Then I saw a break in the traffic.
I crushed the clutch, dropped a gear, and pounded the throttle. Funakoshi's tires suddenly grabbed asphalt and moved. The big bike launched over the center like a horny rhino and danced through the hole in the traffic without turning me into a black pancake. Before I hit the curb to the sidewalk, I banked into the bike lane going the wrong way and then twisted the throttle again to jump up to eighty-five.
"Riding into oncoming traffic is extremely dangerous," Hogan reminded me.
"I'm in the bike lane!" I leaned back in the saddle of Funakoshi and twisted the throttle a bit more. The front end of the bike rose obediently into a wheelie, and I inched closer to the sidewalk.
"Oh, now you are just showing off." Over Zipf said.
"I lost the cop, though. How are you even seeing me?" I hissed through my grimace.
"I've got drones in the air, Babe."
"Ahh." I was almost where I needed to be in relationship to the sidewalk. Just a few more inches of balance, and then I got close enough to pop the motorcycle where I wanted. I feathered the back brake of the bike to bring the nose down on the sidewalk proper, and I threw my body forward urgently to lift my back wheel up and to the side.
"You happy now, Hogan? I'm not in the bike lane."
"Riding on the sidewalk at ninety miles an hour is still very unsafe, Sue Zay." He was probably right. There were trees planted on the outside part of the sidewalk, and they flew past me with dangerously fast "pftft pftft pftf" sounds.
I turned my helmet slightly to my right and almost gasped in surprise. The Chipper was parallel to me on the other side of the road. He was riding with traffic but had managed to catch up to my position. His siren was going, and he saw me turn to him and motioned for me to pull over.
"This guy isn't half bad. If I wasn't already late, and he wasn't a Chipper, I'd want to meet him."
"I could figure out what his name is, but then you'd have one more reason not to let me fuck a baby into you." Over Zipf laughed into my helmet.
"Do you have their drones yet?"
"Can you make a left up ahead? That will take you in the direction of your school and under a bridge where I'll nab them."
"Got it." The next turn would have been tight even if I had been on the correct side of the road, but I was on the left sidewalk, turning left, while trying to maintain my speed. I looked for a divot in the road, or maybe a curb somewhere that I could angle Funakoshi's tires off, but I didn't see anything. I'd have to drop some speed, and then the Chipper might catch up to me.
"Message from Xiu Mei. Shall I read it?" Hogan asked.
"Yes, you asshole!"
"I'm trying to buy you time. Come on bitch, hurry up," Hogan said in an almost perfect Xiu Mei voice. I knew I was in trouble because Xiu Mei almost never swore. She was the only one with manners in our group.
Then I got an idea. The street I was on formed a bridge over where the El Camino Real road intersected. Before the bridge, the road raised with a short but steep incline. If I pulled off the left side as the bridge formed, I'd probably juke the Chipper into heading straight. I'd only have to worry about launching down the dirt and rock hill and then avoid three lanes of traffic going the right way.
Easy.
"Hey, Over Zipf, you have eyes on the Lawrence at the El Camino Real exit?"
"I have eyes everywhere."
"Can you feed it to my AI?"
"Yeah."
"Hogan, I'm going to skirt the bridge and tear down the left side onto El Camino, I'll cut across the traffic there and then gun it away from the Chipper."
"That is an unsafe idea."
"Then you better use Over Zipf's drones to plot my course."
"Very well." He pouted.
"Feed them into Funakoshi's terminal and auto pilot. And stop being a dick about it." The screen on the cockpit of my motorcycle toggled to a map, and I saw the autopilot inform me that it wanted to engage. I fucking hated the autopilot, I could drive a million times better than it, but I couldn't see the oncoming traffic, so I had to rely on Hogan. I approved the takeover with a switch of my fingers, and I felt Funakoshi's gyro stabilization system kick into control.
"Fuck, go faster! Not slower," I yelled at Hogan when the motorcycle began to slow to a more sane speed. I looked over at the Chipper. He had crossed the lanes and was riding as close to me as he could get while still going the correct direction of traffic.
"Pedestrian ahead," Hogan warned me. The bike began to slow more, and I flipped off the autopilot. There was a man walking on the sidewalk in the distance, and he dove into the bike lane to avoid me running him over. There was plenty of space on the sidewalk for both of us, so I didn't see why he was scared.
I was only going sixty-five now.
"I'm going to do this myself. Just tell me to speed up or slow down."
I cranked the engine again and saw the end of the sidewalk and the beginning of the complicated exit roads that merged the two major streets together. I suddenly felt a bit of fear. Was being late to class and possibly failing a mid-term worth risking my life? Would Mom even be that mad if I flunked out of a class? Wouldn't she love me despite my other failures?
Ugh. Fuck that woman. I needed to pass this shit so I could prove to her that I was awesome. I would prove to her that I matter and that I was a legacy fitting of my father. I'd prove that it didn't matter that they didn't have a son. A daughter was plenty badass enough.
"Slow three miles per hour."
"No. Faster."
"Very well. Accelerate to one hundred." I obeyed his information and added twenty miles to my speed. The pods were screaming past me and the Chipper was still keeping pace. There was a shoulder on his side of the road, and he now didn't have to worry about dodging cars. Of course, I was also on the shoulder, but I only had a few inches between the self-driving pods and my elbows.
We hit the incline slope to the bridge at the same time, and I risked a turn of my head to watch the man. He looked young, maybe around my age, but I couldn't get his exact features past his helmet, outdated aviation glasses, and fucking mustache. Who the fuck wears mustaches nowadays? Oh yeah, asshole Chippers. Fucking glorified meter maids.
"Slow five miles," Hogan instructed, and I did so. The ramp was quickly turning into the bridge, but I wanted to wait until the last possible moment before I made my break down the slope.
"Now!" Hogan shouted with his Australian accent, and I felt my heart jump into my throat. Gabriel's shit balls, this was fucking dumb.
I leaned Funakoshi off the road, onto the dirt, and down the steep incline. The slope was much crazier than I expected, and I felt both of my wheels leave the ground for a few seconds before I slammed into the asphalt some twenty-five feet below. Hogan had given me perfect timing. I avoided all oncoming traffic and even found a perfect spot to slide into the far lanes going westbound.
"Hole. Eeee. Shit. That was the fucking most craziest, most awesome thing I've ever seen! Oh damn! I even videoed it!" Over Zipf screamed like a little girl into my helmet.
"The fucking drones, douchebag!" I yelled back.
"Oh yeah. Keep going. One more mile and I'll have them."
"Kay." I checked my rear display, but I was really moving now, and it would take Chipper at least half a minute to circle back and take the exit carefully. More cars whipped past me, and I even risked running a few red lights to buy extra distance.
"Okay. I got them."
"I'll take your word. I couldn't even see them."
"Had to use an EMP. Dangerous stuff, but well worth it. Tell me where you want to go, and I'll make reservations for dinner."
"Ugh." I felt my skin crawl, and I think my vagina actually went cold. I wanted to tell him to fuck off except that wouldn't be nice. Over Zipf may be a snob, and annoying, and kind of gross, but he wasn't an evil guy. He just talked a big game that he couldn't back up. That was probably what made him so unappealing.
"Alright. I'll let you know."
>
"Niiicccceee. I'm gonna go back to sleep. Looking forward to our date."
"Yeah. Whatever. Thanks for your help."
"Later, sexy." I heard his lips smack with a kissing sound, and then Hogan confirmed that he had exited the call.
"It is almost eight AM."
"Good, cause we are here." I slammed on my horn to scare the shit out of some uniformed students that had the nerve to cross the street while I was flying toward them. They skittered out of the way, and I angled my bike through the rest of the parking lot to my usual spot next to Stacy Jones, Xiu Mei, and Kate Tee's vicious-looking motorcycles. All were black with different color themes that accented their style in our little bosozoku gang. When it wasn't daylight, the black paint on each of our bikes changed to a darker purple color.
"Text Xiu Mei and tell her I just parked and am running!" I sprinted away from my motorcycle and towards the Artificial Intelligence and Applied Logic Science building. My boots weren't made for running, and their loud clomping across the pathway seemed like a funeral march.
If I didn't pass this test, my life was going to fucking suck a big old stinky shit-covered dick.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
End notes
Destroyer excerpt
Rockstar Romance excerpt
Concrete Chaos excerpt
02- Satan! Page 19