Stef Mimosa vs. The World - Chapter 4

The area past the food court was bad - the scared and the injured that had only been on her periphery were now right there. Screaming. Wailing. Making all kinds of noise that made it too hard to concentrate or pretend to be a narc. The explosion had been fairly insignificant, after all - it had barely shaken their table, and hadn't dislodged many of the roofing panels, but it was causing the mass panic of an explosion ten times its size.

What had been a photo booth was now a smoking ruin, the windows that looked out onto the buses were all blown out. Large chunks of the doors and walls were missing...definitely costly to replace. Unless of course, they paid for it.

It was slow-going - people were everywhere, getting in their way, trying to help, impeding their path in every possible way.

What usually took about a minute took nearly five - every second of which made her feel more and more like pounding a hole in concrete and making her own place to hide until the danger was past. The crush of people was maddening, and any of them could be a shooter, be a Solstice, or a...one of the anti-Solstice bad guys, or even just an opportunistic fae with a vendetta against the Agency.

If you devolve into "I'm not gonna make it, I'm not gonna make it", I am going to seize control of your body and slap you.

...you can do that?

Do you want to see me try?

No, not really.

She pushed ahead a few steps - her easily mockable shortness a blessing for once, as it was far easier for her to slip through the crowd than it was for Ryan - especially with another man thrown over his shoulder.

Free of the crush of people for a moment, she pressed her face up to one of the unbroken windows, looked up towards the hotel entrance.

The cab was there, waiting for them, their yellow getaway car with a meter.

This part of the bus stops was fairly quiet - there were a couple of open doors, presumably opened by those fleeing the blast. It was good - it meant one less piece of property damage that had to occur. That, and she wasn't sure if she could bust through one of the heavy glass doors.

Maybe if they were in a system area, and if it decided to attack her. That part would have been the simple part though - doors were easy enough to provoke.

They passed through the nearest open door, and past a bus whose radio was alive with a mess of emergency services chatter.

We're gonna make it!

Knock on wood.

Ryan was less than his usual impeccable self - more effort was showing on his face, and the Solstice's blood was all over his clothes.

'That's our cab,' she said as they crossed to it, feeling the need to say something, anything. 'We're ok.'

She moved ahead of him, and pulled the taxi door open. The driver began to protest, but she glared at him as Ryan placed their bleeding contact into the backseat as gently as was possible.

'Hospital?' the driver asked as they slammed the back doors closed, the dying Solstice between them, his breathing far from regular, his life leaking out onto what had been a very clean cab.

'Queen street,' Ryan said.

'You're already there, mate.'

She kicked the back of the driver's seat. 'Drive, arsehole!'

The back windscreen shattered.

She froze as small pieces of glass covered her.

There was glass everywhere. She couldn't feel her legs. There was blood everywhere. The seat belt had snapped tight, and she could feel the bruises forming. No. She couldn't feel anything. Cold. So cold. There was nothing but-

Spyder, down!

There was a sharp tug and her head hit the driver's seat.

Ryan let go of her tie. 'Keep your head down.'

She blinked, saw her hands gripping her knees so tight her knuckles were white. She blinked again, taking stock. She wasn't bleeding. She wasn't dying.

'Oh fuck this,' she heard the driver say, and the car jostled as he sprang from his seat, and ran from the cab.

You here?

She fought to get the accident out of her mind.

Tell him to slap you.

Huh?

You're still back there, you need to be right here, right now.

Ryan grabbed her hand and pressed his gun into it. 'I'll drive, but I need you to cover us.'

She grabbed his hand. 'Slap me.'

'What?'

'Slap me!'

He winced as a smattering of bullets hit the boot of the taxi, then exhaled a small breath and slapped her. Her cheek throbbed, and tears welled up in her eyes, but bleeding to death in a crumpled car fled. She clutched the gun and turned in her seat, carefully looking through what had been a solid piece of glass a few seconds ago.

The bleeding Solstice coughed, and she adjusted herself so that her spare hand was applying pressure to his wound. She fired off a few rounds as Ryan climbed through to the driver's seat. There were three of them - Solstice or Blue Earth, it didn't matter, both had murder death kill intentions towards them.

'I want my magic gun,' she whispered.

At least targeting worked in a blackout zone - it wasn't as accurate as it was in a system area, but it was far, far better than what she could manage on her own.

She heard the driver's door close, and she aimed for the shooter on the left, her targeting overlay appearing as she concentrated. She squeezed off two shots, and both missed.

The taxi's engine roared, and she slipped from her position as it lurched forward. It broke the slow speed limit, and she grabbed the loose seat belt for stability as Ryan swung around the tight roundabout, and back towards the shooters.

'Keep your head down,' he said again, his voice retaining his narcy calm despite the car's increasing speed.

Bullets hit the bonnet and a few struck the windshield, but it thankfully stayed intact. One of the shooters from the right moved, running out onto the road, getting a better angle to take more shots.

Ryan hit the man without swerving or slowing, the crumpled body flying back to the right, and out of sight as they hit daylight. A few more bullets hit, but then there was only the sound of the engine, and her stressed breathing.

Two comparatively calmer minutes later, the taxi stopped outside the Agency, the Parkers already waiting with a gurney. She kept out of the way as they extracted the injured man, then smiled as Ryan climbed out of the driver's seat and offered her a hand.

She crawled across the bloody seat and stepped out onto the footpath, ignoring all the people that were paying far too much attention to them. He stooped, held her chin and tilted her head to the side. 'I hope I didn't hurt you.'

'I needed it,' she said, 'traumatic flashbacks, yadda, yadda,' she said as they walked towards the front door. 'Not that there were guys with guns or failed terrorists when the car crashed. You know what I mean.'

He squeezed her hand as they stepped into the lobby. 'I do.'

One quick shift later they were in his office. He sat on the couch, his bloody jacket and vest disappearing, and a glass of ice water appearing in his hand. He took a long drink, then placed the glass on a freshly-required table.

'That was,' he said with a smile, 'more complicated than expected.'