“I repeat, the license plate number is GXC6879, and the car is a black, four-door 2013 MINI Cooper. The suspects are considered armed and highly dangerous. Do not approach. I repeat—”

Zed tuned the radio to 107.9. Different voice, same news. Zed turned off the radio.

“We’re fucked,” Kai declared. “We can’t erase phone records, and now the whole city knows our getaway car. Christ.” It felt good to speak, she realized.

No one responded.

Kai regretted talking. The tetchy silence descended again. The car was wedged between two towering four-wheelers, but Kai could feel the vultures overhead, could hear the heavy wings suddenly energized by the imminence of a meal. The pillars of exhaust floating into the sky suddenly became lost opportunities for cover.

Kai found herself focusing on the sidewalk, the only place where people seemed to be moving. Each passerby drew her suspicion: a boy with a soiled Checkers bag, an older woman with an oversized Chanel purse, two suited men, both with immaculate dreadlocks. They were all feds, she felt, her eyes trailing them through the window until they evaporated into the twilight.

Kai’s mind eventually settled on the plan. It was really going down. They were going to hack more satellites and then destroy them, the ultimate tag. If they weren’t caught first.

Sol opened the car door and stepped out, leaving the door ajar. Kai watched as she crouched behind the car. What the hell was she doing? Kai wondered, rolling down the window to peek out. Sol returned with the license plate. “Stop worrying so much,” she said dryly. Kai rolled her window back up.

“Finally,” Zed exhaled as the four-wheeler suddenly inched forward. The MINI followed, gliding behind it. Kai felt that they should take back roads, but she held her tongue, wary of further devaluing the clearly worthless currency that were her thoughts. After a few lights, they passed the source of all the backup: two trucks hauling giant grills had collided, face-on. Cops and emergency workers buzzed around the cleared wreckage, which was still smoking. The smell of scorched, contorted metal and sweet charred ribs was acute, assaulting the car from all sides. Images of smoldering witch cauldrons formed in Kai’s mind, disparate materials forced into forbidden congress, the foulest intercourse.

“I know this is weird, but that smell makes me really hungry,” Apollo confessed, speaking for the first time since Kai had gotten into the car. By the time Kai turned around to respond, he was already sunken into his laptop, his jagged widow’s peak twinkling in the harsh light of the screen. Kai always wondered what kind of battery his computer used. The screen seemed excessively bright, almost confrontational. As she swiveled around to face forward, Kai saw a blip of a smile materialize on Zed’s face, but it vanished just as quickly, a glitch.