"It's so nice to see you again, Gurn, my boy." Gurn could barely disguise his disgust for the corpulent greasy man, but he smiled politely anyway and examined his surroundings. The back-room of the pub was dim, with curtains covering the two slim windows. The room was lit by oil lamps shedding their dirty orange light.

When he had asked to see Sonasoda, the barman had claimed ignorance, until Gurn said he had an appointment and asked what the barman thought would happen to him and his business for making the man wait for him? After that he'd been lead through the pub to a room upstairs, where the nervous bar keeper had knocked on the door and announced that there was a gentleman to see Mr Sonasoda.

Now Gurn stood here, hating everything about the place, and smiling politely while the fat man in front of him made small talk as though they were old pals.

"So, what brings you back to this neighbourhood?" Sonasoda asked. Gurn eyed the goons sat in overstuffed armchairs either side of him. They were both big, lean men, probably both armed to the teeth as well.

"The organization," he said simply. Sonasoda, sat on a huge sofa in front of Gurn, sucked at a hookah pipe, blowing smoke rings out at the two semi-naked girls that sat next to him. Sonasoda raised an eyebrow at Gurn and, sitting forward, with a flick of his wrist, dismissed the two girls. They left in a hurry.

"Ah yes. I assume you got my various messages then. My, that Brianna girl certainly does her job well."

"What's the job?"

"My, you've gotten very out-spoken, and oh so eager. I like that. Very well then." Sonasoda gestured to one of his goons, who stood and vanished into the dark of the room. He soon returned with a folder and handed it to Gurn.

"Simply put," Sonasoda said, "The Organisation would like you to... appropriate a painting for us. All the details are in that folder. We appreciate that this is a particularly difficult assignment, and so you have two months to return the painting to me here. Do you understand?" Gurn held the folder and deliberately didn't take a look at it's contents.

"I understand," he said. "By your leave?" Sonasoda flicked a hand at him. Gurn turned without another look, and headed out the door. Once downstairs he shook himself as if trying to rid himself of some kind of physical manifestation of what he felt from being in that room. All he wanted now was to be away from this place and back on the Narin. He hurried out of the pub and down the street towards the train terminal, trying not to pay any attention to the startled or suspicious looks of other people.

Once on the train and heading back to Devocha, Gurn felt better. He decided to look at the file. Flicking through the pages, there wasn't much, but what was there, was daunting enough on it's own.

The painting it's self was unremarkable – it was a simple portrait, digitally rendered, of some children and a woman, sat under a tree by a stream in the country-side. The daunting part was where it was being held. It was in the home of one of MOW's top scientists on Earth. Gurn knew that the only place on Earth Freelancers where allowed was Atlantis, the spaceport MOW had build in the middle of the pacific ocean. Even then, MOW still ran background checks on every freelancer who requested permission. And then, to get onto land, you had to have been given permission by someone in MOW. It was rumoured that even on land, MOW's security procedures where so tight even a fly couldn't gain access to an area with out first having extensive background checks, searched for weapons, needing special ID and an authorization from the overseer of where it had just come from.

Gurn gently head butted the chair in front of him. He was screwed. Completely and utterly screwed. There was no way he could pull this off. He'd be caught and sent to join his Dad before he'd even got to land, let alone this scientist's house. Why they'd given him this task he had no idea. Unless... Unless some how they knew about Asuka. For some reason this sent his mind into almost uncontrollable panic. But he was sure that there wasn't any other way he'd be able to do this unless she was on board. Maybe he could ask her to do the tasks without actually telling her anything about why? No, that wouldn't work. She'd just get curious and try and find out by asking her 'contacts'. Sh*t! He thought, what if she's done that already? That way it would be easier to ask for her help, but still.

Guh. He head butted the chair back again. He was so screwed.

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