“Hi Electrical, it's me, Radiation. I got a really important matter it'd like to discuss with you. Could we meet you later today?” Radiation said on the phone. “Yeah it's not just me. It's Gravity and Nuclear too. No we don't need to gather the whole council. Yes privately! No we'd like to come down to you. We might want to look in your systems. Okay… good, see you.” She hung up. One night had passed since they spied on the black shifters.

“What did she say?” Nuclear asked.

“She said she hates us and never wants to see us again, since you blew up her car."

“Not funny…” Nuclear cried. “Several people died in that accident.”

“Yeah but it was one of your smaller explosions. What did you explode? A stone?”

“No it was just a couple of atoms. They just begged me to rip them apart.” Nuclear said ashamed. “But she can't hold grudge towards me for that anymore, can she? It was such a long time ago.”

Radiation laughed. “No I don't think she does. She said we can see her in an hour at the Electrical faction building.”

“In an hour? Then we better get going" Neutron said.

“Wait, wait, I'm not going to any electrical faction building” Delmar declared upset. Neutron sighed.

“What now?”

“There are some places I won't go and the electrical faction and the chemical faction are two of them!” Delmar read straight from Neutrons mind that he thought Delmar was a spoiled brat and he envied the fact Gravity had let the wolves sleep and be in the animal forbidden sofa.

“This is not a question of what you want and don't want, we need to look into their archives and see if it's true Black Hole worked for them.”

“Would you stroll into a police station if you were a well-known criminal?”

“The electric faction aren't cops, that would have been a problem if we were going to the Chemical faction. But we're not"

“No but I can't imagine they have forgiven me for the massive amount of work I gave them when i left your society"

“What did you do, if it's that hard to forgive?”

“I might have flown over the city as a giant ice demon after I Crushed several buildings?”

“Was that you?” Neutron started to laugh “Haha man, I should have known, how many crazy ice shifters can there be? But don't worry things like that are forgotten and forgiven after 150 years or so. How long ago was it? 300 years?”

“350” Delmar gnarled. “It doesn't change the fact, you're going without me. If you want my help you got to respect when I don't want to go somewhere.”

“Neutron let him be,” Gravity interrupted, “If he don’t want to go we can’t force him.” He turned to Delmar. “I hope you’ve told us everything about Black Hole. There’s nothing you want to add to your story?”

“No I don’t think so.”

“Good, here take my phone, if you remember anything else just call Radiation.” Gravity tried to hand over his phone to Delmar before he realized the wolf had no hands to accept it with. Instead he put it on the table. The fellowship left the apartment leaving the two wolves behind.

Electrical met them at the entrance. She was a stern looking black woman with silvery hair.

“What’s so important we can't involve the whole council? Or not important enough? I hope for the first, because I don’t want you to waste my time. Some people got real jobs you know.”

“Always a pleasure to meet you too Electrical.” Gravity laughed and gave her a hug.

“Now I hope you give me a good reason to access my files, not that you mentioned what exact files you wanted access to.”

They went into the facility up towards the main office.

“We do believe we got a real good reason. There is a former Agent we want to do a check up on.” Gravity answered.

“On whose behalf? Nuclears? Afraid someone in electrical wants to crash the economic market or something?” the nuclear faction were responsible for taking care of the economics of the shifter society. They have several times had to deal with gold shifters from the electrical faction who was wrecking the human economy creating loads of gold.

“Worse, but I don’t want to take it in these public halls. But it’s on the behalf of our society. Nuclear is innocent this time.”

“Now you are making me nervous, Gravity. The Room of Secrets then?” Electrical asked.

“I think that’s for the best.”

She led them into a windowless but still comfortable meeting room.

“So who is it you want to do a check up on?” Electrical asked. “And why?”

Radiation cleared her throat “A jackal named Wilfred. We have strong reasons to believe he worked as an agent for you.”

“Wilfred? Doesn't ring any bells. We have a Manfred and a Wildor, but none of them are jackals. Still people change names. You have anything else on him? When is he supposed to have worked here?”

“Darn it!” Neutron said “I knew we should have brought that stubborn wolf, whether he liked it or not”

“He should have worked here until recently, are you sure you got no Wilfreds?” Radiation asked.

“I can double check if you want, but I don’t think we’ll find anything. Our supply of jackals are rather small.”

“Yeah, and there’s one more thing about him, we don’t think he possess any electrical powers.” Radiation added.

“Then why the heck are you searching for him in my faction?”

“Listen Electrical,” Gravity said, “Some weeks ago I encountered a Jackal in the forest, and he seems to have extraordinary imploding powers. Powers to suck things into a black hole. I believe you of all people can see the security risks with that.”

“That sounds rather ominous. Still doesn't explain why you think he worked here?”

“We did some research on him and found out he have been working for you. So now we’re here to ask you; who is Wilfred and is he a threat?” Gravity asked.

“Sounds like a fucking threat to me. But I never had a jackal with implosion powers in my faction. Your source must be unreliable.”

Neutron sighed.

“Great so now our psychic dog is unreliable, what did you expect from a cri…”

“Neutron!” Radiation cut of madly.

“A criminal psychic? Man, you must be desperate. Why isn’t he here? It’s easier to get useful information from the victim's mind if you hear it straight from the psychic you know.” Electrical said.

“He didn’t want to come. For logical reasons.” Gravity shrugged.

“Smart psychic. Are you sure he told the truth?” Electrical leaned back in her chair.

“You can’t ever be sure with second hand information. But he seemed to tell the truth. He went through a lot to get the information we have”

“And that information is a name. How did he figure he was from my faction?”

“The guy can check people’s memories, he told us he have memories of being your agent. I don’t know why his memories would lie?”

“I know what a psychic is, idiot. But a field agent or what? What has he memories of doing here?”

“What did he say? Taking back human ids?”

“Then he must have had a partner. I can give you a file of all field agents that have been active the latest years. Then your psychic can go through them and see if he recognize the partner. Find the partner and you’ll find out who Wilfred is. Or at least who he think he is.”

“Thanks that’s really helpful!” Radiation said.

“I can’t believe I'm handing out classified information to a criminal.” Electrical sighed. “You better make sure you get something useful out of this.”

“And Electrical, I think its best this stays between us” Gravity said seriously. “I don’t want to create any panic before we know if they’re hostile or not.”

“Telling me how to do my job, old man?” Electrical said with a smile in the corner of her mouth.

“What did you expect? I’m just a senile old badger after all” He returned the smile.

“Angiiiii… I'm bored.” Delmar proclaimed and put his wolf head on the couch where she laid.

“Suit yourself, it was you who wanted to stay here in the first place.” she answered uninterested.

“You said you could beat me in a fair fight a while ago, prove it!”

“No I'm not going to fight you in here,” she yawned, “get some rest or something?”

“Argh, you're such a killjoy" he said disappointed and started to circle restless around the sofa.

“And you're so goddamned erratic, I'm sincerely surprised you're still in this apartment, not running back to the forest saying: screw all this.” she turned around trying to find a comfortable position.

“Maybe I should just try and take down your mental wall? Find out all your secrets?” he grinned mean trying to catch her attention. She sat up.

“Why don't you just ask me like a normal person what you want to know instead?”

“That can't be fun, can it?”

“You don't know that until you tried it out.” she smiled.

“Fine tell me something about yourself,” he muttered.

“Nothing in particular?”

“I don't know how this works, I usually look into a person's head if I want to know anything.” he answered grumpy.

“Well, I was born in the mountains, I lived alone with my mom. My mom didn't want to join a pack because of me. She said I wouldn't be accepted since I'm a demon blood. I never knew my father but I do realize now he must have been a shifter by the things she told me about him.” she sighed and gazed out into oblivion. “He must have been something like you, snow or ice shifter. Whatever he was I inherited his ability to withstand the cold. My mom wasn't so lucky though she died in a blizzard some years ago. I didn't want to live by myself so I wandered down into the lower lands to try and find a pack.”

“So that's when you found Sillof’s demon blood pack?”

“Well, I found some normal wolf packs first but my mom was right about them. I guess it wasn't before I found Sillof’s pack till I realized I had been lucky with my visual traits, I only got some weird markings. Several of the demon blood wolves in the pack have horns and unnatural colors. They thought I looked normal.”

“So now you stay there and everybody's happy.” Delmar declared as the story was over.

“Hey, last time I checked I was sitting in a human sofa talking to an ice demon." she laughed.

“Oh right…”

“No I get bored with the pack sometimes, I usually go back to the mountains once or twice a year. I have a hard time staying at one place. That’s why Sillof asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“Right." He had almost started to forget the reason she followed him around, she didn't keep him company, she was surveying him.

“But you and Sillof has known each other for a while?” she asked. “He told me a bit about you.”

“I can't say I know him, we've encountered each other a couple of times, and exchanged scars. What did he tell you about me?” he asked curiously.

“That you are dangerous, insane, loves to kill, that I should keep great distance from you, absolutely not talk with you and be extremely careful.”

“Hah! And look how that went!”

“I have a different mindset than Sillof, I believe an enemy is a friend you haven't made yet. I need to at least try befriending a person before I decide it's an enemy. And look, I guess I was lucky and had right this time. I guess all you needed was someone to care a bit for you.”

“Hmf…”

The door to the apartment opened and the energy shifters were back. “Shoo get of my sofa, wolf!” Gravity said not very upset to Angi. She jumped down.

“So did you find anything?” Delmar asked.

“No, nothing. Not a single thing! Are you sure about the name?” Radiation said.

“Yes, was there no info about him?”

“No it's like he hasn't existed. And Electrical didn't know any jackals that fits the description.” she said concerned. “Here is a cookie from Electrical by the way.” Radiation put a chocolate chip cookie on the table.

“What? Why?” Delmar said and looked suspicious at the cookie.

“Because she thought you were smart not to show up.”

Gravity started a computer which projected a hologram over the Coffee table.

“Huh, I thought you were a pen and paper person.” Radiation said amused.

“Well we do need something to watch our new files on, don't we?” Gravity opened up the files and several portraits and data filled air over table. Each profile got two portraits, one animal and one human.

“What’s this?” Delmar asked surprised.

“This is all electrical agents that have been active the last 50 years. I want you to look through them and tell us if you recognize either Wilfred or his partner.” Gravity started move around the holograms with his hands in the air. “We could start by looking at all jackals.” He sorted out all jackals. There was five of them but no one was black. On top of it all was only one of them working in New Devantos, the city they were in. None of them was Black Hole or even resembled him one bit.

“It's like he hasn't existed…” Radiation said concerned. “See if you can find his partner! Did you catch her name?” she asked Delmar.

“No, but I think I can recognize her.” They started to browse through all female agents.

“Wait! That’s her!” They stopped at a brunette female/hyena.

“Karen Walther, hyena, element: copper, 404 years, field agent.” Radiation took a pause. “Status, missing…” she said disappointed.

“What about her partner?” Neutron asked.

“Ludwig Smythe…” Gravity made a quick search for the name. “Wild dog, element: silver, 264 years old, field agent. Status: missing"

“No that's definitely not him…” Delmar said disappointed.

“But they are both missing, there is definitely something odd with that.” Gravity said concerned. He closed down the files. “We’re not getting any more info from this. Either we'll go back to the Electrical faction and start asking about the missing persons or we'll go back to Black Hole and see if we can find any more useful information in his mind.”

“We still don't know what they want and if they are a threat.” Neutron added.

“Delmar can we ask you to take another look into his mind? I know it's a lot to ask from you.” Radiation asked carefully. He had no desire to make another trip into the jackals mind, he didn't want to take the risk to be stuck in there again. But at the same time he was curious and he didn't want to let them down. This was his job after all.

“As long as I only read his memories it should be fine. I dug too deep last time to check his powers.”