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Speaker 1: Chapter seven. Manny Mannie was used to war, he wasn't

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Speaker 1: quite as used to being on the losing side of one.

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Speaker 1: As chaotic as things gotten Sierda de Muerta, his guys

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Speaker 1: had always held the upper hand. Manny had come to

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Speaker 1: expect safe supply lines and reliable transport to and from

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Speaker 1: the battlefield. During past offensives, the martyrs hadn't controlled the skies.

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Speaker 1: His first hint that this had changed came when the

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Speaker 1: fifty caliber machine gun atop their transport fired into the sky.

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Speaker 1: It was soon joined by the echoing boom of the

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Speaker 1: lead vehicle's twenty millimeter cannon and a sparking whoosh as

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Speaker 1: anti drone rockets arched up into the sky. Nuts Reggie

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Speaker 1: yelped as the gunfire jolted him awake. He drifted off

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Speaker 1: a half hour or so into the ride. Mannie grabbed

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Speaker 1: onto him and looped his own legs around the bench

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Speaker 1: for stability. An instant later, the transport veered off of

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Speaker 1: the road and into the high grass surrounding the highway.

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Speaker 1: There was a flash somewhere to the left, followed by

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Speaker 1: the roar and heat of an explosion. When Mannie looked back,

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Speaker 1: he all the smoldering wreckage of one of their escort

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Speaker 1: vehicles drones. He shouted into the journalist's ear over the

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Speaker 1: blistering gunfire Manny scanned the skies as their transport plowed

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Speaker 1: through the tall grass. Wounded soldier screamed as the vehicle

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Speaker 1: banked and bounced and sent them slamming into each other.

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Speaker 1: He caught sight of a small drone, maybe the size

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Speaker 1: of his torso. It was matt black and an almost

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Speaker 1: perfect oval. The only break in its seamless form was

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Speaker 1: the bulge of a missile pod on its belly. A

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Speaker 1: red light blinked above the weapon. The drone slowed to

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Speaker 1: a stop, maybe a hundred feet above them. There wasn't

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Speaker 1: time to think. The fixer shoved his journalist hard off

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Speaker 1: the back of the transport and then leaped off himself.

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Speaker 1: He hit the ground with a painful thump that knocked

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Speaker 1: the air out of his lungs and the scents from

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Speaker 1: his mind. For a second, the whole world was stars

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Speaker 1: and shock. Many rolled to a rough stop against what

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Speaker 1: felt like a large rock. Something cracked inside his chest,

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Speaker 1: and then there was another explosion, this one louder and

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Speaker 1: closer than the last one. The heat hit him like

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Speaker 1: an ocean wave. Many was vaguely aware of the scent

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Speaker 1: of burning hair, his hair. He cried out, but he

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Speaker 1: couldn't hear his own screams. Many's ears rang like the

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Speaker 1: inside of a church bell. It was several moments before

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Speaker 1: the pain and shock subsided enough for him to open

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Speaker 1: his eyes. He looked down at himself. First, his pajamas

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Speaker 1: were scorched and his arms were scraped and bloody from

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Speaker 1: the fall. His backpack was gone, but there were no

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Speaker 1: signs of serious injury. None of his bones seemed broken.

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Speaker 1: What remained of the transport smoldered half a football field away.

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Speaker 1: He saw a few writhing, burning shapes inside Manny's stomach

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Speaker 1: turned Reggie. The pain of the fall head momentarily wiped

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Speaker 1: the journalist from his mind. Mannie scanned the field and

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Speaker 1: found the other man curled into a fetal ball a

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Speaker 1: dozen or so feet to his left. He ran over,

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Speaker 1: gave the journalist a quick scan, and determined Reggie wasn't

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Speaker 1: seriously injured either. A small slipper of shrapnel had pierced

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Speaker 1: the other man's bicep. He was just as scraped and

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Speaker 1: bloody as Manny, but also basically intact, except his eyes

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Speaker 1: didn't quite focus when Mannie looked into them. Maybe a

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Speaker 1: minor head injury, the journalist said something, a lot of

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Speaker 1: somethings in fact, but Andy's hearing was all tenitis. There

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Speaker 1: was no time to talk anyway. He hoisted Reggie up

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Speaker 1: by the armpits, ignored the other man's pained expression, and

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Speaker 1: pulled him along as he beat feet away from the

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Speaker 1: flaming wreckage in the ongoing firefight. Another blast wave of

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Speaker 1: rolled over him, this one more distant, and then another

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Speaker 1: coming from somewhere above them in the sky. The extent

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Speaker 1: of their injuries meant that their run was more like

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Speaker 1: a hobble. Reggie had dislocated his unshrapneled arm, Manny had

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Speaker 1: fucked his knee up in the fall and done something

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Speaker 1: awful to his ribs. The two stumble staggered as fast

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Speaker 1: as they could manage towards an abandoned gas station by

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Speaker 1: the side of the old highway. They reached their temporary

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Speaker 1: salvation and took cover inside the dusty, cobwebbed building. Cut cut, cut, cut, Cut,

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Speaker 1: Reggie screamed as he slumped down against the wall. It

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Speaker 1: took Manny a second to process the fact that he

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Speaker 1: could hear again. You're all right, he shouted, You're fine,

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Speaker 1: We're going to be okay. Manny had no idea if

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Speaker 1: that was true, but he knew managing fear would be

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Speaker 1: critical to their survival. The gas station had been abandoned

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Speaker 1: for a decade or more. Most of the glass was gone,

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Speaker 1: but the basic structure of the side counter was still intact.

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Speaker 1: He and Reggie took cover behind it, careful to avoid

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Speaker 1: the piles of shattered glass and shrapnel. There were old

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Speaker 1: bullet holes in the wall all around them. At one time,

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Speaker 1: there'd been a plexiglass window on the inside wall behind

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Speaker 1: the counter, with a little bucket in it, so the

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Speaker 1: cashier could do business at night without letting customers inside.

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Speaker 1: Most of the plexiglass had been removed, leaving a gaping

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Speaker 1: wound in the building's concrete hide. Manny stuck his head

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Speaker 1: out of the hole and looked out at the sight

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Speaker 1: of the massacre. Both transports had been hit. Much of

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Speaker 1: the field was a flame. The six sweet smell of

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Speaker 1: burning human flesh wafted over them like a dense fog.

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Speaker 1: Manny saw two of the escort trucks still firing into

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Speaker 1: the sky. There was another flash above as one of

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Speaker 1: them hit a drone. It corkscrewed out of the air,

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Speaker 1: burst on the ground and ignited the dry grass. What

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Speaker 1: the funk do we do, Reggie shout asked. There was

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Speaker 1: panic in his voice and quite a lot of pain,

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Speaker 1: but the journalist didn't seem to have lost his wits.

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Speaker 1: We need to get out of here, Manny said, Well,

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Speaker 1: those drones are still occupied. The highway was a couple

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Speaker 1: of hundred feet away. The civilian vehicles following them had

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Speaker 1: scattered when the tack began. Some of them had clearly

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Speaker 1: been hit by machine gun fire from one of the drones.

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Speaker 1: Others had crashed, rolled into ditches and been abandoned by

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Speaker 1: their occupants. Manny spotted one, an ancient white jeep that

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Speaker 1: looked like it had taken around. Through the window. He

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Speaker 1: could see blood inside the vehicle, but the engine and

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Speaker 1: wheels seemed intact. The tree line of a sparse forest

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Speaker 1: was just on the other side of the highway, a

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Speaker 1: half mile away. If they could reach it, Reggie, he

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Speaker 1: put a hand on the journalist's shoulder. The two men

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Speaker 1: locked eyes, and many tried to force all the fear

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Speaker 1: out of his voice. When I say so, run very fast,

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Speaker 1: straight towards that white jeep. Understood the brit brought a

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Speaker 1: hand to his dislocated shoulder and winced in intense pain,

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Speaker 1: but then looked back to Manny and let out a

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Speaker 1: sharp sigh. Fucking all right, shit yeah. Manny took that

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Speaker 1: as a yes. He glanced back at the firefight in

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Speaker 1: the field. The fire part was literal, now at least

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Speaker 1: a full acre was aflame. The smoke seemed to have

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Speaker 1: interfered with the drone sensors. That was probably the only

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Speaker 1: reason their last two escorts had stayed unfucked for so long.

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Speaker 1: Manny watched in horror as a large beetle black drone

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Speaker 1: buzzed down low and opened up with a machine gun.

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Speaker 1: He saw bursts of red as the rounds tore into

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Speaker 1: the escorts gunner and flung him off the truck's bed.

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Speaker 1: Time to go. Manny slapped Reggie's uninjured shoulder and sprinted

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Speaker 1: as fast as his jankie ankle could carry him. It

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Speaker 1: was increasingly obvious that his leg was supremely fucked. The

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Speaker 1: middle of Manny's back itched the whole run in anticipation

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Speaker 1: of a bullet that peculiar sense was even louder than

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Speaker 1: the pain. They reached the jeep, Manny went for the

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Speaker 1: driver's side door, pulled it open, and jerked back as

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Speaker 1: the soupy remains of a pulped human being oozed out

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Speaker 1: onto the asphalt. He heard Reggie start to wretch behind him.

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Speaker 1: It was fucked in there for sure. The man he

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Speaker 1: was sort of sure it had been a man, had

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Speaker 1: taken a couple of rounds from a very large weapon.

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Speaker 1: Many guessed they'd been fifty caliber mass reactive bolts because

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Speaker 1: the impact had torn the man apart. He wasn't sure

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Speaker 1: if additional rounds or bone shrapnel had hit the two

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Speaker 1: kids in the back seat, but they were all exceptionally dead.

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Speaker 1: Many pulled his shirt off and did his best to

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Speaker 1: wipe the corpse from as much of the seat as possa.

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Speaker 1: He hopped in and glanced over to the journalist. Reggie

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Speaker 1: wretched outside, Hey, get the funk in, We don't got all.

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Speaker 1: A concussive blast echoed from the field. That was one

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Speaker 1: more escort down. The fight was as good as over.

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Speaker 1: Manny felt a tinge of panic rise up in the

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Speaker 1: base of his spine. Reggie still hesitated. Dude either deal

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Speaker 1: with some gore in your clothes or stay here and die.

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Speaker 1: Your choice. The Brits snapped out of it, went for

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Speaker 1: the passenger door and hopped inside. Manny wasn't a great driver,

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Speaker 1: or even a very good one, but this was a

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Speaker 1: simple vehicle, and he was blessed with the motivation of

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Speaker 1: not wanting to die. He turned the car back on

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Speaker 1: and the engine woke up with a rich electronic hum.

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Speaker 1: The fixer flipped the vehicle into drive and gunned for

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Speaker 1: the tree line. The jeep bounced and swayed over the

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Speaker 1: lumpy grassland ter rain. Reggie puked out the window. Manny

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Speaker 1: felt nauseous too. He honestly wasn't sure if it was

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Speaker 1: more for the pieces of people scattered inside the vehicle

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Speaker 1: or sheer motion sickness. Fifteen seconds went by, thirty a minute.

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Speaker 1: Manny allowed himself to think they might make it out

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Speaker 1: of this alive. And then he heard the buzz, that sickening,

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Speaker 1: familiar machine hum that every war zone kid knew, as

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Speaker 1: well as the sound of their own mother's voice. A

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Speaker 1: drone closing in. Manny jerked his head out the window

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Speaker 1: and scanned the sky. The jeep had a pothole, and

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Speaker 1: his head slammed to the top of the window frame.

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Speaker 1: He saw stars and almost lost control of the vehicle entirely.

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Speaker 1: It veered to the right and lifted up on to

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Speaker 1: only two wheels. He righted the jeep, spun it back

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Speaker 1: to the left, and gunned it again. As he turned

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Speaker 1: the other way, he stuck his head out again and

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Speaker 1: scanned behind them. There it was the black beadily fucker,

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Speaker 1: buzzing towards them. It was close enough that he could

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Speaker 1: see the glint of its camera optics and the barrel

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Speaker 1: of the heavy machine guns slung underneath it. Manny knew

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Speaker 1: it was picking up speed to compensate for the recoil

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Speaker 1: of its weapon. It would be low on ammunition now.

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Speaker 1: It'd probably wait to fire until it was too close

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Speaker 1: to miss. The tree line was so near he could

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Speaker 1: almost grab it. Another fifteen seconds and they'd be there,

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Speaker 1: But the drone was close. They didn't have that long.

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Speaker 1: He looked over to the journalist, get ready to bail,

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Speaker 1: get ready to what Manny saw the muzzle flash, and

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Speaker 1: in the same instant he spun the wheel hard to

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Speaker 1: the right. The drones first round chunked through the back

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Speaker 1: of the jeep cracked the axle and blew apart the

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Speaker 1: left tire, but the jeep was in the air. An

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Speaker 1: instant later. It flipped over like a drunken dolphin, and

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Speaker 1: the rest of the drone shots blasted chunks out of

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Speaker 1: the ground where the jeep would have been. By the

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Speaker 1: end of the burst, the recoil had robbed the drone

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Speaker 1: of its momentum and brought it to a spinning halt

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Speaker 1: in the sky. The jeep rolled twice and bounced Manny

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Speaker 1: and Reggie around like rocks in a tumbler. It hurt,

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Speaker 1: it hurt shiploads, but Manny was high enough on adrenaline

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Speaker 1: in fear that he could almost ignore the pain. Blood

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Speaker 1: streamed from his forehead, something ached terribly between his shoulders.

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Speaker 1: When the jeep came to a stop, he was deeply

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Speaker 1: surprised to be alive. Let's go, he shouted to Reggie,

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Speaker 1: not even a hundred percent sure if the journalist had

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Speaker 1: survived the crash. Manny pulled himself up out of the

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Speaker 1: open window and then reached his hands back blind into

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Speaker 1: the jeep. While he scanned the sky around them. He

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Speaker 1: felt reggie small hands grip his own. They were wet

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Speaker 1: with sweat, maybe blood probably both. Manny squeezed pulled him up.

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Speaker 1: The too hopped down because they could with their sundry wounds.

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Speaker 1: The drone had probably veered around and started another loop

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Speaker 1: so it could build up the speed for one more

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Speaker 1: accurate burst of fire. Many couldn't quite hear the buzz yet,

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Speaker 1: but he couldn't hear much of anything over the sound

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Speaker 1: of his pounding heart. Reggie pulled ahead of him in

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Speaker 1: a lopsided run. Manny tried to pick up speed, but

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Speaker 1: his knee just wouldn't let him. Ah, there it was.

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Speaker 1: He had three, maybe four seconds before that big gun

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Speaker 1: opened up again. The tree line was only about a

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Speaker 1: hundred feet away, so close and yet too far for

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Speaker 1: him to possibly make it in time. I really didn't

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Speaker 1: want to die here. I was so close to getting out.

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Speaker 1: He thought of a picture he'd seen of the Bavarian Alps,

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Speaker 1: white snow filled valleys and rich pine forests. I'm never

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Speaker 1: going to see that or anything else. Reggie looked back

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Speaker 1: as he neared the tree line. Many appreciated the gesture.

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Speaker 1: It was dumb as funk, though idiot to run. The

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Speaker 1: fixer bellowed at the top of his lungs. The journalist

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Speaker 1: didn't hesitate this time. He bolted past the tree line

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Speaker 1: and disappeared into the wooded thicket. Manny felt a weight

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Speaker 1: lift off his shoulders. He was about to be torn

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Speaker 1: apart by some nut fuck martyr with an itchy trigger

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Speaker 1: finger and a joystick. But he'd done his job. He'd

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Speaker 1: gotten his journalists to safety. Well not quite safety, he thought,

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Speaker 1: but whatever best I could do under the circumstances. The

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Speaker 1: hum grew louder. Manny tried to coax a little more

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Speaker 1: speed out of his wounded leg, even though he knew

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Speaker 1: he was too far away now to make the tree line.

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Speaker 1: Even at a dead sprint. It would have been nice

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Speaker 1: to see Berlin or Paris. Oh well. He heard the

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Speaker 1: thumping sound of heavy gun fire and braced himself for

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Speaker 1: the instant of agony that would precede his end. But

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Speaker 1: instead he heard the sound of impact and crunching metal

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Speaker 1: behind him, followed by a high pitched mechanical wine. Something

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Speaker 1: heavy and black crashed into the ground ahead of him.

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Speaker 1: He made it to the tree line, pushed through the underbrush,

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Speaker 1: got perhaps twenty feet into the woods, and collapsed against

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Speaker 1: a tree for a few seconds He just let the

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Speaker 1: paine wash over him, his knee, his shoulders. He could

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Speaker 1: feel something stuck deep in his back too, maybe a

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Speaker 1: shard of glass or some shrie apneal. From the start

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Speaker 1: of the firefight, he had quite a few deep cuts.

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Speaker 1: The trauma nanites in his circulatory system had clotted most

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Speaker 1: of them, but the deeper ones still oozed blood. It

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Speaker 1: was hard to tell just how injured he really was,

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Speaker 1: since his body was also covered in blood and viscerraph

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Speaker 1: from the jeep's previous occupants espera. He thought, how am

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Speaker 1: I alive? His brain gradually spun up to meet his body.

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Speaker 1: Someone had shot that murder beetle out of the sky,

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Speaker 1: But who Reggie? Where would he have gotten a gun?

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Speaker 1: And the man was British. He couldn't shoot Reggie. He

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Speaker 1: shouted over here. The brit called back. He sounded weirdly cheerful.

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Speaker 1: I'm er think we've made some friends. For the first

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Speaker 1: time in his life, Manny found himself face to face

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Speaker 1: with two post humans. The first appeared to be a lady.

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Speaker 1: She was hunkered up in the branches of a tree,

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Speaker 1: and she cradled a very large gun in her hands.

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Speaker 1: Most of her body sort of faded into the four wrist.

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Speaker 1: She was only easy to see now because of her smile.

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Speaker 1: The shine of her teeth was quite unlike anything else

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Speaker 1: he'd ever seen. They appeared to be made of some

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Speaker 1: sort of strange, swirling colored metal. Where a normal person

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Speaker 1: would have had incisors, she had long, curved fangs. The

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Speaker 1: other chrombed was a black man. He was of average height,

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Speaker 1: with a muscular body and a wide build. His head

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Speaker 1: was shaved, and he had a plump, friendly face and

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Speaker 1: round cheeks that accentuated his broad smile. He wore a

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Speaker 1: red kilt and a silver breastplate over his muscular chest.

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Speaker 1: It gleamed in the afternoon sun. His only weapon appeared

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Speaker 1: to be an enormous sledgehammer, larger than Reggie's entire body.

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Speaker 1: He smiled and nodded in Manny. His whole body twitched

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Speaker 1: as he stood there, as if a constant stream of

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Speaker 1: electricity buzzed through him. Reggie stood in front of the man.

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Speaker 1: It looked like the journalist had run into the post

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Speaker 1: humans during his flight from the drone. He looked terrified

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Speaker 1: in the friendly sort of way. Only the British could manage. Hey, y'all, Manny,

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Speaker 1: said he wasn't sure how nomadic half god warrior people

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Speaker 1: preferred to be addressed. Y'all seemed a safe bet, a guy, said.

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Speaker 1: The woman up in the tree soap said the kilted

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Speaker 1: man um. Can we help you? Manny asked? The man chuckled.

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Speaker 1: He had a deep, throaty laugh that bounced off the

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Speaker 1: trees and seemed to get louder as it reverberated. No, buddy,

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Speaker 1: you guys look pretty near death. I'm gonna GISs. You

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Speaker 1: don't have anything. I want nice pajamas, though he pointed

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Speaker 1: down to Manny's blood soaked and burned pajama bottoms. The

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Speaker 1: fixer's face turned red with embarrassment. They might have whiskey,

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Speaker 1: said the woman. Ask if they have whiskey. The big

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Speaker 1: man smiled, lowered his mall and spoke the name's schoofucker Mike,

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Speaker 1: he said. The lady who shut down your drone is

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Speaker 1: Topaz McMillan. Do you guys have whiskey? Manny didn't, but

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Speaker 1: Reggie did. Holy fuck, he shouted, I actually do. Somehow,

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Speaker 1: the journalist hadn't lost his backpack in the chaos. He

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Speaker 1: unzipped the main compartment, dig around for a few seconds

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Speaker 1: and produced a small metal flask. Reggie passed it off

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Speaker 1: to skullfucker Mike, who took a belt of it and

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Speaker 1: let out a dog's bark. He didn't bark like a dog,

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Speaker 1: It was the exact sound of a large pound barking schofucker.

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Speaker 1: Mike passed the flask up to Topaz. She took a

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Speaker 1: poll in coued appreciatively. All right, Scully, I like these guys.

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Speaker 1: They get a ride. A ride, asked Reggie. A ride

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Speaker 1: to where? Two rolling fuck, she said, to the city

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Speaker 1: of Wheels. Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here. I hope you

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Speaker 1: just enjoyed the chapter you listen to. I hope you

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Speaker 1: enjoyed the chapters to come. If you would like to

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Speaker 1: read the text version of this book either on the

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Speaker 1: web or on your e reader as an e pub

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Speaker 1: you can find those on the website a t r

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Speaker 1: book dot com. So again, the free ad free e

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Speaker 1: pub and the text of every chapter will be on

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Speaker 1: a t r book dot com. Thanks