Suddenly the demeanor changed in the room. Guillermo’s men blocked the door and a few came up behind Crash and Luke to keep them from running, or so it appeared. Gone was the jokes at Sam’s expense, replaced with an air of respect and secrecy. It was very strange. Crash and Luke were led into a small room with double wooden doors, closed by the two minions and locked from the inside by Guillermo. Sam and Guillermo sat down at the end of a table and motioned for Luke and Crash to do the same. Once they had sat down, Sam started to stroke his beard, Guillermo making notes in a journal. They weren’t the bar ruffians they had seemed to be five minutes ago…

“The Beiorg gang. One of the most secret groups in the city, even having connections in the top districts, where folks like us could never dream of going. They steal and resell all the time, kings can’t keep a treasure from them. Bringing the Beiorg gang down is all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Old Sam used to be a Beiorg. Got excommunicated fur havin’ a wife. They’re pretty strict. No family no connections no problems, that sort of thing. Me n the old man been looking for ways to take them down for years. But we don’t have an in… don’t even know where their hideout is or anything. If we just had something, we could swoop in there and take down the infamous Beiorgs once n for all!”

Instantly, Luke thought of the coin in his pocket that he’d found in the market. It was a bit of a longshot, but he look it out of his pocket and sat it on the table in front of the two gruff men. Man he hoped it wasn’t just some coin he found on the road…

“Is that…”

“Well I’ll be…”

Oh thank god it was useful.

“This is a coin from the old era. Beiorg’s use them to determine their hideout location and level of safety, see?”

Sam took a pin from his pocket and poked the eye of the portrait of the man on the coin and it unfolded into a small digital map.

“They’re in Strafe district…”

“Aye, under the ol’ theater.”

“Well what the hell are we waiting for! I’m gonna get my damn regulator back!”

Crash got up but Luke caught him by the shoulder before he could go any further.

“Hold on, you want to die? We need some sort of plan first.”

Guillermo folded his arms.

“Much as I like the ‘nthusiasm, this is only half the trouble. We wanna take em down, you wanna get the bots regulator back. Who n the hell knows where their storage facility is!”

“Guillermo is right, regular members don’t have access to the storage facility, meaning if we barge in there the facility members will be alerted and their entire inventory will be moved to another location. After that, these coins will be reprogrammed and there will be a culling of potentially traitorous members. Meaning in your department we won’t be any further than we were ten minutes ago.”

It dawned on Luke what they must be talking about.

“We have to target both buildings at once.”

“Precisely, but first we have to find out where the warehouse is.”

“How the hell are we gonna do that!”

“The Beiorg’s are speciesist, I’m a known traitor and Guillermo is way too big. We have a membership token. That leaves you, boy.”

Luke found himself in the gazes of all three of them and it dawned on him what they were concocting.

“H-hold on. You can’t be serious!”

“Ah don’t really see another way.”

“Gaha! Don’t worry kid they won’t kill you!”

“I’ll acquire the disguise and we’ll meet back here at seven tomorrow morning, reasonable?”

“B-but I-”

“Sounds good! See you there old man!”

Crash, suddenly in a good mood, dragged Luke from the chair and out into the hallway.

“We’re gonna get my regulator back! Well, you are.”

“They’ll just find out that I’m a mole! There’s no way I’ll be able to pull this off, why can’t one of Sam’s men do it!”

“They got that weird scaly skin. You’re the only one that can do this… uh…”

“Luke.”

“Yeah what you said! I’m just gonna go back to the pile of garbage I was sorting through till tomorrow.”

“Wait. Why that regulator? Couldn’t you just get a different one? That’s the only thing I never understood.”

“Yeah yeah I guess that’s fair if I’m gonna drag you into it.”

Crash sighed.

“My regulator is special. When I was created they put a defective regulator inside me, then put me out into the world without even fixin’ it! Anyways, I wandered around for a few years till I found this guy that helped me up when I was going through a seizure fit thing out in the street. Not only that, this guy was smart! Old bastard but he fixed my regulator and made it even better! It’s basically priceless, I’ve got the best regulator ever made.”

Luke blinked.

“What was the old man’s name?”

The question surprised the bot but he pondered it for a second.

“Hmm, Tickland or something.”

“Thickton?”

“Yeah! How’d you know?”

“I used to know him, kind of.”

“Good enough for me, you better get my regulator back!”

Crash slapped him on the back fairly roughly and walked off into the night leaving Luke alone at the bar. Dodging a mining truck coming his way, Luke snaked through the large crowd that was still bustling through the dirt street. Nothing was really ever quiet here. There were a lot of different mining shifts, meaning that each worker got up at left at a different time. Thanks to that, the small businesses on the road were always busy and ready to serve up a cup of whatever a weary worker wanted.

He was silent as he dodged in between them, remembering what it had been like only a week ago. Though probably months ago in reality… Walking through a throng like this alone was normal for him. He heard a few miners laugh and crash their mugs together at a nearby bar. He heard a young boy squeal with his friends at a game drawn in the dirt. Women were knitting together in front of a business only feet away. He’d known all this for a while now, yet they were the very things he tried to avoid thinking about most. Normally, he’d walk through the throng, hands in pockets, face pointed towards the ground. Things had changed. Hopefully he could change them again for the better.

Before he knew it, Luke was back at his apartment, dropping down into his bed. He wasn’t sure how he could sleep with how rough the next day would be, but his exhaustion finally hit him and soon he was snoring.

“Don’t fo-!”

Beep! Beep! Beep Beep!

“Wha…”

His hand instinctively slapped his alarm clock. Six in the morning. Yeah, it would probably take awhile to get there. The miners were on their way to the first shift about now, and the night shift was getting off. It was probably the busiest part of the day. A lot of the steel workers would go around this time as well, just like he’d used to. Before all this…

He flung his feet out and grabbed something that Mr. Setsuna had given him. Whole grain. Practically gold in the food department.

Clink.

He’d dropped his spoon. Since the alarm clock, that had been the first noise in the entire apartment this morning.

The only one.

He was dipping his hand back into the madness, wasn’t he…

Sighing, Luke got up and put from relatively fresh clothes on, the darkest colors he could find. His darkest shirt did have a crude patch on it, but it would work. He closed the door slowly and softly behind him, trying not to disturb the silence of his home. He didn’t know why, but he felt as if he’d closed the door loudly something would have happened.

As he walked back to Jullong’s bar he thought about his short dream. All he remembered was a word and an f noise. He couldn’t even remember who had said it. It sounded like a mash up of a hundred voices… maybe?

Meh, just a dream.

“Boy! What took you so long! The bot got here twenty minutes ago!”

“The bot probably didn’t leave the trash cans.”

“Hey!”

Luke walked up to Crash, Sam and Guillermo, ready for the plan. As much as he didn’t want to infiltrate a hostile gang’s headquarters he didn’t have much of a choice. As Sam led them back to the room they’d been in the day before Luke thought about what he’d just said. Infiltrating a hostile gang’s headquarters. He was a nobody. A steelworker at best. But he’d changed.

Guillermo slapped his hand on the table.

“Aright now you’ll be taking this coin an these clothes with yeh. As long as yeh look the part they probably won’t know you’re a spy.”

“Probably?”

“I’d ratha not give any absolutes son.”

Sam then began to talk.

“Now, after you get inside you have to find the boss's room, or at least the foreman. Looking at a higher ranking member’s coin will let definitely show the location of the warehouse they control. After you learn of the location, do whatever you have to to get out, then ditch the costume somewhere and hightail it back here as soon as you can. No need to steal the coin as long as you remember where the warehouse is.”

“Just one thing… won’t the member that lost the coin I have get back inside and they’ll think something is up?”

Sam squinted his eyes.

“Boy, the only way inside is with a coin. No matter who you are, you aren’t getting inside without a coin. Not only that, their identities are completely hidden from one another. They likely won’t even know you’re a different person and if they do they’ll assume you’re new.”

Slightly reassured, Luke gathered his things into a bad that Guillermo gave him.

“One o my men is posted here, where you can change inta the disguise. Knock on the door once. Once again after you want him to buzz off. He’ll guard you n make sure nobody finds ya changin’. Good luck”

Luke looked to crash before leaving.

“We’ll get Mr. Thickton’s regulator back. Trust me.”

‘I don’t know why, but I do trust you ya damn meatbag. Kill em all!”

He laughed and smacked Luke’s back again, pushing him out the door.

Now was the time to get serious.