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At length, Loren began to have trouble finding witnesses whom he had not already talked to. He was nearing the end of his mission, it seemed. He could probably stop here, because he already had a pretty good sense of the trajectory that Kareem was looking for. Northeasterly was most likely the way to go.

Before he was fully satisfied with his results, however, the members of the Freeman Fellowship approached him. They looked like they had something they wanted to say to him, but he decided to ask them what they had seen first. Nothing new, as expected. He tried to turn and move on, but the shorter one called out to him.

"Lighteyes, sir, one minute, please." It was a young guy. Very young, in fact. Scarcely more than a boy, if his voice and physical appearance were to be trusted.

But of course, they weren't, really. For all Loren knew, the two older-looking ones were actually subordinate to the boy. Not likely, sure, but certainly still possible.

He waited.

The boy's gaze fell to Zahi, however, as if reluctant to say anything in his presence.

Not one to be deterred by things like awkward tension, Zahi just blurted out whatever he wanted, as usual. "Oh, are you hoping to poach him from our sect? Because I don't think we'd appreciate that very much. We're a tightly knit bunch, you see. Like brothers. We share everything with each other. Clothes. Secrets. Beds. Toothbrushes. Even women."

Loren couldn't let that go by. "He's joking. Badly."

"See that? We banter just like brothers, too. Everyone in our sect is the same. Loren is perfectly happy in the Rambata Rangers."

"That's not our name," Loren had to say. "We're the 331st Ranging Regiment." And while he spoke the truth, he also knew that their official name wasn't all that much better. There were most certainly not 331 ranging regiments in Abolish. It was just a stupid naming scheme to make their numbers seem larger than they actually were.