Karen was folding the last of her clothes when the text message made her phone buzz around the kitchen table. Just barely reading the message, Franklin's musical tone then began chiming out.

"Man, Karen, did you read this text from Michael?"

"I didn't get one from him. Got one from Trevor, though. Why? What's going on?"

"Trevor wants us to meet him down in Vespucci Beach."

"Well, that's pretty far from me. I'm not sure if I'll go. Do you know what's happening?"

"Something crazy, no doubt. You sure you can't come? I sure as hell don't want to be with those two crazy assholes all by myself."

She looked around, sighing. So much for taking a day off to clean.

"Yeah, Frankie, I'll be on my way."

"Cool. I'll see you there."

Tucking her clothes away in the proper drawers and tossing the basket into her closet, she changed and grabbed the keys to her old Bobcat. This had to be something good for Trevor to want to drag her all the way from Sandy Shores into the city.

"""""

The few hours drive left her leg cramping as she found her way through the small maze of streets and back alleys. When she arrived at the destination, she saw all their vehicles crammed into the spaces underneath the stairway. Parking behind Franklin, seeing him just open his car door, she greeted him as they each stepped out of their vehicles.

"You seriously just got here? You're like two hours closer to this place than I am."

"I think you underestimated just how much I don't want to hear them bicker, home girl. You know they bound to argue every time they get together."

"I'm kind of getting use to it now. It's like not having to change a record to listen to it."

"Yeah, a broken fucking record."

Franklin headed up the staircase first, and she followed, happily stretching her legs as she took the steps two at a time up to the apartment door.

Trevor's voice gripped her as Franklin opened the door.

"With the stars in his eyes... "

"It's not like that," Michael then said.

"What's not like that?" Franklin asked. Karen shut the door behind them as they walked into the apartment. She did her best to ignore the mess she came to see, knowing that it had to be Trevor's doing. He wasn't one for cleaning.

"Hey! Hey there," Trevor greeted them. "You and him, the old father-son issues. Gives me the fuckin' creeps."

Franklin only held amusement on his face as they watched a man kneeling, massaging Trevor's leg. "How's the leg rub?"

"Oh, it's excellent," Trevor exclaimed, pointing to the man. "You wanna go?"

Franklin simply chuckled. "No, I'm good, dog."

"Hey, I-I called you boys here to discuss this job that I've been planning."

Karen watched Franklin bump fist with Michael and took a place standing behind Franklin as he approached an empty wall on which Trevor had things written. She backed up after a few moments, taking a seat on a stool.

"The fuck are you talkin' about?" Michael asked as he held out his hands.

"Shut the fuck up, Michael, alright? You owe me."

"Hey, did you talk to Lester?" he asked Trevor, brushing off his comment.

"I called him," Trevor said calmly. "He's in the hospital or something, alright? We keep him out and we get twenty percent. Well, unless of course, you go states again and, uh, have me arrested."

"Hey, it wasn't like that," Michael defended.

"It better not have been," Trevor told him in an eerily sedated tone.

"Yeah, like you give a fuck?" Michael shot back.

"Oh, see I give a fuck, Michael. It's a position. A fucking viewpoint, alright? Like God. Like evolution. Like anything else. Sunshine, boredom, lies. That's what we got. Other people, they have other worlds, but for me? I'm like a vulture just circling the desert lookin' for fuckin' corpses, y'know? A carrion eating motherfucker. Do you understand that?"

Karen's brow twisted in surprise. Whatever had gone on between the two of them was much deeper than she imagined.

"Wow... " Michael slowly said as he began clapping. "Whoo! Bravo! You fucking idiot!"

Franklin seemed to want to ignore their intimate one-on-one time, trying to get right to the point of the meeting.

"Man, I still don't get the score. What's the fuckin' plan?"

Trevor turned back to the board. "We got Floyd, alright? Now, Floyd is going... not... Fuck, get outta here, alright."

Karen looked to the side of the room to see the jumpy man disappear from view.

"Now Floyd here works at the port. He puts me under Merryweather security who are running some tests out at sea for Uncle Sam. We're gonna take whatever it is they're testing."

Michael shook his head with disbelief.

"Now," Trevor continued. "Got a couple buyers lined up. I guarantee no problems and no major heat." He walked away from the board, leaving the three a little stunned and slightly confused. "Let's get going, alright? Let's take our slightly-past-it-vibe to an airfield where I've got a sub, I got a chopper, I got everything that we need. Alright, let's do this, ya fucks!"

Trevor passed each of them clothes out of a bag.

"I'll change in the bedroom here," Michael said, taking the wetsuit Trevor handed him and shutting the bedroom door behind him.

"Man, why ain't you just tell us to wear some black clothes?" Franklin asked as he changed into a long sleeved black shirt. "Wouldn't that have been easier?"

Trevor seemed to think about it for a moment. "Easier, sure. But this is bonding time, Frankie. This is a rare opportunity for us to come closer to one another, alright?"

"I'm about as close to you as I want to be, homie," he said before walking into a second bedroom and shut the door.

"What about you?" Trevor asked Karen as she unzipped the black hoodie in which she was handed. "Not going to join those two fucks in complaining?"

Karen flashed him a smile as she pulled the hoodie on. "I'm just fine." She fluffed her hair out from underneath the hoodie and stepped into the bathroom. "I must have been the only one with any sense to wear black in the first place."

Trevor quickly changed, slipping on his own black hoodie. "I hope an extra large is okay," he told her, watching as she combed her hair back with her fingers and neatly twisted a bun in place.

"Hey," Michael said as he stepped out from the bedroom. "Give her a break, T. You're breathing down her neck."

He straightened up at Michael's words. "I was just making sure that she was comfortable, Mikey. I'm not a rude fuck like you are."

"Can we not do the whole arguing thing today, huh, okay? This isn't exactly going to be a walk in the fucking park."

"Man, Kar, didn't I tell you that they'd do nothing but bicker?" Franklin asked, sucking in a breath through his teeth.

"Ready to go?" Michael asked, ignoring the look Trevor was burning into him.

"Ready as a fucking ripe peach to be plucked," he then commented, following Michael out the door.

Karen followed behind Franklin, pulling the door shut as they descended the stairs.

"Sandy Shores Airfield, if you please," Trevor called out.

"We'll take my car," Michael said. "It's the least conspicuous."

"Sure thing, dog," Franklin said opening a back passenger door, taking a seat behind Trevor. Karen followed suit on the other side.

"Sandy Shores? That's quite a distance," Michael commented as he started up his sedan.

"What's with this guy?" Trevor asked.

"Man, I didn't realize we was going all the way out there either," Franklin added.

"I've been told your generation are workshy... repeatedly," Trevor started. "But this is the first time I've seen it for myself. You won't leave the city for the biggest take of your life?"

Frank sighed. "Man, it's not like that."

"Well, what is it like, huh? You think the world owes you a living? You want money and respect, but you won't cross the street to get it?"

"That useless millennial shit is more of a middle class thing. Where I'm from, hustling is still hustling... and going halfway across the state is still, uhh, going halfway across the state."

"Yeah, well, Sandy Shores is the global headquarters for TP Inc., okay? So we gotta make the trip."

"TP Inc.?"

"Trevor Philips Industries, my company," he informed.

"Industries or incorporated?" Michael questioned. "If it's TP Inc., it'd be Trevor Philips Incorporated. Just sayin'."

"You're mocking me," Trevor said sarcastically. "Nice. Is it so strange that I've made a success of my life? I know that wasn't what you wanted for me when you ran off, but still... "

"Trevor," Michael warned.

"It's a business, Michael, an honest American business, and there aren't many of them left. Hey, you know this airstrip we're going to, we're managing it."

"Yeah," Michael chuckled out. "I hate to think of what you did to the last managers."

"The Lost MC LLP experienced an unexpected downturn. We had to step in," he said matter-of-fact.

"The Lost Motorcycle club," Michael remarked and then laughed. "Yeah, you're a serious businessman, T."

"I cannot believe this," Trevor started again. "The hard working entrepreneur is getting shit from a guy so lazy he retired in his thirties, and then from this other guy whose sense of entitlement is so strong he asks, 'How far we have to travel?' when he's offered a job he ain't even qualified to do! This is why the country is screwed! There's not enough mes, there's too many yous!"

Karen bit her lip to stop herself from laughing.

"Yeah! A country full of yous," Michael scoffed out. "That's just what this world needs."

"Shit would get done. It would be Darwinian."

"Hey, look, dude," Franklin cut in. "We helping you out, but if you think you'd be better off on your own... "

"No, no, no," Trevor said quickly. "Hey, look, hey, okay, gah. Let's all just calm down, alright? We have a scored to take. There is profit to be made. I mean, don't that beat getting picked up by G-men and forced to work for free?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, alright," Michael said, clearly having had enough of Trevor's rants. "Talk us through exactly what's going on."

"We're going out to Sandy Shores... "

"I know that part."

"My guys will meet us there, they'll have the submarine. I'm going to get into said submarine, then... Wait, hold on," he said adjusting in his seat so he could look at Michael. "You had the flying lessons, right?"

"Hey, I came prepared. I didn't know what I was preparing for, but I'm feeling pretty confident in the air."

"Good, good, good."

"And what's the next part of the plan?" Karen then asked, locking eyes with Trevor as he suddenly looked towards her. He took a moment, staring, before he turned to face forward in his seat and continued on with more.

"There's an army chopper at the airfield. You all are getting into it. Michael's flying. He's going to take off, pick up the submarine with me in it, and flying out to a point off the coast. You're going to drop me into the ocean. I'll pilot the sub down to find this device the government's been testing. I'll get it, surface, you'll fly me back to the airfield."

"What kind of device?" Franklin asked, a bit frustrated.

"What kind doesn't matter, how much we'll be paid for it does matter."

They approached the air strip, Michael parking next to a hangar. To their left was a massive cargo helicopter. Karen also noted a yellow submarine a few yards away.

"This is our airfield," Trevor said as he stepped out of the vehicle. "How about it?" He walked over to the yellow machinery. "And here's my submarine. Floyd, Wade, stand by the hangar."

"I guess this is our chopper," Franklin said as he and Michael opened the doors to it.

Karen took a seat in the back, next to a large machine gun. She just barely buckled herself in as the helicopter lifted off, hovering over the submarine after a few minutes. She had a bad feeling about this, but she wasn't about to cast doubt on Trevor. He may not have clearly planned this out, but he had put a lot of thought into it. On the earpiece, she heard crackling while Trevor was speaking, and then Franklin came through clearer.

"Trevor, you got your company name sprayed all over this chopper, but, uhh, everything else about it says military."

"Yeap," she heard Trevor confirm. "I got it from the military base."

"And there's all this military hardware in the back. Guns and whatnot."

"Mhm," Trevor said. "This thing gets hot, they'll come in handy.

Then she heard Michael's voice.

"Hey, I thought it wasn't getting hot? You said no major heat. In fact, you guaranteed it."

"It's a score, Michael," Trevor simply said. "Even if you don't anticipate heat, you prepare for it. That's the code."

"That's why I don't take scores. Not anymore. I'm out of the game, man. What am I doing?"

"Oh really? You don't take scores?"

"No!" he denied. "Not anymore."

"What say you, Franklin?" Trevor asked in a tone that made Karen's lip twist in laughter.

"I say this is a conversation between you two," the younger man replied.

"So," Trevor pushed. "That wasn't you guys, then, at the Rockford Hills Jewel Store?"

"Hey, that's right around the corner from my house, T," Michael stated. "I mighta been there buying something for Amanda. I certainly wasn't robbing it."

Karen rolled her eyes at that.

"Oh-ho-ho-oh, okay, my mistake," Trevor's voice said with a sarcastic note. "It was a pretty tight job though, eh? The planning was there, they went in, right? They got out clean. I mean, there were some problems, but they kept their heads, right? Heh, pulled it off."

There was slight moment of quietness.

"Alright, alright," Michael finally said. "It was us. Of course it was us. Any other clowns would be in Bolingbroke now."

Listening to the chatter between Michael and Trevor as they finally reached the destination, Karen's nerves hadn't eased any. She looked on as Trevor was dropped into the waters below them. After a few minutes, she heard Trevor's voice again.

"Ah, it's working! I'm picking up a signal."

Blocking out whatever else he was saying, Karen looked around, carefully observing anything unusual. Michael must have been reading her mind because the next words she heard him say mirrored how she felt.

"Come on, get to it, man. An ex-army helicopter hovering by this platform's going to raise suspicions."

She really must give De Santa more credit.

"You see anything interesting?"

"Just rocks so far," Trevor answered. "Oh, wait, here it is. It's been secured to the seabed. I'll see if I can pry it loose."

After a few more minutes, Trevor's voice crackled through again.

"Got it. I'm surfacing."

As Trevor was ascending, Franklin spoke.

"Hey, man, so you, uhh, got the thing... what is it?"

"We'll know what it is when we run some tests," came Trevor's reply.

"Well, what it look like? What you think it is?" Franklin asked some more.

"Ahh, best guess, it was hooked into the rock, maybe on a fault line, so... Could be a seismic suppressor to combat earthquakes and tsunamis. Or, no!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Potentially it's like a fusion reactor running on sea water."

"Like, nuclear?" Franklin asked.

"Yeeaaahh, the good kind of nuclear."

"And is this what your buyer was after?"

"Yeah, oh, for sure. We'll be paid, Frankie. We will be well paid."

Just then, the yellow of the submarine popped up from the watery depth below. Karen held on tightly as the aircraft descended to the water's surface.

"Lift me up," she heard Trevor push. "Let's go."

Once the helicopter had properly attached to the submarine, she heard Trevor's voice again.

"Alright, we're hooked up. Now, let's go back to Sandy Shores."

She exhaled, feeling slightly better now that they were heading back to the airfield.

"Push the stick, Michael. We got to move," Trevor urged. "'Cause I found this thing using an app on my phone, which means the private army guarding it can find it pretty easy, too."

"Really, Trevor?" Michael groaned. "That's just great."

A few minutes passed before Karen noticed the small, black speedboats funneling towards them. She didn't hesitate to take a hold of the machine gun nestled next to her and aim at them.

"And here they are," Trevor rasped out with amusement. "Merryweather boats coming at speed!"

Franklin shifted into the back, quickly strapping himself in before taking up the machine gun opposite of where Karen sat shooting at the boats. A boat exploded somewhere beneath them, Karen aiming at another one following it.

"Grab those guns and get those guys off our ass," Michael asserted. "More boats and a chopper coming from the right!"

"Hold steady," Franklin calmly said. "Here we go!"

In a few swift shots, the pilot to the helicopter attacking them fell out, landing into the ocean. The helicopter itself soon followed, spiraling into a watery grave.

"They're out!"

"Hey, you picking these guys up?" Michael asked. "More of these Merryweather choppers, right there!"

Karen heard the loud shouting from the pilot inside the second attack helicopter that was hovering close to her side. With a shaky aim from Michael having to dodge, she took a few shots at the pilot, relieved when the helicopter ceased to fly alongside them. However, another soon took its place, and she continued to shoot.

"Ah! Here's another one!"

Karen impatiently tapped at the buckle on her seat belt, and climbed to a machine gun mounted on a middle, back platform. With a fortunately lucky easy shot, she took out another pilot.

"That's the last one I see!" she said into her piece.

"I think that's all of them for now," Franklin said.

"Alright, keep on going to the airstrip," Trevor directed.

Sighing, Karen slouched back, breathing deeply for a few minutes before moving back to her seat.

"What was that, T?" Michael asked, the aggravation clearly heard in his voice.

"I told you," Trevor said lightly. "That was Merryweather."

"Those choppers," Franklin put in. "Man, that ain't normal private security guards."

"Yeah, you're right," Trevor told him. "I have it on good authority that they're actually a lizard army who've taken human form to do the bidding of the new world order."

Karen wasn't entirely sure if Trevor was joking or not.

"I hope you can flip this thing fast, 'cause I don't wanna see those reptile buddies of yours ever again," Michael said to him.

As the sandy area appeared closer to their horizon, Karen realized that the helicopter was slightly smoking from somewhere. They must have taken more damage than she cared to notice while they were fending off the attack. But the respite she felt as Michael slowly lowered the lumbering aircraft left her uncaring about whatever would happen to this piece of machinery.

With the submarine released and the smoking helicopter touched down, she nearly jumped out of her seat, hearing Trevor shout with victory. Before he could say anything, she saw Lester hobbling over to the submersible, pushing Wade out of his way.

"Do you know what you've fucking done?!" he yelled out. "The wire is going fucking crazy!"

Trevor jumped down from the side of the submarine. "Oh, and good to see you, too! What's it been, huh? Ten years?"

"After this, the government won't care how long it's been," Lester told him. "They're going to put you and everyone you ever knew on their kill list. And you!"

Karen saw his finger immediately shoot to Michael, who was just climbing down from the pilot's seat.

"I thought you would be smarter than this!"

Michael held his hands out. "What did I do?"

"Stealing a super weapon to sell to the Chinese!"

"Damn, T," Franklin said. "This some nuke or some shit?"

"I thought you said you spoke to him?" Michael said, baffled by Trevor's thoughtlessness.

"Yeah, I did!" Trevor bumbled out. "Okay? Kind of. I mean, he was all woozy and shit. It doesn't matter, alright? It's done. We've got it."

"Well, we could put it back," Lester said. "Drop it in the sea. By the time they get a salvage operation together... "

"No!" Trevor immediately negated.

"Oh, so you want a drone circling your trailer?"

Michael stepped up some. "We'll get you another score, Trevor."

Karen watched as Trevor paced, clearly upset by the fact that it seemed as though he had no choice. He took a few deep breaths before turning to Michael.

"You owe me! Wade, get in that chopper! Listen to whatever this fuckin' moron has to say."

"Okay!" Wade called out as he began jogging to the helicopter.

"Alright," Michael conceded, "and on that note, I'm outta here. You won't be seeing me back here in a long time."

"Hey!" Trevor called after him. "We need a score! Remember!"

Lester waved an arm at the duo, done with the nonsense as he boarded the helicopter.

"Man, I thought I was done not gettin' paid for these licks," Franklin complained as they headed towards Michael's sedan.

"Hello? Me too!" Trevor shouted.

Deciding that she was completely done with this whole situation as well, Karen slid into the passenger seat behind Franklin.

"Well, that was fucking insane," she commented softly as the car slowly started to roll away. As they pulled off, she glanced back to see Trevor slamming his head into some wooden pallets repeatedly.

"Yeah, well, he's fucking insane, K," Michael stated. "You two are with us for the long haul, so you'll see quite a bit of that."

Yes, Karen was quite sure they would.