Raschel turned the key and started the van, the lead car was only a couple of blocks away and closing, and the only sound coming through the group chat was the grinding of Ali’s teeth as she forced herself into inaction.


    “Quit yelling at me! I barely even know what I’m doing!” Raschel yelled back at me from the driver’s seat.


    “We have to move, now! It doesn''t matter where, just… no, wait nevermind, not that way! Go the other way, pull in behind that junk pile.” I answered, dividing my attention between looking for a place to go on the map and glancing at Raschel in the front seat.


    “Meh, me-me-me mah!” Max parroted my words mockingly. “This is stupid. Greg says there''s nothing to worry about and that he’s going to handle everything, they’re even talking about splitting the payday with me!“


    “Damnit, did you warn him that we’re on to them?” I shot back, my heart rate spiking back up.


    Max had retreated to the back of the van again, and was sitting proudly on the Links saddle with his nose in the air and his arms crossed over his puffed up chest. “No, I may think you’re wrong but I am willing to entertain the possibility that you are perhaps on to something. They are a bunch of humans after all, sometimes I forget just how volatile you folks are, but it’s not like they’ll be able to do much even if they do doublecross you though.”


    The van rocked around violently and nearly knocked me over as Raschel took us off road and through a shallow ditch, causing me to reach through the mass of floating virtual screens and scatter them out of order as I steadied myself from falling over. After the motion had settled back down I finally found the dot on the map I thought represented the gang. In Max’s style, it was marked with a tiny chin-strap-mutton-chop combo decal that turned it into a sort of eyeless red emoji face. It had yet to move out of the city, and was a few blocks behind the icon that signified the truck my friends were riding in.


    Having located both the gang and my friends, I turned my attention back to watching the forward team. I zoomed in the field of view on our previous location, and watched as the vehicle’s dot pulled into the lot we had vacated only seconds ago.


    “Kill the lights!” I yelled over at Raschel. “They’re pulling in to where we just were.”


    “I didn’t even turn them on in the first place!” She whisper-shouted back, leaning low in the seat and peeking out over the top of the steering wheel.


    I watched the map intensely, wishing I had a better view than dots on a still satellite image. Unfortunately, we had chosen a place to park far away from any cameras, and Max’s drone was still flying over the cat-girl-mobile as they worked their way through the emptied city streets. All I could do was keep commentating on what was happening and following the dots.


    “The first car is here, I don’t think they saw us. Keep an eye on Greg and be ready to move. He’s unarmored, so maybe you can take him hostage and use him to get the others to back off?” I spitballed, and although it was hard to tell I thought I heard Ali clack her teeth together twice in response.


    “I still think this is stupid, the guys in the first car just messaged Greg and seem pretty disappointed we’re not there.” Max said, his nose still in the air. “Now Greg’s messaging me too. Ope, see he’s not mad.”


    Max pinged the chat log, causing the edges of the window to flash with golden light as it scrolled down to the bottom of the thread. There was more to the conversation, but I wanted to see the most up to date info and focused on the bottom few messages.


    Max: You’re not going to mess up this whole party plan by doing anything reckless, are you? And no, they don’t pay me anything really.


    Greg: We can handle our end, don’t you worry about it. You just worry about keeping all of this quiet on your side of things. I know you back-line support types don’t like to get too involved, so you can sit back and relax while we throw our little party. An hour from now, you’ll be sitting back and counting credits with a new identity and new team.


    Max: Roger that, good buddy. o7


    Greg: The forward team says you missed your meeting. You’re not getting cold feet are you?


    Max again pointed at the chat log, and watched me out of the corner of his eye as he continued to point his snooty nose straight up at the roof of the darkened and quiet van. “See?” He insisted. “They even wanna team up, I bet we can convince them to join our cause if we play this right. I totally call dibs on the coolest nickname too, or is it a call sign? Like.. Max-Crusher, or Max-imum Overdrive. Oh, Maybe Mad-Max? No…”


    He lost focus and started listing off increasingly bad nicknames, so I reached over and pushed him lightly to knock him out of his tangent, also nearly knocking him over from his cross legged perch on Tevin’s still chestplate. “We are going to have a long damn talk about lying and how things work in the real world later, but right now I need you to pay attention and ‘entertain the possibility’ of the fight that''s about to go down.”


    I sighed and steadied him with a hand on his shoulder, which was a strange feeling. He didn''t feel completely solid, like I could push through his form if I really tried, but there was some real resistance. I couldn’t let myself think about that right now though.


    “Is Jorn’s suit still around? I think our best play might be to surprise them with that.” I glanced back at the map, watching as a number of dots representing the forward team mercenaries poured out from their vehicle and spread out around the abandoned property.


    A sliver of light swept in through the windshield and darted across the interior of the van, causing Raschel to let out a tiny alarmed squeak. “I- I think they’re looking for us.” She breathed out, just loud enough for me to hear it in the still van.


    Max let out a big sigh and pushed my hand off his shoulder, finally looking at me directly instead of down his nose. “Look, if they do actually attack, they have six suits of power armor and a wire controlled pop-up turret on the cat-mobile. It’ll be over in like two seconds. Wham bam, daka-daka-daka, exit stage left and we’re done.”This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    My eyes narrowed and I clenched my fists for a moment, seriously considering socking him across the mouth now that I knew I could. “How is that a good thing? Rin and Ali aren''t wearing any armor, they’ll be screwed.”


    Max grew a bushy pair of eyebrows, only to raise one in a confused look. “Uh, because I wouldn''t let them actually hurt her? These guys are wearing old primitive mark-2 armor from years ago, I could have all of them line dancing in a heartbeat. Almost all of their weapons have E-triggers too. That’s how I know they’re being straight with us, they’d have to be total dumbasses to try to screw me over after the resume I sent them.”


    I was fully prepared to tear into him again, especially for seemingly forgetting about Rin, but his confidence derailed my train of thought. “That’s… uhh… you already have control over all that?” I asked instead.


    “Duh, so quit your whining and go say hello, they’re starting to get mad that you didn''t show up to the meeting.”


    I stared at Max with flat unimpressed eyes. “Why the hell didn''t you lead with that? It could have saved us from having this whole dang argument. You said some of their weapons don’t have electronic triggers though, are any of them with the forward team?”


    Max stuck his nose back up in the air. “Yeah, about half of them are carrying old army pistols. All of their rifles have been upgraded though. Plus, a good chunk of them are carrying their sidearms in secure holsters that I can lock down too, only three of ‘em have the total oldschool setup. Greg insisted on everyone getting them for crowd control duty after some rioter pulled one on them in a press. He’s pretty smart for a human, kinda like Rin, but way more fun. That’s how I know he''s shooting straight with us, he’s too smart to try doublecrossing me.”


    I facepalmed again and shook my head, before reaching up to get a grip on the cabinets to haul myself to my feet. “Max, they don’t think they’re double crossing you, just Rin and Ali, and that you’re going to help them cover it up. Still, if you say you can lock down their weapons, we can work with that.” I moved to the door and grabbed the handle, turning to Raschel for a moment before opening it. “Stay here and stay down.” I ordered, before exiting the van.


    The dome light built into the ceiling of the cab burst into life as soon as the door was opened, illuminating the whole interior of the van and shining through the windows. “I got you.” Max snapped his fingers and pointed at the light, shutting it back off.


    I cursed and grabbed one of the rifles from the pile of weapons. Max highlighted a couple of the magazines, so I grabbed those as well and loaded down the remaining pockets of my torn up jacket.


    Watching in the direction of the mercenary team, I took a moment to stretch and feel out how my injuries were coming along. I’d been sitting and watching the screens for hours now, and it was hard to know how badly beaten I felt without some movement.


    It turns out, I was feeling pretty good. Almost all of the numbness was gone, replaced by something closer to sore muscle tightness, and despite the large scabs pulling uncomfortably at my skin as I moved, they did not crack, split, or start to leak again. Filled with confidence now that I knew the likelihood of them shooting back at me was real low, I shouldered the rifle and kept it pointed at the ground as I peeked around the back of the van.


    I could see dull red lights that occasionally swept over the wall of the garage or lit up a patch of grass or bush around the edges of the clearing across the street. I ducked back around the edge of the van to press Max for some more info.


    “Are you telling them we’re still on? How’s Greg taking you missing the meeting?”


    “Don’t you mean ‘you missing the meeting’?” Max’s avatar had remained in the back of the van, but he popped up some of the screens for me again, pasting them across the rear doors like a projection.


    “That’s what I said?” I asked, confused all of a sudden.


    “Not you you, but me you, for you.”


    I stared at nothing for a moment, trying to wrap my mind around what he was saying. “What?”


    “While I’m not you, what I am is with you, so if I’m going anywhere it''s you who does the actual going. So, it’s not my fault, you are the one who missed the meeting.”


    “Are you serious?” I growled at him.


    “When am I ever not serious? And I can see you typing Rin!”


    “I am not arguing semantics with you right now, Max! Is Greg mad enough to start making threats yet? And where’s Jorn’s suit?” I hissed, trusting the distant sound of gunshots, trains, and engine noises from the city to block my whispered words from the mercenaries setting up a few hundred feet away.


    I felt a stiff jab in my shoulder, like someone had poked me with a stick, and in one panicked motion turned around and elbowed an armored face that had somehow snuck up right behind me. The armor rang with a quiet hollow thud, but didn’t react much to my hasty blow. Before I could bring up my rifle to start shooting, the suit stepped back and Max popped into existence between us.


    “Chill man, haha. That’s your backup. Don’t you recognize it?” Max stepped out of the way and made a grand gesture with both arms, like he had just pulled a silk sheet off of an expensive prize on a gameshow. “It’s Jorn’s suit, although I did have it ditch its namesake about halfway between here and Nubrag. We should come up with a designation for this thing. I’m thinking… Graves.” Max’s face broke into a huge grin. He slapped the suit''s backside, then struck a pose with his hands on his hips. “Get it? Hah. This suit is totally haunted.”


    I took a few long deep breaths, calming myself down after the spike of adrenaline from the jumpscare. I turned away from Max before I caved into the urge to punch him, and looked back at the map that was being projected across the rear window of the van. Greg''s cat-mobile looked like it would be here in moments, with Chinstrap’s icon still trailing it by a few blocks. I needed to get Max to quit being distracted and realize this was not a game.


    I tried a different tactic. “Max, please focus. Just… please. I’m so nervous I might puke up all that jerky if you keep messing around. If you get Rin or Ali, or any of us, hurt because you are both too naive to see through their bullshit, and too stubborn to listen to us when we warn you, how the hell can we trust you with this grand sweeping plan of yours? Take a look, like a real look at the situation, and ask yourself if they actually are preparing to throw a party. Did they bring supplies? Are they setting up tables and a fucking pinata?”


    Max froze for a few seconds at my words. He stood absolutely still without so much as blinking as he processed my plea. After a solid three count, a glitchy shimmer washed over him and he brought a gray hand up to stroke his smooth rounded chin. “I suppose… they do not appear to be setting up a party.”


    He waved his other hand at the screens, sweeping the drone’s perspective to the top of the stack of windows. “They’re spreading out and setting up lines of fire… and they didn’t bring any supplies! Ugh. Okay, and now Greg is being a total dick in his messages.”


    Without further warning, the group chat was suddenly flooded with noise. Ali let out a roar of challenge, Rin a small yelp, and Greg shouted something so vile I’m not going to repeat it. A few blasts of rumbly static came through the line, like the kind of noise you hear when someone drops their comm on the other end of the line, followed by some grunts of effort and more angry aggressive hisses and forceful exhales from Ali. Max helpfully popped up his 3D rendering of the interior of the vehicle, and I watched the end of the fight as Ali pistol whipped Greg until he was no longer moving.


    Ali’s deadly voice took over the voice chat. “I’m not just sitting here anymore. Rin, get his plate carrier off of him. Max, isolate the comms and fake Greg’s voice to keep everything looking normal. Sir, Nick, get the fuck back in the van and let me and Max clean this mess up.”