Prompt: Start a story with 'The bomb exploded.'

The bomb exploded, dispersing a wave of toxic gases and plastic fragments across the hoverway. Mouse swore and stamped her foot down on her brake pedal, pumping furiously as her tires scrambled for traction. Her motobike swerved to the side, forcing her broadside into the billowing cloud from the bio-bomb.

The pileup of holocars and rusting taxicabs stopped her swerving quickly, throwing the bike to one side and Mouse to the other. Gritting her teeth with frustration, Mouse picked herself up from the hoverway, watching the tendrils of electricity pulse under her palms, and surveyed the scene.

Bio-bombs weren't anything new to her, and her brother would kill her if she didn't wear her mask. Even so, the rancorous stench made her eyes water. A musky green cloud hung over the hoverway like some gluttonous deity poking feeble mortals with a stick. Holocars rammed into each other, brakes squealing with the sudden stops. Hopefully the air vents in the cars would diffuse the bio-bomb's poison, but Mouse knew with a stinking sense of finality that someone was going to die today.

Someone always did.

Her motobike lay propped against the hoverway's median, metal mangled and twisted. The bronze and steel sizzled when it came in contact with the bio-bomb's gas, thin tendrils of rust snaking their way across the bike's chassis.

"Godsdamnit." Mouse spat, lifting a handful of hair above the nape of her neck and growling with frustration. Of course the bio-bomb would take her most treasured possession with it as well.

She was deaf to the grinding metal and the screams that permeated the air, lifting her bike and flipping its switch. The dented metal gave a moan, hoverpaneling flickering briefly before raising the bike an inch above the hoverway. Below Mouse's feet the ground traffic trundled by, but she was too focused on the sky to notice. The low swish-swish of a helicopter caught her attention as she wheeled her rickety motobike past the blockade of wrecked cars, throngs of drivers puzzling out the situation. She saw flashes of blood as she passed, bandaged limbs and slings, but none of the wounds compared to that of the unfortunate man who hadn't been wearing his mask.

He was propped up behind his car's airbag, eyes wide and bulging. Thick, ropy veins stretched across his face and neck, pulsing with a poisonous green fluid. The same fluid trickled from his ears, nose and tear ducts, mingled with blood. Jaundiced skin stretched tightly against his skull. Mouse restrained herself from gagging and turned away, stomach roiling and head pounding with fear and shock.

It was time to go home.

Kato would worry if she was late, especially if he got wind of the wreck on the hoverway. She was still tugging her ruined motobike into the shed when he burst out of the door, eyes fiery and mouth set in a grim line.

People always said that Kato and Mouse looked similar, and in this instance she could see the resemblance. Dark, serious faces. Curly hair that was prone to grow up rather than down, which led to infinite bad hair days. Emerald-green eyes, although Kato's were dark and stormy, rarely letting in the light of a smile. When Mom and Dad took a joyride on the hoverway and never felt the need to mosey on back he stopped smiling altogether.

"Are you all right?" He demanded, grabbing Mouse roughly by the arms and surveying her. "I heard there was a bio-bomb activated on the hoverway! What happened to your knees?"

Glancing down, Mouse noticed the twin tears in her black pants, stained with blood. "Fell off my bike." She muttered, trying in vain to tug away from Kato's firm grip.

"Like hell, little Mouse." He smirked wryly. "I'm the everloving Lord if you fell off your bike."

Mouse scowled, even though she knew Kato was complimenting her. She was a damn fine motobike rider, even if she was only sixteen. "Well, I did. Nothing more."

"Helladamn, Mouse, I know you're lying to me. You smell like a garbage pit and you're motobike's trashed."

"Fine! I was there at the blast, okay? I hit a holocar and was thrown from my bike, but everything's a-okay now. See?" She gestured to her mask with wild hand motions, eyes narrowing.

Kato smirked again, although it was more of an apologetic smirk than before. It'll do. "Sorry, Mouse. I just want to make sure you're okay. Lordy knows it's a helluva world out there. Bandits with bio-bombs and the like."

"I ain't scared of no Bandit." Mouse seethed, shoving her way past Kato and into the house. "I'm going to get some bandages."

He didn't pursue her, which was unusual. Maybe he was just as rattled as her from the news of the bomb, and Mouse knew he was genuinely dedicated to her safety. But Kato hadn't seen that man collapsed in the car, piss-liquid and blood dribbling from his ears like a leaky faucet.

Their house was ramshackle but homey, with rugs to cover rotten floorboards and cheap paintings to hide water stains on the walls. Mouse loved every inch of it, from the leaning tower that spiked from the kitchen to the basement forever hidden in an inch of scummy water. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she ducked into the crawl space under the stairs and rummaged around the medical supplies, knocking the roll of gauze bandage further into the shadows of the storage space.

Biting back curses, Mouse shoved aside mouldering boxes and crawled forward to snatch the gleaming-white gauze when her hand touched something distinctly cold and rough -- a metal hatch.

"Kato never told me about no secret space." She whispered, tugging the latch open with one deft motion. A portion of the crawl space's floor swung up lazily, revealing a few square feet under the trapdoor that housed a small lockbox.

Mouse's heart leaped to her throat. Maybe Mom and Dad had stowed away some money! Cash was always scarce with Kato in school and Mouse working the occasional odd job, both struggling to make ends meet. She could repair her motobike, hell, maybe even get a new one that wasn't a cheap ten-year-old model! Kato could pay off his student loans and they would eat real beef for dinner, not the cheapo GM stuff society folks turned their noses up at. She could...

But the contents of the box turned her heart to stone and her blood to ice.

Inside the lockbox sat ten small hand-grenades, barely the size of her fist but menacing all the same. A small carved insignia on the side caused her to gasp and scramble away, hitting her head on the stairs.

These weren't ordinary grenades. These were bio-bombs. 

Despite all of her Lordy-given instincts telling her to run, Mouse reached forward and pulled every item out of the lockbox with trembling hands.

A radio, scratched and weathered with use. Mouse scraped a fleck of dirt off of the surface with a fingernail, her breathing too heavy in her ears.

A pistol that could fit in the palm of her hand, snub-nosed and gleaming black in the dim light. It looked well-oiled and carefully maintained. No carried guns around anymore, since the muzzle flash would ignite the gas of the bio-bombs that drifted through the air after a blast. The only time anyone would need a gun would be in the case of a bio-bomb. How utterly convenient.

A ski mask, the logo of the Bandits emblazoned on the forehead. Cruel and sharp like a knife, cutting into her heart.

"Mouse?" Kato's voice echoed in the hall, that same tinge of nervousness back again. "Mouse, you all right in there?"

He leaned into the crawl space and Mouse whirled, clasping the little pistol tight in both hands. Kato's eyes deadened as he watched her, chest rising and falling in an even rhythm. Slowly he raised his hands.

"You didn't tell me you were a godsdamned Bandit!" Mouse screamed, tears pricking at her vision. Her breath came short, denial pumping through her body like a drug.

Not Kato, please not Kato. The one who never lied to me, the one who never left me.

"I didn't know you were going to be on the hoverway today." He intoned, eyes failing to meet hers and instead focusing on the bandages at his feet. Heavy black boots like hers, worker's wear.

"Don't you think they need to be taught a lesson? The fancy folk. Don't want GMs. I heard they were wanting their own hoverway, so they can always be above us 'low class.'" He spat out the words like they were poison. Like they were a bio-bomb.

"So you godsdamn bomb them?" Mouse screeched, raising the gun level to Kato's head.

"The Bandits make sure we're on an even playing field. When things get too calm we shake 'em up a little bit. Watch the buggers dance, you know?" Kato lowered his hands and Mouse cocked the little pistol, preparing to blow his brains out.

"I trusted you." She whispered, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill over. She wouldn't cry here. Not here, not now.

"And that was your mistake." Kate shrugged. "I'm really sorry about this, Mouse. I think I loved you at some point there."

In one motion Kato leaped forward, twisting the gun from her grip and aiming it for her chest. Tears poured over Mouse's cheeks and she fell to her knees, feeling the scraped skin sting against the floorboards.

"Sorry, sis, but duty calls." He raised the gun, finger edging to the trigger.

"Godsdamn you, Kato Kane. I hope this hurts a bitch."

A second before Kato fired Mouse pulled the pin on a bio-bomb, gas exploding from the grenade as Kato fired.

The world exploded into fire and light, then nothing at all.