"Compared to the hard drive," the female guard said as they exited the building. "The rest of the stuff was easy to grab."

"Yeah," Nyz walked up to one of the pillars in front of the facility and leaned against it. "Thanks for the help."

"No problem," she said. "We'll make it back before you, so we'll let Zenitk know about the success, and I'll put in a word to my superiors about your abilities as well."

"What abilities?" Nyz asked. "You seemed to have everything under control. Honestly, you guys did almost all the fighting. If it weren't for your fancier weapons, I definitely would be another corpse down there."

"You still did good," she told him. "Maybe we'll see each other again sometime, kid."

Nyz thanked her, then she rejoined her team. He waited for the chopper to finish preparations and take off, and once the gusts died down, Nyz returned to his van, entering it. After stripping off his gear and seeing it safely into their spaces, Nyz stretched, then fixed his commpiece back onto his ear before pulling back on his suit and sunglasses.

Sitting in the driver's seat, Nyz buckled up, turned on the car, and began driving.

"I'll go at fifty on the way back," Nyz said. "So they aren't too suspicious."

"Wait a little further than normal before switching on the FDKG," Kal told him. "Just to be on the safe side."

"Will do," Nyz responded.

"The rest of that trip really was easy," Kal commented. "You encountered the goo a few more times, but other than that, nothing really hindered you."

"Sucks we had to use the job as a cover," Nyz said. "There was plenty of other stuff I could have done here, and I'd rather not stick around. Are the other choppers gone yet?"

"No," Kal answered. "And the one with the crew you just worked with is rejoining them, though they'll likely head back first to report about you, since the others are still investigating. I'm still rerouting power over there, so they're still suspecting someone is around, evading them."

"Got it," Nyz said.

He spent the hour and a half drive back to Valeros wondering if Kal had found anything, but aware that he'd have to wait until he returned to his temporary home to find out. When he finally arrived at the Gate he'd left through, the guard welcomed him back, then Kal drove to the Valeros Zenitk Pharmaceuticals Headquarters.

Parking, he pulled off his commpiece before packing everything he'd rescued from the other town into a normal backpack, pulled it on, then grabbed the clipboard with his paperwork for the mission and exited the van through the driver's door. Walking briskly, he entered the tall building and approached reception, showing his ID.

"Nicholas Schaeffer," Nyz said. "I was on a job in Troak for the company. I'm here to report a successful mission and drop off the retrieved items."

The receptionist scanned his ID, then called a security guard to escort him to the debriefing room, where a man in a lab coat waited with two men in suits and two guards, along with the female guard from Asterox Corporation who worked with him on the mission. A metal briefcase sat on the table by her, which Nyz spared on a glance before looking at the guard and the man in the suit beside her.

"So that's what you look like without the combat suit on," the female guard smiled at Nyz. "Nice to meet you, Nicholas. I don't think I introduced myself back there, I'm Isabella."

"Hello," Nicholas removed his sunglasses and folded their legs in before slipping them into the pocket on his suit jacket. "I didn't believe you."

"I made a promise," she told him as he pulled off the backpack and set it on the table, stepping to the side. "Glad to see you made it back safely."

"The drive was quiet," he told her. "Seems like the fog monsters have calmed down from whatever had them antsy."

"Seems like it," she said.

As they spoke, one of the guards scanned his paperwork, then opened up the backpack and began pulling the retrieved items out of it, and Nyz gave a rundown of what he encountered in the complex, aware that Isabella had likely already done so as well. The guard checked the items as the debriefing occurred, then nodded to the other man in a suit before he took them away on a rolling cart.

"It appears you did the job well," Richard, the second man in the suit and the one who had given Nyz the job, said as he pulled out a tablet, tapping away on it. "I'm wiring the reward to your account now."

Nyz waited a few seconds, then pulled out his phone and checked the account. They had agreed on five hundred thousand credits, and Niz's account showed a transfer of six hundred thousand, a silent thanks for the additional items he brought from the vault.

"Thank you," Nyz told him.

"Thank you, Nicholas," Richard told him, then indicated the other man in the suit. "I'm sure you know who Damiar is."

"Head of Asterox's security for the local branch," Nyz turned to Damiar, giving him a slight dip of the head in greeting. "Hello, Damiar. I didn't expect to see you here when I returned from the job."

"We don't normally do this," Damiar slid the metal briefcase across the table, and Nyz stopped it with both hands. "But Isabella put in a good word for you, and you did help complete a mission that had more than ten failures."

Nyz opened the briefcase and found eight grenades set into foam. He lifted up the top tray and found a small pack of the explosive putty in addition to crystal cartridges for guns. Returning the tray inside and closing the case, he looked at Damiar.

"I take it," Nyz said. "This is also a bribe to not mention the presence of the elite soldiers from Asterox's security division rushing into Troak, I take it?"

"If you would be so kind," Damiar told him. "Though it's doubtful anyone would believe you."

Even if he tried to tell others, Nyz knew that Asterox would simply claim he broke into one of their facilities and stole the weapons in the briefcase. To Nyz, however, none of that mattered.

"I wasn't planning on it," Nyz told him. "What's going on with your stuff is your business. I just hope you found whoever it was, I'm not a fan of terrorists."

"I'm not at liberty to say," Damiar smiled. "Though I can assure you that there's no reason to worry."

"Okay," Nyz smiled. "Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome," Damiar said. "That's all I wanted."

"Same here," Richard said. "You're free to go, Nicholas."

"Thank you," Nyz dipped his head to the man, then picked up the briefcase and left, pulling on his sunglasses as he went.

When he reached his car, he set the briefcase on the passenger seat and pulled out of the parking lot, clipping his earpiece back on.

"Were you listening?" He asked.

"I was," Kal answered. "They aren't tracking you, so it's safe to return to the house. Not that it would matter, since you're transferring after you clean up. Do that once you arrive."

"Will do," Nyz said. "I'm looking forward to a hot shower."

Nyz drove through the city to the apartment tower he was living in and pulled into their parking garage, sliding the van into the spot reserved for his apartment number. He stepped out of the car and made his way to the elevator, which he took to the tenth floor.

Exiting the elevator, Nyz made his way to his rented apartment and entered, then walked to the bathroom, pulling off his sunglasses as he entered. With two swift motions, he removed the contacts from his eyes, revealing their true color as dark blue, purple spikes poking out around the pupils.

With a murmur under his breath, Nyz dissolved the contacts, then turned on the shower and stripped off his clothes while waiting for the water to heat up. Once the water reached his preferred temperature, Nyz entered the shower and soaked himself, then pumped his shampoo-body wash mix onto a palm. He rubbed his hands together, then began scrubbing his hair. The pale green shampoo turned gray as he worked it into his hair, and as it ran down, brown mixed in with it, pulling away Nyz's tan in addition to the dye in his hair.

By the time he finished, Nyz had platinum-blond hair and pale skin, and he gave himself another scrub-down before rinsing off one last time and stepping out of the shower, pulling a towel off the rack to dry himself with.

He returned his commpiece to his ear, then picked up his dirty clothes and the wash mix and brought them into his bedroom, stuffing them and the towel into a bag. Checking through the apartment to make sure everything else had already been transported away, Nyz picked up the pack and stood still.

"Ready for transfer," he said.

"Transferring in three… two… one!"

When Kal finished the countdown, Nyz found himself in a new apartment, in a different section of the city.

"Your name is Noll Krim," Kal told him. "You'll find the new hair dye, skin tint, and contacts in the bathroom."

Nyz dropped the bag on the ground, then walked into the bathroom and picked up the mix of skin tin. Rather than the much tanner skin he had before, he would have only a lighter tan, and a check of the hair dye and contacts showed his would hair would be a medium-brown and his eyes would be a lighter brown.

He turned on the bath and ran it, waiting for the water to reach the right temperature, then plugged the tub and poured in the skin tint, before climbing in, setting the commpiece on the side of the tub and activating its projection mode.

"What did you find?" Nyz asked. "Anything yet?"

"The fuckers are masking its location," Kal answered. "I'm going to have to take some time to figure out where they put it. They aren't calling it by its name, if they're discussing it. It's only a matter of time before the fuck up, though, and mention it more obviously. Since I'm now thoroughly in their network, once that happens, their asses are mine."

"Are you staying with me this time?" Nyz asked. "Or base again?"

"Base again," Kal answered. "Lay low for now. They're likely to increase watch for activity for a couple of months, even if they found nothing with the rerouted power, just in case."

"You think I'll need to hit somewhere else for more information?" Nyz asked.

"It's possible," Kal answered. "Want me to order you something? Your options for this home are pizza, ramen, sushi, Niporan, and Kaian. No sandwiches or subs, though, since your last identity ate those rather heavily."

"We'll go with noodles and sushi for this one," Nyz told him. "Noll feels like that kind of guy."

"I'll put in an online order for you under the new identity," Kal told him. "To be delivered in one hour. That should give you enough time to tint your skin and dye your hair. Don't forget your eyebrows."

"I won't," Nyz rolled his eyes. "How long do you think it'll take before we find it? It's already been a few months."

"Hopefully soon," Kal answered. "I'm tempted to just launch an attack on all of their facilities."

"I'm in favor of that."

"Except that would cripple society itself," Kal reminded him. "We're not aiming to cripple society."

"There goes that plan," Nyz muttered.

"Just follow my plans," Kal told him as Nyz shut off the bath, since it was nearly full. "They never go wrong.

"What about Letharga?"

"No one can predict a wyvern attacking, Nyz," Kal told him. "Not even me with my inhuman intellect."

"What about-"

"Nyz," Kal groaned. "Just tint yourself. Make sure to scrub it into your scalp as well."

"I know, I know," Nyz said, then held his breath before sinking his head beneath the water.

He scrubbed himself with his fingers from his toes to his head before resurfacing, inhaling deeply before doing it again, repeating the process once more after that. When he finished, he drained the tub, then showered, using normal body wash and shampoo to clean himself. He rinsed out the inside of the tub, then worked on dying his hair.

Once his makeover finished, Nyz dried off and put in the brown-tinted contacts, before dressing in a pair of boxer-briefs a neutral blue in color and a black polo. He set up his computer, then let it take a picture of him with his new identity for Kal to add to his records. Nyz swapped the polo for a yellow tank with red trim and a smiley face on the front, then lounged in the living room as he waited for his dinner to arrive.

When someone knocked on his door, Nyz answered it, finding the delivery guy on the other side. He accepted his sushi and tipped the man, then closed the door and returned to the living room to find his card printer printing out an ID for him. Sitting down, he pulled out the sushi and dug into it.

"That's interesting," Kal spoke up as Nyz finished his dinner.

"What is?" Nyz asked.

"Only on their private network," Kal said. "Is there a record of a certain facility. I didn't know about it because it doesn't officially exist and wasn't tapped into their closed network before."

"A secret facility?" Nyz asked. "Like the one we were made in?"

"Secret, yes, but not like the one we were born in," Kal told him. "Though that hard drive you picked up had data on Zenitk's version of that project."

"I figured," Nyz told him. "Did you copy it while I was returning?"

"I did," Kal told him. "I also modified the original to set them back. They do not need a success in it."

"Will they know if you tampered with it?" Nyz asked.

"Not unless they already have the data," Kal told him. "My work is always perfect when it comes to things like that."

"Hey," Nyz chuckled. "You finally started adding on 'things like that'."

"I made the mistake of not one too many times," Kal groaned. "You've never let me live it down when it comes to Protokis Vental."

"That thing blew up in my hands."

"It was an unforeseen circumstance!" Kal exclaimed. "You know I couldn't have predicted that!"

"I'm going to 'unforeseen circumstance' you one of these days," Nyz told him.

"Please do," Kal responded.

"Yellow."

"Sorry," Kal apologized. "I'm going to sign off to, uh, take care of that. I'll call back if there are any developments before tomorrow. You'll find the profile for your new identity in your tablet."

Nyz picked up the tablet resting on the table as he placed another piece of sushi in his mouth, then powered on the device as he chewed. Loading up the profile for his new idea, he skimmed through it, then snorted when he saw his new career.

"He probably put himself into stitches with laughter when he saw the opening."