It's not the speed...
The turbine wound down, 1500kw of turbine power moaning as it finally bled away to nothing. It was contained in a low-slung stealth-grey body that’d started as salvaged 962C-replica kit car, placed over reinforced heavy steel spaceframe that’d keep driver safe at any speed short of 300, placed on top of an all-wheel drive system hooked up to four fat near-slick tyres. An eight-speed torque-converter driven automatic gearbox adapted from something Peterbuilt completed the connection between powerplant and road.
A rear wing like a barn-door matched to a front front splitter wider than a doorstep and sharp as a blade crushed it into the road. Engine exhausts blew hot gas through the rear diffuser, pulling air along the undertray, sucking the car onto the road.
Hydropneumatic suspension - stolen from a truck - made bumps utterly irrelevant. It slowly hunkered down as the system pressure bled away.
It was known simply as the ‘Griffon’. It was, in the opinion of its owner, two tons of dead fucking kerosene-burning cool.
The magnesium wheels had been scavenged from a wreck, the timed-out engine borrowed from a helicopter, and most of the ancillaries from scrapyards and breakers across Fenspace. A gas turbine engine simplified everything so much - only the gearbox and engine oil needed cooling.
Mackie Jaguar doubted there was a single new part in it. Not that it mattered. It was a waveless wonder. Pure, unwarped engineering. Reliable. Dependable. Quirkless. Built over 3 months, it was his key into entry into the prestigious Nekomi Motor Club
Sitting in the driver’s seat - a standard bucket seat - he checked a few last systems on his laptop, before adjusting some of the stability manager settings The cockpit instruments bathed him in cool turquoise hues, and few vibrant reds and yellows jumping out to draw attention.
Most of the cockpit instruments were behind repurposed laptop screens, with a few others being formed from LED matrices. Some of the switchgear and steering wheel came from an Opel, while the gear stick was actually a Blackbird throttle. The rest was made using an old tablet screen, with the majority of controls being at the touch of a finger.
It kept his sister from stealing it.
He disconnected the cable from a socket hidden behind a cupholder. The dashboard lights flickered a moment. Some of the LED elements began to glow dimly, illuminating parts of numbers, the service light and a parking brake light.
He blinked, then slapped the top of the dashboard.
Nothing happened.
“Huh... funny that,” he mumbled to himself, before shutting the car down.
Everything went dark inside, except for a courtesy light in the roof. He popped the scissor door open before clambering out over the outer frame rail, taking one last appreciating look at his handiwork, before slamming the door down.
It rattled, rather than clunked.
The distant moans of engines echoed through the tunnels beyond.
Day 1 of Motorcon was done
Day 2, he’d show the Motor club what he could do
“I’ve given the Dorsai, the medical, then guests priority access, but it’s still..." she groaned "It’s still like spinning plates keeping it up.” Anika sighed, slumping over the terminal. “We get 3.5 megabytes, on a good day. Even with the Wagon giving us another 150 kilobytes, it’s just falling over. I've added Ad-servers to the blocklist to try and minimise the number of requests but it's still creaking. The intranet - there’s only so much that can be pushed through the powerlines.” Her hair spilled across the keyboard as she gazed despairingly up. “Can has break now?”
Ford yawned.... tried to answer... then yawned again. “You don’t need sleep.” she said with a groggy croak. She’d been awake for three days and change - and looked it. Running a convention had aged her visibly, adding at least a decade to her eyes.
Anika groaned loudly again.
“Anyway. The Beeb-crew need some bandwidth to send some video back to mundania. What can you give them?”
“A jump drive and a mail drone,” Anika answered. “Best option. Especially if it’s gigabytes.”
“Great.”
A black portable communicator the size of a brick was strapped to her belt. She unhooked it and clicked open
“Yo guys. There’s no spare capacity, you might be better just mailing it back. Tech says it’ll be faster anyway if it’s over a gigabyte.”
“Got that. Where can we get one of those then?”
A dry, english voice was clearly audible. He sounded just as tired as Ford did.
“We’ve a few spare up here.”
“Righto. There in five.”
Ford blew out a long sigh, clipping it back onto her belt. “This sucks.”
Having a film crew around was a curse, not a blessing. Publicity was one thing, but thus far all they’d done was get in the way.
She unzipped her leather jacket, allowing her body to breath. Black leather trousers creaked as she stretched, momentarily revealing a shoulder holster containing an overrated Czech pistol. Embroidered on the back was the logo for ‘Gunsmith Cats’
“So you’re actually going to go out wearing that?”
Anika might as well have asked her what she was wearing to her execution.
“Rally Vincent, yeah. At least I talked them out of the skirt. Seriously?”
Anika managed to giggled. “Your own fault.”
“Ugh....Don’t remind me.”
The projecting sideburns bounced distractingly in her peripheral vision, and she just knew some dipshit would ask for a photograph with her gun pointed at the camera. But the car demanded it and the committee had outvoted her. It was good for the convention for the showrunner to appear in cosplay of a character associated with cars. Whom she just happened to look like. And technically sound like, because the American dub VA’s were from the wrong region.
“It’ll be fun,” Anika assured her. “I’ve done it and it was so exciting having my picture taken.”
Ford couldn’t help but be reminded of the dentist telling her that it wouldn’t hurt a bit.’ She just closed her eyes and tried not to think about it. “Remind me to shoot the rest of the committee before they can elect me next year...”
The door squeaked as it opened, metal footsteps entering a moment later. Jet slipped the pack off her shoulder onto the desk just inside. It came to rest, leaning against an open pack of muffins.
“So what’s it like out there?” Ford asked.
“Crowded,” was the one word answer. “I saw Shinji on the way up.” A sly grin spread across her face. “You want to know who he’s here with? “
Ford raised an eyebrow. “He’s here with someone?”
“Yuu Inagawa....”
“The girl on Ultima who fetched our supplies? Big glasses?”
Jet confirmed it with a single nod.
“I didn’t think she’d be interested in this sort of thing.”
“Exactly!”
Ford blinked. “Oh.....“
“Oh that’s so sweet!” Anika beamed with asaccharine squeal. She was on her feet within seconds, wide eyes pleading for more information.
“I saw her earlier sketching,” said Jet. “But wouldn’t have realised if I hadn’t seen them both go into his apartment together.”
Ford chuckled in her throat. “Well that explains why he took that job out there.”
Anika’s shoulders slumped. “And I’m stuck here working.”
Ford smiled at her. It wasn’t a kind smile. “Welcome to the exciting world of convention staffing.”
Anika’s gaze turned to Jet, the big cyber being her only remaining hope of salvation. Her eyes were pleading in a way that was unique to her.
The stoney expression on Jet’s face said it all. Ford’s the chair, not me. Anika slunk back to her workstation, throwing sullen gazes at both women in the hopes that somehow, it’d make them feel bad knowing exactly how terrible they were being to her.
Jet demonstrated her immunity to it by opening a cabinet beside the main console, before rifling through a haphazard stack of papers.
“You didn’t get a look at the entry sheet yet, did you Ford?” she asked, filling the silence.
“Do I look like I’ve had time?”
“Point. I’d say pretty much everyone we’d expected, and then some, is out there. There’s even some tachikoma down there playing around the T-72.” Jet paused. “I want a T-72”
“Maybe for Christmas.” Ford waved it off. A model kit.
The radio hissed an interruption. “Ford, Ford... It’s us again..”
“Shit.”
Anika giggled, before smothering it with her hand.
She unhooked the comm from her belt. Push to talk was handy when you didn't want people to know how little you wanted to hear from them. "Yeah, what is it?"
“We’ll be filming in...." A pause, followed the the sound of papers rustling as a map was checked "...Tunnel B-4. We’ll need it kept clear for the next half hour. Is that alright with you?”
“No problem. I’ll let the Traffic cops know about it.”
“Thanks... we’ll try wrap up quick.”
She covered the eyes with the palm of her hand, for a moment hoping that by blocking out the light, the world would go away.
“Well, Jeph did try to warn us,” said Anika, shattering the illusion.
An electronic chirp from her communicator danced on the remains. A short text message popped up onscreen. She glanced at it and scowled.
“Dorsai. I’ve gotta get this down in Conops... again.”
“I’ve got to go get the Highway Star for the panel anyway.” Jet said. A light beamed out from the cabinet, enveloping her for a half-second before she reached in and grabbed the micro-projector “Then there’s the Sonoda thing.... ”
Ford shuddered.
“Oh, and people asking me to pose with their motoroids, with my helmet on.”
Ford offered her a rueful grin. “Try that puppet then. Then you can get harassed like the rest of us.”
“Hah!” Jet slipped the projector into the backpack, before clasping it shut and slinging it over her shoulder. “I’ll catch you later.”
“Later Jet.”
Ford took a deep breath as the control room door locked behind her partner. It was tough... but mid-morning on day two and things hadn’t fallen to pieces yet. Murphy might just stay away for the weekend.
An alarm started to chirp on Anika’s console, annunciator lights flickering red across the screens
“What?”
She didn’t really want
“Ah....ahhhh.” Anika’s expression seemed to just melt into despairing sorrow. “A whole subnet just went down.”
Ford slapped her hard on the back, making her best attempt at an encouraging smile. “Well, tech officer, I trust you can solve the problem.”
“Cake,” Anika murmured.
The announcement went out by way of radio, through a network of strategic repeaters. It was the one guaranteed way to reach the vast majority of people out driving, especially when networking and instant messaging was spotty at best.
“...And we’ve an announcement from Ops. Tunnel B-4 is closed to traffic until further notice. B-4 Closed to traffic. Speed restrictions in-place, Tunnels A-1 and A-3 for accident clearup. Limits will be enforced. Break the limit, lose your pass.”
Mackie reasoned, a little unreasonably maybe, that he might’ve been the only person on Frigga who was immune. He lived there. He couldn’t be excluded.
He cruised along at a speed somewhere north of what was technically allowed, only slowing down to snatch glances at a few especially interesting vehicles. It wasn’t a dangerous speed, as such. His Sister’d busted the limits in Kandor by more, regularly.
It helped that he knew how the system was set up. It made jamming the detectors trivial.
He rubber-necked at the wreck. An Opel estate had been practically impaled through the passenger door by short, upright Toyota four door while pulling out of a side junction. Nobody seemed to have been injured by stroke of luck. At least not enough to keep them from yelling at each other while waiting for the emergency teams.
Clear of the accident, he locked the cruise control in, and settled in for an effortless twenty kilometre loop. The Griffon rode like a magic carpet, isolated from all but the most serious of bumps by its suspension.
It was speeding but not ludicrous speed. Not darting between lanes, or doing stupid shit. Just ‘making progress’. The speed limit was an arbitrary number, chosen far away. It was often perfectly safe to go much faster. All was well, cruising at one-sixty. The engine wasn’t even straining. With that thought, the instrument panel flickered. Mackie stared at it,
It went dark. He smacked it. Every single indicator lit up at once, giving him the full Apollo 13 show, before finally going dark for good.
“Ah...” he managed, before being interrupted by the deep whistle of the turbine spooling up. It kicked him hard in the back a moment later. The car rushed forward.
His first diagnosis was that the cruise control had malfunctioned, getting stuck at a spurious high value by the failed panel. No big deal. There was a disconnect switch on the brake pedal.
He tried the gearstick first. Nothing. The lever clicked to the N position, but the gearbox didn't answer the signal. He slammed it forward and back. Nothing answered.
Mackie stomped hard on the brake pedal with both feet anyway.
The engine strained hard. But he could feel himself slowing down. Not brick-wall fast, but enough. No need to panic. Just a routine accident. He could smell the the acrid stink of cooking brakes as the car struggled.
He found himself wondering why the hell it wasn’t working as he felt the fear rise inside him. He knew he couldn’t get sick, but he sure felt like throwing up when the realisation hit.
It wasn’t cutting the engine, because it wasn’t the cruise control that was the problem. It was the throttle sensor. It couldn’t send the signal without power. The engine control system was fail-safed to go to full throttle if the sensor signal was lost. Full power in an aircraft on takeoff was safer than no power. In a car, in a tunnel, with traffic flickering by - it was the worst possible malfunction and he knew it.
He knew what’d caused the instrument failure. He knew what’d caused the throttle sensor failure. He knew how to fix it if he hadn't been sitting inside the car going at a speed at north of 320kph. As problems went, it was nothing special. An earth strap bonding the console to the frame of the car had fallen loose. It really was just a simple electrical glitch.
The pedal started to soften under his foot, sinking deeper and deeper. His stomach followed. At least, that’s what it felt like. The brake fluid was beginning to boil. The engine started to win its struggle, steadily breaking free of its bindings. The brakes gave up for good a moment later when his foot hit the floor.
Mackie swallowed his fear. One last gamble. He ripped the handbrake up, then gripped tight to the wheel. It bit deep and hard with a metallic howl, sending a hard jolt through the car’s frame. It gave up the ghost a half-second later, failing with a hollow clank that ricocheted around under the car before disappearing into the distance behind.
“Ah....” he managed, before returning his gaze to the tunnel ahead.
His mind stopped dead.
It branched. Left. Right.
Right was blocked. A glimpse of a barely seen vehicle registered in his mind. He didn’t even choose left. Instinct did.
The car jerked. The tyres chirped. And Mackie thanked whatever deity cared that he had an android’s reflexes.
The momentary feeling of relief dissolved as he realised he was still in a runaway car. And he was accelerating through four hundred kph with no sign of stopping.
The gearbox shifted itself up, and it found its second wind as the car bulleted into the black of the tunnel. Mackie didn’t know when the proverbial chickens had left, but he sure as hell knew they were all coming home to roost now.
A man, who had once charitably been described as having been bald until he hit puberty, was allowed the Ferrari he was driving to steadily fall behind the Range Rover he was following. He shuffled in the seat for a few seconds searching in vain for a comfortable driving position - the car having been bespoke-built for someone of slight shorter stature than himself.
It was a simple maneuver. Piece to camera introduction. Stomp. Noise. Verbal ejaculation. Nothing new under the sun. Or orbiting it now for that matter.
He relied on the camera crew hanging off the back of four-wheel drive the watch for traffic - the camera equipment and lighting gear blocked his line of sight. Again, it was the usual arrangement.
The director gave him a thumbs up. All clear.
“Action!”
The driver took a deep breath. He was the connoisseur of cars.
“Naturally, I’ve chosen the Ferrari TheFerrari. The TheFerrari is, quite simply, the ultimate Ferrari. It is the end of an era. The last of a breed. It is the last Ferrari made with pure, unwaved Italian flair and engineering. It is Revelations. It is an Evening Star. It is - in one word....,”
And stomp!. Twelve Cylinders bellowed with the music spawned of dinousaurs and gigatons, augmented by the high cold whine of an electric motor. The supercar reared back onto its back wheels like a prancing horse before launching into a gallop.
“Amaz...”
He stopped slack-jawed. The crew in the Land Rover were waving frantically at him. He didn’t even wait to wonder why. He just put the foot into the brake pedal, hard. Four carbon-ceramic brake disks and a kinetic energy recovery system halved the Ferrari’s speed in one gut-squeezing second.
His mind registered that the light flooding the cabin, wasn’t from the camera stuck to the passenger door. The mirror blazed with a brilliant blue arc-light.
Car. It passed with a flash and shockwave that seemed to wash right through him.
“Jesus Christ!”
It was gone in an instantaneous flash of headlight, leaving only a red glow in the distance, a hollow roar and the burned-hair smell of cooking brakes hanging in the air behind it.
“I’ll tell you what the bloody problem is Miss Sierra... we’ve just had some moron in an intercontinental ballistic wavemissile come blasting past us like a bomb, nearly wiping us all out in the process.”
Ford bit her lip, hard. Exaggerating now. As demanding as a prima-donna. A pain the ass and then some. A party looking for an open airlock. The security staff from the Dorsai looked on with an expression best described as amused sympathy.
“You told us you’d keep the tunnel clear.”
“I’ll find who it was and burn their pass. It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.”
Click. An angry growl rose out of the back of her throat. Whoever the hell it was wasn’t just a danger to people, they were a danger to the collective reputation of each and every enthusiast present.
She sighed, rubbing the tiredness from her eyes. “Dangerous driver. Tunnel B4.”
The Dorsai leader.... a thin guy with sandy hair who wore a uniform that seemed to swallow him whole.... nodded once.
“Security team to the tunnel endpoints. Dangerous driver approaching at speed. Get him out, get his keys. Take him to a holding cell.”
His voice left no doubt that his ordered would be carried out. Well worth the extra money, compared to BSS.
The room was normally used for certain exercises at survival shot. It had monitors hooked up to a CCTV system, while one full wall was given over to an interactive map of Frigga itself. Coloured spots on the wall marked each and every attendee... tracked in the public areas by an RFID in their wristband. A safety feature, in case of an accident.
Each bank of monitor had a body in front of it. Scanning. Watching. Monitoring.
“Sir.” A grey-furred catgirl raised her hand “I just got a handle on that moron. It’s a sportscar - Le Mans kind I think. A red one.” There was a pause as she switched between monitors, checking and double-checking her timing. “But it has to be doing a minimum of five-hundred kilometres an hour.”
“Waved,” the commander mumbled to himself. “Alright. Forward the details to the patrols. Get the tags. And get the medical teams to standby just in case this moron wrecks it.”
Ford felt something inside her snap. she knew exactly who that was. She felt herself seethe inside, a white hot anger the boiled up and burned her face red.
This was best dealt with through use of the cellphone in her pocket. The number was on speed-dial. It took a half-second to connect
It didn’t even get the chance ring once.
“Ford!” The voice on the other end of the line gasped.
Mackie sounded terrified. Caught in the act. Rabbit in headlights.
“Hey!” she barked into the headset. “I’m going to give you one minute to slow that thing the fuck down before I let Security take care of you.”
“But...” he stuttered.
“I don’t want to hear it.” She slammed the door hard. “If you don’t pull that thing up right goddamned now, I’ll have your pass, and I’ll make sure you’re somewhere far away if we ever get to run this con again.”
All eyes fell upon her.
“But...”
“No! I’m getting complaints because of you. You drive like a lunatic because you think your sister won’t stick the boot in. Well I got news for you, I Will, and I will make sure it sticks.”
“I can’t fucking stop!” he yelled.
Ford swallowed the next sentence, replacing it with a flat “What?”
“I'm stuck at full throttle. I can’t slow down! No brakes!”
“Tell me you’re kidding me.”
It’s wasn’t even a funny joke.
“No I fucking amn’t!”
Everyone was staring at her, open mouthed. She sucked her bottom lip for a second, swallowing a thick heavy lump that’d crawled up the back of her throat. She just about managed to get her thoughts together.
“Runaway vehicle. Tunnel B4. Get the whole loop cleared of traffic. Get everyone to stop at the refuge areas and make sure they stay out of the road tunnels.... and find something or someone that can stop that thing. “
Just after midday on day 2. It was all going to fall apart.
The best part about having her visor down, Jet figured, was that it kept the flashes from bothering her eyes. While true fans could spot the differences from an AU away -with some padding hiding the markings on her shoulder - she could pass for Sylia Stingray. It was all in body language. Look confident. Look strong.
The Highway Star she straddled was the last land speed record holder built in the era of hardtech machinery. The 1907 Curtiss V8 Sora Hasegawa sat astride beside her had been the first. Or was a replica of the first at least.
Both machines had two wheels and spat out a wall of noise when running. This was about the limit of what they had in common.
“Any chance you could start it them up?”
Jet flipped her visor up. The hopeful was grinning with a phone aimed right at her face
“Sorry. Ran out of petrol.”
2600cc’s of turbocharged rotary engine did not equal a winning formula for fuel economy. It emptied its tank just getting down to the car park.
“I’ll need a bumpstart. And a 4 litre V-8 is tough to bumpstart,” answered Sora, offfering a conciliatory smile.
“We’ll be moving them when the event is over anyway,” added Jet “That’s 43 minutes from now,”
“I’ll be back!” the fan offered with a grin.
And after that, it was across the carpark to where the anime replicas were hanging out, prior to a panel on anime vehicle design. Ford’s GT500 restore had been parked there, with the expectation that Rally Vincent would show up. Lebia Maverick was lurking, along with the Third Highway Star and a few Tachikoma.
The event centred on the carpark, set in the bottom of an old excavation pit deep in the core of the asteroid.
It was where attendees gathered in their vehicles, just to show them off, or offer rides. A StellOil outlet provided fuel at fair rates for those that needed it, while a few chargepoints had been provided for the BEV’s to slurp. At both ends of the carpark were gates allowing access to the tunnels of Frigga. The general idea was that it could form one full loop around, with various routes branching off. And a few secrets hidden in the dark areas.
The T-72 parked in the middle acted as a showpiece for its crew. And a nice chicane to keep morons from screaming through at full throttle - inspite of the limits and pass gates. A speed limit of 50kph was enforced near public areas. Con rules left people in no doubt exactly who was responsible if someone got injured because those limits were broken.
Jet’d already personally escorted one fool to the landing bay after he was banned for dangerous driving, then got uppity about being treated unfairly. Joining him was a groper who groped the wrong person and got a black-eye and lifetime ban for the trouble.
Three other Kunstler from the Kammer Gruppe provided some real hard muscle to back the security. Nobody was going to try rip off some of the expensive machinery on show with them watching.
The trade hall and panel rooms were up in the accommodation block, a short drive - or lift ride - away.
She could see Vulpin Fury down by the Batmobile collection. Star of the show was a Barris Batmobile, along with an original Tumbler in camo, parked next to a blue replica. A few mundane celebrities mingled with the BNF’s, and a film crew from England who were getting in the way while trying to film a show about the ultimate evolution of the petrol engine.
The Highway Star was slated to participate in a showpiece later.
Effectively, a century of vehicular evolution was displayed on one stand - a sort of Alpha and Omega effect. And now the world had changed, and the internal combustion engine was rapidly going the way of the dinosaurs that once fueled its mighty roar. There was a certain pride in being the last velociraptor standing.
"Hey, big sis, I like what you've done with your body!"
Jet was snapped out of her momentary melancholy by a voice. The crowd parted around Kohran Li.
"Thanks. You're still wearing that one?" Sora answered, with a mischievous grin.
Kohran folded her arms defensively "It suits me. Have you met Yuu's boyfriend yet?"
Unsubtle change of subject there, thought Jet.
“No..... Ikari right?”
“One of Jet’s,” said Kohran, completing the redirection of attention.
“I know the story. Some of it anyway.”
Sora’s eyes asked for more information from the cyber.
“They’re in his apartment together,” Jet answered, feeling painfully like a third wheel dragged into a family conversation. “I’m glad he found someone.”
“They’re perfect for each other!” Kohran announced. “And you know Yuu deserves it, considering...”
“Yeah,” Sora nodded.
Jet kept quiet, only knowing the truth through Great Justice reports. She’d been assigned to other duties at the time.
“So, Jet, Isn’t that pushing it?”
Kohran grinned at her
“What?”
“Anime replica panel.” she pointed right at the image in the conbook on her datapad. “The Highway Star, and a Griffon? In the one room? It’s just begging for the laws of drama to intervene.”
Jet offered her an almost mischievous grin “Why do you think it wasn’t waved? It exists outside the laws of drama, in the real world.”
"I'm an engineer, I solve practical problems. I hate the laws of drama sooo much." Sora sighed, leaning forward on the handlebars of the Curtiss replica, checking the messages on her wrist-com.
“So? What about you and Mackie?” Kohran continued. “Last I checked your spec, there’s more wave in you than a motoroid.”
Jet shook her head slowly. “All I’m saying is, I’m not going to be chasing a homicidal cyber-car on this.” She knocked on the tank with her knuckles. “Because if that that thing breaks down, it’ll break down like any other car. ”
Which meant it’d come slowly coasting or grinding to a halt, either smoking, non-smoking or blazing on fire. And the Star was out of fuel.
“Looks like the network reached its limit. It just booted me off," said Sora, not really sounding like she was bothered by it.
Kohran checked her own wrist-com. “Me too.“ She struggled to hide an amused giggle.
It was well known that Frigga’s network architecture was a little bit.... creaky.
The vanes on Jet’s back adjusted themselves silently, searching. “My signal’s fine.” Better than fine. The realisation struck her like a train. “It’s gone to emergency.”
“On behalf of operations we have an emergency announcement. There is a high speed runaway vehicle in Tunnel B-4. All drivers in all locations are to stop in the next refuge area and wait in their vehicles. Pedestrians on foot should not cross tunnels. Vehicles in the parking area are to remain where they are parked unless directed to move by security. ”
Jet’s blood ran cold.
“Told you so,” Kohran grinned.
Sora was staring. As were maybe fifty other people who’d gathered to take pictures. It wasn’t long before they began to speculate.
Jet could feel her face go cold and pale.
“If it’s coming from B4 at full speed, it won’t be able to make turn. It’s going to come straight in through there. And that tank’s in the way.”
“Miss Sierra. We have a problem.”
“It’s coming through the Tunnel at speed. It’s not going to be able to make this turn here, at the gates to the carpark. It’s already going too fast for the trap barriers.”
“How long to clear a path?”
“That’s the problem. The T-72’s parked right in the centre. ”
“When that gets moved, it can go through and through the exit gate, then back around the loop.”
“Jake. I need the tank moved off to one side. I need a safe path straight through the carpark from gate to gate. And I need it in one minute or we’re going to have a real disaster on our hands.”
Myk looked at the Stig to his right. Then at the strobing lights ahead marking the refuge. A few cars had already parked up their headlights ablaze.
The tension was crushing. Both stared at the rear view mirrors, waiting for a flash of light behind. The Stig had gone stoney silent. It was an unsettling change from the chatty man who’d been waxing lyrical about the perfect balance of the Mclaren F1 they both shared.
They were a few kilometres short of the exit into the carpark. Myk didn’t want to think about what’d happen if that thing reached the carpark at full speed. They had barriers - he’d seen them. He had to hope they’d be enough to stop some runaway.
He had to hope they’d make it to the rest stop The alternatives made goosebumps prickle across his skin.
“This is Ray, your Safety Director. Vehicles in B-Tunnels should immediately pull in to the left hand side of the course. Vehicles in B-Tunnels should immediately pull in to the left hand side of the course. Turn rear foglights on. Make yourselves visible, this thing will be coming up fast.”
Stig had been hugging the wall as close as he dared. He wasn’t travelling slow - not by a long shot. He was doing his level best to get the Mclaren to safety as soon as humanely possible. It was going top speed - beyond three hundred and sixty kilometres and hour.
The V12 strained to push it faster.
Myk saw the flash of blue light in the mirrors a moment before it blasted past with a scream from its engines. The very real possibility that the Mclaren could be punched against the wall and wrecked by the slipstream trailing behind danced through his mind for a few sickening seconds. The Stig sawed at the wheel, keeping the car under control.
It was gone a moment later, trailing a dull roar and a red glow, far ahead in the tunnel.
“Mother of God....”
It was all the Stig managed to say.
They were travelling at maybe a hundred metres a second. A kilometre every ten seconds. And it had screamed past them so fast they might as well have been standing still.
Myk felt himself seethe inside with white, hot anger for a moment. It faded, dissolving into a sickening horror as he realised where exactly this tunnel opened out into.
It was yet another reminder of just how dangerous handwavium was, when mixed with a fool. And this was about to be demonstrated in the most horrific manner possible.
Mackie knew about the tank.
Through the fog of terror, the thought occured to him to just wreck the car and be done with it... with the slim hope of them picking something salvageable out of the remains.
He pondered on it for what felt like an age, weighing the relative merits of sacrificing himself on the altar of Murphy, against letting the Griffon slam into the tank, against hoping they’d gotten the thing moving.
He looked up a moment later.
It was already too late.
Lifting a car isn’t hard, once you’ve got the knack of it.
Moving them was even easier. Lift up the back wheels, then push. If the car was in gear, smash the window and knock it into neutral. It took ten seconds to move one car. The Tachikoma had been drafted... a pair of them lifting a Subaru at both ends before carefully placing it out of the way.
A third towed a black Darth-Vader Buick.
Two Motoroids got in on the act, the owners directed by con-staff to where they were needed.
Most cars were quickly moved by the owners themselves. There was no real scheme to it. Just getting as much space in the middle was the aim. Despite being told not to, people darted across the centre of the room, gambling that they’d see the runaway in time. A few were grabbed by any nearby Dorsai. Most made it across and back.
It was almost chaos. It was noisy. It was on the edge of being a panic. But it was just about under control. And for that, Jet was most thankful. She boosted up above the melee of vehicles for a moment, landing behind a Mustang II.
She pushed it back out of the way, and kept pushing until it was forced to stop by the door of a black Testarossa. Big deal.
Another fender bender interrupted the flow of things with a hollow bang, as both drivers decided they had to get out and sort things out immediately, rather than just get out of the way. They were quickly encouraged to move on by the threat of having their vehicles moved instead.
Everything was clear. Except for the tank.
She landed on top of the drivers compartment,
“Hey, What’s the holdup?”
“It needs thirty seconds after cranking or it’ll overheat the starter,” answered the driver with a yawn. Jet could sees her own hard gaze reflected in the black lenses of the driver’s goggles. He had three days worth of stubble on a bony chin, liberally smeared with grime and soot.
“You don’t have thirty seconds. You don’t have twenty. Get it spinning and get it moving or a lot of people are going to die!”
“Right, right, keep your armour on,” he waved her off.
Jet jumped down again, getting clear of the tank. The starter motor whined and struggled, cranking the engine lazily over. It popped and clattered a moment, belching a puffball or two of white smoke before dying.
“Can we get anything to tow this?” she broadcast on an open channel.
“Nothing in the time we have,” the answer came back.
The driver’s head popped out from the hatch.
“Lady... I’m not sticking around in here to die...”
Jet snapped back. “You either get it moving, or you get people killed!”
If in doubt. Make them feel responsible. Inside, she was shaking.
“Alright. we’re not going to make this. Lets try and get as many people out of it as we can.” The local security commander had decided to bow to the inevitable. Jet watched as the message went around the floor crew. They kept it professional to the end. A lot of people were about to die.
One of the Dorsai, in full uniform, was herding the crowd back away from the Griffon’s path. “Get back! Everybody get back towards the walls.”
If it did come screaming in and hit the tank - or plough through the parked cars - the debris and fire would keep moving forwards. By moving as many people as they could in the direction of the entry gate... they’d get as many of them as they could out of the line of fire.
It’d still be a horrific mess.
Ten seconds.
The tank’s engine thundered to life, belching thick blue clouds of smoke from its twin exhausts as it settled into a thrumming idle.
“Back! Back! Back!” yelled Jet, desperately hoping. A space had been cleared for it. She glanced to her left, just in time to see a flash of blue light spark into view.
Lime spotted Eljay at about the same moment Eljay spotted Lime. Both of them had found themselves on separate sides of the carpark in the confusion. The tank thundered to life a heartbeat later, belching blue oilsmoke from its exhausts. The asteroid itself shuddered as it clanked backwards.
Lime knew nothing more than that she wanted to be with Eljay. She glanced right. Saw nothing. And started to walk.
“Daddy!” she called out, waving.
“Stay there!” Eljay yelled over to her, gesticulating with his arms for her to go back.
“I’m scared!” And that was far moment important to her.
Eljay froze for a moment, then snatched a quick glance in the direction of the tank. Dim blue light glowered through the smoke. He took a second to consider, glancing back at Lime.
Somebody had to stop Lime. Everyone standing there despite the best efforts of the Dorsai seemed to be watching for the car. The ignored instructions to run. Their own risk. Nobody paid attention to Lime. Lime took another step. The decision was made by instinct. If the car was there, it was far enough away.
Eljay bolted, running as hard as he could.
The red form of the car loomed through the smoke, headlights ablaze, throwing a lengthening shadow down the corridor. He could almost feel the heat on his skin.
It hit hard in his lower back, tackling him forwards. The shock of it caused him to yell out as he was carried forward, before being unceremoniously dumped on the ground with a dizzying tumble.
His mind stopped spinning long enough to recognise Lime standing over him with tears in her eyes and the full armoured form of a cyborg looming over him with an expression somewhere between regret and relief.
The pressure in his chest was crushing.
“Oh.... my...” he managed to stay, before concluding that those are pretty stupid final words. It got worse, burning down his arm, draining his strength as he tried to move.
He was aware of cold metal fingers touching his neck. There was an electric tingle to the touch that seemed to flow through his body.
“He’s asystole,” the cyber announced, almost dispassionately. “Do you want emergency biomodification? Do you want to live?”
There was something about the cyborg’s glassy grey eyes that made disagreeing impossible. Like it was his right.
It took all his effort just to say. “Do it.”
Lime loomed over him. “Think happy thoughts Daddy.... happy thoughts.”
Her hand was warm as it closed around his. The cyber removed something from a compartment on his leg. It was a fat needle - practically a nail - with a big fat shot of green wave on top, mixed with a cocktail adrenaline and stimulants to kick the body into overdrive. It had to be tough to go through the breastbone and hit the heart to work.
“Sha-zam...”
It hurt like all hell going through with a nauseating crunch, before lighting his chest on fire. It rolled through his body, filling him entirely before swallowing his mind whole, leaving him with the final idea that some of the greatest superheroes gained their powers in a moment of desperation and the certainty that ultimately, everything would be okay.
Karen would...
It took less than a second for the Griffon the blast through the carpark.
A blur of noise, light and terror that left him clinging white-knuckled to the steering wheel in the hope somehow he’d be able Mackie saw his sister standing in front of him for the briefest instant before she disappeared. He saw a man getting tackled from behind by a cyborg. He saw the T-72 with its lights ablaze. He saw camera flashes and video cameras and a single Tachikoma standing above the blur.
He saw darkness as the Griffon plunged into the tunnel beyond once more.
Mackie offered a desperate prayer to our lady of blessed acceleration....
But she didn’t deign to intervene.
Jet saw Mackie in the driver’s seat.
Terrified beyond mortal comprehension. She looked right into his eyes and knew she’d never seen someone that frightened.... none that lived to tell about it anyway. His eyes had bulged out of their sockets... staring right through her.
Begging for help.
She boosted up over the top of it at the last possible moment, landing on her feet just in time to watch it disappear into the dark once more.
Disaster number one averted. But she couldn’t feel relieved.
“Code Scramble 08. Code Scramble 08.”
It burst into her mind through her radio. Scramble 08. A Panzer Kunst code. Ordinary Human. Lethal Injury. Consent to emergency biomodification given. Whoever that was was in for an interesting ride, if they made it through the other end.
Still. It was one near fatality. And probably a whole clutch of minor injuries amongst the crowd.
And everyone was looking at her now...
“Damn it Mackie,” she whispered to herself.
The Dorsai commander highlighted the Griffon’s target on the map. “It’s hamster-wheeled for now. It’ll keep running around that loop until it runs out of gas”
Ford stared at the marker, almost hoping the force of her gaze alone would bring it to a halt.. Dozens of others were stopped in refuge areas all along the route. If the Griffon crashed near any one of them....
“If that thing runs out of gas, it’ll crash. We can’t risk it crashing into one of those refuges. We have to stop it. Anybody who has a plan.... listen to them,” she said, her voice hardening as she spoke. “Get as many people as far away from the B-Tunnels and car park as you can. Use the fire evacuation routes.”
She’d be damned is this event went down in history as the next Kaboomite. Not a chance in hell. She still had to talk to the Committee and make sure they were on the same page. This wasn’t a time for arguments.
One disaster avoided.
A dozen more to go.
he tunnel lights streamed past in two pale blue snakes. The interior of the cockpit seemed to flicker, like it was being lit by an old television showing static more than the usual strobe effect of speed. A single red light flashed past, gone faster than his mind could note it. Every single spare iota of mindspace was dedicated solely towards keeping the car away from the outside wall.
Even as he knew as sure as he could smell the tyres starting to overheat that it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. He glanced again at the engine shutdown switches. He could stop the engine outright - but then he’d lose hydraulics. He’d loose steering. He could barely keep the car out of the wall as it was.
The speed was obscene. It was faster than he’d ever gone on a road in his life. It was faster than he ever wanted to go. He never wanted to travel at speed again... never. No sir. Lesson learned and then some. So please let me stop now.
The thought occurred to him to just give up and let it crash. He wasn’t human. They could pick up the debris.
He wasn’t sure if it was courageous or cowardice. He wasn’t sure what’d happen to the debris if he just wrecked it. 2 tons of metal and kerosene did not just stop. He’d give up and kill someone. He’d keep going and kill someone. He was dead if nothing changed.
His sister would bail him out. She always did. Come flying to the rescue, punch a hole in the roof, slip right into the cockpit beside him and just fix the car. All would be well.... A refuge was gone in a blink. Eight seconds later it was a kilometre behind him. The next one was coming up just as fast. His comm gave an electronic warble. He answered it without hesitation, pinning it between his ear and his shoulder.
“Mackie...”
Ford’s voice.
“I’m sorry,”
It just blurted out, but he meant it with all his heart.
“Lets not talk about that now.” Ford’s voice was calm and certain. It was something solid to grab on to. “Let’s focus on getting you stopped. I need you to tell me how much fuel you have on that thing.”
“Fifteen, Twenty minutes maybe. Maybe 160 litres.”
“Good. Engine cuttoffs?”
“In here with me.”
The engine controls were mounted on a panel attached to the roof. Still illuminated, they were on a different circuit. N1 was at the redline, N2 was holding just below. Output shaft was at maximum, the engine’s governor kicking in to keep it from overspeeding. EPR was green. EGT was already going yellow.
As far as the engine was concerned, it was happily giving its best.
He could cut fuel pressure, or dump the fire extinguisher bottle. He could start the engine too, not that that’d help much. Disabling the governor would cause it to overspeed and explode. Cutting fuel pressure would shut it down within seconds. The fire bottle would do it even faster.
None of this would help.
“Any external network connections?”
“No. It’s just a car Ford..... nothing else.”
“Can you get it into neutral?”
He tried again. No less in vain than the last time. The gear stick went into place, but it’s electronic sender unit was powerless to send a signal.
“No response from the shifter.”
“What have you got on brakes.?"
“I think I boiled the brake fluid.” He pressed on the pedal. It was still spongy beneath his foot, but the car slowed. “But I can slow down a bit. Emergency brake is gone.”
“Just keep it circulating for now. Let the brakes keep cooling. We’ll need them later.”
He swallowed that fat lump in his throat.
“Should I find somewhere to stop it?”
In that moment, Mackie hoped she’d say no. If only to prove that he had permission not to go through with it.
“Not yet.” she answered, to his relief. “We’re going to get this thing stopped. We’re going to get you out of there.... Then I’m going to kill you.”
He genuinely wasn’t sure what’d be worse. Dying in the wreck... or facing Ford afterward it was over.
“Okay... I need that broadcast to the emergency channel now. The whole committee needs it.”
Anika answered through a speaker on the desk. “Done. And I’ve already signalled for emergency aid from Asuka. Response teams will be here within the hour.”
Ford had managed to get three of them, the medical officer, the safety officer and the public relations officer. The rest of the committee was either in the Trade Hall, in their quarters, or otherwise busy herding cats and con-members to safety. Either way, too far away and too busy.
Sydney, the con’s medical, sat on a spare terminal. His fair hair and almost boyish face joined with a rebel alliance uniform gave him a Skywalker charm that stood at odds with the seriousness of his expression. “We’ve had ten casualties so far.” he said “Mostly light injuries. One heart attack requiring emergency biomod. No fatalities”
“Thank fuck. Evacuation?”
Ray Holley -the safety officer from Marsbase Sara with the autobots t-shirt - was standing by the map, paying more attention “The plan is good. The last few stragglers are leaving the B Loop. The Beeb blocked an emergency door with a caravan here, so they’re stuck here.” he placed his finger over their markers on the map. “The Carpark’s about half empty already.”
“How long?”
He thought for a moment. “5 Minutes. Without tunnel access, it’s slow going. The plans assumed we’d have at least one, even if we had a developed fire.”
Ford offered a silent prayer of thanks. All their planning and preparation was working. The relief flowed through her body.
Janet, the PR officer from Ganymede with the brown duster spoke next. “I’m telling them the truth.... ain’t got much else to say. Keep clear a’ the tunnels and carpark,. Keeping music on’ll keep people calm. It’s all nice’n orderly like. A few complaints over the network being cut off, some folk think we’b trying to hide something from the ‘verse at large but most understand.”
“Okay.” Ford took a few moments to gather it all together in her head. She twirled one of those projecting sideburns through her fingers as she mulled the situation over, trying to get her mind on top of it all. "Now that we know where we are. What do we have that can stop it before it wrecks?”
“Nothing....” said the safety officer. “No really. Nothing we have was intended for these speeds. We have crash barriers... they’re good for two tons at 320kph. The foam will stop it... but again, at these speeds we’re losing the driver.”
“He’s a CI, not a human being,” said Sydney, in a cool tone. Everyone glared at him. He raised his arms in defence “I mean.... he’s tougher than a human, isn’t he?”
Ford though for a moment “I don’t know. But I don’t want to take that chance. ”
“Can we route it to the surface? Shoot it out into space?” suggested the PRO, with a hopeful expression on her face.
“There’s no way it could make the turn onto route A2 at those speeds,” Ray answered quickly,
“Then drop the partial pressure of oxygen...” she continued
“That’ll take way too long. Half an hour, easily.”
“And there’re people trapped in those sections.” Sydney added.
Ford flipped open her comm-link. “Anika? Can you see if anyone over in the CGI pit has anything that’ll stop it.” Her eyes scanned the room “We need more options and we need them quick.”
Jeph remarked to himself on the relative unfairness of the universe, as he looked up from the stack of paperwork that he had to personally deal with, and over at the flyer tacked to the wall for MoCon.
"Hey, Jeph," Holly called out, his face appearing on one of the monitors. "Wavecall from Myk."
"Thanks, Hol," he said, picking up the handset from the base on his desk, the one spot not covered in paperwork. "Jeph's Den of Iniquity." Nene, over in the corner, snickered. Then, Jeph straightened up in his chair, shifting to female so quick there was almost an audible snapping sound.
"What?!" She listened for a second, then exclaimed, slightly lower. "What?" A few seconds of some sort of... tense voice on the other end, then she repeated quite, quite flatly, "What. No, I heard you, Myk. Crystal clear. Who the FUCK does that sort of thing?"
A pause.
"Oh, bloody fucking joy on a shit stick. How bad?"
She paled as Myk said something unpleasant over the line.
"Oh dear gods. Have they got a handle on it yet? ...fuck me, they haven't? No, do what you need to do over there. Seriously, Myk."
Another pause.
"Yes, I understand this is pissing you off good. I can feel the intensity from here. We can start on our way over to pick you up when it's all finished."
A few seconds, as she nodded her head. "We'll ship over at full burn. Holly and Geo should be able to take care of things here while we're gone. Yes, you take care too." Jeph set the handset down onto the base gingerly, slumping back in her chair. "Oh fuck."
"What's going on?" Nene inquired, coming over and setting a hand on Jeph's shoulder - Ashoulder that was already tensing up.
"Someone - it looks like Mackie - souped up some sort of car into the Griffin, and it jammed it's throttle wide open." Nene turned white as a sheet, as she remembered what the Griffin had done in the OAV. "It's already bad, and possibly going to get worse. Get your overnight bag, we're taking Starbug 1 over there as fast as we can burn."
The Ferrari seemed to somehow sulk, the red machine not especially taking to well to being parked up when something so simple had challenged its dominance. Gas turbine engines were, after all, the easy route to big speed. They needed no bulky radiators for a start. They had no soul whatsoever.
They were just plain bad. For all the reasons producing power through the use of pistols and crankshafts was good. It seemed however, especially annoyed at being forced to park between a Range Rover, and a caravan being pulled by a Transit van.
The LaFerrari’s driver took the opportunity to record a quick piece to camera while the produces busied themselves trying to figure out how to move it without blocking the tunnel
“What’s happened people is that we’ve had an emergency due to a runaway car - that isn’t one of ours - and the driver of the mobile production office has pulled in to the designated refuge with us. And he’s blocked the evacuation door with it.”
He glanced nervously over the top of the crash barrier, peering into the tunnel.,
“So now we have to move it. Or we’ll be trapped in here and there will be a big crash and we’ll all be killed.”
A dozen fans stared at Jet.
“No!”
It was obvious what they wanted. It was written all over their expectant faces. There was a Griffon. There was a Knight Saber. There was only one way to stop a Griffon with a Knight Saber. It was big, red and made a lot of noise. Jet scowled at them. To hell with the laws of drama.
“The Committee’ve nothing that can stop it. Which means I’m going to have to go out there, catch up to it and get it. And I’m faster by air.”
“And how are you going to stop it, Jet?” asked Sora, mildly.
Jet’s mind was clearly focused elsewhere. The cyborg glanced back at Sora for a moment - long enough for her to get a look at the real and deep fear lurking behind Jet’s eyes.
“I’ll figure something out when I get there,” answered Jet. That fear had pulled her voice taught.
“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Just...” Sora paused. It was the pause that actually grabbed Jet’s attention more than aything. She stopped, turning to face the android. Sora continued, her expression deliberately neutral. “Don’t let it cloud your judgement. Rash actions now will just make it worse.”
Jet wore a look of solid determination. “That’s how I make my living.”
Blade Running was the romantic description for what most people would call making it up as you go along.
Sora’s face betrayed her momentary disappointment, but it passed. Kohran bulldozed through the crowd, toppling someone dressed as the Bean Bandit in the process, nearly taking her sister with her.
“I was thinking, Jet....” she started with a force behind her that demanded attention and made whatever Sora had been planning to say utterly redundant. The mad’s gleam shone in Kohran’s eyes. The circle of fandom surrounding them shrunk back away from her “If someone chased it on the Highway Star. They could just grab Mackie out of it at speed.”
“What if he’s dropped?”
“I could survive it,” she answered, with pride swelling her chest. “I’m built tough. I’d need a new shell but..... my point is, he’s a CI. So long as his core’s intact he can probably be salvaged, which is more than I can say if he crashes and burns.”
The cyber took a moment to gauge Kohran’s expression.
“You want to ride the Star?”
The grin that twitched across her lips was the only answer Kohran could give.
“Red switch is the ignition, yellow the started. Comm frequency 401.85 Megahertz.”
“Got it!” Kohran was already running to get her helmet and riding gear, leaving Jet standing there with a stunned smile on her face, already having second thoughts.
“Hey!” another voice grabbed for her attention.KJ Dupree, already ready to go in his waved leathers with a helmet in one hand, and the boost controller in the other. “The Stiletto can keep up if you want a plan B.”
The grin across his face told her that a 2650 cubic-centimetre capacity turbocharged, methanol-burning V8 powered motorcycle could do more than keep up.
Jet answered with a grateful smile. “If you can get out in front of the car, could you give us a warning if there’s anything in the tunnel ahead?”
“No problem,” he answered, holding up his helmet. The Red Star shone in the overhead lighting “I’ve got comm’s in my helmet if we need them.”
“Now...”
Tachikoma-2@shed.local.Frigga.fen;“Hi there!”
It burst into her mind like a grenade in an enclosed space. A tachikoma popped up in her vision a moment before the firewall warned her of the attempt. The avatar waved cheekily. Jet flinched in spite of herself, glaring at it with her mind's eye.
It bowed down, an oversized sweatdrop rolling down the side of its central bowling ball.
Tachikoma-2@main.Linna.Frigga.fen; “Sorry about that.” No it wasnt. “But.....Well... we were talking with our mommy, and we have a way to stop the car.”
JJaguar@main.Linna.Frigga.fen; “Yeah... what is it?” Jet radioed back, her irritation still plain for all to hear.
Tachikoma-2@main.Linna.Frigga.fen; “There’s no time to discuss the details. We’ll burst it to you. Mommy says you can handle it.”
Oh Joy. Jet braced for the onslaught.
JJaguar@main.Linna.Frigga.fen; “Go for it," she answered with the enthusiasm of a prisoner ordering their own execution.
“Is something wrong?” KJ asked, noticing her expression blackening over.
Shinji sat staring at the monitor.
“Berserker,” he murmured. He recalled something Ford had told him months earlier. this was the accident that everybody had known was coming.
Yuu placed her hand on his shoulder to support her weight as she leant in to see for herself. The convention’s website would only load the same emergency page, outlining the required evacuations.
"Oh, gods...” She covered her mouth with her other hand to keep herself from saying more. @ Is there anything we can do to help?"
Shinji placed his hand over hers on his shoulder, clasping gently.
"I'll ask Anika." Shinji's expression went blank for a brief moment - if Yuu hadn't also been an AI, she would have missed it. "If you know any way to get medical help here quickly, they'll take it. The con's infirmary isn't set up to handle it if the worst case happens.."
"Right."
Yuu pulled out her StellviaCorp cellphone and double-tapped the "PANIC!!!" icon on the screen. "Good thing there's a Halcyon node here, and the Global Frequency's connected to Halcyon”
It took less than a moment for it to ring through.
“Hello, Buckaroo? Yuu Inagawa here. Patch me through to 4077 Asuka, please - we've got a potential multiple-victim medical emergency at 77 Frigga."
“We’ve got a workable plan down here, Ford.”
The committee were watching.
“What’ve you got?”
“Lebia’s down here with KJ DuPree, and Kohran aswell. To cut a long story short, we’re going to use the Tachikoma and a Tumbler to slow it down to a safer speed... then have Mackie cut the engine. They can keep it under control until it stops.”
“Simple,” Ford remarked, almost surprised.
“If that doesn’t work. I’m getting aboard the thing myself. I’ll steer it while Kohran grabs Mackie out the driver door on the Highway Star.“ Jet paused for a moment. Plan C is to figure something else out when we need to. Unless you’ve got any better ideas.”
She definitely expected one.
“Go for it.” Ford answered,allowing the cool relief to flow through her.It wasn’t over. But it wasn’t going to be a full blown disaster either.
It lasted until her mind caught up with who exactly Jet had said was involved.
Scene: James May and Richard Hammond are stood with the second Unit production assistant in the main display hall, talking to a portable speaker phone.
The picture is far more wobbly than normal, given that the cameraman is only pointing the camera in the right direction on trained instinct.
The voice coming out of the speaker phone is easily recognisable.
Jeremy, from phone: …So we have an idiot in a waved car who has lost control and is barrelling along at over 320 miles per hour, and we just avoided getting sodding killed!
James: At least you’re in the refuge area now, that’ll keep you safe.
Richard: And the LaFerrari too, ‘cause Ferrari would be seriously pissed if anything happened to it. Wiping out at those speeds…
James: Easy Richard. [reaches over to grab Hammond’s shoulder] Deep breaths. [Tries to grin] The insurance guys throw enough fits…Oh Cock!
The camera catches May’s astonished face, Hammond turning rapidly to catch what has his fellow presenter so shocked and his face falling in slack-jawed amazement before a blur of movement as the cameraman swings around to their sightline.
Jeremy Voiceover: May’s expression of surprise was well warranted.
Scene: A half dozen Dorsai are pushing the crowd away from the podium. This is because three Tachikoma have just arrived, and are lifting the motorcycle from the stand, directed by a woman in white armour. They put it down and begin checking it over.
Richard, off screen: They can’t seriously-
Jeremy VO: They did.
The pods on the Tachikoma open and a couple of the Dorsai start pulling gear out of the capsules.
Jeremy VO: The bike the disturbingly cuddly spider-tanks were working on was no less than the Highway Star.
James Voiceover: The first of the line, a fully hardtech bike with documentation from the notoriously anal American Transrational Science Assessment Bureau to prove it, was the final motorcycle world speed record before the FIM allowed waved bikes to make records. It’s owner, Jet Jaguar, is the Sister of the driver of the runaway.
The Tachikoma start to pick up the gear extracted from their pods. They start filling bike’s fuel tank .
Jeremy, on speaker phone: Guys? What’s happening?
James, off screen: Jezza, the Fen seem to be prepping the bloody Highway Star. Jet Jaguar is getting ready to ride it..... Is that really the best name she could think of?
Jeremy, on speaker phone: …Surely you can’t be serious?
James, off screen: Oooh yes. And don’t call me Shirley.
Another motorcycle is wheeled into place, this one styled long and low, more like a dragster. A turbocharged V8 engine is visible through the cutouts in the fairing, driving a fat rear tyre. Printed on the side is a single red star, cryllic marking and the registration SS-19. It’s very Soviet in execution.
James: Cor, that thing looks like a missile.... if you squint.
James VO: The SS-19 Stilletto, powered by a turbocharged methanol-burning Cosworth V8. Built by an officer of the Soviet Airfoce in Exile to go very-very fast and make the Highway Star look very-very slow.
A deep throated rumble is heard. The blocky shape with huge front tires, looking like the cross between a tank and a stealth fighter, pulls up sharply. The metallic blue of the body panels gleam in the light.
James: And given the only Fen I know attending that has a bloody Batmobile has just turned up, I’d say they really mean business.
Richard Voiceover: Said Fen was none other than Lebia Maverick.
The cockpit of the Tumbler rises and pulls back, revealing the blond hair and head of Lebia before she stands up and begins climbing out.
Richard VO: Ms Maverick owns the second Highway Star, and is the creator of both the Tachikoma spider tanks currently helping out among other things, like the Mk.IV Tumbler she arrived in. Or the Third Highway Star, which is the fasted object known to mankind....
With Lebia out of the way, we see a purple-haired woman also sat in the cockpit, who passes out some items to Lebia and a waiting Tachikoma before standing and climbing out herself.
Richard, off screen: [BLEEP]
Jeremy, on speaker phone: What?!? James, what the Hell’s going on?
James, off screen: Lebia Maverick turned up with Kohran Li in tow. They’re talking with Jet Jaguar and . It looks like they have a plan
Scene: Jeremy is standing by a folding table in the refuge area with the mobile unit director, stearring at the portable speaker phone in horror.
Jeremy VO: None of this sounded at all good. Ms Li had a well-earned reputation for making things go boom. Admittedly in this case the thing going boom would probably be the runaway. The situation was quickly becoming a disaster, so I reverted to instinct.
Jeremy: Do you think we could get video of the whole thing?
Jet reached out with her mind and joined the node, using her callsign from her time on Atalante. The Tachikoma were already busy calculating the optimum intercept point.
Tachikoma.Primary;“Top speed?” they asked her.
Gillette; “540kph,” she messaged back.
The communal map updated, a section of the tunnels leading back from the Car Park flashing bright green. This was the maximum distance the Tachikoma could reach travelling backwards, assuming they departed at the same time as the Griffon passed the Car Park. They couldn’t enter until the tunnel until after it passed; the risk was too high.
Data was passed to Lebia to calculate the time for Tumbler to catch, assuming it departed as soon as the Griffon passed. It took barely an instant to calculate that the Tumbler’s earliest possible intercept was well before the green zone. It was then a simple matter of selecting the furthest refuge the Tachikoma could reach.
Tachikoma.Primary; “Here,” they suggested.
Jet checked with the current convention map through Anika’s downlink. Gilette; “Occupied” she answered, before suggesting the next one down the line, marking it as clear.
Tachikoma.Primary; “Agreed,” answered the Tachikoma.
Kohran logged onto the node, watching as the plan developed.
Pyrotechie has joined Visionaire.Local.Mobile.
Pyrotechie; “Too close to the carpark,” she said. “If it fails, it’ll make it through easily.”
Tachikoma.Primary; “That’s the earliest we can do it. It’s not perfect.”
Pyrotechie ;“How much fuel does the Highway Star have at those speeds?”
Gillette; “Full speed? Not even five minutes.”
Not enough to keep up for the whole circuit around.
Visionaire; “We should use the third,”
Pyrotechie“Is the suspension set up for it?”
Visionaire; “It’ll take two seconds.”
Pyrotechie; “No!” Kohran put her verbal foot down. “Besides, the original was modified for that Bonneville race, while the waved Star is still based on the original template. If my calculations are correct, the original will be faster over the road.”
Visionaire; “You have to wait for it to come back around.” Her avatar gave an audible sigh
Pyrotechie; “No problem. It’ll need to warm up anyway.”
Kohran just seemed glad to have an excuse to ride it
Gillette; “I can chase by air easily,” Jet added. “I can double its top speed no problem.” Jet didn’t even bother adding her range to the map.
“KJ. Fuel in the Stiletto?” Asked Lebia, breaking back out into conventional radio comm's
The answer seemed to take an age, coming through via standard voice channels.
“Enough for one lap,”
Top speed was estimated as equaling the Highway Star’s, with it’s acceleration based on already known stats, before having an estimate of it’s displacement over time plotted against that of the Griffon.
“You need to leave within the next thirty seconds to not get overtaken.”
“I’m gone already.” Again, the answer was painfully slow. “I’ll need a bump start.”
A tachikoma trundled up “On it.”
Gillette; “Are we good?” asked Jet.
Visionaire; “As good as we can be, Synchronise time to my node.”
Jet’s onboard clock adjusted a few milliseconds as she switched it to take its time signal from the node aboard the Tumbler. There was something reassuring about the certain uncertainty of it all. Everyone knew their goal. Everyone knew their intent. Things came together like they were designed to fit all along. It felt like Great Justice.... it felt comfortable that way.
Gillette; “Kohran. The bike’s tuned for 600 kilowatts. That should be enough to keep up. The water injection tank should be full. That’ll give you a thousand if you need it.”
Pyrotechie; “For how long?”
Gillette; “Less than a minute.”
A smile crawled across Li’s face. She was going to use every second of that. Even if Lebia’s plan succeeded. And if she saved in the process Mackie’s life, all the better. It was a strange inversion of history. The intercom chimed, grabbing the attention of everyone left in the carpark.
“This is your safety officer. We really suggest you evacuate the tunnels and car park. If you want to watch, then you’re responsible for your own safety from here on in. We can’t be responsible if you stay down there and get hurt. Internal and external network access will stay restricted to emergency staff only for the time being.”
They didn’t pay attention. Some had taken up ringside seats, while others were preparing camera’s. A few intrepid fans had made it all the way up onto the maintenance gantry’s to get bird[s eye view while the Beeb-crew were busy getting their professional setup in place. One of their camera’s ogled the Tumbler, lingering on the details surrounding the exhausts. The paint shimmered as it colour-shifted to something more visible in the gloom. Another seemed to enjoy the fact that three of the participants weren’t exactly hard on the eyes. They both panned towards the Stiletto as it’s engine barked into life, filling the air with the acrid smell of burning alcohol and a deep throated buzz-saw roar that rang off the walls and fizzed in people’s chests.
The Tachikoma waved it goodbye as it roared off into the tunnels. Thunder started to roll once more, rising out from the entrance.
Gillette; “It’s coming.”
Visionaire; “Positions.”
The Tumbler’s engine rumbled as it turned itself around to face the exit, placing itself out of the way of Griffon while still giving the best path to accelerate. The Tachikoma whizzed on their electric motors towards the entrance, pirouetting to a halt in position, waiting.
Tachikoma.Primary; "Standing by!” the trio announced in chorus. “Tachikoma to the rescue.”
Kohran paddled the Star out of the way, taking up station. It took all her restraint not to just fire it up and go.
“I’m passing point Charlie one. Three hundred kph,” KJ reported by radio, with his voice sounding like he was speaking through a tin can, nearly drowned out by his own engine.
Jet’s wings snapped into position as she slipped her helmet over her head. Her visor snapped shut, covering her face.
Gillette; “I’m ready.”
The Griffon blasted through chased by Castle Thunder. The bystanders were certain it sounded like Castle Thunder.
Visionaire; “Go!”
Nobody needed to be told.
510kph give or take, that was Mackie’s estimate. He timed the markers flashing past. It wasn’t that hard once he knew the distance between them. He was passing just shy of three every two seconds. His hands were locked rigid on the steering wheel. EGT was slowly edging towards the dangerous end of the temperature scale. It was a race between fuel exhaustion and the turbine melting.
Either one ended up in a high-speed wreck.
A knock on his window snatched his attention. He blinked, then smiled in deep relief. He knew he was safe when he saw his sister cruising along beside him.
His sister’s visor popped up and open, revealing her smiling face, just in time for his phone to ring.
“Hey..... we’re going to rescue you. Just sit tight and don’t crash it.”
He offered his thanks, to whatever God’s would claim it.
The Tachikoma were singing as the drove.
Time to face the day,
Time to make it snappy
But you know first you gotta make it out of bed.
They formed a digital harmony, perfectly in sync and in tune, seperated only by the microsecond differences in acoustics caused by their positions in the tunnel. Synthetic voices resonated off the walls. They were happy. They were useful and they got to show just how useful they were.They got to make sure everyone saw how useful they were and just what Tachikoma-kind were capable of.
You couldn’t do this with a motoroid.
Hello Mister Sunshine
Today you’re gonna be fine
Cos you know sunny skies are always right ahead.
Take on the day with a one-two punch....
They rounded the curve to be met with a Land Rover parked in the road, camera crews milling around it. They shared a thought, one agreeing to peel off and wait behind for a few seconds, while the others swept passed, dodging around without losing speed.
It stopped opposite the all-wheel-drive, spinning to a halt in front of the producer.
“Hey!... You can’t stay here. You’ll get in the way,” it announced, in its own chirpy voice.
“We’re moving the caravan to evacuate,” the producer responded, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat. It was big, blue and armed. And was way too cheerful for something with guns.
“Hurry up!” the second tank called back with its radio. “You’ll fall behind. We only have a ten second margin of error left.”
It stood for a few milliseconds, calculating whether it was better to spend time encouraging the humans to move out of the way, or leave them to it and risk not making it in time.
“Bye!”
It waved once, before whizzing off to catch up.
Tachikoma.Primary; “Time to Point Charlie-10, 99476 milliseconds.”
It took a few seconds of standing dumb for the producer to get his composure back. The diesel engine in the four wheel drive growled as it waited.
“Alright, keep going. Landy’s out of the way. We can move the caravan... get them shuffled around and back in in time. Three minutes people!”
The presenter sighed in resignation and turned to face one of the cameras to offer an excuse for the ultimate failure. “Our producer is still new. Anyone who is in any way familiar with our program, knows exactly what’s going to happen next.”
The camera tracked back to the parked Ferrari.
“Hopefully nothing important would be harmed.”
Pyrotechie; “That monster really gonna keep up?“
Visionaire; “Watch me.” Lebia replied, mentally engaging pursuit mode and flooring the throttle. With a roar like a triumphant Lion, the turbine was let off the leash to deliver all 2250 kW of power it produced into the drivetrain. The speed on the HUD quickly rose from 320 kph to 480 kphmph, 3.5 metric tonnes of armour and engine hunkering down through adjustments to the aerofoils. With the turbine scream reverberating off the walls, the Tumbler punched through the air of the tunnel pushing itself up to 523 kph
Pyrotechie; “An’ catch up?”
Visionaire; “What else does a Tumbler normally have Kohran?” Most of her concentration taken up by monitoring the Tachikoma chasing the Griffon, the tunnels around them, the com-net the Tumbler was the node for, and the Tumbler itself.
Pyrotechie; “Tell me you’ve a jet in that thing.”
Visionaire; “And an afterburner” There was a twinge of amusement in the blonde hacker’s voice. “Engaging super pursuit mode. “ Lebia notified the net, before triggering the reheat.
The hot air from the turbine radiators was suddenly squeezed by deployed baffles just prior to exiting out of the huge exhaust, and aerosolised fuel injected. Pressure and heat combined to ignite the fuel in the same way a ram-jet worked. Shock diamonds trailed behind the Tumbler as Lebia was pressed into her seat like the hand of an angry god was trying to squash her like a bug. The force eased off almost immediately, but not before the Tumbler covered most of the way to 600 kph.
Visionaire; “Time to intercept: 103 seconds.”
Kohran mumbled to herself as she prepped the Highway Star.
“Nobody gonna take my head
I got speed inside my brain.”
It wasn’t exactly designed with user friendliness in mind. Maybe it would’ve been better to use Lebia’s. Well, too late to worry about it. She double checked the time, allowing for a safe warmup period for the engine without burning too much fuel.
Another thirty three seconds.
Her fingers tapped on the handlebars along with the beat of the song she was mumbling. She was begging to just go. The bike was whispering in her ear, goading her to just fire it up and blaze into the darkness. It was a dirty, scuffed, rattling, living thing that seemed to speak right to her soul.
Still, she needed to get a few final details, since he was the only one not actually doing anything. She dialled his phone with her free hand.
“Hey. It’s Kohran.”
The stunned silence on the other end of the line spoke volumes.
“If their plan doesn’ work I’m going to be pickin’ you up on the Highway Star an’ I need to know a few things first. I need your shutdown times, your drag, your inertia...”
“I’m sorry I don’t have a calculator right now.”
The answer was equal parts caustic and absolutely terrified.
"I need you t’ stop pretendin you're flesh ‘n’ blood ‘n’ use that computer brain of yours, boy!”
“Ah...”
“You know how long the fuel feed line is. If you cut the fuel supply, how soon until the engine dies? And how soon after that do you lose hydraulics? Run the numbers!“
There was a pause. She could hear him mumbling the calculations to himself.
“Five seconds. Then another three seconds.”
“It’s not back-driven by the transmission?”
“No. only the power turbine is. The pump’s on the accessory drive.”
“Alright. Now, what’s your mass? And what’s your drag force, as a function of your speed?”
The Reynolds number of the car going at that speed was large enough that the coefficient of drag could be taken effectively as a constant, that gave a simple enough equation to relate the drag force to the square of the velocity. And Mackie had to know those numbers, how else could he have made sure it was aerodynamically stable at top speed?
He couldn’t have been that reckless, could he? She decided that was one question she didn’t want an answer to.
“2.25 tons. And .2025.”
“Good.”
She offered the data to Lebia’s node, where it was graphed and processed and added to the Tachikoma’s calculations. Another pair of variables to add to a very complex equation.
“An’ remin’ me t’ smack Jet for not teachin’ you proper design discipline when we’re through.”
Kohran cut the line before he could answer.
It was time. She was shivering as she activated both fuel pumps. They whined to life, building pressure. The ignition system clicked on, electronics completing a quick self-test. The starter button latched under her finger, motor chattering as it cranked the engine over.
Her cry of joy was drowned out by a thousand chainsaws clearing their throats at once. It was an explosion of noise that sent people diving for cover. She tickled the trigger throttle, racing the engine to build heat and circulate oil. It responded with a wall of noise, chase by gunshot backfires than rang back off the walls. It made her smile as she placed a hand against the fuel tank, feeling the living heartbeat of the idling engine.
“I know you’ve got soul.”
All KJ could hear was the roar of the wind blasting past, a turbulent drumming on the sides of his helmet drowning out the noise of the engine between his legs. The engine noise had been blasted out the exhaust and left behind in the tunnel. The Stilleto was alive beneath him, kicking, bucking and squirming off the little imperfections in the tunnel floor.
A solid punch kicked the bike hard into the air. For a few heartstopping moments it felt like it was going ballistic, taking off like the missile it was painted to be. His body went light in the saddle - an instant of zero-g. His mind locked on the instant, his body waiting for the inevitable crash. It crashed down onto its springs a heartbeat later, spinning tyres scrabbling to regain traction once more. A vision of himself cartwheeling over backwards in a ball of flaming debris flashed through his mind as the bars tried to wrench themselves free from his hands. The shock moved back through him, through the frame, then out behind as it finally found grip and powered forwards with its second wind.
For a moment, he recalled the Song of the Sausage creature, and had to fight not to burst out laughing.
At 600kph, every little molehill in the road became a mountain.
A refuge flashed by, parked cars abandoned. He glanced down at the navigator stashed under the screen. A rear-view camera - ostensible to check the parachute - showed the Griffon’s lights sparking behind him.
“Position Charlie-Five clear. I’ve got the car. About Six seconds behind me.”
He had to be shout to be heard. The response was smothered in a blanket of noise.
“Say again!. I did not copy your last...”
“Increase to at least fifteen.”
It crackled in his ears at full power, and still he could barely hear it.
“Fifteen seconds, copy that.”
He ripped the wastegate controller out, jamming it shut. There was no time to reset the controller. A small yellow light came up on the dashboard warning him off the fault, but the engine kept galloping forward. With the wastegate stuck shut on the turbo, it’d build more boost. More boost meant more power, meant more speed.
It meant the engine now had a lifespan measurable in minutes.
He glanced down at the camera image. The headlights had already begun to recede away behind him.
Two men watched the Highway Star warm up.
“Can you hear me James?”
"I’m afraid you’ll have to speak up, I can’t hear you.”
Neither of them could hear the phone ring.
Ford felt like she could murder and entire pot of coffee. She felt like she could murder Mackie first. She stood there, staring at the map, hoping as if by force of gaze it’d stop the Griffon.
Her headset came to life.
“Aisha just responded. They have exocomps that can go that fast and lift the weight of the car.”
“How long Anika?”
“Ten minutes to get ready and get through the transfer passages.”
“This’ll be over in ten minutes.”
“Best they can do.”
So. That option was out. Not that it was ever really feasible in the first place.
“What about emergency teams?”
“Infirmary’s ready,” Sydney answered.
“Asuka’s got an emergency team on the way, Alert 1. They’re using Halcyon to make contact. I’ve already updated them.”
“And the evacuation?”
The Dorsai commander swept through a few final reports on his tablet with brush of his hand. “Everybody who wants to leave has left. Everyone else is at their own risk.”
Finally, she could stop sweating. It might not have been over, but it was under control. She closed her eyes, taking a deep, calming breath. She opened them in time to see a cluster of dots moving in the tunnel. A chill rolled across her body as she realised exactly who they were. The ID tags confirmed it.
She keyed the number into her comm. It didn't even ring once before being answered.
“Hello. Yes?”
He sounded out of breath, almost like he’d been shouting. Or running.
“Hey guys, what the hell’re you still doing in that tunnel? I hope you’re not stupid enough to try and film this.”
“When we parked up we blocked the exit with the caravan. We’re shuffling things around so we can get out.”
Idiots, she didn’t say.
"Well, you got one minute. Or you’re at ground zero for the biggest accident you’ve seen in your life.”
“No problem."
They hung up before she could tell them exactly what she thought. The BBC crew had been nothing but a problem. The beginnings of a headache began to form in her temples.
"This sucks."
The Land Rover was stopped with it’s bonnet up, it’s doors open, and two sound engineers poking at the engine in the vain hope that it might pull a Lazarus. It had died halfway out of the refuge, with the caravan blocking the road, waiting for the inevitable. It was dead enough that fixing it wasn’t an option in the time available. It’d been hooked up to the Ferrari by its own winch, the cable tied around a piece of the supercar’s rear carbon structure that they hoped would be strong enough to take the weight. It didn’t have it’s own tow-hooks. Steel cable had already chafed away the red paint and scuffed the chrome plating on the Cavallino Rampante.
The factory would be pissed. But they’d be considerably more pissed if the car got caught in the wreck and destroyed. It was - all jokes aside - probably more valuable than they were. At least going by the insured costs.
The producer stuffed the phone back into his pocket, tried to do the stiff-upper lip thing and not show everyone how utterly terrified he was.... and failed utterly. The health and safety reports he'd have to file after the incident alone were horrifying enough
“Alright lads,” he said in a shaking voice. “We’ve got a minute to move this before the car gets here.”
The camera’s meanwhile, had been carefully abandoned in a position that would record it all.
Nene was already seated at her own console on Starbug, rifling through reports of the ongoing incident on Frigga.
“Frigga’s either closed their network off or it’s crashed. Their last message said they needed it clear for emergency use. People are spamming it pretty hard to get updates anyway causing it to just puke. Anything I’m getting comes from fans with their own private nodes.”
“What’re they saying?” Jeph asked, mind more focused on not skipping the important parts of Starbug’s startup sequence. It was moments like this that the universe’s fine sense of irony lived for. It didn’t look like Jeph would be getting his manhood back any time
“A lot of it’s conflicting. Some people are saying there’re injuries, while another says there’s been no casualties so far. Then I’ve got an emergency team from Asuka being despatched at Alert 1, prepped for a mass-casualty accident.”
She scanned through the information far faster than any human ever could..
“Someone claims to have overheard a radio broadcast between the emergency crews that said it’d awakened and was going on a full-blown rampage. I’ve got a post from a popular blogger that thinks it might just be a stuck throttle but that doesn’t explain why they can’t just shut it down or put it into neutral. Jalopnik are covering it too.”
“Tell me they sound like they’re getting the situation contained.”
“I can’t tell. There was an evacuation, but a lot of people are still watching anyway. I think they’re going to try and mount a rescue using Tachikoma and a Batmobile. Kohran Li’s involved.” Nene rubbed at both of her eyes Her lips were shaking, a few stray tears finding their way down her cheeks as she swallowed that persistent lump rising up her throat.
Shimmering eyes looked pleadingly at Jeph.
“I cant believe Mackie would wave something like that. It’s like, deliberately waking up a Largo or a Galatea or something.”
Jeph placed a soft hand on her shoulder. “We’ll be there within the hour. You can let him know just how you feel when you get there.”
“Hurry. We’ve only got fifteen seconds.”
“You shouldn’t have stopped to warn those people.”
“It seemed like the right thing to do.”
“The right thing to do is complete our mission.”
“But our mission is to save lives this time.”
“By stopping the car before it reaches them we save more lives in the future than getting held up to save a few people now.”
“But someone told me a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?”
“What does that even mean anyway?”
“That it’s better to have something certain now, than to potentially have two of the same thing later because you may end up with none. What if we fail?”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“But in combat, sometimes the needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few. Otherwise you lose an army to save a squad.”
“This isn’t combat.”
“It’s a rescue. But it is reasonably similar. Our actions and decisions right now will ultimately decide who gets to live and who gets to die, which is no different from actions and decisions made on the battlefield.”
“But our objective here is solely to save lives while in combat the ultimate aim is to achieve some more important objective.”
“But isn’t the objective of combat ultimately to save lives in the long run by achieving objectives that prevent death in the long run?”
“So you’re saying that the situations are analogous and the same rules apply. “
“And we may achieve a greater good by stopping the runaway car and killing it’s occupant than by allowing it to continue and kill many people in the future?”
“Jaguar won’t be happy. She’ll be angry with us.”
“Why? If we fulfilled the mission?”
“Because the occupant of the vehicle is important to her. So to her the needs of this one therefore outweigh the needs of the many.”
“How illogical.”
“She may claim to be cybernetic, but she’s only human.”
“Sigh.”
A light sparked in the tunnel ahead. Dozens of camera-eyes wirled around to lock on in a second. Sensors scanned and analysed, producing a three-dimensional model that could be compared against the recognition database. A ping from the comm-circuit confirmed it a microsecond later.
“That’s DuPree.”
“We haven’t arrived yet!”
“We’ll be late!”
“Just a few seconds!”
The ride got off the throttle moments after becoming aware of their presence. All three hugged the walls of the tunnel to give him room to pass, reacting with a speed beyond human.
Headlights blazed in the tunnel, rounding the corner ahead riding a roar they immediately identified as a jet turbine at full throttle.
They spun to a halt inside the refuge
“Made it!”
Tachikoma.primary; “Tachikoma Unit. In Position Charlie 10”
They marked it proudly on the map. With an estimated 5421 milliseconds to spare.
Lebia monitored through the think-tanks visual feeds.
Visionaire; “Lebia to all. Now!”
Mackie saw them in the headlights, three abreast in the centre of the tunnel. The parted around him, making a whole just narrow enough for him to drive through.
“Tachikoma.....”
He felt something hit the car, and braced for the final crunch.
Coordinating with themselves and Lebia the Three Tachikoma chose six points on the car’s bodywork.Targeting with pinpoint accuracy, they fired their wires as one, latching on to their individual target points.
The plan was simple on paper.
They would use their own mass to decelerate the car, paying out line at just enough of a rate so that the tension on the line accelerating them was just below breaking strain. Newton’s laws would do the rest.
Once they’d reached parity with the car and reeled themselves in, they would then apply their brakes, further decelerating the car to the point where the Tumbler could be latched on The hard part was doing it without inadvertently crashing the car in the process. The slightest imbalance in forces would be catastrophic.
Data raced through their minds, miniscule adjustments made every millisecond as they danced along the razors edge above disaster. Flooded with data, they allowed the overflow to divert through Lebia. Corrections were processed near-instantaneously before being relayed back. Corrections were made in the blink of an eye, saving the driver from certain death before he was even aware of it.
Their brakes were already passing their usual maximum temperatures as they dragged the car down below 400kph. The regenerative circuits were already overloading. But it would be an easy fix.
Secure and stable, they activated their sensor arrays. Using technologies developed to find weakpoints in ship’s hulls they reached through the car’s fiberglass skin.
Tachikoma.Primary; “Commencing structural analysis.”
It was steel - a proper spraceframe with enough redundancy to take the stresses. They calculated the loads imposed through various members, trading information and clustering themselves as they worked. They simulated three potential hookup points - each simulation ending in the catastrophic destruction of the car as it flipped up and the airflow caught under it.
Their third choice kept the car on the ground.
Tachikoma.Primary; “Analysis complete!”
The information flashed back to the node on the Tumbler. Lebia confirmed it before sending the important parts on to Jet.
Visionaire; “Jet. Attach to these points on the car’s chassis.”
Gillette; “That low?”
Visionaire; “The alternatives risk flipping the car.”
Gillette; “Got it.”
She grabbed the first of the Tumbler’s three cables and pulled it with her as she swooped down low over the road. Jet Jaguar was - first and foremost - built to fly.
Instinct kept her in the air as she grabbed the first of the tow cables in one hand. Experience compensated for the drag of the cable on her hand and the shift in the centre of gravity. Sheer bloody nerve allowed her to skim over the surface of the road, riding ground-effect at 400kph with her chest centimetres from the surface as she closed on the rear of the Griffon.
If the cable clipped the road, it could drag her down under the wheels of the Tumbler. A pin-point balancing act kept it taught behind her, Lebia paying out just enough to keep the tension on the line without impeding the cyber.
To add emphasis, her foot skinned the surface with a shock that resonated through her frame and threw a shower of sparks back towards the Tumbler. That was going to be a pain to get fixed.
Gillette; “Diffuser’s giving me some turbulence.”
Radiotelepathy was always a little uncomfortable, but she could handle it. So long as the data-rate was kept down below the headache-limit.
Visionaire; “Pull back and try again,”
Jet looked up, straight down the throate of the rear diffuser. She could see the ducting to the engine exhaust injectors glowing red deep inside, hiding behind the suspension.
Gillette “No, I’ve got this.”
She inched forwards towards the the rear diffuser, keeping below the stream of scalding jet eflux being left by the Griffon’s engine. It tore the air above her head. She reached for the point marked on her HUD. The cable pulled back.
She tugged on the cable. Gillette; “A little more,”
Visionaire; “How much?”
Gillette; “As I pull...”
Jet’s visor popped open to allow her to get a better look with her natural eyesight. She was staring right down the throat of the diffuser, aiming for a frame bar right above it. The heat was beginning to soak through her armour, tingling inside the core of her body. Hot gasses began to roast her face, like staring into an open oven.
She rode the turbulence, making instinctive corrections as she reached for the target. Jet passed the cable around it, before hooking it tightly back over itself. It latched into place with a hefty clank. She tested it with a quick tug to make sure it was secure.
Gillette; “That’s one!”
Now for the second.
Smoke trailed from the wheels of the lead Tachikoma, brake disks and stator coils starting to glow white-hot.
Tachikoma.Primary.Alpha; “My brakes are overheating!”
A note of artificial panic added to the urgency.
Tachikoma.Primary.Beta; “Mine too!”
They held firm. The Third bore the pain in stoic silence.
Visionaire; “Tell him to brake.”
Jet messaged him direct. “Mackie. Brake. Brake as hard as you can.”
Clouds of carbon dust belched through the vents in the wheels as the Griffon’s damaged brakes engaged with a metallic scream.
“Big fat tyres and everything....”
Kohran mumbled as tweaked the throttle, watching the temperature gauge rise closer and closer to the green line. Her body fizzed with energy, ready to explode at a moment’s notice.
All she was waiting on was the word that was taking forever to come.
“They’ve got two.” Anika announced “Going for the Third.”
Ford offered a relieved smile, her first in what had seemed like an age. “Great. Just one more and then I can kill him.”
Myk pressed his free hand against his ear to try and block out the sound of the whistling ventilation ducts. His other hand pressed a wave-phone against the side of his head.
“I don’t know yet Jeph, I haven’t heard anything beyond what I told you.”
A pause.
“I’m still in the escape tunnel and there’s another.....”
The line went silent.
“Jeph?” He tried. “Jeph?”
The Stig looked down at him, then at the rock walls. There’s your problem made.
KJ saw distinctive electric blue tint of xenon headlights crawling around the curve of the tunnel ahead.. His breath caught in his throat as his hand covered the brake, expecting the worst.
A moment later, he rounded the bend and the worst exceeded his expectations by light years.
Part of his mind refused to believe it - that anyone could be that stupid. Part of his mind wondered if it wasn’t some sick staged stunt. The rest of him focused on just not hitting the bloody thing and the half dozen men struggling to get it out of the way.
Stuck halfway out of the refuge with the Land Rover towing it nosed up against the wall as far as it’d go. He aimed for the free space to the right.
It was gone in a heartbeat, receding into the distance behind him before his thoughts caught up. Fifteen seconds behind him was the Griffon.
“There’s a caravan in the tunnel! Charlie One-Six.”
That’s all he managed to broadcast. His whole body had gone cold.
An engine’s roar filled the tunnel, grabbing everyone’s attention. It was different, a wail closer to a Formula 1 engine than a jet turbine. It rolled along the walls, echoing back and forth, coming from everywhere at once.
The cameraman spotted the headlight first .“We’re out of time!”
The Stiletto passed in a flash and a howl, hugging the right wall of the tunnel, leaving the scent of burning alcohol in its wake chased by popping gunshots from the turbochargers as the anti-lag kicked in.
The producer felt his stomach drop to his feet. “Oh.. bollox.” A familiar roar was building inexorably in the distance, rolling closer with every passing moment. “Everyone, get to cover. I’m going to warn them.” He grabbed a flare from the back of the Land Rover, thinking maybe he could use it to wave them off.
“Too Late!” The cameraman yelled, diving behind the Land Rover.
The presenter turned to face the camera inside the Ferrari. “Ladies and gentlemen......”
That was as far as he got.
Lebia didn’t wait to see it with her own eyes.
Visionair; “Jettison Cables!”
All three Tachikoma acted at once, breaking the connection. Explosive bolts severed the cables connecting the Tumbler to the Griffon. Jet released the cable she was holding, allowing it to retract back into its housing before it could get caught under the Tumbler. Lebia lifted off the throttle, to give the Tachikoma space. A quick calculation told her she had no hope of stopping in time.
The Griffon’s brakes were instantly overwhelmed. Freed once more, it began to pick up speed, trailing three Tachikoma lines and a pair of steel cables.
Mackie saw it first, screaming in momentary fright. He saw the film crew running for cover - one man standing rabbit-like in the headlights before his legs finally decided to act of their own accord and get their owner out of the way.
He saw the gap and drove right for it, never lifting his feet off the brake.
Jet accelerated ahead of the crash, passing over the top of the Griffon, dodging a lashing cable with a snap roll. Mackie braced for impact. He didn’t close his eyes. The Tachikoma to the right dropped back. The second managed to slip in between Griffon and Tumbler to safety, a tap on the Tumbler’s brakes giving it just enough room to spin out of the way before Lebia followed through.
The third had nowhere to go but through.
“I can’t stop!” it squealed, at the last instant trying to shield it’s sensors with it’s manipulator arms
The caravan exploded on impact. Shards of pottery mixed with splinters of wood and plastic and puffballs of sickly yellow fiberglass insulation in an expanding cloud of debris that burst outward riding along in the Griffon’s wake. Metal shrapnel scythed through the air, peppering the side of the Land Rover, pattering off the carbon tub of the Ferrari and splashing itself against the windshield of the Tumbler as it blasted through the ongoing wreck.
Pieces of Tachikoma joined the mass, a smashed leg punching through the rear window of the Range Rover, drilling through the rear seats before coming to rest embedded in the back of front passenger seat. It began to smoke immediately.
A manipulator slammed down onto the nose of the LaFerrari, cracking the bodywork. Hydraulic fluid bled out pink across the red paint.
The remains of the Tachikoma skittered and spun down the road, shedding parts and trailing sparks and little flicks of flame where pieces of insulation caught light momentarily before extinguishing themselves.
“Ow,” said the think-tank in a meek tone as it came to a halt amidst a pile of debris. Three of its legs were gone, the abdomen had been wrenched off its actuator and both of its manipulators had been ripped free. The body was battered, scratched and pitted, but still mostly intact - intact enough to feel painfully embarrassed about the whole thing.
A bottle of gas rolled to a halt against its body with a hollow clonk. Insulation drifted slowly to the ground around like snow. The remains of pots, pans and various items of delph were strewn across the tunnel. Papers drifted in the air. The caravan’s frame meanwhile hadn’t moved an inch.
The producer steadily got back to his feet, propping himself up against the concrete barrier that’d saved his life, offering sincere thanks to God that he was unhurt.
The camera crew themselves were far more concerned about the Range Rover now beginning to burn.
“Some poo came out,” said the shaking Presenter to the in-car camera, his jaw going slack as his eyes took in the devastation.
The sound of the impact blasted down the tunnel, outracing the speeding Griffon. It overtook KJ on the Stilleto a moment later, muffled by his helmet and drowned out by roar of the engine beneath him. The tunnel itself formed one massive helmholtz resonator, amplifying the sounds of the impact until it exploded like a bomb into the carpark, ringing off the metal-lined walls.
Almost everyone ducked. Except Kohran.
It pulsed down the emergency tunnels, shaking a rain of rust and dust loose from the overhead ventilation. Myk feared the worst. Everyone rushed to their phones to report what’d just happened.
It rumbled like thunder through the dealer’s hall high above, echoing and rolling over the heads of the attendees.
“Oh no,” said Sora softly.
“Fuck!”
Ford watched as the indicators merged on her map. She held her breath in that moment as they crossed.
One stopped. The others blasted straight through. She grasped her communicator, squeezing it tight enough that it was threatening to break. They’d already passed out of shot before she zoomed the map in to crash site. It told her nothing more than the relative position of a number of wristbands, and the embedded RFID chips.
She guessed the fastest was Jet. One had to be the Griffon. The following one was the Tumbler. Slowing down were the Tachikoma. Visions of exploding cars ran through her mind, tangled wreckage and wrecked bodies. A cold memory of the night she learned to hate all street racers rolled through her mind, squatting up front and centre in her awareness.
“A Tachikoma crashed. It hit the Top Gear caravan. The Griffon is free and undamaged,” Anika said.
Ford barely heard her.
“Anyone hurt?”
“I don’t know yet.
The medical officer interrupted with a gentle cough. “I’m going to wait until the car’s stopped. There’s no sense in making it worse, if it comes back around.”
Ford didn’t even look. “Right....”
White smoke rose from the front seat of the Range Rover where the Tachikoma leg was baking the foam. Small flames licked up around the glowing brakes, inspite of the retardant impregnated into the material.
The cameraman sitting in the driver’s seat stared, his mouth goldfishing as he tried to comprehend what would’ve happened if someone had been sitting there beside him.
It took the Sound Engineer attacking the building fire with an extinguisher to snap him out of it. He fumbled with the door handle before tumbling out when it opened unexpectedly, chased by a white cloud of carbon dioxide.
A few last flecks of foam rained down around the producer. He sat back against the cool stone wall
“We’re alive?”
He didn’t even believe he’d heard his own voice.
“Is everyone okay?”
“We’re alive,” answered the sound engineer. “Production office is gone though. ”
“Bugger.”
“Landy’s fucked too,” the cameraman added.
“At least we’re all still here.”
The presenter took a few moments to marvel at the fact that he hadn’t been torn to pieces in the impact before doing one final piece to camera.
“Good news everyone. It appears we’re all alive.” He glanced at the wrecked bonnet. “Until Ferrari finds out what happened anyway.”
Visionaire; “KJ. Kohran. We’re going with plan B. Get up to speed.”
Kohran didn’t need Lebia to tell her twice. She was already howling into the darkness of the tunnel, hot blue flame blowing through the Highway Star’s open wastegates.
“Oh fuck me with a broomstick. You’re sure.”
Nene winced. She watched Jeph run her fingers through her hair as her worst fears were confirmed. All colour had gone from her face. It was beyond bad news...
“There’s a detachment from Asuka coming , I hope they arrive in time.”
Another pause. Nene strained to make out the other end of the conversation.
“We’ll be there inside the hour.”
Jeph placed the wavephone on the pilot’s console beside her, taking a few moments to calm down and try and centre herself. It didn’t do much to take the edge of the sense of infuriating frustration.
“What happened?”
Her voice was small and quiet, even inside the cramped cockpit of Starbug. As soon as the words left her mouth, she wished she hadn’t asked.
Jeph took one big deep breath, holding it for a moment to give her ample time to prepare. “Myk says he just heard a big crash. He doesn’t know any more than that, but it was big.”
Nene could feel herself shaking.
“Oh no... Mackie.”
“Mackie. We’re going to open both doors. I’m going to get aboard. I’ll take control, pass you out to Kohran on the Highway Star, then I’ll abandon the Griffon once it’s clear of people.”
It sounded so easy.
He didn’t know how many people were hurt when that Tachikoma hit the caravan. He didn’t know how many people were hurt when it shot through the car park. He felt his body go cold all over. He knew had had enough fuel for another circuit, maybe two. Enough to make it back around and run smack into the middle of that accident.
There was no stopping it. The idea to use the Tumbler as a mobile brake in front flashed through his mind, just long enough to tease him with a glimmer of hope before he remembered that the back end of a Tumbler consisted of a flaming jet pipe and four fat tyres.
It hoved into view in his mirrors, polychromatic paint shifting colours to grab his attention. Lebia was there.....
“Maybe I should just stop it.” He said, for the second time.
He meant it too.
“Mackie...”
He didn’t have to look, he could hear the scowl on his sister’s face.
“No really. I can control it. There’s less fuel in it so less fire. And we’re close to help. And if I keep going I’m only going to hit that wreck. A controlled crash would be better.”
He could survive a controlled crash. In a controlled location. He could bail out and bounce. It was crystal clear and certain in his mind.
“Mackie. Shut the fuck up. I’m getting you out of that car in one piece if it kills me. “
Somehow, he knew that if Jet could’ve slapped him across the face right then and there, she would’ve.
The wounded Tachikoma was glad it hadn’t been fitted with polychromatic paint yet. It saved it from turning pink with shame as the others circling around, brakes steaming as they cooled off.
“We can’t take you anywhere, can we?”
Not again.
“Wrecked again? How many times is this?”
“They weren’t my fault!” it pleaded, but it was futile. Reputation cared little for truth.
“Mother told us to wait here with you. We’re to try move the wreckage to in case the car makes it back around.”
All three calculated the probability of success, then got to work anyway.
Visionaire; “He does have a point.”
Jet seemed to hang in the air for a few moments, staying silent within her own thoughts for long enough to make Lebia wonder if she’d heard - or was even paying attention. The cyber just kept pace with the accelerating Griffon, hanging just off the driver’s side door, clear of the sparking cables still being dragged behind.
Gillette; “I know.”
Her voice had a gruff edge to it.
Visionaire; “The remaining Tachikoma are clearing the wreckage, but only two of them are functional.”
Another pause.
Gillette; “Fourteen. Charlie Fourteen’s empty,”
She sounded like she might as well have been choosing a grave.
The wail of the Highway Star resonated out of the tunnel, lingering long after it and it’s rider had departed.
The Stilletto was first to arrive, bulleting along the path cleared through the car park. The howl of its engine hung in the air behind it, the whistle of a turbocharger blowing it along.
Jet blasted through riding a high cold scream, trailing shock-cones from both foot-mounted engines, followed by the deep hollow roar of the Griffon’s single turbine leaving a trail of hot metal sparks and shimmering hot air.
The Tumbler’s bellowing engine brought up the rear, it’s paint still shifting to adapt to the sudden influx of overhead light.
Dozens of flash-bulbs illuminated them from all sides for the single second it took to pass through the car park. Waved camera’s and holographic scanners captured dozens of high resolution pictures in that moment - framing speed itself on a smeared background for all to see.
It was speed on a human scale -speed you could reach out and touch and be a part of. The thunderous noise- the drifting heat and the wafting smells of burned fuel, hot rubber and warm lubricants - it spoke to the soul with an energy and power that thrilled the hearts of those who watched in a way a lazy point-one C cruise through space never could.
What the average wavecraft achieved was nothing more than the rate of change of distance with respect to time - a sterile figure no more exciting than a measure of how long you wouldn’t have to wait to arrive at your destination.
But this, this here was speed.
Naked and undeniable speed, powered by the burning bones of dinosaurs set free with a roar entombed underground for aeons and now finally unleashed to challenge the God of Thunder himself for dominance. There were no God’s who could answer, only the thrilled screams of those who bore witness.
This was why they came. This moment. This thrill of speed - of racing along the razors edge, a dance with seductive death herself beckoning just within reach if you just went that little bit faster. The thrill was speed - the thrill was the difference between true speed and the magnitude of a velocity vector.
It passed in moments, living only the shivering echoes behind and the primal feeling that it really was great to have survived.
For they were the those for whom it never got fast enough, slaves to the cause of speed.
The three needles on the speedometer pointed to 704.
Full throttle. Full boost. Full speed. The Highway Star was giving her its best and Kohran knew it. It was exhilarating. It was electrifying. It rolled through her body and made her feel all giddy inside.
It was excessive.
Reigning the machine in to let the others catch up was the hardest thing she had to do. When every synapse demanded she accelerate. When the motorcycle itself demanded to be let run free. It begged to go faster. She switched off the water injection, boost controllers reverting to their lower setting. It seemed almost insulted to be asked to go so pathetically slow, stuttering for a few moments as it ran momentarily rich.
Pyrotechie; “This‘s Kohran, I’m cruising down at 450. Waitin’ f’r you guys.”
KJ could hear it.
Over the wind noise ripping at its ears and the noise of the V8 between his legs, he could still hear the Highway Star up ahead, long before he saw it. An alcohol burning V8 engine blowing through a single turbine was loud enough to break most decibel meters and make ears ring for hours afterwards. The Highway Star, with four rotors, peripheral ports, open wastegates and bazooka ‘silencers’ was loud in the same way the naked sun was bright.
Get too close without proper protection and it might well be the last thing you ever heard. The air itself buzzed with power and energy, alive and tingling. The smell of burnt leaded petrol filtered in through his helmet, strong and sweet. The insides of his legs baked in the heat rising from the exhausts.
Moments later, the Star came into view - it’s taillight glowing red out of the gloom.
“Kohran! They’re about ten seconds behind me.”
“Roger! Roger!.”
He could hear the grin on her face as he rolled past. The Star was cruising lazily at an easy 450, waiting for the following Griffon to catch up - Kohran’s own fault for getting a little overexcited racing too far ahead. The exhaust manifold he'd painstakenly welded for the Star was still glowing a vibrant cherry red. It brought a smile to his face.
KJ accelerated ahead, leaving the Highway Star in his wake. It was a shame really, he’d been looking forward to that race. Neither machine here was really being asked to give it’s best.
'LO FUEL' Flashed up on his Motec display. He cursed inside his helmet, before selecting Lebia’s frequency.
“This is KJ. I’m on reserve fuel. One minute and I’m done.”
“Understood.” she answered, almost instantly. “Continue to Charlie 4. Then stop out of the way.”
“Copy that.”
The downside of big speed and hardtech alcohol engines - Fuel burned fast.
Jet opened the passenger door. The gullwing door flapped open in the airstream.
Gillette; “I’m going for entry.”
Springs held the door open, in spite of the stream of air rushing by. It roared into the cabin, curling around the sill of the door. It sucked the air out, drumming on Mackies ears. It might’ve been annoying if he was human. It dragged at his shirt and dragged his gaming cards out through the opening.
The Highway Star buzzed in the mirrors, weaving around the trailing cables. It kept pace just off his door. It’s engine rattled the window. She lifted her hand from the throttle, offering him a thumbs-up.
He just looked at her, trying not to show how terrified he really was. It made it hard to focus on keeping the car straight.
His Sister grabbed on to the open door, pushing it open wide enough to lever herself in. Her feet smashed through the dashboard, making enough room for her to sit comfortably in the passenger seat. Mackie couldn’t help but grimace at the wanton destruction of the car he’d spent so long working on. Her metal hand pushed his off the steering wheel, taking control of the car.
Gillette; “I’m aboard. I have control.” Piece of cake.
Visionaire; “Kohran, your turn.Watch those cables.”
Pyrotechie; “Yeah, yeah. I see ‘em.”
Kohran swerved wide as one of the Tachikoma lines tangled in the turbulence coming off the wheels and whipped out to reach her. A solid hit at that speed meant a certain wreck - and a brand new body. It thrilled her. This was fun. Tweak the throttle and the Star would lunge forward. Ease off and aerodynamics would push back. Precision feathering of the throttle kept her level with the driver’s door. Mackie’s terrified face looked through the glass at her. Poor boy was learning this lesson the hard way, but they all had to go through it.
She pulled to within arm’s reach of the driver’s door. Buffeting shook the bike, sending a shudder through the frame that threatened to grow into deadly wobble that’d buck her out of the saddle. A quick tweak of the throttle let the two wheel drive system pull the machine straight. She locked the trigger at a constant position, and reached for the doorhandle.
Pyrotechie; “Opening driver’s door.”
Visonaire; “Passing Charlie 4. You’ve 100 seconds.”
The slowing Stilletto flashed past on the far side, it’s rider quietly glad that it wasn’t him trying to make a high speed transfer between vehicles. Waved leathers or not, bouncing down the road at 500 kilometres an hour would be an unhealthy experience. Lebia passed him a moment later, growing the gap between herself and the Griffon to allow sufficient space to react in the event of catastrophe. She could react in an effective instant, but the Tumbler took it’s own time to do anything.
Mackie’s eyes golfballed as he realised what he was expected to do. Kohran beckoned him to jump from his seat His words were swallowed by the wind, but it was plainly obvious what he’d said.
You’ve got to be shitting me.”
A gentle smile from his sister, and a strong metal hand urged him forward. There was no way this would work - he was certain of it. He unbuckled his belt, sliding up onto the door sills. The wind grabbed
Visonaire; “Charlie 5.” The green emergency lights were already receding into the distance.
Mackie stared at the Highway star, less than thirty centimetres away from the sill. He could feel the heat blowing off the engine on his face, it was so close. The wind dragged at him, threating to pull him off the door sill. He grabbed on to the roll cage with both hands to keep himself from slipping, tentatively edging forward.
The Highway Star swayed away from him, before swinging back to meet.
Pyrotechie; “Hold it steady Jet!”
Gillette; “Try driving one handed." Jet growled in frustration.
Mackie edged himself out of his seat. There was dangerous. And there was this.
“Oh fuck me,” he muttured to himself.
There was The Edge. There it was, right there. Just one slip away. One step and then BAM!, Good for Parts Only. Concrete ripped along like a belt sander, just beneath his feet. Jump, or don’t jump... the choice between Now or Later.
Only his head and his body weren’t quite agreed on which meant which.
Visionaire; “Charlie 6.”
“Come on Boy!”
Mackie didn’t hear it, but he could still see the look in her eyes. He could still feel the wind pulling him back down the tunnel, with the Tumbler growling behind threatening a crushing end if he fell. He could feel the pressure on the door.
Visionaire; “Passing Charlie 7.”
A very deliberate note of urgency had crept into Lebia’s voice.
Mackie steadied himself on the carbon door-sill, making sure he had a good footing. He crouched beneath the open door to keep himself out of the air-stream for as long as possible. Part of him started to wonder where the motorslaves were to grab him and his sister. But it didn’t work so easily in real life.
Visionaire; “Charlie 8. 27 seconds.”
"Get a move on!” Kohran urged.
Mackie glanced back at his Sister. He saw her lips form one single syllable through her visor.
“Go.”
Even if he didn’t make it, landing on the road was a damn sight better than crashing face first into a brick wall. Especially without a seatbelt. Either way sucked. One sucked the least. It was just a matter of convincing his body to go along with the plan. He reached out and grabbed Kohran’s shoulder, fingers gripping on the armaplas. He stood with one foot on the door sill, one hand on the roll cage to steady himself, and one leg inching forward to step on to the Highway Star.
Visionaire; “Charlie 9.”
His foot found the exhaust hanger. The smell of singed boot confirmed it. Holding his breath, he hauled himself forward out of the Griffon. The wind ripped at him, threatening the drag himself and Kohran off the machine. She grimaced and gripped on tight to the handlebars, taking the weight. The Star convulsed in protest as the weight shifted across its back, swaying towards the Griffon.
Jet pulled the car away, giving Kohran space to grip the throttle tight and straighten the bike out with a handful of throttle before pulling away. Mackie felt himself sit down on the plastic tail section, and took the time to perform a quick self diagnostic to confirm the fact that he really was sitting their and safe.
For a relative value of safe.
Thank. You. Skuld. Jesus. Buddha and Santa Claus Thank you. Just... thank you.
Pyrotechie; “I’ve got’m. Gonna get this thing slowed down.”
Gillette “Nice one Kohran. I’ll give you space to stop.” Jet exhaled a long sigh of relief as she watched the Highway Star recede into the distance. behind her, Mackie safely aboard.
Visionaire; “Jet, wait until after Charlie 10,” said Lebia. Space for everyone to slow down safely. The cyber could hear the smile on her voice.
Gillette; “Will do.”
There was nothing left to do but make sure it didn’t hit anything important. Aim it at the wall, then bail out before it hit. Nothing to it. She watched the lights of refuge Charlie ten flash by, a few abandoned cars still waiting for their owners and counted three heartbeats to be sure she was clear.
Jet released the Griffon and rolled out under the door, before lighting a flash of her engines to blast clear. She felt something clip her leg. She had the merest moment to realise what’d happened, before the cable lashed itself tightly around her heel and yanked her backwards in mid-air. A cry of surprise escaped her lips as the cable snapped free, sending her tumbling.
There was a moment to brace for impact before Jet landed hard on her head.
The force of impact was enough to split her helmet and pop her visor off. The cyber had just enough self awareness left to try curl up into a ball before she tumbled, bounced and skidded along the tunnel floor, shedding hot sparks and shards of armour. She tumbled like a ragdoll for nearly twenty seconds, over and over, before sliding to a dead stop face down with her right arm pinned under her body, not moving.
The Griffon carried on driverless for another half a kilometre, still trailing sparks until it reached another curve in the tunnel. It ricocheted off the wall, shedding its right front wheel before veering wildly back towards the centre of the tunnel. A moment later the steering rack gave out. The ruined suspension dug hard in, gouging a trench into the concrete. The magnesium caught fire, igniting with a brilliant white hot flare and a shower of blazing sparks.
It pulled back to the wall, engine still screaming at full throttle. The nose speared into wall at a 45-degree angle. The steel frame shattered. Every single weld in the chassis burst apart, turning the car into ball of wreckage still travelling at over 400 kilometres an hour. The turbine engine screamed as it ripped free, fuel and lubricating oils spraying from torn hoses.
The kerosene tanks ruptured, a cloud of vapourised fuel boiling through the wreckage. Hot orange fire engulfed the remains, boiling forwards through the tunnel and smothering what was left of the destroyed car. Thick black smoke rolled along the roof of the tunnel, swallowing the striplights. Finally, a single hubcap rolled to a stop against the wall, before toppling onto its side with a hollow clang.
Jet lay in the road, silhouetted by the flames, not moving.
“They got him!”
Anika announced it with a fat grin accross her face. Sighs of relief rolled around the room, momentary congratulations being uttered between the Dorsai.
Situation resolved. Nobody dead. One serious injury. One teenaged android in need of a punch to the face. And an insurance mess.
She keyed open her comm. “Hey Jet, What’s happened?”
No answer.
An alarm chirped on one of the panels, sectors flashing up red on screen in front of her.
“Fire alert. 1 kilometre beyond point Charlie 10,” said one of the Dorsai, calmly. “Ventilation fans are at full power. Exhaust shafts are open to space. Injection shafts prioritising fire zone and evacuation passages..”
No real urgency. The fire was expected. Assets were already ready to roll. Situation now under control.
“Get a full response team onsite. Powder and inert suppressant,” ordered their commander.
“Already dispatched.”
They showed their value once more. Ford switched frequencies, then keyed open her mic.
“Jet. You have your radio on?”
No answer. She looked to Anika, ready to ask if there was
“It’s Jet. She’s down. It sounds bad.”
Mackie stood alone.
“Is...... Is she dead?”
He didn’t even hear the answer. Mackie watched in a daze. He watched Lebia remind Kohran not to remove the cyber’s helmet, before hooking up a medical datalink. In places he could finally see what was under the armour, and he wished he couldn’t. Blood streamed from a bone-deep gash across her forehead.
The suppression team arrived driving an old Genaros Fire Service truck. It took minutes to smother the blazing wreck in powder. He went with his Sister in the back of the ambulance back to the main hall. He remembered the paramedics discussing the potential for the armour on her chest to interfere with CPR or defibrillation. He was vaguely aware of everyone looking at him as his sister was readied for medevac. A gentle hand told him to stay behind rather than get in the way. The Camera crew were taking long, loving shots of the Tumbler.
He remembered yelling at someone that he didn’t wave it. Then who did? It wasn’t waved. Lebia confirmed that for him, but the rumour was already gone halfway across the ‘verse before the truth got it’s pants on.
Nothing but a stuck throttle. An old Detroit Diesel had done the same thing the day before thanks to a failed governor. Only the owner remembered it now. There was something perverse about that. The same failure, but consequences an order of magnitude different. But it was obvious to the world who’s fault it really was. Security claimed his pass, but they couldn’t really ask him to leave since he lived there. They made him walk instead. Ford was far more concerned with Jet to bother with killing him.
He slipped through the crowds, trying to get to somewhere private. The old house up in the dome was a long way away.
Shinji was about. Mackie avoided him on purpose. He thought about diverting down to the Silky Doll, but he’d left his key on his bed - and didn’t really want to ask anyone else for theirs. He was stopped dead in his tracks by Nene.
She stood in front of him, staring right through him like he wasn’t even there. Mackie barely had time to utter a word in his defense before Nene hauled back and punched him, a hard right cross, that laid him out on the floor. As he lay there dazed, everyone else looked at Nene in shock.
"...did she just do that, or am I going nuts?" Myk whispered to Jeph.
"No. She just clocked him one. Justified, I think. I think we now know under which circumstances she CAN be violent."
"...that was not the way Sylia taught you to be," Nene said, tears streaming down her face, before she turned, and walked through the crowd, back towards the hangar.
Mackie found the sanctuary of his room in the old house and locked the door. And that’s where he stayed. He did his best to get that image out of his mind, but it just sat there - burned in. The interwave had been shut down to prioritise the convention.
He couldn’t even read to escape. Empty fanservice just didn’t have any attraction at the moment. All he could do was sit and wait to find out just how bad it was, while staring up at the model B-1 hanging above his bed. It remained dead still in the air. Life would’ve been easier if he’d never left the Knightwing. Considerably more boring, but if this was the alternative, definitely better. A draught of air caught the model and caused it to start to rotate slowly around on it’s wire hanger.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel outside. Mackie sat bolt-upright, listening for clues. He prayed it wasn’t someone with an article to write.
He lay back down and checked the time. It’d startled him to find it’d been over twelve hours since the accident. He’d already decided to pretend he wasn’t inside when the first knock on the door came. It occurred to him that maybe it was someone coming to deliver the bad news - only an asshole would give bad news by phone.
Another knock insisted.
Go away, he willed. He didn’t want to know
“S’me boy! I know you’re in there.”
Kohran?
She knocked for a third time, making it plainly clear that she wasn’t going away.
“Alright!”
He trudged down the stairs in his socks, taking a few moments to confirm that Kohran was alone. The front door gave an oaken creak as he opened it.
“Yeah?”
“Thought I might find you here.”
She sounded so cheerful it burned.
“Yeah,” he repeated sullenly. “You heard something about sis?”
He felt like the turkey asking what was so special about Christmas day.
“Nobody told you?”
Her shock was obvious. It was written across her face
“No.”
Maybe. It wasn’t possible
“Well. Last I heard, she was critical but stable - but that was an hour ago.”
I didn’t kill my own sister. The weight fell from his shoulders.
“Can I come in?” Asked Kohran.
“...uh.” Mackie nodded softly.
“Nice house,” Kohran commented. Mackie closed the door behind her. “Your Sister’s in good hands. I know Mom’s done work on her before. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I amn’t worrying. Not like that,” said Mackie. Not anymore anyway. In truth, not much after the first ten minutes. “ It’s just. When I was trapped in the computer system I awakened in, Jet would come and see me every day. She didn’t just leave me in the hanger alone, she tried to give me a good life. She did that for two years. As soon as Survival Shot got its first paying customer she used the cash to buy me this body from Vulpine Fury. And now....”
I almost killed them both. He couldn’t even say it.
“Ow.” Kohran winced visibly. She stood outside the living room, leaning back against the paneled wooden wall. Jet’s puppet was parked on the couch inside - inert and waiting while dressed for the anime panel. Mackie forced himself to look at Kohran, trying his hardest to ignore its lifeless stare.
"Well,” she continued. “I came up to say talked with Ford about all this, and we've come to an agreement. I'm paying one hundred credits as the rental charge for getting to ride the Highway Star for an hour. Well, less than an hour."
Mackie stared at her. "You helped save my life, and you're paying us?"
Kohran grinned warmly at him. "Saving lives is just the right thing to do. Getting to ride that bike was a thrill. You gotta learn the difference between what's important and what's fun." Seeing Mackie's expression on hearing that, she quickly added, "But I think you're starting to figure that one out. And sometimes they even overlap."
He glanced at the body behind her, still dead to the world.
“Thanks,” he said, forcing his gaze away from it once more. ”It’ll help cover the cost.”
“I guess Ford’s making you pay for the damages too?”
Her smile was kind. It soothed the pain.
He answered with a rueful smile of his own. “How’d you guess?”
She giggled. “Well, you’re not the first person to make a mess in a convention car park. An’ I don’t think you’ll be the last.”
The PA system chimed.
“Earlier today, there was an accident with a runaway car. The car was a kitcar racer, modified and fitted with a gas turbine engine. As far as we know, it wasn’t handwaved. It didn’t awaken an AI or go berserk. The throttle stuck open and the driver couldn’t get it out of gear. The driver of the runaway was rescued unharmed from the car.. He’s been banned from the event.”
It was obvious to all that Ford was painfully distracted by something. Those who looked at the schedule could guess what.
“We’ve had two serious injuries. One is in stable condition in the infirmary, another is being evacuated to an emergency care facility. We’ve had a dozen minor injuries, ranging from cuts and bruises, with the worst of them being a broken leg. Thankfully, we’ve had no fatalities. I’d like to thank those who helped - and who offered to help. They kept an accident from becoming a disaster. That’s Lebia Maverick, Kohran Li, KJ DuPree. I’d like to thank the team from Asuka for arriving here so quickly. And everyone here for your patience and understanding.”
There was a pause, broken by a single deep breath.
“Okay. We all know how dangerous our hobby can be. Depending on where we grew up, we had Red Asphalt, or the Transport Accident Commission, or a dozen others to make sure we knew how dangerous our hobby is. It’s been called an Atavistic Endeavour by some. But still we drive. So, for the time being, the event will continue. Today’s planned racing events have been cancelled, along with a number of others. Details are on the live timetable. I don’t know if there’ll be racing tomorrow, that’ll be decided by the committee tonight.
From now on, there’s a speed limit of 160kph. That’s a hundred miles an hour. If you’re caught breaking it, we take your con pass. This will be enforced. Because of the damage, B-tunnel will remain closed for the rest of the weekend. Any scum who put 'souvenirs' on eBay will be life-banned. Anybody with insurance claims, direct them to the treasurer and the general secretary. They’ll sort them out with our insurance company. Anything else, you know where the email box is.”
Ford clicked the mic off, sat it back down in its holder, took a deep breath and waited. She waited all night.
“Come in.”
This was going to be a tough appointment, and Eljay knew it. Four weeks after the accident and it’d already taken nearly a week of encouragement to get him to actually turn up. The door opened with a bell-chime, an apparent teenager stepping in. He wore the jacket of the Nekomi Motor Club, shuffling through the door with his hands in his pockets.
“So, how’ve you been, Mackie?”
Eljay tried to sound as if everything was normal - for the boy’s sake. It didn’t stop his eyes going wide as soon as he entered. Eljay couldn’t really blame him for that. The differences were so...up front. And that wasn’t even mentioning the reason why Mackie had a Vulpine Fury body in the first place.
“Fine," he said. His voice was smothered, like all the life had been sucked out of him somehow. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
VF smiled at him, trying to reassure him it was okay.
"You know how hard it is to find old-school modest outfits in my new size anymore?" VF sheepishly traced her hairline. "Don't mind the hair, though." She absently tugged at the hem of the knee-length skirt of her costume. “But if it matters, Apology accepted.”
Mackie blinked owlishly at her.
"So..... you're not.... mad about it?" he asked tentatively.
"Not your fault it turned out like this." A look of studious concentration crossed her face as she called the microscale waldoes to order on the workbench. "Heck, now I can roughhouse with Lime, and even survive one of her hugs like she used to give Karen. Excuse me." She sniffed daintily, emotion coloring her voice.
"Besides," she said, mastering herself. "I heard about the tongue lashings afterwards. Nah. It was only a matter of time before I got modded one way or another. I work with the stuff too much."
An impish smile crossed her face. "But now I can finally go to Disney World. This face isn't on their 'do not admit' board." She twisted her lips into a moue of disgust. "Good thing I don't smoke or drink though. I'd get carded for the rest of my life."
Mackie answered with a grateful smile. “Welcome to my world.”
"Right, let's see what wear and tear you have on your mimetics."
Being docked with a ‘workbench’ in Prometheus Forge wasn’t a new experience for Jet. It was all just a part of being a cyberpunk, really; relax and feel the lab hardware unite with her body. Connectors penetrated through opened armour panels, docking with her dataports. Warm currents flowed through her systems. Data needles intercepted nerve signals. Her schematics were displayed on a monitor opposite alongside her vital statistics, showing the full complexity of what she was and the modifications that’d been made.
A mirror showed a reflection of her body. Her breast panels had been taken off, along with parts of her legs including her engine cowlings.
Most of her actuators had been locked offline - a safety protocol in case of a stray signal. Jet also needed to be strapped down. She didn’t mind. It was a consequence of her unique nature. She could understand why it could feel like a waking nightmare for some new cybers, but for her it was a fact of life.
She could still turn her head to look over at A.C.’s bare back. A.C. was dressed in a skintight leotard - tight enough that Jet was having second thoughts about taking her up on the Shockskin offer. The puppet always just felt a little distant compared to real skin. It never really felt like the sensations it broadcast were a part of her.
One of the new interfaces woke up, detected her interest and decided to offer up a full sensor analysis of A.C. It began to insist on uncovering what was beneath the white leotard inspite of Jet’s effort to shut it up.
It was overlayed on top of - and simultaneously in parallel to - her natural eyesight, reporting intimate details straight to her mind.
“Stop that,” Jet hissed through her teeth at it.
“It’ll take time for the interface to get used to you, as much as it’ll take time for you to get used to the interface.”
The note of amusement in A.C’s voice was clear. One of the holo-windows surrounding her was gleefully reporting exactly what that particular software agent was looking at.
Besides, as often as she’d dreamed about popping open the armour and letting bare skin be caressed by a cool breeze the fact was that the armour had saved her life. It fractured on impact, dissipating the energy where Shockskin would just have been torn apart by the concrete. It’d allowed her to save Mackie’s life. It was safe inside. Being naked against the world seemed terrifyingly risky, no matter how cybered she was underneath.
A.C. pulled up another feed from Jet’s body. Her green eyes stared at it, as she willed it to make sense. “I’m still trying to tie down this gap anomaly in your psychograph. It might be a sign of lingering neural damage, but there’re no biological signs. Synaptic fibres show normal signalling levels.”
She double checked something, humming to herself as it proved not to be the cause. Jet thought for a moment, debating with herself whether it was worth revealing or truth or not.
“No,” she said, figuring that it was better to say it now than after six hours of intensive diagnostics.“That might be Mackie.”
“Mackie?”
A.C. turned to face, showing that her leotard covered almost as little on the front as well.
“Mackie awakened in the Knightwing’s computer. He awakened during a test of the datalink, while I was hooked up to the system. The system crashed then automatically restarted. It used the datalink as a boot device while I was still hooked up to it.”
She could see A.C’s mind working behind her green eyes, investigating the possible reasons and outcomes.
“It was interrupted halfway through by someone realising there was a problem and pulling the plug. Handwavium patched up the missing holes, with the end result being Mackie in a computer wondering how he got there and me wondering how my younger brother got into a computer.”
The implications were as obvious as they were unsettling.
“I can see why you didn’t tell anyone,” said A.C. after a moment’s contemplation.
“It’s better for him that nobody knows.” Jet answered. “I thought I’d gotten away with it until I looked at my ID card and wondered why there was an M beside my name.”
A.C quirked an eyebrow. “Memory damage?”
Jet smirked at her. “Mackie was born out of my manhood. Like I said, handwavium patched up the gaps with what was left.”
“That explains a lot.” A.C. said dryly. “The family resemblance can be striking sometimes.”
Jet momentarily recalled herself dancing through the wake vortices trailing behind Boeings, or playing games with the Air-Forces of Europe. That'd been a long time ago. She still found herself longing for a time when life had been that simple.
“Well. I think he’s learned a lesson anyway.”
“His recklessness nearly killed dozens of people, he’d be a fool not to. And dangerous if he didn’t care.”
“The first thing he did when he went to VF for a checkup was apologise for what happened.” She was almost smiling with pride.
“Poor dear. The first few weeks are always the hardest. I’ve already sent her my best - and an offer of assistance.”
Jet snorted inspite of herself.
“My, My. Dirty minds.” A.C. chided gently, before grasping for another holo-window. “The new systems are integrating well. We can do a full combat system trial tomorrow.”
“It feels good to be back in one piece.” Jet clenched her hands tightly together, confirming it to herself. The new sensory pads answered with satisfying a burst of electric feedback. “The drone with the two power packs should get here anyway tomorrow. Though I still have no idea how you found out about it. ”
A.C. smiled impishly at her. “There’s a consortium working on reverse engineering gate-metal using original samples from Yggdrasil and Arcadia. One of the other members just happens to be Stellviacorp.”
“Shinji?”
“...Didn’t say a word about it.” A.C finished. “But once Prim Snowlight analysed the energy signature of his motoroid, he didn’t have to. It didn’t take a genius level intellect to look at where you’d been and join up the dots.”
“I should’ve guessed.” Jet muttered to herself.
“Well, The only question left is how much more you have to hand?”
“We’ve enough to use it for the next-gen KS hardware, with a good stock of spare parts. How much do you need?”
A.C. thought on it. “These two packs and another thirty kilograms. That will cover everything.”
Jet didn’t even give her face a chance to betray how much she really had.
“Sounds fair,” she nodded. “Lebia’s asked me to do that photoshoot thing with the puppet, so I’ll bring it in the chopper in a week.”
A.C. blinked. “You actually agreed to that?”
Jet couldn’t shrug her shoulders - she was still docked. “She helped save Mackie. I owe her that much.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t want help.” A.C. muttered, turning back to the holo-windows.
Jet could only thank her lucky stars. As much as it would make her look good, everyone has their limits.
