The logic was simple, almost elegant in its brutality. Find a position out of sight, a blind spot free from cameras and prying eyes. No more than about six meters high; a second-floor roof or a third-story window was the sweet spot. We had chosen a derelict warehouse, a skeletal relic of industry whose corrugated steel walls sighed with the wind. It was a hollow monument to better days, and tonight, it was my perch.
Then, the wait. I had already been marinating in the silence for over two hours, every minute stretching into an eternity. The tactical harness, which I normally preferred cinched tight and secure, had become an instrument of torture. The main strap dug into my thigh, pressing relentlessly against my complaining bladder. My mouth and throat were a desert, the air thick with the taste of decay and old dust. Gods, I needed to piss. But I dared not move. What if the call came in and I was squatting in some grimy corner, fumbling with my fly? The very thought was a professional humiliation I couldn't risk.
For the tenth time, I tightened the straps of my arm guards, a futile gesture just to feel like I was doing something. They were already secure, the rusty iron spikes sitting firmly in their scabbards along my forearms. A twitch of my wrist was all it would take to free them. My eyes fell to the FM walkie-talkie, a silent, black brick clipped to my belt. We had agreed on radio silence, but a worm of doubt began to gnaw at my resolve. Was the unit dead? Had something gone wrong on their end?
Meki was my watcher, my eyes in the building opposite. I pictured them nestled in the shadows of a broken office, a ghost behind a grimy pane of glass. Were they still there? Of course they were. I could always rely on Meki. The thought was my only saving grace.
Beep.
The sound was a physical jolt. A little static hiss, then Meki's voice, calm and clipped: *"We got one-over." *
My throat seized. I tried to swallow, but there was no moisture left. My response was a dry croak. *"Over." * This was it.
*"10...9…8…" Meki started the count down.
My palms were sweating inside their gloves. My whole body felt leaden and dead from the long stillness, but now every nerve ending began to scream to life.
"7…6…5…"
I shifted my weight onto the balls of my feet, my muscles coiling like a spring. I heard the strap and fixtures of my harness creak in protest.
"4…3…2." *
I launched into a sprint, two powerful steps across the gritty floor. The count of "1" reached my ears just as my leading foot pushed off from the ledge, propelling me through the empty hole that once housed a window.
There was nothing but pure adrenaline now. The leap instantly transformed into a downward fall, the world tilting on its axis. The wind rushed past, a roaring river in my ears. I'd done the math a hundred times: the average human body falls at 200 km/h. An E.I.T.S.-5 had a top speed of 100 km/h and only three upper sensors to warn it. Its six arms, each a meter long with whirring propellers, could easily hold its own 20 kilos, and at a push, 60 kilos more. I clocked in at 57 kilos, plus maybe 3 or 4 of gear.
Don't get hit by the propellers. The thought was a singular, primal command as the dark, insectoid shape of the drone filled my vision.
I made impact. There was a half-second of violent jerk, the sickening strain of the machine taking my weight, and then a wild, nauseating sway as the drone's stability systems fought a losing battle against the 61-kilogram surprise clinging to its back. The propellers screamed, biting at the air around me. Then, with a loud metallic crunch, the motors gave out.
We plummeted.
The crash into the asphalt was a universe of pain, a concussive blast that beat me from head to toe. But I felt nothing beyond the fire in my veins. As dust and sparks bloomed around us, I wrenched my right arm free. The spike slid from its scabbard with a whisper of metal. With a guttural rebel yell, I drove it down, impaling the machine's central processing core in a shower of sparks. The light in its sensors flickered and died. Now for the second task: harvesting. The adrenaline that had been a fire in my veins was now a cold, sharp shard in my gut. We had to move.
Meki was already sprinting across the cracked asphalt, their form a blur in the poor light. "That was fucking amazing, Nimble!" they breathed, their voice a mixture of awe and urgency as they slid to a knee beside the wreckage. They were already rummaging through their pack, retrieving a set of lock-picks-turned-pry-bars and a pair of heavy-duty cutters. "That's the third this month. You're a legend. And an E.I.T.S.-5? Shit, we hit the jackpot."
The air filled with the sounds of their work: the sharp zing of cutting wire, the groan of stressed alloy as they prized open armoured panels. The drone lay like a shattered metal beetle, its six propeller arms splayed at broken angles. Our job was a brutal sort of triage, separating the precious, intact components from the mangled circuitry. But the most critical rule, the one beaten into us from our first day in the shadows, was to be completely sure that no tracking or data-sharing chips remained in our catch. A single overlooked beacon could lead the Hounds right to our doorstep.
I worked quickly, unbuckling the heavy tactical plates of my impact armour and stashing them in my pack, which Meki had been holding for me. The cool night air was a relief on my sweat-soaked clothes. Every muscle screamed in protest; the impact had left me feeling like a single, massive bruise.
"You O.K., Nimble?" they asked, as they slice through another thick cable.
"Yeah. Took a real beating, though. That was a hell of a fall." Their fingers never stopped moving, delicate and precise amidst the destruction. "Let's just get this done and get gone."
Meki had barely begun stripping the primary logic core from the drone's chassis when the first flash of blue sliced through the darkness. A police car, silent and sleek, swung around the distant corner, its arrival unnervingly swift.
"Fuck!" I shouted, the word tearing from my raw throat. How the hell did they get here so soon? It couldn't have been more than two minutes, three tops. My mind raced, had we tripped a silent alarm? Was it just rotten luck?
Meki looked up from their handiwork. For a half-second, time seemed to freeze. The sight of the approaching lights didn't register as a threat but as a curious anomaly, their focus still locked on the intricate prize before them.
"Come on, let's go!" I yelled, lunging forward and grabbing their arm to pull them up.
That was my first mistake.
They flinched as if I'd struck them with a live wire, a full-body recoil that wrenched their arm from my grasp. Their eyes, wide and startled, finally met mine, and I saw the brief, cold flicker of violation there. In my panic, I had forgotten the one unspoken rule you never break: you just don't touch Meki.
"Sorry, Meki, I'm sorry," I pleaded, holding my hands up, my own heart hammering against my ribs. "But we have to go. Now."
The sound of their name, the apology, acted like a switch. The dazed confusion vanished, replaced by hyper-aware clarity. Without another word, they scooped the handful of harvested components, tossed them into their pack, and was on their feet. We turned as one and fled, melting into the labyrinth of alleyways as the police car's siren finally wailed to life behind us. Our bikes were stashed down a narrow side alley, a gash of darkness between two looming buildings. We reached them, our breaths coming in ragged gasps. In one fluid, panicked motion, we crammed our packs into the wire baskets and threw our legs over the saddles. Then we were pedalling like the wind, muscles burning with a fresh, desperate energy.
Bikes were our lifeline, beautifully, gloriously analogue. They couldn't be tracked, couldn't be hacked. They were old school, and in this hyper-digitized world, that was our greatest advantage. All we had to do was vanish into the city's arteries without being seen.
The thrill of the chase was on, a potent cocktail of fear and exhilaration that burned away my pain. I didn't fear anything now. The dark twisted alleys and rain-slicked roads were my friends, my domain. My heart was a drum, pumping pure adrenaline through veins that fired my legs like pistons. I was built for this. I skidded left down the next road, the back tire sliding on wet asphalt, a grin stretching my face. Meki was right beside me, a phantom in my peripheral vision. I caught a glimpse of their eyes, and they were on fire, too, reflecting the same wild joy.
There is no bond, no connection, as strong as the comradery forged in a chase. The wind whipped tears from our eyes as we soared out of a side street and over the busy main road, a river of automated headlights below. We were spectres, chasing havoc, looking down on the mundane ants scurrying home to their safe, predictable lives. We were almost home free.
The word was a sharp crack in the night: "Nim-!"
I looked over my shoulder. The scene was a freeze-frame of disaster. Meki's bike was a tangled mess, and so was Meki. They must have hit the large curb I'd just jumped, the one I'd taken for granted. I swung my bike around in a tight, screeching arc, my heart plummeting from the high of the chase to the pit of my stomach.
"Shit, Nim, we're fucked," they gasped. Their face and hands were a mosaic of blood and gravel, but they were moving, that was what mattered. The bike, however, was a lost cause; the front wheel was pretzeled beyond hope.
"Grab your shit and get on!" I barked, steadying my bike as they scrambled onto the rear luggage rack. Gone, was our speed and grace, replaced by a pathetic, wobbling drag. The bike groaned under the double weight.
"Leave me," Meki said, their voice tight with pain and shame.
"Not a chance. We're gonna get out of this," I grunted, pumping at the pedals with everything I had left. But will was no match for physics. I saw our shadow first, a small, distorted silhouette on the road ahead. Then it began to grow, stretching and sharpening, cast by the blinding white spotlight of the police car zooming in on us from behind.
We were crawling up the gradient of a small fly-over ramp, the incline forcing us to a near standstill. The engine roar was deafening, filling the world. The light consumed us, erasing our shadows, pinning us in its glare.
"JUMP!" I roared.
We dove over the railing and down the embankment, abandoning my bike to the spotlight. For the first second, it was a controlled dive. Then the slope steepened sharply, and we became a mass of legs and limbs, a tangled human cartwheel rolling and bouncing down the wet, unforgiving grass. The world was a violent kaleidoscope of sky, ground, and light. I hit the tarmac path at the bottom with a painful, jarring impact that sent a lightning bolt of agony through my shoulder. A moment later, Meki landed on top of me, driving the last of the air from my lungs with a sickening whoosh.
For a split second, I just lay there, stunned, staring at the cold stars, my body a confused map of pain. I didn't know what was injured or what was just bruised.
"Run!"