Gearing hurries up and slaps the new-to-him fully loaded magazine into the rifle and chambers a new round before looking around outside with the scope again. But, his quick check turns up nothing obvious, so he turns around and heads back to the equipment staging area of the tower where he’d left his sole captive. He’d already spent quite a bit of time, and a fair bit of ammo as well, gunning down those that dared to run that he could see from their own sniper’s nest. But, he knows, there’s still more to be done and at least a few heads left to be counted. So now he has to hunt them down like the rabid dogs they are acting like.

As he’s slinging the rifle back over his back, he walks up to the buck that’s splayed out, face down, on the ground with his head buried under his own forehooves. He stops not far from him as he asks, “Okay… well, with those two gone… is there anyone else you think that’d try and keep the crew together?”

The buck slips his hooves off his head and looks up at Gearing. “I haven’t been here that long. So I don’t really know… but.. Those two seemed to have everypony else under their hoof. He’s the really organized sort. Really smart it seemed. That’s why I joined up, he was talking about us salvaging the equipment and using that money to expand the operations.” He shrugs. “He really seemed like he had a plan for all of it. But everypony else was pretty much just along for the ride. The lieutenant and him went back a ways, I’d heard. And she wasn’t much of a long term planner pony, but more of the organization and such sort.” He frowns as he says, “Even on the first day I noticed most of them seemed to be more like a raider than anything. More worried about their next meal or vice hit than anything else… No thought to the future at all.”

Gearing looks him over and asks, “So, you’re just here for a job yourself, right?”

The buck eagerly nods. “I’ve done scavving for most of my life. But with all the dangers I’d run into in ruins I thought it’d be nice to have some guards for a change. I thought that’s what he was doing…” He lowers his head before he lets out a sigh. “Until I saw them hit that one caravan that was passing through… Didn’t leave any survivors…” He looks up at Gearing and frowns. “I don’t think I was supposed to see that. And they never mentioned it. And I didn’t bring it up.”

Gearing nods as he says, “Yeah. It’s likely if you did, and didn’t show enough enthusiasm, or showed any fear, that they’d just kill you to prevent any kind of conflicts later. So that was probably smart…”

The buck looks him over and asks quietly, “So… is this the point where you kill me? Or…?”

Gearing looks at him before he asks, “Well you were completely inept with weapons. Couldn’t even tell the difference between a fully loaded weapon and one that was entirely empty. So I don’t see you being a big threat, even with weapons.”

The buck frowns as he says, “The most I’ve ever used is a varmint rifle to get rid of bloat sprites…”

Gearing looks him over before he asks, “If you’re just looking for a job, to earn a living, would you stick with that?”

The buck waves around as he says, “Uh… yeah? I mean… Why? You looking to hire someone to schlep your stuff around for you? I’m not much of a fighter but I can certainly haul…”

Gearing chuckles as he shakes his head. “No. I was thinking more along the lines of a job that I heard about.” He looks the buck over for a bit before he says, “I have it on good authority that Happy Trails Caravans are going to be doing some extensive salvaging in the area soon. And they are going to need some folks not afraid to get good and dirty pulling out equipment.”

The buck lifts his head and stares at him for a moment. His face screws up a bit before he says, “Happy Trails? I think I heard of them… They connected to those caravans coming down from Hoofington, aren’t they?”

Gearing nods. “There’s at least one I know of. A buck named Short Road is the caravan head for Bottlecap’s crew. But Happy Trails was down around here recently and I’m sure they’re going to need some new folks to help out.”

The buck looks at him for a moment before tilting his head. “Soooo… are you going to slap a collar on my neck or something?”

Gearing’s eyes narrow as he snarls. “I fucking hate slavers…”

The buck looks at him and recoils at first. But, after actually processing what Gearing had said, the buck actually grins. “Well, you can’t be all bad then.”

Gearing points off towards Megamac. “Keep your nose clean. Get some steady work. And don’t make me regret letting you go here. Trust me as I’m trusting you right now. I’m not a pony to be trifled with and I’ve held grudges longer than life times. I’m giving you a golden bit opportunity here for a second chance. But, if I find out you’re shitting me, and I find you slaving or raiding, you’re going to get far worse than anypony here. Understand me?”

The buck pushes himself up, resting on his hindknees as he waves his forehooves around. “No, no, I get it! You don’t have to threaten me. Hell, you probably saved me from these assholes… I’ve got no grudge against you… Anything else you want to know from me?”

Gearing stares at him for a few moments before casually resting a forehoof on the table near them and leaning against it. “How many were working under this commander of theirs?”

The buck responds quickly. “Three dozen. Easy. Maybe forty. But from what I’d heard earlier, eight had been killed in the warehouse ambush. So that had them rather jumpy as that was a good portion of their forces.”

Gearing frowns as he says, “Shit, you mean to tell me I’ve still got almost half of them to deal with?”

The buck’s eyes go wide before he says, “You’ve already taken care of half?” To this Gearing motions around him and he just nods. “Ah… right…”

Gearing holds up his hoof again. “And, also, if you hear anything about raider or slaver activities… get word to a trading caravan and the guards at Megamac… They’ve become a de facto grapevine I use to find out problems that need dealing with.”

The buck waves around them as he asks, “That how you find out about this place? Because they hit that caravan?”

Gearing shakes his head. “Nope… they were under my radar… until they shot at me and my friends and knocked one out of the air… Kinda can’t just ignore that kinda shit either…”

The buck nods slowly before he says, “There was a bit of an argument about that… And a few may have deserted because they were sure some pegasi were going to come back for revenge and blast us into the ground from the sky…”

Gearing smirks. “Well, guess they were right…” He looks around a bit before he asks, “Would you be willing to go to Megamac now, and tell them what you know about these assholes? I know their guard captain and am pretty sure he’d be willing to overlook your association with them if you explain everything.”

The buck nods a few times. “Sure. Getting there’s going to be a bit of a pain though. Especially with these guys scattered out and the commander not holding their leash anymore…”

Gearing tilts his head and grins. “How about a direct line escort?”

The buck stares at him and his eyes widen a bit. “You mean you would take me there?”

Gearing nods. “You stay here. Get your stuff together and-” He looks around after suddenly stopping speaking for a few moments. “You can take a few things, but, sorry, I’m not letting you take all these weapons. I’m sure they’re worth a lot. But the last thing I need is for all of this to get back into their hooves. They got quite the arsenal here. And the less of those kinds of ponies that have this kind of stuff the better.”

The buck nods as he points at the bags. “They were telling me to pack stuff up so we could bug out. I wasn’t going to try and take any of that shit. If it were me, I’d have grabbed a bag of food, a rifle, and already been out the door.” He points over to the side at one of the corpses. “But she said we had to grab it or they’d just shoot me anyway if I didn’t help.”

Gearing nods and waves it away. “Well, you get ready to go. I’ll be back in a bit once I clear the area. Then we’ll head to Megamac and I’ll see if I can get any information on where the rest of these creeps might have gone. I doubt this is over. But, would be nice.”

The buck climbs up and starts walking away, leaving the bag he’d been packing right where it’d laid. “I’ll go get my things. Didn’t come here with much. But I’ll be here when you get back.”

Gearing nods and waves it away as he leaves.

Half an hour later Gearing returns to the miniature armory carrying a minigun. He has a few fresh scuff marks on him, and a few bits of blood and fur on a couple spots where some of the fighting got close and personal. He sets the minigun onto the table in a clear spot where a bunch of the smaller weapons had been removed before he killed most of the ponies doing the clearing out.

The buck he’d left alive sits in a chair against the wall, away from the corpses, with a duffle bag next to him and an old varmint rifle leaning against the wall with the bag. It’s old, and well used, but it also seems well taken care of which is something Gearing can appreciate. He’s changed out of the oily looking jumpsuit uniform that he had been wearing, and is now wearing a more simple set of clothes with a plaid shirt and leather jacket.

Gearing looks over at him and nods out towards the front. “Well, I tracked down and removed every red bar my EFS could find in the entire complex. Damn did you guys have a radroach infestation.”

The buck laughs before he nods. “Yeah… to be fair, I’m pretty sure a couple of them were raising the damn things. Every time I turned around one of them was making roach meat snacks… Cheap protein he’d say… I never had the stomach for the stuff…”

Gearing nods and starts looking over the variety of equipment still laid out. “Well, on top of the little crawlers, I managed to scratch ten more off the employment register. Were much easier to find with all the other red markers not clogging up the indicators.”

The buck points off to the side towards the area where the stairwell down is. “You ready to go?”

Gearing nods and motions for him to head on. “Head downstairs. There’s nothing to give you a problem now. Meet me at the ground floor front doors. I’ll be there in a couple minutes. There’s something else I want to check.”

The buck get up, throws his bag and rifle over his back, and leaves quickly without asking any more questions.

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head stares after him as he ponders, ‘Think he’s for real, or just saying whatever he can to save his own hide?’

Gearing replies back, “Either or. But he gave me a lot of good information. As long as he doesn’t stir up more shit, he’s of no concern of mine. But if he does, I’ll have to track his ass down.”

The little pegasus shrugs as he says, ‘He’s lucky his marker went yellow when it did. Or he’d be getting mighty cold about now…’

‘I mean, he was pretty inept with weapons in general,’ the little golden pegasus in Gearing’s head comments.

“Yeah, I was curious about that. I skipped him over because I saw his weapon didn’t even have a magazine in it. So I dealt with the actual threats. And by time I brought the gun around to take him out, he’d already had a change of mind… lucky him.”

Gearing sweeps the weapons and a few other things into the bags that were already laid out. Piles of grenades. Land mines. Ammo of various types. All of the firearms. It ends up filling eight full duffle bags worth. The armor laying around would probably fill a few more, but right now he wants to make sure weapons are out of certain ponies hooves. Especially a few that he notices are of the magical variety. And the fact that he’s seeing so much of the one type of magical ammo, but not the weapon that goes with it, really concerns Gearing.

He quickly grabs the bags, loads himself down, and flies up to the gang commander’s corpse. He checks the table that they had been looking over, and notices all of the maps and general information that had been laid out on top of it. He takes a few moments to study what’s there, and then grabs all of the papers and stuffs them in one of the duffle bags that’s full of long guns. But, before he leaves, he notices a holster on the commander. His armor looks pretty well maintained too. But, he’ll have time for fishing that all out later. For now he grabs the weapon from the commander, and his eyes go wide as he sees it up close.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ the little golden pony in Gearing’s head asks.

As Gearing manipulates it in real space, the little blue pegasus flies around and looks at it from a variety of angles as he points out different things about it. ‘It is! It’s a MPD, Magical Plasma Defender. It’s like a magical plasma pistol, but modified so much that it’s barely in the same category anymore. Its generation channel causes it to typically do more damage to similarly armored targets versus the pistol variant. That frontal focus array makes it far more accurate than the pistol’s questionable system is capable of, meaning its threat range reliably increases to include medium ranged distance targets. It doesn’t cause cascading effects as often as the pistol variant though, so it doesn’t gooify as often as a result. A fact I’m actually thankful for. However, its capacitor array and heat dissipation upgrades mean its rate of fire is at least double that of the standard magical plasma pistol. And as if all of that wasn’t enough, it has an onboard system that makes it work in tandem with SATS enabled equipment, meaning it uses far less of a SATS charge to use the weapon. It really is an amazing piece of machinery.’

Gearing’s lip on the left side lifts a bit in disgust as he’s looking at it. “Yeah, it’s all that and a bag of algae chips. But it still gooifies targets. Makes identification damn near impossible, and there’s a chance you lose any salvageable equipment in the process too… unless you hit them right and they just turn to jelly inside of the suit and then you have that nightmare to deal with that you’ll never truly feel is clean enough regardless of how much you scrub the equipment.”

The little golden pegasus in his head watches them both ramble on about it for a while before raising a hoof. ‘Uhm, excuse me, I have a question… where the fuck did this bastard get something like this? This wasn’t exactly a standard issue found everywhere kind of thing?’

‘“Good question,”’ the two reply simultaneously.

“No idea where he could have found it,” Gearing admits.

‘Mine now,’ the little blue pegasus adds flatly. ‘We’ll at least keep it out of other pony hooves.’

Gearing slowly turns it over as he looks at it. The weapon in question is a type that would need the ammo that he’d found earlier but couldn’t find a use. But now he has a use. And he’s not a fan of it. For a variety of reasons. On some level these things have always creeped him out.

‘No glowing pony jelly, please,’ the little golden pegasus says with a look of disgust twisting his muzzle.

Gearing quickly takes the holster too, puts the weapon back in it, then puts them into the duffle. There’s a lot here that he’s going to need to sort through. And he’s sure there’s a treasure trove of information. But, it’s barely midday and he still has several of these murdering bandits he needs to track down. But he has some leads at least, so he’s less grumpy than he would be normally. After securing that as well, he flies out of the building, and up on top of it. He uses his tools, cracks open the metal casing around the vent stacks and cooling cans that are set up on the roof, and begins stuffing the duffle bags into the empty space around the massive blades that are inside. He hadn’t seen a way up here from the sides nor inside of the building. And the roof didn’t look like something they’d used often, if ever. So the only concern he has about someone getting to this right now would be if any pegasi happened to see what he was doing and came down to investigate. But, even if some did come and run off with his loot, he’d still be okay with that. Better up there than down here he figures.

He quickly resecures the metal sheeting back where it’s supposed to be, before running over to the edge and jumping off the side. As he’s falling he keeps looking off into the distance towards Megamac. He’s pretty sure he’d seen a couple red markers disappear in that direction, without him being the cause. And given everything else going on, he’s pretty sure they just managed to go so far that way that they’d gotten out of range of his PipBuck’s EFS system. After getting down to the second floor, he flares out his wings, circles around, and comes to a sudden landing at the front door of the building. Inside he sees the buck standing by the welcome desk and looking out casually. Gearing walks in, avoiding the couple bodies that are near the door, and looks him over. Gearing motions outward with his head as he says, “Come on. Let’s get to it. The sooner we go the sooner you can get things sorted out at Megamac and I can get back to tracking down the others that had managed to get away.”

The buck quickly trots out with him, walking around the bodies and not even looking at them along the way. Once outside he looks over at Gearing and asks, “Well, which way are we going? You’re the one leading this trip.”

Gearing points off to the southwest and says, “You know your way to Megamac?” The buck nods. So Gearing continues, “Then just start heading that way. I’ll keep an eye out and see what I can see. If anything goes down just take cover and wait for me to handle it. Okay?”

The buck nods and starts fast trotting away towards the front of the complex. “You’re the boss.”

Gearing watches him walk away for a bit before taking flight, and going up high into the air again. He keeps looking at where the buck is going, and watches as he picks a rather peculiar path. But, as he’s watching, he can’t help but notice that it looks like it’s going in the right general direction. He circles around a bit, going way out in a variety of directions as he tries to pick up sight of anyone that might have made it away from the manufacturing complex. It’s true that they most likely won’t be able to be as effective as they were without their leaders. But he’s very much aware that grudges can develop this way. Even if it was their own fault for things going down the way they did. They shot first. They didn’t know who they were shooting at. They obviously didn’t care. But they certainly didn’t comprehend the consequences of being so frivolous with their actions. But, this way, he can be pretty sure that they won’t go out of their way to try and get back at him, along with Swift, Handy, and the rest of the stable. Not to mention being a proven threat to any and every other pony in existence it seems.

They are solidly on his shit list and he intends to scratch that clean.

But, one thing that he realizes is that they were very well aware that who they were picking a fight with were pegasi. So he grudgingly comes to the conclusion that anyone that managed to get away, would be very much aware that they would be targeted from the air. And, because of that, are most likely going to take extra precautions to avoid being so easily spotted. A fact that really annoys Gearing as he was hoping to have this done by mid afternoon so he can get back and check on Handy and Swift.

Not to mention his growing desire to grab some cuddle time with his marefriend. Sable’d declared he now has a snuggle mode, and he intends on engaging it and proving her right as soon as he’s back home to her. A pleasant thought that puts a smile on his face as he’s flying through the air and searching for any threats.

As he’s circling and watching the buck far below, he sees him walking through an area with many collapsed homes and a few that look like they used to be smaller businesses. They aren’t completely flattened rubble, but they certainly wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice for residence. Or fifth choice for that matter. And what draws Gearing’s attention the most is the fact that the buck comes to a sudden halt. And as Gearing is watching, the buck turns his head, not his body, and looks off to the side.

The little blue pegasus in his head comments, ‘Well, that’s a flag…’

* * *

Locke continues walking towards Megamac as he contemplates everything that’s happened lately. First the group he’d been with split up because several of them had disillusion of grandeur about becoming famous, and rich, bounty hunters. They heard about the bounty up in Hoofington and rushed off to try and make their fortune that way. But Locke had been to Hoofington before. The trip both ways was hell. And he didn’t want any part of that. Even worse, he’s not really that good with most weapons. So it’d be a waste. Plus he’d have so much competition. On some level he expected it to have already been over, given how many ponies converged up there to try and get more money than they’d need in a lifetime. On some level he’s glad he didn’t go. If whoever that bounty was on is bad ass enough to avoid it for this long, with that many ponies after them, he’s pretty sure even if he made it over the mountains again they’d just see him as another notch on their guns. Then he got suckered into this ‘salvage’ operation group that turned out to be not much better than a group of well organized raiders. And when he’s just about to make himself scarce, before they ended up killing him too, he nearly gets killed by some crazy pegasus in a set of power armor out for revenge against the whole group.

He hangs his head as he moans quietly, “What fucked up luck I have… at least I’m alive…”

A few paces later he comes to a dead stop as he hears noise from the side, and a voice call out to him.

A buck walks out from the shadows near the rubble, and has a grin on their face as they stare right at him. A buck he recognizes. From the psychos he’d just gotten away from. And a moment later two other ponies step out from various locations in the same set of partially crumbling stores.

The first buck yells happily. “Well, heeey hey heeeeey… looky what we have here!”

The one mare of the group slinks a bit closer, staying near an overturned wagon as she looks at him. “Holy shit, you survived! I thought you were in the tower?”

The second buck comes out a bit behind Locke and comments, “You had time for a clothes change? How’d you manage that?”

Locke keeps looking at them, and notices, that all of their weapons are still pointed at him. Locke doesn’t move, except his head as he stares at them. “I was at the armory helping pack up gear. I went to grab some more bags, and when I came back I just had enough time to watch him finish slaughtering the others. But he must have not noticed me because he grabbed a long rifle, went to the window, and started shooting at folks trying to run away. I changed, grabbed my shit, and ran for it. Hoped it would make him overlook me as I ran away.”

The first buck snarls as he asks, “Wait, you had his back, and didn’t shoot him?!”

Locke keeps staring at him as he says, “All that would do is get me killed too. That armor he’s wearing, I don’t know what it’s made of, but nothing worked on him. To get through us he had to get through a minigun team, among others. Not even the commander was able to stop him. I don’t think anything short of that large cannon would work on him, and it’d have to be point blank at that.” He looks them over before he says, “Explains how he survived the ambush with armor piercing rounds long enough to kill the ones trying to kill him.”

The mare frowns as she looks around. “Well, shit. That makes a lot of sense… We barely made it out ourselves. A few others went running in a couple different directions. The crew’s done. We’re done. We’re not going back there with that monster around.”

The second buck looks at her. “I said it was a mistake to start shooting pegasi. I said that. Didn’t I?! Why the hell doesn’t anyone listen to me?! We don’t want the kind of firepower the pegasi are capable of! Up there in their cozy ass clouds keeping all the sun to themselves, I bet they're getting fat off their crops!”

The first buck looks over at the second and snarls again. “Any pegasi under the clouds wouldn’t be part of the group up top. They got rules and shit. That’s why the commander cleared it. Shoulda been an easy turkey shoot.”

The mare comments, “You know, I’d heard about some crazy bastard picking fights with slavers. I wonder if it’s the same buck?”

Locke looks at her and raises an eyebrow. “Gold armor? Green wings that are enchanted or whatever to make them look like crystal?”

The mare’s jaw drops before she points at him. “That! Yeah. That’s what they were talking about in the tavern. I thought they were shitting me!”

Locke stares at her as he says, “Nope. I never heard of him. But if that’s the description, that’s the guy that wasted most of the crew in the tower. As far as I know, the only ones to make it out of the tower were me and the lieutenant. But I saw her get gunned down in the truck park area while I ran a different direction. By time I got away, I could still hear the shots in the distance.”

The first buck looks at him and grumbles about the whole situation. “Was a good thing going, and it only took one self righteous prick to fuck it all up?!”

The second buck scowls at him. “The heavy weapons crew shot at them! What’d you expect was going to happen!? Fuckers shoot at me, I generally shoot back too!”

The mare looks over at them and smiles bitterly. “Except this fucker came back after getting shot at… Twice… He’s not your normal buck. He’s got a vendetta.”

The first buck shakes his head then looks at Locke. He motions with his rifle at the bag Locke is carrying. “Well, whatever, what you got there? Weapons?”

Locke shakes his head. “Just the one rifle I joined up with. The rest of it was being watched by the pegasus. I couldn’t get anything from the armory without getting spotted, so I just got my stuff and got the hell out of the area.”

The buck smirks at him then waves the rifle at him. “Sure. Well, how about you empty out that bag right there. Nice and easy like.”

The second buck looks at him as he frowns. “Seriously? Just survives it and you’re already going to stick him up?”

The first buck snarls at him. “Buck you both! I don’t know him, he’s not been with the crew that long. For all I know he could have brought that fucker down on us!”

The mare looks over at the first buck and rolls her eyes. “Okay, that’s bullshit. Someone pissed him off by shooting at him and his friends. That’s it. If you’re going to rob somepony, don’t try and come up with some stupid ass reason to do it, just rob’em and get it over with.”

The second buck adds. “Yeah, it’s not like he needed to be sneaky… If they had our location to send in a plant, then they had the location to come in and wreck the place…” He waves it away with a hoof. “And given what he’s capable of, and what he did… yeah… he doesn’t need someone snooping around to find out our weakness… He just creates his own holes by blowing up half a fucking building or something…”

The first buck looks at him and rolls his eyes. “Those explosions were small, it wasn’t anywhere near half a building…” He looks back over to Locke and waves the end of his rifle at him again. “Hey, I wasn’t kidding about that bag. Lets see what you got…”

Locke lets out a sigh and nods. “Yeah, sure… but it’s just some food I managed to grab on the way out. Nothing really worth anything beyond that…”

The first buck smirks. “Well considering we only got out with what we had on us during patrol, that sounds like exactly what we need at the moment.”

Locke sets the bag down on the side, slowly. Then starts unzipping it. As he turns and starts tipping the bag over, towards them, he looks up at them, and his eyes go wide.

The buck in the center gets yanked up into the air by something Locke can’t see, but whatever it is is wrapped around his neck, judging by how his fur and flesh warped, and the stream of blood that starts coming down. Gearing lands in his position, with That Gun already pulled out at the ready. He tilts one way, with a bundle of wire wrapped around a forehoof, as he shoots the one buck still standing. The buck hadn’t even had time to register what was going on with his friend before several bullets riddle his lightly armored side and neck. Then Gearing spins the other way and glares at the mare.

The mare jumps back and rolls away as she screams. “Fuck, he followed us!” She rolls over trying to get her weapon out from under herself so she can shoot back, but as the barrel is wedged under her flank, the strap that she’d been using to carry it is keeping her from simply pulling it out from under herself. She needs to get off of the end first. But she doesn't get the chance before her head is greeted by a couple of rounds from Gearing. Gearing turns, looking the others over again, before looking at Locke.

Gearing waves his left forehoof at Locke as he asks, “Just these three? Did you see anymore?”

Locke looks at him. Then up in the air where the other buck is being hung by a bit of wire. And, eerily for him, the buck’s body moved up and down as Gearing waved his forehoof at him. Locke nods lightly as he says quietly, “Yeah… j-just these three…”

Gearing looks up, then drops the wire he has wrapped around his foreleg.

The first buck’s body comes slamming down, lifelessly, with his tongue hanging out and deep lacerations all the way around his neck. Gearing casually starts pulling the wire out of the buck as he says, “Man, these guys are something, aren’t they? You weren’t kidding about them just devolving into common raiders… Even robbing people they knew and were working with the same day…”

Locke closes his bag up and starts putting it on his back. But stops when Gearing waves at him.

Gearing quickly removes their various weapons, and a couple things from their bags. He doesn’t completely strip them down, but he takes most of what has value. Although most of it was weapons, and as he searched he didn’t find much in the way of food and only a single canteen of water among them.

Gearing drops the items at Locke’s hooves and comments. “Here. Put these in your bag. They’ll help get you started looking for a new job.”

Locke looks at him for a moment, then nods and quickly starts putting the various items into his duffle bag. “You sure about this? I mean, you’re the one that took them down.”

Gearing shakes his head. “I don’t do this for money. I’m just trying to solve problems.”

Locke snorts and looks over at the corpses. “Well… consider those three problems permanently solved, then, I guess.”

Gearing nods as he looks around. And then, after the buck has his bag replaced over his back, he asks, “You ever fly before?”
Locke looks at him, and tilts his head, “No, why?”

Footnote:

Processing, Please Stand By . . .

‘BlueMac’ Sub Partition Errors Discovered . . .

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Author's Note

After cleaning house of the gang, Gearing doesn't think it's enough considering what they've done, so the hunt for stragglers begins. But he has no idea how widespread nor connected this group is.

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