Saturday 25/9/2060, Location: 22.22744, 114.24966, Time 21:00

The engines started, starboard side first with the port side following ten seconds later. Marius took it gently, monitoring the fuel flow, temperature readouts, pressure manifolds and thrust settings carefully. As good as Giovani's workshop might have been, they were still working on something outside their normal comfort zone by a considerable margin, as far as he was concerned. They might claim that the hyper-car engines they saw were just as complex as the jet turbines on his bird, but Marius knew there was a world of difference between theory and practice.

The engines however performed flawlessly, building up power smoothly and being as responsive as he could have wished for. The propellors spun up as expected, and via the rigger interface he could feel his legs spring and bounce as they started to take the weight off of his landing gear. With a last check around, he fed in more power, and the tilt wing rose smoothly up through the courtyard. He was ready for the gusts of wind across the face of the cliff, counteracting the strong flow of air coming in from the sea with a deft touch of rudder and he nosed the craft forwards a little as he continued to rise, easing away from the cliff face and getting more room to manoeuvre.

The ground dropped away, the academy receding below them as they continued to rise into the night sky, and edge out over the sea. Marius kept the power steady while he transitioned to forward flight, the pods rotating smoothly and starting to draw them forwards. When the wings generated enough lift he eased back on the throttles, heading generally north-east and keeping the speed low while he let the engines and airframe settle in, monitoring his systems carefully. In his experience, problems would show up in the first ten to fifteen minutes of flight after any kind of refit or refurbishment. No sense pushing things to breaking point if he didn't have to, and he'd rather feel something was wrong and be able to put down before it broke than push too hard and have a catastrophic failure.

He did flick open a channel to the rear compartment though, and call back to the rest of the team.

"All systems nominal. I am keeping us on a lower power setting than normal, at least for now. But I need a course heading soon."

Hunter pulled out the map, keyed his deck alive and pulled up their map, showing Hong Kong in the bottom left of the map, with Japan up at the top right.

"We have a couple of different options, with several places where we can change, selecting a different style of transit for the next leg, giving us several hundred combinations and factors to take into account if we wanted to – or we can pretty much choose from three main routes of travel." He selected one route first over his cybernetic link, making the line leading from Hong Kong to Shanghai strobe gently.

"First route, the one flashing blue here – leads us to Shanghai, a little over twelve hundred kilometres away. We have a smuggler base contact there, allowing us to refuel, before then taking the next leg over the East China Sea for another six hundred and ninety klicks to the first volcano." The blue route stopped flashing, and the next path replaced it, glowing a bright orange instead. "This one takes us eight hundred klicks to Taipei International in Taiwan. I'll have to get busy fast with the paperwork on this one, but we should be able to get landing and refuelling clearance I think, then move on another eleven hundred to the volcano." The orange line froze in place, and the next route over started to strobe, shading through different light green shades in a cyclic fashion. "Last of all, we can go about thirteen hundred clicks out more east than north, and end up at the Dragon Pirates base we talked about on the way down here originally. Refuel there, before doing another seven hundred and fifty or so north to the volcano."

All three routes converged on the same point, a small island to the south west of Japan. With a mental command he zoomed in on the map, showing the team the sprawling town of Goto, wrapped around Fukue Regional airport, and just next to the airport the low but wide cone of a long-dormant volcano. Only two hundred and forty metres high, it spread quite widely across the surrounding area.

Hunter then sketched out the routes from there, highlighting another smuggler stop in North Korea, a chain of airports stretching up through Japan and the next two volcano targets – one a little south of Nagoya on the south coast, and the final target way up to the north of the islands near the city of Hokkaido.

"I have a preferred route…" the voice came over the speaker as Marius grabbed a look at the data feed, doing some quick mental calculations from the scale and distances that Hunter had marked. "We should head to Shanghai, and get the longest leg of the journey complete. Refuel fully there, including filling the additional barrels. Head to the first volcano using seven hundred and twenty litres of fuel, then from there head straight to the second, using an additional eight hundred and fifteen. Fly on to somewhere remote, set ourselves down, and then refuel from the additional tanks. From there, we fly north using one thousand and eighty litres to reach the third volcano. Again, we set down somewhere remote and quiet, empty the remaining reserves from the barrels into the main tanks. From there, we only need six hundred and twenty litres to get to the Twin Peaks base. We stop there, fully refuel, and sleep."

"Can… can you do all that in one go?" Kai sounded sceptical.

"Ja. It will be a long day, for sure. But it is possible. And it reduces our time in Japan to the bare minimum possible. Three direct flights, no stays, no lingering, no shopping. In and out, quickly."

"Well, that gets my vote for sure. If there's a country where we don't want to mess with the air defence network, the radar or border patrols, it's Japan." Aswon shook his head, sending his dreadlocks whipping back and forth. "I endorse Marius' plan. And we are behind schedule, with the stop in Hong Kong. If we can get these three volcanos completed in the next day, we will be half way through, both in number of drops and time elapsed. Hopefully then we can make up some time, to cover us against any further incidents."

"Ok, you sold me – unless anyone has any objections? No? Ok, Marius – next stop, Shanghai." Kai felt the aircraft bank as Marius turned north, cutting a route straight towards mainland China, while Hunter fed him routing information on their destination and the various warring states they were going to be flying over. "Tads, I presume we have spirit cover available?"

"Of course, I called and bargained for our protection at dusk. In addition, I have a suggestion to make?" Kai nodded at her to carry on, and the rest of the team looked up at her. "From what we can see on the map that Hunter has shown us, the volcano is low. It is close to town, so unlikely to have Salamanders or any other creatures like that present. Can we just over-fly this one, and drop the token out of the door as we pass? Do we even have to stop?"

"Good question. I'd like to actually place it rather than drop it – just so it won't roll or get blown away, or end up being swept away in the first rains. But we can have a look. If there's a pond or something like the last one, maybe we can air-drop it into that?" Kai looked over the map again, but couldn't see any signs of a watercourse or body of standing water in the shallow cone at the top of the slope. "I also don't like the idea of refuelling at the volcano. Isn't that likely to draw attention?"

"We will not be refuelling at the volcano itself, Tads." There was a slight edge to his voice as Marius explained, "Just somewhere nearby, in a flight sense. That might be fifty or a hundred kilometres away. Just nearby compared to the thousand kilometres to our next waypoint."

"Oh, I see. Ok. Well, if we're flying into a legitimate airport, are we going to make use of our medical company as a cover? I was thinking… if we do, could we claim to have live organs in transit? That might help explain why we're in a rush?"

"We could, but I'd rather avoid the paperwork if we can help it. I'm with Marius – we fly in, nap of the earth, stick to cover and just overfly the volcano and throw the thingy out the back door. Simple." Hunter skimmed his hands against each other as if wiping dust off them.

"I'm not sure about just dropping it – I think we need to place it a little more carefully than that. But in principle, sure. Shimazu – while we're in Japan, is there anything we need to be wary of? Or is there anything you need to do, anything mystical or something like that?"

"No – nothing for me. I'd say just be respectful of people, and accept that they're going to give you funny looks for being foreign."

"I'm going to stay onboard – they're not going to like me, and I'm fine with that." Hunter's voice was firm. "No sense giving them an excuse, and the rest of you are probably ok."

"Have we checked the weather and things this time? We don't want to break the engines again, not with how much they cost to fix."

"Well, it wasn't so much the weather, Tads, it was more flying through the ash cloud of a fresh eruption that caused the damage. And that was because we came in at night and the sensors couldn't detect anything – the particles were far too fine. But now we know what we're looking for, I'm sure we can avoid that kind of thing in the future. I mean, for starters we can check the volcanos to make sure they're not erupting – that's got to help a lot." Aswon smiled, showing his incisors. "Now that we know what we're looking for, it should be a lot easier. And even if we do find another live volcano, I think we just have to shift to daylight operations so Marius can see what's going on. Obviously it would be better not to get there at all in the middle of a cloud of ash, but if we have to, I'm sure Marius can avoid the worst of it, and we can use a spirit to help protect the engines and so on – now that we know what the threat is."

"I agree. I would rather not fly into any volcano that is erupting. But if we have to get near one, daylight will make it much safer. The cloud is made up of particles too small to show up on sensors properly, and we cannot afford to foul the engines again."

"Well, that seems settled then. Oh – Kai! I know you spoke to Harikoa when we were back at Chun's about the permits for getting into Japan. Do you need to call him and sort that out? He needs to know we're on the move."

"Good shout, Aswon, I'll call him now." Kai settled down to make the call, while the rest of the team continued to study the map, planning out the route and options available, occasionally calling to Marius to ask for specific advice on their proposed routes, while Kai called Harikona… He tried a few times, getting nothing but a busy signal, and eventually had to leave a message, advising of their plans.

"Does anyone know what type of birds are native to Japan? Really big birds?" Tads looked around at the rest, seeing confusion on their faces. "I was thinking in case we need an illusion, we could do a flock of birds. I would have thought most pilots would want to steer clear of a big bird in case it got into the engine and caused them to crash."

"Oh, I see. Well, maybe not a big bird, but a big flock of small ones? Have you ever seen a murmation?" Tads shook her head, and Aswon described the massive congregations of starlings that sometimes occurred, with the hundreds of thousands of individual birds flocking and forming intricate patterns in the sky. Hunter managed to find a video to play, showing the dense clouds of birds flowing through the sky, folding into intricate formations as they darted back and forth. "That's a pretty big murmation, but see how fast it moves, and how much space it takes up – more than big enough to hide us in."

"And do they get these murmations in Japan?" she asked.

"I found a matrix site here from some bird watcher. He lists nine different varieties of starling found in Japan, so I'd say it's a pretty safe bet. Looks like that's a good cover. And they can hit eighty k.p.h as well. Nippy buggers!"

"Harikona is busy, so I've left a message. But there's something nagging at me, and I can't put my finger on it. The date – it's not a particular special date for Shinto temples or anything like that is it? Not anything significant coming up?"

The team considered, checking their calendars and Hunter ran another quick matrix search, looking for anything significant.

"I got a legend of some king in England beating some other King, way back in 1066. Yeah, a win for King Harold the second. Um… another one here about the first time a boat was docked using remote control, by some guy called Leonardo. Fifty seven years ago, there was an 8.3 magnitude earthquake just off the coast of Hokkaido. But I'm not seeing anything else significant really. Not without spending a lot longer trawling through some archives…" Hunter wrinkled his nose up, making it clear how much he looked forward to that idea. "Oh hang on… something hit a flag. I got a report here about Snow Monsters, found around the ski resorts at Zao. That's weird, they're presented as a big tourist draw, in this report, with people actively seeking them out? Oh – and never mind. That's not here… that's the next volcano, number six. Still, should probably have a look into that…"

"Hi, Harikona? It's Kai." He answered before the first ring had finished, the phone still in his hand after his earlier attempts to call out.

"So, nothing like short notice, then, Mr. Kai." He sighed. "Whatever… ok, so you're on the way, and you need entry, yes?"

"It's just Kai, and yes please. We're on the way to Shanghai now, and we're stopping to tank up and stretch the legs, then planning on heading…" He squinted at the map and tilted his head, momentarily disoriented. Hunter snorted and mouthed 'east' at him. "Ahh yes, heading east from there, over the sea and coming in towards the west coast."

"Hai. Very well, fortunately I had preparations in hand. I should have travel permits for you in the next three hours. I'll send you a flight plan soon, that will take you in towards Kumamoto International."

Hunter plotted an arc from Shanghai to Kumamoto, and gave a big grin and a thumbs up to Kai – the route took them within about twenty kilometres of their location, and it would be incredibly easy to vary off course for a few minutes to do the drop off.

"Excellent, that's perfect. Thank you. We'll probably need some more help getting back into Japan on our way back from our destination, but I promise you'll get more notice!"

"That would be helpful. I will contact you again shortly with the data packet." Kai didn't get a chance to wish him well, the call being disconnected as soon as Harikona had finished speaking.

"Kai, can you squirt his number over to Vadim, please? I just want to make sure that if we do end up splitting at some point, if his totem leads him down a different path – well, I want to make sure he has the opportunity to get home safely." Kai nodded and passed over the contact details to Vadim. "Great. Now, have we contacted the Shanghai base to let them know we're coming?" Kai shook his head. "Ok, and what about the next one up. Twin Peaks, was it? I think we should let them know we're coming."

"I don't. It's too early."

"Well I do." A stubborn edge had crept into her voice, and she stared at Kai. When she spoke again, it was louder and more forceful than was usual for her. "We should give them notice, and let them know we're coming."

"Well, I don't." Kai's voice had equally risen, responding to the challenge to his decision. "The more notice we give them, the more time they have to plan and fuck us over. There's no reason to do that!"

"Yes there is!"

"NO, there isn't!"

"YES, THERE IS! Or have you forgotten the South African bunch on the island. Colonel Sawoon. He didn't have the fuel for us, because we didn't give him enough notice. He had to get it bought in. If we'd given him notice, we wouldn't have had to wait. Not everywhere has jet fuel in, or enough to fill our tanks and oil barrels. And if we're flying over the sea, I'd rather make sure we have a full tank, thank you, and I think everyone else would too!" She folded her arms and stared at him defiantly, challenging Kai to argue with her.

Kai blinked, unused to being argued with like that, especially from Tads who was normally the most non-confrontational member of the team. He took a deep breath, calming himself before speaking – she felt strongly about this, or she wouldn't have responded in this fashion, and they all relied on her too much for magical protection to alienate her. It was Aswon that cut across him and spoke next though.

"Both points are valid. We need fuel to fly on. We also need not to be ambushed or taken advantage of. But perhaps we consider our fall back position and make sure we have a plan 'B'. If we get there, and they do not have fuel, or enough fuel, for us – what do we do instead. If we have an alternative we can use, then maybe we can justify not warning them. But if we have no backup plan, then we should make the arrangements earlier rather than later." The rest of the team nodded along with Aswon, and Kai found it hard to dispute the logic.

They spent the next few minutes plotting their routes, trying to identify the different locations they could use, and coming up with fallback options – even plotting a route back to Vladivostok if need be. They at least knew they could land the aircraft at Vadim's place, and arrange for fuel to be bought to them! Kai did at least get on the phone and call the number for Shanghai Noodles, keying the speaker alive as he did so.

"Dooooooooooooo bip! Doooooooooo diddle dee diddle dee diddle dee scaweeee!" He blinked and stared down at the phone as the electronic screeches poured from the speaker. There were a few seconds of silence, and then the noises repeated the same pattern again.

"What the hell? Marius? Is this some kind of rigger signal or homing beacon?" He patched the noise through, listening as it repeated for a third time. There were a few more seconds of silence, then the call disconnected entirely.

"That is not a rigger signal. Or at least not one that I am aware of."

"Ok, just hang on a minute. I've got a hunch…" Hunter's face screwed up in concentration, and then he pulled open a utility on his deck, handing over an optical cable to Kai and gesturing to the phone. "Plug that into your data port, and then redial the number, will you? I wanna check on something." Once more the high pitched squeals sounded, with a matching waveform being displayed on the screen as the audio utility captured the sound. "Ok, hang up then give me a few minutes…"

They flew on, while Hunter sat with eyes closed, datajack pulsing as he operated the deck, performing a few searches and analysing the signal received. Opening them after five minutes of quiet twitching, he rummaged in his bag, searching through some of the optical chips that had come with the purloined deck, muttering to himself. When he found the right one, he inserted it into the side of the deck, then closed his eyes and concentrated once more. Two minutes later, he opened his eyes and smiled.

"Alright – think I got it. It's an old signal, like they used from before the crash. They used special devices to let their computers talk over analogue signals, converting code into different audio signals. I've just written a little program that should hopefully translate the audio back into code… assuming they're using Oblong anyway. But that's pretty much the most common code for terminals these days… want to give it a call again, Kai?"

"Dooooooooooooo bip! Doooooooooo diddle dee diddle dee diddle dee scaweeee!"

Connect session [Y/N]? appeared on his screen, green letters on a plain black window, the characters appearing one at a time. He sent a mental command, and a moment later a 'Y' appeared, followed by an answering squawk from his deck.

"Dee da da dee da dee dee da da da dee dadadada screeeee!" Kai turned the volume down as a stream of noise battered at their ears, characters slowly appearing on the deck as a menu was transmitted bit by bit.

Menu

landing

goods

goods

services

Hunter didn't need prompting, sending a single character in response as he selected the landing option.

Landing Options

Maintenance required? Y/N

"Select Yes, Hunter! I wish to get the engines checked over, after their run in." Marius called from the cockpit." Hunter sent a single character, then watched as the next option was displayed.

Fuel required? Y/N Y

Select Fuel type

Fuel Cell

Charge Point

.Gas Hunter sent a six back, then sighed as another menu opened underneath.

Select sub category

5 Standard

5 Enhanced

100LL

-A1

"Err – Marius... what flavour do you need?" He read out the displayed options, and waited for Marius to consider."

"JP5 is good military fuel. But the enhanced may be a higher specification. It will likely cost more, but give us better performance. I would request option number two." Hunter dutifully entered the option, and watched the next text appear, character by painful character.

Select fuel amount in litres

He entered 3600, wondering if there would be a problem… but the system seemed happy to allow this.

Additional services required? Y/N

"Ohh, I wonder what that is?" Kai sounded intrigued, but saw the looks the rest of the team shot at him. "Ok, say no. This time…." Hunter sent a response and watched as the final message appeared. A moment later, the signal terminated as the call was cut off at the far end.

Booking successful. Landing slot booked.

"Well, that was weird. And somewhat painful. I hope we don't have to go through that every time!" Hunter saved his program, entering a few notes into his deck and checking through his code again to make sure it was working correctly.

They flew on, the advanced stealth technology built into the aircraft and the guarding spirits making it difficult for the feuding warlords in the provinces below to detect them, while Marius kept a careful watch on the sensor feeds. Just before eleven, they could see the horizon getting lighter – the great port city of Shanghai, lit up so brightly it was unmissable. Marius eased over to starboard, aiming to loop around over the sea and fly up the river mouth towards the landing site. According to his location information, the smuggler stop was inside the port area, on the north side of the zone.

The rest of the team watched the video feed as they closed in, the city sprawling more than sixty kilometres east to west, and nearly ninety north to south, a dense metropolis housing millions of people. As they flew up towards the river mouth, they could see a subtle change in colour – the yellow street lamps and vivid colours of advertising displays giving way to a harsh white industrial light that revealed the port – over thirty kilometres squared of land allocated to one of the busiest ports in the world. The cranes stretched for twenty kilometres along the river front, enormous gantry cranes towering a hundred metres high and reaching out just as far over the river, loading some of the largest watercraft imaginable.

The scene was somewhat overwhelming, as they flew past hectares of container parks, massive lots full of raw and finished goods, maintenance facilities for the small army of vehicles required to keep the port operation and enough drones to mount an invasion of a small country. Marius had to lower the signal feed on his systems to avoid them being swamped with the sheer volume of transmissions as the massive rigger network that controlled the port spread out over most of the available frequencies.

"This does not look like a good place for a discreet smuggler stop!" Aswon murmured.

"I dunno. Think about the amount of traffic that must flow through here daily." Hunter checked his deck quickly, then continued. "Something like sixty-seven million containers a year, plus the bulk stuff. A lot of noise to get lost in, sometimes you just gotta hide in plain sight."

"I suppose. But also I mean…physically – where is it?"

"Ahh, I've been doing some checking. There looks to be a west dock and an east dock, two huge areas on the shore, each with their own sets of deep water berths, rail terminals, warehouses, cranes…the whole lot. And there's a narrow bit of land between them, with two dry-docks that I suspect used to be available for maintenance on ships."

"Used to be?"

"Well, I think so – I think too small now for the really big ships, so possibly only used for maintenance on older stuff. But I think it probably belonged to another organisation than the port authority, or the chamber of commerce or whoever owns the port. So it's the thin line between 'em, and I bet that neither side has pushed in, and someone has taken advantage of that."

Kai's phone rang as Marius swung them around and started to reduce speed, carefully heading to shore and reducing power. The environment was chaotic, the rows of cranes, piles of containers and vehicles shooting around the port making it one of the most crowded and busy areas he'd ever flown through. Kai heard the screeching and handed his phone over to Hunter, who quickly attached it to his deck and fired up the program, getting the second transmission cleanly and sending the response.

Landing clearance required? Y/N

"Well, of course we do!" Fortunately his link didn't translate the sarcasm, and just sent a single character in response. Once again the call disconnected almost immediately, but ahead of them a large clear area between two sets of warehouses lit up, revealing a short runway that terminated into a cargo area. Marius headed downwards, keeping a careful eye on the ground traffic below, and performed a perfect landing, reducing power gently and bringing them into the cargo area to roll to a stop on a large white line painted twenty metres back from the wall of cargo containers.

A dozen guards appeared from passageways between containers, spread out around the tilt-wing, and started to wander over towards them. Armed with some kind of assault rifles, they had the guns held on slings and seemed fairly relaxed – presumably a pro-forma show of strength or to remind their visitors to behave themselves. A single figure appeared from a container ahead of them, light spilling out though the open door. Presumably at least one container had been converted into an office of some sort, or maybe a landing facility. The man walked towards them, data-slate tucked under his arm, clearly heading for the starboard side door. Kai unbuckled, slid the door open and jumped down to the tarmac, Shimazu landing lithely next to him a moment later. As the man closed on their position, remaining a safe distance from the massive rotors still slowing, Kai called out a greeting in Mandarin. The man responded in English though, in a flat unexcited voice.

"Designation?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Designation!"

"Oh… err. Designation is 'New Fish' I suppose."

"Designation logged. Welcome to Shanghai Noodles New Fish. Do you wish to refuel at this time?"

"Yes, I suppose so." No visual or audio sign was given, but off to their right, a panel opened in a container and a large fuel truck appeared from inside, heading their way. Presumably he had a cybernetic relay or transmitter, much like Marius did."

"Refuelling in progress. Do you wish to commence maintenance activities?"

"Err yes, I think so. So we're good to get out and stretch our legs, the rest of the crew that is? Check things over?"

"Negative, no additional services were requested."

"But we just want to check over the bird and make sure it's ok?"

"Negative, no additional services were requested."

"Right, fine. But my pilot and navigator will need to deal with the fuelling work. That's ok, right?"

"Affirmative. Please specify method of payment for fuel?"

Kai grumbled, but waved to Marius and Hunter as they watched the fuel truck pull up next to them, waving to the barrels and the fuel hatch. While the team moved the barrels out to where the fuel hose could reach them and the main tanks were filled up, Kai found his credstick and watched the new man connect up his reader to the local network and start to access the banking portal.

A few minutes later, the fuel tanks and reserve tanks were full, and Kai's credstick was over thirteen thousand Nuyen lighter. He completed the transaction, and the man pocketed his cred-reader, nodded at him and turned on his heel, walking back towards the office without another word.

"I definitely get the feeling they're not quite normal around here…" he muttered to himself. "Oh hey, everyone – after the engine rebuild and stuff. Did anyone run a bug scan over the bird?" The team checked in, one after another, all responding negative. "I guess we should do a quick check here. At least if someone is following us, we'll have disappeared in all this noise, if Hunter was right!"

Hunter and Marius scanned the outside of the craft while the others checked the fuel hatches and covers were secured, running the bug scanner over the engines at the same time as Marius was physically checking the engines over and ensuring all the systems were responding normally. They'd just finished the starboard engine and were heading to the port side when they saw a chubby man emerge from the office and start to wander towards them with a weird rolling gait. He was of average height, but very much obese they saw as he emerged from the shadow of the container wall. Lank dark hair spread to either side of his head and he had a sallow and greasy complexion.

"Kai – someone to see you." Hunter called out, a small element of glee creeping into his voice." Once more Kai and Shimazu disembarked, heading over to meet the newcomer."

"Designation New Fish. Query – are additional services required?" They were close now, about a metre apart, and both Kai and Shimazu could see the datajack implanted in the side of the head, one on each side. The left port had a slender cable connected which ran down to his side, entering a plastic satchel hung from his belt. He didn't seem to have any further cyberware implants, despite having a strange other-worldly feeling about him. Shimazu was uncomfortable, watching him like a hawk with his hand on his sword ready to react. He had seen a similar sense of detachment and distance in other people, other bodyguards – the ones who had enough of their meat body replaced with performance enhancing cyberware that little of their humanity remained. Whatever this guy's issue was, he was acting like that, even if he had very little 'ware in him.

"Not really. I mean, we aren't planning on staying long, it was just a flying visit really."

"Humour detected in speech pattern." The datajack gave a brief pulse, and a moment later the sound of canned laughter came from the satchel.

"Ah-hah, yes, I suppose." Kai's grin was a little forced. "That wasn't what I meant though. I just wanted my crew to be able to stretch their legs a little, and get out of the plane. I didn't realise that would count as an 'additional service'. First time and all.

"Correct." Kai waited to see if there was anything else said, but apparently he was content to comment on his accuracy.

"Well, I just wondered… do you have a menu of things we can do? So we know for next time?"

"Insufficient reputation for menu availability."

"Oh. Oh, well, I see. That makes things tougher. Well, we're smugglers you see, on a bit of a job at the moment, so we have limited options to earn some additional reputation."

"Query – team available for additional missions?"

"I suppose so." Kai grinned, well aware that he probably had a number of people staring at him with laser-like glares and waited for just long enough to make them feel really nervous. "But I think we can only take on some additional work if it's in the right direction. We're heading up to the Bering Sea from here, then east towards the Athabaskan Council." It wasn't quite where they were going, but close enough…

"Insufficient reputation for mission availability to those zones."

"Oh. Well. Hmm… additional information – following work in the Athabaskan Council, we're then heading down the west coast, to the UCAS." That was a bit of a risk, as that did tie them to a very specific location – since the Great Ghost Dance and the revolution of the Indian people, the UCAS had lost all territory on the west coast, save for the port of Seattle. Still, it was a metropolis that rivalled Shanghai in size, and a nest of shadow activity – it was hardly a surprise if they were in the area that they'd hit Seattle.

"Query – location match Seattle metroplex?"

"Yes, we're going to Seattle."

"Mission available. Delivery, schedule requirements four weeks. Cargo capacity minimal. Weight one kilogram. Non-perishable, non-explosive, non-flammable cargo."

"Oh? Erm…" Kai sought the right phrase, trying to match the language in use. "Reimbursement parameters for mission?

"Payment proposal thirty thousand Nuyen."

"Does payment also include positive reputation bonus?"

"Affirmative."

"Agreed! No problem, we can drop something off in Seattle, for sure." Kai smiled at him, and watched as the figure reached down to the pouch at his side, struggling a little with the rolls of flab under his arm to open the satchel and pull out a shiny slab of metal. As he opened it up, he revealed a small high-end tablet equipped with a snazzy looking retinal scanner, thumbprint reader, credstick writer and speaker system. It wasn't a laptop or deck though – too much volume was used up by the other components to have much room left after a power supply was factored in, too.

"Scan identity to confirm agreement to accept Courier mission." Kai reached over and scanned his thumbprint, letting the scanner read the thumb twice, once in each direction.

"Checking. Database entry found: Dr Arban Erdene. Race positive. Sex positive. Appearance positive. Checksum Negative. Anomalous entries found. Error – identity checksum invalid. Processing… Database entry found: Zunduin Khangal. Race positive. Sex positive. Appearance positive. Checksum Positive. Anomalous entries found. Error – identity checksum crosslinked. Identity valid, but altered. Database entry found: Kai. Race positive. Sex positive. Appearance positive. Checksum Positive. Anomalous entries absent. Error – identity marked as deleted."

"Um, is that a problem?"

"Negative. Identity confirmed, alias confirmed. Contract assigned. Have a nice day." He turned on his heel and left, without another word.

"Well, that was a bit weird… how did he get those names?"

"I have a bad feeling about this, Kai." Hunter sounded distracted, and he could hear the conversation he'd just had being played back in the bird – presumably Marius had used the sensors to record them and Hunter was watching it back again. "I have a horrible feeling he's an Otaku. They're weird… they can jack the matrix, without a deck. Just need a datajack, and they're in, surfing the matrix with just their brains. All kinds of rumours floating around about them, something to do with that big arcology shutdown in Seattle. The one Renraku got a pasting over."

"Oh, that's bollocks. Everyone knows they're not real. Being in the matrix with just your brain, honestly!"

"No, seriously, Aswon. I keep seeing bits here and there about there being small tribes of them, recruiting people and helping them find the matrix. They treat it like…. Like Tads does when she talks about her totem!"

"Well, still sounds like a made up matrix boogyman to me…" Scepticism was very evident in his voice, but at least he sounded like he was considering the idea.

"What does that mean for us, Hunter?"

"Well, if he is Otaku, then he's just scanned your IDs and run them down far faster and more thoroughly than I could – he's picked up the one from Milo and those first ones we got back in Iran, as well as your original Sin from when you lived back in wherever you came from, pretty god-dammed-fast. We should respect the reach he has in the matrix…. Which as far as I'm concerned means that if we use anything electronic that connects to the matrix, no matter where we are – he can find us. If he wanted to, and it was worth it. So I suggest we deliver his package and be good, and not give him a reason to be pissed off with us."

"Ok well….. talk later. He's coming back." Kai watched as he returned, studying him more intently now and trying to study his body language, picking up much the same impression as Shimazu. It was like he was barely here in the physical world, much preferring to be elsewhere. He held a small optical chip in his hand though and a plastic box about ten centimetres to a side.

"Delivery address and contact details." He passed over the chip. "Delivery contents, to be opened only by contact at handover point." This was the box. Aswon's voice came over the comms, asking if the package was sensitive at all, and Kai repeated the question. "Package is protected in transit container. No additional precautions required."

"Ok, excellent. Oh, by the way, what is your designation?"

"MQCXC-RQTR3-6F98Y-7KTKF-TW82J"

"Riiiiiight. Ok, that's quite hard for us to use as a designation. Can we use an… alias?"

"Affirmative."

"How about 'The Noodles'? Is that acceptable?"

"Affirmative."

"Ok then. Not just Noodles – we already know someone with that name see. Well, The Noodles. We're just waiting on a transmission with our next flight data included, then we'll be off, and we'll delivery your package to the right person. That reminds me – the person we're dealing with has a designation of Harikona. Are they known to you?"

"Query – context of identity?"

"Supplier of permits and travel documents."

"High likelihood subject is class known as Fixer. Specialises in access to Japanese territorial area. Reputation – strong."

"Oh good. Oh, by the way, on the package – it's customary to get fifty percent of pay up front of course…" He heard the gasps over the comms, and fought down the smile. Nothing like being a little unpredictable to keep the team on their toes.

"Negative. Payment will be made by contact at delivery point. In full."

"Oh, ok. Well, I asked. Not to worry. So, do we need to call in for clearance before we leave?"

"Negative."

"And we're ok to wait until we get our travel permits?"

"Affirmative. Remaining time available in landing slot, one hour thirteen minutes, 24 seconds…. Mark."

"Oh, right, I didn't realise…." The Noodles had already turned away and was waddling back towards the office though, ignoring Kai as he tailed off. Kai checked his watch, noting the time and setting an alarm for the end of their allocated time slot, then headed back into the tilt-wing and stowed the package before handing the chip over to Hunter to scan and query.

They waited for Harikona to get in touch, the scan of the tilt-wing having revealed no bugs and the diagnostics and visual checks showing that everything was running perfectly. About ten minutes before their allocated time was due to expire, the data packet arrived, giving them full flight clearance into Japanese airspace, pre-cleared to the private area of the terminal and the appropriate certificates and documentation for travel, approved by the Japanese aviation administration. Within two minutes, the engines were starting up and they prepared for take-off. Marius lifted them up carefully, rotating them to face north and reversed his approach, flying in the narrow gap between the gantry cranes and out over the Yangtze river before turning to the east and heading towards Japan. With their electronic countermeasures up and running, and a spirit still concealing them, they slipped past the local radar and border patrols without a twitch, and were soon over the open ocean, flying along at four hundred kilometres per hour. As soon as they were away from the mainland, Marius climbed, set his transponder to match the forged details sent to him and 'went legit', slotting into the organised flow of air traffic and then flying along, just one more plane travelling through international airspace…

Hunter checked the weather reports again and noticed that the responses from several matrix sites were slow – much slower than he'd have expected. Somewhat curious he ran some diagnostics, checking to see what was wrong with the connection. Concerned that someone might be trying to sneak into his deck or attach a payload to his data stream, he was very surprised to find that the slowdown was actually at the far end – the weather sites were being hammered, serving up several times their normal number of queries, mostly from Japanese matrix accounts. He dug into the traffic further, trying to get an idea of what was going on, and found that a number of major universities were generating significant traffic, along with some government departments along with a huge number of residential accounts, but the only businesses that he could see accessing the nodes were media corps, some electronics vendors and public relations.

The flight was uneventful, the hour and a half slipping by without incident. They had descended and were coming in on the lowest flight level, approaching their turnoff point for the short dash north to their target location when Marius found himself staring towards the island on his port side with concern. It took a moment to realise what was wrong, and he clicked on the intercom to alert the rest of the team.

"Everyone, there is something odd here. The location is on our port side, bearing 020 at this time. But look at the feed." The screens flickered on, but showed nothing. They stared at them for a moment, wondering what was wrong. "Let me adjust to show you the area ahead." The screens lit up, showing a glow to the front of the aircraft, the faint outline of a landmass right on the edge of the visible horizon, a band of faint light above it." The sensors are working ok. But now watch as I adjust…" There was a blur as the sensors slewed to the left, and the screen faded away until all they could see was the occasional blur of very dark grey pixels as digital artifacts raced across the screen.

"Shouldn't there be lights on and stuff? I thought there was a big town. And an airport and stuff?"

"Yes, Kai. But the whole area is dark. Can we check the matrix, see if there is perhaps a power issue? But even then, the airport should have emergency lights…"

Hunter was already jacked in, checking the news sites for power outages or disasters. It didn't take him long now that he had some specific key words to search for, and thirty seconds later he had an update for the team.

"Ok, it's not an accident, it's deliberate. There's some kind of astronomical event taking place tonight – a conjunction or something. We've got several planets lining up along with some bright stars and a cluster galaxy. Big news all over the astronomy world and…..ahhhhh. Big night for the astronomy and celestial mechanics departments at every major university in Japan. Something about them being at the right viewing angle. Anyway, it looks like this island is one of the sweet spots to observe the event from, and they've organised some kind of dark skies thing."

As he talked, he was continuing to amass information from several of the major news sites – nothing particularly mentioned the volcano or the weather directly, so he'd not hit the right search terms to find out earlier, but now there were megapulses of information coming in.

"The local airport is shut down, and everything out to about fifteen kilometres has killed all their external lights. Even the local air-cabs and delivery services are offline. Looks like some complaints from a load of local businesses on one hand, but loads more very happy – the town is heaving with tourists who've come to see it, so all the local hotels and stuff are booked solid."

"How is this going to affect us, do you think?"

"It's not good Kai. Looks like plenty of people are planning on being on the volcano itself, probably using the bit of extra height to get above any smog from the town. Oh shit…. There's something that's probably going to cause us an issue. North east side of the volcano – the Onidake Observatory… just checking. Oh yeah, that's a problem. Fully staffed tonight, with both two metre telescopes set up for observing the sky to the south-west, and they have a whole host of smaller scopes and cameras all trained over the area, too. Just how good is our disguise going to be?"

They'd banked north as Marius reached the turning point, temporarily dropping down and killing their radar reflector and transponder, dropping off the approach radar for Kumamoto. They were nearly two hundred kilometres out from the airport though, so it shouldn't be too much of a concern for them, at least not yet. But as they ate up the distance towards the island, Shimazu cleared his throat.

"I can't make out the details, but the volcano is covered in people. Lots of people. Like… hundreds maybe?"

"Hundreds? Well, that's going to make finding a clear spot to land in tricky."

"Never mind landing, Kai. If they're here to watch the event, there's hundreds of people all going to be looking in the sky with high powered binoculars, telescopes, cameras or sensor systems. How lucky do you think we have to be to not get spotted by ANY of them?"

"Well, the odds are like… I dunno. Maybe one in a hundred?"

"Yes, but that's the point. If there's five hundred people there, and the odds are one in a hundred – we'll get spotted five times, statistically speaking."

"Well, they'll probably just see something blurry, won't they?"

"Sure. But they'll raise the alarm, thinking they've spotted a comet or something weird. And then we have scores of people with great gear and focussed minds deliberately looking for us. And cameras. Lots of cameras, and recording gear. This is not going to make for a subtle drop-off, Kai!

"I am going to break off to the east, and loop around. Hunter, what is on the far side of the volcano?"

"One second Marius, checking. Ok, there's a small wooded area, then it goes into the Goto Country Club – big golf course. Um, looks very similar to the Shek-O country club for reference. Different layout of the pitch and stuff, but same elements."

"And how close is it to the volcano?"

"If you land on the golf course, we'll be about nine hundred and eighty metres from the volcano centre. Like it. If we walk into the woods, we can get to about seven hundred metres with only crossing one minor road – and with the tree cover there we're not going to run into anyone stargazing. The trees will hide us from them all, pretty much. Yeah…"

"Very well, feed me the co-ordinates for the golf course please, heading east now and looping around to approach from the far side." They felt the aircraft heel over sharply as Marius started to circle the volcano, bucking up and down as he dropped through the thicker and rougher area just above the ground.

As they circled, the sensor panel chirped several times, Marius picking up threat warning alarms, as if someone was trying to lock onto him. He swore quietly to himself and checked his systems, then realised it was the range-finder lasers on some of the high end cameras and telescopes inadvertently tracking him for a moment as he flew across their field of view, trying to quickly adjust focus to lock him up. He dropped down lower, until he was barely above treetop and rooftop level, trusting in the electronic counter-measures and Tads' magical spirit to keep them unobserved.

The detour chewed up precious time, but he managed to bring them into the golf course without issue, scorching over the eleventh hole and setting them down on the fairway. He was almost certainly going to be leaving two large burnt holes on the course from the engine exhaust – but there was nothing he could really do about that. When he touched down, he cut the power to the engines back to five percent, enough to keep them ticking over and the rotors lazily turning, but without shutting down entirely.

"We are down, but still radiating some heat and noise. I advise speed over stealth at this point."

Hunter and Aswon jumped down from the side door and took off at a fast run, heading for the treeline to the west. The crystal clear skies gave them plenty of starlight, and their augmented vision let them run at full speed through the neatly-tended woodland surrounding the golf course – no doubt kept in good condition to allow poorer players to find their chips and slices as the balls went anywhere but the green.

Hunter kept a track on their position using his internal GPS, and as he reached the boundary line he'd set up, called for Aswon to halt. They were only seven hundred metres from the volcano centre now, well within the margin of error and tolerance for the mission. A quick look around and they spotted a large oak tree that split into two large trunks about three metres from the ground. Hunter braced against the tree, boosting Aswon up just enough to place the token in the small hollow where the split had formed, safely lodging it in place and then dropping back down.

After a quick glance around to make sure they hadn't been spotted by anyone – metahuman or critter, they ran back to the tilt-wing and the rest of the team, leaping up into the troop bay and sliding the door closed behind them. The pitch of the engines rose, and once they were at power the craft trembled and started to lift off, leaving two large smouldering patches of grass behind them that would no doubt traumatise the groundsman the following day. Keeping low, Marius headed north east, flying over the rest of the golf course, the forest and then a huge patch of agricultural land as he headed towards the sea, trying to avoid anywhere built up or residential that might have more observers scanning the skies.

It was eight minutes to three in the morning when they crossed the shore, leaving the island behind them and the unnerving darkness, climbing slowly as Marius flicked his systems back online and re-appeared on the air traffic system as he continued his course into Kumamoto.