The Next Phase: Tales from the Front

“Come on, could you give it a rest? You"re making me jumpy.”    "Sorry. It"s just that being inside this long isn"t working for me. I gotta move.” “What do you mean "this long?"  We"ve only been here since sundown.” “Ha! That"s easy for you to say. You always loved this kind of thing, but it"s like a cage in here.” “So much for all that training I suppose? Well, you won"t have to worry about it for much longer. It"ll be midnight in 20 minutes.” Agent Noah Conrad lowered his glowing wristwatch. He returned his eyes to the tripod-mounted spotting scope trained on the hotel across the street. His partner, Agent Arthur Williams, anxiously paced across the dark and empty room they chose for the stakeout. Although Noah insisted he would adapt to the scents in the abandoned flat, Arthur tried to clear his nose of the dusty odor. The open window hardly helped since the winds died down outside, and the musty atmosphere refused to leave. Besides the gentle hum of their equipment that further irritated Arthur, the area was quiet. That is, until the other two agents broke the silence. “I don"t know what you two are talking about. At least you have legroom,” said a female voice in their earpieces. “You"re welcome to trade with Mendez if you want, because I don"t think she can take it anymore. And honestly, neither can I.” “Okay everyone, I know we"re all ready to finish this, but we have to keep it locked up tight. The person of interest should be leaving any time now,” Noah warned his teammates over the radio. “Sandy, anything on the internal cams?” There was a pause as Agent Sandra Mendez checked through the hacked camera feeds on her monitors. Her youthful face was aglow in the soft, white light of the computer screens. “Hold on, everything looks quiet. And… aha! Look alive; I"ve got movement in the second elevator. It has to be her. No one else would be out this late. At least, not here anyway.” Arthur was quick to respond. “Do you have facial recognition?” He stood by the fourth story window and eagerly looked outside. “Negative. She"s wearing a hood. I only have half of her face. Clever girl; either she"s dressed for the weather or a bit camera shy,” Sandra replied. “Or both,” Noah said. “Either way, we"re on. Courtney, you standby to pick me up. I"m going up top to help Arthur prep according to plan.” He nodded to his partner and they hastily made their way to the roof of the apartment building. On the street below them, Agent Courtney Straus turned the keys and brought the engine of her navy blue surveillance van to life. From the rooftop, Arthur heard the idling van purring, among other things. For a city, it was surprisingly quiet to Arthur. Dogs barked occasionally and somewhere off in the distance a plane soared into the midnight sky. He had expected more sirens, or at least some signs of a busier nightlife like back home. Of course, he imagined that people back home would stay inside too if there was danger in the countryside, threatening to spill into the streets any day now. Nevertheless, Arthur was relieved to finally breathe fresh air again. Or relatively fresh air, given the environment. “The fog"s looking to get pretty bad within the hour,” Noah commented. “That won"t be too much of a problem for you, will it?” Arthur shook his head and inhaled the damp air. “Good. It may even help you stay out of sight somewhat, not that many people are out anyway.” “You know me, I"ll be alright,” Arthur said as he removed his earpiece but retained his throat microphone collar and miniature power pack. “Okay then. Do your thing,” Noah said casually. Arthur nodded and removed his shoes, socks and belt. He took a few deep breaths to help him focus as he began his transformation. The tingling sensation began at his feet as they began to reconfigure themselves. Thick, black claws grew from his nails as rough paw pads developed underneath his feet which became more digitigrade by the second. A coat of grey fur spread up his legs rapidly as Arthur"s hands shifted as well, producing similar claws and pads. A freely flowing tail pushed its way out of his back and began to dismantle his pants. His clothes came apart at specially-designed micro-seams, falling to the rooftop as his transformation reached his head. The grey coat became lighter across his chest and under his arms while retaining a darker shade near his head. His microphone"s adaptive band expanded with his furred neck until it rested comfortably over Arthur"s throat. His mouth stretched and morphed into a lupine muzzle to accommodate his sharp teeth while his ears grew pointed and shifted to the top of his head. Finally, his once hazel eyes were overcome with a striking golden hue. Arthur stood a clear eight inches taller than Noah before he dropped into a low crouch, and waited for his partner to nonchalantly help him with his new earpiece. “Just give it a few seconds to sync with your mic and you"ll be ready. The guys in tech assured me the receiver won"t affect your hearing, but I told "em you"d be the judge of that,” Noah said. “Comms test, comms test.” “I"m standing right here,” Arthur"s voice sounded deeper, fitting his humorless tone. “Right. Sorry.” “Arthur"s mic is still green,” Sandra said, “No issues there. Can we hurry this up though? The target"s almost at the front door.” Her words came through Arthur"s specialized earpiece at a comfortable volume that didn"t deafen him like his old equipment did. Arthur nodded with a grin. “It"s working, and Sandy"s got a point. Meet up with the van and I"ll let you know where she goes,” Arthur said to Noah. The man grabbed his teammate"s apparel and dashed down the stairs as the hotel door clicked open sharply. Arthur"s ears immediately picked up the disturbance, and told him it was time to move. He crept to the rooftop ledge and peered over at the woman walking away from the building. Her black apparel turned her into a shadow, a vague silhouette in the thickening fog. She lost more of her form as she moved between the pools of light beneath the dim streetlamps. In the apartment, the smell of everything was just enough to irritate Arthur without having much meaning but now, with his senses heightened far beyond average, he picked up on so much more. As he sniffed the air and tried to sort through the information, he came upon something that made his heart skip a beat. “I"m at the van, and Little Red is on the move,” Noah"s report cleared Arthur"s mind for a moment but his feeling about the woman lingered. Although the fog made it difficult for him to be sure, there was something strange at work. Something Arthur was willing to suppress for the sake of the mission, but not dismiss entirely. “Confirmed. I"ll keep you updated,” Arthur said. He backed away from the edge and crawled across the stone roof silently and effortlessly hopped across the gap to the next building. His target"s light footsteps rhythmically continued as she moved with a sense of urgency. Arthur followed her by running over the roofs with practiced grace. Granted, the cold stone and metal of the urban landscape was nothing compared to the warmth of his favorite childhood forests, Arthur still found immense pleasure in navigating the roofs topped with cooling unit boxes and chimneys as if he were chasing down some large game. “It looks like she"s headed for the warehouses two blocks from me. I"m going to run ahead and wait at the corner,” he said in-between breaths as he found a balance between stealth and speed. “Copy that. We"re going to make a loop around the whole neighborhood and come around from the opposite way. There aren"t many cars on the road, so she might suspect something if we get too close. Just don"t lose her,” Noah said. Arthur stopped on the last building on the block, and could both hear and see the woman through the fog. “Sounds good. Don"t worry, I have her.” Just as he predicted, the woman took a right at the end of the gloomy street and made her way towards a large, industrial storage complex. When she was far enough away, Arthur leaped off the building into an alleyway. His powerful legs allowed him to absorb the energy of his fall, and he was thankful he missed the trashcans and discarded crates littering the alley. “Arthur, be advised that we just spotted three delivery trucks. They may be headed your way.” No sooner did Courtney warn him did he pick up the groan of heavy-duty engines. He poked his head around the corner and was relieved to see that the trucks had not yet turned onto the street. Without wasting any time, and afraid to lose his target, Arthur darted across the open intersection and ducked into another alley as headlights cut through the night. The convoy rumbled past and the stench of diesel momentarily entered his nose. After the last truck passed, he felt it was safe to hazard moving again, so he used his strength and a rusty fire escape to return to the rooftops. Before long, he caught up with the woman as she stood before a guard shack protecting a chain-link gate. The convoy idled behind her. The gate was part of a fenced perimeter that walled off the warehouses and buildings from the rest of the city. The driver of the first truck leaned his head out the window and addressed the woman. “What"s the hold up?” “They"re just checking my credentials with their boss. It shouldn"t be long now. Be patient.” The woman spoke with a calm yet firm tone. Once again, a memory stirred in the back of Arthur"s mind as he eavesdropped on them. A moment later, a man dressed in faded grey coveralls emerged from the guard shack with a clipboard and an MP5 submachine gun slung over his shoulder. “Everything checks out. Please tell your men to pull into the third warehouse on the left,” the guard said with a slight Serbian accent. The woman thanked him and climbed into the first truck as the gate rolled open. One by one, the convoy entered the area and the gate closed behind them. Arthur looked around and found that there was an administration building on the other side of the razor wire-topped fence. If he jumped far enough, he could reach it. “Little Red just took the trucks inside the storage complex,” Arthur reported. “I"m still on them.” “Understood. I"ll have Courtney bring us a little closer if you need backup. Good luck,” Noah said. Arthur inhaled the mist, got a running start at the adjacent building, and launched himself over the gap. He held his breath as he barely reached the other side. Where a normal person would have failed spectacularly, Arthur managed to latch his claws onto the ledge and pull himself up, albeit with more noise than he expected. However, the guards never noticed anything, and he quickly put distance between himself and the gate. The complex was in a state of disrepair with rusting Cyrillic signs and equipment that had not moved since the Berlin Wall fell. If not for the sparse lighting and a handful of people, Arthur would have thought the warehouses were completely abandoned. There weren"t nearly enough armed guards to patrol the entirety of the lot, a fact Arthur appreciated. It was even easier than he thought to slip from shadow to shadow toward the side of the third warehouse. Traces of light escaped through a series of windows near the warehouse roof, so he made them his next destination. Unable to simply scale the sheer metal and concrete exterior, he opted to climb a forgotten pile of cargo containers until he made it to the top of the three story structure. Voices came from somewhere inside along with the rattle of engines. Arthur studied the windows until he found one with a crack big enough for him to squeeze through with some effort. He gasped when he felt a minor pang of pain jolt up his leg as he entered. More surprised than injured, he watched the cut heal quickly and wiped the blood off his fur. When he was confident the blood wouldn"t drip, he moved forward cautiously and tried to avoid letting his claws click on the catwalks. He found a position in the corner, and gazed down into the nearly empty room where half a dozen armed men surrounded the three white trucks. A table and a few chairs sat off to the side as a middle-aged man dressed in camouflaged pants and an olive drab shirt approached the vehicles. Despite being a few stories higher than him, Arthur swiveled his ears toward him and clearly picked up everything he said. “Welcome, my friends!” His accent was not as thick as the gate guard"s, but it was still noticeable. “I trust you had a pleasant journey, yes? he greeted as the woman and her driver stepped out of the truck. “We did, thank you very much Mr...” the woman began, dropping her hood. “Colonel, actually. Colonel Bolodenka, at your service,” he said, shaking her hand. “We have been expecting you, Ms. Roanoke, but I never believed your company would send someone as beautiful as yourself.” Suddenly, a chill ran down Arthur"s spine and his fur stood on end. He remembered why this woman smelled familiar and just hearing her name again was enough for all the memories to come rushing back. Years of training and work had gradually pushed her from his mind, but as he heard her name and saw her face again, he was filled with questions. Joanne? “Flattery will get you everywhere, Colonel. Fortunately, this includes the regions you want to control.” She motioned for the other drivers to pull their trucks alongside the first and shut off their engines. Their occupants hopped out and unlocked the cargo doors in the rear. The doors of the first two trucks rolled up as Joanne directed the Colonel"s attention to the cargo. “Half a truck of rifles, another half of submachine guns, and a second full of ammunition, magazines and grenades. As promised.” The drivers and their navigators unloaded a case of each item from the trucks and set them down on the table for inspection. Arthur stared in awe as he tried to fathom how much firepower he was looking at. Little did he know, it wasn"t the guns themselves that posed the greatest threat. “Impressive,” Colonel Bolodenka said as he studied an automatic rifle. “But what did your company say was special about these weapons? These must be worth a great deal to your, shall I say, more respectable customers. Why did my superiors insist on dealing with you instead of the black market arms dealers? They"re much cheaper.” “Besides the quality that comes with the Cascadia name and a few modifications, there"s not much difference between our weapons and those on the black market. Both will put bullets into their targets,” Joanne confessed. “But in your situation Colonel, it"s the targets that make things different. Therefore, you require a different bullet.” She pulled a black, leather glove from her pocket, opened one of the ammunition containers and removed a rifle round. “I have no doubt your men know they"re fighting a different kind of enemy, but I surely hope they haven"t relied on myths and superstitions to protect themselves,” said Joanne. The Colonel shrugged halfheartedly. “Regardless, you can forget the folklore and embrace the power of modern science. I give you the Cascadia Armaments Corporation Silver Alternative bullet. We call it the silvalt round.” Had Arthur been closer he could have seen the jet black bullet that possessed a faint shimmer from tiny metallic specks spread about its surface. “The exact composition is a company secret, but let"s just say our advances with nano-materials have opened a new world of possibilities. Once the projectile is embedded in a living target it reacts with their tissue on a microscopic level, negating their regenerative abilities. The target will then die of blood loss, tissue damage or any of the other traumas associated with a gunshot wound. We have found that the pain is also quite severe, and subjects with normally high tolerance find themselves unable to withstand the presence of silvalt in their bodies for very long.” Colonel Bolodenka"s soldiers murmured among themselves as their leader stared at the new ammunition with as much awe as Arthur. “Very well then. I only hope they perform as you promise they will.” With a wave of his hand, a guard approached Joanne with a leather briefcase. “Your payment, as agreed upon. You"re welcome to count it if you wish.” Joanne opened the case and accurately estimated the few hundred thousand Euros inside before she snapped it closed again. “As you may have guessed, this money is of little interest to us. We value something different in these circumstances, so I trust it"s all there. Besides, we only asked for a fraction of the real price for all of this.” “Forgive me for asking, Ms. Roanoke, but if you are not here for the money, what is it you value?” Surely not loyalty. Arthur thought angrily. “Why, customer satisfaction, of course. We"re more interested in the feedback and data only real-world field trials with actual customers can provide. We have money. We have weapons. What we need are people; preferably people with willingness to aid our efforts.” Joanne nodded to the crew of the third truck. They opened the door and a dozen men and women in rural attire filed out to the surprise of the Colonel"s men. He calmed them by holding up his hand. Arthur furrowed his brow as he tried to understand what he was witnessing, as each member of the crowd reached into their baggy over-jackets and produced a collapsible Cascadia submachine gun. “W-who are they?” Colonel Bolodenka stammered. “You are a lucky man, Colonel,” Joanne said smoothly, “because my employers saw fit to grant you several bonuses in our dealings tonight. They are your bonuses.” A private army? Arthur thought. What would this guy need with mercenaries when he already has a militia? This can"t get any worse. “They will join your forces and "advise" them in the use of our weapons and a few of the tactics we have developed for fighting our enemy. In return, you will have helped us further test our products and succeeded in making the world a safer place for humanity. Everyone wins.” Except the innocent people you"re going to slaughter. Sure, I can clearly see how arming and training a war criminal will make the world safer! “Thank you, Ms. Roanoke. It has been my pleasure doing business with you and the Cascadia Corporation. I trust this will be the start of a successful partnership.” “Likewise,” Joanne said curtly. The two shook hands again and their respective accomplices hurried around the warehouse, barking orders in English and Serbian as they all prepared to leave. Joanne and Colonel Bolodenka walked together toward the warehouse door, the briefcase in her hands and a new rifle in his. Arthur turned tail and escaped through the broken window without cutting himself again. Once he was clear, he whispered into his throat mic. “I just overheard Little Red"s exchange with her contact. I need you to run two names,” he said. Sandra responded and told him she was ready. “Colonel Bolodenka and Joanne Roanoke.” “Wait, Joanne? As in, your Joanne? Are you sure?” Noah asked. Arthur paused and thought about everything that he"d seen and heard. He didn"t want to believe it but it must be true. “Yeah, I"m sure.” “But how? Why?” Noah"s voice mirrored the feelings Arthur tried to suppress. “I wish I knew the answers, but I don"t. What I do know is she just sold two trucks full of Cascadia weapons and tech to the militia. It"s enough for a small army but that"s not all,” Arthur said. “It seems the people at Cascadia figured out a way to make an anti-werewolf round of their own and they"re in mass production.” “Do you think it works?” Courtney interjected. “We can"t know for sure unless we see it in action; something I hope never happens. Joanne sounded confident and suggested that Cascadia has been using silvalt for a while, so I"m guessing that it works.” Arthur flattened himself against the warehouse roof and spied over the edge at the commotion unfolding in the main lot. Trucks of all sizes previously hidden in the other warehouses headed for the gate. From what Arthur gathered, they were likely laden with supplies or insurgents. Amidst the organized chaos, Arthur spotted Joanne slipping away and heading for the other side of the complex. Where are you going? Arthur wondered as he continued to tail her. “I"ve pulled up the Colonel,” Sandra reported as Arthur used his agility to catch up to Joanne. “Full name, Colonel Cheslav Bolodenka. Wanted by NATO, INTERPOL, the UN, the CIA, the FSB, and the rest of the alphabet. You name them, they want him dead or captured for a whole laundry list of HR violations.” “And he just got access to the biggest anti-werewolf arsenal this side of the Mediterranean…” Noah realized. “That"s not all. Joanne also set him up with a truckload of Cascadia advisors and a deal to continue supplying the militia. They"re going somewhere and now they have the firepower to lay waste to everyone in their path. No one will see it coming; you have to warn our contacts out there,” Arthur struggled to keep his growling voice low even as his adrenaline began to flow at the thought of the threat. “I"m already on it,” Sandra reassured him. “That"s a start, but we"re still running too blind. We need to know where they"re going and what their plans are,” Noah said. Arthur watched his target from his perch on a shipping container. “I have it covered.” “What are you going to do?” Noah asked. “I"m going to get some answers.” “Alright, let us know if you need backup. We"ll be right behind you,” Noah said. “Copy that.” Arthur looked over his shoulder and ensured he was well out of sight of the militiamen. A blanket of fog had rolled in again and coated everything in a thin layer of moisture. Arthur concentrated on the soft footsteps in front of him. Joanne strode along with the briefcase in her left hand until she came to the complex"s rear gate. The two disinterested militiamen guarding it rolled back the gate and let her pass. Arthur waited until they turned to close the gate to run towards them. His footfalls concealed by the squeaking and rattling of the gate, Arthur leaped onto the guard house roof on the inside of the fence and timed his hop to the external guard booth and the street beyond. One of the guards mumbled a question to his friend who replied in a dismissive tone as Arthur evaded their full attention. “We"re back on the streets and headed southeast,” he whispered in time to watch Joanne disappear around a corner. On all fours, he trotted up to the place he saw her turn and found her walking down a wide back alley behind a row of closed shops. A single faulty streetlight flickered about halfway down the alley lined with trash and pockmarked by puddles. Arthur dropped his stance even lower as he stalked his target; too focused on catching her to wonder why she was walking in the opposite direction of her hotel. He avoided every puddle and breathed in her scent. He remembered traces of it but he felt something different as well. Eventually he concluded that it was the reason it took him so long to identify her, but it hardly mattered now. Joanne displayed no signs of being aware of his presence, so he was all the more surprised when she whirled around and aimed a pistol in his direction. Arthur took less than a second to recognize the threat and dodge the 9mm bullet that whizzed past his body. Joanne readjusted her aim and took several more shots at Arthur. The pistol reported more quietly than he expected although the ricochet of Joanne"s missed shots reverberated down the alley. Joanne grew frustrated as she tried in vain to hit her assailant as he wove back and forth while using what little cover available to evade her attack. A moment later, she saw Arthur dive behind a sturdy dumpster and she fired the rest of her magazine into it with little effect. The pistol slide locked back audibly, a comforting click to the agent"s ears. Arthur caught his breath and broke cover only to see Joanne round a corner into an alley between two shops. She left the briefcase lying in a puddle around the spent brass casings Arthur stepped over to reach the alley. The acrid scent of gunpowder crossed his nostrils as he growled in anticipation. No more running. This ends here. He crept into the alley draped in shadow with his ears open and teeth bared. However, no matter how hard he looked and how carefully he listened, he could not find any trace of Joanne except one. Her black coat and the torn remains of the rest of her wardrobe lay in a pile in the middle of the alley with the empty pistol under them. Arthur tensed himself in comprehension, and was about to dart off in pursuit when something hard fell on his head. Startled, he found the object that hit him to be a cylinder roughly smaller than a soda can with rows of holes in its surface. Arthur stared at the cylinder as it lazily rolled over on the ground to reveal the stylized waterfall emblem of Cascadia. “Oh shi-”Arthur barely said as he squeezed his eyes shut and caught the full force of the grenade"s blast. When Arthur opened his eyes moments later, his head felt like a struck bell. He was afraid to look down so he felt around his chest with his forepaw. When he didn"t find any shrapnel wounds, he lowered his head and saw for himself that he was relatively fine. His was pretty sure he was deaf for the time being, but this pain wasn"t as great as the assault on his nose. Though he had been exposed to tear gas and other irritating agents before, this was something different. The most disgusting and nauseating stench sent his head reeling almost as much as the blast, rendering his nose useless. Arthur swore and tried to stagger into the main alley, his senses painfully crippled. He never detected any trace of the dark brown wolf that pounced on him from the shop roof. They tumbled into the main alley. Claw strikes and fierce bites sent sharp bolts of pain through Arthur"s body as he fought off disorientation and his attacker. Despite his wounds he managed to retaliate and land a s***h across his opponent"s abdomen and follow it with a swing that connected with her face. The brown wolf recoiled back as Arthur regained his senses and assumed a balanced fighting stance. She charged him, but he swiftly evaded the attack and responded by raking her back and catching hold of her hind leg, tripping her. Though not tired, the brown wolf rolled over on the concrete and grinned at Arthur. “Easy now. You caught me. There"s no point in dragging this out,” she said. Her voice was still difficult to hear but Arthur"s ears slowly recovered. “Hmm, by looks of your stupid expression I"d say you"re still feeling the effects of the prototype.” “I heard that,” Arthur snarled. “Well, the hearing loss was never the longest-lasting effect but that smell isn"t going away any time soon.” “I was afraid of that,” he said. “What nice toys you have, Joanne.” “All the better to kill you with, my dear,” she said with a sly smile that revealed her brilliantly sharp teeth. “It"s good to see you again Art.” She slowly rose to her hind paws and reassured her old friend that she had no intention to run again. “I always thought we would meet again, but I never imagined this,” Arthur said. Joanne chuckled. “We of all people should know how what we imagine, and what actually happens rarely work out. Or how rarely anything works out.” “That was a long time ago. Things are different now,” Arthur countered. “Your choice of employer, for starters.” “I could say the same of you,” Joanne said. “I thought I noticed your scent the moment I left the hotel. It was faint and barely detectable in human form but as I kept walking it never faded. I thought I was being followed, and that it was you. I knew you had to be after me for what I was going to do.” “If you knew you I was tracking you, why"d you go through with the meeting?” “Because I hoped you would see what you"re dealing with. I wanted you to see why you can"t win, why no one like us can win,” Joanne said softly. “Deep down I had my doubts you wouldn"t let it go. You"ve never let the odds stop you, but you have to trust me on this. Leave them be.” “But what are you doing with them? I mean, how can you possibly work with them?” “For the same reasons you should give up. You think a few trucks full of guns and mercs is just the beginning? Art, this is far from the start of their plan and nowhere near its end.” Arthur softened his glare at her words. In his ear, Sandra"s voice let him know he wasn"t alone. “If you can hear this, Noah"s at the end of the alley if things get, well, explosive again. Anyway, we"re recording everything, so keep her talking.” “What do you mean?” Arthur said to Joanne. “This isn"t the first country they"ve operated in. This has been going on for over a year without drawing attention, but now they"re moving forward with a new phase. Everything they"re doing in the countryside; the skirmishes, the tracking, the executions; it"s going to spread. The rest of Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, Australia, and even the US. Everywhere,” she said flatly. “Something big is going to happen and it"s time to pick a side. I chose the side that"s going to survive this.” “That"s impossible! They would find you out in no time.” “As far as they"ve come technologically, they"re still having trouble reliably testing people without forcing transformations. I passed the screening and no one was ever the wiser. I"ve taken great pains to hide my identity, but after being with them so long, they trust me.” “But I don"t think you trust them,” Arthur said. Joanne met his stare. “You keep saying "them" and "they" but never "us," like you know Cascadia isn"t where you really belong.” “Then where do I belong, Arthur? With you? With Blackfield? After everything that happened between us and everything they let happen to my family?” “I don"t care if you forgive me. I really don"t. But don"t blame Blackfield. They didn"t know about Cascadia then, or what they were willing to do. I"ve read the after action report. Everyone made mistakes that night but they"ve spent every day since learning to be one step ahead so the past won"t repeat itself. But now you tell me you"ve joined the people responsible for that night, and feed me some excuse about it being survival of the fittest or something? I"m sorry, but I"m not buying it.” Joanne was silent. The two werewolves stood in the alley beside the unreliable pool of light from the lonely streetlamp. “You wouldn"t understand.” "Try me.” Joanne sighed, her breath visible in the cooling night air. “I joined them to find out who was involved that night. Everyone from the person who gave the order to the men who carried it out. I don"t know everything yet, but I will. Tonight"s exchange marks the start of the next phase, and they plan on letting me in on the details upon returning. I"m hoping it will bring me closer to whoever"s responsible.” Now it was Arthur"s turn to contemplate. “There was a time when we told each other everything, Joanne. I think we need to again.” “What are you asking?” “You"re already with Cascadia and they obviously trust you. We both want to see them stopped but they"re smart, tenacious, and too strong for one person to handle. With your position and our resources, we can put an end to this together. Please, I want you to work with us.” “With you?” “If you won"t work with me then at least work with my team. Any intel you give them would help. It"s like you said, they"re getting bolder and we need all the help we can get. It"s the only way we"re going to survive…” Arthur said. Joanne sighed and motioned for him to follow her to the remains of her clothes. She rummaged through the pile and found her spare magazine which she handed to Arthur. “I had hoped taking a regular lead bullet would"ve been enough to scare you off, but I guess gunfire isn"t very persuasive to you,” she said as she struggled to make her concealable shoulder holster fit her lupine form. “Take my silvalt and let your techs analyze it. It"s not much but it may help.” She smiled and secured her weapon, its suppressor protruding awkwardly from the bottom of the holster and digging into her side. With her clothes stashed in a trashcan, she retrieved the money she abandoned. “So where does this leave us? Are you in?” Arthur asked as he watched his old friend go about her business. She looked at him with golden eyes that no longer revealed her aggression. “I"ll be in contact. You can count me in. As for us... well, we"ll just have to see how things play out,” she replied. “It was nice seeing you again, Art, and I"m sorry if I have to shoot at you again. I have to keep up appearances if this is going to work.” Arthur understood. “You take care of yourself, and good luck.” Joanne turned to leave but as she did, Arthur called out after her. “You know your parents were the reason I joined Blackfield. I wanted to help you find peace and save anyone else going through what you did.” Joanne stopped in her tracks. “I thought it would be the best way to honor their memory, you know?” When she didn"t speak, Arthur wished her a good night and began to leave in the opposite direction. “The village is called Leskavac.” Arthur turned his head. “What?” “Is your hearing still screwed up or something? It"s where they"re taking the convoy in the morning. The werewolves there have been giving them hell, so they figure it"s the perfect place to test their new weapons. That"s just what I overheard the advisors say, but it"s solid enough to be trusted. If I were you, I"d hurry.” “Thank you.” Arthur nodded to Joanne and smiled. “Hey, I just wanted to join the side that"s going to survive. I"m just sorry I chose wrong.” “We of all people should know how things can change. Good luck to you, too.” With that, Arthur and Joanne went their separate ways, and vanished into the fog. … The Blackfield van drove nimbly through the empty city streets as it left the old neighborhood behind and entered the more populated districts. Arthur crouched in the back bracing himself with his forepaws against the van walls to withstand every sharp turn. Agent Mendez brought up a map with the rural village of Leskavac highlighted on the screen. Noah looked over his shoulder at the two agents in the back and said, “As eventful as tonight was, I think we have what we came for. So, knowing what we do now, what"s the plan?” “Lean heavy on the gas, Courtney,” Arthur said to the agent driving the van. “We have a lot to do and very little time to do it.” “Destination?” she asked. “Back to the safehouse so we can pack heavy. You"ll need the full arsenal and I"ll gather my gear.” “And after that?” Noah wondered. “After that, we"re going hunting.”