My jaw clenched. Mya Tarq was alive, which meant the war I thought I was winning was, in fact, just getting started. The geopolitical landscape had been reset in her favor.
"Okay we're outta here." I motioned to Syn to follow me out to the jeep. Doctor Syn, Herja's mother, a woman who had lived a life of quiet academic research and competitive grappling, didn't argue. She moved with the efficient speed of someone who understood urgency. She folded her body into the old Jeep's passenger seat, the mini-television still clutched in her hand.
I jumped into the driver's seat, jamming the key into the ignition. The old Grand Cherokee roared, its 4.0L straight-six engine a comforting, albeit loud, sound of mechanical defiance against the world of advanced biotechnology and cosmic threats. I spun the wheel hard and slammed the gear selector into drive, peeling out of the alley onto the chaotic, garbage-strewn back street.
"Where are we going?" Syn asked, gripping the dashboard.
"The Gutter. The Hand is waiting. It's the safest hole left on this entire continent."
I drove three blocks, navigating the abandoned cars and the occasional panicked pedestrian, before my internal alarm shrieked. It wasn't my enhanced hearing or smell; it was the ingrained paranoia of a warlord who knows she's made a powerful enemy.
I checked the rearview mirror, then the side mirror, and finally the side window.
They were there. Three of them.
Three identical, completely unmarked black SUVs. They were too clean, too cohesive, and too close for the current level of traffic chaos. They weren't panic-driving civilians; they were professional. They were CENO. Tarq hadn't just broadcast a lie; she had deployed a clean-up crew.
"Tarq's alive, which means CENO's clean-up crew is too!" I thumped my steering wheel and barked, pushing the Jeep past its recommended limits. "Brace yourself, Syn. It looks like we're going to have to get a little Escape L.A here."
The lead SUV, a massive, blocky vehicle with heavily tinted windows, suddenly flickered its headlights in a rapid, rhythmic pattern—not a civilian request, but an immediate, non-verbal command to stop.
"They're not messing around," I muttered, adrenaline now fully mixed with fighting spirit. My mind raced, cycling through every tactical option I had. The old Jeep was tough, but three armored CENO SUVs and now, the sound of air support? I was dangerously exposed.
''WHA-WHA-WHA-WHA.''
The sound, slick and high-pitched, sliced through the urban decay. I glanced up through the Jeep's dusty windshield and saw it: a sleek, dark CENO helicopter, its blades churning the evening air, using its powerful spotlight to sweep the area. They had called in the big guns.
"Air support," I grit out, swerving hard to avoid a toppled bus that was smoking in the middle of the street.
"They're too coordinated," Syn observed calmly, her eyes scanning the rooftops for snipers. The fact that she was reacting like a hardened veteran, not a terrified scientist, was both reassuring and terrifying.
"It's getting dark, though," I said, a grim smile pulling at my lips. Dusk was my ally. The city's chaotic, three-dimensional sprawl—all shadows, overpasses, and burning abandoned structures—would be hell for a thermal camera in a fast-moving helicopter. If I could just outrun them for a few more minutes, I could break the line of sight and disappear into the labyrinth.
I yanked the wheel, cutting sharply into a narrow, debris-choked alley.
"Hang on!"
I accelerated, knowing exactly where I was going: The Abandoned Power Electrical Plant. It was a massive, skeletal relic of the old world, a place of silent, dead transformers, buzzing latent power, and a hidden shaft leading directly into The Vein.
The last few blocks were a high-speed slalom through the ruined streets. I blew through a chain-link fence, the Jeep's grille crunching metal like paper, and burst into the vast, concrete yard of the Power Plant. Above us, the chopper's beam locked onto the Jeep.
BOOM!
A flash of light and a shockwave hit the pavement ten yards behind us—a warning shot from the helicopter, powerful enough to flatten a normal car. The CENO agents were done with warnings.
I didn't look back. I slammed the Jeep into a controlled slide, fishtailing it around a rusted cooling tower, and aimed straight for a low, boarded-up maintenance substation tucked beneath a massive, archaic high-voltage transmission tower.
"They're going to try and block the entrance!" Syn shouted, pointing to the lead black SUV that was barreling through the gate we had just ripped open. I floored the gas. The Jeep, engine screaming its defiance, smashed through the wooden barrier of the substation. Then, instead of stopping, I jammed the wheel, aiming the Jeep's heavy front end into a secondary, already damaged concrete wall.
The impact was deafening. Concrete dust exploded, ancient rebar shrieked, and the old Grand Cherokee violently shed its rear bumper. But the force created a massive, jagged hole, a dark maw leading down into the plant's sub-level electrical trenches—an undisguised entrance into The Vein.
I killed the engine, the sudden silence broken only by the approaching, insistent sound of the chopper overhead.
"Out! Now!" I commanded, unbuckling and kicking the door from the hinges. The metal shrieked and fell to the ground, a loud, definitive punctuation mark in the escalating chaos.
I grabbed Syn, pulling her from the passenger seat. Before the first CENO operative could spill from their black SUV, I shoved Syn toward the freshly torn hole in the concrete wall.
Syn scrambled into the darkness, disappearing into the sub-level trench of the electrical plant.
The sound of the approaching black SUVs was sharp and aggressive; they were just pulling up to the main substation door. I knew I had seconds before the heavily armored agents were on me. The realization of Tarq's betrayal, the threat to Syn, and the relentless pursuit boiled into a single, overwhelming surge of Genome Beast power.
I reached out, gripping the front end of my poor wrecked '97 Jeep Grand Cherokee—the reliable, tough, but ultimately civilian machine that had served me faithfully. I didn't just pull; I engaged my latent, terrifying strength, channeling a few thin wisps of my orgone.
With a guttural roar, I heaved.
The entire front half of the Jeep—engine, grille, axles, and all—ripped free from the rear chassis. I hefted the massive chunk of metal into the air, the sheer, impossible weight of it defying gravity, surprising even myself with the raw, desperate force of the lift.
I threw the Jeep engine block and its attached mangled frame directly at the entrance of the substation.
It smashed into the lead advancing SUV with a horrifying, metallic CRUNCH. The force was enough to crumple the SUV's hood, shatter the windshield, and send the vehicle shuddering violently sideways, blocking the narrow entry and smashing into the second SUV that was following too closely. The agents inside would be severely disoriented, if not incapacitated.
My tiger stripes, glowing with residual psychic energy, were practically vibrating with challenge and triumph.
I had made it back to my territory. Now, it was time to close the door. I plunged into the darkness of the hole after Syn, the incessant sound of the CENO helicopter blades hovering uselessly above the reinforced concrete of the power plant.