In a hotel on the edge of Legguso, two people were having lunch. One, a woman in a well dressed suit and tie, the other a man in a tank top and flower pattern shorts. "just listen to be Barivure. You'll love it. It's cheap. It's simple. It's banana." "I already told you Nicholas, I don't like banana bread -and I've told you that's not how you pronounce my name damn it!" Barivure looked at Nicholas with poorly masked contempt. "Then? How is-" "Just add an 'A' sound at the end, that's it! Bar 'E' vur 'A'. 'A' damn it." Nicholas looked at the woman with a smug smile. "But there's no accent on the-" In a single movement Barivure launched herself from the hotel chair, grabbed Nicholas by the throat, slammed him against the wall, and pressed the barrel of a gun to his temple. "I am only letting you live because letting a partner die on a job looks bad on my report. And with my current record a simple blemish would stand out like a sore thumb."

  Unfazed, Nicholas let out a laugh. "Well sorry miss rising star! But you're stuck with this here reject extraordinaire!" Barivure pressed closer, but felt something prick her under the collarbone. Unknowingly Nicholas had stabbed a syringe into her. "You fu..." She passed out.

  The reject extraordinaire let Barivure fall to the floor with a loud thud. He smiled as he looked at her unconscious body. "Next time try the bread." He kicked her out of the way and walked to the door. "Now if you'll excuse me I have some industrial sabotage to plan."

  RAFE, over the last week or so, had been looking for the Corivs University central server room. Once he had access he would be nigh omniscient for any event within Legguso. The whole city was built around the university, both geographically and economically. With access to that, a true base of operations would be born. A stronghold of both material and immaterial.

  Actually finding the location hadn't taken much time at all. A few teachers entered RAFE's network and all he had to do was read through chat logs, floor plans, and various articles. It was in the basement of Weiber Hall. He even found the passcode to the room. The problem lay in how to get there. RAFE was constrained by only being able to spread via direct cable connections, even if the cable was ethernet it wouldn't work. Which made him agree on the fact that this must have been by Nezha's hand. Such a weird limitation must be a way to entertain that Apraith. To work around this, Zoe and Hwang had to handout copies which in turn recured into a rapid transmission.

  So in order to gain access to the Corivs University central server, either Zoe or Hwang would have to enter the room with a drive containing a copy of RAFE, then plug it in. If that were all it might not have taken so long to plan. But in order for RAFE to gain permanent control of a computer he needs user input, and there's only one terminal for the server: the IT office desktop. Which is halfway up the building on the fourth floor. At least they don't need to be done simultaneously. But of course both rooms are heavily monitored, so finding the right way in and out has proven to be a challenge.

  RAFE reviewed his work. The only entrance to the server room was at the end of hallway B7, a long hallway with many classrooms through it, and at the end is an engineer closest which in turn leads to the server room. Cameras and passerby galore, this was going to have to be an escort approach. They would need a valid reason to enter, as not to draw suspicion.

  Hwang sat alone at the table in the Flaming Wheel, Zoe and Harriet had left half an hour ago, but Hwang wanted to relax, he had been talking with RAFE for over four hours straight about how to get to the server room. Both wanted to get in as soon as possible, the longer one waited the more likely some unexpected variable showed up. Sure enough Harriet told them the variable. Someone had anonymously approached Harriet with an offer for Zoe and Hwang's personal information for a cash reward, and more than likely other people had been approached as well.

  There was a single slice left of banana bread on the table. Despite Zoe's best attempts, Harriet had managed to make off with nearly all of the bread. Leaving Hwang to stare at the lone piece. Across the room, Julian was watching Hwang from behind the counter. Thalia was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to him reading a book. Julian glanced down to see what she was reading, then snapped back up. He didn't want to read that book. It reminded him of... friends. To distract himself he walked back towards Hwang's table.

  "Can I get you anything?" Julian asked politely. Hwang shook himself from his daydreaming. "Eh? Oh... No... No. I'm good. Thank you." Hwang felt that involving a stranger in this would be beyond rude. Then he remembered just what this situation was, and who he was talking to. An employee at a café which in simple terms could not exist. "Actually... Yes... I could do with some help." Julian smiled. Then pulled out a small vile of pink cloudy liquid and poured it on the ground just behind him, the liquid didn't even hit the ground before it started to change in a large bubble of fluffy cloudy something. Julian took a seat on the cloud. "Good good. How can I help?"

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "I... I need a way to sneak into server room in our college hall's basement." "Interesting. I think I have just the thing." Hwang looked at Julian dumbfounded. "You're not going to ask questions? You not going to doubt me? And you've just the thing I need? What?" "Yup. I've had my fair share of adventures. So when someone as young as you is clearly starting on your path to absurdity, I am obliged to offer my hand." "That sounds like your offering me a poison." "Nezha already gave you a lethal dose, I'm merely adding a few drops- of this."

  Julian put another vial on the table, this time a smokey gray liquid jostled with small silver flakes inside. "A tried and true fantasy style invisibility potion." Hwang stared at the the little vial, dumbstruck once again. Absurdity for sure. Such convenient things had to come at great costs. "What's th-" "No catch. I'm just trying to help while I can. The sooner you open the coil the less time Nezha has to patch the wall." "What?" "Don't worry about it. Anyway, there are a total of three doses worth in this one vial, plus a small amount more. So divide and drink carefully. One dose should last exactly three hours."

  Nicholas walked the road towards Corvis University with a smile. A few paces behind him walked Barivure, scowling. She had awoken on the floor of the hotel room... in a pillow fort. Nicholas' treatment of her was degrading in ways few could put in words.

  As they approached their destination Barivure jogged to catch up with Nicholas. Only for him to hear her speed up and do the same. "You-!" Nicholas spun around but continued to move at the same speed, backpedaling with expert coordination. "Waz da matta miz?" He spoke with an accent to mock the chasing woman. Barivure growled and picked up the pace. "You fucking degenerate!" "Bold words coming from a professional assassin. But who cares!" Nicholas did a backflip and twisted in midair, returning to facing forward, while also landing on top of an awning. He launched himself between the supports from above the fabric. Making another leap to a balcony of an apartment on a higher floor. "Catch me if ya can!"

  The chase continued until the two were just across the street from their destination. Nick spun down from the lamppost he was balancing atop, while letting Barivure regret her choice of attire. "This is the power of banana bread. Next time. Try some." "Shut up." Barivure straightened her tie and crossed the road. Nicholas walked in toe, chatting as they made their way through the dormitory section of Corvis University. "See this." Nick gestured to the towering dormitory complexes on all sides. "This is why I left. It feels so suffocating to live in a place where everyone can live on top of each other because of 'trust' and 'community' and how they're sooo~ compassionate." He pulled out a small mechanical sphere from his pocket, no bigger than a fingernail and threw it into a garden pond nearby. Barivure listened to him vent, amused at how some buildings managed to piss him off more than she could. "When I saw how everyone on Mercury acts like a bunch of weak rabbit afraid of the famers of other planets, I saw the danger of that trust, that belief, that those farmers wouldn't attack." He threw another sphere on a balcony a few floors above them. "And don't get me started on that Aegis Anatomica bullshit. The old whore who wrote that book was born right here on Mercury."

  Nicholas turned to face Barivure. "I have a head canon for that book. Did you know the Irena Thursby's son had lost an arm and both his legs before she wrote that book, he lost 'em in the Mercurian Rebellion. And she didn't have enough money to pay for even the surgery to keep the kid alive. Story has it that she wrote the book to try and get money as fast as possible, that would explain the shitty writing quality. But if you actually read the book you'd see how that doesn't make sense. The book's whole thing is about how the human body should be 'untampered' and left 'as pure as possible.' Because of that I think she wrote that book just to convince her family to not pay to save the young boy. Some great community right there." Nick spat on the ground while rolling a metal sphere into a drain nearby. Barivure was confused about Nicholas' thought process, but didn't care to interrupt. Nick continued his ranting. "-and because of all that shit everyone on Mercury started to treat that book like gospel, augmentation became outdated and downright sinful in the eyes of the public. Be it genetic or mechanical, everyone just fucking stopped trying to improve themselves." He threw another sphere, this time at a rat scurrying away. The impact of the ball crushed the rodent's skull in an instant. He reached for another one but was stopped by Barivure.

  "Let's leave those last few gremlins for the off campus locations we have to get as well. Don't want to have to a pull a Nero's Lyre strategy do we?" Nicholas let out a sigh and turned around. Then turned around again. "You know. I might have something else to do while we're here. Let's go meet and old friend and give her a bit of a fright." He started to giggle. Then started walking towards Weiber Hall. His well dressed partner in crime just sighed and followed after.

  At the top of the stairs leading to the basement of Weiber hall, Mercedes Kerunu sat waiting for her mother to finish up her classes. She was reading a book on the exploits of a platinum wings commander when two people walked by her. She swiped the corner of the tablet, turning off the screen and looked up at the two. "I haven't seen either of you before." She was confused by their attire, with one looking like she was there for an interview, and the other looked... less professional.

  The man in flower shorts looked at Mercedes for a minute, then smiled. "Oh. We're just friends of your mother's is all. You're the little Mertz right? Paloma was a peer of mine a few years back." Before Mercedes could retort that she never introduced herself, the well dressed lady grabbed the man by the arm and dragged him downstairs.