A few blocks away…
Automatic gunfire and roaring engines ripped through the otherwise idyllic soundscape of this otherwise quiet Blackwell neighborhood. The van took a sharp turn, with all the pursuing bikes keeping close like a pack of thornwolves chasing down a six-legged elk. And then the gunfire resumed.
THRAKA-THRAKA-THRAKA
Oni and Harry wisely kept their distance, avoiding the ricocheting rounds bouncing off the heavy composite armor lining the beast. Oni was thankful enough that her temporary comrade was smart enough to know that getting any closer was bad for their health for various reasons.
Which seemed like the best idea, considering an errant swerve from the van ended up causing a gigantic worn-down billboard to teeter and fall towards the duo. Harry barely managed to gun the engine in time, narrowly dodging the thing. Onigiri had her life flash before her eyes in that moment, alongside a decades old advertisement for what looked to be a backwards housecoat.
«Sender: Onigiri»
«Any plan to stop this thing? Kinda seems like shootin’ it ain’t doing much besides makin’ a whole lotta noise.»
«Sender: Stiletto»
«Can you take over the controls and force it to stop? Like how you did when we stole those cars?»
«Sender: Onigiri»
«Lemme try. Didn’t check, ‘cause I figured they’d be smart enough to turn off their connections. Or they got a cage in the thing.»
The hacker tried to concentrate. What with being able to focus not being the easiest thing with all of the factors included. Especially with the risk of a flying car. She could sense the wireless tech that the girls were carrying, commlinks, tethered guns, the works. Even the occasional device inside of a parked car or in someone’s house. All of them practically glowing beacons to her in the otherwise dark and wild seal when she’s viewing the world in her way.
The van, on the other hand? It might as well have been a giant brick of nothing. It was as she thought. She should've been picking up signals from this thing that would’ve made it brighter than a lighthouse in her special vision, but the way that it was running silent, it had to have an active cage—a device that cut off matrix connectivity in a small radius. A rare sight, given near two dozen factors she could rattle off. Including that it was illegal as shit, and cutting yourself off from the waves was nigh-on stupid in most cases. This most likely meant that someone knew something they shouldn’t.
«Sender: Onigiri»
«Zilch. Seems like they might’ve been expectin’ us ahead of time. I don’t think we’ve got the time for me to try and shut their cage off either, and I don’t wanna be that friggin’ close anyways. Do we got any plans that don’t involve me?»
«Sender: Stiletto»
«Mojo time? We got one of the best spellslingers with us right now.»
«Sender: Pizzazz»
«I can give it a shot, yeah, but I'm not gonna enjoy the splittin' headache after.»
Oni patted Harry on the shoulder to catch her attention. “Pull to the shoulder and hold at twice the distance you’re holdin’ at.”
Harridan obliged, unsurprisingly, given that her pace of riding was much more of a lackadaisical Sunday rider than the full throttle speed that the other Banshees were maintaining at the moment.
Onigiri couldn’t complain about going slower. They were kindred spirits at that moment.
----------------------------------------
Engines screamed, accompanying the formation change of the lead Banshees. Pizzazz took up the side closest to the van and concentrated on her connection to the Thread, a pale blue glow slowly enveloping her outstretched left hand that aimed at the van's front tire. Frost formed and began to take over, filling in the deep grooves of the tire. A dull, throbbing pain emerged, like a hammer pounding on her forehead from the inside. She pushed on, keeping her concentration until—
The sudden loss of traction sent the van zig-zagging, its driver desperate to take back control and stay on the road.
Pizzazz shook her head, a vain attempt at lessening the ache. Her right hand held onto the throttle in a death grip, because falling over and skidding across the road would be mondo uncool and a black mark against her rep—not to mention the cost for repairs. She dug deep inside her own mind again, groping for that tenuous Thread connection and focused her frost wave on the van's rear tire this time, intent on inflicting the fate she wished to avoid on it.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Thick frost locked up the van's right side, and the driver finally lost control near the upcoming junction. The van slipped and slid perpendicular to the road, no hope of it making the turn.
The pursuing Banshees slowed down and eventually stopped, keeping their distance for the inevitable crash and shower of glass.
There was a momentary silence, as if time itself stopped to take a snapshot of the moment before disaster struck. A split second later, the air was filled with the deafening crash of a heavy-duty van colliding against brick and steel, the horrible screech of its steel skin getting bent and torn, and the tinkling of shattered bulletproof glass against asphalt.
Stiletto dismounted her bike first, taking her helmet off. “It's beautiful.”
“Easy for you to say.” Pizzazz also removed her helmet, wiping away a streak of blood running from her nostril. The pounding headache was getting worse. “This nosebleed isn't makin' me look beautiful. What's the play now? Crash probably didn't kill 'em.”
“Well, I think we can just—”
Stiletto's words were cut off by Cherry Pie's heavy footfalls, heading for the wreckage. The huge woman ripped off the van's barn doors with her bare hands, and began pulling out the barely conscious occupants, all dressed in all-black BDUs, all with matching skull patches on their left shoulders. She knocked them out one by one via well-placed hooks to the jaw, lining them up neatly on the sidewalk.
“—or we can do that. I'll let Hotrod know where we are and that we already took care of the second van.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m on it,” Onigiri called out in the distance, having missed all the spectacle due to Harry deciding to park her bike two blocks back.
“Okay, yeah, sounds good to me. I'm just gonna go over there and lean against Cherry. Head's woozy.” Pizzazz headed for the sidewalk, blood still dripping onto her leathers.
Scant moments later, the screaming of an Amaya Katana ripped through the dead of night, heralding Hotrod's arrival. Mary still sat backwards on the saddle, her RPM at the ready.
“—damn, nice work,” the Banshees lieutenant said after stopping her bike. “Oh hey, Harry. Didn't expect to see you here.”
“Apologies,” Harry responded as she strode forwards to go about her apparent self-assigned task. She drew the Holzer Ultrakompakt from her shoulder holster—quite possibly one of the least intimidating guns to shove in someone’s face, if they weren’t knowledgeable on the oversized round the hold-out carried.
It was hard to tell if the first goon was actually aware of his surroundings or not, given the classical CorpSec-playing-pretend-as-PMC balaclava and goggles look turning him into a faceless mook. It was hard to tell if Harridan was aware of the possibility he wasn’t in the state to talk or not, but she proceeded to shove her gun right into the corpo’s face.
“Talk,” she blurted out in her usual flat, emotionless tone. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t receive a response. Which led to a pistol whipping of the century. Pizzazz would’ve butted in about how that was the complete opposite of what you should do if you wanted him to talk, but that headache was killer.
Harry moved onto the second goon, who was in a similar state to the first one. She decided to cut the crap by giving the previous goon a new head cavity. Bang. He collapsed over sideways, the sudden shot not helping much with Pizzazz's headache.
“—in the name of Lyraia's jigglin' mammaries, a warning would've been fuckin' nice.” She rubbed her temples.
“Talk. Who sent you?” Harry either didn't hear or ignored her admonition.
It was apparent—even to this poor schmuck—that Harry was just going to continue down the line until one of them opened their mouth. Alongside the supposedly more aware one to the other side of him, given that he got up and tried to run. Bang. He dropped like a sack of rocks, a clean shot through the head. Harry didn’t even break eye contact with the second goon.
“Fuck! Okay, okay!” The second goon held his hands up in front of his face, as if it would do something against being shot point blank. Dude looked like he might’ve pissed himself. “Hosokawa-Hamada. There. Can I go?”
Hosokawa-Hamada? What the hell are they doing out here? They make—
“For what purpose?” Harry asked. Apparently she had the same thought.
“Don’t— don’t fucking ask me, I just get paid to—”
The Ultrakompakt’s barrel settled flat against his forehead. Another way of being told that there’s still a few other breathing corpos left who would be more than happy to answer those prompts.
“Fuck, alright. Planned gentrification of the Emerald Meadows district. I mean, The Slag. We were told that there was a corporate runaway to take in. A standard extraction. We were supposed to take her to a safehouse near here.” He stopped to gulp down a breath. “That’s all I know. We’re not—we weren’t briefed on any of the other parts of the plan.”
Pizzazz couldn't focus on the words being said, the intel sounding more like thick goop being poured directly into her ear canal.
“This corporate runaway of yours,” Hotrod began. “Give us her name.”
“Kawahara Shizu. Most recent intel said she's using the moniker Hotrod.” the goon wobbled for a second before making supposed eye contact with Hotrod—those goggles do no favors in telling where he’s actually looking. “Ah, shit. You?”
“I figured as much.” Hotrod let out a heavy sigh and her attention shifted back to Harridan. “Harry, can you clean this up?”
Harridan nonchalantly sent a round straight between the goon’s eyes, casually dropping the magazine and loading in a fresh one before doing much of the same to the remaining two goons. Bang, bang.
Pizzazz rose from her seated position, feeling lost even as she followed behind Hotrod. Her headache started to subside, but the dots to connect from their freshly gathered intel still did a number on her. “Hang on, so these Hosokawa-Hamada squads were after you specifically? Not to downplay ourselves, but I don't think any of us would affect their gentrification plan. So, why?”
“Well, Zazz, it just means our former sister has chosen the path of a traitorous bitch.”
“Shaileen?”
“Shaileen,” Hotrod spat the name out with visible disgust.
“Hotrod, I recalled what I was supposed to speak to you about,” Harridan said when she caught up with the go-gang entourage.
“Yeah?”
“It is no longer important.”