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The Games We Play​

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I gave myself a few more days of practice to be sure and then began to move. I was at once hesitant and eager—I wanted to get this done now, both to save the people I came all this way for and to get back home, but wisdom tempered that desire with caution. Whatever I wanted, I wouldn't help anyone if I screwed things up and I didn't come all this way to do this wrong and make everything that had happened pointless.

I still had the advantage in that everyone must have thought I was dead. I'd turned the tracking device off long ago, after I'd resolved to keep going with the mission despite the…unexpected detour. I'd left it on before then, so that people might know where Ziz had gone if I died, though it wouldn't have surprised me if the monster had flown us out of range. Regardless, I was pretty sure the whole faking my death strategy had been pretty successful and as far as I could tell, no one had seen fit to follow Ziz—or, at least, to come close enough to risk bothering it if they had. Everyone probably thought I was long gone.

I made a point of not dwelling on that too much. That had been the plan, of course, to vanish into the wilderness, lay low, and make it seem as though the White Whale had fallen before making a surprise reappearance, but I admitted that I hadn't planned for it to be quite this convincing. I was sure that the footage of my robbery—and, more importantly, of Ziz—had been shown all around the world and I cut off from civilization as I was, I could only speculate over what a mess that must have been causing.

What I did know, however, was that I didn't have any way of contacting Adam or Blake and they'd probably last seen me flying off in the talons of a fairy tale monstrosity. We'd made contingencies for…well, for what we'd thought at the time to be the worst case scenarios, but getting tossed aside on some distant island hadn't meshed well with any of that and I hadn't been able to contact them yet.

That didn't bother me. Well, no, that was a lie; it bothered me quite a bit because I figured they'd be blaming themselves for this, but soon they'd find out I was back, I'd underplay it and act smug about how they'd thought they'd seen the last of me, we'd maybe argue, probably not mention a lot of stuff, and…it'd be okay.

My parents on the other hand…I'd already broken one promise to them, I was sure, because they'd probably rushed back home when word about Ziz got out—along with every other Hunter, in all likelihood. God, my whole family had probably come back to Vale to find out that I wasn't there. Worse, I hadn't come back or sent word or anything for days, a week, maybe longer with no word, no explanation.

I told myself I'd deal with that as I came to it and tried to ignore that I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do about that. But I would deal with it because I would come to it, I promised myself that. And even before then…

Still, there was too much on the line to rush in and just hope for the best. Even if I hadn't lacked any backup but what I could summon, discretion would have been the better part of valor—it just probably would have been Blake doing all this stuff. Circumstances change, though, and plans had to change with them and it was up to people to notice and respond correctly.

I could probably assume a few things safely. Given Ziz's supposed awakening—and really, just the reminder that the world we live in is hostile to a degree that beggars the mind—odds were that border security had likely been increased, just in case it attacked or was spotted or whatever. At the moment, I may well be the only person aware that it had gone back to sleep and even I wasn't sure that was a comfort. It was still an enormous super monster that could wake up again and if at that time it did feel like attacking…

So border security had probably gone up. Up from the already impressive usual, that is, because even when there weren't creatures out of legend flying around, Grimm could and would take advantage of any opportunity they could to attack. There was a sincere risk of being spotted the moment I went over the line in the White Whale, which I'd need to in order to get to the company town; it was near the outskirts of the Kingdom of Atlas, set in an area found during one of its most recent expansions, but it was in Atlas.

Given that I was flying a unique ship that had been stolen in what must be an extremely high-profile incident at this point, it seemed likely that there would be a response once I was noticed. Between the fact that I was flying a stolen Schnee Company super-ship and the fact that I'd last been seen in Ziz's claws…well, I'd need to move quickly once I started, because I was sure there'd be a lot of heavily-armed men and women who'd want to speak to me and I just didn't have the time.

The town itself probably wasn't changed much by the situation, relatively speaking, though they might have increased production. Statistically speaking, that's what Dust Mines did when there was a national or international emergency and, yeah, if I'd seen Ziz and I was the Atlesian military or whatever, I'd probably want more Dust, too. But while there may be some additional personnel and perhaps adjustments to security, I doubted there had been time for any major changes yet. Infrastructure was hard to change quickly and I doubted a specific Dust mine was the first priority, though Dust mines as a whole were probably up there.

Still, before I did anything else, I needed to know what I was getting into. Adam and Blake had people inside, but even if I wasn't temporarily cut off from them…well, trust but verify.

Which was why I set the White Whale down about a hundred kilometers outside the border and ran the rest of the way there. I probably could have gotten closer if I was careful, but there was no sense in taking chances this early, especially when I didn't need to. The security out this far was more for detecting larger threats than small fry, because the simple truth of the matter was that if the entire military—robots included—was dedicated solely to border control, they'd probably be spread out to the point of utter uselessness. Defending the kingdoms was more about applying what they had in the right places, with certain, careful lines of defense to protect important areas, rather than trying to constantly defend everything.

That's why an army trying to invade would be noticed pretty much instantly, but a single person like me could go border-hopping. It didn't help that the 'peace time' defenses weren't designed with the intention of keeping people out of the Kingdoms. I crossed into Atlas—at least, the area known as Atlas on a map—with no trouble at all simply by walking over it.

Inside the Kingdom, I ran for a bit and used my Elementals to search for what I knew would be somewhere nearby. After a while running back and forth, I found the military base, still looking pretty new—which made sense, as I was pretty sure the most recent Breakthrough for Atlas had been…three years ago? The base couldn't have been in use too many years before that, assuming it hadn't been built afterwards. As a kid, I'd always thought of the Breakthroughs as something amazing, the forces of Humanity pushing back the Grimm in great battles to seize more of Remnant from the monsters.

Now that I was older and literally wiser, I was left with the depressing though that it actually had more to do with infrastructure; building roads and supply lines, getting power to new places, setting up communications, and so on, which must have been a pain when there were a bunch of monsters liable to come along and start breaking your hard work. The world was sounded so much cooler when I was a kid.

Military bases like this mainly existed to keep that from happening and partially to act as first responders, delaying a major problem that somehow got this far until the Hunters showed up. Thinking about it that way, it sounded like the type of job that was usually tedious and annoying, with rare bouts of utter terror. Most of the time you're probably standing around making sure no stupid monsters chew on your wires or something and then once in a blue moon, a Deathstalker comes along.

As someone getting used to experiencing shit like that, I empathized. I also didn't want to hurt any soldiers just trying to do their job, so I didn't. I did, however, swing by the back of a truck when no one was around, pop it open with Crocea Mors, and steal a spare uniform before slinking away. I ran the rest of the way to the mine in about three hours, found a good position, and just watched for the rest of the day, through the night, and into the morning. I stuck to the shadows, to the trees, and remained as far away as I could while still watch—which was pretty damn far.

I saw Faunus workers as the moved through the town, noted where they lived, where they went, and in what order. I watched the human employees as well, noting names, faces, roles. Liberal application of Observe told me the purpose of each of the different structures and Crocea Mors, Levant, and Vulturnus spread throughout the town, slipping through their respective elements to see what was hidden, to tell me exactly how things worked from both an infrastructure and personnel standpoint. Several times, I had to move to get a better look and I noted everything that I thought might be important as I went—exists, communication lines, names, faces, numbers, weak points, and more.

Because it was a Faunus town, activity did not stop during the night, so I didn't get a chance to enter the town itself and examine things directly, but everything I could do, I did.

And then I left and ran the rest of the way to Atlas. Between my Elementals and how quickly I recovered from exhaustion, I got there only shortly after night fall, found a place to take a bath with Xihai's help, and then found an alley to meditate in for the night.

When dawn came, I changed my clothes, disguised myself, and calmly walked into the CCT to make a call.

"Hello! Welcome to the CCT. How may I help you?"

"Communications room, please," I requested.

"Absolutely! Could you please place your scroll in the terminal to verify your identity?"

I withdrew my scroll and scanned it casually.

Being terrorists made a lot of things more difficult for the White Fang, as one might expect. ID checks, for example, did not mesh well with terrorism—and anyone who wants to make a cross-continental call needs to have a scroll registered to them and have it scanned. The location of the call also needed to be stated, so who you were calling was an issue as well.

Luckily, the White Fang had long since adapted to such difficulties and as I was sort of with them for the time being, they'd showed me how—both in person and in the security books Blake and Tukson had fed me. The scroll that Blake had given me was registered to a false ID, though it was a bit more complicated than that due to what it took to keep things that way, both in the hard and software of the scroll and in terms of the infrastructure that supported them. The long and short of it was that if you knew how and you had a few things in the right places, you could make your scroll say what you wanted it too; an invaluable skill, if you knew how to use it, due to how much relied on Scrolls nowadays and what you could get on and off them with the right equipment.

And I'd gotten pretty good at doing it, as part of my Disguise and Theft skills.

"Perfect," The automated voice said once it was finished. "Thank you, Mr. Younis."

I waited patiently as the elevator took me up, a pleasant smile on my face. When the door opened, I walked up to the hologram manning the desk.

"Welcome to the Atlas Cross-Continental Transmit Center," She said, giving me a gentle smile. "How may I help you?"

"I need to make a call to Tukson's Book Trade in Vale, if possible," I said.

"Certainly," She replied. "If you could head over to terminal four, I'll patch you through."

"Thank you," I nodded at her politely. "Have a nice day, ma'am."

"You too, sir." She replied as I walked away.

I couldn't really take the credit for this next bit; most of it was having friends in the right places. A fake identity can get you through the door pretty easily, but once inside, all CCT transactions were recorded. This was an obstacle when you were, say, wanted criminals communicating across the globe, but only a minor one if you're properly prepared. Odds were good that Adam and Blake had changed IDs already, if not their scrolls, but that wasn't too uncommon among White Fang operatives on their level. It could make them hard to reach in an emergency, however, because if something happens, suddenly they're someone else.

For that reason, the White Fang had a number of go-betweens who would take such messages and pass them up whatever line was needed to reach their destination. Tukson served such a role, at least in part, and Blake had told me to reach them through him if the mission went badly enough that we got separated and sent on the run. And yeah, it was yet another way spying was ruined by practicality. Secret messages, encryptions, and cyphers may have been cool, but it was amazing how far you could go with an answering machine and some common sense instead.

The screen beeped several times, trying to get the message through, but no one answered; I wasn't surprised, given the time zones involved, and it didn't matter. When it prompted me to leave a message, however, I spoke.

"Hey, it's Jonah," I said. "Sorry I couldn't make it; my flight got delayed and something came up. I just wanted to tell you I'd be there as soon as I could. I wanted to thank you and Bee again for the books. Can you tell the others I'm bringing back something? Just tell them to call the moving guys, okay? Talk to you when I get back."

I hesitated for a moment, finger hovering over the button that would end the message. He'd get the message, I was sure of that, and Blake and Adam call their friends at the town to help get things in order. That's all I really needed to do here and it'd be wise to leave—not because of any danger, but because of the temptation to do something unwise. I looked at my reflection in the table, watching as my smile faded, and wanted nothing more to make another call.

There were a lot of reasons that was a horrible idea. At this point, my mom—assuming she wasn't in prison for murdering my dad and hadn't escaped—must have been tearing Vale apart looking for me. If I sent her, or anyone else in my family, a message…I didn't doubt for a second that they'd do everything in their power to hunt me down. It'd be easy to figure out that the message had come from Atlas and I didn't put it passed her to come over here in person or, assuming the situation didn't allow for that, calling in all the favors she could to have me hunted down and express shipped back to Vale. I loved my mother, but she could be terrifying when she was angry and I was five million percent certain she was.

There was no situation in which calling my family was going to result in anything but more complications. The smart thing to do was say absolutely nothing, send the message, and walk away.

I tried to imagine how my family must be feeling right now, no idea where I was or if I was even alive. How my dad must feel knowing he might have facilitated my death. How my mother must be terrified and enraged. How my—

I closed my eyes and remembered all the times I'd been on that side of things. When mom didn't call back at night, when everyone left on missions and patrols, when duties and obligations had to come before family and convenience. I'd hated it, been worried and scared and mad and sick, even with my babysitters attempts to calm me down. Being alone in a house that just seemed to get emptier and emptier. Before, it hadn't been so bad, but…

The descendants of Julius were invincible—unstoppable warriors that would never fall, never fail to return. I knew that, had believed it with every fiber of my being since it had first been whispered to me in warm arms.

How could I not believe it when I'd told it to myself a thousand times on a thousand nights? If I didn't…

I wondered what my family would tell themselves and tried to imagine it before heaving a sigh.

Maybe…

"Also, if you get a chance to call my parents, tell them 'Sorry I'm late; I hope I didn't make anyone worry. Things are taking a little longer than expected, but I'll be home soon. Tell everyone I love them. Please don't ground me forever.' It's not an emergency, so…well, you know, I guess." I said, wondering what I was saying. "I'll try to be home in a day or two, but you probably won't be able to reach me for a bit. Just call the guys and don't have to move everything myself and be fine, though. So…yeah. See you later, alligator."

I sent the message and leaned forward, elbow on desk, mouth on hand. I hoped that wasn't a mistake. Tukson was smart; he wouldn't send the message while the mission could be jeopardized, even without my urging. Maybe he wouldn't send it at all or he'd send it while I was flying home or…I don't know. That wasn't the point; the point was that I'd spoken the message, had given it to him. It was a compromise between wisdom and guilt and I knew it, but…

"Yeah, I'll be home in a few days," I murmured, rising. I thanked the hologram again as I left the tower and walked back into town, towards the edge of the city and, beyond it, the edge of civilization.

As night fell, the White Whale glided across the border—a monster swimming in the night with its captain at the helm. If there was a response, I paid it no heed as I flew passed.

I'd always believed there were some lies you could make true.

If so, there was no stopping me now.

XxXXxX

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