Dirty Work: Volume 2

Story Six - The Breaking Storm: Part 1 - 7

Thankfully, through grit, venom, and loyalty, though perhaps not in that order, Markro hadn't spilled the details needed to obtain access to his vault. Still, it didn't seem sensible to keep it there, regardless of how 'secure' the advertisements say the vaults are and how 'top-class' the security is. It needed military-level protection, and we couldn't wait to let people know we needed backup shifting it, so Z11 swung the kar onto the overpasses towards the 17-36 Highway, which miracle of miracles was blocked opposite us. Here is rule number one of highways in action; it's only ever blocked on one side.

Battered and bruised as he was, Markro tended to the Zoomus pilot. The guy was out cold but Markro stretched him out on the back seats and draped a jacket over him at least. Best he could do, seeing as though he'd saved his life.

When we got onto a straight bit of highway, Z11 tapped a panel on the side of her seat and revealed a secret compartment. 'Here,' she said. 'Second one down.'

Markro took out a syringe with a lime green liquid inside. 'What is this stuff?'

'No idea, but Carmen says it'll stabilise anything internal.'

'Carmen's this guy?'

'That's him.'

I shrugged. 'I guess he's got to live and die by his word, eh?'

Markro felt for a reasonable place on Carmen's arm, held his breath, stuck it in and pressed. He took it out and the skin seemed to fold back over the wound to leave not even a bead of blood. I wanted whatever was in that syringe to be available in bathtub quantities, so that I could go into battle coated in it.

'Did it work?' I asked over my shoulder.

'I don't know if his internal bleeding's stopped,' Markro said, 'but he's breathing a bit better now. It's a start.'

'He's just knocked out,' Z11 said, glancing in the rear view mirror. 'Done a good job of it, but he'll be fine. Ah, shit.' She put a hand to her head and her eyes went down. The kar, travelling at well over the speed limit, began to drift towards the other lane. I saw my life flash before my eyes in the oncoming headlights and grabbed the wheel. Z11 instantly bolted upright, swatted my hands away, and brought us back into line with a subtle fishtail at the rear end. 'I'm ok,' she said. 'Or I will be. Just an aftershock.'

'We should get you to a hospital.'

'No time. Markro. Third one down.'

He took out the syringe and held it to the light. 'What's this one?'

One hand on the wheel, Z11 took it, slammed into her thigh and pressed it home. She gasped and threw the empty plastic at me. 'Hyper Adrenaline,' she said.

'Hyper?'

'Nasty stuff. Good, but nasty.'

'How so?'

'It might kill me in twenty four hours.'

I did a double take. 'What now?'

'Puts everything into overdrive, but burns it up as well. Depends if I live long enough to take the cooler, which is in the slot directly behind it. Markro, if you'd be so kind.'

Markro handed it to her and she slipped it into an inside coat pocket. Then she turned back to the road and made the engine roar a little louder. I held on for dear life.

Ochre Vaults didn't take kindly to any kind of our calls or messages. Quite frankly, when we told them an army of underground thugs could be on the way to blast their way in to obtain a package we don't know the contents of, they told us in no uncertain terms to go and screw ourselves. I have to admit that if I were in their shoes, I'd do the same thing. So we were headed there in person, faster than Magna-Trains, faster than obtaining permission for warps, with a drugged-up spy swerving through kars in a strange sensation of moving incredibly fast and in super slow-motion. We took exits with tyres squealing, all comfort lost as we ducked down ramps and darted through the squalid streets of an Area's backwaters before bursting forth into the bright, free flowing waters of the highways once more. As I had said before, Z11 was scarier than a forty-story freefall.