Countdown - Part 03

Downtown - Zone 73 The Rand Family Compound 17-11-2255. 2305L

By 2305L Twix was already on the road heading North through the Zone 73.

She hadn't even managed to clear her own Zone when she had her first brush with the OSEC enforcers and saw with her own eyes just how bad things were.

She counted eight cycles in total, two of which were smouldering wrecks in the middle of the road while the remaining stood abandon their riders who were laying on the ground with their hands on their heads faces in the dirt under the watchful eye of enforcers sporting full combat armor and automatic weapons.

Not much further on a pair of medtechs worked to revive one of the riders laid out on a stretcher in the middle of the road the other dead and forgotten in the street.

She didn't know the riders but she knew the colors and marking on the bikes themselves belonged to the gangs Zulu Nation and The Black Panther Tribe. Allied Afrikan gangs from the other side of downtown who claimed territory in Zone 26.

She didn't bother to wait to be discovered she rolled the Diva back the way she'd come and once clear headed south towards the canal.

…

In the end Twix had to settle for the long way taking the Northwestern route along the canal just avoiding half a dozen checkpoints and trio of near misses with patrol cruisers as she made the transition from Zone 9 into Zone 8.

She was finally forced to make the transition from the canals to the streets again when word came over the link that OSEC floaters were spotted running the canal from north to south. Forcing her to cut through the Zone 92 industrial park and than making a dash along one of the arteries between Zone 90 and 95 picking up a tail before losing him by cutting through a drainage tunnel and across the abandoned works in Zone 88 and than North into Zone 85 from the southern.

She was just shy of the meeting point and running 10 minutes behind schedule when she caught sight of an OSEC Armored Floater cruised over her heading in the same direction. Breaking hard she pulled the Diva undercover just in time as another pair of Armored floaters in trail passed overhead running the length of the alleyway where she had just been with searchlights as the continued on.

Quickly killing the power on her cycle she recalling another of Glimmer Jones words of wisdom. " See one floater, there are two. See two and there are four, See three baby girl … you better run girl because a whole lotta people are about to be recycled."

" Fuck me sideways … " Twix cursed quickly powering the cycle and throttling the accelerator to full speed lauching the Diva out of cover and down the alleyway as she recalled another bit of wisdom.

" OSEC floaters can see through walls. "

The floater above her position punctuated that point with a few hundred rounds pounding into the concert where she had just been hidden in the moments before.