It was the skeleton of a new mega tower that would stand over a hundred and forty stories high. At the base, it looked like a wall was being crafted out of a concrete/plastic blend. The construction area was empty of live workers, but a few drones were around doing clean-up duty. On the side of the wall lay a pile of steel rebar that I guessed they used to fortify each individual block of cement.
I hopped Funakoshi onto the sidewalk and slid to a stop next to the stack of metal rods. They were a bit longer, thicker, and heavier than I would have wanted, but I was able to lift four of them from the stack with my right hand and then pass them to my left. The bundle of them lay across Funakoshi's bars easy enough, and it wasn't going to be that difficult to lean into a turn with them on top. I glanced at the pile of poles and then grabbed a fifth rod just in case I dropped all of the other four. Once the last piece of rebar was secured in my left hand, I twisted the throttle and sped off after the group of assholes chasing Jae.
"Hogan, can you manage the throttle while I smack these assholes around with my metal dildos?"
"Sue Zay, this is highly dangerous, and-"
"Fuck, come on buddy, I thought we were past this. They need our help. I need your help."
"Very well." Hogan's face didn't look happy, but he tipped his hat.
"Okay, just keep my speed consistent while I fuck them up with one of these pieces of rebar."
"You could just use the auto-pilot." His voice seemed to have an edge of fear, and I could understand why.
"No, you are much better than the auto-pilot. Just do it."
"We are going to turn right on Blossom Hill," Caleb yelled into the phone.
"Got it," I said. Sure enough, I saw the distant cars move to make a right. I realized I could probably close the distance without the motorcycles noticing me as easily, so I punched it and felt Funakoshi growl with the hate of a thousand extinct dinosaurs.
The four bikers were still bringing up the rear of the caravan, and I slid into the last one as soon as he entered the turn. My left side smacked lightly into his right, and the man did a double take with surprise. I was kind of surprised that he hadn't spun out of control when I slid next to him.
But I'd fix that real quick.
I grabbed one of the poles of rebar with my left hand and brought it around to smack the goon in the helmet. Fuckface didn't expect me to crash into him, or to engage him in some sort of medieval-motorcycle-jousting-swordplay, so the rebar caught him square in the glass of his helmet. The piece cracked like a complicated spider web, and his head snapped back. He twisted the throttle of his motorcycle when he tried to hang onto the bike, and, because he was leaning back, the front tire of his steed lifted off the ground. Goon wasn't a half-bad rider, and he realized that the position, combined with the wheelie, was going to make him fall off the rear of his bike. He leaned forward to correct the issue, but I slammed the pole of rebar down on the fucker's right hand. It spun his bars hard to the right a split second before the wheel touched the pavement. We were screaming down the road at about sixty miles per hour, and the momentum of the motorcycle hit the front wheel while it was facing me.
The motorcycle did a gymnastic springing front flip while Fuckface hung on for his life. He might have been better off letting go. The man-bike combination somersaulted in the air four times before coming down on the street. I'd managed to accelerate Funakoshi past the point where he landed, but my rear display showed me that the man took the brunt of the landing. Motorcycle and helmet bits sprayed across the street behind me like a glass getting dropped off a ten-story building. If the guy wasn't dead, he was going to be in the hospital for the next two months.
"Three left!" I yelled and realized that Hogan had muted the line to Jae. Of course, I was only thinking of the bikers. I wasn't counting the cars, or the incoming police, or the drones, or anything else that might happen.
One challenge at a time, Sue Zay.
They were my father's words, and I pushed his smiling face out of my memories so I could focus on the task at hand.
The other three bikers had noticed me. They were riding in a triangle formation with one on point and the others only a few lengths ahead of me. The one on my right was reaching back over his shoulder with his right hand to pull at his rifle. The goon on the left had glanced at his friend and then accelerated ahead. He must have figured that the other guy would deal with me.
"I'm gonna need you to help, Hogan." I twisted Funakoshi's throttle with enough distance to make him leap next to the rider grabbing at his gun. I was still holding the rebar with my left hand, and I thought about coming around to the goon's left side, but that would have left me on the sidewalk side of the road, and I didn't want to risk him pinching me there. Instead, I let go of the throttle, switched the pole to my right hand, and poked it like a stick at the hand that was reaching for the gun.
The goon's speed dropped because he didn't have his hand on the throttle, but Hogan was doing a good job of cutting my speed to match. I really needed to just beat the shit out of the guy with the rebar, but I was more worried about him getting control of his rifle, so I kept smacking his hand with the four-foot piece of metal in an attempt to keep him from grabbing it.
"Sue Zay, watch the man ahead of you!" Hogan warned, and I turned my attention to see the second black-garbed rider grabbing his gun.
"Shit!" I said as the man rotated on his seat and pointed the long rifle barrel in my direction. I ducked as low as I could go on Funakoshi's saddle and leaned left to steer away from where the weapon pointed to position myself on the rear left side of the guy ahead. I heard a burst of automatic gun fire, but I figured that the asshole missed, since I didn't feel anything hit me or Funakoshi.
"Speed up!" I yelled at Hogan, and Funakoshi jumped up to pace with the rider who had just shot at me. The other fucker would be able to get his own rifle situated now, but I had to deal with the obvious threat.
I swung my piece of rebar at the second goon's head as he brought the rifle around his waist. He wasn't surprised by my attack and leaned his helmet down so that the armored dome caught the hit instead of his face glass. My strike knocked his bike a bit off balance though, and the front end began to wobble. The shimmy wasn't pronounced yet, but if Fuckface didn't get both hands on the bars, he would end up losing control and laying out. I wondered for a second if he would let go of his rifle to grab the throttle with his right hand or if he would continue his movement and shoot me.
Dumbass tried to shoot me.
The mean-looking assault rifle had a long barrel, so I dropped the piece of rebar to the dickbag's stomach and pushed on the side of the weapon. It sprayed bullets like a hose, but the muzzle of the gun was pointing in front of Funakoshi, so they all missed. The man was strong though, and I felt him easily begin to push my hand out of the way. I leaned against him, and the right side of Funakoshi pushed against his black bike. Mr. Assault Rifle returned my pressure to prevent me from heaving him over to the right, and our bikes started to screech against each other and the road.
The barrel of the rifle was inching closer toward my chest. He'd stopped firing, but I didn't think the magazine was empty; as soon as it pointed at me, I would run out of my nine lives. I needed to do something.
"Fuckkkkkk!" I screamed and let go of the rebar. My free right hand wrapped around his elbow, I pushed hard into my right lean, and I slammed on the rear brake with my right foot. Funakoshi's massive disc brakes clinched in the rear, and the giant tire screeched like a hundred eagles. As soon as the tire locked up, I leaned hard to my left and pulled my new pal with me. He'd been leaning hard against me and had doubled down his effort when I juked him out, so Dumbass easily spun away with me. His motorcycle came as well, and it was like the two of us made some sort of figure-skater pivot on the middle of the road with our arms locked. As soon as we hit ninety degrees, I let go of him, and his bike righted itself going laterally across the lanes of the road. There was a center divider between the two directions of traff
ic, and my rear camera display caught Dumbass slam flat into it. The motorcycle turned into a black and silver accordion, and the dude with the rifle launched into the air like a flicked booger. I didn't see him land, but his launch trajectory convinced me that he'd make a pancake impact with the front of the closest building.
"Whoops!" I dodged a pod heading the right way along the road. Gunfire sounded behind me, and I guessed that the goon I'd left alone for a few seconds had managed to get at his rifle. I was going the opposite direction on the street now, and I doubted that he could hit me. I really needed to flip around, but, now that I'd taken out two of the motorcycle riders, I knew that the other two would be watching for me to attack them from behind.
"Caleb, make a right on University!" I shouted at the tattooed man. Hogan had unmuted my phone line in time.
"Oh shit!" Caleb screeched in my helmet almost as loudly as the tires did. "Okay, just turned. Give me a few more seconds of warning next time. Damn." I heard gunshots through the line, and I aimed Funakoshi across the lanes towards the entrance to Vasona Lake Park. It was one of the few green spaces still left in the city, and while I didn't know it intimately, I knew that there was an entrance on Blossom Hill Road and another entrance north on University Avenue. If I could cut through the park on the service roads, I might be able to catch the motorcycles from the side.
"Let me know when you pass Pepper Tree Lane on the right." I glanced down at my map on Funakoshi's display to confirm the name of the road where I would pop out onto University. Then I looked up in time to navigate the ancient motorcycle onto the entrance road to the park.
It was still before five in the morning, but I guessed that there would be a bunch of people out jogging or walking their dogs. I flicked on Funakoshi's headlights, turned them to high beams, and then laid on the horn as I swept along the somewhat curvy roads. There were a few people using the space, but, between the headlights and the noise of my motorcycle, everyone got out of the way well before I sped to their location.
"We are about to pass it. Passed it!" Caleb shouted over the sound of gunfire coming from his phone line.
"Alright!" I saw the black cars speed across the road up ahead, and I twisted the throttle to spit Funakoshi out onto the roadway. It was a blind turn because of the trees, and probably more than incredibly stupid, but I didn't want the motorcycle fuckers to have any notification that I was on top of them.
I shot out of the park a half a hair behind the second motorcycle. My wheel almost clipped his rear, but I managed to feather the brakes enough to avoid wrecking Funakoshi's front end. Then I leaned hard to the right and slid the back around before I raced after them.
Dickbag the Second -- or was it the Third? -- tried to reach the rifle on his back again. A quick flex of Funakoshi's muscle, and I was riding a few feet to his left. I grabbed one of the four remaining pieces of rebar I had across my handlebars, and I raised it in my right hand like Athena would hold a spear. Goon understood what I had planned, and he forgot about the rifle he was trying to point at me so that he could bring both hands back to his bars.
He hit his brakes, but it was too late. I threw the piece of rebar at his wheel, and the whole front half of his bike seemed to disintegrate instantly. I leaned hard left and hid the top half of my body behind Funakoshi's streamlined bulk. Something hit the side of his body, something slammed into my leg, and something made a violent screaming noise that ended abruptly. I poked my head out behind the side of my bike and checked my rear display. The fucking motorcycle behind me was on fire. The battery must have caught, and it looked like napalm had been spread over the street.
I looked down at Funakoshi's right side and didn't see any damage to the paint or molding. My leg was still numb though, and I saw a four-inch piece of black metal sticking out of my thigh a few inches above my knee.
Ahhh fuck.
I couldn't tell how long or deep the metal blade was dug into my thigh. It was possible that the leather had protected me a bunch and that it was just a skin wound, or it may be that the point was pressing into my bone and had already cut the shit out of every muscle and nerve in the area. I couldn't feel anything because of my adrenaline, but a quick flex of my foot told me that everything seemed to be working fine. I'd have to figure out the damage after I finished helping Jae.
There was one last motorcycle rider left, and the fucker hadn't even turned around to acknowledge my presence. His inattention would just make my job easier, and I lifted another piece of rebar off the stack on my bars. It was in my left hand, and I flexed Funakoshi's engine with my right fingers. The asshole didn't even have a rifle slung over his back, so I didn't have to worry about him shooting me with it. My bike hit his stride in half a second, and I wasted no time swinging out my piece of steel at the man's face.
I thought he hadn't been paying attention, but the fucker was ready for my attack. He leaned left on his bike, ducked under my swing, and then used the momentum of his lean to rock his motorcycle back and slam into me. His machine was half the size of Funakoshi, but the hit has been close to the front, and I had to lower my left hand to grab onto the bars so that I wouldn't lose control.
"Hogan, I need your help. Come on!"
"Sorry, Sue Zay. I've got it."
I grunted and leaned my ancient motorcycle back toward the other rider. I got close enough to hit him with my steel stick, but he leaned away a bit, and I missed his helmet by a few inches.
"Fuck, this guy is slippery." I leaned closer and took another whack at his helmet, but the man guessed what I was going to do, and he surprised me by leaning to his right, slamming his bike into mine again, and grabbing my left arm at the elbow.
Oh shit.
He pulled me and made a grab for my piece of rebar with his left hand. Both of his hands were off his bike now, so I took my left foot of the peg and kicked up at his right grip. The bottom of my booted heel smashed into the handle of his bars, and he had to let go of my elbow to grab onto his throttle. I would have thought that my kick would have spun his motorcycle out of control, but this motherfucker was a great rider, and he didn't even seem surprised by my kick. He was still holding on to my piece of rebar with his left hand, and he lowered his arm away from his helmet to pull the blunt piece of metal across his stomach. He was strong as fuck, and I realized that I could either choose to let go of the metal or he'd pull me into his lap.
I let go of the piece of rebar with a curse and grabbed another from the top of my bars. I brought it up in an attempt to throw it at his front wheel, but Assface was already swinging his at my helmet. I couldn't do much beyond block his next three strikes and then pull Funakoshi away so that I was out of his reach.
"He appears to have martial arts training," Hogan commented.
"Thanks for the news, Hogan. I didn't realize that."
The man made a motion as if to throw his piece of rebar at my front wheel, and I pulled Funakoshi away and let off the throttle. Fuck me, it might have been easier if the goon had a gun, he would have been so obsessed with shooting me that I probably would have been able to get close enough to do some damage. It was obvious that this guy was strong, and quick, and knew how to ride better than the other three goons.
"I'm going to make a left on Lark and a right on Winchester!" Caleb yelled.
"Jae, I've got one more motorcycle rider left."
"Wow, great job, Sue Zay. Our rear glass is fractured. I don't think we have much more time left."
As soon as Jae finished his sentence, one of the cars up ahead of me slammed on their brakes. I leaned left on Funakoshi and managed to dodge the back end of the car by a few inches. It slid past me and, half a second after, I heard their tires squeal again. Fuck, now the car was behind me and I could feel the wrath of their machine guns. It was possible that I could brake again and slide around them or that I might accelerate and just get so far ahead so quickly that they couldn't target me, but neither option would help Jae or guarantee that I wouldn't get killed.
So I chose option C.
As soon as I twisted my right grip and pushed Funakoshi to the left side of the black-garbed motorcyclist, I realized I had probably made a mistake. I was banking that the motherfuckers in the car wouldn't risk shooting the motherfucker on the motorcycle, so I'd be safe right on his ass. However, these guys were motherfuckers by definition. So only Muhammad knew what they would actually do when I started to melee their teammate.
Goon on the bike saw me coming, of course, and he was ready with his rebar sword. I moved to smack mine into his, but then I faked him out and thrust the tip towards his front tire. He was still way too far way for the rebar to get caught in the spokes, but goon didn't want to risk it, and he stopped his counter-swing to steer his motorcycle away. I realized that even that was a mistake on my part since the farther we moved apart, the better a shot the car behind me had. I leaned right in my saddle to close the distance and hoped that the jerk-offs in the car didn't decide to fire.
"Sue Zay, the turn to Lark Avenue is three hundred feet ahead," Hogan warned me.
"Shit. This is going to get hairy." Jae's car had already navigated the corner, and I saw the two black speedsters skid wide. I looked over to the goon on the motorcycle, and he seemed to be waiting for me to start to lean. If he were to go first, then I might be able to get a hit on him.
I waited.
"You aren't slowing. Turn is in one hundred feet." University Avenue formed a T-intersection with Lark, and across the street was the entrance to a mega tower's underground parking.
Concrete Chaos Page 17