Busy day and night. And it's cutting into my homework schedule. Better get this up anyhow.

Tails and Amy belong to Sega Corporation, and Jay belongs to Disney Channel. What can I say? I admire them - DC, at least, before it got political.


I've been on some pretty weird teleporting adventures.

Yes, I'd teleported on several different occasions, courtesy of the Vortex, the avatars' semi-divine creator. However, in most of those instances, we were sent to a major conflict that we had to put down ASAP. (The Vortex had a real knack for guiding us toward trouble.) And I'd never once been vaporized on any of those occasions.

This was a totally new experience – and one I don't recommend. Perhaps half a star for the review?

I felt a nasty tingle that was likely the result of my brain frying. A spark shot through my stomach even though it had vaporized in the flash. My whole vision was a bunch of static, but I was almost aware of my consciousness leaving the old city. That was probably the one plus of the whole trip.

I suddenly felt my molecules condensing, reforming, and I popped out outside The Fresh Works. Of course VLADJI would head there to talk about how the mission was going. It was the closest open shop to the Hangar on a Sunday, and it was lunchtime. I'd been so busy tailing Starr that I'd lost track of time. I was starting to realize Ash might've covered for me so I could get lunch. Odd reason, but I was starving.

I just headed on inside. The place was kinda run down, with some cracks showing in places. But I still saw people there, which meant it was open. And after what I'd faced down, this boy could really use a feeding.

I caught my VLADJI comrades with Tails and Amy, another of the Sega Gang and our resident healer and empath. I didn't see Jay or Sophie, which was good, because I didn't want to explain how I'd gotten here to them. Sophie would probably yell at me, in her state of mind.

DJ glanced over at me. "Back out?"

"Ash shunted me over," I said quietly. That was about as much explanation as I was willing to give.

"About time he did, too," Imira said. "You don't look so great."

I wondered how Imira had guessed how hungry I was and how far it was past my lunchtime – let alone cared about it. After the news of the missile strike, I was not sure I even wanted to be in the same room with her, but I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. I didn't know where she stood on it – and with DJ's Three Taboos, I might never figure that out. That was the one downside to these rules.

"Order, ma'am?" said the server. It took me a second to register that the server was talking to DJ.

"Four hamburgers, plain," DJ recited. "Put it on my tab."

The server headed away to the counter to put in the order.

Once he was gone, Vinny Lee leaned in expectantly. "Well? How'd it go, amigo?"

I explained about my tailing job, with all its terrors and disappointments. Imira arched an eyebrow when I mentioned Starr entering the Terminal Commerce building, but otherwise nobody questioned it. Downtown Old City – especially TC – was well within our standard deviation of weirdness.

The only real question was–

"Why would your pendant act up like that?" Vinny Lee asked as she tore into her burger. "Is it even cuerdo right now?" Like she could talk. But then I remembered the voice hadn't been the usual.

I'd already plowed through half of my burger – that Fresh Works stuff was about as good as the batata harra, which had been amazing. I don't know why I was talking up Arabic cuisine at this time, but food is like a best friend – you can't stay mad at it forever. "I don't know," I replied. "I just know it hates Starr for some reason."

Imira mumbled under her breath. I wondered what she was so upset about.

Over the summer and early in the school year, she'd had quite a few things to say about my magic item. Sure, it hadn't been as useful as her hijab in combat, but it helped me in some ways. Nice for summoning musical instruments, anyway. I got the sense she was hostile toward anything that wasn't useful for fighting. But after Norgate, it was as though she'd stopped criticizing my obsession with it entirely – and more than that. She would occasionally stare at it, like she was expecting it to spontaneously combust or something.

I wasn't sure where this behavior was coming from. She sure never told me what was going on, which simply wasn't like her. I wished she'd just punch me in the face, though. I'd take hitting over being treated weirdly.

"Whatever the case, I'm not going near Starr until I figure this out," DJ replied.

"You don't trust Horzvedt either," I noted.

"Duh! No! And you do?"

I wanted to mention that he'd covered for me back at the Heid, but I kept my mouth shut. They'd never understand it. I sure didn't.

"Well, we'll have to go inside the Terminal Commerce to figure out more," Amy said quietly, flicking her bob-hair quills out of her face. It was the first time she'd spoken in the meeting. She usually assessed the emotions of everyone before she made a decision, so that she could come to a conclusion everyone was okay with. Unfortunately, it seemed like she'd figured out I hadn't dared to go in. She was smarter than I gave her credit for, and I had the most acquaintance with her.

"I was afraid you'd say that," I muttered.

"Well, we don't have much of a choice," Jay said quietly, as he came in.

I frowned. "Did you know about–?"

"Oh, yeah," Jay replied. "And I'm hardly surprised by Ash's behavior. The guy would just as soon run off and cover you as stay with me and Sophie. Doesn't help that his switching ability just upgraded to where he could swap out with you."

"So this was a recent thing?" I didn't know how long it took for avatars to fully power, but I knew it had to be a pain in the rear for them to upgrade if they needed mentors while they were at it. I hadn't heard Ash complaining about this, though. That should've been more surprising, what with Ash's Evil Dead characterization and all, but our novice was already so out of character I didn't find that shocking in any way.

"Quite."

"Now why do you want to go after Starr?" I asked, just to change the subject. "Why are we going into his workplace?"

Jay glared at me like, really, dude? "You want to find a way to destroy Starr? You know another way?"

More like my pendant wanted to, I thought, but I didn't say that out loud. They wouldn't quite understand what I was saying.

Also, I really couldn't think of a better option for getting to Starr, which was a pretty good indicator it was our best shot.

Vinny Lee glanced at her half-eaten burger. "Well, do what Horzvedt was doing with the visit to Starr," she said. I could tell from her body language that even she didn't like what she was saying. "You don't trust someone, you want to keep a very close eye on them. So you stay close to them, jump at opportunities to get to them."

"Really?" DJ said quietly. "So we have to get into the Terminal Commerce building? I was really hoping we could stay out of all this."

"If we want to stop Starr, we don't have much choice," Amy said in more of a hush. "And that thief's one person that has got to go."

I wondered what had made her so jumpy about the matter. Perhaps she'd heard about Starr's involvement in the fire. Or likely she just didn't like what Starr had almost done with the censer. I imagined Jay had briefed her on Starr's intentions.

She was normally quite a pretty avatar – pink quills in a bob, tall figure of nineteen (even though she was in fact in her early twenties), red blouse and black pants with pink high heels. Her hazel eyes were quite stormy, though, as happened when she was upset. I could feel it, too. I imagined something had happened to her. Something to shake her up.

"What's going on?" I asked.

Amy glanced around the restaurant, as if one of the Fresh Works waiters might be a spy for Starr and/or Horzvedt. Then she said in a lowered voice, "Horzvedt stopped me earlier. Wanted to speak to you pretty badly. I told him I didn't trust him, right up front, and then he just walked off."

"Did you get anything out of it?" I questioned. Amy was quite good at reading emotions. It's one of her powers.

"He seemed disappointed. I imagined he was sincere about wanting to talk to you. How he figured out I knew you, though–"

"Did he ask around?" How could he have known about Amy's connection to me?

"Likely. I don't really like this any more than you do, Amos. But if we're getting to the bottom of this, we'll have to start with Starr."

Hooray! Not only did we have to deal with a con man who had a serious urge to talk to me, but we also had to start it off with breaking into the lair of a forger who'd crossed more lines of decency than we regularly did. I was liking this mission less and less.

"All right," I said. "How do we get to that address from here?"


Yeah, short chapter, but I wasn't sure how to put it all in.

Verse for the update: Job 21:7-17. Stay tuned!