The bar arrives like a law that believes in itself.
"Skim," Gavin says. "Pin the lip. No stop."
"Copy," Madison says, wrench jaw already nudged deeper between hood and header.
"Hand on lever," Rick says, palm on the towel-bar windlass where it beds to the seat base and screwdriver pin.
Gavin squares dead center and lets the clearance bar take a shave off the hood crown. Steel squeals, brief and ugly, as the lip presses harder to the header. Sight stays—a cracked slit that still tells true.
"Good seat," Rick says. The windlass sings a thin, high note and holds.
"Into the hole," Madison says.
They drop under the bar, and the tunnel takes them—air wet and mineral, a smell like old pennies and old rain. Sodium panels smear yellow across concrete ribs. Left wall shouldered; right lanes drowned a finger deep where drains quit faith.
"Wall braille," Gavin says. He puts the left tire against the painted shoulder curb—ssss—a whisper that's truer than glass. Water fans from the right tires, hissing.
"Low conduit loop ahead," Madison says. "Droop mid-lane."
"Header route," Gavin answers. "Windows two. Fingers in." He leans the A-pillar where the loop will buzz. It meets the hood lip, skates the windlass angle, and zzrths across the header seam. Bright grit spits. The loop slides the roof seam, twangs overhead, and is gone.
"Hum's okay," Rick says, feeling the lever. "Pin's solid."
"Bus," Madison says, sharp. Twenty yards ahead, a city bus sits angled, nose in the left shoulder, tail blocking a lane and a half. Its hazards died hours ago; its marketing wrap peels in tired curls. Jersey barriers pinch the right to a mail slot.
"Slot is one car wide," Rick says. "Wheel-stop curb right can be our rail."
"Then we love it," Gavin says. He drifts right off the left braille—ssss falls silent—and catches the right wheel-stop curb. A different hiss—stone against rubber—writes his line. The mirror stump scrapes the bus flank with a tarry squeal. The slider kisses vinyl faces smiling about a city that has new rules now.
"Water surge," Madison says.
The tunnel breathes—a pulse of brown water pushed by some upstream stupidity. It shoulders their right side. The wheel-stop curb is everything; the van leans and recovers, hood lip chattering against the header. The windlass hums higher and returns.
"Back half is clear," Rick says, eyes on the bus's wheel well where a pair of shoes sit without the person who wore them. "No—left—alcove."
"Shooter?" Madison asks.
"Maybe a shadow," he says. "Maybe me."
They clear the bus tail; the tunnel opens a hair and then springs a thing: a counterweight drop gate—a rusty pipe strung on chains—slams from the ceiling at knee height as if a traffic engineer decided to be a trap-maker.
"Duck with bounce," Madison says, already bracing the wrench.
"Right tire preload," Gavin says. He lifts the nose a finger on a shallow plate lip and then touches the right tire into a raised cat's-eye. The nose squats that crucial bit. The pipe buzzes the header seam—zzzz—and rattles off the roof skin. The chains clap mirrors that aren't there anymore and swing back into dead air.
"Clear," Madison says, laugh in her voice that knows it shouldn't be there.
"Conduit bank," Rick says. "Left wall, two feet high for fifty yards."
"Wall braille again," Gavin says, trading curbs—left shoulder hiss returns. The conduit bank becomes a rail his A-pillar sight loves. Water deepens left; he keeps the wheel center on dry stripes no one painted for this purpose.
"Fan housing," Madison warns. "Vent drum low across lane, hangs from cables."
"Heel preload," Gavin says. He buys a finger of bounce off another plate seam, skims the drum with the hood crown. It thumps the roof at the dent they've learned to use and rolls off behind with a dragon belly groan.
"Red," Rick says.
The laser ghosts a sick light through spray and disappears—either the beam hit water or the shooter lucked into a bad angle.
"Alcove two—left," Madison says. "Movement."
A crack answers—a round clips the screwdriver pin. It pings bright and spins half free.
"Pin!" Rick says, calm and horrified.
"I've got it," he adds, already jamming his wrist against the towel bar while his free hand drives the screwdriver back through the bracket. The windlass creaks, trying to unwind. Rick throws a half hitch across the pin neck and the bar, strangles it twice, then heels the lever back to its prison under the glovebox lip. "Set. Mostly."
"Mostly is enough," Gavin says. Now. It has to be now.
"Choke ahead," Madison says. The tunnel kinks right where a service entrance intrudes. Over the bend, a maintenance hoist wire—naked steel—spans at hood height, tight to a beam on one side and a fire main on the other. It has a hook tied off mid-span with tape like a joke.
"Snare," Rick says. "They pulled it across for trucks."
"No room to swerve," Madison says. The right is standing water; the left is concrete rib.
"Fairlead on beam shoe," Gavin says. "We give it header, not face."
"Windows two," Madison says. "Fingers in."
He centers the nose for the beam shoe—a square of rusted angle at knee height on the left rib. He leans the A-pillar into the wire's bite point, lifts the right a finger on the wheel-stop curb so the van lists left. They meet the wire.
It bites the hood lip and hisses along the header. The hook snags the dock line tail and starts sawing nylon with a chatter that climbs into teeth.
"Line!" Rick says, both hands on the lever now. The windlass hum rises, thin and wicked.
"Hold center," Gavin says. The wall is inches. Water heaves from the right—the upstream pulse finally arriving—shoving the van left toward the rib.
"Counter small," Madison says, eyes on the wire as it spits bright hair from the rope.
"Small," Gavin answers, giving the wheel less than a breath. The beam shoe grinds the wire. The hook gnashes nylon.
The flood hits their right flank like a body tackle.
The van slides a hand into the wall. The wire chitters higher. The dock line sings a frail, high note that could be prayer or goodbye.