Date 14/01/2060, Location 39.28462, 54.89387

The truck sat in the defile, snugged up against the rock face, partially obscured by an overhang. The engine pinged and ticked as the metal cooled in the pre-dawn air, and the first glimmers of daylight led to a glow in the eastern sky, forming a counterpoint to the glow in the north-western sky from the plumes of fire erupting from the shattered wellheads and pipelines. The team sat in silence for the moment, looking out at the sky and terrain around them, or staring into space, their eyes unfocussed as they thought about events. Weapons lay ready by people's sides, but not in hands.

The silence grew as the engine cooled and rested, the sky empty of birds and the ground clear of creatures and critters. Marius broke the quiet first.

"I think we should respray the truck. These colours will not be useful to us now, and I think will draw attention we do not want."

The others stirred, and considered his words – but there was no denying the truth of them. The Dekita colour scheme was likely to draw attention one way or another that was not helpful. They all got out, and grabbed the large tent from the trailer, and spent some time putting it together, stretching the fabric taut over the plastic poles and encasing the truck in the lightweight structure.

Tadibya, Hunter and Marius returned to the truck and settled back on watch, while the other three busied themselves with the painting kit. After a moment, Hunter pulled out his phone, and piggybacked off the truck's systems to pick up a cell tower in the town, putting in a quick call to his contact Julius in Copenhagen. Unsurprisingly given the time difference, it went through to voice mail, and he left a short message telling his friend to make sure they had recon assets watching the area because things had kicked off.

Kai, Aswon and Shimazu broke out the compressor and the spray attachments and loaded up the system with some of the tan paint they had picked up in Ashgabat and set to work. Kai and Shimazu took a side each, with Kai definitely seeming to have the hang of the painting process now, covering the truck in smooth, even strokes of paint of just the right density. Shimazu was slower, but nearly as good. They both worked wordlessly, concentrating on their work and listening to the rhythmic thrum of the compressor. Finally they reached the rear of the truck and then stopped and looked for a moment at the rear of the truck, and the horrible mess that Aswon had made.

"How did you manage that? That looks awful!" exclaimed Kai, as he prodded the thick coat of paint that was dribbling and running down over the lights and pooling in a puddle on the ground below.

"Hey, I'm a merc, not an artist! You know – guns and bullets and breaking things. Aswon, not Van Gogh. And I got poisoned."

Shimazu and Kai sent Aswon to go sit down in the truck, grabbed cloths and scrapers and set to redoing the work. They were just finishing when the team phone rang, with an unlisted number. Kai grabbed it, answering with his left hand while he continued to paint with the airbrush in his right.

"Kai? Katana."

"Morning boss. How are things going?"

"Pretty well really. Excellent in fact. We can see you've been busy. I understand our friend Hans was in touch, too?"

"Yes. We're not really sure of exactly what was going on, but it all seemed to have worked out ok."

"Well, I'm very happy with your work. Now, can you sit in place for a couple of days until I can shake loose from here, and come to see you and make restitutions?"

"A few days? I…. I suppose so. I think we can wait here for a couple of days."

Kai glanced over at the others. Aswon held up a hand for a moment, then quickly checked the water level in the tank, and the supplies in the cupboard, then gave a thumbs up. "Yes, sure, why not?"

"Excellent. I'll call when I'm on my way."

And with that, she disconnected. Kai finished the piece of panelling he was spraying, and then informed the rest of the team. Inevitably there was grumbling about sitting in the desert for a few days with nothing to do, and some query over the use of the word "restitution" rather than "payment". Kai mentioned that he had agreed to meet Johanna here in a few days, but that didn't stop them from moving about a bit in the meantime. On checking the maps though, they realised they didn't have that much choice – Ashgabat was too far away to make the trip worthwhile, and the settlements between didn't have anything to offer. The only sizable place nearby was Kum Dag, and they'd specifically been told not to enter there.

The next two days were spent in and around the truck, but the time was put to good use. Hunter and Aswon got to properly clean their guns, taking them apart down to component level and cleaning out the carbon from firing, and not a small amount of sand and dirt. Shimazu continued to work out with his sword, becoming more and more adept with it. Marius did a full survey of the vehicle, interrogating systems and checking parts against the surveyed data. By the end of the second day, he'd come up with a list of parts that needed routine maintenance or changing that was fairly long – and was probably going to run to the best part of fifteen thousand Nuyen or so… Kai seemed to spend much of the time asleep, snoring gently as he swung in the hammock during the day or curled up in one of the bunks at night – just decompressing and chilling out. Tadibya spent the time in meditation, mentally examining the paths of her life and her environment and relating her place in the world against her morals and ethics.

They discussed what they were going to do next – maybe push north into Russia, and find the New Silk Road, see if they could do some business there. Alternately, they could head south east and down into India – busy and heavily populated, there were bound to be things that needed to be moved. China was floated as a possibility – the fractured landscape and warring provinces added danger and risk, but also promised greater profits.

However, when Aswon reminded them that they had contacts in Baku, and information on various paracritters in the area, it was decided that was a good place to head, to try and gather some more Nuyen together, to give them better options. After all, it was no good being smugglers if they couldn't afford any goods to smuggle…

With his equipment cleaned and maintained, Aswon settled down on the morning of the second day with the spear, sitting on top of the rocks that sheltered the truck. He relaxed his mind and body, and tried to feel the magical patterns in the spear, determining what – other than the obvious – it did, and how it worked. For several hours he sat, trying to make sense of the magical patterns in the weapon, but the shapes and designs were complex, and the form eluded him. The more he studied it, the more he appreciated the ancient design, the exquisite workmanship – indeed the weird and notable magical flavour of the spear, which was unlike anything he'd ever encountered before. However it was no clearer to him after his hours of study than before. Shrugging his shoulders, he spent the next few hours more productively by spinning and twirling the spear, grabbing it from the floor and setting it to resist a charge, working out against a variety of mental opponents. The weapon was solidly built, obviously not meant as a throwing spear, and was larger in circumference than a modern spear built of hi-tech materials, but after a few hours he had the measure of it and it felt entirely natural.

Towards the end of the second day the team settled down for dinner, sitting in the rear of the truck. Aswon had been experimenting with various ingredients made by Tadibya, and had produced a batch of fairly palatable cookies – crisp and crunchy on the edges, but still soft and gooey in the centre. Just as Tadibya was about to bite down onto a cookie, she felt the presence of her mentor spirit watching over her. Extending her senses into the astral, she saw the magnificent primal elk, impossibly standing next to her in astral space, the astral form distorting space around her. She felt a mouth grab her sleeve, dragging her out of her body – gently, but irresistibly. She opened her mouth to say that she needed to warn the others, but felt the spirit pulling at her, and realised that it didn't matter what she said. Elk wanted her now.

She let go of her body, and floated with the astral form, revelling in the power. It was an odd feeling of power, a strange feeling – it wasn't power over others, or the ability to impose itself on the world – it was an internal power, a strength of being and self. She felt warm, wrapped up in the care and love her totem showed for her, and followed it without hesitation.

They walked for a while, past the site of broken pipelines and fires, shattered buildings, corpses from the ambush on the truck. As they passed each site, she felt the gaze upon her, and she spoke to her totem, describing the actions of the team. She spoke honestly, from the heart. Not because she knew it would be foolish to lie to her totem – who almost certainly would know if she did lie. She spoke the truth because she couldn't imagine lying to her totem, no matter the situation. Elk listened as she recounted the decisions made, the paths chosen. For hours she talked to Elk, describing the discussions they had had as a team, of trying to minimise the ecological damage their pipeline bombs would cause, and balancing that against the damage caused by the drilling regardless. Of trying to give the attackers a chance to walk away and mend their ways. She felt herself being judged by the spirit – but didn't resent this. How could one resent being in the presence of God?

After hours of walking, they approached a fork in the path. Three trails led onwards, away from them. The left led into a set of thick bushes, winding amongst the dense foliage and quickly being lost to sight. The trail looked clear, but it was obvious to her that visibility was limited. The second path seemed to travel forwards to a certain point, and then went through some weird kind of lens – beyond that point things grew larger in size for no apparent reason. The third path wound to the right, and the trees on the sides of the path were marked with glowing sigils in the bark, arcane energy spilling from the marks and forming a glowing barrier to the side of the path.

Tadibya examined the three paths, then turned to Elk.

"I'm not sure what these mean. Do I have to choose one? Is this a test?"

Elk looked at her for a moment with huge brown eyes, then snorted, lowered his head and started to feed on the tufts of grass. Tadibya waited a moment, and then shrugged. If it was a test, she was on her own, it seemed. She looked at the paths for a moment, trying to figure out the symbolism or meaning. Then she turned and strode down the right path, shoulders square and head looking forward. Whatever the choice meant, Elk meant for her to have a choice, and to her mind that meant there wasn't a bad choice. She walked for a few miles down the path, examining the sigils of power and slowly getting used to them, seeing how they made the barrier to the side of the path, and determining the patterns and formation. The path bent around a large copse of trees, and ahead of her she saw some people eating dinner, clustered around a fire. As she closed the distance, the figures seemed to become familiar, taking on comforting shapes. She saw her body ahead, and as she approached, saw one of the other figures turn to her, speaking – the mouth moving but no noise coming out. She merged with her body again, feeling the comforting fusion between body and soul.

"Are you feeling ok, Tads?"

"Huh? Yeah, I'm ok. How long was I gone for?"

"Gone?" asked Hunter. "You've not gone anywhere. Just stared at that cookie for about two minutes, even when the gooey bit dropped all over your lap."

"Really? Felt like I'd been gone for hours…" She flexed her feet, and her calf muscles told her that they thought she'd walked a considerable distance, too. "Oh well, I'm back now. Any more cookies?"

Aswon pushed over the plate towards her and raised an eyebrow, and gave her a little smile. Yeah – he probably knew what sort of experience she'd just had. As she munched on the cookie and ignored the occasional glance from the others, she looked around the truck. Her eyes saw the ward she'd erected previously and she couldn't help but see the patterns contained within it. As she looked at them she realised that while it certainly worked, she could do better if she put them in a different pattern – something like the ones she had seen down the side of the path, perhaps? Ahh, so that was what Elk had shown her!

The following morning after another uneventful night, the phone rang again and Kai picked up. Johanna told him that she was heading out to see them – but would appreciate some magical cover if that could be arranged. Kai agreed, and after hanging up the call, asked Tadibya to go to the edge of the defile with Aswon and Hunter, to cover her approach.

Twenty five minutes after the call, the team spotted the dust plume approaching from the west, and soon after saw the Maersk patrol vehicle driving across the desert. They spotted Johanna in the back, and watched as she climbed out of the rear load bed and onto the running bars on the side. Tadibya concentrated and wrapped her in a blanket of invisibility, just as the vehicle slowed a little into a sharp turn, throwing up a cloud of dust and sand. Visible only to Tadibya, she saw Johanna tuck into a ball and roll across the desert before she flattened herself and stopped, laying low until the vehicle had moved on. She stood up, examined herself and her kit, and then moved towards the defile at a brisk walk.

A few minutes later she arrived at the rocks, and called out to the team.

"Hope I'm covered?"

Aswon heard the voice coming out of thin air, but was facing the right general area based on the faint footprints left in the sand.

"Well, I can't see you… just your trail. Follow us."

They turned and headed back to the truck, Tadibya dropping the spell once they were all in cover of the rocks.

Back at the truck, Johanna accepted a cold drink from the fridge, washing out the dry desert taste from her mouth, and settled back on the large bunk to face the team. A large smile lit up her face, and her eyes sparkled.

"Well my friends, you certainly delivered, didn't you. Production is all but stopped, and Dekita are running around with their crews all over the place. Excellent. I'm very pleased with the outcome of the mission, and the effect it is having. And so are head office." She reached into her jacket and unzipped an inner pocket, withdrawing three credsticks marked up with coloured bands.

"I'm not surprised head office is pleased," responded Kai. "We've been watching the share price and the news, so that seems reasonable." Several of the team stared at Kai, then tried to compose their faces and not give anything away, realising that they would compromise his negotiations if they betrayed the fact that they had done nothing of the sort. Johanna seemed to be focused on Kai though, and gave no sign of having seen anything.

"Right, this one here is your main mission pay. In light of the downturn in production, it's the full fifty thousand as originally specified." She flipped the small stick to Kai, who caught it with a nod of thanks. "Now then. As I said, I'm happy with the outcome, and so are head office. So I have a choice now."

She held up the two remaining sticks, one in each hand.

"This one contains an additional twenty five thousand in bonus pay, in recognition of the effectiveness of the job." Hunter, Aswon and Marius perked up a little at that, happier with the level of reward for the risk undertaken now that seventy five was on offer.

"This one though," she waved the other hand, "is a special set of travel papers I've been authorised to offer you. You can have this instead of the first stick."

The team looked at each other, and then focussed on Kai. Kai gave each a quick glance, and then leant back a little, moving away from both credsticks.

"What kind of special travel papers?"

"Well, as long as you don't turn up actively pursued by someone, if you approach any of our shipping agents worldwide with these travel permits – they will load you and your cargo on-board, no questions asked, and take you to their destination. One time only. Your cargo has to fit of course – no good turning up with a van full of stuff at a bike couriers. But you turn up with a truck like this to a shipping or rail port – and sure, we can move that."

Silence fell over the truck, as each of the team considered the deal. If they never used it, it was worth nothing of course. And it was no good if they were being pursued by anyone – corp, police or even a gang potentially. But in the right circumstances, they could disappear from a country like wisps – it was a travel "get out of jail free" card. Kai glanced around at the team and saw general approval for the offer.

"I think we'll take the travel permits, please."

Johanna pulled out a terminal and entered the stick into the slot on the side, and then keyed in her ID to authorise it, passing around the terminal to each of the team. As each person got the device, they scanned their thumbprint, which was used to generate a unique string of numbers based on the patterns, which was added to the crypto-key that scrambled the permit. Any of them could unlock the permit now with a quick thumb scan.

"Excellent. My thanks again for the job well done. And now, unless there's anything else to discuss?"

Johanna zipped her pocket back up and finished the cold drink off.

"Not unless you can give us a lift to Baku?" joked Aswon.

Johanna missed the joke though, and turned to look at him.

"I think that could be arranged. I mean, it's just the truck, and your trailer yes? As long as you're not too heavy, I think we can manage that. Just how much do you weigh, anyway?"

Marius gave her the vehicle weight, which caused a raised eyebrow. She leaned back a bit and rapped her knuckles on the side of the truck, listening to the "donk" noise.

"Ahh… upgraded the base armour then I see. That explains the trailer. Well, either way, the deck plate will handle that. Sure, we can give you a lift." She pulled out her terminal again, and keyed through a few pages of information. "Ah, here we are. Emerald Queen, due to sail at 13:10, four days from now. Just turn up at our docks a few hours before and see the loadmaster, and I'll have things squared away."

Aswon seemed taken aback, but then thanked her, as did Kai.

"So, is there any problem with us going to Kum Dag now?" asked Kai. Johanna considered for a moment, then shook her head.

"No, if you're moving on to other countries, there's no reason to keep you hidden anymore."

"Want a lift back to town, then?"

And so the team hitched up the trailer, and headed into Kum Dag, driving past the large Espirit compound to the east and to the Maersk compound, where they dropped off Johanna. They headed then to the town's one and only hotel, a smallish building but with somewhat decent rooms, and booked in for a few days.

Marius ordered in the parts needed for the truck, and spent the time performing a full maintenance cycle, getting everything back in grade A condition. Hunter meanwhile, inspired by Kai's statement to Johanna, hooked up his pocket secretary to the matrix, and was monitoring the news and the Dekita stock prices. On the morning of the 19th, two days after their arrival, Hunter called the team together, and showed them the stock prices and news reports he'd saved.

Dekita had been trading at 528 Nuyen per share, with a fairly steady price over the last few weeks. When news of "production difficulties" were heard, the price slumped a little, but nothing untoward. However, several news reports showed satellite and very high angle recon photos of what appeared to be large blazes and damaged equipment, and the Dekita employees caught unawares by a journalist babbled some very damming reports that cast huge doubts on their ability to deal with the issue – just before a couple of Dekita troopers came and forced the journalist and their cameraman back away from the facility, at gunpoint. The stock price had tumbled after that, dropping to 396 per share, at which point some automated event had been triggered and trading was suspended. Talking heads discussed the "wildfires" and "ecological damage", and the lack of organised response from Dekita. Further news articles appeared, as each of the major news networks smelled blood in the water, and the heavy-handed response from Dekita security didn't help their cause.

By the second day, when trading resumed, there were further pictures from high orbit sources – large, full colour and detailed shots showing oil spills, ruptured pipes and burning well heads, along with "experts" describing how this proved that Dekita had obviously been skimping on safety measures. Now the Sierra club and various Green policlubs were in on the act too, making for excellent interviews full of vitriol. PR teams were geared up now from Dekita, and their parent company Fuchi – but their answers were ripped apart and painted as "cover ups", and normally sympathetic media were amongst the circling sharks.

The next day the price had dropped again to 297, and hit another speedbump threshold, causing trades to be suspended for a second time. The graph that Hunter showed looked like a cliff, and it was not hard to imagine people dumping shares of the company like it was poison – which caused a general market slump. Espirit and Maersk, along with other oil companies were all down as well – but not like this.

The shares dropped again, and hit a 3rd and final speedbump at 148.5 amidst news that the refinery in Baku had discovered contaminants and "irregularities" with the supplies coming from the Dekita holding tanks there, and the news that over two hundred thousand barrels of crude had been quarantined. This had apparently been done a few days ago, but only just been released generally. Checking the time and date, it would have been the morning of their meet with Johanna. Aswon was the first to voice what most of them was thinking – there was at least one other team working this as well…

After that the shares went into freefall, and as Hunter finished his little presentation, the clock ticked over to 10:37am, and the shares hit 17 Nuyen each.

"Do you think we could buy some?" asked Tadibya. "I mean, they're going to stop the fires and stuff. And it's bound to go back up. And if it doesn't, but we bought it really cheap – then we won't have lost that much, right?" The team discussed and thought about it, and then decided – why not. They could afford to speculate a little on the market – especially when they knew how much damage they'd done – and they guessed the other teams had done.

They made the decision though, not to buy too many shares – no matter how cheap they were. What was happening to Dekita was more like an assassination than a mugging, and it wouldn't do to be too conspicuous. People taking advantage of a situation – sure. But too many shares and people might add facts up and realise they had inside knowledge – and then wonder how they came by that knowledge. Best not to be too greedy, and appear on anyone's radar if they could help it.

They dug around on the matrix and found a broker that they could deal with through their charity, who would accept the IDs they had and the somewhat skimpy forms of registration, and made the call. A few minutes later, they had their account set up, and were ready to make their first trade. In the time that had taken, the shares had inched up to 19. They put on an order for a thousand Shares at 19, paying a brokerage fee of 665 Nuyen on top for the privilege. The order was confirmed, the credstick debited and shortly afterwards the message appeared confirming that they now held a thousand shares of Dekita issue A.

On and off through the day, they kept an eye on the stock price, as the news articles continued to hammer Dekita and spin a tale of doom and gloom. There was not much to do in Kum Dag – no local scene, and the town was very much focussed on oil exploration and exploitation. The price inched up a time or two, then fell again, but remained generally low. Starting to grow bored of the hotel, they were quickly packed the following morning, and ready to head out across the scrubland of the Mearsk territory to their port facility.

Arriving at the port, it appeared to be very similar to the Dekita terminal – obviously there was an optimum way to set up an oil terminal and storage facility, and that book was well understood. Other than obvious allowances for terrain and the harbour facing north east rather than south, it could have been the same place. On close examination, it even appeared that many of the components were made by the same company.

Quickly cleared through the entrance gate, and directed to follow a port vehicle, they pulled up alongside a small oil tanker. Small was of course a relative term – it was still a ship of significant size, a hundred meters or more long, nearly sixteen wide and with a draft of six meters, and held according to a quick estimate from Marius, over five thousand cubic meters of cargo. The dockmaster came and spoke to the team, surveyed the truck and swiftly got to rigging up a sling, and soon the truck and then the trailer were swung up on to the ship, and chained down to the deck by a swarm of crew.

The captain met them at the top of the gangway, a dour, humourless-looking European. He examined each of them quickly, and told them that he wanted no funny business on his ship, and directed them to their cabins, before heading elsewhere in the ship. Deciding not to upset their host, the team headed to their cabin, and Marius fired up his sat-link to get the latest on their shares.

The price had recovered somewhat with no new disasters, and was climbing slowly, and was hovering in the mid-60 range, but showing signs of continuing to climb. Marius wasn't keen on staying connected via the sat-link for too long, so they agreed to check in every couple of hours. The loading of the ship continued around them, and about thirty minutes later they eased from the berth and headed out of the harbour for the journey across the sea to Baku. The tanker seemed particularly slow, only doing about six knots, meaning the two hundred and twenty one nautical mile journey was going to take nearly thirty-eight hours to complete.

By mid-afternoon the price the of the shares had crept up to 85, and the team made a call to the broker, with the intention of putting in an order to sell if the shares crossed a hundred Nuyen each. Kai got chatting with him over the phone whilst he accessed their records, and was chatting away, doing his thing – not even realising that he'd turned the charm on. When he gave the sell order, there was a silence from the other end of the line.

"Are you sure? I'm thinking you might want to reconsider. Seems to me these shares have got a way to go yet."

Kai shared a look with the rest of the team, and then asked if there was any particular reason for this, but the broker remained silent. The silence stretched out for thirty seconds, both sides waiting for the other to make a move.

"Just to let you know, the shares have just hit 114, and are climbing. Still want to sell?"

"Ok, let's hold on to them for now. How about we keep them while they climb – but if they drop 10% for any reason, no matter what they're at – sell them."

The broker agreed, and after confirming some details, disconnected. They fired up the news service and saw that there was an update on the Dekita situation – the report of contamination was apparently due to a sensor malfunction – bad firmware had affected an entire set of sensors, and that had caused the quarantine. In the light of that, manual testing had confirmed the oil was actually ok, and had been released from quarantine. It also appeared that a number of the fires had now been contained or extinguished.

Over the course of the afternoon, they checked a few more times and saw the price continue to climb – 274 by dinner time, 342 by mid-evening. They checked in again just before they hit their bunks, just before midnight – and found the price at 691. Kai immediately called the broker, and after keying in his access code, waited to be connected.

"Sell. Sell them all, right now. No arguments – just dump the lot."

"Of course sir. Do you want me to use some of the shares to cover the brokerage fee, or do you want to settle your account separately?"

"Um… I'll send you the cred separately. Just keep all the cash from the transaction together for the moment, yeah?"

"No problem. Selling a thousand, Dekita A at 691…. Confirmed. 691,000 transferred to your broker account. Fees come to 24,185."

Kai keyed the release, paying the brokerage fee with the remaining funds on the credstick that Johanna had given them, leaving only a few grand left on the stick, before disconnecting with a slightly shell-shocked expression on his face.

They checked again at dawn, and found the price at 492, and each of them did the maths and worked out how that would have affected them – or how much it would have hurt if they'd sold at 100… The news had details of upheaval in the stock market, and the lead article was news that a flurry of trading in Dekita, had driven the price up almost to pre-accident levels, and possibly indicated some kind of corporate takeover event.

As they sat in the cabin munching on breakfast cereal, they worked out what nearly seven hundred thousand Nuyen would do for their prospects, each of them working out what they would want to buy.

Just as Kai was pouring some fresh orange juice into his glass, the deep thudding of the engine slowly faded away, and the ship grew quiet.

"Uh oh…"