by Jack Vantage
“Dylan, we have to get to the real Authoritarians.”
“I know. Let me concentrate until we can lose them.”
“Surely there’s a communicator in this helmet. Surely we can contact them.”
“You try. Just ask for a connection with the nearest precinct. Say Sky-Nav system first, then— Wait. Hold on.”
A congestion of traffic built ahead, forcing Dylan to glide to the right side of the sky-way. The traffic moved slowly compared to Dylan’s air machine, which zoomed past the congestion. Each vehicle that passed zipped in his ear.
Nexus and Timmy closed the gap to a hundred metres.
“Lecodia, I have to go faster.”
“Just don’t kill us,” she said. Then, into her helmet, “Sky-Nav, please. Sky-Nav, connect me to the nearest Authoritarian precinct please.”
The transmission connected.
Dylan leant to his right and shifted his body weight. The bike was quick to manoeuvre past the traffic along the sky-way’s edge. He looked inward, to where the slow-moving vehicles drove with perfect flow and law-abiding speed.
That was until a laser bolt hit a blood red sporty sky-mobile in the rear window. The second seemed to linger in Dylan’s mind as the bolt travelled through the vehicle and struck the chubby, suit dressed, driver in the head, then continued through the front windscreen.
The chubby man’s body fell limp and he jerked his steering wheel rightward towards Dylan. The red vehicle veered sharply. Dylan applied his brakes and dipped his altitude with lightning instinct to drop under the careening vehicle.
Lecodia screamed.
Dylan held the handlebars and felt the pull of brakes tugging his arms. The magnetic prongs of the red vehicle whiskered past his head. He veered left and back up level beside the traffic.
“That was close!” Dylan said.
The red vehicle descended into an uncontrollable spiral in his rear mirror, as Nexus and Timmy swerved left to avoid a collision with their handiwork.
Dylan twisted the throttle and accelerated while Lecodia connected to the Authoritarians.
“This is precinct 811897. What is your emergency?” a western American accent requested.
Pulse racing, mind terrified, and breathing irregularly, she said, “Please help us. Someone is trying to kill us.”
“Can you give us your location please? What is happening? What is your situation?”
“We are in the sky being chased by people who have impersonated you. They’re trying to kill us. They have narcotics.”
“We are reading your Sky-Nav. Just one moment and we will have your location.” There was a pause. “We have your vehicle number, and we are on our—” The line cut dead as the bike shook from a direct hit.
“Hello? Hello? Dylan, what happened?” Lecodia began to cry.
Dylan looked to the rear mirror and observed Nexus waving and smiling like a sinister gargoyle. His upper body poked from his vehicle’s passenger window.
“The bastard hit the communicator and GPS,” Dylan said.
“They said they’re on their way. Keep going.”
In the rear mirror Nexus vanished inside the car.
Dylan could think only of saving Lecodia. He had plunged her into the mess, so he had to get her out of it. Courage, all he needed was courage. “Hold on tight, Lecodia. You got me. Hold on.”
“What are you going to do?”
Dylan leant his body left and glided into the traffic. He bobbed and weaved through the slow-moving vehicles. Dylan caught glimpses of the innocent faces as he passed. All were bewildered by the dangerous driving, some showed faces of horror.
He checked his mirror as Nexus reappeared holding an assault cannon, which he rested against his shoulder. His upper body fought the air as he poked from his vehicle
“No, no, no,” Dylan said under his breath, as a sky-way junction neared ahead on their right side. Dozens of sky-mobiles were unwittingly joining the chase as vehicles spilled onto the sky-way in a neat systematic fashion.
Nexus opened fire and sent a tidal wave of laser bolts at Dylan, who continued bobbing and weaving through the traffic. The hail of laser bolts whizzed and zapped through innocent vehicles.
Dylan’s eyes widened to the mayhem unfolding. Hit sky-mobiles began swerving and crossing the sky-way with uncontrollable danger. It was like a destruction derby. The sky-mobiles scattered like a dropped jar of marbles, randomly turning their uniformed driving into a disarrayed and unpredictable mess.
A small white hatchback spun out of control. Its brown back end slid around and collided with a larger grey estate which exploded into a wall of debris. The hatchback began barrel rolling through the air with vicious violence, clipping more vehicles, creating more carnage, then dropping its altitude while rolling. A trail of smoke followed its path.
Dylan reacted without thought and raised his altitude over the collision, then back down. A sportily curved blue vehicle glided towards Dylan’s bike. He thought it was going to hit. He swerved again, and it clipped the left back end of the bike, which sent more screams from Lecodia and the sky-bike rocking.
Lecodia said, “I hope the Authoritarians hurry.”
In the mirror Dylan viewed an Authoritarian vehicle pull up alongside the chasing lunatics. Its lights and loud repetitious siren were blazing.
“Thank God!” Dylan said with relief. He positioned the bike beside a big double decker red sky-bus. A bus full of people stared from the windows in awe as he zoomed past.
He watched the mirror closely. The Authoritarian guards were side by side with Nexus and Timmy. Then the unthinkable happened.
Nexus unloaded the assault cannon’s fully automatic laser magazine. The lasers zapped the Authoritarians from point-blank range. Blood splattered and showered the windscreen. Nexus continued the onslaught until the vehicle exploded into a falling inferno.
Dylan’s heart sank at the sight of the Authoritarian vehicle exploding. For a second, hope filled his mind, hope of this being over, ending with their lives intact.
The peaks of Central Capital 8 had become visible on the golden red horizon. Its towering circular wall of tubed mega-structures protected the inner city. It might also protect them if they could just reach it.
The hounding vehicle of Nexus and Timmy grew bigger and bigger in the rear mirror, quicker and quicker. Dylan sped, manoeuvring and riding through the intensifying traffic that blurred by in wafts of air and rage.
More laser bolts whizzed past as a sky-truck neared. Its huge arctic white trailer bounced from the high-altitude air. It dominated two whole lanes of the sky-way with its wide load. Hazard lights flashed from the cabs top, and the trailer was advertising Dappy Diapers. A slogan read 'One that lasts a lifetime.’
Dylan leaned left and positioned the sky-bike to slip pass the monstrous truck. He skimmed the left edge of the sky-way.
The madmen pulled level and opened fire from the parallel side of the sky-way. They appeared and disappeared behind the passing, blurring traffic, like they were playing a game of pig-a-boo.
Dylan bobbed and weaved the bike, dodging the deadly bolts, which struck more innocent vehicles. The sky-way turned deadly again as hit vehicles descended uncontrollably towards certain death.
A massive pile-up occurred when a long, white estate spun from a laser impact and slammed into a big red double decker sky-bus. It rammed into its side with explosive impact, which blew a hole in both floors of its left side.
In the rear mirror people fell from the gouged hole. Then another sky-mobile blasted through it, its nose lifting high in the air with only its chassis viewable. It blew to smithereens, followed by the crunching bang of the bus. Many people had perished. Dylan’s morale sank with the mortified realisation.
Right of Dylan, a sky-biker was struck by a laser. His body dropped limp and dangled over the right side of his purple sky-bike. The ankle supports held his dead weight, which caused the bike to veer across the sky-way. The back end snaked violently and smash
ed into rear end of Nexus and Timmy’s sky-mobile. The biker’s dead body was slung into the air like he was a child’s toy. The collision slowed the madmen enough for Dylan to speed past the sky-truck and obscure them from his view.
“Lecodia, are you okay?”
“Just scared.”
“I know. Just hold on.”
To the left, a sky-monorail lowered. It twisted its interconnected carriages down and level with their bike. Its silver, glistening body sped quickly, and dangled from the overhead rails. On-board, public gathered at its windows, all eyes stupefied by the carnage and road madness. Dylan was sure he caught the flash of photography in the corner of his eye.
Lasers blasted through the trailer of the massive truck, obliterating large chunks of the thin, white metallic covering.
Dylan dropped his altitude as the sky-truck blasted its horn furiously. The truck began swaying dangerously. Dylan watched as lasers blasted through the truck’s cab.
“Lecodia, close your eyes now,” he pleaded.
The truck’s trailer jack-knifed to the left, swinging its connected loaded body across the sky-way. Like a windscreen wiper, the trailer wiped clean every vehicle in its path as if they were rain drops.
Dylan dropped altitude and looked up at the thirty-foot trailer passing over head, debris showering all around from hit vehicles. He viewed the trucks coupling snap and disconnect from the cab.
The arctic trailer dropped its long heavy load vertically, as its rear doors flew open and lifted thousands of diapers flailing into the air like a severe snowfall. The cab slowly dipped downward and descended in a nose dive. The cab smoked as the front end dove harder.
The sky-monorail moved upward, turning left and away from the sky-way. The on-board public gawped stunned at the action, as it pulled away from Dylan’s view.
Nexus and Timmy had fallen a hundred metres behind as they avoided the pandemonium caused by the hulking truck’s demise.
Then salvation revealed itself.
In the distance, a wall of fifteen Authoritarian vehicles hurtled towards Nexus and Timmy in an arrowed formation. The heavenly sound of sirens and angelic flashing of blue and white lights filled the sky. They pulled up behind the madmen, which caused them to slow even more.
“Lecodia, now’s our chance. Hold on.”
Dylan twisted the throttle open and sped to 200mph. He skimmed the outskirts of the sky-way and followed the thin blue line towards his place of solace. He checked the mirror and watched Nexus lean from his vehicle to lob a small glimmering object in the direction of the Authoritarians. A powerful explosion blew four of the central Authoritarian vehicles to smithereens and rocked the remainder into disarray. It gave Nexus and Timmy the chance to escape. They dipped off the sky-way and headed downward out of sight.
“Lecodia, they’re gone! They’re gone! I think we’re going to be okay.”
“Thank god! Thank god!”
The blue trail pulled off the main sky-way and lifted towards the nearing towering super structures of Central Capital 8. Dylan scouted behind and viewed no Authoritarian vehicle of any kind.
Relief swept through him. His breathing slowed, but his heart still raced like an out of control drum beat.
“They’re gone, Lecodia. We’re going to be all right.”
Lecodia cried behind him as the trauma set in.
Responsibility had a wicked way of inducing guilt. Fighting for your life was a personal responsibility, but fighting for someone else’s doubled the burden, doubled the weight, especially when that person was one hundred percent innocent.
Dylan’s heart felt for Lecodia, yearned for her. He wanted to turn and grab her, hold her, comfort her. He wanted to beg for forgiveness and plead for his innocence. He wanted to scream and vent his hatred for the insane people who were ultimately responsible for this whole situation. He wanted to kill them.
With a twist of the altitude throttle, the bike angled upward and off the sky-way. The glistening glass of the Vancouver building was erect like a church horn, where the blue trail led them. The eastern moon, Enzine, reflected from the building’s gargantuan cylindrical shape. Dylan peered down and observed the lower skyways vanishing from sight, moving between the outer city walls and into the inner-city sanctuary.
“We’re nearly there, love. We’re nearly there.”
Did I just say love?
“Well done, Dylan,” she replied.
Dylan, tight to the blue trail, elevated above the building and slowed to a hover. The panelled, black, grit-like roof waited below at thirty feet. Between the handlebars Dylan hit the button that read Set Down, and the magnetic prongs eased out with a whining whistle.
The bike softly lowered as the landing stilts extracted and the locking mechanism gave from around his ankles. Dylan stretched his feet out and touched the ground. For a moment, neither he nor Lecodia moved or said a word. They just sat. How were they still alive?
He stretched his leg over the bike to dismount and turned to Lecodia. He lifted his helmet from his head. Colour re-entered his world, and so did Lecodia as she lifted her head gear. She was a wet-haired mess, but her digital makeup hadn’t even smudged.
Dylan’s arms shook like a piece of metal vibrating, throbbed like a body builder’s who’d lifted the world’s heaviest weights.
She looked at him with a blank expression, like someone had sucked the emotion from her body. She lifted her long, exposed legs over the bike and stepped closer to Dylan, who expected a bombardment of hits and rage, but instead felt himself cloaked by her arms. All the way around his body they wrapped.
She squeezed him and rubbed the side of her head against his. Her fingers ran through his hair before her body fell limp into his arms. He caught her like a prince charming and lifted her. Her body lay in his arms as he walked across the rooftop. A collection of loose tubed rubber pipes and litter-filled orange bags offered a bed. He placed her gently down and checked her vital signs. With everything in order, Dylan smoothed her head and gently kissed her lips. “Rest, baby,” he whispered.
He stood, composed himself, and took a deep breath. He looked above him where a digital advertising board, currently off, was positioned. It was fifty feet in the air and a hundred long, across the centre of the rooftop. Its black steel frame was supported with interconnecting thin beams.
Dylan moved towards the building’s edge and looked down into Central Capital 8, which stretched to the horizon. The world was reawakening after its break, the traffic heavy and the movement perpetual.
To the left, the governmental Corinthian column buildings dominated. He looked for the university, but the distance was too great for him to pinpoint. Thousands upon thousands of buildings, tiny from his height, blanketed the land.
Everything appeared normal, like the view he so enjoyed from his apartment building. Everything but one detail. High above the lower city level, travelled three large cigar shaped people carriers, ten miles apart. He could see the quadruple levelled vehicles travelling outside of the skyways, all heading in different directions. Their red bodies caught the light and glinted in the morning sun. This was an unusual sight.
Dylan had only ever seen them in action transporting Quazarians to and from the galactic ships that travel between Earth and Quazar. Three within view was certainly a large number from within one Central Capital, considering that they could carry thousands of people in one scoop. It must be a large move to Earth, or a large drop off from Earth. Certainly, the biggest Dylan had heard of.
He turned back to Lecodia. She slept soundly. He thought about the prospect of the Authoritarians obtaining his identity. He locked his hands behind his head and began thinking harder than he’d ever needed to in Intake.
Chapter 16
Get the Story.
“Wait! Wait! My hair! Would someone sort out my fucking hair, or are you all a bunch of amateurs?” Helena Reeves said.
She’d been standing in front of the camera for half an hour, but still the piece-to-c
amera hadn’t been shot. One hour remained before the story was to be broadcast. Time was ticking.
Twice the new camera operator had hit an angle on her features that made her small nose, and round petite face appear unflattering. Her professional beauty was an asset, and everything had to be perfect. The new crew she’d been assigned were not cutting it in the dog-eat-dog world of reporting that she knew too well.
How hard could it be to place the camera in front of someone and shoot them straight on and square? All it took was a mid-body shot, waist-up, while catching the glorious carnage behind. That was it.
Nerves and frustration cornered her into an aggressive rant. “Guys, time is everything. Time is money, and time is running out. Quicker!”
This was not the everyday story that Quazar dealt with. No, this story held weight. This story was new, and she was first on scene.
There were thousands of news channels reporting around the Quazar globe, and all were on their way. This paycheque was her ticket into the limelight, providing her story was broadcast within the next hour.
She discovered the story by chance. Regularly her team listened in on Authoritarian calls. This time they had intercepted talk between two precincts about a sky chase. No one had ever heard anything of this magnitude. Usually between Authoritarians and narcotics dealers, a sky chase ended with very little death. But this—they were still counting the bodies.
Channel 1765 news had given her two new recruits, which included a camera operator and a makeup artist, but they weren’t the experienced workers she wanted.
Helena flustered on her heels. She didn’t want to bite their heads off. She needed to ease them into her crazily fast-paced working method. She needed patience.
From behind the slim, light, tripod positioned camera rushed her new makeup artist. She was a young, fresh-faced intern, with blond, tied hair and chubby, short body. A puffed baby dragon sprung to Helena’s mind on her first meeting. Her name was Cheryl something, Cheryl— God, she couldn’t remember. The fussing began with a thin comb.