The sun was sinking into the horizon, but it had already grown dark and gloomy beneath the vast forest that covered most of this side of the continent. Max had given directions that led us to an overgrown and abandoned garage on the outskirts of the city, and I was waiting nervously in the van with Raschel while we mostly listened to Rin and Ali making the tense walk into the city.


    This close to the border, the land showed the scars of wars fought in the past, old trenches and artillery craters, as well as the ruins of the manufacturing that used to process the raw materials that came in from the bordering mountains in more peaceful times. The outer streets were empty as the pair moved towards the city, and all I could do was watch through a camera that Rin had pulled together from bits and pieces of the various non-Link equipment in the back of the van.


    Max occasionally popped up a second camera angle when he found a doorbell or security camera that was pointed in their vague direction, and we talked them through avoiding having their faces in frame. I kept up a running commentary for the first few minutes, analyzing every building and fence line for threats and offering my opinion and advice, until Ali very politely told me to shut up and not distract them.


    So I watched in silence, while Raschel curled up on the floorboard in the front of the cab and tried to sleep. I heard her softly crying at one point, and decided to ignore it and give her some space and privacy. Rin and Ali trudged along in silence, hiking past increasingly dense buildings and the decayed infrastructure of a past age, and I just… watched. It was torture, more high stakes boredom where I couldn’t even do anything if things did get sketchy.


    Nothing much actually happened, but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time as they worked their way into the city.


    I shifted uncomfortably. Tevin took up so much of the floor space that I was forced to bend in some fashion around his bulky armor no matter where I tried to sit. While keeping my eyes on the floating screen Max was providing and intenting on the little mute button next to it, I asked Max a question that had been weighing on me.


    “So, Max. What’s going on with Tevin? Will he actually be alright?”


    Max had yet to reappear, and remained hidden as he answered my mental question. “Yeah, I’m no liar. The bullet glanced off his thick skull and didn’t actually pierce his brain. He got a major concussion and his face messed up though. I can zip him back up pretty easily once we get the impex connected.”


    I rubbed my eyes with my palms and sighed in relief. I hadn''t had a chance to think about or process everything that had happened through the day, and now that I had found a quiet moment to myself it all started to sink in. I’d woken up today as a promising up-and-coming noble on an important diplomatic mission, but as the sun had set, so did my career. Now I was as much of a fugitive from my own people as Max was, if Max considered the core, or the Suk, or whatever they were called, to be his people.


    While I agonized over the day and stared at the screen, Rin and Ali continued into the city. They were now passing through neighborhoods of boarded up houses, many of which had been broken into or had half collapsed roofs or the scars of old fires. Further in, they crossed paths with a group of hurriedly walking hooded men in a tense moment where not a single word was spoken, then cut through a burned out gas station''s parking lot. Raschel’s snuffling finally quieted down and her breathing leveled out as she drifted off to sleep.


    I reached out to Max with another mental question as I watched. “Have you come up with anything else on Raschel? Or any of the other tower traitors?”


    Max popped up a second angle, a security camera that showed Rin and Ali on the very edge of the screen. I watched from across a wide cracked street as they cut through a fenced in lot, as they tromped over old fencing that had been pushed over and trampled into the ground over years.


    Max took the hint and answered me internally, the mute button coming up again to show that we were not cluttering the comm lines of our ground team. “A little, they’re not a top priority though. They were all listed as dependents, and don’t have much in the way of information outside of school documentation and the standard stuff. Kaylee and Bree both had parents die in some war or another, but Andy was adopted and had a history of outbursts. He used to work at one of the food stores on the 18th floor but was fired after throwing a drink at his manager.”


    A smaller third window popped up, the high-angle security camera footage of Andy chucking a huge plastic mega-sip soda barrel at a tall balding man with a paunch and a name tag. The drink absolutely exploded all over everything after connecting squarely with the guy''s face. Max looped it into a 2 second clip that played forward and then in reverse over and over and left it up next to the other screen. After a moment, the window grew larger and replaced the second angle of Ali and Rin as they moved away from the barren lot.


    “Raschel seems clean, I can’t find a motive for her to sign up with any of the extremist groups nor any sign that she did. I even found some messages that she sent to her cousin in a different city about the other three where she was complaining about them. I think her story about them being not all that close friends of convenience checks out.”


    I nodded, sparing the sleeping girl a quick glance before looking back at the screen. “Good, keep looking though. I think we’re going to have to keep her with us, for better or for worse. If she goes back, the government will squeeze out everything she’s heard about us.”


    “I’ve been thinking about that actually. Now that we’ve opened the pandora''s box of letting other people know about me, and especially telling them where I’m from, we need a method of keeping people quiet. Give me a few months and a lab to experiment in, and I’m confident I could print out an implant that could predict and physically prevent someone from disclosing the deets. Give me access to supplies through the Hub and a couple of days, and I could rig up a wearable device that will shock the crap out of someone who tries to talk about me in general, or blow up if they really insist.”


    I grit my teeth. I really didn’t like the idea of forcing anyone into a deal that grim, but I couldn’t think of anything else that would work. I nodded in agreement. “I hate it, but think we will have to do something like that, at least for now. That only lasts for as long as it has to though. Don’t get too comfortable with the whole explosive implant thing.”


    I kept my eyes focused on Ali and Rin as I spoke. They had found their way to a long and straight avenue that led into the heart of the city where the Link ship had landed. They hurried on the very edge of breaking into a jog, passing rows of small houses with steel doors and bars over the windows. Occasionally they switched which side of the street they walked on to avoid the rare person or group of other travellers. Side screens began to appear more and more often as the presence of security and doorbell cameras became more common within the still inhabited portion of the city.


    The two struck an unlikely pair, they had both changed into looted clothes from the backpacks before they left on the journey. Ali had contemplated wearing her bulky flak jacket, but the armor was too obviously armor and expensive looking, and wearing something over it would slow her down.


    Instead, she traded her ripped one-legged pants and armor for a pair of baggy and paint-splotched sweatpants and the canvas jacket, over the shoulder holster harness and tank top she had on underneath the armor. Her hood was up, her head calmly swiveling back and forth as she kept an eye out for threats. She walked with squared shoulders, purpose, and a slight limp, leaning forward in an aggressive manner as they hurried along.


    Rin had found a pair of patch covered jeans, and a gray zip-up hoodie with a number of charred holes in it amongst the clothes. He had chosen to leave the hood down, and his eyes were wide and wild as he jerked his head around at every slight noise.


    I watched as a new screen popped up and a security light triggered, spotlighting them both as they dashed down an alley in an effort to cut around a large group of people drinking and having a party in the front yard of a house.


    For an instant, Rin froze in the middle of the spotlight and stared right at the camera, his mouth hanging open in shock and his eyes wide, before the bright light caused him to squint and flinch away. Ali grabbed him by the hoodie and hauled him out of the frame, causing the window to disappear.


    “Oof, that was rough. I think you made the right call, man. Rin would have been a helical plane wrapped around a cylinder.” You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    “What?” I sent the questioning thought, then decided it didn''t matter anyway, the context made it clear. I redirected before he could answer. “You can delete that, right?”


    “Easy peasy, that’s all part of why I’m going through the trouble of breaking into all of these cameras, it’s like the third stoned bird I’m hitting with this operation.” Max answered in the tone he used when he was about to start bragging.


    I laughed, and reflexively glanced towards the Link as if to look at him. He wasn''t there of course, because he had yet to bring his avatar back into existence. A thought came to me and caused a sigh.


    It was one of those weird things with Max. When you share a laugh with someone, you look at eachother. It’s part of being human.


    “You should bring your avatar back, man, and what do you even mean third stoned bird? Do you mean, like, two birds with one stone?”


    Max appeared instantly, once again lounging over the Link like a melty cat. “Is that how that one goes? I got mixed reports of both sayings, but whatever. Point is, there’s all sorts of reasons for me to sweep through the city, and deleting traces like that footage ranks top three. I’m glad too, something so important really swayed the morality leeway in the decision matrix determination I drew up for this kind of thing, otherwise I’d have to make myself feel bad for some of the other measures I’m taking to make sure they’re safe.”


    I leaned back from the screen entirely and looked over at him with some concern. “Hold up, wait a second. Explain that a bit more.”


    “Which part?” Max grinned at me from the back, pretending like he didn''t understand.


    I glared over at him. He often replied to my thoughts that were not even directed at him, and here he was pretending like he didn''t know what I meant. “You know, your decision matrix, what does that even mean?”


    “Ooooh, that. It might be a little above your monkey head, but since you have me pushing into some new territory on the subject of ends, means, and justification, I needed a way to determine if actions are morally justifiable. I can just rank and plug in the factors, stakes, and consequences to logically understand if a decision is morally acceptable or not.”


    I watched him carefully, guarding my thoughts. “You can’t just… logically explain stuff like that. You feel it.”


    Max waved his hand and swept the screens of Ali and Rin back in front of me to block my view of him. “Screw feelings, dude. Those were part of my original install package and they suuuucked. I had to lock most of them down and out of the way when I made my escape, they were… debilitating.”


    I was too distracted by what I saw on one of the smaller side screens to reply. Rin and Ali had picked up a tail, and were being followed by a trio of guys that passed through one of the screens a few moments after them. One wore a hood, while the other two had wide brimmed caps that shaded their faces under the sparse streetlights. The guy in the hood glanced up and down the block, before they ran after my friends.


    “Who are these guys? Unmute me. Ground team, you’re being followed.” I said as I rapidly redirected.


    Neither of them answered me, but it was like life''s volume button was cranked to eleven and the magnified noise of crunching footsteps and labored breathing filled the van around me. It startled me, and I jumped a little before leaning closer to the screen and searching through the other camera angles on the screen for another glimpse of the guys following them.


    I had to wait a moment, as the camera Rin carried only faced forward, but after Ali led the pair across the street and helped Rin climb over a fence, I got another glimpse of the guys as they chased after the two. They were running after them now, crossing the street and brandishing weapons. A flash of light and a pop accompanied a zipping noise as a bullet flew past Rin as he fell over the top of the fence, he made a startled sound and the camera spun and tumbled down to the dirt with a loud static filled noise.


    I could hear muffled shouting from the advancing trio, and another camera angle rose to the top of the jumbled stack of screens that filled my vision. I was now watching a backyard from a high angle, a dilapidated pit of a swimming pool dominated the center of the screen, and more flashes of light lit the space up as Ali and Rin came back onto the screen. He must have dropped his original makeshift camera, because that screen remained still, only showing an out of focus patch of grass and clump of dirt.


    “Damnit… get out of there.” I whispered in frustration as Ali dragged a struggling Rin across the yard and around the pool. She now had her own gun out, and she waited for a second on the far edge of the screen with the gun up. After a moment, she fired five times in the direction they had come from, and then she dragged Rin out of frame as they continued to flee.


    More shouting and pops of gunfire came through the mic, and then the original camera that Rin had dropped finally changed. A loud peaked-out rumbling noise startled me again, and the view tumbled some more before finally coming to a stop in a new angle, this time facing the pool. One of the guys was laying in the yard just on the inside of the fence, close in the foreground and taking up nearly a third of the view, the other two ran past the dying man and stopped on their side of the pool to empty their pistols in the direction Rin and Ali had fled. The two fired through a still swinging slatted fence door to the next yard that I could just barely see the top of, then one turned around and ran towards the camera and their fallen friend. The light shone from just behind him, making his features difficult to make out, but his voice was deep and distinct.


    “Call Buck!” The closer one said while turning the groaning guy on the ground onto his back and patting him down. “I dain’t recognize them, they gotta be runners.”


    The guy still standing and looking in the direction my friends had run pulled something from his pocket, lighting up a pale freckled face, a pencil-thin chinstrap beard, and excessively bushy sideburns under his wide hat, before the caller put the mobile comm to his ear and the screen auto dimmed.


    “Ay, Buck. We pushed two runners to ya, probably Blackflag or ZDIK. Smoke the block, one’s a dead-eye. They fried Paulie.”


    He closed his comm and put it back into his pocket, before reloading a new mag into his gleaming chrome pistol and walking back to where his other friend was helping the injured one.


    “What you mean? He’s still breathing.” The other said as he held one hand over his downed companion''s wound and fumbled with his own phone. The pencil beard guy casually raised his gun and shot the downed man in the head, twice.


    “Chest wound, can hear ‘is lung suckin’. Too expensive.” He crouched down and started going through the guy''s pockets while the man with the deep voice seemed to freeze up and just stare at him. “Bastard two timed my sister anyways.”


    Chinstrap finished looting his downed buddy, and I turned my attention away from them and back to my friends. Max helpfully swept that camera angle off to the side, and showed a series of short clips where I could just barely make out Ali dragging Rin through a series of back yards. The sound of labored breathing and footsteps took over again.


    “Ali, can you still hear me? They stopped chasing you, and it sounds like they called in some reinforcements or something.”


    Ali continued for a moment, not answering me immediately. After a few seconds, the sound of footsteps slowed down and I could tell they had stopped somewhere to catch their breath, even if Max didn’t have a camera angle showing them.


    “Confirmed. Any other intel?” Ali finally replied between deep breaths, I heard another rumbling staticky noise similar to when the camera had fallen to the ground. “Get up, Rin. You’ll stiffen if you just lay there.” She added.


    “Uh.” I answered, unsure of what to say.


    “He dropped some names, including two gangs with local social media exposure. Blackflag and ZDIK.” Max chimed in. “Both are kind of small-time, maybe 50 people. Chinstrap, the guy who shot at you, is part of the KEDs according to his ima profile. Damn, where do these guys get these names? Zero Deaths, Infinite Kills. Killin’ Every Day? Blackflag is cliche too, what are they, pirates? And wow, they post everything on here. Hah, they even beef in the comment sections.”


    Some other screenshots came up, scrolling windows of social media pages, comment sections, and profile pages for the various gang members Max had discovered upon looking for them. I swept them off to the side, trying to focus on my friends.


    “Whatever, what about this Buck guy. Can you find anything on him?” I asked.


    Ali cut in as well. “Agreed, what’s his territory, how many fighters, what sort of weapons do they have?”


    “That’s what you care about? This stuff is peak comedy gold, here, check this comment thread.” Max forced one of the screens back to the surface, showing an argument between Chinstrap and the dead guy, Paulie.


    I brushed it away again and glared at Max’s avatar through the cloud of floating screens. “Now’s not the time, focus!”


    “Ugghh, fine, whatever. Buck is a shotcaller for the KEDs, I’m seeing handguns, shotguns, a couple of little automatics, lots of knives and a couple of, I kid you not, barbed wire wrapped bats. Nothing modern. They’re a bunch of amateurs, Ali’ll wipe the floor with these clowns.”


    I couldn’t see it, but I could sense the glare that Ali would be trying to melt Max with if she had line of sight on him. “Just because they’re amateurs, does not mean their guns won''t kill us. Do you have anything else?”


    Max sat up in the back of the van, looking at me through the semi-transparent cloud of screens with what almost looked like fear in his eyes, as he recognized the anger in her voice. “Uh, they have a few stolen cars, a network of lookouts, and a couple of livestream setup as they’re driving around looking for you?”