A half dozen new screens popped up to the side, various social media pages and rapidly scrolling picture albums. The two largest windows were live video feeds of car loads of masked people smiling, shouting taunts, and waving guns for the camera. The audio played for only a second, the chaos of loud music and two different groups of people all shouting over each other shutting off almost as soon as it started.


    “Can you map out a way through?” Ali asked, after breathing directly into the cheap mic that was pinned to her jacket''s hood, blowing out the audio quality.


    Max answered while I searched through the mass of screens for anything useful. “I don’t have eyes on the full route, but I’m working on stealing a drone off a charging pad on one of the highrises near the ship. That’ll give us a bird''s eye view. There’s this stupid cable stuck on the thing that needs to be manually unattached, and it''s being a pain. I can talk you around the clown cars that are roaming around though, and I’m working on triangulating the location of all of these yahoo’s mobile comms.”


    “Where are the Shepherds for all of this?” I asked.


    “This is a border city, it’ll be defence forces here, sir.” Ali answered, the distinct sound of bullets being loaded one by one in a magazine in the background of her audio.


    “Correct, Miss Ali!” Max said cheerily. “The two organizations compete and don’t always get along, and since this is a march county, it falls to the army. However, they’re rocking a skeleton crew with the bulk of them called to respond to the situation back in Nubraniagin, which the sheps are not happy about. The local criminal element is only just realizing.”


    “Can we get them to fight each other?” I suggested, thinking of my actions back in the tar pit.


    “Probably. That’s actually not a bad idea. Let me fake some DM’s real quick…” Max replied. “Normally they skirmish more with their radical and preachy counterparts than each other, but those people mostly flocked to the uprising and have left the city already. Logged crowd numbers at the Link ship over the last week have dropped by like 20 percent, and the city sent 5 of its 6 legions off to Nubranagin. I think Green’s Ash is about to have a very bad day.”


    A satellite-image-turned-city-map added itself to the growing wall of screens. There were so many windows and boxes open now that they nearly blocked my view of the entire van and surrounded me in every direction. I spun in place and looked over the map. Ali and Rin were marked by a green dot, and I could see a number of red dots of varying sizes moving up and down the streets in the surrounding area, as well as some scattered blue dots near the red ones. There were also gray dots that seemed to occasionally disappear and reappear as smaller red blips when they got close to the blue ones.


    Max answered my internal question of what the dots were about, but kept it private, his voice sounding directional and like he was in the van with me rather than in the internal group-chat he was streaming. “The red blips are probable combatants I have a positional confirmation for, and when they move out of frame the gray dots are predictions of their movements. The blue ones are intel sources, cameras and security lights, motion sensors. The gray ones are not accurate so don’t count on them.”


    “Right.” I answered him aloud, only half paying attention to his explanation as I traced a route through the moving obstacles. “It looks like you’re in someone''s backyard, and the next house towards the city center has a big garden in it?”


    “Affirmative, we’re between a shed and a brick wall near a tree.” Ali replied, while Rin heaved in deep breaths in the background.


    I nodded, seeing the corner of the shed peeking out from behind the tree on the image. “Alright, if you can cross the wall and that yard, the next house has a camera and we can time your move. I see… four cars and like 6 walkers moving through the area.”


    “Got it, sir.” Ali answered, then I heard a loud scraping noise and a grunt of effort from her before she cursed. “Damnit, the top of the wall has broken glass embedded in it. Rin, look for something to cover it.”


    More noises followed, what sounded like the rustling of dried leaves and movement. After 20 seconds or so, some distant gunfire came through on the audio, causing a number of the blue dots to pulse white in a radiating circle. The closest large red car-dot started to flash between red and yellow and pulled into a yard about a block down the street from where they hid.


    One of the video screens enlarged and rose to the foreground, showing the livestreamer cameramen jumping out of their car and chasing after someone through a yard with their group of gunmen. The audio for the stream popped back on, but at a volume that allowed the sound of Ali’s grunts and Rin’s labored breathing to cut through.


    The words didn’t mean much to me, to be honest. They spoke so quickly and all at once, with lots of slang and unfamiliar accents, but I watched as they chased down the guy and shot him in the back as they pursued him around the house and into an alley. The carload of gangers began to celebrate their victory as soon as the man fell. They took his weapon away, and started to taunt and kick him as he struggled on the ground with unmoving legs. I turned my attention back to the map and relayed the information.


    “The car near you just took out someone else, they’re all distracted for the moment if you can make a break for it. Three houses down on your side of the street is a lot with a bunch of bushes in the front yard that you should be able to get to before anyone else comes through.”


    “Good, there''s nothing here.” Rin managed to croak out as he finally caught his breath.


    More footsteps and loud breathing accompanied the green dot moving from their hiding place, they slowly moved towards the group that was still celebrating their kill. I glanced over at the livestream screen again and saw that they were still kicking the downed rival and mocking their enemies, some of which appeared to be arguing back with them in the scrolling chat to the side.


    I looked away and back to the map, watching as a gray blip a street over winked out and reappeared as a red blip moving towards my friends and the ongoing celebration. “Shit, you have someone coming straight at you.”


    “Next time, we’re going to make sure our field team has real camera rigs, it’s super annoying only being able to hear what''s happening.” Max complained on the open channel.


    Between heavy breaths and crunching footsteps, Rin gasped out. “Echo– location?”


    Max’s avatar stood up and pointed at me with both hands. “Oh! Not bad, monkey man. Let me give that a shot. I think I have an idea for a distraction too.”


    More quick footsteps, and I watched as the green and red dots moved quickly towards each other on the map. One of the houses on the far side of the street from my friends began to intermittently blink with a dim orange tint.


    Ali let out a small girlish squeal of pain, followed by a growl of annoyance. “Max, if that ringing is your attempt at echolocation, you''re doing it wrong.”


    “Oh, you can hear that high? Impressive as always.” He replied. “I''ll shift the range I’m using even higher.”


    Ali and Rin’s footsteps slowed down, and their green dot came to a stop a full house distant from the bushy yard I was guiding them towards. I started to panic, because the red blip I was worried about was nearly on top of them at this point. I expected gunfire and shouting to break out at any moment.


    Ali whispered directly into her mic between deep steady breaths. “We’re behind a roasted car, two combatants coming our direction, let me know when they are along-side us.”Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    I nodded, and then realized they couldn’t see me so I answered. “Got it, they’re in front of the next yard now.”


    “No worries, remember that distraction I''ve been cooking up?” Max said smugly. “Get ready to leg it, no one’s going to be looking at you in ten… nine… eight… oh, wait, here we go, now!”


    The house that had been blinking with an orange glow, two houses down and across the street from where our team was hiding, exploded in a very familiar manner. The roof was blasted into the sky in a billion pieces by a huge fiery gas explosion, debris and shrapnel scattered across the street as the stick-walled construction and cheap vinyl siding went up in flames


    A split second after a quarter of the screens I could see lit up with vibrant oranges and yellows of the explosion, the soundwave hit and overpowered everything else. Ali and Rin might have said something, but it was washed out by the rumbling explosion, followed by the smacks and pings of falling debris as shingles, bits of wood, and pieces of smoking siding rained down around them.


    “Damnit, Max!” Ali’s strained voice cut through the static, and I watched as the green dot started to move. The red dot representing the closest enemy now had an X crossing it out, and my friends moved right by them as the rest of the red dots started to move around more erratically. Instead of stopping at the house I was guiding them towards, they continued to run down the street passing the burning house making a break towards the city center. The sound of the explosion reached the van, muted by distance to the point of being easily mistaken for a distant clap of thunder.


    Max made an indignant noise. “What? It worked, like 15 percent of the patrols just said some variant of ‘fuck this, I’m out’ and are heading home. Plus that one group that was right out front when it happened! I caught it on a doorbell cam, check this out.”


    Another looping video clip popped up, of two darkly dressed guys running down a sidewalk right as the house exploded. The shockwave threw them over instantly, ragdolling them into the street before the flames spread and engulfed them for a second. In an instant, they went from toting guns and charging down the sidewalk, to motionless huddled mounds amongst the flaming debris.


    I shoved the window to the side. “Not now. Where do they go? Isn''t that kind of thing going to attract even more attention?”


    “I''m counting on it! The defence forces actually have stricter guidelines and rules of engagement than the shepherds. Miss Ali and company can just waltz right past them while they move to respond. Plus, they’ll respond with… hah! Called it. Take that, manual safety measures.” Max shot back, a smug tone to his voice.


    A new screen opened, this time instead of spreading out in front of me, it laid down flat before me like a table, or a desktop. It was a blurry black and white screen that I had difficulty understanding as shapes and shades quickly shifted around. The whole image rotated, and I caught a glimpse of two parallel bars that might be streets, then the picture snapped into focus as I realized what I was looking at. This must be the drone Max had been talking about, and I was looking through an aerial infrared camera that was rapidly travelling over the city.


    Rin and Ali kept running down the street, Ali’s harsh voice pushing Rin as he struggled to keep up. “Keep moving!”


    The drone had yet to reach them, so I focused back on the satellite image map we had been using. “Guys, you need to cut through the yard to the left, uh… east. One of the other cars is coming your way.”


    “Got it.” Ali spat back at me, and I saw the green dot slow down and veer off to the side of one of the houses. They moved into the back yard with the rattle of a chain link fence against its galvanized posts.


    Rin made a puffing ‘oof’ noise, like he had just had the air knocked out of him. “Move, Rin! Get up, let''s go!”


    A minute later, a screen popped up and showed Ali half carrying a wheezing Rin through a well manicured backyard filled with various ornamental statues of tiny men with floppy hats and beards doing miscellaneous yard work tasks. They had cut through another half dozen yards, and were about to run into one of the roaming gray dots.


    “There’s probably someone ahead of you, Max is predicting them coming around the edge of the next house and cutting through the yard in seconds.” I warned them as they prepared to climb yet another fence.


    “T-This is bad.” Rin complained as he leaned against the fence, heaving in deep wheezing breaths. Ali shushed him and the green dot stopped moving just in time for the gray dot to turn into a red one and jump to the far side of the small property on the opposite side of the fence.


    “Got it, he does have a comm on him, but he had it turned off. There''s only one signal, sounds like… two sets of footsteps though. C’mon, just hop the fence and take ‘em out!” Max added, but the pair hunkered down and stayed still, controlling their breathing as I watched the map. We all ignored him.


    “They’re passed you, you can cross now.” I relayed to Ali once they had passed.


    She grunted in reply, then got Rin moving again. “Up and over, you first, desk-jockey.”


    Rin drew in a breath and made a noise like he tried to speak, but nothing came through. Ali let out a single quiet ‘heh’ in response. “I think we need to take a moment longer, sir. How close to being away from this mess are we?”


    I unconsciously nodded, taking stock of the rest of the area between them and the marked Link ship and Travellers station that was their destination. “Most of the markers are behind you now. I’m seeing new blips though. Are those the army?” I asked Max.


    “Yup, they’re mobilizing the fire department, the riot response team, and a good chunk of their drone capabilities, but holding the legion back near the Link. I just talked a bunch of smack and threatened pretty much every outlaw in the city though, so… yeah, you should hurry. Theres still one squad you could take out on your way if you move quick enough.”


    “Damnit, Max.” I breathed, holding my gaze on that mute button again to keep it between us. “Maybe you should think about the effects of your actions before you take them? Is pissing off every violent criminal in the city actually your idea of a good idea?”


    Max spoke back to me alone, his voice coming through his avatar and sitting on top of the up-close and personal sounds he was beaming me from the field. “It’ll work, any time there’s a riot, or a major heist or gang battle, everyone swarms to the city center for protection from the legions. Ali and Rin will have a crowd of non-hostiles to blend in with this way. Plus, this one was totally your idea. Don’t you remember saying ‘can we get them to fight each other’?”


    I sighed and ran my hand over my face. “That’s… so not what I meant. You mentioned three gangs, I meant those three, not ‘every outlaw in the city’.” I threw his own words back in his face.


    “Hey, go big or go home man. Oh… wait, you’re kind of homeless. Or… maybe you are home, living that free spirit van-life? Whatever, in any case, my version is better for us. They’re all gathering now, and everyone knows everyone else is grouping up. Some of them are actually arranging battles and setting up places to just slug it out rather than play hide and seek. Less patrols to weave through, and they’re not hunting for randoms now.”


    I narrowed my eyes at Max, looking at him through the screens where he was standing in the back of the van. “Have you considered that causing the whole damn city to fall into chaos might make it even more difficult for us to find an escort for them to get the gear out of the city? Those supplies are the only reason we’re doing this whole thing, and there''s way too much for them to carry out. Now they’re going to lock everything down and everyone’s going to be looking for mercs.”


    Max’s round dotted eyes blinked and he just stared back at me for a moment, but Ali spoke up before he replied. “Are we clear to move, sir?”


    I frowned at Max for a second longer, and then turned back to the map. I scanned over the various colored dots that were appearing all over the city now. The reds, blues, and grays had now been joined by an absolute tide of yellow dots that all moved towards the city center. I guessed yellow meant they were probably not immediately dangerous, and saw that they were mostly clear to keep moving. The red dots they had been avoiding before were grouping up and moving away from the area with the explosion.


    I glanced at the vid screen from the doorbell camera that had captured the house explosion, and saw the fire spreading to the house downwind of it. I grimaced, hoping that we wouldn’t end up blowing up or burning down a building everywhere we went. “You look clear from hostiles, Max has the whole city in chaos, and there are lots of crowds heading in the same direction. Damnit, the public line is going to take forever… we’ll have to buy a fast pass.”


    “How much… are those?” Rin asked between ragged breaths as they started to move again.


    I grimaced and looked over at Max as I replied. “I haven''t checked for a year, but last I knew they were close to a thousand creds in Nubrag, but they used surge pricing, so...”


    I hung my head for a moment, messing up my hair with both hands in frustration, as Ali and Rin joined the thousands of people streaming towards the city center and the drone Max was piloting finally arrived to hover overhead. This was going to get expensive, my funds were dwindling, and I just knew I would be leaking money like a sieve until we could get settled in somewhere. I had to make sure we did not run out of funds, and my mind turned back to my dwarven companions and the lifeline they represented. Spending the extra cash to make sure we could get this done and get me back to the trials was worth the risk. I had to secure my place in a new faction, I just had to.


    All they had to do was get through the line, get the gear, hire a ride out, and then we would be on our way and I could Link back up and take care of it. Easy, right?