"Can't I have both?" Liam asked, from the floor.
"One or the other," Netero said. "That's the condition. Choosing is more interesting. And I'll add this: take your time with dangerous things."
Liam sat up. "Which one is dangerous?"
"Both of them."
"Which one is closer?"
Netero turned his head slightly in different directions, the habitual compass check of someone who always knew where they were in relation to everywhere else. "One is northwest, one is south. Whichever you go to first, the other becomes quite far." He paused. "You're making a face. You've already guessed where the southern one is."
"Meteor City," Liam said.
Netero didn't deny it. He waited.
"And it's either related to whoever broke Bisky's arm," Liam said, "or it is that person."
"One or the other."
Liam thought for a moment.
The framing was off. Netero had said he knew the location of the southern target but wasn't sure Liam could find him, while for the northern target, he knew who was there but needed to ask an old friend for the precise location. That was backwards from what you'd expect if Meteor City was the easy one. Which meant whoever was in Meteor City wasn't someone you could simply walk up to and locate.
"I already know he's in Meteor City," Liam said. "I don't need you to tell me that. And I can go ask Bisky about the situation myself, even if it turns out she doesn't know much." He stretched his arms above his head. "So I'll take the other one. The northwest."
Netero smiled. "I said I need to ask my old friend first."
"I know. I can wait."
"One more thing, before you go." Netero was looking at the middle distance, which with Netero usually meant he was thinking about something adjacent to what he was saying. "If you go to Bisky expecting details about the person in Meteor City, you may be disappointed. She had no contact with the other party. Never actually saw them."
Liam processed this. An arm broken by someone Bisky never saw or met. Which meant either a long-range ability, an ambush, or something else entirely. And Bisky, who had been moving through Meteor City on Netero's request, had been hit by something she hadn't registered until after the fact.
He filed this in the category of problems that would become clearer when he had more information.
He got up, thanked Netero in the way you thanked someone who had just knocked you across a room repeatedly and would do it again next week, and left to wait for the reply.
The corridor of the Hunter Association building had the particular energy of a place that took itself seriously. He walked it slowly, taking out the ring and touching the mark systems with one finger. Broad daylight. The Sun Mark came in clear. The Moon Mark was a faint suggestion.
Bisky's mark was offline. Kurapika was offline too, somewhere in Kakin managing the impossible situation of Camilla's court politics and Tserriednich's ongoing threat to everything worth caring about. Camilla was online, as she was most of the time. Menchi was online.
He switched to the Moon Mark instead.
"Shizuku. Are you around?"
Her voice came back promptly, even at this hour. "Catching a thief."
"What?"
"A Class A bounty criminal who specializes in stealing ancient books and cultural artifacts. Ickshonpe Katocha heard I was registered as an Paleograph Hunter, found out the target had come to the city, and bet me I couldn't catch him before he did."
Ickshonpe Katocha, the hacker hunter. A singular individual who claimed to live inside the internet and whose virtual avatar was the only face anyone had ever seen. According to Shizuku's account from several months ago, this person had gone from complete Gungi novice to the platform's tenth-ranked player in under an hour. Liam had immediately suspected an algorithmic assist but lacked evidence.
"What's the prize if you win?"
"She promised to build me software. An AI program, she called it."
Liam stopped walking.
"So you're about to personally inaugurate the AI era in this world," he said.
"I think I was going to win regardless."
He heard a crash from her end of the connection and then silence, which probably meant the thief had just made a poor decision about escape routes. He kept walking.
The frosted glass door of a side lounge was backlit by a TV. He saw the silhouette through the glass without meaning to, recognized the posture, and walked in anyway because the sound had caught his attention.
"...the third round of the Tianshang Cup Military Gungi Special Invitational will begin in ten minutes. Komugi from East Gorteau has won the first two rounds consecutively. A commanding performance from the reigning Gungi champion..."
Pariston Hill was on the sofa with a coffee. His suit was impeccable. His expression was the expression he always wore, which was a smile that said absolutely nothing about what was underneath it.
Liam put his hands in his pockets.
"Didn't know you followed Gungi," he said.
"I didn't know Mr. Liam followed it either," Pariston said pleasantly. "Though I suppose following would be a modest description. Organizing and sponsoring is more accurate."
Liam looked at the television. On the screen, a slight teenage girl sat at a Gungi board with the particular stillness of someone for whom this was the only state of being that fully made sense. She had won two consecutive rounds of a tournament she had no reason to lose.
"You investigated the invitational," Liam said.
"Casually." Pariston sipped his coffee. "It's a small organization detail that caught my attention. The prize structure is unusual. Ten million jenny is generous. But the other component, permanent residency rights in Saherta, that's remarkably specific for a Gungi championship. As if someone wanted to offer the winner security that prize money alone couldn't provide."
"It's a unique prize," Liam said.
"You're very kind to that blind girl." Pariston's smile remained precisely calibrated. "I wonder what you're expecting in return."
"I chose the profession of Death-and-Life Hunter," Liam said. "You seem to have chosen Annoyance Hunter."
"Opportunity Hunter, actually."
"Speculative Hunter."
He left before Pariston could agree with him, which would have been worse than a counterargument. Behind him, the TV continued its commentary on Komugi's commanding performance.
Pariston watched the door close.
He sat with his coffee for another minute, watching the board game play out on screen, the camera cutting between players and the concentration on a young blind girl's face that looked less like focus and more like someone for whom the rest of the world had ceased to exist.
His phone vibrated.
Unknown number. He opened it.