It was late at night, and Torn was back in his office again, distractedly trying to get on with his paperwork, but he had not got very far. Speculations about the origins of that mysterious signal were growing inside his head, and the longer they stayed there, the more attention they consumed. Without the answers, he could not let it be. What had made that noise on the scanner? Had there been anyone there when it had happened? Why had they never picked up anything like that before? Where did it come from? And where had it gone now?
Too many questions.
Ashelin's words about it still reverberated around in his mind, and the possibility of it bringing more trouble was something he did not want to accept, not right after the end of the war. All he and everyone else wanted now was to settle down and live the peaceful existence that they had never been granted. But Ashelin did make a valid point, and it was worth preparing for whatever this unknown signal might present, even if it did end up being nothing at all.
He had already checked the guard records, and as expected, found that all personnel who had been on duty at the time the signal appeared had been stationed at their posts and performing their duties as they should have been. No aircraft had even left the hangar on that day either, except for his own when he had travelled down to the Power Room.
The mystery only deepened when Ashelin had contacted him again earlier today, with word from the Wastelanders of Spargus. Sig, the king himself, had personally confirmed that none of his men had made any far journeys outside of either city in the past few days, therefore this signal had nothing to do with them. Vin had come up with nothing new either, and nor had he detected anything remotely similar since, assuring that if it had appeared again, he would have picked it up.
Torn tried to stay rational and calm as he leaned against his desk, now completely abandoning the rest of his paperwork. The two most likely possibilities had been ruled out. He had tried to convince himself that it was nothing important, but as the man in charge of Haven City's defence, he knew he would pay a heavy price if he were wrong, especially if it turned out to be Metal Heads gaining power again. It could not be ignored now. He had promised Ashelin that he would start a proper investigation if nothing new was found by today, and he was a man of his word.
He had his next steps already planned. Tomorrow, after a good rest, he would mobilise an armed scout force to search the area where the sound was detected for any signs of activity. If it did come from another emerging colony of recovering Metal Heads, as was his preferred guess, then they would put a halt to its growth at once, and he could finally be content with himself again knowing that he had quashed another potential invasion before it had started.
His last job of the day was to compile the list of soldiers he would take with him on the mission. He had a few sure choices, and Jak, of course, was top of that list.
"Wait a minute," Torn said to himself, remembering Jak's history. He had affinities with the people of Spargus and had thus spent a good amount of time exploring in the Wasteland. Therefore he would surely know a lot about what lay outside the city. Maybe he would be able to give some clue as to what had caused this. On the other hand, he may just as clueless as the rest of them.
Well, worth a shot, Torn thought, as he reached across his desk for his communicator.
Meanwhile, Jak looked up from the broomstick he was holding. He was inside Daxter's portside pub, The Naughty Ottsel, cleaning up the stray mess that still littered the floor. Crates, bullet casings and discarded papers lay all around, while Daxter reclined lazily on the bar top, a drink in one hand and his other wrapped around Tess, who sat by him with a drink of her own.
The sight of the two of them together still looked odd, Jak thought. Only a month ago, those Precursor ottsels (or whatever they were) had granted Daxter his deepest desire: to own what he called 'a snazzy pair of pants', which he now never took off. They had also transformed Tess into an ottsel as well, completely out of the blue. Though she was still getting used to her new body, she seemed to be adjusting well, thanks in large part to Daxter, who could hardly keep away from her now. Still, he had extra reason to be happy today.
Representatives from the Freedom League had come by earlier and officially returned the building to Daxter, but they had sure left a lot of their junk behind without bothering to clear it up. Daxter thus wasted no time in making Jak the appointed janitor for this evening, while he broke open the first remaining bottle of booze he could find and relaxed on the tabletop with Tess. He was so pleased to have the place back to himself. No soldiers, no explosives, and best of all, no Torn. He had already placed an order for a glowing new figure of himself to be set up outside, as the original had suffered an unfortunate accident and been blown to pieces in the war.
"Hey!" he barked when he noticed Jak had paused in the cleaning. "No slacking!"
"Aren't you going to do some work too?" Jak retorted. "This is your bar, after all!"
"Sheesh, Jak! I've already done my part!" Daxter complained. "What more do you want from me?"
"All you've done is pick up one glass, which you still haven't put away yet, and now you're just sitting around like you own the place."
"Uh, hello? I do own the place," Daxter said patronizingly. "Besides, I'm takin' a break."
"Alright then, smartass, when it's time for my break, you can do some more work. OK?"
"Yeah, whatever!" said Daxter with a dismissive wave of the hand, but he didn't really care.
"Tell me more about your adventures in the Wasteland, Daxter," said Tess with a coo, tickling Daxter under his fuzzy chin.
Jak shook his head with a sigh and reluctantly returned to his sweeping. He knew what was coming next. Daxter was going to ramble on and on about something he had done, embellish it seven ways from Sunday, and claim it all in his name just to impress Tess.
Is this what heroes become when all their work is done? he thought to himself. Just some story to be retold over and over? Oh well. Let Daxter have his fun. That's just what he's like.
Suddenly, his backpack rumbled and his communicator burst out and hovered in front of his face like an oversized insect. He straightened up and paid attention immediately at this familiar occurrence.
"Jak. You there?" said Torn's voice through the object.
"What is it, Torn?" Jak asked, sensing an exciting distraction.
"I need to see you at Freedom HQ, about something important. Get here as soon as you can."
"I'll be right there," replied Jak, and the communicator whisked back inside his backpack. Daxter and Tess had both heard, and now sat there looking at him weirdly.
"What a waste of time!" said Daxter, throwing up both his arms. "He always does that. Why couldn't he just tell you what it is over the communicator, instead of making you go all the way to the other side of the city, just to —"
He suddenly halted mid-rant as he realised what this meant. Jak seemed to realise it too, because he was looking at Daxter with a smug smirk, a smirk that Daxter knew and understood the meaning of all too well. A look of dread appeared on the ottsel's face, and he shook his head with increasing vigour as if he could somehow ward off what he knew was coming next.
"Dax, I'm taking a break. Get to work!" Jak ordered, and then he deposited the broomstick leaning against a nearby table and left the building.
"Noooo!" moaned Daxter loudly. "I hate cleaning up other peoples' mess! Especially when it's in my bar!"
"Don't worry, Daxie, I'll help," said Tess, sliding herself off the counter and onto the floor.
"But this is gonna really suck!" protested Daxter. "Look at the state of this place! It'll take forever!"
"Well then, why don't we make the job a little more interesting?" Tess purred suggestively, and she bent over slowly to pick something up, wiggling her newly-gained tail around in the air.
"Ooooooh!" said Daxter, his ears perking up and a mischievous gleam shining in his eye.
When Jak arrived at Freedom HQ, he parked his zoomer outside and went straight up into Torn's office. There, Torn explained the situation and what was happening at the Power Room, and what he had already found out from his preliminary investigations. Jak was very interested to hear this news.
"I'm leading a team out there tomorrow," Torn explained. "Can I count on you to join us, Jak?"
"Of course," said Jak straight away. If he was honest, he had been rather bored since saving the world (again), sitting at home with little to do but sweep up Daxter's pub. He had broken and re-broken his high scores in the gun course many times already since all the fighting had ended, and now it had become too easy and lost its appeal. But this, however, sounded like a fresh adventure, something new to get to the bottom of.
"Good," said Torn. "In fact, your knowledge of the Wasteland could really help us prepare for this, Jak. Do you have any idea what it might be?"
Jak thought for a moment before voicing his ideas. "Well, the only intelligent life I've ever encountered in the Wasteland are Metal Heads and marauders," he said, "And neither of those are good things."
"Hmm," Torn grunted. "My thoughts exactly. We all know the dangers that Metal Heads pose, but we thought they'd be all gone by now without a leader."
"Never count out a Metal Head," Jak warned. "I've met some pretty tough ones in the Wasteland, you should be thankful they didn't join in the attack on the city. They could probably break down the walls by just walking through them. But there might still be some hanging around. Maybe they've got together to try and repopulate."
"Let's hope not," said Torn, grimacing with disdain. "We've all had enough of Metal Heads to last a lifetime, but at least we know how to fight them. The marauders we have less experience with. What can you tell me about them, Jak?"
"They're a pain in the ass," Jak said immediately, remembering his seemingly never-ending battles with the barbaric desert dwellers. "They patrol the Wasteland day and night, and pick off anything that passes by. I've never known them to come so close to Haven, but they did try to attack Spargus in heavy numbers once. If they're planning on doing something similar to Haven, then we need to get ready for them, Torn. Once they want something, they don't know when to quit."
"OK," said Torn, taking some notes. "Then it could be bad. Thanks for your help, Jak. At least we have some idea now what we could be up against. But Jak, there's… another possibility."
Jak leaned forwards in his seat and listened curiously as Torn continued speaking at a more hushed volume.
"What if it isn't Metal Heads or marauders? This signal was like nothing we've ever encountered before, and Ashelin was particularly worried about it. She's afraid there might be something else out there, something new. If this is the case, then we really don't know what to expect, and it could have huge consequences for Haven if it goes wrong. I want to get your thoughts on this, Jak. Do you know of anything else that could be out there? Anything that might even have survived from your own time?"
This suggestion intrigued Jak, and had him thinking far back to times he had not revisited for quite a while, before being sucked through the time rift that brought him to Haven.
"Lurkers maybe?" he suggested. "They're still around, and they used to be the major threat back when I was a kid."
"Lurkers?" said Torn in surprise. "But they're not dangerous. Everyone in Haven knows that."
"Ah, they're not dangerous now," said Jak, "But you never knew what they used to be like. They were pretty much the equivalent of the Metal Heads for us back then."
"Strange," said Torn ponderingly. "It's hard to imagine them like that. They've always been pretty harmless in Haven."
"I think the Metal Head Wars must have turned them around," Jak rationalised, remembering what the Lurker Brutter had once told him. "United with us against a bigger enemy, I suppose."
"Probably," said Torn with a little relief. "Anyway, they're not hostile today. If it is Lurkers out there, then it's likely nothing for us to worry about."
Jak nodded his agreement, remembering how friendly Brutter had been. He used to run a fish stand in the city bazaar, and had asked for Jak's help on a few occasions to rescue some of his Lurker brethren imprisoned by the Baron. But he had heard nothing of him since the Baron's fall from power. He wondered where he was now...
"The old world must have been quite different to how it is now," Torn ruminated out loud, leaning back in his chair and staring off into space.
"Oh yeah, it was," said Jak nostalgically, leaning back in his chair also. "It's changed a lot. The area around Haven is actually the same place I grew up in the past. You know that old house out in Dead Town? The Sacred Site?"
Torn nodded, remembering when he had sent Jak and Daxter out to that ruined and forgotten portion of the city to defend it from the Metal Heads.
"That was where we lived in the past. But there were no big cities like there are today, only a number of small villages here and there. We all knew each other, and our villages were connected with warp gates that the sages looked after, so we could travel back and forth. We didn't know of any other settlements past ours, and Daxter and I only ever travelled so far."
"But the signal we picked up came from much further away, far beyond the edges of the known vicinity around the city," said Torn, refocussing once more. "Do you think it's possible perhaps that some of the residents from the old world moved on and established a new home further away?"
"Nobody I knew ever went that far when I was still living there," said Jak. "But that doesn't mean it couldn't have happened after we left, does it? You see, we found a room full of Precursor artefacts on top of an ancient Precursor citadel, one of them being a rift gate. When we opened it, Metal Heads swarmed out, and me, Daxter, Keira and Samos all got sucked through. That's how we arrived here in Haven, far in the future. At least I think that's how it happened. It was all kind of fast and unexpected. But maybe some people did escape from the Metal Heads and set up somewhere else, but I don't know for sure."
He reminisced about all the great and good people from his village. He had never learned what had happened to them, and they, likewise, probably never found out what had happened to their sage on the day they all disappeared through the rift gate either. They would have been right in the path of the Metal Heads as they came swarming out, and would have had to face them alone. Jak sadly accepted the very likely fact that they were the first casualties of the long Metal Head Wars. But had any of the people he knew escaped and founded a safe place somewhere else?
"But what about Haven?" Jak asked Torn. "I still have no idea how our tiny village grew into such a huge city."
"OK, well, the story goes that Mar built Haven City here as a last refuge against the Metal Heads," Torn explained. "Somehow he was able to hold them back long enough to get the shield walls up, and all the people who followed him ran inside. Back then, everyone believed that they were the only survivors left from the war. People were afraid to ever leave the safety of the walls, because back then, as far as everyone knew, there were only Metal Head armies out there, and nothing else. All the neighbouring settlements fell, and Haven was the last."
"But what about Spargus?" asked Jak. "That just goes to show that Haven wasn't the only one left, and we didn't even know about it until recently."
"I know," said Torn, remembering the desert town of outcasts. "They did well to keep themselves a secret from the Baron. But they've already told us they weren't the cause of the signal we picked up."
"Well then," said Jak, "How about this: if somewhere like Spargus can exist without Haven knowing about it for so long, why not somewhere else too?"
That was a big question, and Torn realised the perfect plausibility of it. After all, nobody had ever really confirmed that Haven really was the last survivor from the Metal Head Wars; they had never had the chance to go out there and check... until now.
"I mean, Mar must have had enough people following him to establish a whole city like this," Jak went on, "And there were never enough of us in our villages for that. They must have come from somewhere, so there had to be other settlements in other parts of the world that all came together to start Haven. Keira worked that out in her research. Maybe it is possible that in all the fighting, some survivors did manage to get away and build up somewhere else. If that's true though, I'm afraid I can't tell you who they might be. This is further away than I've ever travelled before, and a lot can change over hundreds of years."
"Wow," Torn said finally. "I hadn't thought of that. If you're right, Jak, it could rewrite the history books. This could be big."
There was a moment's silence as they each took in their shared knowledge they had pieced together, and the implications that it held. Just what would they find out there tomorrow?
"Well, thank you, Jak," said Torn at last. "Your information's been really insightful."
"Any time," replied Jak. "So what's the plan for tomorrow then?"
"I'm going to round up a team of scouts, and fly them out to the location where the sound came from," Torn explained, bringing his thoughts back to what presently needed to be done. "I'll let Ashelin know as well. Make sure you're ready by morning."
"Right," said Jak. "I'll be there."
"Get some sleep. We'll all need to be as alert as we can possibly be for whatever we may encounter tomorrow."
"I will, thanks Torn," said Jak, before leaving the office and returning back to his vehicle.
He was both anxious and excited for the mission ahead. At last, here was something to alleviate his boredom, and possibly also answer some vital questions he still had about the past. He could not wait to get started.
When he stepped outside the front door of the HQ Building, standing in its bright light, he looked around and let out a sigh. His breath rolled out of him as a cloud, for the chill of approaching winter was building in the air, but this was not what had made him sigh. Why was it that whenever he parked a vehicle somewhere, it had always been moved by the time he returned to it? It was quite the unexplained nuisance. Regardless, he walked around until he found another, and then drove it back through the bright streets of Haven, all the way back to the port.
When he returned, he parked his vehicle outside the pub door, fully expecting to be gone again by the time he returned to it tomorrow, but he put that out of his mind for now, because before he opened the door, he could hear some very strange noises coming from the inside. What was going on now?
He entered the building, pushing the door open cautiously. Unsurprisingly, it was still a mess of papers, overturned chairs and military equipment. Daxter and Tess had obviously achieved very little cleaning while he had been gone, but neither of them could be seen. The strange noises continued, however, emanating from somewhere near the back of the room.
Jak walked quietly and carefully over to the bar table, being sure not to tread on anything that might give away his presence. The noises became louder as he drew nearer to the back, and then as he arrived at the bar table, he could definitely identify Daxter's voice mingled in among them, making all sorts of incomprehensible murmurings.
"Daxter!" Jak shouted, aiming to surprise, and very quickly slammed his hands down on the table and thrust his head over the top to see down the other side. But he nearly drew back again at what he saw: Daxter was staring up at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, with Tess lying beneath him. All of their clothes were off, scattered in crumpled piles all around them, and they both looked very ruffled and sweaty.
For several seconds, nobody in the room knew what to say or do, until Jak shook his head slowly, chuckled to himself and said, "I should never have left you two alone, should I?"
Together, slowly and silently, the two ottsels shook their heads in response to Jak's remark. Daxter's lip trembled in an attempt to speak, but the words never came out.
"Get to sleep," said Jak. "Forget the cleaning for now. We've got a bigger task to do tomorrow, and you'll need your energy for it. And put your clothes back on, for God's sake!"
With that, he walked away into the next room and prepared himself for the night, leaving the two breathless ottsels behind to recuperate and awkwardly pull themselves back together... or apart, whatever they had to do.