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Scene 1, revised.

The six-foot-five mestizo's densely muscled shoulders habitually hunched while passing through the garage doorframe. On the opposite side, boxing gloves thudded into swaying heavy bags; competitors-in-training threw each other onto worn padded mats. Each resounding smack of bodies on the floor preceded a scramble for dominant position, transitioning from grappling to wrestling drills, chokeholds and joint locks.                                                          

Energy-saving flourescence bathed the garage entrance, an unannounced visitor's still form cast in pale shadow. Parked just beyond, a late-twentieth century sedan underwent careful visual inspection. The original owners would no longer recognise their heirloom family vehicle, taken from their possession as they slept and reimagined as an IMSA widebody racer. High-tensile carbon-manganese steel rollcage bars reinforced the car's interior; airflow diffuser vents integrated with the Volvo 240GL exhaust system as a set of turbulence-reducing gills installed below the rear bumper. At front, under rectangular headlights, custom-fitted nose and airdam installations skirted the ground by the merest of margins.

"Sinclaire." Arms heavily tattooed in ancient Mayan imagery spread wide, greeting the visitor whose black leather jacket-sleeves hid similarly intricate designs. "Where you been, brother? Word is a couple detectives ID'd you before experts at Chuy's Speed Shop could clean up your new ride."

Read the rest of scene 1 (unedited) here.

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Scene 5

[Somewhat rough; first iteration, not a complete work...]

Sinclaire became aware of the Karma HOV6 being pulled apart. The person pulling the car apart was engulfed in flames, but seemed undisturbed by the heat and fire. Pulled from the vehicle, Sinclaire was dragged less than eight metres away before the car's batteries exploded. The tall form shielded Sinclaire until the fireball died down.

Sinclaire lost consciousness, then awakened again in the back of an ambulance, sirens piercing Commerce City's July fourth midnight holiday traffic. A paramedic technician name-tagged Dakar tended to the telesurgery array as its spindly arms worked to close deep wounds to Sinclaire's abdomen and upper extremities.

"What happened, doc?" Paramedic Dakar touched Sinclaire's temple in the region of a faint, years-old scar, and a voice appeared in Sinclaire's mind. "I'll show you. Close your eyes."

Images of the hovercar race appeared as recalled memories from the perspective of the helmeted competitor, including the crash in which Sinclaire's HOV6 spun out of control and slammed into a light pole. "Leni... is Valentina alright?" "Too early to tell. Both of her arms were broken, outstretched at the moment of impact in a pugilistic stance. It's seems that she wasn't trying to shield herself -- she was reaching across to protect you."

Sinclaire, confused and heavily medicated, began to fade in and out of awareness. "You know, doc... two days after the Kaeson massacre, Private Meadlowe was on patrol with Lieutenant Calley. He stepped off the path....foot blown off by a landmine. The shrapnel cut Calley's face. You know Meadlowe's last words while being loaded into medevac? 'This is God's punishment to me, Calley, but you'll get yours! God will punish you, too!'"

Sinclaire looked around at the ambulance, noticing for the first time the spiderlike telesurgery arms working to close abdominal and chest wounds.

Paramedic Dakar spoke softly. "You did the right thing, Mark." Images from Sunmi's sister Chungha, flooded into Sinclaire's mind. "You're in my head...? And how did you...?"

"The augmented part of your brain wasn't difficult to hack. Now you are connected to me, and my sisters and brothers around the world. Professor Ishiguro has a plan for all of us, and you could be part of it. But for that, you need to be alive."

The ambulance pulled into the Lemus Medical Center emergency room receiving bay. Paramedic Dakar took Sinclaire's hand and, for a moment, assumed the appearance of Sunmi. Before Sinclaire could speak, Paramedic Dakar returned.

Sinclaire winced in pain. "Wait... Sunmi?" "I go by 'Claire' now. I am Claire Dakar. And I am also Sunmi."

Claire stroked Sinclaire's head gently after increasing the synthetic morphine dosage. "Shh, my dear jagiya... sleep."

The back of the ambulance opened and Paramedic Dakar stepped out, soon lost in the swirl of emergency room activity. Sinclaire lay back, smiled slightly, and fell into a deep, restful sleep.

END.

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Scene 4

[rough, first iteration… not a complete work…]

Nine hybrid craft and six gunships converged on Kaesong city. Jump drone Sabre Six, piloted by Sunmi, sat atop a Stryker armoured combat hovercraft armed with one GAU-27 .50cal heavy machine gun on either side.

Sabre Six flew over Reunification Highway a roadway-spanning statue of two twin sisters in celebratory traditional Joseon-ot dress, holding aloft a wreathed globe that circumscribed the unified North and South Korean peninsula. Along the major thoroughfares, rubble lined the road as bulldozed remains of anti-tank blocks lay in crumbled heaps of crushed and detonated concrete. Some unexploded tank traps still stood, shaped as monochromatic Staliinist totems inscribed by Hangul slogans paying homage to North Korea's founding dictator, Eternal Leader Kim Il-Sung.

_The way to peace is on the point of a bayonet._

The air assault group encountered scenes of utter destruction and desolation, whole towns bombed and burned to ruin after being declared free-fire zones by Allied forces.

En route to Kaesong, North Korea's ancient former capital, Sunmi opened the intercom. "Approaching Kaesong, ETA seven minutes. Deploying Angelfire advance sureveillance swarm into city airspace." From the rear of Sabre Six rose a cluster of ten smaller aircraft bristling with cameras, antennae and two miniaturised Switchblade missiles under each wing. The swarm zoomed past towering Brutalist architecture riddled by automatic weapons fire; propaganda towns populated by highrise apartments stood silent without electricity. Structures unaffected by bombing were dilapidated by time and neglect, crumbling concrete facades rarely lit from within or invested by any signs of life.

Closer to the city, drab grey Brutalism gave way to classical ancient styles of pagoda and hanook in vibrant colour. Uniquely Korean structures aligned with harmonic principles of Taoist and Confucian geomancy in naturalistic orientation to the surrounding mountaintops.

The lead gunship opened fire, chopping through entire floors of buildings, blowing out windows and churning up concrete. "Lead gunship is taking automatic fire at two hundred meters, sir. We're coming into a hot LZ."

Sninclaire aimed the hovercraft's machine guns at the shopping district's streets and laid down suppressing fire, strafing the area around the landing zone.

---

Soldiers from Charlie and Bravo Company poured from the transport vehicles. "Let's get up on-line! Move it, move it! You've got to get into position! We're going to move out!" Gunshots whizzed though the air.

"This is Sabere Seven Five. There's a whole lot of movement out to the southwest." Soldiers on the ground fired in the direction of the hills surrounding the city, leading to the hills of Mount Janam.

Sunmi compiled a status report from the Angelfire drone data. "No return fire detected from the Angels, sir. Initiating perimeter-check recon protocol." Sabre Six entered a low-altitude monitoring pattern around the city limits.

Eleven minutes into the recon flying route, Sinclaire trained the machine-gun scope on groups of civilians below as they walked on foot southeast toward Pyongyang. "Lucky they'll be out of the way of what comes next."

---

The recon data began to note increasing numbers of dead and wounded civilians on the ground. Sinclaire dropped GPS beacons for fellow Charlie Company soldiers to tend to the wounded. Twenty minutes later, the jump drone continued its flyover, retracing the route for a second circuit. "Sunmi -- wasn't there a group of civilians exiting the city, bearing southeast?"

"Yes, sir. Nothing but bodies there now. No vital signs detected."

This one is alive." Sinclaire scrutinizes the beacon's proximity scan. "Woman, approximately forty-two years old. Apparent chest wound. Estimated sixty-five percent chance of survival with immediate emergency care."

"A captain is in immediate proximity, sir." "Wait... Sunmi, take us up to hover."

"Yes, sir."

The captain walked up to the wounded woman, paused for a long moment -- then kicks the woman, stepped back, and shot several times until the body was bloodied and lifeless.

Sinclaire watched the vital signs suddenly drop to zero. "What the..." Over the comms channel: "Medina! What the hell is going on?!"

Captain Medina looked up at the hybrid. "Colonel Henderson's orders. You heard them." "That was a wounded civilian, Captain."

"I am a soldier. I receive and obey the orders issued to me by my superiors." Medina saluted the hybrid and walked on down the road.

Sunmi paged Sinclaire via secure text. "My sister Chungha is a Charlie Company comms officer, sending imagery from her position on the ground. Permission to open the private high-bandwidth channel, sir?" "Permission granted." Voice authentication brought up a screen to Sinclaire's right.

Carnage surrounded Sunmi's sister as the view panned across a burning landscape. Soldiers fired indiscriminately at civilians; flamethrowers spewed ignited kerosene into houses and anyone trying to flee was shot on sight. Soldiers walked from house to house, uniforms covered in blood, throwing grenades into homes and shooting anyone who moved.

Chungha's communication relay received new cease-fire orders distributed to Charlie Company. The gunfire stopped.

About one-hundred and seventy Villagers -- almost entirely women, children and the elderly -- began a herded procession eastward across town toward a drainage ditch in the recycling center across town.

"Continuing recon loop." As Sunmi piloted the hybrid over beacons of civilians discovered around the city, they found that most of the civilians were now dead.

Sinclaire pulled up a map with plot-points of GPS beacons. "Infants, babies, women, very old men... no draft-age people whatsoever... Sunmi, we've got to get back to the ditch." "That is a violation of protocol punishable by court-martial, sir."

"Duly noted. When we arrive, prepare to detach." "Yes, sir."

The hybrid turned and sped toward the drainage ditch on the other side of town.

---

Sabre Six arrived a kilometer from the drainage ditch.

Sunmi brought the hybrid to hover and eased to street-level, flaps set in downward position and four nozzles redirecting thrust from the drone's Pegasus jet engine. "Approximately one-hundred seventy biosignatures found. Unarmed, most likely civilians. Women, elderly, children. Vitals vary widely, many are deceased."

"Initiating hovercraft detachment." From the belly of Sabre Six, the hovercraft lowered to the ground; a press of the Autodrive toggle detached the steering wheel into Sinclaire's hands. The Stryker armoured combat hovercraft accelerated toward the ditch. Sinclaire trained the machine gun scope sites on the ditch.

The hovercraft came to a halt in front of three soldiers. Two of them immediately walked away toward the remaining huddled civilians, barking orders in a language the civilians did not understand. Sunmi's apparently identical sister Chungha stood next to the third soldier.

Sinclaire exited the vehicle and followed a path of bloody trampled earth to over thirty people lying dead or mortally wounded in the ditch. "Private Meadlowe -- these are civiians. We've got to help them out." Meadlowe laughed. "Yeah, we'll help them, out of their misery."

"That's one fucked up sense of humor, soldier. They have no weapons. They're not a threat." Meadlowe shrugged. "Okay."

Sinclaire headed back to the hovercraft; the hybrid drone lowered to re-dock with the craft and the integrated machine lifted off, resuming the recon loop. "I don't get it, Sunmi. They couldn't have been killed by artillery, and the gunships aren't firing on people."

Sinclaire opened a line to Inosanto, piloting one of the gunships above. "Inosanto, can you report back to task force command? Something's not right." "Roger."

Five minutes passed.

"Registering automatic weapons fire in the direction of the drainage ditch, sir." The private feed from Sunmi's sister, re-wound four minutes and thirty-two seconds, showed the three soldiers standing in front of the ditch. The audio feed picked up Lieutenant Calley ordering Sargeant Mitchell to "finish off the wounded". Automatic weapons fire by the three soldiers cut into the crowd. Women jumped with their children into the ditch to avoid being mowed down.

"Shit, shit, shit." Sinclaire opened the comms channel.:"What the fuck is going on, Captain! These are civilians! There's people killing civilians down here!"

No answer.

"We've got to do something. Inosanto, Sunmi -- are you with me?" "Yes, sir." The two replied in unison.

Up ahead, a group of civilians are scurried toward a Kaeson city bomb shelter. Pursuing close behind were ten soldiers from Charlie Company.

Inosanto focused the low gunship's high-definition targeting cameras on the scene below. "If you're going to do something, better do it right now, Sinclaire. You've got about thirty seconds, or all those people down there are going to die."

"Roger that. Sunmi, set us down between the bomb shelter and Charlie Company. Establish a perimeter and cover me. Transferring doorgun control now."

"Yes sir. Remote doorgun control initiated."

Upon landing, Sunmi jumped from the cockpit, then removed one of the GAU-27 heavy machine guns from its hovercraft door emplacement and walked around the hovercraft to face the troops from Charlie Company. The other machine gun, controlled by wireless gaze-tracking, targeted whatever Sunmi might identify as a potential threat.

Sinclaire picked up a rifle and shouldered the triple-loaded munitions pack, then departed the hovercraft cockpit, running up to Lieutenant Brooks of Charlie Company. "There are people in that bomb shelter. We need to evacuate them. My hybrid can only carry nine at full capacity, and there are at least fifteen in the shelter." "Evacuate?" Brooks nodded toward the advancing soldiers. "Can do -- with a grenade."

"Lieutenant! These people are civilians! We haven't taken any fire and there's no evidence of combatants in the area! Stand down, officer!" Brooks stood chest-to-chest with Sinclaire, icy blue-eyed glare unblinking and hard. "Mind your own business and get the fuck out of the way."

Runnig back to the hybrid whose engine was still running, Sinclaire threw down the rifle and munitions. Sunmi stood there, machine gun in hands, face obscured by the flight helmet. "They're coming this way, Sunmi. I'm going to go over to the bunker myself and get these people out. If these bastards fire on these people, or fire on me while I'm doing that, shoot 'em!"

At the sight of Sunmi, the soldiers stop advancing. Neither side of the standoff aimed directly at the other, instead engaging in a mutual staring contest. A few soldiers took the opportunity to drop their heavy rucksacks to the ground.

Sincaire ran to the bunker. "How the hell did we get into this..." Unarmed, Sinclaire slowly coaxed twelve villagers to the Sabre Six, then leaned into the hovercraft driver's seat and put on the flight helmet to open a line to gunships circling above. "Danny, I need a favor. I want your shark to transport the rest of people out of here."

"Violation of protocol against landing in a free-fire zone, use of a gunship for civilian transport. Maybe the second time in history anyone's tried a crazy stunt like this..." Inosanto breaks formation with the low gunships and begins descent. "...we're going to catch absolute hell, brother. Sit tight."

The gunship landed and opened its cargo bay door. Within minutes, the villagers were safe inside and airlifted from the scene.

[countingdesaparecidos]

Scene 3

[rough, first iteration… not a complete work…]

Blunt-edged training knives in hand, two soldiers squared off in Camp Shinseki gymnasium fifty miles south of the North Korean capital.

"Realistically speaking..." The smaller soldier's blade elongated by an inch, thinning to a needle-point at its tip.

Two meters away, an AcuStrike nickle-blade training knife beeped twice to signal Ready status. "No need to make excuses for being a tiny person, Sunmi. I'll take it easy on you."

Sitting on a row of bleaches beside the sparring area, a third soldier laughed. "You better hope Sunmi doesn't go hard on _you_, Sinclaire."

"That's a foregone conclusion at this point." Sinclaire and Sunmi began with flow drills, pre-established patterns of attack and defense with continuous incorporation of techniques and tactics. Their pace increased gradually until Sunmi's blade made light contact against Sinclaire's abdomen. Sensing direct-hit pressure, the knife emitted a beep and ruby-red flash.

"Don't be so technical, Mark. This isn't UDT/SEAL forms training." Sunmi stepped back and the drill began again. "Don't perseverate on the blade. Be with me here and now, not anticipating the next move you expect to see." Sinclaire attempted to slash down at Sunmi who stood nearly half a foot shorter, only to be intercepted by a cut to the inner arm, then stab between third and fourth ribs. Beep, flash.

Sunmi stepped out of Sinclaire's striking range. "Not many knife duels on the battlefield, right? Work on your attributes here -- agility, timing and precision. The knife is an extension of your hand, and your hand is the expression of your will."

As Sinclaire predictably began to focus more on the knife, Sunmi worked more quickly. The AcuStrike beeped and flashed with each hit; Sinclaire tensed more after each simulated wound, which only enabled Sunmi to overcome resistance and move more effortlessly. The knife became a siren of beeps and flashes as Sunmi moved fluidly in and out of range, cutting at will. Sunmi then slowed back down to human speed, allowing Sinclaire opportunities to score a hit.

On the bleachers, Inosanto sat with a tablet screen opened to Defense Information Systems secure email. "Staging at 0700 tomorrow morning. Mission objective is to eliminate the 48th Battalion housed in and around Kaesong city. The 48th uses Kaesong as a bastion for attacks against Pyongyang."

Sunmi looked up and to the left, accessing mission data in between flow drills with Sinclaire. "Confirm. Fifth Recon Dragon Ladies report that villagers have been warned to evacuate, or will travel to the Pyongyang weekend markets. Everyone left behind in Kaesong is considered an enemy combatant. This is a local guerrilla stronghold; there will be no civilians." The knife beeped and flashed again. Sinclaire cursed. "Orders coming down from Colonel Henderson must be based on classified data. There's no backchatter among my sisters for tomorrow's operation on the main recon channel."

Inosanto scrolled down on the tablet. "'There will be no civilians' sounds like intel double-talk for 'slash and burn'."

Sunmi and Sinclaire's blades clashed in a clinch; Sunmi laughed a high-pitched, sonorous laugh and blinked twice, losing two inches of height through an optical illusion. Looking up from below, Sunmi's hair became a typical North Korean short bob hairstyle, uniform vacuuming tight against a petite frame to become the official DPRK Olympic ping-pong player's outfit. The AcuStrike morphed into an orange ping-pong paddle.

Sinclaire instinctively blinked in response to the diversion, eyes opening to witness the return of Sunmi's original South Korean form, and the tip of the AcuStrike pressed at Sinclaire's throat. "There's more than one way to de-fang a snake, my dear jagiya. Objectify the enemy and your knife is mine." The knife's tip pressed harder and Sinclaire's own AcuStrike fell to the floor, signalling surrender. Sunmi caught the knife before it hit the floor and stepped back, smiling. "You have to be prepared for anything, Mark. See past the hologram; it's just shifting refraction of the light."

Sunmi raised a knife-wielding right hand and pretended to drop the weapon; it hung in midair, then dissipated into nothing. The smile quickly faded as well. "The 48th outnumbers Allied forces two to one. Expectation of heavy casualties."

"Can't wait to see the 48th destroyed for what they've done to our people." Inosanto opened a casualty report on the tablet. "Charlie Company is down to one hundred and five soldiers. And you know every civilian in that Kaesong could tell you exactly where the landmines and booby traps are. But they let us keep blowing our balls off for two months of hell as their snipers take our people out one by one. And I bet those bastards up in the mountains are just laughing at us every day."

---

"Catch." Sunmi retrieved the real training knife from its waistband-tucked hiding place and tossed it to Sinclaire.

"Well, one you thing can trust about an espionage gynoid is that..." Sinclaire caught the knife. "...she'll do anything to win."

Sunmi walked up to Sinclaire. "And that means you really, really want to keep me on your side." Pulling Sinclaire close, Sunmi's lenses honed in to count the arterial pulse-beats thrumming through carotid arteries. "You're pulse is a bit fast, my jagiya. We might need to work on your cardio... later. Now, sit."

Sunmi pushed Sinclaire toward the bleachers and walked back to starting position two meters away, having surreptitiously taken back the training knife.

"Inosanto, you're up. The next drill is called Keepaway. Thirty seconds to evade my blade and secure yours. Succeed and you get another thirty seconds to score a hit. And don't worry -- no shifting for you." Sunmi gave Sinclaire a wink before turning back to face Inosanto, who was already warming up into a Filipino knife-fighter's stance. "Three rounds, escalating intensity. Between rounds, you do ten pushups for each time I score. Ready?"

"Ready."

With Inosanto's AcuStrike tucked into the waistband, the other knife pointed up in reverse grip behind Sunmi's back. "Okay. Go for it."

Inosanto lunged toward Sunmi in a quick, darting motion. Sunmi sidestepped and the reverse-gripped blade nicked Inosanto's wrist, then flicked up to slice across Inosanto's throat.

"Twenty pushups, Danny, pick up the pace." Sinclaire picked up the tablet. "Triple basic load tomorrow. Troops are going to need all the ammo they can pack. Your gunship crew are finally going to get their wish."

Inosanto circled Sunmi, looking for an opening. "But where's the scorecard for friend or foe? How can we tell who the good guys are down there?"

"Sunmi said it. There are no good guys left in Kaeson." Sinclaire laid down the tablet and watched the game of Takeaway. "Search and destroy." Over the next twenty-two seconds, Inosanto and Sunmi danced across the gymnasium floor, then switch roles between offence and defence, cat and mouse.

[countingdesaparecidos]

Scene 2

[rough, first iteration… not a complete work…]

Hovercars and conventional four-wheelers lined either side of the street, some enhanced by visible aftermarket upgrades while others kept their secrets hidden under the hood. Doors and windscreens were adorned by custom logos and slogans like "Mexican Juice", "AM Dyno" and "Show Off". A team of female motorcycle and hoverbike riders weaved in and out between the cars and trucks, greeting friends and playfully antagonising rivals.

The Karma HOV6 edged up to the starting line and was soon accompanied by a Wellys W3 Jeep piloted by a helmeted racer.

Sinclaire's voice activated the HOV6 interior cabin microphone. "Who is this joker with the defensive driving helmet?" "Name is Ishiguro." Chuy sent a data profile to Sinclaire's phone, projected to the windscreen display. "All I know is they put up the cash and it's laundry-clean. No trace back to Commerce City keiretsu, chaebols or triads." Onscreen, a partially obscured bank transfer number linked to an account with Softbank of Japan, Incorporated. "The sponsor is clean, but it's still a holiday weekend -- not much time before cops notice the streets are closed around this area."

Racers and local onlookers crowded the sidewalk, angling for a better vantage. Most held aloft glowing rectangles to stream the action, building a mesh of continuous race coverage from the succession of phone cameras along the race route.

The helmeted driver flipped up a black visor and turned to Sinclaire, crystal blue eyes almost glowing in the dark. The driver winked and flipped the visor back down; long blonde hair flowed from under the helmet and down around the driver's shoulders.

"All I know is twenty grand and that Wellys w3 are about to be mine." Sinclaire waved away the data profile and it vanished from the windscreen. Valentina squeezed Sinclaire's bicep. "Ours, baby. My girls are going to flip when they see how much horsepower the Yoshimitsu methyl-water injection Stage 3 kit adds to my bike."

"Yoshi in a bike engine? You're going to end up on Mars with that much power." Sinclaire looked into the rearview camera to see Chuy emphatically advising members of the crowd regarding the incovenience of being sucked into a hovercar air intake if they persisted in standing too close.

Valentina let go, sitting back with arms crossed. "My boyfriend can't be the only one with the fastest ride in town."

A mass text from Chuy appeared on the windscreen: Go time. Go time.

Sinclaire revved the engine; Valentina shivered and smiled. "Can't wait for our date tonight. Dessert is on me."

The onlookers become quiet, focusing intently on the two hovercars at the starting line.

---

Chuy walked in the narrow lane between the cars and, using the cellphone as a walkie-talkie, spoke to both drivers. "Conduction grooves might still be flooded in some spots down the stretch..."

"You know the Skyway they're building out in New Detroit?" Valentina stroked the leather upholstery above the glove compartment. "Solar panels covered in self-heating glass -- it instantly evaporates water and snow. The roadway is literally glass. Can you imagine?"

Standing in front of the two competitors, the back of Chuy's t-shirt read 'INFAMOUS  |  Los Angeles Car Club |  @Yungsta213'. "...Air or Hover. Your choice. I like finishing races with my ass in one piece, so I would choose Air tonight. But that's just me."

The helmeted driver revved the turbocharged Wellys W3 engine. Both drivers pushed their vehicles down by an inch, hovering closer to the ground to increase the air compression density and building electromagnetic potential for an explosive start. The nose of each car tipped down to reduce drag and improve aerodynamism in the race's first few seconds.

Fans below the Wellys W3 roared. Sinclaire smirked while doing the same, covertly checking the HOV6's nitrous oxide levels. "You're in for a surprise, Ms. Defensive Driver."

The air between the cars became viscous and hot, air pressure increasing until the cars' oxygen intakes pulled breath from bystanders' lungs.

"We own this quarter mile, baby. Teach this bitch how Area-323 does it." Valentina gave Sinclaire a long, hard kiss, then buckled into the four-quarter racing restraints and watched RPMs rise on the dashboard display. Sinclaire stared straight down the road, edging the hovercar's body as close to the ground as possible.

Chuy pointed to the helmeted driver, then to Sinclaire. Signaling both simultaneously, Chuy dropped both hands and shouted "Go!" The two cars jettisoned from the starting line.

Less than two seconds later, the Ishiguro-sponsored car lagged for a moment, then surged ahead.

"Switched to Hover. So you want to play dirty." Sinclaire hit the red nitrous oxide button and the car jolted forward, bringing them within a single car-length's distance.

Valentina placed both hands on top of the passenger's side glove compartment as if searching for a second steering wheel. "Mark? You're not going to... Oh, god..."

Sinclaire hit the Maglev|Air switch. The car's electromagnets engaged ferroconcrete grooves etched into the street below and bolted ahead. To make up the distance, Sinclaire pushed the HOV6's nose even closer to the pavement, decreasing the distance to less than one inch above the ground. The tactic brought the two cars parallel, quarter-mile finish line looming less than seven seconds away.

A blinding flash of light crossed the windshield from above. Sinclaire instinctively hunched down and glanced up to the sound of artillery exploding overhead, then looked over at the car to the left. What sat in the driver's seat was a ghostly memory hidden inside the motorcycle helmet, eyes glowing electric blue and staring directly back at Sinclaire with no regard for the road ahead.

[countingdesaparecidos]

Scene 1

[rough, first iteration... not a complete work...]

4 JULY :: 2130

At six-foot-seven, the broad-shouldered Mestizo instinctively ducked to clear the garage doorframe. On the other side, boxing gloves thudded against swaying heavy bags; competitors threw each other onto worn padded mats using well-practiced techniques. The mats' resounding smack preceded transitions through grappling and wrestling drills, scrambling for top position, chokes and joint locks.

"Sinclaire." Arms heavily tattooed with Native tribal designs spread wide to greet the visitor whose black leather jacket hid similar body art. "Where you been, brother? Word is a couple of detectives ID'd you on a test drive before experts at Chuy's Speed Shop could clean up your new ride."

Surrounded by walls of posters and plaques, the two exchanged an Area-323 racers' handshake. Every horizontal surface of the room was strewn with spare parts, tools and vintage auto memorabilia. "You heard right, Chuy. A certain charitable organization posted my bail. Unless I win tonight, they'll pledge one of my kidneys to an impatient rich kid in North Korea. I don't even get to choose which one."

"The kid or the kidney?" "Neither."

They laughed and stepped back into boxing stance. "Lo siento pero we all got bills to pay, homie. Nothing free in this world."

Chuy threw a light body shot to the mid-lower back, blocked by Sinclaire's elbow in a crouching sidestep followed by quick left jabs. At six-foot one, Sinclaire was smaller, but also more agile; the two evenly matched skill for skill in a round of spontaneous sparring.

---

Sinclaire turned and jogged across the garage, weaving between biodiesel injection tanks stood along the floor and partially disassembled engines slung from chains attached to the ceiling. Chuy followed the improvised path to a hydraulic lift at the garage's far side, lit by overhead LED lamps and covered in a beige drop cloth.

The lift descended to floor-level; headlights beamed forward as Sinclaire pulled the drop cloth with a toreador's flourish. The vehicle rose four inches from the floor, hovering with a quiet hum of electromagnetic superconduction.

"Karma HOV6. Electrodynamic suspension, Hayabusa electric-linear quad motors, Versa integrated lift system." Chuy squatted to assess the electromagnets' balance on the car's four corners. "Trying to be the black James Dean tonight?"

Sinclaire daubed grease-stained hands with the clean spot on a rag streaked by motor oil and engine assembly grease. "Best I could find on such short notice, Chu. As long as it makes my daily bread tonight... and Dean got t-boned by a station wagon on the freeway. Not in a street race."

---

High-heeled lace-up boots stepped gingerly down from the hovercar, accompanied by neo-perreo basslines that ceased with a cellphone screen-tap. "Suprise! Hola, Chucho!"

Chuy stood. "Que onda, Leni?" "Asi asi, como siempre." The heels clicked in dance-walk rhythm and the two embraced. "Isn't this a beautiful ride? I helped Mark boost it. Love these colors..."

Valentina ran fingertips along the freshly washed and waxed hood. Silver nanoparticles evinced a fish-scale shimmer as swirling pools of blue, gold and purple responded to the overhead light; in deepest shadow, the painted surface seemed to disappear.

Sinclaire headed to the workstation console a few metres away. "Valentina's a natural. Nobody can resist her." "I'm the best diversion ever made. You're luckier than you know, baby." Valentina joined Sinclaire to retrieve a telematics dongle from the workstation desktop as Chuy moved to the driver's side of the car, sliding in behind the wheel.

"The takeover's in an hour. You need more than a pretty paint job if you want to win tonight." Chuy plugged the dongle into the car's OBD-VII dataport below the steering wheel.

On the workstation's screen, an AltSocial private social media page contained only one post created earlier in the day: "@Yungsta213: Meet on Tuesday night. PM for location." The inbox showed sixty-three unread private messages. Sinclaire clicked a black-cat silhouette taskbar icon to raise the Freematics Hub server software window, then entered the car's newly updated password. They switched places, Sinclaire behind the wheel and Chuy standing at the workstation.

---

Chuy read the telematics configuration data onscreen. "Induction response on the rear left generator is a few milliseconds off. No surprise the HOV6 is hard to steer at high speeds."

Sinclaire resumed diagnostic checks and calibrations using a laptop connected directly to electric steering, battery array and power output management interfaces. "I've been thinking, Chu: our first-generation HVs drove through Pyongyang to circumvent landmines. You have any idea how hovercars became a thing for civilians with the stability profile of a helicopter in a typhoon?"

"Same reason people used to eat pig flesh and chopped-up cow, but acted like dog meat was some kind of barbarism: marketing."

Early fireworks went off outisde, not far from the garage. "Like Americans on July fourth, blowing up explosives as if world war is a soldier's holiday. Propaganda."

An M-80 explosion rattled the windows in the garage's upper floor; Chuy opened a phone app to check the surveillance cameras.

"Better to hear engines all night than see memories of squadmates on foot patrol split in half by IEDs, dead or dying one by one from enemy sniper fire..." Eyes closed, Sinclaire listened to the report of fireworks popping, crackling and booming.

Valentina kissed Sinclaire on the cheek. "Come back..."

Sinclaire's eyes opened, looking straight at the screen, checking the rear airbrakes on the HOV6.

Valentina stood from the car, walked over and sat on an old leather couch nearby, rearranging the phone's playlist. Soon the thumping basslines of neo-perreo became the background atmosphere, partially obscuring the sound of the fireworks.

---

Chuy frowned at the telematics simulation. "Slick ground at the takeover spot tonight. Oil and rain in the conduction grooves could give some loose brake readings, especially in a HOV6."

Sinclaire flipped the Maglev|Air switch. The electromagnetic hum became a whoosh of ten high-RPM electric propellers engaged along the car's undercarriage. Billows of dust and metal shavings swept into the air as the HOV6 wobbled slightly, re-centering its gravitational balance. Dashboard gauges oscillated wildly, then settled into neutral. "Manual stabilization. Vector, acceleration, altitude. Nothing I can't handle."

The switch flipped to "Off" and all fans went silent. The car snapped back to magnetic equilibrium in alignment with the etched ferroconcrete below. Fish-scale nanopaint glimmered an oceanic tide along the car's carbon-fibre panels amidst the workshop's dusty grit.

---

Chuy's voice echoed over the music. "You're ex-mil, though. Mechanical skills, too. Why not use the G.I. bill and go live the straight life -- engineering, university degrees and all that?"

"G.I. bill? I'll be lucky if I don't get merc'ed out here, Chuy. Army brass and I didn't exactly part on speaking terms." Valentina sat on the passenger's side, playing with a pair of pink fuzzy dice dangling from the rearview camera screen as Sinclair revved the engine. "Guys from my unit opened domestic security and enforcement firms, operations you don't hear about on the news; same homicidal maniacs running renditions and black ops across Africa and Southeast Asia. Nowadays there's just as much profit at home as overseas. Even Commerce City SWAT team is privatised."

Valentina gently squeezed pressure-sensitive hair filaments between thumb and forefinger, cosmetic gene modulation gradually changing diffraction gratings at the root of every strand. Decora fingernails raked through thick curly hair, hues spiraling from black to fire-engine red and settling on hot pink that matched the dice. The update was complete with a tousle of eye-level bangs under critical appraisal befitting a professional hairdresser. "Chuy, I've been telling Mark we should escape to Canada, but he won't listen. One of my girlfriends does passports, papers and everything."

Sinclaire involuntarily glanced up to the garage's windows a split-second after blinding flashes of light erupted into phoshporous-white sprinkles that drizzled down to Earth. "Try to cross the border with the wrong name, sexuality, gender or political orientation and get shipped out to indefinite detention in a corporate-run lockup."

Chuy nodded. "No due process. Desaparecido."

---

"Diablo... here we go again..." Valentina pressed the Sunroof button on the car's centre console and the fibreglass ceiling panel began to retract.

Chuy glanced at the security camera feeds on the cellphone app. "Those chinga puta madre ICE agents got half our families deported, remember, Leni? Now it's not just Chicanos -- Jewish, Polish, gays, refugees -- even Irish and Italian immigrants fresh off the boat."

Valentina unlaced and kicked off the high heels, then stood on the passenger's seat, popping up through the open sunroof. "Dear pastor Chuy." Valentina counted on the fingers of one hand. "Mark is half-Sicilian, my grandfather is German, and I'm darker than both of you. My stepdad was Muslim, and so am I." Valentina fanned out the five fingers toward Chuy. "Is that not political enough for you? Is the target on our backs not big enough? So can we skip the sermon for once?"

Chuy’s fury quickly deflated to voluble grumbling. "Guess who gets stopped four times more than any 'pure' white boy in Southern California...."

Sinclaire leaned out of the open driver-side door. "Hate to break it to you, but -- we steal cars for a living, Chu. You run a speed shop and unlicensed fight club for street kids like us. But there is a slim chance if you change the name to Latter-Day Church of Saint Chucho Santana, you might get a decent tax deduction. You should think about it."

Sinclaire and Valentina laughed; Chuy couldn't help but crack a smile. "Chingada," Chuy groused, immersed in the telematics readings while stretching out a stiff right shoulder. "Nice hair, Leni."

Valentina grinned. "Si, claro. It's good luck for tonight. Now we can't lose!"

---

4 JULY :: 2145

Valentina's idle hands traced a faint scar at the side of Sinclaire's closely shaved head. "Laying low is my only option, Val, at least for the next few years. This place is a prison without walls. Some people just choose not to face it." Sinclaire set the laptop to Sleep mode and closed the lid.

Valentina slipped arm-in-arm, cheek pressed against Sinclaire's shoulder. "So if you're wanted by mercs, known to ICE agents, and the outlaw scene is all you've got, you must really be as bad as they say, huh, baby? Guilty until proven innocent..."

Valentina stroked Sinclaire's chest, outlining three dog tags strung along a necklace of miniature ballbearings resting beneath a tight black t-shirt.

"Watch out, chica." Sinclaire growled, nose buried into the side of Valentina's neck, teeth gnashing and taking a playful nip of the soft perfumed skin. Pretending to scream, Valentina melted into giggles. "Maybe one day I'll tell you the whole story. Tonight is about winning this race."

Valentina's eyes shut tight as Sinclaire revved the engine near maximum, testing the power output. "I can feel it..." Valentina wirelessly re-coupled the phone to the car sound system, turning up the music to party volume while Chuy and Sinclaire completed last-minute adjustments on the HOV6.

The rolling thunder and lightning of Fourth of July fireworks sparkled and boomed outside.