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"When was the last time you saw Amanda?" A man in the dark blue and black uniform of the Denton Military Police looked up from his notepad at Kory, his eyes inquiring and dark. Kory drew a deep breath, his only hope to still his shaking muscles. "Yesterday night. I was getting home from work...it was all very usual. We talked, watched the news...and that was it. The last thing I said to her was 'Sleep well'" He said. The officer made a note. "I see. Did she do anything out of the ordinary? Any signs of agitation, anxiety, or that she may have been hiding something?" He questioned. "No, nothing. As I said, it was all normal...nothing was off. I never thought..." Kory trailed off, a distant look playing its way across his face. The officer made another note. "I never imagined this would happen...even could happen." Kory finished. The officer asked a few more questions, none of which Kory had any answers to. The man gathered his things, a backpack and a black painted rifle, and was gone.

Kory sighed deeply and reclined back into his chair. The police had arrived scant hours ago, mere minutes after his panicked call to the local department. A perimeter had been established, investigation into the disappearance began, and Kory had been moved to another vacant room at the end of the building. It was, for all intents and purposes, identical to the last. The same gray walls, wood planked floors, and the same layout of rooms. The space filled Kory with an odd feeling, as if the last few hours were simply a nightmare, and that he had just now awoken. He absentmindedly fished into his jacket pocket, staring off as the city beyond and trying to come to terms with the reality of the situation. Amanda, a friend of his for eleven years, was gone. Not even just gone, kidnapped. Who would want to kidnap Amanda? She had been, for lack of a better term, a nobody. Middle-class, unmarried, and a job in financing were hardly things that would warrant kidnapping. As far as he knew, she didn't have any enemies either...so who could it be? Abruptly, he remembered the now crinkled scrap of paper in his jacket pocket. He drew it out and held it up to the light. Its words shone as clearly as when he had found it. FIND NATHANIEL CORNERSTONE. He cringed. He had forgotten about the paper during the police visit. Kory considered chasing after the departing officers, but quickly dismissed the idea. The military police were liable to jump to conclusions, and it wouldn't exactly paint him in the best of light to chase them down with evidence that could have been easily fabricated.

As Kory sat in contemplation, he knew a few things were certain: The police would not likely get around to finding Amanda -- what, the war raging all around Denton -- and that he certainly wouldn't be getting one wink of sleep this Friday night. He was simply too charged with terror and adrenaline. These facts left only one clear course of action, that being to find Nathaniel Cornerstone. He carefully slid his dark grey laptop from its pocket inside his briefcase, and folded it open upon the table. A quick search on the Denton Public Records site revealed the name he was searching for. There it was, in simply black letters, Nathaniel Cornerstone. The picture was of a crooked-backed man, hunched and broken. This deformity, however, had no bearing on the rest of his physique. His body was surprisingly muscled and strong in appearance, defying the defeated state his stature seemed to originally suggest. Two warm brown eyes stared straight out of the page at Kory, the dark color not muting, but simply enhancing the gleam of odd intellect that Kory began to imagine lurking behind those darkened doors. He skimmed the public records, strangely devoid of information. The only line of text that stood out was this: Nathaniel Cornerstone, previously incarcerated at Denton Central Prison for crimes of trespassing on government property, multiple driving infractions, and petty thievery. Below it lay, quite strangely, an address: 5521 Aster Street. Kory shivered. Why would Amanda -- or whoever may have left the note -- want him to find this man? What could a criminal offer him, Kory, in his quest to find Amanda? A peculiar thought struck Kory. His quest to find Amanda. He hadn't even known that he was on this venture until this very moment. Nevertheless, he realized how deep his conviction to it ran.

Kory slammed the laptop shut and placed it back into its slot in his briefcase. Pulling the jacket tighter around himself, he left the apartment and began the long walk down the identical flights of concrete and steel stairs. He hailed an automated city cab once he reached the now rain-drenched side walk. It started raining not long ago. Kory had failed to notice. The cab slid up next to him, its headlights gazing forward into the falling rain and its yellow paint giving way to orange rust. The side door clicked open, revealing the tan colored interior. He slid stiffly into the crumbling back seat, the doors closed behind him, muffling the far off horns, sirens, rushing rivers of cars, and the even more distant clack of gunfire. The door sealed shut. "Welcome rider. Please state your destination." A metallic voice filled the soundproofed interior of the cab, unseen speakers and microphones facilitating communication. "5521 Aster Street." Kory replied, staring out at the lighted streets, the rain giving the entire city a peculiar sheen in the light of the three moons on high. The car wordlessly began forwards, the engine giving off a coughing whine, like that of a dying animal. 

The city flashed past the car's black-stained and water streaked window, towing skyscrapers and short houses blurring together into one yellow-orange watercolor streak. Few citizen walked the streets this late at night, and fewer still who had any legal agenda. Kory absentmindedly folded the paper several times over. Thoughts ran through his mind like water running through the fingers of an open hand. Was this a good idea? Visiting this man on nothing but an anonymous clue? He wasn't sure, but he was doing it nonetheless. As far as he was concerned, there was no turning back now. The cab merged on to the Inner Denton Highway, still buzzing with life even thirty minutes before the stroke of midnight. Aster Street was in the eastern slums, on the opposite side of the city from Kory's apartment. In the far distance a flash of light erupted, highlighting the tiny shapes of the black helicopters of the Contingent Armed Forces moving across the horizon. Jets flew amongst them, occasionally letting a missile fly into their ranks amidst the rapid barrages of gunfire. Technically, the confrontation was beyond Denton's borders. It couldn't do anything without choosing a side, and it certainly didn't have the military power or political stability for such a maneuver. No matter what the acting Prime Minister did, people had vowed to lay down their lives to oppose it. As for Kory? He didn't much care. War was bound to happen, that much was certain. What did it matter what side Denton chose? Neither seemed better than the other, they had both committed injustice, and they both claimed to be fighting for the same basic ideals of freedom and justice. Besides, Denton wouldn't tip the war one way or another no matter which side it joined. He leaned back into his seat and quietly closed his eyes. Perhaps he way a bit tired after all.

The absence of the engine's whine drew him from his shorty respite from the world. "Destination reached." The metal voice announced. Kory got out of the vehicle, snagging his briefcase and pulling on his hat as he entered the soft rain from the dry cavity of the car. As his feet hit concrete, the cab drove away down the cracked pavement. Kory looked around, feeling more awake and alert. Aster Street was lined with rundown houses, their windows cracked and sun-bleached paint fading. The small lawns were choked with weeds and brambles, a clear sign of the neglect of this district. 5521 stood before him, directly ahead. Boards were nailed over the windows and the rotting side door, giving the two story home a hostile air. The letters identifying the house were crooked and splintered, clearly uncared for. Kory gave a nervous glance about, and began walking up the short path through the tangled jungle of weeds. He reached the white-painted door and gave a short rap. Three knocks in quick succession fell upon the wood, unpleasantly loud to Kory's ears. Before long the click of a lock being turned came. And then another. And then another. Finally, the door opened the faintest sliver, casting pale yellow light upon a small scrap of Kory's face. An eye pressed up to the crack, brown and gleaming with that same strange intellect seen in the public records. "Who are you? What do you want at this hour?" A voice asked, humming like the static on empty airwaves. Kory drew breath to answer, at once relived and anxious about his meeting with his only lead on the disappearance of Amanda, Nathaniel Cornerstone.