Chapter 272: A Receipt for the Wrong Bastard

The medicine truck had a head start, a hostage and a driver who apparently believed corners were somebody else’s problem. I cut across the empty machinery yard instead of following the road, letting the fin jets carry me over the fence while its warning sign explained how seriously somebody took trespassing.

Pike took the recovery vehicle while Bridget called Hollis with the direction. Lukas stayed behind, which was sensible enough that I assumed his ribs had finally started issuing instructions louder than his pride.

[System: Return the Cold Chain, mate. Get the clinic stock back before it warms and keep the driver breathing for 1,250 EXP and ten IP, because apparently medicine delivery now requires a fucking air force.]

That reward had better include the part where nobody thanks me until after they complain about the packaging. I dropped beside the open rear door and caught one of the sliding cases before it bounced onto the road.

The supervisor saw my reflection in the driver’s mirror and fired through the opening between the seats. Galaxy Brain read the rising barrel before his finger tightened, and I ducked below its line, leaving the shot to ruin insulated boxes instead of my face.

The driver shouted that the next bend had a closed maintenance barrier. His passenger responded by pressing the gun harder against his neck, which suggested their business relationship had reached the stage where a resignation letter would not be enough.

I pushed a solid tendril along the truck’s underside and caught the hanging cable for its rear loading lift. The platform dropped with a metal shriek, dragging against the road and making the driver stamp the brake before the barrier became a much shorter conversation.

Pike brought the recovery vehicle across the empty lane ahead, leaving the truck nowhere useful to go. Bridget stepped out behind its engine block while I came through the rear doorway, keeping the driver’s body between me and the supervisor’s next shot.

"Put the gun down before your escape plan becomes an insurance argument involving three vehicles and a public idiot," I told him. He fired into the roof instead, shoved the driver across the seat and jumped through the passenger door.

Bridget kept her cover instead of chasing straight into his line of fire. I pulled the driver down below the window, then heard the supervisor’s boots hit the drainage channel beside the road before Pike’s shouted warning cut across the engine noise.

The temperature alarm had started inside the truck. One of the damaged boxes held a clinic shipment that needed cooling, and the supervisor had left the rear door open as an excellent demonstration of why some people should never manage anything.

I wanted his throat badly enough to taste the decision, but the driver was shaking beneath my coils. Bridget was already lifting fallen ice packs back into the cases, so I helped her close the damaged lids while Pike restarted the cooling unit.

The driver gave us his name as Darrin and apologised for stealing a truck he had been forced to drive. I told him the apology belonged to the man with the gun, then asked which cases were urgent before my temper volunteered him for another interview.

We had the medicine back at the shelter within minutes, using Pike’s shorter service route. Iona checked the seals and temperature strips herself, refusing to accept my explanation that the truck had only been briefly involved in a very stupid race.

When she finally said the stock was usable, Old Mate paid the mission. My EXP reached 21,000 out of 30,000 and my IP reached 140, which was progress I could enjoy without pretending the captain’s entire criminal business had become my unpaid job.

Give me a quest where I sit somewhere warm and somebody brings me chips.

[System: That’s a roadwork supervisor, champ, but you’d need two blokes watching you sit down and another one blaming the council.]

Pike found his compressor among the truck’s other stolen equipment. He touched the scratched handle like a man greeting a dog somebody had sold, then immediately complained that the hose had been coiled by an absolute animal.

I arranged a reserve for the bus repairs through its owner, with the final payment tied to an actual bill. "I won’t charge for what the passenger did to the seat," he said. I thanked him without asking questions that might make my generosity physically leave my body.

Bridget checked my scorched underside again while Iona fetched fresh dressing material. "You can stop looking at me like I’m about to fall apart, love, because I’d complain much louder if anything important came loose," I told her. "I liked you attached to all your parts," she replied, pinning my tail beneath two fingers while I tried to avoid finding medical supervision attractive.

Darrin waited beside the medicine cases until the crowd thinned. He kept looking towards the service road, so I asked whether the supervisor knew where he lived, expecting the sort of answer that would make me want to bite a wall.

He shook his head and took a wet freight tag from his pocket. The supervisor had ordered him to carry several medical cases to a harbour buyer, then collect a woman from the camp who had seen the bait placed under the occupied shed.

The tag had a delivery window, a dock number and a name I didn’t recognise. Beneath that was a handwritten instruction telling Darrin to leave the woman at the old quarry pump-house, where another crew would make sure she never gave a statement.

Iona recognised her as one of the camp cooks and went to find her. When she returned alone, the shelter suddenly felt much quieter, even with Pike arguing about his compressor behind us and somebody asking when dinner would be ready.

The cook had left ten minutes earlier after receiving a message claiming her daughter was waiting by the old pump-house. Bridget was already reaching for her keys, and I found myself hoping the bastard had chosen somewhere with no second exit. Darrin looked down at the freight tag in my tendril, then told me the supervisor had never mentioned bringing a daughter home.