Nathan (The Virtue of not Assessing)

The engines of the mobile city hummed through his bones. It was his first time aboard a scum hive, and it as twice as confusing as he'd heard. His cover had been blown about fourty-five minutes ago, his quarry realized they were being trailed; he had lost the element of surprise. In these tunneling dwellings he now tracked his prety, corridors upon twisting corridors, occasionally branching out into larger, spherical hubs in which the shops, bars and cramped living quarters were spread around, always filled with people, floating about engaged in whatever shady activities Scum are drawn to. He made his way into a corridor-alley between a small noodle-shack and a brightly lit tavern, and suddenly found himself in some sort of large engine room. Dozens of spare parts and tools floated about, as if the people working there suddenly dropped whatever they were doing and left. He could see the woman he'd been following standing in the middle of the large room, next to a terminal of some sort, waiting for him to come closer. An obvious trap. An empty cigarette pack floated towards him, bumping into his tigh before spinning past the corridor. He pushed himself towards her.

"Stop"

The text message appeared on his AR display.

"I'm here to help you."

"You're walking into a trap."

"Let me update your TacNet."

His AR highlighted 3 fury morphs with shotguns hiding amidst the engines. Two escape routes were also highlighted and labelled, and a pipe was designated "DO NOT SHOOT - EXPLOSIVE"

"Your move."

//-//-//-

The ship's fire alert blarred annoyingly, as airlocks started to open and close to vent off the flames that now engulfed most of the engine room. As he made his way through one of the escape routes his mysterious ally helped him find, he looked back just in time to witness four twisted, charred morphs amidst the vortex of tools and scrap metal get sucked through the airlock with the fire.

As he closed the airlock behind him, still shocked from his brief but intense exposure to vacuum, he realized one of the furies scored a mark on his left thigh.

He stared at the mysterious ID blinking on his AR display, and after a few seconds sent a text reply,

"Who is this?"

"You can call me Over_Flow. Sorry about hacking into your TacNet like that, but you were out of time.  I don't know who you are or what your mission is, but someone is throwing a lot of rep around to make you succeed."

"The mob of armed barbarians they call authority around here is getting very interested in that explosion. I've hijacked their security feed and airlock controls, so I should be able to keep them off of you."

"Also, I told you not to shoot that. These people are going to have a hard time breathing in a few hours."

"These people wouldn't be breathing at all if I hadn't stopped her there and then. Anyways, thanks."

Nathan looked around, blood slowly seeping from his leg wound and floating about as a cluster of dark red spheres.

"I could use some more help. I'm going outside, I need to retrieve her stack. I'll be needing a way out of here after that; my ship is probably crawling with Scum thugs right about now. I need a way out. How can we help each other?"

A path appeared on his AR, leading to the nearest airlock. Next to the airlock was a clearly labelled first aid kit with some nanobandages. The target's outline was still on the TacNet, even through the bulkhead.

"I kind of need to breathe, so I'm getting off this hab with you. I found us a ship we can stow away on.  Giving you waypoints.  Meet you there."

The mass of carbonized flesh in front of him slowly rotated around its axis. He needed to be precise, but even bandaged his leg still hurt. "Painless Nano-Healing!" it said on the box. With a fluid motion, he pushed himself, with as little force as possible, towards the charred body. As he approached the morph, he took his knife out, grabbed it by the neck, popped the stack, and twisted about, crouching behind the dead woman. He waited there, hugging the spinning body, two feet planted on its back, looking towards the great, black unkown. As soon as he was facing the ship again, he made his move. Kicking back the mody, he propelled himself towards an airlock, and the body towards oblivion.

Inside, Nathan made his way through the twisting halls of the ship towards the waypoint. As he passed living quarters and social hubs alike, he tried not to think too hard about how these people would deal with the upcoming O² shortage. The mission was done, that's what mattered. He gave a self-reassuring tap on the container holding the target's stack, and made his way to the ship.

Soon, he found himself in a great hangar. Workers moved about carrying crates around to and from a docked transport freighter; mostly servitor drones, a few pods.

He looked around.

"I'm here."

His hand rested near his holster.

A nearby crate labelled "CAUTION - NANOBOTS" in 12 languages popped open. A young female stuck her head out.

"Get in. This crate is loaded in 5 minutes, and the freighter leaves in 20.  We're getting off at another scum hab in 27 hours."

"My real name is Sarah, by the way."

He didn't really have any other options. For some reason, he felt he could trust this girl.

"Hm, alright. Make some room, my leg is killing me."

For almost 30 hours they would sit in that crate, and Nathan would find out just why that mysterious teenager had assisted him.