Date: Friday 23/4/2060, Location: 41.65861, 41.67806

The journey back to Baku was quiet and passed smoothly, the three of them dozing as they drove north through the sparse landscape. They made it back to the central railway station in Baku and sat themselves down in a small coffee shop to wait the twenty five minutes before the next train heading to Tbilisi.

The train was not particularly modern, and the line was not well maintained – but the train ran to schedule, and they made their way across the lowlands and up into the hills and mountains in the centre of the country, the jarring transition from one rail to another ensuring that nobody got any sleep. Despite that, the journey passed smoothly, with no interruptions or issues to delay them.

Arriving in Tbilisi, they changed platforms and boarded the next train, this one slightly more modern. The train pulled away smoothly, the electric traction car accelerating them to a faster speed than the previous diesel unit, and soon they were winding their way through the hills, and eventually starting their descent down towards the coast. Arriving in the town they saw the faded signs welcoming them to the "seaside resort", enticing visitors to ride the cable car to the observatory and see many of the other sights. This certainly didn't gel with their memories of town, to say the least.

They'd made such good time that they were still ahead of the others in the chopper, so they headed for a nice restaurant to grab some food and relax. Aswon hit the speed dial for the ranch, but found the number engaged. He tried the number for Germaine instead.

"Hello, Kai?"

"No, I am Aswon."

"Oh, well hello dear, how are you?"

"I am well, and I hope you are the same. Are you enjoying your stay at the ranch?"

"Oh it's simply marvellous! Such a twee rustic charm, and the staff are such dears – so accommodating. We're having a lovely time, and there's no bag limit it seems!" Aswon frowned in confusion as he contemplated Germaine with a twenty-seven piece matching luggage set. It wasn't a terrible image – except for the family having to struggle up and down the stairs with a never-ending stream of trunks, suitcases and day bags.

"I see. Is the bag limit a problem you've had before at other places?"

"Oh absolutely – why once I went to stay at a place, and they limited you to a brace per day! Made the whole thing bloody pointless and nothing more than a long boring walk in the woods! Mind you, what do you expect at a French chateau with some uppity new CEO with no history in charge?"

"A brace?" Aswon spoke very good English, learned with a number of years of mercenary operations all over Europe. His lack of formal education meant that some of the stranger words and concepts like homonyms could still be confusing – especially without much context.

"I know right! A brace – I mean any fool can shoot a brace. But that's not a problem here, and we've bought a good number of kills back. Those little monkey things are strange, and run like the dickens I tell you, make for a challenging target. Very satisfying to catch them square though." Blocks clicked into place in Aswon's mental picture, of Germaine and her bodyguard / butler out in the hills with a gun, hunting the tunnelling creatures that Shimazu had bumped into…

"Well, I'm glad you're having fun. I just wanted to check that you had received the gift we sent?"

"The Matryoshka doll? Oh yes, Rusudan gave that to me earlier, such a dear, earnest fellow. Very interesting pieces! Hand carved and painted, in the Kurze style. Were they from you, rather than Kai then?"

"It was my idea to make them a gift to you, but the gift is from the whole team. We discovered them in Russia, and they seemed to have both style and history – and I thought they would be most suitable." Aswon flinched as the phone speaker distorted, carrying through a high-powered – and close – gunshot, fired from a rifle of some sort if he was not mistaken. "Oh good shot Henry! Sorry Aswon, crow." Her tone of voice seemed to indicate that the use of the word 'crow' was all the justification needed for shooting.

"We'll, we just wanted to make sure that you had received the dolls, and that everything was ok. We're actually just waiting on the rest of the team to get here, then we're off for a spot of travelling ourselves. But we'd like to swing by Baku when we're done and catch up with you, if we may?"

"That would be marvellous. We'll arrange a lunch. Toodleoo!"

While he'd been on the phone their starters arrived, and the team tucked in, enjoying the chance to have a nice sit-down meal with proper cutlery and a table that didn't roll in the corners.

"You know – it strikes me that our dining experiences are either right at one end of the spectrum, or right at the other." Aswon and Hunter looked at Shimazu, waiting for him to further explain. "We're either eating a really nice meal, at a good quality restaurant, like here, or at the Dam, or some other bigwigs… or we're eating ration bars in a muddy hole while we hide in the middle of nowhere after digging some shallow graves." The others snorted in agreement, and a silence fell over them for a few minutes while they enjoyed their food.

After some thinking, Aswon ordered a few extra portions of food that would travel and reheat ok, 'to go', hoping the others would appreciate his thoughtfulness. While he was making arrangements, he spotted a man staring at their table, who quickly averted his gaze when he saw that he had been spotted. Aswon kept a subtle eye on him as they ate, and his attention seemed to constantly drift back towards them.

"Hey, guys. Don't move, but guy sitting at the table for two, over on the far wall. Been watching us for ten minutes or more now. Green shirt with blue trim, dark grey trousers, black hair, slicked over from one side, small sideburns. He's definitely scoping us out." The others continued nonchalantly eating, nodding as if Aswon was talking about the weather, but over the next minute or two waved to the waiters for another drink, or a replacement fork that had been carelessly dropped, letting each of them twist in their seats enough to get a look at the guy.

Aswon caught the man staring at them again, and this time smiled at him letting his incisors show. The man coughed, then hurriedly rose from his table and headed down the nearby corridor towards the toilets. With a gesture to the others to wait, Aswon slid his chair back and then headed over – sitting himself down at the table in the chair opposite where their watcher had been sitting.

Two minutes passed, then the man appeared at the end of the corridor, stopping dead in his tracks as he saw Aswon waiting at the table, staring at him with his head cocked slightly to one side. The man fumbled for a moment, then patted his pockets in a vain attempt to convey 'oh I forgot something' before turning and striding quickly down the corridor again, out of sight. Aswon flicked a quick glance to the other two, who had turned their chairs far enough to also keep the corridor under their gaze before he rose and walked casually over towards the passage, like a panther on a silent stalk.

As he reached the end of the corridor, he saw a door to each side, labelled up with standard gender symbols. He also saw something else that made him smile though – a mop resting in a small bucket that would roll around on a set of tiny castors. It wasn't quite as good as a proper staff, but it gave him leverage and reach and would make a surprising weapon. Just as he put his hands on the plastic shaft of the mop handle, his superior hearing made out a low pitched conversation from the other side of the door. He gently pressed his head up against it and listened to the Georgian dialect.

"Yeah, they definitely spotted me. One of them was waiting at my table when I came back from the pisser. The tall one with the big hair and weird teeth."

Weird? Pah, now that was just offensive. He pushed open the door and stepped into the toilets, lifting the mop up as he did so. The bucket rolled onwards across the floor until it hit the wall with a thump, leaving Aswon idly flicking the mop head back and forth across the floor, spreading out some of the filthy water onto the tiles.

"So my friend, the question is – who do you work for? Is it Mr Kulkachev?" The man stared, open-mouthed at him, the phone squawking in his hand. Aswon raised an eyebrow at him, but the man just seemed flummoxed and his cognitive processes clearly weren't running to speed. Still holding the mop in one hand, he reached over and plucked the phone out of the unresisting man's hand.

"Hello. I am Aswon. Is this Mr Kulkachev?"

"… Please hold, sir." The line was muted, and at almost the same moment, the man in the toilet finally started to get his mind together. He took a breath and his hand started to reach back for the handset. Aswon countered by turning slightly away from him and raising a cautionary finger towards him, the rest of his digits retaining control of the mop handle. Almost absentmindedly, he started to rotate the plastic handgrip, unscrewing the 1.5m long plastic tube from the mop head and making it much more nimble, though slightly less weighty.

"This is Mr Kulkachev. I understand I am talking with Aswon. You are the tall one, yes?"

"That's right, Mr Kulkachev. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me." The man froze at hearing the name spoken aloud. "I hope our work for you was acceptable, that the delivery was ok?"

"Indeed, yes, the job was accomplished well. So – are you staying in Batumi again?"

"Actually we're more passing through. Grabbing a few bits of supplies and some nice food, then heading onwards. I hope we're not causing offence by not coming to see you and paying our respects?"

"No, that's fine. Unless you're doing business here, there's no need for that. Though if you're looking for more work, it would be good to chat. You're welcome for lunch sometime to discuss this."

"Well thank you for the kind invitation, I'll pass on your dinner invitation to our captain for when we head back this way." The man in the toilet gulped a little, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Despite the temperature not being that high, a slight sheen of perspiration could be seen on his forehead. "But, I expect us to be shipping out again today unless there's some complication, and we're off on our next job."

"Nothing that would concern me, I hope."

"I would expect not– we're going quite far away, a good few thousand kilometres, to collect something and take it elsewhere. Batumi was just a convenient place to stop and meet up."

"Hmm. That far huh? Well, it's a sturdy truck you have." Aswon didn't feel the need to correct his assumption that they were driving. "Excellent. Well Aswon, I won't keep you any longer. I have just one small favour to ask you now, if you will indulge me."

"I can certainly try?" Aswon spoke guardedly – his suspicions roused at the change of voice from the local crime lord.

"I want you to nod, then hang up. Pass the phone back, then shake your head, a little sadly. Maybe a small tutting under the breath. Then turn and leave, without saying a word."

"I understand. Well, thank you for your time, Mr Kulkachev." With that Aswon followed the request made, passing over the phone and the mop handle into the unresisting hands of the poor man, whilst concentrating on exuding a sense of sadness and sorrow as he turned and left the man behind, who seemed to somehow deflate.

Meeting back up with the others, Aswon had to try hard to keep the grin in check and motioned for the bill. He held up a hand to them to stave off their query.

"Outside, on the way to the airport. Hunter, you will love this…"

After settling their bill and leaving the restaurant, they walked south out of the city centre and towards the airport, and sure enough when Hunter was told about the phone call and the man's reaction, he was indeed most amused.

Their journey took them past a small market district and they spotted a leatherworker's shop, selling assorted goods made by hand it seemed. They stopped and still having no ETA from the other half of the team, figured they could afford the wait. The shopkeeper seemed a little confused by the order, and asked for clarification several times, but was soon hard at work riveting together several of the belt blanks he had ready to make thick and very sturdy belts that were fastened with heavy duty double pronged buckles.

They watched him work, deft fingers driving a sharp awl into the leather at precise spots, before a sturdy hammer blow drove rivets and fasteners through to seal parts together. With the three strange, and huge, foreigners standing over him and observing his work, he seemed to perform a good job, and was rewarded with a very generous tip when he handed over the goods. As they left the market district, Aswon also picked up a pair of meals from the nastiest and cheapest looking take-away restaurant he could find, adding them to his bag.

Batumi airport was about five kilometres to the south of the city, and even with lunch and their shopping trip thrown in, they still arrived at nearly the same time as the air team. They were walking down the E70 highway when they got a message to all of their commlinks that the chopper was twenty minutes out and that the landing spot had been allocated. They picked up the pace a little, and were close enough to the airport that they saw the massive helicopter coming in to land on the far side of the security fence.

After a quick check with Kai on which IDs had been listed for the flight, they approached the cargo gate of the airport and were checked through into the grounds after a quick ID scan, heading over to the eastern end of the airport and the large hangers there. Their chopper sat on the tarmac, heat haze still rising from the engines as they cooled in the early afternoon sun.

As they climbed into the chopper, they could hear a tirade of angry abuse and shouting coming from the cockpit – where presumably Marius was letting off steam after hours of delays, go-arounds, alternate routes, lost flight slots, making way for military traffic or medical transports, priority shuffles or just being shouted at by stressed air traffic controllers that didn't give a frak about an empty flight with nobody important in it.

Hunter went forward with the by-now cold and greasy, unappetising, limp and probably insipid take-away before anyone could stop him. It went quiet, for about the amount of time it would take for someone to open a bag and unwrap the contents before a fresh tirade of abuse exploded, with Hunter coming running down the gangway, sniggering to himself.

"Oh great. Well done. He's going to be insufferable now!" Tads gave Hunter a look of exasperation, but the grin refused to disappear.

"Don't worry Tads, when he runs out of breath and comes looking to murder us, we should have had time to warm this up anyway." Aswon showed Kai and Tads the proper meals they had boxed up from the restaurant, and they retreated to the newly installed galley to work out how to actually best warm up the food and prepare it.

While they were waiting for Marius, Aswon hunted for a trid-channel and they caught up with some of the news. The main item was of course the exclusion zone in the neighbouring Russia, with estimates of the death toll and disruption. The death toll was low – remarkably low – though damage to livestock and impact on the countryside was very high.

The next item covered the ascension of Cross Applied Technologies to the Corporate Court, and their formal rise to being an AAA mega-corp, spending some time detailing movements in the stock markets and acquisitions of smaller companies around the world, and what that meant in terms of international trade.

A follow up item discussed the ongoing conflict between Fuchi and Renraku, with Renraku apparently making several hostile takeover bids on Fuchi companies. This was being affected by the release of several hundred thousand barrels of crude oil from reserves held by Saeder-Krupp. This had apparently depressed the value of oil significantly, which then affected several Fuchi companies – such as Dekita, who were still reeling from recent events. Some good news was that this had forced down the price at the pump somewhat, which tied in with their experience filling the truck up just before they crossed the border.

The news show finished with some local affairs and sports coverage, and had transitioned to music when Marius finally appeared, frowning at them all as he smelt the food in the galley before his sour expression intensified. With a show of open disgust he pitched the nasty takeout into the bin, before heading into the galley to discover what lay there.

After some decent food had cheered him up somewhat, Marius became more agreeable, and spent some time showing Hunter, Aswon and Shimazu the new hiding places built into the chopper's hull, and showed them the new facilities properly.

During this they listened to him continue to grumble about Kai's plans to cause further international incidents, and how Marius wasn't sure if he should be shooting down stuff on Kai's command, or shooting down Kai – or perhaps a third option of 'all of the above'…

Once Marius had gotten all of the rant out of his system, he listened to the various things that had happened to the truck team on their journey. He seemed surprised that Aswon hadn't immediately accepted an invitation to lunch with Mr Kulkachev, and suggested that it might be an unwise move, depending on how long they were going to remain in Batumi.

Tads was pretty quiet through all of this, and they found her wedged into a tiny space at the back of the cargo bay, sitting in the recess between two structural beams. She had one of the takeout boxes from the restaurant with her, and had painstakingly laid out all of the food from it in separate areas on a clean piece of plastic, and was slowly working her way through them one at a time, working to classify the taste, texture, colour, smell and every other facet of its uniqueness she could identify. They left her to it – moving away quietly and trying not to disturb her. The better she studied now, the less oats there would be in the future!

Kai placed a call to the number he had for Kulkachev, hitting the speakerphone as it started to connect. After two rings it connected and a voice responded in Georgian, saying two words. Hunter leant over and whispered in Kai's ear

"They said 'The Hill'!" Kai nodded and responded in English.

"Good afternoon. My name is Kai, and I'd like to speak to Mr Kulkachev if possible please. I believe he spoke to one of my team earlier." He was asked to wait, and put on hold in the same manner as Aswon had been earlier.

"Ahh, Mr Kai. Have you spoken to your friend Aswon?"

"Indeed I have, he's right here with me, in fact. He described the conversation earlier and I thought it would be only polite to contact you and discuss things. Hopefully we're not going to be in town long, and we don't wish to disrupt things at all, before we head off."

"Yes, yes, Aswon told me you were heading far away. Tell me, if you will. Sand, rocks or forest?" Kai thought for a moment about their location and then mentally put a thousand kilometre circle over that on the map and could see how he came up with those descriptions. It still covered a lot of ground, but would give a general idea, without giving away their destination.

"Sand, I would say. Lots of sand."

"Ahh, I see. Dangerous places have sand, so I am lead to believe. Some of them see some intense conflict. Should you happen to find any abandoned technology or surplus equipment, please bear me in mind. I would certainly be interested in browsing anything you find or discover."

"Of course, I'm sure we would be happy to consider you for anything interesting we might find."

They chatted on for another two minutes, with Kulkachev gently fishing for details and Kai neatly side-stepping and deflecting, before they exchanged pleasantries and broke the connection.

With the housekeeping done, the team settled down for a brainstorming session about the upcoming mission, discussing all of the details they had and everything that had changed in the last two days that might affect things. As they went over the capture phase again, it became clear that several of them were very nervous about bringing the unknown – and potentially lethal – para-critters into the helicopter.

Back and forth the discussion went, with some quick searches on the matrix providing wildly differing levels of threat and risks – clearly this was not a well-known or documented species, and any research that was relevant was safely locked up in corporate data vaults and not found freely on the grid.

"I think we have to assume that these things are dangerous in the extreme, and we need a really solid method of holding them," opined Aswon.

"I agree. Let's not forget that we only have one dose of scorpion anti-venom to use, and we're not even sure how well that will work. So I'd rather not take any chances. And besides – after seeing those tunnels near the ranch, and those horrible monkey-cave-crawler things… if something can tunnel through rock, a plastic dog carrier is going to last seconds. We need something solid and reinforced."

The conversation went back and forth for some time, until it was decided that they did indeed need some kind of very sturdy enclosure to be fitted into the back of the chopper. The next question, of course, was just where they were going to find something like that.

Marius closed his eyes for a moment, thinking furiously. He thought back, reliving experiences until the right combination of neurons fired and he suddenly opened his eyes and clicked his fingers.

"Yosh."

"Bless you."

"No Kai, Yosh – the man in the docks, who helped with the recoil mounts. They work on ship hulls – steel plating 25mm thick. Hardened alloys and composites. They have machines that can bend stuff that strong into hull forms. And they also have experience working with gates and doors that need to be watertight, but able to be opened at a push. We should contact him and ask for his help. We did assist him with relocating his brother out of the country, after all."

Marius pulled out his data cable and connected up to the chopper, then went quiet as he made the call using his internal cyberware.

"Hello?"

"Yosh, it's Marius. I drove the truck that came through a little while back. We worked on some springs in the shipyard, and I helped you move some things around at home. Remember?"

"Oh, yes, hi. Sorry, I was watching the trid." Marius mentally added 'and getting shitfaced' to the end of the sentence. "So how are things?"

"Well, not bad Yosh, not bad. We're actually in the city now as it happens, and we have a problem. I have a friend who wants to move some livestock, and they need a really strong cage or crate making for them. REALLY strong. And I thought to myself who do I know who can work with materials like that, and who might want to get paid for some overtime?"

"Oh, wah. Ga. Um – ok. Right, you wanna box building. For dogs. Are we talking like hellhounds or something?"

"Something like that, yes."

"Ga." The line went quiet for a moment. "Ok, I can help. But I'm going to need at least another person on the job, and that will push the costs up."

"How much?" The line went quiet again, and Marius could imagine the sudden wave of sobriety that was washing over him as he contemplated making some serious cash.

"Probably a good couple of days labour, for me and a small crew. I think we're looking at about ten thousand?"

"Come on, it can't be more than five – it's just welding some bits together and making a box…." They haggled back and forth, until they settled on seven thousand and a case of wine for Yosh, with the box being delivered in three days. Marius even volunteered some of the team to go help with the operation and consult on the design, before hanging up.

"Ok team, I have us a box builder and some labourers. Someone needs to go work on the design and help out with management and stuff though." Shimazu and Hunter volunteered, figuring they would be able to help out with some grunt work and moving things around if need be to assist.

Kai headed off to the airport admin building to arrange for them to stay for a few days, paying for the chopper to be refuelled as well while he was there, before heading back to the craft and the others less one and a half thousand for berthing and nearly sixteen thousand for the fuel.

As Saturday dawned, Tads performed her traditional prayers and then climbed out onto the tarmac, summoning a spirit of the air to her. She shared a mental picture of the dockyard and explained that there would be construction going on, asking the spirit to accompany her friends and guard them against mishap and bad luck. With that done, she returned to her magical designs, continuing to work on her formulas.

Marius and Kai worked on research and upgrade tasks, burying their heads into their matrix terminals and working on engineering systems and language courses respectively. That left the other three to take the UAZ and clear their way through the small security hut, then head up into the centre of town and the boat yard. They met Yosh who looked hungover, but functional, and sat him down in a café with a large pot of coffee and explained their requirements – and detailed the maximum size of the chopper's cargo bay to ensure the design would fit.

Yosh in turn sketched out an elegant folding solution that would create a large rectangular volume encased in thick and resilient metal, but would fold into a somewhat flat bundle when not in use. It needed a lot of fine work on the hinge mechanisms, but would create a sturdy transport solution. Yosh kept talking about fire breathing dogs, and nobody dissuaded him – it was probably better if he didn't know, and it worked well enough for their purposes.

Moving to the yard, he had two junior labourers ready to go, one who operated the large cutting and bending machine, another that drove the line welder, while he worked on the hinge mechanisms. With the brawn of Hunter, Shimazu and to a lesser extent Aswon, they made good progress. By the end of the day they had the major parts cut and laid out, and they could see the overall size of the block. It would be nearly three metres wide, the same long and about a metre high – big enough to contain several tonnes of sand and loose rock and hopefully two live specimens.

Sunday followed the same format – the team arrived at the yard, with some equally hungover looking dockworkers who had clearly not followed the suggestion that they 'lay off the sauce' from the night before. Despite this, work continued well over the course of the Sunday, with no official interference. Despite their slight inebriation the dock workers seemed to have everything in hand – and the team wondered if the drunkenness was their default state. By the end of the day they were at least half done with the assembly, and the mechanism had been tested – but the further they assembled, the heavier the overall rig became and the more awkward to proceed.

Still, it was a good day's progress and the team were pleased, the progress recounted to the rest over their evening meal in the chopper. Their new galley was still something of a learning experience as they experimented with a new way of cooking, but at least they had plenty of raw materials, courtesy of Tads and her spells.

The new bunks were considerably more comfortable than the truck's, and once more they settled in for a night's sleep, hoping to be done with the construction in the morning, and on their way soon. They did sleep well, apart from being woken at 01:17 and again at 04:33 as two jets powered up for takeoff, making even a chopper their size vibrate and rock from the backwash – but once the flights had left the airport, they soon managed to get back to sleep.

On Monday morning, they had breakfast just the same and Aswon was just taking his work gloves and a water bottle down to the car when a glint of light caught his eye. It triggered a reaction in his hindbrain, and before he'd consciously thought about what he was doing, he'd dived headlong down the ramp and rolled into cover behind the jeep – much to the confusion of Shimazu who was getting ready for the drive into town.

He thought about what he'd seen, replaying the memory and working out what had triggered the reaction – remembering the counter sniper fire that had taken out his buddy in Belgrade all those years before. He popped his head up sideways, one hand holding his dreads out of the way and watched the top of the low rise block of flats a half kilometre beyond the airport fence. He waited, and a few seconds later, there was another glint of light as something reflected off a mirrored surface – or a scope.

He climbed into the car, keeping low and told Shimazu to drive back into the chopper. Shimazu complied, hunching down himself as Aswon started to react as if he was in a gunfight or other situation with mortal danger. Seconds later the car revved hard up the slope and Aswon bailed out, running forwards to alert the others.

"SNIPER! Everyone stay under cover. Possible sniper, north side of our position, on top of the low block of flats, direct line of sight. It's the block with the sat dish cluster on top with the red-stripes. Hunkered down, left hand side, just back from the edge. Marius, can you get a sensor reading?"

"Checking now!" Marius jammed the rigger link into his head and then 'looked' to the north, steering along the bearing and description Aswon had called out and focussing his attention that way. In the bunks, Tads sighed and made sure she was comfortable and then vaulted out of her body, heading that way and arriving three seconds later.

"Ja, ja! I have something – thermal oddity. No heat signature of a meta-human, but I have uneven heating all along this structure here. I figure someone is masking their signature somehow. No active emissions, no LIDAR, no LASER, all quiet." Marius sounded cool and detached as he reported over the loudspeakers, and Shimazu and Hunter readied weapons, while Kai checked the windows, looking out to examine the world with old fashioned eyesight.

Seconds later, Tads returned, melded with her body and swung up from her bunk.

"I've got one life sign, hiding under a blanket of some kind of tech material – not natural. No weapons visible, no hostility in his aura or signs of distress or emotional excitement. A bit of cyberware in his head, and probably in his body but I didn't get that close – not yet anyway. But he's alone, and doesn't appear to want to hurt us."

"Right!" Kai rooted through his bag of clothes, eventually pulling out a yellow hi-vis vest and a clipboard. "I think it's time I went and did a building inspection, check it out for safety, look on the roof, that kind of thing."

"Are you nuts?" Kai just smiled. "Ok, you are nuts. And what are we going to be doing?"

"What you guys do best, Aswon. Get ready to rescue me, and fuck someone's shit up." Kai nodded once at them, grabbed his clipboard and marched towards the car.