The stranger seemed extremely nervous for an evidently trained soldier, despite of Kay’s hands already being in the air and far away from her gun... a gun which, as one could probably tell just by looking at it, was not designed to be drawn swiftly. She considered whether it would be a good idea to point out to him that she knew he was in the area before going here – that the spotter birds were indeed the ones she had followed, and that she had heard the gunshot earlier – yet had approached without drawing her weapon, but ultimately decided against it.
	She was not entirely sure [I]why[/I] she reached the decision not to point out to him that her intentions were obviously not hostile. Maybe it was because she did not want to embarras him by pointing out that he was needlessly threatening and interrogating a civilian, and wanted to act the part so that he could live out whatever adrenaline-filled war scenario he thought this was until its peaceful conclusion. It could also be that she did not want to push an obviously stressed and slightly paranoid, maybe even traumatised, man any further by making him aware of his own state. Or perhaps there was a small chance – just a tiny one – that it was because having a high-powered rifle aimed at one’s chest had proved an effective means of establishing authority, and that she did not want to test whether said rifle would be fired if she were to challenge that authority.
	She had to make a conscious effort not to let out another chuckle. Interesting how being faced with potential – probable, even – death seemed to fail to quell her sense of humor, and even less so her curiosity. But then again, how could one expect to survive in the wilderness if a little mortal danger was all it took to ruin one’s mood?

	While she processed the grim irony of the situation, the soldier unleashed a burst of rapid-fire questions that actually had her squinting for a moment as she concentrated, trying her best to note each individual question, only to ultimately reach the conclusion that it could be reduced to three questions: “The birds?”, “What is Eighfour?” and “Is anyone nearby?”
	“Yeh, the birds. Eighfour is a faction,” she shrugged, trying her best to come up with an impromptu explanation of her people. She had never had to actually describe Eighfour before, since she had never met anyone from outside the faction before. “Just a small one, that is. We’re... well, I guess we’re scavengers? We find stuff, we fix stuff, we build stuff and we, uh, tinker. Yeh?”
	She licked her lips, pausing a second to think before replying to the last question. “Well, I’m alone out here right now, so no people. And no settlements nearby, I think. There’s the computer guys, but they’re several dozen kilometers off west.”

	After that, information finally started flowing the other way, coming along in a slow and sparse tickle that barely did anything to sate Kay’s ravenous curiosity, but it was better than nothing. In fact, when she thought about it, there was quite a bit of exciting and useful information in what he had just told her. For starters, it told her that his helmet had to have more gizmos in it than it appeared. How else would it have made sense for this guy to react to the [I]warmth[/I] of the spotter bird? The helmet had to have some kind of compact means of thermal imaging, or maybe a built-in filter in the visor of the helmet itself? She wondered how exactly it worked, whether it could be easily toggled on and off, or if maybe it could even make it possible to discern other non-visible wavelengths. Oh, she had so many questions she wanted to ask him about that helmet! But once again she was dissuaded from actually acting on her inquisitiveness by the prospect of being shot... it was really such a nuisance, that rifle. This could have been a ton of fun if she had not been under threat of death.
	The other thing she learned was one she grew increasingly certain off the longer he spoke: he was alone. Judging by his gear, behavior and general twitchiness, it was probably reasonable to presume that this guy had taken part in “the skirmish last night”, and if he had not, then he certainly had had some kind of particular mission concerning that very same battle. Why else would he be around here, equipped like that? And if one were to work under the presumption that he had indeed been a participant of the bloody festivities, then it would appear that he had been on the losing side. Why else would he have fired at a drone immediately upon detecting it, without as much as taking a split-second to check whether it was enemy or ally... or, as the case would have it, innocent bird. So the drones picking off stragglers were expected to be hostile, which meant they probably belonged to his enemy.
	But the thing was, with what he was saying, it did not really matter too much whether his side had won or lost last night. He thought it might be unhealthy to hold on to his old name... which meant that people who knew his name before were now detrimental to his health? There were a ton of different explanations to this, probably – he could be a traitor, an exile, a deserter, a criminal and who knew what else other factions would kill you for – but it all suggested that he expected his own faction to not be very amicable towards him anymore.
	So he was not just “alone” in the sense Kay was alone, with no one else around... he was [I]really[/I] alone. It made her feel bad for him, and would probably even have made her want to give him a friendly hug to comfort him, had she not been slightly annoyed with being held at gunpoint.

	Finally he lowered his gun a little, at least enough so that a twitch-shot would no longer be immediately fatal... though considering that they were out in the middle of nowhere, being shot in her thigh would probably kill her as surely as a shot in the heart or lung, just not as quickly. She took it as a sign that he was relaxing a bit more, though, and lowered her hands a little accordingly – though she kept them up and away from her pistol – and beamed him a toothy smile.
	“Notrau Qure,” she repeated his name, though she thought it felt a bit awkward on her tongue. She grimaced as though moving the name around in her mouth, tasting it carefully. He did not want to use his old name... for a second she considered suggesting that she called him “Whatever You Want”, making a joke of his own statement, but even aimed at her leg his rifle kept ruining Kay’s fun. “Enn-Que, then.” She sighed. “Can I lower my hands? It’s actually surprisingly uncomfortable, this pose, and it gets worse by the minute.”