Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.

~ Scarabian Nights ~

"This is serious Ash. We've got rules here." Ash snorted as he remembered his father's sermon this morning after Guerrero had caught him sneaking out of Shakeema's room.

"They were not made to bug you or push you around, they're meant to protect you. In my line of work retaliation is a very real and constant threat, not only to me but to everyone around me. That includes you! Everybody is working very hard to make this office a place as safe as possible so that we two can be together. Yesterday you put that safety at risk, for no reason at all." Ash kicked a small stone into the track bed. Guerrero had made him confess his transgression all by himself. Talk about humiliation.

"You're not going to watch that ice-hockey game with your team tomorrow afternoon. Training yes, but no sticking around afterwards. You'll head straight back to the office and help Winston with the paperwork." And that had definitely been adding insult to injury. Being punished like a small kid! He kicked another stone into the track bed.

"What is it?", Isamu asked, frowning.

"Nothing."

"You received a penalty for charging twice. And once for cross-checking." Isu loved watching Ash play. Hockey was not his game, he had inherited his father's slender body, on the ice he'd be reduced to a splat within a minute. At Guerrero's advice he was taking karate lessons now, but he had no illusions. When it came down to brute strength, he would always be on the losing side.

"The trick is not to let it come down to brute strength", Guerrero had told him. "Always have a contingency plan."

"Such as?"

"Skills no one thinks you have", Guerrero had told him after the briefest of hesitation, but Isu suspected he had wanted to reply something else. He knew Guerrero was always armed.

Anyway, he loved watching Ash play. The boys from his team already knew him from the time Ash had trained for the tryout and didn't mind him being around. They were all a bit older, it was cool hanging out with them.

Ash didn't reply, but it was obvious he was brooding. Combined with the fact that they hadn't stuck around to watch the game afterwards with the others…

"You broke THE RULES, didn't you?"

Ash raised a questioning eyebrow.

"THE RULES", Isu repeated, obviously surprised that Ash didn't seem to know what he was talking about. "You father is a bodyguard, just like mine was. Don't tell me he didn't set certain rules you MAY NOT BREAK cause it would threaten your life."

From the look on Ash's face Isu could tell he knew what he was talking about.

"One of the rules included that he didn't tell me he was my father. Too dangerous. Mom told me only after he was dead."

Ash stared at his feet for a long moment. "THE RULES suck", he finally said.

"Yeah, they do." Now Isu kicked a stone into the track bed. The Muni train that would bring them back home from Daly City arrived.

"You know what?", Ash suddenly said as they got up to enter. "Paying for that stupid ride sucks, too."

Oh wow, now that gave the usually rather tedious trip home a whole new dimension. Transit fare inspectors checked this route relatively seldom, but they had been asked to show their tickets before.

"I've heard they're doing saturation stings with groups of TFIs and uniformed police downtown", Isu whispered as the doors hissed closed behind them.

"Not that much of a problem", Ash replied dismissively. "They're easy to recognize with their uniforms and all. The plain clothes inspectors are a lot more dangerous to us."

Isu didn't agree. "Plain clothes are usually working in pairs only. Not too difficult to escape them. But a whole group? Including police officers?"

"You can only escape what you recognize."

"Plain clothes don't blend in." Isu was in his element now. This was something he had played with his father when he still had thought he was just a friend of his mother's. Who is the store detective? Who is from the health authority to check this restaurant?

"It's in the way they look at people. No one in his right mind looks at other people on public transportation, only the weirdoes do. And the inspectors who are trying to figure out if you bought a ticket or not", he explained.

"Just like the guy over there?", Ash asked, nodding as unobtrusively as possible in the direction of a middle-aged Afro-American.

Oh yes, just like him.

Thank God the train was just reaching Powell Street station. With one fluid motion both boys jumped up. With a scratch of his fingernails Ash tore open the grocery bag of the passenger right next to him, making sure his body covered the deed from the security cam on the ceiling. The unsuspecting passenger apparently had a thing for fruit – oranges, lemons and tangerines came tumbling out of the torn back, effectively stopping the inspector from closing in on them. His partner, which they had spotted on the other end of the train, was approaching them, too, but he was too far away yet. They quickly rushed out of the train…

…oh damn, that partner was quite fast…

…they hadn't calculated how much Ash's equipment would slow them down….

The inspector slipped out of the train right behind them and chased them down the block.

"Spread out!", Ash shouted and at the next corner they split up, forcing their pursuer to decide between one of them. Ash knocked down a garbage can to draw his attention to him. It had been his idea after all.

Luckily, however, the inspector decided the two weren't worth the trouble and gave up.

… … …

Chance saw his boy stepping out of the elevator and recognized the look on his face immediately.

Adrenalin.

"Dude had an exciting afternoon", Guerrero remarked, glancing up from his notebook.

"He looks like you after jumping off a 12-storey building", Winston agreed.

"I don't think he jumped off anything." Chance knew something was up, yes. But yet another heart-to-heart talk? Jeez, telling him off this morning had been hard enough. He hated punishing him.

"But he sure did something crazy."

Winston and Guerrero agreeing, that was actually pretty scary.

Luckily the telephone rang at this very moment, saving Chance from having to take educational steps immediately.

The caller was a woman, maybe in her twenties. "My name is Emily, Emily Gray. You've saved my husband a while back… You probably don't remember him."

"John Gray? The monastery? The pope's ring? Of course I remember him", Chance told her, noticing happily that the young man and his girlfriend had gotten married. "How is he? Out of prison by now, I hope."

"Something terrible has happened."