danger days 1

The heat of the morning sun beat down on Mycah. The air was hazy with dust kicked up from the digging he about about twenty others were doing. The city of Merimar was going under another phase of construction, getting ready to expand almost a mile out from the current circular wall. Before that could happen, however, the new outer wall and the water lines would have to be built.

Mycah lifted another shovelful of dry soil in to a wheelbarrow and one of the other workers took it away, and he waited for them to bring back an empty one. He got a rare moment of rest as he waited, looking out at the open desert. Two of the three moons were washed out in the glaring morning sun that was almost too high to allow any further work until the evening. It was already hot enough for the pterosaurs to be out, and to Mycah that should have signaled the end of the work day. He shook his head a little as an empty wheelbarrow came back and he resumed his digging.

After another hour of work in the dry desert heat, Mycah was called back in along with the other workers. He couldn't help but be a little relieved, feeling too out in the open with the new outer wall still in construction. Back under the shelter of the old stone wall it was mercifully cooler, and he finally got a chance to wipe the sweat from his half-tanned half-burnt face. Mycah headed to his locker while avoiding most of the other workers. Too many of them were too loyal to the state, he thought. If he slipped and complained to the wrong person, he'd end up in the kind of trouble he couldn't bribe to get out of it.

He put on his water pack and put his identification card in his pocket. Mycah spun the lock shut as he turned to leave. Just wanting to collect his water credits for the day and get home, he wasn't pay attention when he walked right in to one of the other workers.

"Watch where you're going!" Without warning he was slammed back against the metal lockers. If he hadn't put hadn't put the water pack on, the metal locks and handles would have been digging in to his back. If he was in a little more pain, he probably would have tried to get out of there faster, but without that incentive his mouth got the better of him.

"Sorry, Doug... too long in the sun makes it hard to see my least favorite people." The hulking worker who held him in place had gotten in to fights with him before, and Mycah had always been on the losing end. It wasn't like Mycah couldn't hold his own, but Doug always seemed to have more than a few friends on his side if the fight went on too long.

"It would be a shame if there was an accident in here... wouldn't it, Mycah?" The arm holding him against the locking moved from his chest up closer to his neck and Mycah took a sharp breath as his airway was cut off.

Mycah started to panic when he couldn't breathe. His vision was starting to dim with Doug's ugly smirk as his last sight, until something distracted him and he let Mycah drop to the floor gasping. "What the hell is that?"

"What... what is /what/?" He was still coughing when he was half-lifted off the floor by one of the straps of his water pack. Doug had turned the strap to the other side, where a red diamond was embroidered on to the fabric.

"That symbol... where'd you get this?"

Mycah struggled out of Doug's grip and got to his feet. "What's it matter to you?" He paused to cough again. "I got it from a friend..." Which was true, more or less. Mycah was in good enough standing within Merimar, so he wasn't watched closely by police or neighbors, but he also wasn't closely associated with them to be viewed as a supporter. When his friend asked him to sell some goods manufactured outside of the city in one of the less than reputable markets, he did so, and got to keep one of them as payment.

"A friend?" Doug looked like he was going to say more, but then backed away. "Hmph. Some friend. Probably gave you a cheap piece of counterfeit crap." He still had the smug look on his face as he walked out. Mycah counted himself lucky, and winced at the bruise he felt forming on his neck. He hadn't seen the diamond mark. It had been careless not to notice something like that. Deciding to cut it out or cover it up as soon as he got home, Mycah headed out to collect his credits and leave.

On his way out, Mycah's ID card was scanned by the foreman, loading it with his pay. The incident in the locker room was already forgotten as he walked home. He was more concerned about the limited credits he was getting for this job and hoping it would get him through the month. Already deciding on which bills would have to wait, he didn't notice the car following slowly a few yards behind.

Mycah was nearly to his block when the car caught up with him and caught his attention.

"Mycah Vice?"

He paused and looked over at the car automatically when he heard his name. It was a black four door sedan with dark tinted windows, and he could only see the driver's eyes. "Yeah?"

Once he responded, the rear doors opened and two men in black clothing stepped out. Mycah looked around and knew he was in trouble. Everyone else on the narrow street had disappeared; only a few pairs of eyes peeking through blinds or curtains were left. When he started to back away and look for a place to run, they moved faster and grabbed his arms. One of them put a hand on his back above his water pack, and he felt something sharp through the fabric of his shirt.

"Make a fuss and you might not make it to the station in one piece," he heard growled in to his ear. Mycah figured it would be better not to fight and let them force him in to the back seat of the car.

Inside the car, the tinted windows made it nearly completely dark, and he could only barely see through a tinted glass partition separating the front and back seats. Though the working air conditioner was blasting cold air in his face, Mycah felt himself still sweating. Someone had found out about his trip to sell the counterfeit goods, he assumed. Buying, selling, or even just having something not made by one of the ten main colonies of Segunda Terra was enough to get branded and thrown out of most cities... He started to work up a story as he was driven away.

The car was completely silent up until the point they drove through the large metal and stone gate of the Boatyard. Mycah personally had never seen a boat, and didn't really understand the concept of one. He had never seen enough water to float a vehicle on in one place, and it seemed kind of pointless. He just knew that there was a kind of boat called a trawler, the same name as the machines that the police used to scrape information out of the minds of convicts. The goons sitting on either side of him relaxed and smirked at each other. No doubt they knew what he was brought there for and what the punishment would be.

The car stopped in a garage filled with similar vehicles and Mycah was shoved out into the burning heat. The driver was someone vaguely familiar but he couldn't place the memory. No one said anything as they all walked inside to a building that almost seemed hotter than it was outside. The four of them bypassed a booking station and he was led directly in to a stiflingly claustrophobic room. The only narrow window was barred and open to the air outside.

Mycah still had his water pack, and ignoring the mark on the inner strap, he tried to keep a cool head and rest while he could. Out in the hall he could hear someone who had to be the driver discussing his 'case'.

"The whistle blower said he had some counterfeit goods on him. He didn't try to ditch anything on the way in did he?"

"No, not a thing. It's probably still  on him," he heard one of the body guards reply.

"Good. Search him. Do what you want, but leave him conscious. The trawlers are down for maintenance so I'm going to have to do this the old fashioned way." Mycah frowned at the way he seemed to be smiling at the words, and just tried to count his blessings. At least he wouldn't be trawled.

The two goons weren't as bad ad Mycah thought they would be. He'd gotten beat up worse in public elementary school, and he told them so. That probably made it worse. He had what would end up a black eye, a busted lip, and the satisfaction of watching them walk away angry by the time they were done roughing him up. When they left, they took his pack and ID card, and were calling for the driver. They called him Malik. Something about that was stirring in his memory and it wasn't something good.

He wiped away the blood dripping down his chin and tried to wait patiently for the interrogation to start. With any luck he'd be there for the night and end up home worse for wear but not dead. He stood up and told himself to be on his best behavior during this. Any mouthing off would get him in deeper trouble than he already was.

"Mycah Vice... It's been a long time since I've heard that name." The interrogator had a file on a clip board in his hand, as well as a bag made of silver heat resistant plastic with an electrical cord hanging out. He slid a small platform out of the rock and put the clip board and bag down, and then plugged in the cord.

Mycah wanted to know why the name was so familiar to him, but he clenched his jaw and stayed silent. He would only talk when something was asked of him. He knew that was the best way to go about this.

"Oh come on. Don't tell me you forgot about your big brother." Mycah glared and was about to demand to know what he was talking about when it all clicked in to place. His older brother, Malik, had gotten a scholarship to one of the most prestigious school in the rainforest jungles of the south pole when Mycah had only just started his own schooling. At home no one said anything about Malik but their mother, and even she had stopped talking about him years ago, other than to say they had a resemblance to each other. Mycah couldn't see it, not in the school pictures he sent back, but they had the same lean build and dark hair as their father.

He took a shaky breath and didn't respond at first, only shaking his head. "Why am I here? People don't get dragged in to the Boatyard for no good reason."

"You're right. People don't. But smuggling criminals do." Malik plucked a picture from the clip board and showed it to Mycah. It showed the red diamond on the underside of the water pack strap. "Surely you recognize that symbol," he said, keeping up a patronizing tone. When Mycah didn't respond he put the picture back and continued. "The Diamonds are a dangerous gang of outlaws. The most we really know is that they manufacture weapons on a scale that is no minor threat. If you have something like that, who's to tell what else you may have hiding?"

"You're using that as an excuse to search my house?"

"It's not an excuse. Don't you understand how serious we have to take the safety of the colonies? Anything associated with the four Suits has to be thoroughly investigated." Malik's expression turned from smug and teasing to deadly serious. "That includes anything that's related to me, especially by blood. If I let you go without finding out exactly where this came from, where do you think that would leave me?"

Mycah got that sinking feeling again. He heard about people squeaking through investigations like this with bribes or quick promises, but this would make it impossible for him to get away, even if he had been innocent.

"Now. Where did you get the bag?"

"From a friend."

"Which friend?"

He shook his head. He wouldn't give up names that easily.

"Why did they give it to you?"

"I helped them get rid of some things." Mycah winced once he realized what he said, it would only lead to tougher questions to dodge.

"Get rid of what? Bodies? Goods? Drugs? The more you cooperate, the more likely it is you'll get a fair trial." Malik seemed to be telling the truth... Mycah wanted to burst out that he wasn't even arrested in the first place, just snatched off the street, but he took a breath and forced himself to stay calm. Maybe his brother would be able to actually help, even if it was just ensure that things went smoothly.

"Goods. More packs like that one." Malik noted something down on the paper at that statement and nodded.

The interrogation went on for more than an hour, and it was like pulling teeth. Mycah never did give the name of the person who he helped, but it was no use. He had a feeling that they would be in the same place or worse soon. Malik seemed satisfied at the answers as well, and Mycah allowed himself a smidgeon of hope that he might get out of there with just some jail time or something equally tame.

"I think we have enough to go on from here." Malik turned to the door and handed someone the clip board.

"What now?"

"Now? Unfortunately... I'm afraid I have to brand you."

"What?! Why?!"

"You didn't have direct contact with the Diamonds, but you did assist someone who did. While not a capital offense, I've already told you I can't go easy on you."

Mycah's gaze involuntarily went to the silvery bag still on the small shelf. That one moment of distraction was enough for one of the roughnecks from before to go in and grab hold of him. Mycah fought to get away, but he was forced to the ground with one hand behind his back and the other stretched out in front of him.

Malik calmly unzipped the bag and took out a metal brand. He disconnected it from the electric cord, and the glowing metal made Mycah fight even more to get away. The shape of Merimar's symbol, two linked hollow diamonds, was etched in red in the small room. When Mycah wouldn't flatten out his hand to be branded, someone- he wasn't sure who by then- stepped on his wrist and put on more and more pressure until he finally put his palm flat on the floor.

There was a stinging hiss followed by him choking back a shout as the shape was burned in to his hand. The foot stepping on his wrist was gone, and he was almost forced to watch the brand pull away, peeling away a layer of skin that had melted to the hot iron.

"Give him back the bag. Take him to the edge of the city and send him on his way."

To Mycah it was a pain-hazed trip to the outer edge of the city, past even the construction of the new wall that would surround the colony. He was kicked to the ground once there, and his water pack- dry and empty now- was thrown next to him without any other ceremony.

It was just striking noon.

-

Mycah got to his feet as the car that dropped him off outside the city sped away. He dusted himself off the best he could and picked up the water pack. It was empty, but it would be good to have it just in case. His hand was aching and without any protection of the sun for miles it was going to be a tough trek. Determined to at least try to get away from the city that betrayed him, he started walking.

At first it was easy. He had worked in the middle of the day before, so he was no stranger to the extreme heat of the desert. But when he had pulled a day shift, there was at least plenty of water and shade when it was needed. Out here there was nothing. The only shade was his own shadow, and the mountain range that was full of the dangerous dinosaur like creatures that inhabited the planet. He still made that his goal. It would be impossible to get there in one day but it was better than just sitting there and dying without putting up a fight.

While he walked, Mycah tried to forget about his brother... He was only doing his job, he tried to remind himself, but he felt there was still something Malik could have done to prevent this. Instead of worrying about his brother, or how his family would react to his sudden disappearance, he tried to think about what would happen if he did find someone in this desolate area. There were only a few possibilities.

The best option was to stumble upon one of the smaller outposts of the colonies. With any luck he would get some water and food, maybe some treatment for his hand, and he on his way. At worst they would chase him out for being an outlaw, but it wasn't like he was double branded.

After that, the next best choice would be to find the Crows... He'd only heard stories about them, and only then it had been more like ghost stories. They were a group of not-quite outlaws, looked down on by most who lived in the large colonies or smaller outposts. Somehow they were able to survive in the desert without outside help, moving when and where they needed to, and totally unaffiliated with the planets governmental centers at either the north or the south pole. He had also heard that they had started out as a group of spies working for the colonies themselves, and when their handlers turned on them for having too much information, they banded together and moved to the desert to escape. But no matter who told the story or what their origin was, almost everyone said that they helped anyone out in the desert to at least get on their feet and to a safe place.

The worst thing to happen were if he was picked up by one of the Suits... They named themselves from the suits of a deck of playing cards: Diamonds, Hearts, Spades and Clubs. Each one had a different specialty, and all of them were in a tense sort of truce, the last time he heard anything about them. The warring gang factions were a major problem, according to the propaganda he read, constantly working to undermine the hard-won colonial city-states. If they found him, he would be pressed in to service or killed, with no other option.

He was starting to stumble as the slowly slid behind him to set. His busted lip had stopped bleeding some time ago, but without any water, he already felt sunburnt cracks threatening to make it even worse. It wasn't even close to dark when he felt his pace slowing. Even though he wanted to stop and take a break, he knew that if he did stop he probably wouldn't be able to start again. He forced himself to keep moving.

Mycah followed his shadow for the better part of the day. He started to notice something on the edge of his vision, but when he turned to look there was nothing there. He wrote it off as just a hallucination, a mirage caused by the heat and lack of water. By the time he had stopped sweating and his tongue felt like a dried out piece of leather, the movement on the edge of his peripheral vision stopped disappearing every time he turned. Five or six large spots were close to the horizon to his left and behind him. They didn't move when he looked at them, but always seemed to be in the same spot no matter how long he walked. Eventually he just started to ignore them, not noticing when they started to move a little closer.

The two visible moons were slowly starting to give light when he felt the air cool ever so slightly. It wasn't much of a difference, since the ground still radiated the heat from the day, but it was still something welcome. Only when he tripped over a jutting rock did he realize he had the complete darkness to deal with now instead of the baking heat. The next time he stumbled he fell and almost didn't get up.

A barking cough got his attention. The spots that were on the edges of his vision were no longer just spots. They were obvious moving creatures now, and they were getting very close. A pack of wolf dragons was surrounding him and there was no way that noise was a good thing. The large reptilians moved in packs, usually hunting the other dinos, but preying on anything weak and alone out in the desert. Dying of thirst and heat would be better than being torn apart by them. That gave Mycah the motivation to get back to his feet and stumble on through his pain and exhaustion.

His path was lit solely by moonlight when he saw a welcome sight. A large jumble of rock was close, and he was sure to get there soon. Even if it was only an outcropping of stone, it would offer a place to rest, and maybe a way to climb away from the wolf dragons still following him. By that time they were close enough for him to see their muted stripes and sharp-toothed snouts.

When Mycah got to the rocks and the wolf dragons were close enough that he could hear their growls and snuffs, he was disappointed to see that it was nothing that could help him. There was no where to hide in the gaps and spaces between the rocks, and the sides were so sheer that he couldn't climb up them on his own even at his full strength.

He practically collapsed at the base of the rocks when he got there. The pack of reptiles was cautiously surrounding him and there was no way he could fight them off in his condition. His best hope then was to hope he wasn't awake by the time they started ripping him apart.

As he started to fade out, there was an odd grinding noise close to him. He didn't have the energy to look around to find what was causing it, and simply wondered if that was the noise of being eaten and why it didn't hurt.

"Back off, stupid mutts!" There was a loud banging noise, and one of the dragons yelped and started to slink away. The others soon followed, hissing and growling as they retreated. "Can't believe my those things are why the alarms went off. I had it set for-" The irritated male voice suddenly paused. "Well what have we got here? Something half dead by the looks of you."

Mycah tried to answer, but as the wolf dragons finally disappeared out of sight he was swept into sleep, and wasn't sure if he'd ever wake up again.

-

Singer took a few more pot shots at the dragons before looking down at what had triggered the sensors and ruined his smoke break. He tossed his half-finished cigarette to the side before leaning down to look closer at the runaway. He poked the kids right hand, and through blackened and red skin he could make out the marks of Merimar.

"Well. I'm not letting you die out here. Let's go..." Singer lifted him in a fireman's carry and took him inside, and behind him the rocks slid back in to place.

-

The first thing Mycah felt when he woke up was cold. Not just warm stale air being blown around, but actual cold. And it was amazing. He looked down to see that his right hand was bandaged and numb, and his blistered and burnt skin was covered with something cool and soothing. If it weren't for the fact that he was still injured under the treatment, he would have been sure he had died and woken up in some sort of paradise.

Still partly asleep, and feeling like he was under the effect of some sort of sedative, he turned lazily when the door to the room he was in opened. "Who... who's there...?"

"Told you he'd be awake." A short girl who looked about his age walked in first, her long hair in a loose ponytail.

"Do you think I had a choice but to believe you?" Someone taller than the girl and even Mycah, if he was on his feet, walked in behind her. "I'm surprised he made it out this far at all, let alone survived the night."

Mycah looked blearily at both of them, blinking slowly. They didn't have much in common but the same design on the shoulder of their shirts, and the same tiny symbol marked on their cheekbones under their right eyes. It was a black three-lobed club. "Who are you?" he asked again.

"I'm Spin, and this is Singer," the girl said, introducing them. "I'm the Jack of Clubs, and he's the Queen of Clubs. Who are you?"

He could only stare at them both, and at the symbol tattooed on both of their faces. "Mycah. Why aren't I dead?"

"Because Singer thought you'd be useful." Spin tilted her head slightly as she looked at him, and he suppressed a shiver. He was reminded of a hungry animal examining prey. "Otherwise I'm sure you'd be filling the tummies of hungry wolf dragons."

"If you are who you say you are, the dragons might have been the better option."

Spin suddenly laughed and elbowed Singer in the side hard enough to make him wince. "Check it out! He has your sense of humor!"

"You two can talk later," Singer interrupted. "You need to rest. Once you're a little more healed I have more questions for you, and I'm sure Spin will, too." He stepped forward to press a few buttons on a beeping machine next to the bed, but the girl stopped him.

"Oh come on, don't be such a hard ass. At least show him what you can do first."

With an exasperated sigh and a roll of his eyes, Singer nodded. There was a blurring of his features and in just a few seconds, Singer was replaced with an exact copy of Spin, albeit with baggier clothes.

"Are you happy now?" Singer still had the same voice as before, and it was more than a little disturbing to see and hear. Once Mycah's slightly delayed reaction of shock was clear on his face, Singer shifted back to his first shape.

"No."

"Too bad." Singer pressed one last button on the console, and Mycah felt his limbs suddenly feel heavier. He didn't try to fight the sedatives. He knew he needed more rest and was glad to get more, especially when he could be killed at any time, if he wasn't as useful as the Jack and Queen of Clubs thought he would be.

He wasn't sure how long he slept, but he woke up feeling rested and peaceful still in that same room. His sunburn was gone, he noticed, and the bandage was gone from around his right hand. Most of the dead and burnt skin was gone and there was the beginnings of a scar instead of an open wound. When he tried to flex his hand, however, only his thumb and pinkie finger moved fully. The middle three fingers barely twitched and even they they moved sluggishly. The brand on the back of his hand was deeper and worse than he had originally thought.

When the door to the small room opened, Mycah was instantly wary. He had seen the tattoos on the two who had talked to him before. He had been 'rescued' by one of the Suits, the gangs that made the desert even more unsafe than it was on it's own. He tried to sit up a little more as someone walked in.

"Oh good. I was hoping you were awake." The shapeshifter who called himself Singer shut the door quietly behind him. "Your name is Mycah, right?"

He nodded. "You're Singer, right?"

"Yeah. How's your hand?"

Mycah tried to flex it again, and found that it was still weak and unable to move right. "Not good. It doesn't hurt, but something in it is messed up."

"That's what I thought. That looks worse than most brands I've seen. Did you do something to get the interrogator that angry?"

"It was my brother," Mycah said flatly. "He had to make sure the others didn't think he was going easy on a family member." He felt a sneer on his face as he spoke and tried to hide it at first, before he remembered that out here in the desert, no one cared if you complained about life in the colonies.

Singer only only nodded understandably. "I'll make sure you get patched up before too long. But I came in here to discuss options with you."

"Options? What kind of options?"

"For surviving of course. You've only got two. And I want to say first of all that I won't outright kill you. But if you make the wrong choice, you'll be dead in hours anyway."

"So get on with it." He didn't want to be teased or messed with.

"The first choice you have, and the choice I'd warn you to stay away from, is to have us fix your hand, give you some supplies and kick you out. Someone would escort you away from one of the entrances, and then you'd be on your own with three days of water and food. I wouldn't be the one to choose where you're kicked out at, and it's possible that you'd end up near a wolf dragon den, or at one of the entrances that's monitored by one of the other Suits. You'd be caught and trawled within in inch of your life, if they didn't just destroy your brain in the process. And if that didn't happen, I highly doubt someone raised in one of the main colonies could make it three days even with supplies." Singer said all of this in a very matter-of-fact manner.

"And the other option?"

"You join us. You get a place to stay, safe here underground, and taught how to live in the desert. I'll also personally make sure your hand gets fixed. You might find a few other benefits as well, but even with that it's obviously the best choice. Also if you make the wrong choice, the King of Clubs, might just have you hauled out to the back caves and shot."

"What?! You said you wouldn't kill me!"

"Exactly. I won't kill you. But Spider is a different person altogether. He wasn't very happy that I didn't just leave you for dino chow. He wants you watched so it can be determined that you aren't some sort of spy or something." The shape-shifter still looked like he didn't really care either way.

"So this is my choice?" Mycah spat out.

"Of course. I can recommend the better decision at least..."

Mycah leaned back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. What choice? he thought. There was no choice. He wouldn't survive another day in the desert with just a few days of supplies, and he wasn't near another city to take refuge in. Since he was branded with Merimar's symbol, he'd never be allowed back in alive. Feeling like no matter what he said would be a bad idea, he finally answered.

"I'll stay."

Singer grinned. "Excellent. If you're healed enough to he awake, then you're healed enough for a tour. There's some clothes there at the foot of the bed. Get dressed and meet me in the hall."

Once Mycah was alone, he slowly got out of the bed and got to his bare feet. He was a little shaky and unsteady, but he could get around without a problem. There were clean clothes and shoes in a metal chest at the foot of the bed, and he got dressed. A black club was on the shoulder of a grey t-shirt but otherwise the outfit was plain and unmarked. It was a little difficult to get dressed with his injured hand, but not impossible.

When he got out into the hallway, Singer was waiting. "Before you go anywhere else, you need to get the club tattoo and a tracker. Once you have those, Spider is wanting to talk to you." He started walking, waving for Mycah to follow.

"You said Spider was the King of Clubs. Is he the leader?"

"For the most part. You'll meet him soon enough. But he'll refuse to talk to you unless you're 'officially' a club." Singer rolled his eyes. "So like I said, tattoo and tracker, then we can talk with Spider."

"Why the tattoo? And what kind of tracker?"

"The tattoo is tradition. You won't see a single one of us who doesn't have it." The hall that they walked through started to slope slightly up hill and the plain rock walls were painted a warm orange color instead of just showing the naked rock. "As for the tracker... in case you decide to run or go out and die in the desert, we need to get your body back before anyone else does."

"Why would you need a dead body?" He had a slight look of disgust on his face.

"It's a long story, and I don't want to have to tell you just to see you end up dead. Spider first, and if you live, then I'll explain. I think you'll like it, if you survive. Here we are." Before Mycah could ask any other questions, Singer turned to the side and opened a door in the orange rock.

"Luke?"

"Come on in." They walked in to a comfortable but clean room, where the man who answered to Luke was sitting at a table with a huge pad of paper in front of him, drawing a large and intricate design. Neither the paper or the quality of the artwork was what got Mycah's attention first, though. The light-haired man had full sleeves of tattoos on both of his arms, and all over his hands as well. In the colonies only criminals were tattooed, symbols of crimes not severe enough to get them branded and thrown out, but enough to warn others of what they had done. None of them matched the symbols he knew, though, but he still felt cautious as he stepped inside.

"Are you still working on that?" Singer went right up to the table to peer down at the paper, and seemed to be familiar with it.

"I haven't been paid yet. Seth agreed to get me a vial of FAME for the whole piece, but he hasn't delivered yet. God knows I'll need it to finish this one. As soon as he gets it to me, I'll be able to get it down on paper and bring him in, but for now it'll just look pretty on paper."

The two of them talked about a few others of who Mycah had to assume were other Club gang members as he stood near the door. He was carefully picking at the scabs on his right hand absentmindedly while he looked around when they finally remembered he was there.

"Anyway, I brought in a new one today. I'd appreciate it if you made it quick."

Luke stood up and held out his hand, and Mycah walked forward to awkwardly shake with his injured one. "Name's Luke."

"Mycah. He told me I'd be getting a tattoo from you?"

"Yeah, but there's no need to be so worried. It's just a simple one." He pulled up his left sleeve to show the basic design almost hidden within the others. "There's no way it's going to be as bad as that brand there." Mycah frowned when Luke misread his apprehension, but didn't say anything about it. "Go ahead and have a seat."

The room had a few comfortable looking chairs with small tables next to them. He sat down in the closest one and watched as Singer rifled through cabinets filled with bottles of brightly colored ink and plastic-wrapped packages. "Get him started and I'll set up the tracker." He finally pulled out a white plastic box with a green cross on it, just like a first aid kit. Satisfied with his find, he plopped down on one of the other chairs and propped his feet up on the table as he opened the box. Unfortunately the way he was sitting hid the contents.

"Double diamonds, huh?" Luke had pulled up a smaller desk chair and was putting his supplies out on the table. "We don't get many people from Merimar. They tend to be pretty soft. What got you kicked out?"

Mycah felt his jaw clench as he relived the painful memory and didn't say anything at first.

"Hey that's cool. Seems like it wasn't something you want to brag about." He put on a pair or thin latex gloves unwrapped a set of needles. "It's a nice change. Most people won't shut up about what they did to get branded."

"Ha. Speak for yourself." Singer smirked as he messed with the contents of the white plastic box. "Like you'd stay quiet if you got the chance to tell somebody about your tattoos." He started to laugh but it turned in to a cough.

Luke didn't respond, only turning on the tattoo gun as Singer cleared his throat. "I only tell if they ask," he finally muttered. He motioned for Mycah to pull up the short sleeve of his shirt and without much warning got started. It wasn't painful, compared to the branding. It mostly reminded him of scratching a bad sunburn.

"You didn't have to put down a pattern first?" Mycah looked down at the black outline slowly forming.

"Are you kidding? I've lost count of the times I've had to give this one out. When I was first picking up the trade this was all I was *allowed* to do. If anyone else were around I'd have given you to them."

Mycah was about to make a complaint when he thought Singer laughed again, but it was a loud cough that interrupted them.

"Sin, you doin' okay?" Luke didn't look up from his work, but sounded concerned.

"I'm fine," he answered harshly. His voice was coarse, and when he coughed again it sounded wet and nasty. "Just get him inked up already."

Not for the first time Mycah wondered why he seemed in such a hurry to do all this before he was shown to their leader. The way Singer put it, he seemed like he was trying to do all this so the King would think it was more trouble getting rid of him than letting him stay. At the same time he was mentally kicking himself for agreeing to all this. What in the world was he getting in to? So far the only reason he was staying was a threat to his life by a shapeshifter... Which sounded impossible, but he had seen it with his own eyes. The awkward quiet progressed with just the buzzing of the tattoo gun as he thought, until he decided to speak up.

"How could you do that? When you were there earlier... You turned in to that girl. Was that some sort of hologram or cloaking?" He looked over at the man in question, who had taken his feet off the table and was hunched over the box with a hand to the side of his chest.

"You tell him," Singer said tersely.

"He got the ability from a drug called FAME. The Clubs are the only one to manufacture it, along with most other drugs anyone would care to buy. It can give people different abilities, like Singer. We're also the only Suit to be able to let everyone try it at least once to see if it does anything. Stick around long enough and stay alive long enough and you'll get a dose or two."

"What about you? Did it do anything?"

"Nothing as dramatic as shape shifting. I got my motor skills and reflexes refined, which makes tattooing easier. Oh, and when Spider needs a long-range sniper he usually loads me up and sends me out. Haven't had to do that in a while though."

Just when Mycah was assuming that not everyone was going to be some sort of homicidal maniac, he was proven wrong. "Well... that's... good." He had no other idea on how to respond.

"Yeah, it's alright. It's a pain to take everything I need out, but it is pretty relaxing."

He didn't trust himself to make a reply to that.

"I'm finished loading up the information for the tracker," Singer interrupted. He stood up, but was slightly hunched over with his hand still held to his chest. In his other hand he had what at first looked like a piercing gun.

"I'm all done, too. If you're ready, by all means go ahead." Luke wiped away the last of the ink to reveal the same three-lobed club that was on his own shoulder. It was about two inches wide, with the skin around it slightly red and puffy.

"Perfect." With his free hand, Singer wiped his mouth and left a smear of red across his chin. Before Mycah could react, he grabbed his newly inked arm and plunged the large needle of the gun right in to the center of the tattoo. There was another stab of pain when he pulled the trigger. Only then was Mycah able to get out of the chair and stare at them both warily. Luke was calmly cleaning up his materials. Singer coughed again and while he covered his mouth with his hand, he wiped it on his shirt without thinking and left a smeared hand print of blood.

"Calm down, everybody gets one. If we need to find your body or make sure you're you, count on that to prove it."

"A little warning next time," he spat back. "What the hell's wrong with you anyway!? I don't want to get some weird disease or something!"

"It's not contagious. We've done what we need to here. I'll try and tell Seth to hurry up with that FAME," Singer promised Luke. "Let's go."

Mycah didn't want to go, but with Singer in obvious pain he didn't want to risk making his bad attitude worse. After a few seconds of stubbornly staying where he was, he followed.

As they walked through the hallways, the orange painted rock gradually faded to a soft yellow, and more people were walking around. Most of them looked like they'd fit in just fine in any colony, though they all had the club tattoo that he had. Some would stand out a little more, including people with obvious battle scars from laser burns and one or two with missing or replaced limbs. He tried not to stare.

The floor that they walked on kept sloping upwards, making him wonder just how far underground they were. Abruptly the people talking and going about their day around them were gone. Mycah was getting a bad feeling. His nerves weren't helped by Singers wheezing and coughing, or the red stain around his mouth that probably wouldn't go away until the bleeding- or what was causing it- stopped.

"Here." They stopped in front of a wooden door with the club symbol embossed in to it. He wanted to ask who could afford a door made of wood, one of the most scarce resources on Segunda Terra, but before he could Singer had already knocked and opened the door.

Mycah was led in to a room that felt cooler than the rest of the underground rooms he had been in. In front of him was an expensively large wooden desk with neat stacks of transparent e-papers and files on it, with two people behind it. One was sitting at the desk, eying Singer darkly. He looked almost washed out, with pale hair and skin, and even blue eyes that were so light as to be white. Even without the aura of authority around him, he had the small club tattoo under his eye to show his position. Behind him was standing someone in a hooded sweatshirt. The deep cowl hid their face completely but Mycah could still sense someone staring at him from the darkness.

"I had heard you found another one, Singer. What makes you think you had permission to bring him in after the last absolute failure?" His voice was quiet, but there was an edge to them that obviously was meant for the other leader.

"That wasn't a failure. I kept things contained-!"

"The spy poisoned half the water supplies before Spin took him down."

"It all got filtered out eventually..."

"It never would have happened if it weren't for you bringing him in! Or do I need to mention the one you decided to 'help' who brought down everyone not outside of the base with pentapox?"

"I had everything checked out, Spider. I checked for any sort of outside illness AND bugs of all kinds. I have this under control. Besides. You're forgetting about Spin, and your best friend behind you. I brought them in as well."

Mycah stood still and quiet to the side, not daring to move. Their confrontation was going to decide if he was accepted and stayed, or killed. He didn't take his eyes off the King, either, no matter how intimidating the icy gaze was. Looking in to the hidden face of the man behind him was worse.

"You have me there. But I'm not letting you take a chance with this one. Saber? Go get the patch." The man behind him nodded and without moving was suddenly gone. Mycah flinched but no one seemed to notice. Spider opened a drawer in the desk and took out a pair of think black gloves.

"Spin told me how badly his hand was injured. He can have these until he can have that fixed." He tossed the gloves to Singer who put them in his pants pocket. Once he had put them away, Saber blinked back in to place with a small metal box in his hands. "This is a patch to let me know exactly where he is, with more precision than the tracker he no doubt already has. If something, ANYTHING, happens that leads me to believe he or you is at fault, I'm not letting him get away without a chase. You." He turned to Mycah. "Roll up your sleeve."

He didn't really have a choice, not in a room with three people that could probably kill him as easily as look at him. Spider stood up from the desk after opening the metal box and taking out a thin silvery square. With no ceremony, he placed it on the skin of Mycah's upper arm, above the top lobe of the fresh tattoo. There was a sudden sting before the patch melted in to his skin and left nothing but a slight sheen to that small area.

"That will fade when I decide the decision you made to bring him in was a good one. Until then, you keep an eye on him. Saber will be looking after him too. Now get him to Mesa and get yourself taken care of. You waited too long to get that one removed."

With that dismissal, Singer saluted sarcastically and turned to leave, pushing Mycah in front of him. Once out in the hall Mycah watched as he shut the door and braced himself on the wall, coughing so hard his whole body shook.

"No one else is worried, but if you die, am I going to get blamed for it?"

Singer snorted loudly and spit out a glob of bloody sputum before he answered. "No. It's my own fault. Shapeshifting too often has consequences. It can give me a sort of cancer. I knew it was there but it's such a pain to get rid of." He poked himself in the chest and muttered something under his breath. "Let's get out of here before Saber decides he has to follow us."

Mycah didn't need any other incentive. It should have been obvious to him that there would be factions or disagreements among the leaders of the group.

"Oh. Before I forget." He took the gloves out of his pocket and handed them to Mycah. "These are for you. We got your hand checked out while you were asleep recovering. It doesn't move like it should, right?"

"Yeah. What will these do?"

"The one for your right hand reads nerve signals in your hand of how it should move, and it has nanomotors in there to give the injured tissues support. The other one is just a glove."

"Why did I get two?"

"So you don't like some dumbass who lost a glove." Singer was leading him deeper underground. They went to a wide elevator that zoomed even deeper, only lit momentarily by lights that zoomed by, set in to the rock of the elevator shaft. While they dropped Mycah put on the glove and was happy to find out that it did just what was promised. He noticed almost no difference between his left and right hand, although it felt painfully tight over the burned skin.

Mycah noted a change in the air as they dropped lower. Not only was it a cool air something that felt natural, not processed through an air conditioner, there was something else in the air. It made his skin feel clammy, like there was water in the air. It was something he had never really sense before, since the only humidity he had felt was in the shower and that was dried out almost as soon as it turned in to steam.

"Down here are most of the hydroponic gardens. I'm going to put you with another new recruit." He fought back a cough with a wince. "The work day is almost over. Stick with him until after dinner and by then I should be in good enough shape to show you your room." He made Mycah look up at him as he continued and the elevator slid to a stop. "Don't screw around. It'll be both of our heads if something goes wrong. Got it?" He nodded quickly and followed him out of the elevator when the grate opened up. He almost couldn't continue as he saw where he they had gone.

Inside was an entire cavern filled with the most water Mycah had ever seen in one place in his entire life. There were rows and rows of clear plastic troughs, all of them filled with plants of various sizes and types. Each of them was filled with clear, bubbling water almost to the top. There was a second 'floor' to the cavern as well, with even more plants growing on scaffolding about twenty feet above the floor. The rows and scaffolds themselves were arranged in a radial pattern from a central point. That was where Singer was leading Mycah. A staircase ran around that point in a tight spiral.

Once on that top level he could really see the size of the cave, but he didn't much time to look. He was led to a woman with her hair in a multitude of tiny braids, woven in with beads. Her skin was so dark he almost couldn't see the club tattoo on her arm or a tattoo in deep green of a seven-leafed plant behind it. She looked him up and down quickly, and didn't seem satisfied with what she saw.

"I see you dragged another one out of the desert," she said crisply with an accent he couldn't quite place.

"He was raised in the colonies. If I let him get eaten by the dragons he'd just poison then. And I know how you love all that nature-y crap." Singer held his side and looked irritated, but the insult sounded like it was more a term of endearment than anything else.

"My plants are the only 'nature-y' things I care about and you know that. Now unless you plan on getting some work done, get out."

Singer was quick to leave Mycah there with her and hobble down the steps, no doubt in a hurry to get the cancer in his chest removed.

"So what's your name?"

"Mycah," he answered right away.

"No last name?" He shook his head. He didn't want to have anything to do with that name anymore, especially with anyone else who shared it. "Understandable. I'm Mesa. I head the entire growing operation for inedible greenery and I run it with tight reins. If you can work well with directions and do what you're told, then you'll do just fine down here." She started walking across the narrow scaffolding like it was solid ground, and Mycah hurried to keep up with her as quickly as he dared.

"You'll be working with another new one. He's on Ben's team working on cleaning out the mineral filters. I'm not sure if anyone has told you, but the day for working is almost over. You'll be helping them clean up." She pointed out a group of four people working with metal brushes to clean out a wide mesh filter that barely fit on the scaffolding floor. "There should be an extra set of gear with them. Help them finish up."

"And after?"

Mesa thought for a moment before answering. "Stick with Sandy and Tor. I'm sure that Sin will find you when he's ready. If he gives you any trouble, tell him I sent you with him."

The group paused in their work as the two of them approached. Mycah immediately noticed someone who stood out. A man about his height and age, who looked extremely bored and uninterested in his work, stared at him with flat grey eyes. It wasn't that which stood out- it was his skin. It was almost the same color as his eyes: grey like the color of pencil led on white paper. Someone else stepped forward as the leader; Mycah assumed that was Ben.

"So this is the new kid?" He actually seemed friendly, compared to some of the other people he had already met that day.

"It is. He'll be helping you finish up. I'll let you take over from here." Before anyone could say anything else, Mesa was half hanging off of the scaffolding, yelling loudly at someone pruning a large plant down on the ground level.

"I'm Ben. Over there's Tor," he said as he gestured to the grey-skinned guy, "and that's Sandy. He'll show you where the extra tools are."

Mycah nodded, and finally realized why Ben looked so disconcerting. His pupils were entirely white. He looked like he should have been totally blind. He didn't get the chance to ask about it, or even consider if it would have been rude to ask, before Sandy called him over.

"Hey! I'm Sandy." He shook Mycah's hand enthusiastically, and led him over to a row of buckets a few feet away from where they were working. "We're just scraping out the filter today, and that's almost done. The hard part will be putting that back. It nearly knocked Ben off the platform and that was with Tor holding up most of the weight." He hardly took a breath for Mycah to be able to respond to anything that he said. Sandy looked in to one of the buckets and took out a metal brush to hand to him.

"So what exactly are we doing?" He hefted the metal brush in his injured hand and looked over at the mesh filter. It had traces of chalky material along the edges, and Ben and Tor were still brushing it through the mesh on to a cloth below it.

"Just pushing the filtered minerals through and taking those down to be recycled." Ben moved out of the way as they got to the filter. It was mostly cleaned out and Mycah joined Sandy in scraping the chalky material through the fine grate. "So who are you? How'd you get out here? Was that *Singer* who brought you in?"

"Take a breath before you pass out again." Tor didn't look up as he spoke flatly. At first Mycah thought he was joking, but Sandy looked dissatisfied and irritated, though it didn't last for long. During the short silence he hurried to answer the questions before he was interrupted.

"My name's Mycah, I walked, and yeah it was."

"That's awesome! Have you seen him turn in to someone else? Isn't that freaky?" He worked enthusiastically as he spoke, and Tor seemed to only tolerate him.

"It is pretty weird." Mycah found himself answering the questions simply so Sandy would stop for a few seconds. "How'd you end up here?" He thought he might ask, since the other didn't appear to think it was rude.

"I got recruited." He paused in his work to show the backs of his hands. On each one was the same symbol: a flying dragon with wings outspread, the symbol for the colony of Dorn. "I got kicked out once, but I didn't want to leave. So I snuck back in and kept working. I don't understand how everyone gets all angry when you manufacture and sell your own tech when it's cheaper and better than what the state sells. When they caught me again I was surprised I didn't get hanged. I think they got paid off by Singer, because he brought me here as soon as I was out of the city limits."

"Wow... Why would you go back?"

"I didn't want to leave all my stuff there. They'd burn it or give it to someone who would have no idea how to treat my tools! I went back and started stashing it outside, but then I kept getting distracted and got caught again."

Tor barely rolled his eyes and it was then that Ben stepped over, looking down at the filter. Mycah still didn't understand how he could see, but didn't comment.

"That's good enough, I think. Let's get this back in to the pipe." He pointed to a pipe mounted on the cave wall a few feet away, where the scaffolding was also attached. "I'll bolt it in if you three can hold it in place."

Sandy took the lead in tilting the round heavy filter on it's side and rolling it to just under where it needed to be lifted. Mycah and Tor helped lift it while he made sure it went to the right place. It took a good ten minutes before they could put down the heavy filter and let it support itself and by that time Mycah felt his burned hand aching under the glove.

"You guys are good to go," Ben said from sitting on top of the large water pipe. "Nice work." He nodded appreciatively to Mycah.

"See you tomorrow!" Sandy looked like he was ready to run out along with most of the other people filtering towards the large elevator. "You guys ready to go eat or what? I don't know about you but I'm starving."

"I'll meet you in the dining room. I have to speak with Mesa." Tor spoke up from behind them.

"Oh... yeah that's fine. I'll save you a seat." Mycah noticed that Sandy suddenly looked troubled, though he tried to shake it off. "Let's get out of here before we have to take the second elevator. Something musta died in there 'cause it smells funky." He hurried away from Tor still grumbling, but glanced back to take a look at his odd friend and the leader of the garden cave talking quietly. Only then did he realize that Sandy was jealous. Obviously he had a thing for Mesa, though most likely it was unrequited or just plain unknown.

By the time they got to the lift, Sandy was back to what Mycah suspected was his usual upbeat self. "So which colony did you come from? I've seen those gloves before; they read neural impulses to enhance movement. You'd only have that because you got it here, since it's not a government issued pair, and you'd only get it here because you got branded badly enough to damage the muscles and tendons in your hand."

Mycah blinked a few times. "How did you know that?"

"Duh. Anyone could have figured it out. So where you from?"

"Merimar. I got caught with second hand counterfeit goods... it actually had a red diamond mark on it and that probably made it worse. Didn't help that the inquisitor had a personal grudge."

Sandy winced. "Oh yikes. That sucks... Well at least you didn't get found by one of the other Suits when you walked out here. We may be the smallest group, but we take care of our own. Those other groups are bigger and they don't care about the new guys."

"I guess that's... good... How long have you been here?"

"About six months? And Tor got here a little bit before I did."

Mycah paused as they stepped out of the elevator and in to the hall. Everyone was going in the same general direction, to a dining hall or cafeteria, he guessed. "What- What is he? I mean..." He shook his head, there wasn't really any way to ask that any more tactfully.

"Do you remember the big deal everyone made about something proposed a few years ago? With the bigwigs at the poles wanting to raise funding for research on engineering humans to be able to live in the desert easier?"

"Yeah. If I remember it right, they never made it past the planning stage. What does that have to do with-"

"They had already done it," Sandy interrupted. "Created humans who could survive in the desert almost as well as the native species. Tor's mom was one of them, and his dad was just some guy I guess. He's told me his mom looked normal, but somehow he turned out, you know, the way he is now." He suddenly laughed. "Oh man, you should ask about how he escaped from the south pole. I'd tell you but I'd just ruin the story; you have to ask him."

He shrugged, not giving a concrete answer. In the short hour he'd worked with Tor, the guy had given him the major creeps. But Sandy so far was nice enough and more outgoing than Singer- and he felt more trustworthy too. If Sandy was friends with him, and no one else was bothered by him, he figured Tor couldn't be /that/ bad.

"Don't forget to save a seat for him," Sandy reminded him.

"Hey, Sandy! New kid!" From behind them a familiar voice made them stop. They turned around to see Ben hurrying through the loose crowd to meet up with them. For a split second Mycah was sure he saw someone in a hooded shirt a few yards behind Ben, but as soon as he noticed it the person, real or just a worried trick of his mind, was gone.

"Did we forget something in the garden?" Sandy asked when he caught up to them.

"No, but I'm about to get some people together to go investigate an old mine shaft. You remember how we found that stash of old school tech last year? The one that Mesa said was from some broken down interstellar that got stolen? I think I found another one, or something close to it. I'm not sure when everyone will be free, but are you guys up to it? Tor's included too."

"Oh! I remember hearing about that. There was some really cool stuff in that cache. Yeah I'm in. Tor won't complain if I drag him around. Mycah, you wanna come?"

He hesitated at first. But, if he didn't make friends, he wouldn't get used to this new home. Even if he had no choice to be there he could still do that, right?

"Yeah. Sure."

"Awesome. I don't have enough people ready though, so I'll get back to you when we're all ready to go." With that he was out of there, joining another group of his friends.

"Come on. We're almost there." Sandy's stomach growled loudly.

Mycah followed him as he picked up his pace. When they walked through a set of swinging double doors he was greeted by the sight of another massive cavern. It wasn't as tall as the cave with all the 'inedibles' as Mesa put it, but it was still huge, full of tables and chairs, and people in some sort of grey shirt with a club mark somewhere on it. Sandy showed him to a long window set in to the wall where others were serving something that smelled delicious. He didn't get to choose himself, though, since Sandy decided that it was his job to rattle off what was the best and the worst of the food. Only when they both had plates full of what he claimed was roasted herbivorous dinosaur that they raised in the lower levels and fresh greens did they find a table with three free seats and sit down.

"Do you have a room assignment yet?" Sandy only spoke between mouthfuls of his inhaled food.

"No. I don't think so anyway. I was just in the medical wing, I think."

"Well if nobody gives you a place to crash, I think Tor and I can find a place for you in our room. Honestly, sometimes, I'm not even sure he actually sleeps..." He looked at his food suspiciously for a few seconds. "Speak of the devil..."

"And he shall appear," finished Tor. He sat down in the spare seat with his own food. "Mesa needed me to check the quality of the water leaving the hydroponic systems and entering the drinking water filtration."

"Yeah. Whatever. Be glad we saved you a seat." Tor didn't notice the irritation in Sandy's voice and just nodded solemnly.

Mycah's companions didn't seem to mind eating in silence for a few minutes as the cafeteria buzzed around them with talk. He followed Sandy to a series of trays to drop off their empty plates, and when he got back Singer was waiting at the table.

"I see you're already making friends. I came up here to make sure you could find your new room." The sight of the Queen of Clubs put him on edge, but he tried to hide it. He also noticed that Singer's cough and pained look was gone. The removal of the shapeshifting-caused tumor must have been such a routine that he was in and out of the medical wing without much issue.

"Is he gonna be in the art museum with us?" Sandy asked, looking slightly awestruck at Singer.

"Art museum?" Mycah looked befuddled; why would a drug dealing gang have an art museum?

"You'll see," Sin said with a chuckle. "You two, let's go. I want Mycah to stick with you two and work with you for the next few days. That includes getting used to the schedule here. It can take some people a while to get used to a routine without natural daylight." He said it like he was just stating fact, but Mycah had a feeling it was a subtle clue to him.

With that the four of them left the dining room out of one of the many entrances. It was quietly busy in the halls. Everyone looked like they knew where they were going in the complex underground maze and Mycah was still amazed at how many people he saw there. Even if there were more than this in the other groups like Sandy said, there was still a huge amount of people in this Suit.

Eventually they got to an area that was no longer painted in shades of orange, yellow and red. There were areas painted in skillful murals, others with scribbled drawings and stick figures, and others were it looked like someone had just thrown buckets of paint on the walls. Only one thing looked consistent, and that was a single word painted and drawn, covered up with various paintings and covering over other paintings itself.

"Destroya? What's that mean?"

Singer rolled his eyes. "Some stupid legend that somehow stuck around from when the Clubs were first founded. I'm sure someone else will tell you about it." They passed someone with a bucket of bright neon green paint splashing that word over and over again on the wall with shaky motions, covering up some sort of drawing of two fighting wolf dragons. When he looked over at the four of them approaching, the painter's bloodshot eyes widened and he pointed at Mycah with the brush, splashing him with a few drops of green paint.

"You! It's you!! Destroya! The crow-black king!"

"Back off!" Singer took a sharp step forward, and suddenly looked like he was taller than before. "No one is Destroya!"

The shaking painter flinched and scrambled back, but never let his eyes leave Mycah. A little farther down the hall Singer was back to his normal size and in a sour mood. They got to a dead in in the rock where he showed them two doors.

"The last one is yours, Mycah. The next door is theirs." He pointed to Sandy and Tor, the latter who was already walking in to his room. "Like I said, stick with them for a few days. Once you're settled in, I'll be back to talk with you more." With that he was gone, giving a sneering look to the one they passed in the hall.

"Come on. I can tell you what's up with that guy, but... we shouldn't talk out here." Sandy spoke in hushed tones as he hurried Mycah in to the room he shared with Tor.

Once they were in the room, Mycah discreetly looked around. It was small, carved in to the rock like every other room in the underground complex. The main area had a couple of tables with tangles of wires, metal and tools that he had a good feeling were Sandy's. On the other side of the room was a simple but comfortable chair and set of books that Tor was near, looking through the titles for one to read. In a back area he could see two other rooms separated by a low wall with a bed on each side.

Sandy shut the door behind them and pulled out a plastic folding chair for himself and Mycah. "So what exactly has Mycah told you about FAME?"

Mycah shrugged. "Not much. That it's what made him able to shape shift, and it can do freaky stuff like that to anyone, I guess."

"That's sort of it... Tor, stop me if I forget something."

"Sure thing." He was reading a scraggly paperback book and taking notes on a pad of paper sitting on the arm of the chair, not looking very interested at all. Mycah doubted he was ever really interested in anything.

"So Destroya and FAME go together in a really weird way. Destroya has been around since the founding of the Clubs, when FAME was created and perfected. You saw what Singer could do, right? It can do stuff like that to other people too. Ben got something pretty cool but a little less flashy. His eyes are blind. He can't see like you or I can, but he can see in other ways, with wavelengths that are usually invisible to humans."

"And it's because of a drug?"

"FAME is no ordinary drug. The other Suits pay out the nose to get their hands on it. Now what happened to Ben and Singer, those are two totally different things, right? Almost nothing that happens to people ever happens to others. But there is one thing that's been consistent for the past... what, fifty years?"

"Sixty-two," Tor amended from his chair.

"Right. The only thing that's been the same is that some people claim to have visions when they're high on FAME. Like that guy out in the hall, right? Almost all of them see someone called Destroya. I get some free time every once in a while, and I did a little research, just sort of by word of mouth and in the public files. The words most associated with it are 'king,' 'crow,' black,' and various tenses of the word 'destruction.'"

"Three of those four things that guy said to me."

"I noticed. So did Singer. He's the only reason I didn't find out more. He stopped me in my tracks. Something about Destroya he doesn't like. I think he believes that Destroya is coming... a lot of us do." Sandy eyed Mycah thoughtfully for just a moment. "In all my research lots of people have claimed to be Destroya, but no one in the thralls of a vision has ever said someone ELSE was."

Mycah was a little unsettled by what Sandy what suggesting and he shook his head. "What is Destroya supposed to be anyway?"

"No one really knows. Everyone who has had the visions claims it's a person who will bring upset to the world." Sandy's ditzy personality was a cover, intentional or not, over sharp intelligence. He still looked at Mycah oddly, like he was weighing everything he'd heard against him.

"The guy was high on some super drug," Mycah hurried to say. "Do you really think he knew what he was talking about?"

"I do. And if anyone else but us saw, it would be big news, you know?. Singer'll do all he can to keep it a secret, and if you're lucky, he'll forget all about it by the time he sobers up." By that point, Sandy noticed Mycah's skepticism and finally rolled to a stop in his rant.

"So what about you two? Have you tried that stuff yet?"

Tor shook his head silently while Sandy shrugged ruefully. "They save that for when they think you're ready. Basically by the time you've proven you aren't expendable any more. It's expensive stuff, yeah?"

"Sure... So is that all this place does? Make drugs?"

"Just about. The split between the Suits is what caused it. Too many people were killed in fights over stuff like who got money for growing what, for making what, for selling something stolen. So Clubs are in the drug trade, Diamonds deal with weapons, Spades manufacture goods, and Hearts are in spying. I don't know much more about the other Suits but what's common knowledge, though. If you wanted more info you'd have to ask someone like Singer."

"No thanks. I think I'm okay." He put up his hands defensively before he realized what he was doing. He noticed that he still had on the gloves that helped his hand and tugged them off, wincing when the scabs on the back of his right hand caught on the inside fabric. "Actually, I think I'm going to go to my room and get some sleep."

"Sure thing. We'll wake you up when it's time for breakfast." Sandy was turned to his tables of metal, tinkering with some pieces before Mycah was even out of the door. Tor was silent, but nodded towards him as he left.

In the short time that Mycah had spoken with Sandy, the painter outside had run out of paint and started to scratch the word Destroya in to the many layers of paint with his brush, after ripping all the bristles out. He was still working feverishly. Mycah edged around him to get by without catching his notice and snuck inside his own room.

It wasn't much different than the other room. There was a couch and small desk in the front portion of the room, and in the back was a bed and a door to a small bathroom. He quickly cleaned up and got in bed, exhausted even though he had only been up a few hours. He fell asleep quickly even in the new environment and slept hard, with no dreams or waking up in the middle of what he assumed to be night.

"You know if you sleep this deeply all the time you'll be dead in a week."

Mycah opened up his eyes squinted to see someone leaned over him and poking his cheek. After a few seconds he recognized the face and sat upright, trying to wake up all the way. For the first time in his life he felt self-conscious without a shirt in front of the Jack of Clubs. He grabbed his shirt from the foot of the bed where he had tossed it carelessly the day before and put it on, fumbling a little when he forgot that his right hand didn't work the way it should have.

"What are you doing here?"

"Giving you some advise. Why else do you think I would be in your room?" She gave him an innocent look that didn't have very innocent implications behind it. "Singer and Spider are giving you some attention and I decided to see what the big deal was. They think you're pretty hot stuff."

"Don't ask me why. They haven't bothered to tell me."

Spin chuckled and crossed her arms, her short stature almost not allowing her to look down on him as she stood and he sat on the bed. "Just remember to keep your place when you need to. Saber wouldn't hesitate to kill you if he thought you were mouthing off, unless he thought there'd be a fair fight. He never likes to take chances."

"Why are you telling me this?" He wasn't sure what she could do... he didn't want to risk finding out what power had gotten her one of the four positions of leadership in the bloodthirsty gang, so he had to listen to her 'advice.'

"Because I don't like any of them. Singer's okay, I guess, but Saber's too big for his boots and Spider..." She shook hear head, apparently there were other issues among the four that he couldn't guess at. "I just want to make sure you stay alive long enough to screw with them. Is that so bad?"

"No. Not if it keeps me alive."

She laughed and for a few seconds looked like nothing more than a cute girl laughing at a good joke. "Singer was right, you are going to be fun. I'm sure I'll be seeing you again, Mycah." She blew him a kiss and left with a self-satisfied smile on her face.

When his door shut he flopped back and glared at the ceiling. Maybe it would have been a better idea to risk walking back out in to the desert... The light in his room was dim, only coming from the bathroom with the door cracked. He closed his eyes to try and get a few more minutes of sleep, unsure of what time it was, when there was a loud banging on the door.

"Rise and shine!!" Sandy opened the door as Mycah covered his face from the light he turned on. "You ready to work?" He was grinning and cheerful for having gotten out of bed too recently and that made Mycah even more irritated.

"No."

"Too bad! When Mesa expects you to show, you better damn well show up. I can speak to that experience. I *still* get flashbacks to what she dosed me with. Come on, get up! We'll be late for breakfast, and you don't want to miss that, yeah?"

Mycah groaned and finally sat up. There was a metal chest at the foot of his bed filled with clothes and laundry bags, along with directions on how to turn it in. He pushed that to the side and got dressed, almost forgetting to grab his gloves before following Sandy out. Tor was waiting for them in the hall, his so far ever-present look of apathy still in place.

The morning turned out to be the usual routine for Sandy and Tor, and Mycah too. Breakfast was followed by work in the edible gardens, a separate cavern away from the inedible gardens. From what he saw growing in each, he had to guess that inedible meant what they used for growing the ingredients for drugs, and edible for their food supply. He was surprised to see that there wasn't much overlap between the two. After a rest break during the middle of the day where a few Clubs had homemade hammocks strung between the pipes and supports in the twenty to thirty foot high ceiling, they moved to the other garden.

After the work day was over, most people were left to their own devices. Mycah found that Tor was working on piecing together a few ancient manuscripts from Earth, and Sandy worked with his seemingly disorganized and tangled parts to assemble tiny removable implants that he sold and traded with. The doors to the other rooms in the Art Museum stayed open until late at night, with people going in and out of rooms to chat and hang out until late in the night. Mycah spent most of his time helping Sandy get the pieces in order for the implants until he got curious enough to ask what they were three or four days later.

"Oh these?" Sandy held up a finished piece that he just soldered together. It resembled a small coin; one side smooth and matte, and the other with tiny barbs and a dab of medical adhesive. "It's a monitoring device, yeah? You tripped the sensors on the entrance the same way these do. They sense large living organisms and warn you with a small tactical sensation." When he saw Mycah's blank look he rolled his eyes. "You stick it to the back of your neck and you get a little shock when someone is within a few feet of you. Try it on." He tossed it over to him, and Mycah placed it on the nape of his neck.

Almost instantly he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up and he felt an intense rush of paranoia for a few seconds. When that passed, he felt the little sensor tingling a little. Sandy stood up and walked closer, and the feeling became more sharp and insistent. When he sat down, it went back to the electric tingle. Once the demonstration was over, he quickly plucked it away and put it back on the table.

"Those sold pretty big back home. I actually have a permanent one, a little more sensitive, that I based these off of." He tapped the back of his neck. "There's a huge market that's going to be set up soon. Singer told Tor and I we'd get to go to this one, and since I don't have any money I figured I'd make a few of these." He continued to babble on about the market over the next day, and how it was a huge mishmash of Suits members, plain old outlaws, desperate colonial citizens, and even some Crows.

"Wait, Crows? Have you ever met any?" Mycah punched out another set of metal pieces and set them in a row for Sandy to fill with tiny chips and solder together.

"Only once. When I was being escorted out here, we crossed paths with a small group of them. They can be downright invisible when they want to be! And they don't talk either. Kinda freaky, yeah?" He stuck out his tongue as he concentrated for a few seconds. "Singer was able to talk to one with hand signals and sign language. I don't know what they said, but one of the other Clubs with us told me that Singer got his name because of some weird story... Did you ever hear it, Tor?"

Tor paused in his writing and shook his head. "Enlighten us."

"Well the story goes that Singer is called that because at first he could only imitate voices, not shapes. When he got a new voice to use, they said that he stole someone's tongue and gave them to the Crows."

"Somehow... that almost sounds legit." Mycah shook his head. "Do they really help people they find out in the desert?"

"That's what I heard. Though it depends on why you need help. You would have gotten it just fine I think, but they won't go back to help any of their own that broke their creed, or people that have betrayed them at some point. It's hard to say, sometimes they help people you or I would kill outright but then deny someone else who would die otherwise." He shook his head. "I can't really say. I did hear that the Clubs are the only Suit that they take members from, others they'll help out and send on their way. Maybe that's how Singer knew how to talk to them, yeah?" Sandy sounded like he was more talking to himself at that point.

"We'll probably never find out," Mycah added on. Standing up to stretch, he nearly lost his balance and fell when a hooded figure appeared right outside the doorway, absolutely silently. It could be no one else but Saber. His face was invisible in the deep hood, but he still raised a finger up to his mouth in silence. When Mycah finally found his voice and tried to get Sandy or Tor's attention, he was gone.

"Did you see that?!" He cursed and ran out in to the riotously painted hall, but Saber was gone

"Hey, see what? Where you going?" Sandy poked his head out the door way as Mycah ran as far as the paint did, shoving a few people out of the way.

"Damn it!" He had lost him, if there was even a chase to begin with. The normally talkative hallway was quiet as everyone stared at Mycah for a few seconds. He let out another cuss before walking back to Sandy's room. "I know it sounds stupid," he mumbled, "but I KNOW that Saber has been following me." He had kept his surprise meeting with Spin a secret until then, but after closing the door, he quietly told them what had happened.

"Wonder why they think you're so important." Sandy listened and ate the story up, though Tor looked a little more skeptical. Although he wasn't sure if it was just how he looked all the time and his mind was putting more emotion on to the face than there actually was.

"I don't know. If I did I probably wouldn't be so freaked out by a teleporting freak." His agitation was affecting the glove he wore over his injured hand, which while the skin was nearly healed, was still lame. Even after stripping it off in frustration he couldn't concentrate enough with the limited mobility he had. "I have to get outta here." He dropped the small instruments he was working on and left before he got too frustrated to stay there peacefully.

Without waiting for any sort of answer, Mycah was gone, leaving the Art Museum at a brisk walk. He had gotten enough of a feel of the place to be able to get back there, or at least trace his steps if he found himself in an unfamiliar place. He followed the paint on the walls, which got darker as it dropped lower and lower beneath the surface. By the time the walls were a dark green and he was shivering in the damp air did he finally stop.

His breath fumed in front of him as he tried to cool down, physically and mentally. It was bad enough that he was forced to join this gang, even if so far it was way better than living in the city. But why were the super-powered leaders after him so badly? He had a feeling it all went back to Singer, but he had disappeared after sending him off with Sandy and Tor. There wasn't a way for him to question someone who wasn't there.

Mycah spent a good hour pacing and muttering dark words about what he would do if he could get his hands on the shapeshifter or the teleporter before he finally was too cold to stay down there any longer. As he was starting to head up the gentle slope to warmer halls, he felt a sudden sensation that he was being watched.

"Good luck catching him first." Spin walked around a corner to stand in front of him. "We'll have to get you a trophy if you do catch him; not even Saber can seem to keep track of him."

The sight of the face card had him in a rage again almost right away. "What the hell do you fucking want?! I didn't want to be here! I never asked for this!" He marched up to her, looming over her short frame and shouting so that his echoes could be heard quite a few hallways away. Almost every word was punctuated with a finger stabbed towards her.

Her easy going expression disappeared and when she opened her mouth, Mycah was frozen for a few seconds. "**If you touch me, you will die.**"

After a moments he shook himself out of his stupor and his glare intensified. "What, am I supposed to believe that?" He reached out to push her back, but a sudden fear gripped him and stopped his hand from a few inches away. Something deep in his instincts told him that touching her would mean death as surely as a pack of hungry wolf dragons. Shaken from the sudden feeling, he took a step back.

"Now shut up and listen. I came to try to help you." Her voice was back to normal. "Sin's gone. He's off on some bullshit mission that he made up a few days ago. I think he planned on leaving you hanging to see how you could handle the stress. As for Saber... he's as readable as your friend with the grey skin." She roughly pulled her hair out of it's loose ponytail and tied it back again. "I didn't know he'd be messing with you, but he is supposed to keep an eye on you."

"Are you still doing this so I can screw up your bosses plans?" he shot back.

"Yes and no. Singer forgot to change his passwords and I broke into his stuff. He has something on you that's important, but I have to make sure first. I think the others found out about it. If Sin's notes are right, then you'll be in a lot of danger. Honestly, after hearing what happened to you in Merimar, I don't think that's fair to take you from one place like that to another. Also, if he is right, you'll be in plenty of danger later on anyway. If you and I can keep Sin on his toes, that should be good enough for now."

"Is anyone ever going to talk to me like I actually know what's going on?" Mycah rolled his eyes and turned his back to take a few steps away.

"I'm sure you'll find out soon enough." There was another change in her voice. "**You won't die. Dumbass.** I'm not as useless as you think I am." There was a little bit of sting to those words... was she actually hurt that he had implied that she had no influence compared to the other three leaders? Feeling confused and dizzy over the powerful girl and the way she had used her words against him, Mycah headed back up to his room. By the time he got there most people had their doors shut for the night. There was another painter in the hallway, someone he didn't recognize. They were struggling to open a can of paint with shaking fingers.

"Having some trouble?"

It was clear that the guy trying to paint was high on something, though whether or not it was FAME, he wasn't sure. He nodded mutely at Mycah, who knelt down and opened the new paint. "Try not to make too much of a mess," he advised futilely.

"Destroya will save us and destroy us at the same time," he whispered, eyes not leaving Mycah's as he dipped his hands right in to the black paint. "Can you hold the world up on your wings?"

"Keep that paint away from my door," he warned wearily. By the time he finished speaking the painter was already smearing the black ink all over the wall in no discernible pattern.

Mycah wasn't able to get much sleep that night. Even when he was lying in bed there were too many conflicting thoughts running through his head. Why were the leaders of the Clubs so focused on him? And why did Spin seem so worried about him? And even with her power to make him, and presumable anyone, believe anything she said, there was still something about her... Something dangerous and alluring that none of the few girls he had been with in the colony ever had.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid..." He smushed his pillow over his face and growled in to it. Being attracted to her was like trying to kiss a wolf dragon... he'd end up hurt, at best, and dead if anything went wrong in the slightest. He forced himself to stop thinking about it and try to rest, though that didn't feel very successful. He felt like he was only asleep a few seconds before being woken up by Sandy's early morning enthusiasm.

"Hey! Guess what? Ben was here this morning and he told us about that hidden cache he said he found!"

"Do you really want me to kill you?" Mycah pressed the pillow to his face again, not wanting to get up.

"Aw you wouldn't do that. Not until after we go look for that cache. He said that no one else was able to go with him, so it'll just be us four. It'll be fun, yeah?"

Mycah wasn't sure how much he appreciated being included in this without being asked, but decided just to go with it. It's not like he had anything better to do. Eventually he got up and dressed, ready to go. Something soured his mood for the worst as he was leaving to head towards the gardening caverns... On the other side of the hallway, right across from his door, was the result of the painting he had inadvertently helped with the night before. The painter was passed out asleep on the floor, his arms stained black to the elbows, and above him was a silhouette of a man with large black wings outspread, and halo that seemed to be casting shadow over the entire thing. Sandy took a picture of it with a tiny camera he tossed back in his room.

"What? I like to keep track of these things. Besides, it's just going to be painted over, yeah?"

Mycah rolled his eyes, and the day went like normal, if a little more talkative than usual with Sandy talking so much about what they'd be doing later that night.

By the time the lunch break rolled around Mycah thought he was ready to knock Sandy out just to get him to shut up about it, and even though he didn't really show it, apparently Tor agreed. He interrupted Sandy, asking him something to distract him.

"Why don't you go by your real name?"

"Oh! Mycah doesn't know, does he?" He looked excited to brag about his name, real or otherwise. "One time I got lost outside the city when I was younger... no one stopped me from walking out and my mom was pissed, yeah?" He stopped to laugh for a second. "When I was gone, a huge sandstorm rolled through, and when I finally made it back I was covered by that dirt and dust." He tugged at a lock of his hair. "My hair used to be blonde before and now it's the color of the desert sand. My name used to be Tanner, and since then everyone called me Sandy."

Mycah blinked a few times, having to go back to think over what Sandy said to catch it all. "So has he actually passed out while talking?" he asked Tor.

Tor nodded with a knowing look on his face.

"H-hey! That only happened once!" Sandy's cheeks were red for a few seconds. "I woke up right away..."

The two of them continued to make fun of Sandy, who had fun bantering back. By the time they were done with the day's work, Mycah had to admit that he was kind of looking forward to going with the others to look for this supposed hidden treasure of sorts. It also kept his mind off of the dilemma he'd been exposed to the night before concerning Spin. Ben caught them as they were heading towards the large elevators out.

"Hey, go ahead and go up like normal, but don't go far. I'll meet you up there and show you where we're going next." The trio obeyed the instructions, and loitered around the entrance to the lifts while waiting for Ben. It didn't take long for him to show up, beckoning them down the passage.

"Come on, it's down this way. I have to say I'm going to owe you guys one. I didn't want to go down this way by myself, Some of the old tunnels are unstable, and if this is another interstellar, there might be booby traps that were set by the crew or automatically by the ship."

Sandy snickered and Mycah rolled his eyes. "He just said-"

"I know what he said."

A few confusing twists and turns later, Ben led them to a derelict elevator that was much smaller than the one that they used to get to the gardens. "This is it. I had to mess around with the wires a little, but it gets to the right floor." He forced the doors open with a rusty squeak and banged on a panel inside to make the lights flicker on. "I don't need the lights, but you probably do."

"So how far down is this abandoned tunnel?" Mycah asked.

Ben took out a switchblade from his pocket and used the blade to pop out the same panel he used to force on the lights. "A few dozen feet down. Not that far compared to how far down the gardens and stables are."

There was a sudden lurch as he started to power up the elevator and it dropped a few feet before stopping. After that the descent started to move in a slightly more stable rate, though all of them were supporting themselves on the walls. The bumpy ride lasted a few minutes before stopping with an ear-piercing squeal that had them all wincing. Ben pushed the doors open again to show a dark yawning tunnel. Neither Mycah, Sandy or Tor looked eager to go out, but Ben walked right out and disappeared, the lack of light not a hindrance with his FAME-altered eyes.

Suddenly a few rows of lights turned on and revealed him at a large switch a few yards in to the tunnel. The only things in the roughly carved tunnel were a few crates and discarded tools. "There should be a few flashlights in one of these crates, I think. I didn't get the chance to go through all of them."

The trio stepped out in to the tunnel, and Sandy immediately started to rummage through the boxes, tossing aside handfuls of packing material. "Found some! No batteries though..." Mycah and Tor started looking through the other boxes. No one noticed that Ben had walked towards the elevator and was now standing inside.

"Better look quick. The lights are on an automated switch."

"What? What are you talking about?" Sandy stood up and frowned, torches in his hands.

"They'll turn off in a few minutes. Ten? Fifteen? Five? I'm not really sure." He had a smirking grin on his face as he shut the elevator doors. "You better find those batteries." The elevator whirred to life and suddenly it was gone, leaving only an empty shaft.

"We should hurry." For once it was Tor who spoke up. "If those lights go out before we have our own source, we're fucked."

In any other circumstance Mycah probably would have laughed at the way his warning was so different from his apathetic tone. He knew he was right though, and he started looking a little faster. It was Mycah who found the batteries, and they hurried to put the cells in the heavy flashlights. The lights were still on, but at this point no one had any idea if they would be actually turning off, or when.

"There's no way back this way," Mycah said, looking at the dark elevator shaft. "We should keep going. There might be a way out."

"How do you know?" Sandy's eyes were wide, and he kept looking around like he wished he could see everything at once. Mycah remembered how he said he had a paranoia-inducing implant that searched for other signs of life, and suspected that he had switched it on.

"I don't. But do you really want to wait to see how long it'll take for Ben to come back?"

"Mycah's right. We should start walking."

The input of his friend seemed to calm Sandy down just a little bit. When no one else moved, Mycah decided he should take the lead. He turned on his flashlight and turned towards the dark cave. He heard the others follow him. They had walked only a few yards when there was a loud snap, and the lights turned off, leaving their flashlights as the only means of lighting their way.

While walking down the tunnel the only sounds were their footsteps and Sandy's shaky breath. No one spoke as they explored forward with no idea what to expect as they continued on. After walking for a good five minutes, the walls of the cave started to look filmy and shiny, and they paused to see what it was.

"Is it some kind of crystal?" Mycah frowned as he shone his flashlight on it. Tor was the only one to go to the wall and touch it, rubbing the substance between his fingers.

"It's water."

"What? Water?" Sandy started looking around with more purpose, eventually wandering off down the passage until they could only see the beam of his light. "Hey!" His voice echoed and made Mycah flinch involuntarily. "I think I found something!" As they hurried to meet him, the floor of the cave started to turn muddy, with puddles forming near the walls, and instead of being level it started to slope slightly downwards.

"There's a split in the tunnel." Sandy stood in front of a fork, with the left side sloping down at a more extreme angle. It looked dangerously slippery as well, with a damp musty feel to the air closer to it. On the right side the tunnel sloped upwards, and became sandy and dry again.

"Which way should we go?" Mycah stepped forward and shone his light down either tunnel.

"The one on the left," Sandy said instantly. "There's water down that way. If we get trapped with no supplies-"

"We'll never be able to get back out that way." Tor interrupted with a frown. "Look at the slope. If one of us slips there's no way to climb back up and no way to tell what's down there. Besides, the other route might lead to the surface, and we could find one of the entrances back in to the main complex."

Sandy looked at Tor with a panicked expression. "No way! We go that way and-"

"Stop it!" Mycah turned to glare at both of them, putting his back to the tunnels. "If you fight now and we get separated, there's more of a chance we really could die or get trapped. Right now, Tor's right. The tunnel on the left is the safer option for now."

He expected Sandy to object, but there was a sudden skittering of gravel and instead of protesting, he yelped and swing his flashlight around violently.

"Did you see that!? Look!" Mycah spun around, and saw what looked like a jumble of sharply jointed legs as their flashlights swept across the tunnel, but he didn't get a good look at anything. "There's no way I'm going that way!"

"Get it together! It's two against one right now. If it's not a good way to go, we'll turn around and go the other way, but this is the best option."

Sandy grumbled but said nothing after that. Mycah led the way, and he tried not to say anything about Sandy's shaky beam of light flickering around the tunnel. It was narrower and shorter than where they had started, and gave him a claustrophobic feeling that reminded him of the room he was branded in. His hand twinged in pain as they walked upwards. As they kept going, the air started to get hot and humid.

"There might be a hot spring up here," Sandy admitted grudgingly. "Even if it's not being used right now there should be outside access closer to the water source."

Mycah nodded and they kept going. Something was getting to him though... he had a tingling feeling in the back of his neck as his hair started to stand on end. There was more quiet skittering noises the air finally got uncomfortably hot and they all started to sweat. When a piece of rock tumbled from the ceiling of the cave, Sandy didn't hesitate to swing the beam of his flashlight up to see where it had come from.

The three of them froze as they saw a mass of long jointed legs and bodies writhing on the ceiling. When the beam of light slid over them, the gigantic spiders stilled and turned their many eyes on the trio. A quiet hiss started from a few spiders and slowly built until the first spider dropped from the ceiling to scramble to it's feet and rush at them. Soon the spiders started to rain down from above them and they started running.

"I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!! DIDN'T I FUCKING TELL YOU?!" Sandy didn't lose his talkativeness as they all ran back towards the elevator shaft, stumbling down the steep downward slope back towards the main tunnel.

"I don't care! Run!!" A spider leapt and landed on Mycah's back, sinking it's fangs in to his shoulder. He shouted wordlessly in pain and swung his flashlight back to hit it with an ugly soft thud and it fell, but more were on their way. Sandy was bitten on the leg and went down, his flashlight rolling away out of his reach. Tor stopped to help him, swinging at the spider but Mycah urged him on.

"Mycah, go! I'll help him!" Tor had the most expression on his face that Mycah had ever seen, fear and worry clear.

"No!" Mycah swung his flashlight like a baton at the spiders attacking them, getting more bites as he protected Sandy and Tor. Back near the entrance there was suddenly an shout.

"Mycah! Sandy?!"

"Ben you motherfucker I'm gonna kill you!" Sandy was finally on his feet. Tor was dragging him along, and Mycah was running backwards behind them, keeping the spiders at bay the best that he could. Once they were closer to the glowing entrance to the elevator, they saw that Ben and someone else were standing there waiting, ready to send them all to safety once they got in. Mycah recognized Spin's silhouette as she stood in the middle of the doors, shooting a laser gun at the spiders closest to them. There was a sickening smell of burning bug as the three of them finally got in to the elevator and collapsed, in too much pain to move as they gasped on the metal floor.

Once the elevator was moving, Ben got out a small black bag with medical supplies in it. Moving to each one, he silently gave them an injection of clear fluid. "It's antivenom," he explained to Sandy when he flinched away from the needle. "Unless you want those to hurt even worse later, you'll hold still."

"What the hell were you thinking." Spin was fuming, the gun still in her hand. "Why did you send them in to a spider den, Ben. I need your answer NOW." She backed him against the wall, holding the gun against his chin.

"L-last time I checked there were just a few dozen! I had no idea it was an entire nest of them!"

Spin narrowed her eyes, and Ben tensed up before she finally backed away, putting the gun back in a holster on her hip. "Idiot. You'll be answering to Singer when he gets back. Let's see if he goes as easy on you as I did." Once she was sure that Ben had been put in her place, she turned her attention to the three friends nearly passed out on the floor. Tor was still clutching the flashlight like he might still swing it at something if he was startled enough.

"We'll get you three up to your rooms so you can rest. Spider bites can hurt pretty bad, but that's usually all they do. I'm pretty sure you'll all be fine."

"Pretty sure...?" Mycah echoed her, sitting up with a grimace. He had bites on his arms, legs, and back, and a nasty one on the side of his chest that made it painful to breathe.

"Very sure. Just relax and get some rest. I'll make sure no one expects you anywhere for the next couple of days."

He nodded and leaned back again, closing his eyes. By the time the elevator pulled up to the correct floor, the pain was leaving the bites and moving through his whole body, making it feel like he'd been run over by a bus. Ben supported Sandy and Tor as they limped to their rooms, and Spin helped Mycah.

"Would you really have shot him?" he asked, trying not to lean too much on Spin's small frame.

"Maybe. I was about to. But it wouldn't have hurt him that bad. I only grabbed the first thing I could find, and it was just a bar-code blaster." She laughed quietly at Mycah's confused look. "Nickname for a weak gun that doesn't do much than give someone a blistery sunburn, but it hurts the spiders enough to turn them back."

Mycah nodded and was grateful to stumble to his bed, clothes and shoes still on. He passed out almost right away and tried to sleep away the venom running through his body.

With no one to wake him up and no type of clock or way of measuring time in his room, Mycah was completely disoriented when he woke up in the complete darkness of his room, bites aching. When he tried to sit up, he found that the scabs on the bites had dried to the sheets and he had to painfully pull them apart before he could shuffle to the bathroom and flip on the light. When he saw what the bites had turned in to he made a shocked and disgusted face. Spiders didn't tend to hang around the colonial cities, so he had only seen pictures of them and heard about what the bites would do. It was another thing to see it for himself on his own body.

Each of the bites had swollen to a painful blister as wide as his palm, that was raised almost half an inch. Glaring at them balefully, he figured that the best thing to do would be to take a shower to try to clean them off. It took him almost fifteen minutes just to get undressed. His movement was so limited due to the bites causing his muscles to tense up and just like the scabs had dried to the sheets, they were stuck to his clothing as well.

He winced as he stepped in to the shower and turned it on, letting the cold water wash over him as it slowly turned warm. One thing he had to hold over the city that he left was the fact that there was no meter running while he showered. Eventually he turned his attention to the easiest bite to see, the one on right on his ribs. He used a washcloth to clean away the dried blood until he could see the punctures in his skin. When he pushed on the swollen skin around it a sudden gush of blood and pus splashed to the tile floor. What little was in his stomach was gagged out at the sight and smell of what just happened, but already the wound felt better.

Mycah had no idea how long it took to clean out each bite, but he was more than ready to go back to bed by the time he felt clean. Once he was dry and dressed, though, he limped next door to check on Sandy and Tor. It took someone almost two minutes to answer the door

"Oh... It's you..." Sandy looked wearily out at him. "You can come in if you want. Smells like shit though."

He nodded, understanding. "How's Tor?" He shut the door behind him, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the same smell his wounds had a few minutes ago.

"Worse off than we are, I think." They both winced as they heard him vomiting in the bathroom. "I was just about to try to bag all this up and get it out of here, try to clear this place out." He gestured to the sheets and blankets on their two beds.

Mycah picked up a laundry bag and went to one bed while Sandy went to the other. They packed up everything with the disgusting smell on it and took it down to the laundry drop off down the hall. When they came back they went to check on Tor.

"Oh shit... Mycah? You better get some help."

"What? Why?" Only when he looked in at Tor did he realize what why Sandy was so worried. He was passed out on the bathroom floor, bloody foam around his mouth. Without asking anything else, he hurried out to the hall. Right as he opened the door he ran right in to Singer.

"Oh my god, what is that smell...?"

Mycah shook his head. "Tor is sick, I think he's been puking up blood. He needs help, now!"

Singer pushed his disgust out of the way and hurried inside to see for himself. Satisfied that Tor really did need the help that Mycah said he did, he pulled out a small communication device from his pocket and radioed for assistance. "Someone's on their way." He moved in to pull Tor to his side so he didn't choke, and waited outside to direct a team with a wheeled gurney to where they were. It was a tense few minutes as Tor was picked up and taken away, leaving Mycah and Sandy alone with Singer.

"You two should probably get some more rest. I'll make sure he gets treated right away."

"Why did he get sick when we didn't?" Sandy looked up and Singer indignantly.

"You of all people should know. Did you see any bites like you two had?" They both shook their heads no. "He inherited a type of resistance to the spider venom from his mother. It doesn't cause the reaction that you two had, which helps expel it."

"Is he gonna be okay?"

"He should be. Now I mean it. You get some rest. I'll be back to talk with you later." He sighed as he walked off. "Finish a mission just to come back to this..."

A couple of people were peeking out their doors at the commotion. Sandy looked over at his friend. "You want some help cleaning up your room? It's only fair..." Mycah almost shook his head no, but he could tell Sandy was really freaked out at what had just happened.

"Sure. I could use the help." He ended up doing most of the work. When he returned from taking the bag of laundry out, he found Sandy asleep on the floor with a naked pillow. He covered him up in a spare blanket before stepping over him and trying to get some sleep himself.

The next day passed quietly. Their rooms' doors were kept open to try and air them out, much to the complaint of the other residents of the Art Museum. When Sandy was confronted he only gave them a rude gesture and ignored them. He and Mycah ended up using their unexpected spare time to manufacture more of the tiny sensors that Sandy was planning on selling.

"Tor has his own money and stuff to barter with. So I figure everything you helped make, I'd give half, yeah?"

"Sure. But why would I need it?" He punched out more metal pieces and put the spare bits in to a pile to be recycled.

"Don't you remember about that big market I told you about? I heard it was going to be soon. I think it'll be fun." He looked happily at his completed pieces, his usual overexcited personality slowly going back to normal.

"Are you sure we'll even get to go? I have no idea how to get out of this place. I don't think it's even an option for me to leave."

"Aah, don't worry about it. I'm sure we can talk someone into letting you go, if me and Tor do."

Mycah shrugged and went back to his work. A few minutes later there was a quiet tapping noise that got his attention, and he looked up to see Spin in the open door way. Not really sure what to do, especially since Sandy was oblivious to everything else while he was working on the fine details, he stood up and went to the door.

"Did you need something?"

"I just came to check on you guys. How are you two doing?"

"Fine, I guess. Do you have any news on Tor?"

She nodded, giving him a relieved smile. "Yeah. He should be fine in another day or two and ready to leave the medical wing before too long."

"What about Ben?"

Spin's smile dropped as soon as he mentioned that name. "He'll be disciplined accordingly. That's really all I can say until he tells you. Unless you seriously screw up, what you get as punishment is private unless you want to complain about it."

"That's surprisingly fair," he admitted. "What do I do if I want to leave?"

"Oh you can't leave. Not yet anyway." Mycah was not happy with the speed of her answer. "We've already discussed how everyone wants you alive. Getting lost and dying in the desert, being picked off by Scarecrows, or killed by another Suit would be unacceptable. Why do you ask?"

"He wants to go to the market!" Sandy's sudden shout and laughter made Mycah jump, before he turned around to glare at him. Maybe he wasn't being as oblivious as he thought. "It's soon right?"

"It's in a week," Spin confirmed, holding back a giggle. "And if you really want to go, I can make sure you do. I'll tell Singer, and he can talk about it with you later today." Mycah held back a sigh. He didn't really want to have any further interaction with Singer, but it seemed that he wouldn't have a choice, at least in this instance. "Oh! And before I forget. I might as well drop these off for you since you want to go." From a small bag at her waist she pulled out three white plastic domino masks and handed them to him.

"What are these for?"

"It's a silly tradition, but every since the markets have started, everyone wheres some sort of mask. That way if someone crashes the party, we can all claim that we don't know who else is there."

"Plausible deniability, yeah?" Sandy piped in from behind them.

"Exactly. Use what you want to make them more personal if you want, but make sure you have it ready when we go."

"Are you going too?" Mycah mentally kicked himself when he realized how eager he sounded, and how the smile Spin had widened just a tad.

"You bet. Even if it's just to have a little fun convincing my least favorite vendors that they should give away their goods for free."

He let out a sarcastic snort and joked, "Maybe I should just stick with you then."

"Maybe you should." She looked up at him with an open expression, extending the invitation. Mycah hesitated, and she suddenly laughed and turned away. "Keep an eye out for Sin. He should show up later today." Spin waved over her shoulder at him as she left.

Mycah started to wave back before he firmly smacked himself in the forehead. "Idiot..."

Sandy was sniggering behind him, unsuccessfully hiding his laughter behind his hand.

"Shut up! It's not funny..."

"It's totally funny. I bet it would even make Tor laugh if he were here."

"Would not."

"Would so! Now hand me one of those masks."

Mycah rolled his eyes and gave him two of the three masks. "You can keep Tor's here until he's out of the medical wing."

Sandy nodded seriously. "Want me to show you where all the paint and stuff is?"

"Yeah sure." He didn't know if he would actually want to paint it, but he at least wanted to know where that stuff was. Sandy showed him to a supply room full of paints and brushes, and dozens of other types of mediums. Not really paying attention, he grabbed some small bottles of paint and a handful of brushes before hurrying out. Something about it being the common denominator of all the people who claimed to paint prophetic visions disturbed him.

Back in Sandy's room, Mycah looked at what he had taken. A few small brushes, and red and black paint. He wasn't sure what he was going to do yet, but he wasn't worried about it. He had plenty of time. Sandy was a few minutes behind, holding a metal canister and bottles of glue.

"I've had this idea forever! This is gonna be awesome, yeah?" He shoved the metal pieces still on his workspace away without any ceremony and started opening everything.

Mycah ignored him, rolling his eyes. Before he started anything, he peeled off his gloves and looked at the burn on his right hand. The two linked diamonds were nearly fully healed, and the scar was apparent. The scar of the burn was light pink and raised, and it stood out from his tan skin. He still had trouble using that hand, and he was worried it would be permanent without some sort of medical attention or surgery. Trying to do something with fine details- like painting the mask- would be almost impossible without the gloves he had received from the King of Clubs.

While Sandy seemed intent on finishing his mask that day, Mycah puttered around, pushing the mask and bottles of paint around with a brush. He knew Singer would be showing up soon and wasn't looking forward to speaking with him. It was getting later and he was considering finding something to eat and going to bed when there was another knock on the open door.

"So Spin says you want to go to the market."

They both looked up, but only Sandy nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! If Tor is up to it, I think he wants to go too."

Singer looked at both of them, arms crossed and leaning on the threshold. "Usually we don't let someone out until they've been here for a few months, at the earliest. You got here a week ago. And if you don't remember, I have a reason to keep you in a place where I can keep track of you." He tapped his upper arm, and Mycah recalled the patch put there by the King of Clubs.

"I'll vouch for him! Tor will too! Especially after what happened down in the tunnels." He shuddered. Suddenly a grin appeared on his face. "I bet someone else has already asked for him to be able to go, yeah?"

"You could say that." Singer didn't look very happy. "Would you even have anything to trade with?" He seemed to be grasping at straws by this point.

"I helped Sandy-"

"He helped me make these!" He held out a handful of the tiny metal devices. "He'll have plenty to trade with."

Singer shook his head. "I won't give you an answer yet. No matter what Spin or I say, it could always be negated by Spider. His word is law here, and the most concrete decision. You two are set to go back to work tomorrow, and Tor should be back here soon. I'll let you know closer to when everyone will be heading out there." He paused. "Although there is one thing I could do for you. You up for a little walking?"

They both nodded, and Mycah hurried to put his gloves back on. They were a little slower than usual, and both of them limping slightly from bites that were still sore on their calves and legs, but Singer kept a slow enough pace for them to keep up.

"If you two are really wanting to go to the market, you need some protection." They were in a hallway that Mycah had never been in, and instead of having solid colored walls, they were bright yellow with three red stripes down the center. "Stay here any longer and you'll get very familiar with this wing. Almost all weapons are kept here, those that aren't in possession of individual people."

Sandy elbowed Mycah in the side. "We're gonna get laser guns!" he hissed excitedly.

"What you'll get is rarely lethal, unless you happen to know how to amplify it. Which if I find out that happens," he said venomously to Sandy, "I'll take them from you and make sure you're armed with nothing but a rusty spoon for as long as I can help it." He opened a door and showed them to a room full of racks and racks of weaponry. There was everything from small guns that Mycah saw resembled the bar-code blaster that Spin used, to huge rifles and automatic weapons that used both lasers and projectiles. Singer took two of the smaller ones and handed one to each of them.

"I mean it, Sandy. Do not mess with this. Tell me you won't."

He looked like Singer was asking him to give up breathing and he pouted. "I... I won't mess with it..."

"Good. Now, the powercells charge directly from the outlets already in your room, and you should keep them there unless you mean to use the guns. Now get out."

They hurried out, Sandy looking longingly at the other guns. "I could make something really cool, you know. Using some of the other long range guns I could totally make something that could shoot in to low orbit..." He pouted at what Singer had given him. "Ah, I'll have to keep that a plan for the future I guess."

Mycah only laughed at him and his grandiose plans. "I don't think that's something you need to worry about. You should probably getting things ready for Tor to come back, if anything."

Sandy continued to check out the gun as he nodded absentmindedly. Mycah ended up taking his mask and paint back to his room. The next day he got ready to work, even though he didn't really want to. He was still sore and stiff, but as the day progressed he finally felt back to his old self physically. As a pleasant surprise when he and Sandy got back to their rooms after dinner, they found that Tor was relaxing in his chair with his usual notebook.

"You're alive!" Sandy celebrated by telling Tor in detail what had happened over the past few days. Tor seemed tolerant enough to listen to the exaggerated stories told by his friend, and Mycah left him at that as he went to his own room. He spent most of his spare time over the next week listening to Sandy talk about the market, and painting his own mask. Sandy had ended up covering his mask in glue and then dumping the contents of the canister he had chosen over it. When he found out it was covered in desert sand, he only sighed and wondered if anyone else would get it. Mycah couldn't decide what he wanted to do at first, especially since he had no immediate plans to go back to the supply room with the paint. Looking at the colors he had and the paintings in the Art Museum, he was struck with a sudden inspiration.

Using the small brush, he painted red scales with black stripes, making the pattern of a wolf dragon. When it was done it looked good enough, though it would probably look better from farther away. Happy with his work, he placed it on his desk to dry. No one had said anything to the effect that he and the others weren't going to be allowed to go to the large market, so he was still planning on going. The day Singer said that everyone would be leaving was only a night away before he finally got any further answer.

"Knock, knock!" A smiling Spin was at his doorway as he was making sure his minimalistic room was clean and picked up. "Guess what?"

"Oh hey!" He tried to keep the wince off his face when he realized how eager he sounded to see her. "What is it?"

"I got told for sure that you and your friends are coming with us tomorrow. You have your mask?"

"You bet." He showed her the painted pattern proudly. "Sandy's is... sandy... and Tor's, I'm not sure. You'd have to ask him. What about yours?"

"Well you'll see mine tomorrow. In that chest at the bottom you should find a sleeping bag." She pointed to the chest that his clothes were in, and that he filled with clean laundry when ever the laundry bags were delivered back. "Fill that with a few days of clothes and should be all you need to bring. Everything else is already packed."

"What time are we leaving?"

"Pretty early. About the time most people are starting to get up."

Mycah suddenly frowned and cocked his head to the side. He couldn't hear any sound coming from Sandy's room. "Have you told him yet?" he said, pointing in the direction of the other room.

"Pfft, no! I'll let you do that. Oh, and if you have anything to trade with, bring it with you."

"Sure thing. I take it you've been to one of these before?''

"Yeah. As long as you stick to some of the tamer parts of the market, you'll be fine. Or if you have someone to show you around," she said, gesturing to herself, "I'm sure you'll be allowed to go where you want. As long as you stay under the tents and camo nets you'll be fine."

"Why? I mean, it's the middle of the desert. Who's there to watch?"

"It's the same time every year, but it's always in a different place. Because of that, everyone gets all hot and bothered to try and find us... we're outlaws, remember?" Mycah made a dissatisfied face at that. "Usually they try to send spies, which doesn't really work with the whole mask thing, most of the time. And every time there are Scarecrows that do flyovers to try to find it. Though they're usually out there all the time. Just most of them are out trying to find them gathering."

"I hate to be asking all these questions but... what's a Scarecrow?"

She shook her head, a rueful smile appearing. "I hate to say it, but you fit in so well here that I forget that you've only been here a couple weeks. A Scarecrow is a one-man flyer that uses camouflage to keep it from being seen from the ground."

"Oh, I know about those. They used to have a hanger in Merimar until they built better ones in Ampre. I ah... I used to want to fly one when I was a kid."

Spin laughed, but didn't chide him any further. "It would be a cool job. I think sometimes Spider is wanting to somehow steal one for us- they can't be seen from below, but they can be seen from above."

"Well if I see one lying around I'll be sure to grab it for him." She smiled again, and Mycah saw a light in her eyes that fed his attraction even more.

"I'll see you tomorrow morning. Have fun telling your friend that you get to go to the market."

"We get to go?! YES!!"

Spin winced at the eavesdropping shouter, and hurried out. "Later, Mycah!"

He had a grin on his face until she left and he turned to Sandy, giving him a playful shove. "Don't you know when to mind your own business?"

"Nope!" Sandy ran inside his room, and as a peace offering, held out a large plastic baggie filled with tiny metal devices. "This is your share. Each has a tag explaining what it does and how it works. That was Tor's idea and he made them for us."

Mycah snagged them and tossed them in his room before Sandy took them back. "Thanks. So you ready for tomorrow?"

"You better fuckin' believe it, yeah? This is gonna be awesome!"

"I'm not surprised." He smirked and looked at Tor, who was already packing his own stuff. "Have you messed with that laser gun yet?"

Sandy's grin suddenly disappeared, and he looked tortured. "No... Tor took it away before I did... I don't want to have nothing but a rusty spoon but, but... The tech is so simple! I could make it so much better! And I could even take it apart and probably put it back together in a better way!"

"I think you can last until you get a better one. Good luck though." Mycah was skeptical and he said nothing when he saw Tor tucking the gun inside his own chest.

His friend pouted and nodded. "Maybe I can buy one there that I can take apart... that way Singer can't get mad about me messing with a Club weapon..." Still mumbling to himself, he wandered back in to the room. Shaking his head and laughing, Mycah went back to his own room to pack and get ready.

It didn't take long to pack what little personal possessions he had and soon he was in bed, ready to leave early the next morning. Mycah still couldn't sleep right away. He was nervous about going back out of his new home, especially when he was going to be surrounded with actual outlaws, not just what he saw were people unlucky enough to be taken in by the Clubs like himself, Sandy and Tor. Even when the though had him wanting to slap himself silly, he was also nervous about the prospect of possibly spending more time with Spin.

After what felt like hours of tossing and turning he finally got some sleep. The next morning he was woken up, not by an enthusiastic Sandy, but a grumpy looking Singer.

"You packed?"

Mycah sat up scrubbing his face with his hands. "Yeah..."

"Well get up, get dressed, and get your ass out here. We're leaving in fifteen."

He got ready as quickly as he could, and was somehow surprised to see that when Singer lead him to a meeting area where about twenty or thirty were already gathered, Spin looked to be in a better mood that Sandy. His friend was trudging blearily, his sleeping bag and supplies on his back with Tor close behind.

"Good morning~" Spin grinned when she saw the sleepy ensemble. "How are you three gentlemen today?" She twirled her mask around a finger as she smiled.

Sandy only looked at her and blinked slowly. Clearly in the time between when he woke up and when Mycah saw him there was a vitally important step. Tor nodded politely, and only Mycah had any semblance of an answer. "As far as I know we're still asleep."

She laughed and put on her mask. At first Mycah didn't see any difference from a mask that was unfinished, until he saw that it was covered in fine white glitter that gave a sparkly sheen. "We always put our masks on before we leave. And for you three, you need to remember." She gave them all a serious look from behind the shiny mask. "Do not take off your mask for any reason unless you're in your own tent. Understand?"

They all nodded and put on their masks. Mycah rolled his eyes when he saw Sandy's, and was impressed when he saw Tor's. It almost looked like he had run it through a printer to have a picture of clean water in a shallow pool printed there, but he had a feeling that it was hand painted.

"Nice work. I can hardly recognize you."

Singer interrupted them shortly after. "Let's go. You three are with us." Spin nodded, and started walking to a ramp that led to wide cellar doors. Parked on the ramp were four large trucks with covered beds and seats in the back. There were already drivers in each one complaining that everyone was taking too long.

Singer and Spin climbed in to the first truck and they followed them. Mycah stopped in his tracks once he was in the truck- along with Singer and Spin was Saber. His hood was down, but his face was covered in a mask painted matte black. It took him a moment to take a seat. When he sat down next to Spin, she got up to check something and sat down on the other side of him, leaving him trapped between her and Singer. She gave him an almost triumphant grin and settled in to the seat.

Mycah sat uncomfortably between the two. Singer didn't seem to care, reading some sort of report on a piece of clear e-paper. He didn't seem to have a mask on at first until Mycah looked closer and saw that the mask was the exact same color of his skin. Or maybe it was the other way around...

Spin bumped his knee with hers and pointed to Sandy. He looked like he was finally awake and his normal self. He sat next to Spin and across from Tor, and he was trying to beg for his gun back.

"Please please pleeeeeeeease, Tor, I just want to look at it. Popping open the case isn't messing with it!"

"Yes it is."

"No it's not! I wouldn't be changing or amplifying ANYTHING! I just want to look please." He gave his friend the most pathetic look and Tor met his eyes for a few seconds. He took a breath and Sandy looked slightly hopeful.

"No."

Sandy slumped in his seat, defeated. "If I had known your friends were so funny I'd have started hanging out with you earlier," Spin smiled at Mycah and he grinned back. The large doors were only just opening, and Mycah looked out, trying to see his first glimpse of actual daylight in weeks.

Even in the covered and enclosed truck, Mycah felt the moisture get sucked out of the air as soon as they drove outside. It was a typical early morning out in the desert. The sun wasn't quite up, but the landscape was lit by two of the world's three moons. The white glow of one washed out the landscape, but the slightly smaller blue moon gave everything an odd shadowed look.

"It's closer than usual to us this time," Spin told him. "We should get to the market a little after sunrise. You'll probably be sharing a tent since we have so many people."

Mycah nodded, hoping that he wouldn't be stuck somewhere with Saber... He looked over and saw that he was staring at him, nearly glaring. He hurried to look away like he had never glanced over.

The ride was no more than an hour. As the sun was peeking over the horizon, they truck drove under a large camouflage net to park next to other vehicles that could travel through the desert. Some were larger trucks like the one they were in, loaded with supplies, while others were more compact, including smaller cars and even motorcycles.

They all hopped out and Singer led them through the maze of vehicles to a net-covered walkway. Saber had disappeared once everyone was out, but Mycah still felt that he was close, watching still. Soon they were at a larger covered area with tents in neat rows and people with masks of various sizes, shapes, and colors milling about.

"I'm going to put my stuff up. Don't go too far." She grinned and ran ahead to consult Singer, who pointed her in the direction of her tent. Once she was gone, they were taken to a set of tents with no real markings to set them apart from the others. Singer pointed to Sandy, Mycah, and Tor.

"You, you, and you. You're staying here. You've ten minutes to put up your shit then out here so I can go over some rules." Most of the ten minutes was spent with Sandy trying to arrange their sleeping bags so they all had the most room, and it took Singer shouting at them irritably to get him to stop.

Singer had his arms crossed and he gave each of them stern looks. "You three are the only ones who are here for the first time. That means it's pretty obvious you're fresh meat. Now, the market stalls and booths are marked with different colors. Ones were everyone is welcome to buy or trade are marked in green. Others where they're pickier but willing to bargain are marked in purple. Ones that trade ONLY with people they know are marked in black. Usually they stick together. So you three stick to places marked in green, and try not to get beat up by anyone who runs a purple booth. If they don't like you, they usually show it."

"Got it!" Sandy headed towards the busy market before Singer grabbed the back of his shirt.

"Hold up. You especially. Try to stick with somebody you know and if you get lost, try to back track. If you can't find your way, go to the edge of the market and work your way around the edge until you get back here." He suddenly laughed a little. "And anything you eat is at your own risk. Now get outta my hair. I have stuff to do." He let Sandy go and headed towards the market. Mycah noticed that his gait and silhouette changed slightly as he walked. Sandy was quick to follow him as sneakily as he could, though he couldn't fathom why. He looked over at Tor who just shrugged.

Curious about this market that he was going to, Mycah ducked back in to the tent for his bag of implants to trade and barter with before heading towards the busy market with Tor. He decided that taking the gun would probably be a bad idea, especially since he had neglected to really practice or see what it did.

Soon the two of them were in the crowded market. They lost sight of Sandy and Singer some time ago, but neither was really concerned. Mycah was too busy looking at the variety of things for sale. In the first area from the tents and parking lot, there were vendors that were selling colorful clothing, elaborate weapons, jewelry, and the dubious food that Singer had mentioned. Despite the early time it looked like the market had been going on for a few hours already, and Mycah suspected it ran on the same hours as the main cities did- active at evening, night and early morning, but quieter during the hottest part of the day.

Mycah and Tor toured the more benign section of the market for most of the morning, and he picked up a few things to take home, including a black enameled club pin, a few mechanical trinkets he thought Sandy might like, and an emerald green scarf that he thought he might give to Spin. Tor raised an eyebrow when he saw him purchase it, and Mycah was quick to fold it up and stuff it in his pocket out of sight. It was bright and hot outside of the market tents, and stifling inside. He picked up a snack on the way out and hoped that the fried cat wouldn't give him food poisoning too bad.

Sandy was already in the tent when they got back. Even though Tor had kept both guns on his person, he already had another taken apart and was poking at it with his usual set of tools. There were a couple bottles of pills in red plastic bottles next to him. "Oh good, you're back. Singer thought he could throw me off by shifting, yeah? Nope. I wanted some of the quality amps and only we make that. So I followed him until he sold some, and bought it right back." He never took his eyes off his work as he babbled.

"Amps?" Mycah picked up the bottle and slipped off his painted mask. "Amphetamines?"

"Yup. Helps me focus when I'm workin' on something important." He stuck his tongue out as he connected to wires in the casing of the laser gun. "Don't know if you noticed, but back home the drugs we make are strictly off limits in most circumstances." He paused and finally looked up at them. "Come to think of it, having some on me when I was caught the first time is probably what made them brand me instead of something like sun exposure."

Mycah winced. Sun exposure was pretty bad. Criminals were left outside, sometimes tied face up or face down with little or no clothing, for a time set by the crime and almost no medical attention allowed after. Getting branded and kicked out to be recruited by the clubs was comparatively better. "Have you done anything other than follow Singer and buy a gun?"

"Nope." He didn't seem to feel the need to elaborate any further.

Feeling lazy from the heat that permeated the tent even with some tiny fans to circulate the air, Mycah flopped on his sleeping bag after taking off his shirt. He hid all his newly acquired loot and the rest of his trading material before looking at the barcode blaster given to him by Singer. Down at the bottom of the grip there was a small dial, with the numbers one through five, something he hadn't seen before.

He turned it down to the lowest setting and for the sake of science, kicked off his shoes and socks, and took aim at one of his feet. He held the trigger down only for a split second, and was surprised that it really only felt like stepping in to very hot water. The redness that it cause on his foot disappeared after a few more seconds. That was only the lowest setting. But before he worked up the courage or stupidity to try it on a higher setting, he ended up setting it to the side and leaning back for a nap.

It was almost fully dark when someone finally woke him. "Hey! Someone's looking for you." Sandy grinned and winked as Mycah sat up and saw Spin in her mask peeking in and waving.

"You never stuck around for me to find you, and then he wouldn't let me wake you up." She pointed to Sandy. "Said something about you needing to get your beauty sleep."

"Idiot..." he mumbled to his friend. "I'll be out in a second," he said louder. He hurried to get dressed and out of there, aiming a kick at Sandy and only missing because he tried to stand on his burned and slightly sore foot.

"I have a present for you," Spin said, a mischievous smirk on her face.

"What kind of present?"

"The best kind. Come with me." She grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the tents and towards the market. This time he was taken farther in to the booths and tents, to a quieter and seemingly more tame area of the market. Here all the booths were marked with black banners, with a very few having thin purple stripes along with the black. Even when they got to a place near where Spin was looking for, she didn't let go of his hand.

"Where are we going?" he asked quietly. Something about this place was setting on edge. "Am I even allowed here?"

"You are with me. We're almost there." She squeezed his hand reassuringly and pulled him to an unmarked tent. "Hey, Holly. You in?"

A short man in blue scrubs opened the heavy tent flaps and smiled toothily. "Spin! Long time no see! Hurry, hurry, come inside, and your friend too." He held open the fabric until the stepped in to a surprisingly sterile environment. The inside of the tent was covered in light blue paper, and the floor wasn't carpet or just sand like some where, but covered in plastic tile that looked like they could be snapped in place.

"So you think you can help him?"

"I know I can. But introductions first. Jonathan Holly, traveling surgeon." Spin let go of his hand so he could shake the doctor's.

"Mycah." When the doctor looked like he was expecting more, he continued, "Just Mycah."

"Spin told me about the brand on your hand, and that it's caused you to lose full use of it. May I see?"

Mycah was confused, a little in shock as to why she would go through so much effort to help him. He took off his glove and let the doctor look at the brand. The doctor peered at the brand, and had him move his fingers the best he could.

"I've seen these before, unfortunately. But since I've seen them so often, I have gotten quite proficient at fixing it! Give me a few minutes to set up and that should be fixed before an hour's past." He hurried to pull a shiny metal chair towards the middle of the room as well as unwrap a set of instruments on a small table.

"How do you know this guy?" Mycah whispered to Spin.

"He got caught in a gunfight a few years back, and I happened to get him out of there before he got shot. Doc's dying though... he doesn't have much longer left." She sighed. "He definitely keeps busy though."

"Will either of us owe him for anything?"

"No. Even though I wanted to, he wouldn't accept anything."

He tried to ask why she was doing this when Holly spoke up. "Have a seat, Mycah." He nodded at sat nervously in the seat, trying not to fidget. "In something like this sedation isn't required, but..." The doctor noticed Mycah's trepidation. "If needed I can give you something to help you relax."

"Uh... yeah. Please." Before he could object, the doctor grabbed a jet injector from his table and shot a dose of something into his arm. Almost immediately he felt himself go limp and relax. He sighed and settled in to the chair, hoping this wouldn't take long. He didn't really register what Holly was saying as he talked... something about a Bier block, and anesthetics. Something tight was put around his wrist and continued to he wrapped up to above his elbow. He felt his arm go numb from that elbow down and then a screen was put up so he couldn't see his hand.

"H-hey... What are you doing?" He tried to pull his arm to where he could see it, but Spin popped up on his other side and distracted him.

"You want your hand fixed, right?" She smiled and pat his cheek. "Just sit still and he'll be done before you know it."

"How do I know he's not... cutting off my hand or something?" He wasn't able to focus on her face and his voice was slurred.

"I can see it from here. I promise you'll still have a hand when he's done."

"I better..." With that he let himself relax again and was pleasantly surprised when Spin reached down to hold his free hand. He wasn't able to keep track of time as he tried to ignore the noises that were being produced behind the curtain hiding his hand.

"Do you want to keep the scar?"

"Huh?" The doctor was peeking over the curtain, a surgical mask covering his mouth.

"I asked if you wanted to keep the scar from the branding."

Mycah frowned as he thought, almost getting distracted again before he made himself focus. "Keep it. It has to stay."

"Got it." He disappeared behind the curtain again and what felt like a few minutes after that took away the curtain. His hand was bandaged and the feeling in his arm was slowly returning. With no warning he got another injection that started to wake him up.

"That should do it. The bandage is to make sure that the stitches dissolve quickly. Keep it on for the next six hours, at the least."

"Is that it?" Mycah slowly moved his hand, wiggling his fingers.

The doctor nodded. "Once your six hours is up, take the bandage off, carefully. If there's any issue before this place is disbanded, come back here and I'll make sure it's taken care of."

Mycah nodded, and shook the doctor's hand. He got his glove back as Spin said a farewell to him. "Be careful, Holly. If you need anything just contact me."

"Oh I'll be out of your hair soon. Don't worry." With that dismissal, they were out of there and heading back to the comparatively safer parts of the market.

Once they were in a more familiar area, Mycah stopped Spin. "Thank you. I mean it."

"It's nothing; I knew Singer was going to make you wait-"

Before he could stop himself, he stopped *her* with a quick kiss. She blinked and paused mid-sentence before blushing brightly. Mycah pulled away, face just as red. "S-sorry... the uh... the sedative must still be..."

"Sure, yeah." Spin looked around like she was trying to escape. "Oh! I just realized- Singer wanted me to- to pick something up for him! See you later!" She hurried away and left him standing in the middle of the market, feeling like an idiot.

Too embarrassed to go back to his friends and not ready to stop looking around, he wandered around without much purpose. Eventually he found himself somewhere he hadn't seen yet. The smell alone made his nose wrinkle in disgust but the sight wasn't much better. He'd found himself in a part of the market trading in live animals. Everything with fur, scales, or feathers could be found, either native animals or those brought in from other areas and planets.

Mycah didn't like the way most of them were stuffed in cages and crates way too small for them to be comfortable or even healthy, but there was no way he could buy all of them or even just get the idiots selling them to treat them better. He was about to turn around and leave before he did anything stupid when something caught his attention.

"You idiot! You let it hatch?!" A greasy man in a gas mask shoved someone else in a similar mask, pointing at a tiny plastic cage.

"I thought it was from a dummy nest! I didn't think it was actually a fertilized wolf dragon egg..."

"Well get rid of it. Kill it, throw it out to get eaten, I don't care. We can't keep that thing!"

"No way, man. A dead dragon cub will attract any pack within miles."

He saw that the tiny red and black reptile was huddled in the plastic cage, making a pitiful squeaking mew. The broken eggshell was still in there, and slimy pieces of membrane were still stuck to it. Before they could argue any further, Mycah stepped up to the two of them.

"I couldn't help but hear your dilemma. I think I have a solution for you."

The two vendors suddenly went silent and glared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"You obviously can't kill that thing here. Raising it would take too many resources; water, food, time... Let me take it off your hands." He had no idea why he was doing this, but he couldn't let that tiny thing just starve or be crushed to get rid of it. When the two arguing men paused but said nothing, he pulled out some of the devices he had to trade. "And I'll throw in some of these for your trouble."

They looked at the sensors and turned their backs on Mycah to mumble to each other. Finally the leader of the two turned and nodded. "Fine. Throw in three more of those sensors and you got a deal."

Mycah took three more from his bag and handed them over. The two of them shoved the tiny dragon towards him and he hurried to take it back to his tent, getting a little lost on the way back. His hand was a little sore as the anesthetic wore off but he was more worried about the dragon cub in his hands and distracting himself from the stupid thing he had done.

Tor was gone when he returned, though Sandy was still sitting and working on the gun. It was mostly reassembled now, but still not complete. "Hey, Mycah." He looked up from where he was sitting and looked confused. "What's that? And where's your glove?"

"My gloves are in my pocket since I don't need them any more. And this is apparently a baby wolf dragon."

"What? Why did you get that?" Sandy reached up and took the plastic crate, peering in at the tiny animal.

"I... I'm not really sure." He sat down and pulled out a shirt from the day before. "Here, I need to clean it up." He carefully lifted up the squawking dragon and dried it off, picking away the broken shell and membrane. Once it was clean he swaddled it in the shirt and filled lid of the plastic cage with water. It quickly stretched it tiny neck out and lapped at the water.

"What do you even feed those things?" Sandy's gun was forgotten as he leaned down to look at the thing. It hissed at him and backed up towards Mycah.

"I'm not sure. In school they said most of the saurians would regurgitate food for the babies... ew." He frowned for a moment. "There's somebody selling stuff right at the entrance of the market. I have an idea." He almost asked Sandy to watch the baby dragon but when he got up it started to cry out with the tiny squeaks. Mycah picked it up and hid it in the swaddling shirt to take with him, and it quieted down right away.

Out in the market he traded for a large wrap of supposed dinosaur and cat schwarma and took it back to the tent. Even if it was questionable, it was pretty tasty, and he ate a few bites before settling down with the dragon cub. He took a smaller bite and chewed it up before spitting it in to his palm and offering it to his new pet. It sniffed it a few times and snapped at it, taking small bites.

"Dude, that's gross."

"You want it to starve?" Mycah shot him an irritable glare.

"Hey, I was just stating a fact." He went back to working on the gun as Mycah fed the baby dragon. Soon it was full, and he finished off the sandwich while it slept on his lap.

"I'm going to keep it. Wouldn't it be cool to have a tame wolf dragon?"

"Pfft. Good luck. If it doesn't eat you by the time it's a year old..."

Mycah rolled his eyes. "If I'm going to keep it, it needs a name."

"Ricky von Hattenberg the third."

"What the actual fuck, Sandy?" He gave his friend a disbelieving look.

"It's sophisticated."

Mycah rolled his eyes and looked at the sleeping animal. It looked like a pile of scales and knobby appendages curled up in the dirty shirt. "What about Raza?"

"That works, too, I guess..." he grumbled.

Not wanting to accidentally run in to Spin and have to explain his action from earlier- partly because he didn't have an explanation- he stayed in his tent while Sandy tinkered away. Raza woke up squawking for more food and water every few hours, and it kept Mycah busy keeping him happy. He assumed it was a boy dragon, anyway. He also kept a close eye on the time, and when a little more than six hours had passed of feeding the dragon and bugging Sandy, he started to unwrap the bandages on his hand.

Once he had a neat pile of them next to him he looked at the back of his right hand. Aside from the scar from the brand, there were only two fine scars near the center of his hand. He didn't feel any ache or stiffness in his hand as he flexed his fingers. "It's as good as before... I owe Spin, big time."

"So that was her gift? That's pretty awesome. Why would she-"

"I don't know, and right now I don't plan on asking." Mycah was sick of being involved in the politics of the higher-ups of the Club gang. "But I'll at least try to give something back." He looked back at his pile of stuff, eying the scarf hidden in it all.

"So how bad did you fall for her?"

Mycah felt his eyes go wide as he snapped his head around to look at Sandy. "What?! What are you talking about!?"

"I'm not stupid. I just haven't got to ask about it yet."

He shook his head in disbelief. "I don't know where you got this..."

Sandy smirked triumphantly. "Tor said he saw you kissing."

"Fuck!" Mycah flopped back on the sleeping bag. The noise and movement woke up Raza, who chirped and climbed up on to his chest to curl up and sleep there.

"So fess up. I know you like her." He laughed, almost a giggle. "This is why I like having a friend other than Tor; this would never happen with him, yeah?"

Mycah grumbled and delayed as long as he could until he knew there was no way to get out of it. "I like her, so what? Why's it such a big fucking deal?"

"It wouldn't be if you told the truth. You lying liar." Sandy stuck his tongue out at him.

"Just don't tell anybody else, okay? I don't think anyone would take it very well if they found out."

Sandy rolled his eyes and nodded. "Yeah, yeah, your secret's safe with me. And as for Tor, you'll have to ask him when he gets back, although I don't think that's the kind of thing that he'd go out telling everyone."

"Good..." Feeling irritated and still slightly embarrassed, he put an arm over his eyes and tried to get some sleep as the sun started rising. He didn't feel like he got much sleep when he woke up feeling hot and gross, with something in his mouth.

"Pleh!" He spat and sat up, wiping his mouth, and saw that it was Raza that tumbled to his lap. "Ew!"

It hissed at him and pawed at it's face. Even though there was still the lid of the cage he'd got the dragon in full of water, it had decided it needed to get it's moisture from his mouth. When he rubbed his nose and found it remarkably booger free, he had a feeling it had been licking in there too.

"You are gross," he told it firmly. It only looked up at him and chirped again. His outburst didn't seem to wake anyone up. Tor was still gone, though something was different than it was before. Mycah suspected he was there earlier. For the first time in three days, he saw Sandy sleeping. Next to his pillow was the finished gun and a note under it. Still irritated at him, he plucked the note up and read it.

'So Mycah, I finally finished this thing, so now I'm going to get some sleep. You'll probably need it more than I would, so just leave your old gun here and take this one. (Singer said I couldn't do anything with MY laser gun but he didn't say anything about yours!) Also be careful, this one will kill on it's lowest setting. Use it well!'

Rolling his eyes, he picked up the modified gun and left his own in it's place. It was still light out, but close to sunset as he ventured out in to the market after putting Raza back in the cleaned out cage. He didn't have too much left to trade with so he wasn't exactly looking at goods or materials as he wandered around, scratching at the edge of his mask. He tried to go to a place he hadn't been before, if only to avoid Spin...

He was under one of the netted areas of the market and looking up at the waning moons when something caught his attention. There was a sort of shadow in the sky; a discrepancy where the waves of color of the sunset were distorted. Immediately he knew what it was- one of the aerial espionage flyers that Spin had called a Scarecrow. It was hovering, too, not just flying over. Cursing under his breath, he tried to move to where he could shoot up to it, to try and get it down. No one seemed to notice him aiming upwards, but when he pulled the trigger, nothing happened.

"Sandy, you idiot!" When he opened up the grip of the gun, there was no battery cell. Quickly searching while avoiding the stares he got from his shout, he grabbed a battery of the right size from a booth and loaded it in before running out from under the nets. That got even more shouts and stares until he aimed upwards again. The aircraft had just started to gain speed to fly away when he shot. The camouflage flickered and failed, and it fell to the ground with a crash about a hundred yards away from the edge of the market.

Any shouts from his grab at the batteries or running out from the protective camo were silenced when the Scarecrow crashed to the ground.

"Mycah. Did you just..." Singer's voice was suddenly beside him, even if the person there looked nothing like the Queen of Clubs.

"Yeah. I saw it and took a shot. I didn't think I'd actually-"

"We better get out there before someone else tries to take it or the pilot tries to call for help." The shapeshifter slowly assumed his own form as they walked out to the crash and looked back to himself by the time they got there. The small door to the cramped compartment inside was open, and they could hear someone groaning in pain. The slight man had blood on his face as he glared up at the two of them with what Mycah could only describe as pure hatred.

"Kill him."

"What?!"

"He's trying to radio for help right now. You've already helped everyone by shooting the Scarecrow down, however you did it, and if you want others to start investigating, you need to kill him, now." When Mycah hesitated, he made an exasperated noise. "If you don't put him out of his misery, someone else will try to get information out of him. They wouldn't be nearly as civilized as what happens in the colonies. And I doubt even if they did that anyone would give him any help. He'll be dead in hours."

The man turned away from them to try to shift, a wince on his face. Clearly he was trapped in the wreckage. He started to do something with the console in front of him.

"Now, Mycah!"

There was a sickening sizzle from the burning flesh, and the Scarecrow pilot went limp. Before Singer could try to give him any words of commendation or praise, Mycah put the gun in it's holster and walked away back towards the market. He didn't want that and didn't want to think about what he had just done, no matter the reasons. Singer was already calling for back up, drawing his own gun to protect the crash.

If there was any time that he wanted to slam a door it was then. Unfortunately for Mycah, in the open market doors were one of the few things missing. Instead he marched back to his tent and threw the gun back at Sandy, waking him up.

"Ow... what the hell...?"

"Keep the gun. I don't want it."

Sandy sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What's your problem?"

"Well I saved the market," he said sarcastically. "Shot down a Scarecrow and killed the pilot."

"No shit?" That woke Sandy up a little more. "Why didn't you stick around? Pretty much anyone would kill to get their hands on one of those."

"Because I don't want it." He tried to get a grip; this wasn't something that should freak him out so badly.

"You've never killed someone."

"He was going to die anyway!" As he paced back and forth in the tent, Sandy got up and started to pack. "What are you doing?"

"If one Scarecrow was here, I doubt they wouldn't have sent any info on what they found. People will be leaving soon, and probably are already."

Mycah rolled up his sleeping bag and started to pack everything together, still fuming at how easily he was pressured into what he felt was a senseless act. Tor joined them a few minutes later, and when Sandy started to tell him what happened he only nodded. Apparently news spread faster than he thought.

"We're leaving in an hour," Tor told them both. "I was told for us to get our things and go back to the trucks."

Mycah turned his back on his things while checking to see if there was anything he would have left behind. While he was looking, Sandy took the gun and quietly tucked it back in to Mycah's things. If Tor noticed, he didn't say a word. The only thing that wasn't thrown around while he finished packing was the little dragon. He had stuffed a shirt in the cage so it had something to nest in, and it watching all the motions, squawking indignantly when it was moved too violently.

"Shit. It's already almost too big for the cage." Mycah frowned at it and tapped the clear plastic. Raza snapped at his finger, bumping his snout.

"It's a desert animal, they have to grow fast." Sandy stood up with all his things packed. "We should go. Since you shot down the Scarecrow, someone probably laid a claim for it... They're probably going to use one of the trucks to take it back. Might be a little more crowded on the way back than it was on the way here."

The three of them made their way back to the large lot with all the vehicles. Most of the tents were already empty, or at least vacant. Sandy kept running back and forth to the abandoned structures, grabbing small items and electronics until his arms and pockets were full. He didn't look too upset that the event was ending early, and Mycah tried to adopt his attitude.

Even with one of the trucks filled with the crashed Scarecrow, there were only two or three more people that were added in and it was in no way crowded on the way back. A few of the people tried to ask him about what had happened, but with the nasty glares he got they soon stopped. Only Spin, who had finagled a seat next to him but hadn't spoken yet, asked him another question.

"What is THAT?" She pointed to the plastic box with the wolf dragon. He winced and hoped she wouldn't wake it up. It got loud when it was hungry, and they weren't even half-way back yet.

"It's... a baby wolf dragon," he muttered.

She got the hint to keep quiet and put on one of the grins that cheered Mycah up. "How'd you end up with that?"

"I was walking through and someone didn't realize it was going to hatch. I didn't want them to kill it, so..."

"That's pretty noble of you. You know how big those things get, right?"

"Yeah. But it's small now, and harmless as long as you don't let it near you when you sleep. It likes to lick up your nose."

Spin laughed and settled in right next to him. "Did you name it?"

"Raza."

"That's a pretty intimidating name for such a cute little guy." She peered in to the box.

"I'm sure he'll grow in to it." He leaned back a little and tried to calm down about what had happened. At least Singer and Saber weren't riding in the same car as him again.

It felt like an awkward ride on the way back, and Mycah was more than relieved to get back inside the cool, underground tunnels. He avoided everyone, including Spin, as he carried his new pet to his room and shut the door- the universal sign of stay away in the Art Museum. At the moment he just tried to get his thoughts together and go through his purchases, as well as wonder if he needed a litter box for the growing dragon. When he found the gun had reappeared in his things he growled at it and set it to the side, but did nothing else.

No one bothered him until the next morning, when Sandy woke him up as usual. "Hey!! Mesa's going to open up the filter tanks for swimming before they're scrubbed out!"

Mycah sat up and looked at him oddly. "What are you talking about? What's swimming?"

"Swimming!! It's where you swim through the water, and stuff. I mean... you'll just have to see, yeah?" He made odd motions with his arms and that confused Mycah even more.

"Give me a minute, geez..." He chased Sandy out and tried to wake up. Raza seemed to make a home just fine in the bathroom, where he was kept so he didn't try to invade Mycah's personal space again, and Mycah fed him before going out to find that Tor and Sandy were waiting impatiently for him.

"Let's go, this is gonna be so fun!"

He sighed and let them lead him down to one of the growing caverns. There weren't as many people headed down as in a normal work day and most were only in what looked to Mycah to be sunbathing outfits. He tried not to stare at some of the more revealing ones and didn't notice at first the stares and whispers that were directed at him as he walked past. It didn't occur to him until then that what he had done was all that big of a deal.

By the time they made it down to the growing rooms, he was feeling a little self-conscious. When he was finally able to see why they brought him down here, though, all thoughts about anything else felt insignificant.

The rows and rows of plants and lights had been moved along with the scaffolding to the sides of the room, and the giant water tanks that had once lined the room on the other sides were now on the ground and open. Other people were in the water, splashing and carrying on. Sandy made a grand and elaborate gesture towards the large pools.

"THAT is swimming."

"No way..." He took a few steps forward just to look closer.

"There are changing rooms set up over there. Go get changed." He tossed Mycah a pair of swim trunks. After checking in his things with Mesa, who looked rather amused at his confusion at the aspect of swimming, he went back to Sandy. His friend had just climbed to the edge of the gigantic container and and was beckoning him up.

"You ready for this?" Sandy grinned and suddenly jumped a good three feet in to the ten-foot-deep water, curling up in to a ball and making a splash. Down in the water he started floating on the water. "Come on down!"

A little more reserved, Mycah found a ladder down in to the water and climbed down that instead. It was definitely a new sensation to be in water he couldn't touch the bottom of. It took him a few tries but finally he was able to get the hang of keeping his head above water and paddling around.

"Nice work." Sandy swam almost effortlessly around him. "Took me three tries to keep from drowning."

"Good for you." He headed for one of the internal structures of the tank and held on, practically clinging to it.

"Come on, go underwater! I'll save you in case you can't come up."

"I'm not sure if I trust you that much." With enough playful teasing, Mycah eventually paddled his way over to the ladder to climb back up and look down in to the water. Once he was sure no one was below him, he jumped in.

Eventually he got the hang of the whole 'swimming' thing and decided that it was pretty fun. A few hours after he and Sandy had jumped in, and Tor had disappeared, there was a sudden piercing whistle blow and suddenly people were scrambling to leave.

"What's going on?"

"Hurry! Last ten people left have to help clean these out!"

Not wanting to stay for the prospect of scrubbing out the giant tanks, he hurried to climb out and scrambled to the elevators, leaving the clothes he had changed out of behind. A few times he pulled a few others down, slipping on the slick rock floor, but eventually he and Sandy made it out in once piece. Everyone in the lift was shivering and laughing, and almost no one had towels.

Sandy gave Mycah a smirk as they turned in to the Art Museum hallway and hurried to his room. Only when he was gone did Mycah see why he gave him that look. Spin was there with several large packages on the ground next to her feet, chatting with a few other girls. They spotted him, with no shirt and still dripping from the swim in the gardening rooms, and hurried to abandon her in the hallway with a flurry of winks and giggles.

Spin picked up the large boxes and he approached. "Mesa finally showed up to have the tanks cleaned? You're lucky someone didn't decide to play a prank on you and let you stay."

"I guess so," he said with an awkward shrug. "Did you need something?"

"Oh!" She blushed a bit. "I brought you some things for your wolf dragon. For a litter box and what to do to feed it when you can't be there." One of the packages chirped suddenly, and he wondered if the contents were insects or rodents...

"Here let me take some of that." He took some of the heavier looking packages and showed her back to his room, opening the door with his knee since his hands were full. Once inside he tried to set them all down but most of it ended up thumping unceremoniously to the floor. Spin added her payload to the pile and dusted off her hands. She kind of looked around his room without saying much for a few seconds.

"Um. I need to get dressed."

Spin suddenly blushed and tried only partly successfully to keep her composure. Mumbling an apology, she hurried out without saying anything else. Mycah was a little amused at her reaction and wondered a little bit where Tor would have gotten to. Probably somewhere with Mesa, which would make Sandy jealous and understandably why he wouldn't mention anything.

He let Raza out of the bathroom. The little dragon was the size of a cat, in just a couple days almost doubling in size. It ate anything he gave it and immediately started biting at the corners of the chirping box that was on the floor. Mycah opened up a little corner, and a few large wetas popped out. He got a laugh as he dried off and got dressed, watching Raza chase around the insects. If he snapped them up like that all day there wouldn't be any left soon.

Mycah eventually unpacked from the trip to the market completely, putting out all the things he had gotten to give away on his desk so he didn't forget about them. When he saw the green scarf meant for Spin, he berated himself for the missed opportunity. There wasn't much work that day since only a few had gotten stuck cleaning out the water tanks, which he found out happened about once every two months.

The next week or so seemed like everything was back to normal- he, Sandy and Tor went to work in the gardening caverns every day, and he was able to defer questions by curious acquaintances about shooting down the Scarecrow, for the most part. He was hoping that it wouldn't come up again until he was stopped one day in the hall by Singer and Spin, who waved his friends to carry on without him.

"Come with us," Singer told him, and he had no choice but to follow. They led him down to an unused cave, which now was brightly lit and held the wrecked Scarecrow in it. Nothing seemed to have been done to it other than towing it down there leaving it.

"You shot this down. Why didn't you tell anyone you could spot those in the sky?" Singer looked at him slightly accusingly.

"I thought it was clear if you looked close enough. I didn't think it was out of the ordinary for me to." He felt himself get defensive and tried to calm down.

"That's vital information! We could have put you on watchman duty or-" Spin shook her head and Singer stopped mid-rant. "Have any other spectacular talents you've kept hidden?"

Not trusting himself to speak, he only shook his head.

"That's that. Weren't you going to ask him about what he wanted to do?"

"Not yet." Singer looked like he was trying to blame Mycah for something and was going to keep throwing accusations at him until something stuck. "How'd you shoot it down? I specifically told you not to mess with your gun."

"No. You told Sandy not to mess with it. He bought that one at the market and spent three days beefing it up. You also said that he couldn't upgrade his own, so when he gave me that one, I gave him the old one." Mycah had a bit of a triumphant feeling at so far being able to defer the questions.

Singer scoffed and looked away. "I told Spider what happened. He said what he did would normally warrant getting the secondary tracker he put on you deactivated, but he decided you needed to be kept on watch, just to make sure." Mycah had a feeling that was somehow Singer's doing. "But I didn't bring you down here just to yell, as much as I'm sure you and Spin are convinced that I am." He gestured to the Scarecrow. "You shot it down. By all rules here you have the rights to do with it what you want. So what do you want to do?"

"Give it to Sandy. Let him screw around with it. Even if he can't fix it, I'm sure he'll get a kick at being able to look at all the tech in there."

"For the love of... Him? Why him?"

"Because you'd have to listen if told you to trash it. Let him do what he wants with it and anything he finds inside." There was a shift in the air currents and suddenly he got a whiff of something that nearly made him gag. Mycah looked back at the air craft... "I think... I'll help him clean it out, too..."

Everyone seemed satisfied with his decision when Saber blinked in to existence right next to Singer. Hood up, his face was still hidden, and he muttered something quietly to the two of them. Singer nodded, and when Saber put his hand on the others shoulder, they both disappeared.

"Well I guess that takes care of that..." Spin seemed reluctant to leave.

"Want to come with me to tell Sandy what he gets to do?"

The idea of him freaking out so badly made her giggle and she nodded. "Oh you bet."

It wasn't far back to their rooms, but Mycah stopped her before she knocked on the door to Sandy and Tor's room. "I've got something for you. Stay right here." He ran to his room and picked up the green scarf, as well as one of the enameled Club pins he got at the market. He figured he'd waited long enough to give it to her. Out in the hall he handed them to her with an embarrassed look on his face. "I kept meaning to give these to you, but after everything that happened..."

Spin took them with a surprised smile. "Oh, thank you! You didn't have to get me anything."

"You helped fix my hand. Even if it's not repayment, it's a thanks."

Before he knew what was happening, she got up on her tiptoes and kissed him. Tucking the gifts away, she was smirking as she turned to the door and knocked.

"Oh hey! What's up?" Sandy looked at them, as cheerful as ever.

"Mycah has a gift for you. Isn't that right?" She grinned up at him.

He was flustered for a moment before remembering why they were there in the first place. "You remember the Scarecrow?"

"Course I do. What about it?"

"Singer brought it back and since I shot it down, he said I get to decide what happens to it. I want you to take it apart to see if there's anything useful in there."

Before he was even done telling him what he could do now, Sandy's eyes were wide and he took off without a word.

"Hey! Wait up! You don't even know where it is!" Mycah chased after him, but Sandy was long gone. He got to the large cavern with the Scarecrow and rotting pilot and found his friend there already, with a paper surgical mask, apron, and long gloves to protect his hands and arms.

"How did you...?"

"I've been watching this thing since it got crated here," Sandy announced, peering in to the disgusting cockpit. "Although why they didn't throw out the pilot is a little ass backwards, yeah? I've had this stuff ready for almost a week."

Mycah shook his head. "I promised I'd help you clean it out. I thought it would only be fair."

"You sure?" Sandy looked up from his inspection.

"Yeah. Where'd you get the get up?"

Sandy directed him to a pile of extra supplies he had apparently stashed near by. While Mycah helped him pull out the mostly intact body and lay it on a tarp that they sealed shut, he hoped that Spin would understand why he ditched her.

Mycah helped him cover the small aircraft in a large tarp to try to trap what smell was left and they took off their protective clothing to toss it in an incinerator. Something was bothering him though, and as Sandy continued to stare at the covered Scarecrow he asked him a question.

"When someone dies out here what do you normally do? To get rid of the body I mean."

"Hmm? Usually incinerate it. Sometimes people will write messages on paper to burn with the body, but there's not much ceremony to it." He nodded a few times and turned back to the sealed up corpse. "Ready to get rid of this thing?"

"Yeah. Might as well." Sandy directed them to the nearest place to dispose of the body, but even with it sealed in the opaque plastic they got some odd looks from the people they dragged it past. When they got to the large metal opening in the rock where larger things were disposed, the two of them lifted it and with a hefty shove, it was gone.

"So that's that. I gotta go pick up some supplies to start cleaning that thing up. Meet you back there in an hour?" Sandy looked eager to go and as sooon as Mycah rolled his eyes and nodded, he was gone.

Mycah shook his head sadly as he looked at the metal grate that covered the incinerator dump. That was over and done with now, as far as he was concerned, and he was determined not to feel guilty about it any further. Now he just felt bad about running off after Sandy and leaving Spin in the Art Museum. He hurried back to his room hoping he didn't have the lingering scent of decomposition to see if he could ask Tor where she went.

When he got back to the Art Museum, however, he found her quite easily. She was in his room, lying on the floor and playing with Raza. The little dragon was running to snap at her fingers and then jumping back, chriping and hissing in turns. One of the large wetas was half-eaten on the floor too, and occasionally he would run to it and bite it before going back to snapping at Spin's fingers.

"Looks like you made a new friend."

She looked back at him with a grin. "He's adorable! Crazy to know it's going to turn in to a terrifying giant killing machine." She finished her sentance while picking up Raza and making kissy faces while it squirmed to get put down.

Mycah laughed and watched her continue to play with the dragon. "Sorry I had to run out like that. Sandy can get... overexcitable."

"I can tell. I take it he found where the Scarecrow's being kept?"

"Yep. I helped him with something that needed two people and then came back here. I didn't think you'd find something to keep you busy." He sat on the bed and Raza scrambled up the blankets with his sharp claws to sniff at him, sneezing at the smells, before jumping back to the floor to play with Spin some more.

"He was pawing under the door and I let myself in. Hope you don't mind. I didn't snoop though."

"There's nothing TO snoop. I think you're good." He found himself suddenly smiling a little when he saw that she had used the green scarf to tie up her hair in it's usual loose ponytail. "I am going to go back there though. Even though it's Sandy's to take apart, I figured I'd help him clean it out first."

"That's fair, I think." She yelped when Raza actually caught her finger, giving her a tiny cut. She tapped him on the nose with a disapproving noise before standing up. "I wish I could stay longer since you're here, but I have things that need to be taken care of. And thanks again for the gifts." With a little wave she was gone.

Mycah flopped back on the bed and Raza climbed up to the bed again. He was about the size of a small cat now. He sniffed at Mycah's mouth and nose, still in the habit of trying to get the moisture from them, but he was pushed away with a patient gesture. He was used to it's attempts to do that by now.

Mycah wasn't sure how long he still had until Sandy was back at the room with the Scarecrow, so he headed back that way after making sure there were a few more wetas loose for him to hunt. When he got there, Sandy was just walking in as well with a hand dolly full of boxes and square jugs.

"What is all that?"

"Supplies. Duh. You don't think this thing is going to detail itself, do you?" He lifted a heavy jug of liquid from the stack of boxes and put it on a table that had been set up near the Scarecrow. "Had to steal this from the growing caverns. D-limonene. It's a disinfectant and it smells like oranges and stuff, yeah? Should be able to use this to clean out the cockpit."

He started to pull other boxes and supplies off the stack and soon had a station all set up for cleaning. Mycah wasn't sure what he was supposed to do to help, but Sandy was ordering him around soon enough. They spent the rest of the day ripping out any fabric since that was unrecoverable, and trying to clean it out the best they could. The next few days were like that: spending any extra time in with the Scarecrow. When everyone around them started to complain they smelled like death, Sandy set aside for each of them a tiny vial of the citrus-smelling oil to mix with soap to help get rid of the smell.

"Oh hey! Check this out!" Sandy was in a small storage space near the camouflaging belly of the flyer when he pulled out a small metal crate. Inside was a basic set of survival gear, along with what looked like a few brightly colored bandanas.

"We have everything here already. Why is this so cool?" He picked up an orange and yellow bandana, which somehow felt heavier than it should.

"Everything else but those, yeah? Do you even know what those are?" Mycah shook his head. "Put it on."

He folded it in half and tied it behind his head. When he did so there was a small crackle and the feeling of static like it had just been taken from a dryer. "What is this?"

"I heard about these a while ago but haven't been able to get my hands on any. It creates a small static field to keep away dust and particulates. Going out in a storm, you wouldn't need anything but this and some goggles, for your face anyway."

Mycah took off the bandana and put it in his pocket. "Finders keepers?"

"You bet." Sandy grinned as he put the box aside before moving to look at more. In another day they had anything not bolted down taken out of the aircraft, leaving only the bare minimum inside, along with the tech that powered it.

"I'm not sure how much you can help me with this next part," Sandy admitted. "I've got to be careful taking this thing apart if there's going to be anything usable after I'm done. Especially those camo plates on the bottom, other than the one you shot. Looks like that destablized the controls, too..." He started mumbling to himself in technical jargon that Mycah only partially understood, taking out his tools and starting to work.

Taking that as his que to get out of there, Mycah left Sandy to the work and went back to the Art Museum. Something seemed off as he walked down the halls, and with a sudden sense of uneasyness, he saw that the halls no longer were painted in the headache-inducing riot of colors that it normally was. Instead, the halls were almost completely white, with colors showing through the thing paint here and there. The only thing left untouched was the painting across from his door of the sillouhette of a man with the shadowed wings and halo. The image seemed more stark now than it had even when it was first put there.

Already though, others were starting to cover over the white paint in their own drawings, trying to bring the hallway back to it's normal appearance. Tor was looking at the hallway with a slightly disatisfied expression and he stopped Mycah as he walked past.

"More and more people are talking about Destroya," he said quietly. "You should be careful."

"What? Why?" He frowned.

Tor shook his head. He looked as if since Mycah didn't get the warning, he shouldn't have to explain it. "Where's Sandy?"

"With the Scarecrow. I guess he's spent more time there than here."

"Hurry up! Do you want to get the plans drafted for another growing room or not?" The familiar voice of Mesa came from Tor and Sandy's room, and his friend looked a little guilty. He said nothing more to Mycah as he turned back into the room to help her.

Mycah was surprised at that. Tor didn't seem the kind to keep secrets like that, although if he knew about Sandy's crush on Mesa it would make sense. He had to figure out if he wanted to keep it a secret as well, though he figured it wouldn't hurt to not say anything.

The next day as soon as he had the spare time, Mycah was back with Sandy taking apart the Scarecrow. Sandy had gotten to a part of the craft that he wasn't sure why it was there- it didn't seem to be anything related to powering or directing it, or part of the camouflaging plates. Confused but determined to figure out what this was, he was half hidden inside the machine while Mycah sat on the table and rifled through some of the goodies they had pulled out from the wreckage.

"Mycah! Hand me that pair of cutters, will you?" Sandy's fingertips appeared, and Mycah hurried to oblige. He muttered a thanks before the sound of metal being cut was heard.

He had turned back to the things on the table when there was a sudden quite hiss. At first Mycah thought that there may be some sort of gas leak and reached for one of the surgical masks they kept on the table, until he heard Sandy start screaming.

Mycah hurried to pull Sandy out of the small compartment in the Scarecrow. Sandy was still screaming wordlessly as he lay on the ground, covering the right half of his face with his hands.

"Sandy!? What happened!"

He took a few gasping breaths before he was able to speak. "C-cut a line... Corrosive..." He struggled to sit up, still covering his face. "Water. Need to wash it off..."

There was a bottle of water that Mycah grabbed off the table and opened for him. When Sandy took his hands away to rinse them off, the skin was red and raw, but the right side of his face was in even worse condition. His skin was pitted and in most places gone, especially around his eye. The eye itself looked wrong as well- it seemed out of shape and it was clear that it had been injured in a way that there was no recovery. Sandy still poured the water over his face with a pained grimace, knowing that if he didn't the injuries would get even worse.

"I can't see. Mycha, I can't see!" In a panic, Sandy waved his hand in front of his right eye.

"Calm down. We have to get you to the doctor, now." He made Sandy stand up and start walking, even if he had to push him along to get him to move.

It was a long walk to the medical office, and Sandy was in even worse condition when they got there. When he took his hand away from the chemical burn, pieces of his skin were stuck to his palm and fingers, and his eye was almost unrecognizable. The doctors admitted Sandy right away and took him in to an interior room, leaving Mycah to wait for him. Someone sent for Tor and soon he was there as well, frowning when Mycah told him what happened.

"From what I saw when they took him, his right eye is ruined. Gone. I don't know how they're going to fix that, or the damage to his face."

"They can help cosmetically. Disfiguring injuries aren't common but not out of the ordinary. As for the eye and his vision- I'm not sure." Tor sighed. "I do hope he's alright."

"Me too." There wasn't much they could do but wait after that. Mycah was surprised when Spin suddenly showed up as well, and he quietly explained to her what had happened. When he was done, she was frowning and looked worried.

"It's a good thing you brought him here. He'll be taken care of."

Mycah nodded, but didn't look reassured. Spin reached over and pulled his hand in to hers without a word.

Hours passed before someone walked out to tell them how things were going. "You can go ahead and see him. He's been stabilized, but by the time you got him here the damage was done." The doctor shook his head. "It's a good thing you got him here as fast as you did though. You can go on in and see him."

The three of them were led in to Sandy's room, similar to where Mycah was treated when he was first rescued from the desert. He was lying back on a hospital bed with most of his face bandaged, though he still managed to have a grin on his face.

"They had to take my eye out," he said with a heavy slurring voice. "But they let me keep it." He held up a glass container in his bandaged hands, where the remains of his eye floated in clear liquid.

"Ew." Spin made a face but Mycah laughed. Only Sandy would ask to keep it.

"That's pretty gross. How're you feeling?"

"Medicated. They're gonna spray paint me with skin tomorrow." When Mycah looked confused, Spin quickly explained how the doctors could grow a sort of slushy of skin cells to spray on to the skin that would take hold and grow faster and with less noticeable scarring than a skin graft. "This is perfect though," he continued. "I always wanted to try out a design for an eye I made a few years ago. but... Couldn't convince myself to take out a perfectly good one, yeah?"

"Sure..." Mycah was sure Sandy would be okay, talking about replacing his missing eye with a robotic one, he assumed. "You get some rest, okay? I think the doctors are wanting us to leave." The one that had led them in there was tapping his foot outside the door.

"Later. Tor, bring me my notepad tomorrow okay?"

His friend nodded and soon they were kicked out in to the hallway. They were all a little quiet, but Mycah was sure that Sandy would be back to investigating the Scarecrow before a week was over.

"It's getting late. I need to get going." Spin looked up at Mycah. "I'll meet you here tomorrow to check on him?"

"Yeah. Thanks." He was pleasantly surprised when she gave him a reassuring hug and peck on the cheek before running off.

The next morning Mycah skipped out on working in the gardens, regardless of how Mesa would discipline him for his truancy. Tor had gotten what looked like a drawing pad and set of pens that was apparently Sandy's notebook. Mycah took a peek and saw that while most of it was actual paper, there was a computer set in to it as well. Spin showed up at the hospital rooms about the time they got there, and the three of them were let in to Sandy's room. He looked less sedated than last time and was sitting up with his eye in his lap.

"They're bringing in the skin paint! I've always wanted to see how this works."

"So I suppose this turned out for the better?" Tor asked flatly, handing Sandy his things.

"You bet!" He flipped through the papers and pages stored on the small tablet the best he could with his bandaged hands before finding what he wanted. "Here it is. The hard part is going to be putting it together. I'll need some help with that." He turned it to show them complicated schematics that didn't look anything like an eye. "Oh. And putting it in I guess. I can't do that on my own." He turned it back to himself to start making notes with a stylus.

"Looks like he's got this down," Spin said. "I'll go let Mesa know you three won't be in today."

They nodded in thanks, though Sandy didn't seem to hear. He was busy with his tablet until someone came in with what looked like an airbrush attached to a small machine to power it and a syringe full of blue liquid. Mycah and Tor were sitting in the rooms chairs by that point and they watched as the bandages around Sandy's hands were taken off first. They didn't look bad, at least it wasn't any worse than the day before. There was still a layer of skin that was missing, leaving his hands raw. The blue solution was sprayed over his hands with no problem, though Sandy looked irritated that he couldn't handle his notebook any more. A different kind of bandage was put around them after that and the doctor declared that to be taken care of.

Mycah watched as after that it was his face that was taken care of. The bandages were peeled away as Sandy fought not to react to the pain. The skin under the bandages was much worse than his hands, and his empty eye socket was apparent. Sandy kept as straight a face as he could while he was treated, and was shaking slightly by the time bandages were applied again.

"That should only take a few days to heal up," the doctor let him know. "Try not to adjust the bandages and when those come off, and when they do we can talk about your eye."

"You got it, doc." Sandy leaned back and tried to relax. "That really hurt," he said quietly when they were alone again.

"So what are you going to do with your eye?" Mycah asked a few minutes later.

"I think I'll get just a blank replacement so I don't look weird. One that tracks with the other. Then as soon as I'm outta here I know who I need to talk to so I can start working on a prototype of the eye." He made a dissatisfied face. "I didn't realize how much I liked having depth perception."

"No more high fives for you."

"Nope."

Sandy sighed and sat back, looking at his sketches. "The worst part is having to wait, yeah? I hate not being able to anything." He looked right at Mycah. "In case you didn't know, I'm not a very patient person."

Mycah bit back a coughing laugh and said nothing. Only Tor was able to keep a straight face.

The rest of the day was spent lazily, with Mycah eventually sneaking Raza in to the hospital room. The wolf dragon cub explored the new room thoroughly and was soon settled comfortably on the hospital bed, keeping Sandy's feet warm while he complained about the spray-on skin grafts itching.

With no extra beds or chairs to stretch out, Mycah elected to head back to his room and stop by before work the next morning. Raza scampered around his feet on the way back and suddenly he made an excited chirping noise as Spin appeared from around the corner.

"Hey, how's Sandy doing?"

"He's okay. Way better than yesterday. He's going to keep that jar with his eye in it. Man he's weird."

Spin suddenly laughed, keeping a grin even when the laughter was gone. "Weird is one way to put it. Probably eccentric too. I saw what you brought him though, that note book with all the plans in it. If those were all his, he's way too smart for his own good."

"You can say that again," Mycah said, thinking about the overpowered gun he still had in his room.

"So did you find anything in the Scarecrow that's useful, before he got his eye taken out?"

He told her about the static bandanas that kept the dust away, but admitted that he hadn't had the chance to try it out yet. "Other than that, I was just helping him dismantle it pretty much. Not much more than that."

"Well even if you two don't get anything useful out of it, it's still one less Scarecrow in the sky." Spin started walking and Mycah did too, nearly tripping over Raza as he ran in between his legs and feet while he walked. "Did you have any plans tomorrow?"She asked, fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

"I don't think so. Why do you ask?"

"No reason. A few of us were going to hang out and open up some shipments we stole from a caravan that left Dorn and see if there are any goodies in there. Wanna come?"

"Sure thing. Who all will be there?"

"A few people with rooms in the Art Museum, you might know them. Singer might show up but he never stays long, just to pick out what he wants and leave."

Mycah didn't look to happy but didn't say anything. He wanted a chance to hang out with her again, even if it was with the chance of one of his least favorite people showing up. By that time they were at his room, where the white painted halls of the Art Museum had been painted over agian, though it was hasty work. The shadow painting across from his door was still there and Spin gave it a long look.

"So I'll see you tomorrow?" he asked, opening the door so Raza could go inside.

"Yeah. I'll meet you here and show you where we hid the stuff."

"Alright. See you then."

Spin lingered for a few seconds more before leaving, glancing back at him at the end of the hall.

The next morning he stopped by Sandy's room as he had promised, but was quickly shooed out by his friend. Someone else was there, looking over the notes for the artificial eye and nodding approvingly. It looked like he already had someone on board to help him produce it. The bandages were gone from his face and hands, and while his hands looked much better already, his vacant eye and visibly scarred face were a little disturbing.

After a day of work that seemed boring and quiet without Sandy there, Mycah headed back to his room to wait for Spin. He didn't have to wait long, and soon she was showing him to a room hidden behind a false rock wall and door that required a password to get through. Once inside, there was a mellow party atmosphere where about ten or eleven others were sitting around on old, comfortable looking couches and chairs. In the back was a heap of boxes, crates and bags, still unopened.

"Hey, it's about time! We were waiting for you, Spin." They were welcomed warmly as Mycah was introduced. He knew most of the people there by sight, if not by name, and was casual acquaintances with a few of them. It seemed that they really were waiting for Spin as they started to move the containers off of the large pallet and open them.

Mycah and Spin ended up getting the most choice of the items, which included clothes, jewelery, decorative items, and alcohol. When Mycah took out a long bottle of something bubbly and sweet, someone got out plastic cups and they passed it around. It was incredibly tasty, and also incredibly potent. He didn't notice it, but Spin did- there was more than just alcohol in the drink, and she pushed him to drink a little more than he normally would have on his own, "Just to relax," she said.

Before Mycah realized it he had way too much. He was nearly passed out, with Spin curled up next to him with his arm around her. For some reason he didn't feel as inhibited around her as before and was just fine with the close contact. She was giving him occasional kisses and attention, and though he didn't notice it, eyeing the few other women there with venomous glances whenever they got too close.

The leftovers of going through the stolen goods were making their way around the room when the locked door opened and Singer stepped in. Mycah flinched, but not at the sight of him. Spin had suddenly jumped up and moved to the other side of the comfortable couch. Singer, however, didn't seem to notice or care about what he saw. He picked through piles of what was already claimed despite glares and protests, but no one stepped up to do anything. When he was gone, the relaxed atmostphere had turned sour and people started to mill around and gather their things to leave.

"Alright, let's go." Spin grabbed Mycah's hand and pulled him to his feet.

"What? Why? Just because HE showed up..."

"Trust me. He'll only be back later to make sure we're out of here. Especially if he finds out we got our hands on some of that stuff." She pointed to the large bottle of bubbly alcohol that was nearly empty.

"Why? What's in there?" He let Spin lead him through the empty hallways, arms around each others waists.

"I'll tell you when you're older," she said with a grin. "You need to get some sleep and try not to be too depressed tomorrow."

"Depressed? How can I be depressed?" He leaned heavily on her, the brightly colored walls of the Art Museum making him dizzy.

Spin only opened the door to his room and made him sit down on his bed before he fell down. "I mean it. Sleep. I'm making you go to work tomorrow."

He grabbed her hand as he fell to the bed and pulled her in to his lap. "You can't MAKE me do anything," he said, kissing at her neck.

As politely as she could, Spin pulled herself away, an embarrassed blush staining her face. "You'd be surprised. See you tomorrow."

Mycah was disappointed to see her go, but it didn't bother him. He knew he was hammered and decided to do what Spin said before he made a total idiot of himself. He wasn't able to sleep right away, especially because he didn't put Raza in the bathroom and the dragon kept trying to lick up his nose, but eventually he dropped off. When he woke up the next morning, he wished he hadn't.

It was Spin who woke him up instead of Sandy, but it was still as annoying as ever to wake up.

"Good morning!" The light was flipped on and he winced, covering up with the blankets.

"Go away..." He had a horrible headache and an even worse feeling of 'wow you did something stupid' than he ususally did after a rare night of heavy drinking.

"Nope. You're going to work because Sandy's getting some practice in with his lack of depth perception. You have to be there to make sure he doesn't cut off a finger as he's pruning in the hydro rooms."

"He would do that anyway...."

"Doesn't matter. Up." Spin yanked away the covers to reveal that he had slept in the clothes from the night before and looked as horrible as he felt.

Mycah grumbled and complained, but eventually he got up and took a shower, even though that really didn't help him feel better either. He was grumpy and unsociable as he walked to the medical floor with Spin and eventually remembered what he meant to ask the night before.

"What was in that stuff anyway?"

"Oh that? Usually we don't see much of it; it tends to only show up at the poles where all the high-end society lives, right? It's actually pretty expensive liqueur with enough MDMA to knock you off your feet." She snickered. "It was pretty funny to watch you, I'll admit. I don't think you're supposed to drink that much at one time."

"You... let me..." He held his aching head and winced.

She only laughed again and opened the door to Sandy's room for him.

Sandy was already up and on his feet, though he looked slightly unsteady. His bandages were all totally gone, and there was only a slightly pink hint to his skin, like a slight sunburn, and Mycah suspected that would be gone before too long. He looked well enough, though, and even had a replacement eye. It moved with the other, but there was still something discernably mechanical about it. Mycah quickly stopped taking notice of it, and was only glad to see his friend doing better.

"This sucks. I can't believe you're making me work..." He grumbled, dissatisfied, as he headed towards the door and ignored the doctor behind him. "Let's just get outta here, yeah?"

Mycah led him out and Spin walked a few feet behind them. "How you feeling?"

"Like I've got one eye shut or something. It was fine when I had the stupid bandages, but now I know nothing is there and I STILL can't see." Sandy was angrier than Mycah had ever seen him. "Not to mention I can't work on anything myself unless I can see with both eyes. I've got to let that IDIOT manufacture the eye himself!"

"But won't he be going off your plans?"

"It won't be the same!" Sandy fumed and marched forward. "As soon as it's in, I'm making a new one from scratch. I already have plans for how to improve it, which I could do on the fly if I was working on it MYSELF but I can't do that..."

Secretly Mycah thought it was pretty funny the way that he was only angry because he wasn't able to work on his own devices himself. There was no pride there about being able to create a completely new eye himself, or even any reaction on the fact that his face was still visibly scarred even though it was much less noticable than if it had healed naturally.

"What about the Scarecrow?"

"Don't even get me started on that!" Sandy threw his arms up in the air, exasperated. "I can't even go near that until my eye, yeah? I'll ruin it even worse than you did when you shot it down."

There was an odd noise behind them, and Mycah glanced back to see Spin having to cover her mouth to keep from laughing. Soon they were at their normal stations in the growing room, pruning dead leaves and old stems off of plants that Mesa was so protective over. Sandy grumbled and complained the entire time, barely even able to say hello to Tor when he started to help.

The melancholy feeling Mycah had slowly faded as he watched Sandy butcher the plants, getting even more irritable as the thought of Mesa being mad at him made him feel even worse. Eventually she got wind of who was leaving behind the scarred plants and she ordered the three of them out before they did any more damage, blaming all of them for it. Since clearly they couldn't handle themselves to taking care of the actual plants, they were being moved to the dark rooms where various mushrooms and other fungi grew that were colloquially known as the Mushrooms.

"Why are they called Mushrooms?" Sandy asked no one as they cleared out tables of old soil and compost. "Why don't they call them the Mushroom rooms? That's more fun to say, yeah?"

"I don't think 'fun' is what they were going for when this place was carved out," Tor said matter-of-factly.

Sandy only huffed and ignored them. Once they had removed all the old compost, which was dry and crumbly and tossed down a chute to an incinerator, they started filling in the tables with newer, and more fragrant compost.

"You can't see right but can you still smell?" Mycah teased him, and only got an acknowledging grunt out of Sandy. "So how long are you going to have to wait until your eye is done?"

"He was working on it yesterday. I've worked with him before, and he knows my schematics. Four days at most, three if I'd let him use my tools, but there's no way I'm letting anyone touch my babies," he said with a pouting face.

"So what are you going to do until then?"

"Stub my toes and stab myself in the face with my toothbrush," he mumbled.

Mycah tried not to laugh and make his friend feel worse. Sandy did fumbled quite a few times, tripping over the uneven floor and not quite reaching things he thought were within his grasp, but by the end of the day he was doing better. Four days with limited vision probably wouldn't be too bad for him, although his missing cheerful attitude did make the day seem a little long.

When they were done cleaning up their work, Mesa was the one to check on them and let them go.

"Since you seem to have done such a good job in here, you'll stay here until you," she said, pointing accusingly at Sandy, "can use a pair of scissors." He nodded sheepishly, without his usual cheeky comeback. "I was informed that would be about a week. Can you keep from killing all the fungus than I might let you take over. You have been doing a good job in your regular work."

Sandy's face lit up.

"Until today anyway."

Once they were all mostly cleaned up, enough not to leave a trail of dirt behind them, they headed back to their rooms. Sandy still looked upbeat from the offset complement he got from Mesa when they got back. There was a note taped to his door, with directions on how to work on being able to form a sense of depth perception again. He quickly glanced over it before crumpling it up and throwing it in the trash. Once disposed, he went over to Mycah's room.

"Hey, what are you doing?" He had barged past Mycah and opened the door, picking up a squawking Raza.

"I'm borrowing this."

"What?! Why? Hey!"

Raza still made angry noises at Sandy until he was plopped down on the floor in his room. Sandy quickly tied a piece of string to a small metal rod, and used that string to knot around a bundle of bright yellow feathers he had on his table that Mycah assumed were left over from decorating the masks. The colored feathers swinging around quickly got the dragon's attention and it started to lean this way and that as it watched it before finally pouncing. It quickly caught the feathers, though Sandy yanked them away before he could eat any of them.

"He catches it, I lose. He doesn't, I win." He looked rather proud, and it seemed to do the trick. Even after just a minutes of watching to make sure that Raza was going to be fine there, Mycah saw that already Sandy was able to keep the makeshift toy away.

"Bring him back when you're done. And ASK next time." He didn't want to admit it to Sandy, but he was attached to the little pest, and wouldn't be happy if something happened to him.

"You bet." Sandy continued to amuse the wolf dragon as Mycah rolled his eyes and walked back to his room. He felt better than that morning, but not by much. After a quick shower he was ready to call it a night already. He lay on top of the covers with a pillow over his face when he heard a familiar but unwelcome voice.

"I've got news for you. Wake up."

Groaning, Mycah sat up and stared at Singer. "What do you want?"

"Crows are some of the most resourceful desert-dwellers there are, and the Clubs are the only people they ask to take in to train. You, Sandy, Tor and a few others are in the new group we'll be sending in about a week."

"What if I don't want to go?"

"You don't have a choice," Singer said simply. "They'll teach you how to survive in the desert better than anyone else could."

Mycah sighed. Singer didn't look like he was giving him that much of a choice. "Fine. I won't fight you. But this is ridiculous."

"With the Crows, Saber won't be watching you."

"What?" He frowned suddenly. "How do you know?"

"Crows are the only other faction we've ever traded FAME with, or let Clubs with FAME-altered abilities go to. They can tell when he's there and he's not welcome. One of the few people that aren't, actually, and he knows it. You'll be able to get away from him there."

He hadn't thought about the teleporting Ace in a while, not since he stopped letting himself be seen. Although he could have been just about anywhere, at almost any time, without Mycah noticing him. The shiny patch of skin that he had forgotten about suddenly itched.

"When is he going to stop?"

"When Spider says he can. And Spider works on his own timeframe, so don't ask me when that'll be. I'll give you more details when it's closer to go."

"Oh, can Raza come?"

"Your dragon?" Singer frowned, but this time in thought. "I'm not sure. I'll have to get back to you on that one."

"Was that all you needed?" He thought Singer was about to shake his head no and walk out, but he stopped at the door.

"Be careful with Spin."

Mycah wanted to laugh but only raised an eyebrow. He had to wonder... did they have something the past? Curious now, he only shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh you know exactly what I'm talking about," Singer told him in a warning voice. He gave Mycah one last glare before leaving.

Mycah flipped him off as he left, sneering. What right did Singer have to tell him what to do? Still tired, he left his door cracked so Raza could push it open when he got tired of chasing Sandy and got ready for bed. He passed out before he heard the wolf dragon return and in turn woke up the next morning with Raza snuggled under his arm looking at him balefully.

"Stupid thing. Why do I keep you?"

Raza chirped in reply and wiggled away, pawing at the cardboard box of wetas. Mycah grudginly fed him and was, for once, awake before Sandy was.

"Wake up!" Mycah couldn't help but have a bit of a maniacal grin as he flipped the lights on and off in Sandy and Tor's room. Tor was only a casualty of war, he decided, and was merciless as he waited for Sandy to sit up.

"Stop, stop with the light! Ugh..." He sat up, groaning and covering just his wincing left eye. "That's bad enough with two eyes to deal with..." Only then did Mycah notice that his right eye, the one replaced, was grey and blank until Sandy looked up and pulled his eyelid down to press something. The colors flashed and blinked until it matched his real eye.

"Dude that's gross."

"Is that or I can just take it out and gross you out with an empty eye socket, yeah?"

Mycah didn't reply. "It's my turn to wake you up. Let's go. You want to impress Mesa by getting in early don't you?"

Sandy immediately looked more awake and he hopped out of bed, scrabbling to find clothes and stubbing his toes and hands while he did so. Tor was sitting up by then and he gave Mycah a look that told him he better cut it out.

Mycah chose to ignore him and bug Sandy. Only when everyone was getting ready for the day did he leave, flipping on the light to his own room while the main lights in the hallway were still off. He put on his shoes and got ready to go but before he left something caught his eye. As he stood in the door way, about to turn his light off, his shadow was projected on to the wall of the painting of the supposed 'Destroya'. It matched, almost perfectly. Glaring at the painting, he reached to the light switch and flicked it off right as the lights turned on outside. The shadow disappeared and he felt better almost right away once the matching shades were gone from his vision.

The three of them went to work as usual, and the day passed quickly. Mycah told them what Singer said the night before- that soon they would be training with the crows. The quiet Mushrooms suddenly echoed with Sandy's objection.

"What?! No!! I can't go! Not if my eye isn't ready yet!"

"Why not? You can go a few days more without it, can't you?"

"No! I can't!! I don't want to get used to monocular vision, yeah? Especially when we won't be with the Crows for a few days, but probably a few WEEKS!" He looked close to tears, shaking a hand trowel at the rock ceiling in dismay. "Nooooooo..."

"So you know about going to train with them?"

"Of course I do!" he snapped. "Most everyone should. You've been here in a weird time, though," Sandy explained, calming down a little. "When I got here they were sending a group out and I had to wait. You got here long enough to be able to go with us, but not soon enough to have heard about it." He dug in the compost while his anger turned to a petulant sulk, practically throwing mushroom stubs down into the soil-like material.

The next three days Mesa continued to check on the trio of friends, making sure they knew what work to do and that it was completed successfully. Sandy found that it was getting easier to work with just the one eye, even though he complained about it. While he had said that it would take four days for his newer eye to be completed, it took another day after that for it to be delivered to him. As soon as the mysterious builder brought the finished piece to him, Sandy disappeared.

"Do you think it'll work as well as he wants it to?"

"Probably. Sandy has a talent for creating things like that." Tor looked about as confident as he would for anyone, which wasn't really saying much. "Although I have no doubt that once he has his vision back he'll be improving it in ways that are going to be... unnessecary."

Mycah snorted. "I'm not sure how that's going to work out but I have a feeling it'll be something to see."

It was almost too late to stay up any further when Sandy finally showed back up, and by then Mycah was about to give up waiting and go to bed. When he arrived, he looked smug and rather proud of himself.

"So did it work?"

"Of course it worked! Who do you think designed it?" Sandy didn't look any different, but he carried himself like normal, not favoring his blind side, with some slight bruising around his right eye.

"Are you going to throw another fit when we leave to stay with the Crows?"

Sandy pouted and shook his head. "No. Because now I can see. And I have night vision." Mycah rolled his eyes. Of course Sandy would do something like that. He watched his friend pick up his original eye in its glass jar and roll it around on the table. "Although I think I have something I can use for this, too..."

"Good for you. I'm getting some sleep, now that you're back."

The next morning Mycah was about to leave for work when Singer stopped him. "You're not going anywhere. The Crows are here and they want you all right away."

"Do we need to pack?"

"Not this time. They'll provide everything you need. Oh, and bring your dragon and your gun." Singer gathered up Sandy and Tor, and about five or six others who were going to be traveling with them. Mycah picked up Raza and sat him on his shoulder, where he perched and squawked at everyone from his new vantage point, snapping at people that got too close. About the size of a fully grown cat by this time, Raza wasn't really heavy but his claws digging in to Mycah's shoulders made him wince. Before he left his room he made sure to grab his gun and belt, putting them on before going out to meet the others.

"This is going to be awesome. I'm so glad I got my eye in before we left, yeah? Too bad I have to leave behind the Scarecrow. I'll finish taking that apart when we get back." He was more talking to himself than Mycah or Tor, but he continued to almost babble as they waited for more direction.

Singer started to direct them to one of the exits to the surface. While they were walking, Spin joined them.

"You're coming with us too?" Mycah was pleasantly surprised when she started to walk next to him.

"Yep. I've got some old friends in the Crows that I haven't seen in a while, and their counsel wanted me to join them this time. Singer too. You probably won't see much of him while we're with them though."

"Hmph. That's good to hear. What about you?"

"Hmm... We'll see." She gave him a grin that made him look away before she saw the slight red in his cheeks.

Instead of meeting at a vehicle that would take them out to their destination, like they had for the market, the doors that opened to the surface were in a rock overhang that sheltered them from the sun but not from the heat. There were three people there waiting for them. They were almost invisible even though Mycah was looking right at them- all three were dressed in organic oranges and reds, blending in to the desert almost without effort.

Singer stepped up to the leader, who didn't speak but communicated with him with handsigns and gestures. After a few moments of signing, the Queen of Clubs nodded.

"Alright listen up. I've got better things to do than babysit you. The Crows don't always speak, and in most cases you won't be able to either. You'll get crash courses in the sign language, but for now listen to the direction that IS told to you and know that you're guests- and they can send you away at any time." Singer eyed them all, and Mycah thought he gave him a look that was even more stern than usual. Raza hissed quietly and Mycah had to shush him with a bop on the nose.

The leader of the three Crows didn't say anything else, but motioned for someone else to step forward and speak. "Come on up and get some new clothes," they were ordered. "You all stick out like sore thumbs, ugh."

Spin was one of the first to step forward, making a quick sign to the ordering them around. She flashed a grin and threw Spin an outfit, and she started changing right there. It took one or two more people walking forward to get clothes before they all started changing.

The grey shirts and black pants were soon thrown in a pile, and everyone was dressed in loose long sleeve shirts and fatigue pants in the not-quite-traditional camouflage pattens in the desert colors. Mycah had a small sovenier he kept in his pocket as he put Raza back on his shoulder- the dust-deflecting bandana that was hidden in the Scarecrow he had shot down. It was bright yellow but with some paint or even just getting it dirty, it would fit in just fine. Sandy had given another to Tor which was blue and the one he had kept was red and white. Mycah questioned the odd choice of colors when he had first seen them, but as long as they worked he didn't care.

"Alright, let's go. We've got a camp that's a quick walk away and we should be there in about an hour?"

"That's quick walk?" Sandy muttered. Mycah elbowed him in the side and only got a dirty look in return.

"There's a hood on the back of your shirts," they were told. "Put it up and it should help keep you cool and out of the sun. Now try to keep up and if you find yourself falling behind, speak up. We'll make sure you make it to camp."

Everyone put up the hoods and they were off, walking out of the protected shade and in to the hot sun.

Mycah was surprised at how well the clothes kept him cool even in the early morning sun, but had to keep Raza from trying to crawl into the jacket-like shirt with him. Once it got warmer, he settled down and draped around his shoulders with his tail curling around Mycah's neck.

Spin kept her distance and continued to sign to the woman who was leading them at a brisk walk. They were laughing quietly and kept glancing back at Mycah who was quickly getting fed up with the silent gossip. While he brooded, but still enjoyed the attention of knowing she was talking to him, he didn't see Singer until he was right besides him.

"Mycah I need you to keep quiet and listen. I've got something important to tell you."

Frowning and a little confused, he waited to see what Singer wanted.

"Something's going to happen in the camp, and you're going to hear some things about you that aren't true- complete and total lies." Singer's normally bored or irritated attitude was gone as he whispered barely above hearing level. Instead he was almost sounding worried, but intense like he was trying to make Mycah memorize every word. "You'll know it when you hear it but you need to ignore it, and put it out of your head. Do you understand?"

"No. What are you even talking about?"

Singer stopped in front of Mycah, making them both pause as the others walked ahead of them. "Just listen!" he hissed, and Raza hissed back at him. "I said you'll know it when you hear it, and you have to swear that you'll ignore it. Do you promise me?"

Mycah didn't answer. Something about this made him uneasy, and he glanced behind Singer to see that the group was already getting pretty far ahead. He only shrugged slightly and didn't make a clear answer. That seemed enough for Singer, though he still gave him a piercing glare.

"I mean it, Mycah." He stood there for a few seconds more before turning around and joining the others like nothing had happened.

He still felt uneasy as he rejoined Sandy and Tor. Even though the sun was rising and it was getting hotter, Mycah had a cold chill run down his back.

"What was that about?" Sandy asked.

"I don't know. But I have a feeling we shouldn't be talking on our way there. I'll tell you when I get the chance, okay?"

Sandy, for once, kept his mouth shut and nodded, though after a few seconds he was fidgeting and impatient, unused to having to hold his tongue.

If it was for any other reason, Mycah probably would have been laughing at his friend without any remorse. Instead he tried to focus on keeping up the pace in the heat.

What little talking did go on soon died down, and only the sound of the odd insect and their own footsteps was heard. A few times Raza lept off of Mycah's shoulders to chase down a bug or shadow, only to run back and paw at his leg to be picked back up. The uneasy feeling he had got worse as the three Crows leading them started to slow.

There wasn't anything apparently different about the desert landscape when they stopped. Suddenly the so-far silent leader disappeared, dropping in to the ground.

"This way! It's a lot cooler downstairs." The other leaders waved them to a disguised hole in the ground, where they were told to jump down. Spin was first, and Mycah was quick to follow after her. The drop was sloped sharply and went down about ten feet before evening out. They weren't underground, however, but instead in a hollow, gently curving bowl carved out of the desert. He could see that there were a few rooms that were worked in to the walls and ground, but most everything was 'above ground' so to speak. The entire bowl, about three hundred yards across, was covered with a netting similar to what covered the black market stalls and booths Mycah had seen.

Raza lifted his snout and sniffed, looking around curiously, while the new trainees gathered around the entrance. The silent leader nodded to the woman and she started to lead them around the edge of the bowl-like structure.

"You're new here, so your tents are going to be on the far edge of the camp. We'll show you where you'll be sleeping and then go from there."

Singer apparently had a better place to stay and was gone without a word, though he did give Mycah another warning glare. He expected Spin to go to her own tent or room, but she stayed with the group. The tents they were showed to were smaller than the ones they had been given at the market, with enough room for only one person comfortably. They seemed to be assigned to them at random. Sandy and Tor's tents were almost right up against the path that led to the main encampments, but Mycah's was the one farthest in the back away from the others. He let Raza down to sniff around it and know it as his new home for now before picking him up again and meeting with the others.

"One of the first rules here is that you are NOT allowed to speak unless you're in the living spaces, or told so by a superior. That means most of the time you'll be keeping your mouth shut." Sandy groaned and slumped where he stood. "You won't be without a means to communicate though. You'll all be getting a crash course in our signs, starting today, and that should help hold you over when you aren't yapping away. Now keep quiet and follow me, I'll give you a tour of the place."

Spin joined Mycah and his friends with a grin and walked with them as they got their tour. It was a fairly straight forward plan for the buildings, with the living areas more along the outsides, and meeting areas like where to eat and other open areas were in the very center. The middle ring was set up with makeshift rooms and separations that could be moved when needed so that there was always room for making the room bigger, if they needed to.

Mycah was impressed with the set up, and how it seemed to be exactly what they needed it to be with just a few changes. He seemed happy enough with Spin next to him too, who slipped her hand in to his after walking for a few minutes in the tour.

The group was led to one of the rooms and the leader who was still silent was waiting for them there. Spin settled down in a seat next to Mycah in the makeshift classroom. "I always liked this part," she whispered.

He wanted to question her, but the leader made a few quick signs to the woman who so far had done all the talking. She nodded and stood to the side, watching him closely as he continued to sign at her.

"One of the reasons Crows are forbidden to speak is because at one time, we didn't have a choice. Crows were once used as messengers between cities, when there was the hint of war between them. It was years ago, but it's still clear for many of us." She made a nod toward the leader. "When there was even more competition between the cities, and even between the governmental posts at the poles, Crows became even more of a necessity. However, at that time, the need for secrets became even greater. To prevent them from sharing information between competing cities, Crows were captured and made mute. Most of them by having their tongues cut out."

Without much ceremony, the leader grinned and opened his mouth, showing them a short stub of a tongue that was incapable of any speech at all. He made some more signs and only Spin laughed, making a gesture back that Mycah figured must mean something along the lines of 'that was a good one'.

"Most of those who are here for just a visit are only held to silence while here. Others who join us permanently can do the same thing, though they often go under procedures to prevent speech. It's a tradition, but one not taken lightly."

Mycah thought that this had the glazed over feeling almost of a bedtime story, or something similar. There had to be more to it, though it was a story he probably had to wait a little longer for.

"If you break that code by speaking when forbidden, it will be up to those who catch you to set the punishment. Some go soft on fledglings like you, but not everyone." At the sound of the hidden warning that they really would need to watch thier tongues, he shot a look at Sandy who looked more glum every word. He made an off-hand gesture at her with an irritated face. "You watch your hands, too, smartass. Now I'm not gonna hold your hand to show you around any more. You have the rest of the day to explore and try not to get in to much trouble. Now shoo."

With that unprofessional dismissal they were chased out. The four friends stuck together as they meandered through the encampment. Sandy was paying close attention to the signs others were making, and started to make a few of them in absentminded practice. Spin led them to a common area with a few chairs and rugs set up for lounging on, and announced that here was a place they could talk freely.

"It's about time!" Sandy flopped melodramatically on a couch and Raza lept from Mycah's shoulder to him. "At least the talking with your hands thing is easy."

"How do you know? You haven't already figured it out have you?" Spin looked at him surprised.

"Well yeah. I got enough from what that guy was telling her to say, and what I saw compared to that. It helps that I've got an automatic recorder in here," he said, tapping his right temple. "If I'm not sure I can just watch it right back." Sandy seemed rather proud of himself for that small fact.

"I'm sure he can help you pick it up," Spin teased Mycah, elbowing him in the side. "If he doesn't help, then I bet I can, with some private lessons." Her voice dropped to a near whisper then, and only he heard her. Not really sure how to react to that, he acted like she was teasing and gave her a playful smirk and ignored the comment.

"It makes one wonder the real reason why we were sent out here," Tor said. "Surely they would have sent us out here for somthing other than to learn how to gossip without making noise." He shot a dirty look at Sandy and Mycah had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. That was the closest he'd ever heard to Tor making a joke.

"If there's anyone that can teach you how to survive in the desert without any outside help, it's the Crows. with the right preparation and knowhow, you could travel from one city to another around the whole planet practically. It's how we made it to the northern plains when we stole our herd dinos."

"You stole them?" Mycah could sense a story behind it, but Spin held him off.

"You'll have to ask Singer about that one. I think he tells it better."

They spent most of the day continuing to explore the wide bowl, getting kicked out of places apparently off limits to them and generally causing trouble. Sandy started to become the one to talk for them, with how quickly he was picking up the language, but even that had it's falling out- he couldn't keep his hands still, and even if he didn't realize it, he was as much of a chatterbox silently as he was when he was talking. By the end of the day Sandy seemed to be almost as fluent as the Crows that lived there.

"I don't know how you didn't pick this up. It's all based on just a few movements." Sandy was trying to show them as they walked back to their tents as it got darker. Tor almost looked like he was paying attention, but Mycah was ignoring him. He was sure he'd get it all sooner or later, and he wasn't sure how efficient the spasmodic Sandy would be at actually teaching.

"I'm sure we'll all figure it out eventually. Take a breath... er... put your hands in your pockets, and get some rest." Mycah couldn't beleive how he was still going. He was able to get away from them and start walking to his tent when Spin stopped him.

"So did Singer give you the pack?"

"Huh? What pack?"

"He told me he gave it to you a couple weeks go. After the market."

Mycah shook his head. "He didn't say anything, or give me anything either."

"But he said that-" Spin suddenly stopped, looking confused and then irritated before she smoothed her features. "I must be thinking of someone else. Go get some sleep." She got up on her tip toes and kissed him before smirking and hurrying away.

"Damn it. Every time..." He half-glared in her direction while hoping for a glance at her as she left. He griped in his mind at the fact that she was such a tease, but at the same time something else was nagging at his thoughts. What did she mean by asking if Singer had given him something? Did it have anything to do with what he said would happen here with the Crows and that he should ignore it? Still a little confused, but trying not to think about it too hard, he eventually made it back to his tent at the very edge of the camp. Raza was snoozing right outside, and he let the dragon in as he went inside to get some sleep.

The next few days felt to Mycah like there was always something to do. If he wasn't getting slapped for using the wrong word sign while asking for directions, he was out in the desert with the others playing glorified hide-and-seek. The winner got a new set of hunting gear and the loser had to sleep outside the protective encampment in the freezing overnight cold. When they weren't in groups practicing how to cover up their tracks, they were paired up to fight with blunted knives with painted edges, showing who got the most hits at vital areas. Mycah found that he was good at that and was able to win matches against most of the other Clubs that went with them, though when Spin was put against him he was quickly outmatched.

"I can see why Singer warned me about you," he wheezed, blunt knife against his throat and arm bent back far enough that it made it hard to breathe.

"Hmm. This is one reason." She suddenly let him go, and without the support he fell flat on the ground.

After cooling down from the fight and getting a few congratulations for lasting as long as he had in the fight, Mycah traded in the blunt knives for actual ones that he had won and whistled for Raza. The wolf dragon was growing faster in the open desert, running relatively free and both conning food from Crows by begging, as well as hunting for his own prey. By this time he was about the size of an average dog. His chirps and squawks were now growls and high pitched barks.

Mycah had the yellow bandana soaked in cool water wrapped around his neck and was lying in the tent with the 'door' open and unzipped, letting the air cool him down as it got darker before it got too cold and he had to zip everything up. His shirt was rolled up behind him as a pillow and he was about to shut up the tent for the night when someone appeared right in front of him.

"Still awake?"

"No. I'm asleep." He grinned up at Spin and without invitation she snuck in and sat on the tent floor next to him, shutting the door and zipping it closed.

"I almost wish that Singer was going to let you stay with the Crows longer. You fit right in- especially Sandy." When she smiled up at Mycah, he almost didn't have a choice but to reflect that smile back.

"I'm surprised he hasn't gotten beat up yet. He's even more talkative with his hands than he is actually talking. I'm surprised his fingers haven't fallen off yet."

They both chuckled at the thought and Spin sat comfortably in the quiet. "I saw Raza running around on my way here. He's gotten huge. I remember when you first got him and he fit in that tiny container."

"He's a fatty. He hunts for his own food, and then knows when people go to eat and runs from the table getting scraps." Mycah rolled his eyes. "I think the space is good for him too, not being stuck inside the tunnels. I almost wish there was a way for me to get a place for him to go outside back at home."

"You could always ask me. I may not act like it, but I am higher up on the totem pole than you."

"Could you? Even if it's just big enough for him to go out. A sort of dragon-door."

"He won't stay that size forever. Even if he could get out, he'd grow too big and you'd just have to let him out another door. I'll see what I can do to get you the keys to a door close to the Art Museum."

"That would be fantastic. Thanks."

"Don't mention it." She grinned for a few moments until she looked at Mycah strangely. "Your bandana. I thought it was yellow."

"It is." A little confused, he reached up and took it off, revealing that something had stained it orange and red instead of the usual bright yellow. When he pulled it away Spin gasped and was visibly shaken. It took her a few seconds to calm down, and her hands were still trembling.

"Holy shit," she mumbled, putting her hand to her chest.

"What? What happened?" Mycah put his hand to his neck and when he looked at his hand it was stained red. It was then that he realized that he had missed a streak of paint from the knife fights, and the water from the bandana had rehydrated it. He tried to wipe it away with his hand, but had a feeling he was only smearing the paint around his neck.

"Hold still, geez..." Spin plucked the damp cloth out of his hand and moved closer to clean him up, tilting his chin up with her finger tips. He could feel that her hands were still shaking.

"Spin... are you okay?" He couldn't really see her face from how it was tilted up at the awkward angle, but he could see she was still bothered.

"I'm fine. Promise. I just wasn't expecting to see that." She smiled up at him, still cleaning his neck. She shifted closer and closer as she tried to get in to a more comfortable place to sit and still reach him easily.  Mycah was a little surprised when he found that she was in his lap, holding herself up with a hand on his bare chest. He wasn't really sure what to do, so instead of worrying about it, he let her stay without objecting.

"Sorry about that. It looked like you just had your throat cut. And before you ask, yes, I have seen that in person." She took a shakey breath.

"I'll be alright. A little paint never hurt anyone." Mycah tried to reassure her and hoped he wasn't overstepping their undiscussed boundaries by reaching up and gently stroking her cheek. It seemed to calm her down at least a little.

Spin sighed softly. "I've been so stupid," she whispered, barely loud enough to be heard. She still dabbed at his neck with the bandana, though he doubted there was still any paint on his skin.

"Stupid how? I didn't take you for someone to act without thinking."

"It was a different kind of stupid. The kind where you think too much." She dropped the bandana and tilted her head back down to look at him with an intense light in her eyes. "Singer warned you about me, but I think he should have warned ME about YOU instead..."

"Why's that?" Mycah wanted to bite his tongue after asking that, his adoptive bad habit he picked up from Sandy of making quick remarks was coming back to bite him.

Instead of answering and before he could object (and it's not like he wanted to), she leaned up against him and kissed him. There was a sense that, compared to the few other times they had kissed, she wasn't holding back.

Mycah let her pin him to the floor of the tent and was a little disappointed when she suddenly pulled away.

"My real name..." She took a few panting breaths as she looked down at him. "My real name is Jessica."

"Is this a secret?" She nodded. "No wonder you changed it." Spin- or Jessica, he wasn't sure what to call her now- gave him a dirty look, and he made a zipping noise before flicking his fingers like he was throwing away a key. "Don't worry," he said seriously. "It's safe with me."

She leaned down, closing the space between them before whispering, "It better be."

---

Mycah was dozing peacefully in the tent when Spin suddenly sat up. "Oops."

"Oops what?" He hurried to pull the sleeping bag back over him before the cold air got let in.

Spin didn't answer. Instead, she started to dig through the clothing that had been tossed to the side and apparently was having a hard time figuring out what was who's since the Crow uniforms were so similar. Mycah just watched sleepily until she pulled out what looked like an ink pen from pocket of what had to have been her pants before wiggling back into the covers next to him.

"Singer knows you're Destroya. He swore he told you. He just doesn't know he's a worse liar than I used to be."

He blinked a few times, confused, still mostly asleep. "He knows who's what now?"

She pressed the pen in to his hand until he took it from here, where he tucked it under his pillow without thinking. "Enough to be able to keep secrets from you. Go back to sleep."

Mycah pulled her closer, knowing even in his sleep-addled mind that there would be hell to pay for this eventually. At that moment, though, it didn't matter, and he didn't care. It wasn't long before he drifted back to sleep with a drowsy smile.

---

"You stupid thing!" Sandy shoved a squawking Raza out of his tent. Growling and activating his eye to be able to see in the dark, he picked up the dragon who was too big to be able to pick up comfortably. He carried him to the edge of the camp to where Mycah's tent was while growling obsentities the entire time about how rude it was to lick up people's mouths and tongues without asking. Eventually Raza struggled out out his arms a few feet away from the tent and hissed at him before slinking off.

Sandy dusted off his hands and was about to turn back when something made him pause and duck behind one of the supports of the netting above him. Someone was sneaking out of Mycah's tent and it definitely wasn't Mycah. When they pulled up messy hair in to a pony tail he had to stifle a gasp the urge to point at who had to be Spin accusingly. He held both hands over his mouth as he sprinted back to his tent.

---

"Get up! Get up, get up, get up!!" Sandy zipped and unzipped the tent flap until Mycah finally sat up and gave him a glare scary enough to get him to take a step back.

When he sat up and started to look around for where his things had been scattered to in the small tent, Mycah heard a crackling noise next to him. He picked up a piece of folded paper and opened it to read the message inside.

'I got some news last night that made me have to leave unexpectedly, but I feel pretty bad for having to up and leave you. I probably won't see you until you get back home, so until then don't forget about me and try to beat Singer at his own game.

  ~J'

"Hey, what's that?" Sandy was peeking in to the tent at the paper, and Mycah decided he didn't have patience for him that day.

"It's a handful of shut the fuck up." He shoved his friend out and got dressed, searching for the pen that he had hidden under his pillow. After wrapping it in the now dry 'bloodstained' bandana, he slipped it in his pocket for closer inspection later. The memory of Spin, or Jessica, or whoever she was, claiming that he was Destroya only added to his irritation. If what she implied was true and he actually was Destroya, and that Singer knew he was and swore to have told him about it but instead kept it a secret what did that mean she was trying to do? And what even was Destroya? he asked himself. So far all he had heard was the name and that FAME users were said to have prophecies about Destroya, but no one had explained any more...

Walking out to the meeting room with the others, including Tor and the even more excitable Sandy, Raza loped up to join him and picked up on his master's mood. The dragon snapped at hands that normally offered table scraps and treats and growled when people got too close.

The large group was split in to smaller groups of two or three, and Mycah was put with his friends. He was preoccupied with his thoughts of trying to think on what made Destroya so important to the desert dwellers. He cut off Sandy's frantic hand signs as they were given their assignment. This time it was no more training excersize but an actual mission- there were reports from scouts that a band of deserters from one of the nearby cities that had run out of provisions and was running out of time to find water and shade. Their task was to fan out for no more than six hours one way and search for the lost people or their tracks.

Once they had a direction to search in they were sent off, and Raza joined Mycah, Sandy, and Tor as they headed out in to the hot morning. They searched in silence for an hour, nearly invisible in their uniforms and comfortable now in the heavy heat. Eventually Sandy couldn't stand it any more and he stood in front of Mycah to confront him.

"I saw Spin leaving your tent last night! It was her, wasn't it?"

Mycah shoved him away to look at a stunted rock-cactus that had parts of the poisonous spines cut away. "And what if it was?"

"I was just going to say it was about time, yeah?" he said, giving Mycah a fed up look. "And if you weren't pitching a fit, I would have told you earlier that I heard that she's heading out to the south pole to deal with a Crow who turned traitor."

Raza was directed to scent at the faint tracks and they trio followed him as Mycah continued to grumble.

"Obviously Tor knows." The grey-skinned man only nodded knowingly. "You two better keep your mouths shut and your hands in your pockets," he said venomously to Sandy.

The tense mood seemed to diffuse after that and they continued the search. The tracks in the sand and gravel were clear enough to follow without Raza's help.

There was a hot wind starting to blow, however, and the scent and the tracks were starting to disappear. The three of them were forced to tie on the bandanas as a dust storm started to become clear. If anything was taught to them in their few sit-down classes, it was that getting caught in a dust storm without any shelter was as bad as trying to cross the desert naked.

"Over there!" Mycah had to shout over the sound of the wind as he pointed to a hill of rocks a few yards away. Even if there wasn't much shelter, at least the could try to squeeze between some of the larger rocks to get out of the wind. The three of them to had to link arms to keep from getting seperated as they made their way to the outcropping. The only one who didn't have a problem was Raza, who seemed to wonder why they were going to slow.

Eventually they made it to the rocks, and Mycah found that one of the boulders wasn't as lodged in place as it appeared. With some help, he was able to shove it out of the way to reveal a small cavern with enough room for the four of them. Tor was the only one able to close the entrance enough to keep the wind from blowing any more sand and grit inside, although when they put down their hoods and took off the bandanas they each had a band of dirt across their faces.

It was a quiet few minutes as they all tried to get comfortable. The storms could last for hours, so they probably weren't going anywhere. It was Mycah who spoke up first.

"Sorry for being a jerk, Sandy," he said eventually.

Sandy only grinned and was apparently already over his irritation. "Nah, it's cool. You got stood up by your girl, yeah? Can't blame you for getting mad over that."

"Hey Sandy. You said you followed the whole Destroya thing, right? What is Destroya even supposed to be?"

He shook his head. "I already told you as much as I know. Why?"

"Hmm. No reason." Mycah took out the pen that Spin had left him.

"Ooh, a datalog pen! Where'd you get one of those?" Before he could stop him, Sandy plucked it out of his hands. He gave it a sharp turn and there was a click before a slim piece of plastic slid out the length of it. Tor took it from Sandy and handed it back to Mycah.

"We talked about that Sandy. Just because you know what it does, doesn't mean you can take it without asking."

Sandy grumbled as Mycah took out the thin plastic from the pen. When the sheet was pulled about six inches from the pen it rigid and pinged with a brand name before showing a list of dates. He scanned through them, using the solid plastic as a touch screen, and saw that the dates were broken down in to years and months on the main table of contents, and that each month had a screen of photos and what he thought might be video and sound files. A little confused as to what this all was supposed to be, he tapped on a video and watched as it started to play. Sandy was peering over his shoulder as they watched.

"The Comatose Queen... Sh-she'll be dead and still there and then Destroya will watch her die..." Whoever was speaking was slumped in a corner of what looked like a hallway back home in the Clubs' underground complex. Singer then entered the video and pulled the person speaking back so that their head lolled back, showing eyes that were so dilated that there was no iris to be seen.

"I've seen that kind of reaction before," Sandy announced. In the video the drugged out Club continued to repeat the same phrases over and over until it ended. "They were totally on FAME. I've never heard of the Comatose Queen being mentioned before..." He reached over and went back to the last screen, showing the date.

"This was fifteen years ago. How did Singer not look any different?" Mycah frowned at a still of the video.

"He's a shapeshifter. He can be as old or as young as he wants to be, yeah?"

"I think that he recieved his powers at that age," added Tor. "His body no longer ages because it's not required. Even if he was much older than he appears, it's very unlikely he would even know what he was supposed to look like."

Mycah scanned through the videos, pictures and sound files and saw that most of them through the past thirty years or so had a small treble clef next to them, while a few had spiders or spirals over the past few years and only in the most recent year were there any small swords. He could only assume that all of them stood for the current leaders of the Clubs. The ones in the past were more varried and some even had names, but none of them meant anything to him.

"This is the most complete collection of the Destroya prophecies I've ever seen. This is all of them... All of them! There's pictures of every single painting ever done about him in the Art Museum too!" Sandy was scanning through them after Mycah handed him the datalog when suddenly he went from awestruck to angry in a heartbeat. "I took that picture." He pointed to one of a crow with wings outspread and guns held in each talon. "I went to back it up the next day and it was gone, AND painted over. And look who's mark is next to it." A tiny music symbol was indeed next to the picture.

"Why is Singer hiding all of this? If so many people believe in Destroya, why is he trying to cover it up?" Mycah only thought out loud, not expecting an answer.

"A better question is where did you get that?" Tor spoke flatly and without accusation, but Sandy turned to him.

"Yeah, where did you get that? If the Crows had all the information that was on that pen they'd treat it like a holy book. That's not something you just find on the ground."

"You have to swear not to tell anyone a word about this. Both of you." Mycah eyed them both before he continued. "Spin left it for me last night, before she left. She didn't say why." Not outright anyway. If what he suspected was correct, then the reason she left it was to prove to him that he was Destroya, as both she and Singer 'knew'. It was also to keep a step ahead of Singer, who was trying to convince him before he even knew about it that he wasn't Destroya, that others might know of what he might be. He went still as he realized that Singer knew he was going to get this anyway and had told him to not believe it...

"Did she leave it for you or just forget?"

"No, she left it for me. I didn't know what it was, though." More theories and ideas ran through his head as he looked through the files, opening them randomly without looking to see how recent they were. While glancing through photos of what must have been the very beginning of the Art Museum, there was suddenly a loading icon and more files showed up with that days' date. A small sword marked these.

"Spin I owe you big time," he said under his breath.

He pulled the plastic and it powered down, rolling back in to the pen. He made sure that instead of putting it in his pocket, he put it in a small inner pocket in his shirt so that he wouldn't lose it.

"I'll need your help looking through that, Sandy. But it'll have to wait until we get back I think." Mycah was already starting a list of what needed to be done, including confronting Saber if he saw him again, and having a few choice words for Spin for skipping out on him the way she did. Maybe not too strong though...

"Wait wait hold on. Can I see that one more time?" Mycah handed Sandy the pen again where he looked at the newest pictures. "Just wanted to see if anything looked familiar." All it showed was the black shadow painted on the wall with a red stripe across the neck. Mycah got a sinking feeling as he took the datalog back and searched for any combination of the words 'cut' and 'throat' on a whim and saw that there were other entries that talked about a Cut-Throat King, though at first glance they didn't make sense.

"Alright. I think it's time to put that up for good."

Sandy pouted, but nodded. All they could do was wait out the storm.

It took two hours for the storm to pass over, and each of them occupied their time differently. Mycah napped and tried not to think too hard over the things that had happened the night before. Sandy was busy tinkering with his eye and a tiny screwdriver he had somehow hidden in his pocket. Tor had a device similar to Mycah's datalog and was taking notes on it. The few times anyone had glanced over, all that could be seen was his small, concise handwriting that was too fine to be seen without obviously observing him.

Once the winds died down, Tor moved the large rock out of the way and Raza was actually the one to dig through the sand and dirt that had piled against it. When the three of them crawled out it was still apparant which way they needed to go to get back, but Sandy stopped them.

"We should keep going. We can't give up just half way through the mission can we?"

Tor and Mycah agreed, and they continued to search for the missing group of civilians in the direction that they had last seen the tracks go. There was another rock outcropping maybe a mile away and headed towards that, with Mycah suggesting that they had the same idea and had hidden in the rocks. When they got there though, they found a grisly site.

Four people were trapped under rocks and boulders, and what skin was exposed had been blasted away by the storm to the bone. The three of them searched the area around it but they found nothing to say that there was anyone left until Raza started digging at what seemed like a solid pile of large rocks.

Mycah started to help him dig and under a layer of rocks and heavy soil that didn't get blown away by the wind was a person. The few bits of skin around the man's hands and nearly unprotected face were raw and almost pitted from the force of the sand that was being blown around by the dust storm, but he was still alive and breathing.

"Don't move the goggles or gas mask," Mycah instructed them. "We'll take him back to camp and let the Crows take care of reviving him." Mycah picked up the man as carefully as he could in a fireman's carry and started to walk. "We'll take turns if it takes too long to get back. Oh, Sandy, if you have a GPS mark the place where we hid and this place if you can. We'll turn it in for a possible emergency hide out and let them know where the other bodies are."

"You bet. Any idea who these guys were?"

"Look at the patch on the arm of the uniform." Mycah slowed down so Sandy could find it.

"It's a double diamond. They're from Merimar."

Mycah didn't respond to that. He had the urge to drop the unconscious body and keep moving, but he had no idea who this person was or why they had left his former home city. He would let someone else determine how he would have gotten so far. They made it about half way before Tor took over carrying the man. Occasionally they would hear him try to speak, but the pain or possible dehydration didn't let him stay awake for long. It was getting dark by the time they made it back, and it appeared they were some of the first to arrive back, since they only search outwards for three hours. Tor was directed to take him to get checked out and then they had the rest of the day free.

Even though he knew he wouldn't find her, Mycah looked in vain for Spin, hoping she might by some chance still be there. The only person he found was Singer, who for once didn't seem too busy to talk but acted like the odd exchange on the way there had never happened.

'You're fitting in pretty well,' Singer signed. 'You even brought someone back. Honestly no one was out there. You weren't actually supposed to find someone, just survive the dust storm.'

Mycah gave him a dirty look. 'Good to know,' he said, trying to be as sarcastic as possible, though that was hard to do with the neutral signs. 'Where did Spin go?'

'South Pole. She won't be back until we're back home.'

A little defeated that Sandy's info was correct, he only shrugged and tried not to look as disappointed as he was. 'When are we leaving?'

'Two weeks at the earliest. For some reason the Raven wants you all to stay longer than usual.' When Mycah gave him a blank look at the unfamiliar sign, he said instead, 'The leader of the Crows wants you here. I'm not going to say no to him.'

Mycah was going to ask who this leader was and why they were going to stay when Raza bounded up with a large skinned cat in his jaws, being chased by two of the cooks. It was clear that even their resolve to stay quiet was being tested as they chased after him. The wolf dragon seemed to think it was only a game, and by the time Mycah helped them yank the mangled feline from from his teeth, Singer was gone.

He never recieved any concrete answer as to where Spin went, and it seemed that only Sandy's news that she was going to deal with a traitorous Crow was the most complete answer. He had to admit that at least he was occupied even without her there. The missions they were sent on became more and more complex with different agendas each time. By the time Mycah was sure that they'd be sent home any day, he, Sandy and Tor were almost always put together in a group and were spending more time outside the encampment than in it.

For some reason he felt reluctant to read the datalog Spin had given him during this time, making the excuse that he had no time for just sitting down and reading. He didn't want to admit to himself that reading about Destroya from drug-induced prophecies and seeing the few that made sense applying to him made him feel uncomfortable, to say the very least. Part of the reason Spin had been so upset by the paint on his neck that night must have been because she knew it was going to happen, or something like that, he concluded.

Mycah only found out more that made him confused about the ligitimacy of the whole thing when he asked without thinking how to sign 'Destroya' out of the blue from someone he didn't think he had met before. When they obliged and showed that the symbol was almost exactly how he had decide to sign his own name, he thanked them and hurried off.

It was not more than a day after that when they were gathered up by the silent leader who had lead them there in the first place almost three weeks ago. By this time he didn't need a translator and was able to 'speak' with them directly.

'You all are one of the best visiting classes I've ever seen. If it were up to me, I'd let you all stay here and make you part of the Crows permanently, but...' He left the signed sentance open ended. 'For now, at least I can guarantee your safety out in the desert and make sure you can get around without too much trouble. Consider yourself Crows and if you ever need help you know where to turn.'

They were released after that and told to find their own way back home. It was a cake walk compared to some of the other things they had been assigned to, and the small group spent most of the time talking and laughing loudly as they made their way back. Raza ran around them sensing the upbeat mood of the group and pratically ran circles around them.

"So have you read any more through that datalog?" Sandy was balancing a knife by the point on his palm and normally Tor would have told him to stop before he hurt himself, but he was continually glancing to the south, looking distracted.

Mycah hesitated before shaking his head. "No. Not really. I haven't had the time to and I didn't want anyone finding out what I had."

Sandy took the excuse without question and nodded. "I want to check it out soon, if that's okay with you. There's just so much there that it might take me months to sort through it all, yeah? Let alone the fact that it's also being updated constantly." He continued to talk about what he'd like to do to catalog it all on a separate system so that in case something happened to the datalog they'd still have access to the files.

When they finally got to the hidden entrance to their underground home, Mycah had to admit that he was glad to be back. Here he'd also get the chance to find and talk to Spin, something he'd wanted to do for the past two weeks. It was almost unbearably cold when they got in to the cool underground tunnels, especially after they had been conditioned to the desert heat outside.

They got the day off from the work they would normally do to settle back in, and Mycah found himself changed back in to the Clubs uniform and wandering the halls, taking side routes and making the trip to visit the downed Scarecrow longer than it had to be. He didn't want to admit to himself that he was looking for Spin, but he didn't catch a sight of her by the time he got to the half-dismantled air craft that Sandy was already working on again.

"So I was thinking about asking for materials to make a new one."

"A new Scarecrow?"

"Well no. Something based on it and using some of the parts but better, duh. You think I'd make a piece of junk like this?" Sandy laughed. "I might even be able to bring this one back to life."

"That would probably be a good idea."

Sandy, as usual, kept talking even when he must have known that Mycah was no longer listening. For a change though it was Mycah who suddenly interrupted him with something off topic.

"You believe in Destroya."

"Huh?" He stood up from peering in to the Scarecrow, a screwdriver held in his mouth and a wrench in each hand. He put the tools down before nodded. "Yeah. I do. There's too much evidence to say that SOMETHING isn't going to show up labeled with that name, yeah? Can't say I'll believe that the first thing that comes along is actually it, but there have been imposters before."

"What if I said that both Singer and Spin, and probably the other face cards, all agree on who they think is Destroya?"

"What? Was that in the datalog?" Sandy stared at him intently. "Who told you about this?"

"Spin. She and Singer... they both think Destroya is me."

Sandy frowned and looked at him even more intensely. "Do you believe them?"

"No. Not right now." He shook his head, not sure how to explain himself. While with the Crows, he had found out that they waited for Destroya and treated this person almost as a messiah, though they weren't very open about it. "You have to swear not to tell anyone, Sandy. I don't want any one thinking I'm something I'm not."

"What about the datalog? There should be more than enough evidence, if you look through it-"

"No! I don't want to be this thing everyone is waiting for. Besides, nothing that I saw makes any sense! It could be applied to anyone and probably be made to fit."

Sandy was silent for a few minutes. It was starting to unnerve Mycah until he finally spoke. "Then let me look at the files. I'll sort through them, that's the kind of thing that I can do practically in my sleep."

"Not yet. I need to find out why..." He growled and turned away.

Sandy didn't bother him about it any more, though he did go back to quietly talking to himself while he worked. Eventually Mycah decided that he wanted to get a different opinion.

Tor was one of the people Mycah trusted the most, aside from Sandy, but knew the least about. He did know, however, that his level-headedness was something he could rely on to get a good objective opinion.

Mesa was just leaving Tor and Sandy's room with an armful of tiny seedlings. Even though they had just gotten back, and Mycah saw that Tor hadn't even had the chance to change out of the desert camouflage, she was back asking his opinion on something to do with her beloved plants. When he knocked on the door a few seconds after Mesa left, he caught his strange companion with a guilty look on his face. Mycah doubted that anything physical went on between Tor and Mesa, but obviously he knew how much Sandy worked to get her attention.

"Sandy isn't with you, is he?" He was trying to keep a worried tone out of his voice.

"No. He's still with the Scarecrow. Told me he was gonna try to rebuild it, and maybe make one from the bottom up. I don't understand how he does it."

"If Sandy could focus himself on just one thing, it would really show how brilliant he is. Even I can't do that, as much as I try to keep him out of trouble."

"I'm sure you do a better job than anyone else. Especially because I don't even think he realizes it." Mycah had a bit of a grin as he sat down and picked up the small glass jar with Sandy's acid-damaged eye in it. He was quiet as he thought about how to ask Tor's opinion and the silence got awkward quickly.

"You're here for a reason, are you not?" Tor spoke just as Mycah was about to.

"...Yeah. I needed to ask you something, and I know you can help me get something straightened out."

Again Mycah was surprised when he saw a hint of hesitation and uncertainty cross Tor's face. "This isn't about Spin is it? I don't think I'd be the best person to give you advice on something like that..."

The tense feeling that Mycah had been caught up in suddenly dispersed as he laughed. "No, it's not about her, at least not in that way." He got a little more serious but not as wound-up as he had been before. "She told me something, and I wanted to know if it was something you agree with." Tor nodded, and Mycah continued. "She and Singer both believe that I'm Destroya. Do you think they're right?"

Tor was quiet, thinking. "You have a file full of supposed evidence. Alleged prophecies that have been repeated over half a century, sometimes years apart with no common connections other than who recorded them. You haven't looked through them all, or even much more than a few at random since you first got them. Singer is not trustworthy when it comes to this subject, I believe, especially because he's stolen and hidden things that have to do with Destroya, but you have a reason to listen to Spin." He was laying out the facts, setting down a foundation outloud so Mycah could follow his thoughts. "

"So far so good." Mycah was waiting to hear what Tor had to say.

"I have no way to know if Destroya is real. I know that the stories and visions induced by FAME and no other drug have lasted for years, and that some of the people that live here see Destroya as something or someone to disrupt the conflict between the established order on the planet and allow for something more lenient. I hold no faith in it, not like Sandy, but I won't deny that's there. As to whether you would be the one that people have claimed was going to bring that..." His flat eyes bored into Mycah's with a logical intensity that he didn't expect to get from Tor. "Do you think you could bring that kind of change?"

Caught off guard by the question, Mycah only shook his head. "No. I don't think so. Not right now anyway."

Tor nodded and seemed to file away that answer. "The answer to whether or not you're Destroya isn't going to be apparent for some time, even if it does turn out to be the case. If you wanted to prove it to yourself, you have the datalog to go through and try to decipher yourself, and you have Sandy, who's extremely odd way of thinking could help you figure out connections between them that anyone else would miss, especially since he's versed in the lore. If you wanted to prove it to others you'd have to do the same thing."

"But that would be cheating," Mycah said and then frowned, a little confused as to why he had decided to call it that. "Haven't there been others who tried to take up the name?"

"There are. All of them, so far, have been unsuccessful. As to why, that's something that could be discussed at length but I don't think that's something that interests you at the moment. But to answer your original question, I don't believe in Destroya the same way that Singer and Spin do, so I can't answer your question the way you want me to. How you want to treat the fact that they, and possibly others at some point in time agree with them is up to you. However you choose to do that, most likely I'll back you if your actions prove to be worthwhile, for all you've done with and for Sandy and I."

Mycah finally nodded. "I think that I followed that. Basically you have idea but as long as I'm not stupid about it you'll probably go along with me?"

"That's a very simplistic way to put it but yes."

"I can't say how much that helps, but I guess it gives me something to think about. You won't tell anyone...?"

"No. I know how sensational people can get when their faith is quesitoned, or validated. I'll keep my silence."

"Thank you. I still don't know how I want to do this but I guess I'll look through those files again..." Mycah shook his head; why couldn't this be more cut and dry? he wondered. He really did need to talk to Spin, but he didn't think he'd be able to soon. Instead of look for her though, especially since he didn't even know if she was back yet, he decided to get some rest- in a real bed, not on a pallet in a tent. Determined to get some rest, he hid the datalog in his desk and tried to sleep.

The next few days were a mess of getting a routine back in place and looking for the missing face card. Mycah kept his cool while waiting for Spin to show up, but at the same time he was getting more and more frustrated while waiting. Even worse was that a few times he was sure that he saw her, but when he turned a corner she was gone, and he didn't know if she was avoiding him or if he was taking this too seriously. His work didn't suffer for it, in fact he was the type to power his frustration in to focus and get more work done in a week than the others thought was possible. Mesa was still talking to Sandy about taking over the Mushrooms, and staying in charge there to make sure they were taken care of, but when Mycah asked for more work she sent him downstairs to where the herd dinos were stabled.

Mycah was shown to a large set of caverns that had an earthy but not unpleasant smell that were full of stocky dinosaur-like creatures that were native to the planet. One of the more neat parts of the stables was that there was an even bigger cave, this one with a dome that looked more natural than carved, that had large warm lights hanging down and tall grass growing. The whole thing had to have been at least a thousand feet around, almost in the shape of a perfect hemisphere.

"We rotate the herds in quarters through here a few days at a time. This is the closest we'll get them to the plains, but it seems to do well enough." Mesa looked at them with a bit of a frown, obviously she thought that these animals were inferior to her quiet and well behaved plants. "They always need help down here, and today they need help shoveling out the empty stables." She pointed him to the herdsman in charge, who directed him to the shovels and boots and got him started.

Mycah found that it was easy to get in to a rhythm of the physical work, filling up wheelbarrows with old hay and dung to be composted and wheeling them to where it was all being processed before lining the floor with clean hay. The slow moving dinos were herded by people on quick dirt bikes who kept the in line easily. The few others helping him eventually left for the night, and soon it was only him and a few lone watchmen who were keeping an eye on everything. He was thinking about putting up his tools when one of the small motorcyles wheeled up to him and stopped. He didn't think anything of it, since where the bikes were parked and charged were near where the tools were stored.

"Mycah?"

He looked behind him to see Spin getting off the bike, a worried and extremely guilty look on her face. He didn't acknowledge her yet, turning back to pick up the tools and put them in the wheelbarrow to take them to be put up.

"Mycah..." She sighed and stood in front of him, making him either go around or stop. "Will you listen for just a minute?"

With a bit of an exaggerated huff, he set the wheelbarrow down and crossed his arms.

"I'm sorry," she said simply. "I wasn't lying when I said that something important happened. In any other circumstance, I would have stayed or at least told you I was leaving, but when I found out what happened..." Spin had a pained look in her eyes and she was clearly bothered by her actions. "And Singer was on to me. I got back soon after you did but..."

Mycah was silent and said nothing yet.

"Can we go somewhere else to talk?" She kept looking around nervously.

"Yeah. Let me put everything up first." Finally breaking his silence, he made quick work tossing the tools in to the right bins and kicking off the rubber boots. They didn't speak as they walked back up to his room, and before he let her say anything more, he left her to sit in his room as he cleaned up from working with the dinos. When Mycah walked out of the bathroom freshly showered and dressed, he found Spin sitting on the bed with Raza practically hanging off of her lap.

"I'm sorry I had to leave like that," she said again, as Mycah sat at his desk instead of next to her.

"You got back before today, and you said Singer was on to you. What does he have to do with any of this?"

Spin looked down and pet Raza, trying to hide a blush. She took a breath to say something when there was a sudden BOOM that echoed through the rock. Mycah ran to the door to see what it was, and saw that almost everyone else was looking to see what that was too.

"GODDAMNIT! Mycah!!" Singer was racing down the hallway of the Art Museum to his room. "What the hell is Sandy doing?! That came from where the Scarecrow is being kept!"

"How am I supposed to know?" There was the quiet nose of a door shutting, and Mycah turned back to see that Spin was gone- hiding in the bathroom?

Before he could object, Singer was dragging him to the origin of the explosion. When they got there, Sandy was covered in soot and had the outline of goggles showing clean skin. He was just picking himself off the floor, laughing. "Awesome!!"

"What the hell was that?!" The table with tools and materials was knocked over and everything scattered, but nothing seemed to be broken. "An explosion like that could have-"

"The thrusters still work! I can get this thing to fly again." Sandy smiled, his teeth standing out brightly against his soot-stained face.

That seemed to slightly calm down Singer, though not by much. The two continued to argue and point at the Scarecrow. Before Mycah could get wrangled in to the fight, and before he was accused of being Sandy's keeper, he scurried out and went back to his room. It was too late, though- Spin was gone, and Raza was moping on the bed where she had been sitting before.

He cursed under his breath and shoved the dragon off the bed. He was going to get some sleep and go back to work if it killed him. It was an exercise in futility, however. He wasn't able to much more than doze as he would be angry and fuming at Singer and Spin in turns, only dozing off what felt like a few minutes before he was due to work. More tasks had to be done that morning in the Mushrooms, so he decided to go back and help Sandy as long as he wasn't tempted to beat the living day lights out of him for causing Singer to find him even if it was accidental.

As much as he expected Sandy to be gleeful about his ability to start up the Scarecrow engines, Mycah found him moping as he checked around the rooms and made sure everything was in order. He almost looked like he was in a worse mood that Mycah.

"What's his problem?" he asked Tor.

"Mesa put him in as the supervisor over this area due to his... enthusiasm."

"Shouldn't he be excited about that?"

Tor looked at him with that same guilty and uncomfortable expression. "She essentially said that she was doing it to get him away from her."

Mycah winced. Unfortunately for them, Sandy's rounds eventually brought him over, where they tried to look busy tending to the psychotropic fungi. He picked up the sign labeling them as being meant for drugs, not for food, to place it in another place on the soil bed.

"Hey..." Sandy prodded at one of the mushrooms, plucking it from the compost and brushing it clean.

"How did the tests with the Scarecrow go? Any better luck?"

"Singer said I can't try to turn it on inside again. He said that the concussive blast of another failure could destabilize the cave systems. He's full of shit, a blast like that wouldn't destabilize all of them, only a few, yeah? Maybe not even that, the bedrock here is super strong..." Mycah blinked and looked at Tor, surprised when Sandy just ate the mushroom in his hand. "These used to taste better." He ate another.

"Uh... Sandy?"

"But how am I supposed to test it and make sure it works unless it's down there? It's not like I can dig out a pit like the Crows had all by myself, and he won't let me get any help." Sandy still looked extremely down as he continued to pluck and clean off the mushrooms before eating them. Mycah quietly replaced the sign.

"Sandy, stop." Tor spoke up, grabbing his friend's wrist as he tried to eat another one. He pointed to the sign. Instead of freaking out or reacting at all like his normal self, Sandy only sighed.

"Aw man. Now she'll just get mad at me for eating product."

Tor looked at Sandy. As he had mentioned before, he wasn't the best to deal with those types of issues. Mycah nodded to him and put an arm around Sandy's shoulders to lead him away. "Come on. Let's get that stuff out of you." He took Sandy to a first aid station and found an emetic, and then walked Sandy back to his room. "Go in to the bathroom and take this." He poured a capful of the liquid out and handed it to his friend.

"Okay." Sandy drank the liquid and made a face at the taste before sitting down in front of the toilet. Mycah winced as he watched him vomit until he was sure everything was gone, and after he had brushed his teeth he made sure Sandy lay down and turned the lights off.

"Stay in here. I'll be back to check on you in a bit."

Sandy only grunted and put a pillow over his head and didn't respond any further.

Mycah made it back down to Tor and let him know what happened. "I figure I'll check on him in an hour... If anything's going to affect him I should be able to tell, right?"

Tor nodded. "That's usually about how long it would take." He looked even more troubled than before.

"How long have you known about Sandy and Mesa?"

"He isn't exactly quiet about it. He complains and plans about how to get her attention, but somehow he never gets the attention he wants. She started relying on me for quality control since I can absorb water through my skin and sense quality and impurities."

"Like the skin under the dinos' scales, right?" He described how the scales of the dinosaur-like creatures of the planet could lift up to show skin underneath, which could take in water from the air if it was humid enough.

"Yes. She's coming to me for more that has to do with the gardens."

Mycah raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. He guessed that Mesa was maybe hinting at more than that, but with the little he knew about Tor that was the last thing on his mind.