The magical meets the mundane, explosively

  They had all taken turns choosing musid talking over it. At times, the versation drifted toward serious matters. Luke gave Gradie reminders on bat; focus ohing at a time, unicate, if the fire stops there’s a problem. Lindsey advised him to keep his thoughts simple ahe Hardworlds figure it out.

  “Subtle, positive thoughts. More like just an attitude at first, till you get the hang of pushing. Most important thing is to not over think it.”

  Gradie queued up bodies on bodies by Vio-lend bit down oatement “I overthink everything” so it didn’t get out.

  The window, cold and clear, held broken gss-shaped pieces of light that slid slowly across the matte bess then zipped away, only to return, reborn, identical oher side of the window as areetlight came on.

  Cars fell behind them, beaten, unable or unwilling to match their pao Saturday night excitement here. These were the fotten people. On their way to weekend jobs, graveyard shifts, parking l deals. The warehouse must be close. Would it feel like this, too real? Grinding across a highway, boxed iween gss and breath aal, all those cars rubbing by. Inescapable reality.

  He closed his eyes to block it out and saw the daylight shootouts, broken in pieces and lit by something not like sunlight. They all felt like dreams now, and he couldn’t believe he had been there. How had he been so scared? How could he fet none of it could harm him?

  “Don’t fall asleep!” Sam swerved.

  “Fuck!” He yelled.

  “No naps on this field trip!”

  He looked through the windows, but didn’t see the warehouse looming anywhere. He grabbed between his knees a nothing. Brief panic. The X95, left behind in the SUV. Cops pig over it now, or had already stuck it in some drawer, useless. He hoped not to end up the same way. His hand moved to his hip and he felt the five-seven. It fired in his mind and Paul dropped dead. The triumph was wilted by his inexplicable distance from the moment, beat away by the versation, the oise, the slivers of light again on the gss, obscured it. Like he had dropped the moment on the floor and after g it out from uhe seat, found it dusty, with hair and scraps stuck to it.

  Somehow, he mao get hold of the moment again, briefly. But its text was lost. How had he do? It didn’t even feel like him now. None of them did, those radies. He was the highway. The hum, that was him. The sensation of moving, the dire of motion, unthinking, slipping away, uhered-

  The music exploded as Sam ked the dial and Gradie shot up again.

  “All right. I’m good!” He shook himself. Sam flicked her blinker on and he almost threw up. They lost speed and the cars passed them now, an uling reversal. The ramp dropped downward like a rollercoaster, reminding him that this was supposed to be fun. An astral projeg gunfighter, that’s what he had thought he would be. All the missed shots from the past two days rang out in his head. Who misses in a dream?

  “Park i and look over the maps,” EP said in their ears.

  Gradie pulled up his phohe area looked like a motherboard from space, all big regles cut up by the grey lines of streets, surrounded by an oval of highways. The distributioer was surrounded by ay field, the highway, and one massive warehouse. A live droagged vehicles, including theirs, and a small sedan speeding out of the DC back lot.

  “Cleared out the guard,” EP said.

  “He leave the gate up?” Philip asked.

  “Yep.”

  “All right. I’m ing in. Kate, e in behihe droagged aeen-wheeler as it accelerated down a side road. Sam sped across the lot and around the DC. It was a big block of shadow and amber light that rotated like a thing waking up. headlights on the highway flew by thirty feet up in the air.

  “All right team,” Michael said on the line. “Got some good news before we get started. The other warehouse to the west is vat, and as you see, the highway is up on ah berm to the east…”

  Luke was already smiling when Michael delivered the good news.

  “So, I’m clearing you for all ons. But watch yles—”

  Luke danced in his seat and Lindsey sighed with relief.

  “—be prepared for that to ge. Good luck.”

  “All right, here it is,” Philip said. Another map opened on the app. This one was a yout of the DC.

  “The target’s in one of the returns pallets, in this area.” He drew a circle in red around the far northwest er of the building. “They’re shipping it all to a liquidator on Monday, so there could be a good number of them.”

  “There’s twelve,” EP said.

  “Shit. Anyway, An will start searg the pile immediately after getting geared up.”

  Gradie looked at Luke, who just nodded. Was he really going to be digging through fug retail returns while a gunfight broke out?

  “The rest of us will set up around this veyor mezzanine area.”

  Another circle trabsp;around ahat looked like mesh on the yout, just below the returion.

  “Positioning as such.”

  Is appeared on the map, initials of the team members, in spots around the mesh, and lines radiated out from them denoting fields of fire. Gradie saw his own “AL” in the er, away from the others.

  “Set-ups gonna involve a lot of barrier pallets and explosives at key entry points. As far as the actual fight, it’ll be LMGs and unchers across the board, so make them pay for every sed they’re inside. When shit gets ugly, fall bader cover to the mezzanine here.” He marked the core of the mesh area.

  “With a building this size, they’re gonna prod until they have an idea where we are, then try and force a single point of failure. We’ve got the defensive edge, but they maneuver outside through the lot unopposed. Luckily, we don’t have to kill all of them, we just have to run out the clock. Assuming you do your job, An.”

  “This is gonna be fucked,” Luke said excitedly.

  “Well, we already got rule one covered,” EP said.

  “What’s rule one?” Gradie asked.

  “Get there first.”

  Philip got out of the truck as Sam got the door to the truck office open. He was already wearing strange dark coveralls and a pte carrier, topped off with a helmet and NVGs.

  “If I buzz yall it means I’ve got traffid you’ve got two mio set up, so stay frosty,” EP said. Something was beeping behind her voice, and she sounded like she was in the middle of an adrenaline dump.

  The door squeaked open with an ominous echo, and they all slipped inside like a knife.

  Here we are at the grand finale. An unusual task leads to an unusual resolutioime, the team enters a dark pce, and prepares fill it with fire and sound. episode, Interment.