The only way out is through

  Backdraft got in the passenger seat and put his shotguween his knees. Luke got in the ter seat with the short dude who had been the calmer of the two voices in the apartment, and who now took his APC9k, a small submaegun, out of his jacket and started screwing on a suppressor like he was clipping his nails. The uy, a heavy-set dude with a wiry rodent-like energy and a Glock 17 in his waistband, climbed in the back seat and glued his eyes to the back window. The way everyo looking around was iious, so Luke did his best to see if there were any barrels peeking out of the bent-up blinds behind the apartment windows, until Backdraft turned around in his seat and got his attention.

  “All right, listen up mother fucker. As of this moment, your name is Bottle.”

  That was about the st thing Luke had expected him to say, but after giving it some thought, recalled how Backdraft had s all the empty beer bottles crowding the faux granite minate ter top in his apartment just moments ago.

  “Oh, cause of the—”

  “And this is Daytona,” Backdraft pointed his thumb at the driver, who raised a hand briefly before tinuing the rapid U-turn out of Luke's lot. While Luke went sideways in his seat, Backdraft stayed as vertical as if he was outside oreet, and poi the guy with the APC9k.

  “That’s Whisper, and the guy in the back is Hamstar. Today our job is to draw the fuzz off the peach when the boys start making cobbler.”

  “Uh,” Luke muttered. Backdraft smiled, enjoying his fusion.

  “Meaning, for the uninitiated, we are to attract the attention and energy of w enfort when the main attack crew is ready to make a move oarget. Uand?”

  “Oh. Yeah sounds—”

  “Gotta pick up Kibbles,” Daytona said suddenly.

  “God damn, it really is fug training day huh?” Backdraft ughed.

  “I thought he was out?” Hamstar said, sounding disappointed.

  “I’ll make something useful out of him yet,” Backdraft said, defiant.

  “Like an ammo bitch,” Daytona suggested. Hamstar cackled.

  “He aint tou my shit!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Backdraft yelled at the rear view. “You all started out same as him, like gum stuy fug shoe, and now—”

  “I did not start out like that,” Whisper said, true to his name, quietly.

  “Is this gonna be his third strike or what?” Hamstar groaned.

  With the attention off of him, Luke shifted his own to his surroundings and watched the non-world flow by.

  To a lower, physical part of him, it was nothing special. The same shit he’d seen forever. But when he flicked on the focus of his Spirit, and allowed the flow of awareo move from his life in the Real, to his existen the Other, and then down into the vessel of the Self, and from there look out on the parking lots and window barred venieores and shirtless marg meth heads, the knowledge of where he really was filled him with aric excitement, a real feeling of anything’s possible that he hadn’t felt since he was a kid.

  This was the real world. But not his real world, with its plethora of responsibilities and requirements, littered with the husks of his failures, this one was expendable. Fleeting. Imperma. Like a dream given substance. A video game with a quantum processor. Here, he could do whatever he wanted, and it would all fade like vapor when he—

  He gnced back at his panions, still deep in discussion on the pros and s of giving a guy named Kibbles access to firearms, and decided not to ask. How the fuck was he going to get out of here? Did you have to die to leave this pce? He woke up to get in, would he just go to sleep to get out?

  The pressure building in his mind broke the damn with that ohe thought of being a Hardworlder, the question of what he would do in a world where he could do anything he wanted, and his refle on his distance from not only his Real self but also the Other, had all been leading his mind toward the ohing he had instructed it to avoid.

  Rory.

  And the fact that his mind or Spirit or whatever it was, was finally free of the insipid tug of Bliss, allowed it to pursue the subject with agonizing vigor.

  He remembered that first day, the non-sun refleg off her rave girl visage as she y on her side rambling sweetly about his ence, in particur, why his first memories of being iher, rag down highways and running through schools and all that shit, were so hazy.

  “Your Spirit was kinda in a rval stage at that point. Just barely there, a sketch of your real Self you could say, like a photograph of a real thing. But the more photos you take, you make a videht? And then you record sound, and maybe like brainwaves, get it? Until eventually you have a real copy of yourself.”

  “So I’m a copy?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe this is the real you. But the important thing to remember is that you were being born, right? And being born all at once, as an adult, would have been terrifying. Might have made you go crazy, made the new you break apart before it had formed. So this world did it gradually. Because this world knows how to treat us.”

  He wondered if she believed it. Probably not. He couldn’t imagihe Other had treated her aer than him, given the way she speime in it. Just more bullshit to vince him the rules of predator and prey didn’t apply to this new dream world.

  It put a brake on his newfouement. The st time he had felt something simir, he had his memories sed and his life turned into one big Bliss hunt.

  But, he realized as he shifted in his seat and fought back a yawn, she had been wrong. Being born suddenly, here in this Hardworld, hadn’t driven him ihe new him, the old him, the Real him, were different, but shared a oer, like petals on a flower. Experieng this, suddenly, gave him a way to pare his selves. It was a cathartic, relieving experieo know he was something more than just the things that had happeo him. It answered a question he hadn’t realized he had even been asking.

  “Call him,” Backdraft said, like a man giving a surgeon the go-ahead to amputate. Daytona flipped open a er store burner phone and punched in some numbers, thehe phoo his ear and scowled out the window.

  They were parked at the side of an apartment plex, on a wide double-sided street with a big grass median in the ter. An iron bar fence surrouhe plex, and they had parked across from a keypad gate with a well-worn path in the grass between it and the sidewalk. Luke noticed the balies held pnters and exercise balls and full sets of furniture, as opposed to the wind chimes and piic chairs and grills zip-tied to the railings found at his own plex. There wasn’t even a window-unit in sight.

  “Hey. Side gate,” Daytona huffed. There ause and he g Backdraft, and they exged a “sick of this shit” gnce as someone oher side of the line rambled.

  “No, you will be riding with us. Yes. Why would you need a gun?” Daytona tried to put as much wink-wink nudge-nudge in his question as he could without crushing the phone. Hamstar started ughing until Backdraft shot him a murder stare.

  “Ok. Yes. Side gate. And leave your phone!” Daytona closed the phoh an angry cd tossed it in the ter sole.

  “If we don’t burn him in the first—”

  “How did he sound?” Backdraft interrupted. Daytona snickered.

  “Like someone was standing there with a fug gun to his head. I’m texting CiCi.” Daytona took out a thick-cased phone and tapped on the s.

  “I yahe cables on his car st night,” Backdraft said, in an odd tone, like he was just now remembering, or casting a spell.

  “He’s been pag for half an hour,” Daytona read. “Out the door. Took a right. Goin for his Car.” He said the st words with a tone of relieved finality. Backdraft sighed and opehe glove box. Down there Luke saw, for the first time, the pact .45 with the big silencer on it, sitting on top of the registration, and put two and two together. Some part of him raged and screamed, but Spirit Luke was impressed.

  “Wait. He went back. Laughing. Headed for the gate.” Daytona read, sounding disappointed, and Backdraft smmed the glove box shut.

  “Scoot over,” Whisper muttered to Luke, in a very “go on without me” tone. Luke moved to the far driver's side of the ter seat and Whisper scooted into the middle seat and stared out the windshield like a doomed man.

  A few seds ter, a nky buzz-cut guy in a hoodie and korn jeans stomped out from around the back of a unit. He trudged across the sidewalk toward the gate, gng up at the 4Runner every other step like it was going to leap over the curb and tackle him. His mouth was half open and his eyes peeled so severely that Luke could see the tell-tale bloodshotness from his seat.

  “Mother fug little—” Backdraft broke the rest of the words into a growl then a deep exhale. Whisper opehe door as Kibbles came through the gate, and before he had even got o the car, Luke could smell the weed.

  The door shut and Backdraft gred at him. He squirmed in his seat and looked around.

  “What?”

  “Fug what me bitch,” Backdraft said, twisting in his seat. “This ain't a god damned munchie run. I told you this job is straight edge.”

  “Uh, sorry bro, my Self,”

  “Fuck your sorry and fuck your Self.” He took a breath and leaned in even further, putting the seatbelt and the seat itself in an awkward tortion.

  “Mem stop. You are in viotion. Pay will be docked for this job. Report to your super for training immediately after scrape. Mem go.”

  Luke would ter learn that this was a teique to get the memory scraper to pull a specific statement from the job for record keeping. In this case, kibbles would have a few weeks of shit eating in the killhouse before he was let ba a job. But, to down there Luke in the passenger seat, it seemed like Backdraft was losing his shit.

  Backdraft spun back around and shook his head.

  “Drive.”

  Daytona pulled off the curb and the apartments melted away out the window. They got to the end of the street and halfway on to the access road running alongside the highway before Kibbles opened his mouth.

  “So, uh, is this thing armored?”

  “Jesus,” Whisper whispered. Hamstar cackled something that might have been “what?” and Daytona got a big smile on his face. Backdraft seemed less than amused.

  “No mother fucker. You won’t see the inside of a war wagon for a decade if ever. Those things are reserved for the big boys. Not kids who t get their pants on without smoking a bowl.”

  “Who are the big boys?” Luke asked, the image of the grey-man killer from the hype video still nagging his thoughts. Backdraft g him, and must have seen in his eyes a legitimate curiosity born from a desire to move up in the job, because his gre softened and he nodded ahead at the dashboard.

  “Not us, for starters. Sometimes the Point Operators will roll in a wagon, but it depends. There’s generally only a few of them to go around, and the spear guys like more flexibility than stig to one vehicle allows. Generally, yher-ups on an Op will use them if they have to move.”

  “You mean like, uh supervisors? Like Car—”

  “No names, god dammit!” Backdraft snapped and Luke just nodded back at him, bored-faced. With dudes like Backdraft, you had to let them know you wouldn’t bitch out etting chewed out, aually they’d talk to you like an equal.

  “But, no. Team leads like the individual you mentioned, when on a job, take point with the Operators, or one of the other teams, like this little gang of shit stirrers. By Higher-ups, I mean the Boss and other VIPs. Overlords, Wizards,”

  “Wizards?”

  “Yeah, Wizards. Sometimes called a Keyman, Safelord e.”

  One look told Backdraft Luke was lost at sea.

  “Ok, a wizard is a guy who mahings here in the bricks. ons, cars, eleics. A good one walk into a gas station and pull an m60 out of the bathroom stall, et a ptop loaded with NSA spy tools. Shit like that.”

  After Luke recovered from the shock of hearing a guy like Backdraft use the term “ma”, which he associated with middle-css housewives trying to boost sales in their Etsy shop, he asked a question that would, ultimately, prove to be quite prophetic.

  “Is that something I learn to do, or is it like an ialent?”

  Hamstar ughed. “Shit, I wish. Man.” Whisper looked at Luke sadly, and Backdraft gave him a “What the fuck is this guy’s game?” stare.

  “I’ve heard strong opinions both ways, Bottle. But my advice to you is to take this shit oep at a time. Stay focused on not shitting the bed on this little job here, before you start fantasizing about being some big-shot magi.”

  “Shit, let the little birdy fly B.D.,” Hamstar chuckled. “Hey bro try and pull me out an RPG wheop—”

  Daytona’s pho off with a harsh siren chime and Backdraft snatched it out of the sole ahe s.

  “All right. Flip a bitch. Get us oher side of the loop.”

  Daytona took the U-turn ne uhe bridge at 50 mph and Backdraft smiled back at the crew.

  “Time to make some noise, y'all.”

  Would you want to be a sage? Or would you rather never miss a shot? Or have a supernatural charisma? Or a sixth seo know when you're being watched? ime, anything with a pulse will do. episode, Ride or Die.