Brant and Hannah wove through the network of alleyways between the colorful buildings. They constantly altered course, sometimes running straight for a time, sometimes zig-zagging, and other times making a circle. Brant constantly felt lost, but also reminded himself they had no clear destination to lose sight of. 

He finally stopped underneath an awning stretched over the back door of a building. The wood appeared black and smeared, as did the ground beneath it, covered in ashes. Cigarette butts lay strewn about on the ground, a familiar sight to Brant. 

He eyed Hannah's shotgun. "Is that loaded?" 

She shook her head. "Ain't dat illegal? Carryin' a loaded shotgun openly like dat?" 

Brant narrowed his eyes at her. "Aren't we supposed to be illegal?" 

"I guess you're right." 

He waited and caught his breath while Hannah removed some shells from her ammo belt and crammed them into the shotgun. When she'd finished, she looked up and grinned. 

Then the door creaked open behind Brant. He spun around and aimed an arrow at a foul-faced old man who reeked of the innards of animals. Upon sighting him, the geezer, whose face had previously appeared incapable of pleasantness, offered him a disarming grin. 

"Ah, son!" he exclaimed, "What're you aimin' at me for? I ain't never done nothin' for ya but good!" 

Brant faked a laugh as he lowered the bow and relaxed the string. He returned the arrow to the quiver. "I guess I just got a little lost." 

"I had a feelin' you'd stop by today, son. Dat's why I've been cookin' up your favorite! Ostrich colon!" 

"Yum." he muttered, hardly convincingly. His stomach violently protested the suggestion. 

The old man lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke from his mouth. Then he glanced at Hannah. "This a girlfriend, or a partner? Heh. I guess it's a partner either way, eh?" 

Brant eyed Hannah and laughed. "I suppose so. Heatwave's still learning the ropes, but doing good so far." 

"She could stand to use some improvement on pickin' her clothin' sizes." the foul-faced man mumbled as he eyed Aaron's jacket draped over her. 

Hannah narrowed her eyes. "Rude." she said in her lower pitch. 

"Nah, what's rude is you assaultin' mah eyes with that wacky eyeliner job. It don't sit right on your face, girl." 

"Okay." 

The man's bony fingers tapped the end of his cigarette. "So, when'd a musician become a mercenary? He kissed ya that good?" 

Hannah frowned. "What?" 

"I remember bein' in Pistoldraw Canyon, back in Odego, a couple years back. Y'know, before I was redistributed an' all. And there was dis lil girl wonder. Could sing and play the guitar like nobody's business. Ya remember, Trickshot? You was there too." 

Brant shook his head. "No, I must've been out of it. I don't remember what you're talking about at all." 

"Oh yeah! Right! You was keelin' over after one too many shots of dat Drastic Calloway's, remember?" 

"I think I do. Those were the good days..." he muttered, injecting a disingenuous nostalgia into his tone. 

"So yeah, there was this young lil lady, looked just like you, a musician. In fact, she is you!" 

Hannah coughed. "You're mistaken." 

"I'm afraid not. I have an eye for faces, young lady, and once I see someone, I remember 'em. There's a whole lotta other things I forget, but I don't never forget a pretty face like yours." 

"Gross." 

"Oh cut it out, lass! Ye know good'n well ya live for dat next compliment on your 'otherworldly looks' or your 'breathtakin' personality' I know ya ain't got. I'm just flatterin' ya for mah old pal's sake." The man's paradox of a face turned toward Brant. "Ain't that right, son?" 

Brant shuffled his feet, glancing off into the distance. He heard sirens in the distance, and he was unsure whether this old man's dialogue with them was beneficial or detrimental to their efforts to evade detection. "Of course." he finally replied. 

The geezer inhaled from his cigarette and immediately fell into a hacking fit. Brant and Hannah eyed one another with uncertainty. 

"Well, I was actually in town to meet a contact." Brant said, "So—" 

"Oh c'mon, son! You're gonna leave an old man to eat ostrich colon in solitude? Dat's just wrong!" 

He shrugged. "I'll come by for dinner." 

"Alright, sounds like a plan. Make sure to bring your eye candy." he said, staring at Hannah. 

"Will do. See ya." 

With that, Brant led Hannah out of the alleyway and onto the sidewalk along a main road. 

"Dat was creepy." she declared. 

"Yeah, he was weird." Brant sighed. "Let's head to the docks. Somehow, I get the feeling a man of Unterstat would prefer to keep his back to the sea." 

"Sounds 'bout right." 

Once traffic thinned, the pair crossed the road and headed to the dock section of the city, spanning a good quarter mile into the water. Businesses colorful in physical appearance, character, and management spanned the wooden planks comprising the floor, along with fishermen aplenty. Some of the men all but slapped their catches into the faces of passersby in their desperate attempts to attain buyers. 

"I wish I knew what this guy looks like." Brant said, leaning closer to Hannah's ear, "What type of man do you picture as a Ryder?" 

Hannah squinted. "Blonde hair, maybe, hazel eyes, kinda short, but makes up for the lost inches in personality? I dunno." 

"That's shockingly close to what I was thinking." 

"Yeah, but it's really kinda irrelevant, what we think he might be. He coulda been that old man, for all I know." 

Brant shook his head. "That man positively reeked of butchery. Ryder can't have been here long enough to accumulate that much smell." 

Hannah giggled. "Dat's true." 

Brant kept his piercing gaze constantly moving. He scanned the crowds for their mysterious contact, which proved difficult, as most everybody they passed averted their gazes downward, sideways, anywhere, to avoid eyeing who they knew to be Trickshot, much like he'd seen at the fountain near the beach. How the mercenary had garnered such a reputation without getting arrested, Brant had no clue. 

"How about him?" Brant asked, pointing at a well-groomed fisherman whose quirky shack featured his massive catches skewered to the wall by mounted rapiers. What a waste of such beautiful weapons. he thought to himself. 

Hannah shook her head and wordlessly pointed at the sign tacked above the man's head. Plain Old Nothin' Fascinatin' Bill's Great Catches, the sign read. 

Brant smirked and nodded. "What a name." 

They continued on, coming ever closer to the edge of the docks, where only a few feet of railing stood between solid ground and the rock-infested waters below. Massive spires of jagged stone jutted out from the waters, and Brant's imagination so strongly suggested the image of a reckless diver impaled by one of the natural spears, that he could almost see it in the physical realm. He grimaced. 

Brant's eyes snapped down when he felt Hannah tug on his sleeve. She silently pointed at a clean-shaven man with a long and stern face who stared at them. His gaze never wavered from them, which caused Brant uncertainty whether to be concerned or not. He sat at a table by himself right against the railing, back facing the sea. He lounged with a relaxed and confident air, like he belonged there. As if he owned the town, and its inhabitants were all merely his guests. 

The man dressed sharply, in a suit jacket, dress pants, and stark white shirt. The only component missing was a tie, but Brant realized its presence would have concealed his golden chain necklace, which hung down and gleamed in the sunlight. Tattoos snaked up the sides of his neck and evidently into his gelled hair. For good measure, a third, a word in unreadable cursive, sat in the web of his right hand. 

Finally, Brant and Hannah stepped up to the table and Brant gave him a nod. "Are you my contact?" 

The man's expression betrayed no emotion and no opinion at all as he glanced up at Brant's covered face. "If it's Ryder Ford you seek, you've found him." 

Brant was taken aback by just how deep in pitch the man's voice sounded, nothing like the voice he'd heard over the airwaves yesterday. He could've sworn he felt the very boards under his feet rumble. "I think you're the man I seek." he stuttered. 

"Well, considering you have Hannah Higsley with you, I have my doubts that you're the real Trickshot. Not to mention the fact you walk like Brant Nayan." 

Brant nodded and took a seat across from him. The third seat at the table lay closer to Ryder than Brant, but Hannah slid it his way before sitting down. "So, let's make sure we're all on the same page. You're the leader of the Underground of Unterstat, correct?" 

"I am." 

"And Baird Amergin and Khemera Taing are in Unterstat right now, to be executed about this time tomorrow morning." 

"Correct again." 

Brant and Hannah exchanged a glance. "Okay, so what's your plan for getting them out of there?" 

"I never said I had a plan. We're here to discuss one." 

"Right. Well, from what I'm aware, Unterstat has very tight security as far as getting in and out, right?" 

Ryder nodded. "Yes, it's quite tight." 

Hannah cleared her throat. "Well, how'd you get out, if ya don't mind mah askin'?" 

"My father's company, Ford Fashion, has me to thank for our renown even on the mainland. I come up here all the time." 

Brant leaned forward. "And what about the men you supposedly were gonna bring with you?" 

"It wasn't supposedly. They're here." he replied calmly, sweeping his pointed finger over the crowd beyond. 

Brant and Hannah both glanced back, but came back with shrugs. "I don't see them." they said in unison. 

"That's the point. We're the Underground. Now, we need to set one thing straight right now." 

"What's that?" 

"You're certainly not getting in as Trickshot. He's been banned." 

Brant nodded. "I wasn't intending on keeping the act up forever." 

"How thorough are their security checks?" Hannah asked, "Could we slip in as baggage or somethin'?" 

Ryder shook his head. "Absolutely not. They do a heat scan before accepting incoming vessels into even the first ring of security." 

Brant cleared his throat. "Do employees of Ford Fashion have any kind of uniform we could sneak through in?" 

"Again, no. They just dress in our suits." 

"Hardly concealment." Brant muttered. 

"I'm not sure there's any way we can sneak you two past their defenses." Ryder concluded, "I'm afraid you two are too well-known." 

"Is the process automated?" 

Ryder nodded. "Until the very last step, yes." 

"And what is the last step?" 

"They'll send a pair of guards to give the whole vehicle a visual once-over. Sometimes a few pairs. It depends how the previous scans and authentication processes went." 

Brant sat in quiet thought for a second. "Okay, so how many vehicles did you bring?" 

"Four." 

"And they're...what type of vessels?" 

"Cargo. Our standard shipping vessels with tons of boxes of clothes in the back." 

Hannah smirked and glanced back at Brant. "Are you thinkin' what I think you're thinkin'?" 

"Probably. So, Ryder, one of my comrades, Aaron, is a tech genius beyond all others. I'm hoping maybe he can hack into the security network and alter the data the scanners gather, before they can send it to the console or whatever. Then, seeing minimal concern, they'll hopefully send few men, and we can knock them out once they check the cargo area. Grab a couple of my men similar size, stuff them in the uniforms, and we're good to go." 

Ryder squinted and scrunched up his face as he mulled it over. Finally, he nodded. "It sounds risky, but I don't have any viable alternative. You must have a lot of faith in this Aaron character." 

Brant nodded. "Very much so. I'll contact him now." 

He rose to his feet and stepped away while calling Aaron up. Before long, he answered, asking what was up. 

"Hey, Aaron," Brant began, "so we met Ryder, and we were just discussing how we can infiltrate that tight security. Is there any way you could have Wendy or Sila train one of our soldiers to fly so you can come down here?" 

"Sure, why?" Aaron's voice crackled through the speaker. 

"We need your hacking skills. So bring whatever you need to intercept their data and alter it before it reaches its destination. We'll need to pass heat scans and some other things." 

"That's right up my street." 

"Isn't it 'right up my alley'?" Brant asked. 

"Not if you ask Wendy, no." 

Brant chuckled. "Well, I'll see you when you get down here." 

"Sounds good. Over and out."

******************** 

A/N: Well, now we've met Ryder and are set for a breaching of Unterstat, or so we hope! If you enjoyed this chapter, please don't forget to vote and maybe comment. 😁 

I'd better ask: Any first impressions on Ryder? 

And I'll also ask: How're you feeling about the weather where you live at this moment? 

(It's raining decently hard and seems to have been doing so all night. I love the rain myself, so it's actually a perfect way for me to wake up. Nice and relaxing. Granted, it's early June, so it technically shouldn't be raining this hard still, but it's Washington. 😂) 

I hope you have an amazing day and week ahead of you! I'll see you in Saturday's update. 😁