Songs: Lucette - Muddy Water; Kari Kimmel - Black

"I suppose it is very different. If you're in good standing with the party, you definitely do have advantages. It makes life much easier." Anouk said, wrapping up her explanation of some stuff that had happened yesterday. We were on our way to the sawmill, since most people seemed more concerned about the disappearances happening there. We had figured it would probably be easiest to investigate that area, since it also had more recent disappearances.

"Isn't that a little unfair?" Brick wanted to know. Anouk sighed and glanced down at her ECHO recorder before covering it up with one hand.

"Maybe. It is, to be honest. But then again, no system is perfect. And I prefer this over some tyranny similar to Hyperion or something." Anouk said in a hushed tone. Mordecai raised an eyebrow.

"I never said that, by the way. Everything here is absolutely perfect, for all you know, alright?" she then added and took her hand off the ECHO.

"Of course. No reason to suspect anything else." Mordecai replied.

"Things here do seem very fair, not gonna lie." I agreed. I wasn't even lying. A lot of the things here seemed to be fair - workloads, pay, prices, access to education, healthcare, transportation, and so on. But as Anouk said, nothing was perfect. Keeping quiet about the imperfections of the government on Aeres seemed to be the price one had to pay to live a comfortable life here.

"Well, it is what it is. Most people arrange themselves with it. Just like you arrange yourselves with the bandits and all." Anouk answered and shrugged. Okay, that was a fair point. Plus, we all knew that Handsome Jack would slaughter anyone who wasn't absolutely obedient to his every whim.

"So what do you think all those disappearances are about? Sounds strange that they would happen in an area that is so frequented by people." Mordecai asked, changing the topic. Probably for the best, since Anouk didn't want to get into some complicated political intrigue or something.

"It is weird that there are attacks at such a strategically important point. Like, aren't most people working at the sawmill? I'd almost say it sounds like some sort of intimidation." I replied. Anouk nodded, her face looking very pensive. She clearly had a theory on what was going on.

"Yeah, it's like someone's trying to get these people to relocate." Brick mused. I looked down at Tina.

"Any ideas, Tina?"

"Well, if there's something eating villagers on the one end and something else eating villagers on the other end then it seems there aren't many places they can go. They're surrounded." she stated matter-of-factly. That… was pretty smart. I hadn't even thought of that, but she was absolutely right. If they were to move on from that area, they couldn't really go anywhere else.

"Exactly what I am thinking. The first disappearances in the other part of town are due to some sort of monster. I think that theory that some animal that should have been long extinct is living there has some truth to it. But these new disappearances? It's something else and I think it's the loyalists. They might be trying to intimidate the villagers, so they'll have a better time taking over the town." Anouk said after hearing all our thoughts. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing. I had never seen her be this strategic and methodical about something.

"Okay, so what's your plan of action?" I wanted to know.

"We're going to carefully check the areas surrounding the sawmill. It's a lot of ground to cover, so we'll be splitting up for that. I reckon the loyalists have set up camp somewhere outside town, not too far from the sawmill. That's where they are keeping all the people they have kidnapped. That is, if they're still alive." Anouk explained. If they're still alive?I had just assumed that they would be dead.

"Why would they keep them alive?" Mordecai asked.

"I'm not sure. This is just a gut feeling, but since it's a lot of vulnerable people disappearing recently, I'd assume they might be keeping them as hostages. In case they attack and it ends up dragging on for longer, they have hostages to turn the situation in their favour. Or they might use the hostages to get out of being captured if things go badly for them." Anouk said.

"So we're freeing the hostages?" Brick wanted to know. Anouk sighed and shook her head. She seemed almost unsure of how to answer that.

"I don't know. If we're freeing them then not today. We need to get an overview of the situation. Where is the camp, where are they keeping hostages, what condition do the hostages appear to be in, how many are there, what kind of weapons do they have, how many guards are there, what kind of shifts are they in, how are they organized and so on. We need to find out all that and then we can make a plan. We'll either free the hostages in secret and attack the very next morning, before they get the chance to launch a full-scale attack on us first, or we attack and free the hostages during the attack. It all really depends. That second plan might be a bit more risky, but we possibly won't have another choice. It all depends on what we find out today." she answered. I gave her a long look. I wish I had had the ability to think things through like that when I was her age.

"Oh, dayum! Is that the sawmill? It's huge!" Tina suddenly exclaimed and pointed at something in the distance. I turned in the direction she was pointing at and saw a bunch of massive chimneys blowing smoke into the air. They were all attached to one giant building that looked more like a bunch of storage halls stacked together. It looked like a rather old-fashioned building, but was impressive nonetheless.

"Yup, that's the one." Anouk replied. Tina looked at it with big eyes, as if she had never seen a building before.

"Oh my God, oh my God, it's so cool!" Tina exclaimed and excitedly jumped up and down. Anouk raised an eyebrow.

"Tina, it's literally just an industrial building." she replied.

"Not too many big buildings on Pandora. I guess she's not used to seeing such massive industrial buildings." Mordecai said.

"Calm down, Tina, I know it's cool. We can probably look at it later." Brick tried to calm her down.

"Yeah, definitely. Once we've taken down whatever causes those disappearances. First we need to find out what's happening here, though." Anouk said and looked around the area, before glancing down at her ECHOmap.

"Alright, I said I'd meet up with Pavel here in five minutes… How about I send you locations to your map and you go and check out those places? As in, Brick and Tina can team up and Nova and Mordecai. I'll check the third area with Pavel once he gets here." she suggested to us.

"Sounds good." I answered with a nod.

"Cool. We all should stay in constant contact over the ECHO. We don't have any idea what's actually out there. Be extremely careful and aware of your surroundings at all times. If you see anything that seems at all suspicious, let me know, okay?" Anouk said to us. Mordecai nodded.

"So, basically the squad competition, but in real life. Got it." Mordecai replied. At the same time we heard a loud caw above our heads and saw Talon flying over our heads. Today was the first day that she was able to fly outside again, since we had to transport her in her cage this whole time. She seemed happy out to stretch her wings again, but I was glad to see that she had an eye on us all this time.

"Good. I'm sending the locations to your ECHO now." Anouk replied. There was a beep coming from Brick's ECHO. He looked down at his map and nodded to himself, as if he was making sure he knew what direction to go.

"Alright, got it. Let's head out, Tina." he said. Tina jumped up excitedly again and followed Brick. It was around then that Mordecai and I got our location as well. This was it. After such a long time, we'd finally have something to do again. Something we were actually used to and good at.

"Okay, we're good to go, too. Take care of yourself, Anouk. Don't do anything stupid." I told her. She laughed it off.

"I would never, mum."

"Okay, that just made me feel about 20 years older. Let's not go there." I said and laughed, as Mordecai and I walked off. I only half-admitted it there, but I was really worried about anything happening to Anouk. It was weird that I suddenly got so worried, now that I knew her.

"You sure you're good to go?" Mordecai asked me once we had walked for a short while. At this point I just knew he picked up on some small things, like some of my more subtle mood changes. I wasn't surprised he asked me that.

"I don't know. I should be fine, but then again, we didn't have much practice lately, like, not even on Pandora. And then this is a whole new place…" I replied.

"Artemis was a whole new place, too."

"Yeah, but it was different. With Artemis I somewhat knew what I was supposed to expect. Plus, you knew your way around Artemis. This is different. I mean, yeah, we have Anouk with us, but it all still feels really different."

"I get what you mean. We'll be fine, though. This is just like any other thing we've done. Doesn't matter if it's Pandora or Artemis or Aeres. Vault Hunting is Vault Hunting." Mordecai said to me and gave me an encouraging smile.

"Well, I also haven't been Vault Hunting much. It still feels weird, calling myself a Vault Hunter." I replied. Mordecai laughed and shook his head, as if he couldn't believe that I still hadn't gotten used to it.

"You treat being a Vault Hunter, as if it's some sort of badge of honour. Nova, the biggest scumbags call themselves Vault Hunters. It's not like it's an official term or something." he said.

"Yes, yes, I know all that. Still feels weird. I suppose I'll get used to it over time. Might feel different about it all once we got this Vault Key piece. I mean I'd feel like I had actually achieved something then, you know?" I answered. Mordecai shrugged.

"Sure. If you say so. You achieved a lot already, though, I hope you know that."

Before I could reply to that, our ECHOs beeped. I raised an eyebrow at the ECHO device and then looked up at Mordecai. Did something go wrong this early on? Or was it maybe some good news?

"I think we found them." Brick's voice came from the ECHO. Huh. That was fast. I sure hoped he and Tina didn't do anything stupid. Like the kind of thing him and Tina would do.