“I think the money might be in here.” Jimmy walked past Kurt and headed to the back of the semi-truck, heaving against the door handle. The back end swung open, the heavily armored doors banging against the side of the container.
Kurt approached, peering around the side of the door as Jimmy lifted his facemask and let out a shuddering breath. Inside the cargo area was a solid wall of cash on pallets. He scanned the back of the truck, eyes widening slightly as the read out came in as he expected. 3 Billion in dirty cash was there for the taking.
“Dibs.” Jimmy turned and grinned at him.
“We get it out of here in one piece and I won’t fight you on that.” Kurt scanned the cash again, smiling at the readout.
“I meant dibs on driving this thing.” He moved to climb into the cab, swinging open the heavy door and turning back. “Unless you have a higher rank in the Big Rig skill, that is?” Without waiting for Kurt to reply, Jimmy sat down in the driver’s seat and grinned, before flipping down his facemask and starting the engine. It roared to life, belching exhaust from its towering pipes before settling into a comfortable idle.
Kurt started jogging out to the garage exit, texting his attaché to bring his recently modified Ferrari to his location. After that was done, he swiped into his standing com channel with Jimmy and heard the rumble of the big rigs engine in his ear as well as behind him. “I have a vehicle I think will help, so you in the truck works for me anyway.”
“For the best really. I got an upgrade to my armor. Watch this.” Kurt turned to see Jimmy pulling the truck up behind him. It shimmered for a moment, and its exterior plates all shifted to match Jimmy’s armor; stony and leaking puffs of dust as it moved. After a few seconds, the effect faded. “My armor extends to any vehicles I get in now when I turn it on. Kind of sucks though, cause when its active it hurts me instead of the truck. Still, I have like half my armor left, so should be useful.”
“No doubt. I’m pretty sure once we open this door the entire city will be after us.” Kurt shook his head and hit the button for the garage door anyway, ducking out with his Glock raised. The alley was empty, aside from his attaché driving towards him in the Ferrari.
It was unrecognizable. The modification set that Drake had applied to it had turned the front end into a giant ramp. Oversized tires were covered by a sheet of steel that angled up to a windshield that had been replaced with heavy bulletproof glass that continued the shape of the front end. The car vaguely resembled a giant wedge, its rear end more or less normal aside from the heavy armor plating. It just looked like somebody had stapled a giant smooth faced ramp on the front of it. Kurt nodded with a smile as he slid behind the wheel.
“Whaaat…is that?” Jimmy had pulled the cab up out of the ramp and was leaned forward staring at Kurt’s Ferrari. “I’m not certain I approve.”
“Ha! Yeah it’s a little ugly.” Kurt revved the engine, hearing the difference with the new high-power modifications. He had told Drake that he needed as much acceleration from it as possible, and the new engine modifications certainly had that effect, he discovered as he boiled the tires just trying to turn the thing around. After a quick slipping turn, Kurt was facing the exit of the alley with Jimmy behind him. They pulled out into the empty street together, still moving cautiously and expecting an attack that didn’t come.
“Ok, so where are we taking this?” Jimmy asked once it was clear no enemies were nearby.
“Uhhh, good question. I guess I never planned that far ahead.” Kurt swiped up his phone and muted Jimmy for a moment, calling the Lace. Once the customarily short question of what he needed was posed, he thought for a quick second. “We need a high value pickup, large cargo container on a big rig truck.”
The voice on the other line hesitated a moment before the line clicked in his ear and suddenly Crane was on the other end. “The only vehicle the Lace has that can move something like that is the Stronghold. The pickup can only take place at an airport, and the nearest one to you is an active warzone. You risk the loss of your factions Stronghold, you understand this?”
“I do. Land the plane, we’ll be there.” Kurt hung up on Crane, flicking his coms back to Jimmy.
“…should probably not sit here much longer, why aren’t you answering me JACKASS!?” He had apparently been talking to Kurt the whole time he was on the phone with the Lace.
“I was getting us a pickup, we need to get to the airport. I already set a waypoint, but you should take lead. I’ll back you up.” Kurt moved his vehicle aside, finally seeing a small detachment of GoonStorm vehicles heading their way. They approached in formation, three Humvees with eager gunners in place.
Jimmy activated his armor and pressed the gas, sending the surprisingly quick big rig down the middle of the road towards them with grey dust billowing behind it as the gunners opened fire. Kurt tucked in behind the truck, paying attention to his map as the trucks swerved to avoid the stone plated juggernaut heading towards them. The center Humvee slid into his companion to the right, causing both of them to stop dead in the middle of the road as Jimmy hurtled down on them. Kurt cut his wheel to the left, slipping his front end under the hood and wheels of the final Humvee and sending it into the air in a listing fall. His car was driven forcefully downwards in the action, but the strike plates on the undercarriage protected it and him from too much damage. Jimmy slammed the cow catcher into the Humvees in front of him, causing both of them to flip over backwards in different directions.
“OK, this is fun. We should drive these things more often.” Kurt smiled at his friend’s quip, expanding his map and throwing it onto the side of his windshield blocked by the ramp. They were approaching the mouth of the concrete river bed that had been the scene of the Pirates devastating defeat the night before, and Kurt paused to look at his map once more, a scowl growing on his face as he watched a massive red glow encroach from the sea.
“Hey Jimmy, you seeing this?” He waited, becoming aware of a faint but growing sound in the air. Kurt rolled down his window a crack, immediately recognizing the noise as a series of fog horns.
“…Oh shit…It’s Kitty.” Jimmy hauled on the brakes, stopping the big rig in a small cloud of tire smoke as they passed over a bridge leading into the Downtown Cluster proper. Both men stopped their vehicles just on the other side, leaning out to look over the bay.
The red glow entered Kurt’s map range enough to become clear. It was a giant vehicle notification dot, attached to the Jahre Viking. It was hurtling towards the mouth of the concrete river bed at an unrealistic rate of speed, a massive wake of ocean water spraying up behind it as all of its air horns blared a warning.
“Uhhh…Jimmy?” Kurt looked up at the truck beside him to see Jimmy leaning out of the cab and staring at the giant ship with his mask lifted and obvious concern on his face. “She can’t actually destroy the city, right?” He paused, remembering their days in the fantasy game again as his eyes went wide. “Dumb question, never mind.”
“That ship would have grounded by now in real life, but this is a game dude. Her skillset is all based around piloting ships and burning things.” Jimmy paused a moment himself, before shaking his head and flipping his mask back down. “We need to get away from the river!”
They ducked back into their vehicles, and Kurt noticed several more vehicles heading directly for them; the fleet he had been expecting since they made it out of the basement garage. The ground beneath them started to shake, and neither men were able to drive as the vehicles started to shudder and jump on the road beneath them. A low rumble began to compete with the blare of the fog horns on approach, and within a few seconds nothing else could be heard. Kurt glanced behind them at the bay.
The Jahre Viking’s prow lifted slightly as giant plumes of flame and black smoke rose from its custom exhaust pipes. Kitty had apparently activated some kind of booster system just as the massive ship entered the bay. Its plume of sea water rose dramatically, and the single largest man made moving object in history ramm
ed home into the city. Kitty’s aim was impeccable, and the ship hit the river bed. The scream of tearing metal now filled the air alongside the other apocalyptic sounds caused by the ship. Her skill set had ensured that the gigantic ship did not behave as it would have in the real world, primarily altering its top speed. The heavily modified oil tanker took three hours to reach its top speed, but Kitty had taken it out to sea far enough to ensure that wasn’t a problem. Once the ship hit the riverbed, it was traveling at nearly eighty knots.
The Viking’s weight and momentum immediately began to tear the ship apart, but it absolutely would not stop. It slid screaming and blaring air horns its full length into the downtown cluster, smashing through low bridges and trailing a slick of oil thousands of gallons in volume as it went. As the slow screaming rumble of crushed concrete and tearing metal began to slow, the air horns cut out, and the ship listed to a stop. Large rectangular sections of the hull split loose and fell to the pavement in unison, and each produced a sputtering gout of thick black liquid.
“We need to GO!” Jimmy cut into Kurt’s stunned reverie, flooring the gas on the truck and boiling several of its tires as he started moving in a general direction of ‘away from that.’
“We really need to stop underestimating that woman.” Kurt tried to joke, but his voice wavered as he watched a creeping wave of refined oil covering the city in his rearview mirror. It didn’t take his experience with Kitty to know what was coming next. A huge oil slick began to spread across not only the streets around them, but the bay as well.
Jimmy cut the wheel to avoid a battalion of Abrams tanks heading to cut them off, driving them past an open-air mall as waves of oil sloshed through it. Only taking a few blocks that way at high speed was enough to allow the flood to catch up to them, and they both turned back to the north, desperate to escape the hell that Kitty was no doubt about to unleash.
“How much oil can possibly be in there??” Kurt muttered under his breath as they turned, driving into the teeth of a squad of Ursa APCs.
The big rig slammed into one, sending it hurtling into the air above the truck in a series of graceless flips. It smashed onto the pavement in front of Kurt as he swerved out of its path, driving his ramp underneath another and causing it to flip over and slide to a sparking stop before being drenched in oil. “It came standard with 168 million gallons, and Kitty’s skill set has probably doubled that by now. Just keep going.”
Kurt fell back slightly as the remaining BPM-97 APC slid in beside them and hit the truck with a blast from its top mounted 30mm cannon. He floored his gas pedal and slid underneath the APC’s back wheels, sending it hurtling into the air above them as his car spit sparks from its undercarriage and swerved slightly on the road. Kurt glanced in his rearview mirror to watch the APC splash into the encroaching oil but noticed something mildly terrifying behind that. They had pulled even with the bridge of the Jahre Viking, and Kurt could just make out a tiny figure standing on top of it with vibrantly colored hair. She was holding a lit flare above her head, and as Kurt stared, she waved cheerfully in his direction and allowed the flare to drop.
“GO GO GO!!” Kurt practically shrieked into his coms, flooring his own gas pedal as the big rig lurched into a higher gear. The world in his rear-view mirror went white, a series of towering explosions rocking the city in a line at the river bed. Half a dozen skyscrapers stationed along the riverbed began to crumble and fall, being consumed by rising gouts of flame and smoke. The Jahre Viking herself erupted in a massive fireball, splashing flaming oil over nearly a full mile of the city and surroundings. A red alert popped onto Kurt’s map, announcing that the two Lace Hubs in the Downtown Cluster had been destroyed. Another followed it, announcing his safe house was out of commission until the server reset.
Their com channel crackled slightly, the indicator that someone had joined it. “What the HELL is going on?!” Gadot’s voice was shaky and sounded like she was speaking from under a mask.
“Just Kitty keeping her promises. She rammed the Viking into the riverbed and blew its oil reserve. She’s destroying the city.” Jimmy sounded strangely calm, as he maneuvered the big rig towards a new pack of vehicles. They were attempting to flee the fire as well and had the misfortune to join Kurt and Jimmy on their street. “We have the buyout, heading north on Sepulveda boulevard.”
“…Right…right I’m on my way.” Gadot seemed to shake off the giant firestorm consuming half of the city rather well, refocusing on the task at hand.
Jimmy slammed into the group of Humvees, scattering them and destroying two of them as they hurtled into a nearby shop front upside down. The tsunami of oil behind them was now on fire, but still moving at a frightening rate, immolating any vehicles that couldn’t get out of its way fast enough. Kurt did his level best to ignore his rear-view mirror, swerving to slip beneath a Humvee with its .50 cal focused on the big rig. The gunner wailed helplessly as he was thrown free and plummeted into the rush of oncoming flaming oil, followed immediately by the bulk of his former vehicle landing atop him.
A glance at his map showed more vehicles on intercept routes. Word had gotten out about where they were, and what route they appeared to be taking. The out of control fire behind them limited the city in an encroaching wave, but there were plenty of willing combatants on their way to try and take back or destroy the three billion in dirty cash the truck currently housed. A cluster of dots on the map ahead of them concerned Kurt, but when they approached he saw the situation had fallen apart for GoonStorm. Their vehicles were engaged with a running battle against a squad of Ursa APCs, and the lesser armored Humvees were losing badly. Jimmy and Kurt slammed through the groups, sending both sides flipping over and smashing into each other and nearby buildings, to be consumed by the oncoming firestorm.
Their running battle became a bit more desperate as more and more enemy vehicles poured into their route, both ahead of and behind them. Kurt began taking fire from GoonStorm Humvees behind them and swerved ahead of the big rig to protect his more vulnerable vehicle. Jimmy activated his stone skin armor, causing the truck to gain its stony appearance again.
“OW.” He sounded unhappy. “Apparently I get to feel the enemy fire as well. Can either of you get these Goons off me?”
Gadot chimed in with a short reply. “I’m a few seconds out, just hold on.”
Kurt cut his wheel again, moving to intercept an APC that appeared intent on ramming them. He slid his ramp underneath its front end and vaulted the heavy vehicle off course, sending it tumbling over the truck into a Humvee on the other side of the road. “Really hope you brought something with guns Gadot.”
As he completed his sentence, the road behind them became a cloud of asphalt and shards of metal. The line of Humvees chasing them were shredded from the sky as a jet engine tore the air above them, accompanied by the sound of a massive gun. BRRRRRRT!
Gadot banked her A-10 Warthog, flying it high above the rooftops and turning back for another strafing run. She dove and opened up her main gun again, raining an inescapable barrage of metallic death onto the road ahead of her crew and clearing the way. Jimmy and Kurt hurtled through the cramped downtown streets, ramming aside the burnt and shredded husks of Humvees and APCs.
Kurt eagerly leaned forward, tracking Gadot above them. “Yes! I’m starting to think we might actually pull this off!”
“Shut UP! Everybody knows you don’t say shit like that on a heist dude!” Jimmy’s voice was strained. As he spoke, a ten bar heat sprang into existence on Kurt’s map and he heard his lifelong friend sigh. “I blame you for this Kurtis, I really do.”
The End
Kurt reached his hands towards the windshield, pulling at the corners to expand his map as far as it would go. The side streets surrounding them were rapidly filling with red and blue dots, and the highway they had been approaching practically flooded with the flashing irritations. “We need to change our route.”
“No. Just push through, we got this!” Jimmy sounded rather su
re, but Kurt struggled to meet his optimism as he looked at the roadblock forming ahead on the map.
“Roadblock!” Kurt pulled alongside the semi to get a glimpse of the oncoming obstacle, and immediately regretted it. Two massive M35-series two and a half ton trucks were cramming themselves together nose to nose across the road in front of them.
“I see it. Get directly in front of me, match my speed and aim for the section right behind the cab of the truck on our right.” The semi-truck swerved slightly, repositioning on the road as the distance between them and the roadblock began to shrink.
Kurt hurried to aid his friend, putting on a burst of speed and moving out in front of Jimmy’s truck. He glanced at the rearview and pressed on the gas a bit more to keep the point of the ram off his back end as Jimmy also gathered more speed. The boxy troop transport ahead of them had a slight gap in the structure behind the cab, with an obvious fuel tank, and Kurt assumed that’s what Jimmy wanted him to aim for. He grimaced and flinched, closing his eyes as the huge truck filled his tiny viewing port. The impact drove his car down into the road hard, throwing up sparks and rattling Kurt’s teeth. His vehicle barely lifted the massive truck, slipping under it and tossing it a few feet in the air where it met the ram on Jimmy’s semi.
The troop transport split in half a second before erupting in dual fireballs on either side of the truck. They took the upcoming onramp, heading down onto the freeway that would arc through the city and take them directly to the airport. Kurt’s nerves frayed a bit when he noticed the thin stream of white smoke emanating from the hood of his car, and then frayed a bit more when he glanced at his rearview mirror to see the oncoming flood of burning oil form a molten waterfall onto the road behind them.
The Life- Illusion Page 44