Varan’s hand covers my mouth. “Shh. Shut up.” 

I’m about to crunch through his fingers, but everything else is silent. The music is gone. 

There’s the sound of someone climbing the rungs, followed by a whisper. “Streetsweeper.” 

“How far?” That voice I recognize. The voice of a shark. He sounds like how it feels to hold a cold pebble in your hand. 

“One block.” 

“Stage frame,” he orders. 

“Piggyback,” Skarisa’s raspy voice interjects. 

There’s a brief silence. “Right. Piggyback. Take yours.” 

Varan’s hand drops down to mine, pulling me. “C’mon. We’re going.” 

I’m glitching. Shimmering in and out of the outline. The artist who draws this comic is snorting ketamine. I follow Varan, donkey on a lead. I have no fucking clue what is going on. 

He leads me to the rungs as several others are climbing up. I climb as well, then stop as my head knocks against the heel of a boot. I look up. My eyes adjusting, slowly. That is indeed a boot. And then calves. And then thighs. And then an ass. That’s as far as I can see. 

Something is rumbling. Something huge and mechanical, lurching above us. It’s so big that the manhole cover is vibrating. The sound of the vibrating circle of metal and the hum of the industrial vehicle harmonize in my brain. I want to sing along. 

“Now,” hisses Skarisa. She opens the manhole and shoots out, followed by the green haired girl, Yuli. 

I pop out next. Cool, fresh, rotting air blasts into me, making my skin sparkle. Good lord of dreams and death and drugs, it feels good to be alive. 

Varan scrambles out after me, and rolls straight into a sprint, chasing after the rumbling noise. I follow him with my eyes. He leaps up, and is grabbed by Skarisa and Yuli. They pull him up onto the back of the colossal vehicle. Oh… that’s the streetsweeper. They’re fed information from skylight drones and clean the roads of undesirables. People or otherwise. 

Deqar climbs up behind me. “Run, motherfucker,” he grunts, sprinting past me, after them. 

I chase, exploding forward. Purple mohawk punk thinks he’s fast. I tear past him and his cringe leather vest. 

Skarisa and Varan are cramming to the side to make room, gesturing for me to hurry. 

Hurry? I am speed. I am pace. I am… 

Eresek and Oresek barrel past me in unison. They leap, grabbing the tiniest fold in the outline of the back of the streetsweeper and clamp on. 

Gotta be fucking me right now. 

I will myself faster. Careening like a rally car after this ungodly machine. 

Varan points up, his face reddening. 

I glance. Oh fuck. Skylight drone. 

No matter, those things are blind as fuck. They’ve never spotted me before. I’m too quick. Gotta be slower than light to recorded by film. I’m like a vampire, except instead of mirrors it’s cameras. 

A pothole takes me out, ripping my leg from beneath me. 

Deqar leaps over me in a massive bound, regaining his pace. He hurtles forward, as Skarisa and Varan yank him onto the back of the streetsweeper, just as the skylight drones passes above, missing him with its radar by a hair.

I’ve rolled back up, running. I catch up quickly, and jump on after, nearly knocking Varan off the narrow bumper. 

“Kick his ass off,” Oresek shouts. “It saw him. We’re compromised.” 

Holy fuck that was fun. My sweaty hands search for something to hold. They only find Skarisa’s thigh. 

“He’s immune, remember? His print is in the police registry,” Skarisa says, holding herself and me up by a tiny slit in the rear panel of the streetsweeper. “It’s how we’re getting inside the damn barrack.” 

Varan squirms, trying to get into a position where more than just a quarter of his foot is standing on the bumper. Yuli reaches a hand down from a small gap between the rear panel and the roof, pulling him up and cramming him beside her. Lanky fuck. Moves like a squid. 

Oresek grunts. “He’s got his print in the fucking police registry. Kid just shows up off the street. And if he’s a double agent? They know we’re coming?” 

Double agent? I look at Skarisa. My tongue rolls out of my mouth and flaps in the wind. 

She isn’t looking at me at all. Her face is iron. Damn she’s good at this. “You trust the Shark or not? You don’t have to trust this sewer rat.” 

“Personally,” I mumble, “I prefer the term, street rat. Haven’t been in a sewer in over a year… hey, wait a second… weren’t you fuckers just partying in one?” 

“Eat your tongue, runt,” Deqar barks. 

“He’s right,” Skarisa says. “We know the plan. We trust the Shark. Best if we all shut up for now incase anyone’s listening. The streetsweeper’s unloading dock is next to the barrack. It’ll be easier to get Kallix to the door from there.”

I lean back, nearly pulling Skarisa off. I look up at her. “Where are we going again?” 

She looks straight into my prefrontal cortex with her snake eyes. “We’re robbing the Blue Lock Barracks for an electrical pulse explosive, and maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get to kill your police chief brother, if he’s around.” She sticks out her forked tongue and winks. 

“Ah yes, I’ve been wanting to do that for a while actually,” I murmur back, then slump against her, resting my head against her thigh and wrapping my arms around. In all honesty, I don’t mind dying on a night where I’ve fucked. Even if it was a purely business, essential communication fuck, it still counts in my book.