The ‘89 Ox Reliable peeled around the corner with a speed and agility that defied common sense, Bruce’s artificial connection with the vehicle enhancing his control over the machine to the point that he was nearly one with it, body and soul, every one of its motions an expression of his will and thought, and every scratch, ding and gunshot as clear and painful to him as if it were his own flesh being marred.

Still, it was not the true extent of his capabilities with the vehicle, a large portion of his mental resources kept in reserve so that he could monitor his internal surroundings. Specifically, on the seat behind the one his physical body was currently secured to.

Annie was losing more and more blood with the passing of each excruciatingly slow second, Bruce’s need for speed now greater than ever before, but it would be utter idiocy to save her only for either whatever was left of those bastards that they had left behind them or whomever they were currently working for to come busting down the door shortly after getting her to somewhere safe.

So close to the shore and city centre, there were plenty of hospitals and similar locations to head for, but even if he was stupid enough to rely on the more lawful options available right now, the places that he and Annie would ultimately end up in would have the two of them facing a far worse fate than simple exsanguination.

That said…

The van had a series of internal cams as part of its onboard security measures, and it was through them that he scanned the woman slumped over in the seat behind him.

“Gods,” he thought, she looked as if there were more blood on her shirt than in her.

The woman was labouring for breath, the rising of her chest ragged and weakening as time kept passing by. A troubling activity that brought him relief due to it showing him that his companion was indeed still alive…for now.

‘Right…nothing on the sensors—should be clear? Question is, do we risk a straight run to…?’

Bruce did the virtual equivalent of a double take as the sensors on the right side of his Ox all focused on a lone figure trying to make its way through a small park next to the road where Bruce was currently breaking several laws upon.

It was the target that the Scarlatti boys were supposed to have gone after. The…woman? Kid? It was hard to discern the specifics of the individual as it was clad in a full-body suit of some sort—and a poorly fitting one, at that—running at a distance nearly a minute’s drive just ahead of him. Judging by that distance and the speed it was travelling, the computer in Bruce’s head calculated that the figure must have started running before everything had fully hit the fan.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A coward…or was it not with the suits behind them?

Whatever the case, he had far more important things to be focusing on right now.

But…that lone figure had apparently been a package valuable enough that the Scarlattis had called upon their entire forces to help capture or deal with it, flagrantly making their presence known to such an extent that the powers that be would have no chance of being able to sweep tonight’s activities under the rug.

‘…valuable enough that those bastards did not hesitate in gunning down a squad of corporate stormtroopers to get to whoever it was,’ he further noted.

And in doing so, those idiots had screwed over more than just whoever had employed him and Anne with their idiocy.

Everyone still in town come tomorrow morning would pay the price for that stupidity.

But again, not the most important thing right now.

The van and the figure raced along in synch for a time. Though his vehicle had been augmented for extreme speeds, the fleeing body had also been enhanced to some degree, making its escape through the park with abilities beyond the human norm.

‘Unfortunately, ability doesn’t equate to experience,’ Bruce thought as he observed the figure’s head whipping around frantically as it searched for any would-be pursuer, its clear desire to see anything that could be coming for it causing it to miss everything. The speeding van, the other multitude of possible escape routes that it could have taken, the variety of large objects that the figure kept running into and tripping over…a complete amateur, overcome by panic and instinct.

‘Mostly harmless,’ Bruce thought, classifying the unknown figure as he did with most people.

“Harmless and valuable,” Bruce whispered as he began to give in to instincts of his own. He felt his real self—his body of flesh, not the metal—unconsciously chewing his lip as he considered all the possibilities that the fleeing figure then presented to him.

A whimper from the back seat brought that thinking to an end.

Though matching pace for a time, the van soon began to overtake the lone figure, leaving it and any further consideration over its importance behind, the runner soon disappearing from even his augmented sight. Until Bruce found himself rapidly approaching another road, one leading into the park where the figure was still, presumably, trying to make its escape.

He cast a digital eye towards his partner again.

Friends were friends…but money was money.

Using the full capacity of his implants to both bring up a map of the city and calculate the various variables at play, Bruce then turned the van inwards, taking the corner with hair-raising, inhuman precision, the van then slowing to match the speed of his now visible target.

As he had observed before, the particular individual was so caught up in looking for everything that it almost obliviously ran right out in front of his vehicle, giving Bruce enough of a fright that he nearly slammed on the brakes. Fortunately for both, the figure skidded to a halt as it finally noticed the large van, stopping roughly a meter before reaching the road that split the park in two. Unfortunately for that figure, that still put it well within reach of the speeding vehicle’s grasp.

Just beneath where the van’s walls curved to become its roof, a panel, two metres in length, popped out, revealing itself to be a large, multi-jointed robotic arm that quickly increased its length even further as it lashed out towards the still-frozen target. The figure tried to dodge, naturally, but the arm, one amongst two pairs that dotted either side of the vehicle was designed with both the strength to rend cars and the dexterity to extract people from them un…relatively unharmed.

Sweeping out in an arc, it grasped the individual and flung it into the now opened side door of the van in one fluidic motion, the flailing body slamming into the opposing side’s door with a meaty ‘thunk’ as the meshwork covering the inner wall then activated, a series of fibrous tentacles, meant for securing baggage but modified for another intent, then wrapping up that desperate package in a high-tech cocoon of augmented nanocarbon.

The target now secured, Bruce and the van needed an additional seventeen point three seconds to exit the park before it could once again resume its journey towards the help that Annie so desperately needed, a total delay of twenty-three seconds in total sacrificed for this endeavour and possibly the difference between whether or not his friend would live or die.

But…money was money.

Hopefully, by this time next week, the two of them would be on some golden beach somewhere, sipping some ice-cold drinks as they watched the waves roll in.