Now, you couldn't turn your back for an hour on me without expecting me to do one of two things, play Fallout 4, or play Minecraft. Minecraft!? All the haters say, that game is stupid. Well fuck you sir. You should know that Deadpool plays Minecraft, so shut up. Anyway, back on track, I spent the rest of that afternoon playing Minecraft and listening to Sargon Of Akkad, brushing up on the protests at the various universities so I would have somewhat of a base idea on how likely we were to be attacked by rabid feminazi's. Hours upon hours of video basically confirmed the one thing I already knew, the protests were worsening by the day. I made sure to learn a little bit more about the incident at Mizzou University in Missouri where a man with a camera had been mobbed and denied his 1st amendment right by a few of the protesters. The incident pretty much went like this, the protesters didn't want him recording their bullshit protests, so they tossed him out. I didn't think they would be much of a problem as long as I stayed on the mission objective, but hell, you never know. Before call time that evening, Morningstar gave me a rundown on what two of Carlos' men, who were enrolled in the San Fran university, had seen that day. The protesters had evidently set up a tent city on the front lawn of the school and were chasing off students who weren't black, because that's not racist at all right? I also learned that they were becoming increasingly hostile to anyone with a camera, journalists as well as anyone wearing a uniform or driving a government marked vehicle. The Civic in of itself fixed the marked vehicle issue, street clothes fixed the uniform issue, even though technically we only wore our uniforms in the field. The only thing I could see being a problem were our hologram emitters. They were perfect to stick in a pack or have in the car, but they were a little too big to take into the collage with us. To solve this problem, Morningstar had four, cell phone sized emitters made that were good for five hours, more than enough to get in and out of the university.

That morning, I was up well before six. I quickly got dressed, grabbed my AR and went to the hanger. I slipped in a quietly as I could and unlocked the Civic. I stuck my rifle in the trunk before popping the hood. Step by step, I went through and freshened all my car's running fluids, wipers, radiator, antifreeze, water, oil, brake fluid, transmission fluid. Fresh alcohol and E-85 also found it's way into the gas tank. After replacing the brake pads and brake fluid, I began the process of cleaning the carpets, once that was done I buffed out the headlights and washed the outside of the car. All in all, I was done at 8, about fifteen minutes before call time. I vacated the hangar and went to the mess hall, where I found Morningstar making pancakes, like he usually did on the weekends.

"Morning Ace", he said, "your up early."

"Yes sir", I yawned as I sat down, "used the trip as an excuse to freshen the Civic. Replaced the fluids, brake pads, buffed the headlights and washed it."

"How long did that take?", he asked pulling a few cakes off the grill pan.

"Bout two hours", I yawned again.

"Damn", Morningstar said, 'wanted an early start I guess."

"Yep", I said.

Soon after the call to wake up went out, everyone was gathered in the mess hall.

"Your up early", Nina said sitting beside me, "I take you've already played Fallout 4?"

"Not really", I said leaning on her, "I was working on the Civic, cleaning it up and freshening all the fluids."

"It's more fresh", Leanna smiled.

I smiled back, "you could say that."

"So when are we leaving?", Riley asked.

"Soon as you guys are done", I said, "I'm just gonna stop by the first pizza place I find that's open and grab something."

"You'll share right?", Arnett asked.

"No promises", I said.

It took the three of them about 20 minutes to eat. During that time, I was pretty much asleep at the table. It had been a while since I was up at six am. When they were done, Nina woke me up. The three of us walked to the armory, grabbed our equipment and stuffed it into the trunk of the Civic. I helped Arnett and Riley into the hilariously small backseat and then slid in myself.

"You guys got enough room back there?", I asked.

"Yeah", Arnett said, "were good."

"Thank god for the Emitters", Riley said, "there's no way we'd fit back here as dragons."

"I know", I laughed.

Riley's emitter gave him the image of a 6 year old boy with red hair and green eyes. His skin was rather tanned and he was wearing jeans with black Nike's and a red jacket with a white T-shirt underneath it. Arnett's appearance had her looking somewhat Hispanic. She had bright blue eyes, which worked for her, dark black hair, a jean jacket, Minne mouse T-Shirt, jeans and high top sneakers. Mercury, who must have been about five seven looked like he had just fallen out of an ice cream sandwich. He had some weirdly colored orange eyes, jet black hair and a face with a few freckles on it. He was simply wearing a white shirt, blue jeans, jean jacket and cowboy boots.

I stuck the key into the ignition and put the civic in Neutral before giving a flick of my wrist to bring the sleeping Six to life, which seemed to startle all three of them.

"It's like the Chevy from Track Week", Riley said, "that thing scared me."

I smiled, "it's got about 100 fewer horses than that."

"How much is it making?", Mercury asked.

"610 front wheel horsepower", I said, "translates to about 700 at the crank."

"In a front wheel drive car?" Mercury asked.

"Yep", I said pulling out of the hanger. I drove up the dusty road to the checkpoint, showed my card and the guys let me out. I drove to the main highway and put on the blinker, waiting for a large semi to pass us before turning onto the main road, putting the pedal to the ground and getting 2nd gear at around 7500 RPM, right after the boost had kicked on.

"Holy crap", Mercury yelped, shoved all the way back into the seat, "hey where'd you learn to drive like this?!"

"From driving a ton of high power modified cars", I said as I continued to push the Civic through the gears, topping the car off at 75 MPH due to the speed limit.

"Are there any cops around?", Riley asked, "how fast was that?"

"The speed limit", I said.

"Sure", Mercury said, "we all believe that."

"I don't go over the speed limit", I said, "I just like to get there as fast as possible."

"Because second gear is fun", Arnett smiled, bouncing up and down in her seat.

"See?", I laughed, "Arnett gets it."

"Well Arnett is crazy", Mercury said.

"Am not", Arnett said.

"Sure Ari", Riley said, "that's why you were doing 0-60 in less than 2 seconds in the Lotus."

"Hey", I said, "when you have the ability to shift a manual as quickly as any Automatic out there, you tend to do 0-60 pretty fast, now having said that, the clutch in the Civic is so heavy I doubt she could even push it in."

"How heavy is that?", Arnett asked as I turned onto 191 and headed south, bound for Furnace creek.

"It has a 45 pound push weight", I said, "I'd like it to be 47, but they don't make spring kits for 47."

"In other words it's uber heavy", Mercury said, "why the heavy clutch Ace?"

"Because I like a heavy clutch", I said, "I like all manual controls and stiff resistances."

"I'd rather the car do the work for me", Mercury said.

"Which is why your not a car guy", I said as I shifted into second gear at 50mph. I drove for another half hour or so before I made it into a small, Indian village of Furnace creek. Arnett liked to come here a lot because the people here will still very traditional, 1700's sort of people, which was how she used to live. Personally, I found it very amazing how we were in the year 2016, yet it was like time itself had avoided this place. I you looked around, you would see animal skin Tepees, clay pots, animal skins hung out to cure, rain dances, all kinds of things that I had no idea were still going on in the US. If I was honest, I wouldn't mind the lifestyle, of course, when I thought about it long and hard, the main problem to come up was I would lose running water, no thank you. Arnett however didn't miss it, as she had lived that way up until about two months ago and was trying as hard as she could to hold onto it. I didn't blame her. I wasn't exactly trying to hold onto what I used to have, because it sucked compared to this, still though. I took care to roll through the village quietly, but the supercharger was only willing to shut it's yap under 1,500 RPM and since idling in neutral was 1,000 RPM, you get the basic picture. At the end of the village was a freshly paved road with a gate up that read 'Warning Private Property, Trespassers will be shot." Morningstar had showed it to me a few weeks ago and said it was a way to get onto California State 190 without having to swing all the way around Death Valley. It was about 4 and a half miles of paved road that the Borad kept up for us to use to make a get away if we ever had to, but I had used it a few times just to do 0-200 in the Civic. Man what a rush.

I rolled up to the gate and put the Civic in neutral. I grabbed the key from the glove box and stepped out of the car. I unlocked the gate and swung it open before walking back to the Civic and idling it through. I put the brake on, locked the gate behind me and then went back to the car.

"You know we have 4 miles of paved road up ahead", I smiled.

"No Ace please", Mercury said putting his head in his paws, "don't."

"You know he has to", Arnett smiled, "do it! 0-200!"

"Riley?", I asked.

"Do it!", he grinned.

"Fuck", Mercury whispered.

"Hold on", I said putting the car in first gear and matting the pedal to the floor. The front tires fought the rear for grip before Six upfront launched us from a stand still in first gear to 56 miles an hour when the boost kicked on. The scenery to the sides of the Civic became a little more than a sand colored blur as the Civic rocketed from 56 to sixty five and the rev bounced. I kicked the clutch for second gear and the tach jumped all the way back from seven grand down to two, Japanese engines for ya. Second gear carried us from sixty five all the way to 80 before I kicked the clutch again and forced the transmission into third. I got Fourth gear at 156 miles an hour and the Civic wasn't slowing down yet. The supercharger was screaming bloody murder while the Turbos were hissing a low, deranged sound that if you heard it in the dark would make your skin fall off, while the engine was whining in a way that was just....terrifying. Japanese V6's sounded fucking scary at high RPM and I am not making that up. The van I used to drive before the Civic, which by the way share the same motor, had 300 at the crank with 256 getting to the front wheels, and at High RPM you'd silence haters at the drag strip, even if you didn't have the speed to back it up.

"Go faster!", Arnett squealed over the sound of the engine.

"I can't", I replied as I forced 5th gear, "out of gears."

The speedometer crept ever closer to the almighty, ever elusive speed that all Front Wheel Drive cars were born to chase, 250mph. Even at 170 the Civic was still accelerating, hard.

"Ace you can stop now!", Mercury said, "the car is fast we get it!"

"Never stop!", Riley laughed, "must go always go faster!"

I started to slow down as the speedometer capped at 243 mph, 7 miles short of the 250 mark.

"It can't be over", Arnett whined from the back.

"It is Ari", I said, "even the fastest cars are only so fast."

"What speed was that?", Mercury asked.

"243 miles an hour", I said, "even the holiest of holy performance front wheel drive can't hit the 250 mark."

"How do you even keep the car on the ground at that speed?", Mercury asked, "part of the reason I scored so badly in track week was because I couldn't keep anything on the ground."

"It takes a lot of practice Mercury", I said as I slowed down to about 30 miles an hour. I came to a stop at the second gate and pulled the parking brake, putting the tranny in neutral.

"Alright", I sighed, 'were gonna sit here for a while."

"Why?", Mercury asked.

"When ever you do a run at high boost you should let the car sit so the oil and water can flow around the car and cool it off. Right now my engine temp is about 630 degrees, normal running for this is 180."

"How long does it take to cool down?", mercury asked.

"Assuming the bag of ice that found it's way into the cooling system hasn't melted yet, we shouldn't be here too long."

We were sitting at the gate for about 20 minutes before the engine temp was back to normal. I got out of the car, opened the gate, drove the car through, closed the gate and then we got onto State 190. we followed that for about 2 hours or so before we got into Bakersfeild, which was a traffic nightmare at 10 in the morning.

"Fuck this traffic man", I sighed slowing to a stop behind a lifted Ford F-150 pickup, "were gonna overheat sitting in this shit."

I followed the traffic throughout Bakers field before stopping at a McDonald's drive through for some breakfast and a relief from the stupid traffic. It took us about a half an hour to get out of Bakersfield and back onto the open road. Now there was nothing between San Fran and myself besides three pedals, a six hundred horsepower compound charged engine and the road. I drove for the entirety of 9 hours, arriving at the university at 4'O Clock, finding the protests in full swing. There were people with signs chanting stupid shit as well as blocking the roads.

"Wow", Mercury said, "look at all of them, there like ants. Hey Ace, what are they even protesting?"

I shook my head as I put the Civic in neutral, "well everyone has a different theory, but most people on You Tube agree that their protesting their oppression."

"Hitler was oppressive, what oppression do these people know?", Riley asked me.

"I couldn't tell ya Riley", I said, "wait...what? You guys have already learned about Hitler in class?"

"Yes", mercury said, "we just finished covering world war two."

"Hmm", I said putting the Civic back into first gear, "okay, let's see how sneaky we can be finding a place to park, find this professor and get the hell out of dodge."

I drove around the corner and tried to get to speed as quietly as I could, but the supercharger still attracted the street blocking protesters who were chanting POWER so shrilly and high pitched I was worried my ears might start bleeding and trying to block my car.

"Get the fuck out of my way", I growled revving the engine as loudly as I could, which seemed to hurt their ears just as much as their screaming was hurting mine, 'I swear I'm gonna cap someone before this day is out."

I parked on the side of the street, put the Civic in neutral, pulled up the E-Brake and shut the car off. I also pulled the radio out of the dash and stuck it in the glove box, locking it.

"Why'd you do that for?", Arnett asked.

"So it doesn't get stolen", I sighed, "i wouldn't put it past any of these people to try and brake into this car, Mercury, get our student Id's out of the the glove box. Arnett, there's a latch on the middle seat back there that if you pull it, will fold the seat down and allow you to get into the trunk to get the back packs."

Arnett pulled the latch and folded the seat down. Pulling the backpacks out of the trunk and handing them to us. As covertly as possible, we loaded our weapons and then stepped out of the Civic. I locked the doors and pulled out the go pro as we began approaching the school.

"I don't usually find myself in these situations, so I figure it would make for a good video", I said facing the camera. I wasn't intending to post this online, more as show it to the others when I got back, "mission is to retrieve Prof Green, who is apparently a DNA master from this collage before the mercs do, who ever the mercs might be yet, I don't exactly know. Not sure where to start in this mess", I said panning the camera around the area, stopping on a red headed woman who was wearing what seemed to be an employee ID, "excuse me can you tell me where I can find Professor David green?"

"No you need to get out", she said, "you need to get out."

"No I don't", I said, "this is public property."

"You need to leave", She said getting noticeably angrier, "you need to leave, you need to go."

"Mam please", I said, "the sooner I find Professor Green the sooner you never see me again."

"Are you media?", a black guy asked walking up to us.

"No", I said, "I'm looking for David Green, do you know where I can find him?"

"Are you recording us?", he asked, "are you a reporter?"

"No", I sighed, "I'm looking for David Green, you know where I can find him?"

"I know you need to back up, I know that", he said trying to get into my face.

"I'm not backing off until I find Professor Green", I said as more of the protesters surrounded us.

"Ace", Arnett said quietly, "I think we should just walk away."

"If you are with the media you need to back off!", the red headed woman shouted again, "you need to go."

The students gathered around me began to try and push me away.

"You don't have the right to record us or take our pictures", someone said.

"I'm not!", I said loudly, "I'm not with the media! I'm just looking for professor green!"

"Bullshit white boy", the black guy from earlier said, "homeboy you need to back off right now."

The crowd closed in. Pushing me and knocking me around.

"Stop fucking pushing me!", I ordered.

"Were not pushing", a girl said, "were walking forward and I think we have the right to walk forward."

"You don't give us orders", someone else said.

"Fine I'll fuck off", I sighed, "come on guys."

Arnett, Mercury, Riley and I walked away from the crowd, which had begun cheering.

"As if they accomplished something", Mercury said as we entered the school.

"I know", I yawned, "probably just cause were white kids."

"I'm not white I'm native", Arnett smiled.

"Yeah yeah", Riley said.

I looked around for a minute or so before I found the map of the school. From what I could gather from the map, Professor Green's classroom was on the top floor, directly next to the stair well.

"Hmm", I said headed towards the stairwell, "looks like we have to climb a few floors."

"Hey Ace", Mercury said, "two guys in suits just broke off from the crowd, two white guys, red glasses, look like they might be packing Short Barrel Rifles."

"PMC Assassins?", I asked as we kept going up the stairwell, trying to look as unassuming as possible.

"More than likely", Arnett said, "any way we can avoid them?"

"Maybe if we can stick to highly crowded areas", I said, "but then we risk a repeat of that fiasco outside."

"We need to do something", Mercury said.

"I'll think of something", I said as we reached the top floor. As the map had stated, Professor Green's door was on the right side of the stairwell. I poked my head in the open door and found only one man at a desk, looking bored out of his skull.

"Professor Green?", I asked.

"Yes?", he asked, 'who are you?"

I stepped inside the door and the others followed me, Mercury shut the door and pulled his SBR out of his pack while Arnett and Riley did the same.

"Sir", I said, "I don't have a lot of time. My name is Ace Kyloth and I'm with the US Army, I've been sent here to recover you from the campus before Black River contracts can assassinate you."

"I see", the professor said resting his head in his hands, "I figured Blackriver would want me back sooner or later, allow me to grab my coat."

The professor grabbed an old Army field coat from underneath his desk along with a suppressed FNH SCAR-L.

"Holy shit sir", I commented.

"Impressed Ace?", the professor asked.

"A little bit of impressed and shocked", I said reaching for my own SBR.

"Those mercs are up here", Mercury said, "what are we doing Ace? Shoot to kill?"

"We can't use our firearms in here", I said, "even suppressed they would sound too loud an alarm, but I have a better idea, hide against the door, professor, hand me your rifle and try to act natural."

The Professor didn't question me and handed me his rifle. He walked back to his desk and began to gather up a few things, making it look like he was leaving. Soon the door knob turned and the two men in suits walked in. Both of them were holding suppressed Colt 1911's behind their backs.

I looked at my friends, giving the motion to deactivate our emitters and use fear to get the upper hand, then knock them out.

"Professor David Green", one of the men said.

"Class is concluded and I'm not taking visitors", he said, "please come back tomorrow."

"There isn't a tomorrow for you sir", the man said.

On that note, I deactivated my emitter and walked up behind them, taking both their handguns away from them. The men spun around with angry looks on their faces, which quickly turned to fear when they saw me. At my full 6'4 height, I was a head taller than one of them, while the other could look me in the eyes.

"Didn't your parents ever teach you not to play with guns?", I asked as Mercury and Arnett clubbed them over the heads with their rifles. As they dragged the bodies to the desks, I looked over the custom 1911s, which were jet black with custom grips.

"Keeping these", I said putting them into my backpack.

"Interesting", the prof said, "the serum seems to have integrated shape shifting into your DNA."

"Not quite sir", I said as we started out of the classroom, "a special hologram emitter was designed to allow us to appear human as well as remove our wings and tails, rather than rendering them invisible, I don't understand the science behind it, but it works."

"Interesting", the Proff said, "this hallway will lead us to a service stairwell, from there we can go to the roof and go down the fire escape. It's in the back of the building, so we'll not draw attention to ourselves."

"Good call sir", I said, "lead the way."

The professor lead us down the hall and to the service stair well. He lead us up the flights of stairs and onto the gravel covered roof. We walked to the side of the building where we got onto the fire escape and followed it down. We stowed our SBR's in our packs and walked as normally as we could back to the Civic. I unlocked it from a ways away and Arnett loaded our packs into the trunk while the professor and the others climbed into the car. Arnett closed the trunk and climbed in the back. I slid into the car myself and started it. I put the car in gear and started away from the university as an orange Hummer with two more guys in suits and red glasses pulled up and parked right where I had just been.

"More assassins", I sighed turning on the blinker and casually pulling away from the corner, "thank god we got out of there when we did."

I reached into the center console for my issue phone, turning off the radio and pressing the button on the screen to call Morningstar directly.

"Morningstar", I said, "you there?"

"I'm here Ace", he said, "what ya got for me?"

"We got David out safely, were on our way home", I said.

"Great job", Morningstar said, "I've wired money to your bank account for a hotel, dinner and gas for the Civic, start early tomorrow and get home, something serious has come up."

'yes sir", I said hanging up the phone, yawning as I did.

"If need be", David said, "I can handle some of the driving."

"Can you drive a manual?", I asked.

"My Honda Integra Type R had a manual", he replied.

"Cool", I smiled downshifting for a stop sign, "I'll have to get Morningstar to tow it back for ya."

I drove for another two hours, almost to sunset. We stopped at a Carino's Italian grill for dinner and then David drove around town while the 4 of us argued on what hotel to stay at. Arnett wanted Days Inn, but I said fuck that after the experience I had on a Cross Country trip with one a few years back. Mercury wanted America's Best Value Inn, which I would have been fine with myself, but there was a Best Western available that Riley, Myself and David agreed on so best Western it was. I rented a room on the top floor while Riley and the others got air mattresses out of the Civic. Once the room was payed for, we went up stairs and checked in.

The room was about the size of a large living room. In the corner closest to my left hand was a couch and a small coffee table. In the middle of the room were two twin sized beds. On the other side of the bed was a office chair and desk that held a big PC computer. Separating the two beds was a lamp stand with a blue lamp and there were also two Japanese type paper screens that separated the beds from the other two areas of the room. The entire room was covered in a thick blue carpet that looked like it had been freshly vacuumed.

"DejaVu", I said, "this is a clone of the room I stayed in the night I accepted Morningstar's invitation."

No one replied. Instead, I helped the kids set up their mattresses while David went to take a shower. When he was done, Arnett went in, then Mercury, followed by Riley and me. I took a cold shower since it always seemed to help untense my body after I'd sat for long car trips. When I was done, I got dressed and upon exiting the bathroom, I found everyone else was already asleep. Shrugging, I shut off the bathroom light, carefully stepped over the kids, who were, despite each having their own mattress, piled together in a mass of wings, tails and scales. I smiled as I went to the door, locked it, barred it and drew the curtains over the windows. I fell into bed and covered up, falling asleep shortly after.