As I drove away, I could hear sirens in the distance. The last thing I needed was to get pulled over. Any police officer coming to a shooting scene would find me suspicious if they saw me passing by. At that moment, my shirt was torn and stained with blood. My face was scraped, and bloody gauze was stuffed into one of my nostrils. My hair was a wet, tangled mess. I turned down the first side street and began to navigate away from the business areas, taking the less-traveled back roads.

  I might be away from where it all started at Stillpoint, but I was far from safe. Almost all of these rental cars had GPS. If whoever was after me had access to the rental car's systems and had seen the license plates, they could track me in near real-time. My options were limited. For one, I didn’t have a phone because I never brought one when I was hacking. Additionally, I doubted any Uber driver would pick up a bloodied, shoeless person who looked homeless.

  Heading straight home was also a risk. I still didn’t know how they had tracked me down or what they knew about me. For all I knew, a more dangerous version of Nick could be waiting for me there. I needed a moment to think—despite the pain in my throbbing head—and I needed more information.

  I drove to Porchlight Coffee, avoiding main roads. In the rear, there’s a small parking lot designated for employees, tucked away from view. When I arrived, there were no open spots, but that didn’t matter. I parked behind a couple of cars and left the engine running while I grabbed my laptop. My nose had finally stopped bleeding, so I took a moment to clean the blood off my face as best as I could without water.

  The first thing I did was look for any news items about the shooting. I didn't find anything, but it was likely too soon for updates. The Seattle Police Department releases information on its police blotter a few hours after an incident, and the mainstream news might not cover the shooting at all. I didn’t have time to track down a ton of info, but I had a hacker acquaintance who went by the handle BlueWhisper who I had used before when I needed someone to track the police. I pinged him on Signal and got an immediate response.

  Me: Hey, I need you to see if there is any action right now about a shooting over at Stillpoint over on Union. Especially anything about a girl named Luanda who works there. Any Info at all. I can’t stay connected, but I will hit you up in an hour or so. Any mention of Trey, Dave, or Nick as well.

  BlueWhisper: That’ll take some gas. 2ETH for sure for 2 hours and a deep dive into SPD.

  Me: In your wallet in 2 minutes. gtg

  It was a lot. Two Etherium were worth over five thousand dollars. I transferred them to his wallet. Letting go of the money was nearly as painful as my headache, but I needed the information, and BlueWhisper didn't negotiate.

  I connected to my home rig next. I reviewed the footage from the cameras inside my apartment to check if anyone had been there while I was away. It was clear that no one had entered. I still had no way to know if someone was watching my apartment. I tried to figure out how likely that was.

  From one of my premonitions, I knew that Luanda had been shown a picture of my driver's license. I could only think of a few ways they could have that. I assumed they had traced back IP addresses from my first hack to the library I had used for free Wi-Fi. I had never gone in, but there were cameras all around it.

  If someone were to examine all the camera footage, what could they discover? I doubt they would have captured my face. Security cameras often have wide angles and poor resolution so faces are barely recognizable and certainly not from within a car. More likely, they would have recorded the license plate of the rental car. With just a few letters, along with the make and model of the vehicle, they could identify who rented it. Rental companies always keep a copy of your driver's license. Fortunately, that ID was fake and would lead nowhere. However, it potentially explained what they showed to Luanda.

  If I was extra paranoid, which seemed justified, they could have run facial recognition with the Seattle driver's license records and get my actual license from that. Even then, that didn’t tie to my apartment in any way. I never used my real identity for anything.

  None of my reasoning was perfect, and I still didn’t understand how they had found me at Starbucks so quickly. Still, it was the best explanation I could come up with. If everything I thought was true, my apartment should be safe, at least for a little while. Whoever these people were, they clearly had resources, and I couldn’t rely on my apartment staying secure for long, but for now, it seemed okay to make a quick run.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Having made my decision, I drove the short distance to my apartment, parked the rental car on the street, and headed inside. I didn’t need much, but the few items I required were critical. After taking a quick shower and getting dressed in fresh clothes, I was relieved that my nose had stopped bleeding. I grabbed a carry-on-sized rolling suitcase and packed all my cash—almost twenty thousand dollars. I also included all my driver's licenses, social security cards, credit cards, the four SSD cards from my computer, and the two unused burner phones I had on hand.

  I would miss my rig, but without the drives, it was just a useless brick, too large to carry. I didn't linger. I packed my laptop into a shoulder bag, grabbed my roller case, and headed out. After setting the car keys on top of the rental, I walked about a mile to the Metro station.

  As I rode the train, the image of Luanda standing there with her gun at her side kept coming back to me. She had literally saved my life. Despite the strange moments of precognition I experienced, there was no way I could have gotten past Dave. He was stronger than I was, faster, knew how to fight, and had a gun. The only chance I had was thanks to Luanda, and I had left her caught between Nick and the police.

  It haunted me as I traveled across town, taking multiple trains to SeaTac. After that, I grabbed a shuttle to an extended-stay hotel and checked into my room. The entire journey, from the moment I drove off to this point, had taken over three hours. I was eager to get settled and find out more from BlueWhisper.

  The room was simple, furnished with only a bed, a mini-fridge, a microwave, and a single-burner stove, but it would do. It had a musty smell mixed with the scent of Clorox, and the bed had a noticeable dip in the middle. Good enough for now while I figured out my next steps. The first thing I did when I sat down was contact BlueWhisper on Signal.

  Me: Sorry for the delay. How did the info gathering go?

  BlueWhisper: No worries mate. Heaps of data. Sending full dump now. Looks like a bit of a shit show over there. Won't ask why u were interested. Cops picked up that Luanda girl, no charges yet tho. They've got her in for a chat. That's all I know on that bit. Can't get anything from station internals sry. Not impossible but haven't got that reach. Will grab notes when they're typed up.

  BlueWhisper: They got a 911 from that girl and just the regular dispatch stuff on that. Also, BOLO's out for a blue Hyundai Elantra (late model), driver's a white bloke early 20s, maybe no shoes on. Also keeping an eye out for a tall muscly white bloke, 20s or 30s, grey tshirt & jeans - no car mentioned for him.

  BlueWhisper: Looks like the girl shot an unknown white bloke, maybe forties. Single shot head. Dead right there at the scene. No ID on him. He had a suppressed HK P30SK - don't see that too often in Seattle. Girl had a tiny Sig P365X. Unsure range but seems 9mm did the job.

  BlueWhisper: I’ll keep on it until I get the notes back from the interrogation.

  Me: Thanks man. You rock.

  I looked through the data he sent me. There were included audio files of every radio and 911 dispatch and a bunch of information about the police units involved, including arrival times and vehicle locations. There was also a timeline of when the police took Luanda into custody, the stations they took her to, and the assigned investigators' names. He even had the specific interrogation room they had her in. No charges were pressed yet, but they had her on potential gun charges as well as murder. I have no idea how BlueWhisper could get this level of detail. He was a legend.

  As I was going through it, he sent me another message.

  BlueWhisper: Looks like they pulled another gun from a sus vehicle close by. Suppressed Micro Tavor. Not bad. You've landed me in some interesting stuff today, cheers.

  Although the information was interesting, it wasn't particularly surprising. The good news was that there were no tags in the BOLO and the descriptions of me were vague. On the bad news side, it seemed like Nick had escaped. The day had been hell and I felt it all over, so I closed my computer and lay down. As I fell asleep, my mind was on Luanda; whatever had happened with her was my fault, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  I woke up in another premonition, experiencing that same sense of unreality as when I was in the tank, but this time it felt different. I wasn’t even in my body; I was inside a police station. I could see, hear, and feel, but I couldn’t control my movements. I felt a hand under each arm. My hands were handcuffed behind my back, and I could feel them biting into my wrists.

  I could feel my mouth moving, and words came out, but I controlled none of it. I heard Luanda’s voice as I spoke, “Where are you taking me?”

  From behind me and to my left, I heard a deep male voice answer, “We’re taking you to another station for interrogation.”

  They guided me through a set of automatic doors and into an unmarked police car, pressing my head down to force me inside. I didn’t struggle as they moved me with unrelenting force. The police officer who had placed me in the car shut the door. The car began to drive, and the man in the passenger seat turned to look back at me.

  It was Nick. Fucking Nick. He wore a cocky half-smile on his face. “Good to see you again, Luanda.” I could feel Luanda’s heart racing. “You’re not the same queen bitch without the gun, are you? I guess you, me, and Jacob here will be getting to know each other a lot better.”

  I heard Luanda’s voice say, “Fuck you asshole,” and then I woke up.