7:57 PM

Jane ran.

She hadn't taken off at her full speed when departing from Rook's side, but the tone of his voice on the radio convinced her to turn it up.

The charred grounds of the crash site flashed by beneath her feet, and she kept her eyes sharp for trees and wandering agents. It had taken many years of live training to develop her reflexes to the point where she could consistently see objects in time to dodge them.

Even so, she passed by several agents closely enough that the turbulent air she displaced knocked them right on their asses.

Normally she couldn't hear surrounding sounds very well over the roar of air by her ears, but she clearly hear the hot-blooded commander because of the volume of his voice.

"GO THE FUCK AROUND!" Rook spoke to her from the radio at her hip. "YOU'LL KICK THE VIRUS ALL OVER THE PLACE!"

She quickly understood and altered her course to take her slightly east, which would give her the added benefit of intercepting the assailant sooner. She ground to a halt, checking her surroundings. A trail of broken twigs and heavy footprints caught her eye, and she smiled to herself. Hot on the thug's trail, she broke into a sprint. A mere second later, she caught him.

He never had a chance.

Darklight had spun around at the sound, and was facing Jane when she bore down on him. His hands curled into fists, and his eyes went black as he invoked his power, preparing to create a tiny singularity around himself that would engulf all the light in the area and throw his pursuer into complete darkness. He wasn't fast enough.

Jane never bothered to alter her course or even check her speed, but drove straight at him and throwing up a forearm as she drew near.

Her flying elbow met him squarely in the sternum, gripping his entire upper body with pain as each and every rib shattered. Jane's velocity transferred to him by the impact, Darklight was sent flying—

—and met a low, thick tree branch with his spine. The tree swayed back and groaned as he smashed into it and folded backwards around the branch. Jane planted her feet to the earth and slid to a stop, staring at her enemy, his back hopelessly broken, his face contorted in a silenced scream as his corpse hit the ground.

8:02 PM

"It was Darklight, all right," Jane scowled. "And he had these on him."

Well insulated in a padded plastic case on his person, two spare glass vials of white powder had survived Jane's onslaught. She handed these off to Rook, who inspected them closely.

"I bet you anything this is mushroom stamp," Rook growled, "but we'll take Eyeknow back to base and see if he develops those symptoms. I guess we know who the culprit is now."

"How would Tostig have been able to engineer a disease?" Farceur said. "As I understand it, he's a crime lord, not a virologist."

"He's got money--lots of it," Havok spoke up. "Who knows who he's been able to hire. I wonder why he'd target the Rook Squad, though. I thought he had issues with the Council."

Rook was not paying attention--he was gazing down at the discovery that had caused Eyeknow to wander off in the first place. The dirt and surrounding low foliage at their feet were caked in a dark, reddish-black substance that formed a trail directly west. Rook crouched and touched a blade of grass. The substance was still wet--viscuous and oily.

"... Hydraulic fluid," he muttered. "Call off the search. Round up the IIs and IIIs. Load up the Eistensturm and prep it for launch. Quarantine Eyeknow in the very back. When I return, we are heading back to base."

Farceur nodded and departed to relay his command. Rook started walking along the fluid trail, Havok and Jane behind him.

8:10 PM

The three of them stood at the side of a road that cut a curved path north-south through the forest. The blood-like trail ended abruptly at the asphalt.

"Great, now what?" Jane sighed. "We're back where we started, following the road. But which way did the Unit go?"

"North," Havok growled.

"Excuse me?"

"Use your eyes," the ninja said, stepping out onto the street and pointing down. "The trail ends here, on the east side of the road. That means she got into the right side of a car heading north."

"If the Unit had hitchhiked south," Jane said slowly as the realization came to her, "the trail would go all the way across the road as she got into a car on the other side." She understood. If the trail had stopped in the center of the road, that would have implied that she could have gotten into the left rear seat of a car going either direction, and that would not have helped them. But this discovery did.

8:21 PM

All heads turned to face the front of the Eistensturm when Rook stepped on board and whistled. He spoke loudly, even though he had no background chatter to compete with.

"We are returning to base now, but we've found a lead and I want to follow it immediately. It's getting dark, so I want Unspun to stay here and investigate--she's the strongest at night. Jude, you'll go with her to extract information from anyone you see. AdrenaLyn, you too. For transport and firepower. I'll lead you back to the trail we found, and then we'll be out of here."

The three women stood and nodded to acknowledge their orders.

2:03 AM, March 30th, 2008

Another damn late night, HrlyQnn thought bitterly as she staggered down the ramp of her jet and made her way back to her quarters. She hoped the search team would take quite a while to find any evidence of the Darkling Unit, because she knew it would be her duty to fly all the way the hell back out there again to pick them up and transport them back to base.

A buzzing sound broke her out of her thoughts, and she turned her head sleepily as she walked down the hall. Behind her, heading briskly for the elevator to return to the room he'd been given, HavokChylde pulled his vibrating cell phone off of his belt. She watched him with mild interest as Jane Deere hurried to join him.

Havok mouthed something as he glanced down at his phone and then back to Jane. From Hrly's guess, it looked like he said BRiT, or possibly shit. Hrly lost interest as the elevator slid closed, and retreated into her quarters for the night.

Sure they were alone, Havok flipped open his phone. He waited through the brief static noise that indicated the cell signal was being encrypted.

"Yeah, boss."

"Report," came BRiT's characteristically curt voice.

"A few solid leads were found. A trail of hydraulic fluid has told us that the Unit did, in fact, survive the crash, though it was injured, and we know which direction it went. We were also attacked--by Darklight, a Tostig affiliate. We believe he has infected Agent Eyeknow, RS Class II. Jane dispatched Darklight and recovered evidence from his body."

"A productive day indeed. Are you alone?"

"Just Jane and me, in the elevator. No, Agent Draygoon isn't around. He stayed in the war room with the Commander when the rest of us headed for the barracks."

"Alright. I will have MaxPower relay this information back to Mr. Moguera."

"It fucking pisses me off that that little prick's got you by the balls," Havok spat before he could contain himself.

"We all feel the same. Trust me, once the Unit is secure and in the Rook Squad's hands, we will quite enjoy settling with Giygax Corporation without that leverage hanging over our heads."

"I wanna be there to see it when that scumbag gets his."

"Wouldn't dream of excluding either of you." A click. BRiT had hung up. Havok stuck the phone back on its clip and repeated BRiT's words to Jane.

"I can't wait to see the look on old Moguera's face when we stick it to him after the evidence is gone and he's got nothing on us," she smiled. At that, the elevator stopped, opening the door to herald their private guest floor. They bid each other goodnight and closed themselves into their separate bedrooms.