The acceleration pushed me back into my seat as I wove through traffic.
“We've got 35 minutes to get to that tower,” said Kara, still gesturing in the air like she was interacting with an unseen menu.
“Piece of cake, bro! You got this!” Argyle had taken the middle seat in the back so he could get a better view out the front window. Fez perched on his head, apparently also wanting a better view.
“Yeah piece of cake,” I said, eyeing the blue and red lights already starting to appear in my rear-view mirror. “Important question though. Where are we going?”
“Can’t you see it marked on your map?”
“No. Come to think of it, my map doesn't have anything on it. Just the landscape.”
“Looks like I’m going to have to navigate. Hang a right when you can.”
I took the turn sharp and at speed. The internal gyros must've been helping because if I had done this with any other car, I would've fishtailed into the next lane.
I noticed something after the turn. As soon as I couldn't see the police cars behind us my Notoriety bar started going down. It got as low as 60 before the cops behind us rounded the corner and the heater started ticking up again.
“Should I try to lose them?”
“If you get out of view long enough and then drive like the other cars, your Notoriety might get low enough for them to ignore us.”
“Okay, time for a quick detour.” I took a sharp swerve down an alley, knocking over a trash can, but otherwise flawlessly executed an impossible turn. The cars behind me were not so lucky and two patrol vehicles slid sideways into the window of a barbershop.
I turned onto the next street which was a one-way going opposite direction of the objective, but at least it was free from officers. I drove like a grandma on the way to church: exactly 5 miles below the speed limit and perfectly obeying the signs. It worked. My Notoriety started to drop.
“That was awesome!” said Argyle. “But why did you have to slow down?”
“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Classic stealth game strategy. If we don't attract attention, we'll get there in time.”
“Actually… we have problem. If you’re only going to go the speed limit, we might not make it in time. Not to mention the fact that we're going the wrong direction. Left here.”
“Okay, maybe slow isn't the right approach.” I accelerated pass the speed limit and started weaving between cars. “But let's still see if I can stay under the radar until we get to a straight away, then I'll make up as much time as I can.”
I got three blocks, maybe four, before the press of the crowd started to get to me. The car in front of me cut me off, changing lanes abruptly. My Notoriety ticked up to 15 as I swerved to avoid it.
“Wow that was close,” said Argyle, sliding across the back seat.
“Left here!” The light turned yellow and I floored it, just making the turn. Argyle slid the other way across the back seat, almost crushing Fez against the car door.
“Are you wearing your seatbelt?"
“No, I don't think the game designers gave the backseat seatbelts.”
“That's just bad attention to detail.”
I saw a gap in cars and hit the gas. Now it was my turn for a sudden lane change. I pulled just in front of a delivery truck, missing it with my rear bumper by inches. He honked and I saw my Notoriety tick up into the yellow. “Fine, it could be yellow. No one's chasing me when it's yellow.” My Notoriety was steadily climbing as I cut through traffic. The car was handling like a dream and I could push the limits of what was safe, trying to get an edge so we could get there faster.
“It's no good. We still won't get there in time. We have got to go faster,” said Kara.
That was not what I wanted to hear. “Are you sure? I think this is working.”
“No, we’re down to 20 minutes. At this rate, we'll get there with just enough time to park and not enough time to get rid of this thing.” She gestured at the case cuffed to her arm.
“Okay, I’m gonna try something.” I hit the gas and saw the speedometer crank up to 85, 100, then 120 in only a few seconds. A stretch of open road was in front of me and I was gonna take advantage of it. Behind me, Fez slid off of Argyle’s shoulder and had to catch hold of the headrest to avoid flying into the back window. I sped forward, noticing the blue cars behind me. I hit the gas at the straightaway. At 145miles per hour lights and sirens flashed behind me.
I took a fast right turn. For a moment we were skidding, pushing past what the gyros could fully correct for.
Argyle found himself rolling, pressed into the car door upside down. “Now I understand seatbelts. I am a fan of seatbelts.”
I could feel the adrenaline rising in me. The speedometer ticked up up to 155 then 170. The lights of the city blurred around us. I took another sharp turn and Argyle was flung the full length of the back seat to slam into the opposite door.
There were cars ahead of me and I wove between them, finding the gaps perfectly. The police lights fell in line behind me, somehow following my path perfectly. It was three, then five, and then eight. They spread out to cover all four lanes behind me.I punched the gas and swerved through a turn, losing half of them. It wasn't enough. Four at least we're still sticking to my tail. The speedometer crept up to 210... 215.
I looked over at Kara and asked, “Do you trust me?”
“Of course I trust you.”
“No really? Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
“All right, this is gonna get wild.” I floored it and just barely managed to push it to 225. I swerved and cut another corner, down a more narrow market street. Two cops were still on my tail. Ahead of me I could see four workmen hauling a plate of glass, like a wall, across the road.
“Goddamnit!” I smashed through it spraying shards of glass everywhere.
I swerved to avoid pedestrians and ran through a cart selling cabbage. A green confetti shower sprayed all around behind me. I dodged and weaved through the traffic and street vendors in front of me. More flashing lights joined the two cars following me.
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“This game is so tropey and derivative,” said Kara.
“I think it's fun,” said Argyle. "They know their audience and know when a gag is classic.”
It was thrilling and yet derivative. I realized that it had just played on several common gags from street races in movies. Like the spectacles were designed to invoke nostalgia.
“This is what they want me to see.” I realized I had been pulled into playing the game the way it was intended to be played. How could I find the limits, the edges of the way the game was supposed to be played?
I gunned it and picked into an a construction zone. There was a ramp of half finished scaffolding in front of me. I thought about the parkour skill. Nothing in it had said that I couldn't be driving a vehicle. I launched the car up the makeshift plank and up to the air. Pushing pedal to the metal, I banked off of a low building, up the awning of another building and launched myself into the skyline.
“Trick Driving Skill activated. You have gained 1 level in Trick Driving”
“Parkour Skill activated. You have gained 5 levels in Parkour for completing an impossible level Parkour trick at Skill level 2. You have gained the Badge Parkour-ior. Displaying this Badge as a Title will allow you to attempt more difficult Parkour moves and will highlight more advance paths of travel.”
I changed my Title to Parkour-ior, could suddenly see paths subtly highlighted in front of me.
Behind me, I could see cop cars following my path, bouncing along the roofs as I cut from apartment building to office building, bouncing across the wires and awnings. I found another improbable ramp as I directed the car up a gigantic draped flag, jutting at an angle over the street. To my eyes, it looked impossible, but the glowing path provided by my Parkour Skill told me I could make it. Somehow, the cloth provided enough continuous solid surface to keep punching the engine and driving upwards.
“Now, that doesn’t even make sense,” yelled Argyle. He and Fez were pressed against the ceiling over the back seat. We flew in a wide parabolic arc, landing on top of a toy shop. Bouncing over a giant inflatable Santa Claus and launching again towards the next block of buildings.”
“How are you doing this? And can you stop?” asked Argyle behind me.
“I don't know. It just seems right. It’s like my Skill is guiding me. I can see where to go.”
The game engine was highlighting possible paths, showing me the barely accessible tracks made available by combining my Driving Skill and Parkour. I didn't know how it was working, but somehow it was. Yet, the entire way, I could never lose that one last cop car. That one right behind me. The number of cars behind us had been fluctuating this whole trip. Sometimes three, sometimes seven. But I'd always kept that one right behind me, following as if it was some homing missile keeping tabs on me as we leapt towards the center of the city, careening towards our destination.
“We've got 10 minutes left,” called out Kara.
“Great, we've only got 10 more blocks,” I said, launching off of the apex of a slanted roof and landing on a brutalist-style concrete Art Museum. “If we keep this up, we'll get there with time to spare,” I said.
In front of me, the arched building tops squared off and I saw several blocks of apartment buildings with their satellite dish antenna ready to snag me as I tried to dart between them.
“I’ve never seen anyone drive this insane,” said Argyle. His face was green and I could tell that he was barely holding back vomit. Yet his eyes kept darting around, taking in the utter nonsense of our ride.
“Just keep it together, man. I think I see our way down,” I said.
I saw a long, draping banner from a community center that I knew I could follow down to ground level. This seemed like the path to take. How the game logic and my Skill decided that this would work I had no idea, but it was glowing faintly. We were so close. I could get back down to the road and maybe even find a safe place for us to park. Plenty of time to spare to do whatever it was Kara had to do with that satchel on her arm.
“We’ve got six minutes.”
Okay, maybe not that long.
Somehow the banner had just enough tension to slow our decent. It got us as far as the roof of a covered patio from some kind of bistro.From there it was only a few feet drop to the street level. This seemed to be the last straw for poor Argyle, and the less said about the multicolored mess in the back seat the better.
No sooner had I guided us back down to surface streets that it seemed like a whole platoon of flashing lights and sirens were behind us.
“Goddamnit,” I growled. “How the hell are you supposed to park like this?”
Behind me, like a comet from space, the one car that had been with me the whole way came down from above. It clipped the edge of the patio roof, mere inches off from the path that I had followed. Those inches made all the difference. It bounced off at an angle and rolled across multiple lanes of traffic. Multiple lanes of traffic filled with cop cars. It created a cascade pile up of broken glass and metal.
I turned the last corner to our destination and tried for all the world to pretend I was just a normal car in traffic. I concentrated on that image and moments later I saw my Notoriety start to go down. First two points, then five. After a moment it was back into the yellow and then the green. We were safe, sound, and not being followed.
“We have four minutes,” called Kara. “We've got to get to the top of that building.”
I pulled into a valet parking line and killed the engine. We bolted. We just ran past the attendant into the 94-story mega structure that was the ZURB Corporate headquarters and luxury hotel.
We found ourselves dodging concierge and staff as we set our sights on the elevators. Kara hit the button for the top story. I fell against the wall and Argyle and Kara slumped next to me.
“Man that was awesome!!!” yelled Argyle, some healthy color returning to his face. “I officially relinquish my title. After that, you’re the Car-Gyle now, bro.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. With that, the tension broke. Yes, we had just done something truly insane and nearly crashed several times, but for one moment it all slipped away.
“We've got two more minutes!” And with Kara’s words, the tension was back on. The elevator doors opened and Kara drug us out into a hallway and up the last stairs to the roof. We found ourselves looking out over the city.
“Just one minute left.” The satchel on her arm seem to glow. It pulsed with red light letting us know that it was literally seconds from completely destroying us. A painted circle on the rooftop ahead of us indicated where we needed to go. For some reason a hang glider sat inside of it.
The three of us darted for the painted circle. “This is it.” yelled Kara. “30 seconds left.” We found ourselves perfectly within the indicated area. The handcuffs that connected Kara to the bomb beat and flashed and the device fell to the ground. Now there was a round, glowing sphere which the game identified as 'big bomb' sitting at her feet.
“The timer is still going. You should run away.” Kara said, staring at the bomb and her invisible screen.
I looked at Kara and I looked at Argyle.
“What now?” asked argyle.
Kara pointed across the skyline. We were on the highest tower, but half a mile away there was another one noticeably taller than the other buildings. An opening, small and circular, cut through the otherwise perfectly square skyscraper. It was exactly the same size as the hang glider.
“I’m supposed to fly the hang glider through there and drop the bomb inside.”
We had 15 seconds to go. The target was a mile away, across multiple city blocks. Our car was down on the street. There was no possible way we could make it on time.
“You take the glider. Maybe the two of you can get away in time.” Kara placed her satchel on the ground at her feet. I could see shapes within the perfectly spherical bomb the size of a volleyball.
I felt Argyle's hand on my shoulder as he looked towards the distant building. “This is your moment, bro. You can do this.”
“What is he talking about? Get on that glider and go. We can find each other again after I respawn.”
“No, I got this. Step back a bit.” I pulled my hammer out of my inventory and stepped forward.
“What are you doing?”
Argyle put a hand on Kara’s shoulder. “She’s golfing! Don’t worry about it.”
I lifted my war hammer above my head, swung it down, and yelled “Fore!” The bomb launched. Seconds ticked down as it flew in a perfect arc across the skyline, right towards the skyscraper a quarter mile away. “Five, four, three, two...”
It flew through its arc, finally dipping into the hole so many blocks away. “One!”
“Quest complete! You have completed Knock off Redblock. Steal the explosive device from Cyrus Redblock, bring it to ZURB tower, and deliver it to the target zone.”
Indicator lights on the building turned green. “You did it, bro!”
“You did it! How did you do it?”
“Oh, who cares. Come here and kiss me.” Kara fell in to my arms and pressed her lips against mine. Somewhere, in the distance, there was an explosion, but cool guys don’t look at explosions. Finally, after that mad dash across town, after weeks of worrying, after getting trapped in a digital nightmare only regaining my memories in bits and pieces,we were together. We had found each other. Nothing could pull us apart. I had found my love and nothing else mattered.