The Operator

Pain thundered in her head and neck, and she realized she’d hit her head on the ceiling. Dizzy, she aimed for the parking lot. Dead grass and icy clods of mud spurted up behind them. LB would be there. He had to be.

“There!” One hand on the ceiling, Jack pointed between them out the front window. “LB’s trident!”

Her head still hurt, and she blinked fast to focus. Suddenly she realized she was going to pass out.

“Peri!” Silas shouted as her body went slack. “Take your foot off the gas! Take it off!”

Eyes closed, she distantly heard the Pinto’s engine race. Jack swore, and then her head swung forward as they hit something. Arms limp, she let go of the wheel. The engine choked and died. “Ow,” she whispered, squinting at the sudden flush of cold air.

“Shit, woman. You know how to make an entrance.” Someone smelling of pot and old cigarettes leaned close, and she struggled to focus. It was LB, and as Silas fumbled at her belt, LB stood over them, his hands on his hips. She could hear kids in the background, and the pop of a gun followed by a cheer.

“Thank God you’re here,” she slurred, slapping Silas’s hands away. “I can do it myself,” she said, but her fingers wouldn’t work. “Where’s my bag?” She blinked, relieved when Silas pushed it into her hand.

LB fidgeted at her open door, impatient. “I got my boys out here on the excuse to shoot down some payloads,” the scrawny man said. “There’s a droneway that passes over the park. It’s off our turf, but letting them take potshots at them got enough of them out here that any local cops will think twice.” His gaze went to the horizon. “There they are.”

She could hear sirens, and the sudden bang and cheer when someone took out a drone. Peri blinked fast, her grip on her bag easing as her vision settled. “I thought Roosevelt belonged to the Scraps.”

“Okay, she’s good,” Silas said from beside her, and LB grabbed her arm.

“There haven’t been any Scraps since the early two thousands,” LB said as he pulled her out. “Me and the boys are Detroit’s last gang.”

Somehow she thought that was a real shame as she found her feet, swaying until Silas came around the car and took her elbow. By the frozen pond, six people looking like Mad Max extras were taking turns shooting at drones, three Detroit muscle cars behind them looking used and aggressive. Several families with kids watched at the outskirts—not afraid. “Jack? Where’s Jack?” she said, then threw herself to the ground when a drone flying overhead exploded.

LB and Silas ducked, but it was Jack who yanked her up, frowning at LB’s boys, laughing at the drone pinwheeling dramatically to crash and skid on the ice. “That was a Fed,” Jack said as he pushed Peri to the nearby van, brown with flaking paint and rust. “Only the Feds put self-destructs on their bees. Get her out of here. I’ll draw them off.”

“Hey, wait!” Peri protested, but things were happening fast, and LB whistled three sharp notes in quick succession, turning heads.

“Back on the boats!” LB shouted, and people moved, gathering downed payloads and running for the cars.

“Jack is not running rabbit,” Peri said, frowning at the flashing lights of the incoming cops. Only now did the watching families scatter, which she thought was telling.

“Get in the car,” LB demanded, then turned to Jack. “Take the Charger. It can handle a hit. Ed will get you clear, then you run. None of my boys are taking the rap for this.”

“No,” Peri said, all but ignored. “Jack comes with me. I want him in LB jail.”

“I’ll drive the Charger,” Silas demanded, then yelped when three big men pushed him into the back of a brown ’67 Pontiac GTO. His protests became violent until LB shoved her in with him, her short-job bag landing atop them both. The seat flipped back, trapping them, and Silas glowered as LB and another man got in front. “Don’t let Jack go. It’s a mistake!” he exclaimed as the angry engine rumbled to life, the roar joined by the Dodge Charger and Oldsmobile.

“A big, beautiful mistake,” Peri whispered, numb as Jack in the Charger took off, leaving them and the Oldsmobile to go the other way. Jack was going to give the cops something to chase while they got away. And in turn, he’d be gone as well. Effin’ fantabulous.

Silas was rummaging in the satchel, his motions becoming more and more frantic. “What is your problem?” she finally asked, and he looked up, grabbing the seat as they jostled off the parking lot and onto the grass.

“I’m not used to being the smallest man in the room,” he muttered, hesitating with a Glock in his hand until seeing LB’s guy riding shotgun, using a rifle to take out the drones following them. “God bless it, I think Jack took it!”

Peri held on to the door with one hand and propped herself up with the other. “Took what?”

Silas kept looking, shoving everything from one side to the other. “The accelerator. He only touched the bag for like three seconds to hand it to me, and he took it!”

Immediately she relaxed. “No, he didn’t. It’s in my sock.” Guilt flickered through her, not for having lifted it earlier, but for the remembered flash of desire when she’d stuffed it away.

Silas’s eyes went from her foot to her face, his fear fighting with his obvious relief that she hadn’t used it. “What’s it doing there?”