by J. N. Chaney
“You might want to secure yourself , Rachel,” I said, grabbing my own harness straps and buckling them around my chest.
Her eyebrows went up. “You never told me you were a hover racer.”
“Eh,” I said with a mischievous grin, “there’s plenty about me you still don’t know.”
“A man of mystery,” she said, buckling herself in. “How alluring.”
“Time to get busy,” I said.
I reached up and switched off the vehicle’s Horizon Assist mode—the program that helped the car remain stable. Doing so gave me full control over the cab’s flight surfaces and power system. For what I had in mind, I’d need all the control I could get.
“Warning,” said the car’s automated voice, “you have chosen to deactivate this vehicle’s Horizon Assist mode. Do you wish to proceed?”
I swiped the Accept indicator and hoped to gods there wouldn’t be any more talking. As soon as the flight computer confirmed that full steerage had been diverted to me, I rolled the flight yolk to the left and sent the car into a diving barrel roll.
“Whoaaaaaa!” Rachel hollered, punctuated with a few sharp giggles as our bellies went zero-gravity. She braced herself against the sides of the car as we went upside down. The bullets stopped pinging off our tail, and I watched our perusers’ taillights rotate in a circle as we spiraled out of their line of fire.
Up ahead, I saw a small space between two skyscrapers. That would get us out of harm’s way, at least for a few seconds. I slowed the cab’s roll rate and prepared to shoot the gap.
Rachel grabbed my shoulder. “Flint, are you—”
“Yup.”
The cab shuddered as I moved with gravity to increase our speed. Then I rolled ninety degrees to the left, putting us on knife-edge. Rachel had no reason to be afraid—my trajectory was perfect. And if it wasn’t, neither of us would live long enough to care. This was about confidence in the course, and I was as committed as I could get.
The building-faces came up fast. We shot between them, swallowed by their shadows. The drive core’s whine reverberated off the hard surfaces, echoing as we went. I looked through the cab’s skylight and saw people illuminated in the office building. The poor bastards are working the graveyard shift. Probably a holiday weekend too.
Ahead, the long vertical slit of open sky grew wider as we sped toward it. I could see Rachel’s white knuckles wrapped around the handle at the top of her door. Then I looked at the rearview holo screen, but apparently the damn camera had been shot out by our pursuers. I chanced a glance over my shoulder and saw headlights coming after us.
“Son of a bitch,” I said.
“What?” Rachel asked, then followed my eyes to the back. She looked out and saw what I had. “How is that even possible?”
“Guess I’m not the only show in town,” I said.
As we shot out of the gap, I veered hard right and brought us in toward the buildings. They would act as cover until I could improvise the next part of our escape. The windows were only a few meters from Rachel, and I could tell by the way she leaned toward me that she didn’t like this arrangement.
Another look over my shoulder showed two enemy vehicles fly out of the gap. They split up, moving in wide circles, until one of them banked hard in our direction. At the same time, I noticed the two trucks and several more cars come whizzing around a corner farther back.
“You must have put on quite a show,” I said to Rachel. “Cause these boys can’t get you out of their minds.”
Rachel gave me a nervous smirk. “Leave ’em wanting more, right?”
“Next time, leave them wanting a little less. Hold on.”
I banked left, crossed open sky, and headed toward another gap between buildings. This one wasn’t as narrow as the last, but I guessed it would provide more complex routes than a simple straight-shot judging by the massive cluster of buildings that lay beyond it.
Our pursuers followed us across the wide-open avenue, and even managed to fire on us again. Bullets peppered our car, but it was the railgun strike that most impressed me. Just as we entered the buildings’ combined shadow, half the structure’s corner to our left blew out in a shower of debris. Glass and metal slammed into the cab so hard I thought we were done for. But after a dramatic skid to our right, which caused us to bump against the skyscraper there, I was able to stabilize the vehicle and continue on.
I looked back to see the trucks peel away, but a total of five cars filed in after us. An opening on our right provided the first of what I hoped were several sharp turns. I rolled right, slipping between buildings, and pegged the throttle. Our cab lurched forward and raced down a long corridor. I could see hover cars a few hundred meters below us, their driver’s completely unaware of what was happening over their heads.
I banked left, dividing two more buildings, and then pitched the nose down to avoid a pedestrian walkway tunnel that connected buildings.
Enemy fire whizzed through our cabin and struck the windshield. Glass bits, or maybe metal from the bullets, stung my cheek. I winced but held the car steady. The rain was letting up, but water droplets still forced me to blink constantly.
Another two walkways lay ahead, each at different heights. I pulled up over one and then dove under the next, hoping the movement would shake off the gunfire. It did, but only for a second.
“You ready?” I asked Rachel.
She nodded.
“I want you to hit them coming off this next turn. They won’t be expecting it.”
“I got it,” she said.
I watched as Rachel undid her harness and repositioned herself in her seat.
“Don’t lose me, okay?”
“Hey, you’re the one who kept popping up on me,” I said, referring back to when we met in Oragga’s towers. “I don’t think I could lose you if I tried.”
She grinned and then readied her pistols.
I banked our car around a sharp right turn and then slowed, giving Rachel as much of an advantage as I dared. As soon as the first vehicle appeared, Rachel fired a single round into the windshield. On its own, the round did nothing but crack the composite glass. But it was the effect the round had on the diver that did the rest of the damage. Startled, the driver tried to avoid the gunfire and went wide—a move that sent him into the opposing building. Sparks shot out from the building as the car crumpled into the immovable structure. It rolled laterally, glass exploding, and then started to lose altitude.
The second car was close behind and appeared moments after the first. Rachel fired several rounds, probably guessing that the first car’s fate had tipped off the driver. But if any element of surprise had been lost, Rachel’s rapid fire made up for it. The second vehicle didn’t even negotiate the turn. Instead, it collided with the apex of the building’s corner. The effect was devastating, splitting the car down the center like a knife slicing fabric for a tourniquet. The two halves of the car flipped away, swallowed in the traffic far below.
“Nice shooting!” I yelled.
Rachel gave me a smile, and replied, “Your driving isn’t half bad either.”
The three remaining cars filled in behind us, but we were too far away for Rachel’s pistols to be effective. More gunfire hit us; I was beginning to wonder just how much more this taxi could take. Good thing the drive core is in the front. I rolled up and to the right then swung up and to the left, trying to avoid the incoming fire.
“Down there,” Rachel said. She pointed to an opening in the center of a large building. In the low light, I guessed it was a construction project of some sort. I just hoped it ran through the whole building.
“I see it,” I said. “This might be rough.”
Rachel sat forward and reattached her harness. That was a smart move.
I lined the car up with the opening and tried to hold it steady. The rounds we’d taken had clearly knocked our thruster alignment off. The cab shook and shuddered, but it was nothing more than I could handle. I’d had squad cars in Selli
on City get shot up more than this and still fly.
The hole expanded until it swallowed our car. Hundreds of exposed columns whipped by on either side of us, dressed with bundles of cables and construction materials. Cranes crisscrossed the thoroughfare, forcing me to maneuver around them—which presented another great opportunity to lose our tails.
“Rachel!” I yelled. “Take the shot!”
Rachel undid her top buckle and reached around her seat. I saw her sight in the closest vehicle, then fire. The pistol barked three times as bullets pinged off the enemy windshield. The vehicle didn’t swerve away—its driver probably having learned a lesson from the last two cars we downed—but it also didn’t try to avoid the next crane arm. The gantry chopped the car’s top off like a razor blade nicking a pimple. Sparks exploded in all directions as the metal passenger compartment sheared away, causing the lower half to careen into the office floor. The body flipped and then slammed against a column.
In the chaos, the fourth vehicle tried to dodge the two broken sections of the car in front of it. But the driver’s efforts were wild and his steering overcompensated. The car bounced off the floor and rolled on its side. Normally, this would have been an easily-recoverable state. But in a corridor this tight, the driver was unable to stabilize the car and smashed into a beam that drove through the driver’s seat.
“Four down, one to go,” Rachel said.
I looked ahead and saw the exit coming up fast. But there was something odd about it. Instead of open sky, I saw lights. Hundreds of lights.
“We got traffic coming up!” I said to Rachel.
She looked forward with me and saw cars crossing outside the hole. “It must be a sky bridge,” she said.
I nodded, trying to think what we could do. If we ejected into that mess, we’d never survive. And neither would the innocent drivers on their nightly commute home. We’d already been the cause of more than one civilian death tonight, and I didn’t look forward to the nightmares that would provide me.
“Think you have enough room to dive under it?” Rachel asked.
“What? Why?”
“Just, do you think you can?”
I examined the obstacle racing toward us. Sure enough, it did appear that there might be enough distance to roll over and then yank back on the flight yolk. But there was no way to be sure.
“I think so,” I said. “But—”
“That will have to do.”
Rachel steadied her pistol with both hands and rested her arms across the dashboard. I saw her flick the mode switch to Full Auto as she aimed at something out the front window. I traced her line of sight to a large crane that was suspended over our path. But she wasn’t aiming at the crane, she was aiming at a huge energy capacitor slightly above it.
Before I could protest, Rachel squeezed the trigger and unloaded a withering stream of bullets at the giant storage device. The first several bullets bounced harmlessly off the reinforced outer shell. But she only needed one to get through.
And one did.
The bullet that broke the plating set off a chain reaction that sent a shockwave through the entire tunnel. The explosion made the crane arm ripple, and then it snapped free of its base. I punched the throttle as I noticed the trussing begin the fall. I gritted my teeth, willing our little cab forward, barely sliding beneath the construction vehicle’s massive appendage. It groaned as we slipped by, cables snapping as the fire from the blown capacitor billowed toward us.
Soon we were on the other side and the exit was less than a second ahead. I wrenched the controls sideways and rolled the cab upside down, then I watched the floor rotate and stop three meters above my head. As soon as the floor gave way to open sky, I punched full reverse and pulled back with all my strength.
The cab screamed at me. Thrusters diverted, energy panels protested, and the car dropped. Rachel and I were pressed back in our seats. I felt the blood drain from my head as we changed directions. Then I shot down along the building’s face, mere meters from the top of our cab.
Rachel glanced up and yelled, “Get us out of the way!”
I didn’t need to look to know that the last remaining car had collided with the crane and its wreckage was probably following us down.
I rolled ninety degrees to the left and then pulled back, traveling along the building to our right. No sooner had I done so than I saw flaming debris hurtle past our tail and plunge into the depths beneath us.
I had started to breathe a sigh of relief when a Low Power indicator started to flash on the dashboard. “Son of a bitch,” I said as I ran a hand over my face. “Guess they don’t make ’em like they used to.”
“Lars,” Rachel said. “How far are we from the ship?”
“As your navigation module will show, you are—”
“It’s blown out, buddy,” I said. “We gotta do this the old-fashioned way. And we don’t have much time before the rest of those goons figure out where we are.”
“Understood, sir. As it happens, you are less than a kilometer from the building’s base that supports our platform.”
“And then two klicks up?” I asked.
“Affirmative.”
“Think she’ll make it?” Rachel asked.
I grimaced. “Nope.”
“Then what are we gonna do?”
“I’ll let you know when I think of something.”
“Sir, if I may.”
“Go ahead, Lars,” I said, hoping he had a bright idea.
“The building that the Distant Horizon is docked on has several freight elevators that operate from the ground floor. They service the docking platforms without stops on any office floors.”
“Buddy, I thought we went over this. Me and elevators—”
“Are the same as you and stairs. So you’ve said, sir.”
“You’re saying it’s a straight shot up then?” Rachel asked.
“I am,” Lars replied.
Rachel looked at me. “Seems like the best option.”
“Lars, we’re gonna ditch the cab as close as we can to the base of the skyscraper. Any way you can keep the remainder of these thugs from following us?”
“I’ll see what I can do, sir.”
“Great. And make sure the doors to the building are unlocked. Just track our positions for which entrance we try. I don’t want to be caught with our pants down.”
“I have already factored that in to the revised mission plan.”
“I like the way you think, pal,” I said.
“Just try to keep your pants on, sir,” Lars added. “I have no contingencies for their loss at present.”
5
I pitched the cab down and aimed for the closest expressway. For one, I wanted to put as much distance between ourselves and any would-be pursuers—namely, those armored trucks, if they showed up again. Plus, I hoped we’d blend in with the rest of the traffic. Unless, of course, they’d somehow gotten a lock on us using some sort of tracking tech.
For another, I figured that—should our cab’s drive core go dead—a drop from a few meters would be a whole lot more enjoyable than a drop from, well, however high up we’d just been. Which was too high for me.
“Talk to me, Lars,” I said.
“Proceed along your present route for five-hundred fifty meters, then turn left,” Lars said.
“Got it.”
The cab shuddered as I eased into our descent and tried to bleed off speed. But the deflector panels had taken too much of a beating to keep it steady. I pulled into traffic and struck the vehicle in front of us, sending it into a ninety-degree skid. It skittered across the road and struck two more vehicles, but all three cars righted themselves amid a flurry of blaring horns and offensive hand gestures.
“Well, that got their attention,” Rachel said, looking out and up through the passenger window.
“Don’t tell me,” I replied.
“It’s the trucks,” she said, a sense of urgency growing in her voice.
“I said not t
o tell me.”
“And they definitely saw that. They’re definitely headed this way.”
“Dammit.” I glanced at the power indicator. “We don’t have enough power to get up and over this. I’m not sure we’ll have enough to get there flying straight and level.”
“Turn left,” Lars said.
I crossed two lanes of traffic and then turned hard left. Our tail slammed into some sort of automated service bot on the corner. It shot through the air and exploded against the side of a building.
“Whoops,” I said, the word dripping a false sense of regret. Seeing things explode was something I never tired of, even if this wasn’t the most ideal setting for appreciating such things. Hey, I was a guy, what could I say?
“Proceed another two-hundred meters, then turn right,” Lars instructed.
“Got it,” Rachel replied. She looked out her window again. “They’re gaining on us.”
This is bad. With those trucks coming down on top of us, there was little we could do. We had nowhere to run, and the buildings provided little cover. Any attempt to duck into a side alley would be suicide without thrusters to get us out of a dead-end.
“Get out of the way,” I yelled, pushing our cab’s nose between two cars ahead of us. The drivers honked. Then, as we squeezed by, the occupants went wide-eyed as they saw the condition of our chewed-up taxi. I hadn’t seen it myself, of course, but I could only imagine how many bullet holes raked the body.
A few kids sat in the backseat of the car directly to our left, enjoying the cool night air with their window down. “Get an education, kids,” I yelled over the wind. “Don’t end up like me.”
The poor kids’s jaws dropped as we jostled by them.
“Way to inspire the next generation,” Rachel said.
“It’s a public service,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders.
“Turn right,” said Lars.
I made the turn onto a straightaway, the end of which met a T-intersection against a robust looking skyscraper.