Shimazu awoke, and looked around him in confusion. It was dark, cold and uncomfortable, and his body was a mass of pain. He had no idea where he was, or why he was here… wherever here was. As his senses slowly returned, he blinked and looked around, trying to take in his surroundings.
He lay on a jagged and rough floor, in what appeared to be a natural cave of some kind. The walls were jagged and uneven, a little under two metres high, and maybe the same across at the bottom, narrowing slightly at the top. Above him was a chimney – a twisting, turning fissure that stretched up some distance above him, with a tiny window of grey light far above, looking small and forlorn. His eyes flitted over the slick looking sides of the fissure and estimated the size – it was a good metre and a half across at least, and the walls, though natural looking, appeared less jagged and rough than the tunnel he was in. He'd seen people climbing chimney type formations in pictures on the matrix, but never one this broad – and though he was in pretty good shape, he wasn't experienced at climbing at all, and wasn't sure of technique or style.
He climbed to his feet, wincing slightly with the stiffness of his muscles as they complained at the movement, and several spots flared with pain as the result of what promised to be epic bruises. His ribs hurt, and with gentle poking he estimated that a couple were either cracked or broken – but at least everything else seemed generally intact. Looking on the walls, he spotted a faint blood stain in a few places, and checking himself over found bruises and contusions - thankfully most of them minor. It looked like he'd slid down the fissure, bouncing off the walls and striking his head at least once on the way down, before landing in an untidy heap at the bottom and lapsing into unconsciousness for some time. He looked for handholds, but after a moment gave it up as a bad job – there was no way he was safely going to climb up the fissure to the daylight above – and for a moment, he had a stab of envy for Aswon and his tattoos. Aswon would just activate his powers and would rocket up the cave wall like he was walking across the floor and be out of here in a few moments.
But – he wasn't, and he couldn't. So, he looked around, at the passageway that led off to each side of him, swiftly vanishing into the stygian darkness. His eyes had finally adjusted to the gloom and the tiny amount of light filtering down the fissure – but that was soon lost and beyond about two metres, the tunnel was pitch black. He scrabbled in his pocket and pulled out his phone, checking it over and finding it scuffed but undamaged. There was no signal here, but with a quick tap on the screen, he turned on the torch function, and shone it down the passage, the light beam illuminating a narrow area of wall, floor or roof of the tunnel.
He flicked the torch off, and the cave went black again, his night vision destroyed by the light. He paused a moment, then reached behind him and grabbed the handle of his sword, slowly and carefully drawing it from the scabbard, and testing the structure of the blade by careful feel. Satisfied that it too was intact, he took the torch in his left hand, sword in his right, and slowly moved forwards. His left hand ran along the wall, guiding him forward whilst his feet slowly moved over the rough and broken terrain. He slowly edged forwards about four or five metres, about as far as he had seen with the torchlight, and then paused. His thumb depressed the button, and the tiny LED lit up, producing a thin cone of light that was quickly swallowed up by the darkness again – but showed him the next few metres of cave. He flicked the light off, stopped and listened for a moment, then slowly moved forwards again. He repeated the pattern, illuminating the area, stopping and listening, then slowly moving forwards again. He continued to work his way forward, sticking to the left wall, and made slow progress through the cave system, listening intently and walking as quietly as he could. He came across a larger cavern after perhaps twenty metres, and saw a passageway leading off to his right, as well as the continuation of the tunnel he had entered from, on the other side of the open space. There was also a spoil heap, smelling strongly off to the left. He looked around carefully, examining the excrement from a distance and trying to gauge what size of creature might have left that kind of 'deposit'. Looking around, he also noticed no bones or signs of food – so whatever it was, it didn't eat where it crapped, which implied some level of intelligence and awareness. He pushed on, skirting around the crap and exited by the far side of the cavern, sticking to the left wall.
As he moved along the tunnels, his torchlight sparkled off something in the walls. He listened carefully for a few moments, checking for movement or the sound of breathing, before turning his torch back on and examining the source of the glint. He found a relatively large gem of some kind, wedged into the wall, looking quite natural. It was a flecked red and yellow colour, and looked to be over a centimetre in length. He carefully pulled out his pocket knife and pried it out of the wall, stashing it in his pocket to examine later, before continuing his progress.
He lost track of time and direction, wandering through the darkness and stumbling through the rough cut tunnels under the hill. He found another spoil heap, along with some dead ends and tunnels that all appeared to be on the right hand side of the passageway. The tunnel twisted and turned, rising and falling as it meandered through the rocks under the ground. He was just getting ready to move on again after shining his torch along another part of the tunnel when he heard something ahead – the sound of claws on rocks, ragged breathing and a hissing noise. He quickly pocketed his phone and pulled the taser from the holster.
He felt the presence of the creature ahead of him, his senses working in overdrive. The hairs stood up along his arms and the back of his neck as adrenaline dumped into his system, and his pulse and respiration skyrocketed. He half squeezed the trigger on the taser and the front of the gun lit up, the two ranging diodes pulsing. In normal conditions they were barely noticeable, but in the inky blackness of the cave they emitted enough light that he could see the source of the noise. It was shorter than he was, and broader, being covered in a mass of fur. He had just enough time to see a mass of yellowish teeth bared at him as they shone past leathery lips pulled back in a sign of aggression before his hind brain reacted, pulling the trigger all the way back. Two darts shot across the intervening distance, trailing fine wire behind them and flew past the creature, which dropped and swayed to the side, driven by its own natural reaction to the unknown object. That was enough to halt its forward momentum though, and the sword tip hissed through the air as Shimazu followed up on his first attack. The streel found its mark, and fear-fuelled muscles lent it strength and power, biting deep into the flesh and severing the creatures head from its body in one fatal swing.
He backed himself against the wall, and tried to listen out in case there were more of the creatures – but all he could hear was the crescendo of blood pumping through his veins, his own ragged breathing as his chest heaved to get air into his system. Slowly he calmed himself, his pulse dropping to normal, and he listened carefully – quiet. He holstered the taser, and grabbed his phone, activating the light and played it over the corpse. It looked like a large monkey or small gorilla, grey fur and leathery dark skin, covering the body and with vicious looking claws as long as each of his fingers. The head lay to the side of the body, revealing a mouth full of large fangs that would look at home on a tiger or lion, with small sunken eyes and a heavy mass of bone deposits around the eyes. Blood continued to pump from the stump, forming shallow pools in the passageway.
Shimazu decided to take a gamble, and scooped up a handful of the blood, smearing it over himself, then another, and another. He liberally doused himself in the cooling liquid, hoping that if the creatures had a sense of smell as sensitive as a dog or other scent hunter he should smell like death incarnate to them. Either that or a suitably tasty gourmet meal…
He also took the head, grasping it by the long and matted string of fur. It might be useful magically, or it might be useful to wave at any other of the creatures he found down here. He wasn't quite sure – but hopefully it would be good for something. He waved his torch along the passageway, and then turned it off, resuming his slow shuffle through the darkness.
He worked his way along the passage, seconds stretching into minutes, into hours. The tunnel continued to twist and turn, and Shimazu followed along, sticking to the left hand wall and alternating looking, moving and stopping to listen, moving even slower now he had proof that there was something else down here with him. Time stretched on and became meaningless. Technically he could have checked the phone and seen exactly what time it was – but it wouldn't have mattered to him at all, so he purposefully chose not to distract himself.
He stopped – frozen in mid-step. Waiting. Waiting. Then it happened again – a faint stirring of air currents. A tiny breeze from his right. He waited again – and after a few minutes there was another faint wash of air that blew over him. He turned on the light and investigated, finding that the rock on the far side of the tunnel was broken and crazed. As he examined it, the wall crumbled to his touch – it looked to have been excavated at some point in the past, and hastily blocked up by something or someone. He tore at the wall with one hand in the darkness, his other hand firmly on the hilt of his sword, until he'd made a space big enough to crawl into.
With his sword still held in one hand, he struggled through the narrow crawlspace, into a curving tunnel that wound up and around, rising until it burst out onto the hillside under a dangling mat of hardy vegetation. He flopped forwards and out onto the side of the rise, eyes squinting in the evening light that still looked incredibly bright after so long underground. He lay for a moment on his back, phone clutched in one hand, sword in the other and a severed head knotted and tied to his belt loop, staring at the sky in grateful thanks. After a moment to recover, he raised the phone to his face, glad to see that he once again had a signal, and speed dialled Kai.
"Boss? I fell in a hole, into some underground caves. I'm a little bit hurt – can you send someone to get me?" Kai agreed, and asked him where he was – prompting Shimazu to look around and realise that he was in some kind of defile, with absolutely no frame of reference at all. Kai didn't seem too bothered though, and asked Tads to go look for him. Floating above the ground in astral space, and looking down for sizeable life signs in the otherwise arid scrubland wasn't too difficult, and she found him after only a few minutes search. She manifested and told him not to worry, and that they'd be out soon enough.
Returning to her body, she reported in, then went to see Rusudan. In only a few minutes, they had the horses saddled and one of the kids was riding with her, up into the mesa to look for their companion on the back of the sturdy draught horse. When they found him, they got him saddled up on one horse, while they both rode on the other. The horse was skittish from the smell of blood, but eventually was calm enough to ride back, and they headed down the trails in the gradually darkening sky. Along the way, Shimazu passed over the gem to Tads.
"I found this in the wall of the cave, near one of the spoil heaps. Do you think it's worth much?"
Tads examined the gem, looking at the rough facets and shining her torch on it.
"It's a sunstone sphalerite , nice specimen too. Probably get a good thirty caret gem from this, if you cut it right. Maybe worth a few thousand to a gem cutter, or possibly of use in a magical ritual or fabrication. You say you found it in the wall?"
Shimazu confirmed how he'd found it, and described the tunnels and caverns some more, along with the strange creature that he'd found, and dispatched. They made it back to the ranch ok, and Shimazu was quickly dispatched for a shower and a fresh set of clothes, before he was thoroughly checked over for damage and his ribs bound and a few injections given to aid in his recovery. While he was being ministered too, he described what had happened.
"Well, I found a couple of places that looked like good locations for a shrine or small temple to be built. I'd settled down to meditate, and probably spent half an hour or so just sitting with my sword across my lap, just focussing. I recall getting up and then starting to walk back, but over the top of some rocks and stuff. Then it's just a blank, until I woke up at the bottom of the rockface."
They listened, and Kai checked over Shimazu's head carefully, finding a few very tender patches.
"Probably retrograde temporary amnesia, caused by the impact trauma. Nothing too much to worry about, but let us know if you start to get headaches." Kai bandaged him up, and the team filled Shimazu in on what they'd been up to while he'd been gone.
At the end of the quick round up of what the team had been up to while Shimazu had been having his underground adventure, Tads sat forward on her chair, resting her arms on the dining room table.
"And that is why I need to investigate Vusul. And, I'm not leaving the area until we do."
"Hey, chill out – we're a team, and we do what's right for the team, even if that's not what you personally want to do." Hunter retorted loudly.
"Well, if that's the case, then I might need to leave the team – as this is something I have to do." The temperature seemed to drop a degree or two with that statement. Hunter looked like he was about to reply, but was distracted as his phone started to buzz and vibrate, and he grabbed it to read through the received message.
"Is there a magical spell that allows you to translate speech, Tads?" asked Kai, trying to seek a resolution not a confrontation.
"Yes, but the problem is, its cast on a person, so it's where their meat body is. I can't astrally project and go and listen in on someone like I was spying on the goons in their house – the spell won't come with me. In fact, the spell can't stay up while I go out of my body." She started to explain, but saw Kai struggle with the concepts a little. "Look, I can't keep a spell up and running if I leave my body – there's not enough power. OK?" Kai nodded – that much at least was pretty simple and easy to understand.
At the other end of the table, Nadia grabbed Marius by the hand, attracting his attention with a few taps from the other one.
"Marius, I want to add things to the team shopping list. Can you speak to Kai about this for me? Please?" She gazed at him, stroking the back of his hand gently until he nodded. "Great. In that case I need a new computer, a proper full sized laptop or portable unit, with about a thousand megapulses of fast access memory, multiple trode hitch points, an LX4 chipset or higher, a couple of datajacks with the 1.3 media bus addons, a decent quality one metre rollout screen, and a couple of backup devices with about 20K of storage each. Oh, and an external sat dish with unlimited download subscriber ID, auto-track alignment system, class 2 UPS and full weather seals, OK?" Marius gawped at her as she reeled off the specification.
"It's for data searches and organisation, honey, I need it to work on. This little thing is no good for that – I keep running out of storage space when searching, and the scripting language is too limited, and trying to piggyback off the phone signal is SOOOOO slow. Otherwise it's just an exercise in frustration trying to find things for you lot…" Marius nodded at her, and promised that he'd speak to Kai about getting some parts ordered for her, and tuned back into the conversation at the other end of the table, where Tads was discussing doing something with the front of his truck.
"What is this? What are you doing to my truck?" He put subtle but determined emphasis on the possessive term.
"Tads was just saying that she wants to set up another lodge, in the front of the truck. A low force one, but just enough that she can be studying new spells as we're travelling, and still able to react to situations as they happen."
"What does this mean to me? Will there be chalk lines all over the windscreen and things?"
"No, no – just a couple of dreamcatchers here and there, and maybe some art on the back wall. Nothing that will interfere with the trucks operation." Marius glared at Tads and Kai, but it looked like he'd missed the main part of the discussion and all the others agreed it was a good idea, so he'd probably lost his opportunity to refuse it without appearing churlish. An idea entered his head though….
"Kai, that doesn't seem to be an issue. It's for the good of the team, after all. So Nadia has just mentioned that she's trying to do the data-searches for us on various things, and keeps running into low-memory messages on the pocket secretary. She's asked for a couple of little upgrades, to make things faster and help her ensure she gets all the detail she wants, that ok?"
"Sure, next time we go shopping, we can pick some bits up. No problem." Kai turned back towards Tads, Hunter and Aswon, and missed the satisfied smile on the German's face. Nadia hugged him tightly, beaming up at him and admiring his style.
Hunter sighed loudly, then rapped his knuckles on the table, waiting until he had everyone's attention. He started set up the rollout screen and his phone at the end of the table, propping them up on the bread bin and getting ready to show the team some data.
"Right, my mate Julius has sent me some data on the town, and on the Mammadova clan by the looks of things. Probably will be useful in planning out what the next stage is. Looks like a corporate presentation, so I'll go through the slides one after another until we get to the end, then go back to the start and we can go through each one and discuss what's on them, one at a time, right?"
He set the presentation going, paging through the dozen slides included in the file one after another, then hit the key to return to the beginning. As they worked through them, they discussed what the graphs meant and tried to interpret the data - Nadia proving to have the greatest grasp of economic theory and various book-keeping knowledge. It seemed that Mammadova was firmly established in the town, and was using the legitimate businesses to clean his money gained from people, drug and gun smuggling in the area – and it was easy to see where young Ulvi had gotten his ideas from. The data also showed them that there seemed to be a distinct bias in the town against foreign investment, especially from the UCAS, and that the politicians in the city was almost certainly up to their necks in some kind of vote rigging scandal – and as a result were almost inevitably crooked, and in charge of dirty cops and a corrupt council.
"Was Esprit the oil company we attacked? Or were they the one that hired us?" asked Tads.
"Neither. Esprit were the third company, the one we impersonated. Maersk hired us to attack Dekita, owned by Fuchi, which we did by pretending to be Esprit, owned by Saeder Krupp. Or at least it was the Esprit air wing that engaged Dekita over the desert while we made our getaway."
"I think I caught up with that explanation. Either way though, I guess we want to stay clear of them in Shirvan. In fact, don't we want to stay clear of the whole town – it sounds like a stinking cesspool all together, and we don't stand to gain much. Once we've sorted the Vusul situation out, aren't we better just avoiding the whole place?"
"No, I don't think we can. We have to address the situation, we can't just ignore it." Marius pointed at the presentation data with his index finger. "People that can act like this – they rely on fear, and reputation. The aura of power. Once word gets around of what happened to his son, he will have to take action, to preserve his reputation. He can't let the situation slide, it would be a massive loss of face, a challenge to his power. He will investigate, and aim to neutralise the source. And with the power of whatever industry he controls in town, along with the police and the politicians, we can't afford to leave that at our backs. Otherwise we'll always be looking over our shoulders." A freshly showered and clean Shimazu nodded along with Marius at his description of losing face and the potential outcomes.
Hunter had been busy with his computer, trying to track down the owner of one of the major companies that didn't have ties to the Mammadovas – but finding little beyond "Shirvan Steel" being run by Arif Farad and their matrix site not having been updated for over twenty months. Giving it up as a bad job, he started trying to research the elections in Shirvan and any election controversy that had been reported instead.
Tads and Shimazu went out into the yard and examined the head of the creature that he'd encountered. Carefully prodding and poking at it, Tads determined that it was a variant of a creature known to her as a "knocker", a powerful subterranean burrowing creature loosely derived from orangutans. Their immensely hard claws were able to rip apart rocks and they tunnelled extensively creating vast warrens of passages in any area they inhabited. The bad news was that they shunned contact with other species, and tended to react aggressively when encountered. On the other hand, the head had been severed by a pure blade in a single stroke – and properly prepared and kept now, would make a great base for enchanting something in the future, as would the gem discovered in the rockface. Aswon came out to fetch them in, as they'd discovered more information on the town, but was intrigued with the severed head, asking for details on how it lived and what it was, so Tads explained again.
"I guess this would be useful as a focus or fetish for any spell that shaped or affected the earth then?" Tads nodded at him. "That might make Marius and Hunter happy – they seem intent on developing some kind of underground lair. Personally I think it's a little excessive. He shrugged, but then turned back towards the house.
Inside they found that there was a political opponent that had done very badly at all of the elections, despite seeming not to be that unpopular – and on examining his policies which centred around increased commercial development and encouraging foreign investment it was easy to see why the current crop of politicians were keen to squash him. Hunter and Nadia had done a bit of digging, and found that Tirek Mammadove seemed to be fairly straight up – and was probably being used to 'prove' that the elections weren't fixed, and were free and fair, by presenting a vaguely credible opposition. As long as he didn't ever get anything other than 14.2% of the vote, year after year.
Kai turned on his chair and faced Tads.
"Can you do a quick scout around the mountain, and just make sure that we aren't looking at the monkey apocalypse. Just check that we don't have any of the creatures coming out of the ground and tracking us or anything. I just want to not have that niggling away at me." Tads smiled at him, but nodded in agreement, and went and laid down on the couch before projecting from her body and scouting. It only took her a few minutes to whizz around the trails and hills, before coming back and reporting that it was all quiet, with just the normal nocturnal wildlife out and about.
After Tads reported that it was all clear, they talked about their plans to do recon in Shirvan. Aswon made the point that they really had to take the truck – it was their base, their main redoubt and the one place they could pretty much guarantee that they could take a hit until someone called in the army or some seriously heavy firepower – but more than that, it was where all their best gear, spares, and alternate equipment was located. Although the truck was very noticeable, and somewhat easy to spot, it meant they had ready access to whatever they needed to make the mission work. Now they had the four by four resprayed they could use that for mobile recon around the town, and leave the truck parked somewhere a little quieter, but still close enough to be available to respond to any situations they could find themselves in.
They also agreed to deface the tags on the stolen four by four – adding extra black stripes to the bar code number plate with electrical tape. Although Shirvan didn't strike them as the sort of place to have much in the way of automatic plate capture, it was best to be certain, and at least they'd flag up as an invalid plate rather than the stolen car of a mafia boss if they did get scanned. Between the altered tags and the respray, they should be safe from casual scanning.
"Can we infiltrate on the bus or train, to reduce our reliance on the vehicles, do you think?" asked Tads. "Surely if we mingle in with the commuters we should stand out less?
"I don't think so, Tads – I can alter my facial structure a little, and change my skin tone, and Nadia blends in pretty perfectly of course – but the rest of you stand out like sore thumbs." Kai pointed at each team member in turn. "So we have tall, thin, black man with a lion mane and a habit of saying 'I am Aswon', a member of the Aryan master race, a Chinese bodybuilder, and a western European ork. Somehow I don't think any of you are going to pass in the crowd without notice. Not even a disguise is going to help most of you – your body shape is just too different. So most of the spying is going to have to be from behind the car windscreens. That's why I want you to be busy doing a whole bunch of research, Nadia."
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"I'm not sure you're getting how this is supposed to work. I'm the boss!"
"Yes. But the answer is still no. In fact, we shouldn't be doing any more searches at all, I think."
"Why not?"
"Well, Rusudan said there's no wired matrix access here – so we've been using his cellular commlink as a hotspot. Which explains why the signal is so awful and the bandwidth so low. But that also means every single matrix search we've done has the same MSP address and flags, the same carrier signal and the same origin point. So far most of the searches haven't been too unusual or noticeable. But if we start doing searches on the local politicians, the actual details of the vote rigging, bent cops – that kind of thing… we're going to trip flags. And that will bring a response right back down on Rusudan and his family.
The room fell silent for a moment as they considered that, and realised that Nadia was right.
"Ok, well, we need to get a wired connection sorted out, and yeah, we need to get some better gear for doing our research on – something that will hide our trail a little. But until then, let's keep it lightweight and general. So, we need to do more physical scouting. Hmm… that's going to be a problem."
"Maybe not – I've got a spell that will help, as long as people aren't spotted by a mage or cross a ward. Here, let me show you… if you don't mind… Hunter?" Hunter raised an eyebrow at her, but then shrugged a little and waved his acceptance. Her hands made a series of complex gestures, and she spoke quietly, but there was no outward show of power – no glow like when healing magic was used. But, slowly Hunter seemed to collapse in on himself, his features morphing and twisting. He grew smaller, and seemed to become more slender as well. His clothing rippled and suddenly twisted into tatty jeans and an oily hoodie, with a headcloth wrapped around his head revealing a dark and swarthy appearance with a black beard and moustache.
The others pushed back their chairs and circled Hunter, examining him carefully and trying to see through the spell she had cast – but it held up under their scrutiny. Tads sat with her eyes closed, a frown of concentration on her face.
"The bad news is that I can do this for one person easily enough. But more than one and it gets easier to break through, and harder to maintain. So if we can have one person out at a time, I can disguise them – and change how they look each time if you want, as long as you don't hit anyone magical. Other than that – the chances are we'll get funny looks and people might see through things or they'll be inconsistencies."
"Well, that makes things simpler then. Good work. So, let's plan on one at a time, rotating people, rotating disguises, doing physical recon on the town, from the four by four, with the truck on standby somewhere quiet."
"Oh, and one other thing Kai," Kai turned to Aswon and motioned for him to speak.
"Please can we sell those leeches, the shares and find a buyer for that dagger we got from the golem retrieval guys?" Shimazu made disgruntled noises and looked outraged that someone was going to sell his leeches, but not as annoyed as Kai did.
"It's not the right time to sell those shares yet… trust me!"
Kai could see that Aswon and several of the team were not exactly happy about this, and excused himself from the table, heading to the stairs and calling for Rusudan and Naena. When they came down, he asked them to join the team at the table, and asked them about their views of the local politicians.
Over the next ten minutes, listening to both of the locals describe the politicians and their activities, they had a better idea of the depth and quality of the sleaziness of their targets. Although there was nothing concrete or proven, their activities and approach all reeked of media manipulation, bribery, corruption and venal behaviour that fitted the stereotype for a corrupt local official in a backwards area. The team asked about conditions in the Shirvan, and got a few blank spots filled in by the two, getting more of a feel for how the town ran and the type of services on offer – though the viewpoint was understandably slanted by their needs and approach of being resort operators.
With nothing more to do that night, and no electronic searches in progress, the team settled down, spending a quiet night in their beds resting. The night was uneventful, and though a few of them stirred at dawn to greet the new day, or in response to the noise made by the family as they mucked out the horses or carried out their morning activities, they enjoyed the calm and relaxing time. They gradually made their way down to breakfast at around nine, finding a selection of food and drink laid out on the table for them courtesy of Naena. Tads went to the kitchen looking for some preserve to add to her bread, and ended up rooting through the cupboards – discovering that they were fairly empty and that supplies were low.
Poking her head around the corner of the kitchen door, she checked what was on the table, then went back and looked through the pantry and cupboards again. Now that she was looking specifically, it was clear that the family had used most of their supplies to feed the team, and there was very little left. Sighing, Tads pulled several containers out of storage and down from shelves, and rolled up her sleeves, before starting to mutter under her breath. One after another she filled the containers with different types of basic food, trying to restock the kitchen and provide for their hosts. When she was done, she went and poked Kai in the ribs repeatedly until he stopped talking, so she could tell him what she'd found.
He agreed that they needed to sort this out, and said that they were going to head into Shirvan, just as soon as he'd made a call. He waited for a bit of quiet, then putting the phone on speaker, dialled the number for one of the policemen in the local town. When the phone was answered, he asked how things were, checking that nobody from Shivan had come to town yet, wanting answers or causing trouble. Thankfully, the situation was unchanged – it appeared that their disappearance had not been noticed or responded to yet. The locals were very happy about their new found liberty to shop when and where they liked though, and there was a buzz around town and lots of people wondering what had happened to them, but nobody was mentioning the team or the truck yet.
Kai then asked for information on Shirvan – but here he was less successful. It became clear that Aliev had only been to Shirvan to attend the police station there for training. It was laughable in a way – he kept referring to Shirvan as "the big city" and spoke of it as a cosmopolitan and busy place, showing just how limited his world view was. However, he could confirm at least that there weren't any "no-go" or ghetto areas of Shirvan, and that the most upscale areas were just west of the central area of town, and that's where the politicians and big chiefs tended to live. Most importantly though he told Kai that Ilham Aliyev had private security bodyguards, not just local police, to protect him.
The team got ready to leave, and Tads cast her masking spell on Hunter again, turning him into a large and thuggish looking human with a heavy set monobrow and hunched shoulders, with battered jeans and a sweat stained check shirt, hands covered in scars and thick short fingers – the type of guy who might want to work on a building site or steel mill, doing some kind of hot, dangerous or physically demanding work. With some of them in the four by four, and the rest in the truck, they pulled out of the yard onto the highway, leaving the trailer nestled by the side of the garage, and headed down the main road towards Shirvan.
They were a third of the way there when they caught sight of Rusudan, sticking to the edge of the road in his little cart being drawn by one of the horses. They skirted around him and pulled over, waiting for him to catch up to them.
"Where are you off to, Rusudan?"
"To Shirvan, Master Kai. I need to get some food shopping in." Kai glanced across to Tads, and then back to Rusudan.
"So we noticed. You're supposed to tell us about things like that, and not let us eat all your food, you know. At least you've got money on the stick we gave you the other night, yes?" Kai watched, and then frowned as Rusudan said nothing and looked away with a strange expression on this face. "What is it? What's the matter?"
"Well, the stick you gave me. There's no money on it. I didn't want to say anything… I thought I had disappointed you and you had taken it back."
The team looked at each other in confusion for a moment, wondering what had happened, until Marius facepalmed, the loud slap sounding like a muted gunshot.
"Ach – our reader. It's not linked up to the banks, of course. But the money was taken from a normal SIN. So when we didn't synchronise with a valid bank terminal within a certain timeframe, the charge was reversed. The money will be back on their original accounts now – both this one and the money we gave to the gir…. other person."
Kai made a disappointed grunting noise, then pulled out one of the certified sticks, and grabbed Rusudan's personal stick, feeding them both into the cred-terminal and transferring four thousand Nuyen over from their reserves before handing it back to him.
"There, that should cover the shopping. Anything like that happens again, please tell us straight away – the sooner we know, the sooner we can fix it. And, it might be the first sign that someone is trying to mess with us."
With that, they boarded their vehicles again, pulling out onto the quiet road and heading towards Shirvan to start their surveillance and operation against Malik Mammadova.
