Jalena had snuck out before, and she knew she had to do it during the nightly news, where she knew they'd already be on another topic that was more related to pop culture than the war. The thought made her angry—she knew that there was so much going on in the galaxy that she didn't know, but couldn't because no sources were reporting on them.

She swung out onto the tree branch nimbly, and walked to Undia's house. She'd done her fair share of troublemaking before, but never breaking and entering. She knew that Undia had less experience than her, and this did not soothe her worries.

Undia was better prepared than Jalena thought; as Jalena walked up to Undia's house, she was sliding down the rain drain and onto the ground.

"Glad to see you got past your parents." Jalena laughed.

"Yeah, I was apprehensive about sneaking out, but they don't watch for me to get out." Undia said.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" they asked at the same time. The two laughed quietly and started down the road, how they'd normally go to school. It felt easier as they got farther from their houses and onto the quiet dirt-beaten path.

"Jalena…I'm sorry about Fives. It's pretty bad to just get to know someone and then they die. If you need to talk, you know I'm your best friend, right?"

Jalena nodded and sighed, "Yeah. Look, let's just get this break-in under way. Duasque and Fechno are supposed to be there already."

They walked briskly to the school and tried the janitors' door. Sure enough, it was open. They tiptoed carefully, trying to avoid the cameras until they got to the office.

"Oh, you two did show up after all. Fechno sort of knows technology, so he's sifting through the footage, trying to find your little incident with Clinee." Duasque said.

The three girls watched him as he went through the day and finally paused at the start of the altercation.

"About time." he muttered.

"Quick question. What are we supposed to do with this? The headmaster's going to know that we broke in if we suddenly present this footage to him." Undia asked.

Duasque chuckled quietly. "This isn't for the headmaster. I may have lied about that part. You don't appeal to the authority—you appeal to the people who get in your way. We've got some blackmail for Clinee coming up: blackmail that we'll release if he fucks up again."

Jalena and Undia slowly nodded at each other and Jalena grinned. "I like the way she thinks."

"Yeah, pretty clever." Undia replied tightly.

They watched as Fechno took that video and put it on his thumb drive. He looked through other footage slowly as the others stood watch.

"So, Duasque, I've heard you want to become a bounty hunter. Are the rumors true?" Undia asked.

"Yeah. There's holonet forums that are full of kids like me, who want to become bounty hunters. I see the lifestyle, I see the money, and I want it. The bounty hunters…they're surprisingly unsupportive. I used to think it's because they didn't want competition, but a few of them did a live webchat with some of us in the forum. They see newbies like us getting killed all the time, who don't know how to shoot, who can't be a bounty hunter. They don't want us to be like them because the lifestyle sucks."

"Why do you still want to be a bounty hunter?" Undia asked.

"You don't understand. I was really out of shape before this. I was lazy, my social life took a nosedive, and I didn't want to do anything. There were days were I couldn't make it off the bed. There still are days like that, but there are less of them now. When I heard about bounty hunting, killing the scum of the galaxy for a living, it got me moving again, eating again. I know that lifestyle is shit, killing people, but it has to be better than lying around on the couch, not knowing if I'll survive until the next week or not."

"Did you start taking meds for that?" Undia asked.

"Yeah, that too, but even with the meds, nothing motivated me. I still felt numb, but it felt like I was a droid, walking around and completing daily tasks. When I found out about bounty hunting, I felt more alive than I ever had."

Undia shot Jalena a look, and was disturbed to find her nodding.

"Yeah. I wasn't as bad as you, but nothing really interested me until I found out about the GAR. I hope that you find more drives."

Nobody said anything for a while after that. Undia tried to understand the other two, and Jalena and Duasque self-reflected while Fechno pulled up the last video.

"Let's get out. It's almost three, and if we don't get out before the cleaning droids come in, we're all dead."

The four escaped the premises together, and Duasque and Fechno assured Jalena and Undia that they would take care of the blackmailing.

Thank you guys for waiting for me to update. I haven't been good at it and this story was not speaking to me. However, I had gotten this far and I did have the end in mind, so I decided to write it out for you so you and I both could have a conclusion. There's an epilogue after this, which will be uploaded at the same time. Again, thank you. It means a lot to me.