Cable's Daughter

"The heist is tomorrow night, TELL ME you got off your ass and found a wheelman."

"Relax, I got her."

A stocky man wearing a business suit was checking and re-checking a huge pile of photos and maps, sheafs of electronic paper covering a long steel table alongside pistols, beer bottles, and a scatter of loose bullets. A slimmer man in another three-piece suit had just arrived to the warehouse carrying groceries. He watched the stocky ork at the table skeptically as he put them away in what passed for a kitchen in the dim, haphazardly furnished warehouse. The third suited figure barely looked up from the trideo set she was watching, only dimly registering the exchange.

"She agreed to the cut? I mean, if we do our job right, all she's doin' is taking a leisurely drive through the park."

The ork grinned.

"Yeah, but if things go south, I got us a great driver. Cable's daughter."

The thinner man pinched the bridge of his nose, pulling a bottle of beer from the fridge.

"Davis, I swear to god. The daughter of the legendary stunt driver? I could probably find you thirty motherfuckers claiming to be related to him."

"Hey, language, Rollo. Swear jar." The ork said mockingly. "I took her out to the highway and asked her to show me some shit, I'm not stupid."

Rollo slicked his hair back, then slowly slotted his credstick into a dingy children's piggy bank. He sneered at Davis as it made a soft beep followed by a happy pig oink.

"She's just quirky." Davis continued.

"Quirky. Wonderful. Davis, is she going to get us killed?"

"You find a rigger who isn't weird and I'll give you five hundred nuyen, Rollo." The woman on the couch called out.

"Alright. Alright, that's fair. I trust you for now, Davis."

~~

They met in the middle of nowhere, an hour before the heist was due. Three slick figures wearing armored suits, the largest of the three shouldering an overstuffed duffel bag. Rollo glanced at Davis the second the car pulled up: A sleek black hearse with chrome accents. It was lifted and emblazoned with green flames along the hood and front fenders. The front of the vehicle was dominated by a chromed ram-plate shaped like a massive fanged jaw.

"Davis, you are fucking kidding me."

"Swear jar."

The blonde woman shrugged, and was the first to approach.

"I've been in worse."

"Seriously, Nova?" Rollo sighed and followed after, the three eventually climbing into the four-door hearse.

"Yep. Taco truck."

"Hey, those are good for surveillance, don't knock it." Davis sat his duffel bag very carefully between himself and the smaller woman, Nova.

So far, the driver had said nothing. She was young, and Rollo thought she was a little too pretty to be a driver. She wore a leather jacket over a checkered red and white button-up shirt and dark jeans. Bright blue hair was tied back with a bandanna. Rollo let the silence hang in the air a bit before addressing her.

"Uh, hey. Address is eight one four Icarus Way."

The hearse's engine roared to life as she pulled out.

"You're hitting Barrier Agriculture?"

Rollo made a 'shaky hand' motion.

"Prototype theft. Someone's paying big bucks for a look at the insides of the drones they just announced."

"Right on." It seemed like she wasn't really paying attention. "How long you in there?"

"Thirty minutes at most. Four bags, that size." He pointed at the black duffel between the pair in the back seat.

"Great, tie them to the wall near the casket."

"Of course there's a f-...Casket."

Forty five minutes of driving and mostly silence later, they pulled up to the back of a compound of long, squat buildings and chain-link fencing, the hearse being the only car for miles. The three professionals were out of the car in a shot, ballistic masks hiding their faces. Only Rollo stopped a moment to lean in and address the driver.

"You hear explosions and it means we had to Plan B it, means we're leaving in a fucking hurry."

She nodded and flashed him the devil horns in acknowledgement.

Once the team cut through the chain-link fence and disappeared into the compound, it was twenty minutes of boredom and reading newspaper by the dashboard lights. Just as the driver was thinking their plan was going smoothly, she heard several explosions in the distance. As the compound came alive with spotlights, klaxons and rushing guards, she quietly popped the glove box open and pulled a revolver free. She impassively checked the cylinder, then the sights, then tucked it into her jacket. She returned to her newspaper.

It wasn't long until the trailing sound of gunfire started to get closer. The driver turned the key to bring the hearse to life as she spied the trio in the distance, fighting a running battle and dodging gunfire. As the trio piled into the hearse and started to stow the loot, the hearse pulled out, tires squealing as it rocketed down the highway. Within seconds a trio of pursuit vehicles tore from the compound, three low-slung white muscle cars, heavy with armor and mounted with machine guns.

"You guys see anything good lately?" The driver asked impassively, leaned back with one hand on the wheel.

Nobody responded - Rollo and Davis too busy leaning out the windows, assault rifles spewing lead all over the pavement and pinging off the sleek muscle cars tailing them. One of them returned fire, a staccato whine coming from its machine gun turret as it tries to nail the hearse swerving and swaying in front of it.

"Watched a doc on animation the other day. You know they used to draw it by hand? Little pictures over and over, hundreds of them in one second."

She lazily jerked the wheel, the hearse spinning a hundred and eighty degrees, tires skidding as it wheels around to face the trio following her. She caught the lead car in the front bumper with the hearse's chromed ram-plate, spinning it out of control and slamming it into the median as she pushed past them, down the wrong direction on the highway.

"All for a three minute short of a mouse fucking around on a boat. Kinda don't see the point."

It didn't buy her much time. Two cars pulled a slower turn as the third struggled to free itself from the median barrier. They followed her in tandem, turrets blazing as the Hearse weaved past oncoming cars. She swerved suddenly, hiding an oncoming car in her silhouette until the last second...leading it to slam headlong into one of the low-slung muscle cars following her. She then jumped the median, concrete chunks flying. The final car was still hot on her wheels.

"Problem. I can't outrun a charger."

"Well we're not having any luck with its armor, so think of something."

She shrugged, still leaned back with one hand on the wheel.

"Davis, help me out."

She pulled a lever and the back door popped open. After only a moment's confusion, the burly ork pushed the casket free, letting it tumble end over end onto the highway. The charger following them thought nothing of it and slammed straight into the coffin, thinking to smash straight through the cheap wood.

The explosion was exquisite. A massive fireball lit up the night, a huge rush of fury and sound that sent wrenched, blackened metal flying in every direction. The trio relaxed, discarding masks, hiding firearms and rolling up windows. Silence filled the hearse for quite a long time.

"...What the hell was in that?"

The driver didn't flinch.

"Only what you leave behind."

More silence. Eventually, she continued, once she noticed the three in her car were still uncomfortable.

"In this case, the deceased asked to be buried with a hundred pounds of C4."

Rollo sat back, wiping sweat from his brow. He wasn't sure why, but he felt like laughing.

"Fuck me."

"Swear jar."