I had waited nervously. When the city radio traffic exploded I knew something had gone wrong. Pulling up the news feeds I saw Williams tower. It was halfway on fire, there was some kind of gunfight on the roof and multiple other fights going on inside. The city police had surrounded the building and weren’t letting anyone in or out. The announcer commented that assault class aircraft were being spun up at the airport across the bay.
I didn’t even wait. I just called up my crew, and told them I’d owe them a favor. We hit the trucks and burnt rubber towards the tower. As we got within sight of the burning building my comm lit up. I answered it in a panic.
“Sis? You there?” Dali’s voice had fear. Lots and lots of fear.
I almost screamed with joy to hear her voice.
“YES! Yes I am. Where are you? We’re on our way.”
“Oh, thank you thank you. We’re at the sewer entrance. Cri says they’ll be here any second now. He can hold them for a moment but then they’ll block the street on us and we’re screwed.”
As she spoke she sent me her gps coordinates. I shouted into the the cab, “TURN LEFT NOW! Over there by the green trashcan. HURRRY!” Our truck pulled up and Cri, Dali, and two others I didn’t know came scrambling out of a hatch. Cri came out still firing back into the sewer. As soon as he was clear of the hatch, he pulled a grenade from nowhere and dropped it back the way he came. Rubber squealed as the explosion blew up and out of the hatch behind us. Sirens lit up the night but we were already on the on ramp to the Interstate and we never even saw a flashing light.
My medic worked on the fat blue haired woman as we drove but there were no further alarms. Nothing else scary. Once we passed into the boroughs and out of the city proper everyone seemed to relax. I looked into the rearview mirror and saw Cri whispering to Dali. She blushed a deep green and I saw her tusks bounce up and down as she made some kind of response. He grinned and clapped her on the back and everyone near them laughed.
And I drove on. Smiling and happy. We’d beaten the Skrervy. Everyone was okay.
Well, not everyone of course. Three of Dali’s crew had died. The city had gone mad over the “Terrorist Incident at William’s tower.” The manhunt for those responsible had tracked down Griego’s background and Talos had been forced to leave country to stay safe. But there had never been any connection found to Dali, Cri, Tien, or any of my crew.
And there were certainly some good things. They’d gotten the box out miraculously. Tien had apparently never let it out of her sight and had kept a firm grip on it during the frantic escape. Although we didn’t have a buyer, that had gone up in smoke with Griego’s death, Cri knew a guy and came by a few months later with a large stack of untraceable cash. Dali left some with Talos’ sister to represent his share, and the rest was split between herself and Tien. Cri refused, claiming that paying off the favor represented his share.
Dali went on to run some more jobs but she was a lot more cautious and spent a lot more time with her eyes open. She even picked up pistol shooting.
Cri vanished again after dropping the money off. I really didn’t ever see him again after that. But that was okay. I had my sister.
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Thanks for reading this experiment. Feedback on the story is extremely welcome and desired below in the comments. Especially if there were any parts where you didn’t feel like you understood what I was trying to say.
Wordsremember 