"I don't know, Frieda. Are you sure I'm ready for this?" They were riding in Princess Sparkles' all terrain truck, traveling over the vast tundra east of Niko's hometown.

When Frieda didn't respond, Princess spit out his window and said, "Job like this is easy enough, kid. You'll be fine."

"But I just barely perfected the art of running in these things," Niko gestured down to the shining heels that had become his favorite shoes. "Plus, I think my aim is still a little off."

"What is so hard to understand about the fact that travel time is quiet time?" Frieda groaned without opening her eyes. "No, you're not perfectly trained yet, but this is part of your training. Our target is already outta town, we just gotta pick her up at a safe house. You won't even need to run. Now, shut the hell up before I gotta teach you what a bullet feels like."

"Whoa, boss." Princess shuddered in his unicorn onsie. "A little rough, don't ya think?"

"Compared to what his own people would do to him, I'm like a nurturing mother hen. Please, don't make me tell you both to shut up again. Please."

Niko and Princess locked eyes in the rear view mirror and snickered quietly to themselves. Eventually trees started to pop up around them and when they became too tightly packed for the vehicle to keep going, Princess stopped and cut off the engine. "This is it."

"We're walking from here," Frieda said as she swung open her door. She hopped to the ground and Niko followed. He quickly found that walking in his new shoes outside in the wild would be a completely different task than doing it inside on a flat floor.

"You're sure we won't have to run?"

"Positive, as long as you can keep up with me." Niko realized Frieda was already several feet ahead of him and he lengthened his stride to catch up. "The woman we're after today is Nora Gregrinav. After her girlfriend was arrested, she made a break for it. She's waiting with Elias and Meera Bulgrav. They live in a cabin in these woods."

"Are they deviants?"

"You don't have to be a deviant to believe that everyone deserves to be happy and safe. They're just a nice old couple who have seen enough needless blood and degradation."

They walked for a while, Niko could feel the effort in his ankles and shins. Keeping his balance was difficult but when he watched Frieda glide so effortlessly he knew that was what he wanted. She made everything look easy, Niko wanted to be effortlessly powerful just like her. For now, though, he was just a whiny newbie. "Oh man, are we almost there? Does this cabin not have a driveway? Why do we need to hike?"

"We're trying to be, you know, inconspicuous. Pulling up in Princess' bad ass custom truck is, well, kind of conspicuous."

"And why doesn't he have to come on the hike?"

"Princess never leaves his truck unattended. It's for the best, really, wouldn't want a work of art like that to go missing."

Niko rolled his eyes and pushed himself a little harder to keep up with Frieda. He found himself subconsciously mirroring her movements. Every swing of the arm, every stride. Part of him was sort of ashamed of that, he never thought he'd be able to live openly, or that he could possibly feel proud of his deviant streak. Idolizing the most unapologetically deviant person he'd ever met seemed stupid but maybe that was just because of the narrow world view he'd been raised with. Deviants were meant to be laughed at and degraded and executed, not worshiped, but Frieda was teaching him a new world view. One that embraced all the many facets of humanity.

"We're here."

Niko was pulled out of his thoughts and he saw that Frieda was gesturing to a small log cabin in a clearing in the trees. They were still quite far away and hidden by the underbrush. There was a long gravel road leading to the cabin but Niko couldn't see where it joined up with any other road. There was nothing but trees in every other direction. Niko stepped towards the cabin but Frieda held him back.

"You don't just walk up to the front door in a situation like this."

"Well how do we--" Niko stopped and watched as Frieda pulled aside some dried foliage to reveal a door in the ground made of two wooden planks. "Is that a secret tunnel? Are we about to use a secret tunnel to get into this cabin and rescue someone?" The excitement of the mission was just now settling in and Frieda didn't seem pleased with it. "I can't believe it, this is so cool, I'm so happy you took me with you."

"Try to remember that we're on a mission here. Someone's life depends on us."

"Right, yeah, I didn't forget. You gotta admit though, this whole thing is pretty awesome."

The corner of Frieda's lips curled, Niko could see she was discretely trying to hide her own excitement, or maybe she was actually proud of Niko and his eagerness. What ever it was she was trying to suppress, all she said was, "Let's go." She hauled open the doors and revealed a ladder leading down into a passage of raw dirt walls.

"I mean, although this is still cool, I'm starting to realize this is kinda just a little mine. I wasn't really planning on going back into one of those--"

"Get in." Frieda didn't sound proud anymore.

"Okay, okay." Niko slowly started down the ladder and cringed as the dark tunnel embraced him. "I mean, it's just that I guess I kinda figured this would be more of a state of the art secret tunnel, you know? Not a--"

"Oh my god, stop. Just stop whining." When Frieda got down into the dark she removed a small flashlight from somewhere under her long fur coat. She led the way through the dark and Niko tried not to think about the oppressive mines of his home town. When they reached the end, she knocked her flashlight against a door and they waited.

"Hold on, dear, hold on." The voice of an old woman came from the other side of the door. They could hear scraping wood and finally the door swung open to reveal a woman with a smiling wrinkled face and a crocheted shawl draped over her hunched shoulders. "Frieda, hello." She kissed Frieda on both cheeks and her smile grew even wider. "You bring a new friend, I see."

"I'm more interested in your new friend, Meera," Frieda said. "Where is she?"

"I am here," a younger woman said from behind Meera. Niko looked around the old woman to see a dimly lit cellar with walls of bare earth like the tunnel they'd arrived through. There was a stack of wooden crates that had been pushed aside in order to open the door.

"Nora?" Frieda asked and the woman nodded. "I'm Frieda D. Viants, this is my accomplice Niko."

"You don't have a fancy word play code name?" Nora asked with her arms across her chest.

"Uh... no, not currently."

"Niko..." The woman laughed softly and shook her head. "As in, Nikolai Sirminov? The deviant who tried to kill Proxy Kusneska?"

"Tried?" Niko squinted. "What do you mean tried?"

"Shh!" Frieda's eyes were wide as she looked up towards the undersides of the floor boards overhead. "Do you hear that?"

It wasn't easy but as Niko strained his ears he could just barely pick up on the sound Frieda was talking about. The faint popping sound of rubber tires on a gravel road.

"You're not expecting visitors, I'd assume?" Frieda asked Meera but it was obvious by the expression on the old woman's face that she wasn't.

"You go, my husband and I will tend to the visitors."

Niko could hear the tension in Meera's voice and it made him uncomfortable. "Um, so when we say visitors are we actually saying MEC agents?"

Frieda didn't say anything. Nora looked terrified. "No, no, they can't get me! You didn't see what they did to Amara, she... she... I loved her and now she's gone."

"We won't let them do that to you," Frieda said, "I just need you to keep it together long enough to get to our ride, okay?"

Nora's eyes were wide, Niko could see they were wet with fear. "It's okay," he said to her as he led her into the tunnel. "Frieda saved me, now we'll save you."

The woman closed her eyes and nodded. "Right, okay, let's go."