Standing in his apartment, Jason was faced with an extremely delicate situation, and a choice which, ultimately, he'd already made. Take the money and run. He took stock of his assets. Car he would need to ditch. 10mm Handgun, two clips. Government-issue laptop he couldn't take with him. Clothes. A bank account with a fair amount of cash to withdraw.

But... most of that couldn't happen til morning. Which was still hours away. If the cop woke up by then... Okay. One step at a time.

Checking his phone, he verified the information for the dealership he'd be selling his car at; and headed out. Duffel bag over his shoulder once again, laptop taking a spin in the apartment microwave, he left the apartment for the second time; and the last time. Heading downstairs to retrieve his car, he made a list, tallying up in his head where to go from here, what to do... as he could hear the machines whirring beneath him... and see the cop cars off in the lot; after all, there was an active crime scene not a quarter mile away.

Step 1: Get daily limit from the ATM.

Step 2: Get a burner phone.

Step 3: Get as much useful gear as possible.

Step 4: Sell the old car if possible and buy a used one off craigslist with cash.

Step 5: Get the hell out of DC.

By the time his car arrived, however, another problem presented itself. A teenager. Another dark-skinned boy, with sagging pants, a bandanna; possibly one of the witnesses? Things had been so hectic he couldn't be sure. The boy... young man, really.. walked up closer, and glanced around as the Mustang slid up from below.

"You did Tyler a solid. So we do you a solid. You bugging out, right? Got any friends who can help with that?"

Jason thought for a moment, tossing his duffel into the back seat. Should he trust this kid? Hell. He sure as hell couldn't trust the cops. "Not on this side of the ocean. I can get cash... until they know who I am. If you know someone who is good for some less-than-legal ordinance, or a fake ID, I'd appreciate it. Gonna head out west."

The young man tilted his head, looking at Jason as if he were an idiot. "Nobody on the run goes out west, man. That's Lightning country. But yeah. I know somebody. ID is on the house; or on Tyler, you might say. You hadn't showed up, he'd be dead. Guns will cost you."

A low chuckle. "Of course. Guns are never free. Who are we talking about?"

A quick, hushed conversation. Directions. Instructions. And with his mustang finally retrieved, Jason took one last look at the complex. Nice, fancy, new apartments he'd never see again, despite having the next two months paid up. He gave a sad shake of his head as he pulled out of the complex.. heading into the unknown.

***

When he pulled up behind the pawn shop, a garage door slid open invitingly; and with a hand on his pistol, Jason drove right in, and shut off the engine. He hopped out of the car, hand still in his pocket, and looked around... to meet the gaze of a pair of large, heavily armed men with what could best be described as a greasy look to them.

The first; with a submachinegun in his hand, albeit not pointed at anything at present, stepped up. "Got word from one of our regulars. You did something foolish, helped one of them. We'll get you set with fake ID. He said you might want some guns, yes?"

"Not so much guns. I've got this.." Jason pulled his 10mm out, carefully aiming it away. "For most work. But if the cops come after me, there might be a Meta involved, so I was wanting to check if you had any shrouds, bursters, or tears. Oh... and I'm gonna be selling this baby at the dealer in about six hours for twenty-five grand. Could use something harder to trace. Bike, compact, something small."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The man took a look at the mustang. "Time is of the essence, yes? I will trade you a motorcycle, and grenades, for the car. Two of each. Not best of motorcycles. Older. But also not in your name."

Jason looked down at the car. "I doubt the cops will be onto me early enough to stop me from selling her... but still. Its an appealing offer. Means I could be out of town immediately instead of in six hours. Throw in a few grand and a couple extra mags full of 10mm, I'll take it."

The two men look at each other. The one doing the speaking so far sounded just slightly russian; but Jason was a terrible judge of that sort of thing. They could be russian mob, italian mob... or just a couple of random crooks who happen to be in a gang Tyler had worked with. The speaker gave a quick nod. "Three thousand? Done. BRICE model, yes?" "Yep. Over two hundred miles per gallon. Has like six trackers in it, though I removed all of them when I bought it. You got the bike here?"

***

Jason was not particularly happy with the bike; for one thing, it was older than he was, of some weird antique name called 'Hodaka'; which had apparently been heavily modified, given neon lights, and a complete lack of class. He also wasn't happy with the grenades; the ones he was used to carrying were about the size of a baseball, clearly purpose-built for the job, and made by the US government specifically for helping soldiers facing off against speedsters, brutes, and other sorts common bullets might not be that useful against.

These? 40mm grenades, clearly made to go out of a launcher, but with an improvised detonator hooked on. Clearly eastern european models, probably cold-war era equipment made by some former soviet state that was worried about all of the metas that kept leaving them for better countries. Which, of course, meant they were almost as old as the bike. Still.

They seemed servicable enough, as did the bike. And after stopping at a few wal-marts, he had a few more important things; each time, he'd stopped to get a cheap burner phone, pull some cash out of the ATM; and then left. Carefully parking outside of camera range and swapping from his new bike helmet to the cowboys hat each time.

The helmet was particularly nice; the whole front was like a two-way mirror rather than having a visor. He wasn't sure where they'd acquired it... but apparently it went with the bike. As he entered Tennessee heading west, he took stock of what he had on him with the sun starting to rise.

Six grand in cash. Nine burner phones, all set up, all different numbers, all currently seperated from their batteries. One new fake ID; apparently he was an irish immigrant named Jason Byrne; something which brought quite a few chuckles from the man assembling the ID, while Jason himself thought the whole thing was nonsense; even on his best day, with no extra eyeballs, Jason had never looked as good as Matt Damon.

One 10mm pistol; the fancy things had been built by some genius Meta back in the 90s, and become popular military side-arms. Plenty of stopping power, caseless ammunition; let you have a good-sized clip, more stopping power, and less weight than the 9mm that had been popular beforehand.

And of course the grenades. As soon as he got the chance, he was going to get a proper launcher. Maybe one of those sorts that could fire off a few in quick succession. Always looked cool in that terminator movie.

But... what was he going to do?

As he rode down the long highway, heading off towards the west, he thought through his options.

If the cop turned out to be dead, all of this was pointless; he would probably be able to go back to that apartment in a week and relax. If he was alive, though? And ID'd the three-eyed man? Cops generally didn't make that big an attempt to take cop-killers alive. He'd seen the videos from that one shootout in the woods; the man had his hands up in his cabin long before the cops stopped shooting.

And even before the incident with Tyler he'd never really been a big fan. The cops back at his hometown liked to fund the whole department by writing a hundred BS tickets a day to everybody who drove by on the highway. When he was still alive, his dad liked to say the cops were about as useful as tits on a boar, and as crooked as the day was long.

Now? Well. Seeing the videos was one thing. Seeing what was clearly a criminal murderer in person, and only realizing it was a cop after he'd stopped him mid-crime? Worse.

So he'd need to go into hiding somewhere. Isolated, not too many people. For that, he'd need money. Not just a few grand; that would get him started, but not keep him going. He'd need to go to some middle of nowhere spot in Wyoming, or Alaska, somewhere there were more critters on hooves than people, get some land, a cabin... and just vanish.

Keeping an eye on the interstate signs ahead, he pondered scamming Rollins out of that signing bonus for the TSA. Maybe he could get it before showing up for work? Nah. There were two easy answers.

First, he was gonna try vegas. See if he could make some money rolling dice. If the casinos didn't catch on too fast, somebody who could see a few seconds into the future could turn a crapshoot into a pretty much guaranteed chance. That would be the easy way. Nobody gets hurt, the only attention he gets is from some pissed-off casinos, and then he's on his way north.

If that didn't work? Well, he could always go into bank robbery.