The patrols along the border become aware of the sound of a van. The van has been coming with a full speed, slows down, and stops. Four persons jump down, turn on flashlights, and scatter.
"Chimeras?" The younger patrol asks his partner, with a certain fear in his voice.
"Idiot!" His partner hisses at him. "Chimeras don't want go out, they want to come in. That's why we are here. To prevent them to come in."
"But it seems these ones are planning to go out!"
"In this case they are not chimeras, they are rather hunters!"
"Do we let them go out?"
Fortunately the older patrol don't have to answer this question.
"Hey, look! They are lighting a fire! They are not Chimera hunters, they are wreck miners!"
"Wreck miners? At night?"
"Of course at night! None of them wants another wreck miner group finding their treasures! Moreover, they are selling their goods in daytime, so they have to mine at night. Do you want to check them?"
"They are not dangerous, aren't they?" The younger patrol asks back vaguely.
"Not all of them." The older patrol smirks. "If we are lucky, we will have some thrift!"
The two patrols – one of them a bit unwillingly, the other is with glee – start to head toward the campfire. Beside the fire an old man is sitting, and compairing a huge list with the already mined wrecks. He doesn't even pay attention to the border patrols.
"Uncle Daisuke!" The older patrol greets him with glee.
"Kenjiro!" The old man's face brightens up. "I haven't seen you in a while!"
The two men hugs, and laughing from happiness.
"This is my new partner, Hiroki."
"Hiroki-kun, nice to meet you!" Uncle Daisuke streches out his hand, which the other one accepts, and they shake hands. After the handshake, the new patrol shakes his hands a bit. "Sorry, sorry, it is just some oil. Here's a handkerchief."
While the young man wipes the oil from his hand, Uncle Daisuke, and Kenjiro are immersed is conversation about the work, the daily events, and family life.
"If you want to eat some of my wife's famous cookies, you can find a box in the cab!" Uncle Daisuke informs Kenjiro, so the patrol's face brightens up, and hurries to the van.
Kitchener and the girls has to jump down from the van before they reach the mining place – Uncle Daisuke slows down for them. They have to hide in the bush, while the others reach the place, collect enough firewood, and left Uncle Daisuke by the fire. This point has been chosen because of Kenjiro. He is the fifth, secret member of the team. His task is to divert his partner's attention of the border. He almost never meets the others, not even Uncle Daisuke, but he knows, that a certain fire means, he has to activate himself. It is always easy. The distraction of cookies are seems so innocent, that none of his partners suspects anything about his manipulation. And those cookies, they are really so tasty…
"Here you are. Backpacks." Erika and her friends returns to Runa and her friends. "It is not so much: food, blanket an some personal things."
"Personal?" Runa is amazed. "How?"
"They gathered them in our apartment." Kitchener says. "I hope everything important is here."
"Why are there three backpacks?" Harper asks, and everyone is silenced. These word are her first ones after the escape.
"One for you, one for Runa and one for me." Kitchener answers quietly. "I will go with you."
"No!" The girls say in unison.
"You are safe here!" Harper protests. "At least you should stay in safety!"
"There are several dangers outside! You don't know what we will face out there!" Runa tries to convince him to stay.
"That's why I accompany you! I learned some martial arts as a kid, so I can save you from wild beasts." Kitchener smiles.
"Exactly the beasts are, why I don't want you to come!" Runa cries, but Erika put her hand on Runa's mouth to silence her.
"But those beasts are not always Chimeras. We cannot accompany you, to navigate you through the dangerous parts, but we told everything we knows about the outside to him. He will be your guide."
"It's been decided, so you can't protest." Kitchener says. Runa and Harper nod. In secret both of them are glad, that the young man will travel with them.
"It is okay then." The two men vanishing in the darkness. Erika pulls out a piece of paper, a compass, and a small pocket light from her backpack.
"Look. We have a map in the closer part of the outside. As we learned in the school, Osaka fell in the early times to the Chimera, so it could be safe for you. Go there, to north-northwest."
"Do you know how far that town is form here?" Runa asks in despair. Erika nods.
"Far, but we have allies on the beginning of the way. The blue points on the map means allies. The red areas are the foe's territory. Avoid these places. It makes your way longer, but safer."
"Are these information trustworthy?" Harper asks with curiosity, but she has fears in her voice.
"More or less. It was proper two weeks ago." Erika answers honestly. " There are lone wolf hunters, so nobody knows whether are allies are alive now, or not. Moreover the Chimeras in the nearby places are almost extinct, so the hunters have to go deeper to the outside, so you could also bump into them farther, than we think. So try to stay away from bigger towns. Distant villages are more safe, and there are a lot, judging by the map. It is old, so I drew the right direction of the compass to the left corner. If someone catch you, please destroy this map! There will be new Chimeras, who needs to escape, and we get a very little information from the outside. Understood?"
All of them nod. Three small, consecutive lights comes from the campfire.
"Okay, let's go!" Erika says, and helps Harper to stand up.
Fortunately, Harper has already pulled herself together, and she could follow the others. Runa and Kitchener are cool-headed, and self-confidenced, as always, which makes easy to follow them. They are seems to be like they are in an unexpected adventure, there are no fears in their movements. Harper, being the most sentimental among them, is the one, who needs the other two's support. Kitchener and Runa suddenly turns back, and they hold her hands. It gives more safety to her, and the speed of their advance increase.
Erika stops at the wall. It is too high to climb, and the other patrols could easily take a notice them, despite the thick greenery, which have grown on the wall in the last 40 years. So climbing it is out of question. But inventive people made a few gateway to the wall, covered by bushes and greenery. Erica shepherds them to one of these tunnels, and waves them good-bye. She adjusts back the greenery to their places, and runs back to her uncle.
"Don't you like cookies?" Uncle Daisuke asks Hiroki.
"We should continue our way..." The younger patrol stammers.
"Don't worry, we could stop a bit, when we notice some suspicious thing!" Kenjiro returns, with a box in his hand, and a cookie in his mouth.
"Hey, my wife's cookies are suspicious to you?" Uncle Daisuke asks him with pretended outrage. All of them burst out in laugh. "Don't worry Hiroki-kun, Chimeras are very rare nowadays. I haven't seen a single one since 30 years, at least. Moreover the fire could keep them away. So take a rest, and get a cookie!"
The young patrol accepts a piece of cookie, he opens his mouth to take a bite, but he doesn't finish the movement. He stares with open mouth to a young woman, who arrives to the fire with a strange piece of metal in her hands.
"Good work, Erika!" Uncle Daisuke ticks a piece of data on his list, and shows the other ones to the girl. Erika vanish into the darkness again.
"Who is this beauty, Uncle Daisuke?" Kenjiro asks, after he takes a look on his partner's state.
"My brother's granddaughter. The only one in the family, who choose to be an engineer." Uncle Daisuke says with pride in his voice.
"Will she inherit the business?"
"I have high hopes in her." The old merchant laughs to Kenjiro. "So take off your hopes on her!"
Everybody starts to laugh, and the two patrols says good-bye, and continue their work.
"Why wouldn't we stay there for longer?" The young patrol cries a bit. Kenjiro pats his shoulder understandingly.
"Don't worry, they will come tomorrow again!"
"How do you know?"
"The deadline for the National Invention Competition is coming."
"I can't invent anything! So I can't buy anything from them!" The young patrol cries more.
"I don't mean that you have to invent something. But the participants are running out of machine parts, so the old man is forced to mine more. And I am sure, that he will bring this beauty with him again!" He winks on his partner. "We could always go there, to meet ...well, to investigate suspicious events. So you could see her again!"
"Really?" Hiroki asks full of hope.
"Really. But I don't think we could get cookies every day." Kenjiro sighs. "And those cookies are soooo tasty!"