by John Zakour
“Which, against a hover …?”
“Would likely make it crash and burn.”
“NASCARs are equipped with ejector seats, right?”
“Some of the drivers call them wimp seats, but they’ve been standard equipment since the day they took to the skies,” HARA replied.
“Good, take us out over the bay,” I said.
“A fine choice. The bay is lovely this time of evening,” HARA responded, banking the limo hard toward the New Frisco Bay. “But odds are we won’t be able to evade all three of them long enough to make the water.”
“I’ll handle that,” I said. “Get us onto the narrowest street you can find and go low.”
“They’ll box us in from above.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.”
HARA took a quick turn that left my stomach about a hundred meters behind me and pulled us onto an old one-lane side street between a couple of high-rises. The Woolly Boys followed us in, one after the other.
“Now go low,” I said to HARA. “And slow up a bit.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Honestly, I have no idea, but that’s never stopped me before,” I said. “Get ready to go back to max speed on my word.”
HARA brought the limo low, barely three meters above the ground. One Woolly immediately dropped down right behind us, strafing us with blaster fire from behind as he did so. Another settled in directly behind him and the third let loose a burst of speed and slipped over us, matching our speed and blocking us from climbing. Then he lowered himself toward us, trying to force us into the ground. It got so close that I could feel the heat of his underside gyros singeing my face.
Which was exactly what I was waiting for.
“Sticky stuff,” I said.
I fired twice at the underside of the racer and, with a couple of muted rubbery pops, sent a huge payload of petroleum-based glue into his left- and right-side gyros. I could tell that a hefty portion of the glue made it past the air guards and into the actual gyros because a few nanos after impact, the hover began to shudder in the air like an unbalanced washer on a newly waxed floor.
“Floor it now, HARA!” I yelled.
HARA pushed the limo back to maximum speed, getting us out from underneath the quickly failing Woolly Boy racer.
The other two Woollys continued pursuit as their wounded brother careened into one building then another before tumbling onto the street and crashing into the Dumpsters of an all-night Chinese restaurant.
A few nanos later the high-rises and cityscape fell away behind us and we were heading out over New Frisco Bay with the two remaining Woollys hot on our tail.
“The gun has only one EMP,” HARA said, “so you need to take them both out at once.”
“Got it,” I said. “Now slow down and let them catch up.”
“No problem there.”
I stuck myself back through the sunroof and put a tight grip on my gun.
“EMP,” I said.
The gun acknowledged the command and began to throb in my hand as it loaded the electromagnetic pulse. I could tell that the charge was going to take most, if not all, of my gun’s power. I steadied myself against the hood of the limo and aimed.
And that’s when the lead Woolly activated his heat-seeker.
He lowered the weapon from the undercarriage, popping the long deadly cylinder out of its belly and holding it on his underside like a big Freudian “I have issues” sign.
“Uh oh.”
“Don’t let it fire the missile!” HARA shouted.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
I pulled the trigger and felt the entire limo lurch forward as the EMP charge fired. It shot across the bay like a comet and exploded into a ball of white light just in front of the lead pursuer. The light lasted a couple of nanos and then disappeared completely. When my vision cleared, I saw no sign of the pursuing racers, only moonlight on the water.
“We didn’t destroy them did we?”
“We fried their electrical systems,” HARA said. “We can’t see them because their lights are out.”
“The ejector seats aren’t electric though, right?”
Just then, we saw a red and white striped parachute open fifty meters above the bay.
“There we go.”
“Safe and sound.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Where’s the other one?”
On cue, another round of blaster fire strafed the side of the limo sending us into a roll as the final Woolly Boy zoomed by us.
“He must have pulled clear of the effected zone, before impact.” HARA said, regaining control of the limo.
The racer sped a hundred meters ahead of us then looped around to make another run.
“We’re running out of power, here,” HARA said. “Any more ideas?”
“I’m thinking.”
“Tio,” Carol said, looking up from her seat, “is there anything I can do?”
I shook my head silently and turned away. Then I had an idea and shot her quick thought.
“Can you control the driver’s mind?”
“Not at this distance,” she mentally replied.
“You can read my mind over the vid.”
“Your mind’s familiar to me. I’ve never met the Woolly guy.”
“What if we get you closer?”
“I’d at least need a visual,” she said. “We’ll need some light.”
I cast a glance out the limo window and saw the Golden Gate Bridge looming nearby.
“No problem,” I said then turned toward the driver’s seat. “HARA take us to the bridge.”
Frisco’s calling card, the famous Golden Gate Bridge still stands majestically (and Gates knows that it’s been through a lot) in the bay at the mouth of the Pacific Ocean. The sad part is that the structure is no longer used as an actual bridge. All the north/south traffic crossing the bay these days does so via the 101 Skyway or the nearby Frisco Hover Bridge (which has always given me the creeps). The Golden Gate today is a national monument, a tourist attraction, and a Wal-K-Mart (don’t get me started). The iconic towers still stand as originally constructed but the expanse has been completely reconfigured so that people can now stroll the walkways, visit the museums, and patronize the shops and restaurants that pepper the bridge. It’s actually not a bad little place, a peaceful oasis in the otherwise crowded city. Very low-tech; no traffic, hover or ground-based is allowed.
But that was all about to change.
I pulled open the privacy barrier between the two compartments, reached through and grabbed the still sleeping Shreek.
“Circle around to the far side,” I said to HARA as I unbuckled Shreek’s safety belt. “I want him to think we’re trying to hide.”
“You mean we’re not?”
Lusty and Misty helped me pull Shreek from his seat and into the main cabin.
“There aren’t enough people here this time of night to hide. Carol, take the shotgun position and strap in. We’re going to play some chicken.”
“You’re not serious,” Carol said.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I replied.
“Of course not,” HARA quipped. “It’s only reckless, illegal, and deadly.”
HARA took the limo to the south side of the bridge and hovered there for a nano before entering in order to make certain that the remaining Woolly Boy saw us go in. He did and, just as I thought, he shot past the entrance and around the perimeter in order to enter through the Marin County side.
We created a bit of a stir as we flew overhead, especially among the security detail. As I suspected, there weren’t many people on the bridge this time of night. Most of the shops had closed, leaving only a few diners at the restaurants and the small number of people there for the night views of the city. Security teams on the bridge were only equipped with small blasters and low-powered hovers so I knew they couldn’t bother us. And the hover was equipped with a blurring finish that made it hard to recognize (li
cense plate included). But I also knew that security would call for backup from the mainland the nano they saw us, so we didn’t have much time to get this done.
Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait long because we saw the remaining Woolly Boy approaching us only a nano later. He was gliding slowly over the bridge walkways, matching our altitude at about ten meters.
“Go to a full stop,” I said to HARA. “Let him see us hovering.”
HARA did as she was told and we floated softly as the racer slowly approached. Then it slowed and hovered four hundred meters away. We could see him clearly now under the bright lights of the bridge.
“Can you reach him?” I asked Carol.
She was leaning forward in the passenger seat, resting her hands against the dashboard and staring intently at the NASCAR.
“I think this one is Wendell,” she said, clearly straining. “He’s enjoying himself. Apparently, he’ll get a bonus if he shoots us down.”
“Nice to see a man who enjoys his work,” I said. “Can you zap him?”
She shook her head no.
“We’re still too far away.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. HARA, rev the engine.”
The hover engine roared and the cabin shook.
Wendell Wooly answered our roar with one of his own; deeper and louder, like a cross between a jungle cat and a tectonic plate shift.
“What are you doing?” Smiles asked, gripping the seat in front of him.
“He could blow us apart from this distance with his missile or blasters,” I replied. “We have to keep him from doing that. We need him to come closer.”
His engine roared again, growling insults at us in that rumbling, fossil-fueled language dating back to the glory days of the hot rod era. I knew that we were close.
I turned to Carol, who was still concentrating hard on the racer.
“You ready?”
She nodded.
“Floor it, HARA.”
One shortcoming of a hovercraft when compared to an old-fashioned car (one of many, but don’t get me started) is that there’s no squeal of tires when you peel out. Sure, the engine roars and there’s still the rush of air, along with a much more powerful g-force, but the absence of the rubber tire scream on pavement sort of kills the drama for me.
That said, no one else who happened to be in the limo shared my opinion because, aside from Carol and HARA, they all began screaming the nano HARA hit the afterburners and the g-force slammed them back into their seats.
At the other end of the bridge, Wendell Woolly maxed his accelerator and came at us like a rocket. A nano later the two hovers were speeding at one another, engines screaming, in a five hundred kilometer per hour game of chicken. The support cables of the bridge were a blur as we flew across the expanse, but our eyes were focused solely on the oncoming racer.
Carol sat in the shotgun seat, eyes wide and focused, reaching out with her mind to the mind of the driver ahead of us.
“Do you have him yet?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she said, straining.
“We’re sort of running out of time,” I said.
“Please don’t distract me, Tio.”
“If you can’t control him,” I said, “I can always shoot him.”
“Tio!”
“Right.”
We were a hundred meters apart now, engines still screaming in a headlong rush toward one another. The girls, Smiles, and the newly awakened Shreek were screaming in the back. The hover itself was starting to shake from the hard wear we had put on it already. And Carol held her position. Cool as the underside of an arctic sleeping bag. I was immensely proud and frightened of her at the same time.
Then the tip of her mouth curled upward ever so slightly and her brow unfurrowed.
“Gotcha,” she whispered.
The NASCAR decelerated immediately.
“You got him?” I asked.
“He is Wendell,” Carol answered. “He loves to drive, he drinks too much and likes listening to disco music when no one else is around. He’s also still in love with Sexy.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Sexy said.
“That’s my girl, Carol,” I said, leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. “Have him land at the security station and turn himself in. He should confess everything but completely forget who he was chasing.”
“Got it.”
“HARA, get us out of here.”
“You got it, big guy,” HARA said.
She pulled hard on the controls and the limo rose over the bridge supports. We banked hard to the east and angled back out over the open water of the bay. Then we spun to the south and headed back to the city.
I turned toward the back of the limo to check on Sexy and the others. They were all a little shell-shocked by the events but they seemed to be settling down now (all except for Shreek, who had passed out again). Calmest among them all, surprisingly, was Smiles. He sat nearly motionless in his seat, staring at Carol and smiling so widely, I was afraid that his cheeks would rip.
“My oh, my,” he whispered to himself.
18
“You are incompetent, reckless, and a magnet for trouble!” Smiles screamed. “You’ve put Sexy in more danger in the time that you’ve known her than she’s faced in her entire career. And she’s played Trump Tower with a Trump clone in the building!”
We were back in the city now, just approaching the Elite hoverport. Smiles’ joyous admiration of Carol’s abilities had been short-lived and he began yelling at me the nano we cleared the bay and passed over into the city. I had sort of stopped listening after a while, mostly because he had a good point.
“Your overzealousness and lack of professionalism made a mockery of the concert,” he continued, “and your … personal side projects … well, I can’t even begin to describe how abhorrent and unprofessional they are! And I’m sure they’re illegal.”
“You’d think so wouldn’t you?” I said.
“And you’re still treating this like some kind of joke!”
“Sammy, please,” Sexy said. “It’s not all Zach’s fault.”
“Which part exactly,” Smiles asked snidely, “isn’t his fault?”
“I’ll admit that he ruined the concert but he was only trying to protect me.”
“From a fan!”
“As for the aerial firefight, well, you know how Rupert Roundtree can be.”
“I know that Roundtree is crazy,” Smiles said. “My point is that Johnson knew what Roundtree was doing when you offered him the job. He knew that he would be putting you in danger just by being around you.”
“I knew that too,” Sexy said.
“Yes, but he’s the professional! He should have declined the job because he knew that his presence would be disruptive! Gates only knows what would have happened if Carol hadn’t been here to save us.”
He put his hand on Carol’s shoulder and Carol smiled just a little.
“Sorry to interrupt, Zach,” HARA said inside my head, “but Captain Rickey’s on the com for you.”
“Put him on the screen back here,” I said.
“I would, but you destroyed that one, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, glancing at the obliterated screen. “Put him on the wrist interface then. Excuse me everyone, but I have to take this call.”
“Unbelievable,” Smiles said, throwing up his hands.
Tony’s concerned face came onto the tiny screen on my wrist.
“Zach, I’ve been trying to contact you for an hour. Where have you been?”
“Oh, you know, just driving around in the limo.”
“Well, be careful,” Tony said. “It must be a full moon tonight or something because the whole city’s going crazy. I just heard that there were a couple of idiots playing chicken on the Golden Gate Bridge.”
“Really?” I said. “Kids today are just out of control.”
Tony looked at me for a long nano then quickly shook his head. “Forget it. I wanted to
speak to you about what happened at the concert tonight.”
“I know, Tony,” I said. “Honestly, I didn’t think things would escalate so quickly.”
“You’re telling me,” Tony replied. “It was utter chaos. I think Sexy’s going to need to make some refunds.”
I was about to get chewed out and I knew it. Worse still, I deserved it. I just wish Smiles hadn’t been there to hear it.
“You know how much I hate saying things like this, Zach, but …”
“Go ahead, Tony, I deserve it.”
“Good job, Zach.”
For a nano I thought that I’d missed a slang upgrade; that somehow the common meaning of “good job” had changed to something akin to “you screwed up so badly, that I’m legally empowered to have you flogged and imprisoned.” (It’s amazing what can run through your head in a nano of confusion.)
“Um, say that again, Tony?” I said, quickly turning up the volume on the interface and subtly angling the interface screen so that everyone in the limo could see it. “There was some interference and I didn’t catch that last part.”
“Gates, Zach, it’s hard enough to say once,” Tony said, “but good job at the concert.”
“What?” That was the collected reaction of everyone in the hover (HARA included).
“The guy you tackled …”
“You mean the fan with the flowers?” Smiles asked.
“They only looked like flowers,” Tony replied. “They were wired with nano-explosives.”
“What?”
“CSI found the charge on the projector module. It had enough power to obliterate everyone onstage.”
“It was a real threat?” Sexy asked, breathlessly.
“Very real, Ms. Sprockets,” Tony replied. “Honestly, you’re lucky to be alive.”
I tried very hard not to smile.
“The guy just finished going through booking,” Tony continued. “I’m going to bring him into the interrogation room in a few nanos. Zach, I thought you might want to sit in the observation room for this.”
“You got that right,” I said.
“I’d advise that you not bring Ms. Sprockets with you,” Tony replied. “And, as you know, Carol is forbidden by law to come anywhere near the suspect while he’s in custody.”