by Rhine, Scott
He gave a disappointed grunt, threw the card on his kitchen table, and let me leave.
Chapter 13 – Monaco and Machineguns
When I got back to the room, I washed my hands and face, and then climbed in the harness. Mare was chuckling over one tele-journalist who had built a profile of me in a hurry. He voiced several rumors about me, stating that I was a reclusive genius educated in England, employed by the military, and rarely seen because of heavy security. According to him, I was the next Alan Turing. He even had a picture of me as a freshman in high school when I was still pretty pale and scrawny. Okay, I’m still pretty pale, but this guy was way off base.
“Any luck, my young Turing?” she asked.
“Not a chance in hell,” I answered.
Soon after we resumed, the weather changed from cloudy to a torrential downpour. This test proved how waterproof the prototype was. Not a drop got into the cabin or controls. In fact, the paint on the rear of the dome washed off. Many players slowed down instinctively, but the UFO design of our craft cut through the rain like a speed boat.
During the storm, only one vehicle passed me. I played with the Hicks-Eisener Overdrive (HEO—the rock band was named after the company, not the other way around as is popularly supposed) for a while, not letting him pass. Normally, I didn’t make an issue of letting a faster vehicle pass, but this guy was favored to win. Every second I could delay him meant points for the rest of us. The pilot thought about gunning us, but he couldn’t figure out where the twins were. His detectors told him that the 50 caliber machine guns from both sleds were aimed at him, and within lethal range. He just couldn’t figure out where they were hiding. Not everyone had figured out that the sleds were linked to the main body.
Since his primary defenses were directional, he was at my mercy. I decided to score some style points and sent him the White Glove. This offer, if accepted, amounted to a gentleman’s contest in which no weapons would be used. As soon as the HEO vehicle agreed, I turned off my guns. The narrow roads worked to my advantage. Even though this guy was a better pilot, the Ghedra was wider than he expected and could steer faster than any normal GEV. For over two minutes, I did it! I was standing toe to toe with the best in the game. Unfortunately, the road widens for exit ramps, and the HEO out-maneuvered me. Soon we were driving side by side and the extra lane was running out. If I persisted, one of us would splash on a guard rail. At this point, I backed off, and sent him a salute clipped from the movie “Top Gun.”
I had the whole exchange recorded on today’s removable drive. I’d be playing this clip and ones like it for the rest of my life. I even got another 15 seconds of fame on ESPN. The skies cleared and I went all the way to Nice with a silly grin plastered on my face. I was half way through the town before I realized I would need directions. Mary Ann had been quietly watching me for a while now. She does that sometimes when I’m asleep, too.
“Isn’t the Riviera romantic? I’ve read Tender Is the Night twice.” She had one of those “if only” looks on her face now.
I wanted to steer the topic back to turns in my immediate future. “Fitzgerald. Lots of description, but no action. I never finished it. Which road do I take?”
“Philistine.” Huffing, she crinkled that part of the map flat. “Head toward the beach, right, then all three roads that branch off from this point go through Monaco. Three roads in, and three roads out. You can’t miss—or was that too much description?”
I took the road closest to the beach, reasoning that it would be an easier climb. I’m sure nearly every other racer in the game used that same reasoning, but didn’t think of that until five minutes later when it was too late to turn back to the branch point. Outside the town, the road took to wrapping itself tightly against the cliffs like a snake on a Caduceus. As the road rose and fell, I could see the shoreline ahead weaving like the Dow-Jones Industrial average during an election.
“Description is OK, Casino Royale by Ian Fleming is filled with imagery and lavish paintings of this area, but he doesn’t spend a chapter on a beach picnic and half the book trying to guess who some kid’s father is.”
I had to slow Ghedra way down to keep from flying off the edge of the road due to inertia. This was definitely a performance test.
“Fleming had a grossly distorted view of women.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “But he was a real spy at one time.”
“Says who?” she argued.
“Everybody... oh cripes!” My proximity sensors went wild. Ahead, at the base of a particularly nasty hair-pin turn at least five of my rivals were camped in the road, and blocking further progress. I faded out of cloak, and glided to a halt. The right shoulder of the road was a cliff extending about fifty meters above sea level, so I couldn’t very well go around. I didn’t go into 360 degree bullet spray mode because none of them were pointing at me and I recognized a Lamborghini Aerospace team member, the Turn-Pica Elite.
I contacted the LAS player on a point-to-point link. “What’s up, Elite?”
“Chill, Scarab.” I cringed at the name. Was everyone going to call me that on the air? “We have a temporary truce here while we figure a way to deal with the situation. The French middleweight Mirage crew has been bragging for weeks about its maneuverability and fire power. They need a big showing at this race because the French military aviation industry can no longer sell to Libya or other countries in the Middle-East. They have to prove that the same jet technology, with minimal adaptation can work commercially.”
I shrugged, not that the Elite pilot could see it. “Compelling human interest, but why the parking lot?”
“Ah. They were racing two other contestants through these insane curves when someone on their team got the idea to even the odds a bit. The Mirage used it’s rear rockets to take out the Volkswagen on the turn. This also blew out the high-gee-turn embankment. The Simonson International couldn’t stop in time and took off into space. The bastards managed to fire all their fast weapons from mid-air and took out the Mirage’s rear armor before crashing and burning.”
I already knew where this was leading. “Since the Mirage can’t turn it’s back on anyone, he’s decided to go for sheer body-count and forget the race. Pierre found himself a perfect ambush spot, and just waits for the prey to come to him.”
“That’s a roger, Scarab. We have to approach at under 50 km/h or we’ll shoot off of the cliff as well. But then we’re sitting ducks for the Mirage’s long-range rockets. He already racked up four kills before some altruist put out the warning,” said the Elite pilot.
“Why don’t we all just rush him?” I asked.
“With the wreckage and rubble, the road’s only wide enough to go single-file. We might score a lucky hit and take him out before he gets us, but nobody wants to be the martyr. My rail cannon is big enough, but I’d need three or four seconds of free time just to sight it in and warm up the coils,” he admitted.
“What about the heavies? They can take the hit and roll him over without stopping.”
Mary Ann used her head-set to break into the same circuit. “They won’t be here for another eighteen minutes at any safe speed through these turns. But we don’t want to rely on them for help, Babe. It’s just as easy for them to make an alliance with the Mirage and have us all for breakfast. That way, he doesn’t have to worry about his bare ass.”
“Either way, we’re toast,” said the Elite.
I found a spot in the gravel, a hundred meters back from the main encampment to park. I deployed the sower mine on the road in front of me as a precaution and put Ghedra into conservation mode while I sat down to think.
If we could trust these piranhas to keep the peace, I could use the drones to distract the Mirage and have someone with a big gun blow him off the road. The question was, what could I get in return? They wouldn’t trust any plan I suggested unless they could see how I profited. How could I link this to my goals? Off-link, I said, “Mare, I didn’t ask you before, but did you get any clues from the
loser bar and grill?”
“Just that the environmental simulation is kick-ass this year. The snow, sand, and even wind simulations were taken from assorted thesis projects done over the past few years,” she said.
“Nothing about our salvage, Exotech, TSM, or Pensatronics?” I asked, tapping nervously on the fire controls.
“Nothing. The UC project was at ground-zero, as was the econo-box from India. Every guy in that room thought I was offering myself as some sort of bizarre consolation prize. I didn’t stick around long,” she explained. “However, I did talk with a Swiss ski instructor for a while in the auditorium before that NPR guy happened by.”
It didn’t matter which car was where when the explosions took place, because pieces of everything would end up scattered everywhere. The fact that so many guys here had hit on Mare had started to grate on the nerves at the base of my skull. I had a primitive urge to bash a few players and beat my chest.
I decoupled both the drones, and slaved each to one of the data gloves. The main unit of the Ghedra, I left in sentry mode. I wanted to slave the drones together to fly in tandem, but I couldn’t independently dodge and fire with only one set of eyes. “Mary, I need your help. Sit down beside me, here.”
She looked puzzled as I took off my left glove and left eye piece. “Right here,” I said patting the one-person chair. “You can drive left handed, can’t you?”
“Yes...” she said. “I’ve got years of experience. I have to because I drink coffee with my right hand.”
“Well I can’t. I need your help.” She put on the gear, but we couldn’t get situated with the gloves the proper distance apart unless she sat side-ways on my lap. “You hit the fire controls with your non-driving hand. We need to stay as tightly-grouped as possible to present a single radar image. French radar might not be that good, but it will notice if our propulsion grids are more than two-meters apart. Follow my lead, and I’ll try to announce turns well in advance.”
She nodded, and the left cross-hairs bobbed up and down. We couldn’t thumb the weapons active until we were within kill range, or we’d telegraph to the prey. I punched up the link to Elite again. “I’ve got a plan. But I’ve also got to call in a few favors.”
The LAS pilot seemed wary. “Let’s hear both first, Scarab. I know we owe you, for the repair help but ...”
I looked around the field at other players. “We can divert the Mirage, and even soften him up for you. We want you to handle the kill. Get one of the other middleweights to stand rearguard on my main unit while we concentrate on the attack. Tell the other four players here they owe both of us. We get to go in front of them into Monaco, and they split the cost to repair us both to full functionality when we get there—if we survive.” I hoped I sounded casual enough.
“Roger, Scarab. You’re an old softie.” Two minutes further inaction and negotiation followed. The heavy-hitters were less than fifteen minutes away. That fact alone, announced on broad band, convinced the others to cooperate. The networks latched onto this fact as well, and were requesting a live-feed of the action. I held out for a ten minute delay, which was standard in ambush situations. A tabloid TV show once broke that agreement. The company wronged bought the station and did an hour-long documentary about the adulterous relationships and tax evasion practices of the former host. We didn’t have that kind of clout, but the participants in SimCon did practice solidarity about a few things. We got our delay.
At T minus fourteen minutes till the big guns arrived, my drone pair raced back down the road to find access to the beach. When we got there, and slowed down to turn, I noticed that one of the lightweights had followed us. I warned him off, but the Anaconda refused to go back to the camp. “Why should I owe anybody, when I can follow you out the back way, then kill you when I’m done. The rest of those guys will all die, and you’ll get blamed.”
I didn’t bother to tell the Anaconda about the tape-delay on the event. I also couldn’t take the time to turn around and shoot him. Instead, I kept the drone totally silent, scrambled his electronic detection gear and whispered to Mare. “Drop back to eighty km/h, and do the slalom with me. We’re going to make this jerk eat our dust.”
True to prediction, as soon as we hit the beach, we kicked up a huge dust storm. No doubt we were soaking up mega-cycles for the particle modeling. As soon as the Anaconda hit the cloud, he was blind. Slowing didn’t help him. Once the sand got in his intakes, his engines were doomed. First cursing, and then pleading, the Anaconda realized that the “Desert Storm Effect” had taken him out of the race. After the dust cleared, he would be a clearly visible target from the road, alive but helpless. Rather than give any other team credit for the kill, the Anaconda punched his own ticket.
Mary Ann seemed shocked at the strategy. “I’ve heard of blowing a blood vessel, but this is ridiculous.”
“Some people have killed their own team members to score. We have a fail-safe device built into our own hull for cases just like this.” I told her.
“Yeah, but you’re different. You wouldn’t destroy months of work to get a point on a stupid board.” She said with unjustified confidence.
I just grunted and steered her over the water, parallel to, but out of sight of the cliffs. This was no easy task with all of the rocks and jetties I had to swerve around. Some fractal geek had a field-day designing this part of the computer graphics.
After racing for four minutes through this obstacle course, I began to sweat. It was T minus ten, and my allies were getting nervous. “Come on, there are all these boats around here, where are the boat landings?”
“Over there,” Mare exclaimed. “A private beach!” We both turned hard left without needing to consult. When we got close enough to make out details, we saw the mistake. “Oh, God. Stairs!”
I did some fast math. “Don’t slow down! Just nose up and turn left up the coast road and brake as soon as we’re out.” If we slowed down the momentum wouldn’t carry us over the hill, and we’d crack open against the rocks. I didn’t tell her, but the sudden deceleration was even riskier than the jump.
At the last second, she put her arm around me and squeezed tight. I thought it was so both drones could squeeze up the same staircase. When I heard the intake of breath, I realized that to her, this was a real chase.
As soon as we were up, and stopped, I ran a fifteen-second diagnostic and soothed her nerves. The brake flaps had worked almost as fast as a parachute. It was the first time I’d used them, but I didn’t tell Mare this either. “Relax, it’s just a game. We’re safe.”
When the shock wore off a little, she asked. “How did you know it would work?”
“I saw them do this in a movie with speed boats. The drones weigh about the same. I figured we could do it, too. Besides, we’re T minus nine and don’t have time for pussy-footing.”
In a quiet voice, she suggested. “You don’t have to go back. You can still win with two out of three team components.”
I shook my head. “I gave my word.”
“I know.” I could see her smiling now out of my unharnessed right eye.
Three minutes later, I hit the switch to arm our guns. Seeing his cue, the Elite did the same. With my ECM, the Mirage couldn’t be absolutely certain from which direction the attack was coming until we hit visual range. Unfortunately, visual was almost a kilometer away. T minus four, and it all hit the fan. The Mirage had seen us and was firing its attitude jets to aim at us. “Guns, constant fire,” I ordered. We managed to pump two or three rounds into his infra-structure and bounce a few more off the cliff into him before the Mirage reached his firing stance.
Somewhere between 700 and 500 meters, he got radar lock, despite our defenses. That was the second time this race that someone had done that to me, and it was getting annoying. Where was the Elite? We exhausted an entire drum of bullets as the Mirage aimed it’s rack and launched. Jane’s on-line said those rockets cost an arm and a leg. Mare wanted to veer-off instinctively, but I shouted, “Hold fo
rmation, don’t weave.” We waited for our only remaining ammo drum to cycle into firing position.
Warning lights and buzzers sounded. The Elite was on screen. If we could all survive a few more seconds, we’d have victory. The Mirage on-boards swore they scored a direct hit on us, as do all the replays. What the sports casters failed to notice was that since we weren’t evading, the computer hit us dead center. Since we had no center, the direct hit passed through harmlessly. DeClerk Enterprise stealth technology just earned its first product endorsement on stations worldwide, and its first sound-byte on the evening news. As the Scarab, I racked up another return from the grave for my legend.
The Mirage crew was too stunned to react when both our drones and the Elite opened fired simultaneously. We obliterated him, and knocked his carcass clean off the cliff side. Jet fuel is nasty that way. Mare let out a whoop, and tried to clap her hands before I stopped her. “Cease fire. Brake, brake.”
Our detective burst down the door in alarm, worried that someone had gotten past him. When he saw Mare jumping up and down on my lap, giggling, he said “Sorry,” and left again.
“Yes!” We high-fived the Elite by flashing our headlights and reconnected with our main body in the base camp. When we formed up the convoy to Monaco, we took the lead. “T minus three, boys and girls, let’s move.” Mary said, as she resumed her role as navigator extraordinaire.
I left my sower mine in the road and encouraged others to do the same as a delaying tactic. The rest of the day’s leg was anti-climactic. We had a cabin air filtration quality test while passing through some of the tunnels, but I don’t remember anything else.
By now, so many people were calling me Scarab that I changed my icon on the strategy map to the one I used back home. The Scarab pulled into the designated finish line in sixth place for the day, and the Elite finished a contented seventh. When the statistics came up for that day’s run, I noticed a new column marked AAPK. Mousing the box, the expanded title read “Assists and Passive Kills.” They had me down for four of them. With ESPN coverage, the stats were starting to resemble the NBA more than a true road race.