Flash Fic Challenge: Golden Goose

 Golden Goose

Sam pelted down the storm drain as fast as e could go, eyes peeled for the opening to the sewer itself. Spotting it at last, e slowed just enough to lower emself down, feeling with eir feet for the ledge. It was narrow, and damp with the stinking, sloshing, dregs of the sewer water and e scuttled along the memorised route.

Somewhere along here there should be a suitcase containing the spare radio to contact eir bosses - if e could find it before the hounds caught up with em. E glanced back over eir shoulder, ears pricked for the telltale cry of discovery, and then hurried on.

E had to get the information through - and hope that the traitor didn't intercept it. Only then would Upstairs know where, and when, and how to target their precision strike.

The suitcase, when e found it wedged into a tiny hole, was intact, as was the radio and the coding pages. Sam took a moment to catch eir breath, and then hurried on, finally clambering up through a manhole, and along a different storm drain into the cellar of a wrecked safehouse.

Eir fingers shook as e set it all up for contact, and e scrubbed grimly at eir tear-streaked face. Once this was done the hounds would probably catch em and tear em down like the rest of eir cell. Like the rest of eir friends. E had survived the last attack only by sheer luck, and luck like that couldn't last.

E took a breath, calmed emself, coded the message with steadier hands, and opened the channel. "Goose reporting in. Message is as follows..."