Meki vaulted onto the edge of the dusty bar, their legs swinging, a new vodka bottle in hand. The gang could see the grazes on Meki's face, the wild light in their eyes, and knew a story was coming.
"Gather 'round, you beautiful data-thieves!" they announced, their voice cutting through the low hum of conversation. "You're looking at the two most wanted legends in the city. Why? Because we just went fishing for a great white shark with a fucking paperclip and caught it!"
They took a long, dramatic slurp of vodka.
"So, there we were," they began, leaning forward, "perched in the guts of a building so dead even the rats have moved out. The air was so thick with dust you could taste yesterday. And Nimble here," they said, jerking their thumb at me, "is doing her best statue impression, but I can smell the adrenaline on her from three feet away. It's the good stuff."
They paused, letting the anticipation build.
"I see it, and I start the countdown. And on 'one'... gods, on 'ONE'... Nims here doesn't just jump. She unleashes herself. It was like watching a panther fall out of the sky. Two hundred kays an hour of pure, pissed-off gravity, and she just... embraces it."
Meki mimed the impact with a slap of their free hand against their thigh, making everyone jump. "BOOM! She lands on this six-armed, propeller-screaming demon like it's her personal throne. The thing shudders, it whines, it tries to buck her off, but she's locked on. It's like watching a cowboy ride a lightning bolt. For one glorious second, they're dancing, a death waltz twenty feet in the air. Then - CRUNCH! - the motors give up the ghost and down they come, a meteor of girl and machine, crashing right onto the asphalt. Sparks flying, metal screaming, the whole symphony of destruction!"
They grinned, a wide, white slash in their smudged face. "And before the dust even settles, while this Gen 5 nightmare is still twitching, my girl here whips out her spike and delivers the coup de grâce, right through its brainpan! One shot! The light in its sensors goes pffft. Dead."
They hopped off the bar, starting to pace, their energy infectious.
"So, I sprint over, my tools already in hand, ready to claim our prize from the carcass. I'm elbow-deep in this technological marvel, the smell of ozone and victory in my nose, when suddenly, BLUE LIGHTS. The Hounds! They were on us faster than shame on a politician. How? I don't know. Maybe the drone screamed for its mommy. But they were there."
Meki's storytelling shifted into a pantomime of the chase. "So, we're on the bikes, pedalling like our souls depend on it, which they did! We're ghosts, we're wind, we're chaos on two wheels! Nims is cutting corners so tight she's shaving the paint off the walls. We hit the main road, flying over it like we've got wings, leaving all the normies in their automated coffins in the dust. We were invincible!"
They stopped, their face falling into a mock-tragic expression. "And then... my own hubris. A curb. A single, solitary, bastard curb, the nemesis of all geniuses. My front wheel decides it would rather be a piece of modern art than a circle. Down I go, tasting asphalt and regret."
They clapped a hand on my shoulder, their tone shifting to one of solemn admiration. "But did the unflappable Nimble leave me? Did she save her own skin? No. She commands me onto her bike, this glorious madwoman, and tries to pedal us both to freedom. A noble, if physically impossible, effort. Have you seen those little legs?"
They finished with a flourish, pointing an imaginary gun at the ceiling as they mimicked the police spotlight. "And then, the grand finale! Trapped on a fly-over, a wall of light in our faces, engines roaring... and what does she do? She doesn't surrender. She doesn't freeze. She yells 'JUMP!' and we dive into the abyss, tumbling down an embankment like a pair of fallen angels, rolling and bouncing until we hit bottom."
Meki stood tall, raising their vodka bottle. "So yeah, we lost the bikes. We left some prime salvage behind. But we walked away from a Gen 5 takedown and a Hound hunt with our skins and a story that's gonna be told in every shadow from here to the Sprawl. All in a night's work for the legends of the Drop Inn!"
The room erupted in cheers and laughter, the failed harvest completely forgotten, replaced by the glorious myth Meki had just spun.
After Meki's grand performance, the energy in the room settled into a warm, buzzing hum. The intense, questioning excitement had melted away, replaced by the easy, comfortable chaos of a family celebration. The spotlight was off, and I could finally just be.
I slipped into the rhythm of the crew, the way I always did after a successful run. A warm, half-crushed can of cheap lager was pressed into my hand. I found a spot on a threadbare rug, my back against a pillar still sticky with decade-old nightclub residue and simply let the noise wash over me. Someone had a guitar, and the chords of a half-remembered punk song fought amiably with the beat from someone else's portable speaker. Snippets of conversation floated by, arguments about the best way to jailbreak a new sensor, laughter about a failed exploit from weeks ago, plans for the next run. This wasn't the debrief; this was the wake.
For the first time since my boot had left that warehouse ledge, the coiled-wire tension in my muscles began to unspool. The adrenaline was gone, metabolized into this shared, gentle euphoria. I wasn't "Nimble," the drone-killer; I was just Nimble, a part of the whole. An arm was slung over my shoulder by Thing, his words slurred with drink and admiration.
"Legend," he mumbled, and the word felt different now, not a title to live up to, but a simple, affectionate fact.
We all slept there that night. It was a weekend, and the unspoken rule was in full effect: no one went home. Home was a lonely, dangerous concept. Here, in the cavernous belly of the old nightclub, we were a single, breathing entity. The main lights were eventually killed, leaving the space illuminated by the ghostly glow of a dozen power strips and the distant city light filtering through high, grimy windows.
Slowly, the celebration quieted. The music faded, the conversations dwindled to whispers, then to the soft, rhythmic sounds of sleep. We retreated to our respective nests, a constellation of sleeping bags, mismatched blankets, and piles of scavenged cushions scattered across the vast dance floor. The air filled with the soft rustle of synthetic fabric and the deep, even breathing of two dozen exhausted kids.
I lay in my own bag, staring up at the invisible ceiling, the day replaying in flickers behind my eyes: the fall, the chase, Meki's bloody grin in the diner, Marco's proud smile. But the sharp edges of fear were gone, sanded down by the warmth and safety of the pack. In the darkness, I could hear Meki's steady breathing from a few feet away, a quiet anchor. We needed this. We needed the validation, the shared story, the physical proof that we weren't alone in the fight. But more than that, after the cold, hard kiss of the asphalt and the sterile glare of police lights, we just needed each other.
And in the quiet heart of the night, surrounded by my tribe, I finally let sleep pull me under, safe in the profound, simple truth that we were all in this together.