The electricians hover van sat inconspicuously along a random side street. From the outside the cab of the van looked empty. Hovercars of all shapes and sizes were parked up and down the street, allowing the van to blend unnoticed into the background of city life. Miles of steel and glass stretched up into the sky above the streets, casting the road into partial shadow, though shafts of light from the sun reflected from the rising wall of glass.

"There she is."

"It would have been a bitch to track her down if you didn't know where she was living. Adam mused, peering through the small viewfinder and out onto the street where the woman was making her slow way up the sidewalk. She was petite and curvy, with short black hair and a small button nose, cute like a teddy bear or other stuffed animal. She certainly looked like the kind of woman that children would lov, and beside her walked her young daughter, no older than five or six, holding her hand and skipping over the cracks in the sidewalk.

"Don't look now, but I think I've found her security." Ramirez said.

"Where."

It was Desmond that answered, "There are two of them actually, one of them is across the street, the big guy in the white T shirt. The other one is more obvious, the dark woman in the blue button up." Adam swiveled the viewfinder around identifying both of the targets easily. He might have been able to guess that the woman was a bodyguard, but the man probably would have slipped past his notice. Then again Adam wasn't an expert in surveillance, espionage, tailing, or investigation of really any kind. He was as bad as a laymen and worse, having been tainted by all the dumb movies he had watched in his lifetime.

"Just two guys?" Maverick said, pushing Adam out of the way to take a look, "We could take them in our sleep."

Behind them, Sunny cracked hummed an agreement. After being the saint of Anin for the past few years, her well of confidence was deep. Not many people in the galaxy could have beaten her in a fight, and certainly not a few dollar store bodyguards.

"Mav, Ramirez, you two feel comfortable taking out the bodyguards. Sunny and I would do it, but I think that we would be more easily spotted." He turned his head to look at Desmond, "You should get your wife and daughter, they will be less suspicious of you than they would be of us, and more likely to listen."

Desmond nodded once in agreement, as they all began shifting in their seats.

Adam donned his hat again, and sunny pulled the hood of her massive sweatshirt up over her face. In Adam's opinion, it was not a good look for her. In his opinion clothes weren't really a good look for her, and that wasn't just the salacious side of his brain talking. Drev were powerful in your face sort of creatures designed to kill and to look good while doing it. Putting a Drev in sweatpants and a sweatshirt dangerously approached being some kind of sin.

There were some exceptions of course, as he did like her open fronted silk robes, but those accented her powerful form rather than hiding it.

Now she looked like a potato wrapped in tinfoil, all lumps and bumps.

Maverick pulled a beanie on over her hair, the colored blue and pink stripes at odds with her personality. As always Ramirez managed to look annoyingly good, in whatever he was wearing. It was good to send him out for this, people like to give pretty people the benefit of the doubt. No one would suspect a pretty boy of poison.

Desmond leaned forward in his seat watching as the crowd ebbed around them.

"Now." He ordered.

Adam wasn't sure what made Desmond convinced that now would be the right time, but the three of them exited the back of the vehicle, and looking around Adam didn't see any reactions on the passing crowd. He and Sunny remained in the back of the vehicle, peering through the viewfinders and watching as Maverick and Ramirez made their way up the street. Ramirez was making conversation with himself as if he was on some sort of Call.

Maverick was flipping through the projected data screen on her wrist. No one noticed the small, sharp metal rods that the two of them carried in their open hands, tucked between the fingers, each one laced with the proper drug. This part was going to be risky.

Drugging people isn't like it is in the movies. Actually drugging someone enough to knock them out is a dangerous prospect that can lead to potential death. Just the wrong amount in either direction could spell catastrophe. Either you just make them a bit woozy, and they still catch you doing what you aren't supposed to, or you stop their heart.

That's the reason Anesthesiologists make so much money. Determining the right doses of medicine to knock someone out and keep them knocked out is a delicate and dangerous process that requires years of training.

They could only hope nothing would go wrong.

Adam wasn't here to kill anyone. That was the last thing he wanted to do. In fact he had argued against this course of action pointing out that they had more control over the situation if they simply showed up and beat the guards into unconsciousness, but Desmond had disagreed. Better to do it this way.

Adam had conceded as this was not his family, and so not his call to make.

Ramirez and maverick were getting close to their targets. Desmond was following at a distance window shopping and even slipping inside a shop on occasion relying on Adam's eyes to tell him where she was going and when she was moving.

They were close.

Maverick was within a few yards of her guard, and so was Ramirez when it happened.

The two men suddenly went alert, adam could see it in the posture of their bodies, sitting up heads tilting as if they were listening to something. Maverick and Ramirez sunk back into the crowd as Desmond called over the line, "Scrub it, soemthing is going on"

It was a good thing neither of them tried anything, as that moment, a dark van came whirring around the corner, stopping in the middle of the road to block traffic with impunity.

Three armored men stepped out of the back of the vehicle, calling to the woman as they did.

She looked up, hand still gripping tightly to her daughter. He saw bystanders staring and lips moving, but he couldn't make out what was being said. The two bodyguards approached and she was ushered towards the back of the van.

"Shit shit shit." Desmond was saying.

"What is going on." Adam demanded.

Ramirez was the first to answer though his voice was hesitant, "I couldn't hear the whole thing, but I don't think there was much to hear. Just, "Come with me, you know the classic stoic bodyguard goon thing."

"Dammit..... they aren't acting like they know we are here."

Maverick made a show of looking up from her device string at the black SUV like everyone else on the street, blending in perfectly with a bemused crowd.

"What the hell." Desmond muttered again.

Despite a brief moment of protest, Desmond's Ex was quickly led into the back of the waiting SUV, daughter in tow. The bodyguards entered after her and the doors shut.

Ahead of him Desmond yanked the drivers side door to the van open and slipped inside. He started the engine just as Ramirez and Maverick clambered inside. The Suv had already turned the corner up ahead. Adam nearly fell onto his back as Desmond floored the accelerator and shot out of his parking spot nearly running over a pedestrian.

He gripped the seat hard as they jostled in the opposite direction .

"Shit what are."

"Get a drone up." Desmond demanded, and Adam did as told.

Drones were a relatively common item in the world as they knew it. Anyone could own and operate one, though it had to be licensed to operate inside city limits. This one had been stolen from a government warehouse not a few days earlier, and was designed specifically for police surveillance. Maverick rolled down the window allowing Adam to reach his hand through and drop the little drone out into open air. It shot up into the sky appearing on Adam's screen as he controlled it's movement following in the direction the Suv had gone.

"Keep me parallel with them if you can." Desmond was saying

"Turn left here and continue up the street." Adam said

They followed the Suv parallel for a few blocks, Adam doing his best to dodge drone air traffic and the sky tunnels as the little drone. Luckily for him flying a tiny drone was not unlike flying a plane, and as long as it was in the sky, Adam knew he could handle it with ease.

That claim remained true, and he kept up a steady stream of instructions as he followed the SUV tout of the city and onto the highway.

They stayed a good distance behind, unwilling to make themselves conspicuous.

"Shit." Desmond muttered again.

"I think we have found our word of the day. Adjective Noun verb, conjunction descriptor."

Desmond did not find Ramirez's observation Funny, "This is not good."

"What do you mean?" Adam wondered.

"They are heading I the direction of for Harmony. Based on the news reports from last night president Hunt is staying there for a press conference of some sort."

Adam shook his head maneuvering the little drone expertly through the gapes in a skybridge suspension, "Why would he want her, they don't know you're here."

Desmond pressed his lips tightly together, "No.... but something has certainly gone off."

***

"Where are the bodies?!"

The two TSA baggage agents cringed In their seats as the supervisor stood over them. Her face was as read as a beat, and her steel grey helmet of hair practically bounced with her rage. Behind her a government goon in a black suit and tie stood silently watching them.

"There were no bodies." One of them managed to say.

"There were bodies! The shipping manifests and all of the security checkpoints say there were organic materials inside those caskets, so my question is, how do you lose five bodies. Did you sell them off for soemthing ou sick bastards what...."

Off to the side the government agent held up a hand silencing their boss mid tirade. He stepped forward cheep suit swishing slightly, "No, the bodies wouldn't sell on a black market. Any viable organs would already have been harvested." He looked over the two men with some interest, "You say the boxes were empty when they were opened, yes?"

The two nodded.

"And the shipping manifest did not describe a location, just that the caskets were UNSC property."

More nodding.

"So we have evidence that biological material existed inside the caskets during the transportation process, no home address, but no bodies when the caskets are finally open."

The three of them now looked between each other, their boss's face less red than it had been moments ago.

"What.... Does this mean?" Their boss ventured tentatively

The agent adjusted his tie and looked down at them somewhat dismissively, "That is none of your concern." He turned and waved a hand to them as he began towards the door, "I will see myself out," No one bothered to follow him as he stepped into the hallway and headed outside.

It may not have been their concern, but it was certainly his.

Yesterday he had received a memo on his desk that described a potential security breach in the defense nexus. IT workers had come across evidence of a strange line of code that would make watchlist persons appear as if they were barred from entry even if they were cleared for entry. The way the code was written it had seemed like some sort of accident or fluke of the system, and it might well have been, but it might well have been someone very smart trying to pull the wool over their eyes as well.

And they didn't pay him to ignore coincidences.

Likely it was nothing but there was a small possibility that the coincidences weren't coincidences.

Now, pairing that with five missing bodies from a shipment of Caskets where scans HAD detected biological material on screening, and things appeared a little less random.

Caskets.

Designed specifically to move and contain human bodies.

Usually dead bodies,, but who said that had to be the case.

The lids were tightly sealed, but that didn't mean anything. With a good rebreathing mask and some kind of coolant tank, someone could comfortably lay inside one of those for hours while they were shipped in no issue.

It was the perfect plan.

Perfect enough that he couldn't prove it.

There was no security camera evidence, no scans, nothing. There was only his intuition and a few clues.

He had trusted his intuition on matters much smaller than this, and it had always turned out well for him, so he made his decision, activating his implant and sending a text directly to president Hunt.

Call in all assets, double guards.

We may have a problem.

He kept it short and sweet knowing that Hunt would get the message. The man was a raging prick, and a dumbass on matters of policy, but when it came to his own safety the man was shrewd and fast acting If there was any chance that there might be soemthing to do with assassination, than he was going to respond very quickly.

It would give the agent time to get there and give his report.

He would rather be seen as overcautious than be the one guy who screwed up so hard the president paid the ultimate price

He was not willing to let that happen