Cynthia Scatters The Crew

The driver’s name was Kaz, and as the newest and youngest member of the crew, Cynthia had fully expected him to cut and run as soon as the job went south, which coincidentally, was the moment she hit the roof of the McCall Tower in downtown Houston. The localized EMP that was supposed to knock out all the cameras had bloomed and died like a defective sparkler, leaving her in full view of staff in the security room on the third floor, who upon seeing an intruder, had dutifully sent the entire building into lockdown.

From there, things were hazy, and the more Cynthia tried to recall exactly what had happened, the more she latched on the sound of the wheels turning on the asphalt and the rain pelting the glass roof of the car. They were heading west on Highway 290 bound for Austin, and though her biochip was nonfunctional, her ankle was likely broken, and she was losing a considerable amount blood, she couldn’t help but feel fortunate to be there in the back of that car instead of dead on the stone plaza outside the building.

She remembered the safe word.

Abraham.

Never in a million years had she expected to utter that word, to essentially tell everyone involved in the job to cut and run. It was unthinkable that something as simple as a midnight incursion into a secure building to steal corporate secrets would result in anything other than complete success. And yet, Bryce had insisted on it, fought her tooth and nail to come up with a Plan Z. And after months of arguments, she’d relented, mostly to shut him up. Out of spite, she’d put in provisions for the immediate dissolution of the crew, the separation of its members, and the self-imposed contact quarantine for a period of no less than three months.

Plan Z was never supposed to happen.