CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE - JAILBREAKERS

I went to work, but felt antsy the entire time. I had my Deadline gear shoved into the bags on my bike, gun and sword and all. The moment work finished, I'd have to run out to get changed and into position.

So, I spent the entire workday with that weighting on me. Still, it wasn't a bad workday. We had more training. Unfortunately, it wasn't spent in the gym or in the range or even in Dharti's room having tea. We had a mini-seminar all morning going over security protocols. Apparently there had been a few minor incidents lately and someone in HR decided that it was a good time to force everyone to sit down and listen to some pre-recorded videos about workplace safety.

It wasn't bad really. I got it, but the amount of corporate ass kissing was a bit much.

Sometimes I had to wonder if I was a real punk if I was working a nine-to-five for The Man. Was I just a hot bitch who liked to dress cool?

Damn. That kind of thought could keep me up at night.

Fortunately, what I planned on doing this afternoon was pretty damned punk, so it wasn't all bad.

Work ended a little early. It was four-thirty something and Eldur just waved us off, telling us to head home a bit early. I think it was mostly Terry's fault, since she literally just slept through the second half of the day. Before that, she'd only been paying half attention to what was going on, her legs bouncing and her fingers toying with a little fidget thing.

The poor woman had the attention span of a six year old. She wasn't made for long meetings.

Anyway, I didn't complain when we were let out. I said my quick goodbyes, then ran over to my bike, got on, then rode out of the parking garage in a hurry. I made my Save just as I was waiting for traffic to clear to pull out.

The goal was prison. Specifically the Fortress East-North-East Incarceration Facility.

It was a large building in the outer city. All cement and straight lines. Fortress ENE had its share of brutalism going on, but most buildings plastered some ads onto their sides to give them life, and at least tried to have a few curves. The big jail didn't try anything of the sort. It was sheer, straight-edged walls, with the only breaks being some large ducts on the uppermost floor.

All around it was a shorter cement wall, with barbed wire atop it. A gatehouse sat at the front, limiting access to the main building. I think there were rules about the buildings around it as well, because they were all a little further back than was usual in this packed section of the outer city.

I parked my bike nearby, right on the sidewalk, then headed over and started to walk around the prison. There were cameras all over, pointing this way and that, and it looked like the space on the other side of the wall had a walkway because there were some guards on patrol there.

I didn't much care if they saw me, it wasn't like I'd be keeping this timeline. What I did want to see was the actual jailbreak.

I found a bench nearby and sat, elbows on my knees and attention wavering. From the news reports I'd watched, the jailbreak happened around six-ish o'clock. That was when the prison had the fewest guards, apparently. A shift-change, maybe?

I watched as a van drove out of the prison, then continued to wait.

It was boring as shit, so I pulled out my phone and looked into Shadow Bolt some more. It was a decent time-waster. The spell was surprisingly simple in its shape, at least compared to the mess that was Grasping Growth. Now that was a spell that was going to take me a while to master, annoyingly.

I was just trying to figure out the overall shape of Shadow Bolt when I heard tires screeching.

There was a semi-trailer coming in from the north, way off on the other side of the prison. It was moving way, way too quickly, and it looked like someone had welded some bars to the front of it, creating a sort of a cheap cow-catcher at the front.

I winced back as the truck ran into the outer wall of the jail and then right through, bits of concrete flying and dust bursting out.

Two vans pulled out of the side street behind and rushed over, stopping with a squeal.

I started to run over, of course, to get a better view.

The vans opened up, and someone pulled out, of all things, a rocket launcher. I blinked as they shouldered it and fired right up and into the building, blowing out a hole in the side. The others with them were moving already, before the first bits of debris had even settled.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

A siren went off, an insanely loud wailing that had me cupping my hands over my ears. It was insane. Guards were running and shouting, but it looked like they weren't ready to run over and see, especially not when one of the people working on the breakout opened fire with a machine pistol and sprayed rounds over the top of the wall.

Seemed like they weren't paid enough to take that big of a risk.

A ladder was brought out and leaned up against the jail, then two people scaled it in a hurry and were in.

Less than five minutes later, they were out, just as some squad cars were pulling into the area. They were obviously hesitant to come too close though. The people in the two vans were armed and not shy about plinking away at the F-ENE PD cars.

In the last week-long loop, no cop or guard had died. A few were injured, but it had been light stuff. Bruising and one wounded leg. It looked like this time was similar.

The vans loaded up, five people in orange jumpsuits squeezing themselves into the back, and then out of nowhere, a second semi came around the corner and rammed through the police's early attempts at a barricade.

In the chaos, both vans took off, racing past some cops who took potshots at them before disappearing around a bend.

I stayed there for a few minutes, only long enough for someone to come over and insist that I needed to come in for questioning. That's when I Reloaded.

Back at the Luna Corp HQ, I settled down and thought for a moment while traffic flowed by. The break-out team was... not entirely professional there. I didn't see any obvious magic use, so probably not too many rankers, or maybe they were smart enough not to use something that would make it easier to track them down?

There were only so many D-rankers in the city, and then if they used a particular elemental magic, it would narrow down the potential person by a lot. So yeah, that was smart. They were dressed in plain clothes. Jeans, t-shirts with coats. Off the rack stuff. Most had baseball caps, bandanas, masks, and sunglasses.

The trucks were likely remotely piloted, so they had someone with decent tech knowledge. Not to mention the information needed to know where the people inside of the prison were and how to access their cells.

So, well-prepped, but without any corpo-tech on display. I think that rocket launcher was the biggest thing they pulled out, and I was about eighty-percent sure I could get Jane to sell me something of that sort.

I took off on my bike, heading into the city. This time I rode north, past the prison and onto the street the vans had come from.

I had two options.

One: I tracked them into the past. That was to say, I found out where they had come from.

Two: I tracked them into the future. Basically, using my power to be in the right spot to find out where they were going.

Since I didn't necessarily want to stop the break-out, it made more sense to track their next position, but since I was here already... well, might as well find out where they were coming from, right?

I parked my bike along the side of the road and made a show of getting out and looking it over, like some normal woman having a bit of difficulty. This area wasn't overly busy, so no one really stopped.

It took a solid, boring hour, where I mostly fiddled on my phone and tried to start the basics of carving my new spell before I saw the semi come around a corner. Bingo!

I hopped onto my bike and drove in the direction it came, head on a swivel. And that's how I found the alley where the vans were parked.

Double bingo!

Grinning to myself, I spun my bike around and drove into the alley once they were gone, just casually, as if I was allowed to be there. It opened up into a courtyard behind four large warehouses, with a second alley on the far end and a pair of SUVs parked to one side, guarded by a trio of men.

They saw me, and immediately tensed up, but I was just a nice, innocent woman, driving around, maybe a bit lost... I was definitely not planning on sticking around the corner to follow them. Of course not.

Then one of the guys picked up a phone that was ringing, nodding along to something someone said on the line.

I was almost out of the far end of the courtyard when I heard a bark and felt an intense pain that took my breath away.

Wait... did he fucking shoot me?

***