Disclaimer: Horst and Karina characters are based on the concept by E. F. Russel. All other characters belong to Sunrise.

The nature of the new hunter's power itself didn't shock Sakaki all that much. He had witnessed enough manifestations of craft to be able to believe in existence of any kind of power one could possibly imagine, and making Doujima kiss him in front of entire STN-J wasn't all that unbelievable. It was the kiss itself that caught the young hunter completely off guard. It took him about two seconds to understand that he was actually enjoying it, and two more to figure out that it had become uncomfortably quiet in the room... unless you could count Michael's surprised whistle... and the gnashing of Kosaka's teeth, as it turned out that the director was there as well.

Eventually, Doujima became the first one to react to the situation.

"Oh my God! What am I doing!" She yelled, pulling away from the man she had been embracing just a moment ago. "And... what were YOU doing, Sakaki?"

"Wha... I haven't done anything!" Sakaki protested.

"Exactly!"

"But what was I supposed to..." He suddenly discovered that the situation wasn't that easy to explain. Even to himself. "I didn't... I mean, I couldn't... I mean, you've jumped me like..."

"What the hell is going on here!" Kosaka's voice boomed, and, for the first time, Sakaki was really glad to hear it.

"Just showing my powers to my partner," Kaider explained calmly.

"Very well," Kosaka said, obviously deciding not to spoil the newcomer's first day by yelling at him. "But please, try to restrain yourself from turning this place into more of a circus than it already is."

With that, Kosaka retreated, muttering about Doujima (no doubt, it's all her fault) already spoiling the newcomer.

"Actually, I also have some other abilities," Kaider noticed, unimpressed by the warning. "Are you willing to see more demonstrations?"

Doujima startled.

"Never thought I'd ever say this but I'm afraid I agree with the director," she said quickly. Then she went to her desk, not looking at Sakaki... or anyone else.

Michael came to Sakaki, who was still standing there with a clueless look on his face, and touched his elbow to attract attention.

"Did she use her tongue?"

Doujima looked up from her desk. She couldn't hear what Michael was saying, but Sakaki's "none of your business" yell could be heard quite clearly. No doubt Michael asked something kinky. She tried to concentrate once again on the files on her desk, but couldn't stop thinking of how cute Sakaki was when he blushed and that she should've kept kissing him just a little bit longer.

The only way to enter the three-storied building was to go through the main lounge and past the retinal scanner, supervised by two guards who knew a little more than the one at the gates about what they were guarding. One of them was watching Raymond walk up to the scanner without the usual morning greeting, or any other sort of reaction to the outside world at all.

"You ok, sir?" He asked just in case.

"Huh?" The scientist snapped to reality, then scratched his head. "Err... yeah, I guess... Just... going to work..."

'Hmm... Was it something out there that shocked him,' the guard wondered. He walked to the entrance door, which was made entirely from glass. Outside, he saw a young woman, who was just standing there with a thoughtful face. He opened the door and leaned out.

"Can I help you, Miss?"

"Oh, I'm just looking for my car. Forgot where I have left it," she said guiltily.

"Oh, I see."

He returned inside and entered the booth where his partner was having his breakfast.

"Replace me at the scanner for five minutes, ok?"

"Can it wait till I finish breakfast?"

"Look, there's a gal out there who can't find her car," the first guard said, giving his friend a wink. "I'm sure she needs help."

"Peters, wait," his partner called out as the first guard was already heading to the glass doors. "Why is she looking for her car, the workday is only beginning?"

That caused Peters to slow down a little.

"Night shift?" He suggested.

"Then you would've seen her leave the building before, you idiot!"

"Well, why guess if I can ask her... what the!"

First of all, Peters thought it was something wrong with the glass, steamed up or something... He rushed to the doors and opened them, then ran outside. The facility had been totally surrounded by heavy, sticky fog, which blocked out the sunlight completely and prevented him from seen anything further than several yards away.

"Miss? Are you there?"

Then, in the middle of this almost palpable substance he saw a shadowy figure take off and soar upward. That made him blink several times, until he heard another guard's voice from behind.

"Damn, never seen such mist in my life! And I don't recall the forecast mentioning that either... You ok, man?"

"Probably seeing things," Peters shook his head and hurried back inside before getting all wet in this fog.

"This is our Master, his coffee is the best in entire Japan," Doujima introduced cheerfully. "Master, this is Horst Kaider, my new partner."

"Ah, the replacement," Master nodded. He did not bow or shake hands, as he was busy serving their lunch. "I'm always glad to see a new face here. Where are you from?"

"I'm from Germany. And I must say that if this tastes as good as it looks and smells, you'll be seeing me quite often here," Kaider promised.

"I'm paying for this one," Doujima said as Master retired. "First meal must be free on the new place."

"Oh, thank you. Looks like you're not mad at me for showing off earlier today?"

"Well, I was at first, but no longer," she smiled. "I asked for it myself, after all. But tell me, how difficult is it to make one do something like this?"

"It was even easier than I expected in your case. Probably because you were actually willing to do what you did."

Doujima almost choked on the food upon hearing that.

"Guess I'd better change subject if I want you to live through this lunch," Kaider noticed anxiously.

"You have a power to control people's minds," Doujima became serious. "No wonder Solomon forbids you to talk about it."

"It has its limits, in fact. For example, I cannot overpower primal instincts, like survival. Therefore, I cannot order a person to die."

They ate in silence for a while.

"I hope you're a good driver," Kaider said suddenly.

"What? Oh, I forgot you don't have a car yet. So, like it or not, you'll have to rely on me to drive you around." She giggled. "By the way, has the boss told you already where you're going to stay?

"I believed he's said something about Amon's apartment."

"Good. I know the place. I'll drive you there in the evening."

"Thanks. I definitely like it here."

The girl landed on the rooftop, where the mist was a little thinner, and approached the door leading inside. It was protected by a usual mechanical lock - no one expected the intruders to come this way. She stood near the door for several seconds with a concentrated look on her face until the lock clicked open. It took her several minutes to navigate the attic, and no one paid her any attention when she had emerged in a well-lit corridor with multiple doors on both sides. She took one direction at random and walked, pretending to be familiar with the place. Right now, she needed more information to proceed, and so she concentrated on listening to people's words. And, more importantly, to people's thoughts.

'...fire me? Ha, I'm too valuable for...'

'...when will they ever learn to make something resembling decent coffee here...'

'...is a cutie. Isn't that our chief's daughter? Or, hmm...'

'...and then he told me that the guys downstairs are going to be really grateful! I mean, didn't even mention raise or something! Grateful, my a...'

'...look at all that fog. I hope they aren't testing some bioweapons here...'

'...Rob told me that the main part of the facility is actually underground. I wonder what those guys are doing down there, must be pretty serious stuff...'

Bingo, she thought. Next was a security guard hanging around with nothing to do.

'Why is she looking at me like that? Ooh, I think she is into me!'

You're not my type, she thought, but I'm quite into the building scheme you have fresh in your mind.

She reached the stairs at the end of the corridor, descended to the ground floor and, after several twists and turns, stopped in the elevator-filled lobby, equipped with turnstiles, metal detectors and armed, though polite, guards.

She made a show of clapping herself on her jeans' pockets, then turned around rapidly and started walking away.

Due to time of the day, people were mostly heading in the opposite direction, and she was inspecting everyone she passed.

'Hmm, lets see... not you, you neither, not... great, you'll do,' she concluded, and a magnetic keycard "accidentally" slipped out of the unlucky victim's pocket right into her hand. Making sure no one was around to notice her little trick, the intruder once again headed towards the elevators. She passed the man that was perplexedly checking his pockets and inserted the card into the turnslip's slot. Guard's monitor immediately showed the photo of the card's actual owner, but the man who was supposed to make sure that the picture had matched reality had spilled his coffee all over himself half a second ago and failed to pay attention to anything but his own pants.

Next, the metal detector. Reaching into her jeans' pocket, she showed a whistle-shaped "flash" data storage device to another guard, passing through without much trouble. Then, a long ride in the elevator, and there it was - a huge maze of corridors, numerous doors and some very busy people scurrying about, rarely giving a second look to the casually-dressed girl.

It took her about half an hour to find the right person - a thin, bearded man with disheveled hair, wearing glasses.

"Excuse me," she addressed him. "All of a sudden I have forgotten the administrator's password."

"Err... Do I know you?" The bearded man she was talking to absolutely didn't have the intention to give her the password, but it had appeared in his mind when mentioned regardless.

"Oh, I remembered! 'Eminence', right? Well, thanks a lot," she smiled reassuringly and moved off. System administrator thought of it a little, then dismissed it. Whoever she was, she knew the password, and that meant she had been cleared for it, right?

A guy in the monitoring room winced as the signal from one of the security cameras turned to static and pressed a button to summon a repairman. There were only eight screens cycling through the images from over forty cameras, and he couldn't yet know that another three cameras in the same area went offline as well.

It took her only five minutes to find an unused terminal in an empty room, log in using the password learned earlier, and copy the entire content of 'STN-J' directory to her flash device. The surprise came the moment she had detached the data-filled flash from the terminal. Obviously, there had been some sort of virtual booby-trap to protect the secret information from unauthorized copying, and now the siren was wailing, the door of the room she was in locked itself and numerous security personnel was vectored her way. The girl did nothing, just cursed briefly and closed her eyes. She stayed frozen even when the sounds of numerous heavy footsteps could be heard. And then...

In the maintenance room fifty yards away, a knife-switch shifted itself into the "off" position, immediately cutting off power to both lights and door locks. By the time the guards took out their flashlights and got their bearings, the room was already empty.

The escape part turned out to be a breeze. A monitor at the turnstiles once again showed a face not quite matching her own, but the guard had been busy arguing with the card's actual owner and hadn't even required additional distractions. She made her way back to the rooftop, which was still immersed in the fog, and jumped down, slowing her fall at the last possible moment. Then she proceeded to the high voltage fence surrounding the complex, jumped over it swiftly and headed towards the road.

"Pull over, Vincent," Juliano asked his driver, noticing a girl waving down on the side of the road.

"Thanks a lot, Father," she said, getting into the limo. "I thought I'd never find a way out of this fog."

"What's a lady like you doing in the middle of nowhere?" Juliano asked as the car started moving.

"Oh, I live in a village not far from here. Now trying to hitchhike it to the airport."

"Airport?"

"Yeah, I'm going to Japan today."

"You sure travel light..."

"All my things are in the airport storage."

"I see. I've been to Japan myself several times. Vincent, let's get the lady to the airport."

"Oh, you're so kind, Father..."

"Colegui. Juliano Colegui."

"And I'm Karina Weber. Pleased to meet you."

"So, anyone expecting you in Japan, Miss Weber?"

"One... friend of mine has recently moved there. He doesn't know I'm coming, though."