Crypto-Punk

by George Traikovich



  Crypto-Punk

  George Traikovich

  Copyright © 2013 George Traikovich

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781301187249

  CHAPTER 1

  Fourth Avenue was an imposing hill that ran through the city’s west side, sealed off from traffic by a parade of orange barrels that made it the ideal location for the upcoming race.

  The teams pushed their wobbly-wheeled karts to the starting line beneath a homemade banner strung up between two telephone poles. The sign read, First Annual Bixby Elementary Science Death Race, though someone had scribbled death in between science and race, unofficially.

  Mr. Birdsong wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. It wasn’t even noon yet and pit stains were already starting to show on his button-down shirt. But it was the middle of August and the last day of summer school, so what else did he expect? “Everybody understand the rules? OK, good. Now, where are my glasses?”

  The kids all pointed at once.

  He felt around and found them right where he’d left them—on top of his head, buried in his shaggy mop. Though he’d only been on the job a few months, he was already their favorite teacher because of homework just like this.

  “All right, team captains, I need you here,” he said. “Drew, that means you, too.”

  Drew pushed through the canvas tarp’s billowing flaps, all knees and elbows, wearing an impish smile carved into his cherubic face that made him look like he knew something you didn’t.

  He zipped up his flight suit over his lean frame and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the storefront window across the street. He jabbed at his ‘fro with his fingers, smiling at the vivid contrast created by the paleness of the fabric and the darkness of his skin.

  Drew stepped forward before changing his mind, and then ducked back under the paint-splattered tarp, jumping back and forth like an exclamation point searching for the end of a sentence. “We gonna be ready?”

  Neither Newton nor Grady looked up right away. Instead, they focused on getting the rear wheels bolted to the kart’s axle as fast as they could—but there was a problem.

  “How’d you get your shirt caught, anyway?” Newton lisped.

  “Dude, does it matter?” Grady said.

  “This is why you don’t wear baggy clothes when working around machinery,” Newton said.

  Grady flipped his sunglasses up. “They’re easier to skate in, bro.”

  They shared the same slender frame but not much else. Grady’s baggy shorts and sleeveless tee were the standard issue skate-punk uniform, while Newton’s button down shirt and corduroys announced computer camp runaway to anyone not convinced by his thick glasses.

  After working Grady loose, Newton checked the axle again, buzzing back and forth like a hummingbird. He ran his nervous fingers through his close-cropped blonde hair, which the barber had cut too short, resulting in the dreaded condition known as baby-bird head.

  “We gonna be ready?” Drew repeated.

  Newton cleaned his glasses with his shirttail, squinting until his bloodshot eyes looked like raisins stuck in a gingerbread man. “We’ll be ready,” he promised.

  Drew’s black eyes danced with excitement. He gave them the thumbs-up before gliding away, leaving them to finish the last-minute adjustments.

  “No, turn that screw there,” Newton huffed.

  Grady obeyed without debate, only to have Newton turn the screw again after he was done.

  He smiled and backed away, tucking long, errant strands of streaky blond hair behind his ears while Newton checked the rest of the screws.

  Spider ducked beneath the tarp and bowed his head apologetically, like a scarecrow hanging from a post. He was taller than either Grady or Newton but seemed taller still because of the pile of shaggy black hair hugging his head like a tarantula—hence the nickname.

  Normally, either Grady or Newton would have jumped on him for wearing a football jersey that fit so snug over his root-beer belly, but they were in a hurry.

  “You’re late!” Newton snapped. He grabbed the box from Spider’s grasp and pulled the flap back to reveal the treasure inside—an arsenal of fireworks: roman candles, spinners, fountains, jumping jacks, sparklers, and a few varieties they’d never even heard of.

  “What’s that word mean?” Grady asked, lifting his sunglasses for a better look.

  “If you didn’t wear sunglasses all the time you’d know,” Newton said.

  Spider brushed his spiky bangs away from his sleepy brown eyes to read the text beneath Grady’s finger. “D-Def-ect-i-vo…Defectivo—think that’s the name of the company that makes ’em.”

  But Newton didn’t hear a word he said. Instead, he sifted through the artillery until he found what he wanted. “This it?”

  “Yeah, the M-Eight-Hundred,” Spider said. “The world’s only nuclear-powered firecracker!”

  Newton rolled his eyes and snapped the fist-sized charge into the bracket. “This should give us just the boost we need.”

  A commotion outside cut their preparations short, and they crawled out from beneath the tarp to see what, or rather who, was causing the ruckus.

  Harley pushed through the crowd of fifth-graders like a fullback headed for the goal line. Bib-overalls and bowl-cut black hair should have made him an easy target for wisecracks, but he was a head taller than the rest of the kids and built like a sumo wrestler, so he didn’t get much grief.

  “Don’t look,” Newton gulped, but he made eye contact anyway.

  “Oh no,” Grady whispered.

  Harley lumbered toward them and raised his hand in the air.

  “He’s coming,” Spider said.

  Harley’s bulging blue eyes shrank to the size of periods and steam poured out of his flared nostrils—though it could have just been snot bubbles.

  Newton flinched, knocking his head into Spider’s and Spider’s into Grady’s, their skulls clinking together like they were making a toast.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t stand so close together next time,” Newton whimpered. “No use in making things any easier for him.”

  Harley’s obnoxious laugh rang in their ears as they tore the tarp away and premiered the Groovejet to the crowd’s hushed approval.

  The sleek projectile fused elegant curves and angled facets into a stealthy profile that looked more like a UFO than a junkyard jalopy.

  Even Mr. Birdsong was impressed. “A-A-All right,” he stuttered. “This isn’t a beauty contest. It’s still a race, a race that relies on fundamental scientific principles like we learned about in class.” He’d kept his distance while the kids built the karts during the summer session, but now he worried about the other entries, which looked like crop-dusters by comparison.

  Drew lowered his goggles and pulled his leather flight helmet on tight over his ‘fro.

  “Hey, Baron Von Richthofen,” Harley snorted. “What’s the backpack for?”

  Drew’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Who’s Baron Von…”

  “The Red Baron,” Harley snapped, cutting him off in midsentence.

  “Oh. Well, it ain’t a backpack. It’s a parachute,” Drew answered with a straight face.

  * * *

  Harley lowered his goggles and shoehorned himself into his kart at the far end of the starting line. Grady waited until Harley was snug, then sidled up next to him and handed him a pad and pencil.

  “What’s this for?” Harley said.

  “For you,” Drew shouted from across the line. “After this performance, you’re gonna want an autograph.”

  Clementine cleared her throat, and all eyes shifted toward the redheaded girl standing at the starting line. Her cut-offs and tank top left her slender arms and legs exposed, and her skin was already changing from pin
k to red, which suited her mood. She stood glaring at them from behind scornful green eyes, the starter flag clutched to her chest, just wanting to get the race over with. “Ready?” she said.

  Drew gripped the steering wheel with both hands, flexing his fingers again and again until his grip was just right. He lowered his head and focused on the point where the Groovejet’s nose met the horizon.

  Across the line, the drivers tensed in anticipation.

  Clementine cocked her arm, holding the flag up high behind her head. “On your marks…”

  Drew’s eyes shifted from the horizon to the flag.

  “…get set…”

  He reached for the brake release.

  “Go!”

  Newton joined Clementine at the starting line, Grady and Spider following close behind. They watched the racers inch forward until gravity took hold and slingshotted the karts down the steep hill.

  “Let’s get to the bottom,” Newton said.

  They headed for the shortcut, but the sound of booming backfire sent them scrambling for cover.

  “What was that?” Clementine asked.

  They popped their heads up from behind the parked car they’d used as cover, trying to pinpoint the source of the stuttering explosions.

  “The fireworks!” Newton shrieked. “The whole box is goin’ off!”

  White-hot sparks shooting from the box kept them from getting closer, but they didn’t have to. They already knew what happened.

  “They must be defective,” Clementine said, coughing and waving sulfurous black smoke away from her face.

  “Yeah, that makes more sense,” Spider said. “That makes a lot more sense.”

  Newton turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

  “‘Defectivo’ was written across the box,” Spider said. “Seemed like a weird name for a company. Must mean somethin’ in Spanish.”

  Grady whipped off his sunglasses, his gray eyes growing wide. “Dude, don’t you read, like, Spanish or somethin’?”

  Spider shook his head. “My family’s Brazilian. They talk Portuguese.”

  Newton’s mouth went dry. “‘Defectivo’ is Spanish for ‘defective.’”

  “But, dude, what’s that mean?” Grady said.

  “The M-Eight-Hundred we strapped to the back of the Groovejet came from the same box and has as much firepower as the rest of the firecrackers combined.”

  It took a second for Newton’s explanation to register, but when it did, they knew what it meant.

  They ran down the hill chasing after the Groovejet, screaming for help as loud as they could.

  * * *

  Fourth Avenue was a long, straight drag to the finish and safe under the circumstances—though the circumstances were about to change.

  Harley separated from the pack and was off to an early lead, as he’d expected to be. But Drew kept him within reach, even as the rest of the drivers struggled to keep pace.

  Harley jerked the wheel and slammed into the Groovejet. Metal scraped against metal, sparks arcing out from the point of contact.

  “Eat it!” Harley roared. He looked over at Drew, who was trying to answer, but the bumpety-bump of the kart’s wheels against the rough asphalt made it impossible to hear anything.

  Drew flashed him a cocky grin and counted backward from three, enunciating every word so Harley could see what he couldn’t hear.

  On zero, the M-800 ignited with a throaty roar. Black smoke and orange fire poured from the Groovejet like a dragon’s breath, scorching the pavement and blotting out the sun.

  Harley spun-out, making three full revolutions before steering back into the skid and fishtailing to a stop. By the time he reoriented his kart, the Groovejet was out of sight, leaving him choking on the noxious fumes.

  * * *

  Drew looked back over his shoulder but didn’t see Harley—or any of the other karts for that matter—which was as he expected. “That was easier than I thought.”

  He tapped the brakes, but he wasn’t slowing down. He was accelerating. He looked back at the M-800 and could see hot exhaust still blasting from the nozzle.

  “That don’t look right,” he muttered.

  He stomped on the brakes as hard as he could, but friction tore the brake shoe’s rubber padding to shreds, spraying fragments across the road.

  Zigzagging back and forth slowed the kart’s speed, but not enough. The road was narrow and clogged with parked cars that kept him from swinging out far enough to force a skid.

  Drew rocketed past the kids waiting at the finish line. He turned his head just long enough to get a blurry glimpse of their horrified faces before smashing through the construction zone barriers and veering off onto Cherry Street.

  Angry drivers honked their horns and shook their fists at him, but they were the least of his worries. Weaving in and out, back and forth, Drew tried to buy time so he could think of a way out of this mess. Traffic was light because of the detour, but he was heading for the retail district where it was always busy.

  Drew spun the Groovejet’s wheel hard and swerved onto Sixth Avenue. He darted between the oncoming cars and buses streaking past him on the one-way street, ricocheting between them like a pinball.

  He looked up from behind the grimy windshield and realized that he was running out of time—Sixth Avenue ran parallel to Fourth, and both came to a dead end right in front of the school.

  Drew aimed the Groovejet’s nose for the mound of fill dirt piled near the school’s water tower and braced himself.

  “Keep the wheel straight! Keep the wheel straight!” he repeated. But at the last second, he twitched, and the sudden spasm pulled the kart’s nose up just enough to turn the mound into a ramp.

  The sudden jerk of the chute unfurling pulled Drew away from the impact, sending him floating toward the vacant lot next door. He stumbled to a landing, skipping across the loose gravel until he regained his footing.

  The rest of the kids arrived at the bottom of the hill out of breath, fighting through the caustic smoke. High above them, the smoldering Groovejet jutted out of the water tower like a harpoon stuck in a whale, water bleeding from the gaping wound and splattering against the pavement below.

  Spider turned to Grady who turned to Clementine who faced Newton who looked at Mr. Birdsong. They’d just launched a missile into their school’s water tower and scored a direct hit. This was trouble, big trouble, more trouble than they usually got in, and they got into a lot of trouble.

  Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed.

  They ran for their lives.

  * * *

  Bixby Elementary was an estate before it was an asylum, and an asylum before it was a school, though the order was a matter of dispute among students and faculty. The crumbling brick cathedral seemed perpetually on the verge of imploding, so Miss Croy stepped carefully around the debris falling from the sagging ceiling.

  She maneuvered herself into position behind her desk in the school’s administrative office, deftly balancing her coffee and donut without spilling a drop. She checked her makeup in the back of her spoon, pursing her lips and smoothing the crow’s feet around her soft brown eyes with her fingers.

  “Mirror, mirror,” she said, before letting her hair come down in unruly black ribbons around her face. “Who’s the fairest of them…oh, never mind. It’s too early in the morning for this.”

  Her vanity satisfied by the warped reflection, she put her hair back up into a messy bun and put the spoon down.

  The phone rang, snapping her out of her reverie. She slid her chunky jewelry back into place with a flick of her wrist and picked up. “Bixby Elementary. What? Just a sec, I’ll see if he’s in.”

  * * *

  The phone on the desk buzzed, but he didn’t answer. Instead, Mr. Hoyt poured another cup of coffee into a giant-sized mug emblazoned with World’s Greatest Principal. He adjusted the papers on his desk until the edges were as straight as the white hairs in his bristling crew-cut, an obsessive r
itual performed until absolutely correct.

  Miss Croy knocked on the door before entering, waiting until he finished. But the Old Man was never finished, and he didn’t even bother to look up from behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

  They warned her about Hoyt when she first took the job. The girl she replaced described him as a foul-mouthed, tyrannical dinosaur in an ill-fitting suit, blind in one eye, deaf in one ear, and hobbled by a wooden leg.

  But she was exaggerating. His leg wasn’t wooden, it was steel.

  “Principal Hoyt,” she said. “You have calls on lines one, three, and four.”

  He looked up at her with the same queasy half-smile that reminded her so much of a jack-o-lantern whenever he flashed it.

  “Lines one, three, and four,” she said.

  Knowing that she’d stand there until he answered, Hoyt relented and picked up the receiver.

  “Lines one, three, and four,” she repeated, and closed the door behind her.

  “Hoyt, here. Yeah…yeah, I heard it, but I thought it was thunder. What? Is this some kind of joke?”

  * * *

  “This is Molly Tuggle reporting for Eyewitness News. We’re here live at Bixby Elementary where there’s been some kind of explosion. Details are sketchy at this point, but as you can see, damage to the school’s iconic water tower was extensive. Fortunately, only a skeletal staff was on duty because of summer break—Wait, what?”

  Molly brushed her not-so casual strands of platinum blonde hair out of her eyes and tapped her earpiece to clear the static. She whipped around to see what the commotion was behind her.

  Her green eyes flashed with rage and her angular features twisted into an ugly scowl. The Channel Six reporter had wandered into her shot deliberately.

  “Oh, it is on!” Molly spat, dropping her mic and balling her prim hands into petite fists as her rival did the same.

  Chants of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” broke out among the competing news crews, who hadn’t seen a good scrap in weeks.

  But downdrafts from high above stopped the brawl before it started, sending the reporters running for cover, hands clasped over their lacquered-hair helmets.

  “When did Channel Eight News get a chopper?” Molly shouted, ducking behind the Eyewitness News van.

  * * *

  The Principal turned off the TV.

  Drew stood at attention in front of his desk, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. On his way in, he’d passed Mr. Birdsong, who was carrying his belongings out to his car in a cardboard box, but Drew didn’t have the nerve to look him in the eye.