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Legend Hunting Part One
Date: 18 January 2003, 6:54 pm

      “Alright, everybody smile!” said a woman, a camera mounted on a stand before her. She fumbled with it’s timer, trying to get a nice picture of her families vacation. She did something right, and quickly ran over to stand in front of her family, a hefty husband, a small boy and a girl, who was slightly taller and older.
      “Cheese!” they said in unison to the camera. It stopped blinking and flashed acutely, the picture taken. Suddenly something rustled in the bushes of the Jungle behind them. Shocked, but not thinking anything of the noise, the family continued onwards with their vacation.

******************************************************************

      “Mr. Warner, how long have you been with the Marines?” A bright light shone in my eyes, and a voice echoed in the long room, asking me questions.
      “7 years, sir!” I yelled with enthusiasm that was drilled into my personality by years of combat training.
      “7 years. Have you been loyal to the Marines at all times?”
      “With all due respect sir, this is meaningless, even if I were to be working against you, why would this inquisition force me to reveal anything, but to answer your question, no sir!” I was also trained to see through things like this. This was no ordinary ONI shakedown. They were either a. trying to piss me off, or b. trying to seriously find something out about Lunar 4.
      “Excellent, and you were moved to black ops three years into your career, right?”
      “Sir; that information is on a need to know basis, what authority do you have?”
      “I have the highest clearance, you can tell me everything, and anything. Do you understand?”
      “Well enough sir, and yes, I was moved to the special deep cover black operations battalion four years ago.”
      “Alright, and at any time have you divulged any secrets about the UNSC and it’s projects?”
      “I have never known of the UNSC’s projects.”
      “None of them?” he asked. I could predict the expression on his face even though my vision was useless with the bright light ahead of me.
      “None sir. If this pointless inquiry is over, I would like to be dismissed to the briefing room. Sir.” I made sure to stick sir onto the end of most of my sentences. ONI loved their power, and I was one for appeasement regarding them.
      “It will be over soon. Son, do you know what a SPARTAN is?” he asked me.
      “Yeah, they are some super soldier, some info on the Spartans was given to us a while back. I don’t believe in them though, It is probably just a morale booster from the UNSC. Sir.” I replied frankly.
      “Well, they aren’t. And guess what?”
      “I have to be one?”
      “No, you get to kill one.”
      “What do you mean?” I asked as they unstrapped me from the table and turned off the strong light. They grabbed my upper arms and dragged me into the next room as I repeated my question a few more times. They sat me down in a cold steel chair and walked out, shutting the door, and my mouth as they left. I was alone for a few minutes. As I waited I inspected the cold metal room. It didn’t smell right, it smelled like death. I looked around. A little metal chair which I sat on, and a metal table. Another chair sat across from me, a little metal chair, fairly close in design to mine, just as cold and hostile as well. The ceiling was flat besides two small protrusions, which I marked as ducts, and hoped they were for warmth, and not for killing.
      The door slid open, a bright light flooding in from behind it. A mans silhouette appeared as he stepped into the room. The door slid shut behind him, and I was able to identify the features of his face. He had a chiseled face, and along scar running down the right side of his face. He carried a large grin, which I couldn’t tell what it was meant to be, a smirk or a smile. He was tall, his hair the opposite, trimmed well within regulations for the Marines. He was in full dress uniform and walked with a limp, as well as with a purple heart on his shirt. Hs sat down at the table. “Mr. Warner I presume?”
      I nodded. “Ah, the silent type I see.” He replied. If he was ONI, then he must be some new breed, he seemed to have, gasp, human emotions.
      “No. It’s just that your boys out there did everything short of a rectal check out there. What is this?” I asked.
      “Well, this is your way to pay back the UNSC and it’s people for all the bad things you have done.”
      “Bad things!?!” I exclaimed, “What kind of ‘bad things’ have I done! Everything I have done has been in the service of the UNSC!”
      “You really want to know?” He produced a manilla folder from seemingly nowhere and pulled out a picture. It was a woman, she wore a scarf over her hair and sunglasses. “Do you know her?” he asked, showing me the picture.
      “No, I haven’t seen her before.” I replied quickly, I hadn’t.
      “Well, her husband,” he showed me another picture. A man lying in the middle of the street with three gunshot wounds in his chest. I remembered him. He was an informant, working for the pirates. I had shot him three years back. “You knew her husband, didn’t you.”
      I nodded in agreement, ashamed. “Well, I think that you were the last thing he saw. You wanna know what happened to his wife? She went insane, because she believed that a government agent had killed her husband. She became stricken with Paranoia and Dementia, eventually killing two soldiers before she shot herself aboard the Navy Cruiser the Albatross. You caused this. Any idea how many more like this there were?”
      I nodded, “56, one for each mission.” I replied, I had that number in my head. I hated that number. I did not want to kill, but I was forced to, for the UNSC, and my honor.
      “56? You are way off. That man also had two children. Mark it up to 58. One of them ran away, was never found again until one of her fingers were found in the Palagini river. The son, stricken with the loss of everyone he knew turned to a life of crime and drugs, and died three years later from his drug use.”
      “So what, did I affect two hundred?”
      “More than even that. One of the soldiers his wife shot. He had a wife, and kids, and they all…”
      I raised an open hand to him while looking away, “Okay, that’s enough, I get it.”
      “I don’t think that you do. Every one of these people did not die because you murdered them. They died because they did something that made you murder them. Let me tell yo9u this, the next mission that you will go on will have you murder at least four civilians and one UNSC personnel.”
      “What is it?”
      “First a little side story, have patience Mr. Warner.” He shifted folders as I wait. He slid a thick folder out of the middle of the stack he had. He slid it across the table to me. I noticed the marks on the front, both ‘Classified’ and ‘Discontinued’. What business did I have with this? “This, Mr. Warner, is the last paper document of the first Spartan-III prototypes. Let me tell you a little story, but remember, these words don’t leave this room. A couple decades back, a project was begun. It was referred to as only the Spartan-II project.”
      “I thought you said that they were III’s?”
      “Yeah, but listen, the Spartan-II’s are mankind’s greatest feat, because they were not. They were once humans, but we did things to them. We did things they did not deserve, I’ll admit, but things that had to be done. The Spartan-II project is the UNSC’s greatest, and perhaps only hope. Did you know that currently we are fighting a war that we cannot hope to win? There is no way, not one chance in hell that the UNSC will find a way to defeat the Covenant unless something great happens, like a civil war among their ranks or something. Well, since entering combat, thousands of Covenant soldiers have died at the hands of a Spartan-II. We loved them, however they are not enough, we needed better, smarter, faster Spartans, so we began the Spartan-III project. But this time, we did not start with humans. We started with something all our own. We made them faster than any person’s bones could survive, we made the stronger than you can imagine, we made them smarter than any human geniuses, and we made them so that they were at the same time less human than any creature imagined. They are true abominations at the core, and we should have seen it coming earlier. Most of their designs are classified, but all I can tell you is that taking one on without a plan is like taking on a BAP that is sitting on a cliff edge a mile away from you, you can’t.
      “We closed the project. People were getting a little stingy with them, some of the new components, like their hive minds were just too scary to deal with, so ONI had us shut them down, and supposedly all were destroyed. You are here today because someone found something that we can’t deal with. There are three facilities on Lunar 4 that I am allowed to tell you about, and that must be kept secret. There is one in the heart of a dense rainforest, the one you will hate the most. And the next, is in an underwater lab, and you will hate that one too. The next, is one in a desert, and like the others, you will hate it. Look at the pictures.”
      I flipped the packet open. I saw the first picture, printed on a standard 8x11 sheet of paper. It was a few kids, all behind a chain link fence. They wore fatigues, and appeared to be combat ready. One had a rifle and shot at a target, the others all stood in an obstacle course with their eyes closed, one appeared to be guiding the rest, looking down at the field. “What’s going on in this picture?” I asked.
      “Well, what you have here is a Spartan-III training course, the picture taken by a man you killed a year ago. Anyway, this is the one in the forest, and a lot of eyebrows, namely all of them, were raised after seeing this photograph. Luckily, the problem was suppressed, and only a handful of people saw it. Agents like you finished off the rest.” “So, what’s the problem?” I thumbed through the rest of the pictures, seeing only basic military training going on, hell, I had been through worse getting into this facility with the ONI shakedowns than that. “We have another problem.”
      He shifted folders and handed me another, which seemed surprisingly empty. Usually they only sent me on missions that they had bountiful intelligence on the situation, but this one was different. “Open it.” I did, “Look at the picture.” He commanded.
      “Alright, I’m doing that.” I looked down at the picture, it was a family of four, and none appeared to be someone that I had killed, this had to be unrelated.
      “What do you see?” he asked me, referring to the picture.
      “I see a family, and they are standing in front of the jungle, and a river. They must be on vacation, they look pretty happy. A boy, a man, a girl and a woman, a perfect family.”
      “Yeah, that is what you would think, but take a closer look at the tree line.” He slid me a magnifying glass. I lifted the object and scanned the tree line and suddenly saw it, two lone eyes, trailed with a body that seemed unusually large. Was this a Spartan?
      “Mark-12. One of our hive drones as we call them. He was independent most of the time through our studies, and we were going to kill him off for his lack of cooperation with the colony, but he slipped out of the secure zone somehow, we suspect sabotage though, he took down nine armed guards though. We were fine with this, even in April, when reports of a ‘fiendish monster’ trickled in. The locals, mainly farmers, were finding their livestock dead or missing, and started to blame the disappearance on thieves or a Chupacabra like monster. We suspected vandals until we sent a team down to check it out. Their findings were, and were not, depending on the audience of course, that any human could have possibly done that much damage.”
      “Let me guess, the Spartan?”
      “That’s what we like about you James, you can forecast things. This however is common sense. Luckily the public didn’t know what was out there, but we feared that it might become violent. We sent in a strike team to neutralize it. We didn’t hear from them again, but that was expected. Soon we gave up on it, the Spartan was really gathering a legend like status, and no one thought it was human, so we were ok.
      “Then some family accidentally got a picture of it. They immediately thought it was a lost child and a search and rescue sweep of the whole jungle was called in. So far, twenty more men have gone missing. What we have on the loose is a mass murderer, and should be considered armed, though we haven’t received any reports that it actually has a weapon. If you go on this mission--”
      I cut him off, “Wait, why don’t you just drop a brigade of tanks into the jungle and go find it and blast the damn things to hell?”
      “We don’t want the damn thing to be able to blast us to hell. It would find a way to get a hold of one of those tanks, and it would go on a rampage. Do you want that?”
      “No sir.” I said quietly.
      “Alright then, so I assume you are going on this mission?”
      “A mission to kill the Spartan-III, right?”
      “Duh. Dumbass. You have been in the Marines for long enough to guess that.”
      “Alright, and this isn’t a suicide mission you’re sending me on, right?”
      He hesitated, not a good sign, almost as bad as he was a liar. I had grown to be able to read people in recent times, and loved every moment of it. “Well, no, not if you are as good as H.Q. says you are.”
      “Awww, H.Q. said I was good? I can’t believe it… Really?”
      “Yeah…”, he said, an inconvenient pause following. I should really learn to be more passive at times.
      “Okay, so if I go on this mission, I leave now, and if I don’t?” I left a pause for him to reply.
      He gestured to the ducts I saw on the ceiling, “You do, or you go bye. Your choice, but what you heard here doesn’t leave this room unless you are on a flight to the jungle. By the way, you have thirty seconds to decide.”

******************************************************************

      I sat aboard the V42 Pelican Transport, Bravo 42, and drifted lazily above the clouds. This wasn’t a normal ground combat mission, so I was guaranteed a comfortable flight, where as normal conditions would have required higher speeds. I noticed that everything was unusually nice, as if it were my final moments and they thought they should be in comfort. A portentous thought, but acceptable, I was fine with having a padded chair. The howl of the engines was sounding increasingly distant though I stayed at the same distance, I hoped that wasn’t a bad signs. The plot, who sat in full armed duty uniforms and equipment, standard for a pilot I guess. I saw him move only occasionally and couldn’t see his face, and sometimes doubted he was awake. He wordlessly began to decelerate and drop through the clouds. I peered out of the window to see only a white expanse, the clouds. We broke through the cloud barrier within a few seconds, and the green expanses were visible to me.
      I grabbed my parachute and stepped towards the back of the plane, they were to drop me into the woods where I would find my way north two miles to the small town of Melo, a mainly agricultural town where many people stop by every once and I while. I would abandon my parachute outside the town and move in during the middle of the night to leave my rifle in a secure location, hopefully one where no kids, or even worse, their parents would find it. This was to be a low profile mission, and I was not to alert even a single person as to where I was there on a mission to hunt something, I was just a visitor to them, and my reason, I was the long lost cousin of Jose Martinaz, a resident of the town. I had a facelift to pick up a more Latin-American look, and was hoping that he would fall for it and take me in as a relative though I actually had never seen the man before. This was how many of my missions began, though about half started with me peering through a scope and into a window, a reticule centered on some unsuspecting mans forehead. I hated changing my face with every mission though, and I doubt that my parents would recognize me now, though it hardly mattered, they were on Earth, and I was not.
      I slid on the right strap of the parachute, quickly following with the left arm strap and the leg braces to make sure that my ascent did not suddenly pick up speed after my arms slipped from the parachute… A painful way to go… I poked my earlobe and felt the chip in it. Nothing too big, but big enough to vibrate noises through my head and get the heads up on any situation I was in. It was just assurance for them that I was alive or dead really, if that thing got me they would want to know. I hoped.
      “Alright, get ready. Have fun Mr. Wilson.” The pilot saluted me as the back of the Pelican flew open. The chair I was sitting in rocket out of the door being that nothing braced it down. I gave the pilot a hearty smile and ran out of the back of the Pelican. These low altitude drops made me nervous. The air whipped by my face as I fell closer to the treetops. I checked my altimeter watch, and gazed at it as the dials spun around showing my altitude lowering. I waited till the short hand, which represented the thousands of feet in my drop struck 1, and then fell halfway to zero. Such low altitude deployments were only possible because of the low gravity on Lunar 4. I had to push the limits though to keep out of public view. After all, you never know when a birdwatcher will be sitting on his roof watching the sky when suddenly someone parachutes out a of a traditional military ship and lands in the woods. Then a mysterious stranger shows up in their town, too weird. I grabbed on the shoulder of my parachute and ripped a cable, instantly being pulled upward. I watched as the chair continued to plummet into the treetops and was smashed to pieces as it hit different branches, a fate I didn’t want to meet. I pulled back on the controls of the parachute and lifted a little higher. My descent was slowed, so I dropped into the top of the treetops, jumping over a few of the trees. I dropped a rope and allowed it to dangle beneath me. I watched as it bounced harmlessly off a few branches though scaring a few birds out of their trees as I passed over. After a half dozen attempts, the rope caught on a branch. I was ripped backwards, my forward momentum stopped. The branch snapped with a loud crack as my parachute collapsed. I dropped quickly and hit off of a branch on the way to the ground. I attempted to grab onto it to slow my fall, but to no avail did I. I continued to drop, lethal altitudes. I was falling to the ground and feared I would die when suddenly I stopped, swinging a few feet above the ground. I looked up and saw my parachute blocking one of the suns. I yelled in exuberance and waved my arms, swinging back and forth from the movement. I slipped out a combat knife and cut myself free, dropping the remaining yard to the ground. I reached up and grabbed the backpack, pulling on it a few times and snapping all of it’s straps to drag it to the ground. I flopped it loosely over my back as I pulled out the L4PS system. I checked it, I had a little over two and a quarter miles to walk, longer than projected. The forest was nothing like the rainforests I had predicted, though it was summer2, so the warmer drier summer on Lunar4. This could be the dry season for the forest. I looked around to examine my surroundings. No Earth trees though most resembles oak type tress as a few breeds of conifers. The floor of the forest was coated in a thick layer of dried up pine needles, though most of the trees seemed to be coated in thick layers of green leaves. I looked at my watch, which had a compass and pointed it North. I hated walking and already felt like I was being watched.

Legend Hunting Part Two
Date: 22 January 2003, 12:06 am

      I stopped at the edge of the forest. I checked my watch, 8PM. The local curfew was 8:30 PM during Summer2. I decided to wait for the curfew to enact and move quickly. It wasn’t too strictly enforced in this area, though none of the residents wanted to be considered a criminal by their neighbors in such a small community. I could play the tourist card it I was caught though. I’d say “Me no speak zee english, you zee.” If anyone asked and move along. No one busts someone like that. I slipped on some large glasses and grabbed onto my backpack. It was blue in color and said Goxinus on it, a popular backpack brand here. Something a tourist would carry. I flung one of the straps over my shoulder and began walking. By the time I arrived at the hotel it would be near to 8:30. I stepped onto Main Street, Melo. It was probably one of the two or three paved roads here, most were only dirt or just a well ground path over the grass.
      The setting sun hardly lit the streets, as the nighttime sunblocker slid into place over the rising sun to the West. With the binary stars of Lunar 4, it would never have a nighttime half the year, so a large panel lines itself up with the sun every day once the first sets. The street were dimly lit by a few streetlights, however none were needed, for few people traveled at night here, it was a mainly agricultural community, and most of their work was done during daylight. I continued walking down the street, carefully observing the surrounding buildings. None were as tall as I was used to seeing, the tallest being only a half dozen stories high. The tallest building was the inn, where I was going. It was six stories tall and looked to have only one resident, only one of the windows was illuminated on the side of the building. Before it sat a flickering sign, an advertisement that was hardly needed being that it had no competition for eighty miles in any direction. Bucky’s it said. Probably the name of the store owner or manager. The sign stood ten feet off the ground, a good place to hide my rifle. I stepped off of the street to avoid a light and continued down. I was still armed and in no position to be spotted with a military class rifle. I continued to the hotel and scaled the side of the sign to stick my weapon within it. Once I was satisfied that it was securely placed and near to invisible I jumped down to the ground below. I brushed off my hands and flipped my backpack over my shoulder, continuing to walk into the hotel.
      The door slid open for me and a bell rang, signaling my entry. It wasn’t enough, however to awaken the man behind the counter. My footsteps echoed in the large lobby. I was impressed by the finely polished marble floor, which looked to be much better maintained than the sign outside. I cleared my throat, a polite attempt to wake up the man behind the desk. He was a fat man, and wore a tight T-shirt and a denim vest, which was at least three sizes too small. A red and white hat sat atop his head, which had some grey hair that hung frailly from it. He had some straw extending from his mouth, and his feet up on the table. I walked up and rapped the desk three times awakening the man from his slumber. He quickly sat up, wiping the spit from the side of his mouth and snapping to attention, seeing me.
      “Quiet night?” I asked him, a way to break any tension that he had, a result of his embarrassment.
      He sat a little bit straighter up, probably just now beginning to truly wake up. “Yeah, yep, a real quiet night. Only one guy so far, so, are you here for a room or directions?”
      “Well, both. I need a room for tonight, and I need directions to the Martinez family farm?”
      “Don’t you need a hospital boy?” He gestured to some blood that I had on my shirt, probably from hitting that branch on the way down. I hadn’t noticed it before. That probably wasn’t helping me to blend in either.
      I looked down for a second, “Oh, no. This is just a little scrape I got.” I slid an arm over it, I wanted to look as normal as possible, and if nothing else conceal this wound. “Yeah, so could I have a room? Just for tonight?”
      He grabbed a set of keys off the wall and tossed them to me, a sign of trust that he gave them too me before I paid, that probably meant that he was a fool or I was blending in. “86 credits, one nights fee.” He paused as I began to extract my wallet from the Goxinus backpack, “Actually, you can stay for free. I haven’t got any use for money anyway. All I need I can get from my neighbors. You see, round here, we have our own system of money, none. Enjoy your stay!”
      “Thanks man!” I looked at the keys, they said 106 and pool room. “Hey, Mr.”
      “Ah, Mr. Roguriez, Alan Roguriez, pleasure to meet you, and you are?”
      “Oh, Scott Martinez. A relative of Jose’s. But anyway, can you tell me how to get to room 106?”
      “Yeah, just go the elevator to your left and up to floor three. From there you just walk three doors down and it’s to your left. Right?”
      “Easy enough, floor three and room three.” I said.
      “Good point. Well, do you want a wake up call?”
      “They still have those?”
      “Well, they do here. Do you want one?”
      “Yeah, call me up when the sun rises, right?”
      “Alright.” He said as I began to walk to the elevator. I pressed the small, round button and watched as a warm glow was placed upon it. A ring ensued as the elevators reached my floor. The doors slid open to reveal an elevator. It was a half circle in shape, the flat side towards me, and another polished marble floor. I stepped into the cramped car, hardly meant for more than two people without their luggage, and pressed the third floor button. The doors slid shut and some elevator music began to play. It was an orchestral piece, and was, frankly, horrible. Luckily, I was saved by a refreshing ring from the bell at the top of the elevator, I had hit the third floor. I stepped out of the elevator and walked down the carpeted hallway. Some ceramic sconces hung at odd intervals along the wall highlighting potions of the peach colored walls. I walked past the first two doors and soon arrived at the third. I held up my keys, looking at the number which was engraved upon it, 106, and verified that it matched the door. Satisfied with my query I slid it into the keyhole and stepped into the room. It wasn’t much, two rooms total, a small bathroom with a bathtub, sink and a toilet, as well as another room with a TV viewscreen and a bed. Behind the bed lie a window, which was concealed by some white curtains. I dropped my backpack near the door and continued to the bed. I wasn’t tired, but was glad to be able to sit down. I sat on the bed and slid the window open. I was used to seeing a cityscape out of every window, and was confused by the vast black expanses I witnessed. Like the early night sky, only a distant trio of lights were visible. In the sky’s case, the three planets, and in regards to the current image, the distant lights of some farmhouses. Behind this hotel, according to my briefing, was miles of farm fields. On almost any given day from ground level I could only see half of the field at most. It was my destination as well, where the monster last struck.
      ******************************************************************
      I awoke the next morning and rolled out of the bed. The suns light shone straight in the window at me, and gave the early morning a warm, golden glow. Some dew had collected along the base of my window, but aside from that not much had changed since the night before. I quickly changed into another Tshirt, white in color, and blue jeans, lightly tattered to blend in better. I rolled the bloodied Tshirt into a tight ball and stuck it into the garbage can near to the door of the room being there was no use for it. The stains from the blood would most likely never come out, and besides that, it was on the UNSC. The wound on my chest was small, however, not much larger than my extended pinky. It had bled a lot, so it probably needed to receive stitches, but it was too late for that, it had already clotted. I instead put a bandage over it and swung the backpack over my shoulder. I stepped out of my door as another door on the opposite side of the hallway flipped open. A tall lanky man with blonde hair stepped out, nodded and slammed his door shut to get around t, both of our doors effectively barricading the hallway. Before he closed it I had spotted three or so other men in the room, sitting around a card table, a few smoking. They were treating this hotel as if it were their home. I closed my door silently, a habit from years of black ops, and continued down the hallway to where the tall man was waiting for an elevator to come. I stopped near to the elevator door as he had and looked over. He stood a full head taller than me, and returned my glare.
      “What?” he asked. I broke my glance, thinking of replying with the same question to him, but there was no reason to needlessly anger civilians.
      “Ah, nothing much. I thought I saw you somewhere before. Did you go to the Lunar 4 Missoula academy?” I asked him. The truth was that I hadn’t gone to the academy, and that I hadn’t seen him before.
      “No, this is my hometown. Home-schooled just a little to the north. Kindest old lady taught me.”
      “Ah.” I noted his accent. He had a northern Siberian accent that seemed to be artificial. His vernacular combine with his accent led me to the belief that he must have moved to one of the Russian controlled areas of Lunar 4 at a young age.
      “I have a question for you. Why are you here?”
      “Not one for pleasantries I see. I am here to visit my long lost relatives, the Martinez family.”
      “Ah. Everyone has their guard up now, see. That monster’s attacks…”
      “Monster?” I asked, hoping to see what a real local thought of it.
      “Yes, the Neo Chupacabra. It has been killing livestock near the forest. Or so people say. I don’t think it’s that at all, something else.”
      “What do you think it is?”
      “I’m not really sure, but I’m sure we’ll all find out soon enough.”
      The elevators bell rung right as I was willing to escape, I didn’t like this man, or this hotel. I stepped inside the elevator and Turned around. The doors slid shut after the tall man pressed the button with a ‘one’ on it. The elevator dropped down two floors as an eerie silence filled the car. I definitely didn’t like this man. The doors soon slid open to reveal the familiar lobby, this time with someone else behind the counter. I walked up to the table and threw the man the keys to my room. He flopped them loosely over the hook muttering about his lousy job and they way people treated him. I quickly turned and walked out of the hotel and onto main street.
      ******************************************************************
      I swung the doorknocker methodically twice before a response came. The door handle jangled as the person on the other side unlocked it, and then it finally creaked open to reveal an old lady. She was short, wrinkled, and carried herself with a hunch in her back. Even eerier was her voice, “Come in, you must be Scott, your wife called ahead telling us you were coming. God, has it been a long time since we have had a family gathering like this.”
      “Thank you, um,” I extended a hand, “Scott Martinez, Construction Worker.” She mirrored my reach and shook my hand with surprising strength for a woman of her age.
      “Just call me Granny Martinez and I’ll be fine. Now come on in, nothing wrong with the outdoors, but I can guarantee you’ll like it better in here. We just got air conditioning!” I was surprised by this statement at first, just got air conditioning, but soon remembered, I wasn’t exactly at the center of the technological world currently, I was literally as far as possible, being I was staying with a family that was quite near to Amish in nature. She clapped her hands as we entered and a few children, probably ages six to nine raced around the corner.
      ******************************************************************
      “It has been three days since my entry into the Martinez family.” I talked to the tiny uplink camera, which I had posted on the side of the mirror in the guest room. I ran the shaver across my face, it instantly devouring any hairs in it’s path, “They have accepted my arrival with welcome hands, and have treated me as family. It alerts me to what I am missing. HQ. This is my last mission. After this I’m retiring. I need to gain a stable life where I can have friends and family and a life. I don’t like this business anymore. Anyway, I have noticed that there have been no sighting of this so called ‘Chupacabra’ monster over the past three days, it’s almost as if it has left the region. Today however, I am going on a hunting expedition to recon the woods and see if I can find it’s shelter. Get some ODST troopers into the cave or whatever and see if we can’t kill this thing.” I finished shaving and began to dress in forest fatigues, “My mission will begin in three minutes at 0800 hours L4CT. The family will have left by then to farm the fields in the northern region, and I can leave with no notice. I will then proceed south to retrieve my rifle, and move immediately towards the forest. I will sweep the outside five hundred feet of the forest and then return. I believe I have put enough burden on this family though, so I will be leaving tonight. From here on out I want you to wire me the needed money to use the hotel every night. I like it better with no kids, they make too much noise.” I put on a camouflaged hat and finished my fatigues. I grabbed a pair of boots and shuffled down the stairs. I reached the bottom and turned to the left twice to reach the door. I kicked open the screen door. And slid on the rubber boots, tying each securely. If only I were so secure on this mission. Chances are that I would either find nothing at all in the woods, and fail the UNSC, or I would die, and fail the UNSC.

Legend Hunting Part Three
Date: 30 January 2003, 9:18 pm

      "Aright, next hit wins. Go!" a pair of children with squirt guns began to run around the hotel, letting loose random streams of gunfire in an attempt to eliminate each other in this war-game. Suddenly a blur whipped towards one of the two boys, who was stalking the other. Before the child could even scream the Spartan had disarmed him and spun the rifle around, ready to deliver three lethal headshots. He fired a burst of gunfire to no avail, and questioning the inefficiency of his weapon, snapped the child's neck before retreating to the woods again.
      **************************************************************
      I stepped around the corner of the West hotel and saw an alternating red and blue glow. Fully alert I pressed my back against the wall and crept to the edge of the wall, peering around carefully. There was a police car parked in the parking lot of the hotel, sirens activated, though the sound was disabled because it was not trying to alert anyone to get out of the way. A cop stood by his car, leaning against it smoking, as if he had been standing there for some time, judging also by that his cigar was no longer than his thumb.
      I spun around the corner and walked o the back of the building. A cop sitting in front of the building, why? Had they found my rifle? It didn't appear that they had, otherwise they would not still be standing around in front of the building, they would have taken it to get it dusted for fingerprints, and find mine. I circled around the building to the other side and stepped casually around the corner, careful to maintain a low profile, walking on the sidewalk. I cocked a quizzical head at the cops, to act natural and walked up to him. He didn't see my approach, so I tapped on the hood of his car. He spun around, brown uniform and badge in tow. He was uniformed as any normal state guard for this area and carried the signature Berretta pistol, which I saw resting on his leg. "What's going on here?" I asked.
      "A murder. Some kid died, and we are here. End of story." He was keeping a press style profile in regards to the crime. He wouldn't tell me anything that he didn't need to, and would do so until told otherwise, and in regards to my profile, it would be much smarter if I were to not become too nosey.
      "A kid? The times now days, when children are killed." I replied, trying to sound as if I cared.
      "Yeah, who would kill a defenseless child? What could a kid ever do to deserve something like that?" He flicked his cigar again, a warm red glow unveiled as the flakes of burnt cigar fell from the end and to the ground, where the wind instantly swept them towards the open farm fields, where it could roam freely.
      "Only a true monster officer, only a true monster could."
      "Right." He replied, "So I assume that means you believe in the Chupacabra myth going around right now, blaming all your problems on a monster." He said, almost breathing that he was a nonbeliever.
      "I do. I just found out about it recently, a day or two ago." I lied.
      "Well, you can drop all your hopes of something higher to believe in, it's probably just some city slicker vandals on a road trip deciding to come here and scare the locals. So, what are you doing here, stranger?" he made very certain to insert the title at the end of his sentence, I was a stranger, and there was a murder and a strange series of events, all o which I was probably the suspect for only because of my arrivals proximity to the dates of the crimes.
      "What am I doing here? Visiting my family, the Martinez." I extended a hand to shake his, though I got a stiff cold shoulder, with no return to my gesture. I slipped my hand back to my side, continuing to talk, "Scott Martinez, Construction Worker."
      "Ah, yeah, I think they talked about you coming a week or so ago. So, a long lost relative huh?"
      "Yeah, I had to search pretty hard to find these guys."
      "Why would you do that? You don't know any of them besides that the same blood runs through your veins."
      "They're the last I've got. All the rest of my family is gone, killed on the front lines near Harvest."
      "Oh, sorry to hear that, here, want a cigar?" he said, probably trying to change the subject from the inconvenient one, death. It was amazing how one attempted to ignore the topic of death as if it would prolong it's mirror, life.
      "No thanks, these things will kill you, you should quit." I replied. Besides that, having an open flame near my face may begin to deteriorate the plastic in my artificial face, and ruin my disguise.
      "I will never quit, it's too late for me." He grinned as if he had acknowledged his fate, nailing his casket with every breath he took with a cigar in his mouth, "I will be smoking one of these until the day I die. I'm no lamb of the media propagandists, these cigars are better for you than they know." He flicked the cigar again because of our reference to it, not because of necessity and an unnoticeable amount of ash drifted lazily to the ground.
      "Nice to see that someone still has free will in this age. Good luck on the murder case, and catch that sick bastard. The streets are a lot better of a place when people like him are gone." I nodded friendlily and paced off to head for the local market. I knew that a retreat back to the house would look as if I were fleeing from the police, and make me into a suspect, and continuing onwards towards a false destination, but a believable one. I walked towards the store at a normal pace, though thoughts raced through my mind, a murder in the town was a large snag in the mission. I stepped towards the supermarket, stopping at a reasonable distance and ducking into the alley to ponder what to do next. I noticed the leg of something run around the corner and instinctively ran to chase it. I ran to the end of the alley and looked outwards towards the emerald green woods. A band of brown tree trunks crossed the green of the treetops and grass as a band of bark and occasional patched of leaves. A man in fatigues with a rifle ran towards the woods, away form me. He had a sniping type rifle, not a civilian model. It could be a farmer who thought he saw "Chupacabra", or it could be another Marine drop team. Those damn creeps at ONI were always breathing down our backs, maybe the three days I took were too long, or maybe this man had been here long than I had.
      I quickly decided to follow his movements and shuffled from bush to bush, checking for any Marine Corps or ODST insignia on him, finding none. Of course, anyone who saw me now would believe that I was a normal civilian dressed in hunting fatigues, and bird hunting was large game on Lunar 4. The stepped into the woods, and I followed from a safe distance.
      **************************************************************
      The man seemed to be following the Spartan, judging by that he continually surveyed the horizon with binoculars and moved very much like a veteran, and used more than enough cover to deal with anything. I followed him for at least three miles until suddenly, he stopped. He lie prone on the ground, rifle pointing off a ridge and his set of binoculars pressed firmly against his face, which was covered in a ski mask. He flipped the binoculars shut and pulled out the rifle, firing a volley of four shots. I pulled out my binoculars and followed the bullet contrails to the point of impact and saw a shimmer of something moving. Another series of shots fired at a target, one which I did not see. Some birds flew form the nearby trees and made excessive noise, giving me the cover to slide behind the sniper. Another four shots rained down upon the ground, where I had given up looking for the target of his sniping. I leaned slowly towards him and put my forearm firmly on the back of its neck. "Roll over! Drop the gun!" I shouted suddenly as the man got time to react. He spun over slowly, pushing the rifle away. "Mask off, now!" The black mask slid off to reveal a woman, with blonde hair. "A woman? What are you doing out here? And how did you get that rifle?"
      "I suppose you are here for you 'El Chupacabra'." She said.
      "I ask the questions, why are you here?"
      "I am here to uphold my part of the bargain."
      "The bargain?" I asked.
      "Have fun among the fallen!" she snapped a pistol from the side of her leg, one that I had not seen and stuck my along the bottom of my chin with it's handle. I wavered woozily for a second before falling unconscious.

Legend Hunting Part four
Date: 28 February 2003, 11:51 pm

      I awoke and rolled onto my back. As the first few moments of tranquility faded from my mind, as I remembered where I was, I sprung up, looking around for he sniper. She was nowhere to be found, and I was no longer at the cliff edge. I looked around, seeing the usual rainforest visuals, trees, and a cliff, probably the one she had sniped from. My arms were bound behind my back, and I wondered why I was still alive. I stood up as best I could with my arms bound and lifted my legs over the arm bindings to get my arms in front of me. I heard something rustle in the bushes and lifted my head, gazing intently at the bush, no higher than a few feet. It wiggled unnaturally, and a trail of leaves, lifted from the ground by some wind stretched to another bush. The leaves settled as I tried to clam myself and run. The woman had probably left me alive to hunt as sport. The first, and almost only thing that I could do would be to get deeper into the treeline to hide form any sniper gunfire and try not to draw attention. My first priority was to get back to the town, I still had to blend in, and I had to get these binds off my wrists before then, a man running into the town with his wrists bound would seem rather suspicious. I ran faster though, moving forward from where I had lain. A blur of motion whirred in front of me as a vaguely human form ran by. I tried to follow it’s movements but thick foliage made it’s disappearance as fluid as it’s shape as it was nothing more than a blur to me. I stood for a second in fear before running of the same emotion. I looked behind me as I ran, a little child in fatigues, the Spartan. It stared at me, wanting to have nothing to do with me. It may have figured that the enemy of its enemy, whoever that sniper was, was it’s friend. I was just happy to get away with my life though, as it probably was, it appeared to be covered im small bite marks and tears in its fatigues accompanied with plentiful bloodstains, showing that it had lost a lot of blood or taken it. It appeared to be afraid. I had no idea a beast such as itself could feel any emotions. I continued running until I got to the town slightly after the nighttime sunblocker slid into place and used one of the farming tools to cut my bindings free. I then ran to the Martinez house and slid inwards silently, not to awaken them from their slumber.

      I awoke the next morning to the usual, lazily rung cowbell that signaled the workers in the field to come and gather their lunch. I had slept in very late, perhaps I was drugged by the sniper when she left me in the woods. I pondered why she had let me live and decided to call up Mission Control with a summary of my status, hoping that they could shed some light on this situation. I hardly even knew what the situation was though...

      “Master Control, this is Warner, I have some updates on the mission.” I said into the radio quietly once I was certain that everyone was gone to work in the fields.

      “Go ahead Warner, we are listening.”

      “Last night I had a run in with someone who was hunting the Spatan. No major wounds, but she hit me and knocked me out and left me in the woods. She was sniping at something, the Spartan I think. I saw the Spartan as I left the woods as well, it didn’t try to hurt me though.”

      “Can you report the condition of the Spartan?”

      “Yes, it was covered is small cuts and wounds. Why? And who was the sniper? Was she ONI? Or Marine Corps? Did you send in another agent?” I asked.

      “So wait, the Spartan’s wounds, did they appear to be of uniform size and shape? Like the same thing cut it?”

      “What! I don’t know, I was knocked out and just barely managed to stumble out of the woods, you think that I remember! But what are you not telling me! Who was the sniper?”

      “We’ll look into this sniper claim, the best thing that you can do is hold down and wait, it sounds like things are escalating, we are sending you reinforcements. We will send you one of the best techs we have employed, he is to be called your sales assistant. You are interested in purchasing a plot of land nearby and need to stay in Melo. He will help you get an ID on the sniper. Meet our operative at the hotel at 1600. Be early, we want it to look like you care about this.”

      “Wait, first check with ONI on this, from what I can understand they aren’t to fond of anything the Marines do, could they have sent in a hit man to kill the Spartan?”

      “That is all Mr. Warner. Dress formally to meet the contact.”

      “What the hell! You can’t leave me like this, I don’t even know who my enemies are!”

      A voice sounded behind me, “Who your enemies are?” I spun around, seeing Grandma Martinez. “I came to give you some food, you skipped your breakfast. Who are you, Mr. Warner?”

      I stuttered, having no idea of what to do. This was a difficult situation, an innocent old lady. A life standing between the Government and the Spartan, something would be done. “I am here to catch the Chupacabra. I want it to put in the Zoo.”

      “What is the Spartan?”

      “A Spartan?”

      “You referred to it a few times in your conversation. What is a Spartan?”

      “Oh, our name for the Chupacabra. You know that Chupacabra is a name of the local vernacular, we call it a Spartan in the city.”

      “If you say so, but I’ll have my eye on you. I want you to leave this house, now. Don’t ever come back. An awful lot of strange things have been happening since your arrival, and I hope that this can be your alibi.”

      “Alright Mrs. Martinez, I’ll pack my bag and leave. I thank you for the pleasant stay, and I will give you a thousand credits to not talk about this and to smooth over my expenses from staying here.”

      “That won’t be necessary Mr. Warner. Just get out. That will be payment enough.” I looked down. This was a snag in the mission...

      An hour and 15 credits later I was standing before the hotel, a suitcase in my hand and a businesslike suit on. The crime scene nearby was covered with a tarp and wrapped with some police tape as a minor lawful warning, but probably more of a threat that your neighbors would disrespect you it you crossed it. The hotel sat, reflecting the golden sun in it’s windows, and I stood in awe. Such a small town harbored an amazing variety of people, from traditional people like the Martinez who relied heavily on family decency and values, and all the way on the other side of the personality continuum, the modern. People who were just hollow shells of people with no being inside, only a life form concerned with finances and the latest stock quotes. I wondered which one I was. I didn’t know who I was any more, my identity erase after years of taking others. I suppose, though I lived and won all my battles, in a way I still lost, because now I am not me.

      I stepped into the familiar lobby to see a different attendant. This one was clearly the day shift, and actually seemed to be doing some work, unlike the other man I had seen. He snapped his neck up sharply as the automatic door slid open, before the bell had even rung. I continued to walk up to the clerk’s desk, noticing that two new security camera’s were installed. There were a multitude of reasons that could have led to them installing more security measures, the murder outside their lobby, the Chupacabra, or some other thing. “Can I help you sir?” asked the clerk. I noted that he seemed to be very orthodox in his speech and his greeting, he failed to use the local vernacular of Melo, using instead a language native to the cities and northern Fourite states. If he were to be a resident of this town he would have at least picked up the accent of the community.

      “Yeah, I need a room, don’t know how long I will be staying, it depends how long it will take to work out the deal.” I replied, trying to advertise that I had a reason to stay.

      “Aright sir, are you gonna pay when you leave or now?” he trusted me, as a local of this area would, but he wasn’t like the other man who was behind the desk when I had first arrived, he was seeming to be completely orthodox.

      “I’ll pay for a week now, when I leave take away or add on whatever you need.” I slid him my L4ID card and waited for him to total up the sum that I owed. He finished quickly and handed me back my L4ID card. As he handed me the card I noticed that he had a small tattoo on his wrist. I glanced at it quickly, mentally recording what it was. The picture was a blue star, a quarter inch high, and a fist raised in front of it with a light seeping from behind it, clearly meant to make it look to be a divine picture. I doubted that a tattoo artist was a resident of this town, and doubted that this man could have tattooed himself. It was slightly swollen, the tattoo bulging outwards, an elevated plateau on his arm, and given that it was no coincidence, meant that he had received it recently. I grabbed the card as he used his other hand to toss me a set of keys, which jingles as they flopped to my waiting hands. I inspected the number on the key, 117. “Where is this room?”

      The man looked upwards at a map behind him and read it, looking for 117. “Um... Floor two, room seven on the left.” He replied. He had no idea what he was doing. If this was an honest employee of this hotel this was his first day. He seemed to be a foreigner to Melo, bearing none of the speech formats that the general populace did, nor the personality, ethics or knowledge. I walked casually to the elevator and stepped in, the elevator music flooding into my ears almost as if to flush my curiosity about the clerk out of my mind. The doors slid shut quickly and the elevator quickly lifted itself to the second floor. I walked down the hallway listening to the soft echo of my footsteps in the strangely silent hotel. It seemed to be continually vacant aside from my entry, and all things considering, they should have taken the money that I had when I first arrived. There was no way that with so few of customers they could possibly have great enough of income to stay afloat.

      I stepped up to room 117, sliding the key in and turning the golden item, unlocking the door and revealing another generic room. The same bed, TV and bathroom awaited me with the drab curtains and window of a conformal hotel room. I set my bag on the bed and drew a sketch of the man’s tattoo before I left to for the lobby again to meet the operative. I stepped out of the room and turned to my left, walking towards the elevator. I pressed the down button, signaling it to pick me up though it took an unorthodox minute to pick me up. The door slid open to unveil the empty elevator and classic elevator music. I stepped inside as the doors closed behind me and paced around, watching the light indicating what floor I was on shift from two to lobby. It seemed like a long elevator ride. The bell that signaled my arrival to the lobby rung, however, in a very orthodox fashion, and the doors slid open revealing the lobby with a pasty nerd standing in the center, a laptop and briefcase in his two arms. My backup. I muttered a thanks to the genius that sent a tech to the frontlines for me and continued forward, acting excited to see him. I greeted him formally for arriving on such a short notice and continued on with some statement about how nice the property I was going to buy was. I moved to the elevator with him and mentioned something about the Martinez family, continuing to say nonsensical statements as we stepped into the elevator. As the doors slid shut I stopped talking and shook his hand again, this time the real greeting. “I suppose you are the tech they sent me, right?”

      “Yeah, Major Samuels, here to make sure that when you get the Spartan you take good care of it so we can check out what went wrong.”

      “Well, I was hoping that you could tell me what went wrong with this mission.”

      “Something went wrong with this mission?” he asked.

      “Yeah, a lot did. Some kid died, could be a coincidence--” the elevator hit the second floor and I was forced to change my conversation, “And you wouldn’t believe it, the property is perfect farmland, nice irrigation and all flat, really nice.” I opened the door, “The only problem is that there is that damn monster running loose around here.” I shut the door. “The real problem here is that they probably think that I did it. I showed up at night and arrived in the town the next day, the genius cover story you guys gave me sucks, just puts innocent lives at stake, and there is someone else hunting the Spartan. Not to mention that there is not one person in this town that seems in place. The clerk down there had nothing in common with anyone from this town, another clerk gave me a free room, the Martinez are a simpleton farming family, the sheriff is impossible to read, and that sniper was using a military grade rifle to hunt the Spartan.” I looked over at the tech who was setting up his computer on the bed. I realized it was too small for two people. “I hope you got yourself a room.”

      He looked up at me, “Why?”

      I raised an eyebrow and gestured to the Single bed. The tech looked at the bed as I sighed, not only had the mission control completely botched all setups, rushed me and put me into a freakish town, they had also sent me a tech who could be described as slow.

      “Well, as for your sniper, you were able to identify the rifle, and we tried to figure out who might have cone into control of one, unfortunately, the black market situation in Sighp has hindered this process because over the last few years over a million have slipped into the hands of the Sighpians. We could narrow it down for you based on the description, but no further than twenty or thirty thousand people.”

      “I hate you.”

      “Already? Well, control said as much about you. Anyway--” he continued.

      “What did they say about me?” I asked, I honestly thought that command liked me after they recommended for this mission...

      “Well, they gave me a profile of you. It said that you had a staunch disrespect for all Nonmilitary people, it said that you would hate me, if not because of that but because of the fact that you are a Pisces, that your parents died when you were young at the hands of Sighp police, that you had a general disrespect for authority--.”

      “Okay, stop, but did they say anything good about me?” I asked. The last thing I needed was to hate the UNSC too, if I did I was as good as one of those Sighp scumbags.

      The tech scanned his memory for any good things that they had said about me. He hesitated, “They said you liked Sushi.” An inconvenient pause followed as he opened up his briefcase. It had an AK and a pistol inside it within padded foam, custom shaped for the two of them. He pulled them out revealing a few spare magazines of ammo and a holster for the pistol. He set them on the bed and looked up, making sure that the window shades were closed. He pulled out the foam that supported the rifles and took out some other accessories, namely two silencers and a digital camera. I thought briefly about testing one on him, but realized that he had been sent to help. He handed me the gun and I holstered it in the jacket of my suit. “Anyway, moving on, we have no idea who the sniper was. ONI says they have no operatives in this area, and though they have reason to lie to us if we did find one I am willing to take their word for it. Anyway, no one in the town matched your description either and we are almost certain that they are not in the hotel, we have had round the clock watches from the peeper network and no woman has entered the hotel. She might have just come into the town that once, or she might have skipped out. Funny thing is, that she let you live. Myself I have no idea why she would do that, if you were an enemy, and you held her up I know I would have killed you.”

      “Well, whatever the circumstances I am glad to be alive. I’m going to get some ice, it’s too warm in here.” I turned and left the room, waiting for no authorization from the Major. I spun the dial on the thermometer as I left, lowering the temperature of the room three degrees and stepped out of the door. The empty hallway greeted me, perfectly uniform. I walked towards the end of the hallway where I had seen an ice machine and assuring myself that I was taking my time. This was my first vacation away from that nerd, and loved the time that I got to relax. As I reached the end of the hallway I stepped off to the left of the elevator and sloppily set the brown plastic container into the ice machine. The roar of the ice chopping neutralized all noise for a few moments as it filled with the frigid and crisp material. I noticed that the ice was in a ring shape, and looked a lot like a halo. As the ice stopped it’s grinding the hallway again neared to silent, bar the noise of an elevator car coming up from the lobby. I looked above the door to the number representing what floor it was on, floor one, though it was nearing two. I ducked off near the ice vendor, fearing ONI, not many people visited this town, and watched as the tiny chirp of the arriving elevator sounded. From the elevator stepped a familiar figure. She appeared taller this time, at least three inches taller than me, and she appeared more beautiful than before. Her blonde hair still hung loose, and seemed to wave in the wind though we were inside. She didn’t see me, and progressed down the hallway. I watched from the ice machine as she slid the walnut door shut behind her. I quickly, yet silently shuffled down the hallway to the end, and scanned the doors for the swinging “Do Not Disturb” sign, a sign that the door had recently been opened. I couldn’t see which door she had entered from my former angle but soon found that she was residing in room 127. I ran back to the room to tell the Major the good news.

      “Where’s the ice?” I slammed a palm against my forehead, frustrated with myself and him. As I ran my hand through my hair I tried to explain to him again.

      “The damn ice doesn’t matter, the girl was here, the sniper!” I said, maintaining a relative low volume as to not scare her away if she overheard us from the hallway.

      “Are you sure?” the nerd said. He was too conservative. If I followed my instincts I would have already kicked over the door and held her up at gunpoint demanding information, but I couldn’t do that without gaining credit for every misfortune this town has had in the past week or so.

      “Yeah, I’m sure. If I get a picture of her would you believe me?” I asked.

      “And how do you propose we get a picture of her?” he replied trying to shoot down my plan.

      I grabbed a fake beard out of my suitcase and grabbed his laptop. “Could you make it look like her water valve broke?”

      An hour later I was standing in front of her room, a stolen janitor’s jacket donned and a toolbox in hand, a thick beard plastered to my face. Within my ear sat an earpiece so that I could hear his instructions.

      “Alright, your first mission priority is to infiltrate the room and to make your arrival noticed, which shouldn’t be that hard. Just knock on the door,” I acutely hit the door three times and withdrew my hand, “and let the Janitor image do the rest. Explain to her that the water is out in her room. Make sure to have a lot of courtesy, also, disguise your voice, she might recognize you.”

      “Hello?”, the woman answered the door. She had a Siberian accent and must have come from Sighpian controlled zones.

      “Yeah, janitorial services, I was told to come up here and fix a faulty water valve.”

      “Oh, yeah, I was wondering when they would send someone up. If this will take a while I would be fine with moving to another room for my stay.” She replied tryig to be helpful.

      “Oh no, that won’t be needed, sorry for this inconvenience, ma’am, this hotel has been breaking down recently.” I replied, masking my voice.

      “Okay, well, go fix what you need to to fix this problem, quickly.” She was clearly slightly annoyed with the problem, her subtle aggression showed vividly to me. I stepped inside and watched as she left the room to go get some ice or something, or maybe she just despised mechanics. Either way, she had left me alone in the room, and was walking down the hallway from what I could hear through the door.

      “Fix the water Samuels.”

      “And so he said 'let there be water’”, the faucet suddenly spurted with a quick waterflow, “and there was. I love this job.”

      “Can I leave your camera in the vent and let it transmit you video?”

      “Just get a picture of her, the vent has nothing to do with the water, she’ll get suspicious if you are working on the vent.”

      “She left, will it live if I put it in there and let it send your laptop a remote feed?”

      “Well, I would rather use a sentry camera that I brought with me, but I suppose it’ll do. Make sure it has a clear view though.”

      I pulled the vent cover off and wiped some of the dust off of it, dust which was very thick, unusually thick. It was as if this hotel was abandoned. I set the camera down and slid the vent cover back on. “Got a visual?”

      “Yeah, it’s a little blocked out by the bars but I should be able to get a complete face shot sometime, and the main reason to keep this room under watch is to figure out where she is from, so audio is our main interest. Just get out of there, find the woman and explain to her what was wrong with some made up terms and stuff, tell her it’s fixed and not to worry.” He replied. He loved to order around militral people, I could tell based on his attitude while he instructed me. Nevertheless, he was in control for now, and I was in no place to tell him otherwise. I stepped out of the room, the sink still running and toolbox in hand. The Blonde down the hallway spotted me, and I waved her an accented thumbs up, a signal that her water was fixed. She nodded and turned to continue the process of gathering ice as I turned away from her and walked towards the opposite elevator. If I moved in close there was a chance that she would recognize me, and if I could, I would avoid any encounters. The elevator was already on the floor, so it was a quick journey to the third floor. I didn’t want to go to the lobby because the attendant would clearly realize that I wasn’t staff and get suspicious; the third floor was the only other alternative.

      I whispered into the microphone that was concealed within my shirt. “Tell me when she returns to her room, also, once she goes back I want you to watch the hallway, warn me of any people that enter or if the elevator moves, right?”

      “I copy that.” I also noticed that as much as he liked to boss around military personnel, he clearly also wanted to be one, and his speech only accented that desire.

      I decided to play along; he might as well have some fun, “Roger.”

      I stepped out of the elevator and stepped off to the side of the hallway, taking off the fake beard and janitorial outfit and throwing them both into the garbage chute. I wore a T Shirt and Jeans beneath them, and was back to normal society, should anyone be looking though was the question. The hallway, which was host to the usual, standardized appearance of the hotel hallways stretched onwards to the other elevator, which I had decided to enter rather than the one that I had just come from so that I wouldn’t spend as much time in the hallway when walking to my room, should the sniper come out to grab something. I paced at a slow rate down the rest of the hallway till I reached the other elevator and leaned up against the ice machine of this floor. An out of order sign that decorated it was the only thing in this hallway that was not in perfect conformity with all the other things. A tiny vent above me blew frigid air down my back, though it was nice to feel something cool in such a small, tropical town. After five minutes of waiting I decided to radio in to the Major and see what was going on. “Major, you there?” I asked quietly.

      “Oh, yeah, sorry, she went back to the room.” I sighed heavily, he would pay for this. “She was eager to use that water...”

      I silently opened the door, and without a noise crept behind the tech. I pulled the small microphone he had given me and carefully slid it towards his ear. Suddenly a sharp, high pitch noise emitted from his earpiece as it picked up the noise that it was making again and again. He shrieked and fell to the floor as I laughed. Revenge is sweet. I looked at the computer screen, “Whoa.”

      The next day our surveillance paid off, at around 3 in the Morning she got a phone call. She was awake before, however, waiting for it.

      “Hello?” she said into the phone, pausing, clearly for a response, “Niklin?” another pause, undoubtedly while someone else talked, “No, I don’t have it’s head, it got away. You know that you have me after a kid, don’t you?” Niklin, where had I heard that name before... “I know that it isn’t ordinary, but I don’t kill kids.” I could hear the quiet muttering of the phone as it gave her it’s response, “It didn’t look like a monster.” Another reply, “So you are telling me that these things are called SPARTANs, and they are not people?” she waited for a reply, “Well, this one bled blood and looked pretty humanoid.” There was a reply, “Whatever you say, I’ll have you the head by Friday.” a reply came as she turned and began to walk across the room while talking, “Well, no, no problems, but did you send another operative down here? I ran into a man in the forest.” She waited while a lengthy explanation ensued, “Well, he wasn’t UNSC or ONI, no markings. Probably just one of the simpletons of this town. Well, in any case, I tied him up and left him for the monster.” Another reply, this one longer than the others, “I know, I can’t kill unnecessary civilians, but this one was in my way, he held me up!” a reply, “Yeah, that’s right, he held me up.” A reply soon came, but she clearly cut it short, “Don’t worry, I can still get the monster.” A reply, and a grunt that sounded something like sir on our side of the phone from the woman, and she hung up the phone.

      As the next morning settled Samuels and myself decided that it was time to give this Niklin a call. We had no idea what his phone number was, and the only person who could know was the clerk at the desk, or his computer. It controlled the phone network, Samuels had determined with his computer, tracing all the rooms in this building for a computer and finding only it. And if it were the only computer, it was our only chance to find Niklin’s phone number, and find out what is going on.

      “Ah...” Samuels rolled onto his chest on the floor, squinting in pain and rubbing his back, clearly, the floor was not the best place to sleep. He walked a little crooked, but I was fine with it, his loss. As a part of this operation we had to lure the guard away from the desk, and I had a plan.

      I stepped into the lobby after hitting the two button within the elevator to send it away. The clerk wasn’t too alert and wouldn’t notice that I had hit the button if I were lucky. I walked towards the clerk and alerted him to my presence.

      “Um, could use a little first aid kit, my neighbor got cut.” I said. My plans are great...

      “Don’t worry, it’s just a little cut. I just need to get it so that a bandaid won’t fix it,” I had said just a few minutes ago to Samuels, “besides that, you are here to help, aren’t you?”

      “He got cut!?!” the clerk asked, knowing that one of the cheap lawsuits from an instance like this one would win, and probably hurt the hotel to the extent of forcing them into bankruptcy. “How bad?”

      “Damn it! You almost cut my whole arm off you moron! Look at this, there is blood everywhere, on the floor, dammit!” Samuels had replied once my cut was created.

      I love my plans. “Well, he’s bleeding a lot, not a hospital worth cut, but do you have a first aide kit handy?”

      “Stop being a wuss, just go out in the hallway and start walking around acting like a disgruntled wounded guy.” I replied.

      “Yeah, I have one right here, I’ll go up to help him. You sure I shouldn’t call the hospital?” I love my plans. The clerk bolted to the elevator and pressed it.

      “I am a disgruntled wounded guy! I hate your plans.” He replied.

      “Yeah, if it were lethal he would be dead by the time they got here anyway. The nearest hospital is what, 200 miles away?” the clerk was gone by the time I finished my reasoning. He stood waiting for the elevator, though I knew that it was on floor two with a garbage can in the door so that it couldn’t come down.

      “Damn elevator, never works...” the clerk muttered before running to the other elevator to go to floor two. I stepped around the desk and stood behind it, overlooking the large lobby. I pulled a data stick out of my pocket and slid it into the computer. A series of text boxes appeared on the screen flashing text faster than I could read as it uploaded every file on the computer for our later review. The screen then displayed a loading bar as the green line slowly crossed the screen, uploading a virus to the computer to make sure that no traces of our invasion would be left over. The computer screen stopped flashing text a minute later, and I ejected the data stick and closed the window htat contained the download prompt when I noticed something, the hotel had security cameras. The 16 displays were spaced out evenly across the screen, though I knew that there were more than I was seeing. I clicked on a few and cycled through them, most of generic empty rooms, one mine, another the computer techs, a few of the lobby (and me...) and one of a room that was at least twice the size of all the others. It was dark, and had the figured of at least six people in it. I thought I could identify a large map that they had on the wall as a topographical map of this area and its forests, but there was no way to be sure. I heard the elevator coming and looked over; it still said two, luckily. I quickly jumped over the desk and landed firmly on the other side, where I then stood as if nothing had happened.

      “Your friend is alright, and because he claims to have been cut by the glass door on one of our showers, we’ll let you stay free fir the rest of your stay, up to a week.” The man replied, his shirt with a few tiny splotched of blood on it and a half spent canister of biofoam in his hand. He had probably left Samuels with the rest of the first aide kit to patch himself up later.

      “Gotta have the small print in this offer too I see.” I said, referring to his 'up to a week’ comment. Guess he couldn’t have someone permanently move in though.

      “Yeah, well, we’re really sorry about his, if you think you need to register a complaint with management, feel free to--”

      “Nah, I don’t need to, staying here for free is quite enough, it’s a nice place.” I replied.

      “Yeah, probably would get a five star rating if there was anyone who visited this town. The Chupacabra myth has been bringing some people, people who are Legend Hunting. As a matter of a fact, we have three people visiting now, just about the most this hotel has ever had.” He replied. Funny, though he referred to the Chupacabra as a myth he seemed to believe in it. This town was an odd place, it seems like everyone in it was a completely different type of person with no common background, and for a farming district it was very small. I hate it here.

      Samuels sat in a chair, lazily leaning while fumbling with the scab of his large cut. There would be a sizeable scar, but I had my revenge, and I was happy if no one else, and to me, that was all that mattered. His scab was at least two inches long and a centimeter across, though the gaping hole between our possible cooperation within this operation was much larger. We were both working almost independent of each other, and we each had our own vendetta. He wanted to prove himself in the field so that he could leave the windowless basement that he worked in before, and I wanted to prove myself to myself. I wanted to defend the UNSC.

      “What next?” I asked. We had been sitting for over a day now, and I was bored. Our surveillance had changed nothing, and the data files that were found were near to irrelevant, though we had only searched a little over a quarter of them, any one that we thought might pertain to Niklin. As it happens, he called from a payphone and was impossible to trace, peeper images of the area showing no activity around the payphone during the times that Niklin could have called leading us to believe that the call may have been rerouted through it. A call to HQ shed no new light on the situation, though the name Niklin was also familiar to them, the name of the dead Czar of the former Sighp. I still felt that there was something else that I knew about the name besides just that.

      “Well, I was thinking of sending you out to the forest to find the monster and we could just call in an evac from there and get the hell out of here. I hate it here, too confusing.” Surprising he felt the same way about the town as I did, but at the same time not. This was no ordinary town, as my last few days had revealed, and it had no likeable tenancies at all, that is unless you like to be confused, angered and knocked out routinely.

      “Revenge for the cut?” I replied. He was as mad as I was happy about the injury. Shows that I truly did get my revenge, I suppose.

      “Sorta. I would have sent you on it had we come up with another plan, but I have to admit, should it break all of your ribs I would be fine with it.” He replied lazily.

      “Good. I didn’t want a suicide mission particularly.” I replied, laying the sarcasm on pretty thick.

      “I figured as much, you Marines are all talk, no action.” He replied trying to provoke me to go on the mission. I was planning to anyway, but I was fine with him making statements that I could laugh at when I come back with a Spartan slumped over my shoulder.

      I was too tired to reply, so I lazily waved a middle finger at him. It had been more than a day and a half since I had slept, and I was in no mood to be messed with or working. He was angering me. “You want me to make you bleed again?”

      He swallowed and muttered a quiet no as I stood up and grabbed my backpack. I swallowed a cup of coffee to wake myself up. I stepped over to the bed and grabbed an AK and the Pistol, both silenced, sliding both into the backpack I carried. Samuels watched me from his chair, still reclining. I was sick of his apathy, and began to walk past him, suddenly lunging and causing him to tip over, landing on his back in the chair. He scowled at me as I grinned and turned away. He was awake now and stood, rising to a height probably only an inch or two short of mine. He grunted for me to wait and grabbed a set of safety goggles and handed them to me. I looked up to him, “What are these for?” I asked.

      “Well, look at the right side a little right of the lens.” he replied. I did and found a tiny little black circle, a camera. “Those are mine, don’t break them, they cost a lot.” I considered not breaking them, briefly.

Legend Hunting Part Five
Date: 9 March 2003, 7:55 PM

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      I stepped into the green forest, full of life, and was searching for death. I sought not to live, but to kill, and I lived to serve the UNSC. My pride and my honor were far more important than my life ever was or will be. I was raised under the UNSC flag, and I was trained to hate it's enemies. The grim reaper was my only friend, and my only family, my only company. My love was death, though at the same time my enemy. I lived many lives, none of which were mine. I knew 57 names, none of which were mine, and I lived 57 lives, which were not mine. I lived as a fraud to hunt the enemies of the UNSC, a sacrifice I was willing to make.
      After an hour of searching the forests, mainly it's caves and areas where the Spartan may be hiding, I head the distant crack of gunfire. Though it was hard to tell from my distance, probably a few hundred feet, but it sounded to be assault rifle fire. My radio crackled, "Warner, the woman isn't in her hotel room."
       "I know." I replied quietly. I didn't know why she wants the Spartan, but she is from some place other than Melo, and could want the Spartan for any number of reasons, none of which were at all helpful to my cause. I pulled my AK out of my backpack and readied it, pacing over the next ridge and surveying the area before me. It was a rocky highland, large boulders everywhere set up so that when inside the area it was much like a natural maze. I searched it for any signs of the Spartan or the girl, though I found none. I stared for a few more second before another burst of gunfire, and more particularly a muzzle flash revealed the location of the gunfight near to the center of the catacomb of rocks. I slid down the hill with a foot in front of me to slow my descent and quickly ran into the rocky maze, following as close as I could to the center of each path and following the bursts of gunfire that I sometimes heard. I jumped around another corner and spotted the woman. She fired a burst of three shots at the Spartan, which I saw atop one of the nearby stones ducking for cover. It didn't appear armed, though I was still trained to see it as a threat. I fired a burst of warning shots into the air, calling the woman's attention to me. She turned, and recognizing me yelled some insults in a dialect that I believed to be the central Sighp Mathean language, though I wasn't sure. If she knew Sighpian, her heritage could be of any one of the various Mathean supporting island provenances though. She swiveled her gun at me and fired a dozen shots in my direction. I ducked and waited before popping up from behind the stone to fire a burst of three suppressed shots at her. She too had taken up hiding, and she was not where I had last seen her. I pressed up against the stone behind me and circled around it in an attempt to flank her while also switching my rifle to full automatic. I leaned around the corner and caught her scanning the boulders for me. I fired a trio of shots at her and ducked. None of them seemed to hit her being that I heard no screams. I heard more gunfire and the shrill shriek of the Spartan. It sounded much like a dying animal, roaring more than screaming. I jumped to the side of my boulder and fired a volley of gunfire at the position where I had seen the woman before, though she was now away from it. I quickly ran up to assume her old position, seeing the Spartan standing atop a rock bleeding from the side near it's diaphragm. I watched in awe as the bullet hole shrunk and healed before my eyes in a matter of seconds, and it was instantly searching for more cover atop the boulder mound that it was on. It appeared to have no interest, a particular like or trust in me, being that it showed its back to me as it spun for cover, and ducked clear within my gunfire range. I decided to take advantage of this and eliminate my current enemy, the woman and capture the Spartan later. I checked for her behind nearby boulders and progressed forward a few, spotting her shooting at the Spartan again. I heard another shriek as the Spartan was shoat again in the side. It hardly appeared to be fighting back at all, though its injuries were great and it could be too wounded to continue onwards. Instead it fell to the ground, pushing itself back up to reveal that this bullet hole wound was not healing, but instead seeping unusual amounts of blood. It looked down at its wound before quickly dropping to the top of the boulder to dodge more gunfire. I fired a burst of a half dozen shots at the woman and she quickly ducked for cover, though again, nothing hit her. Suddenly she popped back up and fired the rest of her magazine in my direction before reloading and shooting atop the rock, killing the Spartan. Chupacabra was no more, a legend was hunted, and a legend was killed.
      I reloaded, my current magazine with two bullets left in it and popped up from behind the rock to see that the woman was scaling the side of the boulder that she had killed the Spartan on. I fired a few shots at her, but she was already atop it by the time I had leveled my aim. She ducked and fired a volley of shots from her rifle at me, and I was forced to take cover as she took the Spartans body and leapt off the other side of the boulder. I quickly ran over to the other side of the boulder and fired near to a half a magazine at the fleeing hunter, but failed to kill her. I jumped over another boulder into a small ravine, sliding down the wall and a trickling water stream to get to the other side and continue my pursuit. I leapt over the other side of the ravine and dropped to the ground, a hail of gunfire sweeping over me. I rolled to the side and away form the cover of the porous boulder to fire a series of five gunshots at the distant hill in an attempt to hit the woman, though as she drew further away I began to see it as futile. She continued to run, holding the Spartans body in front of her as a human shield, and continuing to flee as she became coated in it's blood, which must have been spilling from it's blood sac. I chased after her and almost caught up, before stepping in a bear trap. The jaw like structure instantly slammed shut on my leg, shattering the lower parts of my ankle and leaving me with gaping wounds. "Aww... Dammit!" I yelled, hitting the ground, "I was so damn close and you took it from me! Get back here! Don't be a coward!" I hit the ground again before looking at my leg. The trap was larger than usual, and stronger. The tips were barbed and designed to stick into whatever it caught. It was too powerful to be of any use to a game hunter, and one who used something this big might as well have been hunting elephants. The claws swung powerfully enough to shatter my ankle would easily rip off an animals leg, and skinning it would then be of no use. This was a different breed of trap, a Spartan trap. That damn sniper probably had laid it out in hopes of getting to execute the Spartan. I hate her. I hate this town. I hate the Spartan. At least one of them was dead, but I would be too if she returned, I needed to get the trap off. I struggled against it for a minute, and had done so in vain. The trap was clearly designed so that a Spartan couldn't get it off, let alone a normal human being.
       "I know you're staying at the hotel!" I yelled, the echo my only reply. "I know where you are staying, you can't go back there!" again, my echo was my only response, "You realize that it's a long walk out of here with no car!" I yelled. "Your keys are in that room!" the echo was my final reply, and I radioed to Samuels. "Samuels, you there?"
       "As always, what is it Warner?"
       "Call me Cow, and we have a situation."
       "Cow?"
       "That's not important dammit! Me freaking leg is in a bear trap, and I can't get it out. It looks like this is a specialized version, maybe a Chupacabra trap from one of the farmers. I doubt it was the woman's though, she would be smarter than to leave it here."
       "Cow?"
       "You damn idiot, you have to help me! What do I do?" I replied. I was growing to hate him more than the town.
       "Well, did you try tugging it?" he asked.
       "No, I didn't... Of course I did, what do you think the first thing I did was?"
       "Scream obscenities." He replied. He really did know who I was...
       "After that?" I asked, seeing if he knew my every move.
       "Try wedging your gun in the bear trap, maybe you can break free if you angle it in and twist it." He replied. I took the butt of my rifle and rammed it into the bear trap diagonally and attempted to rotate it. When I spun it I managed to alleviate a little pressure, though the rifle quickly became stuck between two points on either side. The spikes tips were still embedded in my leg though. I shuddered in pain as the bloody teeth pulled out of my leg, and the serrations ripped some of my flesh off. "Where'd you get Cow?"
       "Old codename of mine. It was my first word as a kid... I liked it. I wedged the gun in there but it didn't do anything. This is meant to catch a Spartan, is there a trick to get it off or something?" I asked.
       "No idea. Get me a video. If there was some opposable thumb trick it would be meant for game, but if it is a Spartan trap, chances are that it wouldn't have one of those. Starting Video uplink." He paused for a second and I head the mechanical whir of some of the camera's subsystems activating in the sunglasses I wore. I looked down at my leg. The barbs had mangled my leg pretty bad, and I was losing a lot of blood. My blood-soaked clothes were stuck on my leg, darkened with the red of my blood. The barbed teeth on the trap had mangled the lower part of my ankle fairly well, I couldn't tell much, though it had cut loose plenty of my skin. I could see the very lowest part of my leg bone sticking out of the cut, or at least a shard of it, and lots of blood, as well as some muscles and ligaments which were ripped or cut. The wound was pretty severe, though I could do nothing to try to help it with the clamp still on my leg. "Wow, that's pretty bad. Ok, partially amputated limb, first step, get the damn clamp off of it. Um... Looks like there is no safeguard to get it to just pop right off on it." He replied.
       "Here, let me give you a better look of the thing." I pulled the glasses off and held them to see underneath the clamp.
       "Try pulling out the trigger device, it might lower the pressure if not completely remove it. Also, are you noticing any signs of shock?" he replied.
       "No, no signs of shock. It hurts a lot, but I have a very high threshold for pain. I'll be alright as long as the blood loss doesn't get to me. I'll try pulling the trigger." I replied. I gently slid my arm underneath my foot, which still held the trigger down and pushed up, despite my foot resisting it. My foot pushed against the spikes of the clamp and I yelled in pain, though continuing to push up on the trigger. I managed to force it up far enough to release the trigger of the clamp and free my leg. Once it was free I got a better look at the wound, and my ankle, that is, if it was even an ankle after it had been mangled by the trap. My leg was bent about an inch above my ankle at a ninety degree angle and was bleeding profusely. The wound would not clot until long after I was dead with no medical aide. I unpacked the backpack that I had carried with me, revealing a simple set of gauze and a few other basic things, designed to help protect a gunshot wound, forced to help me live.
       "Ok, first step, elevate the wound. Try to slow blood loss, you need it to clot quickly so you can get back here. I can drive you back to the city and we can be back before tomorrow morning, we'll just get you a transplant. But you need to live for us to do that." He replied. I lifted the wounded leg, it's muscles useless without connecting to my ankle, and set it atop a stone nearby to me. The blood instantly began to flow slower, though only by a little.
       "Aright, I did it, now what?"
       "Okay, step two, get some sterile gauze and coat the wound in a later of it. Not too constricting, any more blood loss to the foot could cause permanent damage. Just make sure that it stays and that the blood clots behind it." He replied. I reached for the gauze and began to wrap the bandage loosely and gently around my broken ankle.
       "Okay, almost finished. I think I can guess the rest. I need to stay here until the blood clots, then gather some sort of crude splint and stumble a half mile back to the town through a forest. Right?"
       "Well, sorry to say this, but yeah. You have to walk. Don't go into the town though, low profile. I will meet you where the woods meets the road a little outside the town going east."
       "How long till you're there?"
       "I'm already there waiting for you, biofoam in hand. Have to act fast on these things." He replied. He was a suck up, but at a time like this I was grateful for his help.
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      I stepped into the road to see the oncoming glare of two headlights, which looked much like the stars of Oniopsys to me at such a late hour. The car screeched to a stop, swerving from the right lane, which I was in, to the left and stopping next to me. I recognized the Okel emblem on the front of the car, and knew hat none of the residents of this town owned this car. "Need a lift?" asked the man, who I identified as Samuels.
      I sighed, "Could use one." I circled around the car and opened the passenger door, sliding into the Speedstar X540, a new model from 2540. If nothing else, this nerd had a fine taste in cars. The car was clearly one of his valued possessions, the floor coated in towels to keep my blood off of it. I noticed that all of them had the Bucky's hotel emblem on them. Some traditions, like taking everything that isn't bolted down in a hotel room can live on forever. I sat back as Samuels accelerated quickly. This car was very agile and quick to accelerate. The odd hum of the engines was very appealing to my ears that had only heard the rumble of diesel engines of farming tools for the past week.
       "Like the car?" he asked while still focusing on the road, dimly lit by the headlights of the Speedstar.
       "Yeah, it's nice." I listened as he pressed the accelerator further down, pushing the car beyond a hundred miles an hour, "I love the car."
       "So do I. See, we do have some common ground. Anyway, open up the dashboard. I have some food in there for you. Also, keep your foot elevated, still." he said.
       "Thanks." I replied quietly. The engine's purr replied to me, though I am sure that Samuels heard my statement of gratitude.
       "So, how did you get into the corps?" he asked.
       "Signed up. Lied about my age when I was sixteen and shuffled off to frontline action." I replied.
       "You signed up? Damn , most people try to dodge the draft, and you volunteer. Why'd you do it?"
       "I love the UNSC more than my life. I love honor, and duty, and I live to serve."
       "Almost the same here. I know that on the frontlines I can't do nearly as much as I can back here. Why I really joined? Look up." I did, "Do you see those rings? Those are like Lunar 4, a beautiful emblem of liberty and justice. I love this planet." The rings glowed like a band of stars, not shielded by the sun blocker. "This planet, Lunar 4, you already know about the Spartan project, but there are many more."
       "Like what?" I asked him. A short pause filled the air, the wind howling by my face and the cars engine roaring.
       "If I told you I'd have to kill you." He replied. I laughed and turned to him. He was also laughing, though not as hard as I was, I was delirious from the blood loss.
       "Like you could kill me!" I said. He stopped laughing an stared at me.
       "I might not be able to kill you, but being stuck in a bear trap bleeding to death would. You owe a lot more to me than you are willing to say." Another silence filled the air as I thought back on the mission so far, and the set of days that he had been with me.
       "Yeah, I owe my life to you. You and a dozen other people. Do you know how many techs like you I have worked with over the years?" the car sped past a billboard for McDonalds as I finished talking.
       "I don't know, maybe eighty?" he replied, randomly guessing.
       "No, twelve. You were just number thirteen to me. You know how many of them lived through their missions?" I asked.
       "None?"
       "Um... No... Twelve lived. You are number thirteen though." I replied.
       "So? Since when do you give a crap about whether I live or die?"
       "Well, I don't. But you are number thirteen, a number of bad luck. Not really so much that I am superstitious, but I would rather not be known to everyone I really know as a guy who kills his techs. This is number thirteen you know, your chances of walking away from this are nothing. I mean, look at humanities history with the number thirteen."
       "Right, that makes no sense."
       "Makes no sense to me either, but still, walk away from this while you still can, break my curse with the number thirteen."
       "Your curse? What happened?"
       "My parents were killed on the thirteenth day of March 2513 on the thirteenth island of the Mathean domain and my thirteenth birthday."
       "Wow... Pretty weird, you know, that all of those coincide. But could that mean a good thing?" he replied.
       "How could that possibly mean a good thing is coming?"
       "Well, I have this theory on life. I have no idea what to call it, but so far, everything that people have discovered is based on math, and it is my logic that so should life. Anyway when you start out, and you are born you have your life, all added up. Good experienced and bad ones, both lined up on opposite sides of, well, for this example, and equals sign. In the begging, you have zero on both sides, no good and no bad. As your life progresses, you gather experiences, and there is a sort of cosmic rating system I guess of how bad or good an experience is. Like, a bad one would set off the equation. Before you die this is all rated, and it will always add up so your life is balanced, good and bad. See?"
       "I think so, so what you are saying is that good and bad have to equal for your life to ever be complete. Right?" I replied.
       "Exactly. Anyway, with so much bad based on the number thirteen either: a.) you are right, I will have something bad happen to me on this mission, or b.) I am right and this mission will feature outstanding success, god's way of making up for the amounts of torture he put on you on the thirteenth."
       "You're taking a big chance there. Could just be a little something called luck, or in this case very bad luck." I replied, not fully believing that his theory on life reflected anything.
       "I take chances for the things that matter, like the UNSC." He replied.
      Our conversation continued as he tried to keep me from falling into shock throughout our car ride. At the hospital the medical teams repaired my leg, and we returned to the town before the sun rose the next morning.
******************************************************************
       "So, any activity in the sniper's room since we left?" I asked.
      Samuels continued to fast forward through the video of the past eight hours watching for any movement. "None so far." He continued to fast forward as I resumed throwing a baseball against the wall and catching it on its return, a nonstop circuit that never ended. "Wait, I have something." Samuels stopped the fast forwarding and hit play so that we could hear the audio of the video. The clerk stepped into the room, sliding a master hotel key into his pocket. He looked around suspiciously, making sure that no one was in the room. I noticed a Berretta in his right hand, a pistol that had become a commonplace on Lunar 4 over the past two hundred years while the war with Sighp was in full swing. While I doubted that it was anything important in regards to what brand it was, entering a Hotel room without knocking and while armed probably was. He shuffled into the room and peered into the bathroom, and spotting nothing methodically checked any reasonable hiding place, like under the bed and in the closets. Confident that the room was safe he lowered his Berretta, holstering it under his vest. He began to search the closet, this time in illogical hiding places, like inside pillow cases, among the closet's clothes, and under the bed more extensively.
       "What's he looking for?" I asked.
       "Hard to tell, it depends on whose side he's on, and who the sniper is."
       "Any guesses?"
       "I would have to say that it is probably a search for something illegal, or something that might incriminate her for a murder, maybe the one of that kid. The pistol, I have no idea why he carried that." He replied. It all seemed to make sense; the clerk was searching for some evidence that she killed the kid in front of the hotel a few days ago. The clerk continued to search the room, flipping over the bed sheets and flipping the mattress, restoring everything to a neatened state before he left a half hour later.
       "Think he got to our rooms?" I asked, fearing that an inquiry of Samuels room would have revealed all the weapons he had brought with him.
       "I hope not. No way to tell, but it depends on what he was looking for. If he were just on a random search for illegal weapons, he would have searched all rooms, but if he was only suspicious of the sniper, he would have only checked her room."
       "Let's call up HQ. We have a profile of the sniper, we can send them a picture and maybe they can shed some light onto this situation."
       "Yeah, sounds like a good idea." Samuels grabbed the radio from his desk and turned it on, calling for HQ, getting a reply very quickly. HQ seemed to be on top of our mission, a person on call almost all the time.
       "HQ here, what is it Major Samuels?" replied the radio.
       "Well, we sent you a profile of the sniper, do you have an ID on it yet?"
       "Yeah, we're still verifying it, but I can say with the utmost of accuracy that it is Jada Nichols. Want a case profile on her?"
       "Yeah sure. Whole thing." Samuels replied before I could stop him. I had nothing better to do, though, so I just went along with his request.
       "Aright. Ok, Jada is 27, former militant in the Sighp armed forces. A job much like yours Mr. Warner. Anyway, when she was young her parents were killed battling the Covenant, so nothing family wise from age six on. She bounced around foster homes for a year or so and ran away from each with only increasing vigil. She had a rough life till she was eighteen when she enlisted in the Sighp Marine corps and quickly ascended the ranks of the Sighpian forces. She got notably high in the ranks of the army before forced to leave, she had a child, the father; unknown. Anyway, that was a month ago. If you see her, she should be a month pregnant. Anyway, the Niklin, we ran a list of the people she knew and we recovered the name of a Niklin, no last name, and no face shot. He has almost no history, but a load of money. Apparently considers himself a novelty collector."
       "So what, he wants a Spartan to mount on his wall?"
       "Something like that we figured. A search team is en route to his home as we speak. We figure Jada into this assuming that she was a mercenary or bounty hunter, assigned to get this Chupacabra. Whether he knew that it was a Spartan or not has been confirmed by the phone call you recently intercepted, he mentioned that it looked like a person but it was a monster and a Spartan a few times, so, whatever his motives are, consider him dead."
       "So what, Jada became a hitwoman?" I asked. Myself I was confused, for a pregnant woman she ran pretty fast and shot pretty straight, I would hate to mess with her at full power...
       "We think. Keep in mind that his may not even be Jada that you are up against, but if you are, it would be nice if you could manage to take her out too. She is humouredly responsible for the attacks in recent times that killed about forty Marines." They replied. I hated it when HQ would attempt to milk a situation for all it was worth, almost literally milking the life out of the operatives at the same time.
       "I wouldn't worry about it, I am not a big fan of her right now, she made my leg hurt pretty bad a little while back, and I am looking to make someone pay for it... I suppose Samuels already has though... Oh, set up a road block on all the exits of this city to within fifty miles, make sure to tell them to shoot to kill, tell them some stor about an axe murder, something that will make them shoot." I replied.
       "Samuels paid for what? Is he dead? Lucky thirteen I see."
       "No, remember, you told me to..." I replied
       "Now wait just a damn second, you told me that they told you to cut me!" shouted Samuels.
       "Um, they did, it was another operative..." I lied.
       "No it wasn't! You just wanted to cut me! Look, I have a scab all the way down my arm! I got hurt!" I chucked. He was a better disgruntled hurt guy now than ever before.
       "Sorry about that..."
       "Yeah, no kidding!"
       "Well, you know what, I really don't care to listen though your fight guys, so, if you don't mind, even if you do, really, bye." Replied the HQ operator.
       "Hey, I have an idea, let's go find something to do!"
       "No! You mean that you didn't have to cut me... But you did!"
       "Um... I did... You must be hallucinating..."
       "Wow.... I think you're... WAY OFF!!!" shouted a continually angered Samuels.
       "Look, nothing personal, but you needed to be cut. Face it, you're a wuss, you need to toughen up."
       "Well, um... Actually... That is a pretty personal thing..."
       "You thought so, you know, I thought so too, but...
       "Yeah... Just remember, you will pay for that."
       "Right..." I replied, "Next mission objective?"
       "We need to find Jada and that Spartan. If she were to turn the body over to the press they would rub this into our faces to no end, the whole project would collapse. We have to get her first."
       "Where would you go if you were a disgruntled sniper with a dead body and no home?" I asked.
       "The alleys?" he replied, asking for my approval.
******************************************************************
      I stepped into the hotel parking lot and pulled out my pocket knife discreetly. I spun, checking the area for any people and quickly jabbed my knife into the tires of Jada's car as well as all the others I the parking lot besides the Okel. I had no idea of which one of them was hers, so I had to make sure that they were all incapacitated. I stepped up to the Speedstar and held the pocket knife in my hand, looking at Samuel's car. I hate Samuels.
******************************************************************
       "Samuels, come quick! The sniper keyed up your car!" I shouted, running into the room.
       "You son of a bitch! You keyed up my car?" he yelled.
       "Now why would I do that?" I replied. Samuels glared back at me. Had he been armed at the time I would have been the second dead person in this town in under a week.
       "I hate your plans."
******************************************************************
      I stepped into the dark alley between the Housing across from the park and next to the Market and pulled out my pistol. I spun the silencer onto the end and began to check the dumpsters for Jada or the Spartan. The dumpsters produced no signs of Jada, so I continued to search in smaller places, until I was thoroughly satisfied that I had searched them all. I began to head down the alley towards the parking lot behind the two housing buildings and the market, prepared to search the alley between the two apartment complexes. Suddenly I felt the cold muzzle of a gun press against the back of my head. "Samuels?" I asked, hoping more than wondering.
       "No." a female Siberian voice replied.
       "Why do I get the sense that this is gonna suck for me?" I asked.
       "You could be good at guessing these things, I suppose. Drop the gun." She ordered. I dropped the gun and watched as it clattered to the ground before me. She continued to kick it across the alley, well out of my reach.
       "Jada, right?"
       "Wow, your intelligence is pretty good to be able to get a name in regards to who I am."
       "Intelligence? I would hardly call the boys at HQ slow, let alone intelligent. So you are Jada, right?"
       "Sure." She replied.
       "No, really." I forwarded.
       "Yeah, I am, Jada Nichols." She replied.
       "Okay, good, so now that we have that clear, what's up?"
       "Are you for real? Remember yesterday? We shot at each other? I have no idea why, but you are wanting to make us enemies very badly. I came here to finish this and get my car." She replied.
      I chucked, "About that car..."
       "What did you do to my car!?!" she asked.
       "Well, I can't be sure it was yours, so I broke all the tires to all the cars in the parking lot."
       "Damn idiot!"
       "I have one more question before you kill me."
       "Go ahead."
       "Where were you hiding? I searched that whole alley and didn't find you."
       "First dumpster. You looked in there but didn't see me."
       "Ah, you must have blended in with the trash. Sighpian scum."
       "Damn Arrel!" she kicked the back of my legs and forced me to fall over. (Author's note: Arrel is a term used by the Matheans of Lunar 4 as a racist slur against the Eastern populace, the UNSC controlled area.) I fell to the ground and noticed a mirror, which reflected the image of a cop car outside of the alley and a few people within the doughnut shop.
       "Can I ask another question?"
       "Well, it depends, you can ask one more, but not a whole list of them to stall. You will die here, so don't postpone it."
       "You're gonna kill me... Great... Anyway, I have another question. What do you want with the Spartan?"
       "Well, I have no interest in it, I am just killing it because there was a large bounty on it."
       "Well, so the guy who supplied you with the bounty, what did he want with it?"
       "To hell if know, but as long as I get paid I'm fine."
       "So wait, how much do you know about the Spartan or Niklin? How do you know he won't just backstab you?"
       "Enough questions, what do you think you're stalling for?" she asked, ending my inquiry.
       "For the good officer back there to finish his Krunchy Krisps. They don't like crime in these parts." The sniper spun around to see the police officer from across the street charging across the road, pistol drawn.
       "Freeze! Down on the ground, drop the weapon!" the cop yelled. The sniper turned around and I was already bolting towards the park and out of the alley between the houses. She fired a few shots at me while she began to flee. I quickly ran around the corner and began to circle around the residential building to my left, heading towards the intersection with the restaurant the cop was at. Chances are that the last place the sniper would run was towards the cop. Suddenly I heard screams, mostly shouts to get down and drop your weapons, but only one noise reigned supreme, the sharp crack of a gunshot. The screams stopped. I wasn't sure who shot who, but I wasn't going to stick around to find out. I assumed for the worst; that the sniper had lived, and began head for the large horde of spectators that was gathering to see what was happening. Even if the sniper was still alive, chances are that she wouldn't fire into a horde of people to kill me. I walked up and stood on my toes, peering over a few people's heads to see the body of the cop sprawled over on the ground, a puddle of blood growing beneath his corpse.

Legend Hunting Part Six
Date: 11 March 2003, 10:48 PM

      "It is not every day that a man so brave as Officer Daniels is born, however, it is every day that one is lost, struck down by evil. Our small town was immune to such worries, the cold, dark hands of the modern world not grasping us at that time. However, such evil would not overlook us forever, and like the serpent that it is, it has now consumed our town. A brave Police Officer died yesterday. Shot by an unknown assailant, though I can tell you that he is a victim of the modern world. I ask you all, as citizens of the decent town of Melo, to assure our future's safety by making sure that the death of Officer Daniels is the first Police Officer to die, and the last. We must all do our job, as citizens, to respect that these brave souls are willing to defend the very people that may kill them the next day. People need to take on their role as citizens, and make Melo a clean community once again. In recent times, namely the last week, two horrible crimes have been committed. The first was the murder of a child, a great sin by any measure. If this were a random event this would be acceptable, albeit a horrible thing to accept. However, this situation is clearly worsening, now that Melo has taken the burden of a second murder, the murder of Officer Daniels. Melo has corrupted, and only you, the people of Melo, may turn it to its former, righteous ways." The mayor stepped from his podium.

      I stood among a crowd of no more than two hundred, all citizens of Melo. I carefully scanned the ranks of people for Jada, but failed to find her. It was only a small chance that she was so stupid as to come to a public gathering, but it was still a hope to end this mission easily. I expected the Mayor's face to dance with the flashes of cameras, but only saw sporadic bursts, the populace having no need for a press. I could tell that the mayor was a noble and proud man, his face breathing honesty. It still amazed me, though, that a man such as him could get into office, most politicians corrupt. He was correct in his speech though, the modern world took my family too. I almost felt guilty, being that I was at the center of one of those killings. In a sense however, ONI had killed this town. The Spartan was just a convenient vehicle for them to come to ruin the lives of everyone in this town.

       "Nice speech, wouldn't you say?" asked Samuels

       "Yeah, mayor is a great speaker. I actually trust him. Not the traditional politician up there, en (Authors note: Saying En is to an Eastern Fourite what saying eh is to a Canadian.)?"

       "Yeah, I heard he writes his own speeches too." Samuels stated, I chuckled.

       "Been here for what, four days, and you are already gossiping? You're alright Samuels." I rubbed my forehead as I stopped laughing, "Sorry about the car..."
       "Not yet are you."

       "What's that supposed to mean?"

       "Have fun with the bill." I hated Samuels...

******************************************************************

      I continued bouncing the baseball off the wall as Samuels thumbed through a field manual, searching for a topic in regards as to what to do when 'a bounty hunter has taken the Spartan that you are hunting' section. Needless to say it was futile, this was the first situation like this, and undoubtedly the hardest either of us had been in. To find the Spartan we had to know where it is. To find out where it is we had to find the sniper, alive. To take her alive and get her to talk we needed some way to do so, and, we didn't. We had nowhere to go, and nothing to do. We were, to the truest sense, stranded. We had called up headquarters to update them on the status of the mission, all of which was a failure, and the status of Jada, which was updated, we had a motive. They gave us an update on Niklin. He was nonexistent. There was no one in the cabin when the strike teams searched it, and no signs that anyone existed under that name. How that mattered, no one knew, but if Jada knew it would decimate her plans, especially that she was able to talk to him...

       "What's next?" I bounced the baseball off the wall again.

       "No clue." Samuels replied as the baseball bounced back to me.

       "I would like to look into this hotel. Dig though that data stick I got you."

       "Oh, thanks, I've been wanting to do that." Samuels replied sarcastically. He was most likely expecting gunfights and glory on the front lines, not clerical work.

       "Figured. You think I'm having any more fun than you?" I bounced the baseball off the wall again.

       "At least you got to shoot at something and go parachuting. This mission has been boring for me."

       "Boring, but not painful. I love bear traps."

       "Good point." He had a good point as well, parachuting was fun albeit painful. I felt for the wound on my chest from my painful landing. I noted that it was gone, showing the amount of time that I had spent in the town, which had been a practical eternity.

       "Hmmmmmmm..." Samuels grunted quietly.

       "A good Hmmmmmmm or a bad Hmmmmmmm?"

       "A confused Hmmmmmmm." Samuels replied. "This hotel isn't."

       "Hmmmmmmm?"

       "Well, when I was searching the files I found only a few, three, one registry for every guest."

       "Current guests?"

       "Total."

       "Well, why even have a hotel?"

       "Same thing I was asking. So I closed my search and I found many more files. The three I had originally were Martinez.xls, Nichols.xls, and Samuels.xls, all nearly empty spreadsheets. These were only basic registries, a number or two in regards to who we were and where to bill. I was confused, the data stick was nearly full. I realized that it was because of my search, I had used the word hotel. I figured that I would find files like registry.exe, other xls files, but I was amazed at what I found. This is no hotel."

       "Well, what is it then?"

       "It is a guerilla headquarters. Built a month before you arrived. I'll get some peeper images from HQ to verify this, but that could be why it looks so nice in here, it is new."

       "Yeah, right, and I am Lioke (Authors note: This story is having bountiful reference to the past of Lunar 4... Lioke is the Socialist leader of the Eastern Hemisphere whose assassination sparked the second world war of Lunar 4. His handling of the formation of the great spot caused his people to love him as they would a hero or a god.). You may be good with computers, but your jokes suck."

       "This is no joke." Samuels replied. "Come look. These spreadsheets and documents they have, maps, all of them detailing attacks, guerilla actions, all illegal activities."

       "What are the chances!" I raised my arms up in the air, looked up and slowly spun, "What are the chances that this mission would suck like this!" I looked down, "Samuels, you will pay for this. Scapegoat..." Samuels looked up at me, slightly disturbed and resumed scanning the files.

       "Well, these terrorists, they are everywhere. Last I heard they were banding together. Forming the Neo Covenant."

       "Well, that's an original name, er, I mean lame... Aliens, have been mauling us for fifteen years, losing a war with them..."

       "Actually, sir, the word Covenant means an alliance... Sort of... So Neo Covenant means New Alliance, it makes perfect sense."

       "Well, they aren't getting any brownie points for inventing the name in that case. Couldn't they just have called themselves the new alliance?"

       "No."

       "Whatever. Send those documents to headquarters. They might like to see what they can salvage from it. Maybe that has some plans for future attacks, or a list of cell members."

       "Cell? No. This is huge. The Neo Covenant is a unity of just about every terrorist or extremist to ever exist. Think global. Think thousands, millions even. They are a threat that even our armies could hardly contain. They are almost a nation, hardly cells."

       "Right, well, in any case, this would help them. If nothing else it can tell them when to increase security."

       "Yeah, sure, I'll send it to them. But anyway, we have just found out about a terrorist building. Should we do something about it?"

      There was a long silence, "I hate loving the UNSC. We have to do something about it, I guess. What should we do though?"

       "You hate a lot, don't you?"

       "Not when I have someone to take it out on. By the way, about the car... If they can't find it can they bill me?"

       "Damn it! What did you do to my car!?! He quickly ran to the window and pulled down the shades to see an empty parking place where his car used to sit.

******************************************************************

      I pushed the video sunglasses that Samuels had lent to me, against his best logic and waited as the elevator hit the bottom floor. I smiled knowing that with one little "accident" I could make Samuels cry. But I had a mission, and there was no time for personal satisfaction. My footsteps echoed as I walked through the lobby. The only extraneous noise was a soft whir that I heard, no doubt the security camera silently watching my movements. I continued, though, and walked up to the desk at the center of the lobby. The man was already alerted to my presence, though I did not recognize him as either of the former clerks. These terrorists were careless. I made sure to get him to look directly at my face as the camera within the glasses silently took a half dozen pictures so that Samuels could begin to flag terrorists for the UNSC to hunt down.

       "Hey, I was wondering, do you know where a repair shop near here is? My car, it got vandalized, all keyed up and stuff. It could use another paint job, and I figured I would get it fixed while I was here." I said. I was hoping that he wasn't very alert as to who owned the Speedstar as he was to watching the lobby.

       "Oh, surprised you didn't see it. Sam's Auto Repair, just down near the Krunchy Krisp down there." He replied friendlily. I almost felt bad because I marked him for death... Almost.

       "Oh, thanks." I nodded and left the building. Stepping outside I drew in a breath of the fresh air. The forest created an aura of freshness that I hadn't known when on my routine missions in the cities. I walked down the alley behind the garage (which I clearly knew where it was before) and sat down in Samuels' car.

       "Samuels, got an ID on the terrorist?" I asked into a small concealed microphone I carried.

      After a short pause Samuels replied, "Yes, we have an ID. Michael Martinez. He's already reported to be among another terrorist group. It had many names, but never an official one, but it was absorbed by the larger Neo Covenant forces a year or two back. This confirms that this hotel is actually a frontline type base It was set up a while back, and peeper network rewinding shows that this base was built by well identified terrorist Alan Roguriez of the Neo Covenant."

       "Alan Roguriez?" I said, interrupting, "He was the clerk on my first night here. That nice guy let me stay for free?"

       "Well, I suppose he could have. But anyway, this hotel was, only by law, nonexistent until the night after you stayed. They probably expected to never get a guest, and did. He didn't charge you because he couldn't. But anyway, this hotel has a basement and only one way down. You'll never guess how..."

       "The elevator?"

       "No, I actually find this funny... They have a secret staircase. Like a little kid. But we did another search and neither Jada nor Niklin is in any terrorist organization, they are both, according to our details, telling the truth, besides the whole... Not existing thing... In Niklin's case. So we have to assume that they are telling the truth until they verify otherwise. But this terrorist group, the Neo Covenant, they have a very strong hate for the UNSC. They are against the Spartans. They hate the Spartans. They, like the early days of cloning have religious objections. And though we aren't cloning them yet, they clearly got downwind of some info that ONI might have tipped them off on. Leads me to the conclusion that their sole purpose here is to capture the Spartan. Some Peeper rewinding also showed that there are, or rather were five terrorists. They came back from the woods one day with only four. So we have seen all of them but one. Think you can take em'?" he asked. He knew my reply though.

       "Yes. I can kill anything."

       "Didn't get the Spartan."

       "Well, I could've."

       "No. You couldn't. But moving on... We got the layout of the base. They have some minor, but effective security protocol phases. The first thing you need to do is to get a palm print scan passed, should be easy enough and will eliminate one of the four when you take them. Either that or I could write a data stick hack, but that is a little higher risk, because chances are they would spot you regardless."

       "Wait, where is this secret staircase?"

       "It is hidden under a floor panel in the center of the lobby. It is offset about a meter to the left of the center of the chandelier."

       "Oh. Well, in that case, plan A. So, I grab the guy at the desk, drag him to the floor panel, and then?"

       "Well, you should probably hold him up while you pull out the floor panel. I'll come in on this one to back you up also, so I could keep him busy while you set up for his role. From here you could kill him and use his lifeless body to activate the thing--"

       "I like A." I interrupted.

       "More chance for flaws in the plan. If you can take him alive it would eliminate the threat posed by the scanner sensing life as well as just his palm prints. Anyway, I chose B for you there, much safer. After that you can pull up the hatch that opens up a bomb-shelter-like room. The one you saw on the security camera I trust. In fear of the peeper networks, most likely they began to move visual barriers into place after they completed only a small portion of the room, so I can't tell you too much about its layout. They installed some shields in the roof of the room, so we aren't getting any Xray images or heat readouts. The place could be an ambush in wait, but if you can, we want to salvage as much of the room below as we can, particularly if Alan Roguriez is down there. As I stated, though, we have no idea as to what is down there, so we could just be sending you on a suicide mission into a gun turret." He said.

       "And you hate my plans!?!" I shouted.

       "Your plans are stupid, but I have to admit that this one takes the cake. All I can tell you is that the room is about twenty feet underground. I might give you a frag grenade just in case, but I'd much prefer to take one of them alive for questioning and salvage the computers. I want you to go back to the hotel though and get a telemetry readout of Michael for us. I want to see if he has any forms of electronically radiated ID signals coming from him that would make a turret ignore him." He said. I was glad, over the past week or two I had began to take the hotel as a replacement home. "Even I would much rather play it safe with your life than send you to get ripped apart by a machine gun." He continued. "One more thing before you come back."

       "What?" I asked.

       "Take good care of my Speedstar..." I chuckled quietly... He did give me the keys...

Legend Hunting Part Seven
Date: 22 March 2003, 11:34 PM

      A little note... This is a LINEAR STORY. That means that Legend Hunting is one big part. These parts have been broken so that they will fit on the forum or so that I can submit parts as I work on them. If you have not read ALL OF THE PARTS you will become confused very quickly. In this part especially the past knowledge is required to understand it. I can't believe I have to post this note...

**********************************************************************************************************************

      As it happened I had more respect for the Speedstar than hate for Samuels, especially after my hefty toll paid for keying it earlier. It slid silently into pace as I saw the window shades in Samuels' room rustle, he had clearly been awaiting the return of his prized car. I stepped into the hotel lobby to find Roguriez at the desk, again sleeping, which almost seemed to be his job at the hotel. He awoke at my entry though, this time, and greeted me with an almost hateful stare. He was probably very mad, given that it must have taken him hours to register with the L4CG (Lunar 4 Commerce Guild) to allow him to actually accept any payment from me. The work of getting that done in under a week was amazing, but the workload of getting that done in a few days, was impressive, especially a non-legitimate business. He had reason to hate me, but I had reason to play the stupid tourist card and not notice.
       "Hey, um..." I paused. If I acted as if I knew his name it may draw suspicion, "Rogurin? No, Roguriez!"
      He tensed and sat up in his chair. I noticed that he was sticking a hand under the desk, probably reaching for a gun. "How do you know my name?"
       "What, you don't remember me?" I replied. He began to relax a little, but still kept a hand planted against the bottom of the desk. Knowing where that gun was would probably help me out later on, if only keeping the element of surprise away.
      He stared, his head cocked quizzically for a second before finally recognizing me, "Ah, Scott, Scot... Martinez, yeah, I remember you! A few weeks ago you came in here. To visit your family, right?"
       "Yeah." I noticed that he lowered his hand from the gun beneath the desk, he trusted me. Trusting me would be his last mistake, I would make sure of that.
       "So, enjoyed your stay?"
       "Yeah, service is good. This place seems so fresh and new when compared to the rest off the town." I looked at the polished floor and then up to the glass chandelier, realizing that I was standing atop their secret base. I stepped forward, heading left towards the elevator.
       "Glad to hear you like it here. But don't let these last few weeks get you to hating Melo, it is the first set of murders Melo has ever seen." He replied, though I could swear that I hear him say 'stranger' beneath his breath after finishing his sentence. However, it simply stated the town's emotions towards me, I was a stranger, and I was a reasonable scapegoat as to why the town was corrupting recently. I was at the center of half of the recent murders recently, though, so it may be for a good reason.
       "Yeah, well, keep up the good work. Talk to ya later."
       "Sure. Have a nice stay." I stepped into the elevator and watched the doors slid shut, the metallic door reflecting my face. I looked for a second, wondering who it was that was staring back at me before realizing that it was me though. I couldn't vividly remember my real face. Soon I was on the second floor and within my room, Samuels already waiting with a few sheets of paper before him. He held a clipboard and quickly greeted me, showing me his drawings. They were plans to attack the bunker beneath the hotel, and each carried a basic map of the hotel and simple lines telling me what to do. Not the military briefing I was accustomed to...
       "I think they have a pistol at the main desk, does that change anything?" I asked.
       "Nothing in any of my plans. Glasses." I pulled the sunglasses off and handed them to him so that he could analyze them.
       "Any ID signals on the guy?" I asked.
       "None the headset got. Probably means that there isn't an autocannon, though. Still, there could be something that he picks up or turns on to deactivate it, so it is still a reasonable threat. Anyway, here are a few plans that I drew up." He slid three sheets of paper across the table. "The first one is on the top. Anyway, as you can see, you go down the elevator, hold up the guy at the desk and get him to open the basement for you. You wing it from there."
       "Great, now I stumble into an unknown densely populated hostile area and 'wing it'. I hate your plans."
       "I suppose you could do better?"
       "Not yet. Let me see your other two plans."
       "Alright, the second one is one where you kill the guy and get a computer hack to open the shelter. It would eliminate the risk of the terrorist trying to rebel against you and would also prevent him from using some signal to alert the people in the basement while you get the shelter open. The bad, if there are two or more of them on the top floor it would get messy, fast."
       "Yeah, this plan's garbage too. Hope the thirds a lot better."
       "Right... The third is to tip off the police as to the terrorist cell in here. No idea what they would do." I looked at his picture. A primitive drawing a policeman lie, drawn with a crayon.
       "Spent some time on this one, didn't ya?"
      He quickly grabbed the papers back and neatly stacked them while occasionally glaring angrily at me. "Like I said, I suppose you can do better."
       "I can. I have a new plan. I grab the guy, hold him by his neck and beat him till he coughs up the code. From there I'll get the basement open, throw him down and with. As his other buddies gather around to see why their friend dropped dead I'll sneak in and shoot em all up. Sound good?"
       "Wow... Actually, that's pretty good... In the end though, it's your decision. Decided?"
       "I think so. First, though, I want to get HQ to hear this. Maybe they got some news on the Data Stick."
       "Sure. Calling em now." Samuels said, picking up the radio. Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door. I gestured for Samuels to put away the radio while walking to the door. I looked through the peephole and saw Roguriez standing at the door.
       "It's Roguriez!" I whispered as the door knocked again.
       "I have something to talk about with you Mr. Martinez!" he said through the door. Samuels quickly finished hiding everything beneath the bed and quickly slipped underneath. This was my room, not his, and he couldn't appear in it. He was fine with this plan though, he got to be safe.
       "Coming." I replied before opening the door. Roguriez pushed his way in and looked around the room.
       "I want the Spartan." He said.
       "The what?"
       "Don't play dumb, someone set off one of our traps in the woods." That was why he searched the rooms... "I searched your room while you were gone and I found an assault rifle and a pistol. You're here hunting for the UNSC, and I want my Spartan! Now, unless you want the police to hear about these, give me the Spartan."
       "I don't have the Spartan, Jada has it."
       "Jada?"
       "Yeah, the girl staying here. She was about 5' 6" and Siberian."
       "No time for games Mr. Martinez! Give me the Spartan!"
       "I swear to god, I don't have it."
       "Well, someone does, and I doubt that 'Jada' could have gotten it. You are from the UNSC, you have reason to want this Spartan."
       "And what do you want with the Spartan?"
       "We believe that the Spartans are the seeds of evil among our ranks, particularly the Spartan 3s. I need to take it to prove to the public one and for all that they exist."
       "Well, I was just bout to go look for it myself, so I don't think you need to worry about me having it."
       "I think we do. Where is it!"
       "I don't have the Spartan!"
       "What are you here for Mr. Martinez?"
       "I was here to catch the Spartan, but if you are a terrorist I suppose I have other actions that I should take."
       "I am no terrorist! You were here to get the Spartan and it suddenly dissapears from the woods and you claim that 'Jada' has it. Also our computers suddenly crash because of a virus and all of our files are stolen. Also, there are two murders in the town, and no one can explain any of this. And you arrive. You have the Spartan, where is it?"
       "I don't have the Spartan."
       "And you expect me to believe that after you lied to those Martinez and they trusted you, what can make me so sure that you aren't lying to me right now. And where's your nerdy friend?"
       "He died. He left here two days ago and never came back. Either he deserted or he died."
       "About the same time our Spartan Trap was set off... Well, too bad about your friend, but if you have the Spartan here, we will find it, and we will hunt you down. Jada though, who is that?"
       "My partner. I was hoping that he left because he had captured it, but it appears as though he left because he died." I replied, hoping that this lie would be believed.
       "I thought your partner was a man. You said that Jada was a Siberian female."
       "He was a.... Troubled... Male. With a wig and some lipstick he... Yeah... Kida a touchy subject..."
       "Hah... That's very sad..." Roguriez grunted at me after looking at my room for a second more and left promptly, slamming the door behind him. I waited for a full minute before calling Samuels out of hiding.
       "What the hell was that? What makes him think that if we were here looking for the Spartan a random inquisition would force us to reveal anything?" Samuels asked sarcastically, "And what was with the little comment there?"
       "Sorry about that, but it had to be done." I replied, already ignoring him and turning on the radio.
       "Couldn't you have come up with something else, maybe that you were following her thinking that she was a terrorist of the Matheans or something? Genderly challenged?"
       "Well, he believed it."
       "I rest my case." Samuels sat down on the bed, bouncing on it's fresh and almost unused springs.
       "I've been wondering about this place. Why not build a fake building that is smaller than a hotel. Would have cost them about a quarter as much and with these money strapped terrorists of today running around..."
       "Well," Samuels asked HQ for any progress and was greeted with a happy yes, "Open sesame. HQ, the updates?"
       "The Hotel you are staying in may be a terrorist hideout!" Samuels snorted.
       "WE ALREADY KNOW THAT!!!" I shouted. Thank god this hotel had such muffling walls... I hoped...
       "Oh... Well, in any case, we have a list of the terrorists. Well, anyway, we have one named Alan Roguriez."
       "We know him, he tried to yell at us..."
       "Oh... That compromises what we were about to ask you to do..."
       "What, the data stick wasn't enough?"
       "Well, that was good, but we wanted you to take him out..."
       "Why can't we... Never mind... Ok, the other three."
       "Ok, another, Charlie Morris." I instantly recognized that name (As should anyone who read the Fall of Lunar 4!!!), a swim buddy of mine in the SEAL training exercises. He hurt his leg and was forced from service just short of becoming a SEAL. "The next, Jaque Martinez, a local who probably joined to look cool." Jaque Martinez was another name I recognized. It was the eldest of the Martinez generation that is the second from most recent. "And the final in our little list, Alan Roguriez."
       "Um... You already said his name..."
       "Oh, my fault, things have been a little hectice with the AE te--"
       "The what?"
       "Meant AM. Early mornings. Anyway, the last name in the list, that we haven't mention, is Bernard Willace, a terrorist fill in as best we can understand. He has no criminal record and hardly appears to fit the terrorist profile at all. We actually would believe that he was a legit employee had he not been moved from Okra to Melo at the opening of the hotel, and had not bought a home in the area. The cell here never expected to ever see a UNSC team get sent here, though they may have been established for the sole purpose of capturing the Spartan before we did. The Neo Covenant have only one goal. They want to capture a Spartan 3. See, they were fine with the Spartan 2s, they were people, just trained to extremes. Spartan 3s on the other hand are not. They are genetically engineered. They are not human. The Neo Covenant believes this to be unholy and have waged a holy war against the UNSC for the past half dozen years in an attempt to get us to cough one up. However, their strikes have often left them more damaged than us, and have been insubstantial. Than they all decided to band together and form the Neo Covenant. Original name, wouldn't you say? Aliens, been mauling us for the past 15 years..."
       "Exactly what I told Samuels here..." I turned to Samuels who was glaring back at me attempting to hold back his growing dislike for me.
      I returned his glare with a smile that crossed my face from ear to ear. It was why I was so mean to him. To see him angered that is...
       "Heh, I figured as much. HQ claims that I am a practical personality clone to you. I even like Sushi." I heard Samuels chuckle. This was his victory, no matter how small. "Well, in any case, they have been trying more daring attacks, and taking much more blatant losses. So they moved to the deserts and now hijack armored columns. They are terrorists and cowards. But, in any case, they are a threat to the Spartan 3s and the security of Lunar 4. Their rogue activities almost lead to the discovery of Simus Octanus a few months ago."
       "Well, Samuels and me came up with a few plans for you."
      I heard Samuels mutter quietly in the background as he walked in the kitchenette in the hotel room. "Samuels and me. No... Samuels and I, yes. Take away the Samuels, me, and you have Me made some plans. No, ..." I turned and ignored his mutterings.
       "HQ..." I leaned towards the radio and whispered, "Can I please have a new tech?"
       "What's the matter? Not getting along with Samuels?" they asked. Apparently they didn't get that I was trying to be inconspicuous and stated their reply quite loud. The grammatical mutterings of Samuels stopped quickly and there was a short pause.
      Samuels turned to me, his frow wrinkled and bottom lip seemingly swollen, "You hate me?" I stared back before replying giving myself a second to think as to what the smartest reply was.
       "Ya think?" I replied sarcastically, "I have been laying it on pretty thick, wouldn't you say? The whole cutting you, hurting you car, insulting you, calling you a genderly challenged male, all that? Did you get it?"
      The radio cackled with laughter, "You called him genderaly challenged?" I quickly reached over and shut it off.
      Samuels cracked with laughter, "I figured. Did you get it? The whole sending you on suicide missions, making you pay for my car's damage, dipping you hands in warm water while you sleep..."
       "You didn't..."
       "You're right... I didn't, but I considered it..."
       "That's like kicking me in the crotch. With steel toe boots." Samuels winced at the thought and resumed muttering.
       "That could have been one sentence. That's like kicking me in the crotch with a steel toe boot," I noticed another pause while Samuels winced in pain from the thought, "He could have... He should have said that. I hate grammar errors..." I again began to ignore Samuels turning the radio back on.
       "Hello, HQ?"
       "Yeah, I think some technical troubles just cut us off, sorry about that." The man replied, whether he was lying or not I had no idea.
       "Sure..."
       "Anyway, you can't have a new partner. Do you wonder why you got Samuels? No one here wanted him stay with us... That car of his..."
       "Greed from the officials... No surprise. I mean, I am just on an important and botched mission with this nuisance. I am sick of it. I am here and ou are there. You can deal with him, I cannot."
      I heard Samuels mutter behind me, "Don't end your sentences with it. Just don't do it..."
       "See?" I asked into the radio.
       "Have any more animal crackers?" Samuels asked. I thought for a second while turning to see him with his whole hand in a jar of peanut butter, eating like a bear with honey. And this was my backup...
       "I had no idea we had any in the first place." I replied. I had eaten bacon and other basic things since I had arrived.
       "Good point..." he responded, dropping the jar of peanut butter he had onto the table and opening the cabinets. "But no, they have to be crackers," Samuels continued to mutter, "Crackers are usually salty, not... Cookielike. Call them wafers... A compromise. I mean, come on..." Samuels knocked a cup off of the shelf where it dropped to the ground and shattered. He stopped muttering very briefly before continuing again, unaffected that he was probably about to step on glass shards.
       "Help me... I have been shot 19 times, beaten by ninjas three, lit on fire twice, almost drown once, dropped from a small cliff once, but never have I put up with..." I turned to Samuels who was continuing his search for animal "crackers", "never have I had to put up with this. Know how I mentioned retiring before."
       "Not gonna happen."
       "Well, if that's not maybe a suicide will... Or maybe I should just run for my life. Or get locked up in a padded room talking about how the aliens took me... Oh wait... They could've... This place it too confusing. It has a four letter name... It is supposed to be a simple town... I hate it when places like this become my home... Places like Lunar 4 that is."
       "Yeah, whatever, finish the mission and we will consider your resignation. You are getting a little old..."
       "That does it, now I'm staying!"
       "Good..." I quickly caught my mistake... "So anyway, a recap on the Spartan. The HQ right now is a real mess, the old operator of this mission gone on some other Spartan hunt, considered your mission a failure already. I am new where and the reports that I got were sketchy at best. Fill me in."
       "Ok, as I arrived here I saw someone hunting the Spartan too. No... The back-story sucks. I have no idea why any of anything happened, I won't tell it to you, ask that jerk face who ran this place before what happened on your lunchbreak. Anyway, what happened now is that we have about four sides hunting the Spartan. The cops who want to stop the corruption of Melo, the bounty hunter Jada, who wants it for money and fun, the terrorists, who want it for their little holy war, and us. We want it to piss all of them off. Why do we even care? I mean, let them all fight over it... I just wanna go to wherever my home is."
       "We care because ONI does. As you hopefully know, they are not too fond of the Spartans. When the Three series began they were one of the few active resistances to it. They protested it's hive minds talking of the insanity that would develop. They were right. But if we admit that they will close the Spartan project. For good. They are using their own Spartan type things to hunt ours down, make us the laughingstock and let theirs seem better. I have no idea what they are, but I have a feeling that they are just Spartan 3s with a different mindset. However, we cannot let them have this victory, and if anyone finds out about the Spartan being captured by anything but us, it will be a negative blow to the project. Rather the finishing blow to the project."
       "Who the hell cares? Just let ONI take their place. If they are more powerful, they should have their project live. Darwinism at it's best."
       "ONI uses different means than us to make their things. They are not humans at all. They were. Now they are monsters."
       "Ah, whatever, an order's an order, right?"
       "Right. Next priority, get the Spartan. Now."
       "Next priority? Hasn't that always been it? Face it, the guy abandoned this mission, it's all over. Can I just go home?"
       "No. Find the Spartan. Do some dumpster diving where you found Jada."
       "Garbage days was a day or two back..."
       "No it wasn't..." Samuels said. I turned to him and glared at the man who did nothing to return my glare, just searched for more food. I wanted to go home...
       "Fine..." I sighed, "I'll go take care of the garbage... I would rather keep Samuels then.. Wait a second... I am a superior of..." I turned off the radio and looked over to Samuels.

Legend Hunting Part Eight (Final Part)
Date: 2 April 2003, 10:08 PM

      "I hate you!" Samuels yelled, sitting in the passenger seat of his car with a somewhat angered look to his face. The UNSC peeper command network allowed the police in this area to use their rewinding technology to get suspects for the crime, digitally erasing my appearance. They were able to quickly clear out the crime scene because of this and left the garbage wide open for us to take...

      "Quiet there young Samuels," I noticed Samuels glaring in my direction, "We have a mission, and as your superior it is time for me to give you an order."

      "To dig out garbage... What an order..."

      "Silence! Insubordination en? Well, that'll get you to the brig!" I said. I loved this ability that I found I had, and I loved making Samuels mad.

      "There is no brig in this car. There is no brig in the hotel. You cannot send e to the brig."

      "There is the woods, brethren of evil! You can sleep with the animals on a bed of pine needles and with a blanket of your own sweat and blood coating you. You know that wolves are a big problem around here, right?"

      "There are no wolves on Lunar 4 outside of Zoos." An awkward silence filled the air as I attempted to continue my mood of victory despite this setback.

      "Are we there yet? Yes we are. We are to the alley!" I smiled before pushing Samuels out his door and circling around to the parking lot, "Enjoy." I knew that I would enjoy this... The car parked swiftly and I hesitated before leaving the keys within it. This town, however, was one where you could leave your door unlocked at night, though after the recent string of murders I highly doubt that anyone would. I stepped out of the car and allowed a breath of the peaceful county air into my lungs. It probably didn't smell so good where Samuels was... I walked slowly to the alley as Samuels climbed into the dumpster and got on his knees, digging through the garbage. Perhaps the proverb was correct - to the truest sense the garbage of one man, or in this case woman, is another's treasure, our treasure. I could only hope that it was still there though.

      "Um... This is all garbage..." Samuels claimed after searching for a few minutes.

      "Well... I figured... She couldn't have buried it too deep before I came around the corner. Do you think that the CSI picked it up?"

      "No, all they got from here was a few boot prints and the peeper images. Why search the garbage for a dead supersoldier?"

      "Good point. Think that she could have slid it behind the dumpster or underneath it?"

      "She could have... I'll check." Samuels dropped out of the dumpster and circled towards me, covered in filth. He walked towards me as not to draw attention. Any normal citizen would be a little suspicious of a man covered in garbage in an alley of a town that has no crime or unemployment. He quickly checked around all of the dumpsters, his search producing no results. She had probably came back to the own from the location she had hidden the Spartan at solely to kill me and get her car, leaving the Spartan in a remote location. It might have been too heavy for her to carry with her or she might have thought that it would draw too much attention to herself. Either way the Spartan was missing, and it was our job to find it, and the woods was a big place. I heard the rumble of some thunder overhead and looked upwards towards the billowing Cumulous clouds.

      "It's gonna rain. Clean up and get back to the car, we're done here. Tomorrow we will go search the woods again. Why does it seem like I have done everything on this mission over and over again..."

      "Because, I agree with you, this mission sucks, it's driving me insane. We have lost, the Spartan is god knows where, the bounty hunter who has it is purposefully avoiding the town, and the forest is a very large place... We'll be lucky to ever find her. I have never been on a mission nearly as botched as this one. Lucky 13, clearly."

      "Well, what can you expect from a mission that ONI gives us. All they ever do is paperwork and conspiracies, nothing valuable."

      "Yeah, do you know how long I spent locked in that basement waiting to get to go on a mission? It seemed like a lifetime, and for all I know it was. When I got this field assignment I was so happy. If I had known that it would be like this..."

      I felt a raindrop splash down on the back of my hand. I looked up at the cloud as the thunder growled down at me. I looked down at the ground and noticed that one of the puddles on the ground was rumbling as it was struck with thousands of tiny raindrops. "I'm getting in the car, it's starting to rain. Want an umbrella?"

      "Sure, throw me one. Glove compartment I think."

      I circled around the car again and placed the key into the door, quickly opening it and sliding inside before the rain began to convert itself from drizzle to torrent. I sat down and turned the car on, rotating the heating dial to only a few units below full and leaning across the car to open the glove compartment. As the rain began to fall harder the windows of the car became blotted with the blurs of splashing raindrops. The raindrops were very large and quickly became a downpour. I pulled the glove compartment open resulting in an avalanche of papers and maps. It reminded me of my car's glove compartment, crammed and stuffed with everything I needed to complete a mission. Here I was, literally dying to leave behind this life of danger and excitement while at the same time Samuels vied to get into it. In a sense the job was my life. Every mission I was a different person in a different place, and I was told to be that person regardless. My former life was almost forgotten by me, and was already forgotten by my government. I was taken from my life, and in a sense I was killed. I lifted a finger to touch a face that I could only call my own. I quickly shuffled through Samuels' things and grabbed a small umbrella. The window pulled itself open and I tossed it outside to his waiting arms. The rain had done much to clean his clothes, and his hair was well saturated. I loved rain like this, but I had no reason to. Rain is the harbinger of destruction and failure, and could seal any military campaigns fate. I pressed the up button to seal the window and sat back listening to the gentle tapping of the rain on the windshield as the two windshield wipers uselessly slid back and forth trying to clear the window of the torrent's fallout. The windshield wipers were comparable to our struggle in Melo; as hard as they tried there would never be an end nor a reason for their struggle. I tried to focus my attention elsewhere to Samuels who was finishing brushing the garbage form his shirt and coming towards the car. I unlocked the door and pushed it open for him. He leaned into the car with the umbrella still open and sat down before closing it.

      "Are you suicidal?" I asked.

      "Where'd that come from?" Samuels closed the umbrella.

      "First you are my thirteenth partner on the worst possible day and month of my life, and now you take an umbrella into a car before closing it. You are praying to end up going home in a body bag at this rate... Don't say I didn't warn you." Samuels chuckled before putting the Umbrella away. "Now, I want to call a truce with you."

      "A truce?"

      "Yeah, a truce. We have both hurt each other enough. I mean, nothing good is going to come of use hurting each other. Truce?"

      "I see what you're saying... You dent up my car, I send you on a suicide mission, you key up my car for that, I tell HQ about garbage day... Okay, a truce. No destroying each others stuff or lives unnecessarily."

      "Sounds fair. Let's try not to make more enemies on this mission. Actually, you wanna just blow off the rest of this mission?"

      "Blow it off? HQ gave us orders not to--"

      "Um... HQ gave up on us. The sniper took the Spartan, and she isn't gonna just give it back. The forest is too big for us to sweep clean and the peepers lost her. She is gone. How bout we just hang out at the bar around here and let the rest of the mission play itself out?"

      "Well, I don't drink for one..."

      "Actually, neither do I. But still, we can learn some stuff maybe, you like that. I'll bet some of the people in there have some pretty interesting stories... So, let's go to the Hotel, call up HQ, ask them if we can blow off the rest of the mission, and regardless of what they say, do it anyway!"

      "I doubt they'll like us 'blowing off' the rest of the mission."

      "I doubt we'll like the rest of the mission. It'll probably end with a ton of paperwork and the need for a good excuse as to why we failed. I've decided to ask em to let us go, you can come if you like." I backed the Speedstar slowly out of the parking spot and drove onto the street. The rain was still strong and it was only by the grace of god that we arrived at the hotel safely, though the parking lot seemed unusually full of cars. I was forced to turn around and park some distance from the hotel. Lightning sparked in the distance and the loud roar soon ensued. It seemed as if this were only the tempest now. Cryptic...

      We stepped into the hotel soaked with rain and walked across the slick floor, wet as if it had been trodden upon by dozens of feet, and continued to the elevator only wearily suspicious of the footprints. The elevator door slid open and revealed the same hallway as before, the floor however had a wet path leading down the whole hallway and into our room as well as continuing down the hallway to the other side. It seemed as though a large group of people had moved across the carpet though, not just a few. I was curious about this. "Samuels. I'm checking the other floors to see if they have footprints like this, I need to know what's going on here. You go to the room and wait, I'll be back."

      "Alright, be quick, this place is pretty scary when you know that the evil people within it are hunting you."

      "No problem.", I stepped into the elevator and watched as the doors slid shut, leaving behind the mystery of the prior two floors and revealing the third. The elevators utopian and horrible music soon faded away to reveal another hallway, this one like the others in that it was covered in wet footprints. I looked at them as I walked down the hallway and counted at least a half dozen different kinds of boot prints. I was confused and mad by this time, and wanted to go home... The lightning clattered outside and the power flickered as I carefully paced down the hallway. I hear a car in the distance accompanied by a few police sirens which blared in unity. This oddity led me to the window, my nose of curiosity finding its way to the end of the hallway. I peered out as three patrol cars screeched to a halt in front of the hotel. I slid open the window shade and saw three cops with riot shields jump out of the car followed by six with suppressed MP-50s. They all had Kevlar and were very well armed, moving like military personnel. I watched as they entered the building, thanking god that HQ had finally decided to take action against the terrorists. I heard no gunfire and no screams, however, just the sound of the elevator near to me closing its doors and going down. I suddenly realized what was going on, but it was too late...

******************************************************************

      I watched from the window as Samuels was forced to squat into the side of the patrol car. Another officer walked out with all of our weapons and a third found my rifle in the front sign. This mission had gone to hell, literally. I watched as the patrol cars drove from the parking lot down the street to the precinct. No doubt Roguriez did this.

      "Missing him already?" I turned around to see. Roguriez standing behind me. Lighting cracked in the background.

      "Nah. I hated him anyway."

      "You know, with a press of three buttons on this phone I could have them here for you to. I could press it right..." I hit Roguriez on the face and quickly grabbed him by his collar, throwing him against the wall. He swung at me, missing as I pushed him against the other wall. He bit my arms as he smashed into the drywall. Flakes of paint and drywall floated in the air like snow as I pulled him from the wall and hit him in the face three times. A trail of blood ran down the side of his face which was powdered with the drywall dust. I threw him to the ground and he hit his head on the elevator down button, calling the elevator up to the top floor. He kicked for my legs but missed, and I returned his attack with a swift kick to his side. He stumbled up onto his feet and swung for me twice, one of his knuckles coated in blood, but I easily dodged his attacks and lifted an elbow into his face, smashing his nose. He screamed, "Ah! My fucking nose..." He stumbled wearily as the elevator arrived behind me. I turned to see it empty to my great relied. I spun around to Roguriez to see him swing a lamp down on top of my head. I crumpled to the ground instantly, looking up to see a wounded Roguriez, a large stream of blood flowing freely down his face. He kicked me in the side before I could stand up and I loosely rolled down the hallway, stopping at the elevator. I stood up as Roguriez charged at me. I dodged his charge at me and stumbled into the elevator. I quickly managed to grab him by his neck and throw im against the wall again, denting the elevator wall. I dragged him away from the wall quickly though and swung him headfirst into the other side of the elevator. I noticed that his blood was on the wall as he slid down, breathing very hard. I stumbled as he tried to kick me and tripped against the far wall of the elevator, accidentally pressing the 2 button. The elevator doors slid shut as I desperately tried to reach out to stop them. The elevator lurched as it descended a floor. I grabbed his leg and dragged him across the elevator so stop him from kicking me before he stood again, braced against the other side of the elevator. I punched him in the stomach while he regained his balance and hit him in the throat as he keeled over. He fell to the ground choking as the elevator door opened. I saw three other terrorists walking down the hallway, one carrying a pistol.

      "Sir, is something wrong?" they saw me as lightning flashed and fired down the hallway. I jumped to the window and flung myself out. The fall from the second story was cushioned by the bush at the bottom of the wall. I felt something rip into my arm though and leave a cut that spanned near to the entire upper half of my arm near to an inch and dislocating my right shoulder. I quickly stumbled to my feet and ran as fast as I could towards the agricultural region. Luckily the rain shielded my escape and as they fired the rest of their magazine at me they were basically firing blindly. I got lucky.

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      I stepped up to the Martinez house and pulled my shirt off. I noticed some blood stains no it and was reminded of my discomfort and wounds by that and the immense pin involved with trying to move my dislocated shoulder. I balled my fist and wrapped the shirt around it, smashing in the window on the back of their house and climbing in. I stepped into the kitchen while pushing my dislocated shoulder into its socket. I let out a howl of pain as the bone slid back into its socket. I turned around to see Grandma Martinez. She stared at me suspiciously. I guess it wasn't every day that a man popped a dislocated shoulder back into its socket in her house while bleeding from a huge cut in the side and breaking into her home. "Sorry Mrs. Martinez, but I need to borrow something of yours, I may not be able to return it." I said. I pushed the pain into the back of my mind and reaching to the top of her cabinet where she kept her Winchester shotgun.

      "I see. Well, I hope that you're doing the right thing. I am sure that the UNSC has our best interests in mind though."

      "What? How did you know?"

      "I heard your whole conversation the other day. Good luck." She said before turning to go back to sleep. She looked back, "Shotgun shells are in the drawer." I nodded and slid open the drawer grabbing a couple handfuls of rounds and sliding two into the chambers after checking to see how strait they were. Horribly under equipped, wounded, and outnumbered? Mission impossible, literally.

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      I shuffled in the fog to the parking lot where I stumbled around several vans to get to Samuels' Speedstar. I opened the door, which he had conveniently left unlocked, and sat down in the driver's seat, fumbling for the keys to no avail. He had them apparently, and it would decimate my plan to ruin my element of surprise. I pulled a nine volt battery that I had grabbed out of my pocket and pulled the cover off the ignition to Samuels' car. I pulled out the red and black wires out of the ignition and plugged them up to the battery and listened as the car whirred to a start. I just hotwired Samuels' car... I love this job. I quickly reconnected the black and red wires and shifted the car into drive. I drove quietly down the road until I passed by the school and suddenly accelerated, driving towards the hotel as fast as I could. The car, a ton of flying steel hurtled into the glass entryway of the hotel I hear two distinct thumps, the first the car smashing through the window and into the hotel, the second a person flying up into the windshield. The windshield shattered in, but I continued onwards smashing the car through the front desk and into the supports of the back wall, pressing against my seatbelt hard enough that I thought I had cracked my ribs. The airbag deployed into my face and beat my head back to the seat, but within a second it was all over. I jumped out of the car and stumbled wearily. I cocked the shotgun and scanned the room, no movement. Two bodies lie lifeless on the floor, one killed on patrol at the door, another at the desk, which was now out the back of the building. I quickly shuffled behind the car and took aim at the entrance to the bunker, carefully watching both of the elevators. I suddenly the door to the bunker popped open and a man who I could not identify popped a wearily amazed head from the bunker. "What's going on up--" a shotgun bullet ended his statement, and he fell down the ladder into the bunker. I heard him knock one of his friends down the ladder. I quickly ran over to the bunker and dropped a grenade into the hole. An explosion coursed through the hotel lobby and seemed to echo in the basement. It might be larger than we had anticipated. I slid down the ladder quickly and checked the room with my shotgun. It seemed empty, so I pressed against a wall and slid another buckshot into the expended chamber. I looked around and saw what appeared to be another tunnel connected to another room, and three other terrorists charging at me. Upon seeing me they scattered for cover. I leaned around the corner and waited for one to jump from cover. One of the two by the doorframe made the first fatal mistake, leaning around the corner and taking a bullet to the chest, falling backwards and twitching for a while before dying. I ducked around the corner and cocked the shotgun, waiting for a pause in the gunfire before leaning around the corner and shooting another one of the terrorists. I slid two more shots into the chamber of the shotgun and cocked it. I leapt across the hallway and tried to force the man waiting down at the other side behind a computer counsel use up the remaining ammunition in his magazine. Soon enough e pistol fire cease and I leapt around the corner, charging the table. The man looked up, halfway done reloading and frowned before I cracked the butt of the shotgun over his head and ducked behind the table he had used for cover. I checked the two bodies at the door visually for any objects of any use, but both had Berettas, and were completely useless. I leaned to the side of the table and fired a shot down the hallway. The buckshot's shrapnel echoed down the hallway and called two more terrorists from hiding, two of the original four, the only missing ones being Roguriez and Skip.

      I cocked the gun again and leaned around the opposite side of the counsel and shot one of the two terrorists. The survivor opened fire on the computer panel I was hiding behind, and one of the bullets that made it through the table barely nicked my leg, but was more than enough to give me a small pool of my own blood to catch my reflection in. I realized what I was about to take from him, his glistening life blood, and I rolled from behind the table. I slid carefully to the wall and made sure not to make too much noise. I saw him begin to shoot ad the panel again, and as soon as he ran out of ammo I leapt around the corner and rolled half way down the hallway, shooting the man in the chest as I reached the end of the hallway. He flopped onto his back, almost leaping to his death as the shotgun shell hit him. The hallway seemed to end in that room, and I quickly swept it for any survivors, finding none. I slid two shells into the empty chambers of the shotgun and cocked it. Suddenly I heard a yell behind me as someone came down the ladder. I spun around to find that someone had descended from above and was yelling for his friends of an intruder in the bunker. I was too far to hit him with a buckshot, so I shuffled for cover as he fired a dozen rounds at my location. None hit me, but one ricocheted of the cement and almost hit my arm. I peered slowly around the corner sticking only the top of my head around the corner. Instantly, a shower of gunfire greeted me. I fired a shell into the wall diagonally to scare him into cover and leapt around the corner, throwing a grenade around the corner into the first room. I heard his friend drop down the ladder and suddenly scream. His scream ended abruptly with a loud explosion. I quickly charged around the corner braving the chance that they survived to get a foothold into enemy territory. I found both of them to be dead and quickly scrambled up the ladder. After quickly surveying the room for any enemies I climbed onto the main floor. It was important that I recover all of the UNSC items from my room to assure that the UNSC was not held responsible for this. Sparking a war with the Neo Covenant was among the last things Lunar 4 needed. I shuffled to the elevator past the wrecked Speedstar and into the elevator. I noticed the dented wall and bloodstains, and that the rain had stopped. I pulled Samuels' glasses from my pocked and slid them on after pressing a button near the ear. An instant heads up motion detector glared at me in my vision. It would be useful to not step into an ambush on the elevator. I pressed the two button and watched as the doors closed. Suddenly two red dots began to move on the motion detector, and I took aim at the door. As the elevator reached the floor I could hear their talking as they asked each other why the elevator was coming to their floor. I fired through the elevator door as it came to a stop and dropped to the floor to dodge any gunfire they attempted to return. One of the dots dropped to the floor, dead, another strafed to the left into a hotel room. I stood and cocked the shotgun knowing that I was safe so long as he remained in the room. I heard the door outside slam shut. The coward... I quickly and silently hopped over to the other side of the door and stood, waiting for him to leave the room and check the elevator for me. After a minute of waiting he carefully opened the door, and I carefully shot his head. His limp, decapitated body dropped to the ground and I ran for my room. Room 117 seemed further than ever before, and I kicked down the door to reveal the room empty though ransacked and covered with crime scene tape. I ducked under the yellow tape and walked over to the vent. I pulled it open and grabbed the radio fro it's hiding places. As I picked it up the device activated and played back a message that HQ had left for me.

      "Warning, the hotel may be unusually full of terrorists, a cell battle group is moving through the town." I threw the device to the ground and ran from the room. "Also, an update on Niklin, his name may be Justin Scallion.(a future plot tie in or two..)"

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      I stepped into the elevator and pressed the lobby button. As soon as The elevator began to lower itself the motion tracker began to track a dozen of targets. I looked into my pockets. Five shells, counting the ones in the gun and only a single grenade, nothing near to enough take out that many people. The elevator door opened and suddenly gunfire coated the elevator. They had been waiting for me... I pressed my back against the side of the elevator and watched as the wall in the back of the elevator was shredded with gunfire.

      Suddenly I heard the familiar howl of a Pelican. I noticed a huge yellow object on my motion tracker, most likely the Pelican, and nine yellow dots behind it. Suddenly the skylights above the lobby shattered in as nine SWAT team members repelled into the lobby. As glass shards rained into the lobby the nine fell, almost as if they were angels settling into position. I leaned around the corner to see them drop from the bottoms of their black cables and take cover behind some columns. One of them dropped to the ground as he ran, shot in the back, but the Kevlar appeared to save his life, and he was dragged behind a column by another team member. They returned fire on the group and I noticed one of the terrorists drop to the ground, dead, and Samuels' car spring a fuel leak. The fuel and the man's blood pooled in the center of the floor and I fired both of my gunshots into the confusion. I heard a scream from the SWAT side of the room and saw a body fall to it's knees, blood spurting form an open wound on it's chest. One of it's friends yelled and dragged the SWAT member from the lobby out the door and began basic First Aid. I shot another terrorist and loaded the last of my shotgun shells into the shotgun, save for one. I saw my opportunity to exit the elevator as the SWAT team lost another member. Only five men were left fighting as another SWAT policeman dragged the wounded man to the other. As soon as he returned, though, he too was shot. I saw three of the terrorists drop to the ground suddenly, followed by another pair. I fired another shot into the horde, this time to see them return fire. Luckily, I was able to run behind one of the columns, all the SWAT members that were behind it dead. I noticed that the SWAT survivors fired at me. Clearly they had been sent in after hearing gunfire an explosions, not by the UNSC or they would not have fired upon me. I leaned carefully around the column, though, and shot at a terrorist. He fell to the ground dead, but he did so as the last SWAT police officer died. As his dying breath escaped his lips I saw my future end as his did should I decide to stay in the lobby. I grabbed my last grenade from my belt and threw it under Samuels' car. I quickly ran for the door and rolled to the ground as the building behind me exploded, fire and bodies flying from the exploding building. I was cut in the blast, a piece of shrapnel striking my left arm, and realized that I had been shot in the leg in the last battle. The pain was numbed by my fear perhaps, or maybe it had shot me when the building exploded.

      "This is the Melo Precinct," I jumped, hearing a voice behind me before I realized it was only a radio from a dead SWAT team member. I grabbed the radio, "calling all available SWAT members, police engaged in shootout in front of gas station. Repeat, Melo's gas station. Officers pinned down, may be wounded. The suspect appears to have the body of a large child." Time seemed to freeze, Jada. "Calling all units..." I grabbed my shotgun and ran down the street as the fog began to clear. I saw the gas station, and a police car parked in front of it behind a car that I identified as Jada's. I ran towards the gas station as a helicopter approached in the distance.

      "Come out with your hands up!" The Police helicopter circled the gas station firing suppressive gunfire into the Gas Station. The loudspeakers raspy voice bellowed a continual stream of requests for surrender as the gas station would light up with gunfire from the sniper, firing random shots into the air trying to hit the helicopter without exposing herself from her hiding place. I shuffled back into the woods behind the gas station, limping on my wounded leg. I watched from the woods as the helicopter circled around to the front of the building and slowed to speak again. I took this as my opportunity to charge the building and enter through the back door.

      "You there!" the helicopters spotlight shone down in my eyes. Even in daytime it was bright, "Drop your weapon, put your hands on your head!" I was already in the building, chased by a line of gunfire. I stepped into a small room, two shelves with supplies on them and a tiny light. Suddenly the wall in front of me exploded with gunfire, the bounty hunter trying to keep me at bay.

      I ducked back and yelled around the corner, "You don't have to do this!"

      "What other choice do I have?" the bounty hunter yelled back.

      "Surrender! You will get fair treatment!" I shouted. The helicopter passed by and I noticed the spotlight light the room after filling it with flying, tattered paper.

      "There's no surrender, you'll just have me killed for what I know!"

      "Even in that case, at least our child will live!" I shouted back hoping to draw up some self pity from the sniper.

      "Child?" she asked. Suddenly gunfire ripped a jagged line through the gas station, and a desk that was struck by the gunfire near exploded. The sniper returned fire with one of the pistols she carried and then shot at the wall I was hiding behind. I ducked as quickly as I could, but I felt blood welling in my hand on my chest. I heard a sharp scream from outside, no doubt the police officer outside getting shot.

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      The officer lies on the ground in a puddle of his own blood and the gasoline spilling from the nearby gas pump, severely damaged by the bounty hunter. He sits speaking some rhetoric though most of it was brought on solely by the blood loss. He managed to raise a weak arm to his mouth and stick a cigar into it. His weak lips held it, bobbing up and down with his surges of strength. He held up his lighter weakly and managed to strike a flame with the device, raising it to the end of his cigar. He held it for a second and watched as the old and tattered end of the cigar lit. He inhaled, knowing that it was his last cigar. He had saved it for that purpose, his wife had given it to him before she was killed by criminals and told him to quit with it. He was going to stop smoking on that day. He died a moment later.

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      I heard a sudden loud noise in front of the gas station and a blinding light as the gas outside exploded. I was blown back in the blast. I found myself lying on my back on the ground, my arms and face singed and my shirt a tattered and charred remnant of it's former being. I rolled a piece of drywall off my weakly and stood up. I had never done anything so hard in my life ever before. I limped slowly towards the desk in the far corner of the gas station. A bullet from the helicopter struck me in the side as I walked towards the desk and shot my right arm and halfway into my chest. I stopped at the desk and grabbed the Spartans dead, charred and rotting body and threw it over my shoulder. I paced across the room weakly and stumbled to the door in the back of the room. The pain from my wounds finally caught me, and I was amazed at the awe inspiring pain. It hurt everywhere, my face, my legs, my arms, my chest; it was almost as if all I was was pain. Essentially, that was all I was...

      The smoke created by the gasoline fire allowed a smokescreen for Mr. Warner to stumble away from his final mission's final battle. After his mission he retired to a body cast, and allowed Melo to sink into his long field history as the final chapter. Samuels, who was believed to be a terrorist by the police was freed by UNSC personnel disguised as Neo Covenant. The Spartan was properly destroyed with cremation, and was later launched into the sun, never to return. Jada Nichols was killed in the blast and was never identified by police. The terrorists Roguriez and Skip returned to see their hideout in ruins. Both served prison time for their crimes, though thanks to the modern law systems served almost 2 months, about the same time that their cellmates got for shoplifting.

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      "Smoke and rubble descends in the small town of Melo yesterday, a series of brutal gunfights with police leaving over 40 dead in only one day. The mayor spoke yesterday about this tragedy and blames the Neo Covenant for the deaths of the 40 people, most of which who have not been named. We have this footage from News Pelican number 5. You can view the destruction to the Gas Station in Melo after the terrorists set blaze to the station," the newscaster said.

      I twitched with excitement in my body cast, "I was there!" I muttered, my speech impaired by the jaw strap of the body cast.

      "This is another set of footage from the Bucky's hotel where over 25 Terrorists were believed to beat the time of the explosion believed to be attributed to a leaky gas line,"

      I twitched with excitement again. "I was there! I was there!"

      "The government isn't speaking, at this time, as to why there was so much collateral damage created by the Neo Covenant but have not spoken to the press at this time. Ten officers lost their lives that day, and well over twenty five terrorists. The suspects in this crime,"

      "Not me!"

      "Have not been named at this time," I sighed, "This is Lucy Gale, back to you."

      The news continued as I felt a sudden itch on my back and heard footsteps behind me. "Nurse? Could you scratch my back:?" I heard a pause, too long of one, "Nurse?"

      "I'm coming." I recognized that voice.

      "Nurse, you aren't scratching my back."

      "Yeah, we'll talk about that..." I recognized that voice. I felt a sharp pain in my back, "After we talk about my damn car!"

      I screamed frantically pressing the call button as Samuels threw a bill in my face. I guess revenge is sweet...

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