The black wolf whose name was Noah Adams quickly moved through the corridors of one of the headquarters of S/D. Noah wished to move quickly, he was ordered to hunt down the runaway known as Benjamin Ville and the trail would get colder with every wasted second. The fact that this particular runaway had evaded the organization for a long time and ended up attempting suicide would add a new dimension of difficulty. Noah’s mission was to discover if Ben was still alive and if so to bring the runaway to his destiny. First of all Noah needed more information about Ben, after all what the black wolf knew were only rumors about the subject. He went to one of the clerks responsible for data distribution and demanded the files collected on Benjamin Ville. The clerk was being snarky asking for identification, something Noah had no patience for. The black wolf slammed down his ID card that was used inside the building. The clerk checked Noah’s clearance and looked back to Noah with an expression of shock and fear. Noah smirked, by now the clerk would be wondering who he was to have such a high security clearance in S/D. “Now if you don’t want any trouble, I suggest you give me what I need or else” Noah growled “I might just take what I want…” The clerk who was a dog crossed his legs at the masculinity and authority in Noah’s voice. Something about the wolf sparked a certain instinctual fear. The dog just meekly handed over clearance to the files on Benjamin. Noah walked off reviewing the files he was given. He didn’t like what he saw. The wolf had gotten sick at the age of eight preventing his own initiation. Ben had discovered his father initiating his younger brother and alerted the authorities. The authorities were recruited and Ben was taken to be forcefully initiated. However Benjamin had escaped due to the doors of his transport being unlocked. Noah cursed at that particular piece of information and the stupidity of the ones responsible. Ben then eluded capture twice over a period of seven years. Ben’s brother Josh was programmed with no problems though but had expressed his desire for Ben to come back and couldn’t understand why Ben was continuing to run. Those particular lines hit too close to home for Noah. Noah shook his head, he had a mission to complete and his own problems could be handled later. Noah noted that most of Ben’s allies had been neutralized and converted. The particular balancer who was in charge of capturing Ben was the runaway’s friend and had taken Ben’s apparent death hard. Noah crossed checked the balancer whose name was Jeff. Noah approved of the balancer’s track record, noting that only Ben’s suicide attempt was the only notable black mark on his record. The black wolf made a note to requisition the fox’s assistance in pursuing the runaway and it could give the fox back his confidence, which had been damaged due to the belief that he had caused a recruitment death. Noah went to submit his request for Jeff and selected certain other enforcers and agents. If they were to hunt down Ben, whether he was alive or dead, Noah wanted the best. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My name is Steven Adams and I’m looking down upon the city of New York and I must say that the U.S has really changed over all these years. I’ve only woken up in the past few days and I know I would probably stick out like a sore thumb. I’ve been keeping to the woods and wild paths to avoid being noticed. As for food, I have fruit nuts and vegetables aplenty even when they’re not supposed to be in season or local. However I had to go through cities eventually, and so I tried to keep a low profile and spoke to as few people as possible. Money would have been a difficulty, as I had none to speak of. It was lucky that people still needed the occasional favor to be done for small change. So I managed somehow to survive until I’ve reached New York, where the one named Benjamin Ville was stated to have died. It was a fact that I had to check on for my own sake. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Julius Taylor reviewed the personnel that Noah had selected for assistance in his assignment. “Really, I can understand why you would select Jeff, but” Julius pointed to the two other people that Noah had selected for this mission. “Why would you want both Bradley and Deon?” The two were a spy squirrel and cat infiltrator respectively. “It would be rather difficult to pry them for this mission Noah.” “With all due respect Julius” Noah said “It is entirely likely that because of Ben’s status as successful escapee, certain subversive elements will attempt and may have successfully recruited him to their cause.” Noah looked into Taylor’s eyes. “If that is true I do not want to waste precious time on waiting for back-up.” “You seem convinced that he might be alive DID I SAY YOU BOTH COULD STOP!?” Julius Taylor shouted. Noah ignored this outburst and said “It is highly possible, this Ben has been lucky too many times by far. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t let a little drop stop him.” “Just make sure you finish the job, we need Ville in a better position of authority his policies are accelerating our progress.” Julius said. “Fine I’ll let you know how it’s going.” Noah said and left the office. “Now” Julius said looking down to Jake and Jason who were under his desk handcuffed kneeling, naked, desperately trying to service Julius “for that you both are going to stay down there all day!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The summer heat beat down on Steven and the fact that he was wearing a black cloak was not helping. However if the heat gave Steven any discomfort it did not show on his face. The fact of the matter was that Steven didn’t show his face, keeping the hood on his cloak up. This action did draw attention to him but he was in New York, people of all kinds were in this city. Someone who merely kept his hood up was not really that interesting. Steven then picked up a discarded newspaper; it was because the paper had an article that detailed the jump from the Brooklyn Bridge of Benjamin Ville. It even had a photograph of Ben; Steven tore that out and headed towards the bridge. The city’s layout wasn’t well known to Steven and he had to resort to asking people for directions. He kept his questions short but was polite and deflected questions about his own person. Eventually he reached the location of the bridge but police and investigators were blocking the bridge. Steven didn’t need to approach the bridge though and headed towards a place where he could be near the East River. Most of the East River were docks and gated. However Steven after some effort was able to get near the river. He had picked up a discarded bottle nearby and filled it with some water from the river. He went to a secluded spot, and stuffed Ben’s picture into the bottle. Steven then did something that would have seemed strange to passerby. He began to speak to the bottle. “Would you kindly tell me if the wolf I’ve placed inside has drowned in your waters?” Steven swirled the bottle counter-clockwise and waited. After a while Steven’s face took on a relieved but still stern look as the paper photo was floating on top of the water. “Thank you for your help.” He poured the water back into the river. Steven now knew that Ben didn’t die from his jump but that didn’t change the fact that S/D caused someone to attempt suicide. He then wondered what should be his next course of action. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Noah was reviewing the data files on Benjamin in a high class hotel room, one of the perks of the job. What Noah read made him even more sure that the runaway wolf was alive, though also most likely in an injured state. The black wolf thought to check on any mysterious admittance to hospitals in the past few days. Noah had his own way of checking if Ben was dead or alive. However it didn’t provide the most accurate answers. Still it would be a waste of resources to go after hospitals when he should be checking on morgues. Noah had a photo of Benjamin Ville on the table and a wad of clay. “Tell me is he dead?” Noah said and threw the clay onto the photo. Whatever Noah saw it made his face move in disgust. “That’s not a clear answer, is he alive then?” Noah took the clay up and threw the clay down again. This time Noah was raging. “That doesn’t help at all! Tell me is his body alive or dead?” He hurled the clay for the third time at the photo of Ben and judging from Noah’s face he got an ambiguous answer again. Noah seemed like he would smash the table but calmed down. “Okay then, three ambiguous answers whether Ben’s dead, alive or his body is living or dead.” It was possible that Ben was in a state where he couldn’t be considered being dead or alive depending on what definitions of living or dead was being used. “However since none of the answers are saying he is dead, he’s living in one way or another.” Noah said, now the wolf knew that he should most likely search the hospitals for any unknown patients. Then the phone in Noah’s room began to ring. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There were two no three possible paths that Steven decided he could take. The first was to assault S/D which was quickly discarded as a bad idea. The organization would be impossible for him to defeat as he was right now. Not to mention he’ll probably encounter Noah. Steven knew he would likely be outmatched in a direct confrontation. The second course of action Steven could take was to find the runaway known as Benjamin Ville and maybe try to ally with him. However while Steven knew that Ben was didn’t drown, it would be too difficult with the resources he had now to seek out Ben and it was likely that Ben didn’t want to be found if he survived. So the only path of action that seemed sensible was to gather enough strength to stop them. However Steven admitted that he was weak compared to Noah especially since he had been unconscious for so long. Steven needed to do research especially if he didn’t want to stand out. He hoped that free libraries were still operating. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Noah replaced the phone to its stand, bad news had come in. Jeff had gone missing and Noah didn’t think this was a coincidence. The black wolf had been informed that another person was assigned to assist; however it still was a drawback so early in this mission. However Bradley and Deon could be spared from their duties for a short time. The black wolf picked up the receiver again; he wanted to know of medical emergencies in the city for the past few days. Then the hunt for Ben could begin. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven had at last finally found the New York Public Library after being at a loss of where to go. He entered and went straight to the non-fiction section. The white wolf selected from the shelves, history books and reference books on the advancement of the sciences and technology. Steven read as quickly as he could. He was astonished at how much change had occurred over little more than a century. Life expectancies had nearly doubled; computers had gone from clunky full room machines to devices that could be smaller than the palm of one’s hand, the Soviet Union had collapsed, so much had been missed. However in Steven’s research he now noticed a fact that he had never noticed until now. It was just a casual glance in the window's reflection but he now looked as if he was in his late teens and now that he thought about it his mental processes were now close to the body he was in. A 17 year old white wolf, Steven was embarrassed that he didn’t notice before but he reminded himself that he wasn’t in the best state for self-reflection. Now he had a background, however shaky it was to fill in the gaps of his knowledge of the modern day. However what he needed was information he was pretty sure no public library would have. The information was relating to a certain subject. He had read that the computer had now linked up to a system that was a global bastion of knowledge and useless trivia. Steven wanted to use the computer to try searching if this internet had the knowledge that he sought. He searched for a librarian to help him and one was kind enough to oblige. The tiger librarian asked what was he searching for and at first Steven hesitated; it was highly unlikely that anybody would have that information on this internet thing. However it didn’t hurt to try and Steven said the name of what he was searching for. To the tiger, what he heard was gibberish and asked Steven to spell it out in English. Steven tried his best and the closest result was about a special exhibit in the Metropolitan Art Museum right in New York. Steven paused at this news, was it a coincidence that what he was looking for was right in the city or was it something else? This piece of news was moot though, the day was ending, and the museum would close before he could get in to see the exhibit. Steven would have to find somewhere to stay the night. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Noah sat in a large comfortable chair viewing the nightscape of New York all while turning a pendant in the shape of the sun. On one hand he wished to get this mission over with soon, so that he could search for the one he really wanted to go after. “Steven” Noah sighed. Still Noah wasn’t sure that he wanted to search for Steven. He had no idea what to do if he could capture Steven. Noah went to sleep with that indecision haunting him and hoping that sleep would bring him the answer he needed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven had wandered into Central Park avoiding people throughout the journey. This was the only place that had enough plant life in the area. He found a secluded spot and swept the dust away making a dry clean spot. He then spoke in the air, asking no one in particular to make sure nobody found him sleeping there. Steven then closed his eyes, if and what he dreamt could not be known.