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"The river's in the opposite direction so this should work in theory. I'll be jamming all signals in this area. Nobody will be communicating with each other. That includes us. I'll still have my eyes. Follow the lights when you get in the car. Good luck."

"Eve, wait," Valeriy called out in the smallest voice. It no longer came through the earpiece.

No reply from the A.I. ghost.

"...Eve...?" Her body language tensing up more and more with each passing second.

I placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her towards me, remembering that she couldn't feel much. There were no lights reflected off her eye. No lines. No game creatures.

Only what haunted my dreams. In the eyes of my victims. Paralyzing fear.

"You worry about getting to the car unnoticed. Wait until they've scrambled," I told her. "If I don't get to the car ten seconds after you, drive."

That seemed to have snapped her out of the cloudy haze, glaring at me with such ferocity I expected a slap. Instead, Valeriy grabbed my collar and growled into my ear, "You get in the car before ten seconds are up."

An order.

At my nod, she turned away, scuttling quickly to the gate that separated the front and back yards. Not a rustle of a leaf or a crunch of a twig in her wake before she disappeared from my sight.

"Hello? Anybody there? Hey, my comm's not working. Yours?"

"Command center, come in. Command center."

"Try turning it off and on."

Taking a deep breath, I glanced up at the barely star speckled sky. The revolver loaded with six tranquilizer darts in the metal hand and the bejeweled gnome in my hand.

'Please let us make it out of this. I don't want to go back.... Please....'

"Command center, come in."

"Are we being jammed?"

When the searching lights weren't around me, I popped up and threw the garden gnome as hard as I could. The revolver already firing a shot at one of two the Hydra agents in the yard with me. Automatically my mind made a note to raise my aim since I barely cleared the armored vest.

"Shit!!"

As one dropped to the ground, I had already fired a dart at the other. The twitch in the hand was enough for the little dart to miss.

Wide eyes stared at me. The M4A1's muzzle lifted from pointing at the ground.

I quickly released the revolver, letting it fall into my hand and squeezing the trigger. Landed the dart on the unarmored thigh.

In the second it took to bring him down, the agent held down the trigger.

A blindingly bright light flashed from the horizon. The gunshot entirely overwhelmed by an earth-shaking explosion.

And an explosive of that magnitude was strapped to my one good arm....

A mustached man popped up from under a Panther tank and plugged his ears with his fingers.

A couple of seconds later, an explosion engulfed the tank in flames.

'Jac –? J...?'

"Move and I'll slice your throat."

'Valeriy.'

I ran.

I had to get there before he killed her.

Or she decided to do something that'd end up with a gaping wound across her throat.

My legs just couldn't move fast enough.

"Where is the Asset?"

"The what?" Valeriy responded.

"Don't play dumb, girl. The man with a metal arm."

"I have no fucking clue as to what you're talking about."

Blood.

"Him," the man hissed in her ear, staring right at me and shifting the knife enough to cut deeper into the young woman's neck, a young woman who had no reaction to it. "Drop the gun, Soldier."

I couldn't help but squeeze down tighter on the revolver handle, knowing well that no matter what enhancements were done to me, there was no way I could move fast enough to do anything before that knife finds its way too far in her neck.

At least it was only him. No one else was on the street. No telling how long that would last.

"Drop –"

"Um excuse me?" Valeriy cut in and my stomach dropped. She likely had no idea the blade moving further into her neck. Deepening the cut. She had no way of feeling it. "I don't mean to interrupt, but I really, really need to sneeze. Ah-ah –"

And at the agent's confusion, our hands raised. Hers to the hilt of the knife and mine to aim at his unprotected face.

He barely got out a "Wha –?" Before Valeriy's head flung back, smashing his nose with her head. His body fell against the pavement with a thud.

The young woman stumbled a couple of steps right into the open car door. Likely grabbed while slipping into the driver seat of the little white and black car.

Then her revolver was drawn, and another dart joined the one on the agent's face before I could get to her. I grabbed her hand, demanding in a harsh whisper, "Are you trying to kill the guy?!"

"No? Just stopping the memory forming process. He saw my face. I rather be forgotten," she replied "Fuck. Everything's all spinny."

I pushed her the little bit it took to tip her over, and she toppled onto the driver seat. "Let me see your neck. You're bleeding."

"Aw shit." She waved her fingers by the cut and checked them with a shrug before fixing the scarf to cover her face again. "I'm not squirting blood. I'll be fine. Get in the car. You've got less than ten seconds."

"Should you be driv – Do you even know how to drive?"

"All good," she chirped, buckling in and tucking her revolver under her thigh. "You're the better shot, so I drive."

With a jump over the short hood, I quickly slipped into the passenger seat. The second my feet were off the pavement, the car jerked forwards, slamming the door shut with the movement. The acceleration foreign to me for a car. It just moved, topping out at 93 miles per hour.

Too fast for her to survive a crash. I doubt I would be able to easily walk away from it either, leaving me at the hands of Hydra. Again.

"You're driving on the wrong side of the road," I pointed out, shifting in the seat at how wrong everything felt.

The street lamps were out. Our headlights were off. I had to wonder if she could see where she was even driving. If the glasses she wore could see far enough.

"Oops, heh," she laughed nervously, giving the wheel a little wiggle that sent the car swerving into the correct lane.

"You're sure you know how to drive?" I asked, taking the moment of peace to reload the revolver.

'I should have tossed her in the passenger seat....' I could easily drive and shoot at the same time.

"Sorry, last drove at one of the ex-colonies," she stated lightly. "Really shouldn't drive imports. Gets confusing as f –"

A distant street lamp gave a dim flicker. A silhouette stood beneath. The car violently veered to the side in a quarter second, and a bullet nicked the chair just above Valeriy's right shoulder.

"– UCK!!"

Through the cracked windshield, beyond the darkness, the man rushed to the middle of the road, and Valeriy was erratically swerving her way right for him. Little doubt that she had every intention of plowing right through the shooter while attempting to dodge the bullets raining around us.

A contraption covered his eyes. Likely how he spotted us in the darkness without a flashlight.

Switch to Glock 21. Shoot below the nose. Target incapacitated.

Before the blood could paint this car, his or our own, I rolled down the side window. The wind roared into the car. Whipped against my face, as I adjusted my aim.

Another bullet made it through the windshield. Luckily it bounced off the metal shoulder.

One squeeze of a trigger. One second later, there was another jerk to the car. Barely made it in time for her to miss his crumpled body on the road.

She didn't need blood on her hands as much as I didn't want to be a killer anymore. As much as they were Hydra, I didn't want to kill. Not anymore.

Another flash of light. This time a pair of street lamps on my side of the road. A man under this one as well, sporting the same contraption on his head. He'd spot us.

The light above him flashed again. Hopefully, the flickering light was enough distraction.

"I've got him."

Shoot at neck. Target incapacitated.

As I was about to pull the trigger, I barely managed to stop my head from bouncing off the dashboard at the sudden snail's pace. The screeching of the breaks gave us away.

At the car turning right at corner the agent stood, I landed a dart on his cheek. He didn't even have time to process a thing by the time Valeriy's foot floored the accelerator, throwing me back into the seat with a high pitched hum of the car.

"Sorry about that," she yelled over the roaring wind. "I'll try to remember to warn you next time. I had my doubts that this car could handle a turn at that speed without flipping. But I love driving this little guy." There was even a little loving pet she gave the steering wheel.

"Who the hell taught you how to drive?!" I questioned, strapping myself in in time to spot another pair of street lamps flash once.

"Turning left!"

The A.I. ghost had to be behind the lights. Drove home how everywhere she could be. Always watching.

"My father," Valeriy said when the car sped back up. "The man races far too much for his own good. But if Mother's in the room, we've all got perfect driving habits, 'kay?"

After a few minutes of speeding down dark roads and flickering lights triggering sudden turns, no more agents could be seen. We either broke the perimeter, or the A.I. ghost found a route to avoid them.

A few more minutes, houses turned into buildings. Apartments, restaurants, stores and offices.

"Are we headed to Mexico?" I asked when I realized we were mostly headed south now.

"...I really rather not. It's summer. It's already hot enough here. I don't want to deal with that kind of heat. You'd stick out like a sore thumb. You see any more of those asshats? Can I slow down y – Well shit. Guess not...."

The light bathing the little car reminded me too much of the helicopter. Gaining on us. Fast.

My grip tightened on the revolver. Heart pounding at my ears.

We're going to have to fight our way out... and I doubt both of us would make it out of this.

"We're going to get out of this," Valeriy assured lightly, eyes glancing at the mirror.

Shoot driver between the eyes. Targets incapacitated.

I leaned out the window, drawing the Glock 21 and lowering my aim to one of the tires.

At a flash of light, the car slowed.

"Brace your –!!"

Before I could squeeze the trigger, a loud crunch hit my ears.

The momentum forcefully shifted into a swing. A blow to my left knocked me back into the seat. As pain bloomed across the skin on the side of my face, the car spun out of control.

With another jerk of momentum, everything stopped. 

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Author's Note:

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