Mayday
Re: Proposal
ReSound and I are away right now. Killing toxic waste eating mutants on Bet. Wish I was joking. Not even the lousiest part of my week. If Looksee hasn’t had any contact with the files or computer in question we will look at what you have. Meet our guys on their patrol and give them a disk or something? Sound and I will review when we can or others can check it out and give us feedback. Sound good? Will call my guys and find out who you’d meet and where.

Antares
Re:Re: Proposal
Sounds good. Looksee is busy with a project—no issues there. I’ve got a flash drive with info I can leave you guys.
Sorry to hear about the mutants. Good luck.

Mayday
Re:Re:Re: Proposal
They’re racing down Post st. in pursuit of unpowered criminals and should pass through Westport soon coming from the east. Can’t call them but you should be able to help intercept. Notify if intercept fails or is too much trouble. Is Spright Flapper Shortcut.

Mayday had a habit of writing in big blocks of text. In the gloom, half an hour past sunset, my phone bright and everything else dark, the grid of black text was hard to read.

I squinted at the name ‘Shortcut’, my teeth still set on my tongue, biting down.

Advance Guard was tricky. Things weren’t great when it came to Lookout and her history with a few members of that group, but Shortcut was a bit of a problem too.

My hope was that Shortcut was a chronic enough problem that his dislike of me in specific and our group in general wouldn’t taint things. We needed these groups, if we were going to make this work. It just so happened that Advance Guard was both the most difficult to wrangle and the fastest when it came to responses.

On the other hand, if Mayday wanted to set us up to fail here, while maintaining plausible deniability, having us offer unasked-for help to a group that included Shortcut would be the way to do it. Just… was it worth it? What did he gain?

Advance Guard was in a bad spot, and they had to be careful. It had been a leading team and its numbers had diminished. A handful of losses and a big hit to morale had led to a cascading effect. The team was half what it was.

Despite the later hour, traffic was stop and start below us. Headlights formed a staccato line of yellow-gold, stabbing through a haze of illuminated car exhaust and dust. Behind us, the car headlights were red, the dust and car exhaust less visible in that particular light.

No sign of the chase.