Date 29/01/2060, Location 41.64054, 41.6523

The team entered the house, through the large double doors, finding themselves at the rear of a receiving line. The guards were present, standing nearby with shotguns ready, scrutinising the line with interest, but their attention was fixed on the host. Kulkachev was about a hundred and sixty-five centimetres tall, and of average build – not appearing particularly noticeable at all, were it not for the fact that people were queuing for his attention. Dark brown hair was short and styled back with a few loose curls escaping from the prison of his hair gel. What looked like two to three days of stubble graced his chin and cheeks, and dark eyebrows made a race for the centre of his face. Yet the people queued up meekly, and doffed their heads with respect as they passed him, receiving a hand shake, a clap on the shoulder, or a gentle squeeze of the hand or arm for the ladies. He smiled, but the smile never touched his eyes, just exposing a crooked set of teeth badly in need of a hygienist.

Slowly they shuffled towards him, listening as he welcomed them to the party by name, passing a few idle words. Finally they were at the front of the queue. He grabbed Kai's right shoulder with his left hand, and offered his right hand out to shake, thrusting his hand forwards towards his torso. Kai shook his hand, his arm folded up tightly by his side – it was a clear power move, an invasion of his personal space and a grab for dominance in the opening seconds. Kai, however, just let it wash over him.

"And you must be Mr. Kai, and guests?"

"Yes, indeed! First of all, thank you on behalf of all of us for inviting us to your most splendid home. This are my companions – Shimazu, Aswon, Tadibya, Hunter, Nadia and Marius," he pointed to each in turn with his left hand, letting Kulkachev keep control of his right. He let Kulkachev steer his hand, completely controlling him and offering no resistance, not just accepting the submissive position, but revelling in it. A second or two after the introductions were done, Kulkachev released his hand and shoulder, stepped back and then gestured to the buffet tables.

"Eat, drink. We will talk later." He turned and walked to the end of the room, towards a large and ornate looking seat. The team headed over to the buffet table, and examined the spread of food and drink, carefully selecting a few choice bits to nibble on and to keep their hands busy. As they looked around the room, they saw that people had formed into loose knots, and were amiably chatting whilst nibbling on food or sipping at their drinks. Armed guards stood around the room by the walls – watching the crowd idly, but not looking particularly alert or hostile. There were a few standing by the wall behind Kulkachev, two on each side in flanking positions, but there was nobody else around.

As Kai looked around the room, he saw a huge range of paintings, sculptures, objects and other pieces of art, hung or positioned almost at random. There was no theme, rhyme or reason to the positioning, and they displayed an eclectic mix of styles. He wandered around to look at them, and stopped dead in front of one of the paintings. Over the next few minutes he examined it carefully, checking from side to side, studying the style and composition, the brush strokes, the texture of the paint – before calling out to the others.

"This one… that's an original. A Constable. It's the Cathedral." He looked around at several blank expressions. "Well, the story goes, it was sold by a leading auction house for a pittance, I think it was five hundred English pounds. They didn't know it was an original, you see. Then it was tested, and resold and went for nearly two million. Made some people very happy, some people very sad. Wonder how it ended up here?" Kai checked the rest of the room out, and found that whilst 95% of the 'art' was junk, cheap fakes or gaudy knock-offs, there were a few pieces of real value.

As they waited and studied the crowd, Aswon saw the guard from the cable car down at one end of the large ballroom, standing with his shotgun folded across his chest. He grabbed a plate of food and went over to study the artwork hanging on the wall right next to him.

"Hi again. Just looking at the artwork. I guess it must be pretty boring, having to stand guard like that, with all that food just over the next table. So I'm just going to leave this plate here, tucked on the back corner, out of the way." As he backed away, he thought he caught a tiny wink from the guard, and nodded his head. Looking around the room for somewhere to sit out of the way, he realised that there was in fact, nowhere to sit. The only seat in the room belonged to Kulkachev, at the far end of the room. Everyone else was forced to stand. Giving up on finding a quiet corner, he went to stand by the team and tried to look inconspicuous – hard given his towering height.

As the evening wore on, they saw Kulkachev catch the eye of people, and beckon them over to him. In ones and twos they approached, through the narrow gap between two tables, approaching the raised dais that his chair was on. For the average person, this put them at roughly the same level, allowing their host to look people in the eye whilst he was seated. The guards on either side of him stood ready, and looked more alert than those standing by the walls – not that anyone seemed inclined to do anything.

Marius and Nadia moved from group to group, continuing to meet people and find out who was who – meeting one of the city councillors, a watch chief from the local police, the shipyard owner, some businessmen. All of them were happy to talk, and it seemed everyone who was anyone waited for their invite to the hill, and it was a sign of being a "mover and shaker" in the local scene to get one, a very exclusive and sought after club.

The evening wore on, and the team watched as the rest of the crowd went up to Kulkachev for their audiences. He seemed to spend five minutes or so chatting with each of them, sharing jokes and drinks, pointing at things occasionally. It all seemed very relaxed and ordinary – apart from being flanked by heavily armed goons. As the time crawled towards 23:00, the number of people who hadn't been seen already dropped to zero, and Kulkachev looked around. His gaze fell across Tads, and she stared at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He crooked a finger at her, beckoning her across the polished marble floor, to approach him. She raised a napkin to her face and spoke quietly, hoping the transmitter would carry her words to the earbuds of the rest of the team.

"Looks like I'm up. I could do with some help, Kai. Tell me what I need to say to this man?"

She approached, and felt rather than saw movement to her side. Kai and Aswon fell in with her, approaching the dais. She heard a boot squeak on the other side, as Shimazu, Marius and Nadia joined her from the other side. They walked up the length of the ball room, and she could feel the eyes of all the other guests turning to watch them, as the blob approached Mr Kulkachev. Some of the guests she could see had their mouths open, and their glasses tipped to dangerous angles, wine threatening to spill out as they watched the seven newcomers form a column and approach the dais.

All of the guards perked up, and guns were shifted subtly, ready to snap up and fire at a moment's notice. Undaunted, they walked forward casually, narrowing their formation to fit through the gap between the tables. Kai and Shimazu took the front two positions, Tads and Aswon following them in the second row and Nadia and Marius in the third, with Hunter dropping in-between them at the rear, eyes flitting from side to side, watching the guards.

"So Mr. Kai. I hope you are enjoying our little gathering."

"Yes, indeed. It's been a most pleasant evening. Your guests all seem very charming, and I love your collection of artwork – it's most intriguing. It shows a most interesting and refined taste, from a man of specific culture." They chatted back and forth, all fairly innocuous stuff. The team were non-committal, trying not to reveal any information, yet still be pleasant-sounding.

"So, what is it that you people do? Exactly." Kulkachev's voice changed at the end, growing colder and turning from a question into an unmistakable demand.

"We move things. Internationally. Artwork specifically, but goods as well, as needed. We work discreetly, and quickly, and without fuss and bother."

"Ah." Kulkachev leant back in his chair, and stared at Kai for a few seconds, "So, it is as I suspected. So where do you head for next? What is your destination?"

"Well, we're just heading down the coast road – towards Constantinople. Going to look for work there, as we're not currently employed. From what we hear, there's a lot of people who might be interested."

Kolkachev steepled his fingers together under his chin and gave Kai a considering look, and then grinned widely – but entirely without humour.

"How fortunate. It just so happens, that I know some people there, and I am in need of a small package delivering. It is a tiny thing, of almost no consequence, to anyone but me. But I would like to make sure it gets there safely and securely. And just when I am in need of a courier, who should turn up in my town?"

"It's almost like it's a sign, isn't it?" Kai smiled, also without any humour, watching Kulkachev closely.

"So, you would do this for me then, and perhaps, in the future, we could maybe have some business dealings, I think?" Kai nodded at him, not really having much in the way of options – not if they wanted to get out of the room, and probably the town in one piece. Kulkachev waved his hand idly, but moments later the butler appeared from a concealed door in the back corner of the room, carrying an ornately carved wooden box.

Kulkachev took the box and opened it up, turning it to face the team. It was not large, perhaps big enough to hold something the size of a clenched fist. The inside was lined with some kind of fabric, a deep and lustrous blue – perhaps silk, perhaps some synthetic equivalent. Tads flicked into astral for a moment, but the box appeared unwarded and completely mundane – not a trace of magic about it. Around the lip of the box though, there were a whole series of small wooden protrusions and catches, all finely and delicately carved. Matching holes in the top of the box displayed the very edges of teeth and catches – forming some kind of delicate but complex locking mechanism. Once the box was shut, there must be some kind of sequence needed to release the catches – but any attempt to force it would probably shear off the carved pieces and ruin it.

Kulkachev reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small optical chip, holding it up to the light theatrically, his fingers twisting and turning it to make it glimmer. With a flourish he placed it into the box, and then closed the lid firmly – listening to the complicated sounding series of clicks. He offered the box to Kai in one hand, whilst he fished in his jacket pocket for a small commlink. Activating the device, he beamed over a small data packet to Kai.

"That's the delivery address and password, along with a number to call when delivery has been made." Kai nodded and accepted the transfer, checking to make sure it was received correctly and then pocketed his commlink. Kulkachev nodded at them. "I'm sure your truck will be ready for you by the time you reach the garage." Kai smiled and nodded back, and turned towards the main room. The team pulled back, heading back to their far corner of the room, where they'd been lurking for most of the night. Around them the various different cliques watched them as they moved away, wondering what they had been given, and why they had gone up in such a large group.

Back in the corner, Aswon whispered that he'd be back in a minute, and headed back over towards the guard he'd made contact with previously. Tads said that she was going to head out to the cable car and check to make sure it was ready to go, and headed out of the double doors into the courtyard.

Aswon approached the guard, making sure his body was between the closest other guard and his target.

"Hey, we're outta town tonight. Got a job to do for your boss. But when we get back, how about we go for a drink?" The guard looked confused for a moment, genuinely bewildered by the offer. Then in a slightly too loud and somewhat wooden voice, he responded.

"The toilets? This way, come with me." He led Aswon into the corridor and did actually show him to the toilet, but along the way gave him his comm code. He waited for Aswon to go into the toilets, and then escorted him back to the main ballroom.

Out in the courtyard, Tads took a deep breath of the cool night air and strode out towards the path. As she walked across the quiet and serene courtyard, she flicked into astral sight for a moment, out of habit, rather than any specific reason. As she did so, four forms suddenly appeared on the far side of the courtyard, blazing away with the signature of active magical power. She stumbled, and almost fell over her own feet in surprise, and gawped at them. One of the figures noticed her, and stopped – putting something down on the floor, and then turning to face her. Through the intense glow of mana, she thought she saw a pair of arms folded across a chest. She dropped out of astral, and hurried along the path, calling in a quick sighting report to the rest of the team, and hearing confirmation that they were on the way to the cable car.

The team caught up with her by the time she reached the station, approaching the guard who looked at them with some confusion.

"You are leaving the party early?" The tone of voice said that this was not a 'done thing', but Kai headed off the argument quickly.

"See this box? We have a delivery to make for Mr. Kulkachev. Very important, so we want to get it done right away. For such an important man, we must make a special effort, so we need to go and collect our vehicle quickly. So that's why we need to leave, immediately. Or we have to explain to Mr. Kulkachev what's stopping us from carrying out his orders."

The change in demeanour was immediate, and amusing. The guard hurriedly slid open the door and powered up the console, not wanting to be the person responsible for causing the boss to be annoyed. As soon as the last of the team were in the car, he slid the door shut with a slam, and the cable car started to descend from the top of the hill, down towards the town. The team looked out of the windows mostly, in silence – thinking about the events of the night, and assuming that the car was bugged just to be on the safe side.

A ghostly apparition appeared in front of Aswon and Tads, causing Aswon to take a hurried step back, slamming into the wall of the cable car. The ethereal form was vaguely humanoid from the waist up, having arms and a head with distinct features, but below the waist it was just a swirling mass of mist and air currents. It raised an arm and put a finger to its nebulous lips and made a shushing gesture. Tads looked at it, unphased, and just nodded, watching it blink out of existence. A quick check in astral, and she saw the spirit racing back up towards the top of the hill, heading for the giant zeppelin.

"I think that was the mage on the other team, just giving us a warning to keep our mouths shut about seeing them walking across the courtyard."

"Do you think they were robbing the place?"

"I don't think so… there was no fear or anxiety. I just think they didn't want to be seen. I'm guessing they were smugglers, like us – just taking something somewhere, and didn't expect to come across anybody magically aware."

They fell back to silence, and rode out the rest of the descent. At the bottom of the line, the single remaining guard opened the door and let them out, and they moved away from the car and out of earshot. After a very quick discussion, Kai, Marius and Nadia headed to the garage to clear the final payment and recover the vehicle, whilst the rest of them headed to the hotel to begin getting their gear together.

Marius and the others arrived first, spotting the warm glow of overhead lights spilling out of the open roller shutter doors. The truck sat in the centre of the bay, facing outwards and appearing to be intact and whole – in fact it sparkled, looking clean and polished. As the three of them strode in through the door, they saw a half dozen of the employees putting tools away and tidying up as if they had only just finished work. The man they had negotiated with first came over to them, looking tired and worn.

"It's done. All finished, all fixed. On time – done in four days." Kai decided not to press the issue, given the likely source of interference, and gestured for the pad and cred-reader, fishing out his cred-stick to make the payment transfer. Marius meanwhile had pulled out an electronic device about the size of a small book from his pocket, and had extended two aerials. He moved around the truck slowly, raising and lowering the device and playing it over the surface of the truck. He got nearly all the way down the right hand side of the truck when a number of lights illuminated on the front of the device, climbing higher as he stopped and then started to carefully move around the underside of the vehicle. The lights climbed higher, flashing and dancing from side to side. After some careful scanning and then a close examination, Marius then peeled off a small pad from the underside of the main body of the truck.

He examined the pad for a moment, looking at the transparent sticky pad with a small coloured circuit form in the centre. Then without saying anything, he moved over to the nearest workbench and carefully laid the tracker on the surface, and went back to the truck, continuing to scan. Throughout he said nothing, not giving any indication of his emotions, just continuing to carefully check the truck over, piece by piece. He found a second bug on the other side of the vehicle, nestled in next to the toolbox, and laid that out next to the first, also without a word, before continuing his sweep. After a few more minutes of careful probing, he was back around to the front of the truck and his starting point. He turned and stared at the foreman for a moment, then shrugged, and climbed up into the cab of the truck and slid into his seat. First of all he connected just the datajack, checking the startup codes and diagnostics. He called over to Nadia, waiting for her to climb in next to him.

"I will connect now. If I look unusual, or start to react strangely, this is the order of disconnection, to minimise harm. First this one, the blue cable – push here, twist, then release. Then the red cable, just the same. Finally this one, the black and yellow interface. This one has a latch here, depress that and just pull." He waited for Nadia to nod her understanding and then gave the electronics a quick last look over. Finding everything to be satisfactory, he inserted the rigger interface, feeling his limbs fade away to be replaced by wheels, transmission and chassis, sensors and radios, windscreen wipers and doors. He ran a thorough check for changed files in the nav system and engine control software, but didn't find anything amiss. When he was done, he activated the speakers and told Kai he was ready, feeling the doors open as Kai climbed in, buckled into place and then closed the door. The truck rolled out of the garage, the massive diesel engine grumbling away to itself, leaving the garage and the repair crew behind, along with two tracking bugs laid out on the workbench.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team arrived back at the hotel, and found the hotel manager waiting for them.

"Good evening, sirs, madam. I understand you will be checking out tonight? May I ask if you're ready to settle the account?" He looked over at Hunter as he stepped towards the desk.

"Yes, that's right. Our manager is on his way back here now with our vehicle, and he'll settle up the bill. We've just been told to get everything ready for departure. He shouldn't be more than a few minutes, though."

"Ah, very well then. I will arrange for some staff to come and assist you."

Before Hunter could stop him, he'd lifted the phone and was giving instructions for a bunch of staff to be woken and to go to 1205 to assist the guests. Hunter shrugged, and re-joined the others, riding up to the penthouse with them in the plush elevator. Once back in the suite they got changed into more practical clothes, gathering the last of their things together and packing swiftly. About three minutes later there was a quiet knock on the door – when Aswon checked, it was half a dozen of the hotel staff with a number of trolleys, some of them clearly still yawning and waking up.

The staff set to, however, loading up the suitcase trolleys with the large cases and bags, ignoring the metallic clinking as copious amounts of guns clattered against each other. They carefully moved the equipment down the short hallway, and soon both the passenger and staff lifts were ferrying loads of equipment down to the basement and piling them up neatly by the trailer. Aswon ensured he had a good handful of cash ready to tip the staff and encourage their continued forgetfulness about what they had seen.

They'd just about finished with all the gear when the truck arrived, one of the staff opening up the security shutters to the basement car park and watching carefully as the truck inched down the ramp, riding as low as Marius could make it on the suspension again to clear the ceiling. When they parked up, Kai went with one of the staff to go settle the account with the hotel manager, while the rest of them hooked the trailer up, and began the arduous task of reloading all of their supplies and packing them away.

"Don't forget to leave room in the back for our guest, Hunter!" called Marius from the loading bay as Hunter carried a large bag of guns and stashed them under a bunk. The rest of the team looked at him curiously, trying to work out what he was on about.

"It was part of the deal to get the conversion kits, we have to pick up the guy's brother and get him out of town, across the border and drop him off somewhere he can start over. Bad gambling debts." Nobody had anything to say, so they continued to load up, trying to make sure that nothing illegal could be seen. As they loaded the supplies, they noticed Marius playing the bug tracker over each of the boxes and bags as they were handed up and into the truck, and queried him – he quickly explained what had happened at the garage, and that he wasn't taking any chances that someone had gotten into the suite and done something whilst they'd been distracted or out somewhere.

Just as he was getting to the end of the explanation, a number of the lights on the scanner illuminated, rising sharply to the left of the display, and then falling off almost immediately.

"Aufhalten!" Marius shouted. He played the bug scanner around, as the team froze in position. He waved it over the boxes just being moved, and those in the pile by the door, and next to be loaded – but nothing. No lights, no alarms. No sign of whatever had just given the strong reading. Kai appeared through the door and strode towards them, an eyebrow raised and a silent question on his face as he took in the expressions.

"There's got to be another one – maybe an activate-on-demand. Almost impossible to find unless they're transmitting, unless you do a methodical visual sweep. I think we've got to assume we're being tracked, and possibly bugged, until we can get everything checked over. The rest nodded at Marius, nobody questioning his skill and experience with electronic systems. Marius pulled out the white-noise generator and attached it to a power port, turning the device on and adjusting the settings until the static noise filled the truck without being too uncomfortable. Next he lined up the jammer, placing that next to the first device, but didn't turn this on yet. He saw Nadia watching him carefully.

"Jammer, not a German model, but hopefully adequate. But we shouldn't use it in town if we can help it, otherwise we'll kill people's TVs, cameras, computer networks and other devices, possibly affect traffic systems – all kinds of things. It would be very noticeable where we had been, because of the trail of electronic systems we leave in our trail that are messed up. We'll wait until we're on the open road, out of town." Nadia nodded in understanding, and leant over to study the device carefully, making sure she didn't touch it.

They loaded up and headed up the ramp, hearing the scraping of the trailer on the roof beam as they negotiated the ramp, but it was nothing more than scratched paintwork and they emerged onto the street, quiet and almost empty at midnight on the cold winter night. Marius turned south, heading to the coast road leading out of the city. They travelled perhaps half a mile and pulled up outside a small restaurant near the shoreline, still lit up and active. A couple of the team went into the restaurant "The Spice Garden", and ordered some noodles and soy to go, then re-joined the rest of them, standing in the cold outside the truck. Marius was running the bug scanner over each person, slowly and methodically, confirming that none of them had picked anything up on their clothing during the meeting with Kulkachev.

Once they were all cleared, and had manually inspected each other for AoDs, they relaxed a little. Marius moved off to make the call to Teren, telling him to come to the Spice Garden with his stuff, as soon as possible. Kai turned to the rest of the team, though.

"Right, we know there's something, but we don't know what. So, let's keep it quiet for now. We're going to have to do an old-fashioned search, box by box, bag by bag. Start in one corner of the truck, and then go from there. Once you've checked something, you pass it on to the next in the line, who double checks it. It'll be slow, boring, and take forever – but it's the only way we'll find something like this." He saw the others nod. "Ok, let's get to it then. Shimazu, you and I will start in the front of the truck. Tads, Hunter, Aswon – you start in the back, and we'll come help as soon as we're done." They set to with their search, beginning a painstaking search of all their gear, centimetre by centimetre.

Marius analysed the signal he had picked up in the hotel and didn't like what he found. According to his readings, the signal was picked up at 25.4Khz, right at the limit of what the scanner could detect. That put it firmly in the VLF or Very Low Frequency band. Due to the mechanics of signal propagation and bandwidth and other technical factors it allowed for only very slow transmission rates, perhaps a few dozen characters per second – but that was enough for a coded signal to be sent to allow triangulation. The advantage to the low frequency was that it travelled over enormous distances, bouncing off the ionosphere if required, or being transmitted as ground waves. Whilst a radio station would be blocked by high mountains or chasms, a VLF signal would punch right through. It needed a very hefty transmitting station – sometimes VLF antennas actually spanned across valleys or craters, forming huge spider webs of suspended cables that covered miles of land – but it would transmit half way round the world, into tunnels and even to a reasonable depth into the sea. That made it top-end security gear – or quite possibly military in origin. Either of those was worrying…

After fifteen minutes or so, the food was ready and the team tucked into some spicy soy noodles – filling up on a meal that didn't worry them like the buffet up at the villa. They were about half-way through when a taxi pulled up next to the restaurant and a man climbed out of the back, pulling three large bags with him. Marius spotted the family resemblance immediately, and went to meet him, as did Aswon.

Teren looked understandably uncertain, and displayed a certain level of nervous energy. Aswon grabbed one of his bags, and nodded with his head to the back of the truck.

"Come with us, climb in, sit down, and be quiet. No talking, understand?" Teren nodded his head, licking his dry lips and climbed into the truck, struggling with the large and heavy bags. The rest of the team hurriedly finished their noodles, disposed of the boxes and got back into the truck. A minute later, they were on the way, heading south west again.

Teren sat in the corner of the rear of the truck, in one of the small, uncomfortable fold down Russian seats, a bag clasped on his lap. Aswon sat opposite him keeping an eye on him, whilst the rest of the team were in the front.

"Have any cards?" Teren asked hopefully.

"Shush."

"Oh, right, sorry."

"SHUSH!"

Once they were onto the main road, the others squeezed through the door from the cab into the rear, and resumed their search – slowly and meticulously going through their kit. Teren watched for a few minutes, then opened his mouth again to speak. Aswon looked up at him, and raised a warning finger. The mouth closed and he breathed out, clutching his bag tighter to his chest.

Tads suddenly sat up, holding a thin sheet of plastic, about twenty centimetres long by five wide, with a fine inlay of circuitry running through it and a number of almost flat chips embedded into the layers.

"Where was that?"

"In the medkit – slid down between the back of the tray holding the suture gun and the outer case."

Aswon grabbed a small bag of oats, unknotted the top and slid the bug inside, refastening the plastic bag. Moving into the front of the truck, he opened up the top hatch and then pushed himself up into the night air, hair whipping back from the wind. He waited until a truck went past them, and with unerring accuracy, threw the bag into the back of the truck, turning to watch it speed away with a combined velocity of a hundred and sixty kilometres per hour.

Down inside the truck, the mood had relaxed somewhat, and as Aswon returned and gave a thumbs up, they breathed a sigh of relief. Aswon turned to their guest.

"Sorry about that, it was nothing personal. But we knew the truck had been bugged, and couldn't say anything until we'd found it and gotten rid of it. But you can speak now." Teren nodded, then licked his lips.

"So, game of cards now?"

"NO! No cards!" said Kai, as he climbed into the front of the truck. Aswon shrugged and got out the deck of cards anyway, and started to play patience, aware of Teren watching over him.

"Black eight on that red seven."

"Oh, yes, thanks…." Aswon played on, as Teren kept coaching him, smiling as his slow play drove the watching man mad. "I wish I could play poker though, or blackjack or something – I just don't know the rules, though."

"I could teach you? Show you… just friendly-like?" Aswon grinned at Teren, and then checked the door to the front, to make sure Kai wasn't coming back, then gestured for Teren to squeeze around the table with him.

They drove on, and in the back the Georgian taught Aswon how to play poker. Aswon listened, learning a little, but mostly studying Teren and seeing how he acted. Shimazu sat and watched, also intrigued by the man. Strangely enough, he was a pretty good teacher, explaining lots about the strategy of the game, explaining about betting techniques, the odds, spotting tells. He went far beyond the mechanics of the game, into some pretty advanced theory. When he squeezed into the toilet to relieve himself, Shimazu leant into Aswon and whispered in his ear.

"It's very strange. He's trying to teach you to be a good player. I think for him, it's not about winning money, it's about beating the opponent. The thrill of the game. He's not trying to con you, anyway." Aswon nodded, agreeing with him – he'd been getting a feeling in his gut about the guy, but Shimazu's explanation made a lot of sense. When Teren returned from the toilet, Aswon pulled out a small stash of cash, and they started to play for money. Teren was good – very good, and won fairly consistently it seemed, without any cheating they could detect. A small pile of cash started to accumulate in front of him, as he won hand after hand of one Nuyen bets.

The truck drove on through the night, following the twisting coast road to the west. It was in reasonable condition, but winding and narrow, so Marius had to keep the speed to a safe level. They drove past more hotels and guest houses, all in a similar state as those to the north – run down and feeling abandoned. A few kilometres further along, they discovered why. A huge jut of land to the north, thrust out into the sea, and perched upon it was an enormous black building. There were no lights at all, just a monstrous jumble of metal, gantries, pipes and tanks, stretching out for hundreds of metres. Not a single light was on, and the building was more seen by what of the background it occluded than anything else. Tads took a look astrally, and immediately regretted doing so. The building was a toxic wasteland, the purity of astral space rent and twisted by pollutants and despair. Currents of strong emotion cast a miasma over the whole place, and it felt like a creature made of evil had been given form and was trying to draw her in. Even at this range, looking at the state of the land made her feel sick.

Hunter threw open the top hatch, standing up as Aswon had done before, and gave a gentle sniff. The others could smell the rotting eggs on the wind and the smell of burning and decay – but as Hunter sniffed, a delicate valve opened in his nasal cavity and a small sample was diverted into a chamber. Incredibly complex and tiny machinery went to work, sampling the air and running an in-depth chemical analysis. The highly advanced and miniaturised gas spectrometer interfaced with the chemical software installed on the chip inserted in the slot on the side of his neck. Complex algorithms performed an in-depth analysis, spitting out the results as a stream of text, inserted directly into his field of vision as luminous green characters in his cybereye.

"Long chain hydrocarbons, Benzene, Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxide, Formaldehyde, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, Mercury, Hydrogen Fluoride. Yeah, that's a refinery and chemical plant. And…" he sniffed again, "Yep – that's a refinery that had some kind of critical fire that led to primary storage failure. Messy. Like messy enough to close 'em down and by the looks of things, ruin the nearest fifty kilometres of beach, at a guess."

They drove on, leaving the blackened ruins behind them, a blot on the landscape that they were glad to be passing in the blackness of night. As they drove past, leaving the twisted ruin behind, most of the team let the image slip from their minds – all apart from Tads. She sat in the seat, starting dully into the night, eyes glazed and unseeing. In her mind she saw the twisted visage of the refinery, poison leeching into the land, corrupting and destroying everything natural. She felt sullied and unclean, the psychic echo of the disaster caused by greed and corruption latching into her mind leaving a scar behind that seemed to itch without a way to scratch it.

The pushed on through the night, and put some miles between them and the ruined coastline, and soon found themselves approaching the border. Marius spotted the raised canopy on the road ahead, at first thinking it was a fuel station. It wasn't until they were closer that he realised it was the border checkpoint – and they were too close to stop without being seen. He warned the others, and drove on, coming to a halt under the brightly-lit roof just in front of the barrier. An elderly official emerged from the guard hut, ID badge on a chain around his neck and pistol holstered by his side. Moving stiffly, he approached the driver's side door, looking up with his pad held expectantly. Kai moved into the front seat, then opened the door and climbed down until he was facing the guard. Just as he was reaching for the fake medical IDs that half the team had, the guard spoke quietly.

"Mr. Kulkachev says good luck." The guard then took a step back and in a louder voice "Well, thank you sir, they all seem to be in order." He waved at the guard house, and unseen hands hit the buttons, raising the barrier and lowering the anti-ram plate, allowing the truck to proceed upon its journey. Kai shrugged, got back into the truck and told Marius to drive on, then recounted what had happened.

They pushed on, the kilometres rushing by as they made decent time on the almost abandoned road. They passed a few small villages, mostly agrarian places with some small fishing harbours – nothing major, though. As the clock marched on to about 3am though, they crested a low rise and saw a larger town laid out before them. Hunter pulled up the details on the map to confirm things.

"Trabzon, population shows somewhere between five hundred thousand and seven hundred and fifty thousand. Some industrial presence, a minor finance centre for Turkey mostly based on the location of the port. Used to be a key route onto the old silk road. Got a reasonable international presence. Should be good for our boy to disappear in."

They pulled over into a layby, and just to be sure, ran the bug scanner over the vehicle one last time, being careful to check Teren and his bags carefully, too. When they opened the bags they found them full of metalworking tools – which certainly explained the weight. The scan showed nothing, so they dropped down the shallow hill and into the town, pulling up in the central area next to the main bus terminal and letting Teren out. He climbed down and they passed down the bags to him. Taking a moment to orient himself, he then started to stride across the road, carrying his three bags and a couple of hundred Nuyen won from Aswon during the journey. He got perhaps five metres away when Kai shouted to him, then threw something small at him. He dropped the bags by reflex and caught the deck of cards he'd been playing with, then nodded and waved at the team, before picking up his gear and heading onwards – towards the casino on the other side of the square.

"Let's go folks, still a long way to go until Constantinople…" Kai ushered them back into the truck, and they pushed on westwards. The road improved slightly, and they made better time, though traffic was still very light. They encountered nothing of significance as they drove west, seeing only a few long-haul trucks and the occasional car on the road. They tried broaching the subject of contacting her dad with Nadia, but found that useful and resourceful as she was, she was still a teenager and subject to mood swings and nobody understanding her pain. After a short conversation that ended up with Nadia staring out of the window and answering only in grunts, they gave it up as a bad job. They dozed, the road twisting and turning along the coast, with Marius keeping them going at a steady speed, chewing through the distance. As they neared 06:00, Hunter yawned and keyed the map display.

"Another reasonable-sized city coming up, another port town called Samsun. Population should be around half a million. Probably a good place to stop for a few hours rest." The yawns were matched by the rest of the team, except for Marius – but that only because there was nothing controlling his body while his consciousness was merged with the van.

"Good call. Ok, next place you find, let's pull over and do one more sweep – just to be safe – then we go find somewhere to crash out for a few hours. How far from Batumi, and how far to Constantinople, Hunter?"

"About five hundred kilometres down, perhaps seven hundred to go. So not quite half way, but we've made good time so far."

"Right, definitely time to get a break then. Let's see if we can find somewhere comfy and discreet then, yes?"

They ran one more sweep with the bug scanner, found nothing, and then followed the road into Samsun, along with the early bird employees heading for work, and looked around for somewhere to stop for a few hours rest.