The Siren's Code

Everybody hurts sometimes

It was early evening by the time the unit clocked out, groundwork had needed to be done on their upcoming operation especially as Jay would not be with them, but Mexican breakfasts are good at any time of day, you can't go wrong with beans, eggs, tortillas and hot sauce and as the guys decompressed before their transport out Jay was scrolling through Turo.com, deciding to take the long route home. He had found a Solar-EV converted 2018 Ford Mustang needing to be delivered to Nicaragua from a specialist body work garage dealing with extreme weather damage, one of those jobs that would never have existed before climate change brought us freak conditions.

"Dude I don't think yellow's your colour," Five said, formalities relaxed, he prodded the hive button on Jay's phad sharing it with the others "more of a cop magnet than a babe one don't you think." Their laughter was contagious but Jay stood up to leave.

"Well it's going to have to do as it's the only one going south, I'll catch you guys next time, the pleasure was all mine" he smiled at his crew and tapped some crypto to Six for his meal, heading out to his waiting Uber.

The ten hour drive back home would give him time to think the impending rescue mission through; running models, predicting scenarios and visualising outcomes but instead he found his brain meandered. His mind picking over the last months, even her fluffy boots made him smile, the most unsuitable beach wear humanly possible but that's her, curled up in a hammock reading the latest Neal Stephenson, or creating NFT's to sell online. Her post-it reminders everywhere at first annoying him, but then endearing as he saw the contents of her mind scrawled in loopy writing on pink, orange and blue bits of paper around the kitchen, bar, bedroom, anywhere she went. Saying without them she would lose sight of what mattered in life, chewing her bottom lip in that way she did when trying to listen and think at the same time.

He was compelled to understand her place in his life, which on the surface seemed like there was only one logical explanation – he had drawn her to the island, trained her and documented her in his report – but his analytical mind knew better than to discard pieces of a puzzle to justify a solution. He sighed, everything in life creates a pattern which by its nature can then be predicted. He just needed to connect a few more data points.

The journey so far had been incident free, an easy crossing at the border, the roads in good condition, there was at least one advantage to China buying up continents one highway at a time, but coming in to a more suburban area he passed a police car, watching it decide to follow him through his rear view mirror. He was an obvious target, yellow Mustang driving through a small town on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa in the dead of night, an area of high gang activity and road crime. He toyed with them for a while, just by driving smarter – predicting lights, calculated turns and clever overtaking – by the time their sirens brought him to a stop he had already sown doubt as to whether his moves were purposeful or not.

One cop got out of the car and came over, leaning down to knock on the window before stepping back with his arms behind him in view of the other cop.

"Sus papeles por favor señor." the man said as Jay lowered his window, his lack of papers not a problem as he started to read the situation.

The cop was young but not new to the job, well turned out, his short dark hair gelled into place. Seeing past the dollar signs in his eyes, there was a twinge in his clean shaven jaw, he was nervous, a straight cop, forced to bend the rules out of necessity not greed Jay deduced. Even on traffic patrol you would be foolish not to wear body armour in these central parts of Honduras, but his gun was not the usual Galil, instead a small pistol most likely a Glock holstered on his belt, he did not normally go looking for trouble.

Situation in hand, you spin your yarn.

Jay lied about borrowing his brother's car, getting a small twitch of the cop's lips he pursued the thread further, you know brothers always out for themselves, he tapped the mustangs yellow paintwork, fresh from its hail dent repair, his arm resting on the door. He talked about his ill Mama that he was in a hurry to see and watched the cop's micro expressions light up like a bulb on an electric circuit as he continued to invent family members to elicit an on/off reaction.