“BRAKES! THE BRAKES, GORDON! AHHHHHH!”
Surfing on the roof of Suzie Red, Hannah captured a snippet of Mac’s screams riding in shotgun over the buffeting wind. She leveled her Glock 19 at two assailants jumping from up-armored white work vans with no windows, the type Hannah sometimes saw backed halfway and crooked into a Goodwill loading dock or nose-in in a handicap spot without a visible placard in front of a children’s martial arts studio during pickup hour, and popped off two shots.
POP! POP! The goons fell to the tarmac, ragdolling into Skyrim as the traffic behind them parted like it was the Red Sea in The Exodus.
Seven in a row. Eight bullets left. Nine miles to 880. Lock in, girl. Davey NEEDS you to.
And Hannah begrudged that Mac was right. She needed to focus, despite him being painfully hot.
The vans chasing them gave way to a gang of six electric motorcycle riders on all-black bikes wearing all-black everything, bearing gifts of rebar and metal pipes.
“Mac, contact right!”
Mac flinched, juggling his phone and switching to his shotgun: a Beretta 1301 in Old Dominion Green with a pistol grip and a greeting from her engraved on the butt.
“I hope you stay happy and healthy for a long time. Happy (early) Birthday, Babyboy.
— H.S.”
It’s on May 21st… Stubble, the sea, surf and turf, and se—Shit. I’m getting distracted again. Stupid sexy Mac!
Two by two, they rode up to Suzie Red’s flanks. One on each side.
Mac rolled down the passenger side window and started serving orders of hot hot double-aught buckshot through it. Cue the Vine booms, Wilhelm screams, stock sound effect explosions, and sparking battery fires.
I’m so proud of him.
Hannah bit her lower lip as she ripped off three matching headshots on the left flank.
Eureka chirped a pacenote: “Automated bollards 400 meters ahead. Stay left!”
“Hang on, Ms. Sinclair! I’m gon’ swerve at the last second,” Gordon yelled over the intercom.
Finding a convenient crossbar on the roof (Gordon was an avid mountain biker), Hannah braced herself with milliseconds to spare.
SKRRRRR! CRASHCRASHCRASH! BOOM! ROOOOOOOOOOOAR!
“Gordo, yew didn’t even signal!”
“I learned that trick from a cop friend, so do the math on that, my dear niece.”
As if on cue, a California Highway Patrol cruiser hesitantly accelerated onto the East Castro Valley Boulevard on-ramp behind them, peeping the scene: Gordon driving away from the scene of the crash at some psychotic, death-defying speed, vortices visible and violent off his NASCAR-style spoiler, Crash Out Day II: A Million Smashed Electric Crossovers unraveling in Gordon’s wake, complete with two Waymo Freights somehow self-driving their way onto the BART tracks in the center median. The copper hit their lights and sirens, flipping that bitch around and gunning it back to Castro Valley in a clean and tight handbrake 180, deciding that this was all well above their pay grade.
Rookie.
Tar blew out her N$2 headset mic with laughter, presumably watching this all go down on her tap on the numerous Flock cameras peppering the corridor.
Mac barked at Gordon as he reloaded his shotgun. “You cheapo! Just get a FasTrak thingy! We could’ve avoided all this.”
“Heh. Why pay?” Gordon asked, dispensing all his Southern fatherly wisdom on the subject in three words.
Another rider, this time standing on their seat, held their Brunch Illuminati-issued crowbar in one hand and personal phone in the other, filming the chase for the ‘Gram. BOOM!
“MY LEG!”
Another van-jumper stepped to Hannah, trying and failing some fancy move from a cut-rate McDojo in San Lorenzo.
“I want my money back for those karate lessons!”
POP! CRUNCH! SQUISH!
Another automated bollard, this time powered by hydraulics. SKRRRR!
It launched a Tesla somehow tailgating Gordon at 155 miles per hour onto a flatbed wrecker three lanes over upside-down.
I guess that dude’s headed for Berkeley tonight…
“Dammit… Flat spotted my right rear. I JUST CHANGED THEM A WEEK AGO!” Gordon wailed.
Suzie Red shook with a beastly, primal rage, her balance upset for the first time since Gordon took delivery of her as her fifth owner in ‘35. Gordon held the reins steady, letting the weight of his arms damp the vibrations, his butt clenching and digging a trench into the barely-padded bucket seat. Her rear differential whined, forced to work like a real race car’s for the first time in her service life.
“Yew got more coming yer way! Choppers! Drones!” Eureka warned.
Then Tar spoke, seemingly pulling a deus ex machina only the laziest quadruple-A video game dev would script in.
But Tar always chalked it up to becoming Eureka’s mother. “Sou desu ne… As a proud mother, I am always prepared for anything. In the backseat you will find a rocket launcher, rockets, and four AR-15s equipped with 100-round extended magazines jury-rigged together. Mac, will you be a dear and pass them up to your ever-loving wife?”
Mac looked up from an early round of Bloons TD 11 on his phone and tabbed back into Google Maps. “Huh? Oh. Yeah, sure. What do you need, Darlin’?!”
“Just gimme the launcher and a rocket. Gordon, just keep it steady.”
Mac passed up the goods to Hannah.
BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP! Suzie Red screamed in terror.
Shit. Radar AND infrared lock?
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Gordon hit a secret button. “Launching decoys. Brace yourself, Ms. Sinclair.”
And so she did.
He veered Suzie Red hard to the left, punching out chaff and jettisoning bootleg fireworks from a cottage in Yreka—combining the New Year’s ball drop in Times Square and the Fourth of July in one two-second show. Standard for the times. The shells broke high and deep, spidering explosions across the sky and flinging blinding mud-brown, sulfur-yellow, and neon-pink sparks—poop, pee, and something far, far worse—above the 3Crosses Church. Thousands of tiny strips of metal confetti behind them glinted against the light, like stars scattered across the light-polluted asphalt. The missile followed shortly after, detonating in a… biblical fireball over the church’s giant white crosses.
Hannah aimed the launcher behind them and acquired a lock beyond visual range.
I don’t know how Tar got her hands on this, but it’s cool as hell.
She fired. A few seconds later, Hannah heard a distant crash in the canyon behind them, followed by a boom that thundergunned for miles.
Tar confirmed the kill. “Positive contact. Splash one gunship. Nice shooting, bestie.”
Hannah sighed, taking a moment to catch her breath on Suzie Red’s back windshield as Gordon whoaed her up to civilian speeds. She crawled through the open back passenger window and buckled up.
No sooner had she done so, a pair of straggling CHP and FasTrak drones caught up to them, scanned Suzie Red’s license plate, profiled his driving, found everything in order, and buzzed off, both having caught yet another murdered-out black Dodge Charger weaving through traffic under the flyover.
Mac welcomed her back. “Glad you made it back safely. I worry about you sometimes, y’know?”
Her heart skipped a beat. Always one battle after another.
She slipped her shoulder belt and squeezed Mac from behind; she was awfully cold all of a sudden. “W-well don’t.”
Hannah cleared her throat. “Tell ya what. Why don’t we debrief over dinner tomorrow? Pho 7777.”
“You’re asking me on a date? How cosmopolitan of you, Ms. Sinclair.”
Her frigid hands did most of the talking as she squeezed him more firmly, her hands still slightly shaking. “Don’t push it, Mr. McGuire. It’s current year.”
Mac side-eyed a smirk at her, illuminating Suzie Red’s dim cabin with a faint glow.
“Joking. Looking forward to it. But let’s make sure we grab a spot in front of the television. I just know KRON4 will be losing their minds over this one.”
---
Hannah laughed so hard, she inhaled broth.
She choked, sputtering into her napkin as she smothered a snort, slapping the table and wheezing. The pho sloshed dangerously close to the rim of her bowl.
In a loop, a beat-up Sony Trinitron on the counter rolled the tape: a deep-fried supercut of last night’s events in 480p—confident, authoritative, and deeply wrong.
A waiter paused nearby, unsure whether to intervene.
He chose the safe option, opting for discretion as he left his fifth kettle of green tea on their table and lingered.
Tea was tea, and this was First Flush Darjeeling: packed, vacuum sealed, and hand delivered from the slopes of the eastern Himalayas, by a crack team of Malca-Amit couriers to a broke sultan’s waterfront villa in Tampa. Hannah noted his presence, and let him be.
The broadcast faded to commercial. In the background, Mac and Hannah heard the whispered wisecrack of an AGI producer: “Sir, uh… A second crash out has hit da skreets.”
They broke. The newsroom broke. Fellow patrons keeled over. The Vietnamese aunties and uncles working the back of the house pinged a few swearies back and forth in mirth and candor. Some even called their friends, telling them to turn on their televisions to the news.
An anchor blew out her lapel mic. “Carlos, shutcho… HAHAHA!”
The broadcast hard cut, “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake getting squelched mid-chorus.
For fifteen minutes, the Bay Area’s crime rate dropped to zero once again.
---
Eventually, it was back to biz.
Mac leaned in, lacing his fingers with Hannah’s. “Okay but seriously—did you see that one dude on the bike?”
Under the table, Hannah nudged him with her knee. “Yeah.”
“I swear. Sometimes I feel like we’re in a really bad rip-off of Heat. Like… Heat, but everyone keeps stopping to make dick jokes.”
She laughed.
But Hannah’s other hand shook in her lap.
Huh… That’s odd. I usually stop shaking the day after a run.
Still, it nagged her. She cached it in the back of her head.
More important things at hand.
Or so she told herself.
On the other hand, I need to tell him NOW. This is life or death.
“Mac?”
Worry clouded his face. “What’s up?”
“I think I’m compromised. Let’s talk at home. I trust you. Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
---
The house was safe, and that was the problem. Hannah hit the switch for the dining room table chandelier, the incandescent warmth failing to fix the chills running down her spine, to comfort her aching heart, or to burn away the fog in her brain.
Mac set his keys down slowly and leaned against the kitchen counter, a soft halo outlining his face. “I’m listening. You can start whenever.”
Holding the air for a pregnant moment, Hannah began with the crux of the matter. “I think I’m losing my edge, Mac. I haven’t made a single decision without you in mind since the day we met.”
“Hmm.” Mac turned around, grabbing two mugs from the cupboard. From a lower shelf, he pulled out four jars, then nodded. “Okay. Walk me through it.”
Making his way over to the fridge, Mac swiped the water pitcher and the carton of milk. He set them down on the counter next to the jars.
In the shadow of the doorway, Hannah took her shoes off, swapping them for house slippers. She took baby steps towards the light of the kitchen, stopping halfway. The chandelier flickered delicately as she watched Mac make tea.
Lemongrass, spruce tip, bay leaf, honey, and milk… Always the little kindnesses.
“Last night’s run reminded me of the day we met.”
Mac poured water into the kettle on the stovetop and flicked the burner on. He stood on his tiptoes and turned on the lights above the range.
“The day we met?”
“I look back on it from time to time, but tonight, everything kinda just… clicked.”
Mac raised his eyebrows, his worry plain, desperate for her to elaborate.
“My system failed the moment I cared. And I cared from the very beginning,” Hannah stated.
Condensation formed on the kettle. Mac smiled, as if the burner had given him more than heat. Her heart crackled. He continued their tea ritual, measuring out the lemongrass and spruce tips. From the utensil cabinet, he took a mortar and pestle, dropped in a couple bay leaves, and crushed them until the scent rose.
“Hannah, can you please get me those tea balls? I can’t reach that high without a step stool.”
She did so.
A gentle steam rose from the kettle, and Mac turned the burner off. Not too hot. Not too cold. He portioned out the herbs, scooping them into the tea balls. Careful to keep them shut, he lowered them into the mugs. Then, he poured the water.
Mac shared his perspective as they started the longest wait for tea to brew in history. “Or maybe I was just a new variable in your life…”
He paused, surveying the minefield of wrong words in front of him.
Confident that his next few sentences were safe to step on, Mac continued.
“And you changed your decisions with me in mind. Like I have with you. Knowing you, that means you’re always gonna make the ones that keep both of us alive. Nobody’s perfectly objective. With that clear now, the real question is…”
“What?”
“How will you move forward, now that you’re aware of the risks?”
With that, Hannah’s nagging thought dissipated into the steam rising from the mugs. “Mac.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For everything.”
