Jackson guns the car through the rain-black streets, the evidence case thudding between knees and seat frames. On the radio, a clipped dispatcher repeats Miller's name, then mentions a stop order on any vehicle leaving Pier Nine.
Ahead, red and blue blooms smear across wet pavement. A cruiser noses into the avenue, half-formed like a guillotine in the fog. The city is trying to close its hand around them.
Dallas Fontaine
The net is already up.
Jackson cuts hard before the blockade can square up, and the tires scream. Murderbone braces in the back, teeth bared at the side window. Calabash clutches the dash as the car leaps into a service lane lined with dead warehouses.
Jackson Temple
Miller's being leaned on. We do not get a clean road, Dallas. We get minutes.
At the next intersection, a dark sedan idles beneath a streetlamp, its driver still and patient. Not police. Worse. The Clean Collar has already found the route out.
Calabash
Then we do not take the road. We take the ugly way.
Jackson swerves toward the harbor service tunnels, the evidence case jostling as the city folds behind them and the escape becomes one narrow, filthy line.
“I ask Jackson " They are on this car. You know the harbor. What about ditching the car to escape on a boat?"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +0)
Dallas Fontaine
They are on this car. You know the harbor. What about ditching the car to escape on a boat?
Jackson Temple
If the docks are still open, yes. We cut east, kill the headlights, and get onto water before the net tightens.
Jackson snaps the wheel toward a service road that runs under stacked cranes, the tires hissing through standing rain. The evidence case stays wedged tight between Dallas and the seat, stamped papers flashing once in the dash glow.
Calabash
There is a launch basin two blocks over, old cargo skiffs. If the gangs have not stripped them bare, we can vanish in the fog.
Murderbone shifts low and forward, watching the rear glass as the dark sedan behind them turns with predatory patience. The radio coughs another dispatch burst about a stop order and then fades into static.
Jackson Temple
Hold on. I know a slipway. If we make it there, we ditch the car and go wet.
The road narrows into a funnel of chain-link, puddles, and warehouse shadows, while ahead the harbor access ramp glistens like a blade. The sedan stays on them, forcing the decision toward water.
“I tell Jackson to kill the headlights and head for the slipway”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +0)