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Shiloh might not have possessed certain genius qualities but being put on the job changed everything, Shiloh going from haphazard airhead to hound with a scent in a matter of seconds. That was how he stood on the train next to Lucky, checking out their surroundings as he leaned against his handhold. After all, they were in Circle territory now, and he hadn’t yet forgotten the feeling of being watched from the last time he’d made this trip.

The feeling was no different this time, but the one doing the watching was far more readily apparent this time as she made her way down the train towards them, newspaper in hand. Like Lucky, the boots caught his eye first, not because they had first belonged to Sam, that thought came after, but because they were genuine Prada and anyone who was anyone knew an exquisitely expensive pair of boots like that when they saw them. It wasn’t until he saw the face of said boot-wearer that he made the connection, that his mind starting running to awful conclusions.

Traitor.

She was one of them, and someone who was supposed to be dead, someone who cared not for the greater good, which Shiloh had always assumed was a lie of a tagline, a front for their organization to rope in idiots and cannon fodder – he turned to Lucky.

“What?” he said, chancing looking away while Charlotte had gone back to her paper. Her smile unnerved him, he hadn’t forgotten her, hadn’t forgotten what she was, a courier, a lackey, not afraid to destroy obstacles. And suddenly he was very aware that he was an obstacle, stuck on a train with at least two couriers. Luckily Lucky, as Shiloh read the message, seemed to only want to escape and Shiloh considered the urgency of his message, giving him a look that questioned if Lucky had considered the logic of getting off of a moving train.

“Impossible,” he laughed at the message, keeping up appearances. There was of course, the fact that it was impossible but there was also the fact that the cogs in Shiloh’s brain had already started turning, and that he was curious, and that Charlotte was a far better information lifeline than an empty apartment.

He straightened, and gave a winning smile in her direction.

“Excuse me, miss, might I borrow your paper?”

“Must be a pretty interesting story-“ he started, taking a step towards her and the paper but any further thought was cut off as a truly interesting story had stepped on the train, one where interesting could always be replaced with terrifying or distressing. Of all people that they might encounter on their journey, their current boss was not one of them. Yet for all intensive purposes, he did not acknowledge them, didn’t offer them even a glare and the lack of burning hatred staring him in the face was peculiar, though not as peculiar as the feeling he got from the Death lead’s carry-on.

Charlotte passed him her paper and it scrunched in his hand as the train threw itself to a stop, not prepared for the suddenness of it as his hand gripped tightly onto the nearest pole. Once he gathered his balance, he not so neatly refolded the paper and tucked it beneath his arm. He assumed that the paper had just been a front, a facilitator for a slow reveal and he’d only asked about as a means of engaging, of setting things in motion. But even if there had been something interesting in it, there was certainly no time now to read it and Shiloh quickly took his seat, next to the Death lead and his unsettling box.

He assumed Lucky would follow.

"Lucky," Charlotte smiled as he sat down, leaning uncomfortably close to him, "it's nice to see you again. I guess Sam made a bet on you and lost. Oh well, more for me."

She turned her attention back to the table, rather flippantly, "There are two shards-"

"-I can see that." The Death lead finished impatiently.

- "And it seems we both want both. Nothing ventured nothing gained after all. Now, shall we talk?"

Caelius remained silent. It was obvious he didn't actually think anyone else should be talking though.

"Let's begin with what we both do. Information." Charlotte took the newspaper out again, pulling it to the second page. The headline read 'CEO Mary Saunders Starts a New Empire'. "I'm sure you are familiar with threats, but unfortunately for you, that is old news. Information needs to be moved, it needs to be shared. Information creates a network, one accessed anywhere at any time, one that can be bought, sold, traded, one that creates the future. You, and what you represent as Hunters have become obsolete. The truth that you've hidden for so long is that everyone can become a Hunter. Special names are no longer needed."

"What you are saying is that you have taken the information from us, and distributed it for your personal gain." The Death lead didn't seem impressed.

"Saved it," Charlotte corrected. "You're right about one thing. It is quite personal, and the best and most efficient way to phase out something not needed. If Hunters have been so intent on saving people, why do they forget what people need the most?"

Caelius remained silent.

"People need a way to protect themselves. A way to save themselves, this Fear that cripples them, the apocalypse claims casualties, they didn't need some twisted form of heroes, they needed themselves, to save each other."

"If are so keen on equal sharing, why are you still so focused on the concept of Hunters."

"They," she corrected, "not me. I have other ideas. I want things too material things. You could have it too. You could own a whole country and not just an island, you could create Fear in one hand and destroy it in the other and yet you sit there and let things rot. Nothing will change-"

-"Everything will eventually change-"

-"You aren't saving anyone"-

- "Saving means nothing-"

-"Change is imminent-"

- "Hunters destroy themselves and you are making everyone a Hunter."

Charlotte paused. "Same old, same old. Boring. I didn't think talking it out would work anyway." She leaned back into the seat in a huff. "How about this, I'll give you the fragment if you beat me in a game. A strategy game. Sam used to beat me all the time, I'm sure you at least could do better than her."

She waited for a response, got none, and simply continued, unphased. "Here's how it works. There are thirteen explosives that we have planted at separate occasions on Deus Ex and-"

-"Twenty-six-"

-"Twenty-eight, actually," she replied rather glibly. "Anyway, if you can locate them all in five questions, you and anyone who considers themselves a Hunter and not a well, human, then I'll give you the fragment fair and square." She pulled out from one of the pages of the newspaper a map and laid it on the table facing her.

"Now some rules. There are four different types of explosive devices. Timed ones, failsafe ones, little ones that Hunters were so easily cajoled into placing in security and paranoia. You can only ask one question at a time. I will respond. If you make a mistake, then game over and I win."

"And."

"And that's it," she shrugged, "I'm afraid that's all I'll bargain for. If I win, well, a negotiation is a negotiation."

It seemed like Caelius was thinking twice on the thought of negotiations and how they really went, but paused just enough. "We will play for the fragment and a piece of information. If you value as you said, distribution this much, then I am sure you are aware of what is not being distributed. Your defectors are looking for a scapegoat and I will give them the correct one, and in return you will give me a name. Your real name."

Charlotte laughed. "That's it? What are you going to write my name in a notebook and hope I die from a heart attack?"

Caelius didn't get it. He expressed it in his flat expression.

"Sure honey," she was all smiles, "let's play for a name. You have five questions."

"A1, M1, A13, M13, L3, B7."

"Not bad, continue."

"Every single entrance labeled on the map."

"Pretty good, and?"

"The center of the dormitories and main hallway."

"A letter and number please or it's invalid."

"G2. L6. K1, C4, G4, K6, A7, C7, J7, M7, D9, J10, L10. G13, E3. "

"Okay." That leaves five questions and seven more to detect. Now, time out for a second. I did say, you and anyone who considers themselves a Hunter and I believe there are two sitting right here right now." She smiled. "Those are the rules and you do want my name right? So, Lucky, Shiloh. You have five questions and then you each get a guess. You know how the rules go, make a wrong guess, and it's game over."

The look Caelius was giving them suggested it was game over if they ******** up either way.

"I, uh- eh-" Lucky tried his best not to flinch, but he still felt himself unconsciously attempt to put a tiny bit of distance between himself and the woman beside him. "I do not understand-

Not that he was going to get a chance to ask what she meant. He took an extra moment to watch Charlotte in his peripheral before focusing on the exchange between her and the death lead. An exchange that was revealing, in bits and pieces, that there was a bigger game, and a much less sympathetic set of players guiding the pieces. He and Shiloh were little more than pawns.

Or something much, much smaller, given the scale of what they were dealing with.

But in the heat of the moment, he could not do more than play observer. The information snapped together in his head, but the bigger picture could not yet dawn on him with so much else competing for his attention. Just because he was a hunter didn't mean he didn't see the necessity of arming people against the supernatural dangers that preyed on them every day. But it was a curse, and the four of them sitting here right now proved that being a hunter didn't make a person better - it made them worse. His eyes flickered between them, and the implications of what their victory would lead to.

That was, until she pulled out the map.

It was okay at first - relatively, anyway. Barring the fact that there was a somewhat disconcertingly high number of bombs that had been planted, for once ever it was something of a relief that Caelius had a terrifying omniscient knowledge of everything that happened. This wasn't exactly a challenge for him. He didn't even need to ask any-

Oh. Oh no.

This was not something he wanted to participate in. In fact, this was the exact opposite sort of thing he wanted to involve himself in right now. He nearly balled his hand into a fist below the table, but the hole hadn't quite healed enough to allow him to do so. God damn it. He reached out, tentatively, toward the silent observer that shared a place in his head. The quiet between them since they had agreed to disagree had gone from expected to disconcerting - and continued even as he all but begged for her help now. He had betrayed her as much as anyone else, possibly worse; he would have to pay for the choices he made.

If Caelius couldn't, and Shiloh wouldn't, that left him. Lucky did not look happy to have this much attention on him right now, and shrank back a little bit more. A question. Something, anything, to narrow this down. Guessing blindly was merely a guarantee of ending up like Clerise.

"Uh. H-how - uh -" He reached with a shaking hand to smooth out a corner of the map that was already quite smooth. He could feel Caelius's eyes boring into his skull. He let his eyes wander over the grid one more time. He couldn't see it. No pattern. Nothing that was more likely to be targeted than anything else. Caelius had already seen to that - the doors and the corners. If there were still seven more left to find they were hidden in places he really didn't want to know about.

He drew the words out slowly, like a delicate filament; too quickly and it - along with his resolve- would snap, and he would have nothing. "In vhich buildings... and structures... on this map... are the last seven bombs located?"

Well, that was two down at least. It left five more, and another question, both of which Shiloh had no idea how to approach. It didn’t help that the Death lead was breathing down both their necks, or that Lucky had already struck out once, Lucky who Shiloh assumed was vastly more intelligent than he was. But even that wasn’t enough it seemed, and Shiloh swallowed, leaning over the map as if studying it from a closer angle might help.

He had never been good with these sorts of puzzles, he would have been better off sent out to actually find the bombs on the island than trying to figure out their location on a map. Scavenger hunts were easy, it would have been like hide and seek and, as was usual in Deus, the game wager was life or death. He looked back at the map, staring at it and trying to ignore the unhappy looking lead to his left. He glanced at Charlotte, but she was giving them no clues, only questions and those questions were giving Shiloh a headache. Most of the bombs had already been found, and he tried to mentally check them off, looking for areas of concentration. That was a smart way to go about it, right?

He bit back a sigh. He had no idea if it was right or wrong. But it seemed most of the buildings had been marked already, all except one and a couple of smaller outbuildings. She had said that only some of the buildings had bombs, but it seemed strange that an area would be left relatively empty. It was either that, or directly in the center but that building had already been hit several times, maybe the center wasn’t necessary.

Shiloh didn’t understand why this whole thing was necessary. If Caelius already knew about the bombs, why didn’t they just grab both Charlotte and the shard and high tail it out of the train? He finally gave up on thinking, deciding to go with what he had, which he felt was a whole lot of nothing, but he pointed to the map anyway, at C11 if Charlotte wanted to get specific, and looked up at her.

“Is there a bomb here?”

If possible, she looked a little disappointed at Shiloh's simple question, the thrill of the game transparent for a second. "Not very bright are they?" She laughed to settle into the atmosphere again, to try and get a rile out of them and ultimately make them feel vulnerable.

"Time's ticking, figurative time that is." Charlotte was all smiles. "That's how the game works, just a small portion in front of you, the rest in the eyes of the player."

"I have a question," the Death lead suddenly interrupted, "I am sure asking questions is not against your rules as I will not be taking my turn yet."

"Go on," she answered, "there are just three questions left."

"Of the five remaining, how many are inside an actual building."

"Three, exactly."

"Of the two remaining, how many actually exist on Deus Ex."

"It's a game, Caelius, that's the point isn't it? You said you knew of twenty-six yourself, so that still leaves three to guess and two to gamble. Rules are rules, play the game, guess all the bombs, and you get the fragment and a name. I have been nothing but diplomatic, but a game is a game. Games have rules to be fair after all." She turned to Lucky and Shiloh. "Well that leaves one more question for you two."

Lucky didn't look like he was faring any better between Charlotte's mocking laughter and Caelius's judging stares. Intelligence was about all his self-worth was comprised of, and now he really felt like an idiot. And on top of all that, it was rigged? Or at least, that's what Caelius seemed to be indicating with his questions.

Lucky glanced at Shiloh, but the 'final question' had already been pawned off on him judging by Shiloh's expression. He frowned right back, then at the map. Disparate points, no patterns. Possibly - no, likely - a trap.

What were they missing?

What was Caelius going to do if they couldn't figure it out?

"You... ah, you only described three kinds of explosive," he observed, with the sort of nervous inflection that almost made it sound like a question and not a statement. He looked conflicted, but gradually persevered toward the real question. "Vhat is the fourth kind?"