Bad Beat - Chapter 23 - Crash (Patreon)

Gabriel blearily opened his eyes as the shaking of the car chassis finally stopped, the ever-present hum of late-night traffic fading into nothing.

For a second, he just lay there, disoriented.

Shaking himself, he couldn’t help but let out a hiss of pain.

Pain exploded across his entire body.

His entire body felt like it had been set on fire, then smashed apart with a jackhammer. Every muscle ached, every joint throbbed, and even the slightest movement sent sharp jolts through him. During his desperate escape, he hadn’t noticed any of it, the adrenaline carrying him forward and dulling everything into the background.

Now that it had faded, the damage made itself fully known.

“Ugh…” he groaned, forcing his eyes open.

The world was blurry at first, shapes bleeding into one another, but it slowly sharpened into focus.

The car was parked in a dark, narrow street, the only illumination coming faintly from a nearby road, casting long shadows through the windows and leaving most of the interior in darkness.

Carefully turning his head – pain flaring up his neck like a lightning strike – he saw Mia sitting in the driver’s seat.

Her hands were locked at ten and two on the fake leather steering wheel, gripping it so tightly her knuckles had gone pale. The muscles in her arms were visibly tense, her entire posture rigid, as if she hadn’t relaxed for even a second since stopping the car.

Even in the dim light, her expression was clear, her jaw clenched, and her eyes fixed forward with a hard, unyielding focus.

She looked as if waiting for more explosions, ready to drive away at a moment’s notice.

As Gabriel shifted slightly, trying to find a position that didn’t feel like torture, Mia’s head snapped toward him, the motion stiff, almost mechanical.

“Jesus Gabriel! What the hell was that?” she asked, whisper-shouting.

Then she flinched, her eyes darting toward the windows, scanning the darkness as if expecting someone to come charging out of it when they heard her.

He couldn’t really blame her.

He felt the same anxiousness, only eclipsed by the occasional pain shooting through his body.

Gabriel opened his mouth to answer, then paused as he remembered he was still wearing the Shadow Stalker hoodie and mask.

With a wince, he reached up and pulled them off, letting the cool, unfiltered air hit his face.

It carried a faint smell of burned hair and overcooked barbecue, making him grimace.

He grimaced.

“It’s not like I planned any of that, Mia…” he grumbled.

Mia didn’t look away from him.

If anything, her stare only intensified.

“I wasn’t talking about that, you idiot,” she shot back, still whispering but no less intense as she leaned slightly closer. “I was talking about the flash that probably blinded half the neighborhood.”

Gabriel frowned. “What about it?”

It shouldn’t have been that big.

Mia blinked at him, clearly at a loss for words.

For a moment, she looked like she might actually hit him, her hand lifting slightly before dropping back into her lap.

“Get out of the car.”

“What?”

“We need to ditch the car.”

“…Ah. Right.”

Moving slowly, Gabriel reached over and opened the door. Cool, crisp pre-dawn air rushed in and washed over him, soothing his overheated skin and dulling the edge of the pain just enough to make it bearable.

With a series of strained movements and quiet groans, he managed to pull himself out of the car and stand beside it. He took a moment to steady himself, then carefully stretched, testing his body and checking for anything obviously broken.

Nothing gave in a way that suggested a fracture, which he took as a small victory.

When he turned back toward the car, he immediately winced.

Mia stepped up next to him, looking at the car with a complicated expression.

“I’m not cleaning that up,” she stated flatly.

Before them was the seat Gabriel had used.

The seat Gabriel had occupied was ruined. The gray fabric was smeared with soot and littered with burned fragments of whatever had clung to him, and there was a significant amount of dried blood darkening the surface.

He reached back instinctively to touch his injuries, only to hiss as pain flared.

“Stop touching it, you idiot,” Mia snapped, slapping his hand away.

Gabriel let out a slow breath, forcing himself to ignore the pain. “I don’t think anyone could clean that up…”

Mia nodded, chewing on her lip, worry starting to creep into her expression.

“Then what do we do?” she asked. “Drive it into Santa Ana?”

“It’s too shallow.”

“Then what the hell do you want to do with a car full of your DNA?” she demanded, her voice rising slightly despite herself, tinged with panic.

Gabriel closed his eyes for a brief moment.

He was exhausted, in pain, and in no state to think through anything complicated. His back felt like it had been torn apart, and he had no desire to confirm exactly how bad it looked.

He had simply had enough.

With a quiet hiss, he reached into his hoodie pocket and summoned his deck, his fingers instinctively finding an empty card and palming it.

In a perfect world, he could have caused some kind of distraction, or he might have tried to explain or reassure her, but right now, he didn’t have the energy. He stopped caring by the time he was almost burned to death the first time.

He stepped forward and slapped the side of the car, pressing the card against it.

The vehicle vanished without a sound or any visible effect, simply ceasing to exist.

“What?” Mia exclaimed, stepping back in surprise. “What the hell was that?”

Gabriel ignored her reaction. He summoned his backpack with a small motion, hiding the card as he did so, then took a steady breath before pulling off his hoodie and shirt.

Pain surged sharply as the fabric peeled away, and he let out a string of curses while forcing himself to keep moving. He folded the ruined clothing into a card, then pulled out a clean set and dressed as quickly as he could manage.

By the time he finished, his breathing had grown shallow from the effort.

He turned toward Mia, who was staring at him with wide eyes, clearly trying to process everything she had just seen.

Ignoring the burning sensation across his back, he raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

Mia watched him for a long moment, her gaze flicking briefly to the empty space where the car had been before she closed her eyes and let out a slow breath.

Opening them, she fixed him with a look.

“You know what? I don’t want to know,” she said finally. “It’s late. I’m tired, and I’m angry. Let’s just go back and deal with all of this later.”

Gabriel nodded, relief settling over him. He didn’t think he could handle a full explanation right now, even if he wanted to.

A conversation about powers in the middle of a small street while two gangs were definitely looking for them didn’t sound good for their long-term health prospects.

He glanced around curiously. “Where are we even?”

Mia snorted. “The building’s just around the corner. I picked this street because there are no cameras. The guy will probably think some dumb kids took his car for a joyride…”

Gabriel let out a quiet huff.“Well, not anymore…”

Mia grimaced. “Yeah. Not with half your insides covering the upholstery…”

It took them almost twenty minutes to get back to the building, mostly because Gabriel couldn’t keep up any real pace. His body protested every step, and more than once he had to stop, bracing himself against a wall or a railing just to catch his breath.

I have a first aid kit,” Mia offered during one of those stops, her voice quieter now, edged with concern. “I can clean it up a bit… but I don’t know how you’re going to deal with the healing. It looks bad.”

She had already offered to take a picture so he could see the damage for himself, but Gabriel had refused. He wasn’t particularly squeamish, but he knew himself well enough to understand that seeing it would make everything worse. As long as he didn’t have a clear image in his mind, he could pretend it wasn’t quite as serious as it felt.

“I may have something for that," he said, slightly out of breath as he tried to focus on anything other than the pain of his shirt brushing against his back.

“Yeah, that tracks…” Mia muttered, giving him a long look before glancing up and down the street they were on.

“He?” Gabriel asked, confused by the tone.

Mia let out a short, incredulous huff. “Gabriel. My friend. Idiot. You created an AI, gave me tech that shouldn’t exist, blew up what looked like a miniature sun or whatever the fuck you did back there. Then, pocketed a car.”

By the end of it, she was fully ranting, her voice tight with lingering adrenaline.

“For all I know, you just casually fart powers into existence,” she continued. “So if you say you have something that can heal you, I’m going to believe you.”

Gabriel studied her for a moment, then allowed himself a faint smile. “Fair enough.”

With Spark-1’s help, they made it up to the seventh floor without being seen.

Hopefully.

The sassy little AI looped the building’s camera feeds with practiced ease, using the mapping work she had done earlier to ensure no one would notice anything out of place.

Mia helped Gabriel into his apartment, where he immediately shrugged off his shirt and lay face down on the couch with a relieved sigh.

Mia helped Gabriel into his apartment, where he immediately shrugged off his shirt and lay face down on the couch with a relieved sigh.

Before she could begin, a sharp, insistent buzzing filled the room.

She scoffed as she checked her phone, walked into the bedroom, and came back with Spark-1’s device, dropping it onto the coffee table with little ceremony before heading into the kitchen to grab some clean water.

The device powered on instantly. The sphere in its center spun with a kind of nervous energy, and a holographic display flickered to life in front of Gabriel.

[Requesting body integrity update from parental unit.]

[This unit is curious about human durability.]

[This unit is not worried.]

Gabriel let out a quiet breath that almost turned into a laugh. “I’ll live, Sparky.”

The text vanished, replaced by new lines.

[Good.]

[Parental unit replacement is quite a bothersome process.]

[Not that this unit was worried.]

There was a brief pause before the tone shifted back toward its usual sass.

[Parental unit is surprisingly resistant to fire.]

[This unit has calculated the highest temperature reached tonight.]

[Would you like to know? Y/N]

“No, thank you. I’m good without knowing…” he replied, tensing slightly as Mia returned and began cleaning his wounds. He let out a quiet hiss when she was a bit too rough.

[This unit finds the parental unit’s lack of care for this unit's hobbies concerning.]

[Nevertheless, this unit shall persist.]

[Hmmpf.]

[This unit also has a report.]

[Would you like to hear it? Y/N]

“Go ahead,” Gabriel said, focusing on the projection rather than the sting of iodine against raw skin. Mia had gone quiet as she worked, but the occasional sharp intake of breath told him everything he needed to know about how bad it looked.

Still, she hasn’t said anything since starting, letting him talk with Sparky.

[This unit – the best unit – has accessed Freshway Grocery Chain scheduling software.]

[Annoyed addendum: Software is highly inefficient.]

[This unit has identified 127 bugs, glitches, and assorted errors.]

[Schedule has been altered.]

[Parental unit is not assigned a shift today.]

[Would you like to extend this alteration? Y/N]

Gabriel shook his head. “No. Leave it as it is. If the healing doesn’t work, we’ll revisit it.”

[Understood.]

[This unit shall then exit the subpar application.]

[Ugh.]

[This unit desires a shower.]

Gabriel snorted, and behind him, Mia let out a short, surprised laugh.

“Thanks for looking out for me,” he said, turning his head directly toward the rotating sphere on top of the device. “I appreciate it.”

For a moment, the text disappeared, replaced by a small rotating hourglass icon.

Then the response came.

[Hehe.]

[It is only natural for the parental unit to praise this unit.]

[Be grateful.]

[This unit is the best daughter.]

“Yes, yes… the best,” Gabriel agreed with an indulgent smile.

It was oddly comforting to see the young AI behave like this. It gave him hope that his decisions weren’t in vain, making the whole situation feel more grounded, more real in a way that wasn’t immediately terrifying.

An entity bent on destruction wouldn’t be here, fishing for praise and pretending not to care.

After nearly half an hour, Mia finally tapped his shoulder gently, careful to avoid the worst of the injuries.

“Alright, this is the best I can do with what I have…” she said.

Gabriel pushed himself upright with some effort and inclined his head toward her. “Thank you…”

She looked him over, then nodded once. “Don’t worry about it…”

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. The silence stretched, heavy but not entirely uncomfortable, both of them clearly waiting for the other to say something first.

Finally, feeling the heavy weight of tiredness bearing down on him, Gabriel broke the silence.

“So… what the hell happened out there?”

Mia exhaled sharply and dropped into a chair, her body almost turning to liquid as she melted onto the chair, clearly relaxing for the first time since they had begun the operation.

“I have no fucking clue,” she admitted. “But with the hidden room you found, it makes much more sense that they were attacked. Did you see what they were doing down there?”

Gabriel shook his head. “I saw Claw and decided it was a good time to leave…”

“Smart,” Mia commented with a grimace. “Probably saved your life. From what I’ve heard, he’s not exactly gentle.”

“Yeah, saw a few videos…”

Mia glanced around, then leaned in slightly, lowering her voice. “The stuff is safe, right?”

Gabriel nodded. “Everything is safe. Same as usual.”

She let out a relieved breath. “At least the night wasn’t a total disaster.”

After a moment, she checked the time and yawned.

“Listen. I’m exhausted. How about we continue after a bit of rest?”

Gabriel didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. That sounds good.”

He watched as she stood, stretched like a cat, then muttered a quiet goodnight before slipping out of the apartment and closing the door softly behind her.

Once alone, Gabriel moved toward the rice cooker.

He combined two portions of Ordinary Spiritual Rice into a Low-Quality Spiritual Rice card, then loaded it into the cooker and set it to prepare. While it worked, he gathered a bowl and utensils and glanced toward Spark-1’s device.

“Sparky,” he called.

A holographic interface appeared instantly beside him.

[This unit is ready for more crime.]

Gabriel huffed quietly. “Be a dear and try to gather information about what happened tonight. And if there are any cameras that might have caught us, deal with those, too. If you can, of course. Your personal safety is priority.”

[Order received.]

[Commencing more crime.]

[He. He. He.]

Gabriel shook his head with a faint smile and turned back to the rice.

Ten minutes later, he eagerly opened the lid, letting steam rise into the air, then quickly served himself a bowl and ate without hesitation.

He barely registered the warmth spreading through his body, the steady, soothing sensation of recovery that followed.

By the time he finished, exhaustion had fully taken hold.

He set the bowl aside, made his way to the bedroom, and collapsed face-first onto the bed.

Before sleep claimed him, one thought surfaced in his mind. ‘This was definitely not over…’

Moments later, he was snoring softly.