I found my footing in the knee-deep trash and lashed out at a bag with an impotent crunch.

Pain lanced through my side. Ugh. That was a mistake. Peering over the dumpster’s rim, I spotted a crumpled station wagon parked near a cheery bistro—no doubt where I’d rapidly decelerated before rolling to a stop.

Not sure what I thought would happen after jumping into a runaway dumpster. Now I was sitting here with a pilfered portal and a weeping head wound, no closer to saving Mom from extradition. And even if the other world’s FBI didn’t have the building staffed on a Saturday, we still had to contend with any cops that security had called.

Judging by the not-so-distant siren, they were already heading this way.

I yanked out Mom’s Iriguchi, twisting the mode dial, desperate to reload so I could hold onto the dumpster. If the police showed up, I’d at least have a bargaining chip—even though I wasn’t about to get into a shoot-out with LYPD. I just needed to regain control of the situation.

A car horn blared. Matt’s concerned, beet-red face craned over the remains of the dumpster’s rim. “Are you hurt?” he asked, wheezing.

The street intersecting this one stretched uphill past off-brand fast food shops and, in the other direction, down toward the water. Towing this thing to the bay was our only move now. “Doesn’t matter. Can you get the RV?”

“Uh. Oh. Yeah. Shit.” He turned to jog back the way he came.

I swallowed my rising panic and dug around in the trash for my phone, finally finding it buzzing beneath a bag of cat litter.

Matt calling. “Stay on the line,” he shouted as soon as I answered.

I guess if he didn’t get here in time, he could listen to me kicking and screaming all the way to jail. I dialed Garrett, praying he could help.

Three long rings before he picked up. “Uh, hello?”

“Garrett.” I conferenced him into Matt’s call. “How close are you? I kinda stole a dumpster portal from your government, and I need to buy us time until Matt gets here with a tow. Tell me you know how to reload an Iriguchi.”

“Oh my. Does this mean you have a lead on the Talisman?” He sounded creepily calm, like his attention was elsewhere. Maybe on those booming gaming sounds in the background.

Dripping sweat pricked my eyes. I needed him on board here. “Your government wants it. They’re gonna send my mom back. But if we take away their portal—the one Otokotronics needs to transit the Talisman—we can keep looking.”

A beat of dead air on the line. The gaming sounds cut off. “Allow me to pull up the Iriguchi P44 manual and run a translation. I was studying Japanese to assist in watching anime, but my discovery of the game console served as a bit of a distraction. My parents actually came here from Japan during the war. Someday I’d enjoy seeing Tokyo, especially—”

“Garrett.” He was kind of endearing, but I wished he’d be endearing later. “No pressure, but the cops are on their way. Is there anything I can do with this gun when it’s out of ammo? Or is it an interdimensional paperweight?”

Matt’s RV flew around a corner and screeched to a stop in front of the dumpster. My heart leapt.

“My apologies,” Garrett said, finally sounding like he understood the gravity of the situation. “I’m searching in the document…. This is odd. It says the P44's free trial license does not include realtime ammo refresh … and to contact our sales representative to upgrade. However, it appears that as long as the Iriguchi’s battery retains a charge, triggering the weapon without ammunition opens its portal repeatedly, making a … localized disturbance—and voiding the warranty. There is quite a prominent warning.”

I brushed blood from my brow. “That sounds … promising.” I needed to test this out quickly, see if I could actually use it to hold the dumpster. Taking a step back as best I could amid the trash, I leveled the gun at the dumpster wall—and fired.

The uh oh tone chimed, this time with a flurry of quiet ticking like hail on a tin roof, barely audible over the hum of passing cars. And as I held the trigger, the wall of the dumpster was progressively eaten away, steel disintegrating before my eyes.

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I gasped, easing off the gun. Holy crap. This was a localized disturbance, alright. Why the hell wasn’t it a default setting though? “It’s making a hole! How much battery does this use?”

Garrett cleared his throat. “You needn’t worry about that. It appears the P44 has an internal Kemper-Holcomb micro-fission reactor. I’m seeing there’s a setting called burn rate, slow to fast. And because you will surely ask—you can hold the mode dial to either side for three seconds to enable voice commands and set the rate.”

I gazed at the Iriguchi in wonderment. How did a reactor even fit in there? But the siren moaned louder now, and my arms went rigid.

Matt’s soft cursing drifted from behind the RV.

Hopefully he was finding some way to hitch the dumpster. I just needed more range if I was going to hold off any cops until then. It sounded crazy even to me, but what else could I do with Mom's freedom on the line? I twisted and held the dial, the gun chiming merrily. “Change to fast burn,” I said, feeling silly talking to a weapon. Another chime.

“Ko,” Garrett said, “just be careful when you—”

I fired again, the hand cannon ticking like a Geiger counter at Chernobyl. The cumulative recoil struck me like a kick to the chest and I flew back into the trash.

My cheeks burned as I sat up. Because the yawning hole in the rear of the dumpster was almost as tall as me now—a found art picture frame for the familiar panel van screaming downhill right at us, the yellowed Las Yerbas foothills as backdrop.

Icicles shot down my spine. Athleisure. Driving the battered van he’d liberated from Otokotronics. Either he really wanted this dumpster—or just thought I knew something about the Talisman. But how did he know where where to find us? And, uh, since he'd cut up Ko Prime’s bot like it was nothing, what would he do to a human who shared her face? “So, a couple things. I have some additional ventilation now—and a clear view of Athleisure’s van racing toward us, maybe ten blocks out.”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” Matt shouted over the clang of metal.

A wailing police sedan rounded a dry cleaners a few blocks ahead of the van and drifted onto the street with tires smoking. Then it leveled out, gunning its engine toward us.

My chest tightened, my fingers stiffening on the Iriguchi. The world was closing in on me. I had a gun with no range and more kick than I could handle. If I stayed, I’d die holding the dumpster or get taken into custody. If we ran, I’d straight-up lose Mom. I swallowed, my skin on fire, my chest like ice, and pushed to my feet.

“Got it!” Matt shouted. “Chain through the railing just like in the parking garage. Okay, I’m gonna tow it. You wanna ride shotgun, or …”

“You go. Hurry. I can hold him off better from here.”

Scrambling footsteps. The RV rumbled to life. Matt gunned the engine, but it gave a high-pitched, sputtering whine.

We didn’t move an inch.

His voice came through my phone, thin with panic. “The dumpster is too heavy!”

Sweat slid down my neck. We were screwed. I cast around for something, anything to do.

A lean gutter punk, all tattoos and cargo shorts, rode a longboard along the sidewalk. He pushed off to gain speed, sweeping a lazy arc around a sign advertising drink specials.

Of course. I didn’t need a weapon. I needed propulsion. “Maybe I can give us a little push.” I put my phone on speaker and tucked it into a pocket. Then I ducked my head and shoulders through the ragged hole in the rear of the dumpster, levering my elbows against the outside. “Change burn rate to medium.”

My hand cannon chimed brightly. The siren’s wail was everywhere now. Athleisure and LYPD bore down on us, mere blocks away.

I set my teeth and squeezed the trigger—praying the gun’s “localized disturbance” worked as expected.

The no ammo tone sounded, but the weapon’s kick slammed my elbows against the outer wall. I held my ground, straining as the Iriguchi continued ticking, firing invisibly.

And slowly, ever so slowly, the dumpster began to move.

I hissed out my held breath. Thank you, Physics class. It was a good thing the gun had no range now or I’d be putting holes in passing vehicles. But the scream of metal on metal clawed at my ears—another unlucky parked car.

And then, we were rolling down the road.

Matt turned on the adjacent street into light weekend traffic, away from Athleisure and LYPD, downhill toward the bay. The dumpster in tow accelerated, a blur of pavement streaming behind me as a horn brayed somewhere up front.

The trailing police sedan slowed to match our speed, sun reflecting off its windshield.

Matt buzzed through my phone. “Do I want to know how you gave us a little push?”

I cast a glance back toward the RV, me and the dumpster swaying behind it. “I don’t think you do.” My bad tooth broadcast agony; this was going to be a rough ride.

But an amplified woman’s voice blared from the flashing police cruiser as it drew within a car length.

“Ko, pull the dumpster over. Right now.”

It was Mom. And boy, did she sound pissed.