"I don't see V anywhere."
Oliver, watching through the hovercar's camera feed, scanned the ground below but saw no sign of V at the agreed-upon coordinates.
"Maybe we got here too early and he hasn't shown up yet? But that was the right location, wasn't it?"
Jack manually opened the hatch and leaned out, scanning the barren land. Still nothing.
"Could be interference. V once told me his GPS was jacked into some second-rate satellite system his nomad clan hijacked from a mom-and-pop corp. Wouldn't surprise me if it glitched."
T-BUG chimed in over comms. "If that's the case, we might have to wait for V to recalibrate or ping us again. Depends if his clan cut off his access after exile. Worst case, he'll have to find a signal tower and call us."
"So… we just wait?" Oliver glanced over. "Should we land somewhere?"
Karl shot him a sharp look. "What, you wanna burn more fuel doing donuts? Let's put down near the last coordinates. We're already running low on ethanol. And if you slam the throttle on the way back like you did getting here, we'll be lucky to crash somewhere relatively flat."
"I figured we'd hit a fuel depot on the way! Hovercars are rare—but ethanol's not. Worst case, we crack open some wrecked car on the roadside and drain its tank."
Karl sighed. "And why do you think those cars are wrecked?"
He was about to say more when Jack suddenly called out: "Wait—vehicle ahead, roadside, covered with a tarp. That shape... yeah. I think it's V's."
"V's ride?"
Oliver ran a scan with the hovercar's sensors. Sure enough, there it was: a tarp-covered vehicle just off the shoulder.
And no one covers junk. That meant it was active—and recently.
"Bringing us down."
Now comfortable with the controls, Oliver brought the hovercar into a slow descent.
At four meters up, Jack hopped out and jogged over. He peeled back the tarp, glanced once, then called back:
"No doubt—it's V's Viper. Same one that was parked next to ours during the mods. I'd recognize that heap anywhere."
"So V was here..." Karl narrowed his eyes.
The coordinates had been right. But only the car remained. Where the hell was V?
"Switching to AI control."
Oliver handed off nav to the hovercar's systems and jumped down. Unlike Jack, he didn't check the car—he scanned the terrain.
Not long after, he spotted a trail of footprints stretching off into the distance. A quick scan with his cybereyes cross-referenced the pattern with stored data.
"These are V's. No doubt. I gave him those shoes after our last job—remember when he blew his payout at that boutique?"
Karl stayed inside the hovercar. He looked toward the horizon, following Oliver's pointing finger—saw what looked like structures in the far distance.
"Maybe V went scavenging?"
He shared the guess with the others, then motioned for them to hop back in. Time to follow the tracks and check out that cluster of buildings.
Just as everyone got back in—
Gunfire.
In the open plains, the shots carried far.
And they were coming from—
"V's direction," Jack said.
They exchanged glances. No words needed.
The hatch slammed shut. Jack and Karl buckled in. All eyes turned to Oliver.
"Light it up."
"Buckle up. Speed's my thing."
From hover to full thrust—in just two seconds.
The world blurred past. In seconds, the town five klicks away came into view. Through the windshield, they could already see what was going down.
"V's in a firefight!"
Oliver barked, throwing the hatch open.
"Perfect timing!" Jack grabbed his Saratoga, planting himself at the open door.
Twenty meters above ground, the Maelstrom gangers locked in combat with V looked up at the roar of engines overhead.
And saw a massive figure—Jack—standing in the open hatch, SMG in hand.
"What the—?!"
A hovercar, in the Badlands? Over a ghost town?
What the actual—?!
Before the shock could wear off, Jack opened fire.
From above, every Maelstrom behind cover looked like a static range target.
One mag dump was all it took.
Clean sweep.
"Now I get why aircraft changed war forever," Karl muttered, still standing beside the open hatch, gun untouched.
He looked down over the smoking silence of the ruined town—and there, behind a storefront, stood V.
Staring up at them in disbelief.
"Yo, V!" Karl grinned and waved. "We're here to pick you up!"
V blinked, still stunned.
"It's been a while… guys."
He stared at Karl's wide grin, Jack waving from the door like a maniac—and tried to process what was happening.
They said they'd come get him.
And technically, they had.
But who the hell expected a hovercar?
In all his years, V had never ridden in one.
Hell—he hadn't even hijacked one.
And now, as he watched it descend, and saw his friends leap out, beaming and shouting...
All that bitterness from his exile?
It just—faded.
.
.
.
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