Playing tour guide 

Hurston is at war with its people, but you'd never know it at the surface level.  I spent most of February running “tours” through Lorville. Nothing official—just me playing friendly guide for visitors and fresh citizens stepping into Hurston’s industrial nightmare for the first time. On the surface, I was showing people where to eat, how to navigate transit, and which corners not to die in. Underneath, I was doing exactly what CPATH needed me to do:

Gather intel, and I was monitoring Hurston from the inside.

The corporation had been acting strangely. More patrols. More checkpoints. More suspicion in every shadowed alleyway. I needed eyes and ears everywhere, and blending into the civilian crowd was the easiest way to get them.

But the real advantage wasn't the tourists.
It was the guards.

Over the weeks, I ended up befriending a surprising number of them—almost by accident at first. Some were young, barely out of training, trying to look tough while their hands shook around their rifles. Others were older, worn down, exhausted, just trying to make it to their next shift without collapsing. A few were women working twice as hard for half the respect, yet sharper and more aware than any of their peers. And some… some had no business even carrying a pointy stick, let alone a firearm. Not mentally. Not emotionally. Not in any galaxy.

Then there were the leadership types—the supervisors and sergeants who carried themselves like they were guarding the entire planet alone. Paranoid. Overconfident. Dangerous. But they liked to talk. And people who like to talk are the easiest to learn from.

I bought them drinks.
Shared smokes on break pads.
Laughed at their bad jokes.
Listened to their frustrations, their orders, their secrets.

All of it while pretending to be nothing more than a helpful face guiding newcomers through the maze of Lorville’s misery.

And it paid off.
Big time.

While leading groups through the city, pointing at architecture or explaining worker districts, I was also observing:

• Which guards were being rotated at odd hours,

• Which checkpoints got new codes?

• Where their armored vehicles were staging,

• Which doorways did the guards tell me never to go near?

• Who among them was angry enough—or drunk enough—to say too much?
  
  

New citizens are invisible to Hurston.
But a friendly guide?
A harmless, approachable regular?

No one questioned me.
No one looked twice.

By the end of the month, I’d built a small network—guards who trusted me enough to gossip, complain, or let their guard down completely. Some even warned me about raids before they happened.

Acting like a lighthearted tour guide by day and dumping surveillance reports at night nearly broke me… but it worked. The intel was priceless. It shaped everything CPATH planned in the months that followed.

Sometimes infiltration doesn’t require armor, guns, or stealth suits.
Sometimes all it takes is a smile, a conversation—

—and the ability to move through Lorville like you’re just another face trying to get by.