He sat in the back of the truck, with his eyes to his feet and two guards to his sides. They had fancy cuffs on him; ones that attached to the wall behind him so he couldn't pull any stunts with the guards. And, damn was it boring.

It was an armored van, really, though not the sort that they used for SWAT teams or high, high level prisoners, but the sort that they used for first-degree assault, drug possessing, criminals. It looked pretty inconspicuous by itself, past the tinted windows and big 'WCPD' lettering on the side.

From the jailhouse to the courthouse. It was a city away, and even police vans with criminals in them stopped for red lights.

The trip was going pretty smoothly, and, as Price thought, boringly. But not for long; not with a girl like Maggy Dalene after him. Like the first day she had gone to the prison, she walked right into the armored van while it was stationary during a red light and stood there, a big, green-lipped smile on her face. Her wardrobe was brighter than before, and several times more scanty. The mint-colored coat was off-shoulder, and she had on a bodice underneath that gave the boys a good look at her girls.

When the light turned green, she did not move. The man driving the prison van slammed his hand down onto the horn. When she still did not move, he wound his window down.

"Hey, LADY-"

Maggy waved them off, then walked off to the side to allow them to drive. With a grunt, the officer reached to wind his window back up, and before he did, Miss Dalene pulled a gun out from her bodice and shot him in the head. His foot pressed down, with dead weight, onto the accelerator panel, and as the van rolled by, the woman clung to the back and began to climb it.

Price was in for a hell of a ride as the van sped up.

When the gunshot had gone off, one of the guards to Price's side hopped to his feet. The other instinctively ducked. They both pulled their guns from their holsters, and the braver of the two got to opening the ceiling window of the van and propping himself uptop, while the other stood closer to Price, gun tucked to his chest.

The latter of which tapped his partner's leg.

"What the fuck's going on?"

"We're speeding up, Bridge. Driver probably heard gunshots, forgot to turn the siren on. No one's in pursuit, but -"

The van clipped a car as it veered off-course. The driver was dead, with no one in the passenger. The guard on top struggled to stay on as the vehicle's back end swerved and shifted, before it tipped over and skidded across the ground, sending him careening violently to the ground.

The passengers inside were in for a ride just as well.

As the vehicle swerved and tipped, Maggy shifted her weight and position just enough so that she would skid safely on its side once it came to a rather violent stop. She fell onto her backside with a high "uff!" Her arms flew up, but Maggy was okay. She was just whiny.

"Mistah Priiiiiiice! Hug the ground, willya?" said Maggy, just as she slipped something else out of that plentiful bodice of hers. She latched it on the side of the vehicle and pressed a few buttons before hopping off and trotting away. She let out an enthusiastic, but fake, "Ahhhhhh!"

Boom! went the dynamite. Or, rather, small bomb. A hole was blown in the side of the van.

He wasn't coming out that easy.

Because, well, he couldn't. The van wasn't exactly built for ensuring the prisoner's safety when it one-eightied, and as a result, his head had bounced off the back of the steel-plated van like it was in the hands of Mr. Magic Johnson himself. That, and his wrists were still cuffed to the back.

The guard, however, wasn't. He had a gun, and as shaken and shaky as he was, he'd stuck his hand out the hold with it and shot off a few rounds at Mz. Maggy Dalene.

Maggy danced, but she knew that the man's aim wouldn't be great. She had quickly darted to the underside of the van, pressing herself next to a still-spinning wheel. She waited for the gunfire to cease before she spoke.

"I got another bomb for ya, Mistah copman. I won't be afraid to blow us all sky high, so ifya could put down the gun, I'd be appreciative."

The guard withdrew his gun, and pressed himself to the inside of the van. He unclipped his radio from his belt, and clenched his hand around it.

"This is prisoner transport vehicle ... 213, I need backup. One - two - officers down. Unsub is armed with guns and explosives. We're on, uh... Broad? Shit."

He shoved his radio into his belt again.

"Alright. I'll put the gun down. What do you want, anyway? You want this scumbag?"

Meanwhile, Price was still locked in to the opposite side of the van, and it having been rolled on it's side made his binds painful to wake up to. All he'd seen and heard were static and static at the time being, though.

"Oh, naw! Not yet!" said Maggy, who had silently climbed to the top of the vehicle. She slid down the hole in it's side like a snake, jumping down onto the man's shoulders. Her legs clenched around his neck.

"I want you dead first, shugahmuffin!" With a twist of her thighs, his neck cracked, and they both fell to the ground, the officer silent, and Maggy giggling.

She rolled onto her feet, walked toward Price, and crouched next to him. "Heeeey honey. What's up? Sorry if yah got a little bump on y'head. I didn't expect the ride to get that rough, but the driver treated it like a no-brainer!"

Her head lashed back in a laugh, just as she reached forward to jangle Price's cuffs. "Aw, shit. Price, we're gonna hafta cut off your hands!"

The radio squawked inside the Ford Crown Victoria, and a gloved hand snaked out to snag it and hit the answer button.

"213, this is Car 114, responding to your backup call." Pressing two quick buttons on the dash of the car, 213's location blipped in the onboard computer system. Behind the wheel, Specialist Vernon DuPuis slurped the last of his disgusting coffee, flicked the siren to a wail, and gunned it towards the location in a sudden spurt of wheels and scorched asphalt.

He was two minutes away.

"If you cut off my hands, we can't follow up on that deal with a pair of these -" He thrusted his wrists against the restraints again, it offering a loud clang, "- and the bedpost, like you wanted. Remember, doll?" he asked, tenuously. "Where's the other guard? Did you take care of him? 'Cause, darlin', we need to burn rubber if we're going to make it anywhere, and we can't do it in the middle of plain sight and a squadron after our asses." he hissed.

He seemed to be regaining his senses well enough.

"Check the front seat. I don't think the guards keep the keys on them, in case somethin' goes wrong and the prisoner or one of their friends gets a bust, like this."

"Oh! You're such a jokah, Price. Always a kiddah. Of course I wasn't gonna cut off your hands! Only if the cops get here first." she said, last sentence in a deadpan, as if absolutely serious.

"I dunno where the othah cop is. I think he's knocked out somewhere. Aw, well. We can hope he gets run over by some really unlucky guy in traffic!"

She hopped out of the hole in the side of the van, her feet kicking in the air before she slid on her belly to the door. She tossed it open, avoiding any glass, and began to search the place.

"What'd the guy say on the radio, Price?" she asked the man in the back. "Some people comin'? Answer 'im, willya?"

"Dispatch, this is Car 114," Vernon stated, his hands expertly maneuvering through traffic, shooting through an intersection, squealing around a corner, and firing through an alleyway to cut off a few precious seconds. Officer's lives were at stake.

"Reports are of officers down, unsub armed and dangerous, and a present being unwrapped. I'm looking to - shit," he blared his horn as a Taxi nearly cut him off - "I'm looking to cut off the escape route leading away from the van. I'll push them to you."

The screaming of his siren exploded over a short hill, where the upturned van lay about a mile down the road. Vernon narrowed his eyes, checked the strap on his flak jacket, and pressed down on the accelerator, his fingers moving to unbuckle his seat belt, and unlock his door.

The screaming car closed the distance rapidly.

"Yeah, believe it or not, Magdalene, a radio requires a set of fuckin' hands to operate, so if you'd hurry up."

He drew a breath in.

"The radio said he's coming. He said -" Price raised his voice. "- That he's gonna cut out ... The escape route leading away from the van? He's going to push them to ... you? Whatever the fuck that means. Maybe they have another car."

He stomped his feet against whatever flat surface he could find underneath his shoes, until he found his way to the body of the officer. When his feet got there, he kicked that.

"Just get me out of these fucking things so we can ditch out through a side road."

"Alrigh', alrigh', holdje whoreses!" she chanted, searching the dead body of the officer she'd shot. Nope, no keys on him. Armrest compartment? Nope.

Hmm.

Maggy snapped. Glove compartment! She opened that up and found something inside. The keys jingled in her hand. "Found 'em! Trynna play a lil' game of hide and go seek. Hey, Price, you think we can play that when I getche outta here? It ain't for kids, though!" She got out of the front, climbing onto the side of the van, and watched the police car approach.

"Aw, fuck. One moment, hon. He's here already!" She drew her pistol, aimed carefully for once, and pulled the trigger. The bullet flew right for the cop's front tire and popped.

"Alright, hon, comin'!" she sang, jumping into the back.

When the hiss of the front tire reached Vernon's ears, the car went into a slightly out of control, swerve-y mess that resulted in sparks flying from the wheel, licking the sides of the Vic and the asphalt as his knuckles went white on the steering wheel. Giving up trying to regain control, he shifted his hands from the wheel itself to the axel with one hand, the other reaching to grab the standard issue shotgun from the passenger seat and strapping it around his neck.

He then twisted the axel, hard, to the left, and opened the door.

The car went skidding into a slide, the unbuckled seatbelt catching in the wheel and holding it as it careened into the sideways van, slamming against it with no small amount of force. Instants before impact, the cop bailed, a hazy green bubble flashing around him as his body hit the tarmac, performing two somersaults and coming to one knee, shotgun cradled in his hands. The bubble disappeared as quickly as it appeared as he leveled the firearm towards the back of the Van, approaching it in slow, measured footsteps.

"Wing City Police!" he barked, cocking the gun, "Step out of the vehicle with your hands behind your head, weapons on the ground. Do it, now."

"Hey. Mag." Price started. "Unlock me. I have an idea that'll get us out of here scot free, if that's the only cop out there."

He pulled at the cuffs again.

"You got to let me do some of the muscle work, and that's not just 'cause I've almost been concussed and my wrists're almost severed. Let me go out first, but wait up."

Maggy looked toward the exit of the van that she'd made with the bomb, then crawled over Price, not missing out on her chance to tease by letting the unlocking of his cuffs last a second or two longer while she poked her face in his.

"Don't strain y'self on this guy, mmkay? I needja more than he does!"

"Alright! We're coming!" Price shouted, after an amount of silence. He was quick to give Maggy the cold shoulder and place his hands on the utility belt of the dead officer. He slipped one of the tools into the palm of his hand, and crawled out of the side of the overturned van.

He put his hands on the back of his head, and whatever he'd taken was neatly tucked into his palm.

"I got a rep on the street. Sometimes people do things for me that I don't ask them to, thinkin' it'll earn them some credit. I'm not lookin' to be affiliated with this." he said, to DuPuis, and approached steadily.

The gun remained rigid, trained police's eyes - unusually green, like sapphires - narrowing from behind the barrel of the gun. "That's enough," he said, jerking the gun slightly. "Stay right where you are."

There was a half-dozen feet between the two men, but the disadvantage was on DuPuis' side and he knew it. He couldn't remove a hand from the gun to radio in the situation, change the plan. There was at least another accomplice in the van, and he couldn't stall the man forever.

"On the ground, legs spread apart," DuPuis said, his hand tightening around the butt of the gun as he advanced two steps forwards.