• Adrius sat in his private quarters on the train headed to Evora, seated in luxury, reading papers and books on all manner of physical and mental studies. It was about an hour after sunrise had woken him up. The papers were sprawled out on the fold out bed as he sat cross legged. He had the quarters to himself but it could seat two. The seats on both sides were folded out to form one bed while the table was folded against the side under the window. It was all very efficient in it's management of space while not sacrificing comfort.
    The train was attacked the previous day and was successfully defended. Everybody was ordered to their quarters and the train was locked down while mercenary guards defended them. He was stoic about the entire situation; they were schooled fighters defending the train after all. Adrius didn't want to lift a finger, this was one of the rare chances he had to be truly lazy.
    Adrius cleaned up his books and papers and folded the bed back into two opposing seats. He started doing stretches on the floor of his quarters. When he was finished he decided to visit the dining car. Adrius would meet his contact in Evora where she would hopefully lead him to his targets.
    Adrius got properly dressed; trousers, collared shirt, formal vest and coat. He stepped out into the hallway and headed to the dining car. As he walked out of the passenger car he saw two of the guards on the roof talking. They looked like they were barely twenty; they were relaxing and talking casual. He continued into the dining car and sat at the bar on the other end of the dining car. There was an older couple sitting at one of the tables near the enterance. He ordered grits, toast and a glass of Grapefruit juice.
    “The bacon is fresh if you want any.” the bartender said.
    “Please.” Adrius said. The food was included in his ticket, there was no reason not to.
    The bartender walked out of view to the kitchen area behind the bar. In a short amount of time, the bartender returned with the plate of food and a glass of Grapefruit juice.
    “Would you like oil or butter?” The bartender asked.
    “Oil, and pepper please.” Adrius answered. The toast was from the same bread they served last night. It was perfect for dipping in olive oil.
    --
    Hector and Delilah were on the roof of the dining car talking about where they have been. They had been up before sunset and went up to the roof not to disturb anybody. They were getting close to the town. As they talked, they discovered that they had fought on opposite sides of the same battles before.
    “The battle of Alesia was an awful mess.” Hector said.
    As they talked they saw an older man in his thirties leave the last passenger car and enter the dining car.
    “It was so boring during the beginning. I got into so many fights with the soldiers because we had nothing better to do.” Delilah said “What am I supposed to do during a sniper battle?”
    “Oh I had plenty to do.” Hector said “Trapped in a town without any outside supply source. I was one of the guys escorting groups looking for food and water or a way to get a messenger out.”
    The city of Alesia sat on a low hill surrounded by forest. After the city was surrounded, patrols prevented anybody trying to escape for help or food and water. He could counter any patrols but eventually they were replaced with sniper teams. For days, Hector never knew where the next bullet would come from. Leadership got desperate on both sides and the forest degenerated into guerrilla warfare. The attackers plan was to minimize casualties and starve the city out with minimal casualties from patrol ambushes. The leadership involved in attacking the city lost track of their plans which resulted in the savage fighting. Eventually the city was taken at a high cost in lives and resources.
    “Then they started looting.” Hector said “Mutual respect kept me relatively safe from the other schooled fighters taking advantage of the chaos like a common soldier. I didn't know anybody personally on either side so I wasn't expecting a duel of any kind. And it's not particularly scary to be rushed by an angry mob of conscripts but it sure flips that berserker switch pretty quick.”
    “I didn't think you gun bunnies had a berserker switch.” Delilah teased.
    “That's because it takes a cool head to do more than swinging sticks around.” Hector countered.
    “So what happened?” Delilah pressed.
    “I fixed my bayonet and speared and beat everyone to death that came near me.”
    “Ha! What if I had found you. We both take some skill from the spear fighters. I went looking for a duel. Found one. Won. It happened to be a halberd fighter.”
    “Did you shovel rocks at him?”
    “Did you like that? No nothing as clumsy would work against this one.” Delilah answered. “I had other tricks at hand but it was mostly skill against skill. Besides, it damages my sword.”
    “What happened?” Hector pressed.
    “I managed to stab him in the shoulder and got an artery. Eventually, he stopped.” Delilah answered, “The fight was over and went about my business rounding up prisoners for commission.”
    “I turned myself into the prisoner carts and closed my contract. The gave me food, water and half pay, which they weren't obligated to do. So that was nice.”
    “I continued the campaign to it's end.” Delilah said
    “Yeah I had to leave that and look for better work.” Hector said.
    “Your luck is terrible.” Delilah joked “You are lucky you ran into me, though.”
    “Fortune must favor you. Dancing around a hail of bullets.” Hector opened his rifle case and pulled a long glass wizard's pipe. He pulled out a small jar from his coat pocket, shook it and started pouring the contents into the bowl of the pipe. He handed a steel flip top lighter and the pipe to Delilah. “I hope things go better this time; I like these small scale jobs better than war campaigns. Especially being able to relax between work in a civilized setting.”
    “A hot bath and a giant bed are all that are missing from this train.” Delilah lit the pipe and drew a lungful of smoke, passing it back to Hector. She continued speaking “If they have a bath house, we should get a hookah and a bottle of something.”
    “I like that idea.” Hector said. “One large tub or two small ones?”
    “We'll see.” Delilah said coyly.
    --
    Joseph was in his bunk in a room that was mercifully dark at all times. He had slept through sunrise because of it. The bunks were small and shelf like in columns with three levels to maximize space. They were recessed in the wall with curtains so not even the dim red light could get into the bunk. It was dark, quiet and cozy. Although some would complain that it was claustrophobic, Joseph had never slept better.
    When Joseph woke up, he wasn't sure if he was actually awake or not. He wasn't sure if his eyes were open or not. He had tuned out the noise of the train, so he couldn't hear; he had no stimuli to reference himself to the real world. He decided that he would enjoy it until he fell completely asleep or until somebody woke him up.
    “Hey.” Judeu said on the other side of the curtain. “We're getting closer to the town, about an hour away.”
    "Yeah." Joseph acknowledged He had slept through breakfast and it had been hours since he first woke up. To him it felt like a few minutes; he didn't realize he fell back to sleep. He laid there for a few more minutes and decided to get up.
    Joseph rolled out of his bunk forgetting that his was on the top row of bunks. His feet fell and started looking for the floor too early. He stumbled forward when he landed.
    The room had a dull red tint from the lights that he relied on to get him to his locker near the foot of his bunk. It was long and rectangular; made to fit in the spaces between bunks and other lockers. His bunk had a mattress pan that could be raised to reveal another four inch pan for folded clothes.
    Joseph packed his clothes, supplies and blanket and set them on his bunk. After getting dressed in simple work clothes, he stepped out the front of the crew car into blinding light. When his eyes adjusted he could see sparse buildings and the beginnings of road networks and power lines. He climbed to the roof and decided to avoid the traffic inside and just jumped from car to car.
    As he made his way to the guard car in the rear, he saw hoards of workers digging a huge trench that soon intersected with the Via Prime and the Midland Railway. As the train got closer to the town, the Via Prime became a modern, paved road.
    As Joseph hopped onto the guard car, he greeted Hector, Delilah and Judeu.
    “What are they digging?” Joseph asked.
    “It's a canal.” Judeu said. “How many of you did manual labor at your school?”
    The other three answered yes. It was common for a school to use manual labor as part of physical training, discipline and sometimes punishment. Often the labor involved maintenance of the school but sometimes like in Judeu's case, the students would be used to help in public building projects.
    “We were working on something similar on the west side of the mountains to connect the rivers of the Vespa Delta.” Judeu said, he spoke to Joseph “Oh yeah, Gracchus is up front getting your paperwork ready.”
    “That and I've never seen him smoke.” Hector said.
    “More for me.” Delilah said grabbing a long glass pipe from Hector's hand.
    “I am going to find a place that sells steak by the pound and rum by the glass.” Judeu said “I got to find a box of cigars first. Who wants to join me?”
    “If there's time.” Hector said.
    “I will.” Joseph said “After I take care of my contract.”
    --
    As the train got closer to it's arrival point, people started to get anxious to be off the train. Adrius knew there was only one way off the train; when they were let off. He saw no logical reason to wait at the doors with those who were acting instinctively impatient. They behaved like cattle.
    Adrius was one of the last people off the train when he leisurely strolled off to his first contact. He wanted to talk to the people who made these reports of 'werewolves.' There were rumors of actual werewolves attacking train employees, city workers and people seeking to develop the town into a community.
    Adrius walked into a navigation supply store and walked to where he assumed the back office would be. He knocked on a door that read “Employees Only” and said “I'm here to solve your werewolf problem.”
    The door unlocked and opened, revealing a short stairway. Adrius followed it down into a room a few feet lower than the shop.
    “My name's Davin. This is Janice” a man said “We've been trying to fight their war against us but we have no idea who they are or what their aims are.”
    “We're trying to find a pattern to the attacks but so far we have nothing absolute.” the injured woman, Janice said.
    “Have you fought them?” Adrius asked.
    “It came out of the shadows and tried to get me by surprise.” Janice said “I have never seen something so big move so fast. It felt like I got hit in the chest with a club when it landed a blow. Lots of fast swinging strikes. Not all of them were blunt force.” She lifted her shirt to reveal a stomach lined with slash marks and what looked like a stab wound. She then raised her left arm to reveal a bandaged arm with blood soaking through. “The claws are poisoned or infected. I was in a fever for days. I put a fighting spike in its thigh and shot it in the chest with a submachine gun. I kept it in short burst, tried open the distance between us and we both ran away.”
    “The werewolf was back on the streets the next night while she was dying on a table in a safe house. They don't know she's alive; we hope.” Davin said. “There are a few of us organized against them but we don't know who to fight until we get attacked.”
    “It's a costly way to learn.” Adrius said “Is there more than one attacker?”
    “We don't know. We think there is only one big one. Other attacks involve multiple smaller people.” Davin said.
    “We've dealt with terrorists and hate groups before but these attacks are on a scale we haven't seen before. We suspected a crime boss who was trying to buy or bully the other small shops out of business.” Janice said “They turned him into a blood eagle: pulled his lungs out through his back and nailed him to the wall in his home.”
    “The higher profile you are, the more horrifying your death will be. That's the only solid pattern we see so far.” Davin said “The town is only getting bigger because of development projects that are going on in the surrounding areas. This is only going to escalate if we don't fix it soon.”
    Adrius thought about this. He carried the status of the Jaguar. The status was given based on the balance of speed and power in his fighting style.
    The descriptions of the large attacker could mean it was a Wolf. He was sent to handle the contract in the event that it was a fighter from the Midian province. They weren't a secretive people but they did keep an eye out for their people making a bad name for them like this Werewolf. It was Adrius' current job to remove this negative influence.