KISMET ─ vento aureo.

▹ TWENTY-FIVE ;

☆ ⁺ « LIKE FIREWORKS BUT INSIDE

★˚⋆ YOU HAD BEEN HALF CONVINCED Asswipe was bullshitting you, but there really was a maintenance door at the back of the transport ship.

You caught sight of it as your crew was shuffled into the ship. As with before, your crew's magcuffs were secured on one side to the ship's wall. Asswipe left you not long after that, going to speak to the flight crew.

The transport gang on the ship was meagre. Aside from your crew, there were only a handful of other inmates, including a woman with two large braided buns and another with seemingly triangular scars. You listened to their conversation about breast implants for a few minutes before turning to the rest of the crew.

"Did you manage to contact Narancia?" you asked Fugo.

He nodded. "He's been following behind the penitentiary the whole time. I told him to expect an escape pod to break off from the transport ship. If he listened, he should be following us now."

"Did he sound . . . alright?"

"Not any different than he usually does."

It was only a few days since you'd left him. If something had happened, to his eye particularly, you hoped Coco had helped him out. Narancia hated asking anyone for anything, which was admirable most days, but today only made you worry. You realized it was saying a lot that you wanted to rely on the turtle for anything. It had only been a few weeks ago that you'd been afraid it would jack the airlock or something.

The plan to escape wasn't anything you hadn't done before. You would get out of the restraints, get into the maintenance uniforms, and jack into one of the emergency escape pods to fly back for Narancia to pick you up. The only thing was that the lack of inmates would make your escape more conspicuous. You could usually rely on other people's numbers to distract the GA's, but you would just have to be a little more cautious this time around. Success varied between attempts. Greatly. It was a plan he had come up with during the crew's infancy and if nothing else, it was a durable plan.

Maybe you should have been anxious. Wary. But you were just tired. If you were remembering right, you had two weeks left until Zero's deadline passed. You weren't quite worried about it yet, but two weeks did seem to be pressing it a little close. You liked your breathing room, and so far, and you hadn't gotten much of it.

By now, everyone had gone through this escape plan more times than they could count. Only JoJo was a little skittish, his nerves wound close to snapping.

"Relax," Mista said, nudging him. "We escape from transport ships like this every other day. Just do what we tell you, and you'll be just fine. I heard about that stunt you pulled with Gwess' bird, by the way. Well done, rookie."

"It was nothing," JoJo said distractedly. He scratched at a spot beneath his jaw. "Are you sure Inspector Abbacchio will let us escape so easily?"

"We've done it before," Trish said, frowning as Spice Girl worked on the mag cuffs. "This time shouldn't be any different."

"It could be."

"How long do you think we've been doing this?" Fugo asked tartly.

JoJo blanched. "I just mean that—"

"Got it," Trish said, shaking her wrist loose. She shifted over to start working on your cuffs.

"Let's not fall apart now," you said. "At least hold it together until we get to the ship."