Lonely Thieves

Act V, Part XII

Norah's Side (April 15, 12:00 am)

Raven's car slammed straight into Howard's, sending him slightly off the road. Howard persevered, but with Raven's skilled driving, he was unable to catch up with Raven easily. Nevertheless, he was still in sight, and Howard was not yet willing to let him go.

Norah quickly turned to Raven once the danger had passed. "What happened? You got shot, didn't you?"

"Yeah, in my shoulder," Raven grimaced as he clutched his wounded shoulder. "It's not bad, though. Can't worry about it right now with Howard after us."

"Who is he, anyway? Why's he after us?"

"No doubt Grandfather sent him after us," Ingrid answered. "He's must be really desperate if he's letting Howard leave his side."

"Howard used to be a real bad guy," Raven added. "Killer-for-hire and damn good at it too. I didn't believe it when he suddenly became the Hayasaka's bodyguard. Guess guarding isn't the only thing he does, huh?"

"What should we do, then?"

"Tough question," Raven grunted. "We can't stop driving or he'll catch up to us in no time. However, we can't take him to my contact with the FBI, otherwise he'll try to kill all of us."

"Doesn't sound like we have a lot of options," Norah grumbled pessimistically. "Is there any chance we can lose him?"

"In a banged-up car like this? I'm surprised we managed to stay ahead of him this long in the first place!"

"Then shouldn't we try and take him out if running away is pointless?"

"You think taking him on would fare any better for you? He's an elite assassin with top-of-the-line cybernetic enhancements from Hayasaka. I'd say you have a better chance of winning the lottery."

"Even so, we need to do something!" Norah shouted angrily. "Ingrid, what do you think? You know Howard the best out of all of us, right?"

"That's a hard question to answer," Ingrid replied reluctantly. "I've never seen Howard really fight, so I don't know his full potential. Having said that, I do agree that trying to take him out is a ridiculous notion."

"So what?" Norah sighed. "Are we just screwed then?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Raven remarked. "There is still one thing we can do."

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Howard drove down the highway at higher than 160 miles per hour. It was a speed that couldn't be accessed with the self-driving AI on, so he had to turn it off. Doing something like that would have terrified a normal person, but Howard's cybernetic nerves boosted his reaction speeds to many times faster than a normal human's, making it easy for him to anticipate any surprises while driving so quickly down the road.

Because of this, even though Raven had managed to create some distance between the two of them, Howard was quickly closing in. In fact, right now he was only seconds away from passing them, so he was forced to slow down to a normal speed. After all, he wasn't in a race; passing them wasn't the goal.

As Howard slowed down, he found himself just a few inches behind the target in question. He took out his pistol and aimed at the driver's seat once again. Firing through the rear windshield wasn't all that ideal, but he couldn't complain.

Right as he was about to take the shot, however, he suddenly noticed a curve coming up on the road. He grunted. A curve at this speed wouldn't give him any problems, but it would make shooting Raven from this position a little difficult. Howard put away his gun and spun the steering wheel. He'd just wait for the path to straighten out before attempting another shot. It's not as if they could get away from him so easily.