Back to base

“Where are the others?” Peregrine repeated her previous question as Simon climbed into the seat next to her, with Mr. Clean leaping into the back.

“They got themselves another car.” Simon told her, having already dumped the drones in the back and was now pulling out his pistol; a heavy piece which had been named Predator II by its constructers over at Ares, while Mr. Clean had switched back to Bertha.

“Mr. Clean, we’re gonna have to keep a low profile, so don’t just shoot anyone you see.” Simon told his fellow troll as Peregrine jacked herself into the Bison and started off down the street.
Mr. Clean’s response to that was a less than cordial “Blow me!”, but he didn’t shoot any more people, at least not for the moment.

Peregrine drove back the way she came, and then they all began to look for exits, finding that each and every one of the larger streets had been blocked off by barricades similar to the one that she had run into earlier.

Eventually though, after Mr. Clean and Simon had gotten the opportunity to fire a few rounds at people who came rushing towards the car with weapons at the ready, and a few bullets had smacked into the Bison’s sturdy frame, Peregrine managed to steer them via various side-streets to a piece of abandoned street from which they could get up onto the highway.

From the vantage point being offered to them by the elevated highway they could see that fires were raging already in various parts of the city, with plumes of white smoke rising up into the night sky.

At this point Peregrine was making sure to keep a speed that was consistent to that of the other cars, in an effort to avoid unwanted attention.

It worked, and they could eventually steer off the highway into a different and calmer part of town. If Peregrine had to take a guess, she’d say that the lack of widespread rioting in the area where the team’s warehouse was located was partly due to the lower population density and the more mixed demographics of the area. East Boston was a lot more mixed-up than Charlestown which they had just managed to escape from, though there were still bigots there as well.
Anyway, the difference in atmosphere was markedly different.

With just a few people moving around on the streets, and with bored KISS cops guarding quite a few of the intersections and squares, ensuring that none of these would become the ground zero of another riot, the last leg of the journey back to their warehouse was a welcome change to a calmer and more relaxed pace, even if Peregrine felt a pang of worry each time that Mr. Clean glanced at the cops standing on guard duty.

Finally, the Bison pulled up outside of the warehouse.