Chapter 1

The tall, sinewy man stepped off his motorcycle, decked out in black and chrome, glinting in the afternoon sun. Taking off his helmet, his full head of dirty blond hair caught in the wind. He was garbed in the regulation black uniform when out on a mission. He squinted his eyes towards the sun then turned his head towards the cliff which stopped him on his tracks. With the press of a button, his earpiece turned into the complete headgear for artifact hunters like him. His name is Huang Zitao, part of the elite three-member team of the High House of Aku.

As hunters, their mission is to locate various treasures and artifacts all over the world, according to what clients wanted. A contract was signed and the teams of the High House would retrieve the treasure or artifact usually from ancient civilizations, but some were from after the Great War when most of the world population was decimated.

Evolution played a major role after the devastation of the whole planet during the Great War. The humans who survived developed enhanced uses of their bodies. Given a few centuries, these "biological enhancements" spread throughout the whole population and became the norm. With family lineages and training, those who had the most control over their enhanced bodies became hunters, banding together into many groups of warrior-adventurers known as Houses, procuring technology and treasures that were lost to the ages.

While some would think that the hunters are mere pawns, they are the actual drivers of the world market with exclusive access to the most intelligent and advanced research and development teams, who would develop various technologies for public consumption or as "in-House" secrets. It was a silent arms race among the Houses on who could rival the High House in their region of the world.

The largest and most prominent of these Houses was the High House of Aku, able to send out as much as fifty three-man teams every day. Each team would have their own retrieval contracts either from the government or from the wealthy ones who could not think of other uses for their money.

For the most dangerous or the most lucrative of these missions, only the elite three-man team of the High House was involved. They would search the most valuable of treasures and artifacts, but they were not restricted with these retrieval contracts. The team was also out and about to retrieve vital information that would be of use for the good of the High House of Aku itself.

"Comlink 4635; Codename: Tao," said the man, as he adjusted his mic.

"Hey, dickwad," came in the voice through Tao's earpiece. "Took you long enough."

"Yeah, yeah, off," Tao said to the one at the other end of the comlink. "You said it would be a smooth ride, Chanyeol. Tell me, how smooth for you is gravel?

"Don't blame me." Tao could hear the grin the other man's voice. Codename: Chanyeol was always the mission control for any of the elite team's missions. "The satellite feed ."

"Whatever," said the hunter dismissingly. "I'm turning on visuals."

Tao pressed the headpiece button and the HUD displayed on his eyepiece. Tracking his ocular movement, the comlink picked up the command to stream Tao's visual field to Chanyeol, who was in the hoverjet miles from where Tao was. The hunter's current location did not have a viable landing spot, forcing Tao to continue on with the motorcycle.

"We have visuals," said Chanyeol, his cheerful voice marred by some static. "Remember, it's just a scouting mission today. Do not engage any hostiles. Stay low, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," answered Tao, securing his motorcycle and dusted himself off.

Hunters were well known for their stealth, more so with an elite team member like Tao is. Scouting missions were fairly routine, but sometimes they do come up blind with what they are up against. There are many dangers with artifact retrieval, from wild animals to y traps, and even other hunter teams. Hunting and retrieval is a cut-throat business and smaller hunting houses would not hesitate to open fire especially against neophyte teams from other houses.

The High House of Aku does not condone such practices, but after the death of many neophyte and veteran teams as well as one of their elite hunters in open battle, they have been wary. What was once reserved for high-yield retrievals, scouting and reconnaissance missions had become part of every routine just to be safe. Although it added a small amount of extra days to do their contract jobs, the clients have been a bit understanding. Because they could cover the additional overhead, contract prices remained the same for the High House. Such could not be said for the other smaller houses though, thus the practice of pirating retrieval missions was still as rampant as before. While casualty levels were not as high as before, the cost of losing even a single hunter is still a high price to pay. A good hunter was worth his life in diamonds.

After that tragic battle, archived in the history files as The Battle of Yellow River Basin, the hunters formed an accord, sworn to end all hostilities and to give way when a mission target has already been claimed by another house. All of the houses involved in the battle signed the accord, including some of the old and large houses who also wanted the relative peace. The accord spanned the whole world which gave some security to all regions, at least for those who signed. Some of the newer and smaller houses though refused, with the reason that the accord was too restrictive. These houses became openly hostile and would even resort to piracy, and thus were blacklisted and to be treated with extreme caution. Tao hoped he wouldn't be able to encounter any of such hunter teams from blacklisted houses. 

The young hunter double-checked his equipment. With great advances in storage technology, equipment could be manufactured and compacted as small as a pistol bullet, fitting into one utility belt. The only equipment that Tao refused to be micro-compacted was his wushu staff, the favored weapon for fighting. Of course, he had a pistol stored in his utility belt but nothing could compare with the exhilarating feeling of hitting multiple enemies with his spinning staff. Carrying it full length was still a burden, and he allowed the Weapons Bay to make it slide out like a telescope at the push of a button. With the weapon firmly strapped to his back, Tao was ready to head out.

"Chanyeol," said the hunter, walking a few paces to the edge of the cliff. "How in the world am I supposed to get to the target point from this frickin' cliff?"

Back at the hoverjet, Chanyeol brought up holo-images on the mission-room table while tracking multiple visual feeds. "Judging from the terrain map of that area, the cliff where you're at is too high to rappel safely to the forest below."

"Do you expect me to jump from here??" Tao squeaked out, as he usually would when excited or panicked.

"Well, you can!" Tao suddenly heard another voice come through his audio feed.

"What the -?" Chanyeol also was surprised. "Luhan! You don't just hack through the comlinks! What are you doing?!"

"Don't worry," said the other person on the line, Codename: Luhan. "Surprise!"

Suddenly another video feed came up on both Chanyeol's multiple screens and on Tao's HUD. Both were taken aback as it was a video of Luhan sitting in his own R&D bay at the home base.

"Aah! What did you do?" Chanyeol exclaimed.

"Holy , that's cool!" remarked Tao.

"I've been experimenting on a video feed for the comlink. I was browsing through the missions for today when I noticed that you were only out for recon, Tao," answered Luhan. "So I thought it would be best if I try out my experiment, well actually, two experiments on you."

"Okay, since when did you think I would be a willing lab rat?" asked Tao, annoyed.

"Well, I knew you wouldn't be willing." Luhan grinned. "But hey, look! Experiment A worked! The video feedback on the HUD seems to be fine."

"I still don't get the practicality of such an upgrade, Lu," Chanyeol interjected, also annoyed at having been disturbed while figuring out the gameplan for Tao.

"It gets lonely out on missions sometimes, right?" answered Luhan. "Wouldn't you like to see a familiar face once in a while?"

"Luhan, you're being idealistic again," said Tao. "It's different out in the field. What would have happened if I were in the middle of rappelling down this cliff when you popped up? I could have let go of the rope and fell to my death when you surprised me."

"Morbid much?" Chanyeol butted in. "But yeah, Lulu, we all know you really want to go out on the field -"

"Don't start lecturing me again, Yeollie," Luhan suddenly interrupted, looking dejected. "I am training hard and hoping I'll be out on the field like you guys someday, but don't reject this experiment just because you don't understand its full potential yet."

Another face appeared beside the pink-haired R&D expert. "I have to agree with Luhan on this one, guys."

Tao and Chanyeol immediately recognized their house leader, Codename: Suho. Both immediately saluted even though Tao was not sure there was a video feed on him back at home base.

Suho saluted back and gave both a grin before giving Luhan two firm slaps on the shoulders. "Luhan here is a genius! I was the one who commissioned this upgrade to the comlinks. I have a lot of ideas on how communications could be improved out on the field, and he has been working overtime to give life to them. The two of you were supposed to be briefed about this, but my meeting with the other house leaders ended later than I expected."

Suho suddenly stood up straight, and gave a deep bow which both Chanyeol and Tao saw through their own video feeds. "I apologize."

"Oh no, no, no, no, no, you don't have to apologize, leader" said Chanyeol quickly, panicking at the humbling gestures of their own house leader. "It should be us who should apologize to you and Luhan."

"No, that would be enough," said Suho, another smile plastered on his face. "Now, Luhan, why don't you tell Tao about the second experiment for today. I'm sure he'll find it useful."

"Well, if it's going to get me off this cliff before sundown, I'd really appreciate it," Tao spoke. "Who knows what creatures lurk in that forest below at night?"

The young hunter visibly shivered in slight fear. He'd rather face a hostile house than a hungry tiger ready to jump at him from high above the trees. Luhan and Chanyeol laughed at Tao's reaction.

Luhan recovered first and began to say, "I've made an upgrade to your combat boots, Taozi. I've been tinkering around the technology behind the hoverjet and its anti-grav mechanism. Along with the video feed upgrade, I've extended a wireless connection from the comlink to your boots. Let me just turn on that feature from here. There should be a blinking shoe icon right about... now."

Just as Luhan said, Tao saw the blinking shoe icon on his HUD. 

"The icon launches the upgrades on your boots. Lab testing showed the boots can maintain traction on a slope of up to 89.95 degrees on high-grav mode, while it can hover up to a four meters on anti-grav mode. You're a wushu master, Taozi. I'm sure you'll find creative ways to get down that cliff."

“Cool!” Tao grinned at the possibilities. "All right, here goes nothing. I'll see you guys down below!"

With a loud holler, Tao jumped off the side of the cliff. A few moments later and Tao's adrenaline rush kicked up. With a  few somersaults, he the upgrade and heard its soft hum.

"Tao, do you read me?" Luhan's voice came through the comlink. He had turned off the video feed when the hunter jumped, so as not to distract Tao's line of sight.

"This is great!!" Tao whooped in reply.

Chanyeol, who was also still on the line, had to move away his earpiece with the volume of Tao's screams of joy.

"Listen, the anti-grav will not work in the middle of free-fall," Luhan instructed. "Get your feet close to the cliffside and switch the boots to high-grav mode. You should be able to run down the cliff vertically. You're almost at the danger zone. The warning light should be blinking right about..."

"Now!" Tae screamed to finish Luhan's sentence. The eyepiece picked up his ocular command and the boots were switched to high-grav mode. With a jolt, Tao stuck like a magnet to the cliffside. Using gravity’s momentum, Tao began to run down the cliff vertically.

"Yo, Lu! Still there?" Tao spoke to his mouthpiece.

The audio feed crackled before Luhan's voice came through. "Yup! What do you need?"

"How many micro-ers have you installed in these boots?"

"Found that out already, huh?" There was surprise and then admiration in Luhan's voice. "Six pairs."

"You think you can tweak them at your end? I'm guessing you haven't installed manual controls yet. I thought of something about getting me down faster without having to run." Tao continued to tell the R&D expert about his plan.

"I think that's possible," Luhan answered. "Wait, I'll just activate the manual controls, so you have more precision. It'll just take me a few seconds... there! All controls from this point forward are yours, Taozi. Have fun, but be careful!"

"Thanks, Lu!" said Tao, and he began to pick up speed. Once he thought he was fast enough, Tao set the command for his boot ers to change. With the manual controls, he was able to precisely control the mix of anti-grav and high-grav ers to allow him to slide down the rest of the cliff. The plan seemed to work, with the anti-grav ers allowing him to hover above the cliff as the high-grav ones kept his balance and traction to it, letting gravity do the work of pulling Tao down to the ground.

The hunter found a small clearing in the forest down below and steered toward it. Just as he came up to the treetops, Tao jumped off and switched his boots back to full anti-grav, slowing his descent and allowing him to safely land on his feet.

"Damn! That was fun," Tao muttered to himself as he dusted off some leaves that feel when he slightly missed the tree line by a few centimeters.

"Wow." Tao stood agape at the path that appeared before him. "Mission control? Chanyeol? Anyone on the line?"

"Chanyeol, here," said the other man, although static was distorting his voice. "I'm having difficulty hearing from you, Tao. It should be because of your location."

"Whoa... Chanyeol, do you see this?" Tao asked as he steered at the opening between the trees, framing an ancient temple. "The place is beautiful."

"Tao..?" Chanyeol spoke through the noise of static.

Back at the hoverjet, the other man was already starting to panic. He bright up radar, terrain maps, satellite feeds and even Tao's comlink visuals but all he could see was a great expanse of trees. "What do you see, Tao?"

"It looks like one of those ancient Mayan sun temples we saw in the archive files," the hunter answered. "I don't understand how such a structure could exist on this part of the world."

Chanyeol grew more confused by the second. He could not find any such structure above or below ground within a radius of five miles from Tao's indicated position. "Tao, did you land on some amaranthine mushrooms?"

Tao knew that those fungi would give off hallucinogenic spores, and he checked around, reporting that there were none.

"I don't see any hostile movement in your area, Tao," said Chanyeol. "But I also can't see this temple you are talking about."

"Huh?" answered Tao. "It's right before me. In plain sight, Chanyeol. The comlink visual should also be as clear. If there are no immediate hostiles, I'm going in."

"No, Tao. I don't recommend that action." Chanyeol saw Tao's comlink visual moving towards a big trunk of a tree. "Tao? Tao! Pull back, I say! Tao, pull back! That's an order! Tao? Tao?!"

What Chanyeol did not know that after Tao's first step, he could hear no more than static. Chanyeol's heart dropped to the floor when he saw Tao's comlink visual flicker and then blink off.