The bar in Second Miltia City didn't appear particularly interesting - at least from an outsider's view. Any regulars knew it was a popular dating spot for those looking for a partner of their own gender, though, not that it didn't attract those who weren't into such activity as well. It was, in the end, a nice place with a cheerful atmosphere, and it was often full of customers.

Tonight wasn't an exception, Canaan noted to himself as he entered the bar. He stopped by the counter and ordered a drink - a drink he would never touch, but considering he was in a bar, it worked as a cover if nothing else. He looked around and found himself a free booth then sat down, ignoring the fact that a couple of people were already checking him out. Someone nearby even made a comment about him being a Realian and being interested in trying, but he paid no attention.

This was work, and he took work seriously. The mission itself was quite simple, really - he was here to meet an unofficial informant of Helmer's. He was supposed to receive information from the contact, and in exchange, he was expected to perform some simple services. Canaan thought 'simple services' was a pretty nice way of expressing it, since the between-the-lines version pretty much said that he was expected to sleep with the man, but he didn't mind.

He didn't know much about the informant he was here to meet, mostly because the mission file gave him very little to work with. It was a little odd that there was no personal record or anything of that sort, not even a code name. All he knew was the fact that the informant wanted to meet in a public place, such as this bar, which he had named as the meeting place.

A busy place filled with people, where no one would pay attention to a couple of strangers meeting. According to the file, the informant didn't submit his reports regularly, which indicated that the person in question was a civilian - although Canaan's calculations indicated that he was probably an ex-soldier. He even guessed it might've been someone from Helmer's old unit. Once Special Ops always Special Ops, some people said, although the Realian wasn't sure what to think of that.

The place, and this whole mission gave him an odd feeling altogether, though. Canaan was a Realian model with suppressed emotions and certainly not one to act on gut feeling, so it shouldn't have mattered. It just made him wonder even more why he even pondered on the mission details. There was an informant whom he would meet, that was all there was to it. An informant who had a little more to him than the file implied, but an informant nonetheless.

Not all informants worked for the Intelligence Department, anyway, he thought. As a Representative, it was always good for Helmer to gain information on what the general public's opinion really was, since polls didn't always tell the whole truth. Since the informant guy wasn't officially anything and just continued to submit his information because he wanted to... Loyalty towards his ex-commander, perhaps? Humans made odd decisions sometimes, and the case with this one probably wasn't any different. Canaan shrugged off the thought and turned to look at the other side of the bar, where two girls were making out next to the window. Nobody around the place paid any mind, and he didn't really care, either.

This really wasn't anything like his usual missions, he had to admit. Canaan's usual jobs were mostly combat related or bodyguard duty, not meeting up with informants. There was also the fact that according to the mission database, the informant in question was usually handled by someone else, but that was one of the reasons the file on the case had caught his eye.

It just happened that the records on the informant's previous cases showed that all the previous meet-ups had been taken care by another Realian whom Canaan knew. There was nothing unusual at first glance; not even if someone were to start doing checks, but there was just that something that made him wonder. Deeper check-up into the mission files showed something wrong with the mission completion code, and Canaan had also noticed some of the missions overlapping with something else his fellow Realian had been doing.

The only thing to do at that point had been to check from the other Realian. Canaan had done so, and while the fellow Realian didn't off-hand recall doing the missions, upon seeing the file, he had confirmed it to be his mission code and shrugged it off as a memory glitch, seeing the missions had been of very low importance.

This all brought Canaan to only one conclusion: the data had been tampered with. It didn't seem that the contact himself was the hacker, though; rather, it appeared someone else was using the missions as a cover for altering the records. Maybe it was to cover up something else? Canaan wasn't sure what. What was clear was that someone was hiding something here. Considering the importance of the informant's data though, it made no sense.

The mission was so low-priority that no one really had a reason to be hacking mission records, and since there was no access to anything more important through these files, he couldn't really figure out why anyone would bother in the first place. Besides, he hadn't found traces of hacking attempts throughout the files - but maybe that was the goal. Maybe. Well, there was only one way to find out why and to find out who the informant was, he thought as he stared at his drink, still not touching it. He sighed and studied the people gathered in the bar.

Why the hell was he here in the first place, he asked himself. Why did something as minor as this nag him so much he had to come check it out himself? It all bothered him; what the hell was he expecting to find here, anyway?

A young man stopped by his booth and attempted to start a chat, but Canaan paid no mind, plain ignoring him. At least the man gave up and left after moment, which saved him the trouble of telling him to go away. This person was not the one he was here to meet. While the file had no picture of the informant, there were hints that his target would use certain codes. No one matched the behavior so far, though, and Canaan wondered if he had arrived to the meeting place too early. No, it could also be that contact was late; probably the latter, but it worked better that way. If they had both arrived at the same time, it might've have seemed suspicious.

To pass time, he turned in his seat and studied the crowd occupying the bar. The customers mostly consisted on younger people, he noted. Probably mostly those not committed to a relationship, he analyzed, since the place was used for hitting up potential date partners. If that was what it was called, Canaan then corrected his thoughts. As far as his data of this place went, most of the people here were looking for a casual sex partner. He had no idea why the hell the contact had wanted to pick a place like this for the meeting. Then again... Thinking of it more carefully, he had to admit it actually made sense to randomly meet up with someone seemingly stranger here and even to leave the place with them.

A Realian like himself was probably a rarer sight around here, he thought. It wasn't that Realians never had free time or wandered outside where they worked, but one visiting bars such as this one had to be something you didn't see every day. The young man who had attempted to start a chat sure wasn't the only one looking in his direction. Canaan could easily pick every single person around him who would have been interested, but thankfully to him it seemed most of the people present didn't have the courage to approach him.

His contact was here to meet a Realian, though, and he wasn't about to start chatting with unnecessary people. He presumed the contact knew what to look for, and none of the people paying attention to him so far seemed like they had expected to find him here. His gaze stopped on a young man, who by human standards was very handsome, sitting by the counter. The man smiled at him when he noticed the Realian looking at him, and Canaan turned his face away, trying to appear not interested. That one wasn't likely to be his contact, either.

A few minutes passed, and a couple of new people entered the bar. One of them instantly wandering over to where Canaan was sitting and attempted to hit on him, but the Realian kept to his uninterested look. This one was too direct and just didn't catch his attention the way the person he was waiting for was supposed to. Canaan picked up his drink and held it in his hand for a moment, just to pretend he was actually there to drink. He stopped to stare at the glass and almost frowned. What had he been thinking just now? Why did he feel like he would know on the exact moment the informant came to him?

He placed the glass down on the table again, idly wondering if his contact had forgotten about the meeting. No, perhaps he was not expecting Canaan to be there, had gotten suspicious and left the moment he had noticed the red-haired Realian. The informant was careful, after all. Seeing Canaan was suspecting hacking attempts, perhaps it actually was the informant who was the one responsible for the file alterations. Thus, meeting up with someone the man had not been expecting might have gotten his guard up and he had escaped.

"Are you alone?" A somehow familiar-sounding voice asked all of a sudden, causing Canaan to snap out of his thoughts. He turned to look at the newcomer, finding a man in a dark green kimono standing there, smiling at him.