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Jordan sighed in defeat. In the end it wasn't the elf that had him, it was a large man with a powerful grip. As he was led from the tram he memorized the signs and streets he was being led down. Tacks usually used their synchronicity fields to make their deliveries quickly, but the great tacks could member a path involving dozens of streets and their connections. Jordan was a great tack. He'd have no problem getting back to the line after the man was finished with him.

Jordan had to wonder what the man wanted with him anyway. He didn't look like any Committee official he'd ever seen. Didn't look like any criminal, gang member, or whatever that he'd ever seen either. The only thing that worried him was the comment about the dead professor at the school. He had a sneaking suspicion that the strange man was talking about Salarishkay. There was no way that the Committee could have tracked the package there already, but he couldn't help but feel that it was the truth, that the elf was dead.

The quick shove from behind into s store told him that they'd arrived. Then the man laid all his cards on the table. Synchronicity was a funny thing. It sometimes worked without anyone having to summon up a field. In this case it led a box bearer to a box maker.

"Look," Jordan started, "It's not my fault that I have this. I just found it by mistake while making a pick up for a delivery. I was going to try and bring it back to Center Piece before some militia jerk racked me up for possessing Committee property. I just want it out of my hands, but it's like the damn thing keeps popping out at people. I don't know why it's your box. It could just be sentimental. I don't care. I just want to be rid of it."

Jordan took a breath, fairly sure he couldn't rush past the man and into the street, so he decided to try and take control of the situation, "If you want the box, then take it. It'll be your problem and not mine. If you don't want the hassle, then let me take the thing to Center Piece."

__________________
I wouldn't touch it. That thing is made out of like 95% pure, unadulterated, badger-in-my-pants crazy...
-Geist Panik

My scroll

EV was not a practitioner of synchronicity. Sure she believed it existed and even admired those who could get in touch with the fields. For some reason, however, the fields had always eluded her and try as she might, she was never able to get into the right state of mind. Maybe she was just too bogged down by rational thinking to ever let herself go completely. EV did not practice synchronicity, but when the photocube in the apartment above her lab mirrored the footage of Salarsky's dead body with a streaming banner to watch out for gang activity, she felt a shiver run down her back. She locked her laboratory door extra tight just to make sure.

EV set aside the pieces of her 'gate anchor' for the moment and pulled the sheets of calculations toward her again. It might be possible to adjust for metals she already had, taking into consideration the difference in conductivity. The resulting machine would be cruder, but it might still function. She completed the last epsilon in the figures with a flourish then stared at them hard. It was a compromise, but she knew she needed to finish this prototype fast. Metamorphosis was not the only thing looming over her. Her psychic hold lifted the crucible and began melting and molding metals to her will.

It was rough, unreliable, and untested. But for a half hour's work, EV held a small model of her gate anchor device. All it needed was some synching and an actual gate to do the calibrations. There was a crash outside and EV knew that she had finished her work none too soon. She glanced at the mirrors reflecting the scene outside her grimy window and saw a group of dark clothed figures - their jackets too well tailored to be punks. The leader wore a dark coat stained with the blood of humans and venches alike. She watched as they tore apart her dropbox with the same casualness one would use to ruffle through a drawer. A trickle of fear began to tingle in both antennae, working its way down her body. The lead man turned in her direction and EV felt like he could see right through the grimy window where she was watching from. She didn't know what they wanted from her, but it was only a matter of time before they traced her smell to the lab and she had the feeling that talking was not going to be in the cards.

Fortunately most of the buildings in Ruin had been designed by those needing to hide and EV's lab was no exception. There were a few escape routes into the underground. She had never had the need to use them before, but her mapping gave her a vague idea of where they lead to. She mentally pushed aside the bookshelf in the far corner, rearranging other furniture for matching scuff marks. Grabbing the prototype off her table as she went, EV dropped down through into the darkness and pulled the bookshelf back behind her. It was far from foolproof, but there were enough 'surprises' in her lab it might buy her the time to find a gate. And then figure out how the hell her life had gone down the drain so fast.

Lefo ran as fast as he could. EV's was just around the corner. It took him all he had to stop abruptly and hide behind the wall when he noticed the gentlemen in black prowling outside her house. He took another peek to make sure that they didn't come this way. They hadn't. That meant that he wasn't spotted yet.

He leaned against the wall and tried to think up of ways on how to get around them. No doubt EV saw them coming, but he was worried about her all the same. She definitely couldn't outrun them if a chase ensued, owing to her physique.

He looked around him for a bit and noticed that the field around this area was changing too. It was perfectly normal this morning. Usually when fields started to distort this much and this often, it meant....

He immediately took out his compass from out of his bag and his breath caught in his throat. Normally his compass would be spinning around, not pointing anywhere. That was good. This time, the compass needle was definitely pointing towards EV's house... and it was MOVING at a steady pace, as if it was trailing a path that surrounded these men.

Gates don't normally move except...

"Cubes... a hunting gate... HERE?"

Lefo looked around and saw an open manhole about a few meters away in a shady alley nearby. He wasted no time and went towards it quietly, climbing down to the sewers. His compass was moving wildly again down here and he let out a silent sigh of relief.

He moved amidst the flickering neon lights that adorned sewers, hoping EV was down here somewhere. She was definitely smart enough to have an underground escape route, everyone here did to shelter from the housetide, but whether Lefo would be lucky enough to bump into her was another matter altogether. He already had one friend dead, he didn't wish to see another share the same fate.

*****

Outside, a slow wind blew around the house and a pair of red eyes slowly opened behind one of the men. Teeth began to materialize slowly as the hovering eyes sported some sort of evil grin. It was about to have lunch.

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PM me if you see any lying around. Join my crusade!

“It’s not my box. I made it for a suit who was from Central.” Frederick shook his head and sighed. “Right, ok so you just found it lying around in an alleyway? Why didn’t you just hand it in to a militia man there and then?”

He scratched his chin under his beard and sighed in thought before chewing his lip hesitantly for a moment or two. “Tell you what, you’re young. I’m a lot older and know how to sweet talk my way into Central, we can also avoid militia patrols more seeing as somebody’s bound to have spotted you down at the University causing such a ruckus. I sure as heck did and I’m an old, foolish man. So the best thing for that box is if we both went, the accidental track and it‘s maker.”

He held his chin with his hand for a minute or two and pondered again, looking at the box and at Jordan. “Ditch the tack guild jacket too. If that box was in an alleyway instead of in Central like it should have been it might mean somebody other than the militia might be looking for it.” He scratched the back of his neck. “You saw this professor too, didn’t you? The one who was killed?”

The tunnels she made her way through now were entirely dark, but EV's vision did not rely on "light" to see. Her near cousins the caterpillars had a notoriously poor sense of sight and in their evolution into 'higher beings' the Venches had developed non-physical ways to counter that. Her psychic sight was a grainy black and white imitation of true sight, but she had never known anything else and thus did not realize what she lacked. Here in the tunnels though, that combined with the extremely sensitive micro-setae (hairs) allowed her some faculty of vision.

That, however, could not make up for the fact that even the foundations beneath Ruin were constantly shifting and changing. She quickly found her planned escape route blocked, the promise of a gate hidden behind piles of house tide rubble. Discouraged, the Vench choose another path, following the slight flow of air that rippled over her body. Eventually that would lead her to the surface - she needed to get somewhere crowded, protected. The sound of crashing echoed through the tunnels and she flinched as she pictured her laboratory. Destroyed surely and all her notes gone forever. But at least that meant the safety mechanisms she had left behind had worked. Even if she could not hope for them to be dissuaded from their mission, at least they would never have all the research she had given up so much to procure.

EV's sense of smell was a good deal more developed than her eyesight and it was from that she knew that she was approaching the sewers. A flicker of neon lights appeared out of the darkness and she emerged onto the ceiling of a large sewage tunnel, the water in the central canal pulling past all sorts of forgotten hardware, much of it recognizable from those atrocious catalogs. It seemed devoid of life for the moment, but just as EV made that judgment she spotted a familiar figure rounding the corner. That elf ... she did not know anything else about him except that he delivered her catalogs without fail and good cheer. It was too late for her to back up into the tunnel and hide again - surely he had already spotted her. But perhaps more than anything else, what she could use right now was an ally.

Lefo rounded the corner and the red neon lights casted its rays on a familiar sight, to his relief.

"EV! Thank goodness you've escaped! We have to go through the tunnels. There's a hunting gate out there nearby your house."

A very faint scream was heard somewhere from above after Lefo had said this. The timing was uncanny and a bit creepy if anyone dwelled on it long enough. Luckily both of them didn't have enough time to ponder.

"I know a way that brings us past Section 4. Hopefully the path isn't blocked."

The smell of the sewers didn't help Lefo's morale much. He wasn't sure if venches could smell anything, but he knew enough to know that they saw things differently, having no eyes and all. Something bothered Lefo while they were walking and he decided to simply ask EV right away.

"Those men.... they looked like Central agents. Why were they after you, EV? Does it have something to do with what you're working on?"

Lefo's question casted a small echo in the sewer tunnels, adding more to the atmosphere that all of this wasn't right at all. All the time, Lefo kept his compass at hand and relaxed at seeing the randomly moving needle. Meeting a gate along this tight space would definitely limit their choices. A fine time to not be having his survival suit too.

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The relief at seeing a friendly face - even if it was a skinny elf those men could snap like a twig without even thinking about it - brought the Vench's natural defensiveness down. She didn't ask how he knew she was in trouble - in Ruin that question was redundant. If you needed help, it would find you. Of course, trouble always had a way of finding you too. She shuddered at the scream though it was barely loud enough to be heard. The erratic movement of the elf's compass was definitely a comforting thing.

"I-I don't know why they're here." She followed him as fast as she was able, her body not built for speed or even much travel at all. Fortunately adrenaline gave her the extra push she needed to brush past any tiredness and lethargy that had been weighing her down for the last several days.

"Even if my research was discovered - and I've never mentioned it to anyone - I don't think it was on the scale to alert Central."

She remembered the note from Dreg that morning, so hurriedly scribbled on the wrapping of her list. It would have been relatively easy to trace back to her drop spot if someone had managed to get their hands on it. She trusted Dreg to be careful - he always had been. But sometimes merely being careful was not enough. She offered up a brief hope to whatever fates might be listening that the trader would be alright. He might have lived on the wrong side of the law, but he had always been a good supplier and a reliable man.

"This morning, I did try and get in touch with my supplier. Not for anything bad - just some alloys and things. Maybe it got mixed up with the other events at the university...?"

She had the feeling that this was all just some kind of horrible misunderstanding. Central agents did not just wander around Ruin taking out relatively harmless scientists just trying to do their work below the radar of the government. That was reserved for the desk workers. These men had 'killer' written all over them. EV did not want to get mixed up in their business, but she had the feeling that it was already too late.

No other screams had followed that single echo from before and EV wondered if they were simply too far away to hear them any longer. Or if the men had other tricks up their sleeves to deal with a hunting gate. The sound of the sewage water flowing past distorted any other echoes, but she thought she could hear the angry rat-tat of quick footsteps. She could see the man in the black coat in the grainy shapes at the edge of her vision, but when she turned he was not there. She wouldn't have put it past him, however, to sacrifice his own companion to the hunting gate to escape.

“I’m not helpless you know, ‘gramps,’” Jorgan played off the man’s own foolish old man comment, “If I just turned it in to some random guard then I might get hauled in for obstructing the Committee’s due process. I was going to be right at their gates before I handed it over. That, and it would have been just as obvious for me to take off my vest in public, like I was trying to hide.”

“Now that I’ve got a nice quiet shop though…” Jordan mostly said to himself as he shucked his pack and his vest.

He put the box back into his sack for what seemed like the umpteenth time and wrapped it in his guild vest. He cinched up the sack and sung it onto his back again, securely. Finished, he pondered the box maker’s last question. He hoped that it wasn’t who he thought it was, but he had to know for certain.

“Was it Salarishkay?”

--

The fanged man knew something was up when the first of his men screamed, scooped up by the hunting gate. He watched like the rest of his men, in rapt fascination, as it ate. The scooped up guard wasn’t so much chewed as he was sliced up by the folding convulsions of the thing. The strange angles the gate subjected the man to severed limbs and cleanly, allowing them to send out sprays of blood that had no vessels to contain them. Each severed part and every drop of blood hung motionless in the air, caught in the monstrous thing’s pull. Eventually the thing sucked everything in, once again becoming nothing more than a mouth and eyes in the air.

More disturbing than the death of their comrade or the horror of something that could kill so easily and cleaning, was the fact that there was no sound. After the initial scream there was dead silence. Even when they could see the mutilated and rotting bodies beyond the teeth, there was no sound. The stories about the howls of the dead were wrong. The thing just ate and let noting escape it.

The fanged man was the first to snap out of it. He turned to the door and shot at it’s locking mechanism with his shotgun. It burst forward and in, tearing off it’s hinges. The fanged man looked around at the clutter of textbooks and equipment and then finally at the roof at hatch at the top. While his men quietly died behind him, he sniffed around, tracking the most recent trail of the vench that lived here. There was no doubt that her scent matched the note and that she was a scientist of some sort. Ignoring the equipment for now, he went strait for the bookshelf where the trail ended.

Without waiting to see the last of his men get eaten by the thing, he shoved the book case aside and dove into the darkness of the sewers he smelled beyond. Re ran then, sure the thing would be on his tail for a little while, but he was swift and sure as he tracked her scent. While he ran his nose picked apart her scent.

She was old, smelled older than even the post-metamorphosis vench and she smelled scared and frantic. There was a veneer of calm riding the scent though. When he’d find her, he’d have to be cautious for tricks.

“I’m in pursuit of my lead, Trent,” the fanged man whispered loudly, “She’ll hit the streets soon, if she hasn’t already. Keep an eye out. I’ll be riding her ass all the way there if she does spot me.”

He tapped his ear twice, which looked fake in the phosphorescence of the neon signs in the tunnels, and spoke again, “Croy. I can confirm a sighting of an actual hunting gate in Ruin. This might be the one you’re looking for. Get a team together and grab it. You might want to look over my target’s house as well. It can’t be a coincidence that she’s a scientist and that a tack from the guild she contacted took off with some of the documents from the gate project. I think she stumbled upon the project and got greedy.”

“I don’t care if it’s not a good time,” the fanged man hissed, “Get your wooden ass down here and contain that thing. Adnan out.”

__________________
I wouldn't touch it. That thing is made out of like 95% pure, unadulterated, badger-in-my-pants crazy...
-Geist Panik

My scroll

Lefo opened the manhole in the slums of Section 4 and climbed out. Luckily the manhole was large enough to accommodate EV's size. He looked around the ramshackle alley way and felt a wind blowing the loose rafters and hanging clothes high up above.

"We have to keep moving, EV. Central agents don't just give up and go home."

He tapped his chin while walking amidst the seemingly abandoned alley, thinking about what EV had told him earlier. Why would a supply order and the university charge be mixed up in the first place? You don't get chased by simply issuing a wrong order... or do you? In Ruin, that sort of confusion wasn't as odd as one might think.

He was tempted to call Old Karl but thought the better of it. Though he thought he's not targeted by Central yet, he didn't want to involve his friend unless he really has no other choice. But if you can't involve your friends, might as well involve your enemy.

"This area is a bit rough. It may not seem like much, but the gangs are always known to hide in ambush. We.... seem like a prime target at the moment."

True to his words, figures slinked out from the shadows of the alley and surrounded them. Lefo knew them quite well.

"Ahhhh! Lookit here boyos! Our friend Lefo pays us a visit! And with a vench too!"

A thin skinny man with a mohawk and covered with tattoos stepped up to Lefo, holding a very wicked shiv underneath his neck.

"I know how you elves are prissy about being clean an' all. What if I just make a lovely long scratch across yer chest for what you did to me last time, mmm?"

"Now now Torr, last time was an honest mistake. I didn't know that a pile of tin cans was your shrine or whatever, if I did, I wouldn't have knocked it down."

"It's a TOTEM ya halfwit! Pike, you know how long it took to rebuild that thing after you crashed into it?"

"Gate exits can be.... unpredictable."

Torr spitted nearby Lefo's feet while still maintaining his hold on the shiv.

"You know you'd be dead the next time you step here. So what made you brave enough to face death hmmm? This vench?"

"Part of it. She's also quite rich. I'm to be her guide, she needs a bodyguard," the best thing about being an elf is that there's little facial muscles to show that one would be outright lying.

"How much?"

"She offered me 2 plats just to guide her through the alleys. You guys? Might score 5 each being her bodyguard."

Torr scratched his chin for a while and slowly withdrew his shiv from Lefo.

"How do I know that you're not lying?"

"Elves don't lie, Torr. Remember?" Cubes, luckily enough that bit of superstition and reputation helped Lefo at the moment. He gathered that he must be the first lying elf in all of Ruin.

******

5 minutes later, Lefo led EV onto the streets. His little parlay with Torr's gang worked. He managed to convince him to stand watch over the manhole that they just came through for possible pursuits. That'd keep them off their backs and handle any incoming trouble, if any. They'd buy them time if nothing else.

"Well, at least that worked. Now to find a place to lay low."

It's market day in Section 4 today, much to Lefo's delight. It'd make losing their tracks amidst the crowds a little bit easier.

__________________

PM me if you see any lying around. Join my crusade!

EV released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as the thugs let them pass and even agreed to guard the manhole. She had to admire the elf's way of handling things - without even a hint of violence he had somehow managed to turn the situation around and convince the boys to help them. For now they happily believed that the bits of metal scrounged from her prototype could be traded in for shiny platinum at the local bank with a quick show of some numbers. Of course, no doubt when they realized the bank numbers she'd given them were false, their need for vengeance would double. Somehow EV doubted they would live long enough for that.

"Is it really okay," she whispered under her breath when they were far enough away and she could get close enough to him not to be overheard, "to leave them to die like that?"

She knew that if he had not manipulated the thugs they would have killed them both without a second thought. But it was different when it came to sentencing someone else to die. The Vench hoped they were more clever than they looked and would at least kill themselves for fast deaths rather than suffer torture at the hands of the Central agents. At the least that might prevent any mention of the elf's involvement in her plight. No need to make any more people targets.

They emerged out into the largest open part of Sector 4. A dozen consecutive house tides had wiped the area clear of buildings, but rather than sub-dividing the sector, the residents had decided to clear away the rubble and create a central hub. Into this open space hundreds of unfoldable stalls, stacking tables, and neon signs competed for attention - creating a virtual maze of activity. A few primative droids wheeled among the crowds bearing advertisements for this shop or that. All manner of items - both legal and not - could be found for sale. EV herself had sometimes contracted out a stall to sell minor trinkets when money became too much of an issue to ignore anymore.

She led them down through the food section first. The air here was rich with spices and pungent aromas, some more of an acquired taste than others. The Vench paused beside an open vat of natto for a moment, hoping the fermenting odors would cover up some of the smell of the sewer that still lingered upon them. The more they could hide any distinguishing features of their passage, the better.

"Hopefully the crowd will cover our tracks for some time, but if we want shelter, we're going to have to find someplace with security that doesn't feel too bad about gently dissuading the military." That meant somewhere with its feet on the wrong side of the law. EV could only think of one place, but even the thought of it made her green stripes flush a scarlet pink. She tried to push the blush down, but it was a few minutes before she once again returned to her normal color.

"I do know of one place that might serve our needs. It was ... discussed while I still worked in Centerpiece, but I've never been myself." Even as she spoke, she was moving in that direction. It might have been one of the most foolish ideas she'd had all day, or it might just work. The area of the market they were in had changed from offering food to offering more exotic items - mixes that would simulate euphoria, salves that would take on any texture. She took a narrow ally between two stalls, ignoring the strange Vench harness one of the shopkeepers was trying to convince the elf to buy. It's exact purpose was a little too questionable for EV to ponder fully.

"It's a place the elite of Centerpiece go when they need to be ... discrete. The owners are Ruin-ers, but they have a strict privacy policy that can sometimes be very...forcibly enforced. I know it seems a bit counterproductive to go to someplace over running with people from CP when its Central agents that are chasing us, but what happens in there never comes out. Even if agents busted down the door, they still would say nothing, because some of their best customers are even higher up. It's a bit of a risk still, but I don't think it's somewhere they would think to look for us. We can buy at least a bit of time."

She paused a few turns away from the hotel to let the elf think over her suggestion.