell Hiei!" Yuusuke burst out, and stopped, the alley was empty.

"I've had enough of this shit!" Hiei growled. He flashed to the top of the building, Yuusuke right behind him. Four warehouses away, Yuusuke saw their target clear the gap between buildings again, and keep right on going. No way to chase him now without tipping their hands. Hiei ripped the bandage of his Jagan and popped it open, staring at their quarry. "I've got him marked now, Yuusuke. Doesn't matter where in the Ninjenkai he goes, my Jagan can find him." He shook his head, "I'm embarrassed to be forced to use it to track a human."

"Doesn't exactly run like a human does he?"

Hiei's lips twisted in a sour sneer, "No he doesn't. Humans aren't supposed to be that fast."

Yuusuke gave him an introspective look. "Hiei, you've always had a bad habit of underestimating humans. Me," Hiei snorted and Yuusuke responded, "Hiei I used to be human. And it wasn't just me, it was Genkai, all the territory psychics, and you still underestimate Kuwabara-". Hiei snorted again and Yuusuke grinned, "though that might be for personal reasons." He gestured at the rooftops. "Kuwabara could have made that no problem, and don't forget those human adepts that Ichigaki was controlling in our Dark Tournament. It really shouldn't surprise any of us to find the tournament leaders pushing the definition of "regular human"."

Hiei looked up at Yuusuke. "You've made your point." He jumped back to the ground and waited for Yuusuke to join him, "but keep the details of this little fiasco to yourself, I don't imagine you've any more interest in hearing Kuwabara's poor wit sharpened on us than I do. All anyone needs to know is that we're tracking him with the Jagan. Agreed?'

Yuusuke grinned "Agreed." They turned and strolled back the way they'd come.

Omi growled to himself and threw his stress toy across the room and against the wall, where it left another dent and slid gracelessly down to the floor to leak sand from it's burst seams. "Oh well," Omi thought, scrubbing cramped fingers over his tired blue eyes and up through his messy chestnut hair, "Time for another one. At least it didn't die in vain." He felt much better now. Much less like smashing things. It would have been a shame to demolish this little slice of hacker heaven. Omi considered one of the few perks of his job to be the electronics. He always had the latest stuff, even if it didn't look like the latest stuff. He had dual core portable desktops in laptop cases. He had broadband anywhere there was cell service. There was no heat to his apartment because the server farm hidden in his wall supplied all the heat he'd ever need (and wasn't that hell in the summers). He'd had a T1 or better connection as long as he could remember and a personal back door into every major news, police, finance, research, utility service or university mainframe in the country. And all the free electricity he could ever want to run it -courtesy of those utility service back doors. If the information existed in any electronic format he could have it whether it was on an internet or an intranet, and in minutes or hours mind you, not days. None of which helped the slightest when none of the information he wanted or needed, for either problem, seemed to be stored electronically.

The personal project, which he conducted on "jumper cable" Internet off the neighbor's network using his latest untraceable stolen laptop, he could almost understand being unsuccessful. After all -conduct all the Internet searches you like, and he had, you wouldn't really expect any real sorcerers to be on the digital frontier. The frustrating thing was that he was certain that some of his hits had been successful, but he himself was too ignorant to be able to sift the wheat from the chaff. And the back doors were no better. He'd tried the national news sources -as far back as thirty years on some of them, and the police records and all he'd got for his searches about "pink mist" and "mystic" were seven reports of sakura blooming out-of-season, one incident about a decade ago, and two dozen or so "magical girl" events or nut cases.

His official work, conducted through the desktop on his desk and the server farm in the wall, and half a dozen fake identities on twitter, face-book, cell phone and via email, turned up no better. These illegal fights were arranged these days much like raves or flash crowds. The host would, if they bothered to fix the location up at all, descend on some suitably empty location a few hours before the event, convert the derelict building into their fighting casino, and then have the employees twitter two friends, and they tell to friends, and so on. The party happens, gets cleaned up and gone -start to finish in less than ten hours -long before they police could possibly get authorization to raid it. The fights Ken and Yohji had been involved in so far had run just like this.

Truly wealthy customers, however, might come to the occasional "flash fight" for the thrill, but if they were to be lured back it would require opulence that necessitated permanence. So where the. . . were they?

Omi had reviewed the full intelligence on the last human chess and to judge by the records the local street chatter, electronic and otherwise, should have the underworld buried in gossip about crimelords taking an interest in the sport of kings. The only references Omi could find to tournaments all resolved to be very legitimate sports tournaments of one sort or another. Last time the street had been humming about human chess, the oh-so-illegal concept monitors on the cell systems were pulling hundreds of mentions a day in impromptu codes both clumsy and almost elegant. But now? Omi had deployed his bot army of thousands into the cloud and tapped the cell monitors and had all of Kritiker's on-the-street reports to pick through, and in all of them -nothing. Not one mention of an under ground fight tournament -dark or otherwise. Even the references to purely neighborhood gang confrontations were curiously missing. It was as if these Nigre Decuria knew how they could be tracked, electronically and otherwise, and had not only found a way around it, but swallowed all illegal arranged conflict into themselves and hid it too. Even reports of bar room brawl injuries were down. Omi was certain it was there, but at this rate they were going to have to literally trip over it to find it from the outside.

The possibility that really worried Omi, when he wasted his limited time on it, was that the fights were protected not by high level corruption but by precognition or telepathy like that possessed by Schwartz, (while the the enemy team had disappeared with the Ani museum and never surfaced, surely they were not the only psychics-for-hire in existence), and that the "invitations" were being given at the "right" time for the bots and automated systems to miss.

Unfortunately it looked like Weiss was going to have no choice but to pursue this undercover all the way, and he still lacked a cover. Ken might not be a good long range planner but he was deceptively clever in the short term. That trainer tantrum of his had been perfect to insert Aya.

His stolen laptop beeped and popped his requested list onto the screen. Humm, a dozen names. It looked like Omi would be asking a lot of questions in the near future. He sighed as he noted the time in the bottom of the screen. With the rest of Weiss to deeply buried in Kritiker's mission he was going to have to pursue Weiss' private investigation alone and he'd need to start early tomorrow, or rather early today.

He composed a few lines of report to Manx, telling her of the lack of success electronically tracking Nigre Decuria, and giving her a broad outline of where he planned to be loitering, (Omi what big ears you have), on the street tomorrow; scrambled it, embedded it in a picture of captioned kittens and sent it off to her attached to a cheery email. He shut down his desktop for the night -the server farm would catch any reports from the bots, and printed out the list on his lap top before putting it to bed too. He'd squeeze at least one of these visits in while he was looking for Nigre Decuria or Black Tournament among the gossip of his fellow "teenagers" tomorrow. If the psychic experts wouldn't come to Omi, then Omi must go to the experts. He glanced at the addresses again, he just wished there weren't so many mountains involved. He could get another stress toy tomorrow too -he had the awful feeling he was going to need it.