Monday 14/2/2061, Location: 40.02426, 48.95799, Time 08:50

Marius was waiting for them in the truck, and they loaded up quickly and headed back to the ranch, arriving a little after nine. Once they were unloaded and settled in the ranch with a drink, Kai gathered everyone together in the living room, waiting until everyone was settled onto the settee or one of the reclining chairs, and then cleared his throat to get their attention.

"So – a quick recap. We've got a painting that Germaine wanted, and a team hired to get it. The team has gone rogue, and now Germaine wants us to track them down and get it back – and to make an example of them, so people know it's bad form to betray your employer. Everyone with me so far?"

"That's the gist of it. I don't think Germaine needs it to hit the news, but word needs to get out in the community." Aswon said.

"Yeah, you did say that before. Ok. Marius – can you give us a quick highlight of the stuff in the dossier again – just the main points?"

"Of course. The painting was of a boat, and titled 'The Jewel of Muscat'. Large canvas, two metres by one point four metres, painted by Anwar Sonya. It was on display in a gallery attached to the museum in Muscat. The gallery featured paintings and photographs by local and international artists."

"The gallery caught fire, and the inferno resulted in what was reported as a total loss, with notes indicating that fire-prevention panels had been removed, allowing the fire to spread. The blaze was a major event and required significant firefighting equipment to deal with. Oman Insurance covered the gallery, and they have attended the scene and worked with the local police to gather forensic evidence and an investigation is ongoing."

"The details on the other team are a little sparse," Marius continued after a quick sip of coffee. "We have what we assume is the team driver, a rigger by the handle of 'Dice', blue combover hair and obvious rigger-jacks. They were reported as having a 'military bearing' by Germaine's chauffeur. They drive a ground vehicle that is fitted for meta-human transport, and have at least two surveillance drones. The team consists of at least two samurai, a physical adept and a mage in addition to the rigger, but there may be more."

"The team asked for fuel expenses to cover a five thousand kilometre trip, demanding at least twenty thousand Nuyen. Averaging out fuel costs likely to be encountered, this gives us a vehicle likely to have an economy of at least two kilometres per litre used, and a likely travel area for the team, based on equal journey distance both to and from the target. That may not be the case, but it is a reasonable starting point for an initial search."

"There was nothing in the news regarding a team prior to the fire, so it is presumed they arrived with at least a modicum of stealth or subtlety, and used the fire to cover their exit or the nature of the theft. There has been no public mention of a man-hunt or persons-of-interest afterwards, at least in the public eye from what research Hunter has performed." Marius sat back in his chair and took another sip of coffee, then pointed at Kai.

"Nice, Marius. Good to see that big brain really doesn't forget details. So – I have a number of things that have come to mind that we might want to look at. First of all, we can maybe dig into the history of the art piece – find out if it was commissioned for someone but never made it to them – was it sold to a higher bidder, or stolen, or taken by a corp, perhaps? Maybe there's bad blood between the artist and the buyers, which might lead to someone else wanting it, and willing to bid against Germaine. Second would be to look at any weird stuff like bloodlines – was the painter from a notable family? Related to anyone famous, or a distant relation to the Sheikh or King or something like that? Some kind of weird situation that might explain why someone wants the picture – or doesn't want it leaving the country."

The rest of the team gave Kai a look of surprise, wondering where he was going with this line of questioning – or where he was coming from…

"Look, as far as I can see it's just a picture of a boat. Nothing much special. There's got to be some reason that Germaine wants it, and that someone else wants it enough to pay or bribe her team to double-cross her. That means something weird, at least in my book. Or we at least need to be thinking about things like that."

"It is unusual to find someone like Germaine being double-crossed. I get the impression that is at least part of the reason why she wants these people making an example of. I wonder if it is part of a deeper conspiracy or issue," Marius offered. Kai raised an eyebrow to him, inviting him to continue. "If a team pulls a stunt like this, it will damage their reputation. It is a short term gain against a long term loss. And people who make those kinds of decisions tend not to last too long in our line of work. But if it is an employer that has sent a team undercover, to go and work for Germaine – to infiltrate her and make it look like a real job, then abandon her… well, that might be a different matter. Then it is a case of one employer using assets against another target, rather than simple greed. That might actually enhance their reputation – a team able to go undercover like that and convince a fixer they are on-side when they are actually the enemy, is useful."

"Ahh, right, I see your point. Weird, but possible. Oh, hey!" Kai sat up suddenly as a random thought sparked in his brain. "What about cleaning? Hunter, can you find out if it was cleaned at all recently. If they did, and there's even a trace of the paint that's come off in the cleaning supplies, or flakes of dust or dirt removed that might count as part of the painting due to how long they were on it – magically I mean – then maybe we can use those to do a tracking ritual?"

"Good idea Kai, but impossible unfortunately." Tads interrupted. "Not the concept – that's very doable and a solid plan. But we need two people at least to do a tracking ritual…"

"Well, there's me, you, Shimazu, Aswon…."

"No Kai – we need two people who can both project out of their bodies. If I'm doing the ritual, I need a spotter, someone able to follow the trail or path that I leave. Before, we had Vadim, but he's over in Seattle at the moment. I need someone to follow the trail, and none of you can leave your body to do that. It sort of worked a bit in Hong Kong with Shimazu, but that was difficult to follow and as soon as the movement goes into the third dimension, it's almost impossible to follow."

"Aww, crap. So we can't do it? At all?"

"If we bring in another mage or shaman, we could. Whether that be an outsider, or get hold of Vadim and ship him over. But if we don't, then it's a non-starter."

"And none of us can do it?" Kai gestured to himself and the other three physical adepts.

"No. Well, technically, the answer might be a maybe. I have heard rumours of some physical adepts who have bent their will to not only controlling the mana within their bodies to achieve super-human feats, but can push that control out of their body, like I can. It's very arduous from the stories I heard, and while I might be able to fly around the world out of my body for several hours, they can only do so for several minutes – if they can do it at all. So unless you're very close to the item you're looking for, it's not going to happen. Remember – Vadim was out looking for our target for so long that he almost didn't make it back in time, and that would have cost him his life."

"Ok, so that's tough, then. So we need to look at other things. Hunter, can you also look for links in the art world, underground auctions, if any pieces are up for sale soon, or there are any noises like that?"

"Sure, and what shall I do after breakfast? Maybe find some rumours on next week's lotto numbers, or the combination to Dunklezhan's safe, or Lofwyr's remote access code?"

"What? It's just looking for stuff?"

"It's looking for stuff in a way that isn't traceable back to us, that doesn't trip any alarms off. It's dealing with a whole new bunch of forums and SIGs, of artist prima-donnas and two-a-credit runners, and sifting huge amounts of data. It's hacking on to scores of minor hosts to get at reference materials, details of auctions, library images, evaluation texts, all kinds of craps. Half the time, I'm having to filter and monitor the searches myself because the software isn't up to it. It takes time, and its fraking hard work!" An edge of anger leeched into his voice, a thin reed of frustration that was uncommon for Hunter, and Kai blinked and held up his hands in a conciliatory fashion.

"Ok, ok, that's fine. I mean, I understand – not that it's fine. I didn't realise it was so… involved. I though you just had to type in the things you were looking for, and they popped up."

"Maybe if you're on a legit connection, and have paid access to a bunch of servers – and don't mind being spammed with all the adverts in the world for the next six months for whatever you're looking for. But this… requires a delicate touch."

"And in his defence – while Hunter is quite adept with the computer, he has only a basic deck and fairly low-end programs. He is not a decker. He is an advanced user, with the skills to become a decker. But that is not his main skill-set." Marius nodded at his fellow team-mate. "We are lucky to get the intelligence we do, but if you want better results, we need to provide better tools. And that," he raised a finger to Kai to stop him asking the question "requires a significant amount of money. When you have three quarters of a million Nuyen that you can afford to spend all at once, we can upgrade his hardware and software. But I think it will be quite some time until we can spend that amount of money all at once, on a single item."

"Ouch." Kai slumped back as the cost hit home. "Ok, so, maybe we might need to wait a bit for that. If you can add to your list then, and use your initiative on what you think is most important about the art, or what leads seem to be panning out or possible to follow up on. I'm wondering if there's a style of art, or a particular class or period that this is an example of, that might be the missing piece in someone's collection, or something like that – so it's not about the particular painting, but what it represents that has the value. Dunno… but… do your best?"

"I'll see what I can do." Hunter scowled, twisting his already ugly face into a truly hideous visage, but he seemed to be somewhat placated having vented his frustrations.

"Tads – if we could arrange for Vadim to get on a flight over, that would probably take half a day for him to get to us, especially if we were willing to cover the cost of a semi-ballistic flight. But if he was here, and you had made preparations – how difficult would it be to find the artwork by magic?"

"Well… still somewhat tricky. Hmmm." Tads closed her eyes and took a sip of her drink. "Think of it as a sliding scale of difficulty. If I knew the painting was somewhere inside a ten mile radius – if you'd hidden it somewhere in the ranch grounds, say – then knowing that I can limit the search area and concentrate the mana more strongly. That moves the slider to somewhere on the 'easy' end. If you told me it could be anywhere in the world – any continent, in movement on a plane or a ship, absolutely anywhere… then that puts the slider up more at the top side."

"But not right at the top?"

"No. But then if it's guarded by a spirit, move the slider a few notches along. If it's behind a ward, move the slider a few notches along. If the ritual link we have to it is weak, a few notches along. If someone has done their own astral ritual to obscure the trail, a few notches along. That's kind of what we've done, really."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we put up a ward around the tilt-wing, to conceal us all inside. That's why I like people to cycle through from time to time. Every time you cross that ward, it pushed the difficulty of anyone trying any kind of scrying ritual or any use of divining, or ritual magic to the harder side."

"By much?"

"Um… it's hard to quantify exactly – it's more art than science after all." She grinned as Marius made a face of disgust – he clearly thought that the whole thing should be bound by iron rules and clearly orchestrated into logical clauses of cause and effect. But if someone was trying to find you on a scale of say….1 to 10, and they were pretty sure they were inside a hundred kilometres from you…then maybe they're at a four of a five on the difficulty scale. But if you cross into the ward, your trail goes cold and is massively disrupted, and you become much harder to find."

"Like a seven or eight?"

"No, more like a fourteen or fifteen. And if they did somehow manage to find us, it would likely take so long they'd only just make it before they had to flee back to their body before they lost their own connection. And of course, if they find us, or even start to form a link – there's a good chance we'll notice, and have time to prepare. And if we get prepared, that means a weakened astral traveller who's been searching the planes for you for several hours turns up and finally finds you – but with Shimazu standing in the way, with his weapon foci. And at that point he's probably going to get chopped in half…"

"That would be the plan." Shimazu added in satisfied tones.

"Oh, I had not realised it would be that difficult. Proportionally that is. So is there any other way you can look for it, that is not one of these tracking rituals? What about the things you do where you go talk to your Elk?"

"An astral quest? I could. It's not something I've really considered though – it would be incredibly risky. The difficulty of the tasks would be in some way comparable to the same sliding scale we've been talking about. Unless we have a good idea of where it might be in rough terms, it's likely to be so difficult that I'd fail to complete the quest, and could end up hurting myself – or worse."

"It sounds like magic is not the answer to this question then," Shimazu said. "Is the social side worth investigating? We could maybe ask Germaine about any rivals or enemies she might have, someone that is likely to be trying to strike at her? Would that create a shortlist, perhaps? Or provide any more intel than we currently have, to help track this down?"

"Possibly, but I don't think it's a good idea." It was the first time Aswon had spoken, and Kai looked at him curiously – he'd already pulled out his phone and was hovering his thumb over her name in his address book. "For one – if you were about to call her, bear in mind how it's going to look from her side. As far as she's concerned, she told us days ago. Do you want to be in the conversation where you have to tell her we're only just starting now? We all know why, and what we were up to – and we DID make it clear to Germaine that we were busy. But do you think that's going to stop her?"

"That's not fair. But you have a point…" Kai's thumb moved away from her name, and hit the back button, dropping him back to his home screen. "Especially this early in the morning."

"Exactly. We'll have to talk to her at some point, but having some good news or progress to report would be good, I think. But the other thing – and the main point, from my point of view, is that she provided us with a bunch of information. It's in her interest to help us find these people, so she's going to tell us as much as she can. But she's also a fixer, and she's got to protect her interests and contacts, and she's not going to reveal huge chunks of her network to us, just in case it might help. For all her interesting mannerisms, she's canny, and sharp. She's not going to just give us the names of everyone she knows to track down and question." Aswon shook his head as a new thought occurred to him. "Thinking about it – if she did, we'd be at it for weeks. Her entire thing is who she knows, and what favours she can call in. She must know literally hundreds of people in the Shadow scene. There's no way we're going to have time to get through them all."

"Oh, yeah – that would take a while…"

"And on top of that, Kai – she's been betrayed. This team let her down, and badly. But they must have been recommended to her by someone, or vouched for. It may be that she's wondering who she can trust. Or…" Aswon's forehead furrowed as he quickly thought through the implications. "Or, she's got multiple teams on this. One chasing down the artwork – us – another chasing down the contact that put her onto this team. Maybe another evaluating her other contacts. And if that's the case, she's compartmentalising all of us, so we either don't tread on each other's toes – or we don't interfere or collude in what's going on."

"Now that is something I'd not thought about. You don't think she's investigating us, do you?"

"I wouldn't put it past her – but if she was, I don't think it would be personal. Just business. But that may be why we have what we have in the dossier. That's as much as she wants us to know, or that she thinks is relevant. Or she's filtering information. If we suddenly found out some detail that wasn't in the dossier, and asked her about it – it either means we're on the track of who did this, or we're colluding with them. And only one of those is gonna be a good answer in her books!"

"Ok – so maybe we hold off on contacting Germaine directly. Maybe send her a message, later, once we're making progress. Yeah." Kai flicked closed his phone, the snap of the cover crisp and loud in the sudden silence, as everyone wondered just what Germaine might be up to. At least until Hunter let out a belch and sat upright, pushing his deck to one side but leaving it jacked in to his neck as he continued to monitor search operations with half his attention.

"Ok, I tried finding some art SIGs on Shadowland. Man, you would not believe some of the crap that has their own special interest group or lobby – some really weird shit. But yeah, I found like a dozen or more, all for different styles of art and stuff. But, no real news that hit the keywords I was looking for. That's not to say there isn't something going on – there could be, it's just not in the places I found it."

"What I did find out though was a little bit of scuttlebutt on the insurance company that covers the gallery and is doing the investigation. Some other team were after some info from them a little while back, and ran into a wall it seems. The company has got pretty average security physically, but their matrix security is all kinds of messed up."

"That doesn't sound good…"

"No, Kai – and we're not talking glaciers here."

"Glaciers?"

"Really tough ICE. Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics. The programs and code that keep a system secure. You get white ICE which just kicks you about a bit and then dumps you out with a headache from the shock, and there's black ICE which will go for the throat and try to flatline you, while you're brain-linked. And there's Glaciers – where the ICE is so thick, so tall and so sheer, that you haven't got a hope of cracking it."

"But this isn't a glacier?"

"Nope – it's worse. It's air-gapped. And before you ask, I'll tell ya. It means they have like a matrix site that has the PR nonsense and the phone numbers and stuff, but none of their systems are online. All the good stuff is kept offline, in a host that's not connected to the matrix at all. And if it ain't connected, then you can't hack into it. There's no route to follow, no path of electrons you can ride to get into the data-stores."

"The whole thing is air-gapped? How can that even work? How do they receive data?" Marius seemed aghast at the idea.

"Well, according to the chitter chatter on the SIG, these people do have some machines that can receive messages and stuff, that connect to the matrix – only at certain times or when sent a code or something. Trapdoor systems we call 'em. But get this… once the message is received, they display it on a screen and a frakking camera on another system is pointed at the screen, and captures the output. That's how they get masses of data into the host to process – they read it across the air-gap, optically. So still no electronic access."

"That is absurd! The bandwidth and response times must be ludicrous!" Marius snapped.

"Yep – but that's how they do it. Got a bunch of machines set up to read the info, and a big cluster of terminals for internal access only. This other team were just as upset as you are, Marius, and they had to do a physical insertion to get at the stuff they wanted. Their team decker was just as frakked off as you are, mate, and he reckons they must have been stung by some previous op really badly and got screwed over, for them to push it that far."

"Well, that certainly complicates things significantly. So if there is any data on the fire, and the other team – it is stored in an offline host that we will need physical access to, to retrieve?"

"Sounds like that mate. If that's the case, we're gonna have to go for a fly."

"If that IS the case, we need to find a fuel stop along the way. It is probably in range – just, for us from here. But we would be landing on fumes, and if we refill from the barrels, we have only just enough fuel to get home again. I do not like having no margin for error or combat flight time."

"So – we need to fix that. If we're going that is. Right, I'm going to poke my search bots and get a bit more data out of 'em while you lot sort that problem out."

"I am going to make a call to my guy in Turkey."

"How's that going to help, Marius?"

"Because he is a low level agent for Mossad, so please, be quiet and do not do anything to alarm him." The team quieted down, while Marius called, watching as he routed the call from his internal system to an external speaker.

"Good morning, Department for Public Health and Food Safety, Ankara office." The Turkish speech was translated almost absently by Hunter as he concentrated on his searches. There was a pause, presumably as Marius asked for his friend, and then the conversation switched to English.

"Hello, who is this?"

"Michael, it is Marius. How are you?"

"Marius who?"

"Come on, Michael, you know who. Look, my end of the line is pretty secure. I presume your end is too."

"Ahh, Marius. It's been… a while? You appear to have dropped off the radar recently."

"We have been busy, working on some jobs that required us to keep a low profile. It is a work-related thing I am calling you about though, if you can spare me a minute? We have someone we are looking for, and I wonder if you have come across them, or have any information on them? We are looking for a team of runners, with a driver or rigger going by the handle of 'Dice' at some point recently." Marius recounted the information from the dossier about the makeup of the team, as far as they knew it anyway, passing it over to his acquaintance.

"I see. And you say they have disappeared, and you are trying to track them down? Well, I can check the files and see if we know about them. We do like to stay acquainted with people, of course. The question is – how urgent is this for you?

"Not super-urgent. We are looking for them currently, and any information on their whereabouts or modus operandi would be helpful in achieving that. We know the last job they carried out was in the city of Muscat, in Oman."

"Very well. I'll look into this in a bit, when I've cleared down this paperwork, and call you back. I need….ahh, the number you've just sent through, I take it. Very well."

Marius waited for the line to clear, then smiled at the team.

"That should get us something – as long as Michael has access to their data anyway. Mossad is very good." He was interrupted by a low grumble of frustration from Hunter, who yanked out his datajack and then threw a pillow across the room accompanied by another grunt. "Is there a problem?"

"Of course there's a problem. So, I went back and had a look at the news articles about the fire and stuff, and they mentioned that there were some people dead in the fire – but they weren't named right. Often the way, at the time – they don't release the names until they've contacted the families and dealt with any fallout. But I've been looking for the follow-up articles with more details. I thought if we got the names of the dead, we can maybe track back to the families or their jobs, and find out some more. But I've been through a week of news reports, and can't find anything – it looks like the police and insurance company are sitting on the details and haven't released anything useful. So I thought – I know – I'll check the local news-faxes for obituaries and stuff, see if I can work around the problem."

"And I take it that didn't work?" Kai said, looking at the pillow sitting forlornly in the middle of the floor.

"No. They're all in Arabic, of course, which means I'm having to translate them all as I go along. And it's like reading frakking poetry! All ' bountiful soul, radiant light of the desert, beloved by this, that and the chumming other'. It's enough to make you want to vomit."

"Well, worth a try I suppose." Kai shrugged.

"With this amount of scrutiny, and security – this is feeling more and more like it might be an inside job, or at least involving an inside agent." Shimazu offered. As he spoke, Tads nodded in agreement with him. "I mean, if they're really trying to find irrefutable proof that someone betrayed their security or helped out a third party, that would explain the security clamp-down wouldn't it? Either that, or there was something else in the store-room as well, something not listed or known about that was very valuable."

"I guess so. I wonder though – if we can't get anything from the gallery, or the area immediately around it – can we just expand the search parameters a bit, and look for camera footage from the area outside that?"

"We can, but only if you get me a better deck and a team of analysts!" Hunter snorted. "Every time you increase the search area by one unit, you increase the amount of data to be shifted and looked at by that unit cubed. It goes up exponentially, because you're just increasing the number of possible routes, angles and vantage points so much, and the possible options for getting there. So yeah, technically it's possible – but it's not realistically probable."

Marius, meanwhile, looked through his list of contacts and selected one, calling his friend Andre in Constantinople.

"Hello? Oh, Marius – hi-hi. How are you?"

"Not bad, Andre, not bad. I am after a bit of help though, trying to track down some artwork – would like to engage your services to see if you can find anything about it, in your part of the world. I will send over an image now." He tapped away on his pad, sending the image of the art piece over along with some basic details.

"Nice enough boat I guess? Worth much?"

"No idea. It has been lifted recently, and we have been hired to find it. Would you be able to have a poke around and see if anything is stirring in your area?"

"Sure I can. How subtle do you want me to be?"

"Subtle, I think. I do not want to ask about the piece in particular – it might scare whoever is trying to sell it back underground. But if you can keep an ear out for anyone shifting artwork or looking for general buyers, that would be good."

"Ok, can do. Anything you need at the moment? Something I can be looking for, for you?"

"Well, military grade ammunition and weapons – and yes, I know. Difficult and always at a premium. But some of the places we are going, it is starting to become a necessary precaution. Particularly anything in 12.7mm or assault cannon sized, in terms of ammunition. Missile launchers would also be good of course – we have a few people skilled in their use."

"Will do. I'll see if I can line up some calls. Alright, let me go poke some people and see what I can find."

"Thanks, Andre. Later."

"Hunter? Can you pull up a map of Muscat please? And show me the gallery location?"

Hunter pulled up the map for Kai, focussing on the area immediately around the museum and gallery, and then linking in some of the still frames from the news reports showing the fire and watching crowds.

"Great, thanks. Ok, and pull out a bit will you?" The map zoomed out, showing the crescent of the city, laid out along the coastline of the Gulf of Oman. It was predominantly a sandy brown colour, with the occasional flash of lighter or darker rocks, and only a few odd fragments of green – one golf course that no doubt was incredibly exclusive and expensive, and a few small patches that looked to be carefully cultivated gardens belonging to large mansions. Further inland the ground rose quickly to rocky escarpments and small cliffs, rising into arid badlands that stretched away into the interior of the country.

"Hey – what's that patch, over to the left of the city. Funny shapes on it?"

"Probably the airport." Hunter zoomed in and nodded in confirmation. "Yeah, that's Muscat International. National highway around the outer perimeter, one primary runway, class II at four thousand metres, so it can take most of the big jets, but not the fast movers. Smaller runway to the south, running parallel to the main one – that looks to be mainly used by the flying school and private aerodrome."

"Ahh, ok, so the airport is only what… about fifteen kilometres from the city? Hmm. Ok, can you get the radar logs from it and see what was going on during the night of the attack?"

"Were you listening earlier?"

"What to?"

"Anything?"

"What?"

"When we talked about how difficult it was to break into systems, and defeat the ICE, and how I'm pretty good at doing searches for information and stuff like that, but I'm not a decker, and this hardware's not the best. And you want me to break into an international airport, defeating all the black ICE they have on their systems to stop people getting in and making jetliners crash into cities at the speed of sound, or flip upside down and smash into the ocean or anything else like that – but you want me to casually break in and get through that stuff, just to get the air traffic logs to see what was going on over the city in case they had drones up or stuff?"

"Oh. So that's difficult, then?" Hunter looked at Kai and then took a deep breath, his jaw muscles flexing and grinding his teeth together.

"Yeah, that's pretty tough."

"This feels to me like we need to get down there, and investigate in person." Tads interrupted before Kai could annoy Hunter any further. "I can get down there astrally very quickly, and have a poke around – but I would guess that's a really bad idea given the normal tolerance they have for magic. I'm guessing it is a predominantly Muslim country?" She looked around and saw a couple of people nod. "So they probably don't like magic that much at all, and me scouting around is going to be obvious to any magically active defenders. And Hunter doesn't have the resources to break into some places, and others have done things which means he just can't – and neither could anyone else. So maybe we need to do what the other team did, and go do it ourselves."

"I do not like it, but I have to agree. That means we would need at least four thousand litres of fuel to cover the journey there and back, and we really need a refuelling stop in the area." Marius zoomed the map out and laid a rough route out, showing a straight-line flight path, and confirming their earlier estimation of the distances involved. As they almost certainly would have to dodge around several borders and take some dog-leg diversions, they'd pretty much empty their tanks either way."

"Ok, I have a contact not far away, that works in a port as a shipping tech. Let me give him a call, and see if we can stop somewhere near there. In the meantime, Hunter – can you get us some general information on Oman? Like, how they view magic, and orks, and visa requirements and things like that? Just high-level stuff?" Hunter grumbled a little, but jacked back in, and Kai watched as his eyes defocussed and started to roll back into his head a little while his conscious mind leapt into the deck and out onto the matrix, dancing through hosts and looking for the required information. When he was sure that Hunter was on the job, he pulled out his phone and set it to conference mode, then scrolled through his address book until he found the right entry – the rest of the team could see the name highlighted as "Praneeth Al Maktoum". When the call connected, they could hear the deep revving sound of an engine – either a large truck or some industrial equipment in the background, leaking through the filtering on the microphone pickup.

"Kai? My friend, how are you! I have not heard from you for some time?"

"Hi Praneeth, yeah, I'm good thanks. We've been working all over the place, in different time zones and everything, so I've been out of touch for a while. Don't want to go waking people up in the middle of the night, after all." Kai grinned as the other team members gave him dirty looks, remembering the night back at Vadim's parents all too clearly. "Anyway, we're heading down to your part of the world soon, and I was looking for some advice on where we could stop to rest and refuel and things."

"Excellent – it would be good to see you again. I think it is your turn to buy the dinner! But how are you coming in?"

"It's always my turn to buy the dinner – I'm sure there's something wrong with your accounting. But we're flying in, small helicopter plane, from the north. But we're going to use most of our fuel tanks getting down there, my pilot tells me."

"Ahh, I guess you're coming in 'off the books' then? Well, in that case stay well clear of both Abu Dhabi and Dubai at the moment – neither will be good for you." Marius waved at Kai to attract his attention and then mouthed the word 'why' at him.

"Why's that, then? And yes, we're travelling discreetly."

"Well, there's been a huge upswing in piracy recently in the Gulf and on the shipping lanes approaching us. The mega-corps have lost a whole bunch of cargo, and they've been beefing up security a lot in response. Most of our ships are going out with teams of mercs on them, and deck-mounted heavy weapons are pretty common at the moment. It's pricy, of course, but it's keeping the cargo safe. At least until some of the ships start shooting at each other for bad station-keeping or something like that. So I would advise keeping clear of the area somewhat, if you can."

"Oh, ok – that's good to know. So, do you have anything you can recommend?"

"Yes – I would head to a place a little further up the coast. I know of a man there, called 'Keith'. He runs a small place, that I know some smugglers and other couriers use for fuelling. I can send you the details if you wish?"

"Yes please. And did you say his name was 'Keith'? Doesn't sound local."

"Oh no. He is a British man. Living there for many years though."

"Ok, yeah, got the co-ordinates and the contact details come through now, thanks. So – anything I can do for you? Anything you need?"

"Well, actually there is. My kids have been pestering me for ages for something – you know Karl The Kombat Mage?" Praneeth paused, waiting for Kai to nod his head in agreement. "Well, there is a range of dolls or action figures. Children's toys. My kids want some of those, but they are not possible to get here – none of the shops have them. Can you get me some?"

"Um, sure. Any particular one?"

"I have no idea – but anything from the range should do. But it has to be official! None of the knock-off jobs. My children will spot a fake easily, and I do not want to listen to the wailing."

"Of course – ok, I'm sure we can get something like that. Anything for you?"

"No, not at the moment. I think the children's toys will be fine, but with the level of security at the moment I do not want to risk anything else."

"Fine, no problem Well, thanks, my friend – we'll call this man and arrange a stop, and we'll get onto the action figures for the kids." He disconnected the call and made a note on his pad about the gifts required, then looked at the co-ordinates. Marius was a step ahead of him though, and had already pulled up the map and scrolled over slightly until the north-western side of Qatar was showing, with a red dot highlighted a kilometre in from the shore. "Is that the spot?"

"Roughly speaking. I am sure Hunter will be able to get a better fix, but he is busy at the moment."

"Ok, that looks good, though, right? If we stop there to refuel, that's about three quarters of the way there. So we'll have plenty of spare fuel for moving about?" Marius checked the map again and nodded to him. "Great! Ok, well so we need to call this dude Keith and sound him out, and wait for Hunter to be done, and then we can think about going."

"Going where?" Hunter's eyes rolled forward again and blinked a few times.

"To Muscat. Assuming that we're not all going to be arrested just for existing."

"Well, it's not that bad." Hunter looked around and saw they were all waiting on him to provide more details. "Ok, It's a predominantly Muslim country," he continued, unaware that they'd already discussed that, "though it's quite progressive in some ways – there's about fifteen percent of the population that are non-Muslim, and they're allowed, not just tolerated – though if you want to be anything in the government, you'd better toe the local line if you want to get anywhere. Country is an absolute monarchy, with the Sultan saying what the law is, and people agreeing with him or getting their heads cut off. And no – I'm not joking. We're talking divine mandate of heaven kind of nonsense, so we need to watch the local law. The country as a whole has a reputation for human rights abuse and a lack of due process. On the 'human' side of things, metahumans are again tolerated and allowed – there's a thriving sector of orks, dwarves and trolls working in the heavy industry segments, probably for obvious reasons. Lot fewer elves though." Hunter grabbed his tea and took a big swig, then continued after checking his notes.

"So, I won't get shot on sight, and we can move around without too much worry being infidels. Tads should cover her head though to avoid that kind of trouble and hassle, but she doesn't have to be swaddled up. It's gonna be warm there – I found a place in the country where they hold a record for the LOWEST temperature in a day being over forty-two Celsius. And that's not daytime temp – that's the lowest temperature over the whole twenty-four hour period. So we might wanna rethink the body armour and stuff if we're doing any kind of extended movement."

"Most of the people live in the coastal regions, with the interior being a dry, dusty, gravel pit, with any villages or settlements being clustered around either an oasis or wellhead. Facilities are basic, there's a definite slave underclass of foreign nationals who do a lot of the scut work – lots of Indians and Thais mostly. Most of the industry is still petro-chemical related. Of course a lot of the oil-wells have all but dried up, but there's still lots of processing capacity there, and they're doing a lot of shale exploration and fracking to see what else they can get at. But as well as the oil industry there's a fair chunk of agri-corp presence, with some massive desalination plants and some intensive farming areas that produce crops of dates and other fruits that benefit from the heat and sunshine."

"Otherwise, guns and most weapons are illegal – apart from the khanjar, a small curved belt-knife which forms part of the national formal dress for men. Encryption and a lot of electronic stuff for snooping is also illegal, anything that would stop the government from finding out what you're up to. But, traditional dress is long flowing robes for both men and woman, partly due to the heat. So that means hiding stuff isn't so much of a problem at least until you get frisked. A lot of our cyber stuff is gonna be illegal as well, of course. And typical Muslim approach to magic. Mages are ok, as long as they're state-sanctioned, but any of this animal worship nonsense will see you arrested and then put in front of a firing line. So yeah… we can wander around ok as long as we don't cause trouble, but any investigation into us by the authorities, and it's all gonna go downhill super-quick. So don't get arrested. I mean, even you, Kai – if you're caught, there's nothing dodgy about you, but you'd still have no visa or permit to be there, so you're likely to get tied up and beaten a bit for sport, then they'll call in some guy to take your organs for the black-market."

"Very funny, Hunter."

"Ain't joking, Kai. All kinds of rumours in the Shadows. Remember – Human Rights Abuses. Terrible record. If you don't have ID that's valid, you're not even a person, and they will chop you up and sell you off soon as look at you…"

"Ok. So let's not get caught then. I suppose we'd better give this Keith person a call…" He tapped in the new contact information, and then hit the connect button, sitting back and waiting for the call to go through.

"Arro?"

"Hello, is this Keith? It's Kai calling – my friend Praneeth hopefully messaged you and said that…"

"Gor blimey, alright love, no need to go on. Yeah, it's Keith. You like to tawk, dontcha? Pran never said you were a world class gobbler!"

"Er, right. So, we're looking to travel in the area, and we need somewhere to refuel along the way, and maybe resupply."

"Aw-right chicken, no fuss. Keith's is the place to be! Yeah, you come stop by, and we can sorcha right awwt. Wha' kind of go-juice ya need?"

"Go-juice? Oh – fuel"

"Yeah, thas wharra said. Go-Juice. Juice, that makes ya go. You kind of stooped, or wot?"

"Well, we're in a helicopter, so general aviation fuel is what we…"

"Righto, no worries. Gotcha covered there. Yeah, no bovver. Course as ya new, I gotta tell ya we got landing fees and stuff, to cover costs, innit?"

"That's no problem Mr. Keith. And how much is that?"

"Well, its gonna be at least two-fiddy. Unless you got stuff to trade."

"We're actually traders and movers normally – what kind of thing do you need?"

"Got a right need for some deckchairs aktu'lly, if you can get em. Proper ones like, not all fancy – and is gorra have a proper set of stripes on it. And we always need bacon, cos we can't get it local like. And bitter."

"Oh, ok – well, we'll try and get some of that stuff, and bring that along then. We'll call again when we're in the air and have a rough ETA."

"Aw'right, luv."

Kai clicked the disconnect button and looked up at the rest of the team.

"Oh, what's a deckchair and what is bitter? And is that some kind of weird version of English I don't know about?" Hunter grinned at him, then quickly jacked in, and pulled up a few images.

"I think he's definitely from the UK, though his accent is a bit messed up – seems to be from a few regions. Not sure if he's putting it on, or just moved around a bit. But the 'bitter' is a kind of alcohol that was popular in England for a while. We might be able to get that, but it'll be expensive as it's almost certainly going to be exported in small quantities. Bacon is easy, if we can find a butcher without some religious bent. And a deckchair is a kind of folding chair."

"So we just want a camp chair?"

"I doubt it – if he's after deckchairs he's probably after an authentic design. Let me show you…" A few images flashed by on the screen of traditional English deckchairs, wooden deathtraps designed to amputate fingers at the slightest touch in the wrong place, clad in boldly coloured stripy fabric.

"Where are we going to find something like that?" Kai asked in frustration.

"Get me the fabric and some suitable timber, and I'm pretty sure Tads and I can make one from scratch. We might need some plans or advice from you, Hunter – but it looks like simple enough jointed frames around a few pivot points. Very inefficient design, though…"

"Ok, fine. So now we're making chairs for people… " Kai shook his head. "Fine – whatever. So, we need to get in the truck and get up to Baku, and find some fabric and probably some woodworking tools and some lumber, half a pig and some export bitter, then get this made and we can head down to meet this guy and refuel? Is that the plan?"

"That sounds reasonable," Marius said, with a smile, as it sounded very bizarre rather than reasonable – but it was nothing to do with him. "If we're heading down, it will be a few hours flight. I would recommend leaving here at around dusk, and going down under cover of darkness, resting for a few hours, and then doing our insertion into Oman just before dawn – the lighting should help us out with optical detection then. As the sun comes up on cold desert and starts to warm the sands, you will see all kinds of mirages and distortions forming, and that would be ideal for us."

"Right – so we've got the rest of the day then. Let's go shopping and get started on this." Kai stood up and wandered towards the kitchen, carrying his empty cup. The rest of the team smiled at his back as they heard him muttering as he walked away from them.

"Deckchairs? Bloody deckchairs…"