StV: Florida Man, part two

"Okay," said Bridge, speaking into the driver's side window of the van. "I'm going to find a discreet place for you to appear. I'm going to be pretty tapped out after that, so use your comms and keep us posted. We'll have someone on the channel at all times, but it's going to be a couple of hours before I can pull you back or send anyone else to you. Once you've got a lock on your target, get your costumes on keep 'em on -- nobody shows their face until you're back here."

In the passenger seat, Cloudburst nodded. "If we have to abandon the van?"

Bridge shrugged. "If you have to, you have to. Try to leave it someplace where nobody will bother it for a day or two, and we can fetch it back later if we have to."

He paused, drew a breath, and his gaze went distant. Still distracted, he said, "All right. I'm going to put you through on the shoulder of the highway just a little southeast of Immokalee. All you'll have to do is come up to speed and merge onto the lane, and you'll be headed in the right direction."

The school's front driveway began to fade around them, overlaid with another landscape: a flat stretch of two-lane highway, grassy sand to either side, power lines running parallel to it behind a wall of brush on the right. There wasn't actually a shoulder, but when Bridge said, "Go," Tempest pulled forward onto the sandy ground and began accelerating. 

She was checking the traffic at the same time; fortunately, they had room to merge onto the highway and come up to full speed there. Cloudburst pulled out her phone and tapped the app for an encrypted connection to Team Kraken's support line. "Cell connection out here is crap," she observed, and shut off the camera. "Hey there. We're in Florida. How's Bridge doing?"

Jinx's voice came back, clear and comforting: "I've got him on camera. He's walking back towards the school."

"Good," said Tempest, loud enough for the microphone to catch it. "We're about an hour and a half from Everglades National Park, but maybe twenty or thirty minutes before we start hitting all the nature preserves. Gaunt, do you have a lock on our guy?"

Gaunt shook his head. "Not yet, but I've never been sure just what my range is."

"Well, we may be about to find out. Let us know."

"I'll contact you if we hear anything else on this end," Jinx added. "Also, keep an eye out for reporters -- Florida Man's gone and made national news, and I have an old friend monitoring CJIS info for anything that might help us."

"CJIS?" asked Tempest. 

"Criminal Justice Information Systems," Jinx told her. "It's, um, it's a national law-enforcement information system."

"Ah," said Tempest. "Good to know. All right, we'll keep you posted."

"Please do."