Page 66 of Assassin

“Yes, she did, and she laughed the whole time while doing it too. I don’t understand the joke.”

That explained a lot.

Oh, and they didn’t have time to explain it to AI. Eventually, she’d figure it out.

When she got smarter.

“Whose vehicles are they?” Dakota asked, motioning toward the ones there.

“Ours,” MATE offered. “Elizabeth wanted you to be able to move around and be safe. All are outfitted with me. If they get ‘borrowed’ by anyone not in a vest, they won’t be usable. I am the key. They are just paperweights without one vest in each vehicle.”

Well, that was handy.

Maura moved around the blacked-out Hummers. They reminded her of her baby that got blown to smithereens. It had been Luke’s, and she missed it.

MATE picked up the change in her heartrate.

“She picked these for the Major,” MATE offered. “For the Snakes, she made sure there were motorcycles, and Stella too. Go wild.”

The woman giggled.

“HELL YEAH!” Stella said, getting on one of the bikes. “This is my kind of place.”

Her husband wasn’t nearly as amused.

“NO!” Zayn said. “Bad, bad Elizabeth. My pregnant wife is not riding a crotch rocket around NOLA. That’s never happening.”

Stella snorted.

Why?

She pictured it.

“Who can teach me how to steer one of these things?” she joked, busting her husband’s ass as she had one hand on the handlebars and one on her baby bump.

Eve raised her hand, and that had Zayn’s attention. So much so, that he pointed at her.

“I’ll get an exterminator or call Saint Patrick to drive the snakes out.”

MATE chimed in.

“There were no snakes in Ireland. Saint Patrick’s sole job was to drive out the Pagans, and the ideology of snake was used to mean evil.”

They all stood there.

“Um, okay,” Zayn said. “Anyway, get off the bike, Stella, or I’m dying here,” Zayn said. “For sure.”

Jagger snorted.

Their lives were a mixed bag of crazy, and MATE added to it.

“How about you show us around your place?” Maura asked.

That was all that the system had to hear.

MATE continued the tour.

“If you move to the control panel on the wall, I can show you something,” MATE offered.