Ishram shook his head, it didn’t ring any particular bell, other than a very dubious maybe. Had he read about it? Maybe. And if he had, the topic mustn’t have piqued his interest, otherwise, he’d remember. “I think- was it in a folder?” he turned towards Ross, eyebrow raised. Ross, though, just shrugged—because of course she couldn’t remember everything she’d put in the folder while gathering information.

Ishram groaned, shaking his head and looking back at Kibwe. Okay then, it’s gonna be like this. “Assume I don’t know anything, it’ll be good to hear rather than just read for once.”

“Okay.” Ishram didn’t miss the shaky breath Kibwe took in, the way his shoulders deflated. “You’d think it’d be easier. Had to have the talk with Andrea too, yet… here we are.”

Ishram frowned. “Take your time?” he tried. “If it makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to-”

“No, we have, it’s a reality we all live in. I’m- it’s also for Andrea’s safety, if you know how to handle the situation, he won’t be in danger.”

It made sense, so Ishram waited it out. They weren’t in a hurry, which meant Kibwe could work out the right words while Ishram played with the buttons on the midsection panel, testing which one did what.

“Okay, so,” Kibwe inhaled, “I’m African, you- well, you’re Arab, right?”

Ishram shook his head. “I’m Persian.”

“What-”

“Focus.”

“Fuck, okay. The point is, you’re of colour, alright? Which means you’ll attract unwanted attention,” Kibwe explained. Ishram had slowly stopped the car, his attention now entirely diverted towards the man. “It’s systemic; they take a look at you and decide you’re up to no good—which means someone, anyone, will call the police on you, assuming the police doesn’t stop you and harasses you first.” Kibwe averted his eyes, jaw working; his face twisted in bitterness, grimacing as he spoke. “They assume you’re a criminal, so you have to be careful. More careful than what would be normally.”

Ishram raised a finger, because, well. “But I am a criminal.”

Ross facepalmed behind them. “Ish-”

“No, let me-” Kibwe raised a hand towards Ross. “Let me.”

Ishram tilted his head, waiting.

“You said you lived in the nineteen-hundreds, right?” Kibwe asked. Ishram nodded. “So you must know about slavery and black rights.”

Ishram nodded. “I spent it in India, mostly, but yes. I visited a British colony during those years.”

“So you know about racism and slavery.” Kibwe sighed when Ishram nodded. “Well this is another face of racism, now that they can’t openly persecute us for being black, they grant us some rights, and take them away by incarcerating us. The black-white prisoners' ratio is highly imbalanced.”

Ishram hummed.

“So what I’m trying to say is, they don’t really know that you’re- well, you. They just assume you are a human criminal, because of your skin tone.”

“I see,” Ishram whispered. “So if they assume that from the start, how am I going to make them leave me alone?”

Kibwe grimaced. “You don’t,” he whispered. “If you get pulled over, you need to be careful not to escalate the situation; if they think you have a gun, they will shoot first and ask questions later.”

“And that’s an issue because...?”

“Oh my god.” Ross groaned.

Kibwe did something very similar, only more pained. “You’re not getting it.”

“Yeah, no, I’m not.”

Ishram’s agreement seemed to startle Kibwe. “Just- don’t take this as a Kishaard, Ishram, okay? Take it as if you were human. They will just see a black kid guiding a fancy car. A kid that sells drugs, kills and rapes others, and brings crime to the city.”

Ishram’s frown only deepened. Of every weird thing existing the in 21st century, it was somewhat strange yet not strange to find racism and prejudice had evolved and showed now yet another ugly face to the people. “Got it, assume I’m some escaped slave and keep away from folks.”

Ishram caught Ross whispering, “that’s two centuries back from last time, Ish,” behind them.

Kibwe’s face flashed with some realisation, quickly followed by incredulity. “Yeah,” he whispered, his voice suddenly lower and weaker. “Did you- uh, were you here? When they-”

Ishram shook his head. “Only passing through. Haven’t stayed in one place for longer than a few days.”

“Still mad at you two leaving my ass here.” Ross leaned over, forcing him to turn around to look at her. “I mean, good strategy, you did get back here in the Americas twice now. I’m not getting you back if you pop up in Europe or Asia, though, that’s your sister’s job. Speaking of getting you back,” her hand reached forward and patted Ishram’s cheek with questionable sweetness, “if they do stop you, behave and let them arrest you. You’ll get one call, you call me, I bail you out.”

“How?” Kibwe asked, his voice cracked in disbelief now.

Ishram knew very well the mischief on Ross’ lips as they curled. “We have our ways. Living for centuries allow you to infiltrate pretty much anywhere if you’re patient enough, there’s always someone bored out of their mind and ready to play pretend. Besides, we make a hell of an operative, the ones that can stand your kin’s bullshit anyway.”

Kibwe stuttered over the thought for a solid minute. “What? You- you’re- what?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, nobody plans on overthrowing governments or anything any time soon. Some of us do it for fun, others do it because I told them to—as in, if they need to erase stuff on, you know, us.” Ross wrinkles her nose with a grunt. “You guys are becoming a royal pain in the ass with those phones and cameras.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

Both Kibwe and Ross turned to look at Ishram until Ross nodded. “No taking off the bracelet, Ish, anywhere. Unless you don’t want to make me lose my goddamn mind. I can’t possibly manage you, the Emperor’s men, and a human investigation on mutants.”

“Okay-”

“Like, they already like to invent weird-ass creatures that lurk under their cities, or deep into the wilderness. Imagine what a fucking disaster it’d be if they started believing we cover our own traces so we can live our fucking lives. You have no idea how many false alarms come in, all because a bunch of humans decided they liked a conspiracy theory and got too closer to our conspiracy to be left alone.”

“We get it-”

Ross ignored him completely, gasping and jumping on her seat, eyes wide with outrage. “And aliens! Fuck, don’t even get me started on aliens. You guys,” she pointed at Kibwe, turning towards him, leaning over between the seats, “are nuts. Honestly, some of you don’t even deserve to be called ‘human’ sometimes, there should be a step up when you want to fuck monsters and aliens because that’s such a higher concept, I can’t believe you guys came up with it.”

Ishram choked on nothing. “Ross.”

“Coming from the same guys who invented Catholicism!”

“Ross!”

“Yeah?”

“We got it,” Ishram said. Looking at Kibwe’s blanched face, though, he rethought it. “I think Kibwe got it more than me, though.”

Kibwe only blinked, which was enough of an answer, really.

Ross cleared her throat and slumped back in her seat. “One last thing,” she started, and Ishram groaned. Still, it didn’t convince Ross to drop it. Unsurprising, really. “When you get to your sister, you tell her I need a raise because this is way above my paygrade.”

“What? Why me?” Ishram squeaked. “Can’t you tell her yourself?”

Ross raised a finger. “Think I haven’t tried already? She laughed at me.”

Ishram grimaced. “I mean.”

“I swear to the gods if you too are going to say ‘but Ross, you get to fuck her!’, I’m quitting.”

The silence that followed was more telling than Ishram closing his mouth and going back to driving, so he changed the subject. “So. Kibwe.”

“Yeah?”

Ishram forcefully ignored the ‘Fuck. You.’ Ross whispered when he didn’t continue. Ishram cleared his throat, quickly scouting for something he could come up with—anything but the awkward silence. “Where are you and your wife being sent, eventually?”

Kibwe caught the hint faster than Ishram expected when he said, “South Africa,” he said with a small smile. “Originally, we thought of South America, but that’d be too close, and Ross said the Emperor’s reach isn’t as strong as it is in Asia.”

Ross tapped her pointer finger against his seat with insistence. Ishram promptly ignored her. Whatever mischief she was up to could wait. “Cape Town?” he asked, glancing briefly at Kibwe.

“Actually, Johannesburg.”

Ishram had no idea where that was. “Well, it’s still far away. How has- you know, your wife? Did she-”

Kibwe grimaced and shook his head. “She still wants to stay here,” he whispers, “we both come from big families. To think they believe we’re dead, or worse...”

“It’s for their good, too,” he offered, although he knew it was exactly what Ross had told them. It’s always what they tell them.

“I know,” Kibwe quickly interrupted, “it’s how I’ve managed to keep her from doing anything. But this is her second home, and she’s already far away from her own relatives. To move again, and so far away- it’s not simple.”

Ross tapped yet again against his seat, and Ishram grunted. “What?”

“Finally. Thank you,” she chirped as she leaned between the front seats, “I was wondering if you wanted to know that we’ll be having company before or after it arrives.”

Ishram almost hit the brakes. “What?”

“What? What does this mean?” Next to him, Kibwe’s body was rigid with tension.

Ross sighed. “It means we were going to test if someone is already chasing you, and more importantly, if they are, how long it’ll take them to track you down. We allowed a small information leak to see what would happen, and from the look of it, someone took the bait,” she explained, pointing ahead of them.

Just a bit on the right, only then did Ishram notice a dust cloud and something shimmering.

Ishram cursed. “Why would you do that?” he asked, frantically looking around. They were in the middle of nowhere, a barren expanse of nothing; a few bushes here and there, a rocky path, and small rocky hills scattered all around them. There was nowhere to hide. He wouldn’t be able to lose them, not even if he tried.

“I legit just told you, man, are you deaf?” Ross groaned. “Just drive, I’ll think about the rest.”

Ishram barely contained himself when a hysterical laugh came up instead of a long series of swears. “Why does my sister even let you handle this shit, Ross?” he snarled as he engaged a higher gear and pushed the car ahead. Where would they come from? Behind them? Maybe ahead?

Ross’ phone chirped with a message, and Ross quickly dialled a number. “Hadra, come in.” Ishram shook his head, unable to hear anything but a low voice and unintelligible words. This was nuts. What the fuck. “Got it, stay put.”

A small sound and the call was over.

“What was that?” Ishram cut short.

“Soon they’ll be onto us, careful with those turns,” she instructed.

Ishram followed as the road slithered through two hills. “Great. Just great,” he muttered. “What if I turn the car around and go back?”

“Then they know we lured them in, and they’ll be even more careful next time they try to ambush you.” Ross’ response was too quick for this to be a last-minute decision.

Ishram realized it with an outraged sound. “You planned this.”

Ross was quiet for a long moment, and Ishram turned just enough so he could see her disconcerted look through the rear window. “Duh?” she said, “I’m trying to keep you alive, buddy, you need to understand how quickly things happen nowadays. Once you’re out there, I won’t be here for damage control.”

Ishram’s face screwed up. He hated being forced into things, but then again, Ross had a point. “You still should’ve told me,” he hissed, pressing the gas pedal further down.

Kibwe held tight onto his handles. “Woah, woah! Let’s- let’s think about this, can’t we?” he cried out, “there has to be another way. Surely we can’t just take these guys heads on-”

The second Ishram entered the first turn, he only had a split second to react; a black SUV pushed from behind the rocky outline, and Ishram sped up—the SUV barely grazed them but it was enough for the whole car to shudder and lose its trajectory.

“Fuckers,” Ross grunted, pushing down one of the rear seats.

Ishram had barely any time to check on her before the next curve arrived—and behind them, the SUV roared closer every second.

“Hold tight,” he ordered Kibwe as he put to practice what little he’d learned throughout the morning. The car answered, but not quickly enough. A small light had popped out, signalling the malfunctioning of the lights, and honestly, Ishram couldn’t care less about it.

“Ross,” he urged when she grunted something about ‘stop moving so much’, “if you want to take care of things, now would be the time.”

“I got it, I got it!” Ross growled back, annoyed.

Another two turns and the street was back to its characteristic linearity. Although that helped Ishram focus better, it was with horror that he saw the SUV move to the other lane and disappear from his rear mirrors. When Ishram turned his head, he found the SUV right next to his window seat.

“Hit it, Ishram!”

That confused Ishram. “Hit what?!” he shouted back. “I’m driving!”

Ross whined. Actually whined, “the gas pedal, you idiot!”

Ishram wanted to complain, just a bit more, just some more, because why wouldn’t Ross just say so? Besides, his foot barely made it to the clutch pedal that the SUV violently steered towards and against them.

The hit hurled Ishram away towards Kibwe, who yelled and turned as the whole window seat shattered and exploded right next to Ishram’s face. Ishram cursed when the glasses cut his face and his whole shoulder.

“Ishram!” Ross growled from behind them, and Ishram was done.

He hit the brakes. It worked only partly; the SUV tore away from his car door, pulling it open and free, only the other driver did the same—in seconds, the SUV occupied both the lanes.

Its doors opened on the other side, and Kibwe whined when two men leaned over the SUV with black rifles and helmets. Behind them, Ross was a stream of curses in so many languages, Ishram stopped listening to her.

Next to him, Kibwe was already fumbling to open his seatbelt, squirming out of it and sliding down under the dashboard. Ishram was about to exit the car when Ross’ hand grabbed him and yanked him back on his seat. “You go outside, you’re dead,” she warned with a dark voice. “And we all know what happens when you die, Ishram.”