Elias throws the sedan into reverse, the tires shrieking as the hood swings away from a wall of stalled cars and chanting bodies. The freeway ramp is blocked.
He snaps the wheel, slips into a side lane, and the car drops back toward the city streets. Thadeus grips the door handle as concrete and brake lights smear past.
Elias the Shopkeeper
Marla's block is ahead. If we get pinned there, we lose the address, too.
Marla
Then don't stop. Keep the car moving.
Sirens rise and fade between towers. A streamer of rioters floods an intersection ahead, and Elias threads the sedan into the next opening before it closes.
Thadeus Jovanović
The route to the brother's place is the same route to Marla's home. They need both.
The sedan bursts back onto the arterial lanes, now heading for the freeway by a longer way around. Elias spots a gap, and the search for the truth in his brother's legacy turns into a race to reach it first.
“Thadeus checks behind the car to see if anyone is following us”
FAILURE (Fair Perception, rolled -3)
Thadeus twists in his seat and looks back through the rear glass. The sedan's wake is all wet lanes and glare, hard to read.
For a second, the traffic behind them blurs into one packed ribbon of headlights and brake lights, and nothing cleanly separates from the flow.
Thadeus Jovanović
Too many cars. Not enough distance.
Elias keeps both hands locked on the wheel, shoulders tight, while Marla leans across the back seat to see what Thadeus is seeing.
Marla
Anything?
Thadeus catches only a dark SUV two lanes back, but it vanishes behind a delivery van before he can be sure it is following.
Elias the Shopkeeper
If there's someone on us, I need to know now. Which one was it?
“Tell Elias I don't see anyone following us, and to high-tail it to Marla's home”
FAILURE (Mediocre Agility, rolled -4)
Elias eases toward the curb, but a line of brake lights traps the sedan behind a boxed-in taxi and a stalled panel van.
A horn blares ahead. The SUV is gone from the mirror, swallowed by traffic.
Thadeus Jovanović
I don't see anyone on us. Keep moving, get Marla home.
Elias the Shopkeeper
I am trying. The block is jammed solid.
Marla
If the cars do not move, none of us do.
Elias signals right, but a delivery bike cuts across the lane and forces him to brake hard.
Elias the Shopkeeper
There, or we sit here. Thadeus, pick.
“Tell Elias I don't see anyone following us, and to high-tail it to Marla's home”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Agility, rolled +1)