On paper, we were going out to hunt a deserter. Gone without report, falling off the grid entirely, not responding to his issued mobile, which we must, by the papers we signed, answer promptly and respond to immediately or be charged with refusal to obey a direct order at best and treason at worst.

I always tried to look on the bright side, but when it came to us Exhumans, it seemed everything in the XPCA seemed ever-so-slightly tilted towards 'worst'.

On paper, Chariot had deserted, and presumably Tem had followed him willingly. We'd gotten word that he had been admitted to a mental hospital for psychological trauma, at which news Cosette had rolled her eyes and said 'no surprise', since last we had seen him, he'd been left with the code-X girl, but Blackett had personally issued orders to follow up.

Despite the professionally-done 'net site, the working mail addresses, even calling and getting a good conversation with first the secretary and then her manager, who confirmed Chariot was in their care but could not discuss any details of his condition for medical reasons, Blackett remained dissatisfied and would accept nothing less than visual confirmation that he was under treatment.

And at least one instance of physical confirmation to ensure it wasn't also Tem fooling us.

A squad had gone to the location, and realized immediately that Blackett's concerns had been well-founded. The location didn't match the satellite data at all, which seemed an impossibility unless Chariot could tamper with our satellites, and when they entered the location, they found nothing but an abandoned facility, clearly not even a mental hospital back in its day.

The squad returned and reported a complete mission failure. The target could be neither verified nor apprehended, and Chariot and Tem were upgraded from AWOL to deserters.

Which is why we were here, now. Both Tem and Chariot's mobiles had been spoofed to show up in the fake institution, but they...and we...didn't know that the rest of their gear similarly had tracking chips in them.

It concerned me a little that I might be tracked without consent, but I was also not planning on becoming a fugitive anytime. If I did feel the need to go off the grid, I would be sure to abandon anything the XPCA had ever given me.

We were in a van heading towards a remote corner of Flagstaff, in a seedy area where the houses were packed tight, despite the vast amount of nothing surrounding the city, as though by huddling together, the buildings were safer from the bad neighborhood.

There were only narrow windows, high on the walls of the van, but I was watching the world through my other sight, seeing every house go past outside as we drove into ever more derelict environs.

I always tried to appreciate being in a new place. Even a seedy area like this had its own charms, I was sure. Abundant sales of window bars, perhaps?

It was Tower and myself and two troopers in the back of the van. The two weren't in full exosuits, but were in tactical gear, because...again, this was on paper a mission to hunt a deserter. And yet, all involved knew it wasn't.

If it were, we'd be expected to bring Chariot and Tem back in chains, or dead, should they resist. And if we were headed out to fight two Exhumans and force their surrender or compliance, they would not have sent the two of us, known friends and associates. We would still collect them, yes, but as the lack of exosuit indicated, nobody expected a fight out of this.

We were to find them, put them on a call with Cosette, who was likely authorized to forgive some or all of their transgressions if they came back and resumed service.

Because, to be very real, we needed the two of them badly. Tower and I had undertaken a couple of missions with XPCA support, and two things became quickly apparent.

One: the P-Force was fundamentally incompatible with your standard XPCA operation. We were specialists of the truest sort, with a niche even more limited than shieldbearers or dedicated heavy-exosuit pilots. We could not simply be squeezed into a planned operation, we disrupted our allies almost as much as our enemies, and one major reason for that was--

Two: the P-Force was fundamentally incompatible with your standard XPCA. These men and women, brave, clever, and strong, had one thing in common across all of their ranks and number: They had joined the XPCA to stop Exhumans. Many could tolerate our presence or see the advantage in having an Exhuman on their side, but when it came down to it, soldiers needed to trust the man on their left and their right, and nobody would trust us.

So we were sent on our own missions, three of us now, with another who had joined our ranks rather than accept the invitation to New Eden, but we were still lacking. Chariot's absence had been keenly felt, he had an excellent aptitude for combat intelligence, and Tem was similarly useful for the sheer versatility and scale of her powers.

So far, the three of us had been able to handle things without too many catastrophes, but the growing cracks were obvious, and if they did not return soon, the P-Force would likely meet defeat when we encountered another Exhuman who was ready for us, as Soran, the power-stealer had been.

I was certain, if we explained this to Chariot, he would return gladly. I liked to think I was a friend of his, or at least an acquaintance he held in some esteem, and I knew we saw eye-to-eye on the need for the P-Force in the world.

The only trouble was, of course, finding him.

The van rolled to a stop and we disembarked with an odd combination of stretching after being still in a vehicle for most of two hours, and being on high alert. Sort of taking it in shifts to lower our guard. Once we'd accounted for our gear and sufficiently recovered blood flow in our feet, we moved as a unit. Tower was vanguard, sheltering the less durable members with his powers and bulk, the two soldiers were the main force, and I trailed behind in the rear, focusing my senses to keep our flanks safe.

Our destination was a few buildings over, and while Tower and the soldiers walked, I blinked from position to position, keeping myself close but not too close, alternating what side I was on to extend my senses in each direction. As we drew close, I sighed. Chariot was not here. Tem was likely not as well, unless she had reason to be alone and invisible in a derelict building.

There was something there, however, and so we pressed forward as I reported my findings over comms.

A locked door was nothing to Tower, who shattered it simply by charging into it and using his power, and the two soldiers entered, guns-first, flashlights blazing into every corner. I waited for them to finish and then followed on the all-clear sign, appearing directly behind Tower. I tried to appear in places they'd expect him to be, so as to not startle them.

The house was small and empty, completely devoid of furnishings or decoration, and coated in a thick layer of dust. I was glad I had my eyes shut, since every motion kicked up a cloud of it. There was one exception: a cheap table propped up in the living room, standing alone like a ghost haunting the house. It showed no signs of peeling or rust as everything else did, and did not seem to have any dust on it at all.

How it had been transported and set up in here without leaving footprints on the dusty floor was another mystery. As per our team's protocol, Tower approached alone, in case of any traps. He walked forward with big, slow strides, keeping his defenses at their utmost with every motion.

Nothing came. He reached the table unharmed, touched it, sorted through the objects atop it, even lifted it and inspected the underside, almost dumping everything off in the process, with no traps or danger.

If Chariot had been leaving traps for us, I would be concerned, indeed. But there was always the possibility this was not his handiwork.

"All clear," he said, and we advanced. On the table, a half dozen small objects I didn't recognize, most the size of my thumbnail if not smaller.

"These would be…" I said, thinking. Tower looked at me like I had an answer.

Really only one thing they could be, I supposed. The GPS trackers that had been in Chariot's gear. All collected and dumped out here, without being disabled, to let us know that he couldn't be tracked and wanted us to kindly shove off.

"Are these the tracking chips from his gear?" I asked aloud, in case nobody else had drawn that conclusion.

"Looks like it," Cosette said, with disappointment. "The boy's just wasting our time, isn't he?"

"There's also a note here," I said with some optimism. I doubted it was a map to his location, given that he'd just taken the trackers out of all of his gear, but perhaps it was a reassurance of some other kind.

I unfolded it and peered at it through a cracked eye. It was...not a reassurance.

"Well, report?" came the voice in my ear.

"It appears to be a sketch of some kind of cartoon character," I reported out. "She is making a rude gesture towards the viewer with both hands, and there is a caption 'Athan will return when he's ready and not before'."

"What kind of cartoon character?"

"Do we look like we watch kid's cartoons?" Tower replied.

"Well, does Chariot?"

All of us stopped to think, but nobody could remember him particularly doing anything like that.

"Send us an upload, we'll try to do some image matching. It might be a clue," Cosette said.

I did as I was told while Tower argued. "A clue to what? What kind of stuff Chariot does in his free time?"

"The paper referred to him as Athan. It wasn't written by him. We might get a clue who did write it," Cosette replied with obvious pained effort. For being our radio contact as Papa-Foxtrot Central, she had remarkably poor patience for clarifying a situation.

"Oh, right. Well, it's gotta be some kid, right?"

"And why do you make the assumption that Chariot is fraternizing with children while he evades us?"

"Because it's a cartoon character. Kids watch cartoons."

Cosette's sigh could almost be interpreted as white noise on the comms. "Is there anything else of interest in the house?" she asked.

"Negative," said one soldier, who returned from sweeping the other room. Apparently two rooms, a kitchen on one wall, and a bathroom constituted an entire house. "Nothing but dust and darkness."

"All right, pack it up and bring that stuff home. We'll run forensics on it if nothing else. God damn it, Chariot, you ass."

"Language," I said, reflexively, and then realized I'd just corrected my superior officer.

She laughed. "Chariot, you butt."

"No mention whatsoever of Tem, I notice," I said, when we were back in the van.

"No. But I suppose that's not surprising. Even Chariot may not realize she's still there, and I doubt very much from her personality she'd be anywhere else. While he and whoever his benefactor is seem intent on letting us know how much we can't have him, they haven't mentioned us having her in the slightest. Though, one of the trackers was hers, so whomever removed them from Chariot's gear obviously knew she was present as well. The question is, was that Chariot or Tem herself? Or the unknown party?"

"Maybe there isn't an unknown party. Tem's basically a kid, maybe she watches these cartoons."

"No," I cut in "I've seen Tem's handwriting. It is atrocious beyond reproach, not at all like the meticulous almost robotic-precision left for us on the note."

"Also...not to disparage my own squad but...she doesn't strike me as quite bright enough to carry this out," Cosette added.

"Technically she's a deserter for the moment. Disparage as you desire," I replied.

"As long as I watch my language?"

"Yes, do that as well."

"Next mission, I'm going to have you back here at Central, Jack, and we'll see how much you like just listening to comms and fumbling in the dark. And then you can watch your own damn language."

With this dead end, assuming the cartoon didn't turn up any miraculous lead to a fresh set of GPS coordinates, I was pretty sure the trail was cold and Chariot and Tem were out of our grasp. We'd just have to wait, like the note said, for Chariot to report of his own volition, whenever that was.

The question was if the P-Force would survive that long. If we knew he'd be coming back in a week, we could defer risky missions and rely on old XPCA tactics to limp by until we got them back and could strike with overwhelming force. But if he wasn't coming back for weeks or months...the P-Force being held in reserve would just be wasting our potential.

And, if he did come back, whether the pride of the XPCA could take that. Each of us had been afforded a lot of leeway on the grounds that we were completely irreplaceable assets, and at least a few of us had some serious mental hang ups which would only be exacerbated by a military lifestyle.

However, that didn't excuse just vanishing when we felt like, and as Blackett had said to Chariot once, he had no use for broken tools. If Chariot wouldn't come back and contribute, he was an Exhuman like any other, to be shoved into New Eden, or to be killed.

I think that's what we were all thinking on the silent drive back. Was this the final failure which put Chariot on XPCA's most wanted? Was he no longer worth the effort to try to reclaim?

I didn't know. I knew if I were ordered to fight him, I'd refuse, and I would take the court-martial if I had to. Not merely because he was a friend and ally and I still held faith in him, but because if we were to fight in earnest, there was almost no way I saw I'd be able to defeat him without dying.

Cosette had to know that as well, she wouldn't send any of us after him. The XPCA wouldn't want to make a public spectacle of it either, after plastering his face all over the 'new XPCA'. I thought, for sure, they were stuck, and therefore he was safe.

Of course, there was something I'd forgotten. Another resource the XPCA had, as I'd find out.

Engaged with my thoughts, the trip back to the field base north of Flagstaff seemed to take no time at all, and Cosette greeted us for debriefing, mostly ignoring us as she chatted on her comms and kept her nose to her tablet. She seemed a little aggravated, so the four of us waited in a small office patiently, trying to piece together what we could from her one-sided conversation.

Finally, she wrapped up, turned to us, and apologized for the wait.

"Good news is, we found the character, she's one of the main heroines of a popular mobile game called Kingdom Blade. The art is original, or at least, not found anywhere else on the 'net. Whoever drew it and left us that note is probably a player of that game...but that's not particularly useful given that there's millions of players across the globe. We've got people looking though, have an intelligence team going through every scrap of fanart on the whole 'net to check for stylistic similarities, and we're also tracking active players. Might not help us find them, but it can tell us where they aren't at least."

Unexpectedly useful. The cartoon was simple but not crudely drawn. The artist had some obvious proficiency, and that meant they'd practiced. If any of their previous sketches were on the 'net, that could be a huge lead.

"Bad news is...looks like we're done, boys. No more field work hunting for our deserters."

She didn't say it, but that confirmed my fears. If we weren't involved anymore, that meant someone else would be, someone with fewer qualms with simply killing Chariot.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" I asked.

"About what?" Tower replied, dimly.

"About the fact that, if they're not sending us anymore, it probably means they're going to kill Chariot and Tem," I explained.

"They're what?"

Cosette replied to me, ignoring Tower. "I don't think so. Maybe if Chariot had given us a clue to follow, but as it stands, we're just reaching in the dark at this point." She chewed on the back of her stylus, looking frustrated. "Damn it, Chariot."

"But if they don't have any leads, won't he be fine?" Tower asked.

"Maybe. We can hope so," I said.

"You're hoping an XPCA investigation will fail? Where are your loyalties?" Cosette teased. It brought her only a glimmer of a smile which withered away again under our situation. Still, the fact she never missed a chance to bust our chops, and the fact she was obviously worried about Chariot (and possibly even Tem) showed that she really did care.

"Problem is," she continued, the chewed stylus dangling from a corner of her mouth "we're taking it outside at this point, apparently. We don't have any more intel to go off, so we're dropping it."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means, like the association motto goes, don't send a soldier to do a hunter's job."

She slid the tablet across the table and we all leaned forward to see what was projected off of it.

A bounty, posted for the capture of one Athan Ashton a.k.a. 'Chariot', and one Melanie Walsh, a.k.a. 'Temperance'. A short bio on each followed, and I skipped past it, feeling guilty at the glance of my friends' pasts I'd stolen. The number of credits was in the millions, and there were no listed provisos specifying 'wanted alive' or anything like that I would have hoped to see.

"This is insane," I said. "A bounty this high, and them known to be likely to comply rather than fight...not to mention the complete lack of bounties recently...every hunter on the continent is going to be looking for them. What the hell is Blackett thinking?"

"I don't know," Cosette said, mauling the poor stylus. "It doesn't look good for him though. Maybe he's just hoping to ruin Chariot's peaceful days and pressure him back into service? I really don't know.”

After a few more minutes of anxiety, Cosette remembered to declare the debriefing adjourned, and the two XPCA wandered off. The three of us remained, still talking about the implications of the contract for a while before someone else walked in, the newest member of the P-Force.

If I didn't have my sight, I might have thought she was there the whole time. It was hard to tell with her sometimes, she tended to slip in and out unnoticed.

"Hey, Moon. Care to join us?" I called to her.

I tried to keep her involved with us when possible. I didn't want her to slip off on her own like Mage had done. It had really hit me when Mage passed that nobody actually seemed to care on a personal level, and that struck me as extremely wrong. As her closest associates, it was our responsibility to get to know and befriend Mage, prickly though she was. I was trying not to make the same mistake with Moon.

Moon nodded and closed her book, moving a whole row forward from her seat at the very extreme back of the room before sitting down again and re-opening it.

So...not quite as prickly as Mage, but definitely just as out there.

"We're back," I said, appearing at Moon's side. She didn't bat an eye at my movement. "Chariot wasn't there."

"I understand," she said in a soft voice. She had closed her book again out of courtesy.

"We have a tenuous lead, but the fact is, they just put out a bounty on him. It looks like every hunter in the world is probably going to be after him starting today."

"That is unfortunate."

"But I guess there's really nothing we can do," I said, addressing the group as a whole now.

Tower shook his head. Cosette picked the stylus out of her mouth. "I guess we just have to hope that there aren't any hunters who know where he is."

"I suppose so. If we can't find him, what are the odds they can?"