Garrett returned to his apartment with his license and set out refilling the empty clips for his Kalashnikov with fresh rounds. The next day, Jackie had to return to the guild to continue her course. She was good with firearms, but she was training with blades now instead, which she had little previous experience with. Garrett, however, went to the guild to see if he could get work. He was told that every hunter could get a steady job providing weapons and other items collected on the surface to the shops. They wouldn't get a large income per item, but Garrett had seen how many of the boxes were down there, and he had even seen weapons and items left behind as the corpses of enemies decayed. Cole had explained that this was due to misguided radio waves from the Pioneer One computer system. Garrett knew that this would be a secondary focus, since he could get other specific jobs from other customers who wished to go to the surface or to get something from there.
Garrett asked if there were any jobs he could get, and the receptionist handed him an electronic screen similar to a tablet PC. It displayed several names of customers across the screen, and what they were paying. Garrett chose the top one, which was a client named Serge. The screen then loaded more information about the mission. Serge wanted to go find his son who had not returned from a visit to the surface and was willing to pay five hundred meseta for it. The next mission down the list was the same thing, but for a different customer and a different price. There were several things like this, so Garrett assumed that things were difficult on the surface. However, he found a different mission. This one was by a scientist to get a sampling of the native wildlife. There was also another mission to go look for signs of what happened on the surface. Garrett chose the mission by the scientist to since it was different from all of the other quests.
The receptionist called up the scientist, whose name was Montague. She spoke for less than a minute and then told Garrett that he would be able to wait in the reception area for Montague to arrive. After waiting for nearly half an hour, a force walked through the door and to the receptionist. The receptionist then told Garrett that his client had arrived.
"Hello. I am Montague."
"The name's Garrett, pleasure."
"What is it that you want me to do?"
"I want you to take this sensor unit."
Montague handed a small red box to Garrett.
"What does this do?"
"You attach it to your weapon, anywhere on it."
"How is it supposed to collect data?"
"It's a chemical sensor. It'll let me have the chemical and biological structure of the creatures on Ragol."
"It makes enough sense. But how will it prevent from getting the chemicals from my body?"
"This is programmed so it won't detect chemicals in the human or newman body."
"Well, that might be a problem."
"Why?"
"I came from a different planet. Through some time warp a ship from four thousand years in the future, which is this time, crashed on my planet three thousand years before I was born. So I'm essentially from one thousand years in the past."
"Let's see if it will detect anything from you. Turn it on."
Garrett hit the power switch on the side of the box.
"It isn't indicating that it is taking in any chemicals, so you're fine."
"Will it be affected by burning gunpowder?"
"You are not using photon weapons? Interesting."
"I find that my assault rifle that is really from one thousand years ago is much more effective in its method of damage than the photon weapons."
"I will have to see this rifle one of these days. Perhaps I can learn from it."
Garrett left the room, shutting off the box and putting it into his inventory. He went through the teleporter and down to the forest. There he quickly climbed on top of the divider between two areas. The electrical field kept any of the beasts from climbing the divider themselves. Garrett took out his Kalashnikov and attached the small box under the muzzle. It magnetically clipped to the gun. Garrett then jumped down and quickly disposed of two waves of boomas in the area he had come in through. He glanced at the sensor and noticed that it had recorded information on two beasts. Garrett checked the boxes in the room for items that could be sold to the hunters' shops.
Garrett headed into the next room and several dogs turned towards him to attack. Garrett quickly fired two shots into one's head and it fell over, dead. He then noticed that the remaining four dogs were going around him in each direction. The dogs would be on all sides in a few moments. Garrett switched to full automatic fire and spun around, spraying a dozen shots across two beasts. Before he could take out a fresh clip he heard one of the dogs jump, and he dropped to the ground as the dog flew over him. Garrett ejected the empty clip from his gun and quickly swapped it for a fresh one from his ammo box. He rolled out of the way as the other dog crashed down where he had been, and he chambered a round and fired a few shots into the two dogs. One of the dogs left behind a saber upon its death, so Garrett picked this up and put it into his inventory with the rest of the things he took from this room.
Garrett continued through the remaining divided rooms in the forest. He picked up as many items as he could in the armor he had, and then he picked up a second piece of armor he found and filled that partially with items and slung it over his back. He then returned through the teleporter, an hour after he had left. Before he returned to Montague, he went to the items shop and walked up to one of the counters. He sold almost every one of the items he had found, including the handgun which he had been given in the hunter's course. He kept a few of the healing items he had found and one of the sabers. After selling the items, Garrett returned to the Hunter's Guild and found Montague still there.
"It took you long enough!"
"Hey, I need to support myself by picking up and selling items I find too."
"I've seen all of those weapons."
"I would let you borrow this if I knew how long you needed it for."
"I would only need this for a few minutes. I have equipment in my lab that functions in the same way as the armor you have does, but when it rebuilds the items it rebuilds them with new atoms and molecules. Heh. The government doesn't want me having that since they think I might mass dupe something good, but most hunters are just grunts that want to use old technology. And you can't forget that the government is also keeping watch on my lab. They'll arrest me if they see me coming out with a lot of weapons."
"Do you want to do this now?"
"Sure, give me a few minutes."
Garrett showed Montague the function of the rifle and how the clips and ammunition worked. Montague left and half an hour later he returned with Garrett's original Kalashnikov. Garrett took it back and stored it.
"I like you. I'll have to let you know when I need any help down on the surface again."