A small scanner flopped out from a hidden pane built into the console and Jeremy struggled for his wallet. A mundane task made a struggle as adrenaline spoiled his hands, and sound of armored glass buckling behind him reminded him of his impending doom. The corners of the piece of leather caught on the sides of the blue jean’s pocket, which forced him to rip the pants material with brute strength to free it.

 

The card was simpler, the white piece of plastic sticking slightly out of the worn, black leather. He frantically waved the card in front of the scanner, looked back to the bloodied nuzzle, and a second the screen turned green and a loud beep told him he was safe. The lock unlatched with a click, and he quickly threw himself into the next room into the next room. The door slammed behind him and locked again, and Jeremy let out a long sigh from the ground, his muscles relaxing once it seemed safe.

 

He was getting really tired of being chased around like an unwelcome pest.

 

At the very least he had confirmed his suspicions: There are Mystics out here, or at least one. One that has developed some power in their absence, at that. The danger of a Mystic was not just their increased strength, speed, and toughness. As they grew, mutations in their unstable bodies resulted in deadly abilities. It was why they needed to kill them as soon as they could: It was one thing to deal with some large falcon with a single minded murderous intent, but an older one could be breathing toxic gas or have feathers as sharp and strong as steel.

 

He needed to report this as soon as he had hard evidence. How the unchecked growth in the forest’s ecosystem played into it, he still wasn’t sure. He had nothing to go on but the feeling of his hairs sticking on end and a crushing hand on his heart. Only time and searching would tell.

 

He pushed himself off the floor and looked around the inside of the bunker’s command center. About as big as the barracks back at the home station, the main room was loaded with advanced equipment to make any tech hobbyist squeal in delight. A real-time map of miles around over took the south wall, and sensors of all kinds searched for abnormality and read the information out. The floor was arranged in a semi-circle of desks and consoles, which allowed for a team of humans to coordinate fire teams and support units.  All of which bent around a raised command deck where a discerning and perceptive officer could see everything with a turn of the head.

 

It was overkill for the hunter crops that used for mostly as a rest stop, Jeremy thought. Apparently, this had originally been meant to be a fortress for the original settlers who colonized the planet - that is, until they found a cavern on the other side, and concern was raised about the structural integrity of the stone around it. While everything has been updated since, the maze of tunnels underneath the bunker was left as a reminder of those older days.

 

The original settlers abandoned it, but it was handed over to be used by the various hunter organizations in a shared fashion. It made it a neutral ground for the competing groups, but that also made it as much a place for rivialies to play out and grudges to form. Jeremy certainly had a desire to stuff High Mark Inc.’s throats with their own garbage the next time they decide to throw a party here, and leave them to clean up the aftermath.

 

“Has the system logged my arrival yet?” Jeremy spoke into his comms as he moved over to the vehicle status station, a flick of a switch causing it to whirl to life. The screens flashing on as each module counted and calibrated their respective drone, but he could see in the security feed that each one was still left in its rack. That was at least some good news.

 

There was no answer from the AI, and the soldier realized he might have made an enemy of his biggest ally out here. How much damage she could do was beyond him, since she would be punished more severely if she tried to retaliate. On the other hand, the electronic gardener had access to the base’s infrastructure, super human processing, a sadistic, creative streak a mile long, and a lot of time on her hands. He didn’t want to smooth it over with her, but after nearly getting killed a second time his stubbornness was shaken.

 

He gave an annoyed grunt as he moved onto the next set of check-ups, tapping into the bunker’s security network. The front door was clear, the rock scrapped and muddied by the paw-prints of the monster outside. Jeremy flipped through the cameras, and occasionally caught sight of a lucid tail or a wisp of smoke. It seems it didn’t stay in the front room for long.

 

Jeremy smirked. Once he got the heavier equipment up and running, he will get to see that abomination scraped off the wall.

 

Taking a seat as the system whirled through checks, and left with no one else to talk to, Jeremy pulled out his phone. It was a neat piece of equipment, a single piece of rectangular metal with its structure atomically arranged like the individual components of something built from chips and circuit boards. It was an amazing piece of technology, and infinitely less likely to be broken by dropping it.

 

He called the one person he could really trust, held the phone to his ears and listened in wait.

 

“Friend Jeremy!” A friendly voice cried out from the other side of the comms, drowning out the surroundings and caused Jeremy to flinch. A large smile spread across his face as he heard his squad-mate’s extreme enthusiasm, a calm over him like watching the morning sun rise. “Cecil missed you, it seemed like friend Jeremy just up and disappeared. Cecil though we were going drinking after shift.”

 

“Hey, Cecil,” Jeremy answered back, he sank into the control seat as he looked out to the large screen for the drone’s paths. Cecil had his quirks, his manner of speaking just the tip of the iceberg. Jeremy had seen him break bulkheads with his fists by accident, and he was the one man on the planet who wanted to fight Mystics with a melee weapon. He was nothing to mess with. “I’ve been… out.”

 

“Out?” Cecil asks, his enthusiasm blunted slightly. “Out as in out of base, or out as in Jeremy’s trying to cover for something?” The man may have been able to hit like a freighter, but he was about as subtle as one.

 

“Out,” Jeremy answered sternly, and hoped that gave Cecil enough of a clue to not push it. “Has Grimsdale been asking about me?” There’s a pause after that, the only sound a pair of steel-toed boots ripping strands from the carpet. Jeremy waited as he flipped through the security cameras, the lupine seemingly gone, before he heard some muffled conversation on the other end.

 

The quiet left Jeremy in unease, and waited to see if his trust was rightly placed.