Haven City, Tuesday

[unborn_renegade]

The portal pulsed once, as it did, and spat out Jak and his visitor across the floor of his crappy slums apartment.

As per usual, the first thing that made it clear this place was Haven was the smell. The second thing was the sound of roaring alarms outside. The third

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[blondecanary]

"Hey, Dax." Dinah grinned at him, then said sotto voce to Jak, "Sweetcheeks?"

[unborn_renegade]

"Don't listen to him."

Jak eyed Dax a second time, then headed towards the stairs. "The stadium's across the city," he said. Sticking to the point? Such a good idea right now.

[blondecanary]

Dinah hurried to keep up with him as they hit the staircase, making a face at the rank city-smell-- worse than New Gotham, with more industrial edge to it, and then asked, "What are the sirens going off for? Or is that normal?"

[unborn_renegade]

"Probably someone who pissed off the Krimzon Guard," Jak said, a little darkly - and with a slight smirk on his face, because usually, those sirens sung for him. "Don't worry about it."

[blondecanary]

"'kay," Dinah said, with only a touch of nervousness. The Red Bad Guys she'd seen in various dream catch-ups had seemed like seriously bad guys to piss off-- but not that bright. And more focused on their jobs than anything. "I'll get in trouble for not having the right papers, if they stop me, right? So we'll just... avoid them."

[unborn_renegade]

Jak chuckled. "Yeah," he said, "Like I have papers."

Getting the point, Dinah? "C'mon," he said, and nodded down the stairwell.

[blondecanary]

"Going, going, gone..." Dinah said, climbing up as fast as possible, and squinting into the yellowish cloudy light of Haven when she hit the surface. "Wow. Nothing like--" Yeah, don't mention Sandover.

[unborn_renegade]

"It's better in the higher-class districts," Jak said, and didn't as much as flinch when Daxter hurled himself up and on his shoulder. "In the slums, everyone's left to sit around in their own shit."

[blondecanary]

Some of the very worst parts of New Gotham looked like this-- but without the flying hover cars and the massive guns mounted on turrets. Dinah tried not to gape as they kept up the pace to the stadium, looking up at the signs written in Sandover script, and the blinking neon and video screens. "It would be cool, if any of it got cleaned up. Do you ever get up to the up-town places?" She shot Jak a look. "Aside from on jobs?"

[unborn_renegade]

"I used to live near the port," Jak said; he spotted a large, four-seater zoomer left sitting out unattended, up ahead. "It smelled nicer." He was going for the zoomer without saying another word.

[blondecanary]

"Cool." She paused as they got closer to the zoomer, and then looked at Jak dubiously. "Jak? Dax? Why are we checking out the family-sized zoomer?"

[unborn_renegade]

Jak shot her a look halfway between confusion and amusement. "The stadium's like five miles from here," he said, and boosted himself up into the driver's seat.

[blondecanary]

"Jak," Dinah hissed, staring around fast, hoping like heck that no Krimzon Guard were around. "We could run it?" And leave Jak in no shape to drive a race, probably. She facepalmed. They so should've left earlier. Except she'd bet that never occurred to Jak.

"Just... tell me we're not gonna get caught?" she asked, getting into one of the back seats.

[unborn_renegade]

"I do this all the time."

Which wasn't necessarily a reassurance, but. Jak had the thing wired in seconds, and kicked the pedal. The zoomer wasn't as fast as the racing zoomers, not even as fast as the ones Jak had driven in Sandover. But it worked.

"Krimzon Guard only care if you jack their zoomers."

[blondecanary]

"Oh." The reassurance Dinah felt there was immediately swamped by another feeling of gaah as she realized how Jak would know that. "Good to know!"

So committing grand theft zoomer was just illegal as hell, not a real risk.

And yet, on top of that: zoomer! "I missed this!" Dinah held on tight to her seat, even if it wasn't as fast as the she remembered, wind whipping her hair around her face.

[unborn_renegade]

Hey, Jak was never going to be a very neat driver, so it's not like it wasn't an exciting ride. Eventually, they left the slums, took a few turns through some more advanced-looking neighbourhoods, and...

... came out over the richest part of the city, all canals and technologically advanced houses, a maze of lights and power lines.

"We're almost there!"