It had snowed much as of late. With the path untended, Troy was forced to go the hard way through the snow, fully knowing that each step he left was quickly being filled up behind him. There were no traces where he had walked before at this point, leaving only his sense of direction to guide him.

And what a terrible sense that was. Troy had always been bad at that skill of daily life. Sure, he could learn his way with some practice. Back in his hometown, he had the path to school and back memorized. With any other places… it began to get hard.

Which was why Adam was such a great help. Even if there were some mental hindrances, the AI was able to guide Troy through the sludge that was finding a good path to take. How that exactly worked, the young man would have been able to tell. There had been mention about the identification of the various trees they walked by, but the man barely had the night vision to even realise that there were trees, to begin with.

Nevertheless, Troy was not one to take a gift for what it wasn't, accepting it graciously. If it meant that he wouldn't need to walk through a forest in the dead of night, hoping to walk in the right direction, then happiness could easily be found. It was better than what it could have been.

The weather really was sporadic. During the start, there had only been a bit of snow at these feet, barely enough to make a decent covering of the ground. And with the mild lighting still in place, the young man had thought himself readily equipped for the task of night-scavenging. He had done it several times before, after all, so there should have been no such problems.

But there was. Yet again was the young man happy for the other voice in his head, helping him along when he most needed it.

…

That did sound a little bad. Voice in his head, one that he had no control over, which helped him with the information he did not know. People would have classified him as mental at that point, not knowing just how truthful he was being. Troy could see it now, bringing it up over a cup of hot coffee, not understanding the looks of confusion and mild fear on the other’s face.

‘Is there something about the current situation you find funny? Your body is hardly equipped to operate at normal levels. Having extreme emotional swings will only waste excess energy,’ Adam sent not long after the first chuckle came up. That made the man stifle the rest, signing out a few apologies in response. Troy didn't talk, the cold air not being the most comfortable thing to breathe in deeply.

The journey had not been too long, looking at it about the distance, though the time taken had been close to double. The snow was slowing him down too much. Troy supposed that was a bad thing if it came to running in it. There was undoubtedly the chance of him falling if he sped up too much, the friction being near zero in the ice spots. And since those spots were near-invisible in the cover of night, there were no great promises about getting through the action unbruised.

Only thinking about it negatively wouldn't do anything for him, though. Troy knew that, since had been told many times before, most of those times in the last month. He was supposed to become more tactical, whatever that was supposed to mean. He was already plenty tactical as it was.

Mounds of snow? Perfect hiding place! Or, well… it actually wasn't. If being chased, they couldn't be too far behind, making his tracks lead directly up to him. And it would require clothing that was more… white. His current outfit would be a bit obvious.

… Okay, there might have been some places where some more tactical instinct would have been useful, but Troy put the more detailed stuff over to Adam. They were due, after all, to cover up each other's weaknesses. Adam would deal with all the tactical stuff, while Troy would deal with all the social… or, the AI actually dealt with the social side more often than not, always wanting something to be added in.

…

Going away from that increasingly depressing topic of worthlessness, Troy refocused his eyes on his current path. The trees came at a more scarce pace, giving more distance between them. Likewise, did lights begin to show up in the distance, to the point where Troy began to see silhouettes?

SO many silhouettes. Everything made a shadow in his view, the trees in front of him showing every branch, to the buildings far away from reflecting their lights off windows, making it all look like a flashy abstract art of sorts. A beautiful sight to behold at any other time, Troy still concentrating on the action of not falling onto his face. Snow had melted in small patches close to, refreezing into dangerous ice sheets. It was not a fun time.

But, Troy was finally able to come onto a road of sorts. It was not the biggest to find in the city, clearly meant as a one-way road, but it did its job fine enough. With technology being at the level it was, Troy only felt water splashing under his footwear, the snow having been melted. It was years ago now that snow was illegal to have on roads. Too many accidents or something. The young man wasn't too sure. He hadn't followed the drama that much at the time.

‘Circle to the building. Keep your distance to it,’ Adam instructed, informing the young man of things he already knew. They had discussed just that plan an hour or so ago. It was not that hard to remember now, was it?

Troy certainly hadn't forgotten about it, as he did as was requested of him. With careful steps, the man walked on the side of the street, looking as inconspicuous as possible. A hard task to do, seeing as he was likely the only civilian out at this time of night. Nobody wanted to be alone with the possible criminals, after all. Or… Troy was a criminal, now that he thought about it. People were staying in their homes so they wouldn't have the chance of meeting him.

What a curious realisation to have. The young man did not spend too much time on it, though, needing to focus more on his body getting ahead of itself. His pulse was getting up to almost a hundred, his breath being forced into deeper reaches. The air in front of him was showing itself to him now, a good warning that he needed to calm himself.

A calm persona was the most important thing to have, and Troy did his best to have just that. After putting the beat of his steps down a notch, his pulse fell accordingly. It was going up quicker than usual. Perhaps it was due to the battered body? No real way to be sure. Troy just hoped it wouldn't affect his running too much. There were already enough negative modifiers on him.

The building that the duo needed to get into again was not far from where Troy entered the city. It was a lucky thing, lest the young man would have been forced to circle the outskirts. That would have taken a whole hour in itself to do, not something that there was any desire to do.

Things had been aligned for the young man, with how quick he got to reach it. That idea might have been slightly redrawn, though, when he got to see the state of the place.

‘We need to adjust our plan for the entrance,’ Adam sent Troy yet again, not needing to be told. It was more than little obvious things weren't gonna work out as they had planned for it.

Troy should have guessed it would be like this. What happened when somebody broke into a store, breaking a very expensive window while leaving? Well… the police officers would first access the scenes, document anything that might be used as evidence. Easy to understand. Then… they would make sure that no wannabe robberies would happen, with that window easily enterable.

How would they do that, any curious fool might ask. Put some tape over it, or maybe ask people not to enter the premises? Well, that was what was done back in the last century. Troy knew that from all the old dramas he watched when he was younger. But… the current age was a little different.

Trusting civilians to obey orders was not the strong suit of the government. If somebody was asked to not enter a specific premise, it would be made clear that such action was impossible.

Around the main entrance were five poles, positioned in a half-circle. From a glance, they seemed fairly innocent, nothing suspicious about them other than their extreme closeness to vanta black. But even that could have been excused by the darkness surrounding the place already.

No… those poles were much more dangerous than they let on. If interacted with in any way, be that by physical touch or going between two poles, alarms would be emitted loudly enough to incapacitate anybody nearby. It would also emit an electric shock, making it extremely hard for any escape attempts to be made. It a painful experience to be sure.

When was the first time he saw them first hand? Troy couldn't be too sure anymore. It might have been… the third or fourth city. Maybe fifth. While scavenging the older parts of a city, those poles had begun appearing everywhere. Troy and Adam had avoided them initially since they were pieces of unknown technology and therefore needed to be cautiously interacted with. However, when a medicinal store was found with the poles in front, a chance was taken.

The effects were still felt in phantom twitches. His stomach certainly refused to forget. Charlie promised nothing was wrong, but his body didn't seem to accept that fact, pain felt whenever he thought of those events.

They were impossible to jump over as well, the detection range stretching well into the air. Add in with the fact that Troy couldn't get close enough for Adam to disable them, and problems were emerging already. Perhaps if it got over three meters, there was a chance… but, at that point, it would be better to just find another entrance. Which was exactly what Troy was planning to do.

‘Was there a back entrance?’ Troy signed, holding up the agreement of non-verbal communication. They were too close. While no cars or trucks had been spotted during the circling of the area, there was still a chance of them hiding somewhere.

‘There is indeed one at the back corner of the store. Stick to the walls of the building, please. The forest is less dense there,’ Adam said, giving small reasoning for the request. Which was understandable. The fewer obstacles there were equalled less sound. With the distortion filter put in place, their only real threat from passive surveillance was having people close by hearing them.

So, Troy focused on keeping everything as low as possible. His steps in the snow were careful, his breath similarly stuffed. Weight was distributed evenly, and his body was kept low. Everything helped to increase the volume output by the slightest margin.

And while it might have been a slow approach, Troy did eventually reach the back entrance. The top was lit with a green light, as was the standard of such doors. It was, of course, locked when there was an attempt to open it. Adam made short work of that, however, allowing Troy to get inside.

There was not much sound emitted when he first stepped in. His entrance made an echo, yes, but it disappeared quickly enough. With his breath held for a few seconds, the only thing heard was the minuscule air ventilation on top. Not a single soul other than him breathed inside. It seemed that they had really only put up the poles as security.

That was a good thing for him, really. With the alarm made short work of, nothing stopped Troy from going further inside. Normally, he would have scoured the place from top to bottom, searching for anything that might help the group survive another day.

Not now. Definitely not now. Right now, Troy knew exactly what he was looking for, and he knew exactly where it was. Yes, the storage area was new to him, but the door into the actual store was easy enough to spot.

He hardly glanced to the sides, instead outright sprinting over to where the products he sought were. Jumping over the low barriers put in place, Troy got down on one knee and…

It wasn't there. The products that were meant to be there, the equipment meant to be used for the repairing of somebody's vital organs, weren't there. The whole aisle was empty.

The small tick of a release trigger came to the man’s ears. From instinct, Troy dodged to the side, his body moving before he even had the chance of thinking. Looking over, he saw a tranquillizer flying through where his heart had been a moment ago.

"I knew you were too tough to die."

It was a trap!