Darien's heart was pounding, but he kept his face a mask of stone as he stared down the trio. It wasn't the weapons they carried that made him nervous. He knew this might be their only shot to get a foot in the door of the criminal trade in the region. If things spiralled out of control now their whole operation could be blown to pieces before it truly started. So he painted an easy smile on his face and nudged Amber with an elbow.

"See?" he said breezily. "Told you work would find us."

"Guess I owe you that fifty," Amber replied, a sullen edge in her voice as she picked up his tactic in an instant, slouching back against the bar with her arms folded. "Though you didn't say work would be lugging so much heat."

"Guess standards have dropped."

"Clamp you lips, kiddies," the woman snarled suddenly, stepping forward and brandishing her pistol. The other people in the bar slowly eased away from the confrontation. "You're new around here."

"So you got the brains and the looks."

"No-one new comes here, smart-ass," hissed the man with the knife. "And if you don't wanna lose that tongue you might wanna use it more carefully."

"I think you hurt their feelings, boss," Amber told him.

"Alright, alright," Darien chuckled, raising his hands. "Let's everybody take a breath. Me and my friend here, we're looking to offload some gear. I heard this might be the place to do it."

"And where did you 'hear' that?"

"That's my business. And if you don't want what we're selling there are plenty other places on this rock I can try my luck." Darien reached back around and picked up his beer, taking a swig and staring the woman down. "You might've seen a bit of a ruckus on the news-nets a little while back. Our off-world friends ... 'lost' some equipment."

"Heard about that," the man with the shotgun said, slinging the weapon across his shoulder and nodding. "Seemed like some real bad luck."

"I was always told we make our own luck." Darien winked. "So you know the kind of hardware we've got on the market. If you haven't got the credit to touch it, then maybe you know a buyer around here who can."

"And what do we get?"

"We can cut you in," Amber said nonchalantly, making a show of examining her finger nails and not even looking up at the trio. "For what we'll score off this merch I think we can afford it."

Darien looked from her to the group of thugs and took another swig of his beer. "So, what do you think? Is this something you can touch?"

The woman clicked the firing bolt of her pistol forward, a frown creasing her rugged features. With a huff she shoved the pistol into its holster. "Not a call I can make."

"Ah, one for the big boss, eh?" Darien nodded sagely. "I can wait. But not too long."

"Don't play games," the knife-wielder hissed. "And before we go making introductions for you, you better show us some proof of your little treasure-trove."

"Proof?" Darien grinned. "Sure, we can show you proof." His mind was racing through all the possible consequences of what he was about to do, but he shunted them aside, knowing he needed to take the calculated risk.

So, moving as fast as he could, he whipped one hand under his jacked to the holster at the back of his belt, and effortlessly slipped free the gun that was held there.

He moved so fast that only Amber even reacted to him at first, her face flickering with surprise before she regained her composure and, to her credit, folded her arms nonchalantly, staring at their dumbfounded interrogators. By the time they'd processed what was happening, Darien had levelled the Bocklor Typhoon handgun at them – the gun they'd liberated from the factory foreman in their first operation on the planet. The sleek, sin-dark barrel glinted dangerously in the light and the woman's face blanched with fright as she realised just what was pointing at her. At this range the powerful side-arm would only need one shot to ruin someone's day permanently.

Amber smirked and inclined her head towards the gun. "That enough for you?"

The woman waved her companions backwards, keeping a wary eye on the barrel of the gun. "Alright, alright, alright!" she hissed. "Put that damn thing away."

"Set up a meet," Darien said icily. "I'll be here tomorrow – same time. You can give me the time and the place then." Slowly and deliberately he returned the gun to its holster, his eyes never leaving the trio. "Now, I'd appreciate if you'd turn around and walk out first."

The man with the knife looked like he wanted to gut them both there and then, but the woman shot him a warning glance and shook her head. Then she glared at Darien.

"Be seeing you, kid."

Then the trio turned and beat a hasty retreat out of the bar, leaving the uneasy clientele looking on. Slowly heads turned back to drinks and the low hum of conversation retook the air. Darien blew out his cheeks in a sigh, turned and slumped back down at the bar stool, taking a steadying gulp of the fiery beer. He closed his eyes, letting the liquid scorch its way down into his gut for a moment, setting his mind back on an even keel.

His eyes opened as Amber sank down next to him, her lips a tight line, hands white-knuckled upon her lap. To her surprise, she also wolfed down a mouthful of the beer and let out a gasp, screwing her eyes shut and twitching as the liquid did its work. Placing the bottle back down on the bar, she leaned back in her seat, her body rigid.

"You did good," he murmured. "Idas – go make sure they're gone."

He spotted the movement from a shadowed alcove near the door as their comrade rose from his table, unleashing a cavernous yawn and shuffling from the building, looking for all the world like a shift worker who'd spent most of the day burying his existence with alcohol. He disappeared with a laboured stumble, the door crashing shut behind him.

A moment passed before the voice sounded in Darien's ear.

"All clear," Idas said, his voice subdued.

Darien waited for a few minutes before nudging Amber. "C'mon, let's get out of here."

"Hey, kid," the barman grated as they rose to leave. "If you're coming back, try not to turn my place into a shooting range."

"I'll try keep that in mind," he replied, tossing a handful of credit tokens onto the bar. "Thanks for the drink."

With Amber close behind he strode from the building, back out into the sweltering heat of the Haze, a twinge of pain beginning to throb behind his eyes from trying to focus through the shimmering effect caused by the temperatures. Pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment, he spoke quietly into the comm.

"Hekket, give it five minutes then clear out. Everyone rendezvous back at the monitoring station."

"Copy that," the medic responded immediately, soon followed by Idas – who could have been anywhere in the town by now.

Side by side, they set off, plunging back into the flow of people and vehicles, and leaving the bar in their wake. Darien's mind shifted gears, shedding the gangland moniker he'd been displaying so recently and donning the mental garb of a Blink commander once more. The operation so far couldn't have gone better. They'd made contact on their first attempt, and all but guaranteed a meeting with a larger supplier. He didn't want to get ahead of himself – it would take a lot more work before they got anywhere near their true target – but progress was progress.

"Darien," Amber spoke in an urgent hiss, yanking him from his pleasant reverie.

"What?"

"Someone's tailing us."

A jolt of surprise shot through him. "You sure?"

"About thirty yards back – not one of the three we met at the bar. Big guy, short coat and goggles. They must've had him outside and set him on us when we left."

He glanced back once. It was all he needed to mark the man Amber had described, sauntering his way down the street in their direction in a suspiciously carefree manner. A tremor of anger shot through him, the sensation of being back on Ravine stirring up old, forgotten instincts deep in the recesses of his mind. If he'd still been working with the gangs his first impulse would have been to turn and put a bullet into their pursuer's skull.

But that wasn't how Blink operatives dealt with things. That wasn't who he was any more.

What about Logan? sneered the voice in his mind. You didn't need much urging to kill him.

Darien's jaw tightened, his teeth clamping together in frustration. There wasn't a day that went by when his cold-blooded execution of the rogue former-operative didn't flicker in his mind, like a taunting shadow. But he stood by the decision. Extreme circumstances forced extreme solutions, and he wasn't in the habit of second-guessing himself.

"Darien?" Amber's voice was tight with anxiousness. "What do you want to do?"

"We'll clear his line of sight and Blink out. He'll never know what happened," Darien told her. "Aim for coordinates 145.5565-88.2242 – just outside town. You got the distance?"

Amber hesitated for a second, her brow furrowing as she quickly ran through the calculations. Then she nodded. "Yeah, I got it."

"Then let's go." He increased his pace, leading her on towards a dim-looking alley that knifed between a pair of storage warehouses that grumbled with the loading machines within them. He didn't chance another look back. The last thing they needed was for the man to know they'd spotted him.

The two operatives swerved to the right and disappeared into the darkness. As soon as they were out of sight Darien shut his eyes, letting numbers fill his mind as his body prepared itself for the transition. Calculations of distance and mass filled his thoughts as he quantified himself, before willing his flesh and blood more than a mile.

With the suddenness of a thunderclap both of them disappeared, leaving a void of space that shimmered for a fraction of second, still trying to adjust to the abrupt absence of mass they're transit had left. An almost in the same instant Darien reappeared, well beyond the perimeter of the town, dropping onto the cracked and burnt Ravine earth. It took a moment for him to orient himself, the heat still clawing at his eyes.

It wasn't until the slight disorientation from the transit faded that he looked at Amber, and noticed her hands were shaking violently. He stepped towards her, reaching out and clasping her upper arm in a gentle but firm grip. She tensed at his touch, clasping her hands together, biting her lip with her eyes downcast.

"Hey, hey," he said, lowering his face to try and look her in the eye. "You alright?"

"I... I will be." She forced a smile. "I've just never done anything like that before. I'm not an actress."

"Could've fooled me," he replied, releasing his grip on her. "You played that perfectly."

"You think so?"

"Of course.

She looked up. "Guess I had a good coach. How did you know to do... you know, all that stuff? You knew how they would react to everything we said."

Darien looked at her for a moment, then sighed. "Amber, you need to understand, before I joined Blink I was on the other side of this game. And I know what happens to people who can't play it."

Amber gave him a worried look. "Meaning what?"

"It happened back when I used to run the lava canals near Gartole Dam. I was only ten at the time but, there was a new guy that joined our shifts. Came out of nowhere, but all the others thought he was just another down-on-his-luck miner trying to earn a few extra credits."

"But he wasn't?"

"No." Darien smiled sadly. "I pegged him from the start – there was no way he was a real canal worker. It was the little things – how he moved, the way he finished his sentences; even how he drank. He held himself all wrong and was asking too many questions to be some unemployed miner. Besides no-one volunteered to run the lava canals. So I told my boss that the guy didn't belong; told him everything I thought. They listened."

Amber bit her lip. "What happened?"

"I was a perceptive kid." He looked at her, eyes heavy with regret. "And I got that man killed. They confronted him right in front of me, and when his story didn't check out they threw him off the barge into the lava flow."

"Oh my...,"

"Do you know the worst part?"

She shook her head.

"They gave me a bonus for it."