Incorporated with DeepSeek
Next to the Shadows of the Caribbean and its extended coast line a new scene had emerged. When no one came anymore to shut down the heavy weed smoke bars, the Jazz came back past Miami and New Orleans deep into Los Angeles South Central District.
It was no clean New York style. The White Boy style still called as such even so colour stopped mattering by ACP bullet rains in underground wars during the downfall of society and world order, was different.
This was sweaty Mix Land Dixi and made you dance. Tight Salsa, sweet Rum, Fruity Cocktails, TexMex and Creol Cuisine and that language had come back. Openly, distinctively.
The All Heat Jazz Crew lived in a Fly Boat that fit them five and their instruments and that was about it. If the gig did not pay for taxi, fuel, food, fuel and smoke the gig did not happen. They had a full calendar in their pocket Cyberdeck and no worries at all what so ever, except if any sweet honey would complaine that the air plane would take off with them, but their place was one lap and that the whole time.
They had played all places from Caracas to L.A. and turned down all Resident Offers. Touring... it was a lifestyle.
The air in the Boom Boom Room was thick enough to bottle. A sweet, heavy cocktail of hydroponic weed, salt-spray, and the collective sweat of bodies moving as one. On a low stage wreathed in neon and smoke, the All Heat Jazz Crew was deep in the pocket. Kaito’s fingers were a blur on the fretless bass, locking with the hypnotic, polyrhythmic pulse of Chavez’s congas. Silas, his synth-sax wailing a melody that was part heartbreak, part street-level prophecy, closed his eyes, lost in the sound. River, the deck-savant, wasn't playing an instrument; she was conducting the room's cybernetic nervous system, her fingers dancing across a deck, weaving a shimmering lattice of light and sub-bass that you felt in your teeth.
And then there was their frontman, Sol. He didn't sing so much as exhale poetry in a gravel-and-rum baritone, his vocal modulator adding a subtle, haunting echo.
*“Neon bleed on a wet tar street…*
*Data-ghost sigh, with a false-ID beat…*
*They sold the sun, now we dance in the night…*
*Burning so bright… burning so… right…”*
The set ended not with a crash, but a simmering fade. The room erupted. As the sweat-cooled haze settled, a man materialized at the edge of the stage. He was wrong for the room. His linen suit was too crisp, his posture too rigid, a glacier in a lukewarm sea. He moved with the unnerving stillness of someone who had bodyguards lurking in the periphery.
He introduced himself as Mr. Albright. He had a proposal. Not a gig. A "logistical acquisition."
Back on their flyboat, the *Cayo Hueso*, rocking gently in a hidden cove off the South Central coast, he laid it out. The target was a corporate art curator named Anders Sloane. Sloane was a vulture who had profited from the "downfall," acquiring priceless cultural artifacts for a Euro-corpo syndicate. His latest prize: the original master recordings of the 21st-century Cuban jazz legend, Esteban "El Huracán" Valdez.
"He's having them physically transported on a private, automated hydrofoil from Havana to a private dock in Coral Gables tomorrow night," Albright said, his voice devoid of inflection. "He believes the digital age is a plague. Wants the analog masters in a vault. Permanently."
"Our interest?" Sol asked, rolling a thick, dark cigarette.
"Your payment is the retrieval of your own cultural history. A noble cause, I'm told." Albright’s smile was a thin, bloodless line. "And 50,000 New Yen, untraceable. Half now, half on delivery."
The Crew was silent. They were artists, not soldiers. But El Huracán was a saint in their world. Letting his soul be locked in a corporate tomb felt like a sin.
"It's not just the money," Kaito finally said, his bass resting against his leg like a sleeping lover. "It's the principle."
"Principles are a luxury," Albright replied. "But in this case, a funded one."
The plan was audacious, a thing of beauty and terror. The hydrofoil’s route took it past a derelict pre-Collapse casino, The Stardust, its skeletal form lit by sporadic neon and the patrol lights of CorpSec boats. The Crew wouldn't attack the hydrofoil. They would make it come to them.
The next night, the *Cayo Hueso* was anchored in the shadow of The Stardust. The air was humid, charged with the promise of rain. The Miami skyline glittered in the distance, a cold, indifferent jewel.
"Showtime," River whispered, jacking into the local Grid. Her world became a river of ice-cold code. She found the hydrofoil’s navigation signal—a sleek, confident data-stream. With the delicate touch of a safecracker, she introduced a ghost. A false distress beacon, spoofed to look like it was coming from a sinking pleasure craft right in the hydrofoil's path. Corporate protocol was clear: render aid, avoid bad PR.
On the deck, Silas and Chavez watched through enhanced binoculars. They saw the hydrofoil’s running lights shift, its course altering towards them.
"Fish is on the line," Silas murmured.
As the hydrofoil slowed, Kaito and Sol slipped into the black, tepid water. They wore light sub-dermal armour and carried mag-lock grapples. Their approach was silent, just the slap of water against the hydrofoil’s hull. They ascended, shadows against polished fibreglass.
Inside, it was tomb-quiet. The only security was automated: two sleek Doberman-model drone-turrets that patrolled the central corridor on silent tracks. Sol held up a hand, his cybernetic eye scanning their heat signatures.
"River, we're visual. Two hounds, alternating patrol. We need a lull."
In the *Cayo Hueso*’s cabin, River’s fingers flew. She found the drone’s maintenance cycle override. *There.* A 90-second window where both would return to their charging cradles for a system diagnostic.
"Ninety seconds, starting… now," her voice was calm in their internal comms.
They moved like smoke. Down the plush corridor to the secure vault room. The door was a heavy thing of reinforced alloy. Kaito placed a small, shaped charge on the lock. The blast was a muffled *thump*, a punch to the gut of the silent vessel.
Inside, on a velvet-lined cradle, sat a sealed alloy case. The prize.
That’s when the world turned to fire and noise.
An alarm screamed, raw and piercing. Strobing red lights painted the corridor in frantic bursts. A voice, synthesized and cold, echoed from hidden speakers. "Unauthorized breach. Defense protocol activated."
They weren't just up against automated security. Albright had sold them out. Or Sloane was more paranoid than they knew.
From a hidden panel in the ceiling, a combat drone descended. It was smaller than the Dobermans, spider-like, with a needle-thin projectile weapon. It skittered across the ceiling, firing. A round whizzed past Sol’s head, embedding itself in the wall with a sickening *thwack*.
"Go! I'll hold it!" Kaito yelled, unslinging his bass. It wasn't just an instrument. With a twist, the body split open, revealing a compact, high-impact scattergun. The blast was deafening in the confined space, chewing a chunk out of the ceiling but missing the agile drone.
Sol grabbed the case. "Chavez, we're coming out hot! Get the engines spooled!"
On the *Cayo Hueso*, Chavez was already at the helm. The engines growled to life. Silas stood on the bow, his synth-sax now wired into the boat’s external speaker system. He began to play. It wasn't a melody. It was a weapon. A screeching, dissonant wave of sonic distortion aimed at the hydrofoil’s sensor suite.
The world became a cinematic nightmare of brilliant, fragmented color. The strobes. Muzzle flashes. The sickly green glow of the drone’s optical sensor. The distant, cool white of the city lights. Silas’s sax wailed against the percussive thunder of Kaito’s scattergun and the high-pitched whine of the drone’s motor.
Sol sprinted down the corridor, the case clutched to his chest. Kaito provided covering fire, backing towards the exit, the air thick with the smell of cordite and ozone.
They hit the deck and leaped for the *Cayo Hueso* as Chavez slammed the throttle. The flyboat surged forward, its hull slapping hard against the waves. The hydrofoil, its systems confused by River’ code and Silas’s sonic assault, began to drift.
But the spider-drone wasn't done. It clung to the hydrofoil’s railing, taking pot-shots. A round caught Silas in the shoulder, spinning him around. He grunted, but didn't stop playing, the sax now screaming in pain and fury.
Kaito, braced against the rocking deck, took a final, careful aim. The scattergun roared. The drone exploded in a satisfying shower of sparks and metal fragments.
Silence, broken only by the roar of their engine and Silas’s ragged breathing. The lights of Miami receded behind them. The only illumination now was the soft glow of their instrument panels and the moon on the water.
River emerged from the cabin, her face pale. "I scrubbed the logs. They won't have a clean ID. But they'll know."
Sol opened the alloy case. Inside, nestled in foam, were the spools of tape. The physical soul of El Huracán. He looked at his crew. Kaito, reloading his scattergun-bass. Silas, being patched up by Chavez, a grimace of pain on his face. River, her hands still trembling from the data-battle.
He lit his cigarette, the flame a tiny, defiant sun in the vast, dark night.
"Let them know," Sol said, his voice rough. "We're just the house band. And the night is always ours."
The *Cayo Hueso* carved a white scar through the black water, heading for the next gig, the next city, the next shadow, the stolen jazz a phantom heartbeat in its hold. The tour was still on. It had just taken a much harder, darker turn.
