So I just watched The Last Duel and holy crap that is a really good movie. Gut-wrenching story with definitely one of, if not the most, intense fight scenes I've ever seen in a movie. Huge recommend.

Jaune recalled his orders from Omsk. Stay in the crate, in the room, making no commotion whatsoever. Do nothing, get shipped off to Vacuo. That was the goal: be utterly inconspicuous.

"It is with great pride that I present Streetlamp Salad the key to the city of Boggindorf!" said a spindly but exuberant old woman. She held up a six-inch-long gilded key. She made a great display of handing it to Jaune while lights from the sole photographer's snapping camera light up their faces.

The crowd cheered. They stood behind a podium on a stage outside of Boggindorf's city hall. Before them was the city square with the petite little fountain in the middle. The entire town had churned out, and now their applause, whistles, whoops and hollers filled the early morning air.

Within twenty-four hours, the city council had convened, unanimously voted to give Jaune the honor of the key to the city and planned this event. He had asked what, exactly, having the key to the city meant. They had informed him that he could now apply for any permit from the city free of charge.

Thanks, I guess?

"Damn red tape will add up costs," Mulligan had told him gruffly, with frustration in his voice that told Jaune he spoke from experience. "Just trying to get a stall for the farmer's market costs a hundred lien to apply!"

Jaune supposed that if he ever wanted to sell his local produce from eight am to five pm every Sunday in the town square, then the key to the city would be quite useful indeed.

The real value for him was symbolic. The entire town had gathered to thank him. He had been swamped by grateful citizens wishing him well ever since he got off the beach. It felt good.

Taking the golden key made him smile. It all felt good. He felt good. This was what he wanted to do.

He wiped away the mounting tears in his eyes with the back of his sleeve. He held the key against his chest, savoring the warm and comforting feeling it seemed to radiate.

A series of flashes accompanied by the loud snapping of a camera's shutters reminded him of the situation he was in. He looked over at the sole person in the crowd with a professional camera—a woman who proudly occupied the spot of Boggindorf's premier (and only) reporter. She was not the only one. He looked over the crowd and became horribly aware of all the scrolls people held up, their cameras facing him for videos and pictures.

He gulped nervously.

He knew that he was not being a good spy.

But if that was the cost of being a good hero, then maybe it was worth it.

Watts now felt good enough to walk just about normally, no longer feeling the pain so much as stiffness in his back. The doctors would be discharging him the next day. All was going well, and he had begun to think that the report he had submitted to Ironwood would be the extend of how much he was interrogated.

"A pleasure to talk with you," Agent Sundown said with a big smile that showed all his bleach-white teeth. When he smiled it especially accentuated how tight his skin was across his face, like freshly skinned leather stretched out over a drum. Watts wondered how many times he had gotten plastic surgery. For a man in his business, the operation was probably routine.

The two men sat across from each other at a small table which had been dragged into Watts's room. He still wore the pajama-like robe and slippers combo. (He had actually decided to look into buying pajamas like this once he got back home.) Sundown had set a bulky old cassette recorder on the table between them, which now whirred and listened.

"Well, I was wondering when a man from AIS would come." AIS, pronounced as "ace." The Atlas Intelligence Service Pietro had warned him about. The old man had mentioned Sundown specifically as a person to beware.

"Just a few questions," Sundown said with a smile. "Don't think of this as an interrogation." The look in his eyes said that Watts should definitely think of this as an interrogation.

"Well," Watts said cautiously, "I'm happy to help with the investigation." He idly pinched one end of his mustache.

"Of course. Firstly, I would just like to express my gratitude for how hard you tried to stop Tyrian."

"Ah yes—"

"And I think it's quite lucky you're alive."

Watts brought his hand down and crossed them over his chest. "I believe you can thank the stellar doctors here for that. The poison—"

"Venom," Sundown corrected.

"Yes, venom, wasn't high enough a dosage to be lethal. He subdued me and left with the crate."

"Good thing he didn't do a quick little"– Sundown jabbed his hand down –"cut at you while he was on the floor. Pretty lucky, right?"

"I don't know, they shot up the plane after he got out," Watts said with a scowl. "I'm lucky, yes, because they were in a rush. At least, I suppose they were. He dispatched everyone and got out quickly, then brought us down."

"Yes, I suppose he was in a rush." Sundown nodded. "Lucky for you."

"So I'm a suspect too, I see." Watts scowled. "You really think I would get myself poisoned—or injected with venom—in an effort to get my life's work stolen and jeopardize my entire career?"

Watts blinked. Now that he said it out loud, it really did sound like a pretty stupid thing to do.

"People do all sorts of stupid things for stupid reasons," Sundown said with shrug. "It's nothing personal. In this sort of situation, everyone is a suspect."

"Well don't be wasting your time with me."

"Just being thorough," Sundown said with a polite—and infuriating—smile. "But still, you are a lucky guy to survive an encounter with Tyrian Callows. He was already on the Red List, but this has bumped him up a bit."

"The Red List?" Watts asked, suddenly feeling as if a cold breeze had just passed right through him. "It's real, then?"

Sundown shot him another smile, the smile of someone who had just teased an inside joke to a person who wasn't in on it. "Or does it?"

Watts grumbled.

"Funny enough," Sundown said, "aside from the charges for murder and terrorism, do you know what Tyrian's biggest outstanding offense is?"

"Public nudity? He seems like the sort of vagrant to do that."

"No, actually, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he did. In reality, he still hasn't paid the outstanding loans amounting to a hundred-thousand lien for his time at Mistral University."

"That man went to Mistral U?"

"Go eagles," Sundown said, bringing his hands together and moving them like flapping wings. "He was pre-med, so honestly can't blame him for losing his mind."

Watts frowned deeply. "Yes. Doctoral paths can be… frustrating."

"Definitely, that's why I ruled out a Ph.D. pretty quickly," Sundown said with a laugh. "Although I can still relate, having been a STEM major myself."

"Really, what did you study?"

"Political Science."

"Oh, nonsense!" Watts said, looking as if Sundown had just spat in his face. "Political science. Go back to reading your thousand-year-old books about who should be president."

Sundown chuckled. "I always like to say that to the real STEM people; the reactions are great."

"Hmph, you definitely know how to badger someone."

"Playfully, I assure you."

"Of course."

"Of course," Sundown repeated. He pulled a sheaf of papers out from a briefcase. "Let's circle around to the subject of our caper, Unit D-252, the Deceiver." He placed a paper before Watts. On it was a picture of the Deceiver with a big, somewhat forced smile that obviously had been produced when the photographers said: Say cheese!

"Leif Blarson," Sundown said. "The 'real' name that you all gave him. My first questions is… Blarson?"

"Blar means blue in an ancient language," Watts answered. "We're just abiding by the color naming rule."

"The color what rule?"

"You haven't heard?" Watts raised an eyebrow. "It's—" He cut himself off with a scowl. "Are you playing with me again?"

"Am I?"

"Anyway, it abides by the color rule. It's also a reference to Leif Erikson; that allusion to Scandinavia also plays into Atlas's general 'Northland' theme."

Sundown squinted in genuine confusion. "Who's Leif Erikson and what's Scandinavia?"

"Anyway," Watts said, "I came up with the name largely on a whim. That's how it is."

"And you didn't keep him as just the Deceiver?"

"Pietro insisted that he have a 'real' name," Watts said with a roll of the eyes. "He named Penny, then insisted I do the same when I made my version."

"Why not name it Leif Watts?" Sundown asked. He took out a pen, clicked it and started jotting down notes on a clear piece of paper. "After all, Pietro gave Penny his last name."

Watts scoffed. "Because (unlike my esteemed colleague) I never bought into the idea that making something made me its father."

"But you gave Leif a piece of your own aura to jumpstart him. That's a pretty big thing to do."

"Many scientists sacrifice a lot to further their projects. That's how I view it."

"So you don't like Leif much?"

"I never said that," Watts said defensively. "I just don't consider him family. He's a good kid, but he's not my kid." He brushed a hand over his mustache. "I know that disappointed him, but it's the hard truth. I am not the father."

Watts glanced at the television set. It was now off, and he saw his own blurry reflection blearily peering back at him from across the room. Should he do a backflip now to celebrate?

"Right, right," Sundown said. "You moved from the Deceiver to the Pursuer then, yes?"

"Partly," Watts explained. "I still kept running diagnostics and repairs on the Deceiver, but he largely got put under Pietro's purview. I've partnered with Irkutsk on the Pursuer. He handles the tracking technology and hardware while I worked on the cerebral side."

"So does that make the Pursuer and Leif brothers of a sort?"

Watts rolled his eyes and spoke slowly, like he was explaining something to a child. "The Pursuer is intelligent, but it is not sentient. It can think over how to accomplish its tasks. It can learn from experience.

"But it doesn't feel. It doesn't wonder or dream. It can't even really hold a conversation. At best, it responds in monosyllables at points where its programming recognized some response is required. It does not have any capacity for higher thought the way Leif or you or I do."

"Ah, so no plan on giving it some aura too?"

"No," Watts said. "We designed him in part not to work the same way as the other two. Different projects, different goals." He rubbed is chest. "Not to mention it's a rather rough procedure, giving some of your own aura, your own life-energy, to another being like that. Rather invasive.

"At least I finally had a use for getting my aura unlocked." Watts's fists unconsciously tightened.

"I'm in the same boat," Sundown said with an apathetic shrug. "Tried and failed to be a hunter. Went into a different field."

"Really?" Watts realized his mistake a second to late.

A smile crept up Sundown's face. "Maybe?"

"I'm beginning to think you only came here to frustrate me."

"Oh no, of course not," Sundown said. "I'm just here to ask questions and have a chat."

They continued talking for a while. Things were much more laid-back than Watts had imagined. Pietro had characterized Sundown as being a harsh and fearful sort of man, but he seemed congenial enough. Watts got the impression that he had to be interviewed, so Sundown wasn't putting that much effort into their talk.

That's good. It meant he wasn't under suspicion.

"He's definitely under suspicion," Sundown told the other agent as he got back into their car. "Not a lot, but he's not off the hook."

"When something happens to somebody," the other agent said, "always suspect the family."

"Oh he insists that he isn't Leif's father." Sundown looked over his assorted notes as the other agent drove them out the hospital parking and up onto the main street.

"Funny, my dad said something similar," she joked with a grin.

"Ha! Same for me."

"Really?"

"Really." Sundown shook his head and chuckled. "Oh… I laugh, but it's a coping mechanism."

The other agent giggled. "Well, we've got a bit of time to kill before the flight. Where to?"

Ironwood and Pietro conversed over lunch. They chatted and ate cheap vending machine sandwiches in the big conference room that the general seemed to almost live out of these days.

"You still want to enroll her at the academy?" Pietro asked. He dabbed some mustard away from the corner of his mouth with a crumpled-up napkin. "The plan was her, Leif, Ciel and another operative."

"We'll get a second operative," Ironwood said. He washed down his ham sandwiched with a bottle of water. "Ah"– he chucked the bottle across the room and perfectly landed it in a recycling bin –"we shouldn't let all our work go to waste.

"After all, going through the academy and competing in the Vytal Tournament was supposed to be their final test.

"They could have refined their social skills through exposure to others 'their age' in school.

"And they could have proved their fighting abilities before all of Remnant, allowing us to use them in the open." Ironwood balled up a hand into a fist and knocked his knuckles against the table. "And Leif could have travelled around, getting into anywhere we needed—"

"You shouldn't do that," Pietro said sadly.

"Do what?"

"Reduce them to what they're capable of." The father scowled. "You sound more disappointed about losing the Deceiver's abilities than you are about a person, a person we made and raised. He was just as alive as you or me."

Ironwood's eyes became dark. "It's my job to always consider the threats to Atlas as a whole. If a soldier goes missing, we must not consider just his life, but how he could be used by the enemy and what skills and information we lose with him. We need to be cold sometimes."

"I couldn't agree more," Sundown said as he turned his swivel chair around.

"Gah!"

"What?"

The AIS agent smiled. "Surprised?"

"How?" Ironwood was purely incredulous. "How did you get there? We came in here together; I walked past that chair!"

"Is that even physically possible?" Pietro asked, peering at the man. "Do you have some kind of cloaking technology like Leif, or a cloaking semblance?"

Sundown's grin became downright mischevious. "Do I?"

"Ugh…" Ironwood pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why are you here?"

"Just want to fill you in a little," he said. "I'll be heading back to the main android facility soon to snoop around a little more."

"Didn't you already do that?" Pietro asked. "Do you just want to harass my already put-upon staff?"

"I just want to come with a fresh perspective," he said with his plastic smile. "So we can help our little android friend get out of whatever nasty spot he's in."

The sharpened point glistened. The sleek steel tapered out into that menacing tip, ready to stab deep into the target. It glistened dully in the room's dim light. Silence hung heavy, and it was so thick that it almost made Jaune gag. Everyone waiting around him, paralyzed with anxiety, looked intensely and wondered if he could really do it.

He focused on the target. This was it. This was the one. He needed to land this. If he failed, then it was all over. Now or never. He narrowed his eyes. He reared his hand back and threw the projectile forward. It sailed true.

The dart hit the board right in the bullseye.

The bar erupted into cheers. The little dive was packed to the brim, full of people who had come to spend time with Jaune (Streetlamp Salad). Now they jumped and clapped and shouted.

Chad Mulligan slapped Jaune on the shoulder. "One hundred bullseyes in a row!" He raised a fist in the air, and the bar-goers cheered again. Jaune couldn't stop the big stupid smile on his face.

He had gotten roped into this event after Chad Mulligan insisted on buying him a beer from the local pub. (Jaune had politely informed him of his age, nervously hoping he wouldn't have to provide any ID, but the officer laughed and said no one would deny him a drink today.) He politely drank a rather icky-tasting liquid proudly called "local craft." It made him thankful for the pit of acid in his stomach which would destroy the drink quickly.

And then he saw the dartboard, and he tested out his skills by getting as many bullseyes as he could. The bartender proudly proclaimed that he himself had the record at thirty. After Jaune beat that, Mulligan had encouraged him to go all the way for a hundred.

"Hell kid," Mulligan said, "sure you can't stay around and go to Atlas to be a huntsman? Damn sure this country could use ya!"

Jaune smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, but I got to go meet family in Vacuo." He regretfully looked around the bar. He smiled at the others smiling at him and even at the mock head of an ursa mounted above the dart board. "I really would like to spend more time here. It's a nice town."

"Darn right it is," Mulligan said. "Wouldn't trade Boggindorf for any other place in the world. Heh, not even a town with a working lighthouse."

"Oof, sorry again for that."

"Oh not a problem!" Mulligan said with a laugh. "That lighthouse hasn't actually been useful for over a decade. We just turned it on every now and again for fun."

"Hey Streetlamp!" the bartender said as he came up to the pair. "Can you give me a smile?" He excitedly brandished an old camera, that type that printed out the pictures moments after it took them.

"Yeah!" Jaune happily agreed and smiled wide, giving a double thumbs up as he did. He blinked when the bright flash slammed into his eyes.

"Perfect!" The bartender pulled out the photo cheerily and waved it up in the air. "I'll tape this up on the wall! Everybody will know that Streetlamp Salad was here!"

Jaune's smiled twitched. He remembered that he was supposed to be a spy. But hey, one picture on the wall in a bar wasn't that big a deal, right?

"If anything, you did us a favor," Mulligan continued. "A lighthouse that was turned into a weapon to kill a giant Grimm is one damn better story than just your average lighthouse. The council is thinking of turning it into a real tourist attraction.

"They're mulling over a motion right now to fence off the area and keep it preserved, then set up a plaque and everything. They even want a picture of you preserved in glass on the plaque, just so everybody will know that Streetlamp Salad saved Boggindorf!

Jaune's wooden smile twitched again. "Haha. Great."

"And we're keeping a framed picture of you and the mayor with the key up in city hall, a big picture, too! Everybody who walks in will be able to see it!"

"Right."

"And everybody's already posted their videos of you and pictures with you all over social media."

"Fantastic."

"The local news team is even trying to reach out to national news outlets to share the story!"

"Wonderful."

Jaune kept up his beleaguered smile. Nobody noticed the panic in his eyes. He glanced around at all the other faces, all the other witnesses. But they only knew Streetlamp Salad, right? They didn't know what he really looked like or who he was. That was the important thing, right?

Right?

"Not too many hitchhikers anymore," the trucker said. He swallowed down the last of his energy drink, smacked his lips, crumpled up the can and threw it behind his seat. He scratched the spotty stubble on his chin and peered through the wintry night ahead, illuminated by the eighteen-wheeler's bright headlights. "Haven't picked up a fellow in a while."

"Yes." The Pursuer sat in the passenger seat of the rickety truck. It was bundled up in a thick, grey wool jacket, pants, hat and scarf, good for insulating and preserving warmth against the rude cold; also good as a disguise. The pair of old ski goggles helped as well. "Thank you."

Its words were clipped and sounded like they came from an old man. He spoke oddly, sometimes stopping and starting abruptly, like a poorly edited video in which the very last or very first split-second of someone speaking is cut off.

The Pursuer did its best to mimic the old man's voice for its own purposes, knowing that its own clearly robotic tone was unnatural. It was programmed to copy and use others' voices it heard; its own catalogue had been cleared after testing. That meant it needed to start from scratch.

"So you work at the waystation?" the trucker asked. "No problem sir, I'll drop you off and keep on heading out."

"Thank you."

He raised a brow. "You're not a very talkative person, are ya?"

"No." The truck rocked as it rode over a bump in the road. "Sorry."

"Nah it's fine," the trucker said. "I got no problems with them meditative types. Name's George-Michael by the way, like the singer, or that kid in that one show.

"Anyway," he continued, "people just call me GM. What's your name?"

The Pursuer looked out the window; its automated mind had not been given this test before. Then they passed by a big yellow sign with two words on it printed in big black letters.

"Tern."

"Tern? Like turn but with an e?"

"Yes," the Pursuer said. "Tern."

"And what's your last name?"

"Leeft."

"Leeft? Like left but with an extra e?"

"Yes," the Pursuer said. "Leeft."

"Neat name," GM said as he twisted the wheel to accommodate the road which was steadily curving into a broad left turn. "We'll be at the CCTS waystation pretty soon, by the way."

"Good."

They drove through a forest in the middle of nowhere, far away now from the little towns along the big river the Pursuer had used as cover. Here, a few brave roads climbed up through the mountains and the trees.

They passed into a stretch of the road flanked on the right by a sheer rock wall. They continued along that way, the icy stone mere feet to their side, for an hour. GM chatted and spoke about whatever came to mind (his favorite radio stations, his girlfriend and a possible bout of inflation caused by the Atlas Central Bank's recent interest rate changes which could cause his portfolio to fluctuate, etc.).

The Pursuer responded in monosyllables. Yes. No. Good.

"Alrighty," GM said as he slowed the truck to a stop. "This should be it."

To their right was a break in the rock. A sheer staircase had been carved out the stone, all in perfectly straight planes and right angles which denoted creation by high-powered machinery. The tall steps wound up along the mountainside.

"Be careful of the wind while you go up there," GM said. "And I hope they spread salt on those things, or else icy steps are just asking for a lawsuit." He grinned and nudged the Pursuer. "But hey, who ain't looking for a good lawsuit these days? Guy can earn more with one nasty fall than he can driving a truck in a whole year, ha!"

"Yes."

GM gave him one last side look. "Well, quiet pal, hope you have a good night."

"You too." The android stepped out the door and slammed it shut. (The rocked and listed as its exceptional weight left.) It did not look back as it advanced to the stairs. The big truck rattled and growled as the engine whirred up again, then sputtered and continued away on the dark road.

The Pursuer climbed. The stone steps were indeed heavily laden with salt to keep away the ice and provide some traction. Only the wind and the darkness were around to be heard or seen. At least for a while.

After some time, it reached its destination: the Cross Continental Transmit System. A tower shot up into the sky, collecting and transmitting data sent across the continent from the larger towers, all as part of the sophisticated internet network that now connected Remnant. This particular tower provided access to all the scrolls and computers in the remote mountain range.

It could also boost a signal.

Frost clung to the tower's slick steel exterior. It loomed up from the compound, bordered by a high concrete wall topped with barbed wire. A big metal gate kept out interlopers. The primary worry was, of course, Grimm coming around. A few mechanical guards made sure the Grimm had no humans to draw them in and could also fend off any vandals that came along.

The Pursuer marched up from the steps and over the rocky, lifeless soil. A spotlight snapped on and drowned it in light.

"Identify yourself," boomed an automated, synthetic voice over an intercom. "Identify yourself."

The Pursuer did not stop. It stomped right up to the concrete wall, raised a huge fist and delivered a hit as strong as a wrecking ball. It punched straight through the wall.

Red alarm lights flashed on, and a trilling siren played. The Pursuer punched and bashed and smashed until—in mere moments—it crashed straight through the wall and into the compound.

"Lethal force," stated the intercom voice, "will be applied for destroying government property and threatening a critical government service." Two robotic guards flanked the tower entrance. Now they raised their rifles and fired.

The bullets pinged off of the light forcefield that covered the Pursuer. The android locked onto its robotic cousins and shot into a sprint. The robots emptied their magazines, but they didn't stand a chance.

The Pursuer fell upon them and grabbed each one's head in its huge hands. It crushed their metal skulls in a vice-like grip that rivalled the power of a hydraulic press.

The robots' bodies fell to the cold ground and stayed there, inert. Their heads looked like crushed tin cans, as mangled as the energy drink cans that GM had downed back in the truck.

The Pursuer stepped over their bodies, ignoring the alarms, and kicked down the tower door. It walked up to the main console as it took off its hat, scarf and goggles, revealing its metallic head. A plug popped out the side of its head, which it grabbed carefully between gloved thumb and forefinger. It jammed the wire into a terminal port.

Its internal virus programs hacked right through the CCTS station's basic defense. It accessed the signal and used it to boost its own.

The Pursuer took off a glove and raised its right hand. It waved its hand through the air, stopping when a red light flickered on the screen on the back of its hand. A dim red dot confirmed the way.

The southwest. Its target had gone further now and changed course somewhat, but the general direction had been maintained. The Pursuer sorted through the maps and charts it had stored internally and studied the path ahead. Towns and cities there had been somewhat in decline as Atlas the city itself expanded and more and more people moved there. There were still, however, significant docks and cities with ties to oceanic trade along the western coast.

The Pursuer calculated that a likely possibility was that its target sought to leave via one of those ports. It accessed the CCTS and scanned the various towns and docks that its target might use, as well as news pertaining to them. It quickly processed, copied and catalogued the words, towns and locations necessary.

Then it stopped. Its analysis algorithm flagged one news report as potentially more interesting than the others. A town named Boggindorf had been attacked by some significant Grimm. It had been saved by a huntsman named Streetlamp Salad.

The algorithm flagged this name as being highly irregular and possibly fake. (Although it also noted that many hunters had idiosyncratic name.) The algorithm itself did not deduce this, but the Pursuer surmised that it might possibly be a name made up after seeing those things in one's environment.

It knew from experience.

It quickly found many photos of this Streetlamp Salad online. It was certainly a different person from the target it knew. But… the smile looked exactly the same, that awkward and forced smile that came up in a few photos. The height and build were the same as its target. It saw a video recorded of him delivering a spinning roundhouse kick to the delight of an onlooking crowd.

The Pursuer raised a hand and touched the side of its own head, remembering.

Perhaps this Streetlamp Salad was worthy of an interrogation.

Special kudos to anyone who can guess where I got Streetlamp Salad from.

And good to see that the Pursuer is just as creatively stumped as his big bro.

Also kudos to whoever knows what I yoinked chief Chad Mulligan from.