-1-

I stare at the news report in disbelief.

“…cause is still unknown for the explosion at the home of  Zacharias Washington,  CEO of The Mojave Blade Company Group,” a reporter says. “The blaze started at around 2:30AM…”

I look at the clock in the corner of the living room.

3:12 AM.

How had no one  contacted me yet ?

I go to check my syn for messages and then remember I’d taken it off when I got to Virtue to prove a point to Mom. I dive across the couch for my bag and retrieve it with shaky hands as Grandma Sara silently slips into Haley's apartment and disappears down the hallway to Haley’s bedroom.

There’s  a video message from Mom that came in at 2:19 AM. I click on it and instead of her face I see a distorted image of the bottom of my parents bed. I recognize the shoe boxes Mom kept underneath.

Their normally white carpet is stained dark red.

“….El…,” Mom’s voice says, she sounds breathy and in pain but she’s calm. “…There are people in the house. They took Dad and…I don’t know what’s going to happen….stay with Jean, okay ? Don’t come back here. I love you so much, okay ? Tell grandad sunshine prot-”

A banging sound comes from somewhere on the recording and Mom stops talking but I can hear her breathing.  I hear their bedroom door open and two unfamiliar male voices in the background.

“You  make sure she’s dead?”

“Yeah, I shot her--”

“There’s  still a heat signature. Double check-”

“Sunshine protocol--,” Mom cries in broken voice. “Sunshine…I’m sorry, honey. Be strong. I love you so much –“

“Fuck, she’s alive. Is she talking ? Who the hell is she talking to--”

“WHO ARE YOU ?,” Mom screams. “YOU FUCKING BASTARDS. YOU WONT GET AWAY WITH--”

I hear three gunshots and then a fourth that gets cutoff when she hit send on the recording.

At some point Grandma Sara and Luce had come to sit with me. Grandma Sara is dressed in cargo shorts and a black tank top.She looks ready to leave. Haley is pacing in front of the now turned off holoscreen in his pajamas, biting his thumbnail.

“Ellie, I’m going to go see if I can find your parents,” Grandma Sara says softly.

“Mom left me a message,” I blubber out.

Luce takes my syn and looks at the message, he flinches and his eyes go hard and  then he gives it to Grandma Sara to see. Her body recoils at the part with the gunshots. Then she steels herself

 “Is she dead ?” I ask.

“We don’t know anything yet,” Grandma Sara says sharply.

“We doing this, Ma ?,” Luce asks. “Sunshine Protocol.”

Grandma Sara closes her eyes and  nods. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this."

“What ? What is Sunshine Protocol?,” I ask.

“Later,” Grandma Sara says standing and looking at Luce. “Haley and Grayson should come too.”

 “Go where ? What is going on ?,” Haley asks

“Remember when you moved in here I told you there might be a time you’d just have to just trust me ?” Luce asks him “Now is that time.”

-2-

Grandma Sara  ushers me into her apartment and pulls a crowbar off the top shelf of a crowded bookshelf. She anchors the crowbar into the floor and starts pulling up the floorboards. Grandma Sara had never seemed frail exactly but I had no idea she had that kind of strength. Her arms strain against the crowbar and she’s breathing hard but she keeps going until there is a good sized hole in the floor.

She drops to her knees and pulls out two small duffel bags that were tucked underneath the floorboards along with a metal briefcase that she pops open.

“Ho-oly shit,” I shriek, stepping back.

I knew my parents conceal carried but I’d never actually seen their guns, let alone this many in one place.

Grandma Sara’s hands are lightning fast as she dexterously loads magazines into various guns and straps a holster on her ankle, side and back. She pulls out a small brushed silver gun, drops a handful of bullets into it and holds it out to me.

“Look,” she says in an urgent voice. “We don’t have time for a full lesson. This is the handle, hold it by this. This is the trigger. If anyone comes after us you pull this trigger and don’t let go until that person is down. It’s going to hurt like hell the first time you shoot this thing and you are going to be scared but you keep your finger on the trigger. Understand ?”

“I don’t know how to—I don’t want a gun--”

“You need one,” she says attaching the holster to the hip of my leggings.

Luce rolls in to the apartment and Grandma Sara tosses a set of firearms at Luce. He catches them like they aren’t deadly weapons and conceals one in his chair, one on his hip, his back and his ankle. A sniper rifle encased in a backpack goes across his back. Haley follows behind Luce,  dragging a sleepy Grayson who is still in his pajamas and whining that it's too early.

Haley has the stuffed robot tucked under his arm and is carrying my knock off Louis along with two small packed duffel bags on his shoulder—his duffles look exactly like the ones Grandma Sara had pulled out of the floor boards.

“Were you all prepared for this ? What’s going on ? I want answers--”

“I don’t have answers, El,” Grandma says, hustling our group out the door. “We’re taking you to the panic room underneath the MBC headquarters.  The house guards all know about it, there is a secret tunnel from the property. If something happened to your parents  your sisters will likely be there.”

The thought of my sisters brings me back to earth. If Mom was gone, I needed to be there for them.

Grandma Sara leads us all around the block to the white Cadillac Dad brought her for her birthday but she never drove. The plastic covering is still on the door handles. She gets in the passenger seat and Luce rolls into the driver seat, the seat folding into the floor to accommodate his chair.

“Wait--how is Grandad getting to the panic room ?”

“Not our problem right now,” Luce says, turning to watch Haley and Grayson get into the backseat.

“No.” I stand outside the car. “I’m not leaving the city without him. Grandad needs me to tell him about Mom--”

“Ellie, get in the fucking car.” Luce snaps.

“I can’t. Not without Grandad. Not--”

“Jean can take care of himself--”

“No. She’s right,” Grandma Sara says.

“Ma--”

“He can’t find out about this alone. Virtue’s not far,” she says.

I finally slide into the backseat and Luce navigates the vehicle effortlessly through the crowded streets and into the narrow alley behind Virtue.

“Shit,” Luce curses once we are in front of what is usually a sealed alley way entrance to Grandad’s private elevator.

Tonight the door is swinging open.

“I don’t like this. Luce and I are going to go in,” Grandma Sara says unholstering one of her guns.

“I’ll go--,” I start but she cuts me off.

“No. Sit here.”

The absurdity hits me so hard I almost want to laugh. The last two people who should be charging in anywhere with gun blazing are my grandmother with PTSD and  artificial heart and a middle aged malfunctioning cyborg.

But I don’t argue.

“Hey,” Luce says turning to look at Haley as he twists a silencer on a big ass black gun. “I’m setting up a private text link with your syn. If I send you an asterisk you disable the GPS and drive this car to MBC headquarters as fast as you can. Got it ?”

He nods distantly.

Luce leans over and presses his lips to Grayson’s forehead and kisses Haley before rolling out of the car and going into Virtue behind Grandma Sara. This seems to freak Haley out more than anything else that has happened tonight.

For a beat the car is dead silent.

“Where are we, Daddy?,” Grayson asks. “Is this Miss Sara’s new car ? Are we going back home ? Because I have to get my uniform for scho--”

“Shhhh,” Haley says softly, his distant gaze fixed out the window and to the door Grandma Sara and Luce just went through.

“But am I going to school today ? Daddy ?” Grayson asks, pulling on Haley’s arm “Daddy ? Am I going to school--”

“I don’t think so.” Haley's tone is distant and far away.

“But I did my homework,” Grayson continues oblivious to his Dad’s disinterest.  “Can you take it ? Miss Margaret lets you pick a sticker to put on the board for everyday  you do all your homework and I do it everyday so I have all the stickers and I want to get my sticker for what I did--”

Haley shifts suddenly, shakily opening one of the pre-packed duffel bags and pulling out a small syn case. He shakes the small black dot out of the case.

“Grayson. Listen to me,” Haley says firmly. “Do you remember Aunt Isla ?”

“Yes. I told you I remember everything about the sateli--”

Haley carefully puts the syn in Grayson’s ear. Most kids got there first real syns when they were 10 so he was a little young and it didn’t quite fit.

“Is that mine ? You said I couldn’t have--”

“Grayson, if something happens to me and you’re alone I want you to find a place to hide and call Aunt Isla.  You just say ‘call Aunt Isla’ and the syn will call her. You tell her to come and get you. Do you understand me ?”

“But Aunt Isla’s all the way on the Atlas Star--”

 “It doesn’t matter. She’ll get to you. Repeat back what I told you.”

“….Call Aunt Isla and hide--”

“No,” Haley cuts him off firmly. “Hide first. You need to hide if--”

“Stop. You’re being mean, Daddy--”

“You aren’t listening. You hide first and then call.  Repeat it back to--”

“No, Daddy,” he says getting out of his seat to climb into his Dad’s lap. “I don’t want to. I want to stay with you, I love you. I love you—”

“Grayson--”

“I won’t leave you. I want to stay with you Daddy--”

Haley, who always seemed so calm,  looks like he’s about to crack. He’s holding back tears as Grayson clings to him, promising his love. I was unnerved and I couldn’t sit silent anymore.

“Do you know what’s going to happen ?,” I ask him. “What is Sunshine {rotocol ? Why are you preparing him like that--”

 “I don’t…I always thought Luce and Sara were  being paranoid with the way they made us prepare for an evacuation. I don’t know what this is, but it isn’t good,” Haley says. “I’m--”

A flash appears in Haley’s eyes as he reads a message in his syn. The light flashes again as he reads it twice than looks back and forth between Grayson and I.

“What is it ?,” I ask. “Is it Luce ?”

Haley looks down at Grayson and pulls him by his shoulders.

“Listen, sweetheart, if you want to stay with me I need you to be good and listen. Do exactly what I say.” Haley says through clenched teeth. “No more talking.”

Grayson nods.

Haley unlatches the small hatch in the middle seat that leads from the backseat  to the trunk.

 “We need to crawl out of the car. We’re going to go through this hatch and out the trunk. Keep low to the ground.”

“Why--”

“Go first,” he tells me as he pulls what look like blood capsules out of a duffel bag.

He drops the blood capsules on to the car’s floor.

I crawl through the hatch first, pop the trunk from the inside and slither on to the disgusting alley ground, followed by Grayson—I can barely fit through the small hatch and I’m surprised how easily Haley slips through. Haley pushes the duffel bags through the trunk and is about halfway out himself when a shower of bullets rain down on the car from above.

One of the bullets must have hit one of the blood capsules because I hear a splat sound and then the car windows are covered in a smattering of dark red.

My ears ring from the sound of the shots  as they ping off the car and crack the glass. I let out an involuntary hoarse scream and Grayson start crying.

“Be quiet and follow me,” Haley whispers getting on his hands and knees on the ground.

He leads us single file as we crawl out of the darkened alley, keeping close to the wall.  It hurts like a bitch and fuck all knows what I’m touching down here. Grayson is between of us and I’m try to keep him moving along down the alley but when he stops crawling and curls into a whimpering ball  I kind of want to join him.

“Come on, sweetie,” I encourage pushing him along to keep crawling.

Haley turns around suddenly and grabs Grayson’s hand, jerking him back on to his hands and knees.

“Daddy, it hurts--,” Grayson sniffles.

“Stop talking. If you stop  again I will leave you here,” Haley threatens.

 I’ve never seen him get stern with anyone before and judging by the new wellspring of tears neither has Grayson.

When we get to the end of the alley Haley stands and motions for us to stand too. He scoops Grayson up in his arms and we power walk through the twisting streets and back alleys of the inner Sprawl. Haley probably  weighs 90 pounds wet and I feel bad that he has to carry Grayson and all their bags. I want to offer to help but every time I open my mouth tonight I seem to say something wrong.

I’m not sure if he knows where he is even going and I’m too afraid to ask but eventually he makes a beeline for an orange Dumpster.

 Grandma Sara, Luce and Grandad are waiting there, crouched behind the disgusting Dumpster.

“Daddy, you’re bleeding!” Grayson shrieks when Haley puts him down.

“Shit,” someone says but I don’t pay attention because I’m looking at Grandad.

Grandad is slumped against the Dumpster with his head down. He’s only wearing one heel and is still dressed in his outfit from the open house party at Virtue.

“Grandad--”

“He’s fine. He was strung out when we found him,” Grandma Sara says. “We think someone drugged him to make it look like he overdosed. When we got to his suite two people were hanging a noose in his room/”

 “They got away from us,” Luce adds. “They had a sniper on the car until too late. I didn't notice--I should have known, I wasn’t thinking--”

House Explosions. Snipers. Fake Suicides.

“What is this ? Who is this ? ,” I ask. Hoping they have an answer now.

“I don’t now, El.  But they seem to have some inside knowledge if they knew how to find Jean. They might know about the panic room so we can’t take you there,” Grandma Sara says. “There’s an old cartel safehouse in the desert. Cartel hasn’t used it in years but I’m sure it’s still standing. We need to get you out of danger, then Luce and I will go back to Mojave to investigate--”

“Daddy!” Grayson’s little voice cries.

We all whip around to see Haley stumble before retching into the alley, holding his arm out at an awkward angle.

Haley’s right arm was flayed open. Dark blood was seeping from the wound. I look down and see Grayson’s shirt is covered in blood from where Haley had been holding him while we ran.

 “I’m fine,” Haley says wrapping something from the duffel bag around the arm. “…I..I just got cut on some glass when we were crawlin--,”

A round of gunshots sounds from behind us, cutting him off.

“Ellie, grab Jean’s other side and follow me,” Grandma Sara instructs me. I take Grandad’s right arm over my shoulder while she takes his left and we book it out from behind the Dumpster with Grandad between us.

I had no idea my  quiet, shut-in Grandma had it in her. She’s bearing the brunt of Grandad’s weight and is running so fast I’m barely keeping up. Her weapon is still drawn and this is never not going to be bizarre.

I hear Haley’s ragged panting and turn to see he is several feet behind us, struggling underneath the weight of the duffel bags, slashed arm and holding Grayson, whose shirt is becoming more soaked in blood.

Luce had been rolling beside us but he makes a sharp U-turn in his chair and goes back for Haley.

“NOOOO!,” Grayson screams as Luce jerks Grayson from his father’s arms and pins him in his lap with his arm. Grayson kicks Luce hard in the face and screams.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Stop screaming,” Haley begs him in a hushed tone but he won’t.

“Sorry, kid,” Luce says as he yanks Grayson’s head back and forces his finger into the back of his mouth. Grayson’s eyes go dim the same way Luce’s do when he is about to shut down and Grayson just passes out, dropping like a rag doll in Luce’s lap and Luce starts rolling forward.

Without the extra weight Haley catches up with us, Luce following behind with the passed out Grayson clutched tight to his chest as his chair speeds down the alley. I never knew Luce’s chair could move so fast, it swerves around tight corners and glides over the changing terrain effortlessly.

We’re going towards the West Side of the Strip, the part of the Sprawl my sisters and I liked to hang out in, where all the boutiques and casinos were. But we don’t get on the main boulevard of restaurants and casinos.

 Grandma Sara leads the group into an alcove behind a closed bar and I can finally drop Grandad. My shoulder aches, my lungs are on fire and I am so fucking done. I’m exhausted as hell and I’m not sure why no one else is breathing as hard as I am right now.

“Get us a car,” Grandma Sara snaps at Luce. “Take El.”

“Come on,” Luce says to me, wiping at the blood dripping from his nose where Garyson had kicked him. The blood smears across his face.

 I want to protest doing anything else but I just follow him as we go towards the main boulevard of the strip. It’s the ass crack of dawn and the only people walking around are the card dealers or bartenders heading home from last night.

“Where are we going to get a car-”

“I’m going to close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. You push my chair and look bored and unhappy. People will turn away from us. We’re going to the Infiniti dealership.”

I’d never pushed his chair and it feels awkward but I do as I’m told and he’s right. I try and make friendly eye contact with people and they put a wide berth around us. People didn’t like to think about people like Luce, to know that there is always a small chance that cybernetics and biotech can break you instead of help you.

The bloody nose was also a good deterrent.

I roll us to the empty Infiniti dealership. Dealerships for yachts, private jets and cars had started popping up in the abandoned spaces of the strip to tempt newly minted millionaires from the casinos. Most of the dealerships were open 24/7 but this one was closed until noon.

“We’re here,” I tell Luce.

“We need to find an eclectic solar hybrid like a --”

“The Plasma 12 ?”

“Yeah…that works,” he says. “Do you know what it looks like--”

“This I can do,” I say rolling him over to the small burnt orange SUV. “But the dealerships not open until noon so we can’t buy it--”

Luce puts his hands on the car door and a ring of light flickers in his eye, the fiber optic cables in his chair start to shimmer and the car’s locks disengage

“Get in,” he orders me as he picks himself up out of his chair and hoists himself into the navigator side. He picks up his chair and folds it up to fit in the backseat directly behind him so the cables don’t disconnect.

I don’t have to be told twice to get into a car so new it wasn’t for sale yet. I get in the passenger seat as he hardwires something into the car’s interface and disables all the security functions before driving off the lot.

Holy shit.

We just stole a car.

-3-

Luce navigates the car back to where everyone else is waiting and they all get in. Grandad is still a little loopy and Grayson is still passed out cold. Grandma Sara takes the passenger seat from me and I move to the back seat next to Grandad who falls asleep on my shoulder.

“We need to make one more stop. Pull over at the next street,” Grandma Sara tells Luce.

“We can’t stop. We need to get the kids the fuck out of here--”

“Luce, pull over,” she repeats.

He does and Grandma Sara takes a leather balaclava out of one of her duffle bags, covers her face and throws on a short blonde wig.

“Ma--”

“I’ll be right back.”

Grandma Sara runs out of the car and we watch as she speed walks into the West Side Little Clinic with her gun raised.

“What the fuck!,” Luce shouts, hitting the steering wheel.

“I told her I needed medical grade bandages and medicine for my arm. Maybe something for Jean,” Haley says quietly. “She wanted a list, I didn’t think she was going to rob--”

Before he is even finished explaining Grandma Sara is running back in the car with her hands full and yelling at Luce to go.

“That was really stupid, Ma--,” Luce says as he peels out the city.

“We didn’t have time for anything else,” Grandma Sara says tossing the medical supplies back to Haley. “And I don’t know if there is still medical supplies at the safehouse.”

The drive to the safehouse is over an hour and in that time my heart rate slows down and everything that is happening comes down on me.

Mom is dead and the last thing I said to her was that I hated her.

Someone was trying to kill us.

I didn’t know where the rest of my family was and now I was going to some secret safehouse where they weren’t going to be.

Dad had always kept the cartel side of things away from us, he promised it would never touch our lives. I don’t know who killed my mother but I’m sure it has something to do with the cartel.

“What is sunshine protocol ?,” I ask after a while.

Grandma Sara and Luce give each other a look and Grandma Sara turns to look back at me.

 “When you and you sisters were born your Dad said he didn’t want you involved with the cartel life. I agreed but it also meant you’d never learned to defend yourselves. I told him he needed to have a plan in place if you girls were ever in danger. He built a secret panic room under the MBC headquarters,” Grandma Sara says carefully, “Every high ranking cartel member was instructed that if sunshine protocol was activated it meant there was danger and it becomes the sole purpose of every current and former cartel member or associate to get you girls to safety. No questions asked, no excuses, no expense or convenience spared.”

“Why sunshine ?,”

“Charlotte always said you and your sisters were the brightest part of your Dad’s day,” Grandma explains. “You and your sisters were his sunshine—"

“MOTHERFUCKER!,” Luce shouts.

Grandma Sara whips her head back around and everyone who is still conscious in the car looks out the window at once.

 “No,” Grandma Sara whispers. “No.No.No! How did they find it ?”

I look out the car window to see a housing development in the middle of the desert—and it was on fire.  Just like my house had been.

“What is this ?,” I ask.

“It was the safehouse,” Grandma Sara says, her eyes narrowing.

“What now, Ma ?,” Luce asks rubbing a knuckle across his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

----

So this was originally just a  little short story idea about Rias' kids celebrating his birthday. It kind of turned into a story where  our "seasoned" antiheroes left their past sins behind but then unexpectedly getting pulled into one last job.

Also, when I first wrote this I was literally going to put Haley and Grayson on a bus out of the story after their first scene but....they'll be sticking around for a little bit so I hope you don't find Grayson too annoying.