Lanie and I spent the afternoon observing Aidan Chen. We’d decided to wait until after sunset before acting. Yeah, 'we'—Lanie and I—were about to attempt something new, riding together and combining our skills. I wished I could claim credit, but it was her idea.

  With both of us in Lanie’s car, we found we had access to a vehicle up to level 60. If magic math worked the same as regular math, that meant that Lanie was at least level 38. It also meant we could pick any vehicle from the Exotic & Big Haulers category. I was pretty pumped about that until Lanie talked me out of choosing an Aston Martin DBX, a Porsche Cayenne Turbo, or a Lamborghini Urus. She said those cars called far more attention to us than we wanted, which I guessed was true. Instead, we settled on a massive Chevy Silverado 3500HD.

  Seeing my disappointment, Lanie let me choose four upgrades from our combined strength. She picked some, too, but I wasn’t sure what, and honestly, I didn’t care. I’d picked Hydraulic Jump Jets, Stealth EMP Pulse, Silenced Autocannon, and a fucking Plasma Cannon!

  I thought about choosing the Browning M2 as my personal weapon, but the thing usually sat on a tripod. Supposedly, I would be strong enough to fire it without the tripod at level 53, but I wasn’t quite there. It seemed this combined level hack had its hazards based on our physical limitations. So, I went with a Saiga-12, an automatic shotgun. Hell yeah!

  Lanie had surprised me by suggesting I drive, even though we were in her ride. I was happy enough to get into the driver’s side of the Silverado’s extended cab, even more so when I realized her plan. With me driving, Lanie would be able to work roof-mounted turrets and even deploy various Knight Rider-styled goodies. And speaking of Knight Rider…we might actually have the chance to use our Jump Jets. I decided in advance to give myself permission to yell “Turbo Boost!” at the top of my lungs if and when we used it.

  Chen was the first openly “bad” person I had gotten as a fare since becoming an Endr, and I was a little relieved to have Lanie as backup. She, too, seemed excited to be pairing up. I’d been a little worried about what Dispatch might think about it, but Lanie said fourth_wall wouldn’t care as long as the quotas were met.

  On the way out of Somerville, my phone vibrated with another notification. My messenger buddy, regular_dick_s, was no longer a viable contact. Had it finally been enough for him, this life that we live, or had something bad happened to him? I wondered if helping me had put him in danger. That brought me back around to the problem of the shades.

  “So, who do you think is letting these shades out of Terminus?” I blurted out loud.

  Lanie looked taken aback. Clearly, she wasn’t thinking about the shades at the moment. Not surprising, given that we were about to go up against the freaking Chinese mafia.

  “I don’t know, Max. What are you thinking?”

  “Do you think it could be possible that Axel’s behind it?”

  “Axel?” She laughed. “You think the guy who drives the same murder machine to every fare is also masterminding an underworld exodus?”

  “Okay, first off—word point for using ‘exodus’ in a sentence. And, yeah, I guess he wouldn’t have lasted as an Endr for very long if he were stupid. But then again, just because he drives the same car to every fare doesn’t necessarily make him stupid. Vain, maybe. Possessing an overwhelming hubris, perhaps, but not stupid.”

  “Word point to you,” she replied. “I haven’t actually said the word ‘hubris’ since secondary school… But to answer your question, no, I don’t think Axel is some evil mastermind.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve known him for almost five years. He’s a lot of things. Possessive. Arrogant. Opinionated. Annoying at times.” She shrugged. “But not evil. And let’s face it, definitely not a mastermind.”

  I suppose she would know better than I what Axel was and wasn’t capable of. I also knew that I wasn’t really unbiased. I still couldn’t get past the “hit me with a car” thing, to be honest.

  “Maybe the question isn’t who let the shades out of Terminus; maybe a better question is WHY would someone let the shades out?” I said.

  “I don’t know. We could just ask Dispatch.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  I turned that over in my mind as we flew down I-93. We were nearly at the exit to the surface road that would lead to Beach Street, which ironically wasn’t anywhere near a beach. What it was near was Aidan Chen, our very own mobster. He was ostensibly getting dinner on Beach, in the heart of Chinatown.

  “You made it sound like we couldn’t trust Dispatch.” I regretted saying the words out loud the second they left my mouth. “I mean… You didn’t actually say that…” Lanie shot me a dirty look and didn’t reply.

  It was late for dinner in Boston, but I knew that didn’t matter in Chinatown, where several places would be open well after midnight. Plenty of locals wound up in a Chinese restaurant, drunk and hungry after the bars closed. Even so, traffic was light, given the lateness of the hour.

  I hated driving through Chinatown. Though the city had tried to make some of the through-roads more accessible, they remained a jumble of one-way streets and odd angles. No matter what time of day you went, trucks and vans would be double-parked throughout, so driving through felt more like playing a game of Frogger.

  Lanie sat in the back seat, disassembling the moon roof. She tapped me on the shoulder, signalling she was ready to engage the upgrades we had selected, and man the guns that had made their way out of the roof.

  Up ahead, I saw a dumpling restaurant that matched up with the ping on Lanie’s map. Parked in front were two black Lincoln Continentals. We idled a few cars back; the Silverado pulled over as close to the right side of the street as I could get it to allow through-traffic to flow around us.

  I’m not sure what tipped them off. Maybe it was all the passive upgrades already visible on the truck. Maybe our scent was in the air. My uncle had once told me that a wolf can always smell another wolf. Whatever the case, someone in the closest Lincoln must have spotted us, because two men with submachine guns leaped out to open fire on the Silverado.

  They stood in the middle of the road, lighting up the front of our truck. I instinctively dove behind the dashboard, surprised when no bullets penetrated the cab.

  “It’s bulletproof, dummy!” I heard Lanie yell, followed by the clinking and clacking of bolts and gears, and then a loud, vibrating hum from behind the dash. When I looked up, I spotted two smoking barrels protruding from under the hood. The hum, I realized, had been our Autocannons, judging from the minced meat that was all that remained of the two men who’d been shooting at us only a few seconds ago.

  More men had apparently come running out of the restaurant while I’d been ducked behind the dash. The lead car was already squealing away down the road.

  “Shit!” I yelled, flooring it, the sound of the revving engine nearly drowning out the snick of the Retractable Side Blades neatly cutting the other Lincoln in half as we passed by.

  The Lincoln shot past Harrison Avenue before pulling an uncomfortably tight left turn into an alley just beyond. I yanked the wheel to follow, hearing Lanie’s muffled curse as she was knocked back into the seats from her standing position.

  “Sorry!” I shouted behind me. She didn’t answer, but I could hear her working her way back up to whatever weapon she had intended to fire manually.

  The car took a tight left turn down another alley, now pointing back toward Harrison. I whipped the Silverado after it, jumping in my seat when I spotted the huge purple arc of lightning coming from the roof above me. It reminded me so much of a Positron Collider from Ghostbusters that I knew it had to be the Plasma Cannon.

  With a scream of metal, the car split open from the back before exploding in a fireball at the front engine. The car doors flew open, and men spilled out, a few trying frantically to put out their flaming clothes, the others already reaching for weapons.

  “Turbo Boost!”I yelled, activating the upgrade ability. The truck rocketed forward and landed on top of what was left of the smoking Lincoln. The mobsters scattered out of the way, guns drawn and already firing at the Silverado.

  Lanie and I leapt out, auto shotguns in hand. Unlike my other fares, this wasn’t going to be a clean one-and-done. There would be collateral damage. Or would there? Chen himself would be transported somewhere else, but what happened to his crew? I assumed they’d be dead-dead, but I realized I didn’t really know. Then again, I wasn’t sure either scenario was bad for Boston. These guys were organized crime, and as a cop, I knew all too well what that meant.

  Conscience clear, I fired the Saiga-12 again and again, so many times that the end of the barrel grew red hot. Somewhere behind me, I heard Lanie doing the same. We dispatched the crew in less than a minute.

  I found Aidan Chen crouched against the back of the alley wall. His black coat steamed from where he had been ablaze only moments before. He looked dazed and was clearly in no state to fight back, despite the handgun held loosely in his palm. I leveled my shotgun at his face, and he threw his weapons into the alley.

  Lanie dragged him to the front of the Silverado, where she slammed his head into the front bumper until the mobster went limp. She let his body fall to the street. Huh, I thought. So that’s what the Rusty Bumper Reinforcement, the upgrade that all Endrs started with at level 1, was for. I had never seen it in action up close and personal.

  “We came, we saw, we kicked their ass,” I said, still channeling my inner Ghostbuster. Lanie rolled her eyes, glanced back at the carnage in the alley, and shook her head.

  - - -

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