Safe and Jack made their way down the streets of Boros’ capital. Winding their way amongst the crowds, hawkers and street vendors, they are constantly bombarded with various sales pitches, everything from clothes, food, rare books, to escort services. The last giving Jack the most pause.

Safe smacks Jack in the back of the head “Focus!”

“Aww… C’mon Safe, lighten’ up a bit.”

“Things are tense round these parts, between the Alliance, local gangs, plus everyone else, don’t know when they might just lock this place down.” Safe explained. “And need I remind you we’re not exactly on the up-and-up. Best to get in and get out,” Safe said

“You must say that to all the ladies,” Jack mumbled under his breath.

-

A man dressed in a Grey suit with a bowler hat and big feather calls out to the passing crowds. “Hot Dogs get your Hot Dogs! Spicy Chihuahuas Enchiladas here!”

At his minor hot dog stall, a monkey dressed as a ninja flips slabs of meat.

The man spots Safe and Jack moving against the crowd and hurries over to them and holds a mirror up to their faces, stopping them in their tracks.

“Reflection is important, I can tell that your people of Action, people who get the job done, from your reflection.”

As the man puts the mirror back in his suit pocket, Jack and Safe look at each other quizzically. Jack brushes the man off as just another crackpot, but Safe stops, his curiosity piqued.

“So how would you feel about doing a job for me? Pays well, plus I’m well connected. Respectable business-man see, and whatever it is you’re looking for I can help you find it.” The man’s eyes dart nervously between the two. Jacks glower makes the man question whether he was right in choosing these two, but Safe’s raised eyebrow gives him the courage and opening to plunge ahead.

“What do you say?” he asks, nervously adjusting his bowler

--

Near the entrance of the market, a young woman known only as Bride7 inspects her surroundings. “What the... How the... Where am I?”

“Where are WE, you mean!” a voice comes from behind her.

Bobbie Sue, formerly known as Bride6, is smoothing out the wrinkles in her frilly dress.

Whilst Bride7 scans the area, trying to place where the two women have ended up, her sister is otherwise occupied.

Bobbie pulls out a compact and quickly checks her makeup and the appearance of her long, curly blonde hair. Satisfied, she snaps the compact shut, puts it in her purse, and looks up at Bride7 expectantly. Then, sniffing, she scoffs “Yuck! Is that you, or does this whole place stink?”

The woman pulls a small bottle of perfume out of her purse and starts spraying it in random directions.

Sighing, Bride7 shakes her head and heads into the marketplace.

--

As Safe and Jack follow the man in the bowler through the back alleys, Safe scans the surroundings, taking note of landmarks. He wanted to make sure they could find their own way back out in a pinch. It is never a good idea to go into unfamiliar territory unprepared.

“Thought we were supposed to be focused?” Jack says to Safe, out of earshot from the stranger.

“Connections are invaluable,” Safe says. “Never know when they might come in handy.”

Jack thought about the connections he had intended to make when he’d spotted the escort services, but he kept it to himself.

The bowler-hatted man leads them through the maze of Market stalls, beggars and backstreets, the environment getting more and more rundown and dilapidated with each step.

When they come to a metal door, Jack casually looks back the way they came, looking for any sign that they were being followed, and the man raps on the door three times. The door slides open revealing an old cluttered warehouse piled high with boxes and a small table surrounded by mismatched chairs.

Two small Monkeys, dressed as Ninja’s one carrying an old rusty Katana, the other a large assault rifle adorned with animal pelts, glower at Safe and Jack.

“Don’t worry about them”, the man smiles as he beckons Safe and Jack in, starting to act more confident and comfortable now. He beckons them over to a small table with several chairs arranged around it.

“So let’s talk business.” He says as he leans back in his chair, and removes his hat.

“I run the McKayNine fast food venture, best food this side of the Core, and you know why?” He glances between the two faces before him neither look impressed. “Special sauce, no one else can get it ‘cept me, and anyone I tell about it. What I need is you two to pickup a consignment, and then bring it back here too me. In return not only will you earn yourselves some good coin, but I’ll help you find whatever or whoever you’re lookin’ for.”

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that we take your little assignment” Safe says. “What makes you think we need either the money or your help, Mr….I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.” Safe levels a steely glare at bowler man.

Their host stares at the two strangers before him.

He is about to answer when a large explosion rocks the city causing dust and debris to rain down on the meeting as all three men look up simultaneously.

"Gorramit!" the host says jumping to his feet. "Must be Tuesday." He starts off towards the opposite corner of the warehouse.

Kicking an Irate Monkey out of the way he hauls a trapdoor up. he glances back at the two men, now standing with weapons drawn.

"I wouldn't shoot 'em; you'll just make 'em mad." The stranger starts guiding some of the Monkey's down the hole, before starting to follow them down the steps. "You coming or what?"

"I ain't goin' down no gorram hole with no crazy guy and his gorram monkeys Safe!” Jack says, giving the Bowler man a glare. “I'll take my chances with the explosions!"

Safe seemingly ignores Jack. He listens intently for follow-up to the explosions. Safe turns to bowler man. "Unless I missed my mark, that sounded like it came from the vicinity of the Space Terminal,” Safe deduces. “And you still haven’t told us your name.”

The stranger stared at the two men for a beat. “Typical, they want to stand around discussing things while there was work to be done.” “… The name’s Citizen,” the man finally introduced himself. “Just Citizen at your service.” He glanced back at the escape hatch. “As for the explosions… well the resistance took an irrational dislike to the powers-that-be after the war, I guess this is their work. They like to make a big show of it every now and then. The feds’ll be kicking over anthills pretty quick.” Citizen glanced around. “Won’t be too safe to be wandering the streets, but I got me a little underground network. Get to anywhere in the city… plus I’ve an armoury with a little something for everyone.”

Citizen picks up something from the table and polished it on his lapels before dropping it in his pocket. “You can take your chances with the feds, or you can come with me and we can work on those problems, yours and mine, if you’d be kind enough to tell me your names.” Safes ears perk up at the mention of the underground. Staying under the radar was what he preferred, not that he feared the Alliance much, after all he still had connections, but it made moving around a lot less… complicated. Plus there was no sense drawing attention to oneself if it could be avoided.

“You can call me Safe and this here is Jack. We haven’t exactly made nice with everyone we’ve met so far, so being discreet fits the bill. So, yeah… I think we’ll take you up on your offer.

Citizen nods and turns his attention to the escape hatch. “In that case, we should be moving,” and without further hesitation, the three men disappeared into the darkness.

-

As explosions rock the town. Bobbie Sue spins around and stares at them with glee. "Goody! Fireworks! Let's go see!"

She grabs her sister Bride7 by the hand and drags her along, moving against the crowd which is trying to escape the danger.

7 stops, pulling her aside. “Come, let's find an arms dealer!”

Bobbie examines both her arms and shivers. “Ew! Well, okay, if you think it's best, we can see an arms dealer, but it sounds pretty yucky to me. Would that be near a graveyard or something?”

Bride7 shakes her head and leads Bobbie Sue to a nearby gun shop.

7 grumbles as she has the gunsmith lay a number of his choice wares on the counter.

“Oh, we’re going to get guns, not arms!” Bobbie perks up. “That’s a much better idea! Arms would be yucky, without the rest of the person attached!” Bobbie grabs a double-barreled shotgun from the lineup and swings it around.

Bride7 flinches. “Be careful! Don’t point that thing at me!”

The gunsmith smiles, and whispers to Bride7. “Don’t worry, little lady. None o’ them guns is loaded.”

Bobbie Sue smiles too. Then she opens the shotgun, pulls a pair of shells out of her handbag, jams them into the twin barrels, and snaps it shut. Bobbie levels the weapon at the gunsmith, and she giggles.

“We’ll take them all!” she says. "Oh, and grenades! We want some grenades, too!"

Noticing the surprised look on Bride7’s face, she adds, “JC gave me a couple of lessons.”

Spotting activity outside of the shop, 7 announces. “I think we should go!”

Lugging a huge backpack of weapons, ammunition, and grenades, Bobbie keeps the gunsmith covered as she backs away. “Uh, what do you mean, go, go where?” She follows her sister’s eyeline to the access hatch situated in the shop corner. “Go down below? Ewwww! I don’t want to go in some stinky sewer!”

At that moment, the floorboards give way and Bobbie falls from the gunsmith's shop to the tunnels below.

Bride7 rushes toward the newly created hole and stares down into it. "Hey, you! Are you still alive?"

"Uh, huh," Bobbie moans pitifully.

Bride7 shrugs and hops down into the tunnels.

--

“This is the place” Citizen says stopping and turning back to the two men crouched in the tunnel. “Although I have to say, this is not what I’d planned.” The man sighs. He’d intended to lead them to where his job was, but they’d insisted on a detour. “I don’t understand why we had to come here. I do have a job for you and this is just wasting time.”

“I just wanted to check on our ride.” Safe says, lifting the grate above him. The grate opens to a vacant docking bay at the far end of the semi-circular hanger. What he sees only confirms his suspicions. One quarter of the Space Terminal is in flames. Safe turns to Jack, “You still have those field glasses?”

Jack rummages in his backpack and pulls out the glasses, handing them to Safe. Safe focuses the glasses on the fire. “Well, that settles that. Either our “scar man” is the vindictive type, or they know we’re here...”

As if to punctuate that statement, a troop of Alliance soldiers march to a stop on the tarmac outside the bay. The lead officer starts barking orders.

“Set up a command post here, use these empty bays. Johnson, go to the terminal headmasters office and find out when that shuttle docked and who flew in on it. Chen, take a team of men and find out who owned that shuttle or what ship it was registered to and I don’t care if you have to reassemble every little smoking piece to do it.”

Safe slowly and quietly lowers the grate. He holds a finger to his lips indicating to Jack and Citizen the need for silence. He crouches with them and, via hand gestures, communicates to Jack the number of soldiers and their positions.

Citizen watches on. Not exactly sure what was happening, but understanding enough to know the gravity of the situation. One didn’t survive long in his line of work without learning when to hold your tongue.

The three men slowly creep away from the grate as the vacant bay above them become a very busy place. As they reach a cross tunnel Jack signals Safe and Citizen to stop. They hear footsteps approaching. All three men draw their weapons.

Citizen clutched at the pistol in his hand as the footfalls grew closer. This was quite possibly the stupidest thing he had ever heard of anyone doing. There had just been a terrorist attack on the space port of capital city, and the people who owned the offending Shuttle were now sitting just feet away from the Alliance soldiers sent to investigate, and the stupidest thing of all was that he had gone with them.

Who the hell were these guys? They didn’t look like your average terrorist, hired guns perhaps, but not folk to go blowing up other folk if there was no coin in it. Citizen stole a look at the smoking wreckage of the shuttle, and then shot a look at the two men sitting next to him. He pulled back the slide just enough to catch a glint of brass, and gently guided it back into place. The feds wouldn’t believe that he was running with these guys by accident. There wasn’t much he could do now but follow their lead.

“We could take them,” Jack said

“No” Citizen shot back. “This is my gorram town.”

He pulled up a hatch that led to the network of Sewers and tunnels that made up his underground network. They dropped down, and were safely off the street. “I’m used to Alliance presence, but not like this… I think we should talk about who you fellas really are, and what you’re really doing on Boros.”

Bobbie lugs her large backpack full of weapons and follows Bride7 through the twisty, winding tunnels under Boros. “This stuff is HEAVY!” she whines.

Bride7 stops suddenly and raises her hand to signal her sister.

Bobbie smiles and waves back. “Oh!” she says, louder than she should. She points. “Look! Look! There are people up ahead! Let’s go introduce ourselves!”

Bride7 sighs heavily and shakes her head as a number of weapons whine to life and are pointed at the pair.

Bobbie frowns. “They don’t seem too friendly, huh?”

Bobbie stops herself just before lobbing the grenade in her hand. She turns to Bride7. "Hey, don't we know those guys? Why, it's the guys we picked up during the Reaver attack! It's Mister Safe, and Mister Jack, and..."

Whilst still waiting for an answer from Safe and Jack, Citizen sensed approaching figures and turned suddenly, pulling his pistol far faster than you would expect for a man in that hat.

"What the hell are people doing in my..." He trailed off as he caught a glimpse of the two women further up the tunnel. One of the voices sounded oddly familiar. "Is that..."

His eyes strain in the dim light to make out the features of the curly haired blonde. "Bobbie Sue, is that you?"

Bobbie blushes, eyes downcast. "Hello, Mister Citizen."

Bride7 chuckles. "So you know this guy, too?"

"Uh huh. I used to work for him."

"She was a dancer," Citizen informs the group.

Bobbie looks up and glares at Citizen. "I was an ACTRESS!" Bobbie insists, face redder than before.

Suddenly, another explosion rumbled through the tunnels, dislodging long forgotten dust and who knows what from the ceiling and overhead piping. It rained down on the group as the explosion rumbled away.

Citizen turns to Jack and Safe, his face annoyed as if they had caused it. "Who, exactly are you guys?"

“Where do we start?” Jack says

"Lets find someplace a little more... un-sewerly like, and a little more private, first." Safe tells him

To Citizen, it sounded like an excuse. But the tunnels were proving less and less hospitable with every minute. Nodding, he agrees and leads the small party through the maze of tunnels.

After some time, Jack breaks the silence. "Safe, we've been down here too long, it's starting to actually smell good."

Citizen smiles at him, "It's because we're here." He reaches up and grabs a rope hidden amongst the pipes and pulls. A stairway folds down from the roof.

Citizen climbs up and pushes up a doorway into a room above. The smell of food washes down.

The rest follow Citizen up the stairs. They find themselves in what appears to be the storeroom of a restaurant. Citizen is greeting two women.

He turns to the others. "I'd like you to meet Flechette, chef and owner of this fine establishment. And Ami, owner of the finest clothes shop this side of Persephone."

"You’ll have to pardon us if we smell,” Citizen says.

“I’m used to it,” Flechette smiles.

“We'll need to borrow your backroom,” Citizen says to Flechette, then turning to the other woman, “Ami, I may need to trouble you for some umm, suitable, attire for my... acquaintances." Citizen eyed Jack and Safe. “And nothing too flashy, ya know what I’m sayin’”

Bobbie pops her head up, lugging the weapons up into the back room of Flechette’s restaurant.

Inhales deeply she sighs, “Mmmmmm…. That smells good! When’s lunch?”