Monday 14/2/2061, Location: 40.02426, 48.95799, Time 18:00

By nightfall they were ready – or ready enough, at least. Marius and Kai had headed into Baku again in the truck, and had spent a few hours shopping – looking for bacon and eggs, along with stripy fabric, imported English bitter and tools and supplies for woodworking. On their return they handed over the woodworking supplies to Hunter, Tads and Aswon – Hunter had already found what purported to be plans for a 'traditional' design deck chair, and they had set to work, and managed to make two fairly reasonable deck chairs by the time they were due to leave. Marius had attempted to patch things up with Nadia, but she remained adamant that he was to 'take off' the dermal armour, and Marius Junior seemed to agree with her.

Once in the air, they headed towards the coast, slicing through the TCL airspace with not a twitch of the local radar systems and quickly headed out over the Caspian, before turning south and making a run down to Iran. Though the border was hostile, they'd crossed it a few times now, and both Marius and Hunter had some decent navigation marks to follow, and their crossing was uneventful. After a quick dash across the coastal plain they rose rapidly up into the mountains – bypassing the smuggler stop there and continuing to head south through the highlands. They steered well clear of Tehran, flying far to the west of the ruined capital, and cut across Iran heading for the top of the Persian Gulf. The southern border was a bit tougher to cross, with multiple overlapping sensor nets covering the borders between Iran, Iraq and Kuwait, requiring Marius to refine his nape of the earth flying a little more – but once again between his skill with the aircraft, the radar absorbent covering and the electronic deception measures built into the strike craft, they evaded appearing as anything more than a sensor ghost.

While in the air they discussed the end goal – their landing in Oman and the journey into and around Muscat. The information that Hunter had supplied indicated that they would get away with knives perhaps – particularly if they looked like work knives, but that anything bigger or heavier than that would attract the local law with unfortunate consequences. As they were all going to be there illegally, with no visa or tourist permits attached to their IDs, that would create big problems for them very quickly.

Once they were in level flight and it was safe to unclip from the harnesses, they broke out their disguises, a series of long flowing robes known as 'dishdasha' locally, but functionally the same as the 'thobes' they'd used in Iraq and other countries. Shimazu fiddled with his scabbard, adjusting it to hang vertically down his leg rather than at the normal angle designed to make it easier to draw. If someone patted him down it would be found almost instantly – but they reasoned that if someone was patting them down they were probably already in trouble and it was about to kick off anyway. The angle would make quick-drawing the weapon almost impossible, but it should allow him to walk around with the sword fairly well concealed. Aswon duplicated his efforts, hanging his extendable staff from his belt in much the same fashion and stashing his ceramic throwing knives, while Hunter went for concealing a few pistols and grenades about his person. Tads stuck with her 'walking stick', trusting her ability to mask its magical nature from any prying eyes, and Kai made sure the small blade of his weapon foci was concealed in the small of his back – the punch dagger being small enough not to make that too uncomfortable. Marius, they knew from experience, tended to carry only a pistol normally, which he too should be able to disguise.

They also stripped off the vast majority of their armour – not only was any kind of security-services rated protection also restricted by permits, it was likely to be hot during the day, even at this time of year, and nobody fancied heat-exhaustion. They remembered their efforts in the hunt for the scorpions that Ludmilla had wanted, and one journey across the desert under the baking sun was quite enough to educate them on the balance they needed to strike between protection and practicality. Besides, without their bulky armour and between the dishdasha and a jacket over the top to add some bulk and break up the lines, along with a few daysacks or satchels to carry things like their electronics toolkits, their small medical kit, rope, fast-cuffs and the horde of other small 'utility' items, they looked more like itinerant workers than smugglers or shadowrunners – or so they hoped.

"Hey, Hunter. If you're not busy with navigation, can you run through the details of the office again?"

"Sure, Aswon. According to the post I found on Shadowland, the Oman Insurance corporation is a royal pain in the ass. They speculated that sometime in the past the office got hit with something nasty – like really nasty, something that took down their whole network and matrix system, and left them with some kind of aversion to risk when it comes to online presence. The company has a matrix site of course, but it's hosted by a service provider, some matrix agency that provides sites for a whole bunch of small companies on their shared server. It's pretty standard fare – some generic text about the services they offer, some detail on the big-wigs in the company, just the ones that have to register publicly, and a few other bits of info – like how to get to the building. What it doesn't have though is any kind of way to submit information or log into their host, or any of the systems at the office, which is really unusual."

"What they have instead, though, is a matrix system that is entirely off-line. Air-gapped, they call it. No matrix nodes connect to the internal system at all, so it just CANNOT be hacked remotely. It must hurt the company operationally, with not having any kind of way to send or receive data from their system, but that's what they've done. According to the other group that posted – well, it was their decker, but he was part of a crew – they have this weird setup in the office, where incoming messages are displayed on a screen, and then the internal system has a camera pointed at the screen – so they have to do text recognition and recapture photos and things. Really slow – but ultra secure. No way I can get an exploit over that kind of lash-up."

"So what did the other team have to do? Did it say?" Aswon queried, thinking about the impact on operations and speed of processing and shaking his head. This kind of nonsense was why you hired security deckers and bought a decent firewall!

"They didn't spell it out exactly, but it's pretty clear that they did a physical insertion into the office, to raid their data stores and get the info they wanted. It didn't go into details, but given that most of the rant was about this whole air-gap thing, I'm taking it that the office wasn't actually too bad to get into."

"Someone else broke in already? Crap… when was that?"

"Oh, this was months ago. So chances are they're running at normal levels of security and paranoia, at least with regards to this. Maybe they beefed up security physically afterwards – I don't know if the other team left any signs of entry or if it was a really covert job. But if there's electronic security I'm sure Marius can handle it, and if it's physical stuff we've got Shimazu. And if someone needs talking to death, we've got Kai…"

"HEY!"

"Just kidding. You wouldn't talk them to death. You'd just offer to do a bunch of work for them, probably for free…"

"He's not wrong you know," Aswon added quickly, earning him a dirty look from Kai.

"What I was about to ask was, what about traffic cams?"

"What about them? Trying to get into the traffic control system is a tough ask, you know – they're pretty well protected normally."

"I was thinking individual cameras. Like, if we found a traffic camera that we could access discreetly, can you physically connect to the camera, and get something?"

"Hmm." Hunter fell silent for a moment, considering. "I suppose it's a possibility. Chances are that most of the defences are on the central nodes, where they aggregate all the data. It's just not feasible to put enough compute power and storage into every source node to run decent ICE. It'll be password protected at a minimum, but there are ways around that… the main thing would be that if there's local storage on the device to buffer against communications loss and errors, that we can only get the take from that one camera. We probably can't get through the firewalls from the camera into the main system. But it's a possibility…"

"Ok, one to consider when we get on location then – if we can find a traffic cam in the city that we can get to, that points in the direction of the museum, it's a possibility. Next… the museum or gallery itself. Is it going to have an old man spirit?" He pointed a finger at Tads, as he raised the question.

"An old man… oh, a hearth spirit. No. Unless someone actually lives there. Hearth spirits tend to form or coalesce only where someone actually lives, where someone regards the space as their home. It's the feelings that meta-humanity generate that helps define them, and if someone doesn't live there, it's a barren space. It's far more likely to be the domain of a city spirit if anything."

"But that's not a bad thing. It means we can get somewhere nearby, and call the spirit of the city block or neighbourhood to ask it questions," Aswon added, "and it should know about the fire and what was going on. It won't know about anything that happened in apartments or other places where people lived – that's a hearth domain, where you WOULD find a hearth spirit. But all the surrounding shops and offices, the streets and alleys, those kinds of places – all city domain."

"And the air above the gallery? Like if they came in with gliders or something?"

"Um… it all gets a bit meta-physical…" Aswon looked for the right words to explain the concept but Tads butted in before he found them.

"Look, say you're standing on the edge of a forest, on the side of a mountain. If you want to be, you can be in the domain of the forest, call a forest spirit, and ask it questions about the forest, or to do things in the forest for you, or protect you from things in the forest. But you can also shift your focus, without moving from your position. Now you're in the mountain domain. You're still in the edge of the forest, but your mind is focussed on the mountain, and if you call a spirit the mountain will answer you. Protect you from avalanches, answer questions about the mountain, help you climb, whatever. Shift your mind again, and you're in the sky domain – and the wind spirits will help you, guide you or protect you. But you can only be in one domain at once. No more, no less. You're always SOMEWHERE, and there should be a spirit. It might not be a spirit you want, and if you're in a toxic wasteland it's going to be an awful spirit that's probably going to attack you… but you're always in a domain of some kind."

"Ahh, right. So if we're in the street, we can still ask questions about the air?"

"Yes, but the answers you get will be from the point of view of someone 'looking up' into another domain. But if we've summoned a city spirit, and asked it questions, there's nothing to stop us calling on the spirits of the winds to ask them, too."

"Right, got it. I think. So that's something we can do, when we're there."

"Bear in mind though, Kai," Aswon warned, "that while the summoning is pretty easy for someone as skilled as Tads is, we need to be careful. It's a majority Muslim country, and operates under Sharia law, and their rules on magic are very strict. They tolerate sanctioned hermetic mages, ones that have the blessings of the Imams who are just 'wielding divine power', as instruments of their god. But animalistic shamans are apostates, working against the will of god as far as they're concerned. It's an instant death penalty from what I saw of the legal code. So Tads must NOT be seen doing any summoning… well, any magic at all by anyone. Or we're going to fetch a whole bunch of trouble down on us."

"Well, we'd best be careful then. What about CCTV from nearby buildings. How about we try and talk our way in, and see if we can get copies of the footage from private houses and places like that?"

"I don't think that will work," Shimazu spoke up. He was sat in his seat with the harness still fastened, though looser than normal, and his eyes were closed, hands laid over the top of his sheathed sword. "I seem to recall that the local police had confiscated or seized all of the CCTV footage from the streets and gallery itself. It stands to reason that the police would also have used their powers to grab any nearby camera footage of the site from nearby residents as well. If they are co-operating with the insurance company, they've probably shared it – but I doubt they'd have left anything useful lying around with external agents. If they had, it would probably have been on the news by now…"

"I suppose so…" Kai waited a moment to see if Shimazu had anything else to add, but he had apparently returned to his meditation, his lips twitching slightly as he mentally ran through some mantra to himself. "I am confused about the deaths in the gallery, though. It seems like an escalation of things. I mean, just a theft, the police will investigate, sure. But straight up murdering people is only going to make that investigation more intense."

"It might be that the other team thought it was the best way to cover their tracks – make the investigation look at a more 'serious' crime than just property theft?" He sounded dubious and there was a look of distaste on his face. While as a tactic it had some advantages, it was clear that it offended him personally.

"Didn't the news report say the fire got out of hand?" Tads scratched the side of her head as she tried to think back. "Maybe the fire was to cover their activity and it was meant to just get the fire services in hosing everything down and destroying the crime scene – but they never meant to burn the whole place down and kill people. That might have just gotten bigger than they wanted and spread more than they thought it would?"

"Maybe. Either way, though, it might be another lead to investigate. If we can locate the families of the dead, we can maybe find out some more information. Though…ahh frak. They're going to speak Arabic, aren't they. Which means… well, Hunter, I guess."

"I also speak passable Arabic," came the emotionless voice from the speakers of the aircraft. "I can assist with translation. But I doubt you will be as persuasive as you could otherwise be if they could understand you directly."

"Ok, but at least we've got two native speakers. And I guess after half a day or so, Aswon, you'll be up to speed?" Kai looked at Aswon who shrugged, but after a moment's consideration gave a careful nod. "You seem to pick up the lingo about as fast as Hunter does. Oh – there was one more question though. Would the fire burn away the spell signature thing that Tads is always so worried about leaving?"

"No. Unless the fire caused massive emotional harm or damage, which would taint astral space – it's a mundane effect that only has an impact on the material world. The astral signature would remain. But it's an effect that only lasts for a few hours normally. And it's been days since the break-in, so it's going to be long gone by now."

"Yes, as Aswon said – it wouldn't mask the signature. And unless the spells were cast by Dragons, they'll have long gone. Though that may be a reason for a fire… if the fire engines took a few hours for them to get the blaze under control, that would give the spells time to fade away." She frowned at the concept of causing such death and destruction just to hide a spell signature, when with relatively little time it could be cleaned away properly…

The craft flew on, the team chatting away about other things – life on the ranch, and Nadia's plans for irrigation, the tourist industry and a host of inconsequential details – though they were careful to stay away from discussing Nadia and Marius's arguments. For most of the team this was just polite consideration, but for Hunter it was the dual realisation that when they were flying a scant twenty to forty metres above the landscape, he didn't want Marius distracted with an argument, plus the fact that technically he was in punching range and though Marius didn't tend towards physical violence – much preferring to use his vehicular and robotic minions for that – it didn't mean he wouldn't have a breaking point. Best to save his comments for when they were safely on the ground…

As they closed in on the coast of Qatar, Marius quivered as he felt a sensation. Most of the times the rigger interface translated sensor probes as the wind in his hair, or a light touch of fingers being trawled over his skin, alerting him to their presence. This one though – this was a handful of sharp fingernails being dragged down his back, leaving furrows of torn skin and the spreading sensation of pain. They'd been hit with a targeting system, and strongly enough that he had no doubt they'd been made.

The craft dropped to one side, sliding down through the air towards the water's surface and then swinging wildly back the other way to level out on a few metres above the surface. Their massive propellors sent a fine mist of spray up into the air leaving two huge spreading v-shapes behind them, and the hull resonated with a hollow sound as he clipped an especially tall wave. In the back the team hurriedly tightened their harnesses or swung back to their seats to buckle in, watching the screens for information or peering out through the viewing optic for more information.

A small freighter appeared on the horizon, rapidly growing in size as they headed straight for it, and the same sensation made Marius flinch once more, this time as the ghostly sensation of fingernails ran down his ribs and hip. A virtual kick of the rudder moved them ten degrees to port, and the freighter slipped down their port side, the questing sensor beam slewing around to try and follow them.

"Got a spirit on that boat, moderately high force…looks like a hearth spirit, though. Watching us, not pursuing!" Aswon called out, flicking the prism around to the rear to watch for any signs of pursuit or hostile action.

Tads threw up a spell around the vehicle, masking them as best she could as a flock of birds – incredibly fast moving birds to be sure, but at least enough to hopefully throw off any system that relied on optical recognition.

"We definitely got tagged there. I suspect that the craft is an ELINT trawler of some kind." Marius stopped speaking for a moment as he suddenly pulled up as they darted across the shore, riding a steep angle to climb up the cliffs that made up the shoreline here. As soon as he passed the top of the cliffs he levelled out, and everyone's stomachs rebelled as they pulled almost two negative g's for a few seconds as he levelled out over the desert. "No idea who it works for, but I have seen similar vessels. They pose as fishing trawlers or tramp freighters, but have powerful electronic intelligence and signal processing capabilities, and are used to spy in areas where a military warship might be seen as an escalation."

"Praneeth did mention that the place was a bit hot right now, with lots of corp activity. How far are we away from the smuggler stop?"

"Only a kilometre."

"Ok, veer away please, head out over the desert. Make sure we've dropped out of sight and then circle back."

"Affirmative." Before he'd finished speaking, Marius had adjusted course and the tilt-wing banked gently to alter course almost eastwards, travelling a few kilometres over the featureless terrain before he swung back to the south, taking a huge loop to bring them back to the co-ordinates they'd been given from the south.

He spotted a large structure, a stone fortress of some kind, standing amidst the empty desert and guarding the rolling dunes – and he also spotted the bank of infra-red spotlights that all aimed down at a patch of stony ground a little way back from the walls of the medieval structure. It seemed like an invitation to land, and he slowed and bought the tilt wing in for a vertical landing, relying on his sensors as their downdraft whipped up a storm of sand that obstructed their view completely. At least it would also shield them from physical sight. A full sweep of the sensors didn't reveal anyone or anything that caused him alarm, so he powered down the engines carefully – ready to do a combat restart the moment there was any sign of danger.

Nothing happened though, and the desert remained quiet and calm, the sand falling back to the ground and leaving them illuminated under the wan moonlight. Kai waited a moment, but when nothing happened, he dug out his commlink and sent a message to Keith advising them that they'd just landed. The team unstrapped and got ready to disembark, moving to the side door. Marius alerted them as a lone figure appeared around the walls of the small desert fort, walking towards the landing area, and they slid open the doorway, allowing the rest of the team to get eyes on the target too.

Keith was short and had a large paunch, straining against the buttons of his linen shirt and overhanging the belt of his trousers. A wild and bushy beard sprang from his face, covering his chin entirely and making him look slightly deranged. His belt hung down low on his right hip, a huge pistol weighing it down – something akin to the hand-cannon that Shimazu normally carried. A quick glance in astral showed no hostile intentions. though, and he wandered in their direction, eyes scanning left and right until Kai and Shimazu jumped down and 'appeared' as they left the concealing efforts of the spirit.

"Awright, luv!" he drawled, giving them a quick glance up and down while one hand drifted towards his crotch to give it a quick scratch. "You Kai?"

"Ahh, yes. You must be Keith."

"s'right. Come on in. You should be awright parked here, whatever it is." He offered a hand and Kai reached over to shake it, feeling the damp, clammy flesh engulf his own hand, pumping it up and down several times before releasing it. As he pulled his hand away, it felt greasy and dirty, and he suppressed a shudder. "Fancy bird you got there – can't hardly see it. Got some of that special paint on it, eh?" Kai gave a nod and a slightly bemused smile. "Fancy then. C'mon." Keith beckoned for them to follow him, and turned to wander back around the side of the fort. Kai looked at the others, shrugged and then waved for the team to follow him, wiping his hand on the side of his trouser legs as he did so.

Offloading their cargo, they wandered around the smooth sandstone walls of the fortress, nicked and pocked with the ravages of the wind over hundreds of years along with no small number of wars and conflicts – though they remained sturdy and sound. On the other face of the fortress, facing away from where they'd landed was a large door, massive wooden beams banded together with iron that showed only the faintest hint of rust thanks to the dry desert air. The doors were nearly thirty centimetres thick and must have weighed hundreds of kilos each – certainly it took a significant grunt of effort for Keith to shove one open and wave them into the courtyard beyond.

"Welcome to Keith's B and B!"

The entered, eyes sweeping around the courtyard and taking in the scene. It was roughly square, with buildings or rooms built into the outer walls, with a walkway around the square itself, covered with a flimsy roof – though no doubt it would provide shade to at least half of the area no matter where the sun was during the day. There was also another team of people in the far corner, loading up boxes onto a small, wheeled trolley – who all stopped to examine them, much as the team was appraising them in return.

There were five of them in total, gathered around the trolley loading on the large boxes of some kind of product. Closest to them was either a moderately-sized orc or a very small troll, the same kind of size as either Shimazu or Hunter, dressed in plain overalls with rigid plates reinforcing the areas over their core, with a heavy pistol in a drop holster on their right thigh. Next to them and looking particularly small in comparison was a dwarf, dressed in similar overalls. A sturdy looking belt was strapped around their waist, loaded down with several pouches and bags hanging off the wide leather strap. A human male in his mid-twenties stood at the front of the cart, adjusting the load, wearing a set of cargo trousers and a tight-fitting polo shirt. A large leather satchel was hung over one shoulder and rested on his hip. On the opposite side of the trolley to them in another set of overalls was a very attractive female human, perhaps in her early twenties. She stared at them with an edge of hostility or anger, unlike the rest. A machine pistol was clipped onto her waist on the right hip and a long blade was hanging from the left side. The final member of the group was wearing jeans and a casual shirt, and looked like he'd just stepped out of a catalogue – his hair was perfectly set, his skin smooth and his smile showed an even set of pearly white teeth that glinted in the moonlight. Kai gave them a generic wave, and it was the guy in jeans that gave them a casual salute in return.hhhh

"Roight you are, over this way. Let's have a gander at your goodies." Keith led them over to the corner of the compound, under a small string of dim electric lights and stood with his hands on his hips, swaying slightly back and forth while a few beads of sweat ran down the side of his head into the massive beard. Aswon pulled out the first deckchair and set it up with a quick flourish and Keith made an approving grunt, before turning and planting himself down into it, wiggling his body to get comfortable. The wood creaked a little under the assault, but held up. "Blimey, that's roight good that is. Loverly jubberly! I loike it!"

"And we also have the bitter you requested, along with some bacon and eggs. And of course, there's a second of the deckchair things." Kai added, waving for the team to place down the packages of food.

"Charlene! CHARLEEEEENEEE!"

"WOT! I'M WATCHING THE TELLY" came a shriek from inside the building.

"Get off your lazy ass and come put this stuff in the fridge!"

Charlene was presumably his wife – certainly the woman who appeared at the doorway with a half smoked cigarette hanging from her lip appeared to be the same age as he was. Dressed in a battered and stained tracksuit, she was festooned with jewellery, with several rings on each of her pudgy fingers and at least half a dozen gold chains hanging around her neck. She spat some curse at Keith, about missing some soap, but picked up the package of bacon and eggs, and then disappeared back inside with it.

"We ran into someone on the way in, just to let you know. There was a boat, a little way off shore – very good sensors. They picked us up, but we flew an evasive course before looping back to come here." Aswon pointed in the general direction of the shore. "I am Aswon."

"I am Keith? And that's probably Booby-doowap."

"I'm sorry?"

"Booby-doowap! Bleedin ell, you're a slow un. The other crew over there. That's their dingy."

"Oh, I see – that's their team name? Right. We're the 'new fish' if that makes it any easier. So… you're not from round here, I take it."

"Cor, give the man a bleedin' medal. Course not. Came out 'ere to make me fortune and stuff. Got meself a castle now, like a bleedin' lord I am! Got meself a decent cushy number. Better than runnin' taxis back in the east end, anyway."

"Of course," Kai agreed, though he wasn't quite sure what Keith was on about. "I hope the bacon and eggs are satisfactory – they were all fresh this morning, but you might want to let the beer settle a bit, it's been bounced around in flight a little. Oh – and we have some other food stuff available as well if you want it – for instance, we can do you a nice price on some truffles?"

"Chocolate truffles? Cor, fancy bugger ain't ya! Charlene'll go all gooey eyed at ya if ya give 'er some choccy truffles. You just make sure not to make a move on 'er though, or I'll shoot ya!" He gave a hearty belly laugh and Kai gave an insincere chortle of his own as he played along.

"Not that kind of truff…" Tads started to say, but Kai interrupted her and tried to subtly wave her off.

"Well, we'll just have to see won't we. Now, could we perhaps get some fuel for our aircraft, if that's possible?"

"Course mate, let's see the colour of ya money though. Not saying you ain't trustworthy or nothing, but if I can't even see ya motor, I wanna be sure ya ain't gonna do a legger!" Kai frowned as he tried to follow the lingo and bizarre accent, and then pulled out his credstick. Keith reached over to the windowsill and picked up a battered cred-reader and slotted the chip in, checking the balance and making sure there was plenty of funds there. "Roight, no problem geezer." He opened up a doorway, and pointed to a large fuel bowser on sturdy off-road tires. "Gauge is on zero, just go fill up, and I'll work it out when ya come back in."

Marius, Hunter and Shimazu grabbed the handle and pulled the fuel bowser out of the indoor shed carefully, steering it round a rusty bike and a selection of rakes and spades until it was in the courtyard and they could swing it round to face the entrance, before they picked up speed and rolled it out into the desert and back towards the tilt-wing.

"Great – they'll be a few minutes filling up I think, depending on how good the pump is. Now, we were wondering about securing a room for the night, to let us get some rest? We're not sure if we're staying just long enough to get refuelled or stopping for a break and then moving on later – can you accommodate us at all? Obviously, for a fee…"

"Cor, you are a gobby one. Don't use one word when half a dozen'll do. Yeah, I got a room I can lend ya for a bit. Follow me." Keith moved down the walkway to the next door along, adjacent to where the fuel bowser had been stashed. Pulling open the door revealed a bare room, with stone floor and white-washed walls, pretty much pitch-black inside. Keith pulled out a torch from his pocket and played it around. The room was almost entirely unfurnished, but was at least clean. A few rugs were laid out on the floor, along with a couple of large ceramic pots. "Yeh can stick ya sleeping bags in there and get some kip, if ya want." Tads looked at the room astrally and saw it was unwarded and pretty barren – at least that meant no lice or bed-bugs. She swung her gaze around the courtyard, and saw no wards or signs of magical activity at all, for that matter.

"Great, thanks. Like I said though, I don't know how long we're staying, but it's good to have options. We're heading down to Oman next – to the capital Muscat. Don't suppose you know anything about it do you? Or can offer any information?"

"Muscat eh? Well, ya gotta woch the rozzers. Half of em are bent, and the other harf are useless frakkers. Walk round like they own the place, and just as quick to pull the old truncheon out and give you a good slap with it. And we ain't talking the old pork sword, if ya know what I mean!" Whatever that meant it was apparently hilarious, and Keith bent over almost double as he laughed, his enormous gut wobbling as the layer of fat constrained by his shirt experienced a tectonic event. Kai turned to face Aswon and Tads and gave them a quizzical look, but they both shrugged at him in equal confusion. "Nah mate, but anyway. Be careful with the filth, cos they act like there ain't no law 'cept what they say. They'll make up any kind of shit to nick ya, and then steal ya stuff before giving y'all a right kicking and turfing you out. If you ain't got a friend to call, it can get right unpleasant. Pretty much the same in a lot of these a'rab countries – ya gotta have some contacts and know how to grease the wheels loike. But, they don't mess with western foreigners as much as the others. Too much trouble, ya see. But if you're one of them other types – like…"

Aswon, Kai and Tads listened in amazement as Keith rattled off half a dozen slang names, most of them highly offensive and all of them betraying an almost comical level of social ineptitude given the appearance of the team members facing him. Keith either didn't know, or just didn't care – but the team got the gist of what he was saying. Muscat apparently had a fairly large itinerant workforce, with many Indians, Pakistani, Thai, Filipino and other Asiatic workers, and they took the brunt of any police brutality and abuse, given their low status and limited social standing. Keith's advice was boiled down to sticking together and looking professional but not like trouble, and giving the impression of being technical workers or having powerful jobs that would be able to call in friends in high places – the sort of people that were far too much hassle for a bent copper to bother with. He also advised them not to eat bacon butties, and they had to endure a two minute rant that denigrated the religious beliefs of over a billion meta-humans, along with notes on not waving around pictures of saints or even of people, to avoid upsetting them, and to watch their language as well, as they even got touchy about cussing.

Scattered amongst the tirade of abusive speech though were the odd nuggets of good advice – an indication of how much to offer as a gift to ease any administrative issues they might face – because gifts were fine and an accepted part of doing business, while bribery was a crime that would attract the long arm of the law, along with notes to avoid the midday sun and definitely watch the use of armour and anything that looked like a weapon, which would trigger a heavy response. He also identified that the agri-corps in the area were also a source of some prime foodstuffs that were exported widely, in particular dates and eggplants, both of which were intensively farmed, along with spices like cardamom, saffron, cinnamon and cloves.

He was interrupted by Charlene, and headed inside to have a loud argument with her, leaving the team to stand outside in the cool desert air, wondering just what it was about British culture that made people like this – he seemed to be the other side of a coin to Germaine, with views just as outrageous, but so far none of the redeeming qualities.

The other team appeared to have finished loading their cargo up, and the guy in jeans wandered over towards them, making a quick hand gesture when they saw him coming, asking if he could approach. Kai waved him over and gave him a smile.

"Evening, folks. I see Keith was giving you the full treatment there…" He rolled his eyes. "He's an acquired taste – but honest and straightforward, in his own way. I'm Dodge, by the way."

"Kai, and this is Tads, and Aswon. Rest of my team is out fuelling our chopper – Hunter, Shimazu and Marius."

"Ahh, ok. Then that's Emily," he gestured towards the attractive female, "Nitro," the man with the satchel, "Stepanak," the dwarf with the toolbelt, "and Buckman," he ended with the orc or troll. "So, you guys doing business here, or just passing through?"

"We're heading down to Oman, got a little work there, so we're mostly just stopping off to refuel. Yourselves?"

"Picking up supplies. Got a bunch of fresh pearls, gathered from the seafront all up and down here, shipping those out elsewhere."

"Oh? Interesting. We're in the shipping business too. Mostly odd cargos, things that need shifting that people don't want official attention drawing to. Keith said that was your boat out on the water over there?"

"Yeah, the Orlando. That's ours. We're heading back there now that we've got all this lot secured."

"Your boat gave us a bit of a shock when we came in towards the shore – our pilot's pretty good, and our craft is quite stealthy, but we still got pinged good and proper."

"I'd hope so, the amount of money we paid for our electronics suite. Best way to avoid trouble is to see it coming. A lot of the work we do is around the gulf you see, and there's so many competing factions round here – the countries of course, but all of the mega-corps have their fingers in the pies, and they're fighting hard over the last of the oil, what's left of the gas and the other natural resources in the area. Keeps things exciting, and when it's exciting, there's opportunities and money to be made – if you're careful. Or good."

"And which are you?" Kai asked with a smile.

"We try to be both, but if in doubt, go for the latter. It'll get you out of the trouble the first gets you into." Dodge responded with a smile.

"We heard that the local area had a bit of a pirate problem?"

"Yeah, well that and privateers. But there's lots of trouble around if you're not careful. If you're in a chopper though, they probably won't bother you much – they're mostly after the shipping, and even then it's the bigger boats they're after generally – more choice of cargo and they're a bit slower."

"Do you do much work up north? Even been through the Suez?"

"We venture north sometimes – but not generally into the Med. Mostly stay on the southern side. Why so?"

Kai recounted the story of the enormous magical mist and pirate attack that they'd witnessed while travelling on the Maersk ship on their way home from the US, with Aswon and Tads both chipping in additional details. Dodge listened intently, and they noticed the rest of his team had drifted over a little so they could listen in, too – and he seemed impressed that a pirate vessel had someone who could sling mojo around, which was very uncommon in the area – though given the religious views on magic, that wasn't particularly surprising.

Kai and Dodge exchanged contact details, beaming over their virtual business cards to each other – and sure enough Dodge's card read "Dooby-do-wap" along with his matrix address and encryption key, before Dodge wished them well and made a circling motion with his hand. The ork or troll – it still wasn't clear which he was – pulled out a set of reins from under the cart and slipped them over his massive shoulders, harnessing himself like a sled-dog, while the others moved to flank the cart and place a steadying hand on the stacked boxes. They waited as they saw the Hunter appear in the doorway, pulling the bowser back inside, but as soon the entrance was clear, they headed out into the night.

Keith appeared again, checked the gauges on the fuel bowser and then ran Kai's credstick through his reader, skimming off a little over eight thousand Nuyen. Marius was watching discreetly and when he saw the price gave a little nod and thumbs up gesture to Kai – the price was fair, and in fact quite good for such an out of the way place. Kai headed over to Marius to check on him, asking if he wanted to rest or head off, and quickly filled in the information they'd picked up from Keith about Oman – mentioning that his advice was to fly up to the hills and highlands overlooking Muscat and then get a taxi or even walk into the town, rather than trying to take the chopper in directly.

"I am rested enough for another few hours of flying – and I would prefer to get there before dawn, so we can cross the remaining borders more easily."

"Great, ok. Let's get ready to saddle up then." Kai returned to Keith. "Turns out our pilot is ready to go, so we won't be staying the night – but thanks anyway."

"No worries, mate. Mind how ya go then. Don't be a stranger."

The team departed, Keith accompanying them to the front gate to push the massive wooden door closed behind them. Once aboard, Marius took his time restarting the chopper – they were in no rush to cover the last few hundred kilometres, and it was good to let the systems start up gently and slowly, ensuring that he followed the checklist carefully. Once airborne they headed south flying across what felt like endless miles of empty desert. Only the very occasional road or minute village were visible, amidst the rolling dunes. As they crossed into the United Arab Emirates Marius felt the fringe of a sensor beam questing for them, reaching out to confirm their presence – but by dropping down to almost ground level and disappearing into the clutter of peaks and troughs that made up the sandy landscape he disappeared without a trace.

In the back, as they crossed near some outpost of humanity, they came in range of a radio mast that carried civilian calls, and their phones pinged, delivering various messages that had queued up while they were out of range to their handsets; promising girls in their area that wanted them now (much to the confusion of Tads), various pills and potions that made things bigger, smaller, less or more hairy depending on the body part discussed, details about the latest vehicles to hit the market, messages telling them Ten Important Things To Know About Their Firearms – number eight of which would apparently shock them – and a whole host of other marketing spam, messages, fraudulent warnings about their bank accounts and even the odd legitimate message for news groups or publications they'd subscribed to. Only Hunter's phone remained mercifully quiet as the firewall on his deck and his search bots ruthlessly attacked the fake emails, sending them to the great bit-bucket in the sky.

"Say, Aswon?" Kai looked over at the tribesman who looked up, saw the smirk and immediately frowned at him. "Do you know 'Chetachi Musa'? He's a prince of Nigeria!"

"No he's not. He's a fraud."

"Nah, he can't be a fraud. It says here that he discovered some accounting irregularities in the palace accounts, and he has four hundred and nineteen million Nuyen – but that he needs my help to get it out the country. He even says he'll split the money with me!" Kai grinned like a naughty child as Aswon lowered his head to his hand, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He'd hoped to avoid this, but apparently it was not to be.

"No, Kai. It's a fraud. There's no such person, as you well know."

"What about Irikefe Usman?" Shimazu asked, gesturing to his own commlink. "You must know him, he's from Nigeria too. And he's found a slush fund from a gold mine. He's not as lucky as the prince, he's only got eighty-nine million Nuyen in his secret bank account. But he'll split it with us. You must know him, surely – you're both from Nigeria!" Aswon lowered his hand and put his head back against the lightly padded rest, and began to breathe deeply. In through the nose, out through the mouth, wondering who would be next. As the speaker in the back activated, it answered his question.

"Are you going to tell me you don't know Ejaita Abubakar? He is from Nigeria, too – but he has got shares in a diamond mine worth over two hundred million, that he is willing to share with me. Surely you must know him?" Aswon continued to breathe deeply, wondering just why this ritual seemed to have caught on. It seemed an ever present fact of life that no matter what happened, they seemed to get a number of communications from Nigerian citizens who had discovered amazing fortunes in their country, but needed some external assistance to handle them. Clearly, they were all fake and part of a scam, but the rest of the team seemed to quiz him as if he would know them personally, that he somehow knew every person in Nigeria – even the fictitious ones.

"What about Abeo Ibrahim?" Tads asked. She at least had a hard time keeping the giggle out of her voice as she gently teased him. "He's got deeds to an oil pipeline that he can sell, if only I'll help him. I just need to send him my SIN and some other details…"

Aswon continued to breathe deeply as they continued to throw details at him, trying to involve him in the patently shallow scams and acting as if they were seriously considering 'investing' in the opportunity – apart from Tads who sat giggling at his expression, unable to keep a straight face.

His eyes opened wide though as he felt a spike of sudden emotion from Kai, and both Shimazu and Tads also looked over as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He'd been working through the rest of the junk in his inbox, and was now glancing down at the message at the top of his screen, which had a sender of 'BOSS'. Swallowing nervously, he tapped the message to open it, and read the terse message.

[Why have you not contacted us about the manufacture of the device. Respond immediately.]

"Guys? I just got a message – from Aden. Or at least I'm assuming it's Aden. About that metal thingy, the tantalite."

"Tantalum you mean? The rhenium/tantalum containment vessel?"

"That's the one. Aww, crap – yeah, we got told about that in November. I sort of forgot… do I want to tell a dragon that? Do I want to try and lie to a dragon and pretend I didn't? Aww, Frak."

"Checking…. Got it. Well, good news and bad news, Kai. If it helps, I've got the messages here from when we did our research, and the order placed with Heraeus Metals of New York and Boston Metal Fabricators Incorporated. I sent over the engineering diagrams and we sent payment for the metal, fabrication and shipping – and got told to expect delivery in twelve weeks."

"I take it that's the good news? Hang on… twelve weeks?" Kai started to count on his fingers, but Hunter spared him the effort.

"Yeah, so it should have been delivered last week or the week before, depending on when you're counting from. So they're a bit late. Once we're stopped, I'll send a follow up message and chase delivery."

"Oh, cool. That's good, then. I'll tell him we're expecting delivery soon!" He bent over his commlink and started tapping away, responding to the message with the news that they were expecting the device imminently and would contact 'boss' as soon as it was available. When it was safely in his outbound queue, he set a reminder in his calendar, to make sure he didn't forget this time…

It was around three in the morning when they arrived in the hills to the south east of Falaj, a suburb of Muskat. Marius did a slow orbit while they checked out the possible landing zones – rejecting the first two where reality didn't match the limited maps of the area they had, and settling for their third choice spot - a shallow ravine in the broken rocks overlooking the town. Once they were down, the team dragged out the cammo nets and spent ten minutes dragging them over the top of the fuselage, draping them over the points of the rotors and breaking up the shape of the aircraft thoroughly, as well as cutting down on the limited amount of metallic and reflective surfaces that existed. Tads however stood a little way out from the chopper, slowly drawing in mana to her and then using it to reshape the landscape around her, building up walls before and behind the helicopter, raising new ravine walls to obscure their craft and conceal them. Rocks latterly grew out of the sand in response to her manipulation of the mana field, raising craggy outcroppings up to encircle their craft completely and make it almost impossible to stumble over by accident. Only the most determined of hikers or goats were going to find them now…

They got changed into their local clothing, secreting what weapons they could underneath, and packing their toolkits and devices into satchels and daysacks to take with them. With a handful of candy bars and a canteen of water each, they set out from the landing location, scrabbling down the slopes and heading into the edge of Falaj. The suburb was clearly an upper-class area as the houses were quite large and set in individual plots, with large rows of palm trees planted to provide shade and greenery to each property. Every house seemed to have at least one large SUV or four wheel drive vehicle, and most of them were no more than a year or two old. The houses were dark and quiet though, the only lights showing the faint red glow of the IR lamps for their security systems that bathed the approaches to the property.

The team kept well clear of them, moving down the compacted dirt roads and following the navigation of Hunter who guided them through the sweeping streets and T-junctions until they reached their first asphalt road, which in turn led them to a roundabout and a more major road, the single carriageway splitting into two separate one-way lanes of wide, black and pristine tarmac. The whole area seemed to be a new development, and all the road construction appeared to be modern and recent. The road gently bent to the east and descended slightly, bringing them nine-hundred metres later to an even larger roundabout, where their road was joined by two others from the left and right, leading to an even wider collector that headed down towards Muscat city itself, this time with a pair of lanes to either side of the dirt meridian.

On the horizon they could see a light, the glow of the sunrise coming in the next few hours – but providing just enough light for the team to be able to make out the steady downward sloping road that headed towards the Muscat Expressway, the highway that ran around the city itself. The road they were on headed down towards a massive clover-leaf style interchange as it ducked under the highway, and the sparkling lights of the city lay just beyond it.

As they headed down towards the city, creeping towards dawn, they started to see the odd car driving past them, along with more people appearing on the road also walking into the city – from their dress they looked to be custodial and janitorial staff, manual labourers and menials – no doubt heading down to perform a thousand and one vital tasks that kept a city running but that paid poorly regardless. At least they stood out less now, with other people also descending down the road into the sprawling city at the foot of the hill, and they relaxed slightly, knowing they were much less likely to draw the attention of any local police.

Dropping down the road though, they did notice the desert became almost uniform in colour – even from their elevated position they could spot almost nothing green and living – no parks, or commons, no stands of palm trees or greenery growing around a water source. The city was almost monochrome, and the contrast with the arid landscape back near the ranch was startling – even the local town made an effort to grow some kind of plants, even if it was just in window boxes, to liven up the landscape.

Finally they arrived into the town, heading for the city centre and the location of the museum and gallery. Along the way they kept their eyes peeled, evaluating the city from a professional point of view. It looked like the surveillance here was lighter than a typical western city – though there was CCTV and most of the major junctions were covered with Grid-Guide systems, it was nowhere near as oppressive as many other places they'd visited. Another thing they noticed was the relative lack of drones in the air – only a few rotor drones hung over traffic junctions or major intersections, or patrolled the highway, but otherwise the skies remained remarkably empty of drone traffic – unless it was just the early hour. By now there were a large number of people heading into and around the city, looking downtrodden and a little weary. Street sweepers were out, and bins were being emptied, and they saw a number of uniformed officers hanging around near some of the pedestrian areas, monitoring their patches. They didn't seem to give the team a second glance though, no doubt just waiting for the end of their shifts and a chance to knock off after a long night.

As they reached the road that the museum was on, they spotted the police tape and signs that sealed it off – and at the far side, past the burnt and ruined building the matching signs that closed the far end of the street. Diversion signs were set up to provide a route around the blockages, and judging by the amount of litter and debris that cluttered the kerbs and gutters, it had been closed for more than a few days now. Tads risked a quick scan of the astral plane, but didn't spot any astral guards or watchers – just the constant haze of the city twisting and corrupting the manasphere with its manufactured will. She didn't spot any signs of spells – not that she was expecting it at this stage – but also no particular signs of horrific emotions or killing rage. They'd either faded away, or hadn't been that strong to begin with…

"How about you just cast an invisibility spell from a doorway or something, and we just get in there now, while it's early?" Kai asked, speaking quietly as he examined the street before him.

"I think it's a bad idea. I can't see any astral watchers or guards from here, but if there's someone or something concealed down there, we'd give the game away instantly, and if they raise the alarm we're in big trouble."

"I suppose. Ok, let's look around the block, see what else we can spot." He led the way, following the diversion signs and walking down the narrow lane that ran parallel to the museum road. As they walked along they could see a number of hand-written or temporary signs on business and doorways, which Hunter and Marius translated for them. From the looks of things, most of the buildings that fronted onto the closed road had back doors or service entrances on this lane – and they were now being used as an alternate entrance, probably cutting through staff rooms or warehouses to get into the shop floor area or the main business areas. No doubt it was causing all kinds of hassle for the residents of the area, and there must have been considerable pressure to re-open the street – that it remained closed indicated that the investigation was considered a serious one.

"What about these businesses and stuff – do you think they all had their CCTV taken by the police?" Kai looked over at Shimazu and Marius for an answer, but it was the heavily-built bodyguard that answered.

"I think so, yes – this must be causing a lot of disruption. I guess there was a lot of expensive art in there as well as the murders of the people caught in the fire – I'd be very surprised if people here hadn't just been told to hand over their security systems to the police in their entirety." He looked around, and saw the relatively light coverage even here on the service entrances, normally considered a prime point for surveillance. "Look, there's not a lot of coverage here at all. Most of the stuff here is old, and a bit rubbish-looking. The doors are all solid though, and the locks look pretty good – it's like they emphasise more the physical barriers and locks, rather than the visual records." A sudden thought came to him. "I wonder if it's because people looks so similar – I mean, not the actual people, but everyone probably dresses in a very similar fashion, long flowing robes, and a head-dress or cowl. Must be pretty hard to tell people apart on shitty video feeds. So why bother – just spend your money on a really good lock…"

They finished their walk around the block, getting an idea of what businesses lay in the area, and who they might try and come back to see once the city was open for business. For now though, they had some other matters to attend to, and Kai looked around until they found someone wandering down the side street, strolling towards work.

"Excuse me?" He called out, then waved to Hunter to translate for him. He slowly explained that they had just arrived in town, but their employer had messed up the transfer and they had no local currency – could the man tell them where a bank or cash-terminal was? He fired back rapidly in Arabic, telling them where the local facilities were, with much waving of arms and gesturing of hands. Marius asked him another question, and the man fired back an answer again, then gave a shrug.

"I had a suspicion this might be the case. He has given us directions to the terminals and auto-banks, but we would probably need to slot a visa or work permit along with the stick to get cash out. It stops the migrant workers from engaging with the black market so easily, if they cannot turn their wages into non-electronic funds to use as they wish."

"Ah, frak. So no cash for us, then?" He frowned, and the local man spat out another few sentences. He stopped and gave them a searching look, then checked up and down the road, looking a little furtive. Hunter and Marius paused for a moment, then answered cautiously, getting a few more words back again as they slowly felt their way through the conversation. After the back-and-forth exchange had gone on for a minute, Hunter turned to Kai, Tads, Shimazu and Aswon, then lowered his voice.

"He's got a friend who might be able to help us get some cash, if we're willing to pay a handling fee and be discreet."

"Can we trust him?" Aswon enquired.

"I don't think we've got a lot of choice. And it's not like he's going to get away from us if he tries something."

"Ok, thank him and tell him yes, Hunter. And then let's get this done and hope it's not a setup. But we'd best be ready, just in case." Kai's tone was light and he had a broad and trusting smile on his face that was at odds with the words used. The man smiled back and beckoned them down the street, leading them a few hundred metres to a small mini-market on the corner of a block. The owner was inside tidying up the shelves, and they saw their new friend go and quietly speak to him, gesturing to them discreetly. The waited as he looked them over, and then nodded, and pointed to a rack of chips on a rotating carousel, suspended near the payment point.

"The man says go pick a movie – any movie, and buy it." Kai nodded and wandered over to the rack, picking one of the chips at random. He couldn't read the flowing Arabic script that almost entirely obscured the picture, but it looked like some kind of knock-off movie. He moved to the counter and laid out the chip, then pulled out his credstick, watching as the man tapped in the price into his terminal – one thousand Nuyen. Kai paused as the man pulled out a broom handle from behind the counter, then reached up behind him and tapped the internal CCTV camera that pointed down at the counter and knocked it to one side, making sure it wasn't pointing at the area anymore, then tapped on the cred-reader with the end of the stick. Kai flinched a little, then took a deep breath and authorised the transaction, wondering if he was being scammed or set up.

The shop-keeper picked up the chip, and was about to put it in a small paper bag, when he examined it carefully, then made a tutting noise, and pointed to one corner.

"He says the chip is broken and he can't sell it to us. It would be bad business to rob us, if we can't watch the movie. Ahh – he has to give us a refund. But the refund button is broken on his terminal. He'll have to pay us in cash."

"Right, got it." Kai smiled and nodded at the shopkeeper, indicating his happiness, and watched as he pulled out a few notes from the till and a small roll of grubby and stained notes from his pocket, then counted them out. It looked like their thousand Nuyen was getting them about four hundred Omani Rial, paid to them in a selection of denominations. As the shopkeeper finished, he pushed the notes over and Hunter did a quick calculation.

"I think we just paid about twenty percent commission for that. Very high for the exchange rate, but we're doing it illegally… so not so bad I guess. Just take the money, smile and go."

"But don't forget to give our guide a gift. He's hovering off to the end of the display there. Give him one of the smallest notes, and that should do it." Aswon suggested. "We don't want him mentioning us to anyone else, so let's keep him sweet."

Kai took the notes with a smile and a nod of thanks to the shopkeeper, and then offered their guide one of the smaller notes, while Marius thanked him for the generous donation of his time, and offered a gift of thanks for helping strangers to their country. The man nodded and smiled, revealing yellow and slightly rotting teeth, grabbing the note and headed to the counter to buy a pack of cigarettes with it.

"Ok, let's go find somewhere to have breakfast nearby, and grab some coffee and a place to sit and observe for a while, and then we'll work out what we're going to do about this fire, and the insurance company…"

The team headed out to find a street-side café, and gather some more intelligence, as the city around them rose from its slumber ready to face another day.